Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/302481436?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Sway Thai Review in Austin, TX - Austin Food Ratings
Restaurant: Sway
Location: South Austin, 1417 South First Street, Austin, TX 78704
Phone: (512) 326-1999
Price: Appetizers ? $6 to market price; Entrees ? $13 to market price; Desserts ? $3 to $12
Hours: Sun-Wed 11am to 10pm; Thurs-Sat 11am ? 11pm
Food (8/10)
(8/10) Satay
A combination of charcoal grilled pork, shrimp and tofu served with kewpie mayo, red chili peanut sauce, and Sway?s salt and pepper combination (schezuan pepper and fermented bean paste). The dish is simply prepared, with the pork and shrimp charred on the grill while the tofu combined a velvety texture with a charred, crisp exterior. The accompaniments exploded various flavors with the salt and pepper combination standing out. The pepper offered slow, deep spice note. Sway uses this combination in many of its dishes.
(8/10) Pad Kwetio
Sway offers 3 various noodle dishes. This dish utilizes wide rice noodles with pork belly, Chinese broccoli, tofu and black wok water (which tasted like a combination of soy sauce infused with various Asian flavors (ginger, lemongrass, etc)). The wide noodles soaked up much of the sauce. The pork belly was crisp, the tofu was soft and smooth, and the Chinese broccoli was barely cooked through, offering a great textural contrast.
(9/10) Son in Law
Sway?s signature dish involves braised pork shoulder, thick soy sauce, chili vinegar, and a crispy soft boiled farm egg. A soft boiled egg is rolled in panko and quickly fried, then split open and served on top of the pork. The dish also is topped with thai basil and crispy shallots. As typical with Thai cuisine, the dish enhances sweet-spicy-salty-bitter-sour basics, with this dish focusing more on the spice from the chili vinegar and saltiness from the thick soy. The oozing egg yolk cuts through the dish with a savory note.
(8/10) Blue Crab Fried Rice
Sway offers 4 different variations of fried rice (blue crab, beef, chicken, and vegetable). Their fried rice differs from the fried rice you?d typically get at Chinese restaurants because it isn?t soaked in soy sauce. The blue crab fried rice is flavored with lemongrass, ginger, snow peas, scallions, thai basil and scrambled eggs. The blue crab is generous within the dish. A light rice dish that serves as a great side course for the various curries and stir fries on the menu.
(9/10) Salt and Pepper Cuttlefish
Another segment of Sway?s menu is its salt & pepper fried dishes. For now, Sway offers blue prawns, cuttlefish, tofu and lobster. The lobster dish is usually one 1.5-2 lb lobster and typically is priced in the $40 price range. Cuttlefish is similar in texture to squid/calamari. The portions are larger than calamari, yet it remains tender. Cuttlefish is fried in a rice flour mixture and then mixed with the schezuan pepper and fermented bean paste mix. It came served with a chili dipping sauce but it?s really unnecessary as you get plenty of flavor from the salt and pepper combination.
(8/10) Coconut Lychee Sorbet
For dessert, Sway offers a selection of single scoop sorbets and ice creams for $3. Flavors include coconut lychee sorbet, mango calamansi sorbet (a citrus fruit native to the Philippines), milk chocolate 5 spice ice cream, avocado sorbet, condensed milk ice cream, and cashew caramel swirl ice cream. Their composed dessert dishes takes classic ideas and spin a Thai twist to them (semifreddo, affogato, panna cotta, etc). The coconut lychee sorbet was a simple, clean finish to the meal, with the citrusy lychee being the stronger component of the dish. Crunchy amaranth (a type of grain) sits on the bottom of the dish, offering a good textural contrast.
(7/10) Service
We dined on a Friday evening, around 9pm. The restaurant was incredibly busy and had a wait time for about 60-90 minutes. Sway does have a bar that serves various Asian beers, sake, and a variety of teas, coffee, and drinking vinegars so one can spend some time there before a table is ready. Service is efficient at the beginning as waters are quickly served, an introduction is given on the menu, and drink/appetizer orders are taken. Though due to the heavy volume at the restaurant, there can be a wait for food and drink orders. For the most part, the wait staff does a good job keeping guests informed. As the night winds down, the level of attention picks up so it?s possible this is just a restaurant learning to handle its high volume.
(9/10) Ambiance
Sway is an open restaurant with a modern, sleek decor, with somewhat loud music blasting through the speakers. It can be loud at times so it may be difficult for larger parties to hear each other but can be ideal for parties of 2. The bar offers a few seats and you can order both food and drink there. There?s a section of tables outdoors, which would be inviting on cooler summer nights. The tables within the restaurant leads to communal seating as 3-4 parties will be seated at each table. The prime seats would be at the kitchen counter with the main attraction being the open kitchen as you can see chefs do their thing right in front. In a short time, Sway has gathered quite a following as most evening nights involve an hour or so wait. At the end, Sway offers exotic flavors and a more modern take on Thai food in a modern setting. With the chefs of La Condesa taking the reins here, it seems like Sway will be a permanent hot spot in the South First Street dining scene.
Reviewed by Shaun, AustinFoodRatings.com
Source: http://austinfoodratings.com/thai/sway-review/
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Monday, April 29, 2013
UFC 159 was clearly cursed by demons (Video)
"It was a very weird night."
UFC president Dana White started the post-UFC 159 press conference with these words. The event featured a nasty broken thumb on Yancy Medeiros, and equally nasty broken toe on Jon Jones, two fight stoppages because of eyepokes, and one fight that was canceled hours before it was supposed to happen.
But the craziest part of all? The demonic voice that was heard between rounds of Michael Bisping's win over Alan Belcher.
Did the gates of hell open before the fight, and did Satan send his minions to New Jersey? Were Bisping's cornermen, who were bathed in creepy red light, actually demons? Middle Easy thinks it was a spell from "Passages of the Dead."
It's possible the UFC ticked off the wrong person and got the evil eye thrown its way. The bigger question: Are we all cursed for watching the bouts?
Source: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mma-cagewriter/ufc-159-clearly-cursed-demons-video-172924960.html
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Tyler Bray and Marcus Lattimore show opposite emotions of 2013 NFL Draft
The fortunes of Tyler Bray and Marcus Lattimore showed the ups and downs of what was a historic 2013 NFL Draft for the Southeastern Conference.
Running back Marcus Lattimore speaks with the media during South Carolina's NFL football pro day on this spring in Columbia, S.C.
Rainier Ehrhardt/AP/File
EnlargeSomehow, University of Tennessee quarterback Tyler Bray ? a 6-foot-6 specimen with a cannon arm ? was not selected in the seven rounds of the 2013 NFL Draft.
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Somehow, University of South Carolina running back Marcus Lattimore found two knees to stand on at his pro workout earlier this spring ? enough to get him a standing ovation from the coaches and scouts present and a selection by the San Francisco 49ers in the fourth round.
In a draft where 63 players from the Southeastern Conference (SEC) were selected ? a record for any college football conference ? two of the SEC players who made the biggest splash on the last day of the three-day extravaganza Saturday did it for opposite reasons.
Bray was left standing at the altar. Admittedly, this was not a sterling draft for quarterbacks. But perhaps that's why he decided to leave Tennessee a year early year to go pro. According to one mock draft, NFLDraftScout.com, he was seventh best pick of the litter. In the end, he wasn't even among the 11 chosen.
It's a glimpse into a situation that plagued basketball for years. Many high school players, egos inflated by friends and hangers on, would enter the National Basketball Association draft, forgoing any college eligibility. When they were not drafted ? or drafted late and then let go ? they would be left in a limbo, not good enough to make a pro team, but not able to go to college to hone their skills.
The situation forced the NBA to institute a "one year in college" rule for all players, giving each time to assess his draft prospects with clearer eyes. The NBA has also started a developmental league akin to the baseball minor leagues to help those who fall through the cracks.
In the end, Bray was signed by the Kansas City Chiefs after the draft ? and as a junior, he had ample time to make an informed decision about his pro prospects. But the National Football League also has a Draft Advisory Board precisely for this reason. It offers undergraduate prospects an impartial assessment of where they're likely to land in the draft.
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HBT: Top LA prospect Puig busted for reckless driving
Kevin Baxter of the L.A. Times has the details:
Dodgers prospect Yasiel Puig was arrested by police in Chattanooga, Tenn., early Sunday and charged with speeding, reckless driving and driving without proof of insurance.
A spokesman for the Hamilton County jail confirmed that Puig was booked Sunday morning and released a short time later. He has a hearing scheduled for the afternoon of May 14 in Hamilton County court.
Puig, rated the #47 overall prospect by Baseball America going into the season, was hitting .333 with a 1.010 OPS in 52 plate appearances with Double-A Chattanooga. The Dodgers signed the 22-year-old Cuban on June 27 last year on a seven-year, $42 million contract. Puig seemed to be on the fast track to the Majors. His arrest this morning is his first bump in the road.
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Samsung Galaxy Tab 3: Oh, Another One?
Just in case you thought Samsung didn't offer enough variety in its tablet range, its gone ahead and launched yet another. This 7-inch Galaxy Tab 3 is brand new and, um, like virtually every other Samsung tablet that's gone before it.
The third iteration of Samsung's first tablet attempt, this little seven-incher packs a 1.2GHz processor, 8GB or 16GB of storage, 3-megapixel rear camera, 1.3-megapixel front facer, and Android 4.1. A fairly bland spec list to accompany what is quite a bland product.
The Wi-Fi version of the Tab 3 will roll out across the world in May, with a 3G model following in June. There's currently no word on pricing, but it will probably be comparable to the existing Tab 2. Not that you'd notice the difference. [Samsung via Engadget]
Source: http://gizmodo.com/5995498/samsung-galaxy-tab-3-yet-another-boring-new-android-slate
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Sunday, April 28, 2013
Weight Loss Camps for Adults | Ohugezoqa.wordpress.com Web ...
Weight loss camps are a great platform for overweight adults to not only regain their original shape by losing weight but also to gain overall fitness of the body. This article will take you through some concepts of beneficial weight loss camps for adults. Read on?.
Weight loss camps were initiated in the year 1963 and since then the popularity of such camps has kept on increasing. Unhealthy lifestyles and eating habits and insufficient amount of rest have all led to weight gain in many people around the world and consequently to many diet plans and exercise programs available for weight loss. However, sometimes people get bored of the daily routine workouts and same lifestyle and also sometimes workouts are skipped due to very busy schedules. Therefore for such people weight loss camps are great platforms which provide weight loss tips and information, regenerate energy (as people devote their time fully to health and fitness) and at the same time they prove to be a very fresh experience.
The main objective of weight loss camps for adults is to help people lose weight not just for improving their physique but also for improving their health, inculcating healthy eating habits in them and giving them proper guidance to achieve their objectives in the long run. Today, weight loss camps mainly include healthy diets, weight training exercises, strength and endurance building exercises, weight loss programs, yoga and activities such as swimming and aerobic exercises. Moreover, weight loss programs for adults also help people come out of their emotional problems, which is one of the most important causes of obesity.
Services Offered At Weight Loss Camps for Adults
As mentioned earlier, weight loss camps have a holistic approach and encompass many aspects of general fitness. The services usually offered in a weight loss camp includes:
Nutrition Consultation: The health needs and limitations of each and every person are different. One might be able to digest a low carb diet while another might not! In order to avoid problems in ensuring the best diet to every individual, there are nutrition consultants at the weight loss camps that discuss your health problems, allergies and phobias and accordingly prepare a diet plan which consists of all the essential nutrients that will help you in achieving positive results within a fixed time-frame.
Workout Instructor and Planner: Apart from nutritionists and dietitians, there are health instructors who prepare a workout plan, analyzing your health conditions and the amount of weight you need to reduce during your stay at the camp. Further, they also train you while performing exercises by teaching you the right techniques and assisting and supporting you during the workouts and correcting you whenever you go wrong.
Fun Activities: Though regular exercises, balanced diet and sufficient rest are the basic ingredients of most of the weight loss camps, some weight loss camps also arrange fun activities, games and quizzes that act as time to time refreshers for all the people at the camp.
List of Weight Loss Camps For Adults
There are many weight loss camps for adults in the United States. Some of the best and most popular weight loss camps are mentioned below.
Hill Country Health and Fitness Center
Live In Fitness Weight Loss Camp
Camp La Jolla?s Women?s Weight Loss Camp
Hilton Head Health Weight Loss Boot Camp for Adults
Pritikin Longevity Center and Spa
The Davis Mountains Fitness & Training Camp
Wellspring Weight Loss Programs
New You Weight Loss Boot Camps for Adults
You will find many more weight loss camps besides these, depending upon affordability, proximity, etc.
So folks, this was an article providing you some important information on weight loss camps for adults. You can even suggest your friends and relatives to read this information if they are in search of weight loss camps and wish to join one. Wishing you Healthy Weight Loss!
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Source: http://ohugezoqa.wordpress.com/2013/04/27/weight-loss-camps-for-adults/
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NKorea charges US man of plot to overthrow regime
In this March 20, 2013 photo, a North Korean flag hangs inside the interior of Pyongyang?s Supreme Court. North Korea says it will soon deliver a verdict in the case of detained American Kenneth Bae it accuses of trying to overthrow the government, further complicating already fraught relations between Pyongyang and Washington. The announcement about Bae comes in the middle of a lull after weeks of war threats and other provocative acts by North Korea against the U.S. and South Korea. Bae, identified in North Korean state media by his Korean name, Pae Jun Ho, is a tour operator of Korean descent who was arrested after arriving with a tour on Nov. 3 in Rason, a special economic zone bordering China and Russia. (AP Photo)
In this March 20, 2013 photo, a North Korean flag hangs inside the interior of Pyongyang?s Supreme Court. North Korea says it will soon deliver a verdict in the case of detained American Kenneth Bae it accuses of trying to overthrow the government, further complicating already fraught relations between Pyongyang and Washington. The announcement about Bae comes in the middle of a lull after weeks of war threats and other provocative acts by North Korea against the U.S. and South Korea. Bae, identified in North Korean state media by his Korean name, Pae Jun Ho, is a tour operator of Korean descent who was arrested after arriving with a tour on Nov. 3 in Rason, a special economic zone bordering China and Russia. (AP Photo)
In this March 20, 2013 photo, a North Korean flag hangs inside the interior of Pyongyang?s Supreme Court. North Korea says it will soon deliver a verdict in the case of detained American Kenneth Bae it accuses of trying to overthrow the government, further complicating already fraught relations between Pyongyang and Washington. The announcement about Bae comes in the middle of a lull after weeks of war threats and other provocative acts by North Korea against the U.S. and South Korea. Bae, identified in North Korean state media by his Korean name, Pae Jun Ho, is a tour operator of Korean descent who was arrested after arriving with a tour on Nov. 3 in Rason, a special economic zone bordering China and Russia. (AP Photo)
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) ? North Korea announced Saturday that an American detained for nearly six months is being tried in the Supreme Court on charges of plotting to overthrow the government, a crime that could draw the death penalty if he is convicted.
The case involving Kenneth Bae, who has been in North Korean custody since early November, further complicates already fraught relations between Pyongyang and Washington following weeks of heightened rhetoric and tensions.
The trial mirrors a similar situation in 2009, when the U.S. and North Korea were locked in a standoff over Pyongyang's decision to launch a long-range rocket and conduct an underground nuclear test. At the time, North Korea had custody of two American journalists, whose eventual release after being sentenced to 12 years of hard labor paved the way for diplomacy following months of tensions.
Bae was arrested in early November in Rason, a special economic zone in North Korea's far northeastern region bordering China and Russia, according to official state media. In North Korean dispatches, Bae, a Korean American, is called Pae Jun Ho, the North Korean spelling of his Korean name.
The exact nature of his alleged crimes has not been revealed, but North Korea accuses Bae, described as a tour operator, of seeking to overthrow North Korea's leadership.
"In the process of investigation he admitted that he committed crimes aimed to topple the DPRK with hostility toward it," the state-run Korean Central News Agency said Saturday. "His crimes were proved by evidence. He will soon be taken to the Supreme Court of the DPRK to face judgment."
DPRK is the acronym for North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. No timing for the verdict issued at the austere Supreme Court in Pyongyang was given.
Friends and colleagues described Bae as a devout Christian from Washington state but based in the Chinese border city of Dalian who traveled frequently to North Korea to feed the country's orphans.
At least three other Americans detained in recent years also have been devout Christians. While North Korea's constitution guarantees freedom of religion, in practice only sanctioned services are tolerated by the regime.
Under North Korea's criminal code, crimes against the state can draw life imprisonment or the death sentence.
In 2009, American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee were sentenced to hard labor for trespassing and unspecified hostile acts after being arrested near the border with China and held for four months.
They were freed later that year to former President Bill Clinton, who flew to Pyongyang to negotiate their release in a visit that then-leader Kim Jong Il treated as a diplomatic coup.
Including Ling and Lee, Bae is at least the sixth American detained in North Korea since 2009. The others eventually were deported or released.
"For North Korea, Bae is a bargaining chip in dealing with the U.S.," said Koh Yu-hwan, a professor of North Korean Studies at Dongguk University in Seoul, South Korea. "The North will use him in a way that helps bring the U.S. to talks when the mood slowly turns toward dialogue."
As in 2009, Pyongyang is locked in a standoff with the Obama administration over North Korea's drive to build nuclear weapons.
Washington has led the campaign to punish Pyongyang for launching a long-range rocket in December and carrying out a nuclear test, its third, in February.
North Korea claims the need to build atomic weapons to defend itself against the United States, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea and over the past two months has been holding joint military drills with South Korea that have included nuclear-capable stealth bombers and fighter jets.
Diplomats from China, South Korea, the U.S., Japan and Russia have been conferring in recent weeks to try to bring down the rhetoric and find a way to rein in Pyongyang before a miscalculation in the region sparks real warfare.
South Korean defense officials said earlier in the month that North Korea had moved a medium-range missile designed to strike U.S. territory to its east coast.
The Korean Peninsula remains in a technical state of war because the three-year Korean conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty, in 1953. Because Washington and Pyongyang do not have diplomatic relations, the Swedish Embassy in North Korea represents the United States in legal proceedings.
___
Associated Press writers Jean H. Lee in Pyongyang, and Sam Kim and Hyung-jin Kim in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report. Follow Lee, AP's Korea bureau chief, at www.twitter.com/newsjean and Sam Kim at www.twitter.com/SamKim_AP.
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Scientists create novel approach to find RNAs involved in long-term memory storage
Scientists create novel approach to find RNAs involved in long-term memory storage
Friday, April 26, 2013Despite decades of research, relatively little is known about the identity of RNA molecules that are transported as part of the molecular process underpinning learning and memory.
Now, working together, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), Columbia University and the University of Florida, Gainesville, have developed a novel strategy for isolating and characterizing a substantial number of RNAs transported from the cell-body of neuron (nerve cell) to the synapse, the small gap separating neurons that enables cell to cell communication.
Using this new method, the scientists were able to identify nearly 6,000 transcripts (RNA sequences) from the genome of Aplysia, a sea slug widely used in scientific investigation.
The scientists' target is known as the synaptic transcriptome?roughly the complete set of RNA molecules transported from the neuronal cell body to the synapse.
In the study, published recently in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists focused on the RNA transport complexes that interact with the molecular motor kinesin; kinesin proteins move along filaments known as microtubules in the cell and carry various gene products during the early stage of memory storage.
While neurons use active transport mechanisms such as kinesin to deliver RNA cargos to synapses, once they arrive at their synaptic destination that service stops and is taken over by other, more localized mechanisms?in much the same way that a traveler's bags gets handed off to the hotel doorman once the taxi has dropped them at the entrance.
The scientists identified thousands of these unique sequences of both coding and noncoding RNAs. As it turned out, several of these RNAs play key roles in the maintenance of synaptic function and growth.
The scientists also uncovered several antisense RNAs (paired duplicates that can inhibit gene expression), although what their function at the synapse might be remains unknown.
"Our analyses suggest that the transported RNAs are surprisingly diverse," said Sathya Puthanveettil, a TSRI assistant professor who designed the study. "It also brings up an important question of why so many different RNAs are transported to synapses. One reason may be that they are stored there to be used later to help maintain long-term memories."
The team's new approach offers the advantage of avoiding the dissection of neuronal processes to identify synaptically localized RNAs by focusing on transport complexes instead, Puthanveettil said. This new approach should help in better understanding changes in localized RNAs and their role in local translation as molecular substrates, not only in memory storage, but also in a variety of other physiological conditions, including development.
"New protein synthesis is a prerequisite for maintaining long term memory," he said, "but you don't need this kind of transport forever, so it raises many questions that we want to answer. What molecules need to be synthesized to maintain memory? How long is this collection of RNAs stored? What localized mechanisms come into play for memory maintenance?"
###
In addition to Puthanveettil, who was the first author of the study, authors of "A Strategy to Capture and Characterize the Synaptic Transcriptome," include Igor Antonov, Sergey Kalchikov, Priyamvada Rajasethupathy, Yun-Beom Choi, Maxime Kinet, Irina Morozova, James J. Russo, and Jingyue Ju of Columbia University; Kevin A. Karl of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute; and Eric R. Kandel of Columbia University, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Kavli Institute for Brain Science; and Andrea B. Kohn, Mathew Citarella, Fahong Yu and Leonid L. Moroz of the University of Florida, Gainesville. For more information, see http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/04/10/1304422110.long
Scripps Research Institute: http://www.scripps.edu
Thanks to Scripps Research Institute for this article.
This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.
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Saturday, April 27, 2013
U.S. won't allow Castro's daughter to visit Philly
PHILADELPHIA (AP) ? The daughter of Cuba President Raul Castro cannot visit Philadelphia to receive an award for her gay rights activism because the State Department has denied her permission to travel there, officials said Thursday.
Mariela Castro had been expected to attend a conference next week on civil rights for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities sponsored by the Equality Forum, according to Malcolm Lazin, the advocacy group's executive director.
"We find it shocking that our State Department would deny freedom of speech, particularly at an international civil rights summit, to anyone, let alone the Cuban president's daughter," Lazin said.
State Department spokesman Noel Clay said he could not comment on the case because visa records are confidential.
Mariela Castro, the niece of retired leader Fidel Castro, is director of Cuba's National Center for Sex Education. As that country's most prominent gay rights activist, she has instituted awareness campaigns, trained police on relations with the LGBT community and has lobbied lawmakers to legalize same-sex unions.
Guillermo Suarez, spokesman for Cuba's United Nations Mission, confirmed that Mariela Castro was in New York on Thursday attending meetings related to the U.N. population conference in Cairo in 1994. She is one of the experts designated by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to work on the 20-year follow-up to the action plan adopted in Egypt, Suarez said.
"That's why she asked for the visa and it's the reason for her presence in New York," he said.
Suarez said Castro "doesn't have any personal reaction" to the State Department's denial of her request to travel to Philadelphia.
The State Department bars Cuban diplomats from traveling more than 25 miles from central Manhattan.
The Philadelphia-based Equality Forum sponsors an annual, dayslong international summit on LGBT civil rights. Each year, the event spotlights issues being faced by the LGBT community in a particular nation; this year, the featured nation is Cuba.
Lazin said Castro had agreed to speak on a panel about Cuba on May 4 and was to accept an award for her activism at a dinner that night. He did not expect any visa problems because she had been granted permission to attend an academic conference in San Francisco last year.
However, a number of Cuban-American politicians criticized the State Department for issuing Castro an entry visa for that event. They noted that U.S. rules prohibit Communist Party members and other high-ranking Cuban government officials from entry without special dispensation.
Castro has no official link to the government aside from kinship, although the sex education center is part of Cuba's public health ministry.
___
Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
___
Online:
www.equalityforum.org
___
Follow Kathy Matheson at www.twitter.com/kmatheson
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-wont-allow-castros-daughter-visit-philly-001327257.html
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Don Omar is top winner at Billboard Latin awards
CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) ? Reggaeton star Don Omar was the top winner of the Billboard Latin Music Awards, though the bigger star of the show might have been the one who wasn't there: The late Mexican-American singer Jenni Rivera.
Don Omar took home 10 prizes at the annual show Thursday honoring Spanish-language songs and performers. Rivera won six prizes, including artist of the year. The California-born superstar was killed in a plane accident last year in Mexico.
The show paid homage to Rivera with a tribute that included clips from live performances and her reality television show. Her brother Juan Rivera sang his sister's song "No Llega el Olvido" accompanied by a mariachi band.
"You are my diva," Rivera's father, Pedro Rivera, said in accepting the prizes. "May God bless you, my daughter."
Rivera sold more than 15 million copies of her 12 major-label albums during her career, which was cut short in December in a crash that killed her and six other people. She was born in Los Angeles and started her career by selling cassette tapes at flea markets. She went on to become adored by millions on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border drawn to her soulful singing and honest portrayal of her tumultuous personal life.
"We know she continues living in our hearts and through music," Rosa Saavedra, her mother, said.
The audience gave a standing ovation, many with tears in their eyes.
Mexican singing legend Jose Jose received the lifetime achievement award and Italian operatic singers Il Volo performed a moving rendition of his song "El Triste."
"Bless the Lord because he has converted me into a friend and accomplice of many couples, many hearts, and many marvelous souls who fall in love, and who suffer because of love," Jose Jose said in accepting the prize.
Other winners included bachata star Romeo Santos, who won three awards, including album of the year for "Formula: Vol. 1." He dedicated his prizes to the victims of the Boston Marathon bombings and to the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.
Santos sang a duet with Juan Luis Guerra that drew cries and screams from fans in the audience.
Salsa singer Marc Anthony, rock group Mana and Colombian pop artist Carlos Vives, who is making a comeback with his first album in eight years, also performed during the three-hour show, which was broadcast live on Telemundo.
Shakira, La Arrolladora Banda el Limon de Rene Camacho, and Natty Natasha took home three prizes each.
Latin music is starting to bounce back after a big dip in album sales during the recession. The rebound is thanks in large part to the growing Hispanic demographic in the U.S. and the rise of digital sales through online and cell phone services and subscriptions.
"Digital is over half our sales right now, and it continues to grow fast for Latin music," said Skander Goucha, senior vice president for Universal Music Latin Entertainment.
The awards show followed several days of panels and performances during the Billboard Latin Music Conference, a gathering of industry artists and professionals. This year's conference featured Uruguayan singer Jorge Drexler, who presented a mobile phone app that allows users to compose new songs using his lyrics and voice. Gloria Estefan also sat down for an extended interview in which she discussed her career and shared advice with aspiring artists.
"Stick to your guns," she said. "When one door closes, find another way to do what you want to do."
___
Follow Christine Armario on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/cearmario
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/don-omar-top-winner-billboard-latin-awards-030117236.html
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Bill to end airport delays headed for House vote
WASHINGTON (AP) ? WASHINGTON (AP) ? Legislation to end furloughs of air traffic controllers and delays for millions of travelers is headed to a House vote after a dark-of-night vote in the Senate that took place after most lawmakers had left the Capitol for a weeklong vacation.
The bill passed late Thursday without even a roll call vote, and House officials indicated it likely would be brought up for quick approval there.
Under the legislation, the Federal Aviation Administration would gain authority to transfer up to $253 million from accounts that are flush into other programs, to "prevent reduced operations and staffing" through the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year.
In addition to restoring full staffing by controllers, Senate officials said the available funds should be ample enough to prevent the closure of small airport towers around the country. The FAA has said it will shut the facilities as it makes its share of $85 billion in across-the-board spending cuts ? known as the sequester ? that took effect last month at numerous government agencies.
The Senate acted as the FAA said there had been at least 863 flights delayed on Wednesday "attributable to staffing reductions resulting from the furlough."
Administration officials participated in the negotiations that led to the deal and evidently registered no objections.
After the vote, White House press secretary Jay Carney said, "It will be good news for America's traveling public if Congress spares them these unnecessary delays. But ultimately, this is no more than a temporary Band-Aid that fails to address the overarching threat to our economy posed by the sequester's mindless, across-the-board cuts."
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a key participant in the talks, said the legislation would "prevent what otherwise would have been intolerable delays in the air travel system, inconveniencing travelers and hurting the economy."
Senate approval followed several hours of pressure-filled, closed-door negotiations, and came after most senators had departed the Capitol on the assumption that the talks had fallen short.
Officials said a small group of senators insisted on a last-ditch effort at an agreement before Congress adjourned for a vacation that could have become politically problematic if the flight delays continued.
"I want to do it right now. There are other senators you'd have to ask what the hang-up is," Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said at a point when it appeared no compromise would emerge.
For the White House and Senate Democrats, the discussions on legislation relating to one relatively small slice of the $85 billion in spending cuts marked a shift in position in a long-running struggle with Republicans over budget issues. Similarly, the turn of events marked at least modest vindication of a decision by the House GOP last winter to finesse some budget struggles in order to focus public attention on the across-the-board cuts in hopes they would gain leverage over President Barack Obama.
The Professional Aviation Safety Specialists, a union that represents FAA employees, reported a number of incidents it said were due to the furloughs.
In one case, it said several flights headed for Long Island MacArthur Airport in New York were diverted on Wednesday when a piece of equipment failed. "While the policy for this equipment is immediate restoral, due to sequestration and furloughs it was changed to next-day restoral," the union said.
It added it was "learning of additional impacts nationwide, including open watches, increased restoration times, delays resulting from insufficient funding for parts and equipment, modernization delays, missed or deferred preventative maintenance, and reduced redundancy."
The airlines, too, were pressing Congress to restore the FAA to full staffing.
In an interview Wednesday, Robert Isom, chief operations officer of US Airways, likened the furloughs to a "wildcat regulatory action."
He added, "In the airline business, you try to eliminate uncertainty. Some factors you can't control, like weather. It (the FAA issue) is worse than the weather."
In a shift, first the White House and then senior Democratic lawmakers have signaled a willingness in the past two days to support legislation that alleviates the budget crunch at the FAA, while leaving the balance of the $85 billion to remain in effect.
Obama favors a comprehensive agreement that replaces the entire $85 billion in across-the-board cuts as part of a broader deficit-reduction deal that includes higher taxes and spending cuts.
One Senate Democrat, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, noted that without the type of comprehensive deficit deal that Obama favors, a bill that eases the spending crunch at the FAA would inevitably be followed by other single-issue measures. She listed funding at the National Institutes of Health as one example, and cuts that cause furloughs of civilians who work at military hospitals as a second.
At the same time, Democratic aides said resolve had crumbled under the weight of widespread delays for the traveling public and pressure from the airlines.
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., involved in the discussions, said the issue was big enough so "most people want to find a solution as long as it doesn't spend any more money."
Officials estimate it would cost slightly more than $200 million to restore air traffic controllers to full staffing, and an additional $50 million to keep open smaller air traffic towers around the country that the FAA has proposed closing.
Across the Capitol, the chairman of the House Transportation Committee, Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., said, "We're willing to look at what the Senate's going to propose."
He said he believes the FAA has the authority it needs under existing law to shift funds and end the furloughs of air traffic controllers, and any legislation should be "very, very limited" and direct the agency to use the flexibility it already has.
In a reflection of the political undercurrents, another House Republican, Rep. James Lankford of Oklahoma, said FAA employees "are being used as pawns by this (Obama) administration to be able to implement the maximum amount of pain on the American people when it does not have to be this way."
The White House and congressional Democrats vociferously dispute such claims.
___
Associated Press writers Joan Lowy, Henry C. Jackson and Alan Fram in Washington and David Koenig in Dallas contributed to this report.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/bill-end-airport-delays-headed-house-vote-073001971--election.html
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Friday, April 26, 2013
Samsung Electronics profit jumps ahead of Galaxy S4 debut
SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics Co Ltd reported on Friday its sixth straight quarter of profit growth ahead of the debut of its latest Galaxy smartphone, the South Korean IT giant's biggest assault on rival Apple Inc yet.
By launching the Galaxy S4 in the United States on Saturday, Samsung is taking aim at Apple's home market at a time when the iPhone maker appears to have hit a snag. Earlier this week, Apple reported its first profit decline in more than a decade and indicated no major product releases until the fall.
Samsung is widely expected to resume posting record quarterly profits, after a hiatus in January-March, as the S4 is dispatched to 327 mobile carriers in 155 countries.
This week, Samsung has kicked off a massive advertising campaign for the S4 and set up mini stores at Best Buy locations to promote the smartphone. Initial orders have surprised on the upside, with the firm expecting a short-term supply crunch.
Early success of the S4 is crucial in determining the extent of the expected second-quarter record earnings for a company that gets more than 70 percent of its overall profit from mobile devices.
The new S4, which sports a host of software-enabled features, is seen as stealing a head-start on what's widely expected to be an upgraded iPhone later this year. But the Galaxy phone has drawn mixed reviews so far.
Profit from Samsung's mobile division jumped 56 percent to a record 6.51 trillion won in the first quarter, accounting for nearly three quarters of the firm's entire profit, the company said on Friday, before the stock market open.
Samsung, which doesn't provide smartphone sales figures, likely sold 68-70 million smartphones in the quarter ended March, up from 63 million in the previous quarter, according to five analysts.
By contrast, second-ranked Apple said on Tuesday it shipped 37.4 million iPhones in the March quarter, up from 35.1 million a year ago, but down sharply from 47.8 million in the previous quarter.
Samsung's first-quarter overall operating profit increased 54 percent from a year ago to 8.8 trillion won ($7.9 billion), broadly in line with its earlier estimate and almost on par with the fourth-quarter's record of 8.84 trillion won.
Shares in Samsung, valued at around $215 billion, have risen 2 percent in the past three months, beating a 21 percent decline in Apple and a 1 percent drop in the wider market.
(Reporting by Miyoung Kim; Editing by Ryan Woo)
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Disorderly Conduct
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (center) arrives for the weekly Republican policy luncheon at the U.S. Capitol on April 9, 2013, in Washington.
Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images
Congress is a mysterious place. Today, for example, the House took up measure H.R. 1071, which will specify the size of the planchets on commemorative coins issued by the Baseball Hall of Fame. Congress?has the power to coin money,?and this legislation amends the?National Baseball Hall of Fame Commemorative Coin Act to specify the diameter of the blanks from which gold and silver coins will be made.
This is just one of the arcane events that happen every day as a part of the congressional pageant. There are many others. Most can be safely ignored. Some of the esoteric inner workings of Congress are important, though,?because the rules of the game can determine the outcome. The overuse of the filibuster has fundamentally changed the nature of the Senate, for example. Almost nothing can pass the Senate without 60 votes, as we just witnessed with gun control. Right now there is a procedural fight underway about how?the House and Senate should proceed with the budget. How it resolves itself will offer some clues about whether we're headed for another summer of ad hoc budget madness or whether there is hope for a grand bargain.
The debate is about setting up a budget conference, the process by which representatives from each body are to reconcile the House and Senate budgets. That we've even gotten to this point is a victory of sorts. Senate Democrats didn?t offer a budget for four years, so there hasn?t been anything to reconcile in a long time. In the last two years, the government has budgeted by crisis. Using the flawed but?irresistible analogy of the family budget, Congress has been deciding how much of which bills to pay off while the repo man and bill collector are at the front door.
Disorder in the process created an escalating series of confrontations over funding government operations and avoiding breaking through the debt ceiling. The final insult was sequestration?across-the-board budget cuts designed never to go into effect?that are now firmly in effect.?
With the new Congress came the promise from both sides that they would return to the orderly way of doing things. We were going to spread out the bills on the kitchen table at the start of the month and be sensible.
Returning to "regular order" wouldn?t make the budget issues any easier to solve, but it did offer the possibility of draining some of the suspicion from both sides. After the supercommittee and the various gangs of senators failed to find any budget solutions, maybe the people who are actually supposed to work out the issues should have a crack at it.??We?ve been in a stalemate for four years,? House Budget chairman Paul Ryan told the National Review. ?I?m very critical of the Senate?s budget, but at least they?re doing one. Let?s use this process to go through regular order to get an agreement.? Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican member on the Senate budget committee, was also a fan of regular order.??Secret deals have not worked and are an affront to popular democracy,? he argued in?January. ?The right process is the regular order."
Steve Bell, a longtime Senate budget veteran now with the Bipartisan Policy Center, thought it was a good sign after years of budget fishtailing.?"When you're a budget person, you're never hopeful, but the fact is that I had a glimmer of what I think was optimism," he says. "I am so unfamiliar with it, it may have been a bad stomach, but it was a glimmer of hope."
The hope was based on the idea that regular order meant that both the House and Senate would follow the Budget Act. Under that act, any budget that goes through regular order is brought up under the rules of reconciliation, which means it would only need a simple majority to pass the Senate. For a grand bargain that would include tax reform and entitlement reform, the regular threshold would be very helpful. As we saw recently with legislation on background checks for gun purchases, it's hard to get 60 votes for ideas that have even 90 percent public approval.?"The appointment of conferees by both sides is the hinge that will bring us the chance for tax reform and entitlement reform," says Bell, "Without that, it wouldn't go forward."
Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=e5496ea4a65e3528e9547283c14156bd
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Thursday, April 25, 2013
America's ?religious courts? go unnoticed | Oregon Faith Report
Across the United States, religious courts operate on a routine, everyday basis. The Roman Catholic Church alone has nearly 200 diocesan tribunals that handle a variety of cases, including an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 marriage annulments each year.1 In addition, many Orthodox Jews use rabbinical courts to obtain religious divorces, resolve business conflicts and settle other disputes with fellow Jews. Similarly, many Muslims appeal to Islamic clerics to resolve marital disputes and other disagreements with fellow Muslims.
For the most part, religious courts and tribunals operate without much public notice or controversy. Occasionally, however, issues involving religious law or religious courts garner media attention. The handling of clergy sexual abuse cases under Catholic canon law, for example, has come under scrutiny.2 Internal church proceedings aimed at disciplining Protestant clergy have generated news coverage because they have highlighted debates over same-sex marriage and openly gay ministers.3 There also have been public protests against Orthodox Jewish men who refused to grant their wives a religious divorce.4 Meanwhile, bills aimed at banning the use of Islamic (sharia) law ? or at restricting the application of religious or foreign law in general ? have been introduced in more than 30 state legislatures. (For more details on those legislative initiatives, see the map graphic ?State Legislation Restricting Use of Foreign or Religious Law.?)
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
UK mortgage approvals down 1.2 percent year-on-year in March - BBA
LONDON (Reuters) - Mortgage approvals in Britain were 1.2 percent lower on the year in March, numbering 31,227, seasonally adjusted data from the British Bankers' Association showed on Wednesday.
Net mortgage lending shrank by 328 million pounds last month.
The BBA said the government's Funding for Lending Scheme had made the mortgage market more competitive.
BBA statistics director David Dooks said: "The Funding for ending Scheme has made the mortgage market more competitive, allowing smaller institutions to offer attractive rates. But nevertheless the main high street banks still provide 60 percent of new mortgage borrowing.
"Mortgage approvals edged up back to levels of a year ago and the prospect of more first-time buyers entering the market during 2013 is likely to help mortgage chains in due course.
"However, economic uncertainty and subdued confidence
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/uk-mortgage-approvals-down-1-2-percent-march-092626974--finance.html
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Tuesday, April 23, 2013
News Corp. insurers pay $139M in shareholder suit
NEW YORK (AP) ? News Corp. has reached a $139 million settlement in shareholder lawsuits over the British phone hacking scandal and the controversial purchase of an entertainment company run by founder Rupert Murdoch's daughter.
The company also said Monday that it has agreed to corporate governance reforms including a whistleblower hotline and an annual review of the independence of current and prospective board members. The reforms will remain in place through at least 2016.
The insurers backing News Corp.'s board will pay the company $139 million to settle the lawsuits. The cash, after subtracting fees for the plaintiffs' lawyers, will benefit shareholders indirectly by going into the company's coffers.
It will go part of the way to covering some of the $346 million the company has spent so far on probes related to the hacking scandal, which burst into the open in the summer of 2011. The company is still dealing with the fallout. Last week, Fergus Shanahan, executive editor at News Corp.'s Sun newspaper in Britain, was charged with authorizing bribes to a government official.
Shareholders had also argued that News Corp. overpaid when it bought Elisabeth Murdoch's Shine Group, a TV production company, for 290 million pounds, then worth about $470 million, in April 2011.
Mark Lebovitch, a head lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the money and the corporate governance reforms were significant.
"If you compare the company's governance and compliance today to where it was when the lawsuit was filed, you would see some really significant improvement," Lebovitch said.
In one example of the changes, News Corp. in August named its general counsel, Gerson Zweifach, as its chief compliance officer, a position mandated in the settlement.
The reforms don't change News Corp.'s dual-class share structure, which allows CEO Murdoch to control the company through the 40 percent of voting shares he controls through a family trust.
News Corp. is preparing this summer to split into two companies ? one containing its newspaper and publishing assets, and the other containing its TV and movie properties ? and the settlement resolves an issue that had been hanging over the company without it having to admit to wrongdoing.
"We are pleased to have resolved this matter," the company said in a statement.
News Corp. shares rose 43 cents, or 1.4 percent, to close at $31.64 Monday.
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Monday, April 22, 2013
Netflix soars. Other stocks rise on recovery in oil prices.
Netflix gains 20 percent after adding 2 million subscribers during the first quarter. Dow, S&P edge up as oil prices rise after last week's tumble.
A Netflix return CD mail envelope is shown in Encinitas, Calif. Netflix Inc reported on April 22, 2013, a first-quarter profit that beat Wall Street expectations and sent its shares up 20 percent in after-hours trading. The Dow and S&P 500 managed a modest advance after losing ground in the morning.
Mike Blake/Reuters
EnlargeStocks?edged higher on Monday as energy?stocks?got a lift from recovering oil prices.
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The energy industry climbed 1 percent, making it the biggest gainer in the Standard & Poor's 500 index. Oil rose 75 cents, or 0.9 percent, to $88.76 a barrel Monday. A week ago, crude fell below $90 a barrel for the first time this year after reports that China's economic growth slowed.
Netflix surged 23 percent to $214.19 in after-hours trading after the company reported that it added 2 million U.S. subscribers to its video streaming service during the first three months of the year. Netflix took a gamble by adding original programming to its service including the critically acclaimed series "House of Cards" in February.
The broader market managed only a modest advance as investors focused on the outlook for company profits at the start of a big week for earnings on Wall Street.
About a third of the companies in the S&P 500 index, including Exxon Mobil and Apple, will report earnings this week. While the reports have been good so far, concerns remain about the outlook for the rest of the year. Expectations may need to be lowered if the global economy doesn't improve.
"Most of the companies seem to be coming in ahead of earnings expectations, but the thing that's still problematic is the revenue line," said Bill Stone, chief investment strategist at PNC Wealth Management. "To me it's just symptomatic of the global economy continuing to sputter along."
Of the companies that have reported earnings so far, 67 percent have exceeded analysts' expectations, exceeding the 10-year average of 62 percent, according to S&P Capital IQ. Analysts currently expect earnings to rise by 2 percent in the first quarter, down from the 7.7 percent increase in the fourth quarter.
On Monday, oil services company Halliburton gained after its loss wasn't as bad as analysts had forecast. Halliburton rose $2.08, or 5.6 percent, to $39.29 after it said that it lost $18 million in the first quarter, pulled down by $637 million in charges related to its role in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
The Dow rose 19.66 points, or 0.1 percent, to 14,567.17. The Standard & Poor's 500 index closed up 7.25 points, or 0.5 percent, higher at 1,562.50.
The?stock?market was coming off its biggest weekly drop since November. Last week the S&P 500 and the Dow each lost 2.1 percent, paring their advances after a strong start to the year.
The news that economic growth had slowed in China set off a plunge in commodity prices last Monday, leading the?stock?market to its worst day of the year. Gold fell below $1,400 an ounce for the first time in two years.
Caterpillar rose $2.28, or 2.8 percent, to $82.71. The heavy equipment maker initially fell Monday after lowering its forecasts for full-year sales and profits because its mining business is slowing. The company also said it plans to resume buying back its own?stock?for the first since 2008 with a buyback of $1 billion.
Traders appear more likely to punish companies that miss expectations, rather than reward companies that beat them, Goldman Sachs said. According to the investment bank's research, while 63 percent of?stocks?that beat analysts' forecasts last week performed better than the overall market the next day, 73 percent of those that missed targets performed worse.
"If you look at this earnings season in general, it's been disappointing," said Ryan Detrick, a senior technical strategist at Schaeffer's Investment Research. "The outlook and the revenues are the big concern."
In other trading, the Nasdaq composite gained the most of the three major indexes, rising 27.50 points, or 0.9 percent, to 3,233.55. Apple, which reports its earnings after the market close on Tuesday, rose 2.1 percent, or $8.14, to $398.67. Apple is the biggest?stock?in the Nasdaq index with a 7.6 percent weighting.
In government bond trading, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 1.70 percent from 1.71 percent late Friday as traders shifted money into lower-risk assets.
Among other?stocks?making big moves:
General Electric fell 40 cents, or 1.8 percent, to $21.35 after JPMorgan cut its rating on the company to "neutral" from "overweight." The company's?stock?fell Friday following pessimistic comments from its CEO on the outlook for Europe and the company's core industrial operations.
Hasbro, the maker of Transformers and My Little Pony, rose $1.17, or 3.4 percent, to $46.55 even after it said that its first-quarter loss widened after heavy restructuring charges and foreign exchange rates flattened its international sales. The company's performance was still better than Wall Street had been expecting.
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Self Improvement | The Feeling You Are Afraid to Fear Is Running ...
By Ma
ry Lee Gannon ?
Fight or Flight ? you?ve certainly experienced it. Your heart rate and blood pressure elevate. Several hormones are then released into the bloodstream ? the most significant being epinephrine or adrenaline and cortisol. These hormones temporarily boost your ability to focus, remember and react spontaneously. But once the intensity reaches a certain level these drop off and concentration, mood and flexibility are compromised.
Many people say they work well under pressure ? for a while. They are on the adrenaline rush. Research supports, however, that prolonged exposure to stress results in a decline in physical, cognitive and affective wellbeing. And then it gets ugly.
Recently I had the privilege to spend some time with Author and Coach Rhonda Britten of Fearless Living and the former national television program ?Starting Over.? She profoundly stressed something that I believe is the root of much unhappiness, anxiety and tension in the world, ?The feeling you are afraid to feel is running your life.?
Think about it. When you react badly it is generally when you feel pressured, threatened, stressed, overwhelmed, unhappy, frustrated, depressed, etc. All of these are avoidance symptoms. They are what bubbles up within you when you are protecting yourself from something that is a part of you which you don?t want to confront. In the face of stress, you may find that you overreact, lash out, cry, are overly defensive, act irresponsibly, withdraw, ignore or any other of the avoidance behaviors. When the dust settles you feel shamed and beat yourself up with ?Why did I do that? I know better than that.? Unfortunately reacting rashly when stressed inhibits your effectiveness in work, love and family relationships, friendships, and social encounters. Thus you become less respected, effective, understood, revered and content.
So how do you fix it? There are many effective methods to reduce stress ? more than I can list here. But they are only a band aid over the bigger issue ? what are you really afraid of? You can?t let go of something that you haven?t defined.
There are a number of articles on my web site on fear. Don Miguel Ruiz?s book The Four Agreement holds two Agreements that I think are the biggest counter to feeling anxious and afraid. He wisely advises us: ?Don?t take anything personally,? and ?Don?t make assumptions.? Our life experience has led us to internalize our own and other people?s perceptions of us which leads to negative head trash like, ?They?ll think I can?t do it.? I?ll end up alone.? ?I never get a break.? ?He doesn?t really care about me.?
In order to eliminate the head trash you must learn not to eliminate your fears ? that is impossible ? but to co-exist with them.
Uncover Your Fear
1. Pay attention to your reactions. When do you react badly? Is it when you feel someone is challenging your performance? Is it when your loved one makes plans without you? Is it when someone challenges your perspective? Is it when someone is behaving hypocritically? If you are not sure keep a list and write down when this has happened and exactly how you felt at the moment you started behaving outside of your authentic self.
I react badly when?
2. Imagine yourself right smack dab in the middle of that critical moment when you lost it. Just before you said or did that thing that you regret, totally immerse yourself in the situation ? all of the negativity, judgment, insensitivity, assault language, feelings of abandonment, your own insecurity, and anxiousness. Now flash freeze everyone and everything in place. Nothing and no one is moving, breathing or talking. The silence is deafening. You are the only one freely moving, inhaling and exhaling, and thinking at this point.
3. What is your fear saying to you? At that moment the only sound you can hear is fear. It is trying to protect you, however negative it is ? what is it trying to protect you from? This is not yet your true fear. But listen to what it is saying.
My fear is saying this to me?
4. Ask yourself if the answer to #3 comes true, ?What will happen then?? What will happen in the worst case scenario if what you thought you feared came true? Keep asking the question, ?What will happen then until there are no more answers. This is what you are truly afraid of. This is where you feel devalued and threatened. This is what sends you over the edge outside of yourself.
If my fear comes true then?
My REAL FEAR is?
Release Your Fear
5. Clear the Chaos. Now imagine that all of the negative energy in the room as well as your fear is like a shower curtain around you ? all of the feelings of rejection, abandonment, judgment, inadequacy etc. Gently reach up and move that shower curtain aside and along with it all of that negative energy.
6. What do you think the people left in the room fear? These are the people whose behavior may be a source of your anxiety. Look at the people before you. They are behaving as a result of a feeling. What is that feeling? What could their fears be? What would be left if you moved their shower curtain of fears aside?
The people around me fear?
7. How can you serve them better? Focus on their needs instead of yours. Be curious and compassionate. This will take the anxiety out of the situation and give you a purpose that is not in reaction to your own fear but in service to the fear of others. You?ll feel valued. Not devalued.
I can better serve these people by?
8. What percentage chance does your fear have of coming true? It will be a low number since your fear is a perception and not based in truth. Post this number with the percent sign next to it where you can see it every day. Look at it and realize that your fear has only that chance of occurring.
9. Now that you understand what you are truly afraid of, live in conjunction with it as opposed to in anxiety over it. Understand that it is not your authentic self but a voice based on fear that is trying to protect you. Woosh it aside like the shower curtain when you notice it and assure it, ?I can handle it. I got this one.?
Mary Lee Gannon is a life reinvention coach that helps people reinvent their lives so that they can break through to life balance with financial abundance using the strategies that took her from welfare to CEO. She has been featured in Money Magazine, NPR, Yahoo.com, and U. S. News and World Report. Her book ?Starting Over? is available in bookstores, online or on her web site and her Life Reinvention System is available on her web site at http://www.StartingOverNow.com.
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