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September 2007 Archives

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Congressional Deskbook: "Yea and Nay"

Yea and Nay: A vote in which members respond “aye” or “no” on a question. Their names are called in alphabetical order.

Booklets customizable for your organization

This definition is from our Congressional Deskbook.

Perfect reference tool of Congressional jargon and procedural terms.
Learn how to translate words that are used every day on Capitol Hill.
4 x 9 inches, 16 pages

The cover and inside pages of this booklet can be customized with your logo and information. For more information, see our Booklets page.

The Pocket Dictionary is based on the Congressional Deskbook, by Michael Koempel and Judy Schneider.

TheCapitol.Net offers training and a Certificate Program in Congressional Operations and Federal Budgeting, we show you how Washington and Congress work. TM


September 28, 2007 07:07 AM   Link    Tips and Terms    Comments (0)

Faculty Favorites: Dining and Places - Frank Burk

We asked our faculty and authors to share with us some of their favorite things about living in our nation's capital. Their responses are posted in "Faculty Favorites"

Frank Burk (bio), faculty for "Drafting Effective Federal Legislation and Amendments in a Nutshell," shares his favorites.

Favorite Places to Visit

Favorite restaurants

Fun Things to Do

For more, also see our Visiting Washington DC pages


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September 26, 2007 08:17 AM   Link    Dining ~   Dining and Things to Do & See ~   Faculty Favorites ~   Fun ~   Visiting Washington, DC    Comments (0)

Parents - save a new driver's life!

In 2005, 5,288 teenagers died in the United States from crash injuries. Such injuries are by far the leading public health problem among people 13-19 years old. In 2004, the latest year for which data are available, 38 percent of all deaths among 16-19 year-olds from all causes were related to motor vehicles. The crash risk among teenage drivers is particularly high during the first months of licensure.

Insurance Institute for Highway Safety

Many parents spend thousands of hours and dollars getting their children to and from sports practices and games including soccer, football, lacrosse, field hockey, volleyball, music lessons, dance lesson, etc., but have no problem turning a newly licensed 16-year old loose with a 1 to 2 ton vehicle after a few hours of questionable classroom and behind the wheel instruction. Parents - hello, wake up!

If you want to reduce the odds that you will receive a call from a hospital or police officer about your newly licensed teen driver being in an auto crash, sign them up for the one-day Decisive Driving course from Car Guys.

Decisive Driving is a one day course offered in the VA, MD, DC area that will teach your new driver how to avoid car crashes, how to control a car during a skid, and how to improve the odds that they will not be one of the new drivers that has a crash.

We recently had a new driver take this course and we saw immediate improvements in driving skills after the course. The best $300 and 1-day we have invested in a long time. Highly recommended.

Picks up where conventional driving programs stop. It teaches skills that can take years to develop by accelerating the learning curve in a safe environment. In one day, we provide drivers with intensive training and hands-on experience that lays the foundation for a lifetime of good driving habits.

Decisive Driving, 301-984-8300

More

September 25, 2007 10:47 AM   Link    Tools    Comments (0)

Media Tip 24

Media Tip 24: Press Releases—Ensure that your press releases have strong leads; are one- to two-sentences long; use the inverted pyramid for overall structure; and include quotes that emphasize emotions, not facts. These are the fundamental tools to persuade reporters to cover stories. Many reporters nowadays prefer email releases.

Booklets customizable for your organization

This tip is from our booklet, Media Relations Tips: 102 Secrets for Finding Success in Public Relations.

Practical tips for anyone who works with the media, works with someone who works with the media, or who works at an organization that is covered in the media.  An easy handout for everyone in your group to make sure that they are prepared and confident if they ever have to deal with the media.
4 x 9 inches, 15 pages

Based on the Media Relations Handbook, by Brad Fitch.

The cover and inside pages of this booklet can be customized with your logo and information. For more information, see our Booklets page.

TheCapitol.Net offers Media Training and Communication and Advocacy Training, and is the exclusive provider of Congressional Quarterly (CQ) Executive Conferences.


September 25, 2007 07:07 AM   Link    Tips and Terms    Comments (0)

Congressional Deskbook: "Deficit"

Deficit: Excess of outlays over revenues.

Booklets customizable for your organization

This definition is from our Congressional Deskbook.

Perfect reference tool of Congressional jargon and procedural terms.
Learn how to translate words that are used every day on Capitol Hill.
4 x 9 inches, 16 pages

The cover and inside pages of this booklet can be customized with your logo and information. For more information, see our Booklets page.

The Pocket Dictionary is based on the Congressional Deskbook, by Michael Koempel and Judy Schneider.

TheCapitol.Net offers training and a Certificate Program in Congressional Operations and Federal Budgeting, we show you how Washington and Congress work. TM


September 21, 2007 12:27 PM   Link    Tips and Terms    Comments (0)

Faculty Favorites: Dining and Places - Claudia Thurber

We asked our faculty and authors to share with us some of their favorite things about living in our nation's capital. Their responses are posted in "Faculty Favorites"

Claudia Thurber (bio), a veteran of over twenty-two years of federal government service, shares her favorites.

Five most interesting places to visit

Five most favorite “fun” things to do

Five favorite restaurants

For more, also see our Visiting Washington DC pages


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September 20, 2007 07:27 AM   Link    Dining ~   Dining and Things to Do & See ~   Faculty Favorites ~   Fun ~   Visiting Washington, DC    Comments (0)

Electric cars - EV and hybrid

Electric cars

Mema, Josephine, and TJ McDonald with a Detroit Electric car
photo labeled: "First electric car in Wichita." (ca. 1920)

September 19, 2007 08:07 AM   Link    Tools    Comments (0)

Media Tip 101

Media Tip 101: Be prepared and stick to your beliefs. Common ethical challenges to public relations specialists include: using language accurately; misappropriating (or stealing) credit for accomplishments of others; ethically interacting with political campaigns; leaking information improperly; and lying for the principal or organization.

Booklets customizable for your organization

This tip is from our booklet, Media Relations Tips: 102 Secrets for Finding Success in Public Relations.

Practical tips for anyone who works with the media, works with someone who works with the media, or who works at an organization that is covered in the media.  An easy handout for everyone in your group to make sure that they are prepared and confident if they ever have to deal with the media.
4 x 9 inches, 15 pages

Based on the Media Relations Handbook, by Brad Fitch.

The cover and inside pages of this booklet can be customized with your logo and information. For more information, see our Booklets page.

TheCapitol.Net offers Media Training and Communication and Advocacy Training, and is the exclusive provider of Congressional Quarterly (CQ) Executive Conferences.


September 18, 2007 11:57 PM   Link    Tips and Terms    Comments (0)

Congressional Deskbook: "PAYGO"

PAYGO (Pay-As-You-Go): Process by which direct spending or revenue legislation must be offset so that a surplus is not reduced or a deficit increased.

Booklets customizable for your organization

This definition is from our Congressional Deskbook.

Perfect reference tool of Congressional jargon and procedural terms.
Learn how to translate words that are used every day on Capitol Hill.
4 x 9 inches, 16 pages

The cover and inside pages of this booklet can be customized with your logo and information. For more information, see our Booklets page.

The Pocket Dictionary is based on the Congressional Deskbook, by Michael Koempel and Judy Schneider.

TheCapitol.Net offers training and a Certificate Program in Congressional Operations and Federal Budgeting, we show you how Washington and Congress work. TM


September 14, 2007 08:07 AM   Link    Tips and Terms    Comments (0)

Faculty Favorites: Dining and Places - Jim Bayless

We asked our faculty and authors to share with us some of their favorite things about living in our nation's capital. Their responses are posted in "Faculty Favorites"

Jim Bayless (bio), a veteran legislative and regulatory attorney who has lived in Washington for more than 25 years, shares his favorites.

Interesting Places to Visit

Fun Things to Do

Favorite Restaurants

For more, also see our Visiting Washington DC pages


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September 13, 2007 07:37 AM   Link    Dining ~   Dining and Things to Do & See ~   Faculty Favorites ~   Fun ~   Visiting Washington, DC    Comments (0)

O'er the ramparts we watch

This is a WWII poster from the Northwestern University archives.

O'er the ramparts we watch
O'er the ramparts we watch

September 13, 2007 07:27 AM   Link    Art    Comments (0)

Bikes with Shimano 8-speed hub & Bicycle Commuting

Shimano Nexus 8

Shimano Alfine 8

Bicycle Commuting

September 12, 2007 09:27 AM   Link    Tools    Comments (0)

Media Tip 9

Media Tip 9: Never overestimate a reporter’s knowledge of your issue. Be ready to explain, clearly and patiently, the basics of your story. Have fact sheets available, if appropriate.

Booklets customizable for your organization

This tip is from our booklet, Media Relations Tips: 102 Secrets for Finding Success in Public Relations.

Practical tips for anyone who works with the media, works with someone who works with the media, or who works at an organization that is covered in the media.  An easy handout for everyone in your group to make sure that they are prepared and confident if they ever have to deal with the media.
4 x 9 inches, 15 pages

Based on the Media Relations Handbook, by Brad Fitch.

The cover and inside pages of this booklet can be customized with your logo and information. For more information, see our Booklets page.

TheCapitol.Net offers Media Training and Communication and Advocacy Training, and is the exclusive provider of Congressional Quarterly (CQ) Executive Conferences.


September 11, 2007 08:17 AM   Link    Tips and Terms    Comments (0)

Electric Bikes

Electric bicycles have advanced significantly over the last century from the first models of motorized bicycles that were cumbersome and not terribly economical or efficient. Today's electric bikes are very efficient and economical taking advantage of new new circuitry, electric motor and transmission technologies.

Researching electric bicycles before buying one is a great idea, but not as easy as it may seem. There are growing number of websites offering information on electric bicycles, but digesting and synthesizing this information can be as difficult in light of the variety of models and power assist combinations available now.

Electric bicycles come in basically two-main configurations. One is the power-on-demand electric bicycle, and the other is the power-assist electric bicycle.

"Electric bikes are taking off," by Carolyn Whelan, The International Herald Tribune, March 14, 2007

E-bikes - These have a separate throttle on the handlebars, either a switch or a twist-grip like on a motorbike. You decide how much help you get from the motor.
Pedelecs - These have a sensor on the pedals, and a little electronic brain measures how much effort you are putting in and decides how much extra help to give you.

All About the Electric Bicycle

More

Froogle searches

Models

Dealers

September 9, 2007 10:17 AM   Link    Caught Our Eye    Comments (0)

Congressional Deskbook: "Official Objectors"

Official Objectors: House members who screen measures on the Private Calendar.

Booklets customizable for your organization

This definition is from our Congressional Deskbook.

Perfect reference tool of Congressional jargon and procedural terms.
Learn how to translate words that are used every day on Capitol Hill.
4 x 9 inches, 16 pages

The cover and inside pages of this booklet can be customized with your logo and information. For more information, see our Booklets page.

The Pocket Dictionary is based on the Congressional Deskbook, by Michael Koempel and Judy Schneider.

TheCapitol.Net offers training and a Certificate Program in Congressional Operations and Federal Budgeting, we show you how Washington and Congress work. TM


September 7, 2007 07:27 AM   Link    Tips and Terms    Comments (0)

Faculty Favorites: Dining and Places - Martha Angle

We asked our faculty and authors to share with us some of their favorite things about living in our nation's capital. Their responses are posted in "Faculty Favorites"

Martha Angle (bio), associate editor at Congressional Quarterly, shares her favorites.

Favorite Places to Visit

Fun Things to Do

Favorite Restaurants

For more, also see our Visiting Washington DC pages


. . . . . . . . .


September 6, 2007 06:57 AM   Link    Dining ~   Dining and Things to Do & See ~   Faculty Favorites ~   Fun ~   U.S. Constitution    Comments (0)

Media Tip 98

Media Tip 98: Acknowledge that in communications crises, motive is transparent. If a public figure or organization is not motivated by public interest, this will be discovered. If a public figure or organization does not clearly define their motive, the media or opponents will create a negative one.

Booklets customizable for your organization

This tip is from our booklet, Media Relations Tips: 102 Secrets for Finding Success in Public Relations.

Practical tips for anyone who works with the media, works with someone who works with the media, or who works at an organization that is covered in the media.  An easy handout for everyone in your group to make sure that they are prepared and confident if they ever have to deal with the media.
4 x 9 inches, 15 pages

Based on the Media Relations Handbook, by Brad Fitch.

The cover and inside pages of this booklet can be customized with your logo and information. For more information, see our Booklets page.

TheCapitol.Net offers Media Training and Communication and Advocacy Training, and is the exclusive provider of Congressional Quarterly (CQ) Executive Conferences.


September 5, 2007 03:47 PM   Link    Tips and Terms    Comments (0)

Two interesting sentences

Today’s human population is descended from twice as many women as men.
. . .
A woman’s husband, and her baby, will love her even if she doesn’t play the trombone.

"Is There Anything Good About Men?" by Roy F. Baumeister, on DenisDutton.com - invited address given at a meeting of the American Psychological Association in San Francisco on August 24, 2007

Hat tip ALD

September 4, 2007 06:07 PM   Link    Caught Our Eye    Comments (0)

Less interest in classical music because of less arts education?

To grasp the nature and scope of the problems faced by Gilbert and the Philharmonic, it is useful to consider the career of Beverly Sills, who died a few days before [Alan] Gilbert’s appointment [as the next music director of the New York Philharmonic] was announced.

In an age of short cultural memories, it is noteworthy how wide-spread an outpouring of regret attended the death of a seventy-eight-year-old opera singer who had retired from the stage nearly 30 years before, especially a singer who was poorly represented by her records, few of which were made when she was in her prime. This means that relatively few of the people who mourned Sills’s death could have had any real understanding of why she became famous in the first place--yet they mourned her all the same.

The reason for their sorrow was to be found in Sills’s obituaries, all of which devoted much space to describing her regular appearances on such popular TV series as Tonight, The Carol Burnett Show, and The Muppet Show. These appearances won her the affection of millions of people who would otherwise never have heard of her. Taken together, they may well have been the most consequential thing she ever did.

Sills was not the only American classical musician of her day to reach out to a mass audience. Leonard Bernstein did the same thing, albeit in a more sophisticated way--but his message was the same. Among the first Young People’s Concerts that I saw on TV as a child was a program about American music. At the end, Bernstein introduced an ordinary-looking man in a business suit who proceeded to conduct the finale of a work he had written. The man, Bernstein explained, was Aaron Copland, and the piece was his Third Symphony, one of the permanent masterpieces of American art. Young as I was, I understood the point Bernstein was driving at: the making of classical music is a normal human activity, something that people do for a living, the same way they paint houses or cut hair.

Sills sent the same message every time she appeared on TV. As she explained in an interview conducted a year before her death:
    In general, [people] thought of [opera singers as] big fat ladies with horns coming out of their heads. They also thought that opera singers were primarily foreign. I think Johnny [Carson] felt that a lot of people thought we were hothouse plants and that I could help change that image by showing that we led ordinary lives with families and children and problems.
At the time Bernstein and Sills were sending this message, in their different ways, relatively few American classical musicians knew how urgently it needed to be received. Now they--and we--know better.

"Selling Classical Music," by Terry Teachout, Commentary, September 2007 (footnote omitted)

But see "Is arts education a luxury?"

Hat tip ALD




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September 4, 2007 06:57 AM   Link    Caught Our Eye    Comments (0)

Is arts education a luxury?

We don't need the arts in our schools to raise mathematical and verbal skills - we already target these in math and language arts. We need the arts because in addition to introducing students to aesthetic appreciation, they teach other modes of thinking we value.

For students living in a rapidly changing world, the arts teach vital modes of seeing, imagining, inventing, and thinking. If our primary demand of students is that they recall established facts, the children we educate today will find themselves ill-equipped to deal with problems like global warming, terrorism, and pandemics.

Those who have learned the lessons of the arts, however - how to see new patterns, how to learn from mistakes, and how to envision solutions - are the ones likely to come up with the novel answers needed most for the future.

"Art for our sake: School arts classes matter more than ever - but not for the reasons you think," by Ellen Winner and Lois Hetland, The Boston Globe, September 2, 2007

Hat tip ALD



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September 3, 2007 10:07 PM   Link    Caught Our Eye    Comments (0)