If, like me you want to see the place where the Boston Red Sox will be winning their first game of the 2010 baseball season, or more specifically where the Minnesota Twins will be calling home for the next couple decades you’re in luck! Via the local Minnesota Public Radio station comes this slideshow “walking-tour” of the new Target Field and quite frankly, it looks DOPE. I’m more than willing to go to that first game if someone wants to buy me tickets and airfare. I’ll take care of a hotel on my own because I’m that good a guy. Click the link below for the full experience.

[Minnesota Public Radio]

I have a post up at GeekDad about a very cool Robert Krulwich NPR piece from earlier this week about an experiment testing to see if ants can count. (For some reason, the video embedding is glitchy, so here’s a link to the National Public Radio story itself, too.)

This morning, at 6 am, while most of you were sleeping off turkey and gravy, I got up to appear on a new NPR show called The Takeaway. It’s hosted by the great journalist John Hockenberry and his co-host Celeste Headlee.

The subject of our segment was first time business owners and how they are dealing with the recession and Black Friday. Two small biz owners from the New York area were guests, including one guy from Brooklyn who runs a new store that sells skateboards and fresh cut flowers! I was invited to provide more of a big picture, as one of the show’s producers had recently read my story “Fertile Ground for Startups.”

Check it out by clicking here (see the “Listen” link). It’s only 8 minutes long. And it gave me another opportunity to harp on a growing theme of my work: The key role that small business plays in creating jobs during the aftermath of a recession.

I hope and predict that the Obama Admin. will make job creation its singular policy focus in 2010, and come up with innovative ways to help small business–not hurt it. If not, he and the Democrats will be in for a rude awakening come the mid-term 2010 elections, and the U.S economy will not be in much better shape than it is now.

Editor’s note: I apologize for not posting that much over the last week or two. With BusinessWeek’s acquisition by Bloomberg, life has been especially nutty. Now that the deal is scheduled to close on Dec. 1, I hope to resume posting on a more regular basis.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

It’s not every day that potters make national news.  But yesterday brought us another thing to be thankful for.

One day after unloading from my own communal wood firing at Baltimore Clay Works, I heard this story.  The story highlights Miami Valley Pottery and the communal nature of wood firing.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120844949

Excited about my own results, and feeling warm and fuzzy about the community that surrounds our great art of pottery this story brought tears to my eyes.  I also might have been feeling a little jealous that Naysan gets 40 people, some traveling hours, to come help stoke the fire for the 36 hours firing.  Great pots and great life, Naysan.  Good job.

The Chicago based music label Numero Group reissues forgotten gems from all different genres of music – rock and roll, gospel, funk, R&B and soul. Most recently some of the performers went on tour under the banner of the Eccentric Soul Revue. Guest host Jennifer Ludden speaks with one of the label’s co-founders Ken Shipley and one of the performers, Renaldo Domino.

If only old houses could share with us the mistakes people have made over the years and save us some grief.  On my trip down to fetch the Mrs. I was listening to an NPR interview with Amy Dickinson of Ask Amy.  The subject matter was the gracious comeback using as an example the most recent blast from Martha Stewart toward Rachel Ray and Ray’s gracious response.  I’m not a fan of either one particularly but I was interested in the whole situation in light of gatherings that will happen around a stuffed bird today.

I know that I’m on high alert.  I’m tired.  I’m annoyed.  I’m stressed.  There will be off handed remarks – not intended to hurt but considering the fragile state of affairs – they could wound.  I will consider before I speak.

There will be families gathered all over the nation today.  Some that barely see each other save for special days.  Others who see each other too much for comfort.  There will be words, silent digs, people intentionally pushing “red buttons” and feelings getting hurt – old wounds opening again and again and again…and people wondering at the end of it all why it is that they put themselves in these positions year after year.

My hope for this Thanksgiving is that we allow each and every person around the tables where we will gather – to be themselves.  That we not try to change them, to judge them, to mold them into something we think is right.

We have maybe a 12 hour ordeal in front of us.  Twelve short hours out of our lives to be gracious, kind and loving.  I will do my best to weigh each word and response to the never ending questions that will come my way.  I will try to be a grown-up and put myself in someone else’s shoes and wonder how all this will look to me 30 years from now.

On Monday at 8:30 am on the campus of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, BC I was approached by a bland-looking 20-something man who held up a book and asked, “Free book?”.  Coming from the US, my knee jerk reaction was to glare at this man who I assumed to be an Evangelical creep.  Continuing forth, I was approached by another man 20 paces away from the first, who had the same book and the same question.  After my glare, I heard him say to the back of my head, “Come on, it’s Charles Darwin.  It’s a good book.”

Exhibit A: Was this lamb duped?

After another 20 paces or so, I reached an intersection of two main campus roads which featured 3 more of these book givers.  It occurred to me that there had recently been various celebrations and educational events on UBC’s campus commemorating the 150th Anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species.  Feeling like I had allowed the American Jesus nuts to harden me into an irrevocably cynical person, I approached one of the book people and asked, “What book is that?” To which she replied “Darwin’s On the Origin of Species“.  I asked her why they were giving it away and she said “Because it’s a great book and people should read it.”

I said, “Oh” and accepted a book from her, which I examined on the way to where I was going.  It appeared like a cheap, paperback edition of Darwin’s book  with the words “150th Anniversary Edition” under the title.  It was the kind of paperback that an organization would purchase if it wanted to give out copies of a book by the wheelbarrowful.  I showed up to my destination on campus feeling like I had learned a valuable lesson about trust.  I noticed other people had the book and I chatted with them about how cool it was that a group of Vancouverites decided to take it upon themselves to spread the ideas of one of the 19th Century’s greatest thinkers.

I felt ashamed that I had allowed my heart to harden to a point of not being able to trust anybody — even like-minded thinkers.  I thought, “I’m in Canada — a place that appreciates the scientific method and freethinkers and not so much the blind religious zealotry.  It’s okay to trust people here.”

Later that night, when I had returned home, I pulled out the copy of Darwin’s most famous work, and decided I would read the introduction.  Guess what?  Yep, you guessed it: there are assholes everywhere, even in Canada.  I had been the victim of a classic bait and switch.  These nuts had published an edition of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species with an introduction that flouts Intelligent Design and instructs the reader to give his or her soul to Jesus, lest he or she burn in hell forever.

Contemplating our next scheme, are we? Hmm?

The lesson, as always: keep your hearts hard and don’t accept free books on the street.

This close encounter happens to correspond with a very entertaining recent episode of This American Life, an NPR show that never ceases to titillate.  The episode is called “Bait and Switch” and it even features an interview with an ex-Evangelical discussing bait and switch tactics employed in the name of Jesus that are very similar to those I fell victim to recently on the campus of UBC.

I’m sorry, but if you need to trick people into listening to what you have to say, perhaps there’s a problem with what you’re saying.  Also, the last time I checked, lying was a sin.  You know, a falsehood, as in when one portrays Jesus (an African man) as white-skinned.

You can stream the “Bait and Switch” episode of This American Life by clicking here.  Enjoy, and Happy Thanksgiving!

These three men represent what I consider the journalistic ideal. What else do they have in common? They are no longer reporting. Well, sort of. As you know, Walter Kronkite passed away in July, after a lifetime of diligent reporting and being voted “the most trusted man in America”.

Carl Kasell, the voice behind Morning Edition on NPR News since its inception in 1979, has stated that he will no longer be reporting as of December 30th, 2009. Kasell will, however, continue announcing for the NPR news quiz Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me.

Bill Moyers was the White House Press Secretary during the LBJ Administration, and went on to have a lengthy career with National Public Radio, as well as smaller stints on CBS and NBC. Since 2007, Moyers has hosted Bill Moyers Journal, discussing some of the most important and least-covered stories of the day with experts from multiple perspectives. I personally haven’t missed an episode of the Journal since its inception, and to me Bill Moyers represents the perfect journalist, one whose concern is uncovering the truth for the American people. Moyers is an outspoken critic of the American media, whose focus in recent years has shifted more and more to ratings and profits. Moyers is one of the few journalists who realises what “balance” truly is:

“The journalist’s job is not to achieve some mythical state of equilibrium between two opposing opinions out of some misshapen respect—sometimes, alas, reverence—for the prevailing consensus among the powers-that-be. The journalist’s job is to seek out and offer the public the best thinking on an issue, event, or story.”

Moyers has stated that he will no longer be producing the Journal as of April 30, 2010, and as of yet he does not have plans for another show. Let’s all hope that changes, for the good of America. Seriously, this man should be president.

I don’t know how I’ll feel once Kasell and Moyers are off the air; I certainly felt sick when Kronkite died. It really sucks having the wise older folks you trust no longer supplying you with vetted and insightful information. Who are we supposed to trust now?

"It's almost odorless!"

Everyone You Know is Going To Die (And Then You Are…Unless You Die First) is a mouthful of a title for a debut album. And while it also references the least funny bit in his live show, it does hint at the absurdist approach of Moshe Kasher. His material is an intriguing combination of cerebral humor and crude imagery, but it’s his precision with language that sets him apart from the pack – he’s a great writer who’s also a talented performer.

I’ll admit up front that mixing studio cuts within a live performance (as done here)  is a concept that usually doesn’t work well for me. When the live show is clicking – and this one is – the inserted bits usually break up the momentum of the show. These stand-up bits are all short and imaginative, and I think running them together followed by the set pieces would have made a stronger presentation, especially since the live show is relatively short (approximately twenty-five minutes). But that’s a small nit to pick.

His stage show is very funny, with good takes on familiar topics like religion and sex and great routines about the consequences of mistaking one French phrase for another, the myth of LA/SF turf wars, and how to possibly compliment the female privates. His material is lean and tight (nothing is longer than a minute or two) and Kasher is as expressive with his voice as he is with physical gestures. You lose very little by just hearing it on an audio CD.

As for the recorded monologues, “An Open Letter to Modesto, California” probably works the best because it’s an increasingly bitter and vulgar rant against some homophobic pinheads at a prior show that immediately follows two routines about gay-bashing. It’s also incredibly well-written, a slow volcano of seething anger and frustration heightened by subtle sound effects that are also very funny (the spit-take from the imaginary Yefet character – and Moshe’s subsequent exchange with him –  is hilarious). It’s almost nine minutes long without one weak moment.

Two of the other studio monologues (“White Pube” and “Getting out of Speeding Tickets”) are funny enough, Kasher reciting twisted thoughts in his best NPR voice, but they’re not natural segues where they are placed within the live show. (“Speeding Tickets” sounds like a Jack Handey routine gone off the rails). A fourth piece (“Emails I Have Received”) wears thin after the first minute, but the concept was a good one.

I’d go see this guy in a heartbeat. And selfishly, as much as I enjoy the audio monologues, I’m hoping his next album contains a longer live performance.

Moshe Kasher’s site and MySpace site.

Rooftop Comedy Productions

Video: “Adventures in France“

The "Gitler" haircut

The following are social media guidelines set for National Public Radio (NPR) employees. We’ve been discussing these quite a bit at work and I feel that they are good guidelines to live by. The only one that I have difficulty with is the last one; regarding staying out of political or polarizing issues. While I understand that the best journalism is neutral and unbiased, I still enjoy listening to opinion leaders and their political beliefs. Below are the guidelines:

• Information from your Facebook page, your blog entries, and your tweets – even if you intend them to be personal messages to your friends or family – can be easily circulated beyond your intended audience. This content, therefore, represents you and NPR to the outside world as much as a radio story or story for NPR.org does.

• Recognize that everything you write or receive on a social media site is public. Anyone with access to the web can get access to your activity on social media sites. And regardless of how careful you are in trying to keep them separate, in your online activity, your professional life and your personal life overlap.

• You should conduct yourself in social media forums with an eye to how your behavior or comments might appear if we were called upon to defend them as a news organization. In other words, don’t behave any differently online than you would in any other public setting.

• You must not advocate for political or other polarizing issues online. This extends to joining online groups or using social media in any form (including your Facebook page or a personal blog) to express personal views on a political or other controversial issue that you could not write for the air or post on NPR.org.

And the march of progress continues:

‘Insecurity Cameras’ To Track All Of Town’s Traffic

A little town in California has a big and controversial idea: It wants to install security cameras on roads leading into town so that it can screen and record every license plate that comes inside city limits. The plan could effectively turn Tiburon into perhaps the nation’s first public gated community.

* * *

“Tiburon is unusual because there are only two roads going in and out of the town,” says Mayor Alice Fredericks.

It’s quite easy, she says, to keep track of every car along those two roads. Last week, the Town Council decided to spend $200,000 to place six security cameras at strategic points along the road. For now, the plan is to make sure none of the cars coming into town are stolen. Crime statistics are low in Tiburon, but in a small town, Fredericks says, even a few crimes make an impact.

* * *

Police run license-plate checks all the time, says Jennifer King, an expert in technology and public policy at the University of California, Berkeley. Tiburon’s plan is to just run many plate checks. The problem, she says, is that once the equipment is installed, safeguards to protect privacy can change. For instance, the license plate information is supposed to be purged after eight hours, but what if a crime occurs and suddenly that information becomes more important?

“They may start today by keeping it eight hours, but I’ll almost bet you that what they’ll find is that somebody will come back and go, ‘If only we had the data from those cameras,’” she says. “We call it ’scope creep’ in the technology world. That scope can really crawl, really grow very quickly.”

Nah, that’d never happen, would it? I mean, the police would never seek to use the collected data in an inappropriate or unethical fashion, would they?

Police routinely arresting people to get DNA, inquiry claims

Police officers are now routinely arresting people in order to add their DNA sample to the national police database, an inquiry will allege tomorrow.

The review of the national DNA database by the government’s human genetics commission also raises the possibility that the DNA profiles of three-quarters of young black males, aged 18 to 35, are now on the database.

* * *

The crime and security bill published last week by the home secretary, Alan Johnson, proposes to keep DNA profiles of people arrested but not convicted of any offence on the database for six years. This follows a landmark European court judgment last December, ruling illegal the current blanket policy of indefinite retention of DNA profiles whether or not the person has been convicted of an offence.

It adds that parliament never formally debated the establishment of the DNA database. Its evolution involved a “function creep” from being used to confirm police suspicions to identifying suspects. This resulted in the addition of more and more profiles without being clearly matched by an improvement in convictions.

Gods, what are people thinking? In my own hometown there is once again an effort to put “security cameras” in place in our downtown area, a subject I have written about previously. Last spring our City Council decided to put a stop to it, but proponents have gathered enough signatures to now have the matter put on the ballot for a special election next year. It’s like the damned “red light cameras” which cost more than they’re worth, do not lead to improved safety at intersections, and just decrease everyone’s privacy.

But hey, they make people feel good, right? And all that matters is good security theatre, not actual security. Don’t scare the sheep, or they’ll panic and run.

Jim Downey

PS: since I’ve been told that sometimes I need to be less subtle, let me be bloody obvious – I chose the title intentionally. Yes, I think that religion and the perceived need for security theatre come from the same source: that reassurance that someone else is watching over you to make sure you are safe. What else is the Abrahamic God but a paranormal surveillance system?

(Cross posted to UTI.)

by Frank Fortner

In talking with many of our customers, I’m often amazed by the number of good folks in the “MAGIC Kingdom” who still don’t fully realize what a significant shift in technology the MEDITECH Advanced Technology now shipping in (parts of) Client/Server version 6.x represents.  Some have even been led to believe 6.x is just another run-of-the-mill ring release that you migrate to after C/S 5.6.  I’ve spoken with a few beta sites and early adopters who might beg to differ.  For the sake of this post however, let’s concentrate on the new MEDITECH Advanced Database (MAD).  I want to highlight a few of the differences between the MAD and its predecessor (NPR) and since there is much to say on this topic, I’m going to break this into parts I and II.  In part I, we’ll look at the structure and design of the new database.

For starters, whereas the MAGIC/NPR database was termed “hierarchical,” the new Advanced Database is best described as “chronological” or “append-only,” which (in English) means that nothing is ever overwritten or deleted from it.  Most databases think in terms of add, insert or delete.  With MAD, you really just add.  There’s a slogan in there somewhere.    In order to illustrate how the MAD stores data, consider the following screenshot:

The highlighted section in the top half of the structure represents an initial entry in the MIS Directions Dictionary, where the facility of LAB has been created along with three corresponding applications, .DFT, LAB and PCS.  The lower un-highlighted section represents records that were later added due to an edit of the .DFT application and its schedule.  The advantage to this type of data storage is that it produces the mother-of-all audit trails.  A record of every addition, edit and deletion is stored, complete with the initials of the user responsible for each entry. The downside would seem to be the size of the database and how much larger it could potentially grow as more edits and deletions are made.  By the way… if you’re a old MAGIC programmer, you’ve probably realized you can still feel your way around a structure like this.

Keep in mind, when a program reads data from a chronological database, it has to essentially parse through the entire structure, so as more edits are made over time and the structure grows, you could pay a performance penalty.  At the same time, MEDITECH has implemented several tricks and techniques to make the reading of this type of file more efficient than it would appear to be at first glance.  In fact, MEDITECH has a special service program called ANP that has been highly optimized for reading from and writing to the MAD and it’s the ONLY program that is allowed to do so.  As a final word on performance, it’s safe to say your mileage may vary by application because some apps are more edit-intensive than others.

I hope this has provided you with a basic introduction to the new database structure and how it stores data as compared with its predecessor, NPR.  In part II, we’ll look at some other differences between the two database technologies.  As always, your comments and questions are welcome.  In addition, if you would like to see some other aspects of the Advanced Technology covered in future posts, please let us know.

Careful readers of this blog will have picked up on a few broad themes :

• mild, barely noticeable antipathy towards the Palinista wing of the Republican party
• cringing at the over-use of certain words and phrases by Public Radio personalities
• distaste at the shameless promulgation of Karen Armstrongian ecumenical pseudo-deism by the likes of Krista Tippett
• rejection of conventional wisdom (“Con-Whiz!”  it’s like Cheez-Whiz for the mind) talking point ping-pong tarted up as “analysis”
• mortified attention-calling to the pathological hyper-mega-parenting that has become the norm in today’s global yuppie culture

There’s some saying about fish not being able to see the water they are swimming in, and I think it applies to Public Radio staffers’ attitudes to the last four of these.

Studs Terkel wisely lamented that journalists have become too bourgeois to question the status-quo they are now totally invested in.  He was correct.  The toothless and intellectually passive correspondents of the supposedly liberal mainstream media have turned the likes of Stewart and Colbert into Woodward and Bernstein by comparison.  You can’t see the elephant in the room if you are the elephant.

And thus the entire meaning of today’s little Morning Edition story about a dramatic drop in teen driving orbited high above the head of story-filer Beth Accomando.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  I’m all in favor of the clear benefit to society we’ll see when America’s pimply texters reject their traditional role as scary statistic generators for MADD. It’s not the result that bothers me, it’s the cause.

Beth Accomando posits that the cause must be the internet.  Or maybe video games.

But no, Beth, you totally, totally blew it.  The cause is simply and obviously the invisible fence 21st century teens have had conditioned into their brains by a relentless combination of agoraphobia-by-proxy created through an unprecedented level of parental anxiety and the debilitating sloth inculcated by a culturally humiliating practice of parents behaving like harried personal assistants to a celebrity.

This is the kind of attitude that turns the theme of Cormack McCarthy’s “The Road”, which is that we’re all mortal and that having children is no redemption because they too are mortal, into “a love story between a father and a son” as the progeny-besotted director stated yesterday in a Morning Edition story about the adaptation.

So small point: overparenting is trying to ruin the next generation.  If they don’t even want to drive, the traditional dream/lust of all teen-agers, what the hell will they ever want do of any value?

Large point: get your heads out of your asses.  We’re at war.

In honor of Thanksgiving (which again, is one of my least favorite holidays), here is a pumpkin pie recipe via NPR, and one of my favorite shows: America’s Test Kitchen (like for seriously, look up their mac and cheese recipe).

I’ve reprinted it here for a few reasons.

1.  Please note that I will NEVER make this.  Baking is easy, it’s just science, but this recipe is sneaky cooking activities disguised as baking.

2.  This pie requires basically an entire day to complete (45 minutes refrigeration here…3 hours of colling here…)

3.  It also requires approximately 74 different cooking tools, of which I own maybe 4.

4.  However, it does sound tasty, and I do like sweet potatoes…until someone calls them yams…

5.  It also only uses 2 tablespoons of vodka, meaning the rest of the bottle is mine, all mine!

6.  NPR/ATK just sound snooty when they describe the process (I underlined all the offending passages below.  In case you’re wondering, it’s really cold outside today and I’m bored and waxing nostalgic…).  It just makes me want to go and buy a premade crust and some filling.  If it’s good enough for 99.9% of Americans, and 100% of those living below the mason/dixon line, then it’s good enough for me.

7. If anything has more than 7 ingredients, I’m done for.  My ADHD simply won’t allow me to remember that many things to shove into a bowl.

.

Finally: The Ultimate Pumpkin-Sweet Potato Pie

Due to lack of time, I am back to posting what others have written about Yemen. Here is a fantastic article from NPR, (where else) that demonstrates a massive and often overlooked problem on Yemen’s hands. Facinating Read.

You can access the article here.

November 20, 2009 -

Obscured By War, Water Crisis Looms In Yemen

Lately, the news from Yemen has been dominated by an escalating rebellion along the border with Saudi Arabia. But for water experts, Yemen has been making news for decades because of its severe overuse of a rapidly disappearing water supply.

In 1998, Abdul Rahman al-Eryani was a young local aid worker explaining the desperate water situation in Ta’iz, south of the capital, San’a. Water was so scarce that some households only had it once every six weeks.

Eleven years later, Eryani is now the Yemeni government minister of water and environment, Ta’iz residents are still waiting six weeks for water to flow from the tap, and in San’a, the situation has gone from bad to looming disaster.

“We are in crisis. And this is expected. … We are using almost 100 percent more than the annual renewable water that’s available in San’a,” Eryani says.

The alluvial aquifers closer to the surface have been exhausted, and drill bits must now chew through more than 3,000 feet of earth before reaching the ancient sandstone aquifer that holds what Eryani believes is the last of San’a’s reachable underground supply.

No one knows precisely when the water supply will run out, but there’s no doubt that it will, and probably sooner rather than later.

Yemenis are responding by drilling illegal wells and pumping more water than ever.

Nature And Policy Blunders To Blame

On a recent day, well water gushes into Hassan al-Jibouri’s tanker truck at a roadside pump along one of San’a’s main streets. Jibouri and his fellow drivers spend their days selling water to hotels, restaurants and private homes.

He says a typical water delivery costs 1,000 rials, or about $5. If he has to drive a long distance, it might cost a bit more.

Yemen’s water crisis is, in part, the inevitable result of a rapidly growing population, limited rainfall and finite water resources.

Enlarge Peter Kenyon/NPRYemen farmers long ago adopted the practice of terraced farming on steep mountain slopes to capture rainwater. But since the 1970s, farmers have been encouraged to drill wells, depleting limited underground aquifers. About 40 percent of available water goes to khat, shown here on a hillside in northern Yemen. Many Yemenis chew the mildly narcotic leaf.

Peter Kenyon/NPRYemen farmers long ago adopted the practice of terraced farming on steep mountain slopes to capture rainwater. But since the 1970s, farmers have been encouraged to drill wells, depleting limited underground aquifers. About 40 percent of available water goes to khat, shown here on a hillside in northern Yemen. Many Yemenis chew the mildly narcotic leaf.

But experts and ordinary Yemenis agree that policy blunders have accelerated the crisis and made it harder to fix.

First, there is the massive problem of agriculture. Despite the severe shortages of drinking water, at least 85 percent of Yemen’s available water goes to agriculture, where huge amounts are wasted.

For centuries, Yemeni farmers captured rainwater for their crops. But in the 1970s, well-intentioned international groups such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund showed up with a raft of incentives to get farmers to drill wells and use underground aquifers instead.

Anwer Sahooly is a water expert with the German Development Corp., a major player in Yemen’s water reform efforts. He says more than 1 million acres of farmland that used to be rain-fed are now irrigated with underground water, using inefficient methods that lose vast amounts of water to evaporation and leakage.

“We have to reverse the process now, and make people get used to rainwater harvesting. We have to encourage harvesting from floods, from spit irrigation, from every drop that we get, and stop drilling any more wells,” he says.

Cash Crop Depletes Water Supply

Despite a new law outlawing most private wells, the drilling goes on. The sound of water pumps can be heard on farm plots all around the capital. The most popular crop of all is khat, a plant that produces a mildly narcotic leaf that Yemenis love to chew.

Small farmer Abdullah al-Jidri, sporting a softball-sized wad of khat leaves in his left cheek, says many farmers would be happy to grow fruits, vegetables and grains, but they can’t live without the cash brought in by khat.

“With food crops, we have to wait for a year or longer to get a harvest, and if there’s a problem, you won’t get a crop. But with khat, you just put some water on it and you have leaves in a month’s time that you can sell immediately. It’s a cash crop,” he says.

When asked whether he’s heard that the government wants farmers to stop growing khat to save water, Jidri and his brother laugh.

“Don’t believe the officials. They ask us to grow more khat for them to chew,” he says.

Other than cash for farmers, Yemenis agree that khat produces no benefit, and in fact impairs the productivity of much of the labor force most afternoons. But efforts to curtail khat production and consumption are so far largely ineffectual.

Water A Hard Sell Amid Other Problems

Some long-term reforms are under way, notably the decentralization of water management to the local level. Officials are also replacing open-channel water lines and flood irrigation methods with more efficient pipes and drip hoses.

But Sahooly, the water expert, says it is hard to bring water to the top of the agenda in a country with so many problems.

“It’s very important in my opinion that there should be a champion, at the level of the president, vice president, always talking about water issues. All civilization has grown around water. Water is life, and we have known that for a long time,” he says.

At the moment, however, a violent rebellion, secessionist movements and a growing al-Qaida presence are drowning out the voices of those warning that a massive water failure could soon be Yemen’s biggest problem of all.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  In the busy world that we live in, sometimes the true meaning of this holiday goes unnoticed or ignored.  We get bogged down in the activities that might wear us down:  finishing that big project before you leave for the holiday, last minute shopping because you forgot to buy cranberry sauce, cleaning the house from top to bottom for visitors, hitting the road for a 5 hour drive to grandma’s house, preparing a game plan to take full advantage of Black Friday, making sure that Uncle Fred doesn’t hit the sauce too hard, hoping that Uncle Jim and Uncle Tom don’t get into it again this year, etc.

Take some time out of the busy weekend ahead and really think about what you are thankful for.  I am attaching a link promoting Thanksgiving as a National Day of Listening.  I heard about this on NPR.  Whether you jump into this program with both feet or find a slight variation that works for you, it doesn’t matter.  The idea is to take a step back from our busy lives on this one day of the year and give thanks to the people who have helped shape and form us. 

http://www.nationaldayoflistening.org/

I would love to hear from others on traditions and activities that help to make it a more memorable and rewarding Thanksgiving holiday for you.  Remember Thanksgiving is a celebration of food, family and gratitude.  Here’s to making the most of this holiday this and every year.  Happy Thanksgiving.

Życie seksualne Katolików nie jest łatwe, jeśli chce się w pełni sprostać wszystkim zaleceniom Kościoła. Wiele par szuka różnego rodzaju kompromisów pomiędzy swoimi własnymi pragnieniami a tym, co nakazuje nauka Kościoła. Jak godzą racje swoje i Kościoła?

antykoncepcja + częsta spowiedź = wewnętrzne rozdarcie

Pierwsza grupa katolickich par małżeńskich to ludzie, którzy chcąc współżyć, stosują antykoncepcję i są świadomi, że jest to grzech. Pomimo, że się wewnętrznie nie godzą z prawem Kościoła dotyczącym antykoncepcji chodzą do spowiedzi, aby móc przyjmować Najświętszy Sakrament. Chęć bycia z Jezusem jest dla nich bardzo ważna.

antykoncepcja + rzadka spowiedź = oddalanie się

Druga grupa to osoby, dla których nauka Kościoła dotycząca antykoncepcji oraz inne “wybryki” księży spowodowały, że nie traktują zaleceń dotyczących antykoncepcji za słuszne. Oddalają się od Kościoła, widzą w nim instytucję finansową. Sens spowiedzi jest zaburzony. Czują wewnętrzną potrzebę bycia blisko Boga, ale nie uważają, że Kościół to jedyne miejsce, aby tego dokonać. Mówią, że są Katolikami, wiedzą jednak, że w wielu sferach nie zgadzają się z katolicką nauką.

antykoncepcja + komunia = bliskości Boga, Kościół się myli

Trzecia grupa to ludzie, którzy po prostu nie uznają nauki Kościoła dotyczącej antykoncepcji bo jest dla nich zbyt trudna. Jednak pokładając ufność w Panu, idą do komunii. Uważają, że Kościół nie zawsze ma rację (Kościół tworzą ludzie więc mogą się mylić). Chcą być blisko Boga i nie uważają, że antykoncepcja jest grzechem.

komunia = wyrzeczenie i walka z pokusami

Ostatnia grupa to pary małżeńskie, które stosują naturalne metody planowania rodziny, współżyją bez zabezpieczeń. Dzięki temu nie grzeszą i mogą przyjmować Najświętszy Sakrament. Jest to często pewnego rodzaju walka duchowa. Respektują naukę Kościoła, zgadzają się z nią i tak o tym zaświadczają.

W której grupie Ty jesteś?

There are a lot of great neighborhoods in the District, but one of my favorites is in the Capitol Hill area. You probably know that the National Mall extends west off of the Capitol. But the east side is mostly residential – brick sidewalks, kitschy row houses contribute to a quaint feel. I found myself hanging out there last Friday night.

via Flickr/ohad

An employee from NPR invited several the interns to his row house in the Capitol Hill neighborhood for some homemade Thai food (I’m talking home-cooked chicken pate, peanut sauce and tofu)!

Later in the evening, about 15 of us stayed so our host could record our conversations about jazz music to get a “young person’s” perspective. It was a focus group of sorts – probably because he writes for “A Blog Supreme” which covers jazz music at NPR. Really, though, I just enjoyed listening to everyone discuss different jazz pieces; I can’t call my self an expert by any means.

This was not my first time hanging out in D.C. neighborhood – and surprisingly, most people I’ve met at parties are not interns (though they may have recently been). Over the semester, I’ve met folks at with the United Nations, GreenWire, the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, the Discovery Channel, and plenty of young NPR temps. The city – if I haven’t said it before – is a unique mix of governmental workers and non-profit employees.

The house was row-style, high ceilings and wood floors – a great place to host forty people, surprisingly enough. And it was nice to be in someone’s home. It allowed me to step out of my transient state (I’m so over the intern housing).

At the end of the night, I found myself walking to the metro with a few friends. I paused for a moment while crossing the street. The neighborhood was almost peaceful. As I gazed down the street, I could see the Capitol brightly lit against the black sky. It was practically at arms length.

I took it in, wanting that moment to last forever.

Today on NPR’s Morning Edition, Renee Montagne interviewed Anthos’ Chef Michael Psilakis who said he is serving lamb (and turkey) for Thanksgiving.  Here is a link to the story.   Thanks NPR!!!

Two things happened to me today that I need to share.

1. During a morning meeting I mentioned my love for National Public Radio (NPR). Afterward, a conservative co-worker pulled me aside and warned me of the “dangers” of NPR. Not sure of what that meant, I asked him to elaborate on the danger aspect of his comment. He told me that the people at NPR are liars and liberals. I responded that I am a liberal and that a lie is in the eye of the beholder.

2. After walking back into the office with my mug of ice, the secretary informed me that my jacket is too small for me. She said it looks like it is about to burst open. Then she told me a story about when she was pregnant with her first child. I just said “oh” and walked away quickly.

Two in one day. This is a world record. Why do people behave so inappropriately at work? Why do people feel the need to offer unsolicited advice?

As much as I hate Fox News, I would never pull a conservative co-worker aside and warn him of the evils and idiocies of people like Glenn Beck or Ann Coulter. I also would never mention anything to someone who looks thick in an article of clothing. Why? Because it’s inappropriate and unprofessional!

Perhaps The Office really isn’t that far off base. People act inappropriately every single day in the workplace. I’m just surprised at how many people seem to get away with it. At any point are there consequences for these people? I hope so.

By the way, I happen to look fabulous today and am choosing to disregard the comments of a 60-year-old woman.

After thirty years at the helm of NPR’s well-known Morning Edition, noted radio personality Carl Kasell is about to broadcast his final show. Fortunately, his voice will not be completely absent from the airwaves, as Phil Rosenthal reports in the Chicago Tribune:

Fortunately for his fans, however, Kasell, 75, will continue as official judge and scorekeeper of the Chicago Public Radio-produced quiz show, “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me!” the wry current events program that, his NPR bosses noted in a staff memo Monday, “turned him from a newsman into a rock star.”

That notoriety will be leveraged. NPR reportedly has plans of using him in an ambassadorial fashion, sending him to events around the country. I would assume that means a lot of local station fundraising events, among other things.  It is my hope that whatever these events are, they allow Mr. Kasell to sleep in. If anyone has earned it, he has.

His iconic voice will be missed by those who tune in to Morning Edition. After all, he first started there in 1975 when the entire NPR team numbered a mere 200 people. In that time, he has entrenched his tagline, “From NPR News, I’m Carl Kasell,” in the consciousness of America.

Here is wishing him well. I’m sure his last show on December 30 will have a massive audience. I know I’ll be tuning in!

Image Source: Picture taken by Michaela Murphy and posted with permission; original found at http://www.notduck.com/Other/Celebrities.html. She owns the copyright and said the following: “I grant permission to copy, distribute and/or modify these images under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.”