Posts tagged United States
latest from US EMBASSY TRIPOLI LIBYA Evacuate!
Feb 23rd
February 22, 2011
A U.S. Government chartered ferry will depart Tripoli from the As-shahab Port in central Tripoli, located on the sea road across from the Radisson Blu Mahari Hotel, for Valletta, Malta on Wednesday, February 23. Processing of passengers will begin promptly at 10:00 a.m. local time. U.S. citizen travelers wishing to depart should proceed as soon as possible after 9:00 a.m. to the pier and arrive no later than 10:00 a.m. U.S. citizens will be processed on a first-come, first-served basis, with priority given to persons with medical emergencies or severe medical conditions. The ferry will depart no later than 3:00 p.m.
Travelers should bring valid travel documents and any necessary medications.
Each traveler may bring one suitcase and a small personal carry-on item. Although pets are allowed on the ferry, any pets transported to Malta must meet stringent European Union requirements, which can be found at http://ec.europa.eu/food/animal/liveanimals/pets/ list_third_en.htm. The U.S. Embassies in Tripoli and Valletta are unable to assist U.S. citizens in obtaining the necessary documents and/or meeting other EU requirements for pet travel. Please note it is routine for pets to be rigorously examined and quarantined for six weeks upon entering Malta. Kenneling to meet Maltese pet requirements will be at the expense of the owner.
U.S. citizens seeking evacuation should be prepared to wait several hours. Travelers are advised to bring food, water, diapers and other necessary toiletries with them to the pier.
U.S. citizens requesting evacuation on U.S. Government-chartered transport must sign paperwork promising to reimburse the U.S. Government for transportation costs at a later date. Exact transportation costs are not yet available, but will be comparable to a one-way commercial ferry trip of a comparable distance on the date of travel. U.S. citizens who travel on U.S. Government–chartered transport will be expected to make their own onward travel plans from Malta.
Immediate family members (spouses and children) who are not U.S. citizens must be documented for entry into the safe haven country and/or the United States, if that is your final destination. A U.S. citizen child may be escorted by one adult, preferably a parent, who has appropriate travel documents. If a family has more than one U.S. citizen child, the one-adult rule still applies. All U.S. citizen travelers and their spouses and children, are required to have valid travel documents. The U.S. Embassy in Tripoli will assist U.S. citizens with travel documents. U.S. citizens who do not hold a valid U.S. passport or visa and are interested in departing Libya via U.S. Government-chartered transportation should contact the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Embassy Tripoli by sending an email to LibyaEmergencyUSC@state.gov or by calling 1-202-501-4444 .
A new study names Boulder, Colo., home to the happiest people in the United States.
Nov 22nd
By Susan Page, USA TODAY
Feeling down? You might consider a move to Boulder, Colo.
A massive new study of Americans’ attitudes concludes that the city at the foot of the Rocky Mountains is home to the happiest, healthiest people in the United States. At the bottom of 162 large and medium-sized cities: Huntington, W.Va.
The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, based on interviews with more than 353,000 Americans during 2009, asked individuals to assess their jobs, finances, physical health, emotional state of mind and communities.
CHECK THE INDEX: How does your city rank?
STATES: See how yours rates
POLITICS: See how your state leans
“Most of our highest-scoring cities are found out West and most of our lowest-scoring cities are in the South,” says research director Dan Witters. Wealthier communities typically score higher.
Residents of large cities — those with a population of 1 million or more — generally report higher levels of well-being and more optimism about the future than those in small or medium-sized cities. In small cities, at 250,000 or less, people are more likely to feel safe walking alone at night and have enough money for housing.
The study provides a city-by-city portrait of the nation’s mood and a potential tool for policymakers.
Nine of the 10 cities that fare best on “life evaluation,” assessments of life now and expectations in five years, boast a major university, a big military installation or a state Capitol — institutions that presumably provide some insulation from recession.
Overall, the top 10 cities include four in California, two in Utah and one each in Colorado and Hawaii. Of them, only the Holland, Mich., and Washington, D.C., metro areas are located in the Eastern or Central time zones.
Many of the bottom 10 are in economically embattled regions. Three are in the Alleghenies and three in the Rust Belt. Only Shreveport, La., and Modesto, Calif., are west of the Mississippi.
Boulder’s setting, including a greenbelt of public lands around the city, may help explain its top ranking, Mayor Susan Osborne says. “We tend to have lots of opportunities for being outside,” she says. The jobless rate is 5.7%, below the nation’s 9.7%.
In his annual “state of the city” address Saturday, Huntington Mayor Kim Wolfe said budget cuts and layoffs were needed for his city to deal with the economic downturn. The city’s jobless rate is 7.8%.
There are some places where people seem naturally upbeat. Baton Rouge is 44th overall, but in “life evaluation,” the Mississippi River city is first.
How does your city rank in well-being?
A city-by-city look at how Americans feel about their jobs, their health, their lives and their futures.
Source: Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, which included more than 353,000 landline and cellphone interviews in 2009. Margins of error range from 5 percentage points in the smallest cities to less than 1 point in the largest cities.
What each of the six indexes mean:
Life Evaluation: Personal assessments of one’s present life and life in five years, on a scale of 0 to 10.
Emotional Health: Measures a composite of respondents’ daily experiences, including laughter, happiness, worry, anger and stress.
Work Environment: Measures job satisfaction, ability to use one’s strengths at work, trust and openness in the workplace and whether one’s supervisor treats him or her more like a boss or a partner.
Physical Health: Measures chronic diseases, sick days, physical pain, daily energy and other aspects of physical health.
Healthy Behaviors: Measures smoking, consumption of fruit and vegetables and exercise.
Basic Access: Measures basic needs optimal for a healthy life, such as access to food and medicine, having health insurance and feeling safe while walking at night.
READERS: Were you surprised by your city’s rank/result
Ray Charles: the great blues composer, singer, and piano player
Sep 23rd
Ray Robinson Charles, the great blues composer, singer, and piano player from the United States, was born in Albany, Georgia in 1930. His family was poor and moved to Greenville, Florida when he was an infant.
Ray began losing his sight when he was five. By age seven, he was totally blind. His blindness may have been caused by glaucoma, or it may have been caused by an untreated infection resulting from contact with soapy water. His mother died when he was 15 and his father died when he was 18.
Ray first became interested in music as a young child when he heard boogie-woogie played on an upright piano by a family friend. He later attended the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind in St. Augustine from 1937 to 1945 (age 7 to age 15) and studied music there. He first performed at a local radio station.
Charles learned classical music in school and soon became the school’s best musician, but he was more interested in the blues and jazz music that his family listened to at home on the radio. He would play the piano and sing popular songs for assemblies and socials. He formed his first band and composed “Jingle Bell Boogie.”
In 1945, a family in Tallahassee took him in and he worked in a general store as a cashier. He played with the Florida A&M University student band, several other bands, and at the Governor’s Ball.
Then he lived in Jacksonville, Orlando, and Tampa and played with other groups. He began wearing his trademark sunglasses all the time.
Ray moved to Seattle in 1947 to get away from Florida. There he met 14-year old Quincy Jones and other musicians. His first hit song was “Confession Blues” which became #2 on the R&B charts in 1949. He used the name of Ray Charles to avoid confusion with Sugar Ray Robinson, the boxer. He recorded two more hits before joining Atlantic Records in 1953.
He put out a series of hit songs, crossing over from R&B to Pop, and later joined ABC Records where he earned a larger percentage of the records’ profits than he did before.
Ray was addicted to heroin from 1945 to 1965. He was arrested three times, but avoided jail time by kicking the habit at a clinic in Los Angeles. He wrote the hit song, “Crying Time” when he was on parole in 1966.
He continued making hit songs until “Georgia On My Mind” was adopted as the State of Georgia’s theme song in 1979. He also sang a popular arrangement of “America the Beautiful.”
The most recognizable quality of Ray’s vocals is his unique voice. Ray had an exceptional baritone range and he also used grunts, groans, screams, and yells, along with words and melody, to convey the emotion in his songs.
He began appearing and performing on television and on the big screen in his late 40’s and his popularity continued until his death at his home in 2004 in Beverly Hills, California at age 73. He was married twice and had twelve different children with nine different women.
Ray Charles grew up in poverty and developed blindness early in life. He had the opportunity to learn piano and sing with students like him when he was seven. He struggled with addiction to heroin for twenty years.
He continued developing his musical talent, despite the challenges he encountered, and eventually became quite successful as a composer, performer, and business person. His motivation, his ambition, and his contact with other musicians contributed largely to his success. He is ranked along with Elvis Presley as being one of the great influences of American R&B and Pop music.
References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Charles