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HomeAbsinthe United States
In the early 1900s many European countries banned the strong alcoholic drink Absinthe, United States banned Absinthe in 1912.
Absinthe was never as popular in the United States as it was in European countries such as France and Switzerland, but there were areas of the US, such as the French part of New Orleans, where Absinthe was served in Absinthe bars.
Absinthe is a liquor made from herbs such as wormwood, aniseed and fennel. It is often green, hence its nickname the Green Fairy, and it has an anise taste.
Absinthe is an interesting concoction or recipe of herbs that act as a stimulant and alcohol and other herbs that act as a sedative. It is the essential oils from the herbs that cause Absinthe to louche, go cloudy, when water is added.
Wormwood, Artimesia Absinthium, contains a chemical called thujone which is said to be similar to THC in the drug cannabis, to be psychoactive and to cause psychedelic effects.
Absinthe United States and the ban
At the beginning of the 1900s there was a strong prohibition movement in France and this movement used the fact that Absinthe was linked to the Bohemian culture of Montmartre – with its writers, artists and the courtesans and loose morals of establishments such as the Moulin Rouge, and the allegation that an Absinthe drinker murdered his family, to argue for a ban on Absinthe. They claimed that Absinthe would be France’s ruin, that Absinthe was a drug and intoxicant that would drive everyone to insanity!
The United States followed France’s example and banned Absinthe and drinks containing thujone in 1912. It became illegal, a crime, to buy or sell Absinthe in the USA. Americans either had to concoct their own homemade recipes or travel to countries like the Czech Republic, where Absinthe was still legal, to enjoy the Green Fairy.
Many US legal experts argue that Absinthe was never banned in the US and that if you look carefully into the law and ordinance you will find that only drinks containing over 10mg of thujone were banned. However, US Customs and police would not allow any Absinthe shipped from abroad to enter the US, only thujone free Absinthe substitutes were allowed.
Absinthe United States 2007
Ted Breaux, a native of New Orleans, runs a distillery in Saumur France. He has used vintage bottles of pre-ban Absinthe to investigate Absinthe recipes and to create his own classic pre-ban style Absinthe – the Jade collection.
Breaux was amazed to find that the vintage Absinthe, contrary to belief, actually only contained very minute quantities of thujone – not enough to harm anyone. He became determined to provide an Absinthe drink which he could ship to his homeland, the US. His dream was to once again see Absinthe being consumed in bars in New Orleans.
Breaux and lawyer Gared Gurfein, had many meetings with the Alcohol, Tobacco, Tax and Trade Bureau about the thujone content of Breaux’s Absinthe recipe. They found that actually no law needed to be changed!
Breaux’s dream became reality in 2007 when his brand Lucid was able to be shipped from his distillery in France to the US. Lucid is based on vintage recipes and contains real wormwood, unlike fake Absinthes. Now, in 2008, a brand called Green Moon and two Absinthes from Kubler are all able to be bought and sold within the US.
Absinthe United States – Many Americans are now enjoying their first taste of real legal Absinthe, perhaps there will be an Absinthe revival.
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Sometimes I find it difficult getting too worked up about some Human Rights Issues, even ones affecting me personally. They seem so trivial in the Grand Scheme of Things, yet I have a duty to clean up my own back-yard, so to speak.
Here's why I feel this way. I subscribe to iAbolish, the US-based anti-slavery group. This scourge is still with us in out-of-the-way places, and the wrongness of chattel slavery offends me deeply.
This week, iAbolish brings you an excerpt from chapter 2 of Enslaved: Abuk Bak's story.
When her village in Southern Sudan was raided by an Arab militia in 1987, Abuk Bak; only 12 years old at the time; was kidnapped and subsequently enslaved for ten years. During that time, her master, Ahmed Adam, never once used her name; she was always "abeeda." It was only after she escaped that she learned what it meant: her name for a decade was simply "black slave."
From Chapter 2: Beyond Abeeda
"As we struggled, Ahmed Adam grabbed the knife that he carried in his sleeve and stabbed me in my right thigh. The pain was so strong that he could not stop my screams, and he ran back into the house, afraid that his wife would hear...
"I knew right away that I would not stay to see another morning there, but my leg was bleeding badly. I ripped a piece of cloth from my skirt and tied it around my thigh to try to stop the bleeding, and thought about how to escape. I lay awake all night, knowing that if I ran away I could be found and severely beaten or killed, but I had to take a chance."
You can read about the rest of Abuk's escape in Enslaved: True Stories of Modern Day Slavery
Compared with that, it's a little difficult getting too worked up about trivialities like being denied a passport, or any of the myriad humiliations I've had to endure in my journey so far.
at 10/31/2006 09:26:00 pm 0 comments Links to this post
Deferred Success
Oh England, My England!
I've been naturalised since 1988, but I can't help but feel more than a trace of affection for the land of my Birth. So this story saddens me.
From the BBC :
A retired teacher has lost her fight to have the word "fail" replaced by "deferred success" in education speak.
Liz Beattie, from Ipswich, Suffolk, put forward the motion at the Professional Association of Teachers' conference.
She argued many children were put off learning for life after being labelled "failures" but her colleagues rejected the move as "a foot-in-mouth motion".
Ian Pringle, from Canvey Island, Essex, said: "We'll be ridiculed. Please do not vote for this motion."
All well and good. Yes, they'd be a laughing-stock if they did this. But the article then goes on:
Another delegate said failure was not a word used in schools anyway these days.
You see, it's not the concept they're against : just what they're doing being found out and them subject to deserved public ridicule.
An Un Conventional Story
The Hotel's lobby was quietly cool, the soft piano music in the background unobtrusive, almost imperceptible, as smooth as the evening's velvet darkness.
The Middle Aged Alpha Geek walked in, his suit and tie uncomfortable after the day's proceedings, though not as uncomfortable as they were when he'd put them on that morning. Both had a nice, rumpled look now, lived in, to match his personality. And it had pockets, lots of them, now stuffed with a hundred business cards, some from suits, some from colleagues, some from friends, and some from rivals. Networking, they called it. Not the frantic linebuzz of TCP/IP, the you-scratch-my-back-and-I'll-stab-yours world of rustling up venture capital, sailing through fleets of corporate buccaneers hunting for the treasure that was the Next Big Thing.
A necessary Evil. Not His Scene. Something you had to do at any HiTek Convention though.
He spotted her, across the room. A few other women had just left in a group, leaving her in relaxed solitude, comfortably enveloped in a black lounge chair, legs demurely crossed, studying the next morning's programme.
No-one could have mistaken her for a suit, or an advertising dollybird. Not for her, the power trouser suit, the immaculate makeup and thousand-dollar coiffure. Some sort of black silk top, and an ankle-length dress denim skirt, neat but understated. Besides which, she'd given a presentation that morning on lifecycle models, risk analysis, and the impact of team personalities on software design that was as intriguing as it was unconventional.
He'd wanted to speak to her about that, despite his natural shyness around the females of the species. The project that would make or break his firm was just ramping up, and she might just hold the key to its success.
He would have just marched up to a guy and introduced himself, but now he was acutely aware of his bald patch, his over-ample belly, and the salt-and-pepper 5 O'Clock shadow he'd forgotten to scrape off in his hotel room. But what the heck. His divorce was well over a year ago, and it was time he did some socialising. Of course, with his luck, she'd be Lesbian. No matter, her ideas really could make a big difference to The Project, and that's what his life revolved around now since Sandra left with the kids.
"Hi" Oh great line, Joe. that will work wonders he thought. I'm out of practice for this kind of stuff. What was I thinking?
The Geekette, what was her name, Phoebe? sat up a little straighter, tensing slightly, then favoured him with a raised eyebrow that could only be called "quizzical". She could have been any age from her late thirties to early fifties. A bit statuesque for his tastes, almost Amazonish now he was close to her. Broad shouldered. Nice rack though.
Her voice sounded a little huskier than it had over the PA system.
"Hi-I'm-Joe-Macennerny-and-I'd-like-to-speak-to-you-about-your-presentation" the words came out in a rush.Oh God Please Let the Floor Swallow Me Up Now
Her face lit up, a slight smile magically appearing, as she held out her hand and replied.
"Phoebe Dawson. Now what was that again?"
Slowly, he repeated his introduction, and she gestured for him to sit in the overpadded lounge chair beside her.
Soon they were engaged in that intimate intercourse of tech-talk common amongst geeks of every stripe and nationality. When taking tech, her enthusiasm was contagious, her hands weaving patterns of thought, invisible diagrams on a virtual whiteboard that communicated more than mere words could say. He ordered a double bourbon from a passing waiter, she a vodka and lime, and soon they were sharing war stories, tales of spectacular management ineptitude, and even the odd truly foetid pun.
He found himself opening up in a way he never did before, talking about his family, and showing her the pictures of his two daughters. And of his son, his boy who had gone off to war and come home under a flag of honour. Killed in an automobile accident while delivering mail on a poorly surveyed road.
He looked up, fighting off the wateriness that always came into his eyes when he told that story, and saw tears falling down her cheeks. Without prompting, she took his hand, and just held it, her soft skin gently pressing against his, speaking without words a message of comfort, and sympathy, and shared sadness.
"So", he said eventually, "Do you have a family?"
"A boy" she said brightly. "Nearly twelve now. He's staying with my best friend."
"And his father?"
Her whole body seemed to diminish, her face which had been bright and lively dimming and grey, and he knew that once again, he'd blown it. Like he'd blown it with Sandra. Like he always blew it.
"My son's father is.... no longer with us."
"Divorce?" The word just spilt out, he'd been thinking of his own situation, and now he was just making it worse. But she seemed not to notice his gaucherie, nor take offense.
"No, it's a long story. He was born with a rare congenital condition. Neurological. Some die with it, without ever showing symptoms. Some have years, even decades of increasingly bizarre behaviour before the end. It puts a strain on any marriage."
She took a paper handkerchief out of her bag, wiped away her tears, and continued. Now her grief was in full flood, and all he could do was listen.
"Oh, it's not genetic. My son's OK. And his father didn't suffer much, except at the end. Many sufferers suicide, their whole life is one of misery. He didn't have it too badly, till January of '04. He got acute symptoms in January, February was full of medical tests, the typical bizarre behaviour started in March, and in early April, he was gone. Just. Like. That. Leaving us to cope."
"Could nothing be done?"
"No, it's incurable, and still not well understood. The first signs show up at about age 5, you know? Oh, Palliative care can help reduce the agony, but that often hastens rather than delays the end. Oh God, it's a blessed relief to them when they go, he said it was the best thing that could ever happen to him. He was so sorry to leave his family in such a mess, but he said he had no choice, and he was in so much pain...."
Now she was gently crying, her whispered voice choked with low, feminine sobs.
"He tried so very, very hard to be a normal man, and a good father. But he just couldn't do it any more..... So. Here I am. Picking up the pieces of my shattered life."
Not knowing what to do, the Alpha Geek somehow did exactly the right thing, took her hand, and gently held it.
When the waiter came by a little later to freshen their drinks, the pair were once more in animated conversation, sprinkled with laughter and garnished with smiles. Talking an incomprensible private language larded with acronyms like "SLCM", "CMMI", and "J2EE". He sitting a little taller, she absently twiddling her long dangly earings.
The two lonely people conversed long after midnight, and left together, sharing the same lift.
The waiter had bet five bucks those two would be sleeping together that night, but the cynical bartender refused to pay up.
"No open diplay of affection, they could have been going to separate rooms" he said.
"You can never tell by outward appearances."
(c) 2005 Zoe E Brain
The Uncanny XX-Men
From Nature :
How can a person with two X chromosomes be a man? In more ways than one...
The battle of the sexes continues to rage — right down to the level of our genes.
A gene has now been discovered that, when mutated, turns girls into boys. The finding advances, but also complicates, our understanding of how sex is determined by our genes.
As if it wasn't complicated enough...
In people, almost all men carry two different sex chromosomes (XY) and women are XX. But there are some (extremely rare) exceptions to this rule. It is possible to have XX men, for example.
And X0 women, and XXY men, and (very rarely) XXY women, and a whole host of others, XY/XX, XY/XO mixtures, and this is just for humans who are mentally normal. XXXY, XXYYY etc and Bad Stuff (tm) happens in neural development.
This female-to-male sex reversal almost always happens when a
certain gene called SRY, usually carried on the Y chromosome, accidentally ends up on the X chromosome inherited from the father.
Other genes have been found to muddle up sexual identity, making the resulting child neither fully male nor fully female.
As regular readers of this blog are no doubt aware. Then there's environmental issues in the womb, where the genes are fine, but a chemical is introduced, or things just go slightly amiss for one reason or another. It happens.
But in most cases of anatomically complete XX men — who have functional testes, but without a Y are infertile — SRY is involved. For this reason, it has long been called the gene that defines 'maleness'.[1]
But now Giovanna Camerino of the University of Pavia in Italy and colleagues have found another gene that is equally important to the process.
The team studied a family in which four brothers were each XX. None carried the 'male' SRY gene. Instead, the team reports in Nature Genetics [2], they each have a mutation in a gene called RSPO1.
It seems that sex is determined in humans by a cascade of genes. At a crucial junction in this process lies a gene called SOX9, which in males is switched on by SRY, causing testis development. In females, the researchers now suggest, SOX9 might be typically switched off by RSPO1, which, via other genes in the cascade, leads to the development of ovaries. In the brothers, it seems the mutated RSPO1 gene could not fulfil its switching-off role, leaving SOX9 on and leading to male development.
This theory fits with animal studies: mice with two X chromosomes that have their SOX9 expression turned back on form testes.[3]
The idea stands in contrast to previous theories that said that female development was basically the default that happens in the absence of genes to direct maleness. "What is really important is that suppression of male and induction of female development is an active process," says Andreas Schedl of INSERM, the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research in Nice, who is a co-author on the paper.
"RSPO1 clearly plays a key role in this process." The identification of this gene, he says, may be as important to the field as the identification of SRY.
1. Koopman P., et al. Nature, 351 . 117 - 121 (1991).
2. Parma P., et al. Nature Genet., doi:10.1038/ng1907 (2006).
3. Vidal V. P., et al. Nature Genet, 28 . 216 - 217 (2001).
Another piece in the puzzle. Not an expected one either, hence more valuable than most.
The Jelly Baby Death Machine
Here, along with other unwise microwave experiments
Lego Stargate
It's about time I blogged an Interesting URL. A great source is always Fred Kiesche's Eternal Golden Braid.
From Make Magazine :
Crisis Averted
From News.com :
AUSTRALIANS travelling to the US can breathe easy. So can the 100,000 or so Australian expatriates living in America.
The US government today dismissed media reports it had banned Vegemite.
"There is no ban on Vegemite," US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) spokesman Mike Herndon said.
Media reports at the weekend claimed American border officials were confiscating Vegemite from Australians as they entered the US.
The FDA, charged with policing America's food supply, has not issued an "import alert" to border officials to halt the import of Vegemite.
Mr Herndon said the FDA was surprised by the media reports.
The controversy centres on folate, an ingredient in Vegemite.
Under US regulations, folate can be added only to breads and cereals.
"One of the Vitamin B components (in Vegemite) is folate," Mr Herndon said.
"In and of itself, it's not a violation. If they're adding folate to it, boosting it up, technically it would be a violation.
"But the FDA has not targeted it and I don't think we intend to target Vegemite simply because of that."
Joanna Scott, spokesperson for Vegemite's maker, Kraft, reportedly has said, "The Food and Drug Administration doesn't allow the import of Vegemite simply because the recipe does have the addition of folic acid".
But Mr Herndon said, "Nobody at the FDA has told them (Kraft) there is a ban".
To eradicate any grey areas or potential regulation breaches, Mr Herndon said, Kraft could petition the FDA, something other food manufacturers have done.
While many Aussies living in the US rely on visiting Australian relatives and friends to bring them a jar or two of Vegemite from Australia, the product is available in some US supermarkets.
The price slapped on Vegemite, however, is tough to swallow.
A tiny, four ounce jar of Vegemite sells for around $US4.80 ($6.33) in US supermarkets.
But from a comment on a previous thread, by my good friend, Scotty :
was forwarded this yesterday and I looked on the shelves of a new snooty grocery shop, hoping to get a jar of Vegemite before it ran out, and I was greated by only Marmite. I was very sad. The Vegemite was gone.
The Vegemite was gone.
Yet Another Data Point
Another blood test, the last before my Op.
Oestrodiol level a new high, 301 pMol/L. Of course a normal Human being would have at least 600, but I'll take whatever I can get. Still the highest on record.
If the hypothesis about my condition is correct, we could reasonably expect levels to slowly increase as the receptors in the cells get "turned over:, and saturated with post-pubescent levels of hormones.
The progression since starting 8mg of Progynova, tests every 3 months, is 179, 241, 301. Vs a pre-HRT level of about 195.
Still not proven, but the hypothesis has made its first prediction, and come up trumps.
Meanwhile I'm recovering from jaw surgery on Monday, the wisdom tooth had J-curve roots. The extraction didn't hurt despite me having only local anaesthetic, though the bone saw wasn't a pleasant experience. Today, I've just come back from my usual day-trip every 3 months to see Professor Steinbeck, my endocrinologist. All the blood tests - apart from the weird hormonal results - are now slap-bang in the middle of the normal range, so I'm cleared for surgery by him. Next stop, my GP to get BP and cardiac functions checked, and I'll be set to go.
The last bit of medical preparation before the op.
Wars Have Started For Less
From Blogcritics
About Australia, a US based store providing American consumers with traditional products from Down Under, was forced to stop importing Vegemite six months ago, however the product was actually limited to 113gram (4oz) jars in 2005. Expat Daniel Fogarty, now living in Canada, was recently searching for Vegemite while crossing the border on a trip to Montana. Other travelers have had their jars of Vegemite confiscated.
At the bottom of this bizarre prohibition is the US Food and Drugs Administration (of course), who say they disapprove of the addition of folate to anything other than bread or grain products such as flour and pasta.
Okay, time for the serious stuff. Exactly what is folate and why is it so bad?
Folate is a water-soluble B vitamin found naturally in green vegetables, legumes, liver, and some fruits and nuts, not to mention yeast extracts. It works in conjunction with B12 (also present in Vegemite) to produce the genetic materials for cell growth and reproduction. Folate helps to build proteins and healthy red blood cells, which means it is an important nutrient in the defence against anemia. Furthermore, there is some evidence to suggest that high folate intake can reduce the risk of certain diseases.
Sounds like pretty good stuff, right? The FDA thinks so, too.
In 1998, after several years of deliberation, the FDA ruled on regulations for the mandatory addition of folic acid (the synthetic equivalent of folate) to breads, cereals, and other grain products, to assist in the prevention of neural tube defects such as spina bifida. Nine months after the policy was introduced, incidence of spina bifida was reportedly reduced by 31 percent. However, it is argued that the supplementation is inadequate and many more cases of birth defect could be avoided with a higher dosage.
Nevertheless, the FDA purports to the theory that too much folate can mask vitamin B12 deficiency in the elderly and, they argue, Vegemite contains just too much. I’m thinking the FDA hasn’t been reading the nutritional information panel on their jar of Vegemite, which suggests a 5 gram serving for 50% of the recommended dietary intake (RDI) of 200 micrograms of folate per day, or 400 micrograms for women of child bearing age.
Not only that, the Institute of Medicine has established a daily upper intake level (UL) of no more than 1000 micrograms of folic acid so as not to mask symptoms of B12 deficiency.
That’s an awful lot of Vegemite, even for an Aussie. Just how much Vegemite is the FDA slapping on their slice of toast?
But it's gotten worse. From the Courier Mail :
THE United States has slapped a ban on Vegemite, outraging Australian expatriates there.
The bizarre crackdown was prompted because Vegemite contains folate, which in the US can be added only to breads and cereals.
Expatriates say that enforcement of the ban has been stepped up recently and is ruining lifelong traditions of having Vegemite on toast for breakfast.
Former Geelong man Daniel Fogarty, who now lives in Calgary, Canada, said he was stunned when searched while crossing the US border recently.
"The border guard asked us if we were carrying any Vegemite," Mr Fogarty said.
"I was flabbergasted." Paul Watkins, who owns a store called About Australia in San Antonio, Texas, said he had been forced to stop importing Vegemite six months ago.
"We have completely stopped bringing it in," he said.
"(US authorities) have made a stance and there is nothing that can be done about it."
You know what to do. Go to SaveVegemite.com, or just e-mail the White House direct.
The Tenth Dimension
Superstrings for beginners, explained here.
Curtsy to reader (and former schoolmate) Hugh.
And if you think a ten-spatial-dimension Universe is something miraculous, you should see the pictures of his baby daughter.
That a Universe could exist with a place in it for concepts such as Love, that is the real miracle. The mechanics are interesting too, of course, but somehow... less important.
Another interesting day.
Ok, so there was a big pow-wow today, with the Education Mavenette of the AutoCRC.
I better provide subtitles.
My PhD - and about a dozen others - is being funded by the Co-Operative Research Centre (CRC) for advanced Automotive systems. CRCs are joint educational/Industry Research and Development groups, co-operative partnerships where academic and industry groups get together to see what they can do for each other. Industry provides the money, and gets both directed research, a higher profile amongst undergrads, and even a say in what is taught, so they have a skilled workforce that meets their needs.
This was a planning meeting, saying what the situation was, and to explore future possibilities and overcome difficulties.
One of the 3 main problems the Automotive Industry has here is Diversity - there isn't any. Only 8% of engineering graduates are female, and less than 1% of engineers working in the auto industry.
As the senior female engineer there (3 gals, 30 guys, sigh) , and since I'm a member of the WICcans (Women in Information and Communication - WIC - the national group), and the WITches (Women in Information Technology - the group within the ANU's Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology), I got a special after-meeting one-on-one with the Education mavenette. She was really interested in what was going on, and needed the contacts.
Well, after a Kaffeklatsch about Diversity, how to achieve it, what's gone wrong with previous attempts etc, I decided to give her the post-grad treatment. I showed her my presentation on Intersex, and about three quarters of the way through the penny started to drop. The slide about passport difficulties for IS and TS people, as she knew that I'd had some for unspecified reasons.
She still burst out in stifled laughs when she saw the last slide - the one detailing (with pictures) my unique perspective. Then we got around to discussing how TS is 1:3500 or so in the general population, but 1:100 in IT, and we think about 1:250 in Engineering generally.
They're just starting to formulate HR policies in this regard, so I'll be involved in that in addition to my PhD studies. As she said, we might even generate a paper on the subject.
It was great to get a hug from her as she left. I think we'll work well together.
Landed Immigrant
I have just been informed that an official decision has been made by the Department of Immigration to update my records.
As of two days ago, as far as they're concerned, I'm now Zoe Ellen Brain, Australian Citizen, Landed Immigrant. Legally Female, too, and with UK passport number recorded.
OK, so they sent me my new Citizenship certificate some time ago, but it takes time for these things to work through the system. Two months and some weeks, rather faster than I thought it might in fact.
Hmmmm... I wonder of that will help me get my UK Birth Certificate changed one day? Oh well, that's another struggle, and sufficient unto the day the troubles thereof.
I leave for Thailand in just over 3 weeks. The end of a long nightmare is in sight. As long as Murphy doesn't intervene, of course, and I have a deep and abiding faith in both him and his consort, Eris, Goddess of Chaos and Confusion!
Thoughts on Gender
Here's a post I wrote in reply to Jane, a woman who I greatly admire. She transitioned when the odds against it were almost unsuperable, when you could count the number of SRS surgeons in the world on the fingers of one hand - and not use your thumb.
She'd "Deep Stealth", having had pretty close to a normal life since her mid 20's, so I can give no more details about her. Other than she's quite a gal.
It's about the nature of gender - and those transsexual people who for some reason or other never quite seem to look right in their acquired gender. Nothing you can put your finger on - but some just look exactly right, while others ring false.
Like you Jane, I'm convinced that the answer lies in the brain.
Look at the diagram - values of -4 to -1 we call "male", values 0.5 to 4 we call "female".
All sexed species have facilities for recognition of the opposite sex buried deep in their nervous system. The same goes for their sexual identity. That's necessary for species survival - though by some theories, having a trace amount of cross-gendered identification may be advantageous. Or maybe it's just in the nature of things that stuff goes wrong sometimes, and to make it absolutely 100% accurate would have penalties not worth the cost.
Now we know from autopsies, and most recently, dynamic MRI imaging that the human brain is very sexually dimorphic - at least as dimorphic as the genitalia. But it's also a very complex organ. It might be best described as a vector with not dozens, but thousands of values. Put into plain english, a brain might be FFFfFfffFmFFFfFFmfF - indicating strongly feminine (F) in some aspects, normally feminine (F) in others, weakly feminine (f) in others, and even a bit more masculine than feminine (m) in a few.
Really though, "feminine" could be anywhere from 0.5 to 4 as shown in the diagram, and I'm simplifying hugely.
Now my own studies, and research by other workers in Artificial and Natural Intelligence, indicate that we think consciously a lot less than we think we do, and think subconsciously a lot more. Moreover, we make use of stereotypes a lot to fill in the gaps in information that we don't have.
For example "it has 4 wheels and is on a road" leads us to the belief that "it" is a car, an automobile, and we're usually right in that belief. We don't have to examine the chemical composition of the paintwork, and other such details.
The brain's "programmable firmware" give us our instincts, our talents, the way we move and react, the way we carry ourselves. A recent study showed that gender recognition was based more on movement than anything else. You, Jane, could be wearing a boiler suit, and just the way that you walk, or even your stance when standing still, would clue anyone that you're a woman. That's because the base part of your brain causes your posture to be that way. Typically feminine, maybe 3 on the graph above. There are other sexual cues too, body shape, face, and there's additional cultural programming on top of that. In our society, men generally don't wear floral prints, skirts, lipstick, and these are additional cues, but the basics are still instinctive, we "think" without knowing that we think.
Now when things go wrong - and for some of us, that means 47xxy chromosomes, for others 46xy but a glitch in masculinisation, etc etc we may end up not with FFFfFfffFmFFFfFFmfF but with FFfMFfmfFmFfFfFFmfF. Still recognisably female, but with some bits under-feminised.
Though again, it's a bimodal distibution, numbers <0 are "typically male", >0 "typically female", so it's not quite right to say bits of the brain are "masculinised" or "feminised". They are what they are, typical or atypical for a given gender.
And that is why I was so emotionally affected by getting involved with the Women in Technology. I knew from my studies that my brain hadn't been feminised "properly", it couldn't have been, no matter how much I might wish it were so. But when I joined WIT, I found other women, natal women, who thought just like I did. I hadn't been damaged beyond repair, my femininity wasn't congenitally wrecked, I was no more masculine than any of the others there, and more feminine than a few. Yet they were all women. I wasn't "second class", "ersatz", or shoddy goods after all.
Anyway, that's why, despite there being a "spectrum", we still fit into one of two main categories. It's why 99.9% of us are recognisable no matter what we do, provided enough of the misgendering cues (such as build) aren't all consistently too far from the norm.
But if you are a woman, regardless of the genitalia or chromosomes you were born with, and the parts of your brain controlling how you move and carry yourself are misgendered, then you have a problem.
A minority of TS people have this. They must "learn" techniques to overcome their intincts and move in a way that will cause correct gender recognition. But others have the opposite problem, their intincts are so strong that they must "learn" techniques to overcome their instincts just so they will pass as the gender they're not. Those TS women with very masculine bodies (like me) are pretty much forced to do this, and the bar for success is lower than for those with androgenous/feminine bodies. Those, the andro/femme primary transitioners, have basically no hope of pretending to be guys successfully. Like you, Jane.
It does mean though that some TS women have to work at it, while the majority of us just have to relax, and get rid of as many somatically male cues ( voice, face, skin texture, clothing ) as we can.
The impassable ones are just as female as we are, and more so in some cases. They just have parts of their brain masculinised that we don't.
Wilful Blindness
From the National Review:
The credibility of the flagship of U.N. “reform,” the newly created Human Rights Council, sunk during its very first session, which ended on Friday, June 30th. The deck chairs on the Titanic had been rearranged when the Council replaced the discredited Commission on Human Rights. Serial human-rights abusers were elected members right from the start.
The Human Rights Council is now the U.N.’s lead human-rights body, and examples of egregious human-rights violations should not have been hard to find. In Darfur, there are three quarters of a million people beyond humanitarian reach, 2.5 million people displaced by the violence, 385,000 people in immediate risk of starvation, and over two million dead in 22 years of violence and deprivation. But it wasn’t genocide in Sudan that interested the Human Rights Council. Nor was it a billion Chinese without civil and political rights. Not 13 million women in Saudi Arabia whose lives depend on hiding from sight in public places and never being caught behind the wheel of an automobile. Not the dire human-rights conditions of 23 million people in North Korea. Not Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s incitement to genocide or his country’s legal system, which includes crucifixion, stoning and amputation.
No; there was only one country singled out by the U.N. Human Rights Council, and that was Israel.
The Council placed criticism of Israel permanently on the agenda of all future sessions. It gave only the special investigator on Israel what amounted to a permanent mandate. On its final day, the Council passed just one resolution condemning human-rights violations by any of the 192 U.N. members, and directed it at Israel. When it was all over, the Council decided to hold its first special (emergency) session within a few days — on Israel.
At the Commission (the dysfunctional former UN Human Rights body), over a 40-year period, 30 percent of the resolutions condemning human rights violations by specific states were directed at Israel. The Council is now batting 1.000. And given a behind-the-scenes deal not to have any country-specific resolutions at least in the first year of operation (with the exception of Israel), that figure is not likely to change any time soon.
From RadioFreeEurope :
RFE/RL: Mary Robinson, may I ask you about the Human Rights Council? This was a body meant to replace a predecessor that came under a lot of criticism for failing to address human rights abusers on the commission. But the council has just ended its session, and one group at least, Human Rights Watch, called it a huge disappointment, again failing to address some of the big human rights issues, such as Darfur. Do you share the view that it's a disappointment?
Mary Robinson: Well, like Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty, and some of the other major human rights organizations, I did welcome the establishment of the Human Rights Council, and I felt that it had a real possibility of trying to break through sensitive political issues with a human rights leadership, which is never easy. The current president of the Human Rights Council, Ambassador [Luis Alfonso] de Alba of Mexico, is very committed, and it had a reasonably good start.
I think there were two things that worried me. One was when the war broke out in Lebanon, and you had the response of Israel, which is very questionable about being disproportionate, and raised issues of civilian casualties and displacement and destruction of property, and bridges, etc., which raises issues of international human rights law and international humanitarian law. But you also had Hizballah sending missiles into civilian populations in northern Israel.
I hoped that the Human Rights Council would act in a human rights way, and set up a commission of inquiry into both. Alas -- and this was a problem of the previous Human Rights Commission -- it only set up a commission of inquiry into what had happened in Israel, by the Israel forces. And that is not the human rights approach; that is the political approach. And if the Human Rights Council continues to taint human rights with the political approach, this time because of the Organization of the Islamic Conference countries.... They had the majority, they wanted to hit Israel, not do human rights work. How can you have a Human Rights Council that's not absolutely outraged by what's happening in Darfur?
So that's one very big problem. And then, I would very much agree with Human Rights Watch. How can you have a Human Rights Council that's not absolutely outraged by what's happening in Darfur? It's getting worse by the day. There are women being raped, there are children dying, there are populations being displaced, there's a militia that's being supported in a complicit way by a government, and the fact that they didn't bring it to our attention in a more urgent way, and have more urgent action.... The Security Council was also involved, but the Human Rights Council is the voice. "We the people" is the first three words of the charter.
But I still hope that the Human Rights Council will work well, because the United Nations needs leadership on human rights.
Everyone with two neurons to fire consecutively could predict what would happen - what has happened. If Mary Robinson, former head of the Human Rights Council's predecessor "hoped that the Human Rights Council would act in a human rights way" with the current batch of dictatorships and tyrannies that compose the majority of the commission, it can't be lack of intellect. It requires wilful blindness.
The same wilful blindness the world as a whole is showing about Dafur.
I blame Bush.
Or rather, I think the US political scene is partially to blame. The problem is that it was a Republican President who dared to liberate 50 million people, not a Democrat. For this, Bush can never be forgiven by the US Media, though of course a lot of the world's media is congenitally Anti-US no matter who is in power, simply because they distrust any nation or organisation that is too powerful. Much as many on the far right of the US distrust the UN, regardless of what it does.
As a result, the world as a whle has lost its idealism. From The Australian :
In Rwanda in 1994, pit latrines were favoured places for the disposal of bodies. When I was there two years after the genocide, people were retrieving the bodies from the pits and giving them church burials. In 100 days, not of tribal madness but of government-organised slaughter, Rwandan Hutus killed close to one million Rwandan Tutsis. Today in Rwanda it is considered bad form to talk of Tutsi and Hutu. All are simply Rwandans, which must give some cause for hope.
In Darfur, wells are a favoured means of disposing of bodies. This time two years ago I was in a refugee camp near the Chad-Sudan border, hearing stories of people who had fled the massacres in the Darfur region of Sudan. This conflict, now in its third year, was even then being described as "Rwanda in slow motion". Whether it is a genocide or, as the UN would describe it, merely "ethnic cleansing" is still being disputed.
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir says the UN resolution for the deployment of peacekeepers is a "Zionist plot" to weaken the region and an insult to his country's sovereignty. He has threatened that his soldiers will fight any uninvited UN forces. He may be bluffing. But because so little pressure has been put on him until now, Bashir appears to believe he can get away with whatever he wants. (Incredibly, in 2004, while the massacres in Darfur had been under way for months, Sudan was elected to the then UN Human Rights Commission.)
The problem, of course, is Iraq.
What the world desperately needs, and hasn't got, is a strong, effective and united UN. That was lost over Iraq. What the world needs and hasn't got is a strong affirmation of the principle that governments do not have the right to brutalise and massacre their own people with impunity, simply by claiming national sovereignty. That was lost in Iraq, too. There was always a case for humanitarian intervention in Iraq, though it was clearly not the reason for the invasion (which I supported). What has been lost, in the tragedy that Iraq has become, is idealism.
It has become naive and stupid to believe that there is even such a thing as an international community, let alone one that can intervene to stop genocidal dictators, which Saddam Hussein certainly was when he was in power and Bashir gives every indication of wanting to be.
The mandate of the African Union troops has been extended to the end of this year. For all sorts of reasons it would be better if African forces could keep the peace in Darfur. But what Bashir needs to believe is something Saddam never believed: that if he can't or won't stop the killings, a stronger international force will come in and do it, with or without his consent. (Bashir is no Hussein and it is very likely he would crumble once his bluff was called.)
What we need to get back is the belief that, in the 21st century, in this age of globalisation, we owe protection to people in distant countries, even if we are not being threatened.
Unless we can get back some of that belief, some of that idealism, we are going to keep hearing about atrocities such as Darfur and are going to keep demanding something be done, without knowing or acknowledging what it is that has to be done.
The predecessor to the UN, the League of Nations, did nothing to stop WW II. But if anything, the current UN is even worse, and it's not getting better. Quite the contrary. Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Fascist Spain, Japan and Stalin's Russia would now have seats on the Human Rights Commission if they were around today.
We need something like the UN, despite the ravings of the far right. But the current UN is unsalvageable, all attempts at reform have just made the situation worse. Time to mend it with a new 'un.
Special Victims
Australian TV is a little behind the current US series. Case in point, the latest episode of Law & Order : SVU. Special Victims Unit.
The episode just aired was Identity.
It left me in tears. You see, so much of the episode was based on fact.
From Intersex Initiative :
Investigators confront the parents: "What happened? Is it that you just had to have a boy and a girl?" "It was a freak accident. They do it hundred times a day. It's supposed to be a routine procedure." "What?" "Circumcision... They used some sort of device to remove foreskin--it malfunctioned. Burned him severely. We spoke to all those experts, and they all said that he will never be normal... Imagine the abuse he'd take in locker rooms. Humiliation of explaining it to the girl he fell in love with. We couldn't put him through that." "Did you think that sex change operation would be easier for him?" "What else could we do? Dr. Blair convinced us that it was the only hope our child had for a normal life... He promised us that it would work. He promised us, as long as we are committed to raising him as a girl."
Next, investigators visit Dr. Blair, a character obviously based on psychologist/sexologist John Money. "Any plastic surgeon would tell you that it's easier to dig a hole than to build a pole... In order for the experiment to work, she has to look like a girl, be treated like a girl, and taught to act like a girl... Children are born psychosexually neutral, a blank slate. Gender identity is determined by nurture, not nature."
Investigators then go back to Lindsey to tell her that they would not press charge against her because it was self-defense, but Lindsey is rightfully confused about what had happened. "But I don't understand... You said my brother had to have done it. Just tell me what's going on! I feel like I'm going crazy. Please." It is at this point Lindsey is finally told the truth despite the objection of Dr. Blair. "You were born a boy. There was an accident right after you were born." "I knew it! I never once felt right! Why didn't anybody tell me? Why didn't you tell me? What was my name?" Almost immediately, Lindsey stops taking estrogen and chooses to transition back to his genetic gender.
But that is not all: Logan wishes to press charge against Dr. Blair. "He molested us. He used to show us these pictures of adults having sex. He pushed us into positions. He used to make me and my sister pretend we are having sex." This is the detail similar to Dr. Money's practice described in "As Nature Made Him." In response, Dr. Blair insists that everything was necessary part of the treatment. "It was important to differentiate their gender roles... It clarified things for Lindsey. She had to be programmed. It's perfectly normal for children to explore each others' bodies." "So you are not denying any of the allegations Logan made about your practices?" "Denying? I'm writing a book about it."
The most unbelievable parts of the episode are the parts that most closely mirror reality. That is exactly what happened, and yes, he did write a book.
Now we know - or most know - that Gender is set in the brain, not the genitalia, and not amenable to any amount of nurture or brainwashing. Goodness knows, many Transsexuals try so very hard to be the gender the mirror and society tells them they have to be. And a small proportion of TS people have been made that way. Born Intersexed, their bodies were changed to the gender the surgeons guessed was best. Often they guess right, and a normal life becomes possible. Sometimes though, they guess wrong, and Transsexuality results.
This practice is still standard today. Instead of waiting till the child is old enough to state which gender they feel themselves to be, Intersexed children are, to put it bluntly, genitally mutilated shortly after birth.
Here's the ending in fiction:
In the end, however, Dr. Blair is found murdered in his office. They find the DNA and security camera evidences indicating that either Logan or Lindsey--now going by Luke--must have committed the crime, but they cannot figure out which one did it. "They came up with a perfect crime." "Until you get one of them to flip." "That's not going to happen. They are too close." The scene pans out as Logan and Luke, now wearing similar clothes and hairstyles, feel each other's presence through the holding cell wall.
The ending in fact:
Unfortunately, in the real "John/Joan" case both twins--Brian and David Reimer--have committed suicide
Dr Money died not long ago, well-respected in his field, despite his inhuman conduct.
I'm on a variety of support groups. Some of the most amazing things have happened, people being treated this way, as experimental animals, even to this day. I have to deal with the wreckage, the consequences, the pain every single day, providing support simply because I've had it just so easy compared with nearly everybody. I can't not help. And yes, I get my share of support too, sometimes things aren't easy for me either.
Seeing this episode caused me to be unspeakably angry at the way some people have been treated, and are continuing to be treated. OK, I've been discriminated against in this whole Passport farce, but compared with other things, it's nothing.
I just have to remember - it was only a TV program, and one not the freshest either.
A program about Special Victims indeed.
It's like being stung by a bee. 40,000 times. Costing you 30c a sting.
But it's better than being the "bearded lady".
Some people see it as some sort of "rite of passage", a necessary evil that separates those who are strong enough to successfully transition from those who will pike out.
Personally, I think that's rubbish. I mean, they're only bee-stings, for goodness' sake. There are far worse problems, to do with one's marriage, one's family, one's children, important stuff. Very real health risks too with the hormones, liver failure, diabetes, deep vein thrombosis.
On the other hand, in terms of pain, yes, far worse than having a tooth extracted, something else I've had recently. Dearie, Dearie me, wisdom teeth are not supposed to start growing again. And a recent X-ray confirms that yes, another one is growing to replace one I had extracted about 10 years ago. Impacted, of course.
Oh well, if that's the worst of my problems, I've gotten off lightly. Still hurts though. Rite of Passage? Pshaw! I'm just lucky that IPL (Intense Pulsed Light) cleared away about 90% of the facial hair, so I only have about 4000 to deal with. Another 211 out today, that's nearly 1000 of them gone.
There's the UK Tabloids. The Sun is in a class of its own, for example:
Angling Star had his Rod removed (October 5th):
A Woman who won one of angling’s top prizes has a secret past — as a man.
(Photo : Gina lost her tackle)
Gina le Faux, 51, was once George Faux, a professional folk singer who lost his rod in sex-change surgery.
Sex-change woman darts ban :
A Woman darts player has been thrown out of her ladies’ league — because she used to be a man.
Christine Makin, formerly Clive, had to quit her pub team after 17 out of 25 rival sides protested.
She revealed she was cruelly taunted during games, with opponents shouting: “You can’t play because you’re not womanly enough.”
Christine, 51, was married for 13 years as a man but became a woman through a series of sex-change operations.
Now, just like David Walliams’s Emily Howard character in Little Britain, she insists: “I’m a laydee.”
Shades of Steppin Fetchit. "Yes Massa, I's a Cumin!"
Here's "Emily Howard", on the right. Just so you know what they mean.
But Leek Ladies’ Darts League in Staffs disagreed.
Christine was turfed out for the 2006/7 season under Rule 35, which states: “Under no circumstances can any person of any gender play in the league unless that person was born a female.”
She claims the rule was brought in specially to keep her out.
Sex-swap cop got me the chop :
A Cop has been suspended for refusing to call his cross-dressing male colleague MELANIE-SARAH.
PC Jason Anderson, 35, faces a disciplinary hearing because he insists on treating transsexual copper David Hanson as a man.
He is being hauled over the coals by his bosses at Cleveland Police despite the fact they themselves refused PC Hanson’s demand to let him dress as a WPC.
Married dad-of-two PC Hanson, 45, stunned colleagues when he first revealed he wanted to be a woman. Police chiefs let him grow his hair and change his name — but drew the line at a female uniform. When off-duty, PC Hanson wears women’s clothing and fake boobs — and is on hormones in preparation for a sex swap op next year.
Part of her qualification for treatment is that she take on the new gender role for at least a year, two in the UK. I;m surprised that her treatment by her employer has allowed her to continue, especially in the UK. She must be going to a private doctor, at her own expense.
Last night a police source at Hartlepool nick said: “PC Anderson will not co-operate and acknowledge PC Hanson as a woman in any way. He points out that, as Cleveland Police will not allow Hanson to dress as a woman cop, he should not be forced to address him as a WPC.
“Jason was suspended and has a disciplinary hearing this week and could be sacked.
“It would be a tragedy as he is a very good copper.”
As opposed to that jumped-up Pervert who should be shot, right? The one who, despite having passed through Goodness knows how many psychiatric barriers is now labelled as a "cross-dressing man". Actually a woman forced to cross-dress as a man during working hours.
OK, so let's get a little more up-market. Well, the Grauniad anyway. Some of the comments on one of their recent articles, this one about the witch-hunting of Dr Russel Reid.
The way society approaches cosmetic surgery (and I think gender reassignment belongs in this category) needs rethinking...
Spend the cash on cancer care or something.
There is no such thing as a sex change. No amount of hormones could turn the billions of XY chromosomes in my body into XX chromosomes. "Gender dysphoria" is a psychological problem. Like any other psychological problem, it is unlikely to be cured by mutilating the patients genitals and pumping them full of hormones.
The whole concept of "changing gender" is an absurdity.
Castrate a man and pump him full of estrogen and you have a woman?
Not hardly.
Lloydy2: Spend the cash on cancer care or something.
Dr Reid provided primarily private treatment. Because of bigots sharing your attitude, we all had little choice but to pay for it out of our own money.
I suppose that I will not fully understand transsexuality, but, having heard from you and others on this blog, I accept that it is real. It must be truly difficult and I admire not just your courage to try and set things right, but also your taking time to educate the rest of us on this blog.
Thank you, all TS bloggers.
And from The Australian :
ONLY a girl could write The Female Brain and walk away with life and reputation intact. This new book may be contentious, but in fact modern science is merely playing catch-up with what we know intuitively. Girls are different from boys.
Mind-blowing news, huh?
But here's the really brave bit: the unisex brain is a feminist fabrication. Louann Brizendine, an American neuro-psychiatrist, has written a book debunking stubborn notions that girls are different only because society makes them so. It's much more to do with the brain, she says. The female brain, to be more precise.
Here's a snap brain quiz. Which sex uses, on average, about 20,000 words a day, in contrast to the 7000 uttered by the other sex? Who has two-and-a-half times the amount of brain space devoted to sexual drive, meaning they think about sex, on average, every 52 seconds? When their feelings are hurt by someone they love, which sex reacts by assuming the relationship is over? Who has larger sections of the brain for action and aggression? If you answered, in order, women, men, women, men, you've been watching too many Woody Allen movies. Now, science is confirming that Woody was right all along.
While more than 99 per cent of male and female genetic coding is the same, it's the less than 1 per cent of difference that packs a punch in marking out women from men. Drawing upon advances in gene technology and brain-imaging techniques that have revolutionised neuro-scientific research, Brizendine presents a heady cocktail of structural, chemical, genetic, hormonal and functional differences between women and men.
These biological differences explain the most basic female behaviour. For instance, why do teenage girls endlessly talk? Science suggests that connecting through conversation triggers the pleasure centres in the brain.
Can I take the Fifth there? Anyone who's known me for long will be aware that I;'m a little loquacious at times. Just a bit mind you.
OK, but now I know why. So much obvious in hindsight.
Tooth or Consequences
Looks like the various Hormonal and general metabolic weirdness is affecting my teeth too. A fully impacted wisdom tooth has started growing again, and has pretty much destroyed the tooth in front of it.
Anyway, just had an extraction today, with a surgical extraction scheduled for Monday. So blogging will be light for a while.
This is just so wrong
Hello Cthulhu
Just a Good Blog
Sometimes you see a penny in the dust. Sometimes it's actually a gold sovereign.
Have a look at the NeoBlog Medication Time.
The SMH Belfry
The Sydney Morning Herald used to be a good paper, once upon a time. But it has steadily moved further, and further, and yet further, not so much towards the Left as to stark staring Insanity. And the readership now reflects this.
From their Comments Page about the recent North Korean Nuclear Test. Here's the first 3.
No, I'd say it's become a lot safer now. With a nuclear deterrent Korea is now less likely to be invaded by the USA.
Posted by: Tony B at October 9, 2006 01:17 PM
No less safe than the world is now. Israel already has nuclear weapons and has proven it can't be trusted not to bomb the blazes out of another country.
Posted by: sam88 at October 9, 2006 01:23 PM
I am more concerned about indiscriminate terrorist attacks against innocent people and the global aggression displayed by the US government. I think North Korea is a lonely outpost of Communism, but is of little threat to the world, unless the US decides to aggravate them. Unless they show signs of invading South Korea, I don't see any reason to be concerned about their internal politics and international grandstanding.
Posted by: Dean at October 9, 2006 01:24 PM
Some more responses:
World will most certainly be more dangerous. Not because NK has done what they have done, but simply because of Uncle Sams knee jerk reaction.
Posted by: Woka at October 9, 2006 01:29 PM
I'm a lot more worried by the US, who is the only country who has ever used nuclear weapons against people.
People allways forget that they use them twice, against civilian targets!
One was an airburst, and one was a ground detonation. They used two bombs against innocent people to test which would be more destructive.
Now that is a terrorist rouge state if I ever saw one!
Posted by: dude at October 9, 2006 01:31 PM
DPRK would not have tested a nuclear bomb if Bush was not the president of USA.
Posted by: Maan at October 9, 2006 01:31 PM
It's very refreshing to see someone sticking it in the eye of America and Israel. I would encourage Iran to continue as well. We are not falling for the propaganda that is spun up by George W. Bush any more. The world will only get safer the more we deter America from pushing us around. This seems to be the only language they understand. Let's keep the ball rolling.
Posted by: Samson at October 9, 2006 01:39 PM
Not that i agree with nuclear weapons but hasnt the US tested weapons? The Costs of the Manhattan Project (US) $20,000,000,000. Total number of nuclear missiles built, 1951-present: 67,500. Pot calling the kettle black Bush.
Posted by: alan at October 9, 2006 01:41 PM
The hostile attitude of NK is a direct response of decades of western hostility. Iran will be the next new nuclear kid on the block. And the west will simply have to swallow its arrogance and take it.
The threat of war from the US is far greater than NK or Iran. And can someone please explain why these nations having nuclear power is such a bad thing when during the cold war Russia and the US wouldnt dare fire on each other in fear of wiping the world out?
Posted by: Jim at October 9, 2006 01:42 PM
Great. So now the US, with a leader who cannot even pronounce the word "Nuclear" will be having an itchy trigger finger
Posted by: Andy at October 9, 2006 01:43 PM
North Korea is a brutal dictatorship, but it's had nuclear weapons for years. But US policy seems to be "Be nice to us or we'll bring democracy to your country".
Posted by: Gren at October 9, 2006 01:44 PM
Absolutely not. The United States government couldn't care less about they're own people so why the hell would they think twice about murdering millions from another country. Anti-Korean sentiment is clouding seriousness of this issue for alot of people.
Posted by: asdf at October 9, 2006 01:44 PM
And the last comment before the site was closed:
jf...
'A man who keeps his people in abject poverty, '
Have you seen America's health system and social security and privately run Gaols.
'has a record of staggering human rights abuses'
US Foreign policy in South America, Vietnam to name just two....
' and is completely paranoid. '
I'd be paranoid if the world's only super power branded me part of an axis of evil.
Posted by: whitty at October 9, 2006 04:34 PM
I don't think I need say more.
The Great Passport Fiasco : A Victory For Common Sense ?
In a Previous post, I wrote:
...someone had the Bright Idea that a document of limited validity, good for 5 years (later changed to 3) not 10, and not considered adequate as a passport by many countries, but with the great virtue that it made no statement about the holder's identity, could be used. Such a document existed, the Document of Identity, or DOI. In response to a passport application by someone who was evidentially transgendered and pre-operative, A DOI would be offered as an alternative to an arguably useless M type (for someone identifying as female) passport. No statement would be made about the holder's gender as far as the Government was concerned, and no admission that the holder was "really" of a gender other than the one they identified as would be required.
Overall though, it was a humane compromise: not quite as good as a full passport, but often good enough, and issue of it avoided all sorts of legal complexities and a possible test case about gender that the Government didn't want. The Re Kevin decision hadn't gone their way, and who knows what the Courts may find? A Transgendered applicant would be faced with the question of whether they wanted to fight for years, and have a possibly financially devastating loss and lose existing rights, or accept the compromise. By applying for a passport in an F identity, they asserted their right to be considered that, and the Government made no reply either way - just offered this alternative.
And the option of a 12-month validity F passport was still there for SRS, should they wish to travel for the operation to a country where a DOI was inadequate.
Not perfect, but the hardship caused would be small. Not as good as the UK policy, of issuing a correctly gendered passport on evidence of living permanently in the new gender, but good enough.
The intent was not to require the transgendered person to apply for a DOI - for then they would be "Australian citizens who request a document of identity instead of a passport". No, by section 60, a DOI would be issued to meet immediate travel needs, in response to a passport request.
And there there was a problem already. Instead of a full 3-year unrestricted DOI, this would be only to "meet immediate travel needs". Arguably, the intent was to have the situation similar to that of a DOI for travel to Norfolk island, unrestricted except for the 3-year validity, and the restriction that many countries didn't accept a DOI as adequate.
That was what I thought should be happening - but wasn't. I now have evidence indicating that indeed, this was the intent of the Legislation.
Here it is, received in this morning's mail, just an hour or two ago:
Dear Ms Brain,
Thank you for your email dated 13 September 2005 to the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Mr Downer has requested that I respond on his behalf.
As advised previously, persons born overseas who have undergone gender reassignment surgery, and who are applying for a passport in their new gender, are required to provide medical certificates from two registered medical practitioners, confirming they have undergone gender affirmation surgery, that they are 18 yeasr of age or over and unmarried.
As you do not meet these requirements but have advised that a Document of Identity (DOI) would satisfy your needs, I am very pleased to advise that I am able to approve the issue of such a document valid for three years (the maximum period permissible) to enable you to meet your commitments for travel associated with your medical condition and PHD studies. The Document of Identity will not record your gender.
In order to set arrangements in train, you will need to acknowledge the advice contained in the accompanying letter by signing the attachment and forwarding the same to the Canberra Passport Office. Once the Document of Identity has been issued the fee of $38 will be deducted from the sum we are holding and the balance will be refunded to you.
Thank you for bringing your views to the attention of the Government.
Ross Tysoe
Passport Client Service Branch
Attached Letter:
Dear Ms Brain.
Thank you for your recent application for an Australian passport. I refer to our subsequent advice on the possible issue of a Document of Identity.
It is important to note that the following information about issuing you an Australian Document of Identity without the sex/gender section being displayed. While this will alleviate unnecessary embaressment to you when travelling, it is important for you to be aware that:
some countries do not regard a Document of Identity as a valid travfel document.
custioms/immigration authorities in some countries may view the possession of a Document of Identity in lieu of a passport with suspicion and consequently delay or harass the bearer at entry points; and
should customs officers decide to conduct a body search there is a very real risk of embarressment to the bearer.
If you agree to be issued with an Australian Document of Identity could you please sign and return the enclosed acknowledgement as soon as possible etc etc etc
Ross Tysoe,
I'll be doing that straight away. Now, I actually don't need a DOI at this point, because Immigration granted me an Australian Declaratory Visa, good for 5 years, and with my UK passport I'm not subject to the 3-year DOI's strictures. Nonetheless... I wish to set a firm precedent. A precedent stating that for Transgendered people, the DOI really is a semi-passport, and that this situation is distinguished from VAK and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade [2002] AATA 588 (11 July 2002). That the circumstances are not the same as the general ones, and that to paraphrase Miss S A Forgie Deputy President of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, "It (The DOI) should be issued in terms that would permit freedom of travel that equates with a passport for a shorter period of time.".
There's still some work to be done: why should people born overseas have to be unmarried if they are to get a new passport? But that is for the long term, and another ... negotiation (I only fight when I'm cornered). Right now, the situation is discriminatory, but if this precedent is set, it can be lived with as a reasonable, and even arguably humane, compromise. It's Discrimination - but it's not blatant Persecution.
If a precedent is set, and in the general case, transgendered people will always be offered an unrestricted 3-year DOI as an alternative to a misgendered passport.... then it's a victory. Not mine though. One for Common Sense, and one for the Australian Passport Office, who will no longer look like absolute Dills.
Now This is Cool!
Curtsy to MaddBlog , from Science Daily :
In the submicroscopic world -- the domain of elementary particles and individual atoms -- things behave in the strange, counter-intuitive fashion governed by the principles of quantum mechanics. Nothing (or so it seems) like our macroscopic world -- or even the microscopic world of cells or bacteria or dust particles -- where Newton's much more reasonable laws keep things sensibly ordered.
The problem comes in finding the dividing line between the two worlds -- or even in establishing that such a line exists. To that end, Keith Schwab, associate professor of physics who moved to Cornell this year from the National Security Agency, and colleagues have created a device that approaches this quantum mechanical limit at the largest length-scale to date.
And surprisingly, the research also has shown how researchers can lower the temperature of an object -- just by watching it.
The results, which could have applications in quantum computing, cooling engineering and more, appear in the Sept. 14 issue of the journal Nature.
According to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, the precision of simultaneous measurements of position and velocity of a particle is limited by a quantifiable amount. Schwab and his colleagues were able to get closer than ever to that theoretical limit with their measurements, demonstrating as well a phenomenon called back-action, by which the act of observing something actually gives it a nudge of momentum.
"We made measurements of position that are so intense -- so strongly coupled -- that by looking at it we can make it move," said Schwab. "Quantum mechanics requires that you cannot make a measurement of something and not perturb it. We're doing measurements that are very close to the uncertainty principle; and we can couple so strongly that by measuring the position we can see the thing move."
The device, while undeniably small, is -- at about ten thousand billion atoms -- vastly bigger than the typical quantum world of elementary particles.
Still, while that result was unprecedented, it had been predicted by theory. But the second observation was a surprise: By applying certain voltages to the transistor, the researchers saw the system's temperature decrease.
"By looking at it you cannot only make it move; you can pull energy out of it," said Schwab. "And the numbers suggest, if we were to keep going on with this work, we would be able to cool this thing very cold. Much colder than we could if we just had this big refrigerator."
The mechanism behind the cooling is analogous to a process called optical or Doppler cooling, which allows atomic physicists to cool atomic vapor with a red laser. This is the first time the phenomenon has been observed in a condensed matter context.
Schwab hasn't decided if he'll pursue the cooling project. More interesting, he says, is the task of figuring out the bigger problem of quantum mechanics: whether it holds true in the macroscopic world; and if not, where the system breaks down.
For that he's focusing on another principle of quantum mechanics -- the superposition principle -- which holds that a particle can simultaneously be in two places.
"We're trying to make a mechanical device be in two places at one time. What's really neat is it looks like we should be able to do it," he said. "The hope, the dream, the fantasy is that we get that superposition and start making bigger devices and find the breakdown."
For more on the related Zeno Effect, see a previous post on the subject
Just as weirdly, and also via Maddblog, this from PhysOrg.com :
With a variation on the famous double-slit experiment of quantum mechanics, scientists Yves Couder and Emmanuel Fort from the University of Paris 7 are rewriting the textbooks. Their accomplishment, however, has less to do with quantum mechanics than with an observation once considered experimentally impossible: the wave-particle double nature of a macroscopic object (an oil droplet and its associated surface wave).
he droplet, which is about 1mm (10 million times larger than an atom), is also one million times larger than the second largest object--a 2-nm molecule called a buckyball--whose wave-particle duality was observed in 2003.
“The interest of our result comes from the fact that we observe single particle diffraction and interference with a classical system,” Couder told PhysOrg.com. “This phenomenon was thought to be reserved to the quantum scale.”
Although there is no specific dividing line between the quantum and macroscopic scales, an object larger than an atom generally has much too small a wavelength to be detected. Wave-particle duality, one disturbing chapter of quantum mechanics, means that all objects (quantum and macroscopic) sometimes behave like waves and show interference, and other times like particles--objects that have mass and obey conservation laws. Duality, though strange, could explain why objects seem to be in two places at the same time and communicate instantaneously across distances. These abilities, to scientists, would be even more difficult to reckon with than wave-particle duality, which is accepted as an "interpretation" of the world rather than a literal description.
While the scientists observed that each droplet goes through only one slit, the associated wave travels through both slits, with the wave interferences determining the walker’s trajectory. When creating a histogram based on the walkers’ deviations, the scientists found that the graph highly resembled that of a plane wave. In other words, this interference of the waves generated both individual uncertainty and statistical determinism in the trajectories of the material particles formed by the drops.
Outgoing Mail
As opposed to Outgoing male I suppose...
Another letter to some Politicians. These ones involved in actively lobbying for a comprehensive anti-discrimination Act.
[address 1]
Kevin Rudd MP
Nicola Roxon MP
Dear Mr Rudd,
I wish to bring to your attention the very real problems faced by Transsexual people wishing to travel overseas.
The problem is caused by the explanatory notes to the Australian Passports Determination 2005*, which states (with no reason given) that it is "unneccessary or undesirable" to give Trangendered people passports.
By the explanatory notes, the following people are to be treated equally:
* Australian Citizens who cannot be issued a passport due to an outstanding arrest warrant, or being suspected of passport trafficking for having "lost" so many
* Australian Citizens who are Transgendered
* Australian Citizens being deported, repatriated or extradited
* Australian Citizens whose travel the minister believes should be restricted
The effective definition of "Transgendered" by the Australian Passport Office includes everyone who has not had their Australian Birth certificate altered, all post-operative people who are married, all people whose medical health or financial status precludes surgery, and many people who are Intersexed.
Such people may be granted a Document of Identity, good for one journey, but only if they apply in their originally registered gender, and can find a guarantor to swear that this is their "actual" gender. This is impossible for some Intersexed people, and for those whose medical history has been kept secret.
By caselaw**, a DOI will only be issued for "good reasons" such as to get neccessary surgery or to allow travel back to Australia to answer an arrest warrant. It will not be granted for business purposes, for example. I required multiple re-entry to Australia to attend Academic conferences necessary for my PhD (a fact attested to in writing by my PhD supervisor), but was told this would not be granted. Exceptions to this general case - those travelling to Norfolk Island, and those unable to obtain a Commonwealth passport - are explicitly stated in the explanatory notes. All the rest - wanted suspects, deportees, extradited criminals, people refused a passport due to security considerations or suspected passport traffickers, and Transsexuals - are treated the same way.
In my own case, I was unable to get a DOI anyway because of my medical condition - medically I'm female, according to Medicare Australia, despite the UK "boy" birth certificate, so could not apply as a male. To apply for a DOI, I would have to purjure myself, and leave both myself and my guarantor open to prosecution (based on the medical evidence) under the Australian Passports Act 2005***, or conversely, under the Foreign Passports (Law Enforcement and Security) Act 2005****, as my UK passport states that I'm Female.
As a Dual UK/Australian national, I was able to leave Australia any time I liked, but not able to return to my family due to the APO's travel restrictions. As I require surgery of a type only available overseas, I was to be effectively exiled from Australia, not despite, but because of, my Australian Citizenship. As an Australian Citizen, I don't qualify for a re-entry visa on my UK passport, unlike permanent residents.
I applied for an Australian passport on June 4th 2006, well before the scheduled date of surgery on November 15th 2006, and still don't have one. Not only that, but I've been informed in correspondence with the Commonwealth Ombudsman that no appealable decision has been made. A passport hasn't been refused (a decision I could appeal through the AAT) - they just won't issue one.
A phonecall from a representative of the APO made it quite clear : in order to get any form of Australian Passport, I would have to divorce. The exact words were "Under the Marriage Act, we can't have people who are married changing their gender". The APO is in possession of advice directly contradicting that assertion from the Federal Attorney General, advice they have chosen to ignore.
Ironically, for the purposes of the Marriage Act 1961*****, my UK passport showing a Female Gender is adequate to verify my Identity for the purposes of marriage.
Fortunately, the Department of Immigration and Indigenous Affairs staff were horrified when they saw the correspondence from the APO. They have gone out of their way to help, issuing me both with a new Citizenship Certificate (which was ignored by the APO) based on the medical evidence, and at the last moment with a rare emergency administrative document which will allow me back in the country. I was lucky - most people would not have this loophole to turn to.
Perhaps the original intent was to allow Transgendered people - including fulltime crossdressers - an unrestricted "gender-neutral" travel document (albeit one not recognised by many countries) as an option, as an alternative to a passport showing a gender inconsistent with their appearance. The actual practice is that many transsexual Australian Citizens are now forbidden to travel overseas. Other transsexual Australian Citizens are merely forbidden to return. Unbelievable, isn't it? But I have the evidence in writing, and the explanatory notes to the Australian passports determination 2005 are available for all to see. I also kept an online diary, a weblog******, of events as they happened.
Transgendered people - especially Transsexuals - are subject to harrassment, even violence. If Transsexuals have their medical condition treated, they face the loss of family, of income, of friends. All too often their difficulties seem insurmountable, they give up, and lose their lives instead. Usually the prejudice they face is covert, hidden and "plausibly deniable". It's unusual and dismaying that the law of the land overtly and unashamedly singles them out for blatant persecution here. This must not stand. It is unjust. It is unfair. It is Un-Australian.
Please put and end to it, and as soon as possible.
Zoe Ellen Brain BSc MInfoTech(Distinction)
* Australian Passports Determination 2005 Explanatory Notes Section 6.3 para 89
http://www.comlaw.gov.au/ComLaw/Legislation/LegislativeInstrument1.nsf/framelodgmentattachments/5681A7871644AF20CA25702200251B7F
** VAK and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade [2002] AATA 588 (11 July 2002)
http://www.austlii.edu.au//cgi-bin/disp.pl/au/cases/cth/aat/2002/588.html?query=passport
*** Australian Passports Act 2005 Division 2 Section 29 Making false or misleading statements in relation to Australian travel document applications
http://www.comlaw.gov.au/ComLaw/Legislation/ActCompilation1.nsf/framelodgmentattachments/EE43C1E140453B9ECA25719C002AD9D1
**** Foreign Passports (Law Enforcement and Security) Act 2005 Part 3 Section 18 Making false or misleading statements in relation to foreign travel document applications
http://www.comlaw.gov.au/ComLaw/Legislation/ActCompilation1.nsf/framelodgmentattachments/0D75D5C1796BB48ECA25702600068C9F
***** Marriage Act 1961Division 2 Section 42.(1).b.(iii)
http://www.comlaw.gov.au/ComLaw/Legislation/ActCompilation1.nsf/framelodgmentattachments/3D7C85733B0F1F41CA25719C00335E0D
****** http://aebrain.blogspot.com/2006/09/great-passport-fiasco-summarised.html
And after reading Petro Georgiou's Speech about putting the Liberal back into the Liberal Party, a copy to him too. I've voted Liberal since I was 18. We'll see if the Liberal party can return to its roots. Well, Hope springs eternal in the human breast. And now I have two of those, at last!
Labels: Passport
Perspective, Revisited
From the Jawa Report :
Recently, I was creeped out by this supernova. Detected Feb. 18 by Swift, a satellite launched to look for gamma-ray bursts, the exploding star already was the 24th supernova discovered at that early point in 2006. As instruments improve, exploding stars appear more common than cosmologists had expected, and that's not the best news we might have heard. Coded GRB 060218, this star detonation began as a gamma-ray burst that lasted 33 minutes -- absolutely stunning because previous gamma-ray bursts from space have lasted a few seconds at the most. The gamma rays came from 470 million light-years away. That was discomfiting because strong gamma-ray bursts usually emanate from what astronomers call the "deep field," billions of light-years distant and thus billions of years back in the past. A distance of 470 million light-years means the GRB 060218 supernova happened 470 million years ago. That is ancient by human reckoning, but many cosmologists had been assuming the kind of extremely massive detonations thought to cause strong gamma-ray busts occurred only in the misty eons immediately after the Big Bang. The working assumption was that since life appeared on Earth, there had been no stellar mega-explosion. Now we know there has.
...had GRB 060218 happened in our galaxy, life on Earth would have ended Feb. 18.
Apart from some lithophillic bacteria, perhaps.
470 million LY is not just "not in the furthermost corners of the Universe", it's not that far from the local galactic cluster, which stretches for 10 million LY. Just outside the Virgo Sipercluster in fact. That's the one we're in.
Odds are, conditions within a given Supercluster are fairly uniform, in terms of probablilities of Gamma Ray Bursts like this. A GRB within a Galaxy presses the "reset" button over less than a million years, wiping out all complex life within the whole Galaxy as the Gamma rays propagate outwards.
Puts little problems like Al Qaeda, and trivialities such as minority persecution in perspective, doesn't it?
A Disturbing Image
I know it's supposed to be humourous. Nonetheless, this altered comic front cover leaves me with some very disturbing feelings.
Firstly, that if it did happen to a boy, it would probably kill him. The looks are one thing, it's the thinking process that's important (trust me). Guys who are born in female bodies have it hard enough. Many don't make it, but at least they don't have it happening suddenly, they have time to get used to the idea - and time to suffer too. Yes, there's the whole Sex thing too, but if he were as screwed up hormonally as that, sex of any kind is probably the last thing on his mind. Even if he were Gay - there's a massive difference between being a Gay Male and a Straight Female. Many in the GLB activist groups don't understand that TS women aren't some form of Gay Male, and TS men aren't Lesbians either.
Secondly, although the condition 5-alpha-reductase deficiency (5ARD) can cause little girls to grow up into big boys, the reverse is much rarer. Yet there seems to be something of an "urban legend" status about it - maybe it's a part of male sexuality (something I've never understood), or maybe it happens more often than the literature says it does. Probably with fatal results, from purely physiological considerations, let alone psychological ones.
Thirdly - why did it have to happen when I was 47, and not 17? And why couldn't I have ended up looking like that? Grrrrrr. Never mind, considering my skeletal structure at age 10, it was not to be anyway. I always was thickset, "elfin" was never a possibility.
Fourth - they got the whispers in the background right. Heck, it was difficult enough for me, surrounded by mature, educated adults. For teenage transitioners, it must be far worse, at least, in some societies. In others, where there's a bit more knowledge and tolerance than there was when I was growing up, it might be easier. But it would never be easy. I've seen far too many kids lives made hell by parents who not just don't understand, they won't understand, won't even look at the evidence. It's too embarressing and upsetting to their world-view.
A bit like my reaction to this picture.
You know what? I'm awfully lucky I had CNI - Congenital Neurological Intersex AKA Transsexuality. If I hadn't... it doesn't bear thinking about. For most people, being TS is a curse. For me, it was a literal life-saver. Gosh! (Zoe for the nth time thanks her lucky stars)
Good News For Some
From The Times :
Womb transplants may be possible within two years, giving hope to women unable to have children, doctors claimed yesterday.
London-based researchers, working with medical teams in New York and Budapest, have developed a technique for providing a transplanted womb with a reliable blood supply. Women born without a uterus or who have undergone an emergency hysterectomy would be among those to benefit from the procedure.
The transplant would be temporary, doctors being reluctant to continue giving a patient drugs to help the body to fight rejection of the womb. That could leave the woman two to three years to conceive and carry a baby or babies before the womb was removed.
This will certainly benefit many Intersexed women with vaginal dysgenesis and other conditions where they have ovaries, but not the complete reproductive system. It will also benefit many other women who have had to have hysterectomies which have left their ovaries intact.
Not good for women like me though. Not yet. But perhaps, one day, those who are now transitioning in their teens might just possibly be able to become biological mothers.
It means a lot to us, you see.
Meanwhile, I look at my son Andrew, now fast asleep, and am content. Content? I'm positively ecstatic! Though I think if we'd had to adopt, I'd feel just the same. There's more to motherhood than pregnancy.
Would have been nice though... but was not to be. Guess I'm just greedy.
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Opposite Direction
From the SMH, a tale of Intersex, Medical Blindness and Ostracism :
A champion shot-putter and discus-thrower, Rabei has photos of himself as a woman towering over other female competitors, which prompted sporting authorities to raid his home looking for performance-enhancing drugs.
But his build was not enough to prompt doctors to entertain the idea that he was not a woman.
"Every time I went to hospital, they told me I was a woman," he said, adding doctors routinely failed to diagnose a lack of internal female reproductive organs. Staff at one clinic laughed when he went for tests to determine his genetic sex.
Doctors instead prescribed pills to induce menstruation and suggested an operation to open the hymen when Rabei could not consummate "her" marriage.
Rabei's lawyer, who is fighting to have his sex and name changed on official documents, said her work was not easy.
"People have been attacking me personally, asking me why I encourage sex correction. According to them, this is haram, or forbidden in Islamic and Arab society," Fouzia Janahi said.
Rabei's employers have demanded his resignation and psychiatrists have declined to counsel him for life as a man.
"I'm not saying I'm not under intense pressure, but as long as what I'm doing is right medically, religiously and legally, I don't care what people say," he said. "Praise God, I feel like I'm a man, I feel like I'm myself."
I feel like myself. I took a different route, and in the opposite direction, but I know exactly how he feels.
The Australian Government is thinking about setting up a consultation blog/forum to give the public a chance to debate public policy.
If you want to help shape the form this blog will take then have your say here:
www.openforum.com.au/Survey
It only takes a couple of minutes and could help lead to something really worthwhile. Thanks.
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AGG Intellectual Property Law
ANTOINETTE G. GIUGLIANO, Esq.
Registered Patent Attorney
Antoinette G. Giugliano is a Registered Patent Attorney and the founder of AGG Intellectual Property Law. With more than 20 years’ experience, Antoinette advises clients to develop a worldwide patent strategy. Intellectual property legal services of the firm include drafting and prosecuting patents and trademarks, obtaining copyright protection and advising clients about protect trade secrets. Antoinette has prepared and successfully prosecuted hundreds of U.S. and foreign patent and trademark applications.
Antoinette represents various types of clients, corporate, start-ups and universities, in intellectual property matters in many fields, specializing in life sciences (e.g., biotechnology, biochemistry, immunology, and molecular biology), bioinformatics, medical and dental devices, business methods, mechanical devices and consumer products.
Prior to founding the firm, Antoinette worked at a Boston area intellectual property law firm for several years drafting and prosecuting patent applications. Antoinette also obtained experience working at EG&G, Inc., where she assisted in-house counsel with managing its worldwide patent and trademark portfolio. Additionally, she has worked at Boston University’s Office of Technology Transfer, where she assisted in various stages of patent prosecution and negotiation of licensing agreements.
Antoinette has biochemical and immunological experience as a Research Technologist at the University of Vermont, College of Medicine (UVM). At the UVM, Antoinette produced monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies, maintained established hybridomas, performed protein purification, tissues culture, ELISA assays, antibody isotyping, SDS-PAGE, ion exchange chromatography, gel filtration and immunoblotting. Additionally, she has computer software experience as an Installation Consultant at IDX Systems Co., Inc., where she installed laboratory and radiology software.
Antoinette received a B.S. degree in Biology, cum laude, in 1992 from the University of Vermont and is also a graduate of Suffolk University Law School from which she received her J.D., cum laude, with a High Technology Concentration in 1997. Antoinette is a member of Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. bars, and is registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
100 Cummings Center, Suite 227C Beverly, MA 01915
email: agg@ProtectInventions.com
© Copyrighted 2005-2017 Antoinette G. Giugliano, P.C. dba AGG Intellectual Property Law
This web site provides information only. No attorney-client relationship is created by access to this web site, nor does the information provided herein constitute legal advice. This web site and information may be considered advertising under the rules of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Patents Copyrights Trademarks & Trade Secrets
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Creating a Portrait
A Princess:
CHAKA CHAKA
"My background could never deter me from wanting to be what I wanted to be."
Her Voice and a Broomstick
Profile of an Icon
“Let’s do it for Madiba!” shouts Yvonne Chaka Chaka as she walks on stage at the first 46664 concert in Cape Town. She’s decked out in South African flags, looking like a soccer fan crossed with a diva. There are two on her dress and eight on her hat; her left side is supported by a crutch draped in a 46664 t-shirt.
In spite of the crutch, she dances with real energy, shaking her hips as she sings ‘Umqombothi’. It’s a song about beer – more specifically, making it, as women all over South Africa do. Chaka Chaka doesn’t drink, but she sings this song as though she does. This concert captures Chaka Chaka in her element: performing to an enchanted South African audience, for a good cause: she’s a singer with a heart, deeply involved with the African people.
She’s sophisticated, she’s intelligent, and she carries herself lightly, moving with the poise of a born performer. She speaks with sureness and refined grace, her musicality bubbling under the surface.
This does not mean that she is at ease with the world. No black South African who grew up during the 1970s and ‘80s could be. But one of her gifts is the ability to take negativity and turn it into something positive: past challenges are used as motivation to improve the present.
Chaka Chaka learnt the importance of discipline and integrity from her mother, who raised three daughters as a single parent on a domestic worker’s salary. She’d help her mother with chores around the house – but also found time to express herself. While sweeping the floor, Chaka Chaka, barefoot and swaying in time to the swishes of the broom’s scratch on concrete, would sing into its handle. It became a microphone, and the concrete floor a stage.
Children are ambitious. Usually their dreams and desires fall away over time, replaced by the concerns of the moment and cut down by the realities of life. Not everyone can be extraordinary. Chaka Chaka is the exception. At the age of 13 she was introduced to the world of show business when she went to an audition held by Bernard Joffe, who was looking for talented children in Soweto.
“He came from nowhere. I guess he was sent by God,” she says. Out of the audition came a show called ‘Sugar Shack’, and Chaka Chaka became the first black child to appear on South African television. Rising to fame at a young age can mean that turbulence, controversy and a meltdown into ignominy follow. Not so for Yvonne Chaka Chaka. Her calm and grace have sustained her throughout her career, kept her touching the heights without plummeting down.
“I love life. I live life to the fullest and I want to help where I can. I know I can never change the world, but I’m a believer that if you have, always share with others,” she says.
Staying grounded, and sharing her gifts, has worked out well for Chaka Chaka. She’s released more than 20 albums, with multiple gold and platinum records to her name. By the time she was 19 she was recording her first album, “I’m in Love with a DJ”, for Dephon Records. The first single, which shares its name with the album, was an instant hit, and both sold well.
As an example of how Chaka Chaka is able to take misfortune and use it to make something beautiful, a trip to the doctor turned into a lifelong romance. Chaka Chaka’s sister recommended that she visit Doctor Mandlalele Mhinga when the singer fell sick, and while nothing of note happened immediately after that first visit, they stayed in contact. Occasional calls and meetings turned into love and, ultimately, marriage.
The death of Phumzile Ntuli, a musician in Chaka Chaka’s band, turned her world on its head. After playing a concert in Gabon, Phumzile came down with a fever. Doctors misdiagnosed her, only realising too late that she had malaria, a disease that affects more than two thirds of the world’s population. More than that, it’s the most vulnerable who are the worst affected by malaria: its highest rates of occurrence are in the world’s poorest countries. Chaka Chaka threw herself into the fight. She is now a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for malaria.
“I was totally ignorant about malaria. I knew it was there, but I didn’t know how many people it kills, and when I discovered that I thought, ‘I want to be the voice of the voiceless.’” When she says that she’s talking about who malaria affects: in addition to the poorest people being the most susceptible, those who are particularly vulnerable are children under the age of five – who lack natural immunity – and pregnant women – whose immunity is decreased.
Now when she makes music, Chaka Chaka has an external motive. She’s still doing what she loves, but she’s singing to keep her profile high enough that she is able to make a difference in the fight against malaria. For Chaka Chaka, singing has become useful as well as enjoyable: it has the power to mobilise people, and to raise funds for medicine and mosquito nets.
Chaka Chaka is a performer with a conscience. She stands out from the celebrities who pretend to care, whose involvement in humanitarian causes is done more to appease their own guilty consciences than out of genuine concern for others.
She’s got an extraordinary presence. She’ll win you over without even trying – without needing to do more than smile, or give a gentle touch on the arm. There’s a restrained energy behind those gestures that, when it’s unleashed, knocks you off your feet.
People who have such allure often fall in love with themselves, forgetting about the concerns of others. Chaka Chaka never did that. She has maintained the connections she established growing up, and knows who she is: The Princess of Africa.
The second part of that title is important – Yvonne is ofAfrica. She doesn’t set herself above it. She gives freely of herself, with her music and her humanitarian work: more than anything she works for the African people, for their health and wellbeing. Africa is lucky to have her.
iryVYy3Cies
Singer and goodwill ambassador Yvonne Chaka Chaka tells Adrian Steirn, filmmaker, photographer and creator of 21 Icons South Africa, about her long and difficult journey as a musician and why she has chosen to become a voice for the voiceless through her charitable work. In conversation with Adrian Steirn, Yvonne Chaka Chaka relives her extraordinary career, which saw her rise from the townships of Soweto to becoming the Princess of Africa: a world famous singer, performer and human rights activist.
A series of behind-the-scenes images reflecting the 21 Icons team at work.
Seemingly daydreaming Chaka Chaka sings into a wooden broomstick pretending it is a microphone as she did as a child. In the background, a tiara rests atop the piano in reference to the nickname ‘Princess of Africa’ bestowed upon her by Nelson Mandela.
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Follow @JohnPaczkowski
Recent Posts by John Paczkowski
FTC Reviewing Google’s Waze Acquisition
June 22, 2013 at 1:04 pm PT
Hardly surprising: Google’s $1.1 billion acquisition of the mapping company Waze has drawn regulatory scrutiny.
Google on Saturday confirmed that it has been contacted by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission regarding the acquisition. The company and the FTC both declined to comment on the nature of the inquiry, but it’s pretty obvious what’s going on here. Google Maps is a leading mapping and navigation service. Waze was a rising rival. In fact, back in April, Waze CEO Noam Bardin was talking up his company as the search behemoth’s only viable competitor in that space.
“The traditional players don’t have a model that’s scalable, and they have financial challenges, so Google is out there creating a new standard in terms of quality,” Bardin said. “We feel that we are the only reasonable competition to them in this market of creating maps that are really geared for mobile, for real-time, for consumers, and for the new world we’re moving into.”
If that’s truly the case, the Google’s acquisition of Waze could be problematic. Not only does it remove a potential competitor from the mapping space, it consolidates a ton of mapping data in Google’s hands, further extending the company’s dominance.
Could that be harmful to competition and consumers? That’s what the FTC hopes to determine.
Tagged with: antitrust, Federal Trade Commission, FTC, Google, mapping, maps, monopoly, Noam Bardin, Waze
Late Start May Be Tempering China Mobile’s iPhone Preorders
Twitter’s Tanking
2013 Was a Good Year for Chromebooks
BlackBerry Pulls Latest Twitter for BB10 Update
Apple CEO Tim Cook Made $4.25 Million This Year
I think the NSA has a job to do and we need the NSA. But as (physicist) Robert Oppenheimer said, “When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and argue about what to do about it only after you’ve had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.”
— Phil Zimmerman, PGP inventor and Silent Circle co-founder, in an interview with Om Malik
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Does the authoritative teaching of Christianity st...
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Review of the Ken Ham-Bill Nye Creation Debate
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Tools for the God-Fearing Mind
Yesterday, Ken Ham and Bill Nye debated their concepts of creation and evolution at Ham's Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky. I watched the debate live with a group at a local church (you can watch a recording for a few more days here), and given that there were nearly 500,000 streams of the event around the globe, it would be easy to estimate that well over half a million people viewed the exchange. Many have commented on the event, but as someone who has previously participated in a formal debate, I thought I would put down some of my observations here.
I thought the debate was very well run and it went better than I expected. Both Mr. Ham and Mr. Nye were respectful in tone and were genuine in their approaches. I think each participant understood that this event was important and each wanted to make his best case. CNN's Tom Foreman moderated and did an excellent job as well.
The debate platform was clean and the podiums for the speakers were spaced comfortably for both audience viewing and the television cameras to get a two-shot. (The graphics on the front of the podiums were my favorite part.) Using a pre-submitted set of questions from the audience allowed the Q & A time to flow quickly and more questions were presented in the 45 minute allotment than could be had with a queue in front of microphones.
I thought some of Bill Nye's arguments concerning the ice core evidence for 680,000 of winter/summer cycles and the abundance of species variation that argues against such diversification taking place in only a few thousand years were his strongest points. I thought that Ham did a great job in showing how science education today does hold a bias against a creator, even including a clip from a previous interview Bill Nye did. He was particularly strong when referencing a new study that shows all dogs came from a single ancestor and declaring how changes in finch beaks are variations within an instruction set. He also notes that cave fish "evolving" to have no eyes is not a net gain; there is no new information there. The fish have only lost the capability of seeing. Ham was also bold enough to present the gospel a few times during the evening, which I appreciated.
The most unfortunate thing in this debate is that neither debater focused on the actual debate question! At the beginning of the debate, Foreman clearly stated that the debate question was "Is creation a viable model of origins in today's modern scientific era?" Ham was to argue the affirmative and Nye was to take up the negative. Neither person in their initial opening five minute speech nor in their longer thirty minute second presentations built an argument focused on this question. Ham continually claimed that one must start with certain assumptions when trying to understand the past. However, this doesn't address whether or not creationism is a viable model. Several times throughout the night he highlighted scientists who were also creationists, although most of those had specialties that had nothing to do with creationism or evolution at all. If the debate question were "can good scientist hold to a creation model?" this would be prime evidence. Alas, that was not the topic at hand.
Nye actually changed the question when he began his 30 minute presentation. He begins by saying, "Let's take it back to the question at hand. Does Ken Ham's creation model hold up?" What? Is that now the topic of the debate? If so, I wouldn't have bothered watching because I'm not interested in Ham's version. Nye offered several strange lines of evidence, such as the shipbuilding capabilities of Noah and his family. Huh? What in the world does that have to do with creation as a viable model in science? In any account of Noah and the flood, the creation has already been established.
Nye also went off on a tangent about fish reproducing asexually versus sexually with others. He notes how asexual reproduction is less desirous but sometimes necessary (that's a straight line for too many jokes.) But again, how does this prove or disprove the question at hand? Could the fish not be designed for such contingencies? It shows neither evolution nor creation but the fact that certain fish in a certain environment have the capability to reproduce asexually. There are other animals that reproduce asexually, too. This completely misses the question.
Neither presenter provided an actual argument—you know, a series of premises and a conclusion—that I would have expected in a debate. It would have been a much more powerful presentation had the opponents laid out their arguments first and then expounded on them. And it was clear that both presenters were guilty of something I've stressed before: creation conflation.
There were a few missed opportunities in the debate that could have been capitalized on. The first is Nye's claim that if you can find "even one example" of a fossil crossing layers you would change science forever and "the scientists of the world would embrace you." Well, polystrate fossils have been well-documented, and it hasn't led the scientific community to embrace creationism. There are simply new theories that justify the find as a natural, not a supernatural occurrence.
The point that made me laugh out loud, though, was how Nye insisted that scientist WANT to embrace new ideas. We know that scientists resist upsetting their current models, as this 1961 article from Science shows. The more relevant work is that of Thomas Kuhn. In his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Kuhn demonstrates how the history of science is not one gradually increasing understanding of the world, but it is more how a certain model becomes the status quo and is accepted until someone (whom Kuhn labels "an outsider") upsets the status quo by offering a new paradigm. Thus science advancement comes in fits and stages as those who hold the existing model are forced to give way to the newer paradigm.
Two examples of Kuhn's paradigm shifts were items that Bill Nye mentioned in the debate: the emergence of plate tectonics and the abandonment of spontaneous generation after Louis Pasteur's experiments. Another I could add was the emergence of the Big Bang model from the previous steady state theory of the universe. Like the other models, the theory was not met with open arms by the scientific community, but by much resistance. Nye seemed to imply that Fred Hoyle liked the idea, when he actually named it in derision and was one of its most vocal opponents. Though it was first proposed by Roman Catholic priest Georges Lemaître in 1927, it took Wilson and Penzias' discovery of the cosmic background radiation in the 1960's that led it to be the primarily accepted model among cosmologists.
Another wince-inducing point was how Nye tried to assert that the Biblical text was transmitted to us through a method like the telephone game. This is simply, demonstrably false and even non-believing scholars l flatly reject such an assertion.
Ham had some egregious moments as well. When he for the third and fourth time referred to his small sampling of scientists who were also creationists, his argument moved from a non-sequitur to a fallacious appeal to authority, and it became annoying from the audience's standpoint. Ham never answered Nye's stronger points above, but simply dismissed them with the rhetorical "how do we know, we didn't see it!" Well, if that's the criteria for knowledge about historical events, then we need to fire all the CSI lab technicians and set the murderers free.
Ham also lost points in my opinion when he was asked if he was provided evidence, would he still believe in God. Instead of beginning with the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus, Ham stated that everyone has to have certain presuppositions and the Bible was his presuppositional choice. But doesn't that beg the question? Nye similarly begged the question when asked about things like the emergence of consciousness or how the Big Bang happened from nothing. He simply claimed these were "great mysteries" and we should be glad they are there to study.
The final question of the night, "What is the one thing, more than anything else, upon which you base your belief" was offered to both participants and they basically responded the same way they had been all night long. Ham said one must presuppose the truth of the Bible in order to know history and origins. Nye answered that he based his beliefs on the joy and love he receives from the information and the process of science. Their presuppositions are noted, but each is rather subjective. I know that many creationists also feel Nye's excitement and love of scientific discovery. I know there are many other people who presuppose the Qur'an, the Book of Mormon, or some other text as their starting point for interpreting history and creation. Neither answer satisfies a seeker who is honestly trying to make heads or tails out of all this, and while this question may be tangential in itself, neither response helps us answer the question of the debate.
In all, I am truly excited that the interest in this debate was so high. I think there are many, many people who really want to discover the facts that are out there and that we as Christian communicators can find fruitful ground in providing some of those answers. There are a lot of holes left open by the participants in the debate. Let's see if we can go out and close some of them with good evidence.
Labels: beliefs, Bible, creation, debate, evolution, science, worldview
BernieDehler 1:51 PM
RE: "Well, polystrate fossils have been well-documented, and it hasn't led the scientific community to embrace creationism. "
Lenny, you should know better. There is no 'creationism' position that is specific. Young earthers and old earthers disagree. If you want an answer for polystrate fossils, can't an old-earth ministry like "Reasons to Believe" give you the answers? That is a old earth creationist ministry answering the charges from a young earth creationist ministry.
Lenny Esposito 2:02 PM
Bernie, I agree. But realize this wan't my point. It was Bill Nye who insisted multiple times that the fact that fossils don't cross layers is evidence against creation and insisted that if you could find even one the scientific community would hail the discovery. It was Nye's error to present such an absolute claim as evidence.
Glen 3:24 PM
I think Ham lost a lot of points by not focusing on the debate question (I don't subscribe to Nye's position and my points system stops at zero anyway.) I had a feeling Ham would inject a lot of a priori comments rather than build up from the creation question; I don't think the debate question was ever answered. Ham could have done so much better by keeping his focus on this one small topic. Of course creation is a viable model!!!
Aludra 6:02 PM
Just wondering, what is your position on the age of the universe?
Also, what is your position on uniformitarianism?
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Canada Justice
The Family Redefined
The Supreme Court expands spousal support provisions to include separated gay couples
D’Arcy Jenish May 31 1999
The Family Redefined D’Arcy Jenish May 31 1999
D’Arcy Jenish
Rebecca Hunter and her partner of 6½ years, Debra Lamb, were making their way through rush-hour traffic on a busy Toronto expressway last Thursday when they heard the report over the car radio. The Supreme Court of Canada had nullified an Ontario law denying samesex partners access to spousal support if their relationship ended. The decision, declaring the law unconstitutional, forces the provincial government to contemplate amending that and almost 90 other pieces of legislation in order to extend equal rights to homosexual couples. Outside of Ontario, several premiers acknowledged that they, too, may have to rewrite dozens of laws in their provinces.
For Hunter and Lamb, high-school teachers who jointly own a home, a cottage and other assets, the high court ruling was both a legal and symbolic victory for gays and lesbians. “We shouted as soon as we heard the news,” said Hunter.
“This society is finally recognizing that homosexual couples deserve the same rights as heterosexual couples.”
The Supreme Court ruling came in a case known only as M. vs. H. It involves a lesbian couple who split up in 1992 and became embroiled in an acrimonious dispute over dividing their assets, which included homes, property and a business. Lawyers who worked on M. vs. H. estimate that across Canada there may be as many as 1,000 provincial statutes that discriminate against gays and lesbians. British Columbia had already taken the lead among the provinces by amending several laws to give homosexuals rights to child custody, access and spousal support among other things.
As well, a Toronto-based organization pressing for gay rights, the Foundation for Equal Families, has launched a legal challenge to 58 federal laws that it says violate the equality provisions of the Charter of
Rights and Freedoms. Despite the tasks ahead, gay and lesbian activists were in a celebratory mood following last week’s ruling. “This is truly a great day in the history of our equality in this country,” said Toronto lawyer Martha McCarthy, who represented the plaintiff M. throughout her seven-year battle.
In her constitutional argument, McCarthy, backed by several rights organizations and the United Church of Canada, focused on a section of Ontario’s Family Law Act that allows one spouse from a failed marriage or common-law relationship to apply to the courts for financial support. But the legislation’s definitions of spouse does not include men or women in samesex unions. In an 8-1 ruling, with Mr. Justice Charles Gonthier dissenting, the Court gave the province six months to
amend the law. “The exclusion of samesex partners from the benefits of the spousal support scheme,” ruled the majority, “implies that they are incapable of forming intimate relationships of economic interdependence. This differential treatment discriminates ... by violating the human dignity of individuals in same-sex relationships.”
Premier Mike Harris said he would comply, however reluctantly. In midcampaign for a June 3 election, Harris said that, if returned to office, his government will respect the ruling even though he subscribes to a more traditional notion of family. Conservative religious leaders responded guardedly. Aloysius Cardinal Ambrozic, Roman Catholic archbishop of Toronto, said the provincial government should strive to protect the economic rights of same-
sex couples while maintaining the sanctity of marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Added Gary Walsh, president of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada: “We encourage legislatures to meet the ruling without eroding any further the place of marriage in this culture. Let marriage be marriage.”
But elements of both church and state appear to be lagging behind public opinion on the issue. A national poll conducted in April, 1998, by the Toronto-based Angus Reid Group revealed that 75 per cent of Canadians believe that human rights legislation should protect gays and lesbians from discrimination. The survey, taken shortly after the Supreme Court ordered the Alberta government to include sexual orientation as a prohibited grounds of discrimination in its human rights act, found that 64 per cent of Albertans support such a measure. It also showed that fully 57 per
cent of respondents who declared themselves to be Reform party backers favour protection for gays and lesbians.
The two unidentified Toronto women at the centre of the landmark case, now in their 50s, met in 1980 while vacationing in Nepal. They began living together and in 1982 started an advertising company based on H.’s contacts and M.’s experience running a small bicycle courier firm. H. drew a salary of $6,000 monthly from the business while M. handled most of the domestic responsibilities. By 1989, however, they were no longer sleeping together and in September, 1992, M. moved out. According to McCarthy, H. changed the locks on
their homes, shut down the business while retaining her clients, and refused to divide the assets or provide support. That left M. almost penniless and without legal recourse except to sue her former partner.
After a lengthy civil suit, the two women reached an out-of-court settlement in January, 1998, under which H. agreed to pay M. the equivalent of her equity in the country property. While the lawsuit was in progress, M. launched a separate challenge to the constitutionality of Ontario’s Family Law Act. She won in two Ontario courts before the provincial government appealed to the Supreme Court. In a statement issued through her lawyer, M. described herself as “an accidental activist” who never intended to become embroiled in a seven-year legal dispute. “The fair and equitable division of property after the breakup of any other kind of relationship would never be questioned,” she said. “That it was was both unconscionable and intolerable.”
The ruling may prompt some gays and lesbians to examine potential financial obligations. But the overwhelming reaction was one of relief that their position under the law had finally been clarified. “I have many clients in M. s position,” said Toronto lawyer Kelly Jordan, 31, who attended a news conference with her partner, Jude Stewart. “They have been anxiously awaiting the decision.” They will now expect a legislative response from politicians across Canada. 03
Backing entitlements
The Supreme Court released two
other substantive decisions last week. The impact:
• The mother tongue of an accused person is a vital right. The court ordered a new trial—a fourth—for Jean Victor Beaulac, a bilingual B.C. francophone charged with murder who had been tried in English.
• Indians living off reserves should be allowed to vote in their bands’ elections. The court allowed 18 months for Parliament to repeal residency requirements in the Indian Act and for bands to amend voting practices. The court was ruling on the fate of a disfranchised Ojibwa from the Batchewana band near Sault Ste.
Marie, Ont.
Business Cover
The Best & Worst JOBS
May 1999 By Ross Laver
May 1999 By Eric Silver
Black and Read All Over
May 1999 By Anthony Wilson-Smith
Heartbreak on the Farm
May 1999 By Brian Bergman
THE LONG AND WINDING TRAIL
August 1996 By D’ARCY JENISH
Taking on the Tories
OCTOBER 1996 By D’ARCY JENISH
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You are at:Home»HOBSON'S CHOICES»Hobson’s Choices: recent war themed non-fiction
Hobson’s Choices: recent war themed non-fiction
By ARTbop on July 1, 2016 HOBSON'S CHOICES, WORDS
The centenary of the First World War has seen a proliferation of new books being published on and around the topic. I have been very fortunate to be able to review three great additions to our knowledge by some very talented New Zealand writers. One is specifically on the First World War, while the others take a much broader look at all the conflicts in which New Zealand has been involved.
The three books are, First Day of the Somme by Andrew MacDonald, To the Memory by Jock Phillips and The Penguin Book of New Zealand War Writing edited by Harry Ricketts and Gavin McLean.
The Penguin Book of New Zealand War Writing has the broadest sweep, covering conflicts that involved New Zealand as far back as the time of Captain Cook right up to modern times. I particularly like that the content includes both factual and fictional writing. Factual accounts from those who witnessed the events are set alongside many contributions from our finest writers who have imagined or reinterpreted the events in our history. There are some excellent stories in here that will both shock and delight, and in particular some that open an understanding of the traumas suffered by those who returned from war like nothing I have ever read.
To the Memory by Jock Phillips is a quite different approach, being a look at our war memorials across the country and across all our different wars. It is much more of a picture book, but it also has a superb narrative about the approach we have taken to honour those who made the ultimate sacrifice for this country. The scope of Jock Phillips book runs from the New Zealand Wars to the present day and charts the different responses. While it took 50 years to begin to erect memorials for the New Zealand Wars, it took only five years to build those for the South African Wars. While the First World War was commemorated with statues, cenotaphs and obelisks, the Second War had a quite different response with memorial halls, libraries or even a museum. The arguments about the appropriate response that sprang up between central and local government and the local people are a fascinating part of our social history. In the depression era after the First World War, the cost of memorials was an issue and in many cases we imported them directly from marble sculptors in Italy rather than the more expensive commission of a local artist. Where these commissions did happen the result were fine sculptures such as figures in Devonport and Christchurch.
This book is well-timed, as the centenary celebrations have led to the restoration of many memorials around the country and as Phillips suggests, we are now more interested than ever in the exploits of those who went before us. He recalls an ANZAC Day service in Auckland in the mid-1980s where only a few hundred attended and compares it to 2015 when more than 50,000 were present.
And my final selection is an excellent reassessment called First Day of the Somme by Andrew MacDonald. The 1st July 1916 remains the worst day in British Military history, with 19,240 killed and over 35,000 wounded on that day alone. The book looks deeply at the characters involved on both the British and German sides and assesses their successes and failures. It then describes the fighting all the way along the front line, delving deeply into the specific battles and advances, the failures and the small successes. The Somme campaign would last until the middle of November, with Kiwi troops not heavily involved on the first day but soon playing an important role in the gradual push forwards. For an account of the Kiwi soldiers on the Somme, MacDonald has written an excellent volume called On My Way to the Somme.
Between the 1st July and the middle of November 1.28 million officers and men were killed or wounded on both sides. To put that in perspective, that is the equivalent of killing or wounding the whole population of Wellington, Christchurch, Hamilton and Tauranga. Such a huge loss of life is hard to imagine.
And where did the blame lie for all that carnage? A combination of factors; leaders out of touch with events, poor artillery impact in many places and a failure to understand just how well the Germans had dug themselves in, so that even after several days of bombardment they emerged from deep underground and were able to mow down the advancing troops in their thousands with machine gun fire. Continuous firing left guns too hot to touch and by the close of the day some were surrounded by more than 20,000 empty cartridge shells. Hundreds of guns and literally millions of bullets on one day alone.
Three very different but highly recommended books to read now as we look back to the sacrifices that our forefathers made in conflicts around the world.
Marcus Hobson is the ARTbop Literary Editor, regular book reviewer, writer, and the Secretary of the Tauranga Writers group Marcus has been, and continues to be, lots of things. An aspiring author of both novels and reviews, he has always said he wants to be a writer and 40 years later is making that come true. He has in the past done such varied things as study ancient and mediaeval history at Uni in London, worked as an archaeologist, as an economist in central and southern Africa, and as truck driver in a quarry. About two years ago he relocated to the beautiful Bay from a finance job in Auckland. He is a lover of art, the written word and a full-time fanatical book collector, with over 3,000 volumes on his shelves. He lives close to Katikati with his wife and sometimes their three daughters, two cats, a library and the odd chicken. Marcus is currently working on a “factional” work about World War One.
If you would like to contribute your original book reviews to ARTbop WORDS please forward them to info@artbop.co.nz for the attention of the Literary Editor Marcus Hobson. We prefer the work is emailed in docx format We appreciate one or two jpg images (not enormous ones as they become an uploading issue for ARTbop)
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Garden After Dark: Immersive Dance Experience at Red Butte Garden’s Legends of Camelot
By Shawn Rossiter on October 23, 2015 • ( 3 Comments )
If this Halloween season you’re looking for something with a touch more art and a lot fewer chainsaws, Red Butte Garden’s Garden After Dark: Legends of Camelot is the place to go to become enchanted. For the last two weeks of October, the gardens on Salt Lake’s east bench have been transformed into a place where legend comes alive as visitors wind their way through the grounds on an Arthurian-themed quest. At stations along the way, little ones (and large ones) have the chance to decorate a protective shield with heraldic symbols, obtain a glowing magic potion, collect healing herbs and make an oak-leaf crown, all the while looking for scenes from the Arthurian legend: the lady of the lake, the sword in the stone, the knights of the round table.
It’s part nature stroll, part Renaissance festival, with a good dose of Halloween atmosphere. There’s nothing really scary, but plenty of eerie ambience, including blue-light effects, dry ice mist and a cast of performers that gives the entire space a sense of magic and mystery. You’ll be tempted to go early in the evening, when it’s warmer, but it’s worth putting on an extra layer and waiting until it’s properly dark to enjoy the full effect — that way you’ll be able to see the light projections on the hills on either side of Red Butte, be startled by the sudden appearance of a wandering Merlin, and enjoy the enchanted forest in all its phosphorescent glory.
Throughout, parents and children will be beguiled by “The Mists,” an immersive dance theater experience that happens in the gardens and features professionals from Utah’s dance community. “The Mists” evokes the story of Avalon, the magic-infused realm that preceded Camelot. You won’t have to get out your Geoffrey of Monmouth or Chretien de Troyes to enjoy the experience, but you may need to pause for a moment to absorb it. There are no timed performances, so what you see may depend on when you arrive, and taking a second lap along the quest trail may provoke new surprises and an expanded understanding of the story (a short guide available just inside the entrance will help).
The performances are part of a mythical realm that for these few nights in October seems to break through a fairy veil to become part of our mundane, if briefly festive, world. While the anthropomorphic herd of wild stags near Guinevere’s Meadow may prance up to you and encourage a rub or scratch with the tilt of their head and shrug of their shoulders, the denizens of the enchanted forest likely will ignore you as they play their flutes from a tree branch, bang their drums or chase after glow-in-the-dark bubbles. As you leave the magic show (which alternates nights with a raptor encounter), you may catch a glimpse of an intense, raven-like Morgan stalking the fair Guinevere, or while you’re sitting at a table enjoying a cup of hot chocolate, the Priestesses of Avalon, dressed in their long black cloaks, may swarm past you like a band of grackles, to perch on a stone wall, encircle a young tree, or puff and chant around a stone cauldron, all the while ignoring the young girl in her Snow White costume, trying to get their attention. The performances are concrete and compelling, enough to infuse the carnival-like experience of children teasing siblings or asking for another candied apple with a slightly unsettling air of awe and dread.
Red Butte Garden’s Garden After Dark: Legends of Camelot is Oct. 22, 23, 24 & 29 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. and Oct. 30 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. 300 Wakara Way, Salt Lake City, UT 84108. Price: $6 for Garden members, $12 for the general public and free for children 2 and under.
While not required, costumes are certainly welcome.
Shawn Rossiter
The founder of Artists of Utah and editor of its online magazine, 15 Bytes, Shawn Rossiter has undergraduate degrees in English, French and Italian Literature and studied Comparative Literature in graduate school before pursuing a career in art.
Categories: Dance
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Ann Poore says:
I read this, borrowed a small child, and headed up to Red Butte directly. It was as magical an experience as described — moonlit night, dancers in the trees, mute priestesses in flowing black gowns, fabulous. I could have lingered for another hour. There’s so much to experience that going back through a second time is good counsel, if you have the stamina. I may go back, if I can find another kid willing to put up with me!
M. Wilson says:
See it Thursday and Friday (October 29th and 30th)! Red Butte Garden is the perfect setting for The Mists, which tells the story, through dance and live music, of Avalon and Camelot, fairies, wizards and stags. There is a combat on an open lawn between the King Stag and Arthur, Merlin rows across the lake toward Morgaine, a fairy wood where the Fairy Queen and her fairy court live, and many other scenes and dances showing what happens to the Lady of the Lake, Guinevere, Morgaine, Lancelot and Arthur. It finishes with with a coronation where all the characters dance and invite the public to join them.
Aleta says:
Are they doing this again at midsummer’s eve? I would LOVE to see it then!
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Martyna Majok wins 2017 Primus Prize
Wednesday, July 4, 2018 at 10:00AM
ATCA Operations
Martyna Majok has been awarded the 2017 Francesca Primus Prize for her play Cost of Living. Jointly sponsored by ATCA and the Francesca Ronnie Primus Foundation, the Primus Prize is given annually to an emerging woman playwright. Majok has received the $10,000 award check and will be officially congratulated at an upcoming ATCA conference.
Two of the four characters in Majok’s compelling Cost of Living face isolation and loneliness as they cope with disabilities. John, a charming, but difficult, PhD student has cerebral palsy, and Ani has become quadriplegic after an automobile accident. The other two characters, Jess and Eddie, are their caregivers. Cost of Living shatters stereotypes as it counterpoints the two stories and the compassion and misunderstandings that shape these two very different relationships.
Majok and her mother immigrated to the United States from Poland when she was a child, and she is no stranger to feeling like an outsider. “As a theatre artist, I’m committed to presenting stories of people whose experiences do not often get told. And I strive to do so with the complexity, humor, and clear-eyed lack of sentimentality that I believe to be an honest reflection of their lives but not always the portrayal we see onstage,” she says. “I write about poor people, the working class, about women with appetites and drives but societal limitations. I write the ill and the differently abled as characters with agency. I love the poetry of languages, bent and reshaped, that might emerge from a foreign mouth or a certain kind of childhood or place. I write the perimeters and pockets of society.
Cost of Living emerged from a one-act play called John, who’s here from Cambridge, which told just one of the stories. She later expanded it and added the second, parallel story. “I have worked with people with disabilities, both as a theatre colleague and as a caregiver, and realized how at a distance they are kept, perhaps even how their existence frightens and unnerves a large portion of the population” she says. “This galvanized me to write a play that placed characters with disabilities at the center—played by actors with disabilities—and that countered certain tropes about their experiences.
Cost of Living made its world premiere at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in 2016. The play went on to receive its New York premiere at the Manhattan Theatre Club in 2017. In addition to the Primus Prize, Cost of Living was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for drama. Majok’s other plays include Sanctuary City, queens, and Ironbound, which was a finalist for last year’s Primus Prize. She has received multiple awards, including the Lucille Lortel Award for outstanding new play, Lanford Wilson Prize, Stacey Mindich Prize, Helen Hayes Award for outstanding new play, and the Jean Kennedy Smith Award. She was also the first woman to receive the Greenfield Prize for drama. Majok was the 2015–16 PoNY Fellow at the Lark Play Development Center and is the 2018–2019 Hodder Fellow at Princeton University. She received her BA from the University of Chicago and her MFA from the Yale School of Drama and Juilliard.
Majok was selected from fifteen applicants by a nationwide committee of critics, chaired by Barbara Bannon (Salt Lake City, UT) and composed of Julie York Coppens (Juneau, AK), Marianne Evett (Arlington, MA), Michael Howell (Montgomery, AL), Marjorie Oberlander (New York, NY), Kerry Reid (Chicago, IL), and Lynn Rosen (Bellingham, WA).
“The Francesca Ronnie Primus Foundation was established to recognize and support emerging women artists who are making a difference in the theater community in which they work,” observed Barry Primus, the foundation administrator. Founded in 1997 in memory of actress and critic Francesca Primus, the Primus Prize was originally administered by the Denver Center Theatre Company. ATCA began overseeing the award in 2004.
Article originally appeared on American Theatre Critics Association (http://americantheatrecritics.org/).
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Grasshopper Facts For Kids | Grasshopper Diet & Habitat
While summarizing some of the imperative grasshopper facts for kids, several important insights about the insect come to the fore. This article explains grasshopper diet, behavior, reproduction and widespread distribution. The grasshopper is an insect that belongs to the Caelifera suborder. Apart from crickets or katydids, grasshoppers are also denoted as short-horned grasshopper.
Some species deemed to change their color or behavior at greater population densities and are known as locust. These insects have antennae that are relatively undersized as compared to their body. With the help of powerful mandibles, grasshoppers tear off their food. The powerful and long hind femora are perfectly made for leaping. They are greyish brown in color, and often tinged with reddish brown.
Although they have wings, but these wings are not typically made for the proper flight which is why most grasshoppers are seen to take shocking flight. Males are relatively shorter than females, with longer ovipositors. There is a lone plate at the abdomen end of the insect. There are two pairs of valves that are attached to the female’s abdomen and these are actually used for digging whilst laying eggs.
Grasshoppers are simply baffled with the crickets, falling in the same order; nevertheless, grasshoppers have distinctive features in numerous aspects. For example, there is a sheer difference in the number of segments (in antennae), structure of the ovipositor, and methods of sound production as well as the position of tympana. Unlike caeliferans, there are around 20 to 24 segments in Ensiferans. Grasshoppers are thought to live in the tropical wet forests.
Grasshopper Facts For Kids
There are loosely held nerve cells that manipulate the grasshopper’s nervous system. These are called gangalia. These cells are commonly known to exist in nearly all species. All the gangalia operates at the centre (neuropile) of the brain.
Grasshoppers are also eaten as a paramount source of food. It has great quantity of protein. Nonetheless, these species embrace tapeworms which is why they must be eaten cautiously.
Grasshoppers are also reliant on the surroundings to change their colors. This is necessary especially to get rid of potential predators like frogs. Most of these species are well reformed to the green fields and forests.
Grasshopper facts for kids show that these insects are found almost everywhere in the world except in extreme cooler regions.
There are three types of grasshoppers such as long-horned grasshopper, short-horned grasshopper and pygmy grasshopper. Locust is another type of grasshopper.
Grasshoppers are also known to leap 20 times their length.
The weight of these species measure around 2 – 3 grams; however they can prolong their legs contrary to the ground with a force of about 30 grams with half-legs extended. This operates when the leg muscles tighten. All (contractions and thrust) must be done speedily otherwise grasshopper won’t be able to take-off too far.
These insects have no ears but they can certainly hear. The organ known as tympanum facilitates hearing. One of the unique grasshopper facts for kids is that the tympanum is positioned at the abdomen and is often confused with a huge round disk. It’s an eardrum that is located on one side of the insect and it enables grasshopper to hear.
Do you know that grasshoppers are also known to sing late at night? In case, you do not sleep the whole night and suddenly the chirping voice emerges from the severe darkness, it’d be the grasshoppers singing voice. They do not sing for us; rather the sole purpose is to draw females toward them for mating.
Grasshoppers have two bulky eyes on top of the head. These are considered to be the complex eyes. There are thousands of small eyes that operates within the great eye to shape a picture in a grasshopper’s brain. The three eyes attached enable these species to look sideways, forward as well as backward for countless distances.
Read More: How long do grasshoppers live?
What Do Grasshoppers Eat
Grasshopper facts about its diet includes that these species are herbivores and they predominantly feed on leaves, stems, roots, grasses, and cereal crops. Most of these species are polyphagous. These types of insects are particularly known to feed on variety of plants in a single day though some species tend to restrict their diet to few plants material. There are around 8000 grasshopper species in the world.
There is a foregut coupled with the hindgut in the digestive system of insects. The mandible and salivary glands make the mouth discrete. These mandibles begin to chew their food marginally and give rise to the mechanical digestion. Because of the carbohydrates involve in grasses, grasshoppers are very fond of feeding grass. Salivary glands facilitate the food to assimilate chemically. The food, after entering into the mouth, move further across the esophagus and finally into the crop. This crop is capable to embrace food. The food then passes into the gizzard which has sharp teeth-like features.
Finally, the food moves from the gizzard to its final destination which is stomach where digestive enzymes assists the food to break it down. Enzymes begin from the gastric caeca encircling the stomach. These are the primary excretion organs. The hindgut involves intestine parts (rectum and ileum) and leaves across the anus. Nearly all food is fingered in the midgut; however certain food is left for the residue wastes which are mostly embedded with the uric acid, amino acids and urea. These wastes are normally transformed into dry pallets before being actually discharged of.
Learn more: What do Grasshoppers Eat
Interesting Grasshopper Facts about its Reproduction
Migratory grasshoppers give rise to a lone generation in most of its range, and overwinter in the egg stage. As far as the southern generation is concerned, two generations may befall each year. The hatching period begins in the late July under the normal circumstances. Hatching demands 40 to 45 days to develop the population. The grasshopper’s eggs are yellow in color and are elongate-elliptical together with a minor curved shape. The shape of these eggs very much resembles to that of bananas’. The length of the eggs measure around 4.5 mm by length, while the width measuring at 1.2 mm. The eggs are organized in two features within an egg pod. There are around 18 to 20 eggs in a single pod and are repressed to a depth of 35 mm. The length of these pods is about 25 mm, with a diameter measuring at 3 – 4 mm. Healthy females are capable to produce 7 to 10 pods at regular intervals of 2 – 3 days. Consequently, fecundity of 200 eggs per female is probable.
Grasshopper Facts For Kids | Worst Attacks
Unless they are stopped, they may cost farmers millions. They are like a scattered army—you can’t shoot them all. In the mid of 19th century, grasshoppers are known to destroy most of the agricultural crops which bring these insects into directly conflict with humans. Grasshoppers fall randomly in between migratory and nonmigratory groups. The migratory insect of this group (locust) are particularly known for devastating all the agricultural crops. These locusts migrate in massive groups comprising millions of individuals.
Read More: What do grasshoppers eat?
Grasshoppers’ Attack on Crops
Locusts typically go for the sparingly stable zones while nonmigratory insects normally confront settled regions. Severe attacks had been observed in New England back in 1749, 1754, 1743, and 1754. In order to get rid of these hazardous insects, farmers used hopperdozers in the 19th and 20th century. The worst attacks also came to the fore in the period of great depression that is 1934, 1931, 1936, and 1939. However, the foulest amongst these invasions were the one that occurred in 1936 which obliterated all the crops ranging from Midwest, South and to the Great Plains.
Including grasshoppers, nearly 1 million species are capable to jump; many groups have advanced their own method of jumping habits of different kinds. Collembola (commonly known as springtails) are simple, tiny insects which have no wings; these are found under the rocks where they form the primary food for many other species, particularly pseudoscorpions. Collembola are skilled enough to make gigantic leaps through a special flicking mechanism. They also carry an elongated, stiff furcula at the tip of the abdomen. When the insect is at rest, the furcula is bent forward and lies beneath the abdomen, where it is held in place by retinaculum. When disturbed, the springtail through its strong abdominal muscles, extend the furcula with lightning speed, and as the furcula discloses, like a flick-knife blade the insect is catapulted into the air. Many jumping insects like click beetles and few others, employ their legs for jumping.
Is Grasshopper A Flying Insect? | Grasshopper Facts For Kids
Grasshoppers are not generally considered as flying insects. Nevertheless, they possess two pairs of wings, the first of which are hardened and reinforced with tough wing veins, and the second membraneous. The large, migratory species, known as locusts, are accompanied flyers with bush-crickets (Tettigoniidae) and true crickets (Gryllidae) differ from grasshoppers by having very long antennae.
Singing to the Sun and Moon | Grasshopper Facts For Kids
While many Orthoptera species have developed a unique jumping ability, they are often found singing in a loud voice; one can observe their voices in an uncultivated land in the sunny meadows of summer. All the Orthoptera, especially grasshoppers, crickets, and locusts are known to sing in a loud voice so much so that their voice overlaps the loud song of the cicadas. Amongst these, the male grasshoppers and bush-crickets (family Tettigoniidae) are relatively popular for singing and they live in small colonies in rough vegetation and grass. Most Orthoptera are sun-worshippers, although a good many number of crickets start singing in evening and into the night in summer; the house cricket is almost entirely nocturnal.
They produce these sounds via a special structure which is located on its pair of wings that, when rubbed either with the wings or with the modified legs, become the source of these sounds. One of the species of Orthoptera is a green bush-cricket, Tettigonia viridissima, reaching a length of 7 – 8 centimeters (about 3 inches) have an extended thread-like antennae. It is generally found in the coastal districts of western and southern England and less commonly inland in late summer.
The grasshoppers (family Acrididae) having unique coloration holds short antennae as compared to that of bush-crickets. While the grasshopper is busy in stridulation, one can easily observe the rise and fall of its extended long legs provided the movement is slow and the note is a low one. The not becomes higher in pitch as the movement speeds up.
Like bush-crickets, true crickets let their front wings to come into play for stridulation but unlike the former the latter has a file on the right wing and the wings always lie with the right wing uppermost. The complicated structure of the stridulatory organs thereby gives rise to the delicate song which is quite pleasing to the human ear. True crickets have long been kept in captivity by men of several historical periods so that they may listen to the melodious songs of these insects.
Grasshopper Facts For Kids | Video
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madison August 28, 2014 at 1:12 am
I love animals
Three Guard Dog Alternatives for Your Home
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I, Medusa
For atheist witches, by atheist witches
Medusa: Our Lady of Rage
nonsense | paganism | witchcraft
Women are still being murdered for practicing witchraft
Anna Mist September 2, 2018 September 2, 2018
Home nonsense Women are still being murdered for practicing witchraft
Success and Jealousy in the Witch Community: Don’t be a Hater, Girl
How to become a witch
Anna Mist nonsense | paganism | witchcraft September 2, 2018 September 2, 2018
When people think about the violent executions of women accused of witchcraft, the Salem trials and 1600s England commonly come to mind. However, murdering women in the name of eradicating witches is still very much a practice — even in 2018. The Katmandu Post reports that a 40-year-old woman has just been arrested for killing her own mother-in-law out of the belief that the woman was a witch.
Police say that 40-year-old Tanki Rawat took her 69-year-old mother-in-law into a wooded area before beating her to death as a form of exorcism. The woman believed that her mother-in-law had been casting black magic spells on her. She claims that a shaman told her that her elderly mother-in-law had been practicing witchcraft.
In August, a woman in Koenjhar, India was poisoned to death by villagers after they accused her of practicing witchcraft. The victim, an elderly woman, was accused by her killers of casting spells on them to prevent them from being able to bear children with their spouses. An autopsy determined that the woman had been poisoned with a variety of toxic substances, including pesticides. Authorities in this area claim that witchcraft-related violence is somewhat frequent, with at least four other incidents on report in 2018.
Also in the past month, two Nigerian priests have been arrested after “accidentally” killing a woman that they were trying to exorcise of witchcraft. The 25-year-old woman was reportedly poisoned, much like the woman who was killed in India around the same time. It seems that poisonings and violent beatings are becoming the preferred mode of killing witches — or, rather, innocent women who are likely not at all involved with the craft.
Just two weeks ago in Kenya, a 30-year-old man brutally beat his mother within an inch of her life — and threatened to kill her — because she didn’t like his wife. However, the man also told police that his mother is a witch, and that is why he was attempting to beat her and chase her from his home. Meanwhile, his mother accuses his young wife of also being a witch.
Currently in Tanzania, authorities are having a hard time controlling the increasing number of vigilante murders associated with witchcraft. The nation of over 55 Million people has a culture richly rooted in belief in witchcraft, and over 90% of the population still believes in it. Many residents of Tanzania do practice witchcraft, but their practice is kept hidden due to vigilante witch hunters who are determined to kill witches in the name of Jesus Christ.
People want us dead
There is no way around this fact. Many of us are fortunate enough to live in the Western world, where talk of witch slayings are based on history and not current events. We’re all lucky in that we don’t live in daily fear of vigilantes hunting us down. But on the other side of the world, the number of women (and also men and children) being murdered on these accusations is growing, and growing and growing. Most people who are murdered for practicing witchcraft are innocent, but many of us are not. Many of us are practicing witches, and we need to remain aware of the fact that we’re targets.
©2019 I, Medusa
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Rep. Lewis: Race controversy good for dialogue
Atlantis Online > Forum > Modern Historical Mysteries > Modern History > Civil Rights > Rep. Lewis: Race controversy good for dialogue
Author Topic: Rep. Lewis: Race controversy good for dialogue (Read 19 times)
Monique Faulkner
Rep. Lewis: Race controversy good for dialogueStory Highlights
Rep. John Lewis is a superdelegate who switched from Clinton to Obama
Lewis did not mention the Rev. Jeremiah Wright by name during his sermon
Some of Wright's past sermons came under scrutiny this past month
Obama says he would have switched churches had Wright not retired
From Rachel Streitfeld and Cody Combs
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis suggested Sunday the controversy over Sen. Barack Obama's former pastor has reignited a conversation about race that could ultimately be beneficial for the country.
Rep. John Lewis says "we must learn to understand and forgive those who have been most hostile" toward us.
1 of 2 "The civil rights movement had the power to ... what I call bring the dirt, the filth from under the American rug out of the cracks and corners, into the light so we can deal with it," said Lewis, an Obama supporter, at a forum on faith and civil rights at Washington's National Cathedral.
"Just maybe, just maybe, what is happening now will bring something out, so we all can be educated and sensitized."
While he did not mention the Rev. Jeremiah Wright by name during a sermon he gave at the cathedral, Lewis indirectly addressed the Chicago pastor's fiery comments on race.
"During the past few days, the issue of race and the need for reconciliation have emerged through the presidential campaign. We know, and we all know, it's not a secret America had a dark past of division and separation," Lewis said. "But if we are to emerge unscarred by hate, we must learn to understand and forgive those who have been most hostile and violent towards us."
Some of Wright's past sermons came under scrutiny in recent weeks when a news report highlighted ones that included racially charged remarks.
In one, the minister said America had brought the September 11 attacks upon itself. In another, he said Sen. Hillary Clinton had an advantage over Obama because she is white.
Obama, a longtime friend of Wright's and a member of his church for two decades, has repeatedly denounced the remarks, but refused to denounce the minister himself.
Wright retired from Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ earlier this year, before the controversy erupted.
Obama: Had Wright not retired, I'd have left church
Clinton: Wright would not have been my pastor
Election Center 2008
Obama told ABC's "The View" in an interview last week that he would have left the church if his pastor hadn't retired and hadn't acknowledged making "inappropriate" comments that "deeply offended people."
Lewis, a Democrat from Georgia, delivered his sermon from the same pulpit where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke 40 years ago, four days before his assassination. Lewis said King's struggle for peace and equality continues today.
"The sermon Martin Luther King gave us is still so timely, so relevant and so fresh," Lewis said, adding that he could have re-read King's words to similar effect today.
He parried several questions about the heated race for the Democratic nomination, joking the audience was trying to put him in hot water.
"Now, you know what you're doing, you're putting me on the spot here," he laughed. "But it's OK. I've been in the hot seat before."
Lewis soon abandoned his hesitance to declare Americans were open to electing a black president, and predicted Obama will win the Democratic nomination and go on to become president. Lewis had backed Clinton, but then decided in late February to endorse Obama. Obama won the Georgia primary February 5.
"I'm convinced he will be elected," he said. "I believe the American people are ready."
Lewis said a win for Obama would send ripples throughout the globe.
"We will send a message to citizens of the world that America can be looked upon as a model for diversity and a new kind of leadership," he said.
Lewis is a member of the Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives and a Democratic superdelegate -- one of the elected officials and party leaders who are not bound by the results of primary elections or caucuses when they vote on the party's presidential nominee at its August convention in Denver. E-mail to a friend
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/30/lewis.wright/index.html#cnnSTCText
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Trojan Baseball Coaching Staff
Lee Boyd: Head Coach
email-lee.boyd@lowndes.k12.ms.us
twitter- @BoydLNHBB
Lee Boyd begins his 14th season overall and is returning for his 10th season as the head coach of the Trojans. Boyd has been named The Commercial Dispatch Large School’s Coach of the year 5 times (2010, 2011, 2013, 2014 and 2017). He was also named MHSAA Class 5A Coach of the Year in 2013 and 2014. In 2014, the MAC (Mississippi Association of Coaches) named Boyd the state’s baseball coach of the year and the NFHS (National Federation of State High School Associations) also named him Mississippi’s Baseball Coach of the year. Following a state runner-up finish in 2018, Boyd was named the NEMCABB Class 4A Coach of the year. Boyd has been selected to coach the MHSAA all-star game in 2014 and the NEMCABB all-star game in 2017. He has also been a guest speaker at the MS Association of Coaches Clinic in Jackson.
In his nine seasons at New Hope, Boyd has a nine-year record of 226-79 and has seen several of his players sign to play college baseball. Currently, the program has 13 players on college rosters and one (Will Golsan, Colorado Rockies Organization) in professional baseball. Boyd has led the Trojans to the North State Championship Series (Final 4) in 6 of the last 7 seasons, winning 3 of those series to advance to the State Championship. Under Boyd, the Trojans have been nationally ranked twice. (2014 and 2015)
The most successful seasons for Boyd came in 2013 and 2014. The 2013 team finished at 27-9 and won the state championship against defending champion Pascagoula in 3 games. It was the first title for the Trojans in 10 seasons. The 2014 team won the division and made its way back to North State and defeated rival Oxford to advance to the state championship. The Trojans were matched up against South State Winner West Jones and won a hard-fought series in 3 games to win back to back state championships for the 1sttime in school history. The 2014 team jumped back in the national polls for the 1sttime since 2005 at #20 by Baseball America.
The Trojans have also had recent success on the diamond. In 2015, the Trojans finished at 25-7 as the North State Runner-up and were ranked #7 in the state by Maxpreps.com and #20 Nationally by Maxpreps.com medium school poll. The 2016 team made a run to the 3rdround of the playoffs and finished the season ranked #19 by Maxpreps.com. The 2017 team started slow but ended up finishing as the North State Runner up with a 21-14 record and ranked #23 in state by Maxpreps.com.
Last season, (2018) was special as the Trojans won the division and were crowned the class 4A North State Champion. NH made its way back to Jackson to compete in the state championship vs Vancleave. The Trojans ended up losing the series to finish as the Class 4A State Runner up. NH had a final record of 29-7 and ranked #13 in the state by prepbaseballreport.com.
Before taking over the New Hope program in the fall of 2009, Boyd was an assistant under head coach Brian Jones at Neshoba Central High School in Philadelphia, MS from 2007-2009. Before joining the staff at Neshoba, Boyd was an assistant under head coach Jeff Cook at Columbus High School. His first coaching experience came during a one year stop as the head coach at Immanuel (Columbus Christian School) in Columbus.
A native of Columbus, Boyd attended high school at New Hope and was a three-year starter for the Trojans. During his three years as a starter, the Trojans collected three district championships, a North State runner-up finish, and a North State championship.
After graduation Coach Boyd began his collegiate career by signing with East Mississippi Community College. During his freshman campaign, he was named second team All-Region. After two seasons at EMCC, Boyd signed with the University of West Alabama. As a junior, he was named second team All Gulf South Conference after going 6-1 with two saves in 23 appearances out of the Tiger bullpen. During his senior campaign, he was named preseason All GSC. He finished his college career by going 5-1 with two saves and helped the Tigers finish with a 45-19 record, which is currently the most wins in the program’s history. The 2005 Tigers also won the GSC title and earned a birth in the NCAA Div II Regional. Boyd finished his two year UWA career with an 11-2 record which is good for 2ndall time at UWA in career winning percentage.
Boyd earned a Bachelor’s degree in History Education from UWA in 2005 and a Master’s degree in Physical Education from UWA in 2008. Boyd, 35, and his wife Allison have been married since June of 2006. They have 2 children, daughter Audrey (8) and son Brady (5). They both attend New Hope Elementary.
Boyd Year by Year
Overall 226-79
Division 57-23 (4 Division Titles)
Playoffs 55-20 (3-time North State Runner up, 3 North State Championships, 2 State Championships)
Year Record Result
2018 29-7 District Champions, Class 4A North State Champions, Class 4A State Runner up
2017 21-14 Class 5A North State Runner-up
2016 20-12 3rd round of playoffs
2015 25-7 Class 5A North State Runner-up
2014 32-4 District Champions, Class 5A North State Champions, Class 5A State Champions
2013 27-9 Class 5A North State Champions, Class 5A State Champions
2012 25-9 District Champions, Class 5A North State Runner-up
2011 24-9 3rd round of playoffs
2010 23-8 District Champions, 2nd round of playoffs
Final Rankings by Season
2018 #12 by Maxpreps.com, #13 by Prepbaseballreport.com
2017 #23 by Maxpreps.com
2015 #7 by Maxpreps.com, #20 Nationally by Maxpreps.com Medium School Poll
2014 #2 by Maxpreps.com, #4 by Clarion-Ledger, #20 Nationally by Baseball America
2013 #12 by Maxpreps.com, #12 by Clarion-Ledger
2010 # 22 by Maxpreps.com
Jared Garrett: Assistant Varsity Coach
Twitter- @JGarrettNHBB
Email- jared.garrett@lowndes.k12.ms.us
Jared Garrett is entering his 3rd season with the New Hope Baseball program and 2nd as the varsity assistant. Coach Garrett is a 2006 graduate of New Hope High School. After graduation, he went on to serve in the military for 4 years. Prior to coming to NH, he has been an assistant coach at Starkville High School (2016) and Columbus High School (2014). In 2015, Garrett started his career as the head baseball coach at Columbus Christian School. His main responsibilies will be to run the junior varsity team and work with outfielders and hitters. Coach Garrett earned his Bachelor's of Science degree from Mississippi State University in 2014. Garrett, 30, and his wife Annie Cate have been married for three years. She is also an elementary teacher at New Hope Elementary School.
Joel Robertson: Freshman Coach
Joel Robertson is entering his 4th season as an assistant coach. Coach Robertson will be in charge of the 9th grade program and assist with the JV/Varsity. Prior to joining the staff at NH, Coach Robertson was as assistant coach at Winona High School for 8 seasons. He is a 1995 graduate of Winona High School. He is a 2008 graduate of Mississippi State University with a Bachelor's Degree in PE/Health. Joel's wife Rachel is a teacher at NHHS. They have six children, Chandler (20) Grace (15) Ndy (13) Huntley (11) Emma (10) and Nolan (6).
Tyler Neal: Junior High Coach
Tyler Neal is entering his 4th season with the New Hope Baseball Program. He spent the 2016 season on staff at Long Beach High School. Neal was a volunteer student assistant on the 2015 staff. His main responsibilities will be to run the Junior High Program and assist with the JV/V. Coach Neal graduated in 2009 from Edinburg High School where he was a 4-year starter. After graduation, Neal signed with East Central Community College to continue his baseball career. After finishing at ECCC, Neal went on the Mississippi State University and graduated in 2015 with a bachelor's degree in kinesiology. Coach Neal, 26, and his wife Keeton both teach at New Hope Middle School. They have 1 daughter, Evie Kate, who was born in November of 2018.
Nich Morrow: Assistant Junior High Coach
Nich Morrow is entering his 1st season at New Hope as the junior assistant coach. He has previously coached as an assistant at Choctaw County High School and Eupora High School. Coach Morrow graduated high school from East Webster in 2011. After graduating, he served for 6 years in the Mississippi Army National Guard. Coach Morrow received his Bachelor of Science degree from Mississippi State University in May of 2017. He has one child, Christian, who is 3 years old.
Brandon Williams: Student Coach
Brandon WIlliams is entering his 1st season with the New Hope baseball program as a student assistant for the 2019 baseball season. He is a 2015 graduate of Grenada High School where he was a three year starter before earning all state honors as a senior. He continued his baseball career at Itawamba Community College where he spent the 2015-2017 seasons as a middle infielder. He is now a senior at MIssissippi State University and is majoring in Secondary Education with a focus on Social Studies.
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Published on Investing in Health
Equity Is a Must on the Road to Universal Health Coverage
Caroline Ly
Michael Kent Ranson
Many countries around the world are working to ensure that all people can access the quality health services they need without suffering financial hardship. Countries have committed to reaching universal health coverage (UHC) by 2030 as part of the global Sustainable Development Goals.
However, recent evidence from countries undertaking these reforms shows that while countries are often able to make strides in expanding health coverage and financial protection, inequities can persist and even widen on the path to UHC when an equity lens is not applied to reforms.
To help address this issue, ministers of health and finance, along with academics and other partners, are gathering this week for the Third Annual Universal Health Coverage Financing Forum (AUHCFF). With participants from 65 countries in attendance, the two-day forum, which takes place on April 19 to 20, will engage these critical policymakers in sharing country experiences and proposing solutions to best mobilize resources and shape health financing to achieve equity and access to health services.
By bringing the finance and health sectors together, the AUHCFF, which is co-hosted by the World Bank Group and USAID, creates one of the only global spaces that convenes key actors to help accelerate progress in countries towards sustainable financing for the expansion of health services and access.
With less than 5,000 days left to go to achieve the global target on UHC, current progress is too slow. As countries determine how best to accelerate progress, they must also take into consideration that improving health outcomes will require that poor and marginalized populations have access to good quality services with a minimized burden of out-of-pocket spending. By ensuring a sustained equitable approach to financing health services, countries on the path toward UHC will also be on a path toward self-reliance.
However, this may require policymakers to balance decisions between improving equity and other objectives, such as improving efficiency, population health, stimulating employment or economic growth. The AUHCFF will provide an opportunity to discuss and explore how health financing can achieve equity on the road to UHC. It will shine a spotlight on UHC reforms, including public and private sector approaches, that aim to achieve the equitable distribution for financing health services as well as the equitable use of services based on health needs.
This year’s Forum builds on two previous UHC financing forums. The first Forum in 2016 focused on resource mobilization and how to generate revenue, through country-driven means, to meet the needs of populations for good quality health services and financial protection. The second Forum in 2017 debated strategic policies and practical interventions to help governments use health system resources more efficiently.
The Third Annual Universal Health Coverage Financing Forum (AUHCFF) will take place on April 19 to 20, 2018, at the Washington Hilton Hotel. Follow the conversation on Twitter at #UHCfinance. For more information visit the Forum’s website.
Health Economist
More Blogs By Caroline
Senior Health Economist
More Blogs By Michael
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Bodleian Map Room Blog
Items of interest from the wonderful world of maps
A battle plan from the Second Opium War
Sketch illustrating the action fought on the 18th of September 1860… is an example of a type of map called a Battle Plan. Created by historians to illustrate books on campaigns these types of map have also been used for educational purposes or for items for sale to the general public. The Bodleian holds in its collection a large number of such plans; the Napoleonic wars, the American Civil War and numerous colonial conflicts in Africa are just a few examples available to consult. This plan is of the battle of Chang-Chia-Wan, fought between French and British forces and the Chinese between 1857 and 1860 during the Second Opium War over trade restrictions, hostility to British settlers and the selling of opium in the West.
Divisions are indicated by the rectangular blocks and troop and cavalry movements shown by lines of advance. The use of the rectangular box to indicate units of troops is a long established practise which continued up to and past the Second World War, the main difference between the old and the new being that divisions got bigger as the areas of conflict grew, and maps as detailed as this, which has a scale of 2 inches to a mile, become less relevant as whole fronts are depicted.
Judging by the marble design on the verso of the map and the tag (not shown) at the top of the map this is most probably a fold-out from a book. Single sheet maps from the time don’t usually have the elaborate marble pattern on the back that this one has.
Marbling is created when paints are floated onto a gum solution and then swirled into patterns, paper is then laid on top of the pattern which is transferred on to the paper and then dried.
It is interesting to note that the map is lithographed by Col. Sir Henry James, Director-General of the Ordnance Survey. A second map from the Opium Wars shows the situation between the 1st and 21st of August and the taking of the Taku forts (D5:17 (30)).
Sketch illustrating the action fought on the 18th of September, 1860 by the allied armies in China taken from the road survey made by Lieut: Colonel Wolseley, D.A.Q.M.G. and Lieut: Harrison, Rl. Engineers [1861]. D5:17 (29)
This entry was posted in History, Military on 10 March 2016 by stuart.
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The Atlantic Charter
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The Grand Junction Railway
Views from the sea
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Not Nearly Enough Baseball
After my appearance on "Jeopardy!" in mid-April, I heard from a lot of people who said "too bad baseball wasn't a category," and I couldn't agree more. What they didn't realize was how close I did come to having baseball as a category. My show was taped in early February, a perfect time to escape winter's grip in Cooperstown and head to sunny southern California. I was lucky that I got to make two trips, because it was much sunnier there the second time.
"Jeopardy!" tapes five shows a day, and I was extremely eager to play in the first game of the day -- not because I was more awake than the other contestants (far from it), but because it would air on my birthday. Randomness is the guiding factor in running the show, however, and my randomness turned out to be shaky. Every morning of taping, the show's producers bring six complete game boards with them, which they turn over to the outside company which oversees randomness and other components of fairness. This system of safeguards is the residue of that little quiz-show scandal they had a half-century ago, and which led Merv Griffin's wife to suggest that instead of dishonestly giving contestants the answers to questions already posed, they create a show where contestants are given the answers and have to provide the questions. Voila! Game-show history. So the outside company chooses which five of the six game boards will be used that day, and in which order. Meanwhile, the day's new contestants gather in the green room, have their names put on index cards which are shuffled and scrambled into randomness. Two at a time are picked, and those are the challengers for the next game.
So I had big hopes for playing that first game and starting a week-long run on the show. But no. I didn't get picked for the first game, and had to remain on the sidelines with the other players, sequestered like a jury, not allowed to talk to anyone except each other, lest we get information from someone who had seen the game boards. Imagine my dismay when they revealed the "Double Jeopardy" categories and the first one was "Baseball". My hands flew up in the air in a gesture of dismay, and the people around me snickered. "Too bad for you," someone whispered. No shit, Sherlock. The five clues were easy, and assuming I had buzzed in first I would have picked up a cool $6,000 on the category. Instead, when I played I got "Double Jeopardy" categories like Physics, Marine Life, Business Talk, World Religion, and Native Americans. Not exactly my wheelhouse.
I had to wait until the final game of the day to get my chance to play. One of the first-round categories was on the NFL, and I didn't buzz in first until the $800 clue, which I got along with the $1,000 clue. That helped me build up a sizable lead by the end of the show, even without any baseball references in sight. Winning that first game was the rush of a lifetime. My mother was on "Jeopardy!" the first year it was on the air, 1964, and I remember going to Rockefeller Center with her for the taping, sitting in the audience while Art Fleming read out the answers, and watching with dismay as she lost to the show's first five-time winner. He won $6,000 in his five games, the amount I would have made just from that Baseball category on my birthday show if chance had acted differently. Still, after a mere 44-year wait, I had redeemed my mother's frustrating loss. Leaving the studio, I was asked by an audience member for an autograph, which will have to count as a sort of baseball moment, a star rookie performer giving a new fan a souvenir.
There was another baseball connection on that first show. One of my opponents--the other challenger--was a woman from Spartanburg, South Carolina. After the show, we talked about her cousin: Shoeless Joe Jackson. Her grandfather played semi-pro ball with Jackson during the 1920s, and she was knowledgeable about the banned outfielder. After the show aired last month, someone sent me a link to the Spartanburg newspaper and its headline about the local woman appearing on "Jeopardy!" The article began "A local woman nearly staged a come-from-behind victory on Friday's episode" of the show. The phrasing intrigued me. At the end of "Double Jeopardy" she had $2,300 and I had $19,600, twice as much as the defending champion, so I had the victory cinched, especially over her. It made me wonder how the folks in Spartanburg, South Carolina define "nearly". Then it dawned on me; they define the word as in "The South nearly staged a come-from-behind victory in the Civil War."
By winning the last show taped one week, I got to return to Los Angeles the following week to defend my championship. Things didn't go as well. I had a small lead after "Double Jeopardy," had to bet almost everything I had, and missed the final question, going down in flames like a doomed fighter pilot in that "most magnificent competition" of all, war. That's show biz!
I heard from a lot of friends around the country after the games aired, and a few people actually wrote to ask "how could you not get the Rangers question?" Yes, there was a baseball question on the second show. The category was Texas, and the clue was about the team that plays its home games in Arlington. Some friends felt compelled to chide me for NOT KNOWING that it was the Rangers. I felt compelled to ask them, "how can you not know that there's more to the game than knowing the answer?" In fact, knowing the answer is the easy part of the game. Most of the contestants know most of the answers. The key is buzzing in first, which is a matter of quick reflexes and timing. I just didn't buzz in fast enough on that clue. I work at the Hall of Fame; trust me, folks, I know where the teams play.
In all the years I've been watching "Jeopardy!" I can't remember seeing Baseball as the "Final Jeopardy" category--until just six shows after the one I lost. I was astonished to see it: "Baseball Terms". The answer was a quote I hadn't seen before, about how "Slugger Willie Stargell described it as 'a butterfly with hiccups'." That was easy enough to figure out. The full quote is a dandy: "Throwing a knuckleball for a strike is like throwing a butterfly with hiccups across the street into your neighbor's mailbox." Only one of the three contestants that day got it, so that was another game where I would have kicked ass. All I needed to do was win six more games and chance would have broken in my favor. It turns out that there was plenty of baseball in the vicinity during the games that aired in mid-April, but not nearly enough in the games I got to play. Oh well--it sure was fun while it lasted.
All That Snake Jazz
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Noise And Silence
The Independent newspaper ran a fun little article about a production of the Austrian playwright Peter Handke's The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other. The play consists of 60 pages of stage directions, with no dialogue. In the National Theatre production which opened this week in London, 27 performers play 450 parts in 90 word-free minutes.
Journalist Andy McSmith professes to being bemused by the production. He cites other wordless plays like Beckett's Act Without Words shorts, but puts their lack of dialogue down to the fact that they're only a few minutes long. Yet despite his befuddlement, McSmith's take on Handke's drama is an engaging read: His descriptions of the actors processing across the stage like old men, the thumps and screams, and the finale in which an actor sitting in the audience gets up on stage, make the work sound rather compelling. I especially like the idea that the lack of spoken words causes an explosion of dialogue in the audience at the end: "After the final curtain, instead of the silence that usually follows the completion of a drama, there was a torrent of conversation, as if everyone had to make up for all that missing dialogue," McSmith writes. "They talked in their seats, in the aisles, and on their way through the exit. It was happy chatter."
I haven't seen the play, but I've read it. The work isn't so much trying, as McSmith attests, to "make some point about people's inability to communicate." It's more about the myriad different ways that people communicate -- from the joy of movement to the power of locking eyes across a town square. Language is just one method of interacting. It's the most direct, perhaps, which is why the audience broke out into enthusiastic chatter at the end in the National's production.
Perhaps McSmith let himself get bamboozled by the venue. If The Hour We Knew Nothing Of Each Other had been performed at The Sadler's Wells or The Royal Ballet by dancers rather than actors, then no one would have considered the wordlessness out of the ordinary. It's funny how often peoples' perceptions of theatre -- mine included -- are bound by conventional spoken language.
Here's a little weekend reading for anyone interested in delving into Handke's play.
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Leroy Robert "Satchel" Paige (July 7, 1906 – June 8, 1982) may have been born anywhere between 1900 and 1908. He may have gotten his nickname as a young baggage-handler from jerryrigging a pole to carry four bags at once - or because he was once caught swiping a suitcase. Depends on who you ask.
Satchel was born in Mobile, Alabama. Entering reform school for shoplifing at the age of 12, he was mentored by Edward Byrd who taught him his loping pitching style. Release early from a five year gig, Satchel went semi-pro. As was common in those days, especially for black players, he played wherever and whenever he could, not only for the team he had a contract with, but off-season games (in Cuba, for example) and “barnstorming” where you might often get to watch a mixed-race game. In 1931 he played for the Cleveland Cubs as part of the Negro League. Playing in a city that also had a white, professional team, had an effect on Paige.
"I'd look over at the Cleveland Indians' stadium, called League Park. All season long it burned me, playing there in the shadow of that stadium. It didn't hurt my pitching, but it sure didn't do me any good."
In 1936 Paige was playing for the Pittsburgh Crawfords.
The Cleveland News - Friday, July 3
Colored Aces to Play Here Sunday
Negro National League baseball will return to Cleveland Sunday with a double-header at League Park between the Homestead Grays and Pittsburgh Crawfords, for years two of the strongest clubs in the loop.
Satchel Paige of the Crawfords rated the biggest crowd pleaser among the colored ball players is expected to pitch one of the two games here. He humiliated the Homestead team two years ago before 12,000 fans, turning them back without a hit.
As a member of the Negro League All-Stars he also barnstormed in Cleveland that summer, facing off against 17 year-old Bob Feller. Each pitched three innings, giving up one hit. Feller struck out eight, Paige seven.
In 1948 at the age of 42, Satchel Paige joined the Cleveland Indians. He is the oldest rookie in the history of the Major Leagues.
The Cleveland News
Labels: baseball, Bob Feller, Cleveland Cubs, Cleveland Indians, Cleveland News, Satchel Paige, Wikipedia
beedie December 11, 2010 at 6:05 AM
I had no idea he was so old when he was hired by the Indians.
Racism sucks.
pengo December 11, 2010 at 7:51 AM
"Racism sucks." You must be a writer.
The Year In Review (1936)
Cleveland Municipal Stadium
Blackwing Sketchbook
Heater From Van Meter
Ohio Criminal Syndicalism Act
Cedar-Lee Theatre
Western Reserve University
Bay Village
"A second Boston Tea Party!"
Sterling Lindner Davis Department Store
Christmas Comes But Once A Year (1936)
My Trip To Lubberland
George Gund
Cleveland Trust Company
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After-School Programs Can Help Lift Students at Risk
By Michael Brown, Special to the Times
Saturday, June 4, 2016 8:51am
Michael Brown, executive director of After School All-Stars Tampa, says programs like his boost students’ performance.
After School All-Stars Michael Brown, executive director of After School All-Stars Tampa, says programs like his boost students’ performance.
Money magazine recently described Tampa as an “urban gem” and ranked it best large city in the Southeastern United States. Affordable house prices and low unemployment rates were two criteria used to explain this distinction as well as Tampa’s growing infrastructure, extensive network of beaches and unbridled ambition.
None of this was a surprise to me. Tampa is home and I consider it one of the finest cities in America. I am pleased that it is getting the positive recognition it deserves. However, it is important that while acknowledging our successes we not ignore the challenges that still affect too many of our fellow citizens.
Tampa struggles with problems like poverty, homelessness and income mobility. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2013 Hillsborough County ranked fourth out of Florida’s 67 counties for people living in poverty. In 2012, Hillsborough had the highest rate of homelessness in the nation, according to a report compiled by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, and a recent Harvard University study ranked Hillsborough County 98th out of the 100 largest counties when it comes to income mobility for poor families.
These are frightening statistics, but I fundamentally believe quality education can provide the antidote to each of these problems. However, when I talk about education, I think it is important that we consider it holistically.
Quality education encompasses more than just academics and a school day that runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Quality education needs to include health and wellness learning, character development, community service projects and a school day that mirrors parents’ work schedules.
Students, especially those in challenged communities, need to understand the value and practicality of their efforts and must have a safe space to continue their development once classes end. They need results-driven programming and access to comprehensive after-school programs.
The organization that I work for, After-School All-Stars, provides free after-school programs designed to keep students safe and to help them build skill sets that allow them to succeed in school and life. We offer a curriculum that balances academics, health and fitness and enrichment learning, and we operate from 3 to 6 p.m. five days a week.
After-School All-Stars recently launched its first chapter in Tampa at Memorial Middle School in Seminole Heights. Ninety-five percent of Memorial’s students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches and close to a third of the student body has been absent more than 10 percent of the school year and/or has been suspended at least once.
Despite these challenges, the school is filled with potential and is led by a dedicated group of teachers and administrators. We are eager to work with the Memorial Middle School team on creating a more holistic educational environment for its students. Together we can reduce the truancy and suspension rates at the school and improve overall academic performance.
After-school programs have a well-documented record of success at improving student attendance, performance and behavior. More difficult to quantify but just as important, after-school programs also improve the cultures of the schools they operate in. I recently spoke to a teacher at Memorial Middle School who feels that she has more credibility with her students than she did before the program started. She also told me a wonderful story about a student of hers who regularly attends class just so he can go to our after-school program later in the day.
After-school programs can’t provide solutions to all the challenges facing communities in Tampa, but they can help many of the city’s most-at-risk students obtain a fun and positive educational experience. After-School All-Stars is already hard at work with the city of Tampa, Hillsborough County School District and philanthropic partners like the New York Life Foundation to ensure everyone in Tampa can say with certainty that they live in the best large city in the Southeastern United States.
Michael Brown is executive director of After-School All-Stars Tampa.
© 2016 Tampa Bay Times
Posted on June 4, 2016 Author WeblineDesignsCategories National Media Coverage
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