Sunday, January 8, 2012

Alternatives to Using Physical Restraint in Public Schools

 By Emily Cain, M.S.Ed & Niki Thurkow, Ph.D, BCBA-D

Physical restraint is a controversial practice used as a response to student behavior in many public and private schools across the country. Guidelines for the use of restraint – also known as “physical management” or “safe holds” – vary significantly across states. There are limited federal guidelines in regards to the use of restraint, as IDEA 2004 does not make mention of if or how it should be used with students with disabilities (McAfee et al., 2006).

When discussing the use of physical restraint, the most common form used in schools involves teachers and staff members using their hands to control the movement of a child who is a danger to him or herself or others. The term does not refer to chemical or mechanical restraints, which are largely prohibited for use in the school setting.

Using physical restraint should always be a last resort; used only by trained staff and only if the student is an imminent physical threat to him or herself or others. Staff members must understand that students on the Autism Spectrum sometimes engage in behaviors that are self-injurious or result in injuries to others as an attempt to communicate. There are many interventions that are proactive and positive that can help one to avoid restraint entirely if the school team is educated on alternative supports that can be put into place. The purpose of physical restraint in schools is to maintain safety – never to be used as punishment.

The Crisis Prevention Institute (CPI) method of physical restraint and de-escalation techniques is used internationally in schools, hospitals and jails. The primary focus of CPI’s training is on the environmental variables that can and should be manipulated prior to any episode of physical restraint occurring. CPI, as well as numerous other training methods, requires staff to examine their own physical stance, facial expression, tone of voice and proximity to the student based on what level of behavior the student is engaging in on the escalation cycle. The reason this education of the escalation cycle is so critical to the avoidance of physical restraint is often staff become anxious when a student begins to become verbally aggressive and staff engage in restraint techniques out of panic. CPI instruction trains that students sometimes need to vent, and allowing them to yell, scream or cry can often help them release this pent up energy and frustration without further escalating the situation by going ‘hands-on’ into a physical management situation.

A list of strategies to avoid the use of restraint is not valid if consideration has not been given to the reason why a student is engaging in the dangerous behavior also known as the function of the behavior. An effective way to assess this is to conduct a functional assessment based on the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). Functional assessment data is collected on the behavioral effects of environmental variables and assesses what happens before, during and after an incident of specific student behavior to look for patterns. The goal is to modify the environment of the student based on the known patterns of behavior (i.e. When it is loud, Tommy screams and pinches his teacher). If the teacher knows this she can provide ear plugs or the option for Tommy to read in the library before starting loud activities. She can also ignore the student’s inappropriate behavior while reinforcing the more appropriate behavior of using the ear plugs and engaging in the activity. The reason a functional assessment is important is because a student might engage in behaviors that topographically (on the surface) look the same (i.e. kicking), but the student may be doing it for several different reasons. For example:

When a student asks for his favorite cookie and the teacher responds “No” he might kick his teacher. In this setting he is kicking to communicate his unhappiness with his teacher’s statement and to attempt to obtain the desired object. Since the function of this particular behavior is positive reinforcement, or obtainment of a tangible item, simply restraining the student each time he kicks does not teach a new or replacement behavior to communicate his frustration. Instead he will likely replace the kicking with another inappropriate method of expressing himself (i.e. pinching). This allows the cycle of aggression to continue.

Alternately, he might kick when he is at a classroom party when many other children are running around. The party may be overwhelming and over stimulating. When he is in a busy setting he may approach a peer and kick them, which results in the student being removed from the group in a time out. When he is allowed to re-join the group he kicks another child. When his teacher tells him to stop, he continues to go after children until his teacher is forced to hold and restrain him to keep him from hurting himself or others. In this environment he kicks in an attempt to escape an environment that is too over stimulating for him to handle. By restraining him or putting him in time out we are reinforcing the kicking as a way for him to communicate his need for a break and change in environment. This also allows the cycle of aggression to continue.

In both of these examples an appropriate intervention to avoid any type of restraint is to teach socially appropriate methods to communicate his needs (see below examples).

The following are some strategies to be explored when looking for alternatives to restraint in a public school setting:

Teach the child a safety signal – this signal should be used when they are angry, frustrated or need a break. If the student is engaging in physical aggression in order to escape an activity, providing them with a more appropriate way to escape the activity not only teaches them an appropriate communication skill, but also reduces the frequency of physical aggression episodes. Safety signals can consist of verbal phrases, such as “break please,”, and picture cards or hand signs/gestures. It is important to remember these safety signals must be explicitly taught by breaking down the steps.
For example:
  1. Find the “in charge” adult
  2. Get the adult’s attention
  3. Use the safety signal
 When the student uses the safety signal adults should reinforce this appropriate behavior by honoring the request. This reduces the need on the student’s part to use physical aggression to meet his or her needs.

Provide a “safe place” – an area the student can go to and relax or cool down. These areas have been called many things (safety zone, quiet corner, “chill out” room, Zen pen), but the overall purpose is to get the child there before they engage in any physical aggression. The room ideally should be a separate room from their regular classroom so they have more privacy and maintain dignity. The room should be free of any items the student can use to hurt him/herself or others, and be relatively calming (could have sensory tools, pillows, dimmed lighting, etc.). It is also imperative the room or area is never used as punishment or as a “time out” room. The purpose of the room is to assist the child to calm, not to punish them for being overwhelmed or angry.

Clear the classroom – often school teams feel they had to restrain a student because he/she was a danger to the other students. When staff put their hands on a student to escort him/her out of the room the student sometimes becomes extremely aggressive requiring full physical restraint. The less restrictive choice would be to move the other students out of the classroom. This is often an unpopular alternative since an entire class of students must be disrupted. However it often eliminates the need to physically restrain the student who is struggling. Having a plan for each classroom on how to summon help, how to line the other students up, where they can go and what those students can do during these interruptions is essential so staff don’t panic in the moment and end up restraining when it could have been avoided.
Careful documentation of how often the classroom needs to be cleared, what preceded the act of aggression and how long the other students were kept out of their classroom should be documented for team decision-making on what other changes to the environment can be made to assist the struggling student. Clearing the classroom is an important reactive step – however should not be a long term “fix” to the problem.

Respect personal boundaries - Often students become aggressive as a communication method. They might feel you are too close, don’t want you touching them, don’t like the way your perfume smells or they want to stop the current activity. When these are carefully documented by staff, patterns of behavior can be identified and staff can respect those student preferences. If the child hits when you get too close, you can tape a parameter around the student’s desk that people are only allowed in if he/she has invited you. This increases the student’s sense of control over his/her environment and will reduce their need to try and control the environment in other ways (i.e. hitting, running, kicking etc.).

Provide visual supports – using visual supports across the day of a student with Autism is a critical preventative measure. These supports include visual schedules to pre-warn of any changes in the child’s day, visual statements of the child’s safety rules (i.e. hands and feet to self, quiet mouth) and visual calming routines. Teachers can also present visuals that remind the child to engage in calming activities when they begin to escalate. Verbally engaging with the student who is beginning to escalate can often make things worse because so many students on the Autism Spectrum struggle to process auditory information. Instead of the teacher saying, “Tommy, calm down and take 10 breaths,” the teacher can show a picture that represents deep breaths and then count on her fingers modeling for the student the appropriate behavior.

Respect the aggression as a “crisis” for the child – children are typically not engaging in aggressive behaviors to be mean, hurt anyone or misbehave. They have lost control of their environment and themselves and the aggression is a reaction to that. They are often engaging in the “fight or flight” response, which includes very little rational thought. Yelling at the student or becoming angry and aggressive will escalate the situation by frightening the student. Instead adults must strive to remain calm and use supportive statements instead of scolding and yelling. This is another reason providing staff with visuals that represent the desired behaviors assists everyone in staying calm. They can present the visual card to the student instead of relying solely on verbal cues and instruction. This statement is not meant to excuse the acts of physical aggression – physical aggression is never OK. However in the moment staff must accept that the ability of the student to process their environment and expectations is diminished and react accordingly.

Physical restraint has been used for decades in the public schools as a response to student behaviors that are dangerous. Clear guidelines for the amount of staff training, documentation and parental notification must be defined in any plan that includes restraint. It should only be used as a last resort when all other techniques have failed. Best practice – and in some states legal mandate – requires a team meeting following any three episodes of physical restraint to re-evaluate programming decisions, behavior intervention plans and environmental factors. It is critical the team try to step into the role of the student to understand his or her perception of the situation and modify staff responses as well as the environment to teach the child replacement behaviors and maintain a safe learning environment for all.

Additional resources and references:

McAfee, J. K., Schwilk, C., & Mitruski, M. (2006). Public Policy on Physical Restraint of Children with Disabilities in Public Schools. Education and Treatment of Children. 29(4), 711-728

Crisis Prevention Institute -

1 comment:

  1. What about a child in public school who runs away from the classroom or aide frequently? And if they are aggressive when they escape, are restraints okay to be used and if so, for how long?


English summary

English summary

Recyclart is a non profit organisation founded in 1997 and located in the abandoned train station Brussel-Kapellekerk/Bruxelles-Chapelle, downtown Brussels. The organisation has a double, unique identity: on the one hand it's a small multidisciplinary arts centre and on the other hand, it hosts a training centre for wood and metal construction (Fabrik) and catering (Bar Recyclart).

Recyclart develops projects in the city’s public space and in the neighbourhood thereby linking people, various media and artistic disciplines. The centre organises parties, concerts, photo exhibitions and debates and lectures on architecture, public space and design. Besides, there are 4 work and exhibition spaces that are temporarily offered to visual artists who can apply for a residency of max. 6 months.

The different spaces of the train station have been converted into a bar/restaurant, technical and artistic work spaces, a concert venue (capacity of 450 people) and offices. The nearby railway bridges function as an urban open-air gallery. The square in front of the station is home to both loungers and skateboarders, a summer terrace and open-air events.

Recyclart is inspired by the capital's fascinating daily reality which is fed by the city's varied cultures and communities. Being a true Belgian project, with fundings from the city and the different governments, both Dutch and French are used as official languages, among collegues and in public communication.


One Nation, One Blood

Examines the roots of a pernicious and persistent American taboo

The proscription against interracial marriage was for many years a flashpoint in American culture. In One Nation, One Blood, Karen Woods Weierman explores this taboo by investigating the traditional link between marriage and property. Her research reveals that the opposition to intermarriage originated in large measure in the nineteenth-century desire for Indian land and African labor. Yet despite the white majority's overwhelming rejection of nonwhite peoples as marriage partners, citizens, and social equals, nineteenth-century reformers challenged the rule against intermarriage. Dismissing the new "race science" that purported to prove white superiority, reformers held fast to the religious notion of a common humanity and the republican rhetoric of freedom and equality, arguing that God made all people "of one blood."

The years from 1820 to 1870 marked a crucial period in the history of this prejudice. Tales of interracial marriage recounted in fiction, real-life scandals, and legal statutes figured prominently in public discussion of both slavery and the fate of Native Americans. In Part One of this book, Weierman focuses on Indian-white marriages during the 1820s, when Indian removal became a rallying cry for New England intellectuals.

In Part Two she shifts her attention to black-white marriages from the antebellum period through the early years of Reconstruction. In both cases she finds that the combination of a highly publicized intermarriage scandal, new legislation prohibiting interracial marriage, and fictional portrayals of the ills associated with such unions served to reinforce popular prejudice, justifying the displacement of Indians from their lands and upholding the system of slavery. Even after the demise of slavery, restrictions against intermarriage remained in place in many parts of the country long into the twentieth century. Not until the 1967 Loving v. Virginia decision did the Supreme Court finally rule that such laws were unconstitutional.

Finishing on a contemporary note, Weierman suggests that the stories Americans tell about intermarriage today—stories defining family, racial identity, and citizenship—still reflect a struggle for resources and power.

Related Subjects:


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The distinctive thing about religious leadership is that it is religious. The clue is in the name. Nor do religious leaders themselves let us forget it, setting themselves apart from non-religious leaders and the general public by means of their outlandish dress, their publicly pious practices, their religious expressions and references, and even their personal grooming habits. The very obviousness of this religious nature leads to assumptions of a difference between religious and non-religious leaders that goes far deeper than appearances. In the case of Lebanon, where religious leaders of various Muslim and Christian stripes wield a great deal of power, such assumptions have become so essential to the expression of secular modernist ideals that I devoted my doctoral research to exploring them. Here I will outline a few of the misconceptions I have encountered, some or all of which may be familiar in other contexts.

‘Religious leadership’ is one of several categories of actor treated regularly in general works on politics in Lebanon. One recent book, for instance, includes this conventional section in a chapter on non-state elites: ‘Whereas state elites act directly within the political arena… these unelected elites’ influence politicians from ‘the shadows’ [El-Husseini 2012: 122]. Lebanon’s religious leaders are introduced as follows:

The clergy has always had an impact on political life in Lebanon owing to the confessional nature of the country’s political allegiances. Indeed, the concept of national citizenship has not taken hold in Lebanon in the same way that it has in Western nations. Loyalty to the family, the clan, and the religious community overrides other allegiances, leaving little room for national patriotism [140]

Here the categories of ‘religion’ and ‘religious leadership’ are taken to be self-explanatory, a natural and permanent feature of the social universe. Further, religious phenomena are contrasted with modern structures and concepts of nation, state and citizenship, as both their precursors and their presumed opponents.

Framing ‘religious leadership’ in this way prompts certain kinds of questions: Why, for instance, has the rise of secular leadership in a modernising state like Lebanon not resulted in the decline of religious leadership, as the secularisation thesis would have us expect? Under what conditions do these religious leaders become politicised? Attempts to answer such questions serve only to obscure the origins of ‘religious’ institutions and merge their various historical dynamics.

Several general theories have been proposed to explain the ‘persistence’ of Lebanon’s powerful religious leadership. One is that Oriental religions – both Islam and Eastern branches of Christianity – are by nature more resistant to secularisation. Another links the failure of secularisation to the weakness of the Lebanese state: if people do not find security in the modern state, they look to their traditional leaders instead. A third refers to a religious resurgence that is part of a reaction against globalisation. Sometimes one or other of these theories appears to fit a particular religious institution or community at a particular time, but they all fail to give the kind of generalizable explanation that they claim to provide. Part of the problem is in the way research projects are formulated. The category of religion, while encouraging analyses of religion as a discrete phenomenon, has in practice led researchers to focus on individual religious communities as independent spheres of action.

The tendency to circumscribe scholarship on each religion has also produced an alternative approach that uses the particularities of different religions or sects to explain the roles of their religious leaders. For example, Sunni Islam is characterised by the overlap of umma and state, so the Lebanese Mufti, who is paid from the state budget, is considered a relic of the privileged place of Sunnis in the Ottoman Empire. The Shi‘ite Council, by contrast, was only set up in the late 1960s by populist Imam Musa al-Sadr, and tends to be linked to a global ‘Shi‘ite awakening’ and a latent revolutionary tendency in Shi‘ism. And the Druze Sheikh al-‘Aql has always had a central role, it is said, because of the insular, tribal character of Druze religion, which has clung to its traditions despite centuries of persecution. Such explanations often lead, in my view, to an uncritical reproduction of clichés, which risks feeding prejudices.

These conventional narratives – whether of religious particularism or of religion in general – project essentialised images of religion(s) onto actual social formations, and in doing so obscure the modern historical context. So going back to the three examples above: it was only in the 1930s and 40s that the Mufti of Beirut was elevated above other clerics and turned into a national figurehead for a newly defined Sunni community. The Shi‘ite Council and its authoritative presidency may have been created later, but they were designed to match the model of the Sunni Islamic Council and its president, the Mufti. Thus the Shi‘ite leaders are paid by the state in much the same way. The title of Sheikh al-‘Aql had long existed among the Druzes, but at the time Lebanon’s borders were drawn there were two Sheikhs in the area, not one. Two were finally reduced to one only in 1970, in order to bring Druze religious leadership into line with the other Lebanese communities.

Once viewed comparatively, it becomes clear that these various institutions have been shaped into their modern forms by the context of the Lebanese state and its new multi-confessional public space, in which ‘religious leadership’ has acquired the meaning we now take for granted. Yet explanations of their contemporary prominence continue to hinge on their supposed natural connection with ‘primordial’ allegiances among the population.

An essential distinction is conventionally drawn between the Lebanese communities’ ‘secular’ and ‘religious’ spokesmen. Ironically, it has not been uncommon for commentators to judge the ‘religious’ leaders more representative than their ‘secular’ counterparts. A classic text of the 1960s popularised the idea that religious leaders comprised a ‘shadow parliament’ able to express sectarian viewpoints that were excluded from Parliament by the moderating effect of the electoral process [Meo 1965: 55]. A more recent article by a popular blogger refers to ‘the various religious bodies’ as a ‘de facto Senate’, whose members ‘traditionally get up in arms’ in defence of their communities [Hamoui 2012].

Confused perceptions of an organic connection between religious leadership and religious community result in these figures being linked to sectarianism as both a product and a cause. On one hand they are assumed to ‘resonate’ [Rabbath 1986: 93] in some mystical way with their coreligionists; on the other, they are accused of retarding Lebanon’s development from sectarianism to nationalism through their undemocratic interference in politics.

My own study finds that the official ‘religious leaders’ of each sect are sustained above all by the state’s recognition and legislation of their roles. Indeed, taking a closer look at the way they actually use this public platform, we see a discourse heavily imbued with national patriotism, aimed not at inciting sectarian hatreds but responsible citizenship and submission to a strong central state. One of the reasons their role is so misunderstood is that commentators dismiss what they have to say because it is delivered in ‘religious’ terms, couched in the preaching of moral values. Whether the clerics’ pacific ‘religious’ discourse is suspected of insincerity – public platitudes covering for private support of militancy – or considered naïvely well-intentioned, the assumption being made is that such discourse is ineffective, detached from real power politics. We need to be reminded, as Lynn Staeheli puts it, that ‘the invocation of responsibility, care and ethics does not deny or obviate politics’ [2008: 17]. Once again the isolation of religion as a category obscures very real power dynamics, especially the negotiation of knowledge across the imaginary religious-secular divide. Religious leaders are no less part of the contemporary systems of meaning that define the salience of leadership, citizenship, and national belonging; their own roles are articulated in these terms, and like others they participate in the interpretation of the language that shapes the Lebanese public sphere.


Attribution Theory Research Paper Starter

Attribution Theory

Attribution theory is used to explain how people, who inherently work to organize and understand their life experiences, will attribute their successes and failures to four factors: ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck. Each of these factors has been analyzed using three characteristics: locus of control, stability, and controllability. Attribution theory also draws from principles of motivation theory and expectancy theory to help explain how students' perceptions of their successes and failures impacts persistence and resiliency. This article also includes some best practice suggestions based on the tenets of attribution theory.

Keywords Abnormal Psychology; Achievement & Motivation; Attribution Theory; Construct; Expectancy Theory; Homeostasis; Learned Helplessness; Locus of Control; Nature/Nurture; Polarities; Resiliency; Self-Efficacy

If you think you are beaten, you are. If you think you dare not, you don't. If you like to win but think you can't, It's almost a cinch you won't. If you think you'll lose, you're lost. For out in the world we find Success begins with a fellow's will. It's all in the state of mind (Wintle, 1969)

What makes a winner win? Is it all in one's attitude? Why do some people with apparent talents never seem to achieve as others predict? How can the interaction between a person's perceptions and the actual talents a person has be used to help each student reach full potential? These types of questions are often answered through the application of attribution theory.

Attribution theory originated as a subsection of the theories of personality. Personality psychologists were working to describe what makes individuals unique by identifying the relatively unchanging aspects of people that make them unique individuals. However, there were many different approaches to the questions. Some psychologists focused on identifying and describing personality characteristics that define mental illness and poor social adjustment (i.e., abnormal psychology). Others chose to focus on identifying and describing the personality characteristics of people viewed as mentally healthy. They wanted to understand, and eventually be able to predict, why life events affect people in different ways. During this period of time, psychologists divided into two camps that differed on whether they believed one's inborn traits are integral in determining personality or whether the key factor is the environment in which one is reared (this argument has often been referred to as the continuing nature/nurture debate). Almost everyone has come to a realization that there is most likely a mix of the two influences that work together to create uniqueness in individuals, although there is little agreement on how much of each are contributing to that mix (Ridley, 2003). Attribution theory is one of the theories formulated using an assumption that both inborn traits and one's environment will be reflected in one's personality. It posits that people will inherently work to organize their observations as they try to make meaning of their experiences.

This organizing will necessitate the creation of categories into which the observations can be sorted. The categories will be created and labeled by each person and will be influenced by both personal temperament and life experiences (Weiner, Nierenberg, & Goldstein, 1976). For example, two students might attend the same campus party and, on telling their friends about their weekends, one might describe the party as fun and exciting while the other describes it as out of control and dangerous. The two students attended the same event but, based on their temperaments and past experiences, chose different categories in which to store their memories of the party.

As the theory of attribution was further refined and developed, researchers realized its impact on how people are motivated, moving the theory from ideas about what makes personalities unique to a theory of understanding how a student's self-perceptions intersect with all learning experiences (i.e., social learning theory). More recently, researchers have linked attribution theory to expectancy theory, which has helped them to better explain the role of persistence and resiliency in the learning process.

Explaining Behavior

Attribution theory says that people will interpret their successes and failures in life in a way that relates to their existing thinking and behavior. It assumes that people try to figure out why they do what they do. The types of explanations people provide to explain their own behaviors can predict how persistent they will be when faced with a difficult task in the future (Weiner, 1985).

Research suggests a student's self-perceptions will strongly influence performance and expectations for success. Self-perceptions also influence the degree of effort a person will choose to put into a difficult or complex task. In most cases, a student will interpret his or her environment in such a way as to maintain homeostasis (i.e., a stable version of one's internalized self-image) (Festinger, 1957). For instance, if a person's self-perception is one of being a poor student, any success will be attributed to factors other than personal ability, whereas a person whose self-perception is one of being a good student will tend to attribute successes to ability (Maatt, Nurmi, & Stattin, 2007).

The Three Attributes

Most theorists sort out explanations of success or failure using polarities of three attributes that can help define personality:

• Locus of control (Internal/External) – this indicates whether a person attributes successes and failures to personal characteristics and behaviors or external circumstances (Rotter, 1975);

• Stability (Stable/Changeable ) – this indicates whether a person believes the causes of success or failure can be easily changed; and

• Controllability (Controllable/Not Controllable) – this indicates whether a person believes the behavior or circumstance is something he or she has the power to personally alter or whether that person believes it is out of his/her control (Weiner, Nierenberg, & Goldstein, 1976).

Theorists believe future academic success can be predicted by listening to how a person describes her or his current successes and failures—combining the three attributes listed above with what the student expects to gain from the learning situation (Feather, 1988). These three attributes can be used to help define four constructs associated with learning situations:

• Ability

• Effort

• Task difficulty

• Luck

Table 1 illustrates which attributes are most usually associated with each learning construct.

Table 1 Attribute Locations in Learning Constructs

Locus of Control

Locus of control is best determined by finding who or what exercises the most control over the factors that lead to a learning outcome. If a student believes personal characteristics or behaviors are primarily affecting the outcome of a situation, the locus of control is internal. Some examples of internal control characteristics include attitude, intelligence, and ability. Some examples of internal control behaviors include class attendance, time spent studying, and quality of effort put into studying. Hence, internal control factors can be defined as what the student is personally contributing to the learning experience.

If a student believes external factors are primarily affecting the outcome of a learning experience, the locus of control is external. If a student believes luck (good or bad) or classroom politics are primarily affecting the outcome of a learning experience, the locus of control is external. Some examples of statements that attribute the outcome to external control include: "good thing I brought my lucky rabbit's foot"; "the gods are against me"; and "the teacher doesn't like me." Additionally, if a student is completely unable to predict the outcome of a situation, it is considered a situation affected by external control (Rotter, 1966).

Locus of control is a very important variable in the attribution equation. Good students who believe luck is guiding their successes do not appear to gain confidence in their own abilities to initiate success. They may not acquire the sense of self-efficacy that is so very important in creating resiliency and persistence in difficult learning situations (Feather, 1988). Poor students who believe bad luck is guiding them are not motivated to work at getting a better grasp of the materials that need to be learned. On the converse, good students who attribute success solely to ability and do poorly on a test may have their faith in their abilities challenged, causing them to give up in despair. Research suggests students do better in future learning situations when they attribute poor performance to external controls and credit internal controls for their successes (Rotter, 1966).

The idea that ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck are either stable or changeable can be a bit confusing. Task difficulty and ability are identified as stable, however practice and study can increase skills (thereby decreasing task difficulty) because of an increase in ability. Students who are taught to rely on ability (which is an internal, stable factor) —and are also taught that ability can be changed with effort— will develop a healthy resilience that will help motivate them to learn and persist in the face of failure (Rotter, 1975). Luck is identified as changeable because general beliefs indicate luck changes at whim. Yet it is common knowledge that one can change one's own luck. It is detrimental for students to believe their success or failure lies purely in luck. These students will have low motivation to develop new learning strategies and will not be able to optimize the learning that can be gleaned from failures (Weiner, Nierenberg, & Goldstein, 1976).

Stability is best described as whether a student believes the causes of the learning outcome can be easily changed. People generally spend a lot of time thinking about past activities and outcomes. For example, if a student fails a major exam he or she may spend considerable time trying to determine what went wrong (this is sometimes referred to as the causative effect) (Darke & Freedman, 1997; Weiner, Nierenberg,...

(The entire section is 4680 words.)


The dishwasher is supposed to make dishes clean and clear, but sometimes it deposits a gritty film on your plates and glasses. Gritty dishes have several possible causes, from a dirty dishwasher to hard water buildup on the heating element. To avoid gritty dishes, take steps to ensure that the dishwasher is clean and change what you put into your unit to combat the buildup.

Gritty dishes look awful and make meals unappetizing.

Step 1

Take the dishwasher filter apart and clean it thoroughly. Remove the internal pieces according to the manufacturer's instructions. Soak the plastic filter in a sink full of hot, soapy water for 30 minutes to soften any baked-on particles. Scrub the filter with a cleaning sponge and let it air dry. Replace it according to directions.

Step 2

Wipe down the inside of the dishwasher with a mild cleanser spray and a cleaning rag. Focus on the corners of the dishwasher, as well as the space around the door seal. Get rid of any food particles, black mold and slimy buildup using the cloth. Wipe the inside down with a clean wet rag to eliminate any cleanser residue.

Step 3

Run a cycle of the dishwasher using powdered citric acid. Start the cycle when the dishwasher is empty. Pour the powdered citric acid into the detergent cup and close it. Run the cycle as normal, then check to see whether the white grainy buildup on the heating element is gone or significantly diminished. If not, run another cycle using the citric acid.

Step 4

Add citric acid to each load of dishes you wash. Pour powdered dishwashing detergent into the cup until it is halfway full. Fill the other half with the powdered citric acid. If you use a dish detergent tab, place the tab on the floor of the dishwasher and fill the detergent cup halfway full of citric acid.

Step 5

Run the water in the kitchen sink on hot for one to three minutes before starting the dishwasher. This clears out any lukewarm or cold water from going into the dishwasher and allows hot water to enter the unit immediately. Dish detergents dissolve better in hot water and are less likely to leave gritty residue on dishes.


Data journalism has room for collaboration only

Hassel english

One of the greatest lessons I have learned, as being a data driven journalist and editor for the past 3 years in daily La Nación, is Data Journalism is the outcome of a diverse and multidisciplinary committed team; there is no space for egocentrism.

In Data Driven Journalism (DDJ) editors, journalists, system engineers, coders and graphic designers should work together, and be on the same page, with fluent communication between each other. It is the only way to achieve excellence in any project undertaken.

Brainstorm together from the very beginning of the project. Share all your ideas, findings, drafts and data, those are the keys to unlock the potential of DDJ in a appropriated way.

In a previous post, I wrote: any idea that is not shared with others is destined to die because the oxygen supply that a data-driven project needs to live depends on how much you share it, and how much you nurture it with others’ feedback.

Please consider this if you are going to start with data journalism or lead a data unit.

Data journalism has room for collaboration only. This is how we do it at the data unit at La Nación, Costa Rica. (Spanish, translation is below).

(Video text)

In the Intelligence Unit Data of La Nación Costa Rica everything starts with an idea that we nurture and develop as a team. Here, we do data journalism, i.e. we analyze databases containing information of public interest and change this into interactive publishing products with data visualization, news and multimedia applications, with high added value to the audience.

My name is Daryl Zuniga, “I’m the unit´s system engineer. I´m in charge of collecting, processing, and ensuring data quality. I´m also in charge of scraping data websites and applying algorithms for modeling data mining analysis.”

Mercedes Aguero (journalist): “This is a small unit, and my work ranges from traditional tasks within investigative journalism, like going to the Public Registry to review records and conduct interviews, to building databases and, from these inputs, creating an investigation.

“I´m Pablo Robles, interactive designer and programmer of the section. My job consists of taking data that are the results of a painstaking and strict journalistic analysis, and changing them into interactive graphics, visualizations, and applications that meet the journalistic needs and serve as visual narratives.

Marco Hernández, interactive designer: “My role within the Unit is to contribute with informative displays and interactive development for digital platforms. I’m basically a digital computer graphics artist. My work focuses on making visual approaches, but I share a passion for journalism and engineering with the other team members. That’s what allows us to give feedback within our team with the aim of constantly improving, for our audience.”

Hassel Fallas: “My role is to lead the teamwork, by actively participating in data analysis, ensuring journalistic rigor, and fostering creativity to innovate in each product. Our goal is to give our readers a new way to generate knowledge and information from the analysis of databases.”

#datadrivenjournalism is not learned overnight. It is the sum of many nights and mornings of continuous curiosity, investigation, practice and of course: team work.


A Private 17th c. Museum annexed to Aldrovandi’s Studio, Illustrated with Numerous Woodcuts of Specimens and a folding engraved Frontispiece of the Museum’s Interior. With the FIRST PUBLISHED DESCRIPTION of the Pre-Columbian "Codex Cospi"

Legati, Lorenzo (d. 1675); Cospi, Ferdinando (1606-1683)

Mvseo Cospiano Annesso A Qvello Del Famoso Vlisse Aldrovandi E donato alla sua Patria dall' Illustrissimo Signor Ferdinando Cospi Patrizio Di Bologna E Senatore Cavaliere Commendatore di S. Stefano, Balì d’Arezzo, e March. Di Petriolo, fra Gli Accademici Gelati Il Fedele, e principe al presente de' medesimi. Descrizione Di Lorenzo Legati Cremonese Dottor Filosofo, Medico, e Pubblico Professore delle Lettere Greche in Bologna, Accademica Apatista, e Ansioso. Al Serenissimo Ferdinando III Principe di Toscana

Bologna: Per Giacomo Monti, 1677

Folio: 32 x 20.8 cm. [24], 532 pp. Collation: †6, ††6, A-Z6, Aa-Vv6, Xx-Yy4. With an added, double-paged plate of the museum

An exceptionally clean copy, bound in early blind-ruled calfskin over boards, rebacked, endpapers renewed. The text is illustrated with numerous woodcuts of specimens (see below for a descriptive list.) A small woodcut portrait of the dedicatee appears in the dedication. The title is printed in red and black.

The sole edition of the only illustrated catalogue of the museum of Ferdinando Cospi, annexed in 1657 to the Studio Aldrovandi, the museum and botanical garden of Ulisse Aldrovandi in Bologna. The Cospi museum occupied a large apartment with two annexes in the Palazzo Pubblico, adjacent to the Aldrovandi museum. The detailed catalogue and its illustrations - in particular, the folding frontispiece image of the museum’s interior- serve as an invaluable record of the contents and configuration of the museum prior to the redistribution of both Aldrovandi’s and Cospi’s collections in 1742.

Cospi was educated at the Medici court in Florence and served as the family’s agent in Tuscany and Emilia. Many of the objects in the collection were gifts from the Medici dukes or were acquired by Cospi while traveling on Medici business. The catalogue, written by the Cremonese physician and professor of Greek Lorenzo Legati, is dedicated to the 14-year-old Medici prince Ferdinando, whose portrait appears at the head of the dedication.

The frontispiece, which shows Cospi and his dwarf curator Sebastiano Biavati (who was himself intended as a living “exhibit” in the museum) amidst the collection, is of special value to us because it demonstrates, as Laura Laurencich-Minelli has observed, “that the museum was not arranged according to the method in Legati’s catalogue; furthermore, it shows a display organization which is actually contrary to Legati’s subdivisions, most obviously in the admixture of naturalia and artificialia.”(See “Museography and Ethnographical Collections in Bologna”, in Impey and MacGregor, “Origins of Museums”, p. 23)

Cospi’s collection includes extraordinary objects from all over the world, including Africa, Asia, and a number of American specimens (a bird of paradise, a turkey, South American fruit, etc.) and ethnographic artifacts, the most important of which is the well-known Codex Cospi, a pre-Columbian pictorial codex of Aztec manufacture and one of only 16 Mesoamerican books to survive the Spanish conquest. For a full discussion, see Laura Laurencich Minelli, “A Note on the Mesoamerican Codex Cospi” (full citation in notes below.)

The illustrations include: a cat with two bodies, a bird of paradise, a turkey, a scorpion, a murex shell, exotic fruits, “monstrous” plants, a fragment of an Egyptian hieroglyphic inscription on basalt, mineral specimens, fossils, illustrations from the pre-Columbian Codex Cospi, a four-pronged pugnale, a cross-bow and other weapons, including spoils taken from the Turks in 1647, an ivory carving from Greenland, a detail from the chess board “used by Dante Alighieri”, an Etruscan cinerary urn and a full-paged image of an Etruscan bronze mirror, ancient oil lamps, a grotesque Hellenistic bronze figure, Egyptian ushabtis, Egyptian animal sculptures, two Aztec knife-handles in the shape of human figures (one with an animal head) covered with turquoise, Greek and Etruscan bronzes.

The Work is divided into five books: Book 1. Human specimens, including mummified remains, “monsters”(including portraits of the dwarves Sebastiano Biavati –also the museum’s custodian- and his sister), and deformities (a skeleton of a still-born infant with two hearts and two sets of lungs); animal specimens (including birds and insects), with “monsters” of indeterminate origin and deformities, as well as eggs of various types. Book 2. Fish, sea mammals (including whales –represented by a large vertebra and a dorsal fin- and dolphins), reptiles, amphibians, plants, crustacea, stones, fossils, “petrified” (mummified) animal remains, and magnets. Book 3. Ethnographic materials: books, scrolls, maps and exotic writing (including a Chinese book given to the Jesuit Procurator General of the Indies and the Codex Cospi, a pre-Columbian Aztec pictorial manuscript); mathematical, astronomical and geometrical instruments; musical instruments, arms, vases and other vessels of iron, clay, and glass, objects made from ivory and wood, ancient tombs (including Etruscan funerary artifacts), Greek and Roman oil lamps. Book 4. Ancient coins and medals of the Greeks and Romans, modern medals and coins of the popes, emperors, etc. Book 5. Images of the gods of the Romans, Greeks, and Egyptians.

“In 1657, the museum of the Marchese Ferdinando Cospi was annexed to the Studio Aldrovandi. A senate decree of 1600 permanently allotted one room for the gonfaloniere’s collection, and it was formally donated to the Senate in 1667. No doubt the proximity of the Studio to Cospi’s chambers as the elected head of government –according to contemporary descriptions, it was located ‘at the door next to those of the gonfaloniere to which one ascends by the stairs that go to the great tower’- influenced the nobleman’s decision to donate his collection to the city. Situated in the symbolic center of the city, it provided a way of linking private interests with public duties. Moreover, the association with Aldrovandi’s museum lent Cospi’s collection philosophical credibility by associating it with the Bolognese Aristotle…. The donation of Cospi’s collection precipitated a general reorganization of the museum. For a brief time, there were even two custodians: the professor of natural history assigned to the Studio Aldrovandi and Cospi’s beloved dwarf Sebastiano Biavati who was awarded the post of Custode del Museo.”(Paul Findlen, Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting and Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy)

The Cospi museum… came into being as ‘a youthful pastime’; thus its initial formation can be seen as analogous to that of the guardaroba and collections of the high Italian nobility, notably those of the Medici. Later, however, when Cospi decided to give his museum ‘per servitio publico’, placing it alongside that of Aldrovandi, and when he chose for the preparation of the catalogue the learned doctor Lorenzo Legati, he clearly wanted to invest his museum with a scientific character in the Aldrovandian mould.

A Pre-Columbian Codex in Italy

The Codex Cospi, also named the ‘Bologna Codex’, is a Pre-Columbian Mexican codex. Only sixteen pre-Hispanic books, and one cartographic plan, escaped the Spanish conquest and have reached us to report on Mesoamerican culture. They are mostly of the ritual-calendric or the historical-genealogic type (the Codex Cospi is of the first type.) These sixteen books are either written in pictographic-rebus writing or, in the case of the four Mayan books, in hieroglyphic writing (logograms, phonetic and key signs).

“The Codex Cospi’s presence in European dates as far back as 26 December 1665, when it was given to Marquis Ferdinando Cospi by Count Valerio Zani, who belonged to the same literary academy as Cospi and was a generous donor to Bologna's museums. Besides the Codex, Zani gave a series of remarkable medals to Cospi for his museum and, to the Aldrovandi museum (to which Cospi’s collection would later be annexed), the extraordinary Aztec spearthrower (Legati 1677, p. 192) now in the Museo Etnografico Pigorini in Rome.

“Zani thought the codex was Chinese, since the original presentation inscription on the cover reads ‘Libro della China’ (subsequently corrected to ‘del Messico’.) The Codex was on display in the famous ‘Museo Cospiano’ which had been transferred to the Town Hall (Palazzo Pubblico). The ‘Museo’ had been placed there in preparation for its formal donation to the city of Bologna in 1672.

“Cospi asked Lorenzo Legati, professor of Greek at the University of Bologna, to write a catalogue for his museum (printed in 1677), which gives detailed information about the Codex. In a shorter, unillustrated catalogue from 1667, the Codex is listed as book from India, (i.e. the Indies), while in the 1677 catalogue Legati recognized the Codex as an ancient Mexican book. Furthermore, Legati (1677, pp. 191-192) gave the first accurate description of the Codex and supplied its measurements. He did not realize that the codex was made of deerskin: he thought the underlying material onto which the illustrations were painted was a sort of cardboard. However he did affirm correctly that the surface was covered with a chalky paint.

“Lorenzo Legati was also the first to recognize that the Codex was composed in Mexican ‘hieroglyphics’. He attempted to compare it with other Mexican ‘hieroglyphs’ published by Ole Worm in the catalogue of his own museum, the ‘Museum Vormianum seu Historia Rerum Rariorum’ (Amsterdam 1655, pp. 383-384). Legati expressed the hope that somebody would unveil these literary mysteries (1677, p. 192).”( Laura Laurencich Minelli, “A note on the Mesoamerican Codex Cospi”, in Journal de la Société des Américanistes, Tome 85, 1999. pp. 375-386)

Cicognara 3403; Nissen, ZBI 2421; Graesse IV, 144; Balsiger, Kunst und Wunderkammern, 1970: 303-9; Cabinets de Curiosités: no. 97; Schlosser, Kunst- und Wunderkammern, 1908: 103-4; Wilson, History of Mineral Collecting, 1994: 40 & 165; Wunderkammer to Museum: no. 25. (Cospi). Cobres I p. 10 n. 4; Murray I p. 89; Nissen ZBI 2421. On the Codex Cospi, see Laura Laurencich Minelli, “A Note on the Mesoamerican Codex Cospi” in Journal de la Société des Américanistes, 1999, Vol 85, issue 85, pp. 375-386


Americans Trade Their Right to Habeus Corpus For Marriage Equality?

Let us get this straight. The government has the right to jail us forever, for no reason, as long as we can get married there?

How quick Americans and the media are to forget about the stripping of our basic human rights, as seen so casually and easily with indefinite detention made permanent law by the National Defense Authorization Act.  Throw us a social bone — the basic right to marry — and the country’s most atrocious crime against its people is a distant memory, even though groundbreaking progress against the nasty 2012 NDAA provisions by Occupy activist Chris Hedges is going on right now.

As it stands, Section 1021 is open to an interpretation that could subject anyone who has ever come into contact with Al Qaeda or “associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States,” to indefinite detention. Considering Al Qaeda is just a convenient legal name for a non-grouping of groups that have similar distaste for US foreign policy, it was easy for the judge and even the government’s own lawyers to see how just about anyone can fall into a zealous government’s definition of “any person”.

We are all caught up on a man’s stated opinion on a social issue directly affecting some of us*, when in fact it is that same man’s actions that affect all of us, but on a much deeper level.  Why are social issues so much more important to us than foundational issues — the foundation upon which we can afford to debate these social issues at all?

Why is there so much back-patting for Obama on social media, while his actions are backstabbing to the same fans/base?

Bread and circuses.  Join us on Facebook and read The Shock Doctrine.

*Indeed, marriage equality does affect all of us, some more directly than others. Debate over this perspective is best discussed outside of jail, so feel free (because you currently are) to comment below.


Garden Math

Garden Math

numbers A gardener is sometimes faced with the task of doing simple mathematical calculations, such as when measuring the square footage of a garden bed or calculating fertilizer or pesticide rates. While the mathematics involved is not difficult, it is easy to forget the individual steps if you do not practice on a regular basis. logo, an educational partnership of more than 70 land-grant universities (including WSU), provides links to garden calculators and sites discussing garden mathematics. Some of the links are listed below:

Garden Hoses

What garden hose you buy should be based on the length you need and how much water you want. If you only need a 50 foot hose and not a large amount of water, then an inexpensive 1/2″ hose might do the trick. But if you need a very long hose, or a great deal of water, then a larger 3/4″ diameter hose would be a better choice.

The table below is based on information from the University of Idaho, WSU and OSO Extensions Garden Hose Flow Rate and Time Calculator. All the calculations use a supply pressure of 40 pounds per square inch (PSI), with GPM equaling gallons of water per minute.

Hose Size 50 Foot Hose GPM 100 Foot Hose GPM
1/2″ 12 GPM 6 GPM
5/8″ 22 GPM 11 GPM
3/4″ 36 GPM 18 GPM

You can see that a small increase in hose size makes a large difference in the water flow. For example, going from a 1/2″ hose to a 3/4″ hose (a 50% increase in size) triples the water flow through the same length of hose.


Traveling Luck for Stora Halla, Västra Götaland, Sweden

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The timezone in Stora Halla is Europe/Stockholm
Sunrise at 06:58 and Sunset at 16:44. It's Dark

Latitude. 58.3333°, Longitude. 13.0333°
WeatherWeather near Stora Halla; Report from Satenas, 22.9km away
Weather : light rain
Temperature: 6°C / 43°F
Wind: 13.8km/h East
Cloud: Few at 2100ft Solid Overcast at 4700ft

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Geographic features & Photographs around Stora Halla, in Västra Götaland, Sweden

populated place;
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Airports close to Stora Halla

Lidkoping(LDK), Lidkoping, Sweden (18.1km)
Trollhattan vanersborg(THN), Trollhattan, Sweden (43.4km)
Skovde(KVB), Skovde, Sweden (60.8km)
Landvetter(GOT), Gothenborg, Sweden (93.5km)
Jonkoping(JKG), Joenkoeping, Sweden (95.3km)

Airfields or small airports close to Stora Halla

Hasslosa, Hasslosa, Sweden (17km)
Rada, Rada, Sweden (19.7km)
Satenas, Satenas, Sweden (22.9km)
Falkoping, Falkoping, Sweden (40.1km)
Moholm, Moholm, Sweden (74.7km)

Photos provided by Panoramio are under the copyright of their owners.


Turkey Slashes Military Spending, Steers Funds to Social Programs

Article Summary
Turkey cut military spending by 12% over the past decade, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Suleyman Yasar reports that some funds were diverted to education and health care, and that Turkey’s per-capita income tripled over the period.

One of the most striking positive developments for Turkey’s economy over the past ten years has been the reduction in military expenditures. According to data compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Turkey reduced its military spending by 12% over the last decade. While in 2001 the ratio of military expenditures to national income was 3.7%, in 2011 the ratio was down to 2%. In Greece, the same ratio was 3.6% in the year 2000, but in 2011 it remained close at 3%. For our other neighbor, Russia, it actually went up from 3.7% to 4% in the same time period.

The top military spender in 2011 was the United States with $711 billion, followed by China with $140 billion and Russia with $71.9 billion. Turkey spent a total of $18.6 billion on its military in 2011.

How does SIPRI calculate military expenditures? It adds up the costs of weapons purchases, operations, personnel, military investments and even the expenditures for retired military personnel.

Global military expenditures in 2011 totaled $1.000738 trillion, a slight increase of 0.3% from 2010. While most of the Western world reduced its military expenditures, African states increased it by 8.6%, the Middle East by 4.6% and Asia and Oceania by 2.3%.

When global military expenditures increase by an average of 4.5% annually, how did Turkey reduce its military spending by 12%? We can point to the diversion of budgetary allotments from the military to education and health sectors, which now have higher shares of the national income.

Turkey’s success in reducing its military expenditures while it has continued to develop into one of the world’s major economies — even becoming a regional leader — proves that a powerful country depends more on improving welfare than accumulating arms. Don’t forget that while reducing military expenditures by 12%, Turkey’s per-capita income increased threefold, and Turkey has become a more powerful and respected country.

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We are very grateful for the amazing volunteers from the ‘Heart to Hand’ foundation, who have built a Workshop in a day! Thank you to Pat, Kieran and the team for making it possible for our Workshop staff, long-term homeless, to have a safe and warm place to work. Thanks to your hard work the Mendicity Institution can progress by helping more and more homeless people to up their professional skills and find employment!


I’m starting a new category of my blog, called “Thinking out Loud”. I’m going to be asking random questions about moral dilemmas, and then answer them. The purpose is to provoke thinking, not only for myself, but for my readers. This presents the opportunities to learn more about ourselves, and grow as people.

imageQ: How do you feel about violence? Under what circumstances is violence a legitimate answer to the problem? Is it ever?

A: There are four different forms of violence. The deadliest is War. I don’t like the idea of war or sending our American boys overseas to be used as pawns and sacrifices in a dispute between two people with lots of power. But oftentimes, War is so much more than that. The truth is though that sometimes they fight over real problems and cultural differences/beliefs. Personally, I support the current war the U.S. is in. There’s so much violence & terrorism, and as the greatest country in the world, we have the responsibility of helping. I don’t believe in harboring illegal immigrants, but I do believe we should help them rebuild their home countries if they’re in need and we are in a position to do so. As far as our war in the Middle East, I see it like a neighbor child being abused, instead of ignoring it, let’s get involved & see if we can improve lives.  Violence should be avoided if at all possible by using debates, buying peace, and compromise/negotiation, but this doesn’t solve everything. If our agents have to use torture methods to get answers to end the war quickly and save American lives, so be it. I couldn’t do that even if I had to, but kudos and thank you to those who get it done. Wars will happen but I think they should be fast, and when they end, we should pamper and respect our troop upon their return home.

Another type of violence besides War, is self defense. In the event of attack or a potential threat to our rights as human beings, protect yourself. I’m totally okay with that, but torture is never right. If you have a feral dog, wildlife or a person coming at you with the intent to harm you or another person, shoot them. Don’t torture them, or draw out the process, thats wrong and unnecessary. But do what you have to, to protect one other.

Next is discipline. A simple spanking or switching to rebuke a child or to check someone back is ok with me. So long as its done for punishment, and not to make the parent/adult ‘feel better’, because if they are really angry, it’s dangerous. Children should never be hit in the face or head, and they should always know why they’re receiving punishment.

The fourth type of violence is domestic violence, and its completely wrong. Domestic abuse is humiliating and painful, both mentally and physically to the victim. And usually the attacker doesn’t hurt the other person for entertainment- its because they were once the victim, and something happened to them that they can’t cope with it any other way. Its wrong and should never happen, its a never ending cycle that damages people.

Are there other forms of violence? Are they okay? Do you agree or disagree with what I talked about? Voice your opinion below in the comments section!

As always, thank you for reading!


Toxic Elements from “Chemistry and Sustainability”

This morning, I taught my advisor’s undergrad/grad class on sustainability. They’re currently studying “toxic elements,” so I introduced the lesson and showed a few videos on lead, arsenic, and selenium poisoning. In the last 15 minutes I discussed with the students if the class is impacting their daily lives and why it should, which of course reminded me of why I blog.

I’ve linked to the videos we watched today in class. We learned first about lead poisoning in children in Nigeria due to contaminated dust from illegal gold mines. Human Rights Watch named it one of the worst lead poisoning epidemics in modern history. Bangladesh is also experiencing “the largest mass poisoning of a population in history” from naturally-occurring arsenic in groundwater.

These are extreme and geographically and socioeconomically distant examples, but lead and arsenic poisoning can and do occur to us, too. Lead, which I’ve written about before, was used heavily in paint and gasoline until it was banned in the 1970s and 80s, respectively. Lead is a persistent toxic pollutant and continues to contaminate soil and our homes. Most homes built before the lead paint ban (including mine) still have leaded paint underneath the top layers, which poses a threat to children who may eat the paint chips and to anybody who breathes lead dust. Lead use in paint and gasoline has also been epidemiologically correlated to a decrease in IQ and increase in violence in the 20th century. Low dose exposure of children to lead manifests itself in lowered IQ scores.

There are two main sources of arsenic poisoning that you should worry about as well: groundwater contamination and rice. Arsenic deposits in soil are naturally occurring (see below for major pockets), and can contaminate well water. Researchers recently measured the (low) levels of arsenic in well water in Maine and correlated it to a decrease in IQ in children. Takeaway: if you drink from a well, always have it tested for heavy metal contamination.

Arsenic poisoning can also occur through rice consumption. The rice plant absorbs arsenic and other heavy metals including cadmium, mercury, and tungsten and stores them in the grain. For cultures who eat rice most frequently, this has lead to diseases such as the painful “ouch-ouch” in Japan. Brown rice contains more arsenic than white rice because it accumulates in the bran, but is less healthy. The highest levels of arsenic have been found in rice grown in the southern United States; imported rice from Asia is mixed in arsenic levels. See Consumer Reports full rice test results hereConsumer Reports and the EWG recommend buying rice from California and limiting rice consumption for babies. Those on a gluten-free diet should also be mindful of rice intake.

Scary, yes, but manageable. If you made it this far and are feeling pretty down, watch this funny John Stewart video on selenium that I am not skilled enough to figure out how to embed.


The Oculus series captures the beauty found in everyday common elements. The image is reworked so that we can perceive and appreciate the colours, vibrancy, textures, patterns and symmetry.  Thomas has shaped the surreal out of the real, making interpretation and perception the subjects of the image and not the actual still life or landscape source. Inconspicuous details become a singularity of beauty and truth in the eye of the beholder. Each piece is a self-reflection into the definition of our own personal aesthetics.


The Elementary Principles of Scientific Agriculture by Nathaniel Thomas LuptonThe Elementary Principles of Scientific Agriculture by Nathaniel Thomas Lupton

The Elementary Principles of Scientific Agriculture

byNathaniel Thomas Lupton

Paperback | February 6, 2012

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1880. Excerpt: ... ELEMENTARY PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE. CHAPTER I. THE DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENTIFIC AGRICULTURE. 1. Agriculture is both a science and an art. As an art, it teaches how to cultivate the soil, make and use fertilizers, take care of stock, and do whatever is necessary for the successful management of a farm. As a science, it explains the growth of plants and animals, and the principles upon which the practical operations of farming depend. As an art, it tells what to do; as a science, it explains the reasons for what is done. 2. Agriculture, like other sciences, was practised as an art long before the principles upon which it is based were understood. As an industrial pursuit, it has always been the first in importance. This is owing to the fact that man's necessities compel him to cultivate the soil, While the earth of its own accord produces enough food for the support of the lower animals, man is forced to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow. 3. In the early ages of the world, the population was small, and the wants of men so few that very little cultivation of the soil was required. The rivers and forests supplied, in a great measure, both food and clothing, until the increase of population originated necessities and luxuries which could only be satisfied by increased cultivation. 4. Although agriculture, as an art, has been practised to some extent by all nations, and in every age of the world, its progress as a science has been very slow. In fact, sciences of recent origin have made much greater progress and are at this day more generally understood. There are men even now who say that practical and scientific farming are very different; in other words, that agriculture is no science at all. This is because they do not understand its principl...
Title:The Elementary Principles of Scientific AgricultureFormat:PaperbackDimensions:26 pages, 9.69 × 7.44 × 0.05 inPublished:February 6, 2012Publisher:General Books LLCLanguage:English

The following ISBNs are associated with this title:

ISBN - 10:0217347401

ISBN - 13:9780217347402


Why does Hurricane Katrina really matter when considering the promise and possibility of America in Zeitoun?

Expert Answers
mdelmuro eNotes educator| Certified Educator

Hurricane Katrina matters despite the "promise and possibility of America" because it shows that the promise and possibilities are not open to everyone, particularly non-white Americans.

The book Zeitoun documents the discrimination, racism and prejudice Muslim men and women face in most parts of America, particularly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The entire first parts of the book are focused on the lengths Abdulrahman Zeitoun had to undertake to ensure his business in New Orleans would not be hurt by negative stereotypes of Muslim men in America. In a chapter that describes how a customer complained about the Latino painters who work for Zeitoun, the narrator goes on to describe how "every so often, would-be clients could not get past Zeitoun's last name." While these incidents didn't happen too often, they were "not rare enough."

These types of incidents raise a glass ceiling (a term usually reserved for women in the workforce, but applicable here) on immigrants like Zeitoun that attempt to make themselves successes in the country that has such promise and possibility.

The incidents that occur after the hurricane, when Zeitoun and his friends are arrested are even more evident of this glass ceiling that is raised on immigrants and those who do not fit in the traditional white American stereotype. When Zeitoun was being ushered through the bus station, a guard tells him, "You guys are terrorists. You're Taliban."

The entire book focuses on the effects of this glass ceiling on certain segments of society. Zeitoun is imprisoned indefinitely and gets sick.

Symbolically, Hurricane Katrina conjures up images of people of color standing on rooftops holding up signs that say "Help!" It shows areas made up of mostly African Americans completely flooded and their homes destroyed. Katrina calls to mind tens of thousands of people, who could not, or did not, leave New Orleans, starving and dehydrating in the Superdome. All of these images contradict the idea of the "promise and possibility of America." How could a country that cannot or does not take care of its own people promise possibility?

After the publication of the book, Zeitoun suffered from illness and post-traumatic stress disorder and became abusive toward his wife and radicalized. His story, which was one of immigrant success, became one of tragedy and symbolic of the false promise of America.

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Are arm and chest pains associated with pituitary tumors?

Not commonly. These are not common symptoms of pituitary tumors...But they could occur if the tumor is producing too much thyroid or adrenal (cortisol) hormones. When someone complains of arm or chest pain, we worry more about the heart or lung rather than the pituitary.
No. The centers for the sensation and movement of the arms and legs are not anywhere near where the pituitary gland is in the brain.

Related Questions

Can I get preganant if I have a pituitary tumor anf my breast is producing milk from it?

Prolactinoma N preg. Small prolactinoma producing little prolactin may not affect your chance of pregnancy, but one that is producing much hormone will likely reduce your chance some what. Many women who are actively breastfeeding produce higher prolactin than nonlactating females, but they still get pregnant during this time. So if u r trying for it, good luck, if trouble, consult doc. Good luck.
Maybe. You should discuss this with your endocrinologist/ob/gyne before getting pregnant. There are risks to consider, especially that higher estrogen levels during pregnancy may cause further growth of prolactinoma which may affect vision, etc.

I am a 26 y/o fem. I have pcos. My empty uterus measured 11 week-size recently. I have noticed a little breast milk secretion. Pituitary tumor?

Why empty? What is increasing the size of uterus? Do you have fibroids? Increase in size of uterus with lactation--- means pregnancy or some sort of hormone secreting tumor (not necessarily pituitary-- could be breast).


New Herbs Are Coming Your Way

One expert reveals new trends in gardening that may change your views as well.

| October/November 2002

Vietnamese coriander (Polygonum odoratum) is just one of several Asian herbs becoming more popular in the United States.

There are some new and exciting herbs coming your way! New flavors, new colors, and fascinating new looks for your herb garden. What I am referring to is a new trend in gardening, thanks to changes in our eating patterns.

Recently I had the opportunity to try out a new food while visiting Seattle. Walking down the street at dinnertime, looking for a restaurant, I passed a veritable smorgasbord of ethnic restaurants. Block after block in the area where I stayed, Thai, Vietnamese, Ethiopian, Cambodian, Indian, Mexican, and Cuban were all represented, one beside the other. There wasn’t a pizza place or a fried chicken joint anywhere in sight.

I chose a pho restaurant. Pho (pronounced like fun, without the n) is a Vietnamese soup. And, yes, it is an entire restaurant that serves only soup! This soup is so versatile, so healthy, so low in fat, that the Campbell’s Soup Company has just created a new freshly frozen wholesale Asian soup division called Stockpot. Catherine Horner, president of Stockpot, recently said in an interview on National Public Radio that, “Asian food is where Italian food was twenty years ago.”

Pho is a traditional and complex stock base that includes chicken or beef broth in a tasty mixture of browned onions, garlic, ginger, cinnamon, cardamon, cloves, lemongrass, cilantro, and star anise, plus a dozen other herbs, simmered for hours. When you order pho in a restaurant, it comes filled with rice noodles and your choice of fish, chicken, sliced prime rib, shrimp, or a myriad of other tantalizing ingredients. On the side you are served fresh, crispy bean sprouts, a bountiful sprig of fresh Vietnamese mint, sliced, hot Thai peppers, and a wedge of cooling lime. The flavor is exquisite and no single herb is distinguishable over the others. Instead, a delightful progression of tastes reveal themselves as you eat.

There are numerous growers across the United States who already grow a wide range of these new herbs for the Asian restaurant market. One grower and friend who’s on the cutting edge of this market gave me a tour of his six-acre garden where he grows fresh-cut herbs and vegetables for ethnic restaurant markets in St. Louis. He grows water mint (Mentha aquatica), curry leaf (Murraya koenigii), a shrub from India, water spinach, Japanese cucumbers, herbs and vegetables that grow in water, and other plants from many regions of Asia.

Ethnic groups bring with them very unique preferences for flavor in their food. We are introduced to those flavors in Thai, Vietnamese, Cambodian, Korean, and Indian foods and find that we can grow those new plants in our own gardens. Where once we grew just simple chives, now we can choose from Grolau (Allium schoenoprasum ‘Grolau’), Profusion (A. schoenoprasum ‘Sterile’), Wilau (A. schoenoprasum ‘Wilau’) or many other introduced varieties. And instead of just coriander (the plant is known as cilantro, the seed is coriander) as a single plant, now we can grow Chinese (Coriandrum sativum), Vietnamese (Polygonum odoratum), Mexican (Eryngium foetidum), and several others. All have similar flavors but different growing conditions and each one is specific to a particular ethnic or regional cooking style. There are garlic chives of different kinds depending upon the kind of food you are cooking, dozens of new mints and basils along with Ajowan, Ajmud, and many more herbs that we have yet to discover.

mother earth news fair

Oct. 21-22, 2017
Topeka, KS.


Let the Igbos go - Northern youths tell Osinbajo

Let the Igbos go - Northern youths tell Osinbajo

- Northern youths have written a letter to Acting President Yemi Osinbajo

- The group alleged that the Igbos have always advocated for secession and should be allowed to leave

- According to them, there is need to ensure the Igbos are given the opportunity to exercise the right to self-determination

Youths from Northern parts of Nigeria have written a letter to acting President Yemi Osinbajo, begging him to allow Igbos to secede from Nigeria and create Biafra.

NAIJ.com learnt that this was contained in a letter by a coalition of Northern youths to the acting president signed by Ambassador Shettima Yerima, Joshua Viashman, Aminu Adam, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman and Nastura Ashir Sharif.

In the letter, the Northern youths contended that the principle of self-determination has since world war II become a part of the United Nations Charter, which states in Article 1(2) that one of the purposes of the UN is “to develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples”.

READ ALSO: I was trained to kill by cultists - 27-year-old man confesses to Lagos police

“Army officers of the Northern Region were eventually compelled to execute a counter coup on July 29, 1966 following a coordinated series of brazen provocations from the Igbo who taunting northerners on northern streets by mocking the way leaders of the region were slain by the Igbo. This unfortunately resulted in mob action which resulted in the death of many Igbos.

“And when Lt. Col. Yakubu Gowon, from the North took over as Head of State following the counter coup, the Igbo through Lt. Col. Ojukwu, characteristically refused to recognize Gowon. Ojukwu declared the secession of the Igbo people from Nigeria and the formation of the republic of Biafra on May 30, 1967 resulting in a civil war that led to the tragic deaths of more than 2 million Nigerians”.

“Concerned by the fact that the Biafrans have confessed to arming themselves for a violent breakup, we feel that it is risky for the rest of the country particularly the North to go on pretending that it is safe for us to co habitate with the Igbos given how deeply they are entrenched in our societies .

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“And since evidently the Igbo have not been sufficiently humbled by their self imposed bloody civil violence of 1966, we are strongly concerned that nothing short of granting their Biafran dream will suffice.

“And since the Igbo have virtually infiltrated every nook and cranny of Northern Nigeria where they have been received with open arms as fellow compatriots, we strongly believe that the region is no longer safe and secure in the light of the unfolding threats and the fact that for a long time, the Igbo have gone to extra ordinary lengths to ensure that in their domain in the South East, Northerners and Westerners are as much as possible disenfranchised from owning any businesses whereas in Kano alone, they own not less than 100, 000 shops across all the business districts.

That since the younger generation of Nigerians makes up for more than 60 per cent of the nation’s population, it is our hope that they inherit this country in better shape so that they can build a much better future for themselves and their offsprings in an atmosphere that is devoid of anarchy, hate, suspicion and negativity that characterize the polarized, and clearly irreconcilable differences forced on us by the Biafran Igbos”.

Urging Osinbajo to let the Igbos go, the Northern youths said:“As the Igbo agitations persist and assume threatening dimensions, we submit that there is need to ensure that they are given the opportunity to exercise the right to self-determination as entrenched under the aforementioned international statutes to which Nigeria is a signatory.

“The Igbo from all over the country and in the Diaspora should be advised to converge in their region in the South-East for a plesbisite to be organized and conducted by the United Nations and other regional bodies for them to categorically to decide between remaining part of Nigeria or having their separate country.

"That government should at the end of the plesbite implement whatever is agreed and resolved in order to finally put this matter to rest.

Watch video of Acting President Osinbajo talking about Biafra:

Source: Naij.com

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Top paintings by da Vinci

Due to all he has accomplished, Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci is now recognized as a major example of the ‘’Universal Genius’’. He was involved in a broad range of fields ranging from engineering, botany, anatomy and science. Nonetheless, after his death, his popularity was major because of his skill as a painter.

His comprehensive knowledge of botany, anatomy, botany and light aided him in the creation of some of the most popular works in history. He is recognized for making his paintings seem more alive than those of others.

Below are some of the most famous paintings ever created by Leonardo Da Vinci.

They include;

The Adoration of the Magi
This was the first commission of prestige by DaVinci. It was offered to him by the monks of san Donato. Nonetheless, the painting was not completed as Leonardo left for Milan the next year. This unfinished painting shows Virgin Mary and baby Jesus alongside the Magi kneeling in adoration as well as a group of people crowding them.

7 Annunciation
This painting shows when the Archangel Gabriel paid a visit to Virgin Mary. The angel was sent by God to inform her of how she would conceive miraculously and birth Jesus, the Son of God. The subject was very famous for artworks and was shown a lot of times in the Renaissance. Annunciation has been called the masterpiece of a lot of artists but of recent times, it was proven to be as a result of a partnership between Da Vinci alongside his master Andrea del Verrocchio.

St. John the Baptist
This painting shows St. John the Baptist, who was an iconic figure in Christianity who utilized baptism as his core sacrament. Before this work, St. John the Baptist had been traditionally shown as a lean ascetic and the innovative depiction by Leonardo was influential in the future portrayals of the saint including that of Raphael who was another famous artist. The painting is also recognized for the mysterious smile of St, john and for being the last painting by Da Vinci.

Most Famous Paintings by Pablo Picasso

Pablo Ruiz y Picasso was an artist from Spain who lived through the year 1991-1973. He was an artist known to many as one of the greatest painters that ever lived. He was among the artists with the most influence in the twentieth century.

He changed past practices and helped in creating the movement of art known as Cubism that aided in revolutionizing the European sculpture and painting.

Picasso was a very remarkable artist and asides from the fact that he produced a massive volume of work in other media, he was responsible for the creation of about 1900 paintings throughout his career. The owners of a lot of high end companies are big fans of Picasso’s work and like to view his paintings any chance they get. There are a lot of his paintings which fall among the most expensive paintings ever sold, but his other famous works can be located in museums.

Below are some of the most famous paintings by Picasso.

They include;

Ma Jolie ( English name; My pretty girl)
Picasso aided in pioneering cubism which was an art movement that revolutionized the European sculpture and painting. The first phase of this movement was Analytic cubism and it was characterized by minimizing the forms into typical geometric parts and a propensity towards single utilization of color. The painting is an ideal example of the Analytic cubist style.

La Vie ( English name; Life)
The term utilized in referring to the body of work of Pablo Picasso between 1901 and 1904 was the blue period. The paintings in this time were basically monochromatic utilizing shades of blue-green and blue. This period was partly caused by the suicide of Carlos Casagemas who was a close friend of Picasso. He was a poet and an art student who shot himself because of his one-sided love for Germaine Pichot who was an artist’s model.

Three Musicians
As at now, this artwork can be observed in the modern art museum of new York. It is part of a bunch of paintings Picasso painted alongside his young family in the Fontainebleau in the year 1921. The three musicians is a painting that measures over 2 meters in height and width.

Seated Woman (Marie-Therese)
This painting was created at the beginning of a year Picasso produced a lot of remarkable paintings. In this painting, Picasso utilized his skill of green and red polarization to provide additional animation dimension.

Famous paintings by Van Gogh

Van Gogh’s life was one of tragedy and hardship. Even though he is now recognized as one of the most renowned Dutch painters in history, he stayed unknown and poor all through his life. He began to attain the recognition he deserved after he was dead.

He was well known for his amazing utilization of color and he went along with the theme of beauty and emotion. He suffered from mental illness and committed suicide at the age of 37. A lot of people got to know Van Gogh because he cut off his ear, but he displayed a completely different aspect in his paintings. He was an individual with lots of talent whose paintings keeps inspiring artists around the world to date.

Vincent Van Gogh’s Famous Paintings

During his very short life, Van Gogh produced over 2,000 paintings. Overall he created over 1,300 sketches, drawings, and watercolors as well as 860 oil paintings. His mother was alive long enough to see his legacy grow and now, his paintings are one of the most expensive in the world.

Below are a few of his most famous works. They include;

The Starry Night

The starry night is a print which is highly sought after. This painting is made memorable by the swirling clouds and stars that light up the little town below. The utilization of a thoughtful color and curved lines both make available interest and depth. Every part of this painting has resulted in its popularity. Like some of his other work, this painting was produced while he was at the asylum.

This is another remarkably famous work by Van Gogh. After various self-mutilations and hospitalizations, He painted more than 100 paintings during his stay in the asylum making use of the clinic and the gardens surrounding him as his subjects.

He started to paint during his first week of staying in the asylum. The utilization of black contours in the flowers was a major part of the woodblock prints of the Japanese. Although this painting may not have been observed as a masterpiece by Van Gogh, it was sold for a remarkable price of $54 million.

Most famous paintings in the world

Among the vast amount of paintings that have been produced and displayed in museums and galleries all over the world, there are just a few of them that end up making history. These few paintings are well known by individuals of all ages all around the world and would perhaps continue to leave impressions on the minds of individuals for a long time to come.

Below are some of the most famous paintings in the world. They include;

Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci

This is the major attraction in the Louvre museum located in Paris where it is continuously viewed by more than five million people on a yearly basis. It was painted by Leonardo da Vinci between 1503 and 1504.

The Last Supper by  Leonardo da Vinci

This painting is another very famous painting but it is not displayed in any museum. It is instead placed on the back wall of the Santa Maria Della Grazie monastery’s dining hall. It is situated in Milan, Italy. This painting was created by Leonardo da Vinci. It shows Jesus and his disciples having the Last supper.

The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo

This was produced by Michelangelo around the year 1508 and 1512. It is situated in the Vatican city, Rome on the ceiling of the Sistine chapel. This is just one of nine parts from the book of genesis that are located in the center of the chapel’s ceiling.

Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh

This is one of the most recognized paintings in modern culture. I first saw a rendition of this painting at my friends place. He owns Edmonton roofing so I was a little surprised to see this masterpiece hanging in his house. However, once you see this in real life, it’s easy to see why this piece would add to anyone’s decor. It was painted by Vincent van Gogh who was a Dutch artist in 1889. This painting makes a permanent collection of the museum of modern art located in New York. This painting inspired the song Vincent which is also recognized as ‘’starry starry night’’ by Don McLean. This song made reference to this painting alongside many other famous paintings by Van Gogh.

The Scream – Edvard Munch

This is the most famous work by Edvard Munch and it was created around 1893. This painting was done using pastel and oil on cardboard. This remarkable painting is being displayed at the National Gallery in Oslo, Norway.

World’s most famous artists

Art is unlike almost all other forms of entertainment which most people are aware of. So it takes a lot of effort for an artist to be very popular and attain the reputation of being popular.

The fact is, to be a renowned artist, it means your work has survived the test of time and that is the case with the artists mentioned below.

Some of the most famous artists in the world include the following;

Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso without a doubt is one of the most famous artists that ever lived. He was born in Málaga, Spain. His name is almost the same as modern art and he had an image suited to that of a genius outlaw who had ambitions that were matched by his desire to live largely.

Vincent van Gogh
Van Gogh was well known to be unstable mentally. This was due to the fact that he cut off his own ear after being in an argument with a fellow painter. Nonetheless, his paintings make up some of the most famous and cherished paintings of all time. His method of painting that utilized flurries of thick brushes consisting of bright colors squeezed directly from the tube served as an inspiration to many more artists after him.

Jackson Pollock
He was obstructed by his love for alcohol and being an alcoholic. He was also clumsy and had self-doubt in his ability to be a painter. Pollock surpassed his limitations in a short period between 1947 and 1950 when he created drip abstractions that found him a spot in history till date.

Michelangelo was a sculptor, an architect as well as a painter. He also had a flair for writing poetry. He also moved a lot between Venice, Florence, and Bologna. His most renowned commissions were done for the Medici popes located in Rome.

Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo is said to be a genius asides for his masterpieces like the Last Supper, Mona Lisa and the Lady with an Ermine. He was also well known for his technological drawings which were utilized 500 years in the future.


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