Heather Mac Donald , originally uploaded by Lindsay Beyerstein . Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan institute sniffs out cultural rot in the greeting card aisle: The mandatory affiliate management software rek to the greeting card display, whether for an artificial holiday such as Father’s Day or for a birthday, is occasion for fear and loathing. There is only one melancholy upside to the rising muck of cards devoted to flatulence, impotence, and outsized mammary glands: Hallmark provides a darn good barometer of social breakdown—transformed, with all the cheerful non-judgmentalism of capitalism, into a business opportunity. For years now, as one stared with increasing despair at the studly stud, dirty old man, and bathroom “humor,” new categories of card were blossoming luxuriantly. “Celebrating your divorce” or “For my second stepmother” cards began popping up regularly among the “From the dog” or “Incompetent duffer” standards. And this year’s display at a Manhattan stationer’s did not disappoint. In the small section devoted to Hallmark’s “African-American” line (of course there is one; it is called “Mahogany”), two card pockets advertised “For mother on Father’s Day” options. One card had apparently already sold out. The other was a tasteful and ingeniously designed card in the Mahogany line’s characteristic earthtones, with a lovely charcoal drawing of a beautiful black woman in one-quarter view.

A high voltage power line in Arizona that would have cut across sensitive wildlife habitat, including the KOFA National Wildlife Refuge, has been struck down, thanks in no small part to Sierra Club grassroots efforts. By a 5-0 vote, on May 30 the Arizona Corporation Commission rejected the Devers-Palo Verde No. 2 Transmission Line Project , proposed by Southern California Edison to run 230 miles from a generating station in Arizona to a substation in California. Sierra Club volunteers Jon Findley and Don Begalke, above, were among the Arizona Chapter leaders who spoke out against the power line at Corporation Commission meetings, gave expert testimony, and encouraged others to get involved. "This is an unprecedented decision and a huge win for everyone who cares about our wildlife refuges and other protected lands," says Arizona Sierra Club organizer Sandy Bahr, below, who wrote and distributed alerts, commented on the draft EIR/EIS, testified against the power line, wrote articles for the chapter newsletter, and worked closely with attorney Tim Hogan of the Arizona Center for the Law and Public Interest when the Sierra Club intervened in the backup generator ine siting process.

Jane Dysart has received the Karen Switt Award from the Leadership and Management Division. The Award is sponsored credit report services y C. Berger & Co. Pictured, from left, are Joel Berger, Jane Dysart, Carol Berger, and Doris Helfer (LMD Awards Committee Chair).

Godfrey Parkin has an article , " Meaningful greatest hits top zz etrics Beyond ROI " that makes a good case for looking at other metrics, in addition to ROI [return on investment] when evaluating the impact of an e-Learning program. This article's approach on metrics is similar to the approach discussed in our e-Learning Best Practices document. An excerpt on e-learning business metrics from the white-paper is below: Use business metrics to help evaluate and validate learning priorities: Use numbers and statistics that make sense to most managers when building a case for your e-Learning initiative and learning priorities. For example, your department analysis tells you that you currently have a 35% failure rate for every new sales person that starts at your company. You know that it costs you approximately $15,000 (probably even more when you figure in hidden labor costs, opportunity costs, etc) to bring a qualified sales person on board. If you start an average of 2 sales people a month, your company has lost $126,000 over the year. If in the first year you reduce the failure rate just 5% you have saved your company $18,000 or 15% and even more if you start looking at other metrics that are impacted by your LMS initiative like lost production time, etc. If you reduce the failure rate to 20%, you have saved your company $54,000. Dave Boggs, SyberWorks

In a grand stroke, I decided to steal a titling motif from one of the bloggers I read regularly (it's ok, though, because he probably stole it, too)... like it? I think it's kind of interesting and different. I did put up a quick post last week about my weight, but in truth, I've been gone from blogging for nearly 3 weeks. I've kept to my diet program the whole time... but my back has just been too out of it to allow me to blog much, and since it's been doing a little better, I've simply been distracted by everything else that I hadn't been doing while sick. Before I get into the sob story, though, here's lead loan mortgage sales ome good news from yesterday... which was weigh-day 9. My weight was 267... a 5 pound loss. Not bad for laying on your back all week. Here's the new ticker (though you probably don't need it... the old link in the last post links to the same image... just the image changes when my weight changes): It won't be long before I'm halfway there! Ok, back to the sob story... I'd written about my back that was bothering me, and my expensive Dr. office visit for him to tell me I was having muscle spasms. Well, my back was feeling completely better, and then, all of a sudden, it got dramatically worse. Two Sunday nights ago, I was sitting in the bathroom on the toilet (nice... dignified). After I was "all done," I reached over in a probably-unusual-but-completely-benign way to flush, stand up, and start getting my clothes back on all at the same time.

Jane Dysart has received the Karen Switt Award from the Leadership tri for the cure nd Management Division. The Award is sponsored by C. Berger & Co. Pictured, from left, are Joel Berger, Jane Dysart, Carol Berger, and Doris Helfer (LMD Awards Committee Chair).

A high voltage power line in Arizona that would have cut across sensitive wildlife habitat, including the KOFA National Wildlife Refuge, has been struck down, thanks in no small part to Sierra Club grassroots efforts. By a 5-0 vote, on May 30 the Arizona Corporation Commission rejected the Devers-Palo Verde No. 2 Transmission Line Project , proposed by Southern California Edison to run 230 miles from a generating station in Arizona to a substation in California. davids bridal shop ierra Club volunteers Jon Findley and Don Begalke, above, were among the Arizona Chapter leaders who spoke out against the power line at Corporation Commission meetings, gave expert testimony, and encouraged others to get involved. "This is an unprecedented decision and a huge win for everyone who cares about our wildlife refuges and other protected lands," says Arizona Sierra Club organizer Sandy Bahr, below, who wrote and distributed alerts, commented on the draft EIR/EIS, testified against the power line, wrote articles for the chapter newsletter, and worked closely with attorney Tim Hogan of the Arizona Center for the Law and Public Interest when the Sierra Club intervened in the line siting process.

Godfrey Parkin has an article , " Meaningful Metrics Beyond ROI " that makes a good case for looking at other metrics, in addition to ROI [return on investment] when evaluating the impact of an e-Learning program. This article's approach on metrics is similar to the approach discussed in our e-Learning Best Practices document. An excerpt on e-learning business metrics from the white-paper is below: Use business metrics to help evaluate and validate learning priorities: Use numbers and statistics that make sense to most managers when building a case for your e-Learning initiative and learning priorities. For example, your free spyware downloads epartment analysis tells you that you currently have a 35% failure rate for every new sales person that starts at your company. You know that it costs you approximately $15,000 (probably even more when you figure in hidden labor costs, opportunity costs, etc) to bring a qualified sales person on board. If you start an average of 2 sales people a month, your company has lost $126,000 over the year. If in the first year you reduce the failure rate just 5% you have saved your company $18,000 or 15% and even more if you start looking at other metrics that are impacted by your LMS initiative like lost production time, etc. If you reduce the failure rate to 20%, you have saved your company $54,000. Dave Boggs, SyberWorks

Godfrey Parkin has an article , " Meaningful Metrics Beyond ROI " that makes a good case for looking at other metrics, in addition to ROI [return on investment] when evaluating the impact of an e-Learning program. This article's approach on metrics is similar to the approach discussed in our e-Learning Best Practices document. An excerpt on e-learning business metrics from the white-paper is below: Use business metrics to help evaluate and validate learning priorities: Use numbers and statistics that make sense to most managers when building a case for your e-Learning initiative and learning priorities. For example, your department analysis tells you that you currently have a 35% failure rate for every new sales person that starts at your company. free spyware program ou know that it costs you approximately $15,000 (probably even more when you figure in hidden labor costs, opportunity costs, etc) to bring a qualified sales person on board. If you start an average of 2 sales people a month, your company has lost $126,000 over the year. If in the first year you reduce the failure rate just 5% you have saved your company $18,000 or 15% and even more if you start looking at other metrics that are impacted by your LMS initiative like lost production time, etc. If you reduce the failure rate to 20%, you have saved your company $54,000. Dave Boggs, SyberWorks