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Sunday, June 26, 2011
Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookie Story
Big Names And Big Planes At The International Air Show in Paris, 2011
by Debjyoti BardhanYou might want to hurry, as it closes on the 26th of June. Here we give you the scoop on the gala event – the big news, the big names and some stunning photos. 
The Le Bourget on Day 1
An introduction: A brief one
The International Air show has been occurring since 1908 once every two years, twice interrupted by the two world wars. Since 1949, it has been held in odd years. Paris’s Le Bourget has been its location. It’s the most prestigious event in the aviation industry and certainly the largest. Paris Air shows have been known to be the place where big deals have been made in the past. It has been the focal point where huge number of exhibitors showcase their products, innovation gets noticed and big companies announce big planes and massive deals.
While the first Air Show saw 380 exhibitors, the present one boasts exhibitors numbering well over 2000. The show has been visited by 138,000 as per the official count till today. That can only increase exponentially during the open days from 24th to 26th.
The show pieces
If you’re planning to go to the show, there are two flight simulators to help you realize a real flight experience. (Entry fee: €5 per person).
The premier this year is the Solar Impulse. It has been built by engineers at the prestigious Ecole Polytechnique Institute and it aims to circle the world, powered by only solar power. One of the builders, Bertrand Piccard, co-piloted the first balloon across the world. He wants to do it again and in style. The plane is a small and light aircraft, designed for solo flight. It delivers the power of a scooter using batteries that will be charged during the day, while in flight, and will be enough for night flight. It is a “Special Guest” at the Air Show.
The Solar Impulse
The "Special Guest" at the Air Show
There will be other pieces of genuine inspiration on display. One of them being the biofuel powered aircraft design made by EADES – ZEHST – that can fly at supersonic speeds. (We told you the amazing story here). Further, there is an Austrian innovation of a wingless aircraft. (We told you about this too.)
The Big Players
Both Airbus and Boeing, rivals, have unveiled new aircrafts and have done big business signing bills worth big bucks. However, Airbus has completely outdone Boeing in this respect. However, that’s another story for some other time.
Airbus showcased its A380, the grand old warhorse in the civil aviation sector since 2005. It has seen a huge number of orders, the largest from Emirates (90 orders). The smash hit from Airbus has been the A320 neo.
The A380 takes flight
The A380 majestic in flight
The A320 Neo
Boeing showed off its Boeing 787 Dreamliner on the 21st of June.
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner
Several military aircrafts were also put on display. The US Air Force performed a test flight of the Boeing C-17 GlobeMaster III on the 23rd of June. Rafale, made by Dassault, a fighter jet, was test flown and what a spectacle that was!
The Rafale
The Rafale test flight at the Air Show
The Boeing C-17: From the cockpit
The F-16 fighter jet showcased
The Amphibious aircraft Beriev Be-200 sprays water as a demonstration at the Air Show
Actor and star John Travolta added some celluloid glitter as he climbed in the cockpit of a Lockheed Super Constellation.
Actor John Travolta at the cockpit
Remember that the extravaganza ends on the 26th.
Rejection and Success
---by Peter
Last week, on Father’s Day, my daughter, her friend, her friend’s father and I took a trip to the Crane Estate above the bluffs of Ipswich, Massachusetts’ Crane’s Beach. Richard T. Crane’s property (also known as Castle Hill) came to exemplify the American Country Place Era with its farm and estate buildings, fashioned grounds and gardens, and diverse natural areas. During the Great Depression Crane did a great deal for the town of Ipswich, employing hundreds of residents and contributing to the town’s well being in numerous other ways. The generous Crane family donated nearly 2,000 acres, including Hog Island and Crane Beach, to the Trustees of Reservations so we all could enjoy this extraordinary land.
Anyway, it was a beautiful Sunday morning and I marveled at the landscaping (really, landsculpting) of the estate. I remarked to the other dad about this amazing artistry of design and learned the designer was none other than Frederick Law Omlstead.
I’d known of Omlstead’s work on Central Park, Boston’s Common and also its “Emerald Necklace,” but had no idea of his work in Ipswich (the next town over from where I live). I began looking into the life of this designer and discovered many interesting facts, but one in particular stood out as a lesson all careerists could learn from.
Before he designed Central Park, Frederick Law Olmstead had been a failure at five professions. That’s correct – five. As reported by Michael J. Lewis in a Wall Street Journal review of Genius of Place by Justin Martin, Olmstead had been a surveyor, clerk, sailor, scientific farmer and publisher. He had also failed as “special” student at Yale. However, as it turned out, Olmstead’s experiences and observations during his travels during “this roster of failures would turn out to be the best possible of resumes for the varied achievements of his career” as a “landscape architect … a term he invented.”
In addition to Central Park, those achievements included “Chicago’s Riverside Park, Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, the Boston Fens and Yosemite National Park. Whoa. Nice rebounds.
“Failure” is closely related to rejection.
I have become very familiar with rejection over the years. I’ve had editors tell me my writing is boring, booking agents tell me my music won’t draw, and distributors tell me my product is too unusual. When you work by yourself, rejection can really take a toll on you if you’re not careful, because there is no one around to laugh about it with you. After a while, it can stop being funny.
I have learned some tricks over time for coping with rejection. The advice that follows may save you some anguish. It saves me anguish – daily.
- Expect some rejection. If you expect every pitch to be a sale, every person to be nice to you, and every proposal to win you business, you are going to take rejection really hard. Rejection is part of life; you have to accept that and expect to be rejected. Remember, every record company in Britain initially rejected the Beatles; same with the Rolling Stones. Thicken your skin and hang tough.
- Celebrate rejection. When I first moved to Boston, my mentor told me to think of every rejection as bringing me one step closer to success. He was talking about odds. If you have a failure or setback, it means you’ve gotten one setback out of the way and you are therefore closer to getting what you want. In other words, the more no’s you hear, the closer you are to a yes.
- Do not be upset by rejection. Rejection is a fact, but how you feel about being rejected is not a fact. People automatically assume that because you are rejected, you have to feel terrible. But rejection is just rejection – nothing more, nothing less. People have all kinds of reasons for rejecting you. Sometimes it has to do with you; many times it doesn’t. Often it’s just a matter of timing (think, The Beatles).
- Do not be at other people’s mercy. If you are always looking to other people for approval or to verify that you are worthy, your life will be a roller coaster. When you get a lot of acceptance, you’ll feel great; when you get a lot of rejection, you’ll feel terrible. When someone rejects you in a work situation, it doesn’t mean you are no good; it means you (or your idea) got rejected. Period. Move on.
- Don’t globalize. It is important to make sure rejection doesn’t wreak havoc on your psyche. Therapists call this “globalizing”. It means that when you fail at one thing, you think everything is terrible. To avoid globalizing, give yourself a reality check when you suffer a rejection. Make a list, mentally or on paper, of what is going well in your business or your life, to remind you of your successes as well as failures.
- Read the following passage (a lot). He failed in business in ‘31. He was defeated when he ran for the legislature in ‘32. He failed once again in business in ‘34. His fiancee died in ‘35. He had a nervous breakdown in ‘36. He went back into politics and was defeated in the election of ‘38. He decided to run for Congress and was defeated in ‘43. He was defeated for Congress in ‘46. He was defeated for Congress in ‘48. He was defeated for the Senate in ‘55. He was defeated for vice president in ‘56. He was defeated for the Senate in ‘58.
After that, you’d say this guy was through, right? He was “all washed up,” wasn’t he? No, not at all. He went on to be elected President in 1860. The man, of course, was Abraham Lincoln.
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Booking A Fair or A Festival
The following assumes you have a large following and your have paid your dues booking both small and large gigs, including clubs.Take the time to update your online profiles and sync everything to give you the most competitive press kit. A promoter is going to think if you took the time to do that, you’ll take the time to publicize the show you may be booked for. Always respect the promoter’s decision and don’t take it personally if they do not select you. While you may not be a good fit for their particular opportunity, it does not mean that you will not be a perfect fit for a future opening! Promoters all know each other and talk. The last thing you want is having word travel among the promoter community that your band is unprofessional which can lead to lost future opportunities.
The Value of Our Soft White Space
Our most profound, soul embalming, life aligning work often comes not in the dizzy glare of full on frenetic daily activity. There’s no space for it there.
Instead it comes in the soft white space in between.
In the pauses.
The breaths.
The disconnects.
The moments of stillness.
This is the silent work.
The silent work where, piece by piece, we find what we’ve been looking for all along, everywhere but the place it’s always been.
This is the silent work we all must do.
Are you?
Friday, June 24, 2011
UPDATE ABOUT DELTA NOT FLYING JEWS TO SAUDI ARABIA
Here is the best explanation of the Delta story not flying Jews to Saudi Arabia I have read. THIS WAS WRITTEN BY A JEWISH PERSON. (NOTE: I stated on FB that SA does not issue passports/visas to Jewish people.....that was old policy...it no longer is policy)
Delta “No Jews” Policy – Could This Story Be More Wrong?
This afternoon The Huffington Post published an article by Rabbi Jason Miller entitled “Delta Adopts Saudi Arabian Airlines’ No Jew Policy.“ Granted, this headline is catchy and is inflammatory enough to make the story go viral … likely even to reach my Mother, who will be outraged and possibly forward me a link sometime in the next few days … but in reality so much of the article is incorrect that I don’t even know where to start.
I guess the best place to start is with a quote from the opening paragraph of The Huffington Post article:
“A few years ago Delta Airlines took over Northwest Airlines and now the vast majority of domestic flights at Detroit Metro are operated by Delta. That fact makes it especially troubling to learn that Delta will add Saudi Arabian Airlines to its SkyTeam Alliance of partnering companies and would require Delta to ban Jews and holders of Israeli passports from boarding flights to Saudi Arabia.”
Let’s pick this apart piece by piece.
First off … Yes, Delta Air Lines is a founding member of SkyTeam, as are Air France-KLM and Korean Air. Delta is not adding Saudi Arabian Airlines to the airline alliance, the airline was voted in my its member carriers. SkyTeam is comprised of 14 airlines, 12 airlines, from four continents, were members at the time Saudi Arabian Airlines was voted into the alliance. While Delta Air Lines supported Saudia’s membership, it did so to gain a foothold in a vital untapped market … in short, its business.
Secondly, Delta Air Lines does not now, nor does it have any known plans to fly its own aircraft to Saudi Arabia. The fact that Delta Air Lines does not, and has no known plans, to fly its aircraft to Saudi Arabia means that the airline would not be preventing any passengers, of any origins, from its flights to Saudi Arabia
Third, should Delta Air Lines code-share with Saudi Arabian Airlines on its New York and Washington flights to Jeddah and Riyadh, passengers would be subject to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s visa requirements. The visa requirements for travel to Saudi Arabia are for those flying to Saudi Arabia as a destination, not those transiting Saudi Arabia for less than 18-hours, without leaving the airport during their transit.
Fourth … and most importantly … Saudi Arabia does issue visas to Jews. While the country previously rejected many visa applications based on a person being Jewish, this is no longer the case. Travelers who have Israeli stamps in their passport should seek a duplicate passport, and submit the duplicate passport, with no Israeli stamps, for entry into Saudi Arabia, regardless of their religion.
As for Israeli passports, as a general rule (with very limited exceptions), a visa granting entry into, or transiting through, Saudi Arabia will not be allowed. In fact, Israeli passports are not accepted by Algeria, Bangladesh, Brunei, Djibouti, Iran, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia (with limited exceptions), Pakistan, Qatar (with limited exceptions), Somalia, Sudan, Syria, The United Arab Emirates (with limited exceptions) or Yemen.
Why is Rabbi Miller not challenging the fact that Israeli passports are not free to board flights from the United States on Emirates, Pakistan International Airlines, Kuwait Airways, Qatar Airways, Etihad or Malaysia Airlines?
… but back to the issue at hand … where did Rabbi Miller find any exclusion by Saudi Arabian Airlines prohibiting Jews from flying with the airline provided they had the proper visa? This is not a written or unwritten policy of the airline. Upon checking in for a Saudia flight, passengers must present their passport, with valid visa. Passengers are not asked any questions regarding their religion.
Rabbi Miller’s article goes on to state:
“Kathy M. Johnston, Delta’s coordinator of Customer Care, explaining that Delta does not discriminate nor condone discrimination against any protected class of passenger in regards to age, race, nationality, religion, or gender. However, she stated, Delta must comply with all applicable laws in every country it serves. That means that if the Saudi government denies Jews from entering its country and Delta brings them there on its flight they can be fined. “
The way this is written is misleading … I am certain that Ms. Johnston’s statement does not include “That means that if the Saudi government denies Jews from entering its country and Delta brings them there on its flight they can be fined” , however Rabbi Miller has published it in such as way, without proper quotation marks, indicating that this comment is included in an official statement from Delta Air Lines.
However the crux of Ms. Johnston’s quote goes back to a significant point, Delta Air Lines does not fly to Saudi Arabia. Delta should clearly state it does not directly fly to Saudi Arabia on its own aircraft and refer all issues to its future code share flights with Saudi Arabian Airlines to Saudia directly.
There is enough hatred and ill will between nationalities and religions in the world … do we really need to drag airlines into the argument? Especially an airline that does not even fly to the country in question?
Happy Flying!
Diet...Processed Foods and High Fat
The typical American diet—filled with processed foods like cookies and chips—may pack on more pounds than a high-fat diet. In a recent study, rats that ate a diet based on snack foods ate 30 percent more calories and gained almost double the weight of rats feed a high-fat diet.
Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill also found the rats on the junk food diet had more tissue inflammation and were intolerant to glucose and insulin (warning signs of diabetes) than rats whose diets were high fat from lard.
Posted via email from WellCare
Has God Forsaken Sending People to Hell?
---by Billy Graham
Posted via email from Religion
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
America's New Racists....by Walter E. Williams
The late South African economist William Hutt, in his 1964 book, "The Economics of the Colour Bar," said that one of the supreme tragedies of the human condition is that those who have been the victims of injustices and oppression "can often be observed to be inflicting not dissimilar injustices upon other races."
Born in 1936, I've lived through some of our openly racist history, which has included racist insults, beatings and lynchings. Tuskegee Institute records show that between the years 1880 and 1951, 3,437 blacks and 1,293 whites were lynched. I recall my cousin's and my being chased out of Fishtown and Grays Ferry, two predominantly Irish Philadelphia neighborhoods, in the 1940s, not stopping until we reached a predominantly black North or South Philly neighborhood.
Today all that has changed. Most racist assaults are committed by blacks. What's worse is there're blacks, still alive, who lived through the times of lynching, Jim Crow laws and open racism who remain silent in the face of it.
Last year, four black Skidmore College students yelled racial slurs while they beat up a white man because he was dining with a black man. Skidmore College's first response was to offer counseling to one of the black students charged with the crime. In 2009, a black Columbia University professor assaulted a white woman during a heated argument about race relations. According to interviews and court records obtained and reported by Denver's ABC affiliate (12/4/2009), black gangs roamed downtown Denver verbally venting their hatred for white victims before assaulting and robbing them during a four-month crime wave. Earlier this year, four black girls beat a white girl at a McDonald's, and the victim suffered a seizure. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel ordered an emergency shutdown of the beaches in Chicago because mobs of blacks were terrorizing families. According to the NBC affiliate there (6/8/2011), a gang of black teens stormed a city bus, attacked white victims and ran off with their belongings.
Racist black attacks are not only against whites but also against Asians. In San Francisco, five blacks beat an 83-year-old Chinese man to death. They threw a 57-year-old woman off a train platform. Two black Oakland teenagers assaulted a 59-year-old Chinese man; the punching knocked him to the ground, killing him. At Philly's South Philadelphia High School, Asian students report that black students routinely pelt them with food and beat, punch and kick them in school hallways and bathrooms as they hurl racial epithets such as "Hey, Chinese!" and "Yo, Dragon Ball!" The Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund charged the School District of Philadelphia with "deliberate indifference" toward black victimization of Asian students.
In many of these brutal attacks, the news media make no mention of the race of the perpetrators. If it were white racist gangs randomly attacking blacks, the mainstream media would have no hesitation reporting the race of the perps. Editors for the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune admitted to deliberately censoring information about black crime for political reasons. Chicago Tribune Editor Gerould Kern recently said that the paper's reason for censorship was to "guard against subjecting an entire group of people to suspicion."
These racist attacks can, at least in part, be attributed to the black elite, who have a vested interest in racial paranoia. And that includes a president who has spent years aligned with people who have promoted racial grievance and polarization and appointed an attorney general who's accused us of being "a nation of cowards" on matters of race and has refused to prosecute black thugs who gathered at a Philadelphia voting site in blatant violation of federal voter intimidation laws. Tragically, black youngsters -- who are seething with resentments, refusing to accept educational and other opportunities unknown to blacks yesteryear -- will turn out to be the larger victims in the long run.
Black silence in the face of black racism has to be one of the biggest betrayals of the civil rights struggle that included black and white Americans.
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