People who don't believe in retaliation...

What to do if you fall into a conversation with someone about the terrorist attacks who doesn't believe in retaliation:

1. Engage in conversation, and ask if military force is appropriate.

2. When he says "No," ask, "Why not?"

3. Wait until he says something to the effect of "Because that would just cause more innocent deaths, which would be awful and we should not cause more violence."

4. When he's in mid sentence, punch him in the face as hard as you can.

5. When he gets back up to punch you, point out that it would be a mistake and contrary to his values to strike you, because that would be awful and he should not cause more violence.

6. Wait until he agrees, and has pledged not to commit additional violence.

7. Punch him in the face again, harder this time.

8. Repeat steps 5 through 8 until he understands that sometimes it is necessary to punch back.

Some Americans don't seem to "get this".

Reflection on Elementary Education 514

Reflection for Dr. Stryker:


Two weeks can seem like an eternity when you are waiting to go on vacation. Two weeks seems like a lifetime when you are expecting test results. Two weeks zip past incredibly fast when you are studying Eled 514 with Dr. Aggie Stryker.

One thing strikes me most when reflecting on this class and it nearly brings me to tears every time I contemplate it. I am humbled by this profession I have chosen. There is no question that I love children and that I get excited when working with them. I adore watching them learn. At the same time, I hold a question in my mind and ask myself, "Will I be good enough?"

I have heard it said that teaching is an honorable profession and of this there is no question. My goal is to be the kind of teacher who reflects that statement in my daily life, both inside and outside of the classroom.

There are many things I have learned as a result of taking this course. Teaching encompasses far more than I ever imagined. Let me try that again. Being an effective teacher encompasses far more than I ever imagined. For example, I now know how important classroom design is to set the stage for learning. I am also aware of the significance of monitoring students.

Will I be able to remember all of this and integrate it into my classroom in such a way as to positively affect all students as a good teacher should? I doubt that I will be able to hold all of this in my mind when I first start teaching. I am so thankful to have the opportunity to student teach this fall. I can "practice" without the overwhelming concern that I am going to fall flat on my face. There will always be my mentor teacher to guide me along the way.

Mentoring is so important and it's a role you play, Dr. Stryker, with amazing talent and grace. I promise I'm not trying to butter you up. I am simply in awe of all that you know and how simple you make teaching appear to your students. I know that you have taught for many years and you have content knowledge that most teachers can only dream of, me included. Teaching really is not easy. I know that. You have shown us all in class that with preparation and attention to detail, that we, too, can impact the lives of others.

While I have learned a great deal of information in this class, I have many ideas and concepts yet to fully grasp. Some of those concepts are: providing appropriate lesson plan extensions, properly assessing for mastery, effectively closing a lesson, being proactive in my classroom management style, and re-teaching in a different way when students are not understanding my explanations.

This class has been awesome. I only wish we had more time to explore some of these topics in depth.

A sliver of eternity

A sliver of eternity

I hold a sliver of eternity in my heart
for moments embossed
in the purity of you

a truth, simple, whole, real
expresses the embrace of us
the oneness
the unrelenting rightness

I touch the truth
when I touch you

Peace and simplicity
piece of hope
reigns in my soul
as tomorrow finds today

truth does not forget

Every eternity beyond
this moment
tugs at the reality
of you and I

I touch your soul
and the sliver of eternity
is now.


'04/'08

New Online Option for Copyright Registration

Future Development
In the future, the Copyright Office will offer the option to file a copyright registration online through this website. A limited number of participants are beta testing the new system this summer. Once testing is complete, the system will be available to members of the public. Advantages will include:

Lower filing fee of $35 for a basic claim
(for online filings only).
Fastest processing time
Earlier effective date of registration
Online status tracking
Payment online by credit card
or Copyright Office deposit
account

Alternatively, the Office will also continue to offer the option to complete an application online,

print it out, and mail it to the Copyright Office.


Beginning this summer of 2007, enhanced versions of our forms will be available. These forms will be programmed with special, scannable barcodes that contain the information you type into the form.

With new scanning software, the Office will be able to process these forms faster and more efficiently. Check back at this website for availability of the new versions.

Note that the current $45 fee for a paper application will be retained.


Online service is at the heart of improvements coming to the Copyright Office as part of a major reengineering effort. In addition, streamlined internal processing using better-integrated information technology systems will result in faster service overall and better tracking of work in progress.

These improvements will extend to many Copyright Office services including registration, the recordation of documents, and the provision of information and copies of Copyright Office records.

This information was listed here: http://www.copyright.gov/eco/index.html

Brought to you by: Vaughan Instant Publishing, LLC

Democrats are not going to win support this way

Democrats trying to kill a bill that would protect public from being sued for reporting suspicious behavior

Unconscionable. "Democrats want 'John Doe' provision cut," by Audrey Hudson in the Washington Times:

Democrats are trying to pull a provision from a homeland security bill that will protect the public from being sued for reporting suspicious behavior that may lead to a terrorist attack, according to House Republican leadership aides.
The legislation, which moves to a House and Senate conference committee this afternoon, will implement final recommendations from the 911 Commission.

Rep. Pete King, New York Republican and ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, and Rep. Steve Pearce, New Mexico Republican, sponsored the bill after a group of Muslim imams filed a lawsuit against U.S. Airways and unknown or “John Doe” passengers after they were removed for suspicious behavior aboard Flight 300 from Minneapolis to Phoenix on Nov. 20 before their removal.

“Democrats are trying to find any technical excuse to keep immunity out of the language of the bill to protect citizens, who in good faith, report suspicious activity to police or law enforcement,” Mr. King said in an interview last night.

“This is a slap in the face of good citizens who do their patriotic duty and come forward, and it caves in to radical Islamists,” Mr. King said.

“I don't see how you can have a homeland security bill without protecting people who come forward to report suspicious activity,” Mr. King said.


Indeed.

Sweet Lady with the Nasty Voice

Museum of Art to screen film about Rock and Roll Singer Wanda Jackson, The "Sweet Lady with the Nasty Voice."

OKLAHOMA CITY – The Oklahoma City Museum of Art will screen the award winning documentary film about Oklahoma's own "Queen of Rockabilly," Wanda Jackson. The film entitled "Wanda Jackson: The Sweet Lady with the Nasty Voice" will screen Thursday, September 6 through Sunday, September 9 at the Museum of Art's Noble Theater. Ms. Jackson will appear in person at the final screening on Sunday, September 9 at 2pm to meet fans and sign CDs.

After appearing as a country singer on an Oklahoma City radio show, Wanda was invited to record with country legend Hank Thompson on the Decca label in 1954. Then she began dating a young Elvis Presley who convinced her to begin performing rock and roll songs. Before long she was touring with Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis and Buddy Holly. Wanda signed with Capitol Records in 1956 where she had her first chart success with the song "Let's Have a Party." Wanda Jackson is often called the first female rock and roll singer.

Wanda Jackson has been inducted into the Oklahoma Country Music Hall of Fame, the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, the International Hall of Fame, the International Gospel Music Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame, and the German Country Music Hall of Fame, but remains conspicuously absent from the Rock and Roll and Country Music Halls of Fame.

During her 2005 U.S. and European tour a camera crew filmed her performances from her latest album release "I Remember Elvis" in venues ranging from New York City to Sweden. This footage combined with archival film footage, photographs and interviews with Wanda, her husband and manager of forty-five years Wendell Goodman, as well as artists such as Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Costello, tells the story of the "Sweet Lady with the Nasty Voice."

"Wanda Jackson: The Sweet Lady with the Nasty Voice" world premiered at the 2007 deadCENTER Film Festival in Oklahoma City where it won the Founder's Award. The film is produced and directed by Joanne Fish and Victor Kralyevich.

Oklahoma City Museum of Art

Would you like fries with that?

16 July 2007


Would you like fries with that?

Exploiting interactions between food and drugs could dramatically lower the rapidly rising costs of several anticancer drugs, and perhaps many other medications, two cancer-pharmacology specialists suggest.

University of Chicago oncologists Mark Ratain, MD, and Ezra Cohen, MD, call attention in today’s issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology to the flip side of recent studies showing how certain foods can alter absorption or delay breakdown of precisely targeted anti-cancer drugs.

Instead of seeing such studies as highlighting a dosing problem, Ratain and Cohen argue that results like this one should point researchers toward a partial solution, a novel way to decrease medication costs while increasing benefits from these effective but expensive drugs.

The commentary was inspired by a study presented in June at the American Society for Clinical Oncology. Researchers from Dartmouth showed that taking the breast cancer drug lapatinib (TYKERB) with food—instead of on an empty stomach as suggested on the label—resulted in more of the drug being absorbed and available to treat the cancer.

Patients currently take five 250 mg lapatinib tablets on an empty stomach. The study found that taking the drug with a meal increased the bioavailability of the drug by 167 percent. Taking the drug with a high-fat meal boosted levels by 325 percent.

"Simply by changing the timing, taking this medication with a meal instead of on an empty stomach, we could potentially use 40 percent (or even less) of the drug," said Ratain. "Since lapatinib costs about $2,900 a month, this could save each patient $1,740 or more a month."

Topping off that meal with grapefruit juice, "which may also increase plasma concentrations" according to the package insert, could increase the savings to 80 percent, the authors suggest, "minus the cost of the food and juice."

"We expect the one 250 mg lapatinib pill accompanied by food and washed down with a glass of grapefruit juice may yield plasma concentrations comparable to five 250 mg pills on an empty stomach," Ratain said.

Such a "value meal," the authors add, may have other benefits. The major toxicity associated with lapatinib is diarrhoea, probably caused by unabsorbed drug. So taking a lower dose with food should "reduce the amount of unabsorbed drug, and therefore theoretically also reduce the frequency and severity of diarrhoea."

Patients should NEVER launch such experiments on their own, the authors caution. Such food-drug combinations should be studied to assess the effects, note person-to-person variations, and enable physicians to predict how individual patients will take up and metabolize specific drugs in the presence of certain foods.

"The one thing that should not be anticipated is an efficacy study by lapatinib's sponsor," the authors write. Such studies could be mounted by other entities, however, such as the Federal government, other payers or advocacy groups.

Ratain and Cohen are currently conducting such a study, a phase I trial of the combination of oral sirolimus (rapamycin) taken with grapefruit juice, which contains substances that delay the breakdown of many drugs.

Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of drugs ought to be studied in this way, the authors said. "If we understood the relationship between, say, grapefruit juice and common drugs, such as the statins, which taken daily by millions of people to prevent heart disease, we could save a fortune in drug costs," Cohen said. "And patients would get a little vitamin C to boot."

Brought to you by: http://www.biochemist.com/news/page.htm?item=23551

Laptop Joy

For anyone who doesn't own a laptop, let me tell you how mine has come in handy over the course of the last couple of months. It has paid for itself over and over again in so many ways.

I write. I write a lot. MY web sites require updates regularly, I blog and I send an insane number of emails. Not only that, but I write for the graduate classes I take. I just finished a research paper for Educational Psychology and the beauty is that I started it in Gulf Shores, AL. I researched it in AL and wrote the outline on my laptop, then emailed it to my instructor in Texas.

On the way home, I fired up the laptop and worked on some projects from the comfort of the front passenger seat of our SUV. You can't do that on a desktop. :)

The kids also watched DVD's while we drove to and from the beach. The screen is larger than most personal DVD players, too.

Last, but not least, we uploaded our digital pictures while we were still at the beach house and made CD's to send home with the other family members.

It's amazing to me how much this computer has come in handy - for just one trip.

I just had to share. If you're thinking about getting one and aren't sure they're worth it, believe me, they are.

Enjoy!

Vacation in Gulf Shores, AL

Took a wonderful vacation to Gulf Shores, AL. If you ever get a chance to go, please do. It's an amazing place. We always rent through Fort Morgan Realty and they have never let us down. We stay closer to Ft. Morgan than Gulf Shores. The traffic is less and the beaches are quieter.

The weather was amazing, the kids were wonderful and we had such a great time. I even joined in to go deep sea fishing and had a blast. I couldn't believe how sore my arms were the next day, however.

The only bummer about the whole situation was that my father spent a large portion of the trip in a hospital in Foley with an infection that just didn't respond to treatment as it should have.

We had fun for him, which wasn't the same for him, but it was the best we could do. At least he will enjoy the fish we caught... red snapper and king mackerel.