Source: http://www.crainscleveland.com/article/20130211/FREE/130219979
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Wednesday, February 13, 2013
First local class graduates from Goldman Sachs '10,000 Small ...
[unable to retrieve full-text content]First local class graduates from Goldman Sachs '10000 Small Businesses' program - Cleveland Business News - Northeast Ohio and Cleveland - Crain's Cleveland Business.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Reader to Reader: Cultivating Reading Relationships through ...
By Andrea Garc?a, Hofstra University
However, the last time I taught the course, I decided to approach this learning engagement a little differently, and selected to used paired books to frame the literature conversations. Influenced by Kathy Short?s recommendation to ?never read a book alone,? I had all the teachers in the class read the same two novels, Under the Mesquite by Guadalupe Garcia McCall (2011) and Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai (2011). Each of these books presents a different perspective on what it means to construct cultural and linguistic identities with multiple languages and multiple and often times, conflicting cultural allegiances.
Reading both books side by side with my students opened up a whole new set of issues and connections that would not have been possible if we had only experienced one of the books. We quickly made connections between the two strong female protagonists in the stories, who also had strong mother figures in their lives. We also spoke about the different ways each of them faced adversity and their unique ways for problem solving when having to make difficult decisions. Since each of the books selected provide very different perspectives of the immigration experience, and were set in very different historical contexts, we were able to discuss how issues of racism and discrimination may be different or may be similar in today?s contexts. Pairing books for this learning engagements allowed us to not only develop relationships as readers invested in a learning community, but we also found ourselves establishing relationships with characters across texts and strengthening our inter-textual connections with other books we had read in the past.
As we continue to think of building relationships with books and with readers this month, I leave you with the following questions:
- What books have your read together which have presented alterative perspectives for a particular issue or experience?
- What are your favorite paired books to share with your students or with your reader friends?
Please visit wowlit.org to browse or search our growing database of books, to read one of our two on-line journals, or to learn more about our mission.
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Stars Flock To London For Bafta Ceremony
LONDON (CNN) ? All eyes in show business will turn to London on Sunday, as the stars of films from Steven Spielberg?s political drama ?Lincoln? to the Bond extravaganza ?Skyfall? gather for the British Academy Film Awards ceremony.
The Baftas, as the awards are known, are seen as one of the indicators for success in the Oscars.
?Lincoln? leads the field with 10 Bafta nominations, while Tom Hooper?s film version of the long-running stage musical ?Les Miserables? and Ang Lee?s ?Life of Pi? each have nine nods.
All three are in the running for best film in the British movie awards, along with ?Argo,? (seven nominations) a thriller set during the Iran hostage crisis, and ?Zero Dark Thirty,? (five nods) directed by Katheryn Bigelow ? the only woman to win a best director Oscar ? about the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
?Argo,? a thriller centered on the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, last month landed the best film award at the Screen Actors Guild Awards and the Golden Globes.
Daniel Day-Lewis is nominated for best actor for his role as the U.S. president who led his country during the civil war and worked to end slavery.
Having already won the Golden Globe and SAG best actor awards for his portrayal of Abraham Lincoln, he is strongly tipped to win an Oscar later this month.
If he succeeds, Day-Lewis would be the first male actor to win three best actor Oscars. He won previously for ?My Left Foot? in 1989 and ?There Will Be Blood? in 2007.
In the Baftas, Day-Lewis is up against ?Argo? star Ben Affleck, ?Hathaway? co-star Hugh Jackman, Bradley Cooper for ?Silver Linings Playbook? and Joaquin Phoenix for ?The Master.?
Oscar winner Helen Mirren is nominated in the best actress category for her role in ?Hitchcock,? playing the wife of the British suspense filmmaker.
Mirren is joined by ?Amour? star Emmanuelle Riva, Jennifer Lawrence for ?Silver Linings Playbook,? ?Rust and Bone? star Marion Cotillard and Jessica Chastain for ?Zero Dark Thirty.?
Quentin Tarantino is nominated for best director and original screenplay for his slavery action-drama ?Django Unchained.? Affleck is also recognized for directing ?Argo,? along with Bigelow, Lee and Michael Haneke.
Javier Bardem was nominated as best supporting actor for his role as the villain in the latest and most commercially successful James Bond movie, ?Skyfall,? but that film was overlooked in the best film category.
Bardem was among eight ?Skyfall? Bafta nominations that also included best supporting actress for Judi Dench who plays spy boss M and best British movie.
The awards ceremony takes place at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, central London.
Source: http://fox2now.com/2013/02/10/stars-flock-to-london-for-bafta-ceremony/
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U.S. intelligence agencies evaluating North Korea "seismic event"
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Jennifer Aniston is joining Owen Wilson in Peter Bogdanovich's comedy "She's Funny That Way," Red Granite Pictures announced in Berlin. She will play a therapist with a mother in rehab for alcoholism in the Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach-produced the film following a married Broadway director (Wilson) who falls for a prostitute-turned-actress, then helps advance her career. Jason Schwartzman, Cybil Shepherd, Eugene Levy, Kathryn Hahn and Brie Larson co-star in the comedy (also known as "Squirrels to Nuts") written by Bogdanovich and Louise Stratten. ...
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/u-intelligence-agencies-evaluating-north-korea-seismic-event-063053800.html
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Monday, February 11, 2013
Is It More Important for NFL Teams to Build Through Free Agency or the Draft?
It's a question that gets bandied about in NFL circles every single offseason: is it more important for teams to build through the draft or via free agency?
NFL fans are notoriously fickle and want their team to open up their wallets and make a big splash in free agency, but is that the best way to compose a championship-quality, 53-man roster?
In order to answer the question, it's important to study how the league's top front offices conduct their offseason approach.
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The League's Top Teams Draft Well, Year in and Year Out
If you examine the very best organizations in the NFL, the answer begins to crystallize: The best way to build a roster is through the draft.?
Look at the final eight teams in this past NFL season: the Baltimore Ravens, Denver Broncos, Green Bay Packers, San Francisco 49ers, Seattle Seahawks, Atlanta Falcons, Houston Texans and New England Patriots. All of these teams have had significant success in the draft process, both in early and later rounds.
With the rookie salary cap having been significantly altered with the ratification of the league's new CBA, draft picks are more affordable. Teams no longer have to sell the farm to pay a top-10 pick, making it fiscally responsible to build through the draft.
Recent history shows that you simply must build the core of your team through the draft. This year's Super Bowl teams, the Ravens and 49ers, prove that.
Both starting quarterbacks, Joe Flacco and Colin Kaepernick, came via the draft. The core of both offensive lines, with Michael Oher, Marshal Yanda and Kelechi Osemele in Baltimore; and Mike Iupati, Anthony Davis and Joe Staley in San Francisco. Both teams have drafted well at the skill positions, and both defenses are rife with talent selected in both early and later rounds of the draft.
However, it's not enough to just say you're "building through the draft." You must draft well in order to succeed.
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The NFL's Lesser Teams Haven't Drafted Well
Conversely, it's no surprise that, when examining some of the league's bottom-feeders over the past few seasons, to find that they've drafted quite poorly.
Look no further than the teams holding the top three selections in this April's draft: the Kansas City Chiefs, Jacksonville Jaguars and Oakland Raiders.
The Chiefs swung and missed with three first-round defensive linemen (Glenn Dorsey, Tyson Jackson and Dontari Poe), eventually costing former general manager Scott Pioli his job. Pioli was also unable to draft a competent quarterback to challenge incumbent Matt Cassel.
Former Jaguars general manager Gene Smith set the franchise back with the first-round selection of quarterback Blaine Gabbert in 2011, and was roundly criticized for his wont to draft players from smaller schools.
In the final few years of former Raiders owner Al Davis' life, it seemed as if Oakland was trying to give its draft picks away. The Silver and Black didn't have pick in the 2012 draft until the third round, which is no way for a new general manager (Reggie McKenzie) and coach (Dennis Allen) to build a winning franchise.
These examples illustrate the need for teams to hit on their draft picks. You can sign all the free agents in the world, but if you aren't stockpiling your team with young, inexpensive talent, you simply cannot win in today's NFL.
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Free Agency Should Supplement Your Roster, Not Define It
For every Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Reggie White and Kurt Warner, there are dozens of free agents who haven't led their teams to the promised land.
Free agency cannot be the primary method of building a championship-quality roster, but it's critical in terms of filling needs and helping to push a team over the hump.
The Giants signed Antrel Rolle to a free-agent mega-deal in the 2011 offseason, and he helped lead them to Super Bowl XLVI triumph. Charles Woodson was an inspired signing by the Packers in 2006, helping the team win a championship. Bryant McKinnie, signed by the Ravens in 2011, started at left tackle for the team on their recent run to the Lombardi Trophy.
Those teams used free agency to add to a roster already rich with talent acquired via the draft. That is the recipe for success in today's NFL.
Look at the 2012 Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I'm a big fan of general manager Mark Dominik, and believe he is capable of building a sustained winner. He was roundly praised for his major expenditures in last year's free-agent market, as the team signed wide receiver Vincent Jackson, guard Carl Nicks and cornerback Eric Wright to lucrative contracts. The team finished 7-9.
It's not enough to just splurge on quality free agents. Teams must draft well to succeed.
?
In Conclusion: The Draft Is More Important, but Free Agency Shouldn't Be Ignored
Is it more important to build via the draft or free agency?
-
The draft
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Free agency
Is it more important to build via the draft or free agency?
Is building through the draft more important than through free agency? Yes, it is. Filling your roster with cheap talent is necessary for sustained success.
Free agency is also important, but teams need to make sure they are signing the right player to fill a specific need, rather than selling the farm for the best player available, which rarely (if ever) works.
This exercise should highlight, now more than ever, just how important it is for teams to employ a quality front office. In order for franchises to be perennial contenders, they must draft well, and they must be smart and judicious in the signing of free agents.
That's how to build a championship-quality, 53-man roster.
?
Nick?Kostos?is the executive producer of the "SiriusXM Blitz", hosted by Rich Gannon and Adam?Schein, on?SiriusXM?NFL Radio.?You can follow Nick on Twitter.
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Ex-Pentagon chief Gates OK with drone oversight
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates says he finds merit in "some check" on a president's ability to order drone strikes against American al-Qaida suspects overseas, lending support to creating a special court that would review such requests.
"I think that the rules and the practices that the Obama administration has followed are quite stringent and are not being abused. But who is to say about a future president?" said Gates, Pentagon chief for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
The potential model that some lawmakers are considering for overseeing such drone attacks is a secret court of federal judges who now review requests for government surveillance in espionage and terrorism cases.
"Something that would give the American people confidence that there was, in fact, a compelling case ... to launch an attack against an American citizen, I think just as an independent confirmation or affirmation, if you will, is something worth giving serious consideration to," Gates told CNN's "State of the Union" in an interview broadcast Sunday.
The issue gained momentum in the run-up to the confirmation hearing last week for John Brennan, Obama's top counterterrorism adviser who helped managed the drone program, to be CIA director. Before the hearing, Obama directed the Justice Department to give the congressional intelligence committees access to classified legal advice providing the government's rationale for drone strikes against American citizens working with al-Qaida abroad.
Demands for such information grew after the leak early last week of an unclassified memo on how decisions are made to target U.S. citizens abroad. The memo says it is legal for the government to kill U.S. citizens abroad if it believes they are senior al-Qaida leaders continually engaged in operations aimed at killing Americans, even if there is no evidence of a specific imminent attack.
The leader of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, said she intended to review proposals for "legislation to ensure that drone strikes are carried out in a manner consistent with our values" and she suggested something similar to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. That special court reviews requests on government surveillance in espionage and terrorism cases.
Gates said that "this idea of being able to execute, in effect, an American citizen, no matter how awful, having some third party having a say in it or perhaps ... informing the Congress or the intelligence committees or something like that, I just think some check on the ability of the president to do this has merit, as we look to the longer term future."
A September 2011 drone strike in Yemen killed Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, both U.S. citizens. A drone strike two weeks later killed al-Awlaki's 16-year-old son, a Denver native.
The strikes came after U.S. intelligence concluded that the elder al-Awlaki was senior operational leader of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula plotting attacks on the U.S., including the abortive Christmas Day bombing of an airplane landing in Detroit in 2009.
In Thursday's hearing, Brennan defended drone strikes as necessary, saying they are taken only as a "last resort," but he said he had no qualms about going after Anwar al-Awlaki.
He said the White House had considered the concept of the special courts, and he said he would be open to discussing it because "American citizens by definition are due much greater due process than anybody else by dint of their citizenship."
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/ex-pentagon-chief-gates-ok-drone-oversight-140205799--politics.html
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New England digging out after epic snow
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) ? New Englanders began the back-breaking job of digging out from as much as 3 feet of snow Saturday and emergency crews used snowmobiles to reach shivering motorists stranded overnight on New York's Long Island after a howling storm swept through the Northeast.
About 475,000 homes and businesses remained without power late Saturday night, down from a peak of about 650,000, and some could be cold and dark for days. Roads across the New York-to-Boston corridor of roughly 25 million people were impassable. Cars were entombed by drifts. Some people found the wet, heavy snow packed so high against their homes they couldn't get their doors open.
"It's like lifting cement. They say it's 2 feet, but I think it's more like 3 feet," said Michael Levesque, who was shoveling snow in Quincy, Mass., for a landscaping company.
In Providence, where the drifts were 5 feet high and telephone lines encrusted with ice and snow drooped under the weight, Jason Harrison labored for nearly three hours to clear his blocked driveway and front walk and still had more work to do. His snowblower, he said, "has already paid for itself."
At least five deaths in the U.S. were blamed on the overnight snowstorm, including an 11-year-old boy in Boston who was overcome by carbon monoxide as he sat in a running car to keep warm while his father shoveled Saturday morning.
Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee cautioned that while the snow had stopped, the danger hadn't passed: "People need to take this storm seriously, even after it's over. If you have any kind of heart condition, be careful with the shoveling."
Blowing with hurricane-force winds of more than 80 mph in places, the storm hit hard along the heavily populated Interstate 95 corridor between New York City and Maine. Milford., Conn., got 38 inches of snow, and Portland, Maine, recorded 31.9, shattering a 1979 record. Several communities in New York and across New England got more than 2 feet.
Still, the storm was not as bad as some of the forecasts led many to fear, and not as dire as the Blizzard of '78, used by longtime New Englanders as the benchmark by which all other winter storms are measured.
By midday Saturday, the National Weather Service reported preliminary snowfall totals of 24.9 inches in Boston, or fifth on the city's all-time list. Bradley Airport near Hartford, Conn., got 22 inches, for the No. 2 spot in the record books there.
Concord, N.H., got 24 inches of snow, the second-highest amount on record and a few inches short of the reading from the great Blizzard of 1888.
In New York, where Central Park recorded 11 inches, not even enough to make the Top 10 list, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the city "dodged a bullet" and its streets were "in great shape." The three major airports ? LaGuardia, Kennedy and Newark, N.J. ? were up and running by late morning after shutting down the evening before.
Most of the power outages were in Massachusetts, where more than 400,000 homes and businesses were left in the dark. Hours before midnight Saturday, about 308,000 customers remained without power. In Rhode Island, a peak of around 180,000 customers lost power, or about one-third of the state. Late night, the total was down to 130,000.
Connecticut crews had slowly whittled down the outage total to 31,000 from a high of about 38,000, and power was restored to nearly all of the more than 15,000 in Maine and New Hampshire who were left without lights after the storm hit.
Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island imposed travel bans until 4 p.m. to keep cars off the road and let plows do their work, and the National Guard helped clear highways in Connecticut, where more than 240 auto accidents were reported. The Guardsmen rescued about 90 motorists, including a few who had hypothermia and were taken to hospitals.
On Long Island, which got more than 2? feet of snow, hundreds of drivers spent a cold and scary night stuck on the highways. Even snowplows got bogged down or were blocked by stuck cars, so emergency workers used snowmobiles to try to reach motorists, many of whom were still waiting to be rescued hours after the snow had stopped.
One of those who was rescued, Priscilla Arena, prayed as she waited, took out a sheet of loose-leaf paper and wrote what she thought might be her last words to her husband and children, ages 5 and 9. Among her advice: "Remember all the things that mommy taught you. Never say you hate someone you love."
Richard Ebbrecht, a chiropractor, left his office in Brooklyn at 3 p.m. on Friday and headed for home in Middle Island, N.Y., but got stuck six or seven times on the Long Island Expressway and other roads.
"There was a bunch of us Long Islanders. We were all helping each other, shoveling, pushing," he said. He finally gave up and settled in for the night in his car just two miles from his destination. At 8 a.m., when it was light out, he walked home.
"I could run my car and keep the heat on and listen to the radio a little bit," he said. "It was very icy under my car. That's why my car is still there."
Around the New York metropolitan area, many victims of Superstorm Sandy were mercifully spared another round of flooding, property damage and power failures.
"I was very lucky and I never even lost power," said Susan Kelly of Bayville. "We were dry as anything. My new roof was fantastic. Other than digging out, this storm was a nice storm." As for the shoveling, "I got two hours of exercise."
At New York's Fashion Week, women tottered on 4-inch heels through the snow to get to the tents to see designers' newest collections.
Across much of New England, streets were empty of cars and dotted instead with children who had never seen so much snow and were jumping into snow banks and making forts. Snow was waist-high in the streets of Boston. Plows made some thoroughfares passable but piled even more snow on cars parked on the city's narrow streets.
Boston's Logan Airport was not expected to resume operations until late Saturday night.
Life went on as usual for some. In Portland, Karen Willis Beal got her dream wedding on Saturday ? complete with a snowstorm just like the one that hit before her parents married in December 1970.
"I have always wanted a snowstorm for my wedding, and my wish has come true to the max," she said.
In Massachusetts, the National Guard and Worcester emergency workers teamed up to deliver a baby at the height of the storm at the family's home. Everyone was fine.
Some spots in Massachusetts had to be evacuated because of coastal flooding, including Salisbury Beach, where around 40 people were ordered out.
Among them were Ed and Nancy Bemis, who heard waves crashing and rolling underneath their home, which sits on stilts. At one point, Ed Bemis went outside to take pictures, and a wave came up, blew out their door and knocked down his wife.
"The objects were flying everywhere. If you went in there, it looks like ... two big guys got in a big, big fight. It tore the doors right off their hinges. It's a mess," he said.
___
Lindsay reported from Salisbury, Mass. Associated Press writers David Klepper in Providence, Ebony Reed in Quincy, Mass., Karen Matthews in New York, Frank Eltman in Farmingville N.Y., Charles Krupa in Boston, and John Christoffersen in Fairfield, Conn., contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/england-begins-big-dig-epic-snow-231348247.html
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