text:
Carl MortonFebruary 26, 2008
(continued from Bo Diaz)
Chapter Five
We drift down a spiraling river of television static. It feels vaguely familiar. Richie Hebner stopped paddling a while ago. He's just been sitting there, staring straight ahead.
I'm ready to go back now, I try to tell him. All I make is a tuneless humming noise, the throat-sound of a mute. Richie Hebner mimics the sound. He does it a few times. He builds the mocking repetitions into a simple melody. He starts tapping a rhythm on the raft as he hums. He adds words to the melody, singing, his voice reedy, barely audible above the sound of the static.
Well, I told the undertaker
Undertaker please drive slow
For the body you are carrying
Lord I hate to see her go
He stops drumming on the raft. We drift for a while. The curves in the river are getting tighter, as if the spiral is approaching a point.
How do we get back? I try to say.
"Mm mm mm mm hmm," Richie Hebner says, aping my throat sounds, then repeating them with a hint of the melody of the song he'd been singing. The river bends and the raft bumps into the river's edge. We spin toward the middle, rotating slowly. Richie Hebner sings some more, his voice as flat as his gaze.
O will the circle be unbroken
By and by lord by and by
There's a better home a-waitin'
In the sky lord in the sky
Our spinning slows to a stop and I see that the river has drained into a circular pool. We're floating in the middle of it. Images flicker on the surface of the television static below us, faces appearing and vanishing so quickly they seem to be in the middle of howling.
What's it going to take? I try to say to Richie Hebner. What do I have to do to get out of here? Click my heels and say there's no place like home?
The static gives way altogether, as if a lost signal had suddenly returned, and the ground below us solidifies into chunks of frozen dirt. Our raft is gone. We're sitting on top of a freshly dug grave. The sky is like predawn, overcast, the color of static.
There's no place like home, I try to say. There's no place like home. There's no place like home.
None of it comes out. It just bangs around inside my chest and throat, where it sounds less like the incantatory affirmation Dorothy chanted to get back where she belonged and more like a negation, the zero at the end of the equation of life. You're born, you drift, you feed the worms. There's no place like home.
At the rim of the wide circular grave is a red, hard-rubber running track with lanes marked by white stripes, a perfectly circular, perfectly empty version of the crowded oval I used to run on when I lived in Brooklyn during my early thirties. I used to go around and around, weaving through clumps of kerchiefed Ukrainian crones and chunks of concrete and Dominican homeboys and unleashed pit bulls and broken bottles and bespectacled white women pushing expensive jogging strollers and soccer balls bounding free from the dusty game roiling on the inside of the track and drunk guys gesticulating and arguing with phantoms. Round and round I went, feeling even at the time as if I was enacting some audienceless, and therefore meaningless, Sisyphean metaphor. The years went by. Round and round I went. I was waiting for something to grab me, to say that my life had begun. Round and round and round. Finally I decided to leave. Near my last day I went running at the track and my friend Pete came with me and smoked cigarettes on a stone bench, and each time I ran by he yelled at me with a thick, bogus accent, his version of an Eastern European track coach.
"Rahn! Make strong! Only strong survive! Rahn!"
Within a week or so I had traded the oval track for some suburban streets in Racine, Wisconsin, where my girlfriend's family lived. Our plan was to stay there until we found jobs in Chicago. Round and round I went, making a circle of the strange, quiet streets.
"You think you know baseball," Richie Hebner says now. He hasn't used his one-hitter in a while and I can barely see him. It's as if he's fading into the dim pre-dawn light.
"You think you know it as well as anything. You've hid in it, taken refuge in it. As you've drifted you've tried to make it into something like home."
I can't even see you, I try to say.
"But you don't know who the National League rookie of the year was in 1970, I bet."
Bernie Carbo? I try to say. I've always hoped that my grasp of useless baseball arcana will someday come in handy, will perhaps free me from a troublesome situation. Maybe this is the moment. But I can feel even as I say my answer that it's off, wrong, and won't deliver me.
"Carl Morton," Richie Hebner says. I can just barely glimpse him pointing his shovel at someone running on the previously empty circle, a pale guy with red hair and a mustache.
"Best rookie of 1970, a pitcher. Looked like it was going to be his decade. He did OK for a while, never as good as that rookie year, then in 1976 he lost it, and fast. One bad year and he was done."
Carl Morton plods around the track. Where is he going? Around and around.
"Few years later, he's 39, goes for a run," Richie Hebner says. "Same age you are now, am I right?"
I stare straight ahead.
"Yeah, same age as you are now. Goes for a run. Sets off from his parents' house, makes the whole circle. Goes and returns. The hero's journey. Drops in his parents' driveway."
I want to go back now, I try to say. I want to live.
Richie Hebner mocks the sounds that come out of me. Carl Morton circles. Around and around and around and nowhere. The mocking does not disappear altogether as Richie Hebner steers his mimicry one more time into song.
O will the circle be unbroken
By and by lord by and by
There's a better home a-waitin'
In the sky lord in the sky
(to be continued)


text:
"I am an avid teen foodie who adores her asian dishes, especially the creativity of stir fry. Now, I make it all the time but know that my end result could be exceptionally better. You had on the blog about doing the perfect stir fry on the grill but unfortunately I am in a college dorm and only have access to an electric stove. My question is: how does one not steam their vegetables while at the same time not use too much oil AND how do you not burn your corn starch sauce to the pan?"
—Sent by sunny_side117
Here's the deal: traditional Chinese stir-fries are cooked in woks over blazing high heat. (Check out our guide on How to Buy A Wok here.) This allows a skilled cook to char meat rapidly without overcooking it, or to give a hint of smokiness to their vegetables while keeping them bright, fresh, and crisp. The very best stir-fries will have a hint of what is called wok hei, or the "breath of the wok," that ineffable, indefinable, intangible, and all-other-manner-of-words-beginning-with-"in" flavor somewhere between smoky and carbonized, with a hint of metal in it. You know what I'm talking about, right?
That flavor is created by a combination of searing from high heat cooking, as well as the vaporization of spattering oil and liquids that fly up the sides of the wok into the zones of hot air rising around it. Take a look into the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant and you'll see the cook performing an intricate dance, holding a wok with one hand and a wide spatula used to flip foods and grab bits of spices and sauces with the other. Near their knees are handles that control two valves: one the flow of fuel, the other the flow of oxygen. As they cook, they'll work those handles with their legs, blasting the wok with heat when they need to rapidly stir-fry some meat or thicken a sauce, reducing it when they want to braise or steam.
It's for this reason that, while it's possible to make decent, even good stir-fries in a Western-style flat-bottomed pan, for the best flavor, you need a wok and a powerful burner—or better yet, do it directly on your grill.
But hang on a minute! Are you telling me that every person in China has one of these ridiculous high-octane setups in their kitchen?
Heck no! The vast majority of home cooks in China are cooking on regular old home burners, many with electric coils at that. So the question is, is it possible to cook something that tastes great with an electric burner?
The answer is an emphatic yes!
There are only two things you need to successfully stir-fry on an electric burner at home: a good flat-bottomed wok and a bit of know-how.
The Process
Take a quick peep at this chart below, which charts the temperature at the center of a pan in various setups:
As you can clearly see, while woks always dip below Western-style skillets right when the food is added, they quickly overtake them as they continue to cook, making them my preferred vessel of choice for stir-fries no matter what type of burner I'm using.
That green line soaring far above the rest is a wok on a grill, while the red line in the middle is a wok on a burner. It clearly doesn't get as hot as a wok on an outdoor set-up gets. Try and cook a stir-fry using the traditional, add-one-ingredient-at-a-time-until-they're-all-in-there method with an electric or gas burner, and you end up with vegetables and meat that steam instead of sear. How do you prevent that?
Firstly, start with a flat-bottomed-wok. Something that can rest nicely on your heating element and will heat up efficiently. A round-bottomed wok will be unstable and will not make good contact with the element.
Secondly, wait for the wok to get screaming hot. You want that wok to be literally smoking with heat before you add anything to it.
Finally, cook in batches. You want to use batches that are small enough that the meat or vegetables can really sear, their exuded juices evaporating rapidly instead of bubbling and simmering. For an electric burner, that may mean as little as, say, a quarter pound of meat at a time. This is not a problem, it just means your stir-fry will take a little bit longer. Get the wok smoking hot, cook the batch of meat, transfer it to a bowl, wipe out the wok, and repeat until all your meat is seared and in the bowl. Next, do the same for all your vegetables. Finally, heat up the wok again, stir-fry your aromatics, add the meat and vegetables back to the pan along with your sauce, toss to coat and to reduce a bit, and you're good to go.
Since the sauce is added last minute and is really cooked just long enough to thicken and reduce slightly, if it's burning into the bottom of your wok, you know that you've left the food in there too long!
For a step-by-step slideshow of the process, check out this post. Just be aware that the lower the output of your burner, the smaller the batches need to be.
And what's that? You want some recipes?
Alright, here you go!
- Real Deal Mapo Tofu
- Mapo Tofu, Vegan-Style
- Stir-Fried Velvet Chicken with Snap Peas and Lemon-Ginger Sauce
- Chinese Pepper Steak
- Chinese-American Beef and Broccoli With Oyster Sauce
- Mongolian Stir-Fried Lamb with Cumin
- Dry-Fried Chow Fun with Chinese Broccoli
- Braised Eggplant with Tofu in Garlic Sauce
- Real Deal Kung Pao Chicken
- Popeye Tso's Chicken (General Tso's Chicken Made with Popeye's Chicken Nuggets)
- Kung Pao Popeye (Kung Pao Chicken Made with Popeye's Nuggets)
- Sichuan-Style Braised Eggplant

subset: commoncrawl


text:
- Press Release
- Mar 22, 2023
Response from NASA Chief Scientist Waleed Abdalati to Letter on NASA Climate Studies
"NASA sponsors research into many areas of cutting-edge scientific inquiry, including the relationship between carbon dioxide and climate. As an agency, NASA does not draw conclusions and issue 'claims' about research findings. We support open scientific inquiry and discussion.
"Our Earth science programs provide many unique space-based observations and research capabilities to the scientific community to inform investigations into climate change, and many NASA scientists are actively involved in these investigations, bringing their expertise to bear on the interpretation of this information. We encourage our scientists to subject these results and interpretations to scrutiny by the scientific community through the peer-review process. After these studies have met the appropriate standards of scientific peer-review, we strongly encourage scientists to communicate these results to the public.
"If the authors of this letter disagree with specific scientific conclusions made public by NASA scientists, we encourage them to join the debate in the scientific literature or public forums rather than restrict any discourse."


text:
NASHVILLE, Tenn.— Beating a team that played in the NFC championship game is nice in the preseason. Winning when both the Titans and Atlanta Falcons played their starters into the third quarter makes it even better.
Jake Locker threw for 133 yards and a touchdown, and Tennessee sacked Matt Ryan five times Saturday night as the Titans beat the Falcons 27-16.
Locker got both his first TD and the first turnover this preseason for the Titans. The third-year quarterback also posted his best game yet as he completed 11 of 13 passes and finished with a 134.9 passer rating before leaving after a series in the third quarter.
Ryan had Tony Gonzalez back after the veteran tight end reported to the Falcons this week. But a Tennessee defense without four starters got to Ryan repeatedly, including three times on third downs. Julio Jones was thrown at eight times with Roddy White resting an injured ankle, and dropped a couple while also drawing an offensive pass interference penalty.
Atlanta wound up settling for four field goal attempts by Jeremy Shelley, and he missed a 46-yarder wide right.
The Falcons, who lost to San Francisco in the NFC championship game in January, averaged 26.2 points per season in 2012. But they trailed 20-6 when Ryan left after one series in the third period, settling for field goals despite driving to the Tennessee 6 and 13 early.
The Falcons didn't get that close again with the first-team offense.
Tennessee had been shredded on the ground the first two games, including giving up 193 yards rushing last week at Cincinnati. That didn't bode well for a defense that allowed a franchise-worst 471 points last season, and the Titans scratched end Ropati Pitoitua, tackle Sammie Hill and linebackers Akeem Ayers and Zach Brown for injuries.
It didn't matter because the Titans got to Ryan repeatedly, and only a call from the officials helped bail him out of a would-be turnover. Ryan was ruled in the grasp before the ball came out with defensive tackle Jurrell Casey recovering in the second quarter.
The Titans finished with six sacks.
"That was one of our goals this whole season is to get to the quarterback and take pressure off of our DBs, and I felt up front we had a great game today being able to do that," Casey said.
Locker's turnover came when Atlanta blitzed on third down. He got away from Thomas DeCoud and scrambled to the first down marker only to be stripped by Joplo Bartu, with DeCoud recovering the ball. But the defense held, forcing a field goal.
"You can't have turnovers like that," Locker said. "It was nice to respond and find ways to put points on the board."
Atlanta cornerback Asante Samuel hurt his thigh in the first quarter and didn't return. Rookie Robert Alford replaced him, with rookie Desmond Trufant on the other side, and Locker started going downfield more.
Chris Johnson ran 11 times for 65 yards. Backup Shonn Greene hurt an ankle in the first half and didn't finish the game.
Ryan Fitzpatrick, signed to back up Locker, made sure the Titans finally finished a game with a win. Dominique Davis rallied the Falcons within 20-16 with a TD pass to Darius Johnson, but Fitzpatrick found Michael Preston on a 6-yarder to seal it.


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10 best cities for early retirement
Early retirement is a dream for many, but the reality poses unique challenges. Foremost, because you'll enter retirement at a younger age, your nest egg will need to stretch further. Saving more will help, but many early retirees will be inclined to supplement savings with a paycheck from a part-time job or an encore career. In fact, 21% of nonretired Americans polled by Gallup expect part-time work to be a major source of retirement income.
With this in mind, we asked data aggregator FindTheBest to help us identify economically healthy cities where early retirees should be able to work (if they choose) and prosper during their second acts. We took into account unemployment rates, household incomes and living costs, especially for housing and health care. We also screened the states for tax-friendliness based on our Retiree Tax Map. While you might not qualify for all of these tax breaks immediately, they'll come in handy as you age in place. Finally, we sought out cities with low crime and high concentrations of residents ages 45 to 64, so you can safely enjoy your early retirement with peers.
Also: Click here to check out our state-by-state guide to taxes on retirees.
Take a look at our 10 best cities for early retirement (methodology at the bottom):
10. Honolulu
City population: 345,610
Percentage of population age 45 to 64: 27.2% (U.S.: 26.2%)
Crime rate: 3.96 crimes per 100 residents (U.S. average: 4.01)
Cost of living: 49% above the national average
State's retiree tax picture:Mixed
Hawaii's capital can be a paradise for early retirees with plump nest eggs. There's a high concentration of people ages 45 to 64, and the local economy is strong. Unemployment hovers around 4% thanks to jobs generated by tourism and area military installations. But paradise comes at a price. Honolulu is one of the most expensive U.S. cities to live in. Housing is the biggest culprit, providing all the more reason to downsize in retirement. Health-care costs, by comparison, are surprisingly reasonable. There's a 4% state sales tax — Honolulu residents pay 4.5% due to a 0.5% surcharge to fund mass transit — but prescription drugs are exempt. Social Security benefits and most other pension payouts aren't subject to Hawaii's income tax, which can run as high as 11%.
Of course, tropical beaches, trade winds and near-perfect temperatures year round bolster Honolulu's appeal. Active retirees will want to pick up a water sport or hike scenic trails that crisscross the Hawaiian islands including Oahu, where Honolulu is located. A favorite destination for dining and shopping, popular with locals and tourists alike, is the sprawling Waikiki Beach Walk, one of our 10 Great Waterfront Destinations.
9. Virginia Beach, Va.
City population: 447,021
Percentage of population age 45 to 64: 24.9%
Crime rate: 3.27 crimes per 100 residents
Cost of living: 6% above the national average
State's retiree tax picture:Mixed
The biggest city on this list is a small beach town at heart. During the summer, people-watch along the three-mile oceanfront boardwalk, gathering place for hordes of sunburned tourists. Quieter beach scenes can be found at Sandbridge and Chic's Beach. Golfers can delight in 11 courses, including the Virginia Beach National Golf Club, past host to the former Nationwide Tour. And year-round, you can explore the area's museums, theaters and historic sites, including Yorktown, Jamestown and Colonial Williamsburg, which are just an hour's drive away.
The overall cost of living in Virginia Beach is about on par with the national average, and the state offers retirees some financial benefits, as well. Prescription and nonprescription drugs are exempt from Virginia's sales tax. Also, the state does not tax Social Security benefits and has no inheritance or estate tax. Sales tax adds up to 6% once you factor in the 4.3% state tax, 1% local tax and special 0.7% regional tax for Hampton Roads, which includes Virginia Beach.
8. Midland, Texas
City population: 119,385
Percentage of population age 45 to 64: 24.1%
Crime rate: 4.03 crimes per 100 residents
Cost of living: 9% below the national average
State's retiree tax picture:Friendly
A West Texas boom town isn't a traditional retirement destination, but don't be too quick to dismiss the charms of Midland, childhood home of former president George W. Bush. It's sunny and dry most of the year, and the local economy is red-hot, thanks to fracking. Advances in technology have made it possible to tap previously untouched oil reserves, creating jobs and spurring growth. On the downside, Midland's resurgence has pushed real estate prices up a bit.
Still, the overall cost of living remains relatively low. And the Lone Star State is mighty friendly to retirees, at least in terms of taxes. Texas has no state income tax, so Social Security benefits and all retirement income are free of taxes. There is also no inheritance or estate tax.
7. Peoria, Ariz.
City population: 159,789
Percentage of population age 45 to 64: 24.1%
Crime rate: 3.16 crimes per 100 residents
Cost of living: 9% below the national average
State's retiree tax picture:One of the most tax-friendly in the U.S.
Arizona is a prime destination for retirees of all ages, thanks to dry heat, ample sunshine and favorable tax laws. The personal income tax rate tops out at 4.54%. Social Security benefits, as well as up to $2,500 of some retirement income, are tax-exempt. And there is no state property, inheritance, gift or estate tax. The state sales tax, which does not apply to food meant for home consumption or prescription drugs, recently dropped a percentage point to 5.6%. But add in city and county sales taxes and the combined retail sales tax in Peoria rises to 8.1%.
Peoria comes with its own benefits. As a suburb of Phoenix, it gives you easy access to big-city amenities for just a fraction of the living costs. Housing is the most affordable of all the cities on this list at 17% below the national average — far less than in nearby Scottsdale, a retirement hot spot where housing costs are 30% above average. The median age in Peoria is seven years younger than in Scottsdale, which is a plus for early retirees.
6. Bellevue, Wash.
City population: 126,439
Percentage of population age 45 to 64: 26.2%
Crime rate: 3.29 crimes per 100 residents
Cost of living: 16% above the national average
State's retiree tax picture:Friendly
If you're thinking of working in retirement, Bellevue should make for a good base of operations. The area's unemployment, at around 6%, is well below the national average. Seattle, a great city to start a business and possibly your encore career, is just a short Sound Transit bus ride away. A light-rail line that will connect Bellevue to Seattle is in the works.
While you'll enjoy the proximity of a bustling urban center, you can rest easy with the added safety of the suburban life. The crime rate in Bellevue is 3.29 crimes per 100 residents, about half of Seattle's rate. And the retiree tax situation is just as friendly: Washington has no state income tax, so Social Security and other retirement income are not taxed. Use the money you save to shop the high-end retailers of the Bellevue Collection or to explore one of more than 90 wineries in nearby Woodinville Wine Country.
5. Sioux Falls, S.D.
City population: 159,908
Percentage of population age 45 to 64: 23.9%
Crime rate: 3.19 crimes per 100 residents
Cost of living: 18% below the national average
State's retiree tax picture:Friendly
Retire to South Dakota. Really? Really. Yes, it's isolated, but the state's most populous city, Sioux Falls, has plenty to offer early retirees. And don't just take our word for it. Prevention.com named it one of the happiest, healthiest cities in America, noting that a paved bike trail that encircles the city helps keep residents mentally and physically fit. Forbes listed it as one of the best small places for business and careers in ten of the past 11 years, due in no small part to the state's lack of corporate income tax. And the Milken Institute, an economic think tank, dubbed Sioux Falls the best small metro area for successful aging.
The chamber of commerce can now add to its trophy case the honor of being named one of the best cities for early retirement. Sioux Falls is the most affordable of all the cities on this list, with living costs 18% below the national average. In addition to the lack of corporate income tax, South Dakota levies no individual income tax, so Social Security benefits and other retirement income go unburdened.
4. Sandy Springs, Ga.
City population: 99,419
Percentage of population age 45 to 64: 24.9%
Crime rate: 3.84 crimes per 100 residents
Cost of living: 5% above the national average
State's retiree tax picture:One of the most tax-friendly in the U.S.
The smallest city on this list offers direct access to the big-city scene. Using the local metrorail system, MARTA, you can get from Sandy Springs to downtown Atlanta's Five Points neighborhood in less than 40 minutes for just $2.50. Or if you opt to stay home in the relative safety of the Sandy Springs suburb, where the crime rate is about half that of Atlanta, you can still find plenty to keep you entertained. Heritage Sandy Springs — a community organization that manages the four-acre Heritage Green, the Sandy Springs Society Entertainment Lawn and the Heritage Sandy Springs Museum — hosts plenty of festivals, concerts and other events. Outdoor enthusiasts can also enjoy the more than 20 miles of shoreline along the Chattahoochee River.
The metro area can entertain your less-leisurely interests, too. Atlanta is a great city for starting a business, if your early retirement marks the start of an entrepreneurial second act. According to consulting firm KPMG, business costs are 3.8% below the national average. And the tax situation in Georgia is just as friendly to retirees: Social Security and, for people age 62 to 64, up to $35,000 (or up to $65,000 for people 65 or older) of most types of other retirement income are exempt.
3. Alexandria, Va.
City population: 146,294
Percentage of population age 45 to 64: 24.6%
Crime rate: 2.45 crimes per 100 residents
Cost of living: 21% above the national average
State's retiree tax picture:Mixed
Government shutdowns aside, Uncle Sam is a stable employer, buoying the local economies of the nation's capital and its suburbs. Alexandria, just south of Washington, D.C., boasts the lowest unemployment rate of all the cities on this list. The trade-offs for residents are above-average living expenses and so-so tax breaks. While Virginia doesn't tax Social Security income, it does tax other income, including federal and military pensions, at rates ranging from 2% to 5.75%. Someone 65 or older can deduct up to $12,000 of retirement income, subject to income-eligibility limits. Sales tax adds up to 6% once you factor in the 4.3% state tax, 1% local tax and special 0.7% regional tax for Northern Virginia.
Proximity to Washington means easy access to plenty of free attractions. Forget the usual suspects: monuments and memorials along the National Mall, as well as the Natural History and Air and Space museums. You've probably seem them a hundred times already. Instead focus on the rich cultural programs offered by the National Gallery of Art, which has a robust lineup of films, concerts and lectures. Two Metro lines offer direct service into the District. In Alexandria proper, many neighborhoods near Old Town and the King Street metro station are very walkable, meaning you can keep the car in the garage when you run errands. The Potomac River waterfront and the Mount Vernon Trail are prime spots bikers and joggers.
2. Cary, N.C.
City population: 145,693
Percentage of population age 45 to 64: 26.5%
Crime rate: 1.60 crimes per 100 residents
Cost of living: 2% above the national average
State's retiree tax picture:Mixed
At the heart of North Carolina's Research Triangle — between Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill — Cary is surrounded by powerhouse employers (not to mention college sports teams) that provide the area with a solid economic base. Along with a healthy job market, the region also boasts affordable living. Less than 20 minutes away, Raleigh is one of our best cities for cheapskates, thanks in part to its more than 40 free cultural attractions, including the North Carolina Museum of Art. It's also our most affordable big city for renters.
Besides whiling away your retirement rooting for the North Carolina State Wolfpack, the Duke Blue Devils or the University of North Carolina Tar Heels — you must pick one — sports fans can check out the USA Baseball National Training Complex in Cary. And trust that the action will stay on the field: Cary rests easy with the lowest crime rate of all the cities on this list. As for health care, Duke University Medical Center, in nearby Durham, is ranked one of the nation's best hospitals by U.S. News.
1. Naperville, Ill.
City population: 143,684
Percentage of population age 45 to 64: 27.8%
Crime rate: 1.66 crimes per 100 residents
Cost of living: 3% above the national average
State's retiree tax picture:Mixed
While enjoying the safety of the suburbs — Naperville has the second-lowest crime rate on this list — you can still take advantage of all the urban offerings of nearby Chicago. In about an hour aboard the Metra commuter-rail system, you can reach Union Station with a $5.75 one-way ticket, reduced to $2.75 for seniors. Once in the city, relish everything that makes Chicago famous, including its food, bars, beach, architecture, sports teams and art scene.
Back in Naperville, early retirees will feel at home thanks to the highest percentage of residents ages 45 to 64 on this list. Meet new-found friends in the pedestrian-friendly downtown, which is packed with shops and restaurants as well as a 1.75-mile Riverwalk. But as you plan your entertainment budget, remember to account for the 7.25% sales tax (state and local rates combined). Though steep, it's actually less in Naperville than what you'd pay in other parts of Illinois, where combined rates can run much higher.
Methodology: City populations, population breakdowns by age, median household incomes and unemployment rates are from the U.S. Census Bureau. Cost-of-living figures are from the Economic Policy Institute. Crime rates are from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Tax information is drawn from Kiplinger's Retiree Tax Map, which is based on information from state tax departments, CCH and the Tax Foundation.
Related on Kiplinger.com:
• 10 most tax-friendly states for retirees
• 10 cheapest cities to live in
• Where millionaires live in America


text:
Pumpkins aren't just for pie anymore.
For as long as there has been Thanksgiving, it seems, Americans have clung stubbornly to the notion that pumpkin, unlike its sister squashes, is meant to be served on a crust and under whipped cream.
And on only one day each year.
The Great Pumpkin Crisis of 2009, when a lousy harvest resulted in (OK, modest) panic-buying and hoarding, appears to have caught our attention, and we are looking at the pumpkin in a new way.
"We think of pumpkins only as that Halloween thing," said Donna Crivello, owner of Donna's restaurants, who makes pumpkin ravioli and pumpkin risotto.
"Maybe we just think a pumpkin is too big and too hard to break open," she said, then added this advice: Simply prick the skin and bake in a slow oven, and pumpkin becomes easy to skin and cube. Bake it longer, and the pumpkin flesh will be soft enough for a pumpkin soup.
"You can use the smaller pie-sized pumpkins in almost all the same recipes that call for winter squash," says Teresa O'Connor, who writes the blog Seasonal Wisdom and is a co-author of "Grocery Gardening."
"Instead of potatoes, try mashing cooked pumpkins with different toppings like feta cheese, nuts, yogurt, cinnamon, cumin or other spices for a healthy side dish."
Healthy is right.
Pumpkins are packed with vitamin A in the form of cancer-fighting beta carotene, not to mention the B complex and C vitamins, as well as potassium, calcium and iron, O'Connor says.
Pumpkins have a fun side, too. Pastry chef Cindy Selby, owner of Blondie's Baking Company, a cafe in North Beach in Anne Arundel County, has made pumpkin flan and created individual creme brulees inside tiny pumpkins. "It is cute and a fun thing to do," she said.
"I just love fall. It is my favorite time of year, and it begins with pumpkin and maple syrup," said Selby, who created a recipe for a dessert bread that includes both.
You don't know what you have until it is gone, and home cooks were shocked in August and early September when they realized there was a shortage of canned pumpkin.
Grocery shelves are usually stocked with the surplus canned pumpkin from the previous season, and a poor growing season in 2009 and a rain-soaked harvest in Morton, Ill., the pumpkin capital of the world, kept the tractors from the fields, where the pumpkin crop was left to rot.
Nestle, which cans nearly 85 percent of the pumpkin sold in the U.S. under its Libby's label, had nothing to sell until the 2010 harvest — reported to be a good one — began to roll in in mid-September.
Some dedicated pumpkin fans even turned to eBay, where, the Associated Press reported, cans that normally sell for $1.50, were selling for $6 and $7.
In Maryland, this pumpkin growing season has been uneven — some farms received more rain than others — but generally good, said Brian Butler, the Carroll County extension agent for the University of Maryland and the state's unofficial pumpkin expert.
"It has been a little bit dry in places and a little bit too hot in places," said Butler. "Hot temperatures keep the pollination down." Maryland, he said, is almost ideally suited geographically to grow 30 or 40 varieties of pumpkin.
It is heat and drought that make pumpkin a staple of the vegetarian diet in his home country, said Qayum Karzai, the owner of Baltimore's award-winning Afghan restaurant, The Helmand.
" Afghanistan has little refrigeration and no winter vegetables. And pumpkin has a long shelf life, so all these things make it popular in Afghanistan," he said.
Kaddo bowrani, or "baked pumpkin," the appetizer he serves at The Helmand, is the restaurant's most popular dish. Chunks of pumpkin are fried and then slow-baked with a hint of sugar and cinnamon, served with warm yogurt mixed with garlic.
The soft pumpkin and yogurt, slathered on a warm, peppery flatbread, would be the main course in Afghanistan, Karsai said. "Unless it is a state dinner or guests you want to impress."
He buys enough pumpkins to last until May, he said, when he is forced to switch to eggplant or another squash until the pumpkin harvest comes in.
Pumpkin bread and pumpkin muffins are traditional ways to enjoy pumpkin in the fall. But The Main Ingredient, an Annapolis restaurant and catering service, startled its first patrons years ago by serving pumpkin muffins with all of its entree salads.
"It was a sweet way to finish off a salad. It was different, and it became our signature," said Evie Turner, a vice president at The Main Ingredient. They serve between 700 and 950 mini pumpkin muffins a week and go through 750 No. 10 cans of pumpkin in a year.
Happily, she said, the restaurant's supplier came through during The Great Pumpkin Crisis.
Would she share a recipe for the signature muffins?
"Never," she said, laughing.
The Helmand's kaddo bowrani (baked pumpkin)
Makes: 4-6 servings
For pumpkin:
1 small pumpkin (baby or spookies work best)
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
For yogurt sauce:
1 cup plain yogurt
1 teaspoon fresh-cut diced garlic
Dash salt
Slice pumpkin and remove seeds. Peel outer skin. Slice 2-inch pieces lengthwise. Place oil in skillet pan and heat to medium heat. Add pumpkin. Cook on medium heat covered for approximately 10 minutes, turning once. Remove from pan and place in small roasting or baking pan. Sprinkle the pumpkin with the sugar and cinnamon. Cover tightly. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minute or until soft. Time may differ according to the hardness of the pumpkin.
For yogurt sauce, stir ingredients together until smooth.
Serve pumpkin warm with yogurt sauce.
Courtesy of Qayum Karsai, The Helmand
Roasted butternut squash or pumpkin risotto
1 yellow (large) onion, diced
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 tablespoons butter (more if you wish to finish)
1/2 cup dry white wine
3 cups roasted butternut squash or pumpkin (see notes)
1 pound arborio rice
8-10 cups homemade stock (chicken, or vegetable)
salt and pepper
fresh herbs, thyme, parsley
1/2 cup grated romano cheese (more if you wish)
1/2 cup golden raisins
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg
To roast squash or pumpkin: Use two 11/2-pound butternut squash or one 3-pound pumpkin: Set on sturdy baking pan, prick the skin with a small, sharp knife, making about 20 tiny holes to let out steam. Roast in hot oven (450 degrees) for about 20 minutes or until skin browns a bit and you can pierce the skin and go through to the flesh just slightly. Remove from oven, and cool a bit. Cut in half, scoop out seeds, remove skins and cut the flesh into cubes.
For risotto, coat the bottom of large wide skillet (with rather high sides) with olive oil. Bring temperature to medium high. Add half of the butter. As the butter bubbles, add the onion cook until soft, not brown, then add the rice. Stir, coating the rice with oil and butter, about 4 minutes. Add wine. Stir for 2 to 3 minutes until rice absorbs the liquid. Have hot stock ready. Add the squash or pumpkin cubes to rice, stir. When the rice has absorbed all the stock, (careful not let the rice stick) add more liquid. Continue to add stock, stir, wait until rice absorbs the liquid, then add more stock. About another 15 minutes. When cooking time as reached about 25 minutes check doneness of rice. Add more liquid if needed and then stir in softened butter and cheese, raisins and spices. Finish with chopped herbs.
Another option: Try other cheeses such as gorgonzola, or chopped apples, or top with toasted squash or pumpkin seeds or nuts.
Courtesy of Donna Crivello of Donna's
Blondie's cranberry pecan pumpkin bread
2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup canned pure pumpkin
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Dish Baltimore
2/3 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup dried sweetened cranberries
1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter 91/4 x51/4 x3-inch loaf pan. Line bottom and two long sides with waxed paper. Whisk flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder, salt and baking soda in medium bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until fluffy. Gradually add 1 cup sugar, beating until blended. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Beat in pumpkin, then vanilla. Beat in dry ingredients alternately with buttermilk in two additions each. Fold in cranberries and nuts. Transfer batter to pan. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon sugar.
Bake bread until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 1 hour, 10 minutes. Cool bread in pan on rack 15 minutes. Cut around bread at short ends to loosen from pan. Turn bread out onto rack; peel off waxed paper. Cool bread completely. (Can be made two days ahead. Wrap and store at room temperature.) A great French toast or bread pudding can be made with any leftovers.
Serve a side of maple cream cheese. Just take grade B Maple syrup and softened cream cheese and mix together to taste. Choose grade B because of the more intense maple flavor; your typical pancake syrup has too much sugar.
Courtesy of Cindy Selby of Blondie's Baking Company


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Rangers and Devils Draw Big Local Numbers For Game 7
April 27, 2012 3 Comments
Both the New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils emerged victorious in tense Game 7's of their Eastern Conference Quarterfinal series on Thursday, and the MSG people were there to reap the benefits.
The Rangers Game 7 win over the Ottawa Senators drew a 5.4 overnight in the New York market, marking the best rating for a Rangers game on MSG since Game 7 of the 1994 Stanley Cup Final, the last time the Rangers won a championship. The game peaked with an 8.5 in the area at 9:30.
While the Devils are obviously lower on the totem pole in the area, New Jersey's team also posted stellar numbers for their double overtime Game 7 victory over the Florida Panthers. The game drew a 1.7 overnight in the New York market (which includes parts of Connecticut, NYC and the Devils base in North and Central Jersey). That marks the best rating for a Devils game on MSG Plus since Game 6 of the team's 2001 Eastern Semifinal against the Toronto Maple Leafs. The game peaked with a 3.4 at 11:30, 45 minutes before Adam Henrique's game-winner.
(Sources: John Ourand, Richard Sandomir, Fire & Ice)


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It started around 1 a.m. My son, Liam, was 14 months old, and the noises coming from his room didn't seem completely human: There was a sort of honking bark followed by a whistle-y kind of breathing.
Illnesses can strike at inconvenient hours especially when your child awakens at night with symptoms.
I ran into his room, my heart racing with worry, and I found him sitting up in his crib, looking scared and tired. I picked him up, took his temperature -- no fever -- and called the doctor.
"It sounds like croup," the doctor said. "Wrap him up in a warm blanket, sit outside with him, and call me back if his cough and breathing don't improve in ten minutes." Huh? This was early spring in New Hampshire. Sit outside?
It had to be worth a shot. I wrapped Liam up so that only his frightened little face was exposed, put on my winter coat, and stepped onto our screened-in porch. We sat on the rocking chair, moving back and forth, looking at the stars, and listening to the croaking tree frogs.
Within 15 minutes his throat gradually, miraculously cleared. The coughing stopped, his breathing sounded normal, and believe it or not, he had fallen back to sleep.
In the meantime, my husband had set up a modern version of outdoor night air -- a cool-mist humidifier -- in Liam's room. I put him back in his crib, and he slept through the night. I, on the other hand, kept checking in on him every hour or so, but that's what mothers do.
Sickness never comes at a convenient time, but when your child awakens in the middle of the night with distressing symptoms, chaos often follows. Everyone is half asleep and not thinking clearly. The doctor's office is closed, and you don't know whether you should call and wake him or try to deal with the ailment yourself.
Let's relieve some of the stress of that decision right now: Anytime you think your child's health may be in serious danger -- for instance, he has a high fever and is acting unusual, has trouble breathing, has a strange rash, or is having a seizure -- call your doctor (or 911) immediately. And almost any symptom in a baby under 4 months old merits an immediate call to the doctor, no matter the time.
So what are you supposed to do the other 97 percent of the time when your child wakes up at 2 a.m. worse off than when he went to bed? Symptoms of many children's illnesses routinely worsen at night, and though there's nothing life-threatening about them, they can make your child miserable. Fortunately, with a little planning and the help of our middle-of-the-night health guide, you'll have what you need to get your kid (and you!) feeling better by morning.
Asthma and allergies
Why they're worse at night: If your child has asthma or certain allergies, you're probably all too familiar with the challenges of helping her through the wee hours. There are many factors at play: "The body's level of cortisol drops at night, and cortisol has some preventive effects on asthma," says Dr. Santiago Martinez, pediatric allergist and clinical assistant professor of medicine at Florida State University Medical School in Tallahassee. Plus, the levels of histamine rise, aggravating many allergy and asthma symptoms. And finally, some allergens, such as dust mites and pet dander, may be more prevalent in a child's room, increasing her exposure while she sleeps. Parenting.com: Interactive guide to allergies
What to do: If your child has an allergy attack at night, an antihistamine should quell her symptoms (ask your doctor for the best one to have on hand for your child). Should you find that her attacks are frequent and occur year-round, you may want to consider immunotherapy shots, which introduce tiny amounts of the allergen into the body, slowly allowing immunity to build.
Got an asthmatic? You know what to stock: a bronchodilator, which immediately opens the airways; a peak flow meter to monitor your child's breathing; and preventive medications such as leukotriene inhibitors or inhaled steroid medications, which work to keep inflammation in check long-term. Parenting.com: Learn more about the symptoms and treatment of asthma
"If your child is having more than two flare-ups of asthma a week -- whether it's just a chronic dry cough or wheezing -- or if she's not responding well to the bronchodilators, her condition is not well controlled and she should be reevaluated by a doctor," says Martinez. "Virtually everyone can get their asthma under control if it is diagnosed and treated early. In some cases, asthma and allergies may just be seasonal problems, and treatment can be stepped up or reduced, depending on the need."
Preventive steps to reduce the allergens can go a long way, too. That may mean keeping your child's windows closed, banning Fluffy and Fido from her room, and encasing her bedding in allergy-proof covers. You can also consider using HEPA filters in your vacuum and a HEPA air filter -- these are designed to trap the minuscule particles that can aggravate symptoms.
Why it's worse at night: This barking-seal cough is usually the result of a viral infection that has settled in the upper airway and voice box, and typically strikes while the child has a cold. Because it causes swelling of the vocal cords, the cough also may be accompanied by noisy, rapid breathing. Croup is almost always at its worst at night, partly because blood flow to the respiratory tract changes when a child lies down. Plus, dry air can aggravate it. Parenting.com: 5 drug-free cures for colds, colic, constipation, and more
What to do: "Begin by giving your child a dose of children's ibuprofen to reduce the severity of the swelling in his airways and relieve the discomfort," says Dr. Andrea Leeds, a pediatrician in Bellmore, New York, and a member of the committee on practice and ambulatory medicine for the American Academy of Pediatrics. (If your child is younger than 12 months, skip ibuprofen unless your doctor has already given you the OK to use it.) "Then strip him down to his diaper or underpants, turn on the shower full blast, and sit in the steamy bathroom with him for fifteen minutes." After that -- and this is the most important part, says Leeds -- dress him, wrap him up in a blanket, and take him outside in the cool night air (or, if it's summertime, hold him in front of the open freezer door or an air conditioner for at least five minutes).
The steam relaxes the airways and vocal cords, while the cold air reduces the swelling; this combination often controls symptoms until the next day, when you can go to the doctor. (Like my doctor, yours may recommend one strategy or the other; if you notice a clear improvement, as we did with just the cold air, it's usually fine to stop there.)
Why it's worse at night: Whether the infection is in the middle ear or in the ear canal (also called swimmer's ear), these puppies can hurt. Lying down increases the collection of fluid and puts extra pressure on the inflamed tissue.
What to do: Ibuprofen (for kids older than 12 months) or acetaminophen can help relieve the ache, but you can also try this remedy for severe pain from middle ear infections: "Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in the microwave so it's warm -- but not hot -- to your touch," says Leeds. "Put two to three drops of the warm oil in your child's affected ear. It relaxes the membranes and brings almost instant relief." Applying a warm, damp washcloth to your child's ear also can help. Either way, it's smart to check in with your doctor in the morning; your child may need an antibiotic to clear the infection if it's not improving on its own (as many do). If your child is prone to them, ask about getting prescription eardrops to numb the pain next time around.
Why it's worse at night: Body temperature rises naturally in the evening, so a fever that was slight during the day can easily spike during sleep.
What to do: First, take your child's temperature (do it rectally if she's under 6 months old -- and, ideally, for as long as she'll allow this method). Any fever above 100.4°F in an infant under 3 months warrants an immediate call to the doctor. Same goes for an elevated temp in any child that's accompanied by lethargy, vomiting, diarrhea, stiff neck, or an unusual rash. Parenting.com: Feverish kid? Find out if she should see a doctor
Otherwise, try a dose of acetaminophen, wait half an hour, and check the temperature again, says Leeds. "If it hasn't begun to come down and she's older than a year, give your child some ibuprofen, too," she adds. "You can use these medications together, separated by half an hour. Just remember that acetaminophen can be given every four hours, and ibuprofen can be given every six to eight hours." (Write down the time of each dose to help you keep track.) In the meantime -- and if you're not too delirious -- you can give your child a room-temperature bath to help cool her down. And definitely help her stay hydrated by offering some water (or formula or breast milk if she's a baby) before she goes back to sleep. Call the doctor in the morning to check in; she may want you to bring your child in.
Parenting.com: What kind of cough is it? Find out with an interactive symptom checker
Itchy skin
Why it's worse at night: When your child is lying still, it's a whole lot easier to focus on the itchiness, whether it's due to poison ivy, bug bites, eczema, or even sunburn. And if the itchy skin is rooted in some kind of allergy, you've got the higher nighttime levels of histamines to thank.
What to do: Take some advice from Tyler Bingham of Lynn Haven, Florida, whose 4-year-old daughter has eczema. "Katie's skin is always itchier at night," says Bingham. "So before she goes to bed, we use a moisturizing body wash, then I'll massage a dry-skin lotion, usually one from Aveeno, onto her legs, where her eczema is the worst. The massage calms her and the lotion soothes. If need be, I also run a cool-mist humidifier in her room to keep the air moist."
Dealing with an allergic rash or lots of bites? An antihistamine can bring relief. A topical cortisone cream can help as well, but again, avoid using this type of product before you have specific instructions from your ped.
Stuffy nose
Why it's worse at night: Too bad kids can't sleep standing up like horses -- then their nasal passages wouldn't swell more when they sleep!
What to do: For immediate relief, use saline nose drops or spray. Both will moisten the membranes and loosen the secretions, making it easier for your child to blow out the mucus, or for you to remove it with a bulb syringe if you have a baby. "My nine-month-old, Hamza, hated the bulb syringe whenever I used it on him," says Diana Malikyar, who lives in Stone Mountain, Georgia. "But then I laid him down in front of the bathroom mirror so he could watch me doing it. Once it stopped taking him by surprise, he was very willing to let me use it."
You may be tempted to offer your child a decongestant, but they're no longer recommended for kids under 2, and many doctors advise against giving them to older kids. There's no evidence that they work, and some that they could cause harm. And unless you're positive the stuffiness is due to allergies, steer clear of antihistamines, too.
Why it's worse at night: It's not that kids are necessarily more likely to throw up at night; it's more that it feels about ten times worse because you usually end up having to change bedsheets, clean up rugs, change and wash pajamas -- all when you're bone tired. Then you have to worry that it could happen again. (Oh, and it's pretty awful for your kid.)
What to do: First, make sure your child isn't throwing up anything green or bloody; if he is, call the doctor, as this could indicate a more serious condition. Same goes for vomiting accompanied by pain in the lower right side of the abdomen. If it's just run-of-the-mill vomiting, do your best to clean up and calm down your child. Comfort him with a cool, wet washcloth on his forehead and face, then let him go back to sleep, with a plastic bowl or other container by his bed in case he feels sick again. If he's still awake an hour later but hasn't vomited again, try giving him small sips of flat cola or ginger ale, if you have it. "You can also try opening up a can of pears or peaches and giving the child one tablespoon of the syrup inside every fifteen minutes," says Dr. Philip Itkin, clinical associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Nebraska Medical College in Omaha. "It really helps settle the stomach and keeps him hydrated." An ice pop is a good alternative, too.
Elisa Pollack Kandel is no stranger to middle-of-the-night vomit sessions. "My four-year-old daughter has a weak stomach, and one night she threw up a grand total of fourteen times, beginning at 3 a.m.," says Kandel, who lives in Merrick, New York. "Since then, I've learned to keep hand towels in her night-table drawer and a plastic wastepaper basket by her bed. Plus, the minute I hear her cough at night, I run in and pull back the top sheet and comforter. It really cuts down on the laundry! And whenever pillows go on sale, I buy a couple." Now that's what we call prepared.
The middle-of-the-night survival kit
A little preparation can go a long way toward making those 2 a.m. sick calls easier. Some things to have on hand:
In the medicine chest...
Pain and fever relievers. Stock both children's ibuprofen and children's acetaminophen (or the infant formulations for kids under two) and jot down the correct dose for each approved by your doctor.
A children's antihistamine and cortisone cream (with doctor-approved instructions)
Saline nose drops or spray
Nasal aspirator
Medicine dropper
Prescription pain-relief eardrops (if your child is prone to infections)
Petroleum jelly
Digital thermometer
In the kitchen...
Olive oil
Canned peaches or pears in syrup
Ice pops
Flat cola or ginger ale
In his room...
Cool-mist humidifier
Facial tissues
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All About Pediatrics • Asthma • Allergies


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…but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. (Isaiah 40:31)
How did it get to be Friday already? Now nearing the end of the women's conference, the hour for goodbyes is not far away. What this means is that the rate of picture taking increases among us so we can capture that one last special moment of hugs and smiles before we part in tears. Where our cameras had measured the photos in hundreds per day, we will probably be in the thousands by later this evening! How special it is when sisters in Christ gather to share their faith, their hope, and their love.
Each day when we have gathered in the morning, we have a time of worship. Elias and Petra lead us in song and prayer, we have a Bible study (these have centered on scriptures about women) and sandwiched in between is a theological reflection on our theme of hope. I had the great privilege today of presenting that reflection, and I took my cue from Marilyn's on Tuesday about the people in our lives who have been witnesses of this hope that does not disappoint.
I shared with the group that hope is a journey. Where fear freezes us in our tracks, tells us to stop, hope tells us to go. God is with us. He has already written the end of the story. I told them that I thank God every day for Facebook because it keeps this global community hooked together across the miles so that we can share each other's stories. Most of my posts fall into three categories: my husband, the people of Syria and Lebanon (you can read my message about that in the most recent edition of The Outreach Foundation magazine here, just go to page 12), and my sister Jana.
Jana's life verse is that passage from Isaiah. She is head injured. She cannot speak clearly and walks with support, but has no strength in her body. And yet her life of hope brought me back to the community of faith, my church in Omaha. It was there I met my husband. Together the three of us are a family of faith. And it was from joining that church that I met Marilyn Borst who introduced me to the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon and engaged me with the community in this place. Jana's witness of hope, her waiting on the Lord, renewed her strength and mine, has allowed us to walk and run and soar in the journey that Jesus calls us to.
Elias' Bible study on the story-in-a-story of the bleeding woman (Mark 5:21-43) was just the extra blessing I needed today about hope. As Elias told it, this story is the meat in the "Mark sandwich." It interrupts the story of Jairus who wanted Jesus to heal his daughter. It was a great reminder that Jesus' miracles are not feats of magic, but an invitation to those who are weak physically (like Jana) or spiritually (like me) to reach out in faith and grab onto Jesus, if only onto the hem of his cloak. Her healing restored her to the community, in fact, put her right back into the center of it as he singled her out for her faith. You see, fear says stop, but hope says go!
For some of us this day of hope began with sad news, a reminder that the war continues. At last report, 238 people had died in Sweida, a city in the south of Syria near the border of Jordan. Surprise and suicide attacks by ISIS decimated families and neighborhoods in this place that is mostly Druze, but Christians are there as well. At least one woman at the conference lives there, so she would know by name those who died and were buried today.
Here in this place of peace and calm, we rely on that word from God that says he is with us always, and we recover our hope. Indeed, hope remains with us and in us, and tonight we gathered all the houses of hope – all those signs in shining lights – into one great village. And we remember where we began our journey of hope this week in God's word:
For you have been my hope, Sovereign Lord, my confidence since my youth. From birth I have relied on you; you brought me forth from my mother's womb. I will ever praise you. I have become a sign to many; you are my strong refuge. (Psalm 71:5-7)
But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. (1 Peter 3:15a)
Jesus is our hope. The sign has been given to us by others.
Jesus is our reason for our hope. That is, and remains, our answer.
And so we gathered at the Cedar House tonight, little houses of hope lit from within, like the spirit of God lights us from within. We circled up for a prayer service, a community of hope. Sheryl opened us in English, and Arabic voices followed, as we prayed for couples, for children, for new families just forming, and for women. We punctuated each prayer by singing the Kyrie Elieson to a haunting Middle Eastern tune.
Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy.
Back now on the porch of the Carslaw House, we can look up the short road to Cedar and see the lights brightening the dusky night. Here there is hope. Here there is light. Here there is Jesus.


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Oklahoma City police caught this woman shoplifting at a local Target with 33 Blu-ray discs shoved down her pants. I just want to know, where was she hiding the player?
And dear god, lady, have you not heard of Bittorrent? The cherry on top is that she was also charged with assault and battery. Pretty hard to put a fight up with that many movies in your panties, but I suppose it would nullify all hits below the belt. [newsok via Obscurestore]


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2005 MIT Press
Sterling is best known for his work as an author of fictional works within the cyberpunk sci-fi genre, but Shaping Things is a book which largely examines technology, design and sustainability. Sterling is interested in interrogating the types of technological futures we are likely to encounter (a theme which of is of course also central to his fictional works), allied with considering how technological evolution, and the design practices which evolve alongside technologies can provide a future for a civilisation which
'Can't go on in their present form. The status quo uses energy and materials which are finite and toxic. They wreck the climate, poison the population and resource wars. They have no future.' P7
Sterling contends that these problematic technologies can be replaced and their deleterious impacts overcome through the implementation of a technoculture based on SPIMES:
'Manufactured objects whose informational support is so overwhelmingly rich and extensive that they are regarded as material instantiations of an immaterial system. SPIMES begin and end as data… SPIMES are sustainable, enhanceable, uniquely identifiable and made of substances that can and will be folded back into the production stream of the future.' P11
Sterling argues that dominant technocultures do not abolish previous technical ensembles, but compost them – perhaps composite may have been a more obvious descriptor, but Sterling's authorial style is full of entertaining linguistic obscurantisms. Consequently a SPIME based technoculture will not replace the artifacts, machines, products and gizmos that we have today, but will alter the forms or flavours these devices take. As an example, Sterling explores a bottle of wine, and the way in which its barcode and link to a website denote that this bottle of wine is from the gizmo era: it's still a bottle of wine, but one which contains particular informational affordances based on the dominant technoculture from which it emanates.
This leads onto a discussion of what I would consider to be issues around economies of attention, which Sterling describes as cognitive load in a gizmo society. His conclusions around the slogan 'everyone can't be a designer' and the notion of representative design as an analogue of representative government (and frankly, that means not very representative anything) are politically naïve and really not thoroughly though through.
'We interact differently in a world with representative design. In particular, with enough informational power, the "invisible hand of the market" becomes visible. The hand of the market was called "invisible" because Adam Smith had very few ways to measure it. Adam Smith lacked Metrics.' P23
Such a perspective on the market and the information society would have drawn critique as a neoliberal fantasy in 2005 when Shaping Things was published. Coming after the global economic crash in 2008 and the current stagnation/double dip recession/Eurozone crisis the notion that information technology has given financial services industries the ability to predict and control the future is simply farcical, and demonstrates the ideology of neoliberal cyberutopianism which permeates Stirling's text.
Where Sterling is somewhat more interesting is his thoughts around sustainability and temporality. Arguing that there is no way back to a (utopian) pre-industrial era in which humans lived in harmony with nature, Sterling contends that only through intelligent design practices can a pathway to a sustainable society be found. He contends that rapid prototyping will play a big role in this, casting the process as 'the exhaustion of the phase space of the problem – it isn't reasoned, thrifty or rational but it has the brutal efficiency of a chess-playing computer.' (P48) By exploring different possible solutions, and retaining the data which allows other designers to note which avenues provide dead-ends, Stirling argues that rapid prototyping will allow a kind of distributed, swarm-like intelligence to permeate design practices, creating a synchronic society in which innovation occurs increasingly rapidly. This feeds into a general theme exploring relations between technology and temporality, with Sterling arguing that:
Genuinely radical changes in the human perception of time are not caused by philosophy, but instrumentation. The most radical changes in our temporal outlook come from technological devices, tools of temporal perception: clocks, telescopes, radio-carbon daters, spectrometers. P51
This leads Sterling to reflect that:
We're in trouble as a culture because we lack firm ideas of where we are in time an what we might do to ensure ourselves a future. We're also in trouble for technical and practical reasons: because we design build and use dysfunctional hardware… To understand hardware, we need to understand hardware's engagement with TIME. P54/55
When explicating what he envisions as the origins of SPLIME's in contemporary culture, Sterling points to RFID tags and the potential to create and Internet of Things based on this type of technology, or more likely future iterations of device which evolve from things like RFID tags or the other sensor/actuator relationships which have become far more common in the half dozen years since the book was released with the explosion of smartphones, tablets and other portable, always-on technologies which come with a range of built in sensors. Sterling also explores some of the potential for 3D printers to revolutionise fabrication processes. These subjects aren't covered in much depth, but credit must go to Sterling to picking these technologies out as potential game changers very early on in their development.
While peer production, commons and open-source to get a mention, it is only that: a fleeting mention in between other ideas, and one which fails to explore the potentials for redistributing wealth throughout societies based upon these models, but then social equity, and the effects of technological ensembles upon equality is a black hole in Sterling's book, one which can largely be attributed to the neoliberal economic ideology it propounds. He does argue that:
'It's no use starting from the top by ideologically re-educating the Consumer to become some kind of rigid hairshirt Green. This means returning to the benighted status of farmers with artifacts.' P131
As someone involved in education, I find Sterling's claims that the process of trying to get people to think about the social and ecological implications of their actions leads to ignorance to be misguided at best. When combined with his notion of representative design and the magical powers of markets when combined with information technology I would consider them to be politically dangerous, suggesting that we forgo education and serious thought and instead simply sit back and allow an enlightened design elite and the market to simply lead us to a sustainable future.
Sterling's insight into the potentials of emerging technologies is worthy of high praise, and some of his thoughts around time, technology and society is intriguing if somewhat underexplored, and these currently within his work are why he's become a popular figure talking about discourses of futurity and postdigitality. The limitations of his cyberutopian neoliberalism however are clearly evidenced in Shaping Things. While his rhetoric around sustainability is interesting, his arguments about heritage and our descendants are undermined by his lack of concern for social justice – either now or in the speculative futures he presents.


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Normal disfluency is stuttering that begins during a child's intensive language-learning years and resolves on its own sometime before puberty. It is considered a normal phase of language development. About 75 out of 100 children who stutter get better without treatment.footnote 1
The most common normal disfluency in children younger than age 3 is the repetition of one-syllable words or parts of words, especially at the beginning of sentences ("I-I want that"). After age 3, children with normal disfluencies most often repeat whole words ("You-you-you") or phrases ("I see—I see—I see"). Other problems may include:
- Hesitation with interjection. ("I played on the ... uh ... swing.")
- Incomplete sentences with change of focus. ("My bear—the towel is dry.")
Symptoms may occur in phases. There may be periods of days or weeks when they occur frequently, and then almost disappear, only to begin again.
Children with normal disfluencies do not usually have physical symptoms, such as eye-blinking or obvious frustration. They do not try to avoid speaking or seem bothered by their speech. They may not even appear to notice.
Stuttering that follows the pattern of normal disfluency occurs only once in every 10 sentences or less.footnote 1 Many parents recognize these symptoms as a normal part of speech development.
If you have any concerns about your child's speech, talk with your child's doctor.
Related Information
Current as of: August 3, 2022
Author: Healthwise Staff
Medical Review:
Susan C. Kim MD - Pediatrics
Kathleen Romito MD - Family Medicine
Louis Pellegrino MD - Developmental Pediatrics
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Previous Section:Overview
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Current as of: August 3, 2022
Author: Healthwise Staff
Medical Review:Susan C. Kim MD - Pediatrics & Kathleen Romito MD - Family Medicine & Louis Pellegrino MD - Developmental Pediatrics


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FreeBSD Manual Pages
AUDITPIPE(4) FreeBSD Kernel Interfaces Manual AUDITPIPE(4) NAME auditpipe -- pseudo-device for live audit event tracking SYNOPSIS options AUDIT DESCRIPTION While audit trail files generated with audit(4) and maintained by auditd(8) provide a reliable long-term store for audit log information, current log files are owned by the audit daemon until terminated making them somewhat unwieldy for live monitoring applications such as host- based intrusion detection. For example, the log may be cycled and new records written to a new file without notice to applications that may be accessing the file. The audit facility provides an audit pipe facility for applications re- quiring direct access to live BSM audit data for the purposes of real- time monitoring. Audit pipes are available via a clonable special de- vice, /dev/auditpipe, subject to the permissions on the device node, and provide a "tee" of the audit event stream. As the device is clonable, more than one instance of the device may be opened at a time; each device instance will provide independent access to all records. The audit pipe device provides discrete BSM audit records; if the read buffer passed by the application is too small to hold the next record in the sequence, it will be dropped. Unlike audit data written to the audit trail, the reliability of record delivery is not guaranteed. In particu- lar, when an audit pipe queue fills, records will be dropped. Audit pipe devices are blocking by default, but support non-blocking I/O, asynchro- nous I/O using SIGIO, and polled operation via select(2) and poll(2). Applications may choose to track the global audit trail, or configure lo- cal preselection parameters independent of the global audit trail parame- ters. Audit Pipe Queue Ioctls The following ioctls retrieve and set various audit pipe record queue properties: AUDITPIPE_GET_QLEN Query the current number of records available for reading on the pipe. AUDITPIPE_GET_QLIMIT Retrieve the current maximum number of records that may be queued for reading on the pipe. AUDITPIPE_SET_QLIMIT Set the current maximum number of records that may be queued for reading on the pipe. The new limit must fall between the queue limit minimum and queue limit maximum queryable using the following two ioctls. AUDITPIPE_GET_QLIMIT_MIN Query the lowest possible maximum number of records that may be queued for reading on the pipe. AUDITPIPE_GET_QLIMIT_MAX Query the highest possible maximum number of records that may be queued for reading on the pipe. AUDITPIPE_FLUSH Flush all outstanding records on the audit pipe; useful after setting initial preselec- tion properties to delete records queued dur- ing the configuration process which may not match the interests of the user process. AUDITPIPE_GET_MAXAUDITDATA Query the maximum size of an audit record, which is a useful minimum size for a user space buffer intended to hold audit records read from the audit pipe. Audit Pipe Preselection Mode Ioctls By default, the audit pipe facility configures pipes to present records matched by the system-wide audit trail, configured by auditd(8). How- ever, the preselection mechanism for audit pipes can be configured using alternative criteria, including pipe-local flags and naflags settings, as well as auid-specific selection masks. This allows applications to track events not captured in the global audit trail, as well as limit records presented to those of specific interest to the application. The following ioctls configure the preselection mode on an audit pipe: AUDITPIPE_GET_PRESELECT_MODE Return the current preselect mode on the audit pipe. The ioctl argument should be of type int. AUDITPIPE_SET_PRESELECT_MODE Set the current preselection mode on the audit pipe. The ioctl argument should be of type int. Possible preselection mode values are: AUDITPIPE_PRESELECT_MODE_TRAIL Use the global audit trail preselection parameters to select records for the au- dit pipe. AUDITPIPE_PRESELECT_MODE_LOCAL Use local audit pipe preselection; this model is similar to the global audit trail configuration model, consisting of global flags and naflags parameters, as well as a set of per-auid masks. These parameters are configured using further ioctls. After changing the audit pipe preselection mode, records selected under earlier preselection configuration may still be in the audit pipe queue. The application may flush the current record queue after changing the configuration to remove possibly undesired records. Audit Pipe Local Preselection Mode Ioctls The following ioctls configure the preselection parameters used when an audit pipe is configured for the AUDITPIPE_PRESELECT_MODE_LOCAL preselec- tion mode. AUDITPIPE_GET_PRESELECT_FLAGS Retrieve the current default preselec- tion flags for attributable events on the pipe. These flags correspond to the flags field in audit_control(5). The ioctl argument should be of type au_mask_t. AUDITPIPE_SET_PRESELECT_FLAGS Set the current default preselection flags for attributable events on the pipe. These flags correspond to the flags field in audit_control(5). The ioctl argument should be of type au_mask_t. AUDITPIPE_GET_PRESELECT_NAFLAGS Retrieve the current default preselec- tion flags for non-attributable events on the pipe. These flags correspond to the naflags field in audit_control(5). The ioctl argument should be of type au_mask_t. AUDITPIPE_SET_PRESELECT_NAFLAGS Set the current default preselection flags for non-attributable events on the pipe. These flags correspond to the naflags field in audit_control(5). The ioctl argument should be of type au_mask_t. AUDITPIPE_GET_PRESELECT_AUID Query the current preselection masks for a specific auid on the pipe. The ioctl argument should be of type struct auditpipe_ioctl_preselect. The auid to query is specified via the ap_auid field of type au_id_t; the mask will be re- turned via ap_mask of type au_mask_t. AUDITPIPE_SET_PRESELECT_AUID Set the current preselection masks for a specific auid on the pipe. Arguments are identical to AUDITPIPE_GET_PRESELECT_AUID, except that the caller should properly initial- ize the ap_mask field to hold the de- sired preselection mask. AUDITPIPE_DELETE_PRESELECT_AUID Delete the current preselection mask for a specific auid on the pipe. Once called, events associated with the spec- ified auid will use the default flags mask. The ioctl argument should be of type au_id_t. AUDITPIPE_FLUSH_PRESELECT_AUID Delete all auid specific preselection specifications. EXAMPLES The praudit(1) utility may be directly executed on /dev/auditpipe to re- view the default audit trail. SEE ALSO poll(2), select(2), audit(4), dtaudit(4), audit_control(5), audit(8), auditd(8) HISTORY The OpenBSM implementation was created by McAfee Research, the security division of McAfee Inc., under contract to Apple Computer Inc. in 2004. It was subsequently adopted by the TrustedBSD Project as the foundation for the OpenBSM distribution. Support for kernel audit first appeared in FreeBSD 6.2. AUTHORS The audit pipe facility was designed and implemented by Robert Watson <firstname.lastname@example.com>. The Basic Security Module (BSM) interface to audit records and audit event stream format were defined by Sun Microsystems. BUGS See the audit(4) manual page for information on audit-related bugs and limitations. The configurable preselection mechanism mirrors the selection model present for the global audit trail. It might be desirable to provide a more flexible selection model. The per-pipe audit event queue is fifo, with drops occurring if either the user thread provides in sufficient for the record on the queue head, or on enqueue if there is insufficient room. It might be desirable to support partial reads of records, which would be more compatible with buffered I/O as implemented in system libraries, and to allow applica- tions to select which records are dropped, possibly in the style of pres- election. FreeBSD 13.0 April 28, 2019 FreeBSD 13.0
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Referencing the fourth book of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series, Chris Kluwe said goodbye to the Vikings on Monday, May 6, as only he could.
"So long, Minnesota, and thanks for all the fish!" Kluwe (@chriswarcraft) tweeted, referencing the comic science fiction series.
"Thank you to all the fans, my teammates, and the Wilf family for the past 8.5 years. I wouldn't have traded it for anything.
"And thank you everyone for your support. Remember, one label does not define who you are as a person :)"
Kluwe's time with the Vikings ended Monday in a five-minute meeting with general manager Rick Spielman and coach Leslie Frazier that left a handful of questions unanswered.
Spielman and Frazier thanked the punter for his eight seasons with the team and his contributions to the community, Kluwe said. They offered few specifics about why the team would be releasing him, Kluwe said, and the 31-year-old punter didn't ask for many.
"It's something that happens in coaches' meetings and management meetings," he said. "It's not typically something they're going to tell players."
And with that, an inevitable parting was complete.
The iconoclastic punter was expecting it when the team drafted Jeff Locke in the fifth round April 27. The Vikings had not drafted a punter in a decade, and they never had drafted one so high.
Kluwe averaged a career-high 39.7 net yards per punt last year, but that mark was only the 17th-best in the league, as he struggled to pin opponents deep in their own territory. His 18 punts inside the 20-yard line were 31st-most in the league.
The left-footed Locke has excelled as a directional punter, leading the Pac-12 with 34 punts inside the 20 and landing 21 inside the 10-yard line. With Kluwe due to make $1.45 million in 2013 — and the Vikings facing no salary cap penalty for cutting him — the decision could be viewed as one of several they have made aimed at getting younger and more cap flexibility.
If the Vikings already had reached a decision after drafting Locke, Kluwe had asked them, could they move quickly so he could more easily find work with another team?
"I would have loved to compete (for the job) if it would have ended up being a fair competition," Kluwe said. "But when you draft a punter in the fifth round, generally that's the guy you're going to go with."
Said Spielman in a statement: "Chris has meant a great deal to the Vikings both on and off the field in his eight seasons here. He contributed to many victories and we wish Chris and his family the best and thank him for his contributions to the Vikings organization. Out of respect to Chris, we decided to release him now and allow time for him to sign with another team."
But with Kluwe, there was another layer to the story.
The punter has been one of Minnesota's most outspoken and controversial athletes of the 21st century. Also a UCLA product — he had entered the school with a perfect verbal score on his SAT — he became known for some of his off-field pursuits. He loved video games and became a sensation on "Guitar Hero" and a traditional guitarist in his own band, Tripping Icarus.
Kluwe embraced social media, using it to lampoon the NFL's crackdown on violence, for example. But the 2012 season turned him into a national figure, primarily for his championing of gay rights. He campaigned hard against Minnesota's proposed constitutional amendment to define marriage as being between one man and one woman, which was voted down.
He also stumped for Ray Guy to become the first punter in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, which led special teams coordinator Mike Priefer to say, "Those distractions are getting old for me," adding Kluwe needed to focus on punting and holding.
When Spielman initially spoke to the media about the team's decision to draft Locke, he said it had nothing to do with Kluwe's outspokenness, adding, "I have no issues if Chris wants to express his opinion. That's his right. That's his freedom of speech."
Asked Monday if he has ever thought life as an NFL player would be easier if he had kept his opinions to himself, Kluwe said, "I'm sure it probably would be. But I feel there are important societal issues that need to be talked about. At the end of the day, we're playing a children's game, and there are legitimate societal issues we need to fix. If that involves me jeopardizing my NFL career, that's a trade I'll make."
The punter will be on waivers until Tuesday and will be free to negotiate with other teams if he is not claimed. When he meets with new potential employers, Kluwe said, he plans to tell them exactly what they'd get.
"When I'm at your facility, playing football, that is what I'm focused on, 100 percent of the time," Kluwe said. "But away from the football field, I'm going to live my life. (Gay rights are) not something I'm going to stop speaking out about.
"All I know is, when I'm playing football, that is the sole purpose of what I'm doing. But anyone who thinks you need to focus on your job 24 hours a day is probably insane."
Kluwe, who had surgery to clean up some cartilage damage in his left knee this winter, has been punting and working out for much of the spring. He said he is "as close to 100 percent as a 31-year-old can be."
An undrafted free agent originally signed and then released by Seattle before the 2005 season, Kluwe arrived in Minnesota in time to become the Vikings' punter all year. He leaves Minnesota with the second-longest tenure of any punter in team history, behind Greg Coleman (1978-87).
If he lands with another team, Kluwe says, he can provide value for several more seasons. He said Frazier echoed that sentiment Monday, telling Kluwe the punter would definitely have a shot at other teams.
And with that, in a short meeting filled with more pleasantries than explanations, the Vikings closed the book on their time with one of the league's more fascinating characters.
The Vikings made a trio of other roster moves, most notably signing Minnesota State Mankato wide receiver Adam Thielen. Thielen, who was in the Vikings' rookie camp over the weekend, was the Division II Mavericks' leading receiver in 2012, catching 74 passes for 1,176 yards and eight touchdowns. … The Vikings also signed former Arizona Cardinals lineman Brandon Keith, who played in 26 games and started 20 for the team from 2008-11. To make room for Thielen and Keith, the Vikings released wide receiver Nicholas Edwards, who signed as an undrafted free agent last week.
Follow Ben Goessling at twitter.com/BenGoesslingPP