text:
The small-town charm of the picturesque community of Bentonville owes much to its genuine Southern hospitality. Located in northern Arkansas, Bentonville is a modest town of 35,000 residents. It is famous as the birthplace of the world’s largest retail chain. Visit Bentonville to learn about the history of Walmart, to sample the cuisine that the state is famous for and to explore the many museums and cultural institutions in the town. Use Bentonville as a launching pad to explore the Ozark Mountains and the Buffalo River as well.
Once you arrive in the town, acquaint yourself with the local culture at the Bentonville Convention and Visitors Bureau. Pick up a map outlining the city’s major historic attractions to discover Civil War sites and the 72 historic buildings and homes that date back nearly two centuries. Visit the 1875 Peel Mansion and Heritage Gardens for an excellent example of late 19th-century architecture from the region.
Hear the story of the world’s largest retailer at the Walmart Museum. The company was founded in Bentonville and its headquarters remain in the town.
Spend a day seeing famous paintings and sculptures at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art or learn about the indigenous people of Arkansas at the Museum of Native American History.
When you’re hungry at the end of the day, enjoy the local cuisine. In the downtown precinct you’ll find a cluster of restaurants and bars open until late in the evening. Try fried catfish, twice-cooked chicken or a platter of fried pickles, all served with a little bit of Southern hospitality.
The easiest way to reach Bentonville is via Kansas City or Tulsa. Both have major international airports and are well connected by highway and bus services. Rent a car at the airport to explore Arkansas’ natural beauty on your way to Bentonville. Stop by Eureka Springs to dip your feet in the water or hike the trails that traverse the Ozark Mountains.


Downed power lines and toppled trees knock out power for some Visalians
Visalia businesses and homes were without power Wednesday morning after a severe storm toppled trees and downed power lines in multiple areas throughout the city.
“Early this morning Visalia Fire responded to nine calls from 2 to 4 a.m. involving trees down into houses and on power lines," an update from the Visalia Fire Department stated. “Power is still out in the area of Jacob (Street) to Mooney (Boulevard) and from Mineral King (Avenue) to Murray (Avenue).”
The power outage on Giddings Street initially affected 2,000 customers but was isolated to 30 customers, according to the fire department. The latest update from Southern California Edison estimates over 300 customers are currently impacted by the outage.
Most of the power should be restored by 9 p.m. Wednesday, according to Southern California Edison.
Giddings is currently closed between Center and Murray avenues near the Rawhide stadium due to the large tree blocking the roadway.
Caltrans Districts 6 and Caltrans District 7 also reported multiple road closures following the storm, including I-5 along the Grapevine between Parker Road and the Grapevine as well as State Route 58 and Towline Road.
“Due to unsafe conditions from heavy snow and ice, the Grapevine is closed in both north and south directions,” an update from the California Highway Patrol Fort Tejon reads. “Please be patient as crews work to clear the roadway of snow and ice.”
The National Weather Service has also issued a freeze watch and warning for areas throughout Central California Tuesday, including Visalia, Porterville and Reedley. The colder conditions may kill crops and other vegetation, as well as damage unprotected outdoor plumbing.
“The final in a series of storm systems will bring additional rain, low elevation snow, and gusty winds today,” the National Weather forecast discussion reads. “Below-freezing temperatures are expected for much of the San Joaquin Valley both Thursday and Friday morning.”
Visalia’s warming center is open from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. at 701 E. Race Avenue.


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text: I am pleased about the support the Government are putting into pubs. As hon. Members have mentioned, they are the centre of our communities. I want to highlight a pub in my constituency, The Pride of the Peaks in New Mills, which this Christmas gave 50 hampers and Christmas meals to elderly people to help combat loneliness. Does the Minister agree that pubs are the absolute heart of our communities?

domain: sociology


text:
12 December 2022, etc.venues Monument, London
Business Travel Show Europe, presented by The BTN
21 November, London Hilton Metropole
EASYLAND , the home of easyJet at Luton Airport, is to move down the hill (past the roundabout) to a former Vauxhall building in Kimpton Road, Luton, by the year's end leaving only operations and (probably) crewing sited at the airport.
easyJet says that on spite of over 95% of bookings now coming in via the Internet it has not been able to reduce the size of its telephone sales staff and has 120 live stations.
In a dig at its erstwhile competitor for the title of Europe”s largest low fares airline easyJet points out that its customer service department employs between 30 and 40 people.
350 people currently work at easyLand. With 3,400 staff it is still recruiting, each aircraft flying on average 11.5 hours per day and requiring 12 pilots and 18 cabin staff.
And if you are considering life as an easyJet jockey (and to be fair to the airline it takes training crewing very seriously indeed) there are openings for suitably qualified inexperienced young men and women ready to take a type conversion and fly in the right hand seat. By 2007 easyJet will have 120 Airbus 319 and 44 Boeing 737s.
All ground handling, both landside and airside, at Luton is now being outsourced, an interesting way of keeping staff numbers down and reducing sickness problems.
It”s all down to the service provider. On a rolling 12 month basis the airline is now at 21m passengers per annum.
Last Sunday (28 March) the airlines started flying to EuroAirport-Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg from Liverpool and Stansted.

domain: travel


Trooper David Jones
Kentucky State Police
Post 6, Dry Ridge
Click here to e-mail Trooper David P. Jones
Fatal Crash on US 62 in Harrison County
Date of News Release: 03/29/2007
(Dry Ridge, KY) - The Kentucky State Police Post 6 is investigating a fatal collision that occurred at approximately 1115 AM on US 62 in Harrison County. Chateka McIntosh (28) of Cynthiana was westbound on US 62 near Switzer Pike when she crossed the centerline striking James Lee Burke (42) of Monterey, KY. McIntosh was pronounced dead at the scene by the Coroner. An infant passenger in the vehicle with McIntosh was transported to the Harrison Memorial Hospital, treated for minor injuries and released. James Burke was taken to the University of Kentucky Hospital for leg injuries. Both operators were not wearing seatbelts at the time of the accident. The infant passenger was restrained in a child safety seat.
The collision remains under investigation by KSP Detective Clint Graves.


text:
Tragedy yesterday occurred in Lokoja, the Kogi State capital, when the body of a young man identified as Mohammed Suberu, was found floating in the swimming pool of Idrinana Hotel, located in Phase Two area of Lokongoma.
The deceased was said to have gone to the hotel to swim on Monday morning, only for his lifeless body to be found later floating in the pool.
He was later taken to the state Specialist Hospital, Lokoja, where he was confirmed dead.
A similar event happened in Idrinana last year, when a middle-aged man drowned in the hotel’s swimming pool, leading to attack of its workers and destruction of property by irate youths.
When contacted, the General Manager of the hotel, Audu Alhassan, said he could not speak on the incident until he got clearance from the chairman, a former member of the Kogi State House of Assembly.
Source: The Guardian

domain: news


text:
Hakeem Nicks undergoes successful foot surgery
After fracturing a bone in his foot last Thursday, Giants receiver Hakeem Nicks underwent successful surgery Friday. He's still slated to be out for 12 weeks.
Earlier this week, Giants receiver Hakeem Nicks fractured his foot while participating in a drill during practice, and it was estimated the injury would keep him out about 12 weeks.
That puts his return in the middle of training camp, and after undergoing successful surgery Friday (via the NY Post), that official prognosis has not changed (although there are rumblings his return time actually could be cut in half).
Nicks underwent the surgery in Charlotte, and doctors inserted a screw into his foot to help heal the fifth metatarsal bone that he broke Thursday.
For more NFL news, rumors and analysis, follow @EyeOnNFL on Twitter, and subscribe to our Pick-6 Podcast and NFL newsletter. You can follow Josh Katzowitz on Twitter here: @joshkatzowitz.
Plus the catch rule is still terrible, the Panthers quash the Packers' playoff hopes and much...
Week 15 provided a lot of clarity to the NFL postseason
The Cowboys move to 8-6 and are still in the playoff race with two regular-season games to...
The Steelers lost to the Patriots in controversial fashion after the 'Calvin Johnson Rule'...
The Raiders lost on a bizarre final offensive play
Here are the Week 15 grades for every team that played Sunday

domain: sports


Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'attendance'.
Hey everyone, I've been looking into improving the registration attendance widget in order to make the data being shown more useful. I have updated the widget now to show the calculated percentage attendance, as well as broken down the graph to show the attendance codes, rather than the MIS statistical meaning. I've added a screenshot - please note that this is a highly exaggerated graph and most likely real data would be much simpler: There is also a new section in Frog Parent Manager that allows you to configure the 'present', 'absent' and 'ignore' states for each of the attendance codes - as well as changing the default description (which comes from your MIS system). If this was to replace the current view of the widget would that cause people problems? Do you use / prefer the current view? EDIT - So it turns out that keeping both the old view and adding the new view was pretty simple, so this will be a new "Attendance Summary (Breakdown)" option in the widget


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I spent part of the morning making vegetarian lasagnas--tomorrow my suburban church goes to the downtown church to feed the destitute. I could have taken the easy way out and bought something from the grocery freezer. But that's ghastly expensive, and it wouldn't have taken care of one of our guests who can't eat meat.
I started experimenting with vegetarian food when I was 14 years old. We lived in Charlottesville, Virginia, and we often had UVa students over to eat as part of our church's campus ministry outreach. Some of them were vegetarian, and some of them baked their own bread, and over meals, we talked about these things. I haven't been the same since.
When I started cooking vegetarian food as a teenager, my mom was scared that the family wouldn't get enough protein, so I tried to boost protein content where I could. I remember making a vegetarian lasagna with ground up kidney beans as one of the layers.
Now I don't worry too much about protein, what with the ricotta cheese and other cheeses. Excess protein is a far greater problem for most Americans than protein deficiency.
A year ago, when we made ziti as our first meal for the urban church, I thought about that, and decided that the largely homeless population probably needed as much protein as I could give them. I made a ziti casserole with meat. That's when we met our guest who can't eat meat, and I resolved always to have a vegetarian option on hand (luckily, someone else had made a vegetarian ziti that night).
I still take shortcuts that would horrify my younger self. I didn't make the sauce from scratch--I don't have that kind of life right now. Much of my cooking consists of putting vegetables and some protein in a pot in interesting combinations and letting it cook for awhile when I'm doing other things. On really busy days, my cooking consists of cooking pasta and opening a jar of sauce--but that's still a better option than fast food. On really busy days, the kind that makes up my December, I gulp down a bowl of cereal and take a multi-vitamin and hope for the best--and that's still a better option than fast food.
Today, as I cooked lasagna, I reflected on how nice it was to be cooking again, a real main dish from mostly scratch. I reflected on how much I enjoy cooking for others and serving them food. I especially enjoy it when I know that the ones I'm serving have so little opportunity to sit down to a real meal, to have coffee and dessert, to linger as long as they'd like. I wrote that sentence thinking about the homeless guests who will eat dinner tomorrow night--but it really describes most of us these days.
Jesus knew what he was doing when he created his ministry that revolved around the table. If we can get people to slow down enough to eat together, we might change the world.
feeling the feelings…
1 year ago

domain: food


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The queen of country music just dropped off an early Christmas present for her fans!
Shania Twain shared that she and Nick Jonas are dropping a Christmas song tomorrow called "Say All You Want For Christmas" and it just brought our Holiday spirit up a notch (yes...even though we know we haven't hit Thanksgiving yet 😉). Take a listen to the snippet below:
This collaboration seems to have been a long time coming!
It's no secret that Shania is Nick's celebrity crush! Back in December of last year, Nick presented Shania with the Billboard Women In Music Icon Award and openly displayed his fangirl status to Instagram. (Shania also posted the second photo, saying "such a pleasure to accept the @billboard honour from you. Excited to see your Shania cover band anytime! #womeninmusic"
Following that in April of this year, Shania brought Nick out to perform "Party for Two" at Stagecoach by introducing him as a "guy loaded with talent...he's a new friend of mine."
Nick also admitted that her music was a big inspiration to his latest song "Find You."
And how is THIS for a throwback?! Back when Nick and his brothers, Joe and Kevin, were still the Jonas Brothers, they took their version of Shania's "Gonna Getcha Good" on the road with them to perform every night on their 2008 Burnin' Up Tour

domain: celebrity


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Like so many brick-and-mortar stores, the rise of online shopping has hit Bed, Bath, & Beyond hard in recent years. Plus, the pandemic hasn’t done them any favors either. According to CNBC, the company has “seen quarter after quarter of declining sales and spent money” as it tries to bring customers back with store renovations and private labels instead of the national brands it once carried. in its infancy and which had been initially attracted. customers to them in the first place. In a bid to prevent the ship from sinking completely, for lack of a better term, the company announced on Wednesday that it would be closing 56 stores across the country.
Are Indiana and Kentucky Bed Bath & Beyond stores closing?
The company announced in August that it would be closing stores, but did not specify which ones at the time. It also cut 20% of its workforce, according to CNBC, including corporate-level positions and supply chain staff.
The company operates 11 stores in Indiana and seven in Kentucky. Fortunately, for those who work in these locations and residents of these areas who shop there, none of the 18 total locations were on the list of closures the company released on Thursday, which is obviously good news. However, this does not mean that they are completely safe.
Bed Bath & Beyond appears to be closing around 150 locations in total
The 56 closures announced on Thursday are just the first wave of stores the company plans to close, and the timing for the closing of the roughly 100 remaining stores has not been announced by the company. So while the Indiana and Kentucky sites survived this round, it remains to be seen if they will continue to survive.

domain: economics


text:
Your Favourite Photoshop Tutorials in One Place
Create an Amazing Watercolor Effect in Photoshop
Under Photo Effect, Photoshop Tutorial
In this photoshop tutorial, it will show you how to create a very nice design using watercolor brushes. You can apply this into your photos with different color style. Not many special techniques are required.
Holloween is coming. Some of you may want to change your image into a zombie. Turning yourself into a zombie, you need to prepare an image of a dead animal. Then you can cut and paste the damage meat into your image face or body plus some color adjustment to finalize it.
In this tutorial, it will show you how to transform a fairly typical road-trip image with a big blue sky and wide-open spaces – into an apocalyptic battle scene, complete with tanks, guns, parachutists and a hail of incoming missiles. Finally, to make the scene more realistic, add a motion blur on the first tank.
If you would like to create some quick effect to beautify the images, you can have a try on this colorful bubble effect for your images. You just need to trim out your image on a plain background, apply some bubble plus simple photoshop lighting and coloring adjustments, then we are done.
Different objects require different nice background to match with. What you need is to find some nice environments or backgrounds and apply photo combination effects to simulate their color and lighting. Then you can form varieties of sceneries for your objects background.

domain: artistic


text:
BFPO Service delays
The British Forces Post Office (BFPO) is disappointed that it has not yet been possible to deliver a number of mail despatches, destined for customers in Cyprus, Op TORAL, Op TOSCA, Op SHADER, Op KIPION and HMS Duncan earlier this month.
Points to note:
- The delay has been caused by the closure of a hangar at RAF Brize Norton; this was due to unforeseen circumstances and Business Continuity Plans are now in place. It is estimated that this issue affected items received at BFPO between 27 March 2019 and 5 April 2019.
- Until the outcome of this issue is known, BFPO is unable to accept any compensation claims for loss or damage to items at this time.
- Should these items be damaged or destroyed, customers will be able to submit claims and BFPO will issue further advice when an outcome is known.
- Customers affected are advised to retain proof of purchase/invoices and posting to support any claim, should this be required.
- BFPO, and the MOD, takes the welfare of our Armed Forces extremely seriously. We remain committed to ensuring that those deployed on operations can keep in touch with their families and friends.
Further information on BFPO can be found in our deployment sub-section.
The dedicated BFPO service desk can be contacted at [email protected] or on 0044345769 7978.


text:
Xenophobic Attack: Senior Special Assistant to the Presido yarn ontop the matter
The Senior Special Assistant to the Presido ontop Foreign Affairs and Diaspora Matter, Mrs Abike Dabiri-Erewa, don call dem South African Government to educate dem people ontop the contributions wey Nigeria don do for dem country.
The woman yarn am say Nigeria and South Africa get some
long diplomatic relationship, wey Nigeria play one kain strong role to end the apartheid era wey south africa fight for before.
Dabiri- Erewa dey try let South Africa know say when dem British come colonise dem, na Nigeria stand with them to end their suffering.
She talk am, on Sunday, for Abuja, say, dem fit end the xenophobic attack on top Nigerians dem with other immigrants.
She add to the matter say, federal government no just fit dey fold hand make dem dey kil inm people.
This yarn wey she yarn na ontop the matter wey South Africa’s
Home Affairs Minister, Malusi Gigaba, yarn say e no need for the Africa Union to intervene for the xenophobic attack wey South Africa people dey attack Nigerians.
Mr Gigaba, talk am say the attack na to take end criminal matter
wey dey the country.
Dabiri-Erewa talk am say the kind yarn wey Mr. Gigaba yarn dey very very bad and “unacceptable” as she come still yarn for the Africa Union to join body take solve the matter wey dey make South Africa people dey kill foreigners for their country.
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Ogun State Election: ‘Why are they not making use of the card readers for this election’ – PDP Candidate
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that electoral personnel and voting materials arrived many of the polling units in the area as early as 7.30 a.m. However, while members
National Treasurer, Allied Congress Party of Nigeria (ACPN), Chief Angus Uzoamaka, on Wednesday said full adaptation to Public-Private Partnership (PPP) was imperative in rescuing Nigeria from prevailing economic recession. Uzoamaka,
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr Yakubu Dogara in a Sallah message issued on Sunday and signed by Dogara’s Special Adviser on Media and Public Affairs, Mr Turaki Hassan,


'Mamata's numbers will reduce this time compared to 2016.'
Dr Afroz Alam, professor and head of the political science department at Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad, has studied the voting behaviour in the West Bengal assembly election till March 15, 2021.
In his study of the 294 assembly seats in West Bengal, he found that Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress will win the bitterly fought election, but with a very thin majority.
Dr Alam, also the director of the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Public Policy, spoke to Rediff.com's Syed Firdaus Ashraf about why he feels Mamata Banerjee will win a third term as chief minister.
The first of a two-part interview:
What did your study find on the West Bengal election?
There is a deep anti-incumbency against Mamata Banerjee.
There is charismatic acceptance of Prime Minister Narendra Modi among voters.
We noted that there used to be an ideological battle in the Bengal election, but this time national politics was dominant.
People were willing for change, but this change was limited to certain pockets.
It was not spread across West Bengal.
We also saw that there were people who were strongly committed to Didi and she is equally popular as Modi.
She worked very hard for the last seven months and was able to neutralise anti-incumbency.
It is not extraordinary anti-incumbency against her.
We also found (in) women voters there is extraordinary liking for Mamata Banerjee.
Mamata Banerjee openly stated that the Bharatiya Janata Party will not win more than 70 seats in West Bengal. Do you think so?
You've got to see what is the gain for the BJP in West Bengal.
It is not an overnight gain for the BJP in West Bengal.
They are in Bengal for the last 30 years working on the ground and yet Bengal did not accept them.
It was only after 2014 and the emergence of Modi that they found a footing in West Bengal.
If you compare the 2016 assembly election figures and the 2019 parliamentary election figures, you will find that the BJP's performance was not good in the 2016 assembly elections.
But it was Modi's performance that was good and that changed things for the BJP in the 2019 parliamentary elections.
Moreover, the drawback that West Bengal always had was zero Opposition in politics.
If one party was ruling, there was zero Opposition.
This was the case during the Left Front and now under Mamata too.
The Opposition could never hold the government accountable and this was always the case for West Bengal.
But now the situation is changing as the BJP worked hard on the ground.
They have their resources and they reached out to the people.
They used their IT cell perfectly.
This has given them an advantage and they will cross 100 seats in my opinion.
The BJP will be a dominant Opposition in West Bengal.
So, you think the BJP will not form the government in West Bengal.
Our data was collected till March 14 and from that I can say the BJP won't form the government in West Bengal.
Mamata Banerjee will come to power with a vulnerable majority.
The BJP will be a very dominant opposition.
Mamata's numbers will reduce this time compared to 2016.
But will she able to sustain her victory on a reduced margin?
Has communalisation and consolidation of Hindu votes worked for the BJP in West Bengal?
It is not a new phenomenon.
Every political party came to power in West Bengal tried to portray that they were for Muslims.
That has been manipulated well by the BJP.
They branded it as appeasement.
Muslim appeasement narrative by the BJP and mismanagement of governance during Amphan cyclone were also big factors.
People were not happy with the local musclemen of TMC too.
The cyclone affected the poorest people in society.
Right now, two narratives work in Bengal: Didi hatao ya Didi Bachao (Remove Mamata or save Mamata).
Is the 8-phase election in Bengal helping the BJP?
The BJP can only cross 100 seats with this kind of micro management.
They have least cadres on the ground and therefore they need this kind of time.
This is an advantage to the BJP and the deployment of central forces is equally advantageous to the BJP.
There are 15 percent of voters who work on fear factor and this 15 per cent vote is very important to the BJP.
If Mamata loses, does it mean it is the end of secular politics?
I do not put very high stakes on elections.
Elections have always been unpredictable.
You cannot judge the state of the country while counting one state election results.
Lots of writing came up when Donald Trump came to power in the USA.
They said democracy was in danger and there was populism everywhere.
These are phases of politics.
The very nature of politics has changed.
People get fatigue.
What is most important now is that there is indifference growing among people and tech giants are having more stake in democracy.
Democracy has become just a methodology to elect people to power.
Election is one-time employment.
If you have resources, money and narrative, you can win the elections.
The way social media is being used and who controls the data they can indulge in manipulation of data by reaching millions of people in one second and thus narratives change overnight.
Will the Left Front-led alliance damage Mamata Banerjee's chances of winning?
There is nothing called as fixed or bloc vote.
In a democracy everybody has space and they want to make use of it.
Abbas Siddiqui (of the Indian Secular Front) or anyone like him in a democracy will like to gain some favour.
If they are not able to win then they can bargain.
I cannot say they will divide the secular votes as there is no communal vote or secular vote.
It is just that you have to get a good candidate and bring a narrative and influence the voting decision of the people in a democracy, then you are the master of democracy.
You can win 3-4 assembly election seats as voters are very educated when it comes to voting.
What went wrong with the Congress and the Left? Do they have a presence on the ground in West Bengal?
There is a disconnect.
Those who were dynamic in these parties were co-opted by new parties.
If you constantly win elections and then at a certain point you are completely decimated, it means then some fault lies with the leadership and some fault lies in what I call as laziness of being in power.
When you are in power you become so lazy that you get disconnected from the ground.
You were in a comfort zone as a leader and then you lose cadres on the ground.
You as a leader were not bothered because you were in a comfort zone.
The Left never felt the competition earlier in West Bengal when they ruled.
The Left was in power for 32 years and that is quite a time and people got fatigued with that kind of politics.
The people are just fed up.
People want change.
It does not mean those who vote for the BJP all are communal.


Additions to our Fleet
Shotcrete Australia has recently set out to increase our productivity and efficiency with the acquisition of some new plant. This fleet includes two spray rigs, a piling rig, and another anchor rig. This will allow Shotcrete Australia to increase the range, quantity and quality of service we a providing to our clients. We are excited to expand our offerings in the construction industry.


text:
The Pope Mastodon
FOSA Newsletter Fall 2015
The students are all just back on campus as I write this, so I know that summer is sadly over. It has been a busy Spring/Summer season for OSA and the FOSA support team. I managed to finish the flotation of the many bags of soil from the features excavated last fall at the Dug Road site in Glastonbury. The charred material recovered from the features permitted the identification of plant remains by Tonya Largy. Tonya noted that the most common identifiable plant fragments were from butternut shells. Interestingly, carbonized bark made up between 40% and 95% of the botanical remains examined. Since then, Mike Raber and Marc Banks who have been working on the final site report have completed radiocarbon dating of five feature samples. These range in age from 4230 to 3880 radiocarbon years ago (ca. 2900 – 2300 calBC).
In May, FOSA volunteers helped to excavate around the north and east foundation edges of the Long Society Meeting House in Preston. This National Register site is in need of repair to the rotting sills, and we were able to help lower the surrounding ground surface safely, while avoiding possible impacts to nearby burials. In May and June FOSA members also helped out with a new Kids Dig for Bozrah Middle Schoolers. The community there was very supportive and I am hoping that this turns into another regular outreach program for us.
In June we began our investigation of a possible location of the Windsor Trading Post site with the help of Kevin McBride’s Pequot War Battlefield metal detector specialists. Their survey identified a brass point and a small brass ring, as well as a strike-a-light and lead shot that could also date to the first half of the 17th century. The FOSA Field School continued the investigation of the site through standard Phase II shovel test pit sampling. While we identified possible Middle Woodland activity at the site, no additional traces of the Contact period component were found, suggesting that this was a short-term Native American satellite camp occupied at about the same time that the Windsor Trading Post was in operation.
Working with the Glastonbury Historical Society, we only had two days to investigate the late 17th century Lt. John Hollister lot in South Glastonbury, but FOSA members and other supporters found evidence of a substantial farming complex that consisted of a long “cross passage” style house with three cellars and an additional possible barn and cellar nearby, as well as a number of well features. These incredible results are mostly the work of UConn graduate student Peter Leach’s GPR survey. This is truly one of the most significant sites I’ve had the privilege to work on in the state of Connecticut, and I look forward to working closely with the Glastonbury Historical Society and landowner Mark Packard at the site again next year.
The Connecticut State Museum of Natural History sponsored its own Kids Dig at the Farwell House and Barn site here on campus. Zac Singer and Lori Kessel organized and implemented the excavation with the help of other FOSA volunteers. The Natural History Museum’s Adult Field School took place at two nearby locations in Windsor this year. I have been waiting patiently for about ten years to look for evidence of the Pequot War-era Windsor palisade and finally had my chance. The remnants of the palisade proved elusive to both GPR and standard archaeological testing methods. The stratigraphy documented in the lot investigated along Palisado Avenue indicated that the land surface had unfortunately been significantly altered in the historic period, probably erasing any trace of the palisade trench. A separate GPR survey and excavation within the bounds of John Mason’s lot within the palisade did, however, uncover evidence of an undocumented filled cellar. Long forgotten to local memory, this late 17th to early 18th century house site contained an abundance of domestic artifacts including straight pins, buttons, coins, clay pipe fragments and ceramics, including English slipware, Rhenish and Westerwald German stoneware, porcelain, and English brown and white salt-glazed stoneware.
Finally, I want to especially thank FOSA this year for supporting the radiocarbon date of the Farmington Pope Mastodon (see article in this issue). The date represents very significant new data that helps us reconstruct the late Ice Age landscape of southern New England shortly before humans first arrived here. The Pope mastodon will be returning to an exhibit at the Institute for American Indian Studies this fall. “Old Longtooth” had previously been on display at the Institute between 1977 and 1989, and everyone should take the opportunity to see this old friend again.

domain: history


Omaha, Neb. – The Omaha Police Department (OPD) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) recently launched an ad campaign in Omaha to encourage the public to report gun crimes.
Billboards in Omaha and Metro Bus signs carry the messages, “Report Gun Crimes” and “1 Firearm + 1 Arrest = $500”, with the Crime Stoppers hotline number 402-444-STOP and website www.omahacrimestoppers.net. The billboards are located near the intersections of N. 38th St. and Ames Ave., N. 58th St. and NW Radial Hwy., N. 30th St. and Myrtle Ave., and S. 26th Ave. and Q St.
The callers can remain completely anonymous and the tips will be investigated by Omaha Police Department Firearms Squad. The goal of the campaign is to increase citizen involvement in making Omaha safer and remind the public that they can report gun crimes anonymously.


Chair Comment on Government publication of NHS Long Term Workforce Plan
30 June 2023
Responding to today’s announcement on the Government’s publication of the Long Term Workforce plan, Health and Social Care Committee Chair Steve Brine MP said:
“To see a long-term workforce plan for the NHS marks a huge step forward and is something the Select Committee has long been calling for. For hard-pressed staff who struggle daily to deliver health services, this is a moment of hope. The plan should be seen as a foundation stone upon which to build the workforce of the future.
“I’m delighted that the Government has listened to many of the key recommendations in our workforce report. The Committee has called repeatedly for the publication of staff projections for the next 5, 10 and 20 years and I welcome the Government’s commitment to this in today’s workforce plan, crucial in enabling health leaders to plan how they will meet future demands.
“The Government has also listened to our call for a major increase in the number of medical school places and I welcome plans to double the number available and to boost the number of training places for GPs. A reduction in the time it takes to train a doctor as proposed would also ease some of the pressure, and it’s something the Committee explored in its report last year.”
Image credit: UK Parliament


MATT JONES DECEMBER 28, 2017
One thing that is nearly as awesome as hearing/seeing so many people play their songs, is getting to witness how people manage their nerves. Ypsilanti's Estar Cohen recorded her contribution for The River Street Anthology the hard way: performing with her 8-piece band live, in front of a dead-silent, full house at Cultivate Coffee & TapHouse in Ypsi. She confessed that she had only met one of her violinists earlier that day. There were maybe 3-4 feet between Estar and the nearest audience member, as well as Misty, Charles, Sarah, and myself bumbling around with our microphones, cameras, and pencils in the free space. Needless to say, I would have been barely restraining myself from screaming had the roles been reversed. She and her mini-orchestra then laid down a dynamic track of about 8 minutes in length. In one take. Perfectly. Some musicians are always one technical glitch away from total meltdown on stage. Others feel compelled to always let the audience know just how nervous they are- a disclaimer that serves as sort of a "nowhere to go but up"-type security blanket. Others just keep breathing, trying not to think too much about the potential crash-and-burn, and just doing the thing they love. That last is the feeling I got from Estar, and many other contributors to the RSA. Sarah calls it "singing to the universe," and I love it. Then I don't get nervous for anyone, and all there is, is the song. Epic night. Epic performance. Thanks so much for coming, Estar.
Watch the full performance here: https://vimeo.com/205820724
JEFF MILO, DEEP CUTZ MUSIC BLOG, MAY 25, 2017
I am thrilled to finally feature some jazz. Not just jazz, but world-fusion, prog, and classy vocal-music. Ann Arbor-based ensemble Talking Ear unveil the next single for their forthcoming album here on Deep Cutz...
Check out "Face It," from the forthcoming album self-titled album (available June 16). Talking Ear's next show is Friday, June 16 at Ann Arbor Distilling Co. in Ann Arbor with Saajtak.
It's far too rare that I can engage with a piece of jazz music. And this one is an odyssey, a stir of different styles, sensibilities, era's and experimentation. Talking Ear sumptuous soul with an avant-garde modernism, splashes of Spanish guitar, lavish piano cascades, intricate percussion, and a mesmerizing vocal performance. This blog often covers indie-rock, hip-hop or electronica, but let's listen to Talking Ear's new single, "Face It."
Talking Ear are a prog-jazz ensemble featuring five masterful instrumentalists, each a composer in their own right, with keen sensibilities for arrangement, dynamics, and an adventurous experimentalism.
Talking Ear's lead vocalist Estar Cohen has a majestic and elemental voice that catches you as a windstorm, something graceful and natural, yet whimsical in its melodic trajectory. Daniel Palmer is on guitar, putting on a clinic of Wes Montgomery marvels during one of the songs most energizing movements. Just as Cohen studied piano, as well as attaining a degree in Jazz Performance, Palmer is also an adjunct professor at Albion College, teaching guitar! This band is stacked!
Meanwhile, Ben Rolston, who's on bass for Talking Ear, has been in several music projects (including the Appleseed Collective) and released his own solo album of compositions in 2012. A product of U-M's Jazz Studies Program, he has wound up traveling the world as a professional musician. Then there's Travis Aukerman, the band's percussionist, who academically mastered the magic of all things drum via the University of Toledo's jazz program (graduated magna cum laude). He attained sensibilities for classical jazz, as well as music and culture from the Caribbean Islands, South American, Northern India, and West Africa. He contributed to Cohen's solo album.
Then there's Benjamin Maloney on piano. This composer and arranger from Toledo was a finalist in the 2013 ASCAP young jazz composers competition. He's also been featured twice at the Jazz Master's Concert Series at the Kerrytown Concert House in Ann Arbor. Like Auckerman, I love the energy he rhythmic energy that he brings to his own instrument, balanced by these cinematic and forceful sweeps across the keys.
I just love how this group has this murmuration quality to the way their five-piece flock bends, sways, and swoops from furtive and feverish improvisational movements, to the calmer waters where the vocals are given space to soar. Detached from set downbeats, they find grace and harmony in what could otherwise be havoc. The rhythm is aerobic, the vocals are so emotive, the pianos crackle like fire and the guitar's velocity during one part of the solo almost breaks away from the formation.... But these five young virtuosic jazz talents have a chemistry that keeps it all together, throughout even a 7+ minute blast.
JORDAN KILLAM, TOLEDO CITY PAPER, OCTOBER 5, 2016.
For local jazz vocalist and musician Estar Cohen, this past year has been about letting go of assumptions. This meditation has inspired an upcoming concept performance, “What We Can’t Know About Forever,” to be performed at The Toledo Museum of Art’s GlasSalon on Friday, October 7.
What we know
“Sometimes I feel like I walk through life with tunnel vision,” Cohen said. “There are things that I cannot possibly know. When I think of all the people I have loved and lost in my life, it is difficult to define; I don’t think I truly understand it and I don’t know if I ever will. In each case, there was a time when I thought our relationship would last forever. And maybe the moments we shared do still exist somewhere.”
You may have seen the Estar Cohen Project playing at events city-wide. The rich, ethereal quality of Ms. Cohen’s voice paired with the band’s thoughtful and complex arrangements are a soothing combination. This time, the performance will be focused on the listening experience, meant to be consumed from beginning to end as one full narrative, with each song and story leading into the next. It’s a delicate balance of thoroughly composed music and also improvisation. “I believe each set will feel unique to the listener. Large-scale performances like this are not an easy endeavor. I am hoping this will lead to a studio project.” Ms. Cohen said.
What we add
This performance brings with it new challenges for the group, displaying the band’s growth and experimentation in other forms of music and art. For the first time, the Estar Cohen Project will blend the sounds of a string quartet into their work. Before physically composing music, Ms. Cohen takes time to sit by herself quietly in order to find inspiration.
“When I hear a beautiful string arrangement by Billy Strayhorn or Brad Mehldau, I want to close my eyes and fall into it,” she explained “When I was conceptualizing this project, I heard a string quartet. This is the first time I am writing for a group like this and it has pushed me into a new space.”
The performance will also feature spoken word. This summer, Ms. Cohen was inspired to write for pure enjoyment. She began to write poetry daily, sometimes well into the night.
“It was wildly fulfilling for me to be out by the water in Northern Michigan, reading the poetry of Richard Brautigan, Rumi, and Jim Harrison. Then, I heard May Erlewine at The Ark and she incorporated spoken word so gracefully into her performance. I was so moved by it, I also felt a pull to begin exploring how spoken word could fit into my personal journey as an artist.”
There will be two performances of “What We Can’t Know About Forever” in one night. Each performance lasts about 50 minutes, with variations in each show in the music, lyrics, and spoken word. Audiences are encouraged to attend both performances.
6:30pm and 7:40pm. Friday, October 7
The Toledo Museum of Art GlasSalon | 2445 Monroe St.
419-255-8000 | Toledomuseum.org
KELLY THOMPSON, TOLEDO CITY PAPER
Waiting for Dawn is a collaborative project, and there are several local musicians involved. How did the idea for this album come about?
When the band (Josh Silver, Travis Aukerman, Steve Knurek, and myself) had decided we wanted to set a recording date, we had been working together for a couple of years. We felt that it was time to document our musical process as an ensemble and put ourselves up to the challenge of capturing some of these compositions live in the studio. As a writer, I felt a desire to share some of my work with a larger audience, rather than being limited to sharing the music with only those who have the opportunity to hear the group at a live performance.
How did you choose your musicians for the album?
I have been fortunate to work closely with Josh, Travis, and Steve since the Estar Cohen Project first formed in 2012. As for the featured soloists on the album; I have the utmost respect for David Bixler, Ben Wolkins, Dan Palmer, and Corey Howe. Each of these musicians brought their unique personality to the music, and I was certain that I wanted their voices on those particular pieces. I am so grateful for their collaboration and I have certainly learned a lot by working with them.
You recorded at Big Sky in Ann Arbor. Was this a positive experience? Can you tell us a little bit about the recording process overall?
This being my first full length recording, I came out of the experience having learned a lot, and I believe this was the case with some of my bandmates as well. We had a limited budget which definitely made us think carefully about our methods and value our time. Our first session was about five hours long and in those five hours, we recorded each tune live two to three times. We wanted to capture a similar feeling to what we produce when we are playing a concert. After we chose the takes that would appear on the album, we made a decision to be quite minimalistic when it came to any layering or overdubs. A big realization that I came to was how much time and work goes into a thoughtful mixing and mastering of a project. As someone who is pursuing music professionally, I am so happy to have walked away with a plethora of new knowledge. Also, I am very thankful for our Kickstarter backers who lent us their financial support for the recording.
There are a lot of Jaco Pastorius-esque, sparse basslines on this album, and experimental chord work, but also traditional jazz and bop signatures. What are the major musical influences on Waiting for Dawn?
The major influences in my writing come from composers and poets who are great storytellers. A current songwriter in the modern jazz realm I pay close attention to is a vocalist/multi-instrumentalist named Becca Stevens. What I love about Becca is her ability to draw you into a different world through her lyrics and then illustrate that world through the music. This past year, I also came into the music of pianist and vocal duo Ran Blake and Jeanne Lee. Their recordings of the Jazz Standard Repertoire opened me up to entirely new meanings of the tunes I had previously thought I had a good understanding of. If a musician can really bring out different colors of a piece to demonstrate a particular mood, that can be very special. No matter what style I am drawing from when writing something new, I always strive to tell a compelling story.
Lyrics are heavily focused on time passing and loss. Can you talk about the inspiration for "The Good Life," "Dreamer," or the title track?
In 2012, I lost my mother Donna Cohen to a rare form of cancer. Coping with the loss of someone you truly love is a theme that is threaded delicately through the album. In The Good Life, we enter a world in which the song’s main character is in the very early aftermath of having lost a family member. As the story unfolds, we witness her make a rash decision in response to the stress that accumulates with the appearance of estranged family members, the expectations of her religious background, and her own revelations in response to the death. Dreamer is intentionally more abstract, and exists to lament the passing of time in hopes of finding a way to cope with its inevitability. The anxiety of the grieving process is especially apparent in Waiting For Dawn, a piece that is meant to explore the feelings often associated with utter restlessness. It isn’t until Praise that the lyrics demonstrate a sense of acceptance of significant loss, and thus a form of resolution. I intentionally placed Praise near the end of the album with the other three songs at the front because I believe that coming to understand the loss of a loved one is a journey that takes great time and often means journeying through darkness in order to find light.


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When I visited Kali in Singapore last year, where he was working at that point of time, most of my friends and family kept asking me why I wasn’t visiting Malaysia or Indonesia. The fact that I had chosen a 10-day trip for the island-country itself ignited such questions all the more. But trust me, even in those 10 days, I don’t think we could complete visiting even half of the places chalked by Kali especially for me and Paula, my sister.
Of course, slow travelling was what we were looking forward to in Singapore. But the plethora of colours that we were directed to in the city by the in-house artist left us simply spellbound. I never thought that this shopping haven had so much in store for us to the extent that our 10 days would be gone in a jiffy! *poof*
Now, Singapore being the famous centre of business and culture that it is, we’re pretty sure you will find plenty of information on what to do and what not to do there. So we thought of presenting to you those places and areas where we loved going and loved spending some quality time in.
1. A slice of tropical rainforests in the heart of Singapore – Macritchie Reservoir
Singapore, no doubt, is a green city dotted with parks and lakes everywhere. But Macritchie Reservoir is undoubtedly special. If you want experience the serenity of lush green Malaysian tropical rainforests right at the heart of Singapore, Macritchie Reservoir is the place to be. Let your inner child prance around in the woods or go kayaking on the reservoir. Or better still, languorously watch the sun set over the glistening waters while you sip on to wine at the Vava Bistro.
2. Find spiritual tranquillity in the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple in China Town
Both Kali and I love visiting religious places – sometimes because of the artistic splendour the places have to offer and sometimes because of the cultural hotspots that these places are noted for being. However, our experience at the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple can be best described in superlatives. You would be enthralled by the stunning silence of the place – an archaic Chinese building – interrupted only by the rhythmic humming of the chants by the monks. Once there, don’t forget to visit the museum upstairs that showcases Buddhist history in the inexplicably vivid way, and also spend some quality time in the rooftop garden.
3. Take a moment to gorge on to scrumptious local delicacies at China Town
Although lengths have been written about Malaysian, Thai, and Indonesian cuisine, not much is known about Singaporean cuisine. Heavily inspired by Chinese, Malay, and our very own Tamil cuisine, the culinary extravagance of Singapore is simply lip smacking. I asked Kali to take me to his favourite place for tasting Singaporean cuisine and he took me straight here – oh boy, can it get any better than this:
4. Watch the most majestic sunrise of the city at East Coast Park
A weekend picnic/camping spot for the residents, East Coast Park is a beach paradise that wakes up every evening and throbs the entire night. With innumerable restaurants dotted along the length of the park and lots of adventurous activities to opt for, this place is perfect for a family evening. We spent an entire night watching the waves and listening to the tinkling breeze wave past our ears – it was beautiful, to say the least. And the sunrise was even better.
5. Cycle across Pulau Ubin and camp on the deserted island
How about camping right in wilderness with your loved one as the only company? I would have shuddered at the thought of it had it been here in India, but it was an experience worth living right at the heart of this unspoilt beauty. You could also go on a day trip Pulau Ubin and experience its rustic village life that presents a stark contrast to the urban life of Singapore. Pulau Ubin an island off the eastern coast of Singapore that is also the last village or ‘kampong’ of this island-nation.
6. Experience splendid nightlife and dine at the coolest bars and restaurants in Holland Village
One of our favourites in the city, Holland Village is a quaint little neighbourhood in Singapore noted for its cosmopolitan restaurants and bars. Hop around the cafes or the pubs, or take a jig right at the streets like no-one’s watching you!
7. Experience exquisite flora and fauna at Bukit Timah
As I said earlier, Singapore is dotted with parks and nature reserves. But there’s something special about Bukit Timah – the highest peak of Singapore at 163m – that has captivated our attraction. An idyllic place to take a quiet stroll with your loved one, Bukit Timah also boasts of adventurous tree-top trails and biking routes.
8. Raise the toast elegantly at Dempsey Hills
Dempsey Hill to us is elegance redefined. Noted for its microbreweries and posh restaurants, Dempsey Hill deserves a visit if you’re in Singapore with your loved one.
9. Take the heritage trail along Bukit Pasoh, Keong Saik Road and Neil Road
Singapore is the melting point of unique Malay and Chinese cultures and architecture, and boasts of a truly grand history. Be a part of it all by hiking along one of the heritage trails that the city has to offer. The trail going through Bukit Pasoh, Keong Saik Road and Neil Road has been our favourite for reasons far too many to be written.
10. End the trip with the most hip and happening party scene in the city at Clarke Quay
An erstwhile riverside festive village, Clarke Quay is a dreamy party square that comes alive every night, especially the weekends. Cramped with discotheques and pubs, Clarke Quay is undoubtedly one of the ‘it’ places in Singapore. The best part of Clarke Quay is that the place doesn’t limit itself to being just a party place – hop on to the boat and experience magical Singapore at its glittery best. And if you simply want to chill with your loved one, spend some quality time at the Singapore River bank.
Have you visited Singapore lately? Do you have any more places to add to this list? We’d love to hear from you!

domain: geography


Northeast High School's Caroline Schultz had some excellent company on hand Saturday morning to celebrate an award she was receiving for outstanding achievement.
Pro Football Hall of Famer Rod Woodson, a standout defensive back for the Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers, was on hand in Pasadena to recognize the accomplishments of the junior three-sport standout.
Schultz, accompanied by her parents and many family, friends, coaches and teachers, was recognized as a U.S. Army-Pro Football Hall of Fame Award for Excellence finalist at a ceremony at Northeast High School.
Schultz is a member of the Northeast field hockey, lacrosse and unified bowling teams as well as a...
San Francisco 49ers players take the field before the start of Super Bowl XLVII on Sunday at the Superdome in New Orleans.


LAS VEGAS, Nev. — It’s not every day you get to hop into a real-life transformer truck and show a Las Vegas audience how it’s done.
To be fair, it wasn’t the legendary Optimus Prime I had to transform from a Western Star 5700XE truck to the mechanical movie character, but nevertheless, when you climb your way into the 6900XD MBT-40, multi-body transformer, and are asked to remove the water tank attached to it and pick up and attach a combination flat/dump deck, it can put some out of their comfort zone a little bit.
Visiting the Western Star outdoor display during the World of Concrete show in Las Vegas Jan. 18, Mark Neale, account manager for Carco Industries gave me the full tour on the transformer truck, how it was made, what it can do and how a single operator can do it.
Carco’s role in the construction of the truck is to start with a bare chasses from Western Star and install and integrate the hydraulics, control system, installation of the Palfinger G68 hooklift, as well as other body upgrades to make the vehicle fully functional.
Neale said the Palfinger G68 is the currently the largest hooklift on the market, able to lift 68,000 lbs off the ground.
I used this hooklift to discard a Klein 8,000 gallon water tank, which was attached to the truck, and pick up and attach a J&J Truck Bodies’ general purpose combination deck/dump truck deck.
But we’ll get back to this in a moment.
“There’s a standardized format for the mounting,” Neale said. “So the long sills that you see in the front A-frame is built to a standard and you can attach almost any body that you want onto that.”
The 6900XD MBT-40 has two power take-off (PTO) packages: one mounted off the transmission that operates the hooklift portion and another that supplies the hydraulic power to the body.
“Because this thing here is like the Swiss Army knife of trucks, we need to be able to handle hydraulic and electrical requirements for anything from a huge side dump trailer to a water truck,” Neale explained. “We’ve set it up with an intelligent harnessing system so that when you plug the body in, the truck recognizes the body that’s on it.”
The goal of the transformer truck is simple: keep things as easy and uncomplicated as possible. During the design process, they wanted customers to be able to use the truck for several different applications with various attachments and operate based on what the body designer had engineered it to operate on.
“You’re not going to buy this package just to run a water truck,” Neale said. “You’re going to buy this if you’re going to use the water truck part of the year or part of the day, and you’re going to haul gravel with it.”
An example of keeping it simple? Depending on what attachment is on the truck, whether it be a water tank or dump truck, an overlay is placed on top of the switch box to indicate what action each performs.
But there is a lot to the transformer truck.
It boasts a Detroit Series 60 Tier 3 engine or a Detroit DD16, Allison 4700/4800off-road series transmission, 110,000 lbs planetary rear axle, 28,000 lbs planetary front axle and a front engine skid pan.
“The MBT-40 package is a game changer in construction applications for its ability to be multiple pieces of equipment in one chassis,” said John Tomlinson, XD and vocational sales manager for Western Star. “The development of this platform was all about finding better economic ways of filling needs for our customers. Off-road chassis equipment can be expensive to buy and maintain and new emissions levels are making the investment even more costly.”
Neale said there is also a fifth wheel option on the tractor, which can be bolted down to the frame and pull a 200,000-250,000 lbs trailer.
“You’ve got a really versatile and multi-purpose piece of equipment here,” said Neale. “What’s unique about this is that once you plug it in and once you connect it, you have a fully-operational truck. It goes from a professionally-functional water truck to a vacuum truck…so the truck is basic power source for the body…you don’t have to spend hours making connections or bolting things on.”
When it was my turn to get behind the wheel, I thought what I was getting was a demo on how the truck worked, but to my surprise, Neale let me take control and see how it worked first hand.
Dumping the water tank was easy. Push a few levers to move it from the attached position, down onto the ground and detach the Palfinger hooklift.
But then I had to move the truck forward and reverse into a tight enough spot that the Palfinger hook was placed right underneath the fastening bar of the dump attachment. All this without backing up too far that the hook smashed into the dump bin.
My first go, I was a little off, maybe a few inches…or feet, but who’s measuring?
So after a slight readjustment I got it positioned bang on and hooked that dump apparatus perfectly, lifted it up and put it in place on the back of the truck. Easy as that…from a water truck to a dump truck in what couldn’t have been more than few minutes…maybe 10, but again, who’s counting?
Neale said during testing, the average swap over time from a water truck to a dump truck was around 10 minutes, so let’s go with that. Transforming to a fifth wheel takes a bit longer, as the operator must bolt down the fifth wheel, which takes around another 10 minutes.
It’s a pretty impressive piece of machinery, I must say. If your humble narrator can make it look relatively easy, anyone can.
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Boligee is a tiny town located in the state of Alabama. With a population of 311 people and just one neighborhood, Boligee is the 364th largest community in Alabama.
Occupations and Workforce
Because occupations involving physical labor dominate the local economy, Boligee is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 36.13% of the Boligee workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 27.7%. Overall, Boligee is a town of service providers, production and manufacturing workers and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Boligee who work in sales jobs (12.04%), healthcare suport services (10.99%) and management occupations (9.42%).
Setting & Lifestyle
The overall crime rate in Boligee is one of the lowest in the US. This makes it one of the safer places to live in the country in terms of crime.
In Boligee, however, the average commute to work is quite long. On average, people spend 32.74 minutes each day getting to work, which is significantly higher than the national average.
Being a small town, Boligee does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.


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The above quote is often ascribed to the French satirist Voltaire, all the way back in the 18th Century. Whether or not he said it first, it was certainly in circulation by the time of George Bernard Shaw, who referenced it in Man and Superman… which means it also would have been known by the time Gilbert & Sullivan were hitting their stride.
What would W.S. Gilbert’s reaction have been to such a damning statement about his lucrative profession, crafting lyrics and librettos for musical theater? In my mind’s eye I see him considering for a moment, then shrugging, nodding, and toasting the notion with a shot of something appropriately alcoholic (he was a species of writer, after all).
I firmly believe that the first rule of making a successful musical is in realizing the inherent absurdity of the art form, and I think every successful lyricist and composer understands this. Once you’re past that, though, you can paradoxically craft some amazing shit that has the potential to move hearts and minds in a way simple prose or speech can’t match. There are so many aspects of the human condition that even the greatest writers have struggled to express. What is love? What is beauty? The answers to these questions can end up sounding… well, really, really stupid.
And then some clever bugger somewhere along the line realized, hey… let’s put some music and dance in with those words and let them all gel into something greater than any element would have been on its own. Mixed together in the right amounts, seasoned with the correct surroundings, there is storytelling magic to be made, a bridge of existential communication on a massive and undeniable bandwidth; I would go so far as to say humans realized this pretty early on if tribal ceremonies are anything to go by, and it might be weird to point to something like Chicago as the modern refinement of the concept, but there you are.
It’s no coincidence this piece comes on the heel’s of Erik’s from earlier this week. I particularly liked his thoughts on what makes a true movie musical, which I could go so far as to argue is the ultimate refinement of the form. Anyone can throw a bunch of random songs into a story, but it doesn’t make it a musical. A true musical, a well-crafted musical, is something where people talk until they just can’t express what they’re feeling properly anymore through speech alone– which is when they start singing and dancing, goddamit. They have no choice. It is the least stupid option.
Am I not making sense? Think about your average direct-to-video animated flick, where there’s that groanworthy moment the dialog drops away and you realize it’s time for a song. The only reason that song is there is because some checklist somewhere says it has to be, because that’s how these cartoons work, right? The Little Mermaid made soooo much money, after all, so all we’ve gotta do is throw in those ingredients and we’ve got magic.
Sure. The same way we dump sugar, batter, eggs and milk into a bowl, shove it into an oven and get a cake. Technically all the ingredients are there, but if there’s no care in the making, it’s going to turn out, at best, as a somewhat palatable mess.
It’s unfortunate that the musical is so often seen and treated as fluff, something any group of hacks could churn out where the pomp and spectacle can cover for bad writing. If anything, there should be more care taken with the creation and presentation of musicals–especially movie musicals. Erik was not wrong when he wrote that in a movie musical, the camera demands that the world around it exist. It’s not our world, because in our world people don’t tend to spontaneously burst into song and dance (flash mobs excepted), but it has to feel real in a way other movies can just gloss over. The inherent stupidity has to be embraced, emphasized–venerated. Control of the camera, of sound, of every movement and facial expression of the actors (and for that matter, the extras) become crucial things, where any slip-up is noticeable. On top of all that, a dynamite editor is going to be mandatory.
Look, even a stage musical requires incredible amounts of coordination. Taking that and adapting it to cinema? And doing it well? This is why Chicago deserved every bit of gold plating on its Oscars for Art Direction, Costume Design, Film Editing, Sound Mixing, and of course, Best Picture. Musical numbers like “Razzle Dazzle”, “Press Conference Rag” and “Mr. Cellophane” alone are mini-masterworks, and relish in their freedom from the confines of the stage, the camera cutting seamlessly between the reality of what’s happening and the fantasy that’s an even truer representation of what’s happening. In a way you could point to that as a wink on the genre, since a lot of the actual singing and dancing takes place on the “fantasy” level, while the talky bits cut back to the mundane.
Of course, it’s the mundanity of the musical, that meticulously crafted shared world of suspended disbelief, allowing for a uniquely sublime idiocy that keeps our conscious minds engaged while also slipping right by them to deliver a potent cocktail of flash, sound, and motion to the rest of us. In the best musicals, every aspect of that cocktail is helping and reinforcing the same message your forebrain is picking up.
That heady, crazy message the authors and directors and actors and everyone else involved wanted to convey.
The message too stupid to be said.
To see the post that got me started, check out Erik’s rumination on what makes a movie musical. Or for thoughts on a different artistic endeavor with superlative sensory potential, read David’s discussion on why restaurants fail.
Pingback: More About Musicals | The Satellite Show


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Thanks in part to Sunday’s Giants-Mets rainout and Monday’s subsequent doubleheader at Citi Field, the Marlins on Tuesday will get their first regular season look at Johan Santana since May 13, 2010.
Since the trade that sent him from the Twins to the Mets before the 2008 season, Santana has faced the Marlins seven times. He is 4-1 with a 1.44 ERA, 14 walks and 54 strikeouts in 50 innings. A two-time American League Cy Young winner and four-time All-Star, Santana never has failed to deliver a quality start against the Marlins. Three of the 11 runs he’s allowed against them were unearned.
Santana is coming off one of the worst outings of his career. Last week against the Braves, he gave up six earned runs in 1 1/3 innings. It does not appear that performance was shoulder-related. Santana missed all of 2011 after undergoing shoulder surgery. So far, Santana is 0-2 with a 3.97 ERA and has yet to complete more than five innings in any of his three starts.
This week’s pitching match-ups: Tuesday — Josh Johnson vs. Santana; Wednesday — Mark Buehrle vs. R.A. Dickey; Thursday — Ricky Nolasco vs. Jonathon Niese.


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In school, “popularity” is a slippery concept, with kids falling in and out of it for no apparent reason. The hierarchies of middle and high school can be as mystifying years later as they were at the time.
But researchers have been studying “popularity” in a systematic way for a while now, and one question they’ve dug into is to what degree the actions and customs of kids considered to be popular dictate what everyone else does. In other words, how much is the rest of the school trying to be like the popular kids? What researchers tend to find is that, yes, popular kids do shape the behavior of the broader student body—but only to a point.
Mitch Prinstein, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of North Carolina and the author of Popular: The Power of Likability in a Status-Obsessed World, is familiar with these dynamics. Research that he and others have done suggests that popular kids, predictably, have a good amount of influence over what Prinstein calls “relatively inconsequential things,” such as the music peers listen to and the clothes they wear. More consequentially, they also hold sway in the realms of sex, alcohol, and drugs. Their influence is not necessarily negative, though that is the stereotype: The powers of the popular crowd seem to work in service of beneficial behaviors too, like volunteering or helping classmates who are having a hard time. If the cool kids do it, others might do it too. “The popular kids aren’t always pushing people to do bad things,” Prinstein told me.
Popular kids, of course, are not the only groups that middle and high schoolers look to when deciding how to be and what to do—they also take cues from their parents, their friends, the media, and so on. Prinstein and his research collaborators looked at how much of an influence these various constituencies held, and, he said, “what we find is that the popular kids aren’t the strongest influencers—it’s actually, really interestingly, that kids’ own attitudes and behaviors tend to fall almost exactly in the middle of what their parents tell them to do and what their best friends tell them to do.” He says that when he gives lectures to crowds of parents, he’ll often tell them, “You’ve got 50 percent of influence to use every day.”
Close friends, then, seem to be a more powerful influence than popular kids. But one recently published study arrived at a finding that adds some nuance to this: The research, by Tim Malacarne, currently a visiting professor of data science and sociology at Mount Holyoke College, indicated that the behaviors of students at the center of a high-school social network were no more influential than those of a randomly chosen peer when it came to predicting how likely any given student was to drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes.
Malacarne, though, was using a different definition of popularity—one based on who was friends with the people who had the most friends—because the data set he was using didn’t record students’ subjective assessments of who in their grade was popular. His statistical model of popularity was an attempt to approximate those subjective assessments, though it more directly measures social connectedness than “coolness” or “popularity.”
Interestingly, Malacarne found that the habits of the most well-connected people in that model seemed not to have an outsize impact on what their peers did. Perhaps instead, as Malacarne speculates in the paper, “central individuals are influential, but as judges of behavior rather than models of it.” He also wonders, he told me, if his analytical method would detect different patterns when it comes to behaviors not accounted for in the data set he was working with—say, what clothes kids choose to wear.
But social connectedness is not necessarily the same thing as popularity, and Prinstein pointed out to me that it matters a lot how a researcher defines who’s popular. “Friendship reflects a close, dyadic relationship that includes companionship, emotional intimacy, et cetera,” he said. “Popularity is not a relationship-based construct—it is reputation-based. You can be very popular and have only a few people believe they are friends with you.”
Usually, the two main determinants of “reputation-based” popularity in high school, according to Prinstein, are aggressiveness (“unfortunately, in order to make [themselves] seem high on the totem pole, a lot of kids and adults sometimes try and belittle others”) and physical attractiveness. But he’s also found that a community’s own value system matters a lot. “In communities where it’s very religious, then maybe your parents’ level of status at the church, for instance, might be an important determinant [of popularity] … Whereas it might be the kid who is really high-achieving in a very academically oriented community,” he said.
Whatever definition one goes by, the social landscape of high school seems to matter well after graduation. Prinstein noted that even well into adulthood, the popular kids (in terms of “status and cool and everything”) are more likely to have relationship problems, struggle with addiction, and get fired from their jobs. Meanwhile, being “high in likability” in adolescence is tied to “a remarkable array of outcomes” later on, including higher pay and better health. “There are these completely opposite outcomes for the two types of popularity,” he said.
“I think that this is something that people don’t spend a lot of time talking about. Sometimes they even dismiss it as being just a superfluous adolescent thing, but it’s not,” Prinstein observed. “A lot of long-term studies have demonstrated pretty long-term effects that seemed to be related to how kids got along with their peers.” High school, in a sense, never really ends.

domain: psychology


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12 noviembre, 2023
When it comes to greatest board place usa, NYC is a metropolis that has a good number of beautiful meeting areas. From wonderful views to state-of-the-art technology, these www.boardroomphotos.com/the-most-unique-board-room-software/ spaces stop attendees within their tracks and inspire them to do great work. But you may be wondering what makes these types of venues so special? Exactly what are the top elements that start choosing the best convention rooms in NYC? Read on to find out.
Having an office honestly, that is well-equipped designed for meetings is very important. Whether you’re a little startup or perhaps an established firm, it’s essential to have a space that’s designed for collaboration and communication. This is sometimes a challenge, particularly when you’re limited on budget or have various other priorities. But you can nonetheless create a useful space by investing in the right household furniture and technology.
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domain: design


Brandywine wins second round match while Buchanan falls
Published 4:35 am Tuesday, October 12, 2004
By By ADAM FISHER / Niles Daily Star
Cassopolis made Brandywine's defense work in Monday night's second round game of the Lakeland Conference soccer tournament. Lucky for the Bobcats, their defense was up to the task.
Brandywine shut out the Rangers on its way to a 2-0 victory at home. The win advances the Bobcats to Thursday's fifth-place game against Berrien Springs, also at home.
In other tournament action, Buchanan fell 3-0 at Bridgman and Edwardsburg won 5-0 at home against River Valley. Bridgman will now play at Edwardsburg in the Lakeland Conference Championship game at 5 p.m. Thursday
Buchanan will take on River Valley at home in the third-place game. Cass plays at Coloma Thursday in the seventh-place game.
Two fast-break goals from Matt Wieger gave Brandywine all the scoring its would need, but it defense held the Rangers at bay as they threatened throughout the first half.
Cass spent the majority of the first half attacking. Most the half was played in the Bobcats' half of the field. But for their aggression, the Rangers had few shots on goal, thanks to Brandywine's stingy defense.
The Bobcats didn't have many scoring chances in the first half, but when they got them, they capitalized.
Wieger was the catalyst in Brandywine's offense, turning two long outlet passes into break away goals, the Bobcats' only scores of the game.
His first strike came at the 22:39 mark of the first half. Brandywine cleared the ball from its end by kicking it deep into the Rangers' field. As the ball bounced toward the penalty box, the Rangers slowed down because they expected the goalie to grab it.
Cass' goalie was slow to the ball, and Wieger beat the Rangers to the ball. When the goalie moved out to stop him, Wieger easily poked the ball by him.
Wieger's second goal with 8:29 left in the first half was almost identical. Only this time, Wieger beat the defense first and fielded a perfectly placed pass to beat the goalie.
McNamara said he was impressed with Wieger because of the way he scored. He didn't try too hard. Rather, he was patient in beating the goalie twice.
Wieger nearly pulled a hat-trick, missing a few feet wide on two shots in the second half.
Brandywine was more aggressive in the second half, keeping the ball in Cass' half of the field most the time.
Cass had a few near-scores, but Bobcat goal-keeper Jake Harris had two diving stops in the second half to save the shutout.
McNamara said his team played better than it had in the past few games, two straight losses. He'd still like to see his team pass better and play with more intensity on Thursday, he said.
In Edwardsburg, the Eddies took a 4-0 lead in the first 20 minutes of the match to cruise to victory. Doug Shuttleworth and Phillip Turner both scored twice to put the game out of reach in that period.
A goal by Josh Marschke with 11 minutes left to play sealed the victory for Edwardsburg.


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When I was part of a camera club and competing in international competitions, I used to gain photographic merits including letters after my name.
One particular set of letters relating to photography in Wales was the “AWPF” which was the Associateship of the Welsh Photographic Federation.
The WPF offers members the opportunity to challenge themselves to gain a photographic distinction called the A.W.P.F. or the Associateship of the Welsh Photographic Federation.
The distinction is assessed annually and is open to all members of all clubs that are themselves members of the W.P.F. or other federation by invitation.
I decided on a set of 12 photographs with flow and feeling to them and chose a subject from a recent trip to Poland which doesn’t need explanation due to the atrocities that went on there. I therefore chose Auschwitz and Birkenau as my topic and set out to create a panel with symmetry and flow.
Having attempted this before and failed, I attended a workshop and produced a small set of 60 prints to help me decide on my final 12 for presentation. I had three shortlisted panels but in the end decided on this layout:
There was nothing else I could do besides convert such a cold and bleak days photography of this awful place to black and white and present it in such a way for the viewer to get an appreciation of the sense of what went on before our time here.
Having read up on the application process, attended a workshop, printed and mounted all my own work, it was time for submission. I was unfortunately unable to attend on the day but two friends reported back after my panel was shown and it was a pass.
Being a Wales only type of accreditation, it was great that all my hard work paid off and my panel was accepted as a pass.
The full size photos are below for your viewing.


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The Utah High School Film Festival competition took place April 22. The day started off with an hour long introduction and presentation with filmmaker Garrett Batty, who made films such as Scout Camp, Freetown and The Saratov Approach. Workshops followed for foley, jimmy jib, After Effects/Premiere, DIY film gear, storytelling, etc. There’s something for every student interested in the media world at the festival, bringing professionalism to the high school arena.
The Utah High School Film Festival started twenty years ago. Its mission is to be a resource for students to showcase, network and receive important critiques for their work. The Film and Broadcast Coalition is a collaboration of film and broadcast that supports the UHSFF.
Videos were submitted in early April. By the time students made it to Salt Lake Community College, the judging had and went and, at the end of the day, Mountain View placed third in avant garde category.


COLUMBIA—How can a society solve its deepest problems if people can’t even discuss them in a civil manner?
Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory of Atlanta posed that difficult question to the audience at the 13th annual Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Lecture held Nov. 5 at the University of South Carolina. His topic, “Joseph Louis Bernardin: A Model for Civility in Public Discourse,” was especially relevant considering it was the eve of Election Day after a most contentious and negative election cycles.
Archbishop Gregory worked with Cardinal Bernardin in Chicago and received his episcopal ordination from him in 1983. He said the late cardinal always worked hard to practice civility, even when dealing with the most difficult church matters or societal issues ranging from nuclear war to poverty, the death penalty and abortion.
He said Cardinal Bernardin was always willing to listen to others and, more importantly, to treat people who disagreed with him with respect and Christian love. The archbishop said people today too often rush to demonize and denigrate anyone who disagrees with their particular point of view. The 24-hour news access, social media and the Internet also make it all too easy for people to only listen to views they agree with, and to instantly post negative comments or arguments without thinking them through, he said.
A lack of respect for those on the other side, in turn, breaks down not only the discussion but the fabric of society as a whole, he said.
“True consensus is about the moral issues that should be at the center of all laws,” he said. “We are a very diverse, pluralistic society, and the public consensus we need is not agreement on every law, but about the basic values we hold as people. And civility is the quality needed if we are to find common ground. Without a habit of civility, the depth of the problems we have can overcome any efforts to solve them … democracy and freedom guarantee disagreement. How we disagree is what civility is all about.”
Archbishop Gregory said civility is not something that comes naturally to every person, but it can be learned and cultivated, especially if people focus on the church’s teaching of the innate dignity of every person.
“Civility, like charity, is a virtue,” he said. “It does not come to us automatically. We have to work at it.”
He said Cardinal Bernardin believed people of faith and religious communities in general could play an important role in public discourse in the U.S. The challenge, Archbishop Gregory said, is for the faithful to act as an example for others and not allow disagreements over doctrine to erode the discussion.
“Religious communities should stand as models of civility when they enter the public arena,” he said. “Religion can deepen our sense of responsibility to the vulnerable, and the ways different religious communities engage each other can be a model for society in general.”


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SING WITH US
Register here to audition for the Gay Mens Chorus of South Florida.
Below is a list of upcoming audition dates:
Saturday, June 29, at 10:00 AM
Saturday, August 24, at 10:00 AM
Monday, August 26, at 7PM
YOU MAY REGISTER NOW
Auditions and rehearsals will take place at:
The Sunshine Cathedral
1480 SW 9th Avenue
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33315
If you are interested in auditioning, please REGISTER below. If you have other questions, email us at email@example.com or call us at 954-763-2266.
At the audition you will be asked to sing a familiar piece of music. You should also prepare a selection to perform. Bring the sheet music with you. You may also be asked to sight-read a little but being able to read music and sight-read is not a requirement for acceptance.
At the audition, you will also have a conversation with members of our leadership team. This will give you a feel for the culture of our organization and help to ensure you understand the commitment involved when joining our Chorus. This conversation is also intended to give you an opportunity to share your experience with us and to ask any remaining questions you may have.
Joining the GMCSF involves a serious commitment of energy and time:
- Members dues are $70 per concert cycle. One’s inability to pay should not be a deterrent to anyone who wishes to be part of the chorus. A scholarship fund has been established for those members who are not able to make dues payments.
- Rehearsals are each Tuesday from 7:15 PM to 10:00PM.
- There is a 75% rehearsal attendance requirement for members.
- In addition to the weekly rehearsals, we have monthly sectional rehearsals and an occasional full rehearsal on Saturday.
- There are also additional rehearsals the week of the shows where we work through lighting cues and get the chance to rehearse with the orchestral accompaniment.
- The music is challenging, and requires members to take time each week to practice on their own.
- We provide learning CDs so members can practice at home. These are especially useful for members who do not read music.
- Occasionally there may be opportunities to sing at venues around town other than our scheduled performances.


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- BiographyThis white male actor filmed in 1 video, having made his first appearance in The Luciano Endino Collection Vol. 1 around 2014. Richard has been favorited once by our members, and given an average rating of 2.9 out of 5 stars with 10 votes. Video content showing this actor was viewed 12,383 times, with over 0.3 Gigabytes of porno having been downloaded. Some other people who have co-starred next to Richard include, most notably, Vic Smalls, Fernando Nielsen, and Giovanni. His most often performed activities are Cum on Hands, Handjobs, Ass To Mouth, Blowjobs, and Anal Sex.
- Favorted1 times

domain: entertainment


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Women’s Voices supports a woman’s right to make her own decisions about her reproductive health.St. Louis aldermen say no to protest-free ‘buffer zones’ around health care facilitiesSt. Louis aldermen say no to protest-free ‘buffer zones’ around health care facilitiesSt. Louis aldermen say no to protest-free ‘buffer zones’ around health care facilities
Missouri abortion activists ramp up for a fight after Kavanaugh appointment to Supreme Court
October 13, 2018 – St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Planned Parenthood, the largest provider of abortions in the U.S., spelled out a nationwide plan Wednesday to respond to anticipated restrictions from the Supreme Court.
“This is a big moment,” said M’Evie Mead, director of policy and organizing for the Planned Parenthood Action Fund in Missouri. “We absolutely believe (Kavanaugh) will be reshaping the court to be hostile to women seeking reproductive care, and we’ve been preparing.”
Planned Parenthood’s plan calls for expanding services in states where abortion is likely to remain legal and accessible, with a special focus on Illinois, which the organization says stands apart in the “growing abortion desert of the Midwest.”
Planned Parenthood plans to aggressively expand services at all 17 of its Illinois health centers and will push the Legislature to add the right to abortion into state law.
U.S. appeals court says Missouri can enforce abortion laws
September 10, 2018
The Missouri laws require doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at local hospitals, which can be difficult to obtain, and for abortion clinics to have costly hospital-grade facilities to be licensed as ambulatory surgical centers…Planned Parenthood in a statement said the ruling threatens to shut down abortion services at one of Missouri’s two clinics that can provide it. Read the article about the decision here.
Read the St. Louis Post-Dispatch September 12, 2018 editorial about the decision and the erosion of abortion rights here.
Women’s Voices writes in Opposition to HHS Proposed Title X Compliance Rule
July 24 – sent to official comments at regulations.gov as attachment on Women’s Voices letterhead
Women’s Voices Raised for Social Justice supports the right of each individual to make decisions about their health care with their family and medical provider, and according to their own conscience. We are opposed to the administration’s most recent efforts to attack low- income access to comprehensive health care through the proposed Title X domestic “gag rule” that would prohibit Title X medical providers from discussing safe, legal abortion with their patients.
The proposed rule attempts to control a woman’s behavior by limiting the information she receives and forcing her into a decision that may not be right for her situation and circumstance. The result of which would mean denying critical health care services — such as contraception, breast cancer screenings and HIV and AIDS treatment and prevention — and meaningful health care choices for over 4 million low-income Americans who receive their care through Title X clinics.
Additionally, the proposed rule flies in the face of unencumbered access to accurate information. This proposed measure would all but destroy the federal Title X program, which has helped millions of Americans for almost 50 years to pave the way for untested, unproven organizations — hostile to providing women with the full range of information they deserve — to profit by providing less information and fewer health care options to those in need.
Lastly, the proposed rule contributes to a culture of stigma and shame around abortion — a standard and safe medical procedure that a quarter of all women will seek out in their lifetimes — as well as reproductive health care in general. No one should interfere with or judge a woman’s conscience-based decision to obtain birth control or preventive care from Planned Parenthood or other clinics as well as referrals for safe, legal abortion; or to have full and accurate information about her medical options.
HHS must stop undermining access to comprehensive health care, and instead return to its mission of promoting the health and well-being of all Americans. I urge you to withdraw this proposed rule.
Thank you for considering these comments.
(Thanks to the National Council for Jewish Women for providing this important information.)
Supreme Court Rules In Favor of Fake Women’s Health Centers
June 26, 2018
Allison Hile, the Women’s Voices reproductive rights liaison to our Advocacy Committee, says, “The highest court in the land has allowed anti-abortion pregnancy centers (with non-medical staff who often dress in medical garb) to continue lying to women about their safety and availability of care.” Women’s Voices is extremely disappointed in the ruling and “stands with Planned Parenthood”.
Dawn Laguens, Executive Vice President Planned Parenthood Federation of America says: “Let’s be clear — fake women’s health centers are deceptive and harmful to women, full stop. Nothing in this decision suggests otherwise. Fake women’s health centers are lying to women, withholding medical information, and creating barriers to health care. Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. Rest assured, we will continue fighting for every person’s right to access high-quality care and accurate information, despite this disappointing decision. This decision, one in a series of 5-4 decisions, underscores the need for lawmakers to confirm fair-minded justices to the federal bench.” You can read the full Planned Parenthood statement here.
Planned Parenthood facing two new threats to ability to serve patients.
First, the Trump Administration released their proposal to block Title X funding from any health care provider who provides or even makes a referral for abortion. This strategy is sometimes called the “Gag Rule” because it limits what health care providers may tell their patients. More specifically, this rule would:
- Make it impossible for patients to get birth control or preventive care from reproductive health care providers like Planned Parenthood.
- Prevent doctors, nurses, hospitals, and community health centers across the country from providing accurate information about abortion.
Second, the Missouri Legislature passed a budget measure designed to block patients accessing services through public programs like Medicaid from receiving those services from Planned Parenthood.
Both these threats, often misleadingly referred to as “defunding” Planned Parenthood, mean patients who depend on Planned Parenthood will lose access to critical family planning services, including birth control, Pap tests, STD testing and more.
Talking Points – “Gag Rule”
- Title X funded more than 3,400 patients’ care at Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri in 2017.
- Everyone, regardless of their race, income, or where they live, deserves the best medical care and information available. Under this rule, they won’t get it.
- The result of this rule is that people will not get birth control, cancer screenings, STD testing and treatment, or even general women’s health exams.
- Groups whose focus is healthcare, not politics, like the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the American College of Physicians and others, oppose this rule.
- The US is at a 30-year low for unintended pregnancy, and a historic low for pregnancy among teenagers. Now is not the time to abandon that progress
Talking Points – Missouri Medicaid Exclusion
- More than 7,000 Medicaid patients in Missouri count on Planned Parenthood for preventive care.
- Despite what politicians have said, safety net health care providers in Missouri cannot absorb the patients of Planned Parenthood.70% of non-Planned Parenthood providers do not offer long-acting reversible birth control methods like intrauterine devices (IUDs), and 41% of non-Planned Parenthood providers don’t even offer birth control and Pap tests.
- Prohibiting patients from using their Medicaid doesn’t improve health outcomes and discriminates against Missourians’ who choose Planned Parenthood for health care.
St. Louis aldermen say no to protest-free ‘buffer zones’ around health care facilities
April 16, 2018
A controversial proposal to ban protesters within an 8-foot radius of a health care facility’s driveway was defeated Monday by the St. Louis Board of Aldermen on a 9-15 vote on the last day of session. Read more here
Supreme Court Hears Case Regarding “Crisis Centers”
March 20, 2018 – The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments Tuesday in a case that pits the right to know against the right of free speech.
On one side are self-identified “crisis pregnancy centers” that seek to prevent abortions, and on the other side is the state of California, which enacted a law to ensure that these centers do not intentionally or unintentionally mislead the women who walk through their doors.
MO New Abortion Law Takes Effect
A Jackson County judge on Monday denied a motion made by Planned Parenthood affiliates and the ACLU of Missouri that would’ve stopped implementation of a provision in Missouri’s newest abortion law.
On Oct. 10, the ACLU of Missouri and two Planned Parenthood affiliates sued the state to block implementation of a provision in Senate Bill 5, approved by lawmakers during an abortion-focused special session over the summer. Read more
U.S. House of Representative Passes 20-Week Abortion Ban Bill
October 3, 2017 The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act bans abortion procedures after 20 weeks of gestation, except in cases of rape, incest, or danger to the mother’s life. Those who attempt or perform an abortion could face a fine and up to five years in prison. read more
Missouri hospitals forgo family planning funds as abortion rule goes into effect
“At issue is a $10.8 million portion of the state’s Medicaid program, which covers pelvic exams, tests for sexually transmitted diseases and family planning services for about 70,000 low-income Missouri women. To prevent violating a federal law that says Medicaid patients must be allowed to choose their own provider, the state is rejecting about $8.3 million annually in federal funds, and paying the difference with money from the state.”
“The MHA is counseling its members to not submit claims to the program after providing an abortion, regardless of the circumstances.” read more here
HBO Film Focuses on Abortion Restrictions in MO
(CNN)“Abortion: Stories Women Tell” is HBO’s latest advocacy-oriented documentary, chronicling the impact of Missouri abortion restrictions on those forced to cross the Illinois border to seek procedures. Spare and sober, it’s a solid look at how raw the issue remains, though given how entrenched opinions are, it’s unlikely to change many hearts or minds. Click here to stream the film