The state of small business lending | REJournals.com

Senior Vice President-SomerCor 504

The Small Business Administration recently finished its fiscal year, and it was a record year on most all accounts. During fiscal year 2012, more than $1 billion in SBA loans were approved for small businesses in the State of Illinois alone. This represents a substantial increase over 2011.

The impressive results in 2012 can be attributed in great part to business? appetite for attractively priced alternative financing options and the success of a two-year refinancing initiative that was part of the SBA 504 Loan program.

At the same time, since the end of September a powerful misconception has emerged and lingered in the market.? There are people?small business owners and those who advise them ? who believe that the Small Business Administration no longer is funding transactions ? that it is closed for business.

That couldn?t be farther from the truth.

Let?s clarify the state of small business lending as we close out calendar 2012 and look ahead to 2013.

Two years ago the Jobs Act of 2010 was ratified to provide small businesses with greater access to capital to invest in fixed assets. Through the SBA 504 lending program, small businesses finance the purchase, construction and renovation of commercial real estate (as well as the acquisition and installation of heavy machinery and equipment) through long-term, government-guaranteed loans.

The Small Business Jobs and Credit Act of 2010 enhanced the existing SBA loan program with three significant changes:

• Greater access ? To qualify for a 504 loan, the tangible net worth of a company was increased to $15 million (from $8.5 million), while after-tax net income as high as $5 million (up from $3 million);
• Increased loan values ? Applicants are eligible to receive between $5 million and $5.5 million in SBA dollars (up from between $1.5 million to $4.0 million); and
• Debt refinancing ? Existing debt can be refinanced. Recent modifications removed certain restrictions and meant that refinancing of the debt would be possible regardless of the loan maturity.

The final change ? the refinance provision ? carried with it an expiration. The end of September brought about the end of the refinancing program.

Yet small business lending is alive and doing very well in Illinois, and across the country. The first two changes to the Jobs Act of 2010 remain in full force today. Those two characteristics, along with the fact that interest rates continue to be at some of the lowest levels ever, make SBA lending as attractive as ever.

In a traditional SBA 504 loan, a bank provides the first mortgage at 50 percent of the eligible financing, a Certified Development Corp. (CDC) like SomerCor provides a second mortgage equal to 40 percent of the eligible financing, and the borrower puts 10 percent down.? Conventional lending often calls for 25 to 35 percent down in this market, so the out-of-pocket savings is significant.

The current SBA lending programs provide advantages to both banks and borrowers.? For banks, it brings exposure down to 50 percent at a time when financial institutions are looking to preserve capital and keep their loan to values at conservative levels.? For business owners, rather than putting 25 to 35 percent down for a five-year conventional loan, the business owner can put down just 10 percent, and use the savings for working capital needs.

Additionally, the SBA portion of the 504 loan is a 20-year fixed rate that currently is 3.95 percent.

The three new elements of the legislation will impact business owners in a number of ways:

• This increase in size standard requirements means that middle-market firms have greater access;
• By increasing the amount of money that can be borrowed, the purchasing power of businesses has increased significantly, and the program can be utilized for projects as large as $15 million to $20 million.

Exemplifying the benefits and advantages of the SBA lending program, and the various changes that have taken place over time, is St. Charles-based Tek Pak Inc. Formed in 1992, Tek Pak sells, manufactures and distributes plastic carrier tape and thermoform prototype and production tooling to customers in the electronics and healthcare industries, among others.

Tek Pak Inc. has been the beneficiary of three SBA 504 loans, and is working on another.? Tony Beyer, president, said the SBA 504 program has allowed Tek Pak Inc. to continue to expand its operations.

Tek Pak Inc. first used a 504 loan four years ago to acquire its St. Charles facility.? ?Last year, the company used two new SBA 504 loans for equipment.? One of those loans led to the purchase of additional manufacturing equipment and the second was used to refinance term debt on other manufacturing equipment.

The company is currently in the process of obtaining its fourth 504 loan in order to acquire a facility in Batavia that it currently leases.?This new 504 loan will allow Tek Pak Inc. to continue to make capital expenditures, grow and hire additional employees.

Gabe Beukinga is a senior vice president and team leader for SomerCor 504, a Certified Development Corp. During fiscal year 2012, no Chicago-based CDC approved more SBA loans than SomerCor 504. In FY 2012, Beukinga contributed more than $90 million in SBA lending ranking him among the highest of all loan officers in the country.

? 2013 Real Estate Communications Group. Duplication or reproduction of this article not permitted without authorization from the Real Estate Publishing Group. For information on reprint or electronic pdf of this article contact Mark Menzies at 312-644-4610 or menzies@rejournals.com

Source: http://www.rejournals.com/2013/01/25/the-state-of-small-business-lending/

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Want to Improve Your Residential and Business Marketing Efforts ...

My first week on the job at E?Source three years ago, I attended our Let?s Get Social: Utility Marketing Conference in Denver. The lively and thought-provoking agenda centered around the topics of behavior-change social marketing efforts at utilities. I remember sitting in the audience and engaging in conversation with a number of attendees around this new concept of direct/indirect feedback, competitions, challenges, and pledges to reduce residential energy consumption?and whether it would actually work. We agreed that it was effective for public health efforts like anti-tobacco campaigns, but the jury was still out on whether the energy industry could capitalize on this strategy.

Fast-forward to 2013. Today, one of the hottest trends in efficiency programs centers on behavior-change social marketing efforts. I?m left to wonder: Did the momentum for this tactic begin at our Utility Marketing Conference in 2010?

One of E?Source?s raisons d??tre is to facilitate knowledge-sharing and networking among utility program managers and marketers so they can brainstorm ideas on the best ways to engage customers to help them use energy more wisely. Each year at our Utility Marketing Conference, we do just that. But we also make a point to push the proverbial industry envelope forward with new concepts and fresh ideas.

This year is no different. The 5th Annual E?Source Utility Marketing Conference will feature sessions designed to drive your marketing agenda forward. Beyond talking heads, we?ll have workshops and networking opportunities that will alert you to the latest trends in utility marketing. You?ll come away from the event with new contacts across the industry, real-world examples and results of outreach efforts, and innovative ideas to reinvigorate your marketing plans. We hope to see you there. Check out the agenda, and don?t hesitate?register today!

Source: http://www.esource.com/Blog/ESource/1-25-13-UMC

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Peter Staley: Grief Is a Sword: A Eulogy for Spencer Cox

Editor's note: This eulogy was delivered at "Spencer Cox: A Celebration of Life," a memorial service held on Sunday, Jan. 20, 2012, at The Cutting Room in New York City.

I want to remember the activist. I first met Spencer when he started showing up at ACT UP meetings in the fall of '88. We were all so young. I was younger than most, but he was seven years my junior.

Spencer started by joining ACT UP's most intimidating committee. The Treatment and Data gang was a pack of know-it-all divas who expected new members to climb the learning curve fast and burn their own paths. He did both in short order and quickly earned the respect and friendship of these self-taught expert activists. It didn't hurt that he was one of the few who could out-smoke Mark Harrington, or that he provided a constant soundtrack of dark humor to our often depressing work.

But it's when our activism started to pivot that Spencer really began to shine. AIDS treatment activists began with fury and blind hope that if we just pushed hard enough, we could force the system to find the cure or near-cures that were surely out there. But they weren't, and a simple bureaucratic fix wasn't going to save us.

Spencer and the other science geeks led this pivot. We could no longer take shortcuts around the tenets of scientific discovery. We must instead devise new and creative methods to use those basic tenets for our ultimate goals. Spencer, in particular, became almost religious about this new science-driven activism.

He and the other geeks started the pivot by challenging the hard-fought and hard-won orthodoxy of gay men threatened by AIDS from our politically active enclaves in New York and San Francisco, from neighborhoods like Greenwich Village, Chelsea and the Castro. We demanded and got our quick FDA approvals. We used our often gay and truly heroic HIV specialists, becoming experts together, custom tailoring novel regimens from approved and unapproved treatments alike. Over time we got more AZT knockoffs approved, with less and less applicable info on how to use them to actually save lives.

That's when the science geeks made their courageous play. Spencer slammed the status quo. He testified before the FDA about the accelerated approval of the third AZT knockoff, d4T, saying, "The approval of therapies based on inadequate, ambiguous, uninterpretable or incomplete data offers severe and potentially insurmountable difficulties in the future evaluation of new treatments. This is the deck with which the current therapeutic house of cards was built."

It was a wonder watching him wow the FDA, and in meetings with the biggest names in AIDS research, like Anthony Fauci. He earned the respect and the love of his fellow science geeks and those of us lower down the learning curve. We were family, albeit one with lots of incest happening.

Spencer played a key role when TAG launched an audacious campaign challenging Hoffmann-La Roche's blatant attempt to get their protease inhibitor approved without providing the necessary real-world data on how to use it. I remember having my doubts at the time. Should TAG really go out on a limb like this, infuriating most of the other AIDS groups that sought to defend our hard-won regulatory reforms?

Spencer patiently walked me through the arguments for challenging the self-help orthodoxy we ourselves had helped build. He made his case not with science or statistics but with ethics. This was about moving beyond a status quo that provided the illusion of serving only a privileged few. This was about serving the greater good. This was about health care for all, built on a democratization of data, not just drugs. We needed answers, not just access. We needed clinical trial data that could be used for standards of care in all resource settings so that the guessing would end and clear treatment guidelines would save the greatest number of lives.

He was right, of course, and today we have highly detailed treatment guidelines, backed by interpretable data and adjusted for resource settings around the world. Eight million people on standardized regimens. Eight million lives saved.

It's a stunning legacy, and so bittersweet. How could that young gay man, confronted with his own demise, respond with a level of genius that impacted millions of lives but failed to save his own?

This death hit us hard. We have grappled to make sense of it. Why did he stop his meds? What role did his struggle with crystal meth play? Was this a failure of community? Are there lessons we can learn?

These aren't just nosy questions by idle bystanders. There are thousands of survivors of the plague years who, in small ways and large, feel damaged and vulnerable. All of us have felt the pain and helplessness of watching a friend struggle with meth.

The details of Spencer's own struggle with it, or even if there was a struggle this past year, remain shrouded in the wildly divergent opinions of those who knew him. I saw him after his return to New York, and he was the Spencer of old, campily dismissive of almost everything and everyone, cutting in his humor and with grand plans for the future, including walking the red carpet at the Oscars. He shined at the premiere of How to Survive a Plague, comforted Sarah Jessica Parker after a screening a few weeks later and wowed a crowd of health care workers at St. Luke's Hospital during a post-screening panel we did together just a few weeks before he died.

What we do know for sure is that a great deal of his life came crashing down in 2008 because of his struggles with addiction, and he was still far from rebuilding that damage. The debate that has ensued since his death between frustrated community activists and harm reductionists is worth having. We need to find some common ground that is neither complacent nor stigmatizing.

Given Spencer's activism, his treatment interruptions were confounding. There were at least three over the last decade, all resulting in dangerous hospitalizations. When asked why, he would evade, probably realizing that the answers would be too painful to explain.

His last burst of activism was explanation enough. He spoke out forcefully about the depression and PTSD that the surviving generation of gay men from the plague years often suffered from, regardless of HIV status. While many of us, through luck or circumstance, have landed on our feet, all of us, in some way, have unprocessed grief, or guilt, or an overwhelming sense of abandonment from a community that turned its back on us and increasingly stigmatized us, all in an attempt to pretend that AIDS wasn't its problem anymore.

That is Spencer's call to action, and we should take it on.

Maybe we've overanalyzed his death. The whys might be better explained by this young man's complexities, his genius and wit, and the flip side of that coin: his very human imperfections. The larger issues his death raised for our community should be explored but not manipulated from what was, in the end, a man's uniquely beautiful, courageous and fallible life.

It is his activism I will remember.

In Paul Monette's Last Watch of the Night: Essays Too Personal and Otherwise, he writes of his lover's death from AIDS and his own imminent one in the essay "3275," which is the plot number of Monette's gravesite with his lover's on Revelation Hill at Forest Lawn Cemetery:

We queers on Revelation Hill, tucking our skirts about us so as to not touch our Mormon neighbors, died of the greed of power, because we were expendable. If you mean to visit any of us, it had better be to make you strong to fight that power. Take your languor and easy tears somewhere else. Above all, don't pretty us up. Tell yourself: None of this ever had to happen. And then go make it stop, with whatever breath you have left. Grief is a sword, or it is nothing.

WATCH:

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Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-staley/spencer-cox_b_2546621.html

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From bullying to relationships: Mapping our online communications

Jan. 19, 2013 ? When we typically think of kids who are the victims of school bullying, what comes to mind are isolated youth who do not fit in. A new study, however, shows that when that harassment occurs online, the victims tend to be in mainstream social groups -- and they are often friends or former friends, not strangers.

The research is part of a burgeoning field of study into the effects of social media on everyday relationships and behavior. Personality and social psychologists are finding surprising ways in which people's online environments and relationships reflect and influence their real-world ones, as presented January 19 at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) annual meeting in New Orleans.

"Researchers have known for a while that individuals give unique cues about who they are with the things they own, clothes they wear, things they say and do. However, though these cues are informative to knowing who someone truly is, they were not always so easily accessible to our entire social network," says Lindsay Graham of the University of Texas, Austin, one of the presenters. "Now with much of our lives being lived online, and the boundaries having been blurred between who sees these cues and who doesn't, it is all the more important to pay attention to the kinds of impressions we are giving off to those around us."

The emerging image of the cyber-bully

Some statistics indicate that as many as 160,000 students a year skip school just to avoid being harassed, and texting and social media are making it easier than ever to harass classmates. Victimization from schoolmates has been correlated with everything from depression and anxiety to thoughts of suicide and struggles with academics.

To study so-called "cyber-aggression" -- harassment that occurs online -- Diane Felmlee of the Pennsylvania State University and Robert Faris of the University of California, Davis, studied 788 students at a preparatory school in Long Island. They mapped the students' social network structure relative to online harassment: asking students to name their close friends, which schoolmates they have picked on or been mean to, and which schoolmates had picked on them.

What they found was that cyber-aggression occurs in the mainstream of the school and largely among friends, former friends, and former dating partners. They also found that non-heterosexual students were more likely to be the victims. Examples of the types of harassment found online were posting humiliating photos, texting vicious rumors, posting that a student is gay and making fun of him, and pretending to befriend a lonely person.

"Cyber-aggression occurred most often among relatively popular young people, rather than among those on the fringes of the school hierarchy," Felmlee says. "Those engaging in cyber-aggression also were unlikely to target strangers but often were in close relationships with their victims at one point in time, close enough to know how to harm them."

The researchers found that some of the processes that contribute to aggression in school include jockeying for status, enforcing norms of conformity, and competing for girlfriends or boyfriends.

How our online image affects our relationships

Even more innocuous online interactions can prove problematic for offline relationships, psychologists are finding. One new study shows that disclosing more about ourselves online actually lessens intimacy and satisfaction among romantic couples.

"We found that contrary to the research on offline self-disclosure, which shows that more offline disclosure leads to higher intimacy and relationship satisfaction between both romantic couples and friends," says Juwon Lee of the University of Kansas, "online self-disclosure was negatively associated with intimacy and satisfaction between couples."

In a series of studies, Lee and colleagues found that greater usage of Facebook predicted lower satisfaction in romantic relationships but not in friendships. In one study, the researchers created two different mock Facebook walls: one that had a high degree of self-disclosure (e.g., many personal pictures and personal status updates such as "Just had a fight with Mom" or "Pretty interesting training at work today") and one that had a low degree of self-disclosure (e.g., neutral status updates such as "Nice weather today"). They asked the participants to imagine that one of the walls was their partner's and then measured their relationship intimacy and satisfaction. Those who had the walls with high levels of self-disclosure reported less intimacy and satisfaction with their relationships compared to those with the more minimal walls.

"Disclosing a high degree of personal information online, regardless of whether or not the information is related to your partner or relationship, will likely negatively affect your romantic relationship," Lee says.

How our online image matches us offline

Researchers are also investigating how closely the information we disclose online mirrors who we are offline. In two new sets of studies, psychologists looked to World of Warcraft players and to profiles of people who frequent cafes and bars.

"With more and more of our lives being lived both in the physical and virtual worlds, it's important to understand the kinds of impressions we give off to others through the traces we leave behind in our environments," says Graham of the University of Texas, Austin, co-author of the studies with Sam Gosling. "Whether we're creating a screen name or avatar for ourselves, or broadcasting that the bar or coffee shop down the street is one of our frequent hangouts, we are inevitably telling those around us something about who we are as individuals."

In the study about World of Warcraft players, the researchers found that although people can make consistent judgments about a player's personality, those impressions do not match how the players view themselves. In the second set of studies, they examined 50 randomly selected cafes and bars in the Austin area and looked at the profile pictures of people who frequent those establishment using the social networking site Foursquare.com. Just by looking at the profile photos of the frequent patrons for each location, observers were able to assess the personality the typical patron (e.g., extraverted, likeable, narcissistic), the activities likely to occur at the establishment (e.g., drinking, surfing the web, flirting), and the atmosphere or "vibe" of the location itself (e.g., sophisticated, clean, kitsch-y).

For comparison, the researchers sent a second set of observers to the same locations to make the same assessments in person. "Interestingly, we found that when we compared the impressions formed from just the profiles with those formed from the establishments themselves, there was quite a bit of overlap," Graham says. "Impressions were consistent no matter what type of stimuli an observer sees -- suggesting there is some cohesion in the types of people who go to certain places and the places themselves."

How communication channels shape what we say

Aside from creating images of ourselves online, people increasingly use social media -- including Twitter, Facebook, and blogs -- to communicate a variety information, including about consumer products. Exactly which modes of communication we choose, online versus offline, affects how we talk and what we talk about, a new study finds.

Jonah Berger of the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and colleagues analyzed more than 21,000 everyday conversations on- and offline. They found that online posts and texts provide people the opportunity to take pauses in conversations, and thus more carefully craft what they say. As a result, those conversations tend to be more interesting than conversations face-to-face or over the phone.

The researchers measured interest by "coding" the conversations, which came from the Keller Fay Group, a research marketing firm that tracks which brands and products consumers talk about. Brands such Christian Dior and products such as the Audi A6 scored as highly interesting, while brands like Ross and products like insurance scored as not at all interesting.

"These findings shed light on how communication channels shape interpersonal communication and the psychological drivers of word-of-mouth more broadly," says Berger, who is author of the upcoming book Contagious: Why Things Catch On.. "They underscore the old maxim of thinking twice before you open your mouth."

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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Society for Personality and Social Psychology.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/u_EbwWKaFeM/130119185027.htm

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A Hidden Gem In Downtown | Yucatan Home Finders

Colonial Home 2 Bedroom 2.5 Bathroom 1560 ft2

This is a little gem, that looks small from the outside but perfectly formed and beautiful on the inside, come and see.

Contact An Agent

This house is a wonderfully restored gem hidden away between Santa Ana and
Santiago. It is a mix of Yucatecan and Colonial and it is perfect for an investment
or a permanent home.
All the rooms are airy and light allowing for the al fresco feel in the hot summers
and of course there is the upstairs terrace for evening entertaining with friends
and family on those balmy evenings.
This house has all the facilities needed to make it comfortable at low cost living.

Details?..
Lot 6 x 36
Construction 145 m2
2 beds
2.5 baths
110/220 electrics
Air conditiong and ceiling fans
Pool with waterfall features
Gravelled maintained garden
Aluminium and wood windows
Mosquiteros
Lounge
Breakfast kitchen
Dining area
Rooftop terrace
Washer/dryer
Pasta and polished tiles and worktops
Master bedroom off garden
Fideicomiso (Bank Trust)

Total privacy with low cost maintenance, come and see this home !

Source: http://yucatanhomefinders.com/2013/01/a-hidden-gem-in-downtown/

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Peter Johnson Jr. Analyzes the Legal Issues Involved in the Manti ...

9:40 am ET January 18, 2013

The world continues to wait on a response from Notre Dame star Manti Te?o following Wednesday?s shocking revelation that his girlfriend ? who he said had died during the season ? never actually existed. The only communication from Te?o since the Deadspin.com report was a written statement, claiming that he was the victim of an ?incredibly embarrassing? online hoax.

Many are still wondering whether Te?o played a part in setting up the hoax, in which the picture of a California woman was turned into ?Lennay Kekua.? Te?o claims that he carried on the relationship exclusively on the phone and online, and never actually met Kekua.

This morning, Fox and Friends spoke with legal analyst Peter Johnson Jr. to ask whether Te?o, a top NFL prospect, could be at risk for any legal consequences. He said the woman whose picture was used in the hoax could choose to file a lawsuit ?for the unauthorized use of her likeness.?

Johnson said if Te?o was truly duped, he could pursue legal action against the perpetrator of the hoax.

Watch the full discussion:

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MORE OF THE DAY?S TOP STORIES:

Source: http://foxnewsinsider.com/2013/01/18/peter-johnson-jr-analyzes-the-legal-issues-involved-in-the-manti-teo-girlfriend-hoax/

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Kardashian Family Home Swarmed By Cops ? 1025 KSFM

Victor Decolongon/Getty Images

This afternoon someone placed a call to police claiming shots were fired inside the Kardashian home in the Hollywood Hills. The caller claimed to be inside the house as well.

Cops swarmed the home. Helicopters flew above as well. Turned out that it was all a hoax.

Apparently the Kardashians were the victims of ?swatting? where people crank call police claiming to be in trouble at celebrity houses. Tom Cruise fell victim yesterday from the same type of hoax.

Law enforcement tells us the 911 caller gave an address near the Kardashian house, but cops believe the target was the Kardashian home and they went to Kris? door and told her they got a call someone was hiding in her closet.

Sources say most of the family was home and cops ordered them out so they could search it. After it was cleared, the family posed for pictures with the officers.

Source: http://www.tmz.com

Source: http://ksfm.cbslocal.com/2013/01/18/kardashian-family-home-swarmed-by-cops/

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Are Your Written Words Magically Powerful? - Copywriter for ...

Today?s article is about communicating a clear message to the people who most need your help.

As you may know, I write sales copy and do editing for health coaches who are on a mission to liberate people from excess weight, poor eating habits, and a general sense of being ?malnourished? in life.

Some of these health coaches have literally changed people?s lives. I?m blown away by the knowledge they share, their compassion towards their clients, and their ability to hold someone?s hand through challenges both big and small.

I am not a health coach myself, but I?m very into fitness and nutrition and have studied a lot on these topics. And there are certain people in my life ? namely, family members of mine ? whom I have been trying with all my might to get on board with the ?health movement.?

But it?s a waste of energy. These people won?t budge until they make the decision to do so. In fact, they may very well die without ever changing their bad habits.

Which brings me to my point in today?s blog: You can?t force someone to let go of what?s keeping them miserable, stuck, or in pain.

Believe me, I?ve tried.

If you?ve ever attempted to market your business by ?force? ? doing things that feel forced, pushing your message out there but getting no bites, or communicating in a way that doesn?t feel right ? it may be because you?re either targeting the wrong market from an energetic standpoint, or your written communications are not transferring the right energy that you intend. (Been there, done that, too!)

The people whom you can best serve are actually ready for your services. Energetically, they?re willing to receive help. They?re willing to make changes. They?re actually craving someone to come along and help them, and hold their hand through whatever difficulty they?re experiencing ? unlike the stubborn individuals in my family who have zero interest in improving their health!

The only problem is, your market might not know exactly what they need. So you need to make it clear for them. Maybe they?ve never been aware that the particular solution you offer is available. Maybe they don?t have words for the solution itself. (So they don?t know what to Google, and they?re not finding you.)

That?s why it?s so important to convey your message clearly to the people who need your help most. It?s like sending out a radio signal into the universe and those who are ready for it will tune in.

Clear communication is step 1 in attracting the right clients to you. And fortunately for you, written communication is my gift.

If you have a website, sales page, advertisement, or other piece of marketing that just doesn?t seem to be connecting with your audience ? let?s troubleshoot it and see what the deal is. Often times, it?s a structural or a language issue. Sometimes it?s an emotional issue ? and we just need to infuse more YOU into the copy.

Whatever the issue is, it can be resolved. I believe that whole-heartedly, because I?ve devoted my entire life to studying the written word - and I deeply know the magic that happens when one?s words are clear.

I also know the misfortune that can happen when one?s words are unclear.

So if you?ve got a piece of marketing or sales copy that needs troubleshooting, email it to me. I?ll be able to quickly determine what needs to change in the communication in order for you to speak directly to your target market.

Sending you ?clarity,?

Michelle Lopez
Writer, Editor, Copywriter

P.S. In 2013, I am dedicating myself to helping other committed business owners craft clear, compelling messages that light the way for a better life. Think of it as an arrow shooting directly to the heart, and then spreading love. If your business serves people and helps them improve the quality of their life in some way, say hello! I?d love to get acquainted with you!

P.P.S. Check out what some of my past copywriting and editing clients have said.
????????

Thought of the Day: Be impeccable with your word.

Source: http://quickresultscopywriting.com/2013/01/are-your-written-words-magically-powerful/

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Defense: FBI terrorism sting targeted 'a kid'

FILE - This file image released Nov. 27, 2010, by the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office shows Mohamed Osman Mohamud. Testimony from an undercover agent who posed as an al-Qaida recruiter continues Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013, in the trial of Mohamud. A second man, who posed an an AQ bomb expert, is also expected to testify. (AP Photo/Multnomah County Sheriff's Office, file)

FILE - This file image released Nov. 27, 2010, by the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office shows Mohamed Osman Mohamud. Testimony from an undercover agent who posed as an al-Qaida recruiter continues Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013, in the trial of Mohamud. A second man, who posed an an AQ bomb expert, is also expected to testify. (AP Photo/Multnomah County Sheriff's Office, file)

FILE - This file image released Nov. 27, 2010, by the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office shows Mohamed Osman Mohamud. Testimony from an undercover agent who posed as an al-Qaida recruiter continues Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013, in the trial of Mohamud. A second man, who posed an an AQ bomb expert, is also expected to testify. (AP Photo/Multnomah County Sheriff's Office, file)

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) ? For days, prosecutors in an Oregon terrorism trial have hammered jurors with recording after recording in which undercover agents gave the target of an FBI sting a series of chances to reject their advances and turn his back to terror.

The undercover agents were posing as members of al-Qaida, and supported the covert recordings by testifying that they hoped the suspect would walk away from the plot.

That narrative was challenged Thursday by celebratory debriefings ? meetings that were accidentally recorded ? in which undercover agents and their handlers said it was "fantastic" that Mohamed Mohamud asked them for explosives, a crucial step in the sting that culminated with Mohamud's arrest in November 2010.

"We are fortunate in this case that the government forgot to turn off its microphones," federal public defender Steve Wax said.

The inadvertent recordings could prove important to the defense's assertion that Mohamud was entrapped.

Wax said the attitudes that the FBI agents expressed in the recordings should be considered evidence that they were not merely assessing whether Mohamud was a threat, but rather were putting together a prosecutorial case before Mohamud did anything wrong.

"The government argues that they are imploring him not to do this," Wax said, "but when the agents are alone ... they're saying, 'Great, we're thrilled, good job.'"

Mohamud has been charged with attempting to blow up Portland's 2010 Christmas tree-lighting ceremony. The bomb was a fake provided by undercover FBI agents who met with their handlers after in-person conversations with Mohamud.

At least one of them left a recorder running, and among the agents recorded was "Hussein," the pseudonym of an undercover FBI agent posing as an al-Qaida bomb specialist who has testified over two days about his role in the sting.

Wax tried to get the recordings entered into evidence Thursday, but U.S. District Court Judge Garr King declined, saying Wax could play them only if he needed to rebut a statement from "Hussein."

That began an hours-long cat-and-mouse game, with Wax questioning "Hussein" on his intentions during the sting. The agent assented that he was happy Mohamud picked a "sexy" crime and thought the FBI had enough evidence in mid-November to make an arrest.

He didn't challenge Wax on his state of mind during the recordings, so the recordings weren't played.

"There was no sadness that a teenage American kid (met) with supposed al-Qaida figures in the way that Mohamud did?" Wax asked.

"No sadness," the agent responded.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-01-17-Oregon%20Car-Bomb%20Plot/id-9193339ff73f41e59c78f694bbdc4f33

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The Android 4.1 Jelly Bean For The Samsung Galaxy S II Will Begin Rolling Out In February Beginning With Singapore

So for those of you wondering where in the world the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update for your Samsung Galaxy S II device is, Samsung has an answer for you; Singapore. At least the update will start off in Singapore and then branch out to all the other countries later.

The update will also be a universal update, meaning it should be available for all variants of the device within the next month or so. So for all of you with AT&T, Sprint, or T-Mobile variants of the Samsung Galaxy S II, no worries, you?re going to be covered.

Here?s what you can expect from the Samsung Galaxy S II Jelly Bean update:

1. Platform upgrade Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich ? Android 4.1 Jelly Bean

• Improved Home screens and improved scrolling performance
• Improved usability for some applications

2. Preloaded applications

• Add Help
• Add Google+
• Add +Talk
• Add Play Book
• Add Play Movie

3. Newly added/improved functions

• Add Easy mode, Block mode
• Improved Camera functions: function like Pause while recording and more
• Add Smart Stay
• New functions like Pop-up play and more
• Improved some functions & applications usability

Singapore will receive the update starting in February, meaning we?re very close to receiving the official Samsung Galaxy S II updates over here in the states.

Are you a proud owner of a Samsung Galaxy S II? Will you be downloading the official Samsung Galaxy S II Jelly Bean update? Or have you already found peace with a custom rom?

CNET

Source: http://www.droiddog.com/android-blog/2013/01/the-android-4-1-jelly-bean-for-the-samsung-galaxy-s-ii-will-begin-rolling-out-in-february-beginning-with-singapore/

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Woodson Wanderings: Shaker Exhibition Jogs Family Memories

By Catie Anderson, curator of education

Woodson Art Museum staff can easily get attached to exhibitions, and I have to admit that I?ll be sad to see the Shaker exhibition exit our galleries next week. This winter, Gather Up the Fragments: The Andrews Shaker Collection offered visitors a journey back to an intriguing chapter of American history. The story of the rise and decline of Shaker communities in America can be told through their inventions, craftsmanship, and utilitarian objects currently on view in the galleries. The Shakers, one of the longest surviving religious communities in America, were a dynamic and ever-evolving group of artisans and innovators.

The Andrews collection of decorative arts and Shaker artifacts is stunning in both breadth and quality. A collection this large ? over 200 objects! ? rarely travels and its presence in Wausau will not soon be forgotten.

I had an affinity for Shaker material culture before the arrival of this exhibition. I grew up an only child whose parents enjoyed antiques, historic homes, and museums. One of my family?s favorite get-away destinations for a fall road trip was Pleasant Hill, Kentucky ? one of the best-preserved and most-popular historic Shaker villages open to the public. Pleasant Hill is the only Shaker settlement where visitors can stay overnight in the original rooms of stately dwelling houses carefully preserved to convey the community?s zenith in the mid-nineteenth century. I went through a brief phase of feigned athleticism as a pre-teen, and I remember losing a baseball down a gutter while playing catch with my dad at Pleasant Hill. I remember trying corn mush for the first time in the Pleasant Hill dining hall one morning and after adding a pad of butter and generous amounts of maple syrup found it to be quite palatable. My parents will drive up to Wausau from Chicago this weekend to visit ? just in time to take in the exhibition before it closes on January 20. I look forward to recalling our visits to Pleasant Hill together as we create new memories in the galleries.
I never would have guessed that the Shakers ? a community of individuals so foreign to me ? would evoke such memories. But I suppose that?s what makes museum experiences so special; they can spark a memory or be the basis for a new one.

Have you created a museum memory in the New Year? It?s the perfect time to bring the family together and make a connection to art and one another. I promise, you?ll never see things the same way again.

Source: http://woodsonartmuseum.blogspot.com/2013/01/shaker-exhibition-jogs-family-memories.html

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Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity Takes Hold in October

Posted 9:50 PM January 15th, 2013 by Binh Ngo

After pushing Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity from its original November 21, 2012 release date to sometime in 2013, Warner Bros. has decided to slot the movie for October 4. Unless WB changes its mind again, we'll finally get to see what Cuaron's ambitious $80 million sci-fi thriller is all about.

Gravity stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney as astronauts who are tethered to each other and are left drifting in space after a shuttle accident. The two actors are, reportedly, the only people we'll see in the movie, so it looks like we'll be in for lots of talking and long silences.

$80 million for a movie with only two actors? You're not alone. We'll see where the money was spent when the movie comes out.

Gravity was originally developed for Angelina Jolie, with Robert Downey Jr. playing Clooney's role. The two exited the projected back in 2010, leaving the openings to be filled by Bullock and Clooney.

In the October 4th slot, Gravity will be facing competition from Sin City: A Dame to Kill For, Paranoia, The Delivery Man, and the re-release of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (in 3D!).

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1926679/news/1926679/

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Why Online Dating Doesn't Threaten Monogamy [EXPERT] | Coach ...

Are you looking for love online?

A response to Dan Slater's article "A Million First Dates."

An article in the Atlantic Monthly written by Dan Slater claims that monogamy is on the decline because online dating makes it so easy to dump your relationship and find a new one. Oh really, Dan? Seems like you haven't talked to any of my over-40 dating coaching clients. For them, finding a new relationship online isn't so simple.

More from YourTango: 5 Tips for a Great First Phone Call

Men and women in mid-life complain equally about how difficult it is to find decent partners online. My dating coaching clients struggle to connect with enough appealing prospects to find one for a relationship. Both sexes grumble about how the other gender hardly responds to emails when they try to start a conversation.

While Dan relies on "his friend Jacob's" Internet dating experience, that hardly seems like a large enough sample to draw any proper conclusions. I have found that singles tend to develop arbitrary criteria for comparison of potential partners, causing them to become pickier. This limits possibilities rather than increasing them. For example, for many women, good spelling is crucial. Meanwhile, I bet not one of my dating coaching clients has put "good spelling" on their list of qualities for an ideal mate. After all, being a good speller doesn't make you loyal, loving or even smart.

A little perspective on the issue reveals that online dating is merely a method to help people meet people; it is not to blame for lower levels of monogamy, if they even exist.

More from YourTango: Why Didn't He Call? How To Handle Rejection [EXPERT]

In a follow-up article about online dating, Harry Reis, a professor at the University of Rochester, refutes much of Dan's commentary. I loved his subhead, which promised that monogamy is safe even with the advent of new technology. Reis' piece says that no researchers have noted a change in the breakup or divorce rate since online dating came into being when Match.com launched in 1995. Turns out, marriage statistics have not changed much since that time, although people are waiting longer to marry. Keep reading ...

More dating advice from YourTango:

Source: http://www.yourtango.com/experts/coach-ronnie-ann-ryan/can-we-blame-online-dating-decrease-monogamy

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