Why is July 31st Important?
1991: Superpowers to cut nuclear warheads
The US and the Soviet Union sign the Start treaty to reduce stockpiles of nuclear warheads by about a third.
1998: UK imposes total ban on landminesThe British Government announces a total ban on landmines, a month before the first anniversary of the death of Princess Diana.
1962: Violence flares at right-wing rallyFormer fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley is assaulted at a rally in London's east end.
1973: Chaotic meeting of Belfast AssemblyLoyalists disrupt the new Northern Ireland Assembly, the first elected body since the British imposed direct rule in March.
1987: Newspaper caught in Spycatcher rowThe Government sues the Sunday Telegraph over secret service memoirs.
Events
1009 - Pietro Boccapecora becomes Pope Sergius IV
1423 - Hundred Years War: Battle of Cravant - The French army is defeated at Cravant on the banks of the river Yonne.
1498 - On his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to discover the island of Trinidad.
1588 - The Spanish Armada is spotted off the coast of England.
1667 - The Treaty of Breda ends the Second Anglo-Dutch War.
1703 - Daniel Defoe is placed in a pillory for the crime of seditious libel after publishing a politically satirical pamphlet, but is pelted with flowers.
1790 - First US patent issued; granted to inventor Samuel Hopkins.
1856 - Christchurch, New Zealand chartered as a city.
1917 - The Third Battle of Ypres starts in Flanders.
1919 - German national assembly adopts the Weimar constitution (to enter into force August 14)
1930 - The radio mystery program The Shadow airs for the first time.
1941 - Holocaust: Under instructions from Adolf Hitler, Nazi official Hermann Göring, orders SS general Reinhard Heydrich to "submit to me as soon as possible a general plan of the administrative material and financial measures necessary for carrying out the desired final solution of the Jewish question."
1945 - Pierre Laval, fugitive former leader of Vichy France, surrenders to Allied soldiers in Austria.
1948 - At Idlewild Field in New York, New York International Airport (later renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport) is dedicated.
1954 - First ascent of K2, by an Italian expedition led by Ardito Desio.
1956 - Jim Laker sets extraordinary record at Old Trafford in the fourth Test of taking nineteen wickets in a first-class match (the previous best was seventeen.
1961 - At Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts, the first All-Star Game tie in major league baseball history occurs when the game is stopped in the 9th inning due to rain.
1964 - Ranger program: Ranger 7 sends back the first close-up photographs of the moon, with images 1,000 times clearer than anything ever seen from earth-bound telescopes).
1971 - Apollo program: Apollo 15 astronauts become the first to ride in a lunar rover.
1973 - A Delta Airlines jetliner crashes while landing in fog at Logan Airport, Boston, Massachusetts killing 89
1975 - In Detroit, Michigan, Teamsters Union president Jimmy Hoffa is reported missing.
1976 - NASA releases the famous Face on Mars photo, taken by Viking 1
1987 - A rare, class F-4 tornado rips through Edmonton, Alberta, killing 27 people and causing $330 million in damage.
1992 - A Thai Airways Airbus A300-310 crashes into mountain south of Kathmandu, Nepal killing 113.
1996 - MIL-STD-1750A is declared inactive for use in new designs.
1999 - NASA intentionally crashes the Lunar Prospector spacecraft into the Moon, thus ending its mission to detect frozen water on the moon's surface.
2003 - WON is shut down.
Births
1396 - Philip III of Burgundy, duke of Burgundy (d. 1467)
1803 - John Ericsson, Swedish inventor and engineer (d. 1889)
1816 - George Henry Thomas, American general (d. 1870)
1901 - Jean Dubuffet, painter and sculptor (d. 1985)
1911 - George Liberace, musician (d. 1983)
1912 - Milton Friedman, recipient of the 1976 Nobel Prize in economics
1912 - Irv Kupcinet, newspaper columnist (d. 2003)
1913 - William Todman, game show producer
1914 - Louis de Funès, actor and comedian (d. 1983)
1916 - Bill Todman, game show producer (d. 1979)
1918 - Paul D. Boyer, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate
1918 - Hank Jones, pianist
1919 - Curt Gowdy, sports announcer
1919 - Primo Levi, author, chemist (d. 1987)
1921 - Whitney Young, civil rights activist (d. 1971)
1923 - Ahmet Ertegun, record company executive
1928 - Kurt Sontheimer, political scientist
1929 - Don Murray, actor
1930 - Oleg Popov, clown
1931 - Kenny Burrell, guitarist
1939 - France Nuyen, actress
1941 - Amarsinh Chaudhary, politician
1943 - William Bennett, former U.S. Secretary of Education and drug czar
1943 - Susan Flannery, actress
1944 - Geraldine Chaplin, actress
1946 - Gary Lewis, rock and roll musician
1946 - Bob Welch, rock and roll musician
1951 - Evonne Goolagong, tennis star
1951 - Barry Van Dyke, actor
1952 - Alan Autry, American football player, actor, mayor of Fresno, California
1952 - Helmuts Balderis, Latvian ice-hockey player
1958 - Bill Berry, rock and roll musician (of the band R.E.M.)
1958 - Mark Cuban, billionaire businessman, producer, Dallas Mavericks owner
1959 - Stanley Jordan, jazz guitarist
1962 - Wesley Snipes, actor
1964 - Jim Corr, singer, musician ("The Corrs")
1965 - J. K. Rowling, novelist
1966 - Dean Cain, actor
1974 - Jonathan Ogden, American football player
1974 - Luca Tiengo, Italian guitar player
1977 - Tim Couch, American football quarterback
1981 - Eric Lively, actor
1981 - Ira Losco, Maltese singer
Deaths
1099 - El Cid, Spanish warrior
1108 - King Philip I of France
1396 - William Courtenay, Archbishop of Canterbury
1547 - King Francis I of France (b. 1494)
1556 - Ignatius Loyola, Spanish priest, founder of the Jesuits
1784 - Denis Diderot, French philosopher and encylopedist (b. 1713)
1875 - Andrew Johnson, 17th President of the United States (b. 1808)
1886 - Franz Liszt, Hungarian composer
1914 - Jean Jaurès, French politician (d. 1859)
1917 - Francis Ledwidge, Irish poet
1937 - Charles Martine, Apache scout
1944 - Antoine de Saint-Exupery, French pilot and writer
1953 - Robert Taft, U.S. Senator from Ohio and Presidential candidate
1980 - Mohd. Rafi, Indian playback singer (b. 1924)
1993 - Baudouin I of Belgium
2001 - Poul Anderson, science fiction author
2003 - Guido Crepax, Italian comics artist
Holidays and observances
La Hae Hawai‘i - Hawaiian Flag Day
Republic of the Congo - Upswing of the Revolution
Feast day of Saint Ignatius of Loyola
A few hardcore devotees of Harry Potter celebrate Harry James Potter's birthday on this date. The novelist J. K. Rowling, writer of the Harry Potter books, chose this date as the fictional character's birthday as it is her own birthday (see above).
Jun 7, 2005
Jun 6, 2005
Jun 5, 2005
Protect yourself from a discrimination lawsuit
Protect yourself from a discrimination lawsuit
Even "at-will" employees, those who "can be fired at any time, for almost any reason," have some protected rights when it comes to their employment status, says small-business expert and columnist Steve Strauss, with the most important protection being that a worker can't be fired on the basis of their color, sex, religion, age, ethnic background or disability. To protect your business from employment discrimination claims:
Even "at-will" employees, those who "can be fired at any time, for almost any reason," have some protected rights when it comes to their employment status, says small-business expert and columnist Steve Strauss, with the most important protection being that a worker can't be fired on the basis of their color, sex, religion, age, ethnic background or disability. To protect your business from employment discrimination claims:
- Have an employee handbook outlining your nondiscrimination policy.
- Document frequently, with regular written performance reviews.
Jun 1, 2005
May 10, 2005
Invisible Web - Where to find 90% of what is out there.
The Invisible Web is easily accessible..that is, if you know where to look. Fortunately there are many sites that are set up to be "gateways" to the many databases and otherwise closed-off content that makes up the Invisible Web.
Deep Web Gateways
- The University of Michigan has put together OAIster, (pronounced "oyster") and encourages you to "find the pearls" on the Invisible Web. They have millions of records from more than 405 institutions as diverse as African Journals Online and the Library Network of Western Switzerland.
- LookSmart's Find Articles.com lets you search print publications for articles; anything from popular magazines to scholarly journals. Be sure to check out their Furl tool to organize your search snippets.
- The Library Spot is a collection of databases, online libraries, references, and other good info. Be sure to check out their "You Asked For It" section, where popular readers' questions are featured.
- The US Government's official web portal is FirstGov.gov, an extremely deep (as in lots of content) site. You could spend hours here. It's interesting to note how much stuff you can get done online here as well, such as renew your driver's license, shop government auctions, and contact elected officials.
- Search the vast holding of the UCLA Library online, including their special collections.
- Check out Infoplease.com and its' searchable databases. Results come from encyclopedias, almanacs, dictionaries, and other online resources.
- The Central Intelligence Agency has the World Factbook, a searchable directory of flags of the world, reference maps, country profiles, and much, much more. Great for geography buffs or anyone who wants to learn more about their world.
- University of Idaho has created this Repository of Primary Sources, which contains links to manuscripts, archives, rare books, and much more. Covers not only the United states, but countries all over the world.
- Lund University Libraries maintains the Directory of Open Access Journals, a collection of searchable scientific and scholarly journals.
- Looking for scientific information? Go to Scirus.com first. You can search either scholarly sources or Web sources or both.
- Canada, ay? Then check out the Archival Records of Alberta. This is a gateway to photographs, census records, and other archival records.
- Want to find a plant that will survive overwatering, lack of sunlight, and general forgetfulness? You can probably find something in the USDA's Plants Database.
- The Human Genome Database contains anything you would ever want to know..well, about the human genome, at least.
- If you've got a medical question, check out The Combined Health Information Database, or CHID online. Its' searchable subject directory is very user-friendly, and you can find information on pretty much anything to do with human health here.
- Nonprofit organizations need searching tools too. The National Database of Nonprofit Organizations is an extensive site provides locations and contact information for nonprofits.
Protect your computer from viruses and spyware.
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May 9, 2005
Quest lets Dave Wacker go.... with new leadership comes new ownership.
It is always hard to see anyone of value lose there job.
"We all wish you and Kim well and luck in your future."
MORE RAABE NEWS
Huron Capital and Quest Specialty Chemicals Acquire Raabe Corp.
Detroit, MI – November 30, 2004 // Huron Capital Partners LLC, a Michigan-based private equity firm, announced today that it has funded its specialty chemicals initiative in Quest Specialty Chemicals in order to acquire Raabe Corporation. Raabe fit squarely in Quest’s coatings strategy to acquire companies that have developed unique solutions to the challenges of coatings application, surface protection and the bonding of flexible and rigid substrates. Based in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, Raabe is a leading manufacturer of custom matched branded touch-up paint and provider of private label aerosol paint filling services. Raabe’s touch-up products consist of ready-to-apply paints that closely match original equipment coatings and are used to repair the surfaces of industrial & commercial products along all points of the supply chain.
Michael R. Beauregard, a Partner at Huron, stated, “Partnering with Quest is consistent with our investment strategy of working with successful executives who have proven track records of building equity value. Through Quest, we have brought together strong operating and investment expertise to create a substantial player in the specialty chemicals industry. In Raabe, we found a solid core aerosol business serving a niche market with state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities. Raabe’s strong market share and talented management team are critical assets on which Huron and Quest plan to execute a specialty coatings growth strategy. Frederick A. Quinn, Quest’s CEO added “Raabe’s research and manufacturing base made it a unique platform on which to launch our coatings initiative. We expect to make complimentary acquisitions to their core business and to extend their capabilities into new applications. We are also pleased that David Wacker will continue as President of Raabe.”
Quest separately announced today that Gerard A. Loftus, who joined the Quest team in 2003, has been named COO & CFO of Quest. Mr. Quinn stated “Gerry will focus on the operational and financial aspects of our business. He brings a strong financial background and extensive operational experience in running specialty chemical businesses.” Quest also stated that it elected Carol E. Bramson to Quest’s Board of Directors. Ms. Bramson’s professional experience includes leading Banc One Equity Capital’s successful investment in Sovereign Specialty Chemicals.
About Huron Capital Partners LLC
Huron Capital is one of the leading private equity firms investing in lower middle-market companies. The firm typically invests between $5 million and $20 million in equity to sponsor management buyouts, recapitalizations, and corporate spin-offs of well-positioned companies having revenues up to $200 million. Huron’s strategy is to partner with strong management teams at niche manufacturing, specialty service, and value-added distribution companies that can be built through acquisition and organic growth. For further information, please visit Huron’s website at www.huroncapital.com.
About Quest Specialty Chemicals
Quest was founded and led by Mr. Quinn, a 30-year veteran in the specialty chemicals industry who has successfully built, acquired, and divested businesses in the specialty chemical industry. He has served as CEO of K.J. Quinn, President of Pierce & Stevens (a subsidiary of Sovereign Specialty Chemicals), and CEO of Royal Adhesives & Sealants. Mr. Quinn is a Graduate of the University of Southern California where he received both his undergraduate and MBA degrees.
For further information, please visit Quest’s web site at www.questsc.com.
May 9th, 2005For Immediate Release
Quest lets Dave Wacker go.... with new leadership comes new ownership.
May 4, 2005
Bush administration eyes workplace safety violators
With Little Fanfare, a New Effort to Prosecute Employers That Flout Safety Laws
Published: May 2, 2005
With little fanfare and some adept bureaucratic maneuvering, a partnership between the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency and a select group of Justice Department prosecutors has been forged to identify and single out for prosecution the nation's most flagrant workplace safety violators.
The initiative does not entail new legislation or regulation. Instead, it seeks to marshal a spectrum of existing laws that carry considerably stiffer penalties than those governing workplace safety alone. They include environmental laws, criminal statutes more commonly used in racketeering and white-collar crime cases, and even some provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, a corporate reform law.
The result, those involved say, should be to increase significantly the number of prosecutions brought against dangerous employers, particularly in cases involving death or injury.
This new approach addresses a chronic weakness in the regulatory system - the failure of federal agencies to take a coordinated approach toward corporations that repeatedly violate the same safety and environmental regulations. The E.P.A. and OSHA in particular have a history of behaving like estranged relatives. Yet the central premise of this unfolding strategy is that shoddy workplace safety often goes hand in hand with shoddy environmental practices.
"If you don't care about protecting your workers, it probably stands to reason that you don't care about protecting the environment either," said David M. Uhlmann, chief of the Justice Department's environmental crimes section, which is charged with bringing these new prosecutions.
The effort is noteworthy in an administration that has generally resisted efforts to increase penalties for safety and environmental violations. It has declined to support such steps as making it a felony for employers to commit willful safety violations that cause a worker's death. Such violations are currently misdemeanors, punishable by up to six months in jail. Instead, the administration has emphasized a more collaborative approach, offering companies increased technical assistance, for instance, on how to comply with regulations.
The new initiative is already at an advanced stage of planning. Hundreds of senior OSHA compliance officers have attended training sessions led by Justice Department prosecutors and criminal investigators from the E.P.A. In several regions of the country, OSHA managers have begun making lists of the worst workplaces and sharing them with E.P.A. investigators and prosecutors, who select the most promising cases for investigation. Several criminal inquiries and prosecutions are under way.
In March, for example, Motiva Enterprises, an oil refining company partly owned by Shell Oil, pleaded guilty to endangering workers negligently and committing environmental crimes in Delaware. The company was ordered to pay a $10 million fine and sentenced to three years' probation.
Even so, it is difficult to gauge the degree of political support for more prosecutions. The initial planning won the blessing of John Ashcroft, then the attorney general. His successor, Alberto R. Gonzales, has been briefed on the initiative and is said to be supportive.
But in March, a news conference to announce the initiative was canceled. The name of the program was also changed. What was to have been called the Worker Endangerment Initiative is now described as a "policy decision" - not an "initiative" - aimed at achieving "environmental protection in the workplace."
Neither Jonathan L. Snare, the acting OSHA administrator, nor Howard Radzely, the Labor Department's top lawyer, would agree to be interviewed about it. But Richard E. Fairfax, OSHA's director of enforcement programs, described the initiative as part of a broader effort by the agency to crack down on companies that persistently flout workplace safety rules.
"This is important to the agency," he said.
If some hesitation exists at the political level, enthusiasm is high in the trenches of OSHA and the E.P.A. Andrew D. Goldsmith, assistant chief of the environmental crimes section, has led most of the OSHA training sessions, in which he describes the many ways criminal and environmental statutes can be brought to bear. It has been a revelation of sorts, he says, to watch agency compliance officers grasp the chance at last to seek significant criminal penalties against defiant employers.
"You see a glint in these people's eyes, and you see them getting very enthusiastic," Mr. Goldsmith said. "You see hands start shooting up. They view us like the cavalry coming over the hill."
If sustained, the enthusiasm would represent an important cultural shift inside OSHA, which has traditionally shied away from referring even the most deliberate of safety violations to prosecutors.
From 1982 to 2002, for example, the agency investigated 1,242 cases in which it concluded that workers died because an employer committed willful safety violations. OSHA declined to seek any prosecution in 93 percent of those cases, The New York Times reported in a 2003 series that described a bureaucracy in which aggressive enforcement was thwarted at every level. But as the series also demonstrated, OSHA's reluctance to seek prosecution had also been fed by an assumption inside the agency that federal prosecutors have little interest in cases that have rarely resulted in prison sentences.
By fusing the technical skills and regulatory powers of the E.P.A. and OSHA with the Justice Department's environmental crimes section, the administration has created a potentially potent means of changing that dynamic.
All federal environmental crimes carry potential prison sentences, including up to 15 years for knowingly endangering workers. And unlike OSHA, the E.P.A. has some 200 criminal investigators with extensive experience building cases for federal prosecutors. In 2001 alone, the agency obtained prison sentences totaling 256 years.
OSHA, meanwhile, has wide jurisdiction over American workplaces, and its inspectors routinely wander the floors of the nation's dirtiest and most dangerous manufacturing operations. Unlike E.P.A. inspectors, they also investigate hundreds of workplace deaths and injuries each year. In short, they are well positioned to spot potential environmental crimes, particularly those that harm workers.
With nearly 40 prosecutors, the environmental crimes section of the Justice Department has a long record of bringing complex criminal cases against major employers. By contrast, before this initiative, only one prosecutor at the Justice Department focused full time on workplace safety crimes. Now, after identifying promising cases from the lists sent by OSHA, prosecutors are also checking for significant records of environmental infractions. If a plant is part of a larger conglomerate, they are checking the records of sister plants, too.
"We can see all the pieces," Mr. Goldsmith said. "We can coordinate."
The value of that coordination became obvious, he and other officials said, during a recent federal investigation into a New Jersey foundry owned by McWane Inc., the nation's largest manufacturer of cast-iron pipe. The investigation was prompted by articles in The Times and a companion documentary on the PBS television program "Frontline" that described McWane as one of the most dangerous employers in America.
Senior officials at OSHA, the E.P.A. and the Justice Department saw a way to produce an indictment that would "tell the whole picture" of how a company could put profit ahead of all other considerations, said Mr. Uhlmann, the chief of the environmental crimes section.
In December 2003, several senior managers at the New Jersey foundry were indicted on charges of conspiring to violate safety and environmental laws and repeatedly obstructing government inquiries by lying and altering accident scenes. The case is pending, but Justice Department officials called it a "pioneering indictment."
The partnership was cemented in a meeting last summer between Thomas L. Sansonetti, then an assistant attorney general, Mr. Radzely, the chief Labor Department lawyer, and John L. Henshaw, then the administrator of OSHA.
In a recent interview before he left the Justice Department to return to private practice, Mr. Sansonetti said he made it clear at the meeting that the Justice Department was prepared to offer training nationwide and a firm commitment to go after the worst cases as a way to send a message of deterrence to other employers. Mr. Henshaw and Mr. Radzely, he said, responded enthusiastically.
"That's where we agreed to take off on this," Mr. Sansonetti said
May 3, 2005
BEST WISHES TO TRIESE HAASE
President’s Message
I regret to report that Triese Haase, after 22 years of dedicated service to FET, is leaving our organization. She will be looking for new opportunities, in a similar position. Her last day as FET Administrator will be June 30, 2005. Triese has played an instrumental role in guiding FET since our organization’s founding in 1983.
Much of the success of our seminars and annual Environment Conference is the result of Triese’s careful planning and attention to detail. She has helped to consistently present FET in a positive light. Her can-do approach and pleasant demeanor will be sorely missed. On behalf of the FET Board and membership, I want to thank Triese for all she has done for FET and wish her every success in her future endeavors.
Daniel Brady
FET President
I regret to report that Triese Haase, after 22 years of dedicated service to FET, is leaving our organization. She will be looking for new opportunities, in a similar position. Her last day as FET Administrator will be June 30, 2005. Triese has played an instrumental role in guiding FET since our organization’s founding in 1983.
Much of the success of our seminars and annual Environment Conference is the result of Triese’s careful planning and attention to detail. She has helped to consistently present FET in a positive light. Her can-do approach and pleasant demeanor will be sorely missed. On behalf of the FET Board and membership, I want to thank Triese for all she has done for FET and wish her every success in her future endeavors.
Daniel Brady
FET President
Apr 29, 2005
CSPA Responds to Criticism of Lawn and Garden Products
Washington, DC, April 13, 2005 -- Statements about the safety of lawn and garden products made in a news release issued today by two environmental organizations are “inaccurate and exaggerated,” according the Consumer Specialty Products Association.
“Lawn and garden products provide important health and quality of life benefits, and do not pose undue risks when used properly,” said CSPA President Chris Cathcart. “These products are among the most highly regulated on the market today, and consumers can use them with confidence while following label instructions.”
CSPA pointed out that lawn and garden products do more than create a lush lawn and beautiful flowers. They also offer protection from allergies by preventing noxious weeds and limit damage to structures and property by controlling insects. Lawn and garden products also eliminate insects and ticks that can spread diseases such as West Nile virus and Lyme disease. By promoting healthy lawns and ornamental plants, these products also prevent soil erosion and reduce dust that can cause respiratory problems.
Cathcart further said that the environmentalists’ news release was inaccurate in stating that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not evaluate product mixtures which is required under FIFRA. He also said that the release was exaggerated to needlessly influence consumers’ behavior.
“Like all pesticides, lawn and garden products are extensively regulated by the EPA”, said Cathcart. “Manufacturers spend millions of dollars conducting extensive tests prior to submitting data to the EPA.” Before granting a registration, EPA examines the chemistry and toxicity of each product’s active ingredients and the product mixture. The agency also reviews product labels to ensure that they include directions for the proper use and storage of the product.
CSPA said that lawn and garden products are carefully formulated to satisfy specific needs and the criticism of products that kill weeds while fertilizing is unjustified.
“Lawn and garden products provide important health and quality of life benefits, and do not pose undue risks when used properly,” said CSPA President Chris Cathcart. “These products are among the most highly regulated on the market today, and consumers can use them with confidence while following label instructions.”
CSPA pointed out that lawn and garden products do more than create a lush lawn and beautiful flowers. They also offer protection from allergies by preventing noxious weeds and limit damage to structures and property by controlling insects. Lawn and garden products also eliminate insects and ticks that can spread diseases such as West Nile virus and Lyme disease. By promoting healthy lawns and ornamental plants, these products also prevent soil erosion and reduce dust that can cause respiratory problems.
Cathcart further said that the environmentalists’ news release was inaccurate in stating that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not evaluate product mixtures which is required under FIFRA. He also said that the release was exaggerated to needlessly influence consumers’ behavior.
“Like all pesticides, lawn and garden products are extensively regulated by the EPA”, said Cathcart. “Manufacturers spend millions of dollars conducting extensive tests prior to submitting data to the EPA.” Before granting a registration, EPA examines the chemistry and toxicity of each product’s active ingredients and the product mixture. The agency also reviews product labels to ensure that they include directions for the proper use and storage of the product.
CSPA said that lawn and garden products are carefully formulated to satisfy specific needs and the criticism of products that kill weeds while fertilizing is unjustified.
Apr 22, 2005
Earth Day is Everyday
| Earth Day 2005. I would personally like to thank all of you for your dedication to helping people and the environment.
You have made a difference in my life and the world around you.
For those of us who believe “Earth Day is Everyday”. Thank you!
Environmental, Health and Safety Director
Quick Facts About Earth Day (From About.com)Earth Day is a great day to spend with your kids and remind them about the environment and how important it is to celebrate Earth Day every day of the year.
Reason We Celebrate Earth Day: To call attention to the environment and the “People Who Protect” it. History of Earth Day:
Observance of Earth Day:
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How the First Earth Day Came About
By Senator Gaylord Nelson, Founder of Earth Day
What was the purpose of Earth Day? How did it start? These are the questions I am most frequently asked.
Actually, the idea for Earth Day evolved over a period of seven years starting in 1962. For several years, it had been troubling me that the state of our environment was simply a non-issue in the politics of the country. Finally, in November 1962, an idea occurred to me that was, I thought, a virtual cinch to put the environment into the political "limelight" once and for all. The idea was to persuade President Kennedy to give visibility to this issue by going on a national conservation tour. I flew to Washington to discuss the proposal with Attorney General Robert Kennedy, who liked the idea. So did the President. The President began his five-day, eleven-state conservation tour in September 1963. For many reasons the tour did not succeed in putting the issue onto the national political agenda. However, it was the germ of the idea that ultimately flowered into Earth Day.
I continued to speak on environmental issues to a variety of audiences in some twenty-five states. All across the country, evidence of environmental degradation was appearing everywhere, and everyone noticed except the political establishment. The environmental issue simply was not to be found on the nation's political agenda. The people were concerned, but the politicians were not.
After President Kennedy's tour, I still hoped for some idea that would thrust the environment into the political mainstream. Six years would pass before the idea that became Earth Day occurred to me while on a conservation speaking tour out West in the summer of 1969. At the time, anti-Vietnam War demonstrations, called "teach-ins," had spread to college campuses all across the nation. Suddenly, the idea occurred to me - why not organize a huge grassroots protest over what was happening to our environment?
I was satisfied that if we could tap into the environmental concerns of the general public and infuse the student anti-war energy into the environmental cause, we could generate a demonstration that would force this issue onto the political agenda. It was a big gamble, but worth a try.
At a conference in Seattle in September 1969, I announced that in the spring of 1970 there would be a nationwide grassroots demonstration on behalf of the environment and invited everyone to participate. The wire services carried the story from coast to coast. The response was electric. It took off like gangbusters. Telegrams, letters, and telephone inquiries poured in from all across the country. The American people finally had a forum to express its concern about what was happening to the land, rivers, lakes, and air - and they did so with spectacular exuberance. For the next four months, two members of my Senate staff, Linda Billings and John Heritage, managed Earth Day affairs out of my Senate office.
Five months before Earth Day, on Sunday, November 30, 1969, The New York Times carried a lengthy article by Gladwin Hill reporting on the astonishing proliferation of environmental events:
"Rising concern about the environmental crisis is sweeping the nation's campuses with an intensity that may be on its way to eclipsing student discontent over the war in Vietnam...a national day of observance of environmental problems...is being planned for next spring...when a nationwide environmental 'teach-in'...coordinated from the office of Senator Gaylord Nelson is planned...."
It was obvious that we were headed for a spectacular success on Earth Day. It was also obvious that grassroots activities had ballooned beyond the capacity of my U.S. Senate office staff to keep up with the telephone calls, paper work, inquiries, etc. In mid-January, three months before Earth Day, John Gardner, Founder of Common Cause, provided temporary space for a Washington, D.C. headquarters. I staffed the office with college students and selected Denis Hayes as coordinator of activities.
Earth Day worked because of the spontaneous response at the grassroots level. We had neither the time nor resources to organize 20 million demonstrators and the thousands of schools and local communities that participated. That was the remarkable thing about Earth Day. It organized itself.
Apr 20, 2005
The Body Heretic: It Scorns Our Efforts
THE promises are everywhere. Sure, you smoked. But you can erase all those years of abusing your lungs if you just throw away the cigarettes. Eating a lot of junk food? Change your diet, lose even 5 or 10 pounds and rid yourself of those extra risks of heart disease and diabetes. Stay out of the sun - who cares if you spent your youth in a state of bronzed bliss? If you protect yourself now, skin cancer will never get you.
Maybe it should be no surprise that America's popular and commercial cultures promote the idea of an inexhaustible capacity for self-rejuvenation and self-repair. After all, if America as an idea has meant anything, it has meant just that - the possibility of continual transformation - becoming wealthier, more spiritual, more beautiful, happier and feeling younger.
That optimism has helped create a society of unmatched vitality - a source of bewilderment, alarm and envy to the rest of the world. But Americans often forget, or aren't aware, of how unusual they are in this respect, notes Dr. Daniel Haber, director of the cancer center at Massachusetts General Hospital.
"I grew up in Europe and I travel in Europe," he said. "And there's an amazing contrast." Europeans are far more fatalistic about their lives, he said. They believe "you need to enjoy life," so they smoke, they bask in a sun, they take pleasure in a leisurely, indulgent meal and they don't feel compelled to go to a gym.
Americans, Dr. Haber says, believe in control - of their bodies, their mental faculties and their futures. So shedding some pounds or some unhealthy habits is not merely sensible. It suggests a new beginning, being born again.
Maybe that is why people may feel betrayed when Peter Jennings explains that he stopped smoking, at least for a while, and still got lung cancer. Or why, two decades after his death, people still talk about Jim Fixx, the running guru who lost weight, stopped smoking, ran every day and dropped dead of a heart attack.
In fact, science is pretty clear on all of this: There are real limits to what can be done to reverse the damage caused by a lifetime of unhealthy living. Other than lung cancer, which is mostly a disease of smokers, there are few diseases that are preventable by changing behavior in midlife.
But that is not what most people think, said Dr. Barnett Kramer, the associate director for disease prevention at the National Institutes of Health. Instead, they believe that if you reform you'll erase the damage, in part because public health messages often give that impression. "It is easy to overestimate based on the strength of the messages," Dr. Kramer said. "But we're not as confident as the messages state."
Eating five servings of vegetables and fruit has not been shown to prevent cancer. Melanoma, the deadly skin cancer, occurs whether or not you go out in the sun. Gobbling calcium pills has not been found to prevent osteoporosis. Switching to a low-fat diet in adulthood does not prevent breast cancer.
At most, Dr. Kramer said, the effect of changing one's diet or lifestyle might amount to "a matter of changing probabilities," slightly improving the odds. But health science is so at odds with the American ethos of self-renewal that it has a hard time being heard. Here, where people believe anything is possible if you really want it, even aging is viewed as a choice.
"It's hard to find an American who doesn't believe that, with enough will, he or she can achieve anything - we've been brought up to believe that," said Dr. Barry Glassner, a sociology professor at the University of Southern California. Health, he emphasized, is no exception: "It's the same whether you're 40, 50 or 80. It doesn't matter whether you are male or female, black or white. "
But in matters of health, the strongest willed person simply cannot wipe the slate of life clean and begin again. This is true even with lung cancer and smoking. Those who quit may greatly reduce their risk of lung cancer. But they cannot eliminate it.
"The best you can be is a former smoker - you can't be a 'never smoker,' " said Dr. Kramer. "It's not all or none. It's a matter of changing probabilities."
In fact, in every area of desired physical self-renewal, the probabilities make it hard to argue that life allows one to start over.
At health clubs, pear-shaped people in their 40's and 50's obsessively lift weights, trying for those defined muscles that, even in youth, come only to those with a certain genetic predisposition. But by middle age, the overweight tend to stay that way, and the body has a harder time increasing muscle mass. So even the greatest personal trainer will not produce rippling abs.
At the cardiologist's office, middle-age men, learning that their arteries are starting to clog, swear they'll never eat chips and hamburgers again, and that they will take up jogging. Some do and a small percentage even stick with it. But no amount of exercise or diet change will make the plaque in their arteries disappear. Despite common public health recommendations, walking for half an hour a day, five days a week probably won't make most people lose weight. And while a regular regimen of walking or running will likely improve your stamina and cardiovascular fitness, there is no guarantee that it will reverse heart disease, prevent or forestall a heart attack or in any way extend your life.
The effects of other measures, like changing lifestyle or switching to a diet rich in raw vegetables, are even less clear when it comes to preventing cancer, said Dr. Kramer. "Even if they do affect the cancer," he said, " it may be that it's over an entire lifetime."
So what are Americans, with their faith in starting over, to do? When it comes to making oneself over, said Dr. Glassner, they have two options. One, he said, "is that you can consider yourself inadequate or inferior" for failing to force the years to melt away. The other is to shift the definition of rejuvenation from a arduous restructuring of the self to a paint job.
"Now, instead of losing the weight you're going to go for cosmetic surgery," Dr. Glassner said.
That is not really an answer. Collagen injections or surgery may give people more youthful looking faces, but only for a while. And liposuction won't help for long if the body restores the fat that was suctioned off the patient's arms or buttocks.
Then there is a third possibility for the resourceful, Dr. Glassner said. An overweight person can simply redefine himself as a "food adventurer."
There is one group, however, for whom a strong sense of control over the future may be an unalloyed good: the sick.
"Protective illusions," says Dr. Shelley Taylor, a psychology professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, can be a good thing. In her research, she found that among people with serious diseases, those who felt they still had control over their lives coped better with their illnesses.
The optimists fared better psychologically even when they became more ill - shattering the illusion of control. "What you often see is people use something like cancer as an opportunity to discover value in their lives, and meaning," Dr. Taylor said. "They reorder their priorities. They focus on relationships more. Control and optimism shift to things that can be dealt with."
For those in good health, there is still another option, though it is decidedly a minority position. This is simply to scale back on one's self-engineering and take more pleasure in simply getting from day to day.
The American essayist Joseph Epstein nicely expressed this view in an essay, written when he hit the age of 60, which he gave the mordant title, "Will You Still Feed Me?" In it, Mr. Epstein expresses the virtue of just enjoying the ride.
"At 60," he writes, "one probably does well not to expect wild changes, at least not for the better. Probably best not even to expect a lot in the way of self-improvement. Not a good idea, I think, at this point to attempt to build the body beautiful. Be happy-immensely happy, in fact-with the body still functional."
Of course, many in midlife will still decide to hit the gym, to eat better, drink less, relax more. And that's a good thing, if only because they will feel better for being fitter. But they shouldn't expect it to erase the effects of all those years that came before.
Maybe it should be no surprise that America's popular and commercial cultures promote the idea of an inexhaustible capacity for self-rejuvenation and self-repair. After all, if America as an idea has meant anything, it has meant just that - the possibility of continual transformation - becoming wealthier, more spiritual, more beautiful, happier and feeling younger.
That optimism has helped create a society of unmatched vitality - a source of bewilderment, alarm and envy to the rest of the world. But Americans often forget, or aren't aware, of how unusual they are in this respect, notes Dr. Daniel Haber, director of the cancer center at Massachusetts General Hospital.
"I grew up in Europe and I travel in Europe," he said. "And there's an amazing contrast." Europeans are far more fatalistic about their lives, he said. They believe "you need to enjoy life," so they smoke, they bask in a sun, they take pleasure in a leisurely, indulgent meal and they don't feel compelled to go to a gym.
Americans, Dr. Haber says, believe in control - of their bodies, their mental faculties and their futures. So shedding some pounds or some unhealthy habits is not merely sensible. It suggests a new beginning, being born again.
Maybe that is why people may feel betrayed when Peter Jennings explains that he stopped smoking, at least for a while, and still got lung cancer. Or why, two decades after his death, people still talk about Jim Fixx, the running guru who lost weight, stopped smoking, ran every day and dropped dead of a heart attack.
In fact, science is pretty clear on all of this: There are real limits to what can be done to reverse the damage caused by a lifetime of unhealthy living. Other than lung cancer, which is mostly a disease of smokers, there are few diseases that are preventable by changing behavior in midlife.
But that is not what most people think, said Dr. Barnett Kramer, the associate director for disease prevention at the National Institutes of Health. Instead, they believe that if you reform you'll erase the damage, in part because public health messages often give that impression. "It is easy to overestimate based on the strength of the messages," Dr. Kramer said. "But we're not as confident as the messages state."
Eating five servings of vegetables and fruit has not been shown to prevent cancer. Melanoma, the deadly skin cancer, occurs whether or not you go out in the sun. Gobbling calcium pills has not been found to prevent osteoporosis. Switching to a low-fat diet in adulthood does not prevent breast cancer.
At most, Dr. Kramer said, the effect of changing one's diet or lifestyle might amount to "a matter of changing probabilities," slightly improving the odds. But health science is so at odds with the American ethos of self-renewal that it has a hard time being heard. Here, where people believe anything is possible if you really want it, even aging is viewed as a choice.
"It's hard to find an American who doesn't believe that, with enough will, he or she can achieve anything - we've been brought up to believe that," said Dr. Barry Glassner, a sociology professor at the University of Southern California. Health, he emphasized, is no exception: "It's the same whether you're 40, 50 or 80. It doesn't matter whether you are male or female, black or white. "
But in matters of health, the strongest willed person simply cannot wipe the slate of life clean and begin again. This is true even with lung cancer and smoking. Those who quit may greatly reduce their risk of lung cancer. But they cannot eliminate it.
"The best you can be is a former smoker - you can't be a 'never smoker,' " said Dr. Kramer. "It's not all or none. It's a matter of changing probabilities."
In fact, in every area of desired physical self-renewal, the probabilities make it hard to argue that life allows one to start over.
At health clubs, pear-shaped people in their 40's and 50's obsessively lift weights, trying for those defined muscles that, even in youth, come only to those with a certain genetic predisposition. But by middle age, the overweight tend to stay that way, and the body has a harder time increasing muscle mass. So even the greatest personal trainer will not produce rippling abs.
At the cardiologist's office, middle-age men, learning that their arteries are starting to clog, swear they'll never eat chips and hamburgers again, and that they will take up jogging. Some do and a small percentage even stick with it. But no amount of exercise or diet change will make the plaque in their arteries disappear. Despite common public health recommendations, walking for half an hour a day, five days a week probably won't make most people lose weight. And while a regular regimen of walking or running will likely improve your stamina and cardiovascular fitness, there is no guarantee that it will reverse heart disease, prevent or forestall a heart attack or in any way extend your life.
The effects of other measures, like changing lifestyle or switching to a diet rich in raw vegetables, are even less clear when it comes to preventing cancer, said Dr. Kramer. "Even if they do affect the cancer," he said, " it may be that it's over an entire lifetime."
So what are Americans, with their faith in starting over, to do? When it comes to making oneself over, said Dr. Glassner, they have two options. One, he said, "is that you can consider yourself inadequate or inferior" for failing to force the years to melt away. The other is to shift the definition of rejuvenation from a arduous restructuring of the self to a paint job.
"Now, instead of losing the weight you're going to go for cosmetic surgery," Dr. Glassner said.
That is not really an answer. Collagen injections or surgery may give people more youthful looking faces, but only for a while. And liposuction won't help for long if the body restores the fat that was suctioned off the patient's arms or buttocks.
Then there is a third possibility for the resourceful, Dr. Glassner said. An overweight person can simply redefine himself as a "food adventurer."
There is one group, however, for whom a strong sense of control over the future may be an unalloyed good: the sick.
"Protective illusions," says Dr. Shelley Taylor, a psychology professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, can be a good thing. In her research, she found that among people with serious diseases, those who felt they still had control over their lives coped better with their illnesses.
The optimists fared better psychologically even when they became more ill - shattering the illusion of control. "What you often see is people use something like cancer as an opportunity to discover value in their lives, and meaning," Dr. Taylor said. "They reorder their priorities. They focus on relationships more. Control and optimism shift to things that can be dealt with."
For those in good health, there is still another option, though it is decidedly a minority position. This is simply to scale back on one's self-engineering and take more pleasure in simply getting from day to day.
The American essayist Joseph Epstein nicely expressed this view in an essay, written when he hit the age of 60, which he gave the mordant title, "Will You Still Feed Me?" In it, Mr. Epstein expresses the virtue of just enjoying the ride.
"At 60," he writes, "one probably does well not to expect wild changes, at least not for the better. Probably best not even to expect a lot in the way of self-improvement. Not a good idea, I think, at this point to attempt to build the body beautiful. Be happy-immensely happy, in fact-with the body still functional."
Of course, many in midlife will still decide to hit the gym, to eat better, drink less, relax more. And that's a good thing, if only because they will feel better for being fitter. But they shouldn't expect it to erase the effects of all those years that came before.
Apr 14, 2005
MSN's ideas for saving gas
| Fuel-Saving Tips by Ann Job A little advance planning, a less-aggressive driving style and a well-maintained car can help you get the most out of every gallon of fuel. No matter where you live and what you drive, you can maximize every gallon of fuel. Here's how: Regular Servicing Is Important Keep your vehicle well maintained with regular servicing to keep it operating at peak efficiency. An inefficient engine—with fouled spark plugs, for example—won't make optimum use of fuel. Be sure the air filter and the fuel filter are clean. Put in new ones if they're not. A new oxygen sensor alone can improve gas mileage by as much as 15 percent, according to AutoZone, a car parts store. Don't forget little things like the air in your tires. Having tires inflated to the maximum recommended pressure can improve gas mileage by as much as 6 percent, while periodic wheel alignments can help improve fuel economy up to 10 percent, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Clean out that trunk, cargo area or pickup bed. Take out unneeded items that only add weight to your vehicle. Extra weight decreases gas mileage. According to AutoZone, every 200 pounds of unnecessary weight shaves one mile per gallon off your fuel mileage. Be a Different Driver Change your driving style. Accelerate gradually, drive smoothly and with care and you could see as much as a 20 percent gain in fuel economy compared with what you'd get with an aggressive driving style, the EPA says. Skip those jackrabbit starts and sudden pedal-to-the-metal maneuvers if you want to save gas. Anticipate stops so you avoid sudden braking, and take a long view of the road ahead, coasting safely to an intersection in front of you where you see traffic stopped. Don't speed. A car or truck moving at 55 miles an hour can get about 15 percent better fuel economy than the same car going 65 mph. Use your vehicle's navigation system, if you have one, in your travels to new locales. This can save you from getting lost and wasting gas. Drive Smart Don't be idle too long. Don't waste fuel by sitting in that drive-thru lane at McDonald's or Taco Bell. Park and go inside instead. Don't let your vehicle idle as you wait outside the elementary school to pick up your children. Idling uses more fuel than turning the engine off, waiting for your youngsters and then restarting the engine. When you're in slow city traffic, keep the air conditioner off, if possible. Roll down the windows and open the air vents to keep you and your riders comfortable. That air conditioner is a burden that uses fuel, and if you're tooling around town, you can see a "very slight" improvement in gas mileage by keeping it turned off, a Mercedes-Benz spokesman said. Plan Ahead Combine your errands into one trip, rather than taking multiple trips from home. Organize your stops so they're near each other and so you don't retrace your path. You may even be able to park in one central spot and walk between some of your stops rather than driving and parking at each one. For large gatherings like family reunions and church picnics, organize a carpool. If the distance to these events is long, Budget Rent a Car Corp. suggests even renting a 15-person van to maximize fuel savings vs. driving a number of separate vehicles in these circumstances. Plan your trips so you go out during less-congested times of day. When there's less traffic, you're more apt to be able to drive smoothly. Use navigation aids on the Internet or in your vehicle to keep from getting lost—and thus wasting fuel—when you're headed to a new, unknown location. Weather Effects Note that road and weather conditions have a role, too, in the fuel economy of your vehicle. Driving into a 20-mph headwind can reduce fuel economy by as much as 6 percent. Driving up a mountain road with a 7 percent grade can cut fuel economy by as much as 25 percent. Driving on gravel and in slush and snow requires a bit more fuel, too. Other Modes of Transport Look at alternative transportation options—even if it's just for one or two days a week. Walk, bicycle, carpool or take public transportation and leave your vehicle at home. The League of American Bicyclists, based in Washington D.C., notes that cycling to work not only saves on gas, it is an excellent cardiovascular workout. And in some cases, the league says, commuters actually arrive at their destination quicker on a bicycle than they would via congested auto roadways. When you shop for a new vehicle, compare fuel economy. Bear in mind how bigger vehicles, bigger engines, four-wheel drive and lots of optional equipment can add to a vehicle's weight and, as a result, reduce its fuel efficiency. Even larger tires can have an effect. A tire with a larger "footprint" on the road that doesn't have a special rubber compound designed to improve fuel economy has more rolling resistance than a comparable smaller tire, and this can lower fuel economy. You don't always have to avoid popular vehicles in order to save money at the gas pump. Some smaller trucks and sport-utility vehicles rank better in fuel economy than do some cars. For example, the Ford Ranger 2WD with a 2.3-liter four-cylinder engine and manual transmission is the "most efficient standard pickup truck," according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It gets an estimated 24 miles a gallon in the city and 29 mpg on the highway, the EPA says, for a combined rating of 26 mpg. This is better than the combined fuel economy rating of 25 mpg for the Chrysler Sebring with automatic transmission. Watch for New, High-Tech Solutions Check out the newest automotive technology. It's getting more mainstream with each passing year. In spring 2002, Honda began selling its second gas-electric hybrid car in the U.S. The Civic Hybrid is rated at 48 miles a gallon in combined city/highway fuel economy by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It joins the Insight, the first gas-electric hybrid car available in the United States, and Toyota Prius hybrid car, whose U.S. sales started in the 2001 model year, as very fuel-thrifty vehicles. In fact, all three vehicles are in the top ten on the EPA's list of fuel-efficient vehicles for the 2005 model year. The manual-tranmission Insight is rated at 60 mpg in the city and 66 mpg on the highway. A two-seater, this hatchback has a small three-cylinder gasoline engine mated to an electric motor that never needs to be plugged in. The Civic Hybrid, with a 1.3-liter 4-cylinder gas engine and electric motor, achieves 45 mpg in the city and 51 mpg at highway speeds, for a combined fuel economy rating of 47 mpg. The four-door, five-passenger Prius uses a similar hybrid gas-electric combination, but the internal combustion engine is a 1.5-liter four cylinder. The Prius is rated at 60 mpg in the city and 51 mpg on the highway. Ford Motor Co. introduced the first gas-electric hybrid sport-utility vehicle—the Escape Hybrid—in calendar 2004, and other automakers have hybrid vehicle plans in the works, too. New technology efforts don't end there. Virtually all automakers are researching ways to build a commercially viable fuel-cell vehicle. Even if you don't decide on a new-technology vehicle, you should carefully consider whether you really need a V6 or a V8 in your next car or truck. The National Automobile Dealers Association advises consumers to test drive models with various engines in a range of driving conditions to determine what fits them best, and to assess the tradeoffs. Other Costs Affected Keep in mind you might pay a bit more for that next new car. Higher fuel prices in recent years have prompted many automakers to boost the price of delivering vehicles to dealerships. You see these higher trucking charges on the window sticker, on the "destination and delivery" line. An Eye to the Future Think about how your fuel conservation efforts benefit the Earth and future generations. Scientists say global warming and its projected disastrous effects on weather, rising sea levels and heat deaths are due, in part, to the burning of fossil fuels. So, every gallon of gas you don't use can help ease global warming.
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