2013年6月30日 星期日

HEMS1000 Home Energy Management System



1.   System Structure

1.1.  System Diagram


HEMS1000 is a ZigBee-based close system that consists of a Smart Thermostat and an In-Home Display, allowing the user to control the home temperature remotely as well as monitor the home energy data sent from the Smart Meter.

1.1.  System Description

HEMS 1000 is a 3-in-1 system that functions as a Thermostat, In-Home Energy Monitor, and Digital Photo Frame. It comprises PCT501-G and IHD703 that offer the system excellent stability and portability.

Home Area Network (HAN) Integration
HEMS1000 interfaces with AMI technologies and integrates a smart meter, Thermostat w/ ZigBee Gateway, and an In-Home Display to create a Home Area Network.

System communication
PCT501-G will collect data from your smart meter.When IHD703 has paired with PCT501-G successfully, Home Energy Management System IHD703 will synchronize with PCT501-G.

System Data storage and display
The storage data will include consumption data such as instantaneous power, energy usage, price, and other information such as billing rate, TOU, messages about how to save energy, etc. Data will be stored in the PCT501-G and IHD703 based on your requirements.
 

1.   System Features

1.1.  PCT501-G (Smart Thermostat w/ZigBee Energy Gateway)


PCT501-G is a wall-mountedprogrammable communicating thermostatalso functioning as a ZigBee Energy Gateway. It retrieves and saves utility data sent from the smart meter and further transmits it to the portable Remote In-Home Display. The unit also functions as a regular thermostat.

2013年6月27日 星期四

who are fomenting unrest to derail

The Buddhist extremist movement in Myanmar, known as 969, portrays itself as a grassroots creed.

Its chief proponent, a monk named Wirathu, was once jailed by the former military junta for anti-Muslim violence and once called himself the " Burmese bin Laden."

But a Reuters examination traces 969's origins to an official in the dictatorship that once ran Myanmar, and which is the direct predecessor of today's reformist government. The 969 movement now enjoys support from senior government officials, establishment monks and even some members of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD), the political party of Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

"Wirathu's sermons are about promoting love and understanding between religions," Sann Sint, minister of religious affairs, told Reuters in his first interview with the international media. "It is impossible he is inciting religious violence."

Sann Sint, a former lieutenant general in Myanmar's army, also sees nothing wrong with the boycott of Muslim businesses being led by the 969 monks. "We are now practicing market economics," he said. "Nobody can stop that. It is up to the consumers."

President Thein Sein is signaling a benign view of 969, too. His office declined to comment for this story. But in response to growing controversy over the movement, it issued a statement Sunday, saying 969 "is just a symbol of peace" and Wirathu is "a son of Lord Buddha."

Wirathu and other monks have been closely linked to the sectarian violence spreading across Myanmar,In home display  formerly known as Burma. Anti-Muslim unrest simmered under the junta that ran the country for nearly half a century. But the worst fighting has occurred since the quasi-civilian government took power in March 2011.

Two outbursts in Rakhine State last year killed at least 192 people and left 140,000 homeless, mostly stateless Rohingya Muslims. A Reuters investigation found that organized attacks on Muslims last October were led by Rakhine nationalists incited by Buddhist monks and sometimes abetted by local security forces.

In March this year, at least 44 people died and 13,000 were displaced — again, mostly Muslims — during riots in Meikhtila, a city in central Myanmar. Reuters documented in April that the killings happened after monks led Buddhist mobs on a rampage. In May, Buddhists mobs burned and terrorized Muslim neighborhoods in the northern city of Lashio. Reports of unrest have since spread nationwide.

The numbers 969, innocuous in themselves, refer to attributes of the Buddha, his teachings and the monkhood. But 969 monks have been providing the moral justification for a wave of anti-Muslim bloodshed that could scuttle Myanmar's nascent reform program. Another prominent 969 monk, Wimala Biwuntha, likens Muslims to a tiger who enters an ill-defended house to snatch away its occupants.

Officially, Myanmar has no state religion, but its rulers have long put Buddhism first. Muslims make up an estimated 4 percent of the populace. Buddhism is followed by 90 percent of the country's 60 million people and is promoted by a special department within the ministry of religion created during the junta.

In Burma's nascent democracy, the monks have emerged as a political force in the run-up to a general election scheduled for 2015. Their new potency has given rise to a conspiracy theory here: The 969 movement is controlled by disgruntled hardliners from the previous junta, who are fomenting unrest to derail the reforms and foil an election landslide by Suu Kyi's NLD.

No evidence has emerged to support this belief. But some in the government say there is possibly truth to it.

"Some people are very eager to reform, some people don't want to reform," Soe Thein, one of President Thein Sein's two closest advisors, told Reuters. "So, regarding the sectarian violence, some people may be that side — the anti-reform side."

Even if 969 isn't controlled by powerful hardliners, it has broad support, both in high places and at the grass roots, where it is a genuine and growing movement.

Officials offer tacit backing, said Wimala, the 969 monk. "By letting us give speeches to protect our religion and race, I assume they are supporting us," he said.
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2013年6月26日 星期三

The other move was Paul Demny being placed on the temporary

First baseman Adam LaRoche's three-run shot lifted the Nationals to a 5-0 advantage early versus the Diamondbacks last night. That kind of rush of offense, and runs for Gio Gonzalez, had been rare so far this season.

LaRoche said the fact that he was able to really crank it was a welcome change from his recent at-bats.

"I am starting to feel better," LaRoche said. "I got some hits last week, but not really driving the ball."

"We haven't jumped off with five or six runs, but we have jumped out with a couple of runs early and shut it down for five or six innings, and got ourselves in trouble," LaRoche pointed out. "We are saying (to) keep pouring it on. How many runs we get early going into the next inning like it is a tie ball game and keep scoring.

Tuesday's three-run shot was LaRoche's first homer since May 28. He had seven home runs in May and three in April. Could this be a sign that LaRoche will get on a power streak? LaRoche said it has happened before.

Minor league note: The promotion of right-handed starting pitcher Taylor Hill from high Single-A Potomac to Double-A Harrisburg demonstrates that team's need for another starter in the rotation.

It would appear that also points to right-hander Taylor Jordan getting the call-up to the Nationals for Saturday in New York against the Mets. The other move was Paul Demny being placed on the temporary inactive list and Brian Broderick transferred to Potomac.

Miriam Siebenberg lives in a very unusual house – unusual because of the fact that her home was built on top of another home, one that existed over 2,000 years ago. Within the ancient walls of Jerusalem’s Old City, Miriam and her husband Theo purchased a house after the Six Day War, eventually discovering that it contained a treasure trove of history buried deep underground.

In the Siebenberg’s house, a collection of archaeological artifacts discovered after years of digging in the basement, appear on display. Arrowheads, ink-wells, coins, ancient pottery, a glass cup and pieces of jewelry including a bronze key ring, likely used in the Second Temple era by a woman to unlock her jewelry box, can all be seen in the display.

But even more intriguing is what lies beneath their home. One can see the remains of an ancient Jewish residence and a way of life that dates back to the days of King Solomon and the Second Temple period. “The further we dug, the more history we uncovered,” Seibenberg told Tazpit News Agency in an exclusive interview.

Siebenberg credits her husband Theo with the drive to initiate the not-so-simple years of digging under their modern four-story house that eventually led to the archaeological discoveries

“When we moved into our finished home in 1970, Theo had a feeling that there was much more to this place,” said Siebenberg.

At that time, archaeological discoveries by Hebrew University archaeologists in the Jewish Quarter including the area around the Siebenberg’s home were making headlines. The Siebenbergs believed that perhaps there were artifacts buried under their home as well so Theo applied to the Department of Antiquities for a permit to excavate beneath their house.

“We invested our own money, brought in engineers, architects, archaeologists expert diggers, and donkeys to remove the rubble, In home display digging up to 60 feet down to discover all this,” Siebenberg explains.

During more than 18 years of unearthing, the Siebenbergs discovered a ritual bath, known as a mikveh used by Jews during the Second Temple era, an aqueduct, a Byzantine water cistern, and even empty burial chambers believed to have been used by Jewish royalty in the 10th century B.C. during King Solomon’s reign.

Eventually, the remnants of the base wall of what is believed to be a Jewish home that stood 2,000 years ago, were also uncovered as were ancient Hasmonean stones, including one with a menorah engraving. Evidence of the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E. was also discovered –a line of ash sealed into sedimentary rock was sent to a special lab in South Africa for testing, which found that the ashes were indeed from that time. In the 1980s, the story behind the Siebenberg’s basement, which Theo had transformed into a museum for the public in 1985, received much international attention. National Geographic, the New York Times, BBC, ABC, NBC, and many other international media sources devoted coverage to the history being uncovered under the Siebenberg House.

“We had groups from all around the world visiting our archaeological museum including European parliamentarians, US Congressmen, foreign press and other leading figures,” Siebenberg told Tazpit News Agency.

In addition to the fascinating story of the Siebenberg House, the couple behind the digging has their own unique tale. Theo, named after Theodore Herzl, came from a wealthy diamond family in Antwerp that barely escaped Belgium following the Nazi takeover. While not religious, Theo grew up in a traditional Jewish family with a strong love for Israel. Siebenberg eventually emigrated to the Jewish state in 1966 after a series of successful international investments and married Miriam, who was born and raised in Tel Aviv.

“Theo always felt homeless, having been uprooted from his Antwerp home at the age of 16 by the Nazis,” says Miriam. “But he always knew he wanted to live in Jerusalem and as close as possible to where the Temple once stood – the most important place in Jewish history. This was the only place he considered home in his lifetime.”

Today, Miriam, continues to carry the legacy of the Siebenberg House. This past June, Miriam, with the help of her assistant, 27-year-old Adi Rabinowitz-Bedein, reopened the museum to the general public, providing tours of the home’s unique history while showcasing the archaeological finds. “This is our life’s work,”comments Miriam.
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2013年6月24日 星期一

which had announced expansion plans

On the BSE, shares of Gitanjali Gems fell 19.99 per cent to close at Rs 405.35, while the PC Jeweller stock touched its 52-week low of Rs 84.55 in intraday trading but recovered later to close at Rs 89.35, down 8.55 per cent from its previous close.

Mumbai-based Tribhovandas Bhimji Zaveri (TBZ) saw a fall of 6.88 per cent in its shares and closed at Rs 181.95 on the BSE. Titan stock declined 0.47 per cent to Rs 221.80 on Monday. However, it had fallen sharply since June 3 when it closed at Rs 289.6. 
Analysts attributed the fall to concerns on topline growth in view of the forecast that volume growth in the second quarter would be down by almost half.

Another analyst, AVP at Religare Securities, Vikas Inder Jain said that the working capital requirements will be impacted for some of these companies.

“It will increase, pushing the debt equity ratio higher from the current levels by 0.5-0.8 per cent. This in turn will dent the return on equity and capital employed, and there valuations.”

Some of these companies, which had announced expansion plans before the plunge in gold prices and subsequent RBI curbs caught them offguard, could be in a tight spot, said Sekhar. “They have made investments into it and would find it extremely difficult to reverse, in view of the recent developments.”

PC Jeweller said that expansion plans are indeed on course. The president-finance of the New Delhi-based company, Sanjeev Bhatia said, “There is no change in our plans and we are going to open 14 stores this fiscal.” It opened six stores in the first quarter. Its investment in the seven stores slated to open in the second quarter is about Rs 225 crore.

Companies, like PC Jeweller that lease gold won't be affected by the RBI notification on gold imports through consignment basis, Bhatia said.

In the wake of the unprecedented fall in prices in April this year, the director-corporate ratings at India Ratings and Research, Deep N Mukherjee had said: “The price of leased gold is open-ended and the cost of gold is fixed at the time of sale of gold or jewellery to the customer. This enables retail jewellers to lower inventory risk.”

The call by the All India Gems and Jewellery Trade Federation (AIGJTF), which represents about 90 percent of jewellers, comes just days after financial services company Reliance Capital halted sales of its gold-backed funds.

"As a responsible trade body, we have requested our retailers not to sell gold coins or bars. We need to help the government to solve the CAD (current account deficit) problem," said Haresh Soni, chairman of the AIGJTF, which has more than 40,000 members.

India is the world's biggest gold buyer, and soaring imports have sent its current account to a record deficit. New Delhi has raised the import duty on gold twice since January 1, doubling it to 8 percent, and the central bank has imposed measures forcing customers to pay up front for gold.

"We have appealed to members not to sell coins and bars till our CAD situation resolves," Soni said.

"We expect 1,500-2,000 retailers to stop sale of gold coins and bars immediately," he added.

About 30 to 35 percent of last year's imports of 860 tonnes went into investment demand, Soni said. Most of the gold imported into India goes into making gold jewellery, traditionally part of a bride's trousseau and dowry.

"We are safe guarding the jewellery industry ... (which) generates employment and creates revenues for the government," he said.

On Monday, shares in listed jewellers such as Gitanjali Gems Ltd (GTGM.NS) and PC Jeweller Ltd (PCJE.NS) fell sharply on concerns the government measures could hit their businesses.

Soni said the federation had asked the government to reduce the import duty from 8 percent to 4 percent.

Falling world prices from mid-April triggered a surge in demand globally. India's imports hit a record of 162 tonnes in May, more than double the average monthly import level in 2011, a record year.

The government's and central bank's latest actions to curb buying came earlier this month, and Soni said imports in June had declined drastically. He declined to give specific figures.

Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said last week imports had fallen in value to about $36 million a day from $135 million before the curbs.

But the World Gold Council (WGC) estimated imports could still be 300-400 tonnes in the second quarter - almost half the total for 2012 - and the government itself said imports had exceeded 300 tonnes in April to mid-May.

Domestic prices are already back near levels before the rise in the duty, which indicates demand could revive, particularly as a bountiful monsoon starts to raise hopes of increased incomes for farmers and India's large rural community.

On April 16, domestic gold futures hit a contract low of 25,270 rupees per 10 grams, and they are now trading around 26,734 rupees.

"Demand in India is price inelastic ... the fundamental reasons for gold demand in India cannot be addressed through supply restrictions," said Somasundaram PR, managing director for India at the WGC, in an email.

The WGC last month said 82 percent of Indian consumers in a survey said they thought the price of gold would increase or be stable in the next five years. Many Indians see gold as a sound investment in a country that lacks any kind of comprehensive banking system and with real interest rates stubbornly low.
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2013年6月23日 星期日

This move will benefit jewellery exports

With an aim to increase jewellery exports, the government on Friday increased the duty drawback rate by Rs 73 to Rs 173.7 per gram on gold ornaments. Duty drawback is the refund of duties on imported inputs for export items.
   
The drawback or tax refund rate for "articles of jewellery and parts thereof, made of gold" is "Rs 173.70 per gram of net gold content (.995 or more purity) in the jewellery", a Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) notification said.
   
The earlier rate was Rs 100.70 per gram. The drawback rate has been increased at a time when large import of gold is impacting the country's current account deficit (CAD), which is likely to be at a high level of around 5 percent of the GDP.
   
The government had raised import duty on the precious metal to 8 percent with an aim to curb the gold demand. The RBI has also put restrictions on banks imports of gold.

Sources said the drawback rate has been increased to offset the increase in import duty of gold. The government had not increased the drawback rate when the gold import duty was increased to 6 percent in January.
   
Ajay Sahai, Director-General of apex exporters body FIEO said the move will help jewellery exporters who are looking to increase the exports to USD 50 billion this fiscal as against USD 40 billion in 2012-13.
   
"This move will benefit jewellery exports and help them in offsetting the high duty which they are paying for their import components consequent to hike in the import duty to 8 percent," he said.
   
Gold and silver imports rose nearly 90 percent to USD 8.4 billion in May. Cumulatively, in April-May the import of precious metal stood at USD 15.88 billion. High CAD hurts a country's foreign exchange reserves.

 Passing themselves off as policemen, a gang of fraudsters struck thrice on a single day, sending the city’s cops into a tizzy.

While the Central Zone police were focussed on propping up security for the Assembly’s budget session, elsewhere the gang of four was in the process of snaring its first target. They took away gold jewellery weighing 210 grams from a senior couple at AC Guards in Nampally on Friday morning, posing as policemen.

Three hours later, they tricked a 50-year-old woman to part with 60 grams of gold ornaments at Ashoknagar of Chikkadpally. An hour later, another old woman at Musheerabad was targetted.

 To masquerade as policemen, target lone women on the streets and snatch their jewellery is an old modus operandi. An aged woman wearing gold ornaments is usually accosted by a member of the gang of robbers, who introduces himself as a policeman. He berates the dame for walking alone with jewellery on her self. More often than not, the trickster is clad in a safari suit — akin to a policeman on special duty — making it easier for him to con gullible folk and decamp with their valuables. In the guise of helping her, the conman collects the ornaments, packs them in a paper or cloth and gives the packet back to her.

With a deft sleight of his hand, the trickster pushes the jewellery into his pocket and hands over a packet filled with stones, without arousing an iota of suspicion in the woman’s mind.

 Instead of a single member, four or more members confront the woman. Claiming to be a police on patrol duty, they ask if she was not aware of ‘police instructions’ that people should not roam around wearing jewellery.

Even before the woman can react, they persuade her to remove her jewellery. As the woman hesitates, their associate turns up, acting as a passer-by. The latter, who would be wearing a chain or bracelet as part of the plot, is also ‘reprimanded’ and told not to move with jewellery.

“The associate, pretending to be following their instructions, removes his chain and puts in his pocket. Usually, this is enough to make the woman follow suit,” police say.

It also helped the tricksters that the whole of the Central Zone police were engaged for Assembly security arrangements. Even the crime wing police were drawn for bandobust duty.
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2013年6月20日 星期四

There is an underlying theme of repetition

What does it mean to be an ‘Outsider Artist’? While the majority of famous artists follow the time-tested route from the art school to the gallery, there are those who slip through the cracks of artistic society, exploring their creative visions outside the atelier. The majority of these artists trickle away into obscurity, but this summer, a select group of the outside art world has found a home in London, being displayed in both the Wellcome Collection and the Hayward Gallery.

The term ‘Outsider Art’ originated from the French artist Jean Dubuffet’s idea of art brut, and describes art made outside the structure of the mainstream artistic world, by artists who have often received no formal training. Similar to naive art, outsider art often makes use of improbable perspective, simplistic forms, and bold colours, creating works which are defiantly different to the mainstream artistic culture; the differences are not only in the manner of the work, but also where it is created – most outsider artists do not work out of an official studio, instead working in their home, or as part of therapy.

It is the role of art as occupational therapy that is explored in the Wellcome Collection’s latest exhibition; entitled ‘Souzou’, a Japanese term with no direct translation, but meaning imagination, or creation, it collects work from 46 artists who are attendees and residents at a number of social welfare institutions. Many of these artists have some form of mental disability, but experience the overwhelming desire to create, producing work that reflects their unique world view.
Some of the works, such as Shinichi Sawada’s mythical monsters, bristling with spiky points, come directly from the artist’s imagination, but a large majority relate to everyday objects in the artist’s life. Hiroyuki Komatsu’s clunky cartoons encapsulate episodes and plot arcs of his favourite morning TV shows, while Daisuke Kibushi’s work consists of reproductions of post-war movie posters, meticulously recreated from memory.

These works possibly provide a way for the artist to express what they feel about the world around them; with a alphabet system as complicated as Japanese, it can often be difficult for the artists to articulate what they want to say, and working with media gives them an outlet.

Similarly, it would be untrue to presume that there is a lack of self-awareness on the artists’ part; Yoko Kubota projects her own desires for beauty onto her drawings of models, copied from fashion magazines, while Yukiko Yamada’s series of delicate watercolour portraits, entitled She Is Nobody, can be seen as an existential call to arms, exploring ideas of self-importance, uncertainty, and anonymity. Even Takahiro Shimoda’s pyjamas, festooned with images of his favourite foods, display a keen sense of humour and self-awareness

Throughout the exhibition there is an underlying theme of repetition; since the art is a form of occupational therapy, much of the works centre around a single idea that fascinates the artist. Both Mineo Ito and Ryoko Koda utilise their own names in their works, Ito repeatedly writing it until it becomes a dense scrawl, and Koda refining hers into a single symbol, which she then writes again and again; these works remind me the Infinity Net series by Yayoi Kusama – another Japanese artist who has been institutionalised due to mental illness – in which repeated crescent shapes coalesce to form a net pattern. This repetition is combined with the theme of unorthodox working material in Shota Katsube’s army of miniatures, created from the twist-ties used to fasten bags; each figurine is unique, and minutely detailed, while the sheer scale of the number of pieces make the work quite overwhelming.

While this exhibition shows the role that art can have in the lives of the mentally ill, a role that includes self-representation, actualisation, and personal exploration, if we cross the river we can find another group of outsider artists creating very different works, with completely different roles. The Hayward Gallery’s summer exhibition, entitled An Alternative Guide to the Universe, aims to bring together ‘artists and architects, fringe physicists and visionary inventors’, who can offer “bracingly unorthodox perspectives on the world we live in”. these ideals are lofty, but the exhibition falls short, especially when compared to the sublime collection at the Wellcome, and the previously impressive shows the Hayward has put on.
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2013年6月19日 星期三

who resent the power of the Orthodox Church

A gold and diamonds merchant from Haryana has alleged that jewellery worth Rs 50 lakh was stolen from him when he put the bag containing the valuables on the scanning machine at the Chandni Chowk Metro station for security check.

Ravinder Soni (30) was on his way to catch a train and the theft was reported about 4.30 pm on Tuesday.

Delhi Police has taken up the matter with DMRC and CISF who have been requested to conduct checking of luggage on the scanner only after physical checking of passengers is over so that they are in a position to watch over their own articles.

At present, the passenger is first asked to put the luggage on the scanner, complete the physical check and then proceed to collect their luggage in some stations.

DCP (Railways) Sanjay Bhatia said Soni usually travelled to wholesale jewellery markets in Old Delhi to procure items. "He told us three youth tried to throw ice-cream (kulfi) on his clothes in order to distract him when he was on his way from the market to station. We believe he was followed by the accused to the station. They finally got the opportunity to rob him at the scanner and made good," a senior police officer said. A case has been registered.

CCTV footage of the area has been analyzed and DMRC has been asked to hand over the raw footage to police. "A man is seen walking away confidently with the laptop bag in which Soni had kept the jewellery," the officer said.

The police investigation will also take into account whether there was any lapse by CISF personnel posted at the Chandni Chowk station that contributed to the crime.

Trivoulides is a sculptor who studied art history and classics, and these days, he is living his passion.

Along with a few thousand others he is taking part in the Prometheia festival, which celebrates the ancient Greek hero Prometheus, who helped humans by stealing fire from the gods.

It's the most important annual festival for followers of The Return of the Hellenes - a movement trying to bring back the religion, values, philosophy and way of life of ancient Greece, more than 16 centuries after it was replaced by Christianity.

These people consider Greece to be a country under Christian occupation.

"People want to identify with something in the past - where they came from - so as to know where they are going," says Trivoulides. "If you don't know your past, you don't have a future.

"It's going back to the roots. It makes me feel the continuation through the millennia."

The festival begins with six runners - in full Greek battle gear - racing the six miles (10 km) up Mount Olympus, home of the gods, their shields and long spears clanking as they go.

But as they set out from the small village of Dion at the base of the mountain, passersby hardly seem to notice - they are used to them.

The economic crisis in Greece should be a time of reflection about the values that should govern a society, he says.

The Return of the Hellenes focus on the 12 main gods of ancient Greece - the dodecatheon.

They don't actually pray to Zeus, Hera and the others. They see them as symbols of values such as beauty, health or wisdom.

The followers are an odd mix. There are New Age types who revere ancient traditions, leftists who resent the power of the Orthodox Church, and Greek nationalists who see Christianity as having destroyed everything that was truly Greek.

As the modern-day ancients relax in their camp at the base of the mountain, a few sell philosophy books, CDs, food and jewellery. Some wear modern clothes, others togas, and a few sport a wreath.

Over the course of the three-day event, there are public prayers, two marriages, and a naming ceremony, where followers choose an ancient name - like Calisto, Hermis or Orpheus - and "cleanse" themselves of their modern Christian ones.
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2013年6月18日 星期二

Franklin Morales was seen warming up

Alfredo Aceves' knack for the unexpected is rivaled only by his knack for good pitching in a pinch.

Those qualities were on display Tuesday, when Aceves delivered five stellar innings in a 5-1 Red Sox win over Tampa Bay in the first game of a day-night doubleheader.

Aceves allowed three hits and three walks in the 75-pitch outing. He would have pitched the sixth and possibly beyond, but a 2-hour, 59-minute rain delay ended his start after five.

Aceves was called up from Pawtucket as the 26th rostered player, as allowed by Major League rules for doubleheaders. He has won three straight spot starts, indicating his ability to operate in the type of unstructured climate that bothers other pitchers.

Unstructured is what Aceves is all about. As long as his unusual attitude is displayed positively – and does not become the distraction it has been at times in the past – the Sox will let Alfredo be Alfredo.

"I don't want to say he can pitch on the fly, but he's shown that ability,'' Boston manager John Farrell said.

"He and (catcher) Jarrod Saltalamacchia are on a pretty good wavelength. There was not a lot of shaking off by Alfredo.''

Aceves got caught in traffic before the game, and Franklin Morales was seen warming up. Farrell said afterward the team was in contact with Aceves, who arrived later than usual but in plenty of time.

He said Aceves was aware he was pitching the first game, and arrived in time to get warm.

"Alfredo never makes it a habit of arriving early, anyway,'' Farrell said.

Four relievers finished up. Jacoby Ellsbury missed a cycle for lack of a home run, and David Ortiz drove in three runs for the Red Sox.

A Norfolk 911 dispatcher is in hot water for a comment she posted on Facebook.

Dispatcher Jessica Camarillo posted a comment on Facebook concerning the police-involved shooting of Joshua Omar Johnson, who was gunned down at a Wells Fargo after trying to pass a bad check and then reportedly hitting an officer with his car.

In a comment posted to the Facebook page of former Norfolk Police Officer Terry Busby on May 21, Camarillo wrote Johnson’s family should pay for the inconvenience of police.

"I think the officers should sue [Johnson's] family for putting the officers lives in danger, making detectives work past the time they were suppose to get off, the gas it took for them to get to the scene, the bullets used, the hospital bills, the equipment needed for forensics, and making me work the channel instead of reading my hot sexy book...lol"

"Our tremendous concern is that a 911 dispatcher is holding that type of sentiment against citizens,” said Johnson's friend Michael Muhammad. “Taking that type of judgment to a public forum like Facebook is very dangerous."

There's a lot of discussion on the Omar Johnson shooting, but Carmarillo’s comment has outraged those close to him like Muhammad.

"To say that his family should be sued for the bullets that it took to kill him, and that this call disturbed you from your hot sexy novel, then this is behavior that can not be tolerated,” Muhammad said. “It shows tremendous lack of consideration for human life for the families to hear that, and for our tax dollars that pay her salary to get this inconsideration."

Last Tuesday, the Facebook post became very public when Johnson’s family and friends gathered at Norfolk City Hall and told council members about the comment.

"If you have this feeling in your heart for these people, what would you do if these people called you for help?", said a Johnson family friend, Diane Hayes.

went to her home and drove to the 911 call center at the Norfolk Police Operations Center. She was not working at the center at the time and did not respond to any of our requests for comment.

"We have a business conduct policy that dictates all employees will represent the City well, whether at work or at home,” she wrote.

When asked if Camarillo’s Facebook post was an example of representing the City well, Crouch replied, “I can't answer that. This is a personnel issue."

"If the city of Norfolk will allow a person like this to remain in their employment, then I think the citizens need to take a look at who we allow to run our City government,” Muhammad said.

"It actually made me sick to my stomach," said Hayes, who called Camarillo extremely unprofessional. "She did not think we would read it, and it hurts. It hurts. She's a dispatcher for  911. She is our first point of contact in an emergency...sometimes you can tell the ethnicity in the voice...if she hears me, she might throw me on the back burner."

“The City of Norfolk expects its employees to follow the business conduct policy," she wrote. "It includes employees use good judgment, behave responsibly, display appropriate workforce behavior, and demonstrate the values of accountability, innovation, integrity and respect."
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2013年6月17日 星期一

who have been ravaged by greed

In Youngstown, Ohio, in 1977, the mills close and 5,000 people lose their jobs, and then the shops shutter and the houses burn and people leave in droves. In North Carolina a decade later, Walmart, crack and meth displace local commerce and community. In Washington, D.C., an idealistic public servant arrives expecting to work for the people back home but discovers that big money has taken hold of the city, incentivizing civil servants to cash in and toil for the very entities that they had come to town to fight.

In the everydays of a handful of Americans – including a former auto worker turned community organizer in woefully declining Youngstown, a dreamy entrepreneur in rural North Carolina, and a pol in Washington – there is a window on the big picture of a disillusioned and dispirited nation, torn from its hopes and expectations. This is The Unwinding, the story of our time, the relentless empowerment of the wealthy and the silencing of the great American engines of mobility.

George Packer, a longtime and highly versatile reporter for the New Yorker, travels to the America that politicians and other leaders prefer not to see. In The Unwinding Packer leaves the anomalies of Washington and New York behind and shows how Wall Street, big corporations and the government atomized and polarized us, unspooling “the coil that held Americans together.” In this America, he writes, “everything changes and nothing lasts.”

The reporter’s vision of how things went bad over the past generation covers everything from the fast food-obesity nexus to the loss of localism, the end of cheap oil, the housing collapse and, above all, the death of trust.

Packer’s is a big book, using close portraiture to make huge conclusions about who we’ve become and what we’ve lost. That is the glory of this book, and that is its flaw as well.

When Americans dreamed big, they wrote big, too. From Whitman to Dos Passos, from Mailer and Updike to Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson, novelists and journalists found in the lives of ordinary Americans a hardy, wily individualism and rock-ribbed belief in opportunity, a path out of dark times.

But in this era of diminished resources, extreme inequalities and fraying institutions, the chroniclers of our times suffer from pinched ambition, too. In books, magazines and newspapers, shrunken budgets press writers to devote much of their energy to narrowcasting that tells people what they want to hear.

So it’s a thrill to see a reporter dig deep into the lives of people who have been ravaged by greed, a people who naively kept believing in mobility even as the elites changed the rules. Packer’s character in Youngstown, Tammy Thomas, watches her children move across the country in search of work, and although she resents that the country has changed in ways that splintered her family like that, she understands that they had to go.

In her town, every major institution failed: industry, banks, unions, churches, schools, government.

Packer is at his best when he follows his characters into their daily struggles, when he travels with Dean Price in North Carolina as he tries to come back from bankruptcy by peddling his new scheme to convert restaurants’ waste cooking oil into biodiesel for local schools’ bus fleets, or when Jeff Connaughton, the D.C. public servant, discovers that the civics-class version of how a bill becomes a law has morphed into a rigged game in which all the major players are in the monied establishment’s camp.

The stories of the three main characters are interrupted by staccato headlines from the past two decades; an extended and richly revealing portrait of life in Tampa, epicenter of the foreclosure fiasco; and odd little canned sketches of famous Americans – Newt Gingrich, Sam Walton, Robert Rubin, Jay-Z – who thrived in elite bubbles that feel like an alternate universe compared with the collapse of the rest of the country.

That juxtaposition would have been enough to dramatize the divisions that now define the nation, but Packer is less effective when he slips into angry, sometimes snide generalizations: Tampa “was a torpid apocalypse,” Americans “no longer believed in the future,” and “the real America” is a place of “fallow farms and disability checks and crack.” He’s far better when he lets his reporting work its magic, when he shows how the Obama administration let its focus on the health care bill suck up all the air in Washington after the crash of 2008, leaving his supporters to wonder what had happened to the guy who was going to be their advocate for jobs; or when he connects the dots between the hedge fund manager who makes a $400-million profit on a company in which he invested $14 million even as that company lays off thousands of workers and then rehires a few of them to do double the work at half the pay.

In the end, Packer’s dark rendering of the state of the nation feels pained but true. He offers no false hopes, no Hollywood endings, but he finds power in another strain of American creativity, in the stories of Raymond Carver and the paintings of Edward Hopper, in the dignity and heart of a people who grow deeply lonely as their lives break down, but who somehow retain muscle memory of how to climb back up.
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