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Last fall, Peter Gelb, the general manager of the Metropolitan Opera, raised eyebrows on both sides of the Atlantic when he talked to the Times about the production history of Nico Muhly's opera "Two Boys," which had its première at the English National Opera last June and is scheduled for the 2013-14 season at the Met. "London was really the equivalent of doing something out of town," Gelb said, implying that the E.N.O. is to the Met as smaller theatres are to Broadway—places where new work is tried out before it is ready for the big time. There were clucks of disapproval from Londoners, who don't see themselves as minor leaguers. Gelb later explained to Opera magazine that he had been speaking "partly in jest."
Gelb's words rang particularly false because the quality of operatic programming and production in New York has lately plummeted, to the point where the city may no longer qualify as a pace-setting opera capital. The Met still puts on big, starry shows, with hundreds of gifted people laboring behind the scenes to bring them to life. But one staging after another has failed to catch fire, and the most ambitious undertaking of the Gelb era, Robert Lepage's production of Wagner's "Ring," is a very damp squib. New York City Opera, meanwhile, has teetered on the edge of extinction, its board and management accused of hard-heartedness and ineptitude. Last month, having been priced out of Lincoln Center, the company decamped to the Brooklyn Academy of Music to present "La Traviata" and Rufus Wainwright's "Prima Donna." Neither show felt like a turnaround.
The operatic news is being made elsewhere. Both London companies, Covent Garden and the E.N.O., have offered contemporary pieces on contemporary themes. European houses from Bayreuth on down grapple with Wagner in serious terms. The San Francisco Opera, the Houston Grand Opera, and the Minnesota Opera pay more heed to American work. New York has yet to see Messiaen's "Saint Francis," Birtwistle's "Gawain," Saariaho's "L'Amour de Loin," and a dozen other modern masterpieces. The city has, in truth, seldom been on the front lines of operatic art, but it now seems almost peripheral—even "out of town."
"Götterdämmerung," the final installment of Lepage's "Ring," arrived in January, rounding out what must be considered a historic achievement. Pound for pound, ton for ton, it is the most witless and wasteful production in modern operatic history. Many millions of dollars have been spent to create a gargantuan scenic machine of creakily moving planks, which have overshadowed the singers, even cowed them, without yielding especially impressive images. When Lepage was announced as the director of this "Ring," his Wagner credentials were questioned, but he was at least expected to provide some high-tech razzle-dazzle, along the lines of his work with Ex Machina and Cirque du Soleil. "Rheingold" had its striking moments, such as Wotan and Loge's journey down to Nibelheim, with acrobats seen in overhead perspective. Since then, wonders have been few. The Met's previous "Ring," the picturesque Otto Schenk staging, lingers more vividly in the memory. As for the psychological depths of the "Ring" story, Lepage's clumsy comic-book approach suffers in comparison with many Hollywood superhero movies, never mind the visions of Wieland Wagner and Patrice Chéreau.
Undaunted by criticism, Lepage saved the worst for last. In the final scene of "Götterdämmerung," as Brünnhilde delivers her monologue of world-redeeming love, we see Siegfried's funeral pyre being assembled in the background: logs are piled up, the body is set in place, and it is festooned with multicolored streamers, evidently left over from a Maypole dance. Then Brünnhilde calls for her horse, Grane, and a puppet animal with a bouncing head is brought onstage, looking, in the words of the critic James Jorden, like "nothing so much as a mechanical bull in a country-western bar." And when Valhalla burns, the heads of statues representing the gods explode. Yes, they explode! As this amateur-hour Ragnarök unfolded, I heard around me sounds suggestive of suppressed giggles, and fought the urge to make noises of my own. But my main impulse was to bury my face in my hands. It's an embarrassment that this catastrophically vapid spectacle is what New York will be offering to the world when the Wagner bicentennial arrives next year.
When I criticize Met shows these days, I sometimes receive letters protesting that they look better in the company's Live in HD transmissions, which have found large audiences around the world. In the case of the "Götterdämmerung" finale, I can imagine that tasteful cross-cutting made more sense of the scene. The night I was there, Katarina Dalayman was giving a fairly forceful performance as Brünnhilde—substantial in volume, dark in color, a bit edgy on top—but she was undermined by the business going on around her. I wonder whether it is almost unfair to review new Met stagings from the point of view of one sitting in the house, since they now seem designed more for the camera operators. And there is the looming problem. If opera fails as live theatre, people will stop coming, and cinema receipts will never make up the difference.
Fabio Luisi, the Met's new principal conductor, did not save the evening in musical terms. He cut a deft figure on the podium, leading in lucid and propulsive style. There were fine touches in this "Götterdämmerung," notably in the diaphanous music that follows Hagen's Watch, in Act I. Much of the rest, however, was routine; the orchestra does not play as sumptuously for him as it did for James Levine. The final scene was disconcertingly businesslike, and the blissful closing theme in the violins, rendered without much of a crescendo and with an oddly abrupt fade at the end, came across as trivial. Luisi has said that he wishes to dispense with "heavy German tradition," but he seems also to have discarded Wagner's term Ausdrucksvoll—"full of expression."
The best moments came from the deep-voiced villains: Hans-Peter König's Hagen, implacable behind a treacherously convivial façade; Eric Owens's Alberich, passionate in hate. Owens has been the great discovery of this "Ring," singing the first Wagner of his career, and Gelb deserves credit for promoting him. Gelb has also done well by the surging bel-canto soprano Angela Meade, building a revival of "Ernani" around her. Other casting choices have been more dubious, but singing at the Met remains at a generally high level. The chief defect is theatrical: despite Gelb's promises of modernization, stagings are less sure-footed, less cohesive, than they were in the Joseph Volpe era—no golden age, to be sure.
Now that Levine is on prolonged medical leave, the major decisions are falling to Gelb, with erratic results. Opera is, of course, a perilous business, and even the finest managers have dozens of flops. Yet Gelb has stubbornly defended Lepage, and invited him back to direct Thomas Adès's "The Tempest" next fall. In an editorial for the Huffington Post, Gelb wrote, "Because our 'Ring' is revolutionary, not everyone supports it." Whether or not he believes that preposterous statement, he is acting more like a publicist than like a leader. As Anthony Tommasini stated in the Times, the Met needs a vigorous artistic presence on its staff if it is to halt its slide.
The decline of City Opera has been swifter and sadder. The critic Fred Cohn, in recounting the sorry tale for Opera News, assigns a substantial portion of the blame to the investment banker Susan Baker, who became the chairman of the board in 2004, and presided over a string of oblivious decisions. A big-spending European impresario was hired; a hugely expensive renovation forced the cancellation of an entire season; the impresario never showed up; and the company became a gaunt ghost of its former self. In five years, City Opera has gone from presenting more than a hundred performances a season to presenting sixteen. George Steel, who became general manager and artistic director in 2009, has yet to revivify the company; his seasons have been jumbled and befuddling.
Wainwright's "Prima Donna," which had its première at the Manchester International Festival in 2009, tells of Régine Saint Laurent, an aging soprano who cancels a planned comeback and chooses to retire with her memories. It is several notches above the efforts of Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello, and other pop stars who have dabbled in composition: the lyrical passages manifest an individual harmonic style, rich in added tones and unexpected shifts. With the assistance of the composer Bryan Senti, Wainwright has devised an effective orchestral palette, leaning on Massenet, Debussy, and Puccini. The vocal writing is sometimes indulgent—why must a sweetly folkish aria for Régine's maid end on a shrill high E?—but the lead role made a natural fit for the warm-voiced soprano Melody Moore, who led the cast at City Opera.
What stymies "Prima Donna" is the static, stylized plot, which requires a more resourceful score than the songlike set pieces and pastiche exercises that Wainwright supplies. When Régine experiences her crisis of confidence, the orchestra devolves into an iPod-shuffle hurly-burly, complete with deafening progressions out of "Salome." The libretto, a French-language creation credited to Wainwright and Bernadette Colomine, aims for high camp but too often sounds wooden. ("This is the last album I'll ever sign" isn't quite "It's the pictures that got small.") Still, the work has its charms, and ends winningly, with a buoyantly wistful aria that should have set the tone for the whole.
Such a feast of nostalgia, wrapped in celebrity hype, hardly serves to differentiate City Opera from the Met. (In fact, Wainwright's piece was originally intended for the Met; Gelb rejected it, ostensibly because of the French libretto.) The "Traviata," a Jonathan Miller production borrowed from the Glimmerglass Festival, looked anemic compared with the Met's current staging of the opera, a visually bold though emotionally frigid affair, directed by Willy Decker. So far, City Opera shows little evidence of being rejuvenated.
This has been the most dispiriting opera season since I began reviewing music in New York, twenty years ago. Although the economic crisis has taken its toll, the problem is less a lack of money than a lack of intellectual vitality. Both the Met and City Opera are committing the supreme operatic sin: they are thinking small. ♦


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How Mobile Games Can Help Improve Sanitation
More than 2.5 billion people, many of them in Africa and South Asia, face grave sanitation challenges. In many of these countries, people are more likely to own a cell phone than a toilet. Therefore there is an obvious opportunity to use mobile technology to promote the use of sanitation and good hygiene in order to make a substantial impact. Mobile phones in Kenya transfer money; Bangladeshis listen to English language classes on their phones; and in Ghana, women entrepreneurs use mobiles to market their wares.
The growing Games for Change industry applies principles of traditional social games to address specific challenges . For example, in the UK, Channel 4 commissioned the game developer Playniac to build an online game to improve financial literacy among the 50% of young Britons who are heavily in debt. In Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, young developers have built iPhone, Android, and Javascript games based on local storylines. Pledge 51, a Nigerian developer group, recently released Danfo, a game where the user plays as a bus driver coping with dense Nigerian traffic.
Hattery Labs has begun to explore how games might improve sanitation practices. The typical game-players in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are young urban males who own smartphones, but many of the communities that face the greatest sanitation challenges have less advanced technology. However, Javascript games built for Nokia S40 phones (among the most popular handsets in the developing world) provide an opportunity to send a compelling message on good behavior practices in sanitation and hygiene. A full report on how games can promote good sanitation and behavior practice is HERE.
Here are a few game ideas that might prove effective:
Soap Wars makes hand-washing an entertaining challenge where players use the soap dispenser as a weapon against dangerous germs.
Sanitation Heroes engages players in the process of sanitation maintenance from capturing, transporting, and disposing of feces to reusing it as fertilizer. It features different scenarios in a memory game that prompts the player to match the solution to each different stage of capturing and treating waste.
Toilet Hunt introduces obstacles along the course of finding a safe place to go to the bathroom. As the player searches for sanitary latrines on a basic map, they must use the clues to decide whether the latrine is safe.
There are outstanding questions that the current research hasn't resolved:
How does the game appeal to illiterate players, who need rich visual descriptions and narratives to guide the gameplay? The need for rich imagery does not necessarily match the small, low-resolution screens of Nokia S40 phones.
How does the game appeal to women, who are critical participants in sanitation but don't represent the largest percentage of mobile game players? One initial idea is to frame sanitation storylines as mobile 'comic books', allowing users to scroll through an interesting narrative with subtle sanitation and hygiene messages.
How can the lessons from the game translate to rural areas, where there are fewer who can access it and more who face the challenges that it seeks to mitigate? Urban users might take their phone with them to their home village and share it with their friends and family, who will begin playing the game and continue to play out the game's storyline in real life.
Finally, how can the game measure its impact on sanitation behavior? User adoption and engagement in this context is a false metric to evaluate impact since users might play the game but have their behavior unchanged. Any solution to measure impact should combine a mobile game with other digital and non-digital applications that help users track their sanitation use alongside their game success. Local developers can work in partnership with games for change experts, community organizations, and telecommunications companies to test these approaches.
This report explores the potential of using mobile games to engage citizens in addressing persistent community challenges but we want to hear from you. Is this an effective way to engage target populations? Are there other ideas for how games can impact behavior change? Would you play these games?

subset: commoncrawl


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Depression medicine: Breakthrough for sickle cell disease?
theGRIO REPORT - After more than three decades of studying life-threatening sickle cell disease, the most prevalent of all hereditary illnesses, University of Michigan Medical School researchers have discovered that an anti-depressant wipes out the disorder in lab-tested human blood and mice...
After more than three decades of studying life-threatening sickle cell disease, the most prevalent of all hereditary illnesses, University of Michigan Medical School researchers have discovered that an anti-depressant marketed since the 1960s wipes out the disorder in lab-tested human blood and mice.
If upcoming clinical trials prove it's safe for adult sickle cell patients to ingest tranylcypromine, the anti-depressant could be an alternative to the current treatment — hydroxyurea — which is mainly a cancer fighter.
Hydroxyurea, which also is highly toxic, is only moderately effective on about half of sickle cell sufferers, most of whom are of African descent. The disorder, which causes blood cells to harden, become C-shaped, and ultimately clog arteries, also strikes people of Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and South Asian ancestry.
The genetic mutation that causes sickle cell disease was the first mutation of any inherited disease to be discovered, a finding made in 1949, also at the University of Michigan. That was a "fascinating" discovery, said molecular biologist and chemist James Douglas Engel, lead researcher in Michigan's current sickle cell study, published last month in Nature Medicine.
"It prompted me," Engel continued, "to believe that, 'okay, here's a disease we're really going to be able to [soon] cure.' It was with that idea that I began this work 35 years ago … It wasn't until about 10 years ago that we figured out what a possible mechanism for controlling [the defect] might be."
And two years ago, when the Michigan researchers zeroed in on a molecule involved in cell sickling, they began scouting a drug to combat that, said Engel, who directed the four-person research team and is co-director of the University of Michigan's Center for Organogenesis. The center studies human organ development. Organ damage caused by the defective blood cells is a leading cause of premature death among those with sickle cell disease.
Clinical trials using the anti-depressant to treat adult sickle cell patients will take place at Wayne State University in Detroit. A pre-trial review required by the federal government is underway there; it will dictate when and with whom the clinical trials begin.
Worldwide, millions are believed to have sickle cell disease. In the United States, the federal Centers for Disease Control estimates that 100,000 African-Americans have it but cautions that the precise number of people with the illness is unknown. An estimated one out of 500 African-American babies and one in 36,000 Latino-American babies are born with sickle cell disease, according to the CDC; one in 12 blacks carry the sickle cell trait.
Though considered less hazardous than hydroxyurea, tranylcypromine — commonly called TCP — has its own side effects, ranging from anxiety to worsened depression to uncontrollable bodily shaking. Combined with certain foods — from charbroiled steaks to red wine — TCP is potentially deadly, Engel said.
Nevertheless, the prospect of treating sickle cell disease with TCP represents a promising breakthrough on a disease for which there has been insufficient scientific progress over the last 60 years and that remains misunderstood even by physicians, said Dr. Andrew Campbell, who has collaborated with Engel. Campbell is director the pediatric sickle cell program at the University of Michigan's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital.
"When I came to this area of work in the late 1990s, essentially what I saw was a lack of research … devoted to sickle cell. Number two, there's often been a lack of compassion from physicians taking care of people with sickle cell," Campbell said.
Clustering sickle cells cause excruciating pain, demand relatively frequent hospitalizations and the immediate attention of patients' doctors, Campbell said.
"Especially in the adult world — even though patients are actually in a tremendous amount of pain — health care providers will brush them aside."
In the face of that, some patients grow reluctant to seek palliative care. They're often looked upon as akin to recreational drug addicts, Campbell added.
"It's 'Oh, you're here again for pain medicine? You should go home. We just saw you.'"
It is a dismissal driven partly, Campbell said, by stereotypes of race and class.
More effective treatment of sickle cell will undo some of those wrong-headed presumptions, Campbell said. He lauds the Michigan researchers and is hopeful that the clinical trials will bear fruit.
About TCP, Engel adds: "This isn't a perfectly proven therapy yet. We need to test it in humans. We need to find drugs other than TCP that work better, that are more effective at lower concentrations and have fewer side effects."
New York-based freelancer Katti Gray specializes in reporting health, higher education and criminal justice. Her byline has appeared in The Washington Post, Salon, Reuters, Newsday, Ms., Essence, Ebony, CNN.com, ABCNews.com and other national and regional publications. Follow her on twitter@KattiGray.


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A Roundtable Review of Charles Armstrong's Tyranny of the Weak: North Korea and the World, 1950-1992 (updated)
What does Sino-NK think about the history of the DPRK? Collect a myriad of opinions and perspectives in Sino-NK's roundtable review of Charles Armstrong's latest book, Tryanny of the Weak: North Korea and the World, 1950-1992. Introduction by Benjamin R. Young.
[Sino-NK Exclusive] North Korea Through the Lankov Prism: Welcome to "The Real North Korea"
A Sino-NK exclusive cornucopia of perspectives on Dr. Andrei Lankov's forthcoming book, The Real North Korea: Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia.
All the World's a Stage. Looking Again at North Korea: Beyond Charismatic Politics
In a contrarian take on one of SinoNK's favorite texts on North Korean ideology, Peter Ward, a young scholar in Seoul, delves into "Charismatic Politics" in the DPRK.
Exit the Dragon: Sino-NK's Roundtable on 2012 Reads
The editorial team discusses the most stimulating reads and debates of lunar year 2012, the Year of the Dragon.
The Passing of Kim Jong-il: North Korea Still Mired in "Charismatic Politics"
Charisma is hard to obtain and harder to retain. It is also ephemeral. Kim Jong-un wants it, has some, but needs more. Roger Cavazos starts watching the sky in the first of our anniversary extravaganza.
Engagement in an Age of Division: Moon Chung-in's Sunshine Policy
In this second YJIS-SinoNK collaborative effort, Eunsil Esther Park, reviews Moon Chung-in's latest book, The Sunshine Policy: in Defense of Engagement as a Path to Peace in Korea.
Mad Dogs and Englishmen: Moon Chung-in's Vision of Sunshine
As a companion to Eunsil Esther Park's special review of Moon Chung-in's latest book, SinoNK editors Christopher Green and Steven Denney give their own critical take on Moon's spirited defense of the sunshine policy.
Before Unhasu Encores, a Memoir
by Adam Cathcart Apart from Escape from Camp 14, this spring's "must-read" refugee memoir is by Eunsun Kim, 26, whose book,« Corée du Nord, 9 ans pour fuir l'enfer », a collaboration with Le Figaro's Sebastian Faletti, just came out in French. (The title translates as "North Korea: 9 Years to Escape from Hell / 逃离地狱–朝鲜9年.") Unlike […]
Hostage Princes and Shadow Reformers: Kim Jong Nam
We recently learned that Kim Jong Nam [金正男], the eldest son of Kim Jong Il, had struck up a friendship with Japanese reporter, Yoji Komi [五味洋治], in the Beijing Capital Airport in 2004 and has corresponded with him frequently since by e-mail. Recently, Kim instructed Yoji to collate all the materials, over 100 e-mails and […]


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27-inch screen. 10-finger capacitive multitouch. Aluminum body. Fully articulating screen that folds to your liking. If there was ever a touchscreen all-in-one that had all the elements to succeed, Lenovo's A720 might be it.
The A720's is powered by a Intel core processor and screen that goes from 90 degrees (standing upright) to -5 degrees (flat). It also stashes a 1 TB hard drive, a Blu-ray drive, TV tuner, and USB ports away in the base. The build quality of the A720 is especially impressive, as the aluminum gives it a solid, premium feel. And the screen is more responsive than the IR technology used in other touchscreen all-in-ones, such as HP's Touchsmart. Lenovo expects to start selling the A720 in the first half of 2012 at an estimated $1300. [Lenovo]


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- Home
- Government
- Departments
- Finance (Comptroller)
Finance (Comptroller)
The Town Comptroller's Office oversees all financial and audit activities for the Town of Southampton. In doing so, its mission is to:
- Establish sound financial policies and procedures
- Maintain accurate and complete financial accounting records
- Assist in the preparation of the Town's Annual Operating and Capital Budgets
- Ensure compliance with all Town Board approved funding and appropriations
- Provide timely and useful financial reporting and management information to the Supervisor, Town Board, and the public
- Maximize opportunities for all investment and borrowing requirements
- Coordinate independent, forensic, and New York State audits
Accomplishing the above includes disbursing and accounting for approximately $115 million in operating expenses for wages, supplies and services, and ensures compliance with the Adopted Budget. The Comptroller also manages the financing of the Town's Capital Projects (multi-year construction projects or other asset acquisitions) averaging $25 million per year.
The department also conducts the billing for false police and fire alarm charges, and processes requests for appeals to be heard by the Towns Public Safety Commission.
The Finance (Comptroller) Office has been recognized by the Government Finance Officers Association for the Award of Financial Reporting Achievement. View the Certificate of Achievement and press release (PDF) for more details.


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FE&S' subscribing foodservice operators take a look at how their various business concerns continue to affect the way they approach foodservice equipment and supplies purchases.
Today's foodservice operator faces no shortage of business pressures. Rising food costs remain a key pressure point for all operators. And the fact that foodservice sales are forecasted to grow anywhere from 3 percent to 3.6 percent in 2014, depending on which study you read, means the industry will likely remain in a take-share mode for the foreseeable future. That means foodservice operators will continue to carefully monitor their foodservice purchasing habits.
Operators will continue to value those products that will help them make the most effective and efficient use of labor and allow them to maximize food yield. Operators will continue to reward those products that provide a speedy and suitable return on their investment.
What does this mean for their supply chain partners? The market for foodservice equipment and supplies will remain price-sensitive, but dealers, distributors and other members of the supply chain can set themselves apart from the competition by being easy to work with, providing plenty of information and making sure that information is easily accessible when foodservice operators go looking for it. Most importantly, relationships still matter in today's foodservice industry.
On the following pages, we take a closer look at what FE&S' subscribing operators told us about their approach in today's complex business environment and what they would like to see from their supply chain partners. While every foodservice operator and distributor is unique in their own way, we hope this data will be useful as you evaluate your relationships moving forward.
Business Concerns
Increasing food costs represent our surveyed operators' most pressing business concern, as was the case three years ago. When looking at top concerns by market segment, though, some key differences begin to emerge. For example, beyond increasing food costs, food safety represents a significant business concern for non-commercial operators. In contrast, for commercial foodservice operators, a host of labor-related issues emerged as a top business concern. While commercial operators remain concerned about increased labor costs in general, their main challenges are in the areas of finding and training qualified employees and retaining their top performers. Labor has become such a concern, in fact, that it skipped past energy costs as a serious concern among commercial foodservice operators.
It comes as no surprise that anticipated labor pressures will have an affect on a foodservice operator's bottom line, rippling out to other aspects of the business. In fact, 80 percent of the operators surveyed report they have changed their purchasing behaviors in the past year due to the business concerns outlined above. Along those lines, 41 percent of operators altered their approach to food purchases, 38 percent changed their approach to purchasing foodservice equipment and 34 percent say they altered their approach to procuring supplies.
For example, 53 percent of operators planning to make a purchase will require more competitive bids when purchasing new equipment or replacing existing items. And 47 percent of operators plan to repair some of their existing items rather than purchase new equipment while 42 percent plan to delay equipment purchases. When it comes to supplies purchases, 54 percent of operators report carrying a smaller inventory and 41 percent have taken the extra step of consolidating purchases of these items with fewer vendors to improve pricing.
Breaking down changes to supplies purchasing by segment, 35 percent of commercial operators report using more private label products and buying more specially priced items. In contrast, 35 percent of non-commercial operators report steering more of their purchases through a buying group or group purchasing organization. And 32 percent of non-commercial operators report placing smaller supply orders.
When it comes to food purchases, commercial operators and their non-commercial peers have responded somewhat differently. For example, 81 percent of non-commercial operators report lowering the food inventory they carry compared to 56 percent for commercial operators. In contrast, 67 percent of commercial operators report consolidating food purchases among fewer suppliers, compared to 38 percent for non-commercial operators. Forty one percent of commercial and non-commercial operators report using rebates and coupons more often than they did in the past when making food purchases. And both operator sectors report sourcing more locally grown, seasonal ingredients, which is why they report placing smaller food orders and carrying less inventory in this area.
Purchasing Behaviors
Foodservice operators continue to invest in their businesses. In fact, 85 percent either made an equipment purchase in 2013 or plan to do so in 2014. Further, 90 percent of operators said they plan to buy new equipment rather than used items. Beyond the item's quality, condition and age, key factors when deciding to purchase a used item include the equipment type, cost/value ratio, availability, how the equipment was previously used and whether a warranty is necessary.
Among those foodservice operators looking to make an equipment purchase, 75 percent conduct their own research before specifying which item to purchase. When making purchasing decisions, foodservice operators consider information from a variety of sources including trade shows, their peers, manufacturer websites and trade publications. While social media helps operators generate sales in their own businesses, it has limited credibility when it comes to researching foodservice equipment and supplies purchases.
Forty three percent of operators list traditional dealers as their main vendors for foodservice equipment and supplies purchases. Broadline distributors account for roughly 19 percent of all operator equipment purchases and at 13.3 percent, buying groups represent the only other segment exceeding 10 percent of
operators' equipment purchases.
Operators continue to direct their foodservice equipment purchases to dealers due to their sales reps' product knowledge and their relationships with the reps. Other factors that prompt operators to maintain a relationship with equipment dealers include pricing, the fact that the dealers tend to be a local company or have local representation, they have the ability to quickly remedy most mistakes or problems and there is a certain ease of ordering. Indeed, from all indications, before and after sale service seems to be emerging as a secondary factor that affects operators' purchasing decisions.
When it comes to supplies, though, operators slice their purchasing pie a little differently. Specifically, broadline distributors account for more than 45 percent of all supplies purchases and the dealers' slice of the pie shrinks to slightly more than 16 percent, just ahead of the 15 percent directed to buying groups.
Foodservice equipment purchasing decisions remain a group exercise, as operators on average involve three to four people in the process. That number goes up to four or more people for new build projects and with such titles as the director of operations, designers and architects, chefs, and owners or other c-level executives serving as primary decision makers. When it comes to purchases associated with a remodeling or renovation project, usually between three and four people play a role in the decision-making process, including the director of operations, chefs and the owners or other executive level members of the team. Finally, when it comes to replacement purchases, between two and three people make the decision.
When researching equipment purchases, only 25 percent of foodservice operators, and this applies to chains more than other segments, report that they test items before purchasing them. In fact, 53 percent of operators report they do not test equipment items before making a purchase and 22 percent say whether they test equipment depends on the item's price and several other factors. The most common equipment items operators like to test before purchasing them include combi ovens, dishwashers, fryers and slicers. Operators typically expect to try out the larger items in a test kitchen, while they expect to test the smaller items on-site at their businesses.
The purchasing process for replacement items can vary considerably depending on the operation. While 81 percent of operators say they like to research newer items when making a replacement purchase, commercial operators are more than 3 times likely than their non-commercial peers to consider used equipment a suitable solution.
Assessing Supply Chain Relations
In general, operators' relationships with their foodservice equipment and supplies vendors appear stable. Overall, only 20 percent of operators reported turning over at least one equipment and supplies vendor during the past year. One operator segment significantly more volatile than the others is the chain restaurant community, which saw 42 percent of its operators change a supplier within the last year.
Operators indicate their suppliers could improve service by making sure more product information is available and making it easier to find, and being more timely when responding to problems or other issues. Seventy-six percent of operators feel their equipment and supplies reps visit regularly enough on a monthly basis. Of course, how often a dealer/distributor sales rep should visit varies by operator segment. For example, commercial operators expect to see their dealer sales reps twice a month, on average. Non-commercial operators expect to see their dealer/distributor reps once or twice a month.
Given the highly competitive nature of the foodservice industry, it comes as no surprise that better pricing remains the primary reason operators switched suppliers. Other factors prompting operators to switch foodservice equipment and supplies vendors include better quality products and better customer service.


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A neck x-ray is an imaging test to look at cervical vertebrae, the seven bones in the neck area.
This test is performed in a hospital radiology department or in the health care provider's office by an x-ray technologist.
You will lie on the x-ray table. If the x-ray being done to check for injury, care will be taken to prevent further injury.
The x-ray machine will be moved over your neck area. You will be asked to hold your breath while the picture is taken, so that the picture will not be blurry.
You will be asked to changed positions so that more scans can be taken. Usually three to seven different views are needed.
Tell the health care provider if you are pregnant. Remove all jewelry.
This test does not cause discomfort, but the table may be cold.
The x-ray is used to evaluate neck injuries and numbness, pain, or weakness that does not go away. A neck x-ray can also be used to help see if air passages are blocked by swelling in the neck or something stuck in the airway.
The test can detect:
The test may also be performed for:
There is low radiation exposure. X-rays are monitored and regulated to provide the minimum amount of radiation exposure needed to produce the image. Most experts feel that the risk is low compared with the benefits.
Pregnant women and children are more sensitive to the risks of x-rays.
Other tests, such as MRI, may be used to look for disk or nerve problems.
X-ray - neck; Cervical spine x-ray; Lateral neck x-ray
Stevens JM, Rich PM, Dixon AK. The spine. In: Grainger RC, Allison D, Adam, Dixon AK, eds. Grainger & Allison's Diagnostic Radiology. 5th ed. New York, NY: Churchill Livingstone; 2008:chap 60.
Roosevelt GE. Acute inflammatory upper airway obstruction (croup, epiglottitis, laryngitis, and bacterial tracheitis). In: Kliegman RM, Behrman RE, Jenson HB, Stanton BF, eds. Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics. 19th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Saunders Elsevier; 2011:chap 337.
Reviewed by: Linda J. Vorvick, MD, Medical Director, MEDEX Northwest Division of Physician Assistant Studies, University of Washington, School of Medicine. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Medical Director, A.D.A.M., Inc.
Notice: The information provided herein should not be used during any medical emergency or for the diagnosis or treatment of any medical condition. A licensed physician should be consulted for diagnosis and treatment of any and all medical conditions. Call 911 for all medical emergencies. Links to other sites are provided for information only -- they do not constitute endorsements of those other sites. Copyright 1997-2012, A.D.A.M., Inc. Any duplication or distribution of the information contained herein is strictly prohibited.


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1. When was your first kiss?
Elementary school, maybe second grade? Her name was Lauren.
2. Who's your celebrity crush?
Kerry Washington
More From Seventeen
3. What's a girl fashion trend that confuses you?
Onesies. They're the most bizarre choice of clothing.
4. What's the chick flick you secretly love?
He's Just Not That Into You
5. What's your TV guilty pleasure?
I guess Being Human. I don't really enjoy watching reality TV.
6. Who would play you in the movie version of your life?
Michael Pitt.
7. What's your dream job?
Something where I can travel the world and fight ninjas — like being an international spy.
8. If you could trade places with anyone in the world for one day, who would it be?
I really want to say James Stewart, because I just think he's awesome. But I'm going to have to go with my mom. I would love to understand what she went through to raise us.
9. Who in your family are you closest to?
My cat, Sophie.
10. What's your favorite Website?
11. What's the fast food you can't live without?
12. What's your worst habit?
Not wearing socks with shoes.
13. What's the last song you listened to on your iPod?
"Everlasting Light" by the Black Keys.
14. What's the last thing you bought?
Socks, actually.
15. What did you dream about last night?
The whole world was like solid water, but not ice. I could kind of put my hands through it if I wanted to. Food was still food, but it looked like water. Then this giant cat-dog hybrid let me ride it through the sky. It was the weirdest thing.
16. How much money is in your wallet right now?
Two bucks.
17. Fill in the blank: When I was 17, I was ____________.
Nuts. I was wild. I still am.
Grey Damon stars as Brian in ABC Family's The Nine Lives of Chloe King, on Tuesdays at 9/8c.


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Elk County, Kansas
Elk County was organized on March 25, 1875, by A. F. Eby; J. C. Pinney; Richard Graves; James Shipley; R. M. Humphry; Elison Neat; H. G. Moller; Richard Graves; A. P. Searcy; S. B. Oberlender; J. N. Young; R. H. Nichols; S. J. Bascom; Phelix Lorance; Mark McBee; and T. M. Carter. Named for the Elk River, the county contains the cities of Elk Falls, Grenola, Howard, Longton and Moline.
A long running dispute over the county seat location of Howard County (established in 1867), between Elk Falls, Howard, Boston, Peru, and Longdon, which included the use of Kansas Militia to keep the peace, led to a move in 1875 to divide the county. In 1875 Howard County divided into Elk and Chautauqua counties, primarily to settle the county seat feud.
The Missionary Baptist Church was organized in Liberty Township in 1866. The first fairs were held in Howard and Longdon but the exact dates they began are unknown. The first school was held in 1866 in a log cabin on Indian Creek.
Interesting figures from the county include Tom E. Thompson, the editor of the Howard Courant was known over the state as Polk Daniels. Nettie H. Morse, the ninth woman in the Kansas House of Representatives. Harry Woodring, Governor, 1931-1933, was born in Elk City.
Interesting sites in the county include the National Bank Building in Howard, the Henry Zirn House, and the Rader House.
- See our Kansas Counties database for statistics in the county.
- Search our Register database for historic sites in the county.
- Search Kansas Memory for historic items from the county.
For more information see the Elk County website. The Howard Public Library, the Benson Historical Museum in Howard, and the Shaffer House Museum in Moline all have collections pertaining to the history of the county.
Entry: Elk County, Kansas
Author: Kansas Historical Society
Author information: The Kansas Historical Society is a state agency charged with actively safeguarding and sharing the state's history.
Date Created: February 2010
Date Modified: October 2015
The author of this article is solely responsible for its content.


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There are countless questions dietitians are asked abou […]
There are countless questions dietitians are asked about CHINA GREEN TEA: Is it good for me? How much should I drink? Does it have caffeine? Will it help me lose weight? We've got the scoop on this popular beverage -- here's what you need to know.
About Green Tea
For centuries green tea has been used in various ways including as a stimulant, diuretic and to help improve heart health. Of the three tea varieties, green tea is the only one that doesn't undergo fermentation upon harvesting (black and oolong do). The leaves are steamed or pan-fired in order to prevent the fermentation process. Some varieties of green tea include Gunpowder, Hyson, Sencha, Dragon Well and Matcha.
Nutrition Info
Green tea contains the highest amounts of polyphenols, powerful antioxidants that have been shown to help fight disease. If you find that is has a bitter flavor, that's from the catechins which are a specific type of polyphenols specifically found in green tea. Adding lemon to your tea can help cut the bitterness.
The main vitamins and minerals you can find in green tea include vitamin C, energy-boosting B-vitamins, vitamin E and fluoride (for strong teeth and bones).
What Studies Show
Numerous studies have been published indicating that green tea may play a role in reducing the risk of heart disease. One such study was published in 2006 in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that folks who drank green tea over a period of 11 years had a lower chance of getting a stroke. Scientific studies have also shown that green tea may help with cancer of the lungs, breast, prostate, stomach, colon and skin. The tea has also been found to help improve cognitive function among older adults.
Weight Loss
Green tea contains compounds known as alkaloids (like caffeine) which provide a stimulant effect and do help speed up metabolism. But don't go downing packages of green tea just yet — it only increases it a small amount. Several studies have linked green tea and green tea supplements (in the form of pills and extracts) to weight loss of about 1 to 5 pounds (depending on the study and the form of green tea that was taken).
Besides not being regulated by the FDA, many of the green tea supplements promising weight loss have a laundry list of active ingredients that may interact with medications and other herbal supplements. This is especially true if you have a heart condition -- caffeine (and other stimulants) and a bad heart just don't mix. Green tea and green tea supplements (i.e. pills, extracts) have also been shown to interact with medications prescribed for kidney disease and psychological disorders. It's important to always consult a physician before drinking green tea regularly or taking green tea supplements.
If you are interested in our products, welcome to visit https://www.baodatea.com/.


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Working in a Collaborative Environment
The Scenario:
A phase II study was being managed by a CRO that had non-dedicated teams, escalating costs, with project timelines slipping on almost every deliverable.
RA eClinica Solution:
- RA eClinica assumed responsibility for entire data management activities consisting of Data Management, Study Build / EDC Development, and Statistics and Programming.
- RA eClinica preferred Data Management systems utilized with Sponsor's Safety Surveillance system and Clinical Trial Management System, CTMS
Ra eClinica Results:
- Study ongoing - All deadlines to date have been met or exceeded
- Cost savings of approximately 35% in comparison to traditional CRO models
- No turnover since study start
RA eClinica is a established consultancy company for all essential aspects of statistics, clinical data management and EDC solutions. Our services are targeted to clients in the pharmaceutical and biotech sector, health insurers and medical devices.
The company is headquarter in Panama City and representation offices with business partners in the United States, India and the European Union. For discussion about our services and how you can benefit from our SMEs and cost-effective implementation CDISC SDTM clinical data click here.


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(CNN) - Rick Perry doubled down on his religion-based attack of President Barack Obama Wednesday, saying the president was preventing students from celebrating Christmas in schools. But just last year, Perry issued a holiday statement as governor of Texas that omits any mention of the Christian holiday.
In an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Perry said Obama and the political left were waging a "war on religious traditions," including preventing students from praying in schools and having Christmas parties.
"What we're seeing from the left, of which I would suggest to you, President Obama is a member of the left and substantial left-of-center beliefs, that you can't even have a Christmas party. You can't say a prayer at school," Perry said in an interview airing on CNN's "The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer."
But in a holiday statement to troops issued by his office on Dec. 22, 2010 and posted on the governor's website, Perry fails to mention Christmas at all, sticking instead to more general terms like "holiday season."
"During this holiday season, remember to thank a first responder or salute a veteran for their service and pray for God's protection on them and their families," Perry said.
The concern over Christmas was part of a larger attempt by Perry to attack the president on religious grounds, an effort that also included a television ad, released in Iowa Wednesday, that paints a similar picture of the Obama's policies.
"I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a Christian, but you don't need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there's something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can't openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school," Perry says in the ad.
In the interview Wednesday, Perry said he stood by the spot.
"I'm very comfortable and with that ad," Perry said. "For one thing, my faith is part of me. The values that I learned in my Christian upbringing will affect my governing."
Perry said the Obama administration was executing a war on religious values by restricting federal funds to certain organizations.
"When you talk to the bishops of the Catholic Church, there is clearly an agenda by this administration to go after those Catholic charities that are offering health care, doing work or trafficking of individuals," Perry said.
"The administration is clearly sending messages to people of faith and organizations of faith that we're not going to support you with federal dollars," Perry continued.
Perry also mentioned he had yet to make a decision about participating in a debate sponsored by reality television star Donald Trump, saying he had planned a bus tour through Iowa on the same date, and wasn't sure if his schedule would allow participating in the Trump event.
Watch The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer weekdays at 4pm to 6pm ET and Saturdays at 6pm ET. For the latest from The Situation Room click here.
I happen to know for a fact that lots of praying goes on in schools!!! They just aren't organized prayers. I teach a class at a college and I have students telling me every quarter that they pray in class all the time right before a test. Perry needs to just accept the fact that he isn't going to be elected president and go home to Texas and be quite.
I taught elementary school for thirty years. We stopped celebrating the Christmas holiday with parties and the like way before now President Obama moved into the White House and probably even before Rick Perry flunked out of college!
Obama has indeed been waging war on religion, that is war on fundamentalist CONSERVATIVE Islam. See a "war" requires bombs and missiles, not forgetting to say Geezus every once in a while. Obama, as protector of western civilization, defends the separation of church/mosque and the state. There should be no religious tests for office or establishment of religion by the government. The constitution forbids it!
Yesterday, Rick Perry received an endorsement from television preacher, Rev. John Hagee. This occurred on the same day Rick Perry was in Washington courting the Jewish vote. CNN also showed a clip yesterday of Rev. Hagee saying that all who have not confessed their sins and become born-again believers in Jesus Christ are going straight to Hell for all eternity. This leaves me a bit confused; either Rick Perry agrees with Hagee that all Jews are (upon their deaths) going straight Hell for all eternity, or he is in serious disagreement with Rev. Hagee's theology. Which is it?
Wow, the party that takes away all social programs , and judge people constantly .. is talking religion...they better read their BIBLE a little slower and retain what it says....and do not just preach.... read, retain and LIVE what you preach.....or don't TALK AND COMPARE! Jesus is good and is watching...making his list and checking him twice....... SHALL NOT LIE!
"The administration is clearly sending messages to people of faith and organizations of faith that we're not going to support you with federal dollars," Perry continued.
I fail to understand how a representative of the party that claims to be Constitution-First could see that as a bad thing. I get how Perry's statement about gays in the military vs. kids being allowed to pray in school has a symmetrical, aphoristic ring to it, but his defense (above) is every bit as frightening as the Red Scare in the 50's and his poor judgement seems to be beyond measure. On that basis alone, that I demand a president with better judgement, I guess Perry has now proved he is a puppet.
I get the feeling Perryhead thinks our schools do not need proper funding, they just need a bible for every science class.
Oh ... is HE still around?
I am sure God is on Rick Perry's side just look at the help he has given him in the polls. What a Dolt
President Obama has nothing to with prayer in schools or the lack thereof. And the President is certainly not waging war on religion. All this evangelical persecution stuff is just plain nonsense. I wish Perry would exit the Republican primary race and go back to Texas. The nation is not ready for another President from the state that promotes itself as "Texas a whole nother country."
It would be wonderful if Santa would bring us a 'extra present' this year and have the Republicans nominate "good ole' Rick" as their candidate for the 2012 election. Of course, most of the country would have to get out of the way on 11/6/12 as a LANDSLIDE sweeps over the lands and buries Perry for good. But seriously, they are not that stupid and will probably choose the 'safe' bet of Romney who the right will wonder if a Mormon can really represent the Christian wing of the Republican Party...................must guess, NOT..................they will sit out the election and wait for 2016.
If there is a war on Christmas someone forgot to tell my neighborhood Mr. Perry because there are lights and decorations on nearly house, and more than one baby Jesus on front yard Christmas display.
Praying in schools. When did the designate a school the same as a church. I really truly believe republicans are nuts. What God would support a republican when they believe all the things contrary to being Christian. ex" let people die if they can't afford health insurance. Cut funds for school children unable to pay for breakfast. Wanting to cut money from medicare for seniors so they would die from lack of care. cut money from social security so seniors couldn't heat their homes, pay the rent, buy food. BUT WANT TO PASS OUTRAGEOUS TAX CUTS FOR THE SUPER RICH AND MAKE SURE THE CORPORATIONS HAVE NO REGULATIONS AND PLENTY OF LOOP HOLES SO THEY DON'T HAVE TO PAY TAXES. Oh yes God would love these republicans. NOT..


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As if you don't already have enough to do at the office, the non-profit Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day Foundation wants you to do just that today. Originally started by the Ms. Foundation in 1992 as Take Your Daughter to Work Day, it was expanded to include boys in 2003.
Take Your Daughter to Work Day was the brainchild of feminists, including Gloria Steinem, who believed that girls were disadvantaged. But data show that it is boys who are disadvantaged. They have lower grades, lower graduation rates, and earn a lower percentage of college degrees, from associates to doctorates. Rather than ending the program, the foundation added boys.
It seems to me that a day trip to the office doesn't tell young people much about the workplace. Plus, they might miss important work at school. As one 15-year-old told me: "If I went to work with my father, I would probably be sitting around while he gazed over spreadsheets on his computer."
I called foundation President Carolyn McKecuen, who's based in North Carolina, to ask her why she is encouraging 26 million children to miss school. (The event is held on the last Thursday in April.)
McKecuen told me: "I think the program is most valuable outside New York, or to kids in New York in low-income housing." She explained that many young people don't know about jobs beyond nursing or McDonald's, and they come to the program and are inspired to do better in school and strive for college. "Missing one day of school does not matter," she said, if it results in more ambition and harder work in the future.
McKecuen operates the foundation on a budget of $146,000 a year, which comes from companies including Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
McKecuen is trying to fill a void that is caused by cultural and institutional factors. In single-parent families, many children don't know their father, let alone what their father's jobs is — if the dads are even employed. Schools cannot fix that, but they could be encouraging vocational education programs that teach children hands-on skills.
Vocational education has been out of fashion for the past 25 years because educators thought children were being tracked into blue-collar professions at an early age. But with youth unemployment for the 20 to 24 age group stuck at 12%, and skilled-trades jobs high-paying and unfilled, educators are starting to rethink that strategy.
Federal and state governments are increasingly becoming aware of the possibilities of vocational education.
The Labor Department is allocating $100 million from revenues from H-1B visas to Youth Career Connect, a program that gives money to schools for vocational training, partnerships with businesses, and career counseling to explore skills-based opportunities after high school. If Congress were to increase the number of H1-B visas, the Labor Department could gain even more revenue for this program.
Last year North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory signed into law a bill that creates three different high school diplomas: college-bound, career-bound or both. High school students in North Carolina can choose classes that include a career cluster specializing in agriculture, health sciences, hospitality and tourism, and business, among others.
The Manufacturing Institute's Skills Gap Survey, conducted in 2011, estimated that 600,000 manufacturing jobs are unfilled because employers cannot find skilled workers. An Economic Policy Institute study, ironically titled "Why Claims of Skills Shortages in Manufacturing Are Overblown," reports that 24% of manufacturers have vacancies unfilled for over three months and 16% of plant managers replied that "lack of access to skilled workers is a major obstacle to increasing financial success."
In the Wall Street Journal on April 22, Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel recommended that young people be encouraged to learn welding, which pays six-figure salaries. To give just one example, in 2013 Ohio's Pioneer Pipe paid 60% of its welders more than $150,000 a year.
In Munster, Ohio, Jack Buschur, an electrician and entrepreneur, has founded the Auglaize & Mercer County Business Education Alliance. It will fund skilled-trades ambassadors to visit high schools to encourage students to study welding, plumbing or electrical services. Rather than taking young people to work, Ohio will have the work come to students.
In order to learn about work, young people should have more vocational opportunities within a school curriculum, as many schools are starting to do now. Someone should start the national Bring Work to Our Children Day.
More from MarketWatch:
Is take-kids-to-work day just a giant play date?
Everything I need for a job I learned in kindergarten


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Lonely Place to Die, A (2010) - Details
A group of five mountaineers are hiking and climbing in the Scottish Highlands when they discover a young Serbian girl buried in a small chamber in the wilderness. They become caught up in a terrifying game of cat and mouse with the kidnappers as they try to get the girl to safety.
Action / Horror / Thriller


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Export 7 results:[ Author] Title Type Year
Filters: Author is Park, Eunil [Clear All Filters]
"Usability of the Stylus Pen in Mobile Electronic Documentation", Electronics, vol. 4, p. 922, 2015.,
"Determinants of Behavioral Intention to Use South Korean Airline Services: Effects of Service Quality and Corporate Social Responsibility", Sustainability, vol. 7, p. 12106, 2015.,
"Economic feasibility of renewable electricity generation systems for local government office: evaluation of the Jeju special self-governing Province in South Korea", Sustainability, vol. 9, p. 82, 2017.,
"Determinants of customer satisfaction with airline services: An analysis of customer feedback big data", JOURNAL OF RETAILING AND CONSUMER SERVICES, vol. 51, pp. 186-190, 2019.,
"Can Large Educational Institutes Become Free from Grid Systems? Determination of Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems in Thailand", Applied Sciences, vol. 11, no. 9, 2019.,
"Eco-Friendly Education Facilities: The Case of a Public Education Building in South Korea ", Applied Sciences, vol. 8, no. 10, 2018.,
"The Role of Internet of Things (IoT) in Smart Cities: Technology Roadmap-oriented Approaches", Sustainability, vol. 10, no. 5, 2018.,


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Jerusalem (CNN) -- Two Iranian warships are expected to pass through the Suez Canal Wednesday night on their way to Syria, a move that Israel considers a "provocation" and that sent oil prices soaring.
The passage, which Iran said was part of a training mission, is "something which has not happened in many years," Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman said.
"This is a provocation that proves that the self-confidence and insolence of the Iranians is growing from day to day," he said. "This happens after the Iranian president's visit to south Lebanon and his aggressive declarations there towards Israel."
The Israeli Defense Ministry said Israel was monitoring the movement of the Iranian ships and alerted its allies.
Crude oil for delivery in March rose as much as 1.2% to $85.95 a barrel, following the news. Brent crude, which is traded primarily overseas in Europe, rose as much as 2.1% to $103.31 a barrel.
Traders urged caution, saying the reports were still vague.
"The reports are sketchy at the moment, but the news of Iranian warships in the Suez did rally the market a bit," said Andrew Lebow, a commodities broker with MF Global. "The market is looking for more information but certainly we're seeing some short covering on the reports."
The Suez Canal serves as a key passageway for international trade, allowing ships to navigate between Europe and Asia without having to go all the way around the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa.
Millions of barrels of oil move through the Suez every day on the way to both Europe and North America.
Iranian Navy officials have said the flotilla has embarked on a yearlong training mission that takes it to the Gulf of Aden to the Red Sea and through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean Sea, according to the semi-official Fars News Agency.
During the mission, Iranian Navy cadets are due to be trained and prepared for defending the country's cargo ships and oil tankers.
Iranian Navy Cmdr. Rear Adm. Habibollah Sayyari said cadets would be trained to protect ships and tankers now under threat of attack from Somali pirates, Fars said. Part of the mission was also to gather intelligence.
Sayyari said the ships were in the region in "pursuit of a powerful (military) presence in the high seas and to consolidate our friendly ties and declare our message of peace and friendship to the regional countries."
Liberman urged Israel's allies to pay attention.
"We expect the international community to act speedily with determination against the Iranian provocations, designed to deteriorate the situation in the area, and put the Iranians in their place," he said.
Liberman's comments were not so much a threat but a wake-up call about a "worrying development," said a senior government official who was not identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The official said Liberman was "painting it as a challenge to the West."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamim Netanyahu's office offered no immediate comment.
CNN's Kevin Flower and journalist Ken Sweet contributed to this report


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Arts & Entertainment
Underground Icon Taylor Mead Dies
Underground Icon Taylor Mead Dies
The elfin poet and Andy Warhol superstar is dead at 88.
May 09 2013 12:28 PM EST
November 17 2015 5:28 AM EST
Underground Icon Taylor Mead Dies
Underground Icon Taylor Mead Dies
Long time arts icon Taylor Mead, a constant presence in Manhattan's lower East Side, died yesterday repoorts boweryboogie.com.
Born in Detroit, Michigan, Mead's first known appearance was in Ron Rice's beat classic The Flower Thief (1960), in which he "traipses with an elfin glee through a lost San Francisco of smoke-stuffed North Beach cafes." Mead was referred to as the first underground film star.
His rubbery physique and his fey delivery made him a natural to play the straight men with a twist in Warhol's early films (Tarzan and Jane Regained...Sort Of, Couch, Taylor Mead's Ass, Imitation of Christ, Lonesome Cowboys, and the recently released San Diego Surf (1968) in which he played the closeted husband of Viva Superstar.
In the mid 1970s, Gary Weis made some short films of Mead talking to his cat in the kitchen of his Ludlow Street apartment on the Lower East Side called Taylor Mead's Cat. Mead was known to feed the stray cats in an East Village cemetery after bar-hopping.
Mead was a constant figure in the Bowery poetry world. His last book of poems (published by Bowery Poetry Books) is called A Simple Country Girl.
He was the subject of a documentary entitled Excavating Taylor Mead, which debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2005. The film features a cameo by Jim Jarmusch, in which Jarmusch explains that once, when Mead went to Europe, he enlisted Jarmusch's brother to feed the cemetery cats in Mead's absence.
His passing comes just a month after accepting a settlement with notorious landlord Ben Shaoul to vacate 163 Ludlow Street, the Lower East Side tenement building he called home for three decades.
Below, view Mead with other Warhol stars in The Aging Rock Star.


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If you have gum disease, also referred to as gingivitis or periodontal disease, you are not alone. According the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), almost half of Americans 30 years-old or older have gum disease. If you are over 65, your risk for gum disease is even higher, over 70%. At the same time, symptoms of gum disease should not be ignored. Early diagnosis and treatment are important to your overall health.
Gum Disease Is More Serious Than You Think
Most people relate gum disease with tooth loss, but, as serious as that is, it isn't the only consequence of gum disease. Gum disease has been linked to the progression of other diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease. Inflammation in your gums, just like inflammation elsewhere in your body, causes your body to work harder to maintain your health.
Tooth loss, which can result from gum disease, affects a person beyond the loss of a chewing surface. Tooth loss can also lead to bone loss in your jaw and changes to the positioning of your remaining teeth. Tooth and bone loss in the jaw can also affect the shape of your facial features, causing your cheeks to seem sunken or give a more aged appearance than your actual years.
What Causes Gum Disease?
Proper care of your teeth and gums is important for preventing gum disease, but there can be other contributing factors. Changes in hormone levels in women through pregnancy or the use of oral contraceptives can increase the risk of gum disease. Diseases like diabetes and some auto-immune diseases can also affect your gum health. Crooked teeth or poorly fitted dental bridges can make teeth harder to clean, causing a buildup of bacteria in your mouth. Smoking, stress, dry mouth, your diet and heredity can all contribute to periodontal disease.
In basic terms, gum disease starts with inflammation, which can be caused by one or more of the conditions listed. If left untreated, that inflammation can grow, threatening not just your gums, but your teeth, heart and other aspects of your overall health.
4 Easy Steps to a Healthy Mouth
The good news about gum disease is that there are ways to lower your risk of developing gum disease and effective means of treating it once it starts. Follow these steps to keep your gums and mouth healthy.
- Prevention of Gum Disease
Consistent and proper oral health care is the first step in preventing gum disease. This includes brushing and flossing daily, but it also includes professional teeth cleanings and regular visits to your dentist. If you smoke, this is another good reason to stop.
- Recognize the Signs of Gum Disease
Being aware of the signs and symptoms of gum disease can help you to correct it in its early stages. If you experience any of these gum disease symptoms, you may need to seek treatment:
- Red, swollen gums or tender spots
- Gums that bleed when brushing, flossing or eating
- Constant bad breath
- Gums receding from teeth
- Partial dentures or bridge not fitting properly
- Seek Professional Advice
If you are experiencing any of the symptoms of gum disease, it is important to visit our dental office Republic Dental Pleasanton for an evaluation and proper diagnosis. When gum disease is diagnosed in the early stages, it can often be reversed with prescribed hygiene care and dental cleaning. More advanced stages of periodontal disease will require more intensive treatment to restore health to the diseased tissue of your gums.
- Commit to Your Treatment Plan
Good advice must be followed in order to experience the benefit. Your dentist at Republic Dental Pleasanton will make recommendations for a treatment plan that may include both home care and professional cleaning and treatments at our dental office. It is always important to follow through on the recommended treatment plan to reverse gum disease and to prevent it from returning.
Gum disease is a common, but serious threat to your health if ignored. Ignoring the symptoms will not make it go away. Visit your dentist at Republic Dental Pleasanton and learn about your treatment options. It may be simpler to restore your oral health than you think!


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Kids First
The Laws
of Soccer
Contact Us
Fundamentals of Nutrition for Soccer
Nutrition for Strength and Endurance
I. Outline
Energy needs for sport and physical activity
The United States Surgeon General's 1988 report on nutrition and health, based on over 2,000 studies, concluded that illnesses of over eating and nutritional imbalance are the leading causes of death in North America. Numerous epidemiological studies point the link between diets high in saturated fats and cholesterol and increased risk for atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease. The "silent killer," or elevated blood pressure, has been linked to high sodium intake (some 20% of the US population is predisposed to retain sodium and as a result hold water), and it is believed that 30% - 50% of all cancer is diet related (Hoeger, 1991). In addition, poor nutritional habits may also lead to obesity, diabetes mellitus, and osteoporosis.
General Guidelines for a Healthy Diet
The plethora of information about nutrition that is being promoted by various sources to the American consumer may have made it seem that eating a healthy diet is restrictive and complicated. Actually, developing healthy dietary habits is as simple as following the steps originally described in the United States Surgeon General's 1988 report on nutrition and health.
(01) Eat a variety of nutrients from the four food groups.*
A. Consume four or more servings a day from the Beans, grains, & Nuts, and the Fruit & Vegetable groups.
B. Consume two servings a day from the Milk Products and the Poultry, Fish, Meat & Eggs groups.
(02) Eat foods high in starch (complex carbohydrates) and cellulose (indigestible fiber).
(03) Limit your total fat intake to 30% or below of your total daily caloric intake and keep your intake of saturated fats at or below 1/3 of you fat calories.
(04) Limit your cholesterol intake to 300 milligrams per day or less.
(05) Get your vitamins and minerals from the four food groups not from supplements.
(06) Avoid foods high in simple sugars.
(07) Limit sodium intake to no more than 2400 milligrams per day.
(08) Maintain an adequate intake of calcium.
(09) If you drink alcoholic beverages, keep it to no more than one or two drinks a day.
(10) Maintain your ideal lean vs. fat body weight.
* The USDA redefined in 1991 the Four Basic Food Groups. The new order retained the four groups but put the emphasis on grains (6-11 servings), vegetables (3-5 servings), and lowered consumption recommendations for fruits (2-4 servings), milk products (2-3 servings), meat, poultry, fish, dry beans, eggs and nuts (2-3 servings), and fats, oils, and sweets (should be used sparingly).
Nutrients are chemicals that fulfill specific functions in the body. They provide energy, furnish structural components to construct body tissue, and supply regulators to control metabolic functions. Your local grocery store is the best source for the 37 (three macronutrients, 13 vitamins, and 21 minerals) essential nutrients needed by the body on a regular basis (Forsythe, 1990).
Williams (1988) has identified what he labeled as the ten "key nutrients" that are central to human nutrition (see Table 1.0 below). To help ensure that the established recommended daily allowance (RDA) of the macro-and micronutrients is consumed one must choose foods that have a high "nutrient density" or foods that are high in vitamins, minerals, and fiber but are low in calories.
Table 1.0. Key Nutrients
|Adapted from Williams, M.H. (1988). Nutrition for fitness and sport. Dubuque, IA: Wm. C. Brown.
|Optimal Nutrition for Exercise and Sport
|Energy needs for sport and physical activity
|Energy needs differ substantially among individuals. Factors, such as, age, gender, body surface area, and environment influence daily caloric output. Also, the number of calories burned in exercise fluctuates with the frequency, intensity, time, and type (FITT) of activity, movement efficiency, and status of physical fitness (Hecker, 1987). College athletes, for example, consume from 19.7 to 62.1 Kcal/kg. Thus a 120 kg (264 lbs) linesman may need as much as 7452 kcal/day to maintain his body weight. Hoeger (1991, p. 39) provides the following table for a quick appraisal of calorie needs by gender and activity level (see Table 1.1).
|Calorie per pound
Physical Activity
|Moderate Physical Activity
|Hard Labor--Strenuous
Physical Effort
* Pregnant or lactating women add three calories to these values.
Complex Carbohydrates, Proteins, and Athletic Performance
|Although the primary source of energy
during endurance type exercise is derived from free fatty acids,
carbohydrate, in the form of glycogen, is also needed. Several studies,
that compared high fat or low carbohydrate diets to mixed or high
carbohydrate diets, demonstrated a significant performance advantage to
the high carbohydrate groups (Keith, 1989).
Consumption of adequate amounts of protein is crucial in order to increase muscle bulk. A normal diet that provides 15%-20% of calories in protein, however, seems to suffice. Very heavy exercisers may need additional 25 grams of protein for every additional 1000 Calories burned. Since athletes are high energy consumers (3500-6000 kcal), a diet consisting of 10% (350-600 kcal from PRO or 87.5-150 g of PRO) protein is often plentiful.
|There is absolutely no evidence that megadoses of vitamins and/or minerals improve performance. However, less than optimal levels of vitamins and minerals do hinder performance. Research has shown that athletes need and actually consume larger amounts of calories. Since a well balanced diet of 1200 Kcal will supply all the micronutrient needs of an adult, an athlete consuming a balanced daily diet of 3600-6000 Kcal will also ingest 3-5 times the RDA for vitamins and minerals! While it is relatively hard to vitamin or mineral overdose oneself through food consumption, it is fairly easy to achieve vitamin toxicity, for example, with the abuse of commercial vitamin pills (Aronson, 1986).
|A loss of water that exceeds 2 percent of one's body weight significantly impairs endurance performance. Therefore, it is recommended that exercisers drink lots of water, before, during, and after working out. After exercising in hot and humid environments for one hour a water loss of up to .5 lbs per mile may occur. To replace fluid loss under these conditions, an exerciser would have to drink one cup of water (8 oz) every mile or 6-8 minutes (Nieman, 1990). To systematically hydrate during exercise it is recommended to consume 200-400 ml of cold (40-50 F) every 15-20 minutes.
|Should electrolytes be used during soccer practice or a soccer match?
|According to Nieman (1990), studies have demonstrated that losses of sodium, magnesium, calcium, zinc, and some vitamins through sweat are insignificant. Individuals engaging in very heavy exercise that lasts over four hours (Ironman triathletes & Ultra- marathoners), however, need fluids containing electrolytes.
|Pre-Event Feeding: A diet high (65-70%) in complex carbo-hydrates consumed no later than 4-5 hours before competition appears to positively affect endurance type performance. The pre-event meal should not exceed 600 kcal and should be very light in fat (Keith, 1989).
|During Event Feeding: Numerous studies compared the performance of endurance runners or cyclists when either a sport type drink and/or diluted sugary drink or plain water was consumed. Even though results consistently show that carbohydrate beverages outperform plain water, no practical benefits seem to result from carbohydrate ingestion throughout exercise. There is some evidence suggesting that large quantities of carbohydrates may make a difference if consumed approximately 30 minutes before fatigue starts (Nieman, 1990).
|Post-Event Feeding: Ivy, Katz and others (1988) studied the effect of time of carbohydrate ingestion after exercise on muscle glycogen synthesis. They reported that a 23% solution of a carbohydrate drink, in a quantity that supplied two grams of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight, led to a 300% increase in the rate of glycogen synthesis. Following Ivy and his colleagues' recommendation, soccer players may consume 1.5 g/kg body weight carbohydrates within the first 15-30 minutes after practice or a game. A second feeding should take place about one hour after the cessation of exercise.
|It is well established that fad diets don't work. If they did, most diet centers would have been out of business by now. As mentioned earlier, a well balanced diet of 1200 to 1500 kcal/day provides all the essential nutrients. Following the regiment of a healthy diet that supplies the macro- and micro- nutrients in proper amounts may be discouraging to some individuals since it is often associated with a lower weekly weight loss (1-2 lbs/week). On the other hand, extremely low calorie diets, restricting energy intake to 800 or less kcal/day may result in a substantial weekly weight loss (4-10 lbs). Very low calorie diets, that are not medically supervised, may cause the body to use up to 50% of its energy from muscle protein sources. Fat tissue is virtually water free while 80% of muscle tissue is water. Since one gram of fat yields ~9 kcal and one gram of "dry" protein yields ~4 kcal the energy stored in one pound of fat tissue and one pound of muscle tissue equals ~3500 kcal and ~350 kcal respectively. Thus, loss of protein weight could be as much as ten times faster than the loss of fat weight. While it may seem encouraging on the scale, remember that four-fifth of it will be water loss. In addition, a significant loss of lean body mass, a notable slowing of the Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) as well as, malnutrition, that in extreme cases may result in death, are typical side effects of such drastic dieting practices. The typical scenario of crash diets includes the following stages: (a) at first, speedy weight loss, (b) consistent weight loss, (c) leveling off or plateauing of weight loss, and finally, (d) recovery of lost weight, often beyond the starting point. Every time an individual puts her/his body through a crash diet cycle the organism tends to become more metabolically efficient. The "Yo-Yo Diet Syndrome" best describes this pattern of quick loss of weight, and its speedy recovery and usually over compensation (Forsythe,1990).
|Commercial and fad diets that one should seriously question include diet systems that:
|Points to look for in an advertised diet system:
|The information provided below may be found in the following Health & Nutrition Letters:
|Fallacy: Smokers need more vitamin C.
|Fact: The 1980 RDA for vitamin C was four times a normal person's need! This RDA was based on experiments that included large numbers of smokers. Addressing this issue Dr. Alfred E. Harper, Professor of Biochemistry and Nutrition Sciences at the University of Wisconsin stated "If anything, it would be much more appropriate to suggest that nonsmokers need less." (cited in Forsythe, 1990, p. 97).
|Fallacy: Massive vitamin C overdose can prevent colds.
|Fact: Experiments using large numbers of volunteers, that either took a vitamin C megadose or a placebo, showed no difference in cold prevention. However, a daily dose of 250 milligrams (contained in 16 oz of orange juice) might have a mild effect on reducing the severity of the cold symptoms. No additional benefits were demonstrated by higher doses of vitamin C.
|Fallacy: Massive vitamin C overdose can prolong survival time in terminally ill cancer patients.
|Fact: In clinical trials of more than 100 cancer patients at the Mayo Clinic no differences between the vitamin C and the placebo groups were observed for longevity, appetite, severity of pain, weight loss, or amount of nausea and vomiting.
|Fallacy: Vitamin E supplements help decrease mammary dysplasia (benign fibrocystic disease of the breast) in women.
|Fact: Two independent studies conducted at the Sinai Hospital of Baltimore, and at the University of California in San Francisco showed no differences between the placebo and the vitamin E groups.
|Fallacy: Overdosing of certain vitamins protects against "stress."
|Fact: While it is true that under certain physical exertion conditions the need for micronutrients increases, it seldom mounts above the RDA. If you are under so much stress that you may become vitamin deficient, you would be better off seeing your doctor rather than visiting your favorite health store.
|Fallacy: Megadoses of pyridoxine (vitamin B6) help alleviate the premenstrual syndrome.
|Fact: While the supporting evidence for this view is equivocal and stems from small scale studies, there also are reports of adverse effects of pyridoxine overdose, such as damage to the nervous system.
|Fallacy: Vitamin B12 shots can energize individuals who experience a general feeling of weakness.
|Fact: A B12 vitamin deficiency is rare among healthy adults and its takes several years before the side effects appear. Individuals suffering from a condition called pernicious anemia cannot produce a substance crucial in the absorption of vitamin B12 from food. Only these individuals may benefit from B12 ("liver") shots.
|Fallacy: Potatoes are fattening.
|Fact: A seven-ounce plain potato baked in its skin has about 145 kcal. That is slightly less calories than contained in a cup of plain cooked spaghetti (155 kcal) and considerably less than a cup of cooked white rice (226 kcal). Potatoes, are high in complex carbo- hydrates, fiber, vitamin C, niacin and potassium. It contains no fat and is low on sodium. Seven ounces of French fries or McDonald's hashbrowns, on the other hand, contain 554 kcal and 529 kcal respectively, and unlike a plain potato are not considered to be high density foods.
|Fallacy: Eating grapefruit will increase fat metabolism and decrease appetite.
|Fact: Advocates of the grapefruit or grapefruit concentrate in form of pills believe that it contains special enzymes that increase body fat metabolism. One half of a medium size grapefruit provides 56 kcal, almost 100% of the RDA for vitamin C, 15 g of carbohydrate, 1 g of protein, calcium, vitamin A and even some iron. Adding grapefruit to your diet, therefore, can be beneficial to you. There is, however, nothing in grapefruit, or for that matter in any other known food, that will increase fat metabolism.
|Fallacy: To lose weight, one must give up eating sweets.
|Fact: An important part of every diet plan is its resemblance to the individual's life style. Therefore, the modification, rather than the complete change of one's eating habits seems a more realistic approach. As a matter of fact, M.I.T. researchers speculate that the increased release of serotonin by the brain, following the ingestion of sweets, may be related to the craving for sweets in some individuals. Whether this theory is true or not, controlled amounts of sweets might help some individuals satisfy the "craving" for serotonin and they still can lose weight.
|Fallacy: Cottage cheese is an excellent source of calcium.
|Fact: The special curdling procedure used to prepare cottage cheese promotes a 25-50% loss of calcium present in the milk it was made from. Low fat yogurt and low fat milk retain all the calcium from the milk they were made from, and thus, are excellent sources of calcium.
|Fallacy: Electric muscle stimulators can firm you up and help you lose weight without you having to move a muscle.
|Fact: If it sounds too good to be true, you can bet it is! Electric stimulation of the buttocks, thighs, and abdomen for 35 minutes, as measured by investigators at Northeastern University in Boston, burned only 6 kcal. At this rate it would take five hundred and eighty three 35 minute sessions, or approximately 14 days and 4 hours of non-stop muscle stimulation to lose the equivalent of one pound of fat!
|While malnutrition is often associated with inadequate energy intake in developing countries, in wealthy, industrialized countries it is often a result of eating too much, or too little of some components of the diet. Excesses and deficiencies of certain foods, according to Gaman & Sherrington (1990), are associated with "diseases of affluence." Foods currently consumed by Americans provide most vitamins and minerals in adequate amounts. However, the excessive intake of fat and total amount of calories, for example, is linked to increased risk of coronary heart disease and cancer. The current situation may be greatly improved by an emphasis on a well balanced diet and adequate exercise. It is well documented, however, that certain groups of individuals like children, child bearing age women, pregnant women, post-menstrual women, strict vegetarians, alcoholics and others, might have special nutrition needs (e.g, fluoride, calcium, iron, vitamin B-complex). If in doubt, check with your doctor. Do not treat yourself!
|Reproduced and adapted from: Commission on Dietetic Registration
|Sports Dietetics Practice
|Sports Nutrition-Exercise Physiology
|Exercise Physiology
|Position Papers
|Specific Sports Related Topics
|Additional Sports Nutrition Sources
|The Female Athlete
|Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition
|For up-to-date information about sport nutrition go to the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. It is a FREE access to articles journal!
|* The above information is based on the discusssion in Katch, F.I, & McArdle, W.D. (1993). Introduction to nutrition, exercise, and health (4th ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Lea & Febiger (pp. 340-362)
|Copyright© 1996-2011, Daniel Frankl, Ph.D.
|Questions and/or comments? Thank you!
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Last Modified: February 19, 2011


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Add this to the shocking information pile: mobile customers want unlimited data. This discovery was made by research firm Sanford Bernstein, which conducted a survey of more than 800 smartphone customers over their feelings on data caps, carrier choice, and pricing. They discovered that the prospect of unlimited data may be the most important criteria for users as a whole—even more than sticking with their favorite device.
The firm said that current wisdom has mobile customers being the most loyal to their favorite device—they will go anywhere as long as they can use the phone they want. (We have seen this behavior in recent years with the iPhone at AT&T, and more recently with some high-profile Android-based phones at other carriers too.) That attitude may be real, but Sanford Bernstein says that the appeal of unlimited data could override people's urge to follow the hot products.
"The new conventional wisdom is that carrier loyalty has been replaced with loyalty to the device. But high inclination to switch carriers and phones to maintain an unlimited plan suggest that perhaps the plan itself is more important than either one," equities analyst Craig Moffett wrote.
The latest tiered data plans are usually cheaper than their limitless counterparts—AT&T's unlimited plan was $30 before the company introduced a 200MB for $15 tier and a 2GB for $25 tier—but Sanford Bernstein says the savings don't matter as much as carriers would like to think. A third of those surveyed said they liked AT&T less after the company introduced its data tiers—customers would apparently rather live without the stress of worrying about their data limits, and that peace of mind is worth the premium they might pay for an unlimited plan.
Data tiers are quickly becoming the de facto standard within 3G in the US (though Verizon does still offer an unlimited plan), while the carriers are still feeling out whether tiers are necessary for 4G/WiMAX/LTE. Sprint VP of 4G Todd Rowley said recently that that Sprint is still trying to attract new users to its higher-speed network and doesn't plan to start capping downloads unless data use explodes, while Verizon said it's considering introducing speed-based plans to the LTE network it's launching next month.
Moffett said that carriers who retain an unlimited option could definitely attract more customers, but also warned that it could be a blessing in disguise. "Unlimited data plans could become a major source of differentiation, attracting customers and giving still-unlimited carriers a subscribership boost," Moffett said. "At the same time, however, carriers who maintain unlimited pricing in the face of AT&T's move to usage based pricing could self-select to the heaviest users, impairing future profitability."
Verizon users are the heaviest data gobblers, according to Validas, so this problem may already be in the process of manifesting itself. We're almost afraid to find out what will happen when Verizon finally gets the iPhone.
Listing image by Photo CC by Daniel Hsu


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Armory Show creative director Michael Hall has resigned effective Friday. He confirmed his departure to A.i.A. by phone today.
Hall will take up a new job at Hauser & Wirth Gallery next week after almost seven years with the Armory Show. Hauser & Wirth opened an Upper East Side location in 2009, and will inaugurate a new venue in Chelsea in January.
Hall started at the fair in 2005 as operations manager but became managing director when Katelijne De Backer left her post as director in 2011. He became creative director this fall. He was involved in developing the talks and film series (Open Forum and Armory Film) and the regional "Focus" section, and selected and worked with commissioned artists.
Cofounding director Paul Morris resigned in September after 18 years. On Sept. 27 A.i.A. broke the news that the Armory Show, the Volta Show and Art Platform Los Angeles were up for sale by Chicago-based Merchandise Mart Properties.
The Armory Show's centennial edition will take place March 7-10, 2013, at piers 92 and 94 on the Hudson River.
PHOTO: Michael Hall and Jacob Fabritius. Photo by Catarina Lundgren Åström via Flickr.


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The Myth of Martyrdom: What Really Drives Suicide Bombers, Rampage Shooters, and Other Self-Destructive Killers
Adam Lankford
Palgrave Macmillan, 2013 ($27)
The dust had not yet settled after the 9/11 attacks when people began debating whether to call the hijackers cowards. Addressing the nation, President George W. Bush assigned cowardice to the 19 terrorists, articulating a worldview that equates courage with good. Others, including journalists Bill Maher and Susan Sontag, argued that the hijackers could not be cowards, no matter how despicable their methods, because it takes guts to die for a cause. No one, however, questioned the hijackers' dedication to their campaign, until now.
In The Myth of Martyrdom, author Lankford, a criminal justice professor at the University of Alabama, rejects the prevailing view of suicide terrorists as radicalized individuals who will do anything for a cause. Rather, he asserts, they are merely unhappy, damaged individuals who want to die. Terrorist organizations recruit people who are in desperate straits for suicide missions and call them martyrs, and we have bought into their propaganda.
Citing recent research, including evaluations of preemptively arrested suicide terrorists, Lankford argues that the psychological profiles of self-destructive killers, whether underwear bombers or school shooters, are not so different from those of the 34,000 Americans who commit suicide every year, burdened by mental illness, social isolation, and personal and professional failures. Underneath the political rhetoric in suicide letters, martyrdom videos and testimonies of grieving family and friends, Lankford finds evidence of deep psychological pain. The young mother who blows herself up in a crowd, for instance, turns out to be escaping the shame of an adulterous affair.
Ironically, most suicide terrorists come from the Muslim world, where the stigma against conventional suicide is high. For those who fear both life and the religious repercussions of suicide, martyrdom seems to offer a loophole—the only honorable death.
But they are only fooling themselves. Lankford draws clear distinctions between true heroism and its pretenders. Real heroes, such as the soldier who throws himself onto a live grenade to save his unit or the firefighter who rushes into a burning building, do not have a death wish; moreover, their actions directly save other people's lives.
Although Lankford builds an impressive case for his view of suicide terrorism, he offers little in the way of practical solutions to reduce these tragic incidents. (Surely airports will not start screening passengers for suicide risk, as he suggests.) In the end, he knows he is playing the propaganda game as well. If the courage assumed of suicide terrorism is its most powerful weapon, we can disarm this threat by denying its practitioners the myth of martyrdom.


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Bid to solve mystery of Lake Champlain jet crash
Plane believed to have crashed in lake 43 years ago
The private jet carrying five people disappeared soon after departure from a Vermont airport on a snowy night 43 years ago, leaving no trace for searchers who believe it crashed into Lake Champlain.
Initial searches for the 10-seat Jet Commander turned up no wreckage and the lake froze over four days after the plane was lost on Jan. 27, 1971, shortly after it departed Burlington.
Now, authorities in New York and Vermont, spurred by curiosity after the Malaysia Airlines disappearance in March, are mounting a fresh search and hope new technology will find the wreck.
Starting Friday, divers, high-resolution sonar, a submarine and the experience of experts volunteering their time will be brought to bear on the mystery of what happened to a plane that was recorded by radar at 5,000 feet one second and gone the next.
"I'm hopeful," said New York State Police Capt. John Tibbitts. "They did everything they could at the time with the available technology."
Some items from the plane washed up over the years, he said, but without the wreckage there was no way for aviation safety investigators to determine what happened.
Tibbitts said pilot George Nikita and co-pilot Donald Myers each had thousands of hours experience flying Jet Commanders and on that night had departed for Providence, Rhode Island, carrying three employees of the Atlanta development company Cousin's Properties: Robert Williams III, Frank Wilder and R. Kirby Windsor.
"The goal is to locate and recover the remains to finally bring some closure to these families," Tibbitts said.
The new search was organized after New York Department of Environmental Conservation Forest Ranger Scott Van Laer began thinking about parallels to Malaysia Air Flight 370 vanishing.
Tibbitts said Van Laer has been chronicling crashes in the Adirondacks region professionally and personally and rallied interest in trying to resolve the mystery.
Vermont and New York state police divers will be involved in the search, along with experts Tibbitts said will bring some new ideas along with more advanced technology.
Lake Champlain is 400 feet deep in parts and presents a daunting challenge for divers.
"It's a deep, dark lake," Tibbitts said.


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I cannot wait to purchase Caribbean Crossroads when arriving in Aruba next month. Looking forward to seeing you. I understand the book has gotten some great reviews. Looking forward to reading it. Truly enjoyed Aruba I Am Your Island !
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