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Author: Rick |
June 13, 2012 |
It was meant to clear minefields.
no…it wasnt… you obviously dont FULLY ARM a minefield clearer, and nowhere in the diagram does it imply it has any other proposed use than that of being just a goofy tank that they thought would be strong against gunfire
It looked like a bouncing bomb at first but the pic at the bottom f'd that up. It's a crazy concept but probably wouldn't go over a war torn terrain.
it's like the Sony Rolly
It's in the Kubinka tank museum , close to Moscow.
It was captured by the Soviets from the Japanese, and simply listed as "article 66" and an import from germany, so nobody knows what its' purpose was. My guess is it was used as a portable testicular joke generator on the battlefield.
ps-I can't remember what number the izdelie was. 66 sounds coolest.
Check it out: http://worldofweirdthings.com/2009/06/03/retro-fu…
And the original, from Popular Science: http://books.google.com/books?id=wCgDAAAAMBAJ&…
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Among its many virtues, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) is a rare, dreamy, Technicolor depiction of London during the blitz. It's a masterpiece composed during this unique period where courage, cooperation, and creativity flourished on a Denham soundstage and in London's environs. It would be impossible to discuss all the artistic and technical milestones achieved as well as the patriotic outrage, casting mutations (20-year-old Deborah Kerr stepped in for Wendy Hiller when she became pregnant; Laurence Olivier, blocked by the Ministry of Information, paved the way for Roger Livesey to regale us at every turn; and James Mason nearly played a supporting role), and other vicissitudes that Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger endured during the making of this film.
"The Archers" -- the Powell/Pressburger moniker for their unique writer/director/producer collaboration and their independent production company -- brought together an extraordinary, international team of artists, who had all settled in London: Pressburger, himself, was born in Hungary; production designer, Alfred Junge, was German; cinematographer, George Perinal, French; actor, Anton Walbrook, Austrian -- and blended them in almost perfect harmony with the UK's pool of home-grown talent -- Jack Cardiff, cameraman and budding cinematographer (later celebrated for "painting with light"); stars Livesey and Kerr; character actors, such as Felix Aylmer, Roland Culver, and John Laurie; and a creative crew (eg, tenacious prop men, who "borrowed" military vehicles).
There are also references and stylistic nods to Hollywood, such as The Wizard of Oz, Citizen Kane, and the musical genre of Swing. It also may be no accident that African-American actor, Norris Smith (who also settled in London), plays a character, named "Armstrong," (a possible nod to Louis Armstrong). Smith's screen time is fleeting, yet pivotal, in carrying the film's romantic plot forward.
With glowing, insightful quotes by Powell/Pressburger scholar, Ian Christie; critic, Dave Kehr, iconic, American film auteurist, Andrew Sarris, and others found in Blimp's promotion, I wondered if there was anything more to say regarding such a mythic film?
Given my experience of profiling Deborah Kerr for The Bright Lights Film Journal in May, perhaps I would focus on the actress's unique influence on the film, which, except for Powell, is sometimes minimized or overlooked (n.b.: A Profile of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, the all-male talking heads mention her name twice with no evaluation whatsoever of her performance).
With a title like Colonel Blimp, it's assumed the film is concerned solely with matters of men and war, but it's frequently Kerr's performance(s) that inflect it with layers of emotion and romance. In his autobiography, Powell described her as no less than, "the ideal... the flesh-and-blood woman whom I had been searching for ever since I had discovered that I had been born to be a teller of tales and a creator of dreams."
With poise alternating with rebelliousness, Kerr plays three different women in Blimp, each one essential to a storyline that extends from London and Berlin in 1902, during the Boer War, to World War II. News of the film being shot in the middle of the blitz, daring to portray a German officer in a sympathetic light by contrasting his noble nature with the Nazis, reached Winston Churchill. Calling it a threat to military morale, Churchill sought to derail it. Powerful impresario J. Arthur Rank was not intimidated, and he released the film to wide acclaim for its performances. But anxiety about its meaning lingered with some British critics immersed in the fog of war. The exportation of The Archers' first Technicolor film was blocked for two years, then released only to be butchered -- in various incarnations by twenty minutes to over an hour -- in America.
Kerr's three disparate yet spiritually kindred characters fuel unconscious, Oedipal themes underlying the unique frisson and unlikely friendship of a buttoned-up, British officer Clive Candy (an innovative Roger Livesey creating a signature role) and his sensitive German counterpart Theo Kretschmar-Schuldorff (a "very much" charming, pitch-perfect Anton Walbrook). Through a fateful letter, Kerr's intuitive, bilingual governess Edith Hunter triangulates the characters, who evolve over forty years. Edith speaks her mind on matters of diplomacy and the human costs of war, which Kerr understood only too well. (Her father, a WWI veteran, was exposed to nerve gas and had a leg amputated after a severe bullet wound.)
The characters in Blimp are a paradigm for Great Britain, from its nefarious colonial reputation that began the twentieth century to its apotheosis as a noble underdog fighting against Nazi imperialism (and providing safe haven for Europeans fleeing from German oppression and occupation, one of the many parallel processes at play in the film's narrative as well as in the real lives of its creators). Clive and Theo age, while Kerr morphs herself and Edith into Barbara Wynne--a Red Cross nurse, whom Clive meets during WWI and marries--and Angela ("Johnny") Cannon--a model turned home-guard military driver during WWII.
This unsung -- until its 1983 restoration -- masterpiece was transferred to DVD by The Criterion Collection. On its commentary track, Powell describes Blimp as Pressburger's favorite film and the best romantic script he ever wrote, which Kerr consummates with enormous, yet subtle, dexterity. With her ginger tresses, peachy complexion, and vivid imagination captured with such skill by Perinal and Cardiff, Kerr glimmers in their magical lighting and pops in Technicolor in, not one, but, three of the best roles she ever played. Alongside a potentially "dangerous," but ultimately tender, prescient alien, Walbrook, and the quintessence of what it meant to be British, Livesey, Kerr's performances complete a masterwork of paradox -- quixotically anti-war, yet wildly patriotic.
A new, 35-mm restoration of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) will play at the Film Forum in NYC from November 18 to December 1. A special screening at MoMA on November 7, featured introductions by Oscar-winning editor, Thelma Schoonmaker Powell and director Martin Scorsese.
Restoration: Technicolor. 163 min. An MGM Release, executed by the Academy Film Archive in association with the British Film Institute, ITV, Ltd., and The Film Foundation.
DVD: The Criterion Collection. High-definition, digital transfer of the original, 1983, BFI restoration. Color. 163 min. Bonus features: 1988, audio commentary by director Michael Powell and Martin Scorsese; 24-minute, video documentary: A Profile of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.
Penelope Andrew is in the early research phase of a biography of Deborah Kerr in collaboration with Josephine Botting, fiction curator, The British Film Institute. | <urn:uuid:085b01e6-6715-48bf-abc4-6cea3c12f807> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.huffingtonpost.com/penelope-andrew/powellpressburger-1943-cl_b_1091020.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950646 | 1,480 | 1.796875 | 2 |
The World Policy Institute understands that policymakers and opinion leaders need creative ways to catalyze innovation and engage wider coalitions in solving some of the world’s biggest challenges. By working with artists focused on the same issues, this cross-cutting initiative seeks to build a new, collaborative model for social change.
In Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World, World Policy Institute Senior Fellow Ian Bremmer illustrates a historic shift in the international system and the world economy—and an unprecedented moment of global uncertainty.
By Henry "Chip" Carey
The devastation of the January 2010 earthquake is still obvious everywhere you look in Port-au-Prince and that includes its politics. It took Haiti 21 months after the catastrophe to confirm a prime minister. The legislature rejected President Michel Martelly’s two previous nominees, an example of the pattern of un-governability that afflicts Haiti’s “unending democratic transition.” A divided government, or what the French call cohabitation, has been the norm in Haiti in the quarter-century since the end of Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier’s dictatorship. Haiti has been unable to establish a stable political party system and routinely opts for charismatic figures in presidential elections, like the current president, a former compa music star. While the confirmation of the prime minister would normally be a step forward for the country, Martelly’s choice for PM may signal that an autocratic coalition of traditional elites may try to push Haiti back toward the country it was during the nearly 30 years of dictatorship under the Duvaliers.
On October 5, 17 Senators approved Martelly’s nomination of Garry Conille, with nine opposed. A full cabinet and governing plan will also soon be confirmed, and the long overdue task of rebuilding the country can begin. The previous government under former President Rene Preval neglected many duties after the earthquake, including failing to attend meetings with foreign donors, headed by Bill Clinton, to decide how to manage the billions in funds pledged to reconstruct the country. While having a prime minister is important, Martelly chose the wrong man to help the Haitian people.
Martelly nominated Conille as prime minister even though he does not meet the legally mandated residency requirements for the position. If the law is going to be overlooked, then there are many qualified Haitians living in the diaspora who are not the son of Dr. Serge Conille, minister for sports and youth under the Duvalier dictatorship. Martelly chose Conille partly because of his experience working with the United Nations Development Program, which included time liaising with the government of post-earthquake Haiti. However, Conille’s connections suggest sympathy for the reformation of those behind Jean-Claude Duvalier and the coup regime of 1991-1994. Conille is married to a daughter of the late Marc Bazin, a technocrat who served as a minister under Duvalier, and later as prime minister under the civil-military junta that governed for three years after the 1991 coup that exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. When Martelly decided to run for president of Haiti, he apparently turned to remnants of the Duvalier dictatorship to secretly finance his well-oiled, professional campaign. The huge campaign contributions, which appeared to come from nowhere during the election cycle, were not declared, as required by Haiti’s electoral law. The secret contributions could facilitate what could become another nightmare for Haiti.
In return for these contributions, Martelly has clearly reached an understanding with his benefactors to reinstate the army. President Aristide abolished the army in 1994, two months after he returned from exile with the assistance of a U.S. and U.N. peacekeeping mission. During the Duvalier dictatorships of both Papa and Baby Doc, the army intimidated and extorted money from the population. The U.S. does not seem concerned about this happening again, even though some of the same people are in charge.
Jean-Claude Duvalier was permitted to return to the country by the Preval administration just a few months before the recent presidential elections, allowing him to meet the five year residency requirement should he want to run for president four years from now. (Aristide arrived days before the vote for the same reason). Jean-Claude has not faced any apparent legal effort to hold him accountable for his numerous crimes against humanity during his nearly two decades in office. Baby Doc’s son was even given a job in the Martelly administration. Other leaders of the dictatorship and their children have also taken prominent positions throughout the government since Martelly assumed office.
Political appointments since Martelly’s inauguration include Claude Raymond’s son, the current deputy director of immigration. The father was the dreaded chief of army staff and minister of the interior and defense in both Duvalier cabinets. Constantin Mayard-Paul, the attorney for Claude Raymond and Papa Doc’s godson, has a son, Thierry Mayard-Paul, who is the president’s chief of staff. Another brother, Gregory Mayard-Paul, is a legal adviser. Both sons were childhood friends of the president, who has had lifelong connections with the Haitian elite. These key players in the Martelly administration have brought in Duvalierist connections in the Ministry of Finance, including, Josefa R. Gauthier, the daughter of Adrien Raymond, Duvalier’s foreign minister and brother of Claude Raymond. Daniel Supplice, minister of social affairs and ambassador under Duvalier, was coordinator of the Martelly transition team, was part of Aristide’s opposition a decade ago. Health adviser Dr. Pierre Pompee was special ambassador and plenipotentiary to the Holy See under Duvalier.
Martelly’s Duvalierists have also reportedly been advised by Stanley Lucas, the Haiti representative of the International Republican Institute, who, according to the New York Times, orchestrated the armed rebellion against President Aristide in 2003-2004. Following the rebellion, Lucas was removed from his position.
Haiti has a divided government, which means that the head of state (president) and the head of government (prime minister) will try to rule without the support of former President Preval’s Lespwa Party, which has a plurality in the legislature. So how was Conille, the third candidate for prime minister, finally confirmed? The explanation is not difficult to fathom. Conille, the son of a Duvalier minister, enjoys the deep pockets of an authoritarian coalition that hopes to reestablish the dreaded Haitian army that helped cause the terror that defined Duvalier’s reign.
At a recent press conference, Martelly said, “I picked Garry Conille, he is my suggestion,” to counter claims that Conille was the pick because he is the son of a Duvalierist and would bring in support from the old elite. When asked by an AP reporter about his Duvalier connection during last Thursday’s press conference, Conille dodged the question by insulting the AP reporter, saying, “I would have expected you to ask a more intelligent question.” A more intelligent question, in a country like Haiti, could not have been asked.
The Duvalierists will now try to reestablish the army. The U.N. might even train and monitor such a force if asked by the president, who could also ask the U.N. Mission to leave Haiti if the latter does not accept the army’s reinstatement. Of course, the parliament may not agree to a new army, but that would not stop the president from issuing a decree to create it, just as Aristide decreed its abolition in December 1994.
Advocates of the army in the Martelly administration will speak about how the U.N. peace-building mission stigmatizes Haiti by occupying the country with foreign troops. The trouble is that Haiti’s army has a consistent history of suppressing civil society. In the past, the army has been the biggest enemy of democracy in Haiti, and Martelly is advocating the return of an institution that has haunted the country for nearly a century.
Martelly first announced his plan for reestablishing the army at his first press conference in Washington soon after becoming president. The only convincing justification for an army made by Martelly is to overcome Haiti’s stigmatized identity. However, the only other country in Latin America without an army is also its strongest democracy. With no standing army, Costa Rica is the only state in the region to have had no interruptions to its democratic rule. Much more likely are the various nefarious goals that Duvalierists would like to achieve by gaining the means of coercion to produce patronage for a new political movement based on extortion and intimidation, just as Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier created a national civil militia which quickly became a paramilitary terror force. Duvalier created the force to offset the power of the army, which “selected” him as president in the 1957 election. The neo-Duvalierists now want an army to offset the power of the national police force, which has been improved somewhat under the tutelage of the U.N. peace-building mission. Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier established the Ton Tons Macoutes, a paramilitary force, because he could not control the army. Now, the reverse is being proposed—controlling the National Civil Police established by Aristide with an army loyal to the elected president.
Martelly presumably wants an army that he can control, because he cannot control the police, which have been led by an incorruptible leader for the past seven years. Like Aristide, Martelly would like to pretend to be democratic initially, possibly even giving the U.N. a large role in training the original forces. After a few years, the U.N. could be asked to leave—just as the U.N. mission to the National Civil Police withdrew under Aristide—and Martelly could replace the new army leadership with a Duvalierist crony.
If this happens, the cycle of dictatorship and destruction for the Haitian people will begin again.
Henry "Chip" Carey is Associate Professor of Political Science at Georgia State University in Atlanta. His two forthcoming books are: Privatizing the Democratic Peace: Policy Dilemmas of NGO Peacebuilding (Palgrave MacMillan) and Reaping what you Sow: A Comparative Examination of Torture Reform in the United States, Israel, France and Argentina (Praeger).
[ Photo courtesy of United Nations Development Program]
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December 15, 2011 | <urn:uuid:7dd0356e-6ab4-405d-9211-bf6d7d624873> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.worldpolicy.org/blog/2011/10/11/haiti-step-toward-its-dictatorial-past | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961424 | 2,261 | 1.835938 | 2 |
First launched in September 2004 as a public beta, Microsoft's MSN Music service went live in October 2004 and has been improving in small but appreciable steps ever since. Compared to rival services such as Apple iTunes Music Store, RealPlayer Music Store, and the many Windows Media Audio (WMA) based services such as Napster, MSN Music offers a number of intriguing benefits. Indeed, from testing these services over the past few months, it's clear that MSN Music is one of the strongest WMA-based contenders available. Whether it beats market leader iTunes or RealPlayer Music Store, both of which sell songs based on the AAC (Advanced Audio Codec) format, remains to be seen.
Back in September, I provided a preview of MSN Music, based on my experience using the beta release of the service. If you haven't read it yet, please do so now: This review will focus largely on what's changed since MSN Music was "finalized" (though, truly, a service like MSN Music is never really finalized but rather is improved over time) and how it compares to other similar services. But first, let's examine why Microsoft decided to ply the digital music services business. Because, originally, that wasn't Microsoft's plan at all.
Why MSN Music?
Back in 2003, Microsoft's digital music strategy was pretty clear-cut. The company was pushing its WMA and WMV (Windows Media Video) formats to third parties, and following the community model that was so successful with Windows. By fostering a massive community of third party products and services, and by bundling its digital media platform technologies--like Windows Media Player and the audio/video formats--in its dominant Windows operating systems, Microsoft figured that its digital media technologies would become pervasive and de facto standards. Indeed, this strategy had worked so many times in the past, that it seemed like a given that it would work again. Besides, WMA and WMV were technically superior to the competition, a benefit Microsoft could not always have claimed in the past.
Also, give Microsoft credit for being a good partner. As a new generation of online music services like Napster and BuyMusic.com began to appear in mid-to-late 2003, Microsoft didn't generally compete with these services. Instead, Napster and its ilk could take advantage of Microsoft's digital media platform in their own services, using not only the secure WMA audio format, but also all of the compatibility with software music players and portable hardware devices that came along with it. On the back end, Microsoft was doing what it did best: Ensuring that the platform had wide availability and compatibility, making it more valuable both to the company and its partners.
There was just one problem. While Napster, BuyMusic.com, and other services were struggling to attract customers, Apple's iTunes Music Store was coming on strong. No doubt, business schools will one day study the success of iTunes and draw some interesting conclusions. But the facts as we now know them are these: Despite locking in users to its single service and the iPod portable player, despite the fact that the proprietary Protected AAC format that Apple uses for iTunes is both low-quality and completely incompatible with non-Apple products, and despite the fact that iTunes was, at first, a poorly-written application that behaved in ways unfamiliar to most Windows users, Apple was successful. No, not just successful. Super successful. Today, iTunes is the dominant online music service. And Apple's iPod is the dominant portable audio player, with an amazing cachet among consumers.
We might debate why this is so. Apple's iPods are more expensive and less feature-packed than the WMA-based competition. Songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store will not work on the 70+ portable devices that are compatible with WMA. And so on. My theory is that an iPod, unlike say Apple's Macintosh line of computers, is an affordable luxury. Though few people are willing to plunk down $2000 to $3000 for a computer (a Mac) that is basically incompatible with every other PC on the planet, spending $300 to $500 on an iPod is a bit more palatable. And because they are stunningly styled, customers feel like they're getting a luxury item. For many people, an iPod is a fashion accessory, a sign that they have "made" it and can afford the good things in life. That they are technically inferior to the WMA-based competition means little. BMW owners, for example, aren't concerned that their autobahn blazers get worse gas mileage than a more pedestrian Buick.
By the beginning of 2004, it was obvious that the market for online music services would be divided into Apple and everyone else. That means that Apple's Protected AAC format, and not WMA, would be the de facto standard for audio formats. And since that wasn't the future Microsoft had envisioned for WMA, the company began to rethink its strategy. In 2004, Microsoft made two huge steps in a bid to curtail the success of iTunes. The first was to release a new version of its Windows Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology, which is used to protect songs sold by online music services. The new DRM version supports the copying of subscription content to portable devices, a business model many (myself included) feel will ultimately prove to be more viable than the a la part 99 cent downloads offered by iTunes. The second was that Microsoft decided to open its own online music service. The service, called MSN Music, is obviously the subject of this review. But the two steps are linked: Though Microsoft has created a subscription-based technology, MSN Music now eschews that for a la carte downloads only. Microsoft's decision to at least temporarily leave the subscription offerings to other services shows that the company is still sensitive to stomping all over its partners. So some ways, MSN Music is a demonstration that companies other than Apple can get the a la carte download product right.
In May 2005, Microsoft Yusuf Mehdi, the Microsoft Corporate Vice President of MSN, addressed investors from Goldman Sachs and discussed his company's plans to battle Apple in the online music services market. Apple, Mehdi acknowledged, had captured consumer excitement with iPod and iTunes advertisements that spoke of a luxury lifestyle. Microsoft's response would be to offer consumers more choice.
"Our strategy is certainly to offer a multitude of devices," he said. "There's a lot of opportunity. [iPods are] only in 4 percent of U.S. homes today, even with all the success they've had ... And so the proposition is that you can buy a number of different devices with the MSN Music service as opposed to just a single device from Apple and that will be a good choice. The other thing is, of course, we'll have a very broad selection of music. My goal is that if we don't have the broadest selection, we're tied for the broadest selection of music. We'll have the best discovery. It will work with your Windows PCs and that alone I think will give us a big enough market share that we certainly should be able to go out there and be in a nice horse race if not take the lead at some point in the future ... And again one of the nice things about us at Microsoft is we'll take a long-term view and so we will fund and we will invest to be competitive."
In late July, Mehdi provided attendees at the annual Microsoft Financial Analysts Meeting with a sneak peek at the MSN Music user interface (Figure). While its unclear how this came about, the somewhat Spartan look of MSN Music was destined to replace the user interface for all of MSN's online services, including the hugely-popular MSN.com portal. That change, I'm told, will happen early this year.
One thing I was curious about was how it was that MSN got control of Microsoft's music service. After all, the company's Windows Digital Media team, along with Microsoft Research, had developed the Windows Media formats and other popular and related products, like Windows Media Player 10 (see my review), Windows Movie Maker 2 (see my review), and Photo Story 3 (see my review). Larry Grothaus, the Lead Product Manager for MSN Marketing, told me recently that MSN, as the online services business at Microsoft, was actually the logical choice.
"We had some legacy there," he said. "We purchased Mongo Music several years ago, and Microsoft made them part of the MSN Division. We also have a huge focus on entertainment, and in building out complete online experiences for consumers. But [MSN Music is part of a] cross-company effort. The Windows Digital Media guys do their piece, the Media Center folks do their piece, and we have our piece over here. We're brining it all together as a company."
One thing Grothaus said really struck a nerve. "If you look at the way Microsoft as a whole rallied around Windows as a platform, and then the Internet, the whole digital media experience is our latest rallying point." That shows you how important this service is to the company, and the level of dedication Microsoft is willing to give its digital media products, including MSN Music. In other words, this isn't a flash in the pan, and Microsoft is in it for the long haul. If that doesn't strike fear in the hearts of Microsoft's competitors, then they've already given up.
MSN Music debuts
In September 2004, Microsoft debuted the public beta of MSN Music. As I noted in my preview of the service, the beta of MSN Music was an interesting solution, offering compatibility with both Windows Media Player 10 (see my review) and Internet Explorer, giving users the choice about where they would both purchase and play music (another benefit of WMA-based services: You can choose to buy music from MSN Music, but play that music in MusicMatch, if that's your favorite player). At MSN Music, songs are offered in a variable bit rate format that runs from 160 Kbps all the way up to 256 Kbps, depending on the sonic needs of each song (Classical music, I'm told, tends to require higher bit rates to accurate capture the highest highs and the lowest lows). That makes MSN Music the highest quality WMA-compatible service out there, offering music of much higher quality than Apple's relatively paltry 128 Kbps format. And Microsoft has built some interesting discoverability features into its service, something Apple could learn from.
Still, the MSN Music preview didn't represent the full service. By mid-October 2004, the soft launch of MSN Music had transitioned into a full-blown launch of the 1.0 version of MSN Music. And since then, Microsoft has been working to improve the service steadily, something it will do continually from here on out. Here's what's changed since the MSN Music preview.
New and improved features in MSN Music
Overall, the look and feel of MSN Music hasn't changed much since the beta. Comparing the UI now to what it looked like in early September 2004, we can see a few small differences. First, if you have logged into the service using a Passport account, Microsoft calls that out by listing your email address in the service's header. When you mouse over this email address, a pop-up menu appears, giving you access to your account settings, download history, ratings, and bill (Figure). This menu provides you with a wealth of configuration options from any screen in MSN Music, which is a welcome change from the beta.
Another thing that's changed is that MSN Music added a number of exclusive bands to its roster, though some of those--like the steak and potatoes rockers AC-DC--are now available to other services. MSN Music also offers songs from over 3,000 independent artists, many of whom are exclusively available to the service.
The process of buying music, already nicely-implemented during the beta, has been improved somewhat. By default, when you click a link to purchase an album or song on MSN Music, you're prompted with a green Confirm button, which subtly replaces the original blue Buy button (Figure). When you click the Confirm button, two things happen. First, the Confirm button is replaced by a blue Purchased button. Second, a notification window appears above a new MSN Music icon in your system tray, alerting you that the music you purchased is now downloading (Figure). If you click that MSN Music icon, you can access a number of choices, including "Show My Downloads." This choice launches a new IE window that displays the download status of the songs you just purchased (Figure). The entire process is handled very nicely, and in a bit of seamless integration, you can even start playing a song, in Windows Media Player, by clicking its link from the Download Status page of MSN Music in IE.
One thing that MSN Music has done well since the beta is make it easy to find new music. This was a complaint I had about iTunes, though Apple has been steadily improving that service to make it less stark in this regard. For example, MSN Music offers a fun feature called Senior Year Hits, which helps you find music that was popular from certain years. So, for example, because I graduated from high school in 1985, I'm treated to the ignominy of such craptacular mid-80's hits as the Miami Vice Theme, Oh Sheila, and Born In the USA. Sigh. But Senior Year Hits are great for finding music from any era, of course. MSN Music also offers a new releases list, the top albums from The Billboard 200, custom In The Mix playlists, an amazing Map Of Music feature that lets you find music from particular decades and geographic locations (Figure), and various other features.
Other services offer some features that are similar to these. But when it comes to discoverability, MSN Music is without peer. The key to this success is the way MSN Music integrates with other MSN services. For example, if you're listening to MSN Radio, which comes in free and subscription-based forms ($4.99 a month or $29.99 a year for the latter), you will see a link to purchase the current song, or songs from that album (Figure). Or let's say you're searching for a musical group from the MSN Toolbar Suite (see my preview) or the new MSN Search. One of the top links on the search results page, called out with orange chevrons, directs you to that artist's page on MSN Music. There are even links right in the results page that will let you download that group's most popular songs (Figure). Likewise, the new MSN Messenger 7.0, currently in beta, has a new MSN Music tab that provides a handy way to find music directly from that IM client (Figure). That kind of interoperability between the various MSN services is just fantastic.
One interoperability feature that's unfortunately pretty buried is RSS (Real Simple Syndication) integration, which is the technology many blogs and Web sites use to let readers easily subscribe to online content. Grothaus told me that MSN Music's RSS features were originally planned as a tool for partners, so those companies could easily and automatically access the service's top albums, songs, and artists. To access this hidden feature, load http://music.msn.com/rss (Figure). Though its support for RSS is iffy right now, MSN is serious about making this technology more pervasive across its many offerings. "One thing we're adding in an upcoming version of MyMSN.com is the ability to have an RSS module," Grothaus told me. And users of MSN Spaces, MSN's new blogging tool, also currently in beta, can access this content easily as well.
The amount of music available on MSN Music has gone up dramatically in recent days. Now offering over 1 million songs for download, MSN Music adds new songs and every single day, though Tuesdays are the busiest for new releases because of the music industry release schedule. As for the site features, Grothaus said that MSN would update MSN Music every 6 to 8 weeks going forward, tweaking existing features and adding new features.
Additionally, MSN Music offers access to a growing collection of streaming (not downloadable) music videos (Figure), including U2's Vertigo, which I'm sure many people thought was exclusive to Apple. To help you sort through the growing list of MSN Music- (or as we might call it, WMA-) compatible portable audio players, there's even a Device Guide that divides the market up into sporty and tiny, travel and fashion, and video and anywhere. This compares somewhat favorably to Apple's approach, which is to simply offer you an iPod, because that's the only device they sell.
Finally, one feature MSN doesn't get enough credit for is the many ways one can access the service. As I mentioned above, you can access MSN Music directly from within Windows Media Player 10, or from Internet Explorer. But if you have a Media Center PC, you can also access the ten-foot UI version of MSN Music (Figure), which lets you purchase and preview music from your couch using a remote control. And if you have a Media Center Extender, you can even access the service with that device, perhaps from your bedroom or a family room. And not to belabor the point, but music purchased from MSN Music is playable from any WMA-compatible media player, including MusicMatch, Napster, or whatever. It's all about choice.
Where MSN Music falls short is its lack of a subscription service. Given the attention Microsoft is getting for creating a subscription-based DRM scheme, it's somewhat odd that the company has left this feature to partners like Napster, which now offers a $15 a month service called Napster-To-Go. With Napster-To-Go, subscribers can download any of the 700,000+ tracks Napster offers and copy them to a compatible portable audio player, such as a Portable Media Center (see my review). Ultimately, subscription plans like this will save consumers tons of money, since it would cost you about $5,000 to fill up a 20 GB device with songs from an a la carte service like Apple iTunes. However, before that can happen, more devices will need to be made compatible. Those updates are coming early this year, I'm told.
Though MSN Music doesn't include a subscription service, the company isn't ruling one out for the future. My guess is that Microsoft is giving its partners time to get a leg up on this business before it jumps in. However, as an alternative, Grothaus reminded me that MSN Radio--a bargain at just $29.99 a year--is an attractive alternative to subscription services, especially for those that generally just listen to music at home, or at the computer. For example, Media Center PC users can access MSN Radio content from anywhere in the house. "Subscription is something we're looking at for down the road," he told me. "But streaming music through MSN Radio is a good alternative today. I actually use MSN Radio when I have people over to the house and it sounds great." The paid version of MSN Radio, dubbed MSN Radio Plus, offers better sound quality than the free version, has no advertisements, and includes more radio stations, he noted.
Also missing, of course, is iPod compatibility. Because Apple refuses to open up its dominant portable music player to the competition, consumers are unable to pair the best player with the best music services, and are instead forced to use iTunes and its comparatively lackluster and locked-in music format. Frankly, there isn't much Microsoft can do here. As I see it, the company has two choices: It can do nothing (what it's currently doing) or try to emulate RealNetworks in a losing strategy of reverse-engineering the iPod to be compatible with its formats. But given the icy response Apple gave RealNetworks when that company announced such a strategy, and Microsoft's historic antitrust problems, my guess is that such a tactic is not really a possibility. But being incompatible with the iPod is very much a weakness for MSN Music. WMA-compatible players are getting better all the time, and some are arguably superior to the iPod. But to the average consumer, an iPod is the gotta-have-it player. No other device maker can make such a claim.
MSN Music compared
Compared to other online music services, MSN Music comes out at or near the top, depending on your requirements. It offers a similar music selection and similar or better discovery of new music than Apple iTunes, and has vastly superior sound quality. On the other hand, unlike iTunes, MSN Music is not compatible with the iPod.
RealNetworks' RealPlayer Music Store also offers high quality music downloads (192 Kbps AAC-based), and is ostensibly compatible with the iPod. However, Apple's latest iPod software update broke that compatibility and it's unclear whether Real will be able to keep up with Apple's ever-changing compatibility requirements. If song selection and non-iPod device compatibility is important, MSN Music still comes out ahead of RealPlayer Music Store, though it's close.
Unlike iTunes and RealPlayer Music Store, MSN Music and the songs you purchase from that service can be accessed from a Media Center PC, which is hugely important if you own such a machine. At my house, we access our music and photo collections from the large TV in the den all time, thanks to a Media Center PC, so this functionality is key.
Compared to other WMA-compatible services, MSN Music also comes out ahead in most regards. Only MusicMatch Downloads can approach the quality of the music offered by MSN Music, and no other services have as large of a selection. However, Napster's subscription-based offerings are fairly unique, unless of course you don't have a compatible portable device (and right now, almost no one does). Combined with MSN Music Plus, MSN Music has most of the bases covered.
I've been asked many times which service I use. Unfortunately, I take a slightly more complicated approach to buying music than most people. Ultimately, I want all of my purchased music to be re-encoded in a non-protected format, preferably MP3, which offers the greatest compatibility with both software-based players and devices. So the quality of the original songs I purchase are of utmost importance. For this reason, services like MSN Music, MusicMatch Downloads, and RealPlayer Music Store are the most attractive to me (in that order). Generally speaking, I'll look for the albums or songs I want on those three services first, then write them to audio CDs, and re-rip them back to the PC in 160 Kbps MP3 format. I then ZIP up the original files and archive them. Lower quality services like iTunes and Napster, which both offer 128 Kbps downloads, are almost useless for this task.
However, I understand your needs will likely be quite different. So what you should assess is the viability of both the platforms and services you access. Clearly, Apple and iTunes will be around for a while, the quality of the songs notwithstanding. So that's a safe bet, assuming you don't mind being locked into that one store and will always use an iPod. However, after purchasing over 250 songs from iTunes between 2003 and early 2004, I was disappointed to discover that these songs were of such low quality that it made transcoding, or re-ripping, them a largely futile task. The resulting songs are tinny and thin sounding. So now I purchase songs from MSN Music when I can now. And if the music I want isn't available on MSN Music, I'll turn to MusicMatch or RealPlayer Music Store as alternatives. Choice is great.
It's highly likely that MSN Music, backed by Microsoft, will be around for a long time to come, and I suspect the service will continue to improve over time. My recommendation for most Windows users is to pursue a WMA-compatible device over an iPod, but if you must use an iPod, consider performing the somewhat monotonous re-ripping steps I outline above. Either way, you'll be best served by a high-quality WMA-based service. And the best of the lot, at this time, is MSN Music.
Though derided by some as an iTunes rip-off, MSN Music is in fact an impressive and feature-packed offering, giving Windows users the best combination of quality, selection, and choice. In contrast to Apple's lock-in strategy, MSN Music customers get high-quality digital originals and access innovative ways to discover new music. And as you find yourself in other parts of the MSN universe, you'll be amazed at the ways in which MSN Music, like MSN's other services, are integrated, providing you with fun and excellent ways for you to access the music you want. MSN Music is quintessential Microsoft: Simple and powerful at the same time, and as accessible to new users as it is to the more technically proficient. Why this service has flown under the radar so far is a mystery to me. But make no mistake, MSN Music is a winner. | <urn:uuid:393ff45c-19f3-419c-ab49-1b9a78e2f4d1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://winsupersite.com/print/windows-live/msn-music-review | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959836 | 5,257 | 1.617188 | 2 |
ASC wins $3.6 million grant to expand access to scientific fields
The U.S. Department of Education awarded Adams State College a $3.6 million grant from the Hispanic Serving Institutions STEM program (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). Entitled Increasing Student Engagement and Success in STEM, the five-year grant will fund several initiatives to help more Hispanic and low-income students earn a STEM degree, according to Dr. Michael Mumper, Adams State senior vice president for Enrollment Management and Program Development.
"We have identified three strategies to help us increase the annual award of STEM degrees by 50% and to triple STEM degrees awarded to Hispanic students," Mumper said. This year's award totals $869,849; the total grant amount is $3,630,551.
The comprehensive proposal was developed in close consultation with all Adams State science and mathematics faculty. Those instrumental in the successful grant application include Dr. Matt Nehring, Professor of Physics and Chair of the Department of Chemistry, Computer Science and Mathematics; Dr. Benita Brink, Associate Professor of Biology and Chair of the Department of Biology and Earth Sciences; Grant Specialist Tawney Becker; and Lillian Gomez, director of Adams State's Title V program.
"Outreach, academic support, and student engagement are the three areas we will focus on to promote student success in STEM," Gomez said. The project will upgrade Adams State facilities and equipment to better serve students and support the new programming. Specific activities include summer programs, seminars, tutoring, a new STEM tutoring center, curriculum reform, and undergraduate research.
The grant will fund a Project Director, Activity Director, and Project Specialist. Nehring will be the principal investigator for the project and help coordinate program activities with other faculty.
National need for more students in STEM fields
Adams State offers four STEM majors with 16 specializations that currently enroll 285 majors: biology, chemistry, earth sciences, and mathematics.
"Adams State is the central STEM resource in the vast, rural region of southern Colorado," Mumper added. "We are positioned to deliver far-reaching - even ground-breaking - services in STEM, especially for Hispanic and low-income students."
According to the Center for Urban Education, Hispanics constituted 19 percent of the college-aged (age 18-24) population in 2006, but received only 8 percent of the bachelor's degrees, 3.5 percent of the master's degrees, and 4.4 percent of the doctorates in STEM fields.
Eighty-one Adams State students - including 15 Hispanics - earned a STEM bachelor's degree between 2007 and 2009, representing 9 percent of the 865 total degrees awarded. At Adams State, the undergraduate student body that is 33 percent Hispanic, and 18 percent (annual average) of STEM graduates are Hispanic, which is comparable to the national average, Becker noted.
Academic support for STEM students
The grant's largest component is construction of a new STEM Tutoring Center on the third floor of Porter Hall, the college's math and sciences building, at a cost of $815,500.
"Our vision is to create an environment that is supportive of STEM students, socially as well as academically, and that offers access to tutoring services and peer and faculty support," Mumper said.
The multipurpose tutoring center will encourage STEM students to engage in group study, meet with faculty, work with peer tutors, and collaborate and connect with other STEM students. The center will include a commons area, an open study area with four smaller individual tutoring rooms and one larger group tutoring room, and an undergraduate research lab outfitted with instruments for interdisciplinary STEM research.
"The STEM project will also permit us to replace outdated and worn equipment to support hands-on study and research across the entire STEM curriculum," Brink noted.
The grant will fund upgrades to Adams State's greenhouse and to purchase versatile and expensive instrumentation, such as a modern X-ray diffraction system that costs more than $90,000. Laboratory ovens and furnaces, computers, software, supercomputers for math, microscopes, electronic balances, centrifuges, and a range of equipment for molecular biology will also be purchased and/or upgraded.
Exposing kids to science
By expanding its outreach, the college hopes to cultivate more interest in STEM careers and postsecondary education among area youth.
"With the STEM grant, Adams State will enhance our facilities and programs to give area students a view into the world of science that may otherwise be inaccessible to them, due to financial and geographical reasons," Nehring said. "The central unifying component unique to the ASC proposal is an astronomy and space-based theme. The field of astronomy lends itself perfectly to this objective, because it connects all STEM disciplines and is historically appealing to K-12 students and the general public.""
Adams State's Zacheis Planetarium will receive a $400,000 upgrade with a state-of-the-art projection system and new seating. New programs on tap include Black Holes, 23 Tales of the Maya Skies, and Field Trip to the Moon, currently shown nationally in major museums. Zacheis Planetarium shows will continue to be shown free of charge, and periodically in Spanish, as well.
In addition, nationally recognized speakers will engage the campus and community in an exploration of the cosmos. Young visitors to the Edward M. Ryan Geological Museum, housed in Porter Hall, will become more engaged through new, museum-quality educational touch-screen systems. During the 2013/14 academic year, a new observatory will be built on the north end of campus at a cost of $120,000 to provide excellent viewing of the night sky.
Beginning in 2012, a summer STEM Academy will be created for 20-30 area high school students entering the 10th, 11th, and 12th grades. Admission criteria will encourage Hispanic and low-income students. This annual on-campus summer residential program will pique student curiosity and enthusiasm through hands-on learning in the science labs, greenhouse, planetarium and observatory.
"The hope is that by developing a sustained relationship with many of our excellent Valley students, many of them will seek out opportunities and careers in STEM," said Nehring.
HSI grants total $14 million
The HSI STEM grant brings Adams State's total of Title V HSI grants to more than $14.1 million. Adams State was the first college in the state to earn federal HSI designation, which requires a minimum of 25 percent Hispanic enrollment.
"Title V grants have allowed us to raise awareness of diversity issues and needs on campus," said Adam State President David Svaldi. "Title V funding has helped ASC improve resources, facilities, and teaching, and provide new opportunities. The results benefit all students"
The college's first Title V grant, for $1.96 million awarded in 2000, created CELT - ASC's Center for Equity in Learning in Teaching. This faculty development program raises diversity issues and awareness and trains faculty in active learning techniques.
A second, five-year cooperative Title V grant for $3.4 million was awarded in 2005 to Adams State College, Trinidad State and Otero junior colleges to expand educational access for Hispanic students. CELT continued as a cornerstone of that grant.
Last fall, Adams State was awarded a $3.18 million grant from Title V that is further supporting student success. In addition to continued faculty development through CELT, this grant is funding acquisition of new instructional and assistive technology, as well as construction of a Student Success Center on the first floor of the Nielson Library. A third component of the grant designed to help prepare students for college-level studies, the five-week Fast Track program, launched this summer with 20 freshmen.
By Julie Waechter | <urn:uuid:a3e2c574-b463-4c1a-8f3c-95cb89fe5aa6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://adams.edu/news/sept1128.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942284 | 1,606 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Cool user interfaces have been a requirement for consumer electronics devices, smartphones, tablets, and games ever since Apple launched the iPhone in 2007. But they’re not easy to design.
Rightware, a Finnish startup that specializes in tools to create user interfaces, hopes to lift that burden from in-house software developers.
A user interface is often critical to an app or a game, and it can take 25 percent of the budget for a project when handled in-house. Billions are spent on user interfaces by companies that create them from scratch.
Rightware was founded in Espoo, Finland, as a part of Futuremark in 2004, with the goal of focusing on mobile computing user interfaces. Sarkkinen left Futuremark in 2009 and immediately spun Rightware out of it. He raised $4.5 million.
“We had started a user interface software tool company but didn’t know what platforms it would be for,” Sarkkinen said.
Rightware licenses its Kanzi tools for building user interfaces for computing platforms that have to be simplified for consumers as they try to navigate through menus on smartphones, tablets, and even cars. It works for two-dimensional or three-dimensional user interfaces.
“We enable you to author your apps and user interfaces in record time,” Sarkkinen said. “It can take as little as a couple of weeks.”
Rightware’s interfaces are speedy compared to Adobe’s Flash software and web technologies such as HTML5. The Rightware software does not require a download, since it is only 400 kilobytes, and comes within an app download.
Now a variety of companies are tapping Rightware for user interfaces that implement fast-scrolling touch screen menus. Wikipad, a mobile tablet gaming company, has licensed it so players can browse through a game library quickly. Asus uses it in its Transformer convertible tablet/laptop. Fantasy Dice uses Rightware as a gaming interface.
“Our goal is to be something like the next Autodesk, building tools for the next-generation interfaces,” said Sarkkinen.
Rightware supports any platform, including Android, iOS, Windows and anything else that runs OpenGL ES. Sarkkinen said the company will launch a developer edition of its tool at the International CES show in Las Vegas in January. Rightware has a small team that designs user interfaces for a fee, but for the most part, it supplies tools for developers to use themselves. The interface tool allows developers to see changes they make to a design in real-time. The tools are available for sale now.
Rightware has 50 employees in Finland and offices in the U.S. and China. | <urn:uuid:8e6afb8e-c7fc-49e7-bfe9-61e05226e0dc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://venturebeat.com/2012/10/19/rightware-creates-tools-to-make-eye-popping-user-interfaces/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942411 | 562 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Thousands of people could now be enjoying cheap electricity thanks to energyhelpline.com's Huge Switch campaign.
In the five days since it launched, energy customers collectively saved three quarters of a million pounds on their bills.
So far, more than 4,000 consumers have switched and the average saving is £184.
This includes £139 off their bill and £45 cashback.
It means the average family could pay less than £1,000 for their energy next year if they take advantage of the cheapest tariff on offer through the scheme, which comes from First Utility.
This is £61 cheaper than than the Co-operative Energy deal available through Which?'s Big Switch campaign.
Director at energyhelpline.com Mark Todd said that although Huge Switch is due to close today (May 28th), he wants it to stay open longer.
He added that the company has sacrificed its own commission to give customers these savings.
Mr Todd said: "Energy customers need to act now to get the best deals while they're around and avoid the likely price rises that are expected later this year."
The initiative also has the support of secretary of state Edward Davey, who spoke about the deal in parliament last week.
He stated: "I want to help make collective purchasing become a permanent feature of the UK energy market."
Through Huge Switch, cheap energy deals are also available from the likes of EDF Energy, Scottish Power and Sainsbury's.
Make sure you're not paying too much for your energy - compare gas and electricity prices now at energyhelpline.com or call 0800 074 0745. | <urn:uuid:5f913823-e66b-4bb2-ad1f-6b47f038a2c7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.energyhelpline.com/csma_internet/fri/domesticenergy/news/video/40008013 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97092 | 335 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Nine brief, sometimes pithy short stories explore children’s interactions with man’s (and kids’) best friend.
Martin has gathered together a set of engaging tales by well-known children's authors, each averaging just under 30 pages of text and accompanied by a few attractive black-and-white illustrations. Tyler, with the help of Max, his good-natured “weiner dog,” finds and defeats a dognapper. An 11-year-old girl explains to a judge in humorously round-about fashion how her shoe-stealing dog has caused her to appear in the courtroom. A very competitive but nerdy boy accidentally turns himself into a dog when trying to accomplish too much with a science-fair project. An impoverished boy attending a fancy school on scholarship loses his dog, and eventually that leads to a welcome bonding experience with his classmates. A young figure skater has to protect her chicken-stealing dog from the farmer next door. The best of the group is the one by the editor; 12-year-old Delilah, left home alone, accidentally loses her dog Picasso and singlehandedly launches a neighborhood search. Her first-person narration is often hilarious, creating a memorable character readers will wish to spend more time with.
These amusing tales, all of them strong and distinct, total up to a nice, easily accessible package that will be a hit with dog lovers. (Short stories. 9-12) | <urn:uuid:b2735f8e-5f6d-4253-aedf-9d387b313b64> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/ann-m-martin/because-shoe/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965502 | 302 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Film Review #134: Ten Canoes
Director: Rolf de Heer
Cast: Jamie Gulpilil, David Gulpilil, Crusoe Kurddal
“It’s a good story,” confides the Storyteller to us in one of his asides. “It will help Dayindi live the proper way.” Voiced by the great Australian aboriginal actor David Gulpilil, whose son Jamie plays Dayindi in his debut screen role, this Storyteller’s gentle, humorous, sometimes chiding narration in English is specifically addressed to outsiders – “you other mob” – and it’s what allows us to eavesdrop on a distant, ancient world whose characters speak entirely in indigenous languages.
Set near Australia’s northern coast in Arnhem Land before the first contact with Westerners, Ten Canoes recounts how one man, Minygululu (Peter Minygululu), knowing his younger brother Dayindi is jealous of his three wives and seriously eyeing the youngest, tells Dayindi an ancient story with a similar plot. The two are part of a group of men who set out to collect goose eggs in the Arafura Swamp some ways from their tiny village, an annual undertaking that requires them to build new bark canoes. Thus the older brother’s story – in which the “dream time” characters themselves also tell a story, an origin myth from which their law flows – is wrapped inside the Storyteller’s tale too, like three nested boxes, so we left to consider the ancient purposes of storytelling in communities and families that could include our own.
All this may sound like an anthro classroom. But Ten Canoes is entertaining, funny, dramatic and, thanks to DP Ian Jones’ camera work, swooningly lovely to look at throughout. As well, it won the Special Jury Prize at Cannes, given for films that make contributions of special significance to film as an art form. So much does Ten Canoes enlarge and refresh the storytelling function of film that it also was Australia’s official 2007 Oscar entry. Ten Canoes opened theatrically in the US in June, running in limited release until just two weeks ago. Without much fanfare – not even cited in weekly media notices of new DVD releases – it quietly arrived on DVD a few weeks back.
Held together by the Storyteller’s voice, Ten Canoes alternates between the merely long-ago brothers on their goose-egg hunt and the ancient times. By the simple device of filming the present and the ancient times in full color and the middle period’s core story of Dayindi in black and white, we can shuttle between these two plots smoothly, revisiting the swamp trip at key points. Most of the actors have dual roles. So when Dayindi hears about the ancient impatient and jealous younger brother, Yeeralparil, he imagines himself as that young man, just as he imagines Minygululu’s wives as their ancient counterparts, and so forth.
Intriguingly, the exception to this double-casting is the older brother in the ancient tale, Ridjimiraril (Crusoe Kurddal), a younger, more warrior-like figure as Dayindi imagines him. The ancient plot parallels Dayindi’s dilemma, except that in the ancient time the older brother mistakenly kills a stranger he believes stole one of his wives, and has to accept the “payback” ceremony, in which his younger brother stands with him as the neighboring tribe hurl spears at them. Ridjimiraril’s injury and death ensue – not something Dayindi really wishes for Minygululu after all.
Ten Canoes results from David Gulpilil’s persistent invitation to director Rolf de Heer to visit the actor in his home community of Ramingining and make a film with the Yolngu people still living there. Gulpilil’s first screen role at age 15 was in Nicholas Roeg’s classic Walkabout (1970). Since then, if you’ve seen Aussie films like Crocodile Dundee, The Last Wave, and last year’s bracing Outback Western, The Proposition, you’ve seen Gulpilil. In 2002 he appeared in Rabbit Proof Fence and Rolf de Heer’s The Tracker, films that, like The Proposition, took sharply critical views of colonial treatment of indigenous communities. This was just a year after Canada’s Inuit made the first feature-length film wholly in their own language, Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, also a re-telling of an ancient story of jealousy, desire and revenge before European contact.
Gulpilil himself suggested the subject of Ten Canoes to de Heer based on 1930s photographs by anthropologist Donald Thomson – in particular one of ten men in canoes in the marshes at Arafura – of which there are some 4,000 archived in the Victoria Museum. The DVD contains excellent bonus features, including a short interview with de Heer, material on Donald Thomson’s work, and a making-of doc for television with extensive material about how Gulpilil’s community participated in filming decisions, chief among these the issue of how to cast the roles – de Heer says he merely was the instrument of their film – and to the great satisfaction of their community re-learned canoe-building and other skills to produce the film. Ten Canoes is exciting further evidence of the global emergence of indigenous cinema and its repairing effects of home communities and outsiders alike.
This review appeared in the 11/1/07 issue of the Syracuse City Eagle weekly, where “Make it Snappy” is a regular column reviewing DVDs of recent movies that did not open theatrically in CNY & older films of enduring worth. | <urn:uuid:b434d06e-9389-45fc-a503-341059233e7b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.moviecrossrhodes.blogspot.com/2007/11/film-review-134-ten-canoes-2007.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948178 | 1,241 | 1.726563 | 2 |
While I was writing the first and second drafts of my WIP, I was sure I needed to open with a prologue scene that showed my heroine’s childhood. I felt the reader needed this information to empathize with her present situation. But I’ve been learning some rules:
Backstory belongs only where it explains what’s important for the reader to know at that moment. In other words, sparingly and so it doesn’t interrupt the pace of the story.
The longer essential information is withheld, the better. It’s best to reveal backstory before the midpoint. Never insert at the end; your ending will seem contrived.
Don’t repeat backstory information. Readers have good memories.
Backstory can be presented as action. It can be incorporated as dialogue, or revealed through short inner thoughts. Or a combination of these.
If you need a flashback, write it as a blow-by-blow action sequence that ends in disaster for your main character.
I have deleted my opening chapter and the first half of chapter 2. As I edit, I’m watching for repetitious backstory information.
I have three backstory passages. One is part of an action scene. The second is a short, essential nightmare. The third is draft 2’s version of my original prologue. I love this scene—it is where I defined my heroine, but I’m now sure it doesn’t serve the story. | <urn:uuid:ebcd199f-95f2-4a96-913b-c931d67720f6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://heroineswithhearts.blogspot.com/2011/11/b-is-for-backstory.html?showComment=1320620991462 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940953 | 307 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Detained children held in 'wholly unacceptable' conditions
Provision at Tinsley House Immigration Removal Centre had deteriorated since the last inspection and arrangements for children and single women were wholly unacceptable, said Dame Anne Owers, Chief Inspector of Prisons, publishing the report of an unannounced short follow-up inspection of the centre at Gatwick airport.
Lisa Nandy, Policy Adviser, The Children’s Society comments:
“This is a deeply disturbing report, especially as HMIP found in certain respects the situation had got worse for children since their last inspection, including on child protection. We are particularly concerned about length of time children are detained at Tinsley and the inadequacy of facilities for them at the centre. The level of care detained families have received falls well short of the standards required following the introduction of the duty on the UKBA to safeguard and promote the welfare of children.”
Amanda Shah, Assistant Director, Bail for Immigration Detainees comments:
“This damning report is further evidence that detention centres are no place for children. We have seen for ourselves the damaging effect that detention at Tinsley has had on families we have supported, and fully agree with HMIP that the children detained at Tinsley are 'poorly cared for' and held in conditions that are 'wholly unacceptable'. This report requires an urgent response from the Government to ensure that no other children are held in such an unsuitable environment”.
Notes to Editors:
A copy of the full report can be found on the HM Inspectorate of Prisons website from 18 December 2009 at www.justice.gov.uk/inspectorates/hmi-prisons
The Children’s Society and Bail for Immigration Detainees are currently campaigning to end the immigration detention of children and their families. Funded by the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, we are campaigning together under the banner OutCry! Sign up to the campaign by visiting www.outcrycampaign.org.uk
The Children’s Society
The Children's Society is a leading children's charity committed to making childhood better for all children in the UK. Visit www.childrenssociety.org.uk
Bail for Immigration Detainees
Bail for Immigration Detainees is a human rights charity challenging immigration detention in the UK. It provides free legal advice to detained asylum seekers and migrants to help them secure their release and it campaigns to end arbitrary detention. Visit www.biduk.org | <urn:uuid:4b8999cd-ff04-4751-aec4-1c823da11e19> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/news-views/press-release/detained-children-held-wholly-unacceptable-conditions | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956082 | 515 | 1.585938 | 2 |
The Nordiques were killed by a disease that afflicts many small-market teams - including the Winnipeg Jets who, a week before, narrowly escaped the same fate as the Nordiques when a proposed deal to move them to Minneapolis fell through. In Quebec, said Aubut, "The new realities of the hockey industry, the size of the Quebec City market and the absence of adequate government help sounded the knell of the Nordiques." Their revenues from advertising, TV and ticket sales did not cover skyrocketing payroll costs. And, tired of Aubut's near-constant complaints, Quebec fans had steeled themselves for the inevitable. They failed to fill the 15,399-seat Colisée for some playoff games against the New York Rangers, and only 300 fans turned out for a save-the-Nordiques rally. As well, Aubut, a federalist, was at odds with the separatist provincial and civic leaders. When asked if the province would make a last-ditch effort to save the team, Parizeau replied: "I have more important things to deal with than Mr. Aubut's every little twitch."
The NHL's governors will have to approve the sale and settle on a transfer fee to be paid to the league - possibly as high as $14 million. Even if that fee comes off the sale price, the vendors will make a handsome profit: they bought the team in 1988 for about $15 million. COMSAT, meanwhile, can be equally pleased with its end of the bargain. The company, which already owns a National Basketball Association franchise in Denver, plans to have both teams playing out of the city's McNichols Sports Arena until the new $130-million Pepsi Center is completed prior to the 1997-1998 season. The Rocky Mountain city is getting not an expansion franchise but one of the league's most talented teams. "We're bringing winners into Denver," enthused COMSAT president Charlie Lyons. Quebec's loss, Colorado's gain.
Maclean's June 5, 1995
Author JAMES DEACON
Shawnadithit grew anxious waiting for her uncle, Longnon, to return to camp at the junction of Badger Brook and the Exploits River, deep in the wilds of Newfoundland... | <urn:uuid:55bc20c5-e9c1-4549-9b00-37d68c263323> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/macleans/nordiques-move-to-colorado | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963376 | 463 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Before you get started on a pantry it's a good idea to think about your motivation for building a food storage pantry. For me the top two reasons are healthier eating that fits our budget and security during a crisis. Over the past year we have transitioned to all whole grains and a primarily vegetarian diet. With a family of eight this translates to a lot of wheat, rice and beans. Lots of beans. The crisis aspect became crystal clear two years ago when I was one week away from delivering my fifth baby. Our area experienced a devastating ice storm. We were without electricity for a week, some were without power much longer. This really got me to thinking about how we would have fed ourselves during this crisis if we had not been able to get to a place with electricity. Pretty solemn thought.
There are some other benefits to having a pantry that I certainly have enjoyed, one being the savings of buying our staple foods by bulk. You can see significant savings when you compare the per pound price of oatmeal at the grocery store to buying a 25 pound bag from a co-op. Another benefit is fewer trips to the store. Believe me, those cupboards have to be really bare to get me to haul everyone to the store. Now I can just go to the pantry and decide what I want to make. It may not be what I was craving or what I had planned but it's always filling and delicious. And for me, knowing that I am feeding my family the best quality of food at a much better price makes that steaming bowl of stew and bread made from fresh ground wheat even yummier.
An important thing to understand is that building a pantry is not about fear and it is not hoarding. I'm sure many of you know someone who prepared for the worst for Y2K. In fact I just used up the last of my parents soft wheat they stored for Y2K. The good news is that 12 years after they purchased it, it was still good. Properly stored food can last a long time. Many people at that time were motivated by extreme fear. You should be motivated by a desire to best feed your family and meet your budget goals.
Proverbs 21:20 says, "In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but the foolish man devours all he has." So even Solomon agreed that there is wisdom in storing food for your family to use. For me it would be hoarding if I was buying up large amounts of food when there was a general shortage. In fact that is one definition of hoarding, amassing and hiding a supply of something in a time of scarcity. However, in a time of plenty, it is common sense to plan for your family and others you may be with if there was a crisis. Crisis can come in may guises. Personal crisis such as a job loss or illness could have you relying on your food storage or any other crisis personal or more widespread. Again, you can't operate in fear, but use wisdom. Joseph in Egypt is a great example of this.
Now that some of the whys are covered and you have thought about reasons to start your own pantry we can get to the planning of it. This is going to be fun! | <urn:uuid:eb12d0b7-40a4-4718-8c64-df7822dee168> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://inspirednutmeg.blogspot.com/2011/01/pantry-primer_10.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985123 | 667 | 1.648438 | 2 |
See end of post for national and Wisconsin screening schedule
In the documentary As Goes Janesville [the full length 88 minute version] we follow two laid-off UAW workers, a laid-off Alcoa worker, a team of business boosters, and Wisconsin State Senator Tim Cullen just before and during Wisconsin’s 2011-12 uprising. The focus of this film is the quest for jobs in a region of Wisconsin devastated by the closure of a General Motors auto plant. In this film we see only slivers of the intense protest battle people waged against Scott Walker before their energy would be exhausted on recall elections. Yet the conflict between Wisconsin’s right wing and The People thrums through this entire film. This is my review written after a Madison screening hosted by the UW Havens Center and WUD.
Director Brad Lichtenstein presents admirable and loving moms who work hard and keep it together. Gayle Listenbee scours the job market and in her middle age decides there is no option better than moving to Fort Wayne, Indiana to another GM plant. A second United Auto Worker union member makes the same choice, leaving behind her mother and son. Cynthia Deegan is the third worker: a woman who was laid off from an Alcoa plant. Cynthia is the one white woman of the three. She is the one who opts to go back to school, taking a heavy load of 17 credits and seeking an entirely new career as a lab technician.
These strong women manage challenges with grace and humor but they, and their families, also suffer overwhelming stress. Cynthia cries in relief after taking a make or break test for a job. Gayle’s 11 year old daughter is depressed at the loss of daily time with her mother and grieves immediately. When she calls her mom in Fort Wayne and she’s crying, we see Gayle tell her sobbing daughter to pray through the phone and a little girl’s shaky “Our Father” begins.
In the Q and A after the Madison screening of AGJ, Lichtenstein was asked why he chose women workers as his documentary subjects.
He said the story of men’s struggle with identity after layoffs had been told already and he thought it was time to see the female side. The inspiration came to Lichtenstein when he was in a job center and saw Cynthia Deegan generously helping her laid-off friends with a whirlwind of questions on unemployment insurance forms and training programs.
When we’re watching the families in AGJ, we see the little things that, cheesy as this may sound, say “I love you” — Gayle’s husband flipping pancakes and brushing out his daughter’s hair.
When we’re in the board room with the Rock County 5.0 business group, we’re entering into a place disconnected from day to day life. The players are always wearing suits, they are mostly male, and they are all white. They are connected to the new power center of Wisconsin: Scott Walker.
The Rock Netroots blogger keeps a close and critical watch over the activities of the biz promotion groups Rock County 5.0 and Forward Janesville and sums them up as: “mainly politically driven self-interest groups whose core leadership is comprised of hyper-partisan right-wing engineers. We’re in Atlas Shrugged territory here with a smattering of old world Republican and pseudo-conservatives”.
We do hear cringe-inducing and surprisingly candid statements from the Janesville biz leaders in AGJ which tells us these people really have no clue how offensive they sound outside of their own scheming circle. Here’s just one groan-inducing scenario: John Beckord of Forward Janesville is in another brainstorming session with his peers and he’s trying to figure out how to spin the exodus of the labor force. “Perhaps the fact that these people are gone is in the plus column because you can pay less now.” Following his eyes go wide and he smiles broadly.
Former UAW union president Mike Sheridan told us in the post-screening Q and A that he’d spent many hours with the people in Janesville 5.0 and knew them well. He was shocked at Beckford’s comment and told us Beckford wouldn’t think of saying such a thing if he were in the room.
We also see moments so absurd in AGJ that they scream “mockumentary”. Like when the biz troupe watches a dull commercial designed to lure business to Janesville. As the screen fades to black, an enthusiastic man at the conference table says “It needs to be 5 minutes because it’s do damn good!” A minute later he says with not a hint of irony, “We need to make this thing go viral!”
In short order the film cuts to a close-up of a baseball cap embroidered with the team’s phrase, “Ambassadors of Optimism” and the audience around me laughs.
In one of the closing scenes Mary Willmer-Sheedy of M&I bank carefully dons one of those same caps and looks into the camera with genuine happiness and trust. She stood at the side of Diane Hendricks and we see her nod in agreement in this film when Scott Walker uttered his infamous “divide and conquer” comment. Of all the biz boosters we see, Mary displays the most humanity and genuine caring for the Janesville community. I know that she was right at Scott Walker’s side nodding at each of his words. I know that M&I Bank executives gave so much money to Walker’s 2010 campaign that union members hounded the shareholder meeting of The Bank of Montreal when it was getting ready to purchase M&I. Still, I can’t help but look back at Mary’s smiling face on the screen and smile with her.
In a fascinating makeover, Tim Cullen is given the role of Man of The People. He’s been one of the least lauded of the Dem14 [reminder: the 14 WI state senators who left for Illinois in Feb 2011 to block Walker's legislative agenda]. Part of Cullen’s least-favored status comes from his plain appearance and lack of charisma. Another element in his lackluster formula is what Emily Mills called a “built-in handicap thanks to Gov. Walker’s kind words for the senator during the now-infamous prank Koch phone call from February”.
Mills wrote that after Cullen announced his candidacy for the governor’s seat in December 2011. At the time I could not for the life of me understand why Cullen thought he had a shot. Cullen’s hat thunked so hard when he tossed it in the ring, people wondered if it said “lead” on the label. In this film we see Cullen being coached into the decision by John Nichols at a little bistro table in a coffee house. Nichols pumps up the idea, saying “Cullen steps up. That would be the drama move.” It’s a statement as baldly absurd as “Make it go viral” and it’s a peek into the backroom of what I think is fair to call “progressive” Wisco politics.
I wrote in my viewing notes, “Question for Director: Do you realize what you’ve done for Cullen?” We get to see Cullen deliver groceries to needy people. We see Cullen tell the Rock County 5.0 team that he isn’t going to help them carry water for a tax break bill for start-up Shine Technologies to the state legislature because the bill isn’t transparent and “It’s the people’s money. People have a right to know.”
We see Cullen’s stoicism turn into straight shooting as Cullen gives a name to that routine way growing businesses play one city against the other to get the biggest relocation check: “legitimized blackmail”. We see the patient Cullen lose his temper, telling Walker’s team from his hotel in Illinois “I don’t give a shit if he’s mad.”
When the audience was settling itself into seats before the screening, I overheard a man say, “This could be painful.”
Allow me to describe in detail a moment in this film which you should experience in front of a large screen in a theater – if it’s at all possible for you.
My heart suffered a pang when the camera followed Tim Cullen and the other Dem Senators as they return to the city square, back from Illinois. They emerge from the underground car garage at Inn on the Park to crisp blue skies and chants of “Thank you!” from thousands. That contrast from dark to lightness and from quiet to cheering — it’s so much like a football team emerging from a locker room to a playing field. In those moments a man gives Cullen a solid high five and they hold their hands together just a half second too long. We did not have a feeling of victory then but instead that our team had come together after a long absence –these people who took a crazy leap against The Radical in Chief were there to promise us and each other we would remove him from power. The People handed their power to The Dems in trust though the fullness of our future was unknown.
Not long after that moment in history, Tim Cullen stood on the steps of our Capitol and asked us “Who’s going to govern us: the people or the money?” And we responded with full throats, “THE PEOPLE! THE PEOPLE! THE PEOPLE!”
Our cynicism was shed. WE were the Ambassadors of Optimism.
I recommend you see this documentary in its 88 minute full version. Please get thyself to a DVD copy or a screening. If you’ve seen the 60 minute Independent Lens version it’s not enough. Remember that much of the story of the last few years in Wisconsin has came to us in 2 minute YouTube videos. 28 minutes focused on Wisconsin is a delicious eternity by comparison and should not be dispensed with. As a Janesville business booster might say, it needs to be 88 minutes because it’s so damn good.
AND Additional Madison and Beloit Screenings
1pm, Oct 20, Sequoya Library.
Map to Sequoya Library
“As Goes Janesville – Community Cinema
Join us for a free screening of Community Cinema’s As Goes Janesville by Brad Lichtenstein. America’s middle class is dwindling, and the debate over how to save it is nowhere fiercer than in the normally tranquil state of Wisconsin. In Janesville, as jobs disappear and families are stretched to their breaking point, citizens and politicians are embroiled in an ideological battle about how to turn things around.”
See photos from the film and a Paul Ryan Outtake HERE.
Wed., 10/24/2012 7PM Double Feature at Madison’s Barrymore Theatre
United States of ALEC + As goes Janesville with proceeds benefiting CMD.
Visit Center for Media and Democracy for more info.
There remains a great deal of ignorance at the national level regarding the differences between public unions and private unions and regarding the fact that it was public sector unions and particularly teachers that were under Walker’s attack. This director’s mission was never to dispel those errors. Instead it offers a narrative that follows a select group of people from Janesville. Where there is discussion of unions, it is either generic or focused on a private union: United Auto Workers.
If you’re looking for a documentary on the WI uprising that focuses on the public sector union story, try the film We Are Wisconsin.
This film is one narration. If you have a story to tell that you don’t see in here, and you’re frustrated, then get it out there. Let me know if you need some help doing that. | <urn:uuid:1e79b9ee-ea55-45d0-a730-807f2dad63cf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.bluecheddar.net/?p=24399 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956848 | 2,512 | 1.632813 | 2 |
The First Minister’s ongoing attempts to shift the blame for the recent mayhem from his own shoulders are merely highlighting the confusion which exists in his own party on the basics of democracy – a confusion which brings into serious question his suitability for the position he holds.
As joint head of the devolved administration in Northern Ireland, the First Minister’s prime role is to uphold the Rule of Law. Yet on an ongoing basis, since his party’s endorsement of illegal breaches of Parades Commission determinations last summer, he has failed to do so.
Mr Robinson refers to the “settled status quo” on the flags issue. Far from it, the “settled status quo” is the one endorsed by all sides at Stormont in 2000, the one accepted without opposition by his own party colleagues in other Councils, and the one endorsed by 44% of the whole population (as opposed to just 38% of his preferred option) in a recent poll – namely, designated days. Mr Robinson would do well to note he is First Minister not of Unionists, but of Northern Ireland – in all its diversity.
In truth, the First Minister’s ongoing attempts at blaming everyone else are an attempt at deflecting attention from the fact his party started a Shared Future (or “CSI”) process which has come up with precisely nothing. What is required, urgently, is a new process involving direct dialogue with sides on an equal basis. Such a process could do worse than start with an absolute public commitment by all sides to the Rule of Law, and full backing to the PSNI’s application and enforcement of it – in time to avoid a long hot summer and further economic mayhem. | <urn:uuid:af264ed7-280d-4ef1-b5ae-32aeb7a8747c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ianjamesparsley.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/first-minister-must-stop-wavering-on-rule-of-law/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9707 | 354 | 1.617188 | 2 |
The 113th Congress had not even been in session a week before Democrats were demanding that the first appropriations bill in the U.S. House of Representatives had to be paid for with more borrowed money, instead of accepting an equal reduction in current federal government spending levels. Sources close to the Democratic leadership in the House are saying that Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) had made it clear to the rest of the Democratic caucus, after Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) refused to take up a Senate authored bill for Sandy relief, that she would not accept any cuts in spending to get a Sandy relief bill, "just like with the debt ceiling". In other words, the money would have to be borrowed, and Democrats would accept no spending cuts to offset the appropriations. Today, the House approved a $9.7 billion Sandy relief bill, on a 354-67 vote, which extends additional borrowing authority to the National Flood Insurance Program, through which flood insurance claims from Hurricane Sandy will be paid. Unlike the pork-laden $60.4 billion Sandy relief bill, which was not taken up in the final week of the 112th Congress, H.R. 41, titled as "To temporarily increase the borrowing authority of the Federal Emergency Management Agency for carrying out the National Flood Insurance Program", does not include spending for non-Sandy items, or propose changes to appeal rules for federal disaster programs, like in the prior Senate crafted bill.
The bill, which now goes to the Senate for consideration, raises the borrowing authority of the National Flood Insurance Program from $20.725 billion to $30.425 billion, effectively spending 1/6 of the new revenue raised in the "fiscal cliff" bill just two days into the new legislative session. 67 Republicans voted against the measure, after their calls for spending cuts in exchange for Sandy relief did not receive an audience with Republican leaders. Democrats had tried to paint Boehner in an unflattering light, just before the election for the Speaker's position, by protesting against Boehner's decision to bring up the $60.4 billion prior Sandy relief bill. John Boehner was re-elected as Speaker without a challenger. He responded by refusing to allow a vote on any measure that would include anything more than the increase in available funds in the flood insurance program, and that was exactly what he got. While Democrats only got the increase in available funds to pay flood insurance, they managed to get this version of the Sandy relief bill to a vote this time around.
Nancy Pelosi's actions signal that, at least at this point in time, she has no intention of offering any cuts to spending at any time soon, which is setting up a big battle over one more increase in the debt limit. While the Obama administration says that it believes it can hold off for several more months before it would need additional borrowing authority for the federal government, President Obama is making no secret of the fact that he will not accept spending cuts to get an increase in the debt limit. The President, and Democrats in Congress, have not made any mention of any reductions that they are willing to accept to get the debt limit increase, meaning that they intend to try to get that increase without having to accept spending cuts to go along with it. This is setting the stage for a heated battle with Republicans, over the next two months, on more than just the debt ceiling increase.
Before the battle over the "fiscal cliff", Republicans had been talking openly about comprehensive immigration reform. After the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, Democrats, who support further gun control measures, felt emboldened, and went public with their intentions. This set off a gun buying spree all over the U.S., and calls from the National Rifle Association to place armed guards in schools. When President Obama held a rally at the White House, just before the House was to vote on the "fiscal cliff" deal, where his supporters cheered raising taxes on people other than themselves, Republicans got angry, and with the federal government now spending in excess of the debt limit, newly elected Tea Party Republicans have withdrawn their support for not only immigration reform, but any changes to existing federal gun laws; including pulling support for a new assault weapons ban.
While Democrats are claiming victory today after the vote for Hurricane Sandy relief, there is little question that prospects for any legislative victories they could have between now and the extended "sequester date", delayed in the "fiscal cliff deal", appear dim at best. For homeowners in the impact zone of Hurricane Sandy, the relief, while late, appears to be the best they are going to receive for several weeks. Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) have already informed Pelosi that there will be no consideration of an increase in the debt limit without spending cuts to go along with it. President Obama has said that the "fiscal cliff" deal was just the first step to resolving the issues that led to the "fiscal cliff" in the first place. With Obama refusing to speak of any spending cuts, the question needs to be asked: If tax increases were the first part of dealing with the "fiscal cliff", and the President is not going to speak of spending cuts, then what does Obama believe are the next steps? | <urn:uuid:bfa70828-cb01-4a3d-8de4-0022698f91d6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.examiner.com/article/9-7-billion-sandy-relief-bill-begins-2013-by-adding-more-deficit-spending?cid=rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970969 | 1,067 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Quinoa-the mother grain-the little white fluffy Andean pseudo-grain that we have all come to know and love over the last few years. I’m a huge fan of quinoa and have been ever since I lived off plenty of it when travelling in South America in 2009. We all know quinoa’s upsides- packed with protein and b-vitamins, a great source of iron and potassium, it has become a staple for many. I personally use it almost every day, whether in salads, soups, porridge or snack bars. Lately there has been some evidence that our demand in the Western world is having a very negative impact on the countries whose staple grain it has been for centuries.
This article appeared in the Guardian last week and on first read of the first few paragraphs I couldn’t believe what I was reading. Our appetite for the mother grain has grown so much that it has more than tripled prices, as a result the poorer sections of places like Bolivia and Peru-whose people rely on quinoa as their staple grain-can no longer afford the grain, and as a result are choosing cheaper junk food alternatives, which is incredibly sad.
Although the article did trouble me, as I read deeper I became disillusioned with the tone and the direction of the article. Aside from it’s ridiculous attention grabbing headline: ‘Can Vegans stomach the unpalatable truth about quinoa’, the article also goes on to suggest that all the essential amino acids are very difficult to find in a veggie diet- really? Didn’t the protein argument die in like 1974? It also suggests that it is Vegans high demand for soya (really? I barely eat soya) that is causing incredible rainforest and environmental destruction. It further suggests that meat and dairy eaters diets are much better environmentally because Britain produces abundant amounts of those, suggesting that vegetarians/vegans food miles are extremely high as they rely on exotic products from faraway places…
I could not believe my eyes when I read the article, it’s so incredibly poorly researched and written. The writer did not even clear up about the soya production until a day or two later, when in a footnote she makes reference to the fact that actually the majority of soya production and thus rainforest production is down to soya grown for cattle feed not for vegans to eat!!
Also I think it’s ridiculous to blame us vegans for pushing up the price of quinoa, we make up probably 1-2 percent of the world population, so if it was just us eating quinoa then I don’t think there would be such a problem. The problem in my opinion is down to more publicity and highlighting of the benefits of the pseudo-grain and lack of control and restriction over exports from places like Peru and Bolivia. I work in the health food industry and I can say from personal experience that quinoa has shot up in popularity of late but it certainly isn’t just vegans or even just veggies buying quinoa.
Although I do to some extent rely on products from other countries, I also try to buy locally and in season, which I will continue to try and increase as I am aware of food mileage. However I don’t believe that a vegans food mileage would cause anywhere near as much environmental destruction as that of a meat eaters diet.
I admit it is sad what has happened to the price of quinoa and it’s effect in Latin America and clearly we need to look at solutions. The Guardian article is so poorly researched and written that it was almost a vitriolic attack on vegans. What’s more annoying is that most people won’t even read the entirety of the article or the footnote and thus it adds to the cluelessness of the majority of the population about nutrition.
What are your thoughts on the quinoa controversy?
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Cut the budget to pay FEMA bills?by Opinion Staff
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is $5 billion in the hole, and that’s not counting what FEMA will have to pay after Hurricane Irene. Given how long it takes FEMA to pay those bills, this deficit should be an easily manageable problem.
But like Tina Turner singing ‘Proud Mary,’ Washington these days nevah evah does anything nice and easy. They do it rough. Some Republican lawmakers won’t approve more money for FEMA unless Congress cuts a similar amount from this year’s budget.
So as happened with the debt limit, Congress may turn something small into something major. The nation’s credit rating may not be at risk, but the lives of Irene victims and the finances of local governments in the affected states that will want reimbursement from FEMA for overtime and cleanup are most definitely at risk.
There are many ways to resolve this issue without another confrontation. One would be to cut a small amount for this year’s budget, which ends on Sept. 30, and then work on wider legislation involving FEMA. But turning all penny-pinching on people after a disaster seems cruel. What do you think? Should Congress give FEMA no more money unless it cuts the budget? Take our poll. | <urn:uuid:ed56c77c-796e-4c23-bf2f-6e44365b86c4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.palmbeachpost.com/opinionzone/2011/09/01/cut-the-budget-to-pay-fema-bills/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935682 | 269 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Sturgeon harvested on opening day
At a glance
• Juvenile Females: 6
• Adult Females: 16
• Males: 17
• Total: 39
• Juvenile Females: 12
• Adult Females: 46
• Males: 82
• Total: 140
Source: Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
Jacob Keup only needed to sit in his ice shanty for about an hour Saturday morning before he speared his sturgeon.
About 20 minutes after a cloud of mud was stirred up on the bottom of Lake Winneconne, Keup said the sturgeon came into view, clear as day. Knowing he would only be able to spear this weekend, Keup grabbed his spear and launched it at the fish’s head.
“It’s not the biggest thing,” said Keup of the second sturgeon he’s speared. “But I’ve got to pay my dues before I get the big one. So I’m happy.”
More on sturgeon season: More headlines and video | Tweets collected during the season | Browse photos from the 2013 season | Browse photos from the 2012 season | Share your sturgeon photos | Watch cameras on the Wolf River | Watch cameras positioned in Stockbridge
Keup’s sturgeon was one of 179 fish speared on opening day of the 2013 sturgeon season.
Of the fish that were harvested Saturday, nine weighed in at more than 100 pounds, including a 179-pound, 80-inch fish at the registration station in Quinney on the east side of Lake Winnebago. That fish is the sixth largest harvested on record, Koenigs said.
“The day went as we expected it would,” Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Winnebago Sturgeon Biologist Ryan Koenigs said. “When the water is not clear, like it is now, the harvest is typically down, especially on Lake Winnebago.”
DNR officials have said poor ice conditions and low water clarity could hamper spearers on Lake Winnebago. The season is expected to last the entire 16 days, Koenigs said.
However, spearers on the Upriver lakes — lakes Butte des Morts, Winneconne and Poygan — were lining up to register their fish Saturday morning. A total of 140 fish, including six topping 100 pounds, were harvested on the Upriver Lakes and Koenigs said he expected that season to close in the next few days.
Mark Rochwite, of Campbellsport, needed less than three hours Saturday morning to spear his sturgeon.
Rochwite, who has been spearing for eight years, speared a 64-pound sturgeon on Lake Winneconne and brought the fish to the DNR sturgeon registration station at Critters Wolf River Sports in Winneconne shortly before 8:30 a.m.
It’s a fish that almost survived the morning.
“At first I was going to let it go and wait for another one,” Rochwite said. “But then I though, oh it’s too big. I can’t let it go.”
While it wasn’t the first sturgeon he’s speared, Roy Nation did have one surprise when he brought his fish into the registration station.
Nation speared a 75.4-pound sturgeon in Lake Poygan about8:15 a.m. and when he brought the 67.2-inch fish into the registration station in Winneconne, he learned it was a female fish that had black egg caviar, something he hadn’t encountered in his previous spearing efforts.
“It was a little big of a struggle to get out of the water, but it was all about the fun,” Nation said.
While the Upriver Lakes were busy, spearers on Lake Winnebago weren’t so lucky.
Thirty-nine fish were harvested on Lake Winnebago on opening day, with no fish being registered at three registration stations.
“Today’s been pretty slow,” said Chad Leanna, a fisheries technician who was working at the Payne’s Point registration station, one of the locations where no sturgeon where registered. “I think it’ll pick up. It depends on the weather. If it gets a little sunnier out, I think it’ll be better.”
As Lisa Levenhagen watched her husband Dan and their 7-year-old son Gavin load up the all-terrain vehicles at the Black Wolf boat landing Saturday for the trip out to their shanty on Lake Winnebago, she had one hope.
“I’ve been going three years and I haven’t seen one yet,” Levenhagen said. “I’d like to see (Dan) get one.”
Jennifer K. Woldt: (920) 426-6676 or email@example.com. Danielle Beyer contributed to this report. | <urn:uuid:f192deb4-06ee-470c-abc0-076db1ef457e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wisconsinoutdoorfun.com/article/20130210/WOF45/302100196/0/FON0198/Opening-day-sturgeon-season-mixed-bag | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960569 | 1,095 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Find a Question:
I live in Tampa Florida, and I want to have an outdoor rabbit hutch. Is it too hot for that?
I just moved here so I’m uncertain about the temperature.
Answer by Lilah
It depends on the weather. A rabbit is a tiny delacate animal so is would be easier for a rabbit to get over heated when a dog or cat might be able to be outsidew
Answer by catx
Rabbits are temperate animals, they thrive in cooler temperatures so yep, Tampa is going to be too hot for buns. They can easily get heatstroke in temperatures over 80-85F. Mine are far more active in winter than summer (I’m in the UK).
Answer by Julia
Yes it gets too hot during the summer here if they dont have anything to help keep them cooled down. A way to help keep an outdoor rabbit cool is to freeze water bottles and put them next to your rabbit. I kept my rabbits outside in our patio (in Florida also) and we ended up putting up a ceiling fan for them. Make sure your rabbit always has cool, fresh water at all times to drink. Try to keep them out of the direct sunlight. They can easily over heat. Talk to your rabbits vet to get more ideas for keeping your rabbits cool:).
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I am pleased to call readers' attention to several new signs which will go up this year. On Feb. 13, on Churton Street in Hillsborough, a marker was dedicated to Elizabeth Keckly, who worked as a slave for the Burwell family prior to gaining her freedom and working for the Lincoln family in the White House. Later this year this office will work with the City of Durham to place a marker with extended text at the junction of Mangum Street and Parrish Street, describing the history of the latter route, known as "Black Wall Street." In Raleigh, plans are underway to erect a marker at the junction of Hillsborough and Harrington Streets to denote the initial freedmen's convention held in September 1865 on the present site of St. Paul's A.M.E. Church.
Finally, with the completion of the U.S. 15/501 widening project, long-standing plans to dedicate a marker at that route's junction with Mount Gilead Church Road, just south of Fearrington, can go forward. That sign will recall for travelers the life of George Moses Horton who, while working as a slave on the nearby Horton farm, traveled to Chapel Hill to sell poems to students and in time became the first African American in the South to publish a book. These four new markers join seventy-three older signs across the state related to the history of African Americans.
A coworker told me my picture was in the Independent this week ("Greetings from Big Funk," Jan. 28). It was cool to see the picture and to see Big Funk on the cover, but the article didn't really divulge much about Big Funk's history. I'm not the one to fill in the blanks, as I did not live there; but I do know the history of the picture.
One Sunday, in the fall of 1969, we got a call saying, 'Come on over to Big Funk. We're going to take a picture for the yearbook.' Every year the sororities and fraternities at Duke got gussied up and had their group pictures taken for the yearbook. That year, some folks wanted to have an alternative group to give some contrast. So we showed up. Props were provided. Someone had a sign from an anti-war rally the day before in Fayetteville.
I didn't really think of us as hippies. Hippies turned on, tuned in, and dropped out. Being full-time students, some with jobs as well, we weren't exactly dropouts.
I don't know where most of these people are today. One, Henry, I've been married to for over 30 years. One was my best friend in college and now lives in south Georgia. One was killed a few years ago. One may still live near Hillsborough--maybe you'll hear from him. The guy with the sitar still plays music in the area.
The only other story I have to tell is about a party I attended at Big Funk about a year after the picture. Jane Fonda was there after giving an anti-war speech at Duke. Henry talked to her about his using comics to teach reading with under achieving kids. Then as we left, someone mentioned that we were getting married soon. Fonda, with a bit of a smirk, wished us a happy marriage. Makes a good celebrity story, and it didn't hurt, did it? We're working on our 34th year.
More funky stories
Well we didn't think of our house as a "party house", rather as a community center if anything. Certainly our neighbor Simone was in the living room every afternoon watching Star Trek--it was 1969 or 70, not 1972--and more than once the big tom cat from next door removed a chicken from the kitchen table, since the back door was always open.
Parties? Sure, we really got wild listening to philosophy lectures by Lewis Lee, or to Hutch playing riffs on one of his many guitars or banjos, OK, there was more, but you know the old saying--if you remember the 60's you weren't there.
Five or six of us lived in the house, depending on if Art's girlfriend was in town or if Hawley was around. Most everyone else lived in houses next door or across the street. You wouldn't have to look very hard to find the six or seven people in that photo who are still Durhamites or close.
There are many stories, right enough--a web of stories and lives connected across years and places, from the mill houses in the Oregon Street neighborhood to Farrington Road and Big Funk to Hillsborough, Monkey Top and Monkey Bottom, African Violets, the Plantation and many more.
Love to all
The girl on the left pillar
Dawn Hall Hails
Go after Congress, too
I am so grateful for the Independent's effort to defeat Mr. Bush. But, please remember that we also must remove many of the people in Congress! The president doesn't do things by him/herself. There is ssooo much attention on the presidential position that the real positions get bypassed by the general public. So, if the paper can, please start suggesting that this issue must be looked at too.
N&O right on
As a passionate Edwards supporter, I have no problem with the N&O headlines, which have displeased Cat Warren because they fail to take note of the Kerry bandwagon. The mainstream national media, which now proclaims that, were also proclaiming the inevitability of Howard Dean just a month ago. According to The New York Times of Feb. 12, only 556 of a total of 4,321 delegates have been allocated thus far. Why is Ms. Warren so anxious to nominate an unelectable candidate like John Kerry, while ignoring the only electable Democrat, Sen. Edwards? I hope the Democratic party will realize this in time, and there's plenty of time left to do so.
National mainstream media has now been forced to recognize the weight of Edwards' candidacy and screeds against him, like that of Ms. Warren, show his growing importance. Fortunately the N&O's "Eye on Edwards" has provided a valuable alternative to the national slighting of his candidacy.
Surely Ms. Warren, who writes for alternative media, should appreciate the value of the N&O's indispensable coverage, not available elsewhere.
Finally, Ms. Warren's liking of Christensen's reportage is puzzling since Mr. Christensen's blatant cynicism about Edwards often spoils his objectivity. I would have thought a journalism professor more critical of editorializing in a news story. No doubt Christensen's biases don't disturb Warren since she holds the same views. So critical of perceived prejudices in others, she is utterly blind to her own.
He enlisted, after all
I am not inclined to write editors on a frequent basis and people's anger and the woes of mankind tend to keep me from being a regular paper reader. I am bothered enough to write after reading the article on the Fayetteville soldier who ran to Canada under Quaker cover when being faced with deployment ("Fort Bragg Soldier Flees to Canada," Feb. 11).
This is not a situation like the Vietnam era when we had the draft. I remember those days well and this situation should not be compared. The answer is in the second line of the article. This man enlisted. He had time to read the fine print, look at the benefits and consider them into his future. He had time to talk to recruiters and other soldiers. I have no sympathy for him if things suddenly look scary for him and he has realized he doesn't want to "make a difference" after all. Times and the government's leadership have changed since he signed that paper. The rules haven't changed. He lived on the government-provided salary with the government-provided benefits until he realized the gravity of his decision to freely enlist.
When he was small did he quit when his team was losing? Did he cry all the way home when he skinned his knee? It seems to me he could have made a bigger statement if he faced court martial after refusing to go. But hey, failure to take responsibility for one's actions has become a familiar theme these days. "It wasn't me" finger pointing is the political norm it seems.
Do I support the war we are in? Hell no. But I do support the troops and families who are fighting and dying for what they think is right and/or are being told to do. You don't have to be a war monger either to support them. You DO slap every one of them in the face supporting your article's deserting little weasel.
If I could talk to him, I'd tell him one thing: Stand up for what you believe in, come back and live with your enlistment. I'm guessing someone in your position fought at one time so your wife or some of her family could live here.
I just read your article on the firing of John Strange from the NC Catholic ("X-mas Exit," Dec. 31) and I was amazed, as always, at the lack of responsibility taken by those who claim our Church is ailing. Those grumbling over the need to cure Her ills fail to see themselves as the oozing infection.
Is the Church "wounded and in need of healing"? Indeed! Part of the remedy has been administered in the exiting of Strange. As for his boss ... Bishop Gossman has never acted swiftly to any individual problem. He is a man who acts after much deliberation and contemplation. It is impossible to believe that Strange wasn't warned.
Got something to say about an Independent article? Send no more than 300 words to email@example.com; to P.O. Box 2690, Durham 27715; or fax 286-4274. Include your name, phone number and mailing address for verification; we cannot publish a letter without confirmation from the writer. We reserve the right to edit letters for length, style and clarity. | <urn:uuid:2a0c839b-0a1c-4e74-873b-5323c66341bf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/back-talk/Content?oid=1191505 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978549 | 2,066 | 1.773438 | 2 |
I have installed the Emulator, and tested the device emulator manager, but since I never used a PPC or PDA I have no idea if it is actually running. I know the PPC is working because I can move around on the emulated PDA/PPC. I just have no clue how I can use this to run a test version of a program that can only run on PPC. How do you load a program to run on the emulator? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
If your application is a .cab file, you can use the "Shared folder" option of the emulator in the configuration dialog. Point the directory of your desktop computer where the cab file resides. Then, in the emulator's file explorer, browse to "\storage card\" and you should be able to click the .cab file to install it.
You can also do this via ActiveSync's explore feature. Using the Device Emulator Manager, cradle the emulator. Make sure that "DMA" is selected in ActiveSync's Connection Settings. This will create an ActiveSync connection with the emulator. You will then be able to copy files to the emulator using the regular explorer window.
If it is an application that installs through ActiveSync, simply cradle the emulator and the software should install itself onto the emulator. | <urn:uuid:db2d52ea-d768-4bfa-bb41-9df91684bd38> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/ja-JP/microsoftdeviceemu/thread/692839fa-540d-432b-a4c8-2258a93c330a | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931084 | 269 | 1.609375 | 2 |
International Space Station program managers provide analysis following the successful 6 hour, 28 minute follow-on EVA performed by Expedition 32 spacewalkers Suni Williams and Aki Hoshide today.
Williams and Hoshide successfully installed a replacement Main Bus Switching Unit (MBSU) after cleaning and lubricating the power relay unit's bolts and posts. The MBSU is routing power from the space station's solar arrays to components of the orbiting laboratory. The spacewalking duo also successfully removed and replaced a camera on the space station's Canadarm2 robotic arm. A "frozen" bolt prevented the duo from completing these tasks during their spacewalk last week. The EVA was critical as the space station was only running at 75% power capacity and with the repair is now back to 100%. | <urn:uuid:e1158e3c-3cb6-4969-8322-47ee7906a739> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://spaceref.com/international-space-station/critical-space-station-spacewalk-a-success.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944153 | 164 | 1.828125 | 2 |
August 31, 2011 at 1:02 pm | News | No comment
Novachi just released new features allowing school and district administrators to manage common Core State Standards for curriculum using the Novachi system. The update, which became available as of Monday, August 29th, will allow administrators to keep track of necessary core standards, as well as the ability to create their own custom standards as needed.
The new feature is accessed via the School Administrator portal. Currently, to make things easier for the end-user, the core standards are automatically adopted by default for all schools currently using the Novachi System. To access the new feature and modify or delete your schools standards, simply navigate to the School tab, followed by the Curriculum tab, and select “Core Standards” from the sub-tab menu. Administrators can then choose to adopt new Core Standards that are already in the system by selecting the “Adopt Standard Source” button and selecting from the list provided, or create their own custom standards using the options provided within the user interface.
When creating or updating courses, administrators can now choose and apply specific Core Standards to the courses. Later, when teachers are creating assignments, they have the option to select from a list of standards provided by the school admin to apply to an individual assignment.
If you or any of your staff require additional training to take advantage of the new features, please contact a Novachi representative, or follow this link to request a training schedule: http://www.novachi.com/b/training-signup/ .
August 21, 2011 at 11:42 am | News | No comment
After 8 months of the initial launch, new EdTech provider Novachi registers 100 schools for the free SIS/LMS service.
On August 15, 2011, Novachi, a free of charge SIS/LMS cloud-base platform provider, registers the 100th school to use Novachi education system. The adoption rate, which comes as schools prepare for the new term, indicates that many schools are discovering the benefits that Novachi provides for the education community.
Novachi, a privately owned education technology company located in Silicon Valley, is focused on providing top-notch Student Information and Learning Management Systems (SIS/LMS) for all K-12 schools. The system, which includes a virtual learning component, as well as a robust suite of administrative features, is unique in the EdTech space. Novachi provides a premium product, which normally cost schools on the order of $80K-$1M per year, to all schools for free.
Novachi has steadily been gaining usage since initially launched in February 2011. Novachi helps school improve operational efficiency, engages busy parents with secured online form submission and progress reports, helps reduce teacher workload through automatic grading, and many more. Novachi applies modern enterprise technology commonly relied upon in the business sector to modernize education in America.
In addition to its successful launch and service, Novachi has also been awarded the Business Recognition Award by Florida Education Commissioner, Eric J. Smith, for its part in helping improve education through technological reform.
August 17, 2011 at 10:44 am | News | No comment
For private schools in the United States, adopting new technologies can be sometimes difficult. Unlike their public counterparts, many private schools don’t have access to government funds, and don’t always qualify for the same grants that allow most schools to implement reforms.
Public schools often operate under the umbrella of larger districts, allowing them to pull resources to be applied to the district as a whole. Private Schools, largely alone and by themselves when it comes to raising funds, don’t have the same advantage that the economies of scale offer public schools.
Novachi, a new education technology company from Santa Clara, CA, offers its innovative SIS and LMS technology to private schools for free. “Its important to understand what that means,” said a Novachi representative, “That doesn’t just mean the system is free. It means hosting is free, training is free, support is free. And, beyond that, using Novachi wont just save your school the money it would have spent on a similar system, it also saves your school time and makes it’s staff more efficient, which over time, will save them far more than just the initial price tag of our competitors. ”
Novachi was designed to be accessible in the cloud from any web-capable mobile device which, in addition to opening up options for accessibility, also means that schools don’t need to host the data on their own servers. The cost of server maintenance and installation is often one of the largest deterrent for schools looking to adopt SIS/LMS technology.
Because it was designed by experienced web developers, Novachi was built with user accessibility in mind, a feature that is often overlooked by less experienced engineering teams. This ties in with the companies easy adoption policy, which allows educators to sign up and use the system without any entanglements like contracts and fees.
For more information on Novachi, visit their website at www.novachi.com, or check out these articles online: | <urn:uuid:5adf463b-5322-456d-a90b-08929595042d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.novachi.com/b/2011/08/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947837 | 1,066 | 1.570313 | 2 |
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: Sort of three dimensions to the day. The first is, obviously, meeting with the senior officials here in Hong Kong, (inaudible.) Second is her speech (inaudible) chamber of commerce and other businesses here. And the third, obviously, is meeting with Dai Bingguo.
I just want to take one minute on the middle piece, the speech. For those of you guys who are going to keep traveling with the Secretary for the next year and a half, this speech, I think, reflects her growing emphasis on the role of economics and economic power in foreign policy. It’s the second in a series of three speeches, the first one being at USGLC, which really focused on the way in which we can use the tools of the American foreign policy to grow American jobs and power, American recovery and growth. This one will focus on the principles that she believes should underlie the international economic system and why we believe those principles are good for everyone’s growth, how they have led to a century prosperity for the United States and can power a century of prosperity in Asia, turning what’s been a generation of really remarkable growth into something that endures into the course of the next century.
And then the third speech will focus more on America’s strategic (inaudible) as they relate to both the question of using our foreign power – policy to shore up the sources of economic power at home and then applying economic power and influence abroad to advance (inaudible) which she calls (inaudible) economic statecraft. So that’s the context of the speech. I thought maybe [Senior State Department Official Two] could take a minute to actually walk through the elements of it and then [Senior State Department Official Three] could spend some time on the regional dimension, (inaudible.)
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: Well, basically the speech – and one of the reasons the speech is being given here in Asia is that we realize that this is clearly the most competitive region of the world for the United States and it begs saying the Secretary understands that one of the things we have to (inaudible) is to strengthen our economy at home in order to rise to the competition from abroad particularly from this regions – from this region. But they’re not just competitors. Although they are fierce competitors, the other thing that is important in her speech and you’ll see is that she understands we need to use our diplomacy and our foreign policy to work with them to save the future of the global economy, since they’re going to be major participants in that economy. And as they become more powerful, two things will happen.
One, they’re taking advantage of the opportunities in the global economy. But we also believe that as they become more powerful financially and commercially they have a greater role, and should have a greater role, in abiding by the rules of the global system. And [Senior State Department Official One] was saying that the rules of the global system over the last several decades have served the system very well. They have served us well, and they’ve served a lot of countries well. We believe those same rules and norms, the principles that she’s laid out in the speech, will also serve the global economy well in the future and those relate to fairness, openness, and transparency and (inaudible) what the competitive norms are and what the terms of contributions have to be in order for everyone to have a stake in the system. It can’t be a system in which countries take advantage of the global economy but don’t contribute to the global economy.
We’ve developed a number of areas and institutional cooperation where we want to work with the countries of East Asia, and many of them are outlined in the speech. One is APEC. There’s going to be, as you know, a meeting in November, and which the President will host in Honolulu. In addition to that, there are a variety of other groups which we’re working with and we’re – we have (inaudible) agreement with – hopefully as soon as possible. We’re working on TPP, which is sort of a new way of looking at global trade, get this more emphasis not just on the quarters but on environmental issues, on label rights issues, on (inaudible), a whole range of new issues that have be addressed in the global system. So these are the kind of things that are going to be emphasized in the speech.
The second is to deal with some of the 21st century challenges to free and fair competitiveness, one of which is protection of intellectual property in general, not just in TPP or in APEC but generally. Intellectual property is very important to the American citizens, and she wants to emphasize that. Second is sort of a level playing field with respect to global competition. More and more of the distortion to competition are not simply barriers or borders but regulatory differences or ways in which state enterprises take advantage of the system because they have (inaudible) from their governments that private sector enterprises don’t have. That presents (inaudible) to American companies and other private sector companies, and even private sector companies in the countries of the region. So that kind of thing will be emphasized in (inaudible).
And third is this question of making sure that the system will move into better balance. As you know, there are large imbalances across the Pacific. One of the things that she will talk about was the ways in which countries and regions (inaudible) place more emphasis on creating domestic demand in their countries, which will help to reduce imbalances in a global system, which will lead to greater stability in the global system.
And the last point – there are a lot of other points, but I’ll just do it on this one. Lot of other points, but the one key one is that the United States is committed to be what she calls a resident economic power in this region. And I think that’s very important, because there was a time in which people were wondering if the United States could continue to play a proactive economic role in the future. And her answer is an emphatic yes. And it’s – the answer is yes in part because we’re going to be playing a greater role in APEC and many of the other organizations that [Senior State Department Official Three] has been working on, in part because, of course – which we hope will pass as soon as possible – in part because we’re going to be constantly negotiating this TPP, which there have been four or five negotiating rounds. There will be several more, which will further engage us in the region.
And more generally because we want to work with these countries and other groups like the Group of Twenty, and (inaudible), World Bank, and other institutions in order to ensure that as the rules of the 21st century are shaped we work with the East Asians to make sure they’re shaped in ways that underscores and supports the broad principles that have worked very well in the past. And what we have in the region is not just competition among countries, but people who are questioning whether the American economic model works. And I’m going to carry out here (inaudible) and one of the points she’s going to make and one of the points she made quite emphatically is that we believe our economic model has been enormously successful in creating opportunities for large numbers of people in our own country, supporting upward mobility, supporting entrepreneurialism, supporting people who want to starts businesses, the free flow of information and ideas.
And we think that model is a very successful one not just for us, but for other countries that also want upward mobility, that also want to create small and medium-sized enterprises, that also want to support entrepreneurs, kids who want to achieve greater opportunities. So she’s going to focus on the fact that this model is not only (inaudible) for us but has a lot of attributes that a lot of other countries can benefit from as well. Those are just a few highlights of the speech.
There’s a lot – there’s a lot of – this is both an architecture speech, but it also has very strong principles that are – that underscore the importance of the kind of (inaudible) talking about, but there are also some very specific things in it that you’ll find that are trying to sort of push the debate into that (inaudible) that, as you know, government procurement is a very big thing out here and in other countries, encouraging other countries to go into that role, (inaudible) government procurement (inaudible), which gives countries access to one another’s government procurement market (inaudible) industry very important because of the infrastructure (inaudible). So there are a lot of very specific elements of the speech that back up entire principles that we talked about.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL THREE: Thanks. Okay, guys. I’ll talk for just a little bit about the meetings here in Hong Kong and a little context here in Hong Kong. And then as you know, the Secretary this afternoon, after her speech today, which is one of the largest speeches that we’ve seen in Hong Kong for many years, completely oversubscribed an enormous amount of interest in hearing what she has to say about – as [Senior State Department Official Two] indicated and [Senior State Department Official One] pointed out sort of the economic push that the United States has going forward. This afternoon we’ll go up to Shenzhen, and Secretary Clinton will meet with State Councilor Dai Bingguo, and I’ll talk about that in a little bit.
So just a couple of things Hong Kong – many of you are veterans of this part of the world, but obviously it’s one of the world’s greatest cities and it’s gone through an incredible process of transformation just over the last 15 or so years since reversion. And I’m just going throw a little bit of that – obviously the framework that was established for the handover is what is described as one country, two systems, which is the same framework which the Chinese, at least, apply with respect to Taiwan.
The reason that that’s interesting is that clearly there are elements of domestic debate in Hong Kong that have extended far beyond what was originally anticipated by the architects of the so-called Legislative Council, the LegCo. And so you have now swirling debates on issues that were, frankly, unthinkable when the British handed over. And so – and for all of those people who say well, gee the Chinese haven’t allowed as much of this kind of debate, in fact, much more has happened over the last 15 years than during the previous over 100 years of British rule.
She’ll meet with the chief executive today, and our interest here is to take necessary steps through visits, our own engagement – we have a very robust set of engagements with the various aspects of the Hong Kong constabulary, its security services, its port security apparatus, its health services. So we work very closely with them on a whole host of things: disease protection, port safety and security, tracking and the like. And we have a very strong relationship that has continued since reversion.
Just in the last 15 or so months, we’ve had five cabinet secretaries visit. That’s a substantial reaffirmation in the public of our commitment to see the one country, two systems continue. The Secretary will meet with the chief executive today and also members of the LegCo, and we anticipate in the LegCo discussions there’ll be a substantial debate in front of her about the path and process forward, questions associated with Beijing’s role in Hong Kong, its role in a whole host of both political matters but also increasingly financial matters as well.
In addition, what we’ve seen in Hong Kong in the last several years is really a renaissance in many respects. Immediately after reversion and in the wake of the Asian economic crisis, Hong Kong suffered enormously, and there was a crisis of confidence in terms of what would be the appropriate model for growth. This relationship between Hong Kong and China is actually extraordinarily complex.
On one level, China views Hong Kong as part of the Chinese destiny in terms of a Chinese territory over the long term, but at the same time there is increasing an enormous competition between other cities, Shenzhen and Guangzhou, in terms of the very things that Hong Kong has excelled at: legal issues, joint ventures, questions associated with stock listings. Each of those domestic Chinese cities are now competing toe-to-toe with Hong Kong. What we’ve seen probably over the last several years is Hong Kong emerge as the major venue of exchange between the Renminbi and international currencies. And so China – Hong Kong has played a major role in that sort of larger interface between the Chinese currency and Western currencies.
Hong Kong is experiencing a fairly substantial period of economic growth, but at the same time there is a very robust and vibrant debate on all issues. It’s not unlikely to have demonstrations in Hong Kong on a whole host of issues that involve hundreds of thousands of people. It’s really quite substantial, and so those who would say that this – that Hong Kong people are apolitical and only interested in the bottom line – I think that is a caricature from the past. And in fact, you find people intensely interested in local issues associated with housing, healthcare, pensions, and the like.
I mean, I’ll just conclude with one last thing on this. (inaudible) in the 1980s, 1990s (inaudible). What was clear then is that Hong Kong, in many respects, was a British state with Chinese or Asian characteristics. That’s no longer the case any longer for those who look here. This really is a Chinese city with some Western characteristics. So it’s a very substantial change in sort of the nature or the debate.
It’s also the case that there is a major change, for instance, in how media operates here. Twenty years ago, this was the scene of all the major Western sort of journalists that covered Asia. Now, increasingly people based on Hong Kong – out of Beijing or Shanghai – it’s a must smaller Western press, but at the same time it’s a much larger Asian and Hong Kong press, so that’s sort of the nature of the debate here.
After the meetings and after her speech, she’s going to go up into China to see her counterpart in the strategic and economic dialogue, Dai Bingguo. She obviously had good sessions with Foreign Minister Yang. Councilor Dai is probably the principle foreign policy advisor to President Hu. He is also the key advisor on issues that are of manifest importance for us going forward: North Korea, the South China Sea, and issues associated with Chinese involvement in various multilateral forums, like the East Asia Summit and the like.
So the Secretary’s going to want to talk to them about a whole host of issues, what just transpired at the ASEAN Regional Forum. I think we’ll discuss the way forward on the South China Sea. She will carry with her the messages and the advice she’s received from key Southeast Asian leaders, including from Indonesia yesterday, will also talk about the most recent developments on the Korean Peninsula.
As you will all have seen, yesterday, Secretary Clinton announced that we will have meetings later this week in New York with a visiting North Korean official, and she will want to convey directly to State Councilor Dai our strong interest in making sure that China is conveying to North Korea our determination to see real progress if we’re to move forward and not simply business as usual. And we will expect China to play a strong role behind the scenes in that regard.
We will also talk about the upcoming East Asia Summit, the visit of Vice President Biden to China in the next several weeks. And our desire is to make sure that we have very close consultations on all the critical issues going forward. She’s very much looking forward to seeing State Councilor Dai, and as part of this session – it will be a small group, but she’s going to have some one-on-one time with him, so have an opportunity for a very deep, discrete discussion on key issues.
Why don’t I stop there, and then [Senior State Department Official One], [Senior State Department Official Two] or any of us can take any questions that you have. Okay.
QUESTION: Can I ask [Senior State Department Official Two], do you have your sort of arms around how much American intellectual property is being ripped off now? Years ago, it used to – get the impression that the percentage was massive. Has the situation improved?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: It’s still a real serious situation (inaudible) because, to be quite candid, the laws of many of these countries have improved considerably; the difficulty comes largely in the area of enforcement. And they’re enforced unevenly and in many parts of the region. And we’ve talked to the Chinese very candidly about this. They understand that some provinces of China – it’s, of course, better than in others. But – well, the reason this is so important is that if you look at the kinds of goods the United States exports, more and more of those goods are goods with a high knowledge content, high intellectual property content, and they’re innovative products of a wide range of American companies.
And in order to keep up the level of investment in these innovative companies in the United States and to keep our level of competitiveness internationally, American companies should get the benefits of the money and the talent and time they’ve put into developing these innovative products. And if there’s piracy, it takes – first of all, it reduces their profits, but it also reduces their incentives to put more time and effort into developing new products if they know that they’re not going to gain the – or retain the benefits of those products. But the other point that’s interesting – and this is a somewhat different angle on this is – and therefore, we regard this a very high priority in the region. It’s not just China. It’s many countries in East Asia, but it’s also countries in Europe and elsewhere, so it’s really a broader issue.
The other point is that we find that there are a number of allies in the region because increasingly, they’re finding Chinese companies and other Asian companies that are developing their own innovative products, and they want protection of their intellectual property too. So one of the key points that she’ll be making and we’ve been making in general is that in that – we want to have a modern knowledge-based economy, affecting intellectual property, both for foreign products as well as for domestic products. So we’re not without allies in the region on that issue, so --
QUESTION: Can I ask you – well, (inaudible). Okay. Is she going to explain to her audience why they should be listening to her about this stuff? I mean, it seems to me it’s really kind of (inaudible) coming here, especially at this point, today, especially, and telling the Chinese that our economic model is the bees knees and needs to be followed when we’ve got unemployed – (inaudible) are unemployed, and they own us. Well, why should we listen? I mean, is she going to come and – she’s going to come out, according to the excerpts we’ve seen, and say, “Don’t worry, everything’s going to be okay?” Well, you know what? Why should anyone believe her? She’s been out of the country for a week and a half, no – she hasn’t been in any of these discussions. Things are going nowhere. Why --
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: Look, I think – we’ve been away for a while, so I don’t want to comment on the state of the negotiations.
QUESTION: So why is she going to be even talking --
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: Well – but basically, we’re looking at the long term. And I think the point that she is going to make is that over the course of decades – we’re dealing with a problem now, and a difficult problem that is being worked out in Washington as we speak. But over the course of decades, the approach that we’ve taken to opportunity, upward mobility, free flow of information, a whole range of things, have really led to some remarkable achievements in the American economy. And in many cases, countries in this part of the region – [Senior State Department Official Three] can tell you that as well – have – while they have different models in particular, also see that upward mobility is supporting entrepreneurs, supporting small needs, (inaudible) enterprises, as part of their economic future as well. So I don’t – she’s not going to lecture. She’s going to say we have problems too. Then she’s --
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL THREE: Just to – and [Senior State Department Official Two], just – one other thing, just to say part of the speech that she’s going to give, though, she’s going to lay it very clearly that, like at the end of the Cold War, lots of – the Vietnam War, lots of discussion about how the United States was on its ass on – and we lost and would never recover on the way out of Asia. At the end of the Cold War, a similar set of dynamics, that we have seen this story before only to find the United States comes surging back. And in many respects, we – that sort of dynamic drives us forward and really causes us to pick ourselves up and to excel. So I think that’s (inaudible).
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: It’s a free flow market – yeah. We have remarkably – we’ve demonstrated remarkable resilience. [Senior State Department Official Three]’s right. After the Vietnam War, people thought, well, we were back on – down on our heels. There was a feeling that when we’ve had Japanese competition, we were going to be no longer able to compete in the world. After the OPEC oil embargo in ’73, ’74, the same thing, and then – and the fact is that the American model (inaudible) very resilient. It’s by no means perfect, and then people make (inaudible). And this is not to say that other countries don’t have some very good ideas as well. As (inaudible) she states it (inaudible) going to express a lot of confidence in the American model year in and year out. It’s proved to be very successful in the past and will continue to be so in the future.
And moreover, it grows up – the more international point is that the principles under which the global economy, global commerce and finance have been conducted over the – since World War II, openness, free trade, transparency – those kinds of things have been, first of all, very good for the global economy, and second, have been important enablers of the – some of the progress that some of the countries have made in this region. A lot of these countries have benefited enormously from an open international financial system and a favorite system, and that now, as they become more powerful, we want to be sure that they support the kind of system that has proved so beneficial to them.
QUESTION: Can I ask --
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL THREE: Yeah.
QUESTION: -- just in your interactions with the Chinese and the Secretary’s as well, do you get any sense of anxiety on their part about the debt limit (inaudible) up, that they (inaudible) –
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL THREE: Yes. Yes, they --
QUESTION: What are the – what’s the message that they’re giving you? And what’s the Secretary’s message going to be to Dai on the subject?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL THREE: I’ve been in several meetings where the Chinese have demarched us, actually. I have not been in any meetings where they’ve asked us, “What do you think is happening,” or “How is this going to play out?” But I’ve had several meetings where the Chinese have basically made clear that they’ve made a substantial investment in the United States, and that they expect – not hope, expect – that the United States will abide by its various financial international commitments, full stop.
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: And there’s a lot of conversation that goes on a regular basis between the Treasury and the finance ministry of China and (inaudible). So there’s a huge amount of communication among senior officials on the economic and the financial front. This is part of an ongoing dialogue, not – a lot of it is not made public, but there’s a lot more and more, and a lot of visits and a lot of conversation. So they have a very good idea of what we’re thinking and what we’re doing. They are – the last thing we want to do is keep them in the dark about what’s going on. And I think they would be the first to tell you that there’s been – I mean part of it, the S&ED economic track has been not just meet and consults, but ongoing consultations among (inaudible).
QUESTION: Will you be talking Dai or – what she’s saying about the – like, pro-democracy aspects upon (inaudible)? What specifically – like, what kind of messages would you be sending?
SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL THREE: Well, look, I’m going to let – I think I’m going to – we will meet with you guys after the session today here in Hong Kong. We’ll brief you as we go to the airport. I’m cognizant of the filing issues, but I think our expectation is the Secretary is going to talk about the full range of issues while she’s here.
I think our primary areas of engagement with State Councilor Dai will be on the ones that I’ve underscored to you. We only have a few hours, and frankly, what we’re finding more and more is the agenda is so full that you’ve got to be kind of careful with your time. | <urn:uuid:76d6596c-e5f6-4b23-8895-b7587759cbb6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.state.gov/p/eap/rls/rm/2011/07/169050.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00019-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968008 | 5,696 | 1.617188 | 2 |
If you listen to cloud computing providers you would think that everyone considering cloud computing is focused on price. Indeed, the prices of public cloud computing services have dropped significantly in the last several years as cloud providers attempt to capture a larger share of a market that is exploding.
I work with those who purchase cloud computing services. I find that price is important, but typically very low on the list as the deciding factor when selecting public cloud providers. This surprises many and is due to a few key reasons:
- First, most understand that lower cost solutions that don’t provide the required features actually cost more in the long run. Thus, they are likely to select the leader versus the lower cost public cloud.
- Second, when considering budgets, they are becoming more oriented to on-demand types of services than capital expenditures. Thus, it’s easier to sign up for $50K per moth rather than $3M for hardware and software.
- Finally, price has its attraction. People find that a $50 bottle of wine tastes better than a $10 bottle of wine, when it’s the same damn wine. Many believe that price defines value and, in most cases, they will pay more for the perception of value. | <urn:uuid:b7ad96fc-e472-4306-9101-39026a6ab24e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pro.gigaom.com/blog/how-price-sensitive-are-public-cloud-consumers/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969125 | 253 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Platform of Arts and CreativityEdit profile
The buildings that make up the Municipal Market and the space defined by them, commonly referred to as “the square”, a name inherited from market square are, as a unit, characteristic elements of the urban landscape of the city of Guimarães. The grounds of the old municipal market boasted a privileged and very central location with excellent accesses, very close to the Toural Square and the historic center. With this project, the transformation of the marketplace into a multifunctional space dedicated to artistic, economic, cultural and social activities within the scope of European Capital of Culture 2012, allowed for the physical and functional reintegration into the urban fabric, to become a reality and so, to recover one key area of the city space. In addition, the operation extended to adjacent plots, enabling the regeneration of the interior space of the block, which was completely uncharacterized, as a result of its occupation by a marble processing industry. | <urn:uuid:16ce25c6-5c41-40e1-8281-3a776998c727> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://openbuildings.com/buildings/platform-of-arts-and-creativity-profile-44121?_show_description=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949034 | 199 | 1.820313 | 2 |
The decriminalisation of ornament
Denise Gonzalez Crisp
Daniël van der Velden
Essay / contemporary design
Spurned and marginalised for more than a century, decoration is enjoying a guilt-free renaissance
– In which tendrils creep, petals unfurl and geometric patterns abound
Matter, a small design and homewares store in Brooklyn, has a logo that is able to change so that, according to Jamie Gray, the store owner, it will always ‘reflect the times’. Right now this adaptable logo is an ornate graphic flourish. At the centre of the heraldic device is the store’s initial letter with a crown hovering above it and its address in a slanted spidery script dangling below. Symmetrically arranged around the central medallion are gothic-looking sprays of feathers and some looping vine tendrils that evoke the fluid calligraphic line found in Art Nouveau wrought ironwork.
Ornament is clearly an integral part of the dominant visual language of the moment. The extent to which it has resonated with the public at large can be judged by the ubiquitous presence in the homes of Habitat-shoppers of the Toord Boontje filigree light shade. In Copenhagen, an entire hotel was redesigned from the inside out, as part of a Volkswagen-sponsored initiative called Project Fox. The carpets, wallpaper and furniture now teem with the kaleidoscopic explosions and fantasy pattern-scapes created by a group of designers and illustrators selected by the trend-conscious Berlin-based design publishers Die Gestalten. In Barcelona, too, the Maxalot Gallery has commissioned designers such as Hideki Inaba, Joshua Davis, eBoy and Rinzen to create a collection of wallpaper designs that, as they put it, ‘celebrates the re-birth of wallpaper’.
Dense patterns multiply and foliage unfurls across computer screens, fuelled partly by improvements in Flash-based technologies. Mobile phone users can paper their tiny screens with a Geneviève Gauckler or a Laurent Fétis design commissioned by companies such as Yakuta Mobile Visuals.
In the past few years the pages we turn, the screens we summon, and the environments we visit are sprouting with decorative detail, geometric patterns, mandalas, fleurons, and the exploratory tendrils of lush flora. In a design climate that, for the larger part of a century, has been famously hostile to the generation, application or even mention of decoration, what has happened to allow for this decriminalisation of ornament discernible in today’s design practice and thinking? And, beyond the palpable trendiness of these recent reinvestigations, what is its deeper significance?
– In which we follow the fluctuations of ornamentation’s fortunes, from good to bad and back to good again, possibly
Ornament has had a turbulent past. For a considerable part of the past two centuries, ornament has been the subject of debate in design, at least as it related to buildings and their interiors. In the mid-nineteenth century, discussion focused on the meaning of decoration, its classification and its most appropriate uses and sources. The roles of nature, history and sources from outside Europe were all hotly contested. The development of machine-made decorative detail further complicated the debate. As ornamentation became a more affordable and thus widely available feature of everyday household items such as textiles, wallpapers, books, cups and saucers, so the discourse that surrounded it began to take on a more moral, social and even political tone. It became inextricably bound up in discussions of beauty and taste.
By the time of the Great Exhibition in 1851 – an event where the objects on display were, according to architectural historian Brent C. Brolin, ‘covered with clouds of putti, acres of acanthus, and cornucopiate harvests from the vegetable kingdom’ – ornament was in disgrace with the taste-making cognoscenti. There followed attempts to tame and codify decoration. The most famous and enduring of these was the architect Owen Jones’s didactic Grammar of Ornament, published in 1856, which laid out 37 propositions relating to the appropriate uses of decoration and pattern and showcased in brilliant colour (made possible by the recent introduction of chromolithography) thousands of examples of ornament from around the world. Owens believed that, ‘All ornament should be based on geometrical construction,’ and gave very detailed instructions concerning the use and placement of colours and hues. He forbade the use of ‘flowers or other natural objects’ unless they were ‘conventional representations [ . . . ] sufficiently suggestive to convey the intended images to the mind, without destroying the unity of the object they are employed to decorate.’ Such passionate commitment to the cause of using ornamentation correctly was not uncommon in this mid-nineteenth century period of design reform. John Ruskin’s writings about ornament were also shot through with similar concerns. And the moral tone of the critiques was further honed in the early twentieth century by the belief among avant-garde circles that products that disguised their modes of construction with ornament were dishonest and, therefore, fundamentally flawed. The moral resistance to ornamentation found its most vehement spokesperson in Austrian architect Adolf Loos, who in 1908 published a diatribe against decoration, titled ‘Ornament and Crime’. In this text Loos uses stirring rhetoric to argue that cultural evolution and human progress was being hampered by ornament. In his view, ornament was a waste of manpower, health, materials and capital. ‘In a highly productive nation,’ he wrote, ‘ornament is no longer a natural product of its culture, and therefore represents backwardness or even a degenerative tendency.’
The social and economic import of such beliefs fuelled Modernism’s manifestos, teachings and practice. Ornament continued its long fall out of favour in architecture, industrial design and graphic design for the better part of the twentieth century. With postmodernism’s revivification of complexity, lent legitimacy by Robert Venturi’s writings in the 1960s and 1970s, ornament was granted a reprieve among design thinkers and makers. Even so, ornament has found it hard to shake its second-tier status within the cultural spectrum. It shared this space beyond the pale with the crafts, outsider art, popular or commercial art, and other obsessive or naïve creations such as the kinds of work depicted in Margaret Lambert and Enid Marx’s English Popular and Traditional Arts published in 1946 which showcased examples of indigenous crafts such as hand-painted fairground signage, canal boat decoration, intricate lacework and straw dolls.
And, even today, despite its proliferation and the slow emergence of discourse surrounding it, the use of decoration is still regarded by mainstream graphic design as taboo – a testimony, perhaps, to Modernism’s enduring hegemony. A discussion about decoration on the design blog Speak Up, for example, saw the terms ‘candy’, ‘craving’, ‘fluff’, ‘indulge’, ‘eighth deadly sin’, ‘closet’, and ‘guilt’ – admittedly taken out of context here – flying around with telling regularity throughout the 62 posted comments.
For those willing to embrace decoration’s possibilities through graphic design, there are few historical references or figures to turn to for validation or inspiration. ‘Ornament has been the subject of debate since classical times in architecture,’ says designer and educator Denise Gonzales Crisp, ‘but in graphic design it’s as if it was never discussed. It’s a stealth ideology.’ Gonzales Crisp points to the celebrated American type designers W. A. Dwiggins and Frederic W. Goudy as designers who were thinking more deeply than most about decoration, but ‘that’s because ornament was allowed in type,’ she says. Goudy designed Kennerley in response to what he described as ‘a real need for types for decorative printing,’ and Dwiggins used celluloid or acetate stencils in which tiny elements were cut to create typographic ornaments for the surfaces of the books he designed.
– In which we wonder whether today’s interest in ornament as it relates to design is anything more than a vagary of fashion?
At first it looks as if ornament’s recent re-emergence in graphic design can be explained solely by the oscillations of style – the need to find a visual currency as contrary and exotic as possible to the one that preceded it. The early 2000s saw the energies of contemporary practice channelled through what might be broadly characterised as neo-modernism. Among the genre’s defining characteristics were the deployment of systems that generated progeny celebrated for their ‘default’ qualities and the proliferation of manifestos – those Modernist relics – dredged up for ironic reinterpretation. As with all fashionable statements, it is only a matter of time before the pendulum begins its return swing. Thus only a few short years later we find white spaces furnished with ornamental devices, serifs, borders and fleurons recalled from the dusty oblivion of archaic type specimens, and, replacing a largely urban and technological image-scape built from the visual language of computer software, and code, we find natural motifs and verdant foliage.
Evident in the decorative work of many contemporary practitioners is bizarre nostalgia for a rural past. Bizarre because much of this pattern- and ornament-rich work evokes a time and place that never was – neither part of the designers’ personal histories nor their cultural ones. Through the depiction of pastoral scenes, idealised pre-industrial landscapes populated with certain wild animals (the stag and the owl in particular) and by seeking recourse to the visual symbolism of heraldry, contemporary and largely urban designers appear to be trying to recreate a past and a rural idyll as an escape from the real urban present.
On closer inspection, however, that pendulum swing might not be a swing after all. The current fascination with ornament and decoration can be seen not as a reaction against, but rather as an addition to, the work and thinking of the turn-of-the century systems-obsessed designers. Certain tendencies unite the neo-modern and the neo-baroque as if they were part of one seamless continuing project. Discernible in both, for example, are similar levels of irony and the use of a set of knowing references directed at fellow designers that help distance the maker from their work and possible engagement with its subject matter. It is as if merely the palettes had been swapped out – the one with default type, blurry photographs of forgotten corners of everyday life, and compositions that, with a knowing wink, follow the templates in software programs, replaced by the one with serif and script faces, intensely detailed illustration and dense patterns that evolve from the step-and-repeat function.
Something else is going on, too, however, that may have more lasting implications for design. The other impulse running through this work is a kind of stubborn celebration of uselessness. The Modernist-derived philosophy that has dominated twentieth-century design empties ornament of meaning and separates it from function, thus rendering it superfluous in the eyes of the canon. Knowing this, the fêting of ornament and the production of exuberantly excessive, dense, and sometimes exaggeratedly useless work, therefore, can be seen as a provocative thumbing of the nose to the approach to design advocated by many schools and professional organisations in which ‘problems’ are ‘solved’ by following a sequence of codified steps. As Gonzales Crisp puts it, ‘The decorative speaks to the people using design and not just the clients who commission it. The super-rational approach to design seems to be all about the client – the idealised client.’
– In which we delve beneath the surface of things
Among this dense forest of fashionably ornamental graphic design is work that stands out because, in addition to the irreverence and fun, it brings complexity, meaningfulness and a seriousness of intent. Sometimes the decorative elements in a piece of work are not merely sampled from a palette of choices but emanate directly from content and are integrated at a deep level with concept. They do as much work as the word in communicating. What does it take, then, to produce this kind of work? It may have to do with the extent to which a designer is involved and obsessed, even, with what they do. Involved and obsessed mentally, as Armin Vit points out in the discussion on Speak Up stimulated by the subject of decoration: ‘Heavy ornamentation requires a type of character not found among many people. It’s a balance of obsessive compulsiveness, an acute sense of style and an understanding of when to stop.’ But also involved and obsessed physically – with the making of the thing. The relationship between craft and decoration and ornament is a longstanding and a close one. The Arts and Crafts movement helped to reinvest handcraft with social value. William Morris was famously opposed to the mechanisation of craft activity but, more recently, the design educator Malcolm McCullough has written about the idea of the computer as a craft tool. He extrapolates ‘digital craft’ as ‘a blend of skill and intellect accompanied by a blend of work and play, use and beauty, tacit and codified knowledge.’ The intricacy necessary to make patterns or construct ornament suggests more attention is paid to the craft of making and to detail. Gonzales Crisp also sees the computer as a key technology in the evolution of work that uses decoration in a meaningful way. ‘Amplification, complexity and detail are key to decoration,’ she says, ‘and the computer lets you do that. You can noodle the heck out of anything now if you are inclined. It feels like this powerful tool that allows complexity that only craftspeople value. It re-introduces that connection to the making that maybe we lost with the über-designer handing off stuff for production to a typesetter, lithographer, platemaker and so on. It’s as if it has come full circle.’
In product design this connection between the decorative, detail and craft is already acknowledged and is being probed. In this field there is an emphatic and renewed interest in the human-ness of making, and the ‘tacit knowledge’ of making to which McCullough refers. Critic Louise Schouwenberg writes in depth on the subject. ‘Freed from its negative connotations, craftsmanship can be valued for the psychological effect it exerts on its user: it not only refers to a slower pace, but also implants this deceleration, and the implied attention to detail, into the product,’ she says. Detail is a contemporary concern of culture more generally, too. In her 1987 book Reading in Detail: Aesthetics and the Feminine, historian Naomi Schor posits that the detail, bounded on either side by the ornamental and the prosaic, is something historically gendered as feminine. She emphasises the ambivalent place that the detail and the feminine have held in traditional Western aesthetics. ‘For as any historian of ideas knows, the detail until very recently has been viewed in the West with suspicion if not downright hostility,’ she says. She believes the ‘rare prominence’ it is currently enjoying is thanks largely to poststructuralist thinking.
Product designer Hella Jongerius, who has created an upholstery fabric for the New York textile store Maharam that has an unusually long repetitive pattern inspired by the jacquard cards (like early IBM computer main frame punch cards) that tell the loom what to weave, and reconfigures in her ceramics and textiles archetypal patterns such as pied-de-poule, stripes, birds and vines, talks of ‘the power of decoration, which can transcend the visual to take on a different meaning.’ She embeds questions in her exaggeratedly ornate Swarovksi chandelier so that the decoration is put to work and asks critical questions. Jongerius was a founding member of Dutch design collective Droog which in 1998 held an exhibition called ‘Inevitable Ornament’. This idea of an inevitable connection between ornament, form and content is something that graphic design is beginning to deal with right now. Gonzales Crisp has given this notion the label ‘deco rational’. By fusing these normally oppositional concepts, she attempts ‘to engage the discourse of ornament with that of rational design’ and to suggest that, ‘function is completed by ornament.’
The decoration we’re seeing today is particular to the time we live in. In many ways it is dystopian. There’s the inclusion of urban, dark and ironic themes, as evident in Geoff McFetridge’s attitude-laden takes on patterning in three designs titled ‘Red Dawn’, ‘Stoner Forest’ (see Eye no. 47) and ‘All Yesterday’s Parties’. The last of these designs features camouflage patterns overlaid with a pattern of party detritus (beer cans, bottles, and dog ends). Similarly, Daniël van der Velden and Maureen Mooren’s identity for the Holland Festival uses the argyle patterns that the typical middle-class festival-goer tends to wear as windows on to apocalyptic images, and interweaves street trash with cathedral stained glass to create a tense critique of contemporary Dutch society. The voluptuous floral wall mural that extended the length of a block in the New York Prada store provided a frame for its own commentary. The installation was created in 1999 by design firm 2x4 in collaboration with Rem Koolhaas’s Office for Metropolitan Architecture, and was among the first and most prominent of recent re-investigations of pattern (see Reviews, p.82). It uses the silhouettes of full-bodied leaves and flowers as windows for photographic images that reference what designer Karen Hsu describes as ‘Italianness, consumption, fashion, manufacturing, beauty and sex.’
‘The rational aspect of the decorational is its capacity to tell, not only in a story-like way, but also in a metonymic way in the same way that icons do,’ says Gonzales Crisp. If there’s a key or operative word to describe what’s exciting about the best decorational work, says the designer, then it’s ‘complexity’. She explains: ‘Life is very complex and much of graphic design’s time gets spent on refining and organising and making things clear. There are all kinds of ways to think about graphic design’s service, however. It can also be about establishing empathy or providing escape.’
What will give decoration, pattern and ornament life beyond that of their current popularity is the fact that they provide designers with an alternative to orthodox views of design’s role as a solver of problems and a simplifier of things. They are strategies for thinking and making that have rich histories but that can be continually re-imagined. They can be used as framing devices or carriers for critical or narrative commentary. As Daniël van der Velden says, ‘Playfulness and layers, multiple narratives, embedding history, seeking relations, and also political implications are better expressed in a visual vocabulary less dogmatic and more rich than Modernism.’
First published in Eye no. 58 vol. 15, Winter 2005.
Eye is the world’s most beautiful and collectable graphic design journal, published quarterly for professional designers, students and anyone interested in critical, informed writing about graphic design and visual culture. It is available from all good design bookshops and online at the Eye shop, where you can buy subscriptions, back issues and single copies of the latest issue. | <urn:uuid:41fb90ac-85b8-4307-9dd7-aa88f9549849> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/the-decriminalisation-of-ornament-full-text | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949749 | 4,207 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Before we give you a history lesson, let us reassure you that you don't have to think of yourself as a "Pagan" to use our service! In our experience, couples expressing a wish to have a marriage ceremony performed by us often don't identify themselves with any named religion, instead many just have an affinity with nature, or consider themselves to be more spiritual than religious, or think of themselves as agnostics - what they do have in common is that they are seeking something with a bit more depth than a civil ceremony with a Registrar, but without wanting to take the route of a conventional church wedding. So, if you are looking for a religious Celebrant in order to enable you to get married in a non-licensed venue, we may be able to help.
Also, our policy is to only ever perform a maximum of one wedding ritual a day - any more and we could not give the ceremonies the attention to detail that we aim to provide.
Please also note that your ritual does not have to include any of the customs described here, it can be as simple as you wish, but, whatever your choice, all our wedding rituals are fully legal if required.
Traditionally, Pagan weddings were, and still are, often called "handfastings", and both Celtic and northern strands of Paganism claim roots for these types of marriage ceremony. The word "handfasting" possibly derives from "hand-festa" which means "to strike a bargain by joining hands", and therefore may not have originally applied exclusively to marriage "agreements". A handfasting ritual often included the practice of the couple grasping each other's hands, sometimes through a stone with a natural hole (as at the Odin Stone, Stenness - sadly no longer standing), and then having their held hands lightly bound. Some traditions state that this should be with a red cord but nowadays the couple can choose the colour(s) of the cords or ribbons they use, perhaps to represent themselves or the "blessings" they wish to bring to the marriage. Alternatively, or in addition, couples can exchange traditional wedding rings.
In the past, couples had a choice about how long their handfasting would last: "a year and a day", "as long as love shall last", "this lifetime", or "all lives to come". The first of these options led to handfastings being known as "trial marriages".
For more information about some of the choices available to you for your wedding, please read our page: Options for today's couples. | <urn:uuid:5078f21f-2e1b-4986-9647-c861d0489385> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.orkneypaganweddings.co.uk/the-ritual/4539076033 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972559 | 521 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Rural Economy Starts 2011 Strong
Jan 24, 2011
The rural economy grew for the third straight month and advanced to its highest level since 2007, according to the Rural Mainstreet survey. Rising farm income and healthy spending from farmers continues to propel the rural economy.
The overall Rural Mainstreet Index (RMI) increased to 59.3 from 55.4 in December, according to the survey of bank CEOs in a 10-state region. This marks the third straight month the index is above growth neutral 50.0, and the fifth straight month the index has increased.
"Farmers continue to spend their healthy and growing income on Rural Mainstreet businesses. From farm equipment to farmland to trucks, agricultural producers in the area are spending at a brisk pace," said Creighton University economist Ernie Goss, co-author of the report.
Farmland prices continue to be robust as the farmland price index remained above growth neutral for the 12th straight month at 75.4, but down a tick from December’s 76.9. Respondents noted they expect the strong farm economy to drive cash rental rates for farmland in 2011.
"More than three-fourths of the CEOs anticipate cash rents to rise by more than 5 percent in 2011, and approximately one-fifth expect these rents to grow by more than 10 percent," said Goss.
The strong rural economy has dampened the growth for lending as the loan volume index for January declined to a record low 33.9 from December’s 52.3 and November’s 35.3. The other two banking indicators, checking deposits and certificate of deposits, remained above growth neutral for the 11 straight month.
The rural economy continued to add jobs in January as the jobs index increased to 52.5 in January from last month’s 50.1. "For this part of the country, rural areas are clearly outpacing the urban areas in terms of job growth. While employment in the urban areas is virtually flat, annualized growth in the rural areas is a healthy 2 percent," said Goss.
Bankers continue to have a bright outlook on the rural economy as the economic confidence index improved to 63.4 in January from December’s reading of 62.2
The rural economy continues to be a bright spot in an otherwise uncertain economic environment. January did see a pause in farmland appreciation, but this is to be expected as the traditional selling season slows down.
The outlook for 2010 continues to be bright. High grain prices and expectations of record planted acres could bring record production and profits to the rural economy.
Remember to visit http://farmlandforecast.colvin-co.com for daily articles on farmland and agriculture. | <urn:uuid:bfdb4c87-af3b-4a31-84f3-5f6c3860c33f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.agweb.com/topproducer/rural-economy-starts-2011-strong/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955939 | 553 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Mysterious Climate Bill Is "Like Sasquatch"
Senate majority leader Harry Reid has taken heat for suggesting that whether he moves energy or immigration legislation first depends on which bill looks most likely to pass. On Tuesday he suggested that climate legislation would have the edge because it's "much further down the road" than immigration. And on Wednesday he was even more firm: "I am going to move forward on energy first." But it remains far from clear that the climate and energy bill that was supposed to be unveiled this week by Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) has sufficient backing. That's because it appears that almost no-one except the co-authors has actually seen the bill.
Senators and advocates say they have seen outlines or heard summaries of what is expected to be called the "American Power Act." And the co-authors sent a draft of the bill to the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday for analysis, a process that takes five to six weeks and evaluates both the environmental and economic impacts of the bill. But senators have said they haven't seen the draft and can't declare a position on it.
"They were going to give me a draft, but they have not released a draft," said Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) on Monday. Snowe is one of only a few Republicans who has voted for cap and trade bills in the past and could be a possible "yes" vote. "I can't make a decision on that. I'd like to, but I said I have to see the bill first."
"I don't know who's seen the entire bill. My understanding is that there's still moving pieces," said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.). "[Kerry] hasn't pressed the start button yet." Cardin has been a strong supporter of climate and energy legislation, though he listed concerns about how the bill would deal with offshore drilling and existing environmental laws.
Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) is one of ten industrial state Democrats who recently outlined demands for the bill. She said she thinks some of their concerns have been covered, but "I'm not sure all of them have been addressed." She adds, "We have been briefed on summaries of what's in it, but we want to see the actual language."
Other fence-sitting senators who have said that they haven't seen the draft yet and thus can't say whether they could support it include Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Mark Begich (D-Alaska), Mark Warner (D-Va.), and Susan Collins (R-Maine). John McCain (R-Ariz.), once a champion of climate legislation before backing away from the issue, said he hadn't seen a bill or even talked to his close friend Graham or colleagues about it.
While the authors have touted the industry support they've drawn for the bill, it's not yet clear whether that will pay off in votes. And it's not just senators who are wondering what the draft will actually look like. Environmental advocates said they have yet to see legislative text. One compared the legislation to Sasquatch, quipping that people have heard talk of the details and glimpsed rough outlines of the bill, but no one has yet laid eyes on the real deal. The most detailed outline of the measure's contents to date has come from a call between Kerry and progressive business leaders just last week. Even before the drama over Graham's involvement, there were still numerous open questions about what the draft might contain. And with the release of the bill now delayed even further, the mystery surrounding the measure continues. | <urn:uuid:fc08319c-b470-415a-b541-16459e821151> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/04/climate-bill-sasquatch | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979169 | 763 | 1.585938 | 2 |
National Football League Internship Profile
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Workplace culture, getting hired and more | <urn:uuid:a91d00e8-a792-4af3-8a3c-c5c5f37a00f4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vault.com/wps/portal/usa/internship-detail?internshipId=1348 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967952 | 125 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Celebrate Dr. Seuss' 104th Birthday
|When||Mar 04, 2008 from 03:00 pm to 06:00 pm|
Children under 12 years
|Add event to calendar||
Join the James Kennedy Public Library in Dyersville in celebrating Dr. Seuss’ 104th birthday! Children up to age 12 are invited to make a birthday card for Dr. Seuss. Come to the library on March 4th anytime between 3 and 6 p.m. and make a card, or make one at home. (Include name, age and phone number please!) Turn it in at the library by March 24th. Prizes will be awarded! | <urn:uuid:f9dc5ac9-84bf-458f-8ccb-1853c72f52d4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dyersville.lib.ia.us/archive/2008/march/dr-seuss-birthday | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930588 | 138 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Oh the places we’ll go…
When I was a little girl, and I would play at my grandmother’s apartment, I would pretend her home was a world of water. There were no roads or cars, just waterways and boats. I would jump from dry land to dry land or sometimes go for a long boat ride (usually up and down her long hallway). One day I told my grandmother what I was pretending, and she said to me, “There is a city just like that in Italy. It is called Venice. It has canals and boats, not streets and cars. I will take you there some day.” And when I was nine, she did. It was the greatest gift she could have given me.
I think about that trip a lot, and how certain places stoked my creative fires when I was a girl. Not a day goes by where I don’t think about how I want to give my wee-one similar experiences. I have a short list of places that I have been to, that I cannot wait to share with my daughter. Some places are far away and going there may make her feel like royalty; I want to take her Paris to show her the Louvre and Versailles. Some places are much closer and may inspire her to climb, explore, and create; I want to take her to St. Louis to see the City Museum. Some places – like the Palm Court – are in our very own city. And some places are simply a given – like Venice.
I have decided to make my daughter a book about the places I have been that I want to share with her – as a sort of manifesto to her. My grandmother said, “I will take you there some day.” And she did. I want to do the same for my wee-one. Stay tuned for more. | <urn:uuid:d250317a-9316-46ee-b609-0de867da5373> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ladylulu.wordpress.com/2008/03/24/oh-the-places-well-go/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.990867 | 384 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Fate of Transportation Bill, California Rail Funding Remain in Doubt
Putting aside the major imponderable—the outcome of the presidential and congressional elections that inevitably will impact the federal transportation program -- what can the transportation community expect in 2012?
Will Congress muster the will to enact a multiyear surface transportation reauthorization? Or will the legislation fall victim to election year paralysis? What other significant transportation-related developments lie ahead in the new year? Here are our speculations as we gaze into our somewhat clouded crystal ball.
A Multiyear Bill?
In 2011, the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee passed a bipartisan, two-year surface transportation bill (MAP-21), and the Senate Commerce Committee approved the measure’s safety, freight, and research components. But at the end of the year, the bill’s titles dealing with public transportation, intercity passenger rail, and financing were still tied up in their respective committees (Banking, Commerce, and Finance). What’s more, the Senate bill ended up $12 billion short of meeting the $109 billion mark set by the EPW Committee as necessary to maintain the current level of funding plus inflation.
Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) has yet to identify publicly the offsets needed to cover the final $12 billion of the bill’s cost. Repeated assurances by EPW Committee Chairman Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) that the necessary "pay fors" have been found have met with widespread skepticism. It’s not entirely clear the bill, as approved on the Senate floor, will contain the full $109 billion in funding.
Cloudy Prospects for House Bill
On the House side, the fate of a multiyear bill remains equally clouded. In November, Speaker Boehner announced he would unveil a combined transportation and energy bill, dubbed the "American Energy & Infrastructure Jobs Act" (HR 7). The bill would authorize expanded offshore gas and oil exploration and dedicate royalties from such exploration to "infrastructure repair and improvement" focused on roads and bridges.
However, questions have been raised about this approach. Numerous critics, including Sen. Boxer and Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), the EPW committee's ranking member, allege the royalties the House is counting upon would fall billions of dollars short of filling the gap in needed revenue. (The gap is estimated at approximately $75 billion to 80 billion over five years).
What’s more, using oil royalties to pay for transportation would essentially destroy the principle of a trust fund supported by highway user fees. In sum, the House bill, if unveiled in its currently proposed form, will meet with a highly skeptical reception in the Senate.
Assuming some form of both reauthorization bills will gain approval in February, will the two Houses be able to reconcile their widely different versions by March 31, when the current program extension is set to expire? Or will the negotiations bog down in an impasse reminiscent of the current payroll tax stalemate? Given the importance both sides attach to enacting transportation legislation, and given the desire of both sides to avoid the blame of causing an impasse, we think the odds are in favor of them reaching an accommodation—probably more along the lines of the Senate’s two-year bill than the still vague and unfunded House five-year version.
California Train Derailment?
In 2011 Congress effectively put an end to the Obama administration’s high-speed rail initiative by denying any funds to the program for a second year in a row. Does the same fate await the embattled $98 billion California high-speed rail project at the hands of California’s governor and state legislature in 2012?
At a December 15 congressional oversight hearing, witnesses cited a litany of reasons the projects is a "disaster," in Rep. John Mica’s (R-FL) words. Among them: unrealistic assumptions concerning future funding; quixotic choice of location for the initial line section ("in a cow patch," as several lawmakers remarked); lack of evidence of any private investor interest in the project; eroding public support (nearly two-thirds of Californians would now oppose the project if given the chance, according to a recent poll); "devastating" impact of the proposed line on local communities and farmland; unrealistic and outdated ridership forecasts; and lack of proper management oversight.
More recently, the project came under additional criticism. The job estimates claimed by the project’s advocates ("over one million good-paying jobs" according to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi) have been challenged— and acknowledged by project officials— as grossly inflated. Four local governments in the Central Valley, including the City of Bakersfield, formally voted to oppose the project, fearing harmful effects on their communities. And agricultural interests are gearing up for a major legal battle, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Most unsettling for the project’s future is the inability of its sponsors to come up with the needed funding. To complete the "Initial Operating Segment" to San Jose (or the San Fernando Valley) would require an additional $24.7 billion. To finance this construction, the California Rail Authority’s business plan calls for $4.9 billion in Proposition 1A bonds and assumes $19.8 billion in federal contributions—$7.4 billion in federal grants and $12.4 billion in so-called Qualified Tax Credit Bonds (QTCB).
But the latter assumptions came in for sharp congressional criticism as so much wishful thinking, given the bipartisan congressional refusal to appropriate funds for high-speed rail two years in a row.
C. Kenneth Orski (email@example.com) is editor and publisher of Innovation Briefs, where a version of this article first appeared. Used with permission from innobriefs.com. | <urn:uuid:39d919e9-c1a8-494e-9dad-6e164760300e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2012/01/19/fate-transportation-bill-california-rail-funding-remain-doubt?quicktabs_4=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933467 | 1,209 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Congregational Nurse Program
Our Congregational Nurse Program is a unique, specialized nursing practice established as a collaborative relationship between Cone Health and our area’s faith communities. This partnership recognizes that religious organizations have a long history of promoting healing and caregiving. We established our Congregational Nurse Program in 1998 with grants from the Cone Health Foundation.
Our approach provides for a congregational coordinator based at Cone Health who is responsible for assisting community congregations with developing and implementing a Health Ministry Program. Each health ministry is tailored to meet individual congregations’ needs and capabilities. Currently, we collaborate with 48 faith communities, all of which have either a paid or volunteer congregational nurse.
Roles and Activities
Our congregational nurses provide a range of services to their faith communities such as:
- Personal health counseling. While congregational nurses do not perform “hands-on” nursing care such as wound care or injections, they discuss health concerns with parishioners and visit with them as needed.
- Health education. Congregational nurses promote an understanding of the relationship between lifestyle, attitudes, faith and well-being.
- Referral assistance. Congregational nurses serve as a resource for area health resources and services for their faith community.
- Recruiting volunteers. As facilitators, they often recruit and coordinate volunteers and support groups within their congregations.
The role of congregational nurses is varied and includes:
- Assessing health needs for the faith community.
- Providing screening clinics.
- Making home, hospital or nursing home visits.
- Referring parishioners to appropriate health or social services agencies.
- Offering educational programs to address specific congregational needs.
- Coordinating volunteers for supportive ministries.
- Networking with other congregational nurses to increase knowledge.
Our objectives are to:
- Enhance the health status of people served by Cone Health through outreach.
- Promote harmony of body, mind and spirit in achieving and maintaining individual health with a focus on disease prevention and reducing health risk behaviors.
- Facilitate an active partnership between Cone Health, faith communities, agencies and the community at large to promote wellness, chronic disease management and healthier lifestyles.
Lay Health Coach Model
Our Lay Health Coach Model program trains non-clerical leaders to undertake wellness and disease prevention activities within their faith communities in conjunction with the Guilford County Health Department.
Both our Congregational Nurse Program and Lay Health Coach Model program strive to represent religious, ethnic and regional diversity.
For more information, call (336) 832-8602. | <urn:uuid:162c974a-aa49-42f2-8fee-aaab60ffb376> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.conehealth.com/community/congregational-nurse-program/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936767 | 538 | 1.609375 | 2 |
North Korea announced its verdict in the trial of two American journalists, Laura Ling and Euna Lee, for illegal entry and "hostile acts" on June 8th. The outcome of the trial and the subsequent decisions of the North Korean leadership obviously have weighty implications for the families themselves. North Korea's handling of the issue will also tell us whether the North Koreans are playing the same old game by utilizing crisis escalation to draw in the United States diplomatically or whether North Korea's inward focus on politics surrounding the leadership succession has fundamentally changed the game in terms of dealing with Pyongyang.
Under the rules of the old game, the DPRK would hold American trespassers for questioning for a few months, then present them and their families with a sizable "hotel bill" and pave the way for their release. In some cases, such as the cases of Bobby Hall and Evan Hunziger in the mid-1990s, high profile figures such as former Congressman Bill Richardson were involved in their release.
According to this approach, the two American journalists who stumbled into North Korean hands on March 17th are potential trump cards that North Korea can use to ease tensions following a string of actions that have escalated the crisis with the newly-elected Obama administration. The journalists would provide North Korea with a safety release valve for reducing tensions and drawing the United States into a coveted high-level direct dialogue, effectively marginalizing the six party process and opening the way for United States to once again provide significant concessions and humanitarian assistance to North Korea. | <urn:uuid:8c2b856b-205e-4979-9b4b-6d01c5fdd9fb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.cfr.org/north-korea/north-koreas-harsh-verdict/p19595 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965301 | 304 | 1.757813 | 2 |
I created Hold An Event because all the other event registration web applications are not accessible to those using assistive technologies, like screen readers (JAWS, NVDA, Window Eyes, etc.), along with voice recognition software (Dragon Naturally Speaking). They are also difficult to use even on smartphones let alone an lesser phones. I found this out while running my first Accessibility Camp DC back in October of 2009 and then with our follow-up monthly event, Accessibility DC. People would show up without registering because they deemed the service I had chosen not to be accessible, even though these people would be considered by most to be power assistive technology users.
After the first Accessibility Camp DC and a few monthly meetings, I started looking into event registration systems and everything I found was inaccessible in one form or other. I mostly looked at all the larger ones is all. So over the last two and a half plus years, when I have had five minutes here or a half hour there, at coffee shops, on the train, or wherever, I put notes into my iPhone about creating a web-based event registration application. At first, I used the iPhone’s built-in notes application, until a few people suggested I use Simple Note. This was because it had an iPhone application, along with a web application. By gathering all the different pieces of information you would need to create and run events over time, I had the time to really think about the roles/personas needed for an event.
The type of people I came up with could be people putting on the event, the attendees, paid attendees if that applies, sponsors, speakers, and even event staff. These roles work if you are holding a simple birthday party, the monthly book club, a tech event, or even a large conference. So we are talking a great amount of information, and I really had to think this through.
At times, I was like this is way too much work for just one person or I had other things to do and would do nothing about it for weeks or even months. No matter how hard I tried, the problem never seemed to go away and kept coming back to me. So after reading a lot of books, articles, etc. about start-ups, web applications, usability, and the like, as most would say I just needed to start and see where it would go.
When I Started
So over the summer of 2011, I finally started building the prototype to make sure I had the correct process, flow, and usability of the web application down before really starting the difficult work of making this a true working application. I even started with the mind-set of Mobile First (great book), which some are great ideas from Luke W. and others. My guess was that if I started coding the web application using web standards and accessibility in mind from the start, and if a person could do everything they needed to on their phone, then it should work wonderfully in a browser or on a tablet.
I started out simple and built a few of the needed input forms, which got me playing with responsive design and media queries. I made a concerted effort to get those few main screens right before building out a ton of pages. Once I got most of that complete, I moved on to the next set of forms.
My goal was to have the ability to make Hold An Event’s web application to seem like it was processing real information such as a search for events, to registering for an event, etc. This was done by passing parameters in the URL to tell each page what static content to place on the page. This idea seems to be working fairly well, since when showing friends lately what Hold An Event looked and acted like, they asked what kind of database, etc. I’m using. I would then explained what I had done to make it a look like a fully-functional application.
By the middle of October 2001, I had a bunch of pages that worked well enough to start showing people at that month’s Accessibility DC event and then more people at my annual Accessibility Camp DC event. Once those events were over, I didn’t do any more coding until New Year’s Eve 2011, sitting at my parents kitchen table coding from like 11 PM to 1:30 AM, because everyone else in the house more or less had gone to bed by 10:30 PM. Since then, I have been doing something to improve the Hold An Event web application just about every night and on the weekends too. Sometimes it was a little tweak here or there; other times it’s been to add a new page.
At one point, I added a few different smaller non geek/tech events to be able to show people different types of events types and how the process worked. I also had to add in some code to display the different navigation paths people used, depending on what type of user they were. For example, is the person running the event or attending the event, which are the two types I’m worrying about now.
How You Can Help
The next step is to let people play with Hold An Event themselves instead of me demoing it on my iPhone, which means making it look and act better on a tablet or in a computer browser. Currently it’s not the prettiest thing in a web browser, but it will do as a prototype.
Other big tickets items I’m going to have to think about are the security of peoples’ information like name and e-mail address to start, along with taking money, once I get to that point, which is far off in the future. I’m only working on this a few hours some nights after work and then 6 hours max on the weekends, for a total of 10 to 15 hours a week.
So here’s to making more progress over the next few months.
Where to find the Hold An Event Prototype
For those wanting to look at the current prototype, start by using the “tab” key on the Hold An Event’s home page, doing so will let you find the link to the demo/prototype web application. Remember this “prototype will not save” anything you place in it at all. So please don’t try and create an event to invite people to it and think it will work because it won’t. Once you’re there, use the search box to find events in “DC”, which will currently give you a list of nine events to view.
If you want to sign in to see the process of creating and viewing current events you’re running, your past events, or ones you’re attending, all you need to do is make sure you place at least one character in the user name and password fields. It doesn’t matter what they are, just as long as there is something there.
P.S. Have fun and please send me feedback about what needs to be done, improved, etc. I’m a big guy and can take the the bad with the good. I’m mostly looking for ways to improve things. | <urn:uuid:96524bb5-6a78-4664-bd3f-fb24608671fc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.jfciii.com/blog/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969233 | 1,473 | 1.570313 | 2 |
In a press conference ahead of Mobile World Congress, Mozilla said that 18 operators including Deutsche Telekom and Telefonica, were signed up. Firefox phones are likely to be flogged in the developing world and Eastern Europe and will be at the cheap and cheerful end of the smartphone market. Manufacturers LG, ZTE, Huawei and TCL had all committed to building devices, with more firms "to follow".
The platform is based on the HTML5 web programming language which makes it a little more interesting. For a start it means that developers don't have to learn a new programming language to develop apps for the beast. At the beginning of the year, Mozilla revealed a partnership with Spanish firm Geeksphone, with handsets made available to developers.
While Firefox phones might be cheaper than Android versions, the outfit might have an uphill battle gaining acceptance – mostly because there are few apps for it. Ovum issued a statement saying that the Firefox operating system was "slow and buggy" in its current state adding that it could not "hide behind price as a justification for poor performance" when Samsung and Nokia had their own budget devices on the market. | <urn:uuid:6a771bd1-1cee-47fe-9921-11c68179f93e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fudzilla.com/home/item/30568-mozilla-issues-firefox-phone | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968618 | 232 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Click HERE to Search Archived Churches
If you have historical information to be added, or any other questions or comments regarding the database, please click here.
The website side of the Archived Churches database project is done, and historical information is being added by Conference Historian, Anne Phillips. Church History fields have also been added to the Active Church records in the Church Dashboard.
The information about St. Andrew, the most recently discontinued church, has been added to provide a good example for everyone to see. Please click http://memphis-umc.net/churchesarchive/detail/119
Here are some churches that have some information started in addition to closing dates:
The search page is at http://memphis-umc.net/churchesarchive (and a link is on all the results pages). The churches can be browsed by districts from this page or directly also.
So far, 115 churches have been entered with their closing dates, most from the last 25 years and a few from before then. Additional information will be added as provided.
Notice the “Gallery” link on the St. Andrew and the Denmark pages. This enables us to include photos, etc. Also, there are additional fields available only from the Console for information we want to keep, but not make public.
Materials from the Archives may be scanned into either the Gallery or into the Files Library to make them available online.
Harrell Phillips, Chairperson of Memphis Conference History and Archives Commission, has gathered information on church closings and property issues from conference journals back to 1908. This information is being added to the database, and his notes have been scanned into pdf files according for each decade:
The online Archived Churches Database project is a collaborative project of the Cabinet, Board of Trustees, Commission on History and Archives, Treasurer's Office, Connectional Ministries Team and Communication Action Team. | <urn:uuid:c5cfe670-4082-4213-be01-d93cc44fe59a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.memphis-umc.net/pages/detail/403 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93424 | 389 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Star Tannery VA
June 4, 2011
KWTX TV reports that more than 70 residents of the town of Leroy, Texas, turned out for a meeting to support their post office. They signed petitions and were encouraged to write letters to their lawmakers. “If the post office closes, a centrally located box known as a Neighborhood Delivery Box and Collection Unit or NDCBU will be installed.” Several other rural post offices in central Texas —Purmela, Prairie Hill, Reagan and Avalon—are also on the closure list.
News Channel 34 in Binghamton, New York, reports that “residents and city officials are making a last ditch effort to convince the US Postal Service not to close 3 neighborhood post offices in the city.” That would leave only the downtown office open. City Council Member Teri Rennia says the West Side has a higher population of elderly and low-income residents who have a difficult time getting downtown. "A walkable community is incredibly important for environmental reasons, for economic reasons and also to make sure folks who don't have access to transportation still have equal access to these basic services." Watch the video.
NV Daily reports that the town of Star Tannery, Virginia, had a community meeting to tell USPS officials that it was wrong to close their post office. More than 65 people attended, and they’ve started a letter writing campaign to their lawmakers. The sixty-day comment periods ends June 20. The nearest post office is 11 miles away. Local politician Dennis Morris attended the meeting: “"It's convenience and it's tradition," he said. "They want to keep their identity back there."
Eleven New Mexico post offices are on the chopping block, reports KRQE News 13. "This may sound old fashioned and silly,” said Shelley Rains, a resident of the town of Holman, NM, in the northeastern part of the state. “We’re a community, and a community always has a post office. It’s a center.” The other communities that might lose their post offices are Capulin, Cuervo, Coyote, Encino, Gladstone, La Loma, Saint Vrain, Trementina, Mills, and Fort Stanton. “Maybe our opinions, our enthusiasm, our need will make a difference,” Rains said. “Maybe it won’t. But if you do not fight, you can never win.” (Watch the video, and check out the Save Our Post Office website Holman citizens have put together.)
The post office in downtown Canton, Georgia, will close, reports the Cherokee Tribune.
“Canton Mayor Gene Hobgood lamented the news. . . . Retaining the post office’s presence downtown, he said, is ‘vital’ to the city’s efforts to reenergize the central business district.”
The City Council in Waterville, Ohio, unanimously approved a resolution requesting the U.S. Postal Service to maintain a full service post office in the city, reports the Toledo Blade. Two weeks ago the postal service said a temporary emergency suspension would close the city's post office and operations would be shifted to the Maumee Post Office. The postal service was unable to reach a lease agreement with the owner of the building on South Third Street in the community's downtown business district, where the post office has been housed for fifty years. Mayor Derek Merrin said that a lease had been signed, so the closing has been averted, at least for now. | <urn:uuid:8e28746a-cd5e-44d6-843d-980f18840921> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.savethepostoffice.com/location/virginia/star-tannery-va | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966338 | 741 | 1.632813 | 2 |
The task of steering clear of conflicts with current and former clients grows more complicated as the list of current and former clients grows longer. Long client lists have forced law firms to focus on conflicts management for years. But the client lists of many corporate legal departments are growing too. This growth is the result of growing legal departments—the addition of new lawyers leads to the addition of imported former clients that must be checked for conflicts purposes; growing corporate families; and the risk that courts will find implied attorney-client relationships between corporate counsel and corporate constituents. As its list of current and former clients grows, the corporate legal department will need to develop robust conflicts management systems and procedures as well.
Failure to properly address conflicts can lead to unhappy outcomes including bar discipline, disqualification, claims for malpractice and breach of fiduciary duty, loss of privilege and confidentiality, fee disgorgement, and generally unhappy clients. While outside counsel are at greater risk for some of these outcomes, in-house counsel are not immune from any of them.
Adverse representation conflicts
Ethical conflicts can arise in a variety of circumstances. The most common conflicts lawyers confront are adverse representation conflicts. That is, the legal department may have a conflict that must be evaluated before it can take on a matter for the corporate employer that is adverse to a current or former client. The conflicts rules for matters adverse to current and former clients are different (see, e.g., ABA Model Rules 1.7 & 1.9), but to effectively manage the potential conflicts, both current and former clients need to be on the list. Adding to the complexity, the conflicts rules vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, with relatively smaller differences among jurisdictions within the United States, and larger differences across international borders.
Identifying current and former clients
The principal client of any corporate legal department is of course the corporation itself. If an entire legal department were made up entirely of lawyers who had ever represented only the corporation, we wouldn’t have to worry about adverse representation conflicts. But that isn’t the practical reality.
While legal departments sometimes hire lawyers right of out of law school, more often they hire lawyers from law firms, government agencies, other corporate legal departments, or solo practices. The former clients of the hired lawyers should be on the list, and for conflicts checking purposes, you need to know at least some general information about the matters on which the lawyers in the legal department represented those former clients, while taking care to protect the confidential information of the former clients.
Review the company’s website, intranet, policies and communications that might reflect whom the company has said its lawyers represent. You might be surprised what you find. You may find statements that the company’s lawyers represent a broad group of corporate constituents, when, on reflection, that isn’t intended or accurate.
Review regulatory, administrative and court filings to see whether the company or its lawyers have claimed to have represented any clients other than the corporation itself.
Perhaps the knottiest problem is identifying people or entities who might claim to have an attorney-client relationship that arose by implication. Attorney-client relationships generally form as a matter of contract. Restatement (Third) of the Law Governing Lawyers §14 (2012). The prospect of a court finding an implied contract are what keep people who worry about conflicts up at night. The law has developed in a way that has made it more difficult for corporate officers to establish implied attorney-client relationships with corporate counsel. See, e.g., United States v. Graf. However, determining whether an attorney-client relationship arose by implication where there is no written expression of the intent of at least the lawyer or the corporation can involve a highly factual and complex analysis. See, e.g., Gerffert Co., Inc. v. Dean; Teleglobe USA Inc. v. BCE Inc. (In re Teleglobe Communications Corp).
There is no single perfect conflicts-checking system for all corporate legal departments. But all legal departments should give thought to these practical suggestions:
- Maintain a comprehensive database of all current and former clients of the corporate legal department and its lawyers
- Identify who the legal department intends to be its clients and potential clients, and ensure that the company’s written policies and internal and external communications are consistent
- Expressly in writing limit the scope of representations of clients other than the principal corporate client
- Obtain written waivers as appropriate to avoid having a conflict prevent the legal department from representing the principal corporate client
- Perform conflicts checks when the legal department takes on new clients and when new adverse parties appear in matters handled by the legal department | <urn:uuid:e47b4701-ea1c-4aa6-9ab3-cc7f583cdd2f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.insidecounsel.com/2013/01/16/regulatory-conflict-management-for-inside-counsel?t=department-management | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96154 | 953 | 1.546875 | 2 |
URGENT - Seau brain disease
(CNN) -- An examination suggests former NFL linebacker Junior Seau had the brain disease CTE, the National Institutes of Health said Thursday. "On initial examination the brain looked normal but under the microscope, with the use of special staining techniques, abnormalities were found that are consistent with a form of chronic traumatic encephalopathy," the NIH said in a statement. There was also a small part of his brain with "evidence of scarring that is consistent with a small, old, traumatic brain injury," the NIH said. Seau's May 2012 death was classified as a suicide.
Copyright 2013 by CNN NewSource. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:cdd6d7f3-1beb-43e8-a416-c967c5cf72a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kcci.com/news/health/URGENT-Seau-brain-disease/-/9356934/18079856/-/view/print/-/xrjps4/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981376 | 151 | 1.632813 | 2 |
If we contrast the rapid progress of this mischievous discovery of gunpowder with the slow and laborious advances of reason, science, and the arts of peace, a philosopher, according to his temper, will laugh or weep at the folly of mankind. - Edward Gibbon
Last edited by Shek; 21 Mar 07, at 01:58.
"So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3
So ...... what did you think of A Bright Shining Lie?
("So.....have you seen this dance?"--female record executive to young male record executive, (wtte), prelude to "Cold Hearted Snake" video)
I am doing the PhD part time. With time off it will have taken me over 7 years by the time I finish. People get less for murder! Fortunately I was already borderline insane already, so it hasn't much effected my mental state
'Chickenhawk' is a great book. Read it when I was about 16 & loved it. What came out of it to a youg chap like myself who had only ever seen war in movies is just how messy & chaotic combat can be, and just how much can depend on good fortune & a few acts of courage. I had never realised just how dangerous flying choppers was. The author came across really sympathetically, which made the end a real kick in the guts. A classic first person account of the war.
If you would like another interesting perspective, there are now some excellent accounts of the war from the North Vietnamese perspective. Bao Ninh's work has already been listed here. To it I would add 'Novel Without a Name' by Duong Thu Huong'. Despite being a popular writer in Vietnam, she was forced to flee after writing this in the 90s. A Vietnamese friend of mine read it & couldn't work out why, but who can read the minds of dictators? Neither book reads as well as some western accounts - translation & differing writing styles accross very different cultures mitigate against it. However, neither is a difficult read, and they are invaluable in humanizing a conflict too often reduced to myth, cliche & partisan argument.
'Bright Shining Lie' is also a great account of certain aspects of the war. It is very successful in pointing out some of the serious flaws in US strategy & tactics. There have, however, been some legitimate criticisms that Sheehan is too inclined to accept the judgements of Vann a bit too uncritically. Still, a broad account of Vietnam without flaws is yet to be written (nor will it ever be). Read in conjunction with some of the books Shek has listed it is a fine addition to one's understandig of the war.
About Face...by Col Hackworth
Phantom Soldiers...John Poole
I second a Street Without Joy
The movie wasn't bad but the book, IMHO, was/is a must read for those interested in the transition to a major mid-intensity conflict.
I subscribe to the notion that the war in the central highlands north to the DMZ was a very different conflict from the classic "counter-insurgency" thesis of winning "hearts and minds". It was war, nothing less, carrying few parallels to the insurgency along the coastal rice-belt or further south.
As such, WE WERE SOLDIERS... captures clearly the disorienting transition to war for U.S. forces in those heady days of early 1965. Living in Germany then, many of my dad's peers were on short-notice to deploy. What a nightmare. Move from Germany to the states, settle your family, and off to war.
Upon arrival, the 1st Cav's story is both typical and atypical. Base camp construction, in-processing of troops, bivouac development, and into the boonies to hunt "charlie". Except that it wasn't "victor charlie" one bit. Instead "Nguyen of the North" had made his appearance, at least in the central highlands.
Ia Drang was, flat-out, a major conventional battle between elite forces of two nations-both itching for a fight, and finding it. Many myths from both sides disproved here, most notably the notion of "hugging" the Americans. Tied-in properly (though only in the most expedient manner) American troops devastated the NVA in close-quarter combat of the HIGHEST intensity.
Numerous lessons learned and, too, mis-learned.
Also, "The 1st Cav in Vietnam-Anatomy of a Division, by Shelby Stanton chronicles the deployment and operational activities of the 1st Cav Division during its Vietnam tenure. This book is critical to the understanding of the development of air assault concepts/operations and their "real world" applications. Too, it serves as a generally excellent unit history, as you might imagine, of a very capable and heavily engaged U.S. division sitting smack-dab in the middle of a mid-intensity conflict against a foe of the first-order while implementing these new operational concepts.
Finally, I'd encourage anybody interested to purview the work of Keith William Nolan. His battle histories are magnificent reads, meticulously researched, and compelling drama to boot.
Brennens War, by Matthew Brennan.
Story of an FO in a Blue Platoon (scout platoon) for a brigade in the Air Cav. Served from 1966 to 1969. Dramatically underscores the value and travails of combat leadership, and the dehumanizing effects of war on young men. Certainly not an anti-war diatribe, but dosen't gold plate heroism either. And this dude was a hero, by any measure.
It is fascinating study, and first-hand account of the disintigration of the U.S. Army from a formidable, well led, aggressive and tactically competant force into a drug addled, casualty shy example of low quality leadership, riven by race problems. Certainly one of the best "combat memoirs" the genre has yet to produce. I don't think it is in print, any longer, but check your libraries, boys and girls. This one's worth it.
This is "merely" a 256 page paperback, but I found it fascinating, as I never really associated armor with Vietnam. However the anecdotes and experiences were priceless.
Amazon.com: Tank Sergeant: Books: Ralph Zumbro
For great accounts of light infantry and ranger type small unit actions read Blackjack 33, Blackjack 34, and Mobile Guerrilla Force by James Donahue.
A very good website to the Ia Drang battles. Seems to be connected to Moore and Galloway.
"This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
"The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs
I'm on Page 50 of HR McMaster's book, Dereliction of Duty. Excellent so far, I highly recommend it to anyone.
Col Boughton's books, Thud Ridge and Going Downtown, taken together (they cover the same time frame and subject matter, but were written 20 years apart) they provide an excellent insight to the operational level USAF thinking.
Vietnam Air Losses: USAF, Navy, and Marine Corps Fixed-Wing Aircraft Losses in SE Asia 1961-1973 , is for me one of the most awesome resources ever produced- a chronological accounting of every US fixed wing loss in SEA.
The War Against Trucks: Aerial Interdiction in Southern Laos, 1968-1972 , is an excellent account of the interdiction effort, and it's free,
there are some other titles available at that site- some are really worthwile-the Tactical Airlift volume is excellent, others are kinda lame,,(Line Backer II, the view from the Rock, blah).
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests) | <urn:uuid:9a0a9943-1dd8-48eb-b00a-0c2996d2c646> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.worldaffairsboard.com/warfare-modern-age/37069-vietnam-reading-list-2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951639 | 1,674 | 1.554688 | 2 |
A friend of ours, who is a fellow farmer, was telling us a story about how much of a difference he saw in his plants when he started to pay attention to the moon. I’ve always known about the notion of following the moon, but was never told why or how it benefited the plants. It was always a vague “don’t plant now because of the moon”. Our friend explained to us how the moon affects leaf and root growth and moisture content. It was so fascinating that Sara and I have decided to learn.
Does anyone have any resources they’d like to share?
My mom refuses to believe that I’m asexual, because she thinks it’s impossible.
I’d just like to see how many people disagree with her
IT’S A REAL THING YOU GUYS DO WE REALLY HAVE TO PUT ON A GODDAMN MUSICAL.
IT’S STILL SOMETHING SOMETHING SATURDAY, I CAN POST WHAT I WANT SHUT UP. | <urn:uuid:d13e9807-3b7c-4aab-aed7-58ad0c88cf05> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pixiemoon.tumblr.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96481 | 220 | 1.71875 | 2 |
First of all, I apologise for taking so long to reply to your question. I’ve been ill this week.
I understand your situation, the world of TEFL can seem complicated when you are new to it.
Some TEFL courses accept trainees without a degree and others insist that you have a degree before starting. You will need to contact individual training centres to find out their requirements. Training centres that have a degree as a minimum entry requirement usually have higher standards; consequently employers will look more favourably on the qualification.
Your choice of course will really depend on what you want to do. If you want to spend a year travelling and teaching, a weekend TEFL course might be sufficient. This type of course will also give you an idea of whether teaching is for you. If you are sure that you want to make your career in teaching, then a certificate in TEFL is the place to start. You will also need to consider the country where you wish to work; some countries have regulations stating that teachers must have a degree. Generally, when the demand for English teachers is high and the supply is low, employers are more lenient about which qualifications are required.
I suggest you look at the following links:
If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to write in again. | <urn:uuid:fc50ae0a-199e-4732-8582-f220c7d3d042> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tefl.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1259&p=2169 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95528 | 269 | 1.828125 | 2 |
By Kurt Rossi
FOR THE TIMES
Real estate may be one of the most attractive investment opportunities today. With mortgage rates near all-time lows and national real estate values down more than 34 percent since the highs in 2006, it may be a great time to take a look at making a home purchase. In fact, Warren Buffett recently was quoted as saying: “If I had a way of buying a couple hundred thousand single-family homes I would load up on them.”
While there are certainly opportunities in real estate, there are also significant risks, and it is important to be aware of the pros and cons before jumping in.
As with any investment, the first goal is to buy low. While most investors are aware that home prices have plummeted over the past few years, the question is: Are prices beginning to bottom? According to The National Association of Realtors, the affordability index is near an all-time high. This index measures whether or not a typical family could qualify for a mortgage on a typical home, based on current prices and mortgage rates. A typical home is defined as the national median-priced, existing single-family home as calculated by NAR. The typical family is defined as one earning the median family income as reported by the U.S. Bureau of the Census.
You would have to go back to the year 2001 to find the same level of affordability.
Affordability continues to improve because home prices continue to fall. In fact, last month’s S&P/Case-Shiller index, a closely watched gauge of national home prices, declined yet again. However, the velocity of declines seems to be slowing, and that may be a signal that we are nearing the bottom in home prices.
CHEAPER THAN RENT
The Federal Reserve’s efforts to keep interest rates low have certainly been successful. Bankrate.com’s most recent national survey shows that the average 30-year and 15-year mortgage rates are still only 4.02 percent and 3.2 percent respectively. Bottom line — low interest rates mean lower payments for homebuyers.
In fact, when you do the math, buying may be much cheaper than renting. In addition, home ownership in the United States has fallen to nearly 65 percent, which means that demand for rentals may increase, pushing rents even higher.
While the Fed’s monetary policy and economic stimulus have led to low interest rates, this could also lead to higher, longer term inflation if and when our economy improves. While inflation can be devastating to investors, real estate tends to hold up better than bonds or other fixed-income investments over long-term bursts of inflation. If we ever see the global economic recovery that everyone is hoping for, real estate may help offset these affects.
REASONS FOR CAUTION
The unemployment rate is one of the largest contributing factors to the value of real estate, and though the rate recently fell to 8.1 percent, job growth remains sluggish. If Americans are unemployed or underemployed, the real estate market may continue to have trouble bouncing back.
In addition, while many investors are no longer concerned about a double-dip recession, the risk of a further economic slowdown is not out of the question. The economic slowdowns in Europe and Asia, along with domestic stimulus set to expire at the end of the year, could all result in additional drags on our economy, leading to further declines in home values.
Finally, a significant “shadow inventory” — homes that are either in foreclosure and not yet sold or homes that owners are delaying putting on the market until prices improve — continues to loom on the horizon. Real estate values boil down to supply and demand, and the backlog of foreclosed and distressed properties that have not yet reached the market is a concern. When these properties finally work through the system and are listed, prices could decline further.
Despite these concerns, lower prices, mortgage rates that are near record lows, and improving affordability all suggest that the opportunities in real estate are more attractive today than they have been in many years. Still, buyers should assess their personal financial circumstances, time frame, and tolerance for risk before making the decision to jump into the real estate market.
Kurt J. Rossi, MBA, is a Certified Financial Planner Practitioner. He can be reached for questions at (732) 280-7550 or kurt.rossi@Independentwm.com. LPL Financial Member FINRA/SIPC. | <urn:uuid:13b7e864-8166-40d1-aed6-78cbcfc4f31d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nj.com/times-opinion/index.ssf/2012/05/it_may_be_time_to_buy_real_est.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96291 | 930 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Food and farm economic plan shows progress in Vt.
By LISA RATHKE
The Associated Press | October 15,2012
SPRINGFIELD ó More than a year and half after Vermont launched a plan to boost the stateís food and farm economy, organizers are celebrating its progress.
The achievements include a mobile farmers market that reaches low-income housing sites in northern Vermont and an increase in the number of colleges offering local foods in their dining halls.
ďLocal food is exploding in this state, and itís because of consumer demand and consumer interest. Itís also really being led by entrepreneurs who see an opportunity and are finding new ways of accessing markets,Ē said Ellen Kehler, executive director of the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund, which developed the Farm to Plate report released in January 2011.
More than 180 food-system leaders from around Vermont met in Fairlee for a two-day conference last week to discuss progress since a Farm to Plate network of organizations and working groups was formed a year ago.
Itís estimated that Vermonters consume about 5 percent local food on average. The groupís goal is to boost that to 10 percent by 2021.
This spring, Black River Produce, a Springfield company that sells produce, seafood, artisan cheese, meats and dairy to restaurants, institutions and retail stores in northern New England, bought a vacant factory to expand its meat processing. The expansion is expected to make more locally raised meat available, such as ground meats and sausages, and create six jobs soon and 20 by the end of the year.
To get fresh local foods to rural areas that donít have ready access to them, the Green Mountain Farm-to-School Program started a mobile farmers market ó a van with refrigeration and a commercial kitchen ó that delivers food from more than a dozen local farms weekly to low-income housing sites and community centers in four so-called food deserts in rural northern Vermont.
The food service company Sodexo, which operates the University of Vermont dining halls and other college cafeterias in Vermont, is working with farmers to get more local products into its dining halls. The company signed contracts with Vermont State Colleges this year.
To promote tourism that focuses on experiencing culture through food, the state came out with a new interactive website. DigInVT.com helps link tourists and foodies to nearly 400 food experiences around the state and provides information about the farmers, producers and chefs who make them.
About 1,500 jobs would be created over the next decade if residents double their consumption of locally produced food, the report estimated. Between 2010 and 2011, about 497 jobs were added, said the group, which is expected to release new figures in January. | <urn:uuid:a33e070c-95d8-4846-b897-efd60ebcb6ca> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20121015/THISJUSTIN/710159912/0/SPORTS | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958372 | 558 | 1.695313 | 2 |
The world should not make the mistake of believing that Israel’s menacing rhetoric toward Lebanon is a separate issue from Israel’s threatening attitude toward Iran.
Israel has made it quite clear that in any future conflict with Hezbollah, Israel will regard the Lebanese government as being responsible for Hezbollah’s actions. This means that any attack Israel launches against Hezbollah will now include action against all of Lebanon and Lebanon’s armed forces.
Since Israel now regards Hezbollah as an integral part of the Lebanese government, any future war launched by Israel to destroy Hezbollah will have to involve a full-on invasion – which, of course, is what the Israelis have always wanted to do and have attempted a number of times before. But next time it will different. Next time the Israelis invade Lebanon it will be with overwhelming force and the resulting occupation of southern Lebanon up to the Litani River will likely be permanent.
The one obstacle to Israel’s stance against Hezbollah is Iran. Iran supports Hezbollah with massive amounts of financial aid and military hardware. It is quite clear that Israel’s strategy is to find a casus belli with which to launch an attack against either Lebanon or Iran. If Israel finds, or creates, a cause to attack Lebanon first then it will likely attack Iran soon after based on the notion that Iran is clearly supporting Lebanon by providing Hezbollah with weapons and possibly even men. If, on the other hand, Israel decides to launch a so-called ‘unilateral pre-emptive’ attack against Iran (there will be nothing at all ‘unilateral’ about such an attack; the US will actually be up to their ears in it) then Israel will launch an attack against Lebanon claiming that it would need to prevent retaliatory attacks on Israel by Hezbollah. Either way, when push comes to shove, Israel will want to be killing more than one bird in such a conflict.
Naturally, Israel will also want to take care of Hamas in the Gaza Strip at the same time as it launches any attack against Hezbollah.
Once committed to war, the US will have no alternative but to support Israel and will abandon all pretence about wanting to find a diplomatic way out of its differences with Iran.
Israel’s rhetoric against Hezbollah and Iran are yet again beginning to converge and is becoming heightened. It’s has happened before and such a final confrontation type war has only been avoided in the past because Israel was unable to find a strong enough casus belli to justify it.
While the US is still insisting that a diplomatic solution be found to Iran’s so-called ‘nuclear weapons program’ in order to satisfy US public opinion which would not support an American attack against Iran, the US knows full well that in fact Iran has no such ‘nuclear weapons program’. This can only mean then that the US is keeping the ‘Iran has nuclear weapons’ card up its sleeve to use when Israel decides its ready to launch its final confrontation with Iran. If all goes to plan, the Israelis hope by the end of it to be in southern Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and even possibly the West Bank permanently while the US will hope that a short sharp but brutal onslaught will bring about regime change in Iran. | <urn:uuid:575bba46-a9c9-424b-a8a6-0380f7e897b0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://lataan.blogspot.com/2009/07/israels-menacing-rhetoric-toward.html?showComment=1248795099482 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959794 | 662 | 1.515625 | 2 |
WASHINGTON - As shorts and swimsuit season approaches, some are hitting the gym. Starting an exercise regimen can cause sore joints and muscles, especially for those over 40, so here are some foods to speed recovery from worldwinatl.com.
- Get powerful antioxidants and Vitamin E by snacking on cherries or drinking cherry juice.
- Muscles need protein to grow bigger and stronger. Walnuts, almonds, Brazil nuts all have Vitamin E which will help the muscle and reduce tearing.
- Whole grain cereals restore energy and are good before or after a workout.
- Salmon is loaded with protein and fatty acids which reduce inflammation and help strengthen muscles. A fish oil supplement will do the same.
- And, of course, be sure to take a couple days to recoup. Arnold didn't become The Terminator overnight.
(Copyright 2012 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)
Lil Wayne: I wasn't intentionally stepping on the U.S. flag. (Video)
Meet the newest liligers - mom's a liger and dad's a lion. (Photos)
What can happen to you when you don't get enough sleep.
Oreo's new flavor is getting a ton of buzz. So we tried it. | <urn:uuid:28f172cf-967d-448d-8a3d-a0ebe30eab2b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wtop.com/267/2861027/Foods-to-aid-your-summer-workout-regimen | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931537 | 255 | 1.765625 | 2 |
The cases against the two men and one woman are some of the most high-profile currently being undertaken by the country's Communist rulers as they step up their campaign against bloggers and other pro-democracy activists.
President Barack Obama mentioned the case of one of them—Nguyen Van Hai, who wrote under the pen name Dieu Cay—in a speech that called for greater freedom for media around the world.
In late July, the mother of another defendant, Ta Phong Tan, self-immolated outside a government office to protest the treatment of her daughter.
Lawyer Ha Huy Son said the three were put on trial by the People's Court in southern Ho Chi Minh City. The verdict could come as soon as later Monday.
Hai, Tan and the third blogger—Phan Thanh Hai—belong to "Free Journalists Club", a group of citizen journalists who posted their work on the Internet.
Tan, a former police officer, wrote a blog called "Justice and Truth" that criticized police abuse of power.
Nguyen Van Hai criticized the government for its handling of tensions with neighboring China over disputed islands in the South China Sea.
They are accused of posting and writing hundreds of articles that
International rights groups have condemned the trial and called for the release of the defendants.
"Vietnam's arbitrary use of vaguely worded national security laws to imprison critics of the government means bloggers are bearing the brunt of this assault on freedom of expression," Brad Adams, Asia director at the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said in a statement last week. | <urn:uuid:d50e750d-411c-4b41-a419-874a1eba0901> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.publicopiniononline.com/nationalnews/ci_21615663/vietnam-tries-3-bloggers-anti-govt-propaganda | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973354 | 323 | 1.53125 | 2 |
I was so excited to interview Suze Orman because I love everything she stands for, things like delayed gratification, fiscal responsibility, and knowing the difference between what you want and what you truly need.
In the interview which is on another page, Suze validates the principles that I learned at an early age that have served me well. When I started babysitting at the age of 13 I earned 50 cents an hour. I remember how excited I was when the going rate increased to 75 cents and then it was a whole dollar.
After spending five long hours with hyper kids or a fussy infant and coming home with a hard-earned $5.00, I quickly learned to question the value of what I wanted to buy rather than squander it thoughtlessly.
At 16 I got my first real part-time job that paid minimum wage, something like $1.40 an hour. On pay day I would spread my meager earnings on the table and put various amounts of cash into different envelopes marked Savings, Clothes, and Miscellaneous. Those were the days when lay-away existed, when people made payments each week and only took the merchandise home when it was paid in full. Two years later I started another envelope that was labeled Car Payment.
When I was 20 I got my first credit card and I learned an important lesson that has stayed with me throughout my entire life. I bought a purple suede vest with long fringe and turquoise and white beads that I thought was so cool. I bought a few other things that I can’t remember because that purple suede vest overshadows everything else. If memory serves me, I think I racked up about $300 on that credit card which was a fortune for a young girl. What I do remember very clearly is that I made minimum payments and by the time that card was paid off a year or two later, the clothes were old and I hated that purple suede vest.
Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like.”
– Will Smith
I proudly told Suze Orman that story when I interviewed her for my celebrity column, Up Close and Personal in Luxury Las Vegas magazine. She in turn shared some amazing stories about her childhood and beyond that will touch your heart.
A lot of folks think of Suze Orman as a money maven who, with her no nonsense, tough love approach, has taught millions of people worldwide how to get out of debt and be financially free. My interview with her offers a fresh approach where rather than dispensing advice, she shares a more personal side of herself.
The thing that thrilled me most was finding out that Suze really walks her talk. Many people have a double standard, one for themselves and another for everyone else. I was so pleased to find out that Suze and her wonderful life partner KT, both multi-millionaires in their own right, live conscious, responsible, down-to-earth lives.
In my interview with Suze, she talks about:
- The three people who have most influenced her life. Her answer is fascinating and will provide a lot of insight into who she really is.
- Her lifestyle, which really surprised and impressed me.
- Her greatest strength and yes, her greatest weakness.
- What a perfect day looks like.
- What she treasures most.
- Why Gay marriage must be legalized on the Federal level and many other things.
She says, “I’ve known I was gay since Day One and I’m 61 years old. Back in the 50s there wasn’t anyone for gays to talk with about it. In the 60s we started to talk with one another and I had a conversation with someone who understood my life. My message to young people is that it does get better. If you are just willing to be who you are, the world will change and eventually accept people like us. Just have faith and hang in there because it will get better. There is nothing greater in life than being able to stand in your truth and tell people who you are.”
Like Melissa, Suze is also a Breast Cancer survivor, and her favorite non-profit charity is the Avon Foundation for Breast Cancer.
My hope is for a world where everyone accepts and embraces each other for their character and their diversity regardless of the color of their skin, their religion, or their sexual orientation. We are all equally beautiful, colorful threads in this tapestry of life.
I don’t much care who is gay or straight or married or not. I mostly notice if they are brave enough to confront bigotry.”
- Jasmine Guy
LIFE LESSON: What I have been fortunate to discover is that the size of the home we live in, the make of the car we drive, the label on the clothes we wear don’t define who we are. I’m so grateful that Suze Orman is in this world to help people realize that the things that really matter in life don’t have a price tag.
When I chased after money, I never had enough. When I got my life on purpose and focused on giving of myself and everything that arrived into my life, then I was prosperous.”
- Wayne Dyer
Enjoy my full Up Close and Personal with Suze Orman interview as it appeared in Luxury Las Vegas magazine.
In addition, a slightly different version appears in the digital magazine NEXT, which is part of AgeNation.com. Both are insightful pieces about a stellar human being. | <urn:uuid:b5e6fd6b-92e8-4024-b244-fc9446550625> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://celebrityscribe.com/2012/08/suze-orman-living-a-rich-and-satisfying-life/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97865 | 1,167 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Jayaprakash Narayan’s role in Jammu and Kashmir
26th JP Memorial Lecture, March 23, 2006
-- By Balraj Puri .
I have more than one reason to be grateful to the PUCL for inviting me to give 26th JP Memorial Lecture today. To join the company of much more eminent personalities of the country who were assigned this august task before me is a privilege in itself. But it is also a privilege to join in commemorating the memory of a person who was a great source of inspiration and strength for me due to which I could sustain myself in Jammu and Kashmir State which was my main field of public activity under ruthless regimes and despite campaign of vilification by chauvinist groups. Moreover, the topic of my lecture is JP on Kashmir, on which there is not much appreciation in the country. After the first emotional rupture between the people of Kashmir and the rest of the country, in 1953, they looked to JP as another Gandhi. Just as the impact of Gandhi, after his visit to the State in August 1947 in winning over the people of the State for India is rarely acknowledged, JP’s role in emotional re-integration of the people of Kashmir with the rest of India in sixties and seventies has been ignored. What happened thereafter is not much different from what happened in Kashmir six years after Gandhi’s visit there.
Pardon me to begin this lecture by quoting a personal anecdote to show how human he was. Once during his visit to Delhi he missed an appointment with me. I wrote a letter of protest to him. In reply he not only profusely apologized but also asked me if I could spare full one day on his next visit to Delhi and have breakfast, lunch and dinner with him; except that I should not mind his brief formal appointments in between.
I reached J.J. Singh house at 101 Friends Colony where JP used to stay on the appointed day at breakfast time. After a while he had to leave for a formal appointment with Home Minister Gulzari Lal Nanda. He asked me to accompany him and continue the discussion we had initiated. The subject that I had raised at that time was the dangerous situation that was developing in Kashmir due to the way the Government of India had handled the theft of the holy relic in 1963-64. When JP entered the Home Minister’s room, I was asked to wait in the adjoining room. Not long after the Home Minister came out along with JP and tried to pacify me and asked me to meet him separately.
In the evening J.J. Singh had arranged a formal dinner in JP’s honour where VVIPs of Delhi, including foreign ambassadors, cabinet ministers, political leaders, and other public men had been invited. JP’s table had been set at the center. But he asked his host to arrange a separate table for two of us as he had to atone for his lapse. Despite J.J. Singh’s persuasion and my requests, he did not relent and two of us had dinner together, separate from the rest of the guests. Apart from a full day stimulating discussion on all important issues with one of the greatest minds of the time, I had the opportunity of having most touching experience of my life by the way I was treated.
Coming to the subject proper, my knowledge about JP’s role in Kashmir is not only based on my personal interactions with him but also on available material on his press statements, articles, and reports of his public speeches in the archives and elsewhere. His direct association with Kashmir, as also my association with him, started with his first visit to the State on 30th December 1946. It was my privilege to organize public meeting to be addressed by him at Ranbir Singh Pura, the first major town from Sialkote to Jammu Railway line. Hindu communalists and Maharaja’s loyalists had threatened to sabotage and disrupt the public meeting. But we could succeed in holding it with the help of the volunteers of the students union, the best organized secular force in Jammu at that time.
Support to “Quit Kashmir” Movement
JP had come to the State to lend his support to the “Quit Kashmir” movement launched by the National Conference led by Sheikh Abdullah. As it was aimed at ending the Dogra rule over Kashmir valley and was motivated by sentiments of Kashmiri nationalism, its appeal was mostly confined to the valley. Otherwise too the traditional sentiments of loyalty to the ruler, who was one of them prevailed among a large section of the people of Jammu – both Hindus and Muslims. The Congress party was formally committed to responsible government in princely States and did not approve of any demand for the end of monarchy.
Jawahar Lal Nehru, however, tried to reconcile the Congress stand and the objective of the “Quit Kashmir” movement by saying that it was not addressed to the person of the Maharaja but to the system. In any case, the “Quit Kashmir” movement did not challenge the basic spirit of the Congress stand and at the most might have exceeded it, according to him.
Jayaprakash Narayan did not believe in such sophistications and rationalizations. His support to the “Quit Kashmir” movement was categoric and unreserved.
He wanted complete end of the monarchical system. He had differed with the Congress party in his attitude towards the other princes also. While the party accepted a compromise formula regarding the ratio of the respective representation of the rulers and the people in the Constituent Assembly of India, JP insisted that “all representatives of the States should be elected by the people of the States and none of them should be the nominee of the princes.” At his RS Pura speech, he said, “India does not belong to the Britain or the rulers. It belongs to you and me.”
JP’s support to the “Quit Kashmir” movement was thus consistent with his policy towards all the princely States. He had maintained his close contacts with the developments in the crucial State of the country since then, and staked his popularity by sticking to a consistent moral stand. However he did not get much support from the Kashmir National Conference which was then under the influence of the communists who had their differences with the socialists led by JP at the national level. But while refusing to recognize any other party in the State except the National Conference, JP cautioned the people of the State to beware of the machinations of the communists “who often worked in disguise through other mass organizations.”
Opposition to communal politics
After independence JP did not want to interfere in Kashmir politics in the initial period of the National Conference regime, till the Kashmir problem was solved. I had, on the other hand, envisaged “indefinite prolongation of the Kashmir dispute”, title of a Statement issued by me at a press conference in 1948. But when Sheikh Abdullah joined the election campaign of the Congress party in 1951, JP expressed his great surprise and in an express telegram to Abdullah advised him to desist from identifying himself with a single party as Kashmir had never been a party question. The Socialist Party, he added, had refrained from forming a party branch in Kashmir and parties, other than the Congress had lent Sheikh Abdullah full support.
When Sheikh Abdullah was dismissed from power and put under detention on 9 August 1953, I asked JP to condemn what I believed to be an illegal and immoral act. He drew my attention to Abdullah’s reaction to his Statement on the death of the Jana Sangh leader Dr. Shyamaprasad Mukherjee in a Kashmir jail in which he had accused the State government for its criminal negligence. Abdullah had retorted angrily and had said “a Hindu leader like JP had no right to interfere in the affairs of our State.” I urged JP to ignore the irresponsible remark of Abdullah and judge the issue of action against him on merit. He agreed to consider my request. Meanwhile I wrote a letter to Abdullah telling him how important it was to enlist JP’s support and asked him to sign the enclosed draft of a letter addressed to JP in which an appeal was made to the “conscience keeper of India” whom Kashmiris looked up to for support after Gandhi. He did, as advised. I passed on his letter to JP.
Thereupon JP started a nation wide campaign against detention without trial of Abdullah and demanded his release, “without delay or trial in a court.”
From 1953 to 1977 JP became most powerful voice in India for a settlement through negotiations between Government of India and Sheikh Abdullah as also with Pakistan. He was at that time swimming against the popular current and at places his public meetings were sought to be disturbed with slogans like “hand JP the traitor.”
During the end of December 1963, Kashmir was in turmoil when the holy relic of the Prophet (PBUH) from the Hazratbal Shrine disappeared mysteriously. The State and central government bungled in handling the situation. I sent a detailed note on the subject to JP and reminded him of his unique position “to influence the climate of opinion in the country as also in encouraging the secular and healthy trends in Kashmir politics.” He agreed to send a team of the Sarva Seva Sangh to Kashmir to study the situation.
On the basis of their report, he issued a long Statement in which he congratulated the people of Kashmir, irrespective of communities, for maintaining remarkable communal harmony throughout the anxious days since the theft of the relic. He pointed out the dangerous state of affairs in the State where the government did not enjoy the confidence and support of the people. He asserted that the events since the theft of the holy relic definitely established “the great and widespread popularity of Sheikh Abdullah” and therefore “any political settlement in Kashmir would be inadvisable without him.” He demanded immediate release of Abdullah and political approach to him.
Sheikh Abdullah was released in March 1964. He acknowledged “thought provoking” telegram which he had received from JP on his release. He sought “blessings and cooperation from JP to make “Kashmir a bridge between India and Pakistan.”
Post-Nehru Kashmir policy of India
Abdullah was invited to Delhi by Nehru as his personal guest. During their series of meetings, mutual goodwill and old affectionate friendship were revived. JP at that stage proposed confederation of India, Pakistan and Kashmir which appealed to Abdullah. The proposal had the approval of Nehru also. Sheikh Abdullah went to Pakistan to get its support for the formula. But Pakistan President General Ayub summarily rejected it./ Abdullah’s Pakistan visit had to be cut short with the sudden death of Nehru on 27th May 1964. On his return he told me that if he had known that Panditji’s death was imminent he would not have gone to Pakistan and finalized an agreement here.
Nehru’s successors did not pick up the threads where he had left them. The new government took a series of measures to erode the autonomy of the State through constitutional amendments with the help of an obliging State government headed by GM Sadiq which provoked angry reactions in Kashmir.
JP in a lengthy Statement, issued on 18th December 1964, asked “whether constitutional integration of Kashmir with India is more important in national interest than friendship with Pakistan and justice to the people of the valley. He warned, “the most harmful consequences of policy of forced integration would be the death knell of Indian secularism and enthronement of aggressive Hindu communalism.”
Earlier in September 1964, JP had visited Pakistan as the head of the delegation of India-Pakistan Conciliation Group, founded a little earlier to meet Pakistan President, Field Marshal Mohammad Ayub Kahn. The delegation included M/s Mulgaonkar, B. Shiv Rao, J.J. Singh and Radha Krishan (Secretary of the Sarve Seva Sangh). President Ayub and JP had two meetings lasting more than two hours, which were officially described as free, frank, and informal. JP told reporters, “We are all private citizens and hold no official position. We represent no one but ourselves.” He was, however, confident that they did represent the general desire of the people of India to see an end to the disputes and differences of the past 17 years. He was sure that this desire was reciprocated by the people of Pakistan. He also conveyed to President Ayub, the request of the Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri to respond to India’s invitation to visit India at his earliest convenience. On Kashmir, he declined to be drawn into any discussion but said, “we (he and his group are doing in India whatever is possible to solve the Kashmir problem. We want our position to be understood in Pakistan.” He also acknowledged “an encouraging and Statesman like response from President Ayub” and believed that “a real possibility exists for evolving a workable approach to the solution of the outstanding disputes between the two countries, including the one relating to Kashmir.”
On return to New Delhi, he said at a public meeting, which was initially hostile that he had “told President Ayub in clear terms that there could be no plebiscite and that India cannot give up the valley.” He, however, indicated that just as plebiscite was a slogan in Pakistan, final and irrevocable accession had become a mere slogan here. He, however, reiterated his belief that justice to the people of Kashmir and friendship with Pakistan were the needs of the hour.
Later, in separate letters in June 1965 to Lal Bahadur Shastri and Field Marshal Ayub Khan, both of whom were scheduled to attend Commonwealth Conference in London in June, he advised them to make use of the “heavenly sent” opportunity to meet and “find out a way for personal exploration and understanding.”
Meanwhile Government of India had taken a serious notice of Sheikh Abdullah’s utterances abroad where he had been allowed to go after performing the Haj, in particular of his meeting with Chinese Prime Minister Chou-en Lai at Algiers. His passport was impounded and he was asked to return immediately. There were reports that he would be arrested on his return. Reacting to these reports five members of India-Pakistan Conciliation Group, of which JP was President, wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri, telling him that “Sheikh Abdullah’s re-arrest at this juncture will be yet another mistake for which the country will have to suffer for many years to come.” The signatories to the letter included, MR Masani, Kapur Singh, Buta Singh, J J Singh, and Pandit HN Kunzru. As expected Sheikh Abdullah was arrested when he landed in India. JP strongly protested against it “without giving him a chance to clear himself of the charges so widely made against him.”
JP’s stand on Kashmir after India-Pak war
By now JP’s stand on Kashmir and attitude towards Pakistan had radically changed after what he called “Azad Kashmiris”. As Pakistan’s army entered Chhamb on the international border of Kashmir, he offered his full support to the government’s action in dealing with Pakistan’s aggression. In a press statement on 17th September he spoke out, “not to my country and my people but to the people and government of Pakistan and to the peoples and governments of the world.” He declared that Pakistan, by its deliberate and blatant action, had forfeited whatever place it had obtained in the Kashmir issue. He could not conceive of “any power on earth being able to transfer Kashmir to Pakistan.”
He held that if there was any issue now in Kashmir, it was between the people of Kashmir and the Government of India. He advised Sheikh Abdullah to keep in mind that what was possible before 5 August 1965 was now impossible. He believed that Sheikh was realist enough to realize that (a) no solution of the Kashmir question could ever be accepted by India that involved de-accession of the State, or any part of it, from the Union, and (b) an independent State in that part of the world had little chance of survival. He therefore advised the Prime Minister in his letter dated 23 June 1966 to set at liberty Sheikh Abdullah and his colleagues and invite him for talks. He also told the Prime Minister that Sheikh Abdullah’s services might prove to be invaluable for promoting Indo-Pak friendship in the spirit of the Tashkent declaration. He believed that it should be possible to persuade Sheikh Abdullah to accept autonomy within India. He did not think Abdullah was a traitor. He said while Godse thought Gandhi was a traitor and the RSS thought that Jayaprakash was a traitor, nobody could be held a traitor by the Government of India unless it was established in accordance with due process of law.
He referred to a certain image created by some people 9mostly crypto-communists and Hindu Nationalist of all hues) that Jayaprakash Narayan was a silly idealist or a hidden dictator. He asserted that none in the government, except the Prime Minister, was as constantly and widely in touch with the people as he was. He addressed public meetings almost daily and was heard in pin drop silence. In any case, he believed that the job of the leaders was to lead and if the need arose, to face the wrath of the people. As far as he was concerned, no abuse, no criticism, no argument had convinced him to change a single word of what he had said. According to him Kashmir was basically a human problem. He ridiculed the thinking of some responsible people that it could be solved by using force in the belief that no Kashmiri had yet been known to die for a cause.
Prime Minister Indira Gandhi wrote to JP on 2 August 1966 that she had no objection to his meeting with Sheikh Abdullah (in Jail) but said, it would not be desirable for their talks to find their way into the press or otherwise become public. Accordingly JP met Abdullah for 3 days, 5,6 and 7 August at Kodaikanal in Tamil Nadu where he was detained at that time. On conclusion of the talks JP told the media that it would not be in the national interest for him to divulge anything regarding his talks. All that the reporters could extract from him was the Statement that the discussions were not “unsatisfactory.” I, however, reported “verbatim” account of the dialogue between the two leaders published in Opinion, edited AD Gorwala from Bombay under the title “What transpired between JP and Abdullah?” JP was surprised about the source of my report. I told him that I had known both of them so long that I not only knew their views but also the words they used to express them. I asked him to confirm accuracy of my report. He confirmed it.
Thereafter JP stepped up his campaign for the release of Sheikh Abdullah and his colleagues from various fora. He based this demand on various grounds including (a) a person could not be held in detention without definite charges and without trial in a democratic country like India, (b) likely support of Abdullah for a solution of Kashmir problem within India and (c) his unquestioned popularity.
J&K State People’s convention
In his inaugural address and concluding observations at a seminar in New Delhi on 4, 5 and 6 October 1967, presided by him,. JP spelled out his views on various aspects of the Kashmir problem and options for India as also people of Kashmir. He believed that Sheikh Abdullah was one person who was still in a position to sway the people of the valley. Therefore, if the Government of India was realistic, it should try to reach an agreement with Abdullah. If it fails, “the world be convinced that we made a serious attempt and gone to the farthest limit to reach an agreement with him.” JP’s own feeling was that there was a possibility of an agreement. After the last war, it was not possible for any Government of India to agree to de-accession of any part of Kashmir from India. He ruled out independence for Kashmir as there would always be present the danger of war between India and Pakistan or between India and China and the danger of subversion in Kashmir. He therefore favoured a formula based on internal autonomy for the State within India and autonomy for Jammu within the State. He expressed the hope, though he was not certain, that Sheikh Abdullah might be in a position to accept such a settlement.
Eventually, Abdullah was released on 4 January 1968. JP welcomed him to freedom and congratulated the Union Government for having done the right thing at last. He hoped that the opportunity created by this decision would not be allowed to go waste.
After his release, Abdullah revived the activities of the Plebiscite Front, which was set up in 1964 under his leadership and mobilized popular support for him and for the Front. He then proposed to “hold a Convention of the liberal minded and intellectual citizens of the State with a view to arrive at such conclusions as may bring about a lasting and honourable solution of the Kashmir problem0. He requested JP to inaugurate it in view of his “close association with the question and deep interest in the well being of the people.” JP accepted the invitation. I agreed to be a member of the Steering Committee of the Convention, the only member from Jammu region on the Committee, after Abdullah agreed to discuss the future of regions of the State before discussing the future of the State.
JP arrived in Srinagar on 10 October 1968 where he received a hero’s reception. But the public meeting that he and Abdullah addressed turned out to be bitter clash of ideas. Abdullah traced the long history of the Kashmir problem and quoted commitments of Gandhi and Nehru to justify his demand that people of the State may fashion their destiny according to their wishes, without any force or coercion. He wanted the Government of India to honour the guarantees given to the international community and to the people of Jammu and Kashmir.
After Abdullah’s welcome address, JP did some plain speaking in his speech at the public meeting. He reminded the audience that after the 1965 conflict, no Government of India, even if it was headed by him, could accept a solution which places Kashmir outside India. As a friend and well wisher of the people of the State, he advised them to seek a solution within the framework of the Union of India. Referring to the demand of right to self-determination of the people, he said, “it is extremely difficult to define and geographically demarcate “a people,” and asked, “Are the Kashmiris a people? Then what about the Dogras and the Ladakhis? Where will you draw a line?” As far as the rights of the people are concerned, he further asked, “How can the people decide complicated and grave issues without clear and unambiguous advice from their leaders?” He strongly wished that leaders gathered in the convention unambiguously advise the people on these vital issues. Finally, he suggested that the precise constitutional status of the State within the Indian Union and a guarantee that the status would not be unilaterally altered should be discussed with the Government of India.
JP’s plain speaking provoked an angry retort from Sheikh Abdullah. He said, “Freedom is never given as a gift, it has to be snatched. The question is not whether what the Government of India is willing to give us but what people of Kashmir want to achieve. They will get it with force. Hundreds of young men will be prepared to be hanged. If we have power, we will get it. Or we will destroy ourselves.” Referring to Pakistan’s attack, he said, “What else could Pakistan do when the doors of negotiations were closed on it.”
JP reacted mildly to Abdullah’s outburst. On arrival in Delhi, he told waiting press persons that Abdullah’s speech was meant to appease the extremists in the valley who were getting disillusioned with his leadership. He, however, was surprised over the tone of Abdullah’s speech. JP, in his letter dated 47 October 1968, thanked Abdullah “most warmly for the wonderful welcome you and the people of Srinagar gave me. I know that I did not come up to their expectations, but I hope they will find in time that I spoke as a true friend.”
After formal exchange of letters, Abdullah conveyed to JP in a letter dated 6 March 1967, sense of surprise and shock of “many many of your admirers to hear from your lips that Indian Government would not keep their pledge by the people of Kashmir as Pakistan had made a war with India.” What shocked him more was that even JP could not honour the pledge if he was the Prime Minister. Abdullah asked, “Would mere apprehension of loss of office persuade Gandhiji to bypass his solemn pledge?”
JP in his reply was happy over return of Abdullah’s usual warm personal tone. He, however, argued that the views he expressed in Srinagar had been expressed publicly on many occasions. If his known views were to be considered unhelpful, he should not have been invited. Though correspondence between the two leaders continued for a while, no agreement could be arrived.
Meanwhile Sheikh Abdullah, Mirza Afzal Beg, and Gulam Mohammad Shah were externed from the State and hundreds of workers of the Plebiscite Front were arrested after banning it on the eve of Parliamentary election of 1971. JP strongly protested against this step of the government which made him despair “if the country would ever be able to tackle the Kashmir problem with intelligence and vision.” In a letter to the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on 26 March 1971, he said “it was a pity that Sheikh saheb and his friends were not allowed to participate din the Parliamentary election. Had that been allowed, it would have contributed greatly to the easing of tensions in the valley and strengthened the hopes of its people that their democratic aspirations would find fulfillment within the present constitution.”
The externment order of Kashmiri leaders was extended even after the assembly election of March 1972. Meanwhile Pakistan was split after the emergence of Bangladesh as an independent country. As Sheikh Abdullah had recognized that his bargaining power was over, I started mediatory efforts between him and Indira Gandhi which culminated in return to power of the Sheikh in 1975. I kept JP informed of the progress on the subject.
Soon after, JP along with other opposition leaders, was arrested following the declaration of the Emergency. The Sheikh told press persons on 22 September 1975 that he favoured conciliation between the anti-Emergency forces and the Prime Minister. And his services were always at her disposal. Reacting to these reports JP wrote in his letter to the Sheikh, “Coming from a friend like you, with so much goodwill in both camps, and occupying such an important position as you do, your words are of extraordinary significance and interest for me.” This letter was not delivered to Sheikh Abdullah. Nor was he allowed to call on JP.
After the end of the Emergency and assumption of power by the newly formed Janata Party sponsored by JP, differences again arose between him and the Kashmir leaders.
JP publicly advised the National Conference, which had been revived, to merge itself with the Janata Party. Ashok Mehta, who was President of the Janata Party, visited the State to form the party unit, conveyed JP’s message to me to persuade Sheikh Abdullah to merge the National Conference with the Janata. My differences with JP on this proposal were two fold. Firstly, without common ideological basis unity of heterogeneous parties, like the Jana Sangh and the Socialists, the united party would not last long and to the extent it lasted, it would damage the party system. Secondly, it would not be possible for Sheikh Abdullah to accept any proposal that undermined distinct identity of Kashmir which was implied in the dissolution of the National Conference. Ashok Mehta, as expected, got a blunt “No” to his proposal from Abdullah.
JP’s last intervention in the State
JP’s last intervention in the State was on the issue of Jammu. Over three years after Abdullah’s return to power, his alienation in Jammu region re-emerged will an incident of police firing on student demonstration against complaint of irregularities in recruitment of teachers in the border town of Poonch on 2 December 1978 provided a flash point of mass regional upsurge.
The commitment was also a part of the Delhi Agreement between Nehru and Abdullah in 1952, later reiterated J&K State People’s convention which Abdullah had convened in 1968. Again, it was an unwritten part of his understanding with Indira Gandhi. Before resuming power, he had repeated the offer of regional autonomy to the representatives of Jammu and Ladakh in 1974. But I did not get any response.
JP in his letter to Sheikh Abdullah on 19 February 1979, expressed “deep concern over recent happenings in Jammu.” What was urgently needed, he wrote, was creation of an atmosphere of peace and goodwill. JP had supported the concept of regional autonomy along with that of the State autonomy. Sheikh Abdullah could neither get autonomy for the State which was possible when JP suggested it as a basis of solution of Kashmir problem from 1965 to 1971 nor he conceded regional autonomy. But there are indications that the solution of the problem now is being sought on these lines.
It is difficult to sum up the impact of JP’s long association with the problems of J&K State from pre-independence days till almost his end. But it is fairly obvious that no other national leader had paid so much attention and priority to these problems. He never compromised in stating his views, in which be believed, without consideration of popular response. His sincerity was transparent which left deep impact over even his opponents. His basic approach was marked by not only moral and human values but also reflected his sense of patriotism and farsightedness. Above all, he demonstrated that national interest and morality were not mutually exclusive | <urn:uuid:1f1e5cf5-0122-4766-8e6f-6be32b2172fc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pucl.org/jp/puri-2006.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984543 | 6,287 | 1.835938 | 2 |
The latest results are in, and they don’t look good for Colorado. No, I don’t mean the postseason demise of Broncos’ fans dreams of the Super Bowl.
United Cerebral Palsy has released its 2012 “The Case for Inclusion” report. This report analyzes the state of services for people with intellectual disabilities across the United States. It looks at a variety of indicators that include community living vs. institutionalization, employment of people with disabilities, support of families, waiting lists for services, community involvement and state spending on people with intellectual disabilities, or ID.
Colorado did not fare well. The 2012 report lists Colorado as 28th in the nation, a significant slip from its position as ninth in the 2010 report. Comparison with our neighbors is even more dismal: Revenue-strapped New Mexico came in 14th and Arizona is No. 1.
Why did Colorado show so poorly? Several factors seem to have contributed to the decline. During the last few years, the percentage of people with ID dropped more than half, from 35 percent to 17 percent. Though many job losses were likely the direct result of a struggling economy, decreasing support for employment programs certainly was a factor. Colorado numbers in supported employment fell while U.S. averages stayed relatively stable.
By 2010, 164 Coloradans with ID were still housed in large state-run facilities, which seems minimal compared with the more than 8,000 served in community settings. Yet when you factor in that the average per-person cost (more than $174,000 per year) is more than four times the cost of community living (which averaged $41,000 per person per year), it is clear that Colorado may not be serving people in the most cost-effective way.
Colorado’s failure to participate in the outcome-based national quality assurance program (National Core Indicators, or NCI) also contributed to its drop. The state’s current quality-assurance program is based on issues of compliance – timeliness of data input and use of the prescribed services – rather than looking at actual outcomes experienced by those who receive the services.
Probably the most significant factor, though, was the large waiting lists. Based on this report, more than 1,500 people currently are waiting for residential support in Colorado (although ID programs across the state have questioned the accuracy of the state’s estimates, believing the true numbers are higher). It would take more than 33 percent growth in current programs to place everyone in services. Currently, Colorado is allowing people in only the direst emergency situations to enroll in residential services. The estimate is that it could well take 15 to 20 years for someone getting on the residential waiting list today to receive those services.
Are we satisfied being No. 28? After all, we did better than 23 other states, many of which were historical poor Southern states. While United Cerebral Palsy points out that all states still have work to do, Colorado’s recent slip shows its particular need to concentrate on improving the quality of support for some of its most vulnerable residents.
For more information about Colorado services for people with intellectual disabilities, call Community Connections at 385-3445 or email firstname.lastname@example.org.
Tara Kiene is the director of case management with Community Connections Inc. | <urn:uuid:709fec89-94d2-4586-b011-1a2370ec6bcf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://durangoherald.com/article/20130212/COLUMNISTS06/130219887/0/11- | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96606 | 686 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Archive for 'Healthcare in Nicaragua'
Posted on 28. Mar, 2013 by Gran Pacifica.
Before traveling to a foreign country, tourists will want to prepare by investigating the healthcare system. When doing so for Nicaragua, people find that they are fortunate because they will be staying at Gran Pacifica. Gran Pacifica is located in Managua, and this is exactly where travelers will want to be if they begin to encounter a serious medical problem.
Posted on 06. Feb, 2013 by Valeria Espinoza.
On Thursday February 7, the Mikes Gringo Life show features the Expat Kids as the opening segment. Emily Cobb, 8 years old, not to be outdone by her big sister Amanda age 12, wants to take on the role of host for the show and interviews her big sister. They discuss their new school, the Nordic School [...]
Posted on 27. Dec, 2012 by Gran Pacifica.
Most of the highly-specialized hospitals are located in Managua. Both Vivian Pellas Metropolitan Hospital and Hospital Bautista offer quality care to Nicaraguans and to medical tourists. Though there are some improvements to be made to the hospitals and medical care system in terms of equipment offered, the healthcare system is still better than many countries in the world.
Posted on 06. Dec, 2012 by Gran Pacifica.
Patients in the United States and Canada have turned to Nicaragua as the newest location to receive quality medical care at lower costs. WellMed Nicaragua, located in Miami, Fla., is making this possible. Their recent launch was attended by the Nicaraguan Minister of Tourism, Mario Salinas.
Posted on 20. Sep, 2012 by Gran Pacifica.
Retiring to Nicaragua does not have to mean that people’s healthcare will suffer, especially if they are going to be moving close to the capital city Managua and other major cities. Healthcare is very good in Nicaragua and it is also less expensive than it is in the United States. Therefore, people have the opportunities to maintain their health even if they move out of the States and retire in this foreign country. | <urn:uuid:87ada7f4-0d81-4f4c-bf78-05240989997e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.granpacifica.com/blog/category/healthcare-in-nicaragua/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963943 | 436 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Some residents of the Grand Valley met Saturday at Lincoln Park to celebrate the 16th anniversary signing of the Americans With Disabilities Act.
The picnic gathering was also attended by Grand Junction Mayor Jim Doody, and the Mesa County Commissioners. Some members of the disabilities community gave motivational speeches to remind people the importance of the Americans Disabilities Act.
The ADA, which was signed in 1992 by President George H. Bush, assures Americans with disabilities access to a number of services and properties.
The actual signing anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act is July 26th. | <urn:uuid:2990c968-4961-49b0-9382-db9932e6c9c6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nbc11news.com/news/headlines/3452521.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954051 | 115 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Inventing the Chinese Threat
“Since the disappearance of the Soviet Union,” writes James Dobbins at RAND Corp., “China has become America’s default adversary, the power against which the United States measures itself militarily, at least when there is no more proximate enemy in sight.”
I know what you’re thinking: What has China ever done to us? What villainous offense have they committed to our well-being or our interests? It can’t possibly be the case that China is our “default adversary” just because the Soviet Union is gone, can it?
Well, yes it can. As Colin Powell, former Secretary of State and retired four-star general, said about the fall of the Soviet Union, Washington was remorseful that we “lost our best enemy.” The system – the “whole structure,” Powell explained, “depended on there being a Soviet Union that might attack us.” He said Mikhail Gorbachev sat across the table from him at the time and said apologetically “Ah, General, I’m sorry, you’ll have to find a new enemy.”
When people in Washington and their surrogates in the mass media punditry crow about our other trumped up threat, they at least have a laundry list of alleged transgressions. You know the list: they support terrorism, they want to wipe Israel off the map, they’re secretly building nuclear weapons, they killed US soldiers invading and occupying neighboring Iraq, etc. With China, there is no such list. China’s mere existence as anything other than a vassal state is the major transgression. As James Holmes has written in the National Interest, China “presents the sternest ‘anti-access’ challenge of any prospective antagonist.” In other words, they resist US interventionism and military presence. China is gaining power and influence, which ought to be solely American prerogatives, as far as Washington is concerned.
This is the reasoning behind President Obama’s strategic shift into Asia-Pacific, announced by the administration last year. This so-called ‘Asia pivot’ is an aggressive policy that involves surging American military presence throughout the region – in the Philippines, Japan, Australia, Guam, South Korea, Singapore, etc. – and backing basically all of China’s rivals.
More than that, the Pentagon is drawing up new plans to prepare for an air and sea war in Asia. “As part of the Air-Sea Battle concept,” reports Military.com, the US is refurbishing old WWII bases, looking “to disperse its air forces stationed at its handful of major bases in the western Pacific in the event of a major conflict with China.”
The idea is to have enough US bases peppered throughout the region so that China would be too surrounded to safely attack. “Doing so would make it more difficult for China to wipe out entire squadrons sitting on the ground with surprise attacks from its long range ballistic missiles.”
Chinese officials have not appreciated this unprovoked bellicosity. In May the Chinese Defense Ministry accused the Pentagon of hyping a Chinese military threat out of thin air. Others have said these Pentagon moves could start an arms race. “If the U.S. military develops Air-Sea Battle to deal with the [People’s Liberation Army], the PLA will be forced to develop anti-Air-Sea Battle,” one officer, Col. Gaoyue Fan, said last year in a debate sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“Some Asia analysts worry that conventional strikes aimed at China could spark a nuclear war,” according to the Washington Post. Other “critics see a dangerous tendency toward alarmism that is exaggerating the China threat to drive up defense spending.”
“While China’s overall military capabilities will not equal those of the United States anytime soon,” Dobbins puzzlingly warns, “it will more quickly achieve local superiority in its immediate neighborhood, first in and around Taiwan and then at somewhat greater distances.”
In consequence, the direct defense of contested assets in that region will become progressively more difficult, eventually approaching impossible. The United States will therefore become increasingly dependent on escalatory options for defense and retaliatory capabilities for deterrence. American nuclear superiority is not likely to be much help in this regard, both because China will retain a second-strike capability and because the issues at stake in most potential crises are not of vital consequence to the United States.
So, even though China’s “local superiority” has effects that “are not of vital consequence to the United States,” it’s important that we rely on “escalatory” military options to prevent it from happening? Dobbins then suggests strategies, which are already being carried out:
One means of improving the prospects for direct defense and reducing the risk of escalation is for the United States to enable the capabilities and buttress the resolve of China’s neighbors. Such a strategy should not be—or be seen—as a U.S. attempt to encircle or align the region against China, lest it produce greater Chinese hostility.
Except that it is producing greater hostility from China. A recent report from the CSIS predicted that next year “could see a shift in Chinese foreign policy based on the new leadership’s judgment that it must respond to a US strategy that seeks to prevent China’s reemergence as a great power.”
“Signs of a potential harsh reaction are already detectable,” the report said. “The US Asia pivot has triggered an outpouring of anti-American sentiment in China that will increase pressure on China’s incoming leadership to stand up to the United States. Nationalistic voices are calling for military countermeasures to the bolstering of America’s military posture in the region and the new US defense strategic guidelines.”
There is no reason to pick a fight with China, whether it induces conventional warfare or a new Cold War. China hasn’t harmed our interests or our security. Washington just wants to flex its muscles and prove that it still represents the greatest mafia among all the world’s mafias. | <urn:uuid:172da9e5-e433-4088-8d50-f0efd704538d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://antiwar.com/blog/2012/08/17/inventing-the-chinese-threat/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94631 | 1,326 | 1.5 | 2 |
you might like to try alan sugar's food intake reduction method - use a small fork.
I don't know about the small fork, but a trick that does seem to work is to buy some smaller than dinner sized party plates. When they "look right" portion wise, they only have about half sized portions. When done eating what's there, don't go back for seconds.
My party plates are 8" and 8.5" dia. as opposed to my 10.75" and 11.5" regular dinner plates.
A "Portion" has been dictated to us buy the food industry.
Proper "portions" of food are surprisingly small.
Food, as is turns out, was once our biggest challenge and we evolved to make the best of what we had. (Kill a deer,, eat the whole thing)
The whole thing was stored in our cells as FAT. And that was a good thing.. back then. When was the next deer going to be killed?
Today, we have plenty, and our bodies are still doing what they did in the past to survive.. (store it in the form of FAT.)
Modern day humans have no need to store fat for survival because we eat what we want every day.
Tiny amounts of food are required for an over all healthy diet.
I cook with one philosophy,
Quality over quantity. | <urn:uuid:47b4cf6a-b2ff-41de-a75a-bfe0db54d20d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php?topic=110704.msg951238 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983454 | 286 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Penn State scandal prompts calls for child-abuse reporting laws
Outrage over the Penn State child sex-abuse scandal has led to calls for federal legislation that would require anyone witnessing child abuse to report it to law enforcement or a child protection agency.
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) announced plans Wednesday to introduce the Child Protection Act, which would compel states to enact child-abuse reporting laws or risk losing some federal aid. States would set the penalties for people who fail to report abuse.
A similar bill, the Speak Up to Protect Every Abused Kid Act, was introduced Wednesday by Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.).
“As we’re trying to comprehend what appears to be a case of blatant failure on the part of adults to protect children, our focus should be on doing everything we can to prevent abuse in the future,” Casey said in a statement.
Thirty-two states do not require all adults to report suspected child abuse or neglect, according to Casey's office. Instead, many states have in place a requirement that people with regular contact with children, such as healthcare providers and teachers, must report child abuse. "Unfortunately, by not sending the message that it is every adult’s responsibility to report, it means that some cases of child abuse and neglect will go unreported," according to a summary of Casey's proposal provided by his office.
His bill would require states to pass laws requiring adults to report instances of known or suspected child abuse in order to receive federal funding under the Child Abuse and Prevention Act. It also would provide support to states to carry out educational campaigns and training to inform individuals about what constitutes child abuse and neglect, according to his office.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), co-chairwoman of the House Congressional Children’s Caucus, said that she planned to introduce the Federal Zero Tolerance of Child Sexual Abuse Act to stop federal funds from going to institutions, employees or any other entities where sexual abuse of children is not immediately reported.
"The failure of top university officials to act on reports of Mr. Sandusky's alleged sexual misconduct, even after it was reported to them in graphic detail by an eyewitness, possibly allowed a predator to walk free for years -- continuing to target new victims," she said in a statement, referring to Jerry Sandusky, the former coach charged in the Penn State child sex-abuse scandal.
"Equally disturbing is the lack of action and apparent lack of concern among those same officials, and others who received information about this case, who either avoided asking difficult questions or chose to look the other way,'' Jackson Lee added.
Boxer said that she also planned to introduce the Federal Child Protection Act to require anyone on federal property to report child abuse.
"To protect our children from violence and abuse, anyone who sees or knows about a crime against a child must report it to local authorities," Boxer said in a statement. "Right now, the federal government and 32 states have no such requirement in law."
A Penn State assistant football coach who, according to a grand jury report, saw Sandusky raping a boy in the football team’s showers has been widely criticized for not reporting the incident directly to police. He did report it to the university. In an email obtained by the Allentown (Pa.) Morning Call, the assistant coach, Mike McQueary, said that he did discuss the incident with police and stopped the assault.
-- Richard Simon in Washington
File photo: A vigil was held Nov. 11 on the Penn State campus in support of alleged victims of child sex abuse involving a former assistant football coach. Credit: AP Photo/Matt Rourke. | <urn:uuid:2f20a88b-9274-4905-bd24-85705f411b50> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/11/penn-state-scandal-inspires-legislation.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967998 | 754 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Nora D. Volkow, M.D. is the Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). Before assuming this position on May 1, 2004, Dr. Volkow was Associate Director for Life Sciences at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Director of Nuclear Medicine at BNL and Director of the NIDA-Department of Energy Regional Neuroimaging Center at BNL. She was also Professor at the Department of Psychiatry, State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook and Associate Dean for the Medical School at SUNY-Stony Brook.
Dr. Volkow received her M.D. in 1981 from the National University of Mexico, in Mexico City, Mexico, and performed her residency in psychiatry at New York University.
Her main area of interest is the investigation of the mechanisms underlying the reinforcing, addictive and toxic properties of drugs of abuse in the human brain. Dr. Volkow was the first to use imaging to investigate the neurochemical changes in the human brain that occur during drug addiction. Her studies have documented a decrease in function of the dopamine system in addicted subjects that is associated with a disruption in function of frontal brain regions involved in motivation and drive.
Dr. Volkow was named Innovator of the Year in 2000 by U.S. News and World Report.
Source - http://www.ncsl.org/programs/health/forum/chairs/NoraVolkowbio.htm | <urn:uuid:994a6c32-a248-4cce-8ebb-ca03fc895bed> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.charlierose.com/guest/view/215 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938198 | 305 | 1.726563 | 2 |
One thing you need to do is know your chemicals. Many are plant derived and or fatty acids that only have a chemical name. For instance Caprylyl Glycol which sounds intimidating is a humectant and skin conditioning agent that lends moisturization, emollience and wetting properties to many cosmetic solutions. It also functions as a stabilizer and has been shown to increase the antimicrobial activity of other preservatives. and is plant derived. Cetyl Alcohol is actually an emollient derived from coconut oil and is also good for the hair while helping to emulsify water with oils and butters.
3b/c with some 4a in the middle of crown and back, medium to high porosity, frizzy, thirsty hair! | <urn:uuid:09bde3ab-f7bc-44a5-987d-9a5ceb7482a9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.naturallycurly.com/curltalk/2003356-post6.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961249 | 153 | 1.5 | 2 |
Long Term Care Insurance
Long Term Care Insurance provides for costs arising out of services that go beyond medical and nursing care. Long Term Care refers to services used by people who have disabilities or chronic illness and need help in performing daily basic activities like eating, bathing, dressing, using the bathroom, moving from bed to chair etc. With Long Term Care Insurance you can receive care in your own home, at a nursing home, adult day care or other assisted living facilities.
Demographic studies reveal that by 2030, the number of people aged 65 and above will increase to 71.5 million. Due to a prolonged illness, injury or disability over 40% of Americans aged 65 and above will spend time in a nursing home. This is one out of two Americans, proving that the risk of needing long term care is definitely much greater than you realize.
Today 40% of people receiving long term care are between the ages of 18 and 64 – the working age adults. Automobile and sporting accidents, spinal cord injuries, brain tumors, disabling diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s can force anyone to seek long term care services. Buying Long Term Care Insurance when you are still young and healthy will give you the peace of mind and freedom to choose the kind care of care you want when you need it.
Long Term Care Health Insurance
Long Term Care Health Insurance policies cover expenses that are not covered by traditional health insurance, Medicare and Medicaid. Long Term Care Health Insurance enables you to receive chronic care needed to help perform daily activities if you had a disability or an ongoing illness for a long period or for the rest of your life. Long Term Care Health Insurance gives you financial freedom and protects you and your family from wiping out life savings and assets in the event you needed long term care.
Buying a long term care health insurance policy is taking one important step towards establishing financial security for you and your family. With increased life expectancy the need for long term care also increases. By 2030, when the last of baby boomers reach 65, 40% of them will celebrate their 90th Birthday.
70% of people living past their 65th Birthday will need some king of long term care services during their life time. It is legally possible (though unethical) for someone to take over your assets with a power of attorney. Just to save their inheritance, heirs to your estate may put you into a nursing home, pay the cost of long term care services for five years and then put you on Medicaid. Long Term Care Insurance allows you to live with dignity and financial freedom when you need it the most. | <urn:uuid:57d0f2e8-b33e-4ab7-a9ec-aeb9847fc40b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.olongtermcareinsurance.com/blog/long-term-care-insurance-and-elimination-periods/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957447 | 526 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Executive Compensation and Corporate Governance in the U.S.: Perceptions, Facts and Challenges
Steven N. Kaplan
University of Chicago - Booth School of Business; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
August 22, 2012
Chicago Booth Research Paper No. 12-42
Fama-Miller Working Paper
In this paper, I consider the evidence for three common perceptions of U.S. public company CEO pay and corporate governance: (1) CEOs are overpaid and their pay keeps increasing; (2) CEOs are not paid for their performance; and (3) boards do not penalize CEOs for poor performance. While average CEO pay increased substantially through the 1990s, it has declined since then. CEO pay levels relative to other highly paid groups today are comparable to their average levels in the early 1990s although they remain above their long-term historical average. The ratio of large-company CEO pay to firm market value is roughly similar to its level in the late-1970s and lower than its pre-1960s levels. These patterns suggest that similar forces, likely technology and scale, have played a meaningful role in driving CEO pay and the pay of others with top incomes. With regard to performance, CEOs are paid for performance and penalized for poor performance. Finally, boards do monitor CEOs. The rate of CEO turnover has increased in the 2000s compared to the 1980s and 1990s, and is significantly tied to poor stock performance. While corporate governance failures and pay outliers as well as the very high average pay levels relative to the typical household undoubtedly have contributed to the common perceptions, a meaningful part of CEO pay appears to be market determined and boards do appear to monitor their CEOs. Consistent with that, top executive pay policies at over 98% of S&P 500 and Russell 3000 companies received majority shareholder support in the Dodd-Frank mandated Say-On-Pay votes in 2011.
Number of Pages in PDF File: 50
Keywords: Corporate Governance, Executive Compensation
JEL Classification: G3working papers series
Date posted: August 29, 2012 ; Last revised: September 26, 2012
© 2013 Social Science Electronic Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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What things in this world have a true eternal value?
Question: "What things in this world have a true eternal value?"
It goes without saying that the only things of eternal value in this world are those that are eternal. Life in this world is temporal, not eternal, and therefore, the only part of life that has eternal value is that which lasts through eternity. Clearly, the most important thing in this world that has true eternal value is having a relationship with Jesus Christ, as the free gift of eternal life comes only through Him to all those who believe (John 3:16). As Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John14:6). Everyone is going to live somewhere for all of eternity, Christians and non-Christians alike. And the only eternal destiny other than the one in heaven with Christ is one that provides everlasting punishment for those who reject Him (Matthew 25:46).
Regarding the abundant material things this world offers, which many tenaciously seek after, Jesus taught us not to store up for ourselves earthly treasures which can be destroyed or stolen (Matthew 6:19-20). After all, we brought nothing into this world, and we can take nothing out of it. Yet our core Christian values often get overlooked in our diligent quest for success and material comfort, and in the midst of these earthly pursuits we often forget about God. Moses addressed this issue thirty-five hundred years ago as his people were about to enter the Promised Land. He warned them not to forget about God, for he knew once they “built fine houses and settled down” their hearts would become proud and they would forget about Him (Deuteronomy 8:12-14). There is certainly no eternal value in living our lives for ourselves, looking to get out of life all that we can, as the world system would have us believe.
Yet there can be significant eternal value in what we do with our lives during the exceedingly short time we are here on earth. Although Scripture makes it clear that our earthly good works will not save us or keep us saved (Ephesians 2:8-9), it is equally clear that we will be eternally rewarded according to what we have done while here on earth. As Christ Himself said: “For the Son of Man is going to come in His Father’s glory with His angels, and then He will reward each person according to what he has done” (Matthew 16:27). Indeed, Christians are God’s workmanship, “created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do”(Ephesians 2:10, emphasis added). These “good works” pertain to serving the Lord the best we can with what He has given us and with full dependence on Him.
The Apostle Paul discusses the quality of the works which can bring eternal rewards. Equating Christians to “builders” and the quality of our works with the building materials, Paul informs us that the good materials which survive God’s testing fire and have eternal value are “gold, silver, and costly stones,” whereas using the inferior materials of “wood, hay and straw” to build upon the foundation which is Christ have no eternal value and will not be rewarded (1 Corinthians 3:11-13). Essentially, Paul is telling us that not all of our conduct and works will merit rewards.
There are many ways our service to the Lord will bring us rewards. First, we need to recognize that every true believer has been set apart by God and for God. When we received God’s gift of salvation we were given certain spiritual gifts (1 Corinthians 12:7, 11). And if we think our gifts are insignificant we need to remember that, as Paul told the church in Corinth, the body of Christ is made up of many parts. And “God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as He wanted them to be…and those parts of the body that seem weaker are indispensable” (1 Corinthians 12:14, 18, 22 emphasis added). If you are exercising your spiritual gifts, you are playing a significant role in the body of Christ and doing that which has eternal value.
Every member of Christ’s body can make meaningful contributions when we humbly seek to edify the body and to glorify God. Indeed, every little thing can add to the beautiful mosaic of what God can do when we each do our part. Remember, on earth Christ has no body but ours, no hands but ours and no feet but ours. Spiritual gifts are God’s way of administering His grace to others. When we show our love for God by obeying His commandments, when we persevere in the faith despite all opposition and persecution, when in His name we show mercy to the poor and sick and less fortunate, and when we help alleviate the pain and suffering that is all around us, then we are indeed building with the “gold, silver, and costly stones” which have true eternal value.
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Who am I in Christ by Neil Anderson.
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How do I live my life for God?
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What does it mean to be crucified with Christ (Galatians 2:20)?
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What does the Bible say about Christian behavior?
Questions about the Christian Life
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On Sunday, November 4, at 3:00 p.m., Dr. Dennis Plies and Ruth Ann Yerden, the Tabor Duo, will present a free concert at McGuire Auditorium on the campus of Warner Pacific College. The performance will include a wide variety of musical styles arranged for solo marimba and marimba with piano, including such composers as Palestrina, Bach, Brahms, Gershwin and more.
Dr. Plies and Ms. Yerden are each accomplished musicians. However, it may be the instrument itself that is the true star of this performance. It was 25 years ago when Dr. Plies asked Ron Samuels to build a marimba. Although it was his first experience constructing one, Samuels quickly discovered a passion for this unique instrument and quit his woodworking job to build marimbas full time. His company, Marimba One® is now the world's premiere maker of concert marimbas.
"I felt that this story needed to be celebrated with a concert featuring music that will display the virtues of the marimba's sonic flexibility," said Plies. "Musical ability may be inside a person but each instrument a person uses must be equally capable of capturing what the musician experiences within." | <urn:uuid:04a75da2-4d16-4a1e-ad3a-f171e7c90fd9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.warnerpacific.edu/current-students/adp/news/tabor-duo-marimba-concert | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945377 | 263 | 1.585938 | 2 |
This information applies to pages in the CSUN template system.Windows-press ALT + an access key. Macintosh-press CTRL + an access key.
Parents have an important role in promoting the personal development and academic success of their son or daughter during their collegiate experience. Whether this is your first student to go to college or your last to leave home, you will find that your young adult needs your support and guidance in new ways as he or she becomes more independent. You are not alone in providing support; the staff in the division of student affairs is your partner in your student's success.
We recognize the educational experience of each student results from a thoughtful and caring partnership between the university, the family, and the student. This web site will introduce you to information that will be helpful in understanding the university and your student's experience. Additionally, we invite you to familiarize yourself with our campus by attending our athletic events, theater productions or by simply taking advantage of our beautiful campus and scheduling a visit. It is our sincere hope that our new partnership will produce great results, including the graduation of women and men who will provide outstanding leadership in the communities in which they settle.
Thank you for entrusting Cal State Northridge with your son's or daughter's college education. You can be sure that you are sending your student to a campus that is dedicated to your student's overall success. Cal State Northridge is focused on ensuring that our academic and co-curricular offerings help students to develop their intellectual abilities, develop personal and professional skills, learn how to develop healthy lifestyle habits, and fulfill their personal and social responsibilities with integrity. | <urn:uuid:8723163e-d33d-441c-a083-927377ee0dac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.csun.edu/studentaffairs/parents/index.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963069 | 330 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Have a one-track mind
Whether it's for sex, sports or slimming, men tend to have laserlike focus. "They're wired to concentrate on a single thing, whereas the female brain evolved to approach tasks from a wide perspective," says Helen Fisher, Ph.D., a biological anthropologist at Rutgers University at New Brunswick, New Jersey. So a guy might decide to cut out beer or run sprints—that's his big plan. Most women, however, try to multitask, vowing to nix dessert, go vegan, ban soda, halve portions, hit the gym at dawn…. No wonder we fail; it's a chore reading that list! Instead, pick your worst diet habit (bingeing on bread?) and a challenging fitness goal (regular Spin classes?) and attack only those for four weeks. Already seems doable, right? | <urn:uuid:bce08f97-05cc-460d-80ac-c412fa220829> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.self.com/fitness/workouts/2010/11/lose-weight-like-a-guy?currentPage=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946157 | 177 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Giving back to SAIC is important to helping maintain SAIC’s ongoing position as one of the most influential art schools, something we can continue connecting with as alumni. This also means helping to ensure that SAIC is able to grow technologically and educationally in relation to its fine arts focused curriculum.
—Brenna Quinn (BFA 2011)
Challenge Perceptions. Impacting Communities.
Our graduates move on to do great things; more than 17,000 alumni impact the world and their communities through their work, scholarship, teaching, and service. As artists, designers, entrepreneurs, curators, writers, historians, filmmakers, musicians, educators, administrators, community leaders, activists, and preservationists, SAIC's alumni use their interdisciplinary education to challenge the status quo. They provide creative and innovative solutions that have a positive impact on every aspect of our lives.
Their accomplishments are many and diverse. Whether it is winning first prize at the Cannes Film Festival (Apichatpong Weersethakul, MFA 1988) or educating the country about how design can be used to create positive social change (Emily Pilloton, MFA 2005, Design Revolution), or helping people shed their painful pasts through art therapy (Eric Dean Spruth, BFA 1990, MA 1992, Ink Therapy), SAIC's alumni impact our cultural landscape in powerful ways every day.
|||FEEDING SOCIAL JUSTICE
Tara Lane is cultivating spaces and contemporary conversations around food.
Tara Lane (BFA 2004) left her position as Executive Pastry Chef at Chicago's Blackbird and Avec restaurants to work on social justice projects that involve food. She landed at Jane Addams Hull-House where the extraordinary history of the Resident's Dining Hall inspires her to educate people about the issues surrounding food production and social activism.
|EMPOWERMENT BY DESIGN
Emily Pilloton's Nonprofit Design Agency Activates Education and Community
Emily Pilloton (MFA 2005) exemplifies the possibilities of forging a career path that fulfills personal passions while empowering others to reach their own self-directed potential.
Pilloton is the founder and director of Project H Design (design initiatives for Humanity, Habitats, Health, and Happiness), a nonprofit design and architecture agency she created in 2008. She operates her organization around the central idea that design can activate both education and community and capitalizes on the motivated energy of residents in the communities she engages.
|PRINCE OF PRINTS
Master Printer Thomas Lucas Collaborates with Well-known Artists
For many "more-renowned" artists, Lucas is the man behind the curtain. Over the last 20 years, he's pulled prints for the likes of Kerry James Marshall, Willie Cole, Barbara Jones-Hogu, Bill Conger, Bernard Williams, Ray Noland, and Paul Andrew Wandless. He started pulling prints for artists when he was an undergraduate student at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. He says, "Initially I was all about getting the printing experience, but then it was more about the spirit of collaboration. Creating a new relationship is what it's all about for me."
|SCULPTOR OF SOUND
Ian Schneller's Sonic Arboretum Blooms at Chicago's MCA
Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) was alive in December 2011 with the sounds of site-specific compositions flowing through gracefully fluted amplifiers made by SAIC alumnus Ian Schneller (MFA 1986) at his Specimen Products Workshop in Chicago. First shown at New York's Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 2010, Sonic Arboretum included two sold-out performances by Andrew Bird in addition to the exhibition, which ran from December 6–31 at the MCA. Schneller has carved out a remarkable career making instruments and amplifiers first for himself and then for friends and other musicians.
Read more about the show and a recent discussion with Schneller on his work, his collaboration with Andrew Bird, and how he marries utility with art in his work as a successful luthier, sculptor, and craftsman.
|COMMUNITY IN A CLASSROOM
Alumnus Mathias "Spider" Schergen Creates Long-term Connections with Students in Cabrini Green
Mathias "Spider" Schergen (BFAAE 1980) has become a fixture in the Cabrini Green community after spending 20 years teaching children art at Chicago Public Schools' Jenner Fine Arts Academy in the neighborhood. Early in his career Schergen created the name Spider (Mr. Spider to his students) in an inspired—and successful—attempt to connect with his students.
"I really feel it's important that a child be grounded in their experience of making art," Schergen says. "Children love learning how to do stuff. It's just a natural part of their empowerment as a child."
|CONNECTING WITH COMMUNITY
Alumna Lisa Junkin Values Involvement of Nontraditional Publics at Hull-House Museum
Direct community engagement is what attracted Lisa Junkin (MAAE 2007) to her current position as the first full-time Education Coordinator at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum. This role is ripe with opportunities to collect personal stories, rich residential memories, and community input. Junkin's work each day is enriched by institutional encouragement to rethink how museums can serve nontraditional publics.
|NETWORKING ACROSS DISCIPLINES
Alumna Katie Kurcz Connects Arts Organizations with Business Consultants
Alumna Katie Kurcz (MAAAP 2009) is helping to enrich the cultural landscape by strengthening nonprofit arts organizations in her role as Director of Programs at the Arts and Business Council of Chicago. She pairs nonprofit clients with volunteer business experts to help them "build a business organization to match the high quality of the art product." | <urn:uuid:87ab8059-9c5a-4398-81b4-bf2555c04829> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.saic.edu/supportsaic/profiles/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944714 | 1,215 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Robertson - discontinuity of interests
Advance directives and personhood
Robertson is another theorist who recognises the possibility that the value-based interests of a competent individual may be radically different from the simpler, experiential interests of an individual with severe incapacity. He states:
“ The values and interests of the competent person no longer are relevant to someone who has lost the rational structure on which those values and interests rested. Unless we are to view competently held values and interests as extending even into situations in which, because of incompetency, they can no longer have meaning, it matters not that as a competent person the individual would not wish to be maintained in a debilitated or disabled state. If the person is no longer competent enough to appreciate the degree of divergence from her previous activity that produced the choice against treatment, the prior directive does not represent her current interest merely because a competent directive was issued .” (Robertson, 1999)
Whilst Robertson accepts that competent people may well have an interest in controlling their future, he is doubtful as to whether the advance decisions they take will necessarily reflect the best interests of their future self. He states that there may be a conflict between the interests of the past competent self and those of current incompetent self and that in such cases, there is a risk that the wishes of the competent self may be privileged. For this reason, he believes that advance directives may pose a threat to people with incapacity and consequently should not always be respected, particularly in cases where the patient clearly “has an interest in further life”.
Last Updated: vendredi 09 octobre 2009 | <urn:uuid:29cac9c5-2f3b-4983-9a41-42a39bbc86cd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.alzheimer-europe.org/FR%C5%A0%C2%A3%20%C5%A0%C2%A4%20%C5%A0%C2%A2%C5%A0%EF%BF%BD%C5%A0%C2%A3%20%C5%A0%C2%A4%20%C5%A0%C2%A2%C5%A0%EF%BF%BD%EF%BF%BD/Ethics/Ethical-issues-in-practice/Advance-directives-and-personhood/Discontinuity-of-interests | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95993 | 334 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Would Single People Rather Be Rich or Have Love? — Dollars and Sense
According to a new survey from dating site Chemistry.com, love truly does conquer all — even money. But once singles are in a relationship, how do they handle the financial aspect of things?
Chemistry.com polled 1,600 of its users and found three-quarters of men and almost that many women would choose love over a high-paying job. In addition, over half of both genders thought a couple with different spending habits can have a healthy romantic relationship.
When it comes to how willing they were to pool their finances with a partner, though, many people were wary. Even among couples who are engaged, only a third of men were open to doing it. Women were more reluctant — just 14 percent said they’d combine their money.
And proving that maybe we’re all a little more traditional than we’d like to admit, 38 percent of women said men should be the primary breadwinners in the relationship, while just 15 percent of men said women should be the ones who bring home the bacon.
Here are a few more poll findings:
- If asked by a partner to change their spending habits, men are more likely than women to agree to do so.
- More than half of singles have changed their money habits since the economy took a dive.
- Two out of three singles sometimes spend money on “something fun” for themselves.
- Saving is a priority for both genders — 85 percent reported they stash money away for a rainy day. | <urn:uuid:b7f39b02-c55f-4dcd-9f5d-7ad214182a22> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://1023blakefm.com/single-people-rich-love-dollars-and-sense/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98103 | 322 | 1.734375 | 2 |
As elected officials continue to criticize Governor Pat Quinn's decision to close the "super max" prison in Tamms and other correctional facilities, at least one group is enthusiastic about the change. Quinn frames his decision to close Tamms Correctional Center in deep southern Illinois as a budget issue. He says it costs three times as much to house an inmate there than any other state prison. Critics of the move have likewise responded with an economic argument: they say closing prisons means a loss jobs in parts of the state that desperately need them. But there are people who see closing Tamms not as a matter of cost control or economic development, but as a question of human rights:
"This is one of those times when economic necessity has yielded a decision that is both morally and practically right."
Laurie Jo Reynolds is the organizer of Tamms Year Ten, a group of advocates and mothers of inmates. They criticize the isolation and sensory deprivation tactics used at Tamms, which Reynolds says drives prisoners to madness and self-mutilation. Legislators included enough money in their proposed budget to convert Tamms to a medium-security prison, but Quinn is not pursuing that option. Reynolds says that would have been unreasonably expensive.
Support Your Public Radio Station | <urn:uuid:a1d905d5-5283-46ab-95a0-82ab620f83e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wglt.org/wireready/news/2012/06/04849_TamsTen1_061615.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00013-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968554 | 251 | 1.726563 | 2 |
||This article needs additional citations for verification. (February 2011)|
|Prime Minister of Lebanon|
31 October 1992 – 2 December 1998
|Preceded by||Rashid el-Solh|
|Succeeded by||Selim Hoss|
23 October 2000 – 21 October 2004
|Preceded by||Selim Hoss|
|Succeeded by||Omar Karami|
|Born||Rafic Baha El Deen Al-Hariri
1 November 1944
|Died||14 February 2005
|Political party||Future Movement|
Rafic Baha El Deen Al-Hariri (Arabic: رفيق بهاء الدين الحريري; 1 November 1944 – 14 February 2005) was a business tycoon and the Prime Minister of Lebanon from 1992 to 1998 and again from 2000 until his resignation, 20 October 2004. He headed five cabinets during his tenure. Hariri dominated the country's post-war political and business life and is widely credited with reconstructing Beirut after the 15-year civil war.
Hariri was assassinated on 14 February 2005 when explosives equivalent to around 1000 kg of TNT were detonated as his motorcade drove past the St. George Hotel in the Lebanese capital, Beirut. The investigation, by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, into his assassination is still ongoing and currently led by the independent investigator Daniel Bellemare. In its first two reports, UNIIIC indicated that the Syrian government may be linked to the assassination. Hariri's killing led to massive political change in Lebanon, including the Cedar Revolution and the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon.
Early life
Hariri was born on 1 November 1944 to a modest Sunni Muslim family, along with two siblings (brother, Shafic and sister Bahia) in the Lebanese port city of Sidon. He attended elementary and secondary school in Sidon, and graduated in business administration at Beirut's Arab University. In 1965, Hariri left his home and went to Saudi Arabia. There, he earned from teaching for a short period of time, later shifting to the construction industry. In 1978, he gained Saudi Arabian citizenship.
In 1969, Hariri established Ciconest, a small subcontracting firm, which went out of business soon. He then went in business with the French construction firm Oger for the construction of a hotel in Ta’if, Saudi Arabia, the timely construction of which brought him in good graces with King Khaled. Hariri took over Oger, forming Saudi Oger, which became the main construction firm used by the Saudi Royal family for all of their important developments. As a result, only a few years after his first contract with King Khaled, Hariri had become a multi-billionaire.
|This article is part of the series:
Politics and government of
Having accumulated his wealth, Hariri started a number of philanthropic projects, including the building of educational facilities in Lebanon. Hariri became progressively more embroiled in politics. His appeals to the U.N. and services as an emissary to the Saudi Royal family won him international recognition on the political stage for his humanitarian efforts but also slowly caught him in the web of Lebanese politics.
In 1982, he donated $12 million to Lebanese victims of the 1978 South Lebanon conflict and helped clean up Beirut's streets with his company's money. After the conflict, he acted as an envoy of the Saudi royal family to the country. He laid the groundwork that led to the 1989 Taif Accord, which Saudi Arabia organised to bring the warring factions together. Taif put an end to the civil war and paved the way for Hariri to become prime minister.
Political career
Hariri returned to Lebanon in the early 1980s as a wealthy man and began to build a name for himself by making large donations and contributions to various groups in Lebanon. He was implanted as the Saudis' strong man following the collapse of the PLO and the paucity of any viable Sunni leadership in the country, as well as a response to the rising power of the Shiite militia Amal. As a former Saudi diplomatic representative, he played a significant role in constructing the 1990 Taif Agreement that ended Lebanon's sixteen-year civil war. In 1992, Hariri became the first post-civil war prime minister of Lebanon under president Elias Hrawi. Hariri put the country back on the financial map through the issuing of Eurobonds and won plaudits from the World Bank for his plan to borrow reconstruction money as the country's debt grew to become the largest per capita in the world. His first premiership lasted until 1998, and Hariri was replaced by Salim Hoss as prime minister. In fact, as a result of the power struggle between Hariri and newly elected president Émile Lahoud, he left office.
In October 2000, Hariri was again appointed prime minister, replacing Salim Hoss, and formed the cabinet. On 20 October 2004, his second term ended when he resigned from office. Omar Karami succeeded him as prime minister.
1992-1998 economic political policies
Hariri implemented an aggressive new economic policy. Perhaps Hariri's most important creation in the beginning of his career was "Horizon 2000" the government's name for its new rejuvenation plan. A large component of "Horizon 2000" was Solidere, the privately owned construction company that was established to reconstruct post-war Lebanon. Solidere was owned by the government and private investors. Solidere was largely focused on redeveloping Beirut's downtown and turning it into a new urban center as quickly as possible as one aspect of the various infrastructure redevelopment plans that would be implemented by "Horizon 2000". Another aspect of the decade-long plan was the privatization of major industries. Numerous contracts were awarded in important industries such as energy, telecommunications, electricity, airports and roads.
The last and perhaps most significant aspect of "Horizon 2000" was economic stimulus via foreign direct investment. Specifically, Hariri supported foreign firms and individuals taking an interest in Lebanon's developmental potential. Hariri simplified tax codes and provided tax breaks to foreign investors. Due to his previous successes in the private sector and the numerous resulting international connections, Hariri was able to garner a significant amount of low-interest loans from foreign investors. Hariri also pursued aggressive macroeconomic policy such as maintaining strict regulations on bank reserves and inter-bank interest rates to curb inflation and raise the value of the Lebanese pound relative to the dollar.
Hariri's economic policies were a remarkable success during his first year in office. From 1992 to 1993 there was a 6 percent increase in real national income, the capital base of commercial banks effectively doubled, the budgetary earnings hovered at around a billion dollars, and commercial banks’ consolidated balance sheets increased about 25%. By 1998, however, real GDP growth was around 1%, a year later it would be -1%, national debt had skyrocketed 540% from two to eighteen billion dollars, Lebanon's economy was in a miserable state.
Hariri and Lebanon's political environment
Amid the political crisis brought on by the extension of President Émile Lahoud's term, Hariri resigned as Prime Minister, saying: "I have... submitted the resignation of the government, and I have declared that I will not be a candidate to head the (next) government."
During a BBC interview in 2001, Harīrī was asked by Tim Sebastian why he refused to hand over members of Hezbollah that were accused by America of being terrorists. He responded that Hezbollah were the ones protecting Lebanon against the Israeli occupation and called for implementation of passed United Nations resolutions against Israel. He was further accused of making the American coalition in the war on terrorism worthless and asked if he was ready for the consequences of his refusal, reminding him that George W. Bush had said: "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." He replied that he had hoped there would be no consequences, but would deal with them if they arrive. Hariri further said that he opposed the killing of all humans – Israeli, Palestinian, Syrian or Lebanese – and believed in dialogue as a solution. He further went on to say that Syria would have to stay in Lebanon for protection of Lebanon until they are no longer needed and Lebanon asks them to leave.
Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, a recent recruit of the anti-Syrian opposition, emboldened by popular anger and civic action now being called Lebanon's Cedar Revolution, alleged in the wake of the assassination that on 26 August 2004 Syrian President Bashar al-Assad threatened Hariri, saying "[President of Lebanon] Lahoud is me. ... If you and Chirac want me out of Lebanon, I will break Lebanon." He was quoted as saying "When I heard him telling us those words, I knew that it was his condemnation of death." This meeting between Hariri and Assad, which had been on 26 August 2004, lasted for just fifteen minutes.
On 22 June 2005, Beirut International Airport was renamed Rafic Hariri International Airport. Additionally, Beirut General University hospital was renamed Rafiq Hariri Hospital. Rafic Hariri was succeeded by his son Saad Hariri as leader of the Future Party.
On 14 February 2005, Hariri was killed when explosives equivalent to around 1,800 kilograms (4,000 lb) of TNT concealed inside a parked Mitsubishi van were detonated as his motorcade drove near the St. George Hotel in Beirut. Another 22 people lost their lives in the explosion. Among the dead were several of Hariri's bodyguards and his friend and former Minister of the Economy Bassel Fleihan. Hariri was buried along with his bodyguards, who died in the bombing, in a location near Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque.
A 2006 report by Brammertz has indicated that DNA evidence collected from the crime scene suggests that the assassination might be the act of a young male suicide bomber. A UN backed tribunal issued four arrest warrants to members of the Hezbollah. Hezbollah blamed the assassination on Israel.
Hariri was well regarded among international leaders, for example, he was a close friend of French President Jacques Chirac. Chirac was one of the first foreign dignitaries to offer condolences to Hariri's widow in person at her home in Beirut. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon was also created at his instigation. Syria was initially accused of the assassination, which led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon following widespread protests.
Major General Jamil Al Sayyed, then head of Lebanese General Security, Brigadier General Mustafa Hamdan, Major General Ali Hajj and Brigadier General Raymond Azar were all arrested in August 2005 at the request of German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, who was carrying out the UN investigation about the assassination. Sayyed was one of the persons who decided to assassinate Rafik Hariri according to a leaked draft version of the Mehlis report along with other Syrian high-rank intelligence and security officers and officials, namely Assef Shawkat, Maher Assad, Hassan Khalil and Bahjat Suleyman. However, later reports about the assassination did not repeat the allegations against Jamil Al Sayyed and other three Lebanese generals. Four Lebanese generals were held in Roumieh prison, northeast of Beirut from 2005 to 2009. They were released from the prison due to lack of evidence in 2009.
Following Hariri's death, there were several other bombings and assassinations against minor anti-Syrian figures. These included Samir Kassir, George Hawi, Gebran Tueni, Pierre Amine Gemayel, Antoine Ghanem and Walid Eido. Assassination attempts were made on Elias Murr, May Chidiac, and Samir Shehade (who was investigating Hariri's death).
Hezbollah accused Israel of the assassination of Hariri. According to Hezbollah officials, the assassination of Hariri was planned by the Mossad as a means of expelling the Syrian army from Lebanon. In August 2010, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah presented evidence, consisting of intercepted Israeli spy-drone video footage, which he said implicated Israel in the assassination of Hariri. After an altercation between male Tribunal staff and women at a gynecology clinic in October 2010, Hezbollah demanded that the Lebanese government stop all cooperation with the Special Tribunal, claiming the tribunal to be an infringement on Lebanese sovereignty by western governments. On 1 November 2010, a report was leaked by Al Akhbar, a local secular, leftist newspaper, stating that Hezbollahdrafted plans for a quick takeover of the country in the case an indictment against its members is issued by the UN Special Tribunal. The report states that Hezbollah conducted a simulation of the plan on 28 October, immediately following a speech by its secretary general.
On the other side, it was revealed by leaked US embassy cables that then Egyptian General Intelligence Directorate director Omar Suleiman reported that Syria "desperately" wanted to stop the investigation of the Tribunal.
||The neutrality of this section is disputed. (October 2012)|
Hariri was considered as the principal actor in the widespread corruption that plagued Lebanon during the Syrian occupation. His wealth grew from less than $1 billion when he was appointed prime minister in 1992, to over $16 billion when he died. The Company for the Development and Reconstruction of Beirut's Central District, known as Solidere, in which Hariri is the primary shareholder, expropriated most property in the central business district of Beirut, compensating each owner with shares in the company, were worth as little as 15% of the property's value. That Hariri and his business associates profited immensely from this project was an open secret.
Hariri and his protégés were not the only beneficiaries of this spending spree. In order to secure support from militia chieftains, and pro-Syrian ideologues that Damascus had installed in the government, Hariri allowed kickbacks from public spending to enrich all major government figures. Contracts for the import of petroleum were awarded to the two sons of President Elias Hrawi.
As result of the growing criticism and popular discontent with Hariri's policies, the government banned public demonstrations in 1994 and relied upon the Army to enforce the decree. In return for a relatively free hand in economic matters, Hariri cooperated with Syria's drive to consolidate its control over Lebanon. Under the guise of "regulating" the audiovisual media, the government placed control of all major television and radio stations in the hands of pro-Syrian elites. Supporters of Michel Aoun were also perpetually harassed and detained.
He is mainly credited with the widespread corruption that followed the war and the crippling damages done to the economy, with the public debt rising from $2.5 billion to over $40 billion and economic growth slowing from 8% to –1% during his time as prime minister.
- "Rafiq Al Hariri's biography". Rafiq Hariri Foundation. Retrieved 1 March 2008.
- "Rafik Hariri". New York Times. 30 June 2011. Archived from the original on 22 February 2013.
- Sachs, Susan (15 February 2005). "Rafik Hariri, Ex-Premier of Lebanon, Dies at 60 (page 1 of 2)". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 22 February 2013.
- "Rafik Hariri, Ex-Premier of Lebanon, Dies at 60 (page 2 of 2)". 15 February 2005. Archived from the original on 22 February 2013.
- Gambill, Gary C.; Ziad K. Abdelnour (July 2001). "Dossier: Rafiq Hariri". Middle East Intelligence Bulletin 3 (7). Retrieved 17 March 2013.
- Neal, Mark W.; Richard Tansey (2010). "The dynamics of effective corrupt leadership: Lessons from Rafik Hariri's political career in Lebanon". The Leadership Quarterly 21: 33–49. Retrieved 10 June 2012.
- Middle East Review. Kogan Page Publishers. p. 113. ISBN 978-0-7494-4066-4. Retrieved 19 March 2013.
- Knudsen, Are (2007). "The Law, the Loss and the Lives of Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon". CMI 1. Retrieved 20 March 2013.
- Fakih, Mohalhel (17 - 23 February 2005). "A city mourns". Al Ahram Weekly 730. Retrieved 15 April 2013.
- "Hariri Forms Govt". APS Diplomat Recorder. 28 October 2000. Retrieved 19 March 2013.
- Harris, William (Summer 2005). "Bashar al-Assad's Lebanon Gamble". Middle East Quarterly XII (3): 33–44. Retrieved 17 March 2013.
- Safa, Oussama (January 2006). "Lebanon springs forward". Journal of Democracy 17 (1).
- "Hezbollah ignored as Lebanon's top three leaders get major government shares". Lebanon Wire. 27 October 2004. Retrieved 25 March 2013.
- "''About Solidere''". Solidere.com. Retrieved 4 July 2011.
- "BBC Interview With Rafiq Hariri'". Information clearing house. Retrieved 4 July 2011.
- "Rafiq Hariri'". BBC News. 16 February 2005. Retrieved 4 July 2011.
- ""You Are Either With Us Or With The Terrorists", President Bush Warns". Iran press service. Retrieved 4 July 2011.
- By Neil Macfarquhar (20 March 2005). "Behind Lebanon Upheaval, 2 Men's Fateful Clash". The New York Times (Lebanon; Syria). Retrieved 4 July 2011.
- Raad, Nada (27 August 2004). "Berri, Hariri silent on Syria talks". The Daily Star. Retrieved 16 March 2013.
- Seeberg, Peter (February 2007). "Fragmented loyalties. Nation and Democracy in Lebanon after the Cedar Revolution" (Working Papers). University of Southern Denmark. Retrieved 23 October 2012.
- Wetzel, Jan Erik; Mitri, Yvonne (2008). "The Special Tribunal for Lebanon: A Court "Off the Shelf" for a Divided Country". The Law and Practice of International Courts and Tribunals 7: 81–114. Archived from the original on 22 February 2013.
- Edge, Tim. "Death of a Martyr". GWU. Retrieved 24 March 2013.
- Kerry, John (14 February 2013). "Anniversary of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri's Assassination" (Press release). U.S. Department of State. Archived from the original on 22 February 2013.
- "UN probe into murder of former Lebanese leader nears sensitive stage – inquiry chief". UN. Retrieved 4 July 2011.
- "Hariri murder: UN tribunal issues arrest warrants". BBC News. 30 June 2011. Archived from the original on 1 December 2012. Retrieved 1 December 2012.
- "Hezbollah leader says Israel was behind Hariri killing". CNN. 3 June 2011. Archived from the original on 1 December 2012. Retrieved 1 December 2012.
- Macdonald, Neil (21 November 2010). "CBC Investigation: Who killed Lebanon's Rafik Hariri?". CBC News. Archived from the original on 18 December 2012. Retrieved 18 December 2012.
- "Factbox: Lebanese generals ordered released by Hariri court". Reuters. 29 April 2009. Archived from the original on 18 December 2012. Retrieved 18 December 2012.
- "Mehlis Report". Washington Post. Retrieved 28 June 2012.
- "Jamil as-Sayyed". Now Lebanon. 31 August 2009. Retrieved 29 June 2012.
- Follath, Erich (23 May 2009). "New Evidence Points to Hezbollah in Hariri Murder. Part 1: New Evidence Points to Hezbollah in Hariri Murder". Spiegel Online. Archived from the original on 18 December 2012. Retrieved 18 December 2012.
- "New Evidence Points to Hezbollah in Hariri Murder. Part 2: Revelations Will Likely Harm Hezbollah". Archived from the original on 18 December 2012. Retrieved 18 December 2012.
- Hezbollah chief: Israel killed Hariri, CNN
- * Hezbollah Threatens an 'Explosion' in Beirut Over Tribunal, Stratfor Global Intelligence.
- Lebanese Daily: Hizbullah Drills Takeover of Lebanon, 3 November 2010, The Middle East Research Institute.
- * , Now Lebanon.
- "US embassy cables: Egypt spy chief promises pressure on Hamas". The Guardian (London). 28 November 2010.
- Fisk, Robert (6 December 1998). "Lebanon's vast web of corruption unravels". London: The Independent. Archived from the original on 1 December 2012. Retrieved 1 December 2012.
- Ciezadlo, Annia (24 February 2007). "Sect Symbols". The Nation (New York City). Archived from the original on 6 December 2007. Retrieved 25 June 2011.
- Sallam, Qasim (1980). Al-Baath wal Watan Al-Arabi [Arabic, with French translation] ("The Baath and the Arab Homeland"). Paris: EMA. ISBN 2-86584-003-4
|Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Rafik Hariri|
- Rafic Hariri Official site with news, video, press releases, speeches, statements, government policy, Cabinet decisions and UN resolutions
- Appearances on C-SPAN
- Rafic Hariri on Charlie Rose
- Rafic Hariri collected news and commentary at Al Jazeera English
- Rafic Hariri collected news and commentary at The Jerusalem Post
- Rafic Hariri collected news and commentary at The New York Times
- Works by or about Rafic Hariri in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- Rafic Hariri at the Notable Names Database
- Rafic Hariri at the Open Directory Project
- Print articles
- Family of Slain Lebanese Leader Demands Probe Into Killing -The Associated Press/New York Times 17 February 2005
- Death of Businessman By Ajami, Fouad The Wall Street Journal-17 February 2005 Page A12
|Prime Minister of Lebanon
|Prime Minister of Lebanon | <urn:uuid:1190c027-3ee1-4fa8-9afc-1f9748d13dc9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafik_Hariri | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95384 | 4,592 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Being right isn’t always easy
Use Your Knowledge to Get Ahead
Do You Feel Creative
1. If possible, walk away from the problem and get some fresh air. A walk, even a brief one, will provide space from the scene of the stress and enable some breathing space so as to calm down. A change of scenery can be exceptionally therapeutic. 2. Reading a novel with a gripping storyline can [...]
“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do” — Eleanor Roosevelt People generally fall into one of two categories when it comes to fear. They either acknowledge and face their fears or [...]
How often do you use “you” when you mean “I”? I’m intrigued when I hear the famous interviewed. They’ll happily talk about their latest movie, or the publication date of their next bestseller. But as soon as the interviewer puts them under scrutiny about the juicy stuff, they switch from “I” to “you”. “Is it [...]
Take a breath, my friends, and leap – another day begins. Another day full of experiences – the expected, the unexpected, the surprising and the ordinary. Have you ever stopped to consider how many experiences impinge upon your senses in even an average day? Curiously, we have grown so used to the bustle and commotion [...]
Do you remember the last time someone gave you a compliment about your looks or your work?
Did you accept that compliment with grace and appreciation, or did you, like most people, thank the person for giving it to you, and then immediately try to justify it?
Learning to accept compliments is an important self-growth and development step.
Perhaps you feel, like most people, that to accept compliments is to start on the pathway to self-pride and no one likes an egotistical person.
There is a big difference between having pride in one’s achievements and being egotistical and this is something that we all need to learn to counter the negativity of our self-talk.
Try saying a simple and genuine thank you the next time someone offers you a compliment or praises you for a job well done.
Don’t Let Cynicism Win
I’m always fascinated when I read stories or case studies about “the placebo effect”. The typical scenario has a group of people being given a sugar pill but they BELIEVE the treatment is real. Often these people recover as well, or even better than those who received the actual treatment. The explanation of this phenomenon [...] | <urn:uuid:a7006f7c-282d-406f-b8be-5668db2b4bb9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wheretheheartis-lifecoaching.com/page/2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954765 | 555 | 1.789063 | 2 |
This information will help you understand the Iowa income tax responsibilities associated with your winnings from gambling activity in Iowa.
Why Didn’t I Receive All of My Winnings?
A portion of your winnings may have been withheld for taxes. Certain winnings are subject to withholding at a 5% rate for Iowa and 25% rate for federal income tax purposes.
The withholding of state income tax from your winnings may not necessarily satisfy your Iowa tax responsibilities.
You may be required to file an Iowa income tax return. You may also owe more state income tax than what was
withheld, depending on different variables such as your total Iowa income or your total income from all sources.
Why Are My Name and Social Security Number Required to Collect Winnings?
Payers of winnings from horse racing, dog racing, bingo games, and lotteries must report winnings of more than $600 to the Internal Revenue Service and the Iowa Department of Revenue by filing form W-2G. Winnings of $1,200 or more from slot machines are reported on form W-2G.
The winner's name and Social Security Number are required on the W-2G form.
What is Subject to Withholding?
Any payment of winnings greater than $600 is subject to withholding. This also applies to winnings from a multi-state lottery if the tickets were purchased within the state of Iowa.
from games of skill, games of chance, bingo or raffles
Any payment of a prize where the amount won exceeds $600 is subject to withholding.
Race track winnings more than $1,000 are subject to withholding.
Slot Machines - River Boats & Racetracks
Withholding is required if winnings exceed $1,200 from slot machines.
What is Exempt from Withholding?
American Indian Casinos
Winnings at Iowa American Indian casinos are not subject to withholding.
Note: winnings at Indian casinos by individuals other than American Indians are subject to Iowa income tax even though they aren't subject to withholding..
Who Pays Iowa Income Tax on Winnings?
Residents and Part-year Residents of Iowa
Winnings are included as income when you file your Iowa income tax return.
If you are a nonresident of Iowa, you are required to file an Iowa return if your Iowa-source income is $1,000 or more and your gross income (from all sources, not just Iowa) is at least $9,000 if single or $13,500 for married filers.
How are Winnings Reported?
Taxpayers report their gambling winnings on federal and Iowa income tax returns. Winnings are fully taxable and, within limits, gambling losses are deductible.
Report winnings on the "Other Income" line on the IA 1040. If federal tax is taken out of your winnings, you
may claim a deduction for it on the "federal income tax withheld" line on the IA 1040.
Anyone reporting either gambling winnings or losses cannot use the IA1040A short form.
Even if your Iowa-source income is less than the amount required to file a return, you may want to file an Iowa return if Iowa tax has been withheld from your winnings. You may be eligible for a refund of the tax withheld on your winnings. You cannot receive a refund unless you file a return.
Failure to file an Iowa individual income tax return, if required, may subject you to penalty and interest in addition to the tax owed.
Can Losses be Deducted?
Gambling losses can be deducted up to the amount of winnings. If you itemize, you may claim gambling losses as a miscellaneous deduction on Schedule A. However, this deduction cannot be more than your winnings.
For example, if your gambling winnings for the year are $1,000, your deduction for gambling losses cannot exceed
Taxpayers who claim the standard deduction on the Iowa return cannot deduct their gambling losses, although they must still report gambling winnings.
Iowa residents who have winnings from gambling in another state may have to file an income tax return with the other state and pay tax on the winnings.
These winnings are also taxable to Iowa. However, the Iowa resident may claim an out-of-state tax credit on the IA 130 of the IA 1040 for the tax paid to the other state.
An accurate diary or similar record of gambling winnings and losses must be kept along with tickets, receipts, canceled checks, and other documentation. These supporting records do not need to be sent in with your tax return, but should be retained in case of an audit.
See federal Publication 529 for more information. | <urn:uuid:54522f23-9e53-4b6c-aeac-f3cfec59e822> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://iowa.gov/tax/educate/79102.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953678 | 973 | 1.507813 | 2 |
SEPTEMBER 28, 2000
The new Ford Motor Sport Campus revealed
Here are the plans for the Ford Motor Company's "Motor Sport Campus" at Silverstone which have been lodged with the local planning authorities in Northampton. The 50-acre site, which stretches from just behind the main grandstands at Woodcote Corner down to the new Silvesrtone bypass could be ready by 2003 if planning permission is granted shortly.
The plans include a round glass Visitor Centre which will house a Museum and Archive. This will be located close to the main gate at Silverstone. The other 10 buildings will include four buildings for Cosworth, and another four for Jaguar Racing, including a windtunnel and a Formula 3 team area. There will be separate offices and a leisure centre for the 1200 staff who are expected to be working there by 2003. The main area will be surrounded by a moat and by security fences which will be carefully screened with vegetation. It seems that the Ford World Rally Championship programme will be housed elsewhere but the engines for the rally cars will be built in the Cosworth Services department.
According to the planning application the decision to build at Silverstone was made after Ford had assessed sites at the new Rockingham racing circuit, on another site in Milton Keynes and at the Rover testing facility at Gaydon.
Jaguar is waiting to see if the planning authorities have any objections to the plan but hope that work can begin shortly. There are no Green Belt issues and the Silverstone area is already quite developed and indeed large sections of the Campus will be built were there are existing workshops.
|Print News Story| | <urn:uuid:d0115afb-6b49-4b28-bf5a-ff7dd84f37d7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns02877.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960649 | 332 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Crime Magazine is about true crime: organized crime, celebrity crime, serial killers, corruption, sex crimes, capital punishment, prisons, assassinations, justice issues, crime books, crime films and crime studies.
GATESVILLE, Texas (AP) — Jerry Hartfield was still a young man when an uncle visited him in prison to tell him that his murder conviction had been overturned and he would get a new trial.
Not long afterward, he was moved off of death row.
"A sergeant told me to pack my stuff and I wouldn't return. I've been waiting ever since for that new trial," Hartfield, now 56, said during a recent interview at the prison near Gatesville where he's serving life for the 1976 robbery and killing of a Bay City bus station worker. He says he's innocent.
The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned Hartfield's murder conviction in 1980 because it found a potential juror improperly was dismissed for expressing reservations about the death penalty. The state tried twice but failed to get the court to re-examine that ruling, and on March 15, 1983 — 11 days after the court's second rejection — then-Gov. Mark White commuted Hartfield's sentence to life in prison. | <urn:uuid:c5f4c92b-ef91-4829-b7a7-6a2219098a87> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://crimemagazine.com/inmate-ordered-retried-80-waiting-ever?page=11 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977634 | 250 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Ground yourself. And Drink some water.
Except from another site---> A simple Grounding technique
Bring your thoughts from busy mental chatter downward by focusing on your feet. Don't rush this process. Take your time moving from each part of your body. Also, you don't need to touch yourself, just allow your mind to switch focus from wherever it is. Begin with your feet and move upwards.
Notice the soles of your feet, your toes, in-between your toes, the top of your feet, the back of your ankle.
Do they feel hot? or cold? Do they hurt? Are they numb? Do you feel your blood circulating through them? Are they feeling tired?
Don't judge how they feel - just notice how they feel. Wiggle your toes. How does that feel?
Once you have a made a strong connection with your feet you may then move your attention upwards to your ankle... then switch focus to your lower legs, onto your knee caps, behind your knees, your thighs, and so on.
Keep reminding yourself not to rush.
Allow yourself to breathe throughout the scanning process, especially as you come to any areas of discomfort (stressed muscles, soreness, etc.) or at any spot that feels like there may be an energy block.
Once you have moved through your torso and up to your neck, drop back down to your fingertips, move your attention to the hands, up your arms and shoulders, returning your attention once again to your neck before finishing up with your focus on face and scalp.
This is a simple meditation which will bring body awareness.
If you are intending learning more about ki techniques | <urn:uuid:a2ae0078-d4c5-467b-a50d-189523a175e4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fightingarts.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=394585 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00006-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944739 | 340 | 1.515625 | 2 |
This is one of the most surprising articles I found in my recent trawl of the British Newspaper Archive. It comes from the 10th September 1850 edition Sussex Advertiser and concerns my 4x great-grandfather William Trower and the residence in question was almost certainly Harwoods Farm in Henfield, Sussex.
BURGLARY.-On the morning of Sunday, the 1st inst., the residence of Mr William Trower, near New Inn, was broken into by four men, disguised in masks and with muffled shoes. The most violent threats and imprecations were used by the villians against Mr Trower and his wife, whom they awoke for the purpose of demanding where their money was. They remained in the house nearly two hours, and after ransacking it in every part, regaled themselves with some home-made wine they found on the premises. On leaving they took many articles of clothing and provisions, and it is hoped that the property, most of which can be identified, may lead to the detection of the ruffians.
I detect a hint of sensationalism in this story and a touch of humour with the ruffians regaling themselves with some home-made wine, although of course there is a serious crime underlying the story, which I have not been able to follow-up on yet. I would love to find out if anyone was ever brought to justice for the crime.
What is particularly surprising to me is that my 4x great-grandparents had anything worth considering stealing. I have always envisaged them being a fairly poor family, albeit a family that had their own farm, but maybe I need to look again at that picture I have of them. | <urn:uuid:fe8ce953-59af-469a-bab9-588677d25601> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wanderinggenealogist.wordpress.com/2012/05/21/making-the-news-burglary-of-the-residence-of-mr-william-trower/?like=1&_wpnonce=b93d0ca0fa | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987851 | 344 | 1.765625 | 2 |
With a history that dates 500 years, this stone structure truly deserves its place of honor in the National Historic ... More
Castillo San Felipe del Morro
With a history that dates 500 years, this stone structure truly deserves its place of honor in the National Historic Register. The English and the Dutch attacked El Morro or Castillo San Felipe del Morro repeatedly in its time. Located on the San Juan Bay , the six-story fort was originally constructed in 1540, although its exterior walls were not erected for another 200 years. Inside the walls is a veritable labyrinth of chambers, barracks, hallways and prison cells. The fort was given a complete facelift in 1992.
visited El Morro on a trip to San Juan ,it was my best experience on a vacation to date,
I cant stop thinking about the history of it,
we arrived right when they opened at 10 am, after about 2 hours of checking it out we
exited the fort only to find hundreds of kites being flown in the air, hundreds of
people in the grass area outside the fort, this experience again was unbelivable
WONDERFUL! We visited Ft. Cristobol first and paid an entry fee which included visiting El Morro, too. My elderly mother was with us. We'd rented a wheelchair for our time in Old San Juan. Her entry fee was "waived" as a "handicapped" individual AND so was one other adult's ticket fee as her "companion".
Park Service people were VERY helpful and knowledgeable. Don't miss these TWO forts!
I would only recommend to visit El Morro if you stay longer than 2 days because Old San Juan and El Yunque are much better IMO. It had a great view of the ocean and was very pretty but wasn't worth the time. I don't recommend this to older people because you have to do a lot of walking.
I thought this place was amazing. It was well staffed and that made it a very nice experience. I think this could be for family's who have just gotten off of cruises. I also think young couples would enjoy this together. I think you shouldn't visit during the holidays because it is very packed go at another time.
El Morro is one of the very many places in Puerto Rico I visit with my husband when we go there on a yearly basis. This old Spanish fortress is a must for either history buffs or any romantic that visits. The landscapes that surround the fortress are perfect for photographs and if you just want to have a picnic on any given day, the beautifully green grass is a perfect setting that will give you an awesome view of the ocean. The fortress is run by the NPS, so it is kept very well and is labled only in English to my recollection. It has a gift store and is very close by parking and down town walking distance from all of the Old San Juan shops and sights.
*Terms & Conditions: Savings calculation is based on Flight + Hotel vacation package bookings for a 3 month period for 2 adults with a 2+ night length of stay compared to price of the same components if booked separately during same period. Savings will vary based on origin/destination, length of trip, travel dates and selected travel supplier(s). Savings not available on all packages. | <urn:uuid:7ce3c4b9-d9cf-4244-965a-54205b64935f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://travel.yahoo.com/p-travelguide-2770634-el_morro_san_juan-i?rpage=5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975304 | 684 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Last month, I sentenced Jared Lee Loughner to seven consecutive life terms plus 140 years in federal prison for his shooting rampage in Tucson. That tragedy left six people dead, more than twice that number injured and a community shaken to its core.
Loughner deserved his punishment. But during the sentencing, I also questioned the social utility of high-capacity magazines like the one that fed his Glock. And I lamented the expiration of the federal assault weapons ban in 2004, which prohibited the manufacture and importation of certain particularly deadly guns, as well as magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition.
The ban wasn't all that stringent — if you already owned a banned gun or high-capacity magazine you could keep it, and you could sell it to someone else — but at least it was something.
And it says something that half of the nation's deadliest shootings occurred after the ban expired, including the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn. It also says something that it has not even been two years since Loughner's rampage, and already six mass shootings have been deadlier.
I am not a social scientist, and I know that very smart ones are divided on what to do about gun violence. But reasonable, good-faith debates have boundaries, and in the debate about guns, a high-capacity magazine has always seemed to me beyond them.
Bystanders got to Loughner and subdued him only after he emptied one 31-round magazine and was trying to load another. Adam Lanza, the Newtown shooter, chose as his primary weapon a semiautomatic rifle with 30-round magazines. And we don't even bother to call the 100-rounder that James Holmes is accused of emptying in an Aurora, Colo., movie theater a magazine — it is a drum. How is this not an argument for regulating the number of rounds a gun can fire?
I get it. Someone bent on mass murder who has only a 10-round magazine or revolvers at his disposal probably is not going to abandon his plan and instead try to talk his problems out. But we might be able to take the "mass" out of "mass shooting," or at least make the perpetrator's job a bit harder.
To guarantee that there would never be another Tucson or Sandy Hook, we would probably have to make it a capital offense to so much as look at a gun. And that would create serious 2nd Amendment, 8th Amendment and logistical problems.
So what's the alternative? Bring back the assault weapons ban, and bring it back with some teeth this time. Ban the manufacture, importation, sale, transfer and possession of both assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Don't let people who already have them keep them. Don't let ones that have already been manufactured stay on the market. I don't care whether it's called gun control or a gun ban. I'm for it.
I say all of this as a gun owner. I say it as a conservative who was appointed to the federal bench by a Republican president. I say it as someone who prefers Fox News to MSNBC, and National Review Online to the Daily Kos. I say it as someone who thinks the Supreme Court got it right in District of Columbia vs. Heller, when it held that the 2nd Amendment gives us the right to possess guns for self-defense. (That's why I have mine.) I say it as someone who, generally speaking, is not a big fan of the regulatory state.
I even say it as someone whose feelings about the NRA mirror the left's feelings about Planned Parenthood: It has a useful advocacy function in our deliberative democracy, and much of what it does should not be controversial at all.
And I say it, finally, mindful of the arguments on the other side, at least as I understand them: that a high-capacity magazine is not that different from multiple smaller-capacity magazines; and that if we ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines one day, there's a danger we would ban guns altogether the next, and your life might depend on you having one.
But if we can't find a way to draw sensible lines with guns that balance individual rights and the public interest, we may as well call the American experiment in democracy a failure.
There is just no reason civilians need to own assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Gun enthusiasts can still have their venison chili, shoot for sport and competition, and make a home invader flee for his life without pretending they are a part of the SEAL team that took out Osama bin Laden.
It speaks horribly of the public discourse in this country that talking about gun reform in the wake of a mass shooting is regarded as inappropriate or as politicizing the tragedy. But such a conversation is political only to those who are ideologically predisposed to see regulation of any kind as the creep of tyranny. And it is inappropriate only to those delusional enough to believe it would disrespect the victims of gun violence to do anything other than sit around and mourn their passing. Mourning is important, but so is decisive action.
Congress must reinstate and toughen the ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.
Larry Alan Burns is a federal district judge in San Diego. | <urn:uuid:f607ad43-e10b-41da-bd45-fc9d646a93ae> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tidewaterreview.com/news/politics/la-oe-burns-assault-weapons-ban-20121220,0,3163082.story | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976877 | 1,071 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Limits to the Credit
The taxpayer's child and dependent care expenses are subject to an earned income limit. The amount of work-related expenses used to figure the credit cannot be more than:
In addition to the earned income limit, there is a dollar limit on the amount of work-related expenses that can be used to figure the credit. This limit is $3,000 for one qualifying person or $6,000 for two or more qualifying persons. If the taxpayer received dependent care benefits from an employer, the amount of the benefits excluded from income must be subtracted from the dollar limit.
Mary has three qualifying children. She received $4,800 in dependent care benefits through her employer. When Mary figures her credit, her work-related expenses will be limited to $1,200 ($6,000 - $4,800). | <urn:uuid:ec9e23d8-c84d-4f91-9d14-b4ca35815ff6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://apps.irs.gov/app/vita/content/22/22_06_020.jsp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968198 | 171 | 1.601563 | 2 |
- Friday, April 29, 2011
Our Unity in Christ
In Support of the Anglican Covenant
An Apologetic Series
By Andrew Goddard
Much about the proposed Anglican Communion Covenant has caused controversy, but one fact does seem incontrovertible: It is Section 4, “Our Covenanted Life Together,” that for many is most troublesome. It was the section which changed the most through the various drafts and the section which continues to be most objectionable to critics of the Covenant. For some it is too controlling and centralizing; for others it is weak and likely to be ineffective in enacting necessary discipline. So what does it say, and is it really as flawed as some claim?
Some would appear to wish there was no such section in any form, but any covenant needs at least some elements of process incorporated within it: how it can be adopted (4.1), how a signatory may withdraw (4.3), how the text may be amended (4.4). Could we get by with just that? What about maintaining the Covenant if there are disagreements about it or if breaches of it need to be resolved?
The history of the Church, including the Anglican Communion in recent years, shows that such questions are real and in one sense the act of covenanting makes them even more serious. If we covenant together by making joint affirmations and commitments to one another then someone is clearly wronged if another party to the covenant denies those affirmations or breaks commitments. We need to consider how to respond. What should be done if Anglicans do in fact act contrary to their covenanted word? If we accept the first three sections then we need Section 4 or something very like it.
As we know from events over the last decade and more, the problem is that something will be done when conflict arises among Anglicans and churches are understood to act against commitments and conventions. Part of the aim of the Covenant has always been to discern if we can agree together what is to be done in such circumstances rather than having to make up processes in the context of addressing the conflict. This aim is not something strange and unusual but a common feature of living together in community.
That is why, for example, workplaces develop grievance and disciplinary policies. The hope is that they will prove unnecessary but that when they are necessary they will enable issues to be addressed well despite tensions. The challenge, of course, is whether processes can be found that conform with our shared vision of Anglican life, especially those expressed in the Covenant’s affirmations and commitment. In adopting Section 4 of the Covenant, churches are making another set of affirmations and commitments, just as they do in the preceding sections. They affirm the “principles and procedures” in the section and, “reliant on the Holy Spirit,” commit to their implementation.
What exactly, then, are those principles and procedures for maintaining the Covenant? There is an acknowledgment (4.2.1) that the Covenant “operates to express … common commitments and mutual accountability” and that these “hold each Church in the relationship of communion one with another.” Mutual recognition and communion can obviously exist without the Covenant, but they are strengthened where there is recognition of and fidelity to the Covenant. But where there is infidelity, or even suspected infidelity, mutual recognition and communion will be undermined and so it is important that the Covenant is monitored in some way. Much of the concern focuses on how this is to be done, but much of that concern misrepresents the Covenant’s proposal.
In a clause often ignored, and which perhaps should have appeared earlier in Section 4.2, it is clear that the initial and primary responsibility lies with each autonomous province which “undertakes to put into place such mechanisms, agencies or institutions, consistent with its own Constitution and Canons, as can undertake to oversee the maintenance of the affirmations and commitments of the Covenant in the life of that Church, and to relate to the Instruments of Communion on matters pertinent to the Covenant” (4.2.9). But that self-regulation may not be enough. One province may think it has acted to maintain the Covenant and other provinces disagree. What should be done then? Who can monitor on behalf of all signatories?
Here there were at least four options:
- One or more of the signatories could be given that responsibility, but that would be unfair to those not so authorized.
- A new body could be created for the purpose, but that would have been even more controversial and open to charges of centralization (although the Communion has spawned numerous new bodies in the last 40 years).
- The first Nassau draft proposed the Primates’ Meeting and the second draft suggested the Anglican Consultative Council, but both ideas drew opposition.
- In the third and then final draft, the task was assigned to the standing committee that unites the standing committees of both the primates and the ACC. This is both a manageable size and combines three of the four Instruments of Communion, although (in part because of deeper problems with those instruments) serious questions persist about the standing committee’s ability to represent the Communion or monitor Covenant issues.
Some speak of the Covenant establishing a new “curia” or “star chamber.” It is therefore important to note how the Covenant both embeds the standing committee within the wider structures of the Communion but also severely constrains its powers — too severely in the minds of some. In overseeing the Covenant, the standing committee is “responsible to the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meeting” and its monitoring is to be done “on behalf of the Instruments.” It can also be “supported by such other committees or commissions as may be mandated to assist in carrying out this function and to advise it on questions relating to the Covenant” (4.2.2).
Furthermore, only committee members whose churches “have adopted the Covenant or who are still in the process of adoption” (4.2.8) are to be involved in Covenant oversight. The standing committee’s powers are limited to seeking to “facilitate agreement” (4.2.4), requesting that a Church “defer a controversial action” (4.2.5) and recommending “to any Instrument of Communion relational consequences” for a church which declines such a request. Potentially more seriously, it is authorized to “make a declaration that an action or decision is or would be ‘incompatible with the Covenant’” (4.2.6) and recommend “relational consequences which flow from an action incompatible with the Covenant” (4.2.7). However, it cannot do these on its own initiative but only “on the basis of advice received from the Anglican Consultative Council and the Primates’ Meeting” (4.2.6) and its recommendations, whether to churches or instruments, are not binding — “each Church or each Instrument shall determine whether or not to accept such recommendations” (4.2.7).
The process is, then, marked by what the primates and Section 3.1.2 describe as a relationship of being “in communion with autonomy and accountability.” By granting the coordinating body powers of oversight that are limited to requests and recommendations, Section 4, like the Covenant as a whole, upholds the twin features of respect for provincial autonomy and the need for structures to enable common counsel and mutual accountability that have been the hallmark of Anglicanism and consistently shaped the evolution of the Communion, its instruments and various commissions and other structures. The claim that it is in some sense a fundamental break with that evolution or with the Anglican way arises from either a misrepresentation of the Covenant or a misunderstanding of the Communion’s self-understanding since at least the calling of the first Lambeth Conference and certainly since the birth of the ACC.
The weakness of the Covenant lies not in the text and its alleged centralization but in the fact that many of the Covenant’s drafters and supporters now doubt that the standing committee and the instruments are sufficiently “fit for purpose.” Numerous resignations from the standing committee, concerns about the ACC’s new constitution, and the principled refusal of many to attend both Lambeth 2008 and the Primates’ Meeting in Dublin indicate that major reforms of the instruments are now urgent, not just for their own sake but for the sake of the Covenant.
The Inter-Anglican Standing Commission for Unity, Faith and Order is considering such reforms. Unless these reforms come soon there is the real danger that Section 4 will simply plant this new promising seed of the Covenant in shallow soil or among thorns. If that proves to be the case then those who are committed to the Covenant and its vision of communion will need to prepare some new good soil so that the Anglican Covenant can yield a good crop in Anglican churches and mission across the world.
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Goddard, a member of the leadership team of Fulcrum, has taught at Trinity College, Bristol, and Wycliffe Hall, Oxford.
The Living Church launched Our Unity in Christ, a series of essays supporting the proposed Anglican Covenant, in February 2011. An introduction and complete index to the series are available here. | <urn:uuid:579d881c-ab3a-4997-9e96-8a25fbed3359> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.livingchurch.org/section-4-commitment-word-and-deed | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951977 | 1,950 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Leahy, other US lawmakers, pay visit to Cuba
By PAUL HAVEN
THE Associated Press | February 19,2013
HAVANA — A delegation of American lawmakers led by Sen. Patrick Leahy arrived in Cuba on Monday to gauge the island’s economic changes and stress the importance of freeing a jailed American whose detention has chilled relations between the two countries.
The trip, which included five senators, was the first to the Communist-run island by high-level U.S. politicians since President Barack Obama’s re-election in November.
It comes a year after another group of legislators led by Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, came to Cuba and met with President Raul Castro. Last year’s delegation also visited Alan Gross, an American jailed since 2009 for illegally distributing communications equipment on the island while on a U.S.-funded democracy-building program.
In their meetings, the lawmakers will stress that freeing Gross, who is serving a 15-year sentence, is a crucial prerequisite for improved ties, a State Department official told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity, lacking authorization to comment publicly.
“Nothing would make me happier if, when we leave in a couple of days, for Alan Gross to be on the plane with us,” Leahy said following the group’s arrival, before adding: “I don’t think that is likely to happen.”
Leahy said the aim of the trip is to work toward better relations between the two countries, and that both sides would have to give ground. He said many Americans agree U.S. policy in place for decades has become anachronistic.
“There is a growing sense by many in the U.S. who do not have a Cold War attitude that they would like to see a change,” he said. The United States has maintained an economic embargo on the island for 51 years, since shortly after Fidel Castro came to power.
Rep. Jim McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat, said the lawmakers would “like to see relations improve,” adding that he hoped to see the day when all U.S. citizens could travel to Cuba freely. Washington bars American tourism to the island, though the number of U.S. citizens traveling to Cuba on licensed cultural, religious or educational exchanges has soared under new guidelines enacted by the Obama administration.
The lawmakers also hope to get a firsthand look at economic changes on the island instituted by Castro in recent years, including the legalization of limited private enterprise, the creation of a real estate market and the elimination of travel restrictions for most islanders.
The delegation also includes Sens. Jeff Flake, R-Arizona; Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio; Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan; and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, along with McGovern and Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Gross’s home state.
The group arrived Monday and is scheduled to depart early Wednesday. The declined to make public details of their agenda, including whether they would meet with Castro or Gross.
Cuba has said it is willing to consider releasing the 63-year-old, but in return wants Washington to negotiate the fate of five Cuban intelligence agents sentenced to long jail terms in the United States.
Washington has said publicly that a swap is not in the cards. | <urn:uuid:827fd1bf-45b7-4f19-b685-91f1922ad71a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://rutlandherald.com/article/20130219/NEWS04/702199838/0/NEWS01 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00002-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969211 | 700 | 1.523438 | 2 |
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Re: [APD] Wicked man
>I used to have an internal powerhead/filter with the co2 tube at the intake,
>this thing used to spurt out micro bubbles by the millions and I must say
>that since I stopped using it and switched to your reactor things have been
>much better! So from experience I must say that I do not know how you can be
>arriving at these new found conclusions.
By trying it.
By thinking about why what appears at first glance to be wasteful(both disc and the venturi reactor) wasting is producing sucgh growth.
Adding PO4 seemed contradictory initially as well.
>By blowing micro bubbles at the plants so that they build up under the
>leaves the plant is better able to take in the gas as its much more
>accessible, is this what you're saying? Makes sense for sure.
>But is'nt this defeating the purpose of having *submerged* growth.
Plants are still submerged.
> Adding co2 till a ppm of
>30 and then blowing micro bubbles of co2 all over the plants on top of that
>makes me think that we are fooling our plants into making them believe they
>are growing in emersed conditions.
Oh more that, even better than emerrgent growth actually.
Recall, 100% CO2 vs the 0.038% in air.
When we add 1800ppm to air vs the ambient 380ppm(it's risen over 30ppm in my life thus far), we can get 30-50% more in emegernt growth.
> Perhaps another mechanism is triggered
>where the plant goes into 'emersed' mode and then the problem switches over
>to a lack of o2 instead of co2. Does that make any sense at all?
I do not think there is any lack of O2.
Excess O2 rather quickly perhaps.......
>> 100% dissolving ability might not be the best solution for practical
>I beg to differ. I think its great if its coupled with a very strong
No, a gentle current that is even will put the bubbles where you need them. This is not hard to do with a small reactor and a spray bar.
>> Simply getting the gas to the plants directly in gas form might be the
>If it is then are we all better off going with a Paludarium type setup and j
>ust ditching all our co2 equipment?
You are taking this out of the water and missing the point.
I like submersed plants.
> Seems like alot less hassle for sure.
>Its just that the plants, fish and tank in general look so crisp and healthy
>when you're pushing things to the limit with light/co2. Diana Walstad tanks
>just don't do it for me, they're too 'slow & dirty' :)
Then you need to see some of my non CO2 tanks, a little dirty due to mulm, but that can be cleaned up easily. But they look as good and in most cases better than many CO2 enriched tanks, they are small so I do not want fast growth.
But I can control the rate of growth in tanks very easily and take advantage of the trade offs with different methods.
>> I know many folks have seen and observed their plants near the CO2 reactor
>>outflow and neat the disc, plants always pearl better there.
>> Now why not the entire tank?
>A solution would be to cut narrow slits in your reactor near the bottom so
>that the micro bubbles have a better chance of escape, then just add another
>powerhead at the opposite end of the tank for improved circulation.
Yes, this can be done but simply using the filter/spray bar will do this.
Larger tanks use 2 spray bars and two small reactors/disc.
Amano uses 2 smaller disc on larger tanks rather than one big whopper, Steve did this years ago in his 185gal. Greg also uses two small Venturi reactors for his 180.
The issue here is one of delivery and concentration to the plant, not efficiency of dissolving the gas into water. That also works, but I'm saying this will work better.
We have lots of offgassing when we have 30ppm from the water to the air, we cannot see it, but it does occur.
So whether we have offgassing that way, or with bubbles we can see, where the gas goes and at what concentration it's at when it hits the plants seems more critical.Sure, you can lose a lot with too many bubbles escaping, but the plants do not lie.
The growth and O2 levels do not lie.
At least based on my data with DO, usage of venturi loops and disc, current patterns and plant observations. It's pretty significant difference, enough to warrant serious consideration.
Think about CO2's role as a nutrient and it's % of plant biomass, focusing on CO2 more will greatly enhance the chance of significant growth than say messing with Fe or Ca levels.You need both, but one sure does make a difference with algae and growth much more.
>> Time to go kill some weeds:-)
>You wicked, wicked man. :)
Well, maybe not that wicked, they are "bad weeds", they deserve to die, the kind that bother other pleople and plants. So it's okay "to kill" them. If it where furry little bunnies or kittens, most would hate me, and claim a moral and ethical higher ground, but plants? Few care.
Irony has no limit.
A Tree hugger is also a critter hugger since the critters need somewhere to live.
Save the plants and habitat, you save the critters also.
Happly plants= happy critters.
Yahoo! for Good
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Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com | <urn:uuid:0703643c-20bf-4749-af1c-898c934e56d1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fins.actwin.com/aquatic-plants/month.200509/msg00620.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940464 | 1,292 | 1.789063 | 2 |
On The District Weekly you used to find out the most recent information about the different things that happen these days. One of the latest news was that Jean Comstock, the retired City Clerk from long Beach has died at the age of 79 on September 24. Yet, the Column One written by Molly Hennessy-Fiske in Los Angeles Times does not seem as much as it would like to be a memorial in the honor of the former city official. This piece of column seems to however remind ourselves that in death we as human beings lose control of ourselves and the effect that we used to have on the world. This is obviously contrasting one's actions during the life. The question to the answer remains whether death should erase our worldly effects.
The District Weekly also kept you informed about the many things happening around you and which you may want to take part of. for instance, you may want to take part to the Native Garden Workday and help cleaning up the beach as well as you may want to learn about the native and water-wise gardening during the 'Out of the Wilds' event. If you are passionate about drawings, Sweet Subversives may be the right place to be for admiring Contemporary California drawings. If museums are your type of things, then you should follow the dialogues on the Chapters on Latin American in the Museum of Latin American Art. Nevertheless, if you are looking for a bit of entertainment you may want to try out Mr. Mister Miyagi: they play, you sing.
The District Weekly also offered you the news that you simply needed to know. For instance, a must know is Pastrana's preparation to take the plunge off pine for the New Year's. On this section you also found out what there was to do between two major winter holidays, Christmas and New Year's and find out more about jobs that could be available for you. | <urn:uuid:af284f4d-dfcf-4e10-9242-2f409e992f6f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.thedistrictweekly.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977029 | 381 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Cross-posted on my personal blog.
Part 1 of a multi-part series. (Part 2)
The problem with most piracy debates is that the only "cost" they discuss is money-dollars. So, the problem is framed somewhat like this:
"Buying the game from us costs money-dollars. Pirating it costs zero money-dollars. Therefore, most people will pirate the game if they have the choice and we must do everything we can to physically stop them."
|The familiar Money-dollar ($M)
This is wrong because there are at least four currencies involved here, not just one (money-dollars).
I propose the following:
- ($M) Money-dollars
- ($T) Time-dollars
- ($P) Pain-in-the-butt-dollars
- ($I) Integrity-dollars
Whether a player buys or pirates a game depends on how much each service
- not product! -
"costs" in terms of these four currencies, as well as how much the player values each one.
|I hate spending these
For the purpose of this article Money-dollars will be denominated in USD, Time-dollars will be denominated in hours, and Pain-in-the-butt-dollars will be denominated in SI standard units of "amount-of-aspirin-I-have-to-take-after-beating-my-head-against-the-wall-for-an-hour." Feel free to measure Integrity-dollars in Hail-Marys, or hours spent lying awake at night.
Okay, I kid, I kid. Obviously, $P and $I are the most subjective "currencies" and it's hard to quantify them, even on an individual basis. That doesn't make them any less real, however - as I'm about to demonstrate, the $P and $I cost of a service are sometimes the most important ones.
|You have a finite number to spend, and you never get any more.
So, let's start with my favorite example, Dragon Age II. On release, the game cost:
This game was expensive, it took forever to install and deal with the invasive DRM, which was only slightly more fun than getting groped by the TSA in the comfort of your own home. The only thing that was cheap about the game was that buying it was "the right thing to do," wasn't illegal, and it didn't make the player feel guilty. The only way this service competed with piracy was in the $I cost.
By comparison, pirate sites were offering the game for the low, low price of :
It cost no money, and the only time spent was downloading the game file. There was some pain-in-the-butt, ie, the player could accidentally download malware, needed to know how to use bittorent (easy for us geeks, not so for average joe/jane), and was constantly being hassled by lurid ads and pop-ups. Finally, there was the integrity cost that piracy is illegal, and in some sense, "morally wrong."
|Spending one costs a tiny part of your soul.
What if Dragon Age II had this price instead?
Ie, what if buying Dragon Age II was as easy as entering payment information, downloading the game, and running it? Now the game looks pretty competitive - it's actually less of a pain-in-the-butt than pirating it, and it doesn't "cost" any moral integrity or ask you to break any laws, either!
The $60 price tag will still turn those who value $M above all else to piracy, but now the game can capture all those who value $I and $P and $T more than $M, which is not a small number.
Again, I want to underscore that the relative values of each currency vary from player to player. People who live in low-income nations will be willing to spend more $T and $P if they can get the game for 0 $M. The $I cost is the most subjective of the four and depends on how much stock a player puts in "doing the right thing," (so to speak) or whether they even see any moral integrity in the choice at all.
Those who reject the notion of copyright altogether would likely value $I = 0, though even in this case, thinking of it instead as "the risk one takes of getting in trouble with the law" still raises $I to some non-zero value.
The $I cost also varies with the developer's behavior. The friendlier and more "deserving" you are in the eyes of the player, the higher the $I cost becomes for pirating the game. Conversely, a hostile attitude can easily lower the $I cost of piracy as nobody loses any sleep over pirating from an imagined "rich, greedy CEO."
Additionally, there's some strong interplay between the various currencies - a high $M cost makes the player feel entitled to a low $P cost - if I'm paying out the nose, I expect white-glove, full service VIP treatment. If I'm treated like a criminal instead, the $I cost of piracy just plummeted. I'll give my time and pain-in-the-butt dollars to the competition, thank you very much.
We used this theory to inform our strategy for Defender's Quest. Here's the current price of the game:
- $M 5-7
- $T 0.08
- $P 0.5
- $I 0
And here's what it's going for on your local torrent site:
- $M 0
- $T 0.08
- $P 5
- $I 10-20*
*Depending on whether pirating an "indie" game makes you feel more guilty than pirating from so-called "fat cats" like EA.
You will never be able to compete with pirate sites on price ($M) alone. Furthermore, at best you will only be able to match their price on time cost ($T), which is merely the time it takes to find and download your game.
The two areas you can compete on, and which do seem to make a big difference, are in pain-in-the-butt-ness and moral integrity. If you add any DRM, even if it only has a 1% false-positive rate, you've thrown up a $P cost for those customers that far exceeds that of the pirate sites.
Strip the DRM away and provide a friendly and easy-to-use purchasing experience, however, and you can drive the $P cost down to fractional amounts, far below what a sketchy torrent site can offer.
Also, by virtue of being the author, you provide the lowest $I cost in town. In the best case, you actually have a negative $I cost, which means buying the game gives the player a moral integrity credit. The player now feels like she's doing "the right thing," she doesn't worry about breaking the law, and gets a warm fuzzy feeling knowing she's supporting the makers of games she loves.
I'll throw in one more quick note - do not underestimate the value of $T, and look for ways in which you are potentially wasting the player's time. I got many e-mails from players telling us that one of the chief reasons for buying the game was our long demo, which also allowed them to export their save file. Many said they would not have bought the game if they had to start from scratch. For these players, spending the 7 money-dollars was not an issue, but having to lose the 2 time-dollars they'd already sunk into the demo would have been a deal-breaker.
|This little button lowers the $T cost of playing the demo
Well, that's my theory. It's not perfect, but I think it's a lot better than what a lot of congressmen, CEO's, and so-called economists have to offer.
Part 1 of a multi-part series. (Part 2
)Edit :Lots of good discussion happening here, on twitter/google+, and on my own blog. One thing I want to emphasize is that I'm not trying to come up with concrete values for $M,$P,$T, and $I, or some fixed formal theory to end them all. Mostly I just want to call attention to the fact that we're "spending" more resources than just plain money. Which "resources" are in play for any given player, and their relative value for that individual, will vary from person to person, and even within the same individual, from moment to moment. There's likely many more different "currencies" than just the 4 I've thought of here - these are just the ones I usually think of "spending" when I go to buy a game :) | <urn:uuid:2ab3f03f-2b2d-4f0d-9466-3b07ddf730f6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/LarsDoucet/20120222/91144/Piracy_and_the_four_currencies.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968909 | 1,878 | 1.554688 | 2 |
January 11, 2010
Travel and tourism take a hit
When recessions appear, consumers become more frugal. They particularly reduce so-called discretionary spending, that is, spending they don't have to do to survive. Does this mean that an industry like travel and tourism has really had a hard time during the recession?
Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:
"That industry has. In fact, that's a perfect example of discretionary spending, and the travel and tourism industry has been hit big time during this recession. Spending on travel and tourism is down 12 percent from pre-recessionary levels, really exceeding the drop in recent recessions. The biggest drop we've seen has been spending on air travel, down 24 percent. Spending on hotels is down 15 percent. However, leisure-related shopping is down only 3 percent, and spending at recreational entertainment sites is off only 1 percent. So I think what this is suggesting is that people are not taking long trips; they're not staying at fancy hotels; and for their vacation, what they're doing is substituting going to - let's say - the local park or local recreational site, and they're also going shopping."
Posted by Dave at January 11, 2010 08:00 AM | <urn:uuid:491c526b-5df8-4ca2-8758-6ce656ed0a57> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ncsu.edu/project/calscommblogs/economic/archives/2010/01/travel_and_tour.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976619 | 275 | 1.710938 | 2 |
LIGHT DROP | Rafael Morgan
The Light Drop is supposed to make people think about how we aredealing with our natural resources, in this particular case, the water,
which is the main source of energy for every living organism in this
fantastic world. Water is energy indeed.This wall-mounted lighting element illuminates the custom-molded polycarbonate bulb with an embedded, dimmable LED in the faucet, which is intuitively controlled by the tap — the more you twist, the more light you get — which also is a good way to contextualize energy use (though at a greatly reduced rate, compared to an incandescent version of the same design. | <urn:uuid:ebffcf54-925a-47bb-9fab-d776d362aaec> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://julianstumblrrr.tumblr.com/tagged/LED | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942813 | 143 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Home / Fitness classes / Fitness Conditioning / Bums, legs & tums
Bums, legs & tums class
Bums, Legs and Tums (BLT) classes relate to exercise that concentrates on people burning fat off of these areas of the body and toning them to leave you with the body you want. The conditioning advice and training instruction you'll receive is of a high standard so be assured that you'll get your body into shape and look and feel your best for longer.
Bums, Legs and Tums (BLT) conditioning classes are a great way to firm up and ensure your fitness levels improve and can help you to maintain a healthier lifestyle. From toning these major muscle groups and getting a great workout to improving your circulation and getting blood and oxygen around the body to the muscles more quickly, workouts involving your Bums, Legs and Tums (BLT) are ideal for those of you looking to indulge in a low to moderate intensity exercise regime that will help you to condition your body into the shape and size you would prefer it to be.
Get the flat stomach, tight bottom and firm thighs you've always wanted and start looking and feeling great now. Most classes last for around forty five minutes. Stretching is advisable after warming up the muscles first and instructor led classes are fantastic for ensuring that you're in safe and qualified hands.
These parts last for approximately ten minutes and after exercise is complete, a cool down period is recommended to help relax the muscles and prevent strains and injuries. It is possible for anyone do join in such classes, assuming that you don't have physical difficulties or it might put your health at risk to exercise, say after an operation or injury. | <urn:uuid:d6b049ee-4b04-4130-b58a-09807657152e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gymuser.co.uk/classes/conditioning/bums.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95563 | 348 | 1.632813 | 2 |
By FRAZIER MOORE, Associated Press Writer Frazier Moore, Associated Press Writer – 33 mins ago AP
She adopted one of those orphans, her 3-year-old son David. She is building a school there.
And she has told Malawi’s harrowing story in her documentary, “I Am Because We Are.” With an audience thus far limited to isolated theater screenings, it will be screened for everyone with its TV premiere on Sundance Channel at 9 p.m. EST Monday (World AIDS Day).
The feature-length film was written, produced and narrated by Madonna (directed by Nathan Rissman). It consults experts including President Bill Clinton and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.
But the film’s real power is its images, which are often dismaying but, here and there, reflect hope and a remarkable will to survive.
“I had many goals,” said Madonna during a phone conversation from her Manhattan home a few days ago. “I did get to a point where I thought, ‘I’m being overambitious, I’m trying to say too much, I’ll never accomplish it.’ But I feel proud of the fact that I did get to make all my points.”
Among her points: an insistence that any crisis comes with solutions, however hard-won and piecemeal.
The film offers its audience a menu of constructive responses.
“If all you can do is live life in YOUR world in a way that shows you are responsible for the people around you, that’s a course of action,” said Madonna. “People can be of service in large ways and small.”
The first wide exposure of “I Am Because We Are” may be coming at a propitious time, which befits the pop superstar who made it, with her knack for anticipating and identifying cultural trends.
On the eve of a new presidential administration, Americans seem set on a more idealistic path, however alarmed they may be by economic threats along the way.
“People really are going, ‘Wow! I can no longer ignore what’s going on around me.’ There are changes in the air,” she said.
Madonna’s busy schedule continues apace. But the artistic life that drives it “is a world you create and you inhabit, to express yourself, and to inspire and reach out to other people,” she explained. “It’s also a consolation, a place you go to to protect yourself.” That’s true now, in particular, during her highly public split with Guy Ritchie, her husband of eight years, which she described as “not easy, I’m not going to lie.”
Though on a brief New York break from her concert tour, Madonna said the day’s long to-do list called for this AP interview to be followed by interviews she would be conducting herself: with prospective head mistresses for the girls school she is building in Malawi.
“We’re all going there together at the end of March,” she said, referring to David, 8-year-old son Rocco and 12-year-old daughter Lourdes.
“I’m very involved in a lot of things that are going on there,” she said, and as she makes return visits with her kids, she wants them to gather insights into the plight of the world’s underprivileged. “And David’s always going to understand where he came from, and what his life could have been like.”
Meanwhile, she hopes her film can spread the message to millions more.
“It has an impact on the people who see it,” she declared. “The more people, the bigger the impact.” | <urn:uuid:57c8f280-32b9-4f52-97e1-e5d25ab98e00> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://absolutemadonna.com/?m=200811 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970461 | 819 | 1.640625 | 2 |
The deadpan exchange sets the tone for the rest of Bonsai, which cuts deftly back and forth in time between their college affair and Julio’s life in Santiago eight years later. Now an aspiring novelist in an apparently casual relationship with his neighbor Bianca, Julio applies for a job typing a novel for a famous author named Gazmuri. He doesn’t get the job, but instead of telling Bianca, he passes off his own true memories of his first love as Gazmuri’s manuscript. Bonsai takes shape as both a tragicomic love story and a subtle, formally precise meditation on the complex relationship between life and art. Director Cristián Jiménez spoke with Sheerly Avni about Proust, potted plants and the existential crises facing the youth of post-Pinochet Chile.
SHEERLY AVNI: Where does the title of your film come from?
CRISTIÁN JIMÉNEZ: A bonsai has two parts, the pot and the tree. It’s the pot—the artificial—that gives the bonsai its structure. Our lives are the same way. Their raw materials need to be imagined, told, structured through narrative. So the bonsai becomes a metaphor for the complex relationship between life and art. You need both the tree and the pot.
AVNI: Julio lies nonstop—about the books he’s read, the novel he’s writing, even about how he makes his living—yet he seems to do so without malice or duplicity. Is this all part of the “pot?”
JIMÉNEZ: Yes. In Julio’s world, lying doesn’t have that typical Catholic quality of being associated with sin. It’s more about not being fully satisfied with the world as it is. He is trying to find a personal truth, one he might not find by sticking to the path of literal truth itself.
One could think that Julio is not just willing to live as a reader and a writer, but also as if he himself were a fictitious character. He is on a search to make sense of who is, and his “lies” are part of that search, part of that construction.
AVNI: According to the film’s timeline, you and Julio would be about the same age. And you are exactly the same age as Alejandro Zambra, who wrote the book on which your film is based. What do the three of you have in common, and how does this all fit in with Pinochet?
JIMÉNEZ: Alejandro and I are the same age, 36. We were both 14 when Pinochet lost power. The generations before us shared a strong sense of purpose: They were either changing the country, or changing society, and finally getting rid of the dictator. So we grew up in a society with more wealth, and more relaxed social rules, but we were also part of the first generation that lacked a collective project.
Alejandro and I have talked about this—our generation experienced a new kind of loneliness that our parents couldn’t guide us through. When we started college, we were hearing things like “history is over,” “there is no more ‘etiological’ debate,” “it’s the end of the big stories.” Emilia and Julio are also in college at this same moment, when Chile is really buying into that worldview.
AVNI: So they’ve lost a specific unifying narrative and now they have to come up with one of their own?
JIMÉNEZ: Exactly. They have to find out what their story is.
AVNI: Of all novelists, why Proust?
JIMÉNEZ: Proust is both a reference and an anti-reference. As a book, Bonsai was so short that some critics complained it should not even be considered a novel. So in both the book and the film we are working with a certain formal economy that is the very opposite of what Proust signifies.
What is important to me, more than Proust, or Carver, or any of the other authors mentioned in the film, is the power of the idea of them for Julio and the other characters. Literature as an idea doesn’t just give them something to read, it gives them something to hold onto, something that adds up to more than the contents of the books themselves. And that is something very important to me, personally, the idea that art can give shape to your life.
AVNI: So does that mean that like Julio, you’ve also lied about reading certain books in order to impress women?
JIMÉNEZ: I should have an answer ready for this to get ready for promoting the film, shouldn’t I? You know, I don’t think I ever have.
AVNI: You’ve never lied?
JIMÉNEZ: Oh, I’ve lied (laughs). But never about literature.
Sheerly Avni is a San Francisco-based writer.
Chile, 2011, 102m
Director: Cristián Jiménez
Adaptation of a novel by Alejandro Zambra | <urn:uuid:cfc7265c-e52a-4bc8-be57-391d2eebff9d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.watchnewspapers.com/view/full_story/15290701/article-Secrets-of-the-Unread?instance=special%20_coverage_right_column | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96793 | 1,113 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Kyle Bylin: 3 Insights into Future of Geosocial Music
The geosocial revolution (see Foursquare and Facebook Places) promises to connect us to the places we visit and the people who frequent them, while helping us discover music in new ways, too.
Over the past year, a number of startups have released location-based music appseach aspiring to revolutionize the way we listen to music.
Wahwah.fm, the most innovative of them, enables users to listen to music and simultaneously broadcast" the session to a larger community. Meanwhile, other users can join the audience, and all can send messages back and forth in real-time. The app has the potential to give users a window into what music people are listening to nearby and what's trending in places far away. This is significant, because it hints at how music culture and user habits may evolve.
Location has always limited our access to distant music scenes, and while the web has upended the tyranny of geography for some listeners, it remains an everyday constraint for most. But as more music listening activities become linked to locationthanks to apps like wahwah.fm and othersit's clear that connected devices will continue to lower such barriers.
What happens next? Here are three insights into the future of geosocial music:
1. Invisible culture emerges.
A new layer of music culture is emerging all around us, built not from brick and mortar, but lines of code. It's located everywhere, but because it's independent of place, it's situated nowhere.
Welcome to invisible culture, where music culture is not tied solely to places in the physical world, such as record stores or concert venues that can be reached by foot, but linked to locations through apps on connected devices. The digital revolution made our music and players invisible and weightless, and it has now made a layer of culture that's invisible and placeless.
When a user views this layer through a device, they'll be able to see a map of the area and the density of listener activity and music experiences linked to it. These can range from personal radio stations and group-listening rooms to user-tagged songs and photos, and maybe even the location of low-key artist events like jam sessions and house shows. Users will be able to move between digital and physical worlds, dropping by a local Turntable.fm roomeither from the comfort of home or while out and aboutand even request an invitation to attend a listening party that's being held at someone's place later that week.
On the one hand, the physical world is going digital, making it invisible. On the other, the digital world is becoming visible, making it physical. Music culture is everywhere, but situated nowhere.
2. People are portals.
Wahwah.fm often uses radio as a metaphor to describe what it does: Users listen to music and broadcast" the session as a radio station" that other users can tune in" to.
But that's not quite right. In science fiction, a portal is a magical or technological doorway that connects two distant locations separated by space-time. If you think about it, a portal is exactly what a person becomes when they air songs through wahwah.fm, as it opens up a doorway that enables faraway users to connect to another city's music scene and hear what people are listening to there.
This distinction is important, because the connections being made through wahwah.fm are to people and not to places. Users can be connected wherever they are, whether at home or out of town, driving in a car or sitting in a coffee house.
Prior to the web, the music culture that formed in many places consisted of communities of people drawn together around physical locationssuch as record stores, clubs and radio stationswhose social activities in the aggregate created a local scene. After a decade of disruption and consolidation brought forth by the digital revolution and other market forces, the scene-making activity at many of these locations has ceased, causing their attendant communities to fracture and move elsewhere.
More and more often, the new where" for members of these communities is online. As smartphones made the web mobile and integrated with GPS, it provided developers with the platform needed to build geosocial apps that connect listening activity to individuals and enable communities to form around them.
The person is becoming the portalthe primary hub of connectivity.
3. Scenes become global.
Since listening sessions in wahwah.fm are linked to your location, it means that user activity in New York or Los Angeles could be measured to reveal artists who are popular there. Those results could then by filtered to include only local artists, thereby creating a list of the most popular artists in that area. In this way, local scenes could be turned into a local music stations.
A wahwah.fm user who lives in New York could tap into Los Angeles and experience the sounds of the local scene, or perhaps enable a shuffle-like feature that would take him or her on a virtual tour of major sceneslike Nashville, Atlanta, or Montrealand highlight trending songs in those areas.
While a user listens to a song on this platform, they could be shown biographical bits about the artist, fan-captured photos from their latest live shows, and facts about the area to provide context.
Of course, listening to a scene isn't the same as being there. Roaming the streets of Los Angeles in Google Maps isn't the same as walking them. A scene is a place regarded as having a sound, but it's the people and artists that shape it. What a listener hears then isn't the scene itself, but the musical essence of it.
That essence, though, gives users insight into scenes existing outside of their own. It also provides those of us without a local scene access to distant locations and the sounds attached to them.
As people become portals, scenes will become global. Trending music will spread more quickly from one area to another, further influencing the sound artists produce and the music listeners hear.
To many, this future may seem far out, but in some ways, it's already here. The web continues to teach us that the communities that form in the digital world eventually seep into the physical one.
Take Jelli, the social radio service, for example. Last year, a few broadcast radio stations in Las Vegas fully integrated Jelli into their offerings. This enabled a station's listeners to participate in a group chat and vote for songs in the service to be played on the air.
Over time, strangers became friends and regular users started hosting meet-up groups around town where they used the digital service in a physical space. The radio station and the music it played gave them something to talk about, and soon people discovered they had other things in common.
They came for the music and to get their song on the air, but they stayed because of the people they met in chat and the real-world meet-ups," says Jelli CEO Mike Dougherty. These listeners are a great example of what a 'local scene' can be in the age of social media, mobile, and participatory media."
Indeed, the new music community is just that: a community. The culture and technology evolves, but human nature remains consistent. We're made to be together, and often, music catalyzes that impulse. | <urn:uuid:bafe38d0-7cf7-449b-ad00-1a7263d53170> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.allaboutjazz.com/news.php?id=96918 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960759 | 1,521 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Ben Law Interview: how to get involved in sustainable woodland management
We asked Ben Law, woodsman, author and award winning Grand Designs home builder, about his favourite build, woodland management and working in forestry. We even found out what kind of woodland animal Ben is!
We asked Permaculture online readers what they would ask Ben Law and selected the best six questions.
ThePOOSH.org: "What is your favourite memory of building a sustainable structure and why?"
Ben Law: It was the whole process of creating Lodsworth Larder, when the local community came together to build a focal village asset. Virtually all the timber for the shop came out of my woods only one mile away. The highlight for me was that the area of woodland we harvested the timber from was a derelict mixed coppice. After restoring the coppice, there was a flush of violet helleborine orchids which had been dormant for fifty years.
Emily Ingham of Permaculture magazine: "What recommendations do you have for young people who want to get involved in woodland management? How important is it that we have a new generation of woodlanders?
Ben Law: It can be difficult to find a way in to woodland management. There are colleges and courses and the National Coppice Apprenticeship as well as a new apprenticeship scheme run through the Forestry Commission. If you are keen and truly committed you will find a route in. There is no substitute for spending time working in the woods to gain knowledge.
A new generation of woodlanders is always needed: as with the trees, the old have to give way to enable the young to reach the light and flourish.
Daryl Ross: "Was Grand Designs the best thing that ever happened to you?"
Ben Law: No, the birth of my children was.
John Earnshaw of Earnshaw's Herbal Dispensary: "What medicinal herbs do you grow and use?"
Ben Law: I grow a little echinacea in the garden but the wild woodland herbs that grow on the rides are of most interest. I use self heal for cuts and there is an abundance of skullcap and centaury.
Loli: "We just bought a farm with a forest, and want to take care of the forest using principles of permaculture, but will have to learn from scratch. As well as reading your The Woodland Way, please tell us which other sources of knowledge we should give priority to now. We feel lost but optimistic!"
Ben Law: Take your time, a forest is patient. Spend time visiting the forest, make notes, get to know it through observing for a year before you do anything physical. Get help to identify trees and plants and begin the process of woodland assessment. My "I bought a woodland, what do I do now?" course may help.
Sebastian von Holstein of Permaculture magazine: "If you had to be a woodland animal, what would you be?"
Ben Law: I am a woodland animal! Coppice woodlands are dependent on the cyclical cutting of trees, without humans in coppice woodlands biodiversity would dramatically decrease. At Prickly Nut Wood, where I live and work, I am a woodland animal.
Emily Ingham is a former environmental consultant, and now writes for Permaculture magazine on issues relating to environmental legislation and policy.
Ben Law has published four books with Permanent Publications, the book publishing arm of Permaculture magazine. | <urn:uuid:4d197e0d-c778-48c9-959d-cab0d2edf25b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/ben-law-interview-how-get-involved-sustainable-woodland-management | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955665 | 721 | 1.835938 | 2 |
What: “Need to Know”
When: Set to air in late April or May
Topic: Examining America’s infrastructure, including Youngstown’s plan to shrink itself.
Linda Jenkins snapped photos as a backhoe tugged down the roof of a vacant house at 3219 Firnley Ave.
“No. 1, this was an eyesore, and No. 2, when houses are left open, you have young kids hiding in there. I was afraid to come home,” said Jenkins, who has lived on Firnley, across from that vacant South Side house, for 30 years.
Jenkins wasn’t the only one capturing the moment on film Monday.
A crew from Blueprint America, a PBS project that broadly examines America’s infrastructure, recorded the demolition for use in its upcoming feature on the city.
“This year, we’re really looking at the efforts of Youngstown and other cities to reorganize and to shrink themselves in order to better deliver services like transportation, electricity and housing,” said executive producer Kathy Hughes. “We think that what’s going on in Youngstown is very interesting.”
The project is set to air in late April or May for “Need to Know,” a Friday night PBS news program.
It’s not the first time the city will be featured on public broadcasting. A week ago, National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” aired a segment about the city.
Jenkins and Jim London, president of the Idora Neighborhood Association and a Blueprint America interview subject, said they are pleased PBS has come to Youngstown.
“I want everyone to see what’s going on here. ... We’re trying to clean up our city. One day, a home will replace this one,” Jenkins said, motioning toward the wreckage across the street.
The Blueprint America crew will focus on the Youngstown 2010 Plan, Mayor Jay Williams and neighborhood residents, including the I.C.U. Neighborhood Block Watch, Hughes said.
Victoria Allen is part of the I.C.U. (“I See You”) block watch for residents on East Philadelphia, East Boston, East Avondale and East Lucius avenues. The group meets at 7 p.m. every third Monday at Metro Assembly of God, 2536 South Ave.
Allen said the block watch discussed their daily problems, such as barking dogs and drug houses.
“I see there are problems; we just have to find a way to fix them. Even if you have an officer on every street corner that still wouldn’t stop what happens in the city. I don’t know what the answer is, but we’ll try to work on it together as a group,” Allen said.
Tom McNamara, who is leading the crew during this week’s filming, said Youngstown serves as model for other Rust Belt cities.
“Youngstown is losing population, and a lot of Midwest cities continue to lose population. ... How are they going to survive? We’re asking that and listening to a lot of responses,” McNamara said.
He added that Youngs-town in particular has become a prime example of a shrinking city.
“You’re sitting in a city that is in some sense of the vanguard of the shrinking-cities movement. Youngstown is just one of those cities. Not every mayor of every city wants to use the phrase shrinking. ... Other mayors like to call it ‘right-sizing’ and ‘re-inventing’ so that’s why I think Youngstown is getting a decent amount of press coverage. A lot of eyes will be watching the process,” McNamara said.
Although the right- sizing phrase is used on the mayor’s website, Williams doesn’t shy away from the word shrinking.
“The work is too difficult and important to be caught up on terminology. We are shrinking, but that doesn’t mean we have to be inferior,” Williams said.
Williams said the 2010 census, which showed a more than 18 percent decrease in population, highlights the importance of the work of city officials.
“I don’t think anyone did not expect a decline, the surprise was the rate of the decline. It underscores how important it is that we keep working and say let’s look at the shortcomings” of the 2010 Plan, he said.
The mayor said national attention from sources such as PBS has a positive effect on the city’s image.
“Blueprint America will tell not how the city rose and fell — that’s been told — but how city is coming back and becoming relevant after a cataclysmic economic collapse,” Williams said. | <urn:uuid:faf9981e-7685-4b35-aa81-d0c973fae5b2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.vindy.com/news/2011/mar/22/pbs-comes-to-city-to-film-documentary/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953954 | 1,025 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Ms Dorcas Oluoch (right) gives legal advise to a client during the legal aid clinic in Kisumu. Photo by: Martin Namasaka/KELIN
“Our legal aid clinics are not only aimed at giving legal advice with the help of pro bono advocates. They also refer some cases to relevant courts, the HIV and Equity Tribunal and to partner organisations for counselling.”
This was emphasized by Ms Belice Odamna, KELIN’s Litigation and Legal Services Officer during a Legal Aid Clinic organized by KELIN in partnership with the Law Society of Kenya (LSK) and the National Empowerment Network of People Living with HIV and AIDS in Kenya (NEPHAK) in Kibra consitutency, Nairobi, county on 19th April, 2013. A similar clinic was conducted in Kisumu county on 5th April 2013 with the support of the Open Society Foundation.
Twenty clients (13 of whom were female) including a woman with disability were attended to in Nairobi and 42 clients (29 of whom were male) in Kisumu. Most of the cases revolved around property ownership, land inheritance, and discrimination in the workplace due to one’s HIV status. Clients were advised on available forms of redress such filing their cases in courts or tribunals or tapping alternative dispute resolution mechanisms.
As the 55 new cases are being subjected to further analysis by KELIN’s Litigation and Legal Services Department, KELIN is taking on one of the cases presented during the legal aid clinics. Client Jashon, a Person Living with HIV (PLHIV), found his ancestral land, where his house stands, sold by his relatives without his knowledge and consent. The new owner has served him with an eviction notice with the intention of occupying the land.
KELIN has already asked the court to cancel the title deed issued for the piece of land which was acquired fraudulently without a grant of letters of administration in place.
The legal aid clinics ended with the recommendation on the need for more initiatives of ensuring access to justice, educating people about their rights, challenging stigma and discrimination within families, communities and the workplace in accordance with the findings of the Global Commission on HIV Law report and Article 48 of the Constitution of Kenya.
You can also follow KELIN on our Social Media Platforms for the latest news, jobs, updates, videos, info, events and much more here; | <urn:uuid:7486a97f-ebaf-4818-a4f4-219ca796b94e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://kelinkenya.org/news/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966804 | 511 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Thank you for thinking about being a referee. Whether you actively volunteered or were recruited (many of us started this way), refereeing is a great way to get involved in AYSO soccer. And it is FUN… really.
The benefits of being a referee
- You get a great view of every game you do
- You get to pick which games you want to referee
- No mid-week commitments
- Your kids will think it is cool when you go out to referee
- Did we mention it’s fun
What are the prerequisites for becoming a referee?
- We will teach you everything you need to know and give you a cool referee uniform
How do you become a referee?
1. Volunteer Online
- Go to your family profile (under the My Account tab) at www.ayso70.com
- If no one from your family has created a profile, create one here
- In the family profile, click on your name and check the Referee box, then click on the "Update Contact Information" button
- You also need to go to eAYSO.org and log on (or create a new profile if you have not logged on before)
- Click on: Apply as a new adult volunteer (for more information, click here)
- Follow the instructions. Region 70 accepts eSignatures, so you don’t need to print the information out or send it in
- Sign up for a training course in eAYSO. If you have trouble finding a course, contact the Regional Referee Administrator (email@example.com), who will help you
- All referee volunteers must complete the Safe Haven training. This can be done Online at aysotraining.org. If you have done Safe Haven as a coach, then you do not need to do it again
- To be a referee for the U6 and U8 divisions, you can take the U8 Official Course or the Basic Referee Course (if you are familiar with soccer, we recommend the Basic Referee Course over the U8 Official Course).
- To be a referee in the U10 division or higher, you must take the Basic Referee Course
- The U8 Official Course is a 4 hour in-person course. At the end of the class, you will take a short test and receive a referee t-shirt and whistle. With this U8 training, you may only officiate games up to and including the U8 division
- There are two ways to take the Basic Referee Course:
- Take an 8 hour in-person course
- Take a 2 part course involving Online training and a 3 hour in-person course (the "Basic Referee Companion Course")
- In both cases, you will take a test covering the basics of the training and receive a full referee kit, including: uniform (gold jersey, shorts & socks), whistle, flags, cards and a Regional Referee badge for your uniform
- This Regional training allows you to officiate any AYSO game
- Currently scheduled courses can be found here
- For more information about badge levels, click here
3. Go out and do some games
- The best way to get better as a referee is to do games
- In the first few weeks of the season, we have experienced referees at most fields to help guide you.
- For new Regional Referees, we recommend being an Assistant Referee (AR) for a senior referee or running your own game with a mentor present
- Mentors will provide as much (or as little) assistance as you request
Our aim is to make you as comfortable as possible on the field. Once you are comfortable on the field, you will have fun. And if you have fun, the kids will have fun.
Ways to make refereeing as easy as it can be
- At the U6-U8 levels, you may referee your own children’s game. This gives you a chance to get involved while adding no extra time commitment to your weekend
- You pick the time and date – our inLeague self-scheduling software makes this quick and simple
- Volunteer to referee the game before your child’s game. You need to turn up early for your child’s game anyway, so get there a little earlier and have them watch you (or their friends playing in your game). It’s a great way to turn the tables – ask them how you did
- Start out as an AR. It is easy and a great way to gain confidence.
- You are welcome to officiate at any age level your are certified for. Feel free to referee in divisions that your child is not in. Younger or older, it is your choice
Advance and upgrade
- The more games you do, the better you become as a referee, so we reward referees with small tokens of our appreciation as you reach milestones in each season
- Plus, we will have the occasional raffle for great prizes. The number of tickets you have in the raffle will be based on the number of games you have officiated
- As you get more comfortable refereeing, we encourage you to advance to higher divisions. Just doing a few games (even as an AR) in a higher division will make you a better referee in your division
- As your skill increases, you can take referee upgrade classes:
- Intermediate for U12
- Advanced for U14
- National for U19
- These classes teach you more about the subtleties of the Laws of the Game and how to manage the match. For information about upcoming classes, click here
Volunteers must register through the national AYSO website each year, regardless of whether you have registered and coached in prior years.
Children 10 years of age and older may become AYSO Referees (and get credit for community service). A youth referee must be 2 years older than the players they are refereeing: a 10 year old can referee up to U8, a 12 year old can referee up to U10, etc. For information on how to volunteer, contact the
Training sessions are offered for new referees, and for returning referees with experience. | <urn:uuid:ee26bf0f-c674-445a-bbf1-15650c897fb3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ayso70.org/R70Referees/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00015-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94365 | 1,282 | 1.679688 | 2 |
ITP resident researcher and sound artist Nick Yulman has expanded his Bricolo modular music system to now include melodies. By triggering a solenoid in rapid succession (on the order of microseconds) he can vary its frequency in such a way that the book cover it strikes emits tonal sounds. The result turns an object that would normally be percussive into one that plays melodies.
Nick’s solenoid is controlled with Arduino through MIDI. Although any rugged object would work, the hardcover book is interesting in that the timbre can be changed by flipping the book to different pages. Now you can rock the wah-wah on War and Peace. | <urn:uuid:d0498f54-3450-40f8-a6af-ce34d34ec641> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.makezine.com/2012/09/19/tapping-out-melodies-on-a-hardcover-book/?like=1&_wpnonce=9d779cb1c0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00012-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963404 | 140 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Record voting numbers in Mesa County
This year’s voting turn-out was the highest mesa county has ever seen.
The elections office received 96 percent of the county's votes, and that's out of the 76-thousand active voters within the area.
Mesa County was also the first county in Colorado to release returns after the polls closed Tuesday at 7 p.m.
Clerk and recorder for Mesa County, Sheila Reiner said although participation numbers were high, the voting centers did a fantastic job keeping the voting process smooth and quick.
“This election in 2012 has been like nothing I've ever seen before, or experienced before. There were so many people who were just passionate about voting in this election," said Reiner.
Reiner added that though voting numbers were record-breaking, the lines on Election Day weren't too overwhelming thanks to early voting and mail-in ballots.
Election officials are currently working on their "Thank You's" for mesa county.
Reiner wants to reiterate that it wasn't just the election staff who made voting day a huge success, it was the attitude and participation of the community as well.
Copyright 2012 KJCT. All rights reserved.
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SOURCE: HSA for America
HSA for America is releasing new information about which health insurance plans will meet the mandate to carry minimal health benefits. They will be answering questions Jan. 15 during a live teleseminar.
Fort Collins, CO (PRWEB) January 14, 2013
High deductible HSA-qualified health insurance plans with an individual deductible up to $6,000 will be sufficient to avoid a penalty for failure to maintain adequate health insurance coverage under Obamacare rules starting in January 2014. People under age 30 will be allowed to purchase catastrophic plans which do not have to meet the same requirements and are expected to be a little less expensive. The public is invited to ask questions about meeting the coverage mandate Tuesday, January 15, at 5 PM Eastern during HSA for America’s live telephone seminar.
With average premiums expected to jump from 30 to 50 percent, HSA for America is anticipating a big interest in HSA-qualified plans. “Now that people are required to purchase health insurance coverage, they’re going to be looking for the least expensive options available”, said Wiley Long, president of HSA for America. “When you count the tax benefits, there is no less expensive way to insure yourself than with a high-deductible HSA-qualified plan, and a health savings
Until state officials finalize what essential health benefits to require in coverage, it’s uncertain what premiums will be on new policies. People who have existing coverage that has been in effect since March 23, 2010 may elect to keep it. Everyone else will be required to change to one of the new plans starting on January 1.
Subsidies will be available to help those earning under 400 percent of the poverty level to purchase coverage. Those who do not purchase coverage will face a tax penalty.
Policies qualified to be combined with a health savings account (HSA) are available with various individual deductibles that meet the minimum coverage requirement. That’s called the bronze level of coverage. More extensive coverage dubbed silver, gold and platinum plans will also be available.
Many people are surprised to learn that plans allowing them to open an HSA and claim tax deductions for health-related costs actually have low out-of-pocket annual limits like $5,950 for an individual. In addition to tax deductions for expenses, an HSA lets people build savings with tax-free earnings. The savings can be used for Medicare premiums, long-term-care insurance, and other health expenses in retirement.
HSA for America hosts will be answering questions about these savings and other important health care reform considerations during the January 15 telephone seminar. You can get details on the seminar and sign up here.
About HSA for America:
As the nation's leading independent HSA expert, HSA for America has earned a reputation for providing superior educational resources for individuals, families and small businesses. With its comprehensive website, the public can evaluate high-deductible health insurance plans that allow them to establish an HSA and comply with the health care reform mandate.
Consumers may access HSA for America’s instant quote engine and online applications or request individualized assistance. Confidential consultations regarding HSA plans and Health Reimbursement Arrangements may be arranged by calling 1-866-749-2039 from 9 AM through 11 PM Eastern.
For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2013/1/prweb10311983.htm | <urn:uuid:01008631-0b82-4585-bfd9-ed1e491167d0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wtrf.com/story/20577693/hsa-for-america-takes-live-questions-on-health-savings-accounts-and-meeting-the-2014-coverage-mandate | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9415 | 755 | 1.703125 | 2 |
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By now, almost everyone who’s reading this has probably either seen Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained and loved or hated it, or feels they don’t need to see it to reach a conclusion. It’s not the sort of film to inspire a mild response. Django Unchained is a blood-soaked and bullet-fueled Spaghetti Western love story that takes on the subject of American slavery by making room for black characters in popular genre films that have predominantly been the territory of whites. Making copious use of the N-word, striking a delicate balance between the use of racial stereotypes and their dismantling, and exploding with blood, humor, violence, and pulp, Tarantino’s latest provocation, a worthy successor to the alternate history of Inglorious Basterds, leaves audiences unsure what to make of it, even as they cheer for its black hero.
Shouldn’t they despise the film for being so irreverent about the subject of slavery, which Hollywood has usually treated with sanctimonious reverence? Or does the film’s cinematic violence (both literally and generically) explode racism and bring the horror of slavery into a new, more visceral cinematic experience of the brutality of America’s role in the slave trade? I’ve seen the movie three times since it was released in December, and I have to confess that I have definitely reached the latter conclusion. I have yet to become bored with the movie. Nor have I been convinced that it’s racist or reactionary as some critics have stated. Ultimately, I see Django Unchained as a triumph against cautious liberal cinema, the safe packaging of slavery into distancing tidy narratives, and the limits typically imposed on black roles in popular Hollywood cinema. Django Unchained gives the audience a black hero who rises not only out of the abomination of slavery but out of the constraints of cinema itself.
Tarantino’s film has no pretense of being a reverent piece of historical cinema or a classic slave emancipation tale. In fact, Tarantino’s tale of slave revenge and romantic love in America’s Antebellum South intentionally disrupts history, much like its predecessor Inglorious Basterds, and blows-up the Big House of cinematic reverence to allow a mass audience to confront slavery and the role of blacks in film, thereby shining much-needed light on a very dark side of American history.
With the gun-slinging Django riding through the landscape and taking down bad white guys (and they are BAD!) to save his love and avenge his abusers, the movie does on many levels play like a mash-up of the Blaxploitation film and Spaghetti Western. Certainly, the movie contains elements of both genres, but it is also so much more. The film could be called a “Spaghetti Southern” (as Tarantino refers to it in the January 2013 issue of American Cinematographer). It takes elements of the Spaghetti Western (which features an outsider in an alien, hostile environment) and relocates them to the American South. What could be more alien in the Antebellum South than a gun-toting free cowboy black man? And what could be more hostile to this improbable icon of liberty than the white men of the South? As in a classic Western narrative, a very clear line is drawn between the “good” (the avenging slave and the man who freed him) and “evil” (the plantation owners and slave overseers) forces at play in the film, and, despite what some of Django Unchained’s critics have said, there is absolutely no doubt whatsoever about who we want to come out on top.
The black hero is Django (Jamie Foxx), a slave who is freed by a German bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz in a performance as great as the one he delivers as the slick “Jew Hunter” in Inglorious Basterds). Once freed, Django learns the trade of bounty hunting as a student to Schultz and demonstrates his sharp-shooting abilities as he plucks off any number of bad white guys with clean precision, a skill set he will eventually employ to rescue his true love Broomhilda. Following a classic fairytale structure, Django and Schultz travel to the evil kingdom (a Southern Plantation known as Candie-Land) to rescue the damsel in distress (Django’s slave wife). Leonardo DiCaprio plays the evil king/plantation owner Calvin Candie who gets his rocks off pitting slaves against each other in a blood sport known as Mandigo fighting, in which black men literally fight to the death for the entertainment of whites. And Samuel L. Jackson tears up the screen with his over-the-top performance as Stephen – the Uncle Tom “House Nigger” who is glued to Calvin Candie’s side and proves to be one of the most diabolical characters ever put on screen.
Just summarizing the main actors in the film illustrates the big can of worms contained in Django Uncained. Besides the role of an Uncle Tom, the shocking display of Mandingo fighting and Tarantino’s use of pulp genres like the Western and the Romantic Fairytale to tell a tale of the most brutal institution in American history, we have to take into consideration the use of the N-word which flies as hard and fast as bullets in this movie. I’ve already used the word in referring to Stephen as the House Nigger, and that is only one of multitudes of times the word is fired during the three hours of the movie. Some critics (most notably Spike Lee) have taken issue with Tarantino’s use of the word. How can a white man use the word “nigger” in a film?
Well, if we want to talk about the historical record, a tale of slavery in the South and the racist and violent history of the American economy would be hard to tell without including the N-word, unless the screenplay were as whitewashed as the pristine monuments to white supremacy that Southern plantations were. But whitewashed is exactly what has largely been done to the subject of slavery in film, and it’s about time that someone pulls the white sheet off the face of the subject. Shockingly, because it’s played for laughs, Django Unchained even features a sequence in which members of a proto-Klu Klux Klan are forced to do just that — pull the white bags off their heads. Revealing the ugly and brutal truth of racism means disrupting reverent expectations of the subject by mixing it up with pulp cinema, and that means deploying the N-word in rapid fire as frequently as it was used in the time. To paraphrase renowned slavery scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. from an interview he conducted with Tarantino, to tell a tale of slavery and racism in America and not use the N-word would be to lie. So if we’re going to tell the truth about slavery and racism, the N-word must be spoken. Just to be absolutely clear, then, if I use the word in this essay, it is both because I am quoting the film and the historical treatment of blacks it refuses to whitewash.
Now that I’ve addressed the N-Word, let’s take a minute to think about what exactly Django Unchained is. The film opens in a dark Texas forest with a chain-gang of slaves. The black faces of the men merge with the dark forest, their white eyes glowing in the night. Two menacing white men on horses are leading the slaves to the market to be sold. This scene sets the stage for a traditional emancipation narrative. When Dr. Schultz arrives and frees Django, the camera closes in on Django’s bloody and brutalized ankle. Django’s entire foot and ankle fill the screen as Schultz removes the shackle and “unchains” Django. Django then shucks off his tattered blanket, bares his whip-scarred back and raises his arms in a gesture of freedom and vengeance (e.g. Black Power).
Certainly Django’s scarred and muscle-bound body could be seen as both a fetish object and a stereotype in this scene. This represents the traditional role of black men in film (when they’re not playing subservient emasculated “House Niggers” like Samuel Jackson’s Stephen). If Tarantino shows us this startling and unpleasant image, however, it is in order to set in motion a narrative that will undo racial stereotypes and cinematic expectations. He first creates the stereotypical scenario (the emancipated slave narrative), and then he dumps the black character into untraditional roles (the cowboy, the Western buddy, the chivalrous romantic hero).
Part of the reason Django Unchained succeeds in emancipating itself from the constraints of cautious liberal cinema and its safe historical distancing of the subject of slavery is by emancipating its main character from the trappings of traditional black roles in film. It undoes racial stereotypes by first exposing them and then either dismantling them by creating untraditional roles (Django) or blowing them up entirely (Stephen). Once Django shucks off that blanket and lifts his arms, he also shucks off the traditional emancipation story and everything that is expected from a “safe” film about slavery. Crucially, Django’s role isn’t so much to free the slaves as it is to free the image of the slave from the shackles of both the racism of classic Hollywood narratives and the political correctness of the post-Civil Rights Era.
Once Django Unchained leaves behind the traditional slave emancipation story, the story takes us through a variety of cinematic genres drenched with plenty of blood and humor as Django’s character develops and ultimately triumphs. Django Unchained uses popular pulp genres to take on the deadly serious subject of slavery and the bloody history of the American South. While some have criticized the film for turning the somber subject of slavery into pulp entertainment, the very fact that Django Unchained traffics in “low” stereotypes is what makes it effective. As we follow Django on his mission to save his wife through Tarantino’s network of pulp genres, not only do we grow to identify with Django, but we are able to share in his victory. Sure, guns are fired, walls are splattered with blood, jokes are made, and visceral violence plays before us, but through pulp, violence, and traditional popular narrative devices, Tarantino erases the cautious distance between the audience and his movie’s slave hero. We are able to feel, see and experience slavery without the desensitizing insulation of identity politics. This collapses the distance between the superficial safety of our times and the brutal reality of our history, making the horrors of the past more viscerally real than when they are neatly packaged in cautious historically accurate cinema.
To simply read Django Unchained as a slave revenge/blaxploitation/Western mash-up would short-change all the genre bending the film does to 1) effectively blow the fuck out of black roles in film and 2) make the audience identify with and cheer for the film’s black hero. When Django mounts one of his former captor’s horses and rides into a small Texas town with his emancipator Schultz, the film shifts gears, moving into the territory of the Spaghetti Western. We’ve seen this town before, its old wooden buildings and dirt-filled streets situated in the barren landscape between nowhere and nowhere else. White people walk out of buildings and stand on sidewalks shocked and outraged at the sight of Django riding on a horse alongside Schultz. One of the townspeople whispers, “Look! It’s a nigger on a horse!” When Schultz questions what their problem is, Django blatantly says, “They just ain’t used to seeing a nigger on a horse.”
The doubling of this line, first from the white woman and then from the black man is funny and the audience laughs, but it’s also damn true. Not only are the people in the town not used to seeing “a nigger on a horse,” but neither is the Hollywood audience. The Western is a white man’s genre, but Django rides his horse right through the genre when he rides into the town. This is partly how the film destabilizes white packaging of race in movies and in American history. When Schultz and Django force the town to accept the “nigger on the horse” because he is there as part of “legal business,” the audience also is being asked to accept him. And the audience does. All three times I saw the movie, everyone in the audience – black, white, old, young – cheered for this “nigger on a horse.”
It turns out that Schultz doesn’t just unshackle Django out of the goodness of his heart. Schultz purchases Django (and ultimately his freedom) because it is within his economic interest. Schultz is a bounty hunter, and he needs Django to identify three dirty, rotten overseers – the Brittle Brothers – for whom there is a large bounty on their heads. Django knows the Brittle brothers from his former plantation, because they are the men responsible for whipping him and his beloved wife Broomhilda. Schultz tells Django that he abhors the institution of slavery, but that even he will use it for his economic advantage. Since he “owns” Django, he insists that Django work for him to identify the men who have a large price tag on their heads. When Django asks what a bounty hunter does, Schultz explains that he’s “in the business of selling corpses.”
Coupling bounty hunting with slavery is brilliant. The pairing of these two businesses that trade in human lives underscores the business of violence in this country and the bloody legacy of the American economic landscape. Slavery was an atrocity, an abomination, a dehumanizing and brutal institution that was perceived as acceptable because it was good for “business.” It fueled one of the most successful economic enterprises in American history – cotton. Interestingly, Tarantino also shows how the race card can be thrown out the window, when it is within the economic interest of whites. Everything comes down to business. When Schultz realizes that Django is a perfect shot and that he would make an excellent business partner in the bounty hunting business, race becomes transparent between the two characters.
On the one hand, Schultz plays the role of teacher and liberator to Django, but on the other he treats Django with the equanimity that he would any other business partner. Schultz uses Django’s racial rage and taste for vengeance to his economic advantage. When Django learns what bounty hunting is and agrees to be Schultz’s partner, he says quite simply: “Killing white people for money? What’s not to like?” With Django’s help, the two hunt down the Brittle brothers, kill them, collect their bounty and formally enter a business partnership as well as a friendship.
It must be noted that “business” is at the bottom of much of the action in this movie, and with it the idea that race can become transparent when the money is good. Later in the film, even virulently racist plantation owners are forced to reluctantly accept Django – “the nigger on a horse” – because he is legitimized through the economic transactions in which Schultz includes him – slave trading, bounty hunting, etc. In a scene toward the end of the movie, Django is being transported to a mine where he is supposed to spend the rest of his life breaking down big rocks into little rocks. When Django offers his captors a way to earn $10,000 while he only requires $500 of it for himself, the men immediately free Django because it appears to be within their economic interest to so.
Underneath all this business, however, is the business of slavery, the abhorrent institution that was the backbone of the Antebellum Southern economy. While it may be in the economic interest of plantation owners to treat Django with respect, it is also in their economic interest to make sure that this treatment remains the exception to the rule of the color line. The veneer of civilized behavior that encompasses Django in his roles as bounty hunter and prospective Mandingo trader stands in blatant contrast to the brutal way in which the slaves all around him are dealt with (being fed to dogs or forced to fight to the death). Django’s safety depends on performing the role of exception without ever seeming to be upset by the treatment of his fellow blacks.
In one scene, as Django and Schultz are traveling to Candie’s plantation — which is known, in an example of the “black” humor that spatters the picture, as “Candie-Land” — under the guise of wanting to invest in the Mandingo trade, Schultz pulls Django aside and cautions him that he is playing his role of Slave Trader a little too exuberantly. Django reminds Schultz that their relationship is based on the bloody and violent business of bounty hunting in which Schultz had Django shoot a man and kill him in front of his son; that, in Schultz’s own words, they are in the “business of getting dirty.” This formulation provides Django his punch line, as well as an implicit response to those who accuse the film of being too violent: “So I’m getting dirty.”
Indeed, we are reminded time and again that American business is dirty and bloody. When Django shoots one of the Brittle brothers, his blood bursts across the screen spraying the fields of white cotton with red, literally showing the bloody business of the cotton industry and the slave trade that fueled it. In one of the most violent scenes in the movie, Candie sets his dogs on a slave and has him ripped apart in front of Django, Schultz, and the audience. Prior to killing the slave for refusing to participate in another Mandingo match (a fight to the death between black men in which white men gamble on the outcome, not unlike a cockfight), Candie berates the slave for being a bad business investment. He says, “I paid $500 for you, and I expect five fights for my $500. You only gave me three fights.” So Candie savagely disposes of his bad investment, while at the same time putting his economic investment in Schultz and Django to the test by observing how they react to the brutal slaying of the slave. When Candie notes that Schultz looks a little “green around the gills,” Django answers, “I’m just a little more used to America than he is.” In this sense Django literally embodies the violence of America.
Though Schultz and Django’s relationship starts first as slave and slave holder and then as business partners in the bloody business of bounty hunting, the racial divide between the characters soon evaporates, and the film shifts into a buddy movie. With Jim Croce singing “I Got A Name” in the background, the film moves to the mountains of Wyoming where Django and Schultz bond as buddies via the kind of montage familiar to fans of the Mountain Western. Images of the two of them riding their horses across the expansive Rocky Mountains, target-shooting on a snowman, and taking down their bounties as fountains of blood spurt in glorious red across the snowy background showcase a relationship as cinematically romanticized as Django and Hildy’s.
This segment of the film (the buddy film/mountain narrative) undoes traditional white narratives as much as the Spaghetti Western component, playing off another subgenre popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the mountain survival adventure. The friendship between Schultz and Django is really sealed after Django shoots his first bounty, and Schultz exclaims, “The kid’s a natural!” This clearly references Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, the archetypal Western Buddy Romance of that era. But instead of giving us two rugged white male sex symbols, Paul Newman (Butch Cassidy) and Robert Redford (The Kid), Tarantino provides us with two figures who are clearly outsiders in this landscape, a foreigner and a black man. This deviation from tradition radically destabilizes the romantic view of the West held by so many American conservatives and liberals alike, in which both the otherness of excessively refined men the East Coast and the Old World and that of the “savage” Natives (and black men) are held at bay by heroic white men.
The Wyoming sequence also references another Robert Redford film, Jeremiah Johnson, in which a veteran of the Mexican-American war flees to the Rocky Mountains, adopts a family, finds his wife and son slain by Native Americans, seeks vengeance and then ultimately finds reconciliation. It’s the reverse tale of Django Unchained, in which Django is the “colored” person seeking vengeance against the white man. In Jeremiah Johnson, the white man seeks vengeance against “the colored” only to have to accept that the white man really is the “violating other.” Referencing these Robert Redford films through a black slave narrative ruptures the white romantic view of the West (of which Redford is the ultimate icon ) and also underscores the persistent violence of America (both movies are bloody, violent and tragic). Violence is nothing new in America, and keeping it safely tucked away in romanticized narratives of the West or historical reverence masks the fact that the entire country’s economic backbone is based on violence (see blood-splattered cotton for details).
During their trip through the snowy mountains, Schultz tells Django the classic German fairytale of Siegfried and Broomhilda (after whom Django’s slave wife was named) – a young woman who is captured by the evil king and saved by her beloved – and the movie shifts gears again. Now Schultz and Django are on a different mission in which the fairytale meets the horror story of America’s bloody past. They travel into the Dark Kingdom of the Deep South as they head to Mississippi to free Broomhilda from her evil captor Calvin Candie. Setting a Western in the South and mixing in classic fairytale elements, the movie further undoes the roles of blacks in cinema by referencing gothic romance films, melodrama, and a chivalrous love story, none of which have ever been the sources of traditional black feature films. Further, the film uses elements of these genres to explode traditional romantic ideals of the American South and expose the brutality and blood that made its opulence possible.
The American South was created and fed on lies and exploitation. It prided itself on a false romantic identity from instituting ludicrous codes of chivalry to considering itself a Feudal society in which plantation owners were akin to landholding kings entitled to trade and exploit slaves for their economic gain. When Schultz and Django are situated in the South (in an earlier scene at Big Daddy’s plantation and later on the Candie-Land plantation), the cinematography fluctuates between sweeping romantic visions of the South and intensely close-up and unsettling violence.
One of the biggest jokes in the film is the outfit that Django chooses to wear when he and Schultz hit their first plantation as business partners. When Schultz tells Django he can pick his “costume” to play his role of “valet,” Django dons a blue satin costume that mimics the attire of in the 18th-century Thomas Gainsborough painting “Blue Boy”. The outfit seems ridiculously funny, but Django wears it like a dare and a weapon, understanding on some level that the outfit is violating all kinds of racial codes (in the movies and in the South). It emblemizes the way in which this black character is disrupting traditional white narratives and dismantling the romantic view of the South. In a way, it’s also the perfect metaphor for Tarantino’s filmmaking strategy in Django Unchained, so wrong in breaking with every social convention that it’s deliciously right. Because the outfit is also blatantly anachronistic — the Gainsborough painting appears to depict someone playing “dress up” in a 17th-century outfit — it alerts us to the fact that Tarantino’s movie — though it doesn’t deviate from the historical record as obviously as Inglorious Basterds, with its climax in which Jewish American soldiers assassinate Hitler — is not striving for the sort of accuracy fetishized in reverential historical films like Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln.
In the first scene set in the Deep South, when Schultz and Django travel to Big Daddy’s Tennessee plantation in search of the Brittle Brothers, the landscape is shown through the hazy diffused glow of a romantic painting. Django rides onto the plantation in his ludicrous blue satin outfit, seemingly the butt of everyone’s joke. He’s still that “nigger on a horse” but is now inside a different painting in which he doesn’t belong. For precisely that reason, though, Django is a force who simply cannot be ignored. Earlier in the film, Django experienced a brutal flashback of Hildy being whipped by the Brittle brothers. Django is on the scene to take vengeance, and the seriousness of the crimes committed against him and the woman he loves and his drive for vengeance clearly overrides the “joke” of his out of place character. As he walks across the plantation to find the Brittle brothers (where they are preparing to whip a slave girl for breaking eggs), we see more of the plantation through this pastoral lens, with the luscious green of the plantation interspersed with slave girls on swings. But Django is having none of it.
When he finds the Brittle brothers tying the girl to a tree, all romance of the South is ripped away as Django’s rage is unleashed. He shoots one brother right through a page of the Bible pinned to his chest (the white man’s religious justification for brutalizing a black woman and a short effective shot at the connection between religion, racism and violence in America). Django then picks up the whip and with unfettered ferocity whips the living shit out of the other brother. Shot from a low camera angle, the audience looks up at Django asa his whip comes down on the white overseer, and we occupy the place of the white man being whipped and are therefore the recipients of Django’s rage. However, rather than feeling victimized by Django’s violent attack on the white man, the audience feels exuberant and elated, despite the savagery of the beating. We are made to “feel” the extent of Django’s rage and the injustices committed against him and all slaves by being on the receiving end of the whip. During all three screenings of the film, the audience around me was both horrified and invigorated by this scene. Everyone cheered for Django, while at the same time gasping at the magnitude of his rage. It is a brilliant scene that allows the audience to occupy simultaneously the place of the black and white man. This brings me back to my point about how Django Unchained undoes Hollywood’s tendency to produce reverent and therefore safe movies about slavery. Nothing about this scene is reverent or safe. But there’s also nothing in it that paints Django as a victim. By exploding the conventions of the cautious cinema which tends to portray oppressed people as victims, the scene unequivocally establishes Django as the hero of the film.
Later, when Django and Schultz travel to Mississipi, this same fluctuating technique is used to make the audience experience 1) the brutality of slavery; 2) the explosion of the romantic Southern ideal; and 3) the victory of Django over his oppressors. When Calvin Candie enters the picture, the movie employs lusciously orchestrated scenes shot like sprawling melodramas. (Significantly, Tarantino has stated that his main cinematic reference for the interior shots in Mississippi was that master of the lusciously rich melodrama Max Ophuls.) But then the action cuts through all of that opulence with bloodshed and tragedy.
First there is the Mandingo fight at the Cleopatra Club, where Candie and the original Django (in a cameo by Franco Nero from the 1966 Sergio Corbucci film) watch two slaves fight to the brutal death. The camera alternates between pulling back and panning the rich opulence of the club’s interior, and closing in on the absolutely brutal flesh-on-flesh fighting between the two slaves. Blood, gore, violence and brutality meet manners and the sham of civility as Candie eggs on the fighters to kill each other. One man rips the other’s eyes out and then takes a hammer and “finishes him off” by bashing in his skull. The scene is unsettling in its violent content alone, but it is particularly effective because its ugliness (the dehumanizing violence of the slave trade) is found within an outwardly elegant setting.
When the group finally makes it to Candie-Land, further romantic myths come crashing down even as the romance of Django triumphs. First, we see the romantic image of Hildy shattered by the reality of her literal body being abused by the institution of slavery. Up to this point, (except for the flashback of her being whipped by the Brittle brothers) we have only seen Hildy through the romantic filter of Django’s flashbacks and hallucinations. She’s been a picture of the romantic ideal – smiling naked in a steaming lake in the mountains, wearing a yellow gown and waving to Django as he passes her on his horse, sitting beautifully dressed at a sun filtered table pronouncing her name (“Broomhilda, but they call me Hildy.”) But when we actually meet the “real” Hildy at Candie-Land, she is a runaway slave who has been thrown into a “hot box,” a kind of coffin where she has been sentenced to stay for ten days. Candie has her naked body pulled from the box, hosed down, and carted off in a wheelbarrow. By juxtaposing the romantic cinematic image of her — Django has just had more hallucinations of her in the yellow dress upon entering the plantation’s grounds — with the brutality of her “real” circumstances, the dehumanizing forces of slavery are brought devastatingly home. The image of her naked body stuffed into a wheelbarrow and carted across the sprawling lawn of the plantation is heartbreaking as we witness the intersection of the tidy grounds of the plantation colliding with the bloody and violent practices of the institution they stand for.
It is at the Candie plantation where Tarantino takes on another taboo subject within the institution of slavery: social stratification within the institution of slavery itself (“house niggers” versus “field niggers”) and between slaves and free men. Note that Schultz gives Django the surname of Freeman. The way in which blacks were pitted against each other within the brutal environment of slavery and the abominations that resulted are delivered most effectively through the “Uncle Tom” character of Stephen, played with diabolical relish by Samuel L. Jackson. The creation and destruction of Stephen’s role — he serves as a kind of foreman for Candie, keeping the other slaves in line — is critical to the liberation of Django and what he represents for blacks in movies and in cultural representation in general.
Jackson’s Stephen is a despicable traitor, glued to the side of his master Candie. He’ll sell-out anyone for his own benefit and security in “The Big House.” He holds onto a position of power even as a slave while he pulls strings and sets the film’s violent conclusion in motion. It is Stephen who advocates keeping Hildy in the “hot box”, who attempts to treat Django like a lower species (even though he shares the same black skin as Stephen), and who ultimately sells out “his own” to try to hold onto the position he has created for himself as an autonomous man of power. The house slaves fear Stephen as much as, if not more than, their real “master” Candie.
Stephen is a “race traitor” to cover his own ass, while Django plays the fictional role of “slave trader” to emancipate his love and himself. With Stephen and Django, Tarantino give us showdown where the baddest black man in the south goes against the biggest black sell-out. For Django to be the real hero and victor, he needs to kill that Uncle Tom and everything he stands for. When Tarantino asked Jackson if he minded playing Stephen, Jackson answered: “Do I have any problem playing the most despicable black motherfucker in the history of the world? No, I ain’t got no problem with that. No, man, I’m already in it. I’m working with my makeup guy now about the hair, the skin tone. I want this man to be fresh off the boat.”
Jackson takes the role and runs with it. He literally has his face painted darker so he can play the role in “black face”, thereby reminding is of the virulent racism evident in so many classic Hollywood films. Stephen’s role as it plays against Django and other characters within the film open up even more taboo subjects within American history and, more specifically, the history of cinema by showing that it’s not all black and white and that contention and class stratification existed for African-Americans during the era of slavery. This is a subject rarely addressed in popular cinema, where everything plays in diametric opposites, good and evil, nor is it addressed in reverent historical cinema where clear lines between victim and abuser are tidily maintained.
The extended dinner scene inside Candie’s Big House is brilliant. Merging Ophul’s melodramas with an ode to Fassbinder’s Whity, Hong Kong action movies and the Western, the scene builds with operatic tension. When Stephen exposes Schultz and Django as frauds, the shit and the blood hit the fan in a complex play between characters. Even though Schultz and Django eventually get what they came for (Hildy) for a very steep price ($14,000), that proves to be insufficient. Schultz needs to pay his own form of vengeance. In a way, Schultz is the cautious observant liberal, sympathetic but on some level clueless when he is first confronted with the ugly and brutal reality of slavery. When his remaining illusions are shattered and he has to accept his role in the violence he has witnessed, such as the execution of Candie’s reluctant Mandingo, Schultz shoots Candie through the heart. In a way, this is an act of suicide as well as vengeance because 1) Schultz can’t live with the truth he has had to face and 2) he understands that he has to die and sacrifice himself so that Django (his “buddy”) can truly liberate himself.
In the story, Schultz has no human connection other than to Django. He has no back story, no wife, or family. All of Schultz’s emotions are reflected through Django, so when he sacrifices himself for Django, he sacrifices himself for “love,” yet another twist in the melodramatic narrative. This realization is brought to the fore when Stephen runs in slow motion screaming in horror and grief at the murder of his master Candie, who, while hardly his buddy, serves as his equivalent love interest. So the two white men have died, and the two black men are left to fight for control.
And Django does fight. In an amazing sequence of flying bullets and bloodshed (the Hong Kong action sequence in the film), Django kills man after man in a shootout that leaves the white walls of the Big House literally dripping with blood, a painting in viscera and gore that literalizes the blood-soaked history of the United States. You’d think the movie would end here, but it doesn’t. In an unsettling turn, Django surrenders to save Hildy’s life. The movie abruptly cuts from Django as gun-fighting victor taking down bad white guys to a scene where we witness him hung naked upside down like a piece of cattle ready to be slaughtered. Django’s face is in a metal cage as he swings across the screen, his naked body, genitals included, exposed for us to see. This is by far the most unsettling scene in the film because we have cheered Django through his triumphs. We’ve followed Django on his quest and rooted for him with each shot of his gun only to see his humanity and his power stripped away from him.
We’ve watched Django transform into a hero, only to witness him hung-up like so much meat. When Candie’s henchman starts to take a molten hot knife to Django’s balls, the emasculation of the black man by the abhorrent institution of slavery becomes painfully literal and tragic. This scene is as effective as the scene with the whip when we are asked to feel Django’s rage, because by this point we fully identify with Django as the hero of the film. When his humanity is so brutally stripped away and the ugly truth of slavery stares us in the face, we wince and feel the horror of slavery more than we ever would in a safely whitewashed historical drama.
Thankfully, Django’s nuts are rescued when Stephen steps into the picture. Ironically, the Uncle Tom figure proves to be Django’s savior because he wants his enemy to suffer a painful captivity rather than risk him bleeding to death from being castrated. Stephen encourages Candie’s sister Laura to send the rebel off to a mine where he is destined to spend the rest of his days reduced to being a number chiseling away at rocks. When Django receives his sentence from the treacherous Stephen, we remember that this fate is pretty much the sentence of all slaves in the country. They were numbers who worked until they died or were killed. But this is not Django’s fate, because Tarantino has made a romantic love story with a black hero who must prevail. Unlike, traditional Westerns, Django is not out only for himself. He finds a way to make it back to Candie-Land to save his love and to avenge his race by blowing the fuck out of the plantation, Stephen’s Uncle Tom character, and everything they stand for in American history and cinema.
The three times I watched the movie, the entire audience – black, white, old and young – cheered for its black hero when he victoriously saves his girl and blows up the white world of slavery. Django is unequivocally the hero of this movie. Much fuss has been made about the screenplay and how Christoph Waltz and Leonardo DiCaprio supposedly steal the film and have all the dialogue while Jamie Foxx just hulks around scowling. I’m sorry, but if Jamie Foxx wasn’t doing an effective job acting, then we would not be cheering for him as he blows up a Southern plantation and rides off into the sunset with the love of his life. Django/Jamie Foxx is the catalyst of the film despite how many lines of dialogue the white actors have. We have to remember that he is playing a black man in the white dominated South, so it is a world where white people do most of the talking.
Schultz may have more lines, but he is not the hero of this film. It is Django who the audience cheers for. Every time Django puts his hand on his gun, absorbs his surroundings, acts according to the circumstances into which he is thrust, or takes down a bad guy, Jamie Foxx is acting and we are rooting for him. Acting isn’t just talking. Foxx creates a character who we care about through body language, eye movement, and dialogue. At the end of the movie, we would not have the same response of victory and elation if Schultz were the one to free Hildy. It has to be our hero Django, and Jamie Foxx makes us care about him.
Others have criticized the movie for being a “mainstream Hollywood” production. But I have to ask: don’t we want a mass audience to revisit slavery with a black hero rather than keeping the subject safely tucked away in reverent historical narratives that holds slaves captive in the role of victims? Reverence distances us from the subject; it has the potential to dehumanize its subjects and turn people into victims which then become a cause. By placing his story in the guise of a western romance and using pulp as the medium to deliver the story, Tarantino turns the victim into the victor. Put the history of slavery into a Western Romance story, load it up with guns and revenge, bring the camera in for close-ups on the violence and atrocities of slavery, give us a black hero who takes out a shitload of white oppressors and a movie can reach audiences across the racial divide. We can experience an abominable time in American history in a new light, one that exposes where we came from, acknowledging the blood-soaked history of a country that was built on the “business” of slaughter and human trade, but still leaves us with hope for the future.
Some have also argued that Django Unchained is irreverent cinema that disrespects the seriousness of slavery. After all, the film does explode with gunfire, blood, brutal violence and uproarious humor, all communicated through the sort of genre mash-up for which Tarantino is famous. But it is because Django Unchained disrupts reverent historical cinema that it is able to bring a new awareness of the brutality of slavery to the millions of people who are going to see it, black and white. In Django Unchained we’re laughing; we’re horrified; we’re disoriented; and we’re soaked with a lot of blood. But the whole while, the audience’s allegiance never fades. We want Django to win.
Yes, in Tarantino’s film, there are slaves in shackles, being whipped, wearing cruel devices, strung up by their ankles, chained and marching through mud, but as black slavery scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. notes, things were “Ten thousand times worse in real slavery.” If the film barters in stereotypes to fit this terrible legacy into a story that mass audiences will want to see, it is in order to deconstruct them in the way Americans know best: by blowing the living shit out of them.
Since Reconstruction, we have had plenty of somber stories of slavery where the subject is held at safe historical distance. Slavery was the brutal, ugly, inhuman, cruel, sadistic exploitation of black human beings for the economic benefit of American whites. There is not one thing about it that is pretty, tidy or easily packaged. Traditionally, this abomination of American history has been treated with reverence and neatly packaged in acceptable narratives. It has been approached with caution because it is such an abominable part or our history and is the source of many taboos. We have only been able to look at it through the safe lens of historical narratives or politically correct identity politics.
But walking the cautious line of politically correct films does not affect change. It only tells us the same story on a different day. Sure, Tarantino turns what has been perceived as the acceptable cinematic packaging of slavery on its head. Yes, he has created a film for mass audiences, one which is as entertaining as it is repulsive, but in the process he has raised more consciousness about the reality of American history than cautious liberal cinema ever could. In the end, Django Unchained is effective precisely because it is not safe. It places slavery within the broader context of culture, cinema and history, dismantling traditional roles of blacks and the cautious representations of slavery they sustain. Django Unchained packs a punch that is hard to take, yet impossible to resist, and in doing so delivers truly transgressive and effective cinema for the masses.
Kim Nicolini is an artist, poet and cultural critic living in Tucson, Arizona. Her writing has appeared in Bad Subjects, Punk Planet, Souciant, La Furia Umana, and The Berkeley Poetry Review. She recently published her first book, Mapping the Inside Out, in conjunction with a solo gallery show by the same name. She can be reached at firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:ab5df917-3179-46b2-bcb1-d092cef6d884> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/01/11/blowing-the-pulp-out-of-dixie/print | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959848 | 9,342 | 1.625 | 2 |
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