Highway e Muprhy Brothers Especial na StayRockBrazil dia 11/05 as 21:00 com Download Autorizado

Chegou a vez do Highway/Murphy Brothers do meu amigo Steve Murphy. Em conversas que tive com o Steve, aventei da possibilidade de liberar o Highway e o Murphy Brothers para Download, e o Steve aceitou no ato, pois, como ele disse, somente apos uma copia pirata do Highway na Net, a banda começou a ser conhecida e cultuada, e como ele fez uma release em cd com varias músicas bonus, e está vendendo bem até hoje Ele irá participar do chat da radio. Hoje, como lider da Murphy Brothers Band, o Steve enviou toda a história das bandas, desde os seus primordios, que eu traduzi , pode não ter ficado um primor, mas vamos à historia por Steve Murphy . (Credito Bordel do Rock http://bordeldorock.blogspot.com/ )THE EPICUREANS / HIGHWAY / THE MURPHY BROTHERS BAND Por Steve Murphy THE EPICUREANS Highway e a Murphy Brothers Band compartilham a mesma raiz musical como uma banda da região sul do Minnesota chamado The Epicureans. Nos anos posteriores foram referidos como Fairmont, Minnesota Beatles. Em 1965 Fairmont duas bandas, a Corvairs e o Pacers se fundiram para formar a Epicureans. Em 1966, eles gravaram os primeiros compactos em 45 rpm registrado no IGL Estúdio em Milford, Iowa e liberado em 1969 o seu segundo registro em 45rpm no Áudio Universal Studios em Winona, Minnesota. Nos seus primeiros anos eles se apresentaram em todo o sul e do norte de Minnesota, em Iowa e os seus últimos anos em todo o Midwest. Nos últimos 60's foram atribuídas NBOA um prêmio pela Associação Nacional Ballroom operadores. Foi um prestígio da sentença, dando-lhes um fácil acesso todos os salões da região. Em 2005, o Epicureans foram introduzido no Minnesota A Mid-América Music Hall of Fame. HIGHWAY Em 1971, depois de muitas mudançasde membro, O Epicureans decidiram mudar seu nome para Highay. Naquela época eram cinco membros na banda. A banda vivia em uma fazenda em na area rural de Minnesota. Enquanto estavam tocando em um bar em Minneapolis uma noite, sua casa pegou fogo. Os meses seguintes foram de muita luta O ex-vocalista começou uma discussão que terminou com Steve Murphy que acabou quebrando o nariz dele.O Steve não não lembra sequer qual o motivo que levou à briga! Dentro de um ano O Highway era um trio que avançava para gravar seu álbum debut Highway. Em 1975, após um baixista jogador mudar, eles gravado a sua auto-intitulado álbum de Westminster A As gravações foram no estúdio Otho, Iowa não muito longe da Fort Dodge. O álbum foi lançado regionalmente e Highway foi abrindo para bandas como Reo Speedwagon, Styx, Bob Seger, Dr. Hook, Cheap Trick e muitos outros. Em finais de 1975, O highway trocou de baixista, ao mesmo tempo acrescentado ex-membro do Epicure/ Highway tecladista, Tim Messerli, e eles estavam de volta a ser uma banda com 4 membros. Em 1976 discoteca estava começando a crescer em popularidade,justo quando o Highway começava a se destacar fo um golpe mortal na banda Não conseguiam muitas casas para tocar e com poucos rendimentos eles resolveram se separar Depois de anos vendo muitos caras deixar a banda, Steve Murphy, que tinha sido o único que nunca desistiu. e finalmente fez dissolveu o Highway. É por sorte o Highway gravou vários dos seus espectáculos ao vivo em todo o seu tempo. No futuro não tão distante, o plano é fazer com que essas faixas disponíveis para os seus fãs. THE MURPHY BROTHERS BAND Um Pouco antes do Highway ser dissolvida, Steve Murphy's Brother, Mike, que lhe tinha dado seus primeiros dois violões e foi sua inspiração para tocar guitarra, voltou para Minnesota. Mike e Steve tinha sempre quiseram tocar música em conjunto e mais tarde em 1977, após meses de ensaio, eles começaram O Murphy Brothers. Tocavam como um duo de dois anos e meio. Em 1980, acrescentaram O antigo do Epicure baterista, Dick DUSEK, ex- Highway baixista John Goossen. Havia mais lugares para tocar e agraderam a Dues que a maldita discoteque estava perdendo terrerno e a banda tinha mantido o seu espaço. Mike Murphy Senior tocou com a banda por 10 anos. O filho dele, Mike Murphy, Jr., tomou seu lugar e por 10 anos. Em 2002 a banda fez duas alterações e membros com Greg George na Guitarra e Jason Anderson baixo Ambos os tinham tocado em muitos grupos diferente, e foram uma grande adição aos Murphy Brothers Band. Por esta altura, de música country era o que era bom para a Banda devido à sua música baseado no Rock. Parecia que mais pessoas entendiam suas músicasar e tornou possível para eles comporem mais músicas no estilo que gostavem de tocar. Em 2007, a banda gravou e lançou seu primeiro CD intitulado "Synergy" e a música parece que a música tenha m evoluído para trás e com a intensidade que eles todos gostavam de tocar O Murphy Brothers se apresenta muitos festivais e eventos maiores nestes dias. As coisas estão indo muito bem, e a banda já iniciou as gravações do seu segundo CD, que espero que seja lançado ainda este ano. É impressionante a quantidade de chamadas e contactos que têm vindo ao longo dos anos sobre o Álbum do Highway e os muitos CDs que foram vendidos, a partir do E.U.A. Inglaterra, Alemanha, Itália, Bélgica e Brasil. É a banda da esperança e otimismo que os grandes fãs que gostam do material do Highwayl também irá desfrutar O Murphy Brothers Band CD "sinergia". "É uma continuação do mesmo movimento que começou já em meados dos anos 60's, e continua hoje e rumo ao o futuro.Os originais podem ser comprados aqui: Highway------> http://www.rockadrome.com/Murphy Brothers-------> http://www.cdbaby.com/ Download :http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QYPNP5OY

The GFCF Diet: What the ELLE...

My dear friend Katherine aka the GFCF Mommy sent me a link to an article recently posted online by ELLE magazine concerning the GFCF diet. Here is a link to the article (be warned: you will have to click through some ads as you read this).The article focuses on Dr. Mark Hyman, who has written several books on the leaky gut syndrome and is an advocate for the GFCF diet. He claims that our lifestyles and environment are most to blame for illnesses such as obesity, diabetes, and mental health. The key to healing these things, according to Dr. Hyman, is to heal the gut. And the best way to heal the gut is through the GFCF diet.The counterpoint is provided by Dr. Mark Gershon, pathology professor at Columbia University an expert on irritable bowel syndrome, and whose research has indicated that the gut has its own independent nervous system, making it impossible for the peptides created by gluten and casein in the gut to reach the brain. Dr. Gershon's opinion is that going GFCF is worthless unless you are celiac or lactose-intolerant.A third opinion is provided by Dr. Anna Nowak-Wegrzyn, professor of pediatrics at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, who claims that most often, when food makes us feel bad, it is due to food poisoning and indigestion, and not leaky guts or food allergies. Both Dr. Gershon and Dr. Nowak-Wegrzyn claim that people experiencing benefits from the GFCF diet are likey experiencing a placebo effect.As I have stated here on many occasions, the GFCF diet is one of the main "treatments" that helped Helena after she was diagnosed with autism. When she was diagnosed, she was, for lack of a better word, addicted to milk - she would drink nothing else. Shortly after we removed the gluten and casein from her diet, we noticed marked improvements in her speech and interactions. As time has gone on, there have been occasions where she has accidentally ingested gluten and casein, and the change in her behavior for the next few days afterward was noticeable. It's obvious to us that the diet helped Helena, and continues to do so.But I think the real problem here lies in one word - diet.Diet is a trendy word. It is a word that represents what we eat on a daily basis, but often it is primarily associated with losing weight. How many times have we made a New Year's resolution to go on a diet? And then you have fad diets, like South Beach, or Atkins, or our personal family favorite, the Six Week Diet Makeover. And diets, when thought about in this way, are made to be broken. Which is why so many people who try these diets and lose weight often regain that weight and then some.So maybe the GFCF diet shouldn't be thought of as a diet, but as what it really is - a lifestyle. I know why eating GFCF is controversial; it's the old glass is half empty syndrome. Too often, we focus on the foods we can't have, instead of focusing on what we can. So we lament about having to give up milk, yogurt, cheese, whole wheat bread, etc. But when you focus on what you can have, you see that the GFCF lifestyle offers plenty of options:fruits and vegetablesbeef, pork, chicken, turkey, or other meatsrice, beans and potatoesherbs and most spicesother great grains, like sorghum or quinoafisholive oil and other oilseggsfruit juicescoffee and teacocoaand more...When you look at it like this, you realize that there are a lot of foods you CAN have!Living the GFCF lifestyle forces other changes as well. Going to a restaurant isn't much of an option - most fast food places are out, and GFCF choices at most sit down restaurants are limited. Reading labels becomes the #1 priority at the grocery store, and foods are bought that do not contain a lot of preservatives or "natural flavors." Cooking becomes an art, and not a chore, and a great bonding time with your children. Even the author of the article, when she had practiced the GFCF lifestyle herself, noticed improvements in how she felt. Of course she did!There is no placebo effect here. It doesn't matter if there is such a thing as leaky guts or independent gut nervous systems - let the folks who earned their medical degrees argue about that if they want. The fact is, adopting the GFCF lifestyle forces you to to make better food choices. And there are plenty of food choices to make.What is so wrong about that?

These Days

Hello all, Its been a couple weeks since my last entry. Id say that life got in the way, but thats not quite true. I think its been more that my tank has been running on empty lately. Im not sure why. I think its tied to how I feel when Im writing in general. Im drawn to Burning Pictures when Im knee deep in a script. One tends to feed the other. But when Im in the outline stages, it just tends to suck the life out of me in all sorts of ways; Im finding that this is one of them. The interesting thing is that the story finally began to break today. The shadows took form. The swirling shapes slowed enough for me to get a real glimpse of who they really are. For a while, those shapes and shadows raced past without a second glance. And each day they swept into the distance was one more where I felt&left behind. But then something happens. Maybe its a conversation, maybe a glimpse of someone in a crowd. For me, it was These Days by Jackson Browne. A song of longing desire to connect and a deep fear of doing so. One particular section stayed with me: Ill keep on moving Things are bound to be improving these days One of these days These days I sit on corner stones And count the time in quarter tones to ten, my friend Dont confront me with my failures I had not forgotten them. I dont know why those words cut through me&dont confront me with my failures, I had not forgotten them. Not one of us ever does. My failures loom over me when Im beginning a new story, sometimes oppressively. But for the first time in a while, listening to Jackson, the shapes slowed for just a little while. The forms took on a clarity amongst the chaos. Sometimes its hard to see past the failures to whats waiting just past them, but there is something on the other side. Its just hard as all hell to get there. Until next time - Burning Pictures

Funny Kid

W's been saying lots of funny stuff and in an effort to remember, I've been writing them all down. I've compiled a few here for your reading pleasure.W for President!The other day Will came to tell me that someday he was going to be famous. Those were his exact words. Someday he was going to be famous like Barack Obama, he added. I asked him if he was going to be the president and his "yes" implied "duh."That would be so cool! It would be so fun to be the president's mom. I'd get to do a lot of dress up stuff. I could sleep in Lincoln's bedroom. I could have an amazing heart to heart with the president at a time of great challenge and play an integral role in the courageous leadership he would provide the American people in a crisis. Sigh...it would be awesome.****Knock Knock!W made up a knock knock joke the other day.Knock knock!Who's there?Me!Me who?Me, two, one blast off!Ugh...so cute and clever.****Birthday BuddiesW and I both celebrate birthdays in January. We've been discussing this a lot lately. And as he pointed out, he is going to be 3 in January and Mommy is going to be 20,000.Indeed.

Rails Development for iPhone with rails

I've been doing some web development for iPhone and Mobile Safari lately, not least because of a series of articles that will be showing up in IBM DeveloperWorks soon.I was using the iUI toolkit, which contains a number of CSS styles and JavaScript event handlers to make iPhone Web apps look and feel somewhat like native iPhone applications. As I was working with iUI, I realized I was building up a library, so I converted everything to a Rails plugin: rails_iui.Get the plugin from github: git://github.com/noelrappin/rails-iui.gitRight now the plugin is primarily interested in doing a few things:It contains a rake task to download iUI, move it's files to the Rails public directories, and change the CSS image URL's accordingly.There's a controller class method acts_as_iphone_controller, calling that sets up a before filter that captures the Mobile Safari user agent string and sets the request format to iphone for use in respond_to blocks. For testing purposes you can call the method as acts_as_iphone_controller(true), and all calls will be treated as iPhone requests.There is a module of helper methods that are wrapper methods or combinations of iUI CSS classes. Included are:A method for creating the iPhone toolbar at the top of the view.Methods for creating the iPhone list structures from a list of elements that know their associated URLs, including a grouped list in the style of the iPod applicationRounded rectangle classesA form helper for the iPhone toggle button, as seen in the settings page.A method to specify an Ajax callback when the phone changes orientationThe short term goals for the project are to tighten the code a bit and improve documentation and testing. Longer term goals are to augment iUI's JavaScript handlers with something a bit friendlier with Rails, particularly in handling history and back behavior.So take it for a spin, let me know what you think. Hope you find it useful.Please check out my book, Professional Ruby on Rails.

Sloth

Swine Flu!

Sorry, I meant, Influenza A virus, subtype H1N1. I wouldnt want people to get the wrong idea and see the price of pork bellies fall any further. Anyway, I’ve been traveling quite a bit these days (most recently to the lovely state of Michigan) and I can’t believe how many people I’ve seen wearing those protective masks with the little rubber bands wrapped around their ears. Frankly, I think its all a bit ridiculous. I mean, havent they been following the news? Its just the friggin flu. Seriously, get yourself some CleanWell and stock up on Emergen-C if your really worried. Regardless, thanks to industrious designers, like Irina Block here, perhaps a few of the hysterical germaphobes will don a mask with a big piggy snout, gigantic kissy lips, or even a mainly, fearsome beard. At least that way the rest of us can have a good laugh. Gd.

Pick Up Your Crackers

Holy cow.. it's another Daring Bakers challenge post!Firstly, a huge huge THANK YOU! and WELL DONE! to our lovely hosts, Natalie of Gluten A Go Go and Shel of Musings From The Fishbowl. As you might tell from Natalie's blog title, she bakes gluten free and Shel bakes vegan - so this month we all had the opportunity to step outside our comfort zones and do the same if we wished. This was not mandatory, as us regular old wheat flour and butter lovin' people could bake this recipe without taking a walk on the wild gluten-free side. BUT we did have to come up with a vegan dip or spread to slather our crackers in as a bonus challenge.. which was very cool as well! There was so much we could do to personalize our crackers/dips and still stick to the recipe as written. I heart that. :)But I can't say I was much of a Daring baker this month as I did end up choosing to play it safe and made the Lavash Crackers with your every day bread flour. Then again.. any day I'm in the kitchen baking - it's always ALWAYS a DARING experience.First off let me say.. I need kneading lessons. Big time. I do not know the proper way to knead so I have no idea if I was doing good or doing really bad. The crackers turned out tasty, but I haven't the faintest if they turned out "Lavash" or not.. course even if I did know how to knead, I wouldn't know if my crackers turned out like they should as I've never had a Lavash cracker before a week ago! Go me!The rolling of the dough was like a dream.. I suck at rolling too.. I couldn't roll out dough in a circle, square or rectangle to save my life. Even if I shape the shit first! Which I did - into a rectangle! But the minute I started rolling it started to look like fakkin' Sicily. Yanno.. boot shaped?? Jebus. So the "diamonds" I had intended to cut were uhh.. leaning and unsightly. Gah.I rolled the dough super thin - you could see the counter top in areas underneath.. but they still poofed up a bit in the oven. So the center of the sheet of crackers was a bit chewy and the edges were hard. I didn't really get much of a cracker feel. Although we did find a few that were crisp. But all of it was very tasty - even considering I went all Plain Jane and just sprinkled some Maldon sea salt on top. :)For my bonus vegan challenge, well.. I used this opportunity to do a test run in the making of homemade jam. You see, I've decided that not only will I be catering my own wedding reception with the help of my friends, but I'm also going to make my own wedding favors.. jam. Everyone will receive a wee jar of jam and a wee bag of shortbread cookies to go with. Actually that's pretty laughable considering how much I tend to set things afire. Uhh.. I might have to put the Creampuff in charge of the shortbread. :PAnyhoo.. the jam. I went with a small recipe for peach jam. Basically peaches, sugar and lemon juice and that's it. The recipe said to only cook for approximately 25 to 30 minutes but at that point I still had syrup with chunks of half hard peaches in it. I ended up cooking the jam for well over an hour. The nice thing about it was that I could stir every few minutes and not worry about the peaches sticking to the pan.Until...About 5 minutes before that jam was done.. I turned my back on it for FIFTEEN SECONDS - TOPS! - and that mother hummer burnt on me. I swear, I turned my back to wring out the towel, turned right back and continued stirring, but all my peaches were stuck to the bottom and had turned a most appetizing shade of puke brown. Fakkers.While this was happening, my 2nd sheet of crackers was in the oven. Mmm hmmm.. anyone care to guess where this is going?To hell. That's where it's going, gone and went.Burnt my 2nd sheet to a rock hard brown.It was at this point that I started to laugh.. once again that familiar zing that starts deep down in my tummy and travels up until my cheeks burn a bright red and I question my sanity in thinking that I can bake. :P What got me giggling was this reminded me of two of my most favorite women on the face of this planet - Laverne DeFazio and Shirley Feeney. You know.. "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight! Schlemiel! Schlimazel! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!"Ya'll remember the diner episode? Lenny inherits his uncle Lazlo's diner and Laverne & Shirley end up working in it - Laverne was the short order cook and Shirley was the waitress.. fakkin hysterical. Laverne calls Shirley "Betty" the whole episode and all you keep hearing over the PA system is Laverne saying "Betty Please.. Pick Up" At first it's going well and then they get really busy and both are lookin' a little worn, to say the least - Laverne's cooking is starting to look scary and at one point there is a table of biker chicks demanding their hashbrowns.. of course Laverne burns them and the next thing you hear is, "Betty Please.. Pick up your.. hashblacks." BAHAHAHAHAHAHAA! I am so Laverne!Okay well you hadda be there.. but that's what popped into my mind when I saw my burnt crackers and burnt peach jam. It was classic. :)Well to sum up the whole experience - the first batch of crackers were edible and tasty, but not very cracker like. The jam didn't look like peach jam, but there was no burnt taste to it so if you closed our eyes you'd know you were eating peach jam. heee! The two together were excellent because of the salty bread/cracker and the sweet fruit jam. And I learned more very valuable lessons - do not even breathe during the last 5 to 10 minutes of cooking your jam.. just stand there and stir. And do not attempt to bake crackers (or anything for that matter) while making jam. :PThanks for another fabulous challenge, gals! I never ever would have made crackers at home if it weren't for The Daring Bakers! You can make them too! Just go to Gluten A Go Go and Musings From The Fishbowl for the recipe - both the original and the gluten free recipes. :)xoxo

Tree of Smoke

Compelling. I had to read it to the end, though I’m not sure I actually made sense of it. The main character is Skip Sands, a good American boy who follows his dead father’s brother (“the Colonel, Francis Xavier Sands) into the CIA and into PsyOps. After getting his feet wet in southeast Asia with the Colonel’s operations in the Philippines, Skip, something of a linguist, goes to Monterrey to learn Vietnamese in preparation for going to Vietnam. But he’s not the CIA type. He’s more of a scholar who tackles new languages with gusto and, stationed in the home of a dead French eye doctor, spends his time reading and studying in his library. Neither action nor deception come naturally to him. He’s, moreover, idealistic, hooked on the idea of “serving his country” as did his father who died at Pearl Harbor and his uncle. He always wants to “know the truth” and doesn’t take naturally to the Colonel’s sense that loyalty (to one’s buddies, one’s unit, one’s leader) is the primary virtue. The Colonel is a CIA operative turned rogue. His plan (named “tree of smoke” from several Old Testament passages) is to run a double agent back into North Vietnam, convincing the leadership that the US plans a nuclear attack. One review was entitled “Bright Shining Lie” and while it didn’t reference Neil Sheehan’s famous book, my first thought when I met “the Colonel” of Johnson’s novel was Sheehan’s version of Lieutenant Colonel John Paul Van, an outspoken army field adviser who criticized the way the war was being waged, ignored his superiors and leaked his pessimistic assessments to the U.S. press corps in Saigon. In Viet Nam, Johnson’s Colonel Sands dies before his plan becomes operational, dies but no one ever knows definitively how or why. Many assume he’s still alive in hiding somewhere; others assume the CIA killed him off. From the first when a priest is assassinated in the Philippines, it’s clear that Skip is not the man to deal with the Colonel’s PsyOps programs. The Colonel has supposedly chosen him because he’s family and will be loyal. He doesn’t understand Skip any more than Skip understands the Colonel. There’s a girl too. Kathy Jones. A Canadian who comes to southeast Asia with her Seventh Day Adventist husband who dies in the Philippines, she stays on as a nurse and then in programs to adopt children out of the area. Overworked with practically no support she’s alternatively ultra religious and ultra skeptical. She and Skip have a brief affair. She writes to him at the language school and he ignores her letters; in the end he writes to her and says he loved her and missed his chance. Two other Americans are the Houston brothers, Bill and James, a sailor and a soldier who seem to represent the kind of recruits who didn’t die in southeast Asia, but who learned how to become savage. There seems no redemption for them; they return home to end up rootless, in and out of jail. Kathy barely survives a plane crash (with a load of orphans) and ends up crippled in mind and body. Skip's fate is the worst. The plot of this novel is elliptical and tortured. Critics see an analogy between it and the labyrinthine Viet Cong tunnels that figured prominently in that war. The writing is occasionally brilliant and moving, but mostly not.

Introducing whole milk when?

I am babysitting an 18 month old and her parents have not changed over from formula to whole milk!! I started my two slowly at 11 months and fully by the time they were 12 months, they both liked milk so i never had a problem. This little girls parents say she doesn't like milk.. she had a sip here so far and she did make a face.. but i guess if she only has milk to drink she'll eventually drink it.. What would you do? keep giving the milk or give her water? her parents give her water through the day and formula in morning and before bed.. I have been told you shouldnt give kids too much water cause it just fills them up and they dont get nutrition they need.. My kids drink water only at night time after teeth brushing occures. Help.. i'm stumped.

Cornell Recruits Peck and Figini Receive Honors

Josh Figini (left) and Errick Peck (defending, right) are a pair of athletic forwards headed to Cornell next season.Cornell recruit, Errick Peck, a 6'6" forward from Cathedral High School in Indianapolis was named by Hoosier Basketball Magazine to the publication's Top 60 List. Members of the Top 60 are invited to a workout on Saturday which is open to the public.Additionally, fellow Cornell newcomer, Josh Figini, a 6'8" forward from Chisago Lakes, Minnesota was featured in the Chisago County Press today. Below is the article:Josh Figini leads way in All-Star Series game, he and teammates showered with awards at Chisago Lakes basketball banquetAfter the boys basketball season wrapped up and the awards were tallied, like he has most of the season, Josh Figini led the way for the Wildcats.Although Figini was left off the All-Metro team by the Star Tribune, he earned All-State Honorable Mention from the Pioneer Press, All-North Suburban Conference as well as a handful of awards from the team. Among them were the Most Valuable Player. Playmaker of the Year, Chairman of the Boards, Mr. Free Throw and Mr. Academic.Josh also was selected to play in the Coaches Series All-Star Game this past weekend in St. Cloud.Figini guided his Maroon squad to a commanding 107-88 win over the Green team, leading the way with a game-high 18 points. The contest featured the Tribune and Pioneer Press' Player of the Year Mike Bruesewitz of Henry Sibley on the Green team, as well as Mr. Basketball finalist Jordair Jett of St. Bernards.Figini and his teammates still climbed out of a halftime deficit to easily down them.Not only did Figini play a key role in his team's win, he also won the Slam Dunk Contest between the two teams. According to Twin Cities Hoops, Figini turned his back to the basket at the free throw line, bounced the ball between his legs and off the back board, and turned around and jammed it in.The dunk propelled him over Dylan Hale of Minneapolis Washburn for the win in his contest. His North Suburban Conference nemesis, Rodney Williams, won the other dunk contest.The night wasn't all about Figini, however. There were other awards that were doled out at the Chisago Lakes' basketball banquet. Mr. Three-Pointer, won by senior Mike Sokol, Most Improved, which was won by junior Bryan Eichten, Sixth Man Award, won by sophomore Benji Figini, Rookie of the Year, won by sophomore Jordan Hickcox, Gym Rats, won by freshman Per Gulbranson and sophomore Steve Ramberg, and the Big Cat Award, which went to seniors Henry Fitzpatrick and Zak Vrudny.The younger Figini also earned All-NSC Honorable Mention on the season.The banquet brings and end to the career of a large group of seniors. Figini, Vrudny, Sokol, Quinn Collins, Jason Showers, Fitzpatrick and Jake Warkel will all bid farewell to the program that they have called home for so long.It'll be tough to replace that group, but every year is a challenge in the stacked North Suburban Conference.

Ruddy Kingfisher

The brief appearance of the Ruddy Kingfisher (Halcyon coromanda), an uncommon passage migrant and winter visitor to Singapore, towards the end of October 2006 caused quite a stir among local birders (1, 2). The bright rufous plumage and red bill make identification easy. However, there is another distinguishing feature that most birders miss as it is only seen in flight (above). This is the “back and rump silvery white to azure-blue” patch, according to Wells (1999). In the juvenile bird the patch is “wholly blue rather than silvery.” The image above shows the bird perching on a branch and eying a prey on the ground. Note the bright dark brown iris. In the image above, taken just before the bird dived down to catch a prey, the eye is covered with a translucent layer, the nictitating membrane. This has a protective function as the bird plunges among the vegetation. The close-up views of the eyes above show the normal eye (left) and covered with the nictitating membrane (right). Input by Melinda Chan, images by Chan Yoke Meng.

For A Sociology of Ignorance

Sheldon Ungar, Ignorance as an Un-Identified Social Problem, British Journal of Sociology , 2008, Vol. 59, Issue 2, pp. 301 - 326. This article uses as its starting point the idea of the persistence of ignorance in the knowledge society and deplores the fact that ignorance is an understudied topic in sociology. Therefore, there is a need for a sociology of ignorance using two central concepts: functional knowledge deficits (FKD& I can see why the author would not use that shortcut) and the knowledge-ignorance paradox (KIP). "[The article] argues that we have at best a knowledge economy byt not a knowledge society, and that conflating the two is a serious source of confusion and error. Functional knowledge deficits are not so much a result of the shortcoming of individuals as they are expectable products of the knowledge revolution and the social organization of contemporary societies." (302) Indeed, Ungar argues that ignorance, like knowledge, is socially produced and constructed and diffused throughout the social structure. In this sense, it is possible to establish a social ecology of ignorance that outlines its different forms and separates it from other attitudes (such as stupidity). Ungars main point though is that we need to distinguish between knowledge economy and knowledge society. We have a knowledge economy with more and more specialized fields and sub-fields and ever more specialized and narrow fields of knowledge. Each sub-field and type of knowledge defines an area of expertise, that is, a class of actors who possess, or are expected to possess, that specialized knowledge. But deeper and narrower knowledge means also fields of ignorance. In this sense, according to Ungar, we can certainly talk about knowledge economy, but speaking of knowledge society is a bit premature as ever more specialized knowledge necessarily breeds corresponding ignorance, especially in general knowledge pertaining to social, practical, political and personal issues. It is indeed possible to indetify different types of ignorance or varieties of functional knowledge deficits, such as political, historical, scientific or economic that are often lumped together as part of what is often defined as a social problem: youth ignorance when ignorance-as-problem is mixed with the culture war and takes on moral dimensions. "Behind the idea of the knowledge society is the sense that there is so much more to know than in the past. This idea is coupled with the expectation that people will be better informed, as widespread knowledge is integral to the idea of the knowledge society (Castells 1996: 20-1; Ungar 2003a; Webster 1993: 218). However, research monitoring knowledge reveals a host of significant illiteracies beyond the political realm. For virtually any knowledge domain, survey results reveal considerable gaps between what people know and what researchers presume they should know." (308) So what is the knowledge-ignorance paradox (KIP)? "[KIP] captures how the growth of specialized knowledges implies a simultaneous increase in (general) ignorance. The theoretical unfolding of the KIP suggests that pockets of observed public knowledge - rather than ignorance - are exceptional and require specific explanation." (311) Rather than treating knowledge as the norm and ignorance as a disappearing exception, KIP reverses that logic and takes ignorance as the norm and as a Durkheimian social fact that should be treated as such, that is, object of sociological investigation. In this case, the "new economy" requires more and more specialized knowledge at the expense of general Schützian stock of knowledge. When ones knowledge is more and more limited to expertise in a narrowly-defined sub-field, then, the probability of knowledge overlap or at least general knowledge of related domains diminishes and ignorance grows. "Whether the knowledge demands of specific occupational roles are onerous or not, increases in the volume and complexity of information have escalated the entry costs to virtually every other knowledge domain. (&) But the narrowing and differentiation of specialties means that the sheer number and diversity of conceptual anchors continue to multiply. As proliferating technical terms and ideas (or what librarians call twiggings) are overlaid with new facts and frequent revisions, specialty knowledge domains become forbidding to outsiders. All but the most persistent non-specialists are effectively precluded from keeping up with developments." (312) With such high entry barriers, more and more topics can no longer be discussed and we are left with reliance on experts on more and more subjects (and the media are useless for this as well). This, of course, increases the social power of certain groups at the expense of others (or the citizenry in general). One need only remember the intelligence experts that were omnipresent on television between the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the run-up to the Iraq war, or more recently, the financial experts who now claim innocence when faced with economic collapse. Such asymmetric knowledge claims from experts becomes problematic, according ot Ungar, when, as part of maintaining their power, they hide their own specialized shortcomings (see Jon Stewarts destruction of Jim Cramer for a good example of what happens when this is exposed). Ungar mentions two exceptions to this process: AIDS activists who made a point in becoming experts on the science of HIV-AIDS, and amateur astronomers. But otherwise, being a well-informed citizen (as pre-condition of democracy) becomes harder and functional knowledge deficits accumulate. Ergo, according to Ungar, the obvious nature of the knowledge economy coupled with the absence of knowledge society. "The fundamental status of ignorance as an enduring and often serious problem emerging from the KIP is mostly unrecognized. Since knowledge production and associated pressures to keep up in specialty domains continue to increase, the predicament of being broadly uninformed is likely to worsen." (314) The problem is that living in the risk society creates the need for more knowledge of a variety of technologies regarding subjects as diverse as food production, climate and environmental pressures, diseases or terrorist threats, to name only a few. In this risk context, groups are actually able to mobilize ignorance against specific technologies (for instance, the anti-vaccination crowd in relation to autism, or the anti-GMO movement). The invocation of "unknown unknowns" is a way of selling ignorance as social dynamic and political tool. At the same time, the presence of ignorance in the midst of the knowledge economy allows the individualization of remedy. Ungar mentions the "dont die of ignorance" campaigns that have sprouted on a variety of topics, from AIDS to sex education. These campaigns put the burden strictly in individuals: it is up to individuals to get themselves educated on these topics and then to take appropriate measures in terms of behavior modification to avoid certain risks. In these campaigns, there are no more victims, only individuals who fail to inform themselves or failed to act upon the right information. Where does this leave the question of a sociology of ignorance then? Ungar concludes, "Information is no longer a scarce resource; attention and interest are. Given the specialty KIP and associated entry and speech barriers, it is not surprising that people evince reading reluctance and find the pursuit of broad-ranging knowledge outside occupational specialties exceedingly costly. The ideal of the well-informed citizen is scarcely a viable aspiration anymore, and questions about the extent to which people have the conceptual anchors and background information to deal with functionally important issues need to be more directly and systematically addressed (as opposed to whether they can name local politicians). Sociologically, it is not the sheer amount of ignorance that counts but how it is produced and distributed in different groups and realms of knowledge." (321) One can see the damage of this, as I have mentioned before, with education reform where education is perceived as specialized skills acquisition rather than "education" in the full sense of the term, that is, something that takes time and involves the mastery of broad ranges of knowledge seen as necessary for ones full participation into the public sphere. The dysfunctions associated with over-specialization are also now painfully obvious in the context of the current crisis with the discovery that only a few people actually understood the financial games being played with all these "exotic" products that were going to generate wealth forever. One can also see how over-specialization allows for the concealment of incompetence within narrowly-defined fields. It remains to be seen whether one of the consequences of this crisis is "the return of the informed citizen." Authored by SocProf. Hosted by Edublogs.

of promoting

for two of my friends.This coming weekend sees the opening of my friend Sue's new shopfront for Scraploot at Prospect. The details are:Scraploot opens at 22 Rowood Road, Prospect on Friday 28th November at 10am Join us on Friday through to Sunday for a new Experience Giveaways Raffles (with all proceeds going to the Jane McGrath Foundation) Spot SpecialsBe there or miss out on the opening of a great new store!!!Also next Saturday:Joan and Rebekka E are having a BIG sale at: The Scraproom on Saturday 29th commencing 8.30am. Parking on Site at 171 Old Northern Road Castle Hill or in Oxley Avenue and walk accross the road. Everything is on Sale so there will be lots of bargains.If you are a keen scrapbooker and looking for a bargain as well as lots of wonderful new goodies I think you have your morning mapped out for you - LOL.See you there.Alison

Bjorn Freeman-Benson

I'm not giving much away to say that It's A New World: not only is the world economy changing,1 but the software world is also changing. Cloud computing is a one big change, an exciting and interesting change, but just there are other changes happening as well. Eclipse is changing (see the new Bylaws and the industry working groups) , but in my personal opinion, it is not changing enough. Eclipse has basically the same structure, the same organization, and the same business model as when it was first spun out six years ago.I've written this series of columns because I see issues (I've discussed four, but I'm sure there are others) that can be improved (I've suggested mechanisms for doing so, and I know there are others). Some of you have agreed with my issues and solutions (+1/+1); some of you have agreed with my issues and not with my solutions (+1/-1); and some of you think both my issues and my solutions are bunk (-1/-1).I'm ok with all of that because I believe that only by continuing our policy of open discussion can we, collectively, arrive at a solution that will benefit us all. No single person has all the right answers - I certainly don't - you probably don't - but I believe that the collective of us does.My columns and proposals have been driven by changes in the world around us:Fewer Resources. The Strategic members provide a majority of the financial support for the Foundation. Today the Foundation has 25% fewer such members than it did a year ago. [1,2]Less Investment. Person hours invested in the core Platform has been declining every year since 2005 and is on track this year to be only 50% of that 2005 high. [3]More Users. Eclipse adoption continues to grow: more users, more plug-ins, more products. [4]Changing Technology. Tim and Kevin gave a good description of this in their EclipseCon keynote. [5] The technical, social, and political structure of Eclipse is optimized for annual releases of rich fat clients - all the cool kids are doing continuous deployment of cloud applications.Fewer resources, more to do, and a larger user base -- change is upon us, so what are we going to do about it?I believe very strongly in the cycle that is the Eclipse ecosystem: (1) committers create projects; (2) projects are used to build products for users; (3) users generate profits for members; and (4) members fund committers. Without all four parts, especially the innovative committers and the profitable member companies, the cycle falls apart.I believe that improving the four issues I've written about will benefit everyone (users, members, and committers) by:Reducing the "cost" of being a committer and thus increasing the attractiveness of being a committer. Benefits include more core platform improvements and more cutting edge frameworks. [diversity, IP burden]Increasing the "value" of being a member and thus encouraging more companies to provide funding and developers to Eclipse. [distros driving eyeballs to members, website driving eyeballs to members]Now is the time -- the time of e4, the time of clouds, the time of declining company largess -- now is the time to take bold steps to ensure Eclipse's success in the next five years, and the five after that, and the five after that.Ideas are cheap - actions speak louder than words. Anyone can write a few columns and start a discussion - it's only if these ideas create action and change that they become important. These columns have definitely triggered some discussion. I hope that this discussion leads to action because, well, doing nothing is not a long term success story.As I said before, these are my opinions. Mine alone. They are not an official position of the Foundation. Nobody has blessed, or even vetted, these columns. These columns have been intended to provoke discussion, contemplation, and a better Eclipse for the long term.Thanks for reading.1 "The world economy is changing" is perhaps the understatement of the year.

Read this

Found this on Craigslist.Read it. Please: A Letter from a Shelter Manager I think our society needs a huge "Wake-up" call. As a shelter manager, I am going to share a little insight with you all...a view from the inside if you will. First off, all of you breeders/sellers should be made to work in the "back" of an animal shelter for just one day. Maybe if you saw the life drain from a few sad, lost, confused eyes, you would change your mind about breeding and selling to people you don't even know. That puppy you just sold will most likely end up in my shelter when it's not a cute little puppy anymore. So how would you feel if you knew that there's about a 90% chance that dog will never walk out of the shelter it is going to be dumped at? Purebred or not! About 50% of all of the dogs that are "owner surrenders" or "strays", that come into my shelter are purebred dogs. The most common excuses I hear are; "We are moving and we can't take our dog (or cat)." Really? Where are you moving too that doesn't allow pets? Or they say "The dog got bigger than we thought it would". How big did you think a German Shepherd would get? "We don't have time for her". Really? I work a 10-12 hour day and still have time for my 6 dogs! "She's tearing up our yard". How about making her a part of your family? They always tell me "We just don't want to have to stress about finding a place for her we know she'll get adopted, she's a good dog". Odds are your pet won't get adopted & how stressful do you think being in a shelter is? Well, let me tell you, your pet has 72 hours to find a new family from the moment you drop it off. Sometimes a little longer if the shelter isn't full and your dog manages to stay completely healthy. If it sniffles, it dies. Your pet will be confined to a small run/kennel in a room with about 25 other barking or crying animals. It will have to relieve itself where it eats and sleeps. It will be depressed and it will cry constantly for the family that abandoned it. If your pet is lucky, I will have enough volunteers in that day to take him/her for a walk. If I don't, your pet won't get any attention besides having a bowl of food slid under the kennel door and the waste sprayed out of its pen with a high-powered hose. If your dog is big, black or any of the "Bully" breeds (pit bull, rottie, mastiff, etc) it was pretty much dead when you walked it through the front door. Those dogs just don't get adopted. It doesn't matter how 'sweet' or 'well behaved' they are. If your dog doesn't get adopted within its 72 hours and the shelter is full, it will be destroyed. If the shelter isn't full and your dog is good enough, and of a desirable enough breed it may get a stay of execution, but not for long . Most dogs get very kennel protective after about a week and are destroyed for showing aggression. Even the sweetest dogs will turn in this environment. If your pet makes it over all of those hurdles chances are it will get kennel cough or an upper respiratory infection and will be destroyed because shelters just don't have the funds to pay for even a $100 treatment. Here's a little euthanasia 101 for those of you that have never witnessed a perfectly healthy, scared animal being "put-down". First, your pet will be taken from its kennel on a leash. They always look like they think they are going for a walk happy, wagging their tails. Until they get to "The Room", every one of them freaks out and puts on the brakes when we get to the door. It must smell like death or they can feel the sad souls that are left in there, it's strange, but it happens with every one of them. Your dog or cat will be restrained, held down by 1 or 2 vet techs depending on the size and how freaked out they are. Then a euthanasia tech or a vet will start the process. They will find a vein in the front leg and inject a lethal dose of the "pink stuff". Hopefully your pet doesn't panic from being restrained and jerk. I've seen the needles tear out of a leg and been covered with the resulting blood and been deafened by the yelps and screams. They all don't just "go to sleep", sometimes they spasm for a while, gasp for air and defecate on themselves. When it all ends, your pets corpse will be stacked like firewood in a large freezer in the back with all of the other animals that were killed waiting to be picked up like garbage. What happens next? Cremated? Taken to the dump? Rendered into pet food? You'll never know and it probably won't even cross your mind. It was just an animal and you can always buy another one, right? I hope that those of you that have read this are bawling your eyes out and can't get the pictures out of your head I deal with everyday on the way home from work. I hate my job, I hate that it exists & I hate that it will always be there unless you people make some changes and realize that the lives you are affecting go much farther than the pets you dump at a shelter. Between 9 and 11 MILLION animals die every year in shelters and only you can stop it. I do my best to save every life I can but rescues are always full, and there are more animals coming in everyday than there are homes. My point to all of this DON'T BREED OR BUY WHILE SHELTER PETS DIE! Hate me if you want to. The truth hurts and reality is what it is. I just hope I maybe changed one persons mind about breeding their dog, taking their loving pet to a shelter, or buying a dog. I hope that someone will walk into my shelter and say "I saw this and it made me want to adopt". THAT WOULD MAKE IT WORTH IT