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Articles tagged with: Across the Country
Don't Arm Teachers; Arm Communities with Prevention Supports
Rachel Marshall Monday, 05 March 2018 Posted in 2018, Across the Country
By Rachell Marshall, Federal Policy Counsel
One week after a gunman took the lives of 17 students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (MSD) in Parkland, Florida, students across the country stood in solidarity with students from MSD and walked out of their classes to demand action on gun control.
Youth Justice in Alabama: Positive Steps
Brian Evans Wednesday, 10 January 2018 Posted in 2018, Campaigns
By Brian Evans, State Campaigns Director
From 2010-2015, an average of 600 children were tried as adults in Alabama each year; most of them were sent to adult court automatically, without any judicial review. It is well known that the adult system is worse, both for the young people sent there, and because of higher recidivism rates, for the society that sent them there. In an election year where reactionary, '80s-style, "tough on crime" rhetoric is making an unwelcome comeback, it is refreshing to see that Alabama apparently intends to move – albeit slowly – in the "smart on crime" direction.
Brian Evans Thursday, 05 January 2017 Posted in 2017, Campaigns
2016 was in many ways – let's face it – a wretched year. But for the work to protect youth from the horrors of the adult criminal justice system, 2016 was actually a pretty good year.
The states of South Carolina and Louisiana passed laws to raise the age of adult court jurisdiction to 18. The states of Vermont and California both ended the practice of allowing prosecutors, without judicial review, to "direct file" juveniles into adult court.
A new law in Indiana will allow some youth charged as adults to transfer back into the juvenile system, and a new law in Arizona will keep some kids charged as adults out of adult jails while they await their trials. And Washington, D.C., included removing youth from adult jails in its Comprehensive Youth Justice Amendment Act of 2016.
Guest Column: Words that Hide the Reality of the Juvenile Justice System
Laurie Spivey, MST Expert, Multisystemic Therapy Services Thursday, 20 October 2016 Posted in 2016
By Laurie Spivey, MST Expert, Multisystemic Therapy Services
A look behind the euphemisms that proliferate the system
Imagine that you are sitting in court with your teenage son or daughter. The judge orders your child to six months living in a "training school" to address the concerns of the court. What would you imagine that to be? Something like a military school or a boot camp? A cluster of cabins in the woods where kids do ropes courses and practice trust falls?
The truth is that most training schools are thinly veiled youth prisons. Commonly referred to as "secure placements," they are actually cinder-block buildings behind barbed-wire where children wear orange jumpsuits, rubber shoes and handcuffs. They live in cellblocks and behind bars, get limited contact with their families and are at high risk of sexual and physical abuse. There is an intentional glazing over of the horrors within these facilities, under-reporting of crimes against young people behind bars and a number of creative euphemisms aimed at shielding us from the truth.
NEW POLL: Floridians Share Thoughts on Criminal Justice Reform
Jade Kendrick Thursday, 06 October 2016 Posted in 2016, Across the Country
A recent survey conducted by the James Madison Institute and the Charles Koch Institute gives deep insight of Floridians' thoughts on criminal justice reform in their state. The survey results couldn't have come at a more perfect time. Recently, Florida prosecutor, Angela Corey, lost her chance at reelection in the primary. Corey was notorious for pursuing harsh sentences. She is notorious for failing to get a conviction on George Zimmerman, the man who killed Trayvon Martin. She did a number of other injustices during her eight years in office. Corey charged a 12 year old boy named Cristian Fernandez with first degree murder of his 2 year old brother, David. Cristian, David, and their other brother and sister had been left at home, without supervision, while his mother was at work. That's when David received a serious head injury and died. Cristian's mother came home and took Cristian to school. She would wait eight more hours before taking David to the hospital. While the details around how David was injured are still foggy, Corey immediately deemed Cristian the perpetrator. Cristian was held in an adult jail until his conviction where he sentenced to life without parole. Corey would later fight Cristian's transfer to a juvenile facility. Corey doubled the number of felony cases in Florida where minors were charged as adults. It would be one of Cristian's lawyers who challenged and defeated Corey.
So what does her losing the election have to do with this survey?
For one, they show a drastic change in attitude with the Florida population. 72% of Floridians believe that it is time to reform the criminal system in Florida and 64% believe that there are too many nonviolent offenders serving time. The opinions show the possibility that kicking out hard prosecutors means that Floridians want different sentencing practices. 62% of Floridians also said they trust judges over prosecutors to decide if a minor should be charged as an adult. That contradicts Angela Corey's efforts to increase the number of felony cases for minors charged as adults.
The survey is on par with changing laws in Florida. Recently, the state legislature repealed the "10-20 Life" law that required judges to give mandatory sentences to gun involved offenses. Unfortunately, this repeal will not apply to offenders currently incarcerated, even though 63% of Floridians agreed that it should apply to those already in jail. However, this is still a major step for Florida's criminal justice reform. Another more preventive law Florida has passed a law regarding mental health and Medicare. This plan requires Medicare to offer comprehensive treatment plans for patients diagnosed with a mental illness. Because people with mental illnesses will have better access to treatment, in the long run, the number of mentally ill people with a criminal record will decrease. Still in discussion in the Florida state legislature is the Direct File bill. This bill would limit the power prosecutors have when deciding to charge a juvenile as an adult. Currently, the law states that if a juvenile, no matter the age, commits a certain offense, such as murder or sexual battery, the prosecutor can send them straight to adult court. Under the new bill, state attorneys can only use direct file for juveniles between the ages of 16 and 18. And the prosecutor can only direct file if it involves the 21 offenses listed in the bill. While the first goal of the bill was to make transfers only to be decided by a judge, supporters of the bill had to compromise in order to move it along. The Human Rights Watch found that Florida has more juveniles transferred into the adult court than any other state. The Florida government has been slow to keep up with public opinion. With new legislation being introduced and passed, hopefully criminal justice reform will begin to take effect.
Guest Column: Violence at Spring Creek: It's not the kids, it's the culture
Rebecca T. Wallace and Elizabeth Logemann Guest columnists Friday, 30 September 2016 Posted in 2016
By: Rebecca T. Wallace and Elizabeth Logemann Guest columnists
Originally posted in the Colorado Springs Gazette
In a recent Gazette article, it was reported that Spring Creek Correctional Facility is again erupting with assaults and riots, leaving youths and staff frightfully unsafe. After more than two years of hearing these kinds of reports from Spring Creek, it has become increasingly clear that the facility is plagued by an unforgiving and punitive culture that breeds violence and chaos. Staff now attribute the source of the violence to restrictions on their use of solitary confinement and other punitive measures. That should send off alarm bells. When staff charged with rehabilitating at-risk youths lament that they can't do their job unless they can lock children in torturous and widely discredited solitary confinement, we know there is a serious culture problem at the facility.
Psychological and rehabilitative experts from around the country are unanimous in their finding that solitary confinement hurts children and is wholly counterproductive to rehabilitation. What's more, it has been proved that evidence-based, nationally accepted best practices - which rely on building one-on-one relationships rather than isolation and restraint - work to reduce recidivism while keeping children and staff safe from violence.
Look to Missouri, which has adopted an approach to youth corrections that is founded on the idea that children are a work in progress and that all youths are redeemable and changeable. After shutting down its large and notoriously violent juvenile detention facility in Boonville in 1983, Missouri began to build small group homes and adopted a rehabilitative model where staff are strongly discouraged from using seclusion and restraint to manage even violent youths. Youths are instead immersed in an intensive, therapeutic treatment program led by development specialists rather than correctional guards and are provided a wide range of vocational and academic opportunities. Facility staff keep children safe primarily through relationship building and compassionate de-escalation, rather than through solitary confinement and restraint. The results are astounding. Compared with youth correctional staff in other states, Missouri staff are 14 times less likely to be assaulted. Compared with their peers in other states, Missouri in-custody youths are 4.5 times less likely to be assaulted, 17 times less likely to be placed in mechanical restraints and 228 times less likely to be placed in isolation. Recidivism rates are some of the lowest in the country, and high school graduation rates are on par with Missouri children who are out of custody.
These results show unequivocally that when children are treated with compassion, while given individualized attention and opportunities for meaningful growth, detention facilities become safer. Pleas from the Spring Creek staff to return to punitive measures, like increased solitary confinement and more restraints, demonstrate with clarity that the facility is on the wrong path. And it is no wonder. While leadership within the Division of Youth Corrections has long said it is committed to implementing nationally accepted best practices and curbing solitary confinement and restraint, it has seen four directors in the past two years - the most recent of whom departed in the wake of the latest Spring Creek scandal. Spring Creek has also seen at least three different facility directors during that same time period. Without consistent, committed leadership at the top, we cannot expect to see meaningful cultural change among line staff.
Finally, although you would not know it from staff accounts, the source of limitations on Spring Creek staff's ability to use solitary confinement is state law that has been in place since 1999. That law prohibits solitary confinement of youths except during an ongoing emergency. In 2014, our child advocacy coalition discovered that staff were placing children in isolation for days, weeks and even months at a time to punish them, in direct violation of the law. This was occurring at precisely the same time Spring Creek staff were complaining of rampant violence in the facility. Clearly, then, it is not the use or nonuse of solitary confinement that is driving the violence.
After more than two years of complaints and assaults, we must acknowledge the true root cause - a persistent punitive culture that must change.
Rebecca T. Wallace is ACLU of Colorado staff attorney and policy counsel, and Elizabeth Logemann is Colorado Juvenile Defender Center (CJDC) supervising attorney.
New OJJDP Report Shows New Trends in Residential Placement of Juveniles
Wednesday, 01 June 2016 Posted in 2016, Research & Policy
By Anne-Lise Vray, Juvenile Justice Fellow
A new report of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention analyzes the juvenile residential placement data for the year 2013, and finds that overall, more than 60,000 youth were in residential placement across the United States on October 23, 2013, a drop of over 12% compare to 2011 and of more than 44% since 2003.
While this report shows some encouraging trends, some others are worrisome. On the same date, 2,524 youth were locked up for status offenses, i.e. for misbehavior such as running away from home, skipping school, or speaking back to an adult – actions that are not considered crimes when committed by adults. Although the number of kids incarcerated for status offenses has decreased, it still represents almost 5% of all juveniles in residential placement, which is proportionally about the same as in 1997.
The report cautions that state variations in upper age of juvenile court jurisdiction influence placement rates. It points out that if all other factors were equal, one would expect higher juvenile placement rates in states where older youth are under juvenile court jurisdiction. Juvenile placement rates are also influenced by extended jurisdiction laws and transfer laws. States with laws allowing for youth to stay in juvenile facilities beyond the upper age of juvenile jurisdiction have higher placement rates than states with stricter laws, while states with broad transfer provisions would be expected to have lower juvenile placement rates than other states.
With those caveats in mind, the report highlights the geographic disparities in juvenile placement rates on the state level. The District of Columbia, South Dakota, and Wyoming have the highest juvenile placement rate per 100,000, while Vermont, Massachusetts and Hawaii have the lowest. Nationwide in 2013, 173 juvenile offenders were in placement for every 100,000 juveniles in the U.S. population.
"Raise the Age", "Direct File", and More: States Pursuing Youth Justice Reforms in 2016
Brain Evans Wednesday, 11 May 2016 Posted in 2016, Across the Country
By Brian Evans, CFYJ State Campaign Coordinator
As the year 2016 moves towards its half-way point, one trend has been unmistakable: states are moving to keep more youth out of the adult criminal justice system. And it's not a regional but a national phenomenon. Led by South Carolina, which is poised to "Raise the Age" of adult court jurisdiction from 17 to 18 – bills have passed both chambers and only minor reconciling of bill language remains – states are adopting a variety of policies designed to treat youth as youth.
Michigan and Louisiana have both seen "Raise the Age" bills pass in one of their legislative chambers – Michigan in the House, Louisiana in the Senate – and in both cases the prospect of the bills ultimately becoming law this year is good. In New York and Louisiana, the governors have vocally backed the "Raise the Age" efforts. In fact, eight of the 9 remaining states that have ages of criminal court jurisdiction lower than 18 have introduced legislation to "Raise the Age" over the past 2 legislative sessions.
But current reform efforts aren't limited to "Raise the Age". In Louisiana, Michigan, New York and Missouri, proposed reforms go beyond "Raise the Age" to include larger efforts to change the ways youth are treated by the criminal justice system.
In Alabama and Missouri, proposals to remove pre-trial youth from adult jails have made serious progress. Alabama's bill passed in the Senate but fell short of the finish line when their session ended on May 6, while Missouri's bill looks very likely to become law. Similar legislation has been proposed in Washington, D.C., as part of an omnibus youth justice package.
Indiana has passed a law allowing some youth sent to adult court to access to a "reverse transfer" process that could send them back into the juvenile system, and in Vermont the power of prosecutors to "Direct File" youth into adult court has been drastically curtailed.
In Florida, where such prosecutorial discretion is used more than in any other state, a bill to curb "Direct File" passed unanimously out of two Senate committees before running out of time at the end of that state's short 60-day session. Another attempt to reform the use of "Direct File" by prosecutors is underway in California, where a governor-supported ballot initiative on the issue may go before voters in November.
While there are still too many mechanisms for transferring youth into the adult system, it is clear that the states have come to recognize how harmful and counter-productive such transfers are. The results of this year will be better justice for more youth, with powerful positive momentum and strong prospects for even greater gains in the coming years.
Promising Findings of Louisiana Raise the Age Study
Brittany Harwell, CFYJ Policy Fellow Friday, 18 March 2016 Posted in 2016, Across the Country, Research & Policy
On February 1st the Louisiana legislature released a report supporting the need for, and impact of, raising the age of juvenile court jurisdiction. This report was commissioned by the legislature through Resolution No. 73 in 2015 and completed by The Institute for Public Health and Justice at the Louisiana State University's Health Science Center. The ultimate recommendation of this comprehensive report is that Louisiana should raise the age of juvenile court jurisdiction to include 17 year old offenders. Louisiana remains one of nine states that fails to recognize that youth under 17 year olds should not be prosecuted automatically in the adult criminal justice system.
The three big findings that the report made are:
1) 17 year olds are developmentally different than adults and should be treated as such;
2) the Louisiana juvenile justice system has the capacity to manage and rehabilitate added 17 year old youth;
3) other state have found that raise the age impact has had substantially less of an impact on their systems than was predicted and Louisiana should be the same and may even have substantial fiscal savings
It further recommends that a five year comprehensive plan be developed to address a variety of issues specific to youth such as transition, community based interventions, services while in detention, and other ways to ensure that youth are rehabilitated and do not recidivate.
The report notes that the state of Louisiana has not reviewed the age of juvenile jurisdiction in more than 100 years. Due to the growth of the law, social science, and brain science it is important for Louisiana to raise the age to ensure that its juvenile justice system is not stuck in the past. "Louisiana's successful juvenile justice reforms, and an overall decline in juvenile crime reflective of national trends, have opened up system capacity for raising the age that may not have previously existed."
The report highlights current brain science on adolescents and specifically how 17 year olds are unable to consistently reason and make responsible decisions. Due to this increased awareness of how adolescent brains work, the courts, including the Supreme Court, have recognized that treating 17 year olds the same as adults is not appropriate. The data shows that 17 year olds are capable of change when rehabilitated and generally stop reoffending. Most delinquent behavior does not follow the youth into adulthood.
The effects of the adult system on youths are troubling because rates of juvenile recidivism rise when placed in adult facilities. Additionally, youth are subject to a variety of harms both physical and psychological when they are subject to adult courts and facilities. To address the issue of placing 17 year olds in adult facilities the report examined the capacity of existing juvenile facilities. The report found that on any given day only facilities are only 56% filled, "…it can be estimated that 258 beds could be available on any given day in Louisiana's juvenile detention facilities." The addition of 17 year olds would not cause the current facilities to be overburdened.
The Louisiana Center for Children's Rights (LCCR) has been a vital advocate for Raise the Age Reform and helping shepherd a bill into law. Raise the Age Louisiana Act, SB 324 will ensure that 17 year olds are under the jurisdiction of the juvenile courts. LCCR has reported that, "polling by LSU shows that 66% of Louisianans – a majority of both parties – believe that 17-year-olds should be included in the juvenile justice system." On March 15, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards has announced that he supports SB 324 and raising the age. Widespread support from Louisianans will ensure that legislators know that their constituencies want what is best both for communities and for adolescents, to raise the age.
For more information on how to get involved in Louisiana's reform efforts, follow us on Facebook and check out the links below:
LCCR
Full Text of SB 324
Raise the Age Bills Flourish in 2016
Tuesday, 15 March 2016 Posted in 2016, Research & Policy
Written by: CFYJ policy intern Nils Franco
In five states, legislators and governors alike are calling for new action this year to allow 16- and 17-year-olds back into the juvenile justice system, where youth can receive much-needed, age-appropriate rehabilitative or educational services. In two more states, lawmakers recently proposed including young adults under 21 in the juvenile justice system.
In nine states across the country, the juvenile justice system has an unusual upper age limit – that is, the juvenile system entirely excludes youth after their 17th or even 16th birthday. No matter the crime an older child is accused of committing in these states, the state handles the case entirely in the adult justice system.
These counterproductive state-based policy changes occurred in the late 1990's, and reform took root just a few years ago. Five states have raised the age of juvenile jurisdiction to cover all ages under 18 in seven years. Connecticut started the trend in 2009, and Mississippi, Massachusetts, Illinois, and New Hampshire followed in 2010, 2012, 2013, and 2014, respectively. This year, with a strong basis for action, so-called "Raise the Age" reform seems to be spreading quickly.
Lawmakers in five of the remaining nine states – Louisiana, Wisconsin, New York, Michigan, and South Carolina – have proposed legislation to bring 16- and 17-year-olds back under the jurisdiction of the juvenile justice system.
In Connecticut, the same governor who oversaw the state's 2009 Raise the Age reform now calls to further expand juvenile jurisdiction up until a young adult's 21st birthday. In Illinois, which also implemented Raise the Age reform, a four-committee hearing on raising the age further to 21 prompted Rep. Laura Fine to sponsor one bill to bring misdemeanor cases for young adults under age 21 to juvenile court, and another to bring all cases for adults under age 21 to the juvenile system.
After Louisiana Senator JP Morrell introduced Raise the Age legislation (SB 322) last week, Governor Edwards and Louisiana Chief Justice Johnson announced their support for the bill. Edwards included the bill in his 2016 legislative agenda, and Johnson argued favorably for the bill in her State of the Judiciary address. This reform comes after years of advocacy from a coalition of state-based groups, and after the state's legislature asked Louisiana State University to study the problem last year. That report published in February and found that reform "would benefit public safety, promote youth rehabilitation, and create long-term savings."
Governor Cuomo of New York (where juvenile jurisdiction ends after a youth's 16th birthday) proposed Raise the Age language in his budget proposal and listed raising the age among his State of the State priorities for the coming year. Jennifer March, executive director of the Citizen's Commission for Children of New York, hailed the governor's advocacy, noting the state's age-inappropriate jurisdictional age limit "increases recidivism and reduces the chance for youth to turn their lives around. We can and must do better for our youth and our communities."
Reform also made its way to South Carolina, where Senate Bill 916, introduced by Democratic Senator Gerald Malloy, will raise the age to 18 and expand the rights of youth to have their case reviewed. That bill was recently referred to a subcommittee chaired by Malloy, who in February discussed past work to separate minors from adults in adult facilities. "We just have to keep changing minds," Malloy remarked at a panel event.
Missouri's legislature will also consider Raise the Age legislation among five other bills in both the state house and state senate. The Raise the Age bill, HB 1812, was introduced by Republican representative Ron Hicks. Hicks also successfully passed Jonathan's Law, another CFYJ-supported bill, unanimously in the 2013 House session.
In Michigan, an impressive 20 bills introduced in this session of the House of Representatives would reform the transfer of youth to the adult criminal justice system. Taking a piecemeal approach, eight of these bills would raise the age of juvenile jurisdiction in the state from youths' 17th birthday to their 18th birthday.
The editorial board of The Detroit News describes the bills as "an important step in the quest to reform Michigan's criminal justice system." Noting that Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has not yet endorsed the package, the board reminds readers that "what Michigan has been doing in terms of juvenile justice is not working." A similar editorial from the Battle Creek Enquirer calls Raise the Age "a rare issue that can unite Republican and Democratic lawmakers."
Across Lake Michigan, Wisconsin legislators moved this year to capitalize on that rare bipartisan momentum, introducing bicameral legislation to stop sending first-time, nonviolent 17-year-old offenders automatically to the adult justice system.
This year's reform opportunities offer states a unique ability to limit children's needless exposure to trauma, abuse, and criminality in adult prisons and jails. The juvenile justice system offers youth the resources needed to overcome traumatic experiences and rehabilitate after committing an offense.
Children have a particularly strong psychological capacity to learn from past decisions, if the opportunity is allowed. Creating more childhood trauma in a prison setting will do the opposite. Raise the Age legislation is therefore common sense: children cannot be funneled into the adult criminal justice system without long-term consequences to the youth, their communities, and to public safety.
Meanwhile, two remaining states – North Carolina, and Texas – are likely to introduce reforms in upcoming legislative sessions, especially as local organizations continue to underscore the unjust and counterproductive effects of nonstandard jurisdictional age limits.
On the other hand, Georgia's legislature and governor have not yet acted or expressed interest in moving toward reform. In contrast with the leadership shown across the country by other states, Georgia's leaders stand out in their inaction.
This article was updated on March 22nd to include new actions from Louisiana's legislature, governor, and chief justice.
After Louisiana Senator JP Morrell introduced Raise the Age legislation (SB 322) last week, Governor Edwards and Louisiana Chief Justice Johnson announced their support for the bill. Edwards included the bill in his 2016 legislative agenda. This reform comes after years of advocacy from a coalition of state-based nonprofits, and after the state's legislature asked Louisiana State University to study the problem last year. That report published last month and finds that "Louisiana should strongly consider raising the age of juvenile court jurisdiction to include 17-year-old offenders. … This change would benefit public safety, promote youth rehabilitation, and create long-term savings."
Marcy Mistrett
Aprill O. Turner
Angella Bellota


text:
L.S. Lawhon
Full Name: Leonias Socrates Lawhon
Other surnames: Lawhorn
Date of death: August 10, 1902
S 22 Jan 8, 1895 - Jan 12, 1897 24th (1) (2) Democrat Floresville / Wilson Atascosa, Bee, Calhoun, DeWitt, Frio, Goliad, Jackson, Karnes, La Salle, Live Oak, McMullen, Refugio, Victoria, Wilson
S 22 Jan 10, 1893 - Jan 8, 1895 23rd (3) Democrat Floresville / Wilson Atascosa, Bee, Calhoun, DeWitt, Frio, Goliad, Jackson, Karnes, La Salle, Live Oak, McMullen, Refugio, Victoria, Wilson
H 24 Jan 13, 1874 - Apr 18, 1876 14th Democrat Helena / Karnes Aransas, Bee, Calhoun, DeWitt, Goliad, Jackson, Karnes, Live Oak, Refugio, San Patricio, Victoria
(1) "Floresville notes," 8/7/1896. Ed Linn is "candidate for the state senate to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of Hon. L.S. Lawhon." Galveston Daily News.
(2) 24th Legislature - 1/8/1895, p. 1, listed in "roll of Senators' elect . . . President then administered the oath of office to the above Senators." Senate Journal.
14th Legislature (1874) typescript, p. 3. 24th District - L.S. Lawhorn. House Journal.
23rd Legislature (1893) - L.L. Lawhon. Senate Journal.
LAWHON, LEONIDAS SOCRATES, "in 1873 won election as representative for District 24 to the 14th Texas Legislature." "One of the sons, Luther, may have been the L.L. Lawhorn [sic]who was senator for District 22 in the 23rd Texas Legislature." Handbook of Texas Online.
"Kleberg's opponent: L.A. Lawhon the Populist Nominee for Congressional Honors," 3/26/1896; "Candidates for Congress," 3/30/1896. Father was the "Hon. L.S. Lawhon, state senator from this district." Galveston Daily News.
Leonidas S. Lawhon. Members of the Texas Congress 1836-1845; Members of the Texas Legislature 1846-2004, 2005.
"State Senator Lawhon tenders his resignation to make way for his son, who is a populist," 5/16/1896. San Antonio Daily Light.
"Pioneer Texan and prominent member of old trail drivers dies suddenly; Luther A. Lawhon...," 1/7/1922. "His father also was prominent in State politics, being a State Senator from the Floresville district for many years." San Antonio Evening News.
"In memoriam: noted Texas stockmen," 10/23/1938, p. 12. The late Luther A. Lawhon...born in 1861, died 1922" (son of L.S. Lawhon). San Antonio Light.
14th Legislature (1874) - Leonidas S. Lawhon, home county Karnes. Texas House of Representatives: a Pictorial Roster 1846-1992, 1992.
23rd Legislature (1893) - L.L. Lawhon, postoffice Floresville, nativity Georgia, lawyer, member of previous Legislatures: 14th, Democrat, age 59 in 1893. Texas Legislative Manual.
Photograph. L.S. Lawhon, 14th Legislature, State Preservation Board
Photograph. L.S. Lawhon, 23rd Legislature, State Preservation Board
Mining and Irrigation
Stock and Stock Raising (Chair)
Claims and Accounts (Chair)
Stock and Stockraising (Chair)
Agriculture and Stock Raising
Mexican Border Troubles
Removal of Judge Henry Maney, 22nd Judicial District
Removal of Judge J.J. Thornton, 24th Judicial District
Removal of Judge Martin Wheeler, 5th Judicial District
Removal of Judge S.B. Newcomb, 25th Judicial District

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Scaturo's Baking Co. & Cafe presents Mediterranean Night on Thursdays, February 21st & 28th, and March 7th, 2019.
Tickets are $25 per person and a portion of the proceeds goes directly to Door CANcer Inc. – supporting the needs of cancer patients and their families right here in Door County, Wisconsin. The Four Course Mediterranean-inspired menu will feature Fresh Mozzarella with Basil Oil, Balsamic Reduction, and Roasted Cherry Tomatoes on Garlic Crostini to start, followed by a Traditional Caesar Salad. The main course is a savory Paella with your choice of Seafood or Chicken, and dessert is a decadent house-made Tiramisu made with Door County Coffee!
You can also help out all month long by enjoying Scaturo's "Dessert of the Month" – a portion of the proceeds of which will also go to Door CANcer Inc. This month's dessert is called the "DoorCAN Triple Comfort Brownie" – a Pretzel-crusted, chocolate chip, fudge brownie, with salted caramel drizzle… order it in house and it is served with Ice Cream or take a few home for a sweet treat later!
Find Scaturo's and more Door County restaurants with our Door County Chefs Mobile Dining App – FREE for iPhone and Android with click-to-call phone numbers and GPS directions, plus DC Chefs Member menus! Find festivals, live music, theatre and more on the Peninsula with the Door County Events Calendar, accessible from the DC Chefs App!


Wyre Forest District Council's Cabinet last night agreed to transfer the operation and management of the Grade 2 Listed historic landmark building as part of its Localism agenda.
Kidderminster Town Council already owns the building, which transferred when the town council was created in 2015.
The district council has agreed to pay a decreasing grant to the town council over the next five years.
Kidderminster Town Council will take over all day to day management of the hall, including running events, hiring out the hall and hosting the ever-popular heritage weddings from 1 April 2019.
Kidderminster's popular annual Youth Makes Music event will also become the responsibility of the town council.
The transfer fully supports the district council's Localism initiative which enables town and parish councils to have a greater say and role in delivering local services to residents in different parts of the district.
Members of Kidderminster Town Council unanimously approved the transfer at its meeting on Wednesday 30 January.
Negotiations have been taking place between the two councils to ensure a seamless transfer and a financial agreement has been reached which will involve Wyre Forest District Council paying a grant to Kidderminster Town Council which will decrease year on year over the next five years. The total grant over the five year period amounts to £272,860. Arrangements will now also be made to transfer six members of staff.
Cabinet Member for Culture, Leisure and Community Protection Councillor Juliet Smith said: "I am very pleased that the district council has been able to agree to the town council's request and provide financial support to help ensure a smooth transition period.
"Taking on the operational and management responsibilities will give Kidderminster Town Council greater autonomy over one of the town's most important and much-loved cultural assets and give them full rein to continue to develop its full potential as an events and wedding venue to meet the needs of local people.
Wyre Forest District Council Leader Marcus Hart, who leads on Localism, said: "Our Localism programme has been extremely successful in giving town and parish councils and local organisations a greater say in running local services which meet the demands of different parts of the district.


I cook for a family of four so this was perfect and cheap to make and easy to cook. I would this on AllReceipes.com some time ago, and just made it to my family likings. Hope you enjoy.
In medium pan cook ground beef over medium heat. Once beef is starting to brown add in the onion and green peppers. Then add in the garlic and onion powder and cook this until meat is no longer pink. Drain the fat from the pan and then add in brown sugar, mustard, and ketchup and mix well. Reduce heat and let simmer for about 20 to 30 minutes. Taste for seasonings and add if you so desire.
Note: you can change the beef to turkey or what ever meat you prefer.


(1) The film industry is hoping 3-D movies will lure viewers off their couches and into the theaters. The home entertainment industry is preparing 3-D TVs to keep people at home. Would 3-D film be a better medium for publicizing the architectural work of Arakawa and Gins? While it would improve on 2-D film, it would still be a presentation on a screen, not a bodily experience. The digital maneuvers suggested below would be perhaps as good we could do with present-day technology.
(2) For diagrams and explanations of how a digital "Cave" room works, see this discussion of the Cave at Brown University.
(3) See my essay"Real Places in Virtual Spaces", online and in Nordic Journal of Architectural Research (Nordisk Arkitekturforskning) , 2006 no. 3, 69-77.
To achieve its goals, Arakawa and Gins's work needs to influence the public. Attempts to publicize the work are thus very important, but they threaten undercut the work's ability to work as it was supposed to. What might be done to make the work available in the right way? Is there a successful way to publicize an architecture designed to challenge the inhabitant's body and perception? How does one recreate a difficult architectural surround in flat media?
In print everything is made small and static. Probably most people who have experienced Arakawa and Gins' Mechanism of Meaning series have done so in book form. The panels in full size (approximately 5 x 8 feet) confront a person face-to-face. They demand attention. Even in a large-format coffee table book, the panels are reduced to the size of crossword puzzles. There is a subtle change in what dominates what. The reader is not challenged in the same way; she can pick up and put down.
Beyond print, perhaps a kind of cinéma vérité might help? Imagine using hand-held cameras accompanied by verbal narration as one walks through one of Arakawa and Gins' buildings, maybe with a Warhol-like film length reproducing daily living. This might make a difference, but who would watch it?
Cinema began outside the museum and then crept in, yet film has never had the museum as its goal. Cinema has tried to do what architecture tries to do, create a place that influences people to live differently. Of course, most films, like most buildings, aspire only to reinforce current patterns. But film's institutionalization in movie theaters created a special place with its own physicality of attention, a way of holding the body and being open. Now that spatiality is changing as more and more films are viewed at home.
On the couch watching the screen, or at one's desk watching the monitor, the physicality of film changes. Its influence becomes less total. Being closer to the TV or monitor makes the audience more distant from the film. Perhaps it is the ambient light level and the ease of moving about. Perhaps it is the absence of others concentrating together. Home viewing has then rebounded on the theatrical experience, as people feel more free to talk in the theater as they might at home.
People have been working to re-create the theatrical experience in home entertainment centers with special chairs and large screens and darkened rooms. But this does not have the spatiality nor the crowd, nor the social norms of the movie theater.
Yet even at its best viewing a film remains predominantly a passive experience, far from what Arakawa and Gins want for their architecture. So their work will not be well presented on film (1). Might there be some other way to make an experience more active and "physical"?
Wooden architectural model of a student project at the University of Texas School of Architecture.
Architects use models to present their designs. But with a wooden model it is difficult to avoid the god's-eye view from above. Digital models presented can show on a screen a model of the building's interior from different points of view. This can help. But if the architect's wooden model is replaced by a digital fly-through, which is literally disembodied, the experience still remains a kind of omnipresence that lacks precisely the kind of physicality of attention that Arakawa and Gins are trying to influence. The screen focuses as a single landing site, and a computer mouse makes all motion a flick of the wrist. There is no effort, no need to reorient one's body.
So a digital re-creation of one of Arakawa and Gins's buildings using ordinary screens would not accomplish their goals. It would again turn the building into a spectacle and lose the effort of living in this new surround. The usual digital presentation faces you, it does not surround and challenge.
A digital presentation can be made to surround you physically. A "Cave" uses three wall-sized screens, sensors to detect bodily motion, and computers to alter the images on the huge screens in response to the viewer's motion (2). In such a room you could feel you are inside a space designed by Arakawa and Gins. Peripheral vision and the ability to walk around and see different views would allow some of their architectural procedures that affect orientation and horizon. But, however much improved, the effect would still be mostly visual and contemplative, not involved.
All this makes it difficult for Arakawa and Gins's architecture to be successfully publicized on the Internet. On the net their work can only remain a curious spectacle, and the Internet, which brings some art out of the museum, would tend to put their architecture back in.
where the "camera" can give an aerial view and move around the player's avatar.
(Image copyright Second Life, all rights reserved).
A web page is not enough. A virtual world like Second Life could be a way to make a digital presentation of Arakawa and Gins's architecture. A virtual world can indeed contain real places where we can perform actions with real consequences (3). However, Second Life is also largely disembodied. It is purely visual and it is not fully first person. That is, the "camera" point of view floats around a person's avatar and can be made to back off and see what is behind and above, more than the embodied avatar's limited cone of vision could include. There is also no sense of difficulty dealing with slopes or rough surfaces. In addition, one can fly and avoid all the surface geometry, or teleport and avoid distances. There are reasons for these features in Second Life, and one can still walk around inside buildings, but the overall effect still reduces the experience of architecture to scenographic spectacle.
Is there a way to bring activity and physicality into a digital experience? The closest we night come, given currently available technology, would probably be to use the graphic potential of digital games, but arrange that one's avatar would be less bouncy and renewable than in games. Some difficulty and fatigue factors could be introduced, making motion less easy when there were slopes or narrow spaces. There could be an enforced first-person point of view, as in some shooter games, where participants only see what they turn their head to see, and have to choose what to concentrate on and what kind of visual landing sites to take note of, so that the surroundings are revealed piece by piece, perspective by perspective.
A scene from a first-person shooter game.
and the player's visual perspective depends on where the player turns and looks.
(Image from an advertisement at The Game Creators.).
This would allow procedures that involve multiple horizons and disorientation to have effects which would be missed in the usual digital fly throughs that allow one to see too much at one time and so avoid the physicality of attention.
Even so, such a digital presentation would remains on the screen and does not challenge the viewer's bodily inhabitation of space. A further step would be to feed the digital imagery into virtual reality equipment such as 3-D goggles or a Cave, with controls that have varying resistance, so that the viewer sees a limited and changeable perspective and experiences some muscular sensation of difficulty.
These reflections on the usability of various media for publicity show that Arakawa and Gins's work demands more than photos or a screening. Physical visits are needed, but shared bus trips to their works remain visits to the museum. Perhaps what might help would be to have samples of their work inserted into people's already built daily architectural surroundings -- not representations, but actual samples.


text:
#ifndef SIMDIALOG_H
#define SIMDIALOG_H

#include <QtDebug>

#include <QtGui/QDialog>
#include <QtCore/QString>
#include <QtCore/QVariant>
#include <QtDeclarative/QDeclarativeView>

#include "simdefines.h"

class SimDialog : public QDialog
{
    Q_OBJECT
public:
    explicit SimDialog(const QString &title, const QString &qmlViewUrl, QWidget *parent = 0);

    inline AgentResponse getAgentResponse()
    {
        return agentResponse;
    }

    inline QVariant getResponseData()
    {
        return responseData;
    }

    inline void setDefaultText(const QString &defaultText)
    {
        mDefaultText = defaultText;
    }

    inline void setNumeric(const bool numeric)
    {
        mNumeric = numeric;
    }

    inline void setHideTyping(const bool hideTyping)
    {
        mHideTyping = hideTyping;
    }

    inline void setCharBounds(const int minChars, const int maxChars)
    {
        mMinChars = minChars;
        mMaxChars = maxChars;
    }

private:
    AgentResponse agentResponse;
    QVariant responseData;
    // QML view specifics, inline setters
    // for "editText" items
    QString mDefaultText;
    bool mNumeric;
    bool mHideTyping;
    int mMinChars;
    int mMaxChars;
    // QML view support
    QDeclarativeView *mView;
    // constructor parameters
    QString mTitle;
    QString mQmlViewUrl;

public:
    void initView();

public slots:
    inline void responseOkWithText(QString text)
    {
        agentResponse = Ok;
        responseData = text;
        accept();
    }

    inline void responseCancel()
    {
        agentResponse = Cancel;
        reject();
    }

};

#endif // SIMDIALOG_H

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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text:
New Statistics on Teen Smoking Provide More Evidence
Why the Senate Should Pass the McCain Tobacco Legislation
New statistics released today by the Centers for Disease Control confirm that nicotine hooks American children and creates an addiction that is extremely difficult to break. The data show:
Teenagers find it difficult to quit smoking -- 86 percent of teens who smoke daily and try to quit are unsuccessful.
Teenagers underestimate the addictiveness of nicotine -- 75 percent of daily smokers who expect to quit are still smoking five years later.
Casual smokers become hooked -- 42 percent of young people who smoke as few as three cigarettes per month go on to become regular smokers.
Currently, 36.4 percent of high school students smoke.
Every day, 3000 young people become regular smokers in this country, and 1000 will die prematurely as a result. Today's report published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report provides just one more reason why the Senate needs to pass the McCain legislation quickly in order to reduce youth smoking dramatically in this country. Yesterday, the President said he believes the McCain bill is a good, strong bill that would make a real dent in teen smoking, and he urged Congress to pass it without delay. In particular, he praised the significant improvements made to the new bill, including:
Tough industry-wide and company-specific lookback surcharges that will finally make reducing youth smoking the tobacco companies' bottom line;
Protection for all Americans from the health hazards of secondhand smoke;
A dedicated fund to provide for a substantial increase in health research funding; a demonstration program to test promising new cancer treatments; a nationwide counteradvertising campaign to reduce youth smoking; effective state and local programs in tobacco education, prevention, and cessation; law enforcement efforts to prevent smuggling and crack down on retailers who sell tobacco products to children; assistance for tobacco farmers and their communities; and funds for states to make additional efforts to promote public health and protect children;
Strong licensing and anti-smuggling provisions to prevent the emergence of contraband markets and to prosecute violators;
No antitrust exemption for the tobacco industry; and
The elimination of immunity for parent companies of tobacco manufacturers, an increase in the cap on legal damages to $8 billion per year, and changes to ensure that the cap will be available only to tobacco companies that change the way they do business and agree to accept sweeping restrictions on advertising.


Josie Badger says people with disabilities have significant roles to play for next generation by being active participants in society and role models for other with disabilities. Josie, along with three other panelists, participated in a live forum hosted by 90.5 WESA and Essential Pittsburgh in recognition of the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The discussion focused on the impact of the ADA and the barriers that still remain.
Paul O Hanlon is a disability rights attorney and member of the City-County Task Force on Disabilities. As someone who was an adult prior to the passage of the ADA, he described the experience of people with disabilities in a world before curb cuts, leaning buses and other physical changes. The panelists agreed that these alterations helped make communities more accessible to people with disabilities, however many of the issues surrounding the ADA today were unable to be legislated.
Badger, who uses a wheelchair and a ventilator, discussed her experience as a member of the "ADA Generation," those who have lived all or most of their life with the ADA in place. She, along with Pittsburgh Accessibility Meetup co-organizer Gabriel McMorland, agreed that young people with disabilities were able to benefit from advances both in technology and accommodations, but many had lost their ability to advocate for themselves. McMorland, who is blind, cited the Internet as a tool with the potential to further level the playing field for young people with disabilities and asked both companies to make the choice to create accessible products and individuals to speak up and campaign for their rights.
Mary Hartley is Lead Consultant, Policy and Advocacy for the United Way of Allegheny County's '21 and Able' effort to streamline service systems for young people with disabilities. She also has a 15-year-old son on the Autism spectrum. Hartley believes visibility in the community through employment will reduce the stigma associated with people with disabilities. Through her work at the United Way and her experience as a parent, she says the ADA has allowed many people to "come out," and that individuals should be proud of what they've been given, even if they have a disability.
The panelists explained that one of the biggest challenges with the ADA was that it is a complaint-driven legislation and individuals with disabilities feel pressured when they have to advocate for themselves. Badger recommends that people with disabilities make their presence known by being customers and visible members of the community. Looking to the future of the ADA, the panelists praise the progress in accessibility throughout the last 25 years and also urge changes to employment, civic engagement and social attitudes.


text:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Net.Sockets;
using System.Net;
using System.Threading;
using System.IO;

namespace TCPRelay {
    class Program {
        static void Main(string[] args) {
            if (args.Length < 4) {
                Console.Error.WriteLine("TCPRelay 0.0.0.0 9418 127.0.0.1 9417");
                Environment.ExitCode = 1;
                return;
            }
            Program p = new Program();
            p.e1 = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Parse(args[0]), int.Parse(args[1]));
            p.e2 = new IPEndPoint(IPAddress.Parse(args[2]), int.Parse(args[3]));
            p.Run();
        }

        IPEndPoint e1, e2;

        Socket s1;

        private void Run() {
            if (e1.AddressFamily == AddressFamily.InterNetworkV6) {
                // http://blogs.msdn.com/b/malarch/archive/2005/11/18/494769.aspx
                s1 = new Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetworkV6, SocketType.Stream, ProtocolType.Tcp);
                s1.SetSocketOption(SocketOptionLevel.IPv6, (SocketOptionName)27, 0);
            }
            else {
                s1 = new Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetwork, SocketType.Stream, ProtocolType.Tcp);
            }
            s1.Bind(e1);
            s1.Listen(3);
            while (true) {
                Socket s2 = s1.Accept();
                Thread t = new Thread(Proxy);
                t.Start(s2);
            }
        }

        Object lck = new object();

        void Proxy(object user) {
            Pair p = new Pair();
            p.inst = Interlocked.Increment(ref inst);
            p.sl = (Socket)user;
            p.sr = new Socket(AddressFamily.InterNetwork, SocketType.Stream, ProtocolType.Tcp);

            lock (lck) Console.WriteLine("{0} Connect now", p.Id);

            p.sr.Connect(e2);

            lock (lck) Console.WriteLine("{0} Connected", p.Id);

            Thread tlr = new Thread(Dolr);
            tlr.Start(p);
            Thread trl = new Thread(Dorl);
            trl.Start(p);

            tlr.Join();
            trl.Join();

            lock (lck) Console.WriteLine("{0} Shutdown now", p.Id);

            p.sr.Shutdown(SocketShutdown.Both);
            p.sl.Shutdown(SocketShutdown.Both);

            lock (lck) Console.WriteLine("{0} Close now", p.Id);

            p.sr.Close();
            p.sl.Close();

            lock (lck) Console.WriteLine("{0} Finished", p.Id);
        }

        void Dolr(object user) {
            Pair p = (Pair)user;
            Thru(p, true);
        }
        void Dorl(object user) {
            Pair p = (Pair)user;
            Thru(p, false);
        }

        int inst = 0;

        Stack<byte[]> buffs = new Stack<byte[]>();

        byte[] Alloc() {
            lock (buffs) {
                if (buffs.Count != 0) return buffs.Pop();
            }
            return new byte[10000];
        }

        void Free(byte[] bin) {
            lock (buffs) {
                buffs.Push(bin);
            }
        }

        class Pair {
            public Socket sl, sr;
            public int inst;

            public String Id { get { return String.Format("#{0:0000}", inst); } }
        }

        void Dummy(IAsyncResult ar) {
        }

        ManualResetEvent evNever = new ManualResetEvent(false);

        private void Thru(Pair p, bool lr) {
            Socket s1 = lr ? p.sl : p.sr;
            Socket s2 = lr ? p.sr : p.sl;

            Int64 tot = 0;

            Queue<ArraySegment<byte>> mid = new Queue<ArraySegment<byte>>();
            IAsyncResult ra = null, sa = null;
            bool recvDone = false;
            while (true) {
                if (ra == null && !recvDone) {
                    byte[] bin = Alloc();
                    ra = s1.BeginReceive(bin, 0, bin.Length, SocketFlags.None, Dummy, bin);
                }
                if (sa == null && mid.Count != 0) {
                    ArraySegment<byte> bin = mid.Dequeue();
                    sa = s2.BeginSend(bin.Array, bin.Offset, bin.Count, SocketFlags.None, Dummy, bin);
                }

                if (ra == null && sa == null) {
                    if (!recvDone) System.Diagnostics.Debug.Fail("Recv not done");
                    break;
                }
                int t = WaitHandle.WaitAny(new WaitHandle[] { (ra != null) ? ra.AsyncWaitHandle : evNever, (sa != null) ? sa.AsyncWaitHandle : evNever });

                if (t == 0) {
                    SocketError err;
                    int r = s1.EndReceive(ra, out err);
                    byte[] bin = (byte[])ra.AsyncState;
                    if (err != SocketError.Success) {
                        lock (lck) Console.WriteLine("{0} {1} err {2}", p.Id, lr ? "->" : "<-", err);
                        recvDone |= true;
                        ra = null;
                        Free(bin);
                    }
                    else if (r < 1) {
                        lock (lck) Console.WriteLine("{0} {1} eof", p.Id, lr ? "->" : "<-");
                        recvDone |= true;
                        ra = null;
                        Free(bin);
                    }
                    else {
                        ra = null;
                        lock (lck) Console.WriteLine("{0} {1} {2} ({3:#,##0})", p.Id, lr ? "->" : "<-", r, tot);
                        mid.Enqueue(new ArraySegment<byte>(bin, 0, r));
                        tot += r;
                    }
                }
                if (t == 1) {
                    int s = s2.EndSend(sa);
                    ArraySegment<byte> bin = (ArraySegment<byte>)sa.AsyncState;
                    Free(bin.Array);
                    if (bin.Count != s) throw new EndOfStreamException();
                    sa = null;
                }
            }
        }

    }
}


text:
 <!--
  Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
  Licensed under the MIT License. See License.txt in the project root for license information.
-->

<rules>
  <rule id="Error.Core.3004" category="core" v4specificationsection="19" requirementlevel="must" format="JsonLight" version="v3" target="error">
    <description>The value of error response must be a JSON object.</description>
    <action processor="jsonschema" >
      <jsonschema>
        {
        "type" : "object",
        "additionalProperties" : false,
        "properties" : {
        "odata.error" : {
        "type" : "object"
        }
        }
        }
      </jsonschema>
    </action>
    <errormessage>The value of error response must be a JSON object.</errormessage>
  </rule>
</rules>


text:
Join my Newsletter and claim a Free Book!
D Pichardo-Johansson, Author
Blog-Short Stories
Why Does a Physician-Life coach Write Romance?
1.) Because I truly believe in Love.
3.) Because life is too short to live it half-heartedly.
3.) Because I have to. And the best things in life don't need to make sense.
About Dr. Pichardo-Johansson
Because I believe in Love that's a connection of the minds and the souls, and not only the bodies.
I truly believe that true romantic love can bring out the best in us and challenge us to grow. My stories are about deep connection and durable love, rather than about infatuation. They're about love that has overcome codependency and power struggles and it's about being each other's best fan and championing each other to become the best version of ourselves —that is the love I've been blessed with in my life.
My characters are above average individuals, but still realistic adults with imperfections and virtues, trying to figure out this big puzzle of life. They're people who carry scars and baggage, yet have learned from their mistakes and can enlighten the reader with their experience.
Because being an oncologist and surviving cancer taught me that life is too short to live it half-heartedly.
I'm a physician who specializes in cancer and then became a cancer patient herself (I know. Yikes!). That is not what I write about, but it's what inspired me to write.
By nature I am an overly cheerful, upbeat woman with a taste for silly comedy and easy laughter. My oncology career and life story gave me a deeper insight in life, its brevity and its fragility. Those opposite facets come across in my writings.
If there's one thing I learned from my beloved patients is that nobody ever regretted the risk they took, but the risk they didn't take. Life is too short to postpone dreams. And, definitely, life is too short to take yourself too seriously.
That's why I write.
And the other thing my patients taught me is that, at the end, the only thing we take with us is the love we've shared.
That's why I write about Love.
Because the best things in life don't need to make sense intellectually.
I'm an author because it's my passion and I'm hopeless to resist it. Since a very young age, characters jump in my head and beg me to give them life, often dictating the plot as if they had free will.
I believe that anything that brings us joy and lightens our load deserves a place in our lives. And when something brings us passion, we should embrace it without questioning it—even if it doesn't seem to make intellectual sense. That's a recurrent theme in my love stories.
If there's one message I would like to share with the world is to live with authentic joy—your definition of it and no one else's. Well, creativity and writing are crucial components of my definition of joy.
About Dr Pichardo-Johansson
Dr. Pichardo-Johansson is a retired Hematologist-Oncologist, a Life Coach and author of nine books. She's also a happy wife to her soulmate, a mother of kids with special needs, and a cancer survivor.
After fifteen years practicing oncology, and after becoming a cancer survivor herself, she decided she no longer wanted to make a living fighting death. Instead she now teaches people to fully enjoy life.
As a Fiction author, she specializes in romance that is "Connection of the minds and the souls, more than only the bodies" while her Mystery specialty is "How to murder someone and ensure a negative autopsy."
As a Non-fiction author and a Life coach, she specializes in helping professional women find authentic joy and love, and helping clients reinvent themselves after life-shaking events.
She's had a lifelong interest in personal development, mind-body-spirit health and the healing powers of love and laughter. Her mottos are "The best health boost is a strong desire to be alive" and "The biggest tragedy is not death—it's failing to live with passion."
Dr. Pichardo-Johansson lives in Melbourne Beach, Florida with her soulmate husband and her four beloved children, including twins with special needs.
Join for Free Access to:
Short Stories (fiction and creative non-fiction)
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Early Access to future Body/Mind/Spirit non-fiction material
Copyright © 2022 D Pichardo-Johansson, Author | Powered by Astra WordPress Theme


At Lufthansa-owned Brussels Airlines, the successor carrier to Sabena, Chief Information Officer Simon Lamkin has combined leadership thrust with business-rich IT engagement to achieve digital takeoff during the past 12 months.
From a standing start, the mobile app the Brussels Airlines IT team introduced late in 2016 went through six iterations in 2017 and saw 350,000 downloads. After vastly outperforming its business plan, it now contributes a significant chunk of the airline's annual revenue. Likewise, a request-based process that took 48 hours to quote a price for a group booking has been turned into an instant online tool that has generated considerable revenue in its first six months of operation.
And it isn't just the mobile and web sales channels that have felt the uplift from the CIO function's initiatives. Flight crews too are now digitally equipped. At the start of 2017 all pilots had to physically print the flight plan for their shift (around 15 sides of A4 per short-haul flight, with an average of four flights per shift). The electronic version of the flight plan rolled out during the year may sound straightforward but it involved solving the sizeable problems of regulatory requirements and operational restrictions. It has been a massive success, with every pilot and first officer downloading their electronic flight folder to a Surface Pro, creating a fully integrated 100% paperless cockpit environment.
And as in the air, so on the ground. At the start of the year, the issue of specialist tools to engineers required paper-based sign-outs. By the end, the RFID tagging of all the key specialist tools allows the automatic logging of which technician has completed an airplane maintenance task and the exact tools they used for that job; the engineer is even alerted if a tool has not been returned, ensuring that nothing is left accidentally on the aircraft.
Having learned first-hand how powerful ground operations automation could be at easyJet, where he was head of IT for four years before moving to Brussels Airlines, Lamkin wanted to create something similar, but more portable and accessible to a large number of users without the need for specialist hardware. He started with an app that has helped ground staff manage bookings, add bags and special requests, take payments and move seats. It also spawned a range of new use-cases, the most notable of which was its underpinning of a remote bag drop facility at one of Belgium's biggest dance festivals. Lamkin's team created what looked like an airport bag-drop zone in the middle of a field over two consecutive weekends and checked in the bags of festival-goers returning to Brussels Airport.


Di (2-ethylhexyl) phthalate inhibits growth of mouse ovarian antral follicles through an oxidative stress pathway.
Melatonin suppresses migration and invasion via inhibition of oxidative stress pathway in glioma cells.
Identification and dissection of the Nrf2 mediated oxidative stress pathway in human renal proximal tubule toxicity.
The senescence-related mitochondrial/oxidative stress pathway is repressed in human induced pluripotent stem cells.
Activation of the oxidative stress pathway by HIV-1 Vpr leads to induction of hypoxia-inducible factor 1alpha expression.
Oxidative stress pathway genes and chronic renal insufficiency in Asian Indians with Type 2 diabetes.
The role of oxidative stress in zearalenone-mediated toxicity in Hep G2 cells: oxidative DNA damage, gluthatione depletion and stress proteins induction.
Methoxychlor inhibits growth and induces atresia of antral follicles through an oxidative stress pathway.