text:
Collection and Use of Personal Information
Personal information is data that can be used to uniquely identify or contact a specific individual.

Here are some examples of personal information that we collect:

When you create a Eternity Cloud Account, we ask you for your email address.
When using Eternity Cloud to update your data, we store the data encrypted, and we keep logs of the time and device you used to access the service.

When you contact Komorian, e.g. for a support request, we may keep a record of your communication.

We use the personal information we collect to help us develop, deliver, protect, and improve our products, services, content, and customer communications. We also use it to keep you up to date on our latest product announcements and updates, and to send you important notices, e.g. about changes to our Terms of Service or our Privacy Policy. You may opt out of receiving some of these communications.

We may also use personal information for internal purposes such as auditing, data analysis, and research to improve our products and services.

Collection and Use of Non-Personal Information
Non-personal information is data that cannot be used to uniquely identify a specific individual. We may collect, use, transfer, and disclose non-personal information for any purpose. We may combine personal and non-personal information for certain purposes; this data will then be treated as personal information for as long as it remains combined. Conversely, aggregated information, i.e. data that might have originated from personal information, but that has been processed in such a way as to not allow personal identification, is treated as non-personal information.

Here are some examples of non-personal information that we collect – either by ourselves or through the use of third-party services:

When you visit our website, we use Google Analytics to collect and process this information; please refer to the section “Google Analytics” below. If you’d like to opt out of this logging, please visit
When our Software crashes, we collect and store crash reports to help us analyze the crash and determine the source of the problem.
Our Software periodically checks our servers for important updates or notices.

Eternity uses Facebook Login to allow you to sign up or log in to Eternity Cloud using your Facebook account’s primary email address. Eternity does not access other information in your Facebook profile and does not allow Facebook to access your Eternity data. Eternity also uses Facebook App Insights to collect anonymous app usage statistics.

Eternity uses Flurry AppCircle and Analytics services which may collect hashed iOS device identifiers and MAC addresses with the following privacy policy:
More information, including an opt-out, is available on Flurry’s website:

Email and Dropbox services
Eternity uses Dropbox or email services to store backups initiated by the user, to which email and Dropbox service providers’ privacy policies apply.

Google Analytics
Our website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. (“Google”). Google Analytics uses “cookies”, which are text files placed on your computer, to help the website analyze how users use the site. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website, compiling reports on website activity for website operators and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google’s behalf. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. By using this website, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner and for the purposes set out above.

Cookies and other Technologies
Komorian uses “cookies” to collect information about your use of the website. Cookies are small text files a website can store on your hard drive. We use the information we collect in this manner to better understand our users’ interaction with our website and to optimize the user experience. You can disable cookies in your browser settings, but please note that certain features on our website may not be available as a result.

In our email communications, we may use other technologies like “pixel tags” and “click-through URLs” in order to determine if an email has been opened and which links have been clicked. This way, we can determine and improve the effectiveness of our communications. Pixel tags are small images shown inside an HTML email; you can disable tracking by disabling HTML in your email client. A link with a click-through URL, when clicked, first sends the user to a web server which records the click, and then to the link’s destination.

Access to Personal Information
When using our services or website, we aim to provide you with the means to view, edit, and remove your personal information. For example, you can request the deletion of your Eternity Cloud account and its associated email address by going into the settings in any of our applications. For other personal information, we make good faith efforts to provide you with access to your data so that you can request its correction or deletion. We will promptly process these requests, unless we are required to retain information by law or for legitimate business purposes. We may also decline requests if they would be extremely impractical, are unreasonably repetitive, require disproportionate technical effort, risk the privacy of others, or for which access is not required by law.

Your personal information is retained for as long as it is necessary in order to provide you our services, to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy, to enforce applicable Terms of Service, or to comply with our legal obligations. After we delete or block access to information from our services or website, it will no longer be accessible to anyone; there may, however, continue to be residual copies of that data on our active servers and backup systems.

Disclosure to 3rd parties
We don’t share personal information with anyone outside of Komorian, except for the few exceptions below.

We work together with other companies who provide services to us, like hosting our website, analyzing our website traffic, hosting our cloud services, etc.. We only share personal information with these companies if it is necessary for them to provide their services. All companies we work with provide at least industry standard systems and processes to ensure the security and confidentiality of your information.

We also share personal information if disclosure of such information is reasonably necessary to satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request; to enforce applicable Terms of Service, including investigation of potential violations thereof; to detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud or security issues; and to protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of Komorian, its users or the public as required or permitted by law.

If Komorian is involved in a reorganization, merger, or sale, the information we collect may be transferred as part of that transaction.

Protection of Personal Information
We take appropriate security measures to protect against unauthorized access to or unauthorized alteration, disclosure or destruction of data. These include internal reviews of our data collection, storage and processing practices and security measures, including appropriate encryption and physical security measures to guard against unauthorized access to systems where we store personal data.

Whenever you connect to our Eternity Cloud service, we use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption for all information that is being transmitted. However, no method of transmitting or storing data is 100% secure, so we cannot guarantee the security of information you transmit to us.

Some parts of our website, such as our blog or forums, may allow you to post personal information, such as your name or email address. This information is publicly accessible and can be read, collected, and processed by anyone. So please take care when using these features.

Please note that some of our servers may be located outside of the European Union, as well as the servers of our partners (e.g. Google). If you use our services or website, you agree that your information is transmitted, stored, and processed in data centers outside the EU.

3rd Party Sites and Services
Komorian’s website or any of our services may contain links to third-party websites or services. We are not responsible for the information collected by those third parties and we encourage you to read their privacy policy before submitting any personal information to them.

About this Privacy Policy
Our Privacy Policy may change from time to time. When we change the policy, we will post the changes on this page, and, if the policy changes in a significant way, we will also provide a prominent notice (e.g. on our website).

If you have any questions regarding our Privacy Policy, please contact us at [email protected]

April 25 2014


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School schedules, terminology are now available in 5 foreign languages

By KH디지털2
  • Published : Sept 4, 2016 - 17:00
  • Updated : Sept 4, 2016 - 17:00

A public foundation on Sunday said a booklet of the yearly schedules of preschools and primary schools and terminology used in them are currently available for parents of multicultural families.

The Korean Institute for Healthy Family, a state-affiliated organization working to help families in crises and multicultural families, said it translated the booklet into five different languages -- English, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and Cambodian -- and began to distribute them at 217 government-run multicultural family support centers around the country in late August.

The booklet explains the meaning and the time of schools' major scheduled events, such as graduation and entrance ceremonies, summer and winter vacations, the election of class presidents, and midterms and finals.

The information is also available at the government-run portal service for supporting multicultural families (

Starting in December, various school letters for parents of students will also be made available in the five languages, the foundation added.

At present, the letters provide information in Korean on lunch menus, upcoming activities to prevent school violence, rules on the use of mobile phones and a question-and-answer form asking if students have received all preventive shots required for their age. (Yonhap)

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text:
‘Big sisters’ to show where ‘Strong My Way’ is

By Im Eun-byel

SBS’ Mobidic becomes big player in video-streaming market after launch in 2016

  • Published : Apr 19, 2018 - 14:41
  • Updated : Apr 19, 2018 - 14:41
Rapper Cheetah and JeA of Brown Eyed Girls are to be “big sisters” to young Korean women, returning in the second season of “Strong My Way,” which kicked off Thursday.

The show’s first season, created by SBS’ mobile entertainment division Mobidic, was well received, recording 12 million views in its 13-episode run last year.

Cheetah and JeA, known for their bold manner of speaking, read stories submitted by viewers and dished out harsh yet realistic advice. While the first season focused mainly on romance and relationships, the second season is to deal with a wider variety of issues, including political and social issues.

Cheetah and JeA of Brown Eyed Girls pose for photos at a media briefing Wednesday at SBS headquarters in Mok-dong, western Seoul. (SBS)

“Online content made by major broadcasting stations should have an in-depth perspective with philosophy,” producer Ock Jung-ah said at a media briefing held Wednesday at the network’s headquarters in Seoul.

“When I started to work, I had many questions concerning life but I didn’t know whom to ask. It would have been nice if there had been a mentor, a big sister,” she added, explaining her motivation in launching the show.

The two stars revealed they had been close even before hosting the show together. They visit each other’s houses regularly and hang out often. Their close relationship makes the show better, they said.

The two also claimed to informally be like life counselors for people around them, listening to others’ worries and giving practical advice. The production team dubbed them “strong big sisters.”

“Many younger women (in the K-pop industry) consult me. As I like to listen to others, I was glad to feature in the show,” JeA said.

“One of my goals is to share people’s worries. It’s my dream to represent my peers,” Cheetah agreed, revealing she did not hesitate to say yes when she was cast. “It would be better if we deal with more serious subjects, such as discrimination, including gender discrimination.”

Scriptwriter Kwak Min-ji thought it was unfortunate that female stars are usually only given the opportunity to speak about beauty tips and outer appearance. She wanted to take a different approach.

“As the videos are not restricted by broadcasting regulations, we can do more (than TV shows),” she said. “The goal is to make clips that can make people giggle, but may change their lives.”

Major Korean networks entered the mobile video market in 2016, fearing viewers’ migration to mobile platforms. SBS’ Mobidic solely produces mobile-focused entertainment contents while others create news-related clips.

With around 210,000 subscribers and 666 million views, the mobile entertainment media outlet remains one of the big players in the local video-streaming market.

“Staff members from the entertainment section suggested the idea to go mobile. It was their will,” Stella Lee from the New Media Production team of SBS told The Korea Herald. “Mobidic collaborates with various other mobile media outlets, such as Pikicast and Oksusu.”

Contrary to others, Mobidic refrains from the use of vulgar language and violence. Kwak said, to compete in the “sensation-addicted market” without being vulgar, Mobidic uses its casting ability -- thanks to links to major network SBS -- as a strength.

“People are addicted to sensations. Some clips are poor in content, but are just rough and harsh,” Cheetah said. “It’s important to keep values and a sense of mission when making contents.”

The second season of “Strong My Way” is to be released every Thursday through various online platforms including Facebook and YouTube at 5 p.m.

By Im Eun-byel (silverstar@heraldcorp.com)


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text:
From: Semeraro, B David (
Date: Thu Mar 27 2014 - 08:50:56 CDT

Quick question. I am rendering with vmd and tachyon. When I do so I get the following output:

Info> Rendering current scene to 'vmdscene.tga' ...
Info> Ambient occlusion rendering enabled.
Info> Tachyon: preprocessing time 0.047000 sec, render time 14.445000 sec.
Info> Executing post-render cmd 'explorer vmdscene.tga' ...
Info> Rendering complete.

Running this on windows. Where is vmdscene.tga? I search the entire computer and can't find it.


text:
Houston County taking over senior center

Jail inmates are seen cleaning the Houston Co. Senior Center
Jail inmates are seen cleaning the Houston Co. Senior Center
Judge Lonnie Hunt is relieved that the center will remain open.
Judge Lonnie Hunt is relieved that the center will remain open.

HOUSTON COUNTY, TX (KTRE) - The next chapter for the Houston County Senior Center is being written with a major announcement from the county judge.

After a month of controversy and financial conflict -- including the closure of the center -- seniors, now, have something to look forward to.

Houston County senior Betty Atkinson spends lots of time volunteering at the center.

"They were so lonely. They need to be with people and eat with," said Atkinson.

That all stopped when the board of directors shut it down a month ago amid a mounting financial debacle.

"It seemed like they were trying to keep things hid from us," said Louese Hickman, a senior at the center.

The Meals on Wheels program soon re-started, but the center itself remained closed. No lunches served, no dominoes played, no social interaction.

But that's all about to change.

Late Tuesday, the county received a letter from the Service Center for Older Americans of Houston County Board terminating their agreement.

"In effect, that gives the building back to the county so that we can move forward and get the senior center program going again," said County Judge Lonnie Hunt.

Now that the building is back under the county's control, jail trustees were sent out to clean the building top to bottom to get it ready for its re-opening next week.

The program's state funding was being funneled through the center's board, but Judge Hunt believes the county can take over.

"I anticipate the county will enter into a vendor agreement with DETCOG and we'll see some funding from DETCOG to help support the center,"said Judge Hunt.

He says most of that money goes to Meals on Wheels, so they plan to rely on the continued support of the community and volunteers.

Senior Claude Watson is thrilled with the news and proud of the county for stepping up.

"One of the greatest things is bringing us together as a family," said Watson.

There's still lingering questions concerning the financial meltdown of the center, but Judge Hunt says he's just focused on getting the center back open for the county's seniors.

Judge Hunt also wants to move the county's two extension agents into the offices.

They can use the center for various programs and seminars for the public. Plus, their presence will allow the center to stay open for seniors all day.

Copyright 2011 KTRE. All Rights Reserved.


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text:
Cub Scouts, 1

I am an Assistant Cub Scout Den Leader.
(Ryan is the Den Leader)

The previous leaders of these five energetic boys were in there for nearly three years.  Three years!
They loved it!  Needless to say, they've been extremely friendly, encouraging, and helpful while we "learn the ropes" about everything.  In the beginning I was SUPER overwhelmed.  I have a brother who was in Scouts, but that was basically all I knew about scouting. Period.  Then when I was telling my mom about being a new Den Leader, she reminded me that she had been a Wolf Den Leader, and that she hadn't liked it at all.  Hmph.  Great.

Well, I had a hard time motivating myself to be excited at all for our first Den meeting last night.  Thanks to R, it all went very smoothly, and the boys responded well.  So, even though I feel ridiculous in my tucked-in, tan, short-sleeved uniform (complete with patches, neckerchief, and slider) - I am less not-excited for next weeks Den Meeting than I was yesterday at this time.

Ay ay ay.

  1. That sounds like a fun calling! Do you get to go camping?

  2. They did go camping this last summer with the former leaders, but we are going to be in Abq this upcoming summer, so we'll have to see. That would be fun, though. Mostly we do service, crafts, and go on field-trips. :)

  3. Hahaha! I LOVED that post! Let me know how den leading goes :) Have fun!

  4. hey! i found it, and this is super cute! you guys do a rockin awesome job at scouts, so thank you! (keep posting good recipes, i love them!)

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text:
AKR Update, January 2015 Edition

The Jan benkyokai has been moved to the 28th of Feb. The topic will be "What is Budo".

From the AKR:

1) IKYF/AKR seminar in late July, 2015 (tentative, as of 1/31/15)
The SCKR is almost finished with the final info on the 2015 IKYF/AKR Kyudo Seminar.

PLACE:   South Carolina Upstate University
                800 University Way
                Spartanburg, SC 29303
Seminar: July 27th to the 29th (Mon through Wed)
Shinsa: July 30th
Banquette: July 28th

2015 AKR Board Meeting: TBD

AKR Taikai: TBD

I would like to advise everyone that all the testing applicants are planning to fly out late that evening due to the shinsa schedule. If your flight schedule is tight you may miss either your test or the flight.

Seminar cost: You will be informed as soon as the IKYF has decided. You will receive the final seminar information separately.

Seminar T-shirts: 2015 IKYF/AKR Kyudo seminar T-shirts will be available. You will receive the image of the T-shirts and an order form as soon as the design is created.

2) The Asia Oceania Kyudo is closed. I am pleased to announce that there are members of the AKR and affiliated countries who will take the shinsa at the 4th Asia Oceania Kyudo Seminar in Nagoya in April, 2015.

However the fact is that there are some application forms still on the way or, have not yet been prepared as of the 30th of Jan. (deadline). Unfortunately this is always the case, which causes of delay of the AKR office job. I would like to alert you that it is very important to send in applications (seminar and test) in time. The ANKF is strict about the dead line and if your test application form does not reach there by the deadline your application will not be accepted. So far I have recognize a couple of the state federations that have been preparing application forms well and also on time. I appreciate that.

3) 2015 AKR Roster: Thanks to your cooperation and the hard work of <deleted> sensei of the AKR.

4) Creating an AKR annual tournament: There is a proposal from the AKR office for a national kyudo tournament. <deleted> sensei has updated his idea to begin discussion for all of you:
Since there has not been any response from my e-mail, I have drafted some quick ideas. I will come up with more ideas with my assistant.

AKR Taikai (Competition and Recording) Plan. Draft 12/28/14 <deleted>

The committee will provide an Excel sheet for keeping records and competition rules. Events should occur twice a year such as: (Spring and Fall) or (Spring and AKR seminar Taikai).
  • 8 arrows competitions.
  • No practice before competition except for makiwara.
  • Observers will record the results and archers will verify and sign.
  • Rules will be based on AKR competition requirements
The committee will recommend US team members for international events, based on the records from the competition

I would like to ask you to pay attention to the idea and bring up your thoughts. Please contact <deleted> sensei and share your ideas. Your participation in the project will provide you with a different type of training and this chance is very much welcomed and appreciated.

5) AKR website lead editor wanted!! <deleted>

6) Creating a translation committee group was suggested to the Translation Committee.

There was a good and competent interpreters group at the 2013 Seminar in SC. If the AKR had a group of such competent and dedicated interpreters there could be even more translations to create even more useful information for AKR members. Such a group could contribute their work to the AKR website also. We look forward to hearing from the committee in the near future.

From the IKYF:

1) US State federation info update (from the AKR Secretary).

Hello All, This is your friendly reminder email.

Yesterday was the suggested deadline for submitting your updates for the IKYF website.

If you have already sent in your changes, that's great!  If you have not responded one way or the other, please let me know if you will or will not have any changes so I will know if I should wait for your information.

Thank you all for helping to get this done.

Regards,  <deleted>

Thank you very much <deleted> sensei for taking care of the update of the state federation info.

This short note is to all the state federations.  If you wish to change or add photos please send a replacement photo (1 or 2)  to me. It needs to be sent separately from the organizational info to the IKYF office, so I, Yoshiko Buchanan, will take care of this part.  However I cannot guarantee if the IKYF office uses all the photos the way you wish.

2)    No Renshi and Rokudan shinsa in overseas:  The ANKF executive Committee has decided not to open both renshi and rokudan tests in overseas.  The official notice is as follows (in italic)

Mrs. Yoshiko Buchanan, President of AKR,  Mr. Tryggvi Sigurdsson, President of EKF,

Thank you for your continuous support.  For a long time, you have been expressing a desire to have Renshi and Rokudan exams at the Special Shinsa that will be held during the 2015 Overseas Seminar. The ANKF Executive Committee has examined this subject and decided that the 2015 Special Shinsa categories will be from Shodan to Godan.  However, since a large number of affiliated countries Presidents are wishing to have Renshi and Rokudan exams  with Overseas Seminars, the ANKF promises to reexamine this subject in the future. Thank you for your understanding.

Takeo Ishikawa,  President of All Nippon Kyudo Federation. (12/25/2014)

A Rokudan shinsa was enthusiastically requested by the European Kyudo Federation however the AKR emphasized that the ANKF could revive the Renshi shinsa in the near future.

From the NCKF:

From the Affiliates:

1) Kyudokai Panama has finished their first seminar instructed by Mie Takahashi sensei very successfully. The members of Lyudo-Kai Panma sent their AKR sincere gratitude for our support.

2) The IKYF website has an introduction of all the IKYF member federations and the affiliates
(http://ikyf.org/ikyf_members.html). “Colombia” is listed as non-affiliated country. However the IKYF has removed some unverified information about the group as of 12/28/2014.

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text:
Viewpoint: With No Contract Campaign, New York Teachers Wasted the Moment

The good news: this contract codifies a family leave plan, something rank-and-file teachers had pushed for. The bad news: Teachers, not the city, are footing the bill. Photo: MORE UFT

My union, the United Federation of Teachers, representing 80,000 active school employees, has reached a new three-year agreement with New York City. It was announced over the weekend that the contract had been approved by an 87 percent vote. The Occupational and Physical Therapists chapter, however, voted it down.

This year the UFT had a tremendous opportunity to capitalize on the momentum of last school year’s wave of teacher militancy across the South. Our union could have mobilized members, developed a bargaining platform with the community, and built alliances with other public sector unions that are feeling the squeeze on their health care and wages after years of concessions.

Unfortunately, the union chose instead to rely on a familiar strategy of closed-door negotiations with “friendly” politicians, in a Democratic city with a progressive mayor who depends on support from the city’s unions.

These are the two possible directions that teacher unions can take in the wake of the Janus decision. One path is to come out swinging and use workers’ economic power to strike, building community alliances and organizing a citywide working-class movement. This is the approach of United Teachers Los Angeles, currently mobilizing for a citywide strike.

The other path is what the UFT is doing—cozying up to politicians in hopes of finding “win-win” solutions, which always end up favoring management over workers.

To put this year’s contract in context, we have to go back to the last bargaining round between New York City and its unions, in 2014. Under the previous mayor, right-wing billionaire Michael Bloomberg, city unions had reached a bargaining stalemate. By the end of Bloomberg’s term, every single public sector union in New York City had been without a contract for years.

His replacement, Democrat Bill De Blasio, campaigned under the slogan “A Tale of Two Cities” and promised to confront runaway income inequality in one of the country’s most unequal and expensive cities. Despite having endorsed one of De Blasio’s more conservative challengers in the Democratic primary, the UFT welcomed the new mayor as a friendlier face for the labor movement.

However, years without contracts meant thousands of city workers were owed, cumulatively, millions of dollars in back pay. De Blasio and the teachers union worked out a deal—thousands of dollars would be doled out over the next five years in small, regular payments, including the two largest payments after the contract expired.

Those who resigned from the system—a substantial number, considering the increasing rate of turnover in the profession—would forfeit their remaining back pay. In the meantime, the city could hold onto the money, earn interest, and wait for teachers to resign, thus lowering its overall price tag.

UFT President Michael Mulgrew justified this deal as a teacher-retention incentive. Four years later, teachers still haven’t received 50 percent of the money we are owed.

What’s more, wage increases would barely keep pace with inflation, and city unions jointly agreed to ongoing cost savings in our health care plans, with unions tasked with finding places to cut. This has resulted in a whittling away of health care options for teachers and an increase in co-pays.

Then came “Red for Ed” this past spring. Starting in West Virginia, then spreading to Arizona and several other states, educators mobilized statewide strikes and job actions against mostly Republican state legislatures, demanding increased funding for public schools and higher wages for educators in states that rank near the bottom in per-pupil funding and teacher wages.

Teachers in New York watching the inspiring struggle of our colleagues across the South hoped some of that energy would come to New York in the shape of a dynamic, energized contract campaign.

Rank-and-file activism by New York City teachers paid off last year when a petition by teacher Emily James calling for the city to grant paid parental leave to New York City went viral online, garnering over 80,000 signatures.

The Movement of Rank-and-File Educators, a reform caucus in the union, had been organizing around the issue for years, including bringing a petition to the delegate assembly in 2016. As James’ petition began to pick up steam, MORE organized forums and marches, pushing the union to take up the issue and mobilize members.

For a workforce made up mostly of women caring for and educating over a million students every day, the lack of a civilized parental leave policy was a widely and deeply felt injustice. Many teachers had to save up their sick days in order to stay home with their babies. Often it took new mothers years to earn back enough sick days to replenish their sick-day bank.

The good news: the city and union were able to negotiate a family leave plan, which this contract codifies. This is an important reform for teachers.

The bad news: Teachers, not the city, are footing the bill. The program actually takes in more money than it gives out, under a complex system of contributions, payments, and reimbursements. And its launch will be funded by delaying the start date of the new contract by several months, thus delaying wage increases.

Eager to head off any rank-and-file opposition, the city and the union reached a memorandum of agreement early and fast-tracked the vote by calling an “emergency” delegate assembly less than 24 hours after the ink was dry. Delegates got no time to read the more-than-60-page document.

The previous contract wasn’t set to expire for months. There was no justification for rushing the new one past the membership.

The new contract continues a number of patterns established with the last one, starting with a disappointing 7.5 percent wage increase over three years. While this sounds good on paper, it falls behind the projected local inflation rate, which means a slight reduction in teachers’ actual purchasing power over the life of the contract.

New York’s affordable housing crisis, with ever-escalating rents, makes the increase even more inadequate—all while the city sits on a multibillion-dollar budget surplus.

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We will also be giving up $1.1 billion on health care, primarily by introducing a new second-tier health plan that all new teachers will be in for one year. Incoming teachers will also have a harder time attaining salary increases by furthering their education, because the agreement limits the options available for new teachers to earn extra credits beyond their master’s degree.

Contrast this meager package with the gains Arizona teachers made last year after their historic statewide strike. Inspired by the explosive statewide teacher strike in West Virginia, rank-and-file teachers organized a massive campaign to demand increased school funding and pay increases. Going up against a hostile statehouse filled with Republican lawmakers, they were able to win a 20 percent wage increase.

The new UFT agreement also builds on another problematic aspect of the last contract, which is the creation of even more out-of-classroom positions for teachers.

These “teacher leadership” positions offer bonuses of thousands of dollars for taking on jobs such as mentoring new teachers, coordinating professional development, and doing various administrative and bureaucratic tasks. It amounts to a sort of backdoor merit-pay scheme—administrators at the school level will choose a select few to receive pay differentials, while wages remain stagnant for the vast majority of classroom teachers.

Merit-pay schemes are prone to favoritism. By introducing this kind of competition into the workforce, these schemes undermine union solidarity, which is why teacher unions have traditionally resisted merit pay. Most of these ideas have been pushed by the corporate school-reform lobby. The UFT is continuing the traditional business union practice of adopting aspects of school reform as its own.

What’s more, because these tasks remove teachers from the classroom, the net effect is to increase class sizes. New York City teachers have not had a class-size reduction in 50 years, and this contract is no different.

The contract also offers a $5,000-$8,000 annual pay differential through its “Bronx Plan” to incentivize teachers to fill shortage areas in designated “hard to staff” schools.

New York City’s schools are grouped into 32 community school districts, all covered by the same union contract. The UFT has reported that six out of the 12 districts with the highest resignation rates are concentrated in the Bronx, one of the poorest urban counties in the country. The same week the agreement was released, the New York Times reported that homelessness in New York City schools had reached a record high of 114,659 students, roughly 10 percent of the student body, with a high concentration in Bronx schools.

By using such a small-bore method as a pay differential instead of trying to rectify larger economic issues affecting the community, the UFT is missing an opportunity to organize with the community around these deeply felt injustices, which affect learning every day.

“One Bronx school I worked at leaked and flooded when it rained,” said Anne Looser, a UFT delegate at High School of Fashion Industries in Manhattan.

“In terms of basic staffing, nearly all of the schools in the Bronx are broken into small schools of less than 500 students,” she said. “This makes creating programs for high-needs learners very difficult. In order to provide special education services to my students, I literally had to do something different every period. These issues are not addressed by the Bronx plan.”

A more ambitious union might have reached out to people in the Bronx who were struggling to find housing and built a campaign for affordable housing, or to raise the minimum wage. Instead the UFT is merely negotiating small advantages for specific teachers among its own membership. This is a far cry from the sweeping visions promoted by more militant unions in L.A. and Chicago for economic reforms to lift up the entire city’s working class.

While the contract was ratified by most of the membership, the one chapter of the union that voted it down was the Occupational and Physical Therapists.

These highly skilled workers have had longstanding grievances about their lack of pay parity with teachers—they top out at less than 60 percent of teachers' top pay rate. They have been organizing for months on social media. They demanded—and got—a meeting with UFT President Michael Mulgrew, where they brought signs demanding pay equity and pressured the leadership about their disappointing wage package.

“He said the city was intransigent, that the OT/PT chapter was singled out and the city was as determined to give us nothing,” said Judy Loebl, a physical therapist. “We have master’s [degrees] and doctorates, it makes no sense that we are paid less.”

Mulgrew told them in no uncertain terms that if they rejected the contract, the UFT would not be renogotiating on their behalf. Essentially he told OT/PT staff that they would have to go without a contract in this round if they voted no.

The danger of such arrogance from the leadership in a post-Janus environment is clear. It’s demoralizing for members and provokes anti-union attitudes.

“Members have all sorts of ideas in response to this,” says Marilena Marchetti, an occupational therapist. “People are looking for ways to apply pressure on the leadership, and some think by withholding dues, they might be able to do that.”

Marchetti moved to New York from Chicago, where she had organized as a member of the CORE caucus, which led the union’s historic strike in 2012.

“The Chicago Teachers Union popularized the slogan ‘Our working conditions are our students’ learning conditions,’” Marchetti said. “That experience taught me a lesson: when unions fight in solidarity with people who share their class interests against institutionalized greed and the starving of public services, we can win. That seems to be a better way of doing business with the boss than the UFT’s approach.”

Kevin Prosen is a middle school teacher in Queens, New York, and a member of the Movement of Rank-and-File Educators, a social justice caucus in the UFT.

CORRECTION: This article originally stated that OT/PTs on average make half what teachers do. It has been corrected to state that their top pay rate is less than 60 percent of teachers' top pay rate.


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Schulz positions for another state title

February 27, 2018

NORTH CREEK — Scott Schulz had one complaint Monday, and that was that his coach told him during a race that he was only 10 seconds ahead....

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Featured Wedding: Abby & Will

Y'all. This one seriously took our breath away. Abby was the sweetest bride to work with, and you can see that reflected in her beautiful Charleston wedding. Abby is part of the wedding industry herself, creating incredible custom wedding artwork. She created her watercolor maps herself, as a sweet, personal touch for her guests. She is truly talented and beautiful!

From their adorable golden retriever to their stunning florals, we are seriously swooning over here. And although we may be a little biased, we can't imagine a more perfect gown for her classic Southern wedding. She stunned in Pronovias "Alcanar" and a custom, French alencon lace veil.

We hope you love these photos as much as we do!

Photography: Aaron and Jillian Photography; Event Planning/Coordination: Mac and B Events; Venue: Lowndes Grove; Stationery: The Silver Starfish, Abigail J. Studio; Florals: Ooh! Events; Hair/Makeup: Paper Dolls


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I’ve loved gardens and gardening since I was a child. I’ve been fortunate in having the opportunity to design, build and plant several of my own gardens mostly starting from scratch (retaining a few feature plants, trees and structures – it’s amazing what you can do with an Andersons shelter).

I studied design at Central Saint Martin’s School of Art & Design and worked for many years in the theatre where I collaborated with other artists, sculptors and designers. This background has given me a good understanding of how to make creative use of colour, texture, form and space in my garden designs.

In many ways, a garden is not dissimilar to a theatre set – it should, of course, convey the atmosphere and character you want to achieve (whether romantic, dramatic, peaceful or fun) but it must also work in a practical way for your family, visitors and pets.


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Enhance your outdoor living with unique and inviting fire features.

Backyard landscape ideas can often be difficult, but an excellent and reputable landscape design and construction company like AAA Landscape Specialists will always help make your landscape and garden design choices easier. Many people don’t realize that a backyard landscape includes more than just your lawn and plants—it can also include an outdoor kitchen, barbecue, water feature, lighting, irrigation, drainage, soil preparation, grading,  masonry walls, patios and decks. One really nice landscape feature in a backyard is an outdoor fireplace or fire pit. What conveys the warmth of your home better than a fireplace? And what better way to bring that feeling to your outdoor living space than a custom fire feature designed around your individual and unique tastes.  An outdoor fireplace or fire pit brings friends and family together and makes your beautiful landscaped yard an entertainment area all year round. Whether it’s sitting quietly on your own or creating memories with friends,  you’ll love having an outdoor living space in your backyard to relax and enjoy a good fire.

When deciding what fire feature is perfect for your outdoor living area, here are some things to consider:

Traditional Outdoor Fireplaces

Traditional outdoor fireplaces are similar to fireplaces found in most homes. They often feature gas log sets to prevent sparks from escaping. Outdoor fireplaces typically create a more intimate environment in your backyard which is ideal for family closeness and smaller gatherings.

Fire Pits

Fire pits offer an excellent alternative to outdoor fireplaces and may better suit your landscaping needs. A fire pit is often the focal point of a social gathering of friends and family.  Fire pits can be designed and custom built by AAA Landscape Specialists in a variety of shapes and sizes to fit your tastes, space, and backyard landscape needs.  Fire pits are often used as accents in a well designed landscape and can be custom built using  a selection of styles and materials, including natural stone, pre-cast concrete, slate, flagstone, brick, quartz, stacked stone and stucco.

landscape fire pit

landscape fire pit

For a real campfire feel, consider a fire pit in-ground or at ground level with a complimentary seating wall to accent and provide convenient seating.

Wood Burning or Gas fireplace?

Smoke can be a problem for some and can be eliminated or minimized easily by burning natural gas or propane instead of wood. Local building codes are also generally less restrictive when using gas rather than wood, and wood burning fireplaces often involve  more mess and clean up. Most cities in San Diego County have restrictions which will not allow the open burning of wood.  Gas fire pits are becoming more popular because the negative issues involved with burning wood are eliminated.

san diego landscape fire place

Work With The Experts

It is important to understand that outdoor fireplaces and fire pits must be safely matched to an outdoor entertainment area. When considering an outdoor fire feature, you can trust AAA Landscape Specialists to help you in every step of the selection and construction process. AAA Landscape Specialists will ensure that you choose the ideal outdoor fireplace or fire pit to best suit your outdoor entertainment needs.

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Four Diverse Books That Are Challenging American Poetry

Four Diverse Books That Are Challenging American Poetry

This past summer, the NEH released data that sent news outlets into a frenzy: over the past five years, the number of poetry readers has nearly doubled to 28 million adults. To us, this news was incredibly validating and exciting, given the staggering variety of powerful contemporary poems we’ve been lucky to read and publish over the years. Even as we’ve cultivated Lantern Review as a space for Asian American poetry, we recognize that the lantern is a symbol of enlightenment across cultures, a guiding light that celebrates continued exploration of disparate but interlocking communities. So this month, we pay homage to our namesake and highlight four recent poetry titles that we’ve loved for the ways they’ve challenged exclusionary definitions of “Americanness” in political, social, and literary life. Whether you are a regular reader of poetry or a newcomer to verse, we hope these books can serve as a guide to the diverse traditions of American poetry.

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American Journal: Fifty Poems for Our Time, selected by Tracy K. Smith (Graywolf, 2018)

The title of US Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith’s anthology invokes past laureate Robert Hayden and his poem, “[American Journal].” But while Hayden’s speaker is an alien who observes “the americans     this baffling / multi people” from the outside in, Smith’s assembled communities of voices consider their various amorphous Americas from the interior. Several of our favorite APA poets—such as Tina Chang, Cathy Park Hong, Solmaz Sharif, and John Yau—appear among the radiant, haunting, and witty voices herein. Wrought from revenge for seized land, the joys of fatherhood, the despair of unimaginable loss, the wonder of what remains, these selected poems—or “reports,” as Smith calls them—consider and coax and challenge borders at a moment when our definitions of “nation” and “neighbor” are increasingly unstable.

Citizen Illegal by José Olivarez (Haymarket Books, 2018)

Citizen Illegal is a fierce and playful rewrite of America through Chicanx experiences. José Olivarez exposes the quintessential dissonance and violence of everyday America—in one poem, a white partygoer claims the absence of Mexicans in “this part of New York City” even as the speaker beholds a waiter who “pushes his brown self through the kitchen door” (31). But if white supremacy systematically negates black, brown, and indigenous experiences, Olivarez is a cunning new architect who seizes and repurposes that scaffold. By Olivarez’s pen, heaven is no longer the sterile playspace of the white and moneyed. Instead, it is “gross” (a space where Mexican women can finally revel in novelas), and it is intimate (there are no gentrifiers who destroy family and language). Each poem is unsparing, negating white America’s practices of erasure and affirming Mexican American experiences with song.

bury it by sam sax (Wesleyan University Press, 2018)

The crevices between boy and monster, dead and undead are dangerously thin, and sam sax toes the line brilliantly. He concludes this, his second collection, with a hefty question: “how deep am i indebted to the dead?” (83). The book strives to answer this from the beginning. In the first poem, a fisherman perceives a tug and pulls up “boy, // after boy, / after boy, / after boy, / …” (1). The confessional intertwines with the surreal in these poems of mourning, which salute gay teens lost to suicide, forebears consumed by AIDS, and betraying lovers who have in turn been betrayed by others. This collection is sax’s incantation of a vital lineage—including figures like W. H. Auden, James Baldwin, Tyler Clementi—that makes the dead marvelously undead.

If They Come For Us by Fatimah Asghar (OneWorld, 2018)

If They Come For Us reminds us that the titular question may not be “if” but “when.” Fatimah Asghar writes from her personal and political history as the daughter of Pakistani, Kashmiri, and Muslim diasporas, observing that any sense of material and emotional security must reconcile with the knowledge that “I build & build / & someone takes it away.” In response, Asghar fashions poems that probe brutality while preserving the ordinary: She describes an encounter between her Barbies and stuffed animals, an erotic playdate that devolves into military conquest (35). She points out that perpetrators of ethnic cleansing and genocide during the India/Pakistan partition of 1947 were “Men who wear matching shirts,” “neighbors who like to kill each other” (16). Her measured observations of the ordinary also honor the notions of shelter, kin, and abundance—which are not lost to bloodshed and trauma but are grounded in an auntie’s laughter, a track team’s devotion, and endless jello at the Old Country Buffet. In her essay “Against Witness,” Cathy Park Hong argues that poetry has failed remembrance in this “era of total recall.” Accordingly, Asghar’s poems propel beyond memory and instead stage everyday scenes that grapple with historical atrocity and personal loss. A continuing legacy of violence, she reminds us, “is the cost / of looking the other way.”

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As always, there are so many more incredible new collections than we have space to describe. Here are just a few other other recent books, including a few of this year’s National Book Awards’ finalists, that have been on our radar for the ways in which they push or transform the boundaries of Americanness and American poetry:

American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin by Terrance Hayes (Penguin, 2018)

Ghost Of by Diana Khoi Nguyen (Omnidawn Publishing, 2018)

Eye Level by Jenny Xie (Graywolf Press, 2018)

Oceanic by Aimee Nezhukumatathil (Copper Canyon Press, 2018)

Not Here by Hieu Minh Nguyen (Coffee House Press, 2018)

We Play A Game by Duy Doan (Yale University Press, 2018)

The Buddha Wonders if She Is Having a Mid-Life Crisis by Luisa A. Igloria (Phoenicia Publishing, 2018)

Bird of the Indian Subcontinent by Subhashini Kaligotla (The (Great) Indian Poetry Collective, 2018)

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What boundary-transgressing collections would you recommend to new readers of poetry? To old-timers? Share them with us in the comments or let us know on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram (@LanternReview).


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Grand Family Network keeps parents in touch with students

By Kyle Bindas | 9/21/16 8:53pm

GVL/Emily Frye - Karly (left) and Kenzie Brouwer (right) participate in craft activities during Sibs n' Kids weekend Friday, Jan. 30, 2015.

by Emily Frye / Grand Valley Lanthorn

It’s natural for parents to stress out about their children when they go away to college. They wonder how their classes are going, what’s going on at school and how their students are doing.

The Grand Family Network is a new support system at Grand Valley State University designed to answer some of those questions parents have.

Emily Frye

GVL/Emily Frye - Carly Serowoky (right) with Emily (left) and Lexie Serowoky (middle) enjoy the photobooth during Sibs n' Kids weekend Friday, Jan. 30, 2015.

“We realized several years ago it was kind of the tradition of colleges, once the student came to college they were an adult, and the parent was hands-off,” said LeaAnn Tibbe, co-founder of the Grand Family Network. “That mentality has changed and we realize now that our students are very connected with their parents, we have learned to embrace them as partners.”

The Grand Family Network seeks to help parents feel involved and keep them updated on what’s happening at their student’s school, Tibbe said.

“I would hope families feel like they’re part of the Grand Valley Family,” she said. “It’s a community that we have here that our students all experience that, and I’m hoping now our families feel that they’re part of that Laker family.”

Services provided include an email address and phone number available for families to ask general questions about the university and a monthly newsletter.

The newsletter contains information about family events on campus and features key issues students may face while away from home.

“The first month we address the issue of alcohol, because for a lot of students this might be their first opportunity that there is a lot of alcohol that they’re exposed to,” Tibbe said. “This month, we know that students deal with homesickness about six weeks in, so our newsletter for October (will) have issues in the article about homesickness.”

This is the first year of the program, which began in May. Tibbe said the program has already seen success with over 1,000 people signed up for the newsletter. Tibbe said this was accomplished with little advertising.

The program's founders have ambitions of expanding in many ways. Tibbe said there are ideas of starting a GVSU family Facebook page and expanding the network to include alumni.

Tibbe also said the program is looking to host one or two events a semester.

“I think it’s an asset for the university to have this program so that there is a touch point for families and they don’t feel disconnected, but feel involved and included,” Tibbe said.

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10 years old!

Well we celebrated 10 years of business, last week and we are proud to still be here serving brides and growing year on year.

Any business is hard and it takes hard work, passion and a little expertise 😉 to make it grow and succeed. I have been passionate since the start of opening in 2005, and I can honestly say it is one of the best things I have ever done. I love my work and continue to enjoy and grow with the business.

After ten years, we have become a destination boutique and have seen brides visit us from near and far. As far as the Camen Islands in fact! We see local brides and brides from London, who want a better service and a special experience and prepared to travel that little bit further.

I have had amazing support through the years from my family, staff and my suppliers. We have learnt to be the best at what we do, but we are nothing without amazing dresses from the best designers!

So here’s to another ten years. With changes and growth plans, we hope to continue to help and be part of many, many more brides – to- be for the future.

Thanks to all, past and present. With out you, our job wouldn’t be fulfilling!.

Lara XX


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Caregiver in Manalapan Township NJ: Causes of Dehydration
Caregiver in Manalapan Township NJ: Causes of Dehydration

When you think of conditions to look out for in your aging loved one, dehydration may not occur to you. It’s true that chronic dehydration is quite common in the elderly for a number of different reasons. Dehydration is when the body is losing more fluids than it takes in, and it can lead to lots of health issues in seniors.

Besides basic health problems like constipation, respiratory illness, and urinary tract infections, dehydration in seniors can also lead to kidney malfunctions, impaired cognition, slow wound healing and more. Learning the causes of dehydration in seniors can help you avoid the condition in your elderly love one.

Here are several common causes of dehydration in elderly people:

  • Medications: There’s no doubt that seniors take all kinds of medications for a number of health-related issues. For example, several blood pressure medications and antidepressants are diuretics and draw out fluids from the body.
  • Difficulty Swallowing: When seniors have suffered a stroke or other paralyzing condition in the face and neck, it can be very difficult for them to chew and swallow. This can lead to dehydration and malnutrition because they avoid eating and drinking because of pain or embarrassment.
  • Age-related Efficiency: An aging body simply doesn’t function as efficiently as younger bodies do, making it more difficult for them to retain fluid. Kidney function deteriorates and body fluid in general is lower with age. This means that being deprived of even a little liquid can tip the balance quickly from hydrated to dehydrated.
  • Short- or Long-Term Illness: Sometimes a short-term illness can leave seniors depleted, especially if diarrhea or vomiting were involved. Long-term illnesses can also wreak havoc on an elderly person’s body and make it harder for them to stay hydrated and healthy.
  • Hot Weather: Seniors are particularly susceptible to temperature changes and low water intake plus sweating can cause dehydration quickly. In the summer months, especially when outside, seniors should drink lots of water even if they don’t feel thirsty.
  • Mental Illness: This is a fairly large category that can include everything from depression and anxiety to dementia. When there is no internal motivation to eat or drink, or the elderly loved one simply doesn’t remember whether they have or not, then dehydration isn’t far away.
  • Fear of Incontinence: Many seniors struggle to control their bodily functions and worry about incontinence. Intentionally reducing the amount of water they drink to avoid accidents can have a detrimental effect on their overall health because they quickly become dehydrated.

Family caregivers should be aware of some of the causes of dehydration in seniors, so they can intervene when their elderly loved one is actively or unintentionally not getting enough water into their system. The good news is that dehydration is easy to prevent. By making sure that seniors drink lots throughout the day, enjoy snacks like fruit and smoothies, and stay on top of ways they lose water, family caregivers can help seniors avoid the ill effects of dehydration.

If you or an aging loved one are considering caregiver services in Manalapan Township, NJ, please contact the caring staff at Lares Home Care 888-492-3538 or 732-566-1112.


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Elder Care in Middletown NJ

December 21 is National Flashlight Day. This is the perfect opportunity for you as a family caregiver to refresh yourself and your aging parent on safety during Elder-Care-in-Middletown-NJpower outages. Even brief periods without power can be dangerous for your elderly parent, so it is important that you take the time to prepare them for such an event, and yourself for handling it even if it is from a distance.

Use these tips to help your parent better handle a power outage:

  • Keep their emergency kit easily accessible. An emergency kit is something that every home should have regardless of the time of year, climate, or who lives there. This kit contains the supplies that your aging parent might need to help them get through a power outage safely and comfortable. This can include food and water, extra blankets and clothing, entertainment, a first aid kit, a whistle and flares, and, of course, flashlights. This kit should be kept somewhere where your parent is easily able to find it even if the lights go out.
  • Keep lights in each room. If there is a power outage, it might be difficult for your aging parent to get through the home to their emergency kit, especially if they have mobility issues or low vision. Help them to handle this by keeping flashlights in every room. Look for those that plug into the wall and glow when the power goes out.
  • Make the utility company aware of special needs. If your aging parent has special needs or is particularly vulnerable, make sure that you let the utility company know ahead of time. This can help to have your parent’s home treated as a priority when it comes to restoring power. Make sure that you have emergency backup measures in place if your parent requires power for a specific need or challenge.
  • Avoid dangers. Make sure that your aging parent is aware of potential dangers that can occur during power outages, which can include using heaters, generators, or cooking devices that are designed for outdoor use indoors. These can pose a fire hazard as well as a carbon monoxide risk.

Starting elder care for your aging parent can be an exceptional way to help them keep their mind stimulated, their body active, and their quality of life high as they age in place. Even if your elderly loved one only has moderate care needs, the highly personalized services of an elderly home care services provider are designed to address their specific challenges and limitations, but also their personality, lifestyle, and goals. This means that your loved one can stay healthy, safe, and comfortable while also maintaining more independence and activity throughout their later years. This can include providing safe and reliable transportation so that your parent can take on more of their errands on their own as well as participate in activities and events that enable them to maintain more social engagement and a stronger, healthier mind. When it comes to keeping your aging parent safe and secure throughout their later years, this care provider can help your parent understand the potential risks that they face and to take steps to address and reduce these risks. The care provider can also review emergency plans with your parent and help them to follow through with them so that they can get through such situations as well as possible.

If you or an aging loved one are considering elder care in Middletown, NJ, please contact the caring staff at Lares Home Care 888-492-3538 or 732-566-1112.

Source:  http://www.today.com/id/16453340/ns/today-money/t/stay-safe-secure-during-power-outages/


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When it comes to healthy living, many experts point to proper nutrition as the key for building a strong foundation. Eating right is the surefire way to promote healthier living, yet many of us are not receiving proper nutrition. As we grow older, the need for healthy eating requires more attention than ever. Senior citizens are often not receiving proper levels of nutrition, creating a myriad of issues if not rectified. Lares Home Care is proud to offer senior home care to Matawan residents and beyond, providing quality independent living in New Jersey. Today, we’ll continue our look into the importance of nutrition for the elderly and how their dietary needs should be a top priority. If you or a loved one are looking for non-medical home care, be sure to contact our independent living aides today to learn more!

Boosting Nutrition

Elderly residents, like most age groups, should follow a well-balanced diet to ensure optimal dietary health. Beyond this, senior citizens are recommended to boost their eating habits further due to a number of factors. Dieticians have set forth recommendations to target nutrition deficiencies and further boost health levels:

  • Calcium is a vital player in the fight for proper bone health. As we age, the density of our bones decreases, creating the need for additional support. While an adult between the ages of 19 and 50 are recommended to consume 1,000 mg of calcium per day, seniors over the age of 50 should be taking upwards of 1,200 mg per day. This can be a difficult task, as this much calcium roughly equates to four cups of milk. Your loved one’s personal care assistant can help in this process, promoting proper consumption or even supplying a calcium supplement when applicable.
  • Fatty acids are a beneficial part of the nutrition plan that can prove to be very helpful for reducing inflammation. Recent medical research has shown that inflammation may be to blame for numerous health complications, from cancer to heart disease and more. Omega-3 fatty acids are essential, and serving foods that are rich in these hydrocarbons such as fish and flaxseed can prove to be a beneficial move.

Beyond these two points of focus, seniors also need to focus on consuming enough potassium, fiber, minerals, vitamin D, and more. Keeping on task with these dietary needs can boost health and energy levels, keeping your loved one mobile and independent.

Senior Hydration Needs

As we age, our overall body water content decreases, reducing the craving for H2O. This can oftentimes lead to dehydration, which is a major cause of hospitalizations for senior citizens across the country. When you are elderly and dehydrated, the risk for health issues rises exponentially. It is essential to promote proper hydration for your loved one, even if they are not thirsty. Our elderly care professionals can incorporate water measures to boost health with our patients’ independent care plans.

Taking care of your loved one while allowing them to retain their independent living in New Jersey is why Lares Home Care is in business in the first place. Our passion for helping patients thrive on their own while regaining their health and mobility help to make us your Top Rated Local® home care team. Next time, we’ll look at a few practices to avoid for senior citizens and their diets. If you are looking for a quality way to help your loved one enjoy their independence, be sure to contact our Matawan home care professionals today!


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Man killed in motorcycle crash

JOHNSTOWN ó A Gloversville motorcyclist was killed this morning in the town, state police reported today.

A state police news release indicated 34-year-old Edward P. Laporte was killed in the fatal crash, his body found at about 7:44 a.m. today. Troopers responded to a single vehicle motorcycle crash with an unresponsive victim.

The release said that at the scene of the crash on Progress Road, one-half mile southeast of Route 29A, responding troopers found Laporte lying in the tree line off the roadway, along with his 2010 Yamaha motorcycle a distance away from him. He was unresponsive and Fulton County coroner responded and pronounced him deceased, troopers said.

An investigation has so far determined that LaPorte was travelling northwest on Progress Road when for an unknown reason, he failed to negotiate a curve, exited the roadway, and struck a tree. Both he and the motorcycle continued into the tree line, troopers said. The exact time of the crash is unknown at this time, but the victim was last seen just before midnight.

The incident was reported by a passerby this morning who had spotted the motorcycle in the tree line, the release said.

State police are conducting an ongoing investigation. An autopsy is slated for Wednesday.

More information on this story will appear online and in Wednesday’s print edition.


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Op-ed did not use the facts

Guest editorial

Much has been said about the new federal tax plan. Most of it hyperbole, lacking in facts.The most recent was an op-ed by Star Parker.

For example, she cites Bernie Sanders, whom she calls the “most famous socialist” as saying this is a massive attack on the middle class and a boon for corporations. She then agrees with our most famous socialist, but then basically says, so what? Where do these people work? She feels by favoring corporation, jobs will magically appear. Again, using opinion rather than facts. The fact is that corporations have little to no plans to add more jobs. In a recent meeting with the Secretary of Commerce, only three CEOs planned on adding new jobs. The rest plan on buying back stock to raise the cost of shares, hence making their stockholders richer. By the way, not one corporation can make money without workers, yet the pay disparity between the average worker and CEOs has grown. From CEOs making 16 times the average worker in the 60’s to over 50 times today.

Ms Parker goes on to say the countries that have a better ease of doing business index, the more prosperous they are. However, Ireland has the lowest tax rate for corporations, but is far from prosperous, with an unemployment rate in excess of 10 percent.

Ms. Parker statement “contrary to what Sanders thinks, what’s good for business is good for the working families they employ” is opinion, not fact. In fact, it’s the opposite. The annual pay for the average worker has risen at a the slowest rate in the last 30 years, while, as I stated earlier, the rate of the CEOs pay has outpaced the average workers pay by 5 fold. So, contrary to what Ms. Parker thinks, what’s good for businesses is not necessarily good for working families. The trickle down theory did not work with Reagan, so why would it work now?

Her example of eight years of the Obama administration having only a 1.6 percent economic growth while Trump has had a 3 percent is misleading. Obama inherited only the second depression ever in the U.S. Handed to him by the Republican Party. Also economist say a 3.5 percent economic growth is unsustainable, leading to a higher deficit.

Her use of John Cochrane figures is also disingenuous. Many factors have to be included which she does not mention. If China and India has such low scores, why do we send our jobs to India, China, and Mexico? She is hoisted by her own petard by using those numbers. If the United Sates has such a high score, then why do we need to give corporations such a huge and permanent tax break at all, as she claims in the beginning of her op-ed?

The reason the salaries are lower in those countries has more to do with cost of living and oppression. Our living standard is helped by unions which do not exist in the countries mentioned by Ms. Parker.

Ms. Parker goes on to say that the corporate tax cut will spur faster economic growth by keeping businesses in the U.S. Again, an opinion, not fact. Companies will send jobs where it’s cheaper, then pay less tax to boot.

Then the worst of her statements. “Let’s stop with the nonsense about the tax bill favoring businesses and the wealthy over working Americans.” If that is true, Ms. Parker here are some questions:

Tell me why there is a provision to give tax breaks to real estate LLCs? Why is there a tax deduction for those owning golf courses? Why is the tax reduction permanent for corporations, but not the average worker. In fact, after eight years, 90 percent of the average workers will pay more in taxes than now. Why did the Republicans raise the inheritance tax from 11 million? Who, exactly, did that help? Why will the people earning between $308,000 to $733,000 get the biggest break? Why does the middle class get a 1.6 percent savings while the richest 1/10th of 1percent will receive 2.7 percent savings, according to the non-partisan Tax Center? Also after 2025, when all the tax provisions are set to expire, only high-income people will get a meaningful tax cut. Why is there a provision for Congress to come after welfare, medicare and social security if the deficit goes too high, due to these tax cuts, but nothing about going after corporations or lowering military spending. Again, the Republicans are protecting their benefactors, the rich, by sticking it to the little guy under the pretense of a temporary tax cut.

While I’m not against a tax cut for corporations. I am against the unfairness of this tax plan.

While I agree envy does not make a country great, prosperity does. I just think we will get prosperity by helping the average worker, not by catering to the rich and big business. That hasn’t worked in the past and will not work now.

If you want to keep corporations in this country, try a law that requires the upper management of a company to live in the country where their corporation is registered. That should do the trick.

John Swartz lives in St. Johnsville


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Police: 17-year-old boy stabbed grandmother while she slept

ALBION, N.Y. (AP) — Police say a 17-year-old western New York boy broke into his grandmother’s house and stabbed her while she was sleeping.
The Orleans County Sheriff’s Office says Albion resident Brandon Foster went into his grandmother’s house through a window just before midnight Sunday. Police say Foster then went into her bedroom and stabbed her while she slept.
She fought him off and was able to get away. Officials say Foster stole $23 and his grandmother’s phone before fleeing. He was found at about 6 a.m. Monday and charged with attempted murder and first-degree assault.
The grandmother is recovering at a hospital.
Authorities say mental health issues and a previous confrontation between the two may have played a role in the attack.
The teen is being held in the county jail. The name of his lawyer wasn’t immediately available.


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Reasonable Leadership

From January 2016, African American Point of View, by Lora Wondolowski

Every summer I try to read a classic novel and chose Orwell’s 1984 this summer.  Little did I know how relevant his dystopian future would be right now.  One of the things that really struck me in the novel was how their leaders were rewriting history and facts and changing the language.  Today we are having a national conversation about “post-facts” and “fake news” that echoes the world in 1984.

While co-facilitating a training on racial injustice, one of the participants responded to the historic “facts” that were presented with challenge on “white slavery”.  They cited a website that has information about people of European decent that were supposedly enslaved by Africans.  This person used that “fact” as a reason not to listen to anything we presented as if having one “fact” negates the other.  Facts are the foundation for any decisions that we make as humans.  We interpret the facts based on our own experience, reality, interpretations, and assumptions leading to what actions or decisions we make based on the “facts”.  This progression is known as the Ladder of Inference.  If facts don’t match our experience or frame of reference we reject those facts to justify our interpretation.  This doesn’t mean that they are not facts, but don’t match our reality.  In the case of the person in the training, they didn’t want to accept the facts presented and looked for a justification for rejecting them.  They found their own facts that matched perception.

Reason is the ability of leaders to interpret reality and bring others along.  Leaders have the ability to align perceptions with reality and increase their leadership by being reasonable.  Reality is reality regardless of whether or not it is perceived.  The challenge is when we perceive things that are not real or fail to perceive things that are.  The ability to shine a light on that reality is being reasonable and is a powerful tool as a leader.  Reason is the quality of a leader to be accord with reality, even when it is not convenient, expedient, or comfortable.

We are alarmingly faced with leaders that are acting unreasonably by presenting a reality that is false and using fake news and post-facts to justify that reality.  It is being argued that facts are not facts but just interpretations.  If you can’t rely on reason or foundational facts in making decisions, what can you rely upon?  We have to resist the seductive nature of following leaders that provide “facts” that don’t challenge us or are easy.  It is also easy to think that being reasonable as a leader is not bold.  Yet Rosa Parks’ perception of the word and the reality of the world were in alignment.  She acted boldly but with reason when she refused to move.  As a leader, that reasonable move engaged others.  What are the reasonable moves that you can make as a leader in this post-truth era?  How can you highlight reality?  These are the new questions that the leaders we need face and must rise to.


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Home About Us Tutorial About This Site About Prayers

About Prayers

Jewish prayers are by far more than just phrases to be repeated. They imply a world vision, a compromise with God and ourselves.

Praying in Hebrew is not mandatory. Jews can pray in any language. For centuries women were expected to pray only in Yiddish and many prayer books where created for this purpose. Still, for those who want to pray in the midst of a minyen or in a larger community, Hebrew "Leshon Hakodesh" (the Holy Tongue), will be the language of choice.

About Learning Prayers

We are providing you a way to help you learn, by "simultaneous synchronized, seeing and hearing Hebrew" word(s) in three layers. Thus you will be able to learn the meaning of each word and be able to pronounce each word correctly, whether you read it from the Hebrew or the transliteration.

While the words are literal translations, you will be able to understand the prayer and subconsciously learn Hebrew words.

Print the prayer.
You will be able to print each prayer for learning and reciting away from the computer. Even if you can't read the Hebrew characters, you can read the transliterated words with correct pronunciations. If you wish to say a prayer at Shabbat or some other event, the printed prayer can be used to help you. Eventually you can memorize the shorter prayers.

Funded by: The Newton and Rochelle Becker Foundation.
A WEBstationONE.com production. [CREDITS]

Copyright: Setup, Trademark, translations, transliterations, idea & design 1999 - 2014.


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2018 Ford Taurus Review

2018 Ford Taurus Review
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The 2018 Ford Taurus is Ford’s flagship, but only on paper. Rivals are more up-to-date in every way, so shop the competition.

The 2018 Ford Taurus is now Detroit’s forgotten four-door. This full-size sedan, offered in SE, SEL, Limited, and SHO trim levels, features fewer engine options  for 2018—its sixth model year since a refresh and its ninth since a clean-sheet redesign.

The Taurus earns a 4.8 out of 10 on our scale, a figure buoyed by the Taurus SHO’s strong performance but let down by poor interior packaging, bloated styling, and subpar safety figures.

Ford offers two V-6 engines in the Taurus: a 3.5-liter rated at 288 horsepower standard on SE, SEL, and Limited trims, or a twin-turbo V-6 rated at 365 hp that’s paired to a firmer suspension and special steering tuning on the Taurus SHO. Gone is last year’s optional turbo-4. All-wheel drive is standard on the SHO and optional on SEL and Limited trims.

With its 112-inch wheelbase and nearly 203-inch overall length, the Taurus is hardly the lithe, lean sedan it once was. Today’s Taurus is a big boat four-door that rides softly and leans into corners when pushed hard. It’s precise, but hardly entertaining and clearly has been tuned for comfort. The Taurus SHO’s dedicated suspension tune overcomes its two-ton mass, even if it too stops short of sports-sedan precision.

The Taurus’ full-size exterior dimensions don’t translate into big sedan interior volume. Rear-seat accommodations suffer from a low roof line and leg room that actually trails the smaller Ford Fusion. Up front, the available multi-contour seats provide good long-distance comfort and the 20-cubic-foot trunk offers good room for luggage or golf bags.

Equipment levels are good, but not great for a full-size sedan. A rearview camera is included, but the diminutive 4.2-inch screen and six-speaker audio system are more budget grade than flagship sedan. A larger 8.0-inch touchscreen is available and it features the automaker’s easy-to-use Sync 3 infotainment system with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto.

In terms of safety gear, the Taurus offers forward-collision warnings and adaptive cruise control as part of a pricey option package relegated to Limited and SHO variants only. Automatic emergency braking, a feature we consider essential, isn’t on the options list for Ford’s largest sedan. That’s a surprise given that the rivaling Toyota Avalon comes standard with all of that safety gear.

The Taurus might be Ford’s flagship sedan, but its styling is dowdy.

Unless festooned with a light bar and police graphics, the 2018 Ford Taurus isn’t likely to turn any heads. Its bulbous styling outside and dated, dark interior do it no favors. Other automakers like Dodge and Toyota have proven that big cars needn’t be boring, which is why the 2018 Taurus earns just 3 out of 10 points for its styling.

The Taurus’ exterior detailing stands in contrast to the automaker’s other, more shapely models. Long front and rear overhangs make the Taurus look even bulkier than its 203-inch overall length suggests. Taurus SEs ride on 18-inch alloy wheels, while Limited and SHO trims feature bigger 20-inchers. The Taurus SHO is dressier with its blacked-out trim, but it’s still decidedly dowdy against the Dodge Charger R/T.

Inside, the Taurus’ wide, tall center console and deep dashboard make it feel less roomy than it actually is. Wood-tone trim adorning the dash and doors on non-SHO trims adds some warmth to an otherwise cold design, but it’s laughably fake. Moreover, the Taurus offers bland beige and black interior hues that stand in contrast to the rich browns seen in rivals.

Even in SHO form, the 2018 Ford Taurus is best as a sedate, heavy highway cruiser.

The 2018 Ford Taurus pairs a soft ride with adequate acceleration easy handling. The Taurus SHO turns things up a notch, but its size ultimately prevents it from impersonating a sports sedan. Overall, the Taurus earns a 4 out of 10, losing a point for the way its body leans into corners.

Standard on the Taurus line is a 3.5-liter V-6 rated at 288 horsepower and 254 pound-feet of torque. The V-6 pairs well to a 6-speed automatic that’s geared lower in first gear for a good off-the-line feel. The Taurus feels more responsive away from stoplights than the Dodge Charger with its base V-6, but ultimately the Ford’s engine runs out of steam faster.

A 2.0-liter turbo-4 that was available in years past has been dropped for the 2018 model year.

The Taurus SHO’s 3.5-liter twin-turbo V-6 is rated at 365 hp and 350 lb-ft of torque that comes on from just 1,500 rpm. It’s not rocket fast, but the smooth, broad torque helps the SHO feel more fleet of foot than its two-ton curb weight would otherwise suggest.

Non-turbo Taurus sedans (Taurii?) come standard with front-wheel drive. Snow-belters can opt for all-wheel drive on SEL and higher trim levels. All Taurus SHOs are all-wheel drive, all the better to keep their extra power in check.

A long wheelbase and soft suspension tuning deliver a plush ride that takes in big bumps well, especially with the 18-inch alloy wheels fitted to Taurus SE and SEL trim levels. Taurus SHOs have more verve on a curvy road, but they also transmit road imperfections to the cabin. On all versions, the steering is nicely weighted and offers reasonable feedback—but not enough to overcome this big four-door’s mass.

Optional on the SHO is a Performance Package that adds uprated brakes, summer tires, even firmer steering, and a retuned suspension. It’s not unduly stiff and seems worth the $1,300 price tag, albeit with the caveat that snow-belters will want to budget for winter tires.

To blame here is the Taurus’ ancient structure, which is shared with a Volvo design that debuted two decades ago. Volvo’s big S90 sedan is now two generations removed from this old platform, and it shows.

Comfort & Quality
Big car outside, small car inside. The 2018 Ford Taurus sedan’s dimensions are confounding.

The 2018 Ford Taurus takes up a lot of space outside, but it doesn’t leave all that much inside. It’s best experienced from its supportive front seats, which earn it a point that we take back for the confining back seat.

SE and SEL versions of the Taurus feature durable cloth upholstery, while Limited and SHO variants have leather seats that are both heated and cooled. The front seats are wide, but so is the center console. Combine that with a deep dashboard and an instrument panel that wraps around into the driver and passenger zones and the Taurus hardly feels stretch-out comfortable up front. Rear-seat passengers suffer about the same. There’s enough space at the outboard seats for two adults, but head room is restricted by the low roofline.

That roofline takes a toll on outward visibility, too. The view over the driver’s right shoulder is compromised by thick roof pillars and a high shelf behind the back seats. Even the view forward is below average thanks to wide roof pillars.
On the bright side, the 20.1-cubic-foot trunk is roomy and models we’ve tested have felt tightly screwed together, if not finished with luxurious, soft-touch materials.

The 2018 Ford Taurus has done well in crash-testing, but it’s short on collision-avoidance tech.

The 2018 Ford Taurus has performed well in crash testing, but this older, slow-selling design hasn’t been subjected to all of the latest evaluations and it’s light on collision-avoidance technology.

Overall, it earns a 6 out of 10 on account of a five-star overall score from the federal government. The IIHS isn’t as impressed, giving the Taurus a relatively unusual “Acceptable” for its driver-side small-overlap frontal crash-test performance, which simulates two vehicles making impact on a two-lane road. The IIHS says the Taurus performed well otherwise, although its headlights rate “Poor.”

Surprisingly, the Taurus doesn’t offer automatic emergency braking—a feature standard on an increasingly large number of cars. Worthwhile features like adaptive cruise control, active lane control, and forward-collision warnings are bundled in a pricey $1,995 optional package.

The 2018 Ford Taurus isn’t just a big car; it has a big lineup too.

The 2018 Ford Taurus is a well-equipped large car that offers a good value for the money—especially given how often this big sedan is discounted by dealers. Overall, we rate it a 5 out of 10, with a point for its standard equipment and a demerit for some quirks with its infotainment systems.

At the bottom level, the 2018 Taurus SE includes power windows and locks, six-way power front seats, a rearview camera, and a 4.2-inch screen for the audio system with Bluetooth. The Taurus SE is light on whiz-bang features, but it’s also about $28,500, which isn’t all that much cash for this much sheetmetal.

Another $2,500 nets buyers the 2018 Taurus SEL, which loads on dual-zone automatic climate control, satellite radio, a leather-wrapped steering wheel, park assist, and a few other goodies. It’s optionally available with all-wheel drive and a package that adds an 8.0-inch touchscreen for infotainment that features Apple CarPlay and Android Auto compatibility. Leather is optional for $1,495, but at that point it’s probably worth stepping up to the next trim level. The Taurus Limited piles on leather upholstery (cooled up front and heated all around), 20-inch alloy wheels, and Sony-branded speakers. Optional on the Limited is a package that includes forward-collision warnings, adaptive cruise control, and a few other safety items.

Topping the lineup is the Taurus SHO, which features a twin-turbo V-6, a firmer suspension, special seats and upholstery, and some high-grade features like HID headlights that help justify its nearly $44,000 price tag.

All-in, a loaded Taurus SHO with packages that add more performance and luxury goodies runs shy of $48,000—and that’s before any rebates and incentives are applied. It’s not a cut-rate BMW M5, but it’s not priced like one either.

A word about the infotainment systems available in the Taurus: they’re compromised, to say the least. The base system included on SE and SEL trim levels is light on features and has a dated display. We recommend opting for the larger display since Ford’s Sync 3 infotainment system is among the industry’s easiest to operate, but it includes capacitive touch buttons for the audio system that some of our testers find frustrating to operate. Ford has largely moved away from capacitive buttons back to traditional hard buttons in its newer products.

Fuel Economy
The 2018 Ford Taurus is thirstier than many of its competitors.

With its thriftiest powertrain now a thing of the past, the 2018 Ford Taurus fares below average for a big sedan: a 6 out of 10.

That figure is based on front-wheel-drive versions fitted with the standard 3.5-liter V-6, which are rated by the EPA at 18 mpg city, 27 highway, 21 combined. All-wheel drive zaps those figures to an SUV-like 17/24/19 mpg, so think twice before signing on the dotted line.

The Taurus SHO’s performance also takes a toll on fuel economy to the tune of 16/24/19 mpg.

By comparison, the front-wheel drive Toyota Avalon is rated at 24 mpg combined and a 40 mpg combined Avalon Hybrid is also available. The Buick Lacrosse is pricier, but also better equipped than the Taurus, and its new mild-hybrid base engine is rated at 29 mpg combined.

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