Maze Cartoon of Roman Colosseum dark as night as the lights are turned off in solidarity with Gilad Shalit, prisoner in Gaza. By Yonatan Frimer

Maze Cartoon of Roman Colosseum dark as night as the lights are turned off in solidarity with Gilad Shalit, prisoner in Gaza.

Cartoon maze of The Roman Colosseum dark as night as the lights are shut off at midnight in solidarity with Gilad Shalit. One of the characters remarks, "They should shut off the lights in Gaza at midnight for solidarity. Created by Yonatan Frimer
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Rome to switch off lights of Colosseum at midnight for Gilad

On Thursday evening the lights of the Colosseum in Rome will be turned off in solidarity with kidnapped soldier Gilad Schalit. Noam Schalit, Gilad's father, will be in attendance along with the Roman citizens and the representatives of local and national Italian institutions.

According to organizers, the gathering is meant to send a message to the world: "Free Gilad now". Speeches will be given by Noam Schalit and the mayor of Rome, and pictures of Gilad will be screened. At 11 pm (midnight in Israel) the lights of the Colosseum will be turned off.

"We immediately launched the campaign for Shalit because we feel the burden of anxiety”, the President of the Jewish Community of Rome, Riccardo Pacifici, says.

Last summer Rome's Mayor Gianni Alemanno bestowed honorary citizenship on Gilad. The City of Rome has strongly supported the initiative in the Colosseum. Other cities in Italy have joined, and some of the municipalities will turn off the lights at some of their monuments.

"We want to sensitize public opinion and strongly assert our values, which belong to civil society as a whole, first of all the value of freedom. This event is first and foremost an expression of our strong support of the State of Israel,” Pacifici said.

Click to read the full article at the source

Cartoon that is a maze of Middle East motorcycle speeding down the road of diplomacy in the direction of war, not peace. By Yonatan Frimer

Maze Cartoon of motorcycle of the Middle East speeding down the diplomatic road in the direction of war, not peace. Created by Yonatan Frimer

Maze cartoon of a motorcycle lableled, "middle east" speeding down a road in the direction of war, and away from the direction of peace. Created by Yonatan Frimer
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Dark War Clouds Loom on Mid-East Horizon

by Herbert London 06/23/2010

The gathering storm in the Middle East is gaining momentum. War clouds are on the horizon and, as with conditions prior to World War I, all it takes for explosive action to commence is a trigger.

Turkey’s provocative flotilla—often described in Orwellian terms as a humanitarian mission—has set in motion a flurry of diplomatic activity, but if the Iranians send escort vessels for the next round of Turkish ships, it could present a casus belli.

It is also instructive that Syria is playing a dangerous game with both missile deployment and rearming Hezbollah. According to most public accounts, Hezbollah is sitting on 40,000 long-, medium- and short-range missiles and Syrian territory has served as a conduit for military material from Iran since the end of the 2006 Lebanon War.

Should Syria move its own scuds to (Click here to read the full article)

Farmer looks to agritourism to save his business

NEW MILFORD -- On Monday, farmer Dean Schultz finished planting corn seeds that will eventually grow and be landscaped into a haunted corn maze.

Since it opened in 2000, the Larson's Farm Market corn maze has become a local tradition.

The corn maze may also be an integral part of saving Schultz's livelihood. He is hoping he can use agritourism, or bringing visitors to the farm, to sustain the business originally started by his grandfather.

Schultz sells sweet corn to a local farmers market and is getting ready to open his own produce stand in a couple of weeks, but his main focus is expanding the agritourism part of the business.

He plans to have two mazes next year and perhaps start a garden where people can pick their own produce.

Schultz tried to start a community supported agriculture program, commonly referred to as a CSA, at the beginning of the season to bring in income. In a CSA, community members buy shares of the crops before the season starts. In return, they are given part of the yield every week during the growing season.

Initial interest was strong, Schultz said. More than 300 people inquired about joining.

"But when it came time to sign on the dotted line, we didn't get enough of a response," Schultz said. Only 40 people made a commitment, so Schultz has had to scrap the CSA idea for now.

"I don't see how anyone could survive on crop sales alone," said Stephen Paproski, who owns the 100-acre Castle Hill Farm in Newtown. "A third of our income comes from agritourism."

Agritourism has been growing for the last 10 years and has become more popular in the past five years, said Jane Eckert, the president of St. Louis-based Eckert Agrimarketing.

Agritourism can include all types of activities, from pick-your-own crops to hunting, Eckert said.

"When people step into our personal properties, they're willing to pay for the experience," Eckert said. "There is a growing category of people who have their weddings or large group picnics on farms. Farms have large spaces that can accommodate large numbers of people."

Castle Hill Farm has a maze, a hay ride, a pumpkin patch and bonfires in the fall. Paproski is a third-generation farmer, but the first who has had to turn to agritourism to survive.

Schultz is also a third-generation farmer. His grandfather owned Larson's Farm, where New Milford High School was built. Schultz now leases land because it is too expensive to buy. He used to farm the cornfields on Junction Road in Brookfield, until that property was sold to the Steiner family for development.

He is hesitant to invest too much money in his current farm, out of fear it will be sold as well.

"This is my last shot, but if this piece goes I'm done for sure," Schultz said.

Contact Vinti Singh at vsingh@newstimes.com or 203-731-3331.

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Optical illusion maze caused by conflicting horizontal and vertical lines.

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Maze proves that bigger bonus equals worse performance

BUSINESS BOOKS-Bigger bonus, worse performance

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* Author says bonus pressure leads to poorer performances
* Bankers still convinced their skills deserve big pay

By Kristina Cooke

NEW YORK, June 17 (Reuters) - Around the turn of every year, bankers can think of only one thing: the size of their bonuses.

Even beyond bonus season, they run different scenarios and assumptions, trying to calculate their number.

This distracts them so much that the bigger the bonus at stake, the worse the performance, according to behavioral economist Dan Ariely, who lays out his theory in his new book "The Upside of Irrationality" (HarperCollins, $27.99).

"For a long time we trained bankers to think they are the masters of the universe, have unique skills and deserve to be paid these amounts," said Ariely, who also wrote the New York Times bestseller "Predictably Irrational."

"It is going to be hard to convince them that they don't really have unique skills and that the amount they've been paid for the past years is too much."

Ariely's findings come as regulators try to rein in Wall Street's bonus culture after the 2008 financial collapse. The financial industry argues it needs to pay large bonuses to attract and motivate its top employees.

In an experiment in India, Ariely measured the impact of different bonuses on how participants did in a number of tasks that required creativity, concentration and problem-solving.

One of the tasks was Labyrinth, where the participants had to move a small steel ball through a maze avoiding holes. Ariely describes a man he identified as Anoopum, who stood to win the biggest bonus, staring at the steel ball as if it were prey.

"This is very, very important," Anoopum mumbled to himself. "I must succeed." But under the gun, Anoopum's hands trembled uncontrollably, and he failed time after time.

A large bonus was equal to five months of their regular pay, a medium-sized bonus was equivalent to about two weeks pay and a small bonus was a day's pay.

There was little difference in the performance of those receiving the small and medium-sized bonuses, while recipients of large bonuses performed worst.

SHOCK TREATMENT

More than a century ago, an experiment with rats in a maze rigged with electric shocks came to a similar conclusion. Every day, the rats had to learn how to navigate a new maze safely.

When the electric shocks were low, the rats had little incentive to avoid them. At medium intensity they learned their environment more quickly.

But when the shock intensity was very high, it seemed the rats could not focus on anything other than the fear of the shock.

This may provide lessons for regulators who want to change Wall Street's bonus culture, Ariely said. Paying no bonus or smaller bonuses could help fix skewed incentives without loss of talent.

"The reality is, a lot of places are able to attract great quality people without paying them what bankers are paid," Ariely said. "Do you think bankers are inherently smarter than other people? I don't." (Reporting by Kristina Cooke; Editing by Daniel Trotta)

Iran throws gasoline on the fire. Maze Cartoon by Yonatan Frimer

Maze Cartoon - Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pours gasoline on the fire. The fire is the UN Sanctions against Iran, and the gasoline represents Iranian Defiance. Created by Yonatan Frimer


Cartoon maze of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pouring gasoline on the fire. Gasoline is labled as "Iranian Defiance" and the fire is labeled "UN Sanctions.
Created by Yonatan Frimer
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Iran president wants to punish West over sanctions

(RTTNews) - The European Union has slammed Iran with additional sanctions, the fourth punitive measure on the Islamic Republic within a week.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's continued defiance to international calls to wind up its nuclear enrichment program has already cost the country heavily, as the United Nations last week placed its fourth set of sanctions on Iran, while Australia imposed Tuesday new sanctions on an Iranian bank, a shipping company, as well as a man connected to a construction firm owned by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Wednesday, the United States added Iranian individuals and firms to a blacklist.

European leaders, who have gathered in Brussels Thursday for a summit, expressed their "deepening concerns about Iran's nuclear program."

(Click here to read the full article)

Maze cartoon of Iran stuck between a rock and a hard place. By Yonatan Frimer

Maze Cartoon:
Iran is stuck between a rock (Iraq) and a hard place (Afghanistan) Created by Yonatan Frimer

Maze cartoon of a map of the middle-east. Iran is marked as "Stuck" and Iraq is "A Rock" and Afghanistan is marked "A Hard Place. To allude to the fact that Iran is stuck between a rock and a hard place. Created by Yonatan Frimer
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Iran president wants to punish West over sanctions

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI (AP)

The United Nations Security Council approved a new round of sanctions against Iran last week for its refusal to curb the country's nuclear program, which the U.S. and its allies suspect is aimed at producing weapons. Iran denies that.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran favors a dialogue with the West, but will announce its conditions soon. He said the carrot-and-stick approach doesn't work and Iran will not make "one iota of concessions" to the West.

"You showed bad temper, reneged on your promise and again resorted to devilish manners," he said of the powers that imposed sanctions. "We set conditions (for talks) so that, God willing, you'll be punished a bit and sit at the negotiating table like a polite child," he told a crowd during a visit to the central Iranian town of Shahr-e-Kord. His speech was broadcast live on state TV.

Click here to read the full AP article

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Maze Cartoon about the Gaza smuggling tunnels By Yonatan Frimer

Maze Cartoon about the Gaza smuggling tunnels By Yonatan Frimer

Very psychedelic maze cartoon of two smugglers in the Gaza-Egypt tunnels, carrying a case of weapons and rockets. One says to the other, "If they open up the borders, then we might be out of a job." Created by Yonatan Frimer
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Pressure to End Blockade May Stop Tunnel Smuggling

Sarah A. Topol Contributor

Smugglers in Egypt and Gaza worry their trade will be adversely affected by returning Palestinians lugging goods bought for cheaper prices in Egypt. They know a total termination of the blockade will spell the end of their industry.

"If the border opened, there won't be any tunnels," Abu Al-Amir, a tunnel worker in Gaza, said in a telephone interview with AOL News. "If the tunnels end, no one will work."

Al-Amir said nervous conversations about what will happen if the border stays open have rippled through the smuggling community in Gaza. Although his work has not been affected, Al-Amir said, "There are people who are afraid."

Right now, it's business as usual for many of Gaza's tunnels that ferry construction materials, something neither of the borders is allowing through.

Click here to read the full article, by Sarah Topol, on AOL News.


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