To avoid drowning in marital discord, Ben Kaplanseeks insight inthe most logical place he can think of the marriage of a marriagecounsellor

By Ben Kaplan

The couch beside the dining room table is plush and brown and holds an important place for the Nicolson household. They have a bedroom, of course, which is essential. And a room where their one- and three-year-old daughters sleep. But the couch is what keeps every door open, because when Ellis, 38, and his wife Tiffany, 34, experience the painful bits of their marriage though were screwed up by our parents, no one can hurt us quite like our spouse they retire to the couch, kick off their sneakers and take positions facing one another, touch bare feet, and talk it out. Sometimes they stay that way for hours.

I start to feel something physically, when Im starting to ramp up, I feel frustrated, and thats when I know weve got to go to the couch, says Ellis, who is boyish-looking, blond, and has a sensitive, relaxed disposition, as if hes never worn uncomfortable shoes. Even if resolution doesnt happen at that moment, the idea is to walk away knowing that were OK and can move on from here in a positive way.

Sometimes conflict cant be resolved because people dont feel safe enough to say whats really happening, and know that their partner wont leave

This summer, the couch played a pivotal role in the Nicolson marriage. With both of their children facing potentially serious health problems, Tiffany in chronic pain from an old neck injury, and both husband and wife sleep-deprived and on edge, Ellis had grown withdrawn and Tiffany was internalizing her negative emotions. It was Tiffany who suggested a session on the couch.

I dont want to be judged and I dont want to be seen as weak, but I had to tell him: Im really not doing well, says Tiffany, who is a veterinarian and a priests daughter, and makes charcoal portraits after her girls go to sleep. After our talk, nothing changed that much, but I felt better because I allowed myself to be vulnerable. Sometimes conflict cant be resolved because people dont feel safe enough to say whats really happening, and know that their partner wont leave.

The Nicolsons, who live in Mississauga, Ont., shop at Costco; they drink soda; they let their kids watch the same crap everyone else does on TV. Theyre normal, and like all normal married people, that means sometimes they go to bed angry. Sometimes Tiffany takes a whole day and stews. Ellis sometimes strikes blows with his silence. But what makes their marriage unique is Elliss profession: hes a marriage counsellor, and spends up to 12 hours a day hearing domestic dramas unfold. Raised by a single mother who had a strong connection to the church, Ellis was studying aviation when he realized two things: that people were coming to him for advice, and that the root of most everyones problems tended to stem from their family life. Kids get a sense of who they are from the nature of the relationship between their parents, he says. I wanted my life to be meaningful relationships were where I wanted to make my mark.

The problems that he sees in his practice tend to deal with a low-humming dissatisfaction with life. His clients are generally in their thirties and forties and face not so much big single issues cheating, addiction, abuse but rather a mixed cocktail of grievances, often ignored to the breaking point. People in marriage or couples counselling (Ellis sees married and unmarried pairs) are grappling with the disconnect between their relationship ideals and the realities of their own partnerships. And Ellis is careful to be mindful of this in his own love life. A registered marriage and family therapist, he says he leaves work at work when hes home with his family, but both he and Tiffany say theyve benefited from his job. They dont see themselves as having the perfect marriage, they see themselves engaged in a realistic one. Wed for six years they met through a Christian website and dated for a year and a half Ellis and Tiffany dont expect bliss. Contentment is enough.

Your relationship is not doomed because you have problems

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Preserve & protect: The power and importance of marriage counsellors

Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War

by James Risen

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 285 pp., $28.00

In early 2003, James Risen, an investigative reporter in the Washington bureau of The New York Times, prepared a story about a covert CIA effort to undermine Irans nuclear program. Before publishing it, he informed the CIA of his findings and asked for comment. On April 30, 2003, according to a subsequent Justice Department court filing, CIA Director George Tenet and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice met with Risen and Jill Abramson, then the Timess Washington bureau chief. Tenet and Rice urged the Times to hold Risens story because, they said, it would compromise national security and endanger the life of a particular CIA recruit. (The agent is referred to in the Justice filing as Human Asset No. 1.) Eventually, the Times informed the CIA that it would not publish Risens story.1 Abramson said recently that she regrets the decision.

The following year, Risen and a colleague, Eric Lichtblau, learned of a National Security Agency surveillance program that collected details of Americans telephone and e-mail communications without reference to a search warrant. Some of Risens sources inside the NSA thought that the program was unconstitutional, because it violated the Fourth Amendments prohibition of unlawful search. Risen felt that he had come across my biggest story of the post-9/11 age, as he puts it in Pay Any Price, his revealing, diverse collection of investigations of greed, incompetence, and mendacity in the American national security state.

In October 2004, Risen and Lichtblau drafted their NSA story. They again informed the Bush administration of what they had discovered. The White House launched an intense lobbying campaign to persuade senior Times editors that the story would severely damage national security, Risen recalls. The decision about whether to publish fell to Bill Keller, then the Timess executive editor. Risen, Lichtblau, and Rebecca Corbett, their editor, argued that the paper should go forward, but Keller ultimately decided against them. That left Risen, as he writes, frustrated and deeply concerned.

He then took a leave of absence from the newspaper to write a book. In the summer of 2005, he finished his manuscript. He included in it his reporting about the CIAs Iran operation and, with Lichtblaus consent, their discoveries about the NSAs warrantless surveillance program. Risen found a willing publisher at Free Press. When he informed his editors at the Times about his book-publishing plans, he recalls, They were furious.

Rather than be scooped by their reporter and Free Press, the Timess executives reconsidered their decision not to publish his story about the NSAs warrantless surveillance. According to Risen, the deliberations culminated in an Oval Office meeting between President Bush and Arthur Sulzberger Jr., then and now the Timess publisher. In December 2005 the Times printed Risen and Lichtblaus account. It caused an immediate sensation and later won a Pulitzer Prize. Yet the Times did not reverse its decision to withhold Risens reporting about the CIAs covert operation to undermine Irans nuclear program.

On January 5, 2006, Free Press brought out State of War, Risens first book, which contained, in Chapter Nine, a critical account of Operation Merlin. In this covert action of the Clinton administration, according to Risen, the CIA recruited a Russian scientist to provide flawed nuclear weapons designs to Iran, in hopes of delaying the countrys progress toward constructing a bomb. Instead, the scientist pointed out the design flaws to the Iranians, which may have helped them.

From this tangled history of investigative reporting and espionage has arisen one of the most consequential confrontations between the government and the press in a generation. The Obama administration inherited the case from the Bush administration. The Obama administration then pressured Risen aggressively to reveal the sources he relied upon in describing Operation Merlin. The result, as his book and other evidence make clear, was that the Justice Departments actions damaged the First Amendment and the rights of journalists.

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The Reporter Resists His Government

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The recent news of hacking attack on Sony was alleged to be a state-sponsored attempt by North Korea in retaliation for the movie The Interview. Following that, North Korea suffered a severe Internet outage which it blames on the US. These developments have led to new hostilities between US and North Korea and new US sanctions (in addition to existing ones) on the communist country. Apart from sanctions from US, North Korea is also having sanctions imposed by multilateral organizations like the United Nations, as well as other countries like Japan. (See related: Countries sanctioned by US and Why) These sanctions impact various industries in both countries. Though North Korea remains a closed economy, the US is also losing out. (See related: How North Korean Economy Works?)

US Relations with North Korea

US and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) do not have any formal diplomatic relations. Since the Korean War, the US has maintained sanctions and regularly reinforced them with new additions under its Trading with the Enemy Act. As of today, North Korea remains on the US' most restrictive list (Country Group E) with complete restriction on various economic activities between the two countries. US federal regulations either impose a complete ban or a require strict licensing for items to be exported/re-exported as listed on the Commerce Control List (CCL) and for related services, including repairs associated with such products. The list and industry sectors listed below either need a license, need to adhere to strict specifications of products and services, or are completely banned.

Defense Sector

Essentially, the entire defense sector is banned from business with North Korea. It overlaps with a few other civilian restrictions, such as the ban on sale of large vessels, including those for sea, air, or land transport.

Chemicals

On the banned list are a large list of chemicals, including compositions and solutions. Additionally, associated apparatus and equipment for chemical operations, as well as for health and safety are also banned. The covered chemicals and associated apparatus are used in, but not restricted to, the following areas: mining, quarrying, agriculture, pharmaceutical, fertilizers, medical, veterinary, environmental, waste management, and the food industry.

Materials

The following materials are banned from export to the DPRK: metals and alloys, including wrought or fabricated materials, casting materials, fibrous or filamentary materials, ceramic materials, high energy materials and packaging materials.

Medical Sector

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Sectors Hit by Sanctions on North Korea

SYRACUSE, N.Y. The Syracuse district office of the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has announced the winner of the 2015 Veteran-Owned Business Achievement (VOBA) award.

Chris Dambach, a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, owns both Veteran Lawn and Landscape of North Syracuse and the Bacon Bandits food truck, which operates in Syracuse.

The VOBA award recognizes the entrepreneurial success of a local business owner who has served our country, the SBA said in a news release.

Dambachs business, Veteran Lawn and Landscape, contracts for property-maintenance, waste-management, janitorial, tree-removal and window-washing services across the Northeast, the SBA said.

The SBA describes it as a million-dollar business with 15 employees and 17 subcontractors.

Dambach in 2014 launched a second business, Bacon Bandits, to tap into the Syracuse food-truck scene.

The VOBA award winner must meet one or more of the following criteria, according to the SBA.

The criteria include demonstrating staying power; growth in employees or sales; current and past financial performance; innovativeness of service or product; a response to adversity; and contributions to community-oriented projects.

The Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University nominated Dambach, the SBA said. The agency will present the VOBA award at the Operation: Start Up & Grow veterans business conference at the SRC Arena on March 19.

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SBA Syracuse announces winner of 2015 Veteran-Owned Business Achievement award

Laureen Burris-Phillip

PLYMOUTH-born Kirch Spenser is a young Tobagonian with a very promising future.

He is a graduate of the Bethesda Government Primary School, the Signal Hill Comprehensive School and the Charleston Southern University. At Charleston, he read for a Bachelor of Science degree in Management with a minor in Sociology.

He started his professional career at the University at the National Enterprise Development Corporation (NEDCO). His work included the assessment of business plans, as well as assisting clients in developing their business plans.

He clearly enjoyed the work since he stayed there for nine years.

Spenser describes himself as an entrepreneur. In fact he said, I have been an entrepreneur all my life!

He has been involved personally in several businesses. In primary school, he and his fellow students were involved in providing eggs to clients.

At secondary school, he and his friends provided necessary services around the school. Then before attending university, he assisted fishermen in doing their accounts and was also involved in equipment rental.

Currently, he is the manager and owner of a contracting business that provides maintenance services, including power washing to his clients. He also provides business consulting services to assist his clients in developing proposals to access funding, and he also provides accounting services when requested. He is a life time member of the St. Clair Coaching School.

Bitten with the travelling bug, Spenser has visited the United Kingdom on at least four occasions, some Caribbean countries and since he spent five years in the United States of America, took the opportunity to visit many of the other states including Connecticut, Florida and California. He has also been to Canada once and anticipates visiting other countries in the future, both in the region and internationally.

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Kirch Spenser Entrepreneur

It has been observed that the most profound technologies are those that disappear (Mark Weiser, 1991). They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it, and are notable only by their absence.

The feat of reticulating clean potable water into every house, so that it is constantly accessible at the turn of a tap, is a great example of the outcome of large scale civil engineering projects, combining with metallurgy, hydrology, chemistry and physics. But we never notice it until it is no longer there. Similarly, the adoption of household items such as the refrigerator, washing machine and stove. And of course let's not forget the feat of the domestic electricity supply grid. Prior to the construction of national grid systems, electricity's customers were entire communities and the service role was in lighting the town's public spaces at night. Domestic electricity was an unaffordable luxury for most households. Today we simply take it for granted.

Computers are also disappearing. Today's car has more than 100 million lines of code, running in more than 100 microprocessor control modules. What we see in the car is not these devices, but instead we have cars with anti-lock brakes, traction control, cruise control, automatic wipers and seat belt alarms. Each of the car's underlying control systems are essentially invisible, and about all we get to see is the car's human interface system. This visible system, essentially an entertainment controller and navigation service, is currently the space where both Apple and Google are jostling for position with the auto makers, while all the other microprocessor systems in the car remain unremarked and little noticed.

So how should we regard the Internet? Is it like large scale electricity power generators: a technology feat that is quickly taken for granted and largely ignored? Are we increasingly seeing the Internet in terms of the applications and services that sit upon it and just ignoring how the underlying systems are constructed?

What about the most recent Internet revolution, the massive rise of the mobile "smart" phone? Will the use of a personal mobile computing device be a long lasting artefact, or will it be superseded in turn by a myriad of ever smaller and ever more embedded devices?

What should we make of the mobile smart phone industry? Is this all-in-one device headed down the same path of future technology obsolescence as the mainframe computer, the laptop and even the browser?

Or are these devices going to be here to stay?

How did we get here?

One way to answer this question is to look at the evolution of the computer itself. Computing is a very new industry. Sure, there was Baggage's analytical engine in the 19th century, but the first computers appeared in the mid 20th century as programmable numerical calculators. These were massive feats of electrical engineering, built at a cost that only nation states could afford, and were of a size and fragility that they required their own building, power and conditioned environment. Valves are large, require high levels of power and are fragile. For the early computers, such as ENIAC, a small cadre of folk were taught how to program them and a far larger team of specialists were employed to keep these behemoths running. This model of computing was one that was only accessible for a few, and at a cost that was completely unaffordable for most.

The invention of the transistor changed everything. Transistors were far more robust, used far less power and could be produced at far lower cost, leading to the advent of the commercial computer in the 1960. These units, such as the ubiquitous IBM System 360, were used in large corporates and in universities and research institutions as well as in public agencies. They still required dedicated facilities and a team of operators dedicated to keep them running, but now they branched out from being numerical calculators into information storage and manipulation devices. These computers could store and manipulate text as well as numbers. At the time computers were seen as the device itself and the giants of the industry were manufacturers whose logo was stamped on the hardware. The value of the unit was the hardware: by comparison the residual value placed on the software was almost incidental.

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The Mobile Internet

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My coffee maker is texting me again. It's scheduled to make coffee tomorrow, the message says, but I need to refill its water tank. Welcome to the future.

The Mr. Coffee Smart Optimal Brew Coffeemaker with WeMo yes, that is its official name is just one of many household appliances being remade to connect to the Internet and take care of themselves. There are thermostats, smoke alarms, washing machines and even $1,000 Bluetooth-connected toilets.

A Google subsidiary, Nest, which makes smart appliances, likes to talk about turning "unloved products" into "simple, beautiful, thoughtful things." And the company's chief, Tony Fadell, has predicted that in 10 years, "everything will have data in it."

That's not difficult to imagine anymore. Computers are cheap and tiny. Wireless Internet is nearly everywhere, so technologists are looking to implant some computing power in nearly everything.

I will admit. This can feel silly. I mean, who needs a coffee machine that texts him? Is that really necessary?

"The egg carton tells the fridge it's empty, which puts eggs into the list for a shopping app, which then delivers those things to your door. Meanwhile, the smart front-door lock knows the delivery person is coming and opens itself automatically when he arrives."

- Alexis Madrigal

Clearly it's not. For years, I've used a simple French press. It does not have sensors, nor does it connect through my wireless network to nag me about its needs. All my simple French press does is make delicious coffee that's a bit better than what my supersmart Wi-Fi-enabled drip maker can manage. And yet, who does not want to hit the "brew coffee" button from bed? I, at least, wanted to know what that felt like. And it felt good.

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The World Loves The Smartphone. So How About A Smart Home?

The Australian Defence Force is set to help survey cyclone-hit towns in central Queensland today as the region begins counting the cost of Cyclone Marcia.

The fierce category 5 system made landfall near Shoalwater Bay on Friday morning before grazing Yeppoon and passing over Rockhampton.

Leanne Smith, whose daughter and two grandchildren, aged 7 and 11, were evacuated from their Yeppoon home, said she couldn't believe what was left when she returned to survey the damage.

"I was actually really emotionally affected by it," Ms Smith told AAP.

"It's just not something you can really explain to people, it's actually quite devastating."

Miraculously, the family's goldfish survived the storm and was found swimming around in its small tank surrounded by the home's fallen walls.

"It was called Pig, but my grandson Tarn has renamed it Superfish after this," she laughed.

The system was gradually downgraded to a category 3 cyclone as it tracked down the coast, leaving a trail of destruction with many homes having roofs torn off.

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Rockhampton local Phil Tout was inside his home when the roof was torn off.

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Cyclone Marcia: Qld lashed by category five cyclone