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Reading ListJuly 13, 2003
On my recent foray I had enough time off that I needed a vacation from the general vacationing. Our particular form of escapism involves reading, so there were multiple stops in Borders in CA, CT, and other states. I can say definitively that much like Starbucks, homogeny amongst stores is the name of the game country-wide. Strangely comforting and disturbing at the same time.
Spending too much money at Borders, I wound up with two gems in the lot that I read cover-to-cover over the course of the trip. Every respectable web designer needs to have these on their bookshelf.
Designing With Web Standards — Jeffrey Zeldman
A common complaint running through the current set of Amazon reviews for this book is that if you read zeldman.com on a regular basis, this book doesn't offer much new.
A point I'd have to concede, but there has always been a temporal feeling to the daily posting paradigm which marks older thoughts as less relevant, when sometimes they're the most relevant. This is the first time Zeldman's thinking has been collected and presented in such a clear manner in one spot, and it's well worth owning if for no other reason than to pass it around the office.
The first four chapters of the book are devoted to the Why. As in, why use web standards to build your site. The last half deals with the How, and goes over basic XHTML, CSS, and DOM methods that likely won't open your eyes if you've been reading his site for any period of time.
Already in its second printing, DWWS deserves a spot on your shelf whether you're new to the game, or just need a definitive resource to point to when making the case for designing with web standards.
Don't Make Me Think — Steven Krug
At 190 pages, Steven Krug's very popular book on web usability gets right to the point and tells you what you need to do to make your work as easy to use as possible. Finally, a usability expert that actually gives you information you can use.
This book really opened my eyes — a lot of the things he discusses are intuitive, but not obvious. They're the sort of things you inherently feel, but have never been able to verbalize before. As you read you can't help but slap your head as each epiphany leaves you muttering "oh yeah, of course."
People use the web a certain way. If you peg the average web user as the type who will click through three pages to find what they need before giving up and moving on to the next site, you have much to learn.
Much as web standards are a continuum, so too is web usability. Krug notes that if you make even 50% of an effort to make your work more usable, he'll be pleased. And there's no doubt in my mind that the same effort will cause your site to be far more successful.
Reader Comments
Don't Make Me Think - excellent. One of the best books I've read. Much better than anything Nielsen has come up with.
Designing With Web Standards - OK from what I've read (if you've got a credit card you can read it for free online for 14 days). I wasn't impressed by finding incorrect details very quickly though, such as it stating IE5 supports XHTML. I haven't learnt a thing from flicking through it myself.
I agree with you Tom on both points. For any web professional, Krug's book is a must buy. His insights and writing style help you see "the forest before the trees".
I wanted to buy Zeldman's book because he is a web genius. But I skimmed the book at Barnes and Nobles and was disappointed to find there was really nothing new for me. Great book for beginners, but for anyone who keeps track of these things and has been around for a while I don't think it helps.
IE 5 does support XHTML. Pages coded in valid XHTML work when viewed in that bowser. In my experience, valid XHTML doesn't cause any more problems than HTML4.
If you mean that pages served up as as application/xhtml+xml
don't display properly in IE/WIn then you're right. The standards say you don't have to serve up XHTML as as application/xhtml+xml, and that text/html is perfectly valid.
I really enjoyed Zeldman's book. He presents standards, not as an exercise in semantic purity but as a practical solution to real problems. If you have to serve up XHTML pages as text/html what is the real problem, if by doing so you have solved problems of accessibility, bandwidth and device independence?
Even if you do read Zeldman.com regularly, the book is worth getting. Reading the arguments presented in a coherent form over 400 pages gives the book a huge benefit over a collection of articles on the web.
If you just skim the book you may think there's nothing new in it. '"Box model hack," yeah, I know about that. "Structured markup," sure, I'm all about that.' But if you look closer there's probably alot you didn't know, and there's an overall perspective you couldn't get from reading a Zeldman post here, an ALA article there.
And do your clients know? Do the people you work with know? In the past when I wanted to explain why accessibility or validation was important, all I could do was send my client a bunch of links from sites all over the place. Most of those links didn't make a strong business case like Zeldmans book does. They didn't connect the dots. The book has already helped me get through to my clients what I couldn't say for myself.
IE has absolutely no XHTML support AT ALL, no matter what Content-Type you try and send it by.
If I made a markup language called "Tom's Lovely Markup Language" which happened to look a bit like HTML and thus tagsoup parsers in current browsers accepted it, I could hardly claim they supported it could I? It is just a fluke that browsers do an OKish job at processing XHTML served as text/html.
But sending XHTML as text/html is a hack. Whether or not the standards have it in or not is irrelevant, it's still a hack.
Zeldman's book several times mentions how wonderful and nice XHTML is, but as far as I can see never really explains its benefits over HTML. It just states that XHTML will make pages more semantic, which really, is rubbish. It's encourage the myth that using HTML means your markup will be tangled, cluttered, presentation-ridden hell.
I'm convinced that the vast majority of people using XHTML don't really know why they are, and are just following others because they say it's cool.
I agree 100% with what AdLad had to say.
One thing I love about both of these books is the fact that you can easily hand them off to someone as a quick "Web best practices" primer. When I worked for Connexion we had all the marketing and engineering folks read Don't Make Me Think and that helped us develop a common frame of reference for usabiltiy, etc. And I've pointed out Zeldman's book to quite a few people as a place to start with Web standards.
When you are working with stakeholders, newbies, graphic designers going Web, etc. these books can be invaluable in getting those people on the same page with those of us who've been around for awhile
I can't speak for the rest of the world, but I use XHTML for these reasons:
It's easy. Ignoring the MIME-type business, there was almost no effort required to make the switch to lower case tags and quoted attributes.
It's transitional. Being halfway between XML and HTML, when XML rendering comes of age I will be able to start using XML in older pages without having to re-write them. This is basic long-term planning.
It's professional. This point applies equally well to HTML 4.01, but clean, validating code means you take your craft more seriously than presentational hackers. It's the difference between mass-produced and hand-tooled. People buy mass-produced products because they're cheaper, but they expect less of them. They don't view markup this way for some reason, but the point remains that more effort and care goes into valid code than ed &
eakfast markup.
It's psychological. I will not build a table-based layout in XHTML 1.0 Strict, because it goes against the grain of what Strict is trying to accomplish. I feel guilty when using tables in XHTML 1.0 Transitional. I get absolutely sloppy when writing in HTML 4 because hey, it's forgiving. I can't be the only one who feels this way. Sure HTML can deliver semantic markup, but XHTML goes further to encourage it psychologically.
Each point has been well covered in DWWS. That's good enough a case for me.
Tom, I don't think we read the same book. Zeldman's book discusses the application/xhtml+xml problem in its Introduction. In later chapters starting with chapter 5 he spells out the benefits of XHTML clearly. He doesn't say "XHTML will make pages more semantic" like you imply. He plainly says the opposite:
"Developing in XHTML goes beyond converting uppercase to lowercase and adding slashes to the end of
 tags. If changing 'tag fashions' were all there was to it, nobody would bother, and instead of web standards, this book would be filled with delicious tofu recipes…. To benefit from XHTML, you need to think about your markup in structural rather than visual terms." (pages 167-168)
He then does a couple of chapters on structure, going from obvious things [that aren't obvious to a lot of designers] to more subtle things I never thought of myself.
Tom, if you had actually read the book you would be making different points. I see that you skimmed parts of it for free online instead of buying it. That you "flicked through" it. Nothing wrong with that but it probably doesnt put you in the best position to critique the book. Unlike most computer books this one needs to be read from beginning to end. It's written well and it has a theme that evolves. If you just flick thru it looking for standards tricks and tips, you'll miss the books value.
Having just, literally, bought both of these books from Amazon this whole discussion makes me feel I may have a good couple of books in the next few days.
I have found nothing but praise for Don't Make Me Think! as a method of getting the management to understand what I have been trying to explain for months. As to the fact that simply mentioning Designing with Web Standards has provoked such a response, I believe it proves that Zeldman has continued with, rather than reviewed, his intentions of making the Web design/development community think.
What do I know, I haven't read them yet…

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Strangers at the Manger
For those of you who failed the Highlights "hidden pictures" contests as children, in addition to the Holy Family, wise men, and shepherds, there are two monkeys, an abnormally large bat, a turtle, and Bigfoot. Yes, that's right, according to my manger, Bigfoot was at the birth of Christ.
First, I assumed Ryan had done it, moving things around from the mantle to create the David Lynch Christmas scene. Then a dark horse in the blasphemy race emerged: my Mother.
I called to ask her about it, expecting her to be insulted and ask me to do hail Marys in order to win her forgiveness. Instead, she laughingly admitted it. Yes, the woman who goes to church every week, doesn't eat meat during Lent, and could teach most Catholics a thing or two about guilt, was responsible for the desecration. And she was proud of it. She thought the Bigfoot was an especially brilliant touch, such people had been putting another mythical creature (Santa) at the creche for some time.
I guess you don't really know a person until you leave them along with your plastic Jesus. I am just so glad I don't have a Crucifixion set she can mess with at Easter. Because that would be REALLY disrespectful.


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You love the Timeless WOC in caviar or in patent, it has joined the club of permanent collection for some time, including its friends like the Quilted WOC or the Boy WOC.
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With two large CC on the front flap, this bag is combined with black and white stripes – the two colors that Coco Chanel love so much. The Chanel Striped Denim Timeless WOC will give you an entire different feeling as its not made from leather.
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Drab female birds had more colorful evolution
Males weren't the main players in sex differences in avian plumage
Color evolution among grackles and their kin is not about males showing off their fine feathers. It's more about females switching their looks, a new analysis indicates.
Among 37 species of grackles, blackbirds and other icterid relatives, males clearly do flash more diverse feather colors than females do, says Jordan Price of St. Mary's College of Maryland. Bright epaulets on glossy black plumage or shimmering iridescence often give distinctive looks to males. Females, however, just look either generically drab or similar to males.
Scientists have long debated whether today's sex differences in bird color arose from evolutionary pressures on drab ancestors for males to look sexy. For the grackle group and probably other species, it's "just not the case," Price says.
He and Muir Eaton of Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, worked backward along a genealogical tree of grackle relatives to reconstruct the history of male


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NEW YORK (AP) — NBC News is replacing the top executive at Brian Williams' "Rock Center" newsmagazine, among a handful of other changes.
NBC said Tuesday that Rome Hartman, the show's inaugural executive producer, will be replaced by Alex Wallace. Wallace is a senior vice president at NBC News and has been NBC News President Steve Capus' chief deputy. In the short term, Hartman will work on elections coverage.
"Rock Center" has scored some journalistic coups in its first year, including Bob Costas' interview with Jerry Sandusky, but has struggled to find an audience.
Capus said Antoine Sanfuentes, currently the Washington bureau chief, will fill Wallace's deputy role and Ken Strickland will be Washington bureau chief.


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www.americantravelguide.net is a website on the Internet in Grand Theft Auto IV. The site's main purpose is to assist American residents who are traveling to Europe. The site explains the differences between American and European cultures and customs. Humorously, the explanations are negative toward Europe and European people.
The company's billboards can be seen around Francis International Airport. ATG appears to be ignorant towards geography, as it claims that:
- Brussel is in France, however, it is actually in Belgium.
- England is a city and uses the Union Jack (The Flag of Britain) rather than the St. George Cross (Flag of England).
- Europe is a country full of states, "United States of Europe".
- The 'Language' section of the website states that in the majority of Hollywood movies, the antagonists speak with an English or British accent. This hasn't been proven, but is a common belief.
- USA has 50 countries, rather than states.


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Gint's Yard, a long and low level warehouse property with a small office at 643 Great South Rd in the industrial suburb of Penrose, is being marketed for sale with vacant possession as an ideal property for an industrial owner occupier
Ben Herlihy and Todd Kuzmich of Colliers International are selling the 2542sq m building on 5306sq m freehold site, by deadline private treaty closing on October 25, unless it sells before that date.
Herlihy said the property had been occupied by Fletcher's joinery division for 15 years, and the lease expires in November.
"Vacant possession presents the opportunity for an owner occupier to move in and benefit by purchasing an affordable, functional industrial property in a prime location."
He said large efficient industrial buildings with only a small office space were popular with occupiers as they enable users to keep their cost down.
"This is a solid industrial workhorse, and will be sought after by users seeking a cost efficient and functional property solution," he said.
Kuzmich said the office and warehouse building was constructed in the 1980s and provided a simple "plain vanilla" industrial facility which was readily adaptable to a wide variety of uses.
"The building has an extremely low office to warehouse ratio and a rectangular configuration, making it very flexible and suitable for a range of businesses. We see it appealing to distributors seeking affordable warehousing."
Because of its heavy duty power supply, it would also be suitable fora manufacturing business.
The building comprises a 2364sq m warehouse with four roller doors and a 5.6 metre stud at the portal knee; 93sq m of office areas and 85sq m of mezzanine space. \
Herlihy said the property's yard could be extended into neighbouring vacant land, doubling its size and providing a total property size of around one hectare,
"With the possibility of extending the yard, we expect to receive interest in this property from utility companies, recyclers, businesses with a substantial fleet and other operators which require big yard areas for vehicle movements or container storage."
Kuzmich believes Gint's Yard also presents a development opportunity.
"The building could be split into three office and warehouse units of around 900sq m each, including two-level offices.
"There is certainly demand in the industrial market from owner occupiers trying to take advantage of current lending conditions and secure their own premises, so splitting the property into smaller units could make an attractive add-value opportunity."
Fletcher would be carrying out remedial works which would bring the property up to a high standard of presentation, he said.
The property is located between another Fletcher property and the Downer EDI bitumen plant on Business 5 zoned land, allowing for a wide range of commercial and industrial activities.
Herlihy said 643 Great South Rd was in the heart of Penrose, to which industrial business were attracted by the suburb's arterial roads and motorways, giving easy access to the port and airport.


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What Are They Up To? Will and Grace's Debra Messing
All things on the small screen... TV, DVD, Video games... take your pick
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What Are They Up To? Will and Grace's Debra Messing
Debra Messing was best known for her role on Will & Grace. As Grace Adler, she depicted a Jewish interior designer who lived in New York with her gay best friend Will Truman. Throughout the show, she became infamous for her string of boyfriends, many of which were portrayed by notable guest stars such as Gregory Hines and Woody Harrelson. In a span of eight years, she won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, and earned nominations for 6 Golden Globe Awards among others.
After her stint on Will and Grace, Messing served as the voice of the character Park Ranger Beth in the animated film Open Season. Recently, she starred in the movie Lucky You, in which she played the role of Suzanne Offer.
This year, Messing will star in the film Purple Violets as the character Kate Scott. The said movie is a romantic comedy about an unhappy woman who finds new love with her old boy friend. The cast includes Selma Blair as Patti Petalson, Patrick Wilson as Brian Callahan, Edward Burns as Michael Murphy, and Dennis Farina as Gilmore. Currently, she stars on USA Network's The Starter Wife as Molly Kagan, a 41-year-old wife and mother who is eventually abandoned by her husband and is forced to move on with her life. The miniseries also features Judy Davis as Joan McAllister, Peter Jacobson as Kenny Kagan, and Miranda Otto as Cricket Stewart. In addition, she will also work in a 2008 film called The Women. Based on the 1939 film of the same title, the comedy-drama follows the life of a wealthy New Yorker as she leaves her unfaithful husband and bonds with other society women.
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Norman Podhoretz's important new essay on "the panic" over the war opens with an evocative recollection of Tom Paine's polemics during the Revolutionary War. Two others who have found Paine's rhetoric appropriate to current circumstances are David Flanagan, in "A message to America's modern day Tories," (July 2003) and Chris C, in "Where is our Thomas Paine?" (last month).
Yesterday Flanagan wrote us:
Just wanted to say that I wholeheartedly agree regarding the relevance of Thomas Paine's excellent work "The American Crisis." I posted a similar response as Norman Podhoretz's in July of 2003 saying much the same thing regarding the stance of so many Democrats towards the war in Iraq.
I decided that, since so many liberals enjoyed comparing President Bush to Hitler, I would show that, in actuality, a much better comparison would be to George Washington, especially during the early part of the American Revolution. And when you look at the history, it is amazing how well you can compare these two men and their circumstances, despite a gap of over 200 years.


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So 2014 is coming to an end. Seeing as I only did 2 posts in 2013 it's safe to say this is the year that my blog has properly become, well, a blog. I've put together a top 10 of my favourite outfits from the year, and I'm looking forward to seriously upping my blogging game in 2015. Happy new year, and I will see you with my 'What I wore: NYE' post in January!
10. Black On Black (ft. this gorgeous basics cap from h&m)
9. Pink Duo (ft. this amazing vintage nike windbreaker)
8. Kimono (ft. my sister's beautiful h&m kimono)
7. Crop & Cardie (ft. my favourite casuals)
6. -A (ft. colour coordinated sweater and scrunchie)
5. 90s White Crop (ft. these quirky holographic slip-ons from office)
4. Boys Club (ft. my billionaire boys club tee)
3. Oui Non (ft. the first showing of my nike air force 1 lows)
2. Roshe (ft. this beautiful winter day in Lancaster and my nike roshes)
1. ZX 700 (ft. the first showing of my adidas zx 700s and my most popular post to date!


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Instructor Introduction
This webquest is intended for high school and undergraduate science students (1) in preparation for visiting the Koshland Science Museum (2) for extended learning after visiting the Koshland Science Museum, or (3) as a web-based, stand-alone activity. The goal is to engage students in studying emerging infectious diseases, microbial evolution, public health, vaccines, and science policy.
This webquest activity can be used in the classroom in many different ways.. Students should be divided up into groups of four, so that each student can assume the role of one of the investigative team members. This encourages cooperative learning and also gives students a chance to work as a team, just as real-world investigative teams work. Alternatively, the webquest can be completed by students individually, investigating all four roles by themselves. Either way, students should be encouraged whenever possible to communicate their findings by creating a multimedia presentation.
This webquest is designed to take approximately one week.
You can find more information about the webquest in the following sections
Background - Background information on H5N1 and suggested introductory activity
Flowchart and worksheets - Graphical flowchart of studnet activities and corresponding worksheets.
Science Education Standards - The National Science Education Standards relevant to this activity
Evaluation - Rubric for evaluating student achievement
Alternate Activities - Other activities you can do in your classroom related to this webquest.
Teacher Feedback - Section for teachers to display their students' final presentations, exchange ideas on incorporating the webquest, and share thoughts, questions, and ideas with other teachers.
Background Information for Teachers
Influenza viruses are divided into A, B, and C groups based on their virulence, with A being the mildest and C being the most virulent. Most seasonal influenza viruses fall under the A category, but viruses are always evolving . These viruses are further classified into subgroups based on exterior proteins called hemagglutinin (H) and the neuraminidase (N). The 2007 subtypes currently circulating are both type A viruses; H1N1 and H3N2. "Influenza type A viruses undergo two kinds of changes. One is a series of mutations that occur over time and cause a gradual evolution of the virus. This is called antigenic "drift." The other kind of change is an abrupt change in the hemagglutinin and/or the neuraminidase proteins. This is called antigenic "shift." In this case, a new subtype of the virus suddenly emerges. Type A viruses undergo both kinds of changes; influenza type B viruses change only by the more gradual process of antigenic drift."[4]
In 1918, as World War I was coming to an end, a flu pandemic was just beginning the United States. The pandemic was caused by a shift in the H1N1 strain of the flu virus. [6] By the end of the epidemic, over 675,000 Americans were dead. [1] In all, the pandemic killed more than 50 million people worldwide. [2] Although the origin of the disease is still under dispute, one theory indicates that it may have started in human then transferred to swine and then back again. [3] Symptoms experienced by the 1918 flu victims are quite similar to those of people who have contracted H5N1 today – including typical influenza symptoms, eye infections, pneumonia, and severe respiratory diseases, among others. [1] The 1918 pandemic was not the only flu pandemic in the last century; there were also pandemics in 1957 and 1968. Today, the flu virus continues to mutate and number of new strains have become prominent between 1977 and 2004. [6]
Today's H5N1 virus has been transferred to humansmainly through human contact with the excretions or secretions of domesticated poultry. [1] Currently, the virus cannot be easily transmitted from person to person. Scientists fear that if H5N1 did develop ability to be transmitted between human beings, it could lead to another global pandemiceven worse than that of 1918, given today's global society. To evolve the ability to "jump" from human to human, the virus would probably require an intermediate host to facilitate the process. For example, an H5N1 virus would have to infect a pig that is also infected with a human influenza A virus. This would allow for mixing of the genetic material of both viruses, possibly resulting in a form that could be transmitted between humans. [7]
Every year vaccines are developed to fight the currently pervading virus strains. [4] Certain target groups such as young children or the elderly are encouraged to get the vaccine annually to develop immunity tocurrent strains. There are also antiviral drugs available on the market that are used to treat and prevent influenza A viruses. [4] However, just as bacteria develop antibiotic resistance, so too can viruses develop antiviral resistance.
The purpose of this webquest is to engage students in thinking critically about how the American government should respond to a potential avian flu pandemic based on current knowledge about viruses, vaccines, microbial evolution, and public health measures. Participating students willpartake in both individual and team components of the webquest. As teams, they will use individual and group research to develop a public awareness campaign advocating their perspective.
Before beginning the webquest, students should have a solid understanding of the basic differences between viruses and bacteria, as well as their respective treatment and control measures. We recommend that you discuss the following discussion questions before starting the webquest.
1. What are the differences between viruses and bacteria?
See the KSM website, infectious diseases exhibit section on "Where are They?"
2. 2. What is the difference between an antibiotic, a vaccine, and an antiviral?
See the KSM website, infectious diseases exhibit sections on "Vaccines and Human Immunity" & "Antibiotics & Emerging Drug Resistance"
3. How many Americans die each year on average from the seasonal flu virus?
36,000 each year are killed and 226,000 are hospitalized Influenza is the seventh leading cause of death in the US, when combined with pneumonia. [5]
If you choose not to use the webquest in its entirety, but would like to focus on the science topics consider dividing the class into groups, with each group investigating one of the four researchers' topics'. Each group can then present their findings. However, to maximize real-world connections, we strongly recommend integrating the policy project component
If time permits students can gain an overall sense of the 1918 pandemic by watching the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) DVD "American Experience: Influenza 1918".
[1] http://www.pandemicflu.gov/general/index.html
[2] http://www.pandemicflu.gov/general/historicaloverview.html
[3] http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol12no01/05-1254.htm
[4] http://learning.turner.com/efts/virus/fluvirus.htm <link now defunct>
[5] http://www.facesofinfluenza.org/about.php
[6] http://www3.niaid.nih.gov
[7] http://www.cdc.gov/flu/avian/gen-info/transmission.htm
Flowchart and Worksheets
The following worksheets are used in this webquest.
Group worksheet
Individual worksheets
Researcher 1
Researcher 2
Researcher 3
Researcher 4
Science Standards
Science Standards
This webquest will address the following National Science Education Standards for grades 9-12.
Content Standard A – Science as Inquiry
"All students should develop understandings about scientific inquiry."
"All students should think critically and logically to make the relationships between evidence and explanations"
Students critically analyze the potential H5N1 to become a pandemic by evolving into a disease transmittable between humans and gain a thorough understanding of the scientific process.. They engage in the same process the scientific community is currently involved in.
Content Standard C – Life Science
"All students should develop an understanding of the cell, of the molecular basis of heredity, and of biological evolution."
By looking at the relationship between microbial evolution, human immunity, and viral and human cells, students will gain an understanding of how natural selection is a driving force for the way living organisms respond to changes in the environment.
Content Standard E – Science and Technology
"All students should develop understandings about science and technology."
As students are engaged in the epidemiological process, they gain an understanding of how science has influenced technological approaches to problems in both medicine and public health.
Content Standard F - Science in Personal and Social Perspectives
"All students should develop an understanding of personal and community health, and population growth."
"All students should develop an understanding of science and technology in local, national, and global challenges."
Students are engaged in making connections between the impacts of emerging infectious diseases on local and global health. They will analyze data and build their own interpretations for a plausible national response to a potential H5N1 pandemic.
Content Standard G – History and Nature of Science
"All students should develop an understanding of science as a human endeavor and of the nature of scientific knowledge."
As students become actively involved in a simulated public health study, they make connections between the scientific study process and national policy. They do so by gaining an understanding of viruses, immunity, and public health and relating them to national policy and awareness initiatives for public protection.
Evaluation Rubric
Please download a copy of the evaluation rubric. You may choose either rubric below based on your preference.
Check Point Outline (fill in the correct dates that your teacher assigns for deadlines):
________ Determined group position and campaign idea as related to group question one
________ ***Collected data to be used in support of your argument ( individual assignments)
________ Developed detailed story board, script, and outline for your campaign (this includes: exactly what you will present in class, as well as assignments for each group member, and three components you will incorporate from the awareness tools portion of the assignment)
________ final campaign plan to class (Your campaign should take no more than 5 minutes to present)
Alternative Rubric
Alternate Activities
Alternate Activities
There are several activities that can also be used to extend the webquest:
1. NIH Emerging and Re-Emerging Infectious Diseases; Activity 4: Protecting the Herd - This activity could serve as a great introduction to the webquest. By using cards to represent immunity and lack thereof, students simulate the spread of a disease through a population that has no vaccinations and then through a population that has a 50% vaccination rate. They then discuss how vaccinations impact public health.
2. Rx for Survival: Delivering the Goods - In this activity, students will be critically assessing their response to the spread of a possible flu and the impacts it has regionally and globally. This would be a great follow-up activity to the webquest to give students a practical global perspective about public health concerns in developing nations.
3. BAM! Hand Washing Experiment - Students learn about the importance of maintaining proper hygiene in order to decrease the risk of getting ill. Students will test how effectively they wash their hands by testing for the presence of microbes This activity can serve as a public health link for the webquest emphasizing the value of good hygiene.
4. Tufts Institute: Poliomyelitis: The Era of Fear - This is cross-curricular unit that looks at the poliovirus and how it impacted society before a vaccine was developed. It highlights Franklin D. Roosevelt and his own struggle with polio. Students can build a virus, chart out differences in sizes of viruses, and do several critical analysis activities addressing public health concerns related to polio, among other activities.


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Hello again!
Some of the enquirers during the recent #askacurator day event on Twitter were curious to know what curators do every day in their work. Well, I suppose it really depends on the type of collections in their care, and curators in a natural history museum might deal with different tasks compared to curators in an art collection for example.
Around 35% of mine and of my colleagues' working time is dedicated to re-housing specimens, which is the transferring of pinned specimens from outdated or transitory drawers into new, more permanent drawers.
Re-housing specimens of hawkmoths in the collection.
Many of the original drawers in our collections are not up to scratch with respect to the most recent guidelines of conservation and collections policy, therefore we are actively replacing them with refurbished or brand new drawers.
Two old types of drawers in our collection. We have already emptied & refurbished thousands of them, but there are still quite a few left to clear.
Once emptied, the majority of the old drawers are sent for refurbishment and then re-use in the collection; other old drawers, as well as many boxes that come in with acquisitioned material, are sold and the proceeds used to buy new drawers or furniture for the collection.
Many drawers in our collections still contain unsorted and often unidentified material; this is because new material has been regularly added to the Museum through fieldwork, donations and purchases since the very early days.
Drawer with unsorted moths recently collected in Bolivia.
Specimens are also often donated to our Museum and others are purchased.
We always identify specimens before transferring them into new drawers along with the identified material already in the main collection. Eventually, when newly re-housed drawers are created, they need new labels, and their location, with other important details, are recorded in our electronic database.
These are all necessary steps if we want to make sure our collections are useful and easily accessible. If you consider that our section is made up of more than 80,000 drawers, it is crucial for us and for our visitors to know precisely where a particular drawer is located.
Re-housed drawers in their new location. Each curated drawer has internal labels stating the scientific name of the species inside, and also two external labels specifying the content. It also has a unique number; these details are all recorded in our electronic database so that specimens can be easily found in our extensive collection.
One of my current tasks is the re-housing of the entire Museum collection of hawkmoths (Sphingidae), which contains "only" around 114,000 specimens housed in about 2,130 drawers, and an extra 176,000 papered specimens, still in their original envelopes, waiting to be mounted.
Before August 2008 the Museum's collection of Sphingidae contained ca. 60,000 pinned specimens, the vast majority of which were from the Rothschild Collection, dated pre-1930.
An original Rothschild drawer with specimens of the Oleander Hawk-moth waiting to be re-housed into new drawers.
Then, thanks to the generous sponsorship of the Rothschild family, the de Rothschild family, the John Spedan Lewis Foundation, Ernest Kleinwort Charitable Trust and members of our public, the Museum was able to acquire one of the largest private collections of Sphingidae, the Jean-Marie Cadiou collection.
The Cadiou collection, which contained 53,000 pinned specimens and 176,000 unset and still in the original envelopes, doubled the size of the Museum's original holdings and has provided modern material that was lacking in our collection.
The Museum's hawkmoth collection has been transformed by the arrival of the Jean-Marie Cadiou collection.
Follow me in the next few posts, where I will talk about both the original Museum and the recently purchased Cadiou sphingid collections. I will explain how the current curation of the important and comprehensive Museum's collection of sphingid into modern unit trays and refurbished Rothschild drawers is taking place.
Thanks for reading.


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cmnexus.org → Magazine list → CCM Digital → Issues
CCM Digital, Sep 2011
SwitchfootCover Feature:
Reviews & New Releases:
Relevant LinksFor more information about CCM Digital, or to subscribe, visit .
This issue is available exclusively online.
© 2011 CMnexus. Last updated February 2016. Contact: editor -AT- cmnexus -DØT- org


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Follow RFF News on your cell phone. Text follow rff to 40404 you will receive txt messages with RFF News
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The folks at Unofficial Survivor Guide have confirmed that Scout makes the Final three.They have also confirmed that the voting Urn will be an ornate skull, tribal colours are Red and Yellow, Merge colour is Orange, and a few other things, not to mention the school bus driver was unable to drive herself to the final 2.
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BWW TV Exclusive: LES MIS' Eddie Redmayne on Winning the Role of 'Marius,' His Secret Desires to Play 'Gavroche,' and More!
LES MISERABLES might not open in movie theatres until Christmas day, but you need not wait that long to get the inside scoop on the highly anticipated new film. BroadwayWorld's Richard Ridge was invited to chat with Eddie Redmayne, who stars as 'Marius,' about his history with director Tom Hooper, his obsession with the role of 'Gavroche,' and so much more!
Check out the full interview below!
Under the direction of Tom Hooper, the film will star Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean, Anne Hathaway as Fantine, Russell Crowe as Javert, Sacha Baron Cohen as Thernardier, Eddie Redmayne as Marius, Aaron Tveit as Enjolras, Amanda Seyfried as Cosette, Samantha Barks as Eponine, and Helena Bonham Carter as Madame Thenardier. Original stage stars Colm Wilkinson, Frances Ruffelle and more will reprise their roles from the London production.
Les Miserables originally opened in London at the Barbican Theatre on 8 October 1985, transferred to the Palace Theatre on 4 December 1985 and moved to its current home at the Queen's Theatre on 3 April 2004. When LES MISERABLES celebrated its 21st London birthday on 8 October 2006, it became the World's Longest Running Musical, surpassing the record previously held by "Cats" in London's West End. In January 2010, The West End production broke another record by celebrating its historic 10,000th performance.


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Melissa Harris-Perry will be a featured speaker at the Take Back the American Dream conference, convening June 18 to 20 in Washington, DC, as part of the plenary session, "2012 and Beyond: Victory Necessary, Not Sufficient." The following is an excerpt of an article originally published by The Nation. Click here for the full article.
Conservative strategists have been toying with how to use race against President Obama in this year's election. Since Obama's May 9 announcement supporting same-sex marriage, some Republicans have been salivating about the delicious possibility of dampening black voters' enthusiasm for the president by casting him as out of touch with their religious sentiments. Then the leaked Joe Ricketts plan, "The Defeat of Barack Hussein Obama," revealed GOP strategists' idea of employing "an extremely literate conservative African-American" to discredit Obama among white voters by reminding them of his link with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Thus, the black church would be both a wedge to weaken black support and a tool to discourage white supporters.
I'm a little surprised to find conservatives offering such clumsy and stale campaign game plans. They seem intent on repeating the strategic mistake made by Illinois Republicans nearly a decade ago—a mistake largely responsible for making possible the swift ascendance of Barack Obama from state senator to president.
Obama was initially matched against Jack Ryan, a young, charismatic white candidate who had some important ties to Chicago's black community; Ryan had voluntarily left a high-paying job in the private sector to become a schoolteacher in an all-black, all-male South Side high school. But his campaign was quickly derailed by damaging revelations from his 1999 divorce. When he withdrew, Illinois Republicans scrambled to find a replacement. In August they announced the surprising decision to import Maryland native and conservative black talk-show host Alan Keyes as their candidate.
In retrospect, the GOP's choice may border on ridiculous, but at the time, Republicans were calculating that by tapping into the "morality vote," Keyes could prove a troubling opponent for Obama, especially among black voters. After all, Keyes employs a rhetorical style far more consistent with black church traditions. Like most blacks in Illinois, Keyes is the descendant of African slaves, while Obama is the child of a white woman and an African foreign student. Keyes, like most blacks in Illinois, was raised within a traditional conservative religious tradition, while Obama became a churchgoer only after marrying his relatively more religious wife. While Obama often actively deracialized his political positions, pitching his policies as good for the state in general, Keyes actively discussed his views in the context of race. He publicly advocated reparations for American slavery and even explained his antiabortion stance as motivated by the idea that abortion is racial genocide ("so, the people who are supporting that position [pro-choice] are actually supporting the systematic extermination of black America").
In many ways, it was Keyes who had access to important black racial tropes and political/cultural practices. But come November 2004, it was Obama who was embraced as the candidate of choice among black voters in Illinois, winning 92 percent of them. In 2008, of course, Obama went on to capture 95 percent of the black vote nationally and also garnered a larger percentage of the white vote than either Gore or Kerry had.
All of this suggests that racebaiting and race-divisive tactics won't be successful in 2012.


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Research & Analysis by Alexander Strand
When Impairments Cause a Change in Occupation
This study examines workers who had physical or mental impairments that prevented continued work in their pre-onset occupation but did not qualify for Disability Insurance (DI) benefits. More specifically, we examine workers who experienced the onset of such impairments, applied for DI once, were denied benefits on the basis of residual ability to work in other occupations, and did not appeal the decision. In contrast to allowed claimants, this group of individuals continued to participate in the labor market at comparatively high rates. We describe their post-onset labor market experience, including employment rates and earnings losses by type of impairment.
Identifying SSA's Sequential Disability Determination Steps Using Administrative Data
The authors document the steps used by the Social Security Administration (SSA) and state Disability Determination Service (DDS) agencies to make initial determinations about eligibility for Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income. For both adults and children, SSA/DDSs record the basis for initial disability determinations using codes that correspond to the steps of the process. The resulting data element, the Regulation Basis Code, permits researchers to distinguish allowances based on the Listings from those based on medical/vocational factors for adults (or functional factors for children). It can also be used to identify denials based on severity, residual functional capacity, or other reasons.
Low Levels of Retirement Resources in the Near-Elderly Time Period and Future Participation in Means-Tested Programs
This article describes the de facto standards of low income and resources reflected in the eligibility standards of the largest means-tested programs that serve the elderly and then applies these standards to a near-elderly cohort. Through juxtaposing retirement resources in the near-elderly time period with program participation in the elderly time period, the author indirectly examines some of the changes between the two time periods that could affect program eligibility, including spend-down of resources and marital dissolution. Retirement resource levels are estimated using the Survey of Income and Program Participation, and subsequent participation in one of the means-tested programs—Supplemental Security Income (SSI)—is examined using matched administrative records.
Disability Benefit Coverage and Program Interactions in the Working-Age Population
It is widely known that about three-fourths of the working-age population is insured for Disability Insurance (DI), but the substantial role played by the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program in providing disability benefit coverage is not well understood. Using data from the 1996 panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) we find that over one-third (36 percent) of the working-age population is covered by SSI in the event of a severe disability. Three important implications follow: (1) SSI increases the overall coverage of the working-age population; (2) SSI enhances the bundle of cash benefits available to disabled individuals; and (3) interactions with other public programs—most notably the SSI path to Medicaid coverage—also enhance the safety net. Ignoring these implications could lead to inaccurate inferences in analytic studies.
Disabled Workers and the Indexing of Social Security Benefits
This article presents the distributional effects of changing the Social Security indexing scheme, with an emphasis on the effects upon disabled-worker beneficiaries. Although a class of reform proposals that would slow the rate of growth of initial benefit levels over time—including price indexing and longevity indexing—initially appear to affect all beneficiaries proportionally, there can be different impacts on different groups of beneficiaries. The impacts between and within groups are mitigated by (1) the offsetting effect of changes in Supplemental Security Income benefits at the lower tail of the income distribution, and (2) the dampening effect of other family income at the upper tail of the income distribution. The authors present estimates of the size of these effects.
Benefit Adequacy Among Elderly Social Security Retired-Worker Beneficiaries and the SSI Federal Benefit Rate
The federal benefit rate (FBR) of the Supplemental Security Income program provides an inflation-indexed income guarantee for aged and disabled people with low assets. Some consider the FBR as an attractive measure of Social Security benefit adequacy. Others propose the FBR as an administratively simple, well-targeted minimum Social Security benefit. However, these claims have not been empirically tested. Using microdata from the Survey of Income and Program Participation, this article finds that the FBR is an imprecise measure of benefit adequacy; it incorrectly identifies as economically vulnerable many who are not poor, and disregards some who are poor. The reason for this is that the FBR-level benefit threshold of adequacy considers the Social Security benefit in isolation and ignores the family consumption unit. The FBR would provide an administratively simple but poorly targeted foundation for a minimum Social Security benefit. The empirical estimates quantify the substantial tradeoffs between administrative simplicity and target effectiveness.
Social Security Disability Programs: Assessing the Variation in Allowance Rates
The Social Security Administration (SSA) operates two programs that provide disability benefits: Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). The Social Security Act and the regulations that implement it establish uniform national criteria for determining whether someone who applies for disability benefits under either program is disabled. However, an agency of the state in which the claimant lives makes the initial determination under contract to SSA and using SSA guidelines. Historically, states have allowed initial disability claims at rates that vary from one state to another, in some cases widely. This study estimates the amount of variation in allowance rates that is related to certain economic and demographic differences among states.


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Erick Ingraham's a lucky artist, finding success on his own terms.
By Katherine Cox
Sentinel Staff Writer Saturday August 13 1983
PETERBOROUGH- The field of aspiring illustrators is as thick as a cloud of lightning bugs on the evening horizon. And chances for success, money and fame are elusive.
For the artist, commercial illustration often provides the only glimmer of hope for recognition in a society that puts painters and sculptors in the same category as musicians and poets: an eccentric group that must suffer miserly rewards for its aesthetic contributions.
Erick Ingraham, 32, is one of the luckier artists who turned to illustration to make his name known and has found success on his own terms.
There were years of getting by as a janitor, a carpenter or a draftsman,but in 1974, with a contract to illustrate "Producing Your Own Power" for Rodale Press, Ingraham was able to begin making a living as an artist.
"Having something in print is important for ammunition when you get to the streets of New York," he said.
The Rodale Press gave Ingraham plenty of ammunition. An environmentally oriented publishing house, it allowed Ingraham to illustrate topics that coincided with his own interests, including a variety of books on gardening an shelter and animals.
"They were right up my alley." said Ingraham, the son of a veterinarian and a school teacher.
His work with Rodale Press led to other publishers, and in 1977 he was commissioned to illustrate his first children's book, "Harry and Shellburt." a story based on the tortoise and the hare fable.
One reviewer wrote, "The text's even, smooth style is welcome; but the more so, the unusually creative, skillfully drawn illustrations, which borrow warm colors and softly sinuous forms from nature."
The use of natural forms could be called Ingraham's trademark. Even the peripheral details that find their way into his pictures bring to life the natural world.
"I've always been a lover of detail," Ingraham explained. "I like to have new things defined every time you come back to look at artwork. I want my art to live along time; I don't want people to get sick of it."
He often uses models for his sketched because he feels perspective and proportion are important part of the details that enhance his work. Also, I always research before I get too far on a project."
His second book, "Cross-Country Cat' published in 1979 and now in it's fifth printing, was a big boost for his career and won him the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award as Honor Book for Illustration.
The American Library Association Booklist review said, "Ingraham's earthy blue and tan tones provide some beautiful lighting effects for the soft focus drawings. They interpret the story well, summing up absolute involvement with both the desolate setting and the drama of Henry's ordeal. Fresh in both concept and execution."
The story of Henry the cross-country cat was ideal for Ingraham, an avid skier and devoted cat owner. To prepare for the book, Ingraham went to Colorado to get the feel of what the countryside was like.
Explaining style and attention to particulars, Ingraham said, "I like fantasy with a firm foot in reality. I'm an illusionist; I try to make things believable through a very realistic style. I go through the steps of precise expression, proportion, perspective – all these things I can see – so the a cat skiing will look like a cat skiing.
"I'm able to pull off fantasy well because I take in things like climate, sun direction, motion, gravity and wind direction."
However, for his next book, "Old Blue," a story about a young boy's first trail drive, "I didn't feel like going to Texas," he laughed. "But I did learn to ride Western style."
He diligently studied horses and bridle and the specifics of a cattle drive. "I wanted to get horses in my brain. They're so hard to draw."
Ingraham's careful rendering of the finer details doesn't go unnoticed. When "Hot-Air Henry," more adventures with Henry the cat, was published in 1981, one reviewer commented, "Ingraham's accompanying illustrations are exquisite and strikingly original in their play with complex height perspectives. The paintings feature refined, muted textures broken by effective details like basket weaves, the balloon canopy lines, or the feathery ridges of Canada geese."
Ingraham admitted he's a perfectionist and said he does it right "the first time, even if it takes longer. You don't take short cuts, because you'll just have to correct it later. If it takes longer to do something , it will be worth it."
And once it goes to the printer, "If I make a mistake, it will be repeated thousands of times."
So he's a stickler, and it's not surprising he won an American Book Award for original art in the field of book illustration last April for his latest book, "Porcupine Stew", his first full-color production.
"It's one of the best things that could have happened to me," he said, adding that the illustrations were exhibited in the Society of Illustrators' annual show in New York last spring.
"Porcupine Stew." written by Beverly Major, was published last year, also winning the Parent's Choice Award for best illustration in children's books.
Art critic Hilton Kramer said, "Call it superrealism, magic realism, and whatever you like – this is the style that characterizes Erick Ingraham's vividly executed illustrations for this book. It is a style anchored in the tradition of realistic observation, but is not bound to the naturalistic materials of realism.
"The magic realist moves easily between the world of nature and the world of fantasy, and this is something that Ingraham accomplishes with the requisite gift for invention and improvisation."
It is this latest book, with a more sophisticated style and rich colors, that most clearly show's Ingraham's early training as a painter.
He said he's always been an artist. "My mother has promoted me since I was two; she's always encouraged me. She knew there was a possibility that if I started early enough I could make a living as an artist."
He graduated from Kutztown (Pa.) State College in 1972 with a bachelor of fine arts degree in painting. Yet in high school in rural Pennsylvania he'd diverted his attention to music, playing the baritone horn and string bass.
"It's important to function in front of large groups," Ingraham said. "I needed that alter ego of being bold and able to conquer stage fright. It helped when I received my award in New York. If playing music led to nothing else, it led to my being able to control my nerves in front of a crowd."
Ingraham is a tall man with shaggy hair and a mustache. His quiet voice and fair features give him an aura of shyness, and one suspects he's most comfortable hidden away in his studio, apart from the rest of life's distractions.
Or perhaps gliding across a winter field, a solitary figure skiing through the silent countryside.
Ingraham said he leads a "flip-flop life." While most people make their living during the day, Ingraham finds evening the best time to work.
"I like to experience life in the daytime without being chained to a desk. Normal business hours are better used for relaxation and enjoying the sun. When the earth darkens, I make use of that time to get work done at my desk."
Thus he is able to spend leisure time on what he likes best – skiing. There's also tennis, swimming, canoeing and sailing, but that's just to stay in shape for the slopes. "I focus the year around on skiing. I usually ski to the max and collapse."
Skiing is what brought him north form Pennsylvania three years ago. He wanted to be where there was more snow and opportunity to ski. After a visit with his grandmother in Peterborough, he moved up just before ski season in 1980.
And while the past few winters have not produced the abundance of snow New Hampshire is famous for, Ingraham has not been disappointed. In fact, he recently purchased a home in Peterborough with enough land for him to enjoy the nature he cherishes and recreates so vividly.
He'll share the home with Olga the dog and Spider the cat.
Ingraham said he still doesn't know a lot of people in the area, as his social life is subject to his upside down work schedule. "Work comes first," he said. "I'm married to my work."
Illustrating children's books requires an enormous amount of time. "Porcupine Stew." for example, took six months of preparation followed by six months of illustrating.
And while there's an upcoming book based on a George MacDonald fairy tale germinating, Ingraham has decided to take time off from children's literature and branch out.
He has not had to go far to find work – his artwork graced the July cover of Desktop Computing and the August issue of HotCoCo, two computer magazines published by Wayne Green Inc. in Peterborough. In addition, he has been commissioned to illustrate a cover for an upcoming book for the firm.
Is the transition from the fantasy world of childhood to the modern age of computers difficult? Not for Ingraham. "Children need to be entice into reading by pictures," he said. And doing artwork for a computer magazine is similar in that he must draw the layman into computers.
Essentially, his art is not defines by age or genre. It's allowed him to make a living and become known in the fickle art world. "I like doing illustrations for children of all ages," he said.


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Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina, country situated in the western Balkan Peninsula of Europe. The larger region of Bosnia occupies the northern and central parts of the country, and Herzegovina occupies the south and southwest. These historical regions do not correspond with the two autonomous political entities that were established by the internationally brokered Dayton Accords of 1995: the Republika Srpska (Bosnian Serb Republic), located in the north and east, and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, occupying the western and central areas. The capital of the country is Sarajevo; important regional cities include Mostar and Banja Luka.
The land has often felt the influences of stronger regional powers that have vied for control over it, and these influences have helped to create Bosnia and Herzegovina's characteristically rich ethnic and religious mix. Islam, Orthodox Christianity, and Roman Catholicism are all present, with the three faiths generally corresponding to three major ethnic groups: Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats, respectively. This multiethnic population, as well as the country's historical and geographic position between Serbia and Croatia, has long made Bosnia and Herzegovina vulnerable to nationalist territorial aspirations.
Ruled by the Ottoman Empire from the 15th century, the region came under the control of Austria-Hungary in 1878 and subsequently played a key role in the outbreak of World War I. In 1918 it was incorporated into the newly created Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, where it had no formal status of its own. After World War II it became a constituent republic of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Following the disintegration of that state in 1991, the majority of the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina voted for independence in a 1992 referendum. Much of the country's Serb population, however, opposed independence and boycotted the referendum.
War soon consumed the region, as ethnic nationalists within Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the support of Serbia and Croatia in some cases, tried to take control of territories they claimed as their own. Horrific ethnic cleansing campaigns between 1992 and the end of 1995 killed thousands and violently displaced more than two million people in much of Bosnia and Herzegovina. International intervention into the Bosnian conflict led finally to a peace agreement, the Dayton Accords, in late 1995. The Dayton agreement ended the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but it also established the country as a fragile, highly decentralized, and ethnically divided state in which an international civilian representative remains authorized to impose legislation and to remove domestic officials in order to protect the peace. Although the vast majority of citizens continue to desire sustainable peace, they hold to different ideas about the best configuration of the state, and some even question its future existence.
The roughly triangular-shaped Bosnia and Herzegovina is bordered on the north, west, and south by Croatia, on the east by Serbia, on the southeast by Montenegro, and on the southwest by the Adriatic Sea along a narrow extension of the country.
Bosnia and Herzegovina has a largely mountainous terrain. The Dinaric Alps dominate the western border with Croatia, and numerous ranges, including the Kozara, Vlašic, Plješevica, Grmeč, Cincar, and Raduša, run through the country, generally in a northwest-southeast direction. The highest peak, reaching 7,828 feet (2,386 metres), is Maglić, near the border with Montenegro. In the south and southwest is the Karst, a region of arid limestone plateaus that contain caves, potholes, and underground drainage. The uplands there are often bare and denuded (the result of deforestation and thin soils), but, between the ridges, depressions known as poljes are covered with alluvial soil that is suitable for agriculture. Elevations of more than 6,000 feet (1,800 metres) are common, and the plateaus descend abruptly toward the Adriatic Sea. The coastline, limited to a length of 12 miles (20 km) along the Adriatic Sea, is bounded on both sides by Croatia and contains no natural harbours. In central Bosnia the rocks and soils are less vulnerable to erosion, and the terrain there is characterized by rugged but green and often forested plateaus. In the north, narrow lowlands extend along the Sava River and its tributaries.
Geologic fault lines are widespread in the mountainous areas. In 1969 an earthquake destroyed 70 percent of the buildings in Banja Luka.
The principal rivers are the Sava, a tributary of the Danube that forms the northern boundary with Croatia; the Bosna, Vrbas, and Una, which flow north and empty into the Sava; the Drina, which flows north, forms part of the eastern boundary with Serbia, and is also a tributary of the Sava; and the Neretva, which flows from the southeast but assumes a sharp southwestern flow through the Karst region, continues through Croatia, and empties into the Adriatic Sea. Rivers in the Karst flow largely underground. Numerous glacial lakes dot the landscape. Bosnia and Herzegovina is also rich in natural springs, many of which are tapped for bottled mineral water or for popular thermal health spas.
Although situated close to the Mediterranean Sea, Bosnia and Herzegovina is largely cut off from its climatic influence by the Dinaric Alps. The weather in the Bosnia region resembles that of the southern Austrian highlands—generally mild, though apt to be bitterly cold in winter. In Banja Luka the coldest month is January, with an average temperature of about 32 °F (0 °C), and the warmest month is July, which averages about 72 °F (22 °C). During January and February Banja Luka receives the least amount of precipitation, and in May and June it experiences the heaviest rainfall.
Herzegovina has more affinity to the Croatian region of Dalmatia, which can be oppressively hot in summer. In Mostar, situated along the Neretva River, the coldest month is January, averaging about 42 °F (6 °C), and the warmest month is July, averaging about 78 °F (26 °C). Mostar experiences a relatively dry season from June to September. The remainder of the year is wet, with the heaviest precipitation between October and January.
Plant and animal life
About two-fifths of the country is forested with pine, beech, and oak. Fruits are common; among them are grapes, apples, pears, and especially plums. The country's rich and varied wildlife includes bears, wolves, wild pigs, wildcats, chamois (goatlike animals), otters, foxes, badgers, and falcons.
Ethnic groups and religions
Bosnia and Herzegovina is home to members of numerous ethnic groups. The three largest are the Bosniaks, the Serbs, and the Croats. Continuing efforts by the international community to promote the return of persons forcibly displaced during the Bosnian conflict (1992–95) to their original homes, as well as domestic political sensitivities, blocked the conduct of a census well into the 21st century. Nevertheless, it is estimated that Bosniaks constitute more than two-fifths, Serbs roughly one-third, and Croats less than one-fifth of the population.
The three groups share the same South Slav heritage. The major cultural difference between them is that of religious origin or affiliation—a difference that may be explained in part by the legacy of the Ottoman Empire, which allowed autonomous religious communities to coexist under its rule. Indeed, "Serb" and "Croat" referred first to the people of two South Slav tribes and then mainly to the people of Serbia and Croatia until the 19th century, when nationalist movements in the Balkans encouraged Bosnians practicing Serbian Orthodoxy to be labeled as Serbs and Bosnians practicing Roman Catholicism to be labeled as Croats. The idea of a broader Serb or Croat "nation" was appealing to regional leaders who coveted Bosnia and Herzegovina's territory. Serb or Croat nationalism also appealed to educated Bosnians, who were often excluded from high state positions by Bosnia and Herzegovina's imperial rulers. (The Ottoman Empire was succeeded by Austria-Hungary, which took control in 1878.) A sense of nationalism later developed among Bosnian Muslims as well. In the 20th century "Muslim" came to be used as an ethnic, not only religious, identifier; it was replaced in the 1990s by "Bosniak."
The association of religion with national identity has meant that religious identity has remained important. The role of religion within all three populations was elevated by the demise of communism, the revival of nationalism in the wake of Yugoslav disintegration, and the violence of the war. Nevertheless, attendance at church and mosque services continues to be low.
The mother tongue of the vast majority is Serbo-Croatian, a term used to describe, collectively, the mutually intelligible languages now known as Serbian, Croatian, or Bosnian, depending on the speaker's ethnic and political affiliation. There are some minor regional variations in pronunciation and vocabulary, but all variations spoken within Bosnia and Herzegovina are more similar to one another than they are to, for example, the speech of Belgrade (Serbia) or Zagreb (Croatia). A Latin and a Cyrillic alphabet exist, and both have been taught in schools and used in the press, but the rise of nationalism in the 1990s prompted a Serb alignment with Cyrillic and a Croat and Bosniak alignment with the Latin alphabet.
Settlement patterns
More than one-half of the population is rural. The arid plateaus in the southern region are less populated than the more hospitable central and northern zones. Villages are of variable size. Houses are either of an old, small, steep-roofed variety or of a larger, multistoried, modern type.
An urban-rural divide is a significant part of Bosnian culture, with urbanites tending to view villagers as primitives and villagers often being defensive about this view. Young villagers are frequently anxious to move to town. During the 1960s and '70s the urban population almost doubled. This shift particularly affected the economic and industrial centres of Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Zenica, Tuzla, and Mostar, around which sprawling suburbs of apartment blocks were built. Traditional settlement patterns were disrupted by the postindependence war, with the population of many cities swelled by refugees.
Patterns of ethnic distribution before 1992 created an intricate mosaic. Certain areas of the country contained high concentrations of Serb, Croat, or Bosniak inhabitants, while in others there was no overall ethnic majority or only a very small one. Towns were ethnically mixed. Many larger villages also were mixed, although, in some of these, members of different ethnic groups tended to live in different quarters. Most smaller villages were inhabited by only one group. Much of the violence of the postindependence war had the aim of creating ethnic purity in areas that once had a mixture of peoples. In addition to killing thousands, this ethnic cleansing displaced about half the population of Bosnia and Herzegovina either within its borders or abroad. Estimates suggest that hundreds of thousands of displaced persons eventually returned to their prewar homes, but a significant portion of the displaced population resettled in areas where they were among the majority ethnic group.
Demographic trends
When it was a part of the Yugoslav federation, Bosnia and Herzegovina had one of the lowest death rates and among the highest live birth rates of Yugoslavia's republics, and its natural rate of increase in population was high in comparison with most of them. By the early 21st century, however, the birth rate had declined, the death rate had climbed, and the natural rate of increase had fallen below zero. The 1992–95 war had radically altered the demographic situation. Of the hundreds of thousands of people displaced during the war, a significant portion of them emigrated.
As a republic of the Yugoslav federation, Bosnia and Herzegovina adhered to the unique economic system known as socialist self-management. In this system, business enterprises, banks, administration, social services, hospitals, and other working bodies were intended to be run by elected workers' councils, which in turn elected the management boards of the bodies. In practice the level of workers' control was extremely variable from enterprise to enterprise, since ordinary workers often were not motivated to participate except in matters such as hiring, firing, and benefits and in any case lacked the necessary time and information to make business decisions. In the 1980s Yugoslavia's large foreign debt and rising inflation lowered the standard of living in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In the period immediately following the 1991 war in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina's official economy collapsed. Huge increases in the price of oil, falling imports and exports, hyperinflation, shortages of food and medicine, insolvent banks, and unpaid pensions all resulted in a swelling black market, or informal economy. In addition, the 1992–95 war (see Bosnian conflict) caused widespread destruction.
International financial organizations were heavily involved in the postwar reconstruction of the economy. As a result, inflation fell, exports increased and were diversified, and the gross domestic product (GDP) experienced growth, at least until a global financial crisis began in 2008. However, privatization was contentious and remains incomplete. Moreover, the number of workers in the informal sector and the unemployment rate both remain stubbornly high. Remittances from Bosnians working abroad continue to be a significant source of income.
Agriculture, forestry, and fishing
Bosnia and Herzegovina is a significant agricultural region, with some one-third of its land under cultivation or in pasture. The most fertile soils are in the north, along the Sava River valley. In hillier areas, land is employed for both cultivation and grazing. Principal crops include corn (maize), potatoes, wheat, plums, cabbages, and apples. In Herzegovina and in the more sheltered areas of Bosnia, tobacco is grown. Sheep are the major livestock, although cattle and pigs are raised, and apiculture is practiced. With about two-fifths of the country forested, timber, as well as furniture and other wood products, have been important exports. Fishing potential is increasingly exploited.
Power and resources
Bosnia and Herzegovina has reserves of iron ore around Banja Luka and in the Kozara Mountains, bauxite near Mostar, and lignite and bituminous coal in the regions around Sarajevo, Zenica, Tuzla, and the Kozara Mountains. Zinc, mercury, and manganese are present in smaller quantities. Forests of pine, beech, and oak provide a source of timber. The country possesses considerable hydroelectric potential; there are several hydroelectric and thermal power plants.
Manufacturing historically represented a large part of Bosnia and Herzegovina's economy. In the wake of the war, however, the country struggled to reinvigorate industrial production. Metal manufactures, iron and steel, sawn wood and wood products, food, and textiles are among the products produced in various parts of the country.
Finance, trade, and services
The Dayton Accords created a largely autonomous central bank, which has sole authority over monetary policy and the issuing of currency. The national currency, the convertible marka (konvertibilna marka; KM), is pegged to the euro. After the war, fiscal consolidation was strong, and most banks are now privately owned. Foreign direct investment was substantial in the early 21st century, but foreign investors faced serious obstacles, including a complex legal and regulatory framework, less than transparent business procedures, and a weak judiciary. Bosnia and Herzegovina's largest trading partners are Croatia, Serbia, Italy, and Germany.
The service sector accounts for more than half of the country's GDP, with retail trade and restaurants being an important component. There have been efforts to revive tourism by attracting visitors to the country's rich cultural heritage sites, gorgeous mountains, and aquamarine rivers.
Labour and taxation
The largest portion of the labour force is engaged in services, followed respectively by manufacturing and agriculture. Labour unions have been largely fragmented and weak in the postwar economy. Bosnia and Herzegovina's autonomous entities, the Republika Srpska (Bosnian Serb Republic) and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, have different tax policies. The individual income tax rate in both entities is relatively low. Other taxes include corporate tax, property tax, and value-added tax.
Transportation and telecommunications
The major obstacle to transportation in Bosnia and Herzegovina has always been the mountainous topography. In addition, much of the transportation infrastructure was destroyed in the postindependence war. The railway system, begun under Austro-Hungarian rule (1878–1918), connects Sarajevo with major towns to the north and with Zagreb (Croatia) and Belgrade (Serbia). Another line runs south from Sarajevo to Mostar and on to Ploče on Croatia's Adriatic coast. However, few lines are direct, and as a result roads of variable quality have in many cases been the preferred means of passenger and freight transportation. Scheduled air services connect Sarajevo with other Balkan capitals, such as Belgrade and Zagreb, as well as with other European and international destinations.
Although Bosnia and Herzegovina has lagged behind its neighbours with regard to citizens' use of telecommunications, the number of cellular phone subscribers increased dramatically during the first decade of the 21st century. During the same period, the number of Internet users grew exponentially.
Government and society
Constitutional framework
The internationally brokered Dayton Accords—the peace agreement negotiated in Dayton, Ohio, U.S., in November 1995—established Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state composed of two highly autonomous entities, the Republika Srpska (Bosnian Serb Republic) and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The latter is a decentralized federation of Croats and Bosniaks. Each entity has its own legislature and president. The central institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina include a directly elected tripartite presidency, which rotates every eight months between one Bosniak, one Serb, and one Croat member. The presidency, as the head of state, appoints a multiethnic Council of Ministers. The chairman of the council, who is appointed by the presidency and approved by the national House of Representatives, serves as the head of government. The parliament is bicameral. Members are directly elected to the 42-seat lower house (House of Representatives), in which 28 seats are reserved for the Federation and 14 for the Republika Srpska. Members of the upper house (the House of Peoples, with five members from each ethnic group) are chosen by the entity legislatures.
The central institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina are weak, with the bulk of governmental competencies residing in the two entities. Internationally led efforts to replace the unwieldy and costly constitutional structure of Bosnia and Herzegovina with a more functional one, capable of integrating into the European Union, have been opposed by the country's nationalist leaders.
Local government
The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is decentralized; it is administratively divided into 10 cantons, which in turn are divided into dozens of municipalities (općine). The Republika Srpska is relatively centralized and is administratively divided into dozens of municipalities (opštine). Citizens of both entities directly elect mayors and representatives to municipal and cantonal assemblies. Arbitration in 1997 established Brčko, in the northeast, as a self-governing special district.
The Dayton Accords established the Constitutional Court, which has exclusive jurisdiction to decide any dispute that arises between the entities, between Bosnia and Herzegovina and the entities, or between the institutions of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Three of the nine members of the Constitutional Court are appointed by the president of the European Court of Human Rights; the others are selected by the entities. The State Court, comprising administrative, appellate, and criminal divisions, has jurisdiction over matters regarding national law. Each entity also has its own Supreme Court and lower courts. Since its establishment by the United Nations Security Council in 1993, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia has exercised jurisdiction over grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions as well as for war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity. In 2002 Bosnia and Herzegovina's national courts gained jurisdiction over cases that did not involve major political and military figures.
Political process
In 1990 the League of Communists of Yugoslavia fragmented, and multiparty elections were held in each of the country's six constituent republics. In Bosnia and Herzegovina the national parties—the Bosniak Party of Democratic Action (Stranka Demokratske Akcije; SDA), the Serb Democratic Party (Srpska Demokratska Stranka; SDS), and the Croatian Democratic Union (Hrvatska Demokratska Zajednica; HDZ)—formed a tacit electoral coalition. The three swept the elections for the bicameral parliament and for the seven-member multiethnic presidency, which had been established by constitutional amendment "to allay fears that any one ethnic group would become politically dominant." They attempted to form a multiparty leadership, but their political and territorial ambitions (and those of their powerful patrons in Zagreb [Croatia] and Belgrade [Serbia]) were incompatible. The parliament failed to pass a single law, and war was stoked by neighbouring nationalists in the spring of 1992. Following the establishment of peace in 1995, the nationalist SDS, HDZ, and SDA continued to win voter support, although other parties that shared nationalist agendas, such as the Serb Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (Stranka Nezavisnih Socijaldemokrata; SNSD) and the Bosniak Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina (Stranka za Bosnu i Hercegovinu; SBiH), gained prominence as well. The institutionalization of ethnicity in the political system has put parties with less ethnocentric agendas, such as the Social Democratic Party (Socijaldemokratska Partija; SDP), at a disadvantage, though the SDP, too, has gained seats in the parliament and the tripartite presidency.
The Yugoslav People's Army was designed to repel invasion, and, as part of its strategy, it used the geographically central republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a storehouse for armaments and as the site of most military production. Bosnian Serb forces, aided by the Yugoslav People's Army and fighting for a separate Serb state, appropriated most of this weaponry. Elsewhere the Croatian Defense Council, aided by Zagreb, and the (mainly Bosniak) Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina were formed, but cooperation between them soon broke down. The Dayton Accords provided for the state to retain two separate armies, one from the Republika Srpska and the other from the Federation. At the urging of international actors eager to facilitate Bosnia and Herzegovina's integration into Euro-Atlantic structures, the army was unified in 2003. Policing, however, remains decentralized.
Health, welfare, and housing
The health system in Bosnia and Herzegovina is decentralized, which in practice has resulted in inequitable access to health care and uneven levels of service. Informal payments for care are more common than legally mandated co-payments. The poverty rate in rural areas is about twice that of urban areas. In the early 21st century the country ranked toward the bottom of the "high human development" level of the United Nations' Human Development Index, which broadly measures quality of life. It ranked lower than virtually all other European countries, excepting some former Soviet republics.
International programs have helped to rebuild housing stock that was significantly damaged during the postindependence war. In urban areas, most citizens reside in apartments privatized after the war, while those living in rural areas largely reside in private homes.
Taken when Bosnia and Herzegovina was still part of Yugoslavia, the 1991 census reported that 14 percent of people aged 15 or older were illiterate, with older women accounting for a significant portion of the illiterate population. In independent Bosnia and Herzegovina citizens have good access to educational opportunities, and it is estimated that the adult illiteracy rate fell to about 5 percent by the early 21st century. However, the current fractured educational system, in which students learn according to ethnically coloured, often biased curricula, has had the effect of creating three separate sets of citizens, each unfamiliar with and distrustful of the others. The higher education system is also ethnically divided, although reforms have been launched to meet European higher education standards. The oldest and largest of the country's universities, the University of Sarajevo, was founded in 1949. The Universities of Banja Luka, Tuzla, and Mostar were founded in the 1970s.


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A Brilliant Defense main content.
by AMNH on
Humans marvel at the beauty of glowing organisms, but usually, nature's light displays serve a much more practical purpose.
When pushed to the limit by a predator, the vampire squid envelops its adversary in a smokescreen of glowing particles. After ejecting luminescent mucus from the tips of its eight tentacles, this master of disguise makes its escape, "flying" through water with its fins rather than jet-propelling like most other cephalopods. The sticky mucus, which glows for up to 10 minutes, may even coat the predator and make it more vulnerable to attack.
While this technique is the vampire squid's last resort, the animal has evolved a suite of finely controlled light tricks to avoid becoming a meal. When threatened, the creature curls its Dracula-like cloak of webbed arms around its soft body, exposing a black underside and fanglike projections, or cirri. From this "pineapple" position, meant to intimidate predators, the animal waves its glowing arm tips in a confusing display of fireworks. Should the predator bite off an arm tip, it can be sacrificed and regenerated, much like a lizard's tail.
Meanwhile, two large light organs that mimic eyes peer from beneath the cloak. The vampire squid can slowly contract the muscles around these photophores, giving the impression that the "eyes" are shrinking and that the squid has sped away.
With all these moving and glowing parts, predators are often too disoriented to strike. Scientists still have much to learn about this creature of light, which lives 3,000 feet below sea level in the zone of the ocean with the lowest concentration of oxygen.
See a model of a vampire squid at 350 percent its natural size in Creatures of Light.
A version of this story appeared in Rotunda, the Member magazine.


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Hey guys,
The problem is that there is some sticky-back tape that is creeping out into the interior of the batten pocket. I recommend getting some sort of wooden dowel or a long screwdriver, basically something that you can use that won't tear your canopy material, to push through the pocket to sort of open it up a little bit. You want to make it easier to slide your batten in the pocket. Once you get the batten in, you won't really need to take it out so the sticky stuff isn't a problem then. But just try to get something in there to make it easier to slide the batten in there without ripping the canopy material. I hope that helps!