To turn Earth Day into a sustainable annual event rather than one that occurred every 10 years, Nelson and Bruce Anderson, New Hampshire's lead organizer in 1990, formed Earth Day USA. Building on the momentum created by thousands of community organizers around the world, Earth Day USA coordinated the next five Earth Day celebrations through 1995, including the launch of EarthDay.org. Following the 25th Anniversary in 1995, the coordination baton was handed to Earth Day Network.
As the millennium approached, Hayes agreed to spearhead another campaign, this time focusing on global warming and pushing for clean energy. The April 22 Earth Day in 2000 combined the big-picture feistiness of the first Earth Day with the international grassroots activism of Earth Day 1990. For 2000, Earth Day had the Internet to help link activists around the world. By the time April 22 came around, 5,000 environmental groups around the world were on board, reaching out to hundreds of millions of people in a record 184 countries. Events varied: A talking drum chain traveled from village to village in Gabon, Africa, for example, while hundreds of thousands of people gathered on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., USA.
Earth Day 2007 was one of the largest Earth Days to date, with an estimated billion people participating in the activities in thousands of places like Kiev, Ukraine; Caracas, Venezuela; Tuvalu; Manila, Philippines; Togo; Madrid, Spain; London; and New York.
Earth Day is a day early each year on which events are held worldwide to increase awareness and appreciation of the Earth's natural environment. Earth Day is now coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network, and is celebrated in more than 175 countries every year. In 2009, the United Nations designated April 22 International Mother Earth Day. Earth Day is planned for April 22 in all years at least through 2015.
The name and concept of Earth Day was allegedly pioneered by John McConnell in 1969 at a UNESCO Conference in San Francisco. Earth Day was first observed on March 21, 1970, the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. This day of nature's equipoise was later sanctioned in a Proclamation signed by Secretary General U Thant at the United Nations where it is observed each year. About the same time a separate Earth Day was founded by United States Senator Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in first held on April 22, 1970. While this April 22 Earth Day was focused on the United States, an organization launched by Denis Hayes, who was the original national coordinator in 1970, took it international in 1990 and organized events in 141 nations. Numerous communities celebrate Earth Week, an entire week of activities focused on environmental issues.
William Smith (born March 24, 1933) is an American actor who has appeared in almost 300 feature films and television productions.
Smith began his acting career at the age of 8 in 1942. The physically imposing 6'2" actor is a lifelong bodybuilder and has the distinction of being the final Marlboro Man before the cigarette ads were discontinued on TV.
Smith won the 200 pound (91 kg) arm-wrestling championship of the world multiple times and also won the United States Air Force weightlifting championship. Smith is a record holder for reverse-curling his own bodyweight. His trademark arms measured 18 and 1/2 inches. Smith held a 31-1 record as an amateur boxer and studied martial arts with kenpo instructor Ed Parker for several years. Smith also played semi-pro football in Germany and competed in motocross and downhill skiing events. He entered films stunt doubling for former screen Tarzan Lex Barker in a French film.
Smith earned a Bachelor of Arts from Syracuse and a Master's degree in Russian Studies from UCLA. He taught Russian at UCLA before abandoning his Ph.D. studies for an MGM contract. He also studied at the Sorbonne in Paris and the University of Munich while learning languages through the military. Smith is fluent in Russian, Serbo-Croatian, French and German. During the Korean War he was a Russian Intercept Interrogator and flew secret ferret missions over Russia. He had both CIA and NSA clearance and intended to enter a classified position with the U.S. government, but his marriage to a French actress meant the loss of security clearance.
One of his earliest leading roles was as Joe Riley, a Texas Ranger on the NBC western series Laredo (1965–1967). Smith character was good-natured; co-star Peter Brown's character was a ladies' man, and Neville Brand portrayed a relentless bumbler. In 1967, Smith guest starred on Wayne Maunder's short-lived ABC military-western Custer. Smith played Jude Bohner in a 1972 two-hour episode of CBS's Gunsmoke as the "greatest bad-guy character actor of our time". Smith was added to the cast on the final season of Jack Lord's long-running crime drama Hawaii Five-O. He also starred in one episode of Kung Fu, and as the Treybor, a ruthless warlord, in the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century episode "Buck's Duel to the Death". Smith has also made guest appearances in numerous TV shows including the 1974 pilot for The Rockford Files, "Backlash of the Hunter", I Dream of Jeannie, and two appearances - as different characters - in episodes of The A-Team (the first season's "Pros and Cons", and season four's "The A-Team Is Coming, The A-Team Is Coming"). In the 1976 television mini-series Rich Man, Poor Man, Smith portrayed Anthony Falconetti, nemesis to the Jordache family.
On film, Smith played Clint Eastwood's bare-knuckle nemesis Jack Wilson in Any Which Way You Can, as a drag racing legend in 1979's "Fast Company", as the barbarian's father in Conan the Barbarian, bad guy Matt Diggs in The Frisco Kid, as a Russian commander in Red Dawn and a vindictive sergeant in Twilight's Last Gleaming. For fans of John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee novels, Smith did a turn as chief heavy Terry Bartell in Darker Than Amber, opposite Rod Taylor and Theodore Bikel, in 1970.
He also played Jed Clayton in Boss Nigger (1975) a blaxploitation film from the 1970s which also starred Fred Williamson, and was seen in in Francis Ford Coppola's classic 1983 films The Outsiders and Rumble Fish as a store clerk and a police officer, respectively. But, his starring roles typically had titles such as Grave of the Vampire, Invasion of the Bee Girls, and The Swinging Barmaids. Smith also played in several biker flicks including C.C. and Co., where he starred as the menacing "Moon", opposite football great Joe Namath and Ann Margret. He also starred in Nam's Angels, which is briefly seen on a television in a scene in Quentin Tarantino's film Pulp Fiction. Smith played Count Dracula in 'The Erotic Rites of Countess Dracula
Spitfire pilot Sergeant William James Smith was shot down aged 24 on May 9, 1942 after a dogfight over the Channel as his unit, the Royal Australian Air Force 457 Squadron, returned from a bombing mission over Belgium.
His remains were found in October last year near the northern French town of Hardifort by a team of British journalists filming a documentary.
On Thursday, he was buried in the Commonwealth War Cemetery in Cassel, on a hill overlooking the Flanders plain on the Franco-Belgian border, in a moving ceremony attended by relatives from Australia and Britain.
"I remember when my mother received those two fateful letters. One said 'missing in action'. The second said 'missing in action, believed killed'," recalled Smith's younger brother Bert at the graveside.
Spitfire pilot Sergeant William James Smith was shot down aged 24 on May 9, 1942 after a dogfight over the Channel as his unit, the Royal Australian Air Force 457 Squadron, returned from a bombing mission over Belgium.
His remains were found in October last year near the northern French town of Hardifort by a team of British journalists filming a documentary.
On Thursday, he was buried in the Commonwealth War Cemetery in Cassel, on a hill overlooking the Flanders plain on the Franco-Belgian border, in a moving ceremony attended by relatives from Australia and Britain.
"I remember when my mother received those two fateful letters. One said 'missing in action'. The second said 'missing in action, believed killed'," recalled Smith's younger brother Bert at the graveside.
Historian Andy Saunders, from Hastings, East Sussex, found Sgt Smith's remains last November during the excavation of farm land.
Mr Saunders and a film crew from the Discovery History Channel were searching for a Spitfire that had been donated by the Parker Pen Company at the time.
He said: 'The pilot of the Parker Pen Spitfire bailed out and that plane came down about two weeks before or after Sgt Smith's.
'All our research pointed us to this site for the other Spitfire.
'We had removed various parts of the aircraft when we started to find human remains.
'As soon we realised that we stopped work straight away and called the MoD in England and the local mayor.
'Obviously we hadn't expected to find any remains and there were no records at all for Sgt Smith in the area because he disappeared over the English Channel.
'We found his identity disc which was on a chain along with a lucky sixpence and a St Christopher.
'We have been in contact with William Smith's family and they are delighted that we have been able to solve this mystery.'
Sgt Smith's funeral will take place on Thursday at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission section of Cassel cemetery.
A documentary on the find and the funeral is due to be broadcast on Discovery History on Friday.
Elderly care, or simply eldercare, is the fulfillment of the special needs and requirements that are unique to senior citizens. This broad term encompasses such services as assisted living, adult day care, long term care, nursing homes, hospice care, and In-Home care. Because of the wide variety of elderly care found globally, as well as differentiating cultural perspectives on elderly citizens, the subject cannot be limited to any one practice. For example, many countries in Asia use government-established elderly care quite infrequently, preferring the traditional methods of being cared for by younger generations of family members.
Elderly care emphasizes the social and personal requirements of senior citizens who need some assistance with daily activities and health care, but who desire to age with dignity. It is an important distinction, in that the design of housing, services, activities, employee training and such should be truly customer-centered. It is also noteworthy that a large amount of global elderly care falls under the unpaid market sector.
A distinction is generally made between medical and non-medical care, care provided by people who are not medical professionals. The latter is much less likely to be covered by insurance or public funds. In the US, 67 percent of the one million or so residents in assisted living facilities pay for care out of their own funds.The rest get help from family and friends and from state agencies. Medicare does not pay unless skilled-nursing care is needed and given in certified skilled nursing facilities or by a skilled nursing agency in the home. Assisted living facilities usually do not meet Medicare's requirements. However, Medicare does pay for some skilled care if the elderly person meets the requirements for the Medicare home health benefit.
Thirty-two U.S. states pay for care in assisted living facilities through their Medicaid waiver programs. Similarly, in the United Kingdom the National Health Service provides medical care for the elderly, as for all, free at the point of use, but social care is only paid for by the state in Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland are yet to introduce any legislation on the matter, so currently social care is only funded by public authorities when a person has exhausted their private resources, for example, by selling their home.
However, elderly care is focused on satisfying the expectations of two tiers of customers: the resident customer and the purchasing customer, who are often not identical, since relatives or public authorities rather than the resident may be providing the cost of care. Where residents are confused or have communication difficulties, it may be very difficult for relatives or other concerned parties to be sure of the standard of care being given, and the possibility of elder abuse is a continuing source of concern. The Adult Protective Services Agency — a component of the human service agency in most states — is typically responsible for investigating reports of domestic elder abuse and providing families with help and guidance. Other professionals who may be able to help include doctors or nurses, police officers, lawyers, and social workers.
Improving mobility in the elderly
Impaired mobility is a major health concern for older adults, affecting fifty percent of people over 85 and at least a quarter of those over 75. As adults lose the ability to walk, to climb stairs, and to rise from a chair, they become completely disabled. The problem cannot be ignored because people over 65 constitute the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population.
Therapy designed to improve mobility in elderly patients is usually built around diagnosing and treating specific impairments, such as reduced strength or poor balance. It is appropriate to compare older adults seeking to improve their mobility to athletes seeking to improve their split times. People in both groups perform best when they measure their progress and work toward specific goals related to strength, aerobic capacity, and other physical qualities. Someone attempting to improve an older adult’s mobility must decide what impairments to focus on, and in many cases, there is little scientific evidence to justify any of the options. Today, many caregivers choose to focus on leg strength and balance. New research suggests that limb velocity and core strength may also be important factors in mobility.
The family is one of the most important providers for the elderly. In fact, the majority of caregivers for the elderly are often members of their own family, most often a daughter or a granddaughter. Family and friends can provide a home (i.e. have elderly relatives live with them), help with money and meet social needs by visiting, taking them out on trips, etc.
One of the major causes of elderly falls is hyponatremia, an electrolyte disturbance when the level of sodium in a person's serum drops below 135 mEq/L. Hyponatremia is the most common electrolyte disorder encountered in the elderly patient population. Studies have shown that older patients are more prone to hyponatremia as a result of multiple factors including physiologic changes associated with aging such as decreases in glomerular filtration rate, a tendency for defective sodium conservation, and increased vasopressin activity. Mild hyponatremia ups the risk of fracture in elderly patients because hyponatremia has been shown to cause subtle neurologic impairment that affects gait and attention, similar to that of moderate alcohol intake.
Elderly tourists in countries affected by malaria are almost ten times more likely to die of the disease than younger persons. This study based in the U.K. found that 4.6 percent of those infected with the disease died from it.
Legal issues about incapacity
Legal incapacity is an invasive and sometimes, difficult legal procedure. It requires that a person file a petition with the local courts, stating the elderly person lacks the capacity to carry out activities that include making medical decisions, voting, making gifts, seeking public benefits, marrying, managing property and financial affairs, chosing where to live and who they socialize with. Most states' laws require that a minimum of two doctors or other health professionals, provide reports as evidence of such incompetence and the person must be represented by an attorney. Only then can the individual's legal rights be removed and legal supervision by a guardian or conservator be initiated. The legal guardian or conservator is the person to whom the court delegates the responsibility of acting on the incapacitated person's behalf and must report regularly his or her activities to the court.
A less restrictive alternative to legal incapacity is the use of "Advance Directives"; powers of attorney, trusts, living wills and health care directives. The person who has these documents in place, should have prepared them with their attorney when that person had capacity. So, if the time comes when that person lacks capacity to carry out those tasks laid out in the documents, the person they named (their agent) can step in to make decisions on their behalf. The agent has a duty to act as that person would have and in their best interest.
