text:
I have no idea why I am feeling compelled to put this up here, except that it is what I have been writing instead of blogging. Not that I've been spending the actual minutes writing it, because I limited the writing time carefully, but it is where the mental energy that would usually produce a blog post has been going for the last couple of weeks. The hours when I'd usually be thinking about something I have read and getting worked up enough to write about it have gone to thinking about how to finish this teaching philosophy statement.
It starts here —
Learning can be hard, it can be exhilarating, it can be scary, and it can be transformative changing the way the learner understands the world. The most meaningful experiences I have had in my education, as both a teacher and a student, have happened when a new thought, a new idea or a new understanding has that transformative effect.
…human learning presupposes a specific social nature and a process by which
children grow into the intellectual life of those around them.
(Lev Vygotsky, Mind and Society)
Teaching college-level research inherently means teaching students that research and learning are social processes. Scholars do their research and communicate their findings according to practices and conventions defined by disciplinary communities and practice networks. Teaching information literacy works best when the learning students do is grounded in these larger conversations. This means the most effective teaching happens when I am working closely with faculty, to connect the research activities students do to the broader learning going on in the class. For example, in Oregon State University's beginning composition classes students engage in information literacy activities throughout the term, that connect information literacy skills to every stage of the writing process.
I believe that the best learning is a personal act of meaning-making where new information is integrated with existing mental models to create new knowledge. Within this context, information literacy is not an end in itself. Instead, it is the thing that gives students the cognitive capacity make that meaning for themselves. As such, I believe that the best way I can teach students about information literacy is to introduce them to the necessary concepts, skills and ideas in an environment and context where they can immediately apply them within a larger process of learning and meaning-making.
While the meaning we make out of new ideas and information is deeply personal, the learning that supports that meaning-making is still social and collaborative. My own ideas about teaching and learning have been strongly influenced by constructivist philosopher Lev Vygotsky, who frequently focuses on this connection. Vygotsky's work emphasizes the interplay between teacher and student. His description of learning as that which we can do with help, reflects the teacher's expertise and body of experience without devaluing the knowledge, understanding and body of experiences the student brings to the process. This is an especially useful and important way to think about learning for me, as an academic librarian. My teaching is most effective when my knowledge and expertise about the research process combines with the student's own expertise and experience with their topic area.
Liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not transferals of information.
(Paolo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed)
When that connection happens, between teacher and student, we are both engaged in the learning process. I believe that one of my most important responsibilities as a teacher is creating an environment where that kind of learning can happen.
As a teaching librarian, I think one of the most important things I can do is to model an appreciative, curious, recursive research process. Scholars do not know all of the answers in advance when they do their research; the research projects that result in deep learning are frequently those where no easy answer exists to find. It is in the process of constructing an answer out of the information that is out there, a process that is often messy and chaotic, that that deep learning happens. I have come to believe that avoiding that messiness and chaos when I am teaching does my students a disservice. Instead, using my time with the students to show them how to navigate the research process, to troubleshoot when problems arise, and to keep their minds open enough to recognize opportunities when they find them is a more effective, though stressful, way for me to teach.
This includes strategies as simple as using new, untested topics to demonstrate research strategies, trying keywords without knowing what they will find. It includes developing activities that focus on broad exploration, and teaching students how to browse a topic before searching for specific sources. For example, in OSU's advanced composition class the students and I spend half of our class session browsing obviously biased online news and commentary sites before switching our focus to published sources.
This also includes an emphasis in the classroom on active learning activities that allow students to connect new skills and concepts introduced in class to their own topics of inquiry. It is when the idea or skill I have just demonstrated works to further their knowledge of their topic that they learn it best. Building in time for them to make and reflect on those connections is crucial.
One of the biggest challenges I face as a teaching librarian is that most of the direct contact I have with students happens in the context of a single-shot, guest lecture appearance in someone else's class. It can be very difficult to push beyond the idea of teaching as an act of transferal in that context, because students frequently make the crucial connections between your teaching and their learning after they leave that guest-lecture session. After several years in this environment, I still feel that I have not mastered this type of teaching.
The big deal is, that it's part of my job to make sure that you don't grow up stupid
…it's bad for the world.
(Tami Taylor, Friday Night Lights)
I will continue to work on becoming effective within that one-shot context, and developing new ways to teach beyond that context because I believe that what I teach, what we teach as academic librarians, is important. It's good for the world. Information literate learners can take control of their own learning, and continue learning throughout their lives.
Students who understand what evidence is, and how other people use it to further particular agendas are powerful. Students who can find, understand, evaluate and use evidence themselves are even more powerful. When people graduate from college without those skills and without mastering those concepts, it's bad for the world. As a teaching librarian I get to focus my time and energy on helping students develop their power, and making the world a better place.
and ends here.
So there it is. For all I like reflecting on stuff, I find this kind of writing excruciatingly mentally difficult, and have to strictly limit how much time I give it.
In the end, the only way I could was to focus on a few of the things that have really sparked me to think about teaching in ways that have stuck with me – even the quotation from Mrs. Coach on Friday Night Lights (which I agonized about because the word "stupid" seemed too unlike me to put in a teaching philosophy statement because I would never say that. But Tami Taylor would so I couldn't change it either, and there's no room in said statement to explain the context where it is not about that, but actually is exactly about what I wanted it to be about.
And of course it's not finished. That's why this kind of writing is so difficult for me. I never feel happy with it, and it never feels done. I suspect that is the main reason I feel compelled to post it – because sharing it takes it out of my head.


text:
Testimony of Gen. George Cadwallader
Report on the Conduct of the War, Vol. 2, pp. 235-241
WASHINGTON, March 19, 1862.
General GEORGE CADWALADER sworn and examined.
By the chairman:
Question. What has been your rank and position in the army?
Answer. I hold a commission of brigadier general in the State of Pennsylvania, under which, upon the call of the President last spring, I came into the service for three months. I also held a commission as major general by brevet in the army of the United States, conferred upon me after my commission as brigadier general had terminated. I state that, as it is considered material by General Scott.
Question. When did you commence service last year, and where did you serve?
Answer. I was mustered into service on the 19th of April, 1861, for three months.
Question. Under General Patterson?
Answer. Not at that time. I was assigned to the command of the department of Annapolis, my headquarters being at Baltimore. I succeeded General Butler in that command. I subsequently joined General Patterson's column, where I commanded the first division of the column, consisting of the three brigades then commanded by General Williams, Colonel Thomas, and Colonel Miles.
Question. Did you accompany General Patterson in that campaign until he returned?
Answer. I joined him at Chambersburg, and remained with him until the army returned to Harper's Ferry.
Question. What was his force at Martinsburg, Virginia?
Answer. My official position only gave me official knowledge of my own division, and perhaps I can only give an estimate.
Question. Give your estimate, according to the best light you had upon the subject.
Answer. I should say, according to the general knowledge I had, that he had from 18,000 to 22,000 men; perhaps from 18,000 to 20,000 men for duty.
Question. What was the object of that expedition, as you understood it?
Answer. I never was informed there, and never was officially consulted in regard to it by General Patterson. General Scott told me when I left here, and I also knew from the Secretary of War and the President, that the object was to drive General Johnston and the rebel force under him out of Harper's Ferry. That was the object for which I went there, and I expected to be relieved and to return here the moment that was accomplished. I was so promised by the Secretary of War, but it was not done.
Question. General Patterson followed General Johnston from Harper's Ferry for a while, did he not?
Answer. My division, as a part of General Patterson's column, was in the advance. I crossed the Potomac from Williamsport; and when Johnston retreated as we advanced upon Harper's Ferry, we went down as far as Falling Waters, on the Virginia side. I was there met with an order to send to Washington all the regular troops—they were all under my command— as it was thought that Johnston had fallen back to re-enforce Beauregard, and that Washington was in danger. All the regular troops being ordered to Washington, and the object of dislodging the enemy from Harper's Ferry having been accomplished, General Patterson was compelled, or rather induced, to give me the order to fall back. I was then on the way to Martinsburg, and had got as far as Falling Waters, some miles on the other side of the Potomac. General Patterson was still at Hagerstown. A great misfortune, by the by, was that recall.
Question. Did you accompany his army into Virginia?
Answer. Yes, sir; I remained with the army until we went on up to Martinsburg, and on to Bunker Hill, which is ten miles from Winchester.
Question. What was Johnston's force at Falling Waters, as near as yon could estimate it?
Answer. My information was so uncertain, so vague, that I never had any very definite idea upon the subject.
Question. He retreated before you after the battle of Falling Waters, did he not?
Answer. Yes, sir. He fell back first upon Bunker Hill, and then upon Winchester, which is due south about ten miles from Bunker Hill.
Question. Your position at Bunker Hill threatened Winchester, did it not?
Answer. Yes, sir.
Question. Do you know the orders General Patterson received from headquarters here?
Answer. I know now; I did not know then. When I returned here General Scott expressed great astonishment that I had been kept in ignorance of everything of that kind, and directed Colonel Townsend, his adjutant general, to furnish me with copies of everything that had passed between him and General Patterson.
Question. When Patterson was at Bunker Hill with his army, was there any difficulty in his detaining Johnston in the valley of Winchester, and preventing his going down to join Beauregard?
Answer. I always considered our position a false one from the time that Johnston retreated from Bunker Hill. I could see that no movement we could make from there could accomplish the purpose of holding Johnston at Winchester one moment longer than he chose to stay. To the south of him he had the whole country open, while we were directly north of him. I always thought we should have moved more in a southeasterly direction, where we could have been more within supporting distance of a column moving from here, and also in a position more threatening upon Johnston's right flank—our left upon his right. On the only occasion I ever was consulted, which was at Martinsburg, where the commanding officers of divisions and brigades, and the officers of the engineer corps on duty with our column, were summoned together by General Patterson, I expressed my opinion that, as we were not holding Johnston at Winchester one moment longer than he chose to stay there, we ought to attack him, and move in this direction at once, and unite with the forces that we supposed were about to attack Manassas. That was the advice I gave before all the officers present.
By Mr. Wright:
Question. When did you advise that?
Answer. It was within two days before we left Martinsburg for Bunker Hill. It was at the only meeting of the officers that was held during the campaign. It was a large meeting, and all the principal officers and the engineer officers were present.
By the chairman:
Question. What was the reason given for not attacking Johnston?
Answer. General Patterson gave no reason. He summoned these officers, myself among others, and asked our opinion as to what, under existing circumstances, we would advise being done. And, according to military usage, beginning with the junior in rank, it came to me last. Major General Sanford, of New York, and Major General Keim, of Pennsylvania, among others, were there. I at last gave my opinion, stated it briefly, as I have stated it here. We were not holding Johnston, because, as we were ten miles north of him, he could leave whenever he chose. He could get information much more rapidly from Beauregard than we could get it from Washington, and he knew exactly what the movements over in this direction were. If the intention was to hold Johnston there, we were not accomplishing the purpose; and we could not do it where we then were.
Question. Would it not have been easy to have placed yourself in a position where you could have done so?
Answer. Certainly. If we had moved upon Berryville and got upon his right flank, and he could not have moved one foot without our being upon his flank, we could have been at Manassas sooner than he could, and could have attacked him at any moment. Some of the officers thought that, as our army moved from here under General McDowell, Beauregard might retreat, falling back upon the whole of Patterson's army, General Johnston uniting with him for that purpose. It was the opinion of two or three of the officers that Johnston might advance and cut us off while Beauregard came with his whole army upon Patterson's column.
Question. Suppose that Patterson had orders from General Scott to hold Johnston in the valley of Winchester?
Answer. Which, I say, he could not have done without attacking him.
Question. Then, with such orders, he should have attacked him ?
Answer. That was what I thought; either to have attacked him or to have come down here, as we were doing no good there.
Question. You were at Bunker Hill when Johnston turned off to Charlestown?
Answer. Yes, sir; my division was in the advance from Bunker Hill in the direction of Winchester; and I marched with that column from Bunker Hill to Charlestown through Smithfield.
Question If you threatened Winchester while at Bunker Hill, did you not relinquish your threatening attitude when you turned off towards Charlestown ?
Answer. Of course, for we then went away from Winchester.
Question. So, from the time you turned off from Bunker Hill to Charlestown, all hope of detaining Johnston must have entirely vanished ?
Answer. Certainly; we were marching.away from him. In other words, we were on our way to Harper's Ferry through Charlestown.
Question. Do you know whether General Patterson, when he resigned all hope of detaining Johnston, immediately informed General Scott of that fact?
Answer. I never was consulted about any such thing. Until I came back here I never saw a line from General Scott to General Patterson, or from General Patterson to General Scott. When I so informed General Scott he expressed great dissatisfaction, saying, "General Patterson knew that my communications to him were intended as much for you as for himself." And it was then that he turned to Colonel Townsend and ordered him to make out and furnish to me copies of everything that had passed between General Patterson and himself.
Question. Is there anything more that you deem material which you would like to state? If so, please go on and state it in your own way.
Answer. I have no desire, nor do I know that there is anything of public utility for me to state, other than I have already stated. There are matters personal to myself; that, of course, I have no right to bring before this committee.
Question. You can state anything that you think best. We are endeavoring to find out how this war has been conducted, and you can state anything in that connexion that is material for us to know.
Answer. I should like to state some things on my own account; and they are historical, too, so far as anybody may deem them of public importance. You asked me what my rank and position in the army were. When I was in command at Baltimore I was sent for by General Scott to come here. General Cameron was at General Scott's headquarters, and General Scott handed me my commission as major general by brevet in the army, saying, "That commission of General Cadwalader's as a major general of the army is a perfectly valid one at this time." The question was whether I should rank as major general with General Patterson, and whether I was to be assigned to duty under my major general's commission. Upon that General Cameron promised to assign me to duty under my brevet commission as a major general. He offered me a commission as major general of volunteers, or a commission of brigadier general in the regular service, which was what I had held during the Mexican war. I accepted the commission of brigadier general in the regular service, with the promise of the President, through the Secretary of War, that I was to be assigned to duty under my commission as major general by brevet, with the promise of promotion as major general, when they heard from General Fremont, which they expected to do in two weeks; under the expectation and with the conviction, as they told me, that he would decline the commission tendered to him. With that promise I took the commission of brigadier general, with the understanding that I was to be assigned to duty under my commission as major general by brevet, in preference to the commission of major general of volunteers.
Question. When was that?
Answer. That was the 8th of June. I addressed a letter to the Secretary of War before I left here, reminding him of the promise so as to avoid all mistakes, and which he perfectly remembers. General Fremont, unexpectedly to them, returned and accepted the commission offered him, which prevented their being able to give me that. For some reason General McClellan was brought here, and had I been commissioned major general, I would have ranked him. That prevented their being able to do one thing or the other. In the mean time they made major generals of volunteers, whom I would have ranked, that ranked me. They could not comply with their promise to me, and I went home, as they did not want me. That was the military position I occupied, and those are the reasons I am not now in service.
Question. You say they were convinced that General Fremont would decline. Upon what did they found that conviction?
Answer. I do not know. That was what General Cameron told me.
By Mr. Gooch :
Question. Did they desire that General Fremont should decline?
Answer. That I do not know; I merely tell you what passed. They told me that I was to have that commission; that they knew he would decline. That was the offer to me. I certainly would not otherwise have accepted the commission of brigadier general in the regular army, when I had the commission offered me of a major general in the volunteers. My commission of major general by brevet dates back to 1847, and ranks all except General Wool. They were unable to do what they had promised. They had appointed as major generals of volunteers General Banks, General Butler, General Dix, &c., and to come in then would have placed me very differently from what their own proposition was. I had not asked for that; they had sent for me and asked me to take it. I considered it a very complimentary and a very handsome thing; but, as I have said, they were unable to give it to me, for it interfered with other places. I told the President that if it deranged any of their plans, I was perfectly willing to exonerate him from any promise; if the interest of the service required it, I was perfectly willing and ready to serve; and it was not my fault that I went home.
Question. To come back to the other subject. You have not stated yet what you supposed Johnston's force at Winchester to be.
Answer. I desire my remark about his force at Falling Waters to apply to his force at Winchester. I had no reliable information upon which to base an opinion.
By the chairman:
Question. Had you any reason to believe that Johnston's army was materially increased after he reached Winchester?
Answer. By general rumor it was said to have been greatly increased.
Question. From where was it supposed the troops came?
Answer. From the south; we did not know from where.
Question. From Manassas?
Answer. We did not know. It was just the sort of rumor that would be current among the people of the country, entirely unreliable.
By Mr. Gooch :
Question. Have you ever made any written statement of the force under Johnston at Winchester? If so, please state when and under what circumstances you did so.
Answer. I never made any official statement of any kind of the forces under Johnston at Winchester, having no knowledge of my own in regard to it. After many of our regiments had started on their march home, their term of service having expired while we were at Harper's Ferry, a Mr. McDaniel, a civilian, came to me on the 23d of July, with a statement of some information which he said he had obtained in regard to the force under Johnston, at Winchester. I asked him to let me copy it, which I did as he read it to me. I put no date to it, merely writing down what he read. I was about leaving, but before I went I showed it to General Patterson, as something that might be of interest to him. I did not give it as information obtained by myself, or express any opinion in regard to its reliability, giving it merely as information which McDaniel said he had obtained—not as information of my own. General Patterson asked me to allow him to take a copy of it, promising to return me the original. He, however, did not return me the original, but sent me a copy of it.
By the chairman :
Question. Did you attach any importance to the paper as containing reliable information?
Answer. Not the slightest; and if I had, it could not have influenced General Patterson in what he had done, for he had got back to Harper's Ferry, and the troops had crossed the river on their way home, before either of us knew anything about this.
By Mr. Gooch:
Question. When you were at Bunker Hill, if it had been known that General McDowell was about to attack Manassas, and that it was expected that the army under General Patterson would detain Johnston so as to prevent his forming a junction with Beauregard and taking part in the action at Manassas, what should have been done by Patterson's army to have accomplished that object?
Answer. I do not think he could have detained him in any other way than by attacking him. He could have prevented his taking the route by which he did go to Manassas, by taking up a position on his right flank, that is, to the eastward of Winchester. Johnston, however, would have had open to him the route by the way of Strasburg, which was the one they had always received and sent troops by. The way he actually did go was east, over the mountains to Piedmont, Strasburg lying west of south of him. If we had not attacked him, but had taken a position to the east of Winchester, Johnston could have gone by the way of Strasburg, but could not have gone the way he did go, over the mountains to Piedmont. Believing that we were not holding him where we then were, and that the object of any such instructions or suggestions, if any such existed, as I subsequently learned they did exist, could not be accomplished except by attacking Johnston, I advised that we should attack him, or if that was not done, that we should unite with the main body of our troops here in the attack upon Manassas. The expression used by General Scott, in one of his letters to General Patterson, which I saw afterwards, was "to consider the route by the way of Leesburg." It is true that in the telegrams that came from General Scott it was indicated that General Patterson was to hold General Johnston if he did not attack him. But there was no possibility of holding him if we did not attack. To use General Johnston's own expression in his report, he was merely waiting there looking at us.
By the chairman:
Question. Then if he was to hold him, and attacking him was the only way to hold him, it meant that he should attack him?
Answer. Attack him or consider the route by way of Leesburg.
By Mr. Gooch:
Question. Could Patterson have come down that route in time to have taken part in the battle here?
Answer. Yes, sir; if he had moved on Berryville, we would have been on Johnston's flank all the way.
Question. And you could have reached Manassas before Johnston could?
Answer. Certainly, if we had moved in time. According to McDaniel's memorandum, Johnston started from Winchester at one o'clock on the day we left Bunker Hill. It was more with a view to the time when Johnston started than for any other purpose that I showed that memorandum to General Patterson. We started from Bunker Hill at daylight, and if you take the official report of Johnston, recently published, you will see that on that very day he got his instructions to go to Manassas, and that at one o'clock on the day we left Bunker Hill for Charlestown, Johnston left Winchester for Manassas.
Question. And you should have gone from Bunker Hill to Berryville, so as to have prevented Johnston from going to Manassas by the route he did go?
Answer. If we had done that, we could have gone to Manassas also. We had but 10 miles further than Johnston to go if we had gone by the way of Winchester; and we had not much further to go if we had gone by the way of Berryville, for we were almost as near Berryville as he was.
Question. So that you could have prevented his going the route he did?
Answer. We could have attacked him, which I think would have prevented him. I think he knew that, because he would not fight us in the open ground. He showed that his object was to elude us, according to his own expression.
By the chairman:
Question. And General Scott's idea was to detain him by fighting or in any other way?
Answer. Yes, sir.
By Mr. Gooch:
Question. Then Johnston could have been prevented from forming a junction with Beauregard, and the force under Patterson might have been ready to have taken part in the attack upon Manassas?
Answer. We might have attacked Johnston, and if we had been successful, which I think we would have been, we could have prevented the junction. And if we did not attack him, if we had marched in due time, we could certainly have been at Manassas in time to have taken part in the battle. The way was open to us, and the suggestion of General Scott was "to consider the route by way of Leesburg." If I had had any discretion, I should have gone at once to Leesburg, which was half-way to Manassas, and on a good turnpike road directly there.
Question. Will you furnish the committee with the copies of the telegraphic despatches you received from General Scott?
Answer. I will.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Dr. Doom Has Some Good News
Nouriel Roubini, the New York University economist who accurately forecast the bursting of the housing bubble and the resulting economic contraction, has become famous for his pessimism—he has been the gloomiest of the doomsayers. Which is what makes his current outlook surprising: Roubini believes that the Obama administration's policy makers—and especially the much-maligned Tim Geithner—have gotten a lot right. Pitfalls may still abound, but he is now projecting an end to the recession, and he sees growth ahead.
Image: Bruce Gilden/Magnum Photos
On March 28, 2007, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke appeared before the congressional Joint Economic Committee to discuss trends in the U.S. economy. Everyone was concerned about the "substantial correction in the housing market," he noted in his prepared remarks. Fortunately, "the impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the subprime market seems likely to be contained." Better still, "the weakness in housing and in some parts of manufacturing does not appear to have spilled over to any significant extent to other sectors of the economy." On that day, the Dow Jones industrial average was above 12,000, the S&P 500 was above 1,400, and the U.S. unemployment rate was 4.4 percent.
That assurance looks bad in retrospect, as do many of Bernanke's claims through the rest of the year: that the real-estate crisis was working itself out and that its problems would likely remain "niche" issues. If experts can be this wrong—within two years, unemployment had nearly doubled, and financial markets had lost roughly half their value—what good is their expertise? And of course it wasn't just Bernanke, though presumably he had the most authoritative data to draw on. Through the markets' rise to their peak late in 2007 and for many months into their precipitous fall, the dominant voices from the government, financial journalism, and the business and financial establishment under- rather than overplayed the scope of the current disaster.
With the celebrated exception of Nouriel Roubini, an economist from the Stern School of Business of New York University. At just the time Bernanke was testifying about the "contained" real-estate problem, Roubini was publishing a paper arguing that the depressed housing market was nowhere near its bottom, that its contraction would be the worst in many decades, and that its effects would likely hurt every part of the economy. In September 2006, with markets everywhere still on the rise, he told a seminar at the International Monetary Fund's headquarters that the U.S. consumer was just about to "burn out," and that this would mean a U.S. recession followed by a global "hard landing." An economist who delivered a response dismissed this as "forecasting by analogy." The IMF's in-house newsletter covered Roubini's talk as a curiosity, under the headline "Meet Dr. Doom."
Roubini is thus enjoying his moment as the Man Who Was Right, a position no one occupies forever but which he is entitled to for now. As markets have collapsed, the demand for his views and predictions has soared. He travels constantly, and late this spring I met him in Hong Kong to ask what he was worried about next.
Roubini, who is 50, has a tousled look, from his curly black hair to his rumpled clothing. The initial impression he gave was of total physical exhaustion. When he spoke, at mid-afternoon in Hong Kong, he would scrunch his eyes closed tight, as if forcing himself awake, and shove his suit jacket sleeves and shirt sleeves high up from his wrists to his forearms in the same effort.
You often see this paralyzing fatigue in people who've recently made the flight to Asia. What was unusual in Roubini's case is that even with eyes closed he kept emitting high-speed and complex answers, which proved on transcription to consist of well-formed sentences and logical sequences. They were delivered in an accent that is what you might imagine from someone who spent his first 20-plus years in Turkey, Iran, Israel, and Italy before going to the United States as a graduate student at Harvard. In a few cases, I later realized, the polish of his responses was because he was reciting passages from papers he had written, as if from an invisible teleprompter. But mostly he seemed to be drawing on data points and implications that were so much on his mind they could be processed and expressed even when the rest of him was spent.
The conversation was surprising in three ways: for the relatively high grades Roubini gave Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, generally the least-praised member of the Obama economic team; for the overall support (with one significant exception) he expressed for the administration's response to the economic crisis; and for his willingness to look far enough beyond today's disaster to speculate about the problems a recovery might bring. He was also full of advice about China's reaction to the world financial crisis, including the suggestion that its options are narrower than its leaders may grasp.
Roubini's compliments for Geithner were in the context of the intellectual and policy history of how the crash had developed and why its effects have been so severe. The dot-com and larger tech-industry crash of 2000 eliminated a tremendous amount of stock-market wealth. During the panicky sell-off of 1987, nearly a quarter of the New York Stock Exchange's total value was lost in one day. By comparison, defaults on subprime mortgages would seem more limited in their capacity to harm the economy. Why, then, had so much gone so deeply wrong?
Roubini said that the difference was partly "debt versus equity." That is, a loss of stock-market value is damaging, but defaults on loans, which put banks themselves in trouble, had a "multiplier" effect: "When there's a credit crunch, for every dollar of capital the financial institution loses, the contraction of credit has to be 10 times bigger." This was the process at work last fall, when banks that were concerned about their own survival cut off working capital to everyone else.
The more important difference between this crash and others, Roubini said, was that the speculative bubble involved so much more of the economy than the term "subprime" could suggest. "It was subprime, it was near-prime, it was prime mortgages," he said, warming up to rattle off a long list. "It was home-equity-loan lines. It was commercial real estate, it was credit cards, it was auto loans." The list was just getting started, and he used it to emphasize that almost every form of borrowing had been taken beyond reasonable limits, and that most forms of asset had been bid unreasonably high. And not just in the United States: "People talk about the American subprime problem, but there were housing bubbles in the U.K., in Spain, in Ireland, in Iceland, in a large part of emerging Europe, like the Baltics all the way to Hungary and the Balkans," and most parts of the world. "That's why the transmission and the effects have been so severe. It was not just the U.S., and not just 'subprime.' It was excesses that led to the risk of a tipping point in many different economies."
Roubini's case against Ben Bernanke and his predecessor Alan Greenspan is that they kept interest rates too low for too long—and downplayed the significance of the bubble they helped create. "They kept on arguing that this was a minor housing slump, and this housing slump was going to bottom out," he said. "They kept repeating this mantra that the subprime problem was a 'niche' and 'contained' problem." These were serious analytic errors, he said, of a sort that is common near the end of a bubble. "Bernanke should have known better, but it's not really about him. It's in everybody's interest to let the bubble go on. Instead of the wisdom of the crowd, we got the madness of the crowd.
"So when the proverbial stuff hit the fan in the summer of 2007, [the Fed and the Bush administration] were initially taken by surprise," he concluded. "Their analysis had been wrong. And they didn't understand the severity of what was to come. And all along, their policy was two steps behind the curve." He was much more respectful of the judgment that Timothy Geithner showed.
"You know, when Geithner became president of the New York Fed [late in 2003], the first eight speeches he gave were about systemic risk," he said. (Most were about the way the growing complexity and interconnectedness of financial systems made it harder to know the real degree of risk the entire financial network was exposed to, and how far regulation was lagging behind the quickly changing realities. Most read well in retrospect.) Behind this difference in tone, according to Roubini, was a deeper contrast in belief about what the government could or should do when it saw a financial bubble beginning to form.
About the response once a bubble collapses, most economists are in agreement. Central banks around the world have been lowering interest rates to near zero and pumping new money into their economies. But could they have done anything to forestall the need to? According to Roubini:
"Bernanke, like Greenspan, had this wrong attitude toward asset bubbles. The official philosophy of the Fed was: on the way up with a bubble, you do nothing. You don't try to prick it or contain it. Their argument was, How do I really know it's a bubble? And even if I tried to 'prick' a bubble delicately, it would be like performing neurosurgery with a sledgehammer."
The damage done in these boom-and-bust cycles, Roubini says, is greater than politicians and the media usually acknowledge. Stock-market averages eventually recover, as all buy-and-hold investors now keep telling themselves. (Except in Japan, where the main stock index stood near 39,000 in the late 1980s and is around 9,000 today.) But that doesn't take into account the damage done to the real economy by the swings up and down. "These asset bubbles are increasingly frequent, increasingly dangerous, increasingly virulent, and increasingly costly," he said. After the housing bubble of the 1980s came the S&L crisis and the recession of 1991. After the tech bubble of the 1990s came the recession of 2001. "Most likely $10 trillion in household wealth [not just housing value but investments and other assets] has been destroyed in this latest crash. Millions of people have lost their jobs. We will probably add $7 trillion to our public debt. Eventually that debt must be serviced, and that may hamper growth."
Was there any alternative? Yes, if central bankers had taken a "more symmetric approach" to bubbles, trying to control them as they emerged and not just coping with the consequences after they burst. Geithner, he says, was one of those who saw the danger: "While Ben Bernanke was talking about a 'global savings glut' as the source of imbalances, Geithner was talking about America's excesses and deficits. Like the Bank of England and the Bank for International Settlements, he was warning at the New York Fed that we had to be more nuanced in the approach of how you deal with asset bubbles."
The disagreements about proper bubble management are of more than historical interest, Roubini argues, because he sees the beginnings of another bubble already in view. He was more supportive on the whole than I would have expected about the Obama administration's financial plans. "I have to give them credit that, less than a month after they came to power, they had achieved three major policy successes," he said. These were passing the $800 billion stimulus plan, the mortgage-relief plan to reduce foreclosures, and the "toxic asset" plan to help banks clear bad loans from their books. He said that the initial version of the bank-rescue plan was "botched, because it was rushed," but that the later version was better. "On each of these things, you can criticize specific elements," he said. "But they did the big things, and those are the main parameters of what is a constructive policy response. For now, you have to deal with the problem you are facing. All in all I think the policy is going in the right direction."
But someday, the emergency will be over. Then the side effects of today's deficits-be-damned efforts to spend money and loosen credit will become "the problem you are facing." Roubini has been tart about the things public officials should have known and the dangers they should have foreseen three or four years ago. What, I asked him, are the decisions of 2009 that we will be regretting in 2012?
For the only time in our conversation, he sat without responding for a measurable interval. "The regrets could be many," he began. Uh-oh , I thought. "Even the best policies sometimes have unintended consequences." He then itemized three.
The first involved banks. Like Paul Krugman and others, Roubini had been warning that many banks were weaker than they seemed. Rather than trying to nurse them along, he said, the government should move straightaway to nationalization: "I'm concerned that we're not going to deal with the bank problem as we should," he said. "Some banks are insolvent. To prevent them becoming zombie banks, the government should take the problem by the horns and, on a temporary basis, nationalize them. Take over these banks, clean them up, and then sell them back to the private sector. Not doing that is one mistake we may make and regret."
Next, "monetizing the debt." This sounds similar to the complaint that the government is spending too much now and will regret it later on, which was the main Republican argument against the stimulus plans. Roubini's concern is different, and mainly involves the delicate process of turning off the extraordinary stimulus measures now being turned on full force.
"The Fed is now embarked on a policy in which they are in effect directly monetizing about half of the budget deficit," he said. The public debt is going up, and the federal government is covering about half of that total by printing new money and sending it to banks. "In the short run," he said, "that monetization is not inflationary." Banks are holding much of the money themselves; "they're not relending it, so that money is not going anywhere and becoming inflationary."
But at some point—Roubini's guess is 2011—the recession will end. Banks will want to lend the money; people and businesses will want to borrow and spend it. Then it will be time for what Roubini calls "the exit strategy, of mopping up that liquidity"—pulling some of the money back out of circulation, so it doesn't just bid up house prices and stock values in a new bubble. And that will be "very, very tricky indeed."
He mentioned cautionary recent examples. The last time the Fed tried to manage this "mopping up" process was after the recovery from the 2001 recession. To minimize the economic impact of the 9/11 attacks, following immediately on the dot-com crash, Alan Greenspan quickly lowered the benchmark interest rate from 3.5 percent, reaching 1 percent in 2003. By 2004 a full recovery was under way, and Greenspan began raising rates at what he called a "measured pace"—25 basis points, or one-fourth of 1 percent, every six weeks. "That implied it would take two and a half years until they normalized the rate," Roubini said. "And that was one of the important sources of trouble, because at that point money was too cheap for a long time, and it really fed the bubble in the housing base." So the lesson would be, when a recovery begins, get rates back to normal, faster.
"But that is very tricky," he continued, "because if you do it too fast, when the economy is not recovered in a robust way, you might end up like Japan and slump back into a recession. But, of course, if you do it too slowly, then you risk creating either inflation or another asset bubble." The great difficulty of making these fine distinctions is part of the "brain surgery with a sledgehammer" argument against attempting to intervene at all.
In Roubini's view, there is no choice but to intervene. "We have to do what's necessary to avoid a real depression," he said. But he added that it is not too soon to lay plans for avoiding the consequences of too much money flowing rather than too little.
Roubini had recently been in China and met officials there. We talked about the bind that the world economic slowdown had created for China's leadership—not despite but because of its huge trade surpluses and foreign-currency holdings. Many Chinese commentators have blamed American overborrowing and excess for dragging them into a recession. But even they realize that the very excess of American demand has created a market for Chinese exports. Chinese leaders would love to be less dependent on American customers; they hate having so many of their nation's foreign assets tied up in U.S. dollars and subject to the volatility of American stock exchanges. But for the moment, they're more worried about keeping Chinese exporters in business. To do that, they want to prevent their currency from rising. And for reasons laid out in detail in a previous article ("The $1.4 Trillion Question," January/February 2008 Atlantic), the mechanics of finance require them to keep buying U.S. dollars and entrusting their savings to the United States. "I don't think even the Chinese authorities have fully internalized the contradictions of their position," Roubini said.
I agree. But I can report that for these past six months, virtually every economic conference I've heard of in China and every special supplement in a Chinese business publication has been devoted to the changes the country would have to make in order to reduce its vulnerabilities.
I asked Roubini whether, similarly, American authorities and the U.S. public appreciated the contradictions in their own position. He answered by returning to the damage caused by boom-and-bust cycles and the need to find a different path.
"We've been growing through a period of time of repeated big bubbles," he said. "We've had a model of 'growth' based on overconsumption and lack of savings. And now that model has broken down, because we borrowed too much. We've had a model of growth in which over the last 15 or 20 years, too much human capital went into finance rather than more-productive activities. It was a growth model where we overinvested in the most unproductive form of capital, meaning housing. And we have also been in a growth model that has been based on bubbles. The only time we are growing fast enough is when there's a big bubble.
"The question is, can the U.S. grow in a non-bubble way?" He asked the question rhetorically, so I turned it back on him. Can it?
"I think we have to …" He paused. "You know, the potential for our future growth is going to be lower, because of the excesses we've had. Sustainable growth may mean investing slowly in infrastructures for the future, and rebuilding our human capital. Renewable resources. Maybe nanotechnology? We don't know what it's going to be. There are parts of the economy we can expect to lead to a more sustainable and less bubble-like growth. But it's going to be a challenge to find a new growth model. It's not going to be simple." I took this not as pessimism but as realism.


text:
BEREA, Ohio -- The Cleveland Browns stunned their fans and the NFL on Tuesday by sweeping out the front-office structure that owner Jimmy Haslam set up only a year ago.
Haslam announced that CEO Joe Banner would leave the organization in two months and that general manager Mike Lombardi also is leaving.
Ray Farmer was promoted to GM effective immediately, with Alec Scheiner taking over as president. Farmer and Scheiner, along with recently hired coach Mike Pettine, will report directly to Haslam.
Haslam said he and Banner started talking about restructuring the organization two weeks ago, and the result is what was put in place Tuesday.
The end result is that Haslam has replaced the man he hired to build the organization along with the GM who Banner brought in to pick the players.
"I think Joe will tell you that putting together an organization is what he was comfortable doing," Haslam said. "He's set us up for success, and now it's time to move forward."
"It is bittersweet leaving the Browns organization," Banner said in a statement released by the team. "I have thoroughly enjoyed working with Jimmy Haslam and helping him set the infrastructure for this franchise. I am proud of the talented individuals we brought in to help lead this team and feel that the Cleveland Browns are in good hands moving forward."
Haslam described the former structure that had Banner making final decisions on personnel as cumbersome and said the new structure would be more streamlined. He had nothing but praise and thanks for Banner and Lombardi.
Farmer becomes the seventh African-American GM in the league, a new high for a single season. Farmer said that reality is a matter of pride to him, and he's happy his parents could see it happen.
Farmer will be in charge of all football operations and decisions, including the draft and free agency. He will determine the 53-man roster, with Pettine deciding the 45 who will be active on game days.
Cleveland also is hiring former Kansas City Chiefs vice president of player personnel Bill Kuharich as a consultant to assist Farmer, league sources told ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter.
The Browns have two first-round picks in the draft and are projected to have $35 million to $40 million in salary-cap room to spend on free agents.
Farmer previously interviewed to be the Miami Dolphins' GM but said that job was not right for him. He said he decided to stay in Cleveland without knowing this job would be his.
The changes were sudden and shocking, in part because they came almost a month after the Browns hired Pettine. Normally, if the front office is going to change, the team wants the new decision-makers to hire the coach. The Browns are the first NFL team ever to fire their coach and GM after a single season in which the two roles were held by separate individuals.
This season also marked the sixth straight year the Browns won five or fewer games. Only one other team has had a streak that long since the NFL went to a 16-game schedule in 1978. The Raiders had a seven-season streak from 2003-09.
"It's a learning curve to be an NFL owner," Haslam said. "If you want to look at me as being a work in progress, that's fair."
Haslam again denied that the Browns have a negative public image, and he also rebuffed questions about the federal investigation into rebate fraud at his company, Pilot Flying J, saying Tuesday was not the time to discuss that topic.
The shakeup came one month after the Browns hired Pettine after a 25-day search. Banner and Haslam fired first-year coach Rob Chudzinski after a 4-12 season, the team's sixth straight with at least 11 losses.
Banner, who previously worked in Philadelphia, was hired by Haslam to run the team shortly after his ownership was approved by the league in 2012.
Information from ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter, The Associated Press and ESPN Stats & Info contributed to this report.


text:
As a WoW nerd (who quit back in Aug09) I'll have to say it's not horse armor, but a mount which can be rode. 🙂
Dungeons And Dragons Players Revolt, Storm Super Rewards Castle
from the spam-survey-broadsword-of-doom dept
We've been covering how Turbine recently changed the business model of their online role-playing game Dungeons And Dragons Online from the fairly typical MMORPG pricing system ($50 for the game and then $15/month to play) to a business model where users can play for free — but pony up some cash for some additional perks. The decision has been a significant success for a game that was headed downhill in the shadow of larger MMORPG's, like Blizzard's World Of Warcraft, and Turbine saw milions of new players the first few months after the change. However, Nick writes in to direct our attention to the fact that some additional Turbine efforts wound up pushing our free-loving Elven and Dwarven friends a bit too hard.
The company recently implemented a Super Rewards "offer wall." Like in popular Facebook games like Farmville, the offer wall allowed users to fill out surveys and participate in other marketing efforts in exchange for Turbine points, which could be used in game for goods and services. Except judging from posts to the Turbine forums, users weren't pleased to learn that their account name and email were being sent to Super Rewards just for visiting the page — and some of the early offers wound up being "questionable," even according to a Turbine forum statement. Despite a few changes, customers continued to complain and Turbine wound up tearing down the wall — "for now":
"Based on your feedback, we're stepping away from the 'Offer' category for now. We'll keep exploring alternate ways for players who want points to get them. We'll also continue to innovate in pricing and accessibility because that's who we are. As of today, the Offer Wall is coming down. We'll collect all the feedback we've received over the last few days and will use it to guide future decisions."
It's great that Turbine was willing to listen to customer feedback and pull back from (or revise) an offer that was annoying, though it seemed easy enough for users to avoid these kinds of offers if they wanted. The company still seems to be doing quite well by selling a revolving array of specialized in-game loot and additional adventures, though there's also a fine balancing act at play between offering users worthy, compelling content — and pushing microtransactions to the point where they frustrate and annoy the userbase. That said, many gamers seem perfectly eager to pay a lot of money for relatively little; Blizzard Entertainment recently earned millions in fairly short order by selling users a $25 horse — which offered players' in-game characters no additional in-game character bonus.
Filed Under: d&d, gaming, lead generation, revolts


text:
Have questions? Contact our Sympathy Store Advisors anytime at 1-888-932-7658
You'll pay nothing if unauthorized charges are made to your credit card as a result of shopping at The Sympathy Store.
All information is encrypted and transmitted without risk using a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol.
Earliest Delivery: Tuesday (Choose Express Shipping at checkout)
Shop with ease by delivering your gift to our funeral home.
Learn More
Shop with ease by having your gift delivered to our funeral home. When you select this option, our system will automatically input our delivery address for you.
Footprints poem is overlaid over a beautiful seaside with a lighthouse overlooking the ocean.
This Tapestry Throw is 54 inches wide by 70 inches tall, and is woven from 100% cotton.
• Soft Luscious feel with a quality and texture that only comes through weaving.
• Woven from 100% cotton ensuring vibrant colors
• Jacquard woven style lends a dynamic, textured look
• Hand finished for uniqueness
• Woven in the USA
Footprints in the Sand Poem:
One night a man had a dream.
He dreamed he was walking along the beach
with the Lord. Across the sky flashed
scenes from his life. For each scene
he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand:
one belonging to him, and the other
to the Lord.
When the last scene of his life flashed before him,
he looked back at the footprints in the sand.
He noticed that many times along the path
of his life there was only one set of footprints.
He also noticed that it happened at the very
lowest and saddest times in his life.
This really bothered him and he
questioned the Lord about it:
"Lord, you said that once I decided to follow
you, you'd walk with me all the way.
But I have noticed that during the most
troublesome times in my life,
there is only one set of footprints.
I don't understand why when
I needed you most you would leave me."
The Lord replied:
"My son, my precious child,
I love you and I would never leave you.
During your times of trial and suffering,
when you see only one set of footprints,
it was then that I carried you."
Your post is being reviewed by our team and will be available as soon as it is approved.
All Customer Reviews
from Spring Hill - TN
from Maryville - TN
I will continue to order from this store because they will deliver on time..
I am very pleased with my purchases. Thank you in advance.
from Yonkers - NY
Beautiful product. Greatly appreciated by the family.
My daughter- in-law received the blanket before the service tonight. I was extremely happy. Thank you so much. I will order again when the need arrive.
from Missoula - MT
This blanket is just what we were looking for in the line of a tribute to a Wonderful lady who recently passed into our Savior's arms.
It will be a reminder to her family that she is still in their thoughts,
*Required Information
At The Sympathy Store we understand that getting your gifts to their recipient quickly is important, so we do our best to process your order as promptly as possible. Orders are processed Monday – Friday, if your order is received after 12 noon EST it will be processed the following business day.
We ship via major carriers to any continental U.S. destination. We are unable to ship to international addresses, outside the continental United States, P.O. boxes or APO/FPO addresses at this time.
Personalized items are carefully made just for you and require additional processing time. Please refer to the product specific delivery dates.
All flowers and sympathy plants are hand delivered by a local florist. These items are available for same-day delivery if ordered on a weekday by 2pm in the recipients time zone or on Saturday by noon in the recipient's time zone.
When finished click the "Save" button.
That's ok, we know how hard is to express your feelings at this moment.
We will help you. Simply click on a suggested message below.
Prefer to order by Phone? Our Sympathy Advisors are happy to help!
Call 24 hours a day – 365 days a year. 888-932-7658 or Email our Customer Loyalty Team
© 2023 The Sympathy Store. All Rights Reserved.


text:
Don't fix baseball, even if it may be broken
It is a prudential axiom: If it isn't broken, don't fix it. This reflects the awareness that things can always be made worse, and the law of unintended consequences, which is that they often are larger than and contrary to intended ones. As baseball reaches the all-star break amid lamentations about several semi-broken aspects of it, it is time to amend the axiom: Don't fix it even if it is broken.
The itch to fix complex systems often underestimates the ability of markets, broadly understood, to respond and adapt to incentives. So, even if you are an unsatisfactory American — i.e., uninterested in baseball — read on, because the debate about some of the game's current defects contains lessons about lesser things than baseball, meaning everything else.
Today's all-or-nothing baseball is too one-dimensional. There are too many strikeouts — for the first time in history, more than hits, a lot more. And the number is increasing for the 13th consecutive season. Also, too many of the hits are homeruns. It was imprecise for Crash Davis (Kevin Costner's character in "Bull Durham") to say that strikeouts are "fascist," but he was right that they are "boring," at least in excessive quantities. So are home runs (and caviar, and everything else except martinis). In about one-third of today's at-bats, the ball is not put in play (home run balls are put in the seats). Sports Illustrated's Tom Verducci notes that by the end of June there were "more strikeouts in half a season than there were in the entire 1980 season." And "on average, you have to wait [3 minutes and 45 seconds] between balls put in play — 41 seconds longer between movement than 20 years ago." Steals (hence pitchouts), sacrifice bunts, hit-and-run plays — interesting things for fans — are becoming rarer.
This is not the main reason attendance is down. The weather is: In 35 April games, the temperature was below 40; in the entire 2017 season, only one. But the all-or-nothing style is not helping, and it is encouraged by the exponential increase in the use of defensive shifts — from 2,357 in 2011 to a projected 36,000 this season.
The best-known early use of the shift, in 1946, overloaded the right side against Ted Williams, who regally said they could not put the shift high enough. Actually, he tried to hit through, not over, it, but after the shift began, his average that year went from .354 to .327. Today, the 99.999 percent of players who are lesser hitters elevate their bats' "launch angles," exacerbating the all-or-nothing style.
Also, shifts cause pitchers to target a particular part of the plate in order to increase the probability that the batter will hit into the shift. This results in more walks, which batters like because high on-base percentages are rewarded: Today, baseball's compensation system is an incentive for walks, and for equanimity about striking out, if home runs are frequent.
What baseball people call "analytics," and less-scientific people call information, has produced all this: Particular hitters have particular tendencies; defenses adjust accordingly. Now, let us, as the lawyers say, stipulate that more information is always better than less. But for the moment, information is making offense anemic. So, there is a proposal afoot — this is fascism — to ban shifts, to say there must be two infielders on either side of second base, or even that as the pitch is delivered all infielders must be on the infield dirt. This would leave some, but much less, ability to manage defenses. It would, however, short-circuit market-like adjustments.
Incessant radical shifting will persist until it is moderated by demand summoning a supply of some Rod Carew-like hitters. A Hall of Famer, Carew was a magician who wielded a bat like a wand, spraying hits hither and yon, like Wee Willie ("Hit 'em where they ain't") Keeler. The market is severely meritocratic, so some hitters who cannot modify their tendencies and learn to discourage shifts by hitting away from them might need to consider different careers.
Baseball — the game on the field, not just the business side — resembles a market system because constantly evolving strategies create demands for different tactics, and thus different skills, which are then supplied by persons and teams that are eager to excel in the new forms of competition. Before restricting managers' and players' interesting choices by limiting shifts (and certainly before softening the ball; or moving the pitcher more than 60 feet, 6 inches from the plate), give the market — freedom for fan-pleasing ingenuity and adaptation — a chance.


text:
Today I have a cute, but casual Christmas card made using the Art Philosophy cartridge. Also, on this card I made my own patterned paper using a stamp set and some grid lined cardstock. I love doing this, but always found it daunting because I am not always so great at lining stuff up. I found this really great grid lined cardstock here. I can now line up my background stamping perfectly!
GYPSY file: https://www.box.com/s/kdn492h2efaovrv4p8tk
CCR file: https://www.box.com/s/pvw5xpcebuosyf3bqopn
|This is the stamp set I used and it is called Countdown.
Don't forget that I am giving away a Snow Folks cartridge this week!
1) Follow this blog or subscribe via email.
2) Leave a comment under one or all posts this week for maximum chances. See HERE if you don't know how to leave a comment.
December Specials
I am giving one Pink Cricut machine away to one lucky customer. To be eligible to win all you have to do is purchase something in the month of December! I will draw the winner January 2nd!
Second, everyone enjoys shopping the deals this time of year, and you'll be tickled to learn that Close To My Heart is making more fabulous deals available to you. At 12:00 AM (MST) on December 1, Close To My Heart will add new items to the "While Supplies Last" section my shopping page. Among the new additions you will find a wide variety of paper and coordinating accessories, all with a substantial markdown. You will also find that most of the items that are currently available will also see a further markdown at that time. Click here to check it out ==> Close To My Heart SALE
Next, the December stamp of the month is a good one. It covers everything and it is a must have it you are new at stamping. It is called Year Around Cheer and that pretty much sums it up!
Get the Stamp of the Month set for just $5 (S1211A) when you place an order of $50 or more in products!
Lastly, don't forget that you can still buy the fabulous Artiste and Art Philosophy cartridges, so if you have not taken the plunge yet, come on in the water is great! Also, if you want one of these cartridges for Christmas send your husbands or family members my way. I will help them get what you want under the tree ordered. However, you can always order these things as a gift to yourself. That way you for sure get what you want for Christmas. You have been good this year, right?
Have a TERRIFIC Thursday!
Subscribe to Courtney Lane Designs by Email


text:
Other Variations
Girls Replacement Face Shield (Acetate)
Php 149.75 Php 75.00
Php 149.75
NOW Php 75.00
- Acetate
- Blue Color
- Blue Color
Gingersnaps PHVisit store
Fulfilled by ZALORA
Delivery estimateSelect your Region and City below to get your estimated delivery dates.
Delivery information for
Select a location to see estimated delivery time and prices
100% Original Product
Select Size
Only --number-- item in stock. Almost gone, grab it now!
Only --number-- items in stock. Almost gone, grab it now!
Currently available
Product not available
No stock available
All sizes available. Low in stock Almost gone, grab it now!
All sizes available
Only --number-- sizes available. Low in stock Almost gone, grab it now!
Only --number-- sizes available
1 size available. Low in stock Almost gone, grab it now!
1 size available
Link copied!
Check out zalora.com.ph/faqOR
Shoot us a message at zalora.com.ph/contact
|SKU (simple)
|Non-sale item
|This item is excluded from vouchers and discounts
|Non-returnable item
|This item is not valid for returns, refunds and exchanges
Due to hygiene concerns and distributors' policy, it is typically not in our practice to accept returns for SWIMWEAR, LINGERIE, UNDERWEAR, EARRINGS, ESSENTIALS BEAUTY PRODUCTS, PRE-LOVED and ELECTRONICS.
Due to the nature of the product, any Incorrect/Defective/Damaged items upon receiving, must be reported with photos/video of the item within 7 days from receipt to email@example.com to be considered for return.
For more details, please visit our FAQs here.
Should you have any questions regarding this product, feel free to get in touch with our friendly Customer Service Team at firstname.lastname@example.com
Delivery information for
Check when you can get your item by keying in your city and barangay in the drop-downs above. For more information, check out our FAQ on deliveries.


text:
The DANSE project has ended
The SANS software developed under this project has been taken up by an international consortium and can be found at sasview.org
Thanks to this NSF/UTK/NIST development effort, SansView was developed as the flagship SANS application. This application has gained considerable interest from the community and in October of 2012 completed its transitioned to a new international collaborative stewardship model with the support of five facilities: NIST, SNS,ISIS, ESS and ILL. As part of the transition the software has been renamed SasView in anticipation of engaging the SAXS community as most of the work is relevant to SAXS as well as SANS.
We hope this seed continues to grow and flourish through the stewardship of the facilities and the support and development of the entire community. Thanks to everyone for your feedback and support throughout the project and we hope you will continue your support as the software effort grows into a truly international, community driven project.
- November 2012: SansView is officially renamed SasView for the 2.2 release and the next phase of the project is launched.
- May 2012: SansView 2.1.1 is released.
- Feb 2012: SansView 2.1.0 is released.
- Nov 2011: SansView 2.0.1 is released.
- Oct 2011: SansView 2.0.0 is released.
- Jun 2011: SansView 1.9.1 is released.
- May 2011: SansView 1.9 is released.
- Sep 2010: SansView 1.3.1 is released.
- Sep 2010: PrView 0.3.3 is released.
- May 10: SansView 1.3 is released.
- Oct 09: SansView 1.0 is released.
- July 09: PrView 0.3 is released.
- May 09: SansView 0.9.1 is released.
- May 09: SansView poster was presented at the International Conference on Neutron Scattering 2009 in Knoxville.
- Apr 09: SansView 0.9 is released.
- Mar 09: SansView 0.1 is released.
- The DANSE/SANS group at UT has an open scientist position.
- Sept 08: The summary of the Indiana Univsersity meeting on SANS software is now available.
- July 08: PrView 0.2 is now available.
- June 08: SliceView 0.2 is now available.
- June 08: The DANSE/SANS project was presented at the American Crystallographic Association conference in Knoxville, TN.
- May 08: PrView, a prototype application to do P(r) inversion, is now available to users.
- Mar 08: SimView, the new version of our real-space simulation prototype, is now available to users.
- Mar 08: SliceView is now available through the SNS web portal.
- Feb 08: [pdf] Status report presented at the developer's meeting of 2/08.
- Dec 07: [pdf] Version 0.1 of SliceView is available.
- Oct 07: [pdf] The DANSE/SANS project was presented at the canSAS-V meeting held at NIST.
- Sept 07: [pdf] An early prototype of a 2D modeling application is available for users to comment on.
- June 07: [pdf] Results obtained by users of our 2D modeling functionality for IGOR have been presented at the 81st Colloid & Surface Science Symposium in Delaware:Relationship between strain-hardening and the structure of fibrin clots,
Lionel Porcar and Danilo C. Pozzo, University of Maryland / NIST, Gaithersburg, MD.
- June 07: The DANSE/SANS project was presented at the 81st Colloid & Surface Science Symposium in Delaware.
- June 07: The LORES2 real-space simulation prototype is available to select users.
- June 07: 2D modeling for SANS


text:
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Chris Johnson first wrote the names of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims on his cleats. Now the Titans running back has sent gifts to the family of Grace McDonnell after speaking with it by telephone.
He had the names on his cleats for Monday night's game against the New York Jets, and he scored on a franchise-record 94-yard touchdown run. The family reached out to Johnson through the Titans, and the running back spoke Tuesday with the McDonnells and Grace's older brother, Jack.
"You get a whole sense of it and just him and the kids ... that he was trying to be strong, but it's a situation I can tell how he feels," Johnson said Thursday after practice. "I lost my grandmother earlier in this year and just knowing how that feels I just kind of wanted to do something to at least try to lift his spirits."
Johnson also became a father earlier this year with the birth of twin boys. He said that just made him appreciate his sons even more.
He said he sent over a few Christmas gifts to Jack McDonnell and the family, and he also shared his telephone number in case they need anything that he might help with in the future.
The Titans running back said he still plans to auction off the shoes to help families. But he sounded reluctant Thursday as he discussed the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
"I kind of want to step back. ... I kind of did it for the kids and the family. I really don't want to make it about me," Johnson said.


text:
Light Image Resizer from Obvious Idea (previously known as VSO Image Resizer) is a free tool that organizes your photos by shrinking their resolution or moving them within your hard drive.
It is the perfect tool for those who store their digital pictures and images on their PC and who want to resize, compress, convert, create copies, import or organize photos.
Light Image Resizer is integrated into the Windows explorer shell, right click on your pictures and start working on your pictures!
Using this free resize image software, you can create e-mail friendly versions of your images, load them faster, move them easily from folder to folder, change their format, edit large numbers of image files/batch image resize and thus save space on your hard drive.
Using high resolution 1600×1200 for creating wallpaper or file-sharing you can save your memory. Light Image Resizer can also change file names using a template and you can add your own watermark with transparency support.
Key Features:
filters, top quality and new algorithms
Smart digital frame transfer assistant, to optimize the digital photo frame experience
resize method seam carving
engine, 2x faster, support multi-core CPU
works on file, folder and subfolders
Configurable compression/resolution ratio
Support file formats: Jpeg, gif, bmp, tiff etc see more formats
Support Digital Camera RAW formats: Canon .CR2, Nikon .NEF , .MRW Minolta etc see more formats
Customizable templates for renaming files : Iphone wallpaper, PAL , NTSC, Ipod etc..
Webmaster tool : Add your logo or watermark file
Reduce photos size, perfect for web publishing/share photos by email
Integrate in windows explorer or works as a stand-alone application
Import directly from your memory cards
Save history of destination folder
Variable options and settings for advanced users
Multilingual support (available languages…)


text:
Vocal Range
F#2 ~ C6 (3 octaves and 3 notes)
Supported Range
Voice Type
- Second strongest vocalist in BtoB
- Support is consistent up to F#4/G4, issues with consistency due to vowel shaping
- Support is present in his lower range down to D3
- Pitch is consistent throughout his range
- Transitions into falsetto are often smooth and clean in pitch
- Voice is flexible and possesses the correct flow and bounce in vocal runs
- Able to produce a head voice in the lower portion of his range
Points for Improvement
- Tends to not drop his jaw low enough
- Nasality is often present in his singing
- Notes above G4 become very squeezed and thinned out
- Lower range below Eb3 becomes very airy and quiet
- Issues with tension even within his supported range on closed vowels
- Vocal runs lack precision in pitch and are often sloppy
- Tends to get pitchy when not properly warmed up
- Lower register: Generally supported down to D3, but below D3 his voice becomes softer and quieter, although tone may be present. At times he also lowers his larynx in order to project in his lower range or stylistically.
- Mixed register: Support is very consistent up to F#4 and even G4, although he shows issues with vowel shapes. Above G4 he often sounds squeezed with a high larynx.
- Upper register: At times may be able to produce a head voice in the lower part of his range, but most of the time upper register is whiny as he gets into the fifth octave and he becomes pushed.
As a vocalist, Changsub actually makes an effort to add vocal runs a lot more often some songs may require. His voice is more flexible than his precision, so in the process of doing runs he shows a good understanding of the rhythmic bounce between one note to another, where his voice is clear in his runs. With that said, he is not able to translate the idea of the run in his head into his voice, so the more complex and longer runs are, he tends to perform with relatively good rhythm but often inaccurate pitch accuracy. So his main issues aren't so much of his inability to sing proper vocal runs, but more of a lack of preparation and a careful thought-process behind his musical ideas. His flexibility but also pitch inaccuracy can be heard in songs such as "With Me", "그녀에게 전해주오", "니가 싫다", "Good Luck"," 가로수 그늘 아래 서면" and "With Chocolate."
Overall analysis
Changsub debuted as a member of BtoB, and has been part of the vocal line as a lead vocalist for as long as the group has been together. As such, Changsub often takes more challenging lines and has more of a highlighted overall focus throughout their repertoire. His voice is naturally light and bright, with a very youthful quality. His voice lacks in weight and would most likely fall under the light lyric tenor fach, alongside fellow other tenors in BtoB, such as Eunkwang, Minhyuk and Peniel.
His lower range is one of the less developed parts of his range, but support is present there nonetheless. He's able to sing with slightly better support than the average tenor and has shown good development of his lower range down to D3, as heard by the E3's in "지친 하루", "사랑의 시", Eb3's in "그녀에게 전해주오", "소녀", "With Me", and D3's in "어제보다 슬픈 오늘", "지나간다." He often chooses a stylistic airiness in his lower range, causing him to often produce softer and less projected notes even within his supported range. However one can hear that below D3, his overall tone becomes much quieter and his muscles lack development to stay connected and project, as heard by the F#2's in "가난한 사랑", G2's in "잊혀진다는 건", A2's in "Nothing Better", "어제보다 슬픈 오늘", B2's in "지친 하루", C3's in "가로수 그늘 아래 서면", "여기 있을게", "후회한다", "너를위해" and C#3's in "삼오야 밝은 달." At times Changsub may show the tendency to lower his larynx and strain his voice in order to better project in his lower range, as heard by the B2 in "Hello." This seems to be more of a stylistic choice and has not been shown to be a bad habit of his though.
His mixed voice is relatively relaxed and maintains a good sense of breath support up to F#4 and G4 quite consistently. He has never really shown many issues below F#4. The only true issue Changsub has within his supported range is that at times he produces more nasal and tight notes depending on his jaw position and throat shape. He tends to have issues producing more relaxed notes when singing with closed vowels such as Ee (이), Oo (우) and Eu (으). He often tends to have a more closed throat on these vowels even within his supported range and due to not opening his mouth properly, his voice tends to become stuck in his nose, as opposed to projecting through his mouth with a lifted soft palate. However so, Changsub has been able to show multiple times that on more opened vowels he can produce a more opened and clean tone in this range, as heard by the F4's in "아버지", F#4's in "하늘을 달리다", "듣는 편지", "어제보다 슬픈 오늘", "With Chocolate" and G4's in "사랑 그놈", "가로수 그늘 아래 서면", "무조건" and "거짓말."
His mixed voice above G4 however is where he has a lot more issues. Most of the time his mix becomes brighter and head dominant as he ascends above G4, where his throat also closes as his larynx raises. As a result, the sound of his voice becomes very blocked and squeezed, with an added degree of tension from his throat muscles. This can be heard as many times Changsub has to sing in a higher and more demanding range even within his mixed voice. As heard in the G#4's in "후회한다", A4's in "별", "매듭", "겨울이 오면", B4's in "With Me", C5's in "괜찮아요", "서울의 달", C#5's in "L.U.V.", "Mirotic", D5's in "집으로 가는 길", "YOU", Eb5's and F5's in "Bolero", as well as E5's in "나비무덤."
His upper register has been shown to mostly be done with a falsetto, or a connected head voice with somewhat shallow support. At times he may be able to transition into a soft head voice in the lower portion of his range, as heard in "사랑의 시", "삼오야 밝은 달." However most of the time, he tends to sing with a falsetto and the higher he sings, the more vocal pressure he adds to his vocal cords. In order to compensate for the lack of support in his upper register, Changsub tightly pushes his vocal cords together, closes his throat and adds excessive air pressure in order to sing higher and higher, often singing with a very piercing and sharp sound in his falsetto, as heard by the E5's in "거짓말", F#5's in "Hello", "울어도 돼", "With Chocolate", G5's in "천일동안" and in their practice room, and C6 in "Mirotic." Below E5 however, he can often sing with a more relaxed and softer approach in his falsetto even if tension may still be present, as heard in "서쪽하늘", "忘れないで", "You're My" and "Nothing Better."
Musically speaking, Changsub has a very good ear for pitch and overall dynamic changes within a song. He's able to stylistic choose between airiness and tone, as well as how to manipulate his larynx position for style. The main issue with his singing is not a lack of skill, but a lack of practice. It's been known that Changsub often warms up by singing songs that are very high before a performance. This may warm up the voice quickly but he also tires his voice out in the process by singing very demanding songs without taking the time to warm up his voice slowly. Also although cracking may be commonly perceived as a lack of vocal ability, it truly has a lot more to do with lack of warming up or being tired. He only has performances where he cracks and sounds pitchy when he's not well warmed up and did not take the time to practice the song carefully beforehand.
Changsub's main issues as a vocalist don't necessarily lie on his lack of vocal talent or even lack of practice, but lack of good work ethic. He has a natural aptitude for singing and has a lot of potential in range, and has shown great improvement when compared to his pre-debut singing. However since he doesn't practice the right way he's unable to progress vocally as much as he potentially could. He has more or less been stagnant since debut and that's caused by not addressing most of his technical issues. For the future, working on his vowel shaping, as well as monitoring his larynx position and evening out his mix as he gets higher in range will help him further develop his overall singing technique. If he were to fix his diction issues with vowels and maintain a more opened approach in his overall singing, he'd be able to sing with much better placement and produce actual resonance in his overall singing.
Changsub is one of the tenors in the main vocal unit of BtoB. As such he often takes the lead parts or upper harmonies, where he's able to blend his voice well with fellow tenor Eunkwang, as well as the other baritones in the group Hyunsik and Sungjae. He has shown that he's a skilled vocalist in terms of acapella harmonies and blending, as shown by BtoB's live radio "Christmas Medley" and "A Song for Mama." As for melodic changes and rhythmic changes to songs, he does at times take the liberty of making a song his own, but the result may not always be favorable as issues with strain and pitch are still present, such as in "괜찮아요".
Label (Type of Vocalist)
M Vocalists: Mid-Range Vocalists
Best Vocal Performance(s)
Analyzed by Ahmin (Kitsunemale)


text:
The Design Home is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.
"The Foster + Partners and URS team has won an international competition to build the first private spaceport in the world – The New Mexico Spaceport Authority Building. The sinuous shape of the building in the landscape and its interior spaces seek to capture the drama and mystery of space flight itself, articulating the thrill of space travel for the first space tourists. Making a minimal impact on the environment, the scheme will be the first facility of its kind and a model for the future The Spaceport lies low within the desert-like landscape of the site in New Mexico and seen from the historic El Camino Real trail, the organic form of the terminal resembles a rise in the landscape. Using local materials and regional construction techniques, it is both sustainable and sensitive to its surroundings.
Organized into a highly efficient and rational plan, the Spaceport has been designed to relate to the dimensions of the spacecraft. There is also a careful balance between accessibility and privacy. The astronauts' areas and visitor spaces are fully integrated with the rest of the building to convey the thrill of space travel. The more sensitive zones – such as the control room – are visible, but have limited access.
Visitors and astronauts enter the building via a deep channel cut into the landscape. The retaining walls form an exhibition space that documents the history of the region and its settlers, alongside a history of space exploration. The strong linear axis continues on a galleried level to the 'superhangar' – which houses the spacecraft and the simulation room – through to the terminal building.
Designed to have minimal embodied carbon and few additional energy requirements, the scheme has been designed to achieve the prestigious LEED Platinum accreditation. The low-lying form is dug into the landscape to exploit the thermal mass, which buffers the building from the extremes of the New Mexico climate as well as catching the westerly winds for ventilation. Natural light enters via skylights, with a glazed façade reserved for the terminal building, establishing a platform for the coveted views onto the runway." – Foster + Partners.


text:
KATMANDU, NEPAL—A plane carrying trekkers to the Mount Everest region hit a bird and crashed just after takeoff Friday in Nepal's capital, killing the 19 Nepali, British and Chinese people on board, authorities said.
The pilot of the domestic Sita Air flight reported trouble two minutes after takeoff and appeared to have been trying to turn back, said Kathmandu airport official Ratish Chandra Suman. The crash site is only 500 metres from the airport, and the wrecked plane was pointing toward the airport area. Suman said the plane hit a vulture just after it took off, causing the crash.
Suman said he could not confirm whether the plane was already on fire before it crashed. Cellphone video shot by locals showed that the front section of the plane was on fire when it first hit the ground and that the pilot apparently had attempted to land the plane on open ground beside a river.
The fire quickly spread to the rear, but the tail was still in one piece at the scene near the Manohara River on the southwest edge of Kathmandu. Villagers were unable to approach the plane because of the fire, and it took some time for firefighters to reach the area and bring the fire under control.
Soldiers and police sifted through the crash wreckage looking for bodies and documents to help identify the victims. Seven passengers were British and five were Chinese; the other four passengers and the three crew members were from Nepal, authorities said.
Large numbers of local people and security forces gathered at the crash site. The victims' charred bodies were taken by vans to a hospital morgue.
Relatives of the Nepalese victims cried as they gathered at the Tribhuwan University Teaching Hospital in Kathmandu, where all the victims' bodies were taken.
The weather in Kathmandu and surrounding areas was clear Friday morning, and the plane was one of the first of the day to take off from Kathmandu's Tribhuwan International Airport. Other flights reported no problems, and the airport remained open and operated normally after the crash.
The plane was heading for Lukla, the gateway to Mount Everest. Thousands of Westerners make treks in the region around the world's highest peak each year. Autumn is considered the best time to trek the foothills of the Himalayan peaks.
Airline officials identified the British crash victims as Raymond Eagle, 58, Christopher Franc Davey, 51, Vincent Kelly, 52, Darren Kelly, 45, Timothy Oakes, 57, Stephen Holding, 60, and Benjamin Ogden, 27.
The Nepalese passengers were identified as Kumar Marshyangdi Magar, Lakpa Noru Sherpa, D. Rai and M.K. Tamang. The crew members were pilot Bijay Tandukar, co-pilot Takashi Thapa and hostess Ruju Shakya.
China's government-run Xinhua News Agency identified the Chinese victims as Wu-Hui, Qian-Mingwu, Wu-Lin, Wang-Jhihua and Yang-Chen.
Nepal, with its poor-quality mountain roads and network of little airports, has a long history of small plane crashes. Including Friday's crash, there have been at least six crashes of small planes since October 2008.
The crash follows an avalanche on another Nepal peak Sunday that killed seven foreign climbers and a Nepali guide.


text:
Orlando, FL - ISC 2015 - Christopher P Evans, MD during Openening Plenary Session at the 2015 Genitourinary Cancers Symposium here today, Thursday February 26, 2015. The conference is the premier meeting on the science and treatment of Genitourinary Cancers from basic research to patient-based studies to larger clinical trials and population analyses in the United States. More than 1,800 experts from around the world are attending the meeting which is sponsored by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the American Society of Radiation Oncology and the Society of Urologic Oncology. Photo by © ASCO/Todd Buchanan 2015
15GU00033Christopher P EvansMD GU 2015


text:
What I'm Wearing:
Navy blue dress from French Connection
Earrings from Accessorize
Necklace from my dad
We are in Sorrento, Italy! Yay! We have actually been here since Monday but I took a few days off blogging and had pre-scheduled some posts from last week for you guys for the last couple of entries while we got organised here. These pictures were taken outside our hotel on our first evening in Sorrento, when we went out for dinner. Our hotel is AMAZING, it's right on the coast so the view from our room is spectacular and there is an outside pool on top of the building as well as a spa which we may make use of on the day before the wedding :) Everything is so pretty here and of course the food & weather are amazing! I'm so glad that Jonathan likes it - it's his first time in Italy so I was curious to see what he'd think!
We met my mom, sisters and my brother and his family for dinner which was so exciting because I hadn't seen my niece & nephew for soooo long, and they are super cute! (You can see them getting their little chef hats at the restaurant on our daily vlog, if you're interested!). I cannot wait to see them in their little flowergirl and ring bearer outfits! We also saw a sweet Maltese being carried by its owner in Sorrento, which made me cry because of course it reminded me of my babies Albi & Sina! But I know they are being looked after extremely well and I couldn't be happier with the Your Pet's Best Friend dog-sitting service! They have a Facebook page and a Twitter where they post pictures of them and update us on what they're doing several times a day -- I am so thankful for that!
Stay Stylish!