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Clinton blames “backwards” voters for loss to Trump
Hillary Clinton has blamed heron the “middle” of America, which she accused of “looking backwards.” Her remarks, which have been seized upon by conservative commentators as “dismissing America’s Heartland,” were made to an audience in Mumbai, India, on Saturday.
Describing election maps from November 2016, which showed most of the central United States, with the exception of big cities, voting for Mr. Trump, Clinton said: “All that red in the middle, where Trump won, what the map doesn’t show you is that I won the places that represent two-thirds of America’s gross domestic product. So I won the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward.”
She said Mr. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign “was looking backwards,” playing on what she said were feelings in the non-urban United States of voters who “didn’t like black people getting rights,” or women getting jobs.
That rhetoric drew a harsh rebuke from the “GOP War Room” channel on YouTube, which labelled her comments as “Dismissing America’s Heartland to a foreign audience.”
Clinton won the popular vote by almost 3 million votes, but under the U.S. Electoral College system, each state gets one vote for each member of Congress representing the state. Clinton’s loss of key states in the electoral college, including Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, shocked both her own campaign and many political observers.
Clinton, who continues to tour the world promoting her book, “What Happened,” on her failed presidential bid, has previously blamed FBI Director James Comey and Russian intervention in the election for her shocking loss to Mr. Trump.
“I was on the way to winning until the combination of Jim Comey’s letter on October 28 and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me, but got scared off,” she told an international women’s summit in New York in May of last year.
Clinton was on a private trip to India this week, which saw her give several speeches on both the U.S. election and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s policies in the Asian nation.
© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. | <urn:uuid:d31f4715-4792-4cf6-83d2-2700d60973c5> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.wcbi.com/clinton-blames-backwards-voters-for-loss-to-trump/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571502.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811194507-20220811224507-00071.warc.gz | en | 0.973523 | 515 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Little Shop of Horrors (musical)
|Little Shop of Horrors|
Original Cast Album
|Basis||The Little Shop of Horrors
by Charles B. Griffith
1983 West End
2004 US National Tour
2006 West End Revival
2009 UK Tour
2016 UK Tour
|Awards||Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical
Drama Desk Award for Best Musical
Outer Critics Circle Award
Evening Standard Award for Best Musical
Little Shop of Horrors is a horror comedy rock musical, by composer Alan Menken and writer Howard Ashman, about a hapless florist shop worker who raises a plant that feeds on human blood and flesh. The musical is based on the low-budget 1960 black comedy film The Little Shop of Horrors. The music, composed by Menken in the style of early 1960s rock and roll, doo-wop and early Motown, includes several well-known tunes, including the title song, "Skid Row (Downtown)", "Somewhere That's Green", and "Suddenly, Seymour".
The musical premiered Off-Off-Broadway in 1982 before moving to the Orpheum Theatre Off-Broadway, where it had a five-year run. It later received numerous productions in the U.S. and abroad, and a subsequent Broadway production. Because of its small cast and relatively simple orchestrations, it has become popular with community theatre, school and other amateur groups. The musical was also made into a 1986 film of the same name, directed by Frank Oz.
- 1 Synopsis
- 2 Original production
- 3 Musical numbers
- 4 Differences between the 1960 film and stage musical
- 5 Subsequent productions
- 6 Audrey II puppets
- 7 Adaptations
- 8 Notes
- 9 References
- 10 External links
An offstage voice recalls a time when the human race "suddenly encountered a deadly threat to its very existence". A trio of 1960s street urchins named Crystal, Ronette, and Chiffon set the scene ("Little Shop of Horrors") and comment on the action throughout the show. Seymour Krelborn is a poor young man, an orphan living in an urban skid row. Audrey is a pretty blonde with a fashion sense that leans towards the tacky. They lament their stations in life and the urban blight in their neighborhood ("Skid Row (Downtown)"). They are co-workers at Mushnik's Skid Row Florists, a run-down flower shop owned and operated by the cranky Mr. Mushnik. Seymour has recently obtained a mysterious plant that looks like a large venus flytrap. While he was browsing the wholesale flower district, a sudden eclipse of the sun occurred, and when the light returned, the weird plant had appeared ("Da-Doo"). Seymour is secretly in love with Audrey and names the plant Audrey II in her honor.
The plant does not thrive in its new environment and appears to be dying. Seymour questions why it should be doing poorly, since he takes such good care of it. He accidentally pricks his finger on a rose thorn, which draws blood, and Audrey II's pod opens thirstily. Seymour realizes that Audrey II requires blood to survive and allows the plant to suckle from his finger ("Grow For Me"). As Audrey II grows, it becomes an attraction and starts generating brisk business for Mushnik. As the caretaker of the plant, the timid Seymour is suddenly regarded as a hero ("Ya Never Know"). He is elated to find out that Audrey secretly returns his feelings and wishes to leave her abusive boyfriend. Her dream is to lead an ideal suburban life with Seymour, complete with a tract home, frozen dinners, and plastic on the furniture ("Somewhere That's Green").
Meanwhile, the employees at Mushnik's are sprucing up the flower shop because of the popularity of the rapidly growing Audrey II and the revenue that it is bringing in ("Closed for Renovation"). Orin Scrivello, a sadistic dentist, is Audrey's abusive boyfriend. Modeled after the "Leader of the pack" characters of the 1950s, Orin drives a motorcycle, wears leather, and enjoys bringing other people pain ("Dentist!"). Orin encourages Seymour to take the plant and get out of Skid Row. Realizing that his store's sudden profitability is completely dependent on the plant (and therefore on Seymour), Mushnik takes advantage of Seymour's innocence by offering to adopt him and make him a full partner in the business ("Mushnik and Son"). Having always wanted a family, Seymour accepts, even though Mushnik has always yelled at him and treated him poorly.
Meanwhile, Seymour is having difficulty providing enough blood to keep Audrey II healthy. When Seymour stops feeding the plant, Audrey II reveals that it can speak. It demands blood and promises that, if fed, it will make sure that all of Seymour's dreams come true ("Feed Me (Git It)"). Seymour initially refuses, but he then witnesses Orin abusing Audrey. The plant presents this as a justification for killing Orin. Not realizing that he is being manipulated again, Seymour gives in to his baser instincts and agrees. He sets up a late-night appointment with Orin, intending to kill him. However, Seymour loses his nerve and decides not to commit the crime. Unfortunately for Orin, who is getting high on nitrous oxide, the gas device is stuck in the "on" position, and he overdoses while asking Seymour to save him. Seymour cannot bring himself to shoot Orin but lets him die of asphyxiation ("Now (It's Just The Gas)"). Seymour feeds Orin's body to the now huge Audrey II, and the plant consumes it with ravenous glee ("Act I Finale").
The beginning of the last chorus of "Suddenly, Seymour", performed by Kerry Butler and Hunter Foster on the 2003 Broadway revival cast recording.
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The flower shop is much busier, and Seymour and Audrey have trouble keeping up with the onslaught of orders ("Call Back in the Morning"). Audrey confides to Seymour that she feels guilty about Orin's disappearance, because she secretly wished it. The two admit their feelings for one another, and Seymour promises that he will protect and care for Audrey from now on ("Suddenly, Seymour"). The two plan to leave together and start a new life, although Seymour mistakenly attributes Audrey's feelings to his newfound fame, not realizing that she loved him even before he found the plant.
Before they can go, Mushnik confronts Seymour about Orin's death. Mushnik has put two and two together: the bloody dentist's uniform, the drops of blood on the floor, and he has seen Seymour and Audrey kissing. Seymour denies killing Orin, but Mushnik wants him to give a statement to the police, who have begun investigating. Audrey II tells Seymour that he has to be rid of Mushnik or he will lose everything, including Audrey ("Suppertime"). Seymour tells Mushnik that he put the days' receipts inside Audrey II for safekeeping. Mushnik climbs inside the plant's gaping maw to search for the money, realizing the deception too late, and screams as he is devoured. Seymour now runs the flower shop and reporters, salesman, lawyers and agents approach him, promising him fame and fortune. Although tempted by the trappings of his success, Seymour realizes that it is only a matter of time before Audrey II will kill again and that he is morally responsible. He considers destroying the plant but believing that his fame is the only thing that is earning him Audrey's love, he is unable to do so ("The Meek Shall Inherit").
As Seymour works on his speech for a lecture tour, Audrey II again squalls for blood. Seymour threatens to kill it just as Audrey walks in asking when Mushnik will return from visiting his "sick sister". Seymour learns that Audrey would still love him without the fame and decides that Audrey II must die after the scheduled LIFE magazine interview at the shop. Audrey is confused and frightened by Seymour's ramblings, but she runs home by his order. That night, unable to sleep and distressed by Seymour's strange behavior, Audrey goes to the flower shop to talk with him. He is not there, and Audrey II begs her to water him. Not sensing the mortal danger, she approaches to water it, and a vine wraps around her and pulls her into the plant's gaping maw ("Sominex/Suppertime II"). Seymour arrives and attacks the plant in an attempt to save Audrey. He pulls her out, but Audrey is mortally wounded and tells him to feed her to the plant after she dies so that they can always be together. She dies in his arms, and he reluctantly honors her request ("Somewhere That's Green" (reprise)). Seymour falls asleep as Audrey II grows small red flower buds.
The next day, Patrick Martin from the World Botanical Enterprises tells Seymour that his company wishes to take leaf cuttings of Audrey II and sell them across America. Seymour realizes the plant's evil plan: during the solar eclipse, Audrey II came from an unknown planet to conquer Earth. He tries shooting, cutting, and poisoning the plant, but it has grown too hardy to kill. Seymour, in desperation, runs into its open jaws with a machete planning to kill it from the inside, but he is quickly eaten. Patrick, Crystal, Ronette, and Chiffon search for Seymour. Not finding him, Patrick tells the girls to take the cuttings.
Crystal, Ronette, and Chiffon relate that, following these events, other plants appeared across America, tricking innocent people into feeding them blood in exchange for fame and fortune. Out of the fog, Audrey II, bigger than ever, appears with opened new flowers revealing the faces of Seymour, Audrey, Mushnik and Orin, who beg that, no matter how persuasive the plants may be, they must not be fed ("Finale Ultimo: Don't Feed the Plants"). Audrey II slithers towards the audience threateningly (In the original Off-Broadway production, plant tendrils fell all over the audience, as if each audience member were to be pulled into the plant, while in the Broadway production, a monstrously huge Audrey II was projected out over the fifth row and the balcony seats, as if it would eat the audience members).
The musical had its world premiere Off-Off-Broadway on May 6, 1982 at the Workshop of the Players' Art (WPA) Theatre, playing there until June 6, 1982. It opened Off-Broadway at the Orpheum Theatre in Manhattan's East Village on July 27, 1982. The production, directed by Ashman, with musical staging by Edie Cowan, was critically acclaimed and won several awards including the 1982–1983 New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Musical, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Musical, and the Outer Critics Circle Award. Howard Ashman wrote, in the introduction to the acting edition of the libretto, that the show "satirizes many things: science fiction, 'B' movies, musical comedy itself, and even the Faust legend".
The production ran for 5 years. When it closed on November 1, 1987, after 2,209 performances, it was the third-longest running musical and the highest-grossing production in Off-Broadway history. Though a Broadway transfer had been proposed for the production, book writer Howard Ashman felt the show belonged where it was. Since it was not produced on Broadway, the original production was ineligible for the 1982 Tony Awards. The producers were the WPA Theatre, David Geffen, Cameron Mackintosh and the Shubert Organization. The Audrey II puppets were designed and operated by Martin P. Robinson.
An original cast recording, released in 1982, omitted the songs "Call Back in the Morning", and "Somewhere That's Green" (reprise), and had abridged versions of "Now (It's Just the Gas)," "Mushnik and Son," and "The Meek Shall Inherit." It also shifted the location of the song "Closed for Renovation," appearing in the show after "Somewhere That's Green" while appearing on the cast album after "Now (It's Just the Gas)" to serve as an upbeat bridge from Orin's death to the Act II love ballad, "Suddenly, Seymour". The recording features Leilani Jones, who replaced Marlene Danielle as Chiffon two weeks after the musical opened.
Original Off-Broadway cast
- Seymour Krelborn – Lee Wilkof
- Audrey – Ellen Greene
- Mr. Mushnik – Hy Anzell
- Chiffon – Marlene Danielle (replaced after two weeks by Leilani Jones)
- Crystal – Jennifer Leigh Warren
- Ronette – Sheila Kay Davis
- Audrey II (voice) – Ron Taylor
- Audrey II (manipulation) / Wino #1 – Martin P. Robinson
- Orin Scrivello, Narrator, Wino #2, Customer, Radio Announcer, Bernstein, Mrs. Luce, Skip Snip, and Patrick Martin – Franc Luz
1983 West End
A London West End production opened on January 1, 1983 at the Comedy Theatre, produced by Cameron Mackintosh. It ran for 813 performances, starring Barry James as Seymour and Ellen Greene (reprising her role) as Audrey. It received the Evening Standard Award for Best Musical and closed on October 5, 1985.
Differences between the 1960 film and stage musical
The musical is based on the basic concept and dark comic tone of the 1960 film, although it changes much of the story. The setting is moved from Skid Row, Los Angeles to Skid Row in New York. Seymour's hypochondriacal Jewish mother is omitted in the musical, and Seymour becomes an orphan in the care of Mushnik. Also dropped is the subplot involving the two investigating police officers. The characters of Mrs. Siddie Shiva and Burson Fouch are also omitted, although Mrs. Shiva is mentioned as being the shop's biggest funeral account. The gleefully masochistic dental patient, originally played by Jack Nicholson, is not in the musical but is in the 1986 film, played by Bill Murray.
In the musical the sadistic dentist, Orin Scrivello, is killed by suffocation from laughing gas instead of being stabbed with a dental instrument as in the film. His abusive relationship with Audrey is added to the musical to give Seymour a motive to kill him. In the film, Seymour murders several innocent bystanders, and Mushnik tricks a thief into looking for money inside the plant, which eats the thief. In the musical, Seymour tricks Mushnik in the same way when Mushnik plans to turn Seymour over to the police. The two neighborhood girls in the film are replaced in the musical by a chorus of three street urchins: Crystal, Chiffon and Ronette, named after (and reminiscent of) girl groups of the 1960s. The plant is named "Audrey II" in the musical, rather than the film's "Audrey Junior", and instead of being a crossbreed of a butterwort and a Venus Flytrap, in the musical it is a creature from outer space intent on taking over the world.
Perhaps the biggest difference is the ending. The musical ends with Orin, Mushnik, Audrey and Seymour all eaten by the plant, and the three girls report that Audrey II's progeny continues to consume people. In the 1960 film, Mushnik and Audrey survive, and the plant's carnivorous activities are discovered when its flowers bloom with the faces of its victims, including Seymour, imprinted on them. The musical references this ending in its finale, in which the Plant's four victims' faces are seen in its blooming flowers.
2003 tryout and Broadway
In 2003, an $8 million revival of Little Shop of Horrors was planned with the goal of opening on Broadway. A $1 million pre-Broadway production debuted at the Miracle Theatre in Coral Gables, Florida on May 16, 2003. Lee Wilkof, who originated the role of Seymour in 1982, was cast as Mr. Mushnik. The production was directed by Wilkof's wife, Connie Grappo, who was the assistant to Howard Ashman during the original production. Muppeteer Martin P. Robinson, who designed the original Audrey II puppets, enlisted friends at The Jim Henson Company to create new, high tech puppets for the show. Hunter Foster and Alice Ripley played Seymour and Audrey, and the prologue was recited by Robert Stack.
Critics complained that by expanding the show to fit a larger theatre, its intimacy was lost; they also judged several actors as miscast, although the Miami Herald declared that "Alice Ripley's Audrey – part lisping Kewpie doll (a la Ellen Greene, who originated the role), part dental punching bag – is heartbreakingly adorable." In June 2003, the producers announced that the Broadway production was canceled. Nevertheless, within weeks, they ousted Grappo in favor of veteran Broadway director Jerry Zaks, who fired everyone in the cast, except Foster, and redirected the production from scratch. New casting was announced in July.
The musical made its Broadway debut at the Virginia Theatre on October 2, 2003 with Foster as Seymour, Kerry Butler as Audrey, Rob Bartlett as Mr. Mushnik, Douglas Sills as Orin, Michael-Leon Wooley as the voice of Audrey II and DeQuina Moore as Chiffon. Although this was the first time it had played on Broadway, the show's success in film and numerous regional productions made it fall under the "Revival" category for the 2003 Tony Awards. Foster was nominated for the 2004 Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his performance. The revival was fairly faithful to the original 1982 production. Changes included the expanded version of the title song heard in the 1986 film, and expanded "You Never Know" with a "WSKID" radio introduction, and a revised Act I Finale and added Entr'acte before "Call Back in the Morning." The orchestrations were beefed up for the bigger theatre to add reeds, trumpets and percussion to the original 5-piece combo. In the finale, a gigantic Audrey II extended over the audience to snap its hungry jaws at them.
The cast album was released on October 21, 2003. Demo recordings to five songs ("A Little Dental Music", "The Worse He Treats Me", "We'll Have Tomorrow", "Bad" and "I Found a Hobby") cut during the development process of the musical were included as bonus material for the album. The production closed on August 22, 2004 after 40 previews and 372 regular performances. The closing Broadway cast included Joey Fatone as Seymour.
2004 U.S. national tour
On August 10, 2004, a U.S. national tour of the Broadway production began, with Anthony Rapp starring as Seymour, Tari Kelly as Audrey and Lenny Wolpe as Mushnik. The tour closed April 16, 2006 in Columbus, Ohio.
2006 London revival
A production began previews on November 17, 2006 at the Menier Chocolate Factory. This revival, directed by Matthew White, featured a new Audrey II designed by David Farley, resembling the pitcher plant. The production was a critical and commercial success and transferred to the Duke of York's Theatre in London's West End in March 2007. In June 2007, the show transferred to the Ambassadors Theatre, where it ended its run on September 8, 2007. The cast featured Paul Keating as Seymour, Sheridan Smith as Audrey, Alistair McGowan as Orin, and Mike McShane providing the voice of Audrey II. Smith and McGowan received 2008 Laurence Olivier Award nominations, and the production was nominated for Best Musical Revival. The production toured the UK in 2008–2009.
A three-performance Encores! concert staging at New York City Center as part of its Off-Center series ran in July 2015. Directed by Dick Scanlan, the production starred Jake Gyllenhaal as Seymour, and Ellen Greene reprising her role as Audrey. Taran Killam played Orin, with Tracy Nicole Chapman, Marva Hicks and Ramona Keller as the urchins. Joe Grifasi was Mr. Mushnik, with Eddie Cooper as the plant. Reviewers praised Greene, Gyllenhaal and the cast in general. Ben Brantley wrote in The New York Times: "A confluence of alchemical elements was at work, converging in ways that made a perfectly charming but small musical feel like a major event."
2016 UK Tour
A UK tour began on August 4, 2016, directed by Tara Wilkinson, starring Sam Lupton as Seymour, Stephanie Clift as Audrey and Rhydian Roberts as Orin. It is produced by Sell a Door Theatre Company and has venues booked through November 26, 2016.
Audrey II puppets
The character of Audrey II is described as being "An anthropomorphic cross between a Venus flytrap and an avocado. It has a huge, nasty-looking pod that gains a shark-like aspect when open and snapping at food. The creature is played by a series of increasing[ly] large puppets".
In productions, the first puppet is a small potted plant "less than one foot tall" held by the actor portraying Seymour. He manipulates the plant himself with his hand and then sets it down, where it is moved by an unseen hand from beneath a shelf. The second puppet is slightly larger than the first and is operated by Seymour during the song "You Never Know". A fake arm in a sleeve matching Seymour's jacket is attached to the plant's pot, while the actor's real arm operates the plant. The third puppet sits on the floor and is large enough to hide a person inside, who moves the plant's mouth in sync with Audrey II's voice, which is supplied by an offstage actor on a microphone. The puppeteer's legs are clad in green tights with "leaf" shoes" that serve as part of the plant's tendrils. In Act II, the largest puppet again hides an actor inside, who manipulates the puppet's mouth and often some of its branches. By this point, the head is at least six feet long and capable of "swallowing" characters. For the finale, additions can be made to make the plant appear taller and even bigger. Actors and stage hands are often used to move larger branches and roots, which, in the original off-Broadway production, spilled off the stage and into the audience. In some productions, dangling vines over the house enhance the effect of Audrey II menacing the audience.
Amateur productions of Little Shop of Horrors receive designs for building the puppets from MTI, as part of the rental scripts and scores, based on the original Martin P. Robinson designs. Some companies who have produced the show in the past and built their own puppets rent them out to other companies to recoup some of their construction costs.
1986 feature film
A film version of the musical was made in 1986. Directed by Frank Oz and noted as the only film written by Howard Ashman, it starred Rick Moranis as Seymour, Ellen Greene as Audrey, Vincent Gardenia as Mr. Mushnik, Steve Martin as Orin Scrivello, DDS, and the voice of Levi Stubbs as Audrey II. Bill Murray played the small comic role of the masochist, Arthur Denton. The 1986 film follows the plot of the musical closely but omits the songs "Ya Never Know" (rewritten as "Some Fun Now," a trio for Crystal, Ronette and Chiffon), "Mushnik and Son", "Now (It's Just the Gas)", "Sudden Changes," "Closed for Renovation" and "Call Back in the Morning"; the final cut ending also omits "Finale Ultimo (Don't Feed The Plants)". Other changes include the removal of Mr. Mushnik's adoption proposition and a new ending, in which Seymour is able to save Audrey from Audrey II and then electrocutes the plant after it has destroyed the shop. Seymour and Audrey marry and move to the tract home of her dreams, but a small Audrey II-type bud is seen in their garden, which portends a possible spread of the alien plants. An ending more faithful to the stage version was filmed, in which the plant eats Audrey and Seymour and then, having grown to massive size and reproduced, goes on a King Kong-style rampage through New York City. It was received poorly by test audiences, and the upbeat alternate ending was used for the theatrical cut. In October 2012, the original ending was restored and released with the film as "The Director's Cut" on DVD and Blu-ray. A new song for Audrey II, "Mean Green Mother from Outer Space", was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song.
1991 animated series
A Saturday morning animated cartoon version, titled Little Shop, ran for one season on Fox Kids in 1991. Seymour and Audrey were depicted as pre-teens, and the plant, "Audrey Junior", was not man-eating or evil, but had a huge appetite for meat and retained its catchphrase, "Feed me!" Each episode also featured two stylish music video sequences, many of which were raps by the plant. IMDb credits Frank Oz with the inspiration for turning the film/musical into a cartoon.
- TIME magazine reported in its May 26, 2008 issue, p. 51, that this musical ranked as the most frequently produced musical by U.S. high schools in 2007.
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- Audrey II was created as a series of elaborate puppets, some of which were large enough to be operated by an actor from the inside.
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Zhao, C., Wu, Z., & Xu, J. (2013). The association between post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms and the quality of life among Wenchuan earthquake survivors: The role of social support as a moderator. Quality of Life Research, | <urn:uuid:a84b4681-4c47-4bad-a3aa-f483389fa3ca> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10902-014-9516-5?error=cookies_not_supported&code=cfcd4156-8cc2-4c04-a035-b657d55bbae8 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571869.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813021048-20220813051048-00078.warc.gz | en | 0.720149 | 3,074 | 1.625 | 2 |
For generations, the name Steyr has stood for quality firearms. The original firm, the Österreichisches Waffenfabrik Gesellschaft, located, naturally, in Steyr, Austria, was founded in 1867 by Josef Werndl to manufacture rifles for the Austro-Hungarian armed forces. The company grew at a rapid rate, manufacturing military rifles for armies around the world, and by the 1870s it was producing in excess of 13,000 rifles per week.
In 1877, Herr Ferdinand von Mannlicher entered into partnership with Steyr, and by 1900 rifles using his revolutionary straight-pull bolt actions and magazine systems would make Steyr the largest manufacturer of military rifles in the world.
Around the turn of the century, Steyr began producing semi-automatic pistols—the most famous of which were the Roth-Steyr M.7 and the Steyr-Hahn M.12. Both pistols saw service in World War II with the Austrian, Hungarian, German and Italian armies and were the standard-issue sidearms of several Balkan and Latin American militaries.
In the 1950s, the company, now known as Steyr Mannlicher, once again began producing pistols. Its first was the Model SP, a small 7.65mm blowback-operated-type handgun that featured a double-action-only (DAO) trigger. Better known was their unique gas-delayed, blowback pistol, the GB, which Steyr produced until 1988.
In the 1990s, Steyr began developing a new pistol that utilized a frame and internal components made from high-tech polymer. Released on the market in 1999 as the M9, it was a hammerless, striker-fired design with a DAO-type trigger marketed as a “Reset Action” trigger. When the slide runs forward, the striker is held in a partially cocked position until a full stroke of the trigger draws it back completely, tripping the sear and releasing it to fire a round.
As befitted an industry leader, Steyr’s engineers continued working to improve the basic design, efforts that resulted in the M-A1, the S-A1 and the C-A1. The newest version, the L-A1, was introduced at a 2013 industry event. Available in either 9mm Parabellum (L9-A1) or .40 S&W (L40-A1), it has many of the features of Steyr’s earlier pistols, along with several new ones.
Read more at Combat Handguns. | <urn:uuid:3b4351b6-1e24-4542-ba69-5b8ef7bd87bc> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.personaldefenseworld.com/2013/08/steyr-l9-a1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279368.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00323-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958726 | 539 | 2.265625 | 2 |
If you don’t like Texas, this gravel road idea should make you deliriously happy.
The state’s highway department is scratching around for money, and one of their stopgaps is to convert some paved state roads, damaged by truck activity related to the current drilling boom, back to gravel.
Economic development types in New York, California, Missouri and Maryland — where Gov. Rick Perry has made very public overtures to companies that might be persuaded to move to Texas — ought to be carrying bags of gravel to their pitch meetings. And they should send thank-you notes to the Texas Department of Transportation. What a gift.
The latest transportation idea in Texas illustrates the troubles of meeting the demands of growth and plain old wear and tear in a state where voters think government already costs too much.
The people at TxDOT, like their counterparts in other state agencies, estimate how much money they need to do their work. They give the numbers to the budget writers, defend them in hearings and find out over the course of a legislative session how much money they will have over the next two years.
Lawmakers are in a self-made box, stuck between the promises they and their predecessors have made about government programs and services and their own promises to hold the line on spending.
Spoiler alert: They can’t afford to do the things they have promised to provide without crossing the voters in other ways — by raising taxes or fees or borrowing gobs of money.
The road folks haul around an awesome talking point that probably would be unmentionable at any other state agency: It’s the cost of maintaining the current level of congestion in the state. The engineers and other number-crunchers are telling state officeholders that they can increase spending on roads or they can go home and tell their voters that traffic is going to get worse. The political message is a real mess: The candidates end up telling their voters that it will cost $4 billion to $5 billion a year just to keep traffic as tangled up as it is right now. No improvements ahead, but no backsliding, either.
Unless, of course, the money isn’t available. Then you have to replace some of your pavement with cheaper road materials. Gravel, for instance.
Transportation is not the state’s only underfinanced program, but it is in a unique position when talking about the consequences of its budget. Health and human services agencies don’t get to talk about how many more people will get sick or die if their financing is cut. It is somewhere between difficult and impossible to tie public school performance to state financing, if only because so many other variables muddle the numbers. Regulatory agencies don’t wave around projections on how many industrial plants won’t be inspected and what the consequences might be.
You have to admire the honesty of the transportation people. This is what you spend, and that is what you get. Cut spending, cut expectations. Easy as pie.
They seem to be in one of the rare areas of state government where the people involved are allowed to say right out loud what a budget decision will actually mean.
Others have to say they will do more with less — a way of saying that they either didn’t need as much money to do the job as they first thought or that they hope the corners they cut to save money won’t cause anyone any trouble — or at least any trouble that will get noticed by voters and politicians.
Roads have another characteristic not shared by most state services: They are visible, and we all use them. Most Texans are not involved with public schools on a daily basis, or with the health and human services safety net, or even with regulators or state police.
But the roads are right there, every day, in all their glory, with potholes and construction projects and traffic jams growing worse as more people, and more cars, flow into Texas.
That visibility makes a difference. Texas residents can see the quality of one of the government services they pay for. In some places, they’re finding gravel where there once was pavement. Other state programs have their equivalents of the gravel roads. They’re just not allowed to talk about it.
Texas Tribune donors or members may be quoted or mentioned in our stories, or may be the subject of them. For a complete list of contributors, click here. | <urn:uuid:9a2f6f87-4c83-43d2-803b-3697aa0be94d> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.myhighplains.com/news/state/graveling-over-visible-and-invisible-funding-holes | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719273.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00065-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966359 | 912 | 1.96875 | 2 |
Big Joy - The Adventures of James Broughton
James Broughton: filmmaker, artist, dancer, poet and true Renaissance man. Broughton, along with his fellow artist pals Madeline Gleason, Robert Duncan, Jack Spicer and Kenneth Rexroth, ushered in the San Francisco Renaissance era in the years following World War II, an era which birthed the more well-known Beat Generation.
Broughton was an "outsider's outsider," as one historian claims. Here is a man who, from his very beginnings growing up in Modesto, California, was marginalized; confused about himself and his place in the world. Broughton's difficult and strained relationship with his class-conscious mother is recalled here by many former colleagues and friends, some long deceased and heard only in voice-over. (One such former colleague is none other than Pauline Kael, famed film critic and mother of Broughton's daughter, Gina.) Broughton found community and creative release in the burgeoning San Francisco Renaissance, a time when poets and artists were thriving in the city. Originally intending to be a dancer, Broughton's two left feet compelled him to focus his attention towards filmmaking. Throughout his life, Broughton directed several acclaimed short films, including the (at the time) scandalous "The Bed" and the award-winning "The Pleasure Garden," made with then lover Kermit Sheets.
Broughton's primary objective, it seems, was to find ways in which to harness joy and positive energy and present them to the world. "Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton" does a profound justice to this noble endeavor. The film's canvass is painted with vivid colors and psychedelic effects, a worthy palette with which to chronicle the life of a man so committed to finding one's inner Zen. Filmmakers Stephen Silha, Eric Slade and Dawn Logsdon, as well as their creative team, provide ample archival footage from Broughton's early days. In addition to Kael, we hear from, among others, dancer Anna Halprin, Broughton's ex-wife Suzanna Hart and his eventual soul mate in life and love, former student Joel Singer.
At one hour and twenty-two minutes, I sometimes felt as though the filmmakers were trying to cram information into a fixed time frame, and the film probably could have benefitted from a longer running time where the sense of urgency might not have been so apparent. However, as it stands, "Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton" is a lovingly-crafted tribute to an influential man who clearly led an interesting and unconventional life, true to his remarkably brave and unique sense of self. | <urn:uuid:a63d7d75-12dc-470b-b3ca-5d8e79b094cc> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://newyork.edgemedianetwork.com/index.php?ch=entertainment&sc=&sc2=reviews&sc3=&id=143906 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281331.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00226-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979268 | 558 | 1.546875 | 2 |
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Title: Undermining Marriage: White Supremacy and the Black Family
Abstract: Structural disadvantages and cultural patterns have, over many decades, led to fewer black people participating in marriage, which has hurt large numbers of black children. These patterns have spread to all racial and ethnic groups and are increasingly common at all economic levels. Many sociologists recognize that this has created a downward spiral in which the disadvantages of one generation lead to lower levels of wellbeing in the next. However, this problem is not irremediable. With the right social policy levers and church-based action, it is possible to begin the long, slow and difficult process of shifting marriage patterns in the black community and in the US more generally.
Bio: Jacqueline C. Rivers is the Executive Director and Senior Fellow for Social Science and Policy at the Seymour Institute for Black Church and Policy Studies. She has served as a lecturer in both Sociology and African American Studies at Harvard University and has presented her research at Princeton University, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Pennsylvania, the Vatican, Stanford University, the United Nations and in several other venues. Jacqueline holds a PhD from Harvard University where she was a Doctoral Fellow in the Multidisciplinary Program in Inequality and Social Policy of the J. F. Kennedy School of Government and a Graduate Research Fellow of the National Science Foundation. She graduated from Harvard Radcliffe College (B.A. summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa and M.A., both in Psychology).
Contact Allison Smythe, firstname.lastname@example.org for Zoom Link. | <urn:uuid:b92bf279-a10a-4f7f-88f7-39d195f7edeb> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://truman.missouri.edu/index.php/truman-school/events/undermining-marriage-white-supremacy-and-black-family | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570921.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809094531-20220809124531-00269.warc.gz | en | 0.947337 | 331 | 2.015625 | 2 |
The immigration reform bill passed by the House on Friday is getting mixed reviews.
That's all right. Any proposal to change immigration policy is certain to be divisive. We're just glad to see Congress make a start toward resolving our broken system instead of continuing to bury its head in the sand.
On a 245-to-139 vote, largely divided along party lines, the House approved the Republican-sponsored STEM Jobs Act.
The bill has an admittedly narrow focus. It would eliminate the so-called diversity visa program and grant permanent residency to as many as 55,000 foreign students who graduate from U.S. universities with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering, and math fields.
The diversity program the bill would eliminate allocates new green cards to 55,000 people selected at random out of a pool of more than 14 million applicants each year.
That provision caused Democrats in the House to balk at a bill that might otherwise have garnered bipartisan support.
The Obama administration gave the bill a cool reception. A statement released by the White House on Friday said the administration does not support "narrowly tailored proposals" that do not meet long-term objectives of achieving comprehensive reform, The Associated Press reported.
Without the support of House Democrats or the president, it's unlikely the Democratic-controlled Senate will take up the measure.
But we're still encouraged.
Even if it's doomed at this point, the bill attempts to address a couple of serious problems.
The nation's high-tech industries suffer from a chronic shortage of qualified workers. It's foolish to force people who were trained for these jobs at American universities to leave and work for foreign competitors.
The bill also would allow spouses and minor children of legal permanent residents to come to the U.S. after waiting one year for their green cards. Currently, it typically takes two years or more before family members can join legal aliens.
We're a little dismayed by Obama's reference to comprehensive reform. We could wait forever for a bipartisan package that deals with everything from border security to the question of what to do with the 11 million illegal aliens already here.
But the White House also said it was encouraged that Congress "appears to be ready to begin serious debate on the need to fix our broken immigration system."
That debate might not go anywhere if the starting point has to be an all-encompassing package of reforms. Such unrealistic expectations have stalled all progress on this difficult issue for too long.
The president and Congress need to take a serious look at making progress where they can. | <urn:uuid:a058f3ed-e46a-40d3-b7c4-607827478690> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.tri-cityherald.com/opinion/editorials/article32095203.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282202.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00554-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956832 | 522 | 1.921875 | 2 |
The Para Hills West Soccer Club in Adelaide seems to have missed the memo.
With a new focus on objectification of women, abuse, violence, sexism and misogyny, Para Hills West decides not only to host a ‘Men’s Night’ fundraiser – but advertise it at the club for all the junior boys to see.
Para Hills West is making sure boys learn early about what women are good for. It seems to have ignored amateur soccer’s own code of conduct.
This poster is on display at the club in full view of junior players
Boys may wonder if their dads and coaches who they look up to, will take up the invite. (it’s just lads banding together to show their support for the club right?)
Not only does its display contribute to a culture that treats women as objects but it also normalises a behaviour that contributes to violence against women.
Sporting clubs have to work hard to turn the tide in sexist attitudes towards women. The culture of sexism in men’s sport is deeply entrenched. For this reason the AFL players association has partnered with The Line, an initiative under the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010 – 2022, delivered by Our Watch to combat sexism and promote respectful relationships.
Our Watch explain in their submission to the Inquiry into Domestic Violence and Gender Inequality that:
“Sexist and stereotypical ideas about masculinity and femininity may increase the probability of violence against women because they… can cast women as targets for exploitation, based on the idea that women are ‘naturally’ passive and submissive, combined with objectified and sexualised identities….”
Make the link, a Gippsland Women’s Health initiative, states on their website that:
“Violence against women is based upon a foundation of unequal power between men and women, something that has been embedded historically in our society and in our relationships. We see this imbalance acted out in many ways, even today. It is in the jokes we tell, the language we use and in the way that men and women are represented in all types of media. ”
Further, studies show that exposure to sexually objectifying images of women can lead both men and women to have a diminished view of women’s competence, morality and humanity. Players and their families down at the Para Hills West Soccer Club are sent the toxic message that women are not whole people.
We no longer subscribe to the old phrase ‘boys will be boys’. Our boys deserve better than that. Schools across the country are rolling out respectful relationship programs to help young people to have healthy, respectful and equitable relationships and address gender based violence. The actions of this club undermine these efforts.
It also makes women and girls feel excluded. What message does this event send to the women and girls involved in the club? We know that hyper-sexualised representations of women in advertising are directly associated with a range of consequences for girls, including higher levels of body dissatisfaction, greater self-objectification, eating disorders, and even self harm. These factors will not lead girls to participate in sport themselves but rather avoid it.
This advertising is in direct breach of the South Australian Amateur Soccer League Inc. Players Code of Conduct which states players must:
"Respect the rights, dignity and worth of every person, regardless of their gender, ability, cultural background or religion"
Women already face sexism in sport. This culture of sexism breeds in clubs that facilitate events such as this. How can we create an environment that is welcoming for all when sexually objectifying posters are plastered around the venue?
The sexualisation and objectification of women is the wallpaper of society, from billboards, to magazines, to music videos. This fundraiser means the club is endorsing this treatment of women. The club has an opportunity now to send a strong message to the community that this type of treatment of women is not okay.
Surely there are alternative avenues for sporting clubs to fundraise in ways that are respectful to all people in the community. The Para Hills West Soccer Club has a long history. Does the club now want to add sexism to that history?
Originally published on SBS Zela | <urn:uuid:6c68ed19-5ee5-45a5-a1cd-885094bab925> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.collectiveshout.org/soccer_clubs_fundraise | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281649.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00445-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959754 | 868 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Common hyacinth (Hyacinthus orientalis), generally hardy in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 5 through 9, is a species of familiar spring-blooming perennials that grow from bulbs. Available in a variety of colors, including white, a range of blues, blue-purples, pinks, reds, apricot and yellow, hyacinth flowers are intensely fragrant. With a little specialized care, the potted bulbs can be overwintered successfully indoors and brought into bloom.
The key to growing hyacinths indoors -- sometimes known as forcing the bulbs -- is understanding their growth requirements. In order to produce lush flowers on tall stems, the bulbs must undergo a chilling period of anywhere from 8 to 16 weeks before completing the growth process. Bulbs planted in-ground in cold weather areas are chilled naturally. Bulbs grown indoors, either newly bought from the garden center or dug from the garden, must be put through the chilling artificially.
Gardeners who bring hyacinths in for the winter should understand that bulbs that have been in the garden for one or more years will not produce the same lush, full flowerheads as newly purchased bulbs. Older hyacinths are colorful and fragrant, but bear fewer florets and have a more relaxed look. Garden bulbs should be unearthed in the fall, cleaned of extraneous soil and repotted in fresh, moistened potting mix. Fill a clay or plastic pot to within 4 inches of the top and plant bulbs, fat side down. Fill in around them with soil.
The Big Chill
Place the hyacinth pots in a refrigerator or unheated porch where they will be undisturbed for a minimum of 10 weeks. The temperature around the hyacinths should remain at a constant 40 to 48 degrees Fahrenheit through the chilling period. If the bulbs are in a refrigerator, make sure they are not near fruits or vegetables, which produce ethylene gas that will prevent the bulbs from sprouting, and store them in paper bags. At the end of the chilling period, place the pots in a location with bright indirect light and a temperature of 60 to 65 degrees Fahrenheit. Keep them there for four weeks.
At the end of the two chilling periods, the hyacinths should be sprouted, with tall stems and flowerheads that are at least budded. The pots should be ready for display at room temperature. Some hyacinth varieties are better for forcing than others, so results may vary, especially with bulbs brought in from the garden. After flowering, continue to water when the soil feels dry. Remove spent flower stalks, but do not clip foliage until it begins to turn brown. The rooted bulbs can be replanted in the garden in spring and may bloom again after a year or two.
- Bulb Forcing; Art Wolk
- The American Horticultural Society Encyclopedia of Plants and Flowers; Christopher Brickell, Editor-in-Chief
- Digital Vision/Photodisc/Getty Images | <urn:uuid:ab12e10b-a9cf-4ca1-8bef-0c06910fec8d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://homeguides.sfgate.com/can-hyacinth-overwintered-pots-house-92195.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280891.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00159-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918346 | 623 | 3.265625 | 3 |
Julia Isaacs of the Brookings Institution has released a study of family economic mobility. This is a companion to the study on racial disparities in economic mobility that I wrote about a couple of days ago. Isaacs' main finding in the new study is that two thirds of families have higher income than their parents did, but only half of them have moved up a rung on the income ladder. A rising tide has lifted nearly all boats; some have then risen even higher than average beyond the rising tide.
Isaacs makes an important point -- most people are better off than their parents were, but that is not entirely due to their own efforts. The entire society is richer, so many people are absolutely better off even if they have stayed relatively the same. For example, if you compare a hypothetical family in the exact middle of the income spectrum a generation ago and now, our middle family today will be absolutely richer and have a higher standard of living than the middle family a generation ago, but will still be in the middle of the income spectrum.
Still, there is a bit of statistical mystification here. Isaacs compares quintiles (equal fifths) of the income distribution. 2/3rds of families moved up in income, but only half of them - 1/3rd of all families - moved up enough to change quintiles compared to their parents. This one third is what Isaacs calls true upward mobility. But suppose she had been comparing not quintiles, but deciles? That is, suppose her income ladder had twice as many rungs in it? We can't tell for sure without real data, but it is likely that with twice as many rungs, we would see twice as much mobility (down as well as up). Likewise, I have seen studies by mobility pessimists who use quartiles. Not surprisingly, such studies show less mobility than Isaacs' quintile study does.
The main conclusion that I draw from this is not that "you can make statistics say anything," but that the income distribution is not a very helpful quantity to describe social reality. Only sociologists think of people in quintiles. The real rungs of the social ladder don't match the income distribution very well. It is helpful to know if people have more of less money than they grew up with. But knowing that they have changed quintiles (or quartiles, or deciles, or percentiles) doesn't really tell you if they have changed classes. | <urn:uuid:7014eca9-5283-404d-99c8-b2c742f6b14e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://gruntledcenter.blogspot.com/2007/11/want-to-see-more-economic-mobility-put.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280763.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00517-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982761 | 500 | 2.453125 | 2 |
Sales of stop-start vehicles are expected to grow from less than 25 million in 2016 to 61 million in 2025
A new report from Navigant Research examines the global market for low voltage electrification, with an overview of the opportunities and challenges related to improving light duty vehicle efficiency, including technologies likely to reach production and forecasts for vehicle sales and the value of key components, through 2025.
As more regions look to implement higher fuel efficiency standards, vehicle manufacturers are investing in new technologies to ensure they are able to comply with future legislation. Low voltage electrification technologies offer a less-costly solution, particularly for larger vehicles. Click to tweet: According to a new report from @NavigantRSRCH, global sales of 48-volt systems are expected to reach nine million in 2025 after first launching in 2016.
“While automakers search for the most cost-effective solutions to continue reducing fuel consumption and emissions, while also providing the electrical power needed for the ever-increasing feature sets of new vehicles, 48-volt electrical systems will play an important role,” says Sam Abuelsamid, senior research analyst with Navigant Research. “A 48-volt mild hybrid is estimated to provide 70 percent of the benefit of a high-voltage hybrid at 30 percent of the cost while boosting electrical power available in the vehicle from 2.5 kilowatts (kW) to 10 kW.”
Automatic engine stop-start systems based on 12-volt electrical systems are also anticipated to grow in popularity and are expected to reach near universal adoption in Europe and North America by the end of the decade, according to the report. On top of this, growth in Asia Pacific will bring sales of low-voltage stop-start systems to more than 60 million units annually by 2025, representing a compound annual growth rate of 10.6 percent.
The report, Low Voltage Vehicle Electrification, analyzes the global market for low voltage electrification opportunities and challenges. The study provides an overview of the market issues associated with improving light duty vehicle efficiency and the technologies that are likely to reach production. Global market forecasts for vehicle sales and the value of key components, segmented by global region, extend through 2025. The report also examines the key 48V components related to low voltage vehicle electrification, as well as the competitive landscape. An Executive Summary of the report is available for free download on the Navigant Research website.
Contact: Lindsay Funicello-Paul
* The information contained in this press release concerning the report, Low Voltage Vehicle Electrification, is a summary and reflects Navigant Research’s current expectations based on market data and trend analysis. Market predictions and expectations are inherently uncertain and actual results may differ materially from those contained in this press release or the report. Please refer to the full report for a complete understanding of the assumptions underlying the report’s conclusions and the methodologies used to create the report. Neither Navigant Research nor Navigant undertakes any obligation to update any of the information contained in this press release or the report. | <urn:uuid:592874a2-6045-49f6-8069-f6510cdb6e39> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.navigantresearch.com/newsroom/global-sales-of-48-volt-systems-are-expected-to-reach-9-million-in-2025 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279189.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00063-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910173 | 626 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Bacteria living within the gut could have a link to obesity, possibly explaining how antibiotics fatten farm animals, and humans as well, and predispose some organisms to obesity.
Researchers published their findings in the journal Nature. In the study, the scientists replicated what farmers have been doing for decades to fatten up their livestock: feeding young mice a steady low dose of antibiotics, which in turn altered the composition of the bacteria in the gut. This also changed how the bacteria broke down nutrients. In some mice, the bacteria activated more genes that turned carbohydrates into short-chain fatty acids, as well as turning on genes related to lip conversion inside the liver.
These shifts in the molecular medium enable fat build-up. Just as farm animals gain weight when fed antibiotics, so did the mice. Martin Blaser, a microbiologist at the New York University in New York, states that parents might be doing the same to their children when they treat common ailments and ear infections with strong antibiotics. A disproportionate number of kids in the UK were overweight by the time they were 3 years old.
When antibiotics are given early in life, they come at a cost to parents, doctors and patients. Microbes could also play a part to combat this but more work needs to be done before they can be used to fight obesity.
[via Scientific American] | <urn:uuid:d8447439-f53f-4958-b771-ea173a83ba0e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://scitechdaily.com/early-intake-of-antibiotics-linked-to-obesity-in-mice/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572021.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814083156-20220814113156-00074.warc.gz | en | 0.953112 | 271 | 3.828125 | 4 |
An international organization has named Mumbai's renowned Asian Heart Institute (AHI) as the "safest cardiac hospital in the world" with the lowest mortality rate.
AHI's vice chairman and managing director Ramakant Panda said the hospital was accorded the honor among 15 hospitals in eight countries that participated in the International Cardiac Benchmarking survey conducted by the Joint Commission International (JCI).
Advertisement"This included data analysis of more than 6000 cardiac surgeries between October 2009-March 2011," Panda told IANS here.
The 15 JCI accredited hospitals had to provide data captured on a daily basis on the surgeries conducted and reported, set parameters to measure the quality of care provided and cooperate with verification visits by principals, said Panda, who performed heart surgery on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh nearly three years ago.
"After the detailed three-year study, AHI has ranked No.1 in terms of 'lowest complication rates' and 'highest survival rates' as per the JCI survey," he said.
Panda said AHI performed the maximum number of coronary artery bypass graft (CABG), or bypass surgeries among all the surgeries performed in the 15 hospitals surveyed.
AHI also ranked higher in terms of repeat bypass surgeries compared to the ICSB benchmarks and more valve surgeries on women by the same comparison, he said.
AHI also led in terms of number of aortic valve replacements, valvle surgeries on patients who had previous cardiac surgery, CABG plus valve surgeries on patients in the plus-65 age group, with the lowest complication rates.
Even the number of patients requiring blood transfusion was much lesser and mortality rates much lower than the benchmarks.
Panda said that AHI has consistently ranked lower on mortality rate than the United States Society of Thoracic Surgeons average of 2.7.
"Our mortality rates, including non-cardiac deaths has been 0.4 percent for the last nine years over 1,500 surgeries per annum on patients from 38 countries," he said. | <urn:uuid:681687a1-9cd5-45cd-9c81-f1a270e17a2e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.medindia.net/news/mumbai-hospital-ranked-safest-cardiac-hospital-in-the-world-102481-1.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281649.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00446-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957283 | 417 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Note: you may have to be a bit more particular as to where you get your nuts.
So you've probably read over and over that nuts are good wholesome whole food you should be eating.
Rather than do the whole tedious round up, I'll just let the able Jane Brody of the NY Times step in. She can sum up the ginormous 119,000 subject Nurses study findings for us on the health benefits of nuts:
"The more often nuts were consumed, the less likely participants were to die of cancer, heart disease and respiratory disease, and not because nut eaters succumbed to other diseases. Their death rate from any cause was lower during the years they were followed. (The nuts in question were pistachios, almonds, Brazil nuts, cashews, hazelnuts, macadamias, pecans, pine nuts, peanuts and walnuts.)"
(Though if you are allergic to nuts, I imagine all this "you should eat nuts!" stuff must get awfully tiresome. You must be wanting to scream "NO I F--CKING SHOULDN'T EAT NUTS OR I'LL DIE YOU MORON!!!" dozens of times a day. Feel free to do so now if that makes you feel any better).
But, for the rest of us, yeah: Nuts are no longer considered a "bad" fatty food that you should avoid (if you are old enough to remember those ancient times). Now nuts have somehow changed into a virtuous snack with untold health benefits.
But can they help you lose weight? For reals?
Nuts and Obesity Research
We all know nuts have a crap load of calories--160-200 for a 1 ounce serving.
Note: somehow I thought I got to eat a full quarter cup for 1 ounce, but when I weighed it I came out to 1.2 Ounces. Damn.
Personally, I AM STRICTLY FORBIDDEN to eat nuts straight out of the container any longer. They go into the f--cking cup, and when that cup is done....
...well, anyone who knows me knows I don't necessarily stop. But at least I know I am being lame and greedy about it.
At 170 calories per ounce, how could my beloved Cheap-Ass but Tasty Costco mixed nuts possibly make sense for weight loss?
But research suggests I can keep on scarfing them.
The latest study, out just a few weeks ago, found that nut eaters were less likely to be obese. Another previous study on nut consumption and weight gain also found "frequent nut consumption was associated with a reduced risk of weight gain (5 kg or more)."
It may be that people who are nutty for nuts are also exercise and fitness nuts. SO many studies confuse causation and correlation, and gleefully point out that people who do something that is supposed to be good for your health tend to be healthier than those who blow off that advice. Which proves absolutely NOTHING, because these are not the same populations.
But unlike spinach or kale-eaters, or non-smokers or High Intensity Interval Sprinters, I don't think there is quite the same "I must make healthy virtuous choices" personality thing going on in the nut-eating population. Nuts have long been perceived as tasty and fattening, and many of us thought for a long time we were best to save them as treats. Just my hunch, but... I do indeed think there is something Magical about the nut thing.
Are Nut Calories Processed Differently?
Yes they are! Which apparently I found out a couple years ago researching a post called "Calories are Sneakier Than We Thought." (It's actually worth a read if you weren't around then; there are other calorie "bargains" besides nuts.)
In fact, there were some interesting specifics I'd forgotten, like: a USDA study headed up by Janet Novotny found that when an “average” person eats almonds she receives just 128 calories per serving rather than the 170 calories on the label.
Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire
So screw you, mean and misleading nutrition label!
Notice how I am bypassing the whole "can you eat them roasted and lightly salted because they taste so much better that way" question? I don't think I have any motivation to research that particular issue as I probably won't like the answer and don't plan on going raw any time soon.
There is one final, important nut-related question to answer though:
So Where Do Squirrels Hide Their Nuts in the Winter?
photo: sea turtle
Do you guys eat nuts? Do you believe they can help with weight loss? | <urn:uuid:d8572068-4d87-4894-8f9f-026672411c1e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.crankyfitness.com/2014/02/nuts-can-they-help-you-lose-weight.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279224.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00479-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967055 | 980 | 1.9375 | 2 |
IX: Morihei Ueshiba, Aikido and History:
What Case for Revision or Revisionism?
Part 2: World War II and the Life of Morihei Ueshiba
Preliminaries to Part 2:
The previous column ended with some discussion of the ‘frame' within which non-Japanese historians writing after Japan's surrender in 1945 viewed Japanese history from 1930 onwards. Some idea of ‘frame' can be gathered from the following paragraph in Franziska Seraphim's book on war memory in postwar Japan.
"No matter how the problem was framed—as individual or collective accountability, responsibility for starting the war or for losing it—positing war responsibility immediately became a strategic instrument in the politics of reinventing Japan as a peaceful and democratic society. People from all walks of life looked back on the war years through the lens of defeat and foreign occupation in efforts to identify which aspects of Japanese society needed to be changed most urgently in order to reconstruct the social system as a whole. Many attended mass rallies and listened to academics from various disciplines, to writers and critics, to Marxists, non-Marxist progressives, and even conservatives, to war cooperators and war resisters who had been imprisoned. Depending on their field of specialization, political convictions and war experiences, they addressed the problem of responsibility in different ways and different contexts as part of a broad public discourse." (Franziska Seraphim, War Memory and Social Politics in Japan, 1945-2005, pp. 1-2).
Seraphim then summarizes how the victors reshaped the ‘historical memory': the basic frame of reference, within which the war would be interpreted.
"In 1946 Japan was occupied by American military forces, and the power to make changes lay primarily not with the Japanese people, but with the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces (SCAP), General Douglas MacArthur. Under the occupation's demilitarization and democratization policies, SCAP imposed the war interpretation and political agenda of the victor and foreign occupier on the Japanese. That interpretation declared Japan the sole aggressor in the war. Almost immediately SCAP set out to cleanse Japan of militarism, dismantling the war machine and eradicating the social structures of ultranationalism. The ‘military purge' of 200,000 public workers (mainly business executives, journalists, right-wing leaders, and former military personnel) in 1945-46 and SCAP's strict censorship of the public media had a profound impact on public and private lives, in some respects liberating, in others devastating." (Seraphim, op.cit., pp. 5-6.)
The substance of Seraphim's book, and also Sven Saaler's (cited below), is a discussion of the extent to which SCAP was successful in imposing this new historical ‘frame' on the Japanese as a whole. Saaler and American scholars like John Dower believe that the ‘frame' was accepted by the vast majority of Japanese people, though not without a certain ambivalence. However, the purge was not an unqualified success and in the course of time different pressure groups in Japan attempted to revise the ‘frame', in order to make it fit their own political agendas. The matter is complicated by the fact of the ‘reverse course', made by the US from the 1950s onwards, when the Cold War with the Soviet Union intensified, the Communist Revolution took place in China in 1949, and war broke out in the Korean Peninsula. Japan then became an ally of the US in its fight against communism: the old ultranationalist war criminals were released from prison and those on the left were purged instead.
As a Japanese martial way, crafted in the half-century leading up to Pearl Harbor in 1941, aikido is right in the middle of these issues and the main aim of this column is to examine to what extent both the official ‘frame', sketched above, and also contemporary Japanese attitudes to history in general and to World War II in particular, can be discerned in Kisshomaru Ueshiba's biography of his father Morihei Ueshiba. Kisshomaru was born in 1921 and was 24 years old when Japan surrendered. He published his biography in 1978, right in the middle of the controversies over the adjustment of the collective memory of the war, and so it is plausible to assume that his biography was colored by contemporary attitudes, both to the writing of history and also to the memory of the war and his father's role in it.
The arguments of this column are quite complex, but can be presented as ten propositions.
- The SCAP occupation forces attempted to reshape the ‘frame' through which the history of Japan from 1931 till 1945 was viewed.
- Aikido was created precisely in this period, so it is plausible to suppose that Japanese biographies of Morihei Ueshiba written after the war, would also fit this revised ‘frame'.
- Since the war ended, various attempts have been made by ‘revisionists' to change the ‘masochistic' SCAP ‘frame', in which Japan's wartime misdeeds were emphasized, and substitute a ‘bright' frame that ignores the misdeeds and emphasizes patriotism.
- The ‘revisionist' controversy is still continuing and affects the teaching of history in schools and the general historical consciousness of the Japanese public.
- Some ‘revisionists' argue that they can change the ‘frame' because history is not a science and historical facts exist only in the context within which they are presented as a narrative.
- There is a tradition in Japan of historical fiction and some argue that historical fiction is just as good a way of presenting a narrative about the past as historical fact.
- Historical fiction in Japan plays a major role in shaping general historical consciousness.
- Sakamoto Ryoma is an example of someone whose life and exploits have been popularized by means of historical fiction.
- Kisshomaru Ueshiba's biography of his father has to be seen in this context of general historical consciousness, rather than as ‘strict' academic history.
- Kisshomaru presents a ‘bright' picture of his father's life that fits the SCAP ‘frame', but largely by the omission of any ‘dark' episodes, and which also fits the postwar policies of the Aikikai.
By way of introduction, and as a connection with the previous column, we will sketch the controversy in postwar Japan about the collective historical memory of World War II: how this war memory is censored even now in school textbooks and how the Japanese themselves deal with history and the war. Kisshomaru's biography is intended for these same Japanese and, in keeping with his avowed aim of making aikido an art available to all Japanese, and to non-Japanese also, it is safe to assume that he would handle these issues with a certain delicacy.
Writing Japanese History
4. World War II: Dark Masochism vs. Bright Amnesia:
Historical Revisionism and the Teaching of Japanese History
The Japanese Education Ministry takes a great interest in what history is taught in Japanese schools and how it is taught. It imposes a uniformity that perhaps would not be tolerated elsewhere. The uniformity consists in ensuring that the same history is taught in all schools and in consequence restricting the number of textbooks that may be used in history classes and censoring those that are used. This censorship, which first began in 1903, has caused major controversy, including long-running legal battles in the Japanese courts. Particular attention is paid to World War II and the actions of the Japanese military during this war. The indirect relevance to aikido is that most of Morihei Ueshiba's prewar male uchi-deshi
at the Kobukan volunteered for, or were drafted into, the military and fought in this war, and those who came back would have had vivid memories of what really happened and whether and how they used aikido. They would also know exactly what was being censored. The more direct relevance to postwar aikido is that ambivalent attitudes to the war have continued to color the education of a younger generation of postwar Japanese, some of whom entered the Aikikai Hombu as deshi
, who see the history of Japan and of the martial arts in terms of the education they received at school. Thus it is very unlikely that these deshi
would have been taught anything about Onisaburo Deguchi, the Omoto religion or kotodama
and this is the main reason why they would not have understood Morihei Ueshiba's lectures. The matter of nihonjinron
(discussed in an earlier column), which is really more of a postwar phenomenon, is highly relevant here, for it is very likely that they will have been taught in these terms and so regard Japanese culture as uniquely unique in some important way. This, in fact, has been my own experience when talking to some of the younger Hombu instructors: aikido is a quintessentially Japanese martial art and therefore the Japanese, especially the Aikikai Hombu, have a unique claim to understand it and also to control how it is perceived and taught.
The latest issue concerning the censoring of school history textbooks arose a few years ago. The issues are well summarized by Sven Saaler.
"The changes in the content of Japanese school textbooks which began in the 1980s had by the early 1990s expanded to include more or less detailed explanations of problematic chapters in Japan's war past, such as the Nanjing massacre (also Nanjing incident or rape of Nanjing), the history of the infamous Unit 731, and the so-called ‘military comfort women' [従軍慰安婦] (mostly Korean, but also Japanese and women from other Asian countries forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military). [Saaler cites several references here.] In reaction, resistance to what conservatives labeled a ‘masochistic' (i.e., self-critical) view of history [自虐史観]swiftly emerged, and today an increasing number of critics advocate a kind of history education that creates pride in nation and country—a role that ‘masochistic' views are considered unable to perform. These ‘historical revisionists' dismiss the predominant ‘masochistic' view of history as a product of the ‘victor's justice' meted out by the prosecution in the Tokyo war crimes trial. … Fujioka Nobukatsu, one of the forerunners of what has since grown into a ‘movement' to revise Japanese history along neo-nationalist and conservative lines, claimed that the way history is taught is crucial in determining national identity." (Saaler, Politics, Memory and Public Opinion: The History Textbook Controversy and Japanese Society, pp. 20-21.)
In 1996 an organization was created called the Atarashii Rekishi Kyokasho wo Tsukuru-kai
(新しい歴史教科書を作る会: Association for the Creation of New History Textbooks
). This association (hereinafter called the Tsukuru-kai
for short) was one of a number of pressure groups that aimed to have a revisionist view of recent Japanese history generally accepted, specifically, to embody the revisionist view of history in new school textbooks. The founding president, Nishio Kanji, produced a pilot text for a new school textbook, entitled Kokumin no Rekishi
(国民の歴史: History of the Nation
). In this massive text of 775 pages (with no index), Nishio displays all the characteristics of Nihonjinron
. So, for example, Japanese civilization is stated to be unique and culturally superior to "the West". The Kofun
period was comparable to ancient Egypt and was actually superior, since the keyhole tombs of the Kofun
period were larger than the pyramids. Sometimes Nishida's claims are absurd, as when he compares a medieval Chinese
ship with the Santa Maria
of Christopher Columbus, as evidence of Japan's superiority over the West. Apart from any skills in shipbuilding, he criticizes China as a ‘backward' country with a ‘low level of historical writing.'
The following year (2000), the Tsukuru-kai
produced a school textbook, based on Nishio's pilot text, and this passed the screening test set by the Education Ministry for texts to be used in high schools. This fact caused a great deal of controversy and the text was not used very extensively. During the controversy, extraordinary claims were made for the importance of ‘correct' history education in schools. The following remarks were made by one Takahashi Shiro, secretary of a pressure group to demand reform of Japan's Basic Law of Education.
"As the result of bullying [ijime], truancy [futoko], the destruction of class discipline [gakkyu hokkai], the dyeing of hair [chappatsu], and youth prostitution [enjo kosai], the situation in schools has become serious [taihen]. The reason for this destruction of education is history textbooks." (Quoted in Saaler, op.cit., p. 86. In this connection, at one of my earliest meetings with Mitsuteru Ueshiba, the son of the present Doshu, now Waka-Sensei, he sported a luxurious head of chappatsudyed hair. He was a high school student at the time and we discussed his future career at university. He was a very pleasant, good humored and respectful young man, clearly with a rebellious streak. At that time, however, I think he had little clue about what was in store for him as the fourth Aikido Doshu. He has had to embrace a very steep learning curve.)
The answer, according to Takahashi, is to substitute for the present negative, masochistic history (that tells the truth about the war, but, apparently, makes pupils feel bad about themselves) the bright, amnesic history that ignores, or is delicately selective about, the unpalatable truth, but which instills youthful pride and patriotism.
The matter of presenting the recent history of Japan in school textbooks is of great interest to Japan's political establishment, for the textbooks are screened by the Education Ministry and any revision of the Basic Law of Education is decided in the Diet. This is of some relevance to aikido, since the directors and trustees of the wartime Kobukai Foundation were drawn exclusively from Japan's political establishment at the time, and the same is true of its postwar reincarnation, the Aikikai Foundation, whose directors include conservative politicians such as Japan's ex-Prime Minister, Kaifu Toshiki. The political dimensions of aikido in Japan can be seen very clearly at the annual All-Japan Aikido Demonstration, which is held at the Nippon Budokan [日本武道館]. This is a vast arena, situated a short distance away from the Imperial Palace and the Yasukuni Shrine (which, as we will see below, is a symbol of outstanding historical issues relating to World War II). Before the demonstrations begin, the participants and spectators are always addressed by members of the Diet (some of whom have actually been known to practice aikido), who invariably stress the importance of aikido as a peaceful budo
, eminently suitable for solving the present problems of Japan, and Morihei Ueshiba's essential links with such aikido. Even foreigners see the importance of aikido, both for health and for solving the problems facing the world (so it must be a good thing).
The focus of the politicians in the Diet was an apology for Japan's conduct in the war, intended to smooth Japan's relations with her Asian neighbors. An apology was made first by Hosokawa Morihiro in 1993 and again by Murayama Tomiichi in 1995, which was the 50th Anniversary of the end of World War II. Neither politician belonged to the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Hosokawa considered ‘the previous war to have been a war of aggression and a wrong war.' Conservative politicians were outraged and the fires of their outrage were further stoked by various pressure groups, such as the Association of Bereaved Families [Nihon Izoku-kai
], who issued ‘counter-statements' praising the ‘Greater East Asian War' as a ‘war of self-defense to secure the lives and property of the Japanese people' (quoted by Saaler, op.cit.,
p. 71). Murayama wanted to mark the 50th Anniversary in a suitable fashion and planned a major apology. He was not entirely successful in the Diet, for many members boycotted the session and the text was watered down in such a fashion that it really pleased nobody, least of all Japan's Asian neighbors, at which it was principally aimed. Nevertheless, on August 15, 1995, Murayama made a speech, of which the following is an excerpt:
"During a time in the not too distant past, Japan, following a mistaken national policy, advanced along the road to war, only to ensnare the Japanese people in a fateful crisis, and through its colonial rule and aggression, caused tremendous damage and suffering to the people of many countries, particularly to those of Asian nations. In the hope that no such mistake be made in the future, I confront, in a spirit of humanity, these irrefutable facts of history and here again express once more my feelings of deep remorse and state my heartfelt apology. Allow me also to express my feelings of profound condolence for all victims of that history both at home and abroad.
Building on our deep remorse on this occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the war, Japan must eliminate self-righteous nationalism, promote international coordination as a responsible member of the international community, and thereby advance the principles of peace and democracy." (Asahi Shinbun, June 10, 1995, English text quoted by Takashi Yoshida, The Making of the "Rape of Nanking", p. 222.)
Yoshida approaches the matter as one researching the ‘tempestuous debate' over the aftermath of a particular event, which occurred on December 13, 1937, when the Japanese army captured the Chinese capital city of Nanking. Yoshida makes the following comment concerning the arguments over Murayama's apology.
"As they debated the motivations behind the war and argued over Japan's duty to apologize for the past, the Diet members acted out in microcosm the concerns of Japanese society as a whole during the 1990s, when diverse groups of different political persuasions flourished more than ever. Some stressed the importance of including Asian sufferings in Japanese wartime history, while others denounced such views and defended Japan's wartime behavior." (Yoshida, op.cit., p. 134.)
In the next section, I will briefly examine the degree to which the ‘revisionist' views of Japan's recent history, enthusiastically embraced by the conservative politicians and the pressure groups, are also held by the Japanese population as a whole. Kisshomaru Ueshiba originally wrote his biography in Japanese and the main target is the very same ‘Japanese population as a whole' [ippan kokumin
一般国民]. In fact, one of the biggest issues facing aikido is this very fact and Kisshomaru's biography depicts this very well: aikido is no longer the exclusive preserve of the rich and powerful, those who had the time to become full-time deshi
or the wealth to be a dojo patron. Under Kisshomaru's direction aikido in Japan has become a ‘mass' art, available to anyone who goes to a dojo, and the training and teaching of the art have had to adapt to match this mass availability. So the question of how aikido and its founder are popularly perceived is crucial to its postwar success. I begin with some preliminary remarks on ‘revision' vs. ‘revisionism' and then consider a related distinction between history as a ‘science' and history as a type of literary fiction. The latter is very popular in Japan, as evidenced by the best selling historical novels of Shiba Ryotaro, with related films and TV productions.
Writing Japanese History
5. World War II: Dark Masochism vs. Bright Amnesia:
Historical Revisionism and Historical Consciousness
In 1995 Stanley Pranin wrote an article for Aikido Journal
, entitled, "A Revisionist View of Aikido History," which discussed one view of the evolution of aikido history in respect of training with weapons. We will mention Mr Pranin's important contributions to the history of aikido later, but he used the term ‘revisionist'. Historical revision and historical revisionism are quite different in meaning and with respect to the history of aikido—including biographies of Morihei Ueshiba, it is very important to be aware of the difference.
The previous column argued for the great importance of the constant revision of historical research and of history writing. Indeed, in a real sense the writing of history is
revision, since primary sources and secondary authorities need constant reevaluation in the light of new information or different perspectives. However, there are generally accepted rules for historical enquiry, which are regarded as fundamental for the discipline and as a result, maintaining the essential tension between (1) the quest for new facts & greater historical objectivity and (2) the awareness and acceptance of one's possible biases in telling the resulting story, is a continuous process and should also be a creative one.
Historical revisionism is different, as Sven Saaler explains, with reference to one form.
"What has been called ‘historical revisionism' (歴史修正主義rekishi shuusei-shugi) in the context of postwar Japanese intellectual and political discourse … is a highly politicized version of historiography that subordinates scientific method—however defined—to the achievement of political aims. These aims are the re-assertion of national identity and the strengthening of citizens' allegiance to the state, and, as a basis for these goals, the construction of a ‘bright' or exculpatory historical narrative of Japan's recent past." (Sven Saaler, op.cit., p. 23.)
I think readers of the previous column will not fail to see similarities between this example of postwar historical revisionism and the prewar theories of Hiraizumi Kiyoshi. An outstanding example of ‘non-repentance' after Japan's surrender, Hiraizumi cannot be said to have held revisionist views when he was a professor, for such views were considered mainstream. However, he continued to maintain his ultranationalist views after World War II until his death in 1984—and by 1945 had also taught many generations of students, who, in turn, taught history in Japanese universities after the war. It is difficult to know how many of his students embraced Hiraizumi's views, but I myself have encountered such ultranationalist views held by older Japanese university professors and by older aikido practitioners.
Historical revisionism has found a fertile soil in Japan because of the related issues concerned with history as a science, as against history as ‘historical fiction', to which I now turn.
Shiba Ryotaro and History as Popular Fiction
In the last section, I mentioned Nishio Kanji and the Tsukuru-kai
and briefly discussed his pilot text, entitled Kokumin no Rekishi
(History of the Nation
). An important part of Nishio's argument is that he is able to write a ‘proud' historical narrative, because history is not a science, in any case. In his discussion of this issue, Saaler cites a book by an American scholar, Hayden White, entitled, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe.
There is no space to discuss White's detailed arguments in detail, but they do not relate very much to the ways of thinking in Japan. White does not discuss any Japanese examples and in any case his whole argument is both misconceived and unconvincing. His argument is based on speculative analyses of nineteenth-century European thinkers, such as Michelet, Ranke, Tocqueville, Burckhardt, Marx, Nietzsche and Croce. While interesting in their own right, White's analyses do not establish that historical data disappear beneath the philosophical analyses of such data. The analyses simply restate in much more detail the points made by Daniel Little, which were discussed in the previous column.
"These points [i.e., that historical facts exist only as a function of prior concepts and problems] have a particular resonance in the case of Japan, where historical fiction has had a considerable influence on the historical consciousness of postwar Japanese."
However, White has not established that historical facts do exist in this way and Saaler does not explain what he means by ‘resonance'. There is a ‘resonance' between Nishio's theories and Hayden White's theories, for White was cited in connection with Nishio Kanji's denial of history as a science. However, Nishio believed that this denial allowed him to be unusually selective about what the facts actually were: ‘bright' facts were acceptable; dark ‘masochistic' facts were not. However, some of the ‘masochistic' facts were still facts.
The historical novels (rekishi shosetsu: 歴史小説) of Shiba Ryotaro have been considered particularly important in this respect. … Not only are his novels bestsellers (and long sellers), but they are almost continually recycled in TV series, movies and new media such as the Internet."
The ‘resonance' here is different, for Shiba Ryotaro is not selective about the ‘brightness' or ‘darkness' of the actual facts he uses; he believes that an account that blends facts and fiction is as valuable as an account that presents only facts. The ‘bright' aspects of his novels are ‘bright' periods or figures in history, such as the wars in the early Meiji period, or characters like Sakamoto Ryoma. Shiba has never written novels about ‘dark' Showa, or the Asia-Pacific War.
"In view of the popularity of historical novels and their recycling in the mass media, commentators have recently drawn attention to the similarities between professional history writing ("historical science" or academic history) and historical fiction. Narita Ryuichi has traced these links in the writings of Shiba Ryotaro." (The last three quotations are from Saaler, op.cit., pp. 47-48.)
Saaler then quotes in English from Narita's book, 『司馬遼太郎の幕末・明治 』 (Bakumatsu and Meiji in the Novels of Shiba Ryotaro
"The act of combining historical facts with other historical facts and thereby creating an historical portrait is called historical narrative. Although the aim of historical narrative is to provide a real picture of history, in a given historical portrait, the ‘interpretation' of the author also comes to the fore. [Section omitted] It is obvious that there are differences between the interpretations and the narrative of Shiba on the one hand and the interpretations and narrative of historians on the other. However, on the level of presenting a real portrait of history in which rival interpretations are weighed against one another, neither historians nor historical novelists can claim superiority or inferiority." (Narita, p. 37.)
Two points must be made about Narita's views, since they are relevant both to the argument of the previous column and also to Kissomaru Ueshiba's biography of his father. First, Narita is basically stating that, in terms of presenting a "real portrait of history in which rival interpretations are weighed against one another
," historical fiction and ‘straight' history are evenly matched. Compare this view with the discussion in the previous column about the American War of Independence, as presented in the Oxford histories. J Steven Watson, Paul Langford and Robert Middlekauff, the authors of the three Oxford histories, respectively presented a "real portrait of history in which rival interpretations were weighed against one another.
" However, historical fiction was never allowed to enter the equation and if the three historians had been called to defend their way of writing history on AikiWeb
, they would all have denied very strongly any suggestion that their accounts of the American war also included fiction. Kisshomaru Ueshiba, on the other hand, was not writing his biography in such an intellectual tradition.
The second point is that, until recently, such a discussion by the three writers of the Oxford histories would have had very little currency in Japan. Professional historians were either ultranationalist or Marxist and so their narratives were always excessively flavored with their own political standpoints. Shiba Ryotaro was neither and also told good stories. My university colleagues suggested that they were so good that they became best sellers. The volume of sales established Shiba as someone who, by comparison with doctrinaire academic historians, could be trusted to present a ‘real portrait' of a person or period.
The section omitted by Narita in the section quoted above mentions Sakamoto Ryoma and, since we will discuss Sakamoto later, the whole paragraph is worth quoting here in the original Japanese (with the section omitted above in bold type).
「史実」と「史実」をむすびつけ、一つの歴史像を描きあげる行為が歴史叙述です。歴史叙述の目的は歴史におけるリアリティを提示し記述することにありますが、でき上がった 歴史像には執筆者の〈解釈〉が示されています。正確にいえば、さまざまなことがらを整序だて出来事としてまとめあげ、そこに解釈をほどこし、解釈した出来事を束ねあげて歴史像を提供しています。明治維新や坂本龍馬をど のようにまとめあげ、解釈をほどこし、どのように記述したか、ということです。司馬の解釈や記述と歴史像の解釈・記述とのあいだに差異があるのは当然ですが、しかしリアリティをもつ歴史像を叙述しそのために解釈競り合うというレベルにおいては、歴史 像と歴史小説像のあいだに優劣はありません。(成田壟一, op.cit., p. 37.)
Saaler mentions in a footnote (op.cit.
, p. 47) that English speakers are not comfortable with the term ‘historical science' (Geschichtswissenschaft
), commonly used in continental European and East Asian languages to distinguish history as a discipline from history as a literary pursuit, and notes that, "such linguistic differences reflect different perceptions of and ideas about history in English-speaking countries and countries like Japan and Germany."
Saaler also uses the term ‘historical consciousness' rather differently from Hayden White in his book Metahistory,
cited above. Saaler uses the term not to describe the attitudes of professional historians or philosophers towards history, but as the "sum of the predominant understandings of history manifested in a given society.
" The definition cited by Saaler appears on the home page of the Center for the Study of Historical Consciousness, an institute attached to the University of British Columbia Faculty of Education (http://www.cshc.ubc.ca/
). Most of the research on this subject appears to have been done in Germany, where there are analogous issues concerning the public memory of World War II. Very little research has been done on this subject in Japan, but I believe that awareness of this concept is of some importance when approaching Kisshomaru Ueshiba's biography of his father.
俠客Kyokaku: A Man of Chivalry
The reference to Shiba Ryotaro is also quite important, for a glance at websites like Amazon.co.jp
will demonstrate the truth of Saaler's statement, quoted earlier. As an example closer to home, in a recent interview that appeared in the AikiWeb
forums, Imaizumi Shizuo recounts that he was called upon to read aloud one of Shiba Ryotaro's historical novels to Morihei Ueshiba. The novel was Niwaka Naniwa yukyoden
[俄 浪華遊侠伝: Unexpected: The Life of a Chivalrous Man from Naniwa
]. In Imaizumi Sensei's own words:
"O Sensei loved the hero of this novel. His name was Mankichi Akashiya as a boy and then he became Sahei Kobayashi as a man. So when O-Sensei came into the office he would always ask me what had happened to Mankichi! He would laugh heartily at a particular interesting event in his life."
However, Hiraizumi Sensei was being selective in the information he gave about Kobayashi Sahei, assuming, of course, that he knew who he really was. So perhaps more information about him is in order:
"Kobayashi Sahei, a Meiji-era ‘kyokaku', was described [by Sakai Eizo, a yakuza boss and founder of the Seigidan, who regarded himself as Kobayashi's successor]as someone who took and guided delinquent youth, helped orphans and the elderly, and sacrificed his own life out of duty and for society." (Eiko Maruko Siniawer,Ruffians, Yakuza, Nationalists: The Violent Politics of Modern Japan, 1860-1960, p. 114.)
Siniawer defines kyokaku
as, ‘Men of chivalry, a flattering appellation for the yakuza' (Op.cit.
, p. 183). Her book is an impressive study about yakuza
, especially as upholders of what they believed to be the real values of bushido
. (I will discuss this in more detail in a later column.)
Shiba's novel Niwaka Naniwa yukyoden
was first published in book form in 1966 and is still in print. Another long seller by Shiba, Saka no ue no Kumo
, [坂の上の雲:Clouds over the Hill
], was published in serial form from 1968 to 1972 and is being serialized by NHK over three years from 2009 to 2011. An entire museum in Matsuyama commemorates the three heroes of the novel, which is set in the period from the Meiji Restoration (1868) until the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905).
志士Shishi: A Man of Noble Principle
Sakamoto Ryoma is well known as a 浪人ronin
[master-less samurai], turned 志士 shishi
[‘man of honor'], who played a major role in bringing about the Meiji Restoration. His fame among the Japanese public is largely due to the very same Shiba Ryotaro, who also wrote a massive historical novel about him, Ryoma ga yuku
[龍馬が行く: Ryoma is on the Move
], which was published between 1963 and 1966. The novel was made into a film and was serialized by NHK in 1968 as the year-long taiga dorama
(大河ドラマ). More recently, Sakamoto was the subject of Ryoma-den
[龍馬伝: The Life of Ryoma
], which was another NHK taiga dorama
offering, this time for 2010 (and now available, at considerable expense, on DVD).
Because he is so well known, Sakamoto Ryoma is a much better example of the blurring of the distinction between straight history and historical fiction than Morihei Ueshiba, but this is simply because he is much better known. Despite the valiant efforts of people like his son Kisshomaru and his deshi
Sunadomari, Morihei Ueshiba is relatively unknown in Japan, especially outside the local areas of Tanabe and Tokyo, Shirataki and Iwama, where he lived. So the blending of fact and fiction occurs on a much smaller scale.
Shiba's novels and the NHK serials led to periodic ‘Ryoma-booms' in Japan, with streams of books, TV programs and DVDs on Sakamoto himself and the Sakamoto Ryoma Museum
near his birthplace, which is Kochi, on the Japanese island of Shikoku (also famed for Kukai's wanderings). One of my own students wrote his master's thesis on Sakamoto's negotiation strategies. In fact, Sakamoto Ryoma is a good example for English-speakers of the issues involved in distinguishing academic history from history as fiction, because he also is the subject of two works in English, which precisely illustrate the distinction made by Narita Ryuichi about Shiba's writings. One was written by the doyen of ‘orthodox' historians, Marius Jansen. His Sakamoto Ryoma and the Meiji Restoration
was published in 1984 and was used by the author of the second work. In the Preface to his biography of Sakamoto Ryoma, Romulus Hillsborough cites the work of Jansen:
"Sakamoto Ryoma has been the subject of a highly esteemed scholarly work in the English language, the purpose of which I take the liberty to surmise has been to instruct the student of Japanese history. Somerset Maugham once wrote that the most essential quality of a novel is that it be entertaining. ‘No one in his senses reads a novel for instruction of edification,' wrote this master of English letters. ‘If he wants instruction or edification he is a fool if he does not go to the books written to instruct and edify.' It has been my intention to go beyond the scope of the novel to both instruct and entertain, in the first biography of Sakamoto Ryoma ever to appear in the English language in story form." (Romulus Hillsborough, Ryoma: Life of a Renaissance Samurai, 1999, Ridgeback, p. xvi.)
So Hillsborough neatly sidesteps the issue, though he cites a novelist, not a historian—and not even an historical novelist, and offers no direct evidence that his own entertaining instruction is reliable. Nevertheless, it is Narita's opinion, as set out in the quotations above, that there is nothing much to choose between the portraits of Sakamoto painted by Shiba or Hillsborough and the portrait painted by Marius Jansen. The fact remains, however, that Sakamoto Ryoma has been rather better served by both academic historians and writers of elegant historical fiction than Morihei Ueshiba, whom he prefigures to a great extent.
Saaler, who is actually German, but writing in English, ends the discussion with the following important point: The historical ‘revisionists' want to have it both ways.
"While some Japanese historians, including some of the most fervent critics of historical revisionism, would subscribe to the ‘inventive' and ‘fictive' character of professional historiography (Narita 2003), the position of academic history in Japan has also been challenged by historical revisionists utilizing ‘post-modern' and constructivist methods, claiming that that they are doing nothing more than constructing one historical narrative—that of the proud nation—in opposition to the prevailing masochistic narrative. However, in doing so, they are self-contradictory. For although revisionists take pride in constructing a narrative that excludes Japan's wartime atrocities without openly denying them, the number of revisionist writings that lay claim to the ‘truth' (shinjitsu: 真実) about modern Japanese history—and the exclusive truth—is astonishingly large." (Saaler, citing three sources, op.cit., p. 49.)
In fact, those who would enlist Shiba Ryotaro in the service of historical revisionism are doing him a major disservice. Fujioka Nobukatsu was mentioned above in the previous section on school textbooks. Fujioka, who also heads the Association for Advancement of Unbiased View of History [自由主義史観研究会: Jiyuu-shugi Shikan Kenkyuukai:
English website at http://www.jiyuushikan.org/index.html
, which is the more academic predecessor of the Tsukuru-kai
], claimed that reading Shiba's novels was his inspiration for focusing on ‘bright' history in school textbooks. But Sven Saaler is critical. He notes that Fujioka
"had clearly not read The Shape of This Country, which first appeared in 1993, carefully enough to grasp Shiba's view of history. As a consequence of such misgivings, the historical narrative created by the revisionists, above all with regard to the interpretation of the Asia-Pacific War, stands in contradiction to the views of Shiba. Rather, it can be said that his novels and other writings function as a bulwark against the spread of historical revisionism in Japanese society, particularly with Japan's youth, among whom Shiba's popularity remains undiminished." (Saaler, op.cit., p. 153.『この国のかたち』 Kono Kuni no Katachi, Shiba Ryotaro's non-fiction essays, were published in six volumes from 1993 to 2000. The essay cited by Saaler appears in Vol. 4 and is entitled, 「日本人の二十世紀」, pp. 213-265.)The Shaping of War Memory
The Sunday evening NHK taiga dorama
and the historical novels written by Shiba Ryotaro are some indication of popular interest in Japanese history. During the New Year holidays there are invariably popular history programs and local newspapers are always promoting sets of DVDs that deal with World War II, including old news footage. Hiroshima's Atomic Bomb Museum always draws vast numbers of visitors and a few miles to the southeast, in the port city of Kure, there is a museum dedicated to the battleship Yamato
, which was built there. In their various ways, both museums tell about important aspects of the history of World War II.
In this connection, the wreck of the Yamato
was discovered a few years ago and a film was made. The film, called「男たちの大和」 [Otokotachi no Yamato
Yamato and her Sailors
], is another example of sensitively depicted fictional ‘history', in that the events depicted could actually have happened. An old fisherman, who was one of the few survivors of the sinking, visits the location of the wreck and, in a series of flashbacks, relives his days on the battleship as a young naval recruit, pressed into service at the age of sixteen, and by the cathartic process of returning there, tries to expiate his guilt, because he survived and his shipmates died. There was an issue about showing the film to western audiences, for it was revisionist in tone, attempting to modify the accepted reputation of the battleship, including those who sailed in her, as an evil symbol of imperial power. Otokotachi no Yamato
was released one year before Clint Eastward's Letters from Iwojima
, another film of fictional ‘history', but based on letters written by Kuribayashi, the officer commanding the Japanese garrison on the island during the siege by American forces in 1945. The narration was largely in Japanese and the principal Japanese actor is a member of a hugely popular Japanese ‘boy band' rock group, named Arashi
靖国神社Yasukuni Shrine -- 遊就館Yushukan War Museum
The reason for the continued ambivalence in Japan about the collective memory of the war is not hard to see. August 15 is celebrated as the anniversary of Japan's surrender (though it is never expressed in these terms: usually it marks the ‘ending of the Pacific War', though some think that this war ended only in 1951, with the signing of the treaty with the US). There is a double aspect to the Yasukuni Shrine and both aspects are controversial. One aspect is remembrance of the war dead and Yasukuni is the principal shrine for this purpose. A memorial ceremony is held in the presence of the Emperor at the nearby Nippon Budokan for those who lost their lives in the war and some incumbent prime ministers have occasionally paid visits to the Yasukuni Shrine (a private institution), which enshrines the spirits of soldiers who gave their lives in the war (non-Japanese soldiers included). Since these spirits also include those of people like Tojo Hideki, who were executed as war criminals, the official visits by Japanese prime ministers have always incurred the wrath of Japan's neighbors, especially China and Korea, and the accusation is made that Japan has not properly atoned for her misconduct in the war. Apart from the formal apologies, discussed above, Japan usually counters with arguments to the effect that Japan settled all its accounts with its neighbors from 1951 onwards, when the San Francisco Peace Treaty was signed with the United States. (This is why requests for financial reparation always fail in the Japanese courts.)
The second aspect is the actual history of the war, as this is depicted in the adjacent Yushukan war museum. The museum aims to communicate to visitors a ‘more accurate truth about modern Japanese history' [日本近現代史の真実をより正しく理解して頂く為]. Japanese wars are presented as wars of Asian liberation, from the first Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 to the end of the war in 1945. The wars are depicted as part of a much longer struggle against Western colonialism and imperialism. The darker aspects of these wars are distorted or omitted altogether. Thus Yasukuni has become a monument to the failure of the victors of World War II to impose their ‘frame' for interpreting the war upon a substantial section of the Japanese public. It is a symbol of historical revisionism and the Tsukuru-kai
, discussed in the previous section, is just one of the many pressure groups formed to make sure that the collective memory of the war was ‘correct'.
On the other hand, Sven Saaler presents much evidence in the latter half of his book to suggest that such historical revisionism has not been not embraced by the Japanese public as a whole. The evidence, in the form of surveys conducted by himself and the Yomiuri Shimbun
newspaper, can be found on pp. 128 -- 146. His conclusion is worth quoting in full.
"[T]he data so far gathered indicates an important finding: although the Japanese lack consensus about interpreting their recent past, the views promoted by historical revisionists are by no means broadly accepted in Japanese society; notwithstanding their omnipresence in the political arena and the public sphere, they clearly reflect the views of only a minority of the population about the war. Notwithstanding their public prominence, in the historical consciousness exhibited by the majority of ordinary Japanese, revisionist views of Japanese history are anything but representative. As the vehemence of the ongoing debate suggests, however, revisionism is championed by a variety of vociferous lobby groups with connections to powerful conservative political groups, wealthy business circles, and influential sections of the media. …" (Saaler, op.cit., p. 127.)
From my own experience in Hiroshima, war memory is still a delicate issue, even 65 years after the end of the war. For many years I have been one of the few foreign residents to serve on the governing bodies of the Hiroshima Peace Museum. Saaler observes that,
"The well-known prefectural peace museums in Hiroshima and Nagasaki consider the causes of the war to a limited degree, although they still focus on the wartime damage suffered by Japan, the devastation wrought by the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the meaning of these terrible events for mankind. This kind of narrative also forms the basis of the strong pacifism characteristic of postwar Japan. … Japanese responsibility for the war is still somewhat ambiguous and is never made explicit." (Saaler, op.cit., p. 114.)
I believe this to be true, but I also think there are reasons for this that Saaler does not mention. Like Kisshomaru Ueshiba with the biography of his father, Hiroshima City has set itself the task of being all things to everybody: of creating a picture that caters for the whole spectrum of views concerning World War II, including the positive and negative views concerning the wartime behavior of the Japanese military and the dropping of the atomic bomb. However, when I have raised the question of Japan's wartime atrocities with the city government and A-bomb survivors, the answer has invariably been, ‘Yes, there were such atrocities, but they occurred on both sides, and these atrocities pale into insignificance when compared with the main atrocity that occurred on August 6, 1945, when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Accordingly, the most practical course for us in Hiroshima is to put both atrocities behind us and concentrate on the total abolition of nuclear weapons.' This is a very plausible approach for a politician in Hiroshima, even for an A-bomb survivor, but not, in my opinion, for a historian, who should be more concerned with uncovering all the facts about both ‘atrocities', without being too ready to submerge these facts in the face-saving camouflage of ‘total abolition', vital though this is.
The Sunday evening NHK taiga dorama
and the historical novels written by Shiba Ryotaro are important for another reason: they help to blur the distinction in Japan that is taken for granted in western academic circles between academic history and historical fiction. They also provide an important cultural context for approaching the biographies of Morihei Ueshiba written by Japanese authors, especially Kisshomaru Ueshiba. (I state ‘especially' here, because I believe that the overall aim of the biography written by Sunadomari Kanemoto is somewhat different.)
In the light of the discussion in the last two sections, we can approach Kisshomaru Ueshiba's biography in several ways: (1) as straight history; (2) as a ‘bright' narrative, after the manner of Nishio Kanji's Kokumin no Rekishi
, with facts carefully selected, based on a prior concern to portray Morihei Ueshiba as someone ‘uniquely' unique, even though he was a Japanese with the ideas and prejudices of his own time; (3) as a cross between history and fiction, like Shiba Ryotaro'sRyoma ga kuru
, but as interpreted by Narita Ryuichi (after Hayden White), where fact and fiction are so fused together that one cannot tell which is which; (4) or as a cross between history and fiction, like Shiba Ryotaro's Ryoma ga kuru
, but interpreted differently, where the facts are still presented as ‘facts', but liberally supplemented with ‘sympathetic' fiction. Readers can judge for themselves on the basis of the evidence provided and their own further researches. My own personal view is that Kisshomaru was writing a biography of his father as a combination of (2) and (3): as a ‘bright' narrative of a period that moved from ‘light' to ‘darkness' and back to ‘light' again, liberally sprinkled with his own reminiscences and speculations. This is a more appropriate model for his biography than an unsuccessful version of (1), on the grounds that Kisshomaru was lying or being deceitful.
Researching Aikido History:
1: Aikido Students Approaching the Life of the Founder
Just as it is possible to practice an art without bothering about its history, so, too, it is possible to practice the art of aikido, even in Japan, without bothering about the life of its Founder. (The qualification ‘even in Japan' is intended to suggest that such practice is less likely here, given the vast amount of information in Japanese generally available about Morihei Ueshiba.) Of course, there is the picture guarding the shoumen
(正面), but people come to the dojo, accept all the dojo furniture as a ‘given' for the art, and get on with practicing the art. There is no need for them to learn about the old man in the picture unless they are curious—or are told about him as part of learning the art.
Since an accessible and generally accepted history of aikido has still to be written, postwar students of aikido tend to learn its history in a rather piecemeal, biased and unstructured fashion. They learn that a very small and select number of their prewar Japanese predecessors heard by word of mouth of a person named Morihei Ueshiba, thought by some to possess superhuman qualities, and sought an introduction from two eminent persons. To be accepted by Ueshiba, such students had to have the time and financial means to commit themselves to training 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The life of such students is generally presented in heroic terms: as a vocation, a quest to achieve some of the superhuman qualities supposedly possessed by Ueshiba and such students were invariably radically changed as a result—and almost always for the better. Only one prewar student is recorded as leaving Ueshiba and the reason given is that he could not cope.
(The sketch given here reflects the unfolding introduction to the complexities of aikido and its history given to my colleagues and myself in the dojos in which we trained until reaching the rank of shodan
. Coming amid the constant struggle to walk properly, breathe properly, visualize properly, do the solo exercises properly, master the waza
and reproduce them as closely as possible to the model given during each training session, one important milestone was to be told with obvious pride by an early Japanese teacher that, "I was an uchi-deshi
of the Founder himself." He did not explain what an uchi-deshi
was, nor who the Founder was, in so many words. It took a long time for me to unpack the cultural depths conveyed by the pride expressed, and also by the nuance of the terms ‘uchi-deshi
' and ‘the Founder himself'. I assume that there was a reasonable desire by the teacher to keep things simple at the time, but the reality has turned out to be quite different.)
Of course, the postwar students deduce correctly that they themselves do not usually have the time to do anything similar, for times have changed (though this is not usually emphasized too much) and the change is usually presented as part of an overall grand design on the part of Morihei Ueshiba, who allegedly presented his art as a gift to the world and, together with his successors, prepared a Way for Others to Follow. Moreover, since O Sensei bequeathed aikido to the world as a means of lighting up the Way to enlightenment, it is no longer necessary for students to go through the same grueling training regime as that suffered by his prewar students. So, in one important respect, matters have become much easier—and a historical gulf thereby established between the heroic ‘golden age' and the more mundane present.
In any case, even if the postwar students had the inclination to become uchi-deshi
according to the established model, they no longer have the opportunities. These students go to a dojo, perhaps look at a training session, talk to the instructor, sign the waiver and enroll. Even those who do enter modern ‘uchi-deshi
' schemes sometimes respond to on-line adverts proclaiming the virtues of the schemes and commit themselves only for a limited period—and there are usually documents to sign.
Later on, after a period of training, the students might hear again about the man who started it all: the unusual individual usually referred to as O Sensei (大—less usually 翁—先生 ‘The Great One Who Has Gone Before' = Supreme Teacher), or The Founder—and the very unusual life he led. They might also hear more about the disciples of this individual, who left Japan to settle overseas (being sent, rather than going voluntarily) and how they devoted themselves selflessly to a kind of missionary effort: to preach a gospel of love and thereby spread the light of aikido to the regions of darkness. The students might actually be taught by one or more of these disciples, as I was.
They might also hear about the Founder's son Kisshomaru, called Doshu (道主: Head of the Way), who was at the center of something called the Hombu (本部: Headquarters), and who was largely responsible for the international expansion of aikido after World War II. In addition, depending on who tells the story, Kisshomaru Doshu was considered responsible for reorganizing—or completely changing—the content of the training. They might not know that this particular Doshu wrote a detailed biography of his father, which is regarded as a ‘standard' (though ‘Aikikai') biography.
Even at this point there are serious gaps in the history. There is usually no mention of the prewar and wartime political activities of Morihei Ueshiba, especially his activities with Onisaburo Deguchi (both in Japan and in Mongolia) and his activities as an important member of the Japanese military establishment. There is no mention of Koichi Tohei, who virtually started aikido in America and was a central figure in the Aikikai Hombu immediately after World War II. After he resigned from the Aikikai, to found his own organization, Tohei was virtually erased from Aikikai existence and to this day is talked about only in private conversations. There is no coherent account of Ueshiba's training methodology, including his training with weapons, which has been called both crucial and useless for learning aikido.
If they probe a little further and search the Internet, students might learn of an American researcher named Stanley Pranin, who lived for a time in Japan, training mainly in Iwama (the village where Morihei Ueshiba retired during World War II), and who conducted extensive interviews with most of the Founder's disciples, including the said Kisshomaru Doshu. The biography of Morihei Ueshiba was summarized by Mr Pranin in his Aiki News
magazine and later in his Aikido Journal
magazine website [no complete translation was possible at that time, apparently for ‘copyright' reasons]. Over the years, Mr Pranin also uncovered information that cast much doubt on the accuracy of the said biography, which, after a very long interval [due, apparently, to the time it took to find a suitable translator], was published more or less entirely into English.
Biographies of Morihei Ueshiba
1. Kisshomaru Ueshiba: Filial Emotions Recollected in Tranquility
Kisshomaru Ueshiba's biography of his father was published in 1978 and was translated into English in 2008, which is precisely thirty years later. According to the present Doshu, Moriteru Ueshiba, it was written at the express request of his grandfather Morihei Ueshiba.
"I understand that when the Founder was still alive, he often said to Kisshomaru Doshu, "In order for the path of Aiki to be passed on correctly, the story of my life needs to be known to the public. The only person who can do that is you." After the Second World War, Aikido began to be spread around the world, far from the place of its origin. As O Sensei's son and disciple, Kisshomaru Doshu became convinced that it was crucial to publish a biography of the Founder based on detailed and solid historical evidence. He felt that such a biography would provide good direction for Aikido, and would be meaningful for its future growth." (K Ueshiba, A Life in Aikido, p. 13.)
Unlike the earlier biography written by Kanemoto Sunadomari, which is concerned with Morihei Ueshiba's Omoto beliefs, Kisshomaru's biography covers the whole of Ueshiba's life and also deals with the two legal organizations that were created: the Kobukai Foundation and its postwar successor, the Aikikai Foundation. In fact, the creation of these foundations and the creation of an iemoto
tradition in the person of the Doshu
are the principal aims of his book.
The main reason why I have discussed in such detail the more general issues relating to the collection of historical data, the presentation of these as a story, and also the important distinction made in Japanese works between ‘historical science' and ‘literary history', is that they have an immediate bearing on Kisshomaru's biography. Readers of the English translation who are not aware of this cultural context might well raise questions about the work that Kisshomaru simply took for granted or did not believe were serious issues. He certainly tells a dramatic story, but he gives the reader no help whatever in evaluating the purely factual content. In the Japanese text there are no lists of primary or secondary works that Kisshomaru consulted when he wrote the work. Since he was writing for people who were well acquainted with the historical fiction of Shiba Ryotaro, he might not have thought it necessary. Nevertheless, the fact remains that it is not possible to determine the extent to which his biography of the Founder is "based on detailed and solid historical evidence." Sometimes Kisshomaru Ueshiba even mentions people who were in fact no longer alive at the time they are supposed to have done what he states they did, and this calls into question the degree of critical rigor behind the entire enterprise.
However, given the type of publication it is, however, which is biography or memoirs, the work follows conventions that are quite current in Japan, as I have suggested. In previous columns I have cited the memoirs of Saigo Tanomo / Hoshina Chikanori, the survivor of the Boshin War who allegedly taught aiki
to Sokaku Takeda, which have been collected and published by Hotta Setsuo. In addition to the text, there are notes and a list of other works consulted, together with a chronological chart that lists all the details of Saigo's life, year by year, in parallel with the main events taking place both in the Aizu clan and in Japan at the time. Narita Ryuichi's literary biography of Shiba Ryotaro, who published historical fiction, also includes a similar detailed chronological chart.
Kisshomaru's biography contains a similar chronological chart, fifteen pages long, as an appendix, but this has not been included in the English translation. In addition, Hotta and Narita provide lists of sources consulted and secondary works, but Kisshomaru gives no indication of any sources and there are no explanatory notes. (To their credit, the translators of Kisshomaru's biography have added footnotes, but some of these are actually translations of portions of the main text.) Although he was not writing a biography, Robert Middlekauff, in his OHUS
volume discussed in the previous column, was scrupulous in providing notes and references to support his statements, so one could, in theory, go over the same ground again and evaluate all his sources. This is quite impossible with Kisshomaru Ueshiba's life of his father.
Moreover, the accounts of the American War of Independence in the Oxford histories, considered in the previous column, are based on exhaustive research by professional historians from an enormous amount of primary sources and secondary authorities. The individual authors have done their best to strike a balance between presenting the most important facts, without giving excessive detail, and presenting these facts in an ordered narrative. That this is possible is the reason why the Oxford histories have such a high reputation: even the earlier Oxford History of England
is still in print and the Oxford History of the United States
has established a standard for one-volume historical surveys of particular periods and events. Yet, all three accounts are quite different and the reason for the difference is not simply that it is impossible to have an objective viewpoint. A glance at the bibliographies of these works will reveal the vast amount of original sources and secondary literature that has to be mastered by anyone setting out to write a definitive history of a period or the biography of a famous historical figure. This material is simply not available in the case of aikido.
The fact that that Kisshomaru Ueshiba was not a professional historian is only a partial defense. Given that it is based on "detailed and solid historical evidence", as the present Doshu stated, it is certainly in order for western readers, at least, who are accustomed to the accepted conventions of history and history writing, to seek details of the evidence on which the book is supposedly based and to judge the quality of the work accordingly.
Finally, in conjunction with the treatment of the American War of Independence in the Oxford histories, we discussed the question of the narrator's ‘omniscience'. This is especially important in the case of Kisshomaru Ueshiba's biography. The reader is made to sit like a monkey on Kisshomaru's shoulders, but sees the entire world of his father through Kisshomaru's eyes, not those of Morihei Ueshiba. This point is of some importance, since the reader might believe that he / she has the impression of seeing the world through Morihei's eyes. However, one should remember that this is a common literary device and does not at all establish that Morihei Ueshiba's worldview was exactly as Kisshomaru describes it. Actually, some of the quotations that follow will show that Kisshomaru himself intruded into his own narrative of his father's life to a considerable extent.
The main events in the life of Morihei Ueshiba occupy six out of the seven chapters of the book. There is no space to examine all of these chapters in detail, but there is a need to point out some of the things that Kisshomaru chooses to include, emphasizes, assumes, omits, or takes for granted. Accordingly, after a discussion of the first chapter, which sets the overall tone of the whole biography, I have chosen a number of periods or episodes: (1) Morihei Ueshiba's childhood and youth; (2) The encounter in Hokkaido with Sokaku Takeda; (3) Ueshiba's activities during the war in Asia from 1931 to 1945; and (4) The creation of the Kobukai Foundation and the Aikikai Foundation. (I have quoted extensively from the text of the recent English translation. In these quotations, any parts highlighted in bold
type are followed by the original Japanese text in square brackets. Occasionally, complete paragraphs, not highlighted in bold, are followed by the Japanese original. I have done this in order that those with reading ability in Japanese can study the choices made by the translators.)
Prologue: Beginning with the End
The book begins with a chapter that is intended to set the tone for the entire biography, but which would have been better placed at the end. Readers would then see the extent to which the judgments made in this chapter are really conclusions, based on the evidence presented in the rest of the book, rather than general statements that are intended to guide how we interpret the evidence that follows. Chapter One, entitled, "Attaining Heavenly Skills," is a curious mixture of anecdotes told to Kisshomaru by others who knew Morihei Ueshiba and of Kisshomaru's own recollections and opinions. The chapter has several major themes.
A Morihei Ueshiba spent his entire life creating the art of aikido.
Kisshomaru uses the metaphor of a man-made mountain, which Morihei Ueshiba spent his entire life building, in contrast to ‘the islands of Nijima and Shinzan, volcanoes that erupted from the ocean floor overnight.' The main issue here is what period in Ueshiba's life can be said to be the ‘main' period during the creation of his art. Those who argue that Ueshiba was really practicing Daito-ryu, or that the training in Iwama most truly reflects Ueshiba's aikido, assume that one can isolate certain periods or phases, rather than others. Kisshomaru is very clear that Ueshiba's entire life should be considered as one seamless whole.
B Morihei Ueshiba dedicated his entire life to a punishing regime of personal training.
Kisshomaru immediately equates this mountain with aikido and is also very clear that mastering ‘the ancient traditions of the martial arts' was not the goal; the goal was ‘a new art built on deeper truths.' This regime of training means that,
"the principles of Aikido are very powerful: physical movements developed and tested by long experience; deeply felt spiritual principles that touch the heart. Aikido embodies a search for truth that reaches beyond the human frame of reference to the realization of an omnipotent presence and to union with that presence." (K Ueshiba, A Life in Aikido, p. 19.)
Note that here Kisshomaru immediately transfers the qualities of a personal training regime to the art that was created. In this respect, the emphasis of Kisshomaru's biography is quite different from that of Kanemoto Sunadomari, for whom the art was quite secondary to its creator and his commitment to the Omoto religion. However, both stress that Morihei Ueshiba became ‘enlightened' and that this made a vast difference to the way he conceived his aikido.
C This training regime enabled Morihei Ueshiba to perform kami-waza, techniques so far beyond the normal that divine is the only suitable epithet.
Kisshomaru cites and quotes several disciples who all claimed that seeing and being thrown by Morihei Ueshiba was a unique experience and, without laying any stress on the point, quotes Sogabe Genryu, the chief priest of Kozanji in Tanabe, on the importance of ukemi
"I believe he felt that technique could not be taught in words; he wanted people to learn by being thrown over and over again. Each time the same technique is used, it differs, depending on the angle, the timing, or the force applied by each partner—these crucial variations may be quite subtle. I believe O Sensei saw little value in words, because they fixed the form of the technique without capturing its fluidity in actual practice." (K Ueshiba, op. cit., p. 23.)
In a later chapter, Kisshomaru dates the manifestation of such kami-waza
to around 1925. One major episode was the duel with a naval officer from Maizuru, when the latter's attacks with the bokken
were preceded by a flash of white light. In Kisshomaru's words,
"If he could anticipate the trajectories of bullets [as had allegedly happened in the Russo-Japanese War and in Mongolia], it was not difficult to read the intended path of a sword. This kind of ability goes beyond reading the mind through the eyes and almost becomes a kind of mystical insight." (K Ueshiba, op. cit., p. 178.)
弾丸筋ですら読みとられるにいたった開祖には、太刀筋などはむろん楽に読みとれたわけである。ここにいたって心眼は、むしろ"霊眼"とすら評してもさしつかえないのではな かろうか。(合気道開祖植芝盛平伝, p. 171.)
Kisshomaru adds—just to head off those who might claim that one can replicate such abilities with sufficient training—the comment that Ueshiba was just 41 years old at the time, but had trained the equivalent, for an "ordinary" person, of 70 or 80 years, "given the single-minded way he approached life, with complete absorption and commitment.
" So Gladwell's 10,000 hours are too simple an approach to fit Morihei Ueshiba.
The second episode was the experience in the garden after training with the naval officer. Ueshiba alleged that he was suddenly bathed in golden light and saw himself in complete oneness with ‘the universe'. He made statements like, 「黄金体に化す」: ‘This is a divine transformation
,'「神を視た！」: ‘I encountered God,
' 「はっと悟り得たように思う」: ‘I felt I was enlightened.
' Kisshomaru adds a few 道歌 doka
, which he believes describe the state that Ueshiba achieved.
A perceptive reader can perhaps see where Kisshomaru is heading. The two episodes together mark the transition from the old ways to the new.
"O Sensei finally came to see his budo as "The workings of love," believing that this way of Budo would eventually join him with the heart of the universe. I believe that from that day in 1925, the day that O Sensei underwent the divine transformation, our Aikido took its first steps forward." (K Ueshiba, op. cit., p. 180.)
わが合気道は、大正十四年、この日をもって、すなわち開祖が黄金体した化した日をもってその第一歩みを踏み出したものであると、私は断じたい。(植芝盛平伝, p. 174.)
In a later chapter, Kisshomaru notes the transition from pure strength, which Morihei Ueshiba possessed in abundance, to ‘kami-waza
'. The immediate context [Kisshomaru follows an established style of writing in Japanese known as 起承転結: ki shou ten ketsu
, where the immediate context is not always closely connected to the main argument] is a reference to one Nishimura Hidetaro, a judoka from Waseda University who challenged Ueshiba in Ayabe and who introduced Kenji Tomiki to Ueshiba. After giving Tomiki's impression of training with Ueshiba, Kisshomaru adds his own conclusion.
"There is no doubt that O Sensei's strength was unrivalled.
If he had concluded his development at this stage, he would have gone down in martial arts history as a great master of jujutsu, but it is unlikely that he would have been remembered as someone whose techniques had become kami-waza, something more than simply human. His legacy might have remained in the domain of Aiki Bujutsu (Aiki martial techniques), never reaching the level of Aikido (the way of Aiki). I am deeply convinced that both Aikido and O Sensei's kami-wazabecame possible only by way of the experiences of enlightenment I have described.
ただ、かりにその段階で終わったとしならば、武道史に「柔術の名人」としては記されたであろうけれど、はたして今日の「技、神に達す」と導崇されるまでの盛名は遺されたか どうか。ひいては「合気武術」にとどまって「合気道」の誕生はあり得たかどうか。つまり、「神技」も「合気道」も、大正十四年春の豁然たる開悟によって、はじめて真に可能 になったのではないかと私は考える。
In other words, that experience enabled the shift from an art of mind, body and technique to the union of mind, body and ki, unique to Aikido."
いいかえればいわゆる心・技・体にとどまらず、合気道ならではの「気・心・体」への大飛躍は、あの開悟なくしてはおそらく不可能ではなかったとすら思われる。 ((K Ueshiba, op. cit., p. 185, 植芝盛平伝, p. 177.)
Kisshomaru does not mention that at this time Ueshiba still called his art Daito-ryu and I have quoted this passage in full, in order to show the parallel between Kisshomaru's narrative: of hard training, leading to great physical strength, leading to kami-waza
, and the other narrative: of hard training, leading to great strength, but at some point transformed by aiki
(in Ayabe with Sokaku Takeda?) and leading to what Kisshomaru calls kami-waza
, but what could also be described as ‘internal power'. The two narratives are parallel and, of course, never meet in Kissomaru's biography. In consequence, the issue arises, which is not resolved here, of whether Kisshomaru had any idea of the second narrative, or did have some idea, but chose to express it in terms of kami-waza
D Morihei Ueshiba's regime of personal training and the way it was expressed bore his own unique stamp.
Although Kisshomaru states that Ueshiba taught misogi
to his students, he never stresses this point, but emphasizes that this training time was especially private.
"He was like a huge, deep-rooted tree. A powerful spiritual energy surrounded him; even when I was serving him closely on a daily basis, during that half-hour when he performed his Chinkon ritual in the morning and evening, he gave off such a strong and severe energy that I would not have dared to go near him." (Morihiro Saito, quoted in K Ueshiba, op.cit., p. 29.)
Perhaps without any intention on M Saito's part, this has the effect of underlining a major difference between Ueshiba's own training and that of his students and many of the issues relating to present-day aikido relate directly to this alleged difference. Neither Kisshomaru Ueshiba nor Morihiro Saito ever state or even suggest that they, too, spent one hour each day performing the Chinkon
ritual, because Ueshiba directed or urged them to do so, or because they wanted to train exactly like he did.
In An Aikido Life
, Gozo Shioda gives a sketch of his training schedule in the Takeda dojo.
"Ueshiba Sensei was very religiously oriented. He regarded Mr. Onisaburo Deguchi of the Omoto religion as his master. He firmly believed that having Mr. Deguchi as his teacher would make it possible to attain eternal power. Therefore, his religious services in the morning and evening used to be a major event each day. Sensei recited Shinto prayers and then offered thanks to the kami or deities (starting with the Sun Goddess to the kami of water and grass). The whole ritual took approximately one and a half hours every day. Sensei was especially severe with respect to the kami and even the slightest mistake by his students during the daily ritual would raise his ire. That was one aspect of the most difficult training we experienced. I personally could not commit myself to believing in the kami and I only followed my teacher."
[outdoor training in Takeda] started with prayer exercises for about one and a half hours starting at five am. Then we performed purification rituals for another hour. After breakfast, the period of training started at around ten and lasted until lunchtime. We rested for about two hours after lunch. Then training resumed at four pm and lasted until six. During this special seminar we practiced outdoors every other day. This was especially hard.
" (Shioda, An Aikido Life
(08), Aikido Journal
Thus, the prayers and purification rituals lasted for two-and-a-half hours each day. Clearly Shioda also did this, but he does not state anything about the form it took, and how it affected his own training.
E Morihei Ueshiba was unusually naïve and selfish, especially with respect to finance, family affairs and human relationships.
My own personal impression on reading this section of the biography, where Kisshomaru really seems to speak from the heart, was that if Morihei Ueshiba liked people, they would bask in the warm glow of his direct sunlight; if he disliked people, they would quickly feel the chill of the outer darkness—and there was no way of telling this beforehand. This, apparently, changed around 1925, after the enlightenment experience—which indeed was a learning experience, "he began trying to see and understand others before being critical.
" With family, of course, neither side had much choice, but Kisshomaru mentions several times his father's frigid attitude towards him. The ice cracked only with the opening of the new Hombu Dojo in 1968, when for the first time in his life Ueshiba praised his son, then aged 47, for his efforts.
F Morihei Ueshiba appears to have changed his mind about the Fifteen Years War (1931-1945).
According to Kisshomaru, there were two phases in Morihei Ueshiba's later activities: from 1927 to 1941; 1941 and afterwards, when he retired to Iwama and left ‘the younger generation' in charge of aikido. During the first phase, Ueshiba was actively involved in Japan's Fifteen Years War, but whatever anxiety occurred about the war, occurred around 1941, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.
References to the war are scattered throughout the latter half of the book, but Kisshomaru Ueshiba discusses his father's views about the war only in the first chapter. The comments are intended to illuminate Ueshiba's own wartime activities and the problem is the extent to which Ueshiba's comments were emotions recollected in postwar tranquility. In the first chapter we find this question posed:
"People have noticed that the period when O Sensei came to prominence as a martial artist coincided with the emergence of an aggressive military policy at the national level, and it is natural to wonder how these two events were related." (K Ueshiba, op. cit., p. 38.)
したがって、開祖の世間的な活躍は、おうおうにして戦時下日本の、武力発展の推移と重ね合わされつつ評価されかねない。(合気道開祖植芝盛平伝, p. 34.)
Kisshomaru answers the question in the next two paragraphs. He begins by noting that Ueshiba was very well acquainted with political and business leaders, army generals and navy admirals. He lists the military schools at which Ueshiba taught and names the high-ranking generals and admirals who attended his classes. Kisshomaru then notes his father's patriotism and, in fact, identifies such patriotism with budo
"It is also true that O Sensei was determined to contribute whatever he could to his country, and to sacrifice for the greater cause out of patriotism and a desire for the good of the Japanese people. This readiness to sacrifice the smaller self for the communal good belongs to the most ancient traditions of the martial arts, and it was an integral part of O Sensei's identity as a martial artist." (K Ueshiba, op. cit., p. 39.)
神代に発する日本古来の武の伝統を踏まえた武道家たる者の自覚として、民族の興隆をねがう愛国の至情はきわめて熾烈であり、「お国の役に立つ」ならば、いわゆる小我を捨て て大義に身を滅するの覚悟は確固として定まっていた。(植芝盛平伝, p. 35.)
So, to judge from the above quotation, one could properly call Morihei Ueshiba a diehard nationalist (the Japanese conveys this more than the English). On the other hand, he was most definitely not the 48th Ronin
and Kisshomaru notes that Ueshiba had reservations, even opposition, to the way the war was being fought, but had no intention of making this opposition public. In addition, it is important to be clear about the timing.
"When a peaceful resolution with China was rejected, he began to fear that the aggression of the Japanese military would have catastrophic consequences. As war in the Pacific seemed imminent, O Sensei would sometimes sigh, showing great displeasure, and say this kind of thing to me:
‘There are more foolhardy and arrogant people in the military all the time. They have lost sight of their duty to the nation…Maybe the only way for me is to withdraw from the world.'" (K Ueshiba, op. cit., p. 39.)
「己れの力をわきまえぬ無謀な軍人たちが増えとるのう。足もとの経世済民の大事を忘れおって、 … 神隠れするないようじゃ。」 (植芝盛平伝, p. 35.)
So, Kisshomaru gives Morihei Ueshiba an orthodox, ‘frame' to the war, which is similar to the one through which Kisshomaru himself saw the war. Unlike John Stevens, who appears to believe that Ueshiba was opposed to the war right from the beginning, but was left with wrestling with the huge contradiction this caused from his links to the military establishment, Kisshomaru allows him to have been a very good patriot, but to have quietly changed his mind around 1941, once he saw which way the political winds were blowing. I have discussed Ueshiba's attitude to the war in Column 10, including the lengthy discussion in the Takemusu Aiki
discourses edited by Takahashi Hideo, but the column was written before the English translation of Kisshomaru's biography was published. I discuss the matter further, in Section (4), below.
G After the war, Morihei Ueshiba turned over the running of aikido to Kisshomaru Ueshiba and his associates.
After 1941, Ueshiba retired to Iwama and left ‘the younger generation' in charge of aikido. Kisshomaru is in no doubt that Morihei Ueshiba did this, but whether he did it by choice or because he had no choice, is moot. I have argued elsewhere that Morihei in effect gave the ‘family jewels', in the form of the Tokyo dojo, to Kisshomaru in 1942, but when this once again became the Aikikai Hombu around 1950, it was Kisshomaru, not Morihei, who was in charge, and there is some evidence from an Aikido Journal
interview with Minoru Mochizuki (not, of course, mentioned by Kisshomaru) that Ueshiba was uncomfortable about this. The number of references made by Morihei Ueshiba to himself as ‘this old man' suggests some discomfort with the passing of generations, which in Japan was an inevitable event in a three-generation extended family like the Ueshibas. (Incidentally, by chance I was recently asked by the present Doshu about the last All-Japan Demonstration. My praise of his son's demonstration elicited the pained response that he himself was still going strong and was not giving up yet.)
(1) Ueshiba's Childhood and Youth
The English translation of Chapter Two begins with a short reference by another local native about the attraction of the small town—now a sizable city, where Morihei Ueshiba was born.
"The great scholar and world famous expert on fungus Kumagusu Minakata (1867-1941) described the town of Tanabe as an attractive place, modest and quiet, with temperate weather and beautiful surroundings…" (K Ueshiba, op.cit. p. 49.)
The Japanese original actually includes much more detail: a quotation from Minakata himself, together with a brief biography that mentions Minakata's friendship with the folklorist Yanagita Kunio. All this—just over a page of text in Japanese, has been distilled into the sentence quoted above. Of course, since Kisshomaru is writing a biography of Morihei Ueshiba and not of Minakata Kumagusu, no great harm is done, but the English text is presented as a translation of Kisshomaru's biography and one assumes that it will be complete.
Kisshomaru goes into detail about his immediate family. His father Yoroku was a ‘middling' farmer with about five acres of land. He was hard working and frugal, not formally educated, but well versed in politics and the economy. Since he was a member of the Nishinotani village council for eighteen years, he seems to fit the image of a local worthy. From his description of the ruling clan in Tanabe and, most importantly, where they lived, Kisshomaru makes it clear that the Ueshibas were not samurai stock, though he notes that Morihei's wife Hatsu was distantly related to a branch of the Takedas, an eminent samurai family. However, Kisshomaru's main point is that Yoroku was relatively wealthy and that he was quite happy to give this wealth to his extraordinary son—over a number of years. There is no mention at all of the various economic crises that were buffeting Japan at this time and the impression is given that the Ueshiba family was living in a modest but productive economic cocoon.
Kisshomaru spends a great deal of space on Morihei's relationship with his parents. He was an only son in a family that tended to produce daughters and so appears to have enjoyed a relationship with his father Yoroku that was somewhat different from the rather austere relationship he had with his own son Kisshomaru—and which shows clearly in this biography. Kisshomaru makes several references to Morihei's stern manner towards him and this seems to be evidence of the truth of the popular saying that there are four things Japanese fear most: 地震, 雷, 火事, 親父: jishin
: earthquakes, thunder, fire, fathers. Every Japanese to whom I have mentioned this saying has stated that nowadays it is no longer true of fathers, but it was certainly true when Yoroku was alive and one can wonder whether Morihei was a normal example of the saying and Yoroku the exception.
Morihei Ueshiba went to a temple school in Tanabe, where he was taught the Chinese classics and the rituals of Shingon Buddhism. Kisshomaru gives many details of the local organization of Shingon Buddhism, but these will be lost on the average reader. The real purpose for discussing Ueshiba's liking for Buddhist rituals, however, is to prepare the groundwork for the later connections with the Omoto religion, which Kisshomaru believes to have been the major influence on his father's aikido. His account, incidentally, reveals his own relative disinterest in the religion.
"Yet it seems only natural that what he learned at the Jizo temple as a young boy would have affected O Sensei for the rest of his life, especially given his interest in it. Think only of his later encounter with Onisaburo Deguchi of the Omoto religion. The way O Sensei immediately responded to this meeting and decided to follow the Omoto beliefs, suggests that his childhood study at the temple had lasting effects. I make this connection because I believe that Onisaburo Deguchi's practice, and perhaps even the basis of his spiritual ideas, had some elements of Ryobu Shinto—although I could be mistaken since I am not familiar with these doctrines. [なぜならば、出口師の修行修験体験や霊的発想の根拠には、察するに（教義に未熟な私ゆえいささかの誤解はあるかもしれないが）両部神道的要素がふくまれているように感じら れるからだ。(植芝盛平伝, p. 54.)] Master Deguchi's famous concept of Miroku Gesho, or the incarnation of Miroku (Buddha) … echoes a widespread teaching within Shingon Mikkyo, where it is also associated with the prophecy that the great teacher Kobo Daishi would return to earth after his death. There are some differences, but the basic principle is the same, so it is not surprising that O Sensei became a convert to the religion. Perhaps his closeness to Master Deguchi reflected the importance of these childhood memories and influences." (K Ueshiba, op.cit,, p. 57.)
Since Kisshomaru has just given a precise account of Ryobu Shinto on the previous pages, it is clear that he is referring to Omoto doctrines here.
Political Activities: Shrines, Fisheries and Minakata Kumagusu
The chapter began with a quotation about Tanabe by Minakata Kumagusu, the botanist who was also a local activist. Morihei Ueshiba met Minakata Kumagusu and they became acquaintances. Kisshomaru notes that it was his father's respect for Minakata that led him to support Minakata's stance against the government's decision to reduce the number of Shinto shrines. He then adds that Ueshiba became the virtual ‘enforcer' of the protest movement in Tanabe.
"O Sensei took a leading role in the movement. He met with the governor, he petitioned Parliament, he even sent letters to foreign correspondents. Kumagusu Minakata may have been the one in charge, but O Sensei was the one who put his directives into practice. Thanks to the hard work of these two men, the movement was quite successful." (K Ueshiba, op.cit., p. 78.)
Kisshomaru adds his father's own comment, but it is not translated completely.
"O Sensei would later recall, ‘This was the first time I felt the joy of having an effect on things at the national, political level. Mr Kumagusu Minakata was a great man.'"(ibid.)
「わたしはあの時、うまれてはじめて国事に奔走しとるのじゃという欣快を味わったものじゃ。熊楠爺さんは偉いお方じゃった」のちに開祖は、とくに「国事に奔走」に力を入れ ながら、そう語っている。(植芝盛平伝, p. 77.)
Kisshomaru does not record what 熊楠爺さん [‘Old Man Kumagusu'] thought about Morihei Ueshiba.
This was one example of Ueshiba's local activism, the other being his support of the local fisheries. The local fisheries were resisting a law passed in 1901, largely as a result of the Meiji Restoration and the ending of Japan's isolation. Kisshomaru does not go into much detail, but the new law was a consolidation of an earlier law passed by the Tokugawa shogunate in 1741, which, among other things, established a clear distinction between farming villages and fishing villages and also created farming cooperatives and fishing cooperatives. The new law of 1901 made joining the fishing cooperatives compulsory and also gave the cooperatives responsibility for issuing fishing permits. As a consequence, without membership of a cooperative, no one could engage in commercial fishing. Kisshomaru notes that the law would have a very severe effect on the livelihoods of the smaller fishermen.
Morihei Ueshiba had graduated with success from an abacus institute in Tanabe and was working at the local tax office. He left this job to concentrate on the resistance to the new law. Kisshomaru explains his decision in psychological terms.
"He had a kind of chivalric desire to help the little guys and try to improve their situation. But he also felt a principled anger against the bureaucrats and big businessmen who had ulterior motives for supporting regulations from which they would probably benefit. These were deep-seated parts of O Sensei's character that had nothing to do with logic. Similar things happened many times later on and he often ended getting the short end of the stick because of these tendencies." (K Ueshiba, op.cit., p. 63.)
However, it is unfortunate that Kisshomaru does not support this character analysis with any other examples from later periods in Morihei Ueshiba's life. Presumably, the bureaucrats and big businessmen who helped him during the Kobukan years had no ulterior motives. Kisshomaru notes that Morihei Ueshiba became the leader of the fisheries resistance, as he did with all his other projects, but that he also learned some painful lessons.
"One was how powerless the masses were against public authorities; another was how little an individual could do without a power base. He came to realize how limited he was by his youth, his small stature and lack of experience." (ibid.)Commercial Activities and Military Service
As a result of the bruising his ego received in the fisheries dispute, Morihei Ueshiba went to Tokyo in 1901 with funds given him by his father Yoroku. He set up in business, worked hard and did well. However, probably due to the life he was leading, he developed acute beri-beri and decided to return to Tanabe. He gave the business, Ueshiba Shokai
, to his employees and left.
During his account Kisshomaru mentions a relative from another side of the family. The relative was Inoue Koshiro, who was the younger brother of Ueshiba's brother-in-law. Morihei's elder sister, Tame, married Inoue Zenzo and he and his brother Koshiro made their respective fortunes in Tokyo. Kisshomaru never mentions the wealth of the other side of the family, and I suspect that the reason is his concern to show that Morihei's later flowering as a martial artist was due entirely to the support of his father Yoroku—and to no one else.
When Morihei Ueshiba arrived in Tokyo, he went to meet Inoue Koshiro. According to Kisshomaru, Ueshiba was
"an independent soul and did not ask for any help. … After that first visit in any case, he never went back." (K Ueshiba, op.cit., p. 64.)
However, a different account is given by Stanley Pranin, based on his later interviews with Ueshiba's nephew, Yoichiro / Noriaki Inoue.
"Since it is known that Morihei was apprenticed to Koshiro to assist in the latter's businesses in the Asakusa district of Tokyo, it would appear obvious that this career decision [to go to Tokyo] was taken jointly by family members including Morihei's father, Yoroku and Zenzo. As fate would have it, Ueshiba stayed in Tokyo for less than a year under the tutelage of Koshiro." (Pranin, "Yoichiro Inoue: Aikido's Forgotten Pioneer", Aikido Journal, accessed online, 25 Sept, 2011.)
In fact, Morihei Ueshiba's nephew Yoichiro / Noriaki and his family hover like ghosts behind Kisshomaru's narrative, but take on verbal form only rarely. Their ghostly presence strengthens the impression that Kisshomaru was being rather selective in his account of his father's early years.
The Russo-Japanese War broke out in 1904. This was a major ‘patriotic' war for the Japanese and some have argued that this war set Japan on the path to ultra-nationalism and defeat in 1945. There is no hint of this here, of course. Kisshomaru gives the ‘bright' version and merely states that Morihei Ueshiba followed the example of most men of his age and went to enlist in the army in 1903; he was rejected because he was too short. Given the names he was called at the fishery barricades because of his height, this must have been extremely galling to Ueshiba and Kisshomaru goes into great detail about the various exercises he undertook to gain the required height, with the result that Ueshiba was eventually accepted as a reservist.
Morihei Ueshiba saw some action in Manchuria and Kisshomaru mentions that there were "many stories from this time." He recounts one.
"O Sensei recalled later that as he started to experience actual fighting, he "began to see the bullets coming. I could see them coming from left and right and so I could easily get out of their way." It could have been strong intuition and fast reflexes, or an instinctive ability to feel the ki of the moment, but he said he could easily see them in mid-flight." (K Ueshiba, op.cit., p. 70.)
ただ興味をひからるのは、何回かの戦闘に参加するうちに、「飛んでくる敵の弾丸がよう見えるようになった。右からでも左からでもよう見える。だから、らくに避けることがで きたものじゃ。」とのちに述懐していることである。直感的、直覚的に気を察しての反射動作かもしれないが、とにかく開祖自身には「よう見えた」のである。(植 芝盛平伝, p. 68.)
Kisshomaru devotes much of Chapter Four to his father's secret visit to Mongolia, where Ueshiba also allegedly saw bullets flying through the air. Later he mentions the crucial episode in the garden of the dojo in Ayabe in 1925, where Ueshiba saw white light preceding the officer's sword cuts. Kisshomaru mentions the episode here also, in order to relate the later visions in Mongolia to the earlier experience of fighting in Manchuria.
"O Sensei liked to tell this kind of story, and it may be that this kind of intuitive ‘pre-vision' of an opponent's movement goes back to his experiences in real battle situations during the Russo-Japanese War.[…という実談を開祖は好んで話したが、そのような、武道のいわゆる一瞬の「先」のひらめきは、前記の日露戦争における実戦体験にまでさかのばれよう。] During his military service, O Sensei gained the ability to remain calm and focused even in life-and-death situations, to command any opponent or situation, and to capture in his mind the details and energies of a particular moment. Certainly his four years in the army were crucial in triggering O Sensei's turn towards the martial arts." [ともあれ足かけ四年間の軍隊生活 は、開祖を確定的に武の道へ向けた契機であったと解してさしつかえない。] (K Ueshiba, op.cit., p. 71, 植芝盛平伝, p. 68-69.)
Again, as with the protest against the fishery law and the shrine issue, Kisshomaru has Morihei Ueshiba taking a major leadership role in the army also, and entitles this section of the chapter, ‘Star of the Army' (the Japanese being 兵隊の神様, a moniker that Ueshiba applied to himself). Ueshiba certainly progressed upwards quite rapidly, but he was not a commissioned officer and so his rank on leaving the army has to be seen in starkly relative terms. He rejected the opportunity to go to the Toyama officer training school and found himself back in Tanabe at the age of 23 with a young wife and nothing to do. The severe emotional crisis he appears to have suffered at this point is a stark contrast with what Kisshomaru has just stated earlier, about Ueshiba's ability to "remain calm and focused even in life-and-death situations, to command any opponent or situation.
Early Married Life
Shortly before enlisting in the army, Morihei Ueshiba married Hatsu, who had been a childhood friend. Kisshomaru notes that on her trips to Osaka to see her husband, she was always well received by the soldiers in his unit. Kisshomaru is actually quite candid about the difficulties of their early married life.
"O Sensei was a stubborn man, not the kind of person who would demonstrate his affection for his wife in front of outsiders or even his family.[開祖はそのやや頑なな性格からして、外部か、あるいは妹や子供である私のような身内に対しても、彼女への愛情を明かすことはまずなかった。(植芝盛平伝, p. 70.)] But I am convinced that inside he harbored deep gratitude towards her. … I think this mutual understanding [of Morihei and Hatsu] may have been reached only after O Sensei had established himself as a martial artist. It must have been quite different during these early years, when he was still searching, restless and angry, and his new wife could barely make a dent in his pain and anxiety. Of course, we are talking about the Meiji era, and O Sensei was not the only stubborn and ambitious young person in Japan at the time. It was a moment when people were caught up with issues of national importance, on fire with lofty ideas instead of thinking about the comforts of home." (K Ueshiba, op.cit., p. 72.)
Kisshomaru assumes a marital relationship here that non-Japanese readers might not. Almost certainly at the time when Morihei Ueshiba married Hatsu and even when Kisshomaru was writing his biography, Japanese marriage was seen as a union between two family lines and not as a union between two individuals. Usually marriages were arranged, with the union quietly organized by the parents and a go-between. So the individual relationship developed—or did not. Since the new wife was entering the husband's family and leaving her own, there was far more social pressure on her to make it work and produce children, sons and daughters, but especially sons, to continue the husband's family line. Thus, Kisshomaru slides over the real emotional torment that must also have been experienced by Hatsu, quite as much as by Morihei.
Martial Arts Training
Yoroku Ueshiba took Morihei to play sumo on the beach with the children of the fishermen and an old fisherman named Suzuki Shingo taught him spear fishing. Kisshomaru adds his own comment on the potential for the future and also a footnote (which is part of the main text in the Japanese original).
"He enjoyed diving and underwater fishing. I sometimes wonder if his fondness for spears originated in his experience of the agility required in spearfishing."
"Next to Taijutsu (techniques using the body), O Sensei loved Sojutsu, using the spear (yari). He is said to have studied Hozoin-style spear technique, but in my observation, he didn't follow the forms of any particular style; his te-sabaki and tai-sabaki, certainly, were entirely his own." (K Ueshiba, op.cit., p. 50.)
べつにこじつける気はないけれど、手練を要するモリ突きの習得が開祖の槍好き（開祖は体術のほかに、なによりも槍術を好んでいた。宝蔵院流槍術を学んだことがあるようだが 、わたしの見るところでは定型にはとらわれず手捌き体捌きは独自のいわば"植芝自然流"であった）にまでつながっていたかと思われる。(植芝盛平伝, p. 45.)
Although Kisshomaru records his observation here, in the early part of his biography, his ‘observation' (わたしの見るところでは: he is honest enough to state this unequivocally) clearly relates to Ueshiba's training seen as a whole. It is of some importance for those discussions about what kind of weapons work Ueshiba practised and when. Later, Kisshomaru himself practiced Kashima Shinto-ryu and his earlier training in kendo at school was a small spur to his decision to train seriously in aikido.
When he was working in Tokyo at his business, Morihei Ueshiba began to practice Kito-ryu jujutsu
at a dojo in Asakusa. Kisshomaru notes some confusion about the name of the teacher (Tobari, as against Tozawa) and adds that after this basic jujutsu
training, he trained in Shinkage-ryu at a kendo dojo in Iida-machi, Tokyo. Kisshomaru does not state what this training actually consisted in, but assumes it was kendo—and adds that this was really casual training and lasted only for a short time.
Kisshomaru observes that during his years in the army, Morihei Ueshiba apparently became very good with the bayonet and he notes that this must have been partly due to his earlier training in Tokyo. Kisshomaru also notes that on his days off, Ueshiba visited the Yagyu-ryu dojo of Nakai Masakatsu in Osaka, where his army unit was stationed. Kisshomaru's observations need to be quoted in full.
"Kito-ryu is a Kobudo Yawara, a traditional form of Judo developed by Masashige Terada during the fourth Tokugawa shogunate. It seems that O Sensei had some doubts about this art. While he though the style was beautiful, he wondered whether it would be effective in real situations, and whether it was useful for training the mind. After learning the basics of Kito-ryu, O Sensei began going to a kendo dojo in Iida-machi, where they taught Shingake-ryu, as developed by Koizumi Isenokami. (This was perhaps only for a brief time. O Sensei's memory was failing when he told me this, and he was not very clear about the names of people he studied with early on.) He began going to dojos just to let off steam. This almost casual activity was the beginning of his lifelong involvement with the martial arts." [開祖は、起倒流をいちおう習得後、剣道をこころざし、飯田町の新陰流（上泉伊勢守秀綱が創始）の道場かよいはじめたちうが、これは短時間であったらしく開祖の記憶も薄れて いて、道場主の氏名その他もさだかではない。
いずれにしても、いえることは、性に合わぬ商売への鬱屈を晴らそうとした道場通いが、結局はやがて武道に踏み込む糸口になったという点のおもしろさであろう。] (K Ueshiba,op.cit., p. 64-65, 植芝盛平伝, pp. 61-62.)
"It seems that on his days off, O Sensei would visit the Yagyu-ryu dojo of Mr Masakatsu Nakai. The regiment was located in what was then Osaka Chindai, and after they returned form war they were temporarily stationed in Hamadera—so it was easy for O Sensei to get to Sakai, where the dojo was.
Mr Nakai was apparently related to the Yagyu family, and he was a Jujutsu master of great fame. I have heard that Jigoro Kano, the founder of Kodokan Judo, and Chubei Yokoyama, a master of naginata, used to come and study under Mr Nakai. O Sensei studied diligently and attained a menkyo (certificate of mastery) from Mr Nakai. Although he told me this on a number of occasions, the timing was not very clear and I have to admit I haven't been able to confirm when it happened, so it's a case of making an educated guess." [開祖は熱心にかよい、免許を得るまでにいたった。そのことは、私自身、生前、開祖からしばしば聞かされている事実ゆえに問題はない。ただ問題は、その入門の時 期である。] (K Ueshiba, op.cit., p. 68-69, 植芝盛平伝, p. 66.)
The ‘educated guess' is that Ueshiba received the menkyo
before, during, or after his spell in the army. However, according to Kisshomaru, the main impetus to his interest in the martial arts occurred after his time in the army—and this would include his study of Yagyu-ryu jujutsu
described above. Yoroku turned the barn in front of the family house into a judo dojo and hired a judo teacher.
"When a famous Judoka named Kiyoichi Takagi came to visit Tanabe—he later received ninth dan from Kodokan—Yoroku begged him to stay and teach Judo to young people there. Really, he probably had in mind mostly his own son, training his body and mind and settling him down a bit. Yoroku spent his own money to hire Mr Tagaki, rent a house for him, pay his salary and build the dojo." (K Ueshiba, op.cit., pp. 73-74.)
Again, this account needs to be read in conjunction with the comments made by Yoichiro / Noriaki Inoue in Mr Pranin's interview. Inoue used to practice in this dojo and he suggests that the dojo was much more of a joint project between two families than the sole work of Yoroku.
Training of the Spirit
The title of this second chapter is, "Hard and Solitary Training: O Sensei's Youth." Kisshomaru describes and explains his father's transformation from physical weakling to a very strong individual. When he practiced at the Takagi judo dojo, Morihei Ueshiba:
"was always like the king of the castle. His worrying crazy behavior was no longer in evidence. O Sensei had already built a strong body through military training. It was only natural that with daily hard practice at the dojo, his enormous strength soon became more apparent. There are scores of stories about this strength and some of them are well known." (K Ueshiba, op.cit., pp. 74-75.)
Kisshomaru then cites "one account" of a style of jujutsu called Ai-oi, practiced by Ueshiba's great-great grandfather Kichiemon and suggests that, "perhaps this strength was really mastery of Ai-oi jujutsu." The unstated implication is that Morihei Ueshiba's great physical strength was somehow tied to the life of dedication to the unnamed family martial art he would eventually practice.
However, Morihei Ueshiba seems not to have trained with Mr Takagi at the new dojo very much. Kisshomaru states merely that, "he practiced whenever he had the time. He had studied Kito-ryu Kobudo Jujutsu, but this was the first time he had studied modern Kodokan-style Judo.
" Kisshomaru does not explain what Morihei was doing at other times—and it was certainly not learning to do farming. In any case, though he does describe this in great detail, Kisshomaru did not see his father's ‘hard and solitary training' in purely physical terms. The descriptions of Morihei Ueshiba struggling to gain extra height, in order to meet the army's entrance requirements, or of his wild behavior after he left the army, at the age of 23 and with nothing to do, are intended to set out the emotional dimensions of a search for a major goal in life: a goal he began to find in the martial arts. The description of the judo dojo, opened by Yoroku at some point between his son's discharge from the army and his departure for Hokkaido, marks the early outline of this goal.
Conclusion to (1)
I have discussed this chapter in some detail, because Kisshomaru is preparing the groundwork here for the development, in the rest of the book, of the central thesis announced in Chapter One, namely, that Morihei Ueshiba was a unique genius, someone who created a unique art—and prepared for this from a very early stage in his life. Accordingly, he presents a picture of the young Ueshiba, on the one hand, as someone radiating leadership, as someone who was ‘his own man' from an extremely early age, and as someone who took his main life decisions virtually alone. A consequence of this is that more distant members of the family, like Kenzo and Koshiro Inoue, and Ueshiba's nephew Yoichiro / Noriaki, do not receive the degree of attention from Kisshomaru that is commensurate with the assistance they actually gave to Yoroku and Morihei. On the other hand, the picture also includes times when Ueshiba was, sick, broken and defeated in spirit, when his skills at human relationships virtually disappeared, but this is always seen as a training opportunity. Kisshomaru also suggests that the various martial arts he practiced in these early years would have an effect, at some time or other, on the development and ultimate flowering of aikido as the result. Finally, his bemused family acted as a sort of retroactive financial and emotional cushion, while showing some bewilderment at the strange and unpredictable phenomenon in their midst. Ueshiba's new wife Hatsu, especially, assumed the role of a quietly suffering servant and faithful supporter.
(2) Brief Encounter
Kisshomaru Ueshiba devotes just over six pages of Chapter Two to his father's encounter with Sokaku Takeda. This is wedged in between accounts of Morihei Ueshiba's exploits as 白滝になる王: King of Shirataki
and the fire that broke out in the town just before his departure. Compared with the whole of Chapter Four and much of Chapter Five devoted to Onisaburo Deguchi, this is very short and perhaps reflects Kisshomaru's own ideas about the influence that Takeda had on his father's aikido, compared with that of Deguchi. In fact Kisshomaru cites Deguchi here and intrudes into the narrative, with a description of Takeda that is hardly prepossessing.
"Sokaku Takeda made a name for himself in the history of modern martial arts by restoring Daito-ryu Jujutsu. He was a formidable master of his art. Even though he was about two inches shorter than O Sensei, he had an impressive appearance: high cheekbones, sharp eyes that glowed with mysterious determination, and a tight-lipped mouth with missing teeth. He had a habit of looking around him contemptuously, with the corners of his mouth turned down." (K Ueshiba, op.cit., pp. 93.)
顴骨の高く突き出た容貌はまさしく魁偉、背は開祖よりなお二寸ほど（六、七センチ）低い短躯ながら、眼光鋭くかつ妖しく底光りし、歯の抜け落ちたままの口もとをぐいとへの 字にひき結び、あたりを睥睨してやまなかった。(植芝盛平伝, p. 93.)
Kisshomaru offers no analogous description of Deguchi's face in the chapter about Onisaburo Deguchi, whom Kisshomaru mentions next. Admittedly, he does not rely totally on Deguchi's knowledge of fortune telling by phrenology, but adds his own unease about Takeda, from when he was about ten years old.
"Master Onisaburo Deguchi was good at assessing people's character from their faces. He acknowledged that Sokaku Takeda had accomplished something in his life, but as he told O Sensei, he felt that this man had a ‘strange destiny.' Apparently, he said he could smell blood about him, and could not warm to him as a person. I can't say whether or not this assessment was correct, but it is true that during the time of the Ushigome dojo, when I was a child and Takeda Sensei was staying with us, I always felt a bit afraid of him." (K Ueshiba, op.cit., pp. 94.)
観相に長じた出口王仁三郎師は、いちおう一道に達した人物とは見ながらも、「数奇な運命の持ち主」ではあるまいかと開祖にいい、なにやら、「血の匂いがする」とて、人間的 にはあまり好まれなかったと聞いている。その観相の適否はむろん私にはわからないが、少年時、牛込の道場にしばらく滞在されたおり、しばしばお目にかかった私の印象は、子 ども心に、ある種のおそれを感じさせられた。(植芝盛平伝, p. 94.)
Kisshomaru then discusses the celebrated meeting at the Hisada Inn in Engaru. He quotes the interview with newspaper reporters first published in 1957.
"When I was about 30 years old, I moved to Hokkaido. I was staying in an inn called the Hisata Ryokan in the town of Engaru in Kitami-no-kuni. This is where I met Sokaku Taekda Sensei, who was a sensei of Daito-ryu from Aizu. I received his instruction for about thirty days. During that time, I felt something like a flash of inspiration which I didn't completely understand. Later we invited Takeda Sensei to come and teach us, and about fifteen of us tried to learn from him the quintessence of martial arts. [なんだかよくわからないながらも、ある霊感のようなものを感じたのです。その後、先生をお招きして十五、十六人の使用人や弟子と一緒に入門し、必死になって武道の真髄を探 求したものです。]
When the reporter asked whether O Sensei had encountered Aikido while receiving this training in Daito-ryu, he shook his head and clearly said ‘No.' He continued, ‘Perhaps it is more accurate to say that Takeda Sensei opened our eyes to martial arts.'"
そして記者の「大東流を習っているとき、合気道を悟られたのですか」の質問には、はっきり、「いえ」と首を横にふり、「武田先生には武道の目を開いていただいた、といった 方がよいでしょう。」と答えている。(K Ueshiba, op.cit., pp. 94-95, 植芝盛平伝, p. 94.)
Kisshomaru transcribes the interview exactly as it was published, but adds for emphasis the shaking of the head and the clear ‘No'. Morihei Ueshiba definitely did not encounter aikido in Hokkaido, but neither he nor Kisshomaru are forthcoming about how Takeda opened their eyes.
There are some problems with Kisshomaru's account. On the one hand, Ueshiba stayed at the Hisada Inn for one month practicing from morning till night before returning to Shirataki. However, Kisshomaru adds:
"Much later he recalled this time: "I didn't know it then, but Takeda Sensei didn't introduce new techniques after the first month. When he came to Ayabe, he would say, ‘I don't need to teach you any longer,' and he was not interested in continuing with the training." (K Ueshiba, op.cit., p. 97.)
のちに、開祖は、莞爾として述懐した。「あとでわかったことなんじゃが、先生は最初の一ヶ月後はあまり、新しい技はお示しにならなかった。綾部に来られてからなどは、『も う稽古をつけんでもよい』といわれて、わしと相手されたがらならなかったからのう。(植芝盛平伝, p. 97.)
On the other hand, after the month in Engaru, Ueshiba invited Takeda to Shirataki and arranged for fifteen people, including himself, to take his instruction, such was their earnest desire to penetrate the ‘quintessence' of budo
(必死になって武道の真髄を探求したものです). Ueshiba received a copy of the Daito-ryu Hiden Ogi
(Manual of Secret Techniques
), which is dated Taisho 5, or 1917. The reference to Ayabe is to a visit made by Takeda a few years later, in 1921, when he took his family and stayed for six months. Kisshomaru states nothing about this visit and moves on to a new topic. He does not consider what his father meant or, assuming that his father's recollections were correct and that Kisshomaru understood them, why Takeda stopped teaching Ueshiba new waza
The new topic is distinguishing "legends" from "well-known facts" concerning Sokaku Takeda and Kisshomaru presents what he and many other people believe to be the latter. Accordingly, Daito-ryu originated with Shinra Saburo Minamoto, and was transmitted as the secret otome-waza
of the Aizu clan through Tosa Kunitsugu Takeda, who was Jito Kashira
(地頭職) in the Aizu domain. One of Tosa Kunitsugu's descendants was a samurai retainer named Takeda Sokichi, who was Sokaku's father. After noting Sokaku's "genius" with the sword, Kisshomaru notes that he gave up the sword and changed his focus to Daito-ryu Jujutsu.
"In 1898, Chikanori Hoshina, the priest of Reizan Shrine in Fukushima Prefecture, conferred on Sokaku Takeda a certificate of mastery or menkyo, in what had been the Aizu domain otome-waza. Chikanori Hoshina had at one time been the chief retainer of the Aizu domain and was then known as Saigo Tanomo. So, when this happened, Sokaku Takeda became both officially and practically the true restorer of Daito-ryu Jujutsu." (K Ueshiba, op.cit., p. 98.)
明治三十一年、旧会津藩家老で、当時は福島県霊山神社宮司をされていた保科近悳氏（家老当時の名は西郷頼母）より津藩家御留技の秘奥を免許皆伝され、名実ともに大東流柔術 中興の祖たるべき資格を得た（そではない、との大東流関係者の証言もあるが、ここでは私が伝を聞いたことのみを述べるにとどめたい）。(植芝盛平伝, p. 98.)
The comment in the brackets, not translated in the English text, is evidence of the general looseness of Kisshomaru Ueshiba's idea of "detailed and solid historical evidence." The comment is noted, perhaps in an attempt to be even-handed, but with the response that Kisshomaru has stated only what he has heard. Or perhaps he was being ironic. Immediately before presenting the "well-known facts", Kisshomaru states that he does not know much about Sokaku Takeda and refers the reader to his son Tokimune. The reason for the reticence is that, "the current art of aikido is completely different from Daito-ryu, consolidating the powers of body, mind and
" [現在合気道は、大東流とはまったく異質の道をゆく気・心・体の道統] (K Ueshiba, op.cit.
, p. 97, 植芝盛平伝, p. 97.)
Training of the Spirit: Takeda's Devoted Servant
One thing that stands out in Kisshomaru's account—and was something that apparently irritated Onisaburo Deguchi—is that Morihei Ueshiba was the perfect deshi
. In this way Kisshomaru is able to place Takeda's technical skills in a wider context and show his character still wanting in some way. He quotes one Takeda Yoshimatsu:
"O Sensei took heart-breaking pains for Master Takeda. He wanted O Sensei with him at all times and required his constant attention, whether it was to bring him food, prepare his bath, or join him for games of shogi (Japanese chess). Master Takeda's martial techniques were impressive, but O Sensei's devotion was even more impressive." [惣角先生の武術も偉かったろうが、植芝さんの献身ぶりはもっと偉かったな]
After complaining that young people would not think in this way, Kisshomaru concludes that:
"I don't know anyone who was stricter than O Sensei about showing deference and respect where it was proper. Paradoxically, this quality was part of what made him so great that even his own teacher was in awe of him." [なればこそ開祖には、師をして畏敬せしむに足る器量がおのずから備わったのであった。] (K Ueshiba, op.cit., p. 99, 植芝盛平伝, p. 99.)
With that observation, that Sokaku Takeda was in awe of his student, Kisshomaru ends his discussion about him.
Conclusion to (2)
Kisshomaru takes some pains to show that Sokaku Takeda instantly recognized Ueshiba's budo
skills and that the meeting at Engaru was a meeting between equals. The evidence for this is the mutual perception of ki
as they passed in a corridor and a conversation lasting all night. There is no reason to disbelieve that they passed in the corridor or that the all-night meeting took place. However, recognition of Ueshiba's budo
skills did not at all preclude an eye-opening demolition of these very same skills not long afterwards.
The only later reference to Sokaku Takeda occurs in connection with a reference to Ueshiba's training in Ayabe in 1921. He did much personal training alone and the training consisted of Daito-ryu jujutsu
, as taught by Takeda, and also soujutsu
武田惣角師から極意をうけた大東流もさることながら、綾部において開祖がとくに錬磨につとめたのは槍術および剱術である。(植芝盛平伝, pp. 131-132.)
Despite Kisshomaru's silence about Takeda's six-month stay in Ayabe, the description he gives of Ueshiba's training needs to be compared with the description given by Takeda Tokimune of his father's training and his own. The similarities are very close, so that one may be forgiven for thinking that Ueshiba learned these training methods from Sokaku Takeda himself.
(3) Morihei Ueshiba at War: 1931 - 1945
Japan's Fifteen Years War
forms the ‘dark' background of the later chapters in Kisshomaru Ueshiba's biography. [There are various names for this series of conflicts, but I have chosen the fifteen-year period from 1931 because of Morihei Ueshiba's involvement with the Omoto religion / political organization and with the Sakura-kai
, or Cherry Blossom Society.] However, the war is never allowed to intrude very far into his narrative. It is mentioned only in order to highlight generally praiseworthy aspects of Morihei Ueshiba's activities. His activities as a member of the military establishment are mentioned in some detail, but only from the viewpoint of personal relationship with his students—who also happened to be high-ranking admirals and generals etc. Kisshomaru states hardly anything about his father's private feelings about the war and what he does state shows some ambivalence.
Omoto Politics: The Dai Nippon Budo Senyo-kai and the Showa Restoration
The war is mentioned in connection with the Omoto Dai Nihon Budo Senyokai
. Onisaburo Deguchi created this organization in 1932, with himself as Sosai
(総裁: governor) and Morihei Ueshiba as Kaicho
(会長: president). Deguchi's stated purpose contains the following:
"The Budo of Divine Japan originated from God's greater path, embodying the sincerity of the Yamato spirit in order to disseminate it throughout the world. [神国日本の武道は惟神の大道より発して皇道を世界に実行する為に、大和魂の誠心を体に描き出したものであります。] During the three hundred years of the Tokugawa Shogunate, where Bushido (the way of the samurai) was surrounded with ceremony, true Bushido was lost. True Bushido existed from the beginning, before it was captured in words and was covered with human ideas." [真の武士道は、武士道を言挙げせぬ神代に存在して居たのであります。] (K Ueshiba, op.cit., p. 224-225, 植芝盛平伝, p. 214. NB. The English translation misses the deep nuance of the original. As was explained in Column 13, 言挙げせぬ kotoage senu appears in theManyoshu in connection with kotodama. Because there was kotodama [and also true bushido], kotoage was rendered unnecessary. The translators appear not to have knowledge of the Manyoshu poems.)
"The great undertaking of the Showa Restoration cannot be achieved by political or economic means alone, or by science alone, or by spiritual things alone. By presenting the real God-given Dai Nihon Budo to the world, we would like to contribute, however modestly, to this great goal."
昭和維新の大業は政治経済のみでもゆかず科学のみでもゆかず、又、精神のみでも充分ではありません。吾々は神より下されたる真正の大日本武道を天下に宣揚して、此の大業成 就の方分の一の働を相共にさして頂きたいのであります。(K Ueshiba, op.cit., p. 225, 植芝盛平伝, p. 215.)
Kisshomaru states that he does not understand Deguchi's real intentions, but he then spends much space in speculating about what these intentions were. However, we do not know whether Kisshomaru is giving his own thoughts here, or Morihei Ueshiba's. Deguchi's statement is a clear announcement of support for the Showa Restoration and the role that ‘true budo' has to play in it. Kisshomaru continues:
"However a historical incident at the time perhaps has some bearing on the establishment of the Dai Nippon Senyo-kai, and that is the bombing of a section of the Manchurian Railway at Ryujokyo on September 18, 1931, known as the ‘Manchurian Incident.' Master Onisaburo saw this incident as a portent, with some foresight for what was to come. One can say that Omoto as an organization was preparing to wisely meet the new challenges that were about to occur in the next few years." (K Ueshiba, op.cit., p. 225.)
It would seem that Deguchi had the goal of creating a ‘world utopia' in Mongolia or an independent Manchurian nation, with PuYi as the last emperor. However, as Kisshomaru delicately puts it, "The Manchurian Incident intervened." [その矢先の満州事変である。] He does not state here that this Incident led to a full-scale invasion of Manchuria and the establishment within six months of Manchukuo, headed by the same PuYi, as the puppet emperor. However, perhaps there is a reason for Kisshomaru's bland description of the Manchurian Incident, for the invasion of Manchuria by the Kwantung Army was very popular with the Japanese public.
"When Kwantung Army members orchestrated the Manchurian Incident in September 1931 as a rationale for occupying Manchuria, many politicians, the mass media, and a variety of patriotic groups viewed them as heroes whose brave actions could save Japan from its domestic economic woes." (Nancy Stalker, Prophet Motive, p. 171.)
However, there were some domestic problems, as Kisshomaru mentions with his usual delicacy:
"Simultaneously on the domestic front, the May 15 Incident involving young naval officers and army cadets exemplified the emerging sentiment of Showa Ishin (Showa Restoration). [The prime minister was assassinated by a group of young naval officers, necessitating the formation of a new government.]" (K Ueshiba,op.cit., p. 226.)
The Showa Restoration was a project that meant different things to its supporters and also, in turn, to its opponents. This fact might explain Kisshomaru's delicacy here and his preference for focusing only on the ‘bright' aspects of the matter: the good intentions of Deguchi and, by implication, of Morihei Ueshiba and the future contribution to aikido afforded by the establishment of the Budo Senyokai
and the Takeda Dojo. However, it is not clear from his account whether it is merely a summary of much deeper knowledge, or whether Kisshomaru also speaks for his father.
If we focus for a moment on the ‘dark' aspects, the May 15 Incident
was the sequel to the failed League of Blood Incident
in March 1932, the failed October Incident
/ Imperial Colors Incident
in September 1931, and the failed March Incident
also in 1931. All of these attempted coups d'etat
and successful assassinations were carried out by young naval or army officers, or their associates, some of whom actually met in Morihei Ueshiba's Kobukan Dojo. I have explained the domestic politics of Omoto during these years in some detail in Column 9, in connection with Thomas Nadolski's doctoral thesis. More recently, another scholar, named Nancy Stalker, has studied Omoto and the social impact of the dire economic woes that affected Japan in the economic depression caused by the 1929 stock market crash in New York. Kisshomaru passes over this economic crisis in silence and one is left to wonder how the human aspects of this crisis affected Morihei Ueshiba and his family. He was very active in local politics when he lived in Tanabe until 1912, but nothing is stated in the biography about any similar activities after Ueshiba's departure from Hokkaido in 1919.
The Budo Senyo-kai
was a domestic organization [it was actually a paramilitary organization and the members wore uniforms] and was one of a number of similar nationalist groups set up by Omoto.
"It may be that Dai Nihon Budo Senyo-kai was created under the same premise, with a kind of dual purpose. One the one hand, the organization obviously contributed towards a patriotic posture of national defense; on the other hand, it identified Omoto more closely with Showa Ishin (and thus might help to insulate it from the potential recurrence of persecution by the government)." (K Ueshiba, op.cit., p. 226.)
In fact, the Showa Restoration was conceived in terms of direct rule by the Emperor, with the total elimination of any elected government.
"This had to be a repetition of the glorious Meiji Restoration, three generations earlier, which still carried enormous prestige. … The second, or Showa, restoration had to be achieved in the same way as the first one. Dedicated and patriotic men were to destroy the evil advisers around the Throne, in order to enable the Emperor to exercise his authority as the sacrosanct monarch of the nation." (Ben-Ami Shillony, Revolt in Japan, pp. 56, 58.)
However, the term ‘Showa Restoration' also included a variety of viewpoints and this was what constituted one of the ‘new challenges' for Omoto.
"The conceptual vocabulary they [the Young Officers] used to express this vision of a Showa Restoration was often contradictory and included, for example, both agrarian utopian and national socialist ideas. Where the translation of these ideas into radical action is concerned, the picture is complicated by their overlap with different factions of the military. Without pressing the correlation too far, the agrarian utopian variety of Showa Restoration criticism appealed mostly to the idealistic ‘imperial way faction' (Kodo-ha), while the national socialist variety had greater traction in the more pragmatic and utilitarian ‘control faction' (Tosei-ha), in the army." (Stephen Large, Emperor Hirohito and Showa Japan, p. 58.)
Kisshomaru does not mention this here, but one of the ‘new challenges' was the virtual elimination of Omoto, as a result of the Second Suppression in 1935. This occurred because Deguchi backed the wrong horse in the political struggle within the military establishment and supported the agrarian utopian view of the Showa Restoration, as exemplified by the Sakura-kai
and Kita Ikki. The Tosei-ha
, led by Tojo Hideki, out-maneuvered the Kodo-ha
and Omoto was one of the casualties. Morihei Ueshiba was protected by some of his students in the Osaka police and escaped the Second Suppression unscathed, subjected only to a session of police questioning. His escape, however, led to some sort of rupture with a family ‘ghost'. Yoichiro / Noriaki Inoue, who had trained in Ayabe and at the Takeda Dojo, felt that Ueshiba should have behaved like a man and taken similar punishment to his Omoto friends. Of course, Kisshomaru does not mention this consequence of the suppression and leaves his father free to continue his hectic training schedule at the Kobukan, its satellite dojos, all the military establishments, and also in Manchuria, to which I now turn briefly.
Manchuria: A Place for Demonstrations
As mentioned above, the Kwantung Army launched a full invasion of Manchuria in 1931 and established the puppet state of Manchukuo. Anxious to be fair to everyone [and perhaps showing his awareness of the school textbook controversy discussed earlier], Kisshomaru does not describe at all what happens. He moves straight from the 1931 ‘Manchurian Incident', discussed above, to the fact of the state itself, without any mention of what happened in between. He refrains from commenting on the ethics involved, but emphasizes what to him is one ‘bright' aspect: the enormous scale of the operation.
"Opinions of the Manchurian state founded by Japan in 1932 under Emperor PuYi would vary greatly depending on one's position and way of thinking. It is not an issue on which I would comment. But setting aside the question of whether this endeavor was right or wrong, it is a historical fact that its scale was immense. I am honestly dumbstruck that Japan managed to undertake the project of building a nation in that part of the continent." (K Ueshiba, op.cit., p. 255.)
ただ、事の是非はさておき、一つの歴史的事実として見るかぎり、スケールは雄大、正直なところ、よくもまあ日本が一角にあれほどの"建国の大業"を推進し得たものだと、半 ば呆れもし、半ば感嘆せざるを得ないような気がする。(植芝盛平伝, pp. 243-244.)
With this comment, revealing in some ways about his knowledge of world history, Kisshomaru passes over any discussion of the invasion, the puppet state and the huge human cost, and focuses entirely on his father's involvement there.
This involvement with ‘Japanese Manchuria' was quite extensive and Kisshomaru gives a list of official positions Ueshiba held.
"Directly, he was the adviser for Manchuria Budokai [満州国武道会顧問], adviser for the Shinbuden Dojo [神武殿顧問], and Budo Adviser for Kenkoku University [建国大学武道顧問], which was established in 1937. Indirectly, he had many relationships with people who were involved in Manchuria through the military, the civil service, and the private sector. If you add the number of Aikido disciples in Manchuria as well as the number of instructors sent to teach them, the total figure would be very high." (K Ueshiba, op.cit., p. 255.)
There are two parts to Kisshomaru Ueshiba's discussion of his father's activities in Manchuria: his aikido demonstrations; and his encounter with Tenryu, the sumo wrestler. Morihei Ueshiba gave three demonstrations in Manchuria and Kisshomaru focuses on the first and the third, but in reverse order. The second was mentioned in the previous column. It was the demonstration given in 1940 to mark the 2,600th Anniversary of the Japanese Empire (though Kisshomaru uses another description, avoiding the word ‘empire': 日本の奉祝
二千六百年記念事業: Nihon no houshuku
, which is translated as ‘celebration of Japan's history'). Nothing is stated about this demonstration other than that it occurred.
The third demonstration occurred in 1942 and marked the tenth anniversary of the State of Manchukuo. Kisshomaru mentions elsewhere that Sonobe Hideo attended this demonstration. (Though Kisshomaru states that she was said to be the greatest expert of Jiki Shinkage-ryu naginata
since the Meiji Restoration, she was not invited to participate.) She exclaimed, "Oh, it is Shinbu" [a divine martial art: 神武じゃ].
The first demonstration occurred in 1939 and the main demonstration was followed by another demonstration, given by Morihei Ueshiba at popular request. His uke
was none other than the family ‘ghost', Noriaki Inoue [‘an old uchi-deshi': 古い内弟子]. During the demonstration, there was murmuring from the audience because "his movements were so flowing that those present felt somewhat skeptical and began to question whether that they were seeing was real." Ueshiba stopped and issued a declaration. His statement is best quoted in full, because it gives some clue about how Ueshiba saw demonstrations.
"It seems some of you wonder if this demonstration has been fixed. Is there anyone—it doesn't matter who—that will volunteer to attack this old man all-out? Aikido is quite dangerous if performed with full power, so I have been showing you kata. But since everyone is a renowned martial artist, we can bend the rules and try some more serious practice."
どうも馴れ合いのように感じられている方もあるようじゃ。どなたでもよいから、この老人にひたつ力いっぱい掛かってみなさらぬか。合気は試合すると危ないから型だけにしと るんじゃが、今日は名だたる武道家ばかりだそうじゃから、ちょっとだけ真剣にやりましょう。(K Ueshiba, op.cit., p. 257, 植芝盛平伝, p. 246.)
The sumo wrestler Tenryu accepted the challenge and was soundly defeated. This episode allows Kisshomaru to move away from Manchuria and the war and focus again on the ‘bright' aspects of the war, namely, Ueshiba's personal relations with his students.
Morihei Ueshiba as Peacemaker: A Mission to China
Just before his discussion of Manchuria, Kisshomaru Ueshiba discusses a curious episode involving a visit to China in 1941 by Morihei Ueshiba and one of his uchi-deshi
. The aim of the visit was to bring about peace between Japan and China. The episode shows that Ueshiba appears to have had sympathy with those like Konoe Fumimaro, who wanted to ensure that the US remained neutral and refrain from entering the war against Japan. Tojo Hideki planned to extend the war in ay case, and did not care much about the intentions of the United States.
Kisshomaru sets out the background to this visit:
"On December 8, 1941, Japan entered the Pacific War against the US and the UK. As battle lines on the mainland were expanding, this eventuality was not unforeseeable, but it now became obvious that Japan was in crisis, fighting a war on two fronts."
昭和十六年十二月六日、世界情勢の推移はついに日本をして対米英の太平洋戦争の渦中に巻き込むにいたった。 (The English translation of this first sentence does not quite capture the delicacy of the metaphors.) 大陸における戦火の拡大とともに、いつかはこうなる事態も予測されないではなかったが、しかし腹背に敵対せざるを得なくなった日本の危機は明らかであった。
"It was at this time that O Sensei made a secret visit to the continent, in the company of his disciple Tsutomu Yukawa, to help lay the groundwork for peace negotiations with China. He undertook this task at the request of Prince Fumimaro Konoe, with whom he had a close relationship."
"The Japanese military needed to concentrate their forces and so as they entered the Pacific War, they hoped to reach a peace settlement with Chiang Kai-shek and to pull out of China. Every possible means to this objective was considered, and O Sensei's visit was part of a broader effort."
というのも、太平洋戦争突入によって戦力の分散を余儀なくされた軍部は、いわかに蒋介石氏との和議をはかり、大陸戦線から手をひくべき両策をすすめていた。そのため、あら ゆるルートから打診を根まわしがおこなわれたわけだ。その一端として開祖もまた意をうけて中国へ渡ったのである。 (K Ueshiba, op.cit., pp. 263-264, 植芝盛平伝, pp. 252-253.)
I do not think this passage shows any evidence that Morihei Ueshiba was opposed to the war in general, though he might have become disenchanted over a period of time. However, Kisshomaru's account should be compared with the account given by John Stevens, where the latter discusses Ueshiba's association with a deshi
Whereas in this chapter Kisshomaru passes over in silence his father's views on the war, Stevens states explicitly that,
"Morihei was actually extremely distressed by the outbreak of war in 1937 with China and then with the United States in 1941. … Morihei was acutely aware of the contradiction between his contention that budo was a way of love that fostered and preserved life and the massive death and destruction of war." (Stevens,Invincible Warrior, p. 65.)
The evidence given by Stevens are unsourced comments by Ueshiba, including one reproduced by Kisshomaru (and partially quoted above, in the discussion on Chapter 1), but interpreted by Stevens rather differently. Stevens also gives a different interpretation to Ueshiba's trip to China in 1941. Kisshomaru describes the trip as a mission to end the war in China, because Japan was fighting a war on two fronts. In Abundant Peace
(1987), Stevens presents an account that is similar to that given by Kisshomaru, discussed earlier in this column and in Column 10. In Invincible Warrior
(1997), however, his account is different.
"It has recently come to light that Morihei had valiantly worked behind the scenes in attempts to prevent war with the United States and to make peace with China. …" (Stevens, op.cit., pp. 65-66.)
Stevens does not reveal the source of this new information, but one possibility is an article written by Kazuaki Tanahashi about his father and published in Aikido Today Magazine
(Issue #43). The article starts with a certain drama [a train pulling away from the station, with Tanahashi's father on the train and with Morihei Ueshiba standing on the platform] and some hyperbole ["I had no idea that the increasing distance between Ueshiba Sensei and my father was destroying a chance for Japan and the United States to prevent Pearl Harbor
"]. Basically, Tanahashi Shigeo, a student of Ueshiba at the Kobukan, who was also a military planner at the Imperial Headquarters, became aware in 1938 of the possibility of war between the US and Japan—and believed that Japan would lose. He discussed this in secret with Morihei Ueshiba and Ueshiba was alleged to have responded,
"I agree with you, Tanahashi-san. We must try as hard as possible to avoid the war. I would like you very much to work on it. You will have all my support." (Aikido Today Magazine, #43, p. 45.)
Tanahashi adds that, given the need for secrecy, discussions were held at the Kobukan Dojo after training and that another person involved was Okawa Shumei, "a well-known nationalist thinker." The article was based on a memo written by Tanahashi Shigeo in 1955 and it is unfortunate that the original Japanese text of the memo, including the conversation with Ueshiba, is not identified nor access details given. However, perceptive readers should see the ambivalence here. Tanahashi Shigeo was apparently concerned about war between Japan and the US, a country with huge resources. So, one can interpret his concern as a concern to preserve, at all costs, US neutrality—especially a concern to prevent US entry into the war against Japan, but US neutrality would leave Japan free to pursue her conquests in Asia and keep her gains in China. This concern has been interpreted by Stevens as a concern to prevent any war in the Pacific at all. Tanahashi mentions discussions between his father and Konoe Fumimaro, Japan's Prime Minister, who was the person responsible for Morihei Ueshiba's abortive mission to China early in 1941. However, Konoe's concern to avoid war with the US and to prevent US entry into the war in Europe was not secret at all and was based on the very practical need to preserve Japan's access to oil from the US and also access to raw materials from China and other countries. All this has been discussed at length in various places, in Japanese, but including a book in English written by Kazuo Yagami, entitled Konoe Fumimaro and the Failure of Peace in Japan: A Critical Appraisal of a Three-Time Prime Minister
, published in 2006. Thus the account by Stevens and also Tanahashi's article need to be read in conjunction with Yagami's efforts to rehabilitate Konoe, against his adversary Tojo Hideki, and present him as a genuine peacemaker. It is somewhat ironic that Konoe Fuminaro was a friend of Morihei Ueshiba and a member of the governing board of the Kobukai and that both Tanahashi Shigeo and Tojo Hideki both practiced aikido under Ueshiba or his students. (Yagami's biography of Konoe Fumimaro is a better example than Kisshomaru's of a biography written in a western style, according to the conventions of ‘straight' history, rather than of history blended with plausible fiction.)
In fact, a Tanahashi is mentioned in Kisshomaru's Ueshiba's biography, but he is called Nobumoto and not Hideo. However, his association with Okawa Shumei and his later creation of the Heiwa Kyokai
confirms that the same person is being discussed.
"O Sensei was also serving as a visiting instructor to the Toa Keizai Chosakyoku (East Asian Economic Investigation Bureau of the Manchurian Railroad), where he met many young people. Nobumoto Tanahashi, who was then at the army's staff headquarters—he was the organizer of the Heiwa Kyokai (Peace Association)—introduced O Sensei to Shumei Okawa and they became friends. He was keenly interested in working with these young people, an elite and talented group who would be stationed all over Asia."
さらにこの頃、目立った出張稽古所として、東亜経済調査局の青年諸君の指導があった。これは当時陸軍参謀本部の棚橋信元氏（平和教会主宰）の導きにより大川周明氏と開祖と の交遊から始まったものであるが、東亜各域に散ってゆく好青年を相手にして開祖も非常な楽しみの一つにしていた。(K Ueshiba, op.cit., p. 254, 植芝盛平伝, p. 242.)
Neither Kisshomaru nor Stevens mention that Okawa Shumei was actually chairman of the board of the Toa Keizai Chosakyoku
, which by this time had become independent. He also ran a school (the Okawa Juku
) dedicated to training Japanese who would work in Asia. Okawa had long studied Asian culture and believed that ‘a final conflict' between East and West was inevitable. Since war had started in Europe, this presented a chance for Asia to break free from Western colonialism, which involved attacking the British and the Dutch in Southeast Asia. For this to succeed, however, it was imperative that the war in China was brought to a speedy conclusion and the US remained neutral. Others, like Ishiwara Kanji, who was the Kwantung Army officer largely responsible for the invasion of Manchuria in 1931, were hoping that US investment and technology would create a self-sufficient military industry in Manchukuo. Whether Morihei Ueshiba knew all this ‘dark' information is unknown.
Conclusion to (3)
As I suggested above, Kisshomaru Ueshiba's presentation of Morihei Ueshiba at war, from 1931 to 1945, is a ‘bright' narrative, emphasizing only the facts about Ueshiba judged by Kisshomaru to be acceptable to the vast majority of his Japanese readers, whatever their own views about the war and Japan's responsibility for it. Accordingly, there is no discussion whatever about the origins or progress of the war and it is presented simply as a general background, rather like the changeable weather, to Morihei Ueshiba's activities.
Chapter Six covers Morihei Ueshiba's activities in Tokyo and elsewhere after 1936 and his break with Onisaburo Deguchi. His break with Sokaku Takeda, as a result of the latter's sudden visit to Osaka in 1936, is passed over in silence. Kisshomaru instead discusses budo
‘politics' and the creation of the legal foundation around the Kobukan. The fact of this very important event gives the lie to the notion that Morihei Ueshiba was completely uninvolved with budo
organizations. Of course, Kisshomaru himself was not involved: he was still at high school and had only just begun to take aikido training seriously. He states that he went to the dojo in the evenings and trained with some of the deshi
. Kisshomaru has been accused of focusing on building an organization at the expense of training, but this is not correct and the point he stresses here is that Morihei Ueshiba needed to be embedded within an organization, in order for the Kobukan to function effectively.
Foundation and Empire: Kobukan Becomes Kobukai
The war did intrude, albeit indirectly, on Morihei Ueshiba's plans for the future of the Kobukan Dojo. In 1939, Tomita Kenji, Fujita Kinya, and Okada Kozaburo, who were students or political and business associates of Morihei Ueshiba, made an application to the Ministry of Health and Welfare for the Kobukan Dojo to become theZaidan Hojin Kobukai
(財団法人皇武会: Kobukai Foundation). It is clear from Kisshomaru's account that the application was made with Morihei Ueshiba's full knowledge and approval. It was approved in the spring of 1940. Kisshomaru notes blandly that the dojo finances and administration greatly improved, especially since Japan entered the war the following year and "the domestic situation became more difficult." As a legal foundation, the Kobukai had to have a board of directors and a board of trustees and these were drawn from the political and military establishment. The first Kaicho
(会長: President) was Admiral Isamu Takeshita and the Vice-President was Lieutenant General Katsura Hayashi. The board of directors included Prime Minister Konoe Fuminaro and Maeda Toshinari, Chancellor of the Army Academy.
Second Foundation: Kobukai Becomes Aikikai
The final chapter, Chapter Seven, deals with the creation of the Aikikai Foundation and it is clear that Kisshomaru aims to portray this event as one of the crowning achievements of his father's life and work. The chapter actually starts with a brief mention of the shock of Japan's defeat in 1945, but then Kisshomaru spends several pages discussing the building of the Aiki Shrine in Iwama, the initial ceremony of which took place several years earlier, in 1940. After noting that the first Iwama dojo was completed in the summer of 1945, Kisshomaru then adds the following, which reinforces the impression that Kisshomaru considered the move to Iwama as temporary.
"The coincidence in timing was lucky, because the Iwama dojo played a crucial role during the chaotic period following the end of the war. Even though the Tokyo dojo avoided any major damage, it was converted into housing for about thirty families displaced by the bombing raids. As a result, both the formal administration of Aikido and I myself as Dojo-cho relocated to the Iwama Dojo for about three years. Although this relocation was forced by circumstances, it was not without several benefits." (K Ueshiba, op.cit., pp. 279-280.)
The impression is reinforced by a comment made later in the chapter, that the registration of the headquarters of the Aikikai Foundation in Iwama from 1948 until 1953 was recommended by the Japanese authorities, in order to avoid friction with the SCAP occupation forces. One might wonder about the "formal administration of Aikido", if this was different from Morihei Ueshiba himself and his students, and the original Japanese text makes this somewhat clearer.
道場長なる私自身をふくめて合気道に関する社会的基盤はすべて Dojo-cho naru watashi jishin wo fukumete aikido ni kansuru shakaiteki kiban wa subete (植芝盛平伝, p. 268.)
The ‘formal administration of aikido' was the legal requirement of a board of directors and a board of trustees, drawn from the upper echelons of Japan's political and military establishment. In 1948, the membership changed, but not the structure.
After a few years, this establishment began to urge the formal re-launch of aikido:
"I travelled to Tokyo from Iwama, and from a twelve-tatami room that I had secured as an office in the Tokyo dojo, I began laying plans to reconstruct the organization of aikido. Kinya Fujita and Katsuzo Nishi [of the Nishi health system, using the renowned rock-hard wooden pillows], as well as some energetic younger disciples, took part in many planning sessions. Whenever we felt progress had been made, I would go to Iwama and report to O Sensei. Each time, he would tell me to trust my feelings; throughout this process, he took the position that it was up to me to run the show, and he would simply observe what developed. My mother tells me that he said to her at the time, "He has truly become serious," and showed great satisfaction. Of course, to me my father neither smiled nor spoke any words of appreciation; he maintained a stern posture till the end. [のちに母がもらしたところでは、「あれも本気になってくれたのう」と、いかにも嬉しそうであったという。それでいて私自身には 笑顔ひとつ、ねぎらいの言葉ひとつかけない厳格さ最後までくずせない父であったのだが……。]Forward the Foundation
"After many deliberations, those of us in Tokyo concluded that we should apply to the government to be once again officially recognized as an authorized foundation. The application to the Ministry of Education bore the new name of the "Aikikai Foundation." I will never forget the extraordinary efforts contributed to this process by Kinya Fujita and Katsuzo Nishi, and I myself was on the phone over and over again with the ministry. Also unforgettable are the hard work of Seiichi Seko, and the friendly collaboration of Koshi Nakayama, who was the administrative official we dealt with in the Ministry of Education." (K Ueshiba, op.cit., pp. 280-281, 植芝盛平伝, p. 269.)
The application was duly made to the Ministry of Education and the authorization was granted on February 9, 1948. Kisshomaru then began negotiating with the bombed-out families who remained in the Tokyo dojo to leave, in order to "bring Aikido back into the public sphere."
"I felt that the reopening of the Tokyo dojo would be a crucial first step in rebuilding Aikido. My vision was that this dojo would be the Honden (main shrine) of Aikido, its outlook on the world, while Iwama would be Aikido's innermost sanctuary, the Oku-no-in."
道場を東京に開くことが、やはり再建の第一歩であり早道だと考えたである。合気道の〝奥の院〟たる岩間の前衛として、東京にいわば〝本殿・拝殿〟を設けたいというほどの気 持ちであった。 (K Ueshiba, op. cit., p. 281, 植芝盛平伝, p. 270.)
Knowledge of the layout of Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples is required to understand Kisshomaru's metaphors here. Probably the most famous oku-no-in
in Japan is the cemetery and mausoleum of Kukai (Kobo Daishi) on Koyasan, the cluster of temples in the famous mountain range situated in the Kii Peninsula, with which Morihei Ueshiba and Kisshomaru would have been familiar. Sometimes, however, the honden
is the innermost sanctuary, where the deity is enshrined—and to which access is forbidden to the public, with the haiden
(mentioned in the Japanese original, but not translated), as the prayer hall adjacent to the honden
and open to the public. Though probably unintended, the unfortunate aspect of the metaphor is the fact that access to both honden
However, Kisshomaru's distinction between the Iwama dojo and the Tokyo Hombu reflects his own idea of what should be taught there and this has been reinforced a number of times in private conversations I have had with the present Doshu. As iemoto
, the Doshu embraces a certain way of practicing a certain, fixed, number of waza
, which are interpreted as the essence of the aikido as bequeathed by Morihei Ueshiba. Other dojos are not so restricted, but at the Hombu these waza
are constantly practiced by Doshu—and in a particular way, so that they are regarded as a kind of benchmark. I also suspect that the focus on weapons training in Iwama, which training Morihei Ueshiba constantly pursued, and not in the Tokyo Hombu, where the received opinion is that Ueshiba actually forbade such training, has its roots here.
The Joshinsho 上申書:
Kisshomaru then reproduces the letter of intent that was submitted with the necessary documents to the Ministry of Education, which, he states:
"reflects O Sensei's ideas, as fleshed out by my collaborators and put into final form by Kinya Fujita. Although it reflects in some ways the circumstances of the times, I believe this document also offers a straightforward description of Aikido's consistent principles, expressed with sincerity."
Space prevents a detailed examination of the letter, but a few extracts will indicate how Kisshomaru and his collaborators saw the place of aikido in Japan and the world.
Important for Japan…
They begin by underlining the importance of aikido for rebuilding Japan:
"Nothing in the world is more precious than health. A strong mind and powerful vitality can only emerge from a healthy body. We firmly believe that such strong bodies and minds will play a vital role in Japan's reconstruction. …"…Indescribable…
They then give a brief outline of aikido.
"Aikido unites the body and the mind with both earth and heaven. It also develops the skill of protecting oneself from harm. The movements of Aikido, in defending, are circular, in moving outwards, like a square; when standing on guard, like a cone, in motion like a spiral and when drawing inwards like a jewel. The fluid and constantly changing character of Aikido defies description. …"…Character-Building (like Judo) …
Among the effects is its role in building character. To emphasize this, the writers quote from a scroll that Katsu Kaishu, the Meiji era leader, sent to Kano Jigoro:
"Aikido's many facets might lead us to understand it as an activity combining the study of health with the arts of kagura-mai [舞楽道と健康道]. It is also an art of physical education, a powerful tool for the formation of character, and a way to cultivate vitality, to build the golden palace of life. Both men and women may practice it. As its techniques are perfected, the mind as well as the body experiences purification. He reaches ‘the state of nothingness, a natural excellence from which without intention one responses freely and spontaneously to the changing flow of events' [from the Kaishu scroll]."…Virtuous…
Aikido can also guide those who strive to acquire the four virtues of jujun
柔順: obedience / docility; kyogo
強剛: patience / endurance; eichi
叡智: sagacity / intelligence; and shisei
至誠: sincerity / devotion.
After giving a brief history of the Kobukan, which was formally established as the Kobukai in 1940, the writers closely follow the ‘frame' decreed by MacArthur and SCAP and delicately handle the matter of Japan's descent into the ‘dark shadow':
"Over the last half century, the nation has been led on an incorrect path, deviating from the True Way. As a result of Japan's defeat in the war, a return to the path of sincerity and virtue has become possible. Up until now, to avoid its co-optation for misguided ends, Aikido has maintained a discreet posture and operated on a small scale, abstaining from active promotion of the art and training only those known to be of benevolent character. We have taught this art only to those intending a positive and altruistic use. In the new circumstances of the present moment, we can now begin to express the original and true spirit of Aikido more openly."
天地の大道である中道の趣旨を誤り半世紀以上に亘る誤った指導方向は敗戦と同時に立ち返り、合気道本来の精神発揮し得る事の出来る時代にはなりましたが、今日迄は稍もすれ ば誤った指導下に深入りせんことを恐れて洵微々として影の形の如く残念乍ら頗る小規模に、大袈裟な宣伝もせず、特志の人々にのみ指導をして参りました。唯善用するものと判 断せられる方面にのみ望まれる儘に教導も人類愛の一端として、続けて来たものであります。
Though the account of the war fits the ‘frame' discussed above and in the previous column, the writers do not go into detail here, either about the nature of the deviation from the True Way that began before the turn of the century (the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which ended the First Sino-Japanese War, was signed in 1895 and was followed by Japan's invasion of Taiwan), or about when aikido began its ‘discrete posture'. If it was before 1942, there is a certain irony here, for Kisshomaru has earlier spent a great deal of space relating how Morihei Ueshiba taught his art to the very people who led the nation on the ‘incorrect path'.
…And Has Great Potential
Going on to discuss future plans for the Aikikai, the writers emphasize the great potential of aikido:
"Aikido is an art of profound significance. Once it is made available to all, it will spread far and wide, connecting with all levels of society, rather than only with an elite. Its potential for expansion is boundless. [The Founder's]taijutsu techniques are based in a training that gives the highest priority to mutual love between human beings. Even though Aikido techniques may be applied in life-or-death situations, Aikido itself is connected to the love of the heart. Aikido techniques demonstrate the execution of justice by love. It should be apparent that Aikido techniques exist in order to protect human love. What kind of a technique would it be without love? Aiki sounds just like aiki (love energy), and the meanings are connected as well."
その体術は人間相互愛を基調とする合気実修の為めのものありますが故に、生死線上の技も此の愛の心に帰するのであります。技は愛の実行面の正義の標示であります。外観的に 言うと人間愛を護るべき技であって、愛なくして何の技かやとも唱導せられて居る所以もここにあるのであります。従ってこの合気という言葉は愛気と語音も相同じく、其の意も 相通ずるのであります。
After quoting the letter, Kisshomaru notes that it was at this point, around 1948, that Morihei Ueshiba began to talk of aiki
(合気) as aiki
(愛気), making use of the homonymy found in the Japanese language. Again, his comment is worth quoting at length.
"Perhaps the most striking comment from this text would be the new idea that ‘Aiki [合気] sounds just like Ai ki (love [愛] energy [気]), and the meanings are connected as well.' ‘Aiki is Ai [love] ki.' This expression became a favourite saying of O Sensei's, after he had become enlightened to the point of Banyu aigo(giving protection to all). After the war, he often used this expression in his lectures."
(All quotations in the sections above are from K. Ueshiba, op.cit., pp. 281-286, and植芝盛平伝, pp. 272-273.)
One point is worth noting here. The comments quoted above by Kisshomaru Ueshiba clearly draw attention to what he saw as a change in Morihei Ueshiba's view of aikido and they also serve to date the origin of one central idea emphasized, as Kisshomaru states, in Ueshiba's discourses. Aiki
[合気] as Aiki
[愛気]is a constant theme of the discourses recorded in Aiki Shinzo
and also in the Takemusu Aiki
lectures edited by Hideo Takahashi, which Ueshiba delivered to the Byakko Shinkokai. However, Kisshomaru states clearly that it is something that occurred to Morihei Ueshiba after the war.
The final part of the chapter deals with the last years of Morihei Ueshiba's life. Kisshomaru spends some time discussing the aikido demonstration held on the roof of the Takashimaya department store—and how he persuaded his father to agree to participate.
"We [Kisshomaru mentions Tokunaga Shigeo, who was the managing director 業務理事 of the Aikikai] had come to the conclusion that only such a demonstration would enable us to make a decisive leap forward and expand the awareness and practice of Aikido in a way suitable to the times."
しかし私も徳永も、合気道が新しい時代とともに普及し飛躍するためには、どうしてもこれをおこなわなければならないとの臍がかたまっていた。(K. Ueshiba, op.cit., p. 300, 植芝盛平伝, p. 286.)
After lengthy hesitation, Ueshiba agreed, giving his reason.
"Very well. Perhaps it is necessary to reach out to all levels of society. If it helps to clear the muddy stream, this old man will do his best to demonstrate the essence of Aikido. I have already put you in charge. As long as you follow the path of helping society and helping humanity, I have no objection to what you propose. Make use of this old man to help you reach your goal."
よかろう。広く天下の上と交わることも必要じゃろう。濁流を清めるのに役立つというのであれば、この爺いも合気真髄を演武しよう。この道の後事は、すでにおまえたちに托し たのじゃ。世のため人のためという真理使命の大道から踏みはずさぬかぎり、おまえたちがやることに異存はない。大いにこの爺いを引っ張り出し、存分に活用する がよい。 (K. Ueshiba,op.cit., pp. 300-301, 植芝盛平伝, pp. 286-287.)
Kisshomaru also notes the fact that on his deathbed Ueshiba expressed his support for him.
"A few days before he passed away, O Sensei summoned Kisaburo Osawa and others to his bedside and told them, "Keep everyone together and support Kisshomaru." …
"On the night of April 25, he suddenly began to experience a high fever. As I held his hand, he said to me with a smile, ‘Carry on, won't you.' When I said, ‘Yes,' he nodded clearly."
四月二十五日夜、にわかに高熱を発した。私は手を握ると「たのむぞ．．．．」と微笑し、「はい」と答えると大きくうなずいた。(K. Ueshiba, op.cit., p. 315, 植芝盛平伝, pp. 296-297.)
Morihei Ueshiba passed away the following morning at 5 am. As it turned out, Kisshomaru made some efforts to ‘keep everyone together', but he was not completely successful. In fact, given the history of Japanese martial arts, one can wonder how serious Morihei Ueshiba was, when he requested K Osawa and the others to "keep everyone together." Some quietly drifted away, but Koichi Tohei, technically brilliant and related by marriage to Kisshomaru, went out with a major explosion. Given the demands of the iemoto
structure, however, the only choice he had was to accept Kisshomaru's leadership, warts and all, or to go out with a bang or with a whimper. True to his style, he chose the louder version of the latter alternative.
Conclusion to (4)
This section of Kisshomaru's biography records the final ‘bright' episode in Morihei Ueshiba's life. Ueshiba appears to have done all the things he would never have conceived of doing when he was younger: fiercely individualistic and apparently possessing an uncanny ability to read people's deepest thoughts about themselves, yet, he trusted business and political associates of dubious ethics and relinquished his kingship of the castle to an organization, headed by a crown prince whose martial virtues did not exactly shine out, in comparison to those of others he had taught—and tried to persuade to take over the castle.
Did Kisshomaru lie about his father?
In Column 26 I plan to discuss the challenging question of the extent to which independent research about Morihei Ueshiba's life and training opens Pandora's Aiki-box
. The question could be put another way: how much do we need to know about Morihei Ueshiba's life, in order to practice aikido ‘fruitfully'? The choice of adverb is deliberate, since it encompasses a wide spectrum of training scenarios, from ‘pure' Daito-ryu, to ‘pure' Iwama weapons training—with the resulting taijutsu waza
, to the wide variety of Tokyo Hombu forms.
In his biography, Kisshomaru Ueshiba presents a very careful and controlled account of his father's life and activities and the question arises whether the account is so careful and controlled as to present a false picture. This leads to the question whether Kisshomaru lied about his father. The question needs to be understood very clearly, for there are serious ethical questions involved. It asks whether Kisshomaru deliberately presented falsehoods in his biography of his father, knowing them to be false. It is certainly true that Kisshomaru omits a good number of facts about Morihei Ueshiba, but it is less certain that this was done with malicious intent. Given the discussion I have presented in the previous sections, I believe that the suggestion that Kisshomaru simply lied is a major oversimplification. If asked why he did not present a ‘straight' history of his father's life, he might have answered by quoting from a recent discussion in AikiWeb
"Because that's not the way we do it in this school."
In other words, the history of the art and the Founder's life are subordinate to the art itself and cannot stand apart from this. One respected Hombu shihan, now deceased, explained that it was still too early to present a view of aikido's creation and development that allowed for seriously different scenarios of this development. In this interview, which lasted for several hours, the shihan indicated his own understanding of the issues surrounding Kisshomaru's role in the early developmemt of aikido, but felt that aikido needed to become more stable as an art, with a clearer view of what it was intended to achieve, before serious issues about its history could be debated.
So I should stress that in presenting these critical comments on his biography of Morihei Ueshiba, I am seriously questioning Kisshomaru's skill as a historian, as a researcher and perhaps as a storyteller, but I am not questioning his bona fides
. As the son of a very unusual—even grossly eccentric, father, he had a very difficult task to perform. He saw it as his duty to maintain iemoto
family values as he saw them and also to propagate the family art in accordance with his father's wishes, but in ways that his father could never have done himself. However, it is also fair to state that Kisshomaru embraced a Japanese version of the somewhat Whiggish view of history that Robert Middlekauff displayed in his account of the American war. Kisshomaru believed that he was also charting a revolution in aikido and the fact that Japan had been defeated in some way aided this new beginning, since it offered a way of making a completely new start and placing the old myths embraced by his father in a new ‘postwar' context. In writing his biography, he was also following some established and very respectable precedents in Japan and these should be understood by those seeking to attack Kisshomaru on the grounds that he was deliberately presenting falsehoods, or not presenting historical facts.
There are three levels assumed in Kisshomaru's biography, two of which seem to match chronologically. The first level is that of general Japanese history. The accepted ‘frame' here is the descent of Japan into the ‘dark valley' after 1931 and the subsequent ascent to the light, the pivotal years being 1941-1942. The battles of Coral Sea and Midway in 1942, not mentioned in the biography, marked the turning point. The second level is that of aikido: the story of the development of the art during this period (I have described it in this way to distinguish the art of aikido itself from Kisshomaru's non-historical view of its founder Morihei Ueshiba: see below). According to this view, aikido was created in the years of the dark shadow, but was untouched by any of the darkness and played a crucial role from 1942 onwards in the general transition from the old regime to the new postwar ‘enlightened' view, expressed in the 1948 application for recognition of the Aikikai Foundation, namely, of a peaceful art, to be embraced by anyone who wished to pursue health and spirituality, as well as the more strictly martial skills, which were still available for those who had not yet embraced the new postwar way of thinking. The third level was the personal life of Morihei Ueshiba himself, who was a kind of ideological constant throughout his whole life. He was committed to the same goals throughout his life, and as a consequence was generally untouched by the passage through the dark shadow of the war and into the light. He himself became a beacon, whose presence enabled Kisshomaru Ueshiba and his associates to bring the art of aikido to this new postwar stage.
Finally, despite the aim of his biography to present a ‘timeless' portrait of a man whose entire life was dedicated to training, Kisshomaru is virtually silent about the type of training that Morihei Ueshiba actually undertook. Later, in Columns 28 and 29, we shall have occasion to compare the knowledge of Father and Son, based on what they wrote and what others wrote about them. There are very few details in this biography of Morihei Ueshiba's personal training regime, beyond references to weapons work, chinkon kishin
, and a summary of the various arts that Ueshiba is alleged to have practiced—all of then stated to be completely different from aikido. Admitttedly, there is some discussion of his training with the sword and the spear with the ball suspended from a tree [uncannily close to Tokimune Takeda's discussion of his father's Daito-ryu training] and how close aikido is to weapons training. However, the details scattered throughout the biography are not sufficient to reconstruct this personal training regime with any clarity, and certainly not sufficient to enable would-be practitioners to reproduce it themselves.
Biographies of Morihei Ueshiba
2. Kanemoto Sunadomari: Omoto is the Key
The first biography of Morihei Ueshiba was not written by his son Kisshomaru, but by an early disciple who trained in Ayabe. Kanemoto Sunadomari was an adherent of the Omoto religion and first met Ueshiba in the spring of Showa 3 (1928). His biography is mentioned by Kisshomaru Ueshiba in his own book, but is given a different title.『合気道開祖植芝盛平伝』was published by Kodansha on 28 February, Showa 44 (1969). Later, it was reprinted as 『武の真人』: Bu no Shinjin
: A True Warrior
. In the あとがき (Afterward), the author explains that it was written in response to a request from Morihei Ueshiba himself [わたしのことを書いてくれ] and that Ueshiba was very happy when it was completed and handed to him, not long before his death. The work has not been translated into English as a book, but a part of it was serialized in the earlier issues of Stanley Pranin's Aiki News
magazine and can be seen on the Aikido Journal
Since Sunadomari's biography has not been published in English in its entirety, I will not discuss it here, except to state that the central focus of the biography is the fact of the Omoto religion and Morihei Ueshiba's membership of this religious organization. This accounts for the general bias and unevenness of the work, which really ends after the second Omoto Incident in 1935, when Onisaburo Deguchi was arrested and Ueshiba ceased to have contact with him.
Biographies of Morihei Ueshiba
3. John Stevens:
Since there were no translations in book form of Sunadomari's biography, discussed above, or of Kisshomaru Ueshiba's biography, which appeared in Japanese in 1978, there was a clear lack of information in English about Morihei Ueshiba. John Stevens, who lived for a time in Japan, was the first to fill this gap with a biography, published in 1987. The work was entitled Abundant Peace
. A few years later, this work was superseded by another work, entitled, Invincible Warrior
. The main questions we will discuss here concerning the two biographies are (2) what Invincible Warrior
adds to Abundant Peace
, and (1) what both add to the biography written by Kisshomaru.
Abundant Peace becomes Invincible Warrior
The text of Abundant Peace
is divided into three sections: ‘The Man', ‘The Martial Artist', and ‘The Message', but I am unconvinced that the three can be separated so neatly in a biography. The first section is the straight biography and the second section is actually a discussion by Stevens himself of his own thinking about the various arts that Ueshiba studied and it stands apart from the biography. The third section consists of a similar discussion by Stevens himself about Zen, kotodama
theory, and cognate subjects. Here Stevens ceases to be a narrator of events in Ueshiba's life and becomes an independent—and fallible—interpreter of his thinking.
With Invincible Warrior
, the three sections have been replaced with a straight biography, about 70 pages in length, complemented by a presentation of Morihei Ueshiba's life in photographs and by a selection of photographs from the Noma Dojo archive, showing Ueshiba training.
Invincible Warrior and A Life in Aikido Compared
In my opinion, a comparison between Invincible Warrior
and Kisshomaru Ueshiba's biography underlines the difference between ‘straight' biography and ‘biography mixed with reminiscences' even more clearly than Abundant Peace
. I also believe it supports the general conclusions I reached in the earlier discussion about history compared with historical novels. Stevens is still the ‘all-knowing' narrator, but, compared to Kisshomaru, intrudes less into the narrative with his own personal reflections. Of course, Kisshomaru is in a privileged position and has access to far more private information than John Stevens, but the gain in information is not matched by any loss in bias. It is as if Kisshomaru is telling his readers, ‘Trust me. I was told many things by my father that he told no one else.' On the other hand, Stevens paints Ueshiba's character a brighter shade of white than Kisshomaru and has admitted in the interview quoted below, that his biography is not exactly neutral in standpoint. His favorable bias to Morihei Ueshiba slightly exceeds Kisshomaru's.
"I am aware that some have criticized my book INVINCIBLE WARRIOR as hagiography rather than objective biography—as if there can be such a thing as an objective standpoint—but in fact all that I am doing is to present the Founder in the best possible light. All of us want to be remembered at our best." (From an interview with Cheryl Matrasko, Aikido World Web Journal. Published online:
Accessed August 31, 2011.)
Nevertheless, Invincible Warrior
is closer to the model of straight history writing that we have seen in the previous column, from the Oxford histories by scholars like Robert Middlekauff. The discussions about Minakata Kumagusu and Sokaku Takeda stand independently and are not simply part of the glorious aura cast by Morihei Ueshiba. Ueshiba's Mongolian adventure is presented in a judicious summary, with little of the breathless adulation that pervades Kisshomaru's account. Stevens also provides a fairly detailed bibliographical essay, listing some source material and books and articles published in English. However, there still the same problem with sources that affects Kisshomaru's biography. Stephens makes factual statements about Morihei Ueshiba that are not documented and which it is therefore impossible to verify.
Biographies of Morihei Ueshiba
4. Stanley Pranin:
The name of Stanley Pranin has been mentioned frequently throughout these columns. Mr Pranin is the pioneer of ‘independent' study of aikido, in the sense that he has not had any formal position within an organization like the Aikikai. Aiki News
was one of a small number of magazines dedicated to aikido that appeared during the 1970s and 1980s. Mr Pranin has never written a formal biography of Morihei Ueshiba, but all the biographies discussed so far need to be read in conjunction with the interviews he made with Ueshiba's students and his seminal articles in Aiki News
and its successor Aikido Journal
. (I have given more details in the bibliography, below.)
Some General Conclusions to Columns 20 and 21
At the beginning of the previous column, some questions were posed to which we can perhaps give some tentative answers:
A. To what extent do narratives of both prewar / wartime aiki-budo and also postwar aikido rest on a particular interpretation of Japanese history?
The answer to this question depends on the way in which World War II is interpreted in modern Japanese history. The research of Sven Saaler, discussed in this column, suggests that the most popular ‘frame' for interpreting Japanese history is the transition from darkness to light. Japan descended into ‘darkness' during the 1930s and World War II, but the US, aided by her allies, arrested this descent and turned it around, with the result that Japan was purged of these ‘dark' elements and set on the road to the ‘light' of freedom and democracy, as these concepts were understood by the victors. Of course, there are some histories that do not fit this ‘frame', such as the wartime 『日本二千六百年史』Nihon Nisen-roppyaku-nen Shi
, by Okawa Shumei, or the postwar 『国民の歴史』 Kokumin no Rekishi
, by Nishio Kanji, of the Tsukuru-kai
, and one of my oldest aikido teachers and friends still now consistently argues that World War II was not a war of aggression by Japan and that there were no ‘dark' elements then. The ‘dark' elements occurred after the defeat and SCAP occupation.
Since there are no general histories of aikido, the only narratives that are relevant here are the lives of Morihei Ueshiba and it has to be stated that his retirement to Iwama in 1942 render aikido especially suitable for interpretation as a path from darkness to light. Some people believe that training in aikido affords this anyway, but the above ‘frame' enables the history of the art also to be seen in this way. That the postwar movers of aikido saw themselves as a part of this discourse is clear, in my opinion, from the way this retreat to Iwama is presented. There are several major issues about Iwama, which can be posed in the form of hypotheses:
1. Because of his Omoto connections, Morihei Ueshiba had been buying up land in Iwama for many years before he actually moved there, around the time of the formation of the Budo Senkyo-kai
. In his biography (p. 265) Kisshomaru suggests that Ueshiba planned to retire there, but is difficult to see how this could have happened if Japan had not been defeated. On this hypothesis, Ueshiba would have moved there at some point anyway, in view of (a) the earlier Omoto connections, (b) his apparent desire to realize the ideal of ‘budo
and the soil' and repeat what he did in Ayabe and Takeda, and (c) the command that he was given by his deities, as recorded in the Takemusu Aiki
2. The decision to move to Iwama, to cultivate the soil and live very quietly, hidden away from the authorities, was seen by Morihei Ueshiba as a stopgap move, as a kind of insurance for the future of aikido, based on the supposition that Japan would lose the war and that training in the martial arts would be forbidden. Kisshomaru suggests this in his biography (p. 265) and the command given by the deities can also be interpreted in this way. In fact, in the Takemusu Aiki
discourses, the command to move to Iwama is given as a condition for bringing the war to an end.
Actually we can take the information given in the biography in three ways, based on the account given by Kisshomaru that Ueshiba gradually became progressively unhappy with the way the war was being fought and planned the move to Iwama as a way of dissociating himself with the Japanese military and the role he was being urged to play. There is the ‘ultra-pacifist' interpretation, according to which Ueshiba became disenchanted with the war as a whole and retreated to Iwama because he had become ‘enlightened' and was infused with the spirit of banyu aigo -- loving protection for all things
: nothing else mattered by comparison. Directly opposed to this are the comments, often repeated by Kisshomaru, that his father was never a pacifist. Thus, Ueshiba's comments can be interpreted in a different way, according to which he was upset with the stupid ways the military had chosen for waging war: they could have done better—but Kisshomaru never states what his father thought would have happened if the military had in fact done better. The third interpretation is that he did not jump, but was pushed. Ueshiba's teaching in the military establishments became progressively spiritual, but not in the way required by the army and navy. As a consequence, he stopped all his teaching activities and retired. Nevertheless, whichever way the move to Iwama is interpreted, the ‘frame' of aikido passing from darkness to light is left unaffected.
B. To what extent is the historical presentation of Morihei Ueshiba influenced by a particular view of Japanese identity, itself based on this view of history?
From the biographies and discussed above, this is not really clear. The Sunadomari biography is centered exclusively on Morihei Ueshiba's membership of the Omoto religion. Sunadomari believed it was Ueshiba's Omoto beliefs that constituted the defining characteristic of the man and his art. Thus, the biography has three stages: pre-Omoto, Omoto, and post-Omoto (which is hardly discussed at all).
Kisshomaru's biography embraces a general postwar view of Japanese history, according to which Japan emerged in 1945 from a dark shadow towards the light, as suggested above. Kisshomaru is careful not to define the light too closely (and carefully avoids ‘western' concepts like democracy), but he describes his father's entire life as a selfless quest that itself became a beacon of light. Consequently, the darker aspects of Morihei Ueshiba's activities in the 1930s are mentioned only in the context of teaching students who also happened to be army or nave officers and acting as an adviser; what is given unusual emphasis by Kissomasu are his efforts to stop the war in China and Stevens has suggested that this unusual episode means that Ueshiba became a pacifist and wanted to stop the entire Pacific War. After the war, Morihei Ueshiba slides into his new role as 爺い (jiji
: This Old Man
), tirelessly supporting Kisshomaru and his associates in the background, but also giving demonstrations and traveling to his favorite dojo
in Shingu, Osaka, and Kumamoto, in company with his deshi
Kisshomaru Ueshiba's biography also embraces what can be called a multifaceted view of history, in which the central focus is Morihei Ueshiba as Founder of a timeless art, which he himself intended to be practiced through the generations. According to this view, all the truth about aikido, the ‘revelation', so to speak, ended with the death of Morihei Ueshiba, so the only possible research in training is confirming what is known already, but exclusively in a form that will benefit the individual researcher: it does not involve pushing back the actual boundaries of the art as a whole by the creation of new objective knowledge. (By ‘objective', I mean knowledge that adds to the fundamental structure of the art, which would hold regardless of the opinions of the practitioners, compared to the ‘subjective' knowledge acquired by practitioners over their years of training.) An analogy might be found in Umberto Eco's quasi-historical novel The Name of the Rose
, which is set in a medieval monastery. Those young monks who wanted to pursue research, in order to take delight in the new knowledge to be achieved, were murdered by the senior monk Jorge, precisely in order to prevent them from enjoying the creation of new knowledge and delighting in the results they found.
Though this is more prominent in his own autobiography than in the biography of his father, Kisshomaru also takes for granted the crucial role to be played by Japan in disseminating the art of aikido in its new postwar guise (not, of course, that the art had changed in any way—see the previous paragraph). He assumes a ‘missionary position'. Of course, when Kisshomaru planned and wrote the biography, aikido overseas had not reached the maturity that it has today.
This can be put more sharply:
C. Should we believe all that we read (and hear) about Morihei Ueshiba?
No, not for one moment.
Since this might seem unduly sharp, one could rephrase the question:
C - 1. Should we believe anything that we read (and hear) about Morihei Ueshiba?
Yes, but the issues discussed in this column and the previous column become very relevant.
D. Whose version of the life and work of Ueshiba is the truest one, the one that comes closest to affording us access to the man as he actually was?
It is very difficult to give a definitive answer, since the whole purpose of this column has been to emphasize that history is in constant need of new research and new writing. We do not yet have a clear picture of ‘the man as he actually was
' and in achieving a clearer picture it will be necessary to take account of an aikido establishment that (a) possesses the means to give a clearer picture and (b) is also committed to maintaining a high degree of control over the dissemination of any new knowledge necessary for giving a clearer picture.
E. Does the fact that many of Ueshiba's disciples saw him through postwar lenses influence how they interpreted his aikido?
Undoubtedly. However, some essential qualification is needed here and this is why Kisshomaru Ueshiba's biography is so important. Kisshomaru mentions a whole generation of uchi-deshi
at the prewar Kobukan, but only a few of these played any major role in the postwar development of the Aikikai. Ikkusai Iwata and Kenji Tomiki became uchi-deshi
before the Kobukan was actually established and they were followed by Rinjiro Shirata and Minoru Mochizuki a few years later. Of these, Mochizuki ran a dojo in Shizuoka that was affiliated to the Aikikai for a number of years. Iwata and his fellow deshi
Tanaka Bansen ran dojos in Nagoya and Osaka, respectively. Shirata stopped aikido training for a lengthy period after the war, until he ventured out of Yamagata at the request of Kisshomaru Ueshiba, with his father's support. After the IAF was created in 1976, the chairmanship of the IAF Superior Council alternated between Shirata and Iwata. K Tomiki and his student and fellow-POW, Shigenobu Okumura, were the only ones who played any major role in Aikikai affairs after their return from Siberia, but Tomiki's extremely enlightened views about the educational value of aikido randori
brought him into conflict with the Omoto beliefs of Morihei Ueshiba. Nevertheless, Tomiki was one of the small group of teachers around Kisshomaru who were planning for the postwar resurrection of aikido, but shorn of any Shinto or religious concepts: of anything that would be misconstrued by the Occupation authorities.
However, the postwar generation of disciples who went to live abroad and spread aikido as their vocation trained mainly at the Tokyo Hombu (T Abe, K Abbe, M Nakazono, N Tamura, M Noro, A Tohei, Y Yamada, K Asai, M Kanai, K Chiba, S Sugano, M Saotome) and thus were mainly responsible to Kisshomaru Ueshiba and the second generation of senior disciples who took over the direction of aikido after 1942 (K Osawa, K Tohei [mentioned in Kisshomaru's biography as the head of the Ki no Kenkyukai
] and S Okumura, with S Yamaguchi, H Tada and S Arikawa assisting from the early 1950s). Looking after O Sensei and travelling around with him was something they all desired and was an enriching experience when it occurred, but it occurred comparatively rarely. Of course, Morihei Ueshiba visited Iwama frequently and there are stories of Kisshomaru's ‘city boys' being put to the test by the Mito-kishitsu
farmers headed by M Saito.
F. Does this matter for our own aikido training?
As was suggested earlier, the earliest focus on aikido by many beginners is on the forms, known in Japanese as taiso
技 / 業, kata
方 / 形, which are interpreted by the main shihan
in each branch, who follows to very varying degrees what they remember from their own training or what is taught by visiting Hombu instructors. Accordingly, these forms are usually practiced under the supervision of an instructor or more experienced student, but the way they are practiced admits of a huge range of possibilities. One could probably create a preferred idea of supposedly authentic training, with its vast spectrum of meanings, and then place the training done in a dojo—and also one's own private training, if this ever occurs—somewhere on this spectrum.
However, the point to make here is that virtually no one goes to a dojo with a clear perception of what and how Morihei Ueshiba himself actually practiced and then checks off whether the dojo actually trains in this way. Kisshomaru Ueshiba was iemoto
of the Aikikai Foundation, which is an organization that sees a leadership role as its natural due, based simply on the consequence of aikido being considered as the property of the Ueshiba family. So his biography was a carefully constructed picture of Morihei Ueshiba as the founder of an iemoto
line and all the details of his life that were presented fit this picture. Material considered extraneous was omitted—and this includes clear and precise details of how he actually trained.
Given that the life and activities of Morihei Ueshiba are presented in the way I have described & discussed in this and the previous column, the realization that Morihei Ueshiba might have trained in quite a different way to the regime usually offered in the average dojo, if it comes at all, comes only after a great deal of training, study and reflection, or as a result of a chance encounter with an iconoclast. This sometimes leads even those who have put in the decades and the mileage of training to go back to the beginning and think things out all over again—and re-train accordingly. I will discuss this issue in greater detail in Column 26.
Important issues relating to ‘cultural memory' are raised in a number of books concerned with more specific of topics: Stefan Tanaka, Japan's Orient: Rendering Pasts into History
, 1993, U Cal P. This is a book that attempts to do for Asia what Edward Said's Orientalism
attempted to do for Islam and the Middle East. The differing reactions to defeat in Germany and Japan are discussed by Ian Buruma: The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan
, 1994, Farrar Strauss Girouz.
Japan's defeat in particular is discussed in two seminal works: John Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II
, 1999, Norton; Eiji Takemae, The Allied Occupation of Japan
, 2002, Continuum.
The discussion in this column of ‘war memory' owes much to the following scholarly works: Sven Saaler, Politics, Memory and Public Opinion: The History Textbook Controversy and Japanese Society
, 2005, Iudicium; Franziska Seraphim, War Memory and Social Politics in Japan, 1945 -- 2005
, 2006, Harvard U P; Takashi Yoshida,The Making of the "Rape of Nanking": History and Memory in Japan, China and the United States
, 2006, Oxford U P; John Breen (ed.), Yasukuni, the War Dead and the Struggle for Japan's Past
, 2008, Columbia U P.
Works cited by Sven Saaler include: Hayden White, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe
, 1973, John Hopkins U P. The book by Nishio Kanji, cited in the text is: 西尾 幹二、 新しい歴史教科書をつくる会, 『国民の歴史』, 1999, 産経新聞ニュースサービス. The book by Narita Ryuichi, cited in the text, is: 成田 龍一,『司馬遼太郎の幕末・明治 「龍馬がゆく」と「坂の上の雲」を読む』, 2003, 朝日新聞社. Narita has also written a literary biography of Shiba: 成田 龍一,『戦後思想家としての司馬遼太郎』, 2009, 筑摩書房. Historical consciousness is discussed by Abe Kinya: 阿部 謹也, 2004, 『日本人の歴史意識』, 岩波新書. There is a detailed discussion of kyokaku
) and their role in Japanese politics in Eiko Maruko Siniawer, Ruffians, Yakuza, Nationalists: The Violent Politics of Modern Japan, 1860-1960
, 2008, Cornell U P.
Works cited on Sakamoto Ryoma include: 司馬遼太郎, 『龍馬が行く』, 1963-1966, 文藝春秋; Marius B Jansen, Sakamoto Ryoma and the Meiji Restoration
, 1994, Columbia U P; Romulus Hillsborough, Ryoma: Life of a Renaissance Samurai
, 1999, Ridgeback; NHK, 「龍馬伝 」(Ryoma-den
), which is available on four boxed sets of DVDs.
There is more specific discussion of various issues relating to Hiroshima and the alleged ‘hegemonism' of the US in a large number of recent books. Those I have consulted for this column include: Robert Jay Lifton, Greg Mitchell (eds.), Hiroshima in America: A Half Century of Denial
, 1995, Avon; Michael J Hogan (ed.),Hiroshima in History and Memory
, 1996, Cambridge U P; Kai Bird & Lawrence Lifschultz (eds.), Hiroshima's Shadow: Writings on the Denial of History and the Smithsonian Controversy
, 1998, Pamphleteer's Press; Lisa Yoneyama, Hiroshima Traces: Time, Space, and the Dialectics of Memory
, 1999, U of California P; Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman and the Surrender of Japan
, 2005, Belknap Harvard; Edward Demenchonok (ed.), Philosophy After Hiroshima
, 2010, Cambridge Scholars Publishing; John Dower, Cultures of War: Pearl Harbor / Hiroshima / 9-11 / Iraq
, 2010, Norton.
Details of the biographies of Morihei Ueshiba discussed in the column:
砂泊兼基, 『「武の真人」合気道開祖植芝盛平伝』, 1981, たま出版.
植芝吉祥丸,『合気道開祖植芝盛平伝』, 1978, 講談社. Revised edition, 1999, 出版芸術社. Translated into English as Kisshomaru Ueshiba, A Life in Aikido
, 2009, Kodansha International.
John Stevens, Abundant Peace
, 1987, Shambala; Invincible Warrior
, 2000, Shambala.
Kazuaki Tanahashi's article has been cited in the text, above. Full details of the biography of Konoe are: Kazuo Yagami, Konoe Fumimaro and the Failure of Peace in Japan: a Critical Appraisal of the Three-Time Prime Minister
, 2006, McFarland.
Walter Edwards, Modern Japan Through Its Weddings: Gender, Person, and Society in Ritual Portrayal
, 1989, Stanford U P; Ian Buruma, Behind the Mirror
, 1983, Jonathan Cape, published in the US as, Behind the Mask
, 1984, Pantheon.
The following works are essential reading on the politics of the Showa Restoration
: George M Wilson (ed.), Crisis Politics in Prewar Japan: Institutional and Ideological Problems of the 1930s
, 1970, Sophia U P; Ben-Amy Shillony, Revolt in Japan: The Young Officers and the February 26, 1936 Incident
, 1973, Princeton U P; Stephen S Large, Emperor Hirohito and Showa Japan: A Political Biography
, 1992, Routledge.
For Omoto, the place to start for a discussion with a different bias to the publications put out by the organization itself is Thomas P Nadolski, The Socio-political Background of the 1921 and 1935 Omoto Suppressions in Japan
, 1975, U of Pennsylvania PhD Dissertation, University Microfilms. Nancy Stalker has written a penetrating study on Omoto, without any reference to Morihei Ueshiba or aikido: Nancy K Stalker, Prophet Motive: Deguchi Onisaburo, Oomoto, and the Rise of New Religions in Imperial Japan
, 2008, University of Hawai'i P.
Stanley Pranin produced a partial translation of the Sunadomari biography and started out to produce a complete translation of Kisshomaru Ueshiba's biography. This stopped very early on, but continued in the form of summaries. Mr Pranin has also produced various essays and interviews, originally published in Aiki News
and then in Aikido Journal
. When production of the printed publication ceased, the essays and interviews appeared on the Aikido Journal
website. The interviews have appeared in book form a number of times in Japanese and English. The latest edition of interviews with prewar disciples is: Aikido Pioneers: Prewar Era
, 2010, Aiki News
. Pranin has recently revamped the website: http://www.aikidojournal.com/blog/
. There is a small membership fee and one of the major benefits is a disk containing all the back issues of Aiki News
and Aikido Journal
. All the essays and interviews cited in this column can be found there and Pranin plans to augment these with a vast archive of material he has collected over the years. The essays are continuing and cover much the same ground as these articles. They are shorter, however, and with less discussion of the broader cultural background and the philosophical issues involved. My aim in writing these columns has been to supplement Stan's pioneering work with background material that he did not include. Mr Pranin, however, is a pioneer of aikido history and his essays and interviews provide an essential contrast to the picture of Morihei Ueshiba given in the biographies discussed in this column. They are indispensable for a fuller understanding of Morihei Ueshiba and his art. This is not intended as a plug for Mr Pranin and his work, although we have been friends for many years. Simply, the actual situation concerning general knowledge of the origins and nature of aikido is really quite dire and if Stan had not done his pioneering work, non-Japanese would be in a state of almost total darkness, illuminated only by the few translated crumbs thrown from the certain tables.
Finally, Kisshomaru Ueshiba's biography should be read in comparison with the discussions in two seminal books by Ellis Amdur: Dueling with O-sensei: Grappling with the Myth of the Warrior Sage
, 2000, Edgework; Hidden in Plain Sight: Tracing the Roots of Ueshiba Morihei's Power
, 2009, Edgework.
Peter Goldsbury (b. 28 April 1944). Aikido 6th dan Aikikai, Emeritus Professor at Hiroshima University, teaching philosophy and comparative culture. B. in UK. Began aikido as a student and practiced at various dojo. Became a student of Mitsunari Kanai at the New England Aikikai in 1973. After moving back to the UK in 1975, trained in the Ryushinkan Dojo under Minoru Kanetsuka. Also trained with K Chiba on his frequent visits to the UK. Moved to Hiroshima, Japan, in 1980 and continued training with the resident Shihan, Mazakazu Kitahira, 7th dan Also trained regularly with Seigo Yamaguchi, Hiroshi Tada, Sadateru Arikawa and Masatake Fujita, both in Hiroshima and at the Aikikai Hombu. Was elected Chairman of the IAF in 1998. With two German colleagues, opened a small dojo in Higashi-Hiroshima City in 2001. Instructed at Aiki Expo 2002 in Las Vegas, Nevada. | <urn:uuid:ea2fcae7-e4d8-44b4-9cb5-712d0ac05689> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.aikiweb.com/forums/showthread.php?p=313559 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280128.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00386-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95775 | 50,593 | 2.609375 | 3 |
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Full text of 21 CFR Food & Drug regulations - FDA Food Code, etc. | <urn:uuid:7815a629-7c2d-47c4-a9d0-d8555b7c9c02> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.rmlibrary.com/lib/regulations/pesticides.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560283008.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095123-00089-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.742537 | 182 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Solar Panel Weight
How much do solar panels weigh?
Each panel weighs around 42 pounds (19 kg), though this may vary from brand to brand, but is usually about the same for most solar panels used in home installations. Most residential solar panels have standard dimensions of 66 inches (1.65 meters) by 40 inches (1 meter) and 1.25 by 1.6 inches on the frame. This size makes them good for rooftop home installations, since you will need something between 20 and 28 solar panels most likely to be completely energy-independent.
Residential solar panels are normally about 5 and a half feet long (1.65 meters) and just over 3 feet in width (.9 meters). Commercial solar panels are often bigger, at about 6 and a half feet (1.9 meters) and can often weigh 50 or more pounds (22.7 kg). This of course can vary depending on manufacturer and how the panel is made. Also keep in mind the bigger the surface of your solar panels, the more production you can expect.
Commercial solar panels are typically larger than residential solar panels because most residential panels are made up of 60 solar cells while standard commercial cells have 72, and some can up to 98 or more cells.
Solar Panel Types
Just like anything else in life, solar panels come in different varieties, some of which may fit your home better than others. Here’s a quick summary of the different types of panels:
Photovoltaic Panels- These “thin film” panels are the most popular panels used in residential installations. They weigh approximately 40 pounds, though some can be as light as 33 pounds while others may weigh as much as 50.
Monocrystalline Panels- These panels are a little more robust at an average of 50 pounds each, and are most commonly used for commercial installations due to their size. Their energy output is greater than that of photovoltaic panels, so if you have a newer home you might consider using these types of panels to increase your energy output.
Polycrystalline Panels- One of the newest kinds of panels on the market, polycrystalline panels have made major advancements in recent years and are now the cheapest type of panels generally available, making them more popular in recent years for home installations. They weigh around 42 pounds each, and though they aren’t as efficient as other types of panels, their lower cost can compensate for their loss in output. Their efficiency has continued to improve in recent years however, and in some cases it is comparable to that of monocrystalline panels, making them more popular than ever.
Average solar panels measure about 65 inches (1.65 meters) by 39 inches (.9 meters), so how does work into a full size rooftop system of solar panels?
An average system size of 6 kilowatts will require 20 solar panels, which will take up approximately 352 square feet (107 meters) or about 27 feet wide by 13 feet long. This measurement presumes your panels can be placed very close together and your roof has no major obstructions, so the reality is that you’ll need a little more space than this to account for things like ventilation vents, chimneys, etc. Every roof is unique, and therefore every solar panel system will have to be arranged and oriented differently. One thing to remember, however, is the more compact your solar arrangement is, the cheaper it’s going to be.
Will Solar Panels Damage my Roof?
When properly installed, solar panels will not cause any damage to your roof whatsoever. Over the years a number of techniques have been developed to install solar panels safely, and none of them involve causing lasting damage to rooftops.
Can your roof support solar panels?
Knowing what we now know about the size and weight of solar panels, we can make a calculation of roughly how much a solar panel system is going to weigh, and whether or not your roof can support that kind of weight.
Given a standard 6 kilowatt installation (20 solar panels), the panels by themselves will weigh around 800 pounds (about 363 kg). According to our previous calculation, we know the system covers approximately 352 square feet, meaning we are looking at around 2.3 pounds per square foot. When you factor in incidental weight from mounting hardware and wiring etc, the weight supported will come out to something like 3-4 pounds per square foot.
Obviously, most roofs are going to be able to support substantially more weight than 3 or 4 pounds per square foot- how many roofers have you seen that exerted less than 3-4 pounds of pressure per square foot? Modern roofs are designed to support up to 20 pounds per square foot in most cases. However, if you’re still concerned that your roof may not be able to support the weight, a standard roof inspection can help you decide for certain if your roof can handle solar panels. Most roofing companies will do a normal roof inspection for a small fee, and most solar installations companies will perform an inspection before beginning an installation. Your installation company could insist on a roof reconstruction before beginning an installation if they find the roof to be in need of major repair.
So what have we learned? First off, the average solar panel is somewhere in the neighborhood of 40-50 pounds. Secondly, these panels are going to end up exerting something like 4 pounds per square foot of weight on your roof. We now know that most modern roofs are designed to support 20 or more pounds of weight per square foot, meaning solar panels can easily be supported by a modern roof in good condition. If you have questions about the condition of your roof, you can easily get a roof inspection by a private roofing company or your solar installation company will do it for you before beginning an installation. Furthermore, if your concern is that solar panels will damage your roof, then once again we put that fear to rest as there are numerous techniques for installing solar panels on a rooftop, and your solar company will choose the one that works best for your home needs and won’t damage your roof. | <urn:uuid:d27426c9-f15f-45c0-9855-7b046368e61c> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://wgsi.org/solar-panel-questions/weight/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572215.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815235954-20220816025954-00669.warc.gz | en | 0.948697 | 1,247 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Harry Allen Bell was born July 2, 1923, five years after the end of World War I — "the war to end all wars." In the United States, the 1920s were a decade of extremes: a new prosperity had swept into some parts of the country prompting novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald to write about America's growing fascination with flappers, jazz, fancy cars, and airplane barnstorming.
On the darker side, the Harding presidency was rocked by scandal when shady land dealings were exposed in California's Teapot Dome Scheme; discrimination had risen to a high pitch in Oklahoma prompting the governor to declare war on the terrorist activities carried out by the Ku Klux Klan; and the politically astute were becoming alarmed about the growing unrest in Germany and the rise of a fanatical National Socialist Party leader named Adolf Hitler.
These events were a world away from the small Michigan farm that was tended by Harry's parents, Harry O. and Thelma Bell. Harry and his sister Ruth, who was born a few years later, not only helped out on their parents' land, but their grandparents' as well. In a vivid contrast to the bright, flashing lights of America's big cities, one of Harry's chores was to keep the oil lamps lit on his grandparents' farm because they had no electricity.
Harry graduated from high school June 16, 1938. Besides the typical teenage preoccupation with girls and all things mechanical, Harry developed a love of airplanes that would dramatically shape his future. He enrolled in flying school and just naturally assumed that his country would use his skills when he joined the Army Air Corps right after Pearl Harbor was bombed. His bubble was burst when halfway through pilot training, the Army began pulling men out randomly to engage in active combat.
Harry became an engineer on B-24 bombers, completing 50 missions in Europe before being released stateside. On those missions Harry. learned literally to "act on the fly." One minute he could be top turret gunner, the next he was rushing to patch up enemy fighter and flak damage, and the next, tending to wounded crew members. Staying alive was a big part of every mission.
Perhaps nothing can illustrate more clearly the actions of "Our Country's Greatest Generation" than Harry's own reminiscing in a World War II publication:
Our bomb group headquarters was in an old winery in Cerignola, Italy where we could watch girls stomp grapes as we were briefed for our missions. We flew our first two missions individually with a seasoned crew. Then we got an old dog of a plane, an olive-drab aircraft. Now the fun began. Up early and down to the Bomb Group headquarters for our briefing as we watched the Italian girls stomp the grapes. I thought about security and wondered if the girls could pass on anything to the enemy.
From briefing to breakfast, then to a bin where we kept our sheepskins, our parachutes and our flak suits. And then on to our B-24. Pre-flight, takeoff, form up, and climb to 40 below zero, usually about 23,000 feet. We would level off at the assigned altitude following our lead plane. Now it becomes real fun! Oxygen mask on, icicles on your chin, open gun-port windows, nice 140 mph breeze, throat mike, and COLD!
Harry returned from the war with seven battle stars and seven air medals. Of the 1,200 airmen in his 757 Air Squadron, only six hundred made it home.
Back on U.S. soil, it was time to put his war experiences behind him. A young woman who caught his eye at a Michigan dance helped him do that when she consented to be his wife several months later. Harry and Barbara Bell were married on Nov. 17, 1945. The young couple set up housekeeping while Harry completed his studies at Central Michigan College, graduating as a civil engineer.
According to Harry, his first "real" job was in a six-man engineering department for the Los Angeles Transit Lines. That led to a 15-year job working as an associate civil engineer with the office of the Los Angeles County Engineer. Harry opened the County Engineering Office in Lancaster and sat on the County Planning Commission as an advisor on grading and drainage.
Barbara and Harry moved to Lancaster where daughter Janet was born in 1955 and son Ken in 1958. Between business and family obligations, Harry kept his love of flying alive purchasing his own private plane to make annual trips back to his Michigan homestead. Through his association with the Los Angeles Shriners, Harry would also use his plane to fly Third World children suffering from severe injuries and birth defects to Children's Hospital.
In the early 60s, another civil engineer applying for a grading permit walked into Harry's office. The two began talking business, but soon found a personal connection that led to a life-long friendship. Ed Bolden, SCV's 1970 Man of the Year, not only became a friend, but a partner as well, in real estate and engineering businesses.
Harry and Barbara moved their family to Saugus in 1965 and Harry immediately became involved in a myriad of organizations that helped shape our valley into the thriving community it is today. A few of his contributions to the development of the SCV include being one of five local realtors who founded the SCV Real Estate Board, serving on the formation committee of Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital, and lobbying to make Castaic Lake a public rather than a private entity.
Harry served as president of the Real Estate Board twice and was named a Realtor of the Year two times. In addition to being a Shriner, he is also a Mason 32nd Degree, a founding member of the local Elks Lodge, and an active member of the SCV Rotary Club for 48 years. Rotary International's annual conventions gave him and Barbara a chance to visit other countries and meet foreign speaking Rotarians who were also dedicated to the Rotary motto "Service Above Self." One of Harry's proudest moments as a Rotarian was welcoming his daughter Janet into his home Rotary Club while his best friend (and her god father) officiated at the induction ceremony.
Harry has also raised money for charitable causes through his love of music. For 25 years, he has performed in local Barbershop Quartets, not only for charity and his own pleasure, but to the delight of the seniors who dine at our local Senior Center. He also assumes the job of song leader at the weekly Rotary meetings.
As a commercial pilot with instrument rating and a seaplane rating, Harry has served as a flight instructor in between his humanitarian missions. Over the years, Harry has owned a number of planes ranging from his beloved Mooney to his current Sting Sport aircraft. In view of the downsizing trend in his planes, friends were shocked to see him recently riding around town in this form of transportation. Not to worry, Harry is not ready to give up his plane yet! His days of flying humanitarian missions to Mexico may be over, but he still keeps his hand in charitable works through contributions to service organizations such as the Rotary Club, Elks, and Shriners. And he's pleased that he can still fit into his World War II uniform which he wears proudly at Memorial Day and Veteran's Day ceremonies.
The Man and Woman of the Year Committee is proud to welcome Harry Bell for his lifetime of service, not only to his community but his country, as well.
Video ©2011 SCVTV.com | Text ©2011 SCV Man & Woman of the Year Committee. | <urn:uuid:da3afbc8-dcf6-4815-8813-35adb723e75e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/mwoty2011harrybell.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570921.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809094531-20220809124531-00273.warc.gz | en | 0.984695 | 1,558 | 2.765625 | 3 |
No one could have predicted that at around two o’clock on a Tuesday, six Canadian teenage boys would be dead, and over fifty would be lying beside them injured? On a rainy July day, one hundred and thirty eight Royal Canadian Army Cadets were brought into a barrack and told to sit on the floor for a lecture. The bunks had all been pushed to one end to accommodate them.
It was an explosives safety lecture. It was supposed to give the boys the information they needed to identify something dangerous so that they could report it to their superiors. If they discovered something, they were not to touch it, but report it. And they did. During the lecture when the inactive ordinance or “dummies” were passed around, the cadets remarked on one of the devices, asking if it was safe, if it was live, and could they pull the pin out. They had no reason to doubt the man giving the lecture; he was the commanding officer of the ammunition depot. He assured them a number of times that it was safe, and yes, they could pull the pin.
So, someone pulled the pin— It was not safe. It was live, and it detonated.
These were my cadets. I was their platoon sergeant.
It was many years, before I fully realized the impact this event had on my life: not only mine, but my family’s, my friends’, and co-workers’. It took a peer, someone who had been in the same position as me, someone who had seen what I had seen, to make me understand that the quirks, traits and eccentricities that I put down to character flaws, were probably a result of the trauma of 1974. I did what he suggested, and requested an assessment. He was right. I was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). I wasn’t alone. It seems that most people suffering with PTSD need a peer to move them to take action to get help.
To explain to my family what had happened so long ago, I decided to write it all down and present it to them. That way I could do it at my own pace. It was a very difficult process. While writing, I came into contact with others who had been with me the day of the explosion. They, too, hadn’t spoken of it to their families. I decided that what I wrote would be beneficial for them, too. They could hand it to their families as their story, which of course, it was. When my wife Angie read it, she insisted that I take it to a publisher.
And now, because of my book, As You Were, I travel and speak to organizations about PTSD, and encourage those who recognize similarities with my story, to seek help.
I never anticipated that I would be doing this, but life is all about the unexpected. As Allen Saunders said, “Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.”
It would be hard to pick out three books that I could call favourites. Favourites can change as moods do. There are three books that come to mind, though, probably because of what my current preoccupations are. Fifth Business by Robertson Davies, All My Friends are Superheroes by Andrew Kaufman, and The Town That Drowned by Riel Nason. They are completely different in their style, story and treatment, but there are two binding threads. Their central characters struggle to come to terms with events that are out of their control. They strive to gain some kind of control by attempting to at least understand their circumstances. The other common thread is they are all Canadian. All are riveting reads.
**This article was originally posted in out Fall 2014 issue**
Get More! Receive six issues of Canadian Military Family Magazine in your mail box for only $17.95! Click here to subscribe NOW! | <urn:uuid:2b3cbea7-1567-4d5f-becd-38b3d4a723f1> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.cmfmag.ca/best_cmf/it-was-completely-unexpected/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570765.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808031623-20220808061623-00272.warc.gz | en | 0.991239 | 825 | 1.914063 | 2 |
GALLERY: TV wildlife expert Mike Dilger visits Welney Wetland Centre
- Credit: Archant
TV wildlife presenter Mike Dilger visited Welney Wetland Centre on Friday to promote World Wetlands Day.
Dilger has been raising money for WWT’s conservation work in the UK and around the world including WWT’s project to save the spoon-billed sandpiper.
It is one of the world’s rarest and most unusual birds but there are probably less than 100 pairs left.
Dilger, who has completed a marathon tour of all nine UK UK Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust visitor centres, urges everyone to explore their local wetland.
He said: “Water is vital for life. There’s obviously lots of it in wetlands and that’s why there’s so much great wildlife too. So put on your boots and raincoat and see what you can find.
“Many people might not realise the UK has more wetlands that are globally designated as being of international importance than any other country.
“The UK is one of the world’s great places to experience the spectacle of thousands of swans, geese and ducks grazing across a dramatic and beautiful wetland landscape. “In nine days I’ve seen something different and amazing at every WWT centre. Seeing wetlands at a visitor centre has the added advantage of feeling extra-safe and having somewhere dry and a nice cup of tea after having fun.”
- 1 Discount store expanding making it ‘bigger and better for customers’
- 2 Salesman Stephen who 'has a smile every day' marks 45 years at firm
- 3 Arson causes fire to rip through derelict building
- 4 Police officer speaks out after violent assault left bleed on brain
- 5 Farmer ‘feeling low’ due to increasingly difficult working conditions
- 6 'Why not have two stations?' - Villagers air their views on £37m rail project
- 7 Jury to go out in trial of driver accused of causing toddler's death
- 8 Man and teenager jailed after carrying out ‘horrific’ homophobic attack
- 9 Chatteris Fire brigade respond to nearly 20 calls in two days
- 10 Heather's Hedgehog Hotel in Chatteris officially opens
Wetlands are among the most abundant habitats in the world.
Ponds, lakes, marshes, riverbanks and moors are great places to spot the likes of dragonflies, water voles, otters and swans.
For details of locations and what’s on at each centre visit http://www.wwt.org.uk/visit/ | <urn:uuid:a8a75449-6051-43b8-a8c0-9c16c5f4cd5c> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.cambstimes.co.uk/news/gallery-tv-wildlife-expert-mike-dilger-visits-welney-wetland-centre-4841194 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571246.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811073058-20220811103058-00266.warc.gz | en | 0.929948 | 566 | 1.8125 | 2 |
The Seattle Kollel
To be an excellent, community-focused organization, dedicated to continuous Torah education in Seattle, which attracts, welcomes, and inspires every Jewish person to continually increase his or her knowledge of Torah, thereby enhancing Jewish life and strengthening Jewish continuity throughout the Pacific Northwest.
is to serve two distinct groups:
(1) Jewish individuals who live in the Pacific Northwest
(2) Jewish institutions and schools in the Pacific Northwest
We serve Jewish individuals who live in the Pacific Northwest by:
Working in a respectful and non-judgmental way, to encourage regular participation of individuals with Torah study resources in the community.
Providing a wide range of Jewish educational opportunities to any Jewish person, young or old, from absolute beginner to advanced. This is accomplished through a variety of classes and one-on-one study with Kollel faculty.
Establishing and staffing an evening community study hall (Beis Medrash) in the Seward Park area.
3. Supporting advanced Torah study in Seattle, thereby creating a valuable resource of ongoing graduate level Torah scholarship.
We serve Jewish institutions and schools in the Pacific Northwest by:
Creating a synergistic relationship between the Kollel, Jewish institutions, and schools where the sum total of our collective efforts is greater than the individual parts.
Working together to develop creative and innovative educational approaches to increase interest in Torah study.
Identifying unmet Jewish educational needs in the community, and assisting Jewish institutions and schools in their efforts to meet those needs.
Helping to attract high caliber Jewish educators who will choose to relocate to Seattle and work in our schools. | <urn:uuid:eb32dd29-3bb4-4c24-99b8-261a8e1a3614> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.seattlekollel.com/about-us-1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570977.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809124724-20220809154724-00466.warc.gz | en | 0.928352 | 356 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Is America on the road to economic recovery?
Not according to our sixth annual Salary & Job Satisfaction Survey, which found an average salary of $95,546 across all categories of respondents. That's a 4.1 percent retreat from the $99,666 average tallied in 2011, putting industry salaries roughly at a level reported in 2008.
The 2011 Food Processing Salary Survey found income had rebounded 6.6 percent, making up for almost all of a 6.3 percent drop from 2009 to 2010 salary averages.
Job satisfaction linked minimally to the dollars. Predictably, those who were "very satisfied" with their job averaged $108,360, nearly $10,000 more than the next highest group, which was – surprise! – the "very dissatisfied" ($98,915). Interestingly, there was only a $223 difference between the average salaries of the "somewhat satisfied" ($95,023) and the "somewhat dissatisfied" ($94,800). So clearly there's more to job satisfaction than a fuller wallet.
Ambivalence was the killer. Those who were "neither satisfied nor dissatisfied" were farthest back in the salary pack with a $78,336 average.
Season of discontent
Of course, there's nothing like a salary cut – even a statistical one – to set a surly tone for a survey. Comments reflected widespread discontent.
"I got promoted (to Thermal Processing Authority) without a pay raise but was given much more work," rued one respondent, illustrating the oft-repeated "more work for less pay" theme.
"No pay raise or cost of living increase since my start date," said another.
Others lamented lost raises, benefits and bonuses with comments like: "unrealistic bonus plan"; "raises down last two years"; "salary not keeping pace with cost of living"; "medical benefits not affordable"; "hours cut"; and "lack of position advancement or suitable pay increase for five years."
Some feel they are pawns in a corporate chess match. "Concerned about outsourcing," worried one. Said another: "If employee qualifies for pension, he no longer qualifies for a 401k match; employer has stopped stock options."
Disappointment and frustration abound, but there's also a pervasive weariness, a sense that workers and companies are in economic limbo, not drowning but merely treading water – or stuck in a time warp.
"I feel that the company pay structure is based out of the 1980s," said another. "Many feel the same way."
Despite the grousing, the level of job satifaction is virtually unchanged from last year, with 61 percent in the "very satisfied" or "somewhat satisfied" categories (versus 63 percent last year). Perhaps more important: Those concerned about job security dropped a percentage point.
Worn down, worn out
Part of that weariness and ennui stems from widespread understaffing and continued long office/plant hours.
"Overworked, understaffed and under-compensated," summed one respondent, capturing three predominant survey themes.
A whopping 57 percent of respondents reported working 41-50 hours per week, while 21 percent said they work 51-60 hours per week and 5 percent claimed to put in 61 hours or more. Almost half (47 percent) are on call 24/7.
Are they paid for overtime? Only 9.6 percent are being paid for hours after 40.
Common were comments like: Too much responsibility; not enough resources to get things done right…Too many duties. Not able to complete each task 100 percent. Just getting by…Too much stress and demands from management…Unrealistic project schedules.
The 'union' factor and gender gap
A new question this year that brought an unsurprising answer involved whether unions raise overall pay levels. Our survey revealed that respondents from companies with unionized plants were paid higher salaries ($99,198 on average) than those with non-unionized facilities ($94,306).
But of our 194 respondents from companies with a union workforce, only 18 were actually union members. (Note: Keep in mind that unionized plants are more common among larger companies.)
The "gender gap" widened as salaries of surveyed women made a retrograde movement. Women averaged nearly 11 percent less than they reported last year – $76,234 compared to $85,290 in the 2011 results. However, two interesting footnotes: We had 2 percent more women return the survey this year (they accounted for 31 perent last year), and the only person in the whole response pool reporting a salary over $500,000 in 2012 was a woman.
For the record, men's pay was down, too, but only 1.6 percent – $104,834 against last year's $106,567.
A degree of advantage
Does education pay? Indeed, it does. Those with an education history ending with a high school diploma or GED averaged only $65,775 compared to $77,527 for those with junior college or vocational schooling; $91,807 for a college bachelor's degree; $105,059 for a master's degree other than an MBA; and $124,643 for a doctorate.
But MBA's still earn top dollar, averaging $130,776.
The salary averages of respondents shifted significantly within several titles.
Plant Operations folks enjoyed the only significant increase, their collective salary averaging $97,655 compared to $88,654 for the 2011 report. R&D/Product Development also climbed to a $102,327 average vs. $98,304 last year. Marketing/Sales dropped to $97,961 from $104,899. Even management dipped slightly.
Satisfaction, as in 'I can't get no…'
Reasons for dissatisfaction with job and/or work conditions ranged from personal conflict, frustration or befuddlement with management ("dumb boss," "boss is a cowboy," "manager willing to step over bodies to make himself look good") to endemic problems in work culture and communications.
For years, the industry has feared it's losing top talent to higher tech industries. And, indeed, psychic reward may be in limited supply in some industry segments and positions.
"Under-challenged" was an evident even if subordinate theme to diminished time, money and resources. "Fast track" employees in "slow tracking" organizations are hitting their share of institutional speed bumps, as evidenced by responses like: "Lack of technical challenges"; "Nothing new to learn"; "Little room to advance"; "Very high achiever; no promotions"; And "Just dead-ended."
There also were concerns for the vitality or viability of their companies. "Concerned by our outsourcing"; "Lack of strategic direction"; "Plant hasn't kept up with newest methods and equipment"; "Lack of senior leadership support and empowerment"; "Corporate cash flow is so low it is causing difficulty keeping company afloat"; "I'm on my third manager in the past two years." "Trying to perform under the pressure of being eliminated at any time."
Budgetary and personnel cutbacks are having an effect on job satisfaction, productivity and quality of work life: "Lack of (department) money…budgetary cuts"; "Grossly understaffed in quality and number"; "Not enough resources to get everything done right"; "We are so lean that at times I wear too many hats"; "I've been doing two positions for well over a year."
The challenge is not just in the plant but in the field, too, as salespeople feel the squeeze. "Required to wear multiple hats and cover an increased sales territory for both sales and technical support," said one.
Those same work demands have cut into family time and quality of life. "An average work week is 72 hours, if I am lucky," said one.
Responses indicating perceived lack of corporate vision, leadership or direction surpassed the threshold of common complaint. Among the comments: "Knee jerk reaction to lower sales." "Lost trust in top management." "Managing for short term results." "Less focus on the future." "Can't make decisions." "Lack of management commitment to the quality program." "Unrealistic expectations, change of scope, unnecessary barriers to execute." "Goals and strategy are not aligned." "Profit doesn't get rolled into the business." "Parental managing."
And, of course, you can expect such responses when management rewards come in tandem with labor and salary cuts. "Had a RECORD year, yet bonuses were cut due to corporate greed and overcompensated management." "Constant layoffs to pay for bad decisions or golden parachutes for bad decision-makers."
"I was reassigned to a more challenging brand, causing my workload to increase in volume and complexity," said another. "However, this move came with no commensurate advancement in title or compensation, despite the fact that I replaced someone two levels above my title."
When it's good, it's good!
Each year, the negative comments make for a fun read. But to be fair, the numbers don't back up all the grousing.
It's not all gripes and groans and storm and strife in the food & beverage industry. Despite the challenging times, many respondents expressed satisfaction – and in some cases even exhilaration – with their jobs.
"Challenge," "opportunity," "recognition" and "appreciation" frequently led off the comments of the satisfied.
It's always nice when the work itself brings satisfaction. "I work in Capital installs and Systems improvement, which is both challenging and rewarding," said one. "Being able to overcome the challenges is what I find rewarding."
Being able to feed one's curiosity and delve into areas of interest adds a dimension of experiential reward and, perhaps, a sense of ownership.
"My company is a dynamic co-manufacturer for some of the snack industry's biggest names and products," said one happy camper. "This has given me an amazing cross-section of experiences. Also, as we are a medium-sized company, I am able to overcome the lack of degree by demonstrating my intellect and skill (something I think all companies should open their eyes to)."
One respondent credited the company for keeping him through a bankruptcy and change of ownership; others appreciated flex-time options; and others were happy just to be working with good, professional people.
And, yes, working for a "company that cares" makes a difference.
How true are the numbers?
While this year's statistics and comments reflect continued hard times for the U.S. economy and the food industry, it's only fair to point out a few facts about this year's survey that might skew year-to-year comparison.
Big numbers bulk up the averages, and this year we have fewer huge paychecks. Our 2011 survey found seven respondents reporting salaries in excess of $500,000 per year. This year, only one reported a salary in that category, and we had no one reporting a salary between $401,000 and $500,000.
Also, the total number of responses to our 2012 survey declined more than 20 percent – down to 881 from last year's 1,002. A smaller study group is likely to yield a less accurate projection of actual industry averages. | <urn:uuid:f93e7e5f-0431-44f7-a4f4-2bea7bbdb1ee> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.foodprocessing.com/articles/2012/salarysurvey/?show=all | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285315.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00570-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963256 | 2,357 | 1.601563 | 2 |
On centering reproductive health and access in the public health agenda
Thoughts on the possible overturn of Roe v. Wade and public health’s responsibilities in this moment.
A few days ago, Politico obtained a draft majority opinion written by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. If the draft becomes the Court’s final opinion, it will end the constitutional protection of abortion access, first established by the 1973 decision, Roe v. Wade. If that happens, decisions about abortion access will fall to the states. Even recognizing that this leak is not yet the settled opinion of the Court, the news is heartbreaking. This leak suggests there could soon be a seismic shift around this issue, as federally protected abortion access—a fact of life in this country for nearly 50 years—reverts to a status quo not seen since before many Americans were born. The implications of this decision are enormous. 19 states will effectively ban abortion, immediately affecting access for more than 40 million women, and abortion rights will no longer be protected in a majority of states.
This possibility is simultaneously shocking and expected. It is shocking that access to a foundational right could be suddenly restricted for so many. It is expected because we have long known this was likely coming. Roe v. Wade was always fiercely contested. For decades, the push for its fall has been an animating principle of the country’s conservative movement. The shift to a majority of right-leaning Justices on the Court has for many months now made the overturn of Roe seem inevitable.
It is important to state unequivocally that abortion is inextricably linked to the health of the public. As such, our ongoing engagement with abortion and the broader issue of reproductive health is at the heart of our mission as a field. Reproductive health is public health, and abortion access is core to how we address reproductive health in this country. Throughout our history, generations of scholars have engaged with the issue of abortion—its social, legal, economic, medical, and political implications. I have also engaged with this issue in my own writing and thinking. This work, as with the work of many others in the public health community, has long aimed to address the many challenges at the heart of the abortion debate, while keeping a core focus on health.
Central to our concern with the consequences of this moment needs to be an acknowledgement of who the abortion debate—and the potential overturn of Roe—most affects. Abortion rates are deeply influenced by the structural factors that shape all aspects of the health of populations, with race and socioeconomic status playing a central role. Black women are five times more likely to have an abortion than white women. 49 percent of abortions are concentrated among women below the federal poverty level (Figure One). Restricting access to abortion is a quintessential regressive act that harms the health of populations overall, but also widens health gaps through harming the health of those who need health protection the most.
Source: Abortion rates by income. Guttmacher Institute Web site. https://www.guttmacher.org/infographic/2017/abortion-rates-income. Accessed May 3, 2020.
The future of Roe, then, is intertwined with the future of marginalized populations who have long borne the brunt of health gaps. In particular, recognizing that access to healthcare is already more limited for people of color than it is for White Americans, further limiting access perpetuates and exacerbates our shameful national history of structural racism. Engaging with the issue of abortion access and reproductive health then is inextricable from public health’s mission of placing the health of marginalized groups at the heart of all we do.
In keeping with public health’s engagement with these issues, we have a role and a responsibility to work towards a just status quo around abortion and reproductive health, regardless of the Court’s decision about Roe. I offer here three actions that might help support our engagement going forward.
First, we can state clearly—as I am here—that abortion is both a right and a health issue. While I realize that there are legal challenges to the first of these statements, it is hard to countenance that something as intimate as an abortion can be separable from the foundational right to bodily autonomy. On the latter, even those who are inclined to oppose abortion access should be able to see there are times when the context of health makes such an option necessary, and that a individual and their doctor should be free at those moments to pursue that option without state interference. There is abundant evidence that criminalizing abortion results in complications—including death—due to illicit abortions; estimates of the number of worldwide deaths due to unsafe abortions range from 20-68,000 women annually. By contrast, there is little evidence that banning abortion reduces its incidence. While the availability of safe, at-home abortion pills have increased via telehealth, its access could also be in jeopardy. We should therefore continue to argue for legal abortion access as the health issue it is, appealing to the fundamental human right to health and the principle of universal access to healthcare. The same is true of the broader range of issues that inform our support of reproductive health, from making contraceptives more available, to providing sex education, to advancing a more equal, egalitarian world in which women no longer face disproportionate burdens due to outdated attitudes about sex, birth, and childrearing.
Second, we should maintain and deepen our partnerships with organizations that share our commitment to reproductive health. Such partnerships help us advance the provision of necessary services and they help us engage, at the political level, with the legal underpinnings of health. The problem posed by the opinion that may soon come from the Supreme Court is not one that public health can solve on its own. It will take working with a broader movement, as we organize towards a healthier world. For my part, I have for several years now had the privilege of serving on the board of the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, following the lead of many colleagues who have worked with such organizations. Thank you to all who engage in these partnerships.
Finally, this moment calls on us to return to the fundamentals of our field. I realize that abortion is a highly emotional issue, intertwined with morality, philosophy, religion, and intimate lived experience. But I have often found a focus on the foundational principles of public health can be clarifying, helping ground our efforts in core values. Guided by our values, it strikes me that our responsibility in this moment is to bring clarity to and inform the public conversation around abortion and reproductive health, as we work to advance the public health practice that shapes a healthier world. Perhaps this is always our responsibility, and now, in a time of challenge, more so than ever. | <urn:uuid:faf279d9-58c1-4f14-b318-93f6b0f4ddbf> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://sandrogalea.substack.com/p/on-centering-reproductive-health | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570913.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809064307-20220809094307-00065.warc.gz | en | 0.956811 | 1,369 | 1.882813 | 2 |
Lynda - iPad Tips and Tricks TUTORIAL
4h 17m = Appropriate for all = Aug 04, 2010 Updated Feb 21, 2013
Size: 496.756 MB
In iPad Tips and Tricks, author Christopher Breen provides expert tips for getting the most out of the Apple iPad (first generation) and iPad 2, including gesturing, typing, and adding content, as well as troubleshooting common device issues. The course explains how to download and manage apps, configure email accounts, create presentations, and set up videoconferences. The course also demonstrates both built-in and third-party solutions for opening and editing files, streaming video and audio wirelessly, and troubleshooting common device issues.
- Working with the iPad touchscreen
- Printing with an iPad
- Syncing data with iCloud
- Using iTunes Match to update media on multiple devices
- Dealing with spam
- Sending Twitter updates from multiple apps
- Connecting an iPad to an external display
- Controlling a computer remotely with an iPad
- Keeping to-do lists synchronized
- Taking pictures and movies
- Preparing audio and video files for the iPad
Lynda - iPad Tips and Tricks TUTORIAL Fast Download via Rapidshare Hotfile Fileserve Filesonic Megaupload, Lynda - iPad Tips and Tricks TUTORIAL Torrents and Emule Download or anything related. | <urn:uuid:d5820ee8-1f6b-4720-a9ea-83284d3adf5e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.kugraphic.org/tutorial/186304-lynda-ipad-tips-and-tricks-tutorial.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279489.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00006-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.818261 | 289 | 2.171875 | 2 |
The Lockheed Martin shooting occurred on July 8, 2003, at the Lockheed Martin plant in Meridian, Mississippi. The gunman, Douglas Williams, an assembly line worker at the plant, shot 14 of his co-workers with a shotgun, killing six of them, before committing suicide. After the shooting, information surfaced depicting Williams' history of making threats and racist comments directed at African-American coworkers: five of the six killed in the incident were black.
|Lockheed Martin shooting|
|Part of mass shootings in the United States|
|Location||Meridian, Mississippi, United States|
|Date||July 8, 2003 |
9:30 a.m. – 9:40 a.m.
|Mass murder, murder-suicide, massacre, workplace shooting|
|Deaths||7 (including the perpetrator)|
The incident was the deadliest workplace shooting in the United States since December 2000, when Michael McDermott killed seven co-workers at Edgewater Technology in Wakefield, Massachusetts. Given the nature of the attack and Williams' long-known history of racially-motivated threatening behavior, the incident was described by some at the time as the worst hate crime against African-Americans since the civil rights movement.
On the day of the shooting, Williams attended a mandatory ethics and diversity class together with 13 others. According to some colleagues, Williams arrived at the plant in a very agitated state and made threats to kill other workers. Others, who said they talked to him prior to the shooting, stated that he "gave no indications that anything was wrong." Williams only stayed at the meeting for a few minutes. After having a normal conversation with his colleague Al Collier, who described it as a "friendly little talk", Williams suddenly stormed out of the room, saying "y'all can handle this." Telling his supervisor, Jeff McWilliams, that he would take the matters into his own hands, Williams went to retrieve several guns from his pickup truck.
At approximately 9:30 a.m., Williams entered the room, yelling "I told y'all to stop f***ing with me! Didn't I tell y'all not to f*** with me?", and began shooting. He first killed Mickey Fitzgerald, who tried to calm him down, with a shot in the face, before turning his attention towards a group of four workers on the floor. Williams killed Sam Cockrell, who he believed had made complaints about him to the management; he wounded Al Collier, who was shot in the back and right hand. He also wounded Charles Scott, and fatally wounded DeLois Bailey when she tried to flee. Steve Cobb, the plant manager, as well as Brad Bynum, Chuck McReynolds, and Brenda Dubose, whose head and hand were grazed by bullet fragments, were also wounded by ricochet. Williams then went out of the room, but returned after a short while and, searching and calling for Jack Johns, the production manager, continued shooting.
Williams eventually left the annex and headed for the main factory, searching for other employees who had reported him to the management for making racist threats. There, he was apprehended by his colleague Pete Threatt, who tried to take away his gun, but Williams pushed him out of the way, lowered the shotgun with the words "Get out of my way or I'll kill you, too" and moved on. While Threatt tried to make the others aware of the gunman, screaming for people to take cover, Williams walked through the plant and shot five other people, most of them at point-blank range. He killed Charles J. Miller, Thomas Willis, and Lynette McCall at their work stations and wounded Henry Odom and Randy Wright, before his girlfriend and co-worker, Shirley J. Price, began pleading with him to stop shooting. Williams then committed suicide in front of her by shooting himself in the torso. His rampage had lasted approximately ten minutes.
Six people were killed in the shooting. They are:
- DeLois Bailey, 53, died of her wounds on July 15
- Sam Cockrell, 46, of Meridian, Mississippi
- Micky Fitzgerald, 45, of Little Rock, Mississippi
- Lynette McCall, 47, of Cuba, Alabama
- Charles J. Miller, 58, of Meridian, Mississippi
- Thomas Willis, 57, of Lisman, Alabama
- Brad Bynum, 29
- Steve Cobb, 46
- Al Collier, 49
- Brenda Dubose, 55
- Chuck McReynolds, 62
- Henry Odom, 57
- Charles Scott, 65
- Randy Wright, 55
After the shooting, plant employees reported to the media that Williams had a history of conflicts with his co-workers and management, with one describing Williams as being "mad at the world." Local law enforcement initially stated that the incident had no clear motive, with Lauderdale County Sheriff Billy Sollie saying, "There was no indication it involved race or gender as far as his targets were concerned." 70% of plant employees were white, and five of the six fatalities in the shooting were African American. In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, the President of Lockheed Martin refused to disclose whether company officials were previously aware of any red flags regarding Williams.
Further investigations were conducted in the days and months after the shooting. It surfaced that black coworkers of Williams had reported receiving numerous threats and disturbing incidents to management, causing Lockheed Martin to open its own investigation prior to the shooting. In 2001, Thomas Willis reported being intimidated by Williams; an investigator was called in, to whom Willis reported at least three examples of racially motivated death threats. Another black employee, Aaron Hopson, also reported a threat. "He said, 'You know, one of these days, I'm goin' to come in here and kill me a bunch of niggers and then I'm goin' to kill myself.'" Williams was ordered to attend diversity and anger management courses; he refused.
A month before the shooting, while he was on the factory floor, Williams put a white work bootie on his head in imitation of a Ku Klux Klan hood. Hours later, an assistant plant manager asked him to remove it. Williams refused and demanded to know who had reported him. Told to either remove the hood or leave, Williams left, taking an additional week off work without permission. When he returned, he was again ordered to attend diversity training but not otherwise disciplined.
Bobby McCall, the husband of one of the victims, told an ABC News reporter, "He had a list, and he called his list the 'good niggers and the bad niggers.'" Williams' computer login was later revealed to be "white power." Two years after the shooting, the lawyer representing Thomas Willis' family observed, "I can't imagine a hate crime that had more forewarning than this one."
- "Six Dead In Mississippi Massacre". CBS News. July 9, 2003. Archived from the original on November 21, 2003.
- "Mad At The World". CBS News. July 9, 2003. Archived from the original on February 10, 2005. Retrieved September 3, 2009.
- Ross, Brian; Scott, David (May 12, 2005). "Lockheed Workplace Murders Targeted Blacks". ABC News. Archived from the original on June 14, 2005.
- Carmichael, Fredie (July 13, 2003). "Anatomy of a nightmare". The Meridian Star. Archived from the original on October 7, 2003.
- Frye, Georgia E. (July 8, 2006). "Lockheed Martin: Three years later". The Meridian Star. Archived from the original on March 14, 2012.
- Halbfinger, David M.; Hart, Ariel (July 9, 2003). "Man Kills 5 Co-Workers at Plant and Himself". The New York Times. Archived from the original on November 9, 2012.
- Johnson, Kevin (July 8, 2003). "6 dead in Miss. factory shooting". USA Today. Archived from the original on October 23, 2012.
- "Lockheed Murder Victims". ABC News. Archived from the original on April 10, 2016.
Sam Cockrell, 46, a Lockheed veteran who Williams believed had turned him in for wearing what looked like a KKK hood at the plant. A white co-worker says he warned Cockrell a week before the shooting to steer clear of Williams for fear of violence.
- Halbfinger, David M. (July 16, 2003). "Death Toll Rises In Plant Shooting". The New York Times. Archived from the original on November 10, 2012.
- Vanden Brook, Tom; Johnson, Kevin (July 8, 2003). "Plant gunman 'mad at the world'". USA Today. Archived from the original on July 24, 2003.
- "SCRIPT: Lockheed Martin Shooting". ABC News. April 26, 2006.
- Causey, Frances (Director) (January 15, 2017). The Long Shadow (DVD). United States: Passion River Films. Event occurs at 1:03:29.
- "A Survivor and the Children of One of the Victims Discuss the Racially-Motivated Shooting at Lockheed Martin's plant in Miss". Democracy Now!. July 10, 2003. | <urn:uuid:eb0f3073-24ae-42d3-be5a-2f162be3c941> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_shooting | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573744.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819161440-20220819191440-00470.warc.gz | en | 0.968997 | 2,033 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Out now via Liquid Len Recording Company is the band new album from the UK industrial / post-punk outfit History Of Guns, “Forever Dying In Your Eyes”, which is their first new album in over a decade.
History Of Guns formed in Hertfordshire, England, 1996. They became frontrunners of the UK Wasp Factory / FuturePunk scene of the early 2000s while their 2004 album, “Your Obedient Servant”, was more a goth affair.
In their latest incarnation, co-founders Del Alien (vocals) and Max Rael (keyboards, programming) are joined in History Of Guns by newest member Jamu Knight (guitars).
Asked about the inspirations behind the new album, Forever Dying In Your Eyes, Max Rael replies: “Del and I were both struggling with mental health issues. Previously, I think we’d found that being creative and making music, while not exactly making us any better, at least gave us a focus and a reason. It’s up to each of us to make our own meaning in life, and with this album I think there’s a kind of fatalistic acceptance. It’s subtitled, ‘Eight Songs for Turning a Corner’. Everyone has their own individual reality tunnel, and is a victim of all sorts of subconscious confirmation bias. As History Of Guns, we create a specific world, which we invite the listener to join with each album we’ve done. Hopefully, our world overlaps with the listeners’ emotional and mental landscape, so that for the length of the album, there’s a co-created space of escapism, openness, darkness and light.”
“Forever Dying In Your Eyes” follows on the heels of the album’s video-singles “You Wanted to Live” (May 2022) and “Running In Circles” (July 2022).
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Alternatives to the winner-takes-all, two-party system in the United States took a beating in June when New York City’s experiment with ranked-choice voting seemed to go belly-up. Voters found the new system confusing, and counting the results was delayed by weeks as the NYC Board of Elections struggled to adapt.
It would be a catastrophe for the Left, however, if this hiccup in NYC (which, it’s worth noting, is hardly a real PR system, as it is confined to primary elections and still leads to the election of only one representative per district) led socialists to abandon the fight for proportional representation (PR). Like New York’s counterparts all over the world, socialists’ ability to engage in productive political conflict would be much stronger under the kind of multiparty system that proportional representation enables.
Support for a multiparty system is widespread in the United States. Since the start of the new century, about half the country has said it would support the emergence of at least one more party. Since 2011, Gallup polls suggest that percent of its support has risen and consistently hovers around the high 50s to low 60s. Although support is especially strong among independents, the latest poll suggests that 46 percent of Democrats also support the creation of a third party.
Fortunately, there is a viable path to realizing that desire in the United States. The Fair Representation Act introduced in the last Congress is a method for adopting a proportional representation system that is compatible with the Constitution. But understanding what it is and why socialists ought to support the Fair Representation Act first requires a deeper understanding of how the winner-takes-all system hobbles the Left’s success.
A (Not-Well-Known) Right-Wing Bias
The reality is that the winner-takes-all, two-party system plays a major role in distorting representation in Congress, state legislatures, and city councils — at least as much as gerrymandering does. In fact, it’s not an exaggeration to say that our current system systematically favors the Right and disadvantages the Left.
That’s one of the conclusions drawn by Jonathan Rodden in his fascinating book Why Cities Lose: The Deep Roots of the Urban-Rural Political Divide. Urban centers, Rodden notes, are the base of center-left and left-wing voters. But the concentration of like-minded voters in densely packed urban neighborhoods leads to their suboptimal distribution across many districts, regardless of how those district lines are drawn. That creates a bias for right-wing parties who draw their support from rural and exurban districts — districts where their voters are more evenly spread out.
Think of it this way. Cities are so packed with left-leaning voters that many urban districts vote for the center-left or left candidate by very large margins. Right-leaning voters, however, are more evenly distributed across suburban and rural districts, where center-right and right-wing candidates more commonly win by smaller margins. This unbalanced distribution of left and right voters is one of the primary mechanisms that gives our political system a severe minoritarian tilt, biasing elections in favor of right-wing populists who do especially well in rural areas and affluent suburbs.
Due to the distorting effects of the combination of winner-takes-all elections and left voter concentration in cities, Rodden even finds that laws that would prevent gerrymandering by putting district-drawing in the hands of nonpartisan authorities would not be enough to greatly improve the Left’s competitive position. In thousands of simulations of different district configurations, he finds the same bias toward Republicans due to their strength in rural and suburban areas.
But it is not just the technical aspects of how districts are drawn that biases elections in favor of the Right. In the popular consciousness, voters in a two-party system are also taught to believe that they only have two choices. This creates a false sense that the “middle ground” in politics is between the Democratic and Republican Parties.
In what we might call the “middle-ground illusion,” voters come to believe that the only way to assert their independence from the two parties and to punish a party is to vote for Democrats in some elections and Republicans in others. Although that choice is really a choice between a center-right party and a far-right party, voters think they’re being “fair and balanced” in this game.
Tactical Trouble for Socialists
As if its antidemocratic nature weren’t enough of a problem for socialists, four additional aspects of the winner-takes-all, and the two-party system it gives rise to, are especially troubling for socialists’ ability to compete effectively.
First, by trapping the Left within the Democratic Party, the two-party system puts socialists in a double bind. On the one hand, we have an obvious need to distinguish ourselves from mainstream Democrats. Winning elections in Democratic primaries depends on drawing clear distinctions, and even going on the attack against mainstream Democrats.
But as we move out of solidly blue districts into more competitive parts of the country, that can rebound to hurt both us and establishment Democrats. A party that seems to be gripped by a civil war will almost certainly repel voters.
The pressure to muzzle our criticisms, therefore, for the sake of party unity will certainly grow as time goes on, undercutting our ability to establish our own independent position. We got a first taste of this in 2016 and 2020, when Bernie Sanders was under intense pressure not to go on the attack against Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. Indeed, many blamed Clinton’s loss on Sanders’s modest criticisms of her in the primary campaign.
Second, establishment Democrats and socialists are already beginning to learn that broad tents make for easier targets. In the 2020 congressional elections, Democrats underperformed compared to expectations. Democratic leaders were likely not wrong to suggest that part of the reason was due to the success Republicans had in tying Democrats in battleground districts to socialism and other controversial left-wing demands.
At the same time, socialists will likely find in more competitive parts of the country that the Democratic identity is toxic among many working-class voters who might otherwise be open to our message. One reason Bernie Sanders consistently outperforms Democrats in Vermont elections has to do with his ability to appeal to working-class independents and Republicans who approve of his independence from the Democratic Party.
Third, socialists would benefit enormously from being able to make elections about party strategies rather than personalities. In our current system, socialist candidates go up against Democrats in primaries. In those races, and absent party labels, voters often make choices based on personality, identity, and who they think is most likely to win in the general election.
For socialists who want to make elections about strategy and platforms, this can be especially frustrating. It’s hard in a primary to explain to voters why such-and-such establishment Democrat who says they are for progressive reforms is really part of a larger, unlabelled political project that blocks those reforms. General elections, on the other hand, present just such an opportunity to make the choice about contending party strategies rather than personalities.
Moreover, in a multiparty system, socialists can effectively distinguish ourselves from those on the center-left in the eyes of voters in between elections as well. Separate party identities that compete against each other help organize political conflict for most people. Parties in a multiparty system can, for example, enter and exit governing coalitions, and it’s easy for all to see what is happening.
This is not so in a two-party system, where people rarely know the balance of power between the various factions inside a party. Most politically engaged people would likely know that Democrats hold a slim majority in the House, but how many people could tell you the relative sizes of the progressive and neoliberal blocs within the Democratic Party? Among its many sins, a two-party system masks conflicts.
Take the highly popular stimulus bill. In a multiparty system, the party of the Left would have pushed to include greater redistribution in the stimulus, and Joe Biden would have been forced to concede to the pressure in order to secure their support. Voters would have seen clearly where the best parts of the stimulus came from. In our two-party system where these kinds of conflicts are much harder for people to follow, the best parts of the stimulus are perceived (to the extent that people even know they happened) as a gift from Joe Biden, since the push for the stimulus came from “the Democrats.”
Finally, and on the longest time horizon, proportional representation is better for socialists because it ensures that if we come to power, we will do so with the support of a majority of society. In debates in the British Labour Party about the desirability of PR, Ralph Miliband made the case for the importance of proportional representation in this way:
Labour supporters of the first-past-the-post system argue that it also gives the Labour Party a chance to win an election and form a government of its own. This may be true, but it ignores some important facts, quite apart from the point of principle that the electoral system should not greatly distort representation. One fact the argument ignores is that a government engaged in fundamental reform needs a much greater measure of support in the country than does a conservative government. It is only thus that a radical government could hope to achieve its purposes; and that support ought to be reflected in voting figures. Fifty-one per cent is no magic figure; but achieving that figure, alone or if need be in coalition, is none the less very helpful.
Overcoming the two-party system and transitioning to a system of proportional representation is of paramount strategic importance for the socialist cause. Our ability to win — and to base a future socialist government on the support of the majority of society — would be greatly aided by this transformation.
An American Solution
Is there a viable model for adopting a proportional representation system in the United States?
Germany provides one of the best examples of such an alternative. It’s sometimes called “mixed-member proportional representation” (MMP). MMP combines the advantages of direct district-level representation with the advantages of representing parties proportionally.
Every voter on election day casts two votes. They vote for a candidate to be their representative to the German Bundestag; and they vote for the party that is closest to their politics.
District-level representatives are elected first. Then parties are awarded additional representatives to ensure that their delegation in the Bundestag is proportional to their share of the national vote. A party’s representation in the legislature is not exactly equal to their share of the national vote, since some parties do not make the threshold to be represented and are not counted. But it creates a system in which a party’s share of seats is fairly close to its share of the national party-preference vote.
It’s unclear if such a system would be possible in the United States, given the current constitutional order. But fortunately, alternatives that are definitely compatible with the US Constitution do exist.
FairVote, a nonprofit that specializes in making proposals to fix America’s broken democracy, has done the most work on this front. Their Fair Representation Act is the boldest proposal yet to transition the United States to a multiparty system. Under the Fair Representation Act, congressional elections would be run using ranked-choice voting, which would immediately reduce the bite of the “spoiler effect.”
But more importantly, every state with more than one representative would be required to introduce multimember districts. In Louisiana, for example, the state’s six districts would be reduced to two, one in the eastern half and the other in the western half. Voters would then rank their preferences in elections. Ballots would be counted, leading to the election or elimination of candidates who meet or fail to meet a certain threshold. Votes assigned initially to elected or eliminated candidates would then be redistributed to the remaining candidates. The process would repeat until a number of candidates equal to the number of seats in a district are elected.
The precise number of representatives assigned to a multimember district would vary based on the number of representatives granted to a state (and in states with only one representative, elections would be held for that single seat). But the multimember nature of most district-level elections would lead to a greater diversity in party representation in Congress. And of critical importance to reducing the unfair advantage of the Right, such a system would combine cities with their surrounding suburbs and rural areas in large, multimember districts. This would greatly reduce the advantage that the Right gains from the winner-takes-all setup.
The Fight for Democracy
Democracy in the United States is under serious strain. The far right takeover of the Republican Party threatens democracy at a foundational level. And the Democratic Party — working closely with big corporations — does not provide an alternative.
Democratic socialists cannot afford to avoid this crisis any longer. We need a bold vision for building a stronger democracy in the United States. We may even find in the long term that mainstream Democrats, eager to put distance between themselves and the socialist left, might support a multiparty setup. Such a transformation does not have to be a zero-sum game. By expanding party choice, transitioning to a multiparty system would likely lead to a burst of turnout among working-class voters, greatly strengthening the forces opposed to the far right.
Socialists before us have taken up the cause of democracy. The fight for universal suffrage was a key demand for the Left all over the world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Indeed, every real step forward toward stronger democracies internationally has been championed and fought for by socialists and working-class movements.
The fight for democracy today includes the struggle to defend voting rights, enact a public financing system, abolish the Electoral College, and curtail the power of the Senate and Supreme Court. But it also should look beyond fixing the problems with broken institutions and toward re-founding democracy itself.
A step along the way is ridding this country of the two-party trap and building a real multiparty system. Doing so is possible. And the health of our democracy — and, ultimately, victory for democratic socialism — depend on it. | <urn:uuid:2b6a9306-6b01-4ea8-9137-e23f8c8a8523> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://jacobin.com/2021/07/democratic-socialism-proportional-representation-multiparty-system-ranked-choice-elections | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573193.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818094131-20220818124131-00467.warc.gz | en | 0.96137 | 2,942 | 2.46875 | 2 |
Despite the urgency of climate change and the narrowing window for action, philanthropic funding to address climate change remains very limited. Total philanthropic giving by foundations and individuals focused on climate change mitigation represents less than two percent of total global philanthropic giving, according to the ClimateWorks Foundation. While there is some evidence of increased momentum in recent years, more action will be needed to match the scale of the climate crisis.
- U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres
How pressing is climate change from the perspective of foundation and nonprofit leaders?
What are nonprofits and foundation leaders doing to address climate change?
How are leaders of organizations that do not focus on climate change thinking about this issue and to what extent are these leaders currently addressing it?
How are climate-focused organizations approaching their work?
representing a 24 percent response rate for each survey
Foundation and nonprofit leaders overwhelmingly see climate change as an urgent problem that will negatively impact the lives of the people served by their organizations, especially historically marginalized communities. While they believe the public and private sectors, in particular, aren’t doing enough to address climate change, they believe foundations and nonprofits could also be doing more.
– Foundation leader
Figure 1: Foundation and Nonprofit Leader Perspectives on the Urgency of Climate Change
*Percentages in this figure may not add to 100 due to rounding.
Despite foundation leaders’ concerns about climate change, foundation efforts to address climate change are relatively limited – in terms of both grant dollars and investment practices – and are also seen as limited in effectiveness. Foundation and nonprofit leaders alike describe ample opportunity for philanthropy to engage more deeply and effectively to combat climate change.
Figure 7: Percentage of Climate Funders' Grant Dollars Currently Allocated to Climate Change Efforts for this Fiscal Year
Figure 14: Climate Funder Perspectives on the Effectiveness of Foundation Efforts to Address Climate Change
Despite their concerns about climate change, most non-climate funders tend to see this issue as outside the scope of their mission, though some have not ruled out future funding efforts to address climate change. Leaders of climate nonprofits and foundations urge these funders to consider how climate change affects their missions.
Figure 15: Top 3 Reasons Foundations Leaders Say They Do Not Fund Efforts Addressing Climate Change
It is not part of the foundation's mission
The board has limited interest or willingness to address climate change
The problem is too big relative to the foundation's resources or geographic focus
– Foundation leader
of foundation leaders have not closed the door on the possibility of funding climate change. Just over one third said they are open to considering it and about 10 percent said it is under consideration.
Foundations & Climate Change
More insights from our analysis of hundreds of foundation and nonprofit leaders’ views on climate change and philanthropy’s role in addressing this problem can be read in the full report. We hope this resource spurs conversation, action, and engagement in this crucial work. | <urn:uuid:3055acab-6d6d-44c8-8d74-9b04e6ceaafa> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://cep.org/report-backpacks/much-alarm-less-action/?section=overview | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571719.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812140019-20220812170019-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.938263 | 630 | 2.203125 | 2 |
Brickyard Farms is a ‘self-sustaining farm’ that uses organic methods. If that seems like double-speak, it is wording that allows us to find a description that is appropriate in legal-speak. For a small farm such as ours, the organic certification process is lengthy and cost prohibitive. The word organic is no longer owned by the farmers themselves, but by the government licensing process and corporate interests that want to ultimately control the food supply. There is a great deal of money to be made in food.
Val and I are often asked what it means to be a ‘self-sustaining farm’. Self-sustaining implies a sense of stewardship for the land, a continuance of purpose through its own efforts. We hope to leave the land that we farm better than when we found it. ‘Self-sustaining’ also involves maintaining a farm that is small enough to produce quality vegetables without the use of chemicals or pesticides for high yields.
I’ll never forget the first time I tasted one of our potatoes; I was shocked by its flavor. I had always thought a potato is a potato, is a potato. I had no idea how chemicals and pesticides affected food’s flavor. Until you’ve tried vegetables grown locally and without pesticides, you won’t believe the difference. Local food growers will tell you there is no substitution for produce that has been allowed to ripen fully before harvest.
Yet flavor, price and access are often at odds. Val and I noticed last spring that some vendors at the farmers market were going home with beautiful, locally grown asparagus that they hadn’t sold. When we arrived at one of the commercial stores to complete our weekly shopping, we immediately noticed they were selling asparagus for $.99 per pound; at the farmers market it was priced at $1.79 per pound. Local farmers cannot compete with volume pricing. They must compete with the quality of their goods and the support from their local community. On balance, if each family spent $10.00 per week of their food budget on locally grown food, $37 million would pour back into our Michigan economy.
Support for local farmers is critical if we are interested in providing choice in the foods we purchase. Educating customers to appreciate whole foods, not processed foods, is the ultimate goal of every market farmer. When we know how our food is grown, and at what stage it is harvested, buying local makes more sense. We feel by living simply and acting on our beliefs, we are giving people the option of eating affordable, pesticide-free produce. We believe that food of excellent quality can be produced locally and at peak flavor.
The average bit of food travels over 1500 miles to its destination. In terms of energy alone, this common practice is not sustainable. When food is picked before it is ripe, not only flavor but nutritive value is compromised. How many of us have had the beautiful red tomato that was gassed to imitate ripeness, without an ounce of flavor? I, for one, would far prefer a beautiful tomato with all the taste of summer, grown locally and shipped tens of miles to a farmers market with great care. | <urn:uuid:1a2b32f0-4cf4-4e1b-b49f-7e912b4bb1e4> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://basicswithatwist.com/2011/05/15/the-self-sustaining-family-farm/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280410.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00452-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977961 | 663 | 1.96875 | 2 |
JERUSALEM (AP) — The Muslim Brotherhood victory in Egyptian presidential elections, announced Sunday, has raised fears in Israel that its strategic 1979 peace agreement with its southern neighbor could be in danger.
In contrast, in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, ecstatic residents flocked into the streets, fired guns in the air and handed out candy in celebration.
Israel's peace agreement with Egypt, its first with an Arab country, is a cornerstone of Israeli security. The agreement ended decades of hostilities, with to five wars and thousands of deaths.
While relations have never been warm, Egypt has upheld the deal, keeping its bordering Sinai peninsula largely demilitarized, allowing the Israeli military to focus on other hostile borders with the Palestinians, Syria and Lebanon.
In a statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he respected the results of Egypt's democratic process and hoped the peace agreement would remain intact.
"Israel expects to continue cooperation with the Egyptian government on the basis of the peace agreement between the two countries, which is of interest to the two peoples and contributes to regional stability," he said.
With the Egyptian military still the ultimate power in Egypt, senior Israeli defense officials who maintain contacts with Egypt said Sunday that they do not expect any immediate changes in relations. Over the long term, they warned, the Brotherhood may seek to cancel the peace agreement. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were discussing a sensitive security assessment.
The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, is a pan-Arabic movement that favors creation of a Muslim state that encompasses the entire Middle East. It has never given up that goal, but as it gains official power in Egypt, winning parliamentary elections and now the presidency, it has indicated pragmatic willingness to accept the existence of Israel.
Addressing his nation Sunday evening, Morsi declared he had a "message of peace. We will respect all international agreements," he said, without mentioning Israel.
Although some Brotherhood leaders have said they will never meet with an Israeli official, they have been careful to say they would not cancel the treaty. Like many other Egyptians, they favor amendments — primarily to allow more Egyptian troops into the Sinai. Israel has already permitted an increase of troops there, demanding that Egypt bring violent extremists under control.
Armed gangs are believed to control wide swaths of territory, smugglers have helped thousands of African migrant workers sneak into Israel and various Arab militant groups, some believed to have ties to al-Qaida, operate freely.
Eli Shaked, a former Israeli ambassador to Egypt, said the Egyptians would "have a lot to lose" if they canceled the peace, including Western investment and billions of dollars in U.S. aid. Even so, he warned, the treaty was not safe.
In the Gaza Strip, tens of thousands of joyous Palestinians took to the streets across the territory after the result was announced.
Gunmen fired automatic weapons in the air, and mosque loudspeakers reverberated with prayers. Some revelers handed out candy on street corners.
The celebrations were marred when one person was killed and six others wounded by celebratory gunfire.
Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood's ascent to power in Egypt has raised hopes that Gaza's relations with its powerful southern neighbor will improve.
"Today is new era for us in Gaza. The days of suffering due to the Egyptian authorities are over, said Rawhi Talab, 51, a food store owner.
Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar told a rally in downtown Gaza that "the heart of Jerusalem has started to beat again," adding, "We are not asking Egypt to fight on our behalf." Hamas does not recognize Israel.
Mubarak collaborated with Israel in a blockade of Gaza. The blockade, first imposed after Hamas-linked gunmen captured an Israeli soldier in 2006, was tightened the following year when Hamas violently seized power in the seaside strip.
Israel said the blockade was needed to prevent arms shipments to Hamas. Under heavy international pressure, Israel lifted some limits two years ago and Egypt eased travel restrictions after Mubarak's ouster.
Morsi has not yet said what plans he has for dealing with Gaza, which shares a 15-kilometer (nine-mile) border with Egypt, which ruled Gaza from 1948 to 1967.
Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh phoned Morsi to congratulate him on becoming Egypt's first Islamist president. "This is a victory for all Arabs and Muslims, and this is God's promise to his believers," the Hamas leader said.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, a secular leader who governs in the West Bank, also congratulated Morsi. "The president expressed his respect for the choice of the great Egyptian people," according to a statement from the official Wafa news agency.
The leaders of Kuwait and Bahrain sent cables to Morsi congratulating him, according to statements carried by their official news agencies.
Barzak reported from Gaza City, Gaza Strip. Ian Deitch and Blake Sobczak in Jerusalem, Mark Lavie in Cairo, Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank, and Adam Schreck in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report. | <urn:uuid:ef1d71c5-b665-49be-b5ec-030d9b5ddda3> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://blackamericaweb.com/2012/06/25/israel-jittery-after-brotherhood-victory-in-egypt/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281419.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00486-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963724 | 1,054 | 1.625 | 2 |
By David Hobart, Director, PsyQuation Consulting.
Over the years, I have worked with many traders. Most traders experience periods of brilliance, but few are able to replicate their successes consistently over time. This was especially the case inside the banks, simply because the payoff for short term success as a trader was so high relative to the downside. This incentive structure was often a poor framework to develop trading approaches that could withstand the test of time. Given these skewed incentives, it was often the case that certain personality types would dominate the banks trading desks and hence the “gung ho” trader stereotype was born.
My experience is that the truly successful traders rarely fit that single stereotype, but generally exhibit character traits that are balanced and humble. While all personality types bring strengths and weaknesses to the trading game, there are certain traits that are common amongst consistently profitable traders.
Good traders are grounded in their strengths. They are under no illusions about what they are good at and what they are not. Rarely do good traders build castles in the sky or believe that they are better than average at everything.
In the movie “the Matrix”, the character Morpheus after meeting Neo for the first time, says to him “You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he is expecting to wake up.” Neo would have made a good trader. Observing, detached, interested, reserving judgement and slow to presume. Good traders see through complexity because they are not attached to the complex.
Good traders are often passionate and are in touch with their emotions. Traders are often taught to repress their emotions, as trading emotionally is a well known recipe for losses. Repressed emotion however will inevitably seek an outlet. This outlet for the emotionally repressed is often repetitively destructive behavior, which if played out in the markets can obviously damage a trader’s profitability.
Great traders sniff out opportunity and are uncompromising in their willingness to remain focused on achieving their objectives. This single-mindedness can occur as hard edged or selfish, but is almost always present in great traders.
Trading requires a capacity to deal with adversity in the same way as you deal with success; with a wry smile. They are both seasonal ideas and neither should be taken too seriously. With strong self belief, a good trader can ride on regardless of his/her external circumstance.
We all have elements of these traits within us. At times they are prominent and at times they are lacking. As with honing any craft, an unwavering commitment to being the best that you can be underpins all of these. Maintaining your commitment will enable you to call on each and all of these traits when required.
About David Hobart
David has been a trader and portfolio manager since 1994. He has managed teams of traders for global investment banks and hedge funds including BT, Macquarie, ABN Amro and Blue Sky Alternative Investments. He has worked with numerous traders and portfolio managers as a trading coach/performance consultant. For a detailed review of David’s CV, please see his LinkedIn profile.
If you would like to find out more about David’s trading coaching/performance consulting programs, check them out here or email firstname.lastname@example.org . | <urn:uuid:fe0cce36-0007-4494-aab4-5e9e287cd56a> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://blog.psyquation.com/en/common-characteristics-successful-traders/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572192.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815145459-20220815175459-00071.warc.gz | en | 0.973759 | 692 | 1.648438 | 2 |
People spoil their pet cats and canine with treats, so why not spoil your pet pigeon too? Effectively, you might be asking yourself, “What sort of treats do pigeons eat?” The number one factor you can do to find this out is to experiment and see what your pigeon likes. However I am going to get you started on the right track with just a few basic strategies.
What in case your current pet is a cat? Well, cats could be simply as territorial as adult canine. The essential thing to do on this state of affairs is to maneuver very slowly. Having the canine and cat be in the identical house is a start, but earlier than you set them in the identical room, there are some steps it is best to take that will appear pointless, however in this case, its best to stay with the previous adage, “better safe than sorry.”
*Open the vehicle door and quickly block the exit.
By giving probiotics to dogs, the helpful micro organism in your pets system are higher geared up to struggle the growth of unhealthy organisms. So, if you wish to preserve your dogs wholesome physique then complement their eating regimen with a high quality pet probiotic and give your pet the prospect they deserve for a protracted and wholesome life.
Before you take multiple canines in your vehicle together with you, put collectively a grasp plan about one of the simplest ways to get us each out of the vehicle. At any time you do not need a plan we undoubtedly will every bounce out just as quickly because the car door is open. This can be cause bedlam. We all know that I should certainly get to exit first, however the evil model new pet dog does not seem to have an understanding of that. The precise essential drawback is that attending to cruise in the automotive is usually extra thrilling than absolutely anything else, nevertheless getting out of your car is in some way 10 instances greater. All of us just get means too enthusiastic to have the ability to pay attention and do what you tell us to. Proudly owning a pair of canine this enthusiastic positively makes this a much bigger problem.
Stop Aggression Before its Too Late.
When you consider dwarf hamsters, you could consider furry, cute, small, cuddly creatures. It’s true that these little guys have many traits and traits that we enjoy when having hamsters as pets. There are totally different sizes, shapes, and breeds to chose from. It may be a enjoyable activity for the entire family. Beneath, we’ve offered some important details about completely different breeds for proudly owning hamsters as pets.
Weight problems is definitely a disease, described as an overabundance of body fats that will probably be dangerous enough to impair well being. Research present that in humans problems happen when physique fats is 20 – 25 per cent above normal body weight. In animals it’s considered to be along the identical tips. Diabetes, arthritis, respiratory problems, high blood pressure, most cancers, heart illness and plenty of other health points can all affect your pet as a result of they’re over weight.
Normal Issues They are very manageable and under no circumstances harmful. They do not are available many colors however are a delight to behold. The boat’s deck is perhaps too scorching for his paws so do check out the temperature of the boats’ deck periodically. You said you will come once more, and yes I do know this is true. | <urn:uuid:2d698759-a59c-42f7-aa13-ed3eaeeb29a8> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://funniespet.com/the-lower-down-on-maintain-healthy-cages-make-happy-pets-exposed.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570913.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809064307-20220809094307-00078.warc.gz | en | 0.961641 | 712 | 1.945313 | 2 |
A couple of additional thoughts:
A metal pencil sharpener with a large hole (often only available as a two-hole sharpener). Great for turning twigs into shavings. More surface area should mean they dry faster (once you have an initial bit of tinder going) and catch more easily. Shavings will blow around in even a light breeze though, so think about using pack, body or whatever comes to hand to provide a wind break while getting fire established.
Personally I swear by Baddest Bee Fire Fuses. Basically short pieces of cotton cord soaked in wax. They are small, light, easy to add to a firelighting or first aid kit, inherently waterproof (probably not up to being buried or submerged for ages, but certainly can be dunked). You pull the end apart to make it fluffy so it will take a spark, then the wax takes over and provides a good amount of heat to get kindling going.
There's a video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hucYQijUCqo but in that he shows using a whole long fuse. I tend to use them in about 1 to 1.5 inch lengths and then leave them in the fire, I don't expect to hold it while it's burning. Pretty sure I bought some which were shorter to start with, as I don't remember cutting them down.
I have a couple in various places eg every first aid kit, even have two coiled up in the end of my Bear Grylls flint/steel firelighting tool (not my favourite flint and steel, but bought to review and to have a spare).
Another good alternative to fire fuses would be something like Live Fire which is essentially a tiny tin of waxy fuel. I keep a "sport" sized one of these (the smallest) as an absolute backup in case I really must light a fire for actual survival eg for signalling or to stay warm while waiting for rescue with an injured member of party. I think they are a bit pricey to light fires which are purely recreational. I might even balk at using them to light a fire every night of a multi-day hike just for cooking on. But personally I would probably carry a stove rather than rely on fire as my only option for cooking, although I will often do a bit of both (stove for water boiling, fire for everything else if I can). You can use the lid to put them out so you only use up what you need until fire is established. You could probably re-use the tin by filling with suitable non-liquid "fuel" such as beeswax, petroleum jelly (could melt in warmer summer weather), possibly even alcohol gel (but I would use a ziplock as backup to catch leaks).
A "pocket bellows" is a telescopic metal blowpipe which goes from a few inches (short enough for typical tobacco tin firelighting kit) to about 45cm. Great for blowing on a reluctant fire without getting too much smoke in eyes and lungs - and a fire made with wet wood will tend to be very smoky at first. Also really useful if you are trying for the teepee approach as you can reach in and blow where you need to in the middle of the fire. I prefer the kind with a rubber part to hold so it does not get too hot, but you can go minimalist if you need to really save every gram. | <urn:uuid:cbcc3223-ae64-41e0-a6d8-431d31e403af> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/21178/given-limited-space-and-weight-what-should-i-carry-to-get-a-fire-going-with-damp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571502.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811194507-20220811224507-00076.warc.gz | en | 0.967082 | 705 | 1.523438 | 2 |
On the south roof of the Manzanar Historic Site sits a 30 kilowatt solar system all ready to go, but the Park Service can’t plug it in because a metering agreement with DWP remains up in the air.
Historic Site Superintendent Les Inafuku said that when he came to Manzanar he put in a request for a photovoltaic solar project. “With all the sun, it’s the perfect place,” he said. “And, it’s a way we can save money.” Two months later, the project was selected to go ahead with federal stimulus money. Since the south wing of the interpretive center was re-constructed and not historic, the panels would go there.
Crews completed the project in September of 2010. They turned it on and it worked beautifully. Then, they shut it down to work out the agreement to connect to DWP’s power grid. Inafuku said the historic site stands to save 30% on its $26,000 annual electric bill.
Now it’s March of 2011. What’s the hang up? Inafuku said that DWP wants an insurance clause, and the National Park Service doesn’t want to pay it. The insurance would cover DWP if the Manzanar solar project caused a major problem. Inafuku said DWP wants the insurance in case “the electrical connections went wacky and we blew out the DWP electrical system.” Inafuku sees that as unlikely since solar engineers designed the system and a reputable contractor built it.
If DWP doesn’t agree, will they have to remove the solar panels? Inafuku said that’s one potential. “It’s not determined yet,” he said. “We are still hopeful.”
We placed a call to DWP headquarters in Los Angeles and await a comment on the status of the solar project. | <urn:uuid:df120230-3421-4d90-8662-517514861621> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.sierrawave.net/manzanar-solar-project-on-hold-with-dwp-attorneys/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280929.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00421-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957929 | 413 | 2.09375 | 2 |
By the way, meet Engineer Heru D. Wardana, the chief of Kampung Djamoe Organik
The ten-hectare “Kampung Djamoe” (Jamu Village) is located near East Jakarta Industrial zone, a one hour drive from Central Jakarta.
It was created for conducting research, testing and training to develop methods for sustainable supply of medicinal plants (about standardization problem in traditional medicine I shall write soon).
Bapak Heru says that at this moment in Indonesia there exist about 900 big jamu companies, and they are all seeking for raw materials, without thinking how to sustain it.
It is right that Indonesia has a colossal biodiversity, but it doesn’t mean that we can neglect its conservation. Our ancestors long time ago used plants for curing illness and for beauty, he says. And now it’s about time to think about its conservation: sooner or later it will run out.
Just one example: from some of the plants we need bark. For that, they have to be grown for 15-20 years. But when we cut the bark, when will the tree grow again? In another 20 years?
Our ancestors were wiser: they took advantage of the nature only in a small amounts, only for personal use, not for commercial… But now we scrape off everything! And many of them are now on the real brink of extinction…
— That’s why we solve another very important task here: we learn how to breed plants, which grew only in wild nature before, now we learn how to cultivate them.
First, cultivated plants are sustainable, and second, they will have standard features. We have to think about the conservation of the nature: in this way, we may never disturb their natural habitat again…
There are only few buildings in “Kampung Djamoe”
This small house is used for conducting seminars.
This is the place where peasants are trained (an installation showed by bapak Heru with pride is a model of a river which is divided into three levels: it is needed for with three-times washing)
Peasants need to be trained not only how to breed wild plants, but also – the method of collecting harvest, its storage, package… and then new problems come up…
— At first we tried to train peasants for free, — recalls bapak Heru. – But… imagine if you were a peasant from a remote area in Kalimantan, suddenly given free a training in the capital city… Won’t you be a little lazy? Won’t you take a tour around the capital or simply have a rest in a comfort? That’s why now we take a fee – any fee, it may be just symbolic — for it. We try to make them think sacrifice something in order to start learning seriously. Thus, their attitude changes: “I have paid for it! I have to gain something?!”
Kamung Djamoe is an island in a miniature: there is a small lake with fishes, pastures, fields… and of course, there is a rice field, too:
Of course! Because rice’s husk are used to compose one of widespread Javanese scrubs for skin:
— But it is not only peasants who come here, tells bapak Heru. As you see, there are many things we can grow here even in a small garden, so many of our students are housewives… Many of them are surprised: “So, I can use betel in that way, too?! Betel, apparently, has antiseptic advantages… well then why should we buy mouthwash after all?”
All kinds of ginger – one of many plants that is frequently used to prepare jamu:
And this one is the vetiver that I would also tell you about soon: | <urn:uuid:e1e345e2-d69a-4e42-be23-ad5d3481fad8> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://mikejkt.wordpress.com/2008/06/09/%E2%80%9Ckampung-djamoe-by-marta-tilaar-jamu-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280730.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00244-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96151 | 808 | 2.640625 | 3 |
You will condition to cognise accurately how to change earlier you get into your car and go canoeing. First, you must conclude what caste of small boat to buy from the clean goods reservoir. There are copious kinds of canoes, even so if you thought on canoeing in an stretch near heart-rending water, you will involve a tender. Once you have found the canoe you like, confidentially look into the root word to the stern; here should be 2 inches or more than present. If the small boat has no kneel, you will have no job fashioning firmly turns or spinning circa. Having a stabilized canoe is as well important, so face for one that is 36 inches wide open. Remember, canoeing in Alaska requires skill, so devote instance on silence ethel waters and practice, because canoeing is as well mordacious for novices. If you want to transport kids, you can, but be certain and e'er build convinced the small boat is sound. An assured way to horizontal the small boat is to battalion it beside deer meat, all the same this recipe makes maneuvering tougher.
When you are packing, you will need the victorian gear, so you have to receive convinced you are recovered set and that you carefully weld the canoe to your car. Canoes are terrifically tipsy, so you have to large indefinite quantity at the lowermost and put your lighter things at the top. Make assured to instate tie down points if your vehicle does not have them because you do not impoverishment thing winged off. If you battalion an expansive canoe, put a crushable portion at the bottom to prohibit the horizontal surface from risky. A reformatory point that you can likewise battalion is a 5-gallon vessel near a lid because it has a few uses. Firstly, it can stockpile your provisions during the lose your footing until you are hindmost on stop. Secondly, erstwhile on land, it makes a ready to hand camp form if you do not have umteen chairs. Finally, once it is time for dinner, you can use it for a stinging flat timber to make the fish you caught. One of the prizewinning places to go canoeing in Alaska if you are basically emergence is Clearwater. You can tasteless out practical Jack Warren Rd and go with the flow to the lake; this speciality has remarkable aquatic vertebrate and good land. Once you are through canoeing, you are active to entail to an anchor; however, you do not have to buy one. The easiest way to gross one is to use a potable can occupied beside practical that is latched to an eyebolt.
During your trip, you are going to clash powerboats endorsement you time you are on the lake. A powerboat across the world produces a 5-inch stir after it passes you if it is cruising. A speeding powerboat, however, will sometimes motive you to be splashed depending on wherever you are on the pond. Willow brook is bully region to go thwart this because it is narrow, but in that will be other jet boats, airboats and respect in attendance all fit. The most advantageous article to do once you see a motorboat is decision to the side. Doing this prevents you from sighted the other person's boat, but you will perceive it sometime it is cover up adequate. The most central entity to have is courtesy, if you get along beside every person you won't have any difficulties.Post ads:
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An Alaskan canoeing air travel is grave to relax, only receive certain that you determine the precise canoe, multitude accurately and clear liberty for separate ethnic group in their powerboats.Post ads:
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A re the inequities in income between racial and ethnic groups as great in retirement? A report from New York's International Longevity Center USA, "Minorities Face Retirement: Worklife Disparities Repeated?" says yes, but: Differences in net worth between median white and minority households narrow when Social Security is added, but widen again when pensions are included. According to the study, Social Security provides just 39 percent of projected retirement income for whites, but 54 percent for blacks and 66 percent for Hispanics, so broad-based reductions in benefits would affect minorities disproportionately. White households derive a greater percentage and a much greater amount of retirement wealth from housing and financial assets. The difference in pension income is even greater. | <urn:uuid:39d92c6f-0e38-448c-aab3-7d75d2ee6f95> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://adage.com/article/american-demographics/older-unequal/43105/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560283008.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095123-00087-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952675 | 143 | 1.96875 | 2 |
The more potent the steroid, the more effective it is in clearing psoriasis, but the risk of side effects is greater. Low-strength steroids are good for treating the face, groin and breasts, but care must be taken as the risk of side effects is greater in sensitive skin areas.
Does psoriasis respond to prednisone?
Corticosteroids, including prednisone, dexamethasone and methylprednisolone, were the second most commonly prescribed systemic medications (not preparations applied to the skin) for psoriasis, according to a study from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center.
What can clear up psoriasis?
- Corticosteroids. These drugs are the most frequently prescribed medications for treating mild to moderate psoriasis. …
- Vitamin D analogues. …
- Retinoids. …
- Calcineurin inhibitors. …
- Salicylic acid. …
- Coal tar. …
- Goeckerman therapy. …
How long does it take prednisone to clear psoriasis?
Prednisone generally works very quickly — usually within one to four days — if the prescribed dose is adequate to reduce your particular level of inflammation. Some people notice the effects of prednisone hours after taking the first dose.
How quickly does prednisone work for psoriasis?
“Prednisone takes about six hours to start kicking in. It’s not immediate, but they should start feeling better in a day or two,” says Emilio Gonzalez, MD, professor of medicine and director of the division of rheumatology at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston and League City.
Can psoriasis go away permanently?
Psoriasis is a chronic skin condition that is not curable and it will not go away on its own. However, the disease fluctuates and many people can have clear skin for years at a time, and occasional flare-ups when the skin is worse.
Can psoriasis go away?
Even without treatment, psoriasis may disappear. Spontaneous remission, or remission that occurs without treatment, is also possible. In that case, it’s likely your immune system turned off its attack on your body. This allows the symptoms to fade.
What is the fastest treatment for psoriasis?
Humira. Humira is generally considered the fastest of the biologic treatments for psoriasis. Humira was previously approved for psoriatic arthritis at a dose of one injection every other week.
How long can you take 5mg of prednisone?
There is no set limit on how long you can safely take prednisone. It depends on the dose of prednisone and the condition being treated. It may be prescribed short term or long term. The dosage will be adjusted or stopped based on your response or lack of response to the medication.
Does prednisone worsen psoriasis?
Many things can trigger the onset and continuation of psoriasis: Bacterial and viral infections. Stress: emotional or frictional on the skin surface inducing new areas of psoriasis and aggravating existing plaques. Medications: beta-blockers, lithium, antimalarial medications, prednisone and other oral steroids.
Why are systemic steroids not used in psoriasis?
Background: The use of systemic steroids in the treatment of psoriasis is not recommended by dermatological textbooks and guidelines because of the risk of disease deterioration after dose reduction or withdrawal.
How much prednisone should I take for psoriasis?
Generally, the initial starting dosage of oral prednisone is 5–60 milligrams (mg) a day.
What is prednisone 20 mg used to treat?
Prednisone is used to treat conditions such as arthritis, blood disorders, breathing problems, severe allergies, skin diseases, cancer, eye problems, and immune system disorders. Prednisone belongs to a class of drugs known as corticosteroids.
Why does psoriasis flare up?
Psoriasis can appear in areas of the skin that have been injured or harmed. This is a result of the Koebner [KEB-ner] phenomenon, which states scratches, sunburns, bug bites and vaccinations can all trigger a psoriasis flare. | <urn:uuid:286f7eb7-e161-4546-b618-9733ac6ab508> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://tonyeigbani.com/skin-diseases/can-steroids-clear-up-psoriasis.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570921.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809094531-20220809124531-00272.warc.gz | en | 0.915158 | 907 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Censorship, within the arts, is almost always a very bad thing. Art not only makes our lives much more enjoyable; we use art as a mirror in whose reflection we can better understand ourselves, our lives and the world around us. I don't really need to defend art or variation within it. Where art is stifled by censorship, life itself is stifled.
And alas, art has to mean everything. Everything anybody calls art, music, drama, creative writing, even if to our own eyes it lacks all merit. This is not to say all art must be revered or indeed given any time or space at all, but it must be protected from interference. And freedom of expression is always a too way thing – we have both the freedom to express ourselves and the freedom to access those expressions.
A far more worthy post than this one would be about budget cuts to the arts in the UK, both in direct arts funding and in education, as well as the closure of libraries and all sorts of other heinous crimes against our culture being committed at this time. But I feel I am a blogger in rehabilitation and I need to pace myself. So let me start with Dire Straits.
When I first heard that Canadian radio stations will now only be allowed to play a censored version of Money for Nothing by Dire Straits, I thought it was a bit ridiculous. The song (unedited version here) is about a removals gang who envy and mock the easy and hedonistic life of rock musicians, referring to one of the musicians as a faggot. This context is self-evident from the lyrics. It's rock musicians mocking their own self-image; the irony is not at all subtle. And it is a classic song.
Sparky wrote about this and has been quite upset. Some folk who are against the censorship have used the opportunity to use the offending word repeatedly and mockingly. Others have attempted to defend the word as inoffensive and still others have used the events to attack gay men as tyrannous and over-sensitive - all those classic rants about political correctness. And reading Sparky's considerable discomfort at the debate (if it can be called a debate), I swung towards his position.
And this brings us to an often neglected but vital part of freedom of expression. Part of the freedom to express oneself is the freedom to be silent. Artists have the right not to make art, the media have the right not to publish or broadcast things. And part of the freedom to access art is, for lack of a better way of putting it, the freedom to remove oneself from the experience.
Nobody has a right not to be offended, but people do have a right to opt out, within reason, of listening to or looking at things which offend them. This is why what is allowed on a billboard is quite different to what is allowed between the covers of a magazine – most people who pass have no choice but to at least glimpse the billboard, whereas a magazine must be bought and a page can be easily and swiftly turned to hide offending words or images. All mediums have different responsibilities according to how active or passive a person has to be in order to access the art.
There are lots of situations where you can't opt out of listening to a radio. In various places of work, in stores and restaurants, in taxis, even in the streets in the summer when folk have the volume up and their windows open. So where a word is well-established as being both offensive and discriminatory, then maybe it is fair enough to keep it off the radio? It is extremely easy to access uncensored music, so nobody is really missing out.
But I'm not entirely happy with this. The biggest problem with this kind of censorship is inconsistency. Sparky wrote a bit about this too, and lists some bizarre examples of words which have been deemed unpalatable. It's a very small list of words which are totally offensiveness in any context *. One of the more difficult words for me to hear is bitch, which is often used in deeply unpleasant contexts, but I've never been upset by Elton John or Meredith Brooks singing it, where it is self-referential. Context does matter with many offensive words, if not all of them.
It isn't such a challenge to edit out individual words, but there are songs where the entire lyric is homophobic or misogynistic or otherwise hateful. This is both far more problematic and usually very difficult to define - at what point does a song about a heartbroken man cursing all womankind slip into actual misogyny? Homophobic songs, at least all the ones I can think of, tend to have such a profound lack of subtlety that they are swiftly identified and more or less removed from radio playlists. There are entire genres of music where misogynist lyrics come as standard.
I have to say that I would distinguish between these arguments, about offensive discriminatory words or content, and arguments about art encouraging certain behaviour - like Money for Nothing encouraging people to use the slur within it. I think the argument that some people can't understand the ironic usage and would think it gives them license to use such language is the top of a very slippery slope.
Art is often about emotional extremes, including hate and violent inclination. There have been lots of popular songs about romanticised murder coming through from folk music, sometimes sung from the perpetrator's point of view. Violence has always featured in gripping and moving narratives, without calling us to violence. That issue is not uncomplicated of course, but this issue of art corrupting our minds is more dangerous when it comes to our freedoms of expression.
Anyway, I don't have a particular conclusion here because I'm still pondering it all myself.
Incidentally, this matter is a million billion miles from the nonsense about taking the N word out of Huckleberry Finn, which has been written about very eloquently elsewhere (such as here). In summary, when a book is being used in education, context is everything, and removing the word dilutes a vitally important context
* My wee nephew was singing a somewhat illegible nursery rhyme and I tried to identify it using Spotify. On one album of nursery rhymes I spotted P*ssy's in the Well. Which did make me giggle. Proving that censorship itself can corrupt young minds – chiefly my own. | <urn:uuid:16cc487d-dfa1-448a-8d46-2a819defd771> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://blobolobolob.blogspot.com/2011/01/your-kicks-for-free.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282935.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00240-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971576 | 1,300 | 1.632813 | 2 |
The Creativity Workshop in Singapore is not scheduled this year. Please see our Calendar for our current schedule.
Each day The Creativity Workshop in Singapore will meet for 3 1/2 hours. We will explore ways to expand our creativity through a series of exercises including guided visualizations, creative writing, memoir, oral storytelling, automatic writing, map marking, photography, collage and free from drawing. Many of the exercises are focused on the helping you see and absorb this remarkable city.
- Participants come from many different countries and professional fields, including business, education, psychology, the sciences, and the arts.
- Many people who have taken the Workshop say that it was a transformative experience, helping them to write their books, start new companies, complete long overdue projects, transition to rewarding retirements, and change the way they look at life.
What Will You Learn?
The Creativity Workshop is an experiential workshop of doing and experimenting. Our exercises and instructors’ talks focus on helping you:
- Learn practical techniques to stimulate your imagination and innovative thinking.
- Explore the process of creativity, rather than simply focusing on the product.
- Discover how to find inspiration in the world around you.
- Get over creative blocks and the fear of failure.
- Work with many different mediums to develop your creativity in your chosen medium more deeply.
- Use your memories to trigger your imagination.
- Engage your curiosity every day and make it work for you.
- Establish a 15 minute a day creativity practice to accomplish your goals after the Workshop ends.
Here is a simpling of just some of the exercises and techniques we will be working with in class. Participants tell us the time in workshop seems to fly by. The order and kinds of exercises and the instructors talks may vary. Some exercises are done individually while others are collaborative.
First day of workshop
- Introduction to the hows and whys of The Creativity Workshop.
- Relaxation: Exercises in relaxation techniques to help your imagination flow.
- Guided Visualization: Calling forth the vocabulary of your imagination using the myth of the hero’s journey as a framework.
- Automatic Drawing: Finding our hidden imagery in abstract images.
- Show and Tell: Retrieving and sharing childhood memories to spark new ideas. This exercise will sharpen your storytelling skills.
The Interview: An exercise in listening, transposing, and transforming.
- Instructors’ talk: How some famous writers, scientists, and artists found their inspiration, and how you can use some of their methods to find yours.
- The importance of play in creative work.
- Valuing creative process over product.
Second day of workshop
- Guided Visualization: Mapmaking as a way to find, chart, and communicate your creative process and projects.
- Automatic/Free Writing: How automatic writing (also known as “free writing”) can help you create in new and surprising ways. How you can use automatic writing to outrunyour inner judge, get over creative blocks, and discover new ways of developing and editing written work. How alternating between writing and drawing canhelp you develop creative flexibility and mental dexterity.
Miniature Worlds: Storytelling with found objects.
- The Interview:
- Instructors’ talks may include:
- How to do ongoing creative work in short modules of time.
- How to use luck and coincidence to jump-start creative projects.
Last day of workshop
- Guided visualization: Letter writing as a way to express voice, character, and audience.
- Automatic Writing: Writing in Groups. How writing and/or drawing with others can stimulate your imagination and expand your point of view.
- Guided visualization: The Myth of the Other.
Imagining yourself living a parallel life. What would you do that you aren’t doing now?
- The Sand Mandala: Making an Illuminated Manuscript.
- Final Exercise: Putting It All Together
- Instructors’ talks may include:
- The Gift of the Amateur.
- Creativity is a Muscle: Use it or Lose it.
- Making your home and work environments inspiring.
- How to stay creative after The Creativity Workshop ends. | <urn:uuid:e48c61ba-c64e-4611-98e3-fbb89b8064e9> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.creativityworkshop.com/creativity-workshop-in-singapore.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988721558.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183841-00046-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908079 | 880 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Broca and many continental writers use the name kelt or Slavo-kelt, which has led to much confusion.
I am applying prayers and slopwater in equal proportions—like any kelt!
I was reduced to tell the kelt to ask the huckster of whom he bought.
The future ‘Bonny Lass of Albanie’ was to be marked, like a kelt returned to the river in spring.
"I thought a kelt was a kind of a no-weel fish," he interposed.
Bull trout very rarely takes fly or bait of any kind, except when it is in the kelt state, when it is ravenous.
The latter are not only European in type, they claim special affinities to the blond, "golden-haired" kelt.
The incidents that had to be deplored were what the salmon fisherman calls the kelt nuisance.
Not the speech of the Fin, the German, or the kelt, though these are the nearest in geography.
I see nae hairrm mysel' in jist tellin' him, in a pleesant, daffin-like way, that he looked like a lassie in his kelt. | <urn:uuid:6547fe8c-806f-49c9-b8bf-b191c3b23d60> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.dictionary.com/browse/kelt | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719566.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00262-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968988 | 261 | 2.375 | 2 |
A sampling plan was designed for the Bureau of Reclamation for selected riparian birds occurring along the Colorado River from Lake Mead to the southerly International Boundary with Mexico. The goals of the sampling plan were to estimate long-term trends in abundance and investigate habitat relationships especially in new habitat being created by the Bureau of Reclamation. The initial objective was to design a plan for the Gila Woodpecker (Melanerpes uropygialis), Arizona Bell's Vireo (Vireo bellii arizonae), Sonoran Yellow Warbler (Dendroica petechia sonorana), Summer Tanager (Piranga rubra), Gilded Flicker (Colaptes chrysoides), and Vermilion Flycatcher (Pyrocephalus rubinus); however, too little data were obtained for the last two species. Recommendations were therefore based on results for the first four species. The study area was partitioned into plots of 7 to 23 hectares.
Plot borders were drawn to place the best habitat for the focal species in the smallest number of plots so that survey efforts could be concentrated on these habitats. Double sampling was used in the survey. In this design, a large sample of plots is surveyed a single time, yielding estimates of unknown accuracy, and a subsample is surveyed intensively to obtain accurate estimates. The subsample is used to estimate detection ratios, which are then applied to the results from the extensive survey to obtain unbiased estimates of density and population size. These estimates are then used to estimate long-term trends in abundance. Four sampling plans for selecting plots were evaluated based on a simulation using data from the Breeding Bird Survey. The design with the highest power involved selecting new plots every year. Power with 80 plots surveyed per year was more than 80 percent for three of the four species. Results from the surveys were used to provide recommendations to the Bureau of Reclamation for their surveys of new habitat being created in the study area.
Additional publication details
USGS Numbered Series
A sampling plan for riparian birds of the Lower Colorado River-Final Report | <urn:uuid:85d1c438-2599-441f-b53c-021a30291988> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/ofr20101158 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988721174.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183841-00281-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947114 | 429 | 3.21875 | 3 |
For Black History Month
The Southampton Cultural Center will celebrate Black History Month with an exhibit titled “Visual Heritage III: 4 Contemporary Artists” opening on Wednesday in the center’s gallery on Pond Lane.
The artists featured in the exhibit are Sheila Batiste, Nanette Carter, Danny Simmons, and Frank Wimberley. A reception will be held on Feb. 4 from 4 to 6 p.m. As part of the celebration, the artist Danny Simmons will hold a poetry reading and book signing to introduce his third collection of poems, “Deep in Your Best Reflection,” at 2:30 p.m.
Ms. Batiste earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro and has exhibited widely. Her art features graphite-on-white expanses that yield gestural yet figural forms. The show will include her wire sculptures.
Ms. Carter attended Oberlin College and the Pratt Institute, where she is now on the faculty. She has exhibited her work at Yale University, the Studio Museum of Harlem, and the Library of Congress. “Bouquet for Loving,” her series of paintings on paper, was inspired by the late Al Loving, a highly regarded artist who was her mentor and friend.
Mr. Simmons is self-taught and inspired by Surrealism and African culture and history. He will show abstract paintings on canvas, monotypes, and a new series of paintings.
Mr. Wimberley brings his abstract imagery to painting as well as collage and assemblage. He has exhibited widely and has won a Pollock-Krasner Award. Here, he will show a series of pigment prints, including a tribute to James Baldwin.
Benjamin in Greenport
The Greenport Harbor Brewing Co. will exhibit Laura Benjamin’s wrapper assemblages beginning Saturday with a reception from 6 to 9 p.m. The show, called “Wrapper’s Delight,” will be on view through February and uses torn, cut, and expired candy wrappers to depict often famous subjects in unusual and colorful ways.
Ms. Benjamin, who lives in East Hampton, said her work is “inspired by food and the carnal delight of candy.” But the recycled nature of the artwork and its preoccupation with gluttony and pop culture infuse it with more topical meanings.
She graduated from American University and earned a master’s degree in art education from New York University and an associate’s degree in textile design from the Fashion Institute of Technology. A teacher of art who has freelanced as a textile designer for most of her career, Ms. Benjamin has been recognized for the “successful practice in crossing the digital divide through art and technology” by the federal Department of Education. She has studied at the Art Students League, Parsons School of Design, and the New School in New York City.
Maiwald Goes to Jersey
The work of Christa Maiwald of Springs is in “The Wicked Twins: Fame & Notoriety” at the Paul Robeson Galleries at Rutgers University-Newark. The exhibit, which was organized by Anonda Bell and includes 11 artists, will open tonight with a reception from 5 to 7 and remain on view through April 19.
Her two series, “Blue Chip,” from 2009 to 2011, and “Musical Chairs: Economic Crisis in G Minor,” from 2009, will be featured. “Blue Chip” entails hand-embroidered portraits of 50 established and financially successful artists, among them Dan Flavin, Eric Fischl, April Gornik, Jennifer Bartlett, Marcel Duchamp, Lynda Benglis, Dennis Oppenheim, Gerhard Richter, Alice Aycock, Joseph Beuys, and Roy Lichtenstein.
“Musical Chairs” takes as its subjects a number of people now famous or infamous for helping to lead the world economy into collapse. In this selection of six children’s school chairs are hand-embroidered portraits of Milton Friedman, Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, Lawrence Summers, Alan Greenspan, and Bernie Madoff.
The New Gruen
John Gruen, who has trained his camera lens on practically every important New York artist of the postwar period, has a new book, “As Time Goes By: Portraits by John Jonas Gruen.” The cover, which features Larry Rivers and Marisol, gives a hint of the lost world of midcentury artistic elegance and debauchery some of the photographs evoke.
Mr. Gruen will sign copies at the New Museum in New York City next Thursday at 5 p.m. | <urn:uuid:4e5c921c-2efa-4b54-811e-457d11feacc9> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://easthamptonstar.com/Arts/2012124/Art-Scene-012612 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284411.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00454-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953247 | 986 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Mana Pools National Park
Safari suitability: 7/10Find your tour
4 of big 5 (no rhinos). Access is difficult, canoe safaris are the specialty and the fishing is exceptional.
What YAS members think
- Four large natural pools of water
- Shared wildlife reserve with Zambia’s Lower Zambezi National Park
- Many options for safaris, tours and hikes
- Best time to visit: June through September
About Mana Pools National Park
Mana Pools National Park is in the northernmost area of Zimbabwe and shares a footprint with Zambia’s Lower Zambezi National Park and is bound on the east by the Mozambique border. The word mana means four in a local Bantu language, and refers to the four bodies of water located in this park. The pools, or bodies of water, are where hippos, crocodiles, zebra and other wildlife flourish.
Mana Pools wildlife
Four of the big five are represented at Mana Pools, with the last remaining black rhinos moved to other locations for their safety.
Access to the park is difficult from within Zimbabwe. The roads leading to the southern entrance are their own motorized safaris. The closet city with an international airport is Lusaka in Zambia.
When to visit Mana Pools National Park
Zimbabwe has a rainy season from October to April, when the roads can be impassable and the days are humid and sticky. The dry season is both hot and cool, but never very cold nor extremely hot. The ideal season for safaris and wildlife viewing is during the dry season: June through September.
Mana Pools is a perfect mix of serenity and extreme excitement. On one hand, the never-ending scenes of flat plains which surround the winding Zambezi River successfully leaves one drooling at the beauty of the setting. Theres something special about being by this magical body of water. Gazing out past the river is one of the closest things to perfection that Ive ever seen, and theres no doubt that this picture would be extremely hard to beat. On the other hand, Mana Pools is home to some of the most exhilarating wildlife interactions. With the wide range of predators that reside in the park - there are many instances that might shock the audience. Some might not have realised that survival of the fittest is a true and, actually, a rather low key description of what happens in this wild arena. A lion kill in action isnt a scene for the faint hearted. But, it is true that this all simply takes place in the name of survival. These sightings are deafening, intense and a more accurate description would be savage. After all, it is Africa, and it is the wild. It is incredible.
I had such a fab time here! Like some of the other reviewers, I included a canoe safari and was able to get so close to the wildlife. I had the misfortune of going near the end of the rainy season, and it was so hot and muggy the day I was canoeing. But, the small time I was there has made me want to return during the dry season. Bring a waterproof bag for your camera.
Mana Pools is a UNESCO World Heritage Site on the southern bank of the Zambezi. Along this stretch the mighty river is surrounded by floodplains, islands, channels and sandbanks. The broad winding river and lush green trees and vegetation that line the bank are set against a backdrop of hazy mountains, creating magic scenery. The wildlife is abundant. Elephants are everywhere. Hippos, buffalo, zebras and hyenas are common. You might also see lions and leopards, and if you are lucky, cheetahs. Mana Pools is one of the few places in Africa where you have a good chance of seeing wild dogs. The best way to explore the park is by canoe. There is nothing quite like gliding down the river, watching herds of elephants and buffalo grazing on the floodplains. A variety of animals come down to the river to drink, and you are surrounded by prodigious bird life. Close encounters with hippos and crocodiles are sure to make your adrenalin rush. The open terrain and high density of varied wildlife is also ideal for walking safaris. Mana Pools is the only national park in Zimbabwe, and one of the few in Africa, that allows visitors to walk around unaccompanied. Zimbabwe National Parks has 5 self-catering lodges, a large communal campsite, and some private campsites inside the Park. Mana Pools is remote from any human settlement, and it is recommended to travel in a convoy of at least two vehicles in case something happens. You should take with you spare tires, plenty of food and water, and anything else you might need. If you want more comfort, there is a couple of excellent luxury lodges located just outside the park.
Foreign visitors rarely make it to Zimbabwe, put off by the country's misguided reputation. Zimbabwean people are some of the kindest and most welcoming in the world, and when they see a foreign face they're desperate to show that their reputation is undeserved. It's a very safe and beautiful country, marred by political news stories. At Mana Pools, I was the only tourist. Located beside the lower Zambezi River, the park blossoms into a broad expanse of lakes during the rainy season. From a viewing deck I spent six hours watching the continual flow of elephants coming to access a water hole. Lone males were chased of by large herds, who respected each other's power and waited for this turn. Elephants interacted amusingly, some desperate for status but one always controlling who could access the water. Hippos and crocodiles were regularly spotted on game drives. The former always hidden apart from a telltale snout, the latter always playing dead in the sun. Buffalo were also migrating in large numbers. They're strange creatures, shabby haired beasts who seem to define the word nomadic. But Mana Pools' star attraction is the solitude. There are no other people, just animal life going about its business. Don't come expecting to get awe inspiring photos. Put your camera away and watch another world slowly reveal itself.
Mana would have to be, in my humble opinion, one of the most underrated game parks in Africa. For game viewing, this is hand down as good as anything youll find in Kenya and Tanzania, yet the fact that its a pain in the butt to reach and not nearly as organized means your feeling of being completely out in the wilderness is multiplies ten-fold. Took our group of overland tourists here so we were completely self-sufficient for two days and bush camped (sorry, cant review any camps). We did not see a single tourist-filled 4WD the entire time we were in there, only hordes of hippos, zebras, hyenas, wild dogs and an unbelievable amount of crocodiles in the Zambezi. The elephants were some of the largest wed ever seen in Africa, so perhaps they also appreciate the tranquility here. The scenery here is absolutely breathtaking and the fact it is not as visited as Hwange makes it infinitely more attractive...to us tour guides anyway! Seriously, park yourself up by the riverside, enjoy the mountainous backdrop and just be patient, this is one animal kingdom where the animals will all, at some stage, find you instead.
The nearest international airport is in Lusaka, Zambia, which means a border crossing is required. In normal weather conditions, the drive is around 3.5 hours. Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, is the next-closest international airport and is about 5 hours away. | <urn:uuid:97a16aa4-8380-4fb8-9e82-64cd00cc3c12> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.yourafricansafari.com/parks/mana-pools/reviews/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572033.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814113403-20220814143403-00266.warc.gz | en | 0.965505 | 1,612 | 1.679688 | 2 |
A three volume series that includes the scales, chords and modes necessary to play bebop music. A great introduction to a style that is most influential in today's music. The first volume includes scales, chords and modes most commonly used in bebop and other musical styles.
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How To Play Bebop - Volume 1
How To Play Bebop - Volume 3
David N. Baker's Contemporary Techniques for the Trombone - Volume 1
Jazz Improvisation - By David Baker
VOL. 10 - DAVID BAKER
VOLUME 76 - DAVID BAKER - HOW TO LEARN TUNES | <urn:uuid:0626527a-99d1-4200-a833-82704122c659> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.jazzbooks.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=JAJAZZ&Product_Code=BOP2&Category_Code= | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570913.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809064307-20220809094307-00075.warc.gz | en | 0.807296 | 141 | 2.265625 | 2 |
Have you ever thrown out food because it said it was past its "sell by" date? What about your leftovers at a fancy restaurant?
According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, in 2008, 43 billion pounds of food were thrown out by retail locations (grocery stores) and 86 billion pounds were disposed of by households and food service operations (restaurants, cafeterias, fast food, and caterers).
That's nearly 130 billion pounds of food.
But what does that really translate to? Comedian Jeff Seal took to the streets of New York City -- a place where the cost of living is the fifth highest in the world and the homelessness problem is undeniable -- to find out.
While the USDA says that food loss is actually economically efficient in some instances, they also note that there's only so much we can do to recover the loss given,
"(1) technical factors (e.g., the perishable nature of most foods, food safety, storage, and temperature considerations); (2) temporal and spatial factors (e.g., the time needed to deliver food to a new destination, and the dispersion of food loss among millions of households, food processing plants, and foodservice locations); (3) individual consumers??? tastes, preferences, and food habits (e.g., throwing out milk left over in a bowl of cereal); and (4) economic factors (e.g., costs to recover and redirect uneaten food to another use)."
France made it illegal for grocery stores to throw away edible food, but unfortunately, few other countries are following suit. Maybe America should seriously consider it! | <urn:uuid:e32b3cc4-894a-4589-a88b-0aa3a5bb54df> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://20celebs.com/gagzone1/20celebs/20celebszone/2016/03/29/what-he-finds-dumpster-diving-will-make-you-sick-but-not-for-the-reason-youd-expect/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281419.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00484-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957636 | 335 | 2.953125 | 3 |
Nearly 35 million travelers expected to kick off the summer travel season with a getaway
AAA projects 34.8 million Americans will journey 50 miles or more from home during the Memorial Day holiday weekend, a 0.9 percent decrease from the 35.1 million people who traveled last year. The Memorial Day holiday travel period is defined as Thursday, May 23, to Monday, May 27.
"AAA is forecasting Memorial Day travel to experience a slight dip as lower gas prices and economic improvements from last year are not strong enough to spur an increase in travelers," said Tony Spada, president and CEO of AAA Western and Central New York. "Despite the decline, travel volumes are expected to remain above historical averages as millions of Americans will kick off the summer travel season by creating special memories with a vacation getaway."
Highlights from 2013 Memorial Day travel forecast include:
•Memorial Day holiday travelers to total 34.8 million, a decrease of 0.9 percent from the 35.1 million who traveled last year.
•Eighty-nine percent of travelers (31.2 million) to travel by automobile, an increase from 31.1 million last year.
•Holiday air travel expected to decrease 8 percent to 2.3 million from 2.5 million in 2012.
•Median spending is expected to decrease more than 6 percent to $659, compared to $702 in 2012.
•Travelers intend to journey an average of 690 miles, which is higher than last year's average of 642 miles.
•Memorial Day holiday travel volume is expected to remain above the 12-year historical average of 34.7 million
"Other factors affecting the forecast include slow economic growth and, now four years removed from the recessionary declines of 2009, pent-up demand has been largely satisfied," Spada said.
Automobile travel expected to increase
Approximately 31.2 million people plan to drive to their destination, an increase of 0.25 percent from the 31.1 million who drove last year. Almost nine out of 10 holiday travelers (89 percent) will take to the nation's roadways during the Memorial Day weekend, keeping automobile travel in the traditional lead as the dominant mode of holiday travel transportation.
Air travelers to decline by 8 percent
More than 2.3 million leisure air travelers (about 7 percent of holiday travelers) will arrive at their destination by air, an 8 percent decrease from last year's 2.5 million air travelers. The remaining 4 percent of holiday travelers are expected to travel by other modes, including rail, bus and watercraft.
Impact of gasoline prices on travel plans
A survey of intended travelers found that gasoline prices would have no impact on plans for 62 percent of travelers. Of the remaining 38 percent of travelers who said gas prices would impact their travel plans, 27 percent plan to economize in other areas. Eight percent are planning to take a shorter trip and 3 percent will travel by an alternate mode of transportation.
Since national gas prices peaked at the end of February, motorists nationwide have felt welcome relief at the pump. The current average price for a gallon of regular gasoline in New York is $3.75 per gallon, approximately 19 cents lower than this time last year. In Buffalo, the average price is $3.75 per gallon, down 20 cents from 2012.
Average travel distance increases
The average distance traveled by Americans during the Memorial Day holiday weekend is expected to be 690 miles, which is 48 miles more than last year's average of 642 miles.
Median spending is expected to decrease as travelers prioritize family and friends
Median spending during the Memorial Day holiday weekend is expected to be $659, 6 percent less than the $702 median spending last year. Transportation is expected to consume approximately 28 cents of every dollar. Travelers expect to spend 22 percent on food and beverage and 20 percent on lodging.
During the holiday weekend, more than half of intending travelers will plan to partake in visiting with friends/family (59 percent) and dining (55 percent). Other popular activities include shopping (44 percent), going to the beach (32 percent) and touring and sightseeing (27 percent).
Car rental, hotel and airfare rates rise
According to AAA's leisure travel index, hotel rates for AAA Three Diamond lodgings are expected to increase more than 4 percent from one year ago with travelers spending an average of $166 per night compared to $160 last year. The average hotel rate for AAA Two Diamond hotels remained unchanged with an average cost of $120 per night. Weekend daily car rental rates will average $43, up 19 percent from last year.
For the Memorial Day holiday period, the lowest round-trip airfare is $215 for the top 40 U.S. air routes, a 10 percent increase from last year.
As upstate New York's largest member services organization, AAA provides nearly 860,000 members with travel, insurance, financial and automotive related services. Since its founding in 1900, AAA has been a leading advocate for the safety and security of all travelers. Visit AAA at www.AAA.com. | <urn:uuid:a63abad4-ff84-44e2-9ec1-0fcfeb119284> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.wnypapers.com/news/article/current/2013/05/23/111088/scarecrow-facebook-contest-2013 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281162.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00529-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940223 | 1,041 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Nowadays, conducting the viva exam in an online environment has become a popular choice for many institutions.
Recently; University Grants Commission (UGC) has recommended the universities to conduct the Online viva-voice for MPhil and Ph.D. programs. Online viva exams are more advanced and provide many benefits that traditional methods cannot offer. In this article, we will discuss the importance of online viva exams and how they can benefit students and staff alike.
The viva exam is an important part of the assessment process for many students. It allows students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills in front of a panel of experts. The viva exam can also be used to identify any areas where further study is required. Online viva exams are conducted in a similar way to traditional viva exams, but they offer many benefits that traditional methods cannot offer.
Benefits of Online viva-voice
- Online viva exams are more convenient for both students and staff. They can be conducted at any time with a customizable schedule and from anywhere in the world.
- Online viva exams are more cost-effective. There is no need to pay for travel and accommodation costs.
- Online viva exams are more environmentally friendly. There is no need to print out materials or use paper during the exam.
- Online viva exams allow students to present themselves through an online platform, which is a new normal and must-needed skill.
How to conduct the online viva-voice?
No doubt that the online viva exams can greatly help to simplify the viva examination process, but how to conduct the online viva assessment comply with UGC guidelines?
According to UGC, the online viva-voce needs be conducted using reliable and convenient technology. On conducting the viva-voce, a report needs to be generated which has to be signed by the examiner or expert conducting the viva-voce.
There are various ways to conduct the viva assessment in online mode, the most common flow of viva assessments includes simple 6 steps-
Let us see each of these steps in brief
Step 1) Create the question bank in the system
The below video describes the steps to define the subjective questions (the viva questions for which the answers are descriptive)
Step 2) Import the candidate data into the system
No doubt that online viva exams can be conducted using online video calling platforms, but the communication with the candidates regarding online viva exam becomes tedious and difficult, the sophisticated online viva software makes the communication with the candidates about their online viva examination easier than ever. You can add the data of all the candidates who are supposed to appear for the online viva exam.
Once the candidate data is imported, the bulk communication can be done with candidates with the help of online viva software.
Here is how you can import the candidate data in the online viva software with a single click
Step 3) Create the viva assessment with required configuration
The online viva software lets you take total control over the configuration of your online viva exam, while creating the exam, you can define various parameters including questions, passing marks, and exam duration. Here is how you can configure the online viva exam-
Step 4) Candidates can attempt Viva- Voice Test with Answer Recording Facility
The online viva exam can be assigned to the candidates student wise, batch wise or in bulk .
All the answers of the individual candidates can be listen on live mode and it can also be recorded for future references.
Step 5) Process the results of viva exams
The evaluator can award marks to students for their answers in the online viva system, this makes the coordination among the evaluators easier; especially when there are a large number of students and evaluators. The administrator can download the result in the form of an excel sheet.
Step 6) Print the reports and get those signed by examiner (As per the UGC guidance)
You can easily compile reports of the individual performance of the candidates and generate results as per required format.
Conducting the viva-voice is easier than ever with these 6 steps.
Overall, online viva exams offer many benefits that traditional methods cannot offer. If you are considering using online viva exams, we encourage you to do so. They are an excellent way to assess students and provide them with valuable feedback. | <urn:uuid:0810b088-f9e3-4cb3-9ff6-bc142c6db3dd> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.eklavvya.com/blog/online-viva-exam-mphil-phd/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571982.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813172349-20220813202349-00070.warc.gz | en | 0.922294 | 904 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Palmer, Alexander Pollock (Alex)
No. 3/8836, 15th Battalion, Royal Irish Rifles
Died of wounds on Sunday 2 July 1916 (aged 19)
Warloy-Baillon Communal Cemetery Extension, France (Grave I. B. 16)
Newtownards and District War Memorial
Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI) Roll of Honour 1914 – 1919 for
Greenwell Street Presbyterian Church Newtownards
Alexander Pollock Palmer was born on 13 August 1896 in the townland of Ballyhay and he was the eldest son of William and Martha Palmer (nee Pollock) who were married on 20 March 1896 in Greenwell Street Presbyterian Church Newtownards (it was a double ceremony because Martha’s brother, William John Pollock, and Mary Strain were married on the same day). William Palmer, a widower and a farmer from Ballywhiskin, was a son of John Palmer, a farmer. Martha Pollock from Ballyhay was a daughter of Alexander Pollock, a farmer.
William Palmer had previously been married to Maggie Barr from Ballyboley. Maggie was a daughter of Nathaniel Barr, a labourer and she and William were married on 26 August 1892 in Greyabbey Presbyterian Church. Their son, William John Palmer, was born on 29 June 1893 and Maggie died of puerperal fever three days later on 2 July 1893 (aged 30).
William Palmer was a farmer and general labourer and he and Martha (nee Pollock) had at least seven children:
Alexander Pollock (born 13 August 1896 in Ballyhay)
Adam Keag (born 20 April 1901 in Ballywhiskin)
Isabella (born 21 January 1903 in Ballywhiskin)
Robert James (born 24 February 1905 in Ballygarvin)
Samuel (born 4 March 1907 in Ballywhiskin)
George Dalzell (born 22 November 1908 in South Street, Newtownards)
David (born 2 May 1911 at 18 Kimberley Buildings, Donaghadee Road, Newtownards; died of acute laryngitis 6 January 1914 in Kimberley Buildings)
Alexander, Adam, Isabella and Samuel were baptised in Ballyfrenis Presbyterian Church (when William farmed in the townland of Ballywhiskin); Robert James was baptised in Kircubbin Presbyterian Church (the Palmer family was related to the Keag family who lived at Rubane); George and David were baptised in Greenwell Street Presbyterian Church Newtownards (after the Palmer family moved to Newtownards).
Prior to the outbreak of the Great War Alexander Palmer worked as a packer.
In the Soldiers Died in the Great War 1914 – 1919 database it is recorded that he enlisted in Clydebank. He served with the 15th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles and he died of wounds on 2 July 1916. Rifleman Samuel Montgomery wrote a letter of sympathy to Alex Palmer’s mother and in it he wrote ‘After being wounded he was taken to hospital. He was up in the trenches with a few more of his chums on a working party two days before the advance came off and that is where he got wounded.’ His parents also received a letter from the Rev Hugh F. Kirker who lived in Ballyfrenis Manse, Donaghadee. He wrote ‘I have felt it more than anything since I heard it. I baptised him; soon it will be 20 years ago. It’s hard on you both but you have reason to be proud of such a son.’
Rifleman Alex Palmer was 19 when he died and he was buried in Warloy-Baillon Communal Cemetery Extension in France.
Rifleman Alex Palmer is commemorated on Newtownards and District War Memorial and in the PCI Roll of Honour for Greenwell Street Presbyterian Church Newtownards. | <urn:uuid:b41f2fca-7740-4ad1-8aa1-f8a79b6380ab> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://barryniblock.co.uk/world-war-one-list-of-dead/names-listed-alphabetically-by-surname/paden-to-pegg/palmer-alexander-pollock-no-38836/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571472.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811133823-20220811163823-00673.warc.gz | en | 0.984728 | 831 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Oklahoma Business Weekis a one-of-a-kind summer program that offers students in high school first hand experience in the world of business! You become part of your "company" and work together in various events and competitions. You will also have the opportunity to interact and learn from community business leaders. You will gain skills in leadership, communication, team building, responsibility, money management, entrepreneurship, marketing and much more. At Oklahoma Business Week you will learn that the business world can be serious stuff, but it can also be fun.
Oklahoma Business Week will be held on the campus of East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma June 4 - June 8, 2017. Students will live in the dorms and participate in a variety of activities on the ECU campus. Any student completing their freshman, sophomore, junior, or senior year is eligible to attend. This is a great opportunity to get a feel of what college life is like! For further information contact Stacey Bolin or Dean Godwin. To view a video of OBW camp, click here. | <urn:uuid:4f728717-dd3a-4505-a1fe-c21ce5993690> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://okbusweek.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280929.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00427-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956606 | 215 | 1.5625 | 2 |
FORT COLLINS, Colo. - Larimer County's 911 dispatchers can now receive text messages about emergencies with a tool debuted on Monday.
Larimer Emergency Telephone Authority 911 states that the "Text-to-911" system will be useful for situations where someone cannot speak, cannot get a reliable connection for a call or may be injured.
Anyone sending a "Text-to-911" is asked to make sure the first message contains the location of the emergency and the type of help needed. Call takers can then reply with questions and instructions.
Call takers ask that messages should not use abbreviations.
"Text-to-911" is compatible with Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Cricket in Larimer County. Outside of Larimer County, messages will receive an automatic reply if "Text-to-911" is not available there.
Photos and video cannot be sent via "Text-to-911."
Larimer and Pitkin are the only counties that currently offer the service.
One Larimer County resident has already used the service and said it worked perfectly for her.
Sarah McFaddin said she awoke to weird noises coming from another room in her home and sent a message using "Text-to-911" instead of calling to avoid making noise.
McFaddin said she was relieved when a dispatcher answered her texts until police arrived to search her home. The intruder ended up being raccoons, but she said the service worked as efficiently as calling 911. | <urn:uuid:32cd12f9-a854-45b6-8a20-b7c2005ceafc> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/front-range/fort-collins/larimer-county-adds-text-to-91108182014 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988721141.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183841-00416-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926374 | 314 | 1.953125 | 2 |
'Kyleigh's Law' Requiring Decals to Identify Teen Drivers Upheld by N.J. Supreme Court
In New Jersey, a law requiring teenage drivers to display a red decal on their vehicle's license plates withstood a challenge in the state Supreme Court last week, the New Jersey Law Journal reports. The plaintiffs behind the unsuccessful challenge to this statute known as "Kyleigh’s Law," however, are now vowing to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that the law places teenagers at risk and improperly discloses their personal information.
Kyleigh's Law is named after Kyleigh D'Alessio, a New Jersey teenager who was killed in a car crash. The Asbury Park Press reports that the law's proponents view the decals as a way to prevent future crashes involving teen drivers because they "help police easily identify a GDL [Graduated Driver's License] driver who must adhere to curfews and restrictions about how many other teenagers can be in the vehicle as passengers."
Critics of the law argued to the Supreme Court of New Jersey that it violated the Federal Driver’s Privacy Protection Act because it released personal information about the driver, and also constituted an unreasonable search and seizure. The state Supreme Court rejected both of these arguments, finding that the information at issue was not "highly restrictive personal information" as defined in the FDPPA, and that "young drivers have no reasonable expectation of privacy in their age group. ... Because the decal is affixed to the exterior of the car, in plain view, an officer's review of the decal does not constitute a search."
The APP reports that another concern about the law is that teen drivers may be "harassed by predators" who notice the decal. According to New Jersey police, however, this fear is unsubstantiated, as such harassment is "not happening." Still, the APP reports, some parents have refused to place the stickers on cars driven by their teenage daughters for that reason.
Posted by Bruce Carton on August 13, 2012 at 04:26 PM | Permalink
| Comments (3) | <urn:uuid:7ed5d7cf-268d-4b60-bea5-83bfdbe837d8> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://legalblogwatch.typepad.com/legal_blog_watch/2012/08/nj.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281069.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00267-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959117 | 435 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Volume 2, 2010
Selected Essays from Latin America
Expresión lingüística y expresión corporal
Linguistic Expression and Corporal Expression
In the Logical Investigations, Husserl demonstrates the need to distinguish between the meaning of a linguistic expression and its relationship to an extralinguistic object in reality. Husserl distinguishes two kinds of signs: the “indicative sign” (Anzeichen) and the “expressive sign”, which he also calls “expression” (Ausdruck). He draws the distinction with the claim that an indicative sign “indicates” something but does not express a “meaning” (Bedeutung). In other words, he disentangles the expression, as the sign which expresses a meaning, from its usual entanglement with the indicative sign. In the First Investigation of the Logical Investigations, Husserl dwells on intersubjective discourse only long enough to isolate the expressive sign and attempts to capture the way contents and acts become thematic in communication by contrasting the expressive and the indicative function of the signs. In order to study the logical meaning of a sign, Husserl excludes as irrelevant the indicative sign and devotes his analysis to the logical expressions. The article first clarifies the basic concepts of Husserl’s theory of meaning. To appreciate his observations, we might recall how the process of communication comes up in Husserl (I). Furthermore, an attempt is made in this paper to show that meaning is not restricted to linguistic expressions (II). Since communication is contaminated by indications, it can no longer be totally expressive. As a consequence, it is only when communication is suspended that pure expressivity is regained. In order to restore pure expression, the relation with the other has to be suspended. This means that the process of expression does not owe anything to the empirical world, including the empirically spoken world. It also means that the solitary subject does not need indications in order to have a relation with itself. The reason is the immediate presence of conscious life to itself. According to this, there arises the problem of whether the corporal movements are expressions, too. In response to this difficulty, I will take up Husserl’s considerations of the constitution of intersubjectivity through corporal movements. The main purpose of this article consists in showing a possible way to answer this question. The conclusion summarizes the main points and recalls that there is also another kind of expressions that Husserl did not consider in the Logical Investigations. | <urn:uuid:4fd5dc33-831c-4c0a-be8a-1dfc14eeec50> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.pdcnet.org/phenomenology2010/content/phenomenology2010_2010_0160_0183 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572198.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815175725-20220815205725-00276.warc.gz | en | 0.932673 | 540 | 2.734375 | 3 |
By FREDDY JIMENEZ
Port Isabel-South Padre Press
Cozily located between Pompano and Sheepshead St., the South Padre Island Migratory Sanctuary has been underdone revitalization over the past two years, but now, the sanctuary is hoping to bring in volunteers.
If you take a stroll down to the sanctuary, operated by the Valley Land Fund, you will notice orange halves placed at various trees throughout the perimeter. Responsible for that act is Darrell Mangham, a volunteer and avid sanctuary admirer who is also currently running for Commissioner, Place 4 for the City of Port Isabel. Mangham said he visits the sanctuary daily at sunrise and in the afternoon to replace the oranges.
Though the sanctuary has been in place for about 16 years, local groups and volunteers got together about two years ago to revitalize the location.
“It hadn’t been maintained much over that first 13-14 years. Local groups, volunteers got together about two years ago, about 14-15 of us and we cleaned it all up,” said Mangham.
“But we realized it was beyond the scope of 15 ragtag volunteers. So, this year we realized we need to hire or acquire more help.”
Mangham said there are currently four volunteers who assist with the sanctuary but is hoping that more will join and donate their time and energy.
Further, a total of 11 beds” have been created and added to the sanctuary, each one filled with flowering plants, shade trees, and some even with watering holes. Mangham said individuals or groups are welcome to adopt the beds to maintain.
“We’d love to have individuals or groups adopt a small section, something that they can manage at their convenience and at their own schedule,” he said. “We’re not telling them how and when they need to do stuff, but it’s something they can do at their own convenience and landscape to their heart’s delight.”
Adopting a bed is free; however, the sanctuary does accept donations.
Want the whole story? Pick up a copy of the Port Isabel-South Padre Press, or subscribe to our E-Edition by clicking here. | <urn:uuid:e7f71c50-6bdb-4ad8-b2ef-69a6e87ee63e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.portisabelsouthpadre.com/2019/04/19/bird-sanctuary-thriving-calls-for-volunteers/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570767.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808061828-20220808091828-00469.warc.gz | en | 0.954526 | 486 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Typically, facility managers appreciate the classic Murphy’s Laws (which go back as far as 1841, according to Wikipedia, but were formalized in 1877 at a meeting of an engineering society). The most common example, “anything that can possibly go wrong, does” made its first modern appearance in 1952, although the origins have been claimed by two sources (Jack Sacks, a mountaineering author, and Anne Roe, an author quoting a physicist).
This week, we have Peter SJF Bance to thank (again) for these lesser known laws from Murphy.
1. Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
2. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
3. Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don’t.
4. Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.
5. The 50-50-90 rule: Any time you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there’s a 90% likelihood you’ll get it wrong.
6. If you lined up all the cars in the world end to end, someone would be stupid enough to try to pass them, five or six at a time, on a hill, at night, in the fog.
7. The things that come to those who wait will be the scraggly junk left by those who got there first.
8. The shin bone is a device for finding furniture in a dark room.
9. A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.
10. When you go into court, you put yourself in the hands of 12 people who weren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty. | <urn:uuid:efd041ce-859a-4248-b69b-b8e6dd310db6> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://facilityexecutive.com/2009/03/friday-funny-murphys-lesser-known-laws-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280835.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00054-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969832 | 370 | 2.640625 | 3 |
It's a no-brainer....Libya, Iraq, Malaysia, Venezuela, Syria, and more can tell you so. The banksters have no physical of their own, so they must plunder the gold of others before the heist becomes a world revolution against them.
"The volume of Iran's gold reserves is estimated to be over 340 tons by now," Deputy Head of Iran's Geology Organization for Exploration Affairs Behrouz Borna said on Saturday.
He noted that there are currently 15 gold mines in Iran and by beginning extraction of two other mines this year the volume of the country's gold reserves will even increase further.
Borna said that Iran ranks 12th in Asia and 42nd in the world in terms of gold reserves.
Last year, Borna announced the discovery of three new gold mines in Saqqez city in Kurdistan province (Western Iran).
In November, Governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) Mahmoud Bahmani said that the country's gold reserves have reached an unexpected high level which is sufficient for Iran's domestic needs for the next 15 years.
"Our Gold reserves were enough to help us at least for 15 years," Bahmani told reporters on the sidelines of the Islamabad G8 Summit at the time.
"We believe these reserves are enough for us for the next 15 years, even if we don't import foreign gold," he said.
Bahmani said that Iran does not use its gold reserves as a bartering tool in exchange for foreign goods, despite sanctions that bar Tehran from using US dollars and Euros in financial transactions.
Despite Iran's compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Washington and its Western allies accuse the country of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they have never presented any corroborative evidence to substantiate their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.
Tehran is now under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions and the unilateral western embargos for turning down West's calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment.
Political observers believe that the United States has remained at loggerheads with Iran mainly over the independent and home-grown nature of Tehran's nuclear technology, which gives the Islamic Republic the potential to turn into a world power and a role model for the other third-world countries.
Fars News Agency | <urn:uuid:22f7e24b-f7e6-4687-befe-af3df045441f> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://chasvoice.blogspot.com/2013/05/irans-gold-reserves-surpass-340-tons.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988721558.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183841-00046-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959573 | 490 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Here are some other places to find and win scholarships. While not an exhaustive list, this is a great starting point.
When we were looking for scholarships, we found them in nearly every place you could imagine. We discovered some in the dusty collection of books at our library and others by reading serendipitous newspaper announcements of past scholarship winners. We even found an award advertised on a supermarket shopping bag. Having personally spent hundreds of hours scouring the planet for scholarships and meeting thousands of other successful scholarship winners, we have learned where most scholarships are hidden.
When it comes to the Internet, we recommend that you use as many online scholarship databases as possible as long as they are free. There are enough quality free databases that you should not have to pay for any online search. Here is our list of recommended scholarship websites that you should use:
Invest in a good scholarship book and you'll have an invaluable resource that will lead you to some great scholarships. When selecting a book, choose one that offers detailed descriptions of the awards and an easy-to-use index. You don't have time to read through every scholarship, so an index will help narrow your choices quickly. For example, our scholarship directory The Ultimate Scholarship Book not only contains thousands of awards but also has a dozen different indexes based on criteria like field of study, career goals, hobbies and interests, talents and more. These will help you pick awards that are a match to you.
If you are a high school student, start your scholarship search with your counselor. Ask if he or she has a list of scholarship opportunities. Most counselors keep a binder filled with local awards and scholarships, so make an appointment to discuss the ones for which you might qualify. Before your meeting, prepare information about your family's financial background as well as special interests or talents you have that would make you eligible for certain awards. Don't forget that your own high school will have a variety of scholarships from such places as the parent/teacher organization, alumni group and athletic booster clubs.
If you are a college student, make an appointment with your school's financial aid officer. Before the appointment, think about what interests and talents you have and what field you may want to enter after graduation. Take a copy of your Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) if you have one. Mention any special circumstances about your family's financial situation and ask the financial aid officer for recommendations of scholarships offered by the college or by community organizations. Also, if you have already declared a major, check with the department's administrative assistant or chair for any awards that you might be eligible to win.
Here's a reason to enjoy your extracurricular activities even more. One benefit of participation may be a scholarship sponsored by the organization. Inquire with the officers or advisors of the organization about scholarship funds. Bands, newspapers, academic clubs, athletic organizations and service organizations often have scholarships that are awarded to outstanding members. If the organization has a national parent organization (for example, National Honor Society), visit their website. Often you will discover awards that are given by the parent organization for members of the local chapters. If you're involved with a church or religious organization, be sure to inquire both locally at your house of worship and with the district, state, and/or national offices to see what scholarships may be available to members.
If you've ever wondered why community organizations have so many pancake breakfast fundraisers, one reason is that some provide money for scholarships. Usually you don't have to be a member of these organizations to apply. In fact, many community groups sponsor scholarships that are open to all students who live in the area. If you are a college student, you may have two communities: your hometown and where you go to college. Don't neglect to check for scholarships and awards in both of these places.
How do you find these organizations? Many local government websites list them. Visit the websites for your town, city and state. Also visit or call your community association or center. You can also use the phone book to look up organizations. Some phone books even have a calendar of annual events that are sponsored by various civic groups. Finally, don't forget to visit the public library and ask the reference librarian for help.
Businesses like to return some of their profits to employees and students in the community. Many offer scholarships as a way to reward students who both study and work. Ask your manager if your employer has a scholarship fund and how you can apply. Some companies—particularly large companies that have offices, distributorships or factories in your community—offer scholarships that all students in the community are eligible to win. Check with the Chamber of Commerce for a list of the largest employers in the area. You can call the public relations or community outreach department in these companies to inquire about any scholarship opportunities. Visit the large department and chain stores in the area and ask the store manager or customer service manager about college scholarships.
There is an association for every profession you can imagine. Whether you want to be a doctor, teacher or helicopter pilot, there are professional organizations that exist not only to advance the profession, but also to encourage students to enter that field by awarding grants and scholarships. To find these associations, contact people who are already in the profession. If you think you want to become a computer programmer, ask computer programmers about the associations to which they belong. Also look at the trade magazines that exist for the profession since they have advertisements for various professional organizations. Finally, do a web search for professional associations at the local, state and national level.
If you've never received a personal "thank you" from large companies like Coca-Cola, Calgon, Tylenol or Microsoft, here it is. A lot of these conglomerates have charitable foundations that award scholarships. Companies give these awards to give something back to the community (and the positive PR sure doesn't hurt either). When you visit business websites, look for links to their foundations, which often manage the scholarship programs. Many corporations offer similar types of scholarships. What if you're a student film maker? Think about all the companies that make money or sell products to you from cameras to editing software to tripods. Are you into industrial music? What special equipment or instruments do you use? Consider the companies that will benefit from more people using their products and services. Some corporations also offer awards to attract future employees. For example, Microsoft, the software company, sponsors a scholarship program for student programmers. Be sure to investigate companies that employ people in your field of study—especially if it is highly competitive—to see if they offer scholarships.
You may think that checks only travel from your pocket to your college to pay for tuition. But schools actually give a lot of money to students. Some of this money comes from the college itself while other money is from generous donations of alumni. Every college administers a number of scholarships, some based on financial need and some based on merit. What many students don't know is that often a student's application for admission is also used by the school to determine whether he or she may win a scholarship. This is one reason it is worthwhile to submit any optional essay suggested on a college application. Even if the essay does not impact your admission, it could be used to award you some scholarship dollars. To discover what awards may be available to you, send an email to the financial aid office of your college or of the colleges you are considering. In this email ask for a list of the college's scholarships. Pretty simple!
Flipping burgers may have an up side. Even if you work only part-time, you may qualify for an educational scholarship given by your employer. For example, McDonald's offers the National Employee Scholarship to reward the accomplishments of its student-employees. There is even a McScholar of the Year prize that includes a $5,000 scholarship. If you have a full- or part-time job, ask your employer about scholarships.
Companies often award scholarships to the children of their employees. Ask your parents to speak with their human resources department about scholarships and other educational programs offered to employees and their families. Like companies, many unions also sponsor scholarships for the children of their members. Again, have your parents speak with the union officers about union-sponsored scholarships and other educational programs.
Most community newspapers announce local students who win scholarships. Keep a record of the scholarship announcements or go to the library and look at back issues of the newspaper. Check last year's spring issues and you'll probably find tons of announcements of scholarship recipients. Then contact the sponsoring organizations to see if you're eligible to enter the next competition. A newspaper archive really is like a treasure map that can lead you to scholarships.
As you look for scholarships, don't make the mistake we made when we started our scholarship search. That mistake was that we did it alone. Maybe we didn't want to share what we found with our friends or perhaps we just didn't see the benefit of working in groups. Whatever the reason, it probably cost us a ton of money. We've met thousands of students who have won scholarships from all across the country. Of these, the most successful are those who did not look for scholarships alone. In fact, they made it the biggest group project imaginable. Students who worked with others discovered that by sharing the awards they found and pooling their resources, they were able to find more scholarships in less time than they ever would have if they had worked alone. The end result was that these students had more scholarships to apply to and more time to focus on their applications. All of this meant that they won more money.
One additional benefit to combining your efforts with those of others is that you'll stay much more motivated throughout the process. And take it from us who have been there, it can be very discouraging to look for awards alone! So get together with your friends, classmates and even relatives and start looking for scholarships together. Who knows, you may even have some fun! | <urn:uuid:8f657e12-7c60-419d-ba1e-b37f7f73c618> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://genkellyscholarship.com/resources.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280872.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00316-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974723 | 2,034 | 2.25 | 2 |
The JOURNAL INQUIRER published the following on Monday, January 1, 1996.
reprinted with permission
Gloves still a mystery in Martin case
By Alex Wood
Most Americans probably know by now that a pair of gloves was important evidence in the O.J. Simpson murder case.
But for all the public attention to Manchester’s controversial Bernice Martin murder case, one of the least known facts about it is that authorities also recovered a pair of gloves – probably belonging to the killer – at the crime scene.
During the lengthy 1992 trial of Richard Lapointe, who was convicted of murdering Martin, prosecutors presented no evidence tying him to the men’s black driving gloves found in Martin’s bedroom on the night of the March 8,1987, slaying.
Martin lived alone, and it is highly unlikely that the gloves were hers.
A Journal Inquirer examination of Manchester police files on the case produced no evidence that police connected the gloves to any suspect, leaving them an enigma.
Unlike the gloves in Simpson’s case, those in Lapointe’s are unlikely to yield any courtroom drama – as when Simpson appeared to struggle to don a glove in court.
The gloves found in Martin’s apartment are knitted, with leather or fake leather sewed to the palms. They are cheap, thin gloves of a type common in 1987, lacking the insulation that most winter gloves have today.
They clearly appear designed for a man’s hand. But even today most knitted men’s gloves are sold only in a single size.
The gloves were in reasonably good condition when a reporter examined them in the court clerk’s office. There were holes in the ends of both middle fingers, a larger one on the left glove, and scuff marks on the “leather” at the tips of several fingers.
The right glove was found on the bedroom floor, while the left was found folded over at the head of Martin’s bed.
Deep bloodstains and other evidence found on the bed indicate that much of the horrific violence committed against Martin probably occurred there.
Found on both gloves were hairs microscopically similar to Martin’s, according to the testimony of Beryl Novitch, a lead criminalist at the state police forensic science laboratory. Hair can’t be identified for certain as coming from a particular person, Novitch explained.
Although prosecutors duly introduced the gloves into evidence at Lapointe’s trial, there was virtually no discussion of their significance.
But that significance was clear to FBI analysts who studied the crime in 1988 to aid the Manchester police investigation.
“The offender had come to this particular residence prepared to the degree that he had worn gloves,” the analysts wrote in their report.
Jim Michaud / Journal Inquirer
Evidence gathered in the Martin murder case included the pair of gloves found at the murder scene and a photograph showing one of the gloves at the head of the victim’s bed. | <urn:uuid:c61a095d-b49b-46b5-9ecb-85b0d91e611f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://friendsofrichardlapointe.com/newspaper-articles/gloves/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572192.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815145459-20220815175459-00077.warc.gz | en | 0.9653 | 635 | 1.929688 | 2 |
We don't want to think about it eithe, but the bad weather is coming (and already here, in some places) and that means you need to make sure you're equipped if you want to ride outside during winter. So we've put our collective heads together and come up with a few of our favourite things to wear outside when the conditions aren't exactly ideal. Sometimes if you want to ride, you just have to tough it out, but having some good kit definitely makes the decision easier...
DTE stands for 'Defy the Elements' which gives you a pretty good idea of what type of weather this jacket has been designed for. With 20K waterproof and 20K breathable fabric, this is a jacket for riding on days when you maybe shouldn't go out but can't resist the idea of a ride. That hard-wearing fully-seam-sealed three-layer fabric keeps you dry whilw making sure you dont overheat, and the stowable hood is designed to perfectly integrate with a peaked helmet, or alternatively stay out of the way when you're not using it.
The hem and hood have draw cords so you can form a properly water-tight fit if you need to, and waterproof zippers on the hand and chest pockets keep anything stored in there safe and dry so you dont have to worry.
Other nice touches include sillicone print on the shoulders to stop hydration packs from sliding around, and front-facing chest zippers which let you open up a bit of ventilation if you're riding hard and need a bit of extra airflow.
We've extolled the virtues of Pearl iZUMi's PI Dry so many time here that it's almost not worth doing again. Almost. Put as simply as possible, PI Dry is a treatment to each individual fibre of the material in a garment, making for a lifetime water repellency that won't wear off with use like DWR. It works incredibly well and better than that it's now in a whole bunch of their winter tights - the range-topping AmFIB that we've picked here, the AmFIB Light and the Thermal Cycling Bib tights all use it to make for more comfortable winter riding than every before.
The great thing about the AmFIB tights is that they have a lot of other fantastic features, too, like the Elite Escape 1:1 Chamois with floating top sheet (aka incredibly comfortable), leg openings that do away with zippers for - you've guessed it - increased comfort and the shoftshell AmFIB fabric that's made with recycled content that feels great and makes sure nothing goes to waste. All the tights in Pearl's range are great, but if you're really out there battling the elements through the roughest part of the winter then these will be your best friend.
Shorts are ideal for riding, but sometimes if the weather gets really bad you just wish that shorts were available in a longer variety, that maybe came all the way down to the ankles. Fortunately, trousers are far from a new invention, but Madison's Flux trousers are something that's been used by the Madison Saracen World Cup Downhill Team in their races for a while now and if it's good enough for Matt Walker, it should get the job done on your local trails.
Lightweight, practical and stylish, the Flux trousers aren't necessarily winter-specific, but the DWR coating means they'll fend off the worst of the water and, being trousers, give you more coverage for a bit fo extra warmth too. Plus - if you're going out in the really nasty stuff - there are always the DTE trousers to match the above jacket that promise to keep you going whatever the weather.
One of the most miserable things about winter riding on the road is wet and cold feet. And once your feet get cold, there's no warming them up again other than getting off the bike and inside for a bit, which obviously isn't the point of riding in the first place.
The reason we have two products here is that they're at opposite ends of the price range. Shimano's S-Phyre overshoes are a true masterpiece, an overshoe that fits like a glove and seals your shoes wonderfully well but the kicker is that they're £65. While we totally agree that you can't put a price on performance, we also get that some people are looking for a more cost-effective solution and that comes in the form of the Madison Shield overshoe (closed sole) or the Element for open sole shoes. Both are neoprene while insulated superbly and both will keep you more than happy riding through bad weather. | <urn:uuid:48da7969-53f2-44b1-b5e7-d6260825b7a4> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.freewheel.co.uk/blog/post/our-best-cold-weather-picks | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571210.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810191850-20220810221850-00473.warc.gz | en | 0.967388 | 960 | 1.5 | 2 |
Builder design pattern in Java is a creational pattern i.e. used to create objects, similar to factory method design pattern which is also creational design pattern. Before learning any design pattern I suggest find out the problem a particular design pattern solves. Its been well said necessity is mother on invention. learning design pattern without facing problem is not that effective, Instead if you have already faced issues than its much easier to understand design pattern and learn how its solve the issue. In this Java design pattern tutorial we will first see what problem Builder design pattern solves which will give some insight on when to use builder design pattern in Java, which is also a popular design pattern interview question and then we will see example of Builder design pattern and pros and cons of using Builder pattern in Java.
xargs command in unix or Linux is a powerful command used in conjunction with find and grep command in UNIX to divide a big list of arguments into small list received from standard input. find and grep command produce long list of file names and we often want to either remove them or do some operation on them but many unix operating system doesn't accept such a long list of argument. UNIX xargs command divide that list into sub-list with acceptable length and made it work. This Unix tutorial is in continuation of my earlier post on Unix like 10 examples of chmod command in Unix and How to update soft link in Linux. If you haven’t read those unit tutorial than check them out. By the way In this tutorial we will see different example of unix xargs command to learn how to use xargs command with find and grep and other unix command and make most of it. Though what you can do with xargs in unix can also be done by using options provided in find but believe xargs is much easy and powerful.
-XX:+UseCompressedOops JVM command line option is one of the most talked options of 64 bit JVM. Though 64 bit JVM allows you to specify larger Java heap sizes it comes with a performance penalty by using 64 bit OOPS. Ordinary object pointers also known as OOPS which is used to represent Java objects in Virtual Machine has an increased width of 64 bit than smaller 32 bit from earlier 32 bit JVM. because of increased size of OOPS, fewer OOPS can be stored in CPU cache registers which effectively reduced CPU cache efficiency. -XX:+UseCompressedOops enables the use of compressed 32 bit OOPS in 64 bit JVM which effectively compensate performance penalty imposed by 64 bit JVM without scarifying heap size advantage offered by them. You should use -XX:+UseCompressedOops if maximum heap size specified by -Xmx is less than 32G. This is my 3rd article on JVM after 10 JVM option Java programmer should know and how to find 32 bit JVM or 64 bit JVM, I suggest reading those if you want to learn more about JVM.
HashSet in Java is a collection which implements Set interface and backed by an HashMap. Since HashSet uses HashMap internally it provides constant time performance for operations like add, remove, contains and size give HashMap has distributed elements properly among the buckets. Java HashSet does not guarantee any insertion orders of the set but it allows null elements. HashSet can be used in place of ArrayList to store the object if you require no duplicate and don't care about insertion order. Iterator of HashSet is fail-fast and throws ConcurrentModificationException if HashSet instance is modified concurrently during iteration by using any method other than remove() method of iterator class.If you want to keep insertion order by using HashSet than consider using LinkedHashSet. It is also a very important part of any Java collection interview, In short correct understanding of HashSet is must for any Java developer.
JUnit4 Annotations are single big change from JUnit 3 to JUnit 4 which is introduced in Java 5. With annotations creating and running a JUnit test becomes more easy and more readable, but you can only take full advantage of JUnit4 if you know the correct meaning of annotations used on this version and how to use them while writing tests. In this
Junit tutorial we will not only understand meaning of those annotations but also we will see examples of JUnit4 annotations. By the way this is my first post in unit testing but if you are new here than you may like post 10 tips to write better code comments and 10 Object oriented design principles for Programmer as well.
In order to close Java program we need to consider which kind of Java application it is?, because termination of Java application varies between normal core java program to swing GUI application. In general all Java program terminates automatically once all user threads created by program finishes its execution, including main thread. JVM doesn't wait for daemon thread so as soon as last user thread finished, Java program will terminate. If you want to close or terminate your java application before this your only option is to use System.exit(int status) or Runtime.getRuntime().exit(). This cause JVM to abandon all threads and exit immediately. Shutdown hooks are get called to allow some last minute clearing before JVM actually terminates. System.exit() also accept an int status parameter where a non zero value denote abnormal execute and its the result returned by java command to caller. In this java tutorial we will see example of closing both Java program and Java Swing application. This is also a good swing interview questions which you can ask to any GUI developer and my second article in swing after writing invokeAndWait vs invokeLater
Setting up JDBC Database Connection Pool in Spring framework is easy for any Java application, just matter of changing few configuration in spring configuration file.If you are writing core java application and not running on any web or application server like Tomcat or Weblogic, Managing Database connection pool using Apache Commons DBCP and Commons Pool along-with Spring framework is nice choice but if you have luxury of having web server and managed J2EE Container, consider using Connection pool managed by J2EE server those are better option in terms of maintenance, flexibility and also help to prevent java.lang.OutofMemroyError:PermGen Space in tomcat by avoiding loading of JDBC driver in web-app class-loader, Also keeping JDBC connection pool information in Server makes it easy to change or include settings for JDBC over SSL. In this article we will see how to setup Database connection pool in spring framework using Apache commons DBCP and commons pool.jar
Breadth first Search (BFS) and Depth first search (DFS) algorithm are two most important graph and tree algorithm used for traversal. you can traverse all nodes of tree or graph by using BFS or DFS. Even though most of us learn about Breadth first search and depth first search in college its not easy to understand and it takes time to grasp the concept and I believe that once you understand how BFS or DFS works its easy to implement logic in Java or C++ but trying to implement or copy code without first understanding the algorithm is not going to work. I have read about BFS and DFS in text books, Wikipedia and several other places but never find an explanation as shown in this video. My friend got this video on YouTube few years back while revising concept of BFS and DFS while preparing for programming interview and data structure and shared with me that this is very simple, clear and concise. So I thought to share this BFS and DFS search video with you guys. This video explains How depth first search algorithm works with detailed example and stack data structure along with How breadth first search algorithm works with queue in simple words and live example of Breadth first search. if you are looking for code example than check out our last post Breadth first search in java code example
Generic interview questions in Java interviews are getting more and more common with Java 5 around there for considerable time and many application either moving to Java 5 and almost all new Java development happening on Tiger(code name of Java 5). Importance of Generics and Java 5 features like Enum, Autoboxing, varargs and Collection utilities like CountDownLatch, CyclicBarrier and BlockingQueue are getting more and more popular on Java interviews. Generic interview question can get real tricky if you are not familiar with bounded and unbounded generic wildcards, How generics works internally, type erasure and familiarity with writing parametrized generics classes and methods in Java. Best way to prepare for Generics interview is to try simple program best on various features of generics. Anyway In this Java interview article we will see some popular Java Generics interview questions and there answer. By the way there are lot of material available in Javarevisited to better preparing for Java and J2EE interviews, you can prepare multi-threading and Collections using 15 thread interview question and Top 10 Java collection interview question along with several other questions answers articles on Spring, Struts, JSP and Servlet. If you are GUI developers and working in Java Swing technology than you can also check interview questions on Java Swing mostly asked in Investment banks
java.lang.NullPointerException or NullPointerException in Java is probably the first Exception you will face in Java. It is true nightmare for beginners in Java but pretty easy to solve once you get familiar with Exception handling in Java. What makes NullPointerException little tricky is its name which has pointer in itself and Java does not support pointers like multiple inheritance in Java . In this article we will see What is NullPointerException in Java, How to solve Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException, finding possible cause of Java NullPointerException and how to troubleshoot NPE in Java. Based on my experience once you know little bit about NullPointerException its pretty easy to solve. By the way, as said, "prevention is better than cure", you can avoid != null check and NullPointerException by following some best practices.
Date command in unix or Linux is one of important command to learn and master because we always need date information. no matter you want to know current date in unix or your bash script needs current date in unix for archiving purpose you need to use date command. In its simplest format date command shows the current date and time in unix while with sophisticated option we can extract many useful information from unix date command. In this Unix command tutorial we will see some useful tips on using date command in unix and learn more around date in unix and Linux. One important thing to note is that different implementation of unix date command may not be exactly same e.g. AIX version of date command doesn't support option "-d" or "date". Anyway let's see some example of unix date command:
Design patterns and software design questions are essential part of any programming interview, no matter whether you are going for Java interview or C# interview. In face programming and design skill complement each other quite well, people who are good programmer are often a good designer as well as they know how to break a problem in to piece of code or software design but these skill just doesn’t come. You need to keep designing, programming both small scale and large scale systems and keep learning from mistakes.Learning about Object oriented design principles is a good starting point. Anyway this article is about some design questions which has been repeatedly asked in various interviews. I have divided them on two category for beginners and intermediate for the sake of clarity and difficulty level. It contains questions based upon object oriented design patterns as well as on software design e.g. how to code a vending machine in Java. In order to do well, you need to have good knowledge of object oriented analysis and design. | <urn:uuid:fbbb901a-5bf2-4ef0-a111-deeca725f8ef> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://javarevisited.blogspot.com/2012_06_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280835.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00054-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91788 | 2,423 | 3.328125 | 3 |
If you are looking for an answer to the question What is Artificial Intelligence? and you only have a minute, then here's the definition the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence offers on its home page: "the scientific understanding of the mechanisms underlying thought and intelligent behavior and their embodiment in machines."
However, if you are fortunate enough to have more than a minute, then please get ready to embark upon an exciting journey exploring AI (but beware, it could last a lifetime) …
Artificial intelligence (AI) has been trending for some time and not slowing down in its speed, ability, or usefulness. Many financial institutions have implemented at least a basic form of AI to enhance their consumer experience and level of service. This may be a chatbot for online banking or basic IVR (Interactive Voice Response) for the business phone line. As technology gets smarter, consumers experience fast, seamless customer service with other industries, and they are coming to expect the same type of service from their banking and lending institution. Consumer demand and a desire to remain competitive is expediting digital transformation in the financial institution sector, with many financial institutions seeking out conversational AI over conventional AI.
Alternative data vendor QuantCube has created a slew of environmental intelligence products using satellite data sourced from the European Space Agency combined with other alternative data sources. As well as creating four environmental and social economic indicator services, the Paris-based company has also incorporated the new information into its benchmarking and analytical overlays. The offerings are the fruit of a two-year collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the French Space Agency (CNES), which gave the company access to its Earth observation data through its business application programme. Using data beamed from the Copernicus programme's Sentinel satellites, QuantCube is providing its clients with four environmental indicators at macro-level: The data is processed by artificial intelligence software after being harvested from orbiting technology that can take detailed images down to 30 square centimetres on the Earth's surface. Satellite technology can also identify concentrations of greenhouse gases and pollutants, including carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and sulphur dioxide (SO2).
Playing a game of catch up, banks and credit unions have accelerated their digital banking transformation efforts. They have invested increasing amounts of capital and human resources into data and advanced analytics, innovation, modern technologies, back-office automation, and a reimagined workforce with a mission to improve the customer experience while reducing the cost to serve. Much of the impetus is because the fintech and big tech competitive landscape continues to expand, offering simple engagement and seamless experiences, causing customers to fragment existing relationships with their existing bank and credit union providers. The good news is that there are a multitude of options available to work with third-party providers that can deploy solutions faster than can be done if developed internally. Incumbent institutions can also partner with fintech and big tech competitors while modernizing their existing systems and processes at the same time.
"What fire was to the cavemen, artificial intelligence will be to us." One industry participant explained the influence of disruptive technology on a staid industry in this way. AI is changing the stock market game. While people remain an important part of the trading environment, artificial reasoning is becoming increasingly important. According to a new study by Coalition, a U.K. research group, electronic exchanges account for about 45 percent of money values swapping revenues. While hedge funds are mistrustful of automation, many of them develop AI-powered analysis to create investment ideas and build portfolios.
A solution like ML is capable of dealing with enormous amounts of data from several sources and knows what the normalized levels of activity are with regard to banking and other financial transactions. Consequently, it can alert the supervisor in case of any deviations from the expected trends. In addition to account owners, fraud can come from merchants and issuers, and their transaction information can be used to train a machine learning model to recognize transactions processing properly.
Technological progress and innovation are the linchpins of fintech development, and will continue to drive disruptive business models in financial services. McKinsey estimates that artificial intelligence (AI) can generate up to $1 trillion additional value for the global banking industry annually. Banks and other financial institutions are tipped to adopt an AI-first mindset that will better prepare them to resist encroachment onto their territory by expanding technology firms. In financial services, automatic factor discovery, or the machine-based identification of the elements that drive outperformance, will become more prevalent, helping to hone financial modeling across the sector. As a key application of AI semantic representation, knowledge graphs and graph computing will also play a greater role.
Digital banking transformation has enabled many financial institutions to become more prepared for the future as the world was disrupted by the pandemic. For those banks and credit unions that have become the most digitally mature, the focus on improving the customer experience, increasing the use of data and advanced analytics, and deploying new technologies has positioned them at a competitive advantage. Despite the progress made, all financial institutions will need to increase investment in digital banking transformation initiatives, responding to marketplace expectations and adjusting business models to reflect a highly altered banking ecosystem. A great deal of the focus in 2022 will need to be on back-office processes that are highly outdated and have slowed the progression of all digital banking transformation efforts. The future will also see a greater involvement of banking staff in building humanized experiences for transactions that were initiated digitally.
A race towards digitization is bringing a revolution in the Financial and FinTech sectors. At the core of this digitization lies the availability of a vast array of data (such as Big Data), advancements in affordable computing technologies, and the advent of intelligent technologies such as Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. AI has been around for nearly 70 years, its practicality and intelligence have increasing over time. Today, AI has become an integral part of the industrial landscape as well as the lives of common people. Examples of this can be seen in the voice assistants in smartphones, the use of AI robots in supply chain logistics, self-driving cars, movie recommendations on Netflix, and more.
Singapore has unveiled two new programmes to drive the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in the government and financial services sectors. It also plans to invest another SG$180 million ($133.31 million) in the national research and innovation strategy to tap the technology in key areas, such as healthcare and education. The fund is on top of SG$500 million ($370.3 million) the government already has set aside in its Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) 2025 Plan for AI-related activities, said the Smart Nation and Digital Government Office (SNDGO) in a statement Monday. These investments have been earmarked to support various research in areas that address challenges of AI adoption, such as privacy preserving AI, and of societal and economic importance including healthcare, finance, and education. The funds also will facilitate research collaborations with the industry to drive the adoption of AI.
While money is the prime necessity of life, it is also the feeding grain for criminals and terrorist organisations. One term that we hear quite often regarding money-related crimes, is'Money Laundering'. In simple words, 'money laundering' is the unlawful act of deliberately trying to conceal the origins of financial assets, in order to legitimise the financial transactions used for criminal offences. The money launderers try to mask the trail of their assets by introducing illegal profits in their financial history, which makes the process of money tracing'obscure' for the financial institutions. The illegal money, which is not traceable, is then used to carry out criminal activities. | <urn:uuid:f4cff704-815b-4813-b213-e7a54d848cf2> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://aitopics.org/tag/financial%20institutions | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571150.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810070501-20220810100501-00679.warc.gz | en | 0.947941 | 1,556 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Concord, NH - The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) today opened the Office of Consumer & Family Affairs Resource Center at DHHS' Bureau of Behavioral Health (BBH). The Resource Center will provide consumers dealing with mental health issues, and their families with books, articles, pamphlets and other information regarding illness management and recovery.
"We believe the Resource Center will benefit consumers and their families by providing them with helpful information and support as they move toward recovery," said DHHS Commissioner Nicholas Toumpas. The resource center includes materials about State and Federal rules, regulations and recent policies, advocacy, person-centered treatment planning, wellness management, clinical diagnoses and parenting skills.
The Resource Center is part of the Office of Consumer & Family Affairs (OCFA). OCFA provides information, education and support for individuals who are dealing with mental illness. Its goal is to facilitate consumer and family input into all aspects of the state-funded mental health system as well as BBH's planning and policy development.
"It is our hope this new resource center will complement the Office of Consumer and Family Affairs," stated BBH Administrator Erik Riera. "We are sincerely grateful to everyone who has contributed their time and materials to make this a reality."
For more information or to contact the Resource Center, call Michael Bilson at 1-800-852-3345 ext 5045 (TDDNHRelay 1-800-735-2964) or firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:48ef32c0-c521-418d-8085-f590d491f94a> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.nhinsider.com/press-releases/2008/4/23/dhhs-unveils-new-family-resource-center.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719677.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00561-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92404 | 315 | 1.5 | 2 |
Sunday, November 04, 2012
Jaguars, NEPA & Coordination
Zoo Masters, NEPA, et al
By Stephen L. Wilmeth
Our oldest granddaughter got her first zoo master software before her fourth birthday. She would be upstairs building monstrous zoo layouts. We’d sit down beside her and she would be so immersed in the construction of the complicated labyrinths in her mind and on the screen she would barely acknowledge our presence.
“Show us was you’ve done,” we would urge her.
She would show us all the wondrous marvels laid out in expansive avenues and theme settings. She would eventually get more sophisticated soft ware. It would even allow her to stock her zoos with dinosaurs and extinct animals. We were amazed at her imagination. That equated, or course, to our assessment of how smart she was.
As we look back now, though, she may not have been the only one building grand imaginary schemes. The environmental cartels were applying the same science fiction to the real world.
October 19, 2012 was an important date. It was the final day comments were accepted for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and those environmental cartels’ proposed critical jaguar habitat in New Mexico’s Bootheel and Arizona’s Jaguar Alley. The first phase of this pipedream includes 838,232 acres of, at best, occasional transient domain of single, bachelor cats in that area.
It is the first phase of a gargantuan real life project. Already, it is known that the Rewilders are pushing for the inclusion of the Gila and Apache National Forests in this critical habitat plan. That would increase the acreage from less than a million acres to about 4.5 million on the American side of the border.
That would dovetail conveniently into the 1.3 million acre Janos Biosphere Reserve already in place adjacent to the proposal on the Mexican side of the border.
But, that is not the real plan.
That plan is 26 million acres in New Mexico and 27 million acres in Arizona or 53 million acres on the north side of the border. If current habitat concepts remain fixed, that would marry into a minimum of 34 million acres in Mexico.
Our once four year old granddaughter would have been mucho impressed!
In comments submitted to USFWS, Terrell Shelley and I assessed our family’s Gila occupation since 1884. We traced 243 ranch years on parallel tracks of history where not a single jaguar was seen, trailed, or killed in what is being described by supporters as favorable jaguar habitat.
It must be remembered those people lived each day starting at sunup and ranched for survival. They managed predators aggressively and most had packs of dogs. For example, the Shelleys would take hounds with them each and every time they rode just to keep the dogs in shape. If there had been a jaguar in the country in all those years, they would have found traces of its existence.
Even the Nat Straw reference to a jaguar on Taylor Creek that adds to nebulous 10-17 cats documented, suggested, discounted, removed or added to the list of sightings in New Mexico since 1825 has baggage. Too many of us have read Nat’s account of how he rode the wrong grizzly bear off the mountain top trying to escape a blazing bear fight in order to save his own life to put full faith in his colorful accounts of life.
But, the jaguar segment of the imaginary world theme park expansion is but one of a myriad of make believe goals being sought. In the last several years there have been no less than eight land designation proposals in southern New Mexico that carry similar implications. That doesn’t include the public battles over forest travel management decisions, forest management of fuel loads, the wolf project, and the egregious step wise loading of Agenda 21 treaty in our community growth concepts. Government assault … environmental assault has erupted in all quarters.
To those who have responsibilities, duties, and investments on the lands under this environmental assault, the realization of our existence has become one of protecting ourselves from our government rather than our government protecting us.
Is that not astounding?
Several weeks ago there was a refresher course in Albuquerque on the implications of the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA). In the detail of that act there was the reminder of what coordination implies. Coordination was clearly intended to be the tool explicit in federal legislation that promises local government equal partnership in federal action that impacts their surroundings. Those governing bodies shouldn’t have to resort to it, but they must uphold their sworn duty and protect their constituencies from the environmental agenda that has been the guiding force in the public land decisions they were promised they would drive.
For too long, local governments have learned of such plans by reading about them in the Federal Register or the local newspaper. In other words, this and similar environmental passion legislation sets forth wording that ostensibly maintained local input at the highest level, but the sovereignty of local input was displaced by a contrived agenda.
The law has been applied in that manner for so long policy and court decisions have moved the spirit and intent of the action. Americans who have duties, responsibilities, and investments on western lands have become outside observers looking inward. They are increasingly vilified, minimized, and assaulted.
In the cattle business, the results of such public lands assault are finally taking a quantitative form. New Mexico State University research of the Gila National Forest now confirms that federal land agency management equates to a continued reduction of cattle at the rate of about one percent per year. That reduction is constant and it does not tie to any market or drought influence. It is Forest Service management that has become dedicated to wilderness and de facto wilderness priorities. The diminishment of revenue yields for cattle is real and no amount of government action has done anything to alter the rate of contraction.
The logging business has suffered even greater casualties. The Gila is again the example. From scores of logging operations in 1960, not a single full time logging operation now exists. The Forest Service proclaims that the lumber business in the American Southwest is no longer viable. Try to find a single piece of research that supports such a claim.
And, mining … the jaguar project threatens the most economically viable new copper extraction opportunity that exists in our country today, the Rosemont Copper Company’s Santa Rita Mountain project. The main objectors are the Forest Service and the juxtaposition cartels.
Yes, Americans at risk must find ways to protect themselves from their government.
Zoo Master 2.013
In the once flowing spring behind our ranch headquarters, we are told that university paleontologists removed a wooly mastodon skeleton. Where it is today is beyond any guess, but it must be within some hallowed institution for an important, tenured scientist to guard. The fact that it was removed from private land for such safe keeping is another story yet, but that is for another day.
The real interest is the DNA archive that the skeleton and others like it present. Can any of us just wait until technology allows the cloning of more Pleistocene fauna?
The real kicker would come with the real grand cat … the saber tooth tiger. Now there was a cat of distinction … ol’ muscle, blood and guts himself! He might even stimulate the fear of the real God in the hearts of the Rewilding crew if they had to share their nature walk with him!
There is every indication that such a wild idea would come to pass if the technology lent itself to such an outcome. Therein, though, resides the growing catastrophe of the improvisation that has given rise to our dilemma. Our world is a dynamic, ever changing arena. It ebbs and flows. It gives and it takes away, and, ultimately, we can control only those things we can touch and manage.
The words we try to arrange to describe what we face in the midst of our government’s action too often don’t even make sense to us.
We are reminded, though, how important local controls are. The outcome of local actions is driven by conditions and constraints that actually exist. They are shaped by the ability of the combinations of local means to support their perpetuation. That is no different from the reality of the jaguar. He doesn’t exist because natural conditions, regardless of the presence of man, disallow his presence.
No amount of manipulation will change that outcome. The message, though, is clear. If we refuse to manage predicated on local conditions, we are all subject to extinction. We see it everywhere we look, and … our government is the willing facilitator.
Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “We must have balance in these schemes. If we must contend with the jaguar, New York City must accept eastern diamondbacks.” | <urn:uuid:6e7215cf-8d17-416b-bddb-0074c86f8b8d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://thewesterner.blogspot.com/2012/11/jaguars-nepa-coordination.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282202.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00555-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958891 | 1,849 | 1.835938 | 2 |
The disadvantages of bicameral legislatures are the delay of the lawmaking process and the waste of government resources. The bicameral legislature was designed as a checks and balances act by requiring legislation to be passed through two chambers.Continue Reading
The bicameral legislature was created to prevent governments from passing laws too quickly, especially laws that are not for the greater good of society. Laws were required to move through both chambers of the legislature to delay the law-making process. While this seems like a good idea on the surface, many are dissatisfied with this form of legislature because it takes a long time for the chambers to discuss one topic.
It was believed that this type of protection was the right of the people to ensure harsh legislation was not passed hastily. Although this is certainly a right of the people, it is clear that the extra time spent on many laws that are not for the greater good of the people can be utilized more efficiently. Moreover, many fear that with bicameral legislature, the government has the ability to govern in its own best interest, as opposed to the collective view of the electorate. In the United States, the bicameral legislature was looked down upon so much that Nebraska adopted a unicameral legislature in 1934, doing away with America's bicameral roots.Learn more about Branches of Government | <urn:uuid:28647538-4e17-4cc9-82c9-f0241a3df65a> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.reference.com/government-politics/disadvantages-bicameral-legislatures-886825be97bfddcf | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280761.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00094-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976728 | 273 | 3.765625 | 4 |
Wills and Ways: Miscellaneous Kentucky Records
One of the first publications of the Kentucky Genealogical Society was the Wills and Ways: Miscellaneous Kentucky Records book. This 108-page book features multiple family records of over 500 Kentucky families. The index of names is six-pages long. The society published the book in 1975.
The booklet is available to Kentucky Genealogical Society members at our Member Portal.
Since this project was a new task for the young group, there were several leaders who worked to make it possible.
- Kenneth D. Singleton, Jr.
- Mrs. Roud Smith
- Mrs. James F. Graves
- Victor Waits
- Mrs. Kirby Fint, Jr.
Highlights of the Book
The book highlights the following items:
- Wills and Last Testaments from various men
- Vital records from Family Bibles
- Excerpts from the Kentucke Gazette 1787-92
- Listing of the Georgetown Cemetery
- Partial List of Franklin, Henry, Fleming, and Scott County Marriage Records | <urn:uuid:de5528f8-9238-4190-ac74-0d9118d3c424> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://kygs.org/what-we-do/past-projects/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571758.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812200804-20220812230804-00665.warc.gz | en | 0.900119 | 227 | 2 | 2 |
No one can be long in the low-country without seeing jackals or hearing their unearthly cries. Their scientific name canis aureus, "golden dog" seems a trifle too grandiloquent for these forest-scavengers. The Sinhalese call them narriya and the Tamils narri. No sportsman will, of course, go out of his way to shoot one, but if a chance offers might bowl over the beast for the sake of its pretty yellow-grey skin.
They are found everywhere even in cultivated tracts of country, provided there are strips of jungle near, where they can lie up by day. They may often be seen crossing plains and dry fields with their peculiar slinking trot, stopping to look about every minute and breaking with a leisurely gallop if approached and into a headlong belly-to-ground race if fired at. Village dogs will not molest them, only responding with howls to their hideous yells. They are generally seen in families of about half-a-dozen, but often in pairs and sometimes alone. Large packs of them are very seldom met with. They can swim, but will not venture into the water unless very hard pressed, for fear of crocodiles.
Jackals hunt hares, mouse deer and other small animals and sometimes catch monkeys, also peafowl, jungle fowl and other birds. The remains of all the buffaloes and cattle which die of murrain, and of the deer and pigs killed by leopards, are devoured by these animals, in disposing of which offal they perform a useful office. They will dig up the bodies of natives buried on the outskirts of jungle villages, and the graves are consequently always protected by bushes and thorns being piled over them.
The bitches bring up their young in hollow trees. The pups are often found by the villagers and make amusing pets when young. Dogs, however, will not willingly associate with tame jackals, owing probably to the strong disagreeable odour they have.
Jackals do not attack human beings or cattle. Mad jackals have, however, being known to wander into villages and bite the dogs, causing much alarm.
The natives believe that the dog-jackal has sometimes on its head an excrescence which they call the "narri-kombu." Any person possessing a "jackal-horn" will be lucky in everything all his life. ! They believe too that jackals use their urine as a means of defence when pursued. Their flesh is sometimes prescribed as medicinal diet by native doctors.
SCALY ANT-EATERS. Sportsmen in the low-country sometimes come across the scaly ant-eater, manis pentadactyla, probably the queerest creature in the forest. The Sinhalese name is kabalawawâ and the Tamil üllunku.
They are burrowing animals and nocturnal in their habits. It is rather strange that these creatures should often be found in the water and that they can swim well. Large ones may measure 6 feet in length. They are covered with horny plates from head to foot and have a curious habit of rolling themselves up into a ball when alarmed. Their strength is great and it is almost impossible for one man to force one to unroll itself. When undisturbed they crawl about on their bandy legs licking up ants and other insects with their long sticky tongues. They make a sort of hissing noise if approached.
Natives believe that they sometimes kill elephants which molest them by coiling round their trunks. The flesh is eaten by them medicinally.
The scaly skin, if nailed on a wooden shield and varnished, makes rather a handsome hall ornament. | <urn:uuid:11c80970-faa4-4500-b34f-70e4b2c51ddd> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://bookdome.com/outdoors/hunting/Ceylon-Low-Country-Sport/Jackals.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571993.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814022847-20220814052847-00668.warc.gz | en | 0.964448 | 784 | 2.96875 | 3 |
From French to anti-communist to communist, each regime has put its imprint on street names. Take Saigon — oops, Ho Chi Minh City — where nearly all 60 French-named streets have been renamed.
|A historic photo, from the early 1900s, of the Rue Catinat, which later became the Tu Do (Freedom) Street, and still later Dong Khoi (Uprising) Street. Believed to have been taken between 1900-1910Credit: Collection Philippe Chaplain – Fédération Nationale du Patrimoine] *** (Collection Philippe, Federation Nationale / July 4, 2010)|
By Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times July 5, 2010
Literature lovers who come looking for Rue Catinat in this city once known as Saigon better hope they happen upon a Francophile octogenarian.
The street, made famous in Graham Greene’s “The Quiet American,” hasn’t been called that in more than half a century. These days, it’s called Dong Khoi (Uprising) Street. (And before that, it was called Freedom Street. But more about that later.)
The story of Catinat-Freedom-Uprising Street is the story of Vietnam itself: The last half a century has seen French, pro-American and communist regimes, along with an economic opening, each inspiring new names.”I’ve experienced three name changes involving the same street,” said Nguyen Thanh Minh, 56, a restaurant worker in this city, which has had its own name change. “It’s all a bit confusing and can take five or six years to get used to the new one. Sometimes when you mail a letter, you have to write both addresses so it gets delivered.”
Take Rue Catinat, which in “The Quiet American” was portrayed as the epitome of rundown, opium-soaked Saigon under French rule.
Given the baggage associated with this particular street, named after a warship that in 1856 helped cement France’s imperial grip on the country, it’s hardly surprising that the newly independent Vietnamese renamed it as quickly as you can say “au revoir.”
After independence in 1954, as people celebrated a parade of French derrieres returning to Paris, anti-communist dictator Ngo Dinh Diem renamed it Tu Do (Freedom) Street, part of a reassertion of Vietnamese names throughout the country.
Although the new name may have helped Diem cozy up to the Americans in the run-up to the Vietnam War, it didn’t bring the freedom from vice that the Catholic moralist dictator sought.
A flood of American GIs in the 1960s brought more drugs and sex to Freedom Street, along with rock ‘n’ roll and traffic jams. A Vietnamese joke at the time, after city planners routed all vehicles in a single direction, held that freedom was a one-way street reserved for Americans.
With U.S. spending soaring and more shops adopting English names, a worried Saigon government ordered that all stores feature Vietnamese names three times larger than foreign names on their signs. In one noted example, the ” Texas” bar was reborn as the “Te-xa” bar in a larger font.
With the fall of Saigon in 1975, triumphant Viet Cong went on a sign-painting spree, especially in newly renamed Ho Chi Minh City, replacing street names honoring anti-communist heroes with those of communist luminaries.
“First they’d announce a street’s new name on TV or radio,” recalled Nguyen Quang Vinh, a pharmacist and Viet Cong soldier in Saigon when it fell. “Then a couple of days later you’d see them putting up the new signs. There were a lot, so it took some getting used to.”
The street known as Freedom became Uprising Street, after a revolutionary Viet Cong movement in nearby Ben Tre province.
Recently, as more affluent Vietnamese bridle under Communist Party restrictions, that has prompted a joke that everything may be on the rise, but freedom is gone.
Communist revolutionary Nguyen Kim Bach, 70, who helped plan the 1968 Tet offensive, likes the latest crop of street names.
“It’s often good to see a shift, especially when you don’t like what the old names represent,” he said.
Marie Nguyen, 59, who fled Vietnam in the 1970s with her husband, a paratrooper in the anti-communist south, and who now splits her time between Vietnam and Australia, feels differently: “The old names are part of our history. I much prefer them.”
The Communist Party’s efforts to imprint its revolutionary stamp on the citizenry have been helped by Vietnam’s demographics, with one of the youngest populations in the world.
“Youngsters have no memory of what came before, like youngsters everywhere,” Nguyen said.
“I haven’t noticed any real switch,” agreed Le Thi My Hanh, 24, a native of the coastal city of Nha Trang who spent three years in Ho Chi Minh City attending a university before heading overseas for graduate school. “It’s rather hard to relate to older people on the street with all the change.”
In recent years, Vietnam has seen another generation of names as the government reshapes provinces, districts and towns to streamline administration and, some insiders say, bolster the careers of particular party secretaries, a Vietnamese version of gerrymandering.
“These efforts to get manageable units with the population change have become very complicated, with some older names from history reasserting themselves,” said Carlyle A. Thayer, a professor at the Australian Defense Force Academy. “It’s been a bit like putting a straitjacket on a mental patient: It hasn’t always fit.”
The few French street names that have survived in Ho Chi Minh City, down from 60 in colonial times, honor scientists who presumably remain above the ideological fray, including Louis Pasteur (1822-95) and Nobel laureate Marie Curie (1867-1934).
“If the name changes, but the street looks the same, it’s not a problem,” said Nguyen Thanh Minh, the restaurant worker. “But if the whole appearance changes, it gets confusing. Fortunately the numbers stay the same.”
One change that hasn’t really stuck, even after 35 years, is Ho Chi Minh City, which most locals still refer to as Saigon.
“Most Vietnamese prefer the old name,” said Nguyen Kim Bach, the revolutionary. “Saigon is only two syllables. When you have to say ‘the City of Ho Chi Minh,’ it can be a bit of a mouthful.”
Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times | <urn:uuid:a8e6fffa-dd39-4a3f-a380-f70ab8051312> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://dotchuoinon.com/2010/07/05/in-vietnam-a-sign-of-the-times/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571056.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809155137-20220809185137-00672.warc.gz | en | 0.950965 | 1,498 | 2.515625 | 3 |
One of the more common issues faced today in proclaiming the faith is the problem that many, who reject some truth of the faith, set up false dichotomies. A false dichotomy is when one argues that there are only two possible and mutually exclusive alternatives, when in fact there are other alternatives, or the categories are not in fact mutually exclusive.
What makes false dichotomies particularly problematic when it comes to faith is that orthodoxy often requires careful balance and distinction. Since we are dealing with mysteries that often go beyond merely worldly categories, we must be careful in insisting that everything fit into worldly categories and boxes. Orthodoxy quite often says “both” whereas heresy chooses one apparently exclusive truth over and against the the other in order to resolve the tension between them. Orthodoxy also makes distinctions which false dichotomies fail to respect and holds the tension that is often required in two balancing truths.
A few examples of common false dichotomies that are directed against the biblical orthodox faith are:
1. The false dichotomy between Law and Love. In this mode of thinking, somehow law, or rules, or boundaries of any sort are a kind of anti-type to love.
Thus when the Church proposes any sort of limits to behaviors, teaches that certain acts or attitudes are sins, and so forth, the answer is often forthcoming that “God is Love” and that this somehow means that He doesn’t really care that I am doing what you, with all your rules, say is wrong.
A mitigated form of this, is to admit that perhaps a certain behavior is clearly described as wrong in Scripture but that since “God is Love” he therefore “understands” and won’t really care all that much.
But of course to oppose law and love is a false dichotomy. In fact all God’s commandments can be understood to flow quite beautifully from his love for us. The truth sets us free. In commanding us God seeks to preserve us from harmful behaviors that may harm or even destroy us and/or others. Because God loves, he commands.
2. The False dichotomy between Law and Freedom. In this mode of thinking somehow law exists only to limit my freedom. And therefore God, commandments and law belief are an assault on human freedom and exist only to limit and enslave human beings.
But of course law does not only limit freedom, it also enhances it. Since we humans are contingent and limited beings freedom can neither be absolute nor can it be a mere abstraction. Freedom must exist in a context wherein certain freedoms are limited to enhance others.
For example, I am free to write and you to read this post only if we both couch these words and letters within the limits of the rules of grammar and spelling. If you try to insist that you are free to read this post as a German language post, you are not going to really be free to read it. Without the limiting context of rules, the capacity to act stalls, and freedom breaks down. You and I are not free to drive, unless we also accept the limits that traffic law insists upon.
Hence Law and Freedom go together to a significant degree and are not directly opposed. They are not per se a false dichotomy. God gives us his law, not to destroy our freedom but to enhance and enable it. His laws are not prison walls, they are defending walls. The Catechism teaches: The more one does what is good, the freer one becomes. There is no true freedom except in the service of what is good and just. The choice to disobey and do evil is an abuse of freedom and leads to “the slavery of sin” (# 1733)
3. The false dichotomy between Love and punishment. In this mode of thinking, that God might punish us is wholly dismissed as inconsistent with the fact that he loves us. Hence any mention by the Church that punishment might be due for sin, or any move by the Church to apply punitive measures is is called unloving and something Jesus would never do.
But here too is a false dichotomy since love and punishment are not utterly opposed. Any parent who truly loves a child will punish the child when necessary. Surely love will ameliorate unnecessary severity, but to fail to punish or discipline at all is the opposite of love. Punishment exists to help an offender experience in a lesser way the consequences of sin so that they do not experience something worse. To fail to apply proper punishment when necessary is unloving.
My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his sons. For what children are not disciplined by their father?If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate children, but bastards.Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. (Heb 12:5-11)
4. The False dichotomy between Love and Hell. In this mode of thinking the cry goes up, “How can an all loving and merciful God send anyone to Hell? – He would not!”
But here too is false dichotomy between love and Hell. For in fact love requires Hell since love first requires freedom. Without freedom there can be no love. And if somehow God could force a solution and require our presence in his heavenly kingdom no matter our final disposition to his kingship and sovereignty, then God is not a lover, He is a slave owner.
Hell is ultimately God’s respect of our freedom and of his loving refusal to force his will or law upon us.
That Hell is eternal is mysterious, but seems rooted in the fact that our decision for or against God and his Kingdom values (such as mercy, love of enemies, chastity, forgiveness, etc) at some point becomes final and forever fixed.
That Hell is unpleasant is certainly taught. But to refuse the end for which we were intended leads to unpleasant results. Yet that unpleasantness seems self inflicted, rather than merely a punitive measure of God who respectfully permits (I would suppose with reluctance – for He does wish to save us) those who reject him to live apart from Him.
And, while Scripture does speak allegorically of the suffering in Hell, we ought not claim to know precisely the nature and degree of that unhappiness which remains mysterious to us to a large degree, despite the glimpses Scripture gives us.
For now allow these examples to begin a discussion on the false dichotomies that we often face in the world today as we seek to teach the faith. The modern and Western world that is often poorly trained not only in the faith, but also in philosophy and logic. It will also be noted that many of these dichotomies are rooted in the ego-centrism of our times that somehow eschews any notion that God would in anyway inconvenience, punish or demand any sort of accounting from me.
I am interested in having some of you list some of the false dichotomies you encounter as well. There are many of them. I have only listed a few generic ones here. | <urn:uuid:f9565d9c-f444-4182-a524-f86154f1b9dc> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://blog.adw.org/2013/04/on-the-problem-of-false-dichotomies-advanced-by-those-who-oppose-the-faith/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280835.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00465-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9662 | 1,579 | 2.4375 | 2 |
Frank Fournier's famous photograph of Omayra Sánchez
|Born||Omayra Sánchez Garzón
August 29, 1972
|Died||November 16, 1985
Armero, Tolima, Colombia
|Cause of death||Killed by the volcanic eruption of Nevado del Ruiz|
|Parent(s)||Alvaro Enrique Sánchez
Maria Aleida Garzón
Omayra Sánchez Garzón (August 28, 1972 – November 16, 1985) was a Colombian girl killed in Armero, department of Tolima, by the 1985 eruption of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano when she was 13 years old. Volcanic debris mixed with ice to form massive lahars (volcanically induced mudslides, landslides, and debris flows) that rushed into the river valleys below the mountain, killing nearly 23,000 people and destroying Armero and 13 other villages.
After a lahar demolished her home, Sánchez became pinned beneath the debris of her house, where she remained trapped in water for three days. Her plight was documented as she descended from calmness into agony. Her courage and dignity touched journalists and relief workers, who put great efforts into comforting her. After 60 hours of struggling, she died, likely as a result of either gangrene or hypothermia. Her death highlighted the failure of officials to respond correctly to the threat of the volcano, contrasted with the efforts of volunteer rescue workers to reach and treat trapped victims, despite inadequate supplies and equipment.
Sánchez became internationally famous through a photograph of her taken by the photojournalist Frank Fournier shortly before she died. When published worldwide it generated considerable controversy; it was later designated the World Press Photo of the Year for 1986. Sánchez has remained a lasting figure in popular culture, remembered through music, literature, and commemorative articles.
On November 13, 1985, the Nevado del Ruiz volcano erupted. Pyroclastic flows exploding from the crater melted the mountain's icecap, forming lahars (volcanic mudflows and debris flows) which cascaded into river valleys below. One lahar, consisting of three pulses, did most of the damage. Traveling at 6 meters (20 ft) per second, the first pulse enveloped most of the town of Armero, killing up to 20,000 people; the two later pulses weakened buildings. Another lahar killed 1,800 people in nearby Chinchiná. In total 23,000 people were killed and 13 villages in addition to Armero were destroyed.
Loss of life was exacerbated by the authorities' failure to take costly preventive measures in the absence of clear signs of imminent danger. There had been no substantial eruption of the volcano since 1845, which contributed to complacency; locals called the volcano the "Sleeping Lion".
In September 1985, as earthquakes and phreatic eruptions rocked the area around the volcano, officials began planning for evacuation. A hazard map was prepared in October;[nb 1] it highlighted the danger from falling ash and rock near Murillo, Santa Isabel, and Líbano, as well as the threat of lahars in Mariquita, Guayabal, Chinchiná, and Armero. The map was poorly distributed to those at highest risk: many survivors had never heard of it, though several major newspapers had featured it. Henry Villegas of the Colombian Institute of Mining and Geology stated that the maps clearly demonstrated Armero would be affected by the lahars, but had "met with strong opposition from economic interests." He said that the short time between the map's preparation and the eruption hindered timely distribution.
The Colombian Congress criticised scientific and civil defense agencies for scaremongering, and the government and army were preoccupied with the guerrilla campaign in Bogotá, the national capital, which was then at its height.
The death toll was increased by the lack of early warnings, unwise land use, as villages were built in the likely path of lahars, and the lack of preparedness in communities near the volcano. Colombia's worst natural disaster, the Armero tragedy (as it came to be known) was the second-deadliest volcanic disaster of the 20th century (surpassed only by the 1902 eruption of Mount Pelée). It was the fourth-deadliest eruption recorded since 1500 AD. Its lahars were the deadliest in volcanic history.
Omayra Sánchez lived in the neighborhood of Santander with her parents Álvaro Enrique, a rice and sorghum collector, and María Aleida, along with her brother Álvaro Enrique and aunt María Adela Garzón. Prior to the eruption, her mother had traveled to Bogotá on business. The night of the disaster, Omayra and her family were awake, worrying about the ashfall from the eruption, when they heard the sound of an approaching lahar. After it hit, Omayra became trapped under her home's concrete and other debris and could not free herself. When rescue teams tried to help her, they realized that her legs were trapped under her house's roof. Sources differ as to the degree to which Sánchez was trapped. Zeiderman (2009) said she was "trapped up to her neck", while Barragán (1987) said that she was trapped up to her waist.
Sánchez was immobilized from the waist down, but her upper body was free of the concrete and mud. For the first few hours after the mudflow hit, she was covered by concrete but got her hand through a crack in the debris. After a rescuer noticed her hand protruding from a pile of debris, he and others cleared tiles and wood over the course of a day. Once the girl was freed from the waist up, her rescuers attempted to pull her out, but found the task impossible without breaking her legs in the process. Each time a person pulled her, the water pooled around her, rising so that it seemed she would drown if they let her go, so rescue workers placed a tire around her body to keep her afloat. Divers discovered that Sánchez's legs were caught under a door made of bricks, with her aunt's arms clutched tightly around her legs and feet.
Despite her predicament, Sánchez remained relatively positive: she sang to Germán Santa María Barragán, a journalist who was working as a volunteer, asked for sweet food, drank soda, and agreed to be interviewed. At times, she was scared, and prayed or cried. On the third night, Sánchez began hallucinating, saying that she did not want to be late for school, and mentioned a maths exam. Near the end of her life, Sánchez's eyes reddened, her face swelled, and her hands whitened. At one point she asked the people to leave her so they could rest. Hours later the workers returned with a pump and tried to save her, but her legs were bent under the concrete as if she was kneeling, and it was impossible to free her without severing her legs. Lacking the surgical equipment to save her from the effects of an amputation, the doctors present agreed that it would be more humane to let her die. In all, Sánchez suffered for nearly three nights (roughly 60 hours) before she died at approximately 10:05 A.M. on November 16 from exposure, most likely from gangrene or hypothermia.
Her brother and mother survived the lahars; her father and sister died. Her mother expressed her feelings about Omayra's death: "It is horrible, but we have to think about the living ... I will live for my son, who only lost a finger."
As the public became aware of Sánchez's situation through the media, her death became a symbol of the failure of officials to properly assist victims who could have been saved. Controversy broke out after descriptions of the shortages were released in newspapers, disproving what officials had previously indicated: that they had used the best of their supplies. Volunteer relief workers said that there was such a lack of resources that supplies as basic as shovels, cutting tools, and stretchers ran out. The rescue process was impeded by large crowds and disorganization. An unnamed police officer said that the government should have depended on human resources to alleviate the problems and that the system of rescue was disorganized. Colombia's Minister of Defense, Miguel Uribe, said he "understood criticism of the rescue effort", but said that Colombia was "an undeveloped country" that did not "have that kind of equipment."
Frank Fournier, a French reporter who landed in Bogotá on November 15, took a photograph of Sánchez in her final days, titled "The Agony of Omayra Sánchez". When he reached Armero at dawn on the 16th, a farmer directed him to Sánchez, who by then had been trapped for nearly three days and was near-deserted. Fournier later described the town as "very haunting," with "eerie silence" punctuated by screaming. He said that he took the photograph feeling that he could only "report properly on the courage and the suffering and the dignity of the little girl" in his attempt to publicize the disaster's need for relief efforts, feeling otherwise "powerless".
At the time, there was international awareness of the disaster. Sánchez was one of the victims at the center of the associated controversy over responsibility for the destructive aftermath. The image captured international attention. According to an unnamed BBC reporter, "Many were appalled at witnessing so intimately what transpired to be the last few hours of Omayra's life." After the photo was published in Paris Match, many accused Fournier of being "a vulture." He responded,
"I felt the story was important for me to report and I was happier that there was some reaction; it would have been worse if people had not cared about it. ... I believe the photo helped raise money from around the world in aid and helped highlight the irresponsibility and lack of courage of the country's leaders."
The Armero catastrophe came shortly after the M-19 guerrilla group's raid and subsequent Palace of Justice siege on November 6, worsening an already chaotic situation. After Sánchez's death, blame for it and for the Armero tragedy fell on the Colombian government for its inaction and general indifference to warning signs prior to the volcano's eruption.
The Nevado del Ruiz volcano is still active, according to the Volcano Watch Center in Colombia. Melting only 10 percent of the ice would produce mudflows with a volume of up to 200,000,000 cubic meters (7.06×109 cu ft)—similar to the mudflow that destroyed Armero in 1985. Such lahars can travel up to 100 kilometers (62 mi) along river valleys in a few hours. Estimates show that up to 500,000 people living in the Combeima, Chinchiná, Coello-Toche, and Guali valleys are at risk, and 100,000 of these are considered to be at high risk. The city of Armero no longer exists. The site was commemorated as a memorial with Christian crosses and a small monument to Sánchez.
In the years following the eruption, Sánchez has been repeatedly commemorated, especially in newspapers like El Tiempo. Many victims of the disaster were commemorated, but Sánchez in particular has attracted lasting attention in popular poetry, novels, and music.
For example, a punk rock band formed in Chile in 2008 named themselves Omayra Sánchez; they express their "discontent that they feel with the negligence on the part of the people who in this day and age run the world". Adiós, Omayra: La catástrofe de Armero (1988), written by Eduardo Santa as a response to the eruption, depicts the girl's last days of life in detail and cites her in its introduction as an eternal symbol of the catastrophe. In No Morirás (1994), Germán Santa María Barragán writes that of all the horrors he saw at Armero, nothing was more painful than seeing the face of Omayra Sánchez under the ruins of her house. Isabel Allende's short story, "And of Clay Are We Created" ("De barro estamos hechos"), is told from the perspective of a reporter who tries to help a girl trapped under the fireplace of her ruined home. Allende later wrote, "Her [Sánchez's] big black eyes, filled with resignation and wisdom, still pursue me in my dreams. Writing the story failed to exorcise her ghost."
To try to prevent repetition of such a disaster, the government of Colombia created the Oficina Nacional para la Atención de Desastres (National Office for Disaster Preparedness), now known as the Dirección de Prevención y Atención de Desastres (Directorate for Disaster Prevention and Preparedness). All Colombian cities were directed to plan for natural disasters.
- Martí and Ernst, pg 291.
- "Rescuers in Colombia refuse to give up hunt for survivors". Milwaukee Journal. November 18, 1985. Retrieved November 24, 2010.
- Fielding, Emma. "Volcano Hell Transcript". BBC Television. BBC. Retrieved September 3, 2008.
- "BBC:On this day: November 13: 1985: Volcano kills thousands in Colombia". BBC News Online. BBC. November 13, 1985. Retrieved September 3, 2009.
- Villegas, pg 5.
- Gueri, Miguel (October 2004). "Eruption of El Ruiz Volcano, Colombia" (PDF). National Autonomous University of Nicaragua-León. pg 50. Retrieved July 22, 2010.
- Villegas, pg 6.
- Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (November 29, 2009). "Lessons Learned from the Armero, Colombia Tragedy". United States Geological Survey. Retrieved July 20, 2010.
- Touret, Jean-Claude; Laforge, Christophe (1994). "Hazard Appraisal and Hazard-Zone Mapping of Flooding and Debris Flowage in the Rio Combeima Valley and Ibague City, Tolima Department, Colombia". GeoJournal. 34 (4): 407–413. Retrieved August 31, 2010.
- Staff (November 14, 1995). "World News Briefs". CNN. Retrieved September 20, 2008.
- Staff. "Nevado del Ruiz – Facts and Figures". National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Archived from the original on September 25, 2008. Retrieved September 3, 2008.
- Topinka, Lyn. "Deadliest Volcanic Eruptions Since 1500 A.D.". United States Geological Survey. Retrieved September 20, 2008.
- Huggel, Cristian; Ceballos, Jorge Luis; Pulgarín, Bernardo; Ramírez, Jair; Thouret, Jean-Claude (2007). "Review and reassessment of hazards owing to volcano–glacier interactions in Colombia" (pdf). Annals of Glaciology. 45: 128–136. Bibcode:2007AnGla..45..128H. doi:10.3189/172756407782282408. Retrieved April 20, 2011.
- Barragán, Colombia y Otras Sangres.
- "Trapped Girl, 13, Dies". The New York Times. Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. November 17, 1985.
- "Ordeal Ends in Death". Leader-Post. Postmedia Network Inc. November 18, 1985. Retrieved April 19, 2011.
- Barragán (1994), pg 7.
- Zeiderman, pg 10.
- Zeiderman, pg 13.
- Lacey, Dana (August 31, 2010). "Why We Don't Cover Pakistan". Canadian Journalism Project. Canadian Journalism Foundation. Retrieved April 19, 2011.
- "Picture power: Tragedy of Omayra Sanchez". BBC News Online. BBC. September 30, 2005. Retrieved September 28, 2010.
- "Colombian officials defend rescue effort; lack of equipment blamed". Star-News. Bob Gruber. November 24, 1985. Retrieved November 24, 2010.
- "Ottawa Man Third". Ottawa Citizen. James Orban. February 7, 1986. Retrieved April 19, 2011.
- Zeiderman, pg 14.
- "World Photo Award". Spartanburg Herald-Journal. The New York Times Company. February 7, 1986. Retrieved April 19, 2011.
- Camp, Vic (March 31, 2006). "Nevado del Ruiz (1985)". San Diego State University. Retrieved September 3, 2008.
- (subscription required) Thouret, Jean-Claude; Murcia, A; Salinas, R.; Parra, E.; Cepeda, H.; Cantagrel, J-M. (1990). Stratigraphy and quaternary eruptive history of the Ruiz-Tolima volcanic massif, Colombia. Implications for assessement of volcanic hazards (PDF). Symposium international géodynamique andine: résumés des communications. Paris. pp. 391–393.
- Johnson, Tim (September 18, 1997). "Survivors of avalanche relive tragedy through TV movie". Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Journal Communications. Retrieved July 31, 2010.
- Zeiderman, pgs 12–13.
- Zeiderman, pg 12.
- Correas de Zapata and Sayers Peden, pg 76.
- "Dirección de Prevención y Atención de Desastres — DPAD" (in Spanish). Departamento Nacional de Planeación, República de Colombia. June 24, 2010. Retrieved September 1, 2010.
- Barragán, Germán Santa María (1987). Colombia y Otras Sangres (in Spanish). University of Texas. ISBN 978-958-614-248-9.
- Barragán, Germán Santa María (1994). No Morirás. Andres Bollo. ISBN 978-958-06-0084-8.
- Correas de Zapata, Celia; Sayers Peden, Margaret (2002). Isabel Allende: Life and Spirits. Arte Publico Press. ISBN 978-1-55885-363-8.
- Martí, Joan; Ernst, Gerald (2005). Volcanoes and the Environment. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-59725-8.
- Villegas, Henry (September 2003). "Display of the Nevado del Ruiz Volcanic Hazard Map Using GIS" (PDF). Geocarto International. Geocarto International Centre. 18 (3): 5–13. doi:10.1080/10106040308542276. Retrieved July 20, 2010.
- Zeiderman, Austin (June 11, 2009). "Life at Risk: Biopolitics, Citizenship, and Security in Colombia" (PDF). 2009 Congress of the Latin American Studies Association. Retrieved July 22, 2010. | <urn:uuid:de13f78b-ba2b-4d23-9db2-0d1bed328ce3> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omayra_S%C3%A1nchez | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720941.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00518-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936899 | 4,073 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Recent leaks of classified information have undermined the public’s confidence in the ability of their government to keep secrets. Government officials have alleged that these leaks have caused irreparable harm to America’s national security. However, while government officials criticize leaks, they oftentimes are complicit in leaking information when it serves their political interests. All experts seem to agree that some exposures undermine America’s ability to combat terrorism and counter other national security threats. But, other leaks are viewed as a form of whistleblowing and public accountability. Are there good leaks and bad leaks, and who decides? Should the U.S. government do a better job of protecting secrets? Should leakers be prosecuted? What about those media outlets and other entities who publish national security secrets, should they also be prosecuted?
The University of Florida Student Chapter hosted this debate during the 2014 Annual Student Symposium on Friday, March 7, 2014.
Debate 1: “SHOULD WE BETTER PROTECT GOVERNMENT SECRETS AND PUNISH LEAKS MORE SEVERELY?”
8:15 – 9:15 p.m.
J. Wayne Reitz Union
- Dr. Roger Pilon, Vice President for Legal Affairs; B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies; Director, Center for Constitutional Studies, The Cato Institute
- Prof. Nadine Strossen, Professor of Law, New York Law School; Former President, ACLU
- Moderator: Hon. Jerry E. Smith, U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
University of Florida Levin College of Law | <urn:uuid:deb93de7-ab1c-4d14-bbcd-273d3b40f556> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.fed-soc.org/multimedia/detail/should-we-better-protect-government-secrets-and-punish-leaks-more-severely-event-audiovideo | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284411.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00455-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935108 | 324 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Sara Calabro, founding editor of AcuTake is giving us the down low on the ancient art of acupuncture. Although the technique may be old, the idea of a therapy involving needles in this way is brand new to most of us and can easily be intimidating. That’s why we asked Sara to break down the basics for us – dispelling a few myths and answering some questions we always wondered about.
Are you curious about acupuncture? You’re not the only one. Acupuncture seems to be popping up everywhere these days—celebrities are doing it, the morning shows are talking about, legislators are debating it. Yet despite its recent boost in popularity, acupuncture remains submerged in a sea of unknowns and misconceptions. If you’re one of the many people who are considering taking their relationship with acupuncture to the next level, here are 10 things you should know.
It does not hurt.
Most people who have never had acupuncture do not realize how thin acupuncture needles are. They do not bear any resemblance to needles that are used for injections or to draw blood. Acupuncture needles come in varying lengths and thinnesses, and some are as fine as a hair. They bend when you touch them. (Click here to see an acupuncture needle up close.) When needles are inserted into acupuncture points, they often produce a feeling of heaviness, like a dull ache. This is an unfamiliar sensation for most people who have never had acupuncture before, but it does not hurt. If you have a fear of needles, let your acupuncturist know. Most acupuncturists stock several needle sizes and will be more than happy to use the thinnest variety at your request.
It is not just for pain.
It is true that acupuncture can work wonders for back pain, headaches, neck pain, shoulder pain, leg pain, postoperative pain, and pretty much any other kind of pain you can think of. However, pain is just one of many ailments for which acupuncture can provide relief. Acupuncture alleviates digestive problems, menstrual irregularities, allergies, insomnia, stress and anxiety, asthma, and several other conditions. While many acupuncturists are generalists who treat a wide range of ailments, some specialize. Do a little homework before booking an appointment to find out whether an acupuncturist has experience treating whatever you need help with. The AcuTake Acupuncturist Directory, searchable by condition, is a great place to start.
It is not a one-shot deal.
Acupuncture works cumulatively, meaning one treatment builds on the next. If the issue you’re seeking acupuncture for has been bothering you for a while, it probably will take more than one treatment before you notice results. Similar to how medications are ineffective unless you take the prescribed dose, if you don’t get acupuncture consistently and within an appropriate time frame it is unlikely to yield the desired result. After your first treatment, an acupuncturist usually will provide an estimate for how many treatments you’re likely to need. This is always an estimate because response times to acupuncture can vary widely, but it’s a good guideline. If you haven’t seen any improvement after giving it 10 appointments, try out another acupuncturist.
It is a great teacher on gratitude.
The driving idea behind acupuncture is that we already have everything we need to be well. In contrast to bio-medicine, which is premised on the notion of external intervention, acupuncture takes what’s already there and rearranges it into something positive. Acupuncture doesn’t add or subtract anything. Rather, it prompts or reminds the body to do what it knows how to do. An acupuncture perspective teaches us to appreciate what we have rather than what we are lacking. This helps us reframe our desires so that we can better understand our motivations and have greater gratitude for what is.
It is not religious.
Although it’s becoming less common as the general public gets more educated about acupuncture, the myth of acupuncture as a religion or supernatural phenomenon remains. Acupuncture is not religious, nor is it voodoo. There is nothing supernatural or otherworldly happening during an acupuncture treatment. Acupuncture is a healthcare modality designed to help balance your body’s various, interconnected systems. You don’t need to “believe” in acupuncture in order to experience its benefits.
It has great side effects.
Forget what you’ve been told. Acupuncture does have side effects. Many people who seek acupuncture for one issue wind up experiencing a lot of additional benefits. Here are the five most common side effects of acupuncture: better sleep, more energy, mental clarity, better digestion, and less stress. So there you have it, the truth, once and for all: Acupuncture has side effects that can significantly influence your quality of life. Consider yourself warned.
It will open your mind.
Acupuncture requires us to think about physical and emotional health in entirely new ways. Despite noble efforts by many to find one, there is no biomedical equivalent for qi (pronounced “chee”) or for meridians or acupuncture points. Acupuncture turns mainstream medical tenets on their head. It reminds us that there are multiple ways of seeing the world.
It does not have to be expensive.
Private acupuncture sessions can run anywhere from $60-$200, which for many people is unattainable. It’s not a dead end, however. Some insurance companies have recently started adding acupuncture to their benefit packages. And in 2014, under the new healthcare laws, residents of some states will have acupuncture covered as an essential health benefit. Most promising of all, however, is the community acupuncture movement, which has caused hundreds of low-cost acupuncture clinics to spring up around the world. Community clinics usually charge somewhere between $15 and $50 per treatment. To learn more about community acupuncture, click here.
There is a pervasive belief in healthcare that for something to be effective, it must be validated by clinical trials. This is not true. Clinical trials are to thank for many medications and technologies that have extended and improved life for countless people. That does not mean they have the answers to everything. They are merely one way of looking at efficacy. Results from clinical trials on acupuncture are all over the place. Some say acupuncture works, some say it’s no better than placebo, some say it’s worse. This does not mean acupuncture doesn’t work. All it means is that mainstream medicine’s gold standard isn’t able to make sense of it yet. The clinical and anecdotal evidence in favor of acupuncture’s efficacy is sky high. Millions of people have had their ailments erased and their lives changed for the better because of acupuncture. If acupuncture is something you want to try, don’t get bogged down in research. Achieving a true state of health is not about doing something because a study said you should. It’s about becoming aware of the options and deciding what’s right for you.
It will make you an all-around stronger person.
It’s not always easy to embrace acupuncture. Most doctors, as well as some family, friends and colleagues, regard mainstream medicine as the only acceptable form of healthcare. The constant barrage of pharmaceutical advertising is hard to ignore. It takes courage to go against the grain. Acupuncture, although becoming more popular, is still not the norm. It requires a conscious commitment to understanding ourselves in a way that the majority shuns. This is the harder path toward health but ultimately the most rewarding. | <urn:uuid:0069d1b9-50f9-49b3-8f83-46fc9e050dde> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://thechalkboardmag.com/acupuncture-101-10-things-you-should-know-about-acupuncture | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280835.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00466-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946365 | 1,580 | 1.882813 | 2 |
by Don Costello
8/23/2008 / Bible Studies
Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day.
a. This is the sepulchre that Nehemiah had repaired centuries earlier.
1). Nehemiah 3:16 "After him repaired Nehemiah the son of Azbuk, the ruler of the half part of Beth-zur, unto the place over against the sepulchers of David, and to the pool that was made, and unto the house of the mighty."
b. Though David's body was in the grave, his spirit and soul were in heaven. When Jesus ascended into heaven at the end of forty days he took all the men and women who were in Abraham's bosom, or Paradise into heaven. They were saved, yet no one could go to heaven before the resurrection of Christ. Scriptures that testify to this are :
1). Ephesians 4:8 "Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive"
My name is Don Costello. Ever since I received Christ in November of 1976 I have had a passion to study and know God's word.My wife Melissa and I have 5 children.
My e-mail address is email@example.com
I have a blog located at:
Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com
If you died today, are you absolutely certain that you would go to heaven? You can be! Click here and TRUST JESUS NOW
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In this article we are going to talk about the 10 best advice for job interview. Interview, the most common thing one might face in their life. Interview is a way by which you know your employer for the first time. As we know, First impression is always the best impression, it is not only a place to know about your employer but also to impress them and make them know you might be a best option as an employee in their company. So there are some common points which everyone can follow to make their interview a good one and get opportunities.
10 Best Advice for Job Interview
Some of the best advice for job interview that one can follow while attending an interview are as listed below:
1. Have the right body language
This is the first and foremost thing which everyone should be conscious of. Appropriate dress, decent and polite language, proper eye contact, firm handshakes, clear and appropriate speech and avoiding scents & perfumes are some of the body languages which everyone should have while attending their interview. Some of these signs would indirectly give indications to the interviewers that you are not confident and true with what you speak or it will make them think you are too nervous to attend that interview. Your confidence can make you score amongst the interviewers.
Some interviewers might ask about your previous experiences, this is only to check your performance and your behavior aspects. For these questions please answer all the positive things you’ve done with your previous employer. Your interviewers would observe this keenly and come to a conclusion in a positive way. The positive things you have told about yourself will make you score amongst the interviewers. Remember, First impression is the best impression.
Click Here: Best Career Advice
2. Know about the organization
This is also one of the major things you should look up to. You should know about the company in which you have applied for. Sometimes, the interviewers might also question you about their organization. Yeah, this might be surprising but this is a way by which they can know how well you have understood their company and its requirements from you as an employee. So do some research like how old is the company, what kind of services they are offering, how many clients they have dealt with as of now, what are the areas the company is focussed in, how many outlets do they have, what are the places of operation for your company etc…
Some interviewers might be keen and see if you are correct about their company and some might not even ask questions of this sort, anyhow even if they ask you should be in a position to answer these questions. So better be prepared for it.
Read Also: Top 10 Most Respected Jobs In The World
3. Be clear with why you want the job
The interviewers will ask questions like “Why are you so keen in applying for this job?” or “What makes you think that you are better for this role?”. Questions of this sort must be answered keenly. You will be offered with the job only if the interviewers comes to know that you are really, really interested with the job. Tell them about what interests you about the job you’ve applied for or what skills do you really possess to make you suitable for the job you’ve applied. An answer of this sort is going to make them think that you’ve applied for this job only out of interest and you might be suitable for this job. If you fail to score in this part, you’ll not be offered with that job, no matter how good are you.
Read Also: 10 Best Free Job Alert Websites
4. Be active throughout the interview
People sometimes confuse between being polite and being passive as if they both are the same. Being polite doesn’t mean you should not be active. A healthy interview depends only on the conversation which you have with your interviewers. Your answers should be in such a way that even if it is short, it must be explanatory enough for the interviewers to know about you. Only if the interviewers find it good and interesting, they will be interested to speak with you more and more. If you give an answer which is not explanatory enough, they’ll think that you aren’t really interested for the job. So be careful with the answers which you give and try to be active with the interviewer.
Read Also: Top 10 Most Stressful Jobs in the World
5. Be clear with your selling points
Selling points of yourself are one of the most important things which you should explain properly to the interviewer. Have a list of selling points to say. Only if you convey it properly, they’ll be able to know about you and your characteristic points. If you aren’t clear enough, it will make them think you will be an inappropriate person for that position.
6. Be ready to handle inappropriate questions
Questions of this type are quite common. Any questions about your race, age, religion, marital status and sexual orientation are inappropriate. But even if the interviewers ask questions of this sort, it is important that you should answer these or should be able to refuse this in a polite manner. Questions like “I’m not sure how it is relevant to my application” will be a better option if you choose to refuse to answer. These questions can also be a way to check your level of patience and spontaneity to either answer or refuse it.
This is one of the areas in which you should be more careful while you answer. You should not lose your cool or point your fingers or either move your hands more in front of your interviewers while answering these questions. These might affect all the good impressions which you might have gained from the beginning of the interview. Be careful with how you react.
Read Also: 10 Best Job Interview Tips for Freshers
7. Be on Time
Most important thing in every interview you attend is to be on time for your interview. If you fail at this, it will create an impression that you aren’t really interested to attend this and hence you are late for the interview. Make sure you are a bit early than the time slot or the time mentioned for you to attend that interview. Also, if there is any delay from the interviewers’ side you should be patient. This also shows your level of patience. If you are nervous are restless because of their delay, it means you are in urge do to something else other than this and hence the interviewers will come to a conclusion that you patience level is less than expected. You should got give even a single chance for them to think negative things about you.
Read Also: 10 Most Highest Paying Jobs in the World
8. Be careful with what you say
Most of the times questions from the interviewers will be based on what you tell about yourself or what you mention in your resume. In order to prove yourself the best, if you mention things which you haven’t done ever, know that you will be in a big trouble. This is because; you will not be able to answer cohesively for the things you haven’t done. This inconsistency in your speech will make them know that you haven’t done many things in that field or you have less knowledge in the things which you’ve mentioned. So be careful with what you say or mention. Think it in this way, if they ask a question in which you are expert you will have an advantage. So be honest and let them know only about the things which you have done really.
Read Also: 10 Best Job Hunting Strategies
9. Score in the first few minutes
This is so common in every interview. The first few minutes are the time where you can explain about yourself much to the interviewers. After this time, the interviewers might be interested in asking you questions technically based on the post which you’ve applied for. In the first few minutes be extensively cohesive and tell all the plus points which you have. Doing this could sometimes impress the interviewer and drag him to topics and make him ask questions on the topics which you had mentioned while you were speaking in the beginning. If that happens, as mentioned earlier your chance of scoring will be higher. Make Hay while the sun shines.
10. Be prepared a day before
Just prepare yourself before attending any interview. Sometimes you might get nervous at that point where you attend interview. So to avoid that, rehearsal for one or two times before interview is a best way. Also be technically prepared, don’t allow them to think that you are weak technically. So better revise about the technical aspects once or twice before your interview.
These are some of the basic steps and things which every interviewer will look for so be prepared and confident enough to face even the extreme situations. Be positive and prepare yourself based on the points listed above. Know this; your opportunity in an organization purely depends on how you perform in your interview. Nothing comes out without practice and experience so does this. This approach has worked on numerous occasions. So we encourage you to give this method a shot. All the best… | <urn:uuid:b5f7b318-af78-4da4-b437-0be0ee7112b5> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.nearbyme2.com/best-advice-for-job-interview/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571210.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810191850-20220810221850-00470.warc.gz | en | 0.961212 | 1,877 | 1.703125 | 2 |
A group of scientists from Toronto continues to study water found in the Kidd Creek Mine in Timmins which is 2.7 billion years old. The scientist entered the mine this week and gathered some samples. What they’re looking for is if the water contains any life. If it does, the discovery will be truly unique because that life will have been separated from all other life on earth for more than two billion years. And if they do find life, the researchers will want to know how it could survive without sunlight. The first sign of old water was found in 2013 close to the mine’s 7,850 foot level. That water was at least a billion years old and was trapped in rock fissures that kept it from dispersing over the millennia. | <urn:uuid:73143fef-8de0-4b58-96d0-64291797a051> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.mykapuskasingnow.com/10687/news/ancient-water-analysis-continues/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571097.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810010059-20220810040059-00278.warc.gz | en | 0.965502 | 155 | 3.4375 | 3 |
Michael Fallon at Literary Hub:
At every moment we are bombarded by sound waves, light waves, gamma rays, x-rays, the solar wind. All around, through, and even inside of us is restless movement: the brain muses, nerve cells flare, hair grows, food becomes flesh, not to mention all that is going on at the subatomic level. Our senses can only register a narrow band of all this movement, but even what we can sense is far too much for us. To think, to function in the world, to survive, we have to ignore most of what we can see and hear. We need silence.
We need peace of mind to concentrate, which is not possible without silence. Music and poetry—without silence—impossible. Without silence, our dreams—sleeping or waking—are not possible. Without dreams, there can be nothing to imagine, nothing to hope for, no future. Even love is not possible without meaningful silences, and I would go so far as to say that, without silence, there is no freedom.
The composer John Cage was in search of silence when he entered an anechoic chamber at Harvard University in 1951. | <urn:uuid:6005ee30-95e0-48d8-9ca7-1a55ebbddb87> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2015/12/on-john-cage-muzak-noise-torture-and-more.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573029.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817153027-20220817183027-00271.warc.gz | en | 0.94675 | 247 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Pronunciation: (līt'lē),[key] —adv. 1. with little weight, force, intensity, etc.; gently: to press lightly on a door bell. 2. to only a small amount or degree; slightly: lightly fried eggs. 3. nimbly; quickly: to leap lightly aside. 4. with a lack of concern; indifferently; slightly: to think lightly of one's achievements. 5. cheerfully; without complaining: to take bad news lightly. 6. without due consideration or reason (often used negatively): an offer not to be refused lightly. 7. easily; without trouble or effort: Lightly come, lightly go. 8. frivolously; flippantly: to behave lightly. 9. airily; buoyantly: flags floating lightly. | <urn:uuid:83a16896-39bb-42c8-b0fe-427c068ea736> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://dictionary.factmonster.com/lightly | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988721027.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183841-00549-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914426 | 165 | 2.28125 | 2 |
Premenstrual Syndrome or PMS was formally recognized by the medical community in 1953. PMS is characterized by a range of physical and emotional symptoms which usually manifest one to two weeks before the onset of the menstrual periods, and disappear after the periods begin.
"Women complain about PMS, but I think of it as the only time of the month when I can be myself"
- Roseanne Barr, American Television Host
Premenstrual syndrome or PMS is a medical condition affecting nearly 80% of women during the childbearing age (puberty to menopause).
The actual reasons behind PMS are still unclear, though causes point towards hormonal fluctuations - oestrogen and progesterone
during the menstruation cycle or due to low levels of a chemical called serotonin in the brain. that is in charge of mood and behavior. Lifestyle, diet, and stress
are also thought to have a role in triggering PMS.
Symptoms are either physical or psychological or a combination of both. Mood swings, depression, irritation with a feeling of water retention and fatigue are the main symptoms of PMS.
The diagnosis is established by history. There is no known cure for PMS. Treatment is aimed at alleviating the symptoms of PMS. A combination of lifestyle changes, diet and exercise is recommended to help victims cope with the condition. In severe cases, medication may be employed to alleviate the symptoms. Premenstrual Dysphoric disorder (PMDD),
a severe condition plaguing as many as 3-8% of women causes them to experience chronic PMS symptoms for weeks before the onset of the menstrual cycle. Victims of PMDD are prescribed medication to reduce the intensity of symptoms, unlike PMS, where symptoms are milder and for a short duration. | <urn:uuid:4636273e-bc88-4042-a2c0-ebdf40df94f9> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.medindia.net/patients/patientinfo/premenstrual-syndrome.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279650.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00437-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943313 | 364 | 3.609375 | 4 |
Persistence (computer science)
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In computer science, persistence refers to the characteristic of state that outlives the process that created it. This is achieved in practice by storing the state as data in computer data storage. Programs have to transfer data to and from storage devices and have to provide mappings from the native programming-language data structures to the storage device data structures.
Picture editing programs or word processors, for example, achieve state persistence by saving their documents to files.
Orthogonal or transparent persistence
Persistence is said to be "orthogonal" or "transparent" when it is implemented as an intrinsic property of the execution environment of a program. An orthogonal persistence environment does not require any specific actions by programs running in it to retrieve or save their state.
Non-orthogonal persistence requires data to be written and read to and from storage using specific instructions in a program, resulting in the use of persist as a transitive verb: On completion, the program persists the data.
The advantage of orthogonal persistence environments is simpler and less error-prone programs.
Using system images is the simplest persistence strategy. Notebook hibernation is an example of orthogonal persistence using a system image because it does not require any actions by the programs running on the machine. An example of non-orthogonal persistence using a system image is a simple text editing program executing specific instructions to save an entire document to a file.
Shortcomings: Requires enough RAM to hold the entire system state. State changes made to a system after its last image was saved are lost in the case of a system failure or shutdown. Saving an image for every single change would be too time-consuming for most systems, so images are not used as the single persistence technique for critical systems.
Using journals is the second simplest persistence technique. Journaling is the process of storing events in a log before each one is applied to a system. Such logs are called journals.
On startup, the journal is read and each event is reapplied to the system, avoiding data loss in the case of system failure or shutdown.
The entire "Undo/Redo" history of user commands in a picture editing program, for example, when written to a file, constitutes a journal capable of recovering the state of an edited pictures at any point in time.
Shortcomings: Journals are often combined with other persistence techniques so that the entire (potentially large) history of all system events does not have to be reapplied on system startup.
This technique is the writing to storage of only those portions of system state that have been modified (are dirty) since their last write. Sophisticated document editing applications, for example, will use dirty writes to save only those portions of a document that were actually changed since the last save.
Shortcomings: This technique requires state changes to be intercepted within a program. This is achieved in a non-transparent way by requiring specific storage-API calls or in a transparent way with automatic program transformation. This results in code that is slower than native code and more complicated to debug.
Any software layer that makes it easier for a program to persist its state is generically called a persistence layer. Most persistence layers will not achieve persistence directly but will use an underlying database management system.
System prevalence is a technique that combines system images and transaction journals, mentioned above, to overcome their limitations.
Shortcomings: A prevalent system must have enough RAM to hold the entire system state.
Database management systems (DBMSs)
DBMSs use a combination of the dirty writes and transaction journaling techniques mentioned above. They provide not only persistence but also other services such as queries, auditing and access control.
Persistent operating systems
Persistent operating systems are operating systems that remain persistent even after a crash or unexpected shutdown. Operating systems that employ this ability include
- EROS, the successor to KeyKOS
- CapROS, revisions of EROS
- Coyotos, successor to EROS
- Multics with its single-level store
- IBM System/38
- Grasshopper OS
- Lua OS
- Persistent data
- Persistent data structure
- Persistent identifier
- Persistent memory
- Java Data Objects
- Java Persistence API
- System Prevalence
- Service Data Object
- Snapshot (computer storage)
- Balzer, Stephanie (November 17, 2005). "Contracted Persistent Object Programming" (PDF). University of Glasgow - School of CS - Research. ETH Zürich. Retrieved September 21, 2015. | <urn:uuid:150c5f22-e67c-477b-9441-25541d751fd9> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_(computer_science) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720380.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00056-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.89244 | 968 | 3.5 | 4 |
In this classroom activity, students analyze visualizations and graphs that show the annual cycle of plant growth and decline. They explore patterns of annual change for the globe and several regions in each hemisphere that have different land cover and will match graphs that show annual green-up and green-down patterns with a specific land cover type.
In this video, students learn that the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska in 1989 was not the sole cause of the decline of species in the local ecosystem. Rather, an explanation is posited for why some animal populations were already in decline when the spill occurred. Many of these animals share a common food: the sand lance, a fish whose populations have shrunk with the steady rise in ocean temperature that began in the late 1970s.
This video illustrates conditions under which two infectious diseases - cholera and dengue fever - flourish, and how climate change is likely to exacerbate those conditions.
Note: you may need to scroll down the Changing Planet video page to get to this video.
This activity relates water temperature to fishery health within inland freshwater watersheds as a way to explore how environmental factors of an ecosystem affect the organisms that use those ecosystems as important habitat.
This series of five activities about ocean acidification incorporates real data from NOAA. The activities are organized as a pathway, with five levels increasing in sophistication, and different data-based inquiry activities.
This narrated slide show gives a brief overview of coral biology and how coral reefs are in danger from pollution, ocean temperature change, ocean acidification, and climate change. In addition, scientists discuss how taking cores from corals yields information on past changes in ocean temperature.
This video is the second of three short videos showcasing the dramatic changes in Alaska's marine ecosystems. The video highlights the marine mammals and birds and how they depend on Arctic sea ice, as well as questions about how these animals will cope in the face of climate change.
This video explores the work of environmentalist John Hart, a Professor of Environmental Science at U.C. Berkley. In the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, Dr. Hart has established an experimental laboratory in which he has artificially created and maintained a 3-degree increase in surface temperature of a plot of land, and documented the impact on plant species occupying the plot. | <urn:uuid:de19ce50-3156-49aa-8297-154bcdbe1262> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.climate.gov/teaching/literacy/3-biological-processes-depend-energy-flow | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281649.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00437-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930301 | 463 | 3.828125 | 4 |
Q and A with CDC Director Tom Frieden
July / August 2014 | Volume 13, Issue 4
CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden
Dr. Tom Frieden became Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in June 2009. A physician with training in internal medicine, infectious diseases, public health and epidemiology, he is especially known for expertise in tuberculosis control. As Commissioner of the New York City Health Department from 2002-2009, he directed the city's efforts to reduce smoking, cut transfats from restaurant menus and establish electronic health records. Frieden received both his medical degree and master’s in public health from Columbia University.
Why is the CDC engaged in global health?
Sometimes, people wonder, "Why should we be involved in global health since we have so many challenges here at home?” But we can't keep Americans safe just looking at our own country. We need to make sure that we're not only protecting ourselves from diseases that can spread from elsewhere, but also learning lessons that can be learned elsewhere, sometimes more efficiently and effectively.
We're also promoting stability around the world. We're increasing economic productivity around the world and lifting all boats by having healthier communities. We're promoting the reputation of America. I'll never forget the woman I met in Nigeria who was holding her twin babies in her hands and she said to me, "I'm HIV-positive, but my babies are HIV-negative because of PEPFAR [the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief]. And thank the American people for me."
And ultimately, our work in global health is so important to do because it's the right thing to do, because we're a great country and because for a very small investment, we can make a massive change in the lives of literally billions of people.
What global threats concern you?
We face a real storm of vulnerability. There are new risks from new infections like H7N9 influenza. There are resistant organisms, and we're now seeing some microbes that are resistant to all our treatments. And, unfortunately, there is the possibility of the spread of intentionally created organisms either through a bioterrorist attack or through the inadvertent release of organisms. With our globalized world, a threat anywhere is a threat everywhere. If there is the emergence of a disease in any part of the world, it could be in any other part of the world within a day.
What can be done?
Pathogens cross borders effectively, and that's why we need to improve further on our support and partnership with the World Health Organization and with countries around the world to better find, stop and prevent threats to health. That will make for a safer United States and a safer world, because we really are interconnected.
In order to do more in terms of finding, stopping and preventing diseases, we need some core capacities to increase the ability of governments and society to recognize, respond and bounce back, to increase resilience. For detection, we need laboratory networks. For response, we need effective emergency operation centers that can scramble in real time and marshal people who can create a rapid response team and stop an outbreak. And for prevention, we need to be able to get high levels of vaccination and respond to outbreaks effectively to stop them and prevent other threats to health from emerging. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the world does not yet have these capacities fully developed, but fortunately there is a global commitment to do so.
How do partnerships make the world safer?
The ability of public health to find and stop outbreaks is in everyone's best interest. China's story of H7N9 collaboration is a great example of that. Ten years ago, when SARS emerged in China, they did not handle it well. It cost the world $30 billion to deal with SARS. And when H7N9 came about, we then had 10 years of collaboration with the Chinese public health authorities to build on; 10 years of trust, 10 years of capacity building. And from the first hours after they identified the organism, they have been absolutely transparent. They have posted that organism's genome onto the Internet. That allowed us to download it and make a diagnostic test, which we've sent out to every state, dozens of countries and used for any patient with suspected H7N9 influenza.
With that genome, we were able to begin to make a vaccine, to make seed strains, to identify challenges in making that vaccine and address those challenges. Now, what we hope will be an effective vaccine is entering clinical trials. That's the harvest of 10 years of collaboration, 10 years of working together that allowed us to help the Chinese know how to diagnose flu, know how to set up a monitoring network and know how to sequence the genome. That kind of collaboration protects all of us.
This feature was adapted from Dr. Frieden's press briefings on September 10, 2013, December 5, 2013 and February 12, 2014.
To view Adobe PDF files,
download current, free accessible plug-ins from Adobe's website. | <urn:uuid:17e67ab8-acae-4567-9af8-41745d7c57e2> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.fic.nih.gov/News/GlobalHealthMatters/july-august-2014/Pages/cdc-global-health-tom-frieden.aspx?utm_campaign=ghm&utm_medium=email&utm_source=ghmjul2014 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573533.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818215509-20220819005509-00272.warc.gz | en | 0.958918 | 1,036 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Strange sounds that have been heard worldwide – if you have an active imagination you are advised not to listen or watch this video.
Most explanations for the strange sounds worldwide phenomenon are being attributed to either man-made activity or something paranormal. But does the answer actually lie in The Holy Bible?
As the frenzy over the strange sounds heats up, it was only a matter of time before religious people chimed in, citing Bible verses and pointing to this curiosity as a portent of Armageddon. For non-believers, it’s easier to think the weird noises being heard worldwide are explained by nature or intervention by mankind.
But considering this religious angle seriously leads to the conclusion that the Bible does have a lot to say, and that, as usual, it is knowledge which goes back to the Ancients.
Some believes the strange sounds are being made by a Shofar, an ancient horn used to bring down the walls of Babylon and still revered to this day.
Revelation 1:10-11, might explain these weird sounds are explained.
“I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.”
Of course, one must be a believer in Christianity to give this theory weight, but it is striking that the Bible has predicted this phenomenon so chillingly. Many commenters on videos of this global happening liken the booming noises worldwide to that of a trumpet call. And sprinkled throughout the responses are other, more supporting bible verses seemingly predicting this event.
- Seven Churches (media4lifeministries.com)
- Daily Tidbits 1/14/12 – Jubilee (littleguyintheeye.wordpress.com)
- Earth Sounds, Whale Song, Chanting from Gaia- Angels, Low Frequency Audio Signals …? You Decide (the2012scenario.com)
- Remarkable Coincidence: Strange Booming Trumpet Sounds Heard Globally Sound Like Israeli Trumpets (biblicaltimes.wordpress.com) | <urn:uuid:a3e7c022-41c6-4147-87ff-8568c81d7378> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://maboulette.wordpress.com/2012/01/21/strange-sounds-heard-worldwide-what-is-it/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279933.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00126-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922132 | 493 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Dulwich Park covers 29 hectares and is packed with historic features, exciting facilities and perfect picnic spots.
Refurbished in 2006, the Green Flag Award winning park offers a large children's playground, an excellent cafe and a popular cycle hire outlet. The Francis Peek centre has a varied programme of activities to suit everyone.
Created in 1890, Dulwich Park started its life as farmland and a group of meadows known as "five fields"; many of the ancient boundary oaks survive today.
Queen Mary was a regular visitor to the park; she loved to view the American Garden, famous for its rhododendrons which are spectacular when they are in bloom in May. One of the park gates is named after her.
Open daily: 07:30 - sunset (roughly)
Venue Details & Map
- +44 (0)20 8299 1011 | <urn:uuid:1926b05c-871d-461a-987a-cad1d10fc9d6> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.visitlondon.com/things-to-do/place/282008-dulwich-park?tab=ratings | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279189.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00064-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954267 | 180 | 1.664063 | 2 |
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Plant Hardiness Zone 7 stretches across the United States from coastal New England to Oregon and Washington. It dips as far south as Arkansas, Texas and New Mexico. It is divided into two subzones, 7a and 7b. Average minimum temperatures in 7a are from 0 degrees Fahrenheit to 5 F, while 7b sees 5 F to 10 F. Bear in mind that these are average minimum temperatures, so it is possible to get lower temperatures occasionally.
The Right Temperature
Gardeners in Zone 7a have the best of both warm and cool climates. Summer temperatures are warm enough to grow tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and many other subtropical plants. Winter temperatures can be cool enough to freeze the soil several inches deep for brief periods, but moderate enough that a little insulation will protect plants from damage.
Spring planting of vegetable crops should be guided by your last average frost date. If you are unsure of this, ask the local County Cooperative Extension office, listed in the phone book. Seed packet instructions often contain statements such as "Plant seeds indoors six weeks before the last average frost," or "Sow seeds in the garden two weeks after the last average frost date."
Early spring is a good time to get Zone 7a soil tested. Wait until the soil is no longer frozen and has dried out a little. Contact your Cooperative Extension office for instructions on how to take a soil sample. The results of this laboratory test will contain instructions on which soil nutrients are in adequate supply and which need to be boosted with amendments. These instructions are typically based on so many pounds of amendment per 100 square feet.
Add the recommended soil amendments and lightly incorporate them into the top few inches of the soil with a garden fork or three-tine cultivator. Do not dig them in too deep, or they will be beyond the reach of plant roots. Wait for at least one week before sowing seeds or transplanting into the amended soil. This allows time for the amendments to be absorbed and take effect.
Preparing for Winter
When vegetable crops are finished in late fall, add compost and composted manure to the soil. These will increase the soil's vegetative content, which will help it to retain moisture and plant nutrients. Sow a winter cover crop, such as rye, oats, vetch, or peas, to prevent soil erosion by winter winds and rainstorms.
Winter cover crops should be dug or tilled into the soil in early spring. Try to time this process to coincide with the addition of soil amendments as recommended by the laboratory soil test.
Look for microclimates in your garden---small areas that maintain slightly higher temperatures than the rest of your garden. This is where to plant things such as rosemary that otherwise would have to be brought indoors over the winter.
The moderate conditions in Zone 7a allow a wide variety of crops to be grown, including tomato, chili pepper, sweet pepper, basil, carrot, lettuce, roses, peas and beans, radish and cucumber. Many perennial herbs do well in Zone 7a, including sage, thyme, oregano, sweet marjoram and mint. With a little protection, rosemary and lavender can be overwintered. | <urn:uuid:c1a70f7a-2b0d-41e3-9f0b-9658f1ce442d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.gardenguides.com/84798-zone-7a-vegetable-planting.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284405.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00043-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930546 | 666 | 3.46875 | 3 |
American Sign Language Lesson 2 – American Sign Language is a unique language that is commonly taught in schools to aid children in learning to communicate. If you’re thinking about the ideal time to start the process of learning sign language for teens and children it could be surprising – even when they’re only two months old, it’s the ideal time to begin signing in the first year. Sign language can aid your toddler in communicating more effectively with you , and getting started on learning the basic sign language quickly and efficiently. At around the age of six or four months old you’ll already have an interaction with your child. you will be able to understand the language they speak. The child should be able to communicate with you through American Sign Language much quicker than if you learn English or another language later in their lives.
The four main phonetic sounds are ASL (ah as and as, and the letter o), GERD (el, gr, r, and the sound th), and the THA (th as well as y). If your child has been exposed to the American Sign Language Lesson 2, they’ll be able recognize the sounds. As they get older and more experienced, they will be able to distinguish the different sounds they create. At 4 or 5 years old the child will begin with the print-friendly American sign language vocabulary in addition.
The theory is it is believed that American Sign Language Lesson 2 originated in the latter quarter of the 19th century, before it was even possible to create technology like the Telegraph. That is why it is separate from the deaf community’s English language. American Sign Language is actually the most common language used by deaf people across the world use, which will give you a beginning base to use when starting to study the language of conversation.
Although there aren’t spoken word written down on the page in American Sign Language, there are many spoken words that are referred to as alphabets. The alphabets are formed by mixing letters into different shapes like rectangles, squares or circles, for instance. If you’re learning to speak American Sign Language Lesson 2, you should ensure that you are familiar with the proper spelling of the alphabets as they differ from the alphabets used in speaking in the English language. A majority of the signs are the same, however certain signs have been altered to make them more palatable for the pronunciation that was used prior to.
It is possible to begin learning sign language through various ways. An example of the most common ways to learn the language is to use phrases and printed books. In these kinds of books, you will print the phrases in both printed and audio formats. The majority of these books are a collection of phrases and images to assist in the process of learning the language. One drawback of this method is that you won’t hear spoken language as you read the book. But, if you’d prefer to listen to the words rather than not, this is an alternative.
Another way to assist students with learning American Sign Language is through the use of various alphabets for different countries. There are many countries that have different alphabets that are internationally recognized. If you’re using the alphabets of your nation, you can allow you to easily communicate certain words spoken by the alphabet in American Sign Language. This will allow you to improve your communication skills to the community of hearing-impaired people and help you overcome certain communication barriers that are associated with ASL.
The final method through which you can master the American Sign Language alphabet is by using DVDs. The DVDs can assist in making the required links between your letters as well as the various shapes they come in. One drawback of this approach is that you may have attended a school or another educational institution that could benefit from the DVDs. If you’re given the right instruction, you can learn ways to communicate the signs found on the DVDs, and also understand the significance behind the symbols that are used. If you have an accessible DVD and possess a DVD in possession, there is a simple way to master the American Sign Language alphabet.
There are a variety of routes you can help yourself learn American Sign Language. If you look into these possibilities, you can choose the best one to meet your needs. With just a bit of determination and perseverance you can overcome the hurdles that exist when it comes to interacting with deaf people in your local area. This will help you develop greater self-esteem and positively affect those who can’t comprehend spoken words. With the right tools and techniques, you’ll be in position to overcome the obstacles to communication that deaf people confront and help you create a more prosperous life for yourself. | <urn:uuid:43933441-b5f8-4004-9211-bcf61ebf8121> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://americansignlanguages.com/american-sign-language-lesson-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570921.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809094531-20220809124531-00270.warc.gz | en | 0.955715 | 975 | 3.65625 | 4 |
I’m up very late tonight because my heart is heavy and my blood is on fire.
Something you might not know about me is that I used to be a teacher. I taught in kindergarten and preschool classrooms, and I have a Masters Degree in Urban Education and Social Justice.
In my first year as a Kindergarten student-teacher, I received a heart stopping lesson about Race in America.
In the first two weeks of the school year, a pattern showed up everyday during Art Hour… TEARS! Fighting! Hurt feelings!
Over what? Light colored crayons and paints.
Please note that all of my students were children of color.
These Black and Brown 4-5 year olds preferred lighter, whiter skin tones when painting pictures of their own faces, bodies, and family members.
When I asked these precious 5 year olds why they wanted the lighter colors their answers ranged from:
Because I want my mommy to be beautiful.
Because I want my daddy to look strong.
Because white is powerful.
Dark colors are ugly.
Brown is a dirty color.
Lighter is more pretty.
In the eyes of these loving and innocent children, WHITE was GOOD & DARK was BAD.
This is internalized racism. By the age of 5, these kids feared the color of their own skin.
I spent the rest of that school year bringing as many Black and Brown voices, songs, pictures, books, scientists, stories, movies, raps, posters, athletes, artists, and myths into the classroom so the kids could see the beauty in their bodies and see their own precious lives depicted in the world. We processed feelings, healed friendships, and built a community where trust was the bottom line.
And then… two years later… I left my social justice education to pursue my certifications in Life Coaching and Somatic Healing. I’ve been a coach and a facilitator ever since.
My White Privilege has afforded me the luxury to turn my back on Social Justice Education. That makes me a part of the problem.
I’m writing you today to let you know that I’ll be taking a break from your inbox as I do my inner and outer work to combat the racism that is killing Black and Brown lives in my country.
My work looks like:
Working with Anti-Oppression Coaches.
Amplifying Black and Brown Voices as I take a break from posting original content on Instagram.
Having a zero tolerance policy for racist rhetoric.
Journaling out my internal bias using these prompts from Leesa Renee Hall.
The United States is going through a massive awakening right now. I refuse to look away. I’m diving in.
To my White Audience… Will you join me?
To the People of Color in my audience. I see you. I hear you. I’m so sorry for the pain I have caused with my apathy, my silence, and my privilege.
With love and humility, | <urn:uuid:01a4f7ce-1f4b-4a29-aa22-c87088f634e7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://chrissybradysmith.com/author/chrissy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571502.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811194507-20220811224507-00068.warc.gz | en | 0.949197 | 633 | 1.78125 | 2 |
What other nation on earth is like your people Israel? What other nation, O God, have you redeemed from slavery to be your own people? You made a great name for yourself when you redeemed your people from Egypt. You performed awesome miracles and drove out the nations and gods that stood in their way.
As in Greek version (see also 1 Chr 17:21 ); Hebrew reads You made a name for yourself and awesome miracles for your land in the sight of your people, whom you redeemed from Egypt, the nations and their gods. | <urn:uuid:5aca8024-a0e7-44ea-97a7-7ab6593b6bc7> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.biblestudytools.com/nlt/2-samuel/7-23.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280065.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00544-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963917 | 108 | 1.515625 | 2 |
in relation to a child, includes the adoptive parent of a child, but excludes-
|a)||the biological father of a child conceived through the rape of or incest with the child’s mother;|
|b)||any person who is biologically related to a child by reason only of being a gamete donor for purposes of artificial fertilisation; and|
|c)||a parent whose parental responsibilities and rights in respect of a child have been terminated;|
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Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities Act, 2002 | <urn:uuid:279c7d9c-9411-4274-bd15-6e16e5e2524d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.acts.co.za/childrens-act-2005/parent | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00278.warc.gz | en | 0.883657 | 138 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Here you will find one or more explanations in English for the word shinshu. Also in the bottom left of the page several parts of wikipedia pages related to the word shinshu and, of course, shinshu synonyms and on the right images related to the word shinshu.
Definition of shinshu
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Meaning of shinshu from wikipedia
- jōdo shinshū (浄土真宗, 'the true essence
of the pure land teaching'?), also known
as shin buddhism, is a school
of pure land buddhism. it was founded
by" timestamp="2017-01-11t15:25:04z" />
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The images related to shinshu are not available for now. | <urn:uuid:9d197d99-35fa-426b-bf4a-bb88a484287c> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.wordaz.com/shinshu.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284405.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00038-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.856185 | 194 | 1.875 | 2 |
Backgrounds for Abstracts
What you'll learn
- Be able to use new techniques for their backgrounds
- Be able to experiment with painting materials
- Be able to use the new techniques and adapt them to their own needs
- Be able to 'have no fear' when experimenting with painting materials
- Be able to use paint
- Have some experience with acrylic paint and be willing to try new techniques
- Be able to experiment with art materials
Wish you could create a new background or something different for your paintings? This is the course for you. You will learn new techniques that will take you to a new level. Learn new ways to make your backgrounds interesting and varied. Learn how to use water to create simple but beautiful effects, learn to use string and paint to start a painting or learn to use leaves to create interesting textures. The list of new ways to use paint is long and fun to try. Come join me to learn new and interesting ways to start a painting and have fun too.
Who this course is for:
- Any abstract artist who wants to learn new techniques
- Any artist who wants to learn how to create different backgrounds
- Anyone who likes to experiment with painting materials.
Doris fell in love with painting while she was living in Texas. Her neighbour invited her to come along to a painting class as a gesture of friendship and that changed her whole life. Painting has become a passion. Doris took a variety of courses in the U.S. and Canada.
In 2003, Doris was invited to Rivière-du-Loup as an artist for ‘La Marée aux 1000 Vagues’. She also received a Community Artist grant and had the opportunity to travel across Alberta as a guest artist. Doris was published in a desk calendar for the Association de la Femme in Quebec. Her work was chosen for a poster for the Association canadienne de l’éducation langagière francophone in 2004. Since that time, Doris has been featured in the magazines Art Avenue(Vancouver), Somerset Studio(U.S., Spring 2007) and Leisure Painter(U.K., Fall 2007). Doris was the featured artist for Capital Ex in Edmonton in 2009. In 2011, she also received the Sylvie Van Brabant award from the Regroupement artistique francophone de l’Alberta.
Doris prefers to work in mixed media to create a more contemporary effect. She is interested in textures, shapes and light. Her love of texture won her the Allesandra Bisselli Award with the Federation of Canadian Artists in Vancouver. Nature and the world around her are her inspiration. Doris travels a lot to teach her technique to youths and adults who share her love for creation. | <urn:uuid:e756dce0-4231-4652-a5ea-bb492db1971f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.udemy.com/course/backgrounds-for-abstracts/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573760.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819191655-20220819221655-00669.warc.gz | en | 0.958065 | 576 | 2.0625 | 2 |
Change is happening in workplaces all across America. Working people are joining together and organizing, mobilizing, and striking for fairness and justice—and they are winning.
Research shows that working people want a voice: 48% of workers without a union would vote for one in their workplace if they had the chance—a 50% increase since the last survey was taken 22 years ago.
Unionized workers earn more than their nonunion counterparts, have better benefits, and have the security of a written contract—a collective bargaining agreement—protecting their rights. And unionized workers actually raise wages for nonunion workers: A strong labor movement helps all workers and is important to enacting progressive policies like a higher minimum wage, paid family leave, and voting rights.
Federal law is supposed to encourage worker organizing and collective bargaining, but too many employers still interfere in legal and illegal ways when their workers try to form a union with their coworkers. Current law is too weak to stop employer interference. Workers in the public sector—firefighters, police officers, teachers, and other public employees—don’t have comprehensive collective bargaining rights in more than half of U.S. states. We need to strengthen the law, penalize lawbreakers, and expand coverage to all workers. And we need to publicly call out employers when they interfere with workers who are exercising their federally protected right to form a union.
We created the Building Worker Power project to raise awareness about the importance of collective bargaining rights and the labor movement to working people, their communities, our economy, and our democracy.
Building Worker Power: Fact sheets
Unionized workers are very diverse, and they work in most industries across America. More than 15 million working women and men in the United States, or one in nine workers, are represented by a union. This makes organized labor one of the largest and most representative institutions in America. Read more
Unions improve wages and benefits for all workers, not just union members. They help reduce income inequality by making sure all Americans, and not just the wealthy elite, share in the benefits of workers’ labor. Unions help win progressive policies at the federal, state, and local levels that benefit all workers and communities. Read more
There is a huge gap between the share of workers with union representation (12.1%) and the share of workers who would like to have a union and a voice on the job. Almost half of nonunion workers polled (48%) said they would vote to create a union in their workplace tomorrow if they got the chance. Read more
More on unions and collective bargaining
The following resources were produced in collaboration with the AFL-CIO.
What exactly is a union? Broadly speaking, a union is a group of workers who join together to advocate for improvements at the workplace—higher pay, better benefits, training and promotional opportunities, and protections against sexual harassment—and around other issues that concern them. Read more
As of 2017, some 48% of workers without a union would vote to have one at their workplace—a 50% increase since this question was asked in a study conducted more than two decades ago. Read more
Case studies come from published sources, including news articles and the Economic Policy Institute’s 2017 report, How Today’s Unions Help Working People, and unpublished sources, including the unions that are working with the campaigns listed in this document. Read more | <urn:uuid:73a8b293-0fe4-4854-875b-58c1c2933daf> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.epi.org/resources/building-worker-power-2021/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573399.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818185216-20220818215216-00072.warc.gz | en | 0.972034 | 693 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Many of our partners are deeply engaged in human rights work on the ground. WEAVE, our partner on the Thai/Burmese border recently sent us updates several humanitarian crises in the region. Here are two recent updates from the Executive Director of WEAVE (www.weave-women.org):
Forwarding information on the humanitarian crisis in northern Shan State affecting over 30,000 people. Below is a video footage and attached infomation on the extent of displacement. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT4n3-q61L0&feature=player_embedded Crossborder assistance is led by local Shan groups and WEAVE is coordinating with other agencies on the Thai-Burma border to raise funds. Any form of assistance is highly appreciated.
In early June 2011, the ceasefire agreement between the Kachin Independent Army and the Burmese military broke down after subsequent fighting took place that drove thousands of Kachin people to flee on the Kachin-China border. Here is the current update on the situation of Kachin Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAqPThpL_v4&feature=related
Approximately 20,000 people are encamped in 15 temporary shelters along the Burma-China border and around 3,000 people are seeking refugee in towns in Kachin State. Three quarter of IDPs are women and children. Pregnant women and children from camps do not get enough nutrients and treatment because of lack of food supply and medicine. Children are placed in schools but do not receive enough learning materials such as books, pens and etc. There are on-going reports that human rights violations continue to take place. Crossborder assistance is led by local Kachin groups and WEAVE is coordinating with other agencies on the Kachin-China border and internationally to raise funds. Any form of assistance is highly appreciated. | <urn:uuid:1e016313-119f-45e9-a226-04f28ecca5df> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://globalgoodspartners.org/blogs/global-goods-partners-blog/16131243-updates-from-the-burma-region | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719416.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00365-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940921 | 406 | 1.90625 | 2 |
In London, every bit of public ground is monitored all the time... every single street. Besides the government, all the different companies and landowners have their own CCTV cameras, so every spot is watched by everybody. In the most monitored city in the world there is one camera for every 14 people. But does this intense surveillance keep Londoners safe?
Photographer Henrietta Williams and cartographer George Gingell have mapped a ring of steel around London's financial district. Forged from automated bollards, security gates and surveillance cameras anyone who enters is registered electronically and anything out of the ordinary triggers security protocols, even seemingly innocuous things, like video cameras.
The police can rely on the private security to jump in before them, so it's like a faster response unit for less money to the government and to the city of London. And in fact in most cases, the streets in the financial district were given to the developers so that they could enact the policy of complete pedestrianisation of the streets and installation of the defense and surveillance against terrorist attack. The surveillance systems are not just simple cameras. Anyone who behaves unexpectedly triggers an alarm. Imperceptibly, humans can observe and evaluate behavior through smart cameras without anyone noticing. If the camera detects an unusual event, the subject is marked.
One of the world's leading scientists behind the development of smart cameras is Professor James Orwell of Kingston University. The systems his team is developing can detect suspicious activity even before a crime occurs. The way is to present large volumes of data over many months, possibly years, and so that enables the system to develop a statistical model of what is normal and maybe what is abnormal, and so then there is automatic flagging of anything that is considered abnormal.
Professor Orwell has been monitoring the University's car park with one of his new cameras. The system is learning normal patterns of behavior. Who leaves, who arrives, and how they act. It is able to measure for how long people are staying in the area, so it can flag if there is some suspicious behavior, for example if somebody is loitering in the area. But the system doesn't perfectly understand human behavior. An individual only needs to linger momentarily before the system flags them as potentially undesirable. In locations were thousands of people pass in front of the camera every day, it's even more difficult for the system to determine what is normal behavior and what isn't.
Are large groups of people simply on their way to work or they're hiding a terrorist? Either way, inaccurate identifications can have serious consequences. The problem is that anyone suspected of crime in UK quickly loses their right to privacy and over the past decade the UK has been constantly seeking new ways to combat the perceived threats of terrorism. | <urn:uuid:e3856043-1e1d-4597-9653-6bf1355f91fc> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/naked-citizens/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282202.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00548-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964304 | 550 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Tenant Command Naval Ophthalmic Support and Training Activity
Having good vision has always been an essential requirement for military service. The stringent physical standards existing prior to World War II precluded candidates with reduced visual acuity. However, rapid troop mobilization following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor necessitated the lowering of visual standards to man the expanding Fleet. A military ophthalmic program was established by the Navy Appropriation Act of 1942, authorizing funds for prescription eyewear to Navy and Marine Corps personnel serving abroad.
In 1945, a program to provide prescription eyewear for all Navy personnel was introduced. Sixty-five spectacle dispensing units were established to order and fit eyewear being fabricated at civilian laboratories. A five week program at the U. S. Naval Medical Supply Depot, Brooklyn, New York, trained spectacle dispensers to staff these units.
In June 1945, rapid demobilization following World War II resulted in a shortage of trained personnel and required the establishment of an Optical School at the U.S. Naval Medical Supply Depot, Brooklyn, New York, with courses for opticians and dispensers. Later, the Optical School was relocated to the Naval Medical School, National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda, Maryland, and renamed the Optometric Fabrication School. In 1950, the Brooklyn optical fabrication laboratory was moved to the Naval Supply Center, Edgewater, New Jersey, where it remained until 1954 when it was re-designated the Naval Ophthalmic Lens Laboratory and relocated to Naval Supply Center Cheatham Annex, Williamsburg, Virginia.
Expansion of ophthalmic support services significantly increased demand and necessitated several additions to the Cheatham Annex facility. This change in mission resulted in the activity being re-designated as Naval Ophthalmic Support Activity on 1 July 1964. Relocation of the optician training program from Bethesda to Williamsburg was approved by the Navy Surgeon General (SG) and the activity was granted command status as the Naval Ophthalmic Support and Training Activity (NOSTRA) on 6 May 1968. To meet its expanding mission requirements, NOSTRA relocated to Naval Weapons Station Yorktown, Virginia, and a new 10,500 square foot facility was dedicated on 12 January 1973. A second phase of construction added 15,000 square feet, and the Command completed its relocation in May 1974.
On 1 Oct 1978, Department of Defense (DoD) realignment of operational responsibilities created a Tri-Service Ophthalmic Services Program. Key elements supporting this regionalized approach to the world-wide delivery of ophthalmic optical support services were NOSTRA, the Optical Fabrication Laboratory at Fitzsimons Army Medical Center (AMC) in Aurora, Colorado, and twelve smaller, regional single vision optical fabrication labs.
During Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm, NOSTRA met unprecedented demands for production. From August 1990 to March 1991, 431,077 pairs of spectacles were fabricated, of which 185,699 shipped in less than forty-eight hours from the time they were ordered. In January 1991 a single-moth Command production record was set when 75,122 jobs were fabricated and shipped. In this period of increased demand for eyewear, NOSTRA expanded with a new 16,000 square foot addition to the building.
In November 1995, DoD consolidated its optician and optical fabricator training programs at NOSTRA. Soldiers joined Sailors as instructors and students, creating the Tri-Service Optician School (TOPS). TOPS consists of an intensive 24-week course of instruction with graduates certified as Navy Opticians (NEC HM-8463) and Army Optical Laboratory Specialists (MOS 68H). TOPS is accredited by the Council on Occupational Education and the Commission on Optician Accreditation, and graduates receive up to 23 credit hours toward an Associate Degree in Applied Science from J. Sergeant Reynolds Community College.
In 1996, with the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) of Fitzsimons AMC’s lab, NOSTRA became a joint production facility with Soldiers augmenting the Command’s Navy and Civil Service staff. At the same time, a new Frame of Choice Program was implemented, authorizing a wider variety of frame styles to improve quality of life for service members. To expand its customer service outreach, NOSTRA established five east coast Detachments, small single vision labs that provide deckplate and regional services. NOSTRA’s Detachments are located at Military Treatment Facilities at Quantico and Norfolk, Virginia, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and Mayport and Pensacola, Florida. In December 2012, NOSTRA established a sixth Detachment in Bethesda, Maryland at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
In order to meet a congressional mandate directing the implementation of business process reengineering initiatives and improved efficiency for DoD optical fabrication, the Military Health System (MHS) Optical Fabrication Enterprise (OFE) Program was established in 1999. Navy was designated as the responsible Service for optical fabrication and the Navy SG as the OFE Program Manager. NOSTRA’s Commanding Officer serves the Navy SG’s representative for execution of the OFE Program and works in collaboration with tri-service representatives on the MHS Optical Fabrication Advisory Board to coordinate world-wide delivery of optical fabrication services.
In May 2014, a Memorandum of Agreement signed the Surgeons General of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, and approved by the Director, Defense Health Agency, reaffirmed MHS OFE Program mission, and today, NOSTRA continues its longstanding role as DoD’s largest and leading optical fabrication laboratory among the OFE’s 27 labs and. In Fiscal Year 2013, NOSTRA produced over 603,000 pairs of military eyewear, representing 35 percent of the OFE’s over 1.7 million pairs fabricated, and TOPS graduated 94 Sailors and Soldiers. As it has throughout its history, NOSTRA continues to lead the way in “Providing the Armed Forces with the Sight to Fight!”
Naval Ophthalmic Support and Training Activity
160 Main Road, Building 1794
Yorktown, VA. 23691-9984
Office: 757-887-7329 (DSN: 953-7329) | <urn:uuid:9535d539-b38a-43fb-adde-58bb52f90244> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://cnrma.cnic.navy.mil/Installations/WPNSTA-Yorktown/About/Tenant-Commands/Tenant-Command-Naval-Opthalmic-Support-and-Training-Activity/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572304.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816120802-20220816150802-00466.warc.gz | en | 0.946454 | 1,293 | 2.578125 | 3 |
The Main Thing
I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. - John 5:19-20
In your journey to realize God’s dream for your life, God’s will must be at the forefront of your mind. What is God’s will? It’s directly reflected in the character of Christ. In Jesus, we see an aggressive freedom to pursue, articulate, and accept His Father’s will. In his connection to the Father’s will, God’s man sees it, feels it, adopts it, integrates it, and in is individually motivated to pursue it.
God’s dream for you is identical. In the Gospels, Jesus presents a powerful picture of His Father as the creative mind and Himself the primary agent for its expression on earth. It’s a dynamic expression rooted in love, intimate knowledge and a mutual commitment to accomplish a very specific purpose. Before Jesus had healed one person, cast out one demon, or preached one message on the kingdom, the emphatic Father laid the foundation for His Son’s fulfillment of His will by cementing their bond. It’s a bond we will experience when we begin to venture successfully into the Father’s will.
With this type of love pulsating from His Father toward him, Jesus could afford to emotionally and relationally live for an audience of One and the will of One. He would not need the approval or acceptance of men. This made Him Fearless in His focus and approval or acceptance of men. This made Him fearless in His focus and pursuit of the Father’s priorities for His time on earth.
Father, it is your will that fear is not to rule my life. | <urn:uuid:fb1b005a-6ee9-4684-af4e-0a3200b3bed4> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.crosswalk.com/devotionals/every-man-ministries/the-main-thing-every-man-ministries-may-14.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719286.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00499-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951846 | 394 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Revolving doors have inherent hazards whereby the Building Code of Australia (BCA) does not permit revolving doors to serve as an exit door for evacuation purposes and they are not permitted to be installed in class 9a health care buildings and in resident use areas in class 9c aged care buildings. AS 1428.1 and AS 1288 have a significant input in the design.
Revolving doors are not permitted under the Disability Discrimination Act legislation of AS 1428.1-2009 ‘Design for access and mobility – General requirements for access – New building work’ to serve as an accessible path of travel for people with disabilities into and throughout a building.
The design and operation of revolving doors are therefore not controlled and regulated by the BCA and AS 1428.1-2009 in relation to the speed of revolving doors, the design and size of openings.
This however does not absolve an architect, designer or building owner from providing a safe workplace for the occupants under other legislation, such as Work Safe, and therefore if a revolving door exists in the building or is proposed to be installed, the architect, designer and building owner will need to ensure the design and operation of the revolving door is suitable for the purpose, location and is safe for the occupants to use.
The only provision of the BCA that is applicable to the design of revolving doors and their associated glass panels, is for the installation of any glass to be in accordance with AS 1288-2006 ‘Glass in buildings – Selection and installation’. The requirements of AS 1288 are to reduce the risk of injuries that can result from glass breakage by the installation of safety glass and enhancing a person’s awareness of the presence of glass by making the glass visible (manifestation).
Clause 5.19 of AS 1288 stipulates the minimum requirements for markings on glass if the presence of glass in a door, side panel or a panel capable of being mistaken for a doorway or opening is not made apparent by transoms, colonial bars or other decorative treatment, then the glass must be marked to make it visible.
The markings must be readily apparent and note that the requirements in the code AS 1288 are only a minimum and therefore the designers and building owner will need to consider that there maybe circumstances in which the glass is installed that may require additional markings and increased heights of the markings so that the band or markings are readily apparent.
Whilst AS 1428.1-2009 does not apply to revolving doors, there are now increased markings required for glass doors and side lights that may still apply to the curved panels of revolving doors, if they are capable of being mistaken for a doorway or opening and that are located adjacent to swinging entry and exit doors in an accessway. The markings must comprise a contrasting 75mm wide solid line across the full width of the glazed panel in accordance with AS 1428.1-2009, logos can be used provided the minimum markings of 75mm wide solid line is maintained.
Building owners and property managers should consider whether a glazing audit should be performed to establish any risks that are existing.
Building Legislation Table
Refer to our Building Legislation table for further information on the building control process. | <urn:uuid:d4b7e12d-124e-4b12-a1b8-5075ebc6a85d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.buildingcodeaustralia.com.au/?p=516 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280587.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00557-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948415 | 651 | 1.898438 | 2 |
Social networking site Facebook has been blocked in Iran since Saturday, according to the country's opposition, as opposition voters increasingly turn to online tools like social networking to promote their candidates.
Iran will hold elections in June for a new president.
Lacking other suitable media, youth in Iran were using Facebook to promote opposition candidates, and to convince people to participate in the elections, Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a former vice president of Iran and a reformist politician, said in a post on his blog.
Abtahi blamed supporters of current president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for blocking Facebook.
Facebook, blogs and similar websites are a key component of the election strategy of reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi as he tries to mobilize Iran's youth.
There is an account (http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Mir-Hossein-Mousavi-/45061919453) on Facebook in the name of Mousavi which claims over 6,600 supporters, besides a number of other accounts that are mobilizing support for the candidate.
Some reports from Iran suggest that the ban on Facebook may have been lifted. Other bloggers and users of Twitter in Iran are worried that these services may also be cut off. | <urn:uuid:c2a7e536-dfdd-4225-935b-6b67f1b9f642> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.pcworld.idg.com.au/article/304399/facebook_blocked_iran_ahead_elections/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570765.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808031623-20220808061623-00276.warc.gz | en | 0.958958 | 256 | 1.742188 | 2 |
United States v. Chamberlin
Annotate this Case
219 U.S. 250 (1911)
- Syllabus |
U.S. Supreme Court
United States v. Chamberlin, 219 U.S. 250 (1911)
United States v. Chamberlin
Argued December 16, 1910
Decided January 3, 1911
219 U.S. 250
An action lies by the United States to recover the amount of a stamp tax upon execution of a conveyance, payable under the War Revenue Act of June 13, 1898, c. 448, 30 Stat. 448, 470, and the penalties provided in such act for noncompliance therewith are not exclusive of collection of the amount by suit.
A tax may or may not be a debt under a particular statute, according to the sense in which the word is found to be used. But whether the government may recover a personal judgment for a tax depends upon the existence of the duty to pay for the enforcement of which another remedy has not been made exclusive.
Whether an action for debt is maintainable depends not upon who is plaintiff, or how the obligation was incurred, but the action lies wherever there is due a sum either certain or readily reduced to certainty. Stockwell v. United States, 13 Wall. 42.
Nothing in the nature of a stamp tax negatives per se either the personal obligation to purchase and affix the stamps or the collection of the amount by action; nor do provisions for penalties necessarily exclude personal liability.
Penalties may be provided to induce payment of the tax, and not as a substitute for such payment, and it will not be presumed that Congress intends by penalizing delinquency to deprive the government of suitable means of enforcing the collection of revenue.
This case comes here on certiorari. The action was brought by the United States, in the district court of
the United States for the district of Colorado, against the executors of the estate of Winfield Scott Stratton, deceased, to recover the amount of stamp taxes claimed to be payable under the War Revenue Act of June 13, 1898.
The plaintiff alleged that in May, 1899, Stratton had conveyed to a corporation known as Stratton's Independence, Limited, certain lands in the State of Colorado by deed reciting a consideration of $4,850,000; that internal revenue stamps of the value of $4,850 were affixed to the deed, whereas the actual consideration of the conveyance and the value of the lands was $9,733,000, and by reason thereof there became due and payable to the United States from Stratton a revenue tax amounting to $9,733, of which the sum of $4,833 remained unpaid, internal revenue stamps therefor not having been attached to the deed or cancelled; that the Collector of Internal Revenue of the United States for the district of Colorado had reported the facts to the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, who had determined that the sum of $9,733 should have been paid, and demand for payment having been made and refused, the said Commissioner had directed suit be instituted.
The district court sustained a general demurrer to the complaint, and its judgment was affirmed by the circuit court of appeals.
The applicable provisions of the War Revenue Act of June 13, 1898, chapter 448 (30 Stat. pp. 448-470; R.S. Supp. pp. 779-804), are set forth in the margin, together with the amendment to § 13, made by the Act of March 2, 1901, chapter 806, 31 Stat. 941. * | <urn:uuid:3be620ff-8cae-4d04-b446-1dd148e8dc70> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/219/250/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720941.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00518-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960567 | 736 | 1.75 | 2 |
There is much discussion amongst Social media groups such as Facebook and Instagram about the kundalini awakening process, and with that discussion, there’s also a lot of misinformation too. Here in this blog I want to clarify what my experience with a kundalini awakening means.
Kundalini is a form of divine feminine energy located at the base of the spine in the muladhara, (otherwise known as the root chakra). Kundalini was originally a science study of energy and spiritual philosophy. Yogi Bhajan brought Kundalini to western culture and transformed it into the beautiful practice with ancient knowledge and the modern practice that it is today, making it accessible to all.
Kundalini energy is the ultimate life-force energy. It is the source of our creative power, our spiritual gifts, and our divine feminine energy! Kundalini allows the free flow of energy up through the chakras, leading to an expanded state of consciousness.
Kundalini, as the power of consciousness, is a psycho-spiritual energy that has enormous power to be a creator and a destroyer. Kundalini is known as many things, the serpent, the life force, the coil and Goddess (to name a few).
The kundalini coils in the base of the spine are connected to the silver cord and to the pineal gland. When the pineal gland receives stimulation of the higher dimensional frequencies, our kundalini begins to activate into the soul and then the process of DNA activation begins.
When this energy is awakened, the kundalini uncoils and travels up the sushumna, which is known as the subtle channel that links all chakras together. Upon the initiation of the inner spark of light in the tailbone, the spark of light must travel up the kundalini track (sushumna), gradually moving up the body’s vertical column to eventually manifest as spirals of plasmic light radiating from out of the heart center.
As the kundalini energy moves up the susbumna, the kundalini activates the chakras and brings powerful new states of consciousness at each level. At times, kundalini also creates havoc in these instances. Kundalini can be very challenging when awakened very suddenly too.
Kundalini activation is a process that can be quite scary and even dangerous to those who do not know enough about it, and, for those who are inexperienced with deeper achievements of meditation, yoga or breathwork. Some psychotherapists have said that kundalini activation can cause a psychotic break to such individuals. This is also common for individuals who have unhealed trauma, and/or difficulty managing stress levels.
Energy work, Chakra work, Reiki, hypnosis, trauma therapy, and shadow work can all trigger an awakening of Kundalini as you are working with an intent dedication to clear all the blockages and dross in the body, which allows for free flow for the kundalini energy to circulate the body and chakras.
When on reaches Kundalini activation, it can be measured by observations of the outward interactions towards other of how the awakened individual thinks, the quality of their thoughts, and how that influence their behaviors. If we are seeing negative ego traits and other projections of darker energies, we know that kundalini activation has not yet occurred or, at the very least, it has regressed.
A kundalini awakening is undoubtedly a profound and very powerful spiritual experience, and one that yogis and practitioners spend many years preparing for. The progress of Kundalini through the different chakras achieves different levels of awakening and mystical experiences until kundalini finally reaches the Sahasrara (crown chakra), producing an extremely deep and life-changing transformation of consciousness.
There are another 5 chakras located above the Sahasrara, but that’s a blog for another day. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading. | <urn:uuid:9e6a4645-b4bb-4186-8584-d8778a6fc392> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://astrologyreadings.org/2021/09/17/kundalini-awakening/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570765.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808031623-20220808061623-00273.warc.gz | en | 0.935962 | 841 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Trying to find a flea treatment for your children can be a chore. Commercially-prepared treatments that are designed for human hair are hard to find and finding a treatment for children that does not include a variety of harsh chemicals can be difficult as well. However, there is an alternative treatment you can make that contains all natural ingredients and little prep work. One such remedy uses tea tree oil. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, tea tree oil can be effective for killing insects.
Mix 1 tsp. tea tree oil with ¼ cup of grape-seed or olive oil in a small glass jar such as a mason jar or a clean baby food jar. Close the lid tightly and gently shake the mixture.
Put on the gloves and dip your fingers into the mixture.
Apply the mixture liberally to your child's scalp. It is not necessary to coat all of the hair.
Run the fine-tooth comb through your child's hair. This will help rid her hair of remaining fleas. Do not rinse when you are finished combing. Hair may be washed after 24 hours. | <urn:uuid:a794c120-ca9a-4f8d-86d6-f2f7b85acc76> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.livestrong.com/article/227987-how-to-naturally-get-rid-of-fleas-from-your-childs-hair/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280504.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00141-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957452 | 226 | 2.015625 | 2 |
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