MAKING IT LAST After 30 Years in the Army, Cocktail Hour Counts

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/17/booming/after-30-years-in-the-army-cocktail-hour-counts.html?_r=1&
MICHAEL WINERIP



Lt. Col. Celia FlorCruz and Maj. General Kenneth Dahl have been married 30 years. General Dahl, a deputy commanding general for United States forces in Afghanistan, is stationed in Kabul, helping to oversee the withdrawal of troops from the country. Colonel FlorCruz flies Army helicopters and is currently commanding a medical unit of 700 at Fort Drum in upstate New York. He has done four tours overseas, she has done two. They began dating in 1980 during their junior year at West Point and have two college-age daughters. Their interviews have been edited and condensed.

How did you start dating?

Celia: My father was a West Point grad, a retired colonel. From the beginning my goal was to have a career in the Army and retire with 30 years in 2012 as a colonel. I hadn’t planned on marriage or kids. So when I met Kenny, I was not looking for a relationship.

Ken: My junior year we had a class near each other. I’d be trying to find a reason to pass her. I had a friend from the lacrosse team with a first-floor room and I’d run to his room, look out the window and when she was about to pass, I’d run out and we’d have a chance encounter. I finally got up the courage to ask her to the movies.

Celia: “It Came From Outer Space,” at Thayer Hall, one of those 3-D movies with the glasses — awful.

During the movie he handed me a Starlight peppermint; they didn’t have refreshments. He had it in his pocket, which was a nice surprise. There aren’t really pockets in dress grays — just a tiny one at the hem. You have to unzip the bottom of the jacket, which you’re not supposed to do in public.

Ken: I’m thinking, “What can I do to make this special?” To let her know it was not just a movie. The peppermint turned out to be a big deal. The rest of the time we were at West Point, I was leaving peppermints on her desk.

First kiss?

Celia: We walked back to the barracks, we sort of were not supposed to touch. He put two fingers to his lips and then put them on mine.

How was that?

Celia: A little disappointing. I’d been looking at his lips for several weeks, thinking how awesome they’d be. There was no public display of affection allowed.

Was there any public around?

Celia: Kenny usually does the right thing whether someone’s watching or not.

Ken: I didn’t have the courage to kiss her. She has a strong personality and my sense was you’ll only get one shot. There were 4,000 guys and 60 girls in our class. Most were taller and better cadets than I was. What chance do I have? I wasn’t going to go too fast and screw things up.

At some point there was a real kiss?

Celia: A week later in the library. In the stacks. If you stayed still long enough, the lights would go out.

And?

Celia: Pretty awesome, I definitely needed more of that.

Ken: I was falling pretty hard and she was being very cautious. She’d get spooked, push back hard, try to break contact. I’d panic. I can still feel it, the panic, oh my God, I’m going to lose her.

I’d track her down at the dining hall, ramp up the peppermint patties.

Celia: I’d try to break up with him. This was not my plan. I never went with anyone for more than three months. ‘Why are you still here?’ It was hard to get rid of Kenny. He treated everybody with a lot of respect. Most guys at West Point are very arch about women.

Ken: She’d say, “What if we have kids?” I said, “I’ll get out of the Army and take care of them, I’m O.K. with that.”

The proposal?

Ken: I was confident she’d say yes but wanted to ask her father’s permission. After lacrosse practice Friday night, my brother and I drove to her folks’ house in Virginia.

Celia didn’t know. We got there after midnight.

We were at the kitchen table. I said to her father, “I want to ask your permission to marry your daughter and I’m hoping for your blessing.” He gave me two pieces of advice: Don’t let her get between you and your family and start saving money. But he never actually said yes; I was waiting for that. After a while I assumed that was a yes. Then we got in the car and drove back to West Point in time for practice Saturday morning.

You’re both Catholic and eventually had a church wedding. But right after graduation, you married in a civil ceremony so you could go off to your first post in Germany together.

Ken: When we came back to the house, her father said, that’s very nice, but you sleep down the hall, you’re not married until the church and sacrament.

Separate bedrooms on your wedding night?

Ken: Thanks to my military training, I knew how to get from one end of the hall to the other without the floor creaking.

Celia was the first to deploy, as a Medevac pilot in Desert Storm. Ken, you were getting your master’s at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and caring for Allie, who was 17 months old at the time.

Celia: I think we spent two years together in our first seven years of marriage.

Ken: Celia was terrified she wouldn’t come home. She was terrified Allie wouldn’t remember her. I blew up a photo of her and taped it by Allie’s bed and we’d kiss Mommy good night. I took all these photos of Celia and put them in plastic frames and left them around the house and Allie would play with them.

When her unit returned to Fort Bragg, they marched off the plane in formation. There was a lot of confusion, I was holding Allie and looking around for Celia, and Allie started yelling, “Mommy!” She saw Celia first. She recognized her.

It worked.

Ken: When I count my successes in life, that’s at the top.

After your second child, Celia left Army active duty for 17 years. That wasn’t the plan.

Ken: It was a big surprise. I said I’m the one who’s supposed to get out. I felt really bad.

Celia: I didn’t want someone else raising the girls. I loved the Army, but my maternal instincts kicked in. I loved my husband and children more.

Suddenly you were an Army wife.

Celia: It was hard. You look around and see a lot of troubled marriages. Soldiers go off to war, everybody changes, they come back, they don’t fit together in the same ways. We’ve seen a number of our classmates climb to very high ranks and their marriages fail.

How about my buddy, he goes down range, his heart broken. As the plane is taking off, he gets a text from his wife, I’m leaving you.

Ken: There was a period it was really bad. Both my brothers’ marriages fell apart. We sat down with the girls, we told them this wasn’t going to happen to us, you don’t have to worry.

Celia, you’re also a counselor. What do you say to the wives?

Celia: I teach divorce prevention. One of the things I say is don’t talk about sex all the time with your girlfriends. You start talking about sex, you start looking for sex, consciously and unconsciously.

Ken: When Celia was gone, I’d open her closet just to smell her. We really enjoy having a cocktail at night together. While she’s deployed I don’t drink, I couldn’t enjoy it.

Two years without a drink?

Ken: Actually, the second deployment I gave that up, that wasn’t going to last.

Does Skyping and talking regularly by phone help?

Celia: No. We talk maybe once every 10 days. If you’re trying to speak every day, you get called away on a detail, the spouse at home is afraid something bad has happened and has wasted a whole day waiting for a call that never came.

Ken: One thing about Celia, she’s a letter writer. I have 270 letters so far from her. Last deployment, 380.

It can’t be easy adjusting as a couple when your spouse returns from war.

Ken: Celia’s a Medevac. She sees all kinds of carnage. I remember we went to see “Saving Private Ryan.” She walked out in the opening scene. I’m not really up for it, she says.

Celia: Back from war, I really wasn’t feeling romantic or like being touched. I’d adapted myself to another environment. There was no reason to expect to live. It was natural for Kenny to want a softer wife.

Getting romantic again didn’t take long. But getting over post-traumatic stress disorder was about 10 years. At first, I had hallucinations. I thought a helicopter was chasing me.

One of my soldiers took a pistol and blew off the back of her head. Another was admitted to a rubber room in the Midwest calling for me.

How did you get over it?

Celia: What finally did it, was putting it all on paper. I remember writing, ‘It’s not my fault. They wouldn’t take her out of the cockpit when I told them she wasn’t doing well.’

At first I expected Kenny to be my knight in shining armor to help with the whole P.T.S.D. thing. I was expecting him to rescue me. I don’t want to hurt his feelings, but I had to realize he didn’t have the answer. Eventually, it made our marriage stronger.

Ken: Our Catholicism has been important. I go to Mass every week here, even if the priest isn’t particularly good.

At night, I look at the moon in Kabul and think, Celia’s looking at the same moon.

Greatest joy?

Celia: Married so long, so well.

Ken: My first wish is that our two daughters are as happily married as Celia and I are.

Looking forward to coming home in June?

Ken: You’re not kidding.

Any plans?

Ken: Cocktails with Celia.

Study: Delaying marriage hurts middle-class Americans most

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/study-delaying-marriage-hurts-middle-class-americans-most/2013/03/15/8117bcde-8d9b-11e2-9f54-f3fdd70acad2_story.html?hpid=z3

 Carol Morello

The tendency of young adults to put off marriage has taken a harsh toll on Americans without college degrees, according to a new study by a group of family researchers.

The study, titled Knot Yet, belies the mythology popularized on shows such as “Girls,” with characters spending their 20s establishing careers and relationships before deciding to settle down and have children. While that scenario portrays the experiences of many college-educated Americans, women with only high school degrees or a year or two of college are more likely to have their first child while cohabiting with a man who struggles to find a stable job that pays enough to support a family, the study said.

The study was conducted by researchers for the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, and the Relate Institute. It is part of a growing body of research into the impact of delayed marriage as the median age when people marry has risen to 27 for women and 29 for men.

The study found a large educational and class divide. College-educated women typically have their first child two years after marrying. The high school graduates as a group have their first child two years before they ­marry.

In a statistic that runs counter to the image of unmarried mothers as reckless teenagers, the study said 58 percent of first births to women who have graduated only from high school are out of wedlock.

“Everyone is pushing marriage to their late 20s and early 30s, the Wal-Mart cashier as well as the Wells Fargo executive,” said W. Bradley Wilcox of the University of Virginia, one of the authors of the study. “But the Wells Fargo executive is getting married in her late 20s and having her first child in her early 30s. The Wal-Mart checkout guy is having his first kid in his early 20s, and often marries in his late 20s, often to someone who is not the mother of his first child.”

The Knot Yet study says economic and cultural forces are responsible for current attitudes toward marriage.

The decline in real wages for men lacking college degrees has eroded the economic foundations of marriage. And young adults, many of them children of divorce themselves, are inclined to view marriage less as a cornerstone to their future lives than a capstone to put in place after they have built a foundation, the study said.

“Progressives stress the economics, conservatives stress the culture,” said Wilcox. “We say both matter. They both are undercutting the viability of marriage for young adults today.”

Joan Williams, director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California at Hastings, said the trend for working-class Americans to delay marriage and have children before they marry echoes behavior that was noticed in lower-income people several decades ago. As did the Knot Yet study, Williams blamed it on the de-stigmatization of out-of-wedlock births and shrinking blue-collar wages.

“The people who used to have good-paying union jobs, those jobs are going, going gone,” she said. “As the missing middle was robbed of financial stability, it also has been robbed of stable family relationships, exactly as happened to the poor.”

Americans of all classes are more willing to hold out for the ideal, she said — even if it makes the goal more difficult to attain.

“Marriage is linked with the white picket fence in your head,” she said. “When they can’t get the white picket fence, and a certain level of stability,” they defer marriage and have higher rates of nonmarital births. That in turn fuels more poverty, and takes them further away from the white picket fence.”

Argentina's Bergoglio elected as new pope

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/13/us-pope-succession-idUSBRE92808520130313

By Philip Pullella and Barry Moody

(Reuters) - Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina was elected in a surprise choice to be the new leader of the troubled Roman Catholic Church on Wednesday, and said he would take the name Francis I.

Pope Francis, 76, appeared on the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica just over an hour after white smoke poured from a chimney on the roof of the Sistine Chapel to signal he had been chosen to lead the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics.

The choice of Bergoglio was announced by French cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran with the Latin words "Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum. Habemus Papam" ("I announce to you a great joy. We have a pope"

Francis becomes the 266th pontiff in the Church's 2,000-year history at a time of great crisis and difficulty. Although a conservative he is seen as a reformer and was not among the small group of frontrunners identified before the election.

He also went against one of the main assumptions before the election, that the new pope would be relatively young.

He is the oldest of most of the possible candidates and was barely mentioned in feverish speculation about the top contenders before the conclave.

FIRST JESUIT POPE

He is the first Jesuit to become pope.

The decision by 115 cardinal electors sequestered in a secret conclave in the Sistine Chapel came sooner than many experts expected because there were several frontrunners before the vote to replace Pope Benedict, who resigned in February.

The cardinals faced a thorny task in finding a leader capable of overcoming crises caused by priestly child abuse and a leak of secret papal documents that uncovered corruption and rivalry inside the Church government or Curia.

The wave of problems is thought to have contributed to Benedict's decision to become the first pontiff in 600 years to abdicate.

Thousands of people sheltering from heavy rain under a sea of umbrellas had occupied the square all day to await the decision and the crowd swelled as soon as the white smoke emerged.

They cheered wildly and raced towards the basilica as the smoke billowed from a narrow makeshift chimney and St Peter's bells rang.

The excited crowd cheered even more loudly when Francis appeared, the first pontiff to take that name. "Viva il Papa (pope)" they chanted.

"I wasn't expecting it, but I'm absolutely delighted. It's a very unique moment. There is a great sense of unity here. It's great they have come to a decision about who will lead the Church," said John Mcginley, a Scottish priest from Glasgow who traveled to see the conclave.

"It's a great moment in history, something I can tell my mum," said David Brasch, 30, from BrisbaneAustralia. "He's got to get the child abuse under control, I don't know how they're going to do that. He's got to unite 1.2 billion people."

Bands from the Italian armed forces and the Vatican's own Swiss guard army paraded in front of the basilica before the new pope appeared.

The secret conclave began on Tuesday night with a first ballot and four ballots were held on Wednesday. Francis obtained the required two thirds majority in the fifth ballot.

Following a split ballot when they were first shut away amid the chapel's Renaissance splendor on Tuesday evening, the cardinal electors held a first full day of deliberations on Wednesday. Black smoke rose after the morning session to signal no decision.

The previous four popes were all elected within two or three days.

Seven ballots have been required on average over the last nine conclaves. Benedict was clear frontrunner in 2005 and elected after only four ballots.

(Additional reporting by Naomi O'Leary, Catherine Hornby, Crispian Balmer and Tom Heneghan and Georgina Prodhan in Vienna; Writing by Barry Moody; Editing by Keith Weir and Alastair Macdonald)

Tiesto On World Aids Day, Retiring From DJ'ing And Learning To Trust His 'Gut'

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/27/tiesto-world-aids-day-retiring_n_2196813.html

Kia Makarechi

The explosion of electronic dance music's popularity in the United States has made plenty of people rich and famous in just a few short years. But when it comes to proper rave music, there are few giants as relevant around the globe as Tiesto, the Dutch producer and DJ who came up decades before Deadmau5 put a mouse head on and Avicii turned an Etta James sample into "Levels."

Tiesto's sound has evolved dramatically through the years, falling in tempo from the rapid clip party soundtrack of the late '90s and early '00s (when he still went by DJ Tiesto) to today's more melodic, often vocal-driven progressive house. Along the way, he has added philanthropy and design to his resume, lending his name to multiple charities, releasing self-branded headphones and even designing a Guess clothing deal. The one constant in his career, however, has been his relentless touring schedule. His devotion to touring is somewhat extreme -- it's said that Tiesto's one-time fiancee called off a 2008 engagement after postponed his wedding date in favor of working. He did over 200 gigs last year, though he recently told HuffPost Entertainment that he's just about ready to pump the brakes on performing.

On Tuesday, Tiesto is releasing DANCE (RED), SAVE LIVES, an exclusive compilation album that will benefit (RED). The effort is in support of World AIDS Day and features music from Calvin Harris, Diplo and Avicii. Also included is an exclusive Tiesto and Bono remix of U2's "Pride." HuffPost Entertainment spoke with Tiesto about his involvement in the project, why he's ready to stop touring and what he plans on doing after he hangs up his headphones.

When did you decide to get involved with (RED)?
I decided to get involved at the beginning of this year. I've always been involved in charity work, since 2003 or 2004. I work with an organization called Dance for Life in Holland, and they were creating awareness for the AIDS problem. And I did a football match between DJs at the Winter Music Conference in Miami. I was looking for a great charity, and I heard about (RED) and since then we've been in touch. We've been working on this huge project on World AIDS Day.

Was it the focus on World AIDS Day that drew you to (RED)?
It's a mutual thing. This is a huge professional organization that makes a huge impact, so for me it's a no-brainer to be involved. I want to make a huge impact and really help the world, too.

At this stage in your career, you must be getting requests to lend your name to projects all the time. How do you choose?
I just need to feel good. This organization feels very good and strong. And that's just my gut feeling.

One of your biggest new ventures is your line with Guess. How involved are you with the design?
I'm very involved with it. Besides music and charity, fashion is one of my interests that has been growing over the past few years. I think it goes so hand in hand, music and fashion. I'm very involved with the design team. I'm not drawing anything myself, but I know what I like and don't like.

Obviously you don't show any signs of slowing down, but at some point, if you move away from touring, do you see fashion playing a bit part -- or would you rather focus on, say, production, charity or mentoring young DJs?
It's a bit of everything. After my touring life, I'd love to be more involved with charity. It gives me a lot of fulfillment, you know? I would love to get people who are into my music more active in charity work. In the future, when I have more time, I'd love to do spend more time on that. I also want to mentor the next generation of DJs, that's something I really like to do. And yes, also fashion.

And at what point do you think you'll transition from touring into something else?
I don't think World AIDS Day is a good day to announce that I'm stopping to DJ --

That would certainly make some news.
It would, wouldn't it? But actually, yeah, I think next year I'll slow down a little bit on touring. I'm doing about 200 gigs a year now, so it's quite a lot.

I read a while back that you didn't have a permanent home, because you travel so much. Is that still true?
I don't have a permanent home. I've been touring the world for thirty years, so for no home yet.

You spoke a lot about fulfillment already, and it seems like something that's important to you. In order to do something this long, I imagine it has to feel right. Are there specific ways you keep music engaging?
I like a challenge. I need to feel passionate about something. If I'm not passionate about it, I can't stand it. It has to feel real. DJ'ing, touring, charity work -- anything.

Is there anything from early in your career that you miss?
No, actually not. I think I'm older and I enjoy everything better. You're more relaxed and I really appreciate the things I have in my life. I think I can really see everything in a better perspective.

Now the nature of the dance scene is that someone who gets discovered can reach the biggest stages of festivals in a matter of months or a few years. Is there something you want to share with these younger acts who are blowing up so rapidly?
In my career, I feel like everything started very slow and my career is still progressing. For the very young generation, of the past two years, it's going to be hard for them. Where are they going to be 10 years from now? I want to catch them as soon as they start falling. If you rise so fast, how fast will you fall? I want to make sure they don't fall too hard.

Where do you fall on the balance between your remixes and original production at this point in your career?
Remixes come very quickly, because you already have the melody and the vocals. I have a great passion for music, so it doesn't matter to me if it's a remix or an original production. I don't think about it as, "Well, I have to spend three hours on a remix orI have to do something all original."

But with your involvement in everything from charity ventures to the headphones to Guess, do you have the same amount of time to spend on music, or do you find that you're more confident and the music just takes less time?
The music takes the same amount of time, but I have a big team around me now, from music to charity, that helps me do it. They all have so much experience that they can help me. We're doing this big compilation together, of other artists and it really helps to have other people around. When I started, I did everything myself.

In those relationships, with the people helping you, do you find trust someone once they've proven themselves to you, or do you want to have a hand in every step of the way?
I used to be like that. I used to want to control everything. But this thing has become so big that I have to trust people. So I do, and most of the time my gut feeling is right.

The compilation is available for download at (RED)'s website.

Hugo Chávez kept his promise to the people of Venezuela

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/hugo-chavez-people-venezuelan-president

Oscar Guardiola Rivera

The late Venezuelan president's Bolívarian revolution has been crucial to a wider Latin American philosophy

He wrote, he read, and mostly he spoke. Hugo Chávez, whose death has been announced, was devoted to the word. He spoke publicly an average of 40 hours per week. As president, he didn't hold regular cabinet meetings; he'd bring the many to a weekly meeting, broadcast live on radio and television. Aló, Presidente, the programme in which policies were outlined and discussed, had no time limits, no script and no teleprompter. One session included an open discussion of healthcare in the slums of Caracas, rap, a self-critical examination of Venezuelans being accustomed to the politics of oil money and expecting the president to be a magician, a friendly exchange with a delegation from Nicaragua and a less friendly one with a foreign journalist.

Nicaragua is one of Venezuela's allies in Alba, the organisation constituted at Chávez's initiative to counter neoliberalism in the region, alongside Cuba, Ecuador and Bolivia. It has now acquired a life of its own having invited a number of Caribbean countries and Mexico to join, with Vietnam as an observer. It will be a most enduring legacy, a concrete embodiment of Chávez's words and historical vision. The Bolívarian revolution has been crucial to the wider philosophy shared and applied by many Latin American governments. Its aim is to overcome global problems through local and regional interventions by engaging with democracy and the state in order to transform the relation between these and the people, rather than withdrawing from the state or trying to destroy it.

Because of this shared view Brazilians, Uruguayans and Argentinians perceived Chávez as an ally, not an anomaly, and supported the inclusion of Venezuela in their Mercosur alliance. Chávez's Social Missions, providing healthcare and literacy to formerly excluded people while changing their life and political outlook, have proven the extent of such a transformative view. It could be compared to the levelling spirit of a kind of new New Deal combined with a model of social change based on popular and communal organisation.

The facts speak for themselves: the percentage of households in poverty fell from 55% in 1995 to 26.4% in 2009. When Chávez was sworn into office unemployment was 15%, in June 2009 it was 7.8%. Compare that to current unemployment figures in Europe. In that period Chávez won 56% of the vote in 1998, 60% in 2000, survived a coup d'état in 2002, got over 7m votes in 2006 and secured 54.4% of the vote last October. He was a rare thing, almost incomprehensible to those in the US and Europe who continue to see the world through the Manichean prism of the cold war: an avowed Marxist who was also an avowed democrat. To those who think the expression of the masses should have limited or no place in the serious business of politics all the talking and goings on in Chávez's meetings were anathema, proof that he was both fake and a populist. But to the people who tuned in and participated en masse, it was politics and true democracy not only for the sophisticated, the propertied or the lettered.

All this talking and direct contact meant the constant reaffirmation of a promise between Chávez and the people of Venezuela. Chávez had discovered himself not by looking within, but by looking outside into the shameful conditions of Latin Americans and their past. He discovered himself in the promise of liberation made by Bolívar. "On August 1805," wrote Chávez, Bolívar "climbed the Monte Sacro near Rome and made a solemn oath." Like Bolívar, Chávez swore to break the chains binding Latin Americans to the will of the mighty. Within his lifetime, the ties of dependency and indirect empire have loosened. From the river Plate to the mouths of the Orinoco river, Latin America is no longer somebody else's backyard. That project of liberation has involved thousands of men and women pitched into one dramatic battle after another, like the coup d'état in 2002 or the confrontation with the US-proposed Free Trade Zone of the Americas. These were won, others were lost.

The project remains incomplete. It may be eternal and thus the struggle will continue after Chávez is gone. But whatever the future may hold, the peoples of the Americas will fight to salvage the present in which they have regained a voice. In Venezuela, they put Chávez back into the presidency after the coup. This was the key event in Chávez's political life, not the military rebellion or the first electoral victory. Something changed within him at that point: his discipline became ironclad, his patience invincible and his politics clearer. For all the attention paid to the relation between Chávez and Castro, the lesser known fact is that Chávez's political education owes more to another Marxist president who was also an avowed democrat: Chile's Salvador Allende. "Like Allende, we're pacifists and democrats," he once said. "Unlike Allende, we're armed."

The lesson drawn by Chávez from the defeat of Allende in 1973 is crucial. Some, like the far right and the state-linked paramilitary of Colombia would love to see Chavismo implode, and wouldn't hesitate to sow chaos across borders. The support of the army and the masses of Venezuela will decide the fate of the Bolívarian revolution, and the solidarity of powerful and sympathetic neighbours like Brazil. Nobody wants instability now that Latin America is finally standing up for itself. In his final days Chávez emphasised the need to build communal power and promoted some of his former critics associated with the journal Comuna. The revolution will not be rolled back. Unlike his admired Bolívar, Chávez did not plough the seas.

Women are now to the left of men. It's a historic shift

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/05/women-left-of-men-historic-shift
Seumas Milne

Austerity has set female voters against Cameron, but that's only part of a global change shaping the politics of the future


Frances O’Grady, the first woman leader of the Trades Union Congress: women's changing politics 'can be the foundation of a new left project, for women as well as men'. Photograph: Jason Alden / Rex Features

David Cameron has long had a problem with women. From the early days of the coalition most have balked at his government and its austerity programme that hits women hardest – along with the prime minister's patronisingly tin-ear "calm down, dear" gestures. But just as the coalition struggle over plans for yet more budget cuts is reaching fever pitch, that problem is becoming critical.

Labour's lead over the Conservatives among women has now hit 26% (51% to 25%), according to the most recent ICM/Guardian poll, compared with a 7% lead among men. No wonder Tory strategists are panicking. Some pundits have played down the ICM figure as a rogue result based on small samples.

But women have been backing Labour over the Tories by margins well into double figures since last autumn. And it's not just in party support that there's a glaring gender gap. On a wide range of issues – from cuts in pensions, benefits, health and education to tax increases on the rich – women in Britain are not only strongly opposed to coalition policies – they're often significantly more hostile to them than men.

While both men and women back a mansion tax, for example, two-thirds of women support it, compared with 57% of men. And it is not hard to see why. Women are bearing the brunt of the coalition's austerity onslaught. In the week of International Women's Day, which was set up to campaign for women's rights and freedoms, these are being undermined and reversed by Cameron's coalition.

It is women, who make up 65% of the public sector and over three-quarters of the workforce of the NHS and local government, who are taking the full force of what is now planned to be more than a million public service jobs cuts by 2018. That will also widen the gender pay gap, which is seven points bigger in the private sector.

Women are losing out disproportionately from pay caps and freezes, tax credit, maternity pay, legal aid and benefit cuts, and make up 98% of those hit by January's child benefit cut. As the Fawcett Society puts it, together these changes spell a "tipping point for women's equality". This government is making women pay above all for the bankers' crisis.

But the shift in women's attitudes goes far beyond a reaction to the assault from Cameron and George Osborne. Women in Britain are now significantly to the left of men – and more socially liberal – on most key political controversies of the day. They are not only more committed to public services, the welfare state and progressive taxation, they are alsoon average more egalitarian, less racist and homophobic, more committed to the environment, and much more hostile to British war-making. Only a quarter backed the invasion of Iraq 10 years ago, compared with a third of men, while most women also opposed British military operations in Libya and Mali – against a minority of men.

It wasn't always like this. Women have been more anti-war than men for decades. But for most of the past century they were consistently more conservative than men – and regularly helped put the Tories in power after all women finally won the vote in 1928. In the 1950s, the Conservative gender gap was 14%.

But over the past generation there has been a sea change. Women have moved to the left almost across the board and have now leap-frogged over men. The differences might seem relatively small (though on issues of war and peace they're usually around 20%); women tend to identify less with political parties; and the shift is offset by the fact that women live longer, and older people tend to be more conservative.

The direction of travel is, however, unmistakable – and it's far from restricted to Britain. The trend for women to shift leftwards has been clear longest in the United States, where a higher proportion of women than men have voted Democrat in presidential elections since 1980, and where Barack Obama was re-elected with 55% of the overall women's vote.

The same pattern was already evident across most advanced industrial economies a decade ago. As the academics Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart found, while men's politics had remained pretty stable, women's had moved left from the 1990s onwards – and they were also far less likely to vote for parties of the far right.

Crucial to the shift has been the growth of women's employment (often segregated in low-wage and public sector work), and the decline of the traditional family and churches in Europe – but also the rise of the women's movement and the influence of feminism.

The importance of paid work in changing women's politics is one reason why there hasn't been a parallel shift in much of the developing world. In Britain women now make up half the trade union movement and have played a central role in recent industrial action, from the masspensions strike of 2011 to cleaners' walkouts on the London Underground.

But the central role of women in the Arab uprisings or the protest movement against sexual violence in India demonstrates there are no western boundaries to women's political mobilisation and common causes. As the feminist writer Gloria Steinem commented recently, more American women have been killed by their husbands or boyfriends since 2001 than all US citizens killed in 9/11 and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars put together.

Of course, women's move leftwards shouldn't be overstated. There has been no shortage of warmongering and reactionary women in positions of power, and class and ethnicity both cut across and shape gender attitudes. But no amount of coalition party posturing about repackaged childcare subsidies is going to win back their lost female voters.

The convulsive industrial change of recent decades cut the ground from beneath traditional male-dominated labour movements. But more than a century after International Women's Day was established by the left (and later triggered the outbreak of the Russian revolution), women's changing politics and workplace role are already laying the ground for new forms of community-based solidarity. In the words of Frances O'Grady, the first woman leader of the Trades Union Congress, this shift "can be the foundation of a new left project, for women as well as men".

Inilah Arti Warna Asap dari Knalpot Mobil Anda

http://teknologi.inilah.com/read/detail/1963511/inilah-arti-warna-asap-dari-knalpot-mobil-anda#.UTKTPaJTDzY
Oleh: Wahyu Perdana Putera



INILAH.COM, Jakarta - Setiap asap yang muncul dan berasal dari pipa knalpot mobil Anda adalah tanda bahwa mobil Anda tidak dalam kondisi prima. Apa saja tandanya?

Jika Anda melihat asap buang knalpot dengan warna berbeda, Anda seharusnya memperhatikan hal tersebut untuk mencegah hal-hal buruk yang terjadi pada mobil Anda.

Inilah berbagai efek dari munculnya beberapa warna asap mobil menurut Autoguide:

1. Asap berwarna kebiruan

Jika mobil Anda mengeluarkan asap berwarna biru, itu menandakan bahwa mesin mobil Anda membakar oli mesin. Penyebabnya adalah katup sil atau ring piston yang telah aus dan oli pun menjadi bocor.

Jika Anda melihat asap seperti ini, periksa oli mobil Anda secara teratur dan perhatikan pemakaiannya. kerusakan yang nantinya ditimbulkan bakal membutuhkan biaya banyak dan harus ditangani dengan segera.

Bukan hanya menyebabkan kerusakan lingkungan, tetapi oli yang bocor juga dapat menyebabkan kinerja mesin menjadi kasar hingga akhirnya dapat merusak busi dan komponen lainnya.

Jika mobil anda sudah berumur namun minim kebocoran, mobil Anda tersebut dapat dirawat dengan mengganti oli secara teratur.

Penyebab lainnya adalah jika mobil Anda dilengkapi turbo. Asap ini menjadi tanda bahwablower dari turbo mobil Anda harus diganti.

2. Asap berwarna abu-abu

Untuk kategori asap dengan warna abu-abu sedikit sulit untuk didiagnosis penyebabnya. Setali tiga uang dengan asap berwarna biru, asap abu-abu biasanya juga disebabkan karena penyebab yang sama yakni pembakaran oli yang bocor dan juga kinerja turbo yang buruk.

Asap warna ini juga bisa menjadi masalah jika mobil Anda bertransmisi otomatis dan oli persenelingnya terbakar di mesin.

Modulator vakum perseneling juga bisa rusak karena situasi ini, dimulai dengan oli perseneling yang tersedot ke dalam mesin dan kemudian terbakar.

Selain itu, asap berwarna abu-abu juga bisa mengartikan katup PCV macet. Sistem PCV (Positive Crankcase Ventilation) dapat mengurangi emisi berbahaya dengan mendaur ulang kembali ke ruang pembakaran.

Namun, ketika katup PCV macet, tekanan pun muncul dan menyebabkan kebocoran minyak. Untungnya, harga PCV katup biasanya tidak mahal dan penggantiannya dapat dilakukan oleh Anda sendiri.

3. Asap berwarna putih

Munculnya asap putih masih aman selama sifatnya masih tipis. Itu normal dari hasil penumpukan kondensasi di dalam sistem pembuangan. Asap semacam ini dapat menghilang dengan cepat.

Namun jika sifatnya tebal berarti ini masalah berat, dan disebabkan oleh mesin yang membakar coolant. Ini bisa jadi hasil kerusakan serius pada packing head, silinder head, atau blok mesin yang retak dan semuanya butuh perbaikan yang mahal.

Jangan pernah mengabaikan masalah asap berwarna ini. Kebocoran kecil dalam coolant dapat menyebabkan overheating dan risiko kerusakan mesin.

Kebocoran coolant juga dapat membuatnya tercampur dengan oli yang dapat membahayakan mesin mobil Anda.

4. Asap berwarna hitam

Asap knalpot hitam mengartikan mesin membakar bahan bakar terlalu banyak (boros). Hal pertama yang harus Anda periksa adalah filter udara dan komponen lainnya seperti sensor, injeksi bahan bakar dan fuel pressure regulator.

Asap hitam biasanya mudah untuk dan diketahui dan diperbaiki, tapi borosnya bahan bakar pasti akan merugikan Anda. [ikh]

Review: 'The Bible' – This Time, Hollywood Got It Right

http://www.christianpost.com/news/review-the-bible-this-time-hollywood-got-it-right-90992/
By Geoff Tunnicliffe , CP Guest Contributor, Secretary General of the World Evangelical Alliance








I guess I must have seen most of the Hollywood-made movies and TV shows about the Bible or characters from the Bible. While many of them have a nostalgic feel for me, I must admit that the majority was pretty high on my "cringe factor" scale.

When Mark Burnett ("Survivor," "The Voice," "Celebrity Apprentice") and his wife, Roma Downey ("Touched by an Angel"), stepped into this well-traveled space, my initial response was skepticism. I firstly wanted to figure out where this particular effort would fit on my "cringe" scale – but I was in for a big surprise.

Burnett and his wife have produced a mini-series that is not only "not disappointing," but actually rises to the top of the "Wow" scale. Attempting to take on the whole Bible in 10 hours is pretty much an impossible task for just about anyone, but apparently not for the Burnetts. They really have produced something of epic proportions.

Over the last 3 1/2 years, Mark and Roma have been driven by the singular vision of producing a project that would honor the sacred text, yet bring it to life for a new generation. The end result is something that has the feel of a $150 million big budget film.

A half year of filming in Morocco, hundreds of extras, an Oscar-winning editing studio and a score that brought back together for the first time after "Gladiator" the incredible Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerard – all this helped to bring the Bible to screen like no other film in history. The cast made up of gifted actors coming from across the world reflects the global influence of the Bible – a Samson from the African diaspora, an Irish David, and a Portuguese Jesus, just to name a few.

Obviously, the most challenging role of the entire series is that of Jesus. Diogo Morgado rises to the task, presenting Jesus as a powerful yet compassionate and humble character.

Over the last year, I had the privilege of reading all the scripts, seeing many clips of the series and even visiting the set in Morocco. While I felt that this was going to be a great project, I wanted to be sure that the final edits would hold together as a singular thematic message throughout the entire series. I was not disappointed!

Just recently I did a marathon session and watched the entire series in one single day. For someone that has read and taught the Bible for most of his life, I had a remarkable spiritual and emotional experience. The theme of God's love and hope for all humanity is the thread that holds the entire series together. I received a fresh new perspective on many of the famous Bible stories: Looking through the eyes of Sarah as she thinks that her husband, Abraham, has sacrificed their son Isaac; listening to Noah telling the story of Creation to his children on the ark; agonizing with Mary (played by Roma Downey) as she sees her son, Jesus, beaten and crucified. These and so many other stories allow you to connect with the characters on a deep emotional level.

Obviously not all the stories could be covered in those 10 hours, and some of them needed to be compressed. However, the Burnetts – with an impressive list of over 40 advising scholars – have been faithful to the spirit of the text and at the same time provided a television series, that is compelling, gritty at times and spiritually moving.

"The Bible" is not just for the faithful. It's meant for everyone to see: the curious, the skeptic as well as those who just want to see an entertaining adventure series.

There is a scene where Jesus and Peter are together on the boat. Peter has just landed a bountiful load of fish from waters that he deemed unfishable. He looks at Jesus and asks him: "What are we going to do?" And Jesus replies: "We're going to change the World!"

As this series airs on History Channel this March and later this year around the world, it will have impact on people's lives today as well as the lives of generations to come.

This time, Hollywood got it right.