With 3 dead and 176 injured the bombing of the Boston City Marathon this Monday is the worst terrorist attack on US soil since 9/11. And the wait for the investigation to turn up results is proving corrosive in its own right. 

No particular organization or cause has taken credit for it yet.

Curious, given that a long line of groups would normally lay claim to the slaughter. As expected Hamas and Hezbollah rejoiced in the streets and giving strangers candy immediately afterwards, but neither group claimed credit. So, there is a lot we don’t know.

What we do know is people are scared, American Muslims in particular. 

The public backlash against Muslims after 9/11 is still fresh in the minds of many, and they are terrified of facing a similar situation with this event. And so we have seen a torrent of Islamic condolences, condemnations, and concern over the tragedy.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Islamic Brotherhood, and even the Republic of Iran were all very quick to issue statements condemning the bombers, sympathizing with the victims, and trying to make sure that if the bombers were Muslim, that they were marked clearly as extremists.

In addition to official statements many Muslims around the world from Egypt to Kabul (pictured above, see full album here), were sending their prayers and best wishes. This has truly developed into an event global in proportion.

Khaled A. Beydoun, UCLA law professor, wrote  an article titled, “Boston explosions: ‘Please don’t be Arabs or Muslims” that describes this phenomenon as “psychosis.” And who can blame them?

Already former terrorist experts, Fox pundits, and Senator Susan Collins are assuming that the attack HAD to have been conducted by Islamic extremists, despite any concrete proof.

Fortunately the FBI seems to be handling the situation well, dispelling all rumors that the Syrian national they took in for questioning was a suspect. Still the wave of rumors is coming on strong.

And the country is uneasy.

Even Rush Limbaugh’s fretted that if the perpetrator turned out to be a right wing extremist, conservatives would get torn to shreds by the media. So Muslims aren’t alone in this.

It seems we are all quick to point fingers, cast blame  and act out.

But revenge can be counter-productive (Remember Afghanistan?). But for now all we can do is wait patiently for whoever did this to get caught… and hope that they’re from Mars.

 Terror doesn’t discriminate, and neither should we.

I just gave AASHE $1,000 dollars! And I feel like a million bucks!

One of my favorite times of the year is in early December when Colorado Gives day occurs. That evening my wife and I sit down at our computers and after deciding how much each of us will be giving. We sort through hundreds of organizations in Colorado and give money to the ones that best fit our personal and public agendas. At the end of the evening my Visa has a huge charge on it, I’ve come to appreciate the wonderful things non-profits in Colorado are doing, and I feel great about having helped advance causes I care about.

A few of years ago, I was asked by a colleague how they could give some money they had earned from consulting to AASHE. I was a bit stunned because we typically looked at our institutional members and various fees as our income sources and in truth, really didn’t have any system for giving to AASHE. Truly, my response was, “Just write a check to AASHE and send it to our business manager.” I have had a number of conversations with individuals since who want to individually support the work of AASHE. After numerous discussions, and fits and starts, last year we began planning a system for helping individuals support AASHE through donations.

Since mid-December 2012, you may have noticed a green DONATE button on the AASHE web pages. This was the soft launch of our Donations web page and online giving system. Now we have a system for anyone to make a financial gift to AASHE . Which begs the important question, WHY should you give to AASHE? After all, we have a budget of more than $2 million a year and income from institutional memberships alone in excess of $1 million. Do we really need your money?

In fact, the answer is a resounding yes! Your gift to AASHE makes it possible for AASHE to provide better and more extensive services to a greater number of people. Although you can envision your gift to AASHE supporting any of our efforts – the Resources Center, various databases, the (free) Bulletin and other e-newsletters, publications, STARS assessment system, and our many collaborations with other organizations – we have called out three ways that your donation supports efforts to keep AASHE affordable for all:

1. Your gift can help us keep the registration price of the Student Summit and student attendance at the annual conference well below what it costs AASHE.

2. Your gift can help us bring together some of the nation's leading sustainability experts during convenings via webinars and publications.

3. Your gift can support AASHE providing award winners with an opportunity to attend the conference to receive their well-earned recognition.

Not only does AASHE need my money but I need to give (some of) my money to AASHE. You might suspect that I support higher education sustainability efforts and believe that higher education should be empowered to lead the sustainability transformation (the AASHE mission). It’s one thing for me to support it by choosing a job in higher education sustainability. But it is also important for me to make a personal statement about my support that goes beyond my job choice. That I can do by giving to AASHE to support AASHE’s efforts to empower higher education to lead the sustainability transformation.

As we celebrate our dependence upon the earth this week I would urge you to join with me in supporting AASHE in its efforts to ensure a better future for us all.

Click here to see how our members are shaping sustainability with the help of AASHE tools and resources, and give whatever you can to advance sustainability and feel the joy of giving to something you really care about.

Paul Rowland, AASHE Executive Director

The FBI could use software to help identify suspects, and more advanced techniques are around the corner.

The FBI appealed to the public Thursday for help identifying two men shown in pixilated photos and video footage who are suspected of involvement in Monday’s bomb attacks in Boston.

The two men, now identified as Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, brothers originally from Chechnya, were involved in a dramatic shootout with police in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on Thursday night. The pair robbed a 7/11 and killed an MIT police officer before hijacking a car and engaging police in pitched battles in the suburb of Watertown. The older of the two men, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was killed during a shootout with police while his younger brother, Dzhokhar, remains on the run as of Friday morning.

The UMBC Camerata’s performance last Sunday with the Handel Choir of Baltimore was mentioned yesterday in a Baltimore Sun article by Tim Smith, praising the career of Handel Choir director, Linda O’Neal.

The concert performed, Johannes Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem, was considered by the Baltimore Sun arts critic, Tim Smith, one that “sounded smoothly balanced and articulated with admirable quality.”

Seth D. Messinger, associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, commented in today’s New York Times on the long-term process of recovering from limb loss, in the wake of Monday’s Boston Marathon bombings.

Messinger told Times reporter James Dao that training for athletics gives amputees a clear way of measuring recovery incrementally. “Rehab for traumatic limb loss is not a short thing, and patients want to know what they have to do next,” he said. “A sports model offers people a set of stages. You’ll walk between parallel bars, then walk with canes, then learn to run.”

He also cautioned, however, that a sports model of recovery is not comprehensive and it can fail to address issues like PTSD and anxieties about future employment.

In addition to his work at UMBC, Messinger is the director of qualitative research for the Center for Rehabilitation Sciences Research at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences.

For many web design professionals, there was no option but to be self taught. Years ago, the academic qualifications simply didn’t exist. Sure, you could study design, but you’d be left to learn the technology by yourself. You could take an I.T. course, but you’d be lacking design skills.

Perhaps that’s the reason web designers come from such disparate backgrounds; it’s hard to imagine accountants hailing from such wildly different career paths.

But times have changed, and academic qualifications focussing on both design and code are now commonplace worldwide. Many of those courses have been developed by the very designers and developers who chose to find their own way a decade ago.

So which is preferable? A carefully designed course, filled with modules covering the industry’s most commonly requested skills; or hard work and self application, learning techniques as and when required?

Check out the infographic below for a better idea of the pros and cons.

 Embed:
<a href='http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2013/04/formal-degree-vs-self-taught/' ><img src='http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/2013/04/education-for-web-designers1.jpg' /></a><br/> Formal degree vs. self taught - infographic created by <a href="'http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2013/04/formal-degree-vs-self-taught/">WebdesignerDepot</a&gt;

Are you formally educated or self taught? Would you have better off taking the other route? Let us know in the comments.

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