Freedom Riders to discuss Civil Rights at Clayton State forum

Clayton State University will host a civil rights forum on Oct. 16 featuring a discussion of the documentary, Freedom Riders.

The forum is part of the ongoing Created Equal: Americas Civil Rights Struggle initiative of the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Clayton State Library is one of 473 institutions across the country awarded a set of four films chronicling the history of the Civil Rights Movement.

The forum will also feature personal stories by veteran Freedom Riders Joan Browning, Charles Person and Hank Thomas about challenging the system of segregation in interstate travel in the Deep South.

The free, public forum begins at 6:30 p.m. in the Harry S. Downs Center on Clayton States campus, 2000 Clayton State Blvd. in Morrow. The film will be shown at 4 p.m.

The even will also be streamed live online at: http://clayton.libguides.com/CreatedEqual

Information: 678-466-4330, ErinNagel@clayton.edu

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Freedom Riders to discuss Civil Rights at Clayton State forum

Freedom to think

Brighten Youth Education Centre

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Banned Books Week is an international event, originating in the United States, that "celebrates the freedom to read" and highlights the importance of free and open access to information.

The event regularly brings together publishers, librarians, booksellers, teachers, parents, journalists and readers of all ages.

Since its launch in 1982 - in response to an increasing number of challenged titles in schools, libraries and bookshops - 11,300 titles have been challenged, according to the American Library Association.

Some of the most contested titles in America last year included Dav Pilkey's massively popular Captain Underpants series, Suzanne Collins' publishing sensation The Hunger Games and Stephen Chbosky's cinematic smash The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

This entire column could easily be filled by listing controversial works that have since become international classics: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World; Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart; Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species; John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath; JK Rowling's entire Harry Potter series, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings; and Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, to name a few.

Of course not every book is appropriate for a child of any age, but governmental controls imply that parents and teachers are not informed enough to

One of the aims of Banned Books Week is to foster debate and interest in reading material, drawing attention to related issues, particularly unreported cases of blatant censorship.

To take away a person's ability to make an informed decision about what they read is a violation of intellectual rights and a destructive force in our society.

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Freedom to think

Freedom of Coventry for HMS Diamond

The crew of Royal Navy warship HMS Diamond will be granted Freedom of Entry to Coventry later this week.

The ships Commanding Officer Lieutenant Commander, Alexander Meyer, and the rest of her company will be handed the honour at a presentation ceremony on Thursday.

After parading from Gosford Street at 10.30am to the council house, the Lord Mayor of Coventry, Coun Hazel Noonan, will inspect the guard along with special guest, Commander Andy Ingham, who is a former Commander of HMS Diamond.

The deputy leader of the council, Coun Phil Townshend, will then read the Deed of Privilege to the ships company and present the Freedom Scroll to Commander Ingham.

The ships company will march through the city and will parade to Coventry Cathedral, preceded by the Band of the Royal Logistics Corps.

They will then receive a blessing from The Very Reverend John Witcombe, Dean of Coventry Cathedral, at the cathedral steps.

The parade will then proceed down Priory Street, Fairfax Street, Trinity Street and into Broadgate where the Lord Mayor and the official party will receive a salute from the ships company.

Lt Cdr Alexander Meyer said: It is a huge honour for HMS Diamond to be awarded the Freedom of the City of Coventry.

I know all of the ships company are especially proud of our many links to the city and are very much looking forward to visiting a number of our affiliated organisations.

Coventry was last associated with a Royal Navy ship in 1988, when HMS Coventry was granted Freedom of the City.

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Freedom of Coventry for HMS Diamond

Rain doesn't dampen Freedom Rock's day

A solid landmark to freedom was unveiled late Sunday afternoon at the south end of the LeClaire levee.

The Scott County Freedom Rock shone brightly in an unveiling ceremony that was held after the 25th annual LeClaire Lions Club Apple Fest.

A chilly, misty rain that began earlier in the day cut short the event for some vendors and visitors. Most of the people in the crowd of about 100 held umbrellas as speakers talked about the meaning of the rock before it was unveiled.

Freedom Rock committee members Kari and Loren Long of LeClaire said the weather didnt hurt Sundays apple pie contest.

We had six judges that judged on appearance, taste and texture, Kari Long said. We sold the pies, piece by piece, for $1 a piece. The $400 raised, Army veteran Loren Long said, will embellish the Freedom Rock, which will have additional lighting, landscaping and a story board. Our works not done, he added.

In regard to the rain, People this really meant something to still came out, Loren Long said. This is for all of Scott County this isnt just for LeClaire. Its been an honor to serve on the committee.

During the unveiling ceremony, Joey Dwyer sang The Star-Spangled Banner. Among the speakers was LeClaire Mayor Bob Scannell, as well as Sgt. Maj. Brian Marone, sergeant major of the U. S. Army Sustainment Command, Distribution Management Center. He called the unveiling a very special moment for LeClaire, Scott County and the Quad-Cities.

Marone said the paint on the rock contains the ashes of U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Nathan Cox, who was 32 when he died in 2008 in Afghanistan. May it stand here forever, he said.

It is such a great honor in memory not only of Nathan, but all those who have served their country and made the ultimate sacrifice, said Annie Cox of Davenport, Coxs widow.

You guys have such a rich history here, said artist Ray Bubba Sorensen II, who painted the rock. Sorensen said he likes to paint eagles and Old Glory. He explained that, on the Scott County rock, he depicted an eagle with a ribbon in its mouth, with the ribbon going across the county. The rock also includes an image of Buffalo Bill, LeClaire's favorite son.

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Rain doesn't dampen Freedom Rock's day

Camper van sign concerns

Kelli Lamare's concerns more of Macandrew Bay is being opened up to freedom campers, including the beach reserve car park (pictured behind), have been dismissed by the Dunedin City Council. Photo by Gerard O'Brien.

Concerns the Macandrew Bay community is being opened up to more freedom camping, and any problems that come with it, are not justified, the Dunedin City Council says.

The council was responding to concerns raised yesterday by Macandrew Bay resident Kelli Lamare and Macandrew Bay Boating Club commodore Tony Macrinowski.

Both told the Otago Daily Times new freedom camping signs installed this month appeared to expand the scope of a contentious trial under way in Macandrew Bay.

The signs, as well as directing vehicles without toilets to five parks next to Ralph Ham Park, now also advertised other areas in Macandrew Bay as available for use by campers in vehicles with their own toilets.

That included four more car parks next to Ralph Ham Park, and other spaces next to the Macandrew Bay Boating Club and the beach reserve car park.

Mrs Lamare said the changes would only encourage freedom camping, which had been increasing in Macandrew Bay since the introduction of the council's freedom camping bylaw in 2011.

''They've now opened the whole bay to freedom camping ... where is their mandate to do that? Why are they trying to upset us?''I feel like they've completely changed the rules,'' she said.

Mr Macrinowski agreed, saying he thought he had an assurance the club's car park - owned by the council - would not be used as a freedom camping stop.

Freedom campers could get in the way of the club's activities, as well as impeding access to rescue boats based there, which were used by Dunedin police and the coastguard for emergencies, he said.

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Camper van sign concerns

A eugenics loophole

From an editorial Sunday in the Fayetteville Observer:

The effort to compensate victims of this states eugenics program has hit wall after wall, even after a state law passed last summer offered reparations.

The program sterilized about 7,600 people considered feeble-minded. It began in 1929 and ended in 1974.

While lawmakers moved to compensate the victims and set aside a $10 million fund for those who qualified, only 213 of the 731 claims filed have been approved.

And now theres a new glitch. Many of the forced sterilizations were ordered by county social-services departments, not by the state Eugenics Board. If it was a county decision, state officials say, then victims dont qualify for state compensation.

Elizabeth Haddix, a lawyer with the UNC Center for Civil Rights, is representing 40 victims, 30 of them sterilized by counties. She advocates including all forced-sterilization victims in the compensation program. It was a state statute, she says, and Im sure these DSS workers just felt like they were following state policy.

We hope the state Industrial Commission, which rules on the claims, will include all the victims, no matter who issued the sterilization orders.

The victims are aging, and many have already died. Justice needs to come soon.

The Charlotte Observer welcomes your comments on news of the day. The more voices engaged in conversation, the better for us all, but do keep it civil. Please refrain from profanity, obscenity, spam, name-calling or attacking others for their views.

Have a news tip? You can send it to a local news editor; email local@charlotteobserver.com to send us your tip - or - consider joining the Public Insight Network and become a source for The Charlotte Observer.

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Different Types of Ecosystems – Ecosystem – Ecosystem

There are essentially two kinds of ecosystems; Aquatic and Terrestrial. Any other sub-ecosystem falls under one of these two headings. Terrestrial ecosystems Terrestrial ecosystems can be found anywhere apart from heavily saturated places. They are broadly classed into: The Forest Ecosystems They are the ecosystems in which an abundance of flora, or plants, is seen so they have a big number of organisms which live in relatively small space. Therefore, in forest ecosystems the density of living organisms is quite high. A small change in this ecosystem could affect the whole balance, effectively bringing down the whole ecosystem. You could see a fantastic diversity in the fauna of the ecosystems, too. They are further divided into:

The Desert Ecosystem Desert ecosystems are located in regions that receive an annual rainfall less than 25. They occupy about 17 percent of all the land on our planet. Due to the extremely high temperature, low water availability and intense sunlight, fauna and flora are scarce and poorly developed. The vegetation is mainly shrubs, bushes, few grasses and rare trees. The stems and leaves of the plants are modified in order to conserve water as much as possible. The best known desert ones are the succulents such as the spiny leaved cacti. The animal organisms include insects, birds, camels, reptiles all of which are adapted to the desert (xeric) conditions.

The Grassland Ecosystem Grasslands are located in both the tropical and temperate regions of the world though the ecosystems vary slightly. The area mainly comprises grasses with a little number of trees and shrubs. The main vegetation includes grasses, plants and legumes that belong to the composite family. A lot of grazing animals, insectivores and herbivores inhabit the grasslands. The two main kinds of grasslands ecosystems are:

The Mountain Ecosystem Mountain land provides a scattered and diverse array of habitats where a large number of animals and plants can be found. At the higher altitudes, the harsh environmental conditions normally prevail, and only the treeless alpine vegetation can survive. The animals that live there have thick fur coats for prevention from cold and hibernation in the winter months. Lower slopes are commonly covered with coniferous forests.

Aquatic Ecosystems The aquatic ecosystem is the ecosystem found in a body of water. It encompasses aquatic flora, fauna and water properties, as well. There are two main types of aquatic ecosystem - Marine and Freshwater.

The Marine Ecosystem Marine ecosystems are the biggest ecosystems, which cover around 71% of Earth's surface and contain 97% of out planet's water. Water in Marine ecosystems features in high amounts minerals and salts dissolved in them. The different divisions of the marine ecosystem are:

Many kinds of organisms live in marine ecosystems: the brown algae, corals, cephalopods, echinoderms, dinoflagellates and sharks.

The Freshwater Ecosystem Contrary to the Marine ecosystems, the freshwater ecosystem covers only 0.8% of Earth's surface and contains 0.009% of the total water. Three basic kinds of freshwater ecosystems exist:

The ecosystems are habitats to reptiles, amphibians and around 41% of the worlds fish species. The faster moving turbulent waters typically contain a greater concentrations of dissolved oxygen, supporting greater biodiversity than slow moving waters in pools.

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Different Types of Ecosystems - Ecosystem - Ecosystem

Cyborg: Martin Caidin: 9780345316202: Amazon.com: Books

Although it's been many years since I read this, I remember lending it to several of my friends in college, and they loved it so much that I eventually never got it back.

This book was, of course, the basis for the popular cheesy '70s show "The Six Million Dollar Man". But this book is anything but cheesy. Steve Austin is an astronaut/pilot involved in the very real, very dangerous and exciting NASA "lifting body" program of the late '60s and early '70s, a program devoted to finding an acceptable design for the Space Shuttle. Martin Caidin, the author of this book, was a doctor who actually participated in this program, and he was actually at Rogers Dry Lake bed when Bruce Peterson plowed his M2-F2 into the turf in a terrible accident--the very same wreck that we saw at the beginning of every "Six Million Dollar Man" episode.

Steve Austin, who similarly crashes and is seriously injured, gets "enhanced" artificial limbs and an eye (although the eye really only functions as a camera; when this book was written, an actual "seeing" eye was WAY too farfetched), and he is enlisted by the government to perform special missions, including stealing a Russian MIG from a base in the Middle East.

Austin's problems with his new "freakish" nature and with his being used as a pawn of the government are quite realistically portrayed. Caidin delves much farther into the psychology of a "bionic" (which is actually a misnomer) man than the TV series ever did.

A very fun, fascinating, exciting read, if you can find it. One of my favorite books of all time.

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Cyborg: Martin Caidin: 9780345316202: Amazon.com: Books

New Jersey Beaches – Destination360

Though the history, events, and gardens of New Jersey are all great attractions for visitors to the Garden state, the beaches in New Jersey are certainly the aspect of this state that draws in more tourists than anything else. The famed Jersey Shore has, for generations, been the place that many residents of New Jersey, New York City, and Philadelphia have taken their families and friends for unforgettable vacations in the sun. The chance to just lie and take in the sun, get some summer reading done, or watch the kids play in the surf is a great release from the stress of everyday life. A nice walk or jog on the beach as the sun comes up over the Atlantic isnt bad, either. New Jersey beaches are numerous and varied, and stretch all the way from New York City to Delaware. But what are the best beaches of New Jersey? That may be a matter of opinion, but here are a few that you might want to try.

NJ Beaches

Of course, the most popular beaches in New Jersey are found in Ocean City, Wildwood, Atlantic City, Cape May, and Seaside Heights. These all have plenty to offer, but what about some beaches that are a bit off the beaten path?

Spring Lake, New Jersey offers a nice, quiet beach that is a relief from the crowds of other New Jersey beaches. Located in Monmouth County, this is a nice place to take the family and just enjoy the sand, sun and waves. For the angler in the family, there is certainly a fair amount of New Jersey fishing in the area as well.

Long Beach Island, or LBI, is the place that many New Jersey natives like to go to enjoy the beach. When the shore is too crowded with bennies (a term used to refer to Jersey Shore tourists), they make their way to this narrow barrier island to enjoy one of the most family-oriented beaches in New Jersey. This can be one of the friendliest places in New Jersey, as one visitor recently told me she had several great conversations on the beach with LBI locals whose families have been enjoying the area for generations. For a quieter family setting, take the time to give Long Beach Island a try. To many, it is one of the very best beaches in New Jersey.

Brigantine offers six miles of New Jersey beaches that are just minutes from Atlantic City, but usually are less busy than other nearby beaches in New Jersey. This can provide a nice retreat from the loud New Jersey resorts and casinos found in Atlantic City. Come here, enjoy the beach for an afternoon, and head back to Atlantic City to get ready for the nightlife energized from your quiet day at the beach.

Another good option for families with younger children is to try the bay beaches in New Jersey. There are many inlets, bays, and barrier islands along the Jersey shore, and bay beaches mean clamer waters, less crowds, and shallow places for the little ones to swim without getting swept off their feet by the surf. Bayville and Margate are good places to find bay beaches in New Jersey.

As modern life becomes more and more fast paced, experiencing the simple power and beauty of the sea continues to provide a much-needed break, and New Jersey beaches are a simply a great place to go.

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New Jersey Beaches - Destination360

More sea turtles come to Florida, but reasons are mysterious

This year's early count of sea turtles nesting on Florida beaches is encouraging, though there are many unknowns in the numbers.

Welcome to the mysterious world of sea turtles, which spend much of their life far from Florida's beaches encountering fishing boats, oil spills, plastic trash and any number of other perils.

Nesting by loggerhead, green and leatherback turtles has been trending up in numbers for nearly the past five years along the state's coast. But there have been significant dips and climbs in their nest counts.

Green turtles, for example, have wowed researchers with their growing preference for Florida beaches. Yet while last year's nest count was surprisingly high, this year's is down, which experts expected.

Named for the color of their fatty tissue, green turtles go about nesting in a peculiar way. Their nest counts predictably are up and down every other year.

"To me, it's one of the great enigmas in sea-turtle biology," Llewellyn Ehrhart, a pioneering turtle researcher and professor emeritus at the University of Central Florida. "It seems it would have something to do with food availability and nutrition, but I don't know of anything in ocean biology that is so regularly scheduled high, low, high, low, year in and year out."

The turtle kings of Florida's coastline, loggerheads, which have huge heads relative to their 3-foot shells, deposited eggs in 46,885 nests this year.

That count was from the state's "index" locations at 26 beaches, where nest monitoring has been done by researchers using the same methods since 1989.

Index counts are done during a 109-day window, which means tallies are smaller than annual totals, but the index data are valued for detecting trends.

"Every year, it's always a little bit of a surprise for what we get," said Anne Meylan, a senior research scientist at the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute. "The biology of the animals is really complicated, and they live a long time, and they are affected by things far away."

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More sea turtles come to Florida, but reasons are mysterious

Artificial Intelligence, Prolog (SWI) Programming: Hello World, Simple, Quick, Mostly Painless! ACE – Video


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artificial intelligence (AI) — Encyclopedia Britannica

artificial intelligence(AI),the ability of a digital computer or computer-controlled robot to perform tasks commonly associated with intelligent beings. The term is frequently applied to the project of developing systems endowed with the intellectual processes characteristic of humans, such as the ability to reason, discover meaning, generalize, or learn from past experience. Since the development of the digital computer in the 1940s, it has been demonstrated that computers can be programmed to carry out very complex tasksas, for example, discovering proofs for mathematical theorems or playing chesswith great proficiency. Still, despite continuing advances in computer processing speed and memory capacity, there are as yet no programs that can match human flexibility over wider domains or in tasks requiring much everyday knowledge. On the other hand, some programs have attained the performance levels of human experts and professionals in performing certain specific tasks, so that artificial intelligence in this limited sense is found in applications as diverse as medical diagnosis, computer search engines, and voice or handwriting recognition.... (171 of 8,400 words)

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artificial intelligence (AI) -- Encyclopedia Britannica