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The Last Chicago Boss
Kerrie Droban
Mining for memory
I’ve been asked before about my writing process, how I “live inside a person’s head” and write from their perspective, how I “became Pete” enough to “know him, “understand him”, “live” inside his world for two years and transform his life to paper. I’ve never met Pete—but I conversed with him for hundreds of hours about topics as diverse as The Godfather and The Art of War, Greek dishes and Chicago-style pizza. All topics mattered.
The key to writing about memory and especially someone else’s memories is to realize their significance to them. Memoir includes short narratives of pieces of a life. Pete used to ask me, “Am I doing this right?” But there is no “right” way to tell a life story.
Some colleagues accused me of using “method acting” techniques, a controversial theater whereby the actor “becomes” the character, like Billy Bob Thornton depended on an unusual—and painful—method to nail his character Karl's signature shuffle: The actor placed crushed glass inside his shoes, forcing him to limp around. He earned an Oscar nomination for the role. I didn’t need to know how to ride a motorcycle, or live among the Outlaws to write about them. I needed to “know” Pete; and so I listened to his inflections, the way he told a story, the way he laughed, I listened to what he believed was important. I heard him. And I did my best to capture his essence, his larger-than life powerful persona in just a few thousand words.
Writing Pete’s book was different than any other—in order to “know” Pete we spent every Sunday talking for three hours…not always about his story, sometimes about his life, how challenging it was for him to live in the “square world” and abide by new “rules of engagement.” He said it was like navigating a new planet. But one thing he found universal was the concept of gratitude. He showed me this right out of the gate….sending me a dozen roses as if I had just walked onto a great stage having embarked on the biggest writing adventure of my career. It was a symbolic and thoughtful and deeply touching. He thanked me for my dedication before I had even written a single word.
Life Imitates Art
A major influence in Big Pete’s life was Mario Puzo’s, “The Godfather,” a famed novel about the Corleone Mafia family. Coincidentally, it was also a book I knew well, having particularly recalled the gruesome “horse’s head” in the bed scene. Every Sunday Pete and I spoke for three hours or more while I interviewed him at length about his life as Boss of the Chicago Outlaws Motorcycle Gang. We discussed “The Godfather,” the Mafia, and the symbiotic relationship between The Outlaws and The Outfit. And, as often happens when writing about biker gangs and the players involved, life imitates art.
Shortly after finishing The Last Chicago Boss and delivering the manuscript to St. Martin’s for editing, I was startled awake at midnight. I heard a shuffling outside my front door. I flipped on the hall light, my heart hammering in my chest, and peered through the keyhole. There, on the front stoop, lay a ripped UPS package. I opened the door, stared dully at the plastic wrapped animal skull resting on the top of the box. Antlers poked from the plastic. I stared at the package for several minutes not wanting to flip over the box to study the address for fear of smudging fingerprints. Should I call the cops? And tell them what? There’s a skull on my front porch? Should I text Pete? Wake him up in the middle of the night? And ask him “what the hell”? Who would play such a sick joke on me? Don’t my neighbors know what I write for a living? I paced my hallway in the dark contemplating my options. Finally, I braved flipping over the box. I stared at the return address: China? China? I stared at my address and relief washed over me: the numbers had been transposed. Phew! The box was meant for someone else. Now I was really irritated. What if it was delivered to the wrong neighbor and that neighbor opened it by accident and just assumed it was meant for me? Who in the hell would deliver the animal skull to my front stoop at midnight? It couldn’t have waited until morning? What kind of freakish neighbors do I have anyway? Now I was really pissed. I was more worried about my neighbors now.
I decided to wait until morning to address the skull. I left it on my porch in exactly that condition overnight. I left it there the next morning while I went to work. The freakish bone white skull with the antlers rested on top of the box for the next three hours. I felt a little sick, I felt a little …..like the fictional Jack Woltz who wakes up to the horse’s head in his bed. I texted Pete a photo of the head, along with a “WTF?” in all caps. Pete and I immediately discussed the meaning of the head, reviewing possible scenarios, what did it mean? Who would be sick enough to do blah blah blah. ….finally I summoned the courage to read the name on the address….the head belonged to my neighbor! And when I marched next door with the open box and the skull, she exclaimed, “there it is! I’ve been looking everywhere for that head!”
KERRIE DROBAN is a criminal defense attorney in Phoenix, Arizona, a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University Writing Seminars and the University of Arizona where she received her Masters and Masters of Fine Arts degrees in Poetry. Her true crime books, Running with the Devil: The True Story of the ATF’s Infiltration of the Hells Angels, (Lyons Press, 2007) won the USA News National Book Award for best True Crime in 2008 and Prodigal Father, Pagan Son: My Life Born Into Madness,(St. Martin’s, Winter, 2011) is a two-time winner of the USA News National Book Award for Best True Crime and Best Memoir). Her book, Vagos, Mongols and Outlaws: My Infiltrations into America’s Deadliest Biker Gangs, (St. Martin’s, Winter 2013) is now a television series entitled, “Gangland Undercover,” produced by the History Channel. Her book, A Socialite Scorned: The Murder of Gary Triano, was featured on American Greed, Dateline and in “Murders and Mansions” produced by La Brea Entertainment. Kerrie’s poetry collection entitled “The Language of Butchers” has received critical acclaim, excerpts of which are published in The Antioch Review, Poet Lore, New Letters and Amelia and have won The Academy of American Poet’s Award, New Letters International Poetry Award, The Amelia Encore Award and The Daniel Shockett Award. Her fiction, The Watchman’s Circle (New Concepts Publishing) received the Daphne Du Maurier Award for Mystery Writing Excellence.
Kerrie has been a Keynote speaker at gang task force conferences and a national speaker at various Writing Conferences around the country. She has also appeared on national television on CNBC’s American Greed, “A Widow’s Web.” “A & E’s “Gangland” “Behind Enemy Lines”, the American Hero’s Channel, “Codes and Conspiracies,” Investigation ID and the Discovery Channel’s “Deadly Devotion.”
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Marcus Brigstocke Live in Hong Kong: January 17, 2019
By The Loop HK Staff | December 17, 2018
Marcus Brigstocke
Devil May Care: Comedian, actor and author Marcus Brigstocke has graduated from playing devil’s advocate to addressing his audience as Lucifer himself in his latest tour. The award-winning performer is a regular at festivals such as Glastonbury and the Edinburgh Festival, hosts shows like “The Brig Society” and “I’ve Never Seen Star Wars” on the UK’s Radio 4, and has acted on both stage and screen in productions like West End’s “Spamalot” and romcom “Love Actually.” Catch him in Hong Kong for one night only.
When? 8pm, January 17, 2019.
Where? Tamarind, 2/F, Sun Hung Kai Centre, 30 Harbour Road, Wan Chai.
How much? $388.
How to book? Tickets are available via TicketFlap.
Looking for more to do? See what else is happening in Hong Kong.
Tags: Event Stand Up Comedy Tamarind Wan Chai Events What's Happening
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The Okapi Population Gets a Boost at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge
October 19, 2018 Disney Parks, Featured, Main Street Mouse News, Walt Disney World No comments
From the Disney Parks Blog and written by: Scott Terrell
Today is World Okapi Day, and I believe there’s no better way to celebrate this magnificent animal than announcing the birth of one more!
Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge is celebrating the birth of a rare okapi, who was born on Oct. 1 to mom Zelda. Weighing in at 54 pounds, the calf was up and mobile within the first hour of his birth. He has been nursing and bonding with his mom. The pair will remain in a backstage habitat for the next few months before joining the animals on the savanna.
The calf’s parents – mom Zelda and dad Mandazi – were chosen to breed through the Species Survival Plan (SSP), which is overseen by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) and ensures responsible breeding of threatened and endangered species.
When I visited the okapi care team recently, keeper Kim Thomson expressed how excited she was to care for a new calf and how it changes the dynamics of her team’s routine.
“We will spend a lot of time conducting observations on mom and calf making sure the calf is bonding well with mom, nursing well and basically hitting all of the milestones we would expect of a growing okapi,” Kim said.
Okapis are an endangered species found in rainforests of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Known as the ghosts of the forest, okapis are shy, reclusive and rarely encountered in the wild. In fact, they weren’t even discovered until 1901. There are an estimated 20,000 okapi in the world, and their population continues to decline due to poaching and habitat loss from commercial logging and mining.
Through the Disney Conservation Fund and our involvement in the AZA’s Species Survival Plan, I’m proud to say Disney has been at the forefront of okapi conservation for many years. We have a long-standing relationship with the Okapi Conservation Project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In fact, the AZA recently recognized Disney’s Animal Kingdom for its contributions to the Okapi Conservation Project.
To learn more about okapis and other animals you can visit at the Walt Disney World Resort, visit DisneyAnimals.com.
Disney, DIsney Parks Blog, Disney's Animal Kingdom Lodge, News
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A Good Cause: Giving Orphans a Loving Home
By Jemma Buckley
George Smyth, a 21-year-old student from Bristol University, England, moved to Russia in September 2011. He has spent the last two months living in Kitezh, a therapeutic community that provides orphans with a loving home.
Q: What is Kitezh, and how does it differ from a normal Russian orphanage?
A: Kitezh is located in the Kaluga region and is a therapeutic foster community made up of lots of small buildings for orphans or children who have been taken into care. The adults who live there act as foster parents, teachers and friends to the children. Weekly meetings are held to discuss community issues in which the children take an active role and are encouraged to make suggestions. The members of Kitezh see themselves as one big family and the children receive a lot more attention than they would in a normal Russian orphanage.
Q: What are Kitezh's goals?
A: Kitezh aims to make sure their children are morally aware, able to form loving relationships and that they have received a good education so they are ready to face Russia when they leave. On a national scale, Kitezh aims to promote their educational and psychological methods to try and improve the way that state orphanages are run.
Q: What would a normal day involve for a volunteer?
A: While I was there I helped to build a barn for the goats, taught English, helped out in the kitchen and did activities with the children, like arts and crafts or sports. There is a friendly atmosphere and communication is encouraged.
Q: Why did you decide to live and work at Kitezh?
A: I had never done any volunteer work so it was a new experience for me. I had heard about the difficulties Russian orphans face and wanted to see how Kitezh's program worked. It is also a good chance to experience the real Russian countryside in a safe and structured environment. It's a welcome change to the noisy metropolis of Moscow. I also wanted to improve my Russian, which I have done.
Q: How is Kitezh funded and what can people do if they want to help?
A: Half of Kitezh's funding comes from the state and half comes from Russian companies, individual donors, Western charities and other organizations. There is a good foreign volunteer scheme and Kitezh encourages applications from open-minded people who are willing to contribute to their community.
Kitezh is located 400 kilometers southwest of Moscow in the Kaluga region. To find out more about the community, visit www.kitezh.org/en
Cultural clips
On This Day Anton Chekhov Died
Anton Chekhov died at a spa in Germany on this day.
On This Day Writer Isaac Babel Was Born
A brilliant writer with a tragic fate was born in Odessa on this day.
Julia Phillips' novel follows the people of Kamchatka as they respond to the abduction of two young women.
Religious Celebration
Russian Buddhists Celebrate Kalachakra Religious Festival in Siberia
The Buddhist Kalachakra festival celebrates world peace and harmony.
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Roberta Pennington
World’s largest population of Indian Ocean humpback dolphins found in Abu Dhabi
Three-year research by Environment Agency Abu Dhabi places population estimate at 701
A survey of small cetaceans by the Environment Agency – Abu Dhabi in collaboration with the Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute in the coastal waters of Abu Dhabi found that the area is home to the world’s largest observed population of the Indian Ocean humpback dolphins. Courtesy Environment Agency Abu Dhabi
The emirate’s shallow, warm seawater has attracted the world’s largest observed population of Indian Ocean humpback dolphins.
The Sousa plumbea population was identified during a marine survey of small cetaceans by the Environment Agency — Abu Dhabi (EAD) in collaboration with the Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute (BDRI) along the coastal waters of Abu Dhabi in 2014 and 2015. Findings from the research project, which is ongoing, were published last month in the Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom.
“We are very excited to have identified the presence of the world’s largest population of Indian Ocean humpback dolphins in Abu Dhabi’s waters,” said Dr Shaikha Al Dhaheri, EAD’s executive director — terrestrial and marine biodiversity sector. “This demonstrates the international value of Abu Dhabi’s marine biodiversity and it is our responsibility to ensure the conservation of this important resource.”
Identified by a distinctive hump, elongated dorsal fin and small pectoral fins, the Indian Ocean humpback dolphin can grow up to about 2.5 meters and weigh between 100 and 139 kilograms. The species occur exclusively in the near-shore waters of the Indian Ocean from South Africa to the Bay of Bengal, usually living within 3 kilometres from shore in water less than 25 metres deep. But, little is known about the species, said Bruno Díaz López, director of the BDRI, who co-authored the research paper.
“Up until a few years ago, they were considered data deficient because there were no data about these species,” said Mr Díaz López. “Now this is the first time that there is an abundance estimation and it’s the biggest study about this species.”
The researchers spent 55 days over a period of five months zigzagging the sea along Abu Dhabi’s coast collecting data using hand-held GPS, binoculars, digital cameras and an iPad application used to collect and visualise the environment and human activity information. They applied a “mark-recapture” method, which involved taking photographs of the dolphins’ dorsal fins and storing the images in a digital database that could be used to cross-check future sightings.
“The dorsal fins have unique markings of patterns of notches and cuts that enable us to identify the animal if it is seen again,” said Edwin Mark Grandcourt, the study’s co-author and section manager — marine assessment and conservation terrestrial and marine biodiversity at EAD.
“In the same way that our fingerprints are unique to an individual, the dorsal fin of the dolphin is unique to that animal and we digitise the profile of the dorsal fin to then catalogue it. And then every time we make a sighting, we compare the sighted animals to our catalogue and it’s kind of like image recognition — similar to what a detective will use when he’s looking for a criminal. He will compare a fingerprint to a database — we will do the same thing, we’ll compare a dorsal fin profile to a database of profiles of dorsal fins and that will pull up the ones we have already seen before.”
The scientists spotted humpback dolphins on 32 of the 55 days they spent at sea, or 58 per cent of the time. They observed 54 independent groups of Indian Ocean humpback dolphins, ranging in size from one to 24 individuals. Most groups — 79 per cent — contained less than 10 dolphins. More than one-quarter of the humpback dolphins observed in groups — 27 per cent — were calves.
Using statistical inference models, the researchers estimate that there are 701 Indian Ocean humpback dolphins inhabiting Abu Dhabi waters.
Watch: Group of rarely-seen humpback dolphins spotted off Abu Dhabi coast
Major research project aims to unravel the mystery of the deep-sea whales off Fujairah’s coast
“We really were surprised with the findings because, in general, the humpback dolphins in other places of the world — from South Africa up to almost the Indian coast — all the populations were very small compared with this one, we are talking about 200 individuals maximum in most of the estimations,” said Mr Díaz López, chief biologist and director of the BDRI, who co-authored the research paper.
The sightings also showed clear evidence of threats to the animals caused by human activity. Of the humpback dolphins that were identified, 12 per cent had dorsal fins that were damaged.
“There were a very high number of animals that had evidence of scars that resembled the cuts from propellers or scars that resembled entanglement in gear,” said Mr Grandcourt. “We actually had seen some dolphins that had been entangled in ropes as well. They occur in an area where there is a lot of activity — dredging, shipping, fishing activity — so they are really threatened by those activities and that’s really evident from the number of animals that had scars.”
The research team is currently appealing to private and corporate sponsors to help fund the project.
“What we are trying to do now is we want to carry on running the survey to improve estimates and also to work on other species and, really, to do that we have to reach out to the corporate sector and maybe people who want to spend on corporate social responsibility, or other conservation organisations who want to support us,” said Mr Grandcourt.
Added Mr Lopez: “We are talking about one species that is rare, there are very few populations in the world because it has been clearly impacted by the human activities because of living so close to the shore in areas where humans live. In five years, 10 years maybe they can disappear. It is very important to see the evolution now. We need to monitor their presence in these waters because it is important for us to know if they are OK or if it is necessary to apply some conservation measurements because we found the threats, we know that the main threats are marine traffic and fisheries, but we don’t know at (what scale) it’s affecting the population. Maybe the population is OK, and it will be stable over the years, but maybe not. So that is fundamental to know.”
Dolphins in the Arabian Gulf
During the research team’s days at sea, they came across the three most common species of dolphins found in Abu Dhabi’s water. Over 55 days, there were 54 encounters with Indian Ocean humpback dolphins (Sousa plumbea), 48 with Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) and five with finless porpoises (Neophocaena phocaenoides).
Indian Ocean humpback dolphins (Sousa plumbea)
Red List category and criteria: data deficient
These dolphins are characterised by the conspicuous humps and elongated dorsal fins found on the backs of adults of the species. The dorsal fin of the humpback dolphin is to some degree curved. The pectoral fins are small and the tail flukes have a well-defined median notch. Adults can reach from 1.8 to 2.6 metres and weigh in the range of 100 to 139 kilograms. They typically live less than 3km from shore and in water less than 25 metres deep.
“They play a very important role in the marine ecosystem because they catch other species of fish, but in some way also facilitate the equilibrium of the full ecosystem,” said Bruno Díaz López, director of the Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute.
Source: Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute
Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphina swim at Dolphin Island, part of the Marine Life Park in Resort World in Singapore. Hwee Young / EPA
Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops aduncus)
It is probably the most recognisable of all dolphin species, with its steel grey skin tone, triangular dorsal fin and long rostrum, and it is found along the coastline of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. It differs from the common bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus), showing smaller size, longer rostrum and ventral spotting. However, the Tursiops observed in the Gulf sometimes lack some of these characteristics, leaving the question open as to whether they represent a different subspecies or if both species occur. Bottlenose dolphins can be found in small groups of few individuals but also in big groups of up to 40 individuals. They often approach boats and dhows.
Source: UAE Dolphin Project
A newly born Yangtze finless porpoise swims with his mother at the Hydrobiology Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in China. Getty
Finless porpoises (Neophocaena phocaenoides)
Red List Category and criteria: Vulnerable
Very little information is available worldwide on this species and taxonomy is still an issue. It is one of the most elusive dolphins and among the least studied cetaceans in the world, with a distribution ranging from China through to Thailand, India and the Arabian Gulf. Finless porpoises are notoriously difficult to identify due to the lack of a prominent dorsal fin and their small size. In the Gulf they are a uniform dark-grey colour. They are coastal species that favour sandy and marsh areas and can be found in very shallow waters. These elusive animals have only been recorded a handful of times in this region and are usually only confirmed when they get stranded. Being coastal, this species has been critically impacted by human activity and habitat destruction.
Updated: August 8, 2017 06:29 PM
Sheikh Mohamed receives gift during meeting with Yemeni official
Watch: Emirati astronaut answers questions ahead of historic mission
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Leaked DNC E-mails Show the Fix Was In for Hillary
Written by C. Mitchell Shaw
E-mail and Hillary Clinton: The two seem to go together like oil and water. Whenever the two appear together in an article — much less the same sentence — there is bound to be scandal. Now, as Clinton approaches the official announcement of her nomination as the Democrat candidate in the upcoming presidential race, scandal is once again afoot. This e-mail scandal, though, appears to run through the very center of the DNC.
As a direct result of WikiLeaks publishing a nearly 20,000 DNC e-mails, the Clinton campaign and the DNC itself are scrambling for damage control. In fact, the DNC chairperson, Congresswoman Deborah Wasserman Schultz, has resigned over the scandal. Some of those e-mails show DNC leadership discussing plans to directly manipulate events to favor Hillary Clinton in the bid for the nomination to be the Democrat candidate — in direct violation of the DNC charter, which requires that it remain neutral during the primary cycle. Undermining the Sanders campaign — which was seen as a viable threat to the Clinton campaign — seems to have been a priority of the leadership of a party that claims to be “democratic.”
WikiLeaks released the e-mails late last week — just ahead of the Democratic National Convention, which began Monday — and the fallout was immediate. Wasserman Schultz, who represents Florida’s 20th Congressional District and was elected to the DNC chair in 2011 — resigned as DNC chair over the weekend amid the kerfuffle. Supporters of Bernie Sanders launched a social media campaign — under the hashtag #BernieMustDisavow — in an effort to convince the embattled socialist candidate to rescind his endorsement of Clinton, who those supporters say “stole the nomination.” Clinton’s campaign wasted no time denying any knowledge of any improprieties within the party to guarantee her the nomination.
It’s almost enough to make the Republican convention look normal. Almost.
The most damning of the DNC e-mails shows a clear pattern demonstrating efforts to hurt the Sanders campaign even as he was continuing to gain steam in the primaries:
• One e-mail thread shows the degree to which DNC leadership suffers from a very real detachment from reality. The e-mail — dated May 6 and written by DNC press assistant Rachel Palermo — discusses the media accusation that Clinton was the nominee-assumptive, pre-chosen by party leaders. The e-mail referred to such stories as “#bernieclickbait.”
• An earlier e-mail lays out plans for a series of e-mail announcements to supporters and donors. The e-mail announcements — to be sent and signed by Wasserman Schultz — assume that Sanders will have suspended his campaign and that Clinton will be the nominee. The DNC internal e-mail discussing those plans is dated April 26 at which time Sanders was still actively campaigning and Clinton had not yet secured the nomination.
• An e-mail thread from May 21 details a plan to discredit Sanders by putting forth a “good Bernie narrative for a story, which is that Bernie never ever had his act together, that his campaign was a mess.” That plan was quashed in a reply lamenting that though it would be a good plan, “the Chair has been advised to not engage,” adding, “So we'll have to leave it alone.”
• Ahead of the Rhode Island primary, staffers discussed strategies to “get out in front of this one with an inquiry to the RI Gov, even though she’s one of ours.” The e-mail also said that if Clinton were able to come out on top in that primary, “the Bernie camp will go nuts and allege misconduct,” adding, “They’ll probably complain regardless, actually.”
• The e-mail that has gained the most attention from the mainstream media, though, is dated May 5. That e-mail — written by staffer Brad Marshall — suggests that a reporter in either Kentucky or West Virginia be recruited to ask Sanders about his religious beliefs. The e-mail — under the subject “No sh*t,” said:
It might may [sic] no difference, but for KY and WVA can we get someone to ask his belief. Does he believe in a God. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. I think I read he is an atheist. This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist.
Marshal also added, “It’s these [sic] Jesus thing.” Amy K. Dacey, CEO of the DNC replied, “Amen.”
Sanders has subsequently denied that he is an atheist and the ask-his-belief e-mail has caused a stir with DNC leaders being accused of anti-Semitism. While it could be interpreted that way, it is worth noting two points. (1) One can be Jewish by birth without practicing the Jewish religion; conversely, one can convert to Judaism and practice the religion without having been born a Jew. In other words, the words “Jewish” and “Jew” require context to determine whether what is being discussed is either racial or religious. (2) It is obvious from the context that what is being discussed in the e-mail is the Jewish religion. It is not likely anti-Semitic to say that a man of “Jewish heritage” is not practicing his religion.
The anti-Semitic angle has drawn attention away from other points about the e-mail that are more germane to the point: Those in leadership positions within the DNC — all the way to the top of the food chain — are not above using religion (referring to this as a “Jesus” thing and using Sanders’ lack of observance as an opportunity to besmirch his image) to their own ends, while working in cahoots with reporters who would be willing to do the DNC’s bidding and ask Sanders a question designed to embarrass him for Clinton’s benefit.
Considering the clear pattern of preference given to the Clinton campaign evidenced in the e-mails, there is little doubt that the fallout has only begun for the DNC; Wasserman Schultz may have been the first casualty of this scandal, but she will not likely be the last.
In an effort to stave off the fallout and dodge blame, both the DNC and the Clinton campaign have attempted to lay the leaked e-mails at the feet of Putin, saying that state-sponsored hackers passed the e-mails to WikiLeaks, which they accuse of acting as an arm of Moscow in an attempt to throw the election to Trump. In the absence of any evidence to support that assertion, it is worth noting that even if it were true, it would be beside the point. The point is that the DNC violated its own charter and conspired to assure Clinton the nomination by manipulating the primary process.
As for the nominee, Hillary Clinton is such a close comrade of scandal that she almost assuredly feels right at home. As The New American continues to pore over the leaked e-mails, we will continue to report on our findings.
More in this category: « The Queering of the GOP Undercover Video Confirms Hillary’s Strategy to Ban All Firearms »
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May 26, 2009 - News Leader
TOWN COUNCIL BRIEFS
A company called Jameson Resources is interested in buying coal property from Compliance. The property is located at Blakeburn, near Coalmont. Jameson Resources plans to export coal. If the deal goes through, it could mean 40 to 50 new jobs.
Radio needs adults - Students from Princeton Secondary School have received grants to set up their student radio station. They are looking for adults who would be willing to volunteer their time to work with the students.
Message board - A computer-controlled message board for downtown has met with approval from Princeton Performing Arts, who have donated $500 to the project. The theatre group will give a bursary this year to a local grad planning to study dramatic arts. Princeton Racing Days Association has added their $500 to the message board project. If they could use the board today, they would be telling local residents they need people with experience working in the parimutuels. If you can volunteer for this duty, please call John Bey or Carol Ruoss.
Highland Dancers - Councillor Jason Earle praised Princeton’s Highland Dancers who attended competitions held in Nelson. Every Princeton dancer placed.
Deer count - The Ministry of Environment scheduled a deer count for last weekend to find out how many deer are in town.
Fire protection - Persons noting forestry activity in the Snowpatch area will be pleased to learn this is part of the Wildfire Protection Plan. The work is taking place on private property and will clear out dead wood. Council discussed other areas where dead wood should be removed, such as on the slope between the arena and the high school.
Affordable housing - Council will meet soon with Community Services Society to discuss options for affordable housing.
Airport - Councillor Marilyn Harkness praised the work of the Airport Committee. She had toured the new fuelling facility and reception area. Plans are going ahead for a great celebration at the second annual Airport Day on July 18.
STUDY REVEALS LOCAL HOUSING CONCERNS
The report is titled: “Affordable Housing Assessment - the future of healthy homes for healthy people - Town of Princeton, British Columbia” and is a report prepared for the Princeton Attainable Housing Society (PAHS), dated March 2009 by Alice Sundberg and Dianna Hurford. Here is the report’s Executive Summary: Similar to many small towns in British Columbia, the Town of Princeton is familiar with living in transition. Although recent uncertainty in the resource economy has negatively affected employment in BC, the number of people in Princeton receiving benefits such as Income Assistance and Employment Insurance is decreasing. The majority of residents earn income through employment (60%), followed by a high percentage of pension earners (21%). The majority of Princeton households own their own home (72%). Home prices in Princeton have more than doubled over the past 10 years (from $92,000 in 1998 to $202,000), but a working family with a moderate income may still find Princeton an affordable and pleasant town to buy a home. It appears rents have not yet seen as drastic an increase as the buying market. Rents range upwards from $300 for a bachelor in a non-profit seniors' building and $500 in a private market suite. Four mobile home parks also provide a significant number of affordable options for low-income families and seniors over the age of 55. These findings do not displace the fact that a number of residents are struggling to find housing, and that this number may increase in the near future. This study found that a minimum of 16 low-income families (6 single-parent families with mental health issues), 55 independent seniors, 7 seniors requiring support (such as home care), and 4- 14 single people with mental health issues require healthy, safe and affordable housing in the community. Core need data revealed 275 households living beyond their means, paying more than 30% of their income on housing costs. Upon an initial examination, a significant proportion of the existing affordable stock in the private sector (with the exception to groundoriented homes) is in various states of deterioration. Future affordability and the health of low-income residents will be ‘at risk’ assuming this trend continues and future stocks remains unidentified for replacement. The most relevant trends currently affecting the demand for housing in Princeton include the possibility of a new Similco mine opening in the next two years, a growing seniors population, amenity migration and second-home buying, several retiring doctors and a decrease in wage incentives for locum doctors, a reduction of services at the local hospital, and an aging and uncertain affordable housing stock. The community in Princeton also has many assets to contribute to the future of a strong, healthy community. Future planning will require strong cooperation—planning with residents for the future sustainability of the town, building on community strengths, and addressing challenges. Phase 2 of the project will identify priorities for further exploration and determine the level of demand for particular housing options; phase 3 will provide a feasibility analysis of the priority option. Given the needs, opportunities and challenges identified in the housing needs assessment, the following steps are recommended: 1. Plan to increase the supply of affordable housing for independent seniors, low income families, and persons with mental health disabilities. 2. Involve potential residents in the planning process. 3. Include a holistic approach that includes social, economic and environmental considerations. 4. Build and foster partnerships between all levels of government, private and non-profit sectors. 5. Develop rapport and trust with local government and private sector. 6. Educate and raise awareness in the community about the needs and contributions of low income and vulnerable populations. The PAHS hosts their annual general meeting Thursday, May 21st at 7:00 PM in the Hospital Board Room. The meeting is open to anyone with an interest.
RECESSION DELAYS MINE OPENING
Town Council has revised its priorities due to new information about the mine opening at Copper Mountain. Council learned, at the May 4 public meeting, that the mine is not likely to open before summer 2011. The delay has been caused by the poor economic climate. However, work continues at the mine site. The mine opening, and the Town’s readiness for it, was one of the priorities Council set for this year. Mayor Randy McLean asked Council to revise the priority list, giving greater weight to an evaluation of Town Hall. The building has problems, not only with inadequate space, but with structure. Mayor McLean wants a report as soon as possible about the viability of maintaining Town Hall as it is. He is concerned that the building may have to be replaced.
COUNCIL SIDESTEPS AMBULANCE REQUEST
Town Council received a letter from Ambulance Paramedics of B.C. asking for support. The paramedics are currently bargaining with the provincial government to bring wages into line with other emergency service employees. The ambulance paramedics letter stated the paramedics are currently the lowest paid emergency service workers, receiving only $10 an hour, with an on-call standby wage of $2 an hour. The government asked for a 90 day delay before negotiations continue, and the ambulance paramedics wanted Council’s support by passing a motion requesting the provincial government go back to the bargaining table with a third party mediator. Council took the position that they had no business taking a position of attempting to influence the outcome of a labour dispute, and filed the letter.
LIBERALS ROAST RICK THORPE
The event was identified as a ‘Rick Thorpe Roast and Appreciation Dinner’ and for the almost 100 local Liberal supporters who paid $50 each to get into Riverside Theatre May 2nd, they were well fed and thoroughly entertained. The ‘target’ of the fundraising event in support of Fraser-Nicola Liberal Candidate Ella Brown’s election campaign was Okanagan-Westside MLA Rick Thorpe. And although there was no shortage of jabs, wisecracks and zingers, the flavour of the evening often bounced between a roasting and a
tribute to the retiring former Minister of Small Business & Revenue. RDOS Area Director Brad Hope was first at bat and presented a factual and often hilarious slide show highlighting many of Thorpe’s contributions to the Princeton area. Master of Ceremonies Princeton Mayor Randy McLean was also properly skewered in Hope’s presentation. In fact, for someone who may have arrived late it would have looked as if Hope was presenting a tongue-in-cheek tribute to McLean. Kamloops MLA Claude Richmond keep the room filled with laughter with his funny stories involving Thorpe and the former Speaker of the Legislative Assembly. At one point Richmond quipped, “Rick is a hard worker. Not very effective, but a very hard worker,” which kept the crowd entertained. Richmond did take the opportunity to take a shot at the Referendum on Electoral Reform (the STV vote) and had probably the funniest line during the evening when he stated; “The STV is like a STD, very nasty and difficult to get rid of.” Penticton Mayor and RDOS Chair Dan Ashton and Keremeos Mayor Walter Despot also took their turns with the most entertaining of the speakers being Thorpe’s Administrative Assistant Mike Reid. Reid, who has held that position for the past 13 years, described in great detail his joining ‘TA’ a support group for former staff and employees who have survived working with Thorpe. Reid himself admitted the key to his longevity was linked to his answering “Yes, Minister” to everything Thorpe has asked of him over the years and the ability to cover any follow-up questions with reasonably plausible answers. Then it was Thorpe’s turn. First on his list was a complete roasting of RDOS Area H Director Brad Hope for choosing Australian wines over Similkameen Valley wines to be served during the evening. He also roasted Princeton Mayor Randy McLean for being the biggest whiner of the three Similkameen Valley political heads at the function. Then he roasted Keremeos Mayor Walter Despot for his fears related to the Mobile Business License Program. In all, it was a fun evening full of good-natured barbs and pokes where everyone, including the designated targets, had an opportunity to laugh at themselves and the sometimes silly things that happen while participating in the complex game of politics. Thorpe did state he appreciated the working relationships he had developed with local politicians and enjoyed working with them. “It’s been a pleasure to help your community get the things that really matter to you.”
News Leader Copyright 2010 Bengel Publishing Inc.
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Japanese exchange students, host families, and The Office of Education Abroad staff have a picnic at Bellevue Beach Park. They are enjoying their last weekend in America.
Leonard Ivey
One last ‘kanpai’ for NKU’s Gifu exchange students
Leonard Ivey, Reporter
After two weeks of exploring Kentucky and Cincinnati — and yet another week to come — the Gifu students were ready for a little bit of downtime. It was time for a small going-away party at Bellevue Beach Park in front of the Ohio River, and they had earned it.
After all, in only so little time they were doing so much: from going to watch The Reds and The Bengals in Cincinnati, to taking a tour of Bellevue, to visiting museums in the area, and even going horseback riding in Lexington, they checked off quite the exhaustive itinerary.
Not to mention, of course, that they are Japanese exchange students still learning English.
Gifu University, a college in central Japan that enrolls approximately 8,000 students, sent 11 of its students to NKU for a three-week cultural exchange for the second year in a row. The students arrived on Aug. 26 and left on Sep. 15; their going-away party was on the Sunday before their departure, Sep. 11.
While in America, they were expected to take English classes and put on some presentations about Japanese culture for local schools; outside of that, they had plenty of time to enjoy the people and places of Kentucky and Cincinnati.
A “give-and-take” of culture
Candace Gibson, the Special Projects Coordinator for the Office of Education Abroad at NKU, worked with Dr. Toru Tatsumi of Gifu University to arrange the program. She manages the schedule for the exchange students, and during Labor Day weekend she connects them to host families for a weekend homestay.
“[For NKU students], we do the semester- and year-long exchanges with Gifu — they’re already one of our exchange programs — but they have decided they wanted to do something that was more of a short-term English and cultural exchange [for their students],” Gibson said. “So we decided to do this during their summer, which happens to be right in the beginning of our fall semester.
“For three weeks they stay right here on the river at the Comfort Suites, and they [use the TANK system to] come to campus every day.”
About three days every week of the program, the students take English classes and shadow classes on campus. When they’re not doing classes and presentations, the program also arranges for the students to enjoy regional attractions.
The Office of Education Abroad had arranged for trips such as a visit to the Slugger Museum in Louisville, a Reds game and a Bengals game, a tour of the Toyota factory in Georgetown, and horseback riding in Lexington.
“A lot of the students, when they know they’re coming to Kentucky, they want to ride a horse, they want to try barbecue — you know, things like that. So we’re trying to make sure they get as many of those regional cultural experiences that they can get.”
Joining them in all of their cultural experiences is NKU alum Arturo Minera. He comes along to provide insight about the local cultures wherever they go.
“I get to be the person that sees [the students learn about the American culture], and help them understand and even talk it out,” Minera said. “I’m just there to make sure that they are enjoying and seeing America for what it really is.”
Minera believes the experience is mutually beneficial to both the Japanese students in the exchange program but also the American students that volunteer to go places with them.
“[These students are a good example of how] wherever you go, not only do you have the opportunity to learn, but you also have the opportunity to teach. When it comes to speaking about Japanese culture, they’re the experts, and when it comes to being American, we’re the experts,” Minera said.
“It’s been awesome how, everywhere they go, even though their intention is for them to learn about the American culture: whatever we’re going to see or do, the Americans on the other side end up learning as well.
“We’re learning about what they think. And I think that’s been [my] biggest takeaway: I continue to be reminded about how there’s always a give-and-take to conversation, to dialogue, to experiences, where they are learning about the American culture, and we in turn — by seeing how they respond to it — are learning about the Japanese culture.”
The Japanese students themselves have come to America for many different reasons. Yuka Nishio wanted to improve her confidence in speaking English. She was pleased with how helpful people in America were whenever she was speaking.
“They are very kind…. When I got some trouble because of my English, they talked to me and helped me. So I was very happy and enjoyed my stay.”
The students and host families enjoyed a day in the park. In addition to a picnic, they also brought cornhole and soccer balls.
The host family weekend
On the final weekend of the program, Labor Day weekend, the students were paired with a host family to spend the holiday in an American household. Gibson considers this time to be very valuable.
“There are multiple reasons for our host family stay. One of them being that they are [staying] on the river, and Riverfest is a little — intense,” Gibson said. “So that’s the chance for them to check out of the hotel and spend a good American holiday with a family.
“It’s a little more special than just spending a day or two with them: Labor Day’s normally a time when people plan some nice outings, or they’ve got picnics with their family and friends. So we kind of let them take a break from the hotel and all of the madness of Riverfest.”
She also thinks that not only do the students benefit from the homestay, but the host families also take away something special from the experience.
“I’ve seen so many of our host families that have just — you know, they’re so excited that not only are they opening their home and sharing their culture, but their children are getting more of a glimpse into other cultures in the world. It’s helping them to understand more about people who aren’t exactly like them,” Gibson said.
“I’m Facebook friends with a lot of these host families and a lot of the students from last year, and I can see where they still communicate on Facebook and they form a pretty lasting bond. For several of our host families, this is their second year in a row, so they’re always willing to do this again; apparently they’re getting a really great experience out of it.”
Indeed, the host families themselves echo this sentiment. Matt Steinhauer and his family have hosted every time the program has happened since he became an NKU student, and after hosting the first time he even decided to go to Gifu University to study for a year. He says the experience of hosting and studying Japanese completely changed his career goals.
“[When I originally enrolled at NKU my plan was] to learn enough Japanese to get by and be a computer science major…. So that first year I started taking Japanese, and I had the opportunity to host someone and I did. I couldn’t speak anything, but gradually I was getting introduced to all this Japanese culture which I turned out to love… It really resonates with me,” Steinhauer said.
“Before I realized it, I became an integrative studies major focusing on East Asian studies and Japanese.”
Ashley Reed and her family hosted for the second time this year, and she is planning on doing it again next year. She does her best to accommodate the students and make them comfortable.
“Everybody, whenever you host, is kind of nervous at first; but once you crack that shell, they really feel like they’re part of the family. I like to give them a night to themselves so they can acclimate to the house and don’t feel pressured to do anything…. And then I spend time with them during the weekend, and I always ask, ‘What do you want to do?’ And I try to make whatever they want happen,” Reed said.
“I just treat them like family, like I would anybody else.”
If one wants to participate in the program as a host family, they can contact the Office of Education Abroad here.
The students and host families enjoyed a variety of foods from both America and Japan, such as barbecue and green tea cupcakes. The picnic was held at Bellevue Beach Park.
The Northerner • Copyright 2019 • FLEX WordPress Theme by SNO • Log in
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Thursday, Dec 06, 2018 06:30 PM
Quotes & Notes 12/6/18: Donald on Sack Record, Talib Talks Trubisky
Clarence Dennis
Following each practice, Quotes and Notes will bring you what was said, who said it, and what it means for your Los Angeles Rams.
“These young, innovative offensive people are making me get gray hair.”
-DC WADE PHILLIPS
Defensive coordinator Wade Phillips is preparing for yet another unique offense for Week 14, led by offensive-minded first-year head coach Matt Nagy.
On Thursday, Phillips mocked head coach Sean McVay’s Wednesday press conference — naming several members of the Chicago offense in his opening statement. The coordinator specifically mentioned Bears multi-threat back Tarik Cohen, tight end Trey Burton, and second-year quarterback Mitchell Trubisky as possible problem-causers come Sunday.
Cohen has been an integral part of the Bears’ offense in 2018. The Swiss Army knife of the unit has 315 yards rushing with two touchdowns and 659 yards and four touchdowns receiving in his second season as a pro.
Trubisky missed Weeks 12 and 13 to a shoulder injury, but has been a full participant in this week’s early practices. The former Tarheel is completing 65.4 percent of his passes and has thrown 20 touchdowns with nine interceptions this season.
“I thought he moved around nice, we are expecting probably more from him this week...”
Phillips said while his All-Pro cornerback Aqib Talib wasn’t the only reason the Rams allowed just three first-half points against the Vikings, he is a good communicator and played a part in allowing such few points.
Talib played 26 first-half snaps in Detroit and didn’t see much action before being pulled for the second half.
Phillips and head coach Sean McVay said the veteran defensive back will not likely be on a “pitch count” against the Bears.
PHOTOS: Rams vs Bears Through the Years
Check out photos of the Rams taking on the Chicago Bears through the years .
"St. Louis Rams running back Todd Gurley during the game against the Chicago Bears. (Photo by Scott Rovak/St. Louis Rams)"
Scott Rovak/2015 Scott Rovak/St. Louis Rams
"CHICAGO - DECEMBER 6: Brandon Gibson #11 of the St. Louis Rams runs with a reception against the Chicago Bears on December 6, 2009 at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by G. Newman Lowrance/St. Louis Rams)"
G Newman Lowrance/2009 G. Newman Lowrance
"St. Louis Rams running back Tre Mason during the game against the Chicago Bears. (Photo by Scott Rovak/St. Louis Rams)"
"St. Louis Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald and St. Louis Rams defensive end William Hayes during the game against the Chicago Bears. (Photo by Scott Rovak/St. Louis Rams)"
"The St. Louis Rams defense gets set at the line of scrimmage against the Chicago Bears offense during a NFL football game on Nov. 24, 2013 in St. Louis. The Rams won, 42-21. (Photo by G. Newman Lowrance)"
G. Newman Lowrance/2013 G. Newman Lowrance
"St. Louis Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald and St. Louis Rams strong safety Maurice Alexander during the game against the Chicago Bears. (Photo by Scott Rovak/St. Louis Rams)"
"St. Louis Rams Isaac Bruce scores a touchdown against the Chicago Bears during a game on November 18, 2002 in St. Louis. The Rams won, 21-16. (Photo by Bill Stover/St. Louis Rams)"
Bill Stover/2002 Bill Stover
"ST. LOUIS, MO - NOVEMBER 23: Chris Long #72 of the St. Louis Rams comes off the line against the Chicago Bears on November 23, 2008 at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, Missouri. The Bears defeated the Rams 27-3. (Photo by G. Newman Lowrance/St. Louis Rams)"
"St. Louis Rams James Laurinaitis and Robert Quinn (94) make a tackle on Chicago Bears Matt Forte during a NFL football game on Nov. 24, 2013 in St. Louis. The Rams won, 42-21. (Photo by G. Newman Lowrance)"
"St. Louis Rams Benny Cunningham dives in to score a touchdown during a NFL football game against the Chicago Bears on Nov. 24, 2013 in St. Louis. The Rams won, 42-21. (Photo by G. Newman Lowrance)"
"St. Louis Rams center Tim Barnes and St. Louis Rams quarterback Nick Foles during the game against the Chicago Bears. (Photo by Scott Rovak/St. Louis Rams)"
"St. Louis Rams William Hayes makes a tackle against the Chicago Bears during an NFL football game on Sunday, September 23, 2012 in Chicago. The Bears won the game 23-6. (Photo by G. Newman Lowrance)"
"ST. LOUIS, MO - NOVEMBER 23: The defense of the St. Louis Rams lines up against the Chicago Bears on November 23, 2008 at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis, Missouri. The Bears defeated the Rams 27-3. (Photo by G. Newman Lowrance/St. Louis Rams)"
"CHICAGO - DECEMBER 6: Chris Long #72 of the St. Louis Rams rushes in against the Chicago Bears on December 6, 2009 at Soldier Field in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by G. Newman Lowrance/St. Louis Rams)"
"St. Louis Rams defensive tackle Nick Fairley and St. Louis Rams middle linebacker James Laurinaitis during the game against the Chicago Bears. (Photo by Scott Rovak/St. Louis Rams)"
“I thought he was at his best when we needed him the most.”
-HC SEAN McVAY
Head coach Sean McVay was pleased with running back Todd Gurley’s performance against the Lions.
Gurley bounced back from his 55-yard, banged-up outing against the Chiefs in Week 11 with 132 yards rushing and two touchdowns against the Lions.
McVay said Gurley was well deserving of his NFC Offensive Player of the Week award for Week 13. It was Gurley’s second NFC POTW honor in 2018.
“Yeah I was lying — I really did care.”
-RB TODD GURLEY
Running back Todd Gurley admitted he wasn’t quite truthful with the media last season about whether or not he cared about winning the rushing title.
Gurley finished his NFC Offensive Player of the Year campaign a season ago with 1,305 yards rushing — just 22 yards shy of former Chiefs running back Kareem Hunt’s league-leading 1,327 yards. After coming clean, Gurley said, “Who wouldn’t want to be the NFL’s passing or rushing leader?”
Gurley currently leads the NFL with 1,175 yards on the ground, with Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott not far behind with 1,150.
“If there’s going to be a week where the weather isn’t what we are accustomed to out here in L.A., then we’ll take it.”
Forecasts are calling for lows in the mid-20s and low winds for Sunday’s game in Chicago.
McVay said Thursday’s blustery conditions in Thousand Oaks doesn’t hurt in preparing for Soldier Field in December. Several Rams practiced with sweatshirts under their navy and white practice jerseys, with temperatures hovering in the high-40s on the campus of Cal Lutheran University.
The Rams beat the Broncos 23-20 in an unseasonably frigid game Week 6 in Denver.
“He spreads the ball around, he’s got that Russell Wilson effect, he scrambles to throw the ball downfield, or he’s got that Cam Newton effect — he’s kind of like both of them put together.”
-CB AQIB TALIB
Cornerback Aqib Talib had lofty comparisons for Trubisky’s ability to extend plays and create with his legs.
Trubisky is Chicago’s second-leading rusher with 363 yards and three touchdowns on the ground this season.
Talib said the young quarterback and head coach Matt Nagy work well together to utilize all their weapons on offense. Trubisky has thrown touchdowns to eight different receiving options this season. Rookie wide receiver Anthony Miller leads all Bear receivers with six.
“Anything is possible, you just got to keep playing.”
-DT AARON DONALD
Leading the NFL in sacks, defensive tackle Aaron Donald said he is aware of the 22.5 single-season sack record set by former New York Giant Michael Strahan back in 2001.
On Thursday, Donald said he’s “just playing football” before quoting former Boston Celtic Kevin Garnett — with fewer exclamation marks.
Donald’s 16.5-sack season so far is tied with former defensive end Warren Sapp’s total for the third-most sacks in a season by a defensive tackle in NFL history. Donald went sackless for the first three games of the season, before posting six multi-sack games since Week 4 — including each of his last three games.
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Chandra Crawford, Sheldon Kennedy amplify call on Ottawa to police athlete abuse and harassment
By Lori EwingThe Canadian Press
Fri., Jan. 4, 2019timer4 min. read
A group of Canadian sport leaders have lent their voice to the growing chorus calling for an independent body to handle cases of harassment and abuse.
Former NHL player Sheldon Kennedy and Olympic cross-country skiing gold medallist Chandra Crawford were among the coalition of some three dozen sport organizations, researchers and athletes who sent an open letter Friday to Kirsty Duncan, Canada’s Minister of Science, Sport and People with Disabilities.
“Canada is at a crossroads in its efforts to eliminate the scourge of gender-based violence in sport,” the coalition wrote. “It is clear that the 1996 Sport Canada policy to prevent harassment and abuse in sport has not been effective.”
Duncan is expected to present a proposal on dealing with athlete abuse in Canada to cabinet on Tuesday.
Canadian wrestlers appeal to federal government for independent body on safe sport issues
Canada falling behind on policing abuse and harassment in sports, new study finds
‘My childhood was stolen’: Four women sexually assaulted by ex-ski coach Bertrand Charest speak out
Safe sport has been governed through the Sport Canada Accountability Framework since it was implemented in 1996 in the wake of the sexual abuse scandal involving former junior hockey coach Graham James and Kennedy. Kennedy founded the Sheldon Kennedy Child Advocacy Centre in the wake of abuse at the hands of James.
Sports must have a safe sport policy, and a designated individual to handle complaints, in place to receive government funding.
But critics complain policies aren’t adequately applied.
There are two policy directions being proposed, according to Gretchen Kerr, a kinesiology and physical education professor at the University of Toronto. Canada’s national sports organizations (NSOs) have proposed developing a sport-by-sport system of self-regulation, with more consistent enforcement by Sport Canada. And a coalition of multi-sport organizations, researchers and retired athletes have proposed establishing a single, independent, arm’s length system of education, investigation and compliance.
“The undersigned strongly urge you to endorse the second approach and put in place the steps to realize it,” the letter to Duncan said.
“It’s become quite divisive … there are clearly two distinct points of view on how to move this whole agenda forward,” said Kerr, one of the signees. “A complainant has the option to take it to the NSO, the PSO (provincial sport organization) or an independent body, but it all flows through the NSO. And so the NSO is still playing a triage role, determining whether a complaint is major or minor, and whether it should be handled in-house, or should be handled independently.
“The other problem is the conflict of interest that currently exists, if the complaint goes to the NSO and it involves an Olympic coach or whatever, there are real implications for the NSO and even the staff, if that’s brought forward because the funding for NSOs depends on the team’s performance.”
Canada has had its share of high-profile sex abuse cases in sport. Marcel Aubut resigned as Canadian Olympic Committee president in 2015 after an investigation over numerous sexual harassment complaints.
In June, several former members of Canada’s ski team spoke publicly about the abuse suffered at the hands of former coach Bertrand Charest in the 1990s. Charest was convicted last year of 37 offences of sexual assault and exploitation.
Last month, the sexual assault trial of former Canadian women’s gymnastics coach Dave Brubaker wrapped up in Sarnia, Ont. Brubaker has pleaded not guilty to one count of sexual assault and one count of sexual exploitation, and Justice Deborah Austin is expected to deliver her decision on Feb. 13.
Olympic champion Erica Wiebe was among a group of Canadian wrestlers who wrote an open letter to Duncan last month appealing for a third-party body to handle complaints.
“Sport-by-sport self-regulation means that there will be as many different approaches to gender-based violence as there are sports bodies, a situation that is inconsistent with the principles of uniform treatment and the values of Canadian sport,” Friday’s letter said. “There is clear evidence of the failure of self-regulation. A 2016 study of 40 NSOs showed that after 22 years of Sport Canada’s requirement to have a publicly accessible policy, many of the NSOs had limited policies, often hidden on their website, or no policy at all.”
The coalition argued that sport in Canada is the only remaining child-populated domain that is self-regulating and autonomous, leaving young people vulnerable to harassment and abuse. They stressed that no country has ever developed an effective policy for sport organizations to self-regulate harassment and abuse.
The coalition is proposing a universal policy that has the capacity to investigate all allegations and provide counselling to those affected; mandatory application to all federally-funded sports; focus on education and prevention; and eliminating financial barriers to complainants and sports by providing appropriate funding and fee structures.
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Ubisoft Exclusive
Blue Fang Games
08/11/03 Microsoft Game Studios
Zoo Tycoon: Complete Collection (PC)
Who told you that managing a zoo was easy?
26th Mar 2019 | 122 views
Darwinianevolution
Presentation - 5.0
Gameplay - 7.0
Value - 6.0
Zoo Tycoon: Complete Collection is the compilation of the original game and its expansions. While still a fun game to play and remember, its slow gameplay and surprising difficulty can be jarring.
Game: Zoo Tycoon: Complete Collection.
Platform: PC.
Developer: Blue Fang Games
Videogames that try to simulate certain aspects and activities tend to have a very estrange relation with that they simulate. On the one hand, they have to be close enough to said action to be worth the name of simulation, otherwise the selling point is mostly lost. On the other hand, many aspects of reality that do not translate particularly well to gameplay should be removed to improve the experience, even if it takes the form of acceptable breaks from reality. After all, The Sims would be a completely different game if, instead of paying your bills by clicking on the checks, you had to fill your taxes with painstaking detail. A good simulator will have all the fun aspects of the activity being simulated while also streamlining the aspects that are not particularly suited for an enjoyable experience. After the success of Roller Coaster Tycoon in 1999, a lot of similar themed videogames would try to capitalize on its success, with the business management simulation becoming a well populated genre to this day. One of the most interesting offerings of those days is Zoo Tycoon.
Zoo Tycoon was originally released in 2001. Developed by Blue Fang Games and published by Microsoft, the game received two expansion packs, Marine Mania and Dinosaur Digs, both in 2002, plus an Endangered Species pack. The game was re-released in 2003 as a complete pack, which is the version I’m reviewing. Before starting, a bit of warning. Considering the game has never had a re-release for modern platforms, this games tend to be rather wonky on modern computers, but by fidgeting with the compatibility settings I was able to get it to work to a pretty decent standard. Still, while I haven’t found any problems related to the age of the software during my playthrough, I cannot guarantee that such a thing won’t happen in OS above Windows 8.1.
The game itself is quite simple in its approach. You are a zoo manager that have to create successful and sustainable zoo models. You have a patch of land, usually barren, a bit of money to start your zoo and a selection of animals, commerces and general attractions to get people to come to the zoo and enjoy the animals (while spending as many of their dollars as possible). The more success you have in that regard, the more access to new structures and animals you will be able to use. And that’s pretty much it. Keeping the business together is a rather taxing activity, though. Making the animals as happy and healthy as possible, increasing the efficiency of your employees, checking which of your commerces is doing right and which one should be moved or substituted for another, designing the layout of the zoo to keep the visitors from getting lost, making the appropriate repairs, handling the budget for investigation and advertisement… All of this elements are expected on a zoo simulator, and are done quite well here. They never feel like they overtax your attention, and with the ability of different speed settings for your playthrough, you can use all the time and attention you want. With that said, once you get used to the rhythm of the game, you may find the game loop somewhat repetitive and tedious. Many critics and players have complained that, once the structure of the zoo is put into place, you only need to react to whatever problems appear, and that might turn your experience from an active creative role to a more passive caretaker, with most of the actions of the game being quite automated. While that is one of the criticisms of the game, I’ve never found myself really falling for that, although that might be because I’ve always focused my attention on the campaign mode, rather than the freestyle mode.
There are two forms of gameplay in Zoo Tycoon, Freestyle and Campaign, both being quite self-explanatory. Freestyle gives you no objectives and no time limit, and thus leave you free to do whatever you want with your zoo. Campaign mode puts you in the shoes of a zoo manager, solving different scenarios and problems for zoos all around the globe. Suffice to say, the campaign mode is the one part of the game that might get the most of the player’s time and attention. After a couple of tutorial levels explaining you the different gameplay mechanics (something especially important once we deal with the contents of the expansions), you are given a series of missions. You have a set amount of time, space and resources to get the zoos working in optimal form, and when time runs out, you must have accomplished all of the goals set, or is game over for you. In theory, all of the goals are rather simple: win certain amount of money, have certain amount of animals, have all animal and/or guest happiness over certain level, make your zoo as popular as possible… The first couple of levels will not tax the majority of players due to their simplicity, but as the game progresses, the game’s difficulty goes from easy, to fair to really unfair. See, one of the biggest problems of the game is the overreliance of animal happiness as a goal. This element is quite tied to their enclosure, and if it’s not pixel perfect for them, it won’t go over certain level. You can choose their pen’s vegetation, rocks, layout, terrain, toys (only for some animals), exposure to the visitants, water level for those that need a tank to live… But without a reliable way to know how much one element affects the overall score, it becomes a hair-pulling problem on later levels. You have access to a rough view of the elements that affect negatively the animal’s happiness, but you can’t see how much they affect them positively, and that’s a huge problem. You can have an animal’s happiness within their enclosure to 80, and the game will tell you the cage is absolutely perfect for them, while the mission is asking you for 85-90 and you have no idea what are you doing wrong, because the game tells you you’re doing nothing wrong. As such, savescumming becomes almost unavoidable once you reach medium level stages. You get an enclosure to the adequate level of happiness, you better make sure you save and keep it that way. And that’s nothing compared to higher levels of difficulty, when the game asks you to get certain endangered species to breed, something quite random at the best of times. To be fair, you can increase the odds of that as much as possible, but in the end, if the animals don’t want to breed on a timely manner, you will lose anyway. Maybe it’s just me not being that good at the game, but considering how painstakingly detailed some of the walkthroughs and guides for this game are, I’m sure I’m not the only one finding this problem. Also, whoever decided that dinosaurs and ancient mammals would be able to destroy the vegetation within their enclosure, forcing you to constantly pay attention to the amount of trees and foliage there is within them, is evil and wants us to not play with dinosaurs. The best way to solve that is to surround the trees with rocks and the fence itself, but come on, the game is already quite finicky with this kinds of details, let me design the enclosures however I want, dammit.
At least the game offers you a wide variety of animals to take care of. There are around 100 animals in total, including those of the expansions. Some animals are incredibly easy to maintain (the camel, the gazelle and the lion are a godsend at the beginning of the game) while others are incredibly hard to keep happy (the panda, the tyrannosaurus rex, the mermaid and the big whales take an unholy amount of resources), but without risks there are no rewards. The rarer the animal is, the more visitors will attract, and that means more money. Plus the game offers you different rewards and prices for accomplishing different objectives. Get an endangered species to breed, you get a grand and a trophy. Get all animals very happy, you get a trophy. Get a certain amount of different species, you get a trophy. That affects the prestige of your zoo, but usually is only useful when it comes with a substantial private donation. Money is always good, considering the amount of expenses a zoo can have.
Once you have the animal part settled, the business part takes over. You have to find a balance of how much space you dedicate to selling merchandising and food, how much to shows and small attractions, and how much to the animal enclosures themselves. You have three different sources of income (not counting the plethora of cheat codes): ticket sales, merchandise/food selling and private donations. Ticket sales is fairly straight-forward, people pay to enter the zoo, you automatically charge different amounts for adults and children, though we should’ve been able to manually establish each of their ticket prices individually, and not automatically like the game does. The more you charge, the less people come, and viceversa, although don’t expect to getting massive amounts of tourism if you offer free access, after certain thresholds it stops being noticeable. Private donations are managed by the already mentioned rewards, plus to certain popular enclosures. The bulk of the money will come from your food and entertainment posts. Restaurants, gift shops and other attractions will be quite big sources of money, as well as other structures. In particular, the carrousel is the safest of all attractions, and the dung store (yes, there is one) will automatically give you 50$ for each pile of animal dung you clean up. The only caveat is that it stinks, so you better put it as far as possible from tourists. With that said, the customer’s satisfaction can be quite finicky. Keep the roads clean and with enough empty trash cans, make a park with picnic tables and pretty vegetation and make sure there are enough bathrooms around, and it should be fine. Again, the minmaxing aspects of the game will bite you in the ass here too, because you have to deal with so many customers at one point, and it’s impossible to make everyone happy, so reaching certain happiness thresholds is quite impossible without trial and error and savescumming. The frustration levels can make you try and recreate a horror movie by deleting all enclosure walls and letting the animals lose. This will immediately sink your zoo’s reputation, but seeing the annoying customers run from a T-rex or a lion can get the same level of cathartic relaxation than erasing the ladder from the swimming pool in The Sims.
I should mention the content of the expansions as well. Marine Mania adds marine animals, with different gameplay and maintenance needs, while Dinosaur Diggs goes full Jurassic Park and adds… dinosaurs. I’m pretty sure the makers of Jurassic World have played this expansion, because the similarities are plenty. Both also offer more decoration and services, but overall their purpose is to add more missions and animals. A particular element of note is aquatic spectacles, which can be very profitable under certain conditions, but it’s only accessible to a handful of species (seals, dolphins, orcas, otters and white sharks of all things). An interesting thing to take into account, but otherwise not that big of a game changer.
The presentation is… a bit dated. The game is based on 2D sprite graphics, and sometimes the level of pixelation of the animals, the enclosures and the terrain can be annoying, especially when you are preparing animal terrain and you are searching for that pixel of wrong land type it’s annoying your animals. It never becomes game breaking due to the game offering you options to unsee different elements so you can work undisturbed, but nonetheless it’s an annoyance you have to deal with. The developers show a lot of sense of humor as well, with certain dates showing different environmental gags, such as witches flying during Halloween, or Santa Claus flying on Christmas.
This kind of game was both ahead and behind its time. Just imagine how good this game could be nowadays, with mod integration adding thousands of different animals, businesses, decorations and missions, to get a neverending experience. However, a very hands on/off approach to gameplay combined with the need to minmax absolutely everything in the campaign gets quite annoying after a while. Campaign mode is too demanding, while freestyle is not demanding enough for my taste. In the end, though, I do think this was a valiant effort that has aged a lot comparatively due to the improvements gaming in general has suffered throughout the years.
1 n/a n/a 80 20 100
2 n/a n/a 112 28 140
4 n/a n/a 74 19 93
10 n/a n/a 108 27 135
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Multichannel News, Cable Center, TVWeek
Cable Pioneer Dies — He Was Behind the Creation of One of the First Cable Networks, Which Is Still Going Strong Today
Aug 4, 2016 • Post A Comment
A cable television pioneer who was behind a number of the industry’s milestones — including the creation of the early Madison Square Garden Network, which became the USA Network — has died. Multichannel News reports that Robert Rosencrans, founder of UA-Columbia Cable, died this week in Greenwich, Conn. He was 89.
Rosencrans’ work in cable goes all the way back to 1953, when he produced and distributed live TV events for theaters and hotels, first through Box Office Television and later with TelePrompTer Corp., Multichannel reports, citing information from the Cable Center.
His efforts with UA-Columbia Cablevision would lead to the creation of one of the first cable networks, USA Network, which began as the Madison Square Garden Network — not to be confused with the later regional sports channel of the same name.
“Rosencrans formed Columbia Cable Systems in 1961, acquiring systems in Washington, Oregon, Arizona, and California, eventually growing it to more than 250,000 customers,” the story reports. “Columbia Cable was the first operator to install a satellite Earth Station to receive the feed of the Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier heavyweight championship fight from Manila in 1975.”
Rosencrans was also behind the creation of C-SPAN in the late 1970s, cutting a check for $25,000 to help it get started and convincing other cable operators to also kick in.
In a statement, the National Cable Telecommunications Association said of Rosencrans: “Bob embodied the cable entrepreneur, investing time, money and sweat equity in the creation of products and services that have become vital to consumers.”
Here’s a featurette on Rosencrans posted by the Cable Center …
NBCU Accused of ‘Double Standard’ Treatment of Talent at NBC and Telemundo
TV Station Group Reports Record Revenue
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Bob Dylan’s 40 best songs
Tom Pinnock
As chosen by famous fans, Dylan associates and Uncut writers
TAGS: Bob Dylan
13 Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again
From Blonde On Blonde (May 1966)
JACKIE LEVEN: A thing happened in Scotland in the late Sixties and early Seventies which was that when Blonde On Blonde came out, seemingly every single young Scottish guy went out and bought it. It was THE absolute, total record to listen to. When you went round anyone’s council house and opened the door, there was always the smell of tinned lager, congealing bacon fat, home-grown grass and Dylan bawling our, “She said that all the railroad men/Just drink up your blood like wine”. I couldn’t get on with the album, but this particular song just feels very relaxed, I have this thing I do on my own albums when I have a song and every day of recording, before we do anything else, I just put one more idea on it. I refuse to develop it, just put one idea on per day until it’s finished. It’s a different way of looking and recording and freshens up the album. And “Mobile” just has that same kind of feeling for me. It seems like he said, “Oh, I’m not sure about this one,” and they kind of threw it away. There’s all sorts of what-shall-we-do? bits in the arrangement and a lovely bass descent which conjures up images of the musicians shrugging and looking at each other. The rest of the record sounds too much like they’re trying very hard to make a record that sounds different. I find the hardness unappealing, but there’s a smooth, throwaway quality to this. And lovely images.
JEFF TWEEDY: A lot of these songs I picked have a real similarity. It’s an incredible concentration of performance, and then the limitation of it at the same time. There’s a structure that basically keeps rolling over itself over and over again. And it gets more and more charged every time. It’s like a self-charging battery or something.
PETE WYLIE: There’s a great bit in this where they’ve edited the tape and you get two words spliced together. After the bit where his grandpa dies, there’s a line that should begin “I” but they cue it to “he built a fire on Main Street” so it goes “I sp-ee built a fire on Main Street”. They’ve chopped two words in the middle, But that;s another thing you get with Dylan where there’s all these little secret moments that you think you’re the only one who’s spotted them, even if somebody else told you, so you get into that whole trainspotter stupidity mode. And that lyrics about :he just smoked my eyelids and punched my cigarette” – fucking brilliant! It’s a long song but it doesn’t seem long. It’s like a bunch of movies – the Coen brothers would have to do a trilogy there. A stunning piece of work.
ROBERT FISHER: I’ve always liked the idea of telling stories without telling the whole story. There is great intuitive energy in the playing on this song. It sounds like there was magic in the air when the tape was rolling.
12 Positively 4th Street
BILLY BOB THORNTON: I love Bob Dylan, I’m a great Dylan fan. I’d have to say this song is the ultimate. We’ve all had someone who we’ve wanted to tell “Y’know what? You hate my guts, just come out and say it! Why’d you ver pretend to be who you’re pretending to be? Cos we all know you’re not . . .” It’s the ultimate ‘fuck-you’ song, y’know? It’s never been put better. It’s the one. The greatest line in a song, maybe ever, to say – you don’t have me fooled, I got your number, is: “I wish that for just one moment/I could be you . . . You’d know what a drag it is to see you”. Great!
PETE WYLIE: When I started with Wah! Heat, we covered this, mainly because of the Zoo lot. It’s that thing where your tiny universe is all-consuming, and I’d fallen out with Julian and Mac [Cope and Ian McCulloch] so when I sang it, in my secret little world it was like I was singing it at them and they were going to be destroyed by it, just by me singing it. Strangely they weren’t! It’s got that thing again of great put-downs and jokes, but then I think, “Well, where did the master thief bit come from?” That’s another Dylan trait. I bet even songs that don’t get into this Top 40 have still got great lines. Like in “Tombstone Blues” – “The sun’s not yellow, it’s chicken!” Or there’s that song where that doctor says, “Don’t go back to this woman”, and when he does the fuckin’ doctor’s there instead. That’s like the premise for a play, that one verse.
EDWYN COLLINS: Some say this was a vitriolic address to the folk fundamentalists, post-Newport, others that it was an embittered farewell to the Factory crowd – both of which Dylan denies. Whatever its target(s), it suggests the Sixties music biz and its satellites were as mendacious then as they are now.
GERRY LOVE: I don;t know whether Lou Reed was a fan of this song, but I can hear the roots of the Velvets in this song. This is a basic, raw pop song and its keening melody drew me in the first time I heard it. Dylan’s pop abilities are often overlooked, and never more so than here.
LYNDON MORGANS: “Like A Rolling Stone” – Part Two. One of the all-time great opening lines. An erect middle-finger to the old Greenwich Village folkie scene he’d left behind. If I think of Dylan’s voice, I think of this song first – the tone and delivery melds perfectly with the emotions expressed in the lyric.
STEPHEN PASTEL: He had an amazing run of singles, songs like “Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?” and this particularly. One of those really bitter, jaded lyrics. There was definitely a change in Dylan, though, if you compare him in Don’t Look Back to Eat The Document. In the latter he’s just really cold, this amphetamine lunatic going around with his pal, the two of them like a brainy Beavis and Butthead. I’ll never forget that horrible scene where he tries to buy this girl from her boyfriend, it makes you cringe.
MARC ‘LARD’ RILEY: I’m not sure why but I seem to be drawn to Dylan’s most caustic efforts when cherry-picking his oeuvre. In an ideal world, if you were to look up the word ‘contempt’ in any dictionary a copy of this 1965 single would drop out. So cutting – so witty – AND SO YOUNG! Of all the people I admire I’d have to say that Bob is the one I’d least like to meet.
11 It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue
From Bringing It All Back Home (March 1965)
BRYAN FERRY: I am very partial to Dylan’s songs – it’s the lyrics, really, the imagery. They’re always compelling and interesting to me, and very poetic. “Yonder stands your orphan with his gun/Crying like a fire in the sun/Look out, the saints are comin’ through/And it’s all over now, Baby Blue.” Beautiful images. The “seasick sailors”, the “reindeer armies”, the “vagabond who’s rapping at your door”. What have I brought to it on my own version? Very little, probably, other than enthusiasm and inspired amateurishness! This song sets the tone for my new album in the same way you might say “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” did for These Foolish Things, years ago. And it’s nice to start an album with a goodbye song!
GRANT-LEE PHILLIPS: The basic thrust of the song, to my ear, is that Dylan is taking a kind of inventory of all that might seem to matter. The currency of our values is being put up to the light, to see if it’s counterfeit. This would fall into the category of ‘finger-pointing songs’, which is a definite Dylan trait, like “Positively 4th Street”. Songs that tend to put a phantom second person in their place. But Dylan seems to extract something interesting and vital out of that form. It’s something that re-emerges in his work time and time again. It’s the people who get stepped over who tend to secure the starring roles in his songs. There’s only much time in this life to take it all in. Some folks plunder the Bible, and I’ve done a little bit of that, but I always got a lot more out of Dylan.
COLIN MacINTYRE: The first band I had in Glasgow, I used to stand on my own and play it, and murder it. I’m sure that song’s served as a poultice for so many failed relationships, while people wait to get over them.
ADAM SWEETING: The title makes it sound like just another guy-leaves-girl song, and there was indeed a “lover who has just walked out your door”, but the sombre beauty of the melody and the tumbling panorama of the words created an altogether grander picture. Dylan’s songwriting was in such torrential spate that he seized the opportunity to spin a saga of loss and loneliness on a cosmic scale. The song was partly a playful surrealist pageant – the tooled-up orphan “crying like a fire in the sun”, the “seasick sailors” and “reindeer armies” – and part instruction manual. “Take what you have gathered from coincidence,” Dylan ordered. “Strike another match, go start anew.” Easy for him to say.
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Carrie Johnson, PE, SE
Joined Wallace Engineering in 1986
“I think the key to being a great consultant is listening to your client.”
You Might Not Know:
Carrie has developed a number of proprietary tools which automate project management and structural engineering design.
Notable Achievement:
Carrie served as President of National Council of Structural Engineers Association (NCSEA).
Carrie serves as Chief Information Officer of Wallace Engineering. She received her Bachelor of Architectural Engineering and Master of Architectural Engineering degrees from Oklahoma State University. She is a licensed Professional Engineer in 43 states and a licensed Structural Engineer in Utah.
Carrie’s project work is concentrated in the retail industry where she has been instrumental in the development of multi-sited building prototypes. She has automated many in-house operational and administrative functions and has developed proprietary software programs to automate repetitive structural engineering tasks.
Carrie served as the 2013-2014 National President of the National Council of Structural Engineers Association, is a past President of Eastern Oklahoma Chapter of American Institute of Architects, a past President and active member of the Oklahoma Structural Engineers Association and the City of Tulsa Transportation Board.
She received the NCSEA Service Award in 2016. She currently serves on the Board of Applied Technology Council as President, and is currently serving as chair of the Structural Engineering Summit Committee, and as co-chair of the Continuing Education Committee.
Read Carrie's Blog
Walmart, Inc.
Casey's General Store
Walmart Neighborhood Market
at Midtown Center
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October 27, 2012 at 5:21 pm EDT | by Peter Rosenstein
Role of ‘dirty money’ in marriage fight
At a book salon hosted by Donald Hitchcock and Paul Yandura, Juan Ahonen-Jover, Ph.D., discussed his book, “The Gay Agenda 2012: All Out.” Juan has written an interesting book with some theories that will gain the support of many activists while not necessarily finding favor with the leaders of the more prominent LGBT organizations.
Juan talked about his ideas with regard to where the LGBT community needs to go from here and then opened the floor to a broader discussion. There were about 30 or so LGBT advocates in the room and one of the more interesting issues that arose was whether or not the LGBT community should be taking what some referred to as “dirty money” for marriage equality campaigns. It was an interesting discussion and as is often the case with such a touchy issue people’s opinions were all over the map.
The people who used the term “dirty money” were talking about money and support that comes from individuals like Ken Mehlman, Ted Olson (who coached Paul Ryan in his debate prep) and Paul Singer. There is a strong difference of opinion over whether or not to take money and support from them. The “them” refers to those who support marriage equality but who also support candidates pledged to prevent marriage equality from happening and want to turn back any movement on LGBT civil and human rights. Many in the room felt that while they appreciated the support, gay organizations should not take money directly from these individuals and organizations. There were strong feelings that there is too much hypocrisy making it impossible in good conscience to accept this money.
Although I agree that LGBT organizations shouldn’t take the money, there is no reason that we would turn our backs on or try to stop anyone who wants to donate to or support marriage equality. We need all the support we can get and clearly all the money we can get to fight for our civil rights. There are ways for this money to come into campaigns other than through LGBT organizations and hedge-fund manager and billionaire Paul Singer has found a good one. In a June 2012 article by Frank Bruni in the New York Times, Singer says he provided $1 million to start a new “Super PAC” with several Republican compatriots. Named American Unity PAC, its sole mission is to encourage Republican candidates to support same-sex marriage, in part by helping them to feel financially shielded from any blowback from well-funded groups that oppose it.
He told Bruni that he’s confident that in congressional races, which would most likely be the Super PAC’s initial focus, there are more than a few Republicans “who could be on the verge of support” or are “harboring and hiding their views.” “And this kind of effort could be catalytic in generating some more movement,” he said.
This is also the way to have those like Singer, who has a gay son, pour money into marriage equality campaigns and influence their outcome in a positive way. This issue reminds me of what many organizations, particularly those in the area of education and children’s issues, faced when they gave up tobacco money. People wanted to find a way for tobacco companies to contribute to good works in other ways.
Such a Super PAC allows someone like Mehlman, who came out as gay in 2010, but has yet to separate himself totally from all Republican candidates who want to keep him a second-class citizen, to work on the issues he currently feels comfortable with like marriage. Mehlman has said, “I can’t change the fact that I wasn’t in this place personally when I was in politics, and I genuinely regret that. It was very hard, personally.” Mehlman has also said, “As I’ve been involved in the fight for marriage equality, one of the things I’ve learned is how many people were harmed by the campaigns in which I was involved. I apologize to them and tell them I am sorry.” What I have never heard Mehlman say or apparently come to grips with is that he came up with those campaigns and led them. But we can still thank Mehlman for what he is willing to do today.
While these individuals shouldn’t become icons within the LGBT community, it is important to encourage everyone who wants to support the forward movement of civil and human rights for the LGBT community to participate in the fight. There are clearly ways to do that on separate paths for those who are not yet ready to see this fight as the overriding mission that it must be for LGBT organizations.
Donald HitchcockFrank BruniGOPJuan Ahonen-JoverKen MehlmanPaul SingerPaul YanduraRepublicansTed OlsonUnity PAC
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February 9, 2016 at 4:33 pm EDT | by Chris Johnson
N.H. congressional race could pit gay vs. gay
Gay congressional candidates Dan Innis (left) and Shawn O’Connor could compete against each other in the general election. (Washington Blade photo of Innis by Michael Key; photo of O’Connor courtesy of CreagerCole Communications)
MANCHESTER, N.H. — In the week of the presidential primary in New Hampshire, another race is brewing in the state that could pit two openly gay candidates — one Democrat, one Republican — against each other.
In a bid to represent New Hampshire’s 1st congressional district, Shawn O’Connor, a gay businessperson and lawyer who founded the college admission advisory firm Stratus Prep before selling the company, is competing against former Rep. Carol Shea-Porter for the Democratic nomination.
Meanwhile, on the Republican side, gay business professor Dan Innis — the former dean of the business school at the University of New Hampshire — is for a second time challenging incumbent Rep. Frank Guinta (R-N.H.) after having lost the Republican nomination to the lawmaker in 2014.
If both candidates succeed in winning their party’s nomination on the day of the congressional primary on Sept. 13, New Hampshire’s 1st congressional district would be home to a national first: Two openly gay congressional candidates nominated by major parties competing against each other for a U.S. House seat.
In separate interviews with the Washington Blade, the two candidates outlined their visions if elected to Congress — and their plans reveal stark differences.
O’Connor said he formed an exploratory committee to pursue a congressional bid in February 2015 before Shea-Porter announced she’d pursue a sixth run because “people are ready for a change.”
“When this race went Republican last time, it’s gone back-and-forth between the same two members of Congress for about 10 years: Carol Shea-Porter and Frank Guinta,” O’Connor said. “I think it’s a seat that the right Democrat can definitely hold, and therefore, I decided to toss my hat into the ring without knowing who else might run.”
Among the items on O’Connor’s agenda are what he called “bread-and-butter” issues: Making it easier for small business owners to succeed and investing in infrastructure. According to O’Connor, 351 of the bridges in New Hampshire are designated as “red list,” which means they have a series of documented deficiencies getting worse over time.
But O’Connor, who has endorsed Bernard Sanders in the presidential election, also identified income inequality as among the issues he wants to tackle.
Until the minimum wage is raised to $15 an hour, O’Connor said he’ll only accept the current minimum wage as a salary from Congress, which would be $15,080 a year, and donate the remaining $159,000 to New Hampshire charities.
“I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is, and I just think it’s immoral to accept a salary of $174,000 a year and go around telling people it’s OK to live on $7.25 an hour,” O’Connor said.
Innis said he’s pursuing another bid for Congress because he had a good showing in the 2014 Republican congressional primary, earning 41 percent of the vote in the race against Guinta.
“Coming in at 41 percent as a first-time candidate against a semi-incumbent? That ain’t bad.” Innis said, adding he thinks he took that percentage of the vote because he ran as “a problem solver, not a political insider.”
But Innis took Guinta to task for allegedly violating campaign finance laws by taking $355,000 donated to him by his parents during his first House campaign in 2010. As a result of a settlement with the Federal Election Commission, Guinta in May 2015 paid a $15,000 fine and agreed to return his parents’ money.
Innis said the donation was unlawful and shamed Guinta for calling his opponents liars for bringing it up.
“And the liar was Frank. Period,” Innis said. “He broke the law, he knew he broke the law. He denied it for years, and when he was fined, he tried to further cover it up.”
In terms of policy differences, Innis said he differs with Guinta in some areas, although he doesn’t think the difference is terribly dramatic.
“I sit closer to New Hampshire on a number of social issues, and I’d further argue I’m more fiscally conservative than just about anyone you’d meet,” Innis said.
For Innis, the No. 1 crisis facing the country — in contrast to the views of others who say it’s the Islamic State of Iraq & Syria or climate change — is the nation’s $19 trillion debt.
“It’s money, and we don’t have enough,” Innis said. “And we spend too much. We’ve got to bring these two things in balance, and if we don’t the country — and I’m not overstating this — the country is doomed, right? I understand business. I studied business. I’ve got an advanced degree in this stuff. So, I’m not blowing smoke. I know what I’m talking about. We’re doomed.”
Innis was coy about whom he’s backing in the presidential election, but said the way candidates approach LGBT rights is something he factors into his support.
“There are certain candidates that are more open to equality issues, and those are the candidates that I’d certainly get behind,” Innis said. “There are other candidates who are clearly closed to equality and it’s very, very difficult to support them, and you know who those are.”
In terms of LGBT rights, O’Connor identified as a priority a federal LGBT non-discrimination bill known as the Equality Act to “make sure LGBT equality is complete,” but also said we must ensure the United States is “a real social, moral leader” on international LGBT rights.
“Once we get full equality nationwide, and we’ve accomplished marriage, I think that incorporating LGBT rights more fully into our international policy would be really important, particularly in Africa,” O’Connor said.
Innis said if he’s elected, he’d “push for” a federal prohibition on employment discrimination against LGBT people, arguing his position in the Republican caucus would hasten its passage.
“If you’ve got a majority party that has the ability to bring that thing forward, and then you add someone to the party who is gay and who’s affected by this stuff, who can speak to the other members and leadership, I think the dynamic changes,” Innis said. “It always changes when you get to know someone and when you’ve got them sitting there with you dealing with the issue, and I do think we’ll have more success in pushing that forward if candidates like me are elected.”
Innis said he couldn’t immediately commit to co-sponsoring the Equality Act, but based on what he heard on the legislation as described by the Blade said it “sounds like something that is easy to support.”
Both candidates had differing takes on the idea of facing off in the general election as a gay candidate against a gay opponent.
O’Connor said it would be “exciting” and reflect the progress made on acceptance of LGBT people in New Hampshire.
“I think the nice thing about it in a way is in a purple state like New Hampshire — trending blue, but purple — to have two LGBT candidates face off in a general election really demonstrates that we’re becoming fully integrated into the political system, which I think is wonderful,” O’Connor said.
But O’Connor said the national LGBT community should support him if they both were to receive their nominations if Innis won’t back affirmative action, support women’s reproductive freedom or fight income inequality.
“Dan Innis has a very conservative — he doesn’t have a voting record — but based on his statements, he’s a pretty conservative candidate,” O’Connor said. “I believe the LGBT community as a community has been marginalized for decades, if not centuries, and there’s a responsibility to help others.”
Innis expressed skepticism O’Connor would be able to beat Shea-Porter. If he had to face off against him in the general election, Innis said the gay vs. gay nature of the race “wouldn’t matter” to him.
“I think I’ve defined myself as a candidate on the issues and on my background and my experience, and people now are used to the idea and more interested in what I have to say on the issues,” Innis said.
They both face challenges in defeating an incumbent on one hand and one-time incumbent on the other who have name recognition in New Hampshire. Innis has the added challenge of facing another potential competitor for the Republican nomination: State Rep. Pamela Tucker.
Nathan Gonzalez, editor of the Rothenberg & Gonzalez Political Report, said it’s hard to put specific odds on an O’Connor vs. Innis matchup, but it’s “unlikely” both candidates will make it to the general election.
“Guinta is in an incredibly precarious electoral position, so it’s not hard to see him losing the primary,” Gonzalez said. “But Innis doesn’t have a clean shot at winning the nomination with Tucker in the race. Shea-Porter has her fair share of general election losses, but I have a hard time believing she is going to lose in a primary, until proven otherwise.”
One question is which candidate national LGBT groups — the Human Rights Campaign and the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund — will support. In the 2014 election, the Victory Fund endorsed Innis and the Human Rights Campaign endorsed Shea-Porter.
O’Connor said he applied for endorsements with both organizations, but was told by both they were staying out of the race at the time. Innis said he’ll likely seek support from the Victory Fund again, but had harsh words for the Human Rights Campaign.
“They endorsed Hillary, I’m not sure they should be playing in this,” Innis said. “To me, their job is to advocate for rights for equality; it’s not to pick candidates at a presidential level. Part of the problem here is I’ve never thought of HRC as so political, but it clearly is, but HRC I always thought was more politically driven rather than agenda driven, and they seem to be moving more toward the politics.”
Jarod Keith, spokesperson for the Victory Fund, said his organization usually stays out of races if multiple candidates apply for support and meet endorsement criteria.
“We typically don’t endorse a candidate if they’re running against another candidate who also qualifies for our endorsement,” Keith said. “In order to qualify, candidates have to be openly LGBT, support LGBT rights and a woman’s right to choose, and demonstrate a clear path to victory. Endorsements are made by the Victory Fund’s Victory Campaign Board.”
Brandon Lorenz, a Human Rights Campaign spokesperson, didn’t say when his organization would make an endorsement in the race.
“HRC has not made an endorsement in this race at this time,” Lorenz said. “In the 2014 cycle, HRC supported incumbent Rep. Carol Shea-Porter.”
Dan Inniselection 2016Gay & Lesbian Victory FundHuman Rights CampaignNathan GonzalezNew HampshireRothenberg & Gonzalez Political ReportShawn O'Connor
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Debate on drug benefit persists
By - The Washington Times - Sunday, May 14, 2006
Three years after its creation, the Medicare prescription-drug program remains a source of partisan bickering, as evidenced by the fight that has surrounded tonight’s deadline for seniors to sign up for the program.
But even after the deadline passes, the fight over the program will go on. Republican leaders have been arguing that the program is working well, but dissent is starting to swell within the party over such matters as whether people should pay a penalty for missing the enrollment deadline.
“I’m pleased to see the robust enrollment in the program,” said House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Thomas, California Republican said Friday. “Choice of plans proves competition is working. As a result, prices, premiums and drug costs are down.”
After midnight tonight, seniors will have to wait until November to sign up and will face a penalty fee, which Democrats argue amounts to an unfair tax. The deadline and fee have been waived for low-income people, but Democrats said it should have been done for all, and at least one key Republican agrees.
Rep. Nancy L. Johnson of Connecticut, who leads the House Ways and Means’ subcommittee on health, told the Associated Press that she will introduce a bill to waive the penalty and said she thinks a waiver has enough support to pass in the fall.
“The bottom line is, this is a democracy, and the Congress responds to the people and shapes the program so it’s good for them,” Mrs. Johnson said. “I think it’s fair and reasonable to eliminate the penalty” for 2006.
House Republican sources said the proposal has enough support to make approval possible.
The administration said last week that about 37 million of the 43 million people on Medicare and thus eligible for the Part D program now have prescription-drug coverage — through Medicare, other government programs or private insurance. About 27 million of them are in the new Medicare prescription-drug program.
Democrats and advocacy groups, however, say that administration numbers have been inflated and that many of the seniors the administration counts as already having coverage from other sources in fact do not. They’ve been pushing to extend tonight’s deadline and will continue to push to make some major changes to the program.
“To make it work for all seniors and people with disabilities, it needs clarity, and it needs common sense. Democrats are ready to provide both,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, who led the Democratic demand that the deadline be extended.
The liberal advocacy group Families USA pledged Friday to closely monitor the program well after today’s deadline to see whether drug prices go up, how many seniors enter the so-called “doughnut hole” when they will be without coverage for a time and how many private plans will drop out.
These factors “will determine whether the program succeeds or fails,” warned Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA.
The new Medicare drug program allows seniors to choose from several private insurers. The administration estimates that the average beneficiary will save more than $1,100 this year by enrolling, and average monthly premiums are $25, more than $10 less than expected.
Some groups say that overall, the drug program, which got off to a rocky start in January, is going much better now.
“The results are better than anyone anticipated,” said Cheryl Matheis, an AARP spokeswoman. “It’s been on a lot more positive trajectory over the past months.” She also said AARP field offices Friday were reporting a last-minute crush of seniors signing up.
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Global War on Terror gives next president broad powers
STEPHEN JAFFE
<p>US President George W. Bush addresses the nation aboard the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln 01 May, 2003, as it sails for Naval Air Station North Island, San Diego, California. Bush declared major fighting over in Iraq, calling it "one victory in a war on terror" which he said would continue until terrorists are defeated. "In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed," Bush said. Bush touted Saddam Hussein's ouster as "a crucial advance" towards stamping out extremist violence.AFP Photo/Stephen JAFFE</p>
When the next president is inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2017, that person will not only inherit a Global War on Terror, but he or she will also receive broad war powers over the strongest military in the world.
Following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the American defense budget doubled within a decade, and new defense institutions were added to the federal government. With an ever-expanding United States defense, the next president could be considered the most powerful person ever.
Although the Constitution states that Congress is tasked with formally declaring war, the United States has not formally declared war since World War II. Presidents have generally accepted the responsibility when the United States goes to war.
President Bush received near universal support for War on Terror
In the weeks following the 9/11 attacks, 92 percent of Americans polled by the New York Times were in favor of using military action against al-Qaida and the Taliban.
Vowing vengeance both from the White House in an address on Sept. 11, 2001, and during a joint session of Congress nine days later, Bush garnered a historically high 90-percent approval rating, according to Gallup.
Following the attacks on the United States, Bush asked Congress to approve the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists act (AUMF), which gave the president broad powers to fight terrorists. The bill passed by a 420-1 margin in the House, and a 98-0 ledger in the Senate.
"In 2001, there was this debate of exactly what extent the president will do with this much authority," said Robert Farley, professor of political science at the University of Kentucky. "There was this debate inside the Bush administration where some people like (Assistant Attorney General) John Yoo and (Vice President) Dick Cheney were saying that the presidency is unfettered at all. Besides impeachment, the president could do whatever he wanted in terms of interpreting treaties, in terms of prisoners, in terms of going to war."
With broad power handed to the executive branch to fight terrorists, Yoo crafted highly controversial policy regarding the waterboarding of terror suspects, and to legitimize the United States' efforts fighting terror under the Geneva Convention.
Unlike past declarations of war, the AUMF gave the president authorization to use the military to fight groups considered a threat to the homeland wherever and whenever. The law did not place any restrictions on methods for fighting terrorists, allowing the Bush administration to develop policies such as the enhanced interrogation methods, and to place prisoners of war in Guantanamo Bay without trial.
Congress' lack of interest in foreign affairs coupled with the need to give the president the ability to launch an immediate attack allowed the commander-in-chief absolute power with few checks.
Although President Barack Obama issued an executive order on Jan. 21, 2009 his second day in office to officially end the United States' practice of using waterboarding, it is possible the next president could override Obama's order. While Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has come out against enhanced interrogation tactics, GOP standard-bearer Donald Trump has said he is fond of the tactic.
"I like it a lot. I don't think it's tough enough," Trump said at an Ohio rally in June.
When Obama delivered an address in May 2013 to discuss his administration's plan moving forward after the United States would leave Afghanistan after 2014, he said he wanted to engage Congress on amending the AUMF.
"The AUMF is now nearly twelve years old," Obama said in 2013. "The Afghan War is coming to an end. Core al-Qaida is a shell of its former self. Groups like (al-Qaida) must be dealt with, but in the years to come, not every collection of thugs that labels themselves al-Qaida' will pose a credible threat to the United States. Unless we discipline our thinking and our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don't need to fight, or continue to grant presidents unbound powers more suited for traditional armed conflicts between nation states.
"So I look forward to engaging Congress and the American people in efforts to refine, and ultimately repeal, the AUMF's mandate. And I will not sign laws designed to expand this mandate further. Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue. But this war, like all wars, must end. That's what history advises. That's what our democracy demands."
With Congress' inaction on the issue, the AUMF has remained untouched since 2001.
Congress gave the Bush administration a couple blank checks in terms of the authorization of use of military force in Afghanistan and then in Iraq (in 2003)," Farley said. "Those authorizations are so broadly worded that they allow the executive branch to do anything it wants with respect to fighting those wars.
"They don't have much in the ways of geographic limits, they don't have much in the way of on limits on means or different kind of weapons. The reason that we are still fighting in Libya and Iraq and so forth even though Saddam Hussein is long gone is based on using these laws that were passed."
Even though the United States is not currently fighting al-Qaida or the Taliban groups considered directly responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks the AUMF has been used to justify a long-term battle between the United States and the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.
While the AUMF gives the president plenty of authority, it also gives the commander-in-chief flexibility to follow terrorists across global borders. This flexibility could be considered useful going against an organization such as the Islamic State group, which spans multiple nations.
"It is a new era, I think you're going to have to realize that it is totally different from any previous era or war that the US has been involved in." - Timothy White
"We live in a different world, the same constitution exists, in that we have an old constitution, so that means it is vague enough so it can be interpreted in different ways to accommodate the needs and interest of society and government," political science professor and foreign policy expert Timothy White said.
The AUMF also accounts for groups that are not associated with official governments. For instance, the majority of the Sept. 11 attackers were from Saudi Arabia; a nation that the United States is allies with.
US President Barack Obama Shakes hands with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef of Saudi Arabia - Getty Images
What this means is that many nations, even ones the United States is on good terms with, have citizens wanting to attack using small, rogue armies.
"There are groups across the world that could be classified a terrorist organization," White said. "There are terrorist groups in many countries, so to think that all threats of terror will be gone are just wrong. The logic behind why terrorists exist is because they are militarily weak and want to have some mechanism to express their anger and outrage or resentment and want to use terror."
Military strength does not make the US immune from terror
The United States' military is not just the most expensive force in the world; the US spends more on defense than the next seven nations combined, according to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation.
The United States spends 3.3 percent of the national GDP in defense, which is more than China, the United Kingdom and Japan, but less than Russia and Saudi Arabia.
Despite having such a large military, the United States is still prone to lone wolf attacks, such as incidents that took place at the Boston Marathon in 2013 and the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando in June.
It is an unusual military dominance in the world," White said. "It has not been seen really in earlier eras This is in some ways an unusual situation. Americans are frustrated that we have all this military capability and all this power but we don't get our way.
"There is not an equal translation of military power to political influence on the world. That is probably because we live in a world where the military can't solve all of the problems of ethnic conflict in different parts of the world. Often the solution to these situations is domestic solutions, not something from an outside power like the United States."
Justin Boggs is a writer for the E.W. Scripps National Desk. Follow him on Twitter @jjboggs or on Facebook .
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How Chicago Could Win Amazon’s HQ2 (Updated!)
Posted by Terri McAuley on Monday, April 16th, 2018 at 3:23pm
Editor's Note: This post was originally published in October 2017 and has been revamped to include the latest information on Chicago's HQ2 bid.
What happens when one of the largest companies in the world announces that it’s looking for a city in North America in which to build a massive expansion?
In early September, Amazon did just that. The company announced that it plans to spend $5 billion on a second headquarters—dubbed “HQ2”—somewhere outside of its current home in Seattle, Washington. This additional headquarters, which the company claims is “not a satellite office,” is expected to employ 50,000 people beyond 2027. Naturally, cities from coast to coast have formed bid committees to attract this titan of online retail, and Chicago is no exception.
In January of 2018, Amazon announced 20 finalists for HQ2, including Chicago and a long list of rivals like Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Columbus, Dallas,Los Angeles, New York City, Pittsburg, Toronto, and D.C..
Co-led by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Governor Bruce Rauner, Chicago’s “all-hands-on-deck” committee is made up of more than 600 members, including a number of business and civic leaders as well as representatives from Chicago real estate developers like Related Midwest, Sterling Bay, and Magellan Development.
According to the mayor, Chicago sees itself as—and is recognized as—a definite frontrunner in the competition thanks to its business-friendly incentives, youthful workforce, and a robust commercial real estate market. The deadline for proposals is October 19, and the committee had been accepting nominations for possible sites until September 27.
While Chicago's chances may be good, other cities across the nation are offering some stiff competition. Atlanta’s position within two-hours of 80% of the U.S. population, for instance, makes it ideal for a business that values having easy access to several American cities. And Washington DC, with its strong pool of tech talent and connection to the federal government, is also a strong possibility. Still, Mayor Emanuel and the committee are very confident that Chicago’s bid will rival any other put forth. The competition is ours to lose.
Amazon’s Wishlist
Why is Chicago a possible favorite? When it comes to Amazon’s Request for Proposal (“RFP”), Chicago is one of the few cities in the country that can check off all the right boxes. Amazon has indicated a preference for a location that has:
A metropolitan area of more than 1,000,000 people
A stable local economy friendly to business development
An urban or suburban location that attracts technical talent
A location within 45 minutes of an international airport
A location with 1-2 miles of major highways
Mass transit accessible at the site
Possible Locations
A lot of the speculation about possible locations for this massive headquarters has centered on the troubled redevelopment of the Old Main Post Office in West Loop. In the past, new construction at the Old Main Post Office was slated to include a series of residential and commercial buildings, including construction of twin mixed-use towers that would have been the tallest in North America. However, after financing fell through, the project languished until preface by New York-based 601W. Mayor Emanuel has pushed to get development started again, and a bid from Amazon might be all the fuel he needs.
According to Curbed, other potential sites under consideration are likely Related Midwest’s sprawling 62-acre South Loop—expected to be the largest development project in the city’s history—and Sterling Bay’s similarly ambitious series of redevelopment on both sides of the North Branch. The inclusion of these developers on the committee lends credence to speculation that, at the very least, these sites are being considered for HQ2.
No matter what site the committee chooses for its proposal, Amazon requires that it must have at least 500,000 square feet with the possibility of expanding up to 8 million square feet in the next decade. This doesn't necessarily entail new developments, though. Amazon will accept proposals for existing buildings, 100-acres of shovel-ready land, creative infill, or a combination of these.
What HQ2 Could Mean For Chicago Real Estate
Though the logistical challenges are many, there will be plenty of rewards for Chicagoans and the Chicago real estate market if Amazon decides to locate HQ2 here. The $5 billion investment in the local economy would certainly be a boon, for instance, and Amazon’s presence in Chicago would likely bring many other tech companies and retailers to the city as well, likely setting off a boom in the commercial real estate market.
Given how many new, high-paying jobs this would create, the residential market will also be affected. According to the Tribune, HQ2 is also expected to offer the average worker compensation of more than $100,000, more than double the current median household income. This will lead to greater demand for luxury real estate and luxury condos and probably accelerate future development. Properties near the site would likely see their values skyrocket, so we're excited to see what site the committee puts forward.
However, since Amazon is likely to attract a young workforce eager to start families, HQ2 may also lead to the desire to build single-family housing as close as possible to the headquarters. For this reason, many of Chicago’s suburbs and nearby communities could also benefit from an influx of upper-middle-class families looking to plant roots near the company.
Updated: Amazon's Chicago Visit
In March of 2018, representatives from Amazon visited Chicago, where they inspected half of the sites that make up Chicago's 10 location bid. Though this visit was cloaked in secrecy, we know that the trip included a visit to the 37-acre River West District development as well as Lincoln Yards, The 78 on Chicago's Near South Side, and Fulton Market. These mega-investments in Chicago's residential and commercial real estate were likely to have impressed Amazon, though we'll have to wait and see if they've been convinced.
Have questions about the future of the Chicago real estate market? Contact Terri McAuley today to learn how you can stay ahead of the trends when it comes to buying your next home.
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A Board Gamer’s Guide to Marketing Strategy
By Joe Judd on February 14, 2017
In my free time, I like to play board games. I enjoy the various themes that come with each—saving the world from an outbreak, building rail lines across the U.S. in the early 1900s, capturing treasure from a hidden island before it sinks into the sea and is lost forever, outbuilding your opponents in the middle ages, and working together as superheroes to defeat a villain, to name a few. There are board games that appeal to virtually anyone—even those who are interested in quilting and sewing.
But I especially love learning about the different strategies and tactics involved with each game, then putting them into practice. Sure, it doesn’t result in a victory every time, but my gameplay definitely improves as I put these tried-and-true methods to work. And I can’t help but see the parallels between various board game strategies and my job as a marketing and advertising strategist, like the many twists and turns that one must navigate to reach an objective.
Here are six marketing strategy tips you can learn from board games (or maybe it’s the other way around):
1. Understand the basics.
Before getting started with any board game, it’s important to have a thorough understanding of the rules, objectives, and gameplay. Sometimes the rules are simple, but other times they’re complicated, 16-page novels where the rules change as the game progresses (yeah, I’m talking about you, Power Grid). As much as possible, it’s also good to get a handle on your opponents. Are they board game veterans who purchase the VIP ticket package to Gen Con each year? Or are they casual weekend players? Understanding the basic landscape is critical if you want to compete.
The same applies to marketing. Before diving head first into producing web videos, promoting posts on social media, creating brochures and other marketing collateral, or placing print ads in the IBJ, take a step back and understand the basics. What are your business objectives? What are your marketing goals? Who is your audience? What does the competitive landscape look like? What are your competitors doing? Where are your biggest opportunities? Answering these questions and others will lay the foundation as you begin developing your marketing plan and strategy.
2. Focus your efforts.
Dominion is a deck-building game where players try to build up their hands by adding more money and actions, with the ultimate goal of purchasing victory points. One particular card—Chapel—allows a player to trash up to four cards from his or her hand. I was so confused when I first saw this card, thinking, “Why would I ever want to permanently get rid of cards from my deck?” Well, the answer is quite simple. The idea is to continually “trim the fat” from your deck in order to make your powerful cards appear more frequently, giving you a lean deck and an effective hand virtually every turn of the game. Donald X. Vaccarino, creator of Dominion, goes so far as to say that “Chapel is the most powerful Dominion card relative to its cost.”
How does this apply to marketing? Too often, we see small organizations with small marketing budgets trying to accomplish too much and not getting anywhere as a result. They’re spreading their resources too thin. With this in mind, it’s important to take a hard look at your marketing goals and objectives, your marketing budget, and the tactics you’re employing to see how everything stacks up. Every tactic should be directly related to an organizational goal. And if your tactics are all connected in some way, all the better. More on that soon.
3. Plan ahead.
In most games, you have to think multiple turns in advance, and that planning should ideally start before the game does. In Catan, players begin the game by strategically placing settlements and roads on intersections that touch various resources (brick, wood, wool, wheat, and ore). In short, these early placements will affect your entire game and will either help you turn your settlements into sprawling cities or deserted villages. Beyond these initial placements, it’s important to think about how you’re going to grow your empire, what resources you’ll need as the game progresses, and what threats there are from your opponents.
Similarly, in marketing, it’s good to think through your strategies thoroughly, to have a really good grasp of how they will play out in the world, and to have contingency plans in place should things not go according to the original plan. Most marketing success doesn’t happen overnight. It takes careful planning and thoughtful execution over a period of time to gain traction. Which leads me to my next point.
4. Pick a strategy and stick with it.
The winners rarely change strategies mid-game, and the losers usually go into a game not knowing what their strategy is. But a winning strategy takes time to develop and perfect. You’ve probably heard this before, but I’ll say it again: There’s no silver bullet in marketing. Marketing takes time to pick up steam. You won’t jump to the top of a Google search overnight, nor will you triple your leads in a week’s time. But stick with it, and with a sound strategy and the creative to support it you’re bound to see success. As a rule of thumb, we suggest monitoring marketing performance and making small tweaks on a monthly basis, with larger adjustments on a quarterly basis.
5. Remain flexible.
While it’s not wise to change your strategy mid-game, it is important to remain flexible. After all, there are tons of things you won’t be able to control: the moves your opponents will make, the cards that will be drawn, the number rolled on the dice, or turning up an “epidemic” card. You need to have the ability to remain calm and to adapt as these external threats come into play.
Just as it’s important to keep an eye on how these threats shape a board game, it remains equally important in marketing. Ever hear of Murphy’s Law? Well, Mr. Murphy tends to hang around the marketing and advertising industry. Things will go wrong: There’s a new marketing goal that wasn’t a goal just two days prior, board members aren’t buying into a particular strategy, or a competitor is rolling out a campaign that’s eerily similar to what you’ve been working on for months. As a marketing professional, it’s your job to remain calm, adjust (not change) your strategy, and put a plan in place to overcome these hurdles.
6. Multiply your efforts.
In Dominion, it’s possible to build your deck in such a way that the action cards you play allow you to draw and play more cards. If you have the right combination of action cards—usually consisting of Libraries, Markets, and Villages—you can go on playing and drawing cards until you’ve added a lot of money to your hand. This is called a non-terminal engine strategy.
In today’s immersive media environment, it’s important to have strategies and tactics that go deep. A 15-second pre-roll spot may get a good laugh, but not be likely to trigger an action on its own. If it’s good, consumers will inevitably want to see more, and you need to have the content strategy to support that.
Ticket To Ride is a game set at the turn of the 20th century where you’re competing to claim railway routes connecting cities throughout North America. The longer the routes, the more points you earn. Once you’ve fulfilled two or three large routes, say one going East-West and another couple North-South, it becomes much easier to fulfill additional routes later in the game by adding small tracks to the larger, already established routes—giving you a lot more victory points in the end.
The bottom line: once you have the foundation in place, consider adding to it. The last thing you want to do is cut corners with a marketing strategy or advertising campaign. Make sure you support your content with more content. If it’s any good, your customers will only want more.
Need help with your marketing? Give us a shout.
Posted in: Advertising & Branding
Tagged: board gamescatandominionticket to ride
Fit to Print
Is Your Agency Full Service or Full of Services?
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Police and Crime Commissioner thanks Julian Knight MP for funding boost
Julian Knight MP has been publicly thanked for his role in delivering millions of pounds of new funding to crime-fighting in the West Midlands.
David Jamieson, Labour’s Police and Crime Commissioner for the area, wrote to Julian after the Home Office allocated £3.37 million to set up the region’s first-ever Violence Reduction Unit (VRU). The VRU will focus on reducing crime by preventing children and young people from getting involved in criminality.
Julian has been a long-standing champion of policing in the West Midlands, and only recently spoke in the House of Commons during the debate on the Government’s new Serious Violence Strategy.
Commenting on the news, Julian Knight said:
“I’m delighted that the Government have chosen to commit millions of pounds to combating violent crime in Solihull and the West Midlands – the latest in a strong track record of central government support for local policing in our region.
“There is always more to do, and I will continue to fight to ensure that our police have the resources they need. That includes a proper base in our community, and I hope David Jamieson will carry on this spirit of cross-party cooperation and work with me to save Solihull Police Station.”
In his letter, David Jamieson wrote:
“May I thank you once again for your support in helping to secure this funding which will make a big difference to the work we can do to tackle serious violence in our region. The VRU will succeed with all partners engaged and involved. It will work closely with the NHS, local authorities, education, Community Safety Partnerships, and other key stakeholders who all have a part to play to tackle serious violence on our streets.”
Sutton Coldfield Royal Town youth challenged to tug of war with royal town politicians
The Sutton Coldfield Community Games take place this weekend and are to be opened at one o’clock on Saturday by the Royal Town’s MP Andrew Mitchell and the Mayor of Royal Sutton Coldfield, David Allan.
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France thwarts possible attack, warns of threats
Jacques Brinon
PARIS (AP) — French police have arrested a 15-year-old boy at his Paris home to thwart what they feared was a planned weekend attack, as the prime minister warned on Sunday some 15,000 people in the country could be in the process of being radicalized.
The arrest of the teenager on Saturday came two days after police moved in on what the Paris prosecutor says was a group of female "commandos" arrested after an aborted attack at Notre Dame Cathedral and another possible attack. Those arrested included a 15-year-old girl, the daughter of one of three women arrested south of Paris.
A security official said Sunday that France's intelligence services "detected a threat" and a judicial official said police moved into action Saturday fearing a planned attack this weekend.
The officials weren't authorized to speak publicly about the arrest and asked not to be named. Both said the boy's arrest was not linked to the arrests last week of four women, the 15-year-old daughter of one of the women and a man. So far, one woman has been charged.
Intelligence agents suspected the boy planned to carry out a knife attack in a public place this weekend, the judicial official said, refusing to name a spot where it was thought the attack might occur. The official said the teenager, born in December 2000, is 15 — not 16 as officials previously said.
France is in a state of emergency after three attacks this year, including the Bastille Day truck attack in Nice that killed 86 people. That followed two waves of attacks last year, notably the Nov. 13 attacks on restaurants, bars, a concert hall and stadium that left 130 people dead.
News of the arrest came shortly after Prime Minister Manuel Valls said Sunday that "every day attacks are foiled ... (including) as we speak."
Valls said nearly 15,000 people in France are being tracked because they are suspected of being in the process of radicalization, while 1,350 are under investigation — 293 of them for alleged links with a terrorism network.
"Today the threat is at a maximum, and we are a target," Valls said on Europe 1 radio. "Every day intelligence services, police foil attacks, dismantle networks, track terrorists."
Despite the tracking, with plots uncovered, "There will be new attacks. There will be innocent victims," the prime minister said.
The teenage boy had been placed under house arrest this summer due to France's state of emergency, after a search of his home, the judicial official said. It wasn't known what was found in the search.
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Russia to renew kangaroo meat imports after three year ban
12 DEC 2012: After a complete three year ban on the import of kangaroo meat due to serious health breaches, Russia has reportedly reached an agreement with Australia’s largest kangaroo meat processor, Macro Meats, to renew imports.
However, leaked documents between Macro Meats and its kangaroo shooters have revealed that shooters have been ordered to spray all kangaroo carcasses with acid in an attempt to combat controversial contamination issues.
The Russian government announced a total ban on importing kangaroo meat in 2009 after systematic food safety and hygiene violations were found within the industry. Russia had previously accounted for about 76% of Australia’s kangaroo meat exports.
Russian delegates examined kangaroo meat processing recently in a three week visit to Australia. Wildlife Protection Association of Australia has now revealed that in the months leading up to the visit, Macro Meats ordered its shooters to spray the carcasses with acetic acid, despite stating on its website that its “kangaroo meat is completely free from antibiotics, chemicals, growth hormones or any artificial intervention”. Spokesperson Mark Pearson stated that Russian delegation left Australia with the “last minute revelation that they had been deceived by industry with misleading reports about hygiene and contamination control.”
Acetic acid is used in the preparation of numerous topical medications including wart removal, in ear drops, as an expectorant, liniment and astringent. The Australian Government Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities states that acetic acid is also used in the manufacturing of a number of chemical compounds, plastics, pharmaceuticals, dyes, insecticides, photographic chemicals, vitamins, antibiotics, cosmetics and hormones among other uses.
The Government warns that when acetic acid is ingested it “may cause severe corrosion of the mouth and gastrointestinal tract, leading to vomiting, diarrhoea, circulatory collapse, kidney failure and death.”
This happens also in spite of the expose shown on Lateline this year of the high levels of contamination and E. Coli being present in supermarket samples of kangaroo meat purchased by Animal Liberation activists. See here.
WLPA and other animal welfare groups are stunned by this turn of events and remain deeply concerned over how far an industry will go to deceive consumers in an attempt to revive a cruel and out dated practice.
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Trump expected to pick State spokeswoman for UN ambassador
FILE - In this Aug. 9, 2017, file photo, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert speaks during a briefing at the State Department in Washington. President Donald Trump is expected to nominate Nauert to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Two administration officials confirmed Trump’s plans. A Republican congressional aide said the president was expected to announce his decision by tweet on Friday morning, Dec. 7, 2018. The officials were not authorized to speak publicly. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File) (Source: Alex Brandon)
By CATHERINE LUCEY, MATTHEW LEE, and ZEKE MILLER | December 7, 2018 at 1:38 AM CST - Updated December 7 at 1:38 AM
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is expected to announce he will nominate State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, officials familiar with the plans said Thursday.
Two administration officials confirmed Trump's plans. A Republican congressional aide said the president was expected to announce his decision by tweet on Friday morning. The officials were not authorized to speak publicly before Trump's announcement.
Trump has previously said Nauert was under serious consideration to replace Nikki Haley, who announced in October that she would step down at the end of this year. If Nauert is confirmed by the Senate, she would be a leading administration voice on Trump's foreign policy.
Trump told reporters last month that Nauert was "excellent," adding, "She's been a supporter for a long time."
Still, with Trump, no staffing decision is final until he makes the formal announcement, since he has been known to change course in the past.
Nauert did not respond to requests for comment.
She was a reporter for Fox News Channel before she became State Department spokeswoman under former secretary Rex Tillerson.
Plucked from Fox by the White House to serve as State Department spokeswoman, Nauert catapulted into the upper echelons of the agency's hierarchy when Tillerson was fired in March and replaced with Mike Pompeo. Nauert was then appointed acting undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs and was for a time the highest-ranking woman and fourth highest-ranking official in the building.
Nauert, who did not have a good relationship with Tillerson and had considered leaving the department, told associates at the time she was taken aback by the promotion offer and recommended a colleague for the job. But when White House officials told her they wanted her, she accepted.
That role gave her responsibilities far beyond the news conferences she held in the State Department briefing room. She oversaw public diplomacy in Washington and all of the roughly 275 overseas U.S. embassies, consulates and other posts. She was in charge of the Global Engagement Center that fights extremist messaging from the Islamic State group and others, and she has a seat on the U.S. Agency for Global Media that oversees government broadcast networks such as Voice of America.
Just 18 months ago, she wasn't even in government.
Nauert was a breaking news anchor on Trump's favorite television show, "Fox & Friends," when she was tapped to be the face and voice of the administration's foreign policy. With a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, she had come to Fox from ABC News, where she was a general assignment reporter. She hadn't specialized in foreign policy or international relations.
Shut out from the top by Tillerson and his inner circle, Nauert developed relationships with career diplomats. Barred from traveling with Tillerson, she embarked on her own overseas trips, visiting Bangladesh and Myanmar last year to see the plight of Rohingya Muslims, and then Israel after a planned stop in Syria was scrapped. All the while, she stayed in the good graces of the White House, even as Tillerson was increasingly on the outs.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders described Nauert in March as "a team player" and "a strong asset for the administration."
According to a new rule published in the Federal Register, asylum seekers who pass through another country first will be ineligible for asylum at the U.S. southern border. The rule, expected to go into effect on Tuesday, also applies to children who have crossed the border alone.
JONATHAN LEMIRE and CALVIN WOODWARD
Published July 14, 2019 at 11:30 AM
ICE immigration raids, arrests to start Sunday
Around 2,200 federal inmates to be released under reform law
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Hunt is on for James Foley's killer
Investigation focuses on former British rapper L-Jinny
Updated: 11:56 PM EDT Aug 25, 2014
Adam Sexton
Political Director
Investigators are getting closer by the hour to identifying the killer of journalist James Foley, according to ABC News.Click here to view News 9’s report.Suspicion is falling on a former British rapper who left a promising career in London last year to fight alongside the ISIS terrorists in Syria. The masked man who appeared in the execution video may have played a key role in killing Foley, ABC News reported.British intelligence officials are zeroing in on several London residents who joined ISIS, including a rapper who performed under the name L-Jinny.“The U.S. is working closely with our partners around the world, including the British, to identify that individual,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said.Although the man in the video spoke with a distinct London accent, British authorities said L-Jinny, whose real name is Abdel Majed Abdel Bary, was not the person who carried out the actual execution.Abdel Bary is the son of an alleged al-Qaida operative and Egyptian national who was extradited to the U.S. in 2012 on terrorism-related charges.As the search for Foley’s killers continues, other experts have been focused on the desert background from the video and are trying to identify possible landmarks or other topography. They hope to pinpoint the precise area and possibly find out where three remaining U.S. hostages are being held.Officials said the best guess right now is that the video was shot near the Syrian city of Raqqah, where special forces carried out an unsuccessful rescue mission earlier this summer.
MANCHESTER, N.H. —
Investigators are getting closer by the hour to identifying the killer of journalist James Foley, according to ABC News.
Click here to view News 9’s report.
James Foley remembered at memorial Mass in Rochester
Family releases letter from James Foley
Remembering journalist James Foley
Suspicion is falling on a former British rapper who left a promising career in London last year to fight alongside the ISIS terrorists in Syria. The masked man who appeared in the execution video may have played a key role in killing Foley, ABC News reported.
British intelligence officials are zeroing in on several London residents who joined ISIS, including a rapper who performed under the name L-Jinny.
“The U.S. is working closely with our partners around the world, including the British, to identify that individual,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said.
Although the man in the video spoke with a distinct London accent, British authorities said L-Jinny, whose real name is Abdel Majed Abdel Bary, was not the person who carried out the actual execution.
Abdel Bary is the son of an alleged al-Qaida operative and Egyptian national who was extradited to the U.S. in 2012 on terrorism-related charges.
As the search for Foley’s killers continues, other experts have been focused on the desert background from the video and are trying to identify possible landmarks or other topography. They hope to pinpoint the precise area and possibly find out where three remaining U.S. hostages are being held.
Officials said the best guess right now is that the video was shot near the Syrian city of Raqqah, where special forces carried out an unsuccessful rescue mission earlier this summer.
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Kiev: A Portrait, 1800-1917
Author: Michael F. Hamm
Size: 107.25МБ
In an "urban biography," Michael Hamm tells the story of one of Europe's most diverse cities and its distinctive mix of Ukrainian, Polish, Russian, and Jewish inhabitants. A splendid urban center in medieval times, Kiev became a major metropolis in late Imperial Russia, and is now the capital of independent Ukraine. After a concise account of Kiev's early history, Hamm focuses on the city's dramatic growth in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The first historian to analyze how each of Kiev's ethnic groups contributed to the vitality of the city's culture, he also examines the violent conflicts that developed among them. He shows why Kiev came to be known for its "abundance of revolutionaries" and its anti-Semitic violence. This carefully detailed account reveals another side of the city's history. It helps to put present events in context, showing that at least one of the 'new' nationalisms in the former Soviet Union has old and very deep roots.
WorldHistory -> Literature. Modern history
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Novell Expects 75% Jump In E-Mail Software Sales
a Wall Street Journal Staff Reporter
Updated Sept. 6, 1996 12:01 am ET
SAN FRANCISCO -- Novell Inc. expects a 75% jump in unit sales of its GroupWise electronic-mail software in the next 12 months, said vice president Stewart Nelson.
Mr. Nelson said the sales growth will be driven by GroupWise 5, a new version of the product that will be unveiled in New York on Sept. 12. It is expected to begin shipping in volume within days of the announcement.
"We...
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The W. Edwards Deming Center for Quality, Productivity, and Competitiveness » Deming Cup » Deming Cup 2010
The inaugural Deming Cup Award Dinner took place on October 18, 2010 at Columbia University’s Low Rotunda from 6 to 9 pm. We honor Samuel Palmisano, Chairman, President and CEO of IBM, for his outstanding contributions in the area of operations. We truly believe his accomplishments are a model to foster operational excellence practices.
Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer
Sam Palmisano is Chairman of the Board, President and Chief Executive Officer of IBM. Mr. Palmisano was appointed to Chief Executive Officer in March 2002 and Chairman in January 2003. Previously, he served as President and Chief Operating Officer.
He began his career in 1973 in Baltimore, Maryland. Since then, Mr. Palmisano has held a series of leadership positions during his IBM career, including senior vice president for the Enterprise Systems and Personal Systems groups. Mr. Palmisano also played a key role in creating and leading IBM’s Global Services, rising to senior vice president, and building the largest and most diversified IT services organization in the industry. He also served as senior managing director of operations for IBM Japan.
Mr. Palmisano is a graduate of The Johns Hopkins University. In recognition of his leadership role as co-chair of the Council of Competitiveness’ National Innovation Initiative, as well as his many business accomplishments, Mr. Palmisano was awarded an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in September 2005. In July 2006, he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship from the London Business School.
Download the Deming Cup Award Ceremony Highlights 2010 (.pdf)
Samuel Palmisano, Chairman, President and CEO - IBM
Read his speech(PDF) | Read his bio
In this picture Paul O'Neill, 72nd Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, and co-chair of the Deming Cup, congratulates the inaugural recipient, Sam Palmisano, Chairman, IBM.
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Third Rock’s Bet on Lotus Tissue Repair Generates Big Return
Luke Timmerman
conservative in hopes of eking out some short-term returns, Third Rock has bet on long-term fields of science, like tumor metabolism, gene therapy, and epigenetics. Sometimes, like in the case of Lotus, it decided to take the risky route of being the sole investor, rather than build a broader syndicate of venture investors that could help mitigate the downside.
Although some of these early portfolio companies have shown signs of promise, like Agios Pharmaceuticals, Foundation Medicine, and Constellation Pharmaceuticals, many of Third Rock’s investments, by their nature, will take years to achieve the scientific validation they need to generate liquid returns.
Only one member of Third Rock’s original portfolio of more than 30 companies had delivered a liquid return before Lotus. That was Cambridge, MA-based Alnara Pharmaceuticals, which was acquired by Eli Lilly for $180 million up front in July 2010. That return, however, wasn’t as meaningful to Third Rock, because it was one of five venture firms in the deal, and it didn’t start the company.
Lotus, which we profiled at its start back in June 2011, was founded by Third Rock to treat a rare genetic disease called dystrophic epidermolysis bullosa (DEB).
Only about 300 people in the U.S. are thought to have this condition, which causes painful skin blisters that can result in fingers and toes getting fused together. Sometimes the blisters migrate internally, to the esophagus, the mouth, the gastrointestinal tract and the upper airways, causing all kinds of pain and suffering. Victims are also at high risk of developing squamous cell carcinoma, a deadly skin cancer. There is currently no FDA-approved treatment for the disease.
The technology for the startup came from Mei Chen and David Woodley, a pair of dermatology professors at the University of Southern California. They performed animal studies with a protein replacement treatment that is supposed to migrate to the wounded skin, and heal it. Mark de Souza, formerly of Dyax, was the founding CEO, and served as a co-founder with Philip Reilly, a venture partner at Third Rock.
Third Rock Gets $616M to Grow New Crop of Biotech Startups
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Improving quality, increasing impact: The Youth Programme Quality Intervention UK-Wide Pilot
The Centre for Youth Impact has received over £607,000 of National Lottery funding through the Big Lottery Fund to lead a three and a half year (Apr 2018- Sep 2021) test and learn project for a ground-breaking quality improvement initiative. The Youth Programme Quality Intervention (YPQI) was developed in the US, and has never before been piloted in the UK. Through extensive research, the YPQI has been shown to improve outcomes for young people, to create a sustainable and supportive culture of organisational reflection and improvement, and to refocus evaluation on the quality of relationships and setting. This pilot project will test the YPQI in all four nations of the UK, to learn from its impact on culture and practice, and assess its applicability to different policy and practice contexts. It will build the foundations for wider roll-out, through establishing a community of practice and cohort of trained coaches. It will translate the YPQI for the UK context. It is an exciting and potentially transformative opportunity for the UK youth sector.
Quality improvement and impact measurement in the youth sector
The drive to measure, demonstrate and prove impact is strong within the UK youth sector, though it has evolved at different ‘speeds’ across the four nations. Regardless, a uniting feature is a policy narrative that connects sustainability and funding to evidence of impact, which has led to an over-focus on the measurement of outcomes in isolation in an effort to prove impact at the expense of improving services. Refocusing on the quality of practice would create the opportunity for two profound shifts: firstly, it would direct energies to the improvement and observation of quality alongside the monitoring of outcomes, and secondly, as a consequence, it would create the potential for the observation of quality to become predictive of outcomes for young people.
At the same time, there has been a concerted development of quality standards across the UK youth sector, which although welcome, have a different focus to the YPQI. Indeed, the systematic and embedded reflection on continuous improvement that is at the centre of the YPQI approach is both different and complementary to formal quality assurance processes.
The Youth Programme Quality Intervention (YPQI)
The YPQI is a systematic approach to quality improvement, developed in the States during the 1990s. It is based around an observational assessment tool, the Program Quality Assessment, and training in Youth Work Methods from qualified coaches. It follows an assess-plan-improve sequence to help youth organisations focus on and improve the quality of their provision.
The YPQI looks at quality in four domains of practice: safety, support, interaction and engagement, which together create a set of key developmental experiences for young people. The assessment of quality is based on observation, by peers and youth work managers. The YPQI creates a context where quality improvement is prioritised, provides technical support for providers to improve, and builds capacity within providers to put continuous quality improvement into practice. It has been subjected to an experimental trial, which highlighted its positive impact on the quality of provision, and thus outcomes for young people[1].
[1] See Smith, C et al (2009) Managing for Positive Youth Development: Linking Management Practices to Instructional Performances in Out-of-school Time Organizations.; and Smith, C. et al (2012) Continuous quality improvement in afterschool settings: Impact findings from the Youth Program Quality Intervention study; both Washington, DC: The Forum for Youth Investment.
The UK pilot plan
The UK pilot is being led by the Centre for Youth Impact in partnership with the David P Weikart Center for Youth Program Quality. The pilot will work with its first wave of organisations in England (starting Autumn 2018), followed by Scotland and Wales (starting Spring 2019) and finally in Northern Ireland (starting Autumn 2019). We will be working with partners in each country to help support and guide the pilot. Alongside the piloting of the YPQI itself there will be substantial research and evaluation that aims to understand both the experience and success of the approach in different contexts and assess the link between the quality framework and positive outcomes for young people.
The Centre for Youth Impact will work with partner organisations in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to recruit and support pilot organisations and build the infrastructure for further roll-out beyond this project. Specifically, the goals of the pilot are to:
Explore the applicability of the model to informal and non-formal youth provision in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland;
Test the potential of the model to make a measurable improvement to the quality of informal and non-formal youth provision;
Assist participating organisations in developing a culture of continuous quality improvement;
Learn about the support delivery organisations need – and how best to provide this support – to improve the quality of their provision; and
Demonstrate that the YPQI can assist a diverse group of providers in improving the quality of their provision.
The ultimate goal of the pilot is to both increase the availability of high-quality provision for young people in the different countries of the UK, and to develop an in-depth understanding of the relationship between the quality of practice and outcomes for young people.
For more information please contact Matthew Hill at matthew.hill@youthimpact.uk.
Our monthly newsletter collects news, events, research and blogs from the Centre, our networks and practitioners and organisations around the world. Sign-up, and read our previous newsletters, here.
Centre Thoughts
Listening Fund
YIF
YPQI
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Watch The United States of Leland (2003) Online
Crime, Drama, Romance
Chris Klein, Don Cheadle, Jena Malone, Kevin Spacey, Ryan Gosling
Matthew Ryan Hoge
Watch The United States of Leland Online Free:
Tells the story of a young man’s experience in a juvenile detention center that touches on the tumultuous changes that befall his family and the community in which he lives.
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The United States of Leland (2003)
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Z6 Mag
The Rise Of VoIP Scammers: How To Protect Yourself From Getting Scammed
Reysel Montero
The advent of sophisticated digital technologies has produced more accessible and convenient ways for people to interact and do business transactions. But, along with the digital revolution and the spawn of technologies, comes a considerable uncertainty in terms of security of valuable information.
Nowadays, scammers and illegal transactions are taking full advantage of the internet, as well as, technology solutions. Most frauds are usually done in cloud communications and in Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), to access crucial data for financial purposes.
VoIP makes businesses communication inexpensive and straightforward, that is why intelligent scammers have found a way to use it as a means to carry out “vishing scams;”a type of phishing where frauds make phone calls to trick somebody. Usually, scammers pose as a businessman or a financial partner who request private details from their victims.
The reason why I am writing this article is mainly, not to give you tips on how to detect scams online, because that alone is a job of a fraud investigator. What I am trying to do here is to make you understand these scams well, so you know how to beat the fraudsters personally.
With VoIP, people can create fake numbers easily. Using a phony number, scammers can make calls and pretend to be a bank or a business representative, who may ask for critical information such as employee data, bank details, or even about company’s properties; and they can get away with it effortlessly. This is because attackers can easily hide their tracks with minimal risk of detection, and nowadays, VoIP hardware has become more accessible and less expensive.
If you think that cybercriminals have to be geniuses to make fraud calls or illegal transactions, the answer is NO. VoIP is easy to set up but difficult to track, meaning to say, cybercriminals can conveniently connect this equipment to their computers and smartphones to steal vital information. They only need to know the basics of a VoIP set up.
Also, fake numbers are difficult to track because they can be destroyed instantly. And with the feature of advanced voice-changing software, has been made available to the public nowadays, a vishing scam is much easier to pull off.
In some cases, attackers don’t have to destroy a number to cover their tracks. Instead what they usually do is tampering with the caller ID. With this vicious scheme, they can trick users into thinking that they are having a conversation with some of the most legitimate business representative in the country, a Microsoft technical support staff, or even a fraud investigator.
Traditional phone lines are said to be very expensive, that is why scammers choose VoIP services to target victims all over the globe at a fraction of the cost. Other than traditional phones and email phishing scams, cybercriminals are resorting to VoIP due to its cost-efficiency. These people are very resourceful, and they will use all means to attack you and your family for profit.
These scenarios may happen to you and your loved ones since cybercriminals are very rampant today, especially with the advent of digital technologies. VoIP is very useful and offers a lot of advantages; it all depends on the people and how they intended to use it.
There are no effective ways on how to spot scammers, but the best thing you can do is to protect yourself. The first step is to set stringent policies on information-sharing and impose stricter security processes for all your business communications and other personal transactions. Or, if you detect one, you may get in touch with scam experts.
Businesses Agreed With The Conversion Of Plain Old Telephone Service Into VoIP
VoIP Phone System Are Now Creating Wonders Into The Medical World
I've been contributing news since 2010, both online and print. Aside from Z6Mag, I manage independent news blogs that provide awareness on a diverse list of topics to every reader.
AMCA Breach: 20 Million Victims, 19 Class Actions
[bctt tweet=”AMCA previously reported that there were only 200,000 victims in the recent breach, but their partner labs said there were more than 20 million.” username=”Z6Mag”]
Al Restar
AMCA previously reported that there were only 200,000 victims in the recent breach but the company, but their partner labs said there were more than 20 million. Photo: cbgrfx123 | Flickr | CC BY-SA 2.0
More than 20 million and not 200,000 have fallen victim to a massive data breach that has seen medical clients using the services of healthcare billing company, American Medical Collection Agency (AMCA), to pay for their laboratory tests in different blood testing labs across the U.S. were confirmed by the SEC filings of affected medical institutions amidst the earlier claims of AMCA that there were fewer victims.
The data breach was a result of a cyber attack that aims to phish for financial information from the website of the AMCA. The exposed data belongs to Americans who paid laboratory services at several clinical and blood testing labs and institutions and used the AMCA billing portal.
What happened in the AMCA breach?
Data that were stolen from the victims include their names, phone numbers, dates of birth, home addresses, social security numbers, credit card numbers, and other bank details. The said information was auctioned off by the hacker in several financial hacking forums.
According to DataBreaches.net, the organization who first reported about the incident, AMCA officials, following the notification of the breach confirmed that their system has been compromised and has remained undetected for more than eight months. AMCA corroborated that the breach took place between August 1, 2018, and March 30, 2019.
Notifications have been sent by several of AMCA’s corporate partners and clients to their customers following the disclosure of the security breach that has seen information from millions of Americans compromised.
Related: Hospitals Only Spend 5% Of Its Budget For Cybersecurity Amidst 82% Of Them Reporting To Have Been Attacked
The list of impacted testing laboratories includes Quest Diagnostics (11.9 million patients), LabCorp (7.7 million patients), BioReference Laboratories (Opko Health subsidiary, 422,600 patients), Carecentrix (500,000 patients), and Sunrise Laboratories (undisclosed number of patients).
However, neither the AMCA nor its five clients have yet to notify ALL impacted citizens by the breach making them vulnerable to a lot of cyber crimes and their financial data could be used by anyone who gets hold of the information against the persons of those who still don’t know that their financial information is floating around the internet.
The companies involved in the breach are facing several lawsuits
Appropriately, the lawsuit came into the direction of AMCA, Quest, and LabCorp regarding the incident. More than 11 class-suite actions have been filed against the three companies for their inability to protect consumer data. The 11 lawsuits were recorded at The United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) on June 3. Since then, eight more lawsuits were filed against the companies in federal courts from New Jersey, New York, and California.
According to litigation experts, “If many cases are filed in federal court, any of the lawyers on any of those cases can file a motion with the JPML [..] to centralize the various federal cases that have been filed by sending all of them to a single judge for coordinated pre-trial proceedings.”
“Healthcare companies are especially susceptible to data breaches not only because they aggregate a tremendous amount of important and sensitive data, but also because they tend to be less focused on cybersecurity protection than other industries,” said John Yanchunis of Morgan and Morgan, one of the firms who filed lawsuits against Quest Diagnostics.
“These companies, like Quest Diagnostics, know they are at an increased risk and yet have not taken the proper steps to protect their patients’ data. We will fight for justice on behalf of those impacted by this breach,” added Yanchunis.
Lawmakers are demanding an explanation
The U.S. government, led by attorneys general from Connecticut and Illinois has also opened an investigation on the matter. Furthermore, lawmakers and other politicians have sent letters to the responding companies to ask for an explanation of why an eight-month data breach remained undetected and to demand accountability from them.
In Washington, US Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) also sent a letter to Quest Laboratories demanding the company explain its vetting process for selecting AMCA as a billing vendor, and what requirements a third-party vendor has to pass. Democratic New Jersey Sens. Cory Booker and Bob Menendez also sent letters to AMCA, Quest, and LabCorp, seeking official answers on how a breach of this severity went undetected for eight months.
“The months-long leak leaves sensitive personal and financial information vulnerable in the hands of criminal enterprises. Moreover, such breaches force victims to contend with identity theft that may lead to irreparable harm to their credit reports and financial future,” said the letter sent by the NJ senators.
‘The Hunger Games’ Is Launching A Prequel And A Possible Movie
[bctt tweet=”Suzanne Collins is releasing a prequel to The Hunger Games storyline and Lionsgate is already looking forward in turning it into a blockbuster movie” username=”Z6Mag”]
Sean Louis Salazar
Source: Scholastic
Almost fours years after the last The Hunger Games movie (The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part II) and almost nine years after the first book from the trilogy was released, Suzanne Collins is returning with the famed trilogy — but this time in a form of a prequel.
Scholastic, the publishing company that distributed Collins’ The Hunger Games trilogy, announced today that it is publishing a prequel novel to the series, currently untitled, which will hit shelves on May 19, 2020.
“Suzanne Collins is a master at combining brilliant storytelling, superb world-building, breathtaking suspense, and social commentary,” Scholastic Trade Publishing President Ellie Berger said in a statement. “We are absolutely thrilled — as both readers and publishers — to introduce the devoted fans of the series and a new audience to an entirely new perspective on this modern classic.”
Collins’ original Hunger Games trilogy—The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay—altogether, sold more than 100 million copies and has been translated into more than 50 languages. Moreover, The Hunger Games books appeared on the New York Times bestseller list for more than 260 consecutive weeks (more than five straight years).
After writing the last installment in 2010, Collins teased in 2013 that she was working on a new series, but did not say whether it was related to The Hunger Games.
This time, the novel will be set in the world of Panem, 64 years before the events of the original Hunger Games trilogy—the morning where Katniss Everdeen volunteered as a tribute on the 74th Hunger Games. Presumably, Katniss Everdeen played by Jeniffer Lawrence will not be involved in the upcoming novel.
Based on the previous novels in the series, 74 years before the main novels, the 13 Districts of Panem already tried to initiate a rebellion against the Capital. In the aftermath of the failed attempt, 12 Districts remained to leave District 13 to rubbles. The Hunger Games was a result and served as a reminder that all the other Districts should obediently comply with the Capital’s rule.
The novel will take place 10 years after the first rebellion and will tell the story of Panem during the “Dark Days following a failed rebellion in Panem “With this book, I wanted to explore the state of nature, who we are, and what we perceive is required for our survival,” Collins told the Associated Press in the announcement. “The reconstruction period 10 years after the war, commonly referred to as the Dark Days — as the country of Panem struggles back to its feet — provides fertile ground for characters to grapple with these questions and thereby define their views of humanity.”
On other news, the Lionsgate film studio, who adapted The Hunger Games trilogy into movies, is already looking forward to the next addition to Collins’ franchise given that it received praise and public attention for producing them.
“As the proud home of the Hunger Games movies, we can hardly wait for Suzanne’s next book to be published,” said Joe Drake, chairman of the Lionsgate Motion Picture Group, in a recent statement to the Associated Press. “We’ve been communicating with her during the writing process and we look forward to continuing to work closely with her on the movie.”S
Lionsgate turned Collins’ Hunger Games novels into a series of four films, dividing the last novel, Hunger Games: Mockingjay, into a two-part finale. Over the course of the four movies, it earned almost $3 billion dollars an the worldwide box office with the last movie earning $653.4 million.
Collins helped with the movies as an executive producer and a co-screenwriter on the first 2012 movie but distanced herself after she finalized Mockingjay in 2010.
Lionsgate is also known to have produced Twilight, which is one of their platinum franchises along with Collins’ trilogy. The studio earlier licensed The Hunger Games to theme parks and live concert tours being built around the movie franchise.
Additionally, it starred Jenniffer Lawrence who played the main character as Katniss Everdeen in all of the four movies, which helped catapult her acting career in 2012.
Scholastic acquired world English rights to the prequel novel and it will publish in print, digital and audio formats in the US, Canada, the UK and Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand next year. The deal was negotiated by Rosemary Stimola of the Stimola Literary Studio for Suzanne Collins and David Levithan, VP, Publisher, and Editorial Director, for Scholastic.
Global Ice Melting At Rates Faster Than Expected
Photo by Sergey Kuznetsov on Unsplash
The global ice, or the size and number of glaciers located across cold spots around the world, is a clear indicator of the effects of global warming. With human’s excessive and consistent use of o-zone depleting resources such as fossil fuels — the rate of global ice is melting will only keep accelerating.
The National Snow and Ice Data Center reported that based on data they have gathered since the1900s, glaciers around the globe are shrinking and melting at an alarming rate.
Arctic sea ice has been in constant general low over the years following the increasing trend of greenhouse gas. Additionally, as the frozen ground across the Arctic melts, it releases a massive amount of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Scientists say that this effect could make global ice melt accelerate even faster.
A separate study found that parts of the Canadian Arctic are experiencing a rate of permafrost thaw six times the long-term average.
Meanwhile, melted ice is especially notable both in and around Greenland — home to the second largest ice sheet on the planet.
“Communities in #Greenland rely on the sea ice for transport, hunting, and fishing. Extreme events, here flooding of the ice by abrupt onset of surface melt call for increased predictive capacity in the Arctic,” Steffen Olsen, a climate researcher at the Danish Meteorological Institute said in a tweet.
Olsen was referring to Greenland losing 2 billion metric tons of ice. “The high melt is unusual so early in the season but not unprecedented,” Greenland Ice said in a tweet.
Experts are calling the lost ice “not normal” considering that it equates to almost half of Greenland. Roughly 45 percent of the ice sheet surface has been melting. Usually, less than 10 percent of the ice sheet surface is melting at this time of year. According to data from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, Wednesday set a daily record for the widest melt area on that date, with 275,000 square miles.
“I’m losing the ability to communicate the magnitude [of change],” Jeremy Mathis, a longtime Arctic researcher and a current board director at the National Academies of Sciences told Mashable. “I’m running out of adjectives to describe the scope of change we’re seeing.”
On other parts of the globe, a city in western Alaska is experiencing drastic changes to its land formations as the state’s ice and permafrost are starting to thaw away.
“Springtime in Alaska isn’t what it used to be. This is the 3rd time past 21 years we can say” warmest spring of record.” 1998 was the warmest to date, exceeded in 2016 and now 2016 exceeded in 2019. Trend +4.0F (+2.2C) since the 1970s.” Rick Thoman said in a tweet.
The continued ice and permafrost melting in Iceland are causing significant damages in terms of requiring towns and villages like Newtok in western Alaska to relocate to avoid dangers.
“It’s a real challenge because in the US there isn’t the precedence to deal with this and there isn’t the political framework to deal with it either,” said Susan Natali, a scientist and Arctic expert at the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts. “The numbers needing relocation will grow, the costs are going up and people’s lives and cultural practices will be impacted.
“Every year there’s a new temperature record, it’s getting worse and worse and you feel like a broken record saying it. This should be the number one urgent conversation happening right now because it’s not just going to be Alaska, it’s going to be other communities all over the US,” Natali added.
The problem does not only persist in Greenland, the Arctic or Alaska. Global ice is melting all across the globe. “The famed snows of Kilimanjaro have melted more than 80 percent since 1912. Glaciers in the Garhwal Himalaya in India are retreating so fast that researchers believe that most central and eastern Himalayan glaciers could virtually disappear by 2035 […] From the Arctic to Peru, from Switzerland to the equatorial glaciers of Man Jaya in Indonesia, massive ice fields, monstrous glaciers, and sea ice are disappearing, fast,” the National Geographic reported.
This week, the Pope has talked to oil executives in the Vatican to find solutions in the growing problem of global warming. He called for a “radical energy transition” from conventional fossil fuels and develop greener energy alternatives.
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A Life of Prayer, Grace, and Community
Vocations and Membership
Professed Members: Men and Women (friars and sisters) who have bound themselves to the community through the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, living in small communities, in hermitages, or with their families. Professed dedicate themselves to prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours twice daily, the Augustinian meditative study of scripture and theology each day, and a ministry of inclusive justice and communio. Membership is ecumenical and inclusive to anyone who has reached the age of 21 and is self sufficient regardless of orientation, marital status, or other considerations. All are welcome at our Table! Faculties for candidates who wish Holy Orders are provided by our Prior General/Bishop. Clerics from other Sacramental Churches are welcome to join with permission of their bishop. Professed have certain obligations to community functions, particularly the annual chapter each year in August.
Oblate Members: Men and women who feel called to the spirit of the Order and wish to share in our life of prayer and ministry, but who, for various reasons, do not feel able or called to vowed commitment. These brothers and sisters of ours make promises to live the spirit of the Rule in their life situation, promise to pray each day according to their custom, and share their lives in ministry of some kind. Oblates are always welcome, but are only obligated to participate in the Annual Chapter and Retreat in August, and in six (6) other community functions during the year. These functions can be in person during a community day or a community ministry, or they may participate via our weekly fellowship and prayer conference call.
Friar Joseph Augustine - Profession
Living a 4th Century Rule in the 21st Century
Members live on their own, in small communities, or with their family
Members live poverty within self-sufficiency and a spirit of shared resources as "tent making" friars
Celibacy is an option but not a requirement
Membership is open to all equally regardless of gender, marital status, or sexual orientation
For more information about vocations or oblation in the AIHM, please Click the Vocations Form in the menu to the right, or contact Fr. Thomas Gabriel Bradshaw below:
Fr. Thomas Gabriel Bradshaw
Vocations Director
Friary of the Annunciation
Vocations Form
Seminary Formation Program
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« Hurricane Michael Could Be Strongest to Hit Panhandle | Main | Haley to Step Down as UN Ambassador »
S.C. Waiver Eases Evacuation of Farm Animals from Storms
Tuesday, October 9, 2018 at 6:30PM
COLUMBIA — For the second time in less than a month, South Carolina officials have issued a temporary waiver of certain requirements for farm animals being evacuated due to a hurricane.
The action was requested by agriculture officials in Florida, where Hurricane Michael is bearing down on the coast, said State Veterinarian Boyd Parr.
“In order to accommodate evacuations in advance of the hurricane, we are temporarily suspending some of the requirements governing the importation of agricultural animals into South Carolina as we did during Hurricane Florence,” Parr said.
Parr directs Clemson University’s Livestock-Poultry Health, a regulatory agency that oversees animal health issues.
To prevent the spread of animal disease, both state and federal regulations include requirements for interstate movement and identification of animals, such as horses, cattle, swine and goats. These regulations frequently require certification by veterinarians as to the health status of the animals being transported.
Parr’s declaration waives many of those requirements. Specifically:
Horses being evacuated to South Carolina that have a current Coggins test will be admitted to the state without a Certificate of Veterinary Inspection (CVI). A current Coggins test chart should accompany these horses.
Horses being evacuated to South Carolina without a current Coggins test will be allowed entry into the state provided they will be allowed to return to their state of origin without a current Coggins or CVI after the evacuation is lifted.
All other animals being evacuated without a CVI will be temporarily admitted to South Carolina and also allowed to leave South Carolina provided the state to which they are destined also has waived their import requirements.
The order extends until Oct. 31 unless extended or rescinded.
South Carolina and states throughout the Southeast took similar action during Hurricane Florence in September. The waivers apply only to animals being evacuated from the hurricane.
Information for animal owners on emergency preparedness, response and recovery is posted on the LPH Emergency Preparedness, Response and Recovery page.
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India's growing environmental crisis
A longstanding ALERT fan, Dr Shaju Thomas from the Tropical Institute of Ecological Sciences in India, weighs in here with worries about the future of India's environment:
Indian environments in peril (photo by William Laurance)
Environmental governance in India has evolved over the last 60 years, via a bevy of Acts, Rules, Bills, Ordinances, and other such legal measures. Despite growing pressures from various vested interests, these legal acts have clearly helped to save India's environment from even worse deterioration than it has so far suffered.
But the opening up of India to global market forces in the 1990s, and the policies that accompanied it, have created severe challenges for the environment.
A striking example is the appointment of a High Level Committee (HLC) in 2014 by the Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change. The HLC was charged with reviewing major environmental laws in the country, including:
- The Environment Protection Act, 1986
- The Forest Conservation Act, 1980
- The Wildlife Protection Act, 1972
- The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974
- The Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981
- The Indian Forests Act, 1927
The HLC submitted its report in November 2014 -- without giving enough time for public discourse.
The biggest problem with the report that it oversteps its mandate. The HLC wants to get rid of time-consuming procedures for approval of development projects. It wants to introduce "speed" in project approvals, which it says are the "engines of the nation's growth".
Further, the HLC is proposing an "Environment Law (Management) Act", as well as more centralized federal and state environmental authorities, which can be more easily controlled. And the HLC's report has no provision at all to deal with climate change and related issues.
These are all dangerous developments. The HLC report is a deliberate attempt to derail the legal and policy framework that has evolved over time to protect India's environment.
Indians need to stand up and be heard. If its recommendations are adopted, the HLC report will pose great perils for India's environmental future.
High Level Committee, India, environmental protection, governance, Ministry of Forestry, Shaju Thomas, globalization
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Interview with Jonathan Doering, author of Battalion 202
August 18, 2014 July 31, 2013 by Mark
Jonathan Doering has now contributed three stories from his series about a German invasion of Britain in WW2, so it’s about time we heard a bit more about him. His story Battalion 202: Rotten Parchment Bonds appeared in Alt Hist Issue 5, and the previous stories appeared in Alt Hist Issue 4. Here’s some more from Jonathan.
This is a photo of Monika, Noah and Jonathan on holiday in Germany last summer. Jonathan is the one on the right!
Three stories from your series Battalion 202 have now appeared in Alt Hist. Can you tell us what’s next in store for the people of Pontefract?
Unfortunately, things are going to get far worse before they start getting better. The Nazis have been gradually consolidating their power, as they would have done in reality had they successfully landed in Britain. The next story, “The Sheep and the Goats”, again focuses on the local police officer Harold Storey and his growing awareness of the sinister aspects of the Nazi project, and how he reacts to this. The next story that I’m working on now deals again with the local Auxiliary Unit which has a traitor in its midst.
What’s the historical background for your story? Was there really an organisation called Battalion 202?
Yes, there really was an organisation called Battalion 202. In 1941 there was a growing realisation in Britain that Hitler intended to invade Britain. Churchill ordered for a nascent resistance movement to be organised against that possibility, with the umbrella title of ‘The British Resistance Organisation’. The spine of this organisation was to be dozens of Auxiliary Units, teams of between four and eight men who had been trained in clandestine warfare and who were to go to ground as the Nazis swept over Britain. They were actually supposed to focus on sabotage and interference rather than fighting and assassination, but there is little doubt that there would have been a lot of violence, both on their parts and that of the German occupiers. Administratively, they were organised into three battalions: 201 covered Scotland, 202 the North of England, 203 the South of England. AUs were established in Wales, but were not organised under an overarching title as in other parts of Britain. Their uniforms were ordinary Home Guard uniforms, apart from the shoulder patches which identified their Battalions – although the numbers would have been meaningless to anyone not in the know. George Orwell, with his experience of front line warfare in Spain, was involved in training AU volunteers in London. Many of these men served from D-Day onwards in the regular army.
There were also “observers”, civilians who had been trained to gather intelligence which they would then pass on via intermediaries to radio operators. These operators would transmit the intelligence to AUs in the locale, which would then plan attacks. Finally, there were deep-level agents, members of local and national government and the civil service, primed to apparently collaborate with the Nazis, who would also be sending intelligence out to the Resistance and doing what they could to frustrate the Occupation. These people were known as “the other side” and would have walked a daily knife edge as well. Although some members of the AUs have been identified, as far as I know no one in the “the other side” has ever been made known to the public. They would have all been taking appalling risks for their communities and their country, and in researching and writing these stories, I’ve heaved several sighs of relief that history spared us the horror of occupation. So, yes, there was such an organisation, and they really were told that in the event of the Nazis arriving that they could expect to live for fourteen days.
For our readers not familiar with Pontefract, can you tell us a bit more about your home town?
Truth to tell, I’m a bit of an interloper, not being a native of Pontefract. I was born in Stockport and as a child lived just South of Manchester. My father was an engineer, so we moved with his job. When I was eight we went to North Berwick, near Edinburgh, and when I was thirteen we moved to Southport, near Liverpool. Since leaving home and taking my degrees, I’ve lived and worked in Japan, France, Norwich, Oxford, London,… and now Ponte! Pontefract is ace! It’s a market town of about 30,000 inhabitants. Previously it relied heavily on mining, and retains quite a bit of farming. There is still a sweet factory (one of its products is the world-famous liquorice Pontefract Cake). Pontefract is a fairly tightly-knit community which has weathered a lot over the years. Its castle was where Richard II was imprisoned and died, and where Richard III was declared king. It was also besieged during the Civil War by Cromwell’s Roundhead forces (if you look at the town crest that I use on the Resistance newspaper, it includes the town’s motto: Post mortem patris pro filio – Latin for “After the death of the father [Charles I] we are for the son [Charles II]”). It occupies a central position, being fairly central in the island of Britain if you look at the map, as well as central to the North and to Yorkshire, which means that although it was and is relatively small; its strategic significance has led to its involvement in several historical developments. It also meant that I could imagine the Nazis being keen to establish themselves here.
I met my wife whilst I was teaching in North London, which is another lovely place, but my wife prefers to visit London rather than live there, so being a Northerner I started to look for teaching jobs in quieter, leafier climes North of Watford Gap. The job I have now came up, so we moved here. Pontefract is a hard-working, good-humoured place to have fetched up in and I think we’ll be here for quite some time to come.
How did you get into writing?
I think many writers are similar in that they have always felt an urge to write. When I was young (five or so), one of my aunts visited us from Canada. I was already making up little stories in my head and playing around with words, and one day she had me tell her a story, which she wrote down and then read back to me. That sense of pleasure from making up stories stuck with me and I carried on doodling away. In school I wrote Science Fiction stories for fanzines that some friends were printing, and at university got involved in the campus newspapers and magazines, and so on.
What do you do when you’re not writing?
Be with my family, day dream, teach English at a sixth form college, read as much as possible, listen to music (Folk, Jazz and Classical mainly), watch films (just watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid again for the first time in twenty years, and it’s still brilliant!), attend my local Quaker Meeting, dig over our allotment, go walking….
Are you working on any other short stories or novels at the moment and if so can you tell us a bit more about them?
Beyond Battalion 202, I’m mulling over a story set during the witchcraft trials in Seventeenth Century Scotland, which I first heard about when I was growing up there, so that would be interesting to return to. I’m also thinking over a short comic play about allotment holders, just for a bit of a change! I used to write comic sketches for my friends to act in at school, so it would be good to have another go at that kind of writing. On top of that I’m hoping to write about Quaker communities in Prague and Budapest for the national Quaker magazine, The Friend.
What are your ambitions as a writer?
To keep writing and getting my work read! I enjoy writing short stories and articles, so that’s where a lot of my energy goes. I have an ambition to communicate with other people about the things that I find exciting, interesting and important. If someone enjoys reading something I’ve written, and also gets something useful from it, that’s fantastic. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed developing a series of interlinked short stories in Battalion 202 – it’s been very challenging and rewarding. I hope that people who have read the stories have enjoyed them and are looking forward to more – please do keep reading!
If anyone would like to read another of Jonathan’s stories (which is set in the present day and doesn’t deal with WW2 at all, please follow the links below to read ‘Magic Christmas Snowballs’ online, or to purchase a print version of Gold Dust Magazine.
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/golddustmagazine
http://www.golddustmagazine.co.uk/
Categories Interview, Issue 5 Tags Auxiliary Unit, Battalion, Britain, George Orwell, London, Nazi, Pontefract, Pontefract cake 1 Comment
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Book Review, International Legal Theory and Teaching, Middle East
Arbitration in Douglas Johnston’s The Historical Foundations of World Order
Andrew Newcombe (University of Victoria Faculty of Law)/ June 2, 2009 April 15, 2019 /Leave a comment
Professor Roger Alford’s recent posting, “The Arbitrator as Diplomat”, discusses the role of “diplomatic arbitration,” a concept with a long historical pedigree. Some of that history (and much more) is contained in the late Professor Douglas M. Johnston’s posthumous opus, The Historical Foundations of World Order: The Tower and the Arena (2008). The book was awarded the ASIL’s 2009 Certificate of Merit for a Preeminent Contribution to Creative Scholarship and was the subject of a panel discussion at the ASIL Annual Meeting in March 2009. It was feted as an extraordinary work of scholarship. As Professor W. Michael Reisman discusses in the book’s preface, Professor Johnston’s work is “the most detailed account of the history of international law.”
Although the treatment of international arbitration in The Historical Foundations of World Order: The Tower and the Arena is brief, there are some treasures. Prof. Johnston notes that legend in primitive and classical antiquity suggests that arbitration was favoured by the gods, although the gods retained a “fickle attachment to war as an honorable course of action to settle issues.” From arbitration in Sumer, Greece and Rome, Johnston turns to the Jay Treaty of 1794 as “the first early modern experiment in the peaceful settlement of international disputes” and “the modern foundation of the adjudicative model of world order.” Historical tidbits abound. For instance, when the US House of Representatives demanded access to documents relating to the Jay Treaty negotiations, President Washington asserted “executive privilege,” a precedent that “still reverberates within the American constitutional system.”
Johnston’s discussion of the 1899 Hague Peace Conference exemplifies his approach. As Professor Reisman describes in the preface:
Great history is far more than a chronological narrative. It requires a contextualization of events in their cultural, economic and technological milieu and an appreciation of their contingency. It must account for the impacts of exceptional individuals, without, as Harold Lasswell put it, rendering them taxidermical specimens. Yet it must also account for collective actions and path-driven results, the so-called “great historical forces.”
Johnston highlights the efforts of legal internationalists and the European and American peace movements in advocating for the process of international arbitration in the late 19th century. He also details the role of individuals, including Léon Victor Auguste Bourgeois, who presided over the Third Commission (and who later became President of the League of Nations), and state policy resulting in the establishment of the Permanent Court of Arbitration.
Johnston’s functionalist, multi-model approach to international law “commits the historian – and his reader – to a long story of slow and uneven human development.” At 772 pages this is not a short summer time read. Yet it remains accessible to the general reader and expert alike. It is a richly rewarding discussion of the historical foundations of the international legal system.
Investment Treaties in Times of Crisis: Balancing National Interests and the Rule of Law
Charles H. Brower II (Wayne State University)/ June 4, 2009 June 4, 2009
Land deals could sow arbitration disputes
Luke Eric Peterson (Investment Arbitration Reporter)/ May 30, 2009 May 30, 2009
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The Ed Leuck Louisiana Academic Arboretum at Centenary College
The Arboretum was established in 1984 at the behest of Harry Balcom (college Board of Trustees member) and Donald Webb (the college President), with Mr. Balcom providing the necessary funds. The present arboretum site was chosen both for its proximity to foot traffic and its poor physical condition. Construction of a dam to ensure a permanent aquatic habitat, the installation of sprinklers and the layout and carving of a system of walking paths were completed in the fall of 1984. The first plantings were made by Professor Ed Leuck in the spring of 1985. Since that time, plants have been added continuously. In recent years, as trees and shrubs become larger, new acquisitions of woody plants to the collection has slowed. More attention is now given to observing, maintaining, and encouraging diversity in the herbaceous component. The Arboretum collection comprises 187 woody native plant species, 13 woody exotic plant species, and more than 70 non-woody native plant species.
2911 Centenary Blvd, Shreveport, Louisiana 71104, United States,
landerson@centenary.edu
http://www.centenary.edu/arboretum
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Author Topic: Land Day
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2798
posted 28 March 2003 03:14 PM
March 30th is Palestinian Land Day (Youm al-Ard)
"In memory of those who fell on Land Day. They died so that we can live, and their spirit lives on."
(Text of memorial at the Palestinian city of Sakhnin to honor those who fell on the occasion of Land Day)
What Happened on the Day of the Land
For a quarter of a century, the Palestinian minority in Israel has celebrated Land Day on March 30 as a protest against Israel’s discriminatory policies toward its one million Palestinian citizens and to underline its collective and individual rights. Land Day is also a commemoration of the bloody confrontations with state "security" forces that took place in 1976 when six Palestinians were killed and some 100 injured [while protesting Israeli government plans to expropriate 60,000 dunams (14,826 acres) of Arab owned land in the Galilee]. Since then, it has become a sort of Martin Luther King Jr. Day that remains unrecognized by the state.
In 1948 and the subsequent few years, Israel confiscated nearly 85 percent of the territory within the Green Line from Palestinians. Most of this land was taken from the 800,000 Palestinian refugees who were thrown out or fled for fear of massacres during the 1948 war. Over the five decades since then, Israel confiscated more than two-thirds of the land owned by its Palestinian citizens and on which they depended for their livelihood. Their share of land has dropped from 9 percent in [postwar] 1948 to less than 3 percent in 2000.
Today, there are 220,000 displaced Palestinians in Israel who are not allowed to return to their homes and villages. There are 43 villages not recognized by Israel that are inhabited by more than 70,000 Palestinians, or almost 8 percent of the Palestinian population. For decades, even the recognized Palestinian municipalities received an insignificant fraction of government subsidies, while budgetary discrimination in education, health, culture, development, and other areas persisted. Israel’s standard of living is among the top 20 worldwide, yet one of every two Palestinian children in the country lives under the poverty line, and half of the Israeli children living in poverty are Palestinian. Over the last six years, unemployment increased by 88 percent among Palestinian academics in Israel and two-fold among Palestinian women, according to December 2000 government figures. This partially explains the increasing dissatisfaction and protest among Israel’s Palestinian minority.
It is evident now more than ever that Israel cannot be a democracy for all its citizens while continuing to be a state for all Jews. Israel proved it could only tolerate Palestinian "under-existence" based on dependency and coercion. For their part, the Palestinians have learned that integration and assimilation in a "Jewish state" means no more than marginalization, dependence, and cultural disfiguration. Today, they are ever more keen on achieving equality without integration, until the conditions are ripe for the state to become that of its citizens and, hence, a new Israeli society made up of both Jewish and Palestinian citizens.
It is estimated that in two decades the demographic factor will change in favor of the Palestinians, hence strengthening their demand for equality and liberal democratic norms. In 2000, there were 8.2 million people in historic Palestine, 40 percent of whom are Palestinians, and by 2010 to 2015 it will be 50 percent. In the same time period, Palestinian citizens of Israel will comprise a quarter of Israel’s population, hence transcending the barriers of a small minority into the realm of bi-nationalism.
For the advocates of an ethnic Jewish state, this might be a reason to worry. But for those searching for a democratic, enlightened, and genuinely modern Israel, this is the time to mend bridges with the Palestinian minority in a spirit of tolerance and equality.
from The Forgotten Million: Land Day and Israel's Palestinian Minority by Marwan Bishara
[ 28 March 2003: Message edited by: satana ]
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OBAMA’S AFRICA SPEECH: Lies, Hypocrisy, and a Prescription for Continued African Dependence 1 / 6
Question: Is Obama better than Bush?
Answer: It depends how you like your imperialism – with a white face or a black one.
US president Barack Obama’s speech at Accra, Ghana on July 11, 2009 was equal parts jaw dropping hypocrisy, outright fiction, sound advice for Africans if taken literally, and advocacy for institutions ideally suited to capital accumulation in Africa by Western investors. Africans should heed the US president’s call to embrace the idea that Africa’s future is up to Africans (and Africans alone) and to build their own nations, but the path Obama proposes, if followed, would condemn Africa to continued underdevelopment and perpetual dependence on the West.
It should come as a surprise to no one but the weakly naïve and politically untutored that the role of the US president in Africa is to promote and defend the interests of the United States, not Africans. This is so, even if the US president shares the skin color of Africa’s majority. What may not be so apparent, but which is true nevertheless, is that Obama represents the interests of his country’s hereditary capitalist families, banks, corporations and wealthy investors whose resources and backing have brought him to power, and in whose interests the logic of imperialism compels him to act. It is Obama’s goal as representative of US capital to open, and keep open, Africa’s vast resources to exploitation by Western, and particularly US, capital without impediments of corruption, war and pan-African, nationalist or socialist projects of independent development getting in the way. His color and African heritage give Obama a leg up on a white president, allowing him to immediately connect with an African audience. But his message is no less racist, imperialist and informed by the interests of Wall Street than that of his white predecessors.
Outright fiction
Obama used his speech to sell two fictions: (1) that Africa’s underdevelopment has nothing to do with colonialism and neo-colonialism, but is rooted in corruption, tribalism and Africans’ blaming others for their poverty; and (2) that Africa’s development depends on adopting institutions that allow foreign capital unfettered access to African markets and resources.
“It is easy to point fingers, and to pin the blame for (Africa’s) problems on others,” said Obama, explaining that,
“Countries like Kenya, which had a per capita economy larger than South Korea’s when I was born, have been badly outpaced. Disease and conflict have ravaged parts of the African continent. In many places, the hope of my (Kenyan) father’s generation gave way to cynicism, even despair.”
During the years of its rapid economic growth, south Korea did not follow the development path Obama prescribes for Africa today. Instead, it built five-year industrial plans that singled out industries the government would nurture through tariff protection, subsidies and government support. Foreign currencies necessary for importing machinery and industrial inputs were accumulated through foreign exchange controls, whose violation was punishable by death. [1]
The government completely regulated foreign investment, welcoming it in some areas but banning it in others. Attitudes toward intellectual property were lax, with south Korean businesses encouraged to reverse engineer Western technology and pirate the West’s patented products.
This approach to development was the rule, not the exception. Virtually every developed country has followed the same path, using tariffs, subsidies and discrimination against foreign investors, to industrialize.
The first countries to adopt free trade, apart from Britain, where weak countries on whom free trade was imposed by colonial masters. The free trade was typically one-way. Countries in Asia and Africa barely grew economically during the period of colonial rule, while Western Europe – the beneficiary of one-way free trade — grew rapidly. Latin America also grew strongly, but at the time, followed an import-substitution model, not the open markets model industrial powerhouses favored because it favored them.
Under the rule of Britain, the United States was treated much as African countries are today. It was denied the use of tariffs to protect its fledgling industry. It was barred from exporting products that competed with British products. And it was encouraged, through subsides, to concentrate on agriculture. Manufacturing industry was to be left to the British.
Alexander Hamilton rejected this model, creating an infant industry program that allowed the United States to industrialize rapidly. Hamilton’s program — which remained the basis of US economic policy up to World War II — created the highest tariff barriers in the world. US federal mining laws restricted ownership of mines to US citizens and businesses incorporated in the United States. (When Zimbabwe’s government developed legislation to require majority Zimbabwean ownership of the country’s resources, along the lines of earlier US policy, it was denounced for grossly mismanaging the economy.)
Other developed countries also used foreign ownership restrictions to help them industrialize. Prior to 1962, Japan restricted foreign ownership to 49 percent and banned it altogether in certain industries.
In his speech, Obama created the impression that south Korea developed rapidly because it followed policies the World Bank endorses, while at the same time Africa stagnated, because it didn’t. This is doubly false. Not only did south Korea not follow World Bank policies – in fact, it did the very opposite – Africa has been practically run by the IMF and World Bank since the 1980s. Under their guidance, African living standards have worsened, not improved. Over the same period, the Western world’s financial elite – which exercises enormous influence over the World Bank and IMF – saw its wealth expand greatly.
Corruption, Obama argues, and not the legacy of colonialism, has also held Africa back. There must, he insists, be “concrete solutions to corruption like forensic accounting, automating services, strengthening hot lines and protecting whistle-blowers to advance transparency and accountability.”
These measures are desirable. But spectacular corruption in Indonesia, Italy, Japan, south Korea, Taiwan and China didn’t hold these countries back. The critical issue in development isn’t whether corruption happens, but whether the dirty money stays in the country.
Afrasan Adamawan hat gesagt…
Thanks a million for this website and the non-mainstream views.
We shall fight to keep our minds open so we may see things that may not be obvious to our confused eyes.
Bois-Caiman-Redaktion hat gesagt…
Hello Afrasan Adamawan,
we thank you for your support, together with the Sankofa-paradigm we strong for a African Re-Naissance and the Rebirth of the Black World. The Mankind need the true VOICE of Africa for a true World balance.
Africa is the born place of mankind and civilization ! The true History of Africa and Black people must be restored, it ist the only WAY to FREE Black People and Africa Mentally. The African Re-Naissance ist impossible Without our Mental Liberation!
Be bessed
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Nazareth College Call4BackUp
Don’t Be Afraid to Break Bad
Not So Different
Life is full of lessons to be learned. When we’re thinking about how to best lead, promote, sing, or otherwise operate within the context of an a cappella group, it’s worth looking beyond the realm of a cappella itself to what other walks of life can teach us.
Note: If you are not caught up on Breaking Bad and intend to watch it, I discourage you from reading further. This post contains spoilers.
Vince Gilligan’s television masterpiece Breaking Bad comes to a close this Sunday night.
Fans of the show celebrate its journey. The remarkable transformation of protagonist Walter White from milk-toast high school chemistry teacher and loving husband to premier meth cook to drug lord to an outcast with an M-60 in his trunk, hitting the open road for New Mexico with vengeance on his mind.
In most dramatic forms—lesser TV shows, films, or books—such transitions would read as absurdist fiction. The beauty of Breaking Bad is that few to none of its major plot points come across as contrivances. On the contrary, like a series of chemical reactions, each turn follows logical—sometimes coldly logical—decisions that the characters would believably make. An underachieving cancer patient decides to manufacture crystal meth so he can provide money for his family after he passes on. When everyone from his partner’s meddlesome girlfriend, to major players in a drug syndicate, to a rival chemist get in his way, he lets these people die, facilitates their murders, or just plain kills them dead. He grasps at the threads of loyalty to his wife and children, DEA brother in law, and a former student, but is equally guided by his hubris and unshakeable sense of pragmatism.
Breaking Bad’s unshakeable continuity, boldness, and internal logic have a lot to teach a cappella groups about how they make their own creative decisions, shape group identity, and set goals.
Too often, a cappella groups lose their way because they get too caught up in “what they’re supposed to do.” You have to compete at ICCAs. You have to wear black and red. You have to use a three song set with two upbeat numbers bookending a ballad. You have to cover a song by Mumford and Sons. You have to record an album so you can submit it for recording awards. In order to fund that album, you have to run a Kickstarter campaign.
If your group chooses to do all of the above, there’s nothing inherently wrong with it—just like there wouldn’t have been anything inherently wrong with Walter White carrying on as a chemistry teacher, begging his rich college buddy for chemo money, and dying a quiet death. But those choices were definitively not Walter White, just like the conventional steps for a college group delineated above are not by any stretch “one size fits all.”
Maybe your group finds its niche in the form of executing flash mobs. Or covering death metal. Or churning out material via YouTube and never recording a full-length album. Or singing whilst dressed up like clowns.
One creative decision leads to another, and to another after that. If a group follows its own logic, it has every opportunity to wind up in its own unique place.
The bottom line is that if your group embraces its own unique identity and vision, there’s no such thing as “doing it wrong.” If, however, you play it safe or choose to follow the herd of the a cappella masses, you’re only limiting your own potential to be great on your own terms. Sure, making decisions that diverge from the norm has the potential break bad. But even if the group goes down, it has the potential to do so in blaze of glory.
By Mike Chin on September 25, 2013 in Not So Different • Permalink
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We ran into a weird issue when we tried pausing a live stream. It let us pause our show (because when you gotta go, you gotta go), but when we tried to resume and pushed play, the app skipped us ahead to the live stream. We ran into this problem only with live streams and not with on-demand shows and movies, We’re hoping this issue goes away when the cloud DVR feature launches, We’ll see. Right now it makes for a somewhat buggy experience.
Some consumers argue that they don't need cable TV subscriptions because they can just subscribe to a streaming service from a certain network and watch their shows from streaming ready devices. However, the 200 million Americans that still have cable would disagree. Did you know that your cable TV subscription probably includes these streaming services? Why limit yourself to one network or pay for and manage multiple accounts when you could stream all of your favorite shows in one place? Providers like DIRECTV and Spectrum offer these services and apps at NO additional cost. Watch what you want, where you want, when you want.
Perhaps the biggest selling point for DIRECTV NOW is that you get a DIRECTV experience without the contract or setup fees. There’s no need to install a satellite dish, so you don’t have to pay for that, and though the streaming service isn’t quite as robust as its satellite counterpart, you don’t have to sign a contract. It really makes it easier to stomach some of the higher-priced packages from DIRECTV NOW because, guess what? You can cancel anytime.
Although we all know that the whole point behind cutting the cord is saving money and getting better TV time if the service is deemed worth paying for then why not go for it? Many people have not made the switch because they still value Live TV, which traditional TV reliably provides. But a few streaming services out there are trying their best to replicate the cable and satellite experience at a lower price and with more convenience. Streaming services are having quite the run, and they are here to prove to you that you can survive without cable. Be brave enough to cut the cord, look for cable TV alternatives, and then stream happily ever after.
Why these reviews never take into account several other streaming services that as per what can be watched in youtube, include a lot more options of US and international TV channels, like Nitro, XStreaming TV, etc, at a very good price. If somebody wants to watch movies all the time, Netflix is the best. But for people who wants to see TV channels from many different countries, in english, spanish, french, portuguese, etc, most of the services in this review have very little to offer.
One approach is to use one of the cord-cutting “calculators” at sites like The Verge and Slate, which allow users to pick out which services they’re interested in and then tally up your savings relative to cable. These are useful, but they generally don’t take into account a key cord cutting enabler: the ability to purchase shows a la carte through iTunes and Amazon, usually within a day of their original airing. This isn’t new technology—iTunes has been selling television downloads since 2005—but it changes the streaming calculus because it means you can easily and cheaply plug any gaps in whatever bundle of streaming options you choose.
For viewers who just have to keep up with current events and watch breaking news when it happens, a combination of Sling TV and a TV antenna should have you covered. Sling has CNN and Bloomberg TV, and for $5 extra a month you can get international news channels such as Euronews, France24, and News18 India. Add an indoor TV antenna, and you’ve got network and local news as well.
People living in remote valleys of the country came up with an innovative idea to solve their reception problems. They put up antennas on hilltops and ran cable wires into their house for better reception. The cable providers are currently using the same technology for offering a variety of channels and programs that meets the individual needs of every customer.
The services that we have recommended above are what we call aggregate services, meaning they provide content from many different sources and are going to provide cord cutters with the best value. There are lots of what we call stand-alone streaming services, media companies who charge a monthly fee for you to access JUST their content, and more are popping up every day.
As you would probably know, getting an internet service subscription through cable is actually a cost-effective and simple way to gain access to a high-speed internet connection at your home or office. Most of the leading cable internet service providers in the country make use of the existing cable TV lines in your home or office to deliver a fast and reliable high-speed internet. This means that customers who subscribe to a cable internet service will be able to browse the web and watch their favorite TV shows at the very same time over a single cable connection.
There were just four television networks operating in the country in the 1950s. In those days, the transmitted signals from the cable providers could only be received within a "line of sight" from the transmitting antenna due to the frequencies allotted for the TV service. As a result, customers living in remote areas of the country were not able to watch programs that had already become a significant part of the American culture.
Plus, now that there are several live TV streaming services, that may be the best way to handle all the viewing sans cable. Hulu with live TV is $479.88 per year—add HBO and Showtime to it and the price jumps to $719.76. If you add all the remaining streaming services (Netflix, Prime Video, YouTube Red, CBS, and Starz) that's $1,214.38—still cheaper than the average pay TV cable service.
Amazon Fire ($39.99 - $74.99): Amazon’s set-top box and its cheaper stick have the advantage of syncing well with any other Amazon devices you may have. You can ask your Alexa to find a show for you, and after you start watching it, you can pause it on your TV and pick it up later on your Fire tablet. As with the Roku, the Amazon Fire’s features have also been integrated into a smart TV. The most expensive version of the box adds an HD antenna for picking up free over-the-air local broadcast signals. One common complaint about Fire devices is that they push Amazon Prime Video content over that of other streaming video companies, but that’s a bit of a nitpick. Netflix and Hulu shows are still easy to access with this interface.
Apple TV has direct access to some streaming services using the remote control, and for others you must use an Apple device to cast the service to the TV. In addition, neither Chromecast nor Apple TV provides native access to the Amazon streaming service, so if you are an Amazon Prime member using either of these devices you are missing out on the valuable benefits from your Prime membership.
Here’s what I’m excited about: I have been recording all of my favorite shows on a Tablo Dual digital video recorder that hasn’t cost me a dime in subscription fees. And I’m loving it. It has truly opened my eyes to the fact that ATT can take its $100/month U-Verse TV service that keeps crapping out on us and stay away. I may never look to cable again.
Per your suggestion I have purchased the Roku Streaming Stick, gone thru the installation process, adding some of the free channels, etc. pretty much easy stuff and all working great until I decided to remove the stick from one TV to insert it in another TV. The Stick was VERY HOT! is that normal? I like the stick because of portability, I can take it from the living room TV to the bedroom TV without much hassle, but seems like getting hot is not safe. After a while watching the Pluto channel and going into a couple of commercials when the program re-started, there was NO sound! have to go back to main screen to start Pluto over again. This continue to happen all the time, evening/night as well as during the day. Then another issue started, a screen will come up saying “the USB port didn’t have enough power to run the Roku and needed to be connected to another power source” – I then connected it to the wall, haven’t had this issue anymore. I started running tests, turning on the TV and checking the Stick and it would normally take only about 1/2 hour to start getting hot, after one hour I would need a towel to be able to remove it. Anyone had this problem? Help!!
Overall, Amazon is still playing catch-up when it comes to Netflix and other streaming services just because they don’t have as much content. However, at technically $8.25 / month it is a bit cheaper than your typical $8.99 or $9.99 package, and you get free, 2-day shipping as a perk. If you shop online a lot, that could end up swinging your choice.
Those who end up cutting the cord never go back. That wouldn’t be hard to believe considering all the great services offered by some major online streaming services. We’re talking about youngsters mainly who don’t even bother and sign up for cable, to begin with. As they delve deeper into the world of video-on-demand subscription, 10-15$ becomes an amount worth the spend. Every service has something different to offer, and before you sign up for any, you might want to investigate which channel suits your preference best. Most of these services give you anywhere from a week to a month for you to evaluate them before charging you, and none of them include contract signing. The worst case scenario is that you’ll be stuck with a service you wish you hadn’t subscribed to for just a month. There’s no such thing as forced long-term commitment with streaming services. Now with that being said, let’s take a look at some of the best alternatives for Cable TV. Most of these stand-alone streaming services allow users to watch ABC, CBS, FOX, TNT, TMC, Discovery, History, Disney, National Geographic, NBC, ESPN and popular cable networks.
This streaming service basically revolutionized the whole cable TV alternative thing and still stands as one of the best in the market. Sling TV’s subscription fee kicks off at ($20 per month), and it’s unlikely that you’ll get charged more for your add-ons. This service offers two basic packages of channels (Orange and Blue) and allows subscribers to select smaller add-ons, which usually cost $5 per month. Sling TV has something for everyone, kids, foreigners, and sports enthusiasts. Oh, and their DVR features are too shabby either.
This option is for you if you like to follow the latest network and non-premium cable shows, like The New Girl, The Voice, The Flash, or Modern Family. Hulu Plus ($7.99 per month) offers current programs from FOX, NBC, ABC, the CW, as well as delayed or archived content from cable channels like Comedy Central and FX. You can add CBS shows, like Big Bang Theory, for another monthly fee of $5.99.
Most of the time, it’s not difficult to find deals on TV packages. Common deals providers offer include discounts on services, Visa® Prepaid Cards and free premium channels. Though most deals are advertised on providers’ websites, it’s a good idea to call and ask a sales representative if there are any additional deals not offered online. Remember, some deals are exclusive to the company’s website and might not be honored if you order service over the phone.
The reason was simple. And it was contrary to much of the expert advice that I read on some very well-respected review sites. I’m still pleased that I didn’t listen to the criticisms and focused on my own needs. At the time, I wanted the fastest device for streaming PlayStation Vue. In early 2016, nobody was talking about that, and it really pissed me off. I should actually be thanking those people. I might not be sitting here now talking to you if it wasn’t for them.
Along with each package, we’ve also included the amount of money the typical television viewer would save by cutting cable and switching to streaming. Greg Ireland, research director for multiscreen video at market-analysis firm IDC, estimates that the average cable subscriber pays $85 a month for video while receiving an effective $10 per month discount on internet service. That means for people with a “double play” bundle—cable TV and Internet in the same bill—canceling cable would save an average of $75 a month, or $900 per year.
I find the best option to be their “Live a Little” package. It is priced at $35 per month and contains Fox News, CNN, Nickelodeon, MSNBC, Hallmark Channel, ESPN, Disney, HGTV, USA, ID, TNT, Food, TBS, History, Discovery, Disney Jr, TV Land, Nick Jr, AMC, FX, FXX, Bravo, Lifetime, A&E, Animal Planet, BBC America, Bloomberg, BET, Cartoon Network, CMT, CNBC, Comedy Central, Disney XD, E!, ESPN2, Fox Business, FS1, Galavision, HLN, MTV, MTV2, Paramount Network, Syfy, TCM, TLC, Univision, VH1, and more
To help you comb through your options, we’ve put together this overview of 2018’s best TV providers and based it on our individual, in-depth reviews of each company. We know that not everyone wants the same thing from their TV provider, so we broke it down by satellite, cable, fiber-optic, and streaming providers. We encourage you to use this as a quick comparison, and dive into our individual reviews for a more thorough rundown of the companies that catch your eye.
Even when it comes to internet TV, it seems like some things never change. Similar to the cost creep we've seen on cable packages, cheap introductory rates from internet TV provides have recently crept higher. Sling, PlayStation, DirecTV and YouTube have all instituted recent price hikes, as they're not immune from the same bundling and price pressure from networks that pushes prices up on traditional TV.
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I bought your recommended budget Motorola/Arris SB6141 certified/refurbished surfboard modem for $30 off Amazon. 8 channels are plenty for me. I have to take the 2 cable boxes back anyway so their modem goes along for the ride. I wanted to offer to buy their modem off them for $30 but they wouldn’t have accepted that for sure…and I bet my modem return gets trashed.
The moment for me when the idea of dropping TV service became a long term prospect rather than just a short term experiment so I could write this article, was when I plugged in the antenna. The fact that I can get such high quality output, for network and PBS channels I had been paying for makes it hard for me to envision going back to a cable TV subscription. In addition, I have to sit through far fewer commercials (though I suspect that may change over time). Watching Netflix movies on the TV is much more satisfying than on the smaller computer screen and of course the freedom to watch current TV programs on my own schedule is a huge benefit when juggling the demands of work and family. I know there will be times during the year when a sports event I want to watch will be unavailable. But there's just no arguing with the dramatic cost savings. Pay TV is undeniably a richer experience, but is it worth a 330% premium? Not for me.
When it comes to MLB, NBA, NHL, Golf, NASCAR and College Sports, they are not as easy to come by. Each will air some national programming on broadcast TV throughout the year and you'll get those from your TV antenna. However, if you regularly follow these sports on Cable network channels and don't want to give that up, your options as a cord cutter are somewhat limited and sometimes costly. We will explore some options in the Streaming Services section below.
One of the streaming services I would suggest you look into if you’re a fan of shows like The Big Bang Theory or NCIS would be CBS All Access for $6 per month. This provides you with streaming access to the network along with on-demand access to all of their shows. So you know, the CBS link here is an affiliate link, but only because I honestly think it’s a good option for cord cutters.
With services like Showtime, HBO, Hulu, and many others now streaming their programming online, cord cutting has firmly entered the mainstream. But that doesn’t mean it’s always easy to get all your favorite shows over the internet. In order to make the transition away from cable as simple as possible, we’ve put together six streaming “packages” that should meet the needs of the most common types of TV viewers.
Pay-TV companies assume that if you want Internet only, you must be a cord cutter. To make up for you not paying for the TV service and associated equipment, they have begun capping data use at around 300 Gigs per month. If you stream video for three or four hours a day (average TV-watching time in most U.S. households), you will easily exceed this allowance. This means you will be charged overage fees, and to avoid those fees you will be forced into a higher-priced data tier. This is the most important reason to use a TV antenna - stream only what you need and use the antenna for the rest.
Whether you’re moving and want to set up new service before you settle in or you're looking for alternatives to your current cable provider, CableTV.com can help. With just one call, you can set up cable TV service, high-speed internet service, phone service, and even home security services. Enter your zip code, choose the company you want in your area, and call to speak to one of our experts.
As equipment improved, all twelve channels could be utilized, except where a local VHF television station broadcast. Local broadcast channels were not usable for signals deemed to be priority, but technology allowed low-priority signals to be placed on such channels by synchronizing their blanking intervals. Similarly, a local VHF station could not be carried on its broadcast channel as the signals would arrive at the TV set slightly separated in time, causing "ghosting".[citation needed]
At present, the leading cable TV service providers in the country deliver more than hundreds of HD channels to about 60 million homes in the country. In addition, most of the cable TV providers also offer high-speed internet and home phone services alongside. Customers also enjoy the luxury of double bundling or triple bundling these services, which in turn helps them to save a huge sum of money in the end.
The crown jewel driving this premium streaming service is Star Trek: Discovery (which isn't even that good a Star Trek show), plus other originals like The Good Fight, which can only be seen via All Access, at least in the US (ST:D is on Netflix in other countries). You can also add Showtime programming to watch in the All Access interface for $14.99 per month.
Since current seasons of CBS aren’t available on Hulu, CBS All Access is one option to get CBS Shows the day after the initial broadcast as CBS isn’t a part of Hulu. The basic service costs $5.99 per month and does air commercials. However, they offer a commercial-free plan for $9.99 per month. The service also offers live local CBS in over 150 markets. For more details, check out my review of CBS All Access.
Comcast reported a loss of 275,000 subscribers in the third quarter of 2010, bringing the total for the calendar year to 625,000. The company said most of these losses were not from people leaving for another service. Moffett pointed out that cable companies needed to offer lower-cost packages,[7] but a survey by Strategy Analytics revealed financial considerations were not the primary reason. People were not satisfied with what they could get, and online sources had a wider array of content. The survey showed that 13% of cable subscribers intended to cancel service in the next year. Slightly more than half were under the age of 40, and nearly all had a high school education. Two-thirds had or planned further schooling, and just over half earned at least $50,000 a year.[8]
This steady decline is the driving force behind a series of blockbuster mergers reshaping the media landscape, such as AT&T buying Time Warner, Walt Disney acquiring much of Fox, and Comcast pursuing Sky. Entertainment companies, nervously watching their business model waste away like a slowly melting glacier, are deciding they need to get larger and expand globally to compete with deep-pocketed rivals like Netflix—or sell.
K.C. That’s a great way to save money, especially if you aren’t much of a TV watcher. I don’t personally watch much TV, but the shows my wife and I watch tend to be on cable – often the Travel Channel, Food Network, Discover, History, ESPN, and The Disney Channel for our little one. That said, I don’t think we would be heartbroken to cut the cord and go without – just as long as I can keep my fast internet connection! 😉
One of the more popular options for watching streamed TV shows leaves out the media streaming software and network media device altogether, and has you just connecting your desktop or laptop directly to your HDTV. With this option you all you need is a TV and a desktop or laptop with a video output. Our laptop has a HDMI output, so it works well to connect it to our HDTV if we want.
Happily, the NFL has remained committed to airing local market and national games on free broadcast TV networks, so your TV antenna is going to provide ample football coverage! You'll get Sunday games, Sunday Night Football and Thursday Night Football. The only thing missing is Monday Night Football, which is only available on ESPN. There's now a great solution for cord cutters to get ESPN at a low cost and we'll explain more in the Streaming Services section below.
Not only do you have access to stream over 40,000 hit movies and TV shows, but you get free music, books, and unlimited photo storage as well. Your membership also includes free 2-day shipping from Amazon.com regardless of the order size. Some metropolitan areas offer 2-hour shipping. For more information, check out all the benefits you receive with Amazon Prime.
Netflix molded itself into an alternative to cable early on. One way the company accomplished this was by frequently acquiring rights to popular TV shows. So you’ll find all past seasons of “The Walking Dead” and “Better Call Saul” from AMC there. You’ll notice that seven seasons of “Shameless”, a Showtime produced series is there as well. With a broad selection of genres, Netflix aims to be all things for most people. And currently it’s doing a better job at it than any other streaming service on the market. You can even try out Netflix free for a month. The most basic plan is $7.99 per month. A subscription with HD quality costs $10.99 per month. Ultra HD (4K) will cost you $13.99 per month. You can try out Netflix free for a month.
Last year, AT&T launched their own stand-alone streaming service DirecTV Now. This streaming service doesn’t require a cable subscription. The basic plan includes over 60 channels for $35/month. The Just Right plan has over 80 channels for $50/month. The Go Big plan has over 100 channels for $60/month, and the Gotta Have It plan has over 120 channels for $70/month. A bit expensive, but why not give it a go if you can afford it? Directv is available on Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, iOS, Android, Chrome, and Safari with up to two simultaneous streams.
On November 28, 2011, a report by Credit Suisse media analyst Stefan Anninger said that young people who grew up accustomed to watching shows online would be less likely to subscribe to pay television services, terming these people as "cord-nevers". Anninger predicted that by the end of 2012, the industry's subscriber count would drop by 200,000 to 100.5 million; Anninger's report also stated that consumers were not likely to return to paying for television. In the case of land-line telephones, people had believed younger people would eventually get them, but now numerous subscribers only have mobile phones. Anninger predicted that the same would hold true for pay television, and that providers would need to offer lower-priced packages with fewer channels in order to reverse the trend.[29] Also using the term "cord-nevers" was Richard Schneider, whose company Antennas Direct was selling antennas through the Internet. After a decade in business, the company was selling 600,000 antennas a year. However, Schneider said some people only knew of the Internet and services such as Netflix and were not even aware broadcast television even existed.[15] In a speech on November 16, 2012, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said "cord nevers" did not see anything worth paying for.[30]
Playstation Vue is a relatively new TV option and lesser known service on the radar of cord-cutters, even though it’s offered by Sony. And along with Sling TV, they very well may have the most transparent pricing and sign-up process. The Playstation Vue channel lineup also includes 50+ channels in their base package dubbed “Access Slim” for $29.99 / month (this used to be $50 and they dropped the price).
If any of these options think they are worthy to cause one to cut the cord they are all sadly mistaken. Once you add the total cost these options charge, just to get the more highly desirable stations most people expect, you run into limitations: how many devices you can stream simultaneously, how much bandwidth you would need to even maintain stability, and how much more speed you’ll have to pay for with your internet provider to get it. It’s almost as if they are pushing potential cord cutters right back to their cable providers. Not to mention, Comcast/Xfinity, as much as I despise them, gives more reasonable offers for less cost, with anywhere DVR – both local and cloud based.
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We also considered each company’s assortment of channel packages, their prices, and the variety of bundling plans. We took the 136 most watched channels and tallied each provider’s channel plan to compare the price it took to get the best value. We found that you can usually get the best value just by sticking to the simplest channel package. Our favorite providers also offer discounts when you bundle your internet service, and they limit fees for first-time customers.
This streaming service has the seasons of most, if not all, broadcast TV series such as (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, The CW) with the latest recently aired episodes. Hulu also hosts a large selection of cable network series (including Comedy Central, MTV, and A&E). They have a movie library, but its content is not that good. Although their number of originals doesn’t match those of Netflix, Hulu has been trying to push some of its originals like The Hotwives of Orlando and Deadbeat. Their service costs about 7.99$ a month, 11.99$ if you want a commercial-free streaming experience. For those who are addicted to traditional television, Hulu Live TV is their best chance at watching the full lineups of national networks and locals. If you’re are TV-oriented, Hulu Plus is the best option for you. While you can get plenty of Hulu for free, paying 8$ on a monthly basis will get you the next-day service you need.
Perhaps no one deserves more credit for threatening the old TV business model than Netflix Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings. As the driving force behind the world’s largest streaming video service, with about 130 million subscribers, he’s taught consumers to expect an abundance of old and new shows and movies, without the irritation of commercial interruptions, for just $8 a month.
Now we’re paying half that for two accounts, and still have slick smartphones. You can pay even less for very reliable cellular service. Read about carriers like Republic Wireless or Straight Talk and Tello if you’re interested in delving into the subject. T-Mobile even has an offer where they will pay for your Netflix account if you sign up with their service.
Sony PS4 (starting at $299.99) / Microsoft XBox ($299 to $499): One of the biggest unexpected players in this space has been the major video game console companies. The Sony PS4 and Xbox One X are state-of-the-art in terms of their streaming capabilities, and they’re even creating their own services that attempt to serve the same functions as traditional cable TV. (More on that later.) The Xbox One S, Microsoft’s previous model, was still for sale as of August 2018, at $200 less than the One X. Click here to compare the two on the Xbox website.
ISP’s vary by location. I’m maintaining a list of providers with affordable internet only plans you can use to cut the cord. If you can’t find one on that page, try your existing provider. Now I know the “big” internet providers seem only to offer “triple play” packages bundling phone, TV, and internet. However, if you dig around on their site you should be able to find an internet service offering.
Some also concluded that the streaming service could be good for ratings after seeing the success of AMC’s Breaking Bad. The drama about a meth kingpin drew more than 10 million viewers in its final episode in 2013 after past seasons began appearing on Netflix. That compared with 1.4 million viewers for the first-season debut in 2008. Fans had caught up on the old seasons on Netflix, then tuned in to the current season on TV, they thought.
As the name suggests, cable internet works by using the same analog cables traditionally used to deliver cable television. These copper coaxial cables travel from your home to the a neighborhood node, and then to your service provider. Cable internet has a wider bandwidth than DSL, and unlike fiber, it’s already installed in most homes, which makes cable service convenient for getting high-speed internet with minimal installation. And if you’re interested in getting cable TV as well, bundling cable services can often save you money over getting the services separately.
Those who want to see non-British foreign television have ample options, too. In addition to the aforementioned Acorn (which also features programs from Canada and Australia, among other countries), both MHz Choice and Walter Presents have well-curated collections of European series, with a particular emphasis on the many great Scandinavian crime dramas. And the increasingly popular TV coming out of South Korea is available on DramaFever, Viki, and Kocowa.
Remember the days when you could watch network television for free? (those under 25, ask your parents). Well those channels are still available at no cost...if you have an antenna. And no, we're not talking about the clunky rabbit ears of old. Antennas have changed substantially in looks and performance over the last several years. Breakthroughs in technology spurred by development of the tiny but powerful digital antennas in smartphones have been adapted to the realm of TV reception. The result? "TV antennas today are 10% of the mass they were decades ago," says Richard Schneider, president of Missouri-based manufacturer Antennas Direct. "And the move to an all digital transmission that the FCC mandated back in 2009 has put those TV signals in a higher frequency which means a better signal with less noise".
Step 3: Cancel your pay TV subscription. Even if you are unsure that you have all your shows covered without cable, cancel anyway. Like me, you will realize a lot of the stuff we watch is simply because it’s on. You’ll also discover there is a lot higher quality TV shows are not on traditional TV. Cancel now and start saving today. If you don’t like being a cord cutter, your pay TV company will gladly take you back.
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In February 2012, the steering committee of Norway’s Bergen Assembly contemporary arts triennial announced the appointment of Moscow curators Ekaterina Degot and David Riff to serve as the organizers of the event. The leadership team of the inaugural Assembly includes a number of Russian participants: artists Dmitry Venkov, Dmitry Gutov, Ilya and Emilia Kabakov, Yury Leiderman, Andrei Silvertsov, Pavel Pepperstein, Aleksandr Rodchenko, Maksim Spivakov, Pyotr Subbotin-Permyak and Olga Chernysheva, along with the art groups Chto Delat?, Nest, and Urban Fauna Laboratory, and philosophers Keti Choukhrov and Boris Grois. The actual title of the exhibit was borrowed from the cult sci-fi novel by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, “Monday Begins on Saturday”.
It’s a difficult question: How do we stage an exhibit of political art (and do so politically) after everything that has happened to us? Here’s a brief summary of the previous episodes. In October 2008, we witnessed the flare-up of the financial crisis. Its many side effects initially promised to be fatal to the art world, but in the end the art world managed to stay afloat, albeit with varying success across the globe. For artists and curators, who tend to think globally, the financial fallout became motivation to come up with an alternative to the excessive and glamorous lifestyle enjoyed by the international art community.
View of the exhibit with “In the Stomach of the Predator” by Andreas Siekmann and Alice Creischer. Photo: Monika Żak. Courtesy of Barbara Weiss and KOW, Berlin. Commissioned by the 2013 Bergen Assembly
Leftist ideas once again began to attract widespread popularity. The 2009 Istanbul Biennial, organized by the group What, How & For Whom, centered on the fight against capitalism. The 2011 biennial, curated by the Costa-Rican born Jens Hoffmann, explored the imperceptible art of the empty gesture, the document and its artistic interpretations, and modesty as a mode of self-expression in the age of neoliberalism. Then, in 2012, the Polish artist Artur Zmijewski invited the Occupy movement and the group Voina to participate in the Berlin Biennial. For many people, these two social movements carried the hope of political and economic change. Willingly or unwillingly, Zmijewski staged the perfect experiment by giving Voina and Occupy the chance to operate in a zone of legitimacy and thereby to find out for themselves whether they’re shaky, ready-made movements or something truly worthy of respect.
Each of these exhibits stemmed from the idea that if art doesn’t change the world, then it should at least address the question of how to do so. The world has admittedly changed over the last several years. But the escalation of various conflicts in the political sphere has been nothing compared to the heightened aspirations of leftist art. We have recently begun to see exhibits of a different kind, such as dOCUMENTA(13) by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev and Encyclopedic Palace by Massimiliano Gioni, the centerpiece project of the 55th Venice Biennial. The emphasis on irrational art is considered by leftists to be reactionary anti-intellectualism. They want fresh ideas. And the Bergen Assembly is rife with them. If there is any justice in the world, then this new exhibit will propel Ekaterina Degot and David Riff to the highest league of curators in recognition of the originality and superior quality of their work. Let’s hope that in the future, they’ll be invited to work in a warmer climate—or at least one that can be reached by a direct flight from Moscow.
Dmitry Venkov in collaboration with Antonina Baever. Like the Sun. 2013. Movie still. Commissioned by the 2013 Bergen Assembly with the participation of Triumph Gallery, Moscow
The curators of this exhibit do not concern themselves with discussions about the extent to which art influences politics. To them, the political role of the artist as the initiator of social change is not a valid topic at all. Instead, Degot and Riff evaluate leftist art through a futurological approach. That means, on the one hand, that the exhibit includes a large number of fantastical pieces in various mediums. Take the crisp, slightly art-house film “Like The Sun,” perhaps the best example of video art in this category, co-directed by the winner of the 2012 Kandinsky Prize, Dmitry Venkov, and Rodchenko Moscow School of Photography and Multimedia graduate Antonina Baever. It’s a hipster version of Besson’s “The Fifth Element,” with a surprise ending: three oddball young people create a second sun in the Moscow sky with the help of camel milk and ocean water. Science fiction plays a big role not only in the exhibit but in the accompanying catalogue, where nearly half of the articles—including a fresh piece by Russian conceptualist Pavel Pepperstein—explore the subject of utopia and anti-utopia.
On the other hand, there are works that don’t fall into the sci-fi genre but which retrospectively take on a new resonance, not making a direct statement but exuding a kind of potential, a single scenario out of many possibilities. These works are based on the classics of Russian literature, which allows them to relax and see themselves from the side. The very process of creating an exhibit for a global audience is full of inherent contradictions. The curator has to make sure the exhibit contains a certain system of checks and balances, lest it appear dogmatic. In Russia, it is possible (but hardly necessary) to build exhibits in the trenches (meaning, in inhospitable locations); Degot and Riff’s earlier project “Shockworkers of the Mobile Image” for the first Ural Industrial Biennial in Ekaterinburg is a perfect example. At the same time, even in some of the most comfortable parts of Europe, rigorous and didactical pieces are unable to find an audience. That’s why curators will nobly steer clear of such works in favor of creating an inclusive rather than an exclusive exhibit. They may even package their project with a move reminiscent of traditional social art. For example, one of the sponsors of the Bergen Assembly is the fictional Chinese governmental organization, Zi Qi Dong Hai. A statement by the organization’s representatives appears in the catalogue immediately following the welcoming remarks of the Assembly chair, and contains several hilarious passages about “so-called Western democracy” that could stand to benefit from the support of an experienced China. Degot declined to disclose who was behind this conceptual gag. If anyone knows, please leave us a comment.
Mrinal Sen. Photograph from the filming of the movie “In Search of Famine.” 1980
At the core of Degot and Riff’s project is the famous novel by the Strugatsky brothers, “Monday Begins on Saturday.” The novel has been largely forgotten at home, and the Western reader has only limited knowledge of it; it was clearly read by the artists and participants of the exhibit, but not by the vast majority of the international art criticism scene. As a result, the Russian patron has a distinct advantage over other visitors to the Assembly. An even greater advantage is to be had by those who, like me, enjoyed the novel and re-read it from time to time. Of course, few of the book’s fans would call it a work of “neo-Leninism,” as it was described by the curators in the introduction to the catalogue. The novel can be interpreted this way only as a product of the “thaw” period, a time during which the “return to Leninist principles” was the main rallying cry. However, even those who espoused this slogan were aware of its double uses. For bureaucrats, it was a way to protect oneself from false accusations; for the intelligentsia, it meant greater freedom of speech and assembly. But that is beside the point: for Degot, it has always been characteristic to adopt a slightly more opinionated stance.
The exhibit spreads out over 11 venues across the city, from state museums to various non-commercial spaces. The name of each venue includes the word “institute.” Sometimes, the names coincide with the names of the departments from the novel’s Scientific Research Institute of Sorcery and Wizardry. Other times, they are invented by the curators themselves. An example of the latter is the Institute of Tropical Fascism by Colombian curator Inti Gerrero, which features an exhibit within an exhibit. In each room, the viewer runs into several repeating elements: an electric clock, a quote from the novel, and a potted ficus plant. These nuanced exhibits, like the novel itself, can only be understood by people from Russia; I recall having to explain to another visitor that this kind of clock and plant were the staples of the Soviet office interior.
View from the exhibit with “Icarus 13” by Kiluanji Kia Henda. Photo: Nils Klinger. Courtesy of Galleria Fonti, Naples, and Galeria Filomena Soares, Lisbon
The simple packaging of the exhibit serves as a highly accessible and even enticing prelude to the exhibit itself. The guiding principle behind the piece selections, however, is recognizable and fairly characteristic of a serious, left-leaning exhibit. For one, it includes many variations on the theme of architecture and public space. More than any other visual art, architecture—and especially postmodernist architecture— is closely connected to the socio-political environment of the day. As such, it has become a particular interest of leftist artists and has provided an endless source of topics for research and speculation. To illustrate this point, the first part of the exhibit, the Institute of the Disappearing Future, starts with a photographic series by Angolan artist Kiluanji Kia Henda titled “Icarus 13” (2008). The artist takes photographs of 1970s architecture in Angola and uses its modernist shapes to craft a touching narrative about the launch of the first African into space.
View from the exhibit with “The Island” by Ivan Melnichuk and Oleksandr Burlak (Group of Objects). Photo: Nils Klinger. Commissioned by the 2013 Bergen Assembly
The adjacent space houses a sprawling installation titled “The Island (2013)” by the Ukrainian duo Group of Objects (Ivan Melnychuk and Oleksandr Burlaka). It’s a model of an enormous estate, created by a former modernist for the new lord of contemporary life, the anonymous oligarch. The model is accompanied by a plethora of visual materials and a letter in which the fictional architect explains his project to his client: “The only thing I regret is not having been endowed with the qualities that would allow me to fight next to You in defense of Your ideals. I offer You my experience and artistic sensibilities as a humble gift. I hope it will be enough to bring glory to Your good deeds and rid your enemies of even the slightest expectation that Fortune may fall on their side.” The entire complex is composed of more than 10 buildings and stands on a territory with a public park and a stadium. In his project description, the architect also includes plans to construct a contemporary art museum, noting that “this museum will showcase Your priceless collection and should serve as worthy compensation for the fact that the citizens of the city will no longer be able to use the island. I assure You that, having had a chance to see the masterpieces of world art, they will forget about the pitiful pleasures they once reaped from this bygone island.”
In visual terms, “The Island” is strongly reminiscent of installations by the conceptual artist Ilya Kabakov, but in substance it has more in common with the prominent conflicts of modernity, from the architectural advocacy efforts of the Moscow-based Archnadzor to the recent demonstrations on Istanbul’s Taksim Square. With this installation, Group of Objects also seems to be commenting on the fierce debate between the “old” and “new” representatives of Ukrainian art. The older generation suffered under the Soviet Union and now responds to any private enterprise with a joyful recognition of their own individuality. But the new generation of the Ukrainian left sees no fundamental difference among the elites, political or economic, who in their view are crowding out the average citizen. We can see other rhetorical battles of this kind playing out in parts over Facebook, periodically acted out by the artists Arseniy Zhilyaev, Yuri Albert, Kirill Medvedev, Yury Shabelnikov and others. After a while, one gets the sense that people of different social classes and intellectual levels keep attacking one another pointlessly with stereotypes about the other side. But that’s just my lyrical aside.
View from the exhibit with “Valley of Beggars” by the group Urban Fauna Laboratory. Photo: Nils Klinger. Commissioned by the 2013 Bergen Assembly with support from Hordaland Kunstsenter, Bergen
If we return to the works of architecture at the Assembly, it’s important to mention a new piece by Aleksei Buldakov and his Urban Fauna Laboratory. The work is in the form of a blueprint for a suburban neighborhood, zoned off on the basis of the behavior and movements of animals and birds. The model is rendered in wonderful watercolor, resulting in an overall look that is refreshing and wild.
View from the exhibit with a still from “Tilikum” by Jan Peter Hammers. Photo: Monika Żak. Commissioned by the 2013 Bergen Assembly
Another popular category of works in the exhibit is the documentary video installation with elements of fiction, otherwise known as “research art.” In their introduction, the curators write that “in the worst case, the research becomes an image-maker for soft capitalism, in the same way that ‘autonomous’ art was and remains the face of so-called freedom and democracy.” The exhibit would have benefited from a new set of research installations, but it seems the curators had no way to get them. Many of the artists they selected stick to boring, previously trodden paths. For example, a film by the Chinese artist Wong Men Hoi, on display at the Institute of Pines and Prison Rations, profiles former members of the Norwegian communist party through endless interviews. The Institute of Zoology, meanwhile, contains a single a work: a video by Jan Peter Hammer about killer whales and the role of aqua parks in sensory deprivation experiments.
To their credit, the curators periodically break up the measured flow of revelatory installations with works of a different kind. “In the Stomach of the Predator” (2012-2013), a tangled piece by Andreas Siekmann and Alice Creischer, explores the sinister role of corporations in the growth and distribution of produce. The work is accompanied by an excerpt from the movie “In Search of Famine” (1980) by the Indian director Mrinal Sen, which follows a group of documentary filmmakers as they search for evidence of a terrible famine in 1943 that took the lives of more than five million Indians, but went largely unnoticed amid the turmoil of World War Two. The filmmakers in the film have a hard time obtaining evidence: their witnesses stumble; their photographs appear to match the event but seem to be from a different time period, and so on. Whether they meant to or not, the curators draw a question mark above the competency of the artist-as-researcher: he wants to tell the truth, but can he succeed?
View from the exhibit with a scene from “A Border Musical,” by the group Chto Delat? Photo: Liz Eve. Courtesy of Chto Delat?. Joint production of KORO (Public Art Norway), Jesper Alvar, FilmGarden and FilmCamp, with support from BarentsKult, Barents Spektakel, Bergen Assembly 2013, Fritt Ord and UiT/ Border Aesthetics
The aforementioned Institute of Tropical Fascism is built around a monument to a fascist eagle that was found by the project curator in Peru. It’s a sensitive issue, no doubt about it, but isn’t it too politically correct to touch on Nazism in the tropics but leave out all mention of Nordic fascism? However, that wouldn’t be altogether true. The topic of fascism in Norway appears in the work of Olga Yegorova (Tsaplya) from the group Chto Delat?. The group is also the author of a piece that exemplifies another popular genre in leftist art: political theater. Their 2013 production, “A Border Musical,” tells the story of a young Russian woman named Tanya largely through songs reminiscent of the hymns of the Russian Salvation Army choir. Tanya marries a Norwegian man (a popular practice, apparently) and moves with her son to the new country. The locals believe Tanya is too harsh with her son and report her to social services, who take the child from the mother. “You see,” Olga explained, “Norway is a country where feminism has won. And that means all women have the same right to care for another person’s child. But to take a woman’s son from her—that’s fascism!” Actually, the practice is more reminiscent of the century-old socialist utopia, in which men, women and children essentially become common property. But I don’t mean to nag; the aim of political theater is to make society better, and Yegorova said “Musical” has already been shown to social workers in Norway to encourage them to deal less harshly with Russian immigrants.
Other examples of political theater at the Assembly are less focused on concrete issues and evoke contradictory feelings. The satirical “Machines of Love” (2012) by the philosopher Keti Choukhrov is at times so narrowly focused that it makes the viewer feel like a voyeurist.
View from the exhibit with Keti Choukhrov’s “Machines of Love.” Photo: Liz Eve. Commissioned by the 2013 Bergen Assembly with the support from the FABRIKA Center for Creative Industriesand the National Center for Contemporary Arts, Moscow
In their article for the catalogue, Degot and Riff refer to themselves as “vehement anti-formalists.” The part of the exhibit devoted to the curators’ pet theme is, correspondingly, the Institute of Anti-Formalism. It predictably features works by Dmitry Gutov, who references the Marxian critic Mikhail Lifshits; the Polish avant-garde painter Wladyslaw Strzeminski, who accepted the post-war, pro-Soviet regime but was plagued by censorship; and the German zoologist and marginal artist Carl Friedrich Claus, among others. The leftist critique of formalism can be interpreted in various ways (personally, I find it unconvincing). But what’s more interesting is that with the Bergen Assembly, Degot and Riff finally succeeded in creating an exhibit that is free of the “aura” described by the pioneering modernist, Walter Benjamin. It features two painters, Kabakov and Gutov, but their paintings are actually simulative. Kabakov’s works are attributed to the made-up artist Charles Rozenthal, while Gutov, inturn, can “dig or not dig,” as they say in the army. Another aspect that is missing from the Assembly is the participatory art that is so popular among the leftist milieu; the aura that arises from the visitor’s touch has disappeared. Degot and Riff make do without it the same way that Voltaire made do without the idea of God. The reason is clear: aura means singularity, singularity means demand, and demand means capitalism. The curators were aiming for a similar effect with their piece “Shockworkers of the Mobile Image,” in which a historic building with traces of human presence that once housed the printing office of the Ural Worker newspaper is confronted with the imperious hand of nature, which attempts to impose artistic order against the curators’ will.
With the Assembly, the curators lucked out with the entire ensemble. Bergen itself is an unbelievably clean and coherent city (and everyone here knows English: once, I had an interesting conversation with a security guard at the building where Assembly parties took place about the comparative ease of taming a crowd at a hip-hop concert versus a heavy-metal concert). And the emphasis is on science fiction, where the ideal human existence is often portrayed as snow-white and soft to the touch, free from individual traumas and neuroses. Whatever you may think of the battle with aura, Degot and Riff have defeated it hands down. They succeeded in disarming our own inner sleeping (or hyperactive) Ivan Babich, the main character of Yuri Olesha’s dystopian novel “Envy,” by way of the sheer quality, scale, and internal logic of the exhibit.
View from the exhibit with works by Dmitry Gutov. Photo: Nils Klinger. Commissioned by the 2013 Bergen Assembly
Of course, the entire thing is a conceptual hallucination, but one that is masterfully rendered. On the way home I stopped at Oslo to see an exhibit of the local artist Ida Ekblad at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Ekblad is an expressionist who was raised on American images; at times she wears the costume of Willem de Kooning, at other times Robert Raschenberg, and even both at once. She writes texts reminiscent of the beatniks, she collects trash and arranges it in the manner of ikebana. She’s not original, to be sure, but she is talented. It was the same with African-American jazz, which was canonical and full of masterful recordings; but there were also foreign musicians who could spark delight in the audience by virtue of being so like their heroes. In other words, they were similar and different in the exact amount that enabled them to emulate human breathing in a saxophone solo. Degot and Riff owe their success to the conceptualism that raised them, both foreign and the kind in Moscow, where jazz vinyls were a rarity. It’s like Woody Allen’s character, a jazz connoisseur, says in the film “Anything Else:” “You know, there is also a little something else.”
Research for this article included a fragment of archival materials for Inti Guerrero’s project, Men amongst the Ruins: A Curatorial Research on a Tropical Experience of Fascism. 2012–2013
Interview 29.06
Armen Avanessian: «Institutions have much more impact and therefore much more power than they know»
IMHO 18.04
Special Project 17.03
Monroe in the mirror of adventurism
Books 24.10
Irina Popova: Another Family, 2013
Во имя добра и мира!
© 2009—2019 Artguide. Made in Charmer
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Labels: internet, un, us
Beware a 'Digital Munich'
By NORM COLEMAN
November 7, 2005; Page A21
It sounds like a Tom Clancy plot. An anonymous group of international technocrats holds secretive meetings in Geneva. Their cover story: devising a blueprint to help the developing world more fully participate in the digital revolution. Their real mission: strategizing to take over management of the Internet from the U.S. and enable the United Nations to dominate and politicize the World Wide Web. Does it sound too bizarre to be true? Regrettably, much of what emanates these days from the U.N. does.
The Internet faces a grave threat. We must defend it. We need to preserve this unprecedented communications and informational medium, which fosters freedom and enterprise. We can not allow the U.N. to control the Internet.
The threat is posed by the U.N.-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society taking place later this month in Tunisia. At the WSIS preparatory meeting weeks ago, it became apparent that the agenda had been transformed. Instead of discussing how to place $100 laptops in the hands of the world's children, the delegates schemed to transfer Internet control into the hands of intrigue-plagued bureaucracies.
The low point of that planning session was the European Union's shameful endorsement of a plan favored by China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Cuba that would terminate the historic U.S. role in Internet government oversight, relegate both private enterprise and non-governmental organizations to the sidelines, and place a U.N.-dominated group in charge of the Internet's operation and future. The EU's declaration was a "political coup," according to London's Guardian newspaper, which predicted that once the world's governments awarded themselves control of the Internet, the U.S. would be able to do little but acquiesce.
I disagree. Such acquiescence would amount to appeasement. We cannot allow Tunis to become a digital Munich.
There is no rational justification for politicizing Internet governance within a U.N. framework. The chairman of the WSIS Internet Governance Subcommittee himself recently affirmed that existing Internet governance arrangements "have worked effectively to make the Internet the highly robust, dynamic and geographically diverse medium it is today, with the private sector taking the lead in day-to-day operations, and with innovation and value creation at the edges."
Nor is there a rational basis for the anti-U.S. resentment driving the proposal. The history of the U.S. government's Internet involvement has been one of relinquishing control. Rooted in a Defense Department project of the 1960s, the Internet was transferred to civilian hands and then opened to commerce by the National Science Foundation in 1995. Three years later, the non-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers assumed governance responsibility under Department of Commerce oversight. Icann, with its international work force and active Governmental Advisory Committee, is scheduled to be fully privatized next year. Privatization, not politicization, is the right Internet governance regime.
We do not stand alone in our pursuit of that goal. The majority of European telecommunications companies have already dissented from the EU's Geneva announcement, with one executive pronouncing it "a U-turn by the European Union that was as unexpected as it was disturbing."
In addition to resentment of U.S. technological leadership, proponents of politicization are driven by fear -- of access to full and accurate information, and of the opportunity for legitimate political discourse and organization, provided by the Internet. Nations like China, which are behind the U.N. plan to take control, censor their citizens' Web sites, and monitor emails and chat rooms to stifle legitimate political dissent. U.N. control would shield this kind of activity from scrutiny and criticism.
The U.S. must do more to advance the values of an open Internet in our broader trade and diplomatic conversations. We cannot expect U.S. high-tech companies seeking business opportunities in growing markets to defy official policy; yet we cannot stand idly by as some governments seek to make the Internet an instrument of censorship and political suppression. To those nations that seek to wall off their populations from information and dialogue we must say, as Ronald Reagan said in Berlin, "Tear down this wall."
Allowing Internet governance to be politicized under U.N. auspices would raise a variety of dangers. First, it is wantonly irresponsible to tolerate any expansion of the U.N.'s portfolio before that abysmally managed and sometimes-corrupt institution undertakes sweeping, overdue reform. It would be equal folly to let Icann be displaced by the U.N.'s International Telecommunication Union, a regulatory redoubt for those state telephone monopolies most threatened by the voice over Internet protocol revolution.
Also, as we expand the global digital economy, the stability and reliability of the Internet becomes a matter of security. Technical minutiae have profound implications for competition and trade, democratization, free expression and access to information, privacy and intellectual-property protection.
Responding to the present danger, I have initiated a Sense of the Senate Resolution that supports the four governance principles articulated by the administration on June 30:
• Preservation of the security and stability of the Internet domain name and addressing system (DNS).
• Recognition of the legitimate interest of governments in managing their own country code top-level domains.
• Support for Icann as the appropriate technical manager of the Internet DNS.
• Participation in continuing dialogue on Internet governance, with continued support for market-based approaches toward, and private-sector leadership of, its further evolution.
I also intend to seek hearings in advance of the Tunis Summit to explore the implications of multinational politicization of Internet governance. While Tunis marks the end of the WSIS process, it is just the beginning of a long, multinational debate on the values that the Internet will incorporate and foster. Our responsibility is to safeguard the full potential of the new information society that the Internet has brought into being.
Mr. Coleman is a Republican senator from Minnesota.
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World becoming more elitist, cruel toward the excluded, pope says
Migrants from Afghanistan are seen at a makeshift camp for refugees and migrants in Samos, Greece, June 25, 2019. Pope Francis said in a July 2 video message that the excluded, especially migrants and refugees, are the ones who ultimately pay the price for humanity’s greed. (CNS photo/Giorgos Moutafis, Reuters)
By Junno Arocho Esteves • Catholic News Service • Posted July 3, 2019
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The excluded, especially migrants and refugees, are the ones who ultimately pay the price for humanity’s greed, Pope Francis said.
In a new video message for World Day of Migrants and Refugees, which the Vatican will celebrate Sept. 29, the pope warned that “today’s world is increasingly becoming more elitist and cruel toward the excluded.”
“Those who pay the price are always the little ones, the poor, the most vulnerable, who are prevented from sitting at the table and are left with the crumbs of the banquet,” the pope said in the message released July 2.
The message, according to the Migrants and Refugees Section of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, is part of a campaign that “will offer reflections, insights and resources for the promotion of pastoral activities” for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees.
Reflecting on the theme, “It’s not just about migrants; it’s about not excluding anyone,” the pope lamented the exploitation of natural and human resources in developing countries “for the benefit of a few privileged markets.”
He also called out countries that foment war through arms sales while closing their doors to innocent men, women and children escaping violence.
“Wars only affect some regions of the world,” the pope said, “yet weapons of war are produced and sold in other regions, which then refuse to accept the refugees produced by these conflicts.”
Pope Francis said the church must take the initiative and seek “those who have fallen away.”
The Catholic Church should “stand at the crossroads and welcome the outcast whom we ourselves as a society are excluding,” the pope said. “Real development is fruitful and inclusive, oriented toward the future.”
PREVIOUS: Why migrants flee: ‘They put a gun to my head,’ Honduran mom says
NEXT: Pope meets Putin; two leaders talk about Ukraine, Syria, Venezuela
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Home > About CCBC > College Policies and Procedures > ACADEMIC SERVICES > STANDARDS OF ACADEMIC PROGRESS > Grading
3.05.002.003 - Dean's & President's Lists and Graduation Honors
Approved: 12/3/2015
Category: 3 - ACADEMIC SERVICES
Section: 05 - STANDARDS OF ACADEMIC PROGRESS
Policy: 002 - Grading
During their studies at the Community College of Beaver County, students will have the opportunity to be recognized for their academic achievement through Dean’s Lists, President’s List, and Graduation Honors and have said recognition noted as part of their official transcript.
Deans's and President's List
To be eligible for recognition, a student must complete a minimum of twelve (12) semester credit hours of credit-bearing courses in which performance grades are awarded. Those students who earn a semester grade-point average of 3.75 or higher will be named to the President’s List. Those students who earn a semester grade-point average of 3.25 but less than 3.75 will be named to the Dean’s List.
Dean’s List: Students receive recognition on the Dean’s List for each semester (or summer sessions cumulatively) in which they earn at least a 3.25 but less than 3.75 grade-point average based on at least twelve credits of graded (not P/F) course work.
President’s List: Students receive recognition on the President’s List for each semester (or summer sessions cumulatively) in which they earn a semester grade-point average of 3.75 based on at least twelve credits of graded (not P/F) coursework.
Students who earn less than a C or I grade on any course will not be eligible for either the Dean’s or the President’s List.
Part-time students’ recognition of academic achievement is calculated at the end of every term. Calculation will be based on the student’s most recent 12 credits completed while continuously enrolled as a part-time student since their last recognition. The student must earn a minimum of twelve credit hours in credit courses for which a letter grade is awarded (excluding incompletes and those taken as audit and/or pass/fail). Once recognized, a minimum of twelve credits must be earned in subsequent semesters for an additional recognition.
The academic honor will be noted on the student’s transcript and the student will receive a letter from the College informing her/him of the recongition.
Graduation Honors
Graduation honors are awarded at graduation to associate degree candidates with appropriate academic records. Calculation is based on all credits and quality points earned at CCBC. Graduation honors are not granted for second (subsequent) degrees.
The distinctions are:
Cum Laude 3.25 – 3.49 cumulative grade-point average
Magna Cum Laude 3.50 – 3.74 cumulative grade-point average
Summa Cum Laude 3.75 – 4.00 cumulative grade-point average
The academic honor will be noted on the student’s transcript (Dean’s List, President’s List, and/or Graduation Honors).
The student eligible for graduation honors will be entitled to receive cords or a medallion which may be worn during the graduation ceremony.
It will be the responsibility of the Provost, in consultation with other offices as may be appropriate, to implement the requirements of this procedure.
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Estella Dawn Warren (born December 23, 1978) is a Canadian actress, former fashion model, and a former synchronized swimmer. During her swimming career she was a member of the National Canadian Team and won 3 national titles. Since 1994 she has been modeling through publications such as Sports Illustrated as well as working for campaigns for such brands as Perry Ellis and Victoria’s Secret.
Estella Warren in Unknown
Estella Warren in Decommissioned
Estella Warren in The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn
Estella Warren in The Stranger Within
Estella Warren in Kangaroo Jack
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British Powerboat Racing Club
Racing at Cowes
Cowes Torquay Cowes 2018
Cowes Winners
The British Powerboat Racing Club was formed in 2001 following the gala dinner held at the Royal Yacht Squadron in Cowes celebrating the 40th running of the Cowes-Torquay-Cowes offshore powerboat race.
The Cowes-Torquay launched offshore powerboat racing as a sport in Britain in 1961. Initially sponsored by the Daily Express newspaper, its success encouraged several countries in Europe and the Middle East to follow suit.
Hence it can rightly claim to have introduced offshore powerboat racing to the rest of the world outside the United States where the modern sport was launched with the first Miami-Nassau Race in 1956.
When the Union Internationale Motonautique, the world governing authority for powerboat racing, introduced the World Offshore Championship in 1967 as a memorial to Sam Griffith, the American founder of modern offshore racing, the course was found to be too short at 125 miles to qualify as a championship heat.
The race format was therefore changed and instead of finishing at Torquay, the fleet returned non stop back to Cowes.
Membership of the British Powerboat Racing Club is open to anyone interested in powerboat competition, offshore racing in particular. Almost 200 like minded enthusiasts, many ex-competitors from the early days of the sport, regularly meet for lunch and cocktail parties as well as attending the annual Cowes-Torquay-Cowes race to be held this year over the weekend of September the 5th and 6th.
A smaller group of its members form the race organising committee whose aim is to ensure this British classic continues. The committee provides a secretariat, organisational help and liaison with the Royal Yachting Association, the British National Authority for all areas of powerboat sport.
To join the club, please download the BPRC Membership Form <here>, fill in and return to the Club Secretary.
+ 44 (0)1983 290558
Laura Levi's Email
secretary@britishpowerboatracingclub.co.uk
British Powerboat Racing Club Ltd
PO31 7AJ
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Phenology of spotted wing drosophila in the San Joaquin Valley varies by season, crop and nearby vegetation
David R. Haviland , UCCE
Janet Caprile - Emeritus, UCCE
Stephanie Rill, UCCE
Kelly A. Hamby, UC Davis and University of Maryland
Joseph A. Grant, UCCE
agricultural land, economics, Economics, farms
D.R. Haviland is UC ANR Cooperative Extension (UCCE) Entomology Farm Advisor in Kern County; J.L. Caprile is UCCE Farm Advisor in Contra Costa County; S.M. Rill is UCCE Staff Research Associate in Kern County; K.A. Hamby was Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Entomology at UC Davis and is now Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist at the University of Maryland; J.A. Grant is UCCE Farm Advisor in San Joaquin County.
The spotted wing drosophila, first detected in California in 2008, has become a major insect pest in caneberries and sweet cherries, causing commercial crop losses. Managing it is challenging because it has many other hosts, including riparian and backyard fruit plantings, and it increases rapidly, with generations overlapping one another. In our study we monitored trap captures in two parts of the San Joaquin Valley, within sweet cherry orchards and in nearby locations. Captures of adult flies showed two main periods of activity — spring and fall — and low captures in the winter (except for citrus and evergreen riparian areas) and summer. On many occasions during the year, trap captures were higher outside of the cherry orchards than within them. Additionally, early in the season, when decisions about control programs are being made, the sex ratio of captured flies in cherries was strongly female-biased. The results suggest that during the weeks leading up to harvest growers should experiment by placing traps in different environments surrounding their orchards to determine SWD activity and potential pest pressure locally, and monitor for both male and female flies.
The spotted wing drosophila (SWD) (Drosophila suzukii [Matsumura]) was first detected in California in 2008 in Santa Cruz County raspberry fields, with subsequent detections in the spring of 2009 in Central Valley cherry orchards (Hauser 2011). SWD is unique among the ?1,500 species of Drosophila flies in its preference for laying eggs in intact, fresh, thin-skinned fruit rather than in damaged, overripe and rotten fruit (Hauser 2011; Walsh et al. 2011). Commercial fruit losses have been reported for blueberries, caneberries, sweet cherries and strawberries in California, Oregon and Washington (Walsh et al. 2011). In California, SWD has become a major insect pest of concern in both caneberries and sweet cherries.
Spotted wing drosophila lay eggs on cherries before the fruit is ready to harvest.
In 2012, there were 31,000 acres of bearing sweet cherries (Prunus avium [L.]) in California with a total value of $258 million (NASS 2012). Most of California commercial sweet cherry production occurs in the Central Valley, where a diversity of other stone fruit, blueberries, citrus crops and grapes are also grown. Additionally, many rural home sites have diverse backyard fruit plantings. This mixed landscape presents a SWD management challenge because ample alternate hosts are available outside the commercial orchards.
Dorsal view of male on leaf, showing a black spot on the tip of each wing (2× magnification). Inset, spotted wing drosophia uses a large, serrated ovipositor to lay eggs in the surface of thin-skinned fruits such as cherries and blueberries.
Not only can SWD use a broad range of resources, but they also develop relatively rapidly. At temperatures between 79°F and 82°F (26°C to 28°C), SWD can complete a generation (from egg to adult) in about 10 days (Tochen et al. 2014). Therefore, populations can build rapidly and generations begin to overlap early in the season, making degree-day models difficult to implement and creating a challenge for monitoring and management (Tochen et al. 2014). The goal of our research was to help growers improve their monitoring and management programs by using the information we collected on the seasonal phenology of SWD within commercial sweet cherry orchards and in nearby locations where they may find food and shelter throughout the year.
Seasonal phenology
Southern San Joaquin Valley.
Adult populations of SWD were monitored weekly from April 5, 2010, to July 2, 2012, at three locations containing commercial plantings of sweet cherries, citrus and blueberries in southeastern Kern County. Each planting was mature and managed using standard production practices for the crop, including SWD insecticide treatments in the cherries. Each of the three locations consisted of all three crops planted so that they shared a common corner. Orchards and fields used in the surveys were a minimum of 20 acres (8 hectares).
For this study we developed a bucket trap for collecting SWD. These traps were made using a 3.2-cup (760 milliliter) plastic container (Rubbermaid, Huntersville, NC) with a 3.3-inch (8.5-centimeter) diameter hole cut in the top and covered with 0.13-inch (0.32-centimeter) wire mesh (hardware cloth). This trap became known as the Haviland trap during early trap evaluation studies (Lee et al. 2012).
Adult SWD were captured using bucket traps containing apple cider vinegar. Wire mesh on top of the trap allowed for the entry of SWD but helped keep out larger insects. (A) Haviland trap, (B) Van Steenwyk trap.
Two bucket traps were used within each crop at each location (total of 18 traps). Each week approximately 5 fluid ounces (150 milliliters) of apple cider vinegar (Amerifoods Trading Co., Los Angeles, CA) was placed into each trap; the traps were hung at a height of approximately 5 feet (1.5 meters) within the tree canopy for cherries and citrus, and on a horizontal wire at a height of approximately 1.5 feet (0.5 meter) for blueberries. After research in 2010 showed that reducing surface tension can improve trap capture, on Jan. 1, 2011, we began adding 1 teaspoon (4 milliliters) of dish soap (Colgate-Palmolive Co., New York, NY) to every 1 gallon (3.78 liters) of apple cider vinegar used in the traps. Each week the contents of each trap were removed from the field and evaluated under magnification in a laboratory by counting the total number of male and female SWD.
Captures of adult SWD in traps showed two main periods of activity — spring and fall — separated by periods of low captures in the winter (except for citrus) and summer. In citrus there were minimal SWD captures from early June through early October, during the hot, dry weather typical of the southern San Joaquin Valley (fig. 1A). The period of fall SWD activity began in mid-October, followed by a rapid increase in captures that peaked in mid- to late November. Captures remained relatively high throughout the winter and tapered off through May and June. In cherries (fig. 1B) there were two periods of SWD activity. The first occurred from March through June and peaked in April just prior to the initiation of insecticide treatments. If insecticides had not been used, it is likely that the peak would have shifted to May, when cherries in Kern County are harvested. The second period of activity was from mid-October to mid-December, peaking in mid- to late November. Very few SWD were captured during the winter, from January through March, or during the summer, from July through September. SWD activity in blueberries in the southern San Joaquin Valley (fig. 1C) had a pattern similar to cherries.
Fig. 1. Seasonal phenology of captures of adult SWD in adjacent (A) citrus, (B) sweet cherry and (C) blueberry plantings in the southern San Joaquin Valley from 2010 to 2012.
Despite similarities in the seasonality of adult SWD activity among the three crops, there were significant differences in SWD abundance. Citrus consistently exhibited the highest trap catches, with fewer catches in cherries and the lowest catches in blueberries (fig. 1). This relationship was consistent in both spring and fall flights even though the cherries were sprayed for SWD in spring (citrus and blueberries were not sprayed); no SWD sprays were applied to any of the crops in fall. As the citrus, cherry and blueberry plantings were adjacent to each other, this trap capture pattern suggests that SWD may have seasonal preferences in where they locate or that traps vary in attractiveness depending on season and crop. Additionally, trap captures did not correlate with fruit presence, especially when considering that peak captures in cherries and blueberries took place in the fall, approximately 6 months after harvest, when no fruit was present.
Both cherries and blueberries are hosts for SWD, and both crops have experienced commercial crop loss in California (Lee et al. 2011; Walsh et al. 2011), though damage to blueberries has been limited to cooler coastal regions; blueberries in the Central Valley have not experienced loss. In contrast, although citrus is not considered a host of SWD due to its thick rind (Atallah et al. 2014), there were high levels of adults captured in citrus orchards throughout their harvest season. In a small, replicated laboratory study (unpublished), Haviland found that SWD did not reproduce on intact or rotting citrus fruit but was able to reproduce on sound, split fruit. So while commercially harvested citrus fruit should not be considered a host of SWD, it is clear that damaged fruit in an orchard can serve as a reproductive host for SWD throughout the winter.
Spotted wing drosophila introduces microbes into cherry fruit before harvest. As fruit begin to rot, they become highly attractive to other drosophila species.
SWD distributions in citrus could also be tied to other food sources that were present in the planting since SWD are known to use some flowers and yeasts as food resources (Hamby et al. 2012; Mitsui et al. 2010). As SWD distribution was measured using an attractant-based trapping system, it is also possible that captures fluctuated due to seasonal variability in the attractiveness of the apple cider vinegar relative to the crop odors or fly activity.
Northern San Joaquin Valley.
Adult populations of SWD were monitored in commercial sweet cherry orchards located near Brentwood in Contra Costa County and Stockton in San Joaquin County. Bucket traps were made using a 1-quart (1-liter), white plastic container that had 16 1/16-inch (4.8-millimeter) holes drilled around the side just below the lid. This trap later became known as the Van Steenwyk trap (Lee et al. 2012). Each week approximately 4 fluid ounces (150 milliliters) of apple cider vinegar (Amerifoods Trading Company, Los Angeles, CA) with 1 to 2 teaspoons (4 to 8 milliliters) of clear, unscented dish soap (Palmolive Pure + Clear) per gallon was placed into each trap, and traps were hung in a shaded portion of the cherry canopy at a height of approximately 5 feet (1.5 meters). Trap contents were collected weekly, and the number of male and female SWD were counted in a laboratory using a dissecting microscope.
In three orchards that were not sprayed for SWD, four traps were placed in each orchard (total of 12 traps) and monitored weekly from mid-March 2010 to March 22, 2012, in two sites and from May 5, 2010, to March 30, 2011, in a third site. In 12 to 14 orchards that were commercially treated for SWD, traps were also deployed from late March 2010 through late March 2012 using one trap per orchard. Additional traps were deployed (one trap per site) in sites surrounding these sprayed cherry orchards from mid-July 2010 through March 2011 to identify other potential hosts and habitats after the cherries had been harvested.
This survey included a wide range of agricultural crops, rural home sites and natural environments. In this report we include only those data that had at least two different trapping locations for the same type of environment and were collected for the entire 8-month period between the 2010 and 2011 spring SWD flights in cherries. The result was a subset of data that included cherries (10 sites), other stone fruit (eight sites), citrus (three sites), irrigated lawns with shade (three sites) and riparian areas (two sites). Data from weekly trap catches were summarized by SWD flight season (summer: mid-July to September; fall: October to December; winter: January to March) and plotted to evaluate differences in SWD density across environments and to visualize changes in distribution patterns throughout the year.
Captures of SWD in unsprayed cherries in the northern San Joaquin Valley (fig. 2A) followed a similar pattern to the southern San Joaquin Valley, with the primary difference being that the spring period of activity occurred slightly later, extending from early April to mid-July, with peak captures approximately 1 week before harvest in late May to early June. Within the northern San Joaquin Valley, comparisons of unsprayed and sprayed orchards (fig. 2) showed that sprayed orchards had lower SWD densities when insecticides were used in May and June, but they had higher SWD densities after harvest in July and August as well as during the fall period of activity, from mid-October to mid-December.
Fig. 2. Phenology of captures of adult SWD in sweet cherries in the northern San Joaquin Valley from 2010 to 2012 in (A) unsprayed orchards and (B) sprayed orchards.
Production of high-quality cherries in California now requires aggressive management programs for spotted wing drosophila.
SWD was found in varying densities in different environments around commercial cherry orchards throughout the year (fig. 3). In summer, fly captures were similarly low in all trap locations. SWD captures increased in fall, with the greatest numbers found in the shaded lawn and cherry environments and modest numbers found in the citrus, stone fruit and riparian sites. In winter, extremely high numbers were found in the riparian sites with evergreen ground or tree cover, but few flies were captured in any other environment. Many insects select special microhabitats to enhance survival during unfavorable conditions (Danks 1978), and during the winter evergreen plants provide additional shelter and favorable microclimates for insects compared with deciduous plants (Johnson et al. 1975). Our data suggest that SWD might choose riparian sites for those reasons. Growers should note that flies are not likely to be detected in their orchards all season long, and placing traps in favorable environments surrounding the orchards in winter to determine the local SWD pressure may be useful as they make their management decisions in spring.
Fig. 3. Average weekly captures of SWD from five different environments surrounding cherry orchards in the northern San Joaquin Valley during the summer, fall and winter SWD flight periods after the 2010 cherry harvest.
High temperature effects on captures.
During all 3 years of study, there were obvious voids in fly captures during the hot and dry summer weather typical of the San Joaquin Valley (figs. 1–3). The relationship between high temperatures and SWD trap captures was evaluated by regressing the average number of SWD collected on each trap collection date in the northern and southern San Joaquin Valley against the average daily high temperature for the week. The x-axis calculations were made using data from weather stations located in Kern County (CIMIS Station #125, Arvin-Edison) and Contra Costa County (CIMIS Station #47, Brentwood). Capture data were square-root transformed (because the data exhibited characteristics of an exponential decay curve as temperatures increased) before a linear correlation analysis was performed for dates where average daily high temperature during the preceding week was at least 70°F (21°C).
Our analyses revealed a significant negative correlation between the average daily high temperature and SWD captures in the southern San Joaquin Valley (fig. 4A) (P < 0.0001, R2 = 0.4817) and in the northern San Joaquin Valley (fig. 4B) (P < 0.0001, R2 = 0.4007). The x-intercept for these two locations suggests that adult captures can still occur when daily high temperatures are in the high 90s and low 100s (°F) (32°C and 38°C). However, captures when daytime temperatures reached 95°F (35°C) were typically less than one SWD per trap per week.
Fig. 4. Regression analysis of the effects of high ambient temperatures on captures of adult SWD in (A) the southern San Joaquin Valley (y = ?0.0818x + 8.4394, R2 = 0.4817) and (B) the northern San Joaquin Valley (y = ?0.1068x + 10.363, R2 = 0.4007). Each point represents the average trap captures (square-root transformed to linearize data) over a period of 1 week compared with the average daily ambient high temperatures during those same weeks from 2010 to 2012.
Other studies have shown similar declines in trap captures as well as reductions in survival and fecundity at high temperatures (David et al. 2005; Kinjo et al. 2014; Tochen et al. 2014). The negative effects of high summer temperatures on SWD may explain why SWD has not become a pest of commercial stone fruit and grapes, which are primarily harvested from July to October in the San Joaquin Valley.
Interface between citrus and cherry
During the springs of 2011 and 2012, we conducted field studies to evaluate patterns of distribution of SWD in citrus and sweet cherries in the southern San Joaquin Valley. Haviland traps were placed in adjacent mature citrus and cherry orchards for a 13-week period comprised of the 10 weeks prior to harvest and the 3 weeks during harvest. Traps were placed in two transect lines, 656 feet (200 meters) apart, that ran perpendicular to the dirt road that served as the interface between the crops. Ten traps were located in each transect, with five located in each crop at 85-foot (26-meter) intervals from the interface. Trap contents were collected weekly and the number of SWD counted. During 2013 the same process was repeated for a 4-week period in March, recording the number of male and female SWD.
SWD captures showed strong variations between citrus and cherries at different times of the year. In 2011 (fig. 5A) and 2012 (fig. 5B), many more SWD were captured in citrus than in cherry while fruit on the cherry trees were still green. This changed approximately 4 weeks prior to harvest as the cherries began to turn from green to yellow and then pink. SWD captures in the cherry orchard with pink fruit were approximately 10 times higher than when fruit were green, despite the fact that the cherry orchards received three insecticide applications for SWD during the pink stage each year. During both years of the study, fly captures during cherry harvest were less than three per trap per week, presumably due to the effectiveness of the repeated insecticide sprays during the pink stages. No SWD damage was found in either year during harvest.
Fig. 5. Weekly SWD captures in transects of traps placed perpendicular to the interface between citrus (left) and cherry (right) orchards from late February to late May in (A) 2011 and (B) 2012. Colors denote fruit ripeness in the orchard (orange indicates ripe citrus, green indicates green cherries, pink indicates first yellow cherry through pink cherry stages, red indicates the presence of harvestable cherries). In both years of the study, cherry orchards were sprayed three times with insecticides for SWD while cherries were in the pink stages.
In 2013 a more detailed analysis of fly captures by gender revealed that sex ratios of SWD in citrus were approximately 50:50 (fig. 6A). However, during the first 3 weeks after cherries become susceptible to attack by SWD (first 3 weeks in March), only 13.3% of the flies captured were male; during the fourth week only 27% were male (fig. 6B). A similar pattern of female dominance was seen in cherry orchards in the northern San Joaquin Valley during the spring SWD flight period (data not presented). This pattern suggests that cherry growers should not rely on the more easily detectable male captures in traps but need to use magnification to identify the females in order to accurately gauge SWD abundance in spring, the critical time for making management decisions.
Fig. 6. Male-to-female ratios of SWD collected in (A) citrus and (B) cherries from late February when cherries are green through late March when cherries begin to change color and become susceptible to attack by SWD in the southern San Joaquin Valley.
Management implications
Our study presents important considerations for SWD monitoring programs, including seasonal patterns in trap captures, trapping protocols, climatic factors and the influence of the local landscape, that can be used in integrated pest management (IPM) programs for SWD. In some cases, such as stone fruit, peaches and nectarines, SWD management has not been needed because fruit are harvested during periods of the summer when our data show that adult SWD are not active. The opposite is true for cherries; phenology data confirm the presence of elevated SWD populations during the period of early color change through harvest, when cherries are susceptible to attack (Lee et al. 2011). The current standard practice in cherries is to control SWD with two or three insecticide applications during the 3 to 4 weeks prior to harvest (Haviland and Beers 2012). The decision whether to use two or to use three applications can be assisted by the use of traps. However, our data suggest that bucket traps baited with apple cider vinegar are likely to lead to false conclusions about SWD density unless both males and females are counted. If cherry orchards are located near commercial citrus or other favorable SWD overwintering sites, traps should also be placed in those environments to get a more accurate picture of the regional SWD pressure.
We anticipate that increased knowledge about SWD population changes throughout the year and movement among crops will lead to improvements in the ability of pest control advisers and growers in California to anticipate locations where problems with SWD may occur and to make site-specific decisions about the integrated pest management programs they use to protect their crops.
The authors would like to thank California cherry growers for allowing us to use their cherry orchards for research purposes and for their financial support through the California Cherry Board. The authors also thank Minerva Gonzalez, Michelle Kong, Chris Lemos and Jeannine Lowrimore for assistance with data collection.
Atallah J, Teixeira L, Salazar R, et al. The making of a pest: The evolution of a fruit-penetrating ovipositor in Drosophila suzukii and related species. Proc R Soc B. 2014. 281:20132840- http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.2840
Danks HV. Modes of seasonal adaptation in the insects. I. Winter survival. Can Entomol. 1978. 110(11):1167-205. DOI: 10.4039/Ent1101167-11 [CrossRef]
David JR, Araripe LO, Chakir M, et al. Male sterility at extreme temperatures: A significant but neglected phenomenon for understanding Drosophila climatic adaptations. J Evolution Biol. 2005. 18(4):838-46. DOI: 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2005.00914.x [CrossRef] [PubMed]
Hamby KA, Hernández A, Boundy-Mills K, Zalom FG. Yeast associations of spotted wing drosophila (Drosophila suzukii, Diptera: Drosophilidae) in cherries and raspberries. Appl Environ Microbiol. 2012. 78(14):4869-73. DOI: 10.1128/AEM.00841-12 [CrossRef] [PubMed]
Hauser M. A historic account of the invasion of Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura) (Diptera: Drosophilidae) in the continental United States, with remarks on their identification. Pest Manag Sci. 2011. 67(11):1352-7. DOI: 10.1002/ps.2265 [CrossRef] [PubMed]
Haviland DR, Beers EH. Chemical control programs for Drosophila suzukii that comply with international limitations on pesticide residues for exported sweet cherries. J Integr Pest Manag. 2012. 3(2):F1-6. DOI: 10.1603/IPM11034 [CrossRef]
Johnson FL, Bell DT, Sipp SK. A comparison of urban and forest microclimates in the midwestern United States. Agr Meteorol. 1975. 14(1–2):335-45. DOI: 10.1016/0002-1571(74)90028-4 [CrossRef]
Kinjo H, Kunimi Y, Nakai M. Effects of temperature on the reproduction and development of Drosophila suzukii (Diptera: Drosophilidae). Appl Entomol Zool. 2014. 49(2):297-304. DOI: 10.1007/s13355-014-0249-z [CrossRef]
Lee JC, Bruck DJ, Curry H, et al. The susceptibility of small fruits and cherries to the spotted-wing drosophila, Drosophila suzukii. Pest Manag Sci. 2011. 67(11):1358-67. DOI: 10.1002/ps.2225 [CrossRef] [PubMed]
Lee JC, Burrack HJ, Barrantes LD, et al. Evaluation of monitoring traps for Drosophila suzukii (Diptera: Drosophilidae) in North America. J Econ Entomol. 2012. 105(4):1350-7. DOI: 10.1603/EC12132 [CrossRef] [PubMed]
Mitsui H, Beppu K, Kimura MT. Seasonal life cycles and resource uses of flower- and fruit-feeding drosophilid flies (Diptera:Drosophilidae) in central Japan. Entomol Sci. 2010. 13(1):60-7. DOI: 10.1111/j.1479-8298.2010.00372.x [CrossRef]
[NASS] National Agricultural Statistics Service. California Agricultural Statistics 2012 Crop Year 2012. www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics_by_State/California/Publications/California_Ag_Statistics/Reports/2012cas-all.pdf (accessed May 28, 2014).
Tochen S, Dalton DT, Wiman N, et al. Temperature-related development and population parameters for Drosophila suzukii (Diptera:Drosophilidae) on cherry and blueberry. Environ Entomol. 2014. 43(2):501-10. DOI: 10.1603/EN13200 [CrossRef] [PubMed]
Walsh DB, Bolda MP, Goodhue RE, et al. Drosophila suzukii (Diptera: Drosophilidae): Invasive pest of ripening soft fruit expanding its geographic range and damage potential. J Integr Pest Manag. 2011. 2(1):G1-7. DOI: 10.1603/IPM10010 [CrossRef]
Effect of Chemical Ratios of a Microbial-Based Feeding Attractant on Trap Catch of Drosophila suzukii (Diptera: Drosophilidae)
Dong H. Cha et al. 2017. Environmental Entomology
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ee/nvx079
The Phenology of Infestations and the Impacts of Different Varieties of Cold Hardy Red Raspberries on Drosophila suzukii
Grace F. H. Sward et al. 2016. Advances in Entomology 04(03):183
http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ae.2016.43019
Haviland D, Caprile - Emeritus J, Rill S, Hamby K, Grant J. 2016. Phenology of spotted wing drosophila in the San Joaquin Valley varies by season, crop and nearby vegetation. Calif Agr 70(1):24-31. https://doi.org/10.3733/ca.v070n01p24.
David R. Haviland, Janet Caprile - Emeritus, Stephanie Rill, Kelly Hamby, Joseph A. Grant
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Posted by Hannah Buchdahl aka Mainstream Chick on September 6, 2017
I get it now. The creepy clowns. The red balloons. The yellow slicker. The references to “You’ll float too.” All things I’d be privy to had I read “IT” (the Stephen King novel) or seen IT as a television mini-series in 1990. Alas, the big-screen adaptation of IT served as my introduction to IT, and I can honestly say — as a reluctant horror-moviegoer — IT is scary good, and probably scary great for ITs die-hard fans.
For those who don’t know, IT tells the story of a group of young teenagers who square off against an evil clown named Pennywise who has been terrorizing, kidnapping and killing kids in their town of Derry, Maine for centuries. While the book interweaves the exploits of the main characters as kids and as adults 27 years later, the film focuses solely on the younger generation and takes place in 1989 (as opposed to the novel’s 1958 setting). For those disappointed by the notion of a stripped-down version of the literary nightmare, take heed. Hollywood banks on the prospect of sequels and franchises. IT will surely return if the box office screams for more. And IT will… [Insert Pennywise and pound foolish joke here].
Let’s face it. Stephen King knows how to do psychological drama and horror for the masses (The Shawshank Redemption, Carrie, The Shining, Stand by Me, etc.) I even liked the recent action-adventure fantasy flop The Dark Tower well enough, though IT is a much stronger movie – by far. King’s characters capture deep-seated emotions and situations that we all can relate to on some level. With IT, the kids who band together to confront evil incarnate (or incarnivalate?) are outcasts, often bullied and ridiculed by their peers. But they are decent kids who find strength in each other – and their friendship – during a summer break that has you wishing they’d gone to camp instead.
The cast is solid with Jaeden Lieberher (Midnight Special, St. Vincent, The Book of Henry) playing Bill Denbrough, the leader of the so-called Losers’ Club, who is determined to find his missing brother Georgie. Jeremy Ray Taylor shines as Ben, the husky new kid at school who likes listening to New Kids on the Block. Sophia Lillis is intriguing to watch as Beverly Marsh, the lone girl in the pack that also includes Richie (Finn Wolfhard of Stranger Things), Mike (Chosen Jacobs), Eddie (Jack Dylan Grazer) and Stanley (Wyatt Oleff). They may just be kids, but each carries the weight of some misfortune or fear that Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) feeds off of, literally.
IT, directed by Andy Muschietti (Mama), is a tense and creepy two hours and 15 minutes, but the movie doesn’t shy away from opportunities to be funny, cynical or sarcastic. And while IT is rated R, the violence is not as brutal and overt as I’ve seen in a bunch of PG-13 flicks. It’s just scarier and creepier. So horror fans, dive in! Don’t worry — you’ll float too. (If you see it, you’ll get it.)
Belinda walker, September 8, 2017:
“It” is like zit popping for me–it may hurt or scar me but I can’t resist the lure. The 90s miniseries was on tv last week and it still scared me. Though some people think rocky horror picture show when they see Tim curry all I see is penny wise. Thanks for great review.
Hannah Buchdahl, September 8, 2017:
Thanks Belinda! Enjoy the movie!!!!! 🙂
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AMARANTHE Vocalist ELIZE RYD Guests On New ARION Single "At The Break Of Dawn"; Official Video Released
September 24, 2018, 10 months ago
news amaranthe arion heavy metal
Finland's Arion will release their new album, Life Is Not Beautiful, on October 19th via AFM Records. Pre-order the album here.
The band has released a video for the song "At The Break Of Dawn" featuring Amaranthe vocalist Elize Ryd. Check it out below.
"It was an absolute honor, pleasure and a dream come true to write this song for two great singers, one of them being a world renown super star and one of my favorite voices in metal. Elize did one hell of a job singing her part. I could easily say that this song is something to feel proud of for a very long time and represents the very best a collaboration like this can become", Iivo Kaipainen (songwriter) states.
Vocalist Lassi adds: "Amaranthe has been one of my favorite bands for a long time, so it was a huge honor to sing a duet with Elize. Her voice is so unique and makes the song more powerful. Now finally having Elize on the music video makes the song complete."
The idea for symphonic metal band Arion was hatched in the fall of 2011 in the famed music school Sibelius Lukio in Helsinki, where drummer Topias Kupiainen and keyboardist Arttu Vauhkonen got together with guitar whiz kid Iivo Kaipainen. In short order, the threesome found bass player Georgi Velinov and vocalist Viljami Holopainen to round out the band.
Musically astonishingly accomplished, the newcomers raised some serious waves right off the bat in January 2013 when they debuted their debut song “Lost”, a symphonic metal gem in its own right, on television, participating in Finnish television’s UMK song contest.
Soon enough the 17–18 year old teen prodigies’ exceptionally impressive musical chops caught the attention of Mr. Riku Pääkkönen, the owner of Ranka Kustannus and the mastermind behind the overnight success stories of Children Of Bodom, Nightwish, Sonata Arctica and several others. In May 2013 Arion signed a recording deal with Ranka and entered the studio to record their debut EP New Dawn. New Dawn was released in November 2013 the same year to critical acclaim, while the band was already forging one of the most jaw-dropping metal debuts in Finland ever, Last Of Us.
There’s probably no other nation as vigilant for melodic metal music as Japan, where the love for beauty and aesthetics has blanketed all sorts of art for millennia. The Japanese are famous for their appetite for power metal, so, as crazy as it might sound, it shouldn’t even surprise anyone that Arion played their first concerts in Tokyo and Nagoya already before releasing their debut album. Ergo, it’s only fitting that Arion became one of those ultra-rare European artists whose debut album was released in Japan before its domestic release. Grandiose yet heartfelt, Last Of Us still stands as a one of a kind jewel in its genre, an album that hasn’t lost one iota of its splendour since the day of its release in July 2014.
A year later, in August 2015, singer Viljami Holopainen amicably left the band stating that his heart lies in other kind of music, and the band announced their new singer, Lassi Vääränen. In March 2016 Vääränen’s mettle was tested and proven worthy with his recording debut as a member of Arion on the explosive duet “At The Break Of Dawn” with Elize Ryd of Amaranthe fame. To date “At The Break Of Dawn” still is in heavy radio rotation in the nationwide Finnish Radio Rock and stands as the most streamed Arion song across all digital platforms.
After three more powerhouse singles; the thought-provoking "Unforgivable”, the heartrending ballad “Through Your Falling Tears” and the clarion call “No One Stands In My Way”, scattered through the next 2.5 years bring us now to the brink of release of Arion’s sophomore album Life Is Not Beautiful. And as potent the singles quadrilogy is, Life Is Not Beautiful is much more than a hit singles compilation. No, we would venture to claim that songs such as the in-your-face “Punish You” and the bombastic, melodic bullet train of “The Last Sacrifice”, lest we forget the album’s closing statement “Life Is Not Beautiful”, will squish some rivalling songwriters’ self-confidence for years to come.
Crafted every bit as meticulously as its predecessor, Life Is Not Beautiful is Arion’s declaration of independence. On their debut largely guided by their kind colleagues Matias Kupiainen (Stratovarius) and Jani Liimatainen (The Dark Element, Cain’s Offering), Arion now proudly demonstrate the next level in their musical progress and band leader Iivo Kaipainen’s newly found lyrical prowess.
World of metal beware! Arion are not the curiosity of a band of green-horned teenager prodigies anymore. Having faced just the right amount of adversity to gel as a band and improved in leaps and bounds, Arion are not just able - they’re ready and raring to go.
"The End Of The Fall"
"No One Stands In My Way"
"At The Break Of Dawn" (Feat. Elize Ryd)
"The Last Sacrifice"
"Through Your Falling Tears"
"Unforgivable"
"Punish You"
"Life Is Not Beautiful"
"Last One Falls"
"Unforgivable" video:
Lassi Vääränen (Vocals)
Iivo Kaipainen (Guitars)
Arttu Vauhkonen (Keyboards)
Georgi Velinov (Bass)
Topias Kupianen (Drums)
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Mountain Fever Records adds ClayBank to Label Roster
Willis, VA -- Mountain Fever Records is pleased to announce the addition of North Carolina-based bluegrass band, ClayBank, to their roster. ClayBank will release their debut album for Mountain Fever Records Spring 2018. ClayBank is a new and impressive bluegrass band born out of the fertile musical ground of western North Carolina. The unique story of the formation of the group centers on a bluegrass veteran, who joined forces with a fellow picker in his mid-20s, and two talented teenage musicians that are about to be introduced to the greater bluegrass world. Gary Trivette is the elder statesman of ClayBank, a bassist and banjo player who has previously played with groups such as Carolina Crossing and Southern Accent. While sitting in a side room at the Appalachian State Old-time Fiddler’s Convention in Boone, NC, in 2015, he found himself jamming with then 15-year-old mandolinist Zack Arnold and guitarist Jacob Greer who was 17.
As fate would have it, Trivette’s former Carolina Crossing band mate Tyler Thompson knew both Greer and Arnold from an early age. Soon, after all of the future members of ClayBank realized they had a connection with each other, the foursome established a weekly jam session with Thompson playing the banjo, Trivette on bass, Arnold on the mandolin, and Greer on guitar.
As the musicians got to know each other and their blend began to evolve, it was the lead and harmony vocals of the quartet that began to turn heads. Named after the street in Ashe County where their weekly jams took place, ClayBank began to test the bluegrass waters by entering band contests at various festivals. They won the bluegrass band competition at the Union Grove Fiddler’s Convention in April of 2015 and came in 3rd place at the Society for the Preservation of Bluegrass Music of America (SPBGMA) convention’s band contest in 2016. That same year, they won the bluegrass band competition at RenoFest.
Though years apart in age, ClayBank's band mates are on the same page as far as the bluegrass trail they want to explore. “They like the same kind of driving bluegrass music that I do,” says Trivette. “It is strange to find people with that difference in age that enjoy the same music. As for the young men in the band, I can give them some of the history of bluegrass music, but they already know a lot about it. Our musical style can basically be found between 1980 and 1999 or so, influenced by Doyle Lawson’s original Quicksilver band.”
North Carolina Band Set to Release New Music Spring 2018
ClayBank’s debut album on Mountain Fever Records can be expected May 2018 and will feature mostly original songs written or co-written by the band. The group’s impressive array of three lead vocalists is complimented by their collective church-inspired ability to sing harmony vocals. All of that is buoyed by their awesome multi-generational musicianship. The band is filled with youth and a modern approach to bluegrass music while at the same time showing reverence for the traditional side of the genre.
For more information on ClayBank, please visit www.claybankbluegrass.com and www.MountainFever.com.
ClayBank
Mountain Fever Records
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History Dec 05, 2018
Tireless
O f all the contributions New Haveners have made to the world, Charles Goodyear’s may be the biggest not to garner any personal reward. Despite Job-like setbacks that would have discouraged most, Goodyear persevered in pursuing a single question throughout his adult life: How can I make rubber less sticky and therefore more usable?
This may not sound like the question of a lifetime, but for Goodyear, it was. Instead of providing for his family’s present or future, writes Rev. Bradford K. Peirce in Trials of an Inventor (1866), Goodyear repeatedly invested the paltry revenues from his work “to the one great mission of his life, the development and application of this peculiar natural product.”
Rubber is, indeed, “peculiar”—a fluid, collected by tapping rubber trees, which then coagulates into an elastic form. According to a 1938 New Haven tercentenary pamphlet, “We speak of ‘India rubber’ because much of the early material came to Europe from the West Indies and was found useful for rubbing out pencil marks”—and for a while, that’s about all it was good for. Rubber was notoriously gloppy in hot weather and cracked in the cold. No one in the industrializing world seemed to know quite what to do with it.
But some people in South America apparently did. In a 1938 lecture series titled “Inventors and Engineers of Old New Haven,” Richard Shelton Kirby noted that residents of that continent made shoes of India rubber that were exported to Boston starting in 1821. The shoes were produced by dipping the rubber latex into clay “covered with a white powder,” then drying it over a “smoky fire,” adding a new layer after each coat hardened. “When ready for market the shoes were stuffed with grass to keep their shape and then shipped. They were thick, heavy and ill-fitting, but the business increased rapidly and enterprising men thought they saw a good business in importing crude ‘gum elastic’ and making shoes here by more efficient methods.”
They were wrong. According to Kirby, “Within a few years all the new companies were bankrupt and closed.” Still, Charles Goodyear anticipated a fortune in figuring out how to chemically alter rubber so it could be used to make just about anything. Unfortunately, it appears he didn’t consult the South American method. And he was not a chemist.
Born in New Haven in 1800, Goodyear spent much of his life in the Elm City, including at 2 St. John Place (now Church Street) across from the New Haven Green. His first career in hardware—biographer P. W. Barker claims he opened “the first retail hardware store in the United States” in Philadelphia—ended in failure. Back in New Haven, he set up a workshop on upper Congress Avenue, which was described by Oliver P. Hubbard of Yale as “flat roofed and internally blackened with few if any fixtures or movables, besides a course [sic] table and on it a smooth stone slab and an iron ruler. There were a few shelves holding bottles of India Rubber, dissolved in Spirits of Turpentine.”
Using sulphur in an attempt to dry the rubber, Goodyear landed on what he thought was a successful “acid gas process.” But a government contract to make 150 mail bags of rubber went wrong when he added chemicals to color them. After a few weeks away from his factory, he returned to find the bags “decomposing and dropping from their handles,” Peirce writes. Following the fate of his colleagues, Goodyear’s business collapsed. But he wasn’t done with rubber.
He moved to Woburn, Massachusetts, and turned to manufacturing rubber shoes out of his home. It was in Woburn that Goodyear had his biggest breakthrough. In January of 1839, he was working in the kitchen when, Peirce writes, “a piece of [rubber] gum, which he held in his hand, accidentally came in contact with the hot stove. As the gum in its natural state melts at a low degree of heat, what was his astonishment to notice that it charred like leather without dissolving. No portion of it was sticky.” According to Peirce, Goodyear’s daughter later recalled that her father “nailed the piece of gum outside the kitchen door in the intense cold. In the morning he brought it in, holding it up exultingly. He had found it perfectly flexible, as it was when he put it out.” Goodyear had just discovered how to vulcanize rubber.
Despite the discovery that would ultimately support a booming industry of manufacturing rubber products—perhaps most notably the tires on our cars—in New Haven and around the world, Goodyear lived most of his life in poverty, relying on loans from family and friends. He was in and out of debtors’ prison and suffered the trials of an estimated 150 patent lawsuits, which sapped his income despite favorable judgments. At one point, Peirce reports, Goodyear “sold at auction the school-books of his children, which brought him the trifling sum of five dollars.”
Goodyear did manage a few moments in the sun. Among them was the 1851 World’s Fair in London, where his exhibit Goodyear’s Vulcanite Court “consisted of a suite of covered rooms in which every article was made of rubber—walls, roof, cornices, carpets and even furniture,” Barker reports. “Over this panorama of rubber floated rubber balloons (some as much as six feet in diameter), painted and printed in multi-color, several shaped and printed as worlds or globes inflated with hydrogen.”
Nevertheless, the obsessed inventor continued to suffer financial and health setbacks for the rest of his life. He died of what Barker speculates may have been lead poisoning—a result of the chemical process he had developed—in New York City in 1860 and was buried in New Haven’s Grove Street Cemetery.
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company that we know today was never affiliated with Charles Goodyear’s family. Rather, its founder named the company in Goodyear’s honor when he opened it in Akron, Ohio, in 1898—a tribute that came too late to be enjoyed by one of New Haven’s most determined men.
Written and photographed by Kathy Leonard Czepiel.
Tags: Charles Goodyear, feature, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, Grove Street Cemetery, history, Kathy Leonard Czepiel, New Haven, P. W. Barker, Rev. Bradford K. Peirce, Richard Shelton Kirby
Sewing and Reaping
About Kathy Leonard Czepiel
View all posts by Kathy Leonard Czepiel
Kathy Leonard Czepiel is Daily Nutmeg’s associate editor. She’s also a fiction writer, writing teacher and book club troubleshooter. Join her this month on Goodreads for a guided winter reading of Mary Shelley’s classic novel Frankenstein.
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Participant Directory
Historiography of Congo Reform →
Transnational Elements of the Congo Reform Movement
By Dean Clay, Liverpool John Moores University
Belgian control of the Congo Basin was one of the most notable imperial atrocities during the imperialist age at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. The brutal treatment of the people of the Congo Free State has come to symbolise the worst aspects of European imperialism. During the scramble for Africa, Leopold II of Belgium carved out an empire along the Congo River. This meant that the King ruled the Congo Free State as his own possession, exploiting the areas richness in raw materials, which took a huge toll in human life, as well as other atrocities, such as the severing of limbs.
The Congo Reform Association (CRA) was a humanitarian campaign set up in 1904 by E.D. Morel and Roger Casement, and also included the help of Dr Henry Grattan Guinness, and was arguably the first major human rights movement of the twentieth century, although critics would say that it was more about trade than a humanitarian issue. The CRA orchestrated debates and resolutions in Parliament, called public meetings and enlisted support in the United States.[1] Roger Casement was a British consul at the time and was instructed to investigate the alleged widespread human rights abuses and exploitation of the native people which were occurring in the Congo.[2] Casement published his report in 1904 and was instrumental in King Leopold II finally relinquishing his private territorial holdings in Africa. However, for many years prior to the publishing of this report there were reports coming from the Congo of the atrocities committed on there against its people, and slowly gained international support for their cause.
E. D. Morel would play a significant role in the activities and campaigning of the CRA. Morel first set off on his crusade against King Leopold II presence in the Congo Free State when he became aware of the atrocities perpetrated against the Africans. This happened when, whilst he was employed at a shipping firm, he noticed the ships returning from the Congo were offloading their cargo of raw materials and setting sail with weapons.[3] Switching to journalism, Morel was able to devote himself to exposing the regime and produced a series of articles on the subject. He argued that the atrocities in the Congo were the inevitable result of a system in place there which denied the native the right to free trade and, therefore, must force him to slave labour against his will.[4] Morel differed in the view of Guinness, who was an Irish Protestant Christian, in that Morel wanted to honour the 1885 Berlin Act and open up the Congo to free trade whereas the missionaries wanted to have access in order to Christianise the native population. However, Morel realised that he needed Guinness as he had the ability to influence a lot of religious philanthropic people which Morel did not have.[5] The missionaries played a very important role in spreading the information about the atrocities throughout Europe and North America. They achieved this by delivering thousands of lectures using images of mutilated Congolese natives and other horrific incidents.[6] In 1906, Morel wrote a book called ‘Red Rubber’ which was designed to arouse the emotions of its readers to the nature of the atrocities in the Congo, and in this book Morel described them as unparalleled at any other point in history.[7] To highlight the transnational element of support for the CRA, Morel was able to recruit the help of French journalist Pierre Mile to co-write a book with him, as well as support from French author Anatole France, and Belgian socialist leader Emile Vandervelde, who sent Morel copies of Belgian parliamentary debates.[8]
The CRA was able to garner support not only from people within different countries, but across the religious divide as well. An article published in The Washington Post in 1907 about Reverend R. J. Campbell declaring his belief that Great Britain could stop the atrocities, by banning Belgian coal ships from docking at British ports, supports this. Within the same article, it is mentioned that President Roosevelt has lent his weight to the campaign by declaring that he would support Great Britain in any concerted effort to end the horrors as he believed that if the two countries acted together (England and America), then no power could oppose them.[9]
Before the CRA came into existence, an awareness of the atrocities taking place in the Congo was already coming to light on the international stage. George Washington Williams, a black American Civil War veteran, minister, politician, journalist and historian wrote an open letter to King Leopold II on the Congo in 1890.[10] In this letter he detailed the suffering of the region’s inhabitants at the hands of the people who were working for Leopold. Washington appealed to the international community to ‘call and create an International Commission to investigate the charges herein preferred in the name of Humanity …’[11] Williams also wrote a letter to the U.S. President describing the cruel slave trade being enforced upon the Congo natives as ‘crimes against humanity’.[12] These efforts helped to sway public opinion against Leopold’s regime which was running the Congo and sparked the coming together of educated campaigners in powerful positions, who were eager to raise awareness and highlight the situation to the masses, thus helping the Congolese to break free from the chains of their oppressors.
However, the Congo Reform Association would also take on a transnational dimension during its existence. There was a branch in the United States, which was set up to achieve the same goals, called the American Congo Reform Association (ACRA). The list of members was illustrious, from Booker T. Washington, an American Civil Rights activist, to Mark Twain, an internationally famous author.[13] Having influential people such as this on board helped the CRA in gaining publicity for its cause. Indeed, a letter was written to the New York Times bringing to the attention of the people of the United States that they were petitioning Congress on reform in the Congo, and also promoting the sale of Mark Twain’s “King Leopold’s Soliloquy”.[14] Twain himself, whilst occupying the role of vice-president of ACRA, and in addition to writing “King Leopold’s Soliloquy” which was a work of political satire condemning the actions of Leopold in the Congo, also wrote two other unpublished pieces on the Congo. He also gave a lengthy newspaper interview about the Congo, mentioned the issue in several speeches and made three trips to Washington to talk in favour of reform with President Theodore Roosevelt and high officials in the State Department.[15]
Booker T. Washington, an American Civil Rights activist, was also involved in ACRA and participated in the campaign to end the atrocities in the Congo. At the request of Thomas S. Barbour, the organiser of ACRA, Washington set about using his influence on high American officials on behalf of Congo reform. He called personally on his friend President Roosevelt and on members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to urge American diplomatic pressure on the Belgian government and monarch.[16] Indeed, Washington carried a lot of weight behind him in terms of being able to influence people in power. When he went to the White House, Washington carried with him a protest committee of the National Baptist Convention, which was the largest of all Negro organisations at the time, which he had helped to arouse to a state of concern.[17] Washington continued to lecture on Congo Reform and spoke with Mark Twain at a series of meetings in major American cities. All of this, along with the pressure exerted by Twain and other activists, did have an effect on policy makers and people in power, and in 1909 a letter was published in the New York Times detailing five principle demands that then Secretary of State Elihu Root had issued to the Belgian Minister to the United States, Baron Moncheur.[18]
Here we can see that an organisation and a movement which started out in Britain managed to find, and appealed to, other people of a different nationality rallying behind the same cause. The petitioning that they engaged in, the publicity they gained from their actions and the influence they exerted were all of great use to the cause of Congo reform, and showed that international barriers of nationality can be broken down when a common cause is found and a common goal is sought.
All of the campaigning to raise awareness not only aroused public opinion in Britain and the United States, but also within religious circles in Europe, even in Belgium, whose own King was the perpetrator of the atrocities in the Congo. Father Arthur Vermeersch wrote a book called ‘La Question Congolaise’ in which he strongly attacked the Leopoldian system in place within the Congo. However, where Morel and the other reformers considered the main crime of the regime to be its violation of the principle of free trade, Vermeersch saw it as a violation of natural law.[19] Obviously Vermeersch had his own agenda, in terms of the fact that he was Catholic and, as such, was wary at first of international reform working to the advantage of Protestants. Ultimately, however, he, and other Catholics, became critical of the regime once it was realised that the work of the Catholics missions in the region may be sacrificed and they became allies to the reformers.[20] Although not working towards the same goals as the CRA, by looking at this example we can see how far reaching the influence of the CRA was, by analysing the level of awareness raised for people within religious circles to jump onto the bandwagon and take in an interest in the issue, if not for anything other than to further their own agenda.
The Congo Reform Association was a movement designed to highlight the horrors occurring in the Congo Free State. It was originally founded in Britain but the cause was soon to be taken up by Americans and Europeans alike. It served to highlight the contrasting views of imperialism within certain circles at the time, in that it was accepted but not at any cost. People from different professions, writers, journalists, Government employees, and historians, to name but a few, all came together alongside people within the religious hierarchy to raise awareness of the atrocities perpetrated in the Congo and, although their agendas differed, they all sought the common goal to end the suffering.
[1] Suzanne Miers, Slavery and antislavery in the twentieth century. (Oxford, 2003), p.53.
[2] Kevin Grant, A Civilised Savagery: Britain and the New Slaveries in Africa, 1884-1926. (New York, 2005), pp.62-63.
[3] Catherine Ann Cline, ‘E. D. Morel and the Crusade against the Foreign Office’, Journal of Modern History, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Jun., 1967), pp. 126-137.
[4] Catherine Ann Cline, ‘The Church and the Movement for Congo Reform’, Church History, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Mar., 1963), pp. 46-56.
[5] Grant, A Civilised Savagery, pp.62-63.
[6] Sharon Sliwinski, “The Childhood of Human Rights: the Kodak on the Congo.” Journal of Visual Culture, Vol. 5, No. 3 (2006), p.333-363.
[8] Daniel Laqua, The Age of Internationalism and Belgium, 1880–1930: Peace, Progress and Prestige. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013, pp. 56–59.
[9] ‘Congo Horrors Denounced’, (1907, 8 July), The Washington Post, p.3.
[10] http://www.friendsofthecongo.org/lumumba/freedom-fighters.html
[11] http://www.blackpast.org/?q=george-washington-williams-open-letter-king-leopold-congo-1890
[12] Adam Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost: a story of greed, terror, and heroism in Colonial Africa. (Boston, 1998), p.112.
[13] Wheeler, E.P. (1906)’Congo Reform Appeal’, New York Times, 31 January, p.6.
[15] Hunt Hawkins, ‘Mark Twain’s Involvement with the Congo Reform Movement: A Fury of Generous Indignation’, The New England Quarterly, Vol. 51, No. 2 (June, 1978), pp.147-175.
[16] Louis R. Harlan, ‘Booker T. Washington and the White Man’s Burden’, The American Historical Review, Vol. 71, No. 2 (Jan. 1966), pp.441-467.
[18] ‘Root’s Demands on Belgium’, (1909, 29 Jan), The New York Times, p.6.
[19] Cline, ‘The Church’, pp. 46-56.
Grant, K. A Civilised Savagery: Britain and the New Slaveries in Africa, 1884-1926. New York: Routledge, 2005.
Hochschild, A. King Leopold’s Ghost: a story of greed, terror, and heroism in Colonial Africa. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998.
Miers, S. Slavery and Antislavery in the Twentieth Century. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.
Cline, Catherine Ann, ‘E. D. Morel and the Crusade against the Foreign Office’, Journal of Modern History, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Jun., 1967), pp. 126-137.
Cline, Catherine Ann, ‘The Church and the Movement for Congo Reform’, Church History, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Mar., 1963), pp. 46-56.
Harlan, Louis R. Louis R. ‘Booker T. Washington and the White Man’s Burden’, The American Historical Review, Vol. 71, No. 2 (Jan. 1966), pp.441-467.
Hawkins, Hunt, ‘Mark Twain’s Involvement with the Congo Reform Movement: A Fury of Generous Indignation’, The New England Quarterly, Vol. 51, No. 2 (June, 1978), pp.147-175.
Laqua, Daniel. The Age of Internationalism and Belgium, 1880–1930: Peace, Progress and Prestige. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013.
Sliwinski, Sharon. “The Childhood of Human Rights: the Kodak on the Congo.” Journal of Visual Culture, Vol. 5, No. 3 (2006), p.333-363.
‘Root’s Demands on Belgium’, (1909, 29 Jan), The New York Times, p.6.
‘Congo Horrors Denounced’, (1907, 8 July), The Washington Post, p.3.
Wheeler, E.P. (1906)’Congo Reform Appeal Wheeler, E.P. (1906)’Congo Reform Appeal’, New York Times, 31 January, p.6.
http://www.friendsofthecongo.org/lumumba/freedom-fighters.html
http://www.blackpast.org/?q=george-washington-williams-open-letter-king-leopold-congo-1890
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Dehesa de Castilseras
Main ecosystems
Rivers, Reservoirs and Ponds
In an area where the summers can be really harsh, the presence of places where fauna and cattle ensure their water needs, enrich notably the landscapes. Valdeazogues and Alcudia rivers and Castilseras and Peña del Gato reservoirs are two of these places.
In almost any place of these calm waters, we will find the vestiges of the otters (their footprints and droppings). Egrets and Herons can also be observed, and it is usual to see them going up and down the river into small groups. Some nooks and crannies of these waters have secrets, some are the resting place of the Black Storks in their migratory journeys, others are backwaters where water lilies can be discovered, a native species from Castilseras, only found in some points of the Guadiana basin. This magic places will make us feel as if we were in tropical rivers.
In many places, the meadow gets close to the water, but almost everywhere riverbanks are covered by reeds, canes and bulrushes and the fluvial groves is formed by ash-trees, willows, poplars and tamarisks.
There is a part of the fauna that is linked more closely to the water, as they need to be able to lay their eggs: these are the amphibians.
There are several species that can be seen: the Natterjack Toad (Epidalea calamita), the Perez´s Frog (Pelophylax perezi), the Iberian Common Toad (Bufo spinosus), the Newt (Pleurodeles waltl), the Iberian Spadefoot Toad Toad (Pelobates cultripes), the Iberian Midwife Toad (Alytes cisternasii), the Mediterranean Tree Frog (Hyla meridionalis)…
Rocks and Cliffs
The reliefs of the mountains are mainly formed by quartzite, old sedimentary materials of ancient seas (over 400 million years), than in the later geological eras were raised and transformed into what is seen today. We can also find old volcanic materials (the most famous is the one that establish the mining area of Almadén). The lower parts of the mountains are made mostly from sedimentary materials of the degradation of old and distant layers, similar to the ones that form the areas of sandstone and conglomerate.
The most abrupt areas of rocks and cliffs are used by a bird life specialists in these high rugged geography, from the Black Wheatear, the Blue Rock Thrush, the Rock Bunting, the Eurasian Crag Martin and the Alpine Swift.
The more inaccessible places are privileged nesting for species as striking as the Golden Eagle, the Bonelli’s Eagle, the Peregrine Falcon, the Egyptian Vulture, the Eurasian Eagle-Owl and the Griffon Vulture.
The large rocks are also observation points or resting areas for those birds. This fact makes well worth scrutinizing these areas from a distance.
Some hillsides, especially sunny ones, are areas to camp for one of the more specialized feeding eagles in Europe, the Short-toed Snake Eagle, that only eats snakes and lizards. Sometimes, we can observe this big eagle, looking almost white from below, suspended in the air thanks to its acrobatic flight capability that allows him to stay almost still in the sky.
The Dehesa
The Dehesa is one of the most characteristic landscapes of Castilseras, an ecological jewel that we can only find in the Iberian Peninsula all around Europe.
The Dehesa are the equivalent of the African Savannas, where instead of herds of antelopes, zebras and wildebeests, we have mainly sheep, cows and deers.
The Dehesa is the cleared part of the Holm-oak wood. There are places where the oaks, cork trees and gall oaks form closed masses. The natural evolution of these original forests makes larger trees to cause shadow where it will be very difficult to grow seedlings of the same species.
This clearing part of the wood of oaks, provoked by the own oaks, is increased by the action of the large herbivores.
The Dehesa is currently a landscape that we associate to cattle, but in ancient times, when no human had walked these lands, old grazers ( buffaloes, antelopes, rhinoceroses, elephants…) formed a very similar landscape to the current dehesa.
Because of their exceptional situation, Dehesa de Castilseras provide with pasture and acorns to livestock. Deers, fallow deers and wild boars take advantage of these pastures and acorns.
Traditionally, the dehesa in the south of Ciudad Real were the meeting point and winter supplying of large herds of north of Castilla, to where they escaped from the winter harshness from further north.
The cereal crops
Weather conditions, especially the rainfall and temperatures, make the crops in this area mostly dry-farming crops, particularly cereals and some legumes used for forage for livestock.
These open agricultural landscapes constitute what in recent years has come to be called Pseudo-Steppes, now that all the ecological effects of associated species, especially birds, behave like natural steppes. Birds linked to these environments are Black-Bellied Sandgrouses, Montagu´s Harriers, and Larks (Skylarks, Tekla Larks, Calandra Larks).
Livestock, cattle and hunting species in Castilseras
Dehesa landscapes and the Mediterranean mountains typical in this area, shelter and feed domestic animals (sheep and cows) and some of big game species (deer, fallow deer, roe deer, wild boar).
The fact that Castilseras lands are a game preserve where there is no small game hunting (rabbit, hare, partridge…) makes this property a territory of home range for winged hunters (eagles, falcons, hawks, buzzards), and by proximity to the territories of the Lynx, we hope that the most threatened feline species in the world, the Iberian Lynx, appears and settles in this area very soon.
Although some small game species are abundant, it is worth remembering that some are authentic Iberian endemic species, such as the Hare (Lepus granatensis), smaller and different than the European Hare (Lepus europaeus) or the Red Partridge (Alectoris rufa).
Geographical location of Dehesa de Castilseras and sociocultural context of the municipality of Almadén
Dehesa de Castilseras is a private ownership farm with almost 9,000 hectares, covering part of the municipalities of Almadenejos, Alamillo and Almadén, most of the surface of the estate belonging to the latter. The municipality of Almadén is located in the southwest of the province of Ciudad Real, in the community of Castilla- La Mancha. The farm is crossed by the rivers Valdeazogues and Alcudia, which have shaped the landscape over thousands of years, leaving a relief of valleys and mountains ranges, mostly quartzite ones. It is an area with environmental characteristics that favors the presence of some species as emblematic as the Black Vulture, the Black Stork and the Imperial Eagle. Due to these environmental values, the European Union has included Almadén-Chillón-Guadalmez mountains in the “Red Natura 2000”, as well as other protected areas nearby, like Sierra Morena, Sierra de Santa Eufemia, Sierra de los Canalizos, and the rivers Quejigaol, Valdeazogues and Alcudia.
As for sociocultural terms, this region is of great significance for having being the main world producer of mercury, from the time of the Romans, making of this activity the social-economic engine of the region, and whose mines, the oldest in the world, have been declared World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The ethnography of the region revolves around this activity; Almadén Mining Park has a visitor centre and offers guided visits to the mines. The old miners houses were built in hexagonal shape, leaving a space in the center that was converted into a picturesque bullring, considered one of the oldest in Spain.
It is certainly a place full of natural and ethnographic undiscovered values.
2015 © Dehesa de Castilseras.
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CNHS
Biology Majors and Minors
Faculty Directory and Research
Marine Science Field Station
Student Presentations at Professional Scientific Meetings
The Department of Biology offers five majors and three minors, in which multiple tracks or "concentrations" are available, and some of which are closely linked to other degree programs or departments.
Bachelor of Science in Biology: This broad but intensive program can be tailored to fit nearly any career path, including preparation for governmental or private sector employment in the field or in the lab, as well as preparation for graduate studies and acceptance to degree programs in health-related fields. Four concentrations are available in this degree program: general biology, molecular biology, pre-professional biology and biology-business.
Bachelor of Arts in Biology: Recently added to the list of degrees offered at UT, the Bachelor of Arts in biology is similar to the Bachelor of Science in biology, but allows additional flexibility for students preparing for a career or graduate program that relies less on courses in chemistry and physics. Two concentrations are available in this degree program: general biology and organismal and evolutionary biology.
Bachelor of Science in Marine Science-Biology: This rigorous double major combines the specialization of a marine science curriculum with the conceptual and taxonomic breadth of a general biology curriculum. Numerous experiential learning, internship, and faculty-led research opportunities are available through the UT Marine Science Field Station and elsewhere.
Bachelor of Science in Marine Science-Chemistry: This rigorous double major is for students seeking to combine the marine science degree with the specific knowledge and skill sets acquired with a Chemistry degree. Numerous experiential learning and faculty-led research opportunities are available in the departments of chemistry and biology, the UT Marine Science Field Station and elsewhere.
Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science: This comprehensive degree blends the general concepts of biology with more applied fields such as Earth science, chemistry, economics, and policy to enable graduates to study, understand, solve, and hopefully prevent the environmental problems faced by this and future generations.
Minor in Biology: A valuable addition to the degree programs of students pursuing degrees that require a basic knowledge of the natural world, such as chemistry, physics, psychology, exercise science, and any other degree that might be strengthened by a general knowledge of biological principles.
Minor in Environmental Science: A common selection for students pursuing majors that require a basic knowledge of environmental issues, their economic and sociological effects, their implications on policy, law, legislation, and regulations, and potential solutions. This minor can compliment business, pre-law, political science, and any other major that would be strengthened by a demonstrated knowledge of environmental problems, solutions, economics and policy.
Minor in Marine Biology: With the increasing number of marine-related issues in the world today, such as declining commercial fisheries and the potential effects of global warming, this is a valuable addition to degrees in chemistry, business, political science, and any other major that requires, or would be augmented by a specific knowledge of marine organisms, systems, impacts and conservation.
Minor in Sustainability: The sustainability minor is an interdisciplinary program intended to develop understanding of the social, scientific, economic and expressive aspects of global environmental issues.
Pre-Health Professions
Pre-Health Professions Biology Concentration: Students majoring in biology who are interested in the health professions (medicine, dentistry, optometry, pharmacy, podiatry and veterinary medicine) typically will follow the pre-health professions concentration. By majoring in biology students take most or all of the required pre-requisite courses as part of their degree program.
Biology Education Degrees
Students interested in pursuing a career in biology secondary education also have the option to pursue the Biology Education Major. University of Tampa biology graduates will have a solid foundation for pursuing graduate programs in biology education programs, such as UT’s Masters in Education degree. These programs combine contemporary scientific knowledge with rigorous teaching skills to prepare graduates for careers in public and private education systems, which now require advanced degrees in nearly all 50 states. Both of these programs are offered through the Department of Education.
Biology and Environmental Science Program Flyer
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Pre-Health Professions Advising Guide
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Fayne leads Illinois State to 62-50 win over Evansville
Phil Fayne scored 17 points and blocked four shots as Illinois State opened Missouri Valley Conference action with a 62-50 victory over Evansville on Thursday night.
Fayne was 8 of 12 from the floor and grabbed five rebounds. MiKyle McIntosh added nine points and pulled down eight rebounds. Keyshawn Evans had nine points and Paris Lee chipped in eight with seven assists.
The Redbirds had nine blocks, one short of the school record.
Illinois State (9-4, 1-0) hit 23 of 61 field goal attempts (37.7 percent) while limiting the Purple Aces to just 14-of-54 shooting (25.9 percent).
The Redbirds, who have won five of their last six, never trailed and took a 35-25 lead into the break. They opened the second half with a 15-9 run.
Evansville (9-5, 0-1) had won seven straight before running into the Redbirds.
Jaylon Brown and Ryan Taylor led Evansville with 17 and 11 points, respectively.
Brown scores 14, Bradley stifles Southern Illinois, 60-51
Darrell Brown scored 14 points on Thursday night and Bradley beat Southern Illinois 60-51 in the Missouri Valley Conference opener for both teams.
Koch Bar and Nate Kennell scored 10 apiece while Luuk van Bree and JoJo McGlaston added nine each.
Brown and Kennell hit back-to-back 3-pointers to give Bradley (6-8) the lead, 46-40, for good with 4:12 left. Armon Fletcher converted a 3-point play to pull SIU within two with 3:06 to go, but van Bree hit a 3 five seconds later and Kennell added another to make it 54-46 with 1:52 remaining. The Braves made 6 of 8 free throws from there to seal it.
Southern Illinois (7-7) shot just 27.3 percent (18 of 66) from the field - its lowest since coach Barry Hinson took over in 2012-13 - including 2 of 26 from 3-point range.
Sean O'Brien had 10 points and 10 rebounds for the Salukis. Thik Bol added nine and 12.
Bradley snapped a three-game skid.
Packers End Regular Season In Detroit
The Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers are tied atop the NFC North with 9-6 records and their matchup at Ford Field Sunday night will decide the division title.
The loser will need Washington to lose to the New York Giants earlier in the day to claim a wild-card berth.
Green Bay has all the momentum, carrying a five-game winning streak into the season finale.
Aaron Rodgers asserted the Packers could run the table when they were 4-6 and he's one big victory from backing up that claim.
Rodgers is the hottest quarterback in the NFL right now. He has thrown 14 touchdown passes without an interception in the past six games. He carved up the vaunted Minnesota defense for 347 passing yards and four touchdowns and added a rushing score in a 38-25 home victory last Sunday.
Rodgers' favorite target, wide receiver Jordy Nelson, has 38 receptions, 528 receiving yards and five touchdowns during the winning streak. Rodgers threw four touchdown passes, two to Nelson, in the Packers' 34-27 win over the Lions at Lambeau Field earlier this season.
The Lions are coming off two road losses, including a 42-21 thumping by the NFC's top team, Dallas, on Monday night. In a best-case scenario, Detroit can still gain a first-round bye in the NFC playoffs if they win and both Atlanta and Seattle lose this weekend.
Bears End Season in Minnesota
When the Minnesota Vikings traveled to Chicago in Week 8, they still held high hopes of a season that had started with a 5-0 record.
Minnesota lost at Philadelphia coming out of its bye before the Bears surprised many with a 20-10 victory over the Vikings that week. The downward spiral continued until Minnesota was ousted from the playoff picture with a 35-28 loss to Green Bay last week, the eighth loss in 10 games.
The Vikings are left searching for answers for a lost season as they host Chicago in the season finale on Sunday.
While the Vikings (7-8) still held on to playoff hopes, the Bears' (3-12) season faded quickly amid a debilitating string of injuries. Chicago heads to the finale with young, unproven players still proving themselves.
Execution has been an issue for Chicago all season. The Bears are hoping to avoid the franchise's worst record since the NFL expanded to 16 games in 1978 and the second-worst mark in team history after 1-13 in 1969.
With Minnesota 2-8 since its bye, Chicago is 1-6 since it had its bye.
The Bears' biggest issue -- aside from injuries -- has been turnover-differential. Chicago has an NFL-low 10 takeaways and is a minus-16.
Quarterback Matt Barkley has thrown eight interceptions the past two weeks. Barkley is the third Chicago quarterback to throw a pass this season.
Kane has goal, assist in Blackhawks' 3-2 win over Predators
Patrick Kane had a goal and an assist to lead the Chicago Blackhawks to a 3-2 victory over the Nashville Predators on Thursday night.
Artem Anisimov and Jonathan Toews also scored and Corey Crawford made 36 saves to help Chicago snap a three-game losing streak, the Blackhawks' longest skid of the season.
Filip Forsberg and Mike Fisher scored for Nashville, and Ryan Johansen had two assists. The Predators have lost three straight.
With the score tied at 2 late in the third, Kane carried the puck into the Nashville zone on the right side and fired a wrist shot from the faceoff dot that beat Pekka Rinne on the short side. Rinne finished with 20 saves.
Lady Sages Use Second Quarter Surge To Win Holiday Hoopla Championship
Tatum McCall scored 12 points and Zanna Myers added 11 points as the Monticello Lady Sages downed Ridgeview 49-21 in the championship game of the Holiday Hoopla Girls Basketball Tournament Thursday evening.
Marissa McPike and Rachael Lockmiller added nine points apiece as the Lady Sages scored 31 second quarter points and led 42-24 at the half.
The Lady Sages forced 19 more turnovers.
The Lady Sages improve to 12-2 overall.
Hear Monticello girls basketball action next Saturday, January 7 when the Lady Sages travel to Downs for a matchup with Tri-Valley for a 1 pm start time on 95.9 FM WEZC and online at dewittdailynews.com.
Scorching Second Half Lifts PBL Past Monticello from Holiday Hoopla
Paxton-Buckley-Loda caught fire in the second half, shooting 77% and pulling away for a 73-55 victory over the Monticello Sages for a third place finish from the Monticello Holiday Hoopla Basketball tournament Thursday evening.
The Panthers shot 8-for-10 from three in the second half, led by Andrew Zenner’s 23 points and 12 rebounds.
Cole Eshlemen added 20 points, Luke Fitton scored 15 points and Colton Kleinert added ten.
Dalton Coplea dished out 13 assists for the Panthers.
Luke Stokowski led the Sages with 19 points and seven rebounds, Johnny Dawson added 11 points and Calvin Fisher scored 10 points.
The Sages have dropped two in a row and are 7-2 on the season.
PBL improves to 6-2 overall.
The two squads will meet again at Monticello High School Thursday, January 19 in a make up of a postponed game earlier in the season.
Hear Monticello boys basketball action next Friday from Rantoul at 7:30 pm on 95.9 FM WEZC and online at dewittdailynews.com.
Lady Sages Rout GCMS
Marissa McPike scored 17 points as the Monticello Lady Sages dominated GCMS 56-16 in Wednesday afternoon action from the Monticello Holiday Hoopla girls basketball tournament.
The Lady Sages held GCMS to just six first half points as GCMS could not handle Monticello's tight, full court defense all afternoon, comitting 25 turnovers.
Emily Edmondson and Zanna Myers each scored seven points. Emily Wilson chipped in with six points for the Lady Sages.
Monticello improve to 11-2 overall and move on to today's championship tilt at 6 pm opposite Ridgeview.
Maroa-Forsyth Drops Blue Ridge
The Maroa-Forsyth boys basketball team started fast and didn't look back in a Wednesday rout of Blue Ridge 73-33.
The Trojans jumped out to a 24-10 lead after the first quarter then exploded for a 64-30 lead after the third quarter.
Jaxson Nelson led the Trojans with 18 points while Daanish Mahmood added 16 points. Cody Marsh added 12 points for the Trojans.
Dane Houser led the Knights with 10 points.
Butler's 40 Points, Buzzer-Beater Lifts Bulls Past Nets
Jimmy Butler matched his season high with 40 points and hit an 18-footer at the buzzer roughly five minutes after being helped off the court with an apparent injury Wednesday night to give the Chicago Bulls a 101-99 comeback victory over the Brooklyn Nets.
Butler scored nine points in the final 2 1/2 minutes to rally Chicago. He finished 11 for 11 from the free throw line and grabbed 11 rebounds as the Bulls overcame a seven-point deficit in the final three minutes for their second consecutive win.
With just more than five minutes left, Butler came down on the foot of Brooklyn guard Randy Foye and had to be helped off the court.
Dwyane Wade had 16 points before leaving early in the fourth quarter with a migraine.
Brook Lopez had 33 points - including a career-high five 3-pointers - as the Nets dropped their 12th straight road game.
The Bulls travel to Indiana Friday.
>>Washington Drops Indiana
John Wall had 36 points and 11 rebounds, and the Wizards held off the Pacers 111-105 on Wednesday night despite losing Beal to a sprained right ankle.
Wall, who started 1 of 5 from the field, finished 11 of 19 and scored 23 points in the second half.
Otto Porter Jr. added 22 points for Washington, and Wall finished one assist shy of his first triple-double of the season. Marcin Gortat had 13 points and 16 rebounds, while Beal scored 12 points in 18 minutes.
Paul George scored 34 points and Jeff Teague added 19 points and 11 assists for the Pacers, who trailed by 11 after three quarters and cut the deficit to two late in the fourth.
Indiana has lost four straight since beating Washington on Dec. 19.
Washington outrebounded the Pacers 54-34 and scored 15 second-chance points.
After Indiana closed to 71-68, Wall scored 12 straight Wizards points as they built the lead to 85-74 after three quarters.
The Pacers host the Bulls on Friday.
Blues Blast Flyers; Blackhawks Extend Panarin
Robby Fabbri got a hat trick, David Perron and Scottie Upshall scored during St. Louis' four-goal third period and the Blues rallied to beat the Philadelphia Flyers 6-3 on Wednesday night.
Kevin Shattenkirk also scored and Carter Hutton made 17 saves as the Blues improved to 12-1-4 at home.
Wayne Simmonds, Nick Cousins and Brayden Schenn scored for the Flyers, who dropped their fourth game in their last five since ending a 10-game winning streak. Steve Mason made 19 saves.
Fabbri's second of the game with 4:59 left gave the Blues insurance, and he added an empty-netter for the hat trick two minutes later.
It was the first career hat trick for Fabbri, who snapped a seven-game scoring drought.
The Blues host Nashville on Friday night.
>>Blackhawks Extend Panarin
Artemi Panarin and the Chicago Blackhawks have agreed to terms on a $12 million, two-year contract extension.
The reigning Calder Trophy winner will count $6 million against the salary cap in the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons. Agent Tom Lynn confirmed the deal in an email to The Associated Press on Wednesday.
Panarin, 25, has 114 points in his first 117 NHL games. The Russian winger had 30 goals and 47 assists as a rookie last season, and has 15 goals and 22 assists in 37 games this season.
While not the long-term contract that many expected, the bridge deal keeps Panarin in Chicago along with core players Jonathan Toews, Patrick Kane, Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook, Marian Hossa, Artem Anisimov and Corey Crawford.
Oregon Stuns No. 2 UCLA
Dillon Brooks hit a 3-pointer with 0.8 seconds left to give No. 21 Oregon an 89-87 victory Wednesday night in the Pac-12 opener for both teams.
Brooks, who finished with 23 points and nine rebounds, grabbed Bryce Alford's missed free throw with 8.9 seconds to go, dribbled to the right wing and pulled up for the game-winning shot.
Payton Pritchard added 15 points and nine assists for the Ducks (12-2, 1-0), who won their 10th consecutive game and pushed the nation's second-longest home winning streak to 34 games. Pritchard's 3-pointer pulled Oregon within one with 12.9 seconds left to set the stage for Brooks' shot.
Thomas Welch had 20 points and 10 rebounds for the Bruins (13-1, 0-1), and Alford had 20 points. Lonzo Ball added 14 points and TJ Leaf had 13.
The Bruins came in as the nation's best shooting team and fourth-best beyond the arc, and they nearly hit those marks by going 34 of 64 overall (53.1 percent) and 11 of 25 (44.0 percent) on 3-pointers.
However, UCLA also had 14 turnovers against 19 assists and lost the rebounding battle 37-35.
The Bruins used a 15-0 run sparked by three straight 3s by Ball midway through the second half to take a 72-65 lead. UCLA was up by eight with 4 minutes to play before Pritchard sparked Oregon's final rally with seven points.
Monticello Fall to GCMS on Day 2 of Holiday Hoopla Action
Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley outscored Monticello 21-3 in the fourth quarter to complete two comebacks and beat Monticello 66-55 in day two action from the Holiday Hoopla basketball tournament Wednesday afternoon.
The Sages were led by Jonny Dawson, with 18 points. Isiah Florey added 13 points. Calvin Fisher chipped in with 7 points and 8 points, and Luke Stowkowki scored 6 points and had 8 rebounds.
GCMS was led by Mitchell McNutt with 22 points and 4 rebounds. Bryce Barnes chipped in with 16 points and 11 rebounds, and Tucker Cribbett also added 15 points.
With the loss, the Sages fall to 7-1 on the season.
Tune in tomorrow, December 29th at 6 pm as the Sages take on PBL. You can hear the game live on 959 FM WEZC and online at dewittdailynews.com.
Clinton Lady Maroons Defeat Virden North Mac
As heard on WHOW, the Clinton Lady Maroons defeated the Virden North Mac Lady Panthers by a score of 53-43 on Wednesday afternoon.
The Lady Maroons were led by junior Alyssa Saulsberry with 12 points. Saulsberry was named the Country Financial representative Stephan York Maroons Player of the Game. Junior Madi Filkin also chipped in with 11 points.
The Lady Panthers were led by senior Hanah Tomasko with 19 points.
With the win the Lady Maroons improve to 4-10 on the season and Virden North Mac fall to 5-5.
Tune in Thursday, January 5 as the Lady Maroons take on Tri-Valley. You can hear the game live on the Big 1520 AM/92.3 FM WHOW and online at dewittdailynews.com.
Maryland Routs Illinois in Big Ten Opener
Melo Trimble scored 20 points and Jaylen Brantley added 13 as Maryland routed Illinois 84-59 on Tuesday in the Big Ten opener for both teams.
It was the sixth victory in a row for the Terrapins (13-1), who have won their conference opener in all three seasons since joining the Big Ten.
Malcolm Hill had 21 points for the Illini (10-4), who saw their six-game winning streak come to an end.
Maryland played without two of its top post players. Junior Michal Cekovsky rested a left ankle injury, and senior Damonte Dodd missed his fifth consecutive game with a sprained left knee ligament.
Their absences mattered little against the Illini, who never led and were outscored 48-24 in the paint.
The Terps were 55.9 percent from the field while Illinois, which dropped its Big Ten opener for the fourth time in five years, shot just 35.6 percent.
Jets Get By Blackhawks, Hossa To IR
Blake Wheeler, Mark Scheifele and Drew Stafford scored and Connor Hellebuyck made 34 saves to help the Winnipeg Jets beat the Chicago Blackhawks 3-1 on Tuesday night.
Jacob Trouba added two assists, and Winnipeg won its second straight and fourth in five games. The Jets beat Central Division-leading Chicago for the third time in three tries this season, outscoring the Blackhawks 9-2 over those games.
Artem Anisimov scored his 15th goal in his return from missing three games with an upper-body injury, but Chicago lost its third straight for the first time since last March.
Chicago's Corey Crawford blocked 31 shots in his second start since returning from an appendectomy that cost him 10 games.
With an assist, the Blackhawks' Artemi Panarin stretched his career-best points streak to eight games. He has five goals and 14 points during the run.
The Blackhawks activated Anisimov off injured reserve and placed veteran right wing Marian Hossa on IR retroactive to Dec. 20.
Chicago announced the moves Tuesday prior to a game against the Winnipeg Jets. Both forwards have been sidelined by upper-body injuries.
Anisimov was put on injured reserve last Thursday and missed three games. His 14 goals and 27 points both rank third on Chicago.
Hossa has been out since leaving early in a loss to Ottawa a week ago. He leads the Blackhawks with 16 goals.
Coach Joel Quenneville says Hossa will probably miss Chicago's next three games and will "hopefully be ready to come back" when the Blackhawks face the St. Louis Blues in the NHL Winter Classic at Busch Stadium on Jan. 2.
Westbrook's 15th Triple-Double Lifts OKC
Russell Westbrook scored 29 points, grabbed 17 rebounds, and added 11 assists for his 15th triple-double of the season, and the Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Heat 106-94 on Tuesday night for their fourth straight win.
Westbrook nearly had the triple-double by halftime, falling two rebounds shy.
Enes Kanter scored 19 and Steven Adams added 15 - including a highlight-reel dunk in the first half - for the Thunder.
Josh Richardson tied a career high with 22 points for the Heat. James Johnson scored 16 and Tyler Johnson added 15, both off the bench, for Miami. Oklahoma City's frontcourt limited Miami center Hassan Whiteside to 12 points and eight rebounds, most of that coming in the fourth quarter.
Monticello Routs Tuscola
The Monticello Sages outscored Tuscola 25-5 en rout to a 71-31 victory in the nightcap of the first day of Monticello’s Holiday Hoopla tournament.
Isiah Florey the Sages with 16 points. Johnny Dawson scored 15 point dished out six assists.
Calvin Fisher added 13 points and five rebounds while Luke Stokowski had 12 points and five rebounds.
The Sages move on to a semi-final basketball game tomorrow afternoon when they take on GCMS at 3:30 pm.
Hear all the action on 95.9 FM WEZC and online at dewittdailynews.com.
Also hear girls basketball action at 2 pm, also against GCMS.
Monticello is now 7-0 on the season while Tuscola is 5-4.
Sages Defeat Sangamon Valley
The Monticello Sagtesa defeated the Sangamon Valley Storm by a score of 67 to 32 on Tuesday afternoon. The Sages were led by Isiah Florey with 13 points and 2 assists. Calvin Fisher also 10 chipped in with 12 points, 6 assists and 5 rebounds. Luke Stokowski added 10 points, 5 assists and 4 rebounds. Devin Graham added 5 points, Noah Wright added 9 points and Benton Singleton chipped in with 10 points and 6 rebounds.
The Storm was led by Jacob Oakleaf and Nathan Doty, who both scored 11 points.
WIth the win, the Sages improve to 6-0 on the season, while Sangamon Valley fall to 0-7 on the season.
Tune in tomorrow, December 28th as the Sages take on GCMS. You can hear the game live on 959 FM WEZC and online at dewittdailynews.com.
Annual Holiday Hoopla Opens Today
The annual Monticello Booster Club's Holiday Hoopla tournament opens today with the Sages boys basketball team playing a pair of games on the tournament's opening day.
Monticello will open play against Sangamon Valley at 11:30 am. That game follows the tournament opener betwen GCMS and Tuscola.
The Sages return to action later tonight, taking on Tuscola at 7:30 pm.
Hear both games on 95.9 FM WEZC and online at dewittdailynews.com.
The remaining games today are Neoga taking on Argenta-Oreana (2 pm), Paxton-Buckley-Loda taking on Ridgeview (3:30 pm) and Sangamon Valley versus GCMS (6 pm).
Wednesday, Monticello returns to the court at 3:30 pm when they take on GCMS.
Argenta-Oreana and Paxton-Buckley-Loda open the day at 10 am. Neoga and Ridgeview follow at 11:30 am. Then Tuscola and Sangamon Valley tussle at 2 pm.
Ridgeview verse Argenta-Oreana then Paxton-Buckley-Loda and Neoga finish the day's action.
The placement games start at 3 pm Thursday, with the championship game at 7:30 pm.
The tournament is divided up into two pools. Monticello is joined in the 'purple pool' by Sangamon Valley, GCMS, and Tuscola while the 'gold pool' consists of Ridgeview, Neoga, Argenta-Oreana and Paxton-Buckley-Loda.
Hear Monticello girls basketball action tomorrow afternoon at 2 pm on WEZC and dewittdailynews.com, as they take on GCMS in the girls side of the bracket.
Illini Open Big Ten Play Against Maryland
The Illinois Fighting Illini will put a six-game win streak on the line this afternoon when they head to College Park to take on Maryland.
The Illini finished the non-conference schedule 10-3 overall while Maryland is 12-1.
Illinois finished the non-conference slate with their sixth straight win in the Braggin' Rights rivalry game against Missouri last Wednesday night.
The Terrapins non-conference 12-1 run includes wins over Georgetown, Kansas State, and Oklahoma State.
Last year, as a top 25 team, Maryland trounced Illinois 81-55, also at College Park.
The two sides will meet twice this year, the second meeting in another two and a half weeks, on January 14.
Game time today is 4 pm on ESPN 2.
Blackhawks Return to Action After Holiday Break
The National Hockey League drops the puck tonight following the holiday break.
The Blackhawks return to the ice hosting the Winnipeg Jets at the United Center. The Chicago Blackhawks lead the Central Division and the Western Conference and are close to first place overall in the NHL.
The Blackhawks will try to avoid losing three straight for the first time in nearly 10 months when they meet the Jets on Tuesday night.
Chicago has not dropped three in a row since a four-game slide from March 9 to March 16. And trying to reverse course could be a difficult task for the Blackhawks, who have been outscored 6-1 in two losses to the Jets in 2016-17, including a 2-1 defeat on Dec. 4 at the United Center.
The Blackhawks are also is looking for a split of a four-game homestand. After a win over the San Jose Sharks on Dec. 18 and a one-goal loss to the Ottawa Senators two nights later, the Blackhawks dropped a 2-1 overtime decision to Colorado Avalanche, currently last in the NHL with 25 points.
The Blackhawks follow tonight's tilt with road matchups at Nashville Thursday then Carolina Friday before they go to St. Louis for their Winter Classic matchup at Busch Stadium with the Blues next Monday.
Bulls Get By Pacers
Dwyane Wade scored 21 points, Nikola Mirotic added a season-high 20 and the Chicago Bulls survived a poor shooting performance for a 90-85 victory over the Indiana Pacers Monday night to snap a three-game losing streak.
Jimmy Butler had 16 points despite making only 3 of 12 field-goal attempts. Chicago, which had dropped nine of 12, was 32-for-83 (38.6 percent) from the field for the game.
Aaron Brooks had a season-high 19 points to lead the Pacers, who have lost three straight.
Indiana, which dropped to 4-12 on the road, has lost five straight and eight of nine at the United Center.
Michael Carter-Williams returned to the Bulls lineup after missing nearly two months with left knee and left wrist injuries. He finished with one point (0-for-5 from the field) in 18 minutes.
Louisville Moves Up In Latest AP Poll; Coaches Poll Unchanged
The past week of college basketball provided little action that should cause a major stir in the pot that is the AP top 25 rankings. However we did have then-No. 6 ranked Kentucky falling on the road to No. 10 Louisville. As a result, the top-10 got a bit of a new look in the final poll of 2016.
Villanova remains number one with 56 first place votes. UCLA, second in the country, received three first place votes. Kansas, Baylor, who received six first place votes and Duke round out the top five.
With Louisville's jump to sixth, Gonzaga, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Creighton round out the top ten.
The Big Ten was well represented as Wisconsin, Purdue and Indiana came in at 14-16.
For the third straight week, the 25 teams ranked in the USA Today Coaches poll are the same. The spots have shifted, but we haven't seen movement in and out of the polls since early December. It's been a long time since that happened.
Expect some shakeup a come Jan. 1, as conference play begins in earnest this week across the country. No. 2 UCLA plays at No. 21 Oregon, top-ranked Villanova plays at No. 9 Creighton; we've got a lot to look forward to, and the polls will get a fresh look in 2017.
For this week, the biggest movers: South Carolina's fall from 20 to 25th is the biggest drop, while Louisville's rise from 11th to seventh is the largest leap. Kentucky falls to No. 8 after losing at the Cardinals on Wednesday.
The ACC still leads the way with six ranked teams.
Rodgers, Nelson shred Vikings as surging Packers win 38-25
Aaron Rodgers threw for 347 yards and four touchdowns, Jordy Nelson shredded Minnesota's secondary for 154 yards and two scores, and the resurgent Green Bay Packers beat the Vikings 38-25 on Saturday.
Green Bay (9-6) built a 28-13 lead at halftime, with Rodgers accounting for all four scores. He finished 28 of 38, and shrugged off his right calf injury after scrambling for a 6-yard touchdown late in the second quarter and making a rare Lambeau Leap.
Playing again without running back Adrian Peterson, the Vikings (7-8) had success through the air. Sam Bradford threw for 382 yards and three touchdowns, including a 71-yard touchdown pass to Adam Thielen in the second quarter. Thielen had a career-high 202 yards and two scores.
MacKinnnon's OT goal lifts Avalanche over Blackhawks 2-1
Nathan MacKinnon scored 25 seconds into overtime to lift the Colorado Avalanche to a 2-1 win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Friday night.
Cruising in with Tyson Barrie on a 2-on-1 break, MacKinnon beat Corey Crawford with a high shot that ticked off the post and ended the Avalanche's five-game losing streak.
Mikko Rantanen scored on a deflection at 5:42 of the third period for the Avalanche's first goal in 167 minutes and 43 seconds of play. Colorado was shut out in its previous two games, including a 6-0 loss to the Maple Leafs on Thursday.
Cousins leads way as Redskins pound Bears 41-21
Kirk Cousins threw for a touchdown and ran for two more, and the Washington Redskins gave their fading playoff hopes a boost with a 41-21 victory over the Chicago Bears on Saturday.
DeSean Jackson added 114 yards receiving, and Washington (8-6-1) intercepted Matt Barkley five times. It added up to an easy win for the Redskins after they relinquished control of the second wild card with a loss to Carolina on Monday night.
Eighth in the NFC behind Green Bay and Tampa Bay coming in, Washington scored 14 points in the first quarter after struggling early in recent games and never really was threatened by the struggling Bears (3-12).
Cousins, shaky against Carolina, was 18 of 29 for 270 yards. He threw a 17-yard touchdown to Chris Thompson in the first quarter and scored on a 9-yard run in the second. He also pushed in from the 1 late in the third to make it 31-14.
Jackson had a 57-yard reception, but left after he got hit in the jaw while blocking in the third quarter. Pierre Garcon caught four passes for 94 yards.
Thompson had a rushing touchdown in the first quarter to go with his scoring catch. Josh Norman and Bashaud Breeland each had two interceptions, and the Redskins won their seventh straight against Chicago.
Barkley's five interceptions matched the second-highest total in Bears history and were the most since Jay Cutler threw five against San Francisco on Nov. 12, 2009.
Cameron Meredith added 135 yards receiving and Alshon Jeffery had 92. Jordan Howard ran for 119 yards, but the Bears simply got overmatched after back-to-back three-point losses.
The best they can do now is finish 4-12 and match their worst record since 2002. The last time they won fewer than four games in a non-strike year was when they went 3-11 in 1973.
The Redskins grabbed a 14-0 lead after being held to a total of three first-quarter points in the previous four games.
Washington scored on four straight possessions, starting with Thompson's 7-yard run up the middle midway through the quarter.
The Bears cut it to 24-14 in the closing minute of the half on a 21-yard catch by Meredith after a leaping Jeffery hauled in a 37-yard pass.
Steelers win AFC North after rallying by Ravens 31-27
The Pittsburgh Steelers rode Ben Roethlisberger's right arm and Antonio Brown's left arm to the AFC North title.
Roethlisberger shook off a pair of interceptions to throw two late touchdowns, including a 4-yard strike to Brown with 9 seconds remaining to lift the Steelers to a 31-27 victory over the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday night. Brown caught Roethlisberger's pass just short of the goal line and stretched the ball into the end zone with his left hand to cap a wild fourth quarter and give Pittsburgh (10-5) its second division title in three years.
The Ravens took the lead on Kyle Juszczyk's 10-yard burst up the middle with 1:18 remaining. But Roethlisberger calmly led the Steelers 75 yards in 10 plays, the last 4 coming as Brown fought through a pair of tacklers to assure the Steelers of a third straight playoff berth.
The Ravens (8-7) were officially eliminated when Joe Flacco's pass near midfield was intercepted on the final play.
Kansas City secured a playoff berth with the Baltimore loss.
Illinois State cruises to 3rd place in Diamond Head Classic
Paris Lee scored 18 points, Deontae Hawkins added 16 and Illinois State cruised past Tulsa 68-56 on Sunday for third place in the Diamond Head Classic.
Illinois State (8-4) opened the game on a 16-0 run and Tulsa (6-6) didn't get on the board until freshman Joseph Battle hit a 3-pointer at the 13:19 mark. The Golden Hurricane's were just one for their first 11 shots from the field.
Pat Birt made Tulsa's second basket - also a 3 - with 9:39 left and the Golden Hurricane's trailed 23-7. Their third make was also from behind the arc but Illinois State answered with a 3 for an 18-point lead and the Redbirds led by double figures until the final minutes of the game.
The Redbirds led by as many as 20 points in the first half and had a 16-point advantage at the break.
Junior Etou made 13 of 14 free-throw attempts and scored a career-high 22 points for Tulsa, which missed its first eight field-goal attempts of the second half. The Golden Hurricane's were just 14-of-52 shooting (26.9 percent) and turned it over 18 times.
Aldridge's season-high 33 help Spurs hold off Bulls
LaMarcus Aldridge had a season-high 33 points and the San Antonio Spurs held on to beat the Chicago Bulls 119-100 on Sunday after nearly blowing a hot start.
Kawhi Leonard added 25 points, 10 rebounds and four assists. Tony Parker had 13 points and eight assists.
Chicago rallied from a 20-point deficit to lead by three points midway through the third quarter but could not sustain the push, taking its third straight loss.
Parker had nine points in the final quarter while San Antonio improved to 9-4 at home after losing three of its first four at the AT&T Center.
Dwyane Wade led the Bulls with 24 points, including 10 in the final quarter. Jimmy Butler added 19 points, and every Chicago starter except Rajon Rondo scored in double figures. Rondo was held to six points and two assists in 30 minutes.
Killorn gets go-ahead goal, Lightning beat Blues 5-2
The Tampa Bay Lightning are starting to have success at home during a key time, while the St. Louis Blues had another road defeat and lost a goalie, too.
Alex Killorn scored a go-ahead goal early in the third period, Jonathan Drouin added two late goals and the Lightning rallied from a two-goal deficit to beat the Blues 5-2 on Thursday night.
Killorn put Tampa Bay up 3-2 from the high slot 5:25 into the third period to help the Lightning go 2-0 starting a stretch of seven of eight games at home. Drouin made it 4-2 with 1:40 remaining, a play that Blues goalie Jake Allen was hurt on trying to make a save, before adding an empty-netter.
Tampa Bay also got goals from Brian Boyle and Michael Bournival. Andrei Vasilevskiy made 21 saves and Victor Hedman had three assists.
Illinois State beats Hawaii 71-47 in Diamond Head Classic
Deontae Hawkins had 16 points and Illinois State scored 18 straight points in the second half to beat Hawaii 71-45 in the quarterfinals of the Diamond Head Classic on Thursday night.
Phil Fayne scored 14 Madison Williams added 11 points for the Redbirds (7-3), who advanced to the semifinals to face San Francisco on Friday night. The Rainbow Warriors (4-6) will host Utah in the consolation bracket.
Illinois State scored the first 10 points of the game and led the entire way. The Redbirds held Hawaii to 25.5 percent shooting and had their largest lead at 69-36.
The Rainbow Warriors closed within 14 on Brocke Stepteau's 3-pointer with 15:10 left in the second half. That was Hawaii's last field goal until Matthew Owies' putback with 1:54 left ended a streak of 15 missed shots from the field.
Stepteau, Noah Allen and Gibson Johnson had 10 points each for Hawaii.
Celtics top Pacers 109-102
Isaiah Thomas scored 14 of his 28 points in the final period, leading the Boston Celtics to a 109-102 victory against the Indiana Pacers.
Avery Bradley and Jae Crowder each scored 15 points for the Celtics, who have won four in a row. Marcus Smart had 12 points, and Amir Johnson and Kelly Olnyk finished with 11 apiece.
Boston outscored Indiana 29-9 in the second quarter, turning a nine-point deficit into a 51-40 halftime lead. The Pacers pulled within four late in the game, but were unable to catch the Celtics down the stretch.
Jeff Teague led Indiana with 31 points and eight assists. CJ Miles also scored 19 points, and Thaddeus Young had 15 points and 12 rebounds for his second straight double-double.
Miles made a 3-pointer to trim Boston's lead to 87-83 with 5:26 left, but Al Horford responded with a reverse layup for Boston. Thomas then made two foul shots and a layup to make it 93-83 with 4:10 to go.
Thomas and Crowder each made two free throws in the final 15 seconds to help the Celtics hold on for the win.
Maroa-Forsyth Comeback Falls Short vs Mt. Pulaski
Jaxson Nelson scored 12 of his 20 points in a frantic fourth quarter for Maroa-Forsyth, but the Trojans comeback bid fell short against Mt. Pulaski as the Hilltoppers held on for a 63-61 win Wednesday night from the Decatur St. Teresa Holiday tournament.
Trailing 49-38 after the third quarter, Maroa-Forsyth outscored Mt. Pulaski 23-14 in the fourth quarter.
Daanish Mahmood led the Trojans with 22 points.
Lucas Aylesworth scored 18 of his game high 25 points in the second half while Eli Griesheim added 13 points and Peyton Taylor chipped in with 12 points.
St. T topped Sullivan 48-35 and Heyworth downed Blue Ridge 79-33 in the holiday tournament.
Hill, Morgan Lead Illini To Braggin' Rights Game Win
Malcolm Hill scored 21 points and Maverick Morgan had a double-double to lead Illinois to a 75-66 win over Missouri on Wednesday.
Morgan hit 7 of 8 free throws and finished with 19 points and 11 rebounds. Jalen Coleman-Lands scored 12.
The Illini (10-3) have won six in a row including the last four in the border series.
Kevin Puryear led Missouri (5-6) with 17 points. Terrence Phillips had 14 points and Jordan Geist added 12.
Illinois jumped out to a 15-5 lead and never trailed, holding off a pair of second-half rallies that saw Missouri pull within four points.
Michael Finke hit a 3-pointer to push the lead to 67-59 after the Tigers made it 63-59 just 79 seconds earlier.
Illinois hit 10 of its first 15 shots to take control early as Missouri missed 10 of its first 12.
Illinois has won 24 of 36 games since the series was moved to St. Louis.
>>TCU Routs Bradley
Desmond Bane scored 18 points and had seven rebounds as TCU never trailed in a 74-42 victory over Bradley on Wednesday night in the Horned Frogs' last game before opening Big 12 Conference play.
Bane had three 3-pointers for the Frogs (11-1), who are 9-0 at home this season. Brandon Parrish also had three 3s, all of his long-range shots coming in a 63-second span of the first half.
Koch Bar had eight points and nine rebounds for Bradley (5-8), which has lost three in a row and five of six. Bar was one of three Braves who finished with eight points.
The teams were a combined 3-of-14 shooting before Parrish hit a 3 with 14:22 left in the first half to put TCU up 8-2. After Parrish rebounded a Bradley miss, he made another 3-pointer. The senior guard then had a personal foul, but the Bulldogs missed both free throws and Parrish made yet another shot from beyond the arc to make it 14-2 at the 13:19 mark.
Karviar Shepherd had nine points and eight rebounds, while Kenrich Williams added 10 and eight for TCU.
Wizards Drop Bulls
John Wall had 23 points and nine assists, and the Washington Wizards rallied past the Chicago Bulls 107-97 on Wednesday night for their third road victory of the season.
Trey Burke and Marcus Thornton came off the Washington bench to spark a decisive fourth-quarter burst. After the teams entered the fourth quarter tied at 77, Burke and Thornton combined for 10 points to give the Wizards a 91-85 lead.
Chicago closed to 97-93 with less than 3 minutes left, but Bradley Beal, Marcin Gortat and Wall followed with baskets to seal it.
Beal finished with 21 points, while Gortat had 14 points and 11 rebounds. Burke scored 10 and Thornton had six.
Wall did not attempt a shot in the opening 9:30, then scored 19 points in the final three quarters.
Jimmy Butler led a balanced Chicago offense with 20 points, and Dwyane Wade added 19. Rajon Rondo had 10 assists.
Bears CB Fuller to IR, Misses Entire Season
Chicago Bears cornerback Kyle Fuller will miss the entire season because of a knee injury.
The Bears decided not to activate the third-year pro before Wednesday's deadline. They had a 21-day practice window to evaluate him.
A first-round draft pick in 2014, Fuller had arthroscopic surgery in the preseason and went on injured reserve in late September. He says he still feels pain and expected a quicker recovery.
Fuller says he believes he is in the team's plans for next season, though he hasn't gotten any indications from general manager Ryan Pace. He also responded "yes" when asked if he wants to remain in Chicago.
Fuller was drafted by former GM Phil Emery for a 4-3 defense. The Bears use a 3-4.
Knicks Storm Back, Beat Pacers
Carmelo Anthony matched a season high with 35 points and the Knicks used a big second-half turnaround to beat the Indiana Pacers 118-111 on Tuesday night.
The Knicks fell behind by 15 in the third quarter, then suddenly seized control to snap a three-game losing streak. Anthony scored 26 in the second half.
Derrick Rose had 24 points and Kristaps Porzingis added 21 for the Knicks, who returned home after a poor finish to their five-game trip out West. They started slowly but improved to 10-4 at home.
Thaddeus Young and Myles Turner each scored 21 points for the Pacers, who seemed headed to a third straight victory for about 30 minutes. It was mostly all New York from there as Indiana had its seven-game winning streak in the series snapped.
The Pacers host Boston on Thursday.
Blues Win; Blackhawks Lose
>>Ottowa Edges Chicago
Derick Brassard and Tom Pyatt scored 10 seconds apart during Ottawa's three-goal second period, and the Senators beat the Chicago Blackhawks 4-3 on Tuesday night for their third consecutive victory.
Bobby Ryan added a goal and an assist as Ottawa stopped a seven-game road losing streak against Chicago, earning its first win at the United Center since March 28, 2001. Dion Phaneuf scored a power-play goal, and Kyle Turris had two assists.
Artemi Panarin, Tyler Motte and Richard Panik scored for the Blackhawks, who had won five in a row and six of seven. Scott Darling made 26 saves while dropping to 6-3-1 in 10 starts since Corey Crawford had an emergency appendectomy on Dec. 3.
Chicago played without center Artem Anisimov for the second straight game due to an upper-body injury, and forward Marian Hossa left in the first period. The Blackhawks did not provide a reason for Hossa's departure.
>>Blues Beat Stars in Overtime
David Perron put in a wraparound goal at 1:55 of overtime, lifting the Blues to a 3-2 victory over the Dallas Stars on Tuesday night.
On a delayed penalty, Jaden Schwartz left the puck to Perron to the left of the net, skated behind it and scored from the right side before Dallas goalie Antti Niemi could recover.
St. Louis' Patrik Berglund had tied the game 2-2 with 31 seconds left in the second period as he shot from the slot through a tight group of Niemi, defenseman Johnny Oduya and Perron. Dallas challenged the goal, claiming goaltender interference, but it was upheld.
Schwartz scored in the first period for the Blues and Jake Allen had 36 saves.
Dallas' Jason Spezza scored for a 2-1 lead less than a minute before Berglund tied the game, and assisted on Patrick Eaves' power-play goal in the first period.
Niemi finished with 19 saves.
The Blues are at Tampa Bay on Thursday night in the finale of a two-game trip.
CBB: Bradley, SIU, Western Illinois Lose
Terence Davis scored 19 points, including three 3-pointers, Sebastian Saiz had his sixth double-double of the season and Mississippi defeated Bradley 66-49 on Monday night.
Cullen Neal scored 12 while Sebastian Saiz had 10 points and 13 rebounds for the Rebels (8-3), who were never seriously threatened.
Darrell Brown scored 14 points for Bradley (5-7).
The Braves shot 18 of 58 (31 percent) from the field overall, trailed 38-19 at halftime and never got closer than 17 points again.
Ole Miss was 23 of 55 (41 percent) from the field, including 9 of 28 from 3-point range, and out rebounded Bradley 41-36.
Ole Miss went on an 11-0 run during a two-minute frame late in the first half to build a 19-point halftime cushion. Neal and Burnett combined for three 3-point shots before Davis capped the decisive surge with a twisting layup.
>>Purdue Rolls Western Illinois
Caleb Swanigan had 21 points and 21 rebounds, Isaac Haas scored 18 points and No. 15 Purdue beat Western Illinois 82-50 on Monday night.
Swanigan went 7 for 16 from the field and 6 for 7 at the free-throw line in his ninth double-double of the season. He had 26 points and 10 rebounds in Saturday's 86-81 victory against No. 25 Notre Dame in the Crossroads Classic.
Purdue (10-2) also got 16 points from Vince Edwards in its fifth consecutive victory.
>>UNLV Tops Southern Illinois
Tyrell Green made 9 of 13 shots and scored a career-high tying 23 points, including a tie-breaking 3-pointer with 1:09 to play, and UNLV scored the final seven points in its 68-61 win over Southern Illinois on Monday night.
Kris Clyburn added 11 points and seven boards and Jalen Poyser scored 10. Jovan Mooring had a career-high six rebounds, tied a career best with six assists and scored all of his four points in the final 39 seconds.
UNLV (7-5) used an 11-2 run to take a 61-57 lead with 4:03 left. Thik Bol hit a jumper and Armon Fletcher made two free throws for SIU to tie it with 1:33 to go. Mooring hit Green for the go-ahead 3 and then stole a pass near midcourt and took it for a layup. After grabbing a rebound on the other end, he made two free throws to cap the scoring before coming up with another steal to clinch it.
Fletcher and Mike Rodriguez led Southern Illinois (6-6) with 15 points apiece.
The Salukis shot just 39 percent, compared to 57 percent shooting by UNLV, but scored 22 points off 23 UNLV turnovers to keep it close.
Bulls Rout Pistons; Pacers Win
Jimmy Butler scored 19 points, Rajon Rondo had 10 points, 14 assists and eight rebounds, and the Chicago Bulls beat the Detroit Pistons 113-82 on Monday night to snap a three-game losing streak.
Taj Gibson added 16 points, Robin Lopez had 14 and Dwyane Wade, Doug McDermott and Nikola Mirotic had 13 apiece for Chicago, which had lost six of eight.
Jon Leuer scored 16 points for the Pistons, who have dropped three straight and four of five.
After scoring just 69 points in a 26-point loss on Friday, the Bulls busted out for 69 points in the first two quarters, their best for any half this season.
Chicago, which entered tied for sixth-worst in the NBA with a .436 field-goal percentage, made 17 of 21 shots (81 percent) in taking a 35-19 lead at the end of the first quarter.
>>Pacers Hold On Versus Wizards
Paul George was supposed to get the ball with the game tied at 105 and 4.6 seconds left. Instead, it was Thaddeus Young who popped up to the top of the key to take Jeff Teague's inbound pass.
Young squared up his defender, Markieff Morris, drove to the left side of the lane and tossed in a runner with 0.9 seconds remaining to give the Pacers a 107-105 victory over the Washington Wizards on Monday night.
George scored 27 and finished with nine rebounds. Teague added 23 points to go along with his 10 assists, but the Pacers needed the last of Young's 12 points after the Wizards scored seven straight to tie it. Young also added 11 rebounds.
Bradley Beal missed a potential winning 3-pointer at the buzzer and scored 22 points.
Marcin Gortat finished with 21 points and 13 rebounds, John Wall added 19 points and 10 assists, and Otto Porter Jr. scored 17 points and grabbed nine rebounds.
Myles Turner finished with eight rebounds to go along with his 20 points and five blocks, including an emphatic rejection in the third quarter that sent Wall's layup into the third row of the crowd. Turner fouled out of the game with a little less than two minutes remaining.
George's jumper with 2 minutes to play gave Indiana a 105-98 lead, before the Wizards fought back with a 7-0 scoring run, tying the game on Beal's jumper with 15 seconds to go. The back-and-forth scoring was a common theme during the final quarter, and one the Pacers outlasted.
The Pacers are in New York tonight.
Bears WR Royal To Miss Remainder of Season
Receiver Eddie Royal will miss the Chicago Bears' final two games because of a toe injury.
Royal will become the 18th Bears player on injured reserve after coach John Fox announced Monday that the nine-year veteran is done for the year.
Sidelined since Nov. 27, Royal has been limited to nine games in each of his two seasons in Chicago after agreeing to a three-year deal in March 2015. He caught 33 passes for 369 yards this year after finishing with 37 receptions for 238 yards and a TD last season.
Royal has 408 catches for 4,357 yards and 28 touchdowns with Denver, San Diego and Chicago.
Edmonton Tops Blues
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored 2:55 into OT after taking a pass from Connor McDavid, lifting the Oilers over the St. Louis Blues 3-2 on Monday night.
The winner came after Patrick Maroon, a St. Louis native, got his first goal in nine career games against the Blues by tipping a shot by Brandon Davidson 5:47 into the third period.
Cameras caught Maroon's son Anthony celebrating the score in the stands, and Maroon cried when he was shown the video during a postgame television interview.
''I don't get to see him as much,'' he said, choking back tears. ''It's pretty special.
McDavid became the first NHL player with 40 points by assisting on the OT goal.
The OT goal frustrated St. Louis goalie Carter Hutton, who stopped 32 shots on his 31st birthday. It was his first start since Dec. 3, when the Blues lost to the Jets in overtime.
St. Louis scored first when Kyle Brodziak connected on a wrist shot 4:20 into the game. Nugent-Hopkins tried to poke the puck over the blue line, but Kevin Shattenkirk got it and passed to a wide open Brodziak, who beat Cam Talbot on his glove side.
Edmonton tied at about seven minutes later. Leon Draisaitl won a faceoff and Tyler Pitlick buried the shot, beating Hutton on his right side. Draisaitl also assisted on Maroon's goal.
The Blues took the lead back 33 seconds later when Vladimir Tarasenko hit a wrist shot from the right circle.
Tarasenko leads all NHL players with 15 points (six goals and nine assists) in December. Tarasenko has points in 17 of his last 21 games with 12 goals and 17 assists.
The Blues are at Dallas tonight.
Kentucky Jumps Into Top 5 of Coaches Poll
Kentucky's big win over North Carolina in the CBS Sports Classic was so good and fun, it prompted the coaches voting in the weekly USA Today Coaches Poll to push UK into the top five.
Aside from that, here's the shocker: the polls saw no changes. Not in terms of who's out and who's in. For the first time this season, the top 25 did not move teams from week to week. It's the same 25 now that it was a week ago.
Biggest riser: Butler jumped five spots after it's win in the Crossroads Classic over Indiana. Biggest faller: Yes, Indiana. The Hoosiers go from No. 9 to No. 16.
Villanova, UCLA, Kansas, Duke and Kentucky are this week's top 5 while Baylor, Gonzaga, North Carolina, Creighton, and Virginia round out the top 10.
Two top-10 teams fell this week -- one at the hands of another top-10 team -- which prompted some movement of the AP poll this week.
Villanova, UCLA, Kansas, Baylor and Durk round out the top 5 in the AP poll and Kentucky, Gonzaga, North Carolina, Creighton and Louisville fill out the top ten.
Last Second Field Goal Lifts Packers Past Bears
Aaron Rodgers hit Jordy Nelson with a 60-yard pass to set up Mason Crosby's 32-yard field goal as time expired to lift the Green Bay Packers to a 30-27 victory over the Bears in one of the coldest games ever played in Chicago on Sunday afternoon.
Wide receiver-turned-running back Ty Montgomery ran for a career-high 162 yards and two touchdowns, and the Packers (8-6) earned their fourth straight victory despite blowing a 17-point lead in the fourth quarter.
They also moved ahead of Minnesota for sole possession of second place in the NFC North and pulled within a game of division leader Detroit, with the Vikings getting pounded by Indianapolis and the Lions losing to the New York Giants.
The Bears (3-11) had tied it on a field goal by Connor Barth with 1:19 left. The Packers took over at their 27, and on third down at the 26, Rodgers unleashed a deep pass down the middle of the field to Nelson, who got behind Cre'Von LeBlanc.
With no timeouts, the Packers downed the ball before Crosby booted his winner.
The game-time temperature for their matchup against Green Bay on Sunday was 11 degrees with a minus-4 wind chill.
Chicago hosted the Packers in 3-degree temperature and a minus-15 wind chill - the lowest ever for a Bears home game - on Dec. 18, 1983. The Bears' coldest home game, temperature-wise, was against Green Bay on Dec. 22, 2008, when it was 2 degrees with a minus-13 wind chill.
Green Bay, of course, played the coldest NFL game on record when it beat Dallas in the 1967 NFL championship game - the "Ice Bowl."
Rodgers threw for 252 yards despite problems his left hamstring and right calf that kept him out of practice during the week.
Montgomery had several big runs, including a 61-yarder, after coach Mike McCarthy announced he is now a full-time running back. He also scored from the 4 on the game's opening possession and added a 3-yard TD in the third quarter that made it 20-10.
Christine Michael ran for a 42-yard touchdown. Julius Peppers had a strip-sack that led to a field goal. Ha Ha Clinton-Dix added two interceptions, and the Packers tied the NFL's oldest rivalry for the first time since 1933 at 94-94-6.
Chicago's Matt Barkley threw for 362 yards and two touchdowns, but was picked off three times.
Alshon Jeffery came on strong near the end to finish with 89 yards on six catches in his return from a four-game suspension for violating the NFL's policy against performance-enhancing drugs.
Deonte Thompson led Chicago with 110 yards receiving. Cameron Meredith added nine catches for 104 yards, but the Bears lost for the fifth time in six games.
The Packers as though they were on their way to an easy win after that huge third quarter. But the Bears came storming back.
An 8-yard touchdown catch by Jeffery and 9-yard run by Jordan Howard midway through the fourth cut it to 27-24.
The Bears took over on their 21 with 5:42 remaining and had a third down at the Packers 4 when Micah Hyde reached in front of Meredith at the goal line, forcing Chicago to settle for Barth's tying field goal.
The Packers host Minnesota on Saturday while the Bears host Washington on Saturday.
Blackhawks Tank Sharks
Ryan Hartman, Vinnie Hinostroza and Patrick Kane scored in the third period, and the streaking Chicago Blackhawks beat the San Jose Sharks 4-1 on Sunday night for their fifth consecutive victory.
The division leaders in the Western Conference were tied at 1 when Hinostroza won a faceoff for Chicago and Hartman whipped the puck right by Martin Jones on the stick side at 6:59. It was Hartman's first goal since Nov. 25 at Anaheim, ending an 11-game drought.
Hinostroza then got his third of the season when he shot it through Jones' legs at 17:40 on a break with Marian Hossa. Hinostroza also scored in Chicago's 6-4 win at St. Louis on Saturday night.
Kane added an empty-netter as Chicago improved to 13-2-3 at home. Duncan Keith scored his first goal of the season in the second, and Scott Darling made 33 saves.
Illinois, Illinois State Win This Weekend
Paris Lee scored 24 points, including four 3-pointers, to lead Illinois State to an 81-72 win over Saint Joseph's on Sunday.
Deontae Hawkins added 21 points to go with eight rebounds, MiKyle McIntosh had 14 points and Phil Fayne 10 for Illinois State (6-3), which remains undefeated on its home court this season. Lee shot 8 for 11 from the field, hitting 4 of 6 from long range, and sank all four free throw attempts.
Illinois State led 41-27 at the break but had to hold off a Saint Joseph's surge in the second half that twice cut the deficit to five. The Redbirds responded with a 9-2 spurt that included 3-pointers from Hawkins and Lee to stretch the advantage to 57-45 with 8:47 left and hung on from there.
Shavar Newkirk led Saint Joseph's (5-5) with 21 points and Charlie Brown added 14.
>>Abrams Helps Illinois Hold On Against BYU
Tracy Abrams scored 15 points and Maverick Morgan had 14 points and 10 rebounds as Illinois held off BYU 75-73 on Saturday night at the United Center.
Eric Mika led BYU with 25 points in the second game of the State Farm Chicago Legends doubleheader.
Jalen Coleman-Lands had 12 points and Michael Finke and Malcolm Hill 10 apiece for the Illini (9-3), who have won five straight.
BYU (7-4) shot just 43 percent from the field after averaging 85.8 points on the strength of its transition game. Nick Emery added 16 points and TJ Haws 10 for the Cougars.
Illinois made 10 of 26 3s.
Abreu, White Sox Agree To One Year Deal
First baseman Jose Abreu and the Chicago White Sox have agreed on a one-year contract for $10,825,000.
The deal Saturday avoids salary arbitration.
Abreu hit 25 home runs with 100 RBIs while batting .293.
Abreu has had at least 30 doubles, 25 homers and 100 RBIs in each of his first three seasons in the majors, all with the White Sox.
The 29-year-old Cuban is the seventh player in big league history with at least 100 RBIs in his first three years, and the first since Hideki Matsui from 2003-05.
The White Sox went 78-84 last season and have since traded ace Chris Sale and center fielder Adam Eaton for packages of prospects.
Tiger Woods To Reportedly Design Chicago Golf Course
Tiger Woods' career as a golf course designer has begun to take off. The 14-time major winner has launched his TGR Design firm and his Bluejack National design in the Houston, Texas area was named the best new private course of 2016 by Golf Digest.
His next big project in the United States will reportedly be overseeing the renovation of Chicago's Jackson Park golf courses into a championship level 18-hole course and either a short course -- like the one he just debuted at Diamante in Mexico -- or a par-3 course, according to the Chicago Tribune.
"This project can create incredible possibilities for the community on the South Side," Woods said in a statement to the Chicago Tribune through TGR Design. "We want to design a course that everyone will enjoy."
President Barack Obama is reportedly among those that pushed Woods into taking on the project as lead designer, calling Woods to encourage him as the park renovation is in Obama's hometown of Chicago -- and not far from the planned Obama Presidential Center, according to the report.
The project will be funded by the soon to be formed Chicago Parks Golf Alliance, a non-profit created by mayor Rahm Emanuel to help raise money for the project as well as create other youth golf programs in the city, per the Tribune.
Groundbreaking on the project will begin in the spring, but the current Jackson Park golf courses will remain open for the next two years with a target date for the completion of the project set for 2020. The goal is to have the new course host a PGA Tour event -- they are reportedly targeting the BMW Championship -- as early as 2021.
Despite the $30 million renovation and desires to become part of the PGA Tour rotation, the new course will remain a public course, making it one of the rare public PGA Tour courses in the country -- the most famous of those being Bethpage Black in New York.
Monticello Sages Defeat Sullivan Redskins
As heard on WEZC, the Monticello Sages defeated the Sullivan Redskins by a score of 74-34 on Friday night. The Sages were led by Luke Stokowski with 16 points and seven rebounds. Jonny Dawson chipped in with 15 points and five assists. Isiah Florey added 13 points and had five rebounds and five assists. Calvin Fisher had 10 points and six rebounds.
The Redskins were led by Queintan Britton with 11 points.
With the win the Sages improve to 5-0 on the season.
Tune in Tuesday, December 20, as the Sages take on Paxton-Buckley-Loda. You can hear the game live on 95.9 FM WEZC and online at dewittdailynews.com.
Lady Sages Route Warrensburg-Latham
As heard on WEZC Thursday night, Monticello outscored Warrensburg-Latham 27-2 in the second quarter and went on to rout the Lady Cardinals, 56-16.
The Lady Sages led 43-11 at the break and did not look back in a balanced effort across the board.
Marissa McPike led Monticello with 13 points. Zanna Myers added 12 and Rachael Lockmiller finished with 11 points. Tatum McCall chipped in with 10.
The Lady Sages have won five in a row and are now 7-1 on the season.
They will play at Mattoon on Saturday before a week long break leading up to the annual Holiday Hoopla at Monticello High School.
Tune in tonight for Monticello boys basketball action on 95.9 FM WEZC and online at dewittdailynews.com.
Bucks Get By Bulls; Pacers Lose to New Orleans
Giannis Antetokounmpo scored 30 points and Jabari Parker added 28 to lead the Milwaukee Bucks to a 108-97 victory over the Chicago Bulls on Thursday night.
Milwaukee led the entire game and held a 24-point advantage early in the fourth quarter but had to hold on to snap a three-game losing streak, its longest of the season.
Antetokounmpo has totaled 88 points and 35 rebounds in his last three games, and Parker has reached at least 27 points in four of his last five.
Chicago lost for the fifth time in seven games and dropped its third straight on the road despite 21 points from Jimmy Butler and 20 from Dwyane Wade. The Bulls also got 19 points from Taj Gibson.
The Bulls begin a three-game homestand tonight against Milwaukee.
>>New Orleans Edges Pacers
Anthony Davis finished with 35 points, 16 rebounds and five blocked shots as the New Orleands Pelicans emphatically closed out a 102-95 victory over the Indiana Pacers on Thursday night.
He highlighted his latest dynamic performance with two 3-pointers and a couple of driving dunks. During a pivotal 15-0 Pelicans run inside the final 5 minutes, he converted a three-point play on a driving dunk, hit a 3, added four free throws and blocked two shots.
Rookie Buddy Hield also hurt the Pacers with a career-high 21 points, hitting five 3s along the way.
Jrue Holiday, who started the Pelicans' decisive surge with a driving layup, had 16 points and 14 assists, while Terrence Jones added 10 points, 11 rebounds and two blocked shots.
Myles Turner scored 26 points on 11-of-14 shooting for Indiana, but the Pacers missed eight straight shots during a 4-minute scoring drought late in the fourth quarter. Indiana's Jeff Teague had 21 points and 10 assists and Paul George had 18 points.
Al Jefferson scored 14 points for the Pacers.
The Pacers visit Detroit on Saturday night to complete a three-game trip.
Blackhawks Escape Islanders; Blues Blast Devils
Richard Panik scored the tiebreaking goal with 6:13 left in the third period to lift the Chicago Blackhawks over the New York Islanders 5-4 on Thursday night.
Panik's eighth of the season gave Chicago its fourth victory in five games and eighth in the last 10 meetings with the Islanders.
Scott Darling made 28 saves as the Blackhawks (20-8-4) rallied from an early 2-0 deficit.
The teams entered the third period tied at 4.
Anders Lee scored his ninth goal of the season for New York, and eighth in the last 11 games, to break a 3-all tie 22 seconds into the second. That followed a wild first period in which each team scored three times.
The Blackhawks travel Saturday night to St. Louis.
>>Blues Blast Devils
Vladimir Tarasenko had a goal and two assists and Alex Pietrangelo scored the go-ahead goal as the St. Louis Blues beat the New Jersey Devils 5-2 on Thursday night.
Jori Lehtera, Nail Yakupov and Patrik Berglund also scored for the Blues, who overcame an early two-goal deficit. Jake Allen made 24 saves as St. Louis improved to 13-1-3 on home ice.
Adam Henrique and Miles Wood scored for the Devils, while Cory Schneider made 26 saves. New Jersey's losing streak is at a season-high four games and the Devils dropped their seventh straight game against St. Louis.
Tarasenko got the Blues on the board when he scored his second goal in three games on the power play with 2:54 left in the first period.
Tarasenko found Pietrangelo through the back door for an even strength goal to give the Blues a 3-2 lead at 7:45 of the second period.
The three-point night gave Tarasenko 10 points (two goals, eight assists) in his last five games.
The Blues host Chicago on Saturday night.
Bears, Packers Meet on Sunday
Aaron Rodgers and the Packers (7-6) will go for their fourth win in a row on Sunday afternoon when they visit the Chicago Bears (3-10) at Soldier Field. Frigid temperatures are forecast along Lake Michigan with highs expected to be at or near 0 degrees Fahrenheit at kickoff.
Green Bay coach Mike McCarthy had his team practice outside this week to brace for the deep freeze. McCarthy knows a setback could be devastating to his team's playoff hopes as it aims to reach the postseason for the eighth consecutive year.
The Bears already have secured their third straight season with double-digit losses, but they look forward to the chance to play spoiler against their rivals to the north.
Already, the Bears have knocked off division rivals Detroit and Minnesota at Soldier Field this season. Chicago is 3-3 overall on its home turf as it goes for a home sweep against the NFC North.
Green Bay is 2-4 on the road but has played much better on both sides of the ball in recent weeks. During their current three-game winning streak, the Packers have outscored opponents 86-36.
Rodgers leads the NFL with 32 touchdown passes and has thrown for multiple touchdowns in eight consecutive games.
Rodgers torched the Bears for 39 completions (a franchise record), 326 passing yards and three touchdowns on Oct. 20 as the Packers cruised to a 26-10 win. Wide receiver Davante Adams hauled in 13 passes for 132 yards and two touchdowns as Rodgers' preferred target.
When the Bears have the ball, they will turn to inexperienced but improving signal-caller Matt Barkley. The former USC standout will make his fourth consecutive start in place of injured teammates Jay Cutler and Brian Hoyer. In his past three games, Barkley has passed for four touchdowns and two interceptions.
Wide receiver Alshon Jeffery is set to return after serving a four-game suspension for violating the NFL's policy on performance-enhancing substances.
Jeffery has 40 catches for 630 yards and one touchdown in nine games this season.
Bears running back Jordan Howard needs 31 rushing yards to reach 1,000 as a rookie. Meanwhile, in the opposite huddle, Packers wide receiver Jordy Nelson needs 87 yards through the air for his fourth career season with 1,000 receiving yards.
Domestic Abuse Case Against Mets Closer Familia Dropped
Thursday morning, the domestic violence case against Mets closer Jeurys Familia was dismissed by a judge in New Jersey.
Familia was arrested at his Fort Lee, New Jersey home on October 31 and charged with simple assault after police found reason "to believe that domestic violence had occurred." The victim, Familia's wife Bianca Rivas, asked for the charge to be dropped last month because she does not fear for her safety. Police found Rivas with a scratch on her neck and a bruised cheek.
Now, just because the case was dismissed in court, it doesn't mean Familia is free from discipline by MLB. The league can still suspend him under their domestic violence policy. Aroldis Chapman was suspended 30 games last year even though he was not charged with a crime following his alleged domestic violence incident last October. Chances are Familia will receive a similar ban.
The prosecutor could have gone forward with the case against Familia even though Rivas asked for the charge to be dropped. The maximum penalty for simple assault in New Jersey is six months in jail, two years probation, and a $1,000 fine.
The Mets are said to be in the market for relief help to help bolster the bullpen while Familia serves a potential suspension.
White Sox, SP Holland Agree To One-Year Contract
The White Sox added to their starting rotation, agreeing to a $6 million, one-year contract with left-hander Derek Holland.
Holland can make $2 million in performance bonuses: $1 million each for 150 and 200 innings.
The 30-year-old played on World Series teams with Texas in 2010 and 2011 but missed significant time the past three seasons because of injuries. He became a free agent when the Rangers declined their $11 million option and chose to pay the left-hander a $1.5 million buyout.
Holland, who had a $10 million salary this year, missed two months because of inflammation in his left shoulder and finished 7-9 with a 4.95 ERA in 22 games. He won 16 games in 2011 and was 62-50 with a 4.35 ERA in eight seasons with the Rangers.
Chicago designated lefty Matt Purke for assignment on Wednesday to open a roster spot.
Bears' Jeffery Takes Responsibility for 4-Game Suspension; Rodgers Misses Practice
Chicago Bears receiver Alshon Jeffery accepted responsibility for his four-game suspension for violating the NFL's policy against performance-enhancing drugs and acknowledged letting down the team.
He says the Bears (3-10) likely would have won a few more games had he been playing. They dropped three of four in his absence and will host Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers (7-6) on Sunday.
Asked if he let down the team, Jeffery responded, "Most definitely."
With an expiring contract, Jeffery has three games left to regain the trust of the team and the front office. That effort kicked into gear with his return to practice on Wednesday.
>>Rodgers Misses Practice, Focuses on Rehab
Aaron Rodgers will miss Green Bay Packers practice on Wednesday to focus on rehabbing his leg injuries, a plan that coach Mike McCarthy says will likely stay in place for the quarterback through practice Thursday.
But signs point to Rodgers still being ready to play Sunday in Chicago. McCarthy says that Rodgers told him not to hold anything back for the game plan against the Bears.
Rodgers hurt his left hamstring a few weeks ago against the Philadelphia Eagles. He hurt his right calf while throwing a 66-yard touchdown pass to Davante Adams on the third play of Sunday's 38-10 victory over the Seattle Seahawks.
McCarthy says he's planning for the Bears game similarly to how he prepared for Seattle.
Heat Beat Pacers
Hassan Whiteside had 26 points and 22 rebounds, and the Miami Heat clamped down defensively to beat the Indiana Pacers 95-89 on Wednesday night. Miami held the Pacers to 37 percent shooting and outrebounded them 58-38.
Tyler Johnson and James Johnson combined for 29 points off the bench.
Paul George scored 22 for the Pacers, who were hoping for a season-best third straight win and instead managed just 10 points in the fourth quarter. CJ Miles added 15 for Indiana.
Neither team led by more than seven, and the Heat got to that margin after James Johnson found Goran Dragic for a layup and a 92-85 lead with 3:35 left.
The Pacers visit New Orleans tonight, the second game in a three-game, four-day trip.
Timberwolves Drop Bulls
Zach LaVine scored 24 points, Andrew Wiggins added 23 and the Timberwolves rallied to beat the Bulls 99-94 in Minnesota coach Tom Thibodeau's return to Chicago on Tuesday night.
The Timberwolves wiped out a 21-point deficit and got Thibodeau a victory in his first game in Chicago since the Bulls fired him in an acrimonious split in 2015.
Gorgui Dieng and Karl-Anthony Towns each scored 16 points, and the Timberwolves snapped a four-game losing streak.
Jimmy Butler led Chicago with 27 points, and Robin Lopez added 14. But the Bulls continued a pattern of letdowns against losing teams, this time falling to one that came in tied for the NBA's worst record.
Blackhawks Beat Rangers; Nashville Blows By Blues
Artem Anisimov scored the tiebreaking goal late in the second period to lead the Chicago Blackhawks over the New York Rangers 2-1 on Tuesday night.
Trevor van Riemsdyk also scored as the Central Division leaders improved to 3-0-1 in their last four games. Scott Darling stopped 33 shots, upping his record to 7-2-2.
Artemi Panarin had two assists and Anisimov had one as Chicago got even with New York following a 1-0 overtime loss at home to the Rangers last Friday.
Jesper Fast scored for the Rangers and Antti Raanta, starting for the fourth straight game, made 24 saves. Raanta had won three consecutive starts, including shutouts in the last two. New York had won four of its last five.
Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews was activated from injured reserve earlier in the day after missing nine games with an upper-body injury.
>>Nashville Blows By Blues
Mike Fisher scored twice and the Predators rallied to beat the St. Louis Blues 6-3 on Tuesday night.
James Neal, Filip Forsberg, Ryan Johansen and Mike Ribeiro also scored for Nashville, which snapped a two-game skid.
After trailing 3-0, the Predators scored six straight goals to earn their 10th home victory of the season.
Kevin Shattenkirk, Ryan Reaves and Brad Hunt scored for St. Louis, which lost three of four on its road trip.
The Blues return home Thursday to play New Jersey.
Bears Sign TE Pruitt, Wavie DB Bausby
The Chicago Bears have signed tight end Mycole Pruitt and waived defensive back De'Vante Bausby.
Pruitt, a second-year pro, has 11 receptions for 96 yards over 18 games with Minnesota.
Bausby, a Pittsburg State product, entered the NFL as an undrafted free agent with Kansas City in 2015. He had 12 tackles in four games for Chicago this season.
The Bears announced the moves on Tuesday.
Monticello Sages Defeat Fisher Bunnies
In a game heard on WEZC, the Monticello Sages defeated the Fisher Bunnies by a score of 56-37 on Tuesday night. The Sages were led by Isiah Florey and Calvin Fisher with 14 points each. Luke Stokowski chipped in with 13 points and nine rebounds. Johnny Dawson added 13 points and five assists.
With the win the Sages improve to 4-0 on the season, and Fisher falls to 5-3.
Tune in Friday, December 16, as the Sages take on Sullivan. You can hear the game live on 95.9 FM WEZC and online at dewittdailynews.com.
Pacers Drop Hornets
Paul George and Myles Turner scored 22 points each to lead the Pacers to a 110-94 win over the Hornets on Monday night, snapping Indiana's four-game losing streak against Charlotte in the regular season.
Jeff Teague had 16 points, 11 assists and five rebounds, and Rodney Stuckey added 14 points for the Pacers, who have won two straight since returning home from a five-game road trip.
Marco Belinelli scored 14 points for the Hornets, Marvin Williams and Nicolas Batum each had 13 and Kemba Walker added 12.
C.J. Miles made the go ahead 3-pointer with 5.6 seconds remaining in the third quarter to start an 11-1 run by the Pacers. It gave Indiana a 76-73 lead and Stuckey's two free throws with 8:56 to play put the Pacers ahead 84-74.
The Hornets had a short spurt in the fourth as Frank Kaminsky made a 3-pointer and Jeremy Lamb scored on a fast break layup to make it 87-82 with 7:03 left. But Turner's 3 with 1:12 put the Pacers ahead 103-92 to seal it for Indiana.
George and Turner each had five rebounds.
The Pacers are at Miami on Wednesday night, where they have lost three straight regular season games.
College Football All-Americans Announced
The Associated Press released its All-America teams on Monday, and to the surprise of no one, the top spots were dominated by players from the SEC and the Big Ten.
The skill position nods on offense landed elsewhere -- Louisville quarterback Lamar Jackson, Texas running back D'Onta Foreman and Florida State running back Dalvin Cook were all First Team picks along with Oklahoma's Dede Westbrook and Western Michigan's Corey Davis -- but in the trenches, it was all about the big boys from the SEC and Big Ten.
Each conference had seven players named to the All-America First Team -- more than any other conference.
Alabama's Cam Robinson and Wisconsin's Ryan Ramczyk were All-American tackles while Indiana senior Dan Feeney and Washington State's Cody O'Connell were All-American guards.
Ohio State's Pat Elflein was the first-team All-American center while Ole Miss senior Evan Engram was the first-team tight end.
Curtis Samuel of Ohio State was the all-purpose first team All-American and Arizona State kicker Zane Gonzalez made first team All-American.
Texas A&M and Tennessee juniors Myles Garrett and Derek Barnett were first team All-Defense at defensive ends.
Houston's Ed Oliver was the only freshman to make the All-American teams at first team defensive tackle. He was joined by Alabama junior Jonathan Allen.
Michigan standout Jabrill Peppers was a first team at linebacker joined by Alabama's Reuben Foster and Vanderbilt's Zach Cunningham.
Cornerback first team All-American were Michigan's Jourdan Lewis and USC's Adoree' Jackson.
Ohio State and Alabama sophomore safeties Malik Hooker and Minkah Fitzpatrick made the first team.
Pats Hold On, Edge Ravens
Tom Brady connected with Chris Hogan for a 79-yard touchdown pass in the fourth quarter to help the New England Patriots overcome a sloppy second half and claim a 30-23 win over the Baltimore Ravens on Monday night.
Brady threw for 406 yards and three touchdowns, becoming the fourth NFL quarterback with at least 450 career touchdown passes. He also threw just his second interception of the season.
LeGarrette Blount rushes for 72 yards on 18 carries, passing 1,000 yards for the first time since his rookie season with Tampa Bay in 2010.
The Patriots (11-2) have won four straight games and eight of their last nine as they continue to inch toward their eighth straight AFC East title.
The loss ends a two-game win streak for the Ravens (7-6), who now face a challenging route to the playoffs with two of their last three on the road.
Joe Flacco did his best to keep Baltimore in the game, finishing 37 of 52 for 324 yards, two touchdowns and an interception. The 37 completions set a franchise record.
Villanova Stays Atop AP, Coaches Basketball Polls
The top of the college basketball AP poll remains nearly the same, with the top 11 holding firm, but there were a few games that caused a shakeup down the poll.
Villanova received 56 first place votes while UCLA received three and Baylor six, who came in fourth behind third ranked Kansas. Duke rounded out the top five while Kentucky, North Carolina, Gonzaga, Indiana and Creighton fill out the top-10.
Saint Mary's loss this week sent them from 12th to 20th while Florida State re-enters the top 25 at no. 23 and Southern California ranks in at 24th.
For the first time this season, every undefeated team in college basketball is ranked in a national poll. In this week's coaches poll, Villanova remains at No. 1 and UCLA at No. 2, while Baylor is No. 5, Gonzaga is No. 8, Creighton is No. 10, South Carolina is No. 15 and USC, making its debut in the coaches poll, is No. 25. That's it -- only seven unbeatens left in the sport.
Saint Mary's, which took an unexpected loss at home to UT Arlington on Thursday, took the biggest drop in this week's poll (ninth to 20th). The biggest jump is Florida State, which enters the rankings at No. 23 -- 10 spots higher than the Noles were a week ago.
Also, the ACC now has six teams ranked, two more than any other conference.
Lady Maroons Defeat Argenta-Oreana
The Lady Maroons defeated the Argenta Oreana Bombers by a final score of 58-31 on Monday night. The Lady Maroons were led by Junior Alyssa Saulsbery with a total of 15 points. Sophomore Savanah Moore chipped in with a total of 14 points. Moore was also awarded the Stephen York Country Financial Player of the Game.
The Argenta Oreana Bombers were led by Junior Maggie Millington with a total of 17 points. Camilyn Newbanks and Katelyn Buhlig also chipped in with 6 points each.
With the win the Lady Maroons improve to 4-7, and the Lady Bombers fall to 0-7.
Tune in December 28th at 3:00PM, as the Lady Maroons take on the Riverton Holiday Tournament. You can hear the big game live on The Big 1520AM/92.3FM WHOW and online at dewittdailynews.com
Packers Rout Seahawks, Bears Fall To Lions
Matthew Stafford ran for a go-ahead, 7-yard touchdown with 3:17 left after throwing two interceptions in the fourth quarter, one that was returned for a score on the previous possession, and the Detroit Lions held on for a 20-17 win over the Chicago Bears on Sunday.
Matt Barkley completed two passes that put the Bears in a position to at least attempt a tying field goal in the final minute, but both were negated by penalties, before turning the ball over on downs from the Detroit 44.
The NFC North-leading Lions (9-4) have won five straight and eight of nine, moving them a step closer to winning a division title for the first time in 23 years.
Chicago (3-10) has lost four of five.
Barkley , in the first road start of his career, perfectly led Cameron Meredith on a 31-yard TD to pull the Bears within three late in the third quarter.
Stafford, who put a white glove on his right hand during the game for an undisclosed reason, was picked off twice after he threw only one interception the previous eight games. Demontre Hurst intercepted Stafford's pass in Chicago's end zone after it ricocheted off teammate Bryce Callahan and receiver Golden Tate early in the fourth quarter. Cre'Von LeBlanc returned an interception 24 yards midway through the fourth to put Chicago up 17-13.
>>Packers Rout Seahawks
Aaron Rodgers finished with 246 yards and three scores before leaving early in the fourth quarter with his team up by 25 in a decisive 38-10 win over the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday.
The Packers (7-6) won their third straight game to keep their playoff hopes alive.
The Packers are two games back of first-place Detroit in the NFC North, but play division opponents in the last three weeks of the season.
Rodgers, who is already playing with a sore left hamstring, finished 18 of 23. He was sacked just once, an impressive accomplishment for a Packers offensive line against a formidable defense for Seattle (8-4-1).
Green Bay gained 330 yards in Seattle's first game without former All-Pro safety Earl Thomas, who is out for the season with a broken leg.
The Packers' defense flustered Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson, who threw a career-high five interceptions.
Rodgers threw two touchdown passes to Jordy Nelson. They have connected on 57 TD passes overall, tying Hall of Famer Brett Favre and Antonio Freeman for the most touchdown passes from a quarterback to a receiver in franchise history.
The Packers begin their season-ending stretch of three straight NFC North games with a trip to Chicago on Dec. 18 to play the Bears.
Illinois Blows By Central Michigan; ISU, Bradley Win
Tracy Abrams scored a career-high 31 points and led Illinois in a 92-73 drubbing of Central Michigan on Saturday afternoon.
Abrams scored 23 points in the first half and finished 7 of 8 from 3-point range on a day when he scored his 1,000th career point with Illinois (8-3).
Leron Black played another compete game from the bench, scoring a career-high 21 points.
Marcus Keene led Central Michigan (8-3) with 25 points and Braylon Rayson added 18.
Illinois won the rebound battle 49-25 and outscored the Chippewas in the paint 34-14.
Illinois will have the week of before the team travels to Chicago to play BYU in the State Farm Chicago Legends game.
>>ISU Tops UT-Martin
Paris Lee, the Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Week, joined four starters with 12 points each as Illinois State dismantled Tennessee-Martin, 74-57 to win its Star Wars Day match-up Saturday afternoon.
MiKyle McIntosh, Deontae Hawkins and Phil Fayne joined Lee with a dozen points each and Tony Wills finished with 10 points as the Redbirds remained unbeaten in five home games (5-3.) Lee passed out five assists and collected two steals.
Illinois State raced to a 23-7 lead in the first 10 minutes of the game and led by 15, 43-28, at intermission. The win was the Redbirds fifth straight win over the Skyhawks.
Illinois State hit 25 of 56 from the field (44.6 percent), including 12 of 28 from distance.
Kedar Edwards finished with 15 points to lead UT Martin (8-3). Matthew Butler added 12 points. The Skyhawks hit 17 of 53 from the field (32.1 percent).
>>Bradley Routes Chicago State
Dwayne Lautier-Ogunleye and Luuk van Bree had 15 points apiece as Bradley drubbed Chicago State 83-48 on Saturday night.
Lautier-Ogunleye had six rebounds and dished out four assists. Van Bree was 6 of 9 from the floor, making 3 of 5 from long range.
Darrell Brown nailed 4 of 6 from beyond the arc for 14 points and Antoine Pittman and Jayden Hodgson added 10 apiece for Bradley (5-5).
The Braves, who never trailed, held a 31-19 lead at the break and finished the game on a 27-6 run. Chicago State never threatened.
Bradley made 24 of 46 (52.2 percent) field goal attempts while limiting Chicago State to just 16-of-59 (27.1 percent) shooting.
Bradley shot 43.5 percent in the first half while limiting Chicago State to 21.5 percent.
Trayvon Palmer had 21 points to lead Chicago State (3-5).
Blackhawks Blast Stars; Blues Lose
Marian Hossa, Artem Anisimov and Artemi Panarin scored to lead the Central Division-leading Chicago Blackhawks over the Dallas Stars 3-1 on Sunday night.
Chicago's Scott Darling made 23 saves in his fifth straight start while No. 1 goalie Corey Crawford recovers from an appendectomy. Darling has permitted just seven goals during the stretch, but the Blackhawks have scored only nine while going 2-2-1.
Devin Shore scored for Dallas, which lost its second straight and third in four.
Dallas' Kari Lehtonen blocked 24 shots while making his fifth straight start.
The 37-year-old Hossa scored his team-leading 15th goal and has three in three games.
Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews missed his ninth game and defenseman Brent Seabrook his second with upper-body injuries.
>>Wild Get By Blues
Matt Dumba, Nino Niederreiter and Mikael Granlund scored, Devan Dubnyk made 22 saves and Minnesota held on to beat the Blues 3-1 on Sunday night for their fourth straight win.
Dumba scored for the second straight game in the second period and Niederreiter got his eighth goal about seven minutes later. Granlund added an empty-net goal.
Dubnyk is 6-0-2 in his last eight games, posting a 1.69 goals-against average and .941 save percentage since Nov. 23.
Vladimir Tarasenko scored his 14th goal of the season for St. Louis. Jake Allen stopped 22 shots for the Blues, who had won five of their past seven games.
Tarasenko, who had six goals against the Wild in the playoffs two years ago, scored for the 10th time in the past 18 games. He is tied for fifth in the league with 14 goals.
A four-game trip ends Tuesday night at Nashville for St. Louis.
Knicks Edge Lakers
Kristaps Porzingis had 26 points and 12 rebounds, Derrick Rose scored 25 in his return from injury and the Knicks beat Los Angeles 118-112 Sunday night for their sixth win in seven games.
Brandon Jennings scored 15 of his season high-tying 19 points in the fourth quarter as the Knicks moved a season-best four games over .500 (14-10) with a dynamic effort in the final minutes, capped by Rose's jumper with 19.4 seconds left.
The Lakers had a narrow lead in the fourth quarter before Jennings went off, hitting back-to-back 3-pointers and threading a slick pass to Courtney Lee for a three-point play to put the Knicks up 97-89 with 6:46 left.
Lou Williams scored 24 points in his latest big game off the bench for the sliding Lakers, who lost their sixth straight despite the return of D'Angelo Russell and Nick Young.
Luol Deng set season highs with five 3-pointers and 22 points, but Los Angeles (10-16) hasn't won in December.
The Knicks are at Phoenix on Tuesday while the Lakers visit the Kings on Monday to open a seven-game road trip.
Clinton Maroons Fall to Rochester
As heard on WHOW, the Clinton Maroons fell to the Rochester Rockets by a score of 43-39 in a non conference game Saturday night. The Maroons were led by junior Seth Westfall with 10 points. Senior Preston Beiber also chipped in with 8 points. Beiber was named the Country Financial representative Stephan York Maroons Player of the Game.
The Rockets were led by senior Collin Stallworth with 22 points.
With the loss the Maroons fall to 4-3 on the season.
Tune in Saturday, December 17, as the Maroons play in the Jacksonville Shootout with an 8:15 start time. You can hear the game live on the Big 1520 AM/92.3 FM WHOW and online at dewittdailynews.com.
HS GBB: Monticello Routes St. Teresa
As heard on WEZC, Zanna Myers scored 10 of her 20 points in the first quarter helping Monticello open up an 11-1 run to start the game against Decatur St. Teresa and routing the Lady Bulldogs 57-42 Saturday from Monticello High School in non-conference girls basketball action.
The Lady Sages opened a 21-7 first quarter advantage and 38-21 halftime lead.
Myers’ 20 points paced the Monticello. Rachael Lockmiller added 19 points and Tatum McCall chipped in with 12 points.
DaeLin Switzer led St. T with 12 and McKenna Thornton added nine points.
Monticello is 7-1 after Saturday's win while the Lady Bulldogs drop to 5-1.
Next week on WEZC, tune in for boys basketball action on Tuesday night at 7:30 pm as they travel to Fisher.
Thursday, hear girls basketball action as the Lady Sages travel to Warrensburg-Latham at 7:30.
Then Friday, hear more boys basketball action when Monticello hosts Paxton-Buckley-Loda. Game time Friday is 7:30 pm.
Bulls Beat Spurs
Dwyane Wade scored 20 points, and the Chicago Bulls handed San Antonio its first road loss after a 13-0 start, hanging on to beat the Spurs 95-91 on Thursday night.
San Antonio fell one win shy of matching the NBA's best road start set by the Golden State Warriors last season. The Spurs cut an 18-point deficit midway through the third quarter to four in the closing minutes, only to come up short.
Kawhi Leonard scored 24 for San Antonio. Patty Mills added 16 points, hitting 4 of 6 3-pointers. Former Bull Pau Gasol had 13 points and 10 rebounds in his first game in Chicago since signing with San Antonio in the summer, but the Spurs lost a road game for the first time since Oklahoma City knocked them out in the Western Conference semifinals last season.
Jimmy Butler scored all of his 13 points for Chicago in the second half. Rajon Rondo added 12 points, nine assists and 10 rebounds, and Chicago picked up the win after dropping three in a row and six of nine.
The Spurs hadn't dropped a regular-season road game since Denver beat them on April 8.
Islanders Rally Past Blues
Anders Lees second goal of the game with just over seven minutes remaining lifted the Islanders to a 3-2 victory over the St. Louis Blues on Thursday night.
Lees go-ahead score on a slap shot came after Casey Cizikas won a faceoff in the Blues zone and sent the puck back to Lee, who rifled it past Allen with 7:18 left for his eighth of the season.
John Tavares also scored and Thomas Greiss stopped 24 shots to help the Islanders improve their season-best stretch to 5-0-1 in their last six games.
Robby Fabbri and Kyle Brodziak had goals for the Blues, who fell to 3-7-1 away from home while going 12-1-3 at Scottrade Center. Jake Allen, who came in with eight straight wins, finished with 24 saves.
Fabbri opened the scoring for the Blues at 4:36 of the first, knocking the puck past Greiss for his sixth of the season.
Lee answered for the Islanders at 6:51, just 12 seconds after Blues forward Jori Lehtera was penalized for high-sticking. Lee tipped Nick Leddys shot from the point past Allen.
Tavares then scored his eighth goal with a shot from the high slot at 8:31 to put the Islanders ahead 2-1.
The Blues are at New Jersey tonight.
Bears Travel To Detroit
Overconfidence should not be an issue for the Detroit Lions this Sunday. While the Chicago Bears have only three wins, one of them came at Detroit's expense.
The Lions (8-4) own a four-game winning streak and a two-game lead over Green Bay and Minnesota in the NFC North, but they know they can't look past the other team in the division. The Bears posted a 17-14 victory in the first meeting at Soldier Field on Oct. 2.
Chicago (3-9) has been one of the league's most injury-riddled teams this season. The Bears defeated San Francisco, 26-6, on Sunday behind a stout defense and a workhorse performance from rookie running back Jordan Howard.
He rushed for 117 yards on 32 carries and scored three touchdowns in snowy conditions. Howard, who emerged after season-opening starter Jeremy Langford was injured, gained 111 yards in 23 carries against the Lions.
Quarterback Matt Barkley wasn't supposed to start any games for the Bears this season but injuries to Jay Cutler and Brian Hoyer -- who passed for 302 yards and two touchdowns in the first meeting -- have thrust the 26-year-old into that role. Barkley only attempted 18 passes against the 49ers in the inclement weather, and completed 11 for 192 yards. But he didn't throw any interceptions after getting picked off twice in each of his first appearances this season.
Top wideout Alshon Jeffery is finishing up his four-game suspension for taking a banned substance.
Packers Host Seahawks
With victories over Philadelphia and Houston the past two weeks, the Green Bay Packers are one-third of the way to running the table in their final six games. Sunday's game against the Seattle Seahawks at Lambeau Field (4:25 p.m. ET, FOX) looms as by far the biggest barrier.
Green Bay (6-6) remains two games behind Detroit in the NFC North but has gotten back into the wild-card chase, where it trails Tampa Bay (7-5) by one game.
With Dallas (11-1) running away in the NFC race for home-field advantage, Seattle (8-3-1) is battling Detroit (8-4) for a first-round bye. The Seahawks have won four of their last five games, including a blowout of Carolina on Sunday night in which Russell Wilson threw for 277 yards and Thomas Rawls ran for 106 of the team's 240 rushing yards.
Injuries will be a major storyline for the Packers. Starting outside linebacker Nick Perry, the team's leader with eight sacks, has been ruled out with an injured left hand.
Fellow starter Clay Matthews, was "extremely limited" against the Texans with an injured shoulder. Starting inside linebackers Jake Ryan (ankle), who returned last week from a two-game absence, and Blake Martinez (knee), who has missed the past two games, are ailing, too.
Quarterback Aaron Rodgers is battling a hamstring injury -- not particularly good news for the Packers, considering Seattle ranks fourth in the league with 31 sacks.
Boras, Cubs Will Talk Arrieta Extension in January
If an extension isn't signed before next offseason, Cubs starting pitcher Jake Arrieta will hit free agency after the 2017 World Series. We've heard things here and there about a possible extension in the past, but most of the time the discussion ends with Arrieta seeming pretty confident in betting on himself.
Still, there's always the chance that the Cubs make Arrieta an offer he can't refuse, especially since he wasn't the Terminator anymore down the stretch in 2016. Arrieta's agent, Scott Boras, held court as usual at the Winter Meetings.
Jesse Rogers of ESPN Chicago tweeted yesterday Boras says the window for extension talks is now. Boras indicated they would talk about the extension in January when arbitration talks take place.
Since being traded to the Cubs in 2013, Arrieta has gone 54-21 with a 2.52 ERA (153 ERA+), 0.99 WHIP and 630 strikeouts in 634 2/3 innings.
Cardinals, CF Fowler May Be Close To Deal
The Cardinals may soon have a new center fielder and leadoff hitter.
Free agent Dexter Fowler, most recently a member of the rival Cubs, is believed to be nearing a contract agreement with the Cardinals. Things are so close to being done that he'll reportedly be in St. Louis for a physical Friday.
Last offseason Fowler reportedly agreed to a three-year deal with the Orioles before backing away because Baltimore refused to give him an opt-out clause. Fowler eventually re-signed with the Cubs on a one-year contract and helped them win the the World Series.
The Cardinals have played Randal Grichuk in center field for most of the last two seasons, and while he deserves an A for effort, Grichuk is a corner outfielder all the way. Fowler will be a big upgrade defensively, and he'll also allow the team to slide Matt Carpenter down in the lineup, into a more traditional run producing spot.
Fowler, 31 in March, hit .276/.393/.447 (126 OPS+) with 13 home runs and 13 steals in 2016.
The Cardinals will surrender their first-round pick, No. 19 overall, if they sign Fowler, because he rejected a qualifying offer from the Cubs. Chicago will gain a supplemental first-round pick once another team signs Fowler.
The Cubs signed Jon Jay to a one-year contract earlier this offseason. He figures to platoon in center field with young Albert Almora.
Lady Maroons Fall to Central A&M
The Lady Maroons fall to Central A&M by a final score of 64-38. The Lady Maroons were lead by Junior Madison Filkin with a total of 17 points. Filkin also received the Stephen York Country Financial Player of the Game award. Sophomore Savanah Moore also chipped in with a total of 5 points.
Central A&M was lead by Senior Emma Meyer with a total of 20 points, and Senior Olivia Jordan chipped in with a total of 11 points.
With the loss, the Lady Maroons fall to 3-6, and Central A&M improves to 5-6.
Tune in Saturday afternoon, December 10th, as the Lady Maroons travel to Pana. You can hear the game live on The Big 15.20 AM/92.3 FM WHOW and online at dewittdailynews.com
Monticello Announces Holiday Hoopla Matchups
The annual Monticello Booster Club's Holiday Hoopla tournament is just a few weeks away and yesterday Monticello officials released the tournaments pairings.
The host Sages will play two games Tuesday, December 27, following the Christmas holiday.
The Sages open play against Sangamon Valley at 11:30 am. That game follows the tournament opener betwen GCMS and Tuscola.
The Sages return to action later that night, taking on Tuscola at 7:30 pm.
The remaining games on Tuesday are Neoga taking on Argenta-Oreana (2 pm), Paxton-Buckley-Loda taking on Ridgeview (3:30 pm) and Sangamon Valley versus GCMS (6 pm).
Hear all Monticello boys basketball action during the annual Holiday Hoopla on 95.9 FM WEZC and online at dewittdailynews.com.
Maroa-Forsyth Downs Sangamon Valley
The Maroa-Forsyth Trojans outscored Sangamon Valley 23-2 in the second quarter Wednesday night, propelling them to a 69-55 victory Wednesday night in non-conference boys basketball action.
Danish Mahmood led the Trojans with 20 points and Jaxson Nelson scored 16 points. Ian Bennen added 12 points.
Nathan Doty scored 16 of his team leading 26 points in the first quarter and Seth Manion added 11 points for the Storm.
The Trojans return to action tonight in the Macon County tournament, taking on Meridian at 8:30 pm.
Tulsa Rallies Late Past ISU; Louisville Drops Southern Illinois
Junior Etou and Sterling Taplin each scored 15 points, and Taplin's layup with 11 seconds to play lifted Tulsa past Illinois State 70-68 on Wednesday night.
Down 65-57, Tulsa (4-3) went on a 13-3 run in the last 5:15 to close out the game. MiKyle McIntosh's layup with 15:35 left put Illinois State (4-3) out in front 50-36, finishing a 14-4 run to start the second half after leading 36-32 at the break.
The Golden Hurricane started the game on a 12-4 run before Illinois State got back in it and took a 22-19 lead on a pair of McIntosh free throws.
Tulsa's Will Magnay had 13 boards and 10 points and Jaleel Wheeler had nine rebounds.
Paris Lee led the Redbirds with 18 points and six assists. McIntosh added 15 points and seven rebounds.
Tulsa missed 10 free throws and shot just 6 for 23 (26.1 percent) from 3-point range.
>>Louisville Dominates Southern Illinois
Mangok Mathiang scored 15 points to lead No. 11 Louisville to a 74-51 victory over Southern Illinois on Tuesday night.
The 6-foot-10 senior got the Cardinals (8-1) off to a hot start as he scored the team's first seven points, and Louisville settled in from there, extending the lead to 21-4 in the game's first 8 minutes. In making six of nine shots, Mathiang finished two points shy of his career high in just 22 minutes.
As Southern Illinois (5-4) came to the Yum! Center with no one taller than 6-9, Louisville used its size to its advantage. The Cardinals blocked nine shots and outrebounded the Salukis 43-31.
Sophomore Deng Adel posted his first double-double for Louisville, as the 6-7 forward finished with 12 points and a career-high 12 rebounds, besting the seven he grabbed against Boston College last February.
Sean O'Brien led the Salukis with 15 points and 11 rebounds while Mike Rodriguez added 15 points.
Cubs, Royals Make Swap
The World Series champion Chicago Cubs have acquired star closer Wade Davis from the Kansas City Royals for outfielder Jorge Soler.
The trade was announced Wednesday at the winter meetings.
Davis will take over the ninth-inning role held by Aroldis Chapman, who became a free agent after the Cubs won their first championship since 1908.
The 31-year-old Davis went 2-1 with 27 saves in 30 tries and a 1.87 ERA last season. He spent time on the disabled with a forearm injury and was limited to 43 1/3 innings, but returned to pitch in September.
Davis has done especially well in the postseason and helped the Royals win the 2015 crown. In 27 1/3 postseason innings as a reliever, he has a 0.33 ERA with 39 strikeouts.
The 24-year-old Soler hit .238 with 12 home runs and 31 RBIs in 86 games last season. He missed almost two months because of a strained left hamstring.
White Sox Trade Eaton to Nationals For Three Prospects
The Washington Nationals acquired center fielder Adam Eaton from the Chicago White Sox for three young pitchers, including top prospect Lucas Giolito and hard-throwing Reynaldo Lopez, who made the team's postseason roster in 2016.
The trade was made Wednesday, the last full day of the winter meetings outside the nation's capital, and comes after Washington failed in its bid to get left-handed pitcher Chris Sale from the White Sox, who instead sent him to Boston.
By putting Eaton in center, the Nationals can move Trea Turner - runner-up for 2016 NL Rookie of the Year - back to his natural position, shortstop. Eaton has three guaranteed seasons left in a $23.5 million, five-year contract that calls for him to earn $4 million next year, $6 million in 2018 and $8.4 million in 2019.
Chapman Re-Signs With Yankees
The Yankees and free agent closer Aroldis Chapman have agreed to a five-year contract worth $86 million, according to Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal and multiple reports.
Chapman, 28, spent most of 2016 with the Yankees before they traded him to the Cubs prior to the non-waiver deadline. For the Cubs and Yankees last season, he pitched to a 1.55 ERA and a 5.0 K/BB ratio. For his career, Chapman boasts an ERA+ 192 across parts of seven major-league seasons. In large part because of a fastball that averages triple digits, he's struck out 42.6 percent of opposing hitters over that span -- a remarkable figure.
Chapman's $86 million deal rather easily breaks Mark Melancon's record for largest closer contract -- $62 million -- that he set earlier this week. Of benefit to the Yankees is that signing Chapman, because he was traded mid-season and thus could not be tendered a qualifying offer, will not cost them a compensatory draft pick.
Ken Rosenthal reports the deal includes a three-year opt-out, a full no-trade in the first three years and limited trade the final two years.
Pacers Drop Suns
Paul George had 25 points and 13 rebounds and the Indiana Pacers pulled away in the fourth quarter to beat the struggling Phoenix Suns 109-94 on Wednesday night.
George defended the high scoring Devin Booker and helped hold the second-year guard to 13 points on 4-of-13 shooting. Booker also committed four turnovers.
Myles Turner added 20 points, and Jeff Teague had 19 points and a season-high 11 assists.
Indiana had a 9-0 run midway through the fourth quarter to open a 97-87 lead.
Eric Bledsoe led Phoenix with 15 points, and Tyson Chandler had 10 points and 10 rebounds. The Suns shot 40 percent from the field and made only 9 of 33 3-pointers. They have lost five of six.
Indiana has won four of six. The Pacers haven't won or lost more than two games in a row this season.
The Pacers play at Dallas on Friday night in the finale of a five-game trip.
Oregon To Hire USF's Taggart
Oregon has decided to hire South Florida coach Willie Taggart to take over in Eugene, a source close to the process tells CBS Sports' Dennis Dodd. The school later made the announcement official.
Taggart will reportedly earn an average of $3.3 million per season on a five-year contract, according to Fox Sports.
Taggart was both a record-setting quarterback and offensive assistant under Jack Harbaugh at Western Kentucky before a short stint with Jim Harbaugh at Stanford. He moved from the Pac-12 to taking over as coach at Western Kentucky in 2010, bringing the Hilltoppers from 2-10 to a bowl game in just three seasons.
The Bradenton, Florida, native then replaced Skip Holtz at USF. He quickly rebuilt the Bulls, too, going from 2-10 (again) to 10-2 in 2016, his fourth year with the program. It's the best record in South Florida history.
Considered one of the brightest young offensive coaches in college football, Taggart has been a popular target for several jobs after setting a program record for wins and breaking several single-season offensive records with the Bulls in 2016.
Dodd reported Tuesday that Alabama offensive coordinator Lane Kiffin looks to be the top candidate at USF.
Rantoul Races Past Maroons
The Rantoul Eagles raced toa 44-22 halftime lead Tuesday night and never looked back as the Clinton Maroons feel 87-44 at Rantoul in non-conference boys basketball action Tuesday night.
Kevin Williams led the Eagles with 17 points. Martrellian Gibson added 16 points and Erick Johnson scored 14.
Dalton Smith led the Maroons with 12 points. He was the only Clinton scorer in double-figures.
Will Scott, Austin Rauch, and Kaleb Murphy-Leach added six apiece.
Rantoul improves to 6-2 overall while the Maroons drop to 4-3.
The Maroons play host to Rochester Saturday night at 7:30 pm. Hear the action on 95.9 FM WEZC and online at dewittdailynews.com.
Sages Topple Auburn
As heard on WEZC, Calvin Fisher scored a career high 23 points while grabbing seven rebounds in a Monticello 54-44 victory at Auburn Tuesday night in non-conference boys basketball action.
Luke Stokowski added 11 points and also grabbed seven rebounds.
Despite shooting 9-for-22 from the free throw line, the Sages held Auburn to 27% shooting while shooting 54% from the floor.
Fisher made all five of the Sages three point attempts, going 5-of-8 from distance.
Ben Eaker led Auburn with 14 points and Connor Berola added 12 points and nine rebounds.
The Sages return to action next Tuesday night when they travel to Fisher. Hear the action on 95.9 FM WEZC and online at dewittdailynews.com. Tip time is 7:30 pm.
Illinois Tops IUPUI; Ball State Blows Out Bradley
When the IUPUI's Darell Combs banked in a 3-point shot with 2:24 left in the game, Hill had a flashback to Illinois' 84-80 loss to Winthrop. Hill took charge and scored 32 points - 23 in the second half - to help the Illini hold off the Jaguars 85-77 on Tuesday night.
The Illini opened with a 10-0 run but committed eight turnovers, allowing IUPUI to rally to a 42-41 halftime lead.
Mike Thorne Jr. hit a jumper, Hill dunked and Illinois pulled ahead in the second half by shooting 60 percent from the field.
Leron Black scored 16 points and grabbed nine rebounds. He was a presence throughout the game, including a key rebound with 23 seconds left, despite battling foul trouble.
Matt O'Leary led IUPUI (3-6) with 25 points, shooting 7 of 15 from the field and 4 of 9 from beyond the arc.
D.J. Williams played eight minutes and scored five points off the bench.
The fighting Illini have the next few days off before entering the final stretch of their nonconference season when they play Central Michigan on Saturday afternoon.
>>Ball State Blows Out Bradley
Trey Moses had 17 points and nine rebounds and Tayler Persons added 15 points with six assists as Ball State took an early led and rolled to an 80-63 win over Bradley on Tuesday night.
Moses was 5 of 9 from the floor and grabbed five offensive boards. Sean Sellers nailed 4 of 6 from distance for 14 points, Ryan Weber added 13 and Tahjai Teague chipped in 11 for Ball State (5-4).
The Cardinals jumped to an early lead and led 34-23 at the half. Weber nailed back-to-back treys to give Ball State its biggest lead, 70-51 at the 5:10 mark.
Ball State hit 58 percent from the floor while holding Bradley to 21-of-49 shooting. The Cardinals scored 13 second-chance points and added seven more off its fast break.
Luuk van Bree, Darrell Brown and Dwayne Lautier-Ogunleye had nine points apiece for Bradley (4-5).
Pistons Get By Bulls
Tobias Harris scored 22 points and the Detroit Pistons beat the Chicago Bulls 102-91 on Tuesday night.
Andre Drummond added 15 points and 10 rebounds for the Pistons, who won for the fourth time in five games.
Jimmy Butler scored 32 points and Dwyane Wade added 19 points and seven assists for Chicago, which lost its third straight. The Bulls were playing their fourth game in five nights and struggled in the fourth quarter.
Drummond dominated early, scoring 10 points on three dunks and two tips. Even when he went to the bench with foul trouble, the Pistons put together an 11-0 run to lead 36-21 early in the second quarter.
Rajon Rondo had 10 points in his return to the Chicago lineup.
Blackhawks Blank Coyotes; Blues Get By Coyotes
Marian Hossa had two goals, Scott Darling made 22 saves and the Chicago Blackhawks beat the Arizona Coyotes 4-0 on Tuesday night to snap a two-game slide.
Artem Anisimov and Dennis Rasmussen also scored to help Chicago maintain a three-point lead over St. Louis in the Central Division.
Darling made a handful of tough stops but wasn't heavily tested in his first shutout this season and third of his career. He started his third straight game in place of No. 1 goalie Corey Crawford, who had an appendectomy in Philadelphia on Saturday.
The 37-year-old Hossa scored his team-leading 13th and 14th goals in his 27th game - surpassing his total of 13 last season in 64 contests.
>>Blues Get By Canadiens in Overtime
Jaden Schwartz completed a late rally with a pair of goals, including one in overtime, to lead the Blues to a 3-2 victory over the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday night.
Paul Stastny also scored for St. Louis, which has won four of five. The Blues charged back from a 2-0 third-period deficit and have a point in their last 13 home games.
Tomas Plekanec and Paul Byron scored for Montreal, which completed a five-game trip 2-3.
Goalie Jake Allen made 28 saves to improve to 13-3-3.
St. Louis struggled through most of the contest, unable to solve backup goaltender Al Montoya until the third period.
Stastny started the rally with a goal at 7:40 of the third period.
Schwartz tied it 2:51 later to set the stage for his third game-winning goal of the season. He took a pass from Alexander Steen and calmly lifted a backhander past Montoya with 1:22 left in overtime.
The Canadiens were without leading scorer Alex Galchenyuk, who injured his knee in Sunday's 5-4 win at Los Angeles.
The Blues begin a four-game trip at the New York Islanders on Thursday night.
White Sox Trade Sale To Red Sox; Cubs Close to Deal for Royals Closer Davis
All-Star ace Chris Sale is joining the reloading Boston Red Sox, leaving behind his shredded reputation with the Chicago White Sox.
Boston acquired Sale on Tuesday for a package of four prospects, including high-priced Yoan Moncada.
Sale was a top trade target at the winter meetings and the AL East champion Red Sox were getting him instead of Washington, which also pursued.
A few hours earlier, Boston got prime setup man Tyler Thornburg from Milwaukee. After that deal was announced, without tipping his hand, Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said: "We're trying to win now, as you can see."
Boston acquired Sale for minor league pitchers Michael Kopech and Victor Diaz, outfielder Luis Basabe and Moncada, a third baseman.
>>Cubs Close To Deal With Royals for Closer Davis
Coming off their first World Series title in several generations, the Cubs had few glaring needs heading into the offseason. Much of their young core is still intact, but they did need some bullpen depth. It appears they're going to bolster it by adding an elite arm to the back end.
Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports reports that the Cubs are "close" to completing a trade for Royals closer Wade Davis that would send Cubs outfielder Jorge Soler to Kansas City.
Davis, 31, saved 27 games in 30 chances with a 1.87 ERA, 1.13 WHIP and 47 strikeouts in 43 1/3 innings. He was bothered by forearm soreness during the season, limiting him to a much smaller workload than normal. There were two DL stints and slightly diminished velocity late in the season.
That said, Davis was arguably the best reliever in baseball in 2014-15, posting a combined 0.97 ERA, 0.82 WHIP and 187 strikeouts in 139 1/3 innings.
Jayson Stark of ESPN.com reported the Nationals were making a late push for Davis. Other reports indicated the Dodgers were involved here as well.
Davis is set to make $10 million this season before hitting free agency.
In parts of three seasons, Soler has hit .258/.328/.436 (107 OPS+) with 35 doubles, 27 homers and 98 RBI in 765 plate appearances. There have been spurts that illustrate his massive upside, such as his performance in the 2015 playoffs, but he's also had lots of injury woes, namely on his hamstrings.
Again, Soler has huge upside and is signed on a nine-year, $30 million deal that runs through 2020.
Thompson's 60 Points Leads Warriors in Rout of Pacers; Bulls Lose
Klay Thompson went off for 60 points in 29 minutes and the Warriors whipped the Indiana Pacers 142-106 on Monday night.
Thompson joined Hall of Famers Wilt Chamberlain, Rick Barry and Joe Fulks as the only Warriors to score 60 points.
Kevin Durant added 20 points, eight rebounds, four assists and two blocks for Golden State.
Steph Curry had 13 points and 11 assists.
Paul George had 21 points and 10 rebounds a night after playing nearly 34 minutes and much of that with tissue in his bloody nose.
The Pacers continue their five-game road trip with the second-to-last game Wednesday at Phoenix, where the Pacers have lost eight of the last 11 meetings.
>>Blazers Beat Bulls
Damian Lillard had 30 points and seven assists, CJ McCollum scored 24 and the Portland Trail Blazers beat the Chicago Bulls 112-110 on Monday night for their third consecutive victory.
Allen Crabbe added 17 points for Portland, which opened a five-game trip with its fourth win in five games. Maurice Harkless had 11 and Evan Turner finished with 10, providing a nice boost in the fourth quarter.
Dwyane Wade scored 34 points for the Bulls, and Jimmy Butler finished with 26 points, seven rebounds and five assists. Robin Lopez had seven points and 14 rebounds.
Chicago played without point guard Rajon Rondo, suspended one game for conduct detrimental to the team. There was no public indication from the Bulls on what triggered Rondo's suspension. He is expected to return Tuesday night in Detroit.
Cutler To IR
The Chicago Bears have placed quarterback Jay Cutler on injured reserve because of a season-ending right shoulder injury.
The Bears announced the move Monday. Coach John Fox said last week that Cutler would not play again this season.
Cutler injured his shoulder during a loss to the New York Giants on Nov. 20, but finished the game. He made five starts this season and completed 81 of 137 passes for 1,059 yards with four touchdowns and five interceptions.
Because he doesn't have a high salary-cap figure for 2017, Cutler could be traded or cut in the offseason.
Matt Barkley has started the past two games for Chicago (3-9), including Sunday's win over San Francisco.
The Bears also signed defensive back Johnthan Banks and waived linebacker Lamin Barrow from injured reserve Monday.
Banks has appeared in 52 games with 37 starts over four seasons with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2013-16) and Detroit Lions (2016). He has 132 tackles and seven interceptions in his career.
Barrow has appeared in 32 games for the Denver Broncos (2014) and Bears (2015).
Cubs, White Sox Notes
>>Report Has White Sox, Nationals Close To Sale Deal
It appears one of the best pitchers in baseball may soon join one of the best teams in baseball.
The White Sox and Nationals are still working on a Chris Sale trade, and at this point the two sides are only haggling over the final pieces of the deal. It seems this could go down soon.
Ken Rosenthal reported last night the White Sox would get top prospects Lucas Giolito and Victor Robles.
Robles has been mentioned as a possible centerpiece in an Andrew McCutchen trade with the Pirates. The fact Robles could now be heading to Chicago is an indication the McCutchen deal won't happen. The Nationals have reportedly been trying to acquire both McCutchen and Sale.
Sale would join NL Cy Young award winner Max Scherzer to form baseball best righty-lefty rotation tandem in baseball. Add in Stephen Strasburg and the Nationals will have one of the best rotation front threes in the game.
The Nationals are very much in win-now mode. Bryce Harper will be a free agent after the 2018 season -- he reportedly wants north of $400 million to remain with the team -- and Scherzer is in the prime of his career right now. This is the team's best chance to win a World Series. In 2017 and 2018. Sale will increase their chances of winning at some point in the next two years tremendously.
The White Sox, meanwhile, would presumably be open for business following a Sale trade. Once you trade the face of your franchise, there's no reason to stop there. Others like Jose Quintana, Adam Eaton, Jose Abreu, Todd Frazier, David Robertson, and Melky Cabrera could all be made available as well.
>>Cubs Raising Ticket Prices Nearly 20-Percent
The Chicago Cubs gave their long-suffering fans a World Series championship last season and now fans are going to have to give the Cubs something: More money.
The team says the average season ticket price at Wrigley Field will climb 19.5 percent next season. The best seats will go up the most: 31 percent for club box infield seats and 22 percent for seats in the bleachers. Other seats will go up between 6 percent and 17 percent.
Cubs Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing Colin Faulkner says last year's team created "unprecedented demand" for tickets and that the higher prices shouldn't be a surprise.
The increase marks the second straight season that the team has raised the face value of its tickets by at least 10 percent.
>>Giants Sign Closer Melancon
The San Francisco Giants might be landing their closer in three-time All-Star Mark Melancon. The free agent has a deal with the Giants, pending a physical, Buster Olney of ESPN.com reports.
Olney further reports that it's a four-year deal worth $62 million. That's a record for relievers in free agency, as the previous high was Jonathan Papelbon's four-year, $50 million deal with the Phillies.
Melancon, 31, saved 47 games in 51 chances last season for the Pirates and Nationals. He pitched to a 1.64 ERA, 0.90 WHIP and 65 strikeouts against only 12 walks in 71 1/3 innings. Over the past four seasons, Melancon has a 1.80 ERA, 0.91 WHIP and 147 saves in 162 chances (91 percent). He's been the closer for four straight playoff teams, too.
>>Dodgers Resign Rich Hill
Perhaps the top free-agent starting pitcher this offseason has found a home, as lefty Rich Hill has signed back with the Dodgers. The club announced the three-year deal as official Monday, and it's for a reported $48 million (via Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports).
Hill will be 37 next season, but he's coming off an impressive 2016 campaign that caps off an impressive comeback. He hadn't even made a start since 2009 until September of 2015. In four starts for the Red Sox, Hill posted a 1.55 ERA. That was good enough to land him a one-year deal with the Athletics. He was so good for Oakland that the Dodgers traded for him (and Josh Reddick) in front of the trade deadline.
In all, Hill was 12-5 with a 2.12 ERA (187 ERA+), 1.00 WHIP and 129 strikeouts in 110 1/3 innings. His only issue was a blister problem that lingered for a bit in July and August.
The Dodgers' rotation is lefty-heavy, with Clayton Kershaw, Hill and Julio Urias being the top options. Righties Kenta Maeda and Brandon McCarthy remain in the mix as well as southpaws Scott Kazmir, Hyun-Jin Ryu and Alex Wood.
Heisman Finalists Announced
The finalists have been announced as five players will be headed to New York City for the 2016 Heisman Trophy presentation on Saturday, Dec. 10.
Lamar Jackson has been the Heisman frontrunner from the first game of the season and is looking to bring back Louisville's first Heisman.
However, the Cardinals' late season struggles may have opened the door a bit for other players to close the gap on Jackson. Now, he will be heading to New York with four others hoping to take home college football's most prestigious individual award.
Jackson led the Cardinals to a 9-3 record and racked up 3,390 passing yards, 30 touchdowns and nine interceptions. He completed 57.6 percent of his passes and also ran for 1,538 yards and 21 touchdowns.
Baker Mayfield, QB, Oklahoma: Mayfield had another extremely effective and efficient season passing the ball in Norman, completing 71.2 percent of his passes (No. 1 nationally) and leading the nation in passing yards per attempt at 11.1. He finished the season with 3,669 yards, 38 touchdowns and eight interceptions.
Jabrill Peppers, LB/DB, Michigan: Peppers had 751 all-purpose yards this season and scored four touchdowns (three rushing, one returning punts), while being a force on the Michigan defense with 71 tackles, 15 tackles for loss, 3.5 sacks and one interception as a linebacker and defensive back. He also played special teams, of course.
Deshaun Watson, QB, Clemson: Watson led the Tigers to a 12-1 record, second straight ACC title and another College Football Playoff appearance. On the season, Watson completed 67.6 percent of his passes for 3,914 yards, 37 touchdowns and 15 interceptions and rushed for an additional 529 yards and six touchdowns.
Dede Westbrook, WR, Oklahoma: Westbrook was the Sooners' most explosive playmaker this season, averaging 19.8 yards per reception. For the year, he hauled in 74 catches for 1,465 yards and 16 touchdowns. He finished the season fourth in the nation in receiving touchdowns and fifth in receiving yards.
Villanova College Basketball's New No. 1
This weekend of college hoops had a little bit of everything. No. 1 Kentucky fell at home. No. 10 Baylor notched another top-10 win. And Saturday's big slate of games caused a shakeup, once again, at the top of the poll.
UCLA jumped from 11th last week to second and even received two first place votes. The top five was rounded out by Kansas, Baylor, and Duke.
Kentucky dropped to sixth while North Carolina dropped to seventh. Gonzaga, Indiana and Creighton round out the top 10.
West Virginia jumped from 25th to 15th.
Cincinnati and Notre Dame entered the top 25 this week.
Bears, Packers Win
>>Howard's Three TDs Leads Bears Past 49ers
Jordan Howard ran for 117 yards and a career-high three touchdowns and the Chicago Bears handed San Francisco its 11th straight loss, beating the 49ers 26-6 on a snowy Sunday.
The 49ers (1-11) extended their franchise-record losing streak and set a club low with 6 yards net passing on a day when Colin Kaepernick got lifted for Blaine Gabbert.
The Bears (3-9) finished with a season high in points and picked up a rare win in a matchup between two of the NFL's worst teams.
Matt Barkley, making his second start with Jay Cutler sidelined by a season-ending shoulder injury, went nearly the entire first half without a completion.
But he led a touchdown drive near the end of the second quarter and finished 11 of 18 for 192 yards.
Howard, who came in with two rushing touchdowns, scored on a 1-yard run near the end of the first half.
A fifth-round draft pick from Indiana, he added a 2-yard touchdown on the opening drive of the third and a 5-yard run midway through the quarter.
Howard's three rush TDs are tied for the second-most by a Bears rookie in a game.
Kaepernick completed just 1 of 5 passes for 4 yards and was sacked five times. He also ran for 20 yards on six attempts before Gabbert replaced him in the fourth quarter.
Gabbert was 4 of 10 for 35 yards and sacked for a safety near the end of the game.
Carlos Hyde ran for 92 yards, but the 49ers remained winless since they shut out Los Angeles in the season opener.
>>Packers Hold On For Win Over Texans
Aaron Rodgers was 20 of 30 and threw for 209 yards and two touchdowns, Jordy Nelson had 118 yards receiving and a score, and Green Bay pulled away from the Texans with two fourth-quarter touchdowns beating Houston 21-13 on Sunday for their second straight win as they try to keep pace with Detroit in the NFC North.
With snow falling at Lambeau Field, the Green Bay Packers were back in their element and the Packers are back at .500.
Brock Osweiler connected with DeAndre Hopkins for a 44-yard touchdown pass with 1:51 left to get within eight for Houston. Nick Novak missed the extra point, with footing slippery at Lambeau.
Osweiler finished 22 of 35 for 202 yards.
Randall Cobb did a snow angel in the end zone after a sliding, 9-yard touchdown catch in the second quarter that gave the Packers a 7-0 lead.
In the third quarter, Ryan Griffin did a Lambeau Leap into the waiting arms of a group of Texans fans after his 6-yard touchdown catch on fourth-and-1 finished a 10-play, 63-yard drive to tie the game at 7.
The Texans are tied with idle Tennessee and a half-game ahead of Indianapolis, which plays the New York Jets on Monday night, for the AFC South lead.
Julius Peppers' sack of Osweiler on second-and-1 at the Houston 41 with 56 seconds left in the second quarter gave the 15-year veteran 142 1/2 for his career, snapping a tie for fifth on the career list with Michael Strahan. Chris Doleman is fourth on that list with 150 1/2.
Jets Top Blackhawks
Andrew Copp scored the tiebreaking goal with 4:45 left, Bryan Little got his third goal in three games and the Winnipeg Jets edged the Chicago Blackhawks 2-1 on Sunday night.
Copp beat Scott Darling on the stick side with a shot from the right circle that slipped just inside the left post.
Chicago's Artemi Panarin scored with 6:54 remaining to tie it at 1, moments after Copp hit the post, to spoil Connor Hellebuyck's bid for a second shutout against Chicago in less than a month. Panarin completed a give-and-go with Patrick Kane, beating Hellebuyck to the glove side.
Hellebuyck finished with 25 saves and outdueled Darling, who started his second straight game for the Blackhawks in place of No. 1 goalie Corey Crawford. Darling made 30 saves, including three on breakaways.
Little's power-play goal with 43:4 seconds left in the second period was his fourth point in four games since missing 23 with a lower-body injury.
Pacers Outlast Clippers
Thaddeus Young scored 17 points and Paul George added 16 after missing four of the last five games in the Pacers' 111-102 victory on Sunday night that gave them a sweep of the season series for the first time since 2013-14.
Indiana came back from 15 points down in the first quarter and held on after the Clippers got within four in the fourth.
Rodney Stuckey also had 16 points and Jeff Teague added 15 points for the Pacers. CJ Miles had 12 points after missing six games with a sore left knee.
Blake Griffin had 24 points and 16 rebounds for the Clippers, whose two-game winning streak was snapped in their return to Staples Center. They went 3-3 on their recent six-game road trip, including a 91-70 loss at Indiana last week.
Los Angeles led by 15 in the first quarter and appeared on its way to victory, especially when the Pacers missed 15 of 22 shots.
DeAndreJordan had 15 rebounds for the Clippers. Chris Paul added 18 points and 11 assists.
The Pacers visit Western Conference-leading Golden State on Monday night in the second game of a back-to-back.
Illini Surge Past VCU; Illinois State Win; Bradley Crushed
Sophomore Leron Black tied a career-high with 18 points and Illinois held Virginia Commonwealth to 30-percent shooting to win 64-46 Saturday in the HoopHall Miami Invitational.
Malcolm Hill added 16 points, five assists and two steals, and Jalen Coleman-Lands had 12 points for Illinois (6-3).
VCU (6-2), which was off to its best start since 1993, had a three-game winning streak snapped.
Black went 6 for 13, had eight rebounds and was chosen the game's most valuable player. The Rams shot a season-worst 16 for 53, including 2 for 18 (11 percent) from 3-point range.
JeQuan Lewis, averaging a team-high 15.7 points, was held to three points. Mo Alie-Cox led the Rams with 10 points. They came in shooting 50 percent this season and had scored at least 63 points in every game.
The Illini missed 10 of their first 11 shots while falling behind 11-4. A 9-0 run put them ahead 22-14, and they led the rest of the way.
>>Illinois State Tops New Mexico
Paris Lee scored 18 points, dished out a career-high 11 assists and hit a pair of free throws with 23 seconds remaining to lift Illinois State to a 79-74 win over New Mexico on Saturday night.
Illinois State (4-2) led by as many as 10 points late in the second half before New Mexico rallied, cutting the deficit to 75-74 on Elijah Brown's 3-pointer with a minute left in the game. Lee hit a jumper at the other end to extend the Redbirds' advantage back to three, then got both free throws after being sent to the line with 23 seconds left.
New Mexico missed its last two shots, both 3-point attempts.
Deontae Hawkins added 14 points for Illinois State, Keyshawn Evans got 12 points, all from long range, and Phil Fayne had 10 rebounds.
Brown finished with 21 points to lead New Mexico (5-3) and Damien Jefferson added 12 points.
>>Nevada Rolls Bradley
Jordan Caroline and D.J. Fenner combined for 44 points as Nevada dominated Bradley 91-69 in the Mountain West/Missouri Valley Challenge on Saturday.
Caroline had a career-high 23 points on 6-of-9 shooting. Fenner, who had 13 points in the first half, made a career-high 5 of 6 from beyond the arc to finish with 21 points. Marcus Marshall and Leland King II added 12 points each and Lindsey Drew chipped in 11 and grabbed a career-high 14 rebounds for Nevada (7-2), which has won seven of the last eight games.
Nevada controlled the game from the beginning, hitting 17 of 30 (56.7 percent) from the floor in the first half, the best first period the Wolfpack has had this season. They were 30 of 54 (55.6 percent) for the game and made 11 of 23 from long range. They never trailed and led 46-26 at the break.
Dwayne Lautier-Ogunleye led Bradley (4-4) with 15 points.
College Football Playoff Set
The debate is over. The 2016 College Football Playoff is now set and the four teams making the final field are the ones that have been predicted for weeks.
1. Alabama (13-0)
2. Clemson (12-1)
3. Ohio State (11-1)
4. Washington (12-1)
That means the Crimson Tide will take on the Huskies in the Peach Bowl semifinal (Atlanta), while the Tigers face the Buckeyes in semifinal action at the Fiesta Bowl (Glendale, Arizona). The winners will square off in the CFP National Championship in Tampa, Florida.
It also means No. 5 Penn State (10-2) was left out of the top four after making a convincing case by winning nine straight games including the Big Ten Championship Game in epic comeback fashion late Saturday. Michigan checked in at No. 6, giving the Big Ten three of the top six teams in the CFP Rankings.
The Buckeyes played the toughest schedule of anyone in the rankings with four games against top 10 teams, three of which were on the road, and compiled a 3-1 record against those teams. Ohio State didn't win the Big Ten, but clearly, the Buckeyes were the league's best team. Washington held its spot from last week at No. 4 in the rankings after beating Colorado 41-10 for the Pac-12 championship to end the season with a 12-1 record.
Former Commissioner Selig, Executive Scheurholtz Elected to Baseball Hall of Fame
The Hall of Fame has two new members.
Hall of Fame president Jeff Idelson announced Sunday that former commissioner Bud Selig and longtime executive John Schuerholz have been voted into the Hall of Fame by the Today's Game Era Committee. The announcement was made during a live MLB Network broadcast.
The Today's Game Era Committee consists of 16 members. The committee includes current Hall of Famers, executives and media members. Twelve votes are needed to be elected. Schuerholz was voted in unanimously. Selig received 15 votes.
Selig, 82, served as baseball's acting commissioner from 1992-98 and official commissioner from 1998-2015. Under his watch, MLB expanded to 30 teams, implemented interleague play, underwent divisional realignment, added a third round to the postseason (in which the playoff field expanded from four teams to 10) and grew financially by a tremendous amount.
Of course, Selig's tenure was not without its black marks. He presided over the so-called Steroid Era, held a vote to contract to Twins and Expos in 2001, and watched the All-Star Game finish in a tie in 2002. Despite all that, Selig will go down as arguably the most successful commissioner in MLB history.
Before taking over as commissioner, Selig owned the Milwaukee Brewers from 1970 until taking over as commissioner. He purchased the Seattle Pilots -- a 1969 expansion team -- through bankruptcy court and moved the franchise to Milwaukee. Selig retired in 2015 and currently holds the title of commissioner emeritus.
Holliday Signs With Yankees
The Yankees are in the middle of the youth movement, but they will have a veteran DH in their lineup next year.
Sunday night, the club agreed to terms with veteran outfielder Matt Holliday on a one-year contract. He became a free agent earlier this offseason when the Cardinals declined his $17 million club option.
Ken Rosenthal reports the deal is worth $13-million for one year.
Holliday, 36, hit .246/.322/.461 (107 OPS+) with 20 home runs in 110 games around a thumb injury in 2016. He'll step in as New York's full-time DH, which figures to help him stay healthy and avoid wearing down later in the season.
Matsuyama Wins Hero World Challenge
Hideki Matsuyama finished at 18 under after a 73 on Sunday to win the Hero World Challenge.
For Matsuyama, it is his fourth win worldwide in his last five starts, including the WGC-HSBC Champions in China earlier this fall. He held off Henrik Stenson by two strokes despite shooting a poor 39 on the back nine on Sunday.
Stenson closed with three birdies in his last five holes, but Matsuyama's lead was too much to overcome.
Fowler (-13) had a nice weekend of 68-69, and it was humorous to see where his mind was at on Saturday afternoon as Oklahoma and Oklahoma State (Fowler's alma mater) played for the Big 12 title.
Michael Collins of ESPN Tweeted Sunday Fowler was checking the score throughout the Saturday of the tournament.
Dustin Johnson (-13) absolutely engorged himself on the par 5s where he was 11 under on the week. He didn't do much on any of the other holes, though.
Monticello Sages Defeat Bismark
In a game heard on WEZC, the Monticello Sages defeated Bismark-Henning by a score of 46-45 on Friday night. The Sages were led by Blake Reifsteck with 18 points. Austin Farnsworth also chipped in with 12 points.
Bismark-Henning was led by Jonny Dawson with 14 points and Luke Stokowski added 10 points.
With the win the Sages improve to 3-2 on the season, and Bismark-Henning falls to 2-0.
Tune in Tuesday, December 6 as the Sages take on Auburn. You can hear the game live on 95.9 FM WEZC and online at dewittdailynews.com.
Lockmiller Leads Sages Past Mt. Pulaski
As heard on WEZC and dewittdailynews.com, Rachael Lockmiller scored 17 points as the Monticello Lady Sages overcame a slow start and beat Mt. Pulaski 47-28 Thursday night from Mt. Pulaski Hig School.
After a slow first half for both sides where defense kept anyone from gaining any momentum, Monticello led 15-6.
In the third quarter, Zanna Myers scored all eight of her points for the night as the Lady Sages opened up a 32-12 advantage.
Marissa McPike scored nine points for the Lady Sages who improved to 4-1.
The Lady Hilltoppers were led by Skyler Hayes' 16 points.
Mt. Pulaski drops to 3-3 on the season.
The next girls basketball broadcast on 95.9 FM WEZC and at dewittdailynews.com will be next Saturday afternoon, when the Lady Sages host Decatur St. Teresa at Monticello High School.
Tune in tonight for the Monticello boys basketball home opener. The Sages host Bismarck-Henning at 7:30 pm. Hear it on 95.9 FM WEZC and online at dewittdailynews.com.
>>Central Illinois Conference Tournament Scores from Thursday:
Decatur St. Teresa 59, Central A&M 47*
Clinton 75, Shelbyville 24*
Macon Meridian 32, Warrensburg-Latham 29*
Tuscola 65, Sullivan 54*
Cardinals Trade SP Garcia To Braves
The Cardinals traded veteran left-hander Jaime Garcia to the Braves in exchange for prospects, the teams announced Thursday. The three prospects headed back to St. Louis are infielder Luke Dykstra and right-handers Chris Ellis and John Gant.
Garcia, 30, is coming off a 2016 season in which he mostly struggled across 30 starts and a pair of relief appearances. For his career, he owns a strong 109 ERA+ and a K/BB ratio of 2.77. He flashes strong ground-ball tendencies, but on occasion Garcia has had trouble staying healthy. He's in the final year of his contract and owed $12 million for the upcoming season.
Despite an active offseason in terms of adding starting pitching, the Braves may still be in the mix to add an ace on the order of Chris Sale or Chris Archer.
On the Cardinals' side of things, Dykstra, 21, has batted .300/.335/.385 across parts of three minor-league seasons. He spent 2016 in the Class A South Atlantic League. The son of former big-leaguer Lenny Dykstra, he was a seventh-round draft choice in 2014.
Ellis, 24 and a former third-rounder out of Ole Miss, has a 4.61 ERA and 1.73 K/BB ratio in 63 minor-league games, 56 of which have been starts. He reached Triple-A last season.
The 24-year-old Gant worked 50 big-league innings for the Braves in 2016 (4.86 ERA, 2.33 K/BB ratio).
Blackhawks, Blues Win
Marian Hossa scored his team-leading 12th goal through a screen at 1:31 of overtime to lift the Chicago Blackhawks to a 4-3 victory over the New Jersey Devils on Thursday night.
Hossa's shot through traffic from high in the slot beat Cory Schneider on the glove side, moments after New Jersey's Mike Cammalleri hit the post on a prime chance against Chicago's Corey Crawford.
New Jersey's Travis Zajac scored his third goal of the game at 8:49 of the third to tie it 3-all after scores by Chicago's Artem Anisimov and Niklas Hjalmarsson late in the second period had put the Blackhawks ahead.
Marcus Kruger also connected for Western Conference-leading Chicago to end a 22-game drought as the Blackhawks won their second straight and played beyond regulation for third consecutive time. They are 3-0-1 in their last four.
The Devils have dropped four straight (0-2-2).
>>Tarasenko's Hat Trick Leads Blues Over Lightning
Vladimir Tarasenko scored three goals and Kevin Shattenkirk added two to lead the Blues to a 5-4 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday night.
The Blues have won three in a row and six straight at home.
Tampa Bay lost its season-high fourth consecutive game.
Jake Allen made 22 saves in improving to 12-3-3.
Tampa Bay goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy gave up four goals on 16 shots and was replaced by St. Louis native Ben Bishop early in the second period.
St. Louis has scored three goals or more in each of its last nine games after an earlier string of six successive games with one goal or less.
Tarasenko, who leads the team with 13 goals, recorded his fourth career hat trick. He scored twice in the game's opening 9:37 to stake his team to a 2-0 lead.
Tarasenko, known for his speed and puck-handling skills, scored his second goal on a rare one-timer off a perfect pass from Alexander Steen, who added three assists in his return after missing six games with a shoulder injury.
Shattenkirk, who also had two assists, added two power-play goals, the second coming just 1:44 into second period for a 4-1 lead.
Cedric Paquette scored twice for the Lightning, who have been outscored 19-9 during the four-game skid.
Nikita Kucherov and Tyler Johnson also scored for Tampa Bay. Paquette's second goal trimmed the deficit to 5-4 with 8:02 remaining in the third period.
The Blues host Winnipeg on Saturday in the fourth of five straight games at home.
Cutler Out for Season; Bears, Packers in Action Sunday
Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler will have season-ending surgery on his right shoulder.
Coach John Fox announced Thursday that the veteran quarterback will have an operation to repair the labrum in his shoulder. The procedure is scheduled for Saturday.
Cutler injured his shoulder during a loss to the New York Giants on Nov. 20 but finished the game.
Matt Barkley figures to start his second straight game when the Bears (2-9) host San Francisco (1-10) in a matchup between struggling teams on Sunday.
>>Packers Host Texans Sunday
The Green Bay Packers were favored to win the NFC North but are clinging to faint playoff hopes. Green Bay (5-6) snapped a four-game losing streak at Philadelphia on Monday but is two games behind Detroit and one game behind Minnesota in the division standings. This week they welcome the Houston Texans to Lambeau Field.
After back-to-back losses at Oakland and home against San Diego, the Texans are 6-5. A heavy favorite to win the AFC South entering the season, they are clinging to a half-game lead over Tennessee (6-6) and a one-game lead over Indianapolis (5-6).
Aaron Rodgers is battling a hamstring injury that occurred during the third quarter of Monday's game, but linebacker Clay Matthews is nursing an injured shoulder sustained on a devastating blind-side block by lineman Allen Barbre during the opening series. Matthews, who has missed four games this season with an injured hamstring, got through the game with a pain-killing injection.
The Texans rank 29th in the league in scoring at 17.6 points per game.
>>Bears Host Niners
In a battle between two last-place teams, the San Francisco 49ers (1-10) will visit the Chicago Bears (2-9) on Sunday afternoon at Soldier Field.
The game carries significance heading into 2017. Both teams are on track to receive top-five picks in NFL draft, and this weekend's matchup could help determine the order of selection.
Quarterback Matt Barkley made his first NFL start last week against the Tennessee Titans and likely will be under center once again this week. He completed 28 of 54 passes for 316 yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions and nearly engineered a fourth-quarter comeback before the Bears' final drive stalled inside the Titans' 10-yard line.
Colin Kaepernick is creating a buzz with his performance on the field. In four starts in November, he passed for 1,110 yards, eight touchdowns and two interceptions for a 96.0 rating. He scrambled 29 times for 223 yards and a touchdown.
Balance Leads Redbirds Past IUPUI
Paris Lee scored 18 points with six assists and Illinois State defeated IUPUI 77-63 on Wednesday night for the Redbirds' second straight win.
Lee was 7 of 9 from the floor, including 3 of 4 on 3-pointers with all five Illinois State starters in double figures. MiKyle McIntosh added 14 points, Deontae Hawkins 13, D.J. Clayton 12 and Phil Fayne 11 for the Redbirds (3-2), who shot 50 percent. All five had at least six rebounds with Clayton pulling down eight and Illinois State outrebounding the Jaguars 42-31.
Matt O'Leary scored 17 points, for his career-high sixth straight game in double figures and added seven rebounds for IUPUI (2-5). Ron Patterson, with three 3-pointers, scored 15 points and Darell Combs 13.
A 14-2 run with six points from Fayne gave Illinois State a 25-14 lead with they extended to 44-29 at halftime. The Redbirds maintained a double-digit lead in the second half.
Late Layup Sends Lakers Past Bulls; Portland Crushes Indiana
Julius Randle made a strong move against Nikola Mirotic for a tiebreaking layup with 45.1 seconds left, and the Los Angeles Lakers held off the Chicago Bulls for a gritty 96-90 victory on Wednesday night.
Randle had 13 points and matched a career high with 20 rebounds as Los Angeles bounced back from an ugly 105-88 loss at New Orleans on Tuesday night. Lou Williams and Jordan Clarkson scored 18 points apiece, and Larry Nance Jr. finished with 12 points and 11 boards.
Randle's drive and layup gave Los Angeles a 92-90 lead. After Jimmy Butler missed on the other side for Chicago, Williams went 1 for 2 at the line with 20 seconds to go.
Butler then missed another 3 and Randle and Nance combined for three foul shots to help Los Angeles hold on.
The Bulls host the Cleveland Cavaliers on Friday night, and LeBron James pays up after he lost his bet with buddy Wade over the World Series. James is expected to wear a Chicago Cubs uniform before the game.
>>Portland Crushes Indiana
Damian Lillard's 28 points, 10 assists and four steals led the Portland Trailblazers past the Indiana Pacers 131-109 Wednesday night.
Maurice Harkless added 23 points for the Blazers, who led by as many as 28 in their fifth consecutive victory over the Pacers.
The Trail Blazers had lost six of their last eight games as they've struggled to find consistency on defense. Portland was coming off a 130-114 loss at home to the Houston Rockets on Sunday.
Jeff Teague led Indiana with 25 points, while Myles Turner had 19 points and 10 rebounds. It was the first of a five-game road swing for the Pacers, who had won two straight.
The Pacers will visit the Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday.
Cowboys Visit Reeling Vikings for Thursday Night Football
Something's got to give Thursday night when the Dallas Cowboys take on the Minnesota Viking's on NFL's Thursday night football.
Dallas is third in the league in scoring, averaging 28.7 points per game, and is fifth in total offense with 407.6 yards per game. Minnesota's defense has allowed the second-fewest points per game at 17.5 and is third in total defense, giving up 307 yards per game.
Only two teams have created more takeaways than Minnesota's 20 this season. The Vikings have 12 interceptions and eight fumble recoveries and are second in the league with a plus-12 turnover-differential.
Dak Prescott and Dallas have protected the ball, turning the ball over just seven times this season, the second-fewest in the league.
Only four teams have fewer takeaways than Dallas' 10.
Both teams play Thursday with a full week's worth of rest after they played on Thanksgiving. Dallas held on at home for a 31-26 win against the Redskins. Minnesota lost for the fifth time in six games at Detroit in a 16-13 finale.
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Current Issue | July 12, 2019
Systolic BP variability associated with increased risk of death, CV events in patients with type 2 diabetes, meta-analysis finds
Young adults with diabetes have less favorable cardiometabolic risk profile versus those without, study finds
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ACP Diabetes Monthly | Keeping tabs | April 13, 2018
Spotlight on demographic trends in diabetes
Recent studies looked at prevalence of diagnosed diabetes in the U.S.; trends in hospitalization for diabetic ketoacidosis; and the prevalence of obesity, metabolic syndrome, and diabetes.
Several recent studies analyzed different demographic trends related to diabetes.
An analysis in the March 30 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) used data from the 2016 National Health Interview Survey to estimate prevalence of diagnosed diabetes in the U.S. A total of 3,519 adult survey respondents reported having diabetes, for an overall crude prevalence of 9.44%. Type 1 diabetes comprised 5.8% of the cases and 90.9% were type 2, with the remainder being other types of diabetes. The authors then estimated that 1.3 million Americans have type 1, 21.0 million have type 2, and 0.8 million have another type of diabetes. Type 1 diabetes was more common among men than women and among non-Hispanic white people than Hispanic people. Type 2 diabetes was more common among black people (11.52%) than Asian people (6.89%), white people (7.99%), and Hispanic people (9.07%). Diagnosed type 2 diabetes prevalence estimates increased with age and decreased with higher levels of educational attainment.
In the same issue of MMWR, data from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's National Inpatient Sample were used to calculate trends in diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) hospitalizations. From 2000 to 2009, the age-adjusted rate of DKA hospitalizations fluctuated but declined at an average annual rate of 1.1%. However, from 2009 to 2014, the rate increased 54.9%, from 19.5 to 30.2 per 1,000 persons with diabetes. In the same period, in-hospital mortality from DKA declined consistently, from 1.1% in 2000 to 0.4% in 2014. The authors said the causes of these trends were not clear, but possible explanations include new medications with higher DKA risk, changes in case definitions, and lower thresholds for hospitalization (the latter two of which would also help explain the decrease in mortality).
Another study, published by Nutrition and Diabetes on March 13, used data on 9,826 adults from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to assess the prevalence of obesity, metabolic syndrome, and diabetes. It found New England to have low rates of diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and obesity compared to other census divisions. The Mountain division also had low rates of obesity and the Pacific and Mid-Atlantic divisions had relatively low rates of metabolic syndrome. The East South Central and West North Central divisions had high rates of all three conditions. The authors analyzed the results by race and sex and observed that some of the geographic variation was due to rates among non-Hispanic white females who had a high prevalence of metabolic syndrome (>32%) in the Midwest and South and a low prevalence of metabolic syndrome (24%) in the West and Northeast. Geographic differences in metabolic syndrome imply different levels of risk for future cardiovascular disease and diabetes, with increased risk in the center of the United States.
“As opposed to prior reports which have suggested, for example, a stroke ‘belt’ in the United States from the South up through the Ohio River Valley, these data and others begin to portray an obesity and [metabolic syndrome] ‘zipper’ extending from the South up through the Midwest,” the authors said. They also noted that when the results were broken out by age group, adults ages 20 to 39 years showed smaller differences between regions, possibly indicating increases in future disease risk. The results should serve as “a reminder for vigilance toward surveillance and lifestyle modification,” the study said.
MKSAP quiz: Burning sensation in feetPrevious
First continuous glucose monitoring system approved to be used with other devicesNext
All articles from the April 13, 2018, ACP Diabetes Monthly Newsletter
© ACP Diabetes Monthly and American College of Physicians
Internal medicine physicians are specialists who apply scientific knowledge and clinical expertise to the diagnosis, treatment, and compassionate care of adults across the spectrum from health to complex illness. ACP Diabetes Monthly provides a monthly summary for internists about relevant news in diabetes. All published material, which is covered by copyright, represents the views of the contributor and does not reflect the opinion of the American College of Physicians or any other institution unless clearly stated.
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You are here: Home / Readers Forum / Grassroots Alumni Basketball League Celebrates 20 Years of Nurturing the Camp Community Year-Round
Grassroots Alumni Basketball League Celebrates 20 Years of Nurturing the Camp Community Year-Round
April 20, 2016 By eJP
Ramah Basketball Association, 4th Annual Eric Steinthal z”l Memorial Championship Games; photo courtesy Camp Ramah in the Berkshires.
By Rabbi Paul Resnick
In 1996, before alumni engagement was a buzz phrase in the philanthropy industry, a group of Camp Ramah in the Berkshires young alumni (recent college graduates) sought a place to play basketball with their camp friends. For many of them, playing on the courts in camp was one of their favorite memories as a camper and as a staff member. Without realizing it, this group of four teams of ten established the Ramah Berkshires Alumni Association’s basketball league – known as the RBA.
But they weren’t in camp anymore. In fact, they were all post college. All were either in graduate school or working. All were advancing themselves professionally and socially, in different ways. All were still strongly connected to Ramah, to basketball, and to each other.
The league started as a Ramah Berkshires group. Then in 2004, as the numbers grew, the volunteer commissioners welcomed alumni from six other Ramah camps to play, to be captains, and to be fully integrated into the RBA. This Berkshires-driven enterprise became a significant engagement point for alumni from all of the Ramah camps in North America. It was one of the factors inspiring the idea to create Reshet Ramah, the Ramah movement-wide alumni and community engagement initiative.
Twenty years later, the league consistently attracts around 70 members annually. The players have created a space where they can once again have fun with their camp friends, reminisce about their summers, and act as though they were back in Gesher, the oldest age division.
What were we doing? What was the Ramah Berkshires administration doing? We nurtured the growth of the RBA and helped – and continue to help – support it financially, but the driving force was always alumni. This grassroots endeavor was formed by alumni who wanted it. It was alumni who made it happen. This organic structure was totally created by alumni.
We were engaging alumni a decade or more before the two words “alumni” and “engagement” were even used together. No one promoted engagement of alumni in most of the Jewish camp world. Colleges did it. Camps did not.
The RBA was born out of a desire to be with camp friends. RBA engages people who are now sending their children to camp as campers. RBA engages people who are in their 20’s, some right out of college. RBA engages people who want to connect with other Ramahniks – not only peers – but just other folks who have that camp connection, a connection that is difficult to understand if one doesn’t understand the importance of camp. This engagement has turned out to be a source of financial support too, from alumni, as we generated team sponsorships.
Four years ago, in March 2012, Eric Steinthal, z”l, tragically passed away. Eric was a key influential force in the RBA. He played. He led. He kept score. He encouraged peers to participate. He managed. He was Mr. RBA. In his memory, again driven by alumni and nurtured by the camp leadership, two ideas were brought to fruition. His friends wanted to re-name and improve the basketball court at camp on which Eric and his buddies played back when they were campers, and now, when they come to camp for the annual Labor Day Alumni Weekend. Within a month, the campaign partnering with Eric’s friends and family and the broader camp leadership raised $75,000 for the project. The new court and bleachers stand in testimony to the power of nurturing camp’s alumni.
Ramah Berkshires also established the Eric Steinthal Memorial Scholarship Fund. The fund was created by camp to perpetuate Eric’s name, with the strong and active engagement of his friends and family. Funds are distributed to a camper each year who attends public school from New Jersey.
Plans have been percolating about creating additional engagement opportunities for the Ramah community focused on sports. Frisbee and volleyball are amongst two popular ideas. It is engaging with a ball or disc; yet, is it is so much more!
On April 10, we celebrated the 19th Annual RBA Championship Game. The recently established RBA Eric Steinthal award was given to two deserving alumni who have nurtured the RBA. This is another example of helping cultivate connections with each other and to camp. One honoree said he talked about his RBA experience with his co-workers, referring to it as “Jew ball.” He would often arrive at work on Monday tired and achy, and his colleagues would say, “Didn’t you say that you play with a bunch of Jewish guys?” He would respond, “Yeah, it is Jew ball but so much more.”
Every Sunday night from December through April, one can hear the balls dribbling and laughter ringing from Chelsea Piers. Spouses come. Now children come. In fact, some families have become Ramah families based on involvement with the RBA! If one closes one’s eyes, one can almost think that the basketball game is being played on Ramah Berkshires stadium court in Wingdale, NY.
What began as a few folks getting together to play ball has evolved into a powerful component of the camp experience. The camp experience and camp community don’t end when campers and staff graduate. Rather, it flourishes with engagement like the RBA.
Rabbi Paul Resnick is Director of Camp Ramah in the Berkshires.
Filed Under: Readers Forum, The American Jewish Scene Tagged With: alumni, Ramah
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Kim Jong Un to Start Denuclearization ‘Virtually Immediately’
June 12, 2018 By Editor Leave a Comment
President Trump, on the heels of his historic summit with Kim Jong Un, told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that he believes the North Korean leader will begin to work toward dismantling his country’s nuclear program “virtually immediately.”
The president left Singapore after the two leaders signed a document stating Pyongyang would work toward “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
In an interview with Fox News, Trump said the process is “really moving rapidly.”
“I just think that we are now we are going to start the process of denuclearization of North Korea, and I believe that he’s going back and will start it virtually immediately – and he’s already indicated that and you look at what he’s done,” Trump said.
Chairman of the DPRK Kim Jong Un, left, meets with President Trump, right, at the Capella Hotel on Sentosa Island in Singapore on June 12, 2018. (AP)
The historic agreement came after the two leaders held several meetings throughout the day. Trump was asked by a reporter if Kim agreed to denuclearize and he said, “We are starting that process very quickly.”
Trump said at a press conference that he will be ending joint military exercises between the United States and South Korea.
He also said Kim agreed to destroy a “major” missile testing site, but did not offer specific details.
The joint declaration states that the U.S. has committed to providing “security guarantees” to Pyongyang.
Whether the unpredictable North Korean leader will follow through remains unclear, but Trump sounded optimistic as he left the summit. He told “Hannity” the two of them “got along from the beginning” and Kim understood the need to dismantle his nuclear program.
“His country has to be de-nuked and he understood that, he fully understood that, he didn’t fight it,” Trump said.
The summit, which almost didn’t happen, represented a remarkable turnaround from the tension between Washington and Pyongyang last summer when Trump and Kim exchanged a war of words, with the American president warning the dictator of “fire and fury.”
Trump told Fox News, though, that “without the rhetoric we wouldn’t have been here.”
“So I think the rhetoric, I hated to do it, sometimes I felt foolish doing it, but we had no choice,” he said.
As for what happens next, Trump insisted, “I think he’s gone back to get this done. He wants to get it done.”
Wallace: Definition of ‘Denuclearization,’ Timetable of Sanctions Relief Could Be Sticking Points
During a gaggle later in the day with reporters on Air Force One, Trump said he trusts Kim but the U.S. would have to “check” to ensure denuclearization occurs.
“We’re going to have to check him. And we will check him, we’ll check him very strongly. But he has a plan total and complete,” Trump said. “He’s got a total plan. It will get done.”
When asked whether he had any concerns about Kim, the president insisted Kim “wants to get it done.”
He added: “And we should all want that to happen.”
FoxNews.com / The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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President Trump Visits LDS Welfare Square
December 5, 2017 By Editor Leave a Comment
“We’re really proud of you. What you do is like nobody else.” Those were the words of U.S. President Donald J. Trump in his first visit to Salt Lake City since becoming president nearly a year ago. President Trump met with leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at Welfare Square Monday, December 4, 2017.
He was greeted by President Henry B. Eyring of the Church’s First Presidency; President Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles; Bishop Gérald Caussé of the Presiding Bishopric; and Sister Jean B. Bingham, Relief Society general president.
Church leaders took the president on a late-morning tour of the bishops’ storehouse and Deseret Bakery, where he learned about the Church’s welfare facilities and self-reliance programs, which are dedicated to serving the needy of many faiths around the world.
“We’re here in a place where we have food and materials that we give to the poor,” explained President Eyring. “This is simply an example of what we do across the world, the idea being that we think we have an obligation to God to look out for the people who, without our aid, have tragedy in their lives, be it poverty or hunger.”
While stopping at the bakery, the president invited volunteers to come out and take pictures and shake his hand.
In referring to the Church, President Trump said, “This is very exciting for me. The job you’ve done is beyond anything you could think of — taking care of people the way you take care of people and the respect that you have all over the world.”
Resources at Welfare Square come from member donations. Most of the people who process the goods are volunteers. The Church also owns farms, ranches, orchards and lands that supply the raw materials. Volunteers also assist in harvesting the crops.
In recent months, 50 semi-trailers of food from Welfare Square and other Church facilities were sent to Houston to assist in hurricane relief efforts, including 2 million pounds of commodities and non-food items. Church members throughout Texas and surrounding states also volunteered more than a million hours of labor in ongoing cleanup and recovery efforts.
Others included in the Salt Lake City visit were U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch from Utah and staff from the White House.
President Eyring and President Nelson expressed their appreciation to the president for the efforts by his administration to protect religious freedom. President Eyring gave the president a Christus statue before he departed for the Utah State Capitol.
In a long-standing tradition, many United States presidents have visited with Church leaders in Utah, beginning in 1875 when Ulysses S. Grant met with Church President Brigham Young and other Latter-day Saint leaders. U.S. presidents who have visited Church leaders in Utah in the past 70 years include presidents Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
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Monday, June 28, 2010 0
VH1's You're Cut Off: Rehab for Spoiled Brats. By Nikky Raney
You're Cut Off on VH1 is a reality show worth watching. The show premiered Wednesday, June 9 at 9PM ET/PT.
There are so many reality television shows on the air that is can be difficult to sort out the ones worth watching. You're Cut Off can be classified as a mix between I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, The Simple Life, and The Bad Girls' Club.
You're Cut Off is like rehab for "spoiled brats." The nine young women on this show are self proclaimed princesses. They have relied and mooched off their families' money. The surprise comes in the first episode when life coach Laura Baron declines their credit cards and tells them what's really going on. The girls had originally thought they would be appearing on a reality tv show that filmed them shopping.
The nine ladies watch video testimonials from their family members. Each video ends with the phrase, "You're cut off!" This means that instead of living the ritzy lifestyle they are put into a house together (not one of those flashy mansions that most reality tv stars get to live in).
The girls are so surprised that there is not a maid there to wait on them. There is one bedroom with bunk beds that they have to share, and Baron gave each girl one duffle bag to fit all her things in. These women live like Paris Hilton, and now they are living like "middle class" citizens. The girls are given $200 a week for groceries if they follow their life coach.
The life coach hopes to teach some lessons that will instill values and make it known that money is earned. These girls are encouraged to become productive members of society, and Baron has them complete daily chores, among other things.
"Laura Baron is a professional lifestyle and relationship strategist who is regarded as a premier change agent. Laura's clients report greater success using her signature intuitive and customized methods over traditional therapy. Her clients include CEOs, entrepreneurs, celebrities and women in transition," VH1 informs.
In part of an episode the girls were cleaning Omarosa's house. One of the girls, Gia, got in Omarosa's face and refused to clean her house. That must be one of the most disrespectful moments caught on reality TV. That was Gia. Gia has a baby girl at home and refuses to change her diaper. Gia makes it known in the first half hour of the show that she will not cook or clean, ever. She says, "I don't even know what color my kitchen is!"
Gia is a wife and mother from California who also refuses to wake up in the middle of the night to take care of her baby. Her husband hires nannies while Gia smokes on her hookah all day. She claims she could not survive without her hookah, and when listing the most important things in her life she mentioned her family AFTER listening all the material items. Gia divorced her first husband, because he could not keep up with her lifestyle. Her current husband is extremely fed up with it and is cutting her off. He even admits he looks in the mirror some days and wonders what he's doing.
Gia is only one of the divas on this show. It's entertaining to watch, because it's hard to believe that this type of person exists. There rest of the divas include:
Chrissy, the rotten princess from LA. She is the most disrespectful of all the girls. She has the nerve to do her make up and stare at herself in her hand mirror while others are speaking. She does not think that it is rude at all to interrupt others or to constantly stare at herself while having a conversation with another person. Her highest goal in life is to be married THREE times so she can have three fabulous weddings, but she won't say "I DO" unless the ring costs at least $300K. Her grandmother says Chrissy is "acting a fool," and prays that by cutting her off she will learn some responsibility.
Leanne is a diva from California who is supported entirely by her father. She didn't like the color of the Mercedes S-Class her dad bought her, and she decided to buy a $375K Ferrari while he was out of time; she crashed the Ferrari a few weeks later. Leanne will not knave the house without her six bodyguards, a make-up artist, or her best friend. Her father is cutting her off, because he has had enough of her spending all his hard-earned money.
Pamela claims that she worked on Wall-Street. She is a New York girl that says she WAS a princess and now she's a QUEEN. Pamela is really good at spending her family's money. They are cutting her off in hopes she will make something of herself.
Erica is a pampered princess who will never be seen without a tiara. She is from Texas and her father is a plastic surgeon; she spends over half a million dollars of her dad's money ever year. Erica lives at home and consults her personal astrologer for every life decision. She can't imagine life without bottom and lip injections. Her family is cutting her off in hopes she will learn to value money and make something of herself.
Jessica belongs on The Jersey Shore. This girl could have some fun with Snooki and J-WOWW. This girl is a loud Italian, and she doesn't care what people think about her. She doesn't cook, clean or do anything to help society. She does however like to nag, insult others, and spend money. Her mother is cutting her off in hopes Jessica can learn to survive on her own.
Courtnee is the North Carolina "it-girl." This socialite is being cut off by her family, because they don't understand how their "little princess" turned into a demanding diva. Her father is cutting her off so that she stops treating him like an ATM, and she starts putting her people skills to good use.
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Amber, the southern belle hails from Georgia and admits that she always judges people by what they are wearing. She took a semester off from college to catch up on her shopping. Her father is cutting her off in hopes that she will take school more seriously, and apply herself.
Jacqueline is the one to pay attention to. She is the daughter of a successful business executive. Her house is 10K square feet, and she has three walk-in closets. She says there's nothing wrong with checking a man's bank account before going out. Jacqueline got her first Chanel bag at age five, and now her parents are cutting her off. They hope their college graduate will stop with the endless partying and reckless spending.
At the end of the season (8-weeks) the girls will be reunited with the people who cut them off, and that will be the test to whether the girls PASS or FAIL. The girls will need to adhere to new guidelines if they want a chance of getting back in good graces with the loved-ones that put them on this show.
Give this show a try. You're Cut Off can be watched online or tonight, Monday, June 28, at 7PM, 8PM, and 9PM. There are three episodes total, and hopefully by the end of the season these unrealistically superficial barbies will become humble and hard working and respectful young ladies. Follow VH1 on Twitter for more updates. Psst. Perez even makes an appearance.
(All images courtesy of VH1 and Starcasm)
X-Posted at Zennie62.com
VH1's You're Cut Off: Rehab for Spoiled Brats. By ...
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Published in Arts Hub
Christopher Rowland discusses William Blake's visionary approach to art, religion and culture generally, and how his 'mental fight', or cultural struggle, inspires us to build a new Jerusalem, a better society.
William Blake was a visionary poet and artist, whose works have achieved a central place in British culture. Some of his verses, widely known as 'Jerusalem', which he wrote at the opening of one of his longer poems, ‘Milton’, have become an unofficial national anthem, and a very necessary alternative to the English national anthem for those of us with republican commitments. As with so much else in his writings, these verses are full of biblical themes, like a ‘chariot of fire’, and 'building Jerusalem', used in Blake’s own way. The words stress the importance of people taking responsibility for change and building, through cultural struggle or 'mental fight', a better society ‘in England’s green and pleasant land’.
Although he was a visionary, he was not a dreamer cut off from the realities and complexities of experience, particularly the poverty and oppression of the urban world in which he lived for most of his life. He had an amazing insight into contemporary economics, politics and culture, and was able to discern the effects of the authoritarianism of church and state as well as what he considered the arid philosophy of a rationalist view of the world which left little scope for the imagination.
He abhorred the way in which Christians looked up to a God enthroned in heaven, a view which offered a model for a hierarchical human politics, which subordinated the majority to a (supposedly) superior elite. He also criticised the dominant philosophy of his day which believed that a narrow view of sense experience could help us to understand everything that there was to be known, including God. Blake’s own visionary experiences showed him that rationalism ignored important dimensions of human life which would enable people to hope, to look for change, and to rely on more than that which their senses told them. All people needed to be aware of and allow to flourish the ‘Poetic or Prophetic character’ latent in them.
Blake had no time for conservative Christianity’s infatuation with the Bible as the ‘supreme authority’ in the life of the church and society. Such sentiments were a symptom of false religion, which contracted out responsibility for biblical interpretation to priests and scholars. All God’s people, inside and outside the churches, have the responsibility to attend to the energetic activity of the Spirit in creation, in history, and in human experience. The Bible had to be seen for what it was – a mixed collection of texts which might make a contribution to human betterment.
Blake loved the Bible because it acted as a stimulus to an imaginative engagement with society and also with theology. But Blake wasn’t just an interpreter. To paraphrase his own words, he wanted through his words and images to ‘cleanse the doors of perception’. Changing how one looked at the world and behaved in it were central for him. Blake’s comment that what he wanted to do in his work was ‘rouze the faculties to act’ parallels Marx's famous dictum on philosophy, 'Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it'.
That meant empowering the readers and hearers of texts and pictures to have the courage of their convictions and not be dependent on the experts to tell them what a text or picture meant. Too much study of the Bible is, he thought, either completely dismissive of it or excessively reverential and doesn’t allow for creative, imaginative, engagement with it.
The Bible for him was a resource to stimulate understanding, and not a book of moral precepts. Blake is indignant about those elements in the Bible which have been used to condone injustice. He doesn’t attempt to make the Bible internally consistent, or universally benevolent, and he fully embraces its problematic elements as a means to question dominant readings within politics and religion.
In particular, he challenges its depiction of God as a remote monarch and lawgiver, and the use made of such imagery to justify patriarchy and authoritarianism. His astonishingly diverse array of poems, engravings, and paintings, permeated as they are with biblical themes, make Blake simultaneously both England’s greatest Christian artist, and also one of its most radical biblical interpreters.
‘Would to God that all the Lord’s people were prophets’, he wrote, thereby including all in the task of speaking out about what they saw. Prophecy for Blake, however, was not the prediction of the end of the world, but telling the truth as best one can about what one sees, fortified by insight and an ‘honest persuasion’ that if 'the doors of perceptrion were cleansed, things could be improved.
One observes, is indignant and speaks out. It’s a basic political maxim which is necessary for any age. Blake wanted to stir people from their intellectual slumbers, and the daily grind of their toil, to see that they were captivated in the grip of a culture which kept them thinking in ways which served the interests of the powerful.
The beautiful little poems which make up 'Songs of Innocence and Experience' contain some of Blake’s most profound political insights, in deceptively simple verses. Three poems, one entitled ‘London’, the other two a contrasting pair entitled ‘Holy Thursday’, exemplify the way in which Blake engaged his politics. He didn’t do this by grand pronouncements but by attention to what he termed ‘minute particulars’.
In ‘London’ he imagines himself like the biblical prophet Ezekiel, walking round the streets of Jerusalem, and seeing people marked with ‘marks of weakness and marks of woe’, because of the poverty, injustice, hypocritical social convention, and the stranglehold of emerging capitalism. And he observed what he called the ‘mind forg’d manacles’ of cultural conformity which stopped people comprehending the injustices around them.
In the two 'Holy Thursday' poems we have contrasting perspectives on the social situation in England. On the one hand, the poet describes a festive event in St Paul’s Cathedral, in which children who are recipients of charity come to thank God. On the other, there is a hard-hitting critique of what life is actually like for most children, in ‘this green and pleasant land’ -
‘Babes reduc'd to misery. Fed with cold and usurous hand’
The ‘Holy Thursday’ poems offer readers the opportunity to meditate upon late eighteenth century England through the lens of a particular social event.
All people, inside and outside the churches, according to Blake, have the responsibility to attend to the energetic activity of the divine spirit in creation, in history, and in human experience. He wouldn’t have wanted his words to become a sacred text, any more than the words of the Bible, but an ongoing stimulus to politics and religion in the struggle to realise that (as he puts it in ‘Jerusalem’) ‘every kindness to another is a little Death In the Divine Image nor can Man exist but by Brotherhood’.
His work has enabled ordinary people to recognise that culture matters, and that there are mental and cultural chains, as well as economic chains, which bind us. He sought to affirm the importance of everyone in the struggle for community and human betterment. I feel sure he would have been sympathetic to the aims of this website, and proud to see his verses used to help 'build Jerusalem'.
Christopher Rowland is the Dean Ireland professor of the Exegesis of Holy Scripture Emeritus at the University of Oxford.
What do we mean by culture and why does it matter?
Published in Cultural Commentary
What is culture and why does it matter? To help us answer those questions, Professor John Storey outlines a neo-Gramscian approach to culture. It exposes culture as a site of struggle, equips and empowers us to resist cultural domination, dissolves the barriers between 'high' and 'popular' culture, and thus helps us build the 'new Jerusalem'.
If we want to make the claim that culture matters politically, and be able to illustrate this claim against those who want us to see it as something quite distinct from the political, we need to be clear what we mean by culture. What I propose in this article is a working definition that will provide a way to think politically about all the things we call culture.
To claim that culture matters because it is ultimately political compels us to move beyond all definitions that reduce culture to the arts with a capital A. In other words, it is a definition that rejects the arbitrary – and elitist – distinction between culture and popular culture. The politics of culture involves all of us because it is about the making and circulation of meanings, meanings which affect all of us.
For example: meaning is produced by a play by William Shakespeare, but it is also produced by the latest episode of Coronation Street. If both produce meaning, and the production of meaning is how we are defining culture, it makes no sense to value one as culture and dismiss the other as popular culture. This does not mean that we cannot judge one as better than the other, but it does mean that we cannot rely on arbitrary categories of pre-judgement to make the decision for us. And of course ‘better’ always implies the questions: better for what and better for whom?
We must also reject the idea that the meaning of a play or television drama is the sole property of the text itself. Undoubtedly, they produce meaning but they are also sites for the production of meaning. And these meanings are variable, and often contested by those who consume them. Culture is a 'mental fight', as Blake wrote in 'Jerusalem'. It is a site of struggle between competing ways of making the world meaningful to us. And that cultural struggle therefore becomes a political struggle.
For the commodities produced by the culture industries (books, CDs, films, theatre, television programmes, etc.) to become culture, they have to be consumed and how they are consumed is always, ultimately, a question of politics. To paraphrase Karl Marx, a house only becomes a home when it is inhabited. So in a similar way a novel that no one reads is barely an example of culture. Culture involves both production and consumption. Both text and audience produce meaning: in political terms, a text can help change how we see the world, but so can the meanings we find in it.
There are two conclusions we can draw from a definition of culture as a terrain of shared and contested meanings. First, although the world exists in all its enabling and constraining materiality outside culture, it is only in culture that the world is made meaningful. In other words, signification has a ‘performative effect’; it helps construct the realities it appears only to describe. As Antonio Gramsci once pointed out,
'It is obvious that East and West are arbitrary and conventional (historical) constructions, since every spot on the earth is simultaneously East and West. Japan is probably the Far East not only for the European but also for the American from California and even for the Japanese himself, who, through English political culture might call Egypt the Near East … Yet these references are real, they correspond to real facts, they allow one to travel by land and by sea and to arrive at the predetermined destination.'
In other words, East and West are cultural constructions, directly connected to the imperial power of the West, but they are also forms of signification that have been realized and embedded in social practice. Cultural constructs they may be, but they do designate real geographic locations and guide real human movement and organize real political perceptions of the world. As Gramsci’s example makes clear, meanings inform and organize social action. To argue that culture is best understood as a terrain of shared and contested meanings is not, therefore, a denial that the material world exists in all its constraining and enabling reality, outside signification.
Such a concept of culture does not deny the existence of the materiality of things, but it does insist that materiality is mute: it does not issue its own meanings, it has to be made to mean. Although how something is made meaningful is always enabled and constrained by the materiality of the thing itself, culture is not a property of mere materiality. It is the entanglement of meaning, materiality and social practice, variable meanings in a range of different contexts and social practices. In other words, culture is always social, material and semiotic and always in a direct or indirect relation with the prevailing structures of power.
The second conclusion we can draw from seeing culture as a terrain of shared and contested meanings concerns the potential for struggle over meaning. Given that different meanings can be ascribed, for example, to the same novel or film, the making of meaning is always entangled in what Valentin Volosinov identified as the ‘multiaccentuality of the sign’. Rather than being inscribed with a single meaning, a book or a film can be made to mean different things in different contexts, with different effects of power. Contrast, for example, the interpretation of the film 'The Third Man' in the review elsewhere on this site, with the standard, mainstream interpretation.
Culture, understood as the making of meaning is, therefore, always a potential site of ‘differently oriented social interests’. Those with power often seek to make what is multi-accentual appear as if it could only ever be uni-accentual. In cultural terms, this is the difference between dictatorship and democracy.
The different ways of making something signify are rarely an innocent game of semantics, rather they are a significant part of a political struggle over what might be regarded as ‘normal’ or ‘correct’ – an example of the politics of signification. What are the class politics of Downton Abbey, or the gender politics of Game of Thrones? Is Trident a weapon of mass destruction, the use of which is impossible to envisage, or is it a necessary means of self-defense in an uncertain world? Is austerity a reasonable way to ensure we live within our means or is it a political choice that forces many people to rely on food banks and to become vulnerable to the Victorian diseases of malnutrition, scurvy, scarlet fever, cholera and whooping cough? In each example there is a struggle over meaning, a struggle over who can claim the power and authority to define social reality; to make the world (and the things in it) mean in particular ways and with particular effects of power.
Dominant modes of making the world meaningful are a fundamental aspect of the processes of hegemony. But hegemony is not something imposed that people passively accept. It is always a terrain of struggle between dominant and subordinate ways of understanding the world. While it is true that the forces of incorporation tend to be more powerful than the forces of resistance, this should not lead us to think of the consumption of culture as something always and inevitably passive. It is certainly true that the culture industries are a major site of ideological production, constructing powerful images, descriptions, definitions, frames of reference for understanding the world. However, we should reject the view that the people who consume these productions are ‘cultural dupes’, unable to resist the prevailing ‘common sense’.
People make culture (including popular culture) from the repertoire of commodities supplied by the culture industries. Consumption understood as ‘production in use’ can be empowering to subordinate understandings of the world. And it can be resistant to dominant understandings of the world. But this is not to say that consumption is always empowering and resistant. To deny the passivity of consumption is not to deny that sometimes consumption is passive; to deny that consumers are cultural dupes is not to deny that the culture industries seek to manipulate. But it is to deny that culture, especially popular culture, is little more than a degraded landscape of commercial and ideological manipulation, imposed from above in order to make profit and secure social control.
What is produced and how it is consumed can also challenge the taken-for-granted that always underpins hegemony. A progressive cultural analysis should insist that to decide these matters requires vigilance and attention to the details of the production, distribution and consumption of the commodities from which culture is made. These are not matters that can be decided once and for all (outside the contingencies of history and politics) with an elitist glance and a condescending sneer. Nor can they be read off purely from the moment of production, by locating meaning, pleasure, ideological effect, the probability of incorporation, the possibility of resistance, in, variously, the intention, the means of production or the production itself.
We need also to consider how meaning is generated through consumption, which should be understood as ‘production in use’. Because it is, ultimately, in ‘production in use’ that questions of meaning, pleasure, ideological effect, incorporation or resistance can be (contingently) decided.
This, I suggest, is a more optimistic, empowering approach to defining culture than traditional approaches. It enables us to engage with cultural products on more equal terms, and it enables us to break down the elitist divide between 'high' culture and 'popular' culture. I believe that if contributors to this website apply this approach, a wealth of meanings will be discovered which will help us build 'the new Jerusalem'.
The review of 'The Third Man' mentioned above is on the film section of the arts hub.
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Rhys Hoskins hit a 431-foot homer and recorded
James Shields of the Chicago White Sox and the Cincinnati Reds play in opposite leagues and rarely see each other http://www.indianapoliscoltsteamonline.com/ben-banogu-jersey , yet they currently have much in common.
Now that they’re starting to make something out of what appeared to be a totally lost season, they’d like to keep it going.
The Reds got off to the worst start in baseball at 8-27, one so bad that getting to .500 looked to be as much of a challenge as winning a division title would be for most teams.
But when the Reds (36-48) take on the right-handed Shields and the White Sox on Monday night at Great American Ball Park, in the teams’ first matchup since 2015, they’ll be one of the majors’ hottest clubs. They’ve won 11 of 14 after taking the final two games of a four-game weekend series against the Milwaukee Brewers, and interim manager Jim Riggleman now has a 33-33 record for a last-place team.
Considering that Riggleman took over a Reds team that was 3-15 under former manager Bryan Price, that’s something of an accomplishment. And the Reds own a 6-1 record in interleague games.
“We know we can play with these teams that are in first place in their division,” Riggleman said.
They’re winning now in grand fashion, too. Jose Peraza hit the team’s major league-leading ninth grand slam Sunday in an 8-2 win over the Brewers, their second in two games (pitcher Michael Lorenzen hit a pinch-grand slam Saturday) and sixth in 17 games. They’ve already tied a club season record.
“We’ve been getting better at-bats … and we’ve happened to have men on base,” Riggleman said.
Cincinnati starter Matt Harvey pitched 5 2/3 scoreless innings before being lifted after a rain delay, and the Reds dealt Brewers rookie Freddy Peralta (3-1) Parris Campbell Jersey , who gave up three runs in five innings, his first major league loss. Peralta allowed only one hit in seven shutout innings against the Kansas City Royals in his previous start.
“That’s probably the best I’ve felt since 2013,” said Harvey (4-5), who won his third straight start.
Shields (3-9), likewise, is beginning to see a ray of sunshine in what previously was a gloomy season. He’s coming off his best start of the year, pitching seven shutout innings and giving up four hits Wednesday in a 6-1 win over the Minnesota Twins. It was his 12th quality start of the season, or five more than he had all of last season.
Shields still isn’t the pitcher that won 13 or more games seven times from 2008 to 2015, but it hasn’t helped that he’s pitching for a team that’s off to the second worst start in franchise history. He has allowed a respectable six earned runs in his last four starts, and twice yielded one or no runs while lasting at least seven innings.
At age 36, Shields is making adjustments to compensate for his decreased velocity, yet has pitched at least six innings in 12 of his last 13 starts for a last-place team.
“My body’s feeling really good this year Will Harris Jersey , and this is kind of what I’ve done my whole career,” Shields told reporters after the game against the Twins. “I strive to go as deep as I possibly can in games and so far it’s been good.
“I’m not throwing as hard as I used to. If I were to throw over the top, I’d still throw a little harder than I am right now. (But) at the end of the day, I’m feeling really good with my delivery right now, my mechanics. It’s been a lot of fun making these adjustments.”
Shields goes against Reds right-hander Luis Castillo (5- , who was 1-3 with a 6.75 ERA in five June starts. He retired the first 11 batters he faced Wednesday at Atlanta, only to give up four quick runs on a walk and five consecutive singles, although the Reds came back to win 6-5.
Castillo is 0-1 in two starts against American League clubs this season, giving up eight runs in six innings. He has never faced the White Sox.
Shields is 18-18 with a 4.57 ERA in interleague play and 0-2 in two career starts against the Reds, the last of which was in 2015.
The White Sox (29-54) ended a three-game losing streak Sunday by salvaging the final game of a three-game series against the Texas Rangers, winning 10-5 as Avisail Garcia went 4-for-5 with a double and an RBI.
The Reds have won five consecutive interleague games but are facing the White Sox at Great American Ball Park for the first time since 2009. The White Sox are 16-4 overall against the Reds and 10-2 in Cincinnati, though that success there predated any of the current players.
MILWAUKEE — Slowly but surely http://www.detroitlionsteamonline.com/austin-bryant-jersey , Chase Anderson is reverting to the form that led to a breakout season a year ago.
The Milwaukee Brewers‘ right-hander returns to action Sunday afternoon to wrap up a three-game weekend series against the Philadelphia Phillies at Miller Park fresh off his best outing since opening day.
In Tuesday’s 4-0 victory over the Chicago Cubs, he allowed a hit and walked two in seven innings. He struck out six and earned his first win since May 21.
“It was Chase getting back to what we saw last year,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said “You could tell right away that his fastball, specifically, had a different gear tonight. Just by the hitters’ swings.”
Anderson went 12-4 with a 2.74 ERA in 25 starts a year ago, cementing his spot in Milwaukee’s rotation. Counsell tabbed the 30-year old to start the season opener and Anderson (5-5, 4.13 ERA this season) answered the call with six shutout innings against the San Diego Padres.
He’s been up and down since, posting a 5.03 ERA over 11 starts — with a two-week stint on the disabled list for illness mixed in — between Opening Day and Tuesday.
“My arm has been feeling pretty good overall,” Anderson said after facing Chicago. “Tonight, was the best I felt since I came back off the DL. It’s good to know that it’s still in the tank.”
Phillies right-hander Aaron Nola also comes into the game after a strong showing his last time out. Nola allowed one run and struck out 10 over 6 2/3 innings in Philadelphia’s 5-4 victory over the Rockies on Tuesday.
Nola (8-2, 2.27 ERA) is making a case to represent the Phillies in the All-Star Game next month, going 7-1 with a 2.30 ERA over his last 10 starts. He’s held opponents to a run or fewer in six of those outings and has allowed more than three runs once while striking out 75 batters with only 13 walks in 66 2/3 innings.
“He was exactly what we expected him to be Max Scharping Jersey , a guy who we can rely on,” Phillies manager Gabe Kapler said. “He’s a special kind of competitor.”
The Phillies will attempt to win their second straight series after losing seven of eight games. Philadelphia evened the series with a 4-1 victory despite striking out 14 times, stranding a season-high 15 runners and going 2-for-14 with runners in scoring position.
Rhys Hoskins hit a 431-foot homer and recorded three hits. He is 9-for-25 in seven games since returning from a broken jaw.
“Obviously, he set the tone with the big home run to left field,” Kapler said. “It is incredibly important for us to have him swinging the bat like he is.”
Milwaukee has scored at least 12 runs in three of its five meetings with the Phillies this season but has yet to face Nola, who’s 3-0 with a 1.38 ERA in four career starts against the Brewers. Nola also is 1-0 mark with a 2.08 ERA in two starts in Milwaukee.
Anderson, meanwhile, hasn’t enjoyed the same success facing Philadelphia. In four career starts, he’s 1-2 with a 5.85 ERA.
Sunday will mark Anderson’s first appearance against the Phillies since June 2, 2016 when he allowed a run on three hits while striking out six over 5 2/3 innings in a 4-1 Brewers victory at Citizens Bank Park.
A victory in the finale would give Milwaukee its third consecutive series victory and 15th of the season.
to showcase ”the best photos throughout the game” on its website and app. The sports network will also feature analyses of
It’ll be much easier to watch the Super Bowl online for free this year.
NBC won’t require proof of a cable or satellite TV subscription Max Scharping Jersey , meaning that anyone in the U.S. can watch the game online. Plus, you’ll be able to watch the game on a phone even if you aren’t a Verizon customer, as was a requirement before.
Here’s your online guide to the matchup between the Philadelphia Eagles and the New England Patriots in Minneapolis. Kickoff is at 6:30 p.m. ET Sunday on NBC.
The best experience will be on a big screen TV. If you don’t have a cable subscription or a good signal with an antenna, you can fire up the NBC Sports app on a number of streaming TV devices, including Apple TV, Roku and Amazon’s Fire TV.
Normally, TV networks require viewers to sign in with a cable or satellite subscription. That’s being waived starting with the pre-game coverage at noon ET. The free viewing will conclude with a postgame episode of ”This Is Us Brian Burns Jersey ,” expected to run until about 11 p.m.
On personal computers, the same coverage will be available through NBCSports.com and NBC.com, again without any sign-in requirements.
Last year’s broadcaster, Fox, also waived the sign-in requirements. What’s new is a lifting of restrictions on phones.
In the past, you had to be a Verizon customer to watch on a phone. A new rights deal means that customers of Verizon’s rivals will be able to watch, too. On Apple and Android mobile devices http://www.pantherscheapshop.com/cheap-aut...g-little-jersey , you can turn to apps from the NFL and Yahoo Sports (Verizon now owns the latter). You won’t be able to watch on a phone with the NBC app, but you can use it on a tablet. The NFL and Yahoo streams will include pre- and postgame coverage, but not ”This Is Us.”
ALL ABOUT THE ADS
The Super Bowl is the rare event where viewers do pay attention to ads. A 30-second spot goes for about $5 million. NBC says local ads sold by individual stations will also appear in the online streams, depending on the viewer’s location.
NBC will post the national ads at NBCSports.com as they air. An ad analytics company, iSpot.tv, will also track, record and post ads online soon after they air. YouTube’s AdBlitz will also have ads Will Grier Jersey , but only the ones that brands choose to share there. You don’t have to wait until Sunday, as many of the ads are already available online.
BEYOND NBC
Although NBC has the television rights this year, other outlets are planning features around the Super Bowl.
Without rights to video, ESPN is planning to showcase ”the best photos throughout the game” on its website and app. The sports network will also feature analyses of big plays and controversial calls.
The NFL also plans Super Bowl podcasts leading up to the game, along with a special edition of its daily Twitter show, (hash)NFLBlitz, on Sunday at 1 p.m. ET.
Don’t expect to be drafted as a first round pick and not have high expectations. You were one of the best players of that year in your draft class. Expectations are going to be through the roof http://www.pantherscheapshop.com/cheap-aut...n-miller-jersey , and some people can handle it while others can’t. First-round draft picks might be the most prized assets for NFL teams. Rarely do you ever see teams trade away their second-round picks, let alone their firsts. The only time you would ever really see teams trade away their first-round picks is for some of the best talent already in the league. So basically, these draft picks are expected to be stars in the league, or at least have a big impact on their team.When you draft players in the first round, usually you expect them to start within the next two years. Unlike many other college players, it is expected to play as soon as possible, except for maybe quarterbacks. First-round quarterbacks sometimes get time to develop Jordan Scarlett Jersey , because their job is to become the future of a franchise.Thinking about how much pressure is on first-round draft picks is scary, but the 2018 draft class had a ton of talent. Almost all of these first-round selections could be starters in the league, and some will, while others have struggled in training camp. It’s not easy to transition from college to the NFL. The game is different, and the talent is different. Which first-round draft picks will rise to the challenge, and compete at a high level in 2018?
But the Patriots had scored three straight touchdowns to o
C.J. Cron homered early and Wilson Ramos hit a tiebreaking RBI single in the eighth inning to lift the Tampa Bay Rays to a 2-1 win on Tuesday night to snap a 12-game winning streak by the Houston Astros.
Blake Snell (9-4) allowed just three hits and one run in seven innings Connor McGovern Jersey , but had to pitch around a career-high seven walks for his fifth straight win. Sergio Romo pitched for the third straight game, taking over with one out in the ninth and allowing one hit for his third save a night after blowing the save in Houston’s 5-4 win.
The Astros went 1 for 6 with runners in scoring position to come up one victory shy of setting the franchise record for longest winning streak in franchise history.
Hector Rondon (1-2) took the loss by allowing two hits and one run in one inning.
YANKEES 7, MARINERS 2
NEW YORK (AP) – Domingo German pitched two-hit ball over a career-high seven innings and Giancarlo Stanton hit one of New York’s four home runs in the Yankees’ victory against the Mariners.
Miguel Andujar and Aaron Hicks each belted a two-run shot off Marco Gonzales (7-4) in the fifth. Hicks homered for the third straight day and finished with three hits from the leadoff spot as the Yankees boosted baseball’s best record to 48-22, moving a season-best 26 games above .500.
Coming off a four-hit game, Stanton sent a solo drive to straightaway center field in the first. Aaron Judge had an RBI single in the seventh, and rookie phenom Gleyber Torres added his 14th home run in the eighth.
The first two batters of the game reached against German (2-4) on a double and an error. The rookie right-hander then retired 19 in a row until Nelson Cruz homered in the seventh.
DODGERS 4, CUBS 3, FIRST GAME
CUBS 2, DODGERS 1, 10 innings, SECOND GAME
CHICAGO (AP) – Albert Almora Jr. hit a game-ending RBI single in the 10th inning Foster Moreau Jersey , and the Cubs beat the Dodgers 2-1 to salvage a split of their day-night doubleheader.
Kris Bryant sparked the winning rally with a leadoff triple against Brock Stewart (0-1). After Javier Baez was walked intentionally, Almora hit a liner into right field.
Rob Zastryzny (1-0), the fifth Cubs reliever, got Yasmani Grandal to fly out with the bases loaded in the top of the 10th to earn the win.
The rematch of the last two NL Championship Series was set to begin on Monday night, but the opener was postponed by a mixture of poor weather and a limited power outage at Wrigley Field. It’s the only scheduled visit for Los Angeles, leading to the day-night doubleheader.
Los Angeles began the long day at the iconic ballpark with a victory on pinch-hitter Kyle Farmer’s two-run double in the ninth.
Edward Paredes (2-0), the fifth of six Dodgers relievers, got one out in the eighth to earn the win in the opener. Kenley Jansen pitched the ninth for his 18th save.
Justin Wilson (1-2) came one pitch away from earning his first save.
NATIONALS 9, ORIOLES 7
WASHINGTON (AP) – Trea Turner went 4 for 4 with a homer, Anthony Rendon drove in three runs and the Nationals extended their recent domination of the Orioles.
Adam Eaton had two hits and two RBIs for the Nationals, who trailed 5-1 in the fifth inning before rallying to make it six straight wins over Baltimore. Washington is 4-0 against its neighboring interleague rival this season Anthony Nelson Jersey , outscoring the Orioles by a combined 20-8.
The Nationals trailed 6-5 before getting six hits in a four-run seventh. Rendon delivered a two-run double off Tanner Scott (0-1) that put Washington ahead, and Turner capped his four-hit night with a double.
Justin Miller (5-0) pitched two innings of relief, newcomer Kelvin Herrera worked a perfect eighth and Sean Doolittle gave up a solo home run to Joey Rickard while earning his 19th save.
BREWERS 3, PIRATES 2
PITTSBURGH (AP) – Rookie Freddy Peralta allowed two hits in six stellar innings, Jesus Aguilar hammered his 14th home run of the season and the Brewers cooled off the Pirates.
Peralta (2-0) struck out seven without issuing a walk, surrendering only singles to Corey Dickerson and Colin Moran in the fourth but otherwise keeping the Pirates firmly in check.
Aguilar finished 2 for 3 and drove in all three runs off Jameson Taillon (4-6). Aguilar hit a two-run shot to the seats in right-center in the first and doubled down the line in left field in the third. Corey Knebel worked around a two-out walk in the ninth for his seventh save for the first-place Brewers.
BRAVES 11, BLUE JAYS 4
TORONTO (AP) – Johan Camargo hit his first career grand slam and went 4 for 5 with five RBIs, and the Braves beat the Blue Jays to snap Toronto’s home winning streak at seven games.
Camargo hit his seventh home run off Jaime Garcia (2-6) in the second, singled in the fourth, hit an RBI single in the fifth and doubled and scored in the eighth. He struck out in the ninth.
Charlie Culberson also connected and Ender Inciarte had three hits and three RBIs as the Braves won for the sixth time in seven games. Reliever Sam Freeman (2-3) worked 2 1/3 innings for the victory.
REDS 9, TIGERS 5
CINCINNATI (AP) – Joey Votto ended a long homer drought with his third career grand slam Tuesday night Jeffery Simmons Jersey , powering the Reds to a victory that ended the Tigers‘ longest winning streak in two years.
Sal Romano (4-7) had a second straight solid outing, limiting the Tigers to four singles over seven shutout innings. Billy Hamilton also homered as the Reds pulled away to a 9-0 lead.
The Tigers had won five straight and moved within a game of .500. They haven’t been to the break-even mark since they were a season-best 4-4 on April 8. They’ve wasted five chances to get b The stage was set for another dramatic Super Bowl comeback for Tom Brady and the New England Patriots.
That’s when Brandon Graham delivered one of the few defensive highlights in the most prolific offensive game in NFL history, ripping the ball out of Brady’s hands for a fumble that gave the Philadelphia Eagles their first Super Bowl title in franchise history with a 41-33 victory on Sunday night.
”When the fourth quarter came we had to go out there and make a stop,” Graham said. ”As a defense we hadn’t been doing it all game. The offense carried us all the way through. At the end of the day we kept coming.”
Rookie Derek Barnett recovered the loose ball and Eagles fans began celebrating their first title since winning the 1960 NFL championship in what proved to be a surprise ending.
Brady had made the late-game comeback a specialty in winning a record five Super Bowl titles, including last year’s rally from 28-3 down to beat Atlanta in overtime. He also led late game-winning scoring drives to beat the Rams, Carolina and Seattle.
The Eagles showed no sign of slowing Brady down on Sunday as he threw for a playoff-record 505 yards and three touchdowns, carving up the defense at will on a night when the Patriots did not punt once or turn it over until Brady’s late fumble with New England on its 33 with just more than two minutes remaining and poised for a comeback.
That’s when Graham beat Shaq Mason off the line and reached his left hand out for Brady just before he was set to throw. Graham knocked the ball loose.
”I knew I had a one-on-one with the guard,” Graham said. ”I knew he likes to be aggressive so I tried to act like I was pulling. I snatched it right off and Tom Brady’s arm was right there and I went for the ball.”
Barnett landed on it in what will go down as one of the most memorable plays in Philadelphia history.
”BG made the play to win it,” Barnett said. ”It was a good bounce. Right into my hands.”
The fumble set up a field goal that gave the Eagles an eight-point lead and then the game ended when Brady’s desperation heave for Gronkowski in the end zone fell to the turf, sending green and white confetti to the field, emotional Eagles pouring out on the field and Brady on the ground in frustration.
The Eagles defense had offered little resistance for the first 57 minutes as the Patriots moved the ball on every drive Nate Davis Jersey , getting stopped only on a missed field goal by Stephen Gostkowski and a failed fourth-down attempt one play after Brady dropped a pass from Danny Amendola on a trick play.
But the Patriots had scored three straight touchdowns to open the second half to take their first lead of the game at 33-32 and still were in position to win after Nick Foles gave the Eagles a 38-33 lead on a TD pass to Zach Ertz.
”We stuck together,” defensive lineman Fletcher Cox said. ”Nobody panicked. We knew what we had to do to stop him. We knew it would come down to a couple of plays. We’ve been through the situation before. Guys just stepped up and make plays.”
Graham was the one who delivered, providing a defensive exclamation point in a game that featured a record 1,151 yards of offense by both teams, including 613 for the Patriots.
”They made one good play at the right time,” Brady said.
Travis hit a ball that Aggie just didn’t get
The NFL’s oldest player is going to try to break the league’s career scoring record.
If Adam Vinatieri gets his way http://www.packerscheapshoponline.com/chea...rnberger-jersey , it might not be the only record to fall.
On Thursday, the 45-year-old kicker signed a one-year deal to stay with the Indianapolis Colts – a deal he insists may not be his last.
Financial details were not immediately available, though the deal is believed to be in the neighborhood of last season’s $3 million salary. Vinatieri also noted during a conference call that he will receive a $250,000 bonus if he makes 88 percent of his field goal attempts next season after missing barely missing out on a bonus for making 90 percent in 2017.
But money isn’t the reason Vinatieri returned. He is playing well, wants to win and needs 58 points to surpass Morten Andersen as the league’s top scorer.
”I know 57, 58 points away is definitely within reach this year if I stay healthy and all that,” said Vinatieri, who has scored 2,487 points. ”I really wanted to break that record wearing a Colts helmet where I’ve played the majority of the years in my career now.”
Vinatieri made his intentions clear late last year that he wanted to play a 24th pro season and his preference was to stay in Indianapolis, where he has developed deep roots since joining the Colts as a free agent in 2006.
General manager Chris Ballard quickly let Vinatieri know the team wanted him back. The combination made Indy’s first major offseason move pretty simple.
”This process was substantially easier than it was maybe a couple years ago,” Vinatieri said. ”I know when Chris and I had conversations after the season I expressed to him how if everything was moving in the right direction and everything was going to get taken care of, how much I would like to be here and continue my career here. He expressed to me that he also wanted me to keep playing here. So the process was pretty easy.”
Vinatieri acknowledged hiring Frank Reich as the new coach also helped persuade him to come back.
Reich takes over a team that went 4-12 in 2017 and played without Andrew Luck the entire season. The quarterback is still rehabbing from surgery he had on his throwing shoulder 13 months ago.
The good news is Reich knows he can count on the best clutch kicker in league history.
Vinatieri earned his reputation by making two Super Bowl-winning kicks with the New England Patriots.
But his legacy runs much deeper. He won three Super Bowls with the Patriots, a fourth championship with the Colts after the 2006 season and nearly added a fifth despite finishing the 2009 season on injured reserve.
Patriot fans also remember Vinatieri for making two field goals in a driving snowstorm – one to force the overtime Dexter Williams Jersey , the other to win it – in the infamous ”Tuck Rule” playoff game that helped New England win its first Super Bowl title. He rekindled those images in December when he made a long extra point to help force overtime in a blizzard at Buffalo.
Vinatieri is the last active player from NFL Europe, and he has been around long enough to remind reporters he once tackled Herschel Walker.
But the Colts are more concerned with productivity than records and so far, they’ve seen no indication Vinatieri is slowing down.
”Adam is one the best players in NFL history and we are excited to keep him in Indianapolis,” Ballard said in a statement. ”He continues to play at a high level and his experience and production are valuable assets for our team. Adam is the consummate pro and a key leader in our locker room.”
He needs nine field goals to pass Gary Anderson for second all-time and 36 to break Andersen’s career record of 565.
If he sticks around a few more years, as he suggested he might, Vinatieri won’t just be chasing Anderson and Andersen.
He also would be within striking distance of surpassing George Blanda as the oldest player to ever play in the NFL at 48 years, 109 days. Vinatieri would break the mark if he plays in the 2021 season opener.
”Less concerned about that one,” Vinatieri said, chuckling. ”I guess I’ll take these one year at a time and see where it ends up. I would anticipate if I can stay healthy and be productive, I can anticipate catching up to Morten midseason or thereabout, and I guess at the end of the year I’d be 46. I’m not putting anything out of reach.”
Anibal Sanchez abruptly ended Atlanta’s season-long losing streak.
Sanchez pitched effectively into the seventh and Freddie Freeman added three hits, lifting the Atlanta Braves to a 5-1 win over the Milwaukee Brewers on Saturday.
”I know the potential for this team to be in the playoffs is really high,” Sanchez said. ”I’ve been in October games. I can bring a lot of things to October.”
Sanchez (4-2) retired 19 in a row at one point to help snap Atlanta’s season high four-game skid. The veteran right-hander exited with two outs in the seventh after being hit by a liner on his right side near his hip. A red welt was visible on his back Nick Bosa Jersey , but he said afterward he was fine.
”He never throws a pitch I don’t think that he doesn’t know where he wants to put it,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said.
Sanchez struck out six in a row at one point. But after two easy outs in the seventh, his day ended quickly following a walk to Hernan Perez.
Perez stole second, and Brad Miller’s line drive deflected off Sanchez and out of shortstop Dansby Swanson’s reach to cut Atlanta’s lead to 2-1.
Sanchez didn’t appear too shaken up – smiling and getting high fives from the Braves dugout after exiting. Reliever Dan Winkler came in and recorded the final out of the inning.
Sanchez allowed one run off two hits and a walk. He finished with eight strikeouts.
”It’s fun to be able to play behind that,” Swanson said. ”He’s been tremendous.”
WILKERSON’S WOES
Brewers spot starter Aaron Wilkerson’s tough day actually started on Friday.
His original flight was delayed after getting called up from Triple-A Colorado Springs, so he instead traveled from Colorado Springs to Houston then Chicago. He arrived in Milwaukee at 3:30 a.m. on Saturday.
”And, they lost my bags on the way,” he said. ”It was kind of a rough one. But, it’s not an excuse for anything.”
Wilkerson (0-1) had taken the rotation turn of Brent Suter, who went on the 10-day disabled list with left forearm tightness on Friday.
Johan Camargo’s two-run single off Wilkerson gave Atlanta the lead in the first. Wilkerson allowed two runs off four hits and three walks in five innings. He struck out five.
FLEET-FOOTED FREEMAN
Freeman and Nick Markakis added consecutive run-scoring triples in the eighth as Atlanta scored three times in the inning to put the game out of reach.
Freeman came into the game in a slump, batting .159 over his last 17 games before his three-hit performance.
”I’m starting to feel a little better,” Freeman said. ”I’m seeing pitches, not swinging at balls in the batter’s box. That helps.”
QUICK NICK
Sanchez benefited from a heads up defensive play from Markakis in right field in the first inning. With runners on first and second L.J. Collier Jersey , Travis Shaw flared a ball that should’ve loaded the bases.
Instead, Jesus Aguilar, at first, didn’t read the play quickly enough and Markakis fired a strike to Swanson at second base for the first of Sanchez’s 19 straight outs.
”Travis hit a ball that Aggie just didn’t get a good read on,” Brewers manager Craig Counsell said. ”That was our opportunity against Sanchez, for sure.”
Braves: Rookie LF Ronald Acuna Jr. was out of the lineup after leaving with left groin tightness on Friday night.
Brewers: CF Lorenzo Cain (left groin strain) is close to returning from the 10-day disabled list and could be activated as soon as Sunday. … LF Ryan Braun was a late scratch in the starting lineup with tightness in his right side, but pinch hit in the ninth. … RHP Jorge Lopez was recalled for the fifth time this year to provide pitching depth. Infielder Nate Orf was optioned to Triple-A Colorado Springs.
Braves: LHP Sean Newcomb (8-3, 3.10 ERA) looks to bounce back Sunday after allowing five runs without getting out of the third inning in an 8-5 loss to the Yankees on Tuesday. RHP Junior Guerra (5-5, 2.87) goes for Milwaukee and is holding opponents to a .217 average in 16 starts this year.
e [url=http://www.giantsauthorizedshops.com/authentic-d
Blue Jays fans gave New York Mets slugger Jose Bautista a standing ovation before his first at bat as a visiting player since leaving Toronto at the end of last season.
The two-time home run champion took off his helmet and acknowledged both the crowd and the Blue Jays dugout as fans rose for a prolonged ovation. Bautista drew a five-pitch walk and scored when Asdrubal Cabrera followed with a home run.
Before the game http://www.giantsauthorizedshops.com/authe...-slayton-jersey , Bautista drew another ovation at the end of a video tribute featuring highlights of his 10 seasons with the Blue Jays, including back-to-back ALCS appearances in 2015 and 2016.
The six-time All-Star exchanged warm embraces with several former Blue Jays teammates during batting practice and signed autographs for fans alongside New York’s first base dugout. Fans in right field rose to applaud Bautista as he took his position in the bottom of the first.
Bautista played 12 games for Atlanta in May and joined the Mets on May 22. He’s batting .250 with three homers and 13 RBIs in 36 games with New York.
The backup quarterback is a tough job in the NFL. You have to be a good guy and ready to jump in if the starter goes down and even longer if need be. It can be tricky as too many teams make the mistake of putting their hopes on the main starter and not realizing they need a good backup until it’s too late. Notably is that so many times Quinnen Williams Jersey , the backup takes over and ends up doing an even better job than anyone expected to the point that they become a much bigger star than the guy they were replacing. However, many other times http://www.jetsauthorizedshops.com/authent...i-polite-jersey , the backup shows why they’re the backup, not nearly as great on the field and the team suffers for it.It can be tricky as it’s well known how a guy great in college can falter in the pros and thus let his team down. But other cases can be a guy surprising by taking off better than anyone could have dreamed and becoming a starter themselves. Here are 8 backups who proved themselves top starters and 8 who couldn’t live up to that position to show how tricky it is in the NFL.
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Fundación Origen
School of Arts and Crafts
Under our mission of supporting initiatives that grant children and young adults access to integral education that focuses on a reflection on and care for the environment, we support Fundación Origen in the construction and implementation of the School of Arts and Crafts, a project that is a part of the Agroecological School of Pirque, whose educational approach is sustainable coexistance between children and the environment.
Fundación Origen seeks to revise present educational and developmental models to propose alternatives for future generations. Their vision stems from environmental issues in a world where shortages of food, water, and financial crises have left humanity in a state of uncertainty. A synthesized version of the problems at hand, as Fundación Origen sees them, are as follows: “Contemporary society has left many people adrift from development, generating immense distances and frustrations. Prejudices, exclusion of minorities (which in reality are a majority), and a lack of compassion for human suffering tend to be the root of the different expressions of violence resulting particularly in socially vulnerable sectors of the world and that in turn affect all of mankind.”
Fundación Origen’s Garden patch
Presided by Mary Anne Müller, Fundación Origen believes that beyond relieving symptoms, the key is to stop the causes: “We see for example how funds have been assigned to fight crime instead of seeking effective ways of inclusion through appropriate and hopeful according to the reality of each human being. We repeatedly hear about the fight against poverty, against drugs, and against violence and crime, yet these initiatives rarely consider a person’s inner world and complex context, which go beyond what statistics can show. We know that we are living in the decisive moment to act and stop the damage we are producing in our environment, but our egos and greed lead us to always place the responsibility on the others. Despite having many good intentions, the sum of our actions often perpetuate the conditions that cause the suffering of all beings.”
For this reason, as active members of society, the members of this foundation are committed to take responsibility in participating and proposing new forms of coexistence that can uproot the causes of the imbalances of our society. They seek to develop projects from equable reflections, from the real desire to end the suffering of all without exception, from the commitment to work and propose concrete actions for changes to take place, relying on the potential of each being to achieve it.
Fundación Mar Adentro joins this vision by supporting the School of Arts and Crafts, an extension of the Agroecological School of Pirque, whose educational approach is sustainable coexistence between children and the environment.
Fundación Origen’s New Farmers Market
Fundación Origen, organizing institution of the Agroecological School of Pirque, opens Mercado Campesino (Farmers Market), a fair trade area for products of small farmers using sustainable practices. The project is being developed jointly with INDAP, of the Ministry of Agriculture, within its program to support Family Agricultural Farming.
Education and Gender
The Resource Foundation (TRF), a non-profit based in New York that facilitates philanthropic donor activities to Latin America and the Caribbean, together with Fundación Origen of Pirque, conducted the "Gender and Education: Seeds for an Equitable Future" event held on April 14 between 3:00 and 6:00 pm in the Transoceánica Campus of Vitacura.
In our mission to support children and young people to access a comprehensive education, focused on reflection and care for the environment, we are supporting Fundación Origen in the construction and implementation of a School of Arts and Crafts, a project that is part of the Agroecological School of Pirque (Escuela Agroecológica de Pirque - EAP), whose educational approach is sustainable coexistence between children and the environment.
The Agroecological School of Pirque was created in 1991 by Mary Anne Müller to provide an inclusive education to vulnerable teenagers between 14 and 18 years who had been excluded from other schools. The model of the EAP has two pillars: education for peace and sustainable education, with an agroecological training that allows students to graduate with complete high school studies and a technical degree in sustainable agriculture.
In order to increase the employability possibilities of the young graduates and promote their entrepreneurship, a new school is being built within the EAP’s premises, dedicated to developing Arts and Crafts, which will train students from the EAP and external students. This new school will have two houses: one for the School of Ceramics and the other one for the School of Crafts.
The idea of the School is to provide concrete tools to students so that they may develop their talents and learn skills that will enable them to live with dignity, within different alternatives: ecobuilding, solar energy, plumbing, electricity, ceramics and now cooking through an alliance with chef Carlo Von Mühlenbrock, in which he will market the products made in the Foundation in his restaurant “Carlo cocina”.
The training provided by the School of Arts and Crafts seeks to:
Strengthen the young people’s employability through skills training;
Train future entrepreneurs to improve their present quality of life and income to continue their studies;
Offer ceramic workshops rescuing traditional techniques in order to create opportunities for young people with artistic talents;
Provide opportunities for inclusion and equity to young people and adults with learning difficulties.
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Berofsky, Gavrylyuk, Lipsky to open resident chamber music series
by Justin Kelly on June 29, 2018 422 views
Left to right: Alexander Gavrylyuk, Aaron Berofsky and Arie Lipsky
On Wednesday morning, the rain was coming down on Chautauqua Institution as three School of Music faculty members were setting up for rehearsal.
The mood might have been somber — in addition to the the weather, the trio was rehearsing Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Trio No. 2 in D minor, a tragic and mournful elegy for the death of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
Instead, the group was having quite a bit of fun.
“So sexy!” cried out cellist Arie Lipsky, when violinist Aaron Berofsky played a melodic passage with impressive delicacy.
“I’m the wise man, and he’s the beautiful girl,” Lipsky said with a laugh, again referring to Berofsky. The group, although having never performed together before, seemed to click immediately.
At 4 p.m. on Saturday, June 30, in Elizabeth S. Lenna Hall, the three School of Music School faculty members — Berofsky, Alexander Gavrylyuk and Lipsky — will perform Dmitri Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No. 1 in C minor, op. 8 and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Trio No. 2 in D minor, Trio élégiaque, as the first in the 2018 Chautauqua Chamber Music Resident Artist Series.
The two pieces on the program share many qualities — they’re both Russian trios written by 20th-century composers, they were written when the composers were very young, and they are rarely performed. In a sense, they both represent the last vestiges of Romanticism in western classical music.
Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No. 1, written when the composer was only 17, was the last Romantic piece he would ever produce, according to Berofsky. It contains many of the dry, sarcastic elements that Shostakovich would eventually become known for, but it also has tender, expressive moments in which the violin and cello sing their melodies over delicate harmonies from the piano.
Rachmaninoff also wrote his Piano Trio No. 2 at a young age — he was just 20. Rachmaninoff would go on to write much more music in a Romantic style, but many consider him to be the last great composer to do so.
“(Rachmaninoff) took after Tchaikovsky, who was probably one of the most melodic composers of the 19th century,” Lipsky said. “Rachmaninoff lived well into the 20th century, but his musical language stayed pretty much in the 19th century.”
That Tchaikovsky-steeped language is on wonderful display in this piano trio, which starts with a heart-breaking theme that reappears in different forms throughout the work. But in Berofsky’s opinion, it’s best not to think about themes and form at the concert — he advises not to engage with the piece too analytically.
“I don’t know that (the audience needs) something to be talked about before, to hold on to. I sense that it will just kind of wash over them,” Berofsky said. “And if you’re analyzing it too much, thinking too much left brain, I have a feeling you might get impatient because it’s just so broad and singing. But if you don’t do that, then it’s very beautiful.”
Tags : chautauqua institutionElizabeth S. Lenna Hallschool of music
Stamper dives into words’ origins, ‘irregardless’ of consequences
Feedback, concerns, questions to fuel strategic planning process, Hill shares in porch discussion
The author Justin Kelly
This is Justin’s first summer at Chautauqua, where he covers symphonic and chamber music. He grew up in Washington, D.C., attended Carnegie Mellon University and Manhattan School of Music, and now resides in Pittsburgh. Justin is a dedicated lover of live music, and he tries to attend as much of it as he possibly can.
NFMC Recitals to Spotlight Scholarship Recipients
School of Music Voice Students to Perform in Musically Diverse Concert
In First Open Recital, Music Students to Present Varied and ‘Majestic’ Works
First Student Voice Recital to Celebrate Schumanns’ and Brahms’ Music in Fletcher
‘Almost, Maine’ to warm hearts of theatergoers through staged reading by Friends of Chautauqua Theater Company
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CCM off to a flying start at Gatwick Airport
Corporate News, News
CCM’s experience in aviation has led to a new engagement with Gatwick Airport Ltd. Gatwick is going through a tremendous period of transformation as its passenger numbers continue to grow and the airport is investing £2 billion in its terminal buildings to enable future growth and improve the passenger experience. Our project manager on site, Jeremy Nicholls, describes his current assignment:
“Gatwick Airport is a fast-paced environment and with ongoing investment projects expected to continue for the next five to seven years, ‘transformation’ has become the buzz word at the airport. With continued record-breaking growth in passenger numbers, Gatwick’s growth strategy is a key focus and the combination of the investment in its terminal buildings and moving the location of its three major airline partners, so that they are operating out of the optimal positions for growth, will enable Gatwick to continue increasing passenger numbers while it waits to build a second runway. This means there is a lot of associated construction work underway, and my job is to support project workstream leads creating a structured framework for project delivery, especially with regard to tracking of key milestones which might affect the detailed timelines, which are so essential for the successful delivery of the entire programme. I work closely with the Commercial Workstream Lead in particular to ensure the planning of the construction programme of work is on track, facilitating workshops and managing the actions that result.”
The programme will deliver significant efficiencies for the airport and CCM look forward to supporting Gatwick with this exciting challenge.
If you’d like to know more about how CCM can support your business deliver your portfolio of change or a specific programme or project please contact enquiries@citychangemanagement.co.uk.
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Rieselfeld:Freiburg's other model sustainable community
In Geman, the word Rieselfeld means sewage farm, and this is the early history of an area of Freiburg that has been developed into another significant environmentally focused master-planned community.
Like Quartier Vauban, it too is located at the end of a tram line that runs through the centre of the community. I read that the plan is the result of an urban planning competition and the project is being carried out by a separate entity owned by the City of Freiburg.
Development began in the early 1990's and the overall plan calls for approximately 12,000 residents in 4200 apartments. (As an aside, this is comparable to the proposed size of the UniverCity community at SFU.) At the end of the main street, next to the transit loop, cows can be seen grazing.
In addition to the housing, the community offers a wide range of social, cultural and educational facilities.
When I was touring the community, one of the residents proudly pointed out a church next to the community centre that is half Protestant and half Catholic! While I liked the concept, I didn't like the raw concrete church design!
Nearly all of the housing is developed in three to six storey townhouse and apartment blocks. However, many of the buildings are quite small and I was told that small groups and cooperatives were invited to purchase land and develop projects. Unlike Vauban, I was told that cars are tolerated and indeed, are accommodated in surface lots, underground lots, and along streets.
I was interested to see the use of pervious pavers under these parking areas, a design feature we experimented with at UniverCity.
Some were very 'green', if you know what I mean! There is a mix of both market and non-market housing for sale and for rent. It's interesting to note that many more Germans are prepared to rent, rather than own, especially when compared to North Americans. I'll leave it up to you to determine which projects might be rental, and which might be ownership.
All of the buildings are required to meet stringent energy codes. There is a heavy focus on renewable energy (solar power and photovoltaics) a district heating system, and water conservation. As an aside, when I was telling a local developer about my visit to Germany, he mentioned that a German energy consultant had advised him that what was planned to become one of Vancouver's greenest buildings would not even meet current energy standards in Germany.
While I was there a large truck pulled up to a house and loaded something into the basement. It reminded me of the oil trucks that used to fill up the tanks of older homes. However, I looked on line and determined that this truck was delivering wood pellets. www.baden-pellet.de
The urban development concept attaches great importance to green spaces, playgrounds, open areas, as well as bicycle paths and traffic-calmed streets where children are encouraged to play. It was wonderful to see so many scooters and children's bicycles parked outside the kindergarten and schools.
As I wandered around the community I discovered a number of very interesting projects and design features. Many of the buildings featured prominent glass walled stairwells, something we used to do in our older walk-up apartments. Perhaps this is a feature we should re-invent.
One new building had a facade that incorporated a curviliear metal tube and wire mesh with vines planted at the base. It is expected that it will soon will be covered with greenery. In looking at it, I can't help but think it's one of the non-market developments, rather than a market project. Hopefully someone will let me know if I am wrong!
I was intrigued by another building with photographs of people attached to the balconies. I wondered if they were residents, but was subsequently told they were all the workers who helped build the project. Again, I suspect this is non-market housing! But I could be wrong. There is no doubt that the Germans are much more adventurous when it comes to building design and concept.
Both Vauban and Rieselfeld offer many lessons for Vancouver. These include community plans designed around a transit spine; higher density but predominantly low and mid-rise building forms built from lot-line to lot-line; very high energy standards; and an overall pedestrian character. I also liked some of the more adventurous architecture although I still wonder about that raw concrete church prominently sited along the main street. It certainly isn't as beautiful as some of the other churches I visted during my four week tour of Germany!
Vauban: Freiburg's first model sustainable community
Vauban is a new neighbourhood of 5,000 residents and 600 jobs 4 km to the south of the Freiburg town center. It was built as model sustainable community starting 20 years ago on the site of a former French military base. http://www.vauban.de/info/abstract.html
The community is connected to the city center by a tram, and is laid out linearly along the tracks so that all homes are within easy walking distance of a tram stop. Transportation is primarily by foot or bicycle. I was told approximately 75% of the households had chosen to live without a private car.
Most of Vauban's residential streets are described as stellplatzfrei - literally "free from parking spaces". Vehicles are allowed down these streets at walking pace to pick up and deliver but not to park, although I saw cars parked in many areas.
Each year, households are required to sign a declaration stating either that they do not own a car, or if they do, they must buy a space in one of the multi-storey Solar Garages on the periphery of the community.
All houses are built to a low energy standard, with 100 units designed to a Passive House standard. Many buildings are heated by a 'power station' burning wood chips, while many of the buildings have solar collectors or photovoltaic cells.
The Sun Ship is a large integrated office/retail building designed by architect Rolf Disch and located on the main street leading into the community.
Behind it is the Solar Settlement. It claims to be the first housing community in the world in which all the homes produce a positive energy balance. The solar energy surplus is then sold back into the city's grid for a profit on every home.
http://www.rolfdisch.de/files/pdf/BROSCHUERE_DAS_SONNENSCHIFF-englisch.pdf
http://www.eco-question.com/the-solar-settlement-in-freiburg-by-rolf-disch-solar-architecture
Also by the entrance was the recently completed Green City Hotel and an adjacent housing complex.
Wandering around the community it felt like an urban, high density version of Hornby Island! Some of wood-clad buildings were fading, while many others were surrounded with greenery, much of which was growing up the walls.
I particularly liked the use of colour and streets that were named after significant figures in the city's history who had similar sensibilities to those who planned the community.
With its green roofs, overgrown greenery, the place had a very natural, but unkempt look about it. Sadly, there was a surprising amount of graffiti, considering this was planned as a very communal development with presumably a high level of community pride.
As for who lives there, I was told that there is a mix of market and non-market housing with quite a few of the developments built cooperatively. There appeared to be a large number of children, as evidenced by the many playgrounds, and children's bikes parked outside a school. I suspect the people I saw riding around were probably quite typical of the majority of the residents.
While I thought the place could do with a good tidying up, there is no doubt that this is a very interesting experiment that appeals to a certain segment of the population. In reading about the community on-line, I came across a comment from one resident who claimed that when she asked a taxi driver to take her home to Vauban he commented that he was surprised to see such a normal person living there!
Postscript: Adjacent to the older part of Vauban I came across a number of colourful buildings still under construction and an attractive retail building with a large bicycle shop/repair facility. While I'm not sure they are part of the community, I found their designs very appealing and am posting some pictures, while I attempt to verify with a contact in Freiburg whether this is in fact part of a later phase. of the community.
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Golf in Schools tallies 66 adoptions during Adopt a School Week
Golf Canada is proud to celebrate the 66 adoptions that occurred during Adopt a School Week thanks to the efforts of golf enthusiasts and industry partners across the country.
In total, the figure translates to an additional 7,920 students being introduced to the sport through the Future Links, driven by Acura Golf in Schools program. The coast-to-coast campaign was elevated by support from Canadian industry partners—the Provincial Associations, PGA of Canada, the National Golf Course Owners Association (NGCOA), Canadian Society of Club Managers and Canadian Golf Superintendents Association.
A matching program for the first 30 adoptions was made possible by the Canadian Seniors Golf Association, who continue to be a leader in supporting Adopt a School Week. In the campaign’s four years of running, the CSGA has helped to adopt over 100 schools in Canadian communities from coast-to-coast.
Since the program’s inception in 2009, adoptions have accounted for close to 50% of over 3,800 registered schools delivering the curriculum. For Jeff Thompson, Golf Canada’s chief sport officer, that number presents a great opportunity to build community relationships.
“The vision is to help establish a connection between golf facilities and schools in respective communities across Canada through the Golf in Schools program,” said Thompson. “Nurturing these relationships will enhance the delivery of the program and build a connection that will last for many years to come.”
CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT GOLF IN SCHOOLS.
Seven Canadian Golfers in the hunt at NCAA Division I Women’s Regionals
GOLF CANADA FOUNDATION © 2019
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Democratic lawmaker says he will seek to force impeachment vote
Home World Sudanese forces storm barricades at sit-in demo
Sudanese forces storm barricades at sit-in demo
Sudanese soldiers wearing Rapid Security Forces uniforms stormed barricades at the site of the demonstrations outside army headquarters on Wednesday, eyewitnesses told CNN.
Gunfire could be heard, they said.
In a Facebook post, the opposition Central Committee of Sudan Doctors said that 14 people were wounded, including eight who had gunshot wounds.
The Transitional Military Council (TMC), which has held power since Bashir’s arrest last month, had no immediate comment. It was unclear who may have been responsible for the death.
The number of demonstrators has swelled at the site of the sit-in over recent days, becoming a point of contention for security forces as the location is just over half a kilometer (around 0.3 miles) from the presidential palace.
On Monday, at a different site, unidentified attackers opened fire on another group of seated demonstrators.
The TMC said a military police officer was killed and a “large number” of protesters injured, attributing that shooting to groups seeking to undermine “the goals of the revolution.”
The opposition Central Committee of Sudan Doctors said at least six people were shot dead Monday, though the group did not specify whether all of them were killed in Khartoum or under what circumstances. On its Twitter page, state media outlet SUNA reported that three of those injured in the shooting were members of the armed forces.
Earlier Wednesday, the TMC and the opposition agreed to a transition period of three years at a joint press conference, with a final agreement on the transition expected to be reached within 24 hours.
The first six months of the interim period will be allocated to signing peace agreements and “halting the war across the country,” according SUNA.
The uprising
In April, after three decades in power, Bashir was arrested and forced from his position in a military coup. His removal came amid a popular uprising against his rule that saw thousands take to the streets across the northeastern African country.
The protests first began in late 2018 over the rising costs of living, and escalated into a push for Bashir’s removal from office, with mass rallies and sit-ins outside the presidential compound and army headquarters. Bashir responded with a crackdown that led to scores of civilian deaths.
He and several other former members of his regime are being detained in the Kober maximum-security prison, which was notorious for holding political prisoners during his dictatorship.
On Monday, Sudan’s Public Prosecutor Office instructed expedited charges to be brought against Bashir in the killing of protesters, according to a statement released to CNN.
“The Public Prosecutor’s Office has charged former President Omar al-Bashir and others with incitement and criminal complicity in the killing of demonstrators in recent events,” it said.
Bashir also faces five counts of crimes against humanity and two counts of war crimes at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, in connection with Sudanese military actions in Darfur between 2003 and 2008.
Sudan’s military has previously said that it would prosecute Bashir, but would not extradite him.
CNN’s Kara Fox and Hira Humayun contributed to this report.
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ICVS Staff
Dr. Wei Wei Yang, Veterinarian and Principal Clinical Pathologist
Before that, Dr. Yang worked at the Beijing Municipality’s Diagnostic Laboratory for over 20-years where she was in charge of the culture laboratory and supervised the laboratory technicians. Dr. Yang is also a seasoned practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine and veterinary acupuncture. Dr. Yang has extensive veterinary experience with small animals and has been serving the expatriate community in North China for more than a decade. Her vast experience in the care of dogs and cats and small companion animals has been invaluable to the pet-owning community. Dr. Yang is a native Mandarin speaker.
Jennifer Repac, DVM, Foreign Consultant Veterinarian
A California native, Dr. Jennifer Repac received a Bachelor of Science degree from University of California Berkeley in Molecular Environmental Biology. She continued her studies at the University of California Davis and received a Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine. A graduate of the Chi Institute in Florida, USA with a degree in veterinary acupuncture, Dr. Repac is currently completing a degree in veterinary herbology. Her other professional interests include exotic animal medicine, food medicine, and surgery.
Dr. Repac learned valuable experiences during her childhood as the owner of a dog with allergies. Regular visits with her Collie to the veterinary dermatologist inspired her to become a veterinarian and has given her a soft spot for chronically itchy dogs. Today, Dr. Repac’s “pack” consists of an 8-year old Chihuahua and a 7-year old Corgi mix.
Dr. Repac has spent the last 4 years practicing in New York City and is now ready for her next big adventure in Beijing! She has visited Beijing previously and is excited about being back and getting in touch with her Chinese heritage.
Chun Yan Sun, BVSc, MVSc
Dr. Sun has been in clinical practice as a small animal veterinarian since 2001. Dr. Sun has significant expertise in surgery, dentistry and internal medicine. Her medical research has focused in internal medicine, disease diagnostics and the effects of anesthesia on companion animals. Dr. Sun has also worked extensively with wildlife on a deer sanctuary in North East China, helping with difficult births to deliver foals by caesarean. Dr. Sun graduated with honors from Northeast Agricultural College where she received her Bachelor of Veterinary Science degree. Dr. Sun received a Master of Veterinary Science degree from Yunnan Agricultural University.
Dr. Sun completed the AO Foundation's AOVET Principles in Small Animal Fracture Management program in 2012, taught by Dr. Amy Kapatkin and distinguished veterinary orthopedic surgeons from the USA, Italy, UK and Sweden. Dr. Sun's professional interests include critical care, dentistry, internal medicine and orthopedic surgeries. A native of Mudanjiang, Heilongjiang province, Dr. Sun speaks Mandarin and English. In her leisure time, Dr. Sun enjoys sports and travel.
Bridget Fitzpatrick, DVM, Foreign Consultant Veterinarian
Dr. Bridget Fitzpatrick is an American foreign consultant veterinarian participating in the Veterinary Learning Exchange Program at ICVS. Originally from Maryland, Dr. Fitzpatrick has lived in many of the states in the Eastern United States. Dr. Fitzpatrick received a B.S. from the University of Maryland and obtained her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree at Tuskegee University in Alabama. Dr. Fitzpatrick is an experienced veterinarian with special clinical interests in feline, avian and exotics medicine and surgery (e.g., rabbits, ferrets, possums, chinchillas, guinea pigs, hamsters, birds, turtles, lizards, snakes and other reptiles). While serving the Amish community in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Dr. Fitzpatrick was part of the veterinary medical team caring for a troupe of animal actors, including skunks, macaws, giraffes and donkeys, that formed the cast of “Noah’s Ark,” a live play performed each Christmas. In addition to having worked at full service animal hospitals and small animal, avian and exotics specialty practices in the U.S., Dr. Fitzpatrick has also worked at several poultry disease laboratories, including those under the United States Department of Agriculture and at several wild bird study facilities, such as the International Crane Foundation. Her practice philosophy is to thoroughly evaluate each patient, clearly communicate with owners, and advocate for the best care for each patient. While in the U.S. she shares her home with a playful cat and two boisterous cockatiels. In her free time she enjoys social swing dance, reading, and creating lots of messy dishes, countertops, and floors in her cooking attempts.
Fang Wu, BVSc
Dr. Wu graduated from An Hui Agricultural College and has practiced as a licensed veterinarian in Shenzhen and Beijing. Dr. Wu’s professional interests include integrative medicine, acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine (TCVM), canine and feline geriatric medicine and nutrition science for puppies and kittens. Dr. Wu also has strong interest in small animal imaging studies and small animal heart disease.
During her leisure time, Dr. Wu enjoys reading and shopping and always returns from shopping trips with treats for the rescued and adoptable animals at ICVS.
Ming Jun Cui, BVSc, MVSc (Expected 2014)
Having grown up with birds, fish, rabbits, dogs and cats, Dr. Cui knew at a very early age that he would become a veterinarian. He received his Bachelor of Veterinary Science (BVSc) degree from the College of Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences from Jia Mu Si University in Heilongjiang Province. Dr. Cui’s professional interests include orthopedics, radiology and ultrasonography. Dr. Cui is a candidate for a Master’s Degree in Veterinary Science (MVSc) at the China Agricultural University and is completing a dissertation in small animal anesthesiology.
Dr. Cui has extensive surgery and anesthesiology experience in the treatment of dogs and cats and small mammals including rabbits, chinchillas, hamsters and rodents. Dr. Cui is a Trap-Neuter-Return advocate and educator and cares for several cat colonies in Beijing. In his spare time, Dr. Cui enjoys traveling, photography and cooking. Dr. Cui is a talented cook and often acts as “Executive Chef” at ICVS company cookouts. Dr. Cui is a native of Heilongjiang Province and speaks Mandarin and English.
Dr. Zenithson Ng, DVM, Foreign Consultant Veterinarian
Dr. Zenithson Ng is very excited to join the ICVS team as a foreign veterinary consultant. Born and raised in northern New Jersey of the United States, he has known his entire life that his calling was to become a veterinarian. Dr. Ng received his Bachelor’s of Science degree from Rutgers University with a major in animal science and minor in equine science. He earned his Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) degree from Cornell University and completed a rotating internship in small animal medicine and surgery at the Bergh Memorial Animal Hospital of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) in New York City. Dedicating his life to improving animal and human health, Dr. Ng has worked with a wide variety of animals in many different settings. He has conducted research in equine exercise physiology, reproductive neurophysiology, circadian behavior, pet identification, and veterinary communications. He also has a special interest in the dynamic relationship between humans and animals and the healing power of pets, which has given him the opportunity to work for nonprofit organizations committed to providing for the special needs of underprivileged, immunocompromised, and disabled people and their pets. Dr. Ng has worked with the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) Governmental Relations Division, delving into legislation and policy regarding veterinary medicine in Washington, DC. He is a certified equine massage therapist and has lectured and developed practical teaching seminars regarding llama, alpaca, and swine health and husbandry. Aside from his focus on the human-animal bond, animal assisted therapy, and communications, Dr. Ng’s professional interests include internal medicine, oncology, preventive health, and shelter medicine. He enjoys the beach, water sports, horseback riding, exploring new cities, and baked goods. Dr, Ng misses his friends and family at home but is thrilled to be in China, exchanging knowledge and skills to further improve veterinary medicine on a global scale.
Dr. Madeleine Tremblay, VMD, Foreign Consultant Veterinarian
Dr. Tremblay first came to China in 1998 and is one of the earliest western-trained veterinarians to be based in Beijing. Prior to joining ICVS as a Foreign Consultant Veterinarian in 2007, Dr. Tremblay practiced veterinary medicine in Montreal, St. Maarten Island and in Beijing at the San Yuan Veterinary Clinic. She has extensive experience with cats and dogs and has also treated exotics (e.g., birds, reptiles, etc.) and zoo animals. Dr. Tremblay has been serving both the international and local community of pets and their owners in China for nearly a decade and continues to provide treatments, surgeries and hospitalizations at ICVS. Dr. Tremblay is a member of the Quebec Veterinarian Association (OMVQ) and received her Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree from the University of Montreal, Quebec, Canada (1990). Dr. Tremblay is a native French speaker, fluent English speaker and is conversant in Mandarin.
Dr. Yuan Fang Wu (Jessica Wu), Veterinarian, BVSc
Dr. Wu joined the International Center for Veterinary Services as a veterinarian in 2006. Prior to joining ICVS, Dr. Wu was a veterinarian resident at the Animal Hospital of the China Agricultural University in Beijing. Dr. Wu is a trained veterinary surgeon with special interests in internal medicine, dentistry, radiology, anesthesiology and ultrasonography. She is currently pursing advanced training in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and veterinary acupuncture. Dr. Wu graduated with honors from the China Agricultural University Faculty of Veterinary Medicine where she received her Bachelor’s of Veterinary Science degree. A native of Chongqing, Sichuan province, Dr. Wu speaks Mandarin, Sichuan dialect and English. In her leisure time, Dr. Wu enjoys travel, films, music and good food.
Dr. Bo Li, Veterinarian, BVSc, MVSc
Dr. Li joined the International Center for Veterinary Services as a veterinarian in 2007. Prior to joining ICVS, Dr. Li spent more than 7-years working as a small animal veterinary surgeon in Beijing. Dr. Li has significant expertise in internal medicine,soft tissue and orthopedic surgeries, dentistry, laboratory diagnostics and radiography. Dr. Li specializes in infectious diseases (e.g., feline and canine distemper, parvovirus, respiratory illnesses, etc.), skin diseases and other animal diseases commonly seen in China. Dr. Li graduated with honors from the Beijing Agricultural College Faculty of Veterinary Medicine where he received his Bachelor’s of Veterinary Science degree. Dr. Li is a candidate for the Master’s of Veterinary Science degree from China Agricultural University. A native of Beijing, Dr. Li speaks native Mandarin and fluent English. During his leisure time Dr. Li enjoys sports, films, reading and travel.
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Huddersfield Astronomical Society
Astronomy Resources
FAS Newsletters
ESA Top News
The Night Sky This Month
Observing Conditions
Star Party Information
Observatory Open Nights
Photos by Members
Eagle Aurora over Norway
The Eagle Rises
Magellanic Galaxy NGC 55
The Ghost of Jupiter s Halo
4000 Exoplanets
Gaia’s biggest operation since launch and commissioning
ESA Top News - 4 hours 38 min ago
On Tuesday 16 July, teams at ESA’s mission control will perform an ‘orbit change manoeuvre’ on the Gaia space observatory – the biggest operation since the spacecraft was launched in 2013.
Space Science Image of the Week: ESA’s SMART-1 spacecraft captured this view of a lunar eclipse on its way to the Moon in 2004
APOD - 11 hours 38 min ago
What's that in the sky?
Get out your
Irregular galaxy NGC 55 is thought to be similar to the Large Magellanic
Over 4000 planets are now known to exist outside our Solar System.
What do birds do during a total solar eclipse?
The Space Station Crosses a Spotless Sun
APOD - Sun, 14/07/2019 - 06:00
What's happening at the center of our galaxy?
Crescent Saturn
APOD - Sat, 13/07/2019 - 17:00
Saturn never shows a crescent phase -- from Earth.
8 Minute and 30 Second Eclipse
APOD - Fri, 12/07/2019 - 15:00
The total phase of the
Week in images
ESA Top News - Fri, 12/07/2019 - 14:10
Our week through the lens:
8 - 12 July 2019
In this week's edition, explore Mount Fuji, Japan's highest mountain, with Copernicus Sentinel-2
Earth observation image of the week: Copernicus Sentinel-2 takes us over the snow-capped Mount Fuji in Japan
Using satellite information to help rebuild after a disaster
ESA and the Asian Development Bank have joined forces to help the Indonesian government use satellite information to guide the redevelopment following the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the provincial capital of Palu and surroundings last year.
The night sky for July 2019
The Night Sky This Month - Thu, 11/07/2019 - 21:30
Ian Morison tells us what we can see in the Northern Hemisphere night sky during July 2019.
Jupiter, shining initially at magnitude -2.6 and falling to -2.4, reached opposition on June 10th and is thus visible towards the south as darkness falls. Its angular size drops slightly from 45.5 to 43 arc seconds as the month progresses. Jupiter, in the southern part of Ophiuchus, is moving westwards in retrograde motion so moving towards Antares in Scorpius and will lie some 7 degrees up and to its left by month's end. A highlight gives the times when the Great Red Spot faces the Earth. Sadly it is heading towards the southernmost part of the ecliptic so, as it crosses the meridian, it will only have an elevation of ~14 degrees (From central UK). Atmospheric dispersion will thus take its toll and an atmospheric dispersion corrector would greatly help to improve our views of the giant planet.
Saturn comes into oppositions on July 9th shining at magnitude +0.1 during the month so crosses the meridian around 1 am BST. Its disk is ~18 arc seconds across and its rings - which are still nicely tilted from the line of sight - spanning some 42 arc seconds across. Sadly, now in Sagittarius and lying on the southern side of the milky way, it is at the lowest point of the ecliptic and will only reach an elevation of ~14 degrees. As with Jupiter, an atmospheric dispersion corrector will help improve our view.
Mercury might just be seen low in the west-northwest after sunset in the first few days of the month with a magnitude of 1.1 and an angular size of 9.4 arc seconds. To spot it, one will need a very low horizon and binoculars could well be needed to reduce the Sun's background glare, but please do not use them until after the Sun has set.
Mars remains at magnitude +1.8 all month and is still just visible low in the west-northwest after sunset. Mars crosses Cancer during the month and passes into Leo on the 29th. Mars sets some one hour after the Sun at the start of July (with an elevation at sunset of ~9 degrees) but less than half an hour by month's end - when it will be very difficult to spot. Its angular size falls from 3.7 to 3.5 arc seconds during the month so one will not be able to spot any details on its salmon-pink surface. Binoculars could well be needed to reduce the Sun's background glare, but please do not use them until after the Sun has set.
Venus with a magnitude of -3.9 rises less than one hour before the Sun at the start of the month with an angular size of 9.7 arc seconds but will be lost from our view around the 18th. Its elevation is only ~4 degrees at sunrise so a very low horizon just north of east is required and binoculars may well be needed to spot it through the Sun's glare - but please do not use them after the Sun has risen.
Early July: A very good time to spot Noctilucent Clouds! Noctilucent clouds, also known as polar mesospheric clouds, are most commonly seen in the deep twilight towards the north from our latitude. They are the highest clouds in the atmosphere at heights of around 80 km or 50 miles. Normally too faint to be seen, they are visible when illuminated by sunlight from below the northern horizon whilst the lower parts of the atmosphere are in shadow. They are not fully understood and are increasing in frequency, brightness and extent; some think that this might be due to climate change! So on a clear dark night as light is draining from the north western sky long after sunset take a look towards the north and you might just spot them!
July - Find the globular cluster in Hercules and spot the "Double-double" in Lyra. There are two very nice objects to spot with binoculars in the south-eastern sky well after dark this month. Two thirds of the way up the right hand side of the 4 stars that make up the "keystone" in the constellation Hercules is M13, the best globular cluster visible in the northern sky. Just to the left of the bright star Vega in Lyra is the multiple star system Epsilon Lyrae often called the double-double. With binoculars a binary star is seen but, when observed with a telescope, each of these two stars is revealed to be a double star - hence the name!
July 1st - before dawn: Venus and a crescent Moon. Given a very low horizon looking towards the northeast before dawn one should, if clear, be able to spot Venus lying over to the left of a very thin waning crescent Moon.
July 13th - late evening: Jupiter near the Moon. In the late evening towards the south, Jupiter will be seen down to the lower right of the Moon, two days before full.
July 15th - around midnight: Saturn and the Moon. Looking south around midnight, Saturn will be seen over to the left of the Moon one day before full.
July 16th - after sunset: a partial eclipse of the Moon. Looking low in the southeast after sunset we might, if clear, be able to observe a partially eclipsed Moon. The partial eclipse will end around midnight BST.
July 28th - before dawn: a crescent waning Moon and the Hyades Cluster. Before dawn on the 28th, a very thin crescent Moon will be seen to the left of the Hyades Cluster.
Haritina Mogosanu and Samuel Leske from the Carter Science Centre in New Zealand speaks about the Southern Hemisphere night sky during July 2019.
A bit about July
Welcome to our Latin section, which I am a big fan of as it's about the only thing that I can pronounce properly and without having to twist my tongue.
July was the month when the Roman general and leader Julius Caesar was born and after he died the Roman Senate renamed Quintilis, the fifth month of the 10-month calendar into what today is July but of course it was not pronounced July but Iulius.
July is the second month of winter in the Southern Hemisphere and obviously the second month of summer in the Northern Hemisphere. It's also the month where traditionally the government's financial year starts here in New Zealand. Not just the government experiences new beginnings but also we must add that end of June or July is when we observe the Maori New Year - Matariki.
This is observed according to a lunar calendar, called Maramataka during the last quarter of the Moon that occurs after the solstice. We have a special guest today, Katie Paul from Rotorua who is a great friend of ours for all celestial events happening in Rotorua as well as for astrobiology. Katie is going to tell us a little bit about what Matariki as a New Year observance means for her and her people.
We also get fireworks here in Wellington during Matariki. We wrote more in depth about when is Matariki or where to find Matariki/the Pleiades in the sky during this time of the year so check out our other posts. This time of the year is significant both in the evening/night and in the morning - usually we only discuss the evening or night sky.
What's the Sun up to?
The Sun rises around 7:50AM at the beginning of the month and 7:30AM at the end and sets from around 5:00PM at the beginning of the month to 5:20PM towards the end of it. The beautiful and long nights continue to enthrall us in July and the view to the Milky Way is the best. In July, the Sun transits the zodiacal constellations of the Gemini, switching to Cancer on the 22nd of July.
This must be the best month of the year here in New Zealand in terms of stargazing as we can see the centre of our galaxy, all night long. Starting from the evening, when is rising in the south-east, the core of the Milky Way reaches meridian around 10PM and then sets in the west just before sunrise. With the centre of the galaxy come more stars, as we are looking towards the rotational centre of the Milky Way. The centre of our galaxy is in the direction of Sagittarius, Ophiuchus and Scorpius and lies at about 26,500 light years away from us. It is spectacular to think that we are actually looking in the direction of the radios ource Sagittarius A, which is in lay words the name for the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy. At 4 million times more massive than our Sun, Sagittarius A is not visible to the naked eye and what we know about it comes from observations in gamma rays, infrared and radio wavelengths.
In fact, most of the centre of the galaxy line of sight is covered in dust which is visible in the form of dark bands - they show up best in wide field photographs of the Milky Way. There's one tiny opening through this dust, of about one degree, which is known as Baade's Window, named after astronomer Walter Baade who observed it in the 1940s from Mount Wilson taking advantage of the city blackout during the war.
The dust makes interesting shapes against the light that comes from the stars in the disk of the Milky Way and people around the world and throughout times imagined many creatures that inhabit our galaxy. A great example is the Emu that our neighbours, the Aboriginal Australians placed across the Milky Way, that is as big as the galaxy.
Another example of dark creatures in the sky but on a smaller scale is the famous Prancing Horse nebula, which observed from the Northern Hemisphere does look like a horse. It also looks like a pipe or a donkey and of course, taking a huge leap all the way to the Southern Hemisphere, where everything in the sky looks upside down to what we see in the northern hemisphere, we have here a kiwi bird checking out the centre of the Galaxy.
Kiwis are nocturnal birds, endemic to New Zealand, they feed with insects in the forest and they are an endangered species. The closest relative of the Kiwibird is the elephant bird from Madagascar. Warm blooded mammals such as cats, dogs, possums, all that was introduced in New Zealand are main predators for the kiwibird but they can also die from the loss of the habitat and worse of all, you're not going to like this, humans were the worst threat. I'm saying 'were' because there are now continuous efforts from the department of conservation to bring back the numbers. But one thing is certain, the kiwibird is one of the symbols of New Zealand and is the most loved bird here. And how amazing that is even embedded in the night sky - this bird that can only be seen active at night, how fitting that there's a kiwi bird at the centre of our galaxy.
The Milky Way Kiwi
A matter of perspective and of course coincidences, as you have to know what a kiwi bird is, led to the realisation that if you turn the horse upside-down you get a kiwibird. Ian Cooper, one of the first New Zealand's film astrophotographers told us how twenty five years ago, someone came up with the name. "It was during the height of film in astrophotography and before the rise of the internet, so it was a 'slow burner' as they say. It is thought that some 'independently' discovered the little bird more recently and got all excited understandably. It is a pity that we don't know who first coined the name "Milky Way Kiwi," but that is how it was in the olden days when I was young."
Milky Way Kiwi is useful for when explaining where is Sagittarius A, as it's visually somehow on top of its head, just like a diamond on a crown.
Other birds in July
The birds in the sky this month are: The Milky Way Kiwi obviously, but also some proper constellations such as Corvus, Cygnus the swan also known as the Northern Cross, in the sky around midnight. Another northern flying bird is Aquila the eagle, rising just after 8PM . On the southern horizon is the Dove, Columba inbetween the Dog star, Sirius and the Cat star, Canopus. Delicate and rich in optical double stars that we can see with the naked eye, Grus the Crane, is another bird-constellation laying now on the South Eastern Horizon. And as much as I don't like them, Musca, the Fly also qualifies for a flying constellation. Near the southern cross, Musca looks like a small polygon. Near Musca, Apus, the bird of paradise's name literally means "no feet" in Greek, as it was once wrongly believed that the birds of paradise lack feet. Apus is pointing straight at Pavo the peacock, that is flaunting its feathers all over the south celestial circle. Next to Pavo, is Toucana, near the Small Magellanic Cloud (NGC 292). Toucana is neighbouring Grus on one side and the Phoenix, on the other side. Since Herodotus, the Greek historian, the bird of Phoenix was associated with the Sun, a phoenix obtains new life by arising from the ashes of its predecessor and it can live for 1400 years at the time. And there is also a flying fish: Volans. It's tail is pointing at the Large Magellanic Cloud and it's head is half way through between Miaplacidus and Avior in Carina. And last but not least, I don't know for sure if Unicorns can fly but I'm mentioning here just in case: the elusive Monoceros, the unicorn, just in case. It is between Sirius and Orion and its stars are so faint that I have always just barely made the shape of it. Monoceros is visible on the morning sky.
Bright stars in the Milky Way
Starting from the West and looking south after sunset is Sirius very low on the horizon then Canopus (which is not really in the Milky Way but is not far from it either) then following the Milky Way to the south are Suhail al Muhlif and Avior in Vela. High in the sky is the Southern Cross, which around mid-July and after sunset is at its highest position on the circumpolar zone. Alpha and Beta Centauri are to the left of the Southern Cross and on the south eastern horizon close to the centre of the Milky Way are Antares and Shaula in Scorpius, Nunki in Sagittarius and last but not least, after 10PM, Altair and Vega are just grazing the northern horizon.
Orion and Scorpius
Orion is both on the western horizon at sunset, the three stars of its belt plunging vertically into the ocean, Rigel to the left and Betelgeuse to the right touch down almost at the same time and Saiph is the last to sink. Then in the morning sky, will rise around 6AM, Rigel first, which here is known as Puanga or Puaka then the belt and last to appear is Betelgeuse. The heliacal rising of Puanga is the alternative to observing the Maori New Year as due to the mountain ridge to the east in the Taranaki region the Pleiades are too low in the sky.
Bright stars on the ecliptic
Nothing changed from last month, the same bright stars are on the ecliptic: Regulus from Leo (which is extremely close to the ecliptic) then Spica, the blue giant in Virgo, Zubenelgenubi, another star grazing the ecliptic and Zubeneschamali just beneath it. Zubenelgenubi means the northern claw and Zubeneschamali the southern claw, alluding to these two stars that have been the claws of Scorpius before they were chopped off and turned into the current constellation of Libra. They are followed by Antares in Scorpius which is both on the ecliptic and in the Milky Way, this is roughly where the planes of the two intersect.
Circumpolar Objects to New Zealand
The beautiful Southern Cross and the pointers are high in the sky. Gacrux and Acrux are crossing the meridian around 10 PM at the beginning of the month and just after 8PM at the end of it. Omega Centauri is in a great position to observe, as well as Musca, Vela, Carina and their Diamond Cross, and False Cross and the Large Magellanic Cloud and its Tarantula Nebula.
Deep Sky Objects in July
Close to the area south of the triangle that marks Leo's hips…M65, M66 and NGC 3628, which will be visible depending on the size of your binoculars they are also known as the "Leo Triplet". Also in Leo, M105 is an elliptical galaxy. Last but not least M96 another galaxy in Leo lies at about 35 million light years away.
Notable deep sky objects in Virgo include the bright galaxies Messier 49, Messier 58, Messier 59, Messier 60, and Messier 87, the Sombrero Galaxy (M104), the Eyes Galaxies, the Siamese Twins, and the quasar 3C 273.
Virgo has 11 Messier objects so you are in for a treat with this constellation. You can get a map and look for all these objects. Or, if everything else fails, simply take your binoculars and swipe the Milky Way from one edge to the other. You might not figure out exactly which objects you are looking at but you would definitely find amazing sights, especially in the region close to Carina. You will find there IC2602, NGC3114, NGC353, NGC2516 that are all open clusters then in Crux NGC4755 which is another open cluster, NGC2451 in Puppis and IC2391 in Vela.
Lower down, Omega Centauri, is a globular cluster in Centaurus. In Scorpius there are the Butterfly Cluster, M7 open cluster and NGC6231 open cluster.
Jupiter is in the sky just after sunset followed by Saturn two hours later and they are regal to watch so sharpen your telescopes.
Vega Flight VV15 failure: Arianespace and ESA appoint an independent inquiry commission
ESA Top News - Thu, 11/07/2019 - 16:58
Arianespace announced today, 11 July, 2019, the failure of Flight VV15 carrying the FalconEye1 satellite. This was the first Vega failure after 14 successful launches in a row since being introduced at the Guiana Space Center in French Guiana in 2012.
La Silla Eclipse Sequence
APOD - Thu, 11/07/2019 - 13:00
The road to the high mountaintop
Flight VV15: Mission failure
Approximately two minutes after the Vega launcher’s liftoff from the Spaceport in French Guiana, a launcher anomaly occurred shortly after ignition of the Zefiro 23 second stage – leading to the premature end of the mission.
Tweets by @huddastro
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United Way thanks community, luncheon March 14
Posted: Friday, February 23, 2018
The United Way of Huntington County is nearing the conclusion of its 2017 campaign. The organization is close to reaching its goal of raising $578,000 to invest in education, health & wellness, and financial stability in Huntington County.
The 2017 Campaign Chair Adam Fusselman says, “It was an honor to serve as the chair for this year’s campaign. It was amazing to see the generosity from everyone in the community that gave of their time and treasure to help others. We are truly blessed to live and work in Huntington.”
United Way of Huntington County will be announcing the amount raised for the 2017 campaign at a “thank-you” luncheon on March 14. The luncheon will be held at noon at Huntington First Church of the Nazarene. If you are interested in attending, please RSVP to the United Way Office at (260) 356-6160.
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Far Eastern Economic Review 2004/9/1
Four Decades in North Korea
One cold night in 1965, Sgt. Charles Robert Jenkins disappeared from a patrol in South Korea. Forty years later he has resurfaced. In his first interview since leaving North Korea, he tells the Review his story
By Jeremy Kirk/TOKYO
After surviving for nearly four decades in North Korea and spending a month in a Tokyo hospital room, United States Army Sgt. Charles Robert Jenkins wants closure. And to get it, he’s ready to tell his story.
In Jenkins’ first interview since taking flight from the North Korean regime in July, the alleged defector tells the REVIEW why he intends to turn himself over to the U.S. Army even though he expects to face a court martial. Jenkins reveals how he sought asylum at the Soviet embassy in 1966, endured repeated beatings at the hands of another American defector, and was pressured by North Korean authorities to reject a personal invitation by the Japanese prime minister to leave the country with him. And he describes how his difficult life in North Korea was lifted from misery by a love affair with a Japanese nurse who shared his hatred of the communist regime and eventually helped him and their two daughters escape.
“When I got on the airplane in Indonesia coming to Japan,” Jenkins says, speaking in a colloquial English that reflects his seventh-grade North Carolina education and decades spent in a foreign land, “my intentions was to turn myself in to the military for the simple reason I would like to put my daughters with their mother, one thing. Another thing: I’d like to clear my conscience.”
Rising from his hospital bed at the Tokyo Women’s Medical University, Jenkins greets his visitor with a deferential Korea handshake, briefly makes eye contact and immediately looks away. A graying 64-year-old with a heavily creased face, Jenkins is still restricted in what he says: under the advice of his military lawyer he withholds the circumstances of his alleged desertion to North Korea and many of the details of his life there-information that he intends to offer to the Americans in return for their leniency.
On September 1, Jenkins announced to the press that he would report to U.S. Army Camp Zama, near Tokyo, and "voluntarily face voluntarily the charges that have been filed against me by the U.S. Army." The U.S. charges Jenkins with desertion, aiding the enemy, soliciting others to desert and encouraging disloyalty. In a document seen by the REVIEW that was intially intended to argue his case for an other-than-honourable discharge, Jenkins acknowledges that he is guilty of at least one of the four charges against him or of a lesser included offense, without specifying precisely which offense. The U.S. military informally rejected Jenkins’ discharge request. (For more on Jenkins’ legal case, see article on page 18).
The U.S., not wishing to send the wrong message to its troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, has publicly vowed to prosecute Jenkins. But privately the matter is much more delicate. Jenkins presents a starkly different picture than of a deserter who enjoyed living in North Korea and supported the regime by acting in propaganda movies. It’s of a man-and family-who scraped by while North Korean officials watched their every move.
As he talks, Jenkins stares at the floor, absorbed in his solemn past. Frequently on the verge of tears, his voice cracks and wavers when he speaks of his wife and children. A three-pack a day smoker who suffers heart problems and anxiety attacks, Jenkins speaks slowly, in a hoarse North Carolina drawl, deliberately choosing each word as he lucidly recalls dates and events from decades ago.
Jenkins arrived in North Korea already a service veteran. He dropped out of school in North Carolina in the seventh grade, not long after the death of his father, and in 1955, at 15, he entered the National Guard. After an honourable discharge in April 1958, he enlisted in the regular Army. By August 1960 he had begun a 13-month tour in South Korea, during which he was promoted to sergeant; he was returned for a second tour in September, 1964. Then, on a bone-chilling night early the following January, on patrol along the Demilitarized Zone, the 24-year-old sergeant with an unblemished nine-year service record vanished. The U.S. government considers him a deserter, saying that he left behind letters stating his intention to defect; members of his family in the U.S. have said they are convinced that he was captured by the communist state.
From 1965 to 1972, on the other side of the DMZ, Jenkins shared a harsh life with three other alleged U.S. Army defectors: Pfc. James Joseph Dresnok, Pvt. Larry Allen Abshier and Cpl. Jerry Wayne Parrish. “At first the four of us lived in one house, one room, very small, no beds-we had to sleep on the floor,” Jenkins says. “There was no running water. We had to carry water approximately 200 metres up the hill. And the water was river water.”
The North Koreans played the Americans against each other, Jenkins says. “If I didn’t listen to the North Korean government, they would tie me up, call Dresnok in to beat me. Dresnok really enjoyed it.”
The diminutive Jenkins, about 1.65 metres tall, describes Dresnok as “a beater, 196 cm tall, weighed 128 kilograms. He’s big. He likes to beat someone. And because I was a sergeant he took it out on me. I had no other trouble with no one as far as Abshier and Parrish, but Dresnok, yes.”
Abshier died of a heart attack in 1983 and Parrish died of a massive internal infection in 1997, according to Jenkins’ discharge request. Dresnok is still living in North Korea.
An August 25 psychiatric report by Tokyo doctors, seen by the REVIEW, says Jenkins suffers from a panic disorder as a result of his treatment. “He had been suspected for espionage and continuously censored. During the first several years, he was forced to live together with three American refugees so as to mutually criticize their capitalistic ideology with physical punishment such as beating on face,” the report says.
Jenkins would have had particular trouble erasing his past: He bears a tattoo of crossed rifles-the branch insignia of the infantry-on his left forearm. When he got the tattoo as a teenager in the National Guard, the letters “U.S.” were inscribed underneath; the North Koreans cut the letters away.
According to Jenkins’ discharge request, which was written on his behalf by his military attorney, Capt. James D. Culp, Jenkins and the three other men tried to escape. “In 1966, Sgt. Jenkins even risked his life to leave North Korea by going to the Russian embassy and requesting asylum. Obviously, the Russian government denied the request.”
During the 1960s, according to another revealing passage in the discharge request, Culp writes that contrary to rumours, “Sgt. Jenkins had no interaction of any kind with any American sailor taken captive during the USS Pueblo incident.” The January 1968 incident began when the North Koreans seized a U.S. Navy spy ship off the country’s coast near Wonsan. One crew member was killed, while 82 others were beaten and threatened with death before being released 11 months later, after an embarrassing apology by the U.S..
Meanwhile, between 1965 and 1980, Jenkins says he was beaten by Dresnok at least 30 times. Then, in 1980, Jenkins met Hitomi Soga, and his life changed. “Approximately 10 o’clock at night she came to my house,” he says in the interview. “At that time she was 21 years old. I was 40 years old. Anyway she came to my house, the Korean government told me for me to teach her English so they told me to take a few days rest so that we could get very well acquainted, so after about 15 days I started teaching her English.”
Soga had been abducted in 1978 by North Korean agents in Japan, and brought to North Korea. “They wanted a schoolteacher to teach the Korean children Japanese language, Japanese customs in order to turn them into espionage agents,” says Jenkins. But the kidnappers made a mistake, he says. “The North Korean government did not have any use for my wife because she was not a school teacher, she was a nurse. Therefore they had nowhere really to put her, so if she’s with me they’d know where she’s at.”
When Soga told Jenkins one week after they met that she had been kidnapped, Jenkins says he couldn’t believe it. “I’d been in North Korea at that time approximately 15 years and I never heard of anyone being kidnapped. I never heard anything about any civilian being taken to North Korea by force. I learned that my wife-she didn’t like the Koreans for it. I also learned that when my wife was taken, the same night her mother disappeared. Her mother never been heard from again. I felt very, very sorry for her. And she learned that I had been in North Korea for 15 years. She knew that I also did not want to be in North Korea so me and her became much closer than before. So it wasn’t long after that I asked her to marry me. She said she must think about it a little bit. Her and I got much, much closer and in the end she said she would marry me. So I notified the Korean government, and they agreed. They didn’t care.”
Jenkins says “there was no one in the village I lived in that thought that she would ever marry me” because of their age difference. “But after meeting her 38 days later we were married. My wife and I became very close as far as love because she hated the (North) Korean government as well as I, so her and I joined hands in marriage on August 8, 1980. From that time on we lived very, very happy.”
The couple’s first daughter was born three years later. “I named her Roberta because my name is Robert. My wife I told her to give her a second name. She gave her the name Mika and of course my name is Jenkins. Mika means in Japanese ‘beautiful.’”
Their second daughter was born in 1985: “We named her Brinda Carol Jenkins. That’s B-R-I-N-D-A. The reason, my half sister in America was named Brinda Carol.”
While Jenkins was building a family, to the outside world his existence and that of other Americans in North Korea was slipping into legend. Jenkins appeared in a North Korean anti-U.S. propaganda film in the 1980s, but by the 1990s the notion that there were still Americans living in Pyongyang was mostly a rumour. It was not until Jenkins resurfaced in 2002 with his teenage daughters that his presence was confirmed.
That year, in a summit with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, North Korean Leader Kim Jong Il agreed to allow a number of Japanese who had been abducted by North Korea to return home. The issue of abductees had long been an emotional issue for the Japanese public and a major sticking point in relations between the two countries.
Jenkins’ wife Hitomi went back to Japan that October, leaving her husband and their two daughters behind and bringing international attention to the family. Soga soon became a national hero in Japan, trailed by the media. And Jenkins showed his face as well, giving a rare interview to a Japanese magazine in North Korea. He was quoted as saying that he had not known until that year that Soga was an abductee; he was also quoted as praising Kim Jong Il.
Now that he’s left the country, Jenkins no longer disguises his bitterness at the North Korean regime. His legal defence is based in part on the notion that he learned to feign fealty to a regime he despised to avoid death and keep his family together.
Following Soga’s release, the North Korean government sought to convince her to return to her husband and daughters, while others tried to find a way to reunite the family in another country. In May 2004, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi traveled to North Korea a second time. On this visit he won the release of the children of Japanese abductees, and tried personally to persuade Jenkins to come to Japan.
Jenkins says he was told he had 10 minutes with Koizumi, but the meeting lasted nearly an hour. “At that time, my wife had been in Japan for 21 months,” he says. “Prime Minister Koizumi had a document signed by Kim Jong Il. He got it that morning.” The document said that Jenkins and his daughters could leave with Koizumi.
“But before Prime Minster Koizumi came that day,” says Jenkins, “four people came and talked with me what would happen to me if I left North Korea. One was the vice-minister for foreign affairs. The other three I don’t know exactly who they were. They come and give me a lecture on not to go to Japan. And I knew if I left that day I would never get to the airport.”
Jenkins says he also knew the room he was in with Koizumi and his delegation was bugged. “So I told Prime Minister Koizumi I could not leave North Korea,” Jenkins says. “He said, ‘North Korea will not let [Hitomi] leave if she comes back and she does not wish to come back to North Korea.’ He said ‘Today I would like to take you and your daughters with me to Japan.’”
Jenkins suggests that he feared what would happen if he accepted the invitation. “I knew that if I left the guest house that we met Prime Minister Koizumi in, instead of going right to the airport they’d had went to the left and I would have went right back to the area I lived in before and it may have been the end of my life,” Jenkins says, his voice cracking.
Jenkins says he was told later that day that Kim Jong Il was very pleased that he did not go to Japan with his daughters. The North Koreans then told Jenkins they would allow him to travel to a third country to meet his wife and bring her back to North Korea.
“North Korea said, ‘let’s go to China.’ I agreed,” says Jenkins. “But my wife would not. She said no.” Soga, determined not to return, feared that China was too close to North Korea. Instead, a meeting was arranged for July in Jakarta.
“The reason I agreed to go to Indonesia because at one time it was a socialist country for one year-that was under Sukarno,” says Jenkins. “The purpose of going to Indonesia was to bring my wife back to North Korea. And they (North Korean officials) thought if I went with my two daughters, that she would follow me. But she would not do so and I had no intentions of going back to North Korea.”
That leaves Jenkins to face his next challenge: a possible court martial. His military lawyer, Capt. Culp, says Jenkins can offer the U.S. details about the use of foreign nationals in the North Korean spy programme. The request for a discharge asserts that Jenkins can confirm that “a number of Americans were used, most often unwillingly, by North Korea to arm spies with English-speaking skills so they could target American interests in South Korea and beyond.”
Culp writes, “The value of this intelligence about the lives and fates of the fellow Americans who lived for decades in North Korea is immeasurable.”
The document suggests that Jenkins can help American intelligence identify possible North Korean spies: “At least three other Americans who are suspected of deserting to North Korea were allowed to marry East European and/or Middle Eastern women who had been brought to and held in North Korea against their will. In two of the cases, the Americans had multiple children who are now young adults who appear to be American or European themselves.” Jenkins possesses what he says is an April 2004 photograph, seen by the REVIEW, of an ageing Pfc. Dresnok with 19-year-old Brinda and five other non-Korean looking people.
Jenkins has been at the Tokyo hospital since arriving in Japan. In addition to his chronic health problems, he is recovering from prostate surgery in April in North Korea that left him with an infected post-operative wound. Koizumi, a supporter of Washington in the war in Iraq, has raised Jenkins’ case with President George W. Bush, but U.S. officials insist that the two governments have not negotiated over the outcome of the ongoing legal process. Jenkins expresses appreciation to the Japanese government, who made his wife’s freedom possible, and eventually took in him and his daughters. “It was not my intention whatsoever for the Japanese government to try to get me out of trouble,” Jenkins says. “And I really appreciate the Japanese government for all they have done for me.”
What he wants now is an end to a nearly four-decade Odyssey, as he prepares to turn himself over to the Americans. He has no interest in getting a civilian attorney. “The American Army has supplied, assigned a very capable man to me, to help me, bring me to military justice. I don’t think I need no civilians. All I want to do is clear myself with the American Army.”
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PUBLIC K-12 EDUCATION View Entire Chapter
1003.21 School attendance.—
(1)(a)1. All children who have attained the age of 6 years or who will have attained the age of 6 years by February 1 of any school year or who are older than 6 years of age but who have not attained the age of 16 years, except as otherwise provided, are required to attend school regularly during the entire school term.
2. Children who will have attained the age of 5 years on or before September 1 of the school year are eligible for admission to public kindergartens during that school year under rules adopted by the district school board.
(b) Any child who has attained the age of 6 years on or before September 1 of the school year and who has been enrolled in a public school or who has attained the age of 6 years on or before September 1 and has satisfactorily completed the requirements for kindergarten in a private school from which the district school board accepts transfer of academic credit, or who otherwise meets the criteria for admission or transfer in a manner similar to that applicable to other grades, shall progress according to the district’s student progression plan. However, nothing in this section shall authorize the state or any school district to oversee or exercise control over the curricula or academic programs of private schools or home education programs.
(c) A student who attains the age of 16 years during the school year is not subject to compulsory school attendance beyond the date upon which he or she attains that age if the student files a formal declaration of intent to terminate school enrollment with the district school board. Public school students who have attained the age of 16 years and who have not graduated are subject to compulsory school attendance until the formal declaration of intent is filed with the district school board. The declaration must acknowledge that terminating school enrollment is likely to reduce the student’s earning potential and must be signed by the student and the student’s parent. The school district shall notify the student’s parent of receipt of the student’s declaration of intent to terminate school enrollment. The student’s certified school counselor or other school personnel shall conduct an exit interview with the student to determine the reasons for the student’s decision to terminate school enrollment and actions that could be taken to keep the student in school. The student’s certified school counselor or other school personnel shall inform the student of opportunities to continue his or her education in a different environment, including, but not limited to, adult education and high school equivalency examination preparation. Additionally, the student shall complete a survey in a format prescribed by the Department of Education to provide data on student reasons for terminating enrollment and actions taken by schools to keep students enrolled.
(d) Students who become or have become married and students who are pregnant shall not be prohibited from attending school. These students and students who are parents shall receive the same educational instruction or its equivalent as other students, but may voluntarily be assigned to a class or program suited to their special needs. Consistent with s. 1003.54, pregnant or parenting teens may participate in a teenage parent program. Pregnant students may attend alternative education programs or adult education programs, provided that the curriculum allows the student to continue to work toward a high school diploma.
(e) Consistent with rules adopted by the State Board of Education, children with disabilities who have attained the age of 3 years shall be eligible for admission to public special education programs and for related services. Children with disabilities younger than 3 years of age who are deaf or hard of hearing, visually impaired, dual sensory impaired, orthopedically impaired, or other health impaired or who have experienced traumatic brain injury, have autism spectrum disorder, have established conditions, or exhibit developmental delays or intellectual disabilities may be eligible for special programs and may receive services in accordance with rules of the State Board of Education. Rules for the identification of established conditions for children birth through 2 years of age and developmental delays for children birth through 5 years of age must be adopted by the State Board of Education.
(f) Children and youths who are experiencing homelessness and children who are known to the department, as defined in s. 39.0016, must have access to a free public education and must be admitted to school in the school district in which they or their families live. School districts shall assist such children in meeting the requirements of subsection (4) and s. 1003.22, as well as local requirements for documentation.
(2)(a) The State Board of Education may adopt rules under which students not meeting the entrance age may be transferred from another state if their parents have been legal residents of that state.
(b) Each district school board, in accordance with rules of the State Board of Education, shall adopt policies authorizing a parent to request and be granted permission for absence of a student from school for:
1. Religious instruction or religious holidays.
2. An appointment scheduled to receive a therapy service provided by a licensed health care practitioner or behavior analyst certified pursuant to s. 393.17 for the treatment of autism spectrum disorder, including, but not limited to, applied behavioral analysis, speech therapy, and occupational therapy.
(3) The district school superintendent may authorize certificates of exemptions from school attendance requirements in certain situations. Students within the compulsory attendance age limits who hold valid certificates of exemption that have been issued by the superintendent shall be exempt from attending school. A certificate of exemption shall cease to be valid at the end of the school year in which it is issued.
(4) Before admitting a child to kindergarten, the principal shall require evidence that the child has attained the age at which he or she should be admitted in accordance with the provisions of subparagraph (1)(a)2. The district school superintendent may require evidence of the age of any child who is being enrolled in public school and who the district school superintendent believes to be within the limits of compulsory attendance as provided for by law; however, the district school superintendent may not require evidence from any child who meets regular attendance requirements by attending a school or program listed in s. 1003.01(13)(b)-(e). If the first prescribed evidence is not available, the next evidence obtainable in the order set forth below shall be accepted:
(a) A duly attested transcript of the child’s birth record filed according to law with a public officer charged with the duty of recording births;
(b) A duly attested transcript of a certificate of baptism showing the date of birth and place of baptism of the child, accompanied by an affidavit sworn to by the parent;
(c) An insurance policy on the child’s life that has been in force for at least 2 years;
(d) A bona fide contemporary religious record of the child’s birth accompanied by an affidavit sworn to by the parent;
(e) A passport or certificate of arrival in the United States showing the age of the child;
(f) A transcript of record of age shown in the child’s school record of at least 4 years prior to application, stating date of birth; or
(g) If none of these evidences can be produced, an affidavit of age sworn to by the parent, accompanied by a certificate of age signed by a public health officer or by a public school physician, or, if these are not available in the county, by a licensed practicing physician designated by the district school board, which states that the health officer or physician has examined the child and believes that the age as stated in the affidavit is substantially correct. Children and youths who are experiencing homelessness and children who are known to the department, as defined in s. 39.0016, shall be given temporary exemption from this section for 30 school days.
History.—s. 116, ch. 2002-387; s. 18, ch. 2006-74; s. 4, ch. 2006-301; s. 4, ch. 2008-204; s. 5, ch. 2009-35; s. 7, ch. 2009-164; s. 4, ch. 2013-89; s. 16, ch. 2014-20; s. 93, ch. 2016-10; s. 58, ch. 2017-116; s. 2, ch. 2018-134.
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PDF2 PDF |Add To My Favorites | Version: 07/03/18 - Amended Assembly 06/18/18 - Amended Assembly 04/20/17 - Amended Senate 03/28/17 - Amended Senate 02/17/17 - Introduced
SB-641 Mexican prepaid health plans.(2017-2018)
Date Published: 07/03/2018 09:00 PM
SB641:v95#DOCUMENT
Bill Start
Amended IN Assembly July 03, 2018
Amended IN Assembly June 18, 2018
Amended IN Senate April 20, 2017
Amended IN Senate March 28, 2017
CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2017–2018 REGULAR SESSION
Senate Bill
Introduced by Senators Lara and Hueso
An act to amend Section 1351.2 of the Health and Safety Code, relating to health care.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
SB 641, as amended, Lara. Mexican prepaid health plans.
Existing law, the Knox-Keene Health Care Service Plan Act of 1975, 1975 (the act), provides for the licensure and regulation of health care service plans by the Department of Managed Health Care, under the direction of the Director of the Department of the Managed Health Care, and makes a willful violation of the act a crime.
Existing law requires a prepaid health plan to apply for licensure as a health care service plan if the prepaid health plan operating lawfully under the laws of Mexico elects to operate a health care service plan in this state. Existing law requires the application for licensure to demonstrate compliance with specified requirements, including that the prepaid health plan offers and sells in this state only employer-sponsored group plan contracts exclusively for the benefit of Mexican nationals legally employed in the County of San Diego or the County of Imperial, and for the benefit of their dependents regardless of nationality, that pay for, reimburse the cost of, or arrange for the provision or delivery of health care services that are to be provided or delivered wholly in Mexico, except as specified. Existing law also requires the plan to demonstrate that the plan maintains a specified tangible net equity or is able to demonstrate a reasonable acceptable alternative reimbursement arrangement.
Existing law also authorizes the director to prescribe rules and regulations to provide safeguards with respect to the financial responsibility of health care service plans, generally.
This bill would instead require that application for licensure to demonstrate that the plan offers and sells in this state only employer-sponsored group plan contracts exclusively for the benefit of persons, rather than Mexican nationals, legally employed in the County of San Diego or the County of Imperial. The bill would eliminate the tangible net equity requirement specified for these plans and would instead require these plans to maintain a tangible net equity as required by the director pursuant to the authority granted to the director with respect to health care service plans, generally. The bill would, for policies issued, amended, or renewed on or after January 1, 2019, authorize the director to exempt, for not more than 5 years, a prepaid health plan from requirements of the act, and would authorize exemptions granted prior to January 1, 2019, to remain in effect until January 1, 2021, as specified. The bill would require the director to post the formal decision regarding the exemption on the department’s Internet Web site. The bill would also require, if a prepaid health plan that is subject to these provisions is issued or sold to a group subscriber, the group subscriber to offer to enrollees and dependents coverage that is fully consistent with the provisions of the act or federal law, as specified. The bill would also make technical changes. Because a violation of these provisions by a health care service plan would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
This bill would make legislative findings and declarations as to the necessity of a special statute for the Counties of San Diego and Imperial.
The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.
This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.
Digest Key
Vote: MAJORITY Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee: YES Local Program: YES
The people of the State of California do enact as follows:
Section 1351.2 of the Health and Safety Code is amended to read:
1351.2.
(a) If a prepaid health plan operating lawfully under the laws of Mexico elects to operate a health care service plan in this state, the prepaid health plan shall apply for licensure as a health care service plan under this chapter by filing an application for licensure in the form prescribed by the department and verified by an authorized representative of the applicant. The prepaid health plan shall be subject to the provisions of this chapter, and the rules adopted by the director thereunder, as determined by the director to be applicable. except as provided in paragraph (12). The application shall be accompanied by the fee prescribed by subdivision (a) of Section 1356 and shall demonstrate compliance with the following requirements:
(1) The prepaid health plan is constituted and operating lawfully under the laws of Mexico and, if required by Mexican law, is authorized as an Insurance Institution Specializing in Health by Mexico’s National Commission for Insurance and Finance (Comisión Nacional de Seguros y Fianzas) (CNSF). If the CNSF determines that the prepaid health plan is not required to be authorized as an Insurance Institution Specializing in Health under the laws of Mexico, the applicant shall obtain written verification from the CNSF stating that the applicant is not required to be authorized as an Insurance Institution Specializing in Health in Mexico. A Mexican prepaid health plan that is not required to be an Insurance Institution Specializing in Health shall obtain written verification from the Mexican Ministry of Health that the prepaid health plan and its provider network are operating in full compliance of Mexican law.
(2) The prepaid health plan offers and sells in this state only employer-sponsored group plan contracts exclusively for the benefit of persons legally employed in the County of San Diego or the County of Imperial, and for the benefit of their dependents, that pay for, reimburse the cost of, or arrange for the provision or delivery of health care services that are to be provided or delivered wholly in Mexico, except for the provision or delivery of those health care services set forth in paragraph (4).
(3) Solicitation of plan contracts in this state is made only through insurance brokers and agents licensed in this state or a third-party administrator licensed in this state, each of which is authorized to offer and sell plan group contracts.
(4) Group contracts provide, through a contract of insurance between the prepaid health plan and an insurer admitted in this state, for the reimbursement of emergency and urgent care services provided out of area as required by subdivision (h) of Section 1345.
(5) All advertising, solicitation material, disclosure statements, evidences of coverage, and contracts are in compliance with the appropriate provisions of this chapter and the rules or orders of the director. The director shall require that each of these documents contain a legend in 10-point type, in both English and Spanish, declaring that the health care service plan contract provided by the prepaid health plan may be limited as to benefits, rights, and remedies under state and federal law.
(6) All funds received by the prepaid health plan from a subscriber are deposited in an account of a bank organized under the laws of this state or in an account of a national bank located in this state.
(7) The prepaid health plan maintains a tangible net equity as required by this chapter and the rules of the director, as calculated under United States generally accepted accounting principles, in the amount of a least one million dollars ($1,000,000). In lieu of an amount in excess of the minimum tangible net equity of one million dollars ($1,000,000), the prepaid health plan may demonstrate a reasonable acceptable alternative reimbursement arrangement that the director may in his or her discretion accept. the director pursuant to Section 1376 and any rules and regulations adopted pursuant to that authority, including Section 1300.76 of Title 28 of the California Code of Regulations. The prepaid health plan shall also maintain a fidelity bond and a surety bond as required by Section 1376 and the rules of the director.
(8) The prepaid health plan agrees to make all of its books and records, including the books and records of health care providers in Mexico, available to the director in the form and at the time and place requested by the director. Books and records shall be made available to the director no later than 24 hours from the date of the request.
(9) The prepaid health plan files a consent to service of process with the director and agrees to be subject to the laws of this state and the United States in any investigation, examination, dispute, or other matter arising from the advertising, solicitation, or offer and sale of a plan contract, or the management or provision of health care services in this state or throughout the United States. The prepaid health plan shall agree to notify the director, immediately and in no case later than one business day, if it is subject to any investigation, examination, or administrative or legal action relating to the prepaid health plan or the operations of the prepaid health plan initiated by the government of Mexico or the government of any state of Mexico against the prepaid health plan or any officer, director, security holder, or contractor owning 10 percent or more of the securities of the prepaid health plan. The prepaid health plan shall agree that in the event of conflict of laws in any action arising out of the license, the laws of California and the United States shall apply.
(10) The prepaid health plan agrees that disputes arising from the group contracts involving group contractholders and providers of health care services in the United States shall be subject to the jurisdiction of the courts of this state and the United States.
(11) The prepaid health plan shall employ or designate a medical director who holds an unrestricted license to practice medicine in this state issued pursuant to Section 2050 of the Business and Professions Code or pursuant to the Osteopathic Act for health care services set forth in paragraph (4). For health care services that are to be provided or delivered wholly in Mexico, the prepaid health plan may employ or designate a medical director operating under the laws of Mexico.
(12) (A) Except as provided in subparagraph (C), for policies issued, amended, or renewed on or after January 1, 2019, the director by formal decision may exempt the prepaid health plan from the requirements of this chapter, or the rules adopted thereunder, if all of the following apply:
(i) The director determines that the exemption is in the best interest of enrollees.
(ii) The director has provided a 60-day public notice and sought public comment prior to issuing the formal decision.
(iii) The director determines that the prepaid health plan is unable to comply with specific, enumerated provisions of this chapter because it is a Mexican prepaid health plan that is otherwise operating consistently with this section.
(B) The formal decision of the director issued pursuant to subparagraph (A) shall be posted on the department’s Internet Web site.
(C) The director shall not exempt the prepaid health plan from the provisions governing grievances, independent medical review, guaranteed issue, guaranteed renewal, or prohibitions on preexisting conditions or health status factors.
(D) An exemption granted pursuant to subparagraph (A) shall remain in effect for not more than five years from the date of the director’s decision. An exemption may be renewed for a period not to exceed five years if, upon review by the department of grievances, medical surveys, and enforcement actions, the director determines by formal decision that the exemption remains consistent with clauses (i) to (iii), inclusive, of subparagraph (A).
(E) Exemptions granted prior to January 1, 2019, shall remain in effect until January 1, 2021, and thereafter shall be subject to this paragraph.
(b) The prepaid health plan shall pay the application processing fee and other fees and assessments set forth in Section 1356. The director, by order, may designate provisions of this chapter and rules adopted thereunder that need not be applied to a prepaid health plan licensed under the laws of Mexico when consistent with the intent and purpose of this chapter, and in the public interest.
(c) If the plan ceases to operate legally in Mexico, the director shall immediately deliver written notice to the health care service plan that it is not in compliance with the provisions of this section. If this occurs, a health care service plan shall do all of the following:
(1) Provide the director with written proof that the prepaid health plan has complied with the laws of Mexico not later than 45 days after the date the written notice is received by the health care service plan.
(2) If, by the 45th day, the health care service plan is unable to provide written confirmation that it is in full compliance with Mexican law, the director shall notify the health care service plan in writing that it is prohibited from accepting any new enrollees or subscribers. The health care service plan shall be given an additional 180 days to comply with Mexican law or to become a licensed health care service plan.
(3) If, at the end of the 180-day notice period in paragraph (2), the health care service plan has not complied with the laws of Mexico or California, the director shall issue an order that the health care service plan cease and desist operations in California.
(d) If a group plan that is subject to this section is issued or sold to a group subscriber, that group subscriber shall offer to enrollees and dependents coverage that is fully consistent with this chapter or, if the group subscriber is a large group as defined in this chapter the group subscriber shall offer self-insured coverage that is consistent with the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Public Law 111-148) and the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (Public Law 93-406).
SEC. 2.
The Legislature finds and declares that a special statute is necessary and that a general statute cannot be made applicable within the meaning of Section 16 of Article IV of the California Constitution because of the following unique circumstances in the Counties of San Diego and Imperial:
(a) The prepaid health plans that are subject to this act are only offered to persons who are legally employed in those counties for health care services that are delivered or provided in Mexico, except for emergency and urgent care.
(b) These counties have the closest geographic proximity to Mexico of any counties in this state.
No reimbursement is required by this act pursuant to Section 6 of Article XIII B of the California Constitution because the only costs that may be incurred by a local agency or school district will be incurred because this act creates a new crime or infraction, eliminates a crime or infraction, or changes the penalty for a crime or infraction, within the meaning of Section 17556 of the Government Code, or changes the definition of a crime within the meaning of Section 6 of Article XIII B of the California Constitution.
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Southbound: Photographs of and about the New South, Day 4 by Julia BennettMarch 7, 2019
Janice Birchfield, 2013. From the American Folk series Roan Mountain, Tennessee. Tintype © Lisa Elmaleh
For the fourth day of our weeklong feature of images and text from Southbound: Photographs of and about the New South, the photographs are accompanied by an essay by historian, author, film-maker, and all around expert on the South, William Ferris.
William R. Ferris is a professor of history at UNC–Chapel Hill and an adjunct professor in the Curriculum in Folklore. He is associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South, and is widely recognized as a leader in Southern studies, African-American music and folklore. He is the former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Prior to his role at NEH, Ferris served as the founding director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, where he was a faculty member for 18 years.
Ferris has written and edited 10 books and created 15 documentary films, most of which deal with African-American music and other folklore representing the Mississippi Delta. He co-edited the Pulitzer Prize nominee Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (UNC Press, 1989), which contains entries on every aspect of Southern culture and is widely recognized as a major reference work linking popular, folk, and academic cultures.
Andy Fitz Gibbon, 2014. From the American Folk series Montrose, West Virginia. Tintype © Lisa Elmaleh
Visions and Voices in the American South by William Ferris
Southerners are known for their attachment to place, and they share a deep love for the photograph, with its power to fix both space and time. A single image can transport its viewer to a place with timeless intimacy. It is as though that place and the people within it are just as they were the very second the shutter clicked. Photography, thus, resonates at every step when we explore the region.
The photographers featured in Southbound: Photographs of and about the New South inspire us to reflect on our region and remind us that the camera is a powerful tool to unravel the threads of history. The exhibition for which this book serves as catalogue also underscores the importance of photography as a link to modernism in the twentieth-century South. A growing number of institutions throughout the South now emphasize photography in their collections and programs.
Each photograph in this show captures a unique, distinctive world, and, together, Southbound’s collective images offer a kaleidoscopic view of the region. The photographs are both serene and disturbing. They take us places hitherto unseen and beckon us into a New South that is indeed unclothed, naked to the eye of the beholder.
The images capture the American South at a moment in time that the curators suggest is distinctive by their use of the term New South. Coined by Henry Grady, that phrase, ironically, is by no means new. In his speech to the New England Club in New York in 1886, Grady proclaimed “The new South presents a perfect democracy…. Her soul is stirred with the breath of a new life.”[i] Since Grady, each successive generation of Southerners has argued that they speak for the New South because they perceive their world as different from that of their ancestors.
[i] Henry Grady, Speech to the New England Club in New York (1886), reprinted in Paul D. Escott and David R. Goldfield, Major Problems in the History of the American South, Vol. II, The New South (Lexington, Mass: D.C. Heath and Company, 1990), 71–73.
Amos Coal Power Plant, Raymond City, West Virginia, 2004. From the American Power series Raymond City, West Virginia © Mitch Epstein
Poca High School and Amos Coal Power Plant, West Virginia, 2004. From the American Power series Poca, West Virginia © Mitch Epstein
The photographs in Southbound remind us of William Faulkner’s oft-quoted remark that “in the South, the past is never dead. It is not even past.”[i] As the past at once defines the present and pushes us toward the future, each generation struggles to discover its own understanding of the region. The fifty-six photographers included here chart the region’s landscape with special skill. For the exhibition, each photographer is represented by four images; in the catalogue, five; and on the Southbound website, ten—from their quivers of thousands, and their collective images reveal the contemporary New South with special power.
The Southbound project reminds us that the region has inspired a rich body of photography in the twentieth century, as seen in the work of artists as diverse as William Christenberry, William Eggleston, Walker Evans, Sally Mann, and Carrie Mae Weems, as well as in photographs of family and friends that adorn the walls of our own homes.
We should also reflect on the important tie between photographers and writers in the South. Both groups document the landscape, built spaces, and people of the region. The porous membrane that separates literature and photography allows ideas to flow easily back and forth between their respective worlds.
[i] William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun (London: Chatto and Windus, 1953), 85.
Cotton Harvest, 2010. From the Confessions for a Son series Laurinburg, North Carolina © McNair Evans
Company Car, 2010. From the Confessions for a Son series Maxton, North Carolina © McNair Evans
Rita and Cora Aiming, 2007. From the A Natural Order series. Tennessee © Lucas Foglia
Venison for Canning, 2008. From the A Natural Order series. Tennessee © Lucas Foglia
William Faulkner took many photographs of his family and friends in Oxford, Mississippi, yet he never considered photography as a career. Eudora Welty, however, saw herself as a professional photographer, and she took more than a thousand photographs while employed by the Works Progress Administration. Eudora Welty: Photographs attests to the visual skills that strongly influenced her fiction.[i]
Welty acknowledged the influence that the photographs she took had on her writing, and she reflected that “nothing could have been written in the way of a story without such a background, without the knowledge and the experience that I got […] it provided the raw material […]. It was the reality that I used as a background and could draw on in various ways, even though indirectly.”[ii]
Eudora Welty and Richard Wright both photographed and wrote about their home state of Mississippi during the same period. Duke University English professor Richard Broadhead notes that, while both writers spent their formative years in Jackson and had parallel literary careers, they never met or corresponded during their lifetimes. Broadhead uses a photographic metaphor to suggest how deeply race divided both the personal and the literary worlds of Welty and Wright, who crafted images of themselves “so symmetrically opposed as to make them seem like each other’s photographic negative: Wright, so emphatically the author as black man, Welty no less unmistakably the writer as (white) lady.”[iii]
Like Welty and Wright, Ernest Gaines used his camera to capture the Louisiana worlds about which he writes. While living in San Francisco, Gaines brought his camera each time he returned home: “I always take a camera when I go back to Louisiana. I take both black-and-white and color photographs. […] I keep the photographs because most of these places are gone now. The stores are gone. The houses are gone […] you’ll never see these places ever again.”[iv]
[i] Eudora Welty, Eudora Welty: Photographs (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1993).
[ii] William Ferris, “Eudora Welty,” in The Storied South: Voices of Writers and Artists (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013), 33.
[iii] Richard H. Broadhead, “Two Writers’ Beginnings: Eudora Welty in the Neighborhood of Richard Wright,” Yale Review 84, no. 2 (April 1996), 2.
[iv] William Ferris, “Ernest Gaines,” in The Storied South, 46.
Hunter, Perry County, Alabama, 2010. From the Black Belt Color series. Perry County, Alabama © Jerry Siegel
Homecoming, Selma, Alabama, 2009. From the Black Belt Color series. Selma, Alabama © Jerry Siegel
Southern writers view photography as an important tool for their literary expression, whereas photographers approach their visual craft as a literary expression in and of itself. William Christenberry acknowledged that “Southern writing, and southern literature, has had a greater influence on my work than the work of other visual artists. […] Walker Percy […] has had a profound influence on what I try to express in my work. I don’t know if it’s possible to do visually what they are doing with the written work, but I feel very strongly that it’s worth a challenge. That’s what it’s all about for me.”[i]
William Eggleston is inspired by William Faulkner, and Eggleston’s photographs in the book Faulkner’s Mississippi are his homage to the writer. Eggleston consciously compares his photography to the novel: “I think a series of photographs is like a novel. […] If a person went slowly through that body of work, it would be roughly like reading a novel. […] The order is not significant. The order is random. I do not really care about the value of one picture over another.”[ii]
Contemporary Southern photographers are keenly aware of the rich photographic tradition within the region. Walker Evans’s iconic black-and-white photographs in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men influenced the work of every photographer who followed him. Evans was deeply moved by the worlds he discovered in Hale County, Alabama, and the photographs he made of those worlds during his brief visit are his best-known work.
[i] William Ferris, “William Christenberry,” in The Storied South, 187.
[ii] William Ferris, “William Eggleston,” in The Storied South, 192.
Chickamauga, Georgia,2008. From the Confederates series. Chickamauga, Georgia © Anderson Scott
Aiken, South Carolina, 2007. From the Confederates series. Aiken, South Carolina © Anderson Scott
William Christenberry was struck by photographs that Evans took of families in Hale County, a community in which his own family had lived for generations. He introduced himself to Evans, who was impressed by the small color photographs that Christenberry took with a Brownie camera given to him by his sister in the late 1940s. Evans encouraged the young photographer to continue his work. Christenberry recalled, “I just loaded it with color film and went out to that Alabama landscape and began to photograph what caught my eye, especially rural architecture and graveyards in the country. Back in the studio, those little color snapshots were references for paintings that were quite expressionistic—a lot of gesture and rich surface quality, but with subject matter.”[i] Toward the end of Evans’s life, he and Christenberry traveled together to Hale County, where they photographed familiar sites. It was a historic trip and a memorable experience for both.
William Eggleston has also been inspired by Evans’s black-and-white photographs of sharecroppers in Hale County. Eggleston acknowledges that “Walker Evans, of course, is an influence. You cannot forget images like his. It is impossible not to be influenced.”[ii]
Photographs vividly document the contested memory of both black and white Southerners. Portraits of Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr. often appear printed on cardboard mortuary fans and in framed photographs on the walls of churches and homes. These photographs are part of a long, important history within the African American community.
In Picturing Frederick Douglass: An Illustrated Biography of the Nineteenth Century’s Most Photographed American, John Stauffer, Zoe Trodd, and Celeste-Marie Bernier have identified more than 160 photographs of Douglass in “distinct poses,” more than were taken of Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, and Walt Whitman. Douglass also wrote important essays on photography in which he argued for the photograph as a means of affirming black history and memory.[iii]
In a long, thoughtful passage, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University English professor Randall Kenan reflects on a photograph of Booker T. Washington in his short story “This Far” from Let the Dead Bury the Dead:
When we look at a certain photograph of you, taken by Frances Benjamin Johnston in 1906: those light eyes, the arched eyebrow, the full nose, the prominent elfin ears, the Indian lips—the word “handsome” is impeached by “integrity.” A solid dignity. The grey suit, finely cut, the dark tie, the pristine shirt, all collude and tell us: This is a man of profound seriousness and authority. Look at the dark flesh under the eyes—here’s a man who’s spent many a sleepless night poring over documents and papers to make men free![iv]
In Kenan’s story the character of Booker T. Washington is a fictional version of the influential African American educator who visits Tims Creek, North Carolina, in 1915, shortly before his death, and tries to find connections to old friends. His presence in the short story is intensified through the above description of his photographic portrait.
[iii] John Stauffer, Zoe Trodd, and Celeste-Marie Bernier, Picturing Frederick Douglass: An Illustrated Biography of the Nineteenth Century’s Most Photographed American (New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2015), ix.
[iv] Randall Kenan, Let the Dead Bury the Dead and Other Stories (New York: Harcourt, Brace, & Company, 1992), 155.
The Road to Hushpuckena, 2014. Hushpuckena, Mississippi. Tintype © Euphus Ruth
Moon Lake Baptism Day, 2010. From the Moon Lake Baptism series Coahoma County, Mississippi. Ambrotype. From the collection of Tom Rankin © Euphus Ruth
A familiar way to embrace place is through maps. William Faulkner and Lee Smith drew maps of the fictional worlds of Yoknapatawpha County and Hoot Owl Holler, in which they set their respective novels. We can similarly map the New South through the photographs in Southbound. Like Southern writers, photographers create mythic places that inspire our imagination and allow us to see the region in fresh, new ways. They build on the work of earlier photographers as they unearth both beauty and its obverse through their camera lens.
The photographers included in Southbound deepen the documentary tradition within the region. Both black-and-white and color photographs are well represented. The legacies of Evans in black-and-white and Eggleston in color photography thrive among contemporary photographers.
Like Ernest Gaines and William Christenberry, who lived outside the region yet photographed familiar worlds in Louisiana and Alabama when they returned for visits each year, some of these photographers currently have a long-distance relationship to the South. Tommy Kha grew up in Memphis and now lives in Brooklyn, McNair Evans grew up in North Carolina and lives in San Francisco, and Preston Gannaway grew up in North Carolina and lives in Oakland, California.
Other photographers in Southbound moved to the South and embraced its worlds as the focus of their work. Langdon Clay followed his wife, photographer Maude Schuyler Clay, to her ancestral home in Sumner, Mississippi, where he trains his camera on people and landscape in his adopted home.
With our map of the South in mind, we see that Appalachia is extensively and beautifully documented in Southbound. Shelby Lee Adams uses rich color in his portraits of Kentuckians in their homes. From his base in Madison County, North Carolina, Rob Amberg uses both black-and-white and color film to document his Appalachian settings. Lisa Elmaleh uses a large-format camera and the tintype process to photograph Appalachian landscapes and traditional folk musicians.
As the above mentioned photographers have documented Appalachia, multiple other photographers have done the same for the Mississippi Delta. Will Jacks focuses on Po’Monkey’s Lounge, a celebrated blues juke joint in Merigold, Mississippi. Tom Rankin captures Delta vignettes in which, for example, catfish strung on a wire await the cleaner’s knife. Euphus Ruth uses wet-plate collodion and film processes with wooden view cameras and antique and modern lenses to take black-and-white photographs of seemingly timeless scenes in the region. Born in Spain, raised in Switzerland, and now living in New York, Magdalena Solé’s New Delta Rising color series focuses on the resilience of the inhabitants of that place, where family and community are everything.
Blackbirds,2007. From the Into the Flatland series. Tallahatchie County, Mississippi © Kathleen Robbins
Asher on Belle Chase, 2010. From the Into the Flatland series Tallahatchie County, Mississippi © Kathleen Robbins
The state of North Carolina is well represented in Southbound. McNair Evans’s photographs are a meditation on the shuttering of his family estate, an event reminiscent of events in Godfrey Cheshire’s film Moving Midway, which is also set in North Carolina. Evans’s photographs capture a moment that forever changed his family. David Simonton has photographed in more than 365 North Carolina locations that range from large cities to small towns. His stark black-and-white photographs capture places in transition throughout the state. Still in North Carolina, Chris Sims photographed simulated Iraqi and Afghan villages where American soldiers are trained on Army bases there.
Lucinda Bunnen documents the worlds of both rural Georgia and suburban and downtown Atlanta. Both Mark Steinmetz and Sheila Pree Bright use black-and-white photographs to great effect in uncovering ways that nature and the past reverberate in this boom-town South. Atlanta-based Anderson Scott’s photographs of a Civil War reenactment, in which a white woman sits beside a large Confederate flag and a young black girl sits at her feet, remind us of how the past continues to shape the contemporary South.
Like Atlanta, New Orleans is well documented by photographers whose work is featured in Southbound. Kevin Kline offers intimate portraits of old and young, often photographed in and around his Bywater neighborhood. Keith Calhoun and Chandra McCormick have photographed the New Orleans African American community for more than three decades. Their photographs, with subjects ranging from the Tuxedo Marching Band to a Mardi Gras Indian, were printed from negatives that were damaged during Hurricane Katrina.
Daniel Beltrá and Mitch Epstein capture the Gulf Coast and the aftermath of its two recent disasters—the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and Hurricane Katrina—with haunting beauty. Beltrá’s aerial shots reveal Gulf waters illuminated with rich hues of gray, green, red, and blue that suggest the frightening extent of pollution unleashed by the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Mitch Epstein’s color images focus on how both natural and man-made energy defines the Gulf Coast and the region.
These photographs, and many more in Southbound, from Florida to Virginia and places in between, encourage us to view the South as part of a marginalized America. Fallout from industrialization and the disparity between great wealth and dire poverty are on bold display. Within these worlds white nationalism is alive and well, as Confederate flags appear on clothing and signs.
The images in this volume present many points of view, as well as familiar and unfamiliar places and dozens of interwoven themes to consider as we contemplate the New South. Represented among other relevant themes are explorations of the issues of systemic racism, immigration, violence against women, gender identity, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the state of the environment within the American South.
Each photographer presents us with a personal take on the South, one that challenges us to rethink how we see the region. Together, they offer a sanguine view, similar to Ta-Nehisi Coates’s thinking about race relations in America, “[I]f somebody, every day comes home, and beats you with a tire iron, and then, decides to stop beating you, that would be progress. It doesn’t change the fact that you are laying down on the ground bleeding. […] You say, well, I’m relieved. […] And that’s not to be congratulated. […] I think that’s how most African-Americans would greet that.”[i]
These photographers stake out their own territories in the New South, and Southbound allows us to examine the region through their rich explorations. They capture the American South at this particular moment in its history. Southbound is an anatomy of the region as seen through the faces of its people and their worlds. We look at first darkly, then face to face, at Preston Gannaway’s two African American men embracing, at Daniel Kariko’s incongruous aerial views of real estate boom and bust, and at Gillian Laub’s young woman wearing a Confederate flag tank top. These are all memorable faces of the New South, as witnessed through the eyes of these gifted photographers.
Whereas writers compose language that describes the New South, photographers capture visual moments that define the region for our eye. The images in Southbound: Photographs of and about the New South allow us to rediscover this region in powerful new ways.
[i] Ta-Nehisi Coates, “Facing the Truth: The Case for Reparations,” Interview with Bill Moyers, May 21, 2014. (http://billmoyers.com/episode/facing-the-truth-the-case-for-reparations/)
Tags: American South, Anderson Scott, College of Charleston, Euphus Ruth, Halsey Institute, Jerry Siegel, Kathleen Robbins, Lisa Elmaleh, Lucas Foglia, McNair Evans, Mitch Epstein, Southbound, William Ferris
Posts on Lenscratch may not be reproduced without the permission of the Lenscratch staff and the photographer.
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The Brian Taylor Mixtape June 14th, 2019
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Resolution in Support of EPA Libraries
Whereas, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has recognized the importance of its mission to “move the Agency to the forefront of information management and providing the public with integrated and high quality information” (Memo; to Assistant Administrators, Carolyn M. Browner, EPA Administrator, October 14, 1998); and
Whereas, the EPA Administrator has laid out an ambitious and welcomed plan to “create a structural frame work for EPA's new information office... consisting of three offices:
Information Policy and Collection
Information Analysis and Access”
(Carol Browner, Inside EPA, December 11, 1998; Carol M Browner, letter to Peter Robertson, Acting Deputy Administrator, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, November 23, 1998); and
Whereas, the U.S. House of Representatives is drafting a bill to “promote a “Second Generation” of Environmental Protection entitled, the Second-Generation of Environmental Improvement Act (May 17, 1999, Representatives Calvin Dooley and James Greenwood, Members of Congress)' and
Whereas, Title I of this proposed bill, “Information Management” further recognizes EPA's role as steward of environmental data and information in the broadest sense of its responsibilities; and
Whereas, Title I of this bill would require the EPA Administrator to, among other actions, designate a Chief Information Officer, publish an annual report of environmental indicators, review existing agency monitor and reporting activities and requirements, and establish a program to provide money for states and localities to assist them in improving environmental reporting, highlight environmental monitoring activities of all Federal agencies through budget reviews, establish a public recognition program; and
Whereas, the EPA Library Network serves as and timetested, reliable, and trusted gatekeeper for the identification, acquistion, management, dissemination, and archiving of critical environmental data and information through the development of its special collections, repositories, services, networking, and expertise; and
Whereas, the EPA Library network has made tremendous strides to provide the American people a strong commitment to the skills and services of libraries and librarians to make environmental information as accessible; and
Whereas, the EPA and the American Library Association are initiating the development of stronger ties to improve, enhance, and evolve existing programs, services, and resources to provide comprehensive, long-term and consistent data and information base of environmental information; and
Whereas, the Task Force on the Environment is dismayed at the failure of any public comments about the EPA's environmental initiatives to recognize or mention the data and information management roles of its (or other) libraries or its (or other) librarians; and
Whereas, the Task Force on the Environment deplores the recent and proposed massive cuts in budget allocations to support the EPA Libraries, EPA and EPA-contract librarians; EPA library collection; and
Whereas, the Task Force on the Environment feels that these reductions will serious diminish the EPA Libraries to provide collections, services, and expertise not only for the public but to the scientific, policy, and administrative staffs of the agency;
Be it resolved that the American Library Association continue to work with the EPA Libraries and centers for environmental information to construct stronger relations and resource sharing; and that the American Library Association work with the U.S. Congress to include a clear and meaningful recognition of the skills, resources, expertise, and collections of the EPA Libraries and Library Network; and that the American Library Association investigate the funding of the EPA Libraries and Library Network to assure that government resources are being used to adequately fund the collections, staffs, resources, services, and functions all of the EPA Libraries, EPA Librarians, and EPA-contract librarians.
SRRT Newsletter Issue 133, pp. 4, 7
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You are here: Home / Rating / 4.5 Stars / To Marry an English Lord Book Review
To Marry an English Lord Book Review
If you’re a fan of Downton Abbey, the novels of Edith Wharton, or similar period pieces, I can’t recommend To Marry an English Lord, by Gail MacColl and Carol McD. Wallace, highly enough. Starting in the 1870s, many wealthy and beautiful American heiresses, snubbed by stuffy New York high society, moved to England, where they married into the British aristocracy, saving many a bankrupt family estate in the process. These matches had surprisingly far reaching consequences for both British and American society, and included Randolph and Jennie Churchill, parents of Winston, George and Mary Curzon, who became the second highest ranking woman in the British Empire after Lord Curzon was named viceroy of India, and James and Frances Burke-Roche, great-grandparents of Princess Diana. The book also focuses a great deal on Alva Vanderbilt and her daughter Consuelo (pictured on the cover), who married the Duke of Marlborough and later shared her experiences in the classic memoir The Glitter and the Gold. (If you’re interested in the Vanderbilt ladies, I also recommend Consuelo and Alva Vanderbilt: The Story of a Daughter and a Mother in the Gilded Age.)
To Marry an English Lord is a well-written, informative, and highly entertaining peek into the lives of wealthy and aristocratic Americans and Brits in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. Many parts read kind of like a Victorian People magazine, and the gossip is still as scorching now as it was 120 years ago! My only complaint is the format of the book, which is copiously illustrated and stuffed with so many info boxes and two page spreads on different details that it can be difficult to read. Hard to fault a book too much for providing too much information, though, especially when it’s as fascinating as this one!
Originally published in 1989, To Marry an English Lord has been re-released as a result of the popularity of Downton Abbey, which features an Anglo-American marriage between Lord Robert and Cora Crawley that is similar to those described in this book.
My rating: (4.5 / 5)
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Filed Under: 4.5 Stars, My Favorites, Owned, Read Tagged With: 19th century, aristocracy, edwardian england, gilded age, history, new york city, nonfiction, royalty, victorian england, victorian era
The 18 Most Attractive Disney Men
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Andre Brown's big debut: 30 carries for 115 yards and a TD Live
Andre Brown runs after a catch in the fourth quarter of a game against the Oakland Raiders at MetLife Stadium. (Nov. 10, 2013) Photo credit: Mike Stobe
by Casey Musarra
BY GREG LOGAN
And to think people believed Giants coach Tom Coughlin was kidding when he said running back Andre Brown might get 40 carries in his first game back from a broken leg.
Following the Giants’ 24-20 win over the Raiders Sunday at MetLife Stadium, Coughlin offered a facetious apology for “misleading” the media by only handing the ball to Brown 30 times.
It sounded as if even Brown was surprised, but he made the most of it, rushing for 115 yards and powering over from 1 yard out in the third quarter for the touchdown that gave the Giants a 21-20 lead. His 17-yard run to the Raiders’ 4-yard line in the fourth quarter set up a 23-yard Josh Brown field goal.
Brown said his 30 carries “felt like 50. There were a couple times where I tapped myself and got out of there . . . I didn’t expect that many carries, but when you’re down there running the ball like we did, I guess you stay on track. We just kept it rolling.”
One reason the Giants’ offense has struggled this season is the inability to run the ball, and certainly the running back ranks are thin. David Wilson just went on injured reserve, and Brandon Jacobs was ruled out of the Raiders game. But the Giants responded to Brown’s workhorse effort on a windy day that made passing tough for Eli Manning.
“The Raiders even knew what was coming at times, and it was still hard for them to stop him,” tackle Will Beatty said. “Andre gives you options. On third-and-short, you don’t always have to throw. At the goal line, we can run it in rather than pass it. We’re making sure our coaches feel we’re out there running the ball and we can keep pounding it.”
Members of the Giants’ defense were equally appreciative of Brown’s presence. “If we have our running back healthy, not just Brown but Peyton Hillis and Brandon Jacobs, that’s hard to stop,” defensive end Mathias Kiwanuka said. “There’s few teams in the league that can defend that type of a running attack. To see ’Dre come back, have over 100 yards, to battle through the way he did, it’s good. It’s one of those uplifting stories.”
Considering Brown’s workload represented a career high for carries, there might be good reason to wonder how he’ll bounce back next Sunday against the Packers, but Brown doesn’t share that concern.
“No,” he said. “Football, let’s go. Cold tub it up, little salt and let’s ride.”
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Helm Place Development Revitalizes Downtown Jackson Community
Helm Place, a new residential development designed to revitalize a downtown Jackson neighborhood, celebrated its grand opening with state and local dignitaries at a ceremony and ribbon cutting on July 14, 2016. Helm Place includes 88 newly constructed, affordable market-rate townhomes and a 4,000 square foot community center.
"To go with strengthening downtown Jackson by providing a safe place to raise a family, Helm Place will serve as an important piece of Jackson's growing healthcare corridor," said Governor Phil Bryant. " I congratulate everyone involved in making this project a reality."
Each single-family home is 1,520 square feet, contains three bedrooms and two-and-a-half bathrooms, and has an enclosed two-car garage. Helm Place surrounds the historic Mount Helm Baptist Church, considered the oldest African-American church in Jackson, MS.
"Helm Place is an extension of our church's mission to change lives that change the world," said Reverend C. J. Rhodes of Mount Helm Baptist Church. "Decades ago, Mount Helm elected to stay in the Farish Street community and be a blessing to it. Today, we praise God for a long-term dream come true, and I am humbled Mount Helm took the lead in our neighborhood's transformation."
Chartre Consulting Ltd. designed Helm Place with the needs of the church and surrounding community foremost during the planning and construction stages. The pristine new development replaces vacant lots and abandoned or dilapidated housing.
"This new development is another example of the transformation underway in Mississippi's Capital City," said Jackson Mayor Tony Yarber. "Helm Place benefits not only the residents in the area, but Jackson's downtown as a whole. The foundation of a strong community is safe, attractive affordable housing. We're hopeful Helm Place will inspire other business and community partners to invest in Jackson and its citizens."
Developed by Chartre in conjunction with the State of Mississippi and the Mississippi Home Corporation (MHC), Helm Place is designed to provide quality, affordable housing to families supported by low-income wage earners. MHC awarded the development $13.1 million in tax credits as part of the healthcare zone special cycle held in 2013.
The MHC tax credits allowed for construction of the 88-unit single-family lease purchase development. Under the program that made this development possible, the homes will be rented for the first 15 years to residents who initially qualify as low-income.
After 15 years, residents will have the opportunity to purchase the home at a $50,000 fully financed price. During the rental term, the development will be professionally managed with life skills and other programs provided to residents free of charge.
"This development is a shining example of how affordable housing is critical to revitalizing and invigorating communities," said Clarence Chapman, president of Chartre. "Aside from the obvious physical improvements to the neighborhood, we are positively affecting our resident's lives by providing a stable community in which they can educate and raise their families.
Mississippi Home Corp announces the 2015 Tax Credits awards.
County rejects tax objections regarding certain Section 42 properties
By Ray Van Dusen | 6:00 am | September 2, 2016 | News
ABERDEEN – Representatives from Georgia-based Property Tax Eagle were not present at a public hearing Aug. 24 regarding four Section 42 properties throughout the county. After hearing clarity on the matter of property assessment, the board of supervisors voted to reject the objection, making Monroe County join a list of roughly 20 counties in the state doing the same.
“This matter has been litigated, and Humphreys County went to the Mississippi Supreme Court. Since these are rent-controlled units, the assessment is low,” said Monroe County Board of Supervisors Board Attorney David Houston.
The four properties include Tschudi Courts, Smithville Meadows, Timberlake Apartments and Townhouses of Aberdeen. Property Tax Eagle didn’t file the assessment on the four properties by the April 1 deadline.
The four properties’ assessments are divided by seven taxing districts including school districts, the county, Aberdeen, Amory and Smithville. According to Houston, the statutes regulates these Section 42 housing units require the income approach to value is to be used to establish the assessment. The net operating expense is deducted from the gross income of the property, which formulates the net income approach.
“If I’d gotten this in by April 1, I have to follow that,” said Ron McCafferty, a consultant to the Monroe County Tax Assessor’s office. “We felt we were fair with the valuation.”
The Mississippi Department of Revenue states if an objection is not filed timely, real property can be assessed by the income, market value or cost value. Property Tax Eagle didn’t get the proper information to any of the other counties in the state that rejected the objections either.
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Iconic devotion
Originally posted on isthmus.com Go to the link to see more of David Giffey’s art. David is a member of the Clarence Kailin Chapter of Veterans For Peace and editor of Long Shadows: Veterans’ Paths to Peace which shares the stories of 19 members of the chapter and was published in 2006.
David Giffey has spent four decades creating a sprawling Byzantine masterpiece
by Craig Johnson
Paulius Musteikis
Assumption Greek Orthodox Church looks like a typical orthodox church with a traditional, though rather subdued, cupola dome. Despite its unassuming shell, the blond brick church at the corner of East Washington Avenue and 7th Street houses one of the region’s most spectacular artistic achievements, a sprawling and breathtaking work of Byzantine iconography. Perhaps most impressive, it is the work of one artist.
David Giffey, a bearded 75-year-old journalist, veteran and peace activist, has been painting portions of Assumption for the last 39 years.
For Giffey, art and religion are intertwined. “Planning and painting icons for the Madison church has given me a way to bring life and work together,” he says. “I’m an artist, and I have a need for a spiritual life as well. So being commissioned to make icons has provided both physical and spiritual sustenance.”
Parish member Eleni Schirmer recalls Giffey teaching her childhood Sunday school classes. “He brought these saints to life,” Schirmer says. “Every day, there was a new saint’s story.”
Giffey’s stories are reflected in his art as well. The walls are lined with life-sized icons of saints in a procession leading to the rotunda. Two small wings, or transepts, are dominated by paintings of St. George and St. Demetrius, leading to scenes from the New Testament. All of this draws the eye forward to the apse behind the altar, where a 10-foot-tall figure of the Virgin Mary is curved into the back wall; the child Jesus sits in her lap.
Her figure draws the eye up the curved walls to the four pendentives that support the dome. On these vaulted corners are the authors of the Gospels. The drum of the dome is ringed by 12 prophets, and upon its ceiling is the Christ. Giffey explains this last part is tradition: “The ceiling of the church represents Heaven, so a picture of Jesus is always painted there.”
All of these figures wear robes of vibrant yet earthy colors, and are splashed with gold leaf halos. The whole piece is unified by a background of a deep Magritte blue that washes over the entire church, making these saints, prophets and scribes born over a span of thousands of years feel as though they are of one world. The separate pieces are woven together with patterned bands and lines of scripture written in both English and Greek.
Giffey began painting Assumption in 1979 and continues to this day. He has painted nearly 100 figures. In September 2017, he added the first piece to a new lobby expansion. He estimates that he has put in 8,000 hours since first installing the Pantocrator piece, the Christ found in the dome. That adds up to four years total. As a frame of reference, this is the same amount of time that Michelangelo took to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
To paint icons is to be a storyteller in static imagery. The tales that Giffey lays out are not just a reflection of scripture; they portray the world that Giffey has known as an activist, a journalist, a soldier and a Christian. “It’s so easy to put the pictures up on the wall and pretend ‘Oh, what a wonderful world this is.’ It’s not,” says Giffey. “It’s a very imperfect world and I think we’re struggling with that really now in this era.” The weary-eyed saints that line the walls of the church are examples to follow in these times, says Giffey: “They themselves were imperfect and yet they had a certain courage and will to pursue what they believe.”
It was a long road that brought Giffey the short distance from his parents’ dairy farm near Ripon, Wisconsin, to this church in Madison. After a brief stint at Oshkosh State (now UW-Oshkosh), he dropped out to travel the country. In 1964, he was drafted into the Army and sent to Vietnam as a combat journalist. In 1966, he was discharged and found work as a reporter for the Appleton Post-Crescent.
Around this time, he befriended Jesus Salas, a local organizer for the migrant farmer labor unions. The two founded Voz Mexicana, a bilingual newspaper focusing on labor rights for migrant workers. They soon joined with the activist Cesar Chavez to organize grape boycott committees throughout Wisconsin to protest the unfair work practices of California grape growers. “We managed to reduce the amount of table grapes that were imported to Wisconsin by nearly 50 percent,” says Giffey. Later, he moved to the Rio Grande valley to recruit for Chavez’s United Farm Workers’ union in South Texas.
“I came from war to war, in a sense, a kind of human rights war,” says Giffey. “There’s a series of little towns along the river on the U.S. side of the border, and they were notoriously racist, anti-union and hostile to everything we represented.” He was hassled by customs officials whenever he crossed the border from Mexico and was jailed briefly for taking photos of a picket line.
He moved to Austin and began looking for ways to help process the harsh realities he had witnessed both in Vietnam and in the labor struggles in the Southwest. One way was through painting. He began selling art on the street, brightly colored, strange landscapes. “People called them primitive fantasies,” says Giffey, who did not study art in college.
Around this same time, his spiritual path led him to an Orthodox church. “I felt a need to go on a spiritual pilgrimage,” says Giffey. “Eastern Christianity answered my need for private meditation combined with mysticism, ritual, music, art and tradition.” He was captivated by the iconography. In 1974, he returned to his home state; his parents were aging, and he missed the Midwest. “When I came back to Wisconsin I exhausted the UW library because it had all these books of iconography,” says Giffey.
Iconography, in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, is a style of art that goes back to the late Roman Empire when Byzantium — modern-day Istanbul — became a cultural and religious center. Easily identifiable by the flat, perspective-free style, this is not a photo-realistic art. The heavy lines, unnatural shadows and stylized facial features are not meant to be taken as literal interpretations; they are representations of saints and prophets. What makes them particularly haunting are their eyes: They stare straight out at the observer. That’s no accident, says Giffey: “[Icons] look out at us because they are trying to communicate with us. They are very direct. They are not smiling. The hope is to represent spiritual properties like strength, sobriety, courage and forthrightness. That is why they are looking out.”
In 1977, Giffey traveled to Greece, India, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. “I had no idea that I would work for years making icons for Assumption when I first went to Greece,” says Giffey. But he kept going back, to learn the iconography and seek out mentors. “The Greek artists were very generous,” says Giffey. “I visited monasteries in Mount Athos where this tradition has been preserved for centuries. I watched and I helped and I climbed around on their scaffolds and I spent a lot of time observing the use of icons.” When he returned, he began envisioning his masterpiece.
Although he is working in an ancient style, following centuries-old rules, Giffey has been granted artistic license in his work at Assumption and found ways to reflect his commitment to social justice and pacifism. “The work is within a tradition, but it is creative,” says Giffey. “My wife Nancy compares it to music: If you gave a song by Mahler to 10 sopranos and told them to rehearse it and come back to perform it a month later, they would all use the same notations, but their interpretations would vary.” Giffey brings a Western influence into his work. There are traces of Cubism in the background images. The influence of Midwestern regionalist artists such as Grant Wood and Thomas Hart Benton can also be found in his paintings’ gracefully curving lines.
John Barker, retired UW-Madison professor of Byzantine history and member of Assumption’s congregation (and Isthmus classical music critic), observes that Giffey’s training in Greece honed his skills, but did not rigidly define it. “David studied that style and technique, but made it his own, not through imitation but by knowing assimilation. He brought his artistic sensibilities to his church connections.”
Giffey has also made a point of bringing gender equity to the walls of the church, distinguishing him from other iconographers. Pointing to the drum of the dome, he lists the figures he has painted: “Esther, Rebecca, Ruth… This is the only church I’ve been in where the figures are an approximately equal between the genders. The other churches I’ve been to have shown the prophets to be all men. [In Madison], half the people who come to church here are women or girls. Visual aids and role models are important to both genders.”
Schirmer, Giffey’s former Sunday school student, says Giffey led workshops on iconography for parish members “He would always encourage us to do icons of women saints, and that felt special,” says Schirmer, describing Giffey’s “de-sensationalized” take on Mary Magdalene. “She was a pretty cool, independent woman who got a bad rap from traditional interpretations of the Bible because of some supposed prostitution suspicion. That re-framing had an impact on me.”
Giffey’s pacifism is also represented in his artistic works. A longtime member of Veterans For Peace, he resists bringing images of gore into the church. He points out his painting of St. Demetrius, a Roman soldier punished by being forced into the gladiator’s pit for converting to Christianity. In the painting, Demetrius stands above his opponent, spear in hand, appearing to be poised to strike. This is, in fact, the moment when Demetrius stayed his hand, refusing to kill. On the opposite wall, St. George fights the dragon. “I tried to make the dragon as sympathetic as possible,” says Giffey.
This sensibility carries over to work he did at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Spring Green, the only non-Orthodox church he has worked in. He was commissioned to paint the 14 Stations of the Cross, the story of Jesus’s procession from trial to death. The paintings themselves are simple and straightforward, except for one. The 11th Station shows the moment of Crucifixion, when the nails are being driven in. “That was one I spent special attention on. I struggle with certain traditional images, particularly in the Western churches [in which] Jesus looks so dead and tortured.”
Giffey’s 11th Station shows a centurion with hammer and nail ready, standing in the palm of a giant hand. This choice replaces the horror of the moment with the wonder of the miracle to come.
Giffey also departs from his Greek forbears by painting in acrylic on canvas, rather than directly onto plaster walls. Giffey paints the backgrounds directly on the wall, but then attaches icons over them, using plaster to cover the edges. He did not originate this technique, but he finds it ideal for the space he is working in. It avoids cluttering up the space with ladders and scaffolds for months on end, and there is an architectural reason as well. “Buildings in this hemisphere are built of sheet rock and two-by-fours. If I spent nine months painting the ceiling of the dome onto the plaster and the roof leaked it would destroy the painting,” says Giffey. “This way, if necessary, we could … chip the plaster back and peel the canvas off and it wouldn’t damage it.”
Destruction nearly came one night in 2001. A candle was accidentally left burning in the church’s narthex. It tipped over and caused a carpet fire that smoldered through the night. The church was spared the flame, but it suffered from the smoke. By the time the fire department arrived, the entire interior was, in Giffey’s words, “blackened.” For six months, services were held in the basement while Giffey and a crew of art conservators worked to bring the art back to life. “Inch by inch [we] cleaned every single icon.” Due to his technique and the paints used — water-based acrylics — he says, “I didn’t have to retouch a thing.”
“I really prefer painting to cleaning,” he adds.
Father Michael Vanderhoef has been here through it all. The priest at Assumption for 10 years, he has worshipped there since childhood. He calls Giffey “a family member.” Other churches, he says, “have someone else come in and do all the iconography and they’re gone. He didn’t just put up the icons and disappear.”
The church has changed over the years. “This is an incredibly diverse church,” says Giffey. “We have people who come from all over. North Africa, Syria, the Middle East, because for years this was the only Orthodox church in town.”
“I’ve seen it expand from just a little rectangular church to its building out and the dome being put up and David putting his icons up through the years,” adds Vanderhoef. For Midwestern Christians used to modest facilities, entering Assumption can be an eye-opening experience. “Some people come in and say ‘Oh my gosh.’ It’s sensory overload,” says Vanderhoef. “More are overwhelmed in a very positive way, but I have a very dear friend of mine who’s Lutheran who doesn’t come around much because he literally leaves with a headache. He says, ‘I’m a simple white wall, red carpet, wood pew person, and to come in here is, like, whoa!’ It is a different tradition.”
But Vanderhoef and the congregation appreciate the continuity that Giffey brings — and his stories. “This is a story not only of our holy traditions and our Bible, but our church. He continues to add to the story.”
Above the exit of the church, Giffey has painted four buildings; one is easily recognized as Assumption. The other three are plain Midwestern houses. As you step outside you see that the painted buildings are representations of the houses of 7th Street. This is Giffey’s playful way of showing that the church’s little corner of Madison is its own part of the larger story of the Greek Orthodox faith.
Likewise, the larger story of Giffey’s life can be seen in his paintings, both secular and religious. Long Shadow, his series based on his memories of Vietnam, was displayed in 2016 at Madison College, and then in Neillsville, Wisconsin. He created four murals for the Boys & Girls Club of Dane County, where he and his wife worked for years as teachers. These murals show a brief history of labor unions, the cause to which he devoted so much of his youth. His love for playing and watching basketball is represented in his quirkiest work, The Colleagues, 14 life-sized Byzantine-style portraits of the 1988 Milwaukee Bucks that get pulled out of storage for exhibition every few years.
A mural showing the history of Black Earth at the State Bank of Cross Plains at Black Earth is personal in its own way. It is the bank that loaned him and his wife Nancy money for a house. In the kitchen, 35 years after that loan went through, he still speaks in appreciation that they would do such a thing: “Artists are rewarded in many ways, but not financially.” He states this as a fact he is resolved to live with, not as a complaint. “I also am convinced that it’s necessary to choose a lifestyle that doesn’t require an overabundance of material things,” he adds.
Their house is a work of art in itself: A beautifully converted barn built into a hillside southwest of Arena. “Ninety percent of the house is recycled,” says Nancy, an artist and educator. “Everything but the plumbing and the electricity. Stuff people threw away, because we didn’t have the money for anything else.” David and Nancy each have a studio. David’s is a large space two stories high, right off the living room and kitchen. The wall where he pins up his canvases has become the kind of accidental abstract painting found in artists’ studios made up of traces of colors from projects he has done over the years. There are remnants of the art that came before in the vibrant blues, reds and yellows found throughout the church.
Assumption recently built a large exo-narthex, giving Giffey a beautiful new blank canvas to work with. The first piece he added in September depicts two angels holding up a large disc upon which sits the Virgin Mary, a smaller version of the image found in the church behind the altar. On her lap, the child Jesus holds a scroll showing that he is a teacher. Upon closer examination, it becomes clear that the angels are not holding up the virgin and child. It only looks that way because of the traditional flat perspective of iconography. The angels are, in fact, holding up a picture of Mary and Jesus. It is an icon holding an icon.
“People ask me how much more do you want to do?” says Giffey. “I have to decide that. I feel capable now, but who knows if I have two years, one year, 10 years, 20 years? I don’t know. I would love to do this whole area with scenes from the life of Mary.”
Giffey is wasting no time. At his home studio, he has begun putting together the pieces of a painting that will greet worshipers as they enter the building depicting Mary’s early childhood. Showing multiple points in time in one image, it is complex without being confusing, and from the early sketches it should be a stunning visual introduction to the other images in the church.
“There’s a need on my part to make the icons as beautiful as possible,” says Giffey. “As long as they tell the story they need to tell.”
This entry was posted in Veteran and tagged Assumption, Assumption Greek Orthodox Church, Byzantine iconography, David Giffey, pacifism, Pantocrator, peace activist, Veterans for Peace, Vietnam on January 6, 2018 by Website Administrator.
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Tag: Joss Whedon
Yesterday, I finally got to see Joss Whedon’s film adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing. Shot in twelve days in black and white in and around Whedon’s California home, most of the cast have worked with Whedon on previous projects, and that’s clearly helped achieve the sort of directorial clarity that other films can’t always manage. [AMAZONPRODUCTS asin=”B00C2A4SYA”]
Including some silent flashbacks of Beatrice and Benedick’s previous liaison is a luxury stage productions can’t have, but here it helps establish the cause of their antagonistic relationship in a nutshell. She fell for his charms once, and her antipathy towards him is as much regret for her own part in that one-night stand.
Amy Acker’s Beatrice is wonderful: strong, compassionate, fragile, quick, strong, headstrong. I said in my preview blog post that I’ve never been particularly enamoured with Alexis Denisof, and for the most part that opinion hasn’t changed: however, his farcical acrobatics as he overhears Leonato, Claudio and Don Pedro talk about how Beatrice is in love with him are hilariously accomplished. His weakest scenes are those where he must monologue his way through his internal thought processes. On stage, Benedick can use the audience as confidantes: no such luck on film – although at one point he addresses an imagined audience within Whedon’s garden amphitheatre, and that just about works.
Clark Gregg’s Leonato is a warm, genial figure – and not a little camp, which is no bad thing – while Reed Diamond’s Don Pedro and Sean Maher as his bastard brother, Don John, provide solid, ever watchable interpretations of those stock characters.
As the secondary couple, Jillian Morgese is little more than a cipher in the thankless role of Hero, far eclipsed by Fran Kranz’s Claudio. As the smitten young man who allows Don John’s lies to lead him to believe his fiancée has been unfaithful to him, Kranz is astonishing. He’s been a supporting actor in several Whedon projects up to now, but I really hope that this role is enough to get casting directors considering him for the romantic lead in future projects. [AMAZONPRODUCTS asin=”B00C2A4SX6″]
There is an undoubted highlight in the casting, though – Nathan Fillion as the buffoonish constable Dogberry. Fans of Doctor Horrible’s Singalong Blog know that, as Captain Hammer, Fillion can play heroically stupid like nobody else. That’s a path he not only treads again here, but trips down with abandon. He steals every scene he’s in, although Tom Lenk as his assistant Verges is a hilarious accomplice in that regard.
The music is also wonderful, composed by Whedon, produced by his brother Jed and featuring the vocal talents of Jed’s wife Maurissa Tancharoen. In terms of adapting the song Sigh No More, they do a great song that fits in with the mood of the party scenes. (I still prefer Michael Bruce’s Eighties-themed interpretation, though.)
Much Ado About nothing is still on release – for details, see the official website. The film is available to pre-order on DVD and Blu-Ray for release in October. The original score is available now.
Much Ado About Nothing5Scott Matthewman2013-06-23 14:17:44Yesterday, I finally got to see Joss Whedon’s film adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing. Shot in twelve days in black and white in and around Whedon’s…
Author Scott MatthewmanPosted on June 23, 2013 June 23, 2013 Categories FilmTags Film, Joss Whedon, Michael Bruce, Much Ado About Nothing, ShakespeareLeave a comment on Much Ado About Nothing
Coming soon: Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing
If there’s one film I’m looking forward to this June – and that ignores both Behind the Candelabra and Man of Steel – it’s Joss Whedon’s take on Shakespeare’s comedy Much Ado About Nothing.
Filmed over a couple of weeks as the director took a break between production and post-production of Avengers Assemble, it was shot in and around Whedon’s home, and stars actors who have featured in several of his previous projects (for a selection of interviews with them, see this Buzzfeed article).
I’ve never been quite as enamoured with Alexis Denisof (Benedick) as Whedon seems to be, but Amy Acker’s Beatrice should be good fun. And the thought of Nathan Fillion as Dogberry…
For more details about the film, including the cinemas it’s booked to play in, visit the official site at muchadofilm.co.uk. It opens on June 14.
Author Scott MatthewmanPosted on June 7, 2013 June 7, 2013 Format VideoCategories FilmTags Joss Whedon, Much Ado About Nothing, ShakespeareLeave a comment on Coming soon: Joss Whedon’s Much Ado About Nothing
Ten Things About Who: The Name of the Doctor
This post has been edited, tidied up and expanded to form part of my new ebook, TEN THINGS ABOUT WHO, available on Kindle. Buy it now for £1.99. More details
Okay, this time more than ever, you must watch the episode before reading anything about it. Spoilers, sweetie…
Read previous Ten Things About… posts
1. “Less poetry, Doctor”
Do you hear the Whisper Men
The Whisper Men are near
If you hear the Whisper Men
Then turn away your ear
Do not hear the Whisper Men
Whatever else you do
For once you’ve heard the Whisper Men
They’ll stop… and look at you
A simple, but effective, design helps lift the Whisper Men from being the generic henchmen that they would otherwise become. I couldn’t help being reminded of the Gentlemen that Joss Whedon created for one of Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s best ever episodes, the near-silent Hush. True, they stole hearts rather than just stopping them – but they, too, were presaged by a cod nursery rhyme:
Can’t even shout, can’t even cry
The Gentlemen are coming by
Looking in windows, knocking on doors
They need to take seven and they might take yours
Can’t call to mom, can’t say a word
You’re gonna die screaming but you won’t be heard.
Continue reading “Ten Things About Who: The Name of the Doctor”
Author Scott MatthewmanPosted on May 19, 2013 July 4, 2013 Categories Doctor WhoTags Alex Kingston, Blink, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Doctor Who, Joss Whedon, Matt Smith, Paul McGann, River Song, Ten Things About, William HartnellLeave a comment on Ten Things About Who: The Name of the Doctor
Review: Avengers Assemble
Over the past few years, several of Marvel’s movie adaptations of its greatest comic book heroes have featured short scenes after the credits. Once the seemingly in terminable list of CGI artists has finally concluded, an eyepatch-bedecked Samuel L. Jackson would appear, offering each film’s titular hero an opportunity to join “The Avengers Initiative”.
In The Avengers — known here in the UK as Avengers Assemble to avoid confusion with the cult TV series (and woeful movie remake) of the same name — filmgoers get to see what all those scenes were about.
Continue reading “Review: Avengers Assemble”
Review: Avengers Assemble4Scott Matthewman2013-06-07 16:59:56Over the past few years, several of Marvel’s movie adaptations of its greatest comic book heroes have featured short scenes after the credits. Once th…
Author Scott MatthewmanPosted on April 20, 2012 June 7, 2013 Categories FilmTags comics, Iron Man, Joss Whedon, Marvel, movie adaptations, The Avengers, ThorLeave a comment on Review: Avengers Assemble
Ta-ra Tara, hello homophobia?
After the producers of cult TV hit Buffy The Vampire Slayer killed off a recurring character who was also an out lesbian, this article examined the accusations of homophobia aimed at a show which was historically regarded as being gay-friendly. Written for Gay.com UK.
In the US (and, in a few weeks’ time, on Sky One here in the UK), Buffy: The Vampire Slayer will be hanging up the stakes and garlic for the last time, as the series reaches the end of its seven-year run. It’s generally perceived as going out on a high, with its final season garnering much critical acclaim. US site PlanetOut.com described it as “the gayest show on television”, and is picking out a fetching funeral outfit for the final episode later this month.
For UK terrestrial viewers, though, who are one year behind, the series is coming to the end of a much more difficult batch of episodes.
The sixth season of Buffy was a tortuous period in the series’ history. On screen, Buffy Summers was brought back from the dead by her friends, who later discovered they’d not rescued her from hell, but wrenched her from heaven. Rupert Giles gave up sunny California for his native rain-drenched West Country England. Xander and Anya bored everyone with their marriage plans for most of the season, before it all ended in tears at the altar with not a single vow exchanged. But most heinous of all, Tara Maclay – beautiful, shy, funny, bewitching, lesbian Tara – was killed.
It was that last action that many fans found hard to take. Amber Benson’s character, introduced a season and a half earlier, had become an instant favourite since her first appearance in the near-silent episode, _Hush_. Not initially conceived as a lesbian character, the chemistry between Benson and Alyson Hannigan as Willow was so electric from their very first scene together that the characters were soon an on-screen item. Willow’s growing discovery of her own sexuality, her coming out to both ex-boyfriend Oz and her larger group of friends, was handled deftly and sensitively in a manner that earned production company Mutant Enemy much praise.
As Willow and Tara’s relationship blossomed throughout the series’ fifth season, Amber and Alyson became the American darlings of the gay press. Any criticism of the series’ handling of the relationship was mild, and aimed at the sometimes comedic presentation of Willow’s coming out (in _Triangle_, she herself describes her orientation as “gay now”, while a robot replica of Buffy summarised the character’s sexuality in an on-screen caption as `GAY: 1999-PRESENT`). Generally, most people were simply happy that two regular characters in the same show could not only both be gay, but be shown having a loving, intimate and sexually charged relationship. In American television, Willow and Tara were unique.
Even in the troubled season six, the couple were still setting the screen alight, despite fractures in the relationship based on Willow’s over-reliance on magic. In the much-vaunted musical episode _Once More, With Feeling_ (available on [DVD](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00008N6ZH/thislitheunoffig), (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000070WPE/thislitheunoffig), [script book](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743467973/thislitheunoffig) and probably tea-towel by the time you read this), Tara sings the standout song of the episode, I’m Under Your Spell, about how bewitched she is by her girlfriend (ironically, unaware that she really _is_ bewitched, as Willow has cast a spell to ensure her girlfriend does not remember an argument they had the previous episode). The song ends with Tara floating over the couple’s double bed in what seems to be orgasmic delight. The top of Willow’s head can be seen doing something further down Tara’s body – it doesn’t take much to guess what.
As Willow’s deception is uncovered, the couple break up, and stay apart for the rest of the season. In the episode _Seeing Red_ (to be broadcast today, 8 May, on BBC2 at 6:45pm), the couple finally reconcile and spend pretty much all of the episode making up for lost time in bed. In the last few minutes, though, a stray bullet aimed at someone else fells Tara at her girlfriend’s feet.
That fans of the show, of the character and of the actress were upset at Tara’s death comes as no surprise. That the upset spilled over into anger and fury aimed at the show’s makers, though, took producers Mutant Enemy completely by surprise. But was it justified?
Tara’s death can certainly be justified dramatically. It propels Willow down a very dark path in her grief that shapes the concluding episodes of the season, and sends her character on an arc that continues until the series’ end a year later. In terms of character development, it can also be argued that Tara didn’t have anywhere else to go. Apart from one spell gone awry in season five, she was practically perfect in every way – acting as a surrogate mother not only for Buffy’s sister, Dawn, when she was left without anyone else to look after her, but also for the rest of the gang. And while that sort of emotional stability is something that most of us hope for in real life, in terms of television drama it becomes stale very easily.
While the series’ previous big death, that of Buffy’s mother Joyce, had been far more emotionally charged a year previously, the fact that Tara was gay threw the situation into a much more complex light. As author Keith Topping, writer of the critically acclaimed Slayer series of episode guides, noted, “the amount of Internet bandwidth used to discuss the possible subtexts surrounding Tara’s death… could have filled Wembley Stadium.”
In a series of blunt and frank essays, the first of which is entitled [It’s Not Homophobia, But That Doesn’t Make It Right](http://www.xtreme-gaming.com/theotherside/homophobia.html), former television writer Robert A Black argued that to kill off one of the only lesbian characters on television, only for the surviving partner to go on a homicidal rampage, conjured “images of the many dead and evil lesbian characters that have appeared on American TV and movie screens before. For Mutant Enemy to have placed these images on the screen and not expected viewers to hearken back to the homophobic stories of the past is as naïve as if they had placed a swastika on the screen and expected the viewers to think it signified good luck.”
Even critics such as Black acknowledge that the course of Tara and Willow’s relationship had, up until that point, been incredibly positive for the gay community as a whole. “Today, there are several gay and lesbian characters on American TV, but none of them are in a steady long-running relationship,” he wrote. “The fact that Willow and Tara were together was what made them unique. The relationship was greater than the two characters individually, because together they gave the gay community something it could find nowhere else.”
Topping agrees. “Willow and Tara, whether by accident or design, have been positive role models to gay people everywhere,” he writes in [Slayer: The Next Generation](http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0753507382/thislitheunoffig), which covers Season Six and the fallout over the character’s death in some detail. “They’ve shown that you don’t have to hide your sexuality or to be an outsider, that ridicule and homophobia are products of ignorance.”
But, as Black notes, when you can count regular gay or lesbian couples on television not on one hand but on one _finger_, killing one half of that relationship carries a far greater impact than any death of a straight character could ever do. “It can be difficult for the heterosexual community to understand how important it is to see one’s self reflected onscreen. It’s so common for heterosexuals that we take it for granted, often to the point where we don’t even think it matters at all. But to a marginalized segment of the population, where there is a constant feeling that one’s very existence is being denied, that onscreen reflection can be priceless.”
The most eloquent critics of the decision to kill Tara are at pains not to label the show’s producers as homophobic. “A group of homophobic writers and producers could never have given the world the Willow/Tara relationship in the first place, and there’s no reason to assume that they have all suddenly turned homophobic now,” says Black. “On the other hand, even if Mutant Enemy didn’t intend to tell a homophobic story, they were still capable of placing a homophobic image on the screen.”
The argument gains strength given the juxtaposition of Tara and Willow’s make-up shagging with the death straight afterwards. Buffy has always portrayed sex and death as being metaphors for one another: the ‘siring’ of a new vampire has always carried strong sexual overtones, and when Buffy herself lost her virginity to Angel (a vampire whose soul had been returned to him) he reverted to the ultra-evil serial killer he had been in centuries past. But in a series where death is generally no hindrance to continued appearance in the series, redemption has generally always been on offer — at least, as long as you’re straight.
The only other recurring gay character in the series at this point had been Larry, a high school student who was one of two killed during the climax to the series’ third season. The other victim, high school bitch princess Harmony, became a vampire herself and popped up on numerous occasions. For the gay characters to be the only ones denied any chance of redemption, it can be argued, sends a terrible message to the audience — a message that may be unintentional, but is no less damaging for it: sex is bad, but gay sex is worse. Producer David Fury admitted in an interview in May 2002 that “in retrospect, I can see the cliché. That was not our intent. We wanted to show them together and happy. It created the impression in a lot of people’s minds that [Tara’s] death was linked to them having sex.”
The show’s producers, especially series creator Joss Whedon, say that the negative reaction to the loss of Tara from the show took them by surprise. “It was an episode that was clearly about male violence and dominance,” Whedon told _E! Online_, “and suddenly I’m a gay basher.”
In America (and for satellite viewers in the UK), a year’s worth of episodes have gone by since the events of Seeing Red. Willow’s still gay — and making the faltering steps back into coupledom with new girlfriend Kennedy. While played almost completely played for laughs, Tom Lenk’s Andrew Wells brings the total of recurring gay characters by the series’ end to three — which is three more than most TV series have ever achieved.
Amber Benson will be missed from television screens both sides of the Atlantic. Not only because there’s one less positive gay character, but also because she’s of normal build, with a curvaceous beauty that is so rare in an industry where most actresses can only succeed if they’re genetically cross-bred with a stick insect. Still, her own career now has some great opportunities ahead. She has written and directed an acclaimed film, _Chance_, and is co-author (with Christopher Golden) of the remarkable animated series [The Ghosts of Albion](http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/ghosts/) for BBCi’s website. And thanks to DVD and video, Tara and Willow can remain together for as long as we need them to be.
* Originally published on [Gay.com UK](http://uk.gay.com/) _(original article no longer available)_
Author Scott MatthewmanPosted on May 8, 2003 August 22, 2009 Categories LGBT, Published articles, TelevisionTags Buffy the Vampire Slayer, homophobia, Joss Whedon, Keith Topping, LGBT, Tara Maclay, Television, Willow Rosenberg2 Comments on Ta-ra Tara, hello homophobia?
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[ Author ] Keyword Title Type Year
A. T. Yu and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Structural Optimization of a Wing Box Using B-Spline Parametrization”, in Proceedings of the CASI Conference, {T}oronto, {ON}, 2007.
A. T. Yu and Martins, J. R. R. A., “A Configurable B-Spline Parametrization Method for Structural Optimization of Wing Boxes”, in Proceedings of the 12th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, Victoria, BC, 2008.
Y. Yu, Lyu, Z., Xu, Z., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “On the Influence of Optimization Algorithm and Starting Design on Wing Aerodynamic Shape Optimization”, Aerospace Science and Technology, vol. 75, p. 183--199, 2018.
Yin2014-On the Influence of Optimization Algorithm and Initial Design on Wing Aerodynamic Shape Optimization-Preprint.pdf (8.73 MB)
A. T. Yu and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Efficient Coupled-Sensitivity Analysis Methods for Aero-Structural Optimization”, in Proceedings of the CASI Aircraft Design and Development Symposium, Toronto, {ON}, 2005.
N. Xue, Du, W., Martins, J. R. R. A., and Shyy, W., “Lithium-Ion Batteries: Thermo-Mechanics, Performance, and Design Optimization”, in Handbook of Clean Energy Systems, vol. 5 : Energy Storage, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, 2015, pp. 2849-2864.
Xue2015-Lithium Ion Batteries - Preprint.pdf (1.43 MB)
N. Xue, Du, W., Greszler, T. A., Shyy, W., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Design of a Lithium-ion Battery Pack for PHEV Using Multiple Optimization Methods”, Applied Energy, vol. 115, pp. 591–602, 2014.
xue-app_engy_pack_opt_2013_revised.pdf (978.68 KB)
C. Vanaret, Gallard, F., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “On the Consequences of the "No Free Lunch" Theorem for Optimization on the Choice of MDO Architecture”, in Proceedings of the AIAA SciTech Conference, 2017.
NFL_MDO_architecture_AIAA2017_vanaret_gallard_martins.pdf (1.34 MB)
Q. Thomson and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Progressive Validity Trust Region Optimization Using a Kriging Metamodel”, in Proceedings of the 12th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, Victoria, BC, 2008.
Q. Thomson and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Adaptive Accuracy Trust Region: Using Cross-Validation in the Optimization Process”, Engineering Optimization, vol. 43, pp. 615–633, 2011.
N. P. Tedford and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Benchmarking Multidisciplinary Design Optimization Algorithms”, Optimization and Engineering, vol. 11, pp. 159–183, 2010.
Tedford2010.pdf (979.1 KB)
N. P. Tedford and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Comparison of MDO Architectures within a Universal Framework”, in Proceedings of the 2nd AIAA Multidisciplinary Design Optimization Specialist Conference, Newport, RI, 2006.
N. P. Tedford and Martins, J. R. R. A., “On the Common Structure of MDO Problems: A Comparison of Architectures”, in Proceedings of the 11th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, Portsmouth, VA, 2006.
T. W. Simpson and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Multidisciplinary Design Optimization for Complex Engineered Systems Design: Report from an NSF Workshop”, Journal of Mechanical Design, vol. 133, no. 10, p. 101002, 2011.
Simpson2011.pdf (666.06 KB)
Y. Shi, Gross, R., Mader, C. A., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Transition Prediction in a RANS Solver based on Linear Stability Theory for Complex Three-Dimensional Configurations”, in 2018 AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, Kissimmee, FL, 2018.
aiaa.pdf (1.59 MB)
M. Shahabsafa, Mohammad-Nezhad, A., Terlaky, T., Zuluaga, L., He, S., Hwang, J. T., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “A Novel Approach to Discrete Truss Design Problems Using Mixed Integer Neighborhood Search”, Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization, vol. 58, no. 6, p. 2429, 2018.
N. R. Secco, Jasa, J. P., Kenway, G. K. W., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Component-based Geometry Manipulation for Aerodynamic Shape Optimization with Overset Meshes”, in 18th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, 2017.
N. R. Secco and Martins, J. R. R. A., “RANS-based Aerodynamic Shape Optimization of a Strut-braced Wing with Overset Meshes”, in 2018 AIAA/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, Kissimmee, FL, 2018.
S. Roy, Crossley, W. A., Moore, K. T., Gray, J. S., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Next generation aircraft design considering airline operations and economics”, in AIAA/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, 2018.
S. Roy, Moore, K. T., Hwang, J. T., Gray, J. S., Crossley, W. A., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “A Mixed Integer Efficient Global Optimization Algorithm for the Simultaneous Aircraft Allocation-Mission-Design Problem”, in Proceeding of the 58th AIAA Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, 2017.
J. J. Reuther, Alonso, J. J., Martins, J. R. R. A., and Smith, S. C., “A Coupled Aero-Structural Optimization Method for Complete Aircraft Configurations”, in Proceedings of the 37th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit, Reno, NV, 1999.
N. M. K. Poon and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Adaptive Constraint Aggregation for Structural Optimization Using Adjoint Sensitivities”, in Proceedings of the CASI Aircraft Design and Development Symposium, Toronto, ON, 2005.
P. Peterson, Martins, J. R. R. A., and Alonso, J. J., “Fortran to Python Interface Generator with an Application to Aerospace Engineering”, in Proceedings of the 9th International Python Conference, Long Beach, CA, 2001.
R. E. Perez, Henderson, R., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Multidisciplinary Design Optimization of Airframe and Engine for Emissions Reduction”, in Proceedings of the 12th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, Victoria, BC, 2008.
R. E. Perez and Martins, J. R. R. A., “pyACDT: An Object-Oriented Framework for Aircraft Design Modelling and Multidisciplinary Optimization”, in Proceedings of the 12th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, Victoria, BC, 2008.
M. Nelson, Temple, D. W., Hwang, J. T., Young, Y. L., Martins, J. R. R. A., and Collette, M., “Simultaneous optimization of propeller–hull systems to minimize lifetime fuel consumption”, Applied Ocean Research, vol. 43, pp. 46-52, 2013.
Nelson2013-Simultaneous Optimization of Propeller-Hull Systems to Minimize Lifetime-a..pdf (1.19 MB)
J. R. R. A. Martins, Alonso, J. J., and Reuther, J. J., “High-Fidelity Aero-Structural Design Optimization of a Supersonic Business Jet”, in Proceedings of the 43rd AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, Denver, CO, 2002.
J. R. R. A. Martins and Hwang, J. T., “Multidisciplinary Design Optimization of Aircraft Configurations–-Part 1: A modular coupled adjoint approach”, Von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics, Sint--Genesius--Rode, Belgium, 2016.
Martins_VKI_2016_part_1_mdolab.pdf (1.49 MB)
J. R. R. A. Martins, Kroo, I. M., and Alonso, J. J., “An Automated Method for Sensitivity Analysis Using Complex Variables”, in Proceedings of the 38th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, Reno, NV, 2000.
J. R. R. A. Martins and Kennedy, G. J., “Enabling Large-scale Multidisciplinary Design Optimization through Adjoint Sensitivity Analysis”, in 57th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, AIAA SciTech Forum, 2019.
Martins2019-Enabling Large-scale Multidisciplinary Design Optimization through-a.pdf (7.74 MB)
J. R. R. A. Martins, Alonso, J. J., and van der Weide, E., “An Automated Approach for Developing Discrete Adjoint Solvers”, in Proceedings of the 2nd AIAA Multidisciplinary Design Optimization Specialist Conference, Newport, RI, 2006.
J. R. R. A. Martins and Hwang, J. T., “Review and Unification of Methods for Computing Derivatives of Multidisciplinary Systems”, in In Proceedings of the 53rd AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, Honolulu, HI, 2012.
J. R. R. A. Martins and Lambe, A. B., “Multidisciplinary Design Optimization: A Survey of Architectures”, AIAA Journal, vol. 51, no. 9, pp. 2049-2075, 2013.
Martins-Lambe-AIAAJ-MDO-Survey.pdf (434.39 KB)
J. R. R. A. Martins and Hwang, J. T., “Review and Unification of Methods for Computing Derivatives of Multidisciplinary Computational Models”, AIAA Journal, vol. 51, no. 11, p. 2582--2599, 2013.
Martins-Hwang-2013-AIAAJ-derivatives.pdf (737.33 KB)
J. R. R. A. Martins and Marriage, C., “An Object-Oriented Framework for Multidisciplinary Design Optimization”, in Proceedings of the 3rd AIAA Multidisciplinary Design Optimization Specialist Conference, Waikiki, HI, 2007.
J. R. R. A. Martins and Kostina, E. A., “Editorial –- Special Issue on Optimization and Engineering Applications”, 1, 2010.
Martins2010-Editorial---Special Issue on Optimization and Engineering Applications-b..pdf (129.36 KB)
J. R. R. A. Martins, Mader, C. A., and Alonso, J. J., “ADjoint: An Approach for Rapid Development of Discrete Adjoint Solvers”, in Proceedings of the 11th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, Portsmouth, VA, 2006.
J. R. R. A. Martins, Alonso, J. J., and Reuther, J. J., “A Coupled-Adjoint Sensitivity Analysis Method for Aero-Structural Optimization”, in Proceedings of the CASI Aircraft Design and Development Symposium, Montréal, QC, 2003.
J. R. R. A. Martins, Marriage, C., and Tedford, N. P., “pyMDO: An Object-Oriented Framework for Multidisciplinary Design Optimization”, ACM Transactions on Mathematical Software, vol. 36, pp. 20:1–20:25, 2009.
Martins2009-pyMDO An Object-Oriented Framework for Multidisciplinary Design Optimizationa..pdf (1.44 MB)
J. R. R. A. Martins and Poon, N. M. K., “On Structural Optimization Using Constraint Aggregation”, in Proceedings of the 6th World Congress on Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2005.
J. R. R. A. Martins, “Fuel burn reduction through wing morphing”, in Encyclopedia of Aerospace Engineering , vol. Green Aviation, Wiley, 2016, pp. 75-79.
Martins2016-Fuel Burn Reduction Through Wing Morphing - Preprint.pdf (757.53 KB)
J. R. R. A. Martins, “Wing Design via Numerical Optimization”, 2, 2015.
Martins2015-SIAG-OPT-ViewsAndNews-23-1-Wing design via numerical optimization.pdf (3.13 MB)
J. R. R. A. Martins, “Multidisciplinary Design Optimization of Aerospace Systems”, in Advances and Trends in Optimization with Engineering Applications , Philadelphia, PA: SIAM, 2017, pp. 249-257.
Martins2017-Multidiscplinary Design Optimization of Aerospace Systems.pdf (888.81 KB)
J. R. R. A. Martins, Sturdza, P., and Alonso, J. J., “The Connection Between the Complex-Step Derivative Approximation and Algorithmic Differentiation”, in Proceedings of the 39th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, Reno, NV, 2001.
J. R. R. A. Martins, Kenway, G. K. W., and Brooks, T. R., “Multidisciplinary Design Optimization of Aircraft Configurations–-Part 2: High-fidelity aerostructural optimization”, Von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics, Sint--Genesius--Rode, Belgium, 2016.
Martins_VKI_2016_part_2_mdolab.pdf (22.98 MB)
J. R. R. A. Martins, Alonso, J. J., and LeGresley, P., “Aero-Structural Optimization of Aircraft Configurations Using Coupled-Sensitivity Analysis”, in Proceedings of the SIAM Conference on Computational Science and Engineering, San Diego, CA, 2003.
J. R. R. A. Martins, “Portugueses em IO pelo Mundo–-Joaquim R. R. A. Martins”, 2014.
Martins2014-Portugueses em IO pelo Mundo---Joaquim R. R. A. Martins-b..pdf (154.54 KB)
C. Marriage and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Reconfigurable Semi-Analytic Sensitivity Methods and MDO Architectures Within the $π$MDO Framework”, in Proceedings of the 12th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, Victoria, BC, 2008.
Marriage2008a.pdf (765.73 KB)
C. A. Mader and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Stability-constrained aerodynamic shape optimization of flying wings”, Journal of Aircraft, vol. 50, pp. 1431–1449, 2013.
flyingWing2012.pdf (3.65 MB)
C. A. Mader and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Optimal Flying Wings: A Numerical Optimization Study”, in 53rd AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, Honolulu, HI, 2012.
Mader2012.pdf (3.77 MB)
C. A. Mader, Kenway, G. K. W., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Towards High-Fidelity Aerostructural Optimization Using a Coupled ADjoint Approach”, in Proceedings of the 12th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, Victoria, BC, 2008.
C. A. Mader, Martins, J. R. R. A., Alonso, J. J., and van der Weide, E., “ADjoint: An Approach for the Rapid Development of Discrete Adjoint Solvers”, AIAA Journal, vol. 46, pp. 863-873, 2008.
Mader2008-ADjoint An Approach for the Rapid Development of Discrete Adjoint-a..pdf (5.27 MB)
C. A. Mader, Kenway, G. K. W., Martins, J. R. R. A., and Uranga, A., “Aerostructural Optimization of the D8 Wing with Varying Cruise Mach Numbers”, in 18th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, 2017.
C. A. Mader, Kenway, G. K. W., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “A Framework for High-Fidelity Aerostructural Optimization of Aircraft Configurations”, in Proceedings of the International Conference on System Simulation and Scientific Computing, Beijing, China, 2008.
C. A. Mader and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Computing Stability Derivatives and Their Gradients for Aerodynamic Shape Optimization”, AIAA Journal, vol. 52, no. 11, pp. 2533-2546, 2014.
maderTSD2010.pdf (3.51 MB)
C. A. Mader and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Stability-Constrained Aerodynamic Shape Optimization of a Flying Wing Configuration”, in Proceedings of the 13th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis Optimization Conference, Forth Worth, TX, 2010.
C. A. Mader, Marta, A. C., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Aerodynamic Shape Optimization of an Oblique Wing Using the ADjoint Approach”, in Proceedings of the 15th Conference of the CFD Society of Canada, Toronto, ON, 2007.
C. A. Mader and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Computation of Aircraft Stability Derivatives Using an Automatic Differentiation Adjoint Approach”, AIAA Journal, vol. 49, no. 12, pp. 2737-2750, 2011.
Mader2011-Computation of Aircraft Stability Derivatives Using an Automatica..pdf (8 MB)
C. A. Mader and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Derivatives for Time-Spectral Computational Fluid Dynamics Using an Automatic Differentiation Adjoint”, AIAA Journal, vol. 50, no. 12, pp. 2809-2819, 2012.
Mader2012a.pdf (661.23 KB)
Z. Lyu and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Graph Partitioning-Based Coordination Methods for Large-Scale Multidisciplinary Design Optimization Problems”, in Proceedings of the 14th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis Optimization Conference, Indianapolis, IN, 2012.
Z. Lyu and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Aerodynamic Shape Optimization of an Adaptive Morphing Trailing Edge Wing”, in Proceedings of the 15th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, Atlanta, GA, 2014.
Z. Lyu and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Aerodynamic Shape Optimization Studies of a Blended-Wing-Body Aircraft”, Journal of Aircraft, vol. 51, no. 5, 2014.
Lyu-Martins-2014-JoA-BWB.pdf (17.79 MB)
Z. Lyu and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Strategies for Solving High-Fidelity Aerodynamic Shape Optimization Problems”, in Proceedings of the 15th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, Atlanta, GA, 2014.
Lyu_MAO_2014_Aero.pdf (12.45 MB)
Z. Lyu and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Aerodynamic Shape Optimization of a Blended-Wing-Body Aircraft”, in Proceedings of the 51st AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, Grapevine, TX, 2013.
Z. Lyu and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Aerodynamic Shape Optimization of an Adaptive Morphing Trailing Edge Wing”, Journal of Aircraft, vol. 52, pp. 1951–1970, 2015.
Lyu2015a-Aerodynamic shape optimization of an adaptive morphing trailing edge wing.pdf (8.59 MB)
Z. Lyu, Kenway, G. K. W., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “RANS-based Aerodynamic Shape Optimization Investigations of the Common Research Model Wing”, in Proceedings of the AIAA Science and Technology Forum and Exposition (SciTech), National Harbor, MD, 2014.
Z. Lyu, “High-Fidelity Aerodynamic Design Optimization of Aircraft Configurations”, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 2014.
Lyu_thesis.pdf (84.42 MB)
Z. Lyu, Xu, Z., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Benchmarking Optimization Algorithms for Wing Aerodynamic Design Optimization”, in 8th International Conference on Computational Fluid Dynamics (ICCFD8), Chengdu, China, 2014.
Lyu_ICCFD8_Final_v2.pdf (5.55 MB)
Z. Lyu, Kenway, G. K. W., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Aerodynamic Shape Optimization Investigations of the Common Research Model Wing Benchmark”, AIAA Journal, vol. 53, no. 4, p. 968--985, 2015.
Lyu_AIAAJ_ASO_2014_preprint.pdf (23.63 MB)
Z. Lyu and Martins, J. R. R. A., “RANS-based Aerodynamic Shape Optimization of a Blended-Wing-Body Aircraft”, in 43rd AIAA Fluid Dynamics Conference and Exhibit, 2013.
E. Lee and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Structural Topology Optimization with Design-Dependent Pressure Loads”, Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering, vol. 233–236, pp. 40–48, 2012.
A. B. Lambe and Martins, J. R. R. A., “A Matrix-Free Approach to Large-Scale Structural Optimization”, in 10th World Congress on Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization, Orlando, FL, 2013.
A. B. Lambe and Martins, J. R. R. A., “A Unified Description of MDO Architectures”, in Proceedings of the 9th World Congress on Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization, Shizuoka, Japan, 2011.
A. B. Lambe and Martins, J. R. R. A., “A New Approach to Multidisciplinary Design Optimization via Internal Decomposition”, in Proceedings of the 13th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, Fort Worth, TX, 2010.
Lambe_AIAA_MAO_2010_final.pdf (570.85 KB)
A. B. Lambe and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Matrix-free aerostructural optimization of aircraft wings”, Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization, vol. 53, pp. 589–603, 2016.
Lambe_Martins_2016_mdolab.pdf (1.95 MB)
A. B. Lambe and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Extensions to the Design Structure Matrix for the Description of Multidisciplinary Design, Analysis, and Optimization Processes”, Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization, vol. 46, no. 2, pp. 273-284, 2012.
Lambe2012.pdf (289.49 KB)
A. B. Lambe, Kennedy, G. J., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Multidisciplinary Design Optimization of an Aircraft Wing via a Matrix-Free Approach”, in 15th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, Atlanta, GA, 2014.
A. B. Lambe, Martins, J. R. R. A., and Kennedy, G. J., “An Evaluation of Constraint Aggregation Strategies for Wing Box Mass Minimization”, Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization, vol. 55, pp. 257–277, 2017.
Lambe_et_al_2016a_mdolab.pdf (2.91 MB)
G. K. W. Kenway and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Aerostructural Shape Optimization of Wind Turbine Blades Considering Site-Specific Winds”, in Proceedings of the 12th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, Victoria, BC, 2008.
victoria.pdf (1.53 MB)
G. K. W. Kenway and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Buffet Onset Constraint Formulation for Aerodynamic Shape Optimization”, AIAA Journal, vol. 55, pp. 1930–1947, 2017.
Kenway_Martins_buffet_2017_mdolab.pdf (11.2 MB)
G. K. W. Kenway and Martins, J. R. R. A., “High-fidelity aerostructural optimization considering buffet onset”, in Proceedings of the 16th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, 2015.
Kenway2015-High-fidelity aerostructural optimization considering buffet onseta..pdf (11.19 MB)
G. K. W. Kenway, Kennedy, G. J., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Scalable parallel approach for high-fidelity steady-state aeroelastic analysis and adjoint derivative computations”, AIAA Journal, vol. 52, no. 5, pp. 935–951, 2014.
kenway2013a.pdf (4.6 MB)
G. K. W. Kenway, Kennedy, G. J., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Aerostructural optimization of the Common Research Model configuration”, in 15th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, Atlanta, GA, 2014.
mao2014_paper.pdf (10.33 MB)
G. K. W. Kenway, Kennedy, G. J., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “A CAD-Free Approach to High-Fidelity Aerostructural Optimization”, in Proceedings of the 13th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis Optimization Conference, Fort Worth, TX, 2010.
mao2010_final.pdf (5.8 MB)
G. K. W. Kenway, Henderson, R., Hicken, J. E., Kuntawala, N. B., Zingg, D. W., Martins, J. R. R. A., and McKeand, R. G., “Reducing Aviation's Environmental Impact Through Large Aircraft For Short Ranges”, in Proceedings of the 48th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit, Orlando, FL, 2010.
orlando_final.pdf (413.53 KB)
G. K. W. Kenway and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Multipoint Aerodynamic Shape Optimization Investigations of the Common Research Model Wing”, AIAA Journal, vol. 54, pp. 113–128, 2016.
Kenway2016-Multipoint Aerodynamic Shape Optimization Investigations of the Commona..pdf (10.76 MB)
G. K. W. Kenway, Mader, C. A., He, P., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Effective Adjoint Approaches for Computational Fluid Dynamics”, Progress in Aerospace Sciences, 2019.
Kenway2019-Effective Adjoint Approaches for Computational Fluid Dynamics.pdf (2.78 MB)
G. K. W. Kenway and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Multipoint Aerodynamic Shape Optimization Investigations of the Common Research Model Wing”, in 2015 AIAA SciTech, Kissimmee, FL, 2014.
G. K. W. Kenway, Kennedy, G. J., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “A Scalable Parallel Approach for High-Fidelity Aerostructural Analysis and Optimization”, in 53rd AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, Honolulu, HI, 2012.
G. K. W. Kenway and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Aerodynamic Shape Optimization of the CRM Configuration Including Buffet-Onset Conditions”, in 54th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, 2016.
G. K. W. Kenway and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Multipoint High-fidelity Aerostructural Optimization of a Transport Aircraft Configuration”, Journal of Aircraft, vol. 51, no. 1, pp. 144–160, 2014.
kenway2013b.pdf (8.77 MB)
G. J. Kennedy and Martins, J. R. R. A., “A parallel aerostructural optimization framework for aircraft design studies”, Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization, vol. 50, pp. 1079–1101, 2014.
Kennedy2014-Parallel Aerostructural Optimization Framework for Aircraft Design Studies - preprint.pdf (2.21 MB)
G. J. Kennedy, Martins, J. R. R. A., and Hansen, J. S., “Aerostructural optimization of aircraft structures using asymmetric subspace optimization”, in 12th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, Victoria, BC, 2008.
G. J. Kennedy and Martins, J. R. R. A., “A homogenization-based theory for anisotropic beams with accurate through-section stress and strain prediction”, International Journal of Solids and Structures, vol. 49, pp. 54-72, 2012.
hbtpaper.pdf (901.52 KB)
G. J. Kennedy and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Hybrid-parallel Methods for Large-scale Gradient-based Structural Design Optimization”, in Proceedings of the 10th World Congress on Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization, 2013.
G. J. Kennedy and Martins, J. R. R. A., “A Comparison of Metallic and Composite Aircraft Wings Using Aerostructural Design Optimization”, in 14th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, Indianapolis, IN, 2012.
Kennedy2012c.pdf (2.11 MB)
G. J. Kennedy, Kenway, G. K. W., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “High Aspect Ratio Wing Design: Optimal Aerostructural Tradeoffs for the Next Generation of Materials”, in Proceedings of the AIAA Science and Technology Forum and Exposition (SciTech), National Harbor, MD, 2014.
Kennedy-Kenway-Martins-2014-SciTech.pdf (2.07 MB)
G. J. Kennedy and Martins, J. R. R. A., “A Regularized Discrete Laminate Parametrization Technique with Applications to Wing-Box Design Optimization”, in 53rd AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, Honolulu, HI, 2012.
G. J. Kennedy, Hansen, J. S., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “A Timoshenko beam theory with pressure corrections for layered orthotropic beams”, International Journal of Solids and Structures, vol. 48, pp. 2373–2382, 2011.
paper.pdf (327.83 KB)
G. J. Kennedy and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Aerostructural design optimization of composite aircraft with stress and local buckling constraints using an implicit structural parametrization”, in Proceedings of CASI AERO 2011, Montreal, Quebec, 2011.
G. J. Kennedy, Kenway, G. K. W., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Towards Gradient-Based Design Optimization of Flexible Transport Aircraft with Flutter Constraints”, in Proceedings of the 15th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, 2014.
G. J. Kennedy, Martins, J. R. R. A., and Hansen, J. S., “Aerostructural Optimization of Aircraft Structures Using Asymmetric Subspace Optimization”, in Proceedings of the 12th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, Victoria, BC, 2008.
G. J. Kennedy and Martins, J. R. R. A., “A Laminate Parametrization Technique for Discrete Ply Angle Problems with Manufacturing Constraints”, Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization, vol. 48, pp. 379-393, 2013.
Kennedy2013a.pdf (394.08 KB)
G. J. Kennedy and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Parallel Solution Methods for Aerostructural Analysis and Design Optimization”, in Proceedings of the 13th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis Optimization Conference, Forth Worth, TX, 2010.
G. J. Kennedy and Martins, J. R. R. A., “An Adjoint-based Derivative Evaluation Method for Time-dependent Aeroelastic Optimization of Flexible Aircraft”, in Proceedings of the 54th AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, Boston, MA, 2013.
2013_SDM.pdf (799.25 KB)
J. Y. Kao, Hwang, J. T., Martins, J. R. R. A., Gray, J. S., and Moore, K. T., “A modular adjoint approach to aircraft mission analysis and optimization”, in 56th AIAA SDM Conference, Kissimmee, FL, 2015.
Kao2015a.pdf (611.01 KB)
E. Jonsson, Kenway, G. K. W., Kennedy, G. J., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Development of Flutter Constraints for High-fidelity Aerostructural Optimization”, in 18th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, 2017.
J. P. Jasa, Gray, J. S., Seidel, J. A., Mader, C. A., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Multipoint Optimization of a Variable Cycle Engine Using Gradient-based Optimization”, in 57th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, AIAA SciTech Forum, San Diego, CA, 2019.
jasa_scitech_2019_submitted.pdf (1012.9 KB)
J. P. Jasa, Hwang, J. T., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Design and Trajectory Optimization of a Morphing Wing Aircraft”, in 2018 AIAA/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, Kissimmee, FL, 2018.
Jasa_morphing_mission_SciTech_submitted.pdf (878.01 KB)
J. P. Jasa, Brelje, B. J., Mader, C. A., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Coupled Design of a Supersonic Engine and Thermal System”, in World Congress of Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization 13, Beijing, China, 2019.
wcsmo_jasa_2019.pdf (241.84 KB)
J. P. Jasa, Chauhan, S. S., Gray, J. S., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “How Certain Physical Considerations Impact Aerostructural Wing Optimization”, in AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, 2019.
jasa_aviation_2019.pdf (402.31 KB)
J. P. Jasa, Mader, C. A., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Trajectory Optimization of a Supersonic Air Vehicle with Thermal Fuel Management System”, in 2018 AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, Atlanta, GA, 2018.
jasa_aviation_2018_submitted.pdf (3.32 MB)
P. W. Jansen, Perez, R. E., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Aerostructural Optimization of Nonplanar Lifting Surfaces”, Journal of Aircraft, vol. 47, pp. 1491–1503, 2010.
Jansen2010a.pdf (1.4 MB)
K. A. James and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Three-Dimensional Structural Topology Optimization of an Aircraft Wing Using Level Set Methods”, in Proceedings of the 12th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, Victoria, BC, 2008.
K. A. James, Kennedy, G. J., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Aerostructural Topology Optimization of an Aircraft Wingbox”, in Proceedings of the CASI AERO 2011 Conference, Montreal, QC, 2011.
K. A. James and Martins, J. R. R. A., “An Isoparametric Approach to Level Set Topology Optimization Using a Body-Fitted Finite Element Mesh”, Computers and Structures, vol. 90–91, pp. 97-106, 2012.
James2011a.pdf (1 MB)
K. A. James, Lee, E., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Stress-Based Topology Optimization Using an Isoparametric Level Set Method”, Finite Elements in Analysis and Design, vol. 58, pp. 20–30, 2012.
K. A. James and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Level Set Topology Optimization of Structures with Isoparametric Mesh Mapping”, in Proceedings of the 9th ISSMO World Congress on Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization, Shizuoka, Japan, 2011.
K. A. James and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Level Set Topology Optimization of Structures with Isoparametric Mesh Mapping”, in Proceedings of the 9th World Congress on Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization, Shizuoka, Japan, 2011.
K. A. James and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Topology Optimization Using a Level Set Method with an Arbitrary Structured Mesh”, in 6th AIAA Multidisciplinary Design Optimization Specialist Conference, Orlando, FL, 2010.
D. Ivaldi, Secco, N. R., Chen, S., Hwang, J. T., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Aerodynamic Shape Optimization of a Truss-Braced-Wing Aircraft”, in 16th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, 2015.
J. T. Hwang and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Parallel allocation-mission optimization of a 128-route network”, in 17th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, Dallas, TX, 2015.
J. T. Hwang, Lee, D. Y., Cutler, J. W., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Large-Scale MDO of a Small Satellite using a Novel Framework for the Solution of Coupled Systems and their Derivatives”, in Proceedings of the 54th AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, Boston, MA, 2013.
J. T. Hwang, “A modular approach to large-scale design optimization of aerospace systems”, 2014.
Hwang_dissertation.pdf (46.92 MB)
J. T. Hwang, Jasa, J. P., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “High-fidelity design-allocation optimization of a commercial aircraft maximizing airline profit”, Journal of Aircraft, 2019.
hwang_AMD_preprint.pdf (4.1 MB)
J. T. Hwang and Steeves, C. A., “Optimization of 3D lattice cores in composite sandwich structures”, Journal of Composite Materials, 2014.
J. T. Hwang, Roy, S., Kao, J. Y., Martins, J. R. R. A., and Crossley, W. A., “Simultaneous aircraft allocation and mission optimization using a modular adjoint approach”, in 56th AIAA SDM Conference, Kissimmee, FL, 2015.
Hwang2015a.pdf (330.5 KB)
J. T. Hwang and Martins, J. R. R. A., “An unstructured quadrilateral mesh generation algorithm for aircraft structures”, Aerospace Science and Technology, vol. 59, pp. 172–182, 2016.
Hwang_Martins_2016b_mdolab.pdf (20.12 MB)
J. T. Hwang, Kenway, G. K. W., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Geometry and Structural Modeling for High-Fidelity Aircraft Conceptual Design Optimization”, in Proceedings of the 15th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, Atlanta, GA, 2014.
Hwang-MAO-2014.pdf (14.68 MB)
J. T. Hwang and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Allocation-mission-design optimization of next-generation aircraft using a parallel computational framework”, in 57th AIAA/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, 2016.
Hwang2016.pdf (1.29 MB)
J. T. Hwang and Martins, J. R. R. A., “GeoMACH: Geometry-Centric MDAO of Aircraft Configurations with High Fidelity”, in Proceedings of the 14th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis Optimization Conference, Indianapolis, IN, 2012.
Hwang2012c.pdf (8.6 MB)
J. T. Hwang and Martins, J. R. R. A., “A computational architecture for coupling heterogeneous numerical models and computing coupled derivatives”, ACM TOMS, vol. 44, no. 4, 2018.
J. T. Hwang, Lee, D. Y., Cutler, J. W., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Large-Scale Multidisciplinary Optimization of a Small Satellite’s Design and Operation”, Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets, vol. 51, no. 5, pp. 1648-1663, 2014.
Hwang2014b.pdf (10.24 MB)
E. Hendricks, Falck, R. D., and Gray, J. S., “Simultaneous Propulsion System and Trajectory Optimization”, in 18th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, 2017.
P. He, Mader, C. A., Martins, J. R. R. A., and Maki, K. J., “An Object-oriented Framework for Rapid Discrete Adjoint Development using OpenFOAM”, in AIAA Science and Technology Forum (SciTech), 2019.
AIAA_SciTech2019_He_et_al.pdf (3.76 MB)
P. He, Filip, G., Martins, J. R. R. A., and Maki, K. J., “Hull form hydrodynamic design using a discrete adjoint optimization method”, in 13th International Marine Design Conference, 2018.
IMDC2018.pdf (4.9 MB)
P. He, Mader, C. A., Martins, J. R. R. A., and Maki, K. J., “Aerothermal Optimization of a Ribbed U-Bend Cooling Channel Using the Adjoint Method”, International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 2019.
UBend_Aerothermal_Opt_Preprint.pdf (6.48 MB)
S. He, Jonsson, E., Mader, C. A., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Aerodynamic Shape Optimization with Time Spectral Flutter Adjoint”, in Scitech 2019, San Diego, CA, 2019.
main.pdf (2.39 MB)
P. He, Mader, C. A., Martins, J. R. R. A., and Maki, K. J., “An Aerodynamic Design Optimization Framework Using a Discrete Adjoint Approach with OpenFOAM”, Computers & Fluids, 2018.
OpenFOAM_Adjoint.pdf (4.74 MB)
S. He, Jonsson, E., Mader, C. A., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “A Coupled Newton–Krylov Time Spectral Solver for Flutter Prediction”, in 2018 AIAA/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, Kissimmee, FL, 2018.
P. He, Mader, C. A., Martins, J. R. R. A., and Maki, K. J., “Aerothermal Optimization of Internal Cooling Passages Using a Discrete Adjoint Method”, in 2018 Joint Thermophysics and Heat Transfer Conference, AIAA Aviation Forum, 2018.
AIAA-2018-4080.pdf (2.9 MB)
G. L. O. Halila, Chen, G., Shi, Y., Fidkowski, K. J., Martins, J. R. R. A., and Mendonça, M. T., “High-Reynolds Number Transitional Flow Prediction using a Coupled Discontinuous-Galerkin RANS PSE Framework”, in 57th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, 2019.
Halila_SciTech_2019.pdf (1022.94 KB)
S. Haghighat, Martins, J. R. R. A., and Liu, H. H. T., “Integrating an Active Control System with the Structural Design of a Flexible Wing Using Multidisciplinary Optimization”, in Proceedings of the International Forum on Aeroelasticity and Structural Dynamics, Seattle, USA, 2009.
S. Haghighat, Martins, J. R. R. A., and Liu, H. H. T., “Aeroservoelastic Design Optimization of a Flexible Wing”, Journal of Aircraft, vol. 49, pp. 432–443, 2012.
Haghighat2012a.pdf (1.23 MB)
S. Haghighat, Liu, H. H. T., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Gust Load Alleviation Using Model Predictive Control for Large Aspect Ratio UAV Wings”, in Canadian Aeronautics and Space Institute Annual General Meeting, Ottawa, Canada, 2009.
S. Haghighat, Martins, J. R. R. A., and Liu, H. H. T., “Aeroservoelastic Design Optimization of a High Aspect Ratio Flying Wing”, in Proceedings of the International Forum on Aeroelasticity and Structural Dynamics, Paris, France, 2011.
S. Haghighat, Liu, H. H. T., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Modeling and Simulation of Flexible UAVs with Large Aspect Ratio”, in Proceedings of the International Conference on System Simulation and Scientific Computing, Beijing, China, 2008.
S. Haghighat, Liu, H. H. T., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Application of Model Predictive Control to Gust Loads Alleviation Systems”, in Proceedings of the AIAA Atmospheric Flight Mechanics Conference and Exhibit, Chicago, IL, 2009.
S. Haghighat, Liu, H. H. T., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “A Model Predictive Gust Load Alleviation Controller for a Highly Flexible Aircraft”, Journal of Guidance, Control and Dynamics, vol. 36, no. 6, pp. 1751–1766, 2012.
Haghighat2012b.pdf (10.85 MB)
S. Haghighat, Liu, H. H. T., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Mixed-Norm Multi-Objective Robust Controller Applied to a Very Flexible Aircraft”, in Proceedings of the AIAA Guidance, Navigation and Control Conference, 2011.
J. S. Gray, Mader, C. A., Kenway, G. K. W., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Modeling Boundary Layer Ingestion Using a Coupled Aeropropulsive Analysis”, Journal of Aircraft, vol. Vol.55, pp. 1191-1199, 2018.
Gray2018-Modeling boundary layer ingestion using a coupled aeropropulsive analysis-Preprint.pdf (2.07 MB)
J. S. Gray, Kenway, G. K. W., Mader, C. A., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Aeropropulsive Design Optimization of a Turboelectric Boundary Layer Ingestion Propulsion System”, in Proceedings of the AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, 2018.
starc_abl_2018.pdf (14.26 MB)
J. S. Gray, Chin, J. C., Hearn, T. A., Hendricks, E., Lavelle, T. M., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Chemical-Equilibrium Analysis with Adjoint Derivatives for Propulsion Cycle Analysis”, Journal of Propulsion and Power, vol. Vol.33, pp. 1041-1052, 2017.
J. S. Gray, Hearn, T. A., Moore, K. T., Hwang, J. T., Martins, J. R. R. A., and Ning, A., “Automatic Evaluation of Multidisciplinary Derivatives Using a Graph-Based Problem Formulation in OpenMDAO”, in Proceedings of the 15th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, Atlanta, GA, 2014.
Gray-MAO-2014.pdf (4.08 MB)
J. S. Gray, Chin, J. C., Hearn, T. A., Hendricks, E., Lavelle, T. M., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Thermodynamics for Gas Turbine Cycles with Analytic Derivatives in OpenMDAO”, in 57th AIAA/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, 2016.
gray_pycycle_thermodynamics.pdf (688.53 KB)
J. S. Gray, Mader, C. A., Kenway, G. K. W., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Approach to Modeling Boundary Layer Ingestion using a Fully Coupled Propulsion-RANS Model”, in 55th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting (SciTech), 2017.
J. S. Gray, Hwang, J. T., Martins, J. R. R. A., Moore, K. T., and Naylor, B. A., “OpenMDAO: An open-source framework for multidisciplinary design, analysis, and optimization”, Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization, vol. 59, no. 4, p. 1075--1104, 2019.
OpenMDAO_preprint.pdf (2.75 MB)
A. Gogulapati, Friedmann, P. P., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Optimization of the Kinematics of a Flapping Wing MAV in Hover for Enhanced Performance”, in Proceedings of the 54th AIAA/ASME/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, 2013.
A. Gogulapati, Friedmann, P. P., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Optimization of the Kinematics of a Flapping Wing MAV in Hover for Enhanced Performance”, AIAA Journal, vol. 52, pp. 2342–2354, 2014.
N. Garg, Lyu, Z., Dhert, T., Martins, J. R. R. A., and Young, Y. L., “High-fidelity Hydrodynamic Shape Optimization of a 3-D Morphing Hydrofoil”, in Fourth International Symposium on Marine Propulsors, 2015.
Garg_SMP.pdf (1.52 MB)
N. Garg, Kenway, G. K. W., Lyu, Z., Martins, J. R. R. A., and Young, Y. L., “High-fidelity Hydrodynamic Shape Optimization of a 3-D Hydrofoil”, Journal of Ship Research, vol. 59, pp. 209–226, 2015.
Garg2015-High-fidelity Hydrodynamic Shape Optimization of a 3-D Hydrofoil.pdf (4.22 MB)
N. Garg, Kenway, G. K. W., Martins, J. R. R. A., and Young, Y. L., “High-fidelity Multipoint Hydrostructural Optimization of a 3-D Hydrofoil”, Journal of Fluids and Structures, vol. 71, pp. 15–39, 2017.
JFS_NG.pdf (21.7 MB)
N. Garg, Pearce, B. W., Brandner, P. A., Phillips, A. W., Martins, J. R. R. A., and Young, Y. L., “Experimental Investigation of a Hydrofoil Designed via Hydrostructural Optimization”, Journal of Fluids and Structures, vol. 84, pp. 243–262, 2019.
NG_JFS_2017.pdf (27.9 MB)
R. D. Falck, Chin, J. C., Schnulo, S. L., Burt, J. M., and Gray, J. S., “Trajectory Optimization of Electric Aircraft Subject to Subsystem Thermal Constraints”, in 18th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, 2017.
W. Du, Xue, N., Shyy, W., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “A Surrogate-Based Multi-Scale Model for Mass Transport and Electrochemical Kinetics in Lithium-Ion Battery Electrodes”, Journal of the Electrochemical Society, vol. 161, pp. E3086–E3096, 2014.
Du2014-A Surrogate-Based Multi-Scale Model for Mass Transport and Electrochemicala..pdf (1.88 MB)
W. Du, Xue, N., Sastry, A. M., Martins, J. R. R. A., and Shyy, W., “Energy Density Comparison of Li-ion Cathode Materials Using Dimensional Analysis”, Journal of The Electrochemical Society, vol. 160, pp. A1187-A1193, 2013.
J.Electrochem.Soc_.-2013-Du-A1187-93.pdf (1.56 MB)
A. Dener, Hicken, J. E., Kenway, G. K. W., Lyu, Z., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Comparison of Newton–Krylov and Quasi-Newton Algorithms for Aerodynamic Shape Optimization”, in Proceedings of the AIAA Science and Technology Forum and Exposition (SciTech), 2015.
J. Mas Colomer, Bartoli, N., Lefebvre, T., Dubreuil, S., Martins, J. R. R. A., Benard, E., and Morlier, J., “Similarity Maximization of a Scaled Aeroelastic Flight Demonstrator via Multidisciplinary Optimization”, in Proceedings of the AIAA SciTech Conference, 2017.
I. R. Chittick and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Aero-Structural Optimization Using Adjoint Coupled Post-Optimality Sensitivities”, Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization, vol. 36, pp. 59–77, 2008.
Chittick2008-Aero-Structural Optimization Using Adjoint Coupled Post-Optimality-a..pdf (401.63 KB)
I. R. Chittick and Martins, J. R. R. A., “An Asymmetric Suboptimization Approach to Aerostructural Optimization”, Optimization and Engineering, vol. 10, pp. 133–152, 2009.
Chittick2009-An Asymmetric Suboptimization Approach to Aerostructural Optimizationa..pdf (777.03 KB)
S. Chen, Lyu, Z., Kenway, G. K. W., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Aerodynamic Shape Optimization of the Common Research Model Wing-Body-Tail Configuration”, in Proceedings of the AIAA Science and Technology Forum and Exposition (SciTech), 2015.
S. Chen, Lyu, Z., Kenway, G. K. W., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Aerodynamic Shape Optimization of the Common Research Model Wing-Body-Tail Configuration”, Journal of Aircraft, vol. 53, pp. 276–293, 2016.
Chen2016-Aerodynamic Shape Optimization of the Common Research Model-Preprint.pdf (29.46 MB)
S. Chen, Lyu, Z., Kenway, G. K. W., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Aerodynamic Shape Optimization of the Common Research Model Wing-Body-Tail Configuration”, Journal of Aircraft, 2015.
Chen2015-Aerodynamic Shape Optimization of the Common Research Model.pdf (29.46 MB)
S. S. Chauhan, Hwang, J. T., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “An automated selection algorithm for nonlinear solvers in MDO”, Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization, 2018.
preprint_for_mdolab_auto_mda_paper.pdf (1.07 MB)
S. S. Chauhan, Hwang, J. T., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Benchmarking Approaches for the Multidisciplinary Analysis of Complex Systems Using a Taylor Series-Based Scalable Problem”, in 12th World Congress of Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization (WCSMO12), Braunschweig, Germany, 2018, pp. 98–116.
wcsmo12_paper.pdf (556.91 KB)
A. Chaudhuri, Jasa, J. P., Willcox, K., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Multifidelity Optimization Under Uncertainty for a Tailless Aircraft”, in 2018 AIAA/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, Kissimmee, FL, 2018.
updated_MFMC_paper_submitted.pdf (1.21 MB)
D. A. Burdette and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Design of a Transonic Wing with an Adaptive Morphing Trailing Edge via Aerostructural Optimization”, Aerospace Science and Technology, vol. 81, pp. 192–203, 2018.
Burdette_NASA1.pdf (15.8 MB)
D. A. Burdette and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Impact of Morphing Trailing Edge on Mission Performance for the Common Research Model”, Journal of Aircraft, vol. 56, pp. 369–384, 2019.
T. R. Brooks, Hwang, J. T., Kennedy, G. J., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “High-fidelity Structural Optimization of a Tow-Steered Composite Wing”, in 11th World Congress on Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization, Sydney, Australia, 2015.
wcsmo-2015-paper.pdf (915.44 KB)
T. R. Brooks, Kenway, G. K. W., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Undeflected Common Research Model (uCRM): An Aerostructural Model for the Study of High Aspect Ratio Transport Aircraft Wings”, in 18th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, Denver, CO, 2017.
T. R. Brooks, Kennedy, G. J., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “High-fidelity Multipoint Aerostructural Optimization of a High Aspect Ratio Tow-steered Composite Wing”, in Proceedings of the 58th AIAA/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, AIAA SciTech Forum, 2017.
Scitech-2017-Brooks.pdf (13.18 MB)
T. R. Brooks, Kennedy, G. J., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “High-fidelity Aerostructural Optimization of a High Aspect Ratio Tow-steered Wing”, in 57th AIAA/ASCE/AHS/ASC Structures, Structural Dynamics, and Materials Conference, 2016.
brooks-scitech-2016-paper.pdf (9.66 MB)
B. J. Brelje and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Electric, Hybrid, and Turboelectric Fixed-Wing Aircraft: A Review of Concepts, Models, and Design Approaches”, Progress in Aerospace Sciences, vol. 104, p. 1--19, 2019.
Brelje2019-Electric, Hybrid, and Turboelectric Fixed-Wing Aircraft A Review_preprint.pdf (2.29 MB)
B. J. Brelje and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Development of a Conceptual Design Model for Aircraft Electric Propulsion with Efficient Gradients”, in AIAA/IEEE Electric Aircraft Technologies Symposium, Cincinnati, OH, 2018.
openconcept_EATS_2018.pdf (9 MB)
M. Amine Bouhlel and Martins, J. R. R. A., “Gradient-enhanced kriging for high-dimensional problems”, Engineering with Computers, 2018.
gekpls_mdolab_version.pdf (556.05 KB)
M. Amine Bouhlel, Bartoli, N., Otsmane, A., and Morlier, J., “Improving kriging surrogates of high-dimensional design models by Partial Least Squares dimension reduction”, Structural and Multidisciplinary Optimization, vol. 53, pp. 935–952, 2016.
M. Amine Bouhlel, Bartoli, N., Morlier, J., and Otsmane, A., “An Improved Approach for Estimating the Hyperparameters of the Kriging Model for High-Dimensional Problems through the Partial Least Squares Method”, Mathematical Problems in Engineering, vol. vol. 2016, Article ID 6723410, 2016.
M. Amine Bouhlel, Hwang, J. T., Bartoli, N., Lafage, R., Morlier, J., and Martins, J. R. R. A., “A Python surrogate modeling framework with derivatives”, Advance in Engineering Software, 2019.
preprint_SMT.pdf (1.99 MB)
M. Amine Bouhlel, Bartoli, N., Regis, R., Otsmane, A., and Morlier, J., “Efficient global optimization for high-dimensional constrained problems by using the Kriging models combined with the partial least squares method”, Engineering Optimization, 2018.
tandf_geno20AxA_1.bib (645 bytes)
N. Bartoli, Lefebvre, T., Dubreuil, S., Olivanti, R., Bons, N. P., Martins, J. R. R. A., Bouhlel, M. Amine, and Morlier, J., “An adaptive optimization strategy based on mixture of experts for wing aerodynamic design optimization”, in Proceedings of the 18th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, Denver, CO, 2017.
AIAA_2017_MDO-18_2638116_revised.pdf (21.34 MB)
N. Bartoli, Bouhlel, M. Amine, Kurek, I., Lafage, R., Lefebvre, T., Morlier, J., Priem, R., Stilz, V., and Regis, R. G., “Improvement of efficient global optimization with application to aircraft wing design”, in AIAA, Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, 2017.
Nouveau document texte.txt (401 bytes)
S. Arreckx, Lambe, A. B., Martins, J. R. R. A., and Orban, D., “A Matrix-Free Augmented Lagrangian Algorithm with Application to Large-Scale Structural Design Optimization”, Optimization and Engineering, vol. 17, pp. 359–384, 2016.
Arreckx_et_al_Matrix_Free_2014.pdf (1.72 MB)
J. J. Alonso, LeGresley, P., van der Weide, E., Martins, J. R. R. A., and Reuther, J. J., “pyMDO: A Framework for High-Fidelity Multi-Disciplinary Optimization”, in Proceedings of the 10th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference, Albany, {NY}, 2004.
J. J. Alonso, Martins, J. R. R. A., Reuther, J. J., and Haimes, R., “High-Fidelity Aero-Structural Design Using a Parametric CAD-Based Model”, in Proceedings of the 16th AIAA Computational Fluid Dynamics Conference, Orlando, FL, 2003.
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Preview Super Moon Total Eclipse at Museum during First Friday Jan. 4
All Years... 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008 2007 All Institutions Bosque Redondo Memorial at Fort Sumner Coronado Historic Site Department of Cultural Affairs El Camino Real Historic Trail Site El Palacio Magazine Fort Selden Historic Site Fort Stanton Historic Site Jemez Historic Site Lincoln Historic Site Los Luceros Historic Site Museum Hill Partners Museum of Indian Arts and Culture Museum of International Folk Art Museum of New Mexico Museum of New Mexico Foundation Museum Resources National Hispanic Cultural Center New Mexico Arts New Mexico CulturePass New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum New Mexico Historic Sites New Mexico History Museum New Mexico Museum of Art New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science New Mexico Museum of Space History New Mexico State Library Office of Archaeological Studies Taylor-Barela-Reynolds-Mesilla Historic Site
Mary Ann Hatchitt
mahatchitt@outlook.com
(Albuquerque, New Mexico ) -- Another Super Moon Total Eclipse is coming to the skies over New Mexico on the evening of Jan. 20, 2019. That night the moon will be full and relatively close to the Earth, which in recent years has become known as a Super Moon, and it will also be totally eclipsed! During the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science’s $5 First Friday event January 4 there will be a preview event of this astronomical convergence.
Each first Friday evening of the month, the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science is open 5:30 – 9 p.m. with a special admission rate of $5 per person for the museum, which usually includes special displays on a topic in science. There won’t be any eclipses to see during this First Friday, but visitors will learn all about the astronomical coincidence happening in the sky on the evening of Jan. 20 after sunset. The motions of the moon and Earth will come together for this unusual lunar event, and all will be explained at table displays and videos so that you can prepare, enjoy, and understand what is happening. The museum will also have telescopes available to see the eclipse January 20 from 8:30 – 11:30 p.m., weather permitting.
The DynaTheater will be showing the film Volcanoes for an additional $5 at 6:30 p.m. With intrepid explorer Carsten Peter, dodge boulders at the edge of an active volcano in Indonesia, descend to a lava lake in Vanuatu, and visit the incredible mineral deposit fields in Ethiopia. Travel across the globe to see the archeological ghost town of Pompeii and witness the devastating effects of the recent Kilauea eruption in Hawaii.
The Planetarium will present Fractal Friday at the usual times of 6, 7, 8 and 9 p.m. with the normal admission of adults $10, seniors $7, and children (3-12) $5. Shows typically sell out in advance, so get your tickets early at fractalfoundation.org.
Even though we’ll have to wait a few days for the eclipse, The Museum Observatory will be open to the night sky January 4 from 6 – 8 p.m., weather permitting, to show off interesting objects in the heavens. The Nature Works store will be selling unique gifts from 5:30 – 8 p.m. on this First Friday. The Hope Café will be open continuously from 9 a.m. – 6 p.m. that day, so you can enjoy dinner while waiting for the museum to reopen (only the café entrance will be open from 5 – 5:30 p.m.)
About the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science: http://www.nmnaturalhistory.org. Established in 1986, the mission of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science is to preserve and interpret the distinctive natural and scientific heritage of our state through extraordinary collections, research, exhibits, and programs designed to ignite a passion for lifelong learning. The NMMNHS offers exhibitions, programs and workshops in Geoscience, including Paleontology and Mineralogy, Bioscience and Space Science. It is the Southwest’s largest repository for fossils and includes a Planetarium and a large format 3D DynaTheater. A division of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, the Museum is open seven days a week, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m., and closed Thanksgiving, Christmas and new year’s day. 1801 Mountain Road NW, northeast of Historic Old Town Plaza, Albuquerque, NM 87104, (505) 841-2800. Events, news releases and images about activities at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science and other divisions of the Department of Cultural Affairs can be accessed at media.newmexicoculture.org.
Lunar Eclipse, Photo courtesy: NASA.gov
All Related Photos »
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movies-and-tv.com
Home » Movies » Almodóvar and Malick Will Compete at Cannes. Tarantino? He’s a Maybe.
Almodóvar and Malick Will Compete at Cannes. Tarantino? He’s a Maybe.
The Cannes Film Festival on Thursday unveiled a set of movies in contention for this year’s Palme d’Or. The American director Terrence Malick — who won in 2011 for “The Tree of Life” — is back with “A Hidden Life,” set during World War II. Films by Pedro Almodóvar of Spain and Ken Loach of Britain are also in the running.
Quentin Tarantino’s “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” could join the lineup if it’s completed in time, said the festival’s artistic director, Thierry Frémaux, at a news conference in Paris. Mr. Frémaux said he had seen most of it, and it was “magnificent.”
The festival opens on May 14 with Jim Jarmusch’s zombie movie “The Dead Don’t Die” and ends on May 25. There are 19 movies in the race so far, though Mr. Frémaux said there were likely to be additions.
“You will see women directors, first films, Americans, zombies, genetic manipulations,” Mr. Frémaux said, adding that the titles in the competition would also feature “painters, singers, cops, parasites, violent mafiosos.”
Screening out of the official competition is “Rocketman,” a biopic directed by Dexter Fletcher, whose world premiere will bring the superstar singer-songwriter Elton John to the Cannes red carpet.
Another out-of-competition title is the documentary “Diego Maradona,” focusing on the Argentine soccer player and directed by Asif Kapadia, whose Amy Winehouse documentary drew critical acclaim.
This year’s lineup is a mix of Cannes veterans — Marco Bellocchio of Italy, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne of Belgium — and first-timers to the competition, such as all four of the female directors selected: Jessica Hausner, Céline Sciamma, Mati Diop and Justine Triet.
Thomas Sotinel, a film critic for the French newspaper Le Monde, said in a telphone interview that he saw their inclusion as a positive step in Cannes’ efforts to achieve a gender balance.
“Four out of 19 is a little timid, statistically speaking, but it’s one more than last year, so there’s progress,” he said, noting that the four were all directors “at the start of their careers.”
At the moment, there were “very few established female directors” in world cinema, besides Jane Campion or Claire Denis, he added. The only way to bring in more women was to bring in up-and-comers. “That’s how we’ll see renewal,” Mr. Sotinel said.
Last year, the Cannes Film Festival missed out on Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma” because it was a Netflix production. “Roma,” which premiered at the Venice Film Festival, went on to win the top Venice prize as well as three Academy Awards.
The reason for the exclusion was that Cannes requires all competition titles to be released in French movie theaters. The rule is part of a system of subsidies and regulations with which France protects its homegrown film industry and preserves its nationwide network of cinemas.
Mr. Frémaux said the rule remained in place, though he and the festival management had had regular conversations with Netflix, including one earlier this week. He said Netflix had no movies ready that would have been potentially eligible for the competition.
The president of the festival, Pierre Lescure, told reporters at the Paris news conference that the French film industry would soon show more flexibility and that the mandated delay between a movie’s theatrical release and its release by a streaming service, currently up to three years, could be changed. Depending on a movie’s style and budget, that window could be narrowed, he explained.
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Biofuels thread
Board index Non LEAF Discussions Business / Economy and Politics
RegGuheert
Delivery Date: 16 Mar 2012
Leaf Number: 5926
Re: Biofuels thread
GRA wrote: Considering we're less than 1/5th of the way through the 21st Century, I'd say their conclusion is far more decisive than is justified. It could well be true, or it could well not be. The next 10 or maybe 20 years, sure, if there are no major breakthroughs.
No, they got it right. Biofuel production is an extremely wasteful use of valuable land. Here is a comparison of projected algae-based biofuel production with CURRENT PV+BEV technology and current corn-based ethanol biofuels:
Current PV+BEV technology: 1,000,000 miles per acre per year
Projected future algae-based biofuel: 500,000 miles per acre per year
Current Ethanol+ICEV technology: 10,000 miles per acre per year
In addition, the PV is lightweight and can (and is) installed on top of buildings, so it does not use valuable farmland which could be used to grow food for growing fuel.
2011 Leaf SL Demo vehicle
10K mi. on 041413; 20K mi. (55.7Ah) on 080714; 30K mi. (52.0Ah) on 123015; 40K mi. (49.8Ah) on 020817; 50K mi. (47.2Ah) on 120717; 60K mi. (43.66Ah) on 091918.
Enphase Inverter Measured MTBF: M190, M215, M250, S280
Location: East side of San Francisco Bay
RegGuheert wrote:
Seems to me the major theoretical advantage of algae-based biofuels is that you don't need land to grow it. Figuring out how to do that cost-effectively in the ocean is the major technical challenge. I agree that growing biofuels on land otherwise suited to growing food's a bad idea, but then we're not talking about replacing all transportation with biofuels, only that which has to be liquid fueled due to operational requirements: long-range aviation for sure, and and maybe some others. Efficiency is great, but it doesn't override practical considerations.
Guy [I have lots of experience designing/selling off-grid AE systems, some using EVs but don't own one. Local trips are by foot, bike and/or rapid transit].
The 'best' is the enemy of 'good enough'. Copper shot, not Silver bullets.
GRA wrote: Seems to me the major theoretical advantage of algae-based biofuels is that you don't need land to grow it. Figuring out how to do that cost-effectively in the ocean is the major technical challenge. I agree that growing biofuels on land otherwise suited to growing food's a bad idea, but then we're not talking about replacing all transportation with biofuels, only that which has to be liquid fueled due to operational requirements: long-range aviation for sure, and and maybe some others. Efficiency is great, but it doesn't override practical considerations.
No argument with any of that.
Via GCC:
Air Canada to operate biofuel flights in support of environmental research on contrails and emissions
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2017/04 ... anada.html
. . . This project will use advanced sensing equipment mounted on a research aircraft operated by the NRC to measure the impact of biofuel blends on contrail formation by aircraft on five biofuel flights operated by Air Canada between Montreal and Toronto in the coming days, weather permitting. During these flights the National Research Council of Canada will trail the Air Canada aircraft with a modified T-33 research jet to sample and test the contrail biofuel emissions. The sustainable biofuel is produced by AltAir Fuels from used cooking oil and supplied by SkyNRG.
A reduction in the thickness and coverage of contrails produced by the jet engines of aircraft could reduce aviation’s impact on the environment, an important beneficial effect of sustainable biofuel usage in aviation. . . .
Singapore Airlines & CAAS partner on “Green Package” flights; biofuels, optimized operations and fuel-efficient A350-950
Singapore Airlines (SIA), in partnership with the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS), has started operating a series of 12 “green package” flights over a three-month period on its non-stop San Francisco-Singapore route. The green package flights are the first to combine the use of biofuels, fuel-efficient aircraft—SIA’s Airbus A350-900—and optimized flight operations. CAAS is facilitating the use of optimized flight operations and Air Traffic Management (ATM) best practices which reduce fuel burn and carbon emissions for the flights.
The first of the 12 flights, SQ31, departed San Francisco at 1121hrs (San Francisco Time) on 1 May 2017 and arrived in Singapore at 1910 hrs (Singapore Time) on 2 May with 206 passengers on board. Over the three-month period, flight SQ31 will be powered by a combination of HEFA (Hydro-processed Esters and Fatty Acids), a sustainable biofuel produced from used cooking oils, and conventional jet fuel. The biofuel, produced by AltAir Fuels, will be supplied and delivered to San Francisco by SkyNRG in collaboration with North American Fuel Corporation (NAFCO), a wholly owned subsidiary of China Aviation Oil (Singapore), and EPIC Fuels. . . .
Praj cellulosic ethanol demo plant running in India; commercial projects coming
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2017/05 ... -praj.html
Nitin Gadkari, India’s Minister for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping, recently inaugurated Praj’s cellulosic ethanol demonstration plant near Pune, India. The plant is India’s first integrated bio-refinery, built to showcase Praj’s proprietary process technology to produce ethanol from agricultural waste.
The demonstration plant has the capacity to produce 1 million liters (264,000 gallons US) of ethanol annually from a variety of biomass such as rice and wheat straw, cotton stalks, sugarcane trash, bagasse, corn cobs and stover. Backed by its expertise and experience of well integrated first-generation technologies, Praj is confident that its second-generation ethanol technology will produce ethanol at the lowest cost and GHG emissions.
. . . Praj has already signed MoUs with Indian Oil Corporation and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd to be their technology partners for certain projects in India.
In the first phase, about 10 to 12 projects based on second-generation ethanol technology are being planned across the country, each with a capital outlay of approximately US$100 million and average capacity of 100,000 liters of ethanol per day.
Put these here, as there didn't seem to be a more appropriate place. Both via GCC:
Climeworks launches world’s first commercial plant to capture CO2 from air; potential for CO2-neutral fuels
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2017/06 ... works.html
. . . The Swiss direct air capture company—which has also partnered with Audi in that company’s e-fuels initiative (earlier post)—launched the commercial-scale Direct Air Capture (DAC) plant, featuring its patented technology that filters carbon dioxide from ambient air.
The plant is now supplying 900 tonnes of CO2 annually to a nearby greenhouse to help grow vegetables. The plant is a historic step for negative emissions technology—earmarked by the Paris climate agreement as being vital in the quest to limit a global temperature rise of 2 °C. Climeworks aims to capture 1% of global CO2 emissions by 2025.
. . . Climeworks developed its technology to capture atmospheric carbon with a filter, using mainly low-grade heat as an energy source. In Hinwil the DAC plant has been installed on the roof of a waste recovery facility—operated by the municipal administration union KEZO—with its waste heat powering the Climeworks DAC plant.
During the Climeworks capture process, CO2 is chemically deposited on the filter surface. Once the filter is saturated, the CO2 is then isolated at a temperature of about 100 °C. The pure captured CO2 gas can then be sold to customers in key markets, including: commercial agriculture; food and beverage industries; the energy sector; and the automotive industry. In Hinwil, Climeworks provides a continuous supply of CO2 through an underground pipeline to a greenhouse 400m away. . . .
The Hinwil plant will operate as a three-year demonstration project in co-operation with the partners Gebrüder Meier and KEZO, and with a contribution towards non-amortizable costs by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE). . . .
Soletair demo plant produces renewable hydrocarbon fuel from CO2 captured from the air
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2017/06 ... etair.html
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) are beginning testing of the Soletair demo plant, which uses air-captured carbon dioxide to produce renewable fuels and chemicals. . . .
The aim of the project is to demonstrate the technical performance of the overall process and produce 200 liters of fuels and other hydrocarbons for research purposes. The demo plant incorporates the entire process chain, and comprises four separate units: a solar power plant; equipment for separating carbon dioxide and water from the air; a section that uses electrolysis to produce hydrogen; and synthesis equipment for producing a crude-oil substitute from carbon dioxide and hydrogen. . . .
Phase 1: Renewable energy. Solar photovoltaic (PV) electricity is used as a renewable energy source in the Soletair system to produce electricity especially for the hydrogen production unit—the most energy intensive part in the system. The renewable energy plant consists of flat roof, carport, wall, 2-axis tracking, and manual tracking solar PV installations. The total installed power is 206.5 kW.
Phase 2: Hydrogen production. Proton exchange membrane (PEM) water electrolysis is used for hydrogen production . . . Hydrogen is used with recycled carbon dioxide to produce renewable fuels, raw materials, and chemicals. The hydrogen gas can also be used as a chemical energy storage and can later be reconverted into electricity in a fuel cell, albeit with an additional penalty in terms of losses in conversion. The hydrogen production system is built in a standard shipping container and virtually connected to the 206.5 kW solar PV power plant at LUT. . . .
Phase 3: Direct air capture. Direct air capture (DAC) is the carbon source of the SOLETAIR project. DAC falls under the class of carbon sequestration technologies. However, direct air capture is the only carbon capture technology that can directly capture CO2 previously emitted in the atmosphere. When surplus renewable energy drives the unit, DAC has the potential of being 100% negative carbon emission technology.
The current DAC unit is a modified version of air-scrubbing units for civil shelters. . . .
Phase 4: Mobile synthesis (MOBSU). The MOBSU uses Fischer-Tropsch synthesis to combine carbon and hydrogen and produce valuable gas, liquid and solid products for various uses. The Soletair team is currently working on two different production lines which are tailored for either natural gases or liquid and wax component production. These units are positioned side by side inside the Mobile Synthesis Unit. . . .
Phase 5: Refining. The share each type of product from the MOBSU varies depending on the reaction conditions and the catalyst used in the Fischer-Tropsch reaction. It is essential to utilize all of these products fully to make an economically feasible process.
The renewable product that is in gaseous form at room temperature consists of methane, the main component of natural gas, and other light hydrocarbons. It is easy to separate the gaseous fraction from the liquid and solid products. In larger refineries light olefins—ethylene, propylene and butenes—are separated from this fraction. These basic petrochemicals form the basis for the manufacture of a wide range of plastics and other products. On the other hand, the light paraffins generally known as Liquefied Petroleum Gas, are sold to customers to be used for instance in stoves, grills and refrigerators. . . .
The liquid product can be fractioned by distillation to renewable gasoline and middle-distillate hydrocarbons. The gasoline fraction is further hydrotreated and reformed over a platinum catalyst in order to increase its octane number and to improve other characteristics for motor use. The middle-distillate fraction is also hydrotreated and thereafter distilled to renewable jet-fuel and/or diesel.
Phase 6: Renewable consumer products. When the Soletair process is operated in the Fischer-Tropsch mode, the main part of the renewable consumer product is liquid fuels: gasoline, kerosene and diesel. If the renewable hydrocarbons are refined to olefins and aromatics instead of fuels, wide range of possible renewable consumer products exists. . . .
EPA proposes slight ease in 2018 renewable fuel volumes compared to 2017; gearing up for future reset
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2017/07 ... parfs.html
DOE to award up to $8M to three algae-based biofuels projects
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2017/07 ... 1-doe.html
The US Department of Energy (DOE) has selected three projects to receive up to $8 million, aimed at reducing the costs of producing algal biofuels and bioproducts. These projects are to deliver high-impact tools and techniques for increasing the productivity of algae organisms and cultures. . . .
The selected projects are:
Lumen Bioscience. Working with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Lumen Bioscience will rapidly engineer strains that grow robustly in seawater, resist contamination and predation, and accumulate substantial amounts of energy-rich components. Lumen Bioscience is focusing on agricultural production of algae on otherwise non-productive land in rural eastern Washington State, with the ultimate goal of creating new agricultural jobs in that region.
Global Algae Innovations. Pond ecology has a major impact on algal health and productivity, yet very little is known about the impacts of bacteria, viruses, protozoa, and fungi. In partnership with Sandia National Laboratories, University of California at San Diego – Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and the J. Craig Venter Institute, Global Algae Innovations will deliver a tool for low cost, rapid analysis of pond microbiota, gather data on the impacts of pond ecology, and develop new cultivation methods that utilize this information to achieve greater algal productivity.
Los Alamos National Laboratory. Working with Sapphire Energy at its Las Cruces, New Mexico, field site, Los Alamos National Laboratory will evaluate rationally designed pond cultures containing multiple species of algae, as well as beneficial bacteria, to achieve consistent biomass composition and high productivity. This project will help the algal research and development community better understand these metrics at commercial scales.
Enerkem begins commercial production of cellulosic ethanol from garbage at its Edmonton biofuels facility
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2017/09/20170916-enerkem.html
. . .The company has been producing and selling biomethanol since 2016, prior to expanding production to include cellulosic ethanol with the installation of its methanol-to-ethanol conversion unit earlier this year.
This growing global market is expected to reach 124 billion liters (32.8 billion gallons) per year by 2030 according to the International Renewable Energy Agency. Enerkem will progressively increase production in Edmonton, while preparing to build the next Enerkem facilities locally and around the world, said Vincent Chornet, President and Chief Executive Officer of Enerkem.
Enerkem’s technology is deployed through an exclusive process that converts non-recyclable waste into a pure synthesis gas (or syngas). This syngas is then converted into biofuels and other widely used chemicals using catalysts.
Enerkem’s 4-step thermochemical process:
Feedstock preparation
Cleaning and conditioning of syngas
Catalytic synthesis. . . .
Return to “Business / Economy and Politics”
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LEX the Lexicon Artist
Live Nerdcore Rap Experience
Book LEX the Lexicon Artist
LEX the Lexicon Artist is a nerdcore/alternative rapper based in the SF Bay Area. A graduate of UC Berkeley, LEX began the Lexicon Artist project in 2016, by writing and performing original songs inspired by her multicultural upbringing, her life experiences and popular culture. Since then, LEX has performed at colleges and anime, gaming, and technology conventions across the country, connecting to thousands of fans with her relatable songs about nerd culture and personal identity.
In May 2018, LEX received a grant from the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center in San Francisco and organized an Asian-American rap showcase as part of their United States of Asian America Festival. It was headlined by Ruby Ibarra and hosted by the historic venue Bottom of the Hill.
In September 2018, LEX went on a national tour with rapper and former Adult Swim actor mc chris. She performed in 39 cities across 7 weeks in every region of the United States. Since then, she has gone on to make mainstage appearances at the Music and Gaming Festival (MAGFest) in National Harbor, Maryland, FanimeCon in San Jose, Anime Expo in Los Angeles, and the SXSW Music Festival in Austin, Texas.
LEX has released multiple EPs and one full-length album, “Raging Ego”, which was met with critical acclaim.
Guest of Honor at FanimeCon 2019 Featured artist at the Official SXSW Nerdcore Showcase 2019 Mainstage artist at Music and Gaming Festival 2019 (MAGFest)
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Filtering by Category: entertainment
Stranger Things 3: The Battle Of Starcourt Mall
July 13, 2019 / Jett Wilson
Season Three of Stranger Things is now available on Netflix. The climax is the battle of Starcourt Mall (watch it and you will see why) and the season does not disappoint fans. I actually re-watched the first two seasons again before diving into the new one.
The Duffer Brothers are doing a great job of developing the lives of their characters as they age and making it part of the plot. The personal relationships, real life intruding with fighting the dangers from the Upside Down, kept reminding me of what Josh Whedon did with Buffy The Vampire Slayer. That story then, as is Stranger Things now, is not as much about the dangers as the characters’ lives. It is what draws fans back.
There is a great job in introducing new characters (and some instant fan favorites) and not being shy in writing people off. This always helps keep a show fresh. And you have to admire the Duffer Brothers persistence in dropping 80’s references when the opportunity permits. From songs, to fashion, to the mall itself, (not to mention a whole Terminator part of the story that is a great tribute), the show serves as a time capsule for those who know nothing about the decade.
I’ll try not to give away too much here but if you haven’t seen the season yet, I’m about to give a major twist at the end of the season. READY?
What the hell happened to Hopper is what everyone will be focused on when Season 4 comes around (hopefully, next year). There is a big mystery there and since fans like Hopper, one has to wonder what surprise the writing room has in mind.
Also, there seems to be a splintering of the core group which opens all sorts of possibilities. Each character now has a personal challenge - whether grief, sexual, career - to surmount. Yeah, Season 4 has all the potential to be the best yet.
If you haven’t seen any of Stranger Things - what is wrong with you??? Joking of course. But this is one of the best television shows available. Do yourself a favor and dive into it. Meanwhile, I give Season 3 a 4.5 on the rating scale.
categories / Cinema, entertainment, Films, food, history, Politics, travel, TV, writing
tags / Stranger Things, Stranger Things Season Three, Netflix, Upside Down, Eleven, Mad Max, Hopper, television, Starcourt Mall, Duffer Brothers, Josh Whedon
World Cup American Style
How Americans experience soccer, was best explained by my morning when I tried to find a place to watch the World Cup Final. The only reason that soccer has exploded in America is because of the National Women’s Team. It started in the 1990’s, (I was at that Rose Bowl game), and continued through today, when, as expected, they beat the Nederlands 2-0 for a World Cup title.
First off, finding a place to watch games is a feat in itself. Most people don’t subscribe to the channels that hold the broadcast rights, so you have to venture out. Because most games are in Europe, (this holds true during European Leagues regular season), fans must track down a place that is open. In big cities, Irish pubs are great at opening early for fans. But elsewhere, you forge your own path.
This morning, I went to Buffalo Wild Wings which makes no effort to open early but did open right at game time. They have many tv screens and a policy of turning to any channel the customer wants. This meant, me, and the two women camped outside the door, missed the first 3 minutes but at least we had a tv to watch it on.
We were quickly joined by a half-dozen other people who found seats. And because we got them to turn on the volume to the game, as people streamed in, they found themselves glued to the action. The game itself was hard fought. Both sides did their nations proud. The pressure was all on the Americans though as they were the heavy favorites.
Then the bar staff got caught up in the excitement as customers in the whole place were cheering and moaning with each play. Problem was, half the people watching, knew nothing about soccer. I ended up explaining the rules of the game to the bartender and other members of the staff so they could understand what off-sides, a penalty box, corner kicks etc were. I even had to explain the time on the field. Americans are use to being bombarded with commercials during a sporting event. Drives us nuts. The fact there is a game where no one stops for 90 minutes is appealing in itself.
Most of the fans watching were women. A couple guys did come in to watch. The sport does have wide appeal here once people are exposed to it. And the experience brought back fond memories for me.
I mentioned that Rose Bowl title game which is a pivotal moment in Women’s sports in this country. There were around 100,000 fans in the Bowl that day. People were dressed up and in full party mode as the team took on China. I had gotten tickets for me and four friends. At the last moment, we hopped in my old car, drove across country. We even partied with Chinese fans in Vegas the night before. That week was a 6,000 mile road trip for us. One of the best trips I ever took. I hope everyone reading this has a week like that at some point in their lives.
Americans have natural barriers that keep them disconnected from the rest of the world. Part of it is geography and part historical culture. But the sport demonstrates we really aren’t so different and will let our guard down if given the opportunity. The American Women’s National Team, to their credit, have done all they can to make that happen.
Two last points I should make: 1. Yes, the women, who have won multiple world cups, should be paid on a scale with the men, who didn’t even make the World Cup this last time. 2. That goal by Lavelle was a beauty wasn’t it? Wow.
categories / economy, entertainment, food, France, history, Politics, religion, travel, TV, writing, sport
tags / Women's National Team, Soccer, football, World Cup, Nederlands, Netherlands, Lavelle, China, Rose Bowl, USA, USWNT, travel, road trip, Sunday, sport, Buffalo Wild Wings, Irish pubs
My ancestors, who were instrumental in getting the original Declaration of Independence done, would be appalled at this week’s events. They’d probably be trying to rally supporters around the original document to remedy the situation we currently face. So in that spirit, I thought it would be a good thing to put up the original document so you could read it once through for yourself.
The holiday has always been a time for fireworks, picnics, and family events. A century ago, there would have been public gatherings, maybe an orator or two (it use to be an art, not like the current crop of speakers who ramble incoherently) and a time for celebration.
This year, that tradition is openly being mocked. Instead of the non-partisan festivities we are use too, like say a fife and drum corp, the viewing of a national celebration on television that everyone can enjoy, we are have our tradition hijacked for a display of political ego stroking. For the first time we will have the sickening sight of tanks at the celebration, activities restricted to party supporters, and the theme isn’t the country, but a tyrant of our own.
Here is a document meant to help inspire people, citizens, to put tyrants in their place:
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
categories / Books, entertainment, Films, history, Politics, religion, travel, TV, writing
tags / history, Declaration of Independence, American Revolution, 4th of July, celebrations, holidays, rebels, American history, Revolutionary War, 1776
The Rolling Thunder Revue
Martin Scorsese ruined this film. There’s no other way to say it. I wish I didn’t have to say it but I do. Few directors have done greater service to musical history than Scorsese. The Last Waltz and No Direction Home are but two of his best among half-dozen or more music related documentaries. Then comes The Rolling Thunder Revue and …. WHAT THE HELL WAS HE THINKING?
This ‘documentary’ (and use that term lightly) uses footage from the famous Dylan tour of that name to explore the tour and its impact. Sorta. Here is the problem: A lot of the best parts are fake. Actors. Fake stories. The sad part is there was no need for it. The concert footage and that of the musicians together is great. In many respects, this is like opening a time capsule or finding forgotten treasures in your attic.
Scorsese spoils the experience. I watch a documentary to learn or relive a moment in time. If I wanted fantasy, I could turn on a rerun of That 70’s Show. I really felt used and exploited. There is no way around this.
I love Dylan. Saw him in concert once. He has inspired some of my writing. And I know he is a trickster to some measure. But that is no excuse for Scorsese to do what he did. We have enough ‘fake’ moments in our lives these days. And in an era when an untalented trickster occupies the White House, and anyone who stands up for truth is ridiculed, this documentary had the potential to be a counter-balance and inspire the viewer to do some soul-searching. (How can you listen to Dylan perform and have it not seem relevant?). Times were rough then like they are now. Scorsese intentionally deprived the audience of that experience.
The why is the big question. I don’t know. Everyone makes a bad call at some point. But on this level, with Scorsese’s experience, this should have never happened. There was a great article published in Variety concerning this topic. It is written by Owen Gleiberman. I link the ARTICLE HERE. Read it.
The only other thing I will add, the more I see footage of Joan Baez from this period, the more I realize what a presence she was. Other than that, I feel like I wasted 2 1/2 hours of my life thanks to Scorsese. This rates a 2/5 on the scale. And only because you can’t go wrong watching Dylan and Baez perform.
categories / Cinema, economy, entertainment, Films, history, Music, Politics, religion, travel, writing
tags / The Rolling Thunder Revue, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Martin Scorsese, Owen Gleiberman, Variety, Concerts, Music, tours, Trump, Rock n roll, Carter
Havana Nocturne
There was no more wild place, high stakes gambling resort, loaded with sex, booze, and more sex, than Havana of the mid-20th century. Las Vegas barely deserves to stand in its shadow. None of it would’ve been possible without the Mafia. And the Cuban Revolution under the Castro brothers thrived because of that environment.
This is a stellar account by T.J. English. I closed this book with a fuller understanding of how Havana earned its reputation and also, why the Cuban Revolution succeeded. Movies like Godfather II give us a glimpse of that era but those accounts barely scratch the surface.
The city was awash in corruption and hundreds of millions in graft. The Mafia, under the brain trust of Meyer Lansky, who is the main character in this book, spent decades building up Havana into an adult playground where anything went. And the behind-the-scenes stories are astonishing.
Whether it is a group of girl scouts barging in on an orgy involving Frank Sinatra and Lucky Luciano, or ‘Superman’ (the guy with a 14 inch penis) doing private sex shows for mob bosses, or George Raft jumping up on a table to stop revolutionaries from trashing the casino, there isn’t a dull moment in this story. Mob hits, political assassinations, briefcases with millions of dollars, and rigged gambling games are all to be found in this book.
There is also a cautionary tale here. It comes with the have’s being so caught up in their own little world, they were clueless about the have-not’s. In Cuba’s case, it went a long way in giving the world Fidel Castro. I’m not sure that lesson has been learned in the current environment.
The history of the mob is well documented on these pages by T.J. English. There are interviews with people in on the dirty dealings. Books written by the mobsters. And English being on the ground where it all took place. The only question I had at the end is how many of the casino’s are still standing? I suspect not many.
This was actually a book of research for me but it is the kind of research I don’t mind because it was so informative and an excellent read. If you like gambling, the mafia, political history, or wild tales of hedonism, this is a story to pick up. Strong 5/5 on the rating scale. My goodness, what a place it must’ve been.
categories / Books, economy, crime, entertainment, Environment, history, Politics, religion, travel, writing, Cuba
tags / Meyer Lansky, gambling, Havana Nocturne, books, T J English, Cuba, travel, history, mafia, mob, Lucky Luciano, Tampa, Florida, Castro, Fidel Castro, Raul Castro, Che, casinos
I woke up this morning to discover in the morning news that Amanda Knox is back in Italy for the first time since she was tried for the murder of her roommate, Meredith Kercher. I can’t believe she went back, even though the Italian Supreme Court overturned her conviction, but it was also an odd coincidence because I had earlier this week watched the Netflix documentary about her and the case.
The only person who knows if Amanda Knox and her boyfriend killed Kercher are Amanda Knox and her then boyfriend. The documentary doesn’t really come down on a crystal clear side of the case. The murder was brutal. There was all kinds of weird evidence. It garnered International headlines, propelled by those involved wanting to make a name for themselves. And while Knox and her boyfriend were young at the time, when the documentary was filmed, they were both adults who had been hardened by a few years in prison for the crime. That experience changes one’s personality. Makes it harder to see into a person’s true character at this distance down the road of time.
The documentary was good in that it detailed the events of the case, laid the evidence out so you can reach your own conclusions. There are interviews of Knox, her boyfriend, and the police, lawyers, and prosecutors involved. And a journalist who was fed scoops by the authorities. This journalist gave others a bad name. Of all the people involved in this story, (and I refuse to name him here), he probably had the least amount of moral underpinning.
Americans view all crime like an episode of C.S.I. The rest of the world is a bit more skeptical. The majority of Britain and Italy still think Knox got away with murder. It is one reason, I was surprised Knox went back to Italy. The third person convicted of this crime did years in prison. But he was a black immigrant and it is clear from statements in documentary, no one cared about his fate. Because, he was a black immigrant. If there is one failing, it is that Netflix didn’t follow that angle of the story any further than to present it so the viewer could digest that fact.
Whatever she is, Knox is an interesting character. She has become an advocate for those wrongly convicted of crimes and continues to live in the Seattle area. Her boyfriend has become a tech/crime consultant who appears on television in Italy. Like I said, I still don’t know if she is guilty or innocent. But this film is a good one and rates 5/5 on the scale.
categories / Cinema, entertainment, films, history, Politics, religion, travel, TV, writing, crime
tags / Amanda Knox, Meredith Kercher, Italy, press, journalism, murder, crime, Seattle, Netflix, documentaries
The Longest Day
Since it is the 75th Anniversary of D-Day, I thought it would be a fine time to recommend a top read on the subject. Cornelius Ryan is one of the best WWII historians and produced two classic works: A Bridge Too Far (about the disastrous Allied operation, ‘Market Garden’) and The Longest Day, which is aptly titled to describe D-Day.
What makes Ryan stand apart from many of his peers is the sheer volume of interviews. He in turn incorporated those stories into his narrative so that instead of reading simply about military tactics or what happened when, you have the event relayed through the eyes of the people on the ground. Little details about what they took with them, personal encounters with the enemy etc make the whole history come to life. There is a film version of this. The movie is well-done but the book is better.
D-Day and the fight against fascism helped change the course of humanity. You can’t know where you are going if you don’t know where you’ve been. Take time to read about the men and women who gave you the world you have today.
categories / Books, entertainment, Cinema, films, Films, France, Germany, history, Holocaust, Politics, religion, travel, writing
tags / D-Day, June 1944, Normandy, France, Allies, WWII, WW2, writing, history, books, Cornelius Ryan, The Longest Day, historians, Operation Market Garden, A Bridge Too Far
35th Day of May
This week marks the 30th Anniversary of what many Chinese refer to as the 35th day of May, because China censors any mention (including this blog) of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. The event is called such because it was a bloodletting of thousands of innocent, peaceful protestors who were demonstrating for democracy when the Communist Party of China brought in troops and tanks from outside the capital, and without provocation, slaughtered those who dared to demand their voices be heard. The demonstrators had been camped out for several days, and they were winning people over by the hour. Demonstrators even built their own Statue of Liberty. The move toward democracy threatened the Communist apparatus.
I was actually listening to the radio when the massacre occurred. There was a reporter, ABC’s Kyle Gibson, who was in the Square, and giving a live account. I recall hearing bullets whiz past her as she scrambled for cover and described the carnage round about her. They were secretly filming the confrontation. It was one of the best pieces of live reporting I have ever heard.
Since then, the ruling party of China has departed on a mission to repress freedom wherever it is found. It currently operates one of the largest gulag systems in history with millions locked up in camps and executed due to race or religion. It doesn’t even have to do with politics.
China censors what you see on tv or the internet. They rate citizens by their behavior, using facial recognition developed by companies like Google and Amazon. Jaywalk in China and you’re likely to find your picture up on a billboard, denouncing you as a threat to society. Your citizen score gets low enough, you lose your job and get sent off to a camp. China has embraced Big Brother so that the Communist Party may stay in power.
For many Chinese, the massacre is only a rumour, or something they’ve never even heard of after all this time. They don’t know who ‘tank man’ is - the fellow who stood by himself in front of two dozen tanks to stop their approach. Authorities arrested him and no one has ever learned of his fate or even who he was since that day.
China is a threat to humanity itself. The Chinese people can be a promise to the future of our species but only if the the ruling party falls. Until then, it seems the citizens will have to remain enslaved to a powerful elite. The country has taken many wrong turns since the Long Journey. How power does corrupt.
categories / Books, Cinema, economy, entertainment, Films, history, Politics, religion, travel, TV, writing
tags / China, Tiananmen Square, Kyle Gibson, ABC, news, Asia, 35th day of May, censorship, Google, Amazon, facial recognition, gulag, concentration camps, communist, communism
It is possible that my having seen Elton John ten times in concert has made me more critical of this movie. And having seen him, I went into the cinema curious; would the music make the story or the music be a by-product of the story. I was hoping the latter but got the former and that created problems. An autobiography of this scale has to be both honest - for the most part, it is, diving right into Elton’s dark side from the beginning - and live up to understanding the subject. I can’t say for certain it succeeded on this last point, because while this movie has brilliance to it, there are glaring misses.
Starting on a positive note, Taron Egerton was great casting. He has Elton’s personality down. His singing a little short of the mark at times but close enough to not matter. Elton (and Bernie’s) music is weaved into every fabric of this movie from the opening score on. It is the music that holds this movie together but really, would you expect less?
The movie is billed as part rock-n-roll fantasy, part musical. It lives up to the billing. There are really interesting musical arrangements of Elton’s well-known hits and dance numbers one would not have expected. Part rock and part Broadway. The costumes were another plus. Straight out of Elton’s wardrobe, though I thought there was too much emphasis on the weird stuff he wore during shows. For some reason, the script focused a lot of energy on this point.
The script centered around the lousy home life of Elton and how it haunted him the rest of his life. It also dealt extremely openly with his homosexuality and drug abuse. A large portion of the plot is on a lover who betrayed him both in the bedroom and in business. There is also frank discussion of Elton and Bernie’s working relationship, though at points the timeline on this is a little blurry.
This brings me to the music. Songs are taken out of timeline. The fantasy part of the story kicking in. But what irked me more than anything I believe, was the simple fact we never saw or gained a sense of Elton’s stage prowess. He typically plays 3-4 hours a show. And we never see how some of his great work came about. In fact, there are omissions that I am baffled by.
Let me start with Captain Fantastic and The Brown Dirt Cowboy, probably the most autobiographical album Elton and Bernie did. And as any fan will tell you, the sound and make-up of that album stands alone in the Elton catalog. It is different from anything else they did. And at the time, it was the fastest selling album ever in rock history. Yet, I don’t think they mentioned it once or played a single note from it.
There are moments in Elton’s life that should’ve been mentioned in the script but got not a peep:
*His friendship with John Lennon. Fans know that Lennon’s last live performance was with Elton. The two had a good friendship and were at times, finding trouble together. Other personalities, like Princess Di or Billie Jean King were never mentioned either. The story solely was about him and his lover and his parents.
*Elton bringing rock to the Soviet Union. Elton also did a series of two man shows - where he and one of his band played every single instrument on stage - that is unmatched. Not mentioned. In fact, his interactions with his band are never dealt with. A choice that I think that amounts to cheating the audience.
*A couple of his comeback efforts like Blue Moves or the Live In Australia special that topped the charts. To his credit, he did deal with his failure of Victim Of Love that threatened to end his career.
*Ryan White or the AIDS epidemic. While the film breaks ground in showing gay sex, you would think that this would be a chance to show a different take on the AIDS epidemic and all his efforts with Ryan White, who he publicly credits with helping him kick his drug habit. Never dealt with.
True you can’t squeeze everything into two hours and we learn a lot, especially about his home life and the talent he had as a kid. But there was room to expand and bring in more, much more, and especially give us an insight into the making of the music.
This is still an entertaining film. I would recommend it, giving it 4 of 5 on my rating scale. But I just think there was an opportunity here to do so much more and make this not a good film, but a GREAT film. In a lot of ways, they played it too safe.
I’ll end with my top five Elton Albums:
Madman Across The Water
Blue Moves
categories / Cinema, entertainment, films, history, Music, religion, travel, TV, writing
tags / Elton John, Rocketman, Rocket Man, Captain Fantastic, Taron Egerton, Rock n roll, music, biographies
Leon Redbone
May 31, 2019 / Jett Wilson
Leon Redbone is the reason I started watching Saturday Night Live. I was a little kid, and as usual, up late watching television. Flipping channels I came across this guy, with this deep bluesy voice, singing type of songs I had never heard. He was a guest a couple times on the first seasons of the show. I was so young, I didn’t realize there were various musical guests each week and so I kept tuning into the show for a couple weeks, thinking he’d be back. That’s how I got exposed to Saturday Night Live.
While Redbone had that blues voice that made you think of a guy sitting on a porch in the Delta on a Faulkner like evening, from what I read, he was actually from Cyprus. He had a fascination with music from the 1920’s and 1930’s, and those made the pillars of his shows.
In an age of super bands, and arena concerts, Redbone scored top ten albums singing those songs. He wasn’t afraid to show up using a slide guitarist, or as a musician I know recalled, that tuba guy which often traveled with him. For a while he wore white suits, and he always had a hat. I loved the hats. He was a frequent guest on Johnny Carson where he could light up the audience.
Redbone was a niche performer but he had a strong following. If you ever listened to him, you didn’t forget him. He passed away this week. That simpler time he sang of, seemed to represent, has long been gone but now fades a little more with his death. I’ve posted two of my favorite videos of him for your enjoyment. RIP in Leon.
categories / entertainment, history, Music, travel, writing, TV
tags / Leon Redbone, music, Johnny Carson, Saturday Night Live, SNL, celebrity deaths, Cyprus, Blues, tuba
Tony Horowitz
The news that Tony Horowitz died yesterday, at the age of 60, stunned me. He was on a book tour for his latest, Spying On The South, when apparently his heart failed. He influenced a lot of writers - me included - and helped make history popular again with his unique style of storytelling. His work impacted my life.
Horowitz combined two genres in his writing. His stories centered on something historical but then he approached it as a travel story. Typically he would get in a car, or climb aboard a ship, and off he would go to visit the places of the story he was telling. Along the way, he would reveal how the historical figures impacted those sites, what became of them over time, and what the people living there were like today. He shared cultures, his own personality, and a sense that history is never ending. It is one big flow.
My dad is a big Civil War buff and I bought him, Horowitz’s Midnight Rising. The book told the story of John Brown. The Civil War was a favorite topic of Horowitz, who revisited that era with Confederates In The Attic, and the new book I mentioned at the beginning, Spying On The South.
Two of his books enthralled me. Blue Latitudes follows the sailing ventures of Capt. Cook. This was as close to exploring the South Seas as one could get without actually touching the water. I learned more about Cook and modern culture in the region than I ever heard from all other sources combined.
But my absolute favorite wasn’t as big of a best-seller as the titles I’ve mentioned so far. Horowitz climbed into a car and drove around North America, following the trail of the early explorers of the 1500-1600’s. In my opinion, A Voyage Long And Strange is the best historical accounting of that period ever written. You could use it as a text book and have no student fall asleep in class.
I haven’t read all his books. Baghdad Without A Map is the next one I was going to tackle. And I guess I would be amiss not to mention his Pulitzer Prize for Journalism for reporting on what is embedded in chickens being processed.
All I know is, history lost a big friend. Writers lost a huge inspiration. Literature lost a talented storyteller. Book readers lost an adventurous soul that took them places. For all that, my spirit is saddened.
categories / Books, entertainment, history, travel, writing
tags / Tony Horowitz, A Voyage Long And Strange, Baghdad Without A Map, Midnight Rising, Confederates In the Attic, writing, books, history, travel
Chronicle Of A Last Summer: A Story of Egypt
I bought this book on a whim. A couple times a year, I like to read something unplanned. Often, it produces positive results. That proved the case here for three impressions have stuck with me after reading Chronicle Of A Last Summer. The first is that the author, Yasmine El-Rashidi, is someone I think I’d enjoy sitting down and talking shop with over chai. There aren’t many writers where I’d say that. Secondly, I’m relatively certain, I would’ve liked hanging with her Uncle. Lastly, a deeper sense of Egyptians, if not the country itself, will reside with me because of this book.
This is the story of an Egyptian family, in a country desiring change, told through the eyes of the author. Her style choice is an unusual one for she opts to tell the story in passive prose. I don’t believe there is a single line of actual dialogue in the whole book. It is as if she was telling you about her family over that cup of chai I mentioned earlier.
The style produces a mixed bag of results. On one hand, her point of view focuses the story because it is the vehicle on which this tale rides. The relationships are clear and concise, and as a reader, I felt like I’d been invited into her home.
On the other, I also felt like there are times when she was telling me only half the story. That there needed to be another family member or friend having a cup of chai with us, to fill in the gaps. I would’ve liked to have known more about Baba or Dido. Even how or why she got involved in film and her relationship with her art, and how that changed the dynamics of view point, and in turn, the story itself.
Still, I found this an interesting book. Yasmine El-Rashidi’s writing is compelling and draws you into the story. She also has a turn with phrases. “Emotional lesions of life” will stick with me. The writer equivalent of pounding a goal from mid-field.
Closing the covers of this book was like finishing the chai, and leaving the house. It may be the only house I ever visit in Egypt but it was fascinating and enough to make me crave a second visit. I feel like I should be sending a postcard or something. I give this book 4 of 5 on the rating scale. At less than 200 pages its a quick read and worth your time.
categories / Books, Cinema, entertainment, history, Politics, religion, travel, writing, Egypt
tags / Chronicle Of A Last Summer A Story of Egypt, Yasmine El Rashidi, writing, authors, books, Egypt, chai, novels
April 17, 2019 / Jett Wilson
If you know anything at all about comedy, then you know that Laurel and Hardy were legends in their day. And frankly, they still are. This movie, based on the book about Laurel & Hardy’s last tour in the U.K. during the 1950s, is an unheralded delight. I suspect for most viewers, it will give an insight into the comedic duo that is little known.
Laurel and Hardy were before my time. Yet, this movie brought back some good memories because as a kid, I and a friend use to watch their movies on a television station, typically over the weekends. This was before cable and there were stations that played older movies or artists like on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Their routines cracked me up and my friend could do a decent Stan Laurel imitation.
Steve Coogan and John C. Reilly nail their roles in this film. What I like about them, and the script, is that it focused on their personal lives. The famous bits they did were woven not into the story as opposed to the story being built around the bits.
This is a movie about two legends who are at the twilight, not only of their careers but their lives. And I have to say, one refreshing aspect is that you realize, when given the chance, people reconnected with their greatness even though they’d been out of the spotlight a good while. I streamed this on Redbox. This one should’ve gotten a wider release in theaters so thank goodness for streaming services. Want a good movie to watch, this is it. 5 by 5 on the rating scale.
categories / Books, Cinema, entertainment, Films, history, Music, travel, TV, writing
tags / Laurel and Hardy, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, books, films, cinema, Redbox, Steve Coogan, John C Reilly, comedy, comedy legends
Hunchback of Notre Dame
I woke up this morning to a news story about how The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, written by Victor Hugo, has soared to number one on book and movie lists. This in the wake of yesterday’s terrific fire at Notre Dame. One story talked about how the French often turn to literature in a time of crisis. My first reaction that was how wonderful it must be to live in a country where literature is revered in that fashion.
Hugo is one of the great writers - EVER. His book is a fine read and I encourage you to follow the trend and read it if you haven’t done so already. Many may be more familiar with the movie version. The Disney take was of course a big hit in the late ‘90s. However, if film is your forte, then definitely check out Charles Laughton in the 1939 version. Laughton, who is considered one of the greatest actors ever, offers one of his best performances in that movie. So, skip Disney, go for the real deal.
It is amazing how people are transfixed by places where they’ve been or that have become symbolic in their own lives of something that lies deeper within. Clearly, from the world reaction, Notre Dame is such a place for many people.
categories / Books, Cinema, entertainment, Films, France, history, travel, writing
tags / Notre Dame, Hunchback Of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo, books, movies, Paris, travel, Charles Laughton
It turned into one of those days where you mosey through it in a dazed, numbed, fashion. The cloudy dank weather outside only reinforces what is going on inside. What brought this on? The tragic fire at Notre Dame.
I was sitting down to write when I saw a post on my Twitter feed. At first, I was like what? I quickly tuned in to France24 Live and proceeded to watch the building collapse in on itself. Fortunately, the two towers and stone structure survive.
I love Paris and Notre Dame is the heart of Paris. Literally sitting where the the town started. It has always been an awestruck place to visit. With good reason Victor Hugo chose it as the setting for his book, Hunchback Of Notre Dame. The place is iconic in both culture and history.
They will rebuild it. Will it be done in my lifetime? I don’t know. But I can’t but ache after today’s events. Fortunately, no one died. No serious injuries. The art and religious items were saved. It could’ve been much worse. I hold fond memories of the place and will cling to those for now.
categories / Books, Cinema, entertainment, Europe, history, travel, writing, France
tags / Notre Dame, Paris, Fire, France, tragedy, history, Victor Hugo, books, Hunchback Of Notre Dame, religion
Jesse James: Last Rebel Of The Civil War
An outlaw whose image rests these days mostly in folklore, Jesse James was a product of the Civil War. It was a war he refused to admit was over, even when he transformed from rebel to infamous outlaw. What I appreciated in reading this biography was the deep dive author T.J. Stiles took on this subject, and the subsequent detailing of the times Jesse James rode in back in the 1800’s.
You know the biography in your hand is a good one when the author winds up his work with a summary of different historians theories about Jesse James, and then inserts Karl Marx into the argument. I do believe this is the first book on the Old West where the words of Karl Marx were used to prove or disprove a theory.
It may seem silly on the surface to talk about different social theories in connection of Jesse James but the truth is, he was a product of the times. In fact, another point Stiles brings out is the way in which James was made tone deaf to violence. There is a psychological ‘scale’ as you will, to how one becomes desensitized to blood thirst and it applies to James. I found it amazing that it is the same scale used to profile terrorists or extremists in groups like ISIS (and this book was written before ISIS came onto the scene).
If you think the bloodletting in the mid-1800’s doesn’t compare to groups like ISIS then you definitely need to read this book. There was decapitations for the sake of making a point. There was the taking of scalps and bragging about how many you took. There was killing for the sake of killing. In fact, the number of robberies where James shot someone first and THEN announced the robbery is pretty astounding.
Stiles does a great job of diving into the psychological profile, the politics of the day which drove everything, and the stories of the men James associated himself with along the way. Outside his brother Frank and the Ford brothers, I doubt if most people reading this can name anyone else.
I counted at least ten states that James committed crimes in during his short life. His mark on the annuals of American crime came when railroads were first branching out and guns were becoming the weapon of choice. Before the Civil War, most violent crime was done with a knife. But all those soldiers came home knowing how to use a weapon and numb to the killing. Most people don’t realize it, but the N.R.A. was actually formed in an effort to insert gun control and curb the violence during this period. Oh, the irony of it all.
I can’t say enough about this book or the Pulitzer Prize winning author. If the Old West, the Civil War, Civil Rights, and the outlaws/gunfighters of the time are on your radar of interest, then I highly recommend this book. A solid 5 of 5 on the rating scale.
categories / Books, entertainment, history, Politics, travel, writing
tags / Jesse James, T.J. Stiles, Wild West, Old West, Outlaws, James Gang, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, Texas, travel, cowboys, Civil War, N.R.A., Karl Marx, books, biographies, history
The Final Year
This documentary about the foreign policy in the last year of the Obama Presidency reveals a lot about that administration and the country as a whole. It was a time when China, Syria, Cuba, the Paris Climate Accords were all at major stages. The film focuses on four, prominent and powerful players in those historical moments: Samantha Power; Ben Rhodes; John Kerry; and President Obama.
It doesn’t take but a few minutes into the film to realize why the Trump administration has failed so miserably on foreign policy. The people in this film were working 24/7, knew the life-death stakes of their decisions, and strove to make the moral and best choices for the country as deemed best by results in the long-run. All things the Trump administration never does. Change doesn’t happen by itself. You have to work at it.
I was caught up - as I always am by her - in Samantha Power’s genuine concern for the people in the countries she was trying to help. Whether it be visiting parents of the victims of Boco Haram, speaking at an immigrant swearing-in ceremony, or challenging Russia in the U.N., her passion was always on display. I’m a huge fan of hers and find her inspirational. Although, for some reason, I didn’t know until this film that she was a migrant from Ireland.
Ben Rhodes hit home some good points in this movie. I think one of the best ones was when he was in a conference room after talks with the Chinese and he spoke about all the issues and things the administration had done, and then pointed out how the U.S. press covered almost none of it, being more focused on Trump’s twitter feed instead. This is how - in large part - we’ve gotten us in the unholy mess we are in now.
I was also struck by his interactions in Laos, Vietnam, and the trip to Hiroshima where the President made a speech. Avoiding war and the cost of war is a constant theme when these people are talking. And no one touched on that subject more forcefully than John Kerry.
Whatever your views on Kerry, he will no doubt go down in history as probably the hardest working Secretary of State this country has had up until now. While his successors had to call off meetings for nap times, Kerry was on the go 24/7, handling several issues at once. I think the movie said that during the week of the U.N. General Assembly he had 70 meetings with representatives from other countries. Let that sink in for a moment.
The movie was great at showing how labor intensive these jobs can be but I thought it fell short because it never let you follow the progress - good or bad - on any particular issue. Now that may be due to security reasons, I don’t know. But it leaves a void in the story arc that, if dealt with, would have turned this movie from good to great.
The Final Year is interesting and and well made. Even with the flaw I mentioned, I still give this a 4 of 5 on the rating scale. It was depressing in the sense that in watching this, you realize how far this country has fallen in the last couple years. On the other hand, the people in this movie do give you hope that the future can be rescued.
categories / Cinema, entertainment, Environment, Europe, Films, history, Politics, travel, writing
tags / Samantha Power, Ben Rhodes, The Final Year, documentaries, John Kerry, Obama, Trump, foreign policy, U.N., Iran, Cuba, Hiroshima, politics
March 16, 2019 / Jett Wilson
After watching this movie, I’m convinced more than ever that society depends on being systemically risk adverse. Watching the lead in this movie survive their last days of middle school, while recalling my own youth, made me wonder how much we dampen the intellect growth of youth simply because we don’t want to be bothered. What was worse for me was that the lead - Elsie Fisher - reminded me of a close friend’s child and I was thinking, oh, shit, is this what they have to look forward too? How do we help them?
You know what? Those are the right questions to be asking because this movie is a flashing red light on what a deadly jungle it is out there. The film reminds you that from school shootings to sexual assault, suicide, and a student’s wrong move, can have the worse of consequences.
We get lost in our own orbits of jobs, housing, social circles, and it is easy to abdicate our responsibility to help the next generation navigate their way in life. We have lessons and wisdom to pass on and often they need us. But it takes time, and effort, to step into that role. Sure it is exhausting and yes, we will often fail. But we have to try even it means sacrificing things we personally care about. Those kids are more important. They just are.
If you stop and think, how many times has a relative or a stranger helped you through what seemed like an impossible situation? How many people do you know still walk this planet because someone aided them in an hour of need? It was a sacrifice on their part. And no one will ever give them an award except maybe in the afterlife because when you consider the ripple effects of those acts of kindness, few acts are as important to the greater good. That kindness changes the world. You may not be able to see it now - or ever - but a generation or two from now, that kindness still reaps benefits. That is more than you can say for your job, social status, or the retirement fund you leave in your will.
This movie, written and directed by Bo Burnham, was nominated for major awards (over 50 according to IMDB) and won several including the WGA award for best screenplay, AFI Picture Of The Year, and Director’s Guild for Best First Picture. You don’t do a whole lot better than that on the award circuit. And after watching it, I say each award was well-deserved.
The script is tight and even as I write, I’m still laughing about the banana scene. Cracked me up. I’m also still contemplating the burning of those hopes and dreams on the fire for the sake of moving on. And I got a new favorite line - thanks Bo Burnham - in “You can’t be brave without being scared”. As Joseph Campbell might say, how many people never found their bliss because they were scared?
This typically isn’t my type of movie but I am so glad I watched. Elsie Fisher is the focus of this movie and she pulls it off. The writing and directing is spot on. There are some points in the directing where I went, ‘oh, yeah… awesome choice …’ because it brought an angle to a thought you may have known to a different light. This movie is easily 5/5 on the rating scale.
categories / Cinema, entertainment, films, Films, travel, writing
tags / Eighth Grade, Bo Burnham, Elsie Fisher, movies, awards, school, teenagers, writing
University Admissions Scandal
It is a damning indictment on our society that success rests not on how smart your child is but rather if they have a piece of paper on the wall from the right institution. It is the paper that determines your child’s future, not their intellect or achievements. A whole segment of our society thrives on the graft and delusion of being successful by way of what money buys you.
The 50 people arrested yesterday in the largest admissions scandal in the history of the U.S.A., are only the tip of the iceberg. But they are emblematic of how the elite in the country think it is okay, because they are rich, for them to operate on one level while everyone else struggles.
In every aspect of our society, inequality has taken hold. 99% of the population can’t make a living wage, homeless rates among full-time workers is at a record high, but at the same time the 1% get a golden parachute if they run a business into the ground or squander the savings of that other 99%. Get arrested for defrauding banks for millions of dollars? No problem. Throw cash out there and you’ll get a lighter sentence than a drug offender. After all, its a white collar crime. Now we find out if your kid knows everything about ComicCon but nothing about science or math, you can get them into the best schools, guarantee a diploma, and have them come off as Einstein to the world. Meanwhile, the person from the 99% who actually possesses the intellect to change the world for the better struggles to be accepted and pay the tuition at the local community college.
The L.A. Times did a profile of all 50 people in the scandal. It is a cross-section of the business and academic elite. The two actresses who were arrested garnered the most attention only because they had the most famous faces. Truth is, the corruption runs deep.
I’m sorry, if you have to spend $500,000 to get your kid into a good college, or bump their SAT scores by 40%, then maybe college isn’t for them. How about spending that money on scholarships for kids whose parents are working two shifts at Walmart?
A lot of these kids had no clue what their parents were up to - which probably shows you just how dumb they are. They know they can’t pass those tests. That they’re only there because of the parent’s money and if pressed, they’d flunk out. But they don’t see that as a stain because there is such a sense of entitlement they simply think that is the way it should be.
Most of these cases involved USC and UCLA. But I’m confident if you started turning over the files at other schools, you’d find the same story. No one on the street is surprised that it was happening, only in the amount of money being spent. Until the 1% are made to reckon for their actions, the system won’t change. Lets hope this is a start.
categories / economy, entertainment, history, Politics, travel, writing
tags / admissions scandal, UCLA, USC, athletes, corruption, crime, SAT, ACT, rich, academics, university, Admissions scandal, FBI
I wish I could forgive myself for being hoodwinked into seeing this movie. I didn’t like it and will only be giving it a 3 of 5 on the rating scale. It isn’t that movie is badly made, it isn’t. I didn’t like it because there’s nothing to like about it.
One rule in writing is to make sure that your hero - when they do something horrible - doesn’t come across as a tyrant without redeeming qualities. By the time I got to the end of this movie, the lead character of Lee Israel, portrayed by Melissa McCarthy, still had no redeeming qualities to me. I was glad to be rid of her off my screen as I am sure people were to be rid of her in real life.
Lee Israel was a real writer who wrote those scandal type biographies of celebs and did okay for herself until the booze became more important than the blank page waiting on her to put something down. She apparently had zero friends because she hated people, treated them like dirt, and was a drunk.
When she went broke, she stumbled upon a scheme to forge literary letters and sell them to collectors. She even stole documents from archives. (Tell me when you find a redeeming quality here). Enlisted to help her was a homeless drug addict who she befriended - sorta - more out of necessity than friendship. After being arrested, she wrote a book about her crime spree and made a bunch of money off it. Thus, this movie.
By the time this movie got to the part where the lead character is facing the judge, I was wanting the judge to throw her into solitary confinement for life and toss the key. The acting is the only thing that carries this movie - thus the 3 of 5 and not a lower rating - but it isn’t enough. If you have an option, just rent something else. Plenty of better movies out there so choose something else.
categories / Books, entertainment, films, travel, writing
tags / Can You Ever Forgive Me?, movies, Melissa McCarthy, writing, books, crime
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Request a Greeting
Education International Relation
KEY NOTE ADDRESS AT THE ANNUAL REVIEW MEETING OF THE COMPLEMENTARY BASIC EDUCATION (CBE) PROGRAMME .
Let me welcome all of you all to this year’s annual review meeting and let me express the gratitude of the Management of the Ministry to all off you especially, those that have travelled hundreds of kilometres to be part of this august meeting.
The business of the Ministry of Education together with its cherished stakeholders is to manage and produce schools that deliver sustained improvements in learning outcomes.
By this, the Ministry has a responsibility to ensure that students coming out of our schools and especially the basic education level, have requisite skills in arithmetic, literacy and creativity to allow them further their education to whatever level they so desire. Additionally the ministry has a duty to ensure a smooth and seamless transition from school to work.
To achieve these, the importance of the collective efforts of all relevant stakeholders cannot be said to be over emphasised.
The CBE programme is probably one of the oldest interventions that have been used by local CSOs and NGOs in the education sector. The programme was started by School For Life in the northern region in the mid 1990s.
The intervention seeks to address the learning needs of out-of-school children equipping them with basic literacy and numeracy skills in the local language and some skills in knowledge about their community.
The Programme employed the community ownership approach to management where community members act as managers of learning centers, appoint facilitators from among themselves who have the time; love for and willingness to teach using the local language.
The community facilitators were provided with a “token” called soap money and the community supported them with non-financial packages.
Ladies and Gentlemen, It is the joy of many parents to see their children reading the Bible in their local languages in their small community and village churches and places of worship. Thanks to the CBE programme.
The programme proved to be successful by improving literacy and numeracy of thousands of out-of-school children allowing them to enrol in mainstream schools.
In a common assessment of the CBE graduates in 2006-07 together with mainstream pupils in classes 3 and 4, showed that CBE learners on average performed 50% better than those in mainstream schools.
Ladies and gentlemen, Ghana show cased the achievement of this intervention at the market place of ideas in 2008 when Ghana hosted the Third Accra High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness leading to the Accra Agenda for Action. This led UNICEF to support the Ghana Education Service and the Ministry of Education to develop a draft Policy in 2009 with inputs from relevant stakeholders.
In 2013, the government together with its relevant stakeholders and with support from the Department for International Development reviewed and finalized the draft Policy to take into account contemporary issues which was approved the Ministry for Implementation.
Subsequently, a Steering Committee was inaugurated to oversee the implementation of the CBE programme in line with the policy framework.
Policy context and governance structure
The complementary basic education programme for which we have gathered to take stock is one of the most structured interventions that have survived the test of time with evidence of improving literacy and numeracy for learners who are taught under very flexible systems by community facilitators.
Over the period of the implementation, the Management Unit of Crown Agents have worked with the Implementing Partners and the Ghana Education Service District Education Directorates.
This programme is driven by a Policy that defines the operational parameters and under the oversight of a Steering Committee with representation from relevant institutions such as:
The Ministry of Education,
The Ghana Education Service,
The Non-Formal Education
Representative of Regional and District Directors of Education,
Representatives of Civil Societies in the Education fraternity Education.
The National Service Scheme
The programme has benefitted from the contribution of the Implementing Partners (District Education Directorates and NGOs/CSOs) that have played active role in implementation.
Ladies and Gentleman, The CBE programme is one of the many interventions the Ministry is using to address equity in quality educational access for all children of school going age especially the vulnerable groups.
Over the medium term, the ministry seeks the continued support of its cherished stakeholders bring together their collective support in technical and financial assistance to achieve the objective of ensuring “more girls and boys have access to and complete quality inclusive education with systematic improvement in learning outcomes”.
This, the Ministry is doing by:
Harnessing all on-going interventions that have yielded results such as the CBE programme.
Introducing new systemic reforms aimed at positing the sector to focus on improving the internal efficiency of service delivery.
Ladies and Gentlemen, these include but not limited to:
Introduction of Technical Assistance Partnerships to build the capacity of the three regulatory bodies at the pre-tertiary level to deliver on their mandate of to improve school inspection, implementation of curriculum reforms and improved teacher regulatory and management systems.
Reform of the teacher education curriculum under T-TEL has commenced and steady progress has been made. This is being linked with the
Review of the basic schools curricula to place emphasis on improving skills in reading, writing, arithmetic and creativity
Sustainability of the Programme
This programme is a home grown intervention introduced by School for Life to address local and community needs as long as there are significant numbers of out of school children.
For the period, 2012-2018 DFID and USAID provided support for the implementation of the programme through local CSOs/NGOs known as implementing Partners. It is also worthy to indicate that UNICEF and Plan International are also implanting CBE in accordance with the Policy in selected districts in Eastern Central and Volta Region.
As we draw to the end of project support, we have the opportunity to reflect on the progress that has been made in improving access to vulnerable groups such as out-of-school children.
Ladies and gentlemen, We admit that this intervention is not here to stay forever, but meant to address the numbers of out-of-school children in the system and ones we have reduced this to insignificant numbers and put in place measures and systems to ensure all children have access to education participate, remain and complete education, we will no longer continue with the CBE programme.
It is important to ensure the lessons learned from the programme taking on board to strengthen the formal school system where appropriate. What are the unique lessons of the programme that can benefit the formal school system?
Review of the CBE Policy
We have the opportunity to revise the current policy and ensure that it takes into account the issues around sustainable management of the programme by government and within the systems of the Ministry of Education where there is evidence of comparative advantage and resources.
The Ministry will lead the policy review process and bring on-board relevant agencies such the National Service, The Non-Formal Education, the Ghana Education Service relevant Development Partners, CSOs/NGOs.
Over the next few days of this meeting, I entreat all these stakeholders to dialogue and identify areas that they have comparative advantage for pulling both technical and financial resources to work towards making education a reality for out-of-school children and ensure that no child is left behind.
Ladies and Gentlemen, permit me to express the deepest appreciation of the Management of the Ministry for the immense and valuable contribution of DFID, USAID, UNICEF and Plan International in this endeavour. As I noted the other forms of interventions and reforms the Ministry has initiated, I would like to once again thank DFID for supporting some these core reforms such as the review of the school curriculum and that of the Colleges of Education under the transforming Teacher Education and Learning Project.
To all our cherished stakeholders and the CBE Alliance, we acknowledge your efforts that have brought us to this achievement. We will continue to leverage on your support to reach out to all Ghanaian children with quality education.
Ladies and gentlemen, on this note, I wish you fruitful discussions and God’s blessings
Previous readingOur overall goal is to establish ten STEM centres across Ghana…
Next readingSPEECH DELIVERED AT CONFERENCE OF PRINCIPALS OF COLLEGES OF EDUCATION (PRINCOF) ANNUAL MEETING
We Need a Paradigm Shift in Leadership Skills- Education Minister
Hon. MATTHEW OPOKU PREMPEH AT AYAWASO WEST TODAY…
Reform Secretariat at the Ministry of Education
GHANA, GUINEA TO EXCHANGE TEACHERS
FreeSHS
International Relation
Teacher Reforms
© 2017 Moprempeh.
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Ma’asalama Class of 2014
May 2014 | Scholarship and Teaching | 0 comments
I had the honor of serving in the “color guard” during the inaugural NYU Abu Dhabi commencement today, which meant that I got to carry the NYU NY flag at the head of the procession of graduating seniors as they entered the hall. (The other flags represented the US, the UAE, and NYUAD.)
Yesterday, as I rode to the rehearsal at the gymnasium of the new Saadiyat campus, I had a feeling of déjà vu: four years earlier, I had ridden on buses out into the desert with many of these seniors during their candidate weekends, when they were still just prospective students. In the years since, it’s been a privilege to get to know many of them and have some of them in my classes.
A colleague, speaking at the Arts & Humanities “faculty farewell” to the students on Friday, remarked that although he did not come to NYUAD because of the students (having not met them before arriving here), it was because of them that he was committing his career to the institution.
I, in contrast, had been lucky of enough to know some of them in advance because of I took part in their candidate weekends, and it really was as a result of meeting our prospective students that I became hooked on the project. I described one of those weekends more than four years ago in a post called “New Friends in the Desert,” and the comments left by some of the candidates helped my colleagues in New York who were working on the NYUAD project to get the same sense of possibility that meeting these prospective students awakened in me. It was a pleasure to watch some of the students who left comments on that post walking across the stage this morning to receive their degrees.
I’ll be reflecting a lot more on the Abu Dhabi project in the days to come (as my family and I prepare to move to a faculty residence on the new campus on June 1). In the meantime, today belongs to the Class of 2014. I wish you could meet all of them, but you can get to know them a little by watching the videos below.
The first seven-minute video was shown today during the Commencement ceremony, and it will give you a sense of what our seniors are like and what they’ve learned in the past four years together.
During the video, the students refer to some of the research that they pursued as part of their senior-year capstone projects. I watched the following video being made outside my office during the last weeks of the spring term. It was shown at the “Faculty Farewell” luncheon on Friday.
One of the students featured in the first video is Alex Wang, who won a Rhodes Scholarship because of his research into migrant communities here. Here he is describing what it was like to receive the award.
I remember having breakfast with Alex at the Sama Tower dining room at an early moment in his first year, when things were seeming a little bit tough. Alex, like so many of his classmates, found a way to keep going when the going got tough. As students who spent all four of their years being our “seniors,” the members of the Class of 2014 have set an example for those who have come after. They’ve collaborated with the faculty and staff here to make NYU Abu Dhabi into a vibrant community and have learned what it means to be citizens of the world. I look forward to watching them take what they have learned here and spread its light in the years to come.
Mabrouk, Class of 2014! We will miss you. Please stay in touch. I look forward to seeing many of you back here for your fifth reunion. Those of you who are staying in the region should come back to see us on Saadiyat much, much sooner.
Cosmopolitanism and the Liberal Arts - A talk given at Harvard University, September 2013.
The Global Network University and US Global Studies - A paper delivered at the annual meeting of the American Studies Association of Korea, Seoul, 21-22 September 2012.
Moby-Dick Big Read, Day 99: "The Doubloon - My son Liam and I read one of my favorite chapters in the novel!
Petra, Day 1 - Years after first reading "Bartleby," I make it to Petra.
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August 2013: The Unfinished Struggle: Civil Rights and the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington
By Tyran Kai Steward
On August 28, 2013, America will commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The march was one of the largest political protest gatherings in U.S. History, attracting roughly a quarter million people to Washington D.C. Though the demonstration was motivated by the urgent concerns of civil and economic rights for African Americans, the initial idea for the march was prompted by the efforts of labor organizer A. Philip Randolph during the early 1940s. Randolph along with James Farmer (president of Congress of Racial Equality), John Lewis (chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), Martin Luther King, Jr. (president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference), Roy Wilkins (president of the NAACP), and Whitney Young (president of the National Urban League) organized the 1963 march and it was there that King delivered his famed “I Have a Dream” speech promoting racial equality. The March on Washington has been credited with helping to spur the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Memorials, rallies, and tributes, thus, have been planned to mark the occasion, and citizens across the country will converge on the nation’s capital for a symbolic march from the Lincoln Memorial to the King Memorial. There will be many reasons to celebrate: from the visible signs of racial advancement that affirmative action programs and civil rights legislation have triggered to the victory that ushered the first black President into the White House. Yet by any qualitative or quantifiable measure, African Americans have discovered the quest for racial equality to be elusive over the past half-century.
In June 2013, just as plans were being formulated for observing the anniversary of the 1963 march, civil rights icons and event coordinators learned that the Supreme Court of the United States struck down Section 5 of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act. The verdict reflected not only the Court’s ideological divide but also the discrepancy in both sides’ historical reading of the outcomes of the civil rights movement.
The Supreme Court is split over whether and to what degree the movement has successfully attained its goals. Chief Justice John Roberts accentuated this ideological and interpretive divide by contending that “our country has changed.” His terse statement invalidates the belief by more liberal members of the Court that racial minorities continue to face barriers in voting inside states where there has been a history of discrimination. It also potentially exacerbates the problem of underrepresentation for black elected officials who account for a dismal 1.7% of the total elected officials in the country.
The voting rights ruling was preceded by an earlier 7-1 decision by the Court to remand the Fisher v. University of Texas affirmative action case back to a lower court. The Supreme Court asked the lower court to evaluate whether or not the University of Texas’s goal to achieve diversity are narrowly tailored to that goal. “Strict scrutiny imposes on the university the ultimate burden of demonstrating, before turning to racial classifications, that available, workable race-neutral alternatives do not suffice,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy emphasized in his opinion written on behalf of the majority. Doubtless, many affirmative action advocates see Kennedy’s declaration as a threat to race-conscious admissions at public universities.
Aside from these judicial setbacks, African Americans have also confronted economic, educational, and jurisprudential injustices that have mitigated against their fight for equal treatment. While African Americans comprise less than 13% of the population, black prisoners constitute 1 million of the 2.3 million inmates incarcerated—a crisis that has compelled legal scholar Michelle Alexander and others to refer to mass incarceration as America’s “new Jim Crow.” Particularly troubling is the large number of blacks arrested for non-violent offenses, most of which stem from illicit drug use. African Americans represent 13% of the population but 38% of those arrested for drug offenses and 59% of those jailed in state prisons as part of a so-called war on drugs.
Researchers at John Hopkins have claimed that 38% of African Americans attend “dropout factories,” that is, schools where the typical freshmen class shrinks by 40% by the time students reach their senior year. Meanwhile, black high school students have the lowest graduation rates of any racial group at 66.1%, and many attend dilapidated, underperforming schools.
Black impoverishment also continues to be disaster giving rise to social ills such as crime, high infant mortality rates, and inadequate access to healthcare. As of 2010, African Americans comprised over 27.4 % of those persons living in poverty compared to only 9.9% for non-Hispanic whites, and 38.4% of black children under the age of eighteen are considered poor. The numbers are equally disconcerting when it comes to unemployment as the jobless rate for African Americans was 13.7% as of July 2013 in contrast to the 7.6% reported for the rest of the country.
These disturbing statistics expose the ongoing racial disparities that have persisted over the past half century causing some persons to believe that the March on Washington and the accompanying civil rights movement was a failure.
This dim view of the march, however, overlooks the original goals desired by King and his coterie of freedom fighters, namely Randolph and Rustin. While King’s “I Have a Dream” speech has iconicized the 1963 march, it was economic opportunity and a sense that African Americans were mired in an unfinished struggle for freedom that compelled the demonstration.
Randolph and Rustin (pictured here) envisioned the march as a response to black joblessness and privation. During the 1960s, African Americans fretted over the same economic dilemmas that urged Randolph to threaten a march on Washington in 1941 to challenge discrimination in wartime industries. Then-President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802 banning racial discrimination in the national defense industry and establishing the short-lived Committee on Fair Employment Practice. Roosevelt’s order was enough to prompt Randolph to call off the march. Two decades later, it was revived with the purpose of building a broad coalition for civil rights and economic empowerment.
Even King’s speech, remembered for its clamor for racial egalitarianism, placed the push for jobs and rights under the national spotlight, and he reminded Americans of the previous century of letdown African Americans had experienced. King alluded to the 100th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation in his opening remarks calling it a “momentous decree” that “came as a joyous daybreak” to blacks. But he quickly acknowledged that “100 years later the Negro is still not free.”
King underpinned his damning critique that “America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check that has come back marked ‘insufficient funds’” by reflecting on the tumultuous lived experienced of African Americans. He concluded that they lived “on a lonely island of poverty,” suffered “the unspeakable horrors of police brutality,” and traveled only “from a smaller ghetto to a larger one.” The keen sense of racial optimism teeming in the speech with its cries to “let freedom ring” was balanced by his conviction that the protest march was to be “not an end but a beginning” in the enduring battle to engender “an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.”
The ensuing campaigns and demonstrations nationwide echoed King’s vision and radical elements of the movement like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) had further plans for sit-ins on Capitol Hill and at the Justice Department.
These tactics, nonetheless, were aborted in the wake of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination and the posthumous passing of the landmark civil rights bill he had submitted the previous summer ahead of the march. By the time of King’s death, the movement had splintered and the march was merely cast as a moral cause fulfilled by the legal and legislative battles won during the countercultural decade rather than as a labor-civil rights union.
Fifty years later, African Americans are situated on the same racial precipice upon which King, Randolph, and Rustin stood and remain at the beginning of an uncompleted campaign for dignity and better opportunities. Progress has been anything but unbroken and some of the same inequitable economic, racial, and social conditions that occasioned upwards of 250,000 Americans to rally for jobs and freedom remain unresolved.
Violence has always acted as a leitmotif of the civil rights crusade and the unpunished killing of Trayvon Martin has galvanized a countrywide movement against the devastating patterns of racial injustice that linger.
Yet, if African Americans are to find success in what some are terming a new civil rights movement, they must also attach themselves to the objectives established by the organizers of the 1963 March on Washington, and should expand these aims to include gender and sexual justice.
The 1963 March on Washington was no conclusion, it was a commencement. Likewise, the 50th Anniversary ought not to be just a commemoration, but also a continuation that presses further toward the hopeful day of an invigorating autumn of freedom of equality.
Savage Gladiators vs. Civilized Amateurs: Rome and Athens in American Sports Culture
A Cruel Wind: Pandemic Flu in America, 1918-1920
by Dorothy A. Pettit and Janice Bailie
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Run-time generation, transformation, and verification of access control models for self-protection
Bailey, Christopher; Montrieux, Lionel; de Lemos, Rogério; Yu, Yijun and Wermelinger, Michel (2014). Run-time generation, transformation, and verification of access control models for self-protection. In: SEAMS 2014 Proceedings of the 9th International Symposium on Software Engineering for Adaptive and Self-Managing Systems, ACM, pp. 135–144.
PDF (Accepted Manuscript) - Requires a PDF viewer such as GSview, Xpdf or Adobe Acrobat Reader
https://doi.org/10.1145/2593929.2593945
Self-adaptive access control, in which self-* properties are applied to protecting systems, is a promising solution for the handling of malicious user behaviour in complex infrastructures. A major challenge in self-adaptive access control is ensuring that chosen adaptations are valid, and produce a satisfiable model of access. The contribution of this paper is the generation, transformation and verification of Role Based Access Control (RBAC) models at run-time, as a means for providing assurances that the adaptations to be deployed are valid. The goal is to protect the system against insider threats by adapting at run-time the access control policies associated with system resources, and access rights assigned to users. Depending on the type of attack, and based on the models from the target system and its environment, the adapted access control models need to be evaluated against the RBAC metamodel, and the adaptation constraints related to the application. The feasibility of the proposed approach has been demonstrated in the context of a fully working prototype using malicious scenarios inspired by a well documented case of insider attack.
2014 ACM
security; verification
Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) > Computing and Communications
Centre for Research in Computing (CRC)
http://seams2014.uni-paderborn.de/(Other)
Lionel Montrieux
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Resources > Articles
9th Circuit Gives Fish & Wildlife Wide Berth on Biological Opinion in Delta Smelt Decision
The Natural Lawyer
In a precedent-setting interpretation of the "best available science" requirement of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the 2008 biological opinion (BiOp) issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) regarding the effects of the state and federal water projects in California on the threatened delta smelt. San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority v. Jewell, 747 F.3d 581 (9th Cir. 2014). The decision is the latest chapter in the long-running conflict over the water supply for 20 million Californians and the nation's most productive agricultural area. The long-awaited decision reversed in part and affirmed in part the district court's judgment invalidating the BiOp and remanding it to the Service. In a 2-1 decision, the panel reversed most aspects of the lower court's decision concerning the merits of the case under the ESA. The panel affirmed the district court's order requiring the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to prepare an environmental impact statement pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act. The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) and other water agency plaintiffs have petitioned for en banc review.
The panel decision has two primary implications for federal transportation projects. First, the decision weakens the ESA's mandate that wildlife agencies must use the best scientific and commercial data available when developing biological opinions. Second, the decision allows wildlife agencies to develop reasonable and prudent alternatives (RPAs) to proposed agency actions without taking into account the impact of the RPAs on third parties.
Best Available Science
The ESA requires federal wildlife agencies to "use the best scientific and commercial data available" when formulating a biological opinion, including in assessing the impact of the proposed activity and in developing possible RPAs. 16 U.S.C. § 1536(a)(2). While the panel acknowledged, among other things, that "the BiOp is a bit of a mess" and "[t]he BiOp is a jumble of disjointed facts and analyses," the court ultimately upheld the BiOp. 747 F.3d at 605. In doing so, and by applying a highly deferential standard of review, the panel affirmed agency actions that the panel effectively admitted did not comply with the ESA's best available science mandate.
For example, the BiOp's RPA imposes severe flow restrictions during several months of the year, with the goal of reducing the number of delta smelt entrained at the Central Valley Project and State Water Project (Projects). The district court concluded that the flow restrictions were invalid because they were not based on the best available science. Plaintiffs argued that the Service improperly based its flow restrictions on raw salvage data, rather than population-adjusted ("normalized") data. Court appointed experts and the Service's peer review panel concluded that the significance of 10 entrained delta smelt differs tremendously based on whether there are 100 or 1 million individuals in the species' population. By failing to normalize the salvage data, the agency ignored the relative difference between these two scenarios. The Ninth Circuit, however, applied a highly deferential standard of review and reversed the district court. After admitting that the Service could have done more in determining Project flow limits, the court concluded that it was "within the FWS's discretion" to use raw salvage data rather than population-adjusted data because that decision led to a more "conservative" result, 747 F.3d at 607, intended to "protect the maximum absolute number of individual smelt," id. at 610. In other words, despite recognizing that the Service imposed severe flow restrictions without accounting for the best available science, the panel nonetheless sustained the Service's decision. See id. at 608 ("That the FWS could have done more in determining OMR flow limits is uncontroverted."); id. at 610 n.24 (describing that court-appointed experts "believed the BiOp to have fallen short in this analysis" because of the failure to consider normalized data).
Similarly, the panel upheld the Service's determination with respect to a low salinity requirement in the western portion of the Delta. This so-called "fall X2" measure requires the Projects to be operated in a manner that maintains X2—the point in the Delta at which salinity is less than two parts per thousand—at a certain distance from the Golden Gate Bridge. As a practical matter, the fall X2 measure requires very large amounts of water to flow into the Pacific Ocean rather than being used for urban and agricultural uses. The dispute over the calculation of X2 is of critical importance because it could determine the availability of up to 1 million acre feet of water per year for human consumption, an amount that would meet the annual water needs of several million people.
In developing the fall X2 measure, the Service used computer models developed by DWR to compare the effects of future Project operations against a simulated historical baseline. However, the Service used one model to establish the baseline and a different model to predict the effects of future operations. DWR provided evidence that the models were not designed to be compared and that the Service committed a major error by comparing model outputs without calibration of the models. The Service nonetheless reached its conclusions regarding the fall X2 measure by "compar[ing] the two different models without discussing or accounting for the resulting bias." 747 F.3d at 617. Despite this error, the panel upheld the Service's decision to compare the outputs of the two models on the grounds that the existence of a flaw does not require a determination that the action is unlawful. Id. at 620 ("The fact that FWS chose one flawed model over another flawed model is the kind of judgment to which we must defer."). However, accounting for biases inherent in the two models was not a "comparison of models," as characterized by the panel. Rather it is a scientific practice; the prevailing practice is to calibrate model results to account for biases. Nevertheless, the panel upheld the agency's determination.
In the transportation context, the panel's decision not only allows federal wildlife agencies to impose highly restrictive RPAs on proposed federal actions, but it allows the agencies to do so without any demonstrable benefit to the at-risk species. As explained by the Supreme Court, the "obvious purpose" of the best available scientific information requirement is to "ensure that the ESA not be implemented haphazardly, on the basis of speculation or surmise" and to "avoid needless economic dislocation produced by agency officials zealously but unintelligently pursuing their environmental objectives." Bennett v. Spear, 520 U.S. 154, 176-77 (1997). Yet, under the guise of applying a "highly deferential" standard of review, the panel affirmed agency actions based on clear errors in scientific judgment.
Impacts on Third PartiesThe ESA provides that, if a biological opinion determines that a proposed agency action will jeopardize a listed species or adversely modify its critical habitat, the applicable wildlife agency must suggest RPAs that "can be taken by the Federal agency or applicant in implementing the agency action." 16 U.S.C. § 1536(b)(3)(A). The regulations interpreting this provision define an RPA as:
"[A]lternative actions identified during formal consultation [i] that can be implemented in a manner consistent with the intended purpose of the action, [ii] that can be implemented consistent with the scope of the Federal agency's legal authority and jurisdiction, [iii] that is [sic] economically and technologically feasible, and [iv] that the Director believes would avoid the likelihood of jeopardizing the continued existence of listed species or resulting in the destruction or adverse modification of critical habitat."
50 C.F.R. § 402.02 (emphasis added).
In drafting the BiOp, however, the Service developed an RPA without ever addressing—in the BiOp or anywhere else—whether the alternative was economically or technically feasible. The district court accordingly held that the Service was required to reevaluate the BiOp to provide:
"[S]ome exposition in the record of why the agency concluded (if it did so at all) that all four regulatory requirements for a valid RPA were satisfied. . . . ‘Trust us' is not acceptable. FWS has shown no inclination to fully and honestly address water supply needs beyond the species despite the fact that its own regulation requires such consideration."
San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority v Salazar, 760 F. Supp. 2d 885, 957 (E.D. Cal. 2010).
The panel majority reversed, holding as a matter of law that a biological opinion is never required to address the economic and technological feasibility of alternatives to an agency action. It reasoned that the regulation in question "is a definitional section; it is defining what constitutes an RPA". 747 F.3d at 635. According to the majority, nothing provides that "FWS has required itself to provide an explanation [of feasibility] . . . when it lays out an RPA." Id. at 636.
The panel majority also held that, although the BiOp did not need to consider the economic and technological feasibility of the RPAs, those requirements were in fact substantively satisfied. Id. at 637. The panel reached that conclusion by defining the feasibility requirement to preclude any consideration of the economic effect on third parties—in this case, the tens of millions of municipal, industrial, and agricultural users of Project water. Id. at 637-638. Rather, according to the majority, the requirement addresses only whether the proposed RPA "is financially and technologically feasible" for the agency, in contrast to whether the RPA will affect third parties. Id. at 638. On that basis, the majority held that it was irrelevant as a matter of law whether there were "downstream economic impacts" resulting from imposition of the RPA. Id. at 637. Instead, the panel found that it was "nearly self-evident" that the RPAs were feasible because "the RPAs do not require major changes" to Project operations. Id. at 638. The potential impact of this decision on transportation projects—or any other federal project subject to an ESA section 7 consultation—cannot be overstated. Licensed by the panel's decision not to consider economic and technological feasibility, and directed to exclude impacts on third parties when it does so, the federal wildlife agencies are free to impose onerous and impracticable burdens on governmental programs without exploring whether other measures would provide equal protection to endangered species at less draconian costs to the public.
DWR and other plaintiffs have filed petitions for rehearing en banc, seeking further review of the panel's decision. The States of Nebraska, Alaska, Kansas, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wyoming jointly filed an amicus brief in support of the petitions. Four additional amici curiae briefs were also filed supporting en banc review.
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Supreme Court Clarifies Proposition 218 Rules
By: Stephen N. Roberts
As in each new chapter of a good mystery novel, every court decision with respect to the limitations in Proposition 218 (Cal. Const., art. XIII C and XIII D) on how public agencies conduct their financing contains a new twist, but leaves enough ambiguity to keep the reader in suspense about how it will all turn out. The Supreme Court’s latest decision is no exception: Bighorn-Desert View Water Agency v. Verjil (July 24, 2006) ___Cal.4th___ [S127535].
In Bighorn, the Supreme Court has decided that water district fees are subject to being limited or repealed by local initiative measure under Proposition 218, specifically California Constitution, article XIIIC, section 3. An initiative measure had proposed to cut the water rates and other fees being charged by the water agency, and also required that any future increases be subject to voter approval. The agency had refused to place the matter on the ballot, asserting that it would have been in violation of the law, largely because the agency was legally required to set rates, and this initiative seemed to undermine that authority. A trial court and Court of Appeal agreed with that decision, but the Supreme Court agreed in part only. On the one hand, although not necessary to what became the Court’s ultimate disposition of the case, it found that the proponents could submit an initiative that repealed or limited the water district’s fees and charges. On the other hand, the Supreme Court ultimately affirmed the agency’s and lower courts’ decisions because it found the initiative’s requirement of subjecting all future rate increases to a vote not to be authorized by Proposition 218.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
Prior decisions under Proposition 218 have largely dealt with whether a particular fee or charge was imposed as an "incident of property ownership" under California Constitution article XIII D. If so, the fee or charge would be subject to the restrictions of that part of Proposition 218 which requires either a majority vote of the property owners or a 2/3 vote of all voters for passage. (Art. XIII D, §6.) If a fee were not imposed as an incident of property ownership, then XIII D would be irrelevant. In Richmond v. Shasta Community Services District (2004) 32 Cal.4th 409, the Supreme Court held two years ago that a fee for new service connections to a domestic water supply was not a fee or charge incident of property ownership under XIII D, although it also said, arguably in dicta, that a fee or charge for ongoing water service was an incident of property ownership. In contrast, in Bighorn, article XIII C, not D, was at issue, and XIII C does not contain the same dichotomy between fees that are and are not property related.
Article XII C, section 3, provides:
Initiative Power for Local Taxes, Assessments, Fees and Charges. Notwithstanding any other provision of this Constitution, including, but not limited to, Sections 8 and 9 of Article II, the initiative power shall not be prohibited or otherwise limited in matters of reducing or repealing any local tax, assessment, fee or charge. The power of initiative to affect local taxes, assessments, fees and charges shall be applicable to all local governments and neither the Legislature nor any local government charter shall impose a signature requirement higher than that applicable to statewide statutory initiatives.
Because in XIII C there was no limitation to a fee or charge that was an incident of property ownership, the Supreme Court concluded in Bighorn that the phrase "fee or charge" in XIII C was likely broader than similar language in XIII D—at any rate, it at least included anything that was a fee or charge under XIII D. The Court declined, as unnecessary, to flesh out further the meaning under XIII C, because the fees or charges at issue in the case were fees or charges under the narrower definitions in XIII D, and therefore were logically included within XIII C.
In reaching its conclusion that the fees or charges were included within the narrower confines of XIII D, the Court considered an agency argument that user fees measured by consumption are not imposed as an incident of property ownership, but rather because of a voluntary decision to consume the water. Rejecting that argument, the Court said squarely for the first time that a public water agency’s consumption-based fees or charges for ongoing water delivery are fees or charges within the meaning of article XIII D, because they are for a property related service; and it disapproved HJTA v. City of Los Angeles (2000) 85 Cal.App.4th 79, to the extent that prior case was inconsistent with this new decision.
The guidance from the Court about XIII D may have more long term impact than the final result of the case, which was to uphold the District’s decision to refuse to put the matter on the ballot. That result came about because the initiative measure also required the District to subject any future increases to a vote of the people, and the Court found that nothing in XIII C gave such a power to the initiative process. Anyway, as to fees or charges that are imposed as an incident of property ownership under XIII D, section 6 of that article already requires that increases, as well as the initial fees or charges themselves, be submitted to repeated votes, so the Bighorn court’s holding in this latter respect may not have a very great impact.
It may surprise some that any fees and charges, or in fact taxes and assessments, are subject to being changed by local initiative. But that has been the law since Proposition 218’s passage. It results in the seeming conundrum that such impositions require a 2/3 vote but can be repealed by a simple majority vote. Presumably repeal would be limited by the Constitutional doctrine forbidding impairment of contract to the extent that the levies have been pledged to bonds or other uses. But that is a later chapter in the saga.
Stephen N. Roberts is a Partner with Nossaman and has devoted his practice to general business litigation since 1974. The majority of his cases involve transportation, public agency law, real estate, construction and related infrastructure issues. He can be reached at (415) 438-7213 or sroberts@nossaman.com.
Stephen N. Roberts
"Reconsidering strict liability in light of recent California wildfires"
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Perth > Government > Politics
Political Lobbyists, Lobbyists Code
Premier Alan Carpenter today released the Contact with Lobbyists Code, which will underpin the operations of the Register of Lobbyists.
Tabling the code in State Parliament, Mr Carpenter said lobbyists could now apply online to the Director General of the Department of Premier and Cabinet to be included on the Register of Lobbyists.
The Premier told Parliament that Brian Burke, Julian Grill and Noel Crichton-Browne would be disqualified from the register.
“My Government recognises that lobbying is a legitimate part of the democratic process and in Western Australia, the overwhelming majority of lobbyists are honest, decent individuals who operate according to ethical business practices,” he said.
“Unfortunately, the reputation of lobbying and lobbyists has been sullied through the actions of Burke, Grill and Crichton-Browne.
“Evidence submitted to the recent Corruption and Crime Commission hearings has shown that these three characters have, at the very least, shown an absolute contempt for standards of political probity and a total disregard of the ethics expected of individuals operating in public life.”
The Contact with Lobbyists Code establishes rules for contact between lobbyists and Ministers, Ministerial staff, parliamentary secretaries and public sector employees; and standards of conduct for lobbyists who wish to be included on the Register of Lobbyists.
Mr Carpenter said the code was deliberately minimalist in its approach.
“It applies only to lobbyists who represent third parties,” he said.
“It does not apply to business lobby groups, trade unions, religious or charitable bodies and recognised professional and technical occupations.”
The Register of Lobbyists will come into effect from April 16 and will be administered by the Director General of the Department of the Premier and Cabinet, who has the authority to accept or reject applications or to remove lobbyists from the register.
The dedicated website address for the register is http://www.lobbyistsregister.dpc.wa.gov.au
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Tag: 2pac
On This Day: 2pac died 22 years ago
Hip Hop legend Tupac Shakur died on Sept 13, 1996 just days after being shot on the strip of Las Vegas, at only 25 years old.
To learn more about 2pac, Click Here
2pac Movie – All Eyez On Me Biopic – Official Trailer
ALL EYEZ ON ME covers the life of Tupac Shakur, including his rise to superstardom as a hip hop artist, actor, poet and activist, as well as his imprisonment and prolific, controversial time at Death Row Records. Against insurmountable odds, Shakur rose to become a cultural icon whose career and persona both continue to grow long after his passing.
News: Eminem Writes A Tribute Letter To 2pac
“The first time I ever heard Tupac was his verse on “I Get Around” with Digital Underground. I was 18 or 19 years old and I remember thinking, “Who is this?” He stood out so much. Once I heard that, I got his first album, 2Pacalypse Now. I saw the video for “Brenda’s Got a Baby” and I remember thinking, “Holy s***.” By the time he got to Me Against the World, it was him at his pinnacle. He’s off and running. He knows what he wants, and he’s figured out how he wants to be and how he wants to sound — everything. I would probably put that up against anything as far as a classic hip-hop album goes.
He was taking things further than a lot of rappers at the time — pushing it to the next level as far as giving feeling to his words and his music. A lot of people say, “You feel Pac,” and it’s absolutely true. The way he chose which words to say with which beat was genius; it’s like he knew what part of the beat and what chord change was the right place to hit these certain words… to make them jump off the track and make you feel what he was saying. Like, listen to “If I Die 2Nite.” Whatever he was rapping about, it was urgent. If it was a sad song, it’d make you cry. But there were a lot of different sides to him: fed-up, angry, militant, having a good time. His spirit spoke to me because it was like you knew everything that he was going through, especially when he made Me Against the World. You just felt every aspect of his pain, every emotion: when he was happy, when he was sad. His ability to touch people’s lives like that was incredible.
The school I come from growing up, we spent a lot of time studying rappers, everyone from N.W.A. to Public Enemy to Big Daddy Kane to Kool G Rap to Rakim to Special Ed, taking all these bits and piece from each one. Tupac was the first one to really help me learn how to make songs that felt like something.
He was so versatile — if you weren’t in the mood for what he was doing on this song here, he’s got something for you over here. He covered such a broad perspective and there were so many different sides to him, but the best part about him overall was that he was a human being. He would let you see that. I used to be fascinated with his interviews like, “Yo, what he’s saying is so true.” He would also be able to trump people who were interviewing him when they would hit him with hard questions — it was incredible. He was a superstar in every aspect of the word. You just wanted to know that guy. Like man, I wanna hang out with Pac”.
News: Help raise money and donate to Hussein Fatal’s family. @TheOutlawz @Young_Noble1 @TheRealEDIDON
We would like to send our condolences to the Family of Hussein Fatal as well as those who knew him. We had a personal relationship with him here at RapMusicPromo.com As we all probably know, he died suddenly in a car accident. This is not meant to be a detail oriented article, this is just our way of trying to help, please donate to the link below and help us bury our friend.
http://www.gofundme.com/z6j498
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