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How to get Planning Permission for Brownfield Land
Previously developed land can offer an easier way to your dream home – but there are challenges to be aware of before you buy this kind of plot, says Mike Dade
The term ‘brownfield land’ is much used in the media, where it’s often heralded as the logical focus for new large-scale housing development.
The phrase may conjure up images of acres of post-industrial degradation, but brownfield plots can provide excellent opportunities for self-builders.
So what exactly does brownfield mean, when might this kind of site be suitable for one-off home building projects and – should you find one – what are the challenges you might face in securing planning consent?
What is brownfield land?
The word ‘brownfield’ doesn’t actually appear in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), which is the principal statement of government planning policy. Instead, the NPPF refers to previously-developed land. This is more closely defined as:
“… land which is or was occupied by a permanent structure, including the curtilage of the developed land (although it should not be assumed that the whole of the curtilage should be developed) and any associated fixed surface infrastructure.”
The full definition sets out a number of important exclusions, including certain types of land situated in built-up areas, such as private gardens, parks, recreation grounds and allotments.
In rural locations, land occupied by agricultural or forestry buildings is also omitted, along with that used for mineral extraction and landfill. If the remains of permanent structures have blended into the landscape over time, these types of site are also barred from the brownfield definition.
The Mays were finally able to convert this old hay barn when national planning policy changed to encourage the conversion of disused agricultural buildings for housing
Since then, permitted development rights have been implemented to enable this kind of change of use – subject to a prior approval procedure. Click the image to read the full story
The exclusion of private gardens is significant. These types of plot were included in the past, which led to a rash of high-density developments, accusations of ‘garden grabbing’ in the media and an inevitable backlash. This culminated in gardens being redefined.
Interestingly, however, the latest draft London Plan appears to be looking again at the suburbs as a potential source of land for housing, and refers to higher densities being desirable to meet demand.
Brownfield registers
Recent legislation requires councils to set up and keep registers of brownfield land. Local authorities are supposed to include all brownfield plots suitable for housing on Part 1 of their registers. They must then assess those sites and, where possible, grant planning permission in principle. Those with consent then go on a Part 2 register.
There’s a minimum size threshold of 0.25 hectares or land suitable for five dwellings, although councils do have some discretion to include smaller sites. These registers could become a useful plot finding tool, as they contain information on ownership, planning, suitability and availability for housing.
Under the Right to Build legislation (which is technically known as the Self-build and Custom Housebuilding Regulations), councils are also obliged to keep a roster of everybody keen to self-build in their area. As part of this duty, they must also ensure there’s a sufficient supply of serviced plots to meet the demand identified on their Right to Build registers.
Read more: Complete Guide to Right to Build
It will be interesting to see to what degree councils turn to their brownfield registers when seeking to identify land suitable for self-build projects.
Should I prioritise this kind of plot?
The fact that a plot is considered to be brownfield isn’t a panacea for gaining planning permission. In theory, these sites are subject to the same policy constraints as any other site.
So, broadly, if the plot is inside a development or built-up area boundary defined in a Local Plan, then it should be suitable for a new dwelling. If it’s outside such a boundary, and therefore in a zone that’s considered to be in the countryside, then house building would usually be unacceptable in principle.
Knock down and rebuild opportunities are a classic brownfield route. The Stewarts replaced a rundown bungalow with a contemporary new home that delivers real wow factor
Situating the main living accommodation and master bedroom on the first floor makes the most of the plot's spectacular views. Click the image to read more
That’s the theory, but in practice it is possible to gain planning permission on brownfield sites in countryside, particularly if they’re a nuisance or an eyesore. Plots on the edge of settlements are often the first place councils consider for new housing (if that settlement is set to expand).
Substantial brownfield sites, such as former hospitals or other government land, are often targeted for large-scale housing developments. The Graven Hill self-build site in Oxfordshire, where over 1,900 individual homes are set to be constructed, is a good example of this, as the land was formerly owned by the Ministry of Defence.
At the single plot end of the scale, small industrial workshops or storage units enjoy permitted development rights for conversion to housing in any case; regardless of whether they’re located in built-up areas or set in the countryside.
So consider whether this approach would be an easier route to creating your dream home. The right to change the use of storage buildings doesn’t apply in areas of outstanding natural beauty or national parks, but you can convert industrial buildings.
You’ll need approval from the local authority before you can exercise these rights, but the council can only consider traffic generation, contamination risk, flood risk, and if the project would impact on business and storage uses in the area. So there’s less subjectivity than with a full planning application.
Brownfield benefits
If you’re self-building on previously-developed land, you may well have the opportunity to show that your scheme will enhance the site and surroundings.
These improvements could be visual – for example you might be replacing unsightly or rundown structures. Or they might help in reducing traffic movements, noise, smells, pollution or just general activity in the area.
Vacant brownfield land may be susceptible to vandalism, too, so local residents are often happy to see it devoted to housing – unlike with greenfield (previously undeveloped) sites. If your project has the potential to enhance nearby residents’ amenities, be sure to point this out by submitting a supporting statement alongside your planning application.
Strength of local support can help to overcome objections from planning officers, but you’ll need to get councillors on board and have your application taken to committee in order for this to be effective.
Brownfield challenges
It’s important to note that these plots can be subject to planning policies that seek to retain employment generating uses.
Some councils apply such policies to established industrial and business sites specified in their Local Plan. If it’s a small site, though, the pressure for new housing is likely to trump retention of the business use, and this should certainly be the case where conversion to residential is already a possibility through permitted development rights.
Brownfield sites (including industrial premises, workshops, garages or petrol stations) can all be susceptible to contamination. If there’s a chance of this, you’ll need to get a survey done to accompany your planning application.
If there is an issue, you’ll then have to agree with the council what will be done to sort it out. Identification and remediation of contamination can add significant cost to your build budget so needs to be carefully considered from the outset of a project.
Perhaps surprisingly, ecology – specifically the presence of protected species – can be a significant issue on brownfield sites. Empty buildings can harbour bats or owls. Vacant land, perhaps with areas of hard surfacing, can be suitable habitat for reptiles, while ponds can harbour newts.
10 Expert Tips to Win Planning Permission on a Garden Plot
How to get Planning Permission in a Conservation Area
Buying Land with a History of Planning Refusals
Where protected species are suspected, again, you’ll need to have this surveyed and include the results with your planning application. If there’s a likelihood of protected species, or their presence is detected, then details of exactly what’s there and how they will be protected during the build will need to be agreed with the council.
As well as the implications for your budget, you also need to think about timing. Many protected species cannot be fully surveyed in winter as they’re hiding away in hibernation. Discovering the need for a survey in November could lead to a five-month delay until it can actually be done in the spring.
Brownfield plots can offer good opportunities for self-builders, including in locations where planning permission might otherwise be hard to get. They also present challenges, however, necessitating a realistic approach to budgeting and project timescales.
Now the new brownfield registers are starting to be compiled, it will be interesting to see whether these help with identifying one-off sites, and how much use councils make of them in meeting their duty to provide plots for people keen to build their own homes.
Top image: Andrew Laing and June Russell found the perfect plot for their new-build Edinburgh city-centre home in the form of a disused car park, which had previously hosted a motorbike repair shop. Read more
Mike Dade
Self Build Planner: Schedule Your Project
Independent Project Management of a Modern Home Renovation
CLPM Project Management
Safety Boots To Help You Tackle Your Home Project
Engelbert Strauss
Simply Extend
Simply Construction Group
Federation of Master Builders
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Vocational training: helping women follow their dreams – February 27 2019
Vocational training: helping women follow their dreams
Empowering women to achieve economic success
For International Women's Day (March 8, 2019), we're telling the stories of women and girls who have been empowered to change their lives.
On the outskirts of Lusaka, Zambia’s capital, is a residential area known as Chaisa. Tucked in one corner of the local shopping center is a small shop called S&J New Fashions. Sherapy Phiri, 32, works here every day, designing and tailoring clothes.
“I opened this store in 2013,” says Sherapy. “I make suits, dresses and shirts for my customers. I also sew school uniforms. On a day that is not too busy, I am able to make four dresses,” she says from behind her sewing machine, with yards of bright fabric as a backdrop.
Sherapy creates modern designs from a traditional cloth, locally known as chitenge.This is a colorful fabric that is a fashion essential in Zambia. She explains that opening the business was a dream she had almost given up on.
“I am the third-born in a family of 10 children. I did not complete primary school, because my parents could not afford to pay my fees beyond grade seven. Shortly after dropping out of school, I got married.
She explains that without a stable income, “life was tough.” She found work in a salon braiding hair, but her real interest was in sewing.
“I looked forward to the day that I would learn to sew and open my own place, but that dream was fading, overshadowed by the daily struggle to survive,” she says.
Vocational training: achieving her dream
One of Sherapy’s neighbors told her that SOS Children’s Villages was helping young people gain skills in order for them to become self-employed.
SOS Children’s Villages runs a Vocational Training Center in Lusaka, which offers a variety of courses such as tailoring, carpentry, joinery and food production. With these skills, students can find employment or become entrepreneurs. Since the training center opened in 2005, it has educated more than 1,600 young people.
Sherapy’s application to the vocational training center was successful. She started a one-year course in tailoring in January 2012. She then applied to study entrepreneurship through the Junior Achievement Program, a global non-profit organization that inspires young people to start and manage their own businesses.
“Step by step, I learnt how to sew, cut and design. In the entrepreneurship class, I learnt how to run a business. I learnt a lot,” says Sherapy, smiling.
After completing her training, she found employment as a tailor of school uniforms. SOS Children’s Villages also asked her to sew 1,000 uniforms for the SOS Hermann Gmeiner School. “This was my breakthrough. The money I earned from that contract enabled me to buy my first second-hand sewing machine, pay rent for shop space, and stock up on fabric, ribbons, buttons, needles and threads. That is when I quit my job and started working for myself.”
To enable her business to grow, Sherapy needed human resources, and she found these in her two younger sisters. Recently, she bought a second sewing machine.
Empowering her sisters and daughters
“I taught one of my sisters to sew, and the other one was taught by my aunt. I believe that to succeed at anything, you need to be able to work with others. If I were alone, what would happen in the unlikely event that I fell sick? That would mean the business would shut down. I decided to empower my sisters. We make about 2,000 Kwacha ($200 USD) per month. After paying rent, we share the remainder equally.”
The mother of two girls, 12 and 10 years old, is enthusiastic that her children have a chance at a better childhood than she did.
“I would like my children to get a good education and have more opportunities than me. One of my daughters says she wants to be a teacher, and the other one wants to become a doctor. I want to help them achieve their dreams. As for me, I would like to stop sewing one day and instead pass on this skill to other young people. I hope to be a tailoring instructor,” says Sherapy.
“I am so happy about the Vocational Training Center, because it empowers people regardless of their academic qualifications. I am a school dropout who could not even speak English. I have since learnt to speak a bit of it. The SOS team encouraged me to use the skills they taught me to better my life and not to just sit at home. I followed that advice, and my dream and life plans have become a reality.”
Empower more women to build sustainable careers! Please make a donation to support our economic empowerment programs worldwide.
Photo by Tom Maruko
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Our work with children in Pakistan
Our children's charity in Pakistan since 1975
SOS Children's Villages has been working with children and their families in Pakistan since 1975. As a result of natural disasters, political unrest, as well as civil war and military disputes in the various regions, the people of Pakistan have been exposed to a life of great social misery, which has affected children in particular. SOS Children's Villages has provided permanent support in the form of health care, education and counselling to families in need. In addition, when natural disasters have struck, SOS Children's Villages has provided Pakistan with relief aid. At present, there are ten SOS Children's Villages in Pakistan, six SOS Youth Facilities, six SOS Hermann Gmeiner Schools, five SOS Vocational Training Centres, five SOS Social Centres, one SOS Medical Centre, and two SOS Emergency Relief Programmes. Two SOS Children’s Villages and one Hermann Gmeiner school are under construction.
Some facts about Pakistan
Emergency relief after the floods - photo: SOS Archives
Pakistan is one of the most populous countries in the world with a population of around 187 million (July 2011 est.). The capital city is Islamabad, which is home to over 900,000 people.
The present day Republic came into existence in 1956, nine years after the area gained independence from the British Empire. In 1971, the area known as East Pakistan became Bangladesh. The decades that followed partition saw periods of military dictatorship interspersed with civilian rule. In addition, violent conflicts within the national boundaries and in neighbouring countries have added to the political and social instability.
A fate determined by national disaster and political instability
The people of Pakistan face numerous problems, which include poverty, illiteracy, poor access to health care, corruption and terrorism. About a quarter of the population lives under the nationally-established poverty line, with rural areas and areas of conflict being the poorest. Agriculture continues to play an important part in the Pakistani economy. However, recent reforms have increased the role of manufacturing and the financial service sector.
Although the economy had been growing in recent years, it slowed down in 2008-2009, and the unemployment figure rose to 15 per cent in 2011. Shortages in the electricity supply resulted in industry shutting down as well as food and fuel prices rising, which led to street protests. Economic development is further hampered by natural disasters and military conflicts.
On 8 October 2005, northern Pakistan experienced the most debilitating earthquake in the country's history. According to government figures, approximately 73,000 people died, over 2.8 million were left without shelter, and about 2.3 million were without adequate food. Another natural disaster struck in 2010: Pakistan suffered the worst monsoon floods recorded in its history, which destroyed livelihoods and affected more than 20 million people.
It is estimated that over three million people have been displaced by the conflicts in north-west Pakistan. Further conflicts in Kashmir and Punjab have caused additional human misery. In 2001, military action in neighbouring Afghanistan caused millions of refugees to flee across the borders in search of safety. It is estimated that over a million refugees are still in the country.
Life expectancy and literacy rates vary according to region, gender and age. In general terms, Pakistan has both a low literacy rate and a low life expectancy rate. Men, those who are young, and those who live in urban areas are more likely to be literate than women, those who live in rural areas, and older people. Life expectancy for men is 64 years while for women it is 67 years.
Situation of the children in Pakistan
There are around 79 million children living in Pakistan. The decades of political turmoil and the aftermath of natural disasters have affected the lives of millions of children. It is estimated that in the 2010 floods alone, ten million children lost their homes and their belongings, and no longer have access to health care and education.
Refugees after the floods - photo: B. Neeleman
Many families simply cannot afford to send their children to school or take them to the doctor. Poverty forces children to go out to work. Often, children who have moved to urban areas with their families are found working - selling goods or shining shoes - on the city streets.
Only 63 per cent of Pakistani children finish primary school; most of these live in urban areas. Girls are less likely to attend or finish school than boys, and their education often suffers further due to early marriage. Before the 2010 floods it was estimated that one in three girls was married before they reached the age of 18. The post-flood number is believed to be higher.
SOS Children's Villages in Pakistan
SOS Children's Villages meets the needs of children and their families in 12 locations in Pakistan. When children can no longer stay with their families, they can find a loving home in one of the SOS families. Since the illiteracy rate remains at a high level in spite of concerted efforts on the part of the government, the SOS Hermann Gmeiner Schools make an important contribution to education in eight locations in Pakistan. Young people can attend vocational training courses which focus on preparing them for a working life as car mechanics, electrical engineers or plumbers to give just a few examples. While they attend vocational training or higher education, they can stay at special houses provided by SOS Children's Villages. There they are guided on their path to an independent life with the help of professionals.
Health care and support for families at risk are an important part of SOS Children's Villages' work in Pakistan. Social centres are staffed with people who are able to assist local communities and specialist medical staff is at hand to deal with medical issues. In response to natural disasters, SOS Emergency Relief Programmes have provided the victims with food packages, medicines and tents, as well as helping them rebuild their lives.
Website of SOS Children's Villages Pakistan
(available in English)
WWH - Sponsor a Child
Give a child a strong start to life.
WWH - Donate
Make a difference. Become part of the SOS family today.
Donate for a child
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St. John UMC
Address and Location:
550 Mt Paran Road NW
Sandy Springs, GA, 30327
Located between Powers Ferry Road and Northside Drive
3 miles east of I-75
2 miles west of Roswell Road
There is ample visitor parking right outside the main entrance to the church. Look for the blue "Visitor Parking" signs.
complImentary coffee:
Starting at 8:45 am
Every Sunday morning at 10:30 am (until around 11:30 am)
Sunday School & Small Groups:
Every Sunday morning at 9:30 am.
What Can you expect at St. John during worship service?
What about kids during worship service?
Children of any age are welcome to stay with their families in the sanctuary throughout the worship service.
For children birth to 3 years, we have nursery service available starting at 9:15 am through 12:00 noon.
In addition, during worship service immediately following "Children's Moment," children ages 3 through first grade may attend our "Extended Session" (an age-appropriate worship experience) in room 10 if their parents wish.
For a detailed list of Sunday morning options for kids, click HERE.
What about before worship service?
We have many small group and Sunday School offerings for adults, youth and children. They all meet at 9:30 am in various parts of the church complex. For more information about adult small groups, click HERE. A nursery is available for children from birth to 3 years starting at 9:15 am. For Sunday School options for older children, click HERE. For youth information, click HERE.
It's important for visitors to know what kind of church they're visiting. We are a church that prays, that reads the Bible and that believes fully in God, the father, Jesus Christ, the savior son, and the active Holy Spirit. For a more detailed outline of what we believe, click HERE.
For more information about St. John UMC, please feel free to: (1) contact the front office at (404) 255-1384 or at office@stjohnatlanta.org, (2) email anyone on staff (click HERE for staff information), or (3) fill out the contact form below:
Thank you for reaching out to us! Someone will get back with you shortly.
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Dental Professionals Straumann Group Patiënten
EAO 2015
Straumann at the EAO 2015
Stockholm, Sweden - September 24-26, 2015
"Evidence based treatment solutions"
Straumann Satellite Industry Symposium - September, 24th, 2015
Introduction into the clinical and scientific aspects of the corporate forum - Chatchai Kunvisarut, DDS, MS
Moderator: Chatchai Kunvisarut, DDS, MS, Thailand
Chatchai Kunvisarut received his DDS (with honors) from Prince of Songkla University, Thailand in 1994. He received Master of Science in Prosthodontics from the University of North Carolina at Chapell Hill in 2000. During his training , he was awarded the 2nd place John J Sharry Prosthodontics Research Award from the American College of Prosthodontics and Turner Award from University of North Carolina. In 2002 he received the ITI scholarship and completed his implant training at the Center for Implant Dentistry, University of Florida.
He is an ITI fellow and ITI Study club co-ordinator for ITI South East Asia section since 2011. He is currently working as a Deputy Dean for Graduate School, Mahidol University, Program director of General Dentistry Residency program and Clinical director for Joint Master program in Implant Dentistry and Dental Surgery, between Mahidol University and, International Medical College, Munster, Germany.
Presentation #1 - Indication based Solutions for hard and soft tissue regeneration - Hom-Lay Wang, DDS, MSD, PhD
Speaker: Hom-Lay Wang, DDS., MSD., Ph D, US
Hom-Lay Wang, DDS., MSD., Ph D, Collegiate Professor of Periodontics, Professor and Director of Graduate Periodontics at the University of Michigan. He published more than 25 book chapters/invited reviews and more than 350 scientific articles. Dr. Wang is a member of Leadership Development and Qualification Committee as well as a Consultant of Scientific Oversight Committee for the American Academy of Periodontology and also serves as a Chair of Website Educational Committee as well as a member of Clinical Innovation Committee for the Academy of Osseointegration, is a Diplomate and a Former Chair and Director of the American Board of Periodontology and a Fellow of American College of Dentists as well as American Academy of Osseointegration. He serves as an Associate Editor for The International Journal of Oral & Maxillofacial Implants and Founding Editorial board member for Clinical Advances in Periodontics, Editorial Board member for the Journal of Periodontology, Clinical Oral Implants Research, International Journal of Periodontics & Restorative Dentistry, Journal of Clinical Periodontology, Compendium of Continuing Education in Dentistry and many others.
About every second implant treatment needs bone augmentation pre-, during or after implant placement to prevent ridge resorption and to augment ridge width and height for better implant placement and final esthetic appearance.
Soft and hard tissue grafts are currently used for many different implant clinical procedures. These include but are not limited to socket augmentation, immediate implant placement, guided bone regeneration (i.e., sandwich bone augmentation), vertical bone augmentation and sinus augmentation.
This presentation will explain the decision tree for selecting the proper augmentation technique and discuss what kinds of bone grafts and barrier membranes are better suited for these different procedures. Scientific evidence and clinical examples related to these clinical suggestions will be demonstrated.
Presentation #2 - Single implant restorations - which solution in which indication? - Prof. Dr. med. dent. Irena Sailer
Speaker: Prof. Dr. med. dent. Irena Sailer, Switzerland
Irena Sailer is Professor and Head of the Division of Fixed Prosthodontics and Occlusion at the University of Geneva. She received her dental education and Dr. med. dent. degree from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Tübingen, Germany in 1997 and 1998. In 2003 Dr. Sailer was made Assistant Professor at the Clinic of Fixed and Removable Prosthodontics and Dental Material Sciences in Zurich, where she was Associate Professor between 2010 and September 2013. In 2007, Dr. Sailer was a Visiting Scholar at the Department of Biomaterials and Biomimetics, Dental College, New York University, USA. Additionally, since 2009 she has held an Adjunct Associate Professorship at the Department of Preventive and Restorative Sciences, Robert Schattner Center, School of Dental Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, USA
Single implant restorations need to fulfill various demands in anterior and posterior regions, influencing the selection of the type of implant restoration and the materials used. In the anterior region predominantly esthetic factors are of importance for the selection of components and materials. In posterior region high strength of the implant restoration is the determining factor for satisfying outcomes. Evidence exists today with respect to the indications of cemented and screw-retained single implant restorations, and regarding all- ceramic and metal-ceramic implant restorations. Yet, more recently, the evolving CAD/CAM technology opened up new horizons with respect to new materials and fabrication techniques for implant restorations. Monolithic restorations out of ceramics like zirconia or lithium disilicate glass- ceramics in combination with a titanium resin base (e.g. Variobase) offer new ways to restore implants. These restorations can be fabricated lab-side or even chair-side. In addition, new composite-ceramic hybrid materials were introduced, delivered as prefabricated ingots for chair-side or centralized CAD/CAM procedures. A trend towards an increasing application of these more recent types of restorations can be observed. The current evidence will be presented in the present lecture and actual treatment recommendations will be discussed.
Presentation #3 - Implant based Solutions for edentulous patients. Where have we come from and where are we now? - Dr. Daniel Wismeijer
Speaker: Dr. Daniel Wismeijer, The Netherlands
Studied dentistry at the University of Nijmegen Dental School from 1979-1984 After graduating he joined the department of Oral Function and worked in de section of special dental care and Maxillofacial Prosthodontics. He received his PhD in 1996 on the subject of overdentures on dental implants; “The Breda Implant Overdenture Study”. In that year he left Academia. From 1985 till 2006 he worked at the Amphia teaching Hospital in Breda in the department of Oral Surgery and Maxillofacial Prosthodontics.
In 1985 he started a general dental practice which since 1990 is a referral practice for Oral Implantology. Has been president of the Dutch Prosthodontic Association and the Dutch Association for Gnathology. He is an ITI fellow since 1993. In the ITI he has served as a member of the ITI education Core Group for 8 years. Since 2012 he is a member of the ITI research committee in 2013 has been elected as an ITI board member at large and since 2015 he has been elected chairman of the ITI education committee.
In 2006 he accepted the position of Professor of Oral Implantology and Prosthetic Dentistry at ACTA Amsterdam which he combines with his referral practice. He is the head of the section of Oral Implantology and Prosthetic Dentistry.
Protocols for the treatment of edentulous patients with removable or fixed implant prostheses present a variety of options regarding the number of implants, their strategic distribution and the final prosthetic design. These clinical considerations are generally assigned to the highest level of importance. The implant prosthetic design should ideally result from a careful patient selection and diagnostic planning. This allows for the selection of appropriate artificial teeth and their emergence profile as well as occlusion, phonetics, aesthetic parameters and lip and facial support. These factors determine treatment feasibility and the patients approval of the proposed treatment plan. Implant borne overdentures in the maxilla and mandible, wrap around hybrid screw retained fixed dentures, PFM fixed dentures and milled zirconia based fixed dentures as well as the related planning and implant choice will be discussed. In this presentation the clinical considerations involved in these indications will be discussed and placed in an evidence based prospective.
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Legislative Update: Senate approves graduation committees for students who fail tests, A-F campus ratings advance, multiple committees hear education bills
The Texas Senate has passed its first major education bill of the 84th session. Today, the upper chamber approved Senate Bill (SB) 149 by Sen. Kel Seliger (R) relating to alternative methods for satisfying certain public high school graduation requirements. The bill allows for individual graduation committees to decide if certain students may be graduated from high schools even though they have not passed all their required STAAR exams. The graduation committees would operate in a manner similar to existing grade placement committees that determine if certain students in lower grades may be advanced to the next grade.
Under SB 149, individual graduation committees would be permitted for 11th and 12th grade students who fail to pass an end-of-course exam after two attempts in no more than two subjects. Each committee would consist of the principal, teacher, school counselor, and parent and would consider factors related to the student’s academic success, including grades in relevant coursework and the student’s overall attendance rate.
ATPE supported Seliger’s bill, which now heads to the House for consideration. All senators voted for the bill except for Sens. Jane Nelson (R) and Kelly Hancock (R), who voted against it, and Sen. Jose Menendez (D), who was absent (excused) today. Read ATPE’s press release about today’s vote on SB 149 here.
The Senate Education Committee called an impromptu desk meeting earlier today to vote out pending bills. The committee approved a handful of bills that were heard last week, including Chairman Larry Taylor’s (R) SB 6 relating to public school performance ratings.
Part of a larger reform package supported by the Senate leadership, including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R), SB 6 is a controversial bill that calls for assigning “A” through “F” letter grades to school campuses in lieu of existing accountability ratings. ATPE and many other education stakeholders testified against the bill at its March 12 committee hearing. Today’s committee vote was split down party lines, with all Republicans supporting the bill and all Democratic members of the committee voting against the bill, except for Sen. Eddie Lucio, Jr. (D), who serves as vice-chair of the committee. Stay tuned to Teach the Vote for updates when the bill heads next to the Senate floor.
The House Public Education Committee is also meeting today to hear a variety of bills. Most of the measures are considered to be fairly non-controversial, with the exception of one bill dealing with special education students’ ability to transfer schools.
HB 228 by Rep. Ryan Guillen (D) relating to the optional flexible school day program provided by school districts. The bill would expand campuses’ ability to participate in the program and do so without prior approval of the commissioner of education. ATPE Lobbyist Monty Exter testified neutrally on the bill to ensure that teachers working in such programs are compensated for any additional work time that might be required beyond their original contract terms. In response to Exter’s testimony, Rep. Guillen expressed willingness to amend the bill if needed but said he did not believe participating schools would be likely to extend their school year in any case because of the additional costs that would be associated with a longer school year.
HB 279 by Rep. Ron Simmons (R) relating to eligibility for a public education grant of certain students receiving special education services.
HB 338 by Rep. Mary Gonzalez (D) relating to the evaluation of an internal auditor employed by a school district.
HB 657 by Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock (R), who chairs the committee, relating to the training requirements for a member of the board of trustees of a public school district.
HB 724 by Rep. Rick Galindo (R) relating to operation of public schools on certain election days.
HB 771 by Rep. Joe Deshotel (D) relating to funding for the Texas Academy of Leadership in the Humanities.
HB 1430 by Rep. Susan King (R) relating to the inclusion of mental health in the public services endorsement on a public school diploma and in information about health science career pathways.
HB 1486 by Rep. Rick Galindo (R) relating to a prohibition on vendor contact with a member of the board of trustees of an independent school district during the procurement process.
In addition, the Senate Finance Committee met this morning to hear Sen. Kelly Hancock’s (R) SB 9 and SJR 2, dealing with the state’s constitutional spending limit. The measures are intended to modify the method of calculating the state’s spending limit each legislative session and the process for exceeding the cap. ATPE opposed the bills, which would lower the amount of money that legislators can appropriate for vital state services such as public education and make it harder for legislators to vote to exceed the constitutional spending cap. In a recent press release, Sen. Hancock emphasized the need for a spending cap to “keep appropriations from growing faster than the state’s economy,” but he said the current formula results in a spending cap that is “out of reach” and needs to be lowered. Lt. Gov. Patrick has also voiced support for the bills.
Finally, the House Committee on Business and Industry also heard a couple of bills earlier today that relate to public education. ATPE expressed support for HB 532 by Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon (D) relating to the ability of a nonexempt employee to participate in certain academic, extracurricular, and developmental activities of the employee’s child. The bill is designed to ensure access to unpaid time off for employees who wish to attend their children’s school-related activities, such as participating in parent-teacher conferences or attending graduation ceremonies. ATPE also supported HB 786 by Rep. Amando Walle (D) relating to the right of a public employee to express breast milk in the workplace. The bill would ensure that schools and other public employers provide accommodations for employees who need to express breast milk and would prohibit a public employer from discriminating against an employee for expressing breast milk at work.
This entry was posted in Legislative Update and tagged accountability, ATPE, committees, Dan Patrick, education, funding, graduation, house, House Public Education Committee, Kel Seliger, Larry Taylor, legislative update, legislature, Monty Exter, senate, Senate Education Committee, session, STAAR, Teach the Vote, testing on March 17, 2015 by Jennifer Mitchell, CAE. - Leave a reply
← Legislative Update: Education committees meet, Senate hears controversial bills, House focuses on pre-K Legislative Update: Senate Education Committee looks at teacher quality issues, parent trigger law →
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Proteins Causing Daytime Sleepiness Also Tied to Bone Formation
News Jun 14, 2014
Orexin proteins, which are blamed for spontaneous daytime sleepiness, also play a crucial role in bone formation, according to findings by UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers. The findings could potentially give rise to new treatments for osteoporosis, the researchers say.
Orexins are a type of protein used by nerve cells to communicate with each other. Since their discovery at UT Southwestern more than 15 years ago, they have been found to regulate a number of behaviors, including arousal, appetite, reward, energy expenditure, and wakefulness. Orexin deficiency, for example, causes narcolepsy - spontaneous daytime sleepiness. Thus, orexin antagonists are promising treatments for insomnia, some of which have been tested in Phase III clinical trials.
UT Southwestern researchers, working with colleagues in Japan, now have found that mice lacking orexins also have very thin and fragile bones that break easily because they have fewer cells called osteoblasts, which are responsible for building bones.
“Osteoporosis is highly prevalent, especially among post-menopausal women. We are hoping that we might be able to take advantage of the already available orexin-targeting small molecules to potentially treat osteoporosis,” said Dr. Yihong Wan, Assistant Professor of Pharmacology, the Virginia Murchison Linthicum Scholar in Medical Research, and senior author for the study, published in the journal Cell Metabolism.
Osteoporosis, the most common type of bone disease in which bones become fragile and susceptible to fracture, affects more than 10 million Americans. The disease, which disproportionately affects seniors and women, leads to more than 1.5 million fractures and some 40,000 deaths annually. In addition, the negative effects impact productivity, mental health, and quality of life. One in five people with hip fractures, for example, end up in nursing homes.
Orexins seem to play a dual role in the process: they both promote and block bone formation. On the bones themselves, orexins interact with another protein, orexin receptor 1 (OX1R), which decreases the levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin. This slows down the production of new osteoblasts and, therefore, blocks bone formation locally.
At the same time, orexins interact with orexin receptor 2 (OX2R) in the brain. In this case, the interaction reduces the circulating levels of leptin, a hormone known to decrease bone mass, and thereby promotes bone formation. Therefore, osteoporosis prevention and treatment may be achieved by either inhibiting OX1R or activating OX2R.
“We were very intrigued by this yin-yang-style dual regulation,” said Dr. Wan, a member of the Cecil H. and Ida Green Center for Reproductive Biology Sciences and UT Southwestern’s Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center. “It is remarkable that orexins manage to regulate bone formation by using two different receptors located in two different tissues.”
The central nervous system regulation through OX2R, and therefore promotion of bone formation, was actually dominant over regulation through OX1R. So when the group examined mice lacking both OX1R and OX2R, they had very fragile bones with decreased bone formation. Similarly, when they assessed mice that expressed high levels of orexins, those mice had increased numbers of osteoblasts and enhanced bone formation.
The research was done in collaboration with Dr. Masashi Yanagisawa, Adjunct Professor of Molecular Genetics at UT Southwestern, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, and now with the International Institute for Integrative Sleep Medicine at the University of Tsukuba, in Japan. Dr. Yanagisawa’s laboratory discovered orexins in 1998.
Marathon-running Molecule Set to Accelerate the Race for Novel Neurological Drugs
Two proteins that activate the fastest molecule in our nerve cells have been identified by researchers at University of Warwick. This mechanism is responsible for transport through our nervous system. This finding could lead to a new therapeutic treatments for people with hereditary spastic paraplegia and other neurological disorders.
Virus-Killing Protein Is the “Missing Piece”
A new protein called KHNYN has been identified as a missing piece in a natural antiviral system that kills viruses by targeting a specific pattern in viral genomes.
Hinge-like Protein Could Open Door to New Cystic Fibrosis Treatment
For the first time, the interaction between potentiators and the protein they target at atomic resolution has been characterized. The research shows that two distinct compounds act on the same protein region – pointing to strategies for developing more effective drugs.
Inside a “Fake” Conference: A Journey Into Predatory Science
Treatment Target Found for Liver Cancer in Young Adults
Mapping the Heart’s Own Pacemaker in Mice
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Bernie Sanders: Gen Z Is “a Generation of Tolerance and Decency”
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Make-A-Wish Teen Thomas Stephenson Was a Senator for a Day
The 18-year-old was welcomed to Capitol Hill by Michigan senator Gary Peters.
Jameelah Nasheed
Congressional Quarterly
When Make-A-Wish Mid-Atlantic reached out to grant a wish for 18-year-old Thomas Stephenson of Greenville, Michigan, he asked to be a senator for a day. On Tuesday, July 10, that wish was granted as he joined Senator Gary Peters (D-MI) for a day at the Capitol, Roll Call reported.
According to ABC’s WXYZ Detroit, Thomas has a congenital heart condition called hypoplastic left heart syndrome. This diagnosis was the result of the left side of Thomas's heart being undersize. When he was five days old, he had his first of three surgeries to reconstruct the right side of his heart, giving it the ability to pump blood without use of the left side his heart.
Thomas’s heart condition hasn’t slowed him down. The Detroit News reported that his passion for politics began when he was eight-years-old, as he lobbied for the Affordable Care Act in Washington, D.C.
"From there, I was kind of hooked on the political process. So I've been, throughout my life, working on campaigns since 2008," Thomas said.
During his time as a lawmaker, Thomas met with senators from both sides of the political spectrum. “That’s also something I didn’t realize, too. You hear about the fights between the parties…but there also is great bipartisanship. It’s needed and it’s also in place,” he told Roll Call. Thomas wasn’t the only one who appreciated his tenure.
“I think I’m enjoying [today] as much, if not more, as Tom is enjoying it,” Senator Peters said. “It’s been really a great day to be with him. His enthusiasm is infectious.”
“He’s been sitting through the meetings, he’s been asking lots of questions, we’ve been getting his opinion not just on the Supreme Court justice but on agribusiness, especially school affordability, which is a big issue for him as he goes to Michigan State University in the fall,” Peters added.
Thomas also sat in on meetings that discussed a topic he’s very familiar with — health care. "I just want to make sure lifetime caps were never set forward because I would definitely meet those, and preexisting conditions can't be denied, because I will always have a preexisting condition," Thomas said.
Thomas plans on staying involved with politics, with a potential run for county commissioner or state representative in the future, reported The Detroit News.
“I would love to run for office one day, however, I’m going to be pragmatic and go into the field of nursing to start with,” he said. “I know I can be involved in the political process even if I don’t have a political degree and I can get elected even if I don’t have a political degree.”
https://twitter.com/SenGaryPeters/status/1016679404746018817
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Want more from Teen Vogue? Check this out: Chloë Grace Moretz Fulfills Teen’s Make-A-Wish at Disneyland
KeywordssenateMichiganmake a wish foundationaffordable care act
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Home > Recent > Painting a Better Future for Students of Taguig
Finance, Lifestyle, News, Recent
Painting a Better Future for Students of Taguig
Press Release, 4 years ago 4 min read 45
Many public schools in the Philippines require constant maintenance, owing mostly to the torrential rains and high humidity brought about by local weather. This makes their upkeep a race against nature.
While some school buildings may have lost their sheen, it takes a bit of help to make them look bright and conducive to learning.
Taguig National High School is an example of such an institution. Through the DepEd’s “Brigada Eskwela” program, Philam Life Foundation has recently repainted and turned over a brand new-looking building to the school, which currently educates about 2,000 students in its K-12 program. The Math building includes eight newly-repainted classrooms, complete with about 40 desks and a blackboard for each classroom.
Philam Life CEO Axel Bromley and Taguig National High School Principal Santiago T. Alvis prepare to cut the ribbon during the turn-over ceremonies of the new Math building to the Taguig National High School.
Philam Foundation KaAkbay volunteers and Taguig National High School volunteers worked hand in hand to repaint the building including some areas of the school.
Following the activity, Philam Life’s newly-elected CEO Axel Bromley expressed his heartfelt thanks to all the volunteers. “As you know, our corporate headquarters is located in Taguig, so we were doubly inspired to do our part to help this community,” he explained. “I believe that one of the best forms of community service is educational support, so I am truly honored to be a part of this initiative. Moreover, it was amazing to see Filipino bayanihan in action,” Bromley further enthused.
In addition, Philam Foundation also donated a 3-classroom building to Taguig National High School under its Philam Paaralan Program. The Foundation has donated over 80 classrooms across the country since it started the program in 2011.
Philam Foundation is the CSR arm of Philam Life, the country’s premier life insurance company. As part of the AIA group of companies, Philam Life began its commitment to reach out to communities in need, with a special program dedicated to the Philippine public school system through the Philam Paaralan program.
For more information about Philam Foundation or to volunteer for their programs, please email philamfoundation@aia.com
About Philam Life
The Philippine American Life and General Insurance Company (Philam Life) is the country’s premier life insurance company. Established on June 21, 1947, Philam Life offers an extensive line of products in the industry that provides solutions to various financial needs including life protection, health insurance, savings, education, retirement, investment, group and credit life insurance.
Philam Life is a member of AIA Group Limited, the largest independent publicly listed pan-Asian life insurance group.
AIA Group Limited and its subsidiaries (collectively “AIA” or the “Group”) comprise the largest independent publicly listed pan-Asian life insurance group. It has operations in 17 markets in Asia-Pacific – wholly-owned branches and subsidiaries in Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, China, Korea, the Philippines, Australia, Indonesia, Taiwan, Vietnam, New Zealand, Macau, Brunei, a 97 per cent subsidiary in Sri Lanka, a 26 per cent joint venture in India and a representative office in Myanmar.
The business that is now AIA was first established in Shanghai over 90 years ago. It is a market leader in the Asia-Pacific region (ex-Japan) based on life insurance premiums and holds leading positions across the majority of its markets. It had total assets of US$167 billion as of 30 November 2014.
AIA meets the long-term savings and protection needs of individuals by offering a range of products and services including life insurance, accident and health insurance and savings plans. The Group also provides employee benefits, credit life and pension services to corporate clients. Through an extensive network of agents, partners and employees across Asia-Pacific, AIA serves the holders of more than 28 million individual policies and over 16 million participating members of group insurance schemes.
AIA Group Limited is listed on the Main Board of The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited under the stock code “1299” with American Depositary Receipts (Level 1) traded on the over-the-counter market (ticker symbol: “AAGIY”).
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Ambri fight off Zug to remain league leaders
This content was published on October 6, 2000 10:33 PM Oct 6, 2000 - 22:33
Ambri Piotta have beaten Zug to keep their place at the top of the national league ice hockey rankings.
The Ticino team opened up a three point lead by beating their opponents 4-2 away on Friday night. Ambri now top rankings with 12 points.
Zug - on nine points - are equal runners-up with Berne and Zürich Lions.
Berne had an easy game against lowly La Chaux-de-Fonds, crushing them 5-0.
Zürich Lions - who last year took home the championship title - also had no difficulty in finishing off their opponents; they beat Chur 4-1 at home.
The Graubünden team have been struggling since the beginning of the season, and with a mere three points are bottom of the league.
Meanwhile, last year's finalists, Lugano, put in a good performance in their away match against higher-ranked Davos. The Ticinesi won 3-1, but remain ranked a lowly 10th, while their opponents are 6th on eight points.
Only one of Friday evening's matches resulted in a draw: Fribourg-Gottéron versus Rapperswil-Jona ended with a score of 2-2, despite going to overtime.
Both teams have seven points, and are ranked just above Lugano.
Ambri fight off Zug to remain league leaders Oct 6, 2000 - 22:33 Ambri Piotta have beaten Zug to keep their place at the top of the national league ice hockey rankings. The Ticino team opened up a three point lead by beating their opponents 4-2 away on Friday night. Ambri now top rankings with 12 points. Zug - on nine points - are equal runners-up with Berne and Zürich Lions. Berne had an easy game against lowly La Chaux-de-Fonds, crushing them 5-0. Zürich Lions - who last year took home the championship title - also had no difficulty in finishing off their opponents; they beat Chur 4-1 at home. The Graubünden team have been struggling since the beginning of the season, and with a mere three points are bottom of the league. Meanwhile, last year's finalists, Lugano, put in a good performance in their away match against higher-ranked Davos. The Ticinesi won 3-1, but remain ranked a lowly 10th, while their opponents are 6th on eight points. Only one of Friday evening's matches resulted in a draw: Fribourg-Gottéron versus Rapperswil-Jona ended with a score of 2-2, despite going to overtime. Both teams have seven points, and are ranked just above Lugano. swissinfo with agencies
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Margarete Conway and Moncure Daniel Conway and Homeopathy
Moncure Daniel Conway 1832 - 1907 was an abolitionist, a preacher and man of ideas ahead of his time. His mother Margarete was a homeopathic physician. Moncure was a preacher at the South Place Chapel (made famous by Richard Butler Gibbs 1822 – 1871) for several years, and it was eventually renamed as the Conway Hall in his honour.
In 1863-4 Moncure and his wife were in England, when his wife became a patient of James John Garth Wilkinson (Moncure Daniel Conway, Autobiography Memories and Experiences of Moncure Daniel Conway, Volume 2, (reprinted by Elibron.com, 2001). Page 10. See also Swedenborg Archive K125 [44] Letter dated 19.9.1895 from Garth Wilkinson to John Marten: ‘… Mr. Moncure Conway is an old acquaintance: I was physician to his family for many years when he first came from America. My Friend Mr. Channing _[William Henry Channing (1810-1884)] said of him, ‘There is not a spiritual fibre in his constitution’. From my experience he is, as a literary authority, untrustworthy and unscrupulous in matters appertaining to revealed religion. I am sorry you ‘back up’ my work with his learning. Doctrine derived from the Gospel wants no such support… I am pained to write such notes, but regard for you is my motive. Your Friend J J Garth Wilkinson…‘)_
In 1866, Moncure Daniel Conway was an Occasional Lecturer at the Working Woman’s College at 29 Queen Square Bloomsbury. James John Garth Wilkinson was a subscriber to this college at this time (Anon, Second annual report of the council of teachers, London working women’s college, (1866). Page 2).
From http://www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/moncureconway.html Moncure Daniel Conway was a clergyman, abolitionist, scholar, and author, best known for his outspoken opposition to slavery in the decade prior to and during the Civil War, his freethinking ministry to South Place Chapel in London, and his biography of Thomas Paine.
A Virginian from an upper class family, his views on race, politics, and theology isolated him for many years from his family, his native state, and his country. The last forty-five years of his life were spent largely in England and France.
The second child of Walker Peyton and Margaret (Daniel) Conway, Moncure was born on March 17, 1832 in Falmouth, Stafford County, Virginia. His father was a wealthy gentleman farmer, a slaveholder, and county judge; his mother a homemaker and homeopathic physician. (Margarete Conway, the mother of Moncure Daniel Conway was a homeopathic doctor that treated both black and white equally and did not see eye-to-eye with her husband on the issue of slavery).
Both were Methodists, his father having left the Episcopal church, his mother the Presbyterian. Moncure’s opposition to slavery came from his mother and from his boyhood experiences. His father and three brothers remained staunchly pro-slavery.
In 1847, at the age of fifteen, Conway left home to enter Dickinson College, a Methodist college in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, earning an M.A. degree two years later.
While there he discovered the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and developed an interest in Transcendentalism. He wrote Emerson that he was “a Natural Radical—to whose soul Radicalism is as air to a bird,—and having his lot and earthly converse amongst talented conservative Virginians.”
Following a year as a Methodist circuit rider, Conway entered Harvard Divinity School, graduating with a B.D. in 1854. During his time at Harvard he and Emerson, his “spiritual father,” became friends. He also met Henry David Thoreau and Bronson Alcott.
Influenced by Theodore Parker, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, William Lloyd Garrison, and Wendell Phillips, Conway became an abolitionist.
After graduation Conway accepted a call to the First Unitarian Church of Washington, where he was ordained in February 1855. At first, avoiding the slavery issue, his ministry went well. Then, in January 1856, he began preaching that slavery was a moral, not a political or economic issue. In October the congregation voted his dismissal.
Almost at once Conway was invited to preach trial sermons at the First Unitarian Church of Cincinnati. The congregation approved of his views and soon called him as its minister.
While in Cincinnati Conway married Ellen Davis Dana, a lifelong Unitarian, feminist and abolitionist. The couple had four children—Eustace, Emerson (who died young), Dana and Mildred. Their strong marriage, which lasted until Ellen’s death 38 years later, got off to a shaky start.
Conway, who had been condemned for his racial and religious views upon leaving for Harvard and later had experienced a hostile reception at Falmouth, nevertheless brought his bride there to meet his family. The visit ended disastrously when Ellen broke a Southern taboo—she hugged and kissed a young slave girl. It was seventeen years before Conway became reconciled with his family.
His mother, however, stood by him; when the Civil War broke out she went north to Easton, Pennsylvania to live with her married daughter Mildred.
During his Cincinnati ministry Conway became increasingly dissatisfied with the theological, liturgical, and social conservatism of mainstream Unitarianism. In reaction he became more and more combative. Not long after arriving in Cincinnati, at the 1857 meeting of the Western Unitarian Conference (WUC), he pushed through an antislavery resolution despite strong opposition from the delegation from the large Unitarian church in St. Louis, led by William Greenleaf Eliot.
As a result both the St. Louis church, the largest in the conference, and Eliot, one of the conference’s founders, were lost to the WUC.
Then in 1859, reacting to Conway’s increasing rejection of the relevance of the Bible and Jesus, half of his Cincinnati congregation left to form a new Unitarian church.
Soon after, at a meeting of the Harvard Divinity School Alumni, Conway introduced a resolution in support of the maverick Theodore Parker who was seriously ill abroad. The resolution failed, being regarded by many as a move to embarass the mainstream Unitarians led by Henry Whitney Bellows.
In 1862, after spending more and more time away from his church advancing the abolitionist cause, Conway left its ministry. After that he had an uneasy and uncertain relationship with Unitarianism, in America and subsequently in England, until he made a clean break.
That same year, accompanied by William Henry Channing, his successor in the Washington pulpit, Conway visited the White House in an attempt to persuade President Abraham Lincoln that immediate, unqualified emancipation offered the best chance of ending the war. His proposal was quickly dismissed.
Later that year he led his father’s slaves, who in the confusion of war had fled to Washington, in a daring escape to freedom in Ohio.
In 1863 Conway sailed to London on a mission to “persuade the English that the North is right” and that the Civil War was an “abolition war.” He had been chosen for this task by the abolitionist leadership because of his power as a speaker and a writer.
When, however, under English influence, he sent an offer to the Confederacy “on behalf of the leading antislavery men of America,” offering the preservation of the Confederacy after the war’s end in exchange for emancipation of the slaves, this support was quickly and angrily withdrawn.
Rather than go back to America, where he no longer felt welcome, he went briefly to Venice, where he was reunited with his wife and children.
After returning to London, Conway was invited to speak at South Place Chapel, a dissenting church founded as Universalist by the American Elhanan Winchester in 1793. (The congregation survives today as South Place Ethical Society, meeting in Conway Hall, a center of intellectual, political and cultural life, completed in 1929.)
Speaking there, Conway discovered that “the preacher had revived in me,” and the congregation, open to his social and religious views, invited him to become its regular minister. He accepted, thus beginning a felicitous relationship that was to last for many years.
Although the pay was meager he supported himself by journalism, book sales, and literary agency (for example, he represented Mark Twain’s interests in Britain).
In London as in America Conway made friends among the literary and intellectual elite, including Charles Dickens, Robert Browning, Thomas Carlyle, Charles Lyell, and Erasmus Darwin and Charles Darwin. Charles Lyell sometimes attended the South Place Chapel.
"[[Charles Darwin](/archives/2007/08/24/charles-darwin-and-homeopathy/)] expressed satisfaction that I had been able to derive from evolution the hopeful religion set forth in my discourse,"
Conway recorded in his account of his visit to Charles Darwin’s house,
“but I remember that he did not express agreement with it.”
At first when Conway arrived South Place Chapel was nominally a Unitarian church. For a few years he attended meetings of London Unitarian ministers. Conway and the South Place Chapel soon moved outside Unitarian fellowship and shed the remains of traditional non-conformist Christian worship.
Conway lectured, rather than preached.
“I looked on all the camps as equally struggling with error,” he wrote, “and could weigh without bias on the value of each for human happiness.”
As he moved from Methodist circuit rider, to Unitarian minister, to minister of South Place Chapel, Conway’s religious views evolved significantly. While never abandoning Transcendentalism, he moved from an Emersonian to a more activist position, not unlike that of Theodore Parker, then to humanistic “free thought.”
He abandoned theism after his son Emerson died in 1864. In his 1876 essay “Christianity” he portrayed Christ as an anti-ecclesiastical teacher of natural religion. He thought that even liberal Christianity was wrong.
“The Unitarians of England and America have done their utmost to make Christianity consistent with truth and freedom, but they have shown that it is impossible.”
With Christianity a dead end, he thought religion needed a fresh start.
“Eyes turned from phantom gods have caught glimpses of a divine life in the evolution of nature, and the mystical movement at the heart of man.”
In time, recognizing the reality of evil, he concluded that Emerson’s philosophy was overly optimistic.
”[The world of] ‘that which is,’ he wrote in My Pilgrimage to the Wise Men of the East, 1906, “is a mirage of the ‘Celestial city’ thrown by Transcendentalism on the horizon of the world.” “There pervades,” he continued, “the fatal fallacy that evil is good in the making.”
http://www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/moncureconway.html (See also Walter H. Burgess, Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society, Volume 22, Issue 3, Unitarian Historical Society, London, (Lindsey Press, 2001). Page 3-9 (319).) In 1868 Conway was one of four speakers at the first open public meeting in support of women’s suffrage in Britain. The meeting was held at the Stamford Street Unitarian Chapel.
In 1878 he and the mathematician William Kingdon Clifford (1845-1879) gathered a Congress of Liberal Thinkers, comprised of scientists and representatives from various religious sects, at the South Place Chapel for, among other things, the “scientific study of religious phenomena” and “the emancipation of mankind from the spirit of superstition.”
Unable to develop common ground or mutual trust, the new group did not survive the death of co-founder Clifford.
In 1875 Conway had revisited America, becoming reconciled with his family and preaching from his old pulpit in Cincinnati. He also preached in Parker’s former pulpit, the 28th Congregational Society, where he was offered a settlement. He turned down that opportunity, wishing to remain in London.
However, in 1885 he retired from his South Place ministry and returned to America with his wife to live in New York near their children. Five years later the couple went back to to England, and in 1893, after his successor had departed, Conway’s relationship with South Place Chapel was renewed for four additional years.
In 1897 Conway traveled to New York City with his terminally ill wife who wished to die in America. Not long after her death on Christmas Day, feeling out step with his countrymen who were marching to war with Spain, he went to France, where he devoted much of the rest of his life to the peace movement and writing.
During his years in England and France Conway established himself as an important scholar and author. In 1892, to his surprise, he was awarded an L.H.D. by Dickinson College and served a term on the college’s board of trustees.
A building was constructed on campus in his name through the financial support of Mark Twain, Walt Whitman, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Andrew Carnegie.
Conway was a prolific writer. Notable among his books was The Earthward Pilgrimage, 1870, in which he portrayed himself as journeying from the “Celestial City of Christian ideals” back to the “city of that which is” because the latter “has cared rather for man, whom it can benefit, than for God, whom it cannot.”
His Emerson at Home and Abroad, 1882, is a biography which compares his own views with those of Emerson and measures the distance he then felt from Emersonian optimism.
His book most read by later generations is The Life of Thomas Paine, 1892, which he also translated into French.
In addition, he had earlier revived and edited the Transcendentalist periodical, The Dial, 1860-61, and had been co-editor and a correspondent of the antislavery weekly, The Commonwealth, 1862-63.
Conway died alone in his Paris apartment on November 15, 1907. A memorial service was held in December at his son Eustace’s home in New York City, attended by one hundred and fifty family members and admirers, including Andrew Carnegie and Robert Collier.
Moncure also wrote Autobiography: Memories and Experiences of Moncure Daniel Conway_ _and others._ _
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Peter Jacob Liedbeck 1808 - 1876
Peter Jacob Liedbeck 1808 - 1876 MD 1835 was a Swedish orthodox physician who converted to homeopathy to become the first practicing homeopath in Sweden.
Liedbeck was a student of Goran Wahlenberg.
Liedbeck edited the Homeopatiska underrättelser för svenska folket 1855 - 1856, and he translated Samuel Hahnemann’s Organon into Swedish in 1835, after meeting with Samuel Hahnemann in 1832 and speaking at his lectures.
In his time, homeopathy was introduced into the Central Gynmastic Institute of Stockholm, and Liedbeck was married to a daughter of Per Henrik Ling. Liedbeck edited Ling’s General Principles of Gymnastics with Augustus Georgii.
Peter Jacob Liedbeck favoured the use of double remedies, and of the higher potencies.
Peter Jacob Liedbeck practiced in Stockholm.
Peter Jacob Liedbeck started his career as prosector of anatomy in Uppsala and practised homeopathy in Stockholm until his death. He was married to a daughter of the founder of Swedish curative gymnastics, Per Henrik Ling…
He was born in 1802 and lead a very active life. The interest in medicine began when, as a schoolboy, he read Christoph Wilhelm von Hufeland´s _Art of Prolonging Life_.
He began his studies in Uppsala in 1821, became a licenciate of medicine in 1831 and a doctor of medicine in 1835. He was a Prosector of Anatomy at the university from 1831 to 1846 and tought anatomy.
However he didn’t become a professor because of his interests in homeopathy. Then he moved to Stockholm and devoted his time to homeopathy. The interest in homeopathy began when he attended Goran Wahlenberg’s lectures on Materia Medica.
Liedbeck had visited the European continent twice in 1832 and in 1844. The first time he went there to see Samuel Hahnemann and speak at his meetings. The second time the university sent him to the continent to do some anatomical studies.
He was very influenced by Johann Gottfried Rademacher, who based his research on empirical observations. Homeopathy was not at all liked by the organized state medicine in Sweden. There was a compact resistance to homeopathy in order to prevent it from getting established.
In 1876 he sent his paper History of Homeopathy in Sweden to the World’s Convention in Philadelphia.
He died in 1876 after having practice homepathy for 30 years.
The editor of The British Journal of Homeopathy for January, 1877, says: Dr. P J Leidbeck, known all over Scandinavia and by large circles abroad, departed this life, at Stockholm, in his seventy fifth year, on the 5th of October last.
He had hardly arrived home, late in the evening, from his daily round of visits to his patients, when he suddenly died from paralysis of the heart; thus he actually died in harness as he often had wished.
His life throughout was full of unceasing activity and struggle. From the first he was, by a stern father, destined to the clerical profession; but his own taste was early bent towards medicine, in which, having already as a schoolboy read Christoph Wilhelm von Hufeland´s _Art of Prolonging Life_, he saw in his youthful imagination a grand and glorious object.
He was born in 1802, admitted as a student at the University of Upsala 1821, became a licentiate of medicine in 1831, and graduated as M. D. in 1835. He commenced, in 1831, to officiate as Prosector of Anatomy at the University, and continued in this capacity till 1846, lecturing on anatomy for several terms, instead of the then professor at the University.
The professorship, notwithstanding, at the vacancy, passed him by, evidently from no other cause than his medical heterodoxy. He removed to Stockholm, devoting himself henceforth exclusively to the practice of Homeopathy.
He had already as a medical student become a convert to Homeopathy, of which he had first heard mention during a course of lectures on materia medica by the learned occupier of the Chair of Linnaeus, Goran Wahlenberg, who, though not practicing himself, was a great admirer of Samuel Hahnemann and his doctrine.
In selecting as a motto for the inaugural thesis for his medical diploma, “Qualis sit quantumque valeat methodus specifica in medicina,” Liedbeck had already shaken off the fetters of the old school, and became, with a warm, living conviction, a faithful and zealous pupil of Samuel Hahnemann and expounder of Homeopathy.
He had twice visited the Continent in 1832, principally in order to see Samuel Hahnemann, and he used often to speak of his conversations with and the teachings of his great Master; in 1844 his Continental tour was more extensive. undertaken for special anatomical studies at the expense of the University.
An indefatigable inquirer, a constant and studious reader, he kept himself au courant with the literature of the different medical schools. He thus became acquainted with Johann Gottfried Rademacher’s writings, which no doubt exercised a considerable influence on his practice in late years.
The traditional medicine, as living amongst the people, was also a subject in which he took great interest, and he even published two essays on the subject, of which that under the title Popular Medicine in Contra Distinction to Medicine and Quackery (1858) ought to be mentioned…
He was at one time a frequent contributor to the German homeopathic periodicals; also in this country interesting contributions from his pen have appeared. In his practice of Homeopathy, he leaned more towards Samuel Hahnemann’s early practice, as known by his Lesser Writings, than towards his later teachings as to the exclusive use of the higher dilutions.
By studying the question of diet and regimen in a country where the eating of salted food is very prevalent, he came to the conclusion that salt eating was a cause of many ailments, thus confirming an old observation of Linnaeus, who called a form of pyrosis from salt eating pyrosis suaecica. Liedbeck’s papers on Haliphagismus are, if not exhaustive, at any rate interesting as an incentive to further investigation on the subject.
Pursuing the subject of dietetics still further, he recommended the use of what has lately been called food medicines, and gave special indications for their use. Thus originated with him what he called the homeopathic treatment, which he meant to be used as a complement to Homeopathy, thus annexing what will remain true in physiological medicine to the central truth of Homeopathy, similia similibus curentur.
Notwithstanding the most indefatigable work for more than forty five years there is none at present in Sweden who can take Liedbeck’s practice. This can only be explained by the compact opposition of an organized state medicine which all these years has met the single handed champion of Homeopathy in Sweden whose loss we now record.
In 1876 Dr. Liedbeck sent the History of Homoeopathy in Sweden to the World’s Convention, held in Philadelphia. It was published in the Transactions, vol. 2. The Bibliography of Swedish Homoeopathy is also that of the writings of Liedbeck.
In this Dr. Liedbeck says: “There is no special law affecting Homeopathy or its practitioners in Sweden. I have the privilege of dispensing my own medicines, and, like every other properly qualified Swedish physician, the right to import drugs for my own practice, after having first given due notice to the Royal College of Health.
“As to my own practice, I would only briefly mention that, having first filled several official medical appointments, I obtained the post of Professeur Agrégé (Prosector Anatomiae) at the University of Upsala in 1831. This made me in some measure independent of the uncertainty of practice, giving me at the same time liberty to practice Homeopathy.
“As I had on several occasions officiated instead of the professor of anatomy in giving lectures, holding examinations, etc., I had a fair prospect at his retirement of succeeding to the chair of anatomy. My medical heterodoxy was, however, too well known not to influence to my prejudice in the appointment of a successor, and I therefore removed, in 1846, to Stockholm, where I have since continued as a private practitioner of Homeopathy.
“Though, as I have said before, neither the success of my practice nor my publications seem to have had any influence on the medical profession at large in making converts among them, yet Homeopathy has not a few patrons and followers in all classes of society, and several of the clergy have in this country as elsewhere been warm advocates, and even practitioners, of the system.
“As to the question of dose, it will be seen from sundry articles emanating from my pen from time to time that I belong rather to those who follow Samuel Hahnemann in his early practice than in his old age, when he advocated almost exclusively the higher attenuations.
“Not to make this letter too long, I must also refer you to the homeopathic literature as regards the homeoplastic treatment I have introduced as a supplement to our Homeopathy.”
The Zeitung thus announces his death: At the end of October of this year (1876) died Dr. Liedbeck, in Stockholm, who had practiced Homeopathy there successfully for 30 years.
He was 75 years of age, and died of marasmus. He communicated to us last year several cures of hygroma patellae with Flor. arnic. sicc. placed upon the kneepan in little sacks.
His own cure from fatty degeneration of the heart by means of Arnica, as given in my Therapy (I, 345), was by Dr. Argenti erroneously ascribed to the deceased: it was communicated in epistolary form in vol. 92, No. 2 p. 88.
(Brit. Jour. Hom., vol. 13, p. 694 ; vol. 35, p. 90, vol. 39, p. 255. Mon. Hom. Rev., vol. 20, p. 720. Hom. World, vol. 2, p. 572. World’s Con., vol. 2, p. 340. Bibl. Hom., vol, 9, p. 89. Allg. Hom. Zeit., vol. 93, p. 184)
Peter Jacob Leidbeck wrote On the influence of Alcohol on Man 1831, On Homeopathic Medicine and Its Literature 1832, Hahnemann’s ’__Organon__Translated 1835, __Is There a Remedy for Consumption? 1841, De Cerebello Humano 1845, De Veneficio Phosphoreo Acuto 1846, A Short Account of the Present State and Development of Homeopathy in Foreign Countries 1846, Directions for the use of Some Homeopathic Medicine in Cholera 1848, How to Cure Frostbites and Burns 1850, Homeopathic Information for the Swedish People (a monthly periodical) 1855-56, On the Different Schools of Medicine at the Present Time, and Their Principal Distinctions 1862, On the Spirit of Camphor Alone as a Remedy for Cholera 1866, De Pipere cubeba dissertatio, Horti upsaliensis plantae cultae ab initio saeculi, and many cases and articles published in various homeopathic journals and publications.
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Blogs | Monday | 22 July 2013 | 16:26h
Big Data: A Garage Full of Old Newspapers
I’m getting a little tired of articles about ‘big data’. Especially the extreme reports – ranging from panic-filled to euphoric – many of which are written by hardware and software suppliers, or by magazines that simply regurgitate what those companies tell them. So far, I’ve failed to discover the essence of big data.
To me, big data is like a garage full of old newspapers: as long as you’ve got enough space available, it’s not a problem to keep them. The question is, are you saving such a large amount of data because you want to or because you have to? How easy or how difficult is it to extend your storage capacity? Are you going to hold onto the old newspapers voluntarily? You could also recycle them. What are you going to do with all those old newspapers anyhow? There’s no point in hoarding them unless you expect to find something interesting among all the articles. But how do you know whether you’ll be able to gain new and surprising insights and make revealing connections from them? Such a scenario immediately makes me think of films such as A Beautiful Mind (2001) and Conspiracy Theory (1997) which respectively featured a schizophrenic maths genius – played by Russell Crowe – and a plot-obsessed amateur journalist – played by Mel Gibson – both of whom collect newspaper clippings and unearth correlations from them. In the case of both the films and old newspapers, I believe it’s all about pattern recognition, and the same goes for big data.
Light Sabre in Star Wars
During a recent congress by software supplier SAS in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, I heard two inspiring speakers who (finally) gave me new insights into big data, albeit indirectly. Tomáš Sedláček, macroeconomist at a Czech bank, described the Western economy as “manic depressed”. “Manic depression is a bipolar disorder with highs and lows, just like alcoholism. You can’t help an alcoholic merely by removing the negative effects of alcohol. You first need to address the manias – the highs. In the Western world, we’ve become used to the good years. The problem in Western civilisation today is that we lack the imagination of previous generations,” he said. It revolves around recognising patterns: which cycles does a business go through. But it’s also essential to name certain assumptions, according to Sedláček: “When you watch Star Wars, you have to believe that a light sabre works; you must accept certain assumptions. Models of reality and processes are also assumptions. However, rather than keeping our distance, we look too closely.” As if you’re standing too close to an impressionistic painting by Monet or Seurat.
At the same event, Swedish futurologist Magnus Lindkvist provided some good advice on looking for innovations in a world full of information: “Which ideas are now out of sync in the new reality? Technology has shifted from very expensive to available for everyone, so-called IKEAfication.” Lindkvist illustrated that far from all information is valuable: “You’re well informed, but your head’s full of rubbish. Last year, ‘Whitney Houston’ was the most searched-for term in Google. The human brain prefers sexy lies over the boring truth.” It appears that many people find the gossip pages the most interesting section of a newspaper. “In order to innovate, we need to turn our attention to secrets,” advised Lindkvist.
In other words, we need to carefully consider which old newspaper articles – and not only those on our favourites, the gossip pages – we should read to discover patterns. We need to be very clear on what we want to achieve with big data in order to be able to do anything at all with it. So far, I’ve not had a ‘Eureka’ moment regarding big data. But it could still happen.
Martijn Lofvers, Publishing Director & Editor-in-Chief of Supply Chain Movement
www.linkedin.com/company/supply-chain-magazine
martijn.lofvers@supplychainmedia.nl
www.linkedin.com/in/supplychaineurope
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The increasing use of technologies like broadband Internet access, interactive TV, surround-sound home theater, and DVD have contributed to consumers'
Richard Schrag ⋅ Sep 1, 2003
Sep 1, 2003 12:00 PM,
Richard Schrag
The increasing use of technologies like broadband Internet access, interactive TV, surround-sound home theater, and DVD have contributed to consumers’ expectations of content-rich entertainment. People have little patience for mediocre production values in light of their daily encounters with the standards set by movie trailers and television commercials. These tastes also carry over to the worship experience, where consumers — turned — congregation members are no longer satisfied with a self-powered pulpit loudspeaker and a handheld microphone.
Recognizing this trend, houses of worship have begun to incorporate full-service recording facilities into their ministries, enabling them not only to offer better audio and video production to support worship services but also to expand their ministries’ outreach to local communities and beyond, engaging in for-profit production work and even experimenting with emerging technologies such as Webcasting. Having an on-site studio may also be prompted by the need to prerecord musical praise and worship content for use at services or to develop recorded products for sale or outreach.
The growth of in-house recording studios has been fueled by the decreasing cost of recording and production equipment, which puts technology that was once the domain of trained specialists into the hands of a much wider audience. The clergy and public have become much more technically and media savvy, with some pastors and technical support personnel holding degrees from full recording programs.
Taking advantage of the available technology and expertise, however, requires a type of technical facility that for most ministries is a new venture into unfamiliar territory. Such a leap of faith is evident in two church/studio design projects: Crossroads Productions/Crossroads Community Church in Vancouver, Washington, and Harbor House Studios/Anchor Church in Keller, Texas.
Although the two studios have some similar features, each is the outgrowth of distinct challenges and performance requirements that illustrate the nature of designing a recording facility into a house of worship. As with a commercial recording studio, the key is careful planning and close coordination among the design professionals and the ministries’ technical staff.
Harbor House Studios, which opened in September 2001, was constructed from the ground up as part of a larger project that created a new building for Anchor Church. The studio serves as the church’s full-service recording arm, but Harbor House also handles secular projects.
Crossroads Community Church incorporated its technical facilities, including a new choir rehearsal room and recording studio, into a remodel and expansion project that was completed in February 2002. The church needed expansion facilities and built a new sanctuary as an addition to the existing church structure, taking advantage of that opportunity to expand its technical support capabilities at the same time.
HARBOR HOUSE STUDIOS
Harbor House Studios’ general manager, Hyman Stansky, says the goal was to create a facility that would support the church’s ministry, provide a creative outlet for members of the congregation who wanted to perform and record, and serve as a for-hire facility.
The 3,100-square-foot facility (built on five independently isolated concrete slabs to maximize acoustical isolation and to achieve low-frequency sonic accuracy) features a 1,200-square-foot A room with two isolation booths, a 600-square-foot control room equipped with 24 channels of Apogee AD-800s operating on Pro Tools, and a second-floor audio edit room.
Stansky says that Harbor House Studios’ greatest asset is its access to an acoustically designed NC-15 auditorium, which seats 500 in theater-style chairs. The room provides a world-class live concert sound for any band, orchestra, or choir wanting the acoustic feel of a large hall but without the budget or scheduling difficulties associated with larger concert venues. In addition, Harbor House Studios can provide a 48-track mobile recording truck for off-site special events.
One major advantage for the studio has been the ability to record from the church’s sanctuary directly into a high-end control room and then enhance those recordings for later performances. Stansky says the pastor provides the church’s creative team with the content of his sermons at least six to eight weeks in advance. The creative team then chooses songs that match the sermon’s theme. “Then we take some of those tunes, come back here to the studio, and do ghost vocals and tracks,” Stansky says.
The key is having a splitter in the equipment room, which is on the studio’s second floor, he says. The signal is sent from the stage mics, with all outputs from the stage sent back to a front-of-house (FOH) station in the auditorium, as well as back to the studio.
“We have patch bays back in the studio,” Stansky says. “[We have] 64 lines that go from the splitter back to the studio to feed us all the outputs coming from the church. That was the main design issue to make this project a reality. We’re set up now to do 24 lines simultaneously, but we have a total of 64. If we need to add more, we can easily grow into that.”
In addition to the facility’s functional requirements, design challenges ranged from visual elements, such as the introduction of natural light into the studio, to behind-the-scenes infrastructure, such as HVAC coordination to ensure proper noise and vibration control. With the HVAC systems, for example, Stansky says the key was to control how fast the air moves, in order to preserve the low background noise levels essential for a recording environment. In fact, the studio has independent air zones for its main recording room, the control room, and the lounge/lobby area.
Starting with the space plan, which considered such issues as the placement of central equipment areas to facilitate wiring accessibility without compromising the acoustical integrity of sensitive rooms, careful design work early in the project laid the groundwork for the facility’s technical performance. The project’s success in meeting the church’s objectives was a direct outgrowth of the continued efforts of all parties working closely with each other.
An important design aspect of the overall plan is the common backstage area that the sanctuary and the studio share, allowing crews to roll pianos and other equipment back and forth between the studio and church. While the common spaces tie the adjacent facilities together, this arrangement allows setup and teardown of a stage or set without disrupting functions taking place in either location and also provides separation between the spaces so either can function independently after hours.
CROSSROADS PRODUCTIONS
Crossroads Community Church features an aggressive music program. The assistant pastor, Jason Ritchie, attended North Texas State University’s highly regarded music program and also fills the role of church music director. The church is actively involved with the local recording scene, producing praise and worship tracks for churches in the Portland, Oregon, area and other programs throughout the United States.
The church is actually part of a campus-type complex, which includes several buildings housing classrooms, a bible college, and worship spaces. Recognizing that its original sanctuary was just not big enough to support such an ambitious ministry, the church embarked on a project to create a new sanctuary and decided to construct a recording studio at the same time.
The 2,730-square-foot facility, which eventually became Crossroads Productions, includes an audio control room, a rehearsal/recording studio, an audio post-production room, two isolation booths, a voice booth, a central machine room, and associated support areas. As with Harbor House, the control room, isolation booths, and studio are built on isolated slabs. The Crossroads studio features a low-frequency quadratic residue diffuser that incorporates the exterior slot windows to form one of the diffuser wells in the mathematical series.
The newly designed sanctuary now seats nearly 2,500 and features a full touring-level FOH system, including custom Renkus-Heinz speakers; a Crest V-12, 96-input console; and all Crest amplification, as well as a fully automated lighting system. “We ended up converting part of the old sanctuary into a chapel,” Ritchie says, “with the remaining space being used to create new classrooms, which we needed badly.”
To make maximum use of space, Russ Berger Design Group (RBDG) suggested combining the rehearsal room with the recording room, so the studio doubles as the church’s choir rehearsal room. It features high ceilings and sophisticated acoustical shaping and finishes not normally found in a choir rehearsal room. RBDG also designed the studio with large doors to facilitate the movement of equipment and choirs.
One challenge was minimizing noise and vibration from a freeway that runs right by the portion of the church campus where the recording studio is located. Isolation within the building’s structure and careful attention to the construction of the studio’s walls, ceilings, doors, and windows help protect it from this potential disruption.
Ritchie says the office space and recording facility is a pleasure to work in day after day. “It takes advantage of not just sound and acoustics but work flow and overall emotional vibe,” he says.
The end result is a facility that meshes with the overall campus but provides a highly specialized tool for the church’s recording needs, either in-house or for-hire.
“You almost don’t even realize a studio is here,” Ritchie says. “Off the hallway, you see the music area offices, which have a nice feel with a lot of glass and warm colors, and then you can see the studio through its sound-lock vestibule, with more glass and wood and fabric. It was important to us to have a comfortable place to work that wasn’t cavelike. There is definitely the feeling that we can do a lot of things in this space.”
Richard Schragis a principal of the Russ Berger Design Group, a Dallas-based architectural and acoustical firm.
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Rainy weather causes games to be postponed
BY MIKE DUPREZ The Dispatch
Bad weather threw a wrench into Friday night prep football with all games being canceled and moved to other nights.
There will be two games involving county teams Saturday and two more Monday as heavy rain over the last two days forced school officials to make changes.
Lexington will visit Central Davidson at 7 p.m. Saturday and North Davidson makes the trip to Mount Tabor for another 7 p.m. Saturday start.
West Davidson is at East Davidson at 7:30 p.m. Monday while Thomasville hosts North Moore at 7 p.m. Monday at Cushwa Stadium. Also at 7:30 p.m. Monday, South Davidson travels to Jordan-Matthews.
The fourth round 2-A state playoff volleyball match between West Davidson and Starmount is set for a 5 p.m. Saturday start.
There is plenty on the line in each event.
Lexington, 2-7 overall and 0-4 in the Central Carolina Conference, is fighting what could be an uphill battle for a playoff spot. The Yellow Jackets need to win their last two games to become playoff eligible. Even that might not be enough.
Central, 4-5 overall and 2-2 in the CCC, is already playoff eligible but there may be more than 64 four-win teams in 2-A. If the Spartans win Saturday night, they will clinch a playoff spot.
West Davidson, 8-1 and on an eight-game winning streak, would clinch the CCC championship with a win Monday night. The Green Dragons are 4-0 in the CCC. East Davidson, 5-4 overall and 2-2 in the CCC, already has enough wins to get in the playoffs.
North Davidson, 7-2, has slumped the last two weeks against Central Piedmont Conference foes after starting the year with a seven-game winning streak. The Black Knights are at fifth place at 1-2, but there are four teams tied at the top with 2-1 records, meaning North could still improve its playoff position considerably.
Thomasville, 8-0 overall and 4-0 in the Yadkin Valley Conference, has won 45 consecutive games and three straight 1-AA state championships. The Bulldogs are prohibitive favorites to win Monday night and lock up another YVC championship. Thomasville is on track for another top seed in the state playoffs. The Bulldogs are led by senior quarterback E.J. Abrams-Ward, who has been selected to the Shrine Bowl as a linebacker.
So far in the volleyball playoffs, West Davidson has rolled through three opponents while losing just one game. The Green Dragons, 28-3, are facing a foe that has handed them two of their losses.
Starmount, 29-3, won the Davidson County tournament hosted by West and fended off the Dragons in a tough match up in Boonville. The Dragons came close as Starmount took a 25-23, 25-12, 23-25, 25-19 win.
Should the Dragons, who have won 15 consecutive conference championships, win Saturday, they will face the West Henderson-Brevard winner in the Western Regional final Tuesday.
Mike Duprez can be reached at 249-3981, ext. 218, or mike.duprez@the-dispatch.com.
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Merrill Chooses Insider to Lead Search for Chief
LANDON THOMAS Jr.
As Merrill Lynch begins to search for its next chief executive, the company named Alberto Cribiore as its nonexecutive chairman and leader of its search committee.
Now the search begins.
After days of silence, Merrill Lynch directors yesterday named Alberto Cribiore, a board member and private equity executive, to look inside the firm and out for a chief executive to succeed E. Stanley O’Neal, who said yesterday that he would retire after 21 years.
Mr. O’Neal’s departure was long expected — the board decided late last week that he would have to go after an $8.4 billion write-down and an unauthorized merger approach to a rival bank, Wachovia. But the news still marked a final, stunning coda to one of the more abrupt chief executive departures in Wall Street history.
“I have been very fortunate to spend the past 21 years at Merrill Lynch,” Mr. O’Neal said in a statement. “The company has provided me with opportunities that I never could have imagined growing up, culminating with my leadership of the company over the past five years.”
His ouster was being described as a retirement, which allows him to hold onto $161.5 million in stock and retirement benefits, according to public filings. That is on top of more than $70 million that he took home in the last five years.
In addition to leading the search, Mr. Cribiore will serve as interim nonexecutive chairman. He was the first director tapped by Mr. O’Neal after he took over in 2002.
A longtime deal maker and executive at the private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice as well as his most recent firm, Brera Capital Partners, Mr. Cribiore was selected at a time when Mr. O’Neal was trying to build new businesses like private equity that had never been a core focus at Merrill. Now Mr. Cribiore is in the awkward position of finding the person to succeed Mr. O’Neal.
While such a process can take weeks if not more, all indications are that the directors and Mr. Cribiore are going to move as quickly as possible.
While directors have put out informal feelers to outside candidates like Alan D. Schwartz, the president of Bear Stearns, Laurence D. Fink, chief executive of the asset management firm BlackRock, is at the top of their list, and it would seem to be only a matter of time before he receives a phone call from Mr. Cribiore, according to a number of people inside and outside Merrill. A BlackRock spokesman could not be reached for comment.
Mr. Cribiore and Mr. Fink have known each other for years, socially as frequent patrons of San Pietros, the Midtown Italian restaurant that caters to financial executives, and professionally through various deals and most recently Merrill’s 49 percent stake in BlackRock.
With his experience in building an asset management business that now oversees more than $1 trillion in assets, Mr. Fink is considered well-placed to build upon Merrill’s core strength — its vast and growing private client business that manages close to $2 trillion in assets. BlackRock’s work in developing trading and software programs that assess risk exposure in stock and bond portfolios also gives him a grounding in Merrill’s chief weakness at this point: its risk control.
All the same, the board is expected to go through a process that would examine the qualifications of other outside candidates like Mr. Schwartz; John A. Thain, the president of the New York Stock Exchange; and perhaps former Merrill Lynch executives now running other companies. According to people briefed on the deliberations, the board has been interviewing top search firms to help with the process.
Also in the mix is Gregory J. Fleming, Merrill’s co-president and the firm’s top investment banker, although most insiders believe that at age 44, he is too young for the job.
In an indication that Mr. Fleming has not been hurt by his role in the merger approach to Wachovia, Merrill said yesterday that Mr. Fleming would have interim executive responsibility for all the firm’s operations, which would include its troubled fixed-income trading positions and its risk management function.
Mr. Fleming, in essence becomes a temporary chief executive, with Mr. Cribiore as chairman.
Ahmass L. Fakahany, who shares the president title with Mr. Fleming, was given the responsibility for mostly administrative areas like finance, global support and human resources. Before being appointed president, Mr. Fakahany, who has never worked as a banker or a trader, oversaw risk at the time that the firm built up its large and ultimately disastrous positions in subprime-backed securities.
A close ally of Mr. O’Neal, Mr. Fakahany has received the brunt of the criticism for Merrill’s write-downs. While it is expected that he will leave eventually, people who have been briefed on the board’s discussions said that there would probably be no major changes in management until a new chief executive picks a team.
A spokeswoman for Merrill Lynch would not make Mr. Fakahany available for a comment.
Mr. Cribiore, a charismatic native Italian who once worked as a top deal maker for the industrialist Giovanni Agnelli, is considered well placed to lead the deal process. While he has no broad experience managing or working a large financial services firm like Merrill, he has been putting together deals for more than 20 years.
In the 1980s, Mr. Cribiore worked as a top executive at Warner Communications for Steven J. Ross, who merged his company with Time to create Time Warner.
A soccer fan, Mr. Cribiore once sat on the board of the New York Cosmos, which is defunct. In 1985 he went to Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, the buyout firm where he became a president. In 1997 he started Brera, named after a famous palazzo in Milan.
Mr. O’Neal will keep more than $131.4 million in equity, including unvested stock and unexercised options; a $27.4 million pension; and $5.4 million in deferred pay that he had accumulated during his careers.
Merrill will pay for a New York office and an assistant for up to three years. Merrill also agreed to reimburse him for the legal costs of negotiating his exit and to provide health care insurance for him and his family. Those are severance benefits the board chose to award. Mr. O’Neal worked without an employment contract.
Mr. O’Neal, however, agreed not to work for a competing investment bank for 18 months, though he can work for an independent private equity firm.
Still, the board denied Mr. O’Neal a 2007 bonus, an indication of its dissatisfaction with his performance. Many dismissed chief executives have received at least a part of their annual bonus.
Mr. O’Neal’s exit agreement, reached at 3 a.m. yesterday, ends nearly five days of marathon negotiations. On Friday, Mr. O’Neal hired Joseph E. Bachelder, a well-known compensation lawyer, to handle the talks. Merrill’s board hired Allen Finkelson and Robert D. Joffe of Cravath, Swaine & Moore.
As for Mr. O’Neal, he has left the firm’s downtown headquarters at the World Financial Center. In an indication that Mr. O’Neal was cutting all ties to Merrill, he also resigned from the BlackRock board.
After the uproar of the last few days, there was in some quarters a sense of melancholy.
“Before we consign Mr. O’Neal’s regime to the history books, let’s remember how unusual it is for a chief executive officer of any company to stand up and publicly say ‘I’m responsible,’” wrote Brad Hintz, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. “To his great credit, he didn’t take the easy way out.”
Others were also affected by his untimely end, among them Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, who called Mr. O’Neal a casual friend.
“I did put in a call to him yesterday,” the mayor said. “I didn’t get him, but I put in a call just to wish him well.”
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Frazier, Williams lead Pirates to 2-1 win over Cardinals
Pittsburgh Pirates relief pitcher Felipe Vazquez, right, and catcher Francisco Cervelli celebrate the team's 2-1 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals in a baseball game Friday, May 10, 2019, in St. Louis. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)
By JOE HARRIS Associated Press
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Adam Frazier opened the game with a homer, Starling Marte drove in the game-winner and Trevor Williams allowed one run in seven solid innings as the Pittsburgh Pirates beat the St. Louis Cardinals 2-1 on Friday night.
Marte’s RBI single off of Andrew Miller (1-2) broke a 1-1 tie in the eighth and helped the Pirates snap a two-game skid.
Williams (2-1) stranded seven runners through the first four innings, and pitched around two fielding errors in the fourth inning. He allowed nine hits and limited the Cardinals to one hit in seven at-bats with runners in scoring position.
The Cardinals finished with one hit in nine at-bats with runners in scoring position, one night after getting a whopping 11 hits in that situation. St. Louis lost for the seventh time in nine games.
The only run allowed by Williams was shift-aided. Paul DeJong grounded a slow roller to second, but Frazier was playing on the third base side of the bag and couldn’t get to the ball in time to make a throw. The infield hit scored Yairo Muñoz, tying the game 1-1 in the seventh inning.
Kyle Crick pitched out of a jam in the eighth inning with runners on first and third. Felipe Vázquez struck out Paul Goldschmidt to cap a perfect ninth and earn his 11th save.
Frazier drove a 3-2 fastball from Adam Wainwright over the right field wall to give the Pirates a 1-0 lead. It was the second time this year — and fourth time in his career — that Frazier began a game with a home run.
The Pirates’ Josh Bell extended his hitting streak to 10 games in the first inning and saved a run with a diving stop on a smash by Matt Carpenter that ended the second inning.
Wainwright went a season-high seven innings and retired the final 10 batters he faced. He struck out eight — five looking — and allowed five hits and no walks.
BATTERY MATES
It was the 250th time that Yadier Molina caught a Wainwright start, moving the duo to ninth all-time in the majors ahead of Early Wynn and Jim Hegan (1949-1957 Cleveland Indians).
YADI HONORED
Molina was presented with the 2018 Roberto Clemente Award before the game for to his humanitarian efforts in his native Puerto Rico following Hurricane Maria. Luis Clemente, the second-oldest son of Roberto, and Hall of Famer Ozzie Smith presented the award.
Pirates: RHP Chris Archer (right thumb irritation) threw a four-inning, 60-pitch simulated game to teammates Corey Dickerson, Lonnie Chisenhall and Elias Díaz on Friday. He said he had no issues griping the ball on any of his pitches.
“I threw everything, everything felt fine, no pitch was affected, body feels good,” Archer said. “I’m not sure exactly where we go from here, but I’m ready to pitch five days from now in a big league game.”
Cardinals: RHP Carlos Martinez (right shoulder cuff strain) threw a scoreless inning of relief, striking out two and giving up a hit, at Triple-A Memphis on Friday night. He is still considered two weeks away.
The Pirates will send RHP Jordan Lyles (2-1, 2.20 ERA) to the mound against the Cardinals and RHP Miles Mikolas (4-2, 4.02 ERA) in the third of a four-game series on Saturday. Lyles gave up one run in a season-high 6 2/3 innings in a no-decision against Oakland on Sunday. Mikolas pitched seven scoreless innings and didn’t walk a batter for the first time this season against Philadelphia on Monday.
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Bianca Bagatourian. Photo by Dawn Bowery.
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Playwright Bianca Bagatourin tells the story of Howard Zinn
Bianca’s play, The Time Of Our Lies, is on stage at Park Theatre, London from July 30 to August 10.
Published on July 3, 2019
Click here to find out more and to buy tickets
Thank you for your time Bianca. Our traditional opening question, where in the States are you from?
At the moment I am based out of Los Angeles. I have lived in Boston and New York as well and do spend a lot of time in London.
You've been involved in theater as a playwright, producer and writer - how did you first become interested in theater?
I’ve always been more interested in experimental forms of theater. I’m a huge Beckett fan, and Brecht also, and many contemporary experimental writers. I like to focus on things that are important to me, important to the world I live in and that way I have a passion for what I write. But I also never lose sight of the fact that we are entertainers with an audience.
Your latest project is The Time Of Our Lies, which you wrote. It's the story of American historian, professor and social activist Howard Zinn. Can you tell us a little about him?
Yes of course. When I was living in Boston, I had the pleasure and honor of meeting Howard Zinn. Boston is an extraordinary town. They run things their own way. There are a lot of Irish, and Italians, and students and then you end up meeting a lot of academics. I was especially interested in Zinn's work and also Noam Chomsky's and met with them both. But I really liked Zinn's voice. He has such a simple way of describing politicians and others who try to distance you by complicating matters with jargon. But Howard spoke plainly. And when I say simple, that’s not easy because simple is complicated. Simple is hard. Simple is honest. When I started to read Zinn, I felt he was outwardly saying all the things I was thinking inwardly and hoping that I was wrong. It was a bittersweet experience. And I wanted to share this.
What lead to you writing his story, and why did it feel a good fit for stage?
There’s a funny story I like to tell which his daughter likes as well. When I first met him I said to him that I think so much of the news has become entertainment. Why don’t we turn entertainment into news? He smiled, shook my hand, and said let’s do it and that’s how we got started on this play. The story is about how Zinn was a bombardier at the age of 26 and didn’t know he was dropping Napalm on the small French seaside town of Royan when the war was almost over. They were told it was “jellied gasoline” which was new at the time and they didn’t know how devastating the results would be. This fateful act changed Zinn as a person and put him on a path of searching for better solutions for the rest of his life.
I also interviewed soldiers from Afghanistan and Iraq and interspersed their stories in the piece as well. I really wanted the audience to fully get intimate with the inner feeling of being a soldier and really grasp what it is they go through. It’s such a hard thing to actually think about. We hear constantly that 20 more died in some far away land and I think unless one of those 20 is your brother or son or someone you know, we don’t really give it much thought. In the opening scene, we watch a soldier die for five minutes. I wanted us to just sit with the actual act of dying. Of course this is done with song and Butoh dance inspired movement and other effects, so it’s not just bleak.
Is Zinn's story particularly relevant to today's America and today's world?
As America’s empire is global, its maladies are projected world wide. Only one example is that Boris Johnson has a good chance of becoming the prime minister and he is alarmingly similar to Donald Trump. How did things get to this point? The kind of intentional distortion of history that Zinn concentrated on exposing exists in Europe just as it does in America and for the same reasons. The media, including the press, and educational institutions here are controlled by the same kind of establishment interests that distort public information in America. That’s why I think that the UK is a good venue for this story. And furthermore, I want audiences to know about Howard Zinn and his work. Our future depends on knowing what really happened and what is really happening and for this we depend on heroic fighters for truth. Howard was one of them.
How did you feel about the play being nominated in 2014 for an Amnesty International Freedom of Expression Award at the Edinburgh Fringe?
Of course I was very pleased. It was a funny thing, we were in the wrong venue, the Gilded Balloon which hosts mostly comedy shows, we were at the wrong time of day which was noon and hardly anybody was coming to see us, but we had a great little team doing great work and we were glad it got noticed. A lot of Americans came and they were literally crying in the hall afterwards.
Will you be traveling to the UK for the production? If so, will you have free time to explore, what will you be doing whilst over here?
Yes, I will be here the whole month of July as we are in rehearsals and I am also the producer of the play. I imagine I will be working during the days with evenings to explore. But I have lived in the UK on and off since I was 10 years old and now split my time between Los Angeles and the UK so mostly, I will be visiting friends and some of my favorite haunts I’ve discovered over the years. In fact, when I was over last October, I spent a good amount of time at the Impreial War Museum which was fascinating. There was so much to read and see, you really got closer to what being a soldier must be like. I want to take our whole cast over there for a day!
Finally, what's the best thing about being Bianca Bagatourian?
Oh what a funny question. I would say the good thing about being Bianca is that sometimes her dreams come true. Not to say that I’m lucky... I mean I’ve never won in bingo or a lottery ticket, I’ve always had to work very hard but once in a while miracles happen and dream do come true.
The Time Of Our Lies is on stage at Park Theatre in London from July 30 to August 10. On August 6th, the show will be followed by a talk by Terri Paddock titled "Howard Zinn & Artivism". Find out more and buy tickets at www.parktheatre.co.uk/whats-on/the-time-of-our-lies/about
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Letters: ‘The Inherent Nature of White Supremacy Demands We Be Exemplary’
Readers debate the meaning of the Obamas’ “going high.”
Chip Somodevilla / Getty
Sometimes I Wish the Obamas Wouldn’t ‘Go High’
Updated at 12:30 a.m. ET on December 22, 2018.
After the Obamas shook hands with the Trumps at George H. W. Bush’s funeral earlier this month, Jemele Hill analyzed the implications of the phrase Michelle Obama coined in 2016: When they go low, we go high. “I sometimes wonder,” Hill wrote, “if the people who often cite that quote have a full understanding of the emotional toll it takes on people of color to have to constantly absolve the racism directed at them.”
Jemele Hill’s column on the Obama family’s class in dealing with Donald Trump at former President George H. W. Bush’s funeral is, and will remain, a classic. Citing the recent history of young Jeremiah Harvey, she beautifully described what most every African American I know experiences, in some form, on a daily basis.
For some of us, the experience she described has reached it limits. However, we, like President Barack Obama and the first lady Michelle Obama, must remain dignified and respectful in our responses. I’d like to share the advice of three icons: the late Dr. Arthur L. Johnson, one of my mentors; the late Zora Neale Hurston, a prominent African American author and anthropologist; and Bernard Lafayette, one of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s protégés.
When I was took a position in Connecticut in 1990, Johnson, knowing how whites have a difficult time accepting a person of color in charge, told me: “Dwight, you’re gonna have to eat some crow some time, and even take some stuff, but you don’t have to take it lying down.”
Hurston offers similar advice: “If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.”
Lafayette specifically counsels victims to know the law. When he spoke at Eastern Connecticut State University in 2013, he said: “If you don’t use your God-given rights, you will lose them.”
All three were and are right. Have a bone in your back. Be honest and firm, and if necessary, take people to court who commit their vicious and insidious acts and who behave disrespectfully toward you and expect you to “get over it.” Your beautiful prose shows that African Americans will always show class in facing and dealing with small-minded people.
Dwight Bachman
Willimantic, Conn.
I wonder if Ms. Hill considered the agency that both former President Obama and the first lady Michelle Obama exhibited rather than assuming that grace is weak. Of course grace, which means acting in love even when others don’t deserve the act, is formidable among the great exhibitors of social change. We wouldn’t expect less of these two. It is the strongest response and most revealing when standing next to those who have, in fact, been ungracious.
Rev. Jan Todd
Mulvane, Kan.
Thank you for your candid thoughts. I can identify with the article. As a father of a mid-20s, half-black man, no matter how hard I tried to raise him right and make sure he understood that heroes come in all colors and sizes by educating him through books and conversations, still at times I was frustrated that the reality of our society systematically enforces otherwise.
Combiz Khatiblou
As a woman of color, I am inclined to disagree that there was a problem with the Obamas’ “going high.” My perception of the Obamas is they are “high,” simply that. My take: The Obamas are not in the game. It is just not their style. And what do they have to prove by being obnoxious or belligerent?
Dr. Francine Adams
Lake Worth, Fla.
I disagree entirely with this. I’m partly African American myself, and I teach African American history. The behavior of the Obamas at the funeral was both appropriate and exemplary, in my view. As always, they conducted themselves with dignity and poise, despite Trump’s boorish conduct, and thereby illustrated precisely the sort of graceful bearing for which the late President Bush has been so highly praised.
Brian Alnutt, Ph.D.
New Tripoli, Pa.
I totally disagree with the author. The Obamas’ “going high” is for me one of the few things that can ameliorate the pain of watching the current president and his gang. Because “going high” is more than a chosen behavior; it’s an expression of character that elevates them, and by contrast, reveals the difference between them and the current president. I can’t imagine a worse response than to imitate the president in his emotionally stunted words or behavior. Their “going high” makes me proud and humbled at the same time—proud for their example and humbled at my own failures under less provocation.
R. B. Goetsch
Pioneer, Calif.
The essay by Ms. Hill encapsulated precisely what I was thinking, but could not articulate. I have felt conflicted by the Obamas for many years. To my mind, if a person looks out the window and says it’s raining and another says it’s sunny, it is the job of a leader to look at the evidence (in this case, look out the window) and speak the truth, not cite them both. Yet most blacks understand that, in a country where the lion’s share of resources is controlled by Caucasians, the inherent nature of white supremacy demands we be exemplary. The Obamas understood that racism is as American as apple pie. So much so, the most minor attack on it risked many Caucasians thinking it was an attack on America. This was a risk they were not prepared to take.
However, there is a significant degree of cognitive dissonance involved in taking the high road. Marginalized groups are told to be patient, polite, and civil in the face of the most grievous assaults and, when they hazard to make even the most minor of pleading, are invariably ignored. For marginalized people, the irony is not lost that they are told to do things the “proper way,” knowing America was founded on, oftentimes, very violent protest and conflict. Moreover, when affluent Caucasians are riled up over some perceived slight, they seem to have no problem doing whatever is necessary to preserve and sustain their position in society.
I’ve stopped thinking that if I am palatable enough, European Americans will open their arms to me, and that I will have fair access to opportunities if my personage is more pleasing to white sensibilities. It has not worked, and this is emotional labor I no longer have the strength, nor the inclination, to expend. It is not my responsibility to make European Americans feel more comfortable with me. For me, the old tenet of power conceding nothing without a demand is truth.
Connor Smithersmapp
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Reihan: Thoma-graphy
I think of Mark Thoma as a service-oriented blogger, who enriches the blogosphere with his nose for news. But I particularly enjoy it when he offers a memoir-istic interpretation of economic change. His thoughts on the economic status of his working-class parents are particularly interesting.
There seemed to be an understanding that workers had families to raise. Somehow, my parents - a worker at a parts counter and a peach factory worker - owned a house in a decent neighborhood and while it was tough some months, we had health care through my dad's job and most of the middle class trappings (even if we did get a color TV much later than the neighbors). He didn't work at a great big place or anything, probably ten to twenty employees total, but they still had health care, etc. It's hard to imagine two workers my parents age (in their later 20s) working at those jobs and being able to afford those things today.
I know the empirical evidence doesn't give a lot of weight to the union story for preventing inequality, but looking back it's hard not to believe that the evidence somehow misses an ethic that was present then, something larger than unions alone, something that is less present today, a social relationship between employers and employees that kept employers from pushing wages as low as they possibly could go.
I have a somewhat darker sense of that time, and a somewhat more optimistic sense of what the future will likely hold. All the same, Thoma provides valuable insight into the power of economic nostalgia, and why middle-class squeeze is such a potent issue.
Ross Douthat is a contributing editor at The Atlantic.
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Use the fields below to perform an advanced search of The Dartmouth 's archives. This will return articles, images, and multimedia relevant to your query.
1000 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
Study examines Veterans Health Administration medical care services
Veterans around the country should give more consideration to the Veterans Health Administration’s services when choosing where to receive medical care, according to a recent study on the merits of VHA and non-VHA facilities published in the Annals of Internal Medicine at the end of 2018.
https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2019/01/study-examines-vha-medical-care-services
College to roll out Google's G Suite
Dartmouth community members will be able to use Google applications through their official College accounts following a recent decision to offer Google’s G Suite campus-wide.
https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2019/01/college-to-roll-out-googles-g-suite
Early decision cycle sees increase in applications
Henry Mans ’23 wanted to go to college in a small town connected to nature. A recently-accepted student from Edina, Minnesota, Mans said that Dartmouth was his first choice school because of its size, location and academic strength.
https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2019/01/dartmouth-accepts-574-students-early-decision-for-the-class-of-2023
The Dartmouth appoints new interim publisher
Vinay Reddy ’20 has been appointed as The Dartmouth’s interim publisher. He previously served as the assistant director of communications and marketing.
https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2019/01/the-dartmouth-appoints-new-interim-publisher
Students travel to South America and India during winterim
As most Dartmouth students finished exams and began their winter break, three classes reconvened after Thanksgiving to travel abroad for the culminating experiences of their fall term courses.
https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2019/01/students-travel-to-south-america-and-india-during-winterim
After 26 years, Wheelock Books closes
Students will now have to order all their textbooks online following another bookstore closure in Hanover. After 26 years in operation, Wheelock Books — the town’s only remaining bookstore for new books — has stopped its in-store and online retail operations.
https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2019/01/wheelock-books-is-closing
Nearly 800 Dartmouth community members sign letter in support of sexual harassment plaintiffs
In an organized show of support for the plaintiffs in the pending class action against Dartmouth, nearly 800 alumni, current undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, staff and other members of the Dartmouth community have signed a letter condemning “an institutional culture that minimizes and disregards sexual violence and gender harassment.”
https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2018/12/over-800-dartmouth-community-members-sign-letter-in-support-of-sexual-harassment-plaintiffs
Dartmouth accepts 574 students out of a record-high 2,474 applicants
Dartmouth has welcomed 574 students to the Class of 2023 via early decision, compared to 565 last year. The newest cohort of students was selected from a record 2,474 applicants, representing a nine percent increase compared to early applications last year. The decisions were released to applicants on Dec. 13.
https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2018/12/dartmouth-accepts-574-students-out-of-a-record-high-2474-applicants
Alumni question donating after sexual harassment lawsuit
For a decade, Ruth Cserr ’88 has been a regular donor to Dartmouth. But in the wake of the pending sexual harassment class action against the College, which accuses three former professors in the psychological and brain sciences department of repeated sexual harassment, assault and misconduct, that is no longer the case.
https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2018/12/alumni-question-donating-after-sexual-harassment-lawsuit
$70 million lawsuit alleges Dartmouth turned blind eye to sexual abuse
Updated 1/15/19 at 12:18 a.m.
https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2018/11/college-faces-70-million-federal-class-action-lawsuit
Q&A with visiting professor Lev Grinberg
Lev Grinberg is a visiting professor in the anthropology and sociology departments, hailing from Ben-Gurion University in Be’er Sheva, Israel. Grinberg has an extensive academic background in sociology and political economics, as well as Israel’s Labor Zionist movement. He has written several books touching on these subjects, as well as books about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2018/11/qa-with-visiting-professor-lev-grinberg
NH ruled College allowed to build 70,000 square-foot indoor facility
Hanover’s cold winters will soon no longer freeze the training schedules of Dartmouth’s sports teams. The New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled in a decision on Nov. 6 that the Hanover planning board improperly denied the College’s application to begin construction on an indoor athletic practice facility. Following the court’s decision, the College will resume its plans to build the 70,000 square-foot facility in the open space adjacent to the Boss Tennis Center off of South Park Street.
https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2018/11/nh-ruled-college-allowed-to-build-indoor-facility
Dartmouth celebrates Veterans Day, reflects on experiences
Dartmouth had a packed schedule this year to celebrate Veterans Day, including ceremonies, discussions and events. The celebration, which took place over the period between Nov. 5 and Nov. 12, was scheduled similarly to years past.
https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2018/11/dartmouth-celebrates-veterans-day-reflects-on-experiences
Q&A with Phyllis Deutsch
Phyllis Deutsch became a lecturer for the Institute of Writing and Rhetoric in 2017 after retiring from her position as the editor-in-chief of the University Press of New England. This fall, she taught Writing 5, “Gender and the Holocaust,” which aims to challenge the male-oriented research of the Holocaust and to understand how gender affected the treatment of Jews in Europe.
https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2018/11/q-and-a-with-phyllis-deutsch
Eye-tracking technology could help AR
Augmented reality is poised to have a bright future. Researchers at the College have developed battery-free, eye-tracking glasses that could be particularly useful for enhancing existing AR technologies. The technology was showcased at the ACM MobiCon 2018 conference in New Delhi, India on Oct. 30 by its lead author, computer science Ph.D. student Tianxing Li, after being developed in conjunction with computer science professor Xia Zhou.
https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2018/11/eye-tracking-technology-could-help-ar
Professors reflect on 2018 midterm election results
Two days after the Nov. 6 midterm elections, a panel of four Dartmouth professors spoke to an audience of over 100 people about the results. They reflected on Democrats’ retaking of the House of Representatives, seven governorships, and seven state legislative houses and the expansion of the Republican majority in the Senate. Several high-profile races nationwide remain too close to call, including the Senate races in Arizona and Florida and the gubernatorial races in Florida and Georgia.
https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2018/11/professors-reflect-on-2018-midterm-election-results
Posthumous autobiography of Ben Barres Med'79 inspires scientific, transgender communities
The legacy of celebrated neurobiologist and transgender role model Ben Barres Med’79 is living on in a posthumously-published autobiography, introducing many to the pioneering scientist who died of cancer late last year.
https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2018/11/posthumous-autobiography-of-ben-barres-med79-inspires-scientific-transgender-communities
Community members protest Jeff Sessions' resignation
As the sun set on Nov. 8, two American flags could be seen above a crowd gathered at the corner of Main Street and East Wheelock Street for a protest called “Nobody Is Above the Law — Mueller Protection Rapid Response.” Over 100 protestors assembled at 5 p.m. to oppose the forced resignation of U.S. attorney general Jeff Sessions and the subsequent appointment of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general. Whitaker is expected to oversee special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2018/11/community-members-protest-jeff-sessions-resignation
The Pitch sees 10 applicants present their ideas
On Nov. 1, individuals from across campus gathered in Collis Common Ground to hear business ideas from students, faculty and staff in The Pitch, an entrepreneurship competition hosted by the DALI Lab and the Magnuson Center for Entrepreneurship. Three teams of students won prizes to support their entrepreneurship at the College.
https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2018/11/the-pitch-sees-10-applicants-present-their-ideas
Phnom Penh opens new location in White River Junction
On Monday, White River Junction witnessed an addition to its culinary diversity. Phnom Penh, the Cambodian restaurant that has been operating at 1 High Street, Lebanon for a year, opened a new location at 7 North Main Street in White River Junction. The restaurant will be open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Saturday.
https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2018/11/phnom-penh-opens-new-location-in-white-river-junction
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Archive Aerospace Defence & security TE160
TE 160 in partnership with
January 1941: The first flight of the Lancaster bomber
By Andrew Wade 20th January 2016 11:10 am 5th December 2018 1:07 pm
Download document:
Lancaster Bomber - .PDF file.
To celebrate our 160th anniversary here at Engineer Towers we’re looking to showcase the magazine’s archive, exploring its depths in greater detail than ever before. We’ll be looking to unearth some obscure gems, as well as pay tribute to iconic engineering achievements. And they don’t come any more iconic than our first subject – the Avro Lancaster heavy bomber.
Like The Engineer, the Lancaster is celebrating a landmark year, with this month marking the 75th anniversary of the aircraft’s maiden flight in January 1941. The bomber would not enter active service until the following year, but by August 1942 when The Engineer was invited to see it in action, the Lancaster had already started to make a name for itself.
“But a few months after its completion, the ‘Lancaster’ has left its mark on the German landscape and its people,” wrote our predecessors. “It has helped powerfully by night to batter Cologne and Essen, with bombs of the heaviest calibre. By day it carried out the epic raid led by squadron Leader J.D. Nettleton, V.C. on Augsburg, and the raids on Danzig and Flensburg.”
“From the initial flights and the report of the Ministry of Aircraft Production testing staff, it was soon obvious that the Allied cause had now what has since been aptly styled by many pilots as a ‘war winner’.”
Lancasters on duty during WWII, from our archive
Of course, the Lancaster’s most famous hour was to come in May 1943 later with Operation Chastise, better known as the Dam Busters mission. Armed with Barnes Wallis’s bouncing bomb, 19 of the aircraft (slightly modified) were involved in the attack on the Möhne, Edersee and Sorpe Dams in Germany’s Ruhr valley. The Möhne and Edersee dams were destroyed, but eight of the aircraft would not return, with 53 aircrew killed during the mission and another three taken prisoner.
While the story of the Dam Busters certainly added to the Lancaster’s legend, its iconic design also won it a place in the public consciousness. Despite being “designed and built in record time” in what this magazine referred to as “a triumph of aeronautical engineering”, the bomber was also noted for its “particularly graceful lines and a pleasing appearance, perhaps rarely seen in large military aircraft.”
A more technical description comes later in the article: “In design it may be described as a mid-wing four-engined all-metal cantilever monoplane, with a retractable undercarriage. In general, it is powered by four Rolls-Royce ‘Merlin XX’ liquid-cooled engines, which have given such a good account of themselves in other bombers and fighter aircraft.”
Archive copy of the Lancaster’s vital statistics
“Other engines, notably the Bristol ‘Hercules,’ are also being fitted to the ‘Lancaster’. An outstanding feature which was demonstrated on the occasion of our visit is its great ease of control, and this, coupled with its high speed, is of great defensive value.”
It is testament to the Lancaster’s quality that variants of the aircraft were still in operation as late as 1963, with two surviving planes still airworthy to this day. Central to this longevity was the modular design, which in 1942 was described by The Engineer as enabling “ease of production, easy transport, and easy maintenance and repair.”
“The design, the makers claim, lends itself to rapid and relatively cheap production,” our predecessors wrote, “as the entire machine is built up of numbers of components which are manufactured largely as separate and self-contained units, and are easy to transport and to assemble.”
“Full 100 per cent interchangeability has been aimed at and achieved, and this, coupled with ease of construction, has contributed largely to the ease of maintenance and repair.”
This flexibility, along with the aircraft’s operational excellence, would prompt Air Chief Marshal Arthur “Bomber” Harris to refer to the Lancaster as the RAF Bomber Command’s “shining sword”. It became the mainstay of British heavy bombers following its introduction, flying 156,000 sorties between 1942 and 1945. During this period, Lancasters would drop over 600,000 tonnes of bombs, and 3,249 planes would be lost in action.
Manufactured primarily at Avro’s factory at Chadderton near Oldham, Lancasters were also built in one of Canada’s largest aircraft factories and flown by the Royal Canadian Air Force, as well as the Royal Australian Air Force. A true giant of the skies, the Lancaster is among the most fondly remembered of all British military aircraft, and one that undoubtedly played a vital role in turning the tide in favour of the Allies. 75 years on from its maiden flight, The Engineer salutes this incredible aircraft.
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Philip Hayter 20th January 2016 at 9:34 pm
Would any similar icon be achievable in the UK today?
michael blamey 21st January 2016 at 7:10 am
Not if we rely on the ‘shams’ to design it! But ‘Thrust’ (Richard Noble’s creation) surely comes close. Fellow bloggers might recall a previous post about this iconic plane. One of the original test pilots was called “Orrell” -a distant relative of my good lady (her maiden name -Orrell) and the Chief Engineer of the firm (*) I worked for in the early 70s (Roy Fielding) was a young DO apprentice/ stress-man at Avro. He used to amuse us,(*) telling of visits to the Air Ministry (with Wallace et al doing the modifications necessary to incorporate the Bouncing Bomb) and their trying to explain to senior officers (who had learned their flying when planes were made of wood and wire and fabric) that it was equations and science which was necessary, not Brylcreem (a popular hair preparation much favoured by young pilots then) and Wizzo Prang ( a phrase used by the same to describe flying?) Best
PS actually is it essential that we Engineers are always directed towards so-called prestigue products? Yes, there is PR value, but….Surely, that ascent of mankind is advanced just as much by the development of a mundane item used by millions (a household item, an improved manufacturing technique, a less expensive method of containing groceries? the Computer programme that enhances bus timetables…) than weapons?
J.Fulcher 10th October 2017 at 12:18 pm
small correction-it was/is “wizArd prang” usually accompanied by “…………old chap!” Hate to upset the RAF
James stirling 28th January 2016 at 12:10 am
A fantastic feet of engineering and a great credit to the man who created 2 great iconic planes the lanc and the Vulcan which both have served there country well. The lanc is a plane which was nimble and a great plane to fly but the crews who died for there country shouldn’t be forgotten. Even tho bomber Harris and Churchill forgot RIP.
Alfredo M. Claussen 9th February 2016 at 8:45 pm
I had the real pleasure and excitement to actually see and HEAR a Lancaster flying on Battle of Britain Memorial back in 2007 in Ottawa at the Ottawa-Gatineau small airport, flying in formation together with a Hurricane, a Spitfire and a P-51 Mustang, all powered by Merlin engines (well, the Spitfire was a later model powered by a Griffon, nevertheless a Rolls-Royce!). Hearing SEVEN of these engines simultaneousy, was music to my ears!
A few days later, I visited the site where they were rebuilding another Lancaster, the one that was salvaged from a lake. I had a long, very interesting talk with the fine Canadian people that are putting so many hours of their valuable time in pursuing this labor of love. The Lancaster was a magnificent plane, with excellent qualities, but it had its “Achilles Heel”, in that it lacked protection from underneath attacks, as it lacked a ventral turret/belly gunner bottom gun turret like the B-17 and B-24, but was way superior to those in bomb load, maneuverability and high altitude performance, together with reliability (which the B-24 lacked).
Amclaussen.
mike blamey 21st February 2016 at 8:16 am
As the Merlin Engine (and its derivatives) is mentioned, perhaps a short ‘textile’ related contribution may be of interest. Between the water cooling system in the Merlin ‘block’ and the air-cooled radiator was inserted a flexible ‘bellows’ -to allow for the vibration and movement of both during flight. Early versions (metal) had fractured. This was a braided structure (think May-poles on the village green and the interlocking of the ribbons each child has) that could adsorb and accept motion in many different planes. Churchill did single out the firm who made these [Harborough Rubber Co] for particular mention: as their technology had been critical to the success of Merlins in WWII
Stephen Rose 14th July 2016 at 12:26 pm
Getting up close and personal to BBMF Lanc is not easy but you can crawl all over Just Jane at East Kirby Lincs is great way to see this fantastic piece of history.
Nice article BTW!
Phil Dodd 17th August 2016 at 10:16 pm
Going back to the mid 2000s, I knew a gentleman in his eighties, who claimed to be a navigator on Lancasters, training for the “Dam Buster” raid. He used to come bowling at our indoor bowling green at the sports centre in Leominster, Herefordshire. He said that there were two sets of crew, the primary and a backup. It was frequently the case that the primary crew suffered air sickness after a trip because of hours of vibrations from the Rolls Royce engines, so backup crew members had to be ready to substitute. As luck would have it, the primary navigator on his craft was available to fly on the actual day, so he wasn’t called upon. He’s dead now ( and I’ve retired ) so we can’t quiz him further…
Ronald Wright 11th February 2017 at 1:48 am
I’m 81 now, and living in NSW Australia, I lived in Brighton, Sussex, England, was called up for national service in 1954, signed on for four years to be come a airframe mechanic, had the great pleasure of servicing ten Lancasters of “B” Flight at RAF St Mawgan Cornwall, coastal command, from late 1954 untill mid 1956 , when the good ole Lanc’ was phased out, and replaced with Lincolns I think, I was posted to Scotland and then to 32 MU in Wales, then discharged in 1958. The ole Lanc’ still holds a special place in my heart, and always will.
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Opinion Academia becomes poisoned if deans can’t criticize the university
Academia becomes poisoned if deans can’t criticize the university
MICHAEL PLAXTON
Contributed to The Globe and Mail
Michael Plaxton (@MichaelPlaxton) is an associate professor of Law at the University of Saskatchewan
Eds Note: The University of Saskatchewan has rescinded some of the actions it took Wednesday against Robert Buckingham.
Robert Buckingham was a tenured professor and executive director of the University of Saskatchewan's School of Public Health. He was fired on Wednesday, after publicly speaking his mind about the University's decision to collapse the School into the Department of Medicine – part of the academic prioritization process known as TransformUS.
This has, predictably, provoked much public discussion about academic freedom. I'm not sure if Dr. Buckingham's academic freedom protected his right to voice his complaints to the media while holding an administrative position. But I'm pretty sure that the University's response is poisonous to the academic environment.
Academic freedom is a fuzzy concept. At its core, it encompasses two central ideas. First, it entails the freedom of universities from external control and influence – most notably by the state, but also from corporations and private donors. Second, it entails the right of individual professors to engage in their teaching and research free from the inappropriate influence of others, including their employers.
The Buckingham case is vexing because it does not, at least in any straightforward sense, involve either of those things. The decision to fold the School of Public Health into the Department of Medicine clearly has serious implications for how – and how successfully – academic work in public health will be carried out. No one has suggested, though, that the university fired Mr. Buckingham in order to obstruct lines of research and inquiry. Any damage caused to the work of academics would be, at most, an unintended side-effect.
The question is, taking for granted that there is a good faith disagreement between the University and Dr. Buckingham about how programs should be structured, whether he is entitled to break ranks and publicly complain about the process. That isn't obvious. Reasonable people may disagree about how to arrange and structure academic programs so that they can function effectively and efficiently – not just as discrete, stand-alone units, but as a university. In the end, though, someone needs to make a decision. Assuming that the final decision belongs to the central administration, and not to the individual deans, there is some merit to the claim that Dr. Buckingham and others have an obligation to implement it – and not to foment dissent among the rank and file professoriate.
One would want to be extremely cautious before reaching this conclusion. (At the very least, it seems in serious tension with the Canadian Association of University Teachers' understanding of academic freedom.) Being a professional academic means having the responsibility, not just the "freedom," to ensure that academic programs can satisfactorily meet the standards of the field. Much of Dr. Buckingham's complaint, and there are others who share it, is that they were not given an adequate opportunity to express their considered opinions about TransformUS before it was too late. It is all well and good to say that a university needs to have a co-ordinated academic plan. It is quite another thing to refuse to listen to the views of senior professional academics about how their respective fields of study can best be taught and researched.
For now, though, let's give the University the benefit of the doubt on that point. Let's even concede for the sake of argument that Dr. Buckingham's decision to speak to the media was inconsistent with his role as an administrator. That still raises the obvious question: why not just seek his resignation from his administrative role? Why go further, and fire him from his position as a tenured professor?
There are two possible reasons for taking this approach. First, it may be a means of asserting control over deans. The University appears to have interpreted tenure in an unusually narrow way. On this view, an individual cannot simultaneously function as both a senior administrator and a professor. Assuming that tenure exists chiefly to protect the academic freedom of professors whose primary duties are teaching and research, the University has apparently concluded that those occupying senior administrative roles (including deans and associate deans) simply do not have it.
The upshot is this: Had the University simply sought Dr. Buckingham's resignation from his role as executive director, he would have reverted to his position as a member of faculty and, at that point, would have enjoyed the protection of tenure. The University would have been stuck with a vocal critic. By not giving Dr. Buckingham a chance to resign, however, the University could fire him outright.
The implications are startling. It would effectively mean that any dean in the University is under the thumb of the central administration. She may complain in private, and may make submissions to the extent permitted. If she is ignored, and tries to take her message to the streets, the consequences are not just a loss of administrative position, but of her job as an academic.
The second reason is obvious. Tenure exists to protect academics' ability to speak out. By firing Dr. Buckingham, the University has sent a powerful message that it is unwilling to tolerate dissent. As a tenured academic with no administrative position, I may be safe. An untenured assistant professor at the University of Saskatchewan, by contrast, might think twice before crossing swords with her employer.
Academic freedom might not have protected Mr. Buckingham's right to complain to the media so long as he was executive director of the School of Public Health. By responding in this aggressive fashion, though, the University has done considerable damage to the academic environment. It should know better.
When you're a university dean, 'toe the party line' isn't your job
Tenured Saskatchewan professor fired for opposing restructuring plans
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Joseph S. Tulchin
Joe Tulchin is a Latin Americanist. He is a widely published research scholar and a successful teacher.
He spent 25 years teaching—first at Yale and then at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill —and then for 16 years directed a program of public policy research on Latin America, as part of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
He has been active in only one tobacco-related trial: Widdick v. Brown and Williamson. Under cross-examination in that case Tulchin declared that he had billed the tobacco companies for $90,000. He charged $250 an hour for his work as an expert judicial witness.[1]
[1] See cross-examination of Joseph Tulchin, June 1, 1998, Widdick v. Brown and Williamson. Westlaw reference: 1998 WL 35262237.
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‘We’re scared of immigration, not Europe,’ say Italian voters
immigrationelectioneu
The head of the Northern League, Matteo Salvini, leads a rally against Italy's proposed citizenship law. Photo: Filippo Monteforte/AFP
Fear over migrants, not euro-scepticism, is fuelling populism in Italy ahead of next year’s general election, according to a survey by La Stampa and the Financial Times.
READ ALSO: What you need to know about Italy's upcoming 2018 election
The two centrist newspapers last month asked their readers to share their concerns ahead of the spring vote, and those who did put multiculturalism high on the list.
Of the more than 1,100 people who responded, fewer than half said that they believed in a multiethnic Italy. Most rejected the idea or said they had grave doubts about it.
The findings are not necessarily representative, given that the sample was self-selecting. According to La Stampa, respondents mainly came from the north of Italy, the country’s wealthy industrial heartland and home of the far-right, anti-immigration, anti-EU Northern League.
Nationwide opinion polls show the governing centre-left Democratic Party (PD) losing ground to the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S), which like the Northern League has long criticized the European Union and the single currency – though it has recently begun to soften its opposition.
READ ALSO: Italy's Five Star Movement leader softens stance on euro and party alliances
The snapshot of voters’ views provided by La Stampa and the Financial Times indicate that their readers aren’t looking to take Italy out of Europe or the eurozone.
“More than two-thirds of our readers believe that the EU has helped the country, and they are largely opposed to leaving it,” La Stampa said – even those who planned to vote for M5S or the League.
More likely to motivate them to vote outside the mainstream was immigration. One pensioner from the province of Brescia in northern Italy, for instance, told the paper that he – a longtime Democrat – was considering voting for the Northern League for the first time in his life “to send a signal”.
“Immigration can be a necessity and a resource, but Italy is not capable of governing it effectively,” he said.
READ ALSO: Only Italy sees dip in support for EU, new poll shows
As that case illustrates, concerns about immigration aren’t limited to the far-right. Supporters of the PD show “considerable unease” too, La Stampa said, quoting some of its Democrat readers’ fears about Italy’s immigration policies, about Islam and about the examples of other countries in Europe that have also taken in immigrants.
Its readers nonetheless remained mostly favourable towards Angela Merkel, the chancellor who has overseen mass immigration to Germany, and negative towards the election of President Donald Trump and Britain’s vote to leave the EU.
A poll shortly after the Brexit referendum found that, unlike most Europeans, Italians had an increasingly unfavourable perception of the EU, with one in three saying that Italy should leave the bloc.
Forget flying! The best way to see Europe is via bus and rail. Oh, and it’s usually cheaper and often faster than taking to the skies. The Local rounds up some top tips for planning your next European adventure.
Italy's Five Star Movement leader softens stance on euro and party alliances ahead of 2018 election
The date for next year's Italian general election has been set: reports
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Nearly 50,000 young people left Italy last year
Italy closes Europe's biggest migrant centre
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Al Capone's Miami Villa Death Home!
Home Photos
An historic Miami Beach compound that Al Capone bought in 1928, the home he used as an alibi for the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, and the place where he died in 1947 may, or may not, have recently sold for $9 million.
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In 1928, Miami Beach was reeling from the the collapse of the Florida land boom and the Great Miami Hurricane that had destroyed much of the resort city. Never one to miss an opportunity, Chicago crime-boss Al Capone bought one of Miami Beach's best estates on Biscayne Bay at the bargain price of $40,000 (about $550,000 in 2016 dollars). Capone spent another $70,000 in fortifying the property against intruders adding a guest/guard house at the entry gate and using rooms above the pool house at the bay’s edge to house his guards who were on 24/7 lookout. Safe and secure from his Chicago crime rivals, it was the home where Capone was vacationing when his gang pulled off the 1929 Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, lived full time after his release from prison in 1939 and where he died in 1947 surrounded by family and a few friends.
According to the granddaughter of Clarence M. Busch, who was a real estate developer of Miami Beach’s Palm Island, Busch sold the Spanish-style, waterfront home across the street from his own in 1928. Unbeknownst to Busch, the deal was being brokered through a middleman for the notorious Capone. It wasn’t long before the actual buyer was revealed, sending a shock wave of horror throughout Miami and Miami Beach. City fathers were afraid that having the kingpin of organized crime in residence would muddy South Florida’s Chamber of Commerce image of clean family fun. However, Capone saw it another way. He believed the Prohibition rum running from the Bahama’s, gambling and the element of crime drawn by these activities would keep officials too busy to pay much attention to him.
Many of Miami's community leaders came after Capone, especially the Miami News and the Miami Women's Club, to rid the city of the crime boss. Clarence Busch wrote a letter to Florida Governor Doyle Carlton complaining about the noise, gunshots, unapproved additional construction added to the property and the fact that Capone’s presence had disrupted land sales on the island and was damaging Miami Beach’s reputation. Although many crimes were likely orchestrated from Capone’s residence, he was seen as a hero and philanthropist by much of the American public, funding one of Chicago's largest soup kitchens during the Great Depression and free milk for Chicago school children. Lawmakers were never able to pin gangland events directly to Capone and he continued to live in his Palm Island residence in relative peace until the feds convicted and imprisoned him in 1931 for tax evasion. Capone returned to the residence in 1939 when his prison sentence was reduced due to his deteriorating physical and mental condition. He died peacefully at his Palm Island estate on January 25, 1947 surrounded by family and a few friends.
Since Capone's death, the storied estate has changed hands many times. Although several U.S. and U.K media sources recently reported that the home had sold to Mino Raiola, the Dutch super-agent who represents many of Manchester United's soccer stars, the company that maintains the property has denied any sale of the property.
Whether newly sold or not, the Capone mansion is an iconic piece of modern American history, old world glamour and an ideal location. With each change in ownership, there have been improvements to the property with the most current owner completing a full restoration. At 36,000 square feet, it includes the seven-bedroom, seven-bath main home that is gated and walled, the two-story gatehouse and two-story pool house overlooking 100 feet of frontage on Biscayne Bay and a view of Hibiscus Island. Original features include an Art Deco black and gold tiled bathroom and a living room fireplace.
Capone's mansion is now renamed as 93 Palm Island and available for rent for photo and video productions. According to its website, the home is “one of the oldest and most notorious estates in Miami” with “7-foot walls” and “secured 24 hours a day...surrounded by the Biscayne Bay on all sides.”
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Culture and Heritage of India
12 Nights Itinerary Covering: Delhi - Jaipur – Agra - Gwalior –Khajuraho - Varanasi
Prepare for a memorable extravaganza of India’s culture, art, heritage and history. The destinations included in Culture and Heritage of India Tour by LuxoIndia are handpicked and crafted to flaunt few spectacular aspects of this country. Along with Golden Triangle Tourist Circuit (which consists of Delhi, Agra and Jaipur- a preferred circuit by a lot of people around the world), Gwalior, Khajuraho and Varanasi are also included in it. During these twelve nights and thirteen days you will experience India’s city life, holy rituals in pilgrimage sites and old-world charm in its archeological destinations. Read the itinerary for more information regarding the tour.
Note: This is just a suggested itinerary indicative of what could be possible. We tailor holidays for your specific needs. Contact us if you want modifications so that we could tailor a holiday to suit your need for an unforgettable India tour.
Shop at Old Delhi Markets and visit splendid sites of the city like the Red Fort and Qutab Minar.
Ride an elephant to reach the magnificent Amber Fort up the hill in Jaipur.
Lose yourself in the grandeur and flawlessness of one of the Seven Wonder of the World, Taj Mahal.
Spend the day exploring the massive and beautiful Gwalior Fort.
Visit UNESCO World Heritage Site and a popular attraction of India, Khajuraho Group of Monuments.
Attend enchanting evening arti in the banks of holy river, Ganga, in Varanasi.
Day 1 - Delhi
On your arrival in Delhi Airport/ Railway Station meet our tour representative and get escorted to a pre-booked hotel. Check-in to your hotel and relax.
Delhi is dotted with ancient, European and hi-tech infrastructure. From street food to exquisite restaurant, Delhi doesn't disappoint foodies too. For culture-vultures Delhi is an open exposition. This much-deserved capital of India is a mesh of antiquity and vogue, but with the right amount of ingredients.
Overnight stay in the hotel.
After breakfast proceed for New Delhi sightseeing. Few of the sites included in the tour consist of Old Delhi market, Qutab Minar, Red Fort, Laxmi Narayan Temple and Rashtrapati Bhawan. Cycle ride and driving past India Gate are also added in the sightseeing session.
Old Delhi Market has a mélange of goods, food and entertainment. Name anything and you can find an expansive variety in this market. Khari Baoli, the spice market of Old Delhi is the largest wholesale market of Asia. Here, you can treat your taste-buds with some of Delhi's finest street foods, or shop in the flea-markets.
Qutab Minar is a 100-meter-high minaret, built in the 12th century. It is a UNESCO World Heritage and is accompanied by other archeological structures like The Tomb of Iltutmish and Alai Darwaza. The minar is built of red sandstone, marble and sandstone and has verses of Quran inscribed on it. The first three floors are made from red sandstone, while the fourth and fifth storeys are built of marble and sandstone. The first floor has Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque. Qutab Minar is a major tourist attraction of Delhi and has been regarded as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Red Fort isn't just a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but is also the venue of India's Independence Day celebration. This is a prominent facet of Delhi's heritage, history and architecture. The structure was built in 1857 and back then, it served as the residence of the ruler for about two hundred years. The façade has an Indian Flag fluttering through. The fort is enclosed with huge walls built from red sandstone. Its architecture reflects an amalgamation of Mughal, Persian, Timurid and Hindu styles.
Laxmi Narayan Temple or Birla Temple is a significant Hindu religious spot of Delhi dedicated to Lord Vishnu. Other idols inside the complex consist of Lord Shiva, Lord Buddha and Lord Krishna. Total area of the complex is about 7.5 acres, which is embellished with many shrines, fountains, garden and Geeta Bhavan.
Rashtrapati Bhavan and India Gate are in close proximity, both of these hold great significance in India's political and nationalistic scenario. Edwin Lutyens designed India Gate, which dates back to 1921 and was built to pay regards to the soldiers who died in First World War and Anglo-Afghan War. The structure of India Gate was inspired by Arc-de-Triomphe of France, even the pathway to Rashtrapati Bhawan and routes are much similar to it. Rashtrapati Bhawan is the official residence of the president of India. The British built this structure for viceroy after Delhi was finalized to be the capital of India in Delhi Durbar, 1910.
Overnight stay in hotel.
Day 3 - Delhi-Jaipur
This day drive to Jaipur, the Heritage City. On arrival proceed to your hotel, check-in and relax. Rest of the day is to be spent at leisure. You may also choose to stay at the hotel or go for sightseeing.
Jaipur is the capital of Rajasthan state of India, well-known as Pink City and for its heritage and archeological sites. The city is further festooned with colorful bazaars from where you can buy vibrant bangles, clothes, artifacts, handicrafts et cetera. The popular tourist circuit of India, Golden Triangle consists of three cities, namely Agra, Delhi and Jaipur. This city is indeed a major tourist destination of India.
Day 4 - Jaipur Sightseeing
Today you visit various attractions of Jaipur. Amber Fort, museums, Jantar Mantar and Hawa Mahal are some sites to be visited this day. Along with sightseeing, you can enjoy activities such as hot-air ballooning, elephant polo, elephant ride, cooking classes and heritage car drive.
Amber Fort is a hill fort and UNESCO World Heritage Site, also a star attraction of Jaipur. The fort and palace are embellished with aesthetic art-work. The structure was built by Raja Man Singh I in 1592 with red-sandstone and white-marble mainly. Precious stones, paintings and mirrors were used for décor. Since it is perched on a hilltop, the view of surrounding is enchanting. Unlike many buildings of ancient era, Amber Fort is well-preserved and hasn't got its charm faded. From the foothill, tourists can choose to climb on foot, hire a jeep or ride an elephant.
Hawa Mahal is an icon of the city, situated amid bustling bazaar. This red-hued fort is also known as Palace of Winds, owing to the fact that it has several miniature windows in honeycomb structure. These windows were made for the women of royal households, so that they could enjoy the hustle and bustle of the market, without getting seen by public.
Jantar Mantar, dating back to 18th century, is where a collection of architectural astronomical instruments are installed. You can spot world's largest sundial here, along with Laghu Samrat Yantra, Nadivalya Yantra, Jai Prakash Yantra and other astrological devices. These devices are a reflection of sharp intellect and unflawed calculations. Even today these instruments are used by astrologers. Students of Astronomy and Vedic Students get to learn more about their subject in the observatory.
Day 5 - Jaipur- Agra
Have your breakfast and proceed to Agra, by car or train.
Agra is the city of Taj Mahal, settled beside the Yamuna Ganga. It has its Mughal charm intact and unscathed. Formerly it was the seat of Mughal Empire and today it is a major tourist attraction of India. Agra is located in Uttar Pradesh state of India. It houses several UNESCO World Heritage Sites, including one of the Seven Wonders of the World, Taj Mahal. This is a perfect place for the lovers of heritage, art and history.
As you reach Agra, check-in to your pre-booked hotel and relax. Stay overnight in hotel.
Day 6 - Agra Sightseeing
On the sixth day of Culture and Heritage of India Tour, get ready to visit one of the Seven Wonders of the World and the major tourist attraction of Agra, The Taj Mahal. This white-marble mausoleum is often regarded to as "Crown of Palaces". Mughal Emperor commissioned it in 1632 for his beloved wife, Mumtaz Mahal. It took 22 years for Taj Mahal get all ready and shining. The Taj Mahal is located at the Southern Bank of Yamuna River and serves as an impactful symbol for India's rich history and heritage. To build it, a mesh of Indian, Islamic, Mughal, Persian Ottoman and Turkish styles of architectures was incorporated. This mausoleum got its name inscribed in the list of World Heritage Site UNESCO, in 1983. Today it is visited by more than 3 million visitors every year.
Other attraction to be visited today is Agra Fort, another UNESCO World Heritage Site. This fort is just 2.5 km away from Taj Mahal. Originally it was a brick fort known as Badalgarh, we may also call it a fort city instead. The forts has walls that are seventy feet high and four doors, one of which (Khizri) has its opening towards Yamuna River. Its gardens are flourishing; in fact every corner is well-maintained. Decorations of the interior are done beautifully, with precious stones, mirrors, carvings etc.
Fatehpur Sikri is also added to the list to things to do. This ancient city is datable to 1569, when the Mughal Emperor found it. The king shifted his capital from Agra to Fatehpur Sikri as a gesture of regards to the eminent Sufi Saint Salim Chishti. Historians say Akbar took special interest in adorning Fatehpur Sikri, and this is pretty evident upon looking at collection of marvelous Mughal buildings in the city. The city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a hotspot for travelers visiting from far-flung regions.
Day 7 - Agra- Gwalior
On the seventh day of the tour, check out from your hotel and proceed to Gwalior. This is a huge historical city located at the Heart of Incredible India, i.e Madhya Pradesh state. It is strewn with various popular tourist attractions, right from archeological to modern infrastructures. Mughals, Scindias and Marathas are some of the rulers who prettified different corners of Gwalior. A trip to Gwalior is a trip to history and heritage.
On reaching Gwalior, check-in at your pre-booked hotel and relax. Overnight stay in hotel.
Day 8 - Gwalior Sightseeing
On this day get set for an engaging session of Gwalior sightseeing. The prime highlight of the day is Gwalior Fort, located at the heart of the city. The structure of the fort is something that deserves a special mention. It was built in the 8th century and has now been turned into an archeological museum. Other than the defensive structure that protected the royal residents from enemy attacks, the fort consists of two palaces (Man Mandir and Gurjari Mahal) built by Man Singh Tomar. The fort indeed has several other structures which are highly acclaimed, like Garuda Monument, Karn Mahal, Vikram Mahal, Teli Ka Mandir, Saas-Bahu Temple and Chhatri of Bhim Singh Rana, among others. There is so much to see and do in Gwalior Fort. By late evening return to your room and relax. Stay overnight in hotel.
Day 9 - Gwalior- Khajuraho
On this day head to Khajuraho, yet another historical city of Madhya Pradesh and a popular tourist attraction of India. A British officer found this small town in 1838, in the middle of a jungle. Khajuraho is famous for its erotic sculptures. The Khajuraho Group of Monuments is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and attracts a huge number of travelers every day.
Check in at your hotel and relax. Rest of this day is to be spent at leisure. Stay overnight in the hotel.
Day 10 - Khajuraho Sightseeing
Today you are going to explore Khajuraho. Collectively, the monuments of Khajuraho are World Heritage Site, as considered by UNESCO. The temples are datable to around 950 and 1050 CE and are said to have been built by Chandela dynasty. Some temples are dedicated to Hindu gods and some to Jain, but the similarity in their structure and close proximity give an idea that in ancient era there was sheer harmony between these two religions. By 12th century, there were 85 temples, of which only 20 withstood the test of time. The temples are divided into three parts; namely Eastern, Western and Southern. Vishnu, Shiva, Parshvanath, Parvati, Rishabha and Hanuman are some of important deities of the temples.
After exploring Khajuraho Monuments, proceed to your hotel room. Stay overnight in hotel.
Day 11 - Khajuraho-Varanasi
Today you catch a flight to Varanasi, the holy city. Varanasi boats of being the oldest city of the world, having recorded history of 3500 years. The city is located on the banks of Holy River, Ganges / Ganga and is one of the seven holiest cities of India. Spellbinding aarti is performed in the evening on the banks of river, which is attended by thousands of devotees. No heritage tour to India is complete without a trip to Varanasi.
As you reach Varanasi you check in at your hotel and relax. Attend Ganga aarti in the evening.
Perhaps the most iconic symbol of Varanasi is the images of saffron clad pundits engulfed in the smoke of incense stick waving large lit multi-layered lamps in synchronicity by the bathing ghat of the holy river Ganges. The evening aarti in Varanasi - even though highly choreographed - takes place every sunset at Dasaswamedh Ghat near Kashi Vishwanath Temple and is considered one of the must have cultural experiences in Varanasi.
Overnight in the hotel.
Day 12 - Varanasi
On the twelfth day indulge in an early-morning session of boating on the Ganges and stopover at different bathing and cremation ghats of the city. Return to the hotel and have breakfast. After freshening up get ready for sightseeing tour of Varanasi.
Kashi Vishwanath Temple is a popular tourist attraction of Varanasi. The temple is dedicated to Lord Shiva and is one of the twelve Jyotirlingas of the lord. This is one of the most important shrines of Lord Shiva in the world; a Hindu considers visiting this temple at least once in his life. A visit to this temple and taking a dip in the river make the devotees attain moksha (salvation).
Other highlights of the day are Dashashwamedh Ghat, Dhamek Stupa, Assi Ghat, Manikarnika Ghat, and Ramnagar Fort.
Night stay at the hotel.
Day 13 - Varanasi-Delhi
In the morning have your breakfast and check out from the hotel. You get assisted transfer to the airport from where you catch a flight to Delhi and continue your onward journey. Hence, this journey ends.
*Country of Residence
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Newest Honest Trailers for the MCU Basically Rips the MCU a New One
Tom 4 weeks ago
When you’re done laughing, since it’s supposed to be a parody after all, keep in mind that the MCU is still extremely popular and has been down a twisting, winding arc that hasn’t always made sense when you look at each individual film, but has allowed enough continuity to push the idea that the phases have been meant to go together in a seamless fashion that hasn’t always worked out the way it should. Yes, you read that correctly, since the MCU has made mistakes and missteps throughout the last decade in attempting to bring one of the biggest and most notorious bad guys into play. To think that it was all a means to bring Thanos into the MCU just to finally erase him is a bit confusing, but now that he’s been revealed and dealt with the MCU gets to push on to the next phase, since there are plenty of bad guys to go around and there are some that are so much worse than Thanos.
But as you’re wondering just how that could be keep in mind that during the MCU’s run the movies we’ve loved and the movies kind of fizzled out, along with the shows and one-offs, have been made for a purpose even if you can’t always see it. The Marvel universe is simply too big to get everything in within a single lifetime, particularly because each hero and team typically comes with hundreds of small, individual stories that can’t possibly be lumped together in a cohesive manner. For crying out loud there was a time when Iron Man was kicked off the Avengers and was a raging alcoholic. In this current era however that might have been too detrimental for the kids that have come to idolize Tony Stark and his superhero alter ego. But hey, it was okay for the rest of us to read in the comics when we were younger, right? Moving on, one of the main reasons we get the stories we get on the big and small screens is because the directors have to pick and choose between the story lines of the comics, which offer up a wide variety of crossovers that bring a great many characters together. Then there was the issue of which characters that Disney had the rights to, which altered the movies even further since when you look at it, the original Infinity Gauntlet story involved a lot of heroes and teams that didn’t get featured like the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, even more Avengers, and other heroes that didn’t make the cut for whatever reason like Namor and She-Hulk and Starfox and so many more.
Out of breath yet? Is your mind spinning with the possibilities? This is the MCU, born of the Marvel universe, so of course it’s going to get complicated and it’s going to be heavily involved with the many upon many stories that are just waiting to come forward. As Mike Cecchini of Den of Geek! has already stated there are plenty of heroes to take up the reins of the franchise. If those in charge of the MCU are smart they’ll start expanding now that they have the rights to so many more characters, and will perhaps bring on something like the Secret Wars, or the Evolutionary War, in order to really showcase just how diverse and how widespread the MCU can really be. If you took anything from the video that’s not sarcastic and condescending it should be that the MCU is anything but done since there are a lot of stories just waiting in the wings to be developed, and while the fact is that there are a lot of well-known, almost stereotypical moments that seem to beg for a change of pace, there are still a lot of things that the MCU hasn’t done, and with the inclusion of even more heroes and villains there’s a mountain of stories to be told and a lot of years left in which to tell them.
It might not seem like a good idea to take a dig at the DCEU at the moment since it would be like kicking a patient in the ICU, but at the very least the MCU has built itself in a way that allows for continual growth even if it has to slough off a bad movie here and there to do it. You might even say, as Matthew Donnellon of Medium has, that the DCEU started its downhill slide with the inclusion of Superman into its ranks. Where the DCEU has been excelling mostly on TV the MCU has been taking the gold and the glory on the big screen where the big bucks are, and despite the similarity between characters at times the DCEU has really been paying the price for lack of vision and a well-developed story line. So yeah, Honest Trailers did make a lot of good points with this video and that’s their purpose, to expose what the rest of us don’t want to see because we’re happy being blinded by the flash and impressed by the pomp. But when it come to who’s more impressive it’s hard to deny that the MCU has kept the edge for a while now.
Tom Foster
Wake has been a freelance writer for the past several years now and has continued to do what he loves to do while attempting to get his work out to the masses. His greatest loves in life are writing, being a family man, and entertaining readers with his take on pop culture as it continues to change throughout the years.
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Nova Scotia Liquor Corp. reports lower profit despite new cannabis sales
A Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation store is seen in downtown Halifax on Oct. 9, 2018. The Nova Scotia Liquor Corp. says it sold $33 million worth of cannabis in its most recent fiscal year, but the Crown agency also reported a lower profit margin. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan
HALIFAX — The Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation says it sold $33 million worth of cannabis in its most recent fiscal year, but the Crown agency also reported a lower profit margin.
Year-end results, for the period ended March 31, show the corporation's total sales rose 5.8 per cent to $662 million, but net income dropped by $1.2 million to $237 million, when compared with the previous fiscal year.
Those sales figures included 866,800 cannabis transactions with an average dollar value of $38.29.
In February, Nova Scotia Finance Minister Karen Casey said the province would expand the number of retail cannabis stores, as online sales have been slower than expected.
Casey said online sales were expected to account for about 10 per cent or more of total sales, but were only in the range of six per cent, which is why the Nova Scotia Liquor Corp. was asked to look at adding to its 12 retail locations currently selling cannabis.
National figures compiled by Statistics Canada show retail sales in Nova Scotia peaked at $6.4 million before dropping off to $4.6 million in February and rising slightly to $4.9 million in March. Those numbers reflect a similar national trend.
Prior to legalization in October 2018, Nova Scotia led the country in cannabis consumption among people 15 and older with 23 per cent of residents reporting having used the drug, according to Statistics Canada. British Columbia ranked second at 20 per cent.
In January, Statistics Canada reported Atlantic Canadians were buying far more legal cannabis per capita than other Canadians.
During the first six weeks of legalization, Prince Edward Island topped the list, with residents on average spending $13.83 each on legal pot in six weeks. Nova Scotia came second at $11.34.
Newfoundland and Labrador came in third at $8.17, followed by New Brunswick at $6.87.
The national figure was $2.65.
Meanwhile, the Nova Scotia Liquor Corp. said locally produced beverages continued to show strong growth.
Sales of ready-to-drink beverages produced in Nova Scotia, which are mostly ciders, rose 81 per cent to $7.8 million, while local craft beer sales were up 27 per cent to $16.7 million.
As well, Nova Scotia spirit sales grew by 28 per cent to $7.8 million, while Nova Scotia wine sales rose by 2.5 per cent to $11.7 million.
Two dead after heat wave in southern Manitoba, provincial official says
Two dead after heat wave in southern Manitoba, provincial ...
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VTB Bank to Boost Profits by Up to 80% in 2 years Despite Ukraine Risks
By Peter Hobson
Andrei Kostin
VTB, Russia's second-largest bank, aims to boost profits by up to 80 percent to 180 billion rubles ($5 billion) in 2016, but said the turmoil in Ukraine and sanctions over Russia's annexation of Crimea last month had created levels of risk and uncertainty comparable to the 2008-09 financial crisis.
Despite a sharp economic slowdown in Russia, state-owned VTB's core business in the country is strong, the bank's CEO Andrei Kostin said at a presentation of the group's three-year strategy on Thursday. The main risks to VTB come from its exposure to politically unstable Ukraine; in London, where Kostin said the British regulator was putting unwarranted pressure on the bank's subsidiary in the country; and from a possible escalation of sanctions by the West, Kostin said.
Under the strategy, which Kostin said accounted for "all risks that exist now," VTB will boost its assets to 12 trillion to 13 trillion rubles ($336 billion to $364 billion) from 8.8 trillion rubles last year. Net profits will rise to 160 billion under the bank's base scenario, or to 180 billion rubles under the optimistic one, from last year's 101 billion rubles, while return on capital will rise from 12 to 15 percent in 2016.
To achieve this, VTB aims to maintain its strong position in corporate and investment banking, outstrip the market in expanding consumer and small business lending, cut personnel costs by 15 percent and ramp up efficiency.
VTB will also begin integrating its largest banks in preparation for a merger, including VTB24 — Russia's 4th largest by assets as of Jan. 1, according to ratings agency RIA Ratings — and Bank of Moscow — the country's 6th largest.
The mid-sized business portfolio will be spun off into a separate unit to service more than 20,000 clients in 2016, an 80 percent increase.
In 2016, the banking group aims to service 20 million — or one in every five — Russian bank clients, and more than 300,000 small enterprises. To do so, the group will add 1,000 branches to its current 1,600.
VTB aims to achieve this rapid growth as the wider Russian economy has foundered. The Economic Development Ministry this week cut its base growth forecast for the year to 0.5 percent, from 2.5 percent in December. Capital outflow is set to reach $100 billion this year. In the ministry's worst case scenario, the economy will contract by 1.5 percent. In January and February, wages fell by 0.3 percent year-on-year, Vedomosti reported Wednesday.
But the clearest risk to the bank is of losses in crisis-stricken Ukraine, Kostin said. VTB said earlier it has exposure to Ukraine of 20 billion rubles, and that the country accounts for 2 to 3 percent of the bank's total operations, Reuters reported.
Western sanctions, imposed on Russia in response to its annexation of Crimea, also threaten to depress VTB's profits.
The bank is feeling that most clearly in London, where Kostin said he saw political motivations behind an increase in regulatory attention on London-based subsidiary VTB Capital.
Herbert Moos, the bank's chief financial officer, said the regulators had pretensions toward the bank's capital levels and liquidity controls.
"We will sink but we will not surrender!" Kostin joked, before saying he hoped calmer heads would prevail in London and the U.S. and that sanctions would not be beefed up.
"Additional sanctions are the biggest risk to VTB's strategy," he said. "Reason must prevail," he said, adding that "reasonable people work in the U.S."
VTB's Moscow share price dropped sharply at the height of the Crimea crisis. On March 12, two weeks after troops believed to be Russian seized the peninsula, the group's share price plummeted by more than 30 percent. On Thursday VTB was down 22 percent this year. "Undervalued," Kostin called them.
Correction: The original version of this article said that TransCreditBank was among the banks that VTB intends to merge. In fact, TransCreditBank, which VTB bought in 2010, has already been integrated into VTB24.
Contact the author at p.hobson@imedia.ru
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February 25, 2009 | General News
Main One to Land Submarine Cable From Portugal to Nigeria
By The Ghanaian Journal
Olayinka Latona
Main One Cable company last week announced that it has embarked on a submarine cable project, building an open access fibre optic transmission cable which will run from Portugal into the crest of west Africa, with initial landing in Nigeria and Ghana.
This project is to bridge the gap of Satellite network and to construct the most trusted, scalable and professionally managed international fibre optic network in Africa.
The project will provide telecommunication infrastructure that will enable cost effective access to global information. The company said that in order to face this challenges, it has arranged a 1.92 Terabits per second capacity cable system which will terminate in Seixal, Portugal where it will interconnect with other cable systems to London, New York and key cities in Asia. The cable will also span 14,000 kilometers with approximately 7,000 kilometers in the first phase between Lagos and Portugal.
Meanwhile, the chief executive officer of Main One Cable Mrs. Funke Opeke said, the cable will significantly expand internationally the internet capacity to West Africa by providing fifteen times the capacity available on the entire SAT3 system. Speaking further, she said, the service will provide adequate capacity which is more higher than the existing ones, double fast action services Internationally and believes that with all this effort being put in place Nigeria and west Africa will be launched into the information age with cost effective platform.
According to her, the effort will translate to fast access for business, e-government, education and other applications. The services are said to be targetd at existing communication operators and Internet service providers with the view of providing an infrastructure option that will not tie down their capital with long term savings for high quality international bandwidth.
The project according to Opeke would gulp about two hundred and fifty million dollars for the execution of the first phase.
Main One cable company signed a contract in April 2008 and subsequently awarded sub-marine cable last year in Nigeria and Ghana .The project which is in its six month out of the twenty- one months that is being schedule for it, is expected to start operation by the year 2010 in order to meet June 2010 which is the service date . Okepe also noted that by the time the project is fully in place, the cost of International bandwidth would be brought to levels that are globally competitive and provision of wholesale connectivity between Lagos or Accra cable station.
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Dales businessman receives MBE for services to business and community
By Ashley Barnard @abarnardecho Reporter (Richmond)
David Poole, MBE
A DALESMAN who is a champion for young people wanting to get into business and industry has been awarded an MBE.
David Poole, 80, from Bishopdale, near Wensleydale, has received his honour for services to business, skills, and the community.
After a successful career as managing director of a number of large international electronic companies and latterly managing director and deputy chairman of Thalis PLC, since his retirement he has used this knowledge to help his local community.
Mr Poole has been a driving force in the re-organisation of the Lower Wensleydale Business Network (LWBN), a membership organisation supporting new and existing business.
His efforts have increased its membership to over 70 companies, and the LWBN now works with Wensleydale School and Sixth Form College to try to retain young talent in the community.
He said: "I have helped develop various schemes to help businesses and give people the resources and opportunities to stay in the Dales.
"We want young people to stay so we have developed five schemes to give them career guidance:
"I take companies into schools to speak to students; we have a local apprenticeship scheme with Wensleydale School; we help young people to set up their own business; we have set up a business and innovation centre at the school, where students get a mentor as part of an A-level course; and we are helping businesses to attract business from outside the area, which is still a work in progress."
Mr Poole has taken a lead role in the organisation of high profile events such as the Dales Festival of Food and Drink, the Leyburn 1940s Weekend and the Leyburn Christmas Festival.
He has also created the 200 club, consisting of two separate businesses to be run by the pupils, gathering their ideas and suggestions, setting up meetings during school hours and organising a bank to allow them to have cheque books and accounts.
He is financial director of the Leyburn's Arts and Community Centre, which has been transformed for the benefit of the community and now houses a cinema and is a focal point for local arts exhibitions, leisure and business groups, workshops and classes.
Mr Poole said: "I feel very honoured and was very surprised to have been nominated for the MBE. I am passionate about the community and helping young people to stay in the Dales."
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Great Yorkshire Show ends on a high for 2019
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SNP kicks off its by election campaign at football ground
Scotland Staff
June 21 2011, 1:01am, The Times
Greenock-born actor Martin Compston was out campaigning for the SNPAndrew Milligan/PA
The Greenock-born actor Martin Compston yesterday campaigned alongside the SNP candidate in the Inverclyde by-election.
Compston, whose films include Sweet Sixteen and The Damned United, also played for Greenock Morton, the local Scottish Division 1 club. He joined Anne McLaughlin, the SNP candidate for the constituency, and Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon at his old football ground, Cappielow Park.
Ms McLaughlin launched her three-point plan for jobs in Inverclyde — making it an enterprise zone, re-industrialisation and ensuring that young people get training for skilled jobs.
The Conservative candidate, David Wilson, and party leader, Annabel Goldie, attended a flag-raising ceremony in Greenock as part of the build-up to Armed Forces day on Saturday.
The Labour candidate, Iain McKenzie, visited the Royal Bank of Scotland mortgage…
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Lord Sumption: ‘If European court blocks parliament, we should quit’
Jonathan Ames, Legal Editor
June 5 2019, 12:01am, The Times
Most of the rights that the court had added to British law were contentious, said Lord SumptionTimes photographer Richard Pohle
Britain should ditch the European Court of Human Rights if it hinders the will of parliament, a former Supreme Court judge said.
Speaking in the third of this year’s series of Radio 4’s Reith Lectures, Lord Sumption said that an international court can serve as an external check on domestic governments, but argued that most of the rights that the court has added to British law are “contentious and far from fundamental”.
Lord Sumption said that it would be undesirable for the UK to pull out of the European convention on human rights but if the attitude of the judges that uphold the convention did not change he could see no other option.
The former judge, 70, who stood down from the UK’s highest court…
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JPID
Journal of Pediatric Epilepsy
Journal of Pediatric Genetics
Journal of Pediatric Intensive Care
Journal of Pediatric Neurology
American Journal of Perinatology
American Journal of Perinatology Reports
European Journal of Pediatric Surgery
European Journal of Pediatric Surgery Reports
Neuropediatrics
Journal of Child Science
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J Pediatr Infect Dis 2007; 02(02): 101-104
Georg Thieme Verlag KG Stuttgart – New York
Pertussis awareness among internists and family practice physicians in the state of Michigan in the USA
Walid Abuhammour
a Department of Pediatric Infectious Disease, Hurley Medical Center, Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, Flint, MI, USA
› Author Affiliations
Subject Editor:
28 July 2015 (online)
PDF (22 kb)
PDF Download Buy Article Permissions and Reprints
Over the past two decades, reports of pertussis have increased considerably in the United States of America (USA) in people of all ages. The most striking increases have taken place among adolescents and adults. The aim of this study is to evaluate pertussis awareness among internists and family practice physicians in the state of Michigan in the USA. This study consists of a survey of internists and family practice physicians in the state of Michigan. The survey instrument is a questionnaire containing one clinical vignette that presents an adult who has prolonged afebrile cough and normal physical examination, followed by three multiple-choice questions. The first question was about the differential diagnosis; pertussis was included among the choices in this question. The other two questions were about antibiotic prescribing for the patient as well as the family members. Out of 500 physicians, 148 (30%) responded to our survey. Fifty-five physicians (37.2%) included pertussis among their differential diagnosis. Only seven (4.7%) selected pertussis as a single diagnosis. Among the physicians who selected pertussis, 49 (89%) prescribed antibiotics to the patient and forty-seven (85%) prescribed antibiotics to the family members. This study demonstrates that two out of three (or 63%) of internists and family practice physicians in the state of Michigan in the USA who responded to our survey overlooked the diagnosis of pertussis in adults. Though the number of the physicians who responded to this survey was relatively small, still it is an important finding and it merits more studies to shed the light on this imperative issue. It is important for the clinicians who treat adults to be aware of the resurgence of pertussis, to be familiar with its diagnosis and treatment, and to understand the options for prevention.
Pertussis awareness - internists - family practice physicians
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Families migrating to the US being processed in Texas. (ANSA)
US Bishops: ‘Refugees are in danger’
The US Bishops release a statement saying that many human lives will be left in danger because of the decision of the US government to cap the number of refugees to 30,000 in 2019.
By Sr Bernadette Mary Reis, fsp
The US Bishops Conference (USCCB) released a statement on Tuesday, the day after after US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, announced cuts in the number of refugees it would accept in 2019.
Lives are in danger
Bishop Joe Vàsquez, Chair of the USCCB’s Committee on Migration called the announcement “deeply disturbing”. Capping the number of refugees to 30,000 would leave “many human lives in danger”, he said. According to Vàsquez, many people “fleeing persecution, at a time of unprecedented global humanitarian need” will be left unprotected. That, he said, is a contradiction of who the US is as a nation.
Contradicts who the US is
The contradiction lies with the fact that the US has long offered asylum to those “fleeing violence, torture, or religious persecution”. In fact, he calls this “a cornerstone of our history”, whereas, “closing our doors…is not who we are as a people”. Another contradiction he points out is that the vast resources in the US makes “us capable of securely welcoming those fleeing harm”.
Plea to Congress
Bishop Vàsquez concluded his statement asking Congress to “engage in the formal consultation process with the Administration that is required by law”. The criteria he asks the Congress to propose to the US Government in setting a refugee admission level are: “local community response and support of refugees, global refugee protection needs, and our long history of compassionately welcoming refugees”.
On Monday, Mike Pompeo, the US Secretary of State, announced a decrease in the number of refugees that the US would allow to enter the country in 2019. Only 30,000 will be allowed to enter. Although the ceiling for 2018 is 45,000, the US will most likely actually own admit 22,000 this year.
Although the numbers of refugees being admitted is declining, Mr Pompeo insists that the US is “the most generous nation in the world when it comes to protection-based immigration”. In addition to 30,000 refugees, the US foresees “processing more than 280,000 asylum seekers”, Mr Pompeo added.
His announcement, however, sparked criticism from many sectors. Jennifer Quigly of Human Rights First said that the policy “is a shameful abdication of our humanity in the face of the worse refugee crisis in history”. “Cruel and shortsighted” are the words used by Democratic Sentator, Bob Menendez.
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This website requires javascript to work properly.
Fedasil Voluntary Return | Call us 0800 327 45 [Free Number]
Return stories
Study advice centre
When Mr. Kiran no longer saw future perspectives in Belgium, he returned voluntarily to Nepal with his family. Together with his wife, he founded a study advice centre.
In 2009, Mr. Kiran came with his wife and two kids to Belgium. Political problems made him run away from his country of origin, Nepal. Once here, the family applied for international protection but this application was turned down. Afterwards, Mr. Kiran submitted an application for regularisation on the basis of medical problems he had developed here. However, this application also led to a negative decision. Following this, Mr. Kiran no longer saw his future in Belgium. He did not want to wait any longer for the outcome of the appeal and decided to return voluntarily with his family.
During his stay in Belgium, Mr. Kiran gave voluntarily IT classes to a dozen Nepalese students. In his own country, he was indeed an IT teacher. After his return, he wanted to resume his profession as well as use his knowledge to launch an IT institute.
After their return in 2017, Mr. Kiran sought help from the Caritas local partner in Nepal. The latter referred him to medical assistance and examined the possibilities for a project. Together with his wife and a childhood friend, Mr. Kiran decided to establish a study advice centre. Students can go there to receive information and help in order to study abroad. As a matter of fact, many students from Nepal go abroad. Mr. Kiran was ideally positioned for this project thanks to his knowledge of the education system and his contacts with foreign universities.
The launching of the centre was accompanied by many difficulties such as finding the right spot, the bureaucracy and the necessary authorisations from the government. Most of the reintegration budget went to purchasing material for the centre. The start-up phase was quite difficult because of the competition and the fact that the centre was still unknown. With time however, an increasing number of students found their way to it.
Children adapt themselves
For the children too, the return marked the beginning of a new period: the academic year was starting in Nepal. Adapt to the Nepalese education system was not easy for the children: they barely spoke Nepalese in addition to having grown up in a western context. Nevertheless, they managed to catch up in class.
Source: Caritas
[Free Number]
Fedasil © 2019
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Netflix CFO David Wells to step down after 14 years with company
Netflix announced chief financial officer David Wells will exit the company once he helps the streaming giant choose his successor. Wells said he plans to focus more on philanthropy once he leaves Netflix, which he joined in 2004, serving as its chief financial officer since 2010.
Netflix CFO David Wells to step down after 14 years with company Netflix announced chief financial officer David Wells will exit the company once he helps the streaming giant choose his successor. Wells said he plans to focus more on philanthropy once he leaves Netflix, which he joined in 2004, serving as its chief financial officer since 2010. Check out this story on USATODAY.com: https://usat.ly/2KU3DDi
USA Today NetworkBrett Molina, USA TODAY Published 11:04 a.m. ET Aug. 13, 2018
A screenshot of the Netflix app.(Photo: Netflix)
Netflix's chief financial officer David Wells plans to step down after eight years in the post, a time period that saw dramatic growth for the company that now rivals – or even bests – cable programming in some areas.
Wells, who plans to focus more on philanthropy once he exits, will help find a successor before he officially leaves the company, Netflix said in a statement Monday. Wells joined Netflix in 2004 and has served as its chief financial officer since 2010.
"It’s been 14 wonderful years at Netflix, and I’m very proud of everything we’ve accomplished," Wells said. "After discussing my desire to make a change with Reed (Hastings), we agreed that with Netflix’s strong financial position and exciting growth plans, this is the right time for us to help identify the next financial leader for the company."
Reed Hastings, Netflix CEO, credits Wells with managing the company's finances during a period of "dramatic growth," which included the streaming giant's surge into original programming. The company has produced hit series including "Stranger Things," "Orange is the New Black" and "House of Cards."
"David has been a valuable partner to Netflix and to me," Hastings said in a statement.
During Wells' tenure as CFO, Netflix's subscriber numbers soared from 23.6 million during the first quarter of 2011 to more than 124 million as of the second quarter of 2018.
Last month, Netflix missed forecasts on subscriber growth for the second quarter, sending shares down 11%.
Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @brettmolina23.
Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2KU3DDi
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Google Street View maps London's River Thames
Google Street View recently published its first 360-degree image of non-oceanic water by mapping the River Thames in London.
Google Street View maps London's River Thames Google Street View recently published its first 360-degree image of non-oceanic water by mapping the River Thames in London. Check out this story on USATODAY.com: http://usat.ly/1c0Pywb
Stephanie Haven, USA TODAY Published 2:37 a.m. ET Nov. 7, 2013 | Updated 3:32 a.m. ET Nov. 7, 2013
A view of London's Tower Bridge from the River Thames.(Photo: Google Street View)
River Thames is Google Street View's first mapped river
A 30-mile stretch of London's landmark river is mapped
River mapping may help understanding of 'impenetrable boundaries'
LONDON — There may be no street to view, but that hasn't stopped Google from extending its mapping service to a boat trip down the River Thames.
With the Thames, Google Street View recently published its first 360-degree image of a river, integrating the geography alongside the London roads already accessible on the search engine feature.
Several London attractions, such as the Houses of Parliament and the Tower of London, are now visible from these pictures, which show a 30-mile stretch of the landmark river.
"They're exactly the same pictures as if you were standing on a bridge looking over the Thames yourself," Google spokesperson Laurian Clemence said. "You can literally navigate down the River as if you were on the boat itself."
By looking at a Thames-view of London, as opposed to an aerial view, travelers and locals alike can better understand the layout of London, said Colin Ellard, University of Waterloo psychology professor.
"One of the most difficult problems in using maps is making translations from the overhead view to how things look on the ground," said Ellard, author of "You Are Here." "Street View helps people make that correlation."
Images of rivers, and other "impenetrable boundaries" like highways, are of particular assistance in orientation. Seeing these landmarks online can help the brain form a cognitive map, familiarizing oneself with London without having to visit, he said.
"Understanding your relationship with that boundary helps you picture where you are in your head," Ellard said. "You may not care that the river is south of you, but you know where it is and can use that as the boundary."
The Port of London Authority initially approached Google Street View to pursue the project.
Representatives from both organizations went down the Thames last summer, riding atop a boat with the Google camera affixed to a four-foot-tall backpack — together the portable technology is called the Trekker.
The 44-pound tool is a portable version of the 15-megapixel-camera technology Street View has used since its founding in 2007. Powered by a 24-hour battery, the Trekker's multiple lenses automatically capture 24 pictures a minute.
Google Street View previously used the Trekker for maneuvering narrow pathways, like those in Venice and the English canal network.
Google Street View has reached beyond its titular topography before, with panoramic pictures of sites like the Galapagos Islands and Mount Everest. But the River Thames marks its first sea-level views.
"It's just an evolution of how we carry the camera," Clemence said.
As the company takes the Trekker worldwide, rivers will become more common on Google Street View in the "near future," Clemence said. Exact dates for imaging depend on weather, as Google shies away from pictures with rain or snow in the background.
"Rivers are a huge part of mapping," Clemence said. "If they're not included, it would not be an accurate map. Now it's just a matter of making sure we have all the missing pieces of the puzzle."
Plans to map the rest of the world's geography — including its rivers — are in the works.
"The next big thing isn't built yet," Clemence said. "There's still lots of places that are undiscovered. We're not nearly finished."
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1c0Pywb
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Survey Manual+
Manual Chapters
Instructional Memoranda
Records Disposition Schedules
502.1 - Fundamental Science Practices: Foundation Policy
Back to Chapters 500 - End Table of Contents
This chapter provides the foundation for a set of fundamental principles that are detailed in accompanying policy chapters.
OPR: Office of Science Quality and Integrity
Instruction: This replaces Survey Manual Chapter (SMC) 502.1 - Fundamental Science Practices: Foundation Policy, dated December 16, 2011.
1. Purpose and Scope.
A. The scientific reputation of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) for excellence, integrity, and objectivity is one of the Bureau’s most important assets. This reputation for reliable science brings authority to data and findings, creates and protects long-term credibility, and ensures that the public trust is met. This policy chapter provides the foundation for a set of fundamental principles and requirements that are detailed in this and in accompanying chapters with the overall intent to ensure the quality and integrity of USGS science activities. These principles collectively are the USGS Fundamental Science Practices (FSP). FSP underlie the Bureau’s science activities, uphold its scientific reputation, and underscore its mandate to provide reliable science to address important societal needs. FSP requirements apply to all aspects of Bureau scientific processes—from planning studies and collecting and documenting data and information to dissemination of the resulting information products. Limited exceptions to FSP may be granted on a case-by-case basis.
B. The FSP include guidance on the release and communication of results of USGS activities in scientific information products. A USGS scientific information product (hereafter referred to as information product) as defined by this policy is the compilation of scientific communication or representation of knowledge such as facts, data, or interpretations in any medium (for example, print, digital, web) or form (includes textual, numerical, graphical, cartographic, and audiovisual forms), for release or dissemination by the USGS or a non-USGS entity to a defined external audience or customer. USGS information products have at least one Bureau-affiliated author (refer to SMC 502.4). The term scientific “information product” encompasses other terms used in the Bureau, including but not limited to “publication,” “data product,” and “map product.”
2. Authority. The USGS, in fulfilling the scientific mission in its Organic Act, is authorized and obligated to preserve scientific excellence, integrity, and objectivity, and to ensure the effective dissemination and public communication of its science.
3. References.
A. SM 502.2 - Fundamental Science Practices: Planning and Conducting Data Collection and Research
C. SM 500.25 - Scientific Integrity
D. 305 DM 3 - Integrity of Scientific and Scholarly Activities
E. Fundamental Science Practices of the USGS (Website)
4. Policy.
A. USGS FSP govern how scientific investigations, research, and related activities are planned and conducted and how information products resulting from these activities are reviewed, approved, released, and preserved (SMC 502.2 and SMC 502.4). Refer to other separate FSP SMCs that address specific topics including peer review, metadata, data release, and data preservationrequirements and other applicable Department and Federal Government requirements.
B. The FSP policies represent the minimum requirements to which all USGS organizational units must adhere. Individual organizational units may put more stringent requirements in place as deemed necessary.
C. The Department of the Interior (DOI) and USGS requirements related to ensuring scientific integrity and complying with the code of scientific conduct must be followed (refer to Departmental Manual (DM) chapter 305 DM 3 and SMC 500.25). Noncompliance with FSP requirements may be considered a violation of DOI and USGS codes of scientific conduct (https://www2.usgs.gov/fsp/fsp_code_of_scientific_conduct.asp).
D. The procedures and guidance that support FSP policy are available at the public (https://www2.usgs.gov/fsp/procedures.asp) and internal FSP websites. These sites provide more specific and detailed information for implementing and complying with FSP requirements.
5. Responsibilities. Everyone in the USGS involved in science activities is responsible for complying with FSP. Designated officials have specific roles in implementing FSP requirements.
A. Director and Deputy Director. The USGS Director has final authority and responsibility for FSP and for the excellence, integrity, and objectivity of USGS science and associated information products. The Director, assisted by the Deputy Director, leads and consults with the Executive Leadership Team (ELT), which is a deliberative body of senior-level leaders of the major Bureau components that shares oversight responsibilities and makes recommendations toward ensuring the USGS mission is successfully accomplished.
B. Associate Directors and Regional Directors. Associate Directors and Regional Directors set FSP policy and practices for the collection, review, approval, and release of USGS scientific information and associated materials and provide oversight for the processes and requirements that govern FSP. They collaborate with one another and with Science Center Directors in their areas of oversight regarding the content and application of these policies and practices to ensure consistency. Associate Directors and Regional Directors, in collaboration with Science Center Directors in their areas, may put more stringent requirements in place than those minimally required by FSP requirements as they deem necessary. Regional Directors, in collaboration with the Office of Science Quality and Integrity (OSQI), also execute and ensure compliance with the FSP policies and practices governing review, approval, and release of information and address issues or take corrective action with regard to FSP requirements.
C. Office of Science Quality and Integrity (OSQI). The OSQI, in collaboration with the Associate Directors and Regional Directors, ensures compliance with and advises on the execution of FSP policies. The OSQI, as needed, collaborates with the entire ELT to address issues or take corrective action regarding the compliance of FSP requirements. The OSQI, on behalf of the USGS Director, appoints Bureau Approving Officials (BAOs) on an interim or permanent basis to provide Bureau approval (also known as Director’s approval) for the information products as described in SMC 205.18. The BAOs in the OSQI serve as agency experts and provide guidance, advice, and recommendations on the appropriate approval practices for all USGS scientific information products for release (SMC 502.4). The OSQI also maintains FSP policy documents and, in coordination with the FSP Advisory Committee, assists in developing procedures and guidance that pertain to FSP.
D. Science Center Directors. Science Center Directors ensure that FSP requirements are followed in the centers for which they are responsible. On behalf of the USGS Director, they serve as approving officials for the information products they have Bureau authority to approve. Science Center individuals who have approval authority are verified in the internal Information Product Data System. Science Center Directors may redelegate this approval authority to other equivalent individuals within their centers (refer to SMC 205.18 and SMC 502.4).
E. Fundamental Science Practices Advisory Committee (FSPAC). The FSPAC serves as the official committee providing support for FSP implementation, including monitoring FSP and advising on FSP and related requirements and practices to ensure the objectivity and quality of the Bureau’s science research practices and information products. This support includes, but is not limited to, recommending policy changes, addressing pending and new FSP issues, developing recommendations for resolving issues, and serving as a sounding board for FSP issues (SMC 308.74).
/s/ Roseann Gonzales June 28, 2018
_____________________________________________ ______________
Roseann Gonzales Date
Associate Director for Administration
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Home / Pro / 2016 US Open girls’ champ earns Australian Open wild card
2016 US Open girls’ champ
earns AO wild card
Sally Milano | November 14, 2016
Kayla Day shined at the 2016 US Open, winning her opening match in the main draw and claiming the girls' singles title for her first junior Grand Slam singles crown. Now she'll have a chance to make her mark Down Under.
The 17-year-old Day earned a wild card into the main draw of the 2017 Australian Open Sunday by clinching the USTA Pro Circuit's Australian Open Wild Card Challenge. This will be her first appearance in a Grand Slam main draw outside the United States.
Day wrapped up the Australian Open berth by winning her first career pro singles title at the W.L. Amos St. Tennis Classic in Macon, Ga., the week of Oct. 24, and reaching the semifinals at the Copperwynd Pro Women’s Challenge in Scottsdale, Ariz., the following week.
Day made her Grand Slam debut at the 2016 US Open, securing a wild card into the event by winning the USTA Girls’ 18s National Championships. ADVERTISEMENT In Flushing Meadows, she defeated fellow American and Top 50 player Madison Brengle in the first round before falling to No. 8 seed Madison Keys, also of the U.S., in the second round. The following week, she won the girls’ singles title and rose to No. 1 in the ITF World Junior Rankings.
Her success on the USTA Pro Circuit this fall has raised her WTA ranking to a career-best No. 195.
Day, who also reached the girls' doubles final in New York, is a lefty whose style has played well on all surfaces. Before winning the US Open girls' championship, she reached the junior semifinals at Wimbledon, the singles final at the $25,000 USTA Pro Circuit tournament in Naples, Fla., and the quarterfinals of the $50,000 USTA Pro Circuit event in Charlottesville, Va. – both clay-court events.
Day also reached the final of the prestigious Orange Bowl junior championships last December in Plantation, Fla., and helped lead the U.S. to a second-place finish on the clay in Madrid at the 2015 Junior Fed Cup finals.
The men’s Australian Open Wild Card Challenge concludes this week with the $50,000 JSM Challenger of Champaign-Urbana in Champaign, Ill. American Michael Mmoh is currently in the lead with 87 points after winning his first USTA Pro Circuit Challenger title last week at the $50,000 Knoxville Challenger in Tennessee. Fellow teenager Reilly Opelka is in second place with 80 points, and Stefan Kozlov and Jared Donaldson are also in the running for the wild card going into Champaign.
In the USTA Pro Circuit Australian Open Wild Card Challenge, the USTA awards a 2017 Australian Open wild card to the American man and American woman who earn the most ATP World Tour and WTA ranking points at two of the three select USTA Pro Circuit hard-court events this fall. Only Americans who did not earn direct entry into the Australian Open are eligible.
The USTA and Tennis Australia have a reciprocal agreement in which wild cards into the 2016 US Open and 2017 Australian Open are exchanged.
The 2017 Australian Open will be held Monday, Jan. 16, to Sunday, Jan. 29, in Melbourne, Australia.
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Eaton to improve power reliability at U.S. Army White Sands Missile Range
Eaton’s Electrical Services and Systems Division will provide turnkey electrical system design, testing and commissioning for the project
Power management company Eaton will help U.S. Army modernize the electrical infrastructure of the Temperature Test Facility at the White Sands Missile Range.
Under the contract, Eaton will provide turnkey engineering services and power distribution equipment to improve power reliability and system safety at the specially designed laboratory in White Sands, New Mexico.
The project will help the facility continue to support the development of military technology though the simulation of environments ranging from severe heat to subfreezing temperatures.
“A reliable electrical system and consistent power supply are vital to support the accuracy of critical testing at scientific research and development facilities such as the White Sands Missile Range,” said John Stampfel, vice president and general manager, Electrical Engineering Services and Systems Division, Eaton. “With a proven record of successful electrical modernization projects, Eaton is well positioned to help the U.S. Army reestablish functionality to its unique testing facility, enhancing research validity and mission readiness.”
Eaton’s Electrical Services and Systems Division will provide turnkey electrical system design, testing and commissioning for the project.
Eaton will also provide a range of electrical solutions to promote safe and reliable power distribution at the facility, including motor control centers, metering equipment, voltage regulators, transformers, fault interrupter switchgear and electrical switches.
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‘The Road We’ve Traveled:’ A misleading account of Obama’s mother and her insurance dispute
By Glenn Kessler
Glenn Kessler
The Fact Checker
Your Browser DoesNot Support IFrames.
Narrator Tom Hanks: “He knew from experience the cost of waiting [on health care reform].”
President Obama : “When my mom got cancer, she wasn’t a wealthy woman and it pretty much drained all her resources”
Michelle Obama: “She developed ovarian cancer, never really had good, consistent insurance. That’s a tough thing to deal with, watching your mother die of something that could have been prevented. I don’t think he wants to see anyone go through that.”
Hanks: “And he remembered the millions of families like of his who feel the pressure of rising costs and the fear of being denied or dropped from coverage.”
--series of statements with images of Obama and his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, in the Obama campaign film “The Road We’ve Traveled”
“The Road We’ve Traveled” is a very slick and impressively produced campaign film—sheer catnip for Obama fans. There are a number of facts and figures that could be challenged, but for now we are going to focus on this sequence. The series of words and images is an excellent example of how such films can create a misleading impression, while skirting as close as possible to the edge of falsehood.
The sequence, in fact, evokes a famous story that candidate Obama told during the 2008 campaign—that his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, fought with her insurer over whether her cancer was a pre-existing condition that disqualified her from coverage.
But the story was later called into question by Dunham’s biographer. The fact that Obama’s initial claim is not directly repeated suggests the filmmakers knew there was a problem with the campaign story, but they clearly wanted to keep some version of it in the film.
During the 2008 campaign, Obama frequently suggested his mother had to fight with her health-insurance company for treatment of her cancer because it considered her disease to be a pre-existing condition. In one of the presidential debates with GOP rival John McCain, Obama said:
“For my mother to die of cancer at the age of 53 and have to spend the last months of her life in the hospital room arguing with insurance companies because they’re saying that this may be a pre-existing condition and they don’t have to pay her treatment, there’s something fundamentally wrong about that.”
But then earlier this year, journalist Janny Scott cast serious doubt on this version of events in her excellent biography, “A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s mother.” Scott reviewed letters from Dunham to the CIGNA insurance company, and revealed the dispute was over disability coverage, not health insurance coverage (see pages 335-339).
Disability coverage will help replace wages lost to an illness. (Dunham received a base pay of $82,500, plus a housing allowance and a car, to work in Indonesia for Development Alternatives Inc. of Bethesda, according to Scott.) But that is different than health insurance coverage denied because of a pre-existing condition, which was a major part of the president’s health care law.
Scott writes that Dunham, who died in 1995 of uterine and ovarian cancer, had health insurance that “covered most of the costs of her medical treatment…The hospital billed her insurance company directly, leaving Ann to pay only the deductible and any uncovered expenses, which, she said, came to several hundred dollars a month.”
Dunham had filed the disability claim to help pay for those additional expenses. The company denied the claim because her doctor had suspected uterine cancer during an office visit 2 ½ months before Dunham had started the job with Development Alternatives, though Dunham said the doctor had not discussed the possibility with cancer with her. Dunham requested a review from CIGNA, saying she was turning the case over to “my son and attorney Barack Obama.”
When Scott’s book was published, the White House did not dispute her account. “The president has told this story based on his recollection of events that took place more than 15 years ago,” a spokesman said.
Now let’s look at what the movie does with this story. It does not directly repeat the claim that Obama’s mother was denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition, fighting for treatment in her hospital room. But look at what it does say:
1. Hanks says the president knew the cost of waiting on reform. (Though disability coverage was not an issue in the health care debate.)
2. The president says cancer “drained all her resources.” (Health insurance paid for most of her bills, so this is not the case of someone being bankrupted by tens of thousands of dollars in bills. Her salary of $82,500 in 1995 was the equivalent of $123,000 today, but Scott says she had little savings.)
3. Michelle Obama says Dunham “never really had good, consistent insurance.” (It is unclear what she means by this, except maybe that Dunham had different jobs, some of which did not provide insurance. But Dunham had good health coverage when the cancer was discovered.)
4. The first lady also suggests the death “could have been prevented.” (Again, it was not an insurance issue. Before going overseas, Dunham was too busy with work and had skipped an important test recommended by her U.S. doctor, dilation and curettage, that might have spotted the cancer earlier. Then an Indonesian doctor diagnosed her problem as appendicitis and removed her appendix. By the time the cancer was finally discovered, it was third-stage.)
5. Hanks says that Obama’s family felt “the pressure of rising costs and the fear of being denied or dropped from coverage.” (Maybe for disability, but not health insurance.)
In the end, the impression left by the film, especially if you watch it (go to the 8:45 mark), is very similar to Obama’s 2008 campaign rhetoric: His mother was denied health-insurance coverage, draining her resources, and with better coverage she might have lived longer. The film suggests this experience helped inspire the president to keep fighting for the health care law, even in the face of advice from aides that he accept a less-than-satisfactory compromise.
Note that none of the quotes in the film actually use the words “health insurance” or “health insurance coverage.” Instead, the first lady says “insurance” and Hanks says “coverage,” which could just as easily mean disability insurance. But that would not be as evocative—or as motivating.
Asked for a response, the Obama campaign referred us to the previous White House statement on Scott’s book.
The Pinocchio Test
We use a “reasonable man” standard here, and we think there are few viewers of this film who would watch this sequence and conclude that Dunham was involved in anything but a fight over health-insurance coverage.
The disability-insurance dispute certainly may have motivated the president, but he has never explicitly stated that. In any case, the filmmakers must have known they had a problem with this story or else they would have recounted it as Obama had done in the 2008 campaign, using phrases such as “pre-existing conditions,” “health insurance,” and “treatment.”
Instead, they arranged the quotes and images to leave a misleading impression of what really happened.
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Glenn Kessler Glenn Kessler has reported on domestic and foreign policy for more than three decades. Send him statements to fact check by emailing him, tweeting at him, or sending him a message on Facebook. Follow
Analysis Pelosi is forcing House Republicans to go on the record on Trump’s ‘go back’ tweets
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Search continues for HMS Bounty’s captain after an encounter wth Hurricane Sandy
A crewman of the replica tall ship HMS Bounty is aided by the U.S. Coast Guard after being rescued from the Atlantic Ocean, at the Coast Guard Air Station Elizabeth City, North Carolina, October 29, 2012. The U.S. Coast Guard rescued 14 of the 16 crew who abandoned the HMS Bounty while in the path of Hurricane Sandy off North Carolina, using helicopters to lift them from life rafts, the Coast Guard said. REUTERS/U.S.Coast Guard/Handout (HANDOUT/REUTERS)
As Hurricane Sandy flooded streets and left thousands without power on land, it also wreaked havoc on one tall ship out at sea.
The HMS Bounty, a tall ship most recognized for its role in Hollywood films like 2006’s “Pirates of the Caribbean,” lost a battle with the hurricane Monday, with one crew member dead and the captain missing. The Post’s Ian Shapiro details the ship’s voyage:
The tall ship began to die early Monday morning in the hurricane-ravaged waters off the North Carolina coast. One of the HMS Bounty’s generators failed. Water flooded everywhere. The 180-foot-long, three-masted tall ship was losing power and propulsion.
By about 3 a.m., the Bounty’s once-optimistic Facebook page, which on Sunday had posted “So far so good!” in its daily updates, had issued a new message for its followers: “Your Prayers are needed.”
Ninety minutes later, the Bounty finally lost its battle with 40 mph winds and 18-foot seas. Its captain ordered all hands to abandon the sinking ship, a shocking demise for a celebrity vessel built for the 1962 film “Mutiny on the Bounty.”
The ship, which had been trying to make its way around Hurricane Sandy, carried a crew of 16. When the rescue operation ended about 10 a.m. Monday, 14 of the crew members had been saved by Coast Guard helicopters. Two people, Capt. Robin Walbridge, 63, and Claudene Christian, 42, were missing.
Christian’s body was recovered Monday night, but Walbridge remained unaccounted for.
The HMS Bounty, owned by New York businessman Robert Hansen, began its journey Thursday, departing from New London, Conn., for St. Petersburg, Fla., where the ship has docked for years.
As the search for Walbridge continued Tuesday, the ship captain’s wife remained hopeful of her husband’s return, the Associated Press reports:
The Coast Guard used ships and airplanes to search the Atlantic on Tuesday for the captain of the sunken HMS Bounty as the sailor’s wife held on to a sliver of hope that he had survived the harrowing ordeal.
The Coast Guard was also optimistic Robin Walbridge, 63, of St. Petersburg, Fla., could still be alive in his blazing red survival suit 90 miles off the North Carolina coast. Walbridge went overboard early Monday when the replica 18th-century sailing vessel, made famous in Hollywood adventure films, rolled over in 18-foot waves.
Sandy pushes ashore
Superstorm Sandy causes evacuations, closings throughout the East Coast.
Oct. 29, 2012 Seawater floods the entrance to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, officially called the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel, in New York. John Minchillo/AP
Wait 1 second to continue.
Walbridge’s wife waited in their in St. Petersburg home to hear any word, surrounded by friends and crying often.
“He’s been in many storms. He’s been doing this a good portion of his life. He’s been in lots of hairy situations and he’s very familiar with the boat. Same boat for 17 years, he knows it like the back of his hand,” Claudia McCann told The Associated Press by telephone.
The searched for Walbridge was hampered by 15-feet waves, but the water temperature was about 77 degrees.
“There’s a lot of factors that go into survivability. Right now we’re going to continue to search. Right now we’re hopeful,” Coast Guard Capt. Joe Kelly said.
A decision on how much longer to search will come later Tuesday.
The last time Walbridge’s wife heard from him was Monday morning via e-mail, when he told her not to worry about the hurricane. As for Christian, the deceased crew member, she will be remembered as someone who loved what she did.
Rochelle Smith, 44, met Christian this summer in Nova Scotia.
“She loved the Bounty. She absolutely loved it. She was so happy to be on it and doing something that she found that she loved to do,” said Smith, a medical transcriptionist who lives in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada.
The vessel left Connecticut on Thursday with a crew of 11 men and five women, ranging in age from 20 to 66. Everyone aboard knew the journey could be treacherous.
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Trump ousts Tillerson, will replace him as secretary of state with CIA chief Pompeo
By Ashley Parker ,
Ashley Parker
White House reporter
Philip Rucker ,
Philip Rucker
White House Bureau Chief
John Hudson and
National security reporter focusing on the State Department and diplomacy.
President Trump said Tuesday he has ousted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and plans to nominate CIA Director Mike Pompeo to replace him as the nation’s top diplomat, orchestrating a major change to his national security team amid delicate outreach that includes possible talks with North Korea.
Trump and Tillerson have had a fraught relationship for many months. Trump told reporters Tuesday that he ultimately decided to fire the secretary because they disagreed over strategy in key areas of foreign policy, such as the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the approach to North Korea and the overall tone of U.S. diplomacy.
Tillerson said he received a call from Trump around noon Tuesday, more than three hours after his firing was first reported by The Washington Post and announced minutes later in a tweet from the president.
His voice quavering, Tillerson thanked career diplomats for their “honesty and integrity” and the American people for “acts of kindness,” and he singled out Defense Secretary Jim Mattis for their partnership and mutual support of diplomacy. But he notably did not thank Trump or praise his policies.
Tillerson said he will remain in his post until March 31 but is delegating all authorities for running the State Department to Deputy Secretary John Sullivan and is committed to ensuring “an orderly and smooth transition.” The deposed diplomat also made a clear statement about Russian aggression: “Much work remains to respond to the troubling behavior and actions on the part of the Russian government.”
The shake-up left officials at the State Department and throughout the national security community flummoxed, and the circumstances of the firing were in dispute.
White House officials said that — as Tillerson traveled through Africa last week — White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly called to wake him up in the wee hours there Saturday to alert him that Trump had decided to replace him. Trump had told his chief of staff he wanted to announce he was replacing Tillerson on Twitter. Kelly urged him to hold off.
Kelly then suggested Tillerson return to Washington as soon as possible. Tillerson cut his trip short Monday.
[A host of challenges awaits Pompeo if he confirmed]
But a top State Department spokesman offered a different version of events — and was swiftly fired for contradicting the White House.
Steve Goldstein, undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, said that Tillerson was “unaware of the reason” for his firing and had not spoken directly with Trump. He said Kelly told Tillerson in the call only that “he could expect a tweet” from the president, but it was not conveyed that the decision to fire him was final.
“He found out that he was terminated today,” Goldstein said.
Goldstein’s dismissal, which came just before he was scheduled to brief reporters about the shake-up at Foggy Bottom, was confirmed by a State Department official. West Wing officials had accused him in recent weeks of privately criticizing White House decisions to reporters. Asked Tuesday about the accusation, Goldstein said: “I spoke for the secretary of state. That was part of my role as the undersecretary.”
The president and his top diplomat reached a breaking point over the past week, and media inquiries about the fraught relationship accelerated the timing of the ouster, White House officials said.
After Kelly told him he was being let go, Tillerson asked that Trump hold off on announcing the news until he had returned to the United States, and Kelly agreed, one White House official said.
[Trump makes major gambit with plans for talks with North Korean leader]
Trump told reporters that he had been considering removing Tillerson for “a long time.”
“I actually got along well with Rex, but really it was a different mind-set, a different thinking,” Trump said Tuesday as he departed the White House for a trip to California. “When you look at the Iran deal, I think it’s terrible. I guess he thought it was okay . . . . So we were not really thinking the same. With Mike, Mike Pompeo, we have a very similar thought process. I think it’s going to go very well.”
Trump selected CIA Deputy Director Gina Haspel to succeed Pompeo as the agency’s director. She would become the first woman to run the spy agency. Both Haspel and Pompeo would need to be confirmed by the Senate at a time when the closely divided chamber has stalled on confirming dozens of Trump nominees.
Haspel, in particular, could come under added scrutiny over her past role running one of the CIA “black site” prisons where detainees were subjected to waterboarding and other interrogation methods widely denounced as torture.
[CIA chief nominee tied to brutal interrogation methods]
The announcement of Tillerson’s departure sent shock waves across the globe. Many U.S. diplomats and foreign leaders reacted with disbelief because they assumed Tillerson had finally begun to settle into his job after rumors of his ouster had swirled for months — even taking on a nickname, Rexit.
In a statement first issued to The Post, Trump praised both Pompeo and Haspel. He highlighted Pompeo’s educational background, graduating first in his class from West Point and with honors from Harvard Law School, and celebrated the “historic milestone” of Haspel becoming the first woman to lead the CIA.
Pompeo said in a statement that he was “deeply grateful” to Trump and said he looked “forward to representing him and the American people to the rest of the world to further America’s prosperity.”
Trump also had words of praise for Tillerson despite their well-documented rifts: “Finally, I want to thank Rex Tillerson for his service. A great deal has been accomplished over the last fourteen months, and I wish him and his family well.”
[No one more surprised than Tillerson at his abrupt ouster]
In his statement, Goldstein said: “The secretary had every intention of staying because of the critical progress made in national security and other areas. He will miss his colleagues greatly at the Department of State, and the foreign ministers he’s worked with throughout the world. The secretary did not speak to the president, and is unaware of the reason. He is grateful for the opportunity to serve, and believes strongly that public service is a noble calling.”
The president has long clashed with Tillerson, who he believes is “too establishment” in his thinking. Trump felt it was important to make the change now, as he prepares for possible high-stakes talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, as well as upcoming trade negotiations, three White House officials said.
Tillerson was especially frustrated when Trump last Thursday unilaterally agreed to the meeting with the North Korean leader Kim while Tillerson was traveling in Africa, according to officials familiar with his thinking.
Tillerson had long expressed interest in a diplomatic solution to the nuclear standoff with North Korea, and was upset to have been left totally out of the loop when Trump decided to move forward, according to a White House official.
Tillerson was routinely undermined in his post, including by Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and a senior White House adviser who took charge of the Middle East and Mexico diplomatic portfolios.
Tillerson also clashed frequently with national security adviser H.R. McMaster and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, among others. State Department officials took notice — and were chagrined — that Pompeo did not cite Tillerson when he appeared on television shows Sunday to explain the North Korea developments.
Although he frequently complained to colleagues that Trump was too mercurial and impulsive, and voiced frustration that the president struggled to focus during meandering conversations, Tillerson was determined to stay in his job and would not quit, according to one person who has discussed these concerns with the secretary. Tillerson’s stance, this person said, was: “If he wants me gone, he’ll fire me.”
[Trump’s tumultuous Cabinet, ranked]
On the flight back from Nigeria, Tillerson appeared to break with the White House in his assessment of the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter in Britain. He singled out Russia as responsible for the attack, echoing the finger-pointing of the British government.
“It came from Russia,” Tillerson said, according to the Associated Press. “I cannot understand why anyone would take such an action. But this is a substance that is known to us and does not exist widely.”
Earlier Monday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders condemned the attack as “reckless, indiscriminate and irresponsible,” and expressed solidarity with Britain, but would not say whether the United States believes Russia was behind it.
Pompeo long has been mentioned as Tillerson’s most likely replacement. As CIA director, the former Republican lawmaker from Kansas developed a warm relationship with Trump, often delivering the President’s Daily Brief to Trump in person and racing over to the West Wing at a moment’s notice to field the president’s queries on a range of topics.
Pompeo often is found in a host of meetings that do not necessarily deeply involve his agency, simply because Trump likes him, said one White House official.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) was initially mentioned as a replacement for Pompeo, but Trump opted to promote from within by elevating Haspel.
[A woman CIA chief was once unthinkable. But female spies are nothing new.]
White House officials, still reeling from the loss of a Republican Senate seat in Alabama, were reluctant to tap Cotton and create a vacancy in Arkansas, and they thought Cotton could be more useful to Trump as a loyal ally in the Senate, according to officials familiar with the deliberations.
Speculation about Tillerson’s ouster has come in waves, including in October after NBC News reported that the secretary of state had called Trump a “moron.” Tillerson did not deny the remark.
Tillerson, 65, spent his career at ExxonMobil, climbing the ranks at the oil giant to become chief executive officer, where he cut deals across the Middle East and in Mexico. Having never worked in government before being named secretary of state, he struggled to adapt to Washington’s ways and the administration’s culture of backstabbing.
Tillerson emerged as one of the strongest voices in the administration critical of Russia. For months, he has been saying Russia clearly meddled in the 2016 U.S. election, even as Trump shied away from any critical remarks.
Trump seemed to resent pressure to stay the course on such issues as China’s trade practices, the war in Afghanistan and the Iran nuclear deal, those people said.
Tillerson pushed Trump to preserve the Iran accord, at least for now, with a July pronouncement that Iran was meeting its end of the bargain — which curbs Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for lifting international sanctions.
Trump said in a Wall Street Journal interview that he regretted making that determination. In October, Trump kept in place the sanctions waivers, but warned he may not continue the policy when the next review is due in May.
Although Tillerson supported the approach to the war in Afghanistan that Trump announced last year, he felt no need to frame U.S. goals in the same maximal terms as the commander in chief. Where Trump proclaimed on Aug. 21 that “our troops will fight to win,” Tillerson laid out a much more modest agenda.
Robert Costa, Josh Dawsey, Karen DeYoung, Carol Morello and Brian Murphy contributed to this report.
Analysis The unmistakable ugliness of Trump urging brown-skinned congresswomen to ‘go back’ to their countries
Analysis Son, husband of immigrants tells U.S.-born political opponents to ‘go back’ to where they came from
These Republicans signed the ‘never Trump’ letters in 2016. Now some are having second thoughts.
Opinion The Democrats are fighting each other when they should be fighting Trump
Opinion Mike Pence: Congress must pass the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement
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Wealthy Southern Poverty Law rakes in Hollywood, Silicon Valley cash after Charlottesville
Gifts pour in despite criticism over SPLC's focus on fundraising, hate-group labeling
FILE - In this Feb. 24, 2017, file photo actor George Clooney and Amal Clooney arrive at the 42nd Cesar Film Awards ceremony at Salle Pleyel in Paris. George Clooney said in a statement on July 28, 2017, that photographers ... more >
By Valerie Richardson - The Washington Times - Wednesday, August 23, 2017
The Southern Poverty Law Center has padded its already well-stocked coffers with at least $2.5 million in donations from celebrities and corporations following the white-nationalist melee in Charlottesville, Virginia.
George and Amal Clooney have donated $1 million to “combat hate groups,” while Apple CEO Tim Cook announced gifts of $1 million to the SPLC and $1 million to the Anti-Defamation League in response to the deadly Aug. 12 Charlottesville clash.
“We are proud to support the Southern Poverty Law Center in its efforts to prevent violent extremism in the United States,” said the Clooneys in a Monday statement. “What happened in Charlottesville, and what is happening in communities across our country, demands our collective engagement to stand up to hate.”
At the same time, others worry that Charlottesville has obscured legitimate concerns about the SPLC, which has been accused of juicing its fundraising by exaggerating the Ku Klux Klan threat.
“These celebrity donations are virtue-signaling. SPLC does not need the money,” said Cornell Law School professor William Jacobson in an email. “Its 2016 annual report shows over $300 million in endowment, with program spending (legal and educational) one-tenth that amount and more than covered by normal annual fundraising.”
Indeed, the $2.5 million comes as fairly small change for the SPLC, which reported revenue of $54 million in 2015 and spent 22 percent of its budget on fundraising, versus 64 percent on programs and services, according to Charity Navigator.
Top-ranked charities ideally spend at least 75 percent of their budgets on programs and services, as per CharityWatch, which last year downgraded the SPLC from a “C+” to an “F” for holding more than three years’ available assets in reserve.
“Unfortunately, these virtue-signaling donations reinforce SPLC’s bad habit of sensationalizing and politicizing ‘hate’ to generate even more money for its already bloated coffers,” said Mr. Jacobson, who runs the right-leaning Legal Insurrection blog.
The criticism has also come from the left. The Nation’s Alexander Cockburn referred in 2009 to SPLC’s Morris Dees as the “archsalesman of hatemongering, while Ken Silverstein of Harper’s said in 2010 that the organization “shuts down debate, stifles free speech, and most of all, raises a pile of money, very little of which is used on behalf of poor.”
In the wake of Charlottesville, however, the SPLC and ADL, which has a focus on fighting anti-Semitism, have clearly become the go-to charities for prominent donors.
JPMorgan Chase said in a Monday memo that it would split a $1 million gift between the SPLC and ADL “to further their work in tracking, exposing and fighting hate groups and other extremist organizations.”
Apple has also launched a fundraising tool to allow donors to give to the SPLC through their digital iTunes accounts.
In accepting the Cloooney donation, SPLC president Richard Cohen warned that President Trump had reanimated the “radical right.”
“Like George and Amal Clooney, we were shocked by the size, ugliness, and ferocity of the white supremacist gathering in Charlottesville,” Mr. Cohen said in a Monday statement. “It was a reflection of just how much Trump’s incendiary campaign and presidency has energized the radical right. We are deeply grateful to the Clooney Foundation for standing with us at this critical moment in our country’s fight against hate.”
The SPLC has also faced blowback for its liberal advocacy, starting with its “hate map,” which lumps mainstream conservative organizations with neo-Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan.
Both ABC and NBC repeated the “hate group” label in July in reference to the Alliance Defending Freedom, while CNN recentlyposted the SPLC “hate map” under the headline, “Here are all the active hate groups where you live.”
Among those on the map is the Liberty Counsel, led by Mat Staver, who denounced the Charlottesville white-supremacist violence and accused the SPLC of “exploiting a serious situation to push a self-centered political agenda.”
“This false labeling is defamatory and dangerous,” he said in a Monday statement.
Founded in 1971 to promote civil rights, the SPLC describes itself as the “premier U.S. nonprofit organization monitoring the activities of domestic hate groups and other extremists.”
One woman was killed and 19 injured after an alleged neo-Nazi sympathizer drove into a crowd in Charlottesville.
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Archive for date: May 13th, 2019
You are now in Media Coverage San Diego County category.
Desal Plant Operator Assumes Maintenance Of Carlsbad Lagoon
May 13, 2019 /in Media Coverage, San Diego County /by Samantha Huante /The San Diego Union Tribune by Phil Diehl Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority
The company that built and operates the Carlsbad seawater desalination plant took over stewardship of the Agua Hedionda Lagoon this week, the only San Diego County lagoon that allows power boats, kayaks, paddleboards and other recreational and commercial activities. Poseidon Water will be responsible for dredging Agua Hedionda to keep it open and deep enough for public and private uses including a YMCA Aquatic Park, the Hubbs-SeaWorld Fish Hatchery, the Carlsbad Aquafarm shellfish operation and the lagoon foundation’s nature center.
https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/water-news-network.png 0 0 Samantha Huante https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/water-news-network.png Samantha Huante2019-05-13 09:31:042019-05-16 10:47:43Desal Plant Operator Assumes Maintenance Of Carlsbad Lagoon
California’s Infrastructure Gets C- in New Report Card
May 13, 2019 /in Media Coverage, San Diego County /by Samantha Huante /NBC 7 San Diegoby Erika Cervantes and Brenda Gregorio-Nieto Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority
A new report gave California’s infrastructure a grade of C-, which means it requires attention despite being better than the country’s average. The report by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) said California’s infrastructure is average when graded in 17 categories, including aviation, roads, transit, drinking water, and more. The annual infrastructure report card talked about the progress San Diego has made and where the city needs to improve.
https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/water-news-network.png 0 0 Samantha Huante https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/water-news-network.png Samantha Huante2019-05-13 09:27:252019-05-16 10:48:44California's Infrastructure Gets C- in New Report Card
How LADWP Uses Two Lakes To Store Energy Like A Giant Battery
May 13, 2019 /in Media Coverage, San Diego County /by Samantha Huante /LAistby Sharon McNary
If L.A. is going to stop burning fossil fuels by 2045 a key goal of Mayor Eric Garcetti’s proposed Green New Deal it must store a lot more of the excess solar and wind energy it produces during the day so it doesn’t have to rely on gas and coal energy to power the city when the sun sets and the wind dies. There’s a growing focus on building big batteries — for example, the kind that use lithium ions. But L.A. needs energy storage that is far bigger than any traditional battery.
https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/water-news-network.png 0 0 Samantha Huante https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/water-news-network.png Samantha Huante2019-05-13 09:23:192019-06-11 09:45:17How LADWP Uses Two Lakes To Store Energy Like A Giant Battery
San Diego Climate Change Group Advocates For Local Green New Deal Support
May 13, 2019 /in Media Coverage, San Diego County /by Samantha Huante /Times of San Diegoby Lauren J. Mapp
A San Diego-based group of environmental activists launched a 100-day campaign Monday calling on the region’s congressional representatives to support the Green New Deal to mitigate the effects and exacerbation of climate change. San Diego 350 hopes to convince Reps. Susan Davis and Scott Peters, D- San Diego, and Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, to support the resolution by inundating their offices with calls and postcards from constituents between now and the August congressional recess.
https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/water-news-network.png 0 0 Samantha Huante https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/water-news-network.png Samantha Huante2019-05-13 09:19:472019-05-14 09:23:13San Diego Climate Change Group Advocates For Local Green New Deal Support
Snow In May? Sierra Could Get Up To A Foot As Rare Cold Storm Sweeps Over California
May 13, 2019 /in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Samantha Huante /The Sacramento Beeby Michael McGough
In addition to wet weather and possible record-setting cold in the Sacramento Valley and foothills later this week, the Sierra will see snow showers Thursday and into the weekend. With temperatures dipping as low as 25, a rare mid-May snowstorm could affect the northern and central Sierra. In a special weather statement early Monday, National Weather Service’s Reno office warns that snow levels could fall to 6,000 feet by the end of the week. Forecasts for the mountains and foothills also show wind gusts up to 40 mph are possible by midweek, with even stronger winds expected.
https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/water-news-network.png 0 0 Samantha Huante https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/water-news-network.png Samantha Huante2019-05-13 09:15:262019-06-11 09:45:26Snow In May? Sierra Could Get Up To A Foot As Rare Cold Storm Sweeps Over California
A New Water Tax Might Be California’s Best Chance At Clean Water For All
May 13, 2019 /in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Samantha Huante /San Francisco Chronicle
At least 1 million Californians don’t have stable access to clean drinking water. That’s a shameful and unacceptable fact in this wealthy state. In his February State of the State address, Gov. Gavin Newsom called the safe drinking water crisis which is centered in lower-income communities ranging from the coasts to the Central Valley “a moral disgrace and a medical emergency.”
https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/water-news-network.png 0 0 Samantha Huante https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/water-news-network.png Samantha Huante2019-05-13 09:07:042019-05-14 09:11:09A New Water Tax Might Be California’s Best Chance At Clean Water For All
March-Like Storm To Blast California With Drenching Rain, Mountain Snow and Severe Weather
May 13, 2019 /in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Noah Zedek /AccuWeatherby Kyle Elliott
After sunshine and pleasant weather grace California early this week, a powerful storm system will barrel into the state during the middle to latter part of the week. The return of a March-like weather pattern, driven by a large dip in the jet stream, will be the culprit for driving this rare storm into the West Coast. Rain will first move into Northern California on Wednesday before overspreading the rest of the state by Wednesday night and Thursday. By the time the storm moves into the Four Corners region later on Friday, the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and parts of Northern and coastal California will receive between 1 to 3 inches of rain.
https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/water-news-network.png 0 0 Noah Zedek https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/water-news-network.png Noah Zedek2019-05-13 08:06:002019-05-16 10:49:02March-Like Storm To Blast California With Drenching Rain, Mountain Snow and Severe Weather
New Dam Proposal In Sierra Nevada Stirs Debate Over California Energy Policy
May 13, 2019 /in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Noah Zedek /San Francisco Chronicleby Kurtis Alexander
Up a remote canyon in the towering eastern Sierra, a Southern California company has an ambitious plan to dam the area’s cold, rushing waters and build one of the state’s first big hydroelectric facilities in decades. The project, southeast of Yosemite near the town of Bishop (Inyo County), faces long regulatory odds as well as daunting costs. But residents of the Owens Valley downstream and state environmentalists are not taking it lightly. The complex, as proposed in an application to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last month, is scheduled for mostly federal land at the edge of the Inyo National Forest, partly in the popular John Muir Wilderness.
https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/water-news-network.png 0 0 Noah Zedek https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/water-news-network.png Noah Zedek2019-05-13 07:01:422019-06-11 09:45:38New Dam Proposal In Sierra Nevada Stirs Debate Over California Energy Policy
Aging Water Workforce Spurs Industry Recruiting Efforts
May 13, 2019 /in Media Coverage, San Diego County /by Noah Zedek /Water News Network Mentioned: San Diego County Water Authority
A flood of water industry professionals nearing retirement has prompted local agencies to form a task force charged with assessing ways to develop the water workforce of the future. Education leaders are stepping up outreach to fill their career training programs, and water agencies are looking for new ways to attract employees. “For many years now, we’ve been talking about the ‘Silver Tsunami’ of aging baby boomers who are going to be leaving the workforce, but it really is coming to fruition now,” said Don Jones, who helped spearhead Cuyamaca College’s new Center for Water Studies housing the college’s Water & Wastewater Technology program.
https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/water-news-network.png 0 0 Noah Zedek https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/water-news-network.png Noah Zedek2019-05-13 06:31:412019-05-14 10:04:17Aging Water Workforce Spurs Industry Recruiting Efforts
What’s All This About A Water Tax?
May 13, 2019 /in California and the U.S., Media Coverage /by Noah Zedek /The New York Timesby Jose A. Del Real
Gov. Gavin Newsom has made repairing hundreds of failing drinking-water systems in California a big priority since taking office, giving fresh momentum to an entrenched problem the state’s leaders have long struggled to resolve. But his proposed solution — a $140 million yearly tax raised in part through fees on urban water districts — has raised eyebrows in a state where residents already feel overtaxed. Toxic drinking water in California is a much larger problem than many people realize: From the coasts to the Central Valley, from Southern California to the northern reaches of the state, hundreds of public water systems regulated by the state do not meet safe drinking standards.
https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/water-news-network.png 0 0 Noah Zedek https://www.waternewsnetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/water-news-network.png Noah Zedek2019-05-13 06:09:452019-06-11 09:45:48What’s All This About A Water Tax?
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CG, NTSB Conduct Hearing On Sunshine Bridge Allision
May 10, 2019 By Frank McCormack
The U.S. Coast Guard and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) began a week-long public hearing Monday, March 6, at the Lamar Dixon Expo Center in Gonzales, La., to gather evidence related to an October 12, 2018, accident where Marquette Transportation’s mv. Kristin Alexis, pushing the Cooper Consolidated crane barge Mr. Erwin, allided with the Sunshine Bridge, which spans the Mississippi River in St. James Parish, La.
The crane barge allided with the bridge shortly before 2 a.m. that morning when the pilot attempted to guide the vessel and tow through the west bank span of the bridge. The Sunshine Bridge, a steel truss bridge, opened in August 1964, has a slight arch, making the outer spans lower than the middle span. The middle span of the Sunshine Bridge has an air draft of around 171 feet, while the air draft of the west bank span at the time of the incident was around 130 feet.
The impact severely damaged one of the bridge’s load-bearing beams, triggering a months-long bridge closure that snarled regional traffic patterns. The nearest alternate bridges across the river are at least 10 miles away and include the Veterans Memorial Bridge in Gramercy and I-10 bridge in Baton Rouge.
The public hearing opened with an interview with Capt. Desmond Smith, captain aboard the mv. Kristin Alexis at the time of the incident. Smith described the process of facing up to the barge-mounted crane as “chaos,” such that he didn’t initially take note of the crane’s obtrusive bucket. The Kristin Alexis crew was tasked with moving the Mr. Erwin from a terminal in Convent, below the bridge, to Cooper Consolidated’s fleet in Darrow, above the bridge. Smith said he requested the bucket be repositioned and then he moved the tow to the west bank to await further action. However, Smith then relinquished command to Capt. Eugene Picquet, the relief captain who would later pilot the vessel when it allided with the bridge. Smith said he did not specifically instruct Picquet to wait for the bucket to be moved. Picquet, as it turned out, continued on without waiting for representatives from Cooper Consolidated to reposition the crane’s bucket.
Following the interviews conducted on March 6, Damon Judd, president of Marquette Transportation Company, released a statement explaining the company’s stop work order as well as apologizing for the impact to residents in the area.
“Our Stop Work Responsibility policy gives each Marquette employee the authority to stop work immediately if they have a safety concern,” Judd said in the statement. “When an incident like this occurs, it is usually a series of decisions that leads to this outcome. Our industry relies on licensed mariners and the judgments they make in the wheelhouse of their vessel, as they deal with navigating the very dynamic system of our nation’s inland waterways.
“We take the safety of our operations very seriously,” he continued. “We support the efforts of the U.S. Coast Guard and the NTSB to bring more visibility to the public about what transpired. We apologize for the inconvenience this situation has caused citizens on both banks of the river.”
One of the more surprising revelations during the early days of testimony was that no one on board the mv. Kristin Alexis knew exactly how tall the crane stood above the water level. The vessel crew members and workers from Cooper said, at the time, they thought the height to be about 130 feet. The actually height was closer to 136 feet. That’s 6 to 8 feet taller than the west bank span of the Sunshine Bridge.
In testimony given May 9, David Miller, chief maintenance engineer for Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, a 32-year veteran of the department, recalled the moment he learned about the allision.
“You know your day is not going to be a good one when you get a call from a bridge inspector at 4:30 in the morning,” Miller said.
Miller went on to explain the extremely serious nature of the allision. According to Miller, computer modeling following the incident indicated the strike very likely could have triggered a complete failure of the structure. Fortunately, weight was distributed sufficiently across the rest of the bridge’s members to remain intact until repairs were made. Repair costs, Miller said, are currently around $6.5 million.
The joint hearing of the U.S. Coast Guard and NTSB was expected to continue through May 11. The hearing is part of the Coast Guard’s marine casualty investigation into the event. The NTSB will issue a separate report and, if necessary, recommend regulatory or operational action to help prevent similar incidents in the future.
The Sunshine Bridge, built during songwriter Jimmie Davis’ second term as governor, is named after Davis’ signature song, “You Are My Sunshine.” First recorded in 1940, the song is an ode to Davis’ horse, Sunshine.
Caption for photo: Impact point on the Sunshine Bridge after October 12, 2018, allision. (Photo by Frank McCormack)
bridge allision
Damon Judd
Desmond Smith
Eugene Picquet
Jimmie Davis
Kristin Alexis
Mr. Erwin
Sunshine Bridge
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Gov. Edwards orders flags to be flown half-staff for Sgt. Anderson
2 years 3 months 3 weeks ago Wednesday, March 22 2017 Mar 22, 2017 March 22, 2017 5:32 PM March 22, 2017 in News
By: Alicia Serrano
BATON ROUGE – Governor John Bel Edwards has ordered that the flags of the State of Louisiana and the United States be flown at half-staff outside of the State Capitol and all public buildings in honor of Sergeant Shawn Anderson.
Anderson was an 18-year East Baton Rouge Sheriff's deputy who was killed in the line of duty on March 18. Anderson joined the sheriff's office in 1999 and worked multiple divisions, including narcotics, emergency services units, maritime response team and became a master handler and trainer in the K9 division.
"Over his many years of public service, he saved lives and changed the lives of many in the East Baton Rouge community," Edwards said. "Donna and I continue prayer for his family, as well as his follow officers, who are mourning his death and celebrating the life he lived."
Edwards has ordered for flags to be half-staff until sunset on Thursday, March 23.
Click here to read the governor's executive order.
Assumption Parish begins clean-up post Barry
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Host cities
UEFA EURO 2020 - Apply for EURO tickets - News
Apply for EURO tickets
Get your orders in before the first application window closes at 14:00 CEST on 12 July.
UEFA EURO 2020 will be the biggest EURO ever with three million tickets available
1.5 million tickets went on sale on 12 June 2019 and over 14 million tickets have been requested so far: a record level of demand for this competition
11 of the 12 host stadiums have a capacity of 50,000 or more
Fans are embracing the unique format of UEFA EURO 2020, which will take place in 12 cities spread across the continent, and interest in tickets continues to be strong with over 14 million ticket requests made from 207 different countries during the first three weeks. This already surpasses the number of applications during the equivalent sales window for UEFA EURO 2016.
Apply now or risk missing out
With the first application window closing at 14:00CEST on 12 July, fans are urged to apply now at euro2020.com/tickets for their best chance to 'LIVE IT.FOR REAL' at the biggest EURO ever.
If fans apply for category 1 or category 2 tickets, they will increase their chances of securing tickets at most venues. Fans can get an idea of the level of demand for tickets for specific games to help them make informed decisions about their applications. For the best possible chance of securing tickets, fans can select matches and ticket categories which display 'very good chance' (shown in green), visible on the ticket portal at euro2020.com/tickets. Ticket categories with highest demand are shown in red.
Unsuccessful applicants will be entered into the UEFA 'Fans First' programme, ensuring they will be the first to know about any future opportunities to purchase tickets (due to payment failures or ticket returns).
Fans do not pay for tickets when they make their applications. Successful applicants will be notified by email, and will then be given a specified period (approximately ten days) to pay for their tickets
Next sales phase: December 2019
The next opportunity to apply for tickets will be in December 2019 (after the finals draw) when tickets will be made available to fans through the participating national associations. However, to be eligible to apply for tickets during this phase, fans must meet the specific criteria defined by the national associations.
Local fans' best chance for tickets is now – it may also be their only chance
Local fans from the host nations are encouraged to apply now as the current sales window is open to everyone and represents the best chance for fans to be part of the biggest EURO ever. This sales window aims to offer a special opportunity for the locals to apply for tickets for matches in their region/country and to 'LIVE IT.FOR REAL'.
Random ballot for all venues
Tickets for all venues will be allocated by a random, fair ballot conducted at the end of July 2019. Fans will know the outcome of their applications by mid-August 2019 at the latest.
Venues with the most ticket requests are London, Munich and Amsterdam
There have been almost 500,000 tickets requested for the opening game in Rome on 12 June 2020
Demand for tickets among locals is highest in Saint Petersburg, London and Budapest; more than 50% of tickets requested in these cities have been ordered by supporters from the host country
Saint Petersburg has the highest local demand with 86% of ticket applications coming from Russia
The two semi-finals, which will be staged at Wembley, London, have received a total of approximately 1.5 million requests
The final, which will also be held at Wembley, has received almost 1.3 million ticket requests
On average, fans are applying for 12 tickets per application in at least two venues, which shows they are embracing the unique format of the competition, with 12 different venues around Europe
51% of fans are applying for tickets in more than one venue
© 1998-2019 UEFA. All rights reserved. Last updated: Friday 12 July 2019
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How are we doing against our Sustainable Living Plan targets?
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As the world works to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, it is critical that businesses lead for trust. Key to this is how we work in closer partnership than ever before, meaning new levels of transparency from all parties.
It is with transparency in mind that we share how we are progressing with our Unilever Sustainable Living Plan (USLP), the foundation on which we create trust across every aspect of our value chain.
The latest report shows we are on track to achieve around 80% of our targets and is more transparent than ever on where the main challenges lie. It also outlines where we can share our experiences to support and improve the sustainable business journeys of others.
Consumers want sustainable brands
There is strong evidence that consumer demand for sustainable brands is growing. Our own research shows that 54% of consumers want to buy sustainably and one-third of them are already doing so. This is a big opportunity, and we want to ensure that our brands are at the forefront of it.
One way we have been doing this over recent years is through our sustainable living brands. These combine a strong social or environmental purpose, with products that contribute to achieving the USLP goals. We now have 26 sustainable living brands, up from our 2016 figure of 18, spanning all our Divisions. New entrants for this year are Vaseline, Sunlight, Sunsilk and Wall’s.
In 2017, they grew 46% faster than the rest of the business and delivered 70% of our turnover growth. Over the last four years, they have continuously outperformed our average rate of growth.
New businesses, brands and innovations
We’re also shaping and building our portfolio through new businesses joining Unilever, which are aligned with our sustainable living values. Just some of our new brands from the last 12 months or so which fit this profile include Pukka tea, Seventh Generation, Mãe Terra and Sundial.
And we’re not just acquiring, but growing our own as well, creating new brands with sustainability designed in at the core. For example, the vegan-friendly Love Beauty Planet personal care range which uses natural ingredients and recycled packaging, and the Red Red gluten-free and vegan snack pots which were launched in the UK earlier this year.
Plus of course, we’re bringing our core brands to more people every day, including much-loved favourites and new innovations. For example, in the last year, Domestos has launched a number of innovations to tackle sanitation and water scarcity issues including a new, affordable toilet cleaning powder format in India and its ‘Flush Less’ spray in South Africa.
people had been reached through our programmes on handwashing, sanitation, oral health, self-esteem and safe drinking water, by the end of 2017.
of our manufacturing sites across 36 countries were using 100% renewable grid electricity, accounting for 65% of total grid electricity consumption, by the end of 2017.
of our agricultural raw materials were sustainably sourced, by the end of 2017.
Our USLP progress in 2017
The good news is that after seven years of progress we have already achieved, or are on track to deliver, around 80% of our targets.
Improving the health and wellbeing of more than 1 billion people by 2020
We are on track to meet our ambitious target to double the proportion of our portfolio that meets the highest nutrition standards by 2020. So far, 39% by volume already meets these standards. We are reformulating in all our product categories and have made significant progress on reducing salt, saturated fat, calories and sugar. For example, 70% of markets where we sell regular ice creams now have mini versions. In 2017, we launched Mini Magnums in India and Mini Cornettos in Brazil.
In terms of health and hygiene, we had reached more than 600 million people through our programmes on handwashing, sanitation, oral health, self-esteem and safe drinking water by the end of 2017. One brand that has made a remarkable impact is Dove, with its focus on better body confidence. We have reached 29 million young people already and are on track for 40 million by 2020.
Halving the environmental footprint of our products across the value chain by 2030
When it comes to our own footprint, we have made good progress in almost all areas. For example, since 2008, we have cut CO₂ from energy in our manufacturing by 47%, reduced water use by 39% and the total waste sent for disposal has reached 98%. We have also made strides in our extended supply chain. For instance, by the end of 2017, 56% of our agricultural raw materials were sustainably sourced.
Reducing the environmental impact of how consumers use our products continues to be a challenge. For example, we have only managed to reduce water use by 2% since 2010. But it’s not all bad news. We are seeing encouraging progress on packaging waste, where we have made a new commitment to ensure that our plastic packaging will be fully reusable, recyclable or compostable by 2025.
Enhancing the livelihoods of millions of people by 2020
In 2017 we relaunched our Responsible Sourcing Policy, to strengthen our approach and to drive an increase in the number of suppliers committing to the programme. Around 55% of procurement spend was through suppliers who met mandatory requirements of the Policy. Our ambition is 100% by 2020.
We believe that women's empowerment is the single greatest enabler of human development and economic growth. We are building a gender-balanced organisation: by the end of 2017, 47% of total management were women, up from 46% in 2016. Our Shakti programme is providing work for over 70,000 women in low-income rural communities. In 2017, we also enabled 1.2 million women to access initiatives aiming to promote their safety, develop their skills and expand their opportunities.
And in terms of creating a more inclusive business, in 2017 we enabled around 716,000 smallholder farmers to access initiatives aimed at improving their agricultural practices or increasing their incomes. We also supported 1.6 million small-scale retailers to improve their income.
Proportion of our overall turnover growth delivered by sustainable living brands
Photo by Son Ng-Hoang, Unilever employee, Vietnam
A lot has changed in the world since we launched the USLP in 2010. As we started to think about its evolution, we wanted to get the opinions of employees and external stakeholders on what we are doing and where we should go from here. So, we embarked on the biggest listening exercise we have ever conducted on the future of sustainable business in Unilever.
As well as interviewing experts from across our value chain – including investors, suppliers, customers, creative agencies, other businesses, thought leaders, NGOs and academics – we also asked employees around the world to complete a survey to identify the issues that matter most to them.
The responses showed that the USLP has become a great source of pride and motivation within the business, and the key reason why many employees joined the company. At the same time, we were humbled to hear that the USLP is held in high esteem externally.
But not surprisingly, with this positivity comes a high level of expectation. As one external interviewee said: “Unilever is in an uncomfortable position. Expectations will be higher than ever. It raises the bar for everybody inside Unilever trying to work out what needs to happen next.”
The aim of this project was to gain a deep understanding of how to evolve the USLP for the future based on the views of our own people as well as independent experts in the field of sustainable business. We will now take all this rich feedback and work through the next stages of the process. We’ll regularly post updates on our progress, so please pop back soon to see how we’re doing.
Top photo by Muhammad Taha, Unilever employee, Pakistan
Find out more about the progress we made on our Plan in 2017
Visit our Sustainable Living Report Hub
Explore more on these topics:
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Brian Gleeson
Alex 'Frosty' Frost (born February 17, 1987) is an American actor.
Frost was born in Portland, Oregon. His parents are Debbie and Jack, and he has an older brother named Chris. Frost is currently living in London.
Frost had a starring role in Gus Van Sant's Columbine-based film Elephant, which was awarded the Palme d'Or prize in 2003. Since Elephant, Alex has worked on a number of films, including The Queen of Cactus Cove, The Lost and The Standard. He appeared in a Season 3 episode of "NCIS" entitled "Ravenous". He played a bully in the Owen Wilson movie Drillbit Taylor, released on March 21, 2008 by Paramount Pictures. He appeared in two films in 2009, Calvin Marshall and The Vicious Kind. He recently appeared in "The Wheeler Boys", premiered in the 2010 LA Film Festival.
... More. Less.
Mother! (2017)
A couple's relationship is tested when uninvited guests arrive at their home, disrupting their tranquil existence.
Birthdate: 17th February, 1987
Birthplace: Portland, Oregon, USA
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Cemeteries and family memories stand in border wall’s way
AP National - World
by: NOMAAN MERCHANT, Associated Press
In this Wednesday, May 1, 2019 photo, family members gather at the Eli Jackson Cemetery in San Juan, Texas. Under current plans for the border wall, one of the 19th century cemeteries could be lost entirely. Some graves would have to be exhumed; others without a headstone might be paved over. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
SAN JUAN, Texas (AP) — On a muggy, mosquito-filled evening near the U.S.-Mexico border, the threat of President Donald Trump’s border wall brought together a large group of family members at two historic cemeteries that are part of their ancestral land.
The group swapped stories about family lore and examined the gravestones of their forefathers, some of whom fought in World War II and Vietnam. One man, 80 years old, leaned for support against his father’s headstone, placed there in 1965.
Under current plans for the border wall, one of the 19th century cemeteries could be lost entirely. Some graves would have to be exhumed; others without a headstone might be paved over.
The people who would lose land have hired lawyers and been staging protests. They’re determined to fight in court to tie up construction and to explain to the rest of the U.S. the hidden costs of a border wall.
“We feel on some level helpless because we’re working against the government,” said Sylvia Ramirez, who organized the gathering at the cemeteries recently and has led her family’s fight to save them. “We know we’re a small voice, but we’re a voice nonetheless.”
In Texas, construction could begin any day on walls that would also cut through national wildlife refuges; farmland that grows onions, cantaloupes, and corn; and properties that date back to when the border itself was created.
Congress agreed last year to fund 33 miles (53 kilometers) of new walls and fencing in South Texas’s Rio Grande Valley, accompanied by an enforcement zone of roads, cameras, and lighting. Lawmakers have since gotten the Department of Homeland Security to exempt the National Butterfly Center and the 19th century La Lomita chapel, but they have not stopped construction on other private land.
A federal judge last week ruled that Trump couldn’t use Defense Department money his administration shifted to wall construction when it declared a national emergency in February. But that also won’t halt the Texas projects because they’re funded with a different pot of money.
The Rio Grande Valley is the busiest corridor on the southwest border for illegal crossings. The Border Patrol says it needs more barriers to stop criminals and drug traffickers.
But the wall cannot be built immediately next to the river due to treaties intended to prevent the U.S. from pushing floodwaters into Mexico. It will instead be built on a U.S. levee that runs one mile or more away from the river in some parts, creating what is often called a “no man’s land” because it will be south of the wall but still in the United States.
Ohio State University-Newark geographer Kenneth Madsen calculated that the U.S. will have blocked off about 68 square miles (175 square kilometers) of land in South Texas once it builds all projects already funded. That’s an area about the size of Washington, D.C.
Many families in the Rio Grande Valley — a majority Latino and Democratic-leaning region in a state dominated by Republicans — can trace their roots back to when their land was part of Mexico.
Adelina Yarrito, 62, tapped her left forearm with two fingers on her right hand to explain why she thought their land was under threat.
“The difference is the color of skin,” she said. “We’re Hispanic.”
Nathaniel Jackson set up his ranch here in 1857, nine years after the Rio Grande became the border following the Mexican American War. Jackson was a Union supporter who married a black woman and helped runaway slaves escape to Mexico, which outlawed slavery more than three decades before the U.S. did.
The Eli Jackson Cemetery — named for one of Jackson’s sons — begins at the edge of the levee. It would be swallowed almost entirely by the enforcement zone the government plans to install.
The nearby Jackson Ranch cemetery is slightly farther away, as is a chapel dating back to 1874 that family members say was the home of the first Protestant church in the Rio Grande Valley. The government’s current plans would leave the cemetery adjacent to the enforcement zone.
Alicia Jackson Flores, 68, walks through the cemeteries to examine headstones, some of which have broken or fallen over. She wears a wide-brimmed hat to shield her eyes from the sunset.
She bends slightly to read each of the headstones, some inscribed in English and others in Spanish.
One headstone is inscribed: “Pvt. Abraham Rutledge, Texas Partisan Rangers, CSA.” Rutledge was a soldier in the Confederate army during the Civil War. He was also the son-in-law of Nathaniel Jackson.
Rutledge is believed to have been buried in the cemetery, though the family doesn’t know exactly where. A Confederate heritage group asked for permission to install the marker several years ago.
Even though he fought for slavery, “he’s a part of the Jackson family,” Flores said.
After a discussion about their ancestors, the discussion shifted to the wall.
Sanjuanita Salinas admitted an unpopular opinion among the group: She supports the wall because she’s worried about drug trafficking.
“They do cross,” the 68-year-old Salinas told the group. “They do bring drugs.”
Flores cut in. “Do you feel threatened?”
“Honey, I don’t trust them,” Salinas replied. “They’ll kill you. They’ll kill their own mother.”
But Salinas said she also opposed taking the cemetery to build the wall.
“You don’t disturb the dead,” she said.
To seize the property under its power of eminent domain, the U.S. government still has to offer to buy the land and sue the family if it refuses to sell. According to Sylvia Ramirez, the government has not addressed whether it would pay for the potential exhumation of graves.
As the sun set, the dozen or so family members gathered to take a group photo. One person wrote everyone’s names in a small notebook afterward so she could tag them in a Facebook photo.
Ramiro Ramirez, Sylvia Ramirez’s brother, held his 2-year-old grandson, Liam. He let Liam ring the bell inside the chapel, just as his grandmother had let him do 60 or so years earlier.
Ramiro and Sylvia already have their plots chosen, their names inscribed on a gray family headstone.
“The concern for us, especially those of us who are older, is what’s going to happen to the cemetery,” Sylvia Ramirez said. “We know what we can try to do while we’re still alive.”
More AP National - World Stories
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Australiaen
Australia Today
The Noisey Advent Calendar
Pete Wentz Has Learned the True Meaning of Christmas
Fall Out Boy's bassist tells us about his band's 2002 Christmas song, "Yule Shoot Your Eye Out" and his new, mellower attitude towards the holidays.
by Alex Robert Ross
24 December 2018, 11:31am
Before Fall Out Boy became unlikely megastars—before they showed up on Punk'd and dominated TRL and provided the background music to a hundred million black and neon MySpace pages—all they wanted to do was headline The Metro in Chicago. And when they booked a show at the 1100-capacity venue in late 2002, they decided that they'd have to perform something new to mark the occasion.
"It was just the biggest moment for us," Pete Wentz tells Noisey via email. "We wanted to do something for the people who would be in the crowd." The show was set for December 22, so a foray into holiday jams made sense. Towards the end of a session at Rosebud Studios in Evanston, the band cobble something together. The result was "Yule Shoot Your Eye Out," a sardonic and disgruntled acoustic track that would live far longer than they ever could have expected.
It's about as close as you can get to quintessential Fall Out Boy. The title is a pop culture reference (lifted Bob Clark's 1983 comedy A Christmas Story) with a pun thrown in. It's written directly to a lover, the type of character who had complete control over the narrator of every song on the band's first two LPs, 2003's Take This To Your Grave and 2005's From Under the Cork Tree. Our protagonist feels sorry for himself—"you never wanted the nice boys anyway"—then spends the rest of the song writing the person who (supposedly) spurned him into the worst possible situations. The only gifts she'll get this year are mean and metaphysical: "One awkward silence / And two hopes you cry yourself to sleep / Staying up, waiting by the phone." Plus, of course, death: "All I want this year is for you to dedicate your last breath to me / Before you bury yourself alive."
Still, like a lot of Fall Out Boy's best, the song's so emotionally overblown that it works. There's even an ambitious key-change at the end, another opportunity for Patrick Stump to push his curiously soulful voice to its limits. Blink-182's "I Won't Be Home For Christmas" might be the better-known holiday pop-punk song, but "Yule Shoot Your Eye Out" is catchier. And at least the protagonist is only hoping for someone to bury themself alive, rather than attacking a hoard of people with a baseball bat.
Wentz says that they didn't overthink the lyrics, that it was "mostly just a goofy song that we took and burned on a cd and gift wrapped in holiday paper and gave out to kids at the show." Listening back now, I see no reason to doubt that—it's not packed with details or memories or self-reflection. But it does seem to go against something that Wentz told the crowd at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Los Angeles back in 2005, at the KROQ Acoustic Christmas. The start of Wentz's introduction to "Yule Shoot…" has been cut off now, but he was clearly in the middle of an anti-Christmas diatribe: "I realized how fucking whack Christmas was," he said back then. "I'd just pray for it to be cancelled every year so I wouldn't have to put up with my dad. That's kind of what this song's about."
"Maybe that was a bit overdramatic," he says now. "I don't think it was awful. I think monotonous would be a better word. I think when you are a punk rock kid in the suburbs, the holidays represent the biggest version of the monoculture. How could you not take a shot at it? When we were recording From Under The Cork Tree we would make a band Christmas card that said 'Christmas is Cancelled.' What is more funny than saying that?"
He doesn't completely dismiss the darkness of the season. He says that "holidays like Christmas tend to magnify how you are feeling in your head... if you feel lonely, it feels bigger and darker than on other days." And he remembers feeling left out of things when he was younger, "not feeling like I was on the inside of whatever was happening in the lit houses as I walked by them, not feeling like I was a part of a thing."
It's no surprise, then, that "Yule Shoot Your Eye Out," like most pop-punk holiday songs, treats the season with disdain. Christmas is designed to be special for young children, but the magic fades the older you get. Eventually someone tells you that Santa is a fraud, and it's all downhill from there. By the time you're a teenager, it's sickly; by the end of high school, it's all capitalism and exploitation; in your mid-20s, it's just one more thing forcing you to endure traffic, crowded airports, and difficult conversations with family. Fall Out Boy wrote this song in a hurry when they were in their early-20s, rolling their eyes at the "monoculture," still pissed off by their teenage Decembers.
But Pete Wentz isn't really that guy anymore. He's got three kids and, I'm told, Christmas only really gets good again if you have young ones of your own. It's an opportunity to create the magic you either faintly remember, or never experienced in the first place. "Now I get to be Santa, which gives you a whole other perspective," he says. "I think trying to make sure it's fun and you are creating traditions for your kids without going full Elf on the Shelf dad has been the mission for me."
Alex Robert Ross is the last thing you want to see underneath the tree. Follow him on Twitter.
This article originally appeared on Noisey US.
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Lawsuit Claims that 'Diet' Soda Makes People Gain Weight
Diet soda has been under fire for decades from groups and experts who say that it's not a healthy option.
by Nick Rose
Oct 25 2017, 9:00pm
Photo via Flickr user Mike Mozart.
Soda juggernauts Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Dr. Pepper Snapple Group Inc., sometimes referred to as the "Big Soda" trifecta, are facing three big soda lawsuits.
In separate class action complaints filed in New York, the text of which which can be found on ClassAction.org, plaintiffs argue that Coke, Pepsi, and Dr. Pepper's use of the word "diet" for reduced-calorie beverages is "false, misleading, and unlawful" because of their use of aspartame as a substitute for sugar.
The plaintiffs in each case allege, on the basis of "scientific evidence," that artificial sweeteners such as aspartame can lead to "weight gain and increased risk of metabolic disease, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease," as opposed to the "implied" loss of weight.
According to the complaint, all of the plaintiffs (there are two per suit) "struggled with obesity for many years" and consumed the diet drinks "in large part" because they thought that "it would contribute to healthy weight management, and, due to its lack of calories," since soda companies were "advertising the product as 'Diet.'"
The American Beverage Association (ABA), is a trade association that represents the interests of America's "non-alcoholic beverage industry." The ABA denies that zero-calorie drinks like Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, and Diet Dr. Pepper can lead to weight gain, and cited research to that effect.
"Diet beverages that contain zero or barely any calories at all have repeatedly been shown to help people manage their diets," American Beverage Association Vice President of Media and Public Affairs William Dermody told MUNCHIES in an e-mail. "That is why we proudly stand by our products against these meritless legal claims." Dermody went on to cite three separate studies, which he called "backup for our position."
READ MORE: Study Claiming Sugar Is as Addictive as Cocaine Provokes Controversy
Coca-Cola, for its part, echoed the sentiment of the American Beverage Association, albeit with more forceful language.
"This lawsuit is completely meritless, and we will vigorously defend against it," Kate Hartman, Group Director, Brand PR at The Coca-Cola Company said in an e-mail. "Diet Coke is a great-tasting, zero calorie beverage that is and always has been properly labeled and marketed in compliance with all applicable regulations."
But not everyone buys the story that Big Soda is selling. Marion Nestle is Professor Emeritus of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at NYU. She's written extensively on the issue of sugar and health, and says that the link between aspartame and weight is a tricky one.
"Counter-intuitive as it may seem, most evidence shows that diet sodas do not help people lose or maintain weight," Nestle told MUNCHIES over email. "Quite the contrary. The prevalence of obesity has increased in parallel with production of diet sodas (but this is association, not causation)."
Nestle also admits that while there seems to be a link between sweeteners and weight gain, it doesn't mean that one is causing the other or explain why this is the case. "People who habitually consume diet sodas are heavier than those who do not. That part is clear, although the reasons for it are not. Some recent evidence suggests that some of the chemicals in diet sodas interfere with metabolism in ways that promote weight gain, but I think those studies are preliminary and require confirmation."
Science aside, Marion Nestle says she's not a big fan of sodas made with artificial sweeteners. "I don't recommend diet drinks," she explained. "They taste metallic to me and it is too easy to compensate for whatever calories they save."
Photo via Flickr user chrisstangier
When asked about the health issues associated with artificial sweeteners, the American Heart Association referred to a statement of theirs from last year, addressing sugar consumption in children and inconclusive research on the matter: "Because of the lack of research for or against the routine use of non-nutritive sweeteners, such as aspartame, saccharine, and sucralose in the diets of children, the authors felt they could not make a recommendation for or against these no-calorie sweeteners."
Scientific research could play a central issue in this lawsuit if it goes forth, given how much conflicting information there is surrounding the dangers of soda consumption. In January, a California class action complaint filed against Coca-Cola and the ABA concerning the health risks of drinking soda quoted academic research stating that studies "funded by Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and the American Beverage Association were five times more likely to find no link between sugar-sweetened beverages and obesity than studies whose authors reported no financial conflicts."
Coca-Cola also called that lawsuit "legally and factually meritless."
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Prometheus (2012)
In consideration of the horrifyingly interesting trailer for the new Alien: Covenant, I decided to watch the previous movies of the franchise, excluding the predator ones. Out of the bunch, I chose to review Prometheus, as it is the newest, and it stands on its own without any characters from other movies (until Covenant comes out). In this review, I will be covering several factors of the film, including the story, acting, cinematography, and soundtrack. I will also be comparing the film to its precursors. It’s almost inevitable that you will come across Alien references every once in awhile, and the iconic alien is known to most american movie audiences. I had never watched the Alien movies because I had seen other old horror movies before and many never seemed to fulfill their purpose. Many times you’d find suspenseful moments that would keep you biting your nails, but once the climax of horror is revealed, you can’t help but smile at the just how fake the monster’s puppet body looks. Once I watched Alien though, I was instantly proven wrong as Ellen Ripley’s endeavors to survive an alien embarked space ship were truly terrifying. Prometheus, a prequel to Alien set in the 90s of the 21st century, vaguely follows the origin of the aliens and the ship they were discovered on in the first movie. This crew on an exploration vessel venture to a planet that numerous cave paintings from varying places on Earth indicated of. Once they get there, they sure enough find hostile but primitive alien life forms that manage to live through the harsh environment. These aliens wreak havoc upon the ship crew during the movie but they also find remnants of a intelligent life form they call engineers, with striking resemblance to humans in both looks and DNA. This confirms the main character’s belief that the aliens here were the creators of humans. Once they find one last living engineer, they awaken it from cryosleep, and things go even more south as it slaughters a handful of the crew and sets off on a ship, of the same type as the one in Alien, to destroy Earth. The remaining crew stops it in a suicide mission and the main character, Elizabeth Shaw, is the last human survivor. At the end, we see her venturing out to find the home planet of the engineers with a robot friend, David, to look for answers. Not a very smart choice in my opinion, but I guess that the stressful torment she went through would prevent her from recovering back on Earth. The story itself was pretty unique, and definitely unpredictable, and I thought it was the perfect way to tie up some of the questions of Alien. However, there were small details I didn’t like here and there. For example, once some of the crew members journey to the alien fortress of tunnels, they take off their helmets because their suits tell them that the air outside is breathable. This was not believable, how people would travel through the galaxy to a hostile planet with aliens living on it, and just take off their helmets. It seemed forced, as a way to allow for future events, when one of the crew members inhales black tar-like sludge and becomes a zombie. Another example is when a fallen ship is about to collapse down like a domino upon two running characters. However, instead of running to the side of the ship’s impact, they run in a straight line outwards from the ship, or domino. The main character finally realizes to run to the side, but the other character, whom the writers couldn’t figure out a better way to kill off keeps running in a straight line, and is crushed. Numerous times throughout the movie, different characters ask the main character if she’s retained her faith in God, since they’ve found out who really created humans. She says no every time and tells them that a god must have created the engineers. When the engineer goes on a killing rampage, it seems like the writers wanted to imply that she was right, since no God would be cruel like that, and that the search for God is never meaningless. I’m not being hateful here, I just didn’t like how the writers seemed to want to force their religious views down people’s throats, and have the search for god as a main theme of the story rather than just a character trait.
The acting in Prometheus was remarkable and had various roles done extremely well, from Michael Fassbender’s robot character to Noomi Rapace’s repeatedly terrorized character. The fright of the characters seemed real and their panic translates off the screen to the viewer, something that wasn’t really relied upon in previous movies. The tension in the room when the engineer is awakened and he towers up, alarming all the crew members to looks of complete unease, was acted perfectly, and viewers can’t help but feel the nervous anticipation of the engineer’s next move. Something that couldn’t happen without the realistic speechlessness and faces of the actors. I’ve seen lots of movies where a scary villain gets up surrounded by the good guys, and all the good guys just have these mad looks like they see the same thing every day. This was not the case for Prometheus. Also important, the actor for the engineer, hidden under layers of prosthetics and makeup was more bone-chilling than the iconic alien, but I think that’s mostly due to his design and not the acting itself. Nothing breathtaking in acting, most likely due to the lack of very in depth characters, but the movie gets the job done in a skillful way.
The cinematography in Prometheus didn’t strike resemblance to Alien, and I feel it’s what made this movie less scary. In Alien the focus was on the characters point of view as they’re put through sinister conditions. This was required of Alien, as there was no cheap, let alone good looking CGI, and the directors knew that puppets weren’t scary, so they would use suspense and project you into the character’s shoes at many times, by these long camera shots just following the character as they travel along corridors and tight spaces. You can only see the character, and their immediate area, so you relate to them. You don’t know if the alien will pop up around the corner and neither does the character. I feel Prometheus relied more on CGI monsters attacking characters face to face and general disturbing moments. While this was scary, it lacked the nerve racking suspense of Alien. It would be scary at first, but monsters would just go on a killing rampage of a bunch of extras and you’d just accept it. The scary parts were mostly before the monsters attacked. One of the only memorable scenes in Prometheus regarding cinematography was this scene where Elizabeth Shaw puts herself in this automated surgery tube, where a squid looking alien is extracted from her stomach, and the robotic arm dangles the squirming creature above Shaw as the tube’s doors take what seems like an eternity to open up. During this whole ordeal the camera is in the tube, looking closely down upon the squid and Shaw, allowing the viewer to relate with Shaw, also being in tight quarters with a terrifying alien.
The soundtrack of this film is nothing close to spectacular. I can’t even remember ever hearing it in the first place, but I’m sure it was there in some parts. They mostly seemed to rely on silence, and the bare sounds of the ordeals just like the first movies. This was completely the director’s choice, and I honestly couldn’t tell if Prometheus would work well with music. It worked in Aliens because the ambience was the soundtrack. There would be scenes where there was a loose head grabber alien in a calm ship room with soft beeps and printer esque sounds to scenes with a giant alien about and ship alarms going off with the overwhelming sound of fog machines. In Prometheus, all there really is is silence.
Prometheus, while a very insightful and creative prequel to Alien, has it’s shortcomings, especially when compared to Alien. The story is very interesting, and the acting couldn’t be done better, but the cinematography which made Alien has been cut down to two or three scenes, and the “look how scary this CGI alien is as it kills off people” scenes dominate the rest. For this reason, I give it a 7.5 out of 10. Yet, it is still a pleasing experience for all audiences. It offers an intriguing story to Alien fans, and a fright to people who can’t compare it to a masterpiece.
Movies, TrendingWayne Moses January 25, 2017
Movies, TrendingZak Sorbello January 30, 2017
Movies, TrendingKynsee McDermott January 23, 2017
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Search web
Congressional Candidate In Virginia Admits He’s A Pedophile
Jesselyn Cook
HuffPost• May 31, 2018
Nathan Larson, a 37-year-old accountant from Charlottesville, Virginia, is running for Congress as an independent candidate in his native state. He is also a pedophile, as he admitted to HuffPost on Thursday, who has bragged in website posts about raping his late ex-wife.
In a phone call, Larson confirmed that he created the now-defunct websites suiped.org and incelocalypse.today ― chat rooms that served as gathering places for pedophiles and violence-minded misogynists like himself. HuffPost contacted Larson after confirming that his campaign website shared an IP address with these forums, among others. His sites were terminated by their domain host on Tuesday.
On the phone, he was open about his pedophilia and seemingly unfazed about his long odds of attaining government office.
“A lot of people are tired of political correctness and being constrained by it,” he said. “People prefer when there’s an outsider who doesn’t have anything to lose and is willing to say what’s on a lot of people’s minds.”
When asked whether he’s a pedophile or just writes about pedophilia, he said, “It’s a mix of both. When people go over the top there’s a grain of truth to what they say.”
Asked whether there was a “grain of truth” in his essay about father-daughter incest and another about raping his ex-wife repeatedly, he said yes, offering that plenty of women have rape fantasies.
Nathan Larson is running for Congress as an independent in Virginia. In an interview with HuffPost, he was open about his pedophilia. (Photo: NathanLarsonorg)
According to Larson’s campaign manifesto, his platform as a “quasi-neoreactionary libertarian” candidate includes protecting gun ownership rights, establishing free trade and protecting “benevolent white supremacy,” as well as legalizing incestuous marriage and child pornography.
In the manifesto, Larson called Nazi leader Adolf Hitler a “white supremacist hero.” He urged Congress to repeal the Violence Against Women Act, adding, “We need to switch to a system that classifies women as property, initially of their fathers and later of their husbands.” He also showed sympathy for men who identify as involuntary celibates, or incels, suggesting it is unfair that they “are forced to pay taxes for schools, welfare, and other support for other men’s children.”
Using the pseudonyms Leucosticte and Lysander, Larson frequently participated in conversations on his own message boards, he confirmed to HuffPost.
Larson posted as "Lysander" on his now-defunct website, suiped.org. (Photo: suiped org)
As Lysander on suiped.org, a forum for “suicidal pedophiles,” Larson wrote numerous posts endorsing child rape and other forms of sexual abuse.
“Why doesn’t every pedo just focus on making money so they can get a pedo-wife and then either impregnate her with some fucktoys or adopt some fucktoys?” he wrote on the platform in October. “That would accommodate both those who are and aren’t into incest. And of course, the adoption process lets you pick a boy or a girl.”
Larson has a 3-year-old daughter who lives with relatives. He told HuffPost that he relinquished his parental rights during a custody battle. His ex-wife got a court-ordered restraining order against him in 2015 before she died by suicide. He has since remarried, he says, and is now living in Catlett, Virginia.
Larson used the moniker “Leucosticte” on incelocalypse.today ― a forum for incels who are pedophiles that was removed this week after the website Babe contacted the domain host. There, he identified as a “hebephilic rapist,” noting that he’s not a typical incel because he’d had sex by raping his ex-wife.
According to the site, which HuffPost viewed before it was taken down, “incelocalypse” refers to “the day we make the jailbaits our rape-slaves.” (The term “jailbait” is slang for a person who is under the legal age of consent for sex.)
Larson posted as "Leucosticte" on incelocalypse.today. (Photo: incelocalypse today)
HuffPost did not view any posts explicitly stating that he has engaged in sexual activity with minors, although he repeatedly expressed a desire to have sex with infants and children, including his own daughter. In the phone call, Larson said that the word “pedophile” is “vague” and “just a label,” adding that it’s “normal” for men to be attracted to underage women. He said he did not commit any crimes.
In a 3,300-word essay on incelocalypse.today, titled “Here’s How to Psyche Yourself Up to Feel Entitled to Rape,” Larson tells other members: “Don’t forget: feminism is the problem, and rape is the solution.” On the platform, he also advocated for father-daughter marriage, killing women and raping virgins.
Larson is less worried about his run for Congress than about his sites coming down. He told HuffPost that the termination of his websites is an affront to his freedom of speech and that he’s going to try to get them hosted elsewhere. Not that it’ll matter ― there are still plenty of forums where incels and other such communities can congregate. The removal of Larson’s sites caused an uproar on incels.me, a separate, much larger forum for incels.
Larson’s political ambitions span more than a decade. He first ran for Congress in Virginia’s 1st District in 2008 on what he described as an “anarcho-capitalist” platform. That same year, he sent a letter to the Secret Service threatening to kill the president, which landed him in federal prison for 14 months and barred him from seeking public office in Virginia (convicted felons are free to run for federal office).
But in 2016, then-Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) restored voting and other civil rights to thousands of felons, allowing Larson to run for state office. In 2017 he ran in Virginia’s House of Delegates District 31 and secured less than 2 percent of the vote. Now he is gunning for a seat in Virginia’s 10th Congressional District.
On websites, Nathan Larson, 37, has advocated for rape, pedophilia, incest and kidnapping. (Photo: Nathan Larson)
Until it was pulled down, Larson’s site Nathania.org, a wiki page with details about his latest candidacy, featured posts titled “A Man Should Be Allowed to Choke His Wife to Death as Punishment for Cutting Her Hair Short Without Permission, or Other Acts of Gross Insubordination,” “Advantages of Father-Daughter Incest” and “The Justifiability of an Incel’s Kidnapping a Girl and Keeping Her as His Rape-Slave for Sex and Babymaking.” Wiki pages can be edited by other people, but Larson confirmed he wrote these posts as well as several other disturbing entries.
In “Let’s Define What Rape Is,” a 3,000-word essay posted on Nathania.org as well as other incel sites, Larson wrote: “Women are objects, to be taken care of by men like any other property, and for powerful men to insert themselves into as it pleases them, and as they believe will be in women’s own interests. In most cases, their interests are aligned, as long as the man is strong. Female sex-slaves actually get a much better deal than animals, because in most cases, they are allowed to reproduce, unlike animals raised for meat or companionship.”
When asked what his constituents would think about his pedophiliac writings, he said, “People are open-minded.”
He continued, “A lot of people who disagreed with someone like Trump … might vote for them anyway just because the establishment doesn’t like them.”
Clarification: Language in this story has been amended to clarify that, until 2016, Larson was barred only from running for state office. He was always eligible to run for federal office.
If you or someone you know needs help, call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. You can also text HOME to 741-741 for free, 24-hour support from the Crisis Text Line. Outside of the U.S., please visit the International Association for Suicide Prevention for a database of resources. For help with sexual violence, visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.
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posted: June 23, 2019 • Health, Noise, Infrasound
Silent Menace (Part 1 of 2): Wind Turbine Infrasound – What You Can’t Hear Can Hurt You
Author: Deever, Donald Allen | Health, Noise
June 1, 2019 – Desert Report: Sierra Club California/Nevada Desert Committee
Sci-fi fans remember the tagline from the Alien movie poster, which ominously declared, “In space, no one can hear you scream.” Likewise, research on the infrasound frequencies produced by industrial wind turbine blades is increasingly providing proof that what you can’t hear, can hurt you. Accordingly, it is worth noting that there is a huge difference between the auditory terms “sound” and “noise.” According to the Canadian Centre for Occupation Health and Safety, “Sound is what we hear. Noise is unwanted sound.” When speaking of the sounds generated by industrial wind turbines, the operative term is “noise,” and an important difference between sound and noise – including when infrasound noise is not heard by the ears – is that it can be felt by the brain and internal organs. Such an insight makes it all the worse to learn that infrasound noise can travel over much longer distances than previously admitted by the wind energy industry. Moreover, the intensity of potentially harmful levels of infrasound vibrations do not dissipate as quickly as formerly believed.
Along those lines, an important German study calculated the distances over which wind turbines can have unanticipated effects. The 2016 study warned how wind turbine-produced infrasound interferes with Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty monitoring equipment that is operated by Germany in the Bavarian Forest and Antarctica. The purpose of those stations are to verify compliance with the International Monitoring System that exists to detect nuclear explosions occurring in the atmosphere.[1] The conclusion of that study suggested that a distance of 20 kilometers between a single wind turbine and the monitoring stations should be considered a rule of thumb and that a separation of 50 kilometers should be maintained between multi-element wind energy facilities and monitoring stations. The introduction to that article tells of a variety of studies that already took place to identify the hazards that wind turbine infrasound were already wreaking on similar monitoring stations on Ascension Island, as well as a station in southern California where the monitoring equipment is located 35 kilometers from a so-called “wind farm.” Moreover, the historical portion of that study mentioned, “Wind turbine noise effects on seismometer stations have also been investigated and reported for example at AS104 station in Eskdalemuir, UK. Stammler and Ceranna investigate the increasing influence of wind turbines on seismic records, depending on the wind speed and on the number of newly build wind turbines in the vicinity of seismic sensors.” This suggests that wind turbine infrasound could interfere with the monitoring and prediction of earthquakes and associated tsunami warnings.
The great distances that infrasound waves travel from their source was also documented in a study by the Los Alamos and Sandia Laboratories, published in 2014.[2] In New Mexico, infrasound from sixty wind turbines could be detected 90 kilometers from the source under favorable conditions at night. The present trend of the wind energy industry is to push for more offshore than onshore facilities, yet studies in acoustics show that sound waves travel further over water than land, and that cooler water temperatures create inversions that cause sound waves to bend downward and become amplified which is a thought that leads to a study in Finland.
A 2016 Finnish pilot study belatedly made international news in 2018, when the Finnish Association for Environmental Health studied 200 persons affected by wind turbine infrasound. The report showed the severity of adverse health symptoms did not decrease for the first 15 kilometers from the source. It also determined that the effects were not correlated with the expectations of the persons being studied. This represented a major finding, since few countries require more than a 2 kilometer setback of wind turbines from homes.[3] The results of the Finnish study should not have been a surprise among occupational medical health professionals. In 1999, a report was published by the International Journal of Occupational Medicine and Environmental Health,[4] which stated, “Owing to its long wavelength, infrasonic noise is less attenuated by walls and other structures, it is able to propagate over long distances and may affect the human organism even though the latter is far from its source.”
In light of the proliferation of wind energy, one might ask, “How long have the negative effects of wind turbine-generated infrasound been known?” The first solid evidence for estimating the levels of annoyance from infrasound on humans was found thirty-two years ago. In 1987, Neil Kelley pioneered the field of wind turbine noise annoyance when he presented a study at the WindPower ’87 Conference and Exhibition in San Francisco.[5] His lecture was titled A Proposed Metric for Assessing the Potential of Community Annoyance from Wind Turbine Low-frequency Noise Emissions. That research was carried out at the Solar Energy Research Institute in Golden, Colorado, and sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. Kelly’s lab-based report directly linked infrasound to annoyance among human subjects, thereby indirectly linking stress-related disorders from annoyance to wind turbine infrasound.
Since infrasound lies in the inaudible frequency range of less than 20 Hertz, “What you can’t hear, can’t hurt you” was a mantle of protection the wind industry hid under for decades. Few governments embrace the concept of wind energy as enthusiastically as Germany, yet a highly-publicized 2017 report from their Max Planck Institute found that infrasound, even though it is inaudible, can produce measurable effects in recorded brain function.[6] According to their report, “this study is the first to demonstrate that infrasound near the hearing threshold may induce changes of neural activity across several brain regions, some of which are known to be involved in auditory processing, while others are regarded as key players in emotional and autonomic control.”
This 2017 study from the Max Planck Institute, “Altered Cortical and Subcortical Connectivity Due to Infrasound Administered Near the Hearing Threshold – Evidence from fMRI”, also broached the topic of increased cortisol secretions that occur as a result. According to the authors of that report, “since the brain’s response to prolonged near-threshold IS [infrasound] involves the activation of brains areas which are known to play a crucial role in emotional and autonomic control, a potential link between IS-induced changes of brain activity and the emergence of various physiological as well as psychological health effects can be established.”
Citing earlier research, the authors stated, “It has been reported in several studies that sustained exposure to noise can lead to an increase of catecholamine and cortisol levels. In addition, changes of bodily functions, such as blood pressure, respiration rate, EEG patterns and heart rate have also been documented in the context of exposure to below- and near-threshold IS (infrasound).” The references to those citations are contained in that study. Equally enlightening is a study that was published fifteen years earlier (2002) in Sweden, “Low Frequency Noise Enhances Cortisol Among Noise Sensitive Subjects During Work Performance.”[7]
Pre-dating the research from the Max Planck Institute, back in 1985, infrasound was similarly found to increase secretions of the hormone cortisol (causing a flight or fight response), which, at sufficiently high levels, can stress the body and mind to trigger annoyance, apathy, confusion, fatigue, an inability to concentrate, and painful pressure in the ears, all of which represents merely short term symptoms. Too much cortisol in the long term eventually weakens immunosuppressive action, weight gain, brain damage, hyperglycemia (elevated blood sugar levels that lead to diabetes), and a shut down of digestive and endocrine functions. In the end, prolonged cortisol production can lead to hypertension.[8] Fast-forward approximately 25 years to 2011, when Canada’s Environmental Review Tribunal made history by officially declaring that the health debate is no longer whether wind turbine noise is harmful to human health but has evolved into one of the degree of harm, Erickson v. Director, Ministry of the Environment. 2011. Environmental Review Tribunal Nos. 10-121 and 10-122.[9] A simple experiment to witness the end of the debate over wind turbine noise can be seen by going to Google Scholar and observing the results from searching the terms “wind turbine” AND “health effect” together.[10]
On January 26, 2019, congratulations were issued by Cape Cod Wave Magazine to the people of Falmouth, Massachusetts, following their long fight to win a court decision to have a wind energy facility removed from their town. The courts sided with neighbors when it was demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that the harmful effects of infrasound emanating from the wind turbines did not justify their existence, and therefore the company was ordered to cease operations and dismantle the towers.[11] Such a legal pronouncement indicates that an understanding concerning the adverse effects of industrial wind turbines has advanced beyond the realm of political opinion and moved into the arena of evidence.
Next month: Part 2 of this series will explore research on potentially harmful effects on animals, pets and wildlife, and will look at the facts or fantasy of President Donald J. Trump’s recently criticized comment that wind turbine infrasound can cause cancer.
Dr. Donald Allen Deever is a former park ranger, science teacher, flight instructor, freelance journalist, and PhD with majors in nursing education, software development, and writing pedagogy. He recently helped defeat the Crescent Peak Wind project in Southern Nevada, one of the most misplaced wind energy developments in history. He and his wife live in Searchlight on their own ten-acre nature preserve.
1) https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309540267_The_influence_of_periodic_wind_turbine_noise_on_infrasound_array_measurements
2) https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/2014JD022821
3) https://syte.fi/2019/01/10/pilottitutkimus-osoittaa-infraaaanihaitan-vahenevan-merkittavasti-vasta-yli-15-kilometrin-paassa-tuulivoimaloista/
4) http://cybra.p.lodz.pl/Content/10252/IJOMEH_1999_Vol_12_No_2_(159-176).pdf
5) https://www.nrel.gov/docs/legosti/old/3261.pdf
6) //docs.wind-watch.org/infrasound-alters-brain-connectivity.pdf
7) //docs.wind-watch.org/waye2002.pdf
8) //docs.wind-watch.org/danielsson2009.pdf
9) http://www.amherstislandwindproject.com/environmental-review-tribunal-for-suncor-kent-breeze.pdf
10) https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q="wind+turbine"+AND+"health+effect"
11) http://capecodwave.com/falmouth-town-turbines-shut-down-forever-two-neighbors-react/
Download original document: “Silent Menace (Part 1 of 2): Wind Turbine Infrasound – What You Can’t Hear Can Hurt You”
Tags: Wind power, Wind energy, Infrasound
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Home » Career and Income » Entrepreneurship » 8 Famous People Who Got Rich After 30
8 Famous People Who Got Rich After 30
By Paul Michael on 10 October 2017 0 comments
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Many people are under the impression that if they haven't made any serious money by the time they hit 30, it's just never going to happen. But as the following famous people can attest to, "rich" can be achieved well after you hit the big 3-0. Get ready to be inspired.
1. Vera Wang, fashion designer
You probably know the name Vera Wang even if you don't own any of her products. She's one of the most famous and lucrative fashion designers working today. But, she did not start out as a budding fashion designer in her 20s. In fact, she was a skilled figure skater who started the sport at just eight years old.
In 1968, Wang competed at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships and was featured in Sports Illustrated. But when she failed to make the U.S. Olympics team, she turned her attention to fashion. After graduating from Sarah Lawrence, Wang was hired as an editor at Vogue, where she worked for 17 years. In 1987, she joined Ralph Lauren, and her brief stint there gave her the drive to go out into the fashion world on her own. Two years later, at the age of 40, she designed her first wedding gown.
Since then, Wang has made gowns for a litany of famous people and her career has exploded. Vera Wang is now a household name and she has a net worth of $420 million.
2. Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company
Who doesn't know Henry Ford? He is often considered the father of the modern automobile, having created an assembly line technique that revolutionized the auto industry. And while he didn't actually invent the car, or the assembly line for that matter, he did combine the two to make automobiles affordable for American families. However, this revelation did not come to him early in his career.
After a series of experiments in his free time, Ford built a fully-functioning vehicle in 1898 at the age of 35. This eventually led to a partnership with Alexander Malcomson and a contract with the Dodge brothers. On June 16 1903, with $28,000 in capital, the Ford Motor Company was born. Five years later, in 1908, the Ford Model T was introduced to America. At a price of $825 (around $22,000 today), it was very affordable.
Just 10 years later, when Ford was 55, half the cars in America were Model T's. The business had exploded, and he continued to build his empire. Ford was president of the company he had built well into his late seventies, and when he died in 1947 at age 83, he had a net worth of what would have been almost $200 billion in today's dollars, adjusted for inflation. That made him the richest man in the world by a long, long way.
3. Ray Kroc, president of McDonald's
Recently immortalized in the movie The Founder, Ray Kroc is the man responsible for creating the McDonald's company as you know it today.
At the age of 53, well into what many would consider the twilight years of their career, Kroc was selling milkshake mixers door-to-door. It was not a thriving business. However, when he discovered that brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald had purchased eight of his multi-mixers for their burger joint, he had to see the restaurant for himself. And what he saw changed his life.
Kroc convinced the brothers to franchise their store and eventually bought them out for just $1 million each; a pittance considering the value of McDonald's today. Kroc innovated the chain restaurant, the real estate process that drives the McDonald's empire, and rolled out inventions like the Chicken McNugget and the Happy Meal. When he passed away in 1984, he had a net worth of over $600 million.
4. Donald Fisher, founder of Gap Inc.
Born in 1928 in San Francisco, Donald Fisher hardly had the career trajectory of a traditional fashion icon. After finishing school, he served as an officer in the U.S. Naval Reserve before becoming a cabinet maker.
In 1960, at the age of 32, he started his own business renovating hotels and purchased the Capitol Park Hotel in Sacramento. This was to be a turning point in Fisher's career. He leased some of the hotel's retail space to Levi Strauss & Co., and after a poor customer service exchange involving the return of a pair of Levi's, he noticed something that was crippling the store; it had a limited selection of jeans.
He suggested to Levi's that they open a store with a much greater range of sizes and styles, and they bought into it. In August of 1969, at the age of 41, Donald and his wife Doris opened the very first Gap store (so named because it served the "generation gap") and sold Levi's jeans, records, and tapes. It was a massive success. Just three years later, the Fishers launched their own Gap clothing label, and later went on to buy out Banana Republic and found the Old Navy chain. When he died, Donald Fisher had a net worth of over $3.3 billion.
5. Reed Hastings, founder of Netflix
It's hard to imagine life without Netflix these days: instant streaming, incredible original series, and a massive library of movies all at our fingertips. But the man behind it, Reed Hastings, did not come up with the idea until he was 37 years old.
Hastings spent the beginning of his career in the Peace Corps teaching high school math in Swaziland from 1983 to 1985. When he came back to the States, he went to Stanford University and graduated with a master's degree in computer science. He used his skills at a company called Adaptive Technology where he invented a tool for debugging software. From there, Hastings went on to found Pure Software in 1991, which focused on software troubleshooting.
Just six years later, his company was acquired for $750 million; and Hastings knew just what to do with that money. After getting a $40 late fee on a VHS rental of Apollo 13, he came up with the idea of a monthly DVD rental business that had no late fees. You keep the discs as long as you want, return them, and get another disc in your queue. It basically led to the downfall of Blockbuster and Hollywood Video and the creation of a service that changed television and the movie rental industry. Hastings has a current net worth of $2 billion.
6. Martha Stewart, author, cook, and businesswoman
Martha Stewart is one of the most popular household names in America, despite her brush with the law and a highly-publicized prison sentence for securities fraud. Ironically, after a career in modeling, Stewart was actually a stockbroker for some time. And while she was trading, she started a catering business in her basement with Norma Collier, a friend from her modeling days.
After catering the book release of The Secret Book of Gnomes, she was introduced to Alan Mirken, head of a large publishing firm. He was so impressed by Stewart that he asked her to develop a book. Entertaining, ghostwritten by Elizabeth Hawes, was a success. From there, the Martha Stewart name started to take hold, with many more books in the series hitting the shelves. Stewart also made regular appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show and Larry King Live.
In 1990, the magazine Martha Stewart Living was launched, and three years later, her massive TV show based on the magazine took to the airwaves. Martha Stewart was 52 at that time. Now Stewart has a net worth of over $300 million.
7. Momofuku Ando, inventor of instant ramen
Born in Taiwan in 1910 to a wealthy family, Momofuku Ando was raised by his grandparents following the deaths of his parents. At 22 years of age, he started a textiles company. But after the end of World War II, he was convicted of tax evasion and spent two years in jail. His company declared bankruptcy.
In the decade that followed the end of the war, Japan was suffering from a severe food shortage. The government was trying to convince its citizens to eat bread with the flour supplied by the U.S., but Ando thought noodles were a more obvious solution to this problem. After many months of trial and error, Ando, aged 48, perfected his prepackaged instant noodles. In 1971, at 61 years of age, he brought Cup Noodles to the market.
Ando died when he was 96, and it was said he ate his chicken ramen noodles almost daily. His net worth was around $100 million.
8. Sam Walton, founder of Walmart
If you ever wondered why the Walmart warehouse chain is called Sam's Club, now you know. It was Sam Walton who started the massive Walmart empire, and it began in 1945 with a loan for $20,000. He was 44 years old at the time, and that $20,000 figure was no small sum. Adjusted for inflation, that's $250,000 today.
He used the money to buy a Ben Franklin variety store in Newport, Arkansas, and three years later, he bought another. And then, another. By 1962, along with his brother Bud, he owned 16 stores in Arkansas, Missouri, and Kansas. In fact, 1962 was a banner year for Sam Walton. He opened the first true Walmart in Rogers, Arkansas — the Walmart Discount City store.
Ironically, Walton was determined to market only American-made products supplied by U.S. manufacturers that could price their items low enough to meet foreign competition. These days, Walmart stores are stocked primarily with foreign-made items, something Sam would no doubt despise. He died in 1992 from a type of blood cancer, and the empire was taken over by his wife and children. His net worth was estimated at $65 billion.
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South Portland native Brett Brown in line for 76ers head coaching job
Brown has been assistant with Spurs for past seven years
Updated: 10:01 PM EDT Aug 9, 2013
We could be closing in on having a second Mainer named an NBA head coach this summer. Yahoo Sports is reporting that South Portland native Brett Brown has been offered the Philadelphia 76ers head coaching position.The sides are now trying to negotiate a contract. Brown has been a San Antonio Spurs assistant the past seven years and has coached the Australian national team in the Olympics and World Championships.His father, former Cheverus Coach Bob Brown, is in the New England Basketball Hall of Fame.Earlier this summer, Maine native and UMaine Farmington Alum Steve Clifford became the Charlotte Bobcats head coach.
Philadelphia —
We could be closing in on having a second Mainer named an NBA head coach this summer. Yahoo Sports is reporting that South Portland native Brett Brown has been offered the Philadelphia 76ers head coaching position.
The sides are now trying to negotiate a contract. Brown has been a San Antonio Spurs assistant the past seven years and has coached the Australian national team in the Olympics and World Championships.
His father, former Cheverus Coach Bob Brown, is in the New England Basketball Hall of Fame.
Earlier this summer, Maine native and UMaine Farmington Alum Steve Clifford became the Charlotte Bobcats head coach.
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WomenHeart Champions Affecting Change
By Amy Friedrich-Karnik, Director, Public Policy | Jun 25, 2019
WomenHeart was founded out of passion – three women’s desire to support other women with heart disease and to create change. They wanted address gender disparities in health outcomes and sexism and bias in cardiac care. That vision continues today through the work of our Champions.
In particular, many Champions are eager to use their voice to connect with lawmakers and to affect policy change. In addition to the work they do in their communities to support and educate other women, many Champions are advocates who call their elected officials when they have something to say, they respond to WomenHeart’s calls to action and send emails to their members of Congress, they write letters to the editor of their local newspaper, and they speak at community forums – all in service of women like themselves who have heart disease or at risk and deserve respect, equality, and quality care.
And they’re making a difference! Last month, several Champions went to the Hill the day after the Wenger Awards to meet with their lawmakers. Michigan Champions Judy Nash and Connie Newlon met with Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and she agreed that day to sign on in support of the MOMMA’s Act, a bill that recognizes the threat of heart disease in pregnancy.
In February, Champion Amanda DeRosa came to Washington to speak at a Hill briefing hosted by WomenHeart and to meet with her lawmakers about the importance of women’s inclusion in cardiac research. She shared her own experience of participating in medical research. And just this week, Champion Tammy Hardin wrote a letter to her North Carolina senator that was presented to his office in a meeting by other advocates. She shared her heart story and wrote about the importance of receiving health insurance under the Affordable Care Act right before undergoing open heart surgery.
These are just a few of the many examples of Champions using the power of their voice to make a difference in the lives of women. If you’re interested in doing more, please reach out to WomenHeart staff to learn about opportunities for engagement and to receive tools and support to help you make a difference.
Advocacy in Action | 06.25.19
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WomenHeart Takes to Capitol Hill
Just hours after celebrating the Wenger Awards in Washington, DC, WomenHeart was on Capitol Hill…
WomenHeart Champions Featured at Cardiovascular Policy Summit
On May 16, 2019, WomenHeart participated in a Cardiovascular Policy Summit in Washington, D.C. The…
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Ontario proposes a bill to have safe access zones near abortion clinics
The government of Ontario is proposing legislation that would ensure all women can make their own decision safely and freely.
The Safe Access to Abortion Services Act, 2017 was introduced on Oct.4 by Minister for the Status of Women, Indira Naidoo-Harris and the Attorney General, Yasir Naqri. If the bill is passed, women can access abortion services without fear of intimidation or harassment. ‘Safe Zones’ will be located around clinics and other abortion service centres. These zones will protect the privacy of women as well as the safety and security of proper health care services.
In safe zones, anti-abortion protests or intimidating individuals would be prohibited from lurking or giving out anti-abortion information. If the bills is passed it would also mean it would be illegal for clinic staff or other health professionals to harass women about their abortion choices.
“Our governments proposed safe access zones would protect a woman’s fundamental right to fair and equal access to safe abortion,” Harris said in a statement. “It an important step forward, and one that strengthens the rights of all women in Ontario. Women in our province should be able to access health care free form the threat or fear of violence or harassment.”
There are eight abortion clinics in Ontario and the safe access zones will extend from 50 to 150 meters around the clinic. Similar safe access zones have been functioning in other provinces such as British Columbia, Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador. Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson warmly welcomes this move as the city has had to deal with various protestors and anti-abortion activists who harass women as they leave the Morgentaler Clinic along Bank Street in downtown Ottawa. Watson is calling on the government to consider the legislation so police can now deal with the activists.
Thank you @Yasir_Naqvi for acting on request for safe zones & quickly taking steps to protect women from harassment: https://t.co/ectQvELVG0
— Jim Watson (@JimWatsonOttawa) 4 October 2017
The safety zone will also automatically apply to the homes for abortion clinic staff, hospitals and pharmacies that offer abortion services. People who violate the zones can face a fine with a range of $5000-$10,000 and from six months to a year in jail. Anti-abortion groups such as the Campaign Life Coalition think the proposed legislation is drastic and far-reaching. Jim Hughes,the president of the organization, said this form of ‘bubble zone legislation’ is not about protecting women from violence that doesn’t exist, instead he said it a form of silencing pro-life campaigns.
The safe access safety zones will also be able to increase or decrease in size based on regulation, if this bill is passed. This proposition is completely different to a bill that has been recently passed by the United States House of Representatives, legislating that all abortions after 20 weeks will be criminalized and punishable by up to five years in prison. This bill is a direct hit to women’s rights. This move has been supported by the Trump administration and is gathering a lot of criticism in the U.S. Planned Parenthood Action Fund says this move is just a way to slowly end all abortions. They say that 99 per cent of abortions take place before 20 weeks.
What are your thoughts on this proposed legislation? Comment below!
Expert Panel on Sustainable Finance warns International investors are leaving Canada
RECIPE: Chickpea tacos!
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Furniture Society returns to its roots
The 12th annual Furniture Society Conference, held June 18-21, revisited the group’s first meeting spot at Purchase College in Purchase, N.Y. With 430 members in attendance, this year’s rendezvous was a true indicator of how the elaborate group of furniture making enthusiasts has grown over the years.
The society started with a steering committee meeting of about a dozen artisans in 1996 who held an official conference on the Purchase campus the following year. It now has roughly 1,300 members, mostly from the U.S., but including members from other countries as well. Canadians account for about 10 percent of the membership.
Ted Blachly, principal of Ted Blachly Furniture in Warner, N.H., has attended a total of five conferences at various locations. He couldn’t miss this one being that it was so close to home.
“Meeting new people and seeing friends from past conferences is always a highlight; there is a good energy going around,” says Blachly. “From a business standpoint, it gives me an opportunity to put my name and work out there. Who knows where things may lead?”
The society’s mission is to advance the art of furniture making by inspiring creativity, promoting excellence, and fostering an understanding of this art and its place in society. The annual conference, which melds those goals into several days of workshops and panels, is always held in a different city on the campus of a college or university offering a well-established craft program.
This year’s theme, “State of the Craft,” explored the breadth of contemporary furniture making — from small shops and studios to designing for industry — through an expansive forum that examined the personal and independent endeavor of studio furniture.
Keynote speaker Paul Harper, a director of ALIAS, a platform for the development of artist-led groups in the South West region of England, opened the first day of panels and presentations by emphasizing the importance of letting work speak for itself. He explained that while craftspeople may work all of their lives to say something through their materials, they still have to face the fact that they live in a literary culture that values the word over the deed.
“We live in an essentially literary critical culture that regards the object as something to be read. Craft is rooted in a world of experience, of materials and processes, of things and the life of things … It’s time to speak up,” Harper said in his speech.
Toshio Odate gave a rousing talk on “The Morality of the Craftsman,” regarding his ideas concerning the difference between artists and craftsmen and their interaction in society. He spoke to the essential elements of craftsmanship: learning to do things well and right, and then having the conviction to hold oneself to those standards every day.
The panel, “A Conversation with Wendell Castle,” featured Castle and gallery owner Bebe Pritam Johnson engaged in an intimate and frank discussion of Castle’s work and career. Johnson — who knows Castle well — could have sugarcoated the exchange but didn’t, challenging him on several points and insisting he explain some of his positions.
“College of the Redwoods: A School for Impractical Furniture Makers?,” moderated by Woodwork magazine editor John Lavine, included alumni Brian Newell, Tim Coleman, Jenn Anderson and David Fleming. The panel attempted to quantify the school in terms of Krenov’s contributions to the field over the last 25 years. Perhaps understandably, it devolved somewhat to a discussion of Krenov’s personality — he is nothing if not forceful and influential — and how the school functioned both when he was actively teaching and since then.
There were several eco-related presentations having to do with sustainable-yield harvest, recycling and urban materials use. Andrew Pitts of Heathville, Va., gave a presentation on “Milling and Drying Wood for the Small Workshop” that wasn’t necessarily billed as a “green” presentation, but certainly fell into the same genre. Pitts described the many ways furniture makers can take better advantage of a very underutilized resource, such as the wood and trees in a woodworker’s backyard.
Walker Weed and Wendy Maruyama were honored at a luncheon ceremony on the first day where they received the Award of Distinction, a special annual recognition of exceptional makers within the society.
Weed, 89, is a self-taught furniture maker with a shop in Gilford, N.H. and trustee of the American Crafts Council. He gave members a good dose of his philosophical approach to work and making, and even a few laughs when he joked about breathing sawdust his entire career and still being alive today.
Maruyama, an artist and educator from San Diego, whose work is known for its deviation from the norm in the field of studio furniture, accepted her award with dignity, and more than a few tears. Those present agreed she’s a true leader who has always exuded talent and stamina, while battling gender and disability issues.
“I think there’s no one walking upright more deserving of the Award of Distinction than Wendy Maruyama,” says society member David Fleming of Scottsdale, Ariz. “Given her history, her body of work and the influence she has had as an educator, I don’t think anyone else comes close. It’s no surprise that so many of her current and former students showed up at the conference to support and congratulate her. She’s had a profound impact on their work and lives, and they obviously remain devoted and connected to her.”
A chance to be seen
A handful of exhibits always grace each conference, featuring work by members and non-members from across the world. The juried exhibit is traditionally a highlight to the show, and only a select few pieces are chosen to represent each year’s theme. This year’s juried show was themed “Multiplicity: The Art of the Furniture Prototype.” There were more than 300 applicants and 22 were selected for display at the school’s Neuberger Museum of Art.
Chris Poehlmann, exhibit organizer for the society, says he was stunned by how many entries for the juried exhibit came from artisans residing outside the U.S., such as India, the United Kingdom and Singapore. He explained that the importance of the exhibit was to illustrate the fact that furniture can be designed to be mass-produced, but still have unique customized elements. The secret is working in different colors, shapes and other features to the individual pieces when off the production line.
Other exhibits included “Seats of New York: Benches, Stools & Chairs from across the State,” which presented a sampling of seating furniture by makers currently working in New York. The Members Gallery invited all members who registered for the conference to submit a piece, which was a great opportunity for those looking to gain experience exhibiting their work.
A worthwhile experience
A chairmaking workshop was one of the more popular hands-on presentations on the schedule and featured Vivian Beer, Curtis Buchanan and Will Neptune. As they built chairs of their own designs, each artist demonstrated the processes they use, shared their design motives, and explained how material affects both their design and building techniques.
Grey Jackson of G. Jackson Furniture in Kilgore, Texas, says this workshop made his travel efforts worthwhile. “It was good to have been there. I don’t know where I would have gotten another chance to see that. The people building were real good about answering questions,” he says.
Most attendees agreed networking is one of the most valuable parts of the conference. They get to know other artisans with different approaches and, in the process, gain a better understanding of and appreciation for their work and philosophy.
“Without the kind of opportunities the Furniture Society offers, we would miss the many benefits that can come from gathering, sharing our work and our frustrations, and garnering new ideas, thoughts and approaches,” says Alf Sharp, a furniture maker in Woodbury, Tenn.
Jeff Miller, of J. Miller Handcrafted Furniture in Chicago, says he is most interested in the exchange of ideas at the conferences.
“There are the many different ways that people think about their work as well; from the highly philosophical to the very gritty realities of wanting to find a way to use a particular tool,” says Miller.
Josh Markel, a furniture maker from Philadelphia, was only able to attend one day. He made the most of it.
“I went to a session on bent laminations, which was quite interesting because I do a lot of them and the workshop instructor had some innovative techniques,” Markel says. “I also like hearing about projects that people are doing that are related to the field, such as several people’s work trying to use woodworking and furniture making as a development strategy in the Third World.”
Frank Burns of Boston attended the conference for the first time as a new society member. He was excited to interact, discuss, and share with so many experienced and talented makers. “These conferences and the society in general, I believe, fill a very important role in that they build and maintain community for people engaged in work that is essentially solitary,” he says. “You and the tool and the material hang in the balance until you, the creator, precipitate movement in a unique direction. To be able to share these very personal experiences, whether verbally or just through the viewing of others work, encourages and stimulates me to continue.”
See you in Boone
After commenting on the exceptional turnout of the conference, Furniture Society president Rachel Fuld says the group is focusing on its Educational Grants program, which helps members pursue individual study or to attend classes at any of the many excellent furniture-related programs around the country. In other matters, the society board has decided to keep the search open for an executive director, and Lynn Szymanski will step down from her position on the board to fill the role of interim executive director.
Next year’s conference will be held June 10-13 at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C.
Contact: The Furniture Society, 111 Grovewood Road, Asheville, NC 28804. Tel: 828-255-1949. www.furnituresociety.org
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Furniture conference returns to N.C.
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Furniture Society to gather near Boston
Furniture Society seminars head to L.A.
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← Gwendolyn Brooks: “Estar enamorado” / “To be in love”
Zócalo Poets: Poems of Love and Desire →
Aida Overton Walker: Glamour on The Stage – a century ago
Posted: February 14, 2014 | Author: Zócalo Poets | Filed under: English | Tags: Aida Overton Walker, Black History Month |Comments Off on Aida Overton Walker: Glamour on The Stage – a century ago
Aida Overton Walker (February 14th, 1880 – 1914) dazzled early 20th century American audiences with her original dance routines, an enchanting singing voice, and a penchant for elegant costumes. She was one of the premiere African-American women artists from the end of The Gilded Age, the Cake-Walk era, the dawn of Jazz’s birth. In addition to her alluring stage persona and acclaimed performances, she won the hearts of Black entertainers for numerous benefit performances near the end of her all-too-brief life. She was, in the words of the New York Age‘s Lester Walton, the exponent of “clean, refined artistic entertainment.”
Born in Richmond, Virginia, Aida Overton grew up in New York City, where she gained an education and considerable musical training. At the age of fifteen, she joined John Isham’s Octoroons, a Black touring group of the 1890s, and the following year she became a member of The Black Patti Troubadours. Although these shows consisted of dozens of performers, Overton emerged as one of the most promising “soubrettes” of her day. In 1898, she joined the company of the famous comedy team Bert Williams and George Walker, appearing in all of their extravaganzas—The Policy Players (1899), The Sons of Ham (1900), In Dahomey (1903), Abyssinia (1905), and Bandanna Land (1907). Within about a year of their meeting, George Walker and Overton had married and before long became the most admired of African-American couples on stage.
While George Walker supplied most of the ideas for the musical comedies and Bert Williams enjoyed fame as the “funniest man in America,” it was Aida who became the indispensable member of the Williams and Walker Company. In The Sons of Ham, for example, her rendition of Hannah from Savannah won praise for combining superb vocal control with acting skill that together presented a strong image of Black womanhood. Indeed, onstage Aida refused to comply with the “Plantation image” of Black women as plump Mammies, happy to serve; like her husband, she viewed the representation of refined African-American types on the stage as important political work. A talented dancer, Aida improvised original routines that her husband eagerly introduced in their shows; when In Dahomey played in England, Aida proved to be its strongest attraction. Society women invited her to their homes for private lessons in the exotic Cake Walk that the Walkers had included in the show. After two seasons in England, the company returned to the United States in 1904, and Aida was featured in a New York Herald interview about their tour. At times Walker asked his wife to interpret dances made famous by other performers—one example being the “Salome” dance that took Broadway by storm in the early 1900s.
George Walker (1873-1911), attired for “In Dahomey” (1903)
Bert Williams_1875-1922
After a decade of nearly continuous success with the Williams and Walker Company, Aida’s career took an unexpected turn when her husband collapsed on tour with Bandanna Land. Initially Walker returned to his boyhood home of Lawrence, Kansas, where his mother cared for him. In his absence, Aida took over many of his songs and dances to keep the company together. In early 1909, however, Bandanna Land was forced to close, and Aida temporarily retired from stage work to care for her husband, now seriously ill. No doubt recognizing that he would not recover and that she alone must support the family, she returned to the stage in Bob Cole and J. Rosamond Johnson’s Red Moon in the autumn of 1909, and she joined the Smart Set Company in 1910. Aida also began touring the Vaudeville circuit as a solo act. Less than two weeks after Walker’s death in January 1911, she signed a two-year contract to appear as a co-star with S. H. Dudley in another all-Black traveling show.
Although still a relatively young woman in the early 1910s, Aida began to develop medical problems that limited her capacity for constant touring and stage performance. As early as 1908, she had organized benefits to aid such institutions as the Industrial Home for Colored Working Girls, and after her contract with S. H. Dudley expired, she devoted more of her energy to such projects, which allowed her to remain in New York City. She also took an interest in developing the talents of younger women in the profession, hoping to pass along her vision of Black performance as refined and elegant. She produced shows for two such female groups in 1913 and 1914—the Porto Rico Girls and the Happy Girls. She encouraged them to “work up” original dance numbers and insisted that they don stylish costumes on stage.
When Aida Overton Walker died suddenly of kidney failure on October 11, 1914, the African–American entertainment community in New York went into deep mourning. The New York Age featured a lengthy obituary on its front page, and hundreds of people descended on her residence to confirm a story they hoped was untrue. Walker left behind a legacy of polished performances and model professionalism. Her demand for respect – and her generosity – made her a belovéd figure in African-American theater circles.
Aida Overton Walker in 1912
Reprinted from:
Jazz: Black Musical Theater in New York, 1890-1915. Washington, D.C., Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989, Thomas L Riis
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About 145 King Street West
Located on the southwest corner of York Street and King Street West, 145 King West is a 28-storey office building in the heart of Toronto’s financial district. Featuring a renovated retail concourse that includes financial and food services, our building offers direct access to St. Andrew subway station and the underground PATH walkway to GO Transit and Union Station. LEARN MORE…
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A haunted humorist
Dan Aykroyd conjures up spectral comedy
Brian D. Johnson June 26 1989
A haunted humorist Brian D. Johnson June 26 1989
People sometimes fail to recognize actor Dan Aykroyd, even though he is Canada’s most bankable Hollywood star after Michael J. Fox. The mildmannered son of Ottawa civil servants, he looks boyishly innocent—as if he just escaped from the pages of a Hardy Boys novel. And he has made a career out of playing it straight. But behind his mask of earnest normalcy are some strange obsessions. He enjoys riding shotgun with detectives in squad cars. Like Elvis, he collects police badges. But his most unusual hobby is a passionate interest in what is euphemistically called the paranormal. For the star and co-writer of Ghostbusters and its sequel, the supernatural is more than a laughing matter. Ghosts seem to run in Aykroyd’s family. His grandparents held séances. His father once subscribed to a journal of psychic research. And since he was a teenager, Aykroyd, now 37, has been amassing an extensive library on the spectral world. “I’ve never seen a full apparition,” he says in all seriousness, “but I once
saw what could be termed ectoplasmic light, and that scared the hell out of me.”
In his ghostbuster uniform, Aykroyd is known as Ray, the enthusiastic one. And like Ray, he seems to have more ideas than he knows what to do with. When NBC’s Saturday Night Live was in its fourth season—with up to 25 million viewers per show—he was its most prolific writer-performer. His comic inventions ranged from the coneheads, an alien family in the suburbs, to his own eerie caricature of former U.S. president Richard Nixon. And with SNL’s flamboyant John Belushi, Aykroyd created the Blues Brothers, matching gangstermusicians who made a hit record and a hit movie. Since Belushi’s 1982 death from a drug overdose, the shy sidekick has found his own identity onscreen. Always the straight-arrow dupe, he played a priggish executive in Trading Places (1983), a deadpan detective in Dragnet (1987) and a love-struck astronomer in My Stepmother is an Alien (1988).
Although it seems safe to predict that Ayk-
royd’s broad comic acting will never win an Oscar, most of his dozen movies have flourished at the box office. And as a writer, he has an underrated brilliance for generating high-concept comedy. Said Ivan Reitman, the Canadian director-producer of Ghostbusters and its sequel: “He really is an original thinker and is given very little credit for it.” Aykroyd’s first script for Ghostbusters was an unwieldy saga that ran on for hundreds of pages. Co-writer Harold Ramis shaped it into a hip, efficient comedy. But Reitman added, “The basic stroke of genius is Danny’s”—the concept of a public service squad that works like firefighters, subduing spectres. Aykroyd also dreamed up the monstrous Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man who stalks Manhattan like King Kong. And he had the merchandising idea for the movie’s cartoon logo and the ;5 spin-off toys. Said Ramis: “As 5r a creator, Dan’s imagination I is not restrained by the nor§ mal bounds. He lives with one 0 foot in the spirit world and the other in outer space.”
Last February, the cast and crew for Ghostbusters lí were on location in an old firehall in downtown Los Angeles, the set for the heroes’ New York City headquarters. In the parking lot outside were great vats of a gelatinous pink slime concocted by the special-effects crew. More than a prop, it was a premise: in the sequel, subterranean rivers of supernatural slime, which reacts to human emotions, are discovered under the streets of Manhattan. In the firehall, the cameras rolled as Ray (Aykroyd) demonstrated how a sample of the substance bubbles when shouted at. “This stuff actually feeds on bad vibes?” asked a fellow gnostbuster. Replied Aykroyd: “Like a cop in a donut factory.” The line just popped out—an improvised improvement on a script that he had co-written in the first place.
Interviewed by Maclean’s during breaks in the shooting, Aykroyd admitted that he is not entirely comfortable revealing himself to the public. On his Canadian passport, he states his occupation as “writer,” not “actor.” And on his frequent travels between Canada and the United States, he tells border officials who ask that he writes “technical manuals for Northrop Aircraft.” Declared Aykroyd, whose voice has the reinforced calm of a newscaster: “Frankly, I wish I had the money and not the fame. I can’t understand a guy like Donald Trump. He’s got all the money in the world but he still loves the high profile. I don’t believe in low profile; I believe in no profile.”
Aykroyd rarely grants interviews and shields his personal life even from his col-
leagues. He lives with his wife, actress Donna Dixon, in the Santa Monica mountains overlooking Los Angeles. While filming Ghostbusters in 1983, he wed Dixon on a weekend—but most of the crew did not find out about it until reading a report in the National Enquirer. Still, he agrees that celebrity has the odd perk. Last year, he was stopped for speeding while streaking across Arkansas in a MercedesBenz. The officer recognized the star of Dragnet, and 10 minutes later he was surrounded by squad cars. “It was very satisfying,” he recalled. “I got the full escort of the state at high speed.”
The actor has a strong affection for police. Apart from collecting badges, he rides a motorcycle that he bought from the Ontario Provincial Police and he co-owns, with several Toron-
to officers, a tavern called Crooks. He has even cruised with crime-fighting units in American cities. “I’ve had some amazing rides,” he said. “I was once handed a rifle and told to watch out through the windows while they interrogated a guy.” While he was filming The Blues Brothers in Chicago in 1979, the police lent him two squad cars for his personal use. “When I was late for work, bang—the lights, the siren!”
A Mountie’s grandson, Aykroyd considered becoming a cop before settling on show business. His French-Canadian mother, Lorraine Gougeon, was a government executive secretary in Ottawa. His father, Peter Aykroyd, a descendant of United Empire Loyalists, rose to the rank of assistant deputy minister in the federal civil service and now works as a private consultant. When Dan and his younger brother, Peter, were children, their father was the chief engineer in charge of building the capital region’s Gatineau Parkway. “I grew up with bulldozers and diesel fuel and bush camps,” the actor recalled. “A man’s world, as it were.”
Raised a Roman Catholic, Akyroyd attended parochial schools, where he flirted with delinquency in a climate of strict discipline. He says that he left his first high school, the St. Pius X Minor Preparatory School for Boys, after its authorities “sat me down and said, ‘We don’t think you're priesthood material—better move on.’ ” Despite a smart-alec style that rankled his teachers, Aykroyd made it to Ottawa’s Carleton University, where he studied criminology. Meanwhile, he developed a comedy act with partner Valerie Bromfield and hung around the pop-music scene. And in the summer of 1970, while working on a road survey crew in the Northwest Territories, he learned to play the harmonica, a skill that became part of his act in the Blues Brothers. “It was a good place to learn, out there in the bush with the ravens and the wolves,” he said. “It was a great experience—I got hooked on the North.”
By the time he completed his bachelor’s degree at Carleton in 1971, Aykroyd had abandoned the idea of a career in criminology. With Bromfield, he joined the Second City comedy troupe in Toronto. There, he met two Canadians who would later become American comedy’s most influential producers: Lome Michaels, who went on to create Saturday Night Live, and future Ghostbusters baron Ivan Reitman. In 1975, Michaels lured Aykroyd to New York for the opening season of SNL. The chameleon of the cast, Aykroyd stretched his personality into a wild array of characters and he came up with some of the show’s most outrageous ideas.
At SNL, Aykroyd forged a strong bond with Belushi. Critics dubbed the SNL gang “the Beatles of comedy”—and Belushi and Aykroyd were its Lennon and McCartney. Leaving television in 1979 to appear in movies, they starred together in Steven Spielberg’s war farce 1941 and in The Blues Brothers. And they both bought houses on Martha’s Vineyard off Cape Cod. But while Aykroyd appeared to withstand the pressures of fame with a level head, Belushi was drawn into a fatal romance with cocaine and heroin that killed him in a Hollywood hotel room in 1982.
The day before Belushi died, Aykroyd— worried about his friend—called him from New York and asked him to return home. “I just missed by a hair getting him to come back. I feel badly that I didn’t go out there.” At the time, Aykroyd was writing Ghostbusters—with Belushi in mind for the starring role. Aykroyd, too, has experimented with drugs. “I tried everything that was going,” he said. “But I really found coke to be quite repulsive. It never worked for me, and I certainly didn’t like John when he was on it.” He added, “ I never had a drug problem. I like a nice cold Canadian Dow or Red Cap, if I can find it.”
Passionate about his homeland—his birthday falls on Canada Day—Aykroyd spends two or three months a year in Ontario. Each sum-
mer, he visits his parents’ cottage north of Kingston. He even has vague plans for a Canadian movie. It would involve Americans invading Quebec to quell a rebellion and to protect their hydroelectric interests.
Meanwhile, he recently produced a sitcom pilot about a mining colony on another planet titled Mars Base One—he has a small role as a Martian cop. He just finished shooting a soonto-be-released Hollywood comedy titled Loose Cannons, in which he stars as a schizophrenic forensic scientist. And, in a strange departure, he has taken on a serious role as a dowager’s son in Driving Miss Daisy, a movie based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning southern drama by Alfred Uhry. More caricature actor than character actor, Aykroyd says that he enjoys the opportunity to put on an accent. “What I like to do most,” he said, “is to get on glasses, a wig, and do a funny walk and a funny voice. I don’t like playing myself.”
But as a ghostbuster, he comes close to doing exactly that. According to Ramis, Reitman “really wanted Dan to play that side of himself that we know personally: exuberant, excited about a hundred things, always very busy.” He clearly enjoys the ghostbusting business and sees some social merit in it. “It lets people know that there are spiritual, metaphysical implications to life,” he said. “And it's not violent. We’re trapping ghosts and putting them away in a storage facility. We're not killing them.”
The civil servant’s son has come a long way from his rebellious days at the seminary school. In Hollywood, he has found a world big enough to contain his boyhood dreams. He has his own gang—and he is riding with the good guys.
BRIAN D. JOHNSON
Soaring out of reach
June 1989 By JOHN DeMONT
FIGHTING ACID RAIN
SUMMER OF SUPERHEROES
GREENING THE PROVINCES
READY TO RUN
DIFFICULT DAYS AHEAD
The King O gROSS
June 1999 By Brian D. Johnson
What muddled dreams may come
May 1999 By John Bemrose
MACLEAN’S BACK PAGES
TRUE NORTH: A LIFE IN THE MUSIC BUSINESS Bernie Finkelstein
April 2012 By BRIAN D. JOHNSON
Jonah Hill, almost a grown-up
Larded with laughs
September 1995 By Brian D. Johnson
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Rise Against – Concert shoot
by Alan Hess | Apr 16, 2012 | News | 1 comment
Last night I photographed Rise Against at the Viejas Arena. the band rocked, the lights were awesome. The combination of the D700 and the D4 was mostly great (more on that in a minute). The pit was not overly crowded. All in all a really good concert shoot from start to finish.
Ok… well not everything went as planned. When I arrived at the venue, there was no photo pass. Now I had been approved, I had the email to prove it, but there was no photo pass and it was Sunday and 9:30pm on the East coast where the publicist was based. I had very little hope that the situation would be resolved but one vice mail and a follow-up email and my photo pass was suddenly at the will call window…. Awesome when things like that work out.
Now for the other slight problem… I had the focus modes set differently on the two camera bodies. The D4 was set to dynamic autofocus and the D700 was set to single point. I have always been a fan of the single point autofocus but the dynamic autofocus on the D4 is really good…. really really good. So when i was using the D700, I kept expecting it to work like the D4 and it didn’t….. Just one of those things that will take getting used to.
The full gallery:
.aru. on April 16, 2012 at 8:29 pm
Amazing photos!!! Great Work!
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From Issue 78
Editor’s Letter See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil
Reports Microblogging in China
Essays Progress, Piety and Mess
Essays Devastating History
Profiles Lamya Gargash
Features Michael Rakowitz
Reviews Starting
Reviews Burak Delier
Reviews Zarina Bhimji
Projects Sopheap Pich
LAMYA GARGASH, C-prints from “Presence” series, 2006–2007, 60 × 60 cm. Courtesy the Third Line, Dubai.
Emirati Estrangements
Lamya Gargash
Profiles BY Alexandra MacGilp from May/Jun 2012
It was only when photographer Lamya Gargash moved to London for her master’s degree at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design that she recognized the velocity of change occurring in her home city of Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Towards the end of her degree in 2007 was the peak of Dubai’s frenzied development, when whole neighborhoods seemed to come and go within months. Her photographic series from the time, “Presence” (2006–07), documented semi-abandoned and soon-to-be demolished interiors vacated by people moving to newer homes. The desolate mood of these pictures would come to seem strangely prescient, particularly after the economic crisis of 2008–09, when fleeing expatriates abandoned their luxury cars in the city’s streets.
Although the financial crash killed off some of Dubai’s more fanciful projects, the city is still characterized by its accelerated development, ambitious culture of appropriation and a desire for constant renewal. Born in 1982, Gargash has lived through many of the UAE’s boom years, its first major bust and now its recovery. Along the way, her photographs of interiors in the series “Presence,” “Familial” (2009) and “Majlis” (2008–09) have addressed the recent seismic changes taking place in the country.
In “Presence,” Gargash focuses on the walls and furniture of domestic interiors from the 1980s and 1990s—characterized by an outmoded décor of ostentatious chandeliers, matching wallpaper and upholstery, and decorative tiles—that represent a culture that came to life during an oil-boom 30 years ago. In one picture, a chair in a decaying room stares out to sea, deserted by its owner. In another, intrusive blue wallpaper patterned with spotted dogs and paw prints is the only trace of the juvenile occupant of the room, who will grow up elsewhere. Cupboard doors and bedroom drawers are often left open, suggestive of a rushed or forced departure.
Gargash is almost alone among UAE residents with her interest in unearthing the suppressed anxiety of such rapid change. Emiratis tend to move house without bothering to take their out-of-date fittings and appliances with them. With the advent of what Gargash terms “conformative consumerism,” these spaces have swiftly disappeared, leaving little time for their owners to remark on the transition, let alone mourn it. As she has written about her photographs, “I came to see how this generation’s abandonment of, and estrangement from, these spaces seemed to be an almost inevitable cultural extinction: a by-product of modernity, but the passing of an era that would be lost without documentation.” Such frequent relocation indicates a decadent affluence, but does it also suggest a crisis of identity or a deep-rooted culture of nomadism? Many young Emiratis refer to their cars as their homes.
On the strength of “Presence,” Gargash was selected to represent the UAE in its inaugural pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2009. There she presented “Familial,” photographs of the interiors of one-star hotels. Although Dubai is more famous for its seven-star resorts, Gargash finds a richer hunting ground in the city’s cheap lodgings, which have ironically grandiose names such as Royal Prince, Blue Diamond and Golden Palace. Gargash enjoyed the performative element of shooting in these establishments, run by immigrants (who form 80 percent of the country’s population), and where few women of her privileged class and background have ever ventured.
In “Familial,” Gargash has created a fascinating taxonomy, feeding a curiosity to see behind closed doors and capturing the hotels’ postmodern cacophony of styles. One finds oneself deconstructing every design decision: Where did the fashion for tasseled canopies over the bed originate? What is behind the preference for the frilled, color-coordinated curtains and coverlets, paintings of Alpine scenes and chintzy bedside lamps that wouldn’t look out of place in an English bed-and-breakfast? In one hotel lobby, several clocks and an abundance of plastic flowers morbidly evoke the passing of time; beside them—the ubiquitous portraits of sheikhs and UAE flags serve as talismans, expressing the owner’s loyalty to an adopted country from which he is excluded from ever becoming a citizen. Gargash has inserted family portraits onto the bedside tables in some of the anonymous rooms, to remind us of the myriad human narratives that unfold in such buildings.
Continuing her examination of space and taste, in the UAE in her “Majlis” series, Gargash focuses her anthropological eye on the traditional reception rooms in Emirati houses, the air lock between the strictly defined public and private spheres of society. She records how each family negotiates its own ground between “tradition,” with wall hangings and floor seating, and “modernity,” with sofas, air-conditioning and televisions. In these photographs, the viewer is again drawn to remark on the inbuilt obsolescence of popular taste when presented with vivid color schemes of blue and yellow or outlandish features, such as a lace tissue box.
In person, Gargash’s modesty belies the fact that she is a trailblazer, as she manages to combine a successful artistic career with marriage and motherhood in a society dominated by family life and rigidly defined gender roles. Recently, Gargash has been teaching at the American University of Sharjah, where she herself studied under Tarek al-Ghoussein. She credits his formally precise photographs, which suggest narratives of abandonment, as an important influence on her practice.
One continuing theme of Gargash’s work is the psychological effect of society’s pressure on the individual to conform. Before her series of interiors exploring the poetics of space, Gargash’s student work explored the psychology of the veil. She also enjoyed early success with her short film Wet Tiles (2003), an engrossing study of an unexplained scenario of coercion involving two women, one obviously distressed by a man hovering at the edge of the frame.
In her latest project, presented at her solo show at the Third Line gallery in Dubai, in April, Gargash displayed diptychs of men and women from various cultural backgrounds. Beside a straight portrait of her subjects she has created a psychological one, in which their most disliked physical feature is exaggerated by the addition of a prosthesis, reflecting how they view themselves. In an age when extreme makeovers have even become popular as television entertainment, Gargash traces how the societal pressure to conform and renew extends from the walls of the home to the frontier of the body.
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Swedish Curriculum
Eco learning
Art Village Nursery is a branch of the award winning Amadeus Preschool in Stockholm, Sweden and is also the first nursery in the UAE that follows the Swedish curriculum. The Swedish tradition of nursery school emphasizes the importance of play in a child’s development and learning. The interests and needs of children are key components of their education in the preschool curriculum. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, Sweden was ranked first in the early years of education and care.
With the core curriculum being taught in English, we also offer Arabic as a second language, and Swedish for the native speakers. We also arrange other languages, like Spanish and French, as extra Curricular activities.
Democracy forms the foundation of our nursery. It promotes all children’s development and learning, and a lifelong desire to learn. An important task of the nursery is to impart and establish respect for human rights and fundamental democratic values. We believe in developing children’s ability to take responsibility and to develop their social preparedness so that solidarity and tolerance are established at an early stage. The nursery is a social and cultural meeting place, which prepares children for life in an increasingly internationalized community. Awareness of their own cultural heritage and participating in the culture of others contributes to children’s ability to understand and empathize with the circumstances and the values of others.
© 2017 Art Village Nursery | POWERED BY
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Pakistan - Latest News/Current Events, Economic Overview & Trade Relations
AEI | Quick Facts about Pakistan
Official Name Islamic Republic of Pakistan
Capital Islamabad
Location Southern Asia, bordering the Arabian Sea, between India on the east and Iran and Afghanistan on the west and China in the north
Area total: 803,940 sq km land: 778,720 sq km water: 25,220 sq km
Climate mostly hot, dry desert; temperate in northwest; arctic in north
Terrain flat Indus plain in east; mountains in north and northwest; Balochistan plateau in west
Editor PicksBrowse Asia News Archive
Pakintan's Oil Company To Invest $800 million
Pakistan's national oil company will invest more than $800 million developing new projects this year as 50-year-old gas and oil fields can't keep up with rising energy demand. Attacks by insurgents on pipelines and installations have disrupted gas supplies…
read full news
Expiry of EU anti-dumping duty paves way for Pakistan's export
The European Union's anti-dumping duty on bedlinen import from Pakistan expired on Thursday
Terrorist Attacks Hurt Pakistan Stock Market
The attacks on Sri Lanka's cricket team yesterday drove stocks to tumble for the first time in three days.
Pakistan Continues to Search for Help
A recent report that was issued earlier this week by an influential think-tank in Washington D.C., called for $4 billion to $5 billion in support for Islamabad's infrastructure.
Pakistan President Returns from China Empty Handed
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari returned from China empty handed as Pakistan continues to look for additional foreign aid from neighboring countries.
Pakistani Capital to Receive 450 Megawatts
For the first time in a decade, Pakistan's largest electricity supplier plans to expand its network by 450 megawatts.
Browse Asia News Archive
The Global System of Trade Preferences arose out of the United Nations Group of 77. The Group first appeared interested in 1976 to develop a global system of trade for developing countries. Over years of negotiations, the agreement was signed by the participating members of the Group of 77. The members are currently looking to expand their economic ties to other developing countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa. http://www.unctadxi.org/templates/Page____6207.aspx
Introduced at the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit, the South Asian Free Trade Area created a free trading zone that reaches 1.4 billion people. The SAFTA contains zero customs duty on practically all products. http://www.saarc-sec.org/data/summit12/saftaagreement.pdf
Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD)
The Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) is an International Organization to promote Asian cooperation at a continental level, helping to integrate the previously separate regional organizations of political or economical cooperation such as ASEAN, SAARC
Centre on Intergrated Rural Development for Asia and the Pacific (CIRDAP)
The Centre for Integrated Rural Development for Asia and the Pacific (CIRDAP) is a regional intergovernmental and autonomus organization
Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO)
The Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) is an intergovernmental international organization involving ten Asian nations. It provides a platform to discuss ways to improve development and promote trade, and investment opportunities. The nations involved are Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The common objective is to establish a single market for goods and services, much like the European Union. ECO's secretariat and cultural department are located in Tehran, its economic bureau is in Turkey and its scientific bureau is situated in Pakistan.
The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) is an economic and political organization of eight countries in Southern Asia. It was established on December 8, 1985 by India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Maldives and Bhutan. In April 2007, at the Association's 14th summit, Afghanistan became its eighth member.
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Medical Statistics from A to Z
A Guide for Clinicians and Medical Students
Author: B. S. Everitt, Institute of Psychiatry, London
$ 74.99 (G)
From 'Abcissa' to 'Zygosity determination' - this accessible introduction to the terminology of medical statistics describes more than 1500 terms all clearly explained, illustrated and defined in non-technical language, without any mathematical formulae! With the majority of terms revised and updated and the addition of more than 100 brand new definitions, this new edition will enable medical students to quickly grasp the meaning of any of the statistical terms they encounter when reading the medical literature. Furthermore, annotated comments are used judiciously to warn the unwary of some of the common pitfalls that accompany some cherished biomedical statistical techniques. Wherever possible, the definitions are supplemented with a reference to further reading where the reader may gain a deeper insight, so whilst the definitions are easily disgestible, they also provide a stepping stone to a more sophisticated comprehension. Statistical terminology can be quite bewildering for clinicians: this guide will be a lifesaver.
New updated edition with more than 100 new definitions
An accessible, user friendly, non-technical introduction to the bewildering terminology of medical statistics . . . without any mathematical formulae!
Cross-referencing between related entries provides easy navigation and a deeper insight into the topic
"The author is to commended for making improvements to the material that appeared in the first edition of the text as well as adding additional material. I highly recommend "Medical Statistics from A to Z: A Guide for Clinicians and Medical Students, Second Edition". This text will be useful for clinicians, health science investigators, medical students, and health science researchers."
Robert A. Oster, University of Alabama for Birmingham for Teaching Statistics in Health Sciences Newsletter
A-Z.
B. S. Everitt, Institute of Psychiatry, London
Brian Everitt is Editor-in-Chief of Statistical Methods in Medical Research and Professor Emeritus at King's College, London.
Study Design and Statistical Analysis
A Practical Guide for Clinicians
Risk Stratification
Planning Clinical Research
Journal of Nutritional Science
Aims and ScopeJournal of Nutritional Science is an international, peer-reviewed, online only, open access journal…
British Journal of Nutrition
British Journal of Nutrition is a leading international peer-reviewed journal covering research on human and clinical…
Journal of Helminthology
Journal of Helminthology publishes original papers, review articles and short communications on all aspects of pure…
Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences
Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences is an international, peer-reviewed journal published bimonthly from 2015. Formerly…
Nutrition Research Reviews
Nutrition Research Reviews offers a comprehensive overview of nutritional science today. By distilling the latest…
Epidemiology & Infection
Epidemiology & Infection publishes original reports and reviews on all aspects of infection in humans and animals.…
Public Health Nutrition
Public Health Nutrition provides an international peer-reviewed forum for the publication and dissemination of research…
Proceedings of the Nutrition Society
Proceedings of the Nutrition Society publishes papers and abstracts presented by members and invited speakers at…
Journal of Biosocial Science
Journal of Biosocial Science is a leading interdisciplinary and international journal in the field of biosocial science,…
Global Health, Epidemiology and Genomics
GHEG is a new Open Access journal that aims to publish research that increases our understanding of human health…
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Kingsport Times news and sports
March 16, 2016 · by admin2014 ·
Kingsport is a small city tucked away in Sullivan County in Tennessee, United States. With a population of around 44,000 people, Kingsport was created and planned by John Nolen of Cambridge earning the name of garden city. As a result of this plan the city is organized in a well rounded structure comprising of separate areas for residential areas, churches, commerce zones and industrial zones. It was this city that popularized traffic circles and built a school system based on a model designed by the Columbia University.
The population of this area features a mix of African Americans, Whites, Asians, Native Americans and Hispanics. They have a school district that goes by the name of Kingsport City Schools and houses one preschool, one high school, seven elementary schools, one alternative school and 2 middle schools. Together with these schools, Kingsport also offers eight private academies. Although there aren’t any colleges or universities that are housed in Kingsport, The University of Tennessee, the East Tennessee State University and the Northeast State Technical Community College have their branch campuses in this area.
The East Tennessee State University and the University of Tennessee are the two universities that have an active athletics and sports arm. As Kingsport is really a small city the folks take interest in most of the college sports plays there and in the surrounding areas. East Tennessee State University or ETSU as it is also called is a part of the Tennessee Board of Regents system of universities and colleges and it has a functional medical school, a college of pharmacy and is credited with the title of being one of Americas best value colleges.
The athletic team of the college goes by the name of the Buccaneers. They take part in the NCAA Division I Atlantic Sun Conference. They have been successful in winning a number of titles in both the mens and womens categories. The main sports that this college plays are baseball, basketball, football, tennis, track and field, softball and golf.
The University of Tennessee is headquartered in Knoxville and contains nine undergraduate departments along with eleven graduate departments. It possesses a student population of over 28000 students from over fifty states in the USsa and from 100 foreign countries. The University of Tennessee has an illustrious football tradition and is also considered the states highest center of learning apart from being the main economic propellant.
The University of Tennessee continues to be champions in football taking part in the Southeastern Conferences eastern Division. They have got longstanding sports rivalries with the Universities of Georgia, Kentucky, Florida, Vanderbilt and South Carolina. They’ve also won several National Championships and boast of some very prominent names including Peyton Manning who has been the Super bowl Champion and NFL athlete Reggie White.
These two were a few of the few athletes who began their careers on the University of Tennessee campus. Their womens basketball team has also been consistent winners of the NCAA Division I titles and are arch rivals with Georgia, LSU and Vanderbilt.
All the news from the sports action that surrounds these colleges is delivered to Kingsport by the Kingsport Times News. This local paper is one of the major publications of Northeast Tennessee and has been in publication since 1916 having an average daily circulation of 44,000 copies.
Filed Under: Sport Betting · Tagged: Kingsport sports news
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New York City Opera: Business As Usual, Despite Challenges
By George Steel,
General Manager and Artistic Director,
As you may know, last weekend I announced that, if New York City Opera couldn’t raise $7 million by the end of this month, we’d have to cancel three out of four operas this season; if we can’t raise $20 million by the end of the year, we’ll have to cancel the 2014–15 season altogether.
Almost immediately, people began to ask, “What happens to NYCO if there are no more operas produced after September 2013?”
Such questions are of course self-defeating and frankly ridiculous. NYCO has a proud tradition, under such distinguished general managers as what’s her name and the irritating old guy with the accent, of bouncing back from the brink of disaster time and again. Under my dynamic leadership, there’s no reason to believe that’s going to change. Besides, we have a Kickstarter campaign! What could possibly go wrong?
The people who ask, “What happens if you fail?” are probably the exact same people who were asking, “Isn’t there some way to stay at Lincoln Center, where people at least know where to find you?” and “Are you sure you want to alienate the very artists who once made this company great and who might have helped you now?”
Well, you can see for yourself how foolish those questions were. Look how great everything turned out!
The NYCO logo: A resounding rebuttal to those
who say that City Opera has become a black hole,
endlessly sucking money out of the universe.
We’re doing a better job than ever of fulfilling our mission: bringing opera to the people of New York City. We’re not confined to one theater, or any theater at all!
There are no limits! Just yesterday in Times Square, I listened to one of our esteemed orchestra members playing the Habanera from Carmen for passersby who may never have heard opera before!
Of course, that violinist was panhandling for tourists, because we can no longer afford to hire musicians full-time. But still! Mission accomplished!
And I’d say she made about four dollars before the cops chased her away.
Even if, in the near future, NYCO has no home, no productions, no artists, and no cash, we will continue to pursue our goals, exactly as we did for how ever many decades we have been in existence.
For instance, I am currently planning to launch “Opera on Wheels,” one of the most innovative programs since the bookmobile and the Nyco® Felafel Cart. We’ll send out a van with a boombox and a loudspeaker, bringing recorded opera, and possibly ice cream or tacos, and reaching every neighborhood in the city. If you’ve got a valid New York drivers license and some old CDs, why not volunteer to help out?
Also, let us know if you’ve got a van to lend us. Have you checked the prices on rentals lately?
I’m not making this up, you know:
One of the “gorgeous” rewards for Kickstarter pledges.
Come Hell or high water, NYCO will continue our educational programs, which now feature special classes in papier mâché in New York’s public schools, using our own supply of wet paper left over from the archive that flooded during Hurricane Sandy. Kids love to play with wet paper!
And while the kids are making masks and ashtrays and Christmas ornaments (all of which we’ll be offering as premiums for Kickstarter pledges), we can introduce a new generation of New Yorkers to the wonderful world of Johann Christian Bach.
We’ll also be staging “flash mobs,” with impromptu performances of scenes and arias in exciting venues such as the Fairway Market and South Street Seaport. Such productions are a great way to reach new audiences, and they’re incredibly inexpensive, because we don’t pay for them.
In addition, I’m currently actively seeking out compromising photographs or video of wealthy people and political figures. This is difficult work, but I know it will pay off for NYCO. Let me know if you hear of any leads.
Meanwhile, let’s emphasize the positives, shall we? We’re no longer reliant on that minuscule portion of our audience that used to show up at our performances because the Met was sold out and hey, we were right across the Plaza. No, we now have a dedicated audience of people who really work to find out what we’re doing and where we are.
Not your grandfather’s NYCO:
What a flash mob opera might look like.
Our board stands firmly behind me and my innovative management ideas. These are the same people who thought it was a good idea to go dark for a season, the same people who hired one general director whose experience was in state-funded European companies and another whose experience was in a university concert series. It’s their vision and their support that make NYCO what it is today, and I thank them, as I’m sure you do, too.
Finally, there’s one more question that’s come up a lot lately: “Why should I throw good money after bad?” I object to the question on principle, as you might expect, but let me try to address the concerns behind it.
Imagine New York with only one major opera company. Imagine New York without a showcase for rising American artists. Imagine New York with nothing more than memories of historic productions, legendary singers, and repertoire that ranged from crowd-pleasing classics to thrilling new discoveries. Above all, imagine New York without the sense of community — yes, of family — that opera can bring, year after year.
Well, you don’t have to imagine, because I’ve already tackled those problems. My point is, if you don’t give us the money, things can only get worse. Thank you.
Illustration courtesy of our friends at Parterre Box.
Category: Music, New York, Nonsense
Man Waking from Surgery Stunned to Learn He Is a Joyce DiDonato Fan
A man coming out of surgery and still under the influence of anesthesia was talking to a lady next to his bed when he realized he was listening to a Joyce DiDonato album.
“Man, is that a great voice,” he says, CD in hand. “Whoa! That may be the prettiest voice I’ve ever heard. Who is that?”
“That’s Joyce DiDonato,” a friend says off-camera. “You’re a fan of hers.”
“I’m her fan?” the man says, his voice cracking. “Holy s***. Dang. You mean I’ve heard her sing live?”
“Several times.”
“Do I own her record albums and DVDs?”
The man eats a cracker while thinking about this. “How long have I been her fan?”
“Almost from the beginning, ever since you saw her in Mark Adamo’s Little Women. You’ve even met her.”
“I have?”
“Several times. And she has a new album coming out.”
“Oh, my God, I hit the jackpot!”
While the video was not available for republication here, experts believe it is authentic. Some skeptics, however, insist that the man is not waking from surgery, but has merely lost his mind due to intense deadline pressure as he completes the authorized biography of Madeline Kahn. “The scruffy beard is a dead giveaway,” said one analyst, Dr. Kevin Daly of the American Institutes for Amnesia and Something Else I Can’t Quite Remember.
Category: Joyce DiDonato, Nonsense
New York City Opera: Business As Usual, Despite Ch...
Man Waking from Surgery Stunned to Learn He Is a J...
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Clarisse and Morris A. Mechanic Foundation partners with Healthy Start
Editors Baltimore Times | 6/13/2013, 9:17 p.m.
Baltimore— Clarisse and Morris A. Mechanic Foundation recently granted Baltimore Healthy Start, Inc. $10,000 to continue its efforts to improve birth outcomes in fragile communities across the city. Healthy Start staff works against overwhelming odds to provide comprehensive, supportive services to pregnant and postpartum women, their babies, and families right in the communities where they live.
The organization conducts door-to-door /street-to-street outreach to find and enroll clients. Then integrating the use of a collection of evidence-based programs and tools, Healthy Start offers intensive case management, home-visiting, medical care coordination, health education, early childhood services, and emergency needs assistance– all designed to improve family functioning, parenting, infant well-being, and self-sufficiency.
Each year in the United States, nearly 30,000 infants die before their first birthday. Many of these babies were born with birth weights of less than 3.3 pounds. “Baltimore Healthy Start, Inc. is a non-profit organization that works successfully to reduce deaths among these tiny infants and has done so for the last 21 years,” said Tina Boyle, president of the Mechanic Foundation Board. The Mechanic Foundation has generously supported Healthy Start in the past with substantial gifts to help the organization work toward reducing the significant disparity in infant mortality, prematurity and low birth weight babies among African American women.
Baltimore Healthy Start, Inc. was founded in 1991 and is part of a network of 105 federally funded projects operating in 39 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The network as a whole serves over 39,000 very poor women annually in urban, rural, tribal, and border communities and collectively the network has better birth outcomes for its clients then the rest of the nation.
Baby Buggy Walk in Druid Hill Park
City initiative working to save babies
Making a promise to educate new parents
Maryland hospitals commit to better support for breastfeeding mothers
Obesity during pregnancy raises stillbirth risk
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Enbridge historical news clippings: No. 1 of 19
A map from the December 1949 issue of Monetary Times shows the route for Interprovincial Pipe Line Co.'s Edmonton-Great Lakes Pipe Line (now called Enbridge's Line 1).
See larger image (2.3 MB)
This article from the July 1950 issue of World Petroleum shows crude oil sources for Canadian refineries, and hails the arrival of Enbridge's Line 1 to provide access to Canadian crude.
Regina Leader-post coverage from March 1950 of Edmonton-Great Lakes pipeline construction, chronicling the life of pipeline crews and their "race against time and the elements" during a harsh winter on the Canadian prairies.
Life in the Regina pipeline construction camp as Enbridge's Line 1 crossed Saskatchewan, as chronicled by the Regina Leader-Post. The camp was made of 26 aluminum-covered trailers, housing and feeding more than 160 workers.
More camp life courtesy of the Regina Leader-Post from the spring of 1950. Given that this Interprovincial Pipe Line Co. venture represented Canada's first long-haul pipeline, many of the more experienced workers came from the United States, including the chief welder from Lake Charles, LA, and chief inspector from Oklahoma.
News coverage from spring-summer of 1950 as the Edmonton-Lakehead pipeline neared Regina. An extremely wet spring hampered efforts, particularly in Manitoba and southeast Saskatchewan.
According to the Regina Leader-Post, 571 miles of the Edmonton-Lakehead pipeline were completed by July 1950. In an incredible feet of engineering, all 1,150 miles of the pipeline from Edmonton to Superior were completed in 150 days.
The July 1950 issue of Construction World profiles the construction timeline for Line 1, with its installation of 1,150 miles of pipe in 150 days "the fastest work schedule ever set for a project of this size."
An extra edition of the Vancouver Province from Oct. 8, 1957 reports the opening of Westcoast Energy's BC Pipeline (now owned by Enbridge) from the Peace River region to British Columbia's Lower Mainland. The project had "no equal in Western Canada," and to this day transports 55 percent of the natural gas produced in the province to the Vancouver area, the U.S. Pacific Northwest, and points beyond.
See larger image (346.2 KB)
Enbridge historical news clippings: No. 10 of 19
Images of Caterpillar D-8 tractors, published in the July 1950 issue of Construction World, that did much of the heavy lifting associated with the construction of Line 1.
"OIl industry revolutionized": Wire service coverage from Oct. 3, 1950, when Alberta Premier E.C. Manning officially opened the block valve at the Edmonton starting point of Line 1 to begin transporting Alberta crude to Regina refineries.
World Petroleum in July 1950 notes the completion of the Interprovincial Pipe Line "marks an important milestone for the petroleum industry of Western Canada."
A photo from Construction World in the summer of 1950 showing a pipe bending machine used on Line 1.
A map from the official May 1951 opening of Interprovincial Pipe Line's Superior Terminal and shipping port. Until Enbridge's Line 5 was completed in 1953, oil from Line 1 was shipped by tanker on the Great Lakes from Superior, Wisconsin to Sarnia, Ontario.
"In the prairie provinces, with particular emphasis on Alberta, there is a greater concentration of the major oil companies and larger independents than in any other place on the North American continent," reports Construction World in the summer of 1950.
The Canadian Press reports Interprovincial Pipe Line Co.'s expansion plans in October 1951: "By the end of the first year's operation, Interprovincial will have delivered 13,000,000 barrels of crude oil to Superior for water transport to Ontario markets." Enbridge now moves more than 3 million barrels of crude oil and liquids each day on the world's longest and most complex crude pipeline network.
This June 1953 article by the Detroit Free Press reports that the "last lap of the world's longest crude oil pipeline" being built by Lakehead PIpeline Co. (now known as Line 5) will bring prices down at the pumps in Michigan and "promises to overcome major transportation difficulties that have beset Detroit's gasoline supply."
The Saginaw, MI, News reports in December 1952 that Saginaw "will have an important role" in the construction of Line 5.
This 1951 newspaper clipping shows the official launch of the tanker Imperial Woodbend in Collingwood, ON. It was one of two tankers that shipped Western Canadian crude from Superior, Wisconsin, across the Great Lakes to Sarnia, Ontario, until the completion of Line 5 in 1953.
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In 1974 Peter Erdelyi started working as a professional engineer in California. To present day, after more than three decades, Peter Erdelyi continues to actively supervise projects from launch to completion on a daily basis, although he lost count of them somewhere around 10,000. This blog is a collection of his professional, educational or simply delightful engineering stories gathered throughout the decades in business.
TITLE 24 CODE BREAKERS
Deja-vu all over again!
This July 1st was the deadline for plans to be submitted for plan checks before this new and much more stringent Title 24 code came into effect. It truly put our company's resources to the test, as I'm sure it did for many other engineering and architectural firms.
We were bombarded with phone calls, e-mails and personal appearances in our office from clients who wanted to make sure that their jobs beat the deadline for submittal. We had over 15 projects to finish at the same time! Our staff of 16 people worked and worked hard, but we delivered what we promised.
Now we can take a breather right?
Not really. The construction industry is really on the upswing from simple room extensions to second story additions to brand new single family residences to multi-family complexes, like apartment buildings and even condominiums. Although we don't have this pressing dead line to deal with, work abounds at all levels. We have 10 to 12 RFP's (request for proposals) every day for potential projects.
It feels like old times!
I want to thank all of our clients, some of them loyal to us for 35 plus years, for all the opportunities they're giving us to serve them and for considering us for their next job. Our company will do the best to keep their trust. As our motto says:
"We provide excellent structural engineering with Hungarian friendliness and personality, with German precision and effectiveness, and with the best Californian ingenuity, knowledge of the building code and timely service in the industry" Of course let's not forget about our wonderful staff, present and past alike, from all around the world, including but not limited to Japan, South Korea, Egypt, Iran, the Philippines, Romania, Russia, India, Pakistan, China, Mexico, Nicaragua, Vietnam and many more.
(Originally posted in our email newsletter on 7/24/2104)
I'M 100% RIGHT ON THE 50% RULE!
Those who follow my periodic newsletters will remember my rants criticizing the so called 50% rule in the 2011 City of Los Angeles building code. Just to refresh your memory, this rule states, in Section 3403.1.1 under replacement, retention and extension of original materials, the following:
"Whenever the aggregate value of the addition, alterations, repairs or rehabilitation of the existing portion is in excess of 50% of the replacement cost of the building or structure, the entire building or structure shall be made to confirm to this code."
This rule means that if there was an addition, alteration, repair or rehabilitation to an existing one, or even a two story, building on one side or wing in excess of 50% of the original aggregate value, the entire existing and untouched original building has to be upgraded to current building code, including shear walls, connections and the very expensive foundation work. It is totally unreasonable in cases where the new addition does not affect the original building or structure. Adding insult to injury, it is up to the individual plan checker to determine what is 50%, and it is almost impossible to fight it without a clear set of rules. It's a very subjective decision by the individual plan checker, a very gray area.
Many additions were cancelled by the owners because of the unnecessary and very costly structural upgrade that would be incurred. In this forum of my newsletter I called on the building officials to revisit this issue in the next edition of the building code.
To my surprise, this particular section of the building code was fully deleted from the 2014 Building Code. I personally verified this code change with building officials in the Building Department, asking specifically that this was not an accidental omission? The answer was that they no longer enforce this rule, so it is official.
Is our little newsletter so powerful to influence the people who write the Building Codes? Of course not, but it was so out of place, that I'm sure lots of people complained and the change happened. Yahoo!!!
Originally posted in our email newsletter on 7/24/2104
SANTA MONICA STEPS IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION
The city of Santa Monica has now announced they will go after structurally unsafe buildings! The city will become the first in the state to identify and later make the owners prove them safe or fix them. The ruling concerns three types of potentially dangerous buildings: High rise concrete, steel office towers and soft story wooden buildings. Technically, the city has already passed an ordinance in 1994 -- ordinance #1748 for soft story buildings -- but never fully implemented it, even losing the list of the identified buildings that somehow got thrown out over the years.
While San Francisco mandated last year that property owners must fix soft story wooden buildings, and Los Angeles is considering putting together an inventory of concrete and wooden apartment buildings, in the Southland Santa Monica actually acted first with this newest announcement.
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to question the mayor of Santa Monica, Pam O'Connor, about this decision. She emphasized that seismic safety always has been a very high priority for Santa Monica, especially given the excessive damages from the last earthquake in 1995. I also asked her what advice she could give to the neighboring cities on the west side, like Culver City, West Hollywood and Beverly Hills, to come up with similar programs. In her opinion this is an undeniable trend and it's only a question of time until it will be followed by most, if not all, of these cities. This seems especially true since the largest city in the Southland, Los Angeles, has decided to go after these structurally unsafe buildings, a move championed by the mayor of Los Angeles, Eric Garcetti. You know the story of being in the same room with a 900 pound gorilla. When he makes a move, everybody will feel it and make adjustments. In Pam O'Connor's opinion, all of these cities will come up with a program which will be the most suitable for that city, sooner or later. The sooner the better.
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General, Practice, Research
The Importance of Properly Diagnosing Early Onset Bipolar Disorder
Although early onset bipolar disorder (EOBD) was first described in 150 AD, the diagnosis remains surrounded in controversy because no such diagnosis exists. A person either meets the criteria for bipolar disorder set forth in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) or not. The problem is that, as with DSM-IV, the criteria describe bipolar disorder as it exists in adults. The child phenotype differs markedly from adult onset bipolar disorder. Children with this disorder exhibit a more chronic form of irritability, more rapid mood swings, intense emotional outbursts, and impulsive aggression.
An additional complication when making the diagnosis in children is that most of the symptoms associated with EOBD also exist in ADHD, OCD, and ASD. Moreover, children with EOBD also have high rates of comorbid conditions.
Though it was hoped that DSM-5 would resolve the main concerns, the following issues remain unaddressed:
Technically, EOBD diagnosis still does not exist.
Teens and children must meet adult criteria to be diagnosed as bipolar.
Many children who would have received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder prior to the publication of DSM-5 will now receive a diagnosis of disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD).
Despite the hope for some consensus, experts in the field have yet to reach agreement on (a) what symptoms constitute the core features of EOBD, (b) how to differentiate bipolar disorder from other childhood disorders, and (c) how best to manage children who have the disorder.
When Drs. Richard M. Marshall and Berney J. Wilkinson began seeing children who exhibited severe symptoms of bipolar disorder, they used omnibus rating scales as part of their initial diagnostic assessment. To their surprise, many of the scales completed by parents and teachers had ratings in the normal range even though the children had symptoms of bipolar disorder. An item analysis revealed that existing rating scales did not contain a sufficient number of items associated with the disorder. To address these shortcomings, Marshall and Wilkinson developed the Pediatric Behavior Rating Scale (PBRS), a standardized, norm-referenced parent and teacher rating scale for use with children ages 3 to 18 years.
Rather than providing specific diagnoses, the PBRS enables clinicians to identify the core features of EOBD, thereby serving as the critical first step in differential diagnosis and intervention planning. The PBRS provides clinical researchers with another tool to assist in (a) defining this disorder, (b) differentiating EOBD from related disorders, and (c) evaluating the efficacy of interventions aimed at alleviating its symptoms.
Approximately 20% of our nation’s 50 million K–12 students meet diagnostic criteria for a mental disorder, and 10% experience significant functional impairments at home, at school, and with peers. Nevertheless, children exhibiting such symptoms are often punished for willful disobedience rather than receiving effective treatment. In fact, 80% of children with mental illness remain undiagnosed and untreated, resulting in increased risk for suicide, school failure, and criminal behavior. Accurate differential diagnoses of EOBD and related disorders is the key to effective interventions.
Unless otherwise cited, source material is attributed to:
Marshall, M. M., & Wilkinson, B. J. (2008). Pediatric Behavior Rating Scale. Lutz, FL: PAR.
What do you think? PAR wants to hear from you, so leave a comment and join the conversation!
Berney Wilkinson, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disor, dsm-5, DSM-IV, early onset bipolar disorder, eobd, PBRS, Pediatric Behavior Rating Scale, Richard Marshall
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It’s Time to Act: Ending Sexual Harassment in Nonprofit Organizations
February 28, 2018 Richard Levin
By Richard J. Levin and Sara E. Miller
“That’s simply the way he is. Just don’t find yourself alone in an elevator with him!”
We heard this from the CEO of a nonprofit organization who was given advice about a key donor during her first day on the job. She was receiving “the talk” so many nonprofit professionals have heard before, as if to explain away predatory behavior as the cost of doing business.
In listening to clients and confidants, we have learned that inappropriate sexual behaviors and repugnant power dynamics are playing out not only in Hollywood and government, but in the nonprofit space as well.
Ethics and the Business Decision-Making of Today’s Leaders
December 6, 2011 Dr. Johnny Magwood - Guest Author
The people who work in both large and small corporations are typically a reflection of society. Workers and leaders that enter the workforce bring with them personal, family, and community ethics and values. From an ethical perspective, there are two elements worth considering: ethical approach and ethical referent. Ethical approaches include principles, rationale, and standards that individuals portray when facing an ethical decision. Within the decision-making process, people include their egos, a sense of benevolence, and a principled philosophy. Ethical referents are the building blocks of an individual’s ethical concerns, or the stage of scrutiny supporting a person’s ethical decision-making. Unfortunately, many business decisions are made with irrational foundations. Good ethical decisions are not always beneficial to an individual or profitable for a firm, however, good ethical decision-making is good for society and is a requirement for good leadership.
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Taylor Institution Library
A Bodleian Libraries weblog
Playing Shakespeare in German
The Taylor Institution’s ‘Shakespeare in Translation’ exhibition illustrates the broad linguistic scope of Shakespeare reception across Europe. His plays have a particularly long history of adaptation and translation in German. This post explores some of the milestones in that history, from anonymous reinterpretation while Shakespeare was still writing, all the way to Brecht’s radio plays the twentieth century, via the authoritative Schlegel-Tieck edition of the early nineteenth century.
In 1586, the English comedians arrived in Germany, and continued to perform until 1660. It was they who provided Germany’s introduction to Shakespeare, during the playwright’s lifetime. Their repertoire included plays loosely based on Shakespeare’s – emphasis on the word ‘loosely’. The name ‘Shakespeare’, however, was not associated with these plays, and is generally thought not to have been mentioned in Germany until Daniel Georg Morhof’s Unterricht von der Teutschen Sprache und Poesie in 1682. Even if divorced from the name of Shakespeare, these plays do represent very early reception of his works in Germany. Some of the texts survive, both in fairly modern and near-contemporary editions, of which the oldest is Englische Comedien und Tragedien (1620). The eighth play in this collection is a German translation and adaptation of Titus Andronicus, making it the first of Shakespeare’s plays to be printed in Germany, as well as the first to be printed in England. Its temporal proximity to the earliest English performances of the play, as well as that fact of its being performed by English actors (some in English, and some in German), mean that we can learn a great deal about the history of Titus Andronicus and its original performance from this printing.
Collected Plays in Translation
Shakespe are’s popularity took off in Germany in the eighteenth century, when German commentaries on his work first began to appear. Although his name had been known in Germany since Morhof in 1682, and to French-reading audiences through Voltaire’s Lettres philosophiques sur les Anglais, the real development did not come for another eighty years, with Christoph Martin Wieland’s Shakespear: theatralische Werke (1762). Although Wieland did not translate all of the plays, English-language scholars of Shakespeare in Germany are united in their assessment of the significance of this publication:
Simon Williams: ‘It would be difficult to overstate the importance of Wieland’s translation in the introduction of Shakespeare into German’ (Williams, p. 52)
Roger Paulin: ‘no serious discussion of Shakespeare’s text could … be expected much before 1762, the date of the first volume of Wieland’s translation’ (Paulin, p. 21)
Wieland’s work was neither definitive nor complete, and J.J. Eschenburg built upon it in the next decade with William Shakespear’s Schauspiele. Neue Ausgabe (1775-77, 1782). It was, though, the appearance of Schlegel’s translation (1797-1810) which irrevocably changed Germany’s relationship with Shakespeare. Schlegel’s work become the standard German Shakespeare translation, largely because of his famous principle ‘alles im Deutschen Thunliche’. Paulin summarises the impact of this approach, which:
‘means that Shakespeare can be both translatable and German … For Schlegel, poetic rendition was an absolute requirement, not an option’ (Paulin, p. 303)
In the 1820s, Ludwig Tieck re-edited Schlegel’s translations to produce Shakespeare’s dramatische Werke. Uebersetzt von August Wilhelm von Schlegel, ergänzt und erläutert von Ludwig Tieck (1825-33). In the introduction, Tieck takes it upon himself to warn his readers against another set of translations which began appearing in the intervening years between Schlegel’s original publication, and his own reissue: that of Johann Heinrich Voss and his sons, Shakespeare’s Schauspiele von Johann Heinrich Voß und dessen Söhnen Heinrich Voß und Abraham Voß (1818-1829). Schlegel was not himself involved in this new version and was furious, both at the reissue of his work, and at Tieck’s supposed improvements (Paulin, p. 344). The Schlegel-Tieck edition is viewed as a ‘German classic in its own right’ (Korte and Spittel, p. 269), and Friedrich Gundolf viewed Schlegel’s work as the endpoint and the high-point of a development of Shakespeare as belonging to the German spirit, which had begun with Lessing (Gundolf, p. 356). But it was also a question of timing. George Steiner describes Schlegel’s translations as ‘formidable re-creations of the English text [which] coincided precisely with the time in which the German language was coming of literary age’ (Steiner, p. 156).
The Schlegel-Tieck edition, however seminal, did not put an end to the translation of Shakespeare into German. Paulin identifies the translations by Ernst Ortlieb (W. Shakespeare’s dramatische Werke (1842-43)) and Friedrich Bodenstedt (William Shakespeare’s Dramatische Werke (1867-71) as having been undervalued (Paulin, pp. 331, 329), and indeed they have received little modern critical attention. Moving into the twentieth century, Friedrich Gundolf’s enduring contribution to Shakespeare studies must be his Shakespeare und der deutsche Geist (1911), but a decade later he published Shakespeare in deutscher Sprache (1920-22). This, though, is ‘today only [of] antiquarian interest’ (Paulin, p. 488).
Translations of Individual Plays
Where translations of individual works are concerned, we see some famous names, and some that are less familiar. The Taylor Institution holds several translations by the actor, theatre manager, and dramatist F.L. Schröder, including his Hamlet and König Lear (both editions 1778), as well as Gottfried August Burger’s Macbeth (1783). Schröder’s production of Hamlet had a particular influence on German literature, for it inspires the hero of Goethe’s Wilhem Meister’s Lehrjahre (himself named for Shakespeare) to want to put on a complete German version of the play. Hamlet, indeed, is discussed at length in the novel. Bürger, meanwhile, was Schlegel’s mentor, and although Schlegel had little complimentary to say about this version of Macbeth in later life, ‘it was Bürger who in 1789-93 was able to instil in the young Schlegel the confidence to produce a verse Midsummer Night’s Dream quite distinct from Wieland’s’ (Paulin, p. 311). Seventeen years later, Schiller also produced an adapted translation of Macbeth, and in 1812, Goethe, who as theatre director in Weimar produced a number of Shakespeare’s plays, put on his own adapted version of Romeo and Juliet, although thereafter he lost interest in translating Shakespeare. Moving forward over a century, we come to Bertolt Brecht, who used elements of many of Shakespeare’s plays in his writing, and whose free adaptations were tailored to his own critical and political purposes. In October 1927, his adaptation of Macbeth was performed on the Berliner Rundfunk radio station, but the manuscript is now lost. The same station also broadcast his Hamlet in 1931. Between 1951 and 1953 Brecht also produced a partial translation of Coriolanus. Although it remained unfinished, it was nonetheless translated back into English by Ralph Manheim.
Four hundred years after his death, Shakespeare’s popularity in Germany shows no sign of waning. He is perhaps as present in German schools as in English. Despite the great variety of interpretation made possible through the different acts of translation outlined above, however, the status of Schlegel’s achievement means that German has a standard version of Shakespeare which has something like the status which the original has in English. But while this post has focused on German translators of Shakespeare, they are only one aspect of German Shakespeare reception. Germany also has a long tradition of Shakespeare critics and commentators, some of whose names are well known, and some of whose stories have been almost forgotten.
Mary Boyle
Bate, Jonathan (ed.), Titus Andronicus, the Arden Shakespeare (London and New York: Routledge, 1995)
Gundolf, Friedrich, Shakespeare und der deutsche Geist (Berlin: Bondi, 1911)
Guntner, Lawrence, ‘Rewriting Shakespeare: Bertolt Brecht, Heiner Müller, and the Politics of Performance’ in Shakespeare and European Politics (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2008), pp. 179-195
Korte, Barbara, and Christina Spittel. “Shakespeare Under Different Flags: The Bard in German Classrooms from Hitler to Honecker”. Journal of Contemporary History2 (2009): 267–286.
Paulin, Roger, The Critical Reception of Shakespeare in Germany: 1682-1914 (Hildesheim, Zürich, New York: Olms, 2003)
Steiner, George, The Death of Tragedy (Faber & Faber, new edition 2010)
Williams, Simon, Shakespeare on the German Stage, 1: 1586-1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990, repr. 2004)
http://www.theguardian.com/culture/theatreblog/2010/oct/06/german-william-shakespeare
http://theshakespeareblog.com/2013/12/shakespeare-in-germany/
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/30/movies/shakespeare-icon-in-germany.html
http://globalshakespeares.mit.edu/blog/2012/02/07/europe/
This entry was posted in Collections and tagged exhibitions, German, Shakespeare, translations on 20 May 2016 by Dan Q.
Bodies and Embodiment: An Introduction to the 2018-2019 MML Graduate Network Conference
A born-digital edition of Voltaire’s Dialogue entre un brahmane et un jésuite
The Faithful Shepherd and me: a personal Odyssey, Part II
Alexander Solzhenitsyn Centenary Exhibition
The Faithful Shepherd and me: a personal Odyssey, Part I
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Diego Boneta is a Mexican-American singer and actor. He is best known for playing Rocco in the Mexican soap opera Rebelde and Javier on CW’s 90210.
He recorded his self-titled debut album with his first single, Respond in 2005 and a Brazilian version for the album, with songs in Portuguese was recorded in 2006.
He appeared as Alex Santiago in the ABC Family series of Pretty Little Liars, Drew Boley in Rock of Ages, and Pete Martinez in the 2015 series Scream Queens.
"I’m a very romantic and passionate guy."
― Diego Boneta
Topic(s): Romantic
"The nice thing about the gallery shows is that without having to pay any money you can just go and see it." ― Yoko Ono
"Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they’ve got a second." ― William James
"I’m a comedian, for God’s sake. Viewers shouldn’t trust me. And you know what? They’re hip enough to know they shouldn’t trust me. I’m just doing stand-up comedy." ― Dennis Miller
"One of the problems we’ve had is that the ICT curriculum in the past has been written for a subject that is changing all the time. I think that what we should have is computer science in the future – and how it fits in to the curriculum is something we need to be talking to scientists, to experts in coding and to young people about." ― Michael Gove
"That is where the power, opportunity, and choice come from-when you have money. Money equals opportunity. There is no question." ― Billie Jean King
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www.centrocelsofurtado.org.br
Deliberative Council
Consultative Council
Selected Texts
About Celso Furtado
The Celso Furtado Exhibition: A Northeast vocation
Studying Celso Furtado
Developmentalism
Scholarships and the Prize
Monograph Prize
The Development Journal
The Celso Furtado Archives Collection
The Political Economics and Development Collection
Memories of Development
> Celso Furtado
> Timeline
1920-39 - From Pombal to Rio
26th of July 1920: Born in Pombal, in the semiarid region of the northeastern Brazilian state of Paraíba. Second of the eight children of Maurício de Medeiros Furtado, a lawyer and later judge and chief judge, and Maria Alice Monteiro, who came from a family of landowners.
1924 Pombal suffers the “flood of the century”. Members of the Prestes Column pass near the town.
1927 The family sets up residence in the City of Paraíba, the name of the state capital at that time.
1930 João Pessoa, president of the province and candidate for the vice-presidency under Getúlio Vargas, is assassinated. His death is the fuse that sets off the Revolution of 1930.
1932 Begins his secondary school studies at the Liceu Paraibano, and at the Ginásio Pernambucano, in Recife.
1936 Gives geography and Portuguese lessons in night classes at state schools.
1939 Arrives in Rio de Janeiro, where he finds lodgings at some boarding houses in the Flamengo and Lapa neighborhoods.
“I come from a world that appeared to me catastrophic. Pombal is one of the roughest towns in the Sertão region. It is a dry region, of dry men. Whilst still a small boy, I used to look through the gap in my window at the arrival of the “cangaceiros” (as the region’s outlaws were known).” (Adventures of a Brazilian economist)
“In 1924, the back area of our house, where the kitchen was located, was destroyed by a flood. I was once playing ball in that same kitchen when a pan of beans tipped all over me and I was badly burned. The view of the world that I had during my childhood was one filled with difficulties and bitterness.” (Adventures of a Brazilian economist)
“When the Prestes Column passed near the town, I heard the adults saying that it was like a plague of locusts, that took the cattle from the rich to eat, and left scraps of doodled-on paper behind as payment. Few knew what those men wanted, men who were viewed as deserters from the army and were led by a captain, Luiz Carlos Prestes, who was just 26 years old.” (Adventures of a Brazilian economist)
“Governor João Pessoa was seen as something of a saint. When he was assassinated, people went out onto the streets in processions. That was on July 26th, 1930, exactly on my tenth birthday. The maids at home took me to see these civic protests, which showed the people’s pent-up resentment.” (Adventures of a Brazilian economist)
Centro Celso Furtado © 2011 - All rights reserved
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Shapira, Philip, Jan Youtie and Alan L. Porter. 2010. "The Emergence of Social Science Research in Nanotechnology." Scientometrics. 85(2):595-611. doi: 10.1007/s11192-010-0204-x
Shih, Tsung-Jen, Dietram A. Scheufele and Elizabeth A. Corley. June 2010. "A Multilevel Model of Risk and Benefit Perception." Presentation. Annual Convention of the International Communication Association. Singapore.
Shih, Tsung-Jen, Dietram A. Scheufele and Elizabeth A. Corley. June 2010. "Exploring Item Non-Response in Public Opinion Surveys about Nanotechnology: Evidence from 21 Countries." Presentation. Annual Convention of the International Communication Association. Singapore.
Slade, Catherine. 2010. "Public Value Mapping." Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Society, ed(s). David H. Guston, p. 642-644. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Smits, Ruud, Stefan Kuhlmann and Philip Shapira. 2010. The Theory and Practice of Innovation Policy: An International Research Handbook. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.
Smith, Ruud, Rutger van Merkerk, David H. Guston and Daniel Sarewitz. 2010. "The Role of Technology Assessment in Systemic Innovation Policy." The Theory and Practice of Innovation Policy, ed(s). Ruud E. Smits, Stefan Kuhlmann and Philip Shapira, p. 387-416. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd.
Subramanian, Vrishali, Jan Youtie, Alan L. Porter and Philip Shapira. 2010. "Is There a Shift to Active Nanostructures." Journal of Nanoparticle Research. 12(1):1-10. doi: 10.1007/s11051-009-9729-4
Tang, Li. 2010. "U.S.-China Scientific Collaboration and the Role of Knowledge Moderation in Nanotechnology Development." Doctoral Dissertation. School of Public Policy. Georgia Institute of Technology. Atlanta, GA.
Tang, Li and Alan L. Porter. 2010. "Data Mining." Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Society, ed(s). David H. Guston, p. 137-138. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Tang, Li, Philip Shapira and Yu Meng. 2010. "A Spin-in Model of Nanomaterials Innovation in China." Working Paper. Nanomaterial Innovation Case Study, Chemical Heritage Foundation.
Tang, Li, Philip Shapira and Jue Wang. 2010. "China." Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Society, ed(s). David H. Guston, p. 86-90. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Tang, Li and John P. Walsh. 2010. "Bibliometric Fingerprints: Name Disambiguation Based on Approximate Structure Equivalence of Cognitive Maps." Scientometrics. 84(3):763-784. doi: 10.1007/s11192-010-0196-6
Thoreau, François. August 25-29, 2010. "Modulations of the Laboratory: Articulations between individual and institutional dynamics in a Flemish R&D center." Presentation. Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S). Tokyo, Japan.
van der Leeuw, Sander. 2010. "The Archaeology of Innovation: Lessons for our Times." Innovation: Perspectives for the 21st Century, ed(s). Frank Moss and Todd and et al Machover, p. 33-56. Madrid, Spain: BBVA.
Van Oudheusden, Michiel. August 25-29, 2010. "Developing notions of Responsible Innovation in Flanders: The case of nanotechnologies." Presentation. Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S). Tokyo, Japan.
Von Schomberg, Rene and Sarah R. Davies. 2010. Understanding Public Debate on Nanotechnologies: Options for Framing Public Policy. European Commission.
Wang, Qian, Qin Zhu and Li Yi Yun. 2010. "Philosophical Reflections on the Management of Nanotechnological Risks." Chinese Science Bulletin. 55:0-8.
Wender, Benjamin A. December 2010. "Closing the Anthropogenic Carbon Cycle." Presentation. SOS 324. Sustainable Energy, Materials, and Technology. Tempe, AZ.
Wetmore, Jameson. 2010. "Benny the Bear." Encyclopedia of Nanoscience and Society, ed(s). David H. Guston, p. 45-47. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Wetmore, Jameson. August 27, 2010. "Blogging from France: Benny was the Star." CSPO Soapbox.
Wetmore, Jameson. August 29, 2010. "Blogging from France: Consensus Conferences." CSPO Soapbox.
Wetmore, Jameson. August 24, 2010. "Blogging from France: Science and the Public Debate." CSPO Soapbox.
Wetmore, Jameson. August 26, 2010. "Blogging from France: The Deficit Model." CSPO Soapbox.
Wetmore, Jameson. August 25, 2010. "Blogging from France: Values and Airplane Food." CSPO Soapbox.
Wetmore, Jameson. September 7, 2010. "Engaging Policymakers: Not an Academic Exercise." CSPO Soapbox.
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Address at the Inauguration of the 9.10-Km Segment from Kilometer No. 4, Veal Sbov – Phnom Penh to Kilometer No. 13, Korki – Kandal.
Venerable Monks,
Your Excellencies Senators, Members of the Parliament, and Members of the Royal Government,
Your Excellency Masafumi KUROKI, Japan’s Ambassador to the Kingdom of Cambodia,
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen distinguished national and international guests,
Dear the compatriots,
It is my pleasure to be here once again to inaugurate the 9.10-Km segment of the National Road No. 1, from Veal Sbov – Phnom Penh to Koki – Kiensvay, which is built using the grant provided by the Government of Japan. On behalf of the Royal Government and people of Cambodia, I would like to take this opportunity to extend my deep gratitude through H.E. Masafumi KUROKI to the Government and the people of Japan, Cambodia’s most important development partner that has always provided invaluable financial and technical assistances, either in the form of grants or concessional loans, to build peace and national unity and to restore and develop physical infrastructure, especially national roads, Phnom Penh Port, Sihanouk Port and so forth. Moreover, Japan has also provided assistance in the field of human resource development through the funding of scholarships for students, government officials, and members of the public to study in Japan. In spite of the devastation caused by the recent Tsunami, Japan still continue to provide assistances to underpin Cambodia’s pursuit of socio-economic development. This, without doubt, indicates Japan’s priceless support for Cambodia’s economic development and poverty reduction.
The people and Royal Government of Cambodia have always remembered the early grants provided by Japan. The products of these grants include many main roads and bridges such as the Chroy Changvar Japan-Cambodia Friendship Bridge, a segment of the national road No. 6 from Rorluos to Siemreap, the national road No. 6A, national road No. 7 to Thnol Torteung, many bridges along these roads, especially Kizuna Bridge. Moreover, two bridges along the national road No. 1 in Samrong Thom Commune, Kiensvay District, Kandal Provinces were inaugurated in 2005 during the first phase of the construction from Phnom Penh to western part of Neak Loeung. The second phase was the construction of the 42.88-Km segment from Kilometer 13 in Korki – Kiensvay to the western part of Neak Loeung which was inaugurated on January 5, 2010. By mid-2014, we will have another landmark, hi-tech and enormous bridge at Neak Loeung. Currently, we have completed 6.6% of the construction of this bridge. Besides, the construction of the 9.10 – Km segment from Kilometer No. 4, Veal Sbov – Phnom Penh to Kilometer No. 13, Korki – Kiensvay is the third phase of the work to enlarge the road to ensure unstopped domestic and regional transport in all seasons.
I think the achievement reflects that Cambodia is on track to attain prosperity, development and happiness in the face of the era of globalization and advancement of IT and telecommunication. All these achievements have been made possible by the complete peace which stems from the termination of the political and military structure of the Pol Pot Regime, thanks to Royal Government’s win-win policy. This great achievement is an indispensable prerequisite, and very significant for developing all sectors of Cambodia.
Truly, many merits of bridges and a portion of national road no. 1, from Phnom Penh to Neak Leung, provide advantages and make a comprehensive contribution to the socio-economic development of Cambodia because this portion of national road no. 1 serves very busy traffics. Indeed, at present the transportation crossing the borders between Cambodia-Vietnam, serving the activities of commerce, service, health and tourism between the two countries, are mostly done through this road. For instance, Vietnamese tourists are ranked highly among foreign tourists in terms of number coming to visit Angkor Temple in Siem Reap, most of those tourists have travelled through this national road no. 1. In addition, this road has also served as a crossing area for the travel and transportation of goods from Bangkok, Thailand, to Hochiminh Vietnam within the framework of ASEAN Highway no. 1, which is determined by the ASEAN Community and countries in the Greater Mekong Sub-region.
In parallel, this portion of the road is passing through areas next to the royal capital Phnom Penh that are crowded with people, and low-lying areas along the Mekong River that is flooded in rainy season. This aspect has made these areas rich with fertile land, allowing multi-type agriculture productions and giving very good yields. Hence, this road provides a good means for the transportation of people’s agricultural harvests to markets in Phnom Penh, other provinces and Vietnam. Moreover, Mekong River, located on one side of this road, is a navigable waterway from Vietnam and sandwiched by big factories and enterprises along the river; in particular the international standard port that is a new location of Phnom Penh port, presently is under construction and expected to be completed in 2012. Furthermore, when the Neak Leung Bridge is completed national road no. 1 will have more potential in a role as a road for ASEAN Highway of Greater Mekong Sub-region and ASEAN Highway no. 1. At the same time, based on construction techniques and geography of this area we can see that lifting up the level of the road can serve as a dam, preventing rainwater from eroding the ground and floods in rainy season as well. For example, the use of new technology can prevent water from eroding the base of the road and make this important road durable, so that it ensures the flow of domestic and international transport traffics can operate in all seasons. On top of that, this road can play a role as makeshift settlements for people and animals while their houses are heavily flooded because we have built special parks in front of markets, schools and hospitals that would facilitate and ensure the safety and traffics of our people and students. I have a firm belief that a portion of national road no.1 along with all other infrastructure that we have so far completed are means that can most effectively contribute to the enhancement of the livelihoods of our people out of poverty, prevent traffic accidents, and promote the economic growth and cooperation in the region too.
Apart from that, the completion of construction of a portion of national road no.1 from Kilometer No.4 to Kilometer No.13 at Korki Kian Svay is a complement on the effectiveness of national road no.1, which is an important vessel for improving the capacity of socio-economy of Cambodia and ensuring the busy passing transport traffics in the region and Greater Mekong Sub-region. That can bring in more national revenue and create plenty more of job and work opportunities for people to increase their incomes, enhance their family livelihoods, improve their education and the welfare of the people. In parallel to the economic effectiveness, this road has also vitally contributed to solving the continuous increases in traffic jams caused by steady increases in all kinds of cars and hustling and bustling of national and international business activities as well as the growth of many factories and enterprises and tourist activities that require passing travelling and transports from Phnom Penh to Bavit, Svay Rieng province, the borders of Cambodia-Vietnam. In addition, a portion of national road no.1 from Phnom Penh to Neak Leung has effectively and timely responded to the implementation of cross-border transport accord between Cambodia and Vietnam. This portion of the road has played an important role with important potential for fulfilling the needs in accelerating the economic growth and development of the entire nation through the internal, regional and global integrations. This aspect will allow Cambodia to increase opportunities for herself in seizing the benefits from comparative advantage in commerce business, industry, agriculture, and tourism, and to create preferential conditions toward the promotion of development of key foundations for other sectors such as education, health, security, national defense and development along the borders of Cambodia-Vietnam, and that would turn these areas to areas with progress on all sectors and good cooperation, border crisis and contribution to the harmony of all nations in Greater Mekong Sub-region and ASEAN Community.
In a similar regard, the construction of this portion of national road no.1 is a bridge linking provinces on the East side of Mekong River to provinces on South-West of the country through the connection of national road no.1 to national road no.2 along the linked track from both ends and body of Takhmao bridge, which can be linked in a short distance to the Southern areas of Vietnam through national road no.2 toward the Cambodia-Vietnam border gate in Phnom Din. This potential is still in the planning process because a portion of national road from Eastern end of Monivong Bridge to Veal Sbov KiloMet No.4, 4 Kilometers in distance, cannot be developed yet as Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) of Japan needs to conduct a thorough study on this project. Based on technical aspect, this road is required to have 4 lanes. The development of this portion will negatively affect many residential areas and settlements of people in the area, and thus we necessarily need to pay great attention and conduct a study in detail in order to make sure this road, after the completion, meet the appropriate standard and technique, looking good as well as receive support from the people, and cause no one to lose from the development of this portion of the road.
Technically, this is a 4-lane road. This will affect housing of the people dwelling there that we must pay attention and conduct detailed study in order to ensure that this road, once completed, will meet technical standard, be beautiful, and receive support from all the people. And it will be ensured that no anybody will suffer loss from the development of this link.
The government always gives high priorities to development of physical infrastructure such as water, electricity, road and bridge, because we still needs more infrastructure in order to ensure full nation-wide integration and ascertain that cambodian people of every place will be provided same opportunity in national socio-economic development and all the people will benefit from this development process. Indeed, the government is actively working in area of rehabilitation and development of railroad, water and land transportation infrastructure. This is one of key agenda of policy priorities that deserves further attention and promotion, in conformity to good will and platform of the government for development as clearly inscribed in The Rectangular Strategy Phase II for growth, employment, efficiency and equity. Obviously, good road-bridge are holy means to attract investors from all circles to make investment in all areas. These activities allow us generate career and employments for the people that allow them to secure income for better livelihood and escape from the poverty.
In that, the achievements that we jointly have made so far are clear evidence reflecting strong correlation between infrastructure and socio-economic development and improvement in people livelihood. In this spirit, to maintain and raise efficiency and sustainability of utilizing achievements that we have succeeded so far and optimism on our destiny, taking this opportunity, on behalf of the government, I would like to remind and appeal to all government members, all levels of local authorities, together with all the people, to join hands to preserve these infrastructures for benefit for the long time. Furthermore, I would like to encourage the management and officials of ministry of public works and transportation to further continue cooperation and effort to fulfil duties to link and maintain sustainable road networks to all areas, near and far, nation-wide and with the neighbouring countries. The Ministry of Public Work and Transportation continues cooperating closely with relevant ministries, authorities and all citizens especially the work of residential resettlement which is a necessary factor based on the respectful spirit of peoples’ benefits and societies’ advantages, and law principles of the country to enhance the construction process, road and bridge development, and good care-taking of productiveness, quality, better traffic and transportation safety to contribute enhancing economic growth as well. The good care-taking of public and private properties is a protection of our citizen people’s lives.
As traffic accident is currently the government’s issue and worry because it results in losses of people’s lives and injuries, and destroys public and private properties every year, I would like to suggest all people suggest that while they travel on smooth roads with ease and comfort, please do not forget two crucial advices: 1.Strictly comply with traffic laws by driving with right-sided obedience, speeding below 90 km per hour out of residential area and 40 km per hour in residential, fastening the seatbelts, putting on safety helmets, and not consuming alcohol while driving. 2. Do not do overloaded transportation of goods because such transporting destroys our roads and bridges which we strive to build with difficulties.
In this opportunity, I would like to appreciate the development study group of the national road number 1with thorough analyses that require us to build a station with modern equipments to control car weights at the same time with roads and bridges constructions. Two stations have been built along the road portion which one is near Tiger beer factory and the other one is 4 km away from Neak Leung ferry station. Also I would like to remind all authorities and transporters to firmly and effectively prohibit over-loaded transportation with high conscience in order to maintain the quality and effectiveness of roads and bridges with long-lasting uses.
Once again, on behalf of the Royal Government and all Cambodian people, I would like to appreciate governments and people of all friendship countries and all donating agency especially Japan which always pay great attention and mentally, materialistically, and financially show all kinds of supports in the purpose of rehabilitating and rebuilding destroyed Socio-economic during the war in the past two decades. The aids are very beneficial for all Cambodian people particularly for the improvement and development of transportation infrastructures which is a key method for stimulating economic growth, enhancing social health, and contributing reducing poverty of Cambodian people. I would like to thank, congratulate, and express my great appreciation to the hard work and endeavors of KATAHIRA Japanese company, a technical controller, and DAIHO corporation company, a project contractor of this third-term road construction which quickly finishes its project on time conformity with appropriate techniques and international standards.
At the end, with the announcement of official opening of national road number 1 portion from Veal Sbov kilometer 4 to Kor Ki kilometer 13 in Kean Svay district , Kandal province, I would like to wish venerable monks, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen distinguished national and international guests the four gems of Buddhist blessing: Longevity, Nobility, Healthiness and Strength.
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Ma Mère l'Oye en prose /
<< Introduction générale - Sommaire
NONE of us, whether children or adults, needs an introduction to Mother Goose. Those things which are earliest impressed upon our minds cling to them the most tenaciously. The snatches sung in the nursery are never forgotten, nor are they ever recalled without bringing back with them myriads of slumbering feelings and half-forgotten images.
We hear the sweet, low voice of the mother, singing soft lullabies to her darling, and see the kindly, wrinkled face of the grandmother as she croons the old ditties to quiet our restless spirits. One generation is linked to another by the everlasting spirit of song; the ballads of the nursery follow us from childhood to old age, and they are readily brought from memory's recesses at any time to amuse our children or our grandchildren.
The collection of jingles we know and love as the "Melodies of Mother Goose" are evidently drawn from a variety of sources. While they are, taken altogether, a happy union of rhyme, wit, pathos, satire and sentiment, the research after the author of each individual verse would indeed be hopeless. It would be folly to suppose them all the composition of uneducated[10] old nurses, for many of them contain much reflection, wit and melody. It is said that Shelley wrote "Pussy-Cat Mew," and Dean Swift "Little Bo-Peep," and these assertions are as difficult to disprove as to prove. Some of the older verses, however, are doubtless offshoots from ancient Folk Lore songs, and have descended to us through many centuries.
The connection of Mother Goose with the rhymes which bear her name is difficult to determine, and, in fact, three countries claim her for their own: France, England and America.
About the year 1650 there appeared in circulation in London a small book, named "Rhymes of the Nursery; or Lulla-Byes for Children," which contained many of the identical pieces that have been handed down to us; but the name of Mother Goose was evidently not then known. In this edition were the rhymes of "Little Jack Horner," "Old King Cole," "Mistress Mary," "Sing a Song o' Sixpence," and "Little Boy Blue."
In 1697 Charles Perrault published in France a book of children's tales entitled "Contes de ma Mére Oye," and this is really the first time we find authentic record of the use of the name of Mother Goose, although Perrault's tales differ materially from those we now know under this title. They comprised "The Sleeping Beauty," "The Fairy," "Little Red Riding-Hood," "Blue Beard," "Puss in Boots," "Riquet with the Tuft," "Cinderella," and "Little Thumb;" eight[11] stories in all. On the cover of the book was depicted an old lady holding in her hand a distaff and surrounded by a group of children listening eagerly. Mr. Andrew Lang has edited a beautiful English edition of this work (Oxford, 1888).
America bases her claim to Mother Goose upon the following statement, made by the late John Fleet Eliot, a descendant of Thomas Fleet, the printer:
At the beginning of the eighteenth century there lived in Boston a lady named Eliza Goose (written also Vergoose and Vertigoose) who belonged to a wealthy family. Her eldest daughter, Elizabeth Goose (or Vertigoose), was married by Rev. Cotton Mather in 1715 to an enterprising and industrious printer named Thomas Fleet, and in due time gave birth to a son. Like most mothers-in-law in our day, the importance of Mrs. Goose increased with the appearance of her grandchild, and poor Mr. Fleet, half distracted with her endless nursery ditties, finding all other means fail, tried what ridicule could effect, and actually printed a book under the title "Songs of the Nursery; or, Mother Goose's Melodies for Children." On the title page was the picture of a goose with a very long neck and a mouth wide open, and below this, "Printed by T. Fleet, at his Printing House in Pudding Lane, 1719. Price, two coppers."
Mr. Wm. A. Wheeler, the editor of Hurd & Houghton's elaborate edition of Mother Goose, (1870),[12] reiterated this assertion, and a writer in the Boston Transcript of June 17, 1864, says: "Fleet's book was partly a reprint of an English collection of songs, (Barclay's), and the new title was doubtless a compliment by the printer to his mother-in-law Goose for her contributions. She was the mother of sixteen children and a typical 'Old Woman who lived in a Shoe.'"
We may take it to be true that Fleet's wife was of the Vergoose family, and that the name was often contracted to Goose. But the rest of the story is unsupported by any evidence whatever. In fact, all that Mr. Eliot knew of it was the statement of the late Edward A. Crowninshield, of Boston, that he had seen Fleet's edition in the library of the American Antiquarian Society. Repeated researches at Worcester having failed to bring to light this supposed copy, and no record of it appearing on any catalogue there, we may dismiss the entire story with the supposition that Mr. Eliot misunderstood the remarks made to him. Indeed, as Mr. William H. Whitmore points out in his clever monograph upon Mother Goose (Albany, 1889), it is very doubtful whether in 1719 a Boston printer would have been allowed to publish such "trivial" rhymes. "Boston children at that date," says Mr. Whitmore, "were fed upon Gospel food, and it seems extremely improbable that an edition could have been sold."
Singularly enough, England's claim to the venerable[13] old lady is of about the same date as Boston's. There lived in a town in Sussex, about the year 1704, an old woman named Martha Gooch. She was a capital nurse, and in great demand to care for newly-born babies; therefore, through long years of service as nurse, she came to be called Mother Gooch. This good woman had one peculiarity: she was accustomed to croon queer rhymes and jingles over the cradles of her charges, and these rhymes "seemed so senseless and silly to the people who overheard them" that they began to call her "Mother Goose," in derision, the term being derived from Queen Goosefoot, the mother of Charlemagne. The old nurse paid no attention to her critics, but continued to sing her rhymes as before; for, however much grown people might laugh at her, the children seemed to enjoy them very much, and not one of them was too peevish to be quieted and soothed by her verses. At one time Mistress Gooch was nursing a child of Mr. Ronald Barclay, a physician residing in the town, and he noticed the rhymes she sang and became interested in them. In time he wrote them all down and made a book of them, which it is said was printed by John Worthington & Son in the Strand, London, in 1712, under the name of "Ye Melodious Rhymes of Mother Goose." But even this story of Martha Gooch is based upon very meager and unsatisfactory evidence.
The earliest English edition of Mother Goose's Melodies that is absolutely authentic was issued by[14] John Newbury of London about the year 1760, and the first authentic American edition was a reprint of Newbury's made by Isaiah Thomas of Worcester, Mass., in 1785.
None of the earlier editions, however, contained all the rhymes so well known at the present day, since every decade has added its quota to the mass of jingles attributed to "Mother Goose." Some of the earlier verses have become entirely obsolete, and it is well they have, for many were crude and silly and others were coarse. It is simply a result of the greater refinement of modern civilization that they have been relegated to oblivion, while the real gems of the collection will doubtless live and grow in popular favor for many ages.
While I have taken some pains to record the various claims to the origin of Mother Goose, it does not matter in the least whether she was in reality a myth, or a living Eliza Goose, Martha Gooch or the "Mére Oye" of Perrault. The songs that cluster around her name are what we love, and each individual verse appeals more to the childish mind than does Mother Goose herself.
Many of these nursery rhymes are complete tales in themselves, telling their story tersely but completely; there are others which are but bare suggestions, leaving the imagination to weave in the details of the story. Perhaps therein may lie part of their charm, but however that may be I have thought the[15] children might like the stories told at greater length, that they may dwell the longer upon their favorite heroes and heroines.
For that reason I have written this book.
In making the stories I have followed mainly the suggestions of the rhymes, and my hope is that the little ones will like them, and not find that they interfere with the fanciful creations of their own imaginations.
L. FRANK BAUM.
Chicago, Illinois, July, 1899.
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Art Museum Community Info and Homes for Sale
Search all Art Museum Homes
The Philadelphia Museum of Art is among the largest art museums in the United States. It has collections of more than 227,000 objects that include “world-class holdings of European and American paintings, prints, drawings, and decorative arts.” The Main Building is visited by more than 800,000 people annually, and is located at the west end of Philadelphia’s Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
Other museum sites include the Rodin Museum, also located on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway; the Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building, across the street from the Main Building; and historic houses in Fairmount Park. The Perelman Building opened in 2007, and houses some of the more popular collections, as well as the Museum’s library, with over 200,000 books and periodicals, and 1.6 million other documents.
The museum is closed on Mondays, and the basic entrance price is $20, with various concessions. The museum holds a total of about 25 special exhibitions every year, including touring exhibitions arranged with other museums in the United States and abroad. Some have an extra charge for entrance.
source: wikipedia.org
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Thursday May 17 I need to get a job because Primo is cranky
Primo was very cranky today. The stress of trying to campaign while he is also doing his regular job is wearing on him. And on me. He tells me I don't have any stress because I'm not the one with a job. I tell him that living with him is stressful enough. He is the Typhoid Mary of stress.
He wants me to find a job so he can quit his job. That's fine. I don't mind working. But if I'm going to work so he can quit, that means he has to do all the things I do: clean the house, cut the grass, cook, do laundry. He says he'll be happy to do all that, but that he doesn't have the same standards for housecleaning that I do. I think if I become the breadwinner, I get to define a certain standard, right?
I would also expect that if I get a job and he quits his job, I will no longer be in charge of ironing his shirts. He has been dressing very nicely for his campaign events: slacks or khakis with a button-down and a sport coat. He has been asking me to iron his shirts. As if Polka Dots cared about personal appearance. I've seen their women. Did I tell you the story about the lecture we attended where the audience was almost all Polka Dots? There were a lot of not-so-old women with long gray hair in banana clips, wearing Crocs and mom jeans and knitting.
Although I have to say now that I am coloring my hair to cover gray rather than just to have a different look, I am starting to think that going gray isn't such a bad idea. It's a pain in the neck to color my hair, especially now that it's really obvious when it's growing out. Before, the roots were not so easy to see because my hair was just drab, mousy brown underneath the Clairol #24 Clove. Now, I have graying roots and it's clear when I need to do a touch up.
So maybe I shouldn't be so hard on those graying women. But I can still mock them for their shoe choice.
Wednesday May 16 Doris' women's group wants to give money to Primo's campaign
Primo has already asked Sly and Doris for money. They agreed to donate $1,000 to his campaign, but wanted to give more. "That's illegal," he told them, with regret.
"Can we give it to your brothers and have them give it to you?" they asked.
As well they should. Primo has not taken a penny from them since he finished college. His two half brothers, on the other hand, have been seeking and getting financial help from Sly and Doris for years and years, including a $250,000 investment in a failed business.
Primo told them that he had to follow the campaign contribution rules. "It's not worth it to get caught," he said.
Doris called yesterday and told Primo that her Polka Dots women's group wants to contribute to the campaign. Good! We'll take as much money as we can get. I do not want to spend our money on this campaign.
My mom sent Primo a $100 check for his birthday. Sly and Doris sent him a bag of chocolates and a book on using your grill as a smoker, a book that we returned because we had no interest whatsoever in using the grill as a smoker, partly because we have a smoker and partly because we don't do that much smoking.
"Couldn't your mom and dad have given you that extra thousand they wanted to donate as a birthday present?" I asked.
"Yes, they could have," he said.
"So why didn't they?"
He shrugged.
"Why don't they pay for your plane ticket next month?" Primo is going to his mom and dad's for a week. They expect twice a year visits, which do not include, as many of you already know, pickup service at the airport.
"They didn't care if they saw me when my sister was alive," Primo said. "Then they moved to a place where it's an hour to get to the airport. And I'm supposed to pay to visit them and to rent a car twice a year."
"They know that if you win this election, our income is going to plummet, right? And that you won't be getting frequent flier miles or Hertz points any more? Which means that you won't be able to afford to fly there twice a year and get a car. Are they prepared to pay for extra visits? Because I'm not."
"I think that's one of the reasons they don't think I should run," Primo said. "I think they know it will mean less time for them."
"Tell them to pay for your plane ticket," I said.
Posted by the gold digger at 11:29 AM No comments: Links to this post
Wednesday May 16 Political Wife 2
I can't bear it. The Political Wife showed up 45 minutes late. She admired my shoes, complimented me on the lunch I had made, and was very nice. Now I am going to have to like her.
Samantha, the Political Wife, arrived at lunchtime, so I made tomato-mozzarella salad for everyone. Instead of meeting in the living room, which is clean and (mostly) free of cat hair, we squeezed around the kitchen table, where she had full view of the dirty kitchen floor. Thursday is my cleaning day. This was Wednesday. The house was about as dirty as it gets. Great.
But it was actually interesting. She laid out her proposal and her strategy for running Primo's campaign. She has a staffer who does menial tasks for her - I said I would do menial tasks to save the $10/hour she pays. I can enter names into a database just as well as someone else.
She explained that someone would need to "shadow" Primo at his events. That means walking around behind him, making sure he doesn't spend all 30 minutes talking to one person.
"I can do that," I said. "But his big challenge is that he likes to explain the really little details of everything and peoples' eyes start to glaze over."
"That's exactly why we do it," she said. "You have 30 minutes to work a room. You identify the key people to talk to, get in and get out. I could not get Theresa's husband to do that. He would spend the entire time talking to one person."
I turned to Primo. "I can do this for you. I can keep you moving. But will you get upset if I'm telling you to come on? It might come easier from someone who's not your wife."
He said he would be fine with it. We'll see.
Primo went upstairs to get something. "I told Primo he needs to get his hair cut by a hairdresser in the district," Samantha said.
"Why?"
"Because hairdressers know things. They're plugged into the gossip. He said that his hairdresser is one block outside of the district."
I laughed. "Her salon is one block outside of the district. Mr Literal. She lives in the district. I had her sign the petition already. Honestly. Engineers."
Labels: the campaign
The Political Wife was supposed to be here half an hour ago. I got up early and went to the gym early just so I'd be back in time for this meeting. Primo says he doesn't care that she's late because he's always late. I pointed out that I am not late and that I lost sleep over this.
Monday May 14 The Political Wife is coming over
Oh great the Political Wife is coming over on Wednesday to present her proposal (to manage his campaign) to Primo.
I clean the house on Thursday. Which means that on Wednesday, it's about as dirty as it gets.
Although why I should worry about impressing someone who wants a $4,000 check for one month is beyond me. She should be trying to impress us.
Sunday May 13 Politics is his mistress
Primo: I've got another love in my life.
Me: I know.
Primo: Politics has become my new wife.
Me: No. Not your wife. Your mistress.
Primo: What's the difference?
Me: Politics gets the best of you and does nothing for you. I don't see politics washing your clothes, cooking your dinner, or cleaning your bathroom.
Posted by the gold digger at 8:24 AM 1 comment: Links to this post
Sunday May 13 Primo's birthday karaoke party
We invited some of my friends and Primo's bar and political friends to meet us at a nearby bar for Sunday night karaoke, which is the absolute best kind as it starts at the reasonable hour of 7:00 p.m. instead of the usual musician/bar time hour of 10:00 p.m.ish. Or 10:30 p.m.ish. I treasure my sleep. By 10:30 p.m.ish, I want to be in bed. So the early bird karaoke is my kind of thing. Perfect.
Not that we were there at 7:00. All the good intentions in the world will not make Primo on time. Blesshisheart. I am a "on time means getting there five minutes early" person and Primo is a "as long as the sun is still in the sky, I'm cool" guy.
Which works just fine with his bar and musician friends, but I had invited non-bar, non-musician friends.
So when we walked into the bar at 7:40, we found my friends waiting. They had been there since 7:00. Because that's when I told them we would be there.
My stupid fault, of course. I should never have told them we'd be there at such a ridiculously early hour. Although I have pointed out to Primo that he needs to get a better on-time record if he is going to be a serious candidate. Bill Clinton can get away with being late because he's Bill Clinton. Primo cannot.
My friend Dawn had a present for Primo. Dawn is a big Stripes supporter. She has volunteered for the Stripes Guy for Governor. She likes to argue with Primo. More power to her. I hate arguing with him, so am always happy to find someone who will deflect arguing from me.
She handed him a bag that was tied with ribbon. Primo carefully untied the ribbon and pulled out a wrapped tube. He peeled off the tape, then removed the wrapping paper. It was a tube of paper. He opened it.
It said, "Stripes Guy for Governor."
I started laughing. Dawn laughed. Keith, my other friend, who is also a Stripe, laughed.
Primo bent over double laughing. "This is hilarious!" he said.
"You can put a photo of that on your facebook campaign page," Dawn suggested.
Primo shook his head. "Oh no. Noooooo. The Polka Dots would not appreciate this."
Sunday May 13 Primo is a high quality candidate
Primo was all excited because the Polka Dot state senate leader said he might come to the karaoke party. "He's a Polka Dot big shot!" Primo said. "He says I'm a high-quality candidate!"
"Of course you are," I said. "You have a legitimate job. You've worked your entire career in the private sector. You're not a community organizer. You look like your voters: middle class, employed, homeowner. And you're obviously not going into politics for the money."
"What's wrong with being a community organizer?" Primo asked.
"Explain to me what one is again," I said. "They do - what? Nobody knows what they do."
Primo's political friend Rich chimed in. "In some neighborhoods, being a community organizer is considered a good thing."
I looked at him and said dryly, "I am guessing not in the affluent suburbs."
He smiled. "Nope. Probably not."
Primo said, "Polka Dot big shot sent me a text! Look!"
He and Rich huddled around Primo's smarty-pants phone. I looked over his shoulder. "Primo, happy birthday! I had planned to come to your party but I had to go to a wake. See you around."
"See!" Primo said. "He was going to come!"
"Well," I said. "It's easy for him to say he was going to come, especially if he didn't come. He might be just telling you what you want to hear. But it is nice that he does know who you are and thinks you are worth cultivating."
"Because I am a high-quality candidate," Primo said.
Sunday May 13 Mothers Day pancake breakfast
Primo came home from a meeting with his campaign manager, aka The Political Wife.
"There's a Mothers Day pancake breakfast at the community center on Sunday," he said. "PW wants me to go and collect signatures."
I felt sick to me stomach. "Do I have to go?"
"It's the kind of thing where it would look bad if you didn't," he admitted.
"I can't think of anything I want to do less than go to a pancake breakfast on Mothers Day and ask people to take political action," I said. "Don't you think people are sick of politics by now? And don't you think that asking for signatures for your petition at an event like this is kind of tacky?"
"I think I need to do this," he said. "And I need you to go with me."
Sunday morning, I got up. Ate because I was starving. Felt sick to my stomach because we were going to campaign at a non-political, strictly social event.
Primo showered and shaved. He asked me to iron his shirt. Which I didn't want to do because I hate ironing. "Just wear a different shirt," I suggested. He didn't like that idea.
"It's my birthday," he reminded me. (Which it was.) "Won't you please iron this shirt for me? I really like it."
"Fine!" I huffed. I ironed his stupid shirt and of course it got wrinkled again as soon as he put it on.
I showered. Got dressed. Slowly. I was dreading this.
We drove to the community center. Walked in. It was crowded. Hundreds of people eating pancakes. Primo bought our tickets. Six dollars each. We went to the food line. "I'm not hungry," I told him.
"Then why are we here?" he asked. "I thought you wanted to eat!"
"We're here because you want to campaign! I didn't want to come!"
"Why did you let me buy you a ticket if you weren't going to eat?"
"How do you not buy a ticket for a fundraiser when you're there to campaign? I'm not hungry. I feel sick to my stomach. How are you going to do this?" I gestured to the room.
"I don't know," he admitted. "I've never done this before, either."
He got his pancakes. "Do you want to sit here?" he asked.
"I don't know. I don't care."
"Why are you acting so weird? You're all cranky!"
"Because I don't want to do this!"
"But I'm not campaigning right now. I didn't even ask you to carry a clipboard and get signatures. Why is this so awful for you?"
"Because I feel like we're intruding. I'm not a mother and this is a stupid Mothers Day thing. I hate Mothers Day to begin with, so why am I helping celebrate it?"
He sighed. "It's my birthday and you're being cranky. Let's just sit."
"Fine," I huffed again. I sat down and crossed my arms. I looked around again. "I really don't know how you're supposed to do this."
He shook his head. "I don't either. But I'm not approaching anyone right now, so why not just relax?"
He had a point. He ate his pancakes. "Are you going to give your ticket away?" he asked.
"No way. I guess I might as well get something to eat. But only because I don't want six dollars to go to waste."
We finished eating. Even though he'd had a ten-minute head start, we finished at the same time because he's the slowest eater in the world.
"Now what?" I asked.
"I don't know," he answered.
I looked around. The breakfast was being run by the local police department. Two cops were manning the coffee stand. "There's nobody getting coffee," I said. "Go talk to those cops."
He looked. "I don't know. They look busy."
"They're not busy!" I exclaimed. "Look! There's nobody there!"
We stood and I pulled his arm. "As long as we're here - and as long as we've already paid, you might as well do what needs to be done."
He resisted. "I don't know what to say."
I sighed. "Good grief. You're the one who wanted to come here! We are not letting this all be for nothing."
I pulled harder. "All right, all right!" he said. "Stop pulling. It looks bad."
"Then come on!" I urged.
We walked to the coffee stand. Primo stood silent for a minute. I looked at the one cop and said, "This is my husband. He's running for the state house."
Primo extended his hand. "Hi, I'm Primo." He launched into his speech. The cop didn't bite. He wasn't mean or rude.
I identified three more policemen. "Let's go talk to them," I said. I did it again: "This is my husband, Primo. He's running for the state house in November. He's an engineer, so we've never done this before. We're not quite sure how to go about it."
A woman waved at me. "Gold Digger!" she called.
We walked up to her table. It was Deb, the woman who owns the consignment shop where I take a lot of my clothes. "What are you doing here?" she asked.
"Remember how I told you my husband was running for the state house?" I asked. "We're here campaigning."
"But you're in a mixed marriage!" she said.
I rolled my eyes. "I know," I said. "I'm going to get a book out of this."
She laughed. "This is what love looks like," she said to the man standing next to her.
She and I agreed that neither party represented us. "I am the party of me," I said.
"Me, too!"
Primo asked if she would sign his nominating petition. "Just to get me on the ballot," he assured her. "You don't have to promise to vote for me."
"Sure!" she said.
We approached a few more of the people working at the event. Most of them signed the petition. The few who didn't were very polite about it. Nobody was mean or rude to us. It wasn't so bad.
Thursday May 17 I need to get a job because Primo ...
Wednesday May 16 Doris' women's group wants to giv...
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What Do Americans REALLY Think Of President Trump’s Immigration Pause?
E. Goldstein February 8, 2017 8 Views
Approval of President Trump’s executive order that temporarily freezes immigration is on the rise.
According to a new poll conducted by Investor’s Business Daily and TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, 51 percent of voters approve of the president’s decision to temporarily restrict citizens from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the country, while 42 percent of Hispanics who were surveyed also approved.
That is a stark contrast from the latest CBS poll, which claims only 45 percent of voters approve, while 51 percent disapprove of the order.
The poll — which surveyed an estimated 900 people in person and on the phone — also found that 54 percent of of Americans want the Affordable Care Act to be expanded or left alone, while 42 percent want it dismantled, as Trump has promised to do.
The results of this poll gave Trump a much lower approval rating than the latest Politico/Morning Consult one. The IBD/TIPP said 43 percent of those surveyed had a favorable opinion of how Trump is leading the country so far, while the one published on the first day of February claimed it was closer to 49 percent.
Donald TrumpImmigration
California’s Gov. Moonbeam Compares Trump Supporters To Ancient Cave People
Terrorist With British Accent Threatens Turkey, Italy and President Trump [VIDEO]
Sanctuary City Officials Could Face Major Criminal Charges
Here’s Who Schumer Blames For Losing The Election — It’s NOT Russia
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Black-tailed Godwit Limosa limosa
Although this species is widespread and has a large global population, its numbers have declined rapidly in parts of its range owing to changes in agricultural practices. Overall, the global population is estimated to be declining at such a rate that the species qualifies as Near Threatened.
The global population is estimated at 614,000-809,000 individuals (Wetlands International 2016). The population is estimated to number 102,000-149,000 pairs in Europe (including 25,000 pairs in Iceland) (BirdLife International 2015); 25,000-100,000 in west-central Asia; 150,000 in central Asia and Siberia (Asian Waterbird Census unpublished data); 160,000 in the rest of Asia and Australia.
There is still some degree of uncertainty about the size and trend of some of the sub-populations. Nevertheless, the available information suggests that the global population has probably declined by between 14% and 33% at a mean rate of approximately 23% over the 25 years leading up to 2015. This estimate is derived from a series of calculations based on best-worse case scenarios using population estimates from Wetlands International (2017), and trend data from the African-Eurasian Waterbird Census, Asian Waterbird Census, Wetlands International, Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme and forum contributors. Thus the species's trend is currently best placed in the 20-29% band. In Europe, the population size is estimated to be decreasing by 30-49% in 25.8 years (three generations) (BirdLife International 2015).
This species has a large discontinuous breeding range extending from Iceland to the Russian far east, with wintering populations in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Australasia (Van Gils et al. 2017). It occurs as three subspecies, L. l. islandica, L. l. limosa, and L. l. melanuroides. Subspecies islandica breeds predominantly in Iceland, with much smaller numbers in the Faeroe Islands, Shetland (United Kingdom) and the Lofoten Islands (Norway). This subspecies winters in roughly similar numbers in the Republic of Ireland, the United Kingdom, France, Spain and Portugal, with small numbers in the Netherlands (J. Gill in litt. 2016). Subspecies limosa breeds across a wide area extending from Western Europe and central Europe to central Asia and Asiatic Russia, as far east as the River Yenisey. The west European population of this subspecies migrates south through France and Iberia to winter largely in West Africa, while eastern breeding birds winter in southeast Europe to the Middle East, and may also be the origin of wintering birds in Mali, Chad and northern Cameroon (Gill et al. 2007, Oomen 2008, Lourenço & Piersma 2008b). Subspecies melanuroides breeds in disjunct populations in Mongolia, northern China, Siberia (Russia) and the Russian Far East. These birds migrates across a broad front to winter from western South Asia to Australia, encompassing India, Indochina, Taiwan, China, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Melanesia (Dutson 2011, Van Gils et al. 2017). The global population is estimated at 614,000-809,000 individuals (Wetlands International 2016).
Population trends vary across the range. There have been large and well-documented declines in the mainland European breeding population (of the nominate subspecies) of between 50-60% (BirdLife International 2015). For example, in the Netherlands the population decreased dramatically from 120,000-135,000 pairs in 1969 and 85,000-100,000 pairs in 1989-1991, to just 46,000-62,000 in 2009 (Tucker and Heath 1994, BirdLife International 2004a, EU Technical Report 19 2007, Oomen 2008, Höglund et al. 2009), 35,200-59,800 pairs in 2008-2011 (BirdLife International 2015), and potentially to 33,000 pairs in 2015 (Kentie et al. 2016). In certain areas though, the breeding population has recently stabilised as a result of agri-environmental measures (Oosterveld et al. 2016). These declines are mirrored in the information from West African wintering areas, with notable declines in Senegal and Morocco, while further east (Mali, Chad and north Cameroon) wintering numbers appear stable, though data is sparser (Lourenço and Piersma 2008b). This is true also for the central Asian breeding population, which is thought to be stable of fluctuating (L. Belyalova in litt. 2005), but for which there is little recent data. In the eastern flyway, declines have been estimated at between 20-30% over three generations on the species Australian wintering grounds (Garnett et al. 2010), which hold c. 50% of the wintering population of L. l. melanuroides (Watkins 1993). The population of L. l. ilsandica, in contrast, has be increasing dramatically over the past few decades, although this increase may be levelling out and the subpopulation represents a relatively small part of the global population (Gill et al. 2007, Wetlands International in press). A recent analysis based on published literature, survey data and expert opinions from throughout the species range suggests that, overall, the global population may have declined at a mean rate of approximately 23% over 25 years leading up to 2015 (I. Burfield in litt. 2017).
Behaviour This species is highly gregarious and migrates on a broad front, making long-distance flights often overland between relatively few staging and wintering areas (del Hoyo et al. 1996). It breeds from April to mid-June in loose, semi-colonial groups of up to 3 pairs per ha (Gunnarsson et al. 2006). Non-breeding birds remain in flocks, often near to the breeding colonies. As soon as the young fledge, breeding birds begin to congregate in loose flocks which can be many thousands strong (Cramp et al. 1983, J. Gill in litt. 2016). The species migrates southwards between late-June and October. During the autumn migration it may roost in flocks of tens of thousands at favoured sites (del Hoyo et al. 1996), and this is the main moulting period for adult birds. The islandica subspecies moults in northwest Europe, while western populations of the nominate subspecies often moult in north Morrocco (J. Gill in litt. 2016), and many adults pause in north Morocco in July to moult. Huge flocks occur at some wintering sites, particularly in the floodplains of Lake Chad. The return passage occurs between February and April (del Hoyo et al. 1996), and birds arrive at the breeding grounds in groups of 5-30 individuals (Johnsgard 1981). Many one-year-old birds remain in the wintering range during the summer. During the winter and migration the species usually forages gregariously (del Hoyo et al. 1996).
Habitat Breeding In its breeding range it mostly inhabits areas with high but not dense grass and soft soil (del Hoyo et al. 1996, Johnsgard 1981, Schekkerman and Beintema 2007, Tomkovich and Lebedeva 1998), occasionally using sandy areas; although other information suggests it may prefer short vegetation (Laursen and Hald 2012). Its preferred habitats include cattle pastures, hayfields (Johnsgard 1981), lowland wet grasslands, grassy marshland, raised bogs and moorland, lake margins and damp grassy depressions in steppes (del Hoyo et al. 1996). Subspecies islandica shows a distinct preference for large patches of dwarf-birch bog and marsh, particularly with abundant sedge-pools (del Hoyo et al. 1996, Gunnarsson et al. 2006). Extensive farmland habitats are of critical importance for breeding Western European populations (del Hoyo et al. 1996), with young, that grow up in herb-rich meadows recruiting to the breeding population 2.5 times better than young that grow up in monocultures (Kentie et al. 2013). In intensively managed grasslands small shallow pools attract breeding godwits and, in combination with herb rich meadows, may improve breeding succes (Weterings et al. 2015). After the young have fledged, adults and fledglings often move to secondary habitat which more closely resembles that of their non-breeding range, including wet damp areas around fish-ponds and sewage farms, tidal marshes, mud flats and salt-water lagoons (Cramp et al. 1983, Tucker and Heath 1994). Non-breeding Subspecies limosa tends to winter in freshwater habitats, including swampy lake shores, pools, flooded grassland and irrigated rice fields. Subspecies islandica and melanuroides, however, often winter in saline habitats (del Hoyo et al. 1996) such as sheltered estuaries and lagoons with large intertidal mudflats (Johnsgard 1981), sandy beaches, salt-marshes and salt-flats (del Hoyo et al. 1996). Despite these general differences there is considerable overlap in wintering habitat between sympatric populations of subspecies limosa and islandica (Alves et al. 2010, Lopes et al. 2013). Seasonally-flooded grassland is a critical habitat for the birds wintering in Ireland (Hayhow 2008). Birds on passage in Iberia make much use of rice fields (Lourenço et al. 2010).
Diet Its diet consists of adult and larval insects (especially beetles), annelid and polychaete worms, molluscs, ragworms, crustaceans, spiders, fish eggs, and the spawn and tadpoles of frogs (Johnsgard 1981, del Hoyo et al. 1996). On the breeding grounds grasshoppers and other orthopterans are often prevalent in the diet (Johnsgard 1981). Particularly during the winter and on migration it will also take plant material including berries, seeds and rice grains (Cramp et al. 1983, Lourenço et al. 2010). On its wintering grounds in Portugal, the bivalve Scrobicularia plana has been found to represent its primary food source (Moreira 1994), while in the salinas of Spain, it mainly feeds on chironomid larvae (Estrella and Masero 2010). Breeding site The nest is placed on the ground in short, often luxurious vegetation (Johnsgard 1981, Cramp et al. 1983, del Hoyo et al. 1996). It consists of a shallow scrape 12-15cm in diameter, lined with a thick mat of stem grass, leaves and other available vegetation (Cramp et al. 1983). Breeding birds show a high degree of nest site fidelity (del Hoyo et al. 1996) and some degree of natal philopatry (Kruk et al. 1998) which is more pronounced among males (Gunnarsson et al. 2011).
Loss of nesting habitat owing to wetland drainage and agricultural intensification, and conversely abandonment in some parts of the range, are the most significant threats (Mischenko 2008, Kentie et al. 2013). Detrimental activities include the conversion of wet meadows to arable land and loss of habitat to development (Tucker and Heath 1994), increased fertilisation and drainage of grassland (Roodbergen and Teunissen 2014), earlier and more frequent cutting as farmers adapt to climate change (Kleijn et al. 2010), spring burning and scrub encroachment (A. Mischenko in litt. 2007) and possibly disturbance by walkers (Holm and Laursen 2009). Increasing populations of predators to possibly unnatural levels is a significant cause of egg and chick mortality in the Netherlands, exacerbated by intensive farming reducing available cover for the species (Schekkerman et al. 2009, Kentie et al. 2015). On intensively grazed pastures, trampling is a major cause of nest loss, and a switch to monoculture on arable land reduces the supply of insects on which the species feeds (Kentie et al. 2013). In some areas, grassland turnover from 'natural, flower-rich, diverse and wet' to silage monoculture leads to a loss of nests with eggs and chicks due to mowing and starvation of chicks due to a lack of food (Schekkerman and Beintema 2007). A study in the central regions of European Russia suggests that significant decline in spring flood levels during two last decades, as a result climate change, has strengthened the negative impact of agricultural abandonment (A. Mischenko in litt. 2016).
Habitat fragmentation may cause problems for this species, which nests in dispersed colonies and sub-colonies as protection against predators hence productivity may be low in such areas. Indeed, sink locations have been documented for the species, where birds recruited from good quality habitat disperse to low quality habitats (often suffering high predation) effectively losing these individuals to the population. This has repercussions for the effectiveness of agri-environment measures (Kentie et al. 2015, Leigh et al. 2016). There is a marked decrease in the density of breeding birds near to roads, particularly those with heavy traffic (van der Zande et al. 1980, Reijnen et al. 1996). Natal philopatry means that a decrease in local recruitment could prove catastrophic for individual breeding sites (Kruk et al. 1998). The Icelandic population is potentially at risk from the policy of the Icelandic government to encourage afforestion of the lowland habitats where they breed and from ongoing agricultural expansion (Gunnarsson et al. 2006, Gill et al. 2007), although this population has been increasing strongly over recent decades (BirdLife International 2015).
Threats on migration include pollution, human disturbance, habitat reclamation for tidal energy plants, aquaculture ponds, land conversion for agriculture, urban expansion and agricultural intensification at rice paddies. The proposed development of a new airport near Lisbon is likely to have negative implications on an important site for migratory birds (Gill et al. 2007, Masero et al. 2011). Hunting has been another significant threat, although France has now followed the rest of the European Union (EU) in implementing a five-year ban on hunting of the species, beginning in 2008 (I. Burfield in litt. 2008), which was extended in 2013 for a further five years. Outside the EU, for example on the African wintering grounds, hunting is known to occur but its scale and impact is unknown. Water pollution is probably an issue in parts of the species range (H. Hötker in litt. 2005), although the effects of the release of some pollutants, like untreated sewage, on this species may be minor as long as there are several alternative prey present at a site (Alves et al. 2012). In Egypt there are plans to increase the depth of the sailing channel of the Nile, impacting upon this species's habitat there (H. Ibrahim in litt. 2016). Drought in the West African wintering quarters may have had negative impacts on the mainland European population (Tucker and Heath 1994) in conjunction with the extensive drainage of wetlands in this area, for energy production, water storage and agriculture (Gill et al. 2007). Invasive plants may also degrade wintering habitat in Australia (Garnett et al. 2011). Studies of islandica godwits have shown that individuals breeding in the habitats where productivity is higher also winter in the areas where survival is higher (Gunnarsson et al. 2005), therefore maintaining high quality wintering sites is crucial to raising productivity on breeding grounds.
EU Birds Directive Annex II. An EU management plan for 2007-2009 was adopted, and an AEWA action plan replaced it at the end of 2008 (Anon. 2008). Intensive management of breeding habitat has been carried out in some Western European countries (H. Hötker in litt. 2005), and a number of agri-environment schemes focus on this species, although results have been mixed (Musters et al. 2001, S. Nagy in litt. 2005, A. Mischenko in litt. 2007, Verhulst et al. 2007). A number of significant wintering areas are protected areas, as are several breeding sites in the UK and the Netherlands.
Obtain more quantitative data on status, population trends and conservation requirements outside Europe. Carry out research on survival, recruitment, breeding and migration (Gill et al. 2007). Critically evaluate the effectiveness of current conservation action. In the EU, use a mixture of agri-environment schemes, direct payments to wader-friendly farmers (Musters et al. 2001) and large reserves to secure protection and appropriate management of breeding habitat. The coverage of agri-environment schemes in Europe should be increased (Kleijn et al. 2010) and increases in groundwater depth should be prioritised as an outcome (Verhulst et al. 2007). New nature reserves should be established on important sites throughout the species range, and there should be attempts to get greater coverage of key areas for this species within in the Special Protection Areas network (van der Vliet et al. 2015). Manage existing reserves appropriately: prescriptions include avoiding drainage of existing wet meadows, raising water tables where necessary, low-level use of organic fertiliser, low intensity grazing, late mowing, and prevention of succession to bushy vegetation. Winter flooding is sometimes recommended but may reduce numbers of invertebrate prey (Gunnarsson et al. 2005). On intensively farmed land, maintenance of unfertilised field margins has been shown to have positive effects (Oosterveld et al. 2009). Investigate the potential for using a 'headstarting' approach to increase survival to fledging (J. Gill in litt. 2016). Prevent afforestation of lowland breeding habitat in Iceland. Prevent a loss of key breeding areas due to abandonment of grasslands and meadows in east Europe and Russian Far East. Monitor human disturbance as a threat.
Ensure that migratory staging posts and winter feeding habitats and roosts are conserved and monitored, and knowledge of them is improved (Estrella and Masero 2010). Designate a special protection area at Extremadura's rice fields, which is a key stopover site (Masero et al. 2011). Manage artificial habitats appropriately, e.g. maintain low water levels in salinas such that they are available to foraging godwits (Estrella and Masero 2010), and block drainage to retain water in Iberian rice fields (Lourenço and Piersma 2008a). Protect important Yellow Sea tidal flats in China and South Korea. Engage with governments and local people throughout its migration routes. Effectively enforce the EU-wide ban on hunting until there is clear evidence that the population has returned to a favourable conservation status. Safeguard habitats in West Africa and Iberia, perhaps by offering support to rice producers (Gill et al. 2007). Collaborate with farmers and hunters, carrying out environmental education and outreach work where appropriate. Restore wetland sites in Australia (Garnett et al. 2011). Ensure recognition as a protected animal throughout range (Hancock 2008).
40-44cm. Large rather graceful wader, with long bill on a relatively small head, long neck and long legs. Colour of fore-body is dull pink-chestnut in summer, paler grey-brown in winter. In flight has a striking white wing-bar and rump. Similar spp. Unmistakeable in flight but sometimes difficult to separate from L. lapponica when on ground at distance. Told from the latter by its distinctive bill structure and much leggier and more erect appearance. Voice High-pitched, nasal, rather strident calls given during breeding season, most common of which is a weeka-weeka-weeka. Characteristic call of birds in flocks is a softer kip kip... or chut chut...
Mahood, S., Butchart, S., Temple, H., Ekstrom, J., Khwaja, N., Martin, R, Malpas, L., Westrip, J., Ashpole, J
Nagy, S., Hötker, H., Krüse, H., Mischenko, A., Gill, J., Oosterveld, E., van Dijk, A., Belyalova, L., Garnett, S., Ibrahim, H., Dowsett, R.J., Burfield, I.
BirdLife International (2019) Species factsheet: Limosa limosa. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 16/07/2019. Recommended citation for factsheets for more than one species: BirdLife International (2019) IUCN Red List for birds. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 16/07/2019.
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Homeadminderricks2018-09-20T13:37:44+00:00
Debby Derricks is a proud Philadelphian who has spent her career fighting for others. Raised in Kensington, Debby has always believed in the power of community and the difference an individual can make in the neighborhood. From advancing local political efforts to advocacy in the campaign to end veteran homelessness, Debby has built a reputation as a passionate and resilient leader.
About Debby
Debby grew up in a household of strong women who instilled values such as personal responsibility, integrity, and compassion. She was the first in her family to attend college and attended the Community College of Philadelphia before transferring to New York University. At NYU, Debby worked tirelessly to achieve the American Dream, attending classes during the day and working as a security guard and dispatcher at night. She earned a dual-degree in Psychology and Political Science and returned to Philadelphia to study public policy and politics at the University of Pennsylvania. As a student at Penn, she discovered communications and development as an avenue towards helping others, which she later translated into meaningful work in the non-profit sector.
For the last five years, Debby has served as the Director of Development for the Veterans Multiservice Center (VMC), where she was a community organizer in the movement to end veteran homelessness in the City of Philadelphia by managing communication efforts on behalf of federal, local and non-profit agencies. In her role with VMC, she also helped expand efforts to serve veterans throughout the region. Her work includes projects to support our most vulnerable populations, many impacted by the ongoing opioid epidemic and lack of viable low-income housing.
Today, Debby is an active and well-known connector in Philadelphia. She pursues every opportunity to engage with the community. In 2014, Debby attended Leadership Philadelphia’s Keepers and Connectors program, where she collaborated with other community leaders to help local nonprofits achieve their missions. She serves as a Board Member for Philly SHRM, which focuses on initiatives to bridge the hiring gap and prepare our future workforce. She also has invested her energy to mentor young professionals who have an interest in community engagement and public service.
Debby currently resides in Old City and can often be seen walking her lovable Pitbull, Kennedy, in the neighborhood.
Join #DD4PA!
PAID FOR BY FRIENDS OF DEBBY DERRICKS
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Stunning World Service UK Tour Kicks Off In Portsmouth
Last modified: 06 Oct 2004
The eagerly awaited 'World Service UK Tour 2004' kicked off in Portsmouth last night (5th October) to a sell-out crowd at the city's Guildhall. The first night of the three-week tour exploded into life with some of the most spectacular visual effects and lighting ever seen at a Delirious? concert. The band put on a superb mix of old and new, featuring all 12 tracks from the World Service album, plus several old favourites.
US rock band 'The Rock and Roll Worship Circus' opened the show and proved to be the perfect warm up act, leaving Delirious? to be greeted on stage with a deafening roar from the crowd. An acoustic set in the middle of the concert saw the band showing a more intimate setting for songs such as 'Bicycle Gasoline' and 'All The Way'. A medley of older songs featured 'Louder Than The Radio', 'Revival Town', 'Deeper' and 'King Of Fools', whilst new tracks such as 'Free', 'Feel It Comin On' and 'I Was Blind' included brand new videos.
The 14-date tour continues tonight (6th October) in Reading, before moving on to Maidstone, Cambridge, Bristol, London, Wolverhampton, Exeter, Liverpool, Bradford, Milton Keynes, Dunfermline, ending in Belfast on 23rd October. Several dates including Maidstone and Dunfermline have already sold-out, with other venues also near to capacity. Tickets can be bought, while they are still available, from SeeTickets.
Tours: World Service UK Tour
Concert Reviews: World Service UK Tour 2004 - Portsmouth Guildhall (05 Oct 2004)
Live Photos: Portsmouth Guildhall, World Service UK Tour (05 Oct 2004)
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Silatech signs partnership pacts with WHO, UNITAR
Silatech CEO Sabah al-Haidoos with WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and other officials at WHO headquarters in Geneva.
QNA/ Geneva
Silatech signed a co-operation agreement with the World Health Organisation (WHO) to work under the “Working for Health” programme, which is carried out in partnership between WHO, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and International Labour Organisation (ILO).
Also, Silatech signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) in the field of youth employment training.
Silatech CEO, Sabah al-Haidoos said that Silatech seeks to expand its network of partnerships with international organisations, especially the UN organisations and bodies, to empower young people economically and socially, and to address global challenges such as the unemployment crisis and its consequences.
Al-Haidoos added that the rehabilitation, training, and capacity-building of young people are important factors in facilitating their access to economic opportunities and the labour market, in order to succeed and contribute to the development of their societies.
She praised Silatech’s collaboration with WHO and UNITAR in the Working for Health programme, which aims to raise the efficiency of health workers and provide employment and training opportunities for young people.
Meanwhile, Silatech CEO, Sabah al-Haidoos met with WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at WHO headquarters in Geneva.
The meeting discussed the partnership between Silatech and WHO, stressing the importance of working to provide skilled and trained labour to contribute to the renaissance of this sector, especially in fragile states and conflict areas (Silatech’s focus areas).
The meeting also dealt with investment in education and skills to build the capacities of young people to contribute to facilitating their access to employment opportunities in this vital sector which is growing rapidly.
“Working for Health” five-year action plan aim to galvanise international support and help countries develop their own health workforce policies and capacities.
This work will help countries achieve many of the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly good health and well-being, quality education, decent jobs, and gender equality.
Furthermore, Silatech CEO, Sabah al-Haidoos met with Executive Director of UNITAR Nikhil Seth in Geneva in the presence of HE the Permanent Representative of Qatar to the United Nations in Geneva Ambassador Ali al-Mansouri.
The meeting discussed ways to strengthening co-operation in the field of training and capacity-building of young people with the necessary skills to enter the labour market.
Silatech’s partnership with UNITAR is part of its continuing efforts to empower young people economically and socially, in addition, to contribute to achieving a number of priorities for the 2030 United Nations Youth Strategy.
The partnership also aims to achieve a number of sustainable development objectives through capacity-building and training of young people, which contributes to facilitate their access to jobs and achieve their aspirations, that will contribute to achieving the economic development of their communities.
UNITAR provides innovative learning solutions to individuals, organisations, and institutions to enhance global decision-making and support country-level action for shaping a better future.
This collaboration comes within the framework of developing and supporting Silatech’s partnerships with international organisations that are active and important in order to empower and provide employment for the largest number of young people and to achieve the Foundation’s goal of providing 5mn youth jobs by 2022.
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KIT REVIEW
Eduard #82132 SE.5a Hispano Suiza ProfiPACK Edition 1:48 Scale
The Royal Aircraft Factory SE.5 was a British biplane fighter that emerged in the last few years of WWI to represent one of the most consequential aircraft in the conflict. In many ways, it outperformed the Sopwith Camel and was key to attaining Allied air superiority over Europe through to the end of the war. Analogies have long been drawn likening the SE.5a to the Spitfire of WWII. Yet, there have not been too many kits of this very consequential airplane over the years, and Wingnuts Wings has at dominated the market with their exceptional 1:32 scale SE.5. In 2017, Eduard began to release a line of SE.5 kits in 1:48 scale, and here, we look at their ProfiPACK edition of the SE.5a kit with the Hispano Suiza engine.
The SE.5 (Scout Experimental 5) was designed by the Royal Aircraft Factory in Farnborough, England, and first flew in late November 1916. Its heart was a new 150 hp Hispano-Suiza 8a V8 engine that, while promising, was initially quite unreliable. While the first two prototypes were lost in fatal crashes related to airframe failures, resultant design changes led to production examples being among the most stable and toughest airplanes in the war. This inherent stability made the SE.5 an excellent air-to-air gunnery platform and a forgiving mount in the hands of student pilots. It was also quite maneuverable and very fast, clocking in a maximum airspeed of nearly 140 MPH.
The SE.5a included a range of advanced design features. It was the first aircraft to be equipped with a pilot-adjustable tailplane and a steerable tailskid. The cockpit design philosophy emphasized visibility. As mentioned earlier, the airframe was quite robust in its construction, and it was resistant to battle damage and could soak-up high-G maneuvering and high-speed dives that would have made the wings fail in some of the SE.5’s predecessors. The S.E.5 was armed with one synchronized .303-inch Vickers machine gun that fired through the propeller in addition to a wing-mounted Lewis gun. The first powerplant was the Hispano Suiza 8 V8 engine, and SE.5as fitted with this engine were nicknamed “Hisso.” While it was a major step forward in aircraft engine technology, there were a lot engineering glitches to work out. Foremost among them were gear reduction system problems that could lead to the propeller and/or the entire gearbox separating from airplane. The improved Wolseley Viper powerplant, a high-compression, direct-drive version of the Hispano-Suiza 8a, solved these problems and it became the definitive engine for the airplane.
Problems with the engine slowed production, and while the SE.5a Hissos were introduced into combat in early 1917, the SE.5a came into its own as the Wolseley Viper engine became available in 1918, and these variants were informally called “Vipers.” The greater numbers of SE.5s coupled with the reliable engine allowed it to dominate the airspace along the Western Front in combination with the Sopwith Camel until the end of the war. Twenty-one RAF squadrons and two American squadrons operated the SE.5A, and a total of 5,205 were built. It was also an ace-maker, with the likes of Albert Ball, Billy Bishop, Edward Mannock, and James McCudden reaching this status in the SE.5a. Surviving airframes continued on in military and civilian service into the 1920s, and today, a several originals can be found on static display in the U.K., one is at the National Museum of the Unites States Air Force in Ohio, and three flight-worthy replicas exist in New Zealand.
Eduard’s 1:48 scale SE.5a Hispano Suiza kit comes on two medium-gray injection molded polystyrene sprues containing a total of 114 parts. An additional 11 clear parts are present on one clear sprue. About 17 parts used in the Viper-powered version of this kit will go unused in this version of the SE.5. In this ProfiPACK edition an additional 70 photoetched metal parts on two frets and a self-adhesive, pre-cut masking set are also included. The full color instruction booklet details the build in very clearly illustrated and manageable step-wise fashion. The decal sheet provides markings guide for five Hissos:
SE.5A D5969, Lt. H.C.R. Lagresse, No. 29 Squadron, St. Omer, France, June 1918
SE.5A C5303, Lt. L.N. Franklin, No. 56 Squadron, Baizieux, France, March 1918
SE.5A D3511, Maj. R.S. Dallas, No. 40 Squadron, Bruay Airfield, France, May 1918
SE.5A F5910, Lt. W.G. Claxton, No. 41 Squadron, Lealvillers, France, February 1918
SE.5A C9539, Lt. H.G. Forrest, No. 2 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps, Savy-Berlette, France, March 1918
Strengths: Since I was young, the SE.5 has been among my favorite WWI-era airplanes. At least to me, it’s such an interesting, historical, and sharp-looking (if not a little ‘boxy’) biplane fighter. While the Wingnuts Wings kit of the SE.5 is objectively an excellent kit and the best SE.5a in 1:32 scale, the Eduard kit appears to me, by far and away, with the best Hisso in 1:48 scale. In fact, I’d call it an instant classic.
The injection-molding quality of the Eduard SE.5a is nothing short of awesome. Shape and size look to be spot-on, and the really distinctive dihedral of the wings is nicely represented. I am particularly impressed by the quality of the raised detail, from the stitching on the fuselage, wing and control surface ribbing, to the engine details. The ailerons are separate parts and are positionable. The “canvass” that covers wing surfaces is a little grainy. It’s not poor production quality, but rather, a very subtle representation of fabric texture. A rather complete Hispano Suiza engine is included on the sprues, but most of it will disappear out of view if you’re following the instructions and choose to place the engine cover atop the powerplant. The molded detail on the radiator screen at the face of the engine is so good that there’s really no reason to need photoetched metal parts to provide any more detail.
Speaking of photoetched metal parts: the kit cockpit parts are okay, but the PE parts in this ProfiPACK edition are exceptional and will really make your build of the SE.5a something special. The pre-painted parts include the shoulder harnesses, lap belts, instrument panel, and instrument dial faces. They are just beautiful. Other PE parts include additional cockpit details, from the trim wheel to the gun’s aiming reticle. The finest of the fine parts here are the exquisitely depicted aileron actuators. They are eye-wateringly delicate – but gorgeously made.
The decals appear to have been printed in-house by Eduard, and they look just perfect on the decal sheet. Colors are great, everything is perfectly in-register, and beautifully printed. The markings options are great. While there’s a little more color scheme diversity in the Viper kit of the SE.5a this kit’s five schemes are all eye-catching and distinctive, especially the unusual and really interesting No. 40 Squadron camouflage scheme
Weaknesses: There’s almost nothing that could be called a weak point in this kit. Only two observations come to mind. First, to get the raised instrument dial face effect, the pre-painted instrument dials themselves are individual parts that need to be glued upon the instrument panel. It’s more work than most Eduard photoetched instrument panels, but it works. Just be careful. The smallest of these parts are really small! Yet, alternative decals are supplied for instrument dial faces, too. Also, the trailing edge red wing banners (used only on the No. 2 Squadron Hisso) are PE parts and if your Hisso is to be depicted parked or otherwise at rest, you’ll have to fold and crumple them up.
Eduard did a great job on their 1:48 scale SE.5a, and this is the best of its kind in 1:48 scale. They also produce more aftermarket resin and brass detail sets, and scale modelers can add even more detail to this outstanding kit if they wish.
We extend our sincere thanks to Eduard for the review sample. You can visit them on the web at http://www.eduard.com and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/EduardCompany/.
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Charlie's Advent Christmas Carol Challenge
My attempt to review a different version of Dicken's classic tale, "A Christmas Carol," for everyday of Advent. Twenty-four days. Twenty-four adaptations. One story.
Year Two. Day Twenty-Four: "CBS Radio Mystery Theater: A Christmas Carol" (1975)
T'was the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring as they are all enraptured by this charming radio production from 1975.
To mark the final day of my advent challenge, I decided that I would do something I had never done before and review my first ever radio play while I finish the last of my Christmas baking, and what an enjoyable way to experience it it was.
Scrooge is played by veteran American TV actor E. G. Marshall, who also acts as the narrator and presenter of the tale. His clipped radio presenter voice and spot on English dialect are matched by his riotous performance to which he has committed with all of his heart.
The cast is superb across the board but what really stands out is the marvellous script, which is mostly a faithful retelling of Dickens' story but slimmed down and written to be accessible to an audience who have only their ears to rely on and less than an hour in which to do it.
It is a gentle, rewarding 45 minutes of audio enjoyment, with the story unravelling at a decent pace. It is quite remarkable just how much of the story is compressed into this slender running time and how at no time does it feel rushed in enfolding its story.
It is a sumptuous, rich feast of a play that I cannot recommend highly enough and it is a fitting way to finish my second year of reviewing 24 more adaptations of the greatest story ever told.
The only question that remains is can I make it for a third year?
I think I can...
As festive as spending a Christmas Eve writing my blog.
"CBS Radio Mystery Theater: A Christmas Carol." (1975) 5/5
P.S. Thanks to everyone who has been following my blog. It has been an utter joy to write and I can only hope that you have enjoyed it too.
Merry Christmas! God bless us every one!
Posted by Charlie Revelle-Smith at 11:48 AM 1 comment:
Year Two. Day Twenty-Three: "The Odd Couple: Scrooge Gets an Oscar" (1970)
"The Odd Couple" began its life as a 1965 stage play that was later turned into a popular 1968 Walter Matthau/Jack Lemmon movie vehicle. This series, takes the original premise; two divorced bachelors, deciding to live with each other after many years of growing apart and the myriad of humourous situations that would arise when this mismatched duo are forced to share their living space. It was a hugely successful sitcom that gave birth to the house-share format for TV comedy that lives on today in "The Big Bang Theory" and "New Girl."
Tony Randall stars as Felix, a friendly, responsible man with a penchant for neatness, while Jack Klugman plays the role of Oscar, a grouchy slob of a man who has a good heart, but doesn't always know how to show it. Unsurprisingly it is the latter of this pair who is on Scrooge duties for this charming episode.
Christmas is fast approaching and Felix has gathered his friends to put on a play for the local children; an adaptation of "A Christmas Carol." After several failed attempts at finding a Scrooge, the men elect that there is only one person who could possibly play the role. Unfortunately Oscar point blank refuses, until he falls asleep in front of the TV and dreams that Felix comes to visit him as the ghosts of Christmas, here to show him the error of his ways.
This is a brief but sparkling episode from the first season of this winning show. It is a joy to see how ably the actors have fleshed out their characters, whilst the show itself has already found its feet. The "Christmas Carol" elements are fun and fast and the script is light and funny in a classic old-fashioned sense, replete with canned laughter (it wasn't until season two that the format was switched to a live studio audience.)
This may not be remembered as one of the best or most faithful adaptations of the text, but it's likable enough to be a very welcome 25 minutes of well meaning joviality, with a sweet message at the end of the importance of that most difficult of subjects - friendships between men.
As sparkling as a breakfast bucks fizz.
"The Odd Couple: Scrooge Gets an Oscar." (1970) 4/5
Posted by Charlie Revelle-Smith at 1:55 PM No comments:
Year Two. Day Twenty-Two: "Rich Little's Christmas Carol" (1979)
So often I find myself watching TV, particularly American TV and feeling depressed by the overwhelming stench of cynicism it evokes. Whether it's sneering at Honey Boo-Boo's family, watching dreams crushed on "The X-Factor" or feigning mock shock at the latest thing a Kardashian has been up to, so much of the entertainment we consume has a streak of nastiness running through it - jostling us in the ribs to remind us we're in on this joke, asking us to look down on people who have never done us any harm.
It is only when something like this wonderful gem from 1979 surfaces from the mire of pessimism that I am reminded of a time when television was brave enough to show sincerity, to celebrate real talent and not ask us to judge our fellow man. This Christmas special is all these things and even more; it is as close to perfection as anyone could hope for.
Rich Little is an American comedian and impressionist who is still working today at the age of 75. This adaptation puts his extraordinary talents to use by having him play all of the central roles of "A Christmas Carol" each of which is itself a spot on impression of a cavalcade of familiar voices from the 70's. We have Jonny Carson as Fred, Edith Bunker as Mrs. Cratchit and Truman Capote as Tiny Tim. In any sane world, this shouldn't work yet somehow it completely does.
Rarely have I been so enchanted by anything. Rich Little as W.C. Fields as Scrooge is a particular stand out, but each of his impressions are so lovingly crafted you will forget that it is a single man playing them all. Overall there is a sense that this is a labour of love from a single man with the kind of talent and desire to do nothing but entertain. It is so rare to find such an earnest thing in these cynical times.
From its laugh out loud comedy, catchy songs and incredible spirit of kind heartedness, this is an absolute treat from start to finish. I adored every single frame of it.
As old fashioned as wassailing on Christmas Eve.
"Rich Little's Christmas Carol." (1979) 5/5
Posted by Charlie Revelle-Smith at 10:19 AM No comments:
Year Two. Day Twenty-One: "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" (2009)
The sub-genre of non-Christmas set adaptations of "A Christmas Carol" is a weird but fascinating area. This year I have already reviewed a Halloween and a Valentine take on the story. This adaptation doesn't use a calendar date at all and instead, hangs its plot around a wedding.
Matthew McConaughey plays the Scrooge role in this wildly irreverent version. He is Connor Mead, a womanising photographer who does not believe in love or marriage. In the real world, somebody's rejection of assumed societal norms is not a problem, least of all as in this case, nobody is being harmed by Connor's beliefs except for (possibly) himself. However, this is a Hollywood movie and any deviation from the norm is seen as a terrible malady that must be fixed.
On the eve of his brother's wedding to Gretchen Wieners from Mean Girls (the always fetch Lacey Chabert,) Connor is visited by the ghost of his departed uncle and told he will be guided through the evening by the spirits of past girlfriends who will take him to the past, present and future to help him understand the error of his ways and how he can truly find love with Jennifer Garner.
The main problem with this movie is that Connor is such an odious, lecherous pig that we have no desire to see him find happiness or to get the girl in the end (after a tedious race-to-the-airport climax.) Matthew McConaughey plays this man as such a vile, donkey-face misogynist that he comes across as borderline sociopathic. How are meant to root for him?
Worst of all are the woman-hating, slut shaming, homophobic string of non-jokes that are somehow meant to make us regard Connor as a loveable rascal. He is nothing of the sort and by the time his redemption comes around (complete with window-flinging-open scene) you'll be hoping that his supposed true love will finally see some sense and get as far away from him as she can.
Despite that, McConaughey is surrounded by a cast of far, far more talented actresses who flesh their characters out fully in ways that the script itself has mostly denied them. It is never explained why all of these smart women are falling to their knees in front of this disgusting excuse for a man (save for the creepy wish fulfilment story the two male writers were no doubt in search for.)
As hard on the stomach as a Boxing Day hangover.
"Ghosts of Girlfriends Past." (2009) 1/5
Posted by Charlie Revelle-Smith at 7:59 AM No comments:
Year Two. Day Twenty: "The Simpsons: 'Tis the Fifteenth Season" (2003)
As far as adaptations go, this festive special takes an approach that is not unlike rebuilding a listed house - as long as one of the original walls remains standing, then it still counts.
This is perhaps the loosest interpretation of "A Christmas Carol" I have thus far seen, and there is probably a fair argument to be made that this is more of an ode to TV Christmas specials than a take on the classic tale - but I love "The Simpsons" and it's just close enough to the story to count as far as I'm concerned!
This episode finds Homer in a particularly selfish mood. After buying key rings for all of his family, he spends his new found fortune on an expensive, unnecessary astrolabe for himself.
It takes a late night in front of the TV, watching an animated version of "A Christmas Carol" on TV (at which point, Homer realises that the story is "like me if I were a cartoon") for him to see the error of his ways. As the adaptation draws to a close, he understands that he has become a Scrooge and elects to become "the nicest man in town."
This is a very enjoyable episode that has plenty of fun with TV adaptations of "A Christmas Carol" - particularly the splendid "Mr Magoo's Christmas Carol." Unlike those versions, Homer's redemption story goes beyond mere generosity and actually becomes a rival to his neighbour, Ned Flanders.
It may not be anything close to a faithful adaptation, but it is knowing enough and aware of its own ties to the original tale, that make this a very enjoyable tale - that is only tangentially related to "A Christmas Carol."
As loosely hung as tinsel.
"The Simpsons: 'Tis the Fifteenth Season." (2003) 4/5
Year Two. Day Nineteen: "A Christmas Carol" (1969)
"A Christmas Carol" has always leant itself well to animation. Whether it is the trippy 1971 Oscar winning version or the technically impressive, but emotionally muted 2009 version, this simple tale with its promise of visual treats has been a delicious prospect for many faithful adaptations.
This made for TV version from 1969 has not been as fondly remembered as the 1971 version, not least of all because that adaptation featured Alastair Sim in the lead role - a man who was already acknowledged as the greatest on screen Scrooge of all time thanks to his 1954 performance. Ron Haddrick cannot hope to live up to that example, but this adaptation does have its own unique charm.
The animation style is serviceable, if a little flat. However, if you are as fond of the 1979 animated version of "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe" as I am, then you will find plenty to enjoy in the visuals. The voice work is good, if a little over-baked in a handful of moments and the design of the ghosts, particularly that of Christmas Past, are quite striking.
Unfortunately the only terms I can use to describe this version are ones which will damn it with faint praise. It is adequate, it is competent, it is passable. At a running length of 45 minutes it is longer than many other animated versions, allowing the story to have a little time to breathe and even some space for a handful of songs, all of which are performed very well.
While it runs, it never threatens to outstay its welcome and is diverting enough fun until it ends. However, the reason why it is not fondly remembered today is most likely not for any negative aspects of its production - it just is not special enough to be remembered at all.
As easily forgotten as a Christmas turkey in the oven.
"A Christmas Carol." (1969) 3/5
Year Two. Day Eighteen: "It's Christmas, Carol!" (2012)
Deep in the bowels of the Hallmark Channel headquarters there must be some deeply complex machine, programmed to spit out a script for yet another female-centred, modern day American adaptation of "A Christmas Carol" - just in time for the holiday season.
All of these films are essentially the same. Single, childless business woman; sassy friends who make bitchy comments about her over cocktails; forgettably handsome love interest. Moreover, they all seem to come to the same conclusion - that this shrew needs to stop busting balls at the work place and get herself a nice man and a brood of TV-cute sprogs.
After rolling my eyes at the title, I discovered that "It's Christmas, Carol!" is so firmly within this well-established mould, I did worry at first that perhaps I had already seen it and had to scroll back through my blog to confirm I hadn't.
It concerns the fate of Carol, played with bland efficiency by Emmanuelle Vaugier. She is a hard-nosed business woman who owns a publishing firm in a Chicago that consists solely of stock footage of the Willis Tower and Wacker Drive. After forcing her staff to work Christmas day (which, you may remember, not even Scrooge stooped to) she is visited by the ghost of her former employer, Eve (yes, I rolled my eyes at that too) who will be playing the roles of all of the ghosts throughout Carol's redemption tale due to "cutbacks." Thankfully, Eve is played by Carrie Fisher, so this is no bad thing.
What is peculiar about this adaptation is that it is set in a world in which "A Christmas Carol" already exists as a novel. In fact, in one scene Carol, (who calls herself a fan of Dickens) has to look up the plot of the book to find out which ghost comes next. At the same time, there are a couple of bright nods to the original and to the great man himself (plus a fun reference to Star Wars in one of Carrie Fisher's scenes.)
Throughout her voyage to her past, I did not understand what we were supposed to be feeling. We were offered no reasons as to why this idealistic young woman went from champion of classic literature to ruthless capitalist in pursuit of the next best seller at all costs - that is, until I realised that the film is not so subtly trying to say that it was being a businesswoman itself that turned her into an unspeakable churl. Nice one Hallmark, I'm sure this a fantastic message to send to your almost exclusively female audience.
Carol's redemption is only partly owing to her new found generosity, what really saves her is that she is finally worthy of love with a man, whereupon she will presumably settle down and give birth to the tribe of children her alternative future had promised her.
This would all be unbearably offensive - and easily the worst adaptation I have seen so far (save for that awful, awful Kelsey Grammar musical version I saw last year) but the one shining light in its favour is the ever welcome presence of Carrie Fisher, who is enjoying every second of this hokey claptrap - and seems to be the only one who is.
"It's Crap, Carol!"
"It's Christmas, Carol." (2012) 1/5
Year Two. Day Seventeen: "Xena: Warrior Princess: A Solstice Carol" (1996)
Sometimes I think I have seen everything that can be done with "A Christmas Carol" and that there is simply nothing left to do with it any more, then along comes something so bizarre it's almost impossible to quite put into words.
This episode of "Xena: Warrior Princess" finds our heroine in a strange land with a cruel king who has outlawed the winter solstice and levies huge fines against those who dare to celebrate it.
At the suggestion of her friend/assistant/lover Gabrielle, who sees the good in the miserly old man, Xena elects that rather than overthrow this king, she will try an elaborate ruse in which she plays the ghosts of solstices past, present and future and lead the King through his past; to his failed relationship, to the suffering of an orphanage that is stacked full of grubby children and to the future where he is remembered as a tyrant.
Things don't get truly out of control until the last ten minutes whereupon an extended battle scene sees everything from hula hoops, marionettes and custard pies utilised as weapons, a woman is unmasked as a former lover of the king and a donkey is handed over to some weary characters who may or may not be Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus.
It's insane but enjoyably so. Were I
familiar with the Xena universe, I might be more captivated by the tale but unfortunately this episode probably isn't the most accessible as far as a newbie such as myself is concerned.
Lucy Lawless is terrific, of course and the writing is light, fluffy and fully aware that it is kind of nonsense. Moreover, the sapphic elements that made this show a hit with gay women across the world are played with just the right level of ambiguity to keep matters enjoyably vague.
As crazy as an eggnog induced dream.
"Xena: Warrior Princess: A Solstice Carol." (1996) 2/5
Year Two. Day Sixteen: "Shower of Stars: A Christmas Carol" (1954)
"Shower of Stars" was a popular CBS variety show which ran between 1954 and 1958. Part platform for familiar talents of the time, part vehicle for the show's sponsor, Chrysler, "Shower of Stars" was one of the first programmes of its kind to be broadcast in colour - and their 1954 adaptation of "A Christmas Carol" is believed to be the first colour version ever made, (unfortunately, the only versions which survive are in black and white, meaning that this very standard retelling of the story has lost the only facet that would make it of interest historically...)
Show regular Frederic March plays Scrooge and does so satisfactorily, bereft of flourishes of overacting, nor any particular insight into the character. That said, after a series of increasingly bizarre adaptations I have sat through in these past few days, it was a welcome relief to get back to Scrooge's counting house and the snowy streets of (a very stagy looking) London.
Basil Rathbone plays Marley with as much aplomb as would be expected. Rathbone will forever be known for his wildly popular portrayal of Sherlock Holmes, but his career was hugely diverse, long and acclaimed. His appearance as the first ghost is enjoyable yet sadly brief.
This adaptation features a handful of songs which was an unwelcome addition. I love a good musical, but this is not a good musical and the songs do nothing but slow down a story which already has only 50 minutes to fill. The musical interludes range from the forgettable to the unbearable, with one song appearing to go on for an interminable length, despite seeming to consist only of the word "merry" sung over and over again, another song is so shriekingly high pitched I had fears it would cause my dog's ears to bleed.
Proceedings are repeatedly stopped to allow for extended commercials for Chrysler's range of cars - It would seem they were unable to slip them into a Dickensian adaptation itself. These do little to help distract from the choppy, discordant play we are watching.
It isn't a terrible adaptation, just one where it feels as if everyone, from the actors, to the director, the writer and the songwriters are all aiming for "good enough" - or, to quote a scene from "30 Rock" where Liz Lemon, having performed an onscreen piece of product placement for a mobile phone, looks directly into the camera and asks "Can we have our money now?"
As ruthlessly commercial as opening shop on Boxing Day.
"Shower of Stars: A Christmas Carol." (1954) 2/5
Year Two. Day Fifteen: "The Real Ghostbusters: Xmas Marks the Spot" (1986)
Perhaps suffering slightly from Christmas Carol fatigue, today's installment of my challenge was one I was looking forward to as it seemed to feature a clever take on the old story, I was not wrong.
This episode of the popular cartoon series, features the four Ghostbusters being hurled back in time to Victorian England, and into the pages of Dickens' novel, whereupon they promptly "bust" the ghosts of past, present and future and save Scrooge from his night of self reflection.
Upon returning to the present, the four men realise their mistake: thanks to Scrooge staying forever the miser, all the world now regards Christmas as a "humbug" and it is up to them to return to the past in order to set things right.
This gleefully smart episode has a lot of fun with the source text and happily assumes that its young audience is familiar enough with the tale without having to explain it to them. Scrooge himself and his trio of ghosts are presented in accordance to their descriptions in the book and even some of Ebenezer's dialogue is lifted directly from the page.
This is a brief, spirited adventure that unfortunately allows itself to become rather convoluted towards the end whereby it's unclear if the Ghostbusters themselves were in anyway a help or a hindrance throughout this exploit. That said, it has a neat twist in the closing minutes whereupon it seems that Scrooge wasn't the only one for whom the ghosts were sent to save.
I very much enjoyed that this adaptation acknowledged the massive impact that "A Christmas Carol" had upon the way in which we celebrate Christmas and that without it we may not celebrate it at all. It's a nice touch that many of these loose retellings of the tale are oft to forget.
As fun and as messy as a mince pie covered in brandy cream.
"The Real Ghostbusters: Xmas Marks the Spot." (1986) 3/5
Year Two. Day Fourteen: "Fame: Ebenezer Morloch" (1985)
"Fame" was a TV spin-off series from the movie of the same name that enjoyed a healthy run of six years between 1982 and 1987. I have vague memories of watching this series as a child of the 80's and the 1985 Christmas special may very well have been the first ever adaptation of "A Christmas Carol" I ever saw - not that I would have known it at the time.
The series followed the lives of a group of dance and theatre kids at an academy of performing arts in New York. It was notable for featuring a diverse cast of characters of different races and backgrounds (although oddly, every one of the boys at this theatre school appears to be straight...)
This adaptation of the book has one of the teachers in the school - Quentin Morloch in the Scrooge role. He is found far from the spirit of Christmas and is miserly cutting back costs to the school and depriving people of their Christmas bonuses.
In the grand tradition of US teen drama, the original text upon which this story is based just happens to be the one the students are studying in their English class, thus begins Morloch's time travelling journey to salvation, with a particular emphasis upon heart break and lost loves helping to explain how the teacher came to be so mean.
Scattered amongst the story are a handful of song and dance numbers, which may try the patience of those not especially fond of choreographed routines from the '80s - but I am not one of these tedious people and I loved every high kicking frame of them.
Ken Swofford as Morloch is an enjoyably grumpy Scrooge and his performance is full of campy charm and pantomime villainy. By the time the all singing, all dancing epiphany arrives, it's a real treat to see him swept up in the spirit of joy and giving.
Unusual for TV series which features a "Christmas Carol" episode in which they take one of the regular characters, change them for the better then have them back to their old ways come New Year, "Fame" was unique as this marked Swofford's last ever episode as Quentin Morloch, after which he presumably was so swept up by the magic of Christmas he redeemed his ways for good and skipped off into the sunset to spread festivities wherever he went.
As toe-tapping as "I Wish it Could be Christmas Everyday."
"Fame: Ebenezer Morloch." (1985) 4/5
Year Two. Day Thirteen: "Roseanne: Halloween IV" (1992)
Just in case things appeared to be looking a little too much like Christmas, here comes Roseanne with one of her famous Halloween specials. Why does a Halloween episode make it into my list of Christmas Carol adaptations? Because believe it or not, this is an adaptation of the classic story.
It's Halloween night and Roseanne isn't feeling in the spirit. Despite it being her favourite annual celebration she hasn't even managed a single prank throughout the day.
After falling asleep on the sofa, Roseanne wakens to discover that it is not trick or treaters at the door, but the Ghost of Halloween past, who takes her back to her childhood in hopes of reminding her of the true spirit of the holiday.
This is a fun, frothy treat of an episode, gleefully dismembering and cherishing its source in equal measures. Roseanne herself is as noisy and obnoxious as ever, but that was always the charm of the series in the first place.
The ghosts of past, present and future are joyfully shambolic in their amateur costumes as they guide our heroine to her inevitable conclusion: Christmas may be for sharing, but Halloween is all about revenge!
As Christmassy as a jack-o-lantern.
"Roseanne: Halloween IV." (1992) 4/5
Year Two. Day Twelve: "Ms. Scrooge" (1997)
Despite viewing a plethora of made for American TV contemporary remakes of "A Christmas Carol" they have pretty much presented exclusively a very white Christmas. Therefore I was quite intrigued to see a version featuring a largely African American cast.
Cicely Tyson plays the role of Ebenita Scrooge - a cruel and ruthless woman who seems to have given up on everything in her life, save for her vast wealth.
Ten years before, the first person to ever see potential in her; her former boss Maude Marley died suddenly - and it is Christmas Eve upon which Marley decides to give her former employee a visit.
Despite being a contemporary take on the book, this is a surprisingly conventional adaptation, with all of the sets reminiscent of Victorian London and the script clearly informed by the original. It is also the first adaptation in a while in which the ghosts are presented as genuinely frightening, with some inventively spooky effects deployed to capture their sudden, unwelcome appearance.
Cicely Tyson plays her role wonderfully. She completely inhabits the bitter, greedy miser and her transformation is slow but rewarding, with some truly touching moments scattered among historic horrors of the lives of black people in 1960's America.
I was well prepared to give "Ms. Scrooge" a perfect score, until the story began to veer unfortunately towards a somewhat evangelical conclusion; with Scrooge's epiphany and redemption being more about saving her soul than it is about saving the lives of those around her, particularly Tiny Tim.
The heavy handed religious overtones left something of a bad taste in my mouth as I've always seen "A Christmas Carol" being a secular tale of Christmas (or to quote Danielle Chase from "My So-Called Life", "Do we have to talk about religion? It's Christmas!")
Still, the performances are solid and the film is made with care and precision and Scrooge's shutter flinging Christmas morning has a sense of real beauty about it.
Depending on your tolerance for a certain strain of fire and brimstone preaching, this is flawed, festive fun.
As dense and rich as a Christmas cake.
"Ms. Scrooge." (1997) 4/5
Year Two. Day Eleven: "A Jetson Christmas Carol" (1985)
Last year I reviewed the highly enjoyable "Flintstone's Christmas Carol" so this year, it seemed only right to watch their futuristic counterparts attempt to do the same.
The Jetsons was a moderately popular animated sitcom from the Hanna-Barbera studio responsible for hits such as Yogi Bear, Scooby-doo and the aforementioned Flintstones. In fact, it was the huge sucess of the Flintstones that encouraged the company to invest in another time shifted family sitcom that could be broadcast in the prime time slot, although this time, rather than existing in the past, The Jestons lived in the future.
At only 21 minutes running time, this adaptation has little time as it is to speed through the story, however, it has to use at least ten minutes setting up the story's b-plot, concerning the family's dog, Astro, who is feeling mortally ill. In many ways, this was a necessary failing, as otherwise the Jetsons themselves may not have appeared in their own Christmas special.
Meanwhile, the father of the family is working late on Christmas Eve and is informed by his boss, Mr. Spacely, that he must work Christmas Day as well.
What follows is a somewhat rushed but clear retelling of the classic tale, with Spacely visited by the the three ghosts who whip him through his past, present and future exploits in an attempt to redeem the miser.
This is a light, mostly entertaining skip through Dickens' tale that manages to fit a surprisingly large amount of plot into its miniscule running time (The Flintstones were given twice as long for their version!) However, it manages to hit neither highs nor lows in an attempt to appeal to the masses, with cheap jokes and even cheaper looking animation that conspire to ruin what could have been an adventurous, touching retelling of the story that was completely in keeping with the spirit of the original.
As quick as Santa's sleigh.
"A Jetson Christmas Carol." (1985) 2/5
Year Two. Day Ten. "A Christmas Carol" (1949)
This oddity from 1949 was a made for TV Christmas special featuring none other than Vincent Price - a man who would go on to be known as one of the all time great horror/comedy actors as the narrator of this very conventional adaptation of the novel.
Price plays the role of kindly narrator well, putting his classically train chops to good use as he sits down in an armchair to bookend this tale. Stripped of the trappings of horror cliches, he has a surprisingly warm, avuncular air and his voice, distinct and crisp as ever is a welcome addition to this otherwise unmemorable version.
At only 25 minutes long, this version is a necessary brief skim through the highlights of the book, which nevertheless manages to hit the right notes of charm and whimsy in its closing act.
Our Scrooge is played by Taylor Holmes, whose performance is hammy but likably so, conjuring memories of stage performers adjusting awkwardly to the smaller limitations of TV and the lack of a need to emote to the back row. The rest of the cast veer from wooden to inexplicable, with some of the most bizarre deliveries I have thus far seen. Sometimes it feels as if the actors are having their lines held aloft on cards, just out of frame.
That said, after so many wild and wildly different versions of the book, it was very nice to return to a good old fashioned, straightforward retelling, complete with shutters being thrown open and presents aplenty for the Cratchit children, and news of a miracle doctor for Tiny Tim ("Who did not die," Price informs us with incredible warmth in his voice.)
Sadly, the ghosts are presented as somewhat cheap looking creations in poorly made costumes, which to be fair, is likely more owing to the limitations of budget and the (possible?) fact that this may have been transmitted live.
Without the presence of Vincent Price, this would be an entirely forgettable rendition of the tale, but to have him here makes this version a peculiar oddity that is well worth a look.
As warm as a glass of mulled wine.
Year Two. Day Nine: "A Valentine Carol" (2007)
So vast is the world of Christmas Carol adaptations the festive season alone is not big enough to withhold it. Meaning that other annual events have been given their own versions of Dickens' tale - and that this is merely the first odball version I shall be reviewing this year: (coming soon, ANOTHER Valentine's Day adaptation, a Halloween Carol and even a US Independence Day...)
Despite the change of calendar date, all the plot points of the original are intact. This time, our Scrooge is Emma Caulfield's
Ally Sims, a seemingly ruthless radio personality, who dishes out no-nonsense relationship advice while her own love life crumbles around her.
On the eve of her wedding (on Valentine's Day, no less) she is visited by the ghost of her friend (Jackie Marley) who guides her through a whistle stop tour of her past and present relationships, in hopes that she may reconsider her future.
While the chemistry between the two reunited friends is fun and lightly written, what really lets this movie down is the boyfriends she must revisit. Each is a blandly handsome white man with a reasonably well paid job, good teeth and thick hair - each is indistinguishable from the other.
More troubling is the overall message that the movie seems to be pushing by the time it comes to its conclusion - that if you want a happy marriage, women should allow their husbands to be themselves rather than nagging them away from following their dreams (the women of course, are required to sacrifice their careers altogether...)
Still, there are some fun subplots and supporting characters, particularly Barbara Niven as Marley and Jill Morrison as Gillian, Ally's long suffering work colleague (who I had to resist screaming "She doesn't even go here!" whenever she was on screen. Yes, it's the girl with lots of feelings from "Mean Girls"!)
As bad a taste in the mouth as a brussel sprout.
"A Valemtine Carol." (2007) 2/5
Year Two. Day Eight: "Sabrina, The Animated Series: A Witchmas Carol" (1999)
This animated spin off series from "Sabrina The Teenage Witch" (itself, based on an a comic book series) ran for two years, concurrently with its live action equivalent.
It concerns the fortunes of Sabrina Spellman, a teenager who is dealing with all the expected trials of adolescence, with the added complication that she is a witch.
The live action series was always fun and surprisingly well written, with a neat skill at overarching story lines that ran across several episodes and its animated cousin seems to be a much similar offering.
This Christmas special episode finds Sabrina's rich, snobbish school rival, Gem Stone in the role of Scrooge, who seems to value nothing but commercial gain over the festive season.
Inspired by a sock-puppet performance of "A Christmas Carol" on TV, Sabrina and her friends decide to teach Gem a lesson about the true spirit of Christmas by performing the roles of the classic story; starting with Salem, Sabrina's talking cat taking the reigns as Jacob Marley.
Gem Stone seems less than impressed by their efforts and is surprisingly blasé about the appearance of the spectres at her bedside. What this episode does quite brilliantly is invert the story so that by the end of her evening, Gem Stone is just as selfish and greedy as she ever was, saved only by a last minute intervention of a thoughtful gift from our teenage witch.
This is a wittily written, enjoyable episode but it is unfortunately very shallow, with perhaps too much fear of alienating its young, possibly quite jaded audience with any real sense of sentimentality.
As snappy as a Christmas cracker.
"Sabrina, The Animated Series: A Witchmas Carol." (1999) 3/5
Year Two. Day Seven: "A Christmas Carol" (2000)
For all the modern day retellings of A Christmas Carol to come out of America, there has been a surprising dearth of similar versions in the UK.
This made for ITV 2000 version goes some way to redress the balance, which despite having a fantastic central performance from Ross Kemp, yields only mixed results.
Kemp plays Eddie Scrooge, a ruthless loan shark who preys upon the poor and vulnerable by offering loans with such merciless interest they are almost impossible to pay off. This part of the story works very well and I thought it was both clever and important to show how for so many, many people, Christmas is neither a time of joy or abundance; but an anxious and fearful one where parents worry how they will manage to make ends meet as the financial demands of Christmas take hold.
The ghost of Jacob Marley here is represented by another loan shark who once worked alongside Scrooge and was killed under suspicious circumstances the year before. The tangent into the death of Marley was rather an unwelcome one, but mostly this is owing to me enjoying the story when it is kept as simple as possible.
Marley also plays the Ghost of Christmas Present while Scrooge's father and a silent boy are Past and Future respectively. The roles of "Ignorance" and "Want" are a pair of homeless siblings who play a far larger role in this retelling.
The major flaw in this retelling, and it is a HUGE one, is that after each of his encounters with the ghosts, Scrooge awakens on the same Christmas Eve and must relive the day over and over again, Groundhog Day style. Each day he attempts to make things better and remedy his past mistakes, slowly thawing as Christmas day draws closer.
This change to the text is fundamentally unsatisfying as it robs us of the euphoria of Scrooge's redemption. Watching him become slowly more compassionate may be more believable but a fable such as this does not dwell in the realm of authenticity.
The love story between Scrooge and Belle (or Bella as she is called here) becomes a central part of this adaptation which feels unnecessary, but it's sweetly told and doesn't feel too shoehorned in as it has in other versions I have seen.
The greatest asset this version has in its favour is Ross Kemp, still best known as Grant Mitchell from Eastenders, he's often underrated as an actor, as most soap actors are, but here he offers a compellingly dark portrayal of a man who is gradually learning that he still has a conscience, despite trying to keep it quiet for so long.
Despite the changes to the format and overcomplicating the plot, this version did manage an ending that was both sweet and festive which promised not only hope for the future, but that a time may come when the UK makes a truly great modern day adaptation of the story.
As gritty as a lump of coal on the fireplace.
"A Christmas Carol" (2000) 3/5
Year Two. Day Six: "The Energy Carol" (1975)
If I have learnt nothing else from two seasons of adaptations of "A Christmas Carol" it is that this simple, almost fairytale like story is so incredibly flexible, it can almost be pulled into any shape or form, provided that enough of the original details remain.
This also means that there are some truly odd adaptations out there, one of the oddest being "The Energy Carol" - a propaganda piece from the Canadian Office of Energy Conservation.
Rather than the selfish miser we have come to see him as, Scrooge here is almost the inverse. He is wasteful and irresponsible, inefficient and thoughtless. Upon Christmas Eve he is visited by the ghost of his former colleague, Jacob Morelight who has been chained to a giant toaster (yes, I did say this was a weird one!)
Through his interactions with the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, he learns the wastefulness of his ways and how his unsustainable behaviour will damage the future.
At this time, most of the world was bereft of worries of global warming and the impact of energy waste upon the future, so this brief film serves as something of an early example of fears being articulated. While this would be a noble cause, it does somewhat fluff the ending because rather than become a beacon of energy saving and responsibility, he turns into something of a lunatic, replacing light bulbs with candles and hurling appliances out of a window, whilst declaring that his work colleague will be working "twice as hard for half the pay."
Such a shame that the ending spoils would could be a unique adaptation of the tale, and a valuable lesson for the future.
As efficient and speedy as Santa's sleigh.
"The Energy Carol." (1975) 2/5
Year Two. Day Five: "All American Christmas Carol" (2013)
The realm of American set adaptations of "A Christmas Carol" is a surprisingly dense one, with two new US versions being released in back-to-back years. As with the other adaptation "It's Christmas, Carol!" (to be reviewed later this December...) - this interpretation of the text has a female "Scrooge" in the lead, a habit which is true of almost every American adaptation, for some strange reason.
The main problem I have had with these female centred adaptations, such as "A Carol Christmas" and "A Diva's Christmas Carol" is that the films so very often are thinly veiled shots at businesswomen. The almost exclusively male writers of these movies seem to be predominantly expressing animosity towards their leads, not for being miserly or wicked but for daring to succeed in a male dominated world. Even "Ebbie's Story" - one of my favourites from last year, spent a fair amount of its brief running time having its protagonist bewail the fact that she had invested too much time in her business, rather than starting a family.
It was this experience that lead me to watch "All American Christmas Carol" with a sense of trepidation, but from the opening scenes, I was to be proven wrong.
This movies' "Scrooge" is Cindy, a trailer park living single mother on a low income job and with two children born of different fathers; the latter of these two fathers, Jake Marley, has recently been killed during an irresponsible round of paintball.
It is just before Christmas, that Jake returns in ghostly form and warns Cindy that she will be visited by three ghosts and... well, we all know the story from here.
One of the more appealing facets of this adaptation is that it does not require us to pity or to judge Cindy (who is played to perfection by Taryn Manning, last seen as the terrifying, religious zealot Pennsatucky in "Orange is the New Black.") In the hands of a different writer or director, Cindy would be an object of laughter, even disgust. However, here she is seen as a product of her world and of a few poor decisions that have left her overwhelmed by her very existence. It would have been so utterly against the spirit of the original to mock the poor, and this film handsomely manages to create sympathy and warmth for her plight, rather than sneering derision.
With the help of a school friend who died one Christmas, many years before, an ageing rockstar and the ghost of her deceased mother, Cindy is lead through her own history, to better understand why she is the way she is and how she can better her future and those of the ones around her.
Her final epiphany is not one of consumerist irresponsibility. I was fearful that the solution to her predicament was going to be that this penniless woman would have to spend, spend, spend to make Christmas better. Instead, a novel and touching approach is written, allowing her to use her talents and her ingenuity to brighten the lives of those around her.
This is a surprisingly well made and moving interpretation of "A Christmas Carol." It has moments of diamond-in-the-rough beauty and a savage sense of humour. I found myself absolutely enchanted.
As surprising and as festive as a kiss beneath the mistletoe.
"All American Christmas Carol." (2013) 5/5
Year Two. Day Four. "A Christmas Carol" (1977)
Despite its richly deserved reputation for lavish and faithful adaptations of classic literature, the BBC has only adapted A Christmas Carol once for television.
This 1977 version stars Michael Hordern - a highly acclaimed actor, who had twice previously played the role of Jacob Marley in earlier adaptations. His Scrooge is a ferocious, barely contained beast with a particularly withering regard for his fellow men, particularly over the Christmas period.
This traditional version is very faithful to the book, and despite running at just under an hour, manages to retain a good deal of the original text, without seeming too rushed or chaotic.
Perhaps this adaptation would be more fondly remembered had it not been so evidently made on the cheap, with the BBC doing its best to keep costs down by utilising tacky looking green screen effects for all exterior scenes, while filming the interior scenes so closely it feels as if the sets aren't large enough to accommodate even the small cast this version features.
It's a real shame that the BBC, already proud of its status as a world leader in period drama, did not lavish this adaptation with a bit more money. Perhaps taking the spirit of Scrooge to heart, the finished product looks very much like it could have greatly used a few pennies more spent upon it, limping onto the screen looking as tired and weary as poor Tiny Tim.
Most of the scenes are filmed in long, static shots to give the whole thing a sense of a stage production, which serve the slender cast and their performances well; allowing interactions to play out naturally, yet at the same time giving the whole thing a rather dull and lifeless air.
Never is there much of a sense that we are in a vibrant, important city. London seems to consist of a handful of people, dashing about between one another's houses, rather than the overpopulated, overwhelming mess of chaos that so many other adaptation have so ably bought to the screen.
Perhaps, one day the BBC will look over its back catalogue of Dickens adaptations and decide that the time has come to give "A Christmas Carol" another go - and that their adaptation will be every bit as polished and exquisite as we have come to expect from them.
As mean as a Christmas present from Scrooge.
Year Two. Day Three: "Dora's Christmas Carol Adventure" (2009)
For the first time in two seasons of writing this blog, I have found myself utterly floored by my viewing experience - simply because more so than any other adaptation of "A Christmas Carol" this one is resolutely not aimed at me, at all. Not one bit.
Dora the Explorer is an American educational show aimed at the under fives which attempts to teach basic principals of language, reading and interaction.
Being a thirty-two year old man with no children of my own, this poses something of a quandary for me. How am I to judge the quality of something that has no interest in whether or not I enjoy or understand it? Well the same could be said for many of the previous adaptations and that didn't stop me then, so I shall try my best.
Dora is preparing for Christmas with a Nochebeuna party - a Latin American Christmas Eve celebration. I'm not entirely sure who she is, or what she is doing without parents or guardians at Christmas, nor why her only friends seem to be animals and a talking backpack.
This version's Scrooge is a mischievous creature of indiscernible origin named Swiper, who decides to steal the star from the top of the Christmas tree and in doing so, earns himself a spot on Santa's "Naughty List."
It's up to Dora to travel back in time, and to the future to save her friend from the ire of Father Christmas, with a handful of songs, lessons and cloyingly repetitive interactions.
Young children will probably love this, but as far as Christmas specials go, I can't help but think it is clearly lacking in quality as far as animation or writing are concerned. Shows primarily aimed at a similar audience such as My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, have consistently proven that just because your primary audience is young girls, it doesn't mean that your product has to be rubbish, cheap looking - or even worse, a cynical cash in for parents to buy in the build up to Christmas.
That said, it's innocent and innocuous enough to while a precious hour of childhood away on and it's just possible that the sickly sweet morals and rudimentary life skills it attempts to instil might somehow be doing some good in the long run.
As repetitive as an advent calender.
"Dora's Christmas Carol Adventure." (2009) 2/5
Posted by Charlie Revelle-Smith at 12:37 PM No comments:
Year Two. Day Two: "An All Dogs Christmas Carol" (1998)
This sequel to the moderately well remembered 1989 movie "All Dogs go to Heaven" is a made for TV canine retelling of the tale, with each of the roles being filled by one of the original film's characters.
This adaptation begins in heaven, with a bunch of puppies (whose no doubt tragically young deaths are never explained) who are sitting down to be read a story - the perennial seasonal classic which provides the inspiration for this film.
From thereon in, it is clear that this is not a standard retelling of A Christmas Carol, and not simply because it is told through animated dogs, but because it features a witch, spell casting, mass hypnosis, a climactic finale aboard rooftops in a thunderstorm and any number of strange and confusing sub-plots.
It follows a greedy pit bull, Carface, who is gleefully collecting upon his debts on a Christmas Eve in San Francisco. That night he is visited by a series of dogs, the ghosts of Christmases past, present and future, who attempt to appeal to the dog's generosity and to save Timmy, a sickly puppy whose family can no longer afford to look after him.
This is not a good adaptation at all. Aside from featuring some of the most mirthless and unmemorable musical interludes and a story so convoluted as to be almost impenetrable, this version's greatest crime is to inject a rather ugly kick of evangelism towards the end - tedious enough in most stories, but unforgivable in an adaptation of a completely secular fable which is not about generosity for the sake of avoiding hell, but for the sake of it being the right thing to do.
In fact, the only time this movie demonstrates any sense of conviction, is when it is telling its young audience of the realities of hell and reminding them that they shall go there too if they do not learn the same message that Scrooge, or in this case, Carface does. This kind of emotional hostage taking is inexcusable in any adaptation of a book which demonstrates such a sense of generosity of spirit towards all people.
This tedious, preachy and visually grimy adaptation of the great book is in many ways, the worst I have ever seen. Mean in spirit and devoid of any sense of magic, this lifeless version serves only the purpose of indoctrinating young
minds, and making a few grubby bucks on the side.
As joyful as a dead dog in the snow.
"An All Dogs Christmas Carol" (1998) 1/5
Year Two. Day One: "Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol" (2010)
T'is the season, yet again, for my Christmas Carol challenge, and I have returned with 24 more versions of the classic Christmas tale.
I shall warn you, that as most of the well loved and notable versions were covered last year, this time around, things are going to get rather peculiar around here, with some very bizarre adaptations!
For my first day of the challenge, I watched this absolutely splendid version, which is hard to describe as an adaptation, more as a new story inspired by Dickens' tale.
Michael Gambon is the Scrooge-like antagonist of this version, Kazran Sardick; a seemingly heartless miser who harvests the frozen bodies of those who are indebted to him as "collateral," in a huge underground crypt. As one of many nods to the original, he describes these people in stasis as "the excess population."
Meanwhile, a huge spaceship with over 4,000 people aboard, is hurtling towards earth, with only the sympathy of Sardick to save them - that is, if he can ever find his heart.
The Doctor is on hand to lead Sardick back to his childhood, through labyrinths of memories of his cruel father, a vicious flying shark and a beautiful woman who has been frozen for years in an underground capsule.
Amy Pond, appears as a hologram to serve as the role of the Ghost of Christmas Present and she, along with the Doctor, gradually find ways to thaw this unkind man's heart.
To say anymore would be to ruin a genuine Christmas treasure. This story plays homage to its source but is not bound by it (there are no flying sharks in the original, more's the pity!)
With a truly moving ending, that is completely in the spirit of Dickens' book: that anyone, regardless of how wicked they may seem, is capable of redemption and deserving of a second chance. It may not be one of the most faithful adaptations of A Christmas Carol, but it is a haunting, beautiful tale of long lost love and that most overlooked of traits: simple human kindness - and that there is no such thing as an "uninteresting person."
As festive as snow falling on Gallifrey.
"Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol." 5/5
Year Two. Day Twenty-Four: "CBS Radio Mystery Thea...
Year Two. Day Twenty-Three: "The Odd Couple: Scroo...
Year Two. Day Twenty-Two: "Rich Little's Christmas...
Year Two. Day Twenty-One: "Ghosts of Girlfriends P...
Year Two. Day Twenty: "The Simpsons: 'Tis the Fift...
Year Two. Day Nineteen: "A Christmas Carol" (1969)...
Year Two. Day Eighteen: "It's Christmas, Carol!" (...
Year Two. Day Seventeen: "Xena: Warrior Princess: ...
Year Two. Day Sixteen: "Shower of Stars: A Christm...
Year Two. Day Fifteen: "The Real Ghostbusters: Xma...
Year Two. Day Fourteen: "Fame: Ebenezer Morloch" (...
Year Two. Day Thirteen: "Roseanne: Halloween IV" (...
Year Two. Day Eleven: "A Jetson Christmas Carol" (...
Year Two. Day Eight: "Sabrina, The Animated Series...
Year Two. Day Five: "All American Christmas Carol"...
Year Two. Day Three: "Dora's Christmas Carol Adven...
Year Two. Day Two: "An All Dogs Christmas Carol" (...
Year Two. Day One: "Doctor Who: A Christmas Carol"...
Charlie Revelle-Smith
I'm a British writer specialising in Victorian mystery novels. I'm hoping to use this space to share information on my work and details of upcoming books.
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OBAMACARE, THE SCOTUS DECISION, AND STATES' RIGHTS
It’s not over till it’s over. The 5-4 SCOTUS decision upholding Obamacare is prompting a wide range of reactions. According to Dov Fischer at American Thinker:
There is now a formal United States Supreme Court opinion on the books, overdue by nearly a century, holding that the federal government may not wield the Commerce Clause to impose on American citizens the obligation to buy health insurance or anything else we do not want. . . .
What is the point here? If the “federal government may not wield the Commerce Clause to impose on American citizens the obligation to buy health insurance or anything else we do not want,” under this ruling, they may instead wield the authority of Congress to impose a tax to coerce Americans to buy things they don’t want.
It’s actually worse than that. Andy McCarthy makes the case that
the Supreme Court decided that Americans have no right to due process. Indeed, the Court not only upheld a fraud perpetrated on the public — it became a willing participant. …
Chief Justice Roberts & Co. . . . said the American people are not entitled to an honest legislative process, one in which they can safely assume that when Congress intentionally uses words that have very different meanings and consequences — like tax and penalty — and when Congress adamantly insists that the foundation of legislation is one and not the other, the Court will honor, rather than rewrite, the legislative process. Meaning: if Congress was wrong, the resulting law will be struck down, and Congress will be told that, if it wants to pass the law, it has to do it honestly. . . .
Further, it shielded the political branches from accountability for raising taxes, knowing full well that, had Obama and the Democrats leveled with the public that ObamaCare entailed a huge tax hike, it would never have had the votes to pass. . . .
The ObamaCare mandate was enacted as a penalty flowing from Congress’s Commerce Clause power. It has been upheld as a tax flowing from Congress’s power to tax-and-spend under the General Welfare Clause. As the dissent sharply demonstrates, the contention that the mandate could have been enacted as a tax is frivolous.
State Governors, such as Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal (Louisiana) are already stepping up to the plate by refusing to to “establish a federally mandated health care exchange in his state.” So has Democrat Governor John Lynch (New Hampshire). Media Trackers reports that Gov. John Kasich has announced that Ohio will not “create a health insurance exchange” with the federal government. It's an opportunity to call Kasich's office with words of solid support. PH (614) 466-3555 or e-mail him here.
Fischer further commented on the potential political consequences of the SCOTUS ruling:
Congress has a massive new mess awaiting it, all as voters prepare to vote for a new Congress and for 33 Unite States Senate seats, 23 now held by Democrats and their two “independent” allies. House Republicans solidly will vote symbolically to overturn the legislative monstrosity, and they will find endangered House Democrats breaking ranks with their leadership to vote with them. Senate Democrats facing reelection will be caught in a vise. Harry Reid will be trying desperately to prevent a vote on ObamaCare repeal from reaching the Senate floor, even as national news coverage focuses on the two national parties’ conventions.
Politico reports that "House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Thursday that the Republican-led House will vote on repealing the health care law soon after the July 4 recess.” It’s not too early to call the representatives from Ohio. Republican contact info is here.
Labels: Governor Kasich, health care, ObamaCare, SCOTUS, Supreme Court
SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS OBAMACARE
SUPREME COURT UPHOLDS OBAMACARE;
CLEVELAND TEA PARTY PATRIOTS RALLY TO REPEAL
In a 5-4 decision today the United States Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Healthcare Act (Obamacare) as constitutional. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the majority opinion, which upholds the individual mandate as a constitutional tax.
While Ohio citizens had gained protection from the federal healthcare mandate when the Ohio Healthcare Freedom bill was approved by voters last year, because of this ruling Ohio citizens and businesses are no longer protected and will continue to be adversely impacted by runaway spending in healthcare programs and policies already put in place by this administration.
While the Cleveland Tea Party Patriots could not disagree more with this ruling, as we respect the Rule of Law -- we will respect their ruling. But patriots can be assured the ruling does not bring the matter to a close.
Even though the SCOTUS ruling found Obamacare to be Constitutional, the ruling does not mean that Obamacare is good or fiscally sound legislation.
As we have since our first days in opposition to a government-run healthcare that will take away our freedom, strip us of our liberties, and further depress our already strained economy -- we remain steadfast and resolute in our calls for repealing Obamacare in its entirety and to defund any programs already in place.
And thanks to Mr. Instapundit for announcing today’s rally in downtown Cleveland!
HOLD HOLDER in Contempt for Fast and Furious
Fast and Furious:
Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force
HOLD HOLDER in Contempt!
Last week (June 20, 2012), Fox News reported that
President Obama has granted an 11th-hour request by Attorney General Eric Holder to exert executive privilege over Fast and Furious documents, a last-minute maneuver that appears unlikely to head off a contempt vote against Holder by Republicans in the House.
Over the weekend, former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy (who wrote the book on the jihad organization led by the “Blind Sheik” in the first WTC bombing) published an analysis of Fast and Furious that is devastating to the administration assertions of Executive Privilege, and to the continued stonewalling by Holder himself. Essentially, McCarthy sets forth the internal organizational structures in the DOJ and how cases are categorized and funded; he makes the case that Fast and Furious was categorized as an OCDETF, that is Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. OCDETF cases are, by definition, under the direct authority of “Main Justice,” the AG’s DC department. Extracts from this Must Read [my emphases]:
ATF and the U.S. attorney had to apply to Main Justice for OCDETF status. A case gets approval for funding — which can run well into the millions of dollars — only if senior Justice Department officials, after studying the formally submitted proposal, determine that the investigation has great promise.
The Obama Justice Department made exactly that determination. And this was no rubber stamp — it never is, given the number of agencies across the country competing over the OCDETF pot of gold. Chairman Issa’s most recent memo (dated May 3, 2012) explains that, to win its OCDETF designation, Fast and Furious was “reorganized as a Strike Force including agents from ATF, FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) component of the Department of Homeland Security.” Because of the investigation’s importance, a senior ATF agent (who later became a whistleblower) was transferred to Phoenix to help oversee the case.
…the defining features of OCDETF are investigative coordination under the Justice Department’s leadership and the liberal sharing of information across the department’s array of agencies. No OCDETF case is an outlier.
. . . in January 2010. It was then that the case became an OCDETF investigation. . . . It is a deliberate process. ATF and the U.S. attorney had to apply to Main Justice for OCDETF status. A case gets approval for funding — which can run well into the millions of dollars — only if senior Justice Department officials, after studying the formally submitted proposal, determine that the investigation has great promise.
The Obama Justice Department made exactly that determination. And this was no rubber stamp — it never is,
OCDETF cases get the attention of the Justice Department’s top hierarchy. What gets that level of attention gets the attorney general’s attention.
McCarthy cites chapter and verse, including memoranda that Darrell Issa has already received, not from Eric “Stonewall” Holder, but from whistle-blowers, that put the AG at the center of this deadly scandal.
Alert for this week: Call Rep. John Boehner to make sure he knows WE know about the OCDETF status of Fast and Furious. One American border patrol agent is dead, one ICE agent is dead, and hundreds of Mexican citizens are dead. And the House should vote to hold Eric Holder in contempt. For starters.
Rep. John Boehner:
Or go here for Twitter, Facebook and other social media links to his office
Labels: Attorney General; gun control; Fast and Furious, DOJ, Eric Holder
How Congress Wrecked America's Road System
At one time chairing the House Subcommittee that handled funding for transportation nationwide, former Congressman Ernest Istook, now a Distinguished Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, shares what he learned and gets to the root of the problem with the roads and highways in our country....
From News Max --
Why are our roads so congested?
It’s because of a wreck. By spending fuel tax money on things other than roads, Washington has wrecked the way we pay for highways. With dedicated revenue now drained away, roads are clogged due to wasteful practices by government.
Congested roads hurt our entire economy by slowing people and goods from getting where they need to go.
This creates new forms of road rage. Contractors, state and local governments are angry because new transportation plans were due from Congress over 30 months ago. October of 2009 was the deadline to renew the legislation that governs roads, highways, rail and mass transit. The latest extension (#9) runs out on June 30.
Lawmakers are stalemated. This became inevitable years ago when Congress violated the trust of drivers who pay fuel taxes. What began in 1983 as a trickle of diversion is now a flood. Over a third of gas tax money is siphoned off for the insatiable appetites of those who want free or subsidized travel.
As noted by The Heritage Foundation’s Ron Utt: “only about 65 percent of federal surface transportation spending is used to support general-purpose roads, while the remaining 35 percent is diverted to high-cost, underutilized programs like trolley cars, transit, covered bridges, hiking trails, earmarks, administrative overhead, streetscapes, flower planting, hiking and bicycle paths, museums, ‘transportation enhancements,’ tourist attractions, and archaeology.”
One alternative that’s gathering support is to give fuel tax dollars back to the states so they can allocate the money. States might also politicize how it’s spent, but they can’t do worse than Washington has.
Our once-viable Highway Trust Fund is effectively broke while roads remain crammed, in disrepair, or both. Any talk of raising fuel taxes is beaten down by consumers. Drivers will pay higher prices if they must; but they rebel at higher gasoline taxes because they know the system misuses that money.
With trust funds almost empty, most Senators and Democrats are ready to break the logjam by borrowing billions so they can continue to shove money out the door in the same old manner. But a phalanx of House Republicans stands in the way. They insist on at least partial reforms before a new transportation bill is passed — reforms that won’t fix all the problems but at least will address some of the waste.
Here’s how bad the drainage of the trust fund has gotten:
The U.S. Department of Transportation for years tracked federal subsidies to different forms of travel. Recognizing that different vehicles carry different numbers of people, and for trips of differing lengths, USDOT measured the subsidies per passenger per each 1,000 miles travelled. The results:
Highway users paid $1.91 per thousand passenger-miles.
“Passenger rail received . . . $186.35 per thousand passenger-miles.
“[Mass] transit received $118.26 [per thousand passenger-miles].”
The abuse became so embarrassing that the Transportation Department quit calculating the subsidies a few years ago. And Amtrak has stopped filing its monthly disclosures of per passenger subsidies on each train route. (They claim it’s caused by a “financial system conversion” that curiously has taken a year so far.)
The diversion of fuel taxes into non-road projects destroyed public confidence and public support for transportation taxes. The move away from the principle of “user pays” began in 1983 with applying some of the fuel tax dollars toward public transit. That trickle has become a flood of projects and non-drivers who ride at the expense of road users. That’s why transit fares are so cheap. Fares paid by transit users typically are less than half of a system’s operating costs and zero of its construction and capital costs.
Transit advocates deceptively claim they reduce congestion by not driving. They never mention that they enjoy subsidized rides even while they take away the money that could have improved the roads and eased the flow of traffic.
The diversion did more than create our backlog of needed highway projects. It also destroyed possible public support for raising fuel taxes — because people know the money would go into a tank that is riddled with holes.
Some of those leaks are the waste: Ever-rising construction costs are worsened by red tape such as environmental regulations, “prevailing wage” laws, union-protecting “project labor agreements” and the like.
When the governing principle of “user pays” is removed, our transportation system stalls and breaks down. Congress is mired in a political dogfight because too many want to receive while somebody else pays. It’s a prime example of what happens if we follow the credo of the Occupy movement.
So when you’re stuck in traffic, remember that somebody has been hurt in a wreck. That somebody is you, the driver who carries the load for everyone else.
Former Congressman Ernest Istook chaired the House subcommittee that handled funding for transportation nationwide. Now a distinguished fellow at The Heritage Foundation, he will host the “Istook Live!” daily talk radio show that will soon launch in syndication.
Posted by King at 7:00 AM No comments:
Tea Party Patriots: U.S. Supreme Court Obamacare Decision Tele-Town Hall
From the Tea Party Patriots National Support Team
The timing of the Supreme Court’s decision is subject to lots of rumor and speculations, but a look at what the cases the Court has yet to rule on and its past behavior might help give some indication of when we can expect the Supreme Court’s decision on Obamacare.
The Court is currently reviewing several other cases. Because The Court could decide to announce some decisions together, it will probably provide 12 separate rulings outside of the Obamacare case. As the Supreme Court Justices wind down this session, the Court may take their time and hand out their opinions separately over the course of days or weeks or choose to hand out several cases on a single day.
Many reliable sources speculate that the earliest the Court will announce its decision on Obamacare would be Monday, June 25th.
This could be one of the biggest rulings of this century and we want to bring you as much information as quickly as we can surrounding the ruling.
Within 2 days of the ruling we will be hosting a Tele Town Hall with some very special guests. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, Congressman Steve King, Senator Rand Paul and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli will all be joining us on the call to give you their take on what the Supreme Court decides.
The date will be determined when the Supreme Court releases its decision and will either be the night of the ruling or the night following the ruling, but the call will be at 8pm EDT. We'd love to have you join the call!
Click Here to Sign Up Today
We will send an email as soon as we have set the date and the great thing is that once you sign up with your phone number, we will automatically call you to conference you into the call the night of the call.
We look forward to you joining us for this exciting event and yet another stop on the Road to Repeal!
Labels: General, ObamaCare, Supreme Court
Alabama to UN Agenda 21: Drop Dead!
Agenda 21 has been gradually getting some attention in Ohio, in part because its tentacles are already being felt in our state (and promoted by, e.g., Northeast Ohio Sustainable Communities Consortium). Marianne has posted quite a bit on the Mansfield Tea Party page here. Earlier this month, Investors Business Daily reported the good news that :
Alabama Bans U.N. Agenda 21 Sovereignty Surrender
Property Rights: Few have heard of Agenda 21, the U.N. plan for sustainable development that tosses property rights aside. But Alabama has, and it recently secured a victory as important as that over union power in Wisconsin.
After Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's stunning triumph over the excesses and abuses of public-sector unions, the London Telegraph's James Delingpole, an indefatigable opponent of global warming fraud, opined in a piece titled, "How Wisconsin And Alabama Helped Save The World," that we should take note of "an equally important but perhaps less well-publicized victory won in the Alabama House and Senate over the U.N.'s malign and insidious Agenda 21."
Agenda 21 is one of those compacts, like Law of the Sea, Kyoto and New START, that are supported by an apologetic administration with a fondness for the redistribution of American power and wealth on a local and global scale.
It fits in perfectly with President Obama's pledge to "fundamentally transform" America, its institutions and its heritage of capitalist freedom.
Agenda 21 has not been ratified by the U.S. Senate, but it may not have to be if in a second Obama term the Environmental Protection Agency pursues it by stealth, as it has other environmental agendas that make war on the free enterprise system and rights we hold dear.
One of those is property rights. "Land ... cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market," Agenda 21 says.
"Private land ownership is also a principal instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth and therefore contributes to social injustice; if unchecked, it may become a major obstacle in the planning and implementation of development schemes."
Not liking the sound of that, Alabama recently passed Senate Bill 477 unanimously in both of its houses. The legislation bars the taking of private property in Alabama without due process and says that "Alabama and all political subdivisions may not adopt or implement policy recommendations that deliberately or inadvertently infringe or restrict private property rights without due process, as may be required by policy recommendations originating in or traceable to Agenda 21."
Agenda 21 is intended to foster what environmentalists call "sustainable development" in the belief that man since the Industrial Revolution has been a plague on the planet, plundering its resources while destroying nature and putting the world at risk of disastrous climate change, poverty and disease.
At the end of March, EPA administrator Lisa Jackson jetted off to Paris' ministerial meeting of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, as the press release put it, "to discuss the agency's international efforts on urban sustainability."
Excuse us, but "urban sustainability" at the behest of global organizations is not what the EPA was created to do.
Jackson will represent the U.S. at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, which will be held June 20-22 in Rio de Janeiro.
"Specifically, in a transition to a green economy, public policies will need to be used strategically to reorient consumption, investments and other economic activities," a U.N. document describing the conference explains.
The EPA's war on coal, its regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant and its regulatory abuses including the use of drones to spy on American farmers are key parts of this international agenda that Jackson says "is the rarest of opportunities to truly change the world. ... It means working together to strengthen the effectiveness of environmental governance."
We don't need "environmental governance," just a governance of, by and for the people of the United States.
Nor do we need to "reorient" our consumption and economic activities.
Alabama has just told the U.N. and the EPA what they need to be told — don't tread on us.
Full text of the bill is here (and it’s only 3 pages double-spaced). Key paragraphs:
The State of Alabama and all political subdivisions may not adopt or implement policy recommendations that deliberately or inadvertently infringe or restrict private property rights without due process, as may be required by policy recommendations originating in, or traceable to "Agenda 21," adopted by the United Nations in 1992 at its Conference on Environment and Development or any other international law or ancillary plan of action that contravenes the Constitution of the United States or the Constitution of the State of Alabama.
Since the United Nations has accredited and enlisted numerous non-governmental and inter-governmental organizations to assist in the implementation of its policies relative to Agenda 21 around the world, the State of Alabama and all political subdivisions may not enter into any agreement, expend any sum of money, or receive funds contracting services, or giving financial aid to or from those non-governmental and inter-governmental organizations as defined in Agenda 21.
The bill went from first reading to signed legislation in about 6 weeks (April 5 to May 16).
Ohio need to tear a page from Alabama’s playbook on this one.
We Are Not Fooled By Fairy Tales on Failed Policies
Contact: Diana Price
Clevelandteaparty@gmail.com
Cleveland, OH - While making a campaign stop for his reelection bid, President Obama visited our great city today to tout the perceived accomplishments of his Administration over the past 4 years.
“That President Obama would come to Cleveland, the 7th most financially distressed city in the U.S., and attempt to spin gold from his 4 years of failed policies into a fairy-tale like story of imaginary accomplishments while he has occupied the White House is beyond belief,” stated Cleveland Tea Party Patriots Co-Coordinator Ralph King.
Obama’s EPA regulations have already forced four FirstEnergy Corp. coal-burning power plants to close in Ohio alone. The Ohio Public Utilities Commission told the Associated Press that closing these power plants, “could have a dramatic impact on electric prices” in most of northern Ohio, which produces 47% of our nations electric supply, and beyond.
“While President Obama claims to be for the working man, his failed policies put thousands of area car dealerships out of business and many more people out of work,” said King. “And, it is only because of President Obama’s heavy-handed support of the EPA and his Administration’s ‘War on Coal’ that residents in this region will soon be faced with skyrocketing electric bills and a 300% increase in sewer rates from $3 billion in EPA mandated upgrades – further crippling an already financially distressed region and the ‘working man’ he claims to be helping.”
Ohio is an important swing State in the coming election and the President has another major problem to overcome. The people in Ohio roundly rejected his prized “Obamacare” last year when they passed an Amendment to the Ohio Constitution blocking the “Obamacare” mandates now under deliberation by the U.S. Supreme Court.
“The Ohio Healthcare Freedom Amendment was a complete embarrassment for the Obama Administration and a rebuke of his policies with all 88 Ohio Counties voting for the Amendment in a mandate like fashion – even in the Democrat strongholds of the state. So who is he trying to fool?” asked Marianne Gasiecki Tea Party Patriots State Co-coordinator.
The Cleveland Tea Party Patriots are a member group of the Tea Party Patriots (www.teapartypatriots.org) the largest grassroots Tea Party organization with over 3,300 groups across the United States.
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Posted by King at 10:18 PM No comments:
Labels: Cleveland, CTPP, Democrats, Election 2012, General, Obama, Obama's Fairy Tale Theater
Tea Party Patriots "greet" Pres. Obama at Tri-C Metro
President Obama made a campaign stop in Cleveland today (Thursday, 14 June 2012). He spoke nearly an hour to enthusiastic supporters at the Tri-C Metro campus. Approximately 50 patriots turned up at Tri-C Metro today to register their opposition to Mr. Obama’s policies that have destroyed jobs, and have adversely affected the economy, energy (especially Ohio coal), and healthcare. Tea Party Patriots were standing with Romney supporters, despite the different messages: Tea Party Patriots were there to express opposition to President Obama’s policies; Romney supporters were there to advocate Romney’s candidacy.
Among the media that either photographed and/or interviewed participants were The Plain Dealer (scroll down) - see also here (crowd underestimated), WKYC-TV Ch. 3, WEWS-TV Ch. 5, and a reporter from the AP. Check back for updated links.
UPDATE: Big Government reports that even a liberal "like Jonathan Alter had to admit that [Obama's speech] was, overall, a dramatic failure". Quoted at The Daily Caller:
“I thought this honestly was one of the least successful speeches I’ve seen Barack Obama give in several years,” Alter said. “It was long-winded. He had a good argument to make. And at the beginning of the speech he seemed to be making it in a fairly compelling way but then he lost the thread and the speech was way too long and I think he lost his audience by the end.”
Labels: Coal, Energy, health care, Obama, ObamaCare
Action Alert: Stop the War on Coal
Earlier this week we posted on how Region 1 EPA Administrator Curt Spalding stated how they feel "Coal Communities should just go away."
The EPA led "War on Coal" being launched by the Obama Administration and supported by Senator Sherrod "Sluggo" Brown (D-OH) will soon cause electricity rates in the N/E Ohio areas to soar due to four power plants in this region being shut down over the new "air cleaner than God ever intended" restrictions on coal plants.
What is happening here in this area is only a small snapshot of what would happen on a larger scale should President Obama, Senator Sluggo and the EPA be successful in their War on Coal.
Below is info on how you can help stop President Obama's out of control EPA and their War on Coal....
From Tea Party Patriots --
Stop the War on Coal by INSISTING on a YES vote from your Senators on Senate Joint Resolution 37 (S. J. Res. 37), the Inhofe Resolution.
PASSION: This week’s Passion to Action focuses on our efforts to stop another push to increase your utility bills. If you remember, the President warned us that under his Cap and Trade plan, electricity rates would “necessarily skyrocket,” as coal plants would have to be retrofitted and the costs passed on to consumers.
We need to let our Senators know that we disagree. Coal is a plentiful, useful and safe source of electrical power. Many people and many small business “job creators” are dependent on coal to provide consistent low cost energy. At a time when the economy is struggling, this is one of Mr. Obama’s worst ideas. Click here to learn more.
BACKGROUND: Democrats have owned the “global warming will kill us” issue for several decades, but some Republicans , like Senator John McCain, author of the Lieberman-McCain Climate Stewardship Act of 2003, and former congressman Bob Inglis helped to make it a bipartisan issue beginning in 2003. Bob Inglis lost his seat in 2010 and John McCain nearly did as well. In fact, when you look at the voting records of incumbents who were replaced in that election, you might say that the 2010 mid-term elections were a referendum on “Cap and Trade”. It lost, and when it did, President Obama said, ““Cap and trade was just one way of skinning the cat; it was not the only way. It was a means, not an end.” For source, click here.
Instead of Cap and Trade, the Obama Administration has been attempting to reinterpret old laws like the 1970 Clean Air Act to turn them into global warming laws. Their latest regulation is called the Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology (UMACT) rule (aka MACT, aka “Mercury and Air Toxics Standards” and/or “MATS”). Implementing Utility MACT will raise the cost of coal generated electricity an average of 20% nationally. Unfortunately, there are no environmental benefits associated with the program, but there is a benefit for the President; he gets to keep his word to the Environmental Left to make coal so expensive that alternative energy sources might compete with it. Does this look like a political pay-off to supporters and cronies? It might to someone suspicious of government, someone like you and me. So here’s what we are going to do:
Call your Senators TODAY and ask them to vote for S.J. Res. 37, the Inhofe Resolution to overturn Utility MACT. The vote is expected next week. Here are some talking points: This one rule will increase electricity prices 10 to 20 percent nationally.
1. Increasing utility costs on small businesses that could be creating jobs in this weak economy is irresponsible.
2. What this country needs is more freedom for energy producers and fewer, but smarter regulations. CLICK HERE for more detailed information.
3. Inhofe’s resolution will overturn one of the EPA’s most expensive regulations, the Utility MACT. CLICK HERE for more detailed information.
4. Contact Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) and tell them to support S.J. Res. 37, the Inhofe Resolution.
Senator Sherrod Brown
Email: http://brown.senate.gov/contact/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/sensherrodbrown
Cleveland Office PH: (216) 522-7272
Cleveland Office Fax: (216) 522-2239
D.C. Office PH: (202) 224-2315
D.C. Office Fax: (202)228-6321
Senator Rob Portman
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/robportman
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/robportman
Email: http://portman.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contact-form
D.C. Office Ph#: (202)224-3353
Cleveland Office Ph#: (216)522-7095
Cincinnati Office Ph#: (513)684-3265
Toledo Office Ph#: (419)259-3895
Columbus Office Ph#: (614)469-6774 / 1-800-205-6446 (OHIO)
Posted by King at 9:56 PM No comments:
Labels: Action Alert, EPA, General, Senator Sherrod Brown (OH), War on Coal
President Obama's "United States of Indentured Servants"
Consistent with President Obama's campaign promise to "fundamentally transform the United States", a new CBO report shows at our current pace we will become the "United States of Indentured Servants" by 2037....
From the Weekly Standard -- (Emphasis Added)
A new chart produced by the Republican staff of the Senate Budget Committee shows that, according to Congressional Budget Office data released yesterday, debt per American is "on track to triple in a generation":
CBO Data: U.S. Per Person Debt On Track To Triple In A Generation
Currently, as the chart shows, debt per American is at (or around) $50,000. Just four years ago, in 2008, the year President Obama was first elected, debt per person was at $35,000.
In 2037, if things stay relatively the same, debt per American will be at $147,000.
In that year, according to Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee, "the federal government will spend $2.7 trillion per year in interest payments alone, representing more than a quarter of our entire budget that year and greater than the total federal budget in 2003."
Per American family, on average, debt will stand at $382,000 in 2037, only 25 years from now. That figure constitutes an increase of $287,000 per family.
The CBO's numbers were released yesterday as part of its "long-term outlook." The non-partisan governmental organization warns, "waiting to address the long-term budgetary imbalance and allowing debt to mount in the meantime would be detrimental to future generations."
With President Obama and the Democrats known "War on Children" they do not view the growing debt a a detriment to future generations - they look at it as just another insurance policy of owning or controlling your children and/or grandchildren!
Labels: Democrat War on Children, Democrats, Election 2012, General, Obama, Senate
Marine Week in Cleveland June 11-17
Marine Week in Cleveland starts tomorrow and continues through next weekend:
Displays at Public Square, Gateway Plaza, Voinovich Park and Rock & Roll Hall of Fame; Quantico Marine Band performances; ceremonies, and more. All the details are here.
Events are FREE and open to the public. Marine Corps. helicopters are already turning up over Cleveland today (Sunday, June 10).
Labels: Marine Corps.
OHIO COAL : More Insanity from the EPA
Targets in the EPA's cross-hairs: the eggs industry, our Way of Life Act, and now the coal industry.
From Ohio Coal Assoc.:
MEDIA STATEMENT: Ohio Coal President Mike Carey
‘EPA Administrator: Obama Coal Rules will Kill Industry’
Columbus, Ohio (June 5, 2012) – In video footage released by Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Inhofe yesterday evening, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Curt Spalding said the Obama administrations air regulations will kill the coal industry.
“This video is powerful. It explicitly shows the level of understanding of senior EPA officials that President Obama is trying to vanquish an entire industry,” said Ohio Coal Association President Mike Carey.
The footage was filmed at Yale University at “Beyond Pesticides’ 30th National Pesticide Forum” held March 30-31, 2012.
Mr. Spalding, a Region 1 EPA Administrator said:
“Lisa Jackson has put forth a very powerful message to the country. Just two days ago, the decision on greenhouse gas performance standard and saying basically gas plants are the performance standard which means if you want to build a coal plant you got a big problem. That was a huge decision.”
“You can’t imagine how tough that was,” Spalding continued. “Because you got to remember if you go to West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and all those places, you have coal communities who depend on coal. And to say that we just think those communities should just go away, we can’t do that. But she had to do what the law and policy suggested. And it’s painful. It’s painful every step of the way.”
Watch the video here.
“Coal provides nearly 86 percent of our electricity in Ohio with reserves lasting an estimated 250 years. Destroying our industry, as planned by President Obama, would decimate Ohio because our economy relies on an affordable and abundant supply of electricity to power economic sectors like manufacturing,” said Carey.
The Obama administration’s new air standards would prematurely force the retirement of more than 140 coal-fired electricity generating units from 19 states by 2015. Senator Inhofe is sponsoring a resolution (S.J. Resolution 37) that would disprove EPA’s new standards.
Mike Carey is available for media interviews by request. Please contact Mike Carey directly if you would like to schedule an interview: 614-228-6336 / Media Contact: Matthew Henderson / Cell: 614-499-6602
Labels: Clean Air, Coal, Energy, EPA, Green Energy Goons
Obama's Economic Recovery = Extraordinary (Failure)
From RSC Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (OH-4) --
The jobs numbers that came out on Friday brought grim news. Last month’s increase of 69,000 jobs is far behind the pace needed even to keep up with population growth. Yet President Obama recently claimed at a campaign fundraiser that our economic “recovery” has been “extraordinary.” Unfortunately, the facts show otherwise.
In the chart below, the red line traces the rate of job growth from Feb. 2010, when the total number of jobs in America hit bottom. Compare that record to the brown line, which shows the average rate of job growth from the bottom of the previous 10 recessions. Based on this data, 4.3 million more Americans would have jobs today if only our economy had recovered at an average rate. Our kids deserve better than this.
When it comes to growing our economy, we shouldn’t be satisfied with anything less than extraordinary. Getting there will require us to make the right choice between a weak economy built on government subsidies and a strong one built on hard work and earned success. The president’s ideas aren’t working. Let’s try something that will.
Labels: Democrat War on Children, Election 2012, General, Obama, Rep. Jim Jordan (OH-4), RSC
Way to Go Wisconsin!
From Jenny Beth Martin, Tea Party Patriots Co-Founder and National Coordinator on the outstanding job by the grassroots Tea Party groups in Wisconsin....
From Brietbart --
The Wisconsin recall election was a local microcosm for a national debate between two competing visions for America – a debate that will be settled, one way or the other, on November 6th, 2012.
On one side of the debate are power-hungry big government overspenders who waste taxpayer dollars on their insider pals and on their half-baked schemes to control our lives.
On the other side of the debate are We the People -- people who want to keep more of their hard-earned money, and want power-hungry politicians kept in check by the checks and balances built by our nation’s founders.
Tea Party Patriots who held up protest signs a few years ago are now willing to take time out of their lives to fight the battles that must be fought – on the ground, door to door – to save the country. We might not have as much money as our opponents, but we make up for it in passion, dedication, and sheer numbers of ground troops.
In the Wisconsin recall election, we put out the call to Patriots across America: anyone with the time and the passion to step up and save Wisconsin and save the country – by knocking on doors, stuffing envelopes or making phone calls – we would help them step up.
From as far away as Seattle and Texas, from age 16 all the way up to age 80, Tea Party Patriots answered the call. Together in Wisconsin, we knocked on 15,000 doors, made 37,000 phone calls, and distributed nearly 150,000 pieces of literature.
And we won. We beat the well-funded special interests and big government overspenders.
Wisconsin was another Tea Party Patriots victory. Just like Massachusetts in 2010. Just like Indiana last month. And just like the massive 2010 midterm victories now dubbed “the Tea Party midterms.”
But all of that was just a warm-up for the November 2012 elections.
While we have been racking up victories for America, we have been strengthening ourselves for the battles ahead.
As an organization, we have focused intently on training, educating, and preparing our troops for victory. Across America, Tea Party Patriots Local Coordinators are now trained, ready, and building their teams for November. Every time the media counts us out, we count more and more people coming through our doors – patriotic Americans who want to save the country and don’t take kindly to being told that they’re irrelevant or don’t exist.
We are mothers, grandmothers, fathers, and sons. We are soldiers, veterans, seniors, and students. We have 15 million supporters nationwide and more than 3,400 locally organized chapters. We are organized, we are trained, and we are ready to win in November.
And we will win on principle. The Tea Party Patriots’ three core principles are Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Government, and Free Markets. When we stick to our core principles, we rack up electoral victories for America. Our core principles are America’s core principles. They remain the same from election to election. While others focus on personal attacks, we focus on principles. People listen to our motives and vision. And, judging by our growing numbers – and our growing number of victories – our principles are resonating with the American people.
In the weeks and months to come, the Tea Party Patriots will continue to reach out to our fellow Americans and share our core principles and show why they are important to America’s future success. We will continue to take time away from our home lives to do the work that must be done to secure a better future for all Americans. And we will continue to campaign on our core values and our vision for America, which is the same vision held by the first tea partiers in Boston Harbor and the same vision written into our Declaration of Independence and Constitution by America’s founders.
But our job will not be complete in November 2012, just like our work was not complete after the “Tea Party midterm” victories of 2010. We will not rest on November 7th or any day thereafter. Elected officials are human beings and human beings are frail. We will immediately – and repeatedly – remind the human beings we helped elect why they were elected in the first place.
Starting on November 7, and continuing through 2013 and for as long as it takes, we will keep up the pressure until the “government of the people, by the people, for the people” does the job that We the People sent them to do: fully repeal Obamacare, balance the federal budget in 5 years or less without raising taxes, and eliminate crony capitalism and corruption to allow competitive free markets to create a real and lasting economic recovery.
The Tea Party Patriots helped save Wisconsin. Now it’s time to save America.
Visit www.TeaPartyPatriots.org to get involved.
Posted by King at 11:24 AM No comments:
Labels: General, Save Wisconsin, TPP, Wisconsin
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Vietnam War Era Aviator Takes Final Flight
Chief Warrant Officer Steven Derry Served in Vietnam and In Iraq Twice
Story by: Mr. Eric Durr - New York State Division of Military and Naval Affairs
Dated: Wed, Jun 15, 2011
Chief Warrant Officer Steven Derry is congratulated by fellow Aviation Soldiers following his final flight on June 14, 2011. Derry was the last Vietnam War pilot flying in the New York Army National Guard (Photo by SFC Steven Petibone, 42nd Combat Aviation Brigade)
LATHAM, NY --The New York Army National Guard’s last Vietnam War pilot took his final light Tuesday June 14. In 29 years of Army flying-he was out of the military from 1972 to 1985-Chief Warrant Officer 5 Steven Derry amassed more than 3000 hours in UH-1 “Hueys”, AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters, and the UH-60 Blackhawk. He spent 10 months in Vietnam in 1971 and 1972 and then went back to war twice; serving in Iraq in 2005 and again in 2008/2009. He’s enjoyed the people, and he’s enjoyed the flying, and he’s enjoyed serving his country, but everything needs to come to an end, Derry said. At his age-he’s 59--- it’s harder to fly using night vision goggles and to keep up with the younger Soldiers, he said. So on June 14,--after 3,000 hours in the air Derry took one more flight out of the facility he’s operated at for 20 years, and when he came back two hours later he was done. Derry’s been an “icon” at the Army Aviation Support Facility here since he joined the New York Army National Guard in 1988, said Maj. Kevin Ferreira, the facility Officer in Charge. “In my last 11 years here I have been with Chief Derry through (deployments to) Nicaragua, Honduras, Bosnia and Iraq,” said Ferreira, who is also Operations Officer for the 3rd Battalion 142nd Aviation Regiment. “He has been there and done it all. There’s a tremendous amount of experience for the young aviators coming here that we are going to lose.” As Derry’s UH-60 taxied back to the Army hanger two fire trucks from Albany International Airport sprayed water over the spinning rotors and two lines of aviation Soldiers and TV cameras stood ready to welcome him back for the last time. When he exited the aircraft he was ambushed by two Soldiers carrying the traditional bottles of Champagne to wet him down with. “It’s bittersweet,” Derry said about his last flight. A New Jersey native, Derry joined the Army in 1969 to fly helicopters. After learning the basics in the TH-55 --a training helicopter powered by a reciprocating engine-Derry wound up flying combat missions in UH-1 H helicopters with the 23rd “ Americal” Division and the 1st Cavalry Division in Vietnam. On one of those missions-insertion of a Vietnamese Army unit into an LZ-an enemy round went through the control panel and wound up bouncing off the knee of the aircraft commander. When he returned from Vietnam in March of 1972 Derry planned to make the Army his career. The Army had other ideas, and he was released into the Individual Ready Reserve in the drawdown that followed the end of the Vietnam War. For the next 13 years Derry followed a civilian career path, working at a bank and then at a rubber manufacturing company. But in 1985 he and his wife Penelope were camping when he ran into a recruiter from the New Jersey Army National Guard. They got to talking and later that year he was back in uniform, in the 1st Battalion 150th Aviation: flying the same UH-1H helicopters he’d flown into combat in Vietnam. In 1988 Derry’s civilian life brought him to New York and he transferred to the 1st Battalion 142nd Aviation and learned to fly AH-1 “Cobra” attack helicopters. He flew the F, G and S model of the AH-1, before the unit converted to UH-60 Blackhawk troop carrying helicopters in 1995 and became the 3rd Battalion 142nd Aviation. When the unit sent helicopters and pilots to Iceland for an exercise in 1997 Derry went with him. When the 3-142nd deployed to Honduras in 1999 and Nicaragua in 2002, Derry went with them. When the 3-142nd was tapped for peacekeeping in Bosnia in 2002/2003, Derry was part of that mission as well. He was barely back from the deployment to Bosnia when the 42nd Combat Aviation Brigade was tapped to deploy with the 42nd Infantry Division as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom III in 2004. Derry spent almost 20 months on active duty serving as the brigade tactical operations officer and flying helicopters when he could from Forward Operating Base Speicher outside Tikret. In 2008 the 3-142nd headed back to Iraq and Derry went along again, serving as the Air Movement Request Cell OIC and managing the helicopters support the 10th Mountain Division Commander. They told me I could fly some more, but I was just too busy doing everything else, he recalled. Derry, a New York State corrections officer in civilian life, the father of two grown children, and a grandfather as well, will finish up his current active duty tour supporting the 42nd Combat Aviation Brigade’s CBRNE Consequence Management Force mission and retire in September. The world of Army Aviation has changed a lot since he was a young man in Vietnam, Derry said. For one thing, he said, today’s pilots “carry a lot more stuff.” “Back then when I went out to the aircraft I carried my helmet, a grease pencil, and a map of my area. Now it is my helmet and it is the IFR (Instrument Flight Rules ) supplements for just about the entire company and the moving map (A computer ized map readout worn on the knee),” Derry said. One thing that hasn’t changed is pilots, Derry said. “It’s pretty much the same. They just want to fly,” he said.
© NYS DMNA: News Story: Vietnam War Era Aviator Takes Final Flight
Page Last Modified: Thu, Jun 23, 2011
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Un Chien Ingles
Sep 06, 2007 by Rol Hirst in Archive Words
You don’t know what hotpants are. Not really. You know they’re short, but what is it exactly makes them hot, and differentiates them from just plain… shorts? You read the word in the paper, “The model was wearing hotpants.” and you only get a vague picture in your mind. You’ve never been a fan of pictures in your mind. You much prefer them in your eyes.
You don’t like the word ‘voyeur’. It makes you sound sleazy and wrong. You prefer to think of yourself as a looker. A looker, at lookers. Sometimes you wish you could stop. But it’s hard to walk down the street without turning your head. Shop window reflections offer refuge, but even then you’ve been caught. How many times have you almost crashed your car because your eyes left the road for a few seconds longer than they should have? You can’t help it – you’re biologically impelled. There’s always somewhere to look.
The inviting cleavage. The manifest bra strap. The tasselled skirt, like pull chords on a curtain. The halter-top. (You didn’t know what one of those was either, not ‘til you saw the pictures in the catalogue.) The skinny fit jeans and bare-to-the-world midriff. The mini-skirt. The slit skirt and tights. The sheer black stockings. The dress. Is it possible that once upon a time, you didn’t even know the difference between a skirt and a dress? What do words matter? The visual, that’s what matters. Only the visual.
“It’s rude to stare,” your mum used to tell you when she caught you looking at girls. So you tried to learn how to do it so she wouldn’t notice. Pretend to be looking elsewhere. Rub your eyes and peer through the cracks in your fingers. Get her distracted by something in the opposite direction so she couldn’t pinpoint the trajectory of your gaze. It was natural for a young boy to want to look, but you didn’t want her to think you were a pervert. Your ruse didn’t always work.
“How would you like it if wherever you went, people kept ogling you?”
Rather that than them looking right through you, you thought… but you couldn’t say that to her. Not to your mum. Because.
“Your mum’s a babe,” Freddie Cheever said, whistling and laughing on the sports field with his sweaty mates. Ten years ago, but still you feel the rage. “A proper MILF, that’s what she is! I would. We all would, mate, given half the chance. I bet even you would, right?”
It was the only time you’ve ever fought back, but it was worth the suspension. Freddie Cheever never said anything like that about your mum again. None of them did.
What he said – it was dirty, see. Dirty and disrespectful. But that’s not the way you are when you’re looking. Not at all. You’d much rather think of yourself as a disciple, a student of the form. A worshipper. When you see something beautiful, you want to admire it. You’re all about the admiration. No disrespect.
It’s not as though you don’t have a girlfriend now. But despite her unbelievable-yes-after-so-many-no’s, Jean doesn’t really understand. Her baggy jumpers, her shapeless trousers, her plain, flat shoes. Undressing in the dark, covering herself when you accidentally walk into the bathroom. You read somewhere that men are turned on through the eyes, women through the ears. You’ve tried sweet-talking Jean, but she doesn’t reciprocate. Not the way you’d like. And if she catches you looking… it’s like your mum all over again.
“Every time I see your eyes on some other woman, it’s like… like…” She doesn’t have the words, and neither do you.
Thursday night, you’re out for drinks with the gang from work. You wanted to say no, but couldn’t think of an excuse. In the end it was easier to go, just for the one. It’s Susie’s birthday and to mark the occasion she’s wearing that top with the neckline cut down to Brighton. As always, you’re trying not to look where you shouldn’t. To distract yourself, you start up a conversation. Because Jean insists – you’re not dull, you just don’t make the effort. You tell everyone what happened at the supermarket, how you spent ages trying to get into your car, thought your key was broken, almost snapped it in the lock trying to get it to turn… only then you realised it wasn’t your car at all – your car was a few spaces down. It only looked like your car. How embarrassing!
There’s a polite murmur, nods and smiles, then an awkward swerve as Alan starts telling everybody about the time he punched a gondolier in Venice and suddenly the whole table’s howling, even though they’ve all heard the story a million times before. You watch the barmaid, wiping the table opposite with a cloth. When she leans forward you just can’t stop yourself. Rebecca from HR catches your eyes and rolls hers. Pathetic!
Rebecca used to model underwear for C&A. You’ve seen the pictures. Jean wasn’t too happy about you working with an ex-model, especially after you told her how Rebecca turns her face in the sunlight to find the perfect angle, even when nobody’s taking pictures. You thought Jean would laugh.
“She’s not even my type,” you insisted.
“Oh, and if she was?”
How is it you never say the right thing?
When you get home the house is dark. Jean’s already in bed. The note says migraine, again. There’s microwave moussaka in the fridge, heat that up and don’t switch the lights on when you come upstairs. You sit and watch TV in the dark, where nobody can tell if you’re looking, where the guilt isn’t so bad. You wonder if you still have those magazines, down in the cellar.
Oh, they’re not those kind of magazines. You’d never… just as you’d never get on the internet and look at all that… everything you’ve heard that’s on there… They’re just FHM, Maxim and GQ. Harmless. Though Jean doesn’t like you looking at them, which is why you stash them under your old school reports and the receipts you keep in case the taxman ever comes gunning. But they aren’t there tonight, which means Jean must have found them, and you wonder if maybe you’re responsible for the latest migraine, as you have been for so many others before. Feeling all tangled up – like Steve McQueen at the end of The Great Escape, only on the inside – you head up to bed. You don’t switch on the lights.
On the way home Friday, you stop at a newsagent. To prove your motives pure, you buy copies of Bella, Woman’s Own and Chat, as well as what you came for. You’ve already thought of a new hiding place, in the crawl space above the wardrobe in the spare room. Jean’ll never look up there. You tell the woman behind the counter you’re a student, doing a thesis on the sociological ramifications of the differences between Men’s magazines and Women’s magazines.
“Women’s mags have much smaller boobs,” the woman says, and you bundle up your purchases in a hurry, leaving before she even gives you your receipt.
Out in the street, that’s where it happens. You notice her from the back, crossing the road towards the cash machine. An older lady, but in great shape for her age. You’re admiring the curve in her skirt. You don’t like crudities. You’d never say arse, bum, not even behind. Bottom is the only word you’d ever use. Why demean a thing of beauty? Your mouth is wet and you swallow, relishing the moment. As she reaches the other side, the wind catches her skirt exactly the way you’ve been praying it might, Marilyning it up and out and away, for everyone to see. (Although you’re the only one looking.) As she fights it back down, she turns. So you know it’s time to look away. And you would, you really would… if you weren’t helpless. If your whole world hadn’t just crumpled and boomed.
You drive and you drive and finally you stop, where the road turns off up to the reservoir. There’s concrete in your gut, Riverdance in your chest, and your hands are shaking so bad it’s like strobe lighting coming out of the steering wheel. You feel sick. You want to be sick. You are sick.
Outside, fresh air, clear your head. The wind so strong, it’s raising sheets of water off the reservoir. You rest your hands on the wall and let that water smack you full on in the face. Like it’s raining diagonally upwards, because you deserve it. The wind strips dead grass off the moors and hurls it at the fences, like the streamers people hang from fans in the summertime. So much dead grass, it’s sealing holes in the mesh, and spooling round the barbed wire strung along top. Away from the reservoir, you turn into the wind once more, and it’s like being struck by a 70 mile per hour wall. It sucks the breath right out your nostrils and tweezers the tears from your eyes. The eyes you can’t stop. Can’t stop looking. Even when they see what they’ve seen. Even when it’s dirty.
Dirty and disrespectful.
You’re standing at the fence now, and gripping the wire, your hands on either side of the barbs. But all you see is her. As the wind lifts her skirt, as she turns to see you. And then you bring down your face, fast, to the wire. You bring down your eyes, one at a time, straight onto the barb. Because that’s the only way to make sure. Make sure it never happens again.
Rol Hirst
Rol Hirst was the first man in space from Huddersfield. The Russians still beat him up there.
Latest posts by Rol Hirst (see all)
Rockwell - 22/07/08
Suffer Little Children - 16/07/08
88:88 - 10/07/08
Breakfast At Epiphany’s - 04/07/08
Fahrenheit 452 - 28/06/08
Tagged with: 02/09/2007
02/09/2007 Image – “Preso” by Nany Mata
By Andrew Cheverton
Butterfly Sense
By Josh Hechinger
Learning to Ride a Bike
By Douglas Noble
The Fence
By Xander Bennett
By Rol Hirst
The Girl Who Never Smiled
Longshanks Bill And The Great Space Elevator.
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RBDF Apprehends Haitian Migrants, Eleuthera CIO Warns of No Let Up in Monitoring
By Staff1 / in Highlight, In The News: / on Monday, 31 Dec 2018 02:09 PM / Comments Off on RBDF Apprehends Haitian Migrants, Eleuthera CIO Warns of No Let Up in Monitoring / 2407
File Photo: Illegal Migrants, apprehended in Eleuthera, being transported to New Providence.
Royal Bahamas Defence Force (RBDF) at the Coral Harbour Base in New Providence reported that a total of 124 Haitian migrants were apprehended early Sunday morning, December 30th, 2018 by the Royal Bahamas Defence Force after they were discovered in Bahamian waters.
Reports detailed that sometime around 3:00 am, Patrol Craft P-125 coxswained by Petty Officer Patrick Donald intercepted a 40 – ft. sail sloop approximately 8 miles south of New Providence. HMBS Rolly Gray, under the command of Lieutenant Commander Stephen Rolle also assisted with the apprehension. The migrants – (107 males, 17 females) have all been turned over to Immigration officials for further questioning.
The RBDF stated that they have apprehended or assisted in apprehending over 400 Haitian migrants for the year. Those migrants have since been charged before the courts for illegal landing.
In an interview on Friday, December 14th, 2018, Chief Immigration Officer (CIO) for the Eleuthera District, Mrs. Shemah Darling, estimated that as many as 500 illegal migrants had been apprehended within the Eleuthera District, with the assistance of Police, as well as information from the public, during 2018.
With transportation and manpower challenges functionally resolved on island since summer 2018, CIO Darling reported, “We have been doing continued surveillance exercises, which have yielded three to ten persons per week, being taken into custody by Immigration officials, and sent into New Providence for further processing.”
Mrs. Darling strongly warned, “We are encouraging people to not involve themselves in any illegal activity. Even though it’s the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, we will still be on the lookout and closely monitoring for illegal immigration activity, so, we remind people to not facilitate illegal immigrants. Our surveillance will be ongoing. We are also continuing with site inspections. We are warning people who are working outside of the scope of their permit – that is – not working within the job description of the permit, or not employed by the sponsor on the permit, that they will be dealt with.” Both employee and employer would be dealt with, warned Officer Darling.
CIO Darling also announced that the Department of Immigration on Eleuthera will be going paperless. “They have already started in New Providence,” she informed, “and in the next few months we will have the system here also. Documents will be scanned and given back, and applicants will be fingerprinted, similar to the current passport application process. So, we are reminding persons to gather all required documents pertaining to your application, as we will not be able to process the application without all pertinent documentation. With one document missing, the application process will not be able to be completed.”
Changes have also taken place with reference to the cost of applying as well as permit fees, said Mrs. Darling, highlighting, “Processing fees have increased to $200. The most popular permit used, which is the gardener/handyman/farm labourer, fee has also increased from $1,000 to $2,000. However, registered farmers still get their permits (farm labourer) for $500.”
The new paperless system still has some bugs to work out, informed Mrs. Darling, “We are still advising persons to come in and regularize their status, and to make sure they follow up with that, and from time to time check to see how the application is coming, because with the new system, many applications have not been migrated. So, for those who have not heard anything, we can notify New Providence and have it followed up.”
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Category : World
Bahrainis Stage Rallies to Condemn Military Court Death Sentences (+Photo)
TEHRAN (Press Shia Agency) – The Bahraini people from all walks of life took to the streets in various cities of the Persian Gulf country to condemn the Al Khalifa regime’s move to sentence six citizens to death in a military court on political grounds.
The demonstrations were held in different cities and villages across the Arab country on Monday night after the Manama regime issued death sentences against six citizens on trumped-up charges, according to local media reports.
According to Bahraini sources, the six had been subjected to physical and psychological torture for the duration of their imprisonment before being tried in the military court.
Also, the Bahraini clerics, in a statement, condemned the military court death sentences against civilians and called for the repeal of the sentences.
Earlier in the day, a Bahrain military court handed down the sentences and revoked the six people's citizenship for "forming a terror cell, attempting to assassinate Commander-in-Chief Field Marshal Sheikh Khalifa bin Ahmed Al Khalifah and committing other acts of terror."
The King of Bahrain on April ratified the constitutional amendment giving the military judiciary vast authorities, including trying civilians.
Bahraini authorities claim that this law is meant to combat terrorism, yet it brings back the same approach of military courts upon which authorities tried people by virtue of the martial law imposed by the king in March 2011.
Bahrain, a close ally of the US in the Persian Gulf region, has been witnessing almost daily protests against the ruling Al Khalifa dynasty since early 2011, with Manama using heavy-handed measures in an attempt to crush the demonstrations.
Scores of Bahrainis have been killed and hundreds of others injured and arrested in the ongoing crackdown on the peaceful demonstrations.
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European Leaders Should Stop Kowtowing to US Bullying: American Analyst
Syria Army Deals Hard Blow to Terrorists in Hama, Idlib
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Flint, Michigan lead crisis should have buried the city in water bottles. So, why didn’t it?
December 5, 2018 posted by engineering Category: Civil Engineering, Construction Engineering
One hundred thousand residents of Flint, Michigan could only use water from bottles or filters during a years-long lead contamination crisis, which started when the city switched to a new drinking water source in 2014.
As part of a class assignment that grew into a case study, Purdue University researchers found that during the first three weeks of the disaster alone, anywhere from 31 to 100 million bottles were generated as waste. This means that Flint should have been buried in plastic by the time the crisis ended in 2017.
But it wasn’t. Through investigating why not, the researchers suggest ways to plan for waste so that figuring out what to do with it during the crisis doesn’t slow down an emergency response, including those for drinking water disasters caused by hurricanes or flooding.
“The last thing you want to do during a crisis is add to the burden of the communities. And with so many people rushing to provide bottled water to Flint, we definitely had a waste problem that we needed to resolve quickly,” said Matt Flechter, the recycling market development specialist for the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ), one of the organizations interviewed for this study.
The study and its recommendations, published in the journal Resources, Conservation and Recycling, are the result of conversations with several organizations who were on the frontlines during the Flint lead crisis, including MDEQ, the City of Flint, Republic Services, Inc. and Schupan Recycling. The researchers did not seek or receive external funding for this work.
“When you shut down an entire water system and provide emergency water, there is a whole lot of waste generated. Where does it all go?” said Andrew Whelton, Purdue associate professor of civil engineering and environmental and ecological engineering, who led the study.
“It turns out that no one had looked at the waste associated with providing emergency drinking water long-term, until we investigated the Flint incident,” he said.
During the time that the Flint lead crisis was taking place, Tianqi Wang, a master’s student in civil engineering, and Jooho Kim, a doctoral student in construction engineering and management, wanted to calculate how much waste the crisis was generating as part of an in-class activity for a solid and hazardous waste management course taught by Whelton.
They were shocked to find that the millions of water bottles would have overwhelmed the city’s waste management system.
Key to Flint’s successful waste hauling, the researchers later discovered, were community organizations and government agencies who established sites around the community to distribute donated water bottles and filters, and pick up or drop off waste. They also helped residents to know about these services through local TV, social media and websites, newspapers and flyers.
But the process would need to be smoother for future crises.
“Waste management wasn’t built into the emergency response at all, so what we did was more reactionary than planned-out,” Flechter said.
Planning it out could possibly buy more time for other aspects of an emergency response, such as evaluating which households aren’t getting enough safe water.
Therefore, as part of their study, Purdue researchers recommended several ways for incorporating waste management into an emergency response plan. These include pre-identifying the roles of waste management organizations, setting up a procedure for estimating and documenting emergency water supply materials entering and exiting a community, determining where water should be distributed in advance, drafting public notifications about waste management activities and making the data on this emergency response publicly available so that people can conduct more case studies on the best possible strategies.
Unfortunately, it could be a while before waste management makes it into plans throughout the U.S.
“Drinking water is considered a critical lifeline, but federal emergency management doctrine has no clearly defined mission that is specific to supporting response and recovery,” said Kevin Morley, the federal relations manager for the American Water Works Association (AWWA). In 2017, AWWA testified to Congress on this matter and the impact on effective coordination and communications.
Even though federal organizations — including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Emergency Management Agency — provide guidelines for estimating how much water a person needs when a disaster strikes, the focus for waste removal is typically on large debris, such as tree limbs and building materials during a hurricane.
“In order for waste management protocols — like for bottled water if that’s the temporary solution — to be considered appropriately, there needs to be a clear water mission in the National Response Framework,” Morley said. “Then information sharing and coordination associated with the need can more effectively be considered as part of the overall response effort and demands on local waste management infrastructure.”
Still, the organizations who informed this study have already found its recommendations useful for water quality incidents in other communities across Michigan.
“It’s nice to have clear action steps and know which questions to bring up early. This way, we’re looking at the existing recycling infrastructure from the get-go and know how those bottles should be managed,” Flechter said.
The work aligns with Purdue’s Giant Leaps celebration, acknowledging the university’s global advancements made toward a sustainable economy and planet as part of Purdue’s 150th anniversary. This is one of the four themes of the yearlong celebration’s Ideas Festival, designed to showcase Purdue as an intellectual center solving real-world issues.
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Script Translation
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