Bikenomics: Greening the city with agriculture and bikes ? Cascade ...

Bikenomics is a feature series to spotlight the greater Seattle area?s growing bike businesses. Know a business that should be featured? Send me an email at?amrook@cascadebicycleclub.org.

Business: Alleycat Acres
Founder: Sean Conroe
Industry: Agriculture nonprofit

What do you get when you take a vacant lot that has been the neighborhood eyesore for years and turn it into a beautiful place that brings people together, increases food security and strengthens a community? You get a farm.

Now in its third year, Alleycat Acres is an all-volunteer, grassroots urban farming collective that transforms underutilized urban spaces into a network of sustainable urban farms.

Striving to put ?culture? back into agriculture, the Alleycat Acres farms are open to anyone who is interested in growing food. The farms are able to flourish only because of the collective work of its members and communities surrounding the farms.

?The harvests are shared with all members and within the immediate community of our farms,? said Leah AdangFry, site manager of the collective?s newest location on Martin Luther King Blvd. and Cherry St. ?Any excess produce is delivered via bicycle to neighboring food banks.?

The organization started its first farm in Beacon Hill, on a plot of land donated by a retired school teacher, and broke ground for a second farm in the Central District that same summer.

In its first two years, more than 400 individuals contributed to grow more than 2,000 pounds of food on those two farms. The food not only fed everyone who had helped grow it and the neighborhoods surrounding the farms, it also supported local food banks.

?We call it a farm not a garden because of the importance of it being functional space used for production. It?s also not a P-Patch; there are no individual plots. Everything is community,? said AdangFry.

AdangFry, a former Seattle Tilth member, became part of Alleycat Acres when the organization acquired its third and newest location on MLK and Cherry, just blocks from her house.

?All neighbors received a flyer about an upcoming design meeting for this vacant lot. I went to the meeting and got connected with Alleycat Acres,? she said. ?All of our properties are privately owned and [the MLK lot] had been sitting vacant for 10 years,? said AdangFry. ?The owner was really excited about doing something community oriented, and gave us a year-by-year lease.?

AdangFry and volunteers spent most of last year designing and implementing.

?We started from scratch. It was nothing but a grass and blackberry field. We laid down mulch and build beds and experimenting with different soils,? AdangFry said. ?We did grow quite a bit of food but more in an experimental capacity. The MLK farm should double if not triple its production this year.?

The farms grow mainly vegetables but also some fruit. A small orchard was planted on the MLK farm ? their largest site yet ? which also houses a chicken coup and beehives.

Work parties on weekends and summer evenings keep the farm healthy and productive.

?We?re always looking for volunteers and welcome projects and experiments ? from grain crops to multi-fruit trees,? said AdangFry. ?We really want to emphasize that these are public spaces ? spaces for people to be in and create community.?

?It?s a lot, too, about displaying what?s possible in a city and showcase that sustainable urban farming is possible,? AdangFry said.

Alleycat Acres welcomes schools and companies for field trips and are looking to host more workshops and events.

?Our community base could be more diverse and we?re working on that,? said AdangFry.

In addition to being community driven and socially charged, Alleycat Acres is also pedal powered.

?We do have a strong bicycling component,? said AdangFry. ?We fund our farming with biking, transport food by bikes and many of us don?t even have cars.?

Bikes are a big part of Alleycat Acres? mission of greening the city, and they use bikes in as many areas of our work as possible, utilizing cargo trailers to transport materials and produce.

Additionally, each year Alleycat Acres hosts a fully-supported 40-to-70-mile bike ride, the Streets + Beets event, which serves as the organization?s biggest fundraiser of the year and covers the costs associated with all areas of keeping the farm running.

?Biking is great because it makes you realize you?re capable of far more than you think you are,? said AdangFry, who completed her first Group Health Seattle to Portland ride last year.

This year?s ride will take place on Saturday, May 4. The exact route is yet to be determined but will be designed in such a way that it can be accomplished by riders from any experience level, from beginning cyclists to hardcore commuters and racers.

Learn more about Alleycat Acres at http://alleycat-acres.org/

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 14th, 2013 at 9:00 am by Anne-Marije Rook and is filed under Bikenomics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Source: http://blog.cascade.org/2013/03/alleycat-acres/

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Poll: Engadget Expand asks: What should robots be helping us with?

We're just a few days away from Expand, and all of us are insanely excited about the agenda we have lined up. To get you pumped for our Sunday morning session with Chris Anderson (CEO, 3D Robotics and former editor-in-chief, Wired), Steve Cousins (CEO, Willow Garage) and Marc Raibert (President & Chief Robot Lover, Boston Dynamics) we have a little thought experiment for you.

Read on to take our short and sweet robotics poll...

Filed under: Announcements, Meta

Comments

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/zDrGloxVMtg/

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L.A. Archdiocese, Cardinal Mahony settle sex abuse cases

By Steve Gorman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, its former leader Cardinal Roger Mahony and an ex-priest have agreed to pay a total of nearly $10 million to settle four child sex abuse cases brought against them, lawyers for the victims said on Tuesday.

Mahony, who retired in 2011 as head of the largest U.S. archdiocese and is now in Rome taking part in choosing a new pope, was accused of helping a confessed pedophile priest evade law enforcement by sending him out of state to a Church-run treatment center, then placing the priest back in the Los Angeles ministry.

The defrocked priest named in all four cases is Michael Baker, who ultimately was convicted in 2007 and sent to prison on 12 criminal counts of felony oral copulation with a minor involving two boys who reached a previous settlement with the Church.

The latest agreement came four weeks before civil suits brought by two men, now in their 20s, who claimed they were molested as 12-year-olds in the late 1990s, were scheduled to go to trial, plaintiff's attorney Vince Finaldi said.

The two other newly settled cases are less recent. One dates to the late 1970s, before Mahony was archbishop, and the other to 1986, not long after he assumed the post, Finaldi said.

As part of the settlement, approved by a Los Angeles judge earlier this month, none of the parties admitted wrongdoing.

Finaldi said the settlement, together with the recent release of internal Church records documenting the role of Mahony and others in covering up child sexual abuse by the clergy, comes "as close to an admission of guilt as you're going to get from the archdiocese."

A lawyer for the archdiocese, Michael Hennigan, confirmed a settlement in the amount of $9.99 million was reached. He added that the archdiocese "has always taken the position that we were responsible for the conduct of Michael Baker."

Mahony has "admitted that he made serious mistakes in putting Michael Baker back in the ministry," Hennigan said, but he denied that archdiocese officials were involved in a coverup.

Clergy were not legally required under California law to report suspected child abuse to authorities until 1997. Prior to that, Hennigan said, the policy of the archdiocese was to urge families of victims to go to law enforcement on their own.

'NO REASONABLE EXCUSE'

Finaldi, however, disputed the notion that Mahony should be absolved of any obligation to alert authorities.

"You have a priest who is confessing that he sexually molested two kids, and you don't pick up the phone and call police? There's no reasonable excuse for not doing that," he said.

Scandals over sex abuse in the U.S. Catholic Church, which erupted in 1992 with a series of molestation cases uncovered in Boston, have cost the Church billions of dollars in settlements and driven prominent dioceses into bankruptcy.

The Los Angeles Archdiocese, which serves 4 million Catholics, reached a $660 million civil settlement in 2007 with more than 500 victims of child molestation, marking the biggest such agreement of its kind in the nation. Mahony at that time called the abuse "a terrible sin and crime."

The archdiocese has reached a handful of settlements in other cases since then, but the one announced on Tuesday was by far the biggest, Finaldi added.

In a rare Church rebuke of a cardinal, Mahony was censured in late January by his successor, Archbishop Jose Gomez, and stripped of all public and administrative duties, as punishment for his role in the sex abuse scandal.

The censure followed the public release of over 12,000 pages of confidential files unsealed as part of previous civil suits, revealing how numerous known or suspected pedophiles in the clergy were shielded from law enforcement scrutiny by Mahony and other Church officials.

But Mahony retained his title as cardinal and his right to take part in the Vatican conclave that selects a new pontiff to replace retired Pope Benedict XVI, an authority he chose to exercise.

The resignation of one of Mahony's former top advisers, Thomas Curry, from his post as bishop of Santa Barbara was announced by the archdiocese in conjunction with the censure.

The Church personnel files released earlier this year revealed that in addition to sending abusive priests to a Church-run pedophile treatment center in New Mexico, Mahony and Curry sought to keep priests from later revealing their misconduct to private therapists who would have been obligated to report molestation to police.

In one such memo about Baker's return to Los Angeles, Curry wrote to Mahony suggesting Baker avoid any mention of "his past problem" to a therapist after release from the Church treatment program, to which Mahony responded with the handwritten note: "Sounds good -- please proceed!!"

Baker confessed his molestation of two boys to Mahony in 1986, early in Mahony's tenure as archbishop. After six months in treatment, he was placed back in the ministry in the Los Angeles area, supposedly in a job precluding any contact with children, Finaldi said.

But according to Finaldi, Baker was assigned to a residence attached to a church that also operated a school.

(Reporting by Steve Gorman; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Eric Beech)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/l-archdiocese-cardinal-mahony-settle-sex-abuse-cases-054758162.html

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New Tunisian government wins confidence vote in assembly

By Yereth Rosen ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - The 2004 winner of Alaska's famed 1,000-mile sled-dog race, the Iditarod, won again at age 53 on Tuesday to become the oldest champion, a year after his son became the youngest winner. Mitch Seavey and his team of dogs sprinted across the finish line just 24 minutes ahead of Aliy Zirkle, who was bidding to become the first woman to win the Iditarod since 1990, when Susan Butcher claimed her fourth championship. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/tunisian-government-wins-confidence-vote-assembly-121829968--business.html

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All The Write Stuff: Interview with Deborah Riley-Magnus

by Daisy Willis


As an Author Success Coach, Deborah focuses exclusively on publicity, marketing, and promotional solutions for authors. She teaches live and online Author Success Workshops and has spoken at writers groups and conferences across the country.

GLVWG member Daisy Willis contacted Deborah to ask her about author promotions, marketing, and the genres she's interested in acquirng for Assent Publishing.

Daisy: New authors are often daunted by the fact that they now have to master both their craft and the marketing of it. How does Assent Academy help your authors with this challenge?

Deborah: In most cases, writers and authors, new or established, accept the fact that they must market their books. The only thing standing in their way is the fact that marketing represent a whole new skill set, seemingly in a foreign language to boot. They simply don?t understand how to use it, when to use it or why it works, but good marketing is more like writing than anyone realizes. It requires plotting, planning, practice and creativity. Taking all the mystical terror out of the task is the key to real success.

Assent Publishing is the first publisher of any size to establish an exclusive, internal, professionally-run training system for our contracted authors at no charge. The mandatory workshops are designed to give Assent authors a powerful marketing advantage through education, guidance and advice, strategies specifically developed for the author?s book(s) and time management skills.

Daisy: How important is social media in promoting an author's work? Does a strong platform help sway you towards an author or does the manuscript stand alone?

Deborah: Social media is an author?s VOICE. An author?s platform ? including author website, book website, consistent and well-targeted blogging, twitter and Facebook presence ? pumps blood into author success. Without tooting your horn, no one knows there?s a wonderful book coming on to the market. The time to start is when an author starts writing the book.

Our submission guidelines require a querying author give us an idea of how much they understand about marketing and their target book buyer. Yes, their platform comes in to play when we consider signing an author. I STRONGLY suggest that every writer Google themselves to see what we see. If their online presence is lacking, it?s not the end of the world, but it does tell our Managing Imprint Editors if that author is geared for marketing success. We?re looking for authors who want sales success and we give them the tools to do it.

Daisy: You're looking for romance, fantasy and women's fiction. How does a story really stand out in these genres?

Deborah: I?m pretty easy and a lot like every other book lover in the world. Catch my attention quickly, tell me a great story, give me compelling, polished writing and entertain me. I?m usually sold in the first five to fifty pages. If a writer can?t show me what I need to know in those first pages ? that they have honed their craft, written a great story, and presented a well-edited piece ? then I will pass.

Romance must be powerful, fantasy has to send my imagination soaring and women?s fiction needs to make me hold my breath for the main character. Like I said, I?m just like every other book lover in the world.

Daisy: As Managing Editor for Assent's romance imprint, Breathless Books, you must be excited about the "Great Romance" contest wrapping up at the end of April. What inspired this contest and what are you looking for in a winner?

Deborah: The Great Romance contest was created to bring new and remarkable romance to the forefront. We?re seeking great romance that isn?t bound to the standard formulaic plot structures and character traits we?ve all seen a thousand times. All romance subgenres are welcome, so the variety of the submissions has been exciting. The contest is an age-old challenge to tell us a love story in a different way. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy wins girl back isn?t going to cut it. Our Breathless Books Imprint wants romance writers to show us their creative muscle!

Daisy: Given your expertise in marketing, you probably have some good advice on pitching a story. What works and what doesn't?

Deborah: All I ask is that a pitching author truly KNOWS their story. If you can?t pitch me in 25-30 words ? and within those few words convey the genre, who will read that book and what it?s about ? you might lose me. If you hook me in with those 25-30 words, I will ask for more and more. Getting an idea across with a well-crafted economy of words tells me that your writing is strong. Don?t babble and by all means, please don?t be nervous. I?ve been on your side of the table. I don?t bite and I want you to be successful!

Get your 25-30 word pitch as polished as possible. Practice it, rehearse it and know it well because that perfect pitch will carry you through everything from getting a publishing contract to requesting reviews, enticing the press, and gaining live speaking or book signing engagements. Done well, it can be your most powerful marketing tool. And never forget, you are marketing to the editor or agent you pitch.

Source: http://glvwgwritersconference.blogspot.com/2013/03/interview-with-deborah-riley-magnus.html

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Daily aspirin linked to lower risk for skin cancer in women - 8 News ...

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, March 11 (HealthDay News) -- Older women who take an aspirin regularly may be lowering their risk of developing the deadly skin cancer melanoma, a new study suggests.

And the longer postmenopausal women take aspirin, the more melanoma risk appears to diminish.

The effect is only seen with aspirin, not with other pain relievers such as acetaminophen (Tylenol), the researchers noted.

For the study, the research team collected data on nearly 60,000 white women who were part of the Women's Health Initiative, a long-term national study. The women, aged between 50 and 79, were asked about what medications they took and other lifestyle preferences.

Over 12 years of follow-up, the investigators found that women who took aspirin had a 21 percent lower risk of developing melanoma compared to women who didn't take aspirin.

But it's too soon to make firm conclusions, a researcher cautioned.

"Aspirin could be potentially used to prevent melanoma, but a clinical trial is needed," said lead author Dr. Jean Tang, an assistant professor of dermatology at Stanford University School of Medicine in Palo Alto, Calif.

This type of population-based study can only show an association between aspirin and the reduced risk for melanoma, not that aspirin actually helps prevent it.

Tang doesn't believe women should start taking aspirin solely to try to prevent melanoma. "It's too early to say this," she said.

It is possible that aspirin's anti-inflammatory properties might be responsible for lowering the risk of melanoma, Tang suggested. "Aspirin may also promote cell death of melanoma cells," she added.

Whether a protective effect also occurs in men is not known, said Tang, who plans to look at that in her next study.

The new report was published in the March 11 online edition of Cancer.

The study found that women who took aspirin for at least five years had their melanoma risk drop by 30 percent, compared to women who didn't take aspirin.

To try to isolate the effect of aspirin on melanoma, Tang's group accounted for other factors such as skin tone, tanning and use of sunscreen.

Each year in the United States there are nearly 77,000 new cases of melanoma and more than 9,000 deaths from it, according to the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

One expert doesn't see any problem taking aspirin to prevent melanoma, especially for people with a family history of the disease.

Prolonged use of aspirin is not without risks, including stomach bleeding, but the benefits of preventing melanoma outweigh the risk for vulnerable people, said Dr. Michele Green, a dermatologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. She praised the new research.

"I think it's fantastic. It's really a remarkable study," Green said.

"If you have a family history of melanoma, I don't see any downside of taking aspirin for this," she said. "I would urge my patients who have a family history of melanoma to take aspirin based on this study."

More information

To learn more about melanoma, visit the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

Health News Copyright ? 2013 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Source: http://www.8newsnow.com/story/21572624/daily-aspirin-linked-to-lower-risk-for-deadly-skin-cancer-in-women

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Does winning an Emmy or an election mean you will live longer than those you beat?

Public release date: 11-Mar-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Daniel Fowler
pubinfo@asanet.org
202-527-7885
American Sociological Association

WASHINGTON, DC, March 11, 2013 Research has long linked high socioeconomic status with better health and lower mortality. But what's remained unclear is whether this association has more to do with access to resources (education, wealth, career opportunity, etc.) or the glow of high social status relative to others. Scholars call the latter "relative deprivation."

To tease apart these factors, a team of investigators at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health led by Dr. Bruce Link, studied Baseball Hall of Fame inductees, Emmy Award winners, and former Presidents and Vice Presidents, comparing each to nominated losers in the same competition or election. The result: There were no consistent advantages for winners. The association between winning and longevity is sometimes positive, sometimes negative, and sometimes nonexistent, though the specifics are revealing. Overall, the results suggest that access to resources and opportunity is more important than relative status.

Findings are published online in the American Sociological Review and will appear in the April 2013 print edition.

Dr. Link and his associates found the following effects of winning vs. losing in the three groups:

• Emmy-winning actors enjoyed 2.7 more years of life than nominees who did not snag the trophy. Though Emmy-winning screenwriters were, mysteriously, at a 3-year disadvantage.
• Baseball Hall-of-Famers enjoyed no advantage in longevity over non-inducted nominees
• Presidents and Vice Presidents lose, on average, 5.3 years from their lives compared to the candidates they bested. While some of this is due to the impact of assassination, the disadvantage persists even when assassination is taken out of the equation.

"The relative deprivation theory would predict that losers would consistently be at a disadvantage for health and longevity compared to winners, but this is not what we see," says Dr. Link, a professor of Sociomedical Sciences at the Mailman School.

A more likely explanation, he notes, is that the advantages and disadvantages of winning depend on the mix of opportunities and stresses that they bring. Winning an Emmy often leads to significant career opportunities that might not have been otherwise available. (The paper quotes actor John Larroquette saying, "There's no doubt that having an Emmy precedes you through the door.") On the other hand, Baseball Hall of Fame induction occurs after playing careers are over and therefore has little bearing on career opportunities and earnings.

As for presidential and vice presidential candidates, life circumstances do change for members of this elite club, but winning also brings significant risks: assassination threats and extreme stress from two of the world's most demanding jobs. The 15 men who led our country during the 20th century but died by the year 2008 lived an average of 1.9 years less than the average American male of the same age.

"Our findings provide an important correction to an overemphasis on relative deprivation as an explanation of health inequalities," said Dr. Link. "Relative deprivation likely plays some role in health inequalities, but it is not as important as the life circumstances and opportunities that result from one's socioeconomic position."

###

About the American Sociological Association and the American Sociological Review

The American Sociological Association (http://www.asanet.org), founded in 1905, is a non-profit membership association dedicated to serving sociologists in their work, advancing sociology as a science and profession, and promoting the contributions to and use of sociology by society. The American Sociological Review is the ASA's flagship journal.

The research article described above is available by request for members of the media. For a copy of the full study, contact Daniel Fowler, ASA's Media Relations and Public Affairs Officer, at (202) 527-7885 or pubinfo@asanet.org.

For more information about the study, members of the media can also contact Stephanie Berger, Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, at (212) 305-4372 or sb2247@columbia.edu

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Public release date: 11-Mar-2013
[ | E-mail | Share ]

Contact: Daniel Fowler
pubinfo@asanet.org
202-527-7885
American Sociological Association

WASHINGTON, DC, March 11, 2013 Research has long linked high socioeconomic status with better health and lower mortality. But what's remained unclear is whether this association has more to do with access to resources (education, wealth, career opportunity, etc.) or the glow of high social status relative to others. Scholars call the latter "relative deprivation."

To tease apart these factors, a team of investigators at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health led by Dr. Bruce Link, studied Baseball Hall of Fame inductees, Emmy Award winners, and former Presidents and Vice Presidents, comparing each to nominated losers in the same competition or election. The result: There were no consistent advantages for winners. The association between winning and longevity is sometimes positive, sometimes negative, and sometimes nonexistent, though the specifics are revealing. Overall, the results suggest that access to resources and opportunity is more important than relative status.

Findings are published online in the American Sociological Review and will appear in the April 2013 print edition.

Dr. Link and his associates found the following effects of winning vs. losing in the three groups:

• Emmy-winning actors enjoyed 2.7 more years of life than nominees who did not snag the trophy. Though Emmy-winning screenwriters were, mysteriously, at a 3-year disadvantage.
• Baseball Hall-of-Famers enjoyed no advantage in longevity over non-inducted nominees
• Presidents and Vice Presidents lose, on average, 5.3 years from their lives compared to the candidates they bested. While some of this is due to the impact of assassination, the disadvantage persists even when assassination is taken out of the equation.

"The relative deprivation theory would predict that losers would consistently be at a disadvantage for health and longevity compared to winners, but this is not what we see," says Dr. Link, a professor of Sociomedical Sciences at the Mailman School.

A more likely explanation, he notes, is that the advantages and disadvantages of winning depend on the mix of opportunities and stresses that they bring. Winning an Emmy often leads to significant career opportunities that might not have been otherwise available. (The paper quotes actor John Larroquette saying, "There's no doubt that having an Emmy precedes you through the door.") On the other hand, Baseball Hall of Fame induction occurs after playing careers are over and therefore has little bearing on career opportunities and earnings.

As for presidential and vice presidential candidates, life circumstances do change for members of this elite club, but winning also brings significant risks: assassination threats and extreme stress from two of the world's most demanding jobs. The 15 men who led our country during the 20th century but died by the year 2008 lived an average of 1.9 years less than the average American male of the same age.

"Our findings provide an important correction to an overemphasis on relative deprivation as an explanation of health inequalities," said Dr. Link. "Relative deprivation likely plays some role in health inequalities, but it is not as important as the life circumstances and opportunities that result from one's socioeconomic position."

###

About the American Sociological Association and the American Sociological Review

The American Sociological Association (http://www.asanet.org), founded in 1905, is a non-profit membership association dedicated to serving sociologists in their work, advancing sociology as a science and profession, and promoting the contributions to and use of sociology by society. The American Sociological Review is the ASA's flagship journal.

The research article described above is available by request for members of the media. For a copy of the full study, contact Daniel Fowler, ASA's Media Relations and Public Affairs Officer, at (202) 527-7885 or pubinfo@asanet.org.

For more information about the study, members of the media can also contact Stephanie Berger, Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, at (212) 305-4372 or sb2247@columbia.edu

---

[ | E-mail | Share ]

?

AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.

Source: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/asa-dwa031113.php

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