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School Uniform

The children are expected to wear school uniform at all times when school is in session.

The school colours are red, grey and white.

Trousers/Skirt/pinafore – Grey

Blouse or shirt – white

Polo shirt – red or white

Jumper/sweatshirt/cardigan – red or grey

Year 6 – white shirt and school tie

Plain uniform can be bought from any high street clothing stores, uniform with our school logo on can only be bought from Tesco uniform online (details for online ordering are below), that includes reversible shower-proof fleeces, sun hats, woollen hats, sweat shirts, cardigans, ‘T’ shirts (no collar for P.E.), P.E. bag and polo shirts (red or white) all bearing the school logo.

All children should wear black leather/leather look shoes with flat heels.

shoes yes&no

We expect the children to wear the school uniform throughout the year. The wearing of “beach and holiday” clothes is not allowed.

Physical Education

It is important that the children change into suitable clothing before starting their lesson.

The following is our recommended list for P.E. kit.

White `T’ shirt

Red or black shorts

Plimsolls for indoor work (with their name in)

Trainers for outdoor work (with their name in)

(for outdoor P.E. in the winter the children should bring in a tracksuit top and bottoms – any type)

White socks – no tights

The link for Tesco school uniform site has changed the link below is the new one.

To enable you to be able to order school uniform throughout the year we have signed up to Tesco’s uniform service.  Below is all the information you need to place an order and you get clubcard points and free delivery as well as Tesco donating 5% commission to the school.

How to order:-

1) Go to (or click on this link –Tesco School Uniform)

2) Select your school from the list and you will see all the customised items you can buy.

3) Choose the quantity and sizes you’d like, then add them to your basket.

4) Pay with a debit or credit card at the checkout.

5) Your embroidered items will be delivered free within 14 days.

Delivery is up to 28 days (guaranteed).

Please note:- On the Tesco site the Polo shirts are school uniform and the T-shirts without collar are P.E. tops.


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Thursday, November 3, 2011

Decisions, Decisions

I have decided to try to enter quilts into two categories at the Machine Quilter's Showcase. The first category is Overall Design. This category can be any quilt design. The second category is Bread and Butter. This category is restricted to two quilt blocks, Storm at Sea and Snail's Trail. Whew, no difficult decisions there. Storm at Sea is a design I've liked for years. Decision made.

It's the Overall Design category that has me stumped. I have been working on designs for the string quilt blocks that I've been making for a year, or two, or three. String blocks seem appropriate for an overall quilting design.

My friend, Kathleen, had this really great idea for a border for those string blocks. Now, I haven't done it justice in EQ7. Her flowers were much cuter. I just haven't figured out how to use the applique tracing feature of the program. It does sort of give you the idea of the border though.

This is design #2. I'm using the string blocks, but have white on half to create the zigzag and bring the white into the border. This plays on Kathleen's design with the stems creating a zigzag effect.

This is #3. The quilt would be trimmed at the red band to create a zigzag shape.

Which one is your favorite? I could use some help making a decision. Please leave a comment with your choice.

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

  2. Oh man what a hard choice they are all really great designs. If this is an over all design your doing I would say #3 the zig zag edge would add wonderful interest to the quilt.
    If you were doing custom, I would have picked #2-those white areas would be a great showcase area.
    But #1 is just such an amazing way to really take string quilts to the next level, maybe two levels....
    I'm betting tho' whatever one you do it will be quilted to perfection. I'm excited to watch the progression (if you are able) or see the final results if you aren't!

  3. I felt that design 2 was the most striking, but if you are doing an all-over type quilting, then design 3 seems the most suitable.
    Design 1 is lovely, but I think you would lose the effect of the flowers and the diagonal movement of the stems when you quilt it.
    Design 2 gives you room for some lovely block quilting in the white spaces, but if I've understood you right, that's now what you're doing here.

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Slim and Franke

Slim and Franke
Happy New Year

Friday, May 27, 2005

So Special

A birthday greeting
Can't get much better
Than a perfect card and
A Chicken Sweater!

Thank you sister.

Well, a duster paw and a tractor fan is pretty cool too. And Pot Roast with gravy owed is super.

(Warning, this pattern chicken sweater copyright "c 2005 Design Options, Inc." All Rights Reserved)

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How military kids are supporting other military children

This is a very exciting time for my granddaughters,Ivie and Bailey, and myself.  We completed writing  their book- Deployed Kids  and now we have a new website for military children.

After my granddaughter’s, completed their book -Deployed Kids, we talked about how we could further help support military kids. We felt what was needed was a website for military kids to connect with other military kids, like themselves. This enables my granddaughters to share with their peers, how they handle having  parents in the military.  Military kids face many challenges- a military lifestyle, parents deploying and frequent household moves. Children experiencing their parents’ deployment face the  loss of a parent’s personal involvement of their daily routine. Even though these military children’s parents are absent from their children’s daily routine, most children are extremely proud of their parents.

Deployed Kids website will have blog posts of Ivie and Bailey  sharing their thoughts of what they have learned having  their parents in the military. How they cope with their parents past and future deployments. They will include how they presently do not live on a military base, their after school  activities,their plans for summer  and  personal tips of keeping  positive outlook, even when you are dealing with a parent’s deployment. They want other military kids to know how special they are. They too, are serving our Country!

These Kids are the Force  behind our Force.

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Who’s Who: MATT BALSOR: The Valley’s Country Music Prince

Who’s Who: MATT BALSOR: The Valley’s Country Music Prince

By Mike Butler

Growing up was very fun for me. I have a wonderful, supportive family and I can’t remember a time in my life when music didn’t play a huge part in our lives. With the age ranges of my aunts, uncles, sisters, cousins, and grandparents, I was influenced by just about every genre of music. My sisters bombarded me with the 80’s, and aunts and uncles kicked it up a notch with 70’s rock and disco, but it was my parents and my grandparents that introduced me to the wonderful world of golden oldies and classic country.

I have very distinct memories of driving with my Grampie blasting the Statler Brothers, the Oak Ridge Boys and Charley Pride, as well as clear visions of singing in the kitchen with my mother to the hits of Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, George Jones, Conway Twitty, Tammy Wynette, Johnny Cash and countless other country legends.

It’s this love and appreciation for the pioneers of country music that sparked my interest in the incredible musician being featured in this Who’s Who, Matt Balsor!

Matt Balsor was born in Coldbrook but currently resides in Hantsport. Matt completed a Bachelor’s degree in business administration with honours at Acadia University and

is a Fellow of the Credit Union Institute of Canada, but music is the burning passion of this very talented man.

“I spent close to 10 years in the financial services industry with Valley Credit Union. The last four years were spent supervising the Hantsport branch. Earlier in 2017, I accepted a position at Acadia University in the Department of Co-operative Education,” says Matt. “It is deeply rewarding having the opportunity to work with students as they shape their future. I believe educators have an extremely important role to play in society, one that I take very seriously.”

Matt also owns an income tax preparation business which he operates out of Hantsport. He currently serves over 200 clients and is always looking to meet new people.

That’s his professional resume, but Matt is probably even more well-known for being a musician and entertainer. 2018 will mark 20 years in the music business for Matt, and in that time he has released 12 studio albums, made various radio and television appearances, and performed in concert with Grand Ole Opry star Larry Gatlin, Canadian country music legend Carroll Baker, and many other Hall of Fame inductees. His country and gospel music have been played on the radio throughout Canada, the United States, Europe, and Australia.

The biggest recording of Matt’s career to date was released in July of 2012. Matt Balsor & Friends is a 26-song recording featuring duets with different singers. Something of this magnitude has never been done before, at least in Canada, and the response has been mind-blowing. “I am delighted that I was able to coordinate and co-produced something that will become a long-lasting piece of music history here in Nova Scotia and beyond,” says Matt.

The recording made its way to Germany and caught the attention of a country music publicist who is responsible for writing international country music encyclopedias. Matt was selected as one of the artists from Nova Scotia to be featured in a Canadian edition released in 2014. One article features Matt’s career and the other is a review of Matt Balsor & Friends. Matt was named one of the top 250 International Country Music Artists in 2011 by the European Country Music Association.

Matt loves his fans (his friends, as he calls them) and says that his secret to success is simple: “be good to the people and they will be good to you.” He is very interactive with his audience and can be seen during intermissions mingling with the audience, getting pictures with his supporters, and giving lots of hugs. I recently saw photos of Matt waiting tables at Surf Restaurant in Hantsport as part of his commitment to giving back to the community. He is often heard saying, “It is my faithful supporters that have sustained me over the years and I will never take them for granted.”

This is one artist worth following, folks. I strongly suggest you go to mattbalsor.com where you can view his concert dates as well as listen to samples from his various recordings and much more. Matt is a very busy musician with shows and special engagements throughout Nova Scotia so keep up to date and seek him out.

Despite being internationally renowned, Matt’s heart lies in the Valley and in Nova Scotia. “The Annapolis Valley is full of wonderful, kind, hard-working people,” he says, “I am thankful for the support received and for the opportunities I have had both personally and professionally. I have no desire to live or work anywhere else.”

Matt hopes to have another 20 years in the music business, keeping traditional country music alive and performing the songs he’s loved his whole life. Matt says, “Not everyone can afford to go to Nashville or even pay the $100 ticket prices in Halifax for huge stage shows with more lights than music sometimes. My objective is to bring all the glitz and glamor of a Nashville show to Nova Scotia and to the many people who love country music and a great entertainment experience.”

Thank you, Matt; for your talent and for keeping this terrific music alive.


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Govt constitutes team for demarcation of encroached land at Zoonimar, Sadrabal

Jammu, Publish Date: Jan 19 2018 12:02AM | Updated Date: Jan 19 2018 12:02AM

Minister for Agriculture Production, Ghulam Nabi Lone Hanjura today informed the Legislative Council that a team of officers under the supervision of assistant commissioner, Revenue Srinagar has been constituted for on spot demarcation of encroached land in twin villages of Zoonimar and Sadrabal.

The minister was replying to a ‘Calling Attention Notice’ moved by MLC Surinder Mohan Ambardar,  who drew the attention of the government towards ‘the situation of that has arisen due to the encroachment of 90 kanals of land by land mafia at Bota Bagh, Mugal Mohalla, Lal Bazar, Srinagar and the action taken in this regard.”

The minister presented in the House the details of land, names of owners and other details furnished by the team.

The minister further informed that some ailerons have given power of attorney to local persons for land measuring 50 Kanals,   7 kanals. “The subject case has been heard by the district magistrate Srinagar and he has passed an order to constitute a team comprising tehsildar North and tehsildar Eidgah to demarcate the land for which attorney holders have been authorized,” he said.

The minister assured that excess land, if any occupied by the attorney holder shall be evicted, restored and kept under the safe custody by the tehsildar concerned on behalf of the district magistrate.


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Friday, 7 November 2014

Iraq, Syria & Kurdistan between REACTION AND REVOLUTION

A discussion hosted by Socialist Resistance

GILBERT ACHCAR - Lebanese academic, writer, socialist and anti-war activist
SARAH PARKER - Socialist Resistance
KAMRAN MATIN - Senior Lecturer in International Development, working on the history of the Kurdish national liberation movement.

Resistance in Kobane against ISIS and Assad puts the fight for democracy and social justice back on the agenda in the Middle East. It deserves our solidarity. Kobane gives hope that the counter-revolution in Egypt, Syria and elsewhere, supported by imperialism, can be rolled back. The meeting will discuss the regional context, the struggle for Kurdistan, and solidarity with progressive forces.

At the Community Centre, 62 Marchmont Street, WC1N 1AB (Kings Cross and Russell Square tubes)
Read more at www.socialist

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Saturday, April 27, 2013

Dewey's Read-a-Thon Cheering wrapup

You guys, this was an amazing experience, and I manage to advance in my studying too, so I'm quite satisfied :).

I failed at keeping the stats, but I made it to visit all the blogs on my team and found some wonderful blogs along the way. I even won!

I wish you all a great rest of the Read-a-Thon, hopefully I will be able to join you in autumn.

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This California couple uses more water than all of the homes in Los Angeles

it’s a wonderful world

This California couple uses more water than all of the homes in Los Angeles

By on Aug 20, 2016Share

This story was originally published by Mother Jones and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Rafaela Tijerina first met la señora at a school in the town of Lost Hills, deep in the farm country of California’s Central Valley. They were both there for a school board meeting, and the superintendent had failed to show up. Tijerina, a 74-year-old former cotton picker and veteran school board member, apologized for the superintendent — he must have had another important meeting — and for the fact that her own voice was faint; she had cancer. “Oh no, you talk great,” the woman replied with a warm smile, before she began handing out copies of her book, Rubies in the Orchard: How to Uncover the Hidden Gems in Your Business. “To my friend with the sweet voice,” she wrote inside Tijerina’s copy.

It was only later that Tijerina realized the woman owned the almond groves where Tijerina’s husband worked as a pruner. Lynda Resnick and her husband, Stewart, also own a few other things: Teleflora, the nation’s largest flower delivery service; Fiji Water, the best-selling brand of premium bottled water; Pom Wonderful, the iconic pomegranate juice brand; Halos, the insanely popular brand of mandarin oranges formerly known as Cuties; and Wonderful Pistachios, with its “Get Crackin’” ad campaign. The Resnicks are the world’s biggest producers of pistachios and almonds, and they also hold vast groves of lemons, grapefruit, and navel oranges. All told, they claim to own America’s second-largest produce company, worth an estimated $4.2 billion.

The Resnicks have amassed this empire by following a simple agricultural precept: Crops need water. Having shrewdly maneuvered the backroom politics of California’s byzantine water rules, they are now thought to consume more of the state’s water than any other family, farm, or company. They control more of it in some years than what’s used by the residents of Los Angeles and the entire San Francisco Bay Area combined.

Such an incredible stockpiling of the state’s most precious natural resource might have attracted more criticism were it not for the Resnicks’ progressive bona fides. Last year, the couple’s political and charitable donations topped $48 million. They’ve spent $15 million on the 2,500 residents of Lost Hills — roughly 600 of whom work for the couple — funding everything from sidewalks, parks, and playing fields to affordable housing, a preschool, and a health clinic.

Last year, the Resnicks rebranded all their holdings as the Wonderful Company to highlight their focus on healthy products and philanthropy. “Our company has always believed that success means doing well by doing good,” Stewart Resnick said in a press release announcing the name change. “That is why we place such importance on our extensive community outreach programs, education and health initiatives and sustainability efforts. We are deeply committed to doing our part to build a better world and inspiring others to do the same.”

But skeptics note that the Resnicks’ donations to Lost Hills began a few months after Earth Island Journal documented the yawning wealth gap between the couple and their company town, a dusty assemblage of trailer homes, dirt roads, and crumbling infrastructure. They claim the Resnicks’ influence among politicians and liberal celebrities is quietly warping California’s water policies away from the interests of the state’s residents, wildlife, and even most farmers. “I think the Wonderful Company and the Resnicks are truly the top 1 percent wrapped in a green veneer, in a veneer of social justice,” says Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla of Restore the Delta, an advocacy group that represents farmers, fishermen, and environmentalists in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, east of San Francisco. “If they truly cared about a sustainable California and farmworkers within their own community, then how things are structured and how they are done by the Wonderful Company would be much different.”

Lynda Resnick’s friends, on the other hand, say she has found her calling. “The work is extraordinary, and rooted in a genuine desire to make a difference in people’s lives,” says media mogul Arianna Huffington. She brushes off any notion that Resnick is in the business of charity for the sake of publicity. “She even turned me down when I asked her to write about it for HuffPost!” she told me. “She does this work because at this point in her life, it’s what she wants to do more than anything.”

In a state of land grabs and Hollywood mythmaking, the Resnicks are well cast as the perfect protagonists. But is their philanthropy just a marketing ploy, or a sincere effort to reform California’s lowest-wage industry? “If you call yourself the Wonderful Company,” Lynda Resnick told me, “you’d better damn well be wonderful, right?”

Sunset House, the Resnicks’ 25,000-square-foot Beaux Arts mansion, is imposing even by Beverly Hills standards. Its cavernous reception hall is bedecked with blown-glass chandeliers, its windows draped with Fortuny curtains, and its drawing room adorned with a life-size statue of Napoleon so heavy that the basement ceiling had to be reinforced to bear its weight. The Resnicks purchased and tore down three adjacent houses to make room for a 22-space parking lot and half an acre of lawn. The estate employs at least seven full-time attendants. “Being invited to a dinner party by Lynda Resnick is like being nominated for an Oscar, only more impressive,” local publicist Michael Levine told the Los Angeles Business Journal. Visitors have included Hollywood A-listers like David Geffen, Steve Martin, and Warren Beatty — or writers like Thomas Friedman, Jared Diamond, and Joan Didion. “I am an intellectual groupie,” Lynda told me. “They are my rock stars.”

A petite 72-year-old, Lynda has a coiffure of upswept ringlets and a coy smile. In conversation, she reminded me of my own charming and crafty Jewish grandmother, a woman adept at calling bluffs at the poker table while bluffing you back. Growing up in Philadelphia in the 1940s, Lynda performed on a TV variety show sponsored by an automat. Her father, Jack Harris, produced the cult hit The Blob and later moved the family to California. Though wealthy enough to afford two Rolls-Royces and a 90210 zip code, he refused to pay for Lynda to attend art school, so she found work in a dress shop, where she tried her hand at creating ads for the store. By the time she was 24, she’d launched her own advertising agency, Lynda Limited, given birth to three children, and gotten divorced. She was struggling to keep things afloat.

Around that time, Lynda started dating Anthony Russo, who worked at a think tank with military analyst Daniel Ellsberg. The Edward Snowden of his day, Ellsberg was later prosecuted for leaking Pentagon documents about the Vietnam War to the press. The trial revealed that he and Russo had spent two weeks in all-night sessions photocopying the Pentagon Papers in Lynda’s office on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles. She even helped, scissoring the “Top Secret” stamps off documents to “declassify” them. “I did one naughty thing,” she told me. “But if I had to do it again, I would.”

A few years later, Lynda met Stewart Resnick. Born in Highland Park, New Jersey, the son of a Yiddish-speaking Ukrainian bartender, Stewart paid his way through UCLA by working as a janitor and went on to found White Glove Building Maintenance, which quickly grew to 1,000 employees and made him his first million before he graduated from law school in 1962. When he needed some advertising work, a friend recommended Lynda’s agency. “I never got the account,” she writes in her memoir, “but I sure got the business.” They were married in 1973.

Stewart capitalized on his wife’s marketing prowess. Their first big purchase as a couple, in 1979, was Teleflora, a flower delivery company that Lynda revitalized by pioneering the “flowers in a gift” concept — blooms wilt, but the cut-glass vase and teddy bear live on. In 1985, they acquired the Franklin Mint, which at the time mainly sold commemorative coins and medallions. Lynda expanded into jewelry, dolls, and precision model cars. She was ridiculed for spending $211,000 to buy Jacqueline Kennedy’s fake pearl necklace at auction, but she then sold more than 130,000 replicas for a gross of $26 million.

The Resnicks expanded into agriculture in 1978, mostly as a hedge against inflation. They purchased 2,500 acres of orange trees in California’s Kern County citrus belt. Ten years later, during the state’s last great drought, they snatched up tens of thousands of acres of almond, pistachio, and citrus groves for bargain prices. By 1996, their agricultural company, Paramount Farms, had become the world’s largest producer and packager of pistachios and almonds, with sales of about $1.5 billion; it now owns 130,000 acres of farmland and grosses $4.8 billion.

Along the way, Paramount acquired 100 acres of pomegranate orchards. After the Resnicks’ family physician mentioned the fruit’s key role in Mediterranean folk medicine, Lynda commissioned scientific studies and found that pomegranate juice had more antioxidant properties than red wine. By 2001 she had created Pom and soon was selling juice in little hourglass bottles under the label P?M, a hint at its supposed cardiac benefits. Less subtle was the national marketing campaign, which showed a Pom bottle with a broken noose around its neck, under the slogan “Cheat death.”

Pom was an overnight sensation, doing millions of dollars in sales by the end of the following year — and cementing Resnick’s status as a marketing genius. “Lynda Resnick is to branding what Warren Buffett is to investing,” Gloria Steinem wrote in 2009, in one of dozens of celebrity blurbs for Rubies in the Orchard.

Sometimes, though, Resnick’s Pom claims went too far. Last year, an appeals judge sided with a Federal Trade Commission ruling saying the company’s ads had overhyped Pom’s ability to prevent heart disease, prostate cancer, and erectile dysfunction. “I think it was unfair,” Resnick told me. “And I think it’s a tragedy if the fresh fruits and vegetables that are really the medicine chest of the 21st century have to adhere to the same rules as a drug that could possibly harm you.”

It wasn’t the first time Resnick had pitched her products as health panaceas. As previously reported in Mother Jones, she marketed Fiji’s “living water” as a healthier alternative to tap water, which the company claimed could contain “4,000 contaminants.” She has pushed the cardiovascular benefits of almonds, touted mandarin oranges as a healthy snack option for kids, and called nutrient-dense pistachios “the skinny nut.” Her $15 million “Get Crackin’” campaign, the largest media buy in the history of snack nuts, included a Super Bowl ad starring Stephen Colbert. Pistachio sales more than doubled in just three months and steadily increased over the following year to reach $114 million — proving that, sometimes, money really does grow on trees.

With all this newfound wealth, the Resnicks have ratcheted up their philanthropic profile. At first, it was classic civic gifts: $15 million to found UCLA’s Stewart and Lynda Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital; $35 million to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art for an exhibition space designed by Renzo Piano and dubbed the Resnick Pavilion; $20 million for the Resnick Sustainability Institute at Caltech, which focuses on making “the breakthroughs that will change the balance of the world’s sustainability.” (Wonderful claims to have developed an almond tree that has 30 percent higher yields than a conventional tree, using the same amount of water.)

But in 2010 the Resnicks had an encounter at a dinner party that Lynda says fundamentally changed her approach to philanthropy. Harvard professor Michael Sandel, the ethicist known for his provocative questions, asked the assembled guests if they would be happy living in a town that was perfect in every possible way except for one terrible secret: “Everyone in the town knew that somewhere in that village, in a dank basement, there was a small 6-year-old child who was being tortured,” he said, as Resnick later recalled. “And you couldn’t say anything about the torture because if you did you had to leave the town.”

When dinner was over and they got back in the car, Lynda said, “Well, I could never allow even one child to be tortured.” Stewart turned to her and said, “But the child is being tortured, Lynda. What are you doing about it?”

“And it changed my life that very day,” she said.

When she retold the story onstage at the 2013 Aspen Ideas Festival, Resnick stopped short of spelling out exactly what she thought her husband was alluding to. Her interviewer, former CNN chair and author Walter Isaacson, didn’t press her on the matter. Nor would she elaborate when I asked her about it. By then she had certainly seen the negative stories, such as the one in the Los Angeles Times that described Lost Hills’ jarring “Third World conditions.”

Isaacson gently picked up his questioning where Resnick had left off: “And that got you involved in the Central Valley of California,” he said. “Why did you choose that?”

“Look, there’s poverty and sadness all over the planet,” Resnick replied, “but I felt that if I was really going to do work, I should start to do work in the place where our employees worked and live. That would be the most meaningful.”

“I think they ought to start looking at the farmers,” a woman in yoga pants snapped. She had just been confronted while watering her lawn in Santa Monica by one of the amateur videographers behind last summer’s hottest new California film genre: the drought-shaming video. The YouTube clip shows her being taunted repeatedly before turning to douse the camera-wielding scold with her hose.

The woman’s anger at being called out and her eagerness to redirect blame reflect common sentiments in an increasingly dry state. The Resnicks, who’ve been anticipating the drought for decades, seem shocked that it has taken everyone else so long to wake up.

“Nobody cared. No one cared about water,” Lynda Resnick told me. “These last four years with this drought, nobody was looking until it affected them. And now that people have to cut back on their water, all of a sudden it has become important.”

It’s true that the Golden State’s vast network of dams, reservoirs, and canals has served the state so well over the past 80 years that Californians have come to take it for granted. Assumed or forgotten is that some 8.7 trillion gallons of water will flow each day into the massive Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, and that 20 percent of it will get sucked by huge pumps into two giant, concrete-lined canal systems and sent hundreds of miles to Southern California’s cities and farms. Delta water has transformed the arid Southland into the state’s population center and the nation’s produce aisle. But it has done so at the cost of pushing the West Coast’s largest estuary to the brink of collapse; last year the drought finally prompted regulators to eliminate most Central Valley water deliveries.

Something would have to change, and fast. The Central Valley is in some respects the ideal place to grow fruit and nut trees, with its Mediterranean combination of cool winters and hot summers perfectly promoting flowering, fruit setting, and ripening. But there’s a reason why few trees of any sort grow naturally in the Valley: It averages only 5 to 16 inches of annual rainfall, or what farmers call “God water” — just 20 percent of what’s required for a productive almond or pistachio harvest. One season without water piped in from the Delta can kill an orchard that took five years to mature. Few farmers are more at risk from the cutbacks than the Resnicks, whose 140 square miles of orchards use about 117 billion gallons of water a year, despite employing cutting-edge conservation technologies.

So like other farmers, the Resnicks have turned to the state’s dwindling reserve of groundwater, sinking wells hundreds of feet deep on their land. Farmers are the main reason that California now pumps nearly seven cubic kilometers of groundwater a year, or about as much total water as what’s used by all the homes in Texas. Sucking water from deep underground has caused the surrounding land to settle as the pockets of air between layers of soil collapse, wreaking havoc with bridges and even gravity-fed canals. Though California passed its first-ever groundwater regulations in 2014, water districts won’t be required to limit pumping for at least another four years.

Historically, farmers pumped just enough groundwater to survive, but in the middle of California’s now five-year drought, nut growers have also used it to expand. Over the last decade, California’s almond acreage has increased by 47 percent and its pistachio acreage has doubled, fueled in the latter case by the Resnicks’ advertising genius. Pistachios are now among the top 10 best-selling salty snack items in the United States, and the Resnicks’ Lost Hills pistachio factory is the world’s largest. To meet robust demand from Europe and Asia, Stewart Resnick last year announced that he wanted to expand nut acreage another 40 percent by 2020. With pistachios netting an astounding $3,519 per acre — 4 times more than tomatoes and 18 times more than cotton — he seemed confident the water would flow uphill to the money.

If you’ve watched Chinatown or read Cadillac Desert, you know something about California’s complicated and often corrupt 100-year-old fight over water rights. The state’s laws were designed to settle the frontier, and under the “first in time, first in right” rule, the most “senior” water claims are the last to be restricted in times of drought. This means some farmers are still able to flood their fields to grow cattle feed, even as residents of towns such as Okieville and East Porterville have to truck in water and shower using buckets.

But the Resnicks’ water rights, by and large, are not senior. To expand their agricultural empire, they had to find another way to tap into the flow from north to south. And to understand how they were able to do that, you have to start with a two-inch-long minnow that smells like cucumbers.

Once an abundant food source for Northern California’s dwindling salmon population, the Delta smelt has been nearly eradicated by those enormous pumps capturing the flow of water from the Sierras. In 1993, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the smelt as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act, setting the stage for pumping limits. Worried about getting short shrift on water deliveries, the Resnicks and other farmers in five local water districts threatened legal action. So in 1995, state officials agreed to a deal or, as it has been suggested, a staggering giveaway. The farmers had to relinquish 14 billion gallons of “paper water” — junior water rights that exist only de jure, since there simply isn’t enough rainfall most years to fulfill them. In exchange, they got ownership of the Kern Water Bank, a naturally occurring underground reservoir that lies beneath 32 square miles of Kern County, which sits toward the southern end of the Central Valley. The bank held up to 488 billion gallons of water, and because it sat beneath a floodplain it could be easily recharged in wet years with rainfall and surplus water piped in from the Delta. The Resnicks, who’d given up the most paper water rights, came to hold a majority vote on the bank’s board and the majority of its water.

Over the next 15 years, a series of wet winters left the bank flush with water: Court documents obtained by the Associated Press showed that in 2007 the Resnicks’ share of the bank amounted to 246 billion gallons, enough to supply all the residents of San Francisco for 16 years. The Resnicks invested in their asset, building canals to connect the bank to the state and federal water systems, thousands of acres of recharge ponds capable of sucking imported water underground, and scores of wells. According to the Wonderful vice president who chairs the Kern Water Bank Authority, the water bank “enabled us to plant permanent crops” such as fruit and nut trees.

But a legal cloud has long shadowed the Resnicks’ water deal. The Kern County Water Bank was originally acquired in 1988 by the state to serve as an emergency water supply for the Los Angeles area — at a cost to taxpayers of $148 million in today’s dollars. In 2014, a judge ruled that the Department of Water Resources had turned the water bank over to the farmers without properly analyzing environmental impacts. A new environmental review is due next month, and a coalition of environmental groups and water agencies is suing to return the water bank to public ownership. Adam Keats, senior attorney at the Center for Food Safety, describes the transfer of the water bank to the Resnicks and other farmers as “an unconstitutional rip-off.”

And here’s a key fact to consider against this backdrop: The Resnicks aren’t just pumping to irrigate their fruit and nut trees — they’re also in the business of farming water itself. Their land came with decades-old contracts with the state and federal government that allow them to purchase water piped south by state canals. The Kern Water Bank gave them the ability to store this water and sell it back to the state at a premium in times of drought. According to an investigation by the Contra Costa Times, between 2000 and 2007 the Resnicks bought water for potentially as little as $28 per acre-foot (the amount needed to cover one acre in one foot of water) and then sold it for as much as $196 per acre-foot to the state, which used it to supply other farmers whose Delta supply had been previously curtailed. The couple pocketed more than $30 million in the process. If winter storms replenish the Kern Water Bank this year, they could again find themselves with a bumper crop of H2O.

Meanwhile, the fight between farmers and smelt has plodded on, with the Resnicks becoming prominent advocates for pumping even more water south to farms. In 2007, a group called the Coalition for a Sustainable Delta began using lawsuits of its own to assign blame for the estuary’s decline to just about everything except farming: housing development in Delta floodplains, pesticide use by Delta farms, dredging, power plants, sport fishing, and pollution from mothballed ships. The coalition’s website doesn’t mention the Resnicks, but it originally listed a Paramount Farms fax number, and three of the four officers on its early tax documents were Resnick employees.

Two years later, with a federal judge now restricting Delta pumping for the sake of the smelt, the Resnicks began raising their concerns with friends in Washington. At the top of that list was California’s senior senator, Dianne Feinstein. (The Resnicks threw a cocktail party for Feinstein when the Democratic Convention came to Los Angeles in 2000; Feinstein and Arianna Huffington once spent New Year’s with the Resnicks at their home in Aspen, Colorado.) Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee’s powerful energy and water panel, typically serves as the key negotiator on California-related water bills.

Responding to prodding from Stewart Resnick, Feinstein sent a letter to the secretaries of the interior and commerce urging their agencies to reexamine the science behind the Delta environmental protection plan. The agencies spent some $750,000 studying the issue anew — only to have researchers again conclude the 2007 restrictions on Delta pumping were warranted.

Lynda Resnick rejects the idea that the couple wields any political power on matters of water policy. “We have no influence politically — I swear to you,” she told me. “Nobody has political influence in this. Nor would we use it.”

Yet that’s hard to square against the Resnicks’ approach to state politics. They’ve given six-figure sums to every California governor since Republican Pete Wilson. They donated $734,000 to Gray Davis, including $91,000 to oppose his recall. Then they gave $221,000 to his replacement, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has called them “some of my dearest, dearest friends.” The $150,000 they’ve sprinkled on Jerry Brown since 2010 might not seem like a lot by comparison, but no other individual donor has given more. The Resnicks also have chipped in another $250,000 to support Brown’s pet ballot measure to fund education.

Now, in a throwback to the sort of massive public-works projects built during his father’s governorship, Brown envisions a bold, silver-bullet solution to the state’s water crisis. He recently unveiled a $15 billion plan to construct two 40-foot-wide tunnels that could carry 67,000 gallons of water per second from the Sacramento River to the Central Valley. The tunnels would completely bypass the ecologically sensitive Delta, eliminating much of the smelt-endangering pumping — and, by extension, many of the restrictions on Delta water diversions that have crimped the Resnicks’ supply.

A win for fish and a win for farmers? Not so fast. Environmentalists fear that removing so much freshwater from the Delta will make it too salty. “You could effectively divert just about every single drop of water before it gets to the estuary in dry years,” says Doug Obegi, a staff attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council’s water program. There are laws on the books to prevent that from happening, but Central Valley farmers are working diligently to overturn those laws. In June 2015, Rep. David Valadao, a Republican from the Valley, introduced a bill that would force federal regulators to release more Delta water for agriculture. (The Resnicks have given more than $18,000 to Valadao’s campaigns since 2011.) “They really are trying to sacrifice one region for another,” says Restore the Delta’s Barrigan-Parrilla, who will testify against the plan this fall in hearings before the State Water Resources Control Board. “If these plans come to pass, [the tunnels] are a complete existential threat to our communities, our people, and to the environment.”

But the Resnicks have never been ones to let details get in the way of a good marketing campaign. In the summer of 2014, their employees quietly began conducting polling and focus groups to figure out the best way to sell Brown’s plan. Months later they launched Californians for Water Security, a coalition of business and labor interests that promotes the tunnels as an earthquake safety measure. “An earthquake strikes a vulnerable place — the heart of California’s water distribution system,” cautions the group’s television ad. “Despite expert warnings, crumbling water infrastructure has not been fixed … Aqueducts fail. Millions lose access to drinking water … Our water doesn’t have to be at risk! Support the plan. Fix the system.”

Three weeks after the ad went live, Gov. Brown held a press conference in which he rebranded his plan as the California Water Fix.

In the heart of the nut boom is Lost Hills, an entirely flat town where more than half the households have at least one adult who works for the Wonderful Company. The population has doubled since 1990, and the influx of so many new families has meant rising costs. It’s not unusual for a field hand to spend 40 percent of his $1,800 monthly wage on a one-bedroom apartment. “You pay the rent and don’t eat, or you eat and don’t pay the rent,” says Gilberto Mesia, a Wonderful farmworker with three school-age children. More than half of the town’s residents are under the age of 23, a quarter live below the poverty line, and only 1 in 4 adults has a high school degree. “Lost Hills is extreme in every possible way,” says Juan-Vicente Palerm, an anthropologist at the University of California-Santa Barbara. “These are the state’s poorest workers, and they moved to Lost Hills because that was the cheapest place to live.”

On a swelteringly hot day, three Wonderful executives took me on a six-hour tour of nearly everything that the company is doing to improve the lives of the hundreds of employees who reside there. We met at the 14-acre, Resnick-funded Wonderful Park, where they introduced me to Claudia Nolguen, a Wonderful employee and Lost Hills native who coordinates a daily itinerary of free activities for residents. On today’s schedule: a morning fitness class, an after-school computer lab, and a movie night. We walked through the park’s emerald lawn to see its huge water tower, painted with a mural depicting two hills. “You have found Lost Hills,” the slogan said.

Next to the impeccable flower beds at one of the park’s two community centers, food bank workers were unloading enough frozen chicken to feed roughly 400 people. They were expecting a smaller-than-normal crowd. “During the harvest, families aren’t able to take advantage of the distribution,” one of the workers explained. “The usual stay-at-home mom is now working.”

We drove to the Wonderful pistachio factory for lunch. The chef in the employee cafeteria made us adobo-chicken lettuce wraps — part of a healthy menu intended to combat diabetes and obesity. Baskets on the tables were filled with free fruits and nuts for the taking. The company’s new, far-reaching health initiative also includes free exercise classes in the employee gym, a weekly on-site farmers market, and a program that pays people up to $2,700 a year to lose weight and keep it off. Since the program began in January 2015, the Wonderful workforce has shed 4,000 pounds.

In the plant’s nut-grading room, a few dozen seasonal employees wearing orange reflective vests and hairnets sat around folding tables evaluating samples from incoming truckloads of pistachios. Suddenly, a boom box started blaring merengue, and everyone stood up and danced. It was the daily Zumba break. “It feels good to move around,” one worker told me afterward.

As part of its focus on its workers, the company has built in-house health clinics at its plants in Lost Hills and Delano. The clinics have a full-time, bilingual doctor, health coaches, and prescription medications — all free of charge. “There are all sorts of costs related to poor health,” Stewart Resnick said at the Aspen Institute in July. “My hope is that this really doesn’t become a charity, but rather works, and that we will get a payback” — both in terms of productivity and reduced health care costs.

A similar return-on-investment logic infuses the company’s educational initiatives. Led by Noemi Donoso, the former chief executive of Chicago’s public school system, Wonderful Education last year spent $9.3 million, including at least $2 million on teacher grants and college scholarships in the Central Valley; it pays up to $6,000 a year toward college tuition for children of its employees. It is building a $25 million campus for a college prep academy in Delano and expanding its agriculture-focused vocational program to six public schools. It guarantees graduates of the programs jobs at Wonderful that pay between $35,000 and $50,000 a year. Among the goals is to provide a pipeline of workers to staff its increasingly mechanized operations. “Half the jobs are highly skilled jobs,” said Andy Anzaldo, the general manager of grower relations. “They’re quality supervisors. They’re engineers. They’re mechanics.”

The Resnicks are quick to point out that it’s not just plant workers who’ve benefited — the nut boom has improved the lives of farmworkers, too. Back when cotton was still king in Kern County, migrant workers who’d picked spring oranges and summer grapes in other parts of the Valley would descend on Lost Hills for a few weeks to work alongside cotton combines during the fall harvest. It wasn’t easy to bring kids along, so they usually stayed behind in Mexico or Guatemala. But tree crops are different. After the fall harvest comes winter pruning, spring pest management, and summer watering and mowing. The nut industry’s nearly year-round employment has allowed farmworkers to put down roots. They can live with their families, send their kids to school, and start to grasp for the American Dream. Like Rafaela Tijerina did.

Tijerina, who has short gray hair and a cautious smile, grew up in a village near Monterrey, Mexico, before her family moved to South Texas in 1954. She dropped out of school in the eighth grade to pick cotton and chased the cotton trail to Lost Hills, where in 1969 she found a job planting pistachio trees instead. The steady work allowed her kids to graduate from high school and move into the middle class. By 2000, Tijerina and her husband had scraped together enough money to qualify for a USDA loan that helped them buy 330 acres of wheat fields a few miles outside town.

But Tijerina and her husband can’t afford to drill wells or even tap into the supply from the local irrigation district; they farm entirely with God water. They haven’t harvested a crop in four years due to the drought, though in December they will plow their fields and plant another. Unless winter storms deliver enough rain, it will be their last shot before they sell out. “It’s really good land,” Tijerina told me, her shaky voice still tinged with optimism. “But the only thing is, we don’t have water.”

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‘Body Bags’ Haunt My Vision at Everglades Conference

For decades my husband Frank has periodically mentioned the “cultural lag” theory that he first heard in college in the 1960s. It refers to what happens when things change so fast that our culture cannot keep up. I experienced what that meant when I attended the 31st Annual Conference of the Everglades Coalition at the elegant Biltmore Hotel in Miami January 8. The potential consequences are frightening. Comprising more than 50 leading environmental organizations and federal agencies including the US Army Corps of Engineers, state and local agencies, government leaders, ecological and environmental scientists and planners, the Coalition includes some of the most influential people in the country focused on restoring the Everglades since 1985. After a hiatus of several years during which we’ve learned the imminent threat that sea level rise poses to the South Florida peninsula, I returned to the conference to find that the Coalition is still focused almost exclusively on protecting the lands and processes of the western undeveloped Everglades. Plug “South Florida, sea level rise” into any search engine and you will find varying versions of: “Florida is in the crosshairs of climate change. Rising seas, a population crowded along the coast, porous bedrock, and the relatively common occurrence of tropical storms put more real estate and people at risk from storm surges aggravated by sea level rise in Florida, than any other state by far. Some 2.4 million people and 1.3 million homes, nearly half the risk nationwide, sit within 4 feet of the local high tide line. Sea level rise is more than doubling the risk of a storm surge at this level in South Florida by 2030.” So it was a shock to walk into the Biltmore where in 1999 the Coalition gave us the George Barley Award, and find many of the same people of the same demographic makeup (99% white in one of the most racially diverse areas of the country) having the same conversation about buying land and restoring water flow in the ‘Glades. Practically all-white attendees at the Conference are a shocking contrast to the demographic makeup of our country and the Everglades Ecosystem South Florida region. In this case, “cultural lag” might refer to our inability to respond to the new environmental reality – that we can protect nothing in South Florida without dealing with sea level rise and its well documented consequences in the near-term of 15 years. Frank and I have a long history with the Coalition, dating back around 1996. Our small company strove to integrate the interests and concerns of people in the urban core who are minorities or socially and economically disadvantaged. We sought funding to help educate urban communities about the restoration and its urban arm, Eastward Ho!, the plan to redevelop the urban core to accommodate more than two million more people in 15 years. We tried to get the Coalition to support the Environmental Justice Act of 2000 which requires federal agencies to prioritize the fair treatment of these communities, and asked members to press for the safe remediation of Superfund sites in Black communities including Wingate in Fort Lauderdale. At our urging US Rep. Carrie Meek included a section in the 2000 Federal Water Resources Development Act, “Community Outreach and Assistance” requiring outreach and education of the urban population and involvement of the minority business community in the billions of dollars flowing from the restoration. . This process of working to integrate the issues of urban and poor communities in the restoration was so involved that we recorded it in our book, Legacy on the Land: A Black Couple Discovers Our National Inheritance and Tells Why Every American Should Care, published 2009. Repeatedly we found that the leaders were unable to give equal weight to the human aspects of the restoration. It seems evident now that this tendency will continue, at great detriment to the local population, the national parks and everything in this ecosystem. It was a shock to find this year’s conference jubilantly celebrating the new infusion of federal dollars for restoration projects in the natural Everglades, while seeming to completely overlook the threat from water that surrounds us on three sides. The state and local political leadership appear wholly unprepared to deal with this predicament – one mayor calls for depopulation; another places his hopes on technology, and the governor has forbidden mention of climate change. So I had high hopes that the environmental leadership would be out front on this issue. The cost of failure to deal with looming environmental problems was illustrated in the most ghastly way for me in 2005. At an environmental meeting in Atlanta, the keynote speaker told the audience he’d just returned from New Orleans. He said he took a helicopter ride over the levees with city and federal officials and they discussed how the dikes would not stand up to a Category 5 storm. “So, they’ve bought 1,000 body bags and have them in storage. . .” he said. Two weeks later Katrina hit. (According to a CNN report dated Sept. 9, 2005, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) ordered 25,000 more body bags to accommodate the demand.) Listening to speakers at the Coalition conference, I couldn’t help thinking how few people know what’s coming and how little time we have to prepare. On the panel, Ecology and Economy: National Park Restoration for Local Communities, I suggested that the Coalition take the lead in making the case for our economy to be retooled to focus on protecting us from the coming floods. 15 years is very little time to determine what kind of flood control measures will work and to develop and build the required structures, I pointed out. I don’t know if I made a difference, or if former astronaut and longtime Florida US Senator Bill Nelson, who spoke passionately on the same subject at lunchtime, changed any minds. But God forbid that 2030 is the year that our “cultural lag” manifests with the purchase of thousands of body bags for South Florida. It’s urgent to act now to present such a catastrophe. While we’re at it, you should probably check what the projections are for your neck of the woods. It’s as simple as plugging your zip code in. — This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. […]

Sikhs Feel Vulnerable Amid Anti-Muslim Backlash

(CHICAGO) — Pardeep Kaleka spent several days after 9/11 at his father’s South Milwaukee gas station, fearing that his family would be targeted by people who assumed they were Muslim. No, Kaleka explained on behalf of his father, who wore a turban and beard and spoke only in broken English, the family was Sikh, a southeast Asian religion based on equality and unrelated to Islam. But amid a new wave of anti-Islamic sentiment since the terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Kaleka is vowing to take an entirely different approach. “For us it does not matter who they’re targeting,” said Kaleka, a former Milwaukee police officer and teacher whose father was one of six people killed in 2012 when a white supremacist opened fire at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. “This time we cannot differentiate ourselves; when hate rhetoric is being spewed we cannot be on the sidelines.” Across the U.S., Sikhs and Muslims are banding together to defend their respective religions. Someone bent on harming Muslims wouldn’t understand — or care — about the distinction between the two faiths, they say, and both also deserve to live in peace. So they plan educational sessions and rallies. They successfully pushed the FBI to track hate crimes against Sikhs. They speak to lawmakers and support each other’s legal action, including a lawsuit filed over a New York City police surveillance program targeting New Jersey Muslims. “We are in this fight together,” said Gurjot Kaur, a senior staff attorney at The Sikh Coalition, founded the night of Sept. 11. Sikhism, a monotheistic faith, was founded more than 500 years ago in Southeast Asia and has roughly 27 million followers worldwide, most of them in India. There are more than 500,000 Sikhs in the U.S. Male followers often cover their heads with turbans — which are considered sacred — and refrain from shaving their beards. Reports of bullying, harassment and vandalism against Sikhs have risen in recent weeks. Last week, a Sikh temple in Orange County, California, was vandalized, as was a truck in the parking lot by someone who misspelled the word “Islam” and made an obscene reference to ISIS. A Sikh woman said she recently was forced to show her breast pump before taking her seat on an airplane in Minneapolis because another passenger thought she might be a terrorist. Several Sikh football fans said they initially were not allowed into Qualcomm Stadium to watch the San Diego Chargers game against the Denver Broncos last Sunday because several of them were wearing turbans. Schoolchildren say they’ve been bullied. For most Sikhs, much of the backlash has been frequent stares or comments and occasional online insults. Former NCAA basketball player Darsh Singh said he has heard insults throughout his life, including recently when someone recently yelled “Osama!” at him as he was crossing a street in Phoenix. Then last week, a photo making the rounds on Facebook showed the former Trinity University basketball player — the first turbaned Sikh to play in the NCAA — with the caption: “Nobody wants to guard Muhammad, he’s too explosive.” A friend came to his defense with a lengthy post —saying, “do the world a favor and educate yourself” — which got tens of thousands of likes. “A lot of people act out of fear or ignorance,” said Singh. “I don’t know who started it, but whoever they are, I forgive them.” Rajinder Singh Mago, community outreach director at the Sikh Religious Society of Chicago, said it’s more difficult for Sikh schoolchildren who sometimes are bullied. “Ninety-nine percent of Americans are good … then that one person who just came out of a tavern after a few beers, you don’t know what he’s thinking at that point,” Mago said. Madihha Ahussain, a staff attorney at the national group Muslim Advocates, said people who are misinformed about both religions not only are “blaming entire faith communities, now they’re blaming multiple groups for the acts of a couple individuals.” As a result, some Sikhs have encountered violence. A Chicago-area teenager was charged with a hate crime after a September road rage incident in which he called 53-year-old Sikh taxi driver Inderjit Mukker “Bin Laden” and repeatedly hit him in the face, breaking his cheekbone. In 2013, a Green Bay, Wisconsin, man was charged with a hate crime for allegedly setting fire to a convenience store owned by a Sikh-American. That was less than a year after white supremacist Wade Michael Page killed six people and wounded four others at the Oak Creek temple. Kaleka said his father, Satwant Singh Kaleka, was the last person killed inside the temple, after Page broke into an office where the elder Kaleka was calling 911. Kaleka said the Muslim community reached out to Sikhs in the aftermath, and members of both faiths — along with Christians, Jews and others — are continuing to work together to combat inflammatory rhetoric. Last weekend, he spoke at a Muslim women’s coalition. “I think this is just another test and, unfortunately, I think as bad as the comments are from some politicians, it does surface some underlying issues we haven’t addressed,” in this country, he said. […]


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text: From: "Doug Dery" Subject: Risorgimento Errata RISORGIMENTO 1859 Battle Game Errata (8/1/00) 4.23. Overall Commanders move under this rule. However, ignore everything after the first sentence. There is no penalty for exceeding 12 MP. 4.25. Clarification. Victor Emmanuelle's '3' rating also serves as his Range and Continuity Ratings when used as Corps Commander. 4.41. Clarification. This is the Sequence in which the actions are undertaken, except that artillery may Fire either before or after moving (small-arms units fire after movement.). 4.42. Units that are Without Orders that are not already using Strategic Movement may not use SM. They may stop using SM, though. This does not apply to entering Reinforcements or units activated from Reserve. 4.42. Addition. Artillery units that are Without Orders, or Out of Command, may Fire or Move (not both) when activated. 4.43. Addition. In an Extended Activation, only those French and Piedmontese Artillery units that are within range of their Corps Commander may fire; Austrian batteries may fire if within range of their brigadier (or Corps, if Corps or Reserve Artillery). Artillery may always Reaction fire. 4.51. Clarification. The Corps Commander's Continuity Rating is used whether he is on or off the map. 5.11. Clarification. In Magenta, those are all Roads (some major, some minor), except for the RR, which is treated as a trail, and thus may not be used for SM through the vineyards. 7.21. Jagers/Chasseurs may not Withdraw if the subject of a Suprise Attack (Magenta). Cavalry may. 7.41 Clarification. All Commitment dierolls for the brigade are undertaken before any attacks are resolved. Also, ignore the first . ; that is covered by the term "Adjusted Cohesion". 7.45. Clarification. [Position DRM] Attackers get this DRM as long as the attacking units are Committed to Attack; they do not necessarily have to "combine" (7.31). 7.47. The word "Morale" should read "Cohesion". 7.5. Clarification. General charge sequence: The cavalry unit moves. It then, if eligible to Charge, checks for Commitment. Iot then moves and attacks. While the latter movement is part of the charge, it is not pasrt of actual "movement". Clarification. An infantry and a cavalry unit may target the same enemy unit for an attack/charge, but the two may not be combined. 8.1. Clarification. Hits have no effect on Artillery. 8.31[4]. Clarification. This applies if the unit is stacked with the leader. 8.33. Clarification. This applies even if the retreat is blocked by friendly units. 8.4. Clarification. Whenever a leader is alone and an enemy moves adjacent, after rolling to see if he is Finished, place the counter with the nearst combat unit in his brigade. 8.51. Units in an Extended Activation (4.43) may not Rally. 9.1 Artillery units have no effect on HDC. ALL SCENARIOS Clarification. When the Leader's name is in Bold Lettering, that indicates the counter for that Leader. MAGENTA French Reinforcements: The Battle Letter indicator (S, M) for the two 12(8) batteries (IV Corps) are reversed. (There are several minor mistakes in identification for counters; all to be listed later) Piedmont Reinforcements: The Aosta Cavalry regiment arruves in the Nite 2 turn. Awareness and Surprise. This is a mechanic with all sorts of possibilities, permutations and combinations. Some notes: 1. If you start the phase adjacent and aware, there is no surprise. 2. If a unit has moved adjacent to an enemy so that the latter is in its Frontal Hex (and thus does not have to roll for Awareness), but the former is NOT in the latter's ZOC, gets an automatic Surprise +2. If such an attack would be through its Rear, that would be a +3 (total). 3. You cannot get Surprise, even if you had to roll for Awareness, if such attack is through the target's ZOC hex (usual its immediate Frontal). Some of the situations will have to be dealt with on an individual basis . . . ask away. As I said, lots of possibilities here. SAN MARTINO Yes, the Piedmontese units initially deployed have no leaders. That is correct. (Pettinengo starts with his brigade.) General Benedek and King V. Emmanuel start In Reserve; they may be released as soon as you release the first of their brigades. The 7 (Mollard Reserve) battery is placed in either 1123 or 1223 Clarification. As there is no Demoralization, there is no Rain effect on Demoralization. One checks for Rain after each Activation (not the not-used Continuity dieroll). SOLFERINO Game starts with the 0500 turn. General Benedek and King V. Emmanuel start In Reserve; they may be released as soon as you release the first of their brigades. Counter: the Austrian 4th Kaiser Jagers is in Puchner's Brigade, NOT Festetic's brigade (as the counter indicates). VIII Corps. Ignore all those Division Leaders ( Berger, Land, Gassmyer). Leftover from an earlier, more complex, less kinder/gentler version. Piedmont Reinforcements: The 7 (Mollard Reserve) battery and the Monforto Cavalry arrive 0700/N1026.


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Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Hey, You All...

There are many things I love about living nearly smack dab in the middle of this country… probably enough to fill an entire post. But there are some things that I definitely wish were different.

One of those wishes is completely ridiculous, but it’s still MY wish. I wish I had an accent. I’m not sure exactly WHICH accent I’d want, but anything would be better than my plain, flat, midwest-not-really-there accent.

Some companies like this flat non-accent so much, they base their telemarketing divisions here. I live in what very well may be the telemarketing capital of the world because of this fact. Big deal. So what? People can understand me… and, sometimes, that’s not necessarily to my advantage. *ahem*

The other disadvantage to my absence of accent is I’m very susceptible to other people’s accents. If you’re from the southern US, and you speak to me for a period of more than 5 seconds, I will immediately and most subconsciously adopt your accent. I’m not making fun of you… I promise! I can’t help it… it just happens.

I spent two weeks in Great Britain once… about a week in England and another week in Scotland. Oh, that was a FUN TRIP!!! Nearly every day, I had a new accent! The Queen’s English Proper, Cockney, Liverpoolian, Scottish brogue… I tell you, I was in heaven! (I know these aren't the actual terms for these accents. They're my terms. And this is my blog. Live with it.)

Traveling to the east and west coasts of the US is always interesting for me. I rarely pick up on a thick Brooklyn accent, although I find it absolutely fascinating. New England vowels form very easily for me, though, as do the surfer-speak and valley-speak of certain parts of the west coast.

Oh, and all you Aussies… LOVE IT. I can’t fake the way you speak, but I’m sure if I spent much time there, I would pick it up immediately. The Farm Boy agreed that our next cruise will be heading that way, so I’m most optimistic!

The odd part about where I live is that, if you drive 50 minutes south of my home, you’ll hear the southern accent start to pick up a little. My ex-husband, who was from the southern part of our state, couldn’t say “chicken” in less than three syllables. Travel about 50 minutes north, and folks get a little more Scandinavian with every vowel, don’t you know… you betcha!

So that’s it. I’m a boring articulator. But know that, if we ever meet in person, you’ll understand every word I say… and I might unknowingly steal your accent.

Stinkypaw said...

I have a thing for accent and so often "pick up" somebody's accent - which is bad and I got into trouble for doing so. But, because I do have an accent (French is my first language after all!), I hate the fact that people will "correct" me or assume that English isn't my gooder language! I'm one of those weirdos that if a word is French I will pronounce it in French and not "adapt" it to English (for exemple; déjà vu, ratatouille, etc.)

lizgwiz said...

I'm from the twangy part of the middle of the country, but I'm quite happy that I don't have an accent. I like it that nobody can tell where I'm from. It's probably in large part because of years of vocal music training, where it's all about "pure" vowel sounds, and because my parents both had similar training, so I didn't pick up an accent from them. Maybe I just enjoy how surprised people are when they find out I'm from Oklahoma--'cause of course you'd think from watching TV that we all sound like Reba McEntire. Not true--I don't know ANYone who talks like she does, not even the redneck cousins on my mother's side. Hee.

I am a sucker for guys with foreign accents, though. I once slept with an otherwise somewhat obnoxious Frenchman, 'cause I loved the way he talked. And because it seemed like someone who talked like that would be REALLY good in bed. Sadly, not the case.

Libragirl said...

And I would pay to not have everyone know within seconds that I am not just a New Yawka, but a Longuylander. Sometimes, accents, not so good. Although, Irish and English make me weak in the knees.

don't call me MA'AM said...

stinkypaw: I'm the same way with French, and then people look at me like I'm pretentious or something.

lizgwiz: AHAHAHA! That's funny!!!

libragirl: But at least it's INTERESTING, right? (and shhh... I'm a sucker for the Scots, but don't tell anyone)

wire said...

When i was in the States everyone told me that i didn't have an accent but were convinced my friend did! She lives less than five minutes down the road from me - is there some sort of great cultural running down Grimshaw st? And if so, does that explain why they held nude dances there to herald the coming of the full moon?

ok, so mabe i made that last bit up, but seriously - five minutes.

don't call me MA'AM said...

wire: I'm sure I'd hear an accent in your speech. And doesn't EVERY little town hold nude dancing to herald the coming of the full moon?

Ludicrousity said...

People either find the Aussie accent endearing or seriously annoying. I personally like it. I love the Irish accent. Totally my favourite. I love a high Brittish accent too.

Anonymous said...

Picking up on the accents of people you are talking to just means you are very empathetic. (I detect a tad bit of feistiness today; D)

Anita said...

You may be surprised, but many people in the country feel you DO have an accent. Oh sure, its not like the twangy southern accent, or the gentile english accent, or the real slooooooowww drawl that many of the folks around me have (I live in Mid-Atlantic farm country), but it's still there. It's almost like a hodge podge of other accents, which is maybe why it sounds like none?

I based this on my years living in Chicago and surrounding states (MI, WI, IA(, where I initially thought everyone had accents ... but maybe if I went to other states I'd think differently.

Thanks for sharing!

othur-me said...

You're only supposed to do that for the full moon? I thought it was an everyday thing?

don't call me MA'AM said...

ludi: I find it endearing. :-)

goldennib: eeek! One of my 'strengths' supposedly empathy (not sympathy, of course). Yikes. Oh, and I'm even feistier today. ha!

anita: nope... not where I live. I agree that Chicago and those in the other states you listed DO have an accent. Not me. No shape nor form of any discernible accent... until I'm around other people who do. ha!

othur-me: If you do it everyday, people just THINK there's a full moon out. haha

tammara said...

I've wondered why our call center based operations in DFW, because some of us - er - have some serious accents going on. And we have customers all over the US. When I get an xray tech calling in from, say, Delaware, I find myself speaking a little differently - ennunciating more clearly. Arkansas? I can slur words together all I want.

Paul didn't get here until he was 12. He sounds more "Texan" than I do. (When we lived in PA, I was constantly asked, "Yes, but where did you GROW UP?") He does the same thing you do. He adopts accents. It's pretty funny to see him do it. (I can hardly wait to travel to Australia with him...)

Anonymous said...

I completely relate to your wish...So much so that whenever I am required to make a call that involves dealing with customer service, I put on different accents to make the call more interesting.

The cell phone company gets my (admittedly poor) cockney accent, the cable company gets my (equally terrible) southern accent. Is this normal? No. Does it keep me from going insane while on said calls? Definitely yes :)

Anonymous said...

Happy Thanksgiving. Come see my attack hand turkey, Charlie.

don't call me MA'AM said...

tammara: I used to do the exact same thing on the phone with customers... it worked, too!

metaliag: what a great idea! Maybe I'll try that when I answer the phone. Thanks!

goldennib: right back at ya! Charlie is awesome... I'm posting Goofy Gobbles shortly.

Anonymous said...

Been away, sorry for commenting late.

I pick up southern accents quite easily. I have to be careful not to make a fool of myself.

We also have the divide here. The twang starts 20 miles south. Where I live, though, there is only the occasional person who needs "quatters" for the "sody" machine or to "warsh" clothes at the "laundreymat."

Anonymous said...

I love your thoughts on this. I have never realized [or really met anyone] midwesteners didn't have accents [I am east coast southerner, sort of]...

I would love to sit with you and 5 people with different accents and just watch. It would be too cute!

Just found your blog and love it!

don't call me MA'AM said...

sparkling: my mom says "warsh." She's the only one in our whole family, so of course we have to ridicule her for it! ;-)

skippymom: My brain might go on overload with all those accents in one room! ha ha


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Tuesday, April 17, 2007

... And I Will Answer.

Here's what people asked---

stefanie asked:

Can you tell us what you do (in general terms)? You've talked about being in education in the past, but I'm not sure if you're still working in schools (or in what capacity) now.

If you won't answer that, then... Hmm... How about what's the one food you won't let in your house because you know you'll eat it all in one sitting?

Without being too specific, I teach teachers and other school staff. And the one food I won't let in my house (very often) is cheesecake. Love it, and would eat it all if it were in my house!!

ludi asked:

If you had to have either a pet dinosaur for the rest of your life you had to look after, or have no toothbrush for the rest of your life, which would you choose?

The pet dinosaur, in a heartbeat! First of all, it would be cool. Second, I could always pay for dino waste removal, right? And last... I cannot stand dirty teeth. I am a teeth-brushing fool! Remember the Shiny Teeth song? ;-)

aimless penguin asked:

What's your favourite variation of the colour purple?

Probably amethyst, but I love all purple. It's my fave.

alyssa asked:

What is your position on the 1939 Hatch Act? Or - Who is your favorite player in the Teapot Dome Scandal?

I think the Hatch Act was a good idea to keep corruption/favoritism, etc. out of federal and state employee's everyday tasks, but I think the 1993 amendment made it more palatable.

My favorite Teapot Dome scandal player is Robert M. LaFollette.

(are you hooked on government corruption this week? haha)

Sparkling Cipher asked:

When I was a little girl, my friends and I always had some prettier name that we wished our parents had chosen for us instead of our own name. Were you also disappointed with your parents' choice? If so, what prettier name did you wish they had chosen?

I didn't mind my name as a little girl, although I preferred to go by my full, given name when I was in school and not the nickname that my family used. Once I became a little older, though, and there were five or six of us with the same name in every class, I wished that I had a more unique name.

lizgwiz asked:

How did you meet the Farm Boy? Since I'm still waiting to meet "the one," I always find it interesting how people met. Did you "meet cute"? Hee.

We both worked for the same company for a couple of years. The first time I saw him, I couldn't stop staring at him. :-) We were friends for a while before we started dating.

stinkypaw asked:

Why did you start blogging?

Partly because my kids were doing it and I wanted to know everything they were doing... and partly because I found it interesting. I love the sense of community that is a result of blogging. :-)

wire asked:

Would you rather eat a cat or a dog?

I expected about as much from you, wire. haha The answer is NEITHER, thank you very much! Well, unless one of them tastes like cheesecake.

-r- asked:

Did you ever have an imaginary friend? If so, who was it? If not, what is one slightly odd thing you did as a child?

I didn't have an imaginary friend, although, now I wish that I'd had one. As for something slightly odd... I didn't do much that was silly or "kid-like." I was such a serious little person all the time, which makes me kind of sad for my little-girl-self.

In elementary school, if two boys started fighting each other on the playground, I would try to get in between them to stop the fight. Everyone else would be cheering them on ("Fight! Fight! Fight!"), and there I was telling them how disappointed their moms were going to be when they found out and could they just shake hands now and be done with it, thank you very much?

Fun questions. Thanks!

Ludicrousity said...

I love the shiny teeth song! It was rather creepy though, but that's why it was so fun!

-R- said...

Oh, I bet you were an adorable little Grumpy Frump, stepping in to stop fights! (I didn't have an imaginary friend either.)

metalia said...

I, too, am cracking up at the image of lil' GF, breaking up the fights! :)

wire said...

Hey! You dodged the question! I just wanted to know one would you rather eat. It doesn't mean you want Farmboy to bring one home tonight.

But ok, hypothetically, if he was to bring one of each home tonight - would the cat be the roast or the stuffing?


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Friday, January 14, 2005

The Long Tail

Over the past few days I have begun to see references to The Long Tail -- without quite knowing what it was. Today, Publishers Lunch gives me an explanation.

The Long Tail is the title of a blog by the editor of Wired, Chris Anderson. It describes itself as a public diary on the way to a book. Apparently Anderson's work in progress began as an article in Wired in October, was sold as a book proposal to Hyperion in December, and is continuing, sort of, on the blog.

Anderson offers us several definitions of the long tail, and some of his readers offer more. But here's one that I like: 'The Long Tail is about the economics of abundance -- what happens when the bottlenecks that stand between supply and demand in our culture start to disappear and everything becomes available to everyone.'

I like that definition because it hints at the possibility that the current plague of the book world -- the winner-take-all mechanism -- might one day disappear. To the great advantage of most writers if not publishers and booksellers.

The idea, basically, is that online retailing is allowing customers to explore their own tastes in ways hitherto not available. And what they find, as they continue to explore, is that they actually enjoy all kinds of weird stuff which they hardly knew existed -- because it isn't available on main-channel TV stations or supermarket bookshelves. This leads on to the idea that the sum of expenditure on all these little niche markets (i.e. the long tail) can equal or exceed the value of the heavily hyped blockbusters. And this holds good in all sorts of areas: TV, video, books, et cetera.

It's an interesting idea, and Anderson's blog is well worth a read. As editor of Wired he seems to be mightily well connected, with access to high-powered people from whom he can get supporting data. There are also lots of links to other stuff in the same line.

No comments:


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Toronto Takes the Gold for Congestion

In the ever-exciting congestion Olympics, Toronto takes the gold! Raise a toast! Congestion is a measure of prosperity and success. We win!

According to a Toronto Star article reporting a Board of Trade report, our average commutes are now longer that those in a field of 19 majors (see table). But these are not really the biggest and nastiest. The BOT skipped many tens of worse-off cities in Asia. Heck, Moscow, still worse, is not on the list. And look where Montreal is already. We may not even make the podium at next year’s BOT Congestion Olympics.
The truth is this is caused by a lot of things besides prosperity. Lousy Transit, Sprawl, Cheap Gas, Property Values, Gas Tax Unchanged for 20 years, Ontario’s Protectionism of the Auto Industry. A lot of things. It is broadly systemic. It cannot be fixed by a Mayor, no matter how courageous she may be.

Christopher Hume gets it big time: “It should come as no surprise that a (provincial) government that would spend billions bailing out the auto industry would also cut billions from public transit. If it's true that action speaks louder than words, there can be no doubt about where the province's intentions lie – and it's not on the subways, or LRTs, or buses.”

And Dennis DesRosiers was vilified for making this very clear last November: “…if governments collectively want to protect the 900,000 to one million jobs in the automotive industry, they also have to accept that we need more vehicles, not less ... I'm against road pricing… We need consumers to drive more, not less.”

Hume and DesRosiers get it. 100%.

If you add to Hume’s and DesRosiers’ insights that the Ontario Ministry of Electric Outlets has promoted the FIT program as a way to get near-free energy for your car, what else needs to be said?

Good-bye Transit. Hello Cars. Good-Bye Fuel Tax. Hello lots of cars. Hello congestion. Hello Road Pricing. Ontario will save Toronto’s surface transportation system by forcing it to tax its roads. Ruthlessly cutting meager transportation funding is to be expected as a measure in the progress of this multi-billion dollar automotive-sprawl policy. Money is made in building homes and cars, not in building roads and transit. Consumers will be left to build their own roads. No mayoral campaign can stop this. But I am heartened that it is a subject of debate in the current mayoral election.

What almost no one gets is that road use charging is needed to keep the roads under our cars, NOT to keep cars off our roads. No one. No driver. No politician. No journalist. No cyclist. No pedestrian. No philosopher. Only a handful of transport economists and cyberneticists can see this, and they, too, are for the most part unable to say what I just said for fear of being politically incorrect.

1 comment:

Goose said...

Wow, nice blog - even like the color scheme. Keep up the good work. - Todd


text:
Classifieds powered by Gulf News

Emirates firms up $16b deal for 36 Airbus A380s

Contract signing follows memorandum of understanding on order in January

Gulf News

Dubai: Emirates airline signed a contract for 20 Airbus A380 aircraft and 16 options, firming up a memorandum of understanding on the order signed last month.

The total agreement for 36 aircraft is valued at $16 billion (Dh58.77 billion), with deliveries of the aircraft set to begin in 2020.

The deal was signed on the sidelines of the World Government Summit, and brings Emirates’ commitment to the A380 programme to 178 aircraft. The carrier currently has 101 A380s and an order backlog for 41 aircraft.


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GK at Boston Women’s March for America!

This Saturday, January 21, GK will be lion dancing AND marching with our fellow citizens to send a message that we are all united against ignorance and hate. Come show your support at 11AM at the Boston Common!

On January 21, 2017, we will unite in Boston to march in solidarity with communities most affected by the hate, intolerance and acts of violence being perpetrated throughout the nation — among many are communities of women, immigrants, people of color, and people who identify as LGBTQIA and people with disabilities. MORE INFO

Visit www.bostonwomensmarchforamerica.org.

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