text: Job Discussion Forums :: View topic - Taking your pets with you?? Get TEFL Certified & Start Your Adventure Today! Job Discussion Forums"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Students and Teachers from Around the World!" FAQ Search Memberlist Usergroups Register Profile Log in to check your private messages Log in Taking your pets with you?? Job Discussion Forums Forum Index -> Newbie Forum View previous topic :: View next topic Author Message mersshroyerJoined: 21 Aug 2012Posts: 33Location: Rosario, Argentina Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 4:30 am Post subject: Taking your pets with you?? So I fear I may be posting in the wrong area, but seeing as how this is technically not related to jobs, I didn't want to post it in general discussion, so here goes nothing.. I'm wondering if anyone here has experience taking their pets with them abroad or having to take them on a plane. I mean specifically having to take their dog on a really long flight. Any tips or advice for making it go as smoothly and safely as possible?? In my case, I'm considering going back to the states so I can get my 13 lb, 3 year-old mexican hairless dog and bringing her with me to Argentina (a 17 to 24 hour trip including layovers ). My concerns: 1. She won't fit comfortably under the seat in a kennel 2. If she does, she will be miserable and disturb other passengers 3. If I have to put her in cargo, she could get hurt, lost, sick, etc 4. If I can't travel with her, I'll have to give her to my parents Anyway, any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks. Back to top spiral78Joined: 05 Apr 2004Posts: 11534Location: On a Short Leash Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 6:01 am Post subject: My schnauzer has flown all his life, from Canada to Russia to the European continent, swum in both oceans, and in the Atlantic from both sides. He's gone both 'cargo' (it's not where the luggage goes, it's in a special compartment under the pilots and is actually one of the quietest places on a plane) and under the seat in a bag.I prefer to take him with me. For a novice canine, I think that with you under the seat is a better option. You can hopefully calm the dog if he/she gets nervous; basically I've been on flights with a lot of dogs and they seem to usually relax quite early on. Maybe they find the engine noise and vibration soothing, but I've never heard a dog have long-lasting jitters; and even if yours did, there would likely be a child or two on the plane who are doing the same! For a long flight such as you are contemplating, I would break it up with at least one night somewhere. There are obvious toileting issues. If you don't want to spend a night somewhere, at least make sure that you've got long layovers; depending how big/busy the airport is, it can take quite a while to reach outside, for your dog to get his/her act together toileting in strange place, and to get back in through security. The problem with checking your dog on such a long flight is that they will not give you the dog on layovers. He/she will be in the crate for the entire duration, and you can add at least a couple of hours for check-in and before they get him/her to the luggage area. For some reason, some airports deliver all luggage prior to dogs at the baggage area. Clearly not realizing the animals are more important and time sensitive! If you must check the dog, you will definitely want to stop over for at least a night, so that you can get the dog. Airline staff will not take your dog out of his/her crate for toileting and they will not likely give him/her food or water, so for my dog, one 9-hour leg is about maximum before we need a stop. Other logistics; be sure you dog is microchipped and you will need an international passport with his/her records entered by a veterinarian. Any large vet clinic should be able to supply this (they've always been free in my experience) and you will want all the pretty stamps and signatures in there that you can get. They also require a photo of the dog. The schnauzer has done this literally almost 50 times, so if I've forgotten any details, feel free to ask....overall it's less trouble than taking a child o nsuch a flight, but it does require some organization and consideration in advance! Back to top tttompatzJoined: 06 Mar 2010Posts: 1951Location: Talibon, Bohol, Philippines Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 6:27 am Post subject: AND contact the airlines specifically for THEIR rules above and beyond what is required by customs and border clearance in your destination country. . Back to top spiral78Joined: 05 Apr 2004Posts: 11534Location: On a Short Leash Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 7:29 am Post subject: Dogs obviously require an advance reservation and a ticket. You'll definitely be in communication with the airlines in advance. Of course you wouldn't want to show up with an unnanounced passenger Back to top santi84Joined: 14 Mar 2008Posts: 1317Location: under da sea Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 10:14 am Post subject: Our dog is a 35lb Shiba Inu so he was unable to fly in the cabin. When you buy an airline-specific crate, buy it a few months in advance and help the dog learn to enjoy the crate as a "haven" (nice familiar blanket with your scent, a favourite toy, treats). We did this for about 2 months prior to our move (it was only a 6 hour flight though, but the same thought applies). Take the dog for a massive walk/dog park experience prior to the flight (no matter how busy or tired you will be for that day). We also wrote our contact information (bilingual) on the crate, as well as emergency contact information for someone at our destination (I'm not sure if this is applicable for you). Aside from that, there is not much else you can do if the dog is flying in cargo. It will be very stressful and you will likely deal with the dog being overcome with stress leading to lots of urine/feces in the crate - so I really second spiral's idea of breaking up the flight to give your dog a break. Of course, I would highly recommend the dog flies in the cabin if they are only 13lbs. Let's say your dog becomes annoying 3 hours in - what are they going to do? Turn around? Finally, I also agree with spiral - the dog was the least of my worries, we brought an 11 month old human who vomited everywhere and screamed on takeoff for 45 minutes The dog was far less trouble Back to top tttompatzJoined: 06 Mar 2010Posts: 1951Location: Talibon, Bohol, Philippines Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 11:01 am Post subject: spiral78 wrote: Dogs obviously require an advance reservation and a ticket. You'll definitely be in communication with the airlines in advance. It is more than just making the reservation and buying the ticket. Airlines have specific rules and they DO VARY (sometimes widely) from airline to airline and destination to destination. Contact them well in advance and specifically ask about their rules and regulations (they won't usually volunteer the information - even when you are booking the flight). . Back to top spiral78Joined: 05 Apr 2004Posts: 11534Location: On a Short Leash Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 11:14 am Post subject: We've flown quite a few different airlines and the airline rules always been quite explicit, though I agree not standardized. Some airlines won't carry certain breeds of dogs, for example, and most have some limit of numbers of animals on any given flight. Back to top mersshroyerJoined: 21 Aug 2012Posts: 33Location: Rosario, Argentina Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 3:12 pm Post subject: Wow, thanks for all the advice. It is definitely comforting hearing that you've all done this before without any problems. So many people on dog forums that I've checked out make it seem like it's a huge risk to the dog's life. I feel a little less hesitant now! Are there any airlines anyone prefers in particular? I generally fly with united or someone in the star alliance. They mention on their site having a kennel where the dogs can run and play in Houston and Newark, but I'm not sure what the procedure is for taking dogs in there. I've also heard very bad things about delta. Back to top spiral78Joined: 05 Apr 2004Posts: 11534Location: On a Short Leash Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 4:48 pm Post subject: Delta's actually been good for me. Star Alliance is also good. I have heard an occasional negative rumour about Delta, but the 6 times we've flown them they were great. Air Canada for trans-national flights (different story in-country), KLM, Air France, Lufthansa have all been fantastic. Others I can't personally vouch for.... Back to top naturegirl321Joined: 04 May 2003Posts: 9041Location: home sweet home Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2012 1:43 am Post subject: Check the rules like tttompatz says, if you go to the UK for example, they have to be quarantined for six months. Back to top spiral78Joined: 05 Apr 2004Posts: 11534Location: On a Short Leash Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2012 5:59 am Post subject: Quote: Check the rules like tttompatz says, if you go to the UK for example, they have to be quarantined for six months. The UK has stopped that requirement for almost all situations. http://www.defra.gov.uk/wildlife-pets/pets/travel/quarantine/ The OP, however, is going to Latin America, so I doubt she's too bothered about UK regulations. 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SAN FRANCISCO The latest battle for control of Alcatraz Island is under way. Many have laid claim to the wind-swept rock in the middle of the San Francisco Bay since the last prisoner left the federal land in 1963. American Indians occupied the island for 19 months ending in 1972. And politicians have floated the idea of building a casino or even a new San Francisco 49ers football stadium on Alcatraz.
Today, the National Park Service and organizers of the America's Cup are tussling over Alcatraz's role in the Super Bowl of yacht racing. The island will offer some of the best views of the most prestigious competition when multi-million dollar boats take to the San Francisco Bay in 2012 and 2013. Alcatraz sits almost directly in the middle of the proposed race course and offers 360-degree views of the bay.
But the island already receives 1.4 million visitors a year and is at capacity during the summer tourist season. Therein lies one of the main sources of tension over how to balance competing priorities that arose when San Francisco was selected to host the 34th America's Cup contest.
The National Park Service manages the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, which includes Alcatraz and much of the race course. The city of San Francisco is in charge of satisfying environmental regulations, securing government permits and spearheading planning for the event.
The two got off to a rocky start when the city released a draft environmental impact report over the summer stating Alcatraz would be closed to the public and given over to well-heeled event sponsors and other VIPs for private viewing of the race. The report also made similar claims about Fort Baker at the foot of the Golden Gate Bridge. Both are popular tourist destinations.
"All lands and facilities in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, including Alcatraz and Fort Baker, will remain open to the public throughout the entire period of the races," park officials declared in rejecting that proposal.
Today, the city's America's Cup project manager says the episode was a misunderstanding rooted in poorly written passages in the report.
Project manager Michael Martin said that organizers did discuss setting up private viewing areas for sponsors. But that idea was scrapped after park officials made it clear the America's Cup would have to abide by the same rules as the public when visiting the island.
The park service forbids any kind of seating from bleachers to folding chairs and limits picnicking to a dock area with obstructed views on Alcatraz. There are no food vendors on the island.
"There won't be any great accommodations," said park service spokeswoman Alexandra Picavet. "Because of that, Alcatraz may not be the best place to watch."
Park officials said America's Cup organizers will have to go through the same permitting process the public must go through to secure the prison for after-hour functions. Organizers plan to host parties in the prison's cell block in the evenings.
The America's Cup is expected to create 8,000 jobs and inject more than $1.4 billion into the region's economy during planning, construction and the actual racing, which will take place in a series of contests in 2012 and 2013. But the millions of spectators over that time with 500,000 on peak days_will test the Bay Area's transportation network, sanitation systems and the environment during about 50 days of racing.
The city's draft environmental impact report, which lays out the preliminary plans for the races and the proposed precautions to be taken to protect the environment, drew comments and concerns from 34 public agencies, 41 non-governmental organizations and 115 individuals. The report, the comments and the city's responses will be presented to the San Francisco Planning Commission on Thursday. No construction can began until the commission approves the report, and its decision can be appealed to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
The National Park Service's comments and concerns over the environmental impact run 22 pages. One concern was the potential impact of 80,000 people descending on historic Crissy Field, which has a beach and a newly restored wetland.
The park service also said the city has failed to explain "how ferry traffic to and from Alcatraz would be maintained, and what impacts would be to visitors attempting to visit the island." It noted that ferry service "currently runs every 30 min. through what would be the race area."
In response, the city said it would work with the U.S. Coast Guard and the ferry service to ensure safe passage during the races.
The park service is also concerned about how organizers plan to protect birds, marine mammals and plants. The city said it will prohibit America's Cup-related boats from coming within 100 yards of Alcatraz and barring helicopters from getting any closer than 1,000 feet.
"''In our experience, it is not realistic to believe that all events will proceed as planned around Alcatraz and that sensitive areas and closures will be adequately enforced," the park service responded in asking for bigger buffer zones.
Both sides say they are continuing to negotiate.
"We are still in a dialogue with the park service," said the city's project manager Martin. "We are taking their concerns very seriously."


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Dog food reviews
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Blue Buffalo Chicken & Brown Rice for Large Breed Puppies
Date of last review
Sun June 25, 2006
Recommended By
Average Price
Average Rating
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None indicated
None indicated
Calorific content:
3,590 kcal/kg : 505 kcal/cup
Deboned Chicken, Chicken Meal (natural source of Glucosamine), Whole Ground Brown Rice, Whole Ground Barley, Whole Potatoes, Tomato Pomace (natural source of Lycopene), Oatmeal, Chicken Fat (preserved with Mixed Natural Tocopherols), Natural Chicken Flavor, Whole Carrots, Whole Sweet Potatoes, Blueberries, Cranberries, Flaxseed, Barley Grass, Dried Parsley, Alfalfa Meal, Kelp Meal, Taurine, L-Carnitine, L-Lysine, Yucca Schidigera Extract, Green Tea Extract, Turmeric, Garlic, Sunflower Oil (natural source of Omega 6 Fatty Acids), Herring Oil (natural source of Omega 3 Fatty Acids), Fructooligosaccharides, Monooligosaccharides, Dried Chicory Root, Black Malted Barley, Oil of Rosemary, Vitamin A Supplement, Vitamin C, Vitamin E Supplement, Vitamin D3 Supplement, Beta Carotene, Calcium Ascorbate (source of Vitamin C), Vitamin B12 Supplement, Niacin (Vitamin B3), Calcium Pantothenate (Vitamin B5), Riboflavin (Vitamin B2), Pyridoxine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B6), Thiamine Hydrochloride (Vitamin B1), Folic Acid, Biotin, Choline Chloride, Calcium Phosphate, Zinc Amino Acid Complex (source of Chelated Zinc), Iron Amino Acid Complex (source of Chelated Iron), Copper Amino Acid Complex (source of Chelated Copper), Manganese Amino Acid Complex (source of Chelated Manganese), Potassium Amino Acid Complex (source of Chelated Potassium), Cobalt Proteinate (source of Chelated Cobalt), Potassium Chloride, Sodium Selenite, Salt, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bacillus subtilis, Bifidobacterium thermophilum, Bifidobacterium longum, Enterococcus faecium.
Crude Protein 28.0% min
Crude Fat 12.0% min
Crude Fiber 4.0% max
Moisture 10.0% max
Calcium 1.2% min
Phosphorus 0.95% min
DHA* 0.1% min
L-Carnitine* 100 mg/kg max
*Not recognized as an essential nutrient by AAFCO Dog Food Nutrient Profiles.
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Registered: October 2005
Posts: 3953
Review Date:
Sun June 25, 2006
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First two ingredients are named meat products, uses good quality grains and whole vegetables.
Minimum acceptable meat content, some filler.
The first ingredient in the food is a named meat product, as is the second. Since the first is chicken inclusive of its water content (about 80%) and once that is removed it is likely that this ingredient would be more accurately placed somewhat further down the ingredient list (ingredients are listed in order of weight). Note that this is an example of the practice of splitting (see note on main page), but in this case serves to increase our level of confidence in the amount of meat product in the food. Since this is a food aimed at large breed puppies, and the presence of meat *with bone* within the top four ingredients is a factor that decreases the risk of bloat, it would be preferable that the first ingredient were not "deboned" chicken. Nonetheless, this requirement is probably covered by the second ingredient.
The next two ingredients are grains, as is the 6th. All are good quality, but the product appears excessively grain heavy. Potato is a further carbohydrate source, tomato pomace, however, is primarily filler. black malted barley is a source of sugar we prefer not to see in dog food, and is likely to contribute to yeast infections.
We appreciate the use of whole vegetables and eggs in the food. There is a good range of probiotics also. Glucosamine and Chondroitin are present, but not in any significant doses. Since there is no claim that these supplements have any role in the prevention of arthritis and joint damage, we would question the point of their inclusion in a puppy food even in significant quantity.
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- Unika Cream 60cm x 60cm
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Unika is the expression of a style created through original combinations, unexpected encounters that bring precious and recycled material together. This is a free interpretation perfectly able to adapt to a variety of settings, offering different locations and styles. An effective option for enhancing and transforming a space. The beauty of this range is that it can be combined with many different materials and sensations.
Unika from ABK Tiles is a beautiful concrete effect range. Available in a range of different sizes and colours. Also Unika is available in an 2cm outside edition making it easy to continue that beautiful concrete feel from the inside to the garden.
Unika is a beautiful range of Tiles made from the finest Porcelain and are ideal in any area of the home. From the Bedroom to the Bathroom to the Kitchen and Living room. A full range made up of a huge selection of styles and colours. To see the Unika Range in its full glory please pop into our Haywards Heath Showroom of for more information please call us on 01444 474740 or request a call back on out contact us page.


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Being Charlie Sloth - Digiwaxx (Life Of An Independant British Rap Artist) [Webisode]
Harold reports "In this weeks episode Charlie the artist gets some feedback on his music from Digiwaxx CEO CL, then judges a Pole Dancing Contest and Charlie the director shoots a music video for Million Dan. Cameos this week are from DJ Manny Norte and Bashy. Charlie Sloth is a british rap artist who does everything himself. He is his own manager, music producer, cameraman, video editor. creative, street team, web designer and most importantly rapper. Follow his weekly struggle as he tries to come up in the rap game. "Being Charlie Sloth" is an original web series produced by Jump Off TV and exclusively broadcast on WorldStarHipHop.com every Monday"
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Every Sunday: Morning Worship
8 a.m. & 11 a.m., Traditional Worship; 9:30 a.m., Contemporary Worship; St. Peter's Lutheran Church, E.L.C.A, 10301 Coastal Hwy., O.C. For more information, 410-524-7474.
Open Monday-Saturday: Atlantic
United Methodist Church Thrift Shop
10 a.m.-2 p.m., AUMC, 105, 4th Street, O.C. For more info, 410-289-4458.
Open Wednesday-Saturday:
Shepherd's Nook Thrift Shop
9 a.m.-1 p.m., Community Church at Ocean Pines, Rte. 589 & Racetrack Rd., Berlin. Accepting donations of gently worn clothes and small household items.
Open Wednesday-Friday: Stevenson
United Methodist Thrift Shop
5 Stevenson Lane, Berlin, across from the Laundromat. Wednesday and Thursday, 10 a.m.-2 p.m.; Sale days every Friday, 10:30 a.m.-2 p.m.
Jan. 18: Crop To End Cancer Event
Clarion Hotel, 101st Street, O.C. To benefit the American Cancer Society. Silent and Chinese auction items along with vendors. Cost: $40, to crop for the day. For more information or to reserve a space, 443-235-2926.
Jan. 18: Homemade Soup
& Chicken Salad
5-7 p.m., Eden United Methodist Church. Homemade soup, chicken salad, bake table and platters will be available. For more information, 410-749-9204.
Jan. 18: KC Bingo
5 p.m., doors open; 6:30 p.m., games begin; rear of St. Luke's Church, 9901 Coastal Hwy., O.C. Refreshments on sale. For more info, 410-524-7994.
Jan. 19 & 20: Soups On Fundraiser
11 a.m.-2 p.m., Ocean City Airport. Enjoy a cup of soup and view the Huey Memorial in support of Ocean City Aviation's (OCAA) Huey's restoration and future maintenance costs. For more information, 410-213-2471, 410-726-7207 or 410-641-6888.
Jan. 19: Star Charities
Beef & Beer Benefit
1-5 p.m., American Legion Post #166, 24th St., O.C. To benefit Wounded Soliders in Maryland. Guest speaker will be Major General James Adkins, Adjuctant General Maryland National gaurd. Emcees Gilly Foultz & Larry Walton. Entertainment by Earl's Dixie Land Band, W W Tunes, Woodlands String Band. All-you-can-eat buffet from Em-ings. Door prizes and more. Cost: $26, per person. Reservations are required. For more info, 410-641-7667, 410-208-9514 or 410-208-0430.
Jan. 19: "Sweet 16" Relay For Life
6 p.m., Route 50 Diner, Francis Scott Key Hotel. Cancer survivors, their caregivers and anyone registered or interested n registering for the May 10, 2013 Relay For Life even, hosted by Frontier Town are welcome to attend.
Jan. 19: Free Adult Social
Dance Lessons
6:30-8:30 p.m., Red Door Community Center, 302 N. Baltimore Ave., O.C. In conjuction with the Saint Paul's By The Sea Episcopal Church Community Center opening. Yvonne Cimo, Director of Dance Moves and Manners will be the instructor. No partner is needed to attend and ages 14-99 can register. Babysitting provided. Registration is required. To register visit www.dancemovesandmanners.com. For more information, 302-222-3755.
Jan. 23: Mussar, Intro To Talmud Class
10:30 a.m.-noon & noon-1:30 p.m.; Temple Bat Yam, 11036 Worcester Hwy., Berlin. Rabbi Susan Warshaw will be the instructor. For more information, 410-641-4311. Bring lunch.
Jan. 23: TOPS Meeting
5 p.m., Ocean City Library. TOPS, or Take Off Pounds Sensibly is a support group for weight loss and provides education on health issues. For more information, 443-365-4722.
Jan. 23: Bingo
5:30, doors open; 6:30, early bird games; 7 p.m., regular games; Ocean City Elks Lodge #2645, 138th St., across from the Fenwick Inn. $1,000 jackpot available, food, snacks and non-alcoholic beverages. No one under 18 allowed in bingo hall during bingo.
Jan. 23: Delmarva Hand Dancing
5:30-9 p.m., Skyline Bar & Grille (formerly Jordan's Rooftop), at the Fenwick Inn, 138th St., O.C. Jitter-bug, swing, cha-cha to the sounds of the 50's & 60's. Beginner and intermediate dance lessons 5:30-6:30 p.m. Followed by dancing.For more info, 302-337-3638.
Jan. 24: Republican Women
General Meeting and Luncheon
10:30 a.m., doors open; meeting starts at 11 a.m. with lunch served at noon and speaker to follow; Atlantic Hotel, 2 N. Main St., Berlin. Featured speaker will be Bill Badger, Director of the Department Economic Development in Worcester Co. For reservations by Jan. 22, 410-208-6018 or email email@example.com.
Jan. 24: Legion Bingo
Doors open 5:30 p.m., games begin 7 p.m.; American Legion Post 166, 24th St. & Philadelphia Ave., O.C. Food and drink available. For more information, 410-289-3166.
Jan. 24: NAACP Monthly Meeting
7 p.m., Chipman Cultural Center, 325 Broad St., Salisbury. Guest speaker will be Richard H. Van Gelder, the Community Chairperson of the 2012 Easter Shore Mission of Mercy Dental Program and a Vice-President at the Hebron Savings Bank. The public is welcome to attend.


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'The Story of Stuff' by Annie Leonard
Read an excerpt of "The Story of Stuff" by Annie Leonard.
April 16, 2010 -- Annie Leonard is a well-known international environmentalist who has spent more than 20 years investigating and organizing on environmental health and justice issues.
The California woman has traveled around the world and seen hundreds of factories where goods are made and areas where those goods are discarded.
In "The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff Is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health -- and a Vision for Change," Leonard connects the dots between the trash we accumulate from the "stuff" we accumulate and its direct impact on the global environment.
Read an excerpt of the book below, and then head to the "GMA" Library to find more good reads.
Growing up in the green and luscious city of Seattle during the 1970s was idyllic, but the real joy came in the summertime, when my family and I piled our camping gear into our station wagon and headed for the stunning North Cascades mountains. Since this was in the days before DVD players in the backseats, during the drive I'd look out the window and study the landscape. Each year I noticed that the mini-malls and houses reached a bit farther, while the forests started a bit later and got a bit smaller. Where were my beloved forests going?
I found my answer to that question some years later in New York City, of all places. The Barnard College campus where I went for my environmental studies classes was on West 116th Street on Manhattan's Upper West Side, and my dorm room was on West 110th Street. Every morning I groggily trudged up those six blocks, staring at the mounds of garbage that line New York City's streets at dawn each day. Ten hours later, I walked back to my dorm along the emptied sidewalks. I was intrigued. I started poking around to see what was in those never-ending piles of trash. Guess what? It was mostly paper.
Paper! That's where my trees were ending up. (In fact, about 40 percent of municipal garbage in the United States is paper products.1) From the forests I knew in the Pacific Northwest to the sidewalks of the Upper West Side to . . . where?
My curiosity was sparked. I couldn't stop there; I needed to find out what happened after the paper disappeared from the curb. So I took a trip to the infamous Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island. Covering 4.6 square miles, Fresh Kills was one of the largest dumps in the world. When it was officially closed in 2001, some say the stinking mound was the largest man-made structure on the planet, its volume greater than that of the Great Wall of China, and its peaks 80 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty.2 I had never seen anything like Fresh Kills. I stood at its edge in absolute awe. As far as I could see in every direction were trashed couches, appliances, cardboard boxes, apple cores, clothes, plastic bags, books, and tons of other Stuff. You know how a gory car crash scene makes you want to turn away and stare at the same time? That is what this dump was like. I'd been raised by a single mother of the post-Depression era who instilled in her kids a sense of respect for quality, not quantity. Partly from her life philosophy and partly out of economic necessity, my youth was shaped along the lines of the World War II saying: "Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without." There just wasn't a lot of superfluous consumption and waste going on in our house. We savored the things we had and took good care of them and kept them until every last drop of usefulness was gone.
So the mountains of perfectly good materials that had been reduced to muck at Fresh Kills made no sense to me. It felt terribly wrong. Who set up this system? How could those who knew about it allow it to continue? I didn't understand it, but I vowed to figure it out. After two decades of sleuthing, when I'd figured it out, I called it the Story of Stuff.
The Story of Stuff journey took me around the world—on research and community organizing missions for Greenpeace, Essential Action, the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), and other environmental organizations—not only to more dumps but also to mines, factories, hospitals, embassies, universities, farms, World Bank offices, and the halls of government. I stayed with families in Indian villages so isolated that my arrival would be greeted by desperate parents running up to me asking "Are you a doctor?" hoping I happened to be the international medic—on her annual visit—who would be able to cure their child. I met entire families who lived on garbage dumps in the Philippines, Guatemala, and Bangladesh and who survived on the food and material scraps they pulled from the stinking, smoldering heaps. I visited shopping malls in Tokyo and Bangkok and Las Vegas that were so big and bright and plastic that I felt like I was in The Jetsons or Futurama.
Everywhere I went, I kept asking "why?" and digging deeper and deeper. Why were dumps so hazardous? Because of the toxics in the trash. And why were there toxics in the trashed products to begin with? Answering that question led me to learn about toxics, chemistry, and environmental health. Why were dumps so often situated in lower-income communities where people of color live and work? I started learning about environmental racism.
And why does it make economic sense to move entire factories to other countries: how can they still sell the product for a couple of dollars when it's traveling so far? Suddenly I had to confront international trade agreements and the influence of corporations on governmental regulations. And another thing: why are electronics breaking so fast and why are they cheaper to replace than repair? So I learned about planned obsolescence, advertising, and other tools for promoting consumerism. On the surface, each of these topics seemed separate from the next, unconnected, and a long way from those piles of garbage on the streets of New York City or the forests of the Cascades. But it turns out they're all connected.
The journey led me to become what people call a systems thinker. That means I believe everything exists as part of a larger system and must be understood in relation to the other parts. It's not an uncommon framework: think about the last time you came down with a fever. You probably wondered if it was caused by a bacteria or a virus. A fever is a response to a strange element being introduced to the system that is your body. If you didn't believe that your body was a system, you might look for a heat source underneath your hot forehead or some switch that accidentally got flipped and raised your temperature. In biology we easily accept the idea of multiple systems (e.g., circulatory, digestive, nervous) made of parts (like cells or organs), as well as the fact that those systems interact with one another inside a body.
In school we all learned about the water cycle, the system that moves water through its various states—as liquid, vapor, and solid ice—around the earth. And about the food chain, the system in which, as a simple example, plankton get eaten by small fish, which get eaten by bigger fish, which get eaten by humans. Between those two systems, the water cycle and the food chain—even though one's inanimate and the other is made of living creatures—there's an important interaction, as the rivers and oceans of the first provide the habitat for the creatures of the second. That brings us to an ecosystem, made up of interrelated inanimate physical parts and subsystems like rocks and water, as well as all the living parts like plants and animals. Again there are systems within systems. The earth's biosphere—another word for the planet's entire ecosystem—is a system that exists inside of that much larger thing that we call the solar system.
The economy functions as a system, too, which is why there can be a domino effect inside it, as when people lose their jobs and then reduce their spending, which means that factories can't sell as much Stuff, which means that more people get laid off . . . which is exactly what happened in 2008 and 2009. Systems thinking as related to the economy also explains a theory like "trickle-down" economics, in which benefits like tax cuts are given to the wealthy so that they'll invest more in businesses, which would hypothetically in turn create more jobs for the middle and lower classes. If you didn't believe these parts (money, jobs, people across classes) operated within a system, there'd be no basis for the trickle-down theory, or for beliefs about the interplay between supply and demand. All these examples assume interrelated parts within a larger system.
Another way to say that everything exists as part of a larger system (including systems themselves) is to say everything is connected.
It's funny: Most people's professional paths start with a general interest that becomes increasingly specialized with years of education, training, and on-the-job implementation. There's powerful social and professional validation for increasing specialization like this. I, however, took the opposite path: I started with a fascination—and outrage—about garbage, specifically about the bags of the Stuff piled up on New York City's Upper West Side. After getting a degree in environmental science, I got a job with Greenpeace International, which paid me to track the destination and the impact of all the waste loaded onto ships in the United States and sent abroad. My whole job was about investigating and stopping the international dumping of waste.
I will forever be grateful to Greenpeace. Founded on the Quaker principle of bearing witness—the idea that seeing wrong-doing with our own eyes creates a moral responsibility to inform others and take action— Greenpeace provided me with a laptop computer and rudimentary training and then set me loose upon the world to bear witness to waste trafficking and tell everyone what I saw. However, like most institutions, Greenpeace divided its work into specific issue areas that left us working in silos, disconnected from one another: toxics, oceans, forests, nukes, marine ecosystems, genetically modified organisms, climate, etc. The organization cultivated a strong culture of specific expertise. For example, the toxics people knew a scary amount about toxics—even the interns could rattle off the molecular structures of chlorinated organic compounds and explain their environmental health impacts—and they single-mindedly pursued their issue to the exclusion of everything else. Back then, we didn't spend much time understanding the connections between the problems we were each working so hard to solve.
In the early 1990s, I started traveling extensively to work with allies in other countries. At first, I prided myself on knowing more about international waste trafficking than anyone outside my team at Greenpeace. But the more I traveled, the more I realized how much I didn't know and didn't understand. I was initially shocked by the scope of work that I found others doing, in India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Haiti, and South Africa, for example. I met dozens of people who worked on a whole jumble of issues altogether: water and forests and energy and even women's issues and international trade. At first, I assumed that they had to cover so many issues because they were short staffed; I felt sorry for them having to do the jobs of multiple people while I had the luxury of devoting all my attention to one issue. After a while, I had a revelation: all those issues are interconnected. As I kept unraveling the strings of connections, I realized that garbage—or any single problem, for that matter—can't be solved in isolation. Focusing so exclusively on a single issue wasn't helping me; in fact it was retarding my ability to understand the context of the issue of garbage, to see the Big Picture. Learning about other issues wouldn't distract from my progress, it would enable breakthroughs.
And so it was that I went from poking in bags of garbage to examining the global systems of production and consumption of manufactured goods, or what academics call the materials economy. That means I cross back and forth between two disciplines that the modern world usually sees as not only sharply divided but at total odds with each other: the environment (or ecology) and the economy. But guess what? Not only are these two systems connected, one is actually a subsystem of the other, the same way that earth's ecosystem is a subsystem of the solar system.
Now, a lot of environmentalists don't really want to deal with the economy. Traditional environmentalists focus on that cuddly endangered bear or the majestic groves of redwoods or the nature preserves where they go to forget all about ugly things like the stock market. Endangered species and pristine places have nothing to do with pricing structures or government subsidies for mining or international trade agreements, do they? (Uh, actually, yes, they do.) Meanwhile, classical economists have acknowledged the environment only as an unlimited and cheap or free set of raw resources to fuel the growth of the economy. Oh, and the arena from which pesky activists sometimes pop up to challenge a new factory site based on protecting the habitat of the woodland shrew.
Yet in fact, the economy is a subsystem of the earth's ecosystem, its biosphere. You see, any economic system—like barter, slavery, feudalism, socialism, or capitalism—is a human invention. Since humans are just one of the earth's many species (albeit a powerful species, what with our written words and our weapons), any invention of ours is a subsystem of the earth's ecosystem. Once we understand that (which is not my opinion, but plain fact), it leads to other insights.
Nearing Limits
The most important of these further insights is about limits. For one system to exist inside of another, the subsystem needs to fit inside the constraints of the parent system. You've seen those pictures of our pretty blue planet from space, right? The surface area on this hunk of rock that we call home is 197 million square miles (roughly a third of that is land).3 To wrap a (long) piece of string around the middle of the planet at the equator you would need 24,901.55 miles (40,075.16 kilometers) of it.4 The total water supply— in all its states—measures about 326 million cubic miles.5 That's what we've got. The earth's dimensions and capacity remain stable. That means there is a limit to the amount of land, water, air, minerals, and other resources provided by the earth. That's just a fact.
Believe me, I know that can be easy to forget, given the way most of us here in the United States or in other rich nations live. How would we know that the soil is degrading or the oceans are being emptied of fish? Few of us get to see our food growing or the nets pulling our fish out of the water. Let alone where and how our T-shirts, laptops, books, and other Stuff is made, halfway across the planet. From where I sit in my cozy Berkeley bungalow, the world looks pretty good: the weather's nice, the vast selection in the grocery store is undiminished by the fact that my state of California is in a multiyear drought. If our fruit harvest is low this year, apples still arrive from Chile. Don't worry, be happy.
But the reports of every credible scientist in the world tell a different story. Evidence of the environmental crisis is now so abundant that only those committed to serious denial continue to contest the facts. While mainstream economists and politicians seem blind to the very real physical limits, environmentalists, scientists, academics, and others have raised concerns for decades.
There are literally hundreds of books and reports, from countless reliable and trustworthy sources, that document how things are going on the planet. Here are just a few highlights:
In July 2009, we reached 387.81 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. Leading scientists around the world have identified 350 ppm as the maximum level that the atmosphere can contain for the planet to remain as we know it.6
Toxic industrial and agricultural chemicals now show up in every body tested anywhere in the world, including in newborn babies.7
Indoor air pollution kills 1.6 million people per year, with outdoor air pollution taking another 800,000 lives each year.8
About one-fifth of the world's population—more than 1.2 billion people—experience water scarcity, and this resource is becoming increasingly scarce.9
Global income inequality is staggering. Currently, the richest 1 percent of people in the world have as much wealth and Stuff as the bottom 57 percent.10
So what happens when there's a subsystem like the economy that keeps growing inside of a system of a fixed size? It hits the wall. The expanding economic system is running up against the limits of our planet's capacity to sustain life. Economists project that, with current and projected rates of growth, developed countries will grow at 2 to 3 percent per year, and China and India at 5 to10 percent per year.11 Already, in generating today's volume of goods and services across the world, we're producing more than five times (closer to six, actually) the level of CO2 emissions to which we'll need to reduce by 2050 in order to avoid total climate chaos.12
So that's the conundrum. Then factor in the impact of raising the standard of living for the world's poor (which inevitably means increasing their carbon dioxide emissions). With carbon dioxide overloading our fragile atmosphere, and our demands on all the other life-sustaining services and resources that the earth provides, we're stressing the planet beyond its limits. Put simply, if we do not redirect our extraction and production systems and change the way we distribute, consume, and dispose of our Stuff—what I sometimes call the take-make-waste model—the economy as it is will kill the planet. Look at the news coming through as I write these words: the financial markets have collapsed and were only partially resuscitated thanks to vast Wall Street/Washington bailouts; food prices are erratic and causing misery both for farmers and for the world's hungry; carbon dioxide levels are rising to life-threatening levels, and resources like oil, fish, and fresh water become scarcer every day.
In the face of the grim data and the stubbornness of the problem, I know it's tempting to tune out, give up, and resign oneself to the way things are. One friend told me that reading this kind of information actually makes her want to go shopping because it is such a relief to be in a situation where your biggest concern is if your shoes match your purse. People everywhere, but especially the poor, are experiencing crisis fatigue. Heck, there are flu pandemics, freak storms, unemployment, and foreclosures to worry about. The thing is, we don't have a choice. In the words of Joseph Guth, a lawyer, biochemist, and the legal director of the Science and Environmental Health Network: "Nothing is more important to human beings than an ecologically functioning, life sustaining biosphere on the Earth. It is the only habitable place we know of in a forbidding universe. We all depend on it to live and we are compelled to share it; it is our only home . . . The Earth's biosphere seems almost magically suited to human beings and indeed it is, for we evolved through eons of intimate immersion within it. We cannot live long or well without a functioning biosphere, and so it is worth everything we have."13
Fragmented Solutions
While the challenges are interconnected and system-wide, the responses are often partial, focused on just one area—like improving technologies, restricting population growth, or curbing the consumption of resources.
Proponents of techno-fixes, for example, believe that cleaner, greener, and more innovative technologies will make our industrial and economic activity so efficient with energy and other resources that our problems can be solved this way. They point out that there's less and less environmental destruction per unit of activity (per dollar of gross domestic product or per ton of product made). They're not wrong. Many technologies are getting more efficient. But that progress is canceled out by the fact that—at least adverse environmental impact is still increasing, regardless of more efficient technology.
The reason that green technologies will not save us is that they are only part of the picture. Our collective impact on the planet—how fast we reach the limits of the earth's capacity to sustain us—results from a combination of how many of us there are, what kind of technologies we use, and how much we're consuming. In technical terms, this is often represented by the I=PAT equation, which was conceived in the 1970s during debates between the camp that believed that technologies and consumption patterns were the main driver of environmental destruction and the opposing camp, which argued that increasing population was at fault. The I=PAT equation— in which I is impact, P is population, A is affluence (aka consumption), and T is the technologies used—recognizes the interplay between all these factors.
The equation helps us see how these factors can interact; generally we can decrease our impact by reducing population and/or improving technologies. Generally, but not always: not if other variables cancel out the change. Fewer people consuming much more Stuff, for example, still increases impact. More people consuming less Stuff could decrease impact. There are many ways these variables can relate to one another.
Of course total population growth is part of the problem: all you need to do is see those hockey-stick-like graphs on page xv to know that one of the big reasons that exponentially more of everything (trees, minerals, fresh water, fisheries, etc.) has been used up in the last fifty years is because there are exponentially more of us. It took us two hundred thousand years (until the early 1800s) to reach 1 billion people; then a little over a century (1960) to reach 3 billion; and we've more than doubled since then, with our current 6.7 billion and counting.14
Yet historically, interventions aimed at stabilizing global population have usually been driven by those in the overconsuming regions of the world and have often ignored the fact of vastly unequal consumption patterns. Often places with the most rapidly expanding populations are using very few (too few) resources. Meanwhile the very small slice of the global population that owns most of the world's wealth (the top 1 to 5 percent) is producing the lion's share of greenhouse gases and other environmental destruction. It's important that whatever strategies we democratically decide to employ in order to stabilize population must be grounded in an unshakable commitment to human rights, especially women's rights, and equity.
We don't know what the actual carrying capacity of the planet is, but we know it isn't one inflexible number; it depends on our levels and patterns of production and consumption. That raises huge issues about equity in until the economic crash of 2008—there was more absolute growth overall: more people extracting, using, and disposing of more Stuff. (Even the decline in production from 2008 to 2009 was relatively small, and if past trends are any guide, we will revert to growth soon enough.) So the overall resource distribution and value judgments about how much is enough.
Should we be asking how many people the planet can sustain at the U.S. level of consumption or at the Bangladesh level of consumption? And, importantly, who decides the answer?
The questions are complicated, but we need to have the conversation and decide on our answers together. We need to do this because there is no doubt we will reach the planet's carrying capacity; we're heading in that direction now. And once we cross that line, it's game over: We depend on this planet to eat, drink, breathe, and live. Figuring out how to keep our lifesupport system running needs to be our number-one priority. Nothing is more important than finding a way to live together—justly, respectfully, sustainably, joyfully—on the only planet we can call home.
If what's getting in the way of that is this human invention gone haywire—the take-make-waste economic growth machine—then it's only logical to consider dismantling and rebuilding that machine, improved upon by all that we've learned over the previous decades.
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text:
Moderated by Volier_Zcit
Edited by Volier_Zcit, Sep 09 2017 - 05:10.
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Moderated by Volier_Zcit
Edited by Volier_Zcit, Sep 09 2017 - 05:10.
I agree bring it back it was entertaining as hell.Every other game ive ever played was /is way more toxic than WOT was with cross chat.I would love to see these same offended snowflakes in F22 the game I played for damn near 10 yrs they would need counseling .
I'd wouldn't be against it ... conversation is important be it salty AF or civil AF.
general chat was hilarious, I missed it so much when it was gone...
Edited by Volier_Zcit, Sep 09 2017 - 05:12.
Ya know,, it's Funny....
At first it was like.. "Whew, it's nice not to be bombarded with such acidic comments and retarded name calling arguments"
However as of late, Now the the nasty comments are even coming from ones own team. LOL
I guess if those particular "types" could no longer vent at their rivals, they were forced to venting on their own teams.
No, no, no. Go away. No.
No The hateful comments were dreadful with all chat.
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text: Job Discussion Forums :: View topic - TED Kayseri info Get TEFL Certified & Start Your Adventure Today! Job Discussion Forums"The Internet's Meeting Place for ESL/EFL Students and Teachers from Around the World!" FAQ Search Memberlist Usergroups Register Profile Log in to check your private messages Log in TED Kayseri info Job Discussion Forums Forum Index -> Turkey View previous topic :: View next topic Author Message liehtzuJoined: 26 Feb 2003Posts: 35Location: North Thailand Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2003 7:33 am Post subject: TED Kayseri info Does anyone have any knowledge of a school called TED in the city of Kayseri? Has anyone ever been to Kayseri? Nice place? Much obliged. Cheers, Kris Back to top scot47Joined: 10 Jan 2003Posts: 15343 Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2003 11:10 am Post subject: Kayseri Kayseri ? Not a fun place according to what I have heard. Two colleagues in my last job in Saudi both worked there in the 1990's. One of them was reprimanded by the director for inappropriate behaviour in a public place. His crime ? He told someone a joke on the bus and they laughed. This is not a twenty-something clown, but a respectable 50-year-old with years of classroom and other experience. Only hearsay ? Maybe. But if you are going to Turkey do yourself a favour and go to Istanbul or Izmir. Back to top nimra_ghalatJoined: 03 Mar 2003Posts: 25 Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2003 2:28 am Post subject: kayseri Funny that Kayseri gets such bad press here. I was about to say it should be an interesting place to teach, even though my own experience there was being arrested (Xmas day) and interrogated for being a "spy" for talking with some Afghan refugees. If you go there, say hello to major Hasan Aydin, my interrogator. (He may have been put in the slammer after I sent him a communist party greeting card direct from the Soviet Union a year later.) Even though I was asked to leave town, I thought the place seemed kinda cool, with lots of local history (Kayseri is derived from "Caesaria"). The bread there is really neat: yard-long flat loaves that look like surfboards and which you can buy straight from the oven. Back to top yaramazJoined: 05 Mar 2003Posts: 2384Location: Not where I was before Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2003 8:50 pm Post subject: Interesting... I just thought I'd add my two million lira to the discussion... I'm currently teaching at the aforementionned TED Koleji and, well, it's not perfect but what the first (negative) poster said is an exaggeration. It's a reliable, friendly, easy place to work. You get paid on time every month. You get a decent flat. You can save a lot of money. The teaching is pretty simple. My main problems here are the kids and their lunacy, boredom due to a surreal lack of cafes, nightclubs, art or music, and being ocaasionally bothered by pervy men on the streets. This is not common though. I've been here since September and had actually planned to stay a second year but was offered a job teaching adults in Istanbul- more my style. One of the four native speakers will be staying on next year and he's a good, intelligent person. There is the possibility of a good life here, many generous, kind people and funky diverions, but you have to work hard to find them. We're only starting to fit in now that the term is almost finished... Back to top El GordoJoined: 22 Apr 2003Posts: 35Location: Turkey Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2003 1:05 pm Post subject: TED Kayseri I worked at TED Kayseri for a short spell in the late 90s. The school is fairly typical of Turkish private schools: the words 'rich', 'spoilt' and 'brats' immediately spring to mind. The high school (Lise) classes were absolutely dreadful, both in terms of behaviour and standard of English. The books were far too difficult for them and they expected everything to be translated into Turkish. When I explained that I was both unable and unwilling to do this, they lost interest immediately. They were so noisy that the vice-principal very often had to come in to quieten them down, but of course they started up again just as soon as he left. The high school prep classes (Lise Hazirlik), on the other hand, were very nice kids. They were all studying English for the first time, and some of them had come from state schools on scholarships. They realised that they needed to pass in English in order to proceed to the high school proper, and they were prepared to work. The primary classes up to Year 5 were mostly OK. Year 6 were starting to get a bit difficult, but were still manageable, while Year 7 were just as bad as Lise. Now, of course, there will also be a Year 8 in primary, so I dread to think what they may be like. The Turkish staff in the high school were very friendly and supportive, but sadly the same could not be said for Ali Guldas, the primary teacher in charge of foreign staff (whom we nicknamed Mr Okay on account of his irritating habit of ending every other sentence with "OK?"). He simply was not interested in helping the foreigners with their day-to-day problems (e.g. ordering gas bottles, sorting out problems with the accommodation, letting us know about forthcoming holidays - on a couple of occasions we turned up for work only to discover that it was a holiday!) The accommodation within the school campus was spacious but extremely sparsely furnished. What little furniture there was was old, rickety and threadbare. The decor was reminiscent of a British public lavatory, i.e. bare white walls and flourescent lights, not the sort of place you would look forward to going home to after a hard day with the spoilt brats. I notice that in his recent advertisements, Mr Guldas refers to the staff accommodation being situated in the school 'garden'. The 'garden' is in fact the playground for the primary school, but what he fails to mention is that the bedrooms back on to a noisy street which seems to be a hang-out for the local youth. On nights when there was a football match, the shouting and singing often went on until 1 am or later. They say there's no such thing as a free lunch - well, at TED Kayseri there certainly isn't. It must be unique among Turkish schools in that it does not provide free lunches for its staff. One advantage of this policy is that there is more choice than one would normally find. There are two separate cafeterias serving a variety of traditional Turkish dishes along with the ubiquitous burgers and hot-dogs. Prices were quite reasonable, much less than you would pay outside. Kayseri itself is a religiously conservative city, and anyone going there should be aware that certain types of behaviour - while of course not illegal - will be frowned upon. Bringing someone of the opposite sex back to your apartment is a definite no-no: to get into the school grounds you have to go through a gate manned by a security guard, and you can bet that he will be making a careful note of who is coming and going, and when. Alcohol is not part of the culture, and while it is freely available in shops there are not many bars in town and you should certainly avoid appearing drunk in public. During Ramadan alcohol may not be purchased during daylight hours (the drinks shelves in supermarkets are screened off) and as far as I know the only restaurant open was McDonalds. To avoid causing offence, it is best to refrain from eating, drinking or smoking in public when the fast is being observed. You will not be arrested for it, but you will certainly incur some tut-tutting and I have heard reports of some people being subjeted to verbal abuse in the street. The school cafeteria continues to serve lunch during Ramadan, but with a greatly restricted menu. When I was there, the only customers were some primary school children and the foreign staff - all the Turkish teachers and most of the students observed the fast. Regarding shopping, you will find your day-to-day needs are adequately catered for. There are several small grocery shops just across the street from the school, a supermarket about five minutes' walk away, and a full range of stores in the city centre about 20 minutes' walk away. If you do not want to walk there is a good bus / minibus service. One other thing worth mentioning is the extreme cold in winter. Night-time lows of -25C (yes, minus twenty-five!) are common from December until February, with daytime highs of no more than -10C (minus ten). It is a dry cold, so it is not that unpleasant provided you come prepared for it. Fortunately the school and the apartments are well heated. Some advice if you do decide to accept the offer. Insist on teaching only primary up to Year 5 or 6, and high school prep. Do not accept primary 7 or 8, or high school classes unless you have experience with and enjoy teaching that age-group. Do not accept a timetable which gives you only one or two lessons a week with fifteen or twenty different classes - you will not get to know the students and they will not take your lessons seriously because they know that the grades you give them will count for virtually nothing. Insist on having each of your classes for at least three, and preferably more, lessons a week, insist on being given a proper grade-book in which to record students' grades, and let your classes know that your grades will count towards the final overall English grade. I hope you will find my comments useful. Back to top yaramazJoined: 05 Mar 2003Posts: 2384Location: Not where I was before Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2003 2:47 pm Post subject: a few more things With regards to the classes at TED Koleji, I teach grades 5, 6, and 7. The 6s are by far the sweetest kids I've ever taught. The 5s and 7s vary in mood from class to class. Some are just lovely, others make me cringe. The grade 8s are not taught by native speakers this year as they are preparing for exams that don't include English. Just as well as they are quite brutish in the hallways. Some of the boys actually try to bully me regularly, shouting obscenities in Turkish at me when I pass. Do not judge them by age group though, as I know the under-grade-5s aren't as easy or even as sane as implied. I teach the 5s three times a week, and the 6s and 7s 2 times a week. I still don't know half of their names after eight months here. Also, please note: we don't give grades. None. We have absolutely no power. The kids do not take us seriously. We are their free lesson, their goof off hour, their hour to go crazy in. And they do. Fights, yelling, screaming, throwing things, constant arguing, refusal to do any work... normal. Ali Guldas is trying to do something about this (he says) but we've tried so many discipline tactics this year to no avail. You really are alone here in this regard. Just breathe deeply and let the chaos wash over you. And if that fails, the Yakut Kavaklidere red wine from Migros is a nice way to end the day. Back to top El GordoJoined: 22 Apr 2003Posts: 35Location: Turkey Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2003 4:25 pm Post subject: Grades Quote: Do not judge them by age group though, as I know the under-grade-5s aren't as easy or even as sane as implied A valid point. I was only giving a snaphot of TED as I saw it a few years ago, and of course classes can and do vary as regards behaviour and attitude within the same age-group. In general terms, though, I have always found Years 3 to 6 much more manageable than the older students. Quote: Also, please note: we don't give grades. In my days at TED the native speakers gave two exams and two oral grades per semester, but since we only had each class for one or two lessons a week (except the Lise Hazirlik, with whom we had 6 lessons a week) our grades counted for little. But a little was better than nothing at all, and the threat to give "1" as an oral grade was sometimes enough to make an unruly little brat sit up and pay attention. As it happened, we foreigners dished out the "1"s quite liberally, too liberally for some people's liking (and I don't mean just the students!), and I suspect that that may be the reason why you are no longer issued with grade-books. Given the importance of grades in the Turkish system, I would advise anyone who is considering working in a primary / high school to enquire what the school policy is regarding giving grade-books to foreign staff. If you are not going to be allowed that little bit of authority which having a grade-book confers, you may well be in for problems of the type Yaramaz alludes to. Ah yes, Migros. Two "M"s, down near the fish-market if my memory serves me. My own preference was for Almer, though that meant having to carry the bottles that bit further! Back to top yaramazJoined: 05 Mar 2003Posts: 2384Location: Not where I was before Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2003 4:51 pm Post subject: Booze.. Almer doesn't sell alcohol these days. Nor does Begendik, closest to the school. Sok does, as do a few little corner shops. Seek them out early as they will be your friends. Also, do as we did and befriend the staff at the Hilton above Almer- they're expats from Istanbul sent out unwillingly and are just as miserable and bored as you. They will put a happy shot of Bailey's into your 3 million lira coffee for free... Back to top martha oralJoined: 21 Feb 2003Posts: 10Location: Ankara, Turkey Posted: Thu May 01, 2003 2:52 pm Post subject: TEDS around Turkey the best thing about most of the TED schools in Turkey is that they have been hiring foreigners for years and know how to treat them - unlike many of the newer private schools. Kayseri is not the most exciting towns but it certainly isn't as bad as some of the posters claim. And hey, best thing about Kayseri....pretty damn good skiing in the winter! Life is certainly cheaper there than in the bigger cities, you can probably save a large part of your salary. 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text: Remember Jean-Claude Van Damme's split between two Volvo trucks, the ad that wasn't computer generated but an actual stunt? Well, Chuck Norris splitting between two Lockheed C-5 Galaxy with a squad of special forces on top of his hat is CGI. But that doesn't matter, because if Chuck wanted, Chuck would totally do it.


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It is commonly thought that good code should be thoroughly commented. In fact, this is the opposite of good practice. A coding strategy that does not allow the programmer to use coding as a crutch is good. Programs should be legible on their own.
Here are the most common scenarios:
- Bad. The comment is understandable and it precedes an un-understandable piece of code. When the maintainer of the code goes through this, they still have to do a lot of work to figure out how to change the code, or to figure out where the bug might be.
- Better. The comment is understandable, and the line of code is also understandable. Now you are making the reader read the same thing twice. This also dilutes code into a sea of just words.
- Best. There is no comment. Only an understandable piece of code due to good naming, good abstractions, and a solid design. Good job!
- Terrible. The comment is understandable. The code it describes does not do what the comment says. The bug hides in here. The maintainer has to read every piece of your un-understandable code because they have realized they can't trust your comments, which they shouldn't anyway. And so all your commenting effort was for nothing. This scenario is surprisingly common.
When are comments acceptable?
- Documentation. If you have a mature set of tools, you might have them to the point that the user can just read the manual, rather than read the code. This is intended for users, not maintainers, and usually takes the form of a large comment that automated documentation generation tools can interpret.
- Surprising/odd behavior of libraries you are using. Matlab has some weird things it does, and sometimes I like to notify the maintainer that this line of code looks this way for a reason (especially if the line of code is more complex than a naive implementation would appear to require because of subtleties of the programming language or libraries/packages being used.) It can be counter-argued that rather than put in a comment you could put in a set of unit tests that explore all the edge-case behavior and encapsulate byzantine code into functions whose names describe the requirements that the code is trying to meet.
- When your program is best explained with pictures. Programs are strings. But sometimes they represent or manipulate essentially graphical entities. For example, a program that represents a balanced binary search tree involves tree rotation manipulations. These manipulations are very difficult to describe in prose, and so they are similarly difficult to describe in code. Some ASCII art can be a real life saver in this kind of situation, because code is a poor representation of diagrams. So think of it this way: don't let yourself write text in comments but its okay to draw figures in the comments.
For more on these ideas, please just get Robert Martin's book on Clean Code.


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Tuesday, January 03, 2012
The 2012 US Elections on Google Maps
The 2012 US Elections are still eleven months away but they are already hard to avoid. With so much political information, opinion and news to filter and digest Google has decided to launch an elections hub, Google Elections, to help citizens sift through the noise.
Part of the Google Elections hub is On the Ground, a Google Map of news stories and videos from the campaign trail. Currently the map is centred on Iowa with links to reports and videos from the Iowa Caucuses.
Via: Google Blog
Posted by Keir Clarke at 8:15 AM
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Moss Bros. is the UK's no.1 formal menswear specialist. Est. 1851. Buy online and get free UK home delivery or collect in one of our stores. Free returns.
Shop our latest collection of men's jackets and blazers. From heritage checks and tweeds to classic and contemporary plains. A must have for the season ahead, this versatile classic goes well with chinos or jeans for a smart casual look.


text: Our fairies and gnomes have been busy building whimsical houses along our Kingfisher Pond Trail this winter. More than a dozen miniature abodes line our trails – slow down as you search for the houses made from tiny natural objects. Bundle up and head out to the trail with us this winter and perhaps create your own house in our Free Play Area while you are here! This event runs daily Dec. 9-Feb. 28. Included with general admission and free for CNC members.


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coop up
Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus, Financial, Encyclopedia.
coop up
To restrict someone or something to a particular, usually small, space for a length of time. A noun or pronoun can be used between "coop" and "up." Just let the dogs run in the yard—they've been cooped up all day. After that snowstorm cooped us up for days, we were thrilled to leave the house again.
coop someone or something up
to confine someone or something in a small place. Don't coop me up. I can't stand small places. We had to coop up the dogs for a while.


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After three episodes and dozens of auditions "The Voice" teams are at capacity.
During Monday night's final try-outs, Cee Lo Green learned he doesn't get second chances, Christina Aguilera found a new favorite and 48 newly-minted contestants looked ahead to battle phase. Here's where the teams stand:
Team Adam:
The Maroon 5 front-man was the first to fill his five-man, seven-woman team. He capped off his group with Whitney Meyer—a woman who's ditching her family band to try her luck on the hit NBC show—and Orlando Napier, a blues singer/songwriter from California.
U.S. & World
News from around the country and around the globe
Team Cee Lo:
Cee Lo's first additions of the night were the Shields brothers, a pair of wild-haired rockers hoping to trade their parents' farmhouse for a tour bus. He also gained Cheesa, an eccentric Hawaiian native, and Wade, who capped Cee Lo's eclectic team after a strong rendition of "Rehab." If he had it his way, he would have also added Cameron Novack, whose performance of Alanis Morissette's "You Ought to Know" concluded with Novack freestyling about why it doesn't matter that no one picked him and Cee Lo asking producers if he could bend the rules and add him. "I made a mistake," he confessed.
Team Blake:
Blake filled his final slots with Lex Land, a sultry, soulful singer, and Adley Stump, a sorority girl-turned-country-singer.
Team Christina:
Gun shy Christina waited until the episode's final half to start making picks. Her first was Lee Koch, a folk-inspired singer who surprisingly won her vote with his harmonica play in the song's final bar. The last was Sera Hill who becomes the final member of her male-heavy team (eight men, five women—including one duo). "I was sitting here waiting for someone to excite me," Aguilera said. "And you did." Hill excited her so much, that the diva grabbed a microphone and jumped on stage to close the show jamming with her new favorite lady.
The battle round, which involves intra-team contests and eliminations, begins next Monday at 8 p.m Eastern on NBC.


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QUITO, ECUADOR — (Marketwire) — 01/22/13 — BluForest Inc. (OTCQB: BLUF)
is pleased to announce that on January 21, 2013 FINRA confirmed receipt of all necessary documents and approvals for BluForest Inc. request for a 30:1 rollback. This corporate action will take effect at the open of business, 1/23/2013. The new symbol on this date will be BLUFD. Please note that a "D" has been appended as the 5th character for 20 business days including the effective date.
. BluForest Inc. is a development stage company that is a publically traded carbon offsets marketing and renewable energy company. BLUF is executing its strategy to become a leading marketer of carbon offsets in the voluntary markets under the UN principle of Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+). The BluForest website provides further information about the company which prospective investors are encouraged to visit.
Statements contained herein that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. Those statements include statements regarding the intent, belief or current expectations of the company and its management. Such statements reflect management–s current views, are based on certain assumptions and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results, events, or performance may differ materially from the above forward-looking statements due to a number of important factors, and will be dependent upon a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, the company–s ability to obtain additional financing and the demand for the company–s products. Any investment in the company would be extremely speculative and involve a high degree of risk and should not be pursued unless the investor could afford to lose their entire investment. Before investing, please review this filing, all past public filings with the SEC, all current Pinksheets.com filings and consult a registered broker dealer or contact the financial industry regulatory authority ("FINRA") for more information regarding locating a qualified party to assist in making an investment decision. The company undertakes no obligation to publicly update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances that occur after the date hereof or to reflect any change in the company–s expectations with regard to these forward-looking statements or the occurrence of unanticipated events. Factors that may impact the company–s success are more fully disclosed in the company–s most recent public filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Forward-looking statements are typically identified by the use of terms such as "anticipate," "believe," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "might," "plan," "predict," "project," "should," "will," and similar words, although some forward-looking statements are expressed differently. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, we can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct.
On behalf of the Board of BluForest Inc.
Contact Us:
Company phone number: 1-855-509-5508


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Well, it's official… 5 months after we bought our house, I am finally sharing the first remodel- Avery's Bedroom! Avery's room is painted, pictures are hung, and every lego and hot wheels is stashed away in a bucket or bin. Here's a timeline of how it all went down…
April 2014-October 2015: Avery & My Room at my parents house:
Grampy made us a snazy bunk bed (I designed it, he built it!), so we could share a room while we stayed with them and saved up to buy the house. Avery could re-use the bed in the new house and have room for friends to sleep over when he gets older.
We made it home for the 18 months we stayed with Mimi and Grampy – using wall stickers and hanging pictures and artwork over Aunt Sarah's orange walls (It was her room before we moved in).
October 22, 2015: Avery's new room needed a little work before he moved in…
We chose this room in the new house for Avery's room. It was one of two rooms on the main floor of the house, with the other bedroom next door and bathroom off the same hall. Our house is BIG! So, we decided to live mostly on the main level and expand to the rest of the house eventually. This means less to furnish, remodel, heat, and CLEAN! (We have FOUR bathrooms… less to clean was essential!) So, Avery's room was Uncle John's Office/Entry Mud Room. There was a door from this room into the garage. Our first order of business was to close it up. (the garage can be accessed thru the basement, upstairs, back, and front doors, so we didn't really NEED it)
Grampy worked his carpentry magic and framed up the wall, then closed it up and had some help sanding it…
And painting it…
This is about the time Grampy teased Avery that he was going to make him a secret door into the garage that Avery could sneak out of, and Avery remembers everything, so when it was closed up, Avery kept asking where the secret door was.
October 26, 2015: We officially moved in and our 'stuff' was finding its way into each room in the new house.
Avery's bunk bed came a little later because it needed a fresh coat of paint to match the new color theme. When asked what color he wanted his room, Avery chose BLUE. His favorite. I scored a FREE matching set of twin comforters from a friend (Thanks Victoria!) so, we chose a blue that would accent those well (What's better than Free is a friend with great taste that gives away free goodies!). The walls were given a fresh off-white and Avery got his big blue accent wall.
I didn't buy any new furniture. Avery's closet is big enough for storage and hanging clothes. He had a dresser, toy box, his activity table (which was originally a train table that the train set has outgrown and now its perfect for puzzles, legos, play-doh, etc.), and book/toy shelf.
December 26, 2015: Finished!
Grampy installed the bunk-bed, Mimi supplied some awesome light blocking curtains (essential when your kiddo's bedtime is before the sunset), I hung Avery's artwork, and other little details. Christmas came with the final touch for the room: picture frames of Dusty Crophopper. Last summer Steve took me on a surprise date. We setup by the lake on a picnic table with easels, dixie cups of wine, a giant box of crayons, and a coloring book from Planes (one of Avery's favorite Disney movies). It was his version of a 'Paint and Sip' night and said we could put the pictures up in Avery's room when we bought the house. So there they are.
Avery loves his room… not only because he can shut the door and Rosie can't bother him, but because he has a place of his own. Just yesterday he re-started his responsibility chart (a Melissa and Doug board that we LOVE) and said he was going to clean up his room. Having a finished FOREVER room (well, until he's in highschool and begs to move into the guest room in the basement, so Grampy predicts because that's what I did!) for Avery makes me one super proud Momma – hard work really does pay off.
Onto the next room… I've been slowly working the past three months on little projects in the office and it's almost 'done'…. like a project is really ever DONE, ha!


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Analysis of a water pipe compression fitting failure: improper repairs give rise to claims.
Great care should be exercised when installing compression couplings, as installation errors can cause pipe failure resulting in expensive property claims.
Figure 1 to the right is a view of a typical plumbing compression fitting used to splice plumbing pipes. In some installations with long pipes and limited access, replacement of a section of pipe is accomplished with two compression couplings at each end of the replacement pipe.
The following case study illustrates the importance of precise installation. Plumbers repaired a pipe that was leaking, as a result of corrosion, on the third floor in an old historic building. They removed a section of the pipe and replaced it along with two compression couplings, one at each end. The plumbers finished the work and left. Approximately three days later, one of the compression fittings parted, causing a significant water loss.
The arrow in Figure 2 shows the pipe that had parted from the compression fitting.
Figure 3 depicts the parted pipe and the outline of the compressed rubber seal of the compression fitting. The compression fitting worked its way off the end of the pipe, allowing water to pour down several floors of the building.
Further inspection of the vertical pipe in the basement yields a clue as to the cause of the coupling failure (shown in Figure 4). The vertical pipe that pulled loose of the coupling (as highlighted by the arrow in Figure 4) terminated at a T fitting with a larger pipe.
The hangars of the larger pipe had deteriorated, thereby rendering the large pipe virtually unsupported other than the support of the vertical pipe that failed. The friction of the vertical pipe through the concrete floors and the deteriorated pipe hangars were the sole restraint holding the large horizontal pipe in place.
Figure 5 illustrates the failure scenario. Figure 5A shows the system with the coupling in place, shortly after the plumbers had left the job site. Figure 5B shows that the vertical load-carrying capacity of the pipe has been significantly reduced with the usage of the compression fitting. Because of the limited axial-force capacity of the vertical pipe when using compression fittings, the deteriorated hangars failed, shifting the load to the vertical pipe and couplings. The couplings could not support the load, and then slipped and parted.
It should be noted that compression fittings require restraints against axial movement brought on by weight and vibration-related forces. Unlike threaded fittings, compression fittings can seal properly but nevertheless slip out of position as a result of forces on a pipe. In this case, the plumbers failed to properly restrain the repaired pipe when using compression fittings.
Figure 5C shows that a restraint for the vertical pipe and hangar repair should have been performed before job completion. A quick inspection of the pipe in the basement would have revealed the necessity to repair the pipe hangars and restrain the repaired pipe. No defects were noted in the compression fittings that could have caused the failure. Analysis of the evidence suggests that the underlying cause of the failure was improper repair of a water pipe.
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|Roberts, Charles C., Jr.
|Apr 1, 2012
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Climate change is the environmental problem that obsesses us, the one that's the focus of high-flying international summits and hardcore national politics. But it's not the only environmental problem and it's not even the biggest one. That happens to be the crisis in agriculture and land use, the subject of what Jon Foley the head of the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment calls the "other inconvenient truth." Put simply, the act of feeding 7 billion plus human beings already puts more stress on the planet than any other single activity and with both population and global wealth continuing to grow, we're going to need to figure out a way to produce more food without further damaging the environment. Otherwise we may end up running out of both food and the planet.
Of course, exactly how we should address these problems is the subject of fierce debate in the U.S. and beyond. Is the solution to go organic as much as possible, or should we focus on trying to extend the fertilizer and irrigation of the Green Revolution to underperforming agricultural areas in Africa and Asia? Do we need to change our diet and reduce meat consumption, or is it simply unrealistic to expect more of us to become semi-vegetarians especially among the rising global middle class just getting a chance to eat like Americans? How much value do intact forests and wildlife habitat have as we struggle to feed the 1 billion people who go to bed hungry each night? And is it really food production we need to improve, or distribution?
I've had a chance to hear Foley ponder his inconvenient truth a couple of times recently first at a panel I moderated at the New York Academy of Sciences, and then at the Cooking for Solutions conference at the Monterey Aquarium in California. I like Foley because he can distill the big questions facing the human race in a handful of striking facts or images, but also because he approaches those same questions with a resolute pragmatism you don't always find in the environmental field especially when it comes to food. "Can we feed the world and sustain the planet?" asks Foley. "Yes it's possible. But not with business as usual."
It's important to understand just how massive global agriculture's footprint really is. First there's simply the matter of land: 6.2 million sq. mi (16 million sq. km) are currently used to grow crops an amount of land about equal to the size of South America while 11.6 million sq. mi (30 million sq. km) has been set aside for pastureland, an area equal to the entire African continent. Altogether that's more than 40% of the dry land on the planet. We use 60 times more land to grow and raise food than we do to live on. Farming takes half the world's available freshwater, much of which is used for irrigation. And all that activity plus the deforestation and degradation that tends to go hand in hand with farming helps make agriculture the single biggest source of manmade greenhouse gases, more than industry or transportation or electricity generation. "We are running out of everything," says Foley. "We are running out of planet."
That's worrying enough today, given the fact that so many human beings remain hungry even in this moment of unprecedented abundance. But depending on population growth and global diets, we may need to produce twice as much food by mid-century as we do now. The simplest way to grow more food is to farm on more land, but that would come with major environmental consequences. The arable territory that we haven't transformed into cropland or pastureland tends to be forest, including the great rainforests of South America and Asia. Cutting those forests down as we're already doing now might help produce more food, but it would come with a major environmental cost. We'd be wiping out the most important wildlife habitats left on this crowded planet, even as we add more carbon to the atmosphere through deforestation. "We need to freeze the footprint of agriculture," says Foley. "We need to farm the land we do farm better."


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The Canadian "People for Good" effort has tried to encourage Canadians to do good deeds.
One bus ran a PSA with the slogan: "Need a lift?" And below it said "You look great today." Here are some suggestions they make:
- Smile at a stranger – or wave at your fellow subway passenger
- Open and hold the door for someone
- Give up your seat on the subway, bus or streetcar
- Buy a coffee for your co-worker
- Surprise your colleagues with freshly baked brownies
- Cut grass or shovel snow for your neighbor
- Help a stranger change a tire on the road – or put in a coin in expiring parking meter for someone you don't know
- Return a grocery cart after someone has used it or let a stranger ahead of you in a store line
- While on Facebook, just pick up the phone and give your friend a call
- Simply say ''Thank you'' to someone who helped you – and really mean it
- Mow your neighbor's lawn
- Instead of an email, send a handwritten note.
- Call your mother
- Bring home flowers.
- Make cookies for your neighbors
- Do a chore, even if it's not your turn.
- Give up the remote
- Make breakfast for the household
Go say hello to your neighbor.
Tell someone you love them.
Unload the dishwasher.
Have dinner at the table with the whole family.
Wake up in a good mood.
Give someone first dibs on the morning paper.
Clean out your closet and donate your old clothes.
Say good morning to a stranger.
Help someone cross the street.
Offer to give someone directions
Pick up a piece of litter.
For more suggestions, visit here. Peopleforgood.ca is the brainchild of Mark Sherman, Exec. Chair, Media Experts (a media strategy firm), and Zak Mroueh, President, Zula Alpha Kilo (advertising agency).
Add your own ideas by posting comments.
See also our list of 150 things you can do to build social capital.


text:
The Nevada Open Records Act allows anyone to request public records with no statement of purpose. There are no restrictions on how the records may be used. Here is a template for requesting public records in the state of Nevada in compliance with the Open Records Act.
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Our easy to use tools allow you to easily manage and track data as well as assign and message.
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More efficient processes mean that you save both time and money on EVERY form submission.
Learn how a form automation solution that can help your municipality meet its initiative goals.
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Doggie Dash & Dawdle is Animal Humane's largest fundraiser and the canine social event of the year! With a 5k Dash and a 2 Mile Dawdle, Dash Bash, and Pet Plaza, every dog can have his day!
Participation in Doggie Dash raises money to help Animal Humane care for homeless pets in our community.
The event is scheduled this year on Sunday, November 6th, 2011 at the Balloon Fiesta Park. Event starts at 8 AM. Early registration is available, or you may register upon entry. Come on, come all! It is a LOT of fun for ALL!!!
Here are some photos I took last year. I plan on being there again this year with my two fuzz-butts.


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Wis. Army National Guard names soldiers of the year
The Wisconsin Army National Guard announced Monday its soldier and Non-commissioned officer of the year recipients.
Spc. Brandon Byrne, of Oak Creek, was named the 2013 State Soldier of the Year, and Sgt. Edward Schmitt, of Lake Mills, was named noncommissioned Officer of the Year.
Both men competed in a series of events that included a physical fitness test, a combatives tournament, firearms qualifications and several other tests.
"I can't tell you how proud I am of each and every one," Command Sgt. Maj. Bradley Shields said of those competing in the contest. "It takes a special kind of soldier to be able to raise their hand to volunteer for an event like this."
Spc. Byrne is with Company B, 257th Brigade Support Battalion, and Sgt. Schmitt represented the 54th Civil Support Team, 64th Troop Command.
Both men will be honored at an upcoming Milwaukee Brewers home game and throw out the first pitch of the game. Byrne and Schmitt now move on to represent Wisconsin in a regional competition May 13-16 in Illinois.