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Michelle Lambo is a Florida native. Born and raised in St. Petersburg, Florida, she attended Boca Ceiga High School and went on to graduate from the University of Florida with a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and History. She attended Stetson University College of Law and graduated in 2003.
Michelle started her legal career as an assistant public defender for the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit in Hillsborough County, Florida. It was during her years at the Office of the Public Defender, where Michelle honed her trial and advocacy skills.
In 2006, Michelle left the Public Defender’s Officer and started working for the Law Office of James Thomas. During her years with Mr. Thomas’s office, Michelle developed an understanding and appreciation for traffic defense and driver’s license issues.
In 2013, Michelle opened up Michelle D. Lambo, P.A. Using the skills she developed, her firm focuses on criminal, traffic and driver license related matters. Michelle is known for fighting for her clients. She has tried over 100 cases. Michelle is an aggressive, dedicated and compassionate criminal defense attorney. She represent’s clients all over the State of Florida as well as in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida.
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School of Medicine / Departments / Pediatrics / About / News / Something New in the Air
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Something New in the Air, Division of Respiratory Medicine
San Diego, October 8th, 2009 – This year, over 3 million children have died from respiratory problems worldwide. According to the World Health Organization, respiratory complications are the leading killer of children today, especially children under five years old. Considering 6 children die per minute from respiratory conditions alone, the number one priority for improving child mortality should be renewed biomedical innovation in pediatric respiratory medicine. With a breath of fresh air, this is exactly what UC San Diego’s Department of Pediatrics is after.
The Division of Respiratory Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics is off to a great start. Until recently it consisted of four pediatric pulmonologists and a few researchers - a small program by most standards. In 2004, the arrival of Dr. Gabriel Haddad, Chair of the Department of Pediatrics, and Physician-in-Chief at Rady Children’s Hospital, added a world-class physician-scientist and several basic research faculty to boost the Division’s strength in basic research. This year, the U.S. News and World Report ranked the Division among the Top 25 in the country, outranking most Ivy Leagues in the running. Capitalizing on its strong clinical-research foundations, the Division has begun leveraging its tremendous opportunity to grow and help children with respiratory problems.
Professor James Hagood, the newly appointed Chief of the Division of Respiratory Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics, joins us from the University of Alabama School of Medicine. Dr. Hagood is an established physician-scientist with interests both in the clinical management of childhood chronic lung diseases, and in basic cellular and molecular investigations of chronic lung remodeling. He was the Director of the Pediatric Pulmonary Center, and Founder and Co-Director of the Translational Research in Normal and Disordered Development (TReNDD) Program at the University of Alabama-Birmingham (UAB).
Dr. Hagood has been recognized for his leadership as a physician-scientist and educator in pediatric respiratory medicine, and has been named one of America’s Top Pediatricians and Best Doctors in America. Among his numerous accolades, Dr. Hagood is a two-time recipient of the Rud Polhill Senior Investigator Award (basic research), and winner of the Ralph E. Tiller Distinguished Faculty Award (clinical teaching) and the Dean’s Award for mentoring at UAB. One of Dr. Hagood’s clinical interests is Childhood Interstitial Lung Disease (ChILD), a collection of rare disorders which cause diffuse alterations in the lungs. He has worked closely with the ChILD Foundation to develop educational materials for families living with ChILD. The NIH and the American Lung Association have funded Dr. Hagood’s studies over the past 15 years on the role of fibroblasts in lung fibrosis. Although his major research focus has been idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), a disease which affects only adults, recent data has shown that many of the molecular pathways which control the development of the lung in infancy and childhood are re-expressed in IPF and other lung diseases in adults. Dr. Hagood’s lab recently made the observation that epigenetic regulation, which has been shown to control such diverse processes as obesity and cancer, is also important in lung fibrosis. Dr. Hagood is excited about continuing this work at UCSD, and taking advantage of the opportunities to collaborate with the world-class scientists here.
But that’s not the only reason he came to San Diego. “I was extremely impressed by Dr. Haddad’s vision and enthusiasm, and the remarkable prior achievements of the Division of Pediatric Respiratory Medicine at UC San Diego,” Dr. Hagood remarks. “We have a strong group with amazing potential. We have an opportunity not only to maintain our ranking, but to move to the top.”
Bringing together the incredible basic research at UC San Diego and the top-ranked clinical enterprise at Rady Children’s is vital to Hagood’s vision. Faculty like Dr. Haddad and Dr. Paul Quinton are legends in the international arena of respiratory medicine. Dr. Haddad’s research focuses on the biology of how the body responds to low oxygen levels. Dr. Quinton’s expertise is in electrolyte transport abnormalities in cystic fibrosis (CF). His contributions were featured in recent articles in both Nature and Science reviewing the past two decades of progress in CF research. Dr. Julie Ryu, a physician-scientist who was recruited with Dr. Haddad, studies the response of the lung to carbon dioxide. Dr. Mark Pian, the former Co-Director of the Division, engages in clinical studies, patient care, and molecular research in cystic fibrosis, and directs the Division’s fellowship program. The Division has a strong reputation for patient care and education, with experienced clinicians such as Dr. Sung Park and Meerana Lim. Dr. Dan Lesser, a newly-recruited faculty member, will focus on respiratory problems in neuromuscular diseases, and on resident and fellow education. Over the next few years, the Division will be recruiting additional faculty to meet the clinical demand, and take advantage of the basic and translational research opportunities.
Dr. Hagood’s vision is bold as it is broad – he wants to extend the borders of translational research by engaging the biotech community, local families, and international collaborators. By fostering collaboration with some of the research institutes and biotech companies in the San Diego area, Hagood’s hope is to launch new interdisciplinary clinical trials in order to promote rapid and safe development of new drug therapies to help kids with respiratory conditions. The other important aspect of the Division’s mission is to actively engage patients and their families.
“I would like to foster a Family Advisory Board,” Dr. Hagood announces. “We want input from parents whose children have respiratory conditions, and from adolescents with respiratory problems themselves. Their input will help us to understand their suffering, to improve our patient care, improve our research goals, and improve our education. We want families to present their perspective at academic seminars, and contribute to educational materials on rare lung disease. Patient and family engagement will improve every aspect of what we do.”
In addition to its world-class clinical and research strengths, Dr. Hagood touts the Division’s educational mission. The faculty has a keen interest in training future clinicians and physician-scientists, from medical students to residents and fellows, in respiratory medicine and research. There is a united effort across the Division to develop the fellowship program to train future physicians in pediatric respiratory medicine.
“We are working as hard as we can to meet the needs of the patient population at all levels – providing care, providing education for future physicians and scientists, and carrying out innovative science that will lead to new treatments,” Dr. Hagood concludes. “San Diego has a large, diverse and intelligent population with a world-class scientific and medical community, and has all the makings to support a top-tier operation. Whether we are working with fruit flies in the laboratory or helping kids in the clinic, each of us in the Division play a critical role in combating the leading cause of child death. We’re not just in the race for the next big breakthrough. We’re here to improve children’s lives in the most basic of areas – breathing.”
The American Lung Association had a slogan that puts things in perspective, “If you can’t breathe, nothing else matters.”
Welcome, Dr. Hagood – there is something new in the air.
MEDIA CONTACT : Shivani Singh, Sr. Writer, Dept of Pediatrics, UC San Diego. s1singh@ucsd.edu
SCIENTIFIC CONTACT: Prof. James Hagood, MD, Chief, Division of Respiratory Medicine, Dept of Pediatrics, UC San Diego. jhagood@ucsd.edu
All Images Courtesy of Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, UC San Diego.
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Peruvian voters approve referendum proposals touted as answer to corruption
By Cesar Uco
In a national referendum held last Sunday, Peruvians overwhelmingly approved three out of four proposals that have been touted as the answer to the systematic corruption prevailing in every area of the ruling establishment from politicians, including former presidents and leaders of Congress, to leading business figures.
President Martin Vizcarra had promoted the referendum. He assumed the presidency on March 23, after his predecessor Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (PPK) was forced to resign over evidence linking him to the Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht, which has been at the center of a continent-wide corruption scandal. A video emerged allegedly showing the president’s supporters attempting to buy political support to block his impeachment.
Over one year ago, it was revealed that Odebrecht had been winning state contracts to build roads and bridges by bribing officials. The total amount spent in kickbacks and other illegal payments in Peru was over US$40 million.
The referendum was first called by Vizcarra, a right-wing defender of Peruvian big business and foreign capital, in his speech to the nation on July 28. Peruvians were asked to answer yes or no to four constitutional reforms:
1) Replacing the corrupt and discredited National Council of the Judiciary with a new institution, the National Committee of Justice; 2) Regulating political campaign financing; 3) Prohibiting consecutive reelection to Congress; and 4) Establishing a bicameral congress.
The first three proposals were approved by roughly 85 percent of the voters, while the fourth was rejected by over 90 percent.
Peru has been rocked in recent years by a series of corruption scandals involving influence peddling, using bourgeois political parties for money laundering and government officials, heads of major political parties and businessmen receiving bribes and kickbacks.
The judiciary was controlled by an inner circle led by former Supreme Judge Walter Rios, known as the Band of White Collars of the Port. The police obtained audio recordings of judges trading lighter sentences for professional advancement.
Congress, controlled by the right-wing fujimorista Fuerza Popular (FP) party, was rife with similar scandals. As an example of the many cases of congressional corruption, in December 2017 Kenji Fujimori, together with a group of FP dissidents, voted against impeaching the then-president and former Wall Street investment banker Kuczynski in exchange for a presidential pardon for his father, former president Alberto Fujimori.
The elder Fujimori was serving a 25-year sentence for having ordered the paramilitary “Grupo Colina” to conduct massacres of students and professors at La Cantuta University, and an attack perpetrated in a working-class neighborhood, Barrios Altos, where 15 people, mistakenly linked to the Maoist Shining Path group, were murdered, including an eight-year-old boy.
Though not a member of Congress, the leader of FP, Keiko Fujimori, controlled it. She has not only lost political influence with the referendum results, but is currently being held in preventive detention for 40 days in connection with alleged illegal campaign contributions. The party itself is threatened with a major split .
In the executive branch, corruption reached the top, implicating five former presidents who have ruled Peru from 1985 to the present:
* Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), sentenced to 25 years for crimes against humanity.
* Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006), who received a US$25 million kickback from Odebrecht in exchange for multibillion-dollar deals, is currently living in California under the protection of the US government.
* Alan Garcia (1985-1990 and 2006-2011), who, claiming political persecution, sought asylum in the Uruguayan Embassy, until he had to leave when that country denied his request, is accused of illicit enrichment and obstruction of justice related to the Odebrecht scandal.
* Ollanta Humala and his wife Nadine (2011-2016), accused of receiving money for their presidential campaign from Odebrecht and Venezuela, were subject to preventive incarceration until the Constitutional Tribunal declared this measure was illegal.
* Completing the list is the former Wall Street banker PPK (2016-2017) who was forced to resign last March to avoid charges that would have sent him to jail.
As expected, the media is portraying the referendum results as blow against corruption, a personal triumph of Vizcarra and a defeat for the fujimorista FP in Congress.
The real motives underlying the referendum, however, are quite different than those promoted by the media and the government.
One week ago, Peru’s annual Conference of Executives (CADE-Executives 2018) saw the government and top business figures agree to put up a common fight aimed at the destruction of living standards of the working class. The government claims that Peru’s labor costs are too high compared to its global competitors and need to be reduced significantly.
Vizcarra’s proposal is to cut or eliminate all benefits except salaries. This will not happen without fierce opposition by the millions that constitute the Peruvian working class.
The referendum and the supposed crusade against corruption are aimed at providing a cover for the coming offensive against the working class.
Even as the government tries to use the referendum results to line up the political parties behind this coming confrontation with the working class, new charges have been leveled by former president Garcia that Kuczynski’s second vice president, Mercedes Aráoz, and his campaign manager, today’s President Vizcarra, received 6 million soles that no one can account for. He is calling for an investigation into PPK and the current president himself.
Vizcarra is counting on crucial support from two bourgeois left parties in his government’s campaign against the Peruvian workers. Their ecstatic reaction to the referendum results has aligned them closely with the government. Indira Huilca from Frente Amplio declared that “the people had sanctioned fujimorismo,” while Veronika Mendoza from Nuevo Peru backed Vizcarra, calling for “a new Constitution for a new Peru.” She added that the referendum demonstrated “that in democracy it is the sovereign people who command.”
As Vizcarra seeks to refurbish the image of a bourgeois state that had lost all credibility in the eyes of the working class and the poor, Mendoza has taken upon herself the job of providing him with a left cover, concealing from the working class the sharp threats posed by the current government’s policies.
Former President Garcia’s suicide exposes desperate crisis of Peruvian bourgeoisie
Conflict continues over Peruvian copper mine as peasant blockade is lifted
Eight miners die from toxic gases in Peru’s northern highlands
Heavy rains and avalanches kill dozens in Peru
Lima sewage disaster exposes infrastructure neglect in Peru
Workers Struggles: the Americas
Chilean unions scramble to quell mass strike movement
Ten years since the US-backed coup in Honduras
Striking Chilean copper miners defy police violence
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Sheba by Fiona Wolf-Symeonides (Australia)
Photo © Fiona Wolf-Symeonides
Sheba with Monty and Iris, 2016 Waterloo
This picture is part of my series on motherhood, called: Hero Mums. It describes the juggle and balance between your creative side and your children. The energy you have to share to raise the kids but not forget yourself and who you really are.
Amongst the new developments in Waterloo a surreal and constructed "Legoland" this mother is raising her twins. Sheba is a singer and performer oozing with talent. An outgoing personality with glitz and glamour. We met at our local playground.
Fiona is a Photographer and exhibiting Artist based in Sydney.
Born in 1976 in Sydney and raised in Germany she returned to Sydney in 2005 with experience working as a Sound Engineer and Camera Assistant for German television, as a photo editor for New Economy Magazine and as Creative Manager for Universal Music, Berlin.
Fiona relocated to Sydney in 2005 and has been making her mark in the photographic world ever since.
In 2010 Fiona was the winner of the Head On Portrait Prize, one of Australia’s most prestigious photography awards followed by Semi finalist and Finalist in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. She was also a finalist in the Olive Cotton Award amongst other industry awards like the Manning art Prize and finally the National Portrait Prize in 2014.
As well as working as a freelance photographer and exhibiting her personal work regularly, Fiona has been tutoring at the Australian Centre for Photography since 2009.
Fiona also offers private tuition to photographers at all levels as well as curatorial advice, business coaching and portfolio development.
WWW.WOLFWERK.NET
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Despite being hated by the peeps, the sisters live a happy life, until cousin Charles arrives. Later, Charles offers to help around the house and examines the family’s finances. However, Constance is pleased by Charles and Merricat dislikes Charles’ intervention. Eventually, as Charles and Merricat battle for control, tragedy threatens to strike again. In fact, the film is based on the 1962 novel by Shirley Jackson.
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August 5, 2018 by Kat
Dandelions by Yasunari Kawabata
The act of reading Yasunari Kawabata’s spare, elegant novels can feel like decoding a fragment of a poem. Best known for his gorgeous novels,The Old Capital and Snow Country (which I wrote about here and here), Kawabata won the Nobel Prize in 1968.
His books have an eerie, dreamlike beauty, and a new translation of Kawabata’s Dandelions, an unfinished novel published in 22 installments in a Japanese literary magazine in the 1960s, is an exquisite, enigmatic work of art.
The translator Michael Emmerich writes so gracefully that even the afterword seamlessly blends into the text, like part of the novel. I read Dandelions in one sitting.
Emmerich writes,
Dandelions is an intense, peculiar book…. It makes me think of a blurry photograph whose streaked colors and lack of clarity call to mind the hands gripping the camera, even though they are not there in the frame. If the cameraman had been able to retake the photo, we would have been left with a sharper, more focused image, but it would not have communicated the same messy, vibrant warmth.
Written in the form of a conversation between a man and a woman who have reluctantly left a young woman in a mental asylum, this strange novel has a surreal and dreamlike mood. The woman, who Kawabata calls only “the mother of Ineko,” is adamant that her daughter needs treatment for her strange disorder, an intermittent inability to see body parts and other things in her range of vision. (This disorder exists: it is a glitch in somatognosia, our ability to see body parts.) The first time it happened to Ineko was during a ping-pong tournament, when she suddenly could not see the ball. Now it happens when she and her fiance, Kuno, are intimate: his body slowly disappears from view.
Kuno thinks her symptoms are trivial and that she will recover once they are married. The mother of Ineko vehemently disagrees. Kuno respects her, but he wants to go back to the asylum and retrieve Ineko.
Meanwhile, he discusses their own selective omissions of sight, which may or may not be glitches in somatognosia. On their walk back to the town, he has seen a white rat and a white dandelion, which she claims were not there and do not exist. She has noticed a tree which he did not see; he says it may not exist. And she spots a boy who looks like a dandelion or a fairy; Kuno says he is just an ordinary boy.
Told that by the doctor that the patients take turns ringing the temple’s bell as a therapeutic measure, Kuno analyzes the tone of Ineko’s ringing (she is scheduled to ring it at 3). Later, at the inn where he and Ineko’s mother stay the night, the bell rings again at 9 and he invents a story about the patient who rings it.
The mother is far too pragmatic to think in narrative form, but she reveals Ineko’s unhappy past. When Ineko was a child, riding side by side on a trail with her father, who taught at a riding school, his horse slipped over the cliff and both he and the horse died. At the exact moment, Ineko fainted on her own horse. And the mother connects this fainting incident to Ineko’s disorder.
We never know what Ineko thinks, but I couldn’t help but hope that Kuno would go back for her. And yet her mother has a point: it would be traumatic for a young bride not to be able to see her husband’s body parts.
Yes, this is very strange, but the writing is beautiful. I seldom like unfinished novels, but this one is brilliant.
This entry was tagged Dandelions, Kawabata. Bookmark the permalink.
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The Missing BBC Adaptations of George Gissing →
2 thoughts on “Dandelions by Yasunari Kawabata”
Simon T | August 6, 2018 at 4:48 am
Gosh, very intriguing. I don’t know this author at all, and perhaps it wouldn’t make sense to start with an unfinished book, but I’m intrigued to find some of the other novels.
Kat | August 6, 2018 at 7:09 am
Kawabata is stunning!
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I Wanna Be Adored (Remastered)
The Stone Roses (Remastered) 1989
She Bangs the Drums (Remastered)
Love Spreads
Second Coming 1994
Fools Gold (Remastered)
Waterfall (Remastered)
Made of Stone (Remastered)
I Am the Resurrection (Remastered)
(Song for My) Sugar Spun Sister (Remastered)
This Is the One (Remastered)
Essential Album
Artist Playlists
About The Stone Roses
Meshing '60s-styled guitar pop with an understated '80s dance beat, the Stone Roses defined the British guitar pop scene of the late '80s and early '90s. After their eponymous 1989 debut album became an English sensation, countless other groups in the same vein became popular, including the Charlatans UK, Inspiral Carpets, and Happy Mondays. However, the Stone Roses were never able to capitalize on the promise of their first album, waiting five years before they released their second record and slowly disintegrating in the year-and-a-half after its release.
The Stone Roses emerged from the remains of English Rose, a Manchester-based band formed by schoolmates John Squire (guitar) and Ian Brown (vocals). In 1985, the Stone Roses officially formed, as Squire and Brown added drummer Reni (born Alan John Wren), guitarist Andy Couzens, and bassist Pete Garner. The group began playing warehouses around Manchester, cultivating a dedicated following rather quickly. Around this time, the group was a cross between classic British '60s guitar pop and heavy metal, with touches of goth rock. Couzens left the group in 1987, followed shortly afterward by Garner, who was replaced by Mani (born Gary Mounfield) and the group recorded its first single, "So Young," which was released to little fanfare by Thin Line Records. At the end of 1987, the Stone Roses released their second single, "Sally Cinnamon," which pointed the way toward the band's hook-laden, ringing guitar pop. By the fall of 1988, the band secured a contract with Silvertone Records and released "Elephant Stone," a single that set the band's catchy neo-psychedelic guitar pop in stone.
Shortly after the release of "Elephant Stone," the Stone Roses' bandwagon took off in earnest. In early 1989, the group was playing sold-out gigs across Manchester and London. In May, band released their eponymous debut album, which demonstrated not only a predilection for '60s guitar hooks, but also a contemporary acid house rhythmic sensibility. The Stone Roses received rave reviews and soon a crop of similar-sounding bands appeared in the U.K. By the end of the summer, the Stone Roses were perceived as leading a wave of bands that fused rock & roll and acid house culture.
"She Bangs the Drums," the third single pulled from the debut, became the group's first Top 40 single at the end of the summer. In November, the group had its first Top Ten hit when "Fool's Gold" climbed to number eight. By the end of the year, the band had moved from selling out clubs to selling out large theaters in the U.K.
For the first half of 1990, re-releases of the band's earlier singles clogged the charts. They returned in July 1990 with the single "One Love," which entered the charts at number four. Prior to the release of "One Love," the Stone Roses organized their own festival at Spike Island in Widnes. The concert drew over 30,000 people and would prove to be their last concert in England for five years. After Spike Island, the group became embroiled in a vicious legal battle with Silvertone Records -- the band wanted to leave the label but Silvertone took out a court injunction against them, preventing the group from releasing any new material. For the next two years, they fought Silvertone while allegedly preparing the follow-up to their debut album. However, the Stone Roses did next to nothing as the court case rolled on. In the meantime, several major record labels began negotiating with the band in secret. In March of 1991, the lawsuit went to court. Two months later, the band won its case against Silvertone and signed a multi-million deal with Geffen Records.
For the next three years, the Stone Roses worked sporadically on their second album, leaving behind scores of uncompleted tapes. During these years, the group kept a low profile in the press but that wasn't to preserve the mystique -- they simply weren't doing much of anything besides watching football. Finally, in the spring of 1994, Geffen demanded that the group finish the album and the band complied, completing the record, titled Second Coming, in the fall. "Love Spreads," the Stone Roses' comeback single, was debuted on Radio One in early November. The single received lukewarm reviews and entered the charts at number two, not the expected number one. Second Coming received mixed reviews and only spent a few weeks in the Top Ten.
The Stone Roses planned an international tour in early 1995 to support the album, but the plans kept unraveling at the last minute. Before they could set out on tour, Reni left the band, leaving the group without a drummer. He was replaced by Robbie Maddix, who had previously played in Rebel MC. After Maddix joined the band, they embarked on a short American tour at the conclusion of which John Squire broke his collarbone in a bike accident. Squire's accident forced them to cancel a headlining spot at the 25th Glastonbury Festival, which would have been their first concert in the U.K. in five years. As Squire recuperated, the Stone Roses continued to sink in popularity and respect -- even as their peers, the Charlatans and former Happy Mondays vocalist Shaun Ryder, made unexpectedly triumphant comebacks.
The band added a keyboardist to the lineup prior to their U.K. tour at the end of 1995; it was the first British tour since 1990. In the spring of 1996, Squire announced that he was leaving the band he'd founded in order to form a new, more active group. The Stone Roses announced their intention to carry on with a new guitarist, but by October of that year the group was finished. Squire's new band, Seahorses, released its debut album in June 1997, while Brown began a solo career in 1998 with Unfinished Monkey Business. Mani joined Primal Scream as full-time bassist, although he also played on several tours by Stereophonics.
Aside from continual denials from Squire and others that no reunion was forthcoming, there was no news about the Stone Roses for close to 15 years, until 2011. During the early part of the year -- after an emotional reunion of Brown and Squire at the funeral for Mani's mother -- rumors swirled that the Roses would be back for at least one show. Then, in October 2011, the band announced a full reunion, including tour dates that began with a three-show appearance in Manchester in late June of 2012, and extended through the entire festival season. By December, a recording contract had also been announced, with the band's future recordings appearing on Universal in Great Britain and Columbia in the United States. Four years after those contracts were signed, the first fruits from recording sessions at Paul Epworth's studios appeared. In May 2016, the band released the single All for One," the first new material from the four-piece in some 21 years. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
The Charlatans UK
Black Grape
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Nikita Magaloff plays Robert Schumann
Carnaval op. 9 · Faschingshwank aus Wien op. 26 · Arabesque op. 18
Исполнитель: Nikita Magaloff
Carnaval, Op. 9: No. 1 in A-Flat Major, Préambule
Carnaval, Op. 9: No. 2 in E-Flat Major, Pierrot
Carnaval, Op. 9: No. 3 in B-Flat Major, Arlequin
Carnaval, Op. 9: No. 4 in B-Flat Major, Valse noble
Carnaval, Op. 9: No. 5 in E-Flat Major, Eusebius
Carnaval, Op. 9: No. 6 in G Minor, Florestan
Carnaval, Op. 9: No. 7 in B-Flat Major, Coquette
Carnaval, Op. 9: No. 8 in B-Flat Major, Réplique
Carnaval, Op. 9: No. 9 in B-Flat Major, Papillons
Carnaval, Op. 9: No. 10 in E-Flat Major, Lettres dansantes
Carnaval, Op. 9: No. 11 in C Minor, Chiarina
Carnaval, Op. 9: No. 12 in A-Flat Major, Chopin
Carnaval, Op. 9: No. 13 in F Minor, Estrella
Carnaval, Op. 9: No. 14 in A-Flat Major, Reconnaissance
Carnaval, Op. 9: No. 15 in F Minor, Pantalon et Colombine
Carnaval, Op. 9: No. 16 in A Major, Valse allemande
Carnaval, Op. 9: No. 17 in F Minor, Paganini
Carnaval, Op. 9: No. 18 in D-Flat Major, Aveu
Carnaval, Op. 9: No. 19 in A-Flat Major, Promenade
Carnaval, Op. 9: No. 20 in A-Flat Major, Pause
Carnaval, Op. 9: No. 21 in A-Flat Major, Marche des Davidsbündler contre les Philistins
Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Op. 26: No. 1 in B Major, Allegro
Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Op. 26: No. 2 in G Minor, Romanze
Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Op. 26: No. 3 in B-Flat Major, Scherzino
Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Op. 26: No. 4 in E-Flat Minor, Intermezzo
Faschingsschwank aus Wien, Op. 26: No. 5 in B-Flat Major, Finale
Arabesque in C Major, Op. 18
ЛейблNar International
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You are here: Home In Conversation With Jesse Cook
In Conversation With Jesse Cook
Posted on October 8, 2009 by Ken Kelley |
With seven records and more than 300,000 records sold in Canada alone, Jesse Cook is no stranger to success. In the past 15 years, the Toronto-based Cook has created some of the most infectious, upbeat rumba flamenco music to emerge from within our borders and is seeing his profile on the rise internationally.
Cook credits his parents (and maybe a little help from fate) in steering him down the path of rumba and flamenco music performer.
“When I was growing up, my parents had these rumba and flamenco records that they would play, so I was given a lot of exposure to those genres of music through them,” Cook explains from his Toronto home. “And then when my father retired, he ended up living in a small community in the south of France and ended up buying a house next door to the lead singer of the Gypsy Kings, which gave me additional exposure to that particular style of music.
“And then after moving to Canada, the first guitar teacher I had was a flamenco teacher so naturally the first pieces I learned how to play on the guitar were rooted in that. As a teenager, I never really got into typical Canadian music that kids would normally get into.”
Cook released his debut album Tempest in 1995 and has fortunately never had to look back. With consistently high chart positions on the Canadian and American record charts, Cook won his fans over one by one but would soon see his fan base explode based on the buzz of his then small but devoted fans.
The fact that Cook has encountered such resounding success not being a “typical Canadian musician” isn’t lost on the artist either.
“I’m very comfortable with the fact that I’m a bit off the beaten path. When I first started, people wouldn’t hesitate to suggest how they thought I should sound.”
Cook would hold firm to his choice of music to perform, opting to pursue a career fraught with longevity rather than being a 15 minute pop flavour of the month.
For his newest record The Rumba Foundation, Cook decamped to Bogota, Colombia where he connected with a group called Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto. Getting the group involved in the recording process was ideal according to Cook.
“I was writing an album that was being overrun with Colombian influence so I travelled to Colombia to work with them. Making this record was a bit of an adventure,” Cook admits. “After all, I didn’t know these people but could immediately tell there was a substance and depth to their music that I would not have found had I stayed in Canada to make the record.”
Despite the lack of verbal comprehension between them, Cook says they decided to let the music be the common language between them.
“Los Gaiteros are traditionalists and haven’t done much in the way of collaboration with musicians outside their genre of music. There was a lot of head-scratching going on sometimes as we tried to bridge our two worlds,” he laughs.
Over the life cycle of his superb new record, raising his international profile to rival the success found on North American shores will be a top priority for Cook. “We won’t be neglecting Canada and the US by any means but international work will really be the focus of what we’re doing over the next little while.
“I’ve always had interest from fans abroad but the costs always proved to be prohibitive to us getting there. But I recently changed management companies and they are very focused on getting us to play for our fans overseas. They are really keen to get us out there.”
Currently on Cook’s international schedule will be visits to places like Malta, Turkey, Italy, England and Ireland, while he will undertake a tour of the Maritimes in April 2010.
Does it intimidate him in the least to know that his life is planned out such a long time in advance?
“It is a little tough, yes. I still love going out on the road but I have kids now and it makes it tough to leave them behind. I’d actually like to try to bring out my family on tour more often. My son loves being on a tour bus so hopefully we will have a chance to bring my family out before my kids start school.”
Jesse Cook’s new record The Rumba Foundation is now available at all fine music retailers.
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Home Home Page Featured VA to open clinic in the Northeast
VA to open clinic in the Northeast
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is in the process of setting up a community healthcare clinic in Northeast Philadelphia.
Jack Tomczuk
Veterans who live in Northeast Philadelphia may soon have a healthcare option closer to home.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has begun the process of establishing its first location in the Northeast.
A spokesman for the Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center told the Northeast Times that officials in Washington recently approved the new clinic.
“We’re excited,” Philadelphia VA spokesman Jonathan Hodges said. “It’s a long time coming from what I’m told.”
Officials have not yet decided on a location for the community-based outpatient clinic, Hodges said. He said the center will be a primary care facility that also provides speciality care referrals to the main hospital in University City.
Currently, the VA’s closest community clinic is in Horsham. The agency also operates the “Northeast Philadelphia Vet Center,” which, oddly enough, is in Olney. Another Vet Center is located in Bristol.
“We have always recognized the need for a VA location in the Northeast especially as we work to ensure we can give veterans care not only when they want it but where they want it,” Hodges said in an email.
Hodges said he expects the VA will narrow down a list of potential locations for the new clinic in the spring or early summer. The Philadelphia office is also considering partnering with the University of Pennsylvania on the project, he said. ••
New law allowing state prosecution of city gun cases erupts in controversy
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Home › On the Origin of Species
On the Origin of Species
Hardback - $34.99 CAD
Charles Darwin’s groundbreaking On the Origin of Species is now available in an accessible, illustrated edition for young readers that includes an introduction, glossary, modern insight and information, and more!
Charles Darwin’s famous theory of natural selection shook the world of science to its core, challenging centuries of orthodox beliefs about life itself. Darwin’s boundary-shattering treatise was captured in On the Origin of Species, originally published in 1859, a groundbreaking and detailed study on ecological interrelatedness, the complexity of animal and plant life, and the realities of evolution.
This Young Reader’s Edition makes Darwin’s cornerstone of modern science accessible to readers of all ages. Meticulously curated to honor Darwin’s original text, this compelling edition also provides contemporary insight, photographs, illustrations, and more. This adaptation is a must-have for any reader with a curious mind and the desire to explore one of the most influential books of our time.
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© Fernando Ugarte
The humpback whale is a baleen whale of the family Balaenopteridae. The Balaenopteridae include such species as the blue (Balaenoptera musculus), minke (B. acutorostrata) and fin (B. physalus) whales, and are characterized by their large size (the blue whale is the largest animal that has ever lived), ventral grooves which allow the mouth to expand, streamlined shape, high swimming speed and relatively short baleen plates. Humpback whales arch their backs at the sea surface when initiating a dive, which is the origin of the common name for the species. The genus name Megaptera means “large wing” in Greek, and describes the very large pectoral fins, which are about 1/3 the body length, the largest of any whale. The pectoral fins are mostly white in colour and easily distinguish humpbacks from other large whales. Males and females are similar in body form, coloration and size, although females are slightly larger than males.
Distribution of humpback whales in the North Atlantic (light green). Orange indicates breeding & calving areas, dark green indicates feeding areas.
Summer sightings of humpback whales during all NASS from 1987-2015. Black lines indicate areas surveyed (not all areas surveyed in each year).
At least 22,000 in the North Atlantic
Found worldwide except for the very high Arctic. Humpbacks in the North Atlantic migrate between breeding grounds in the tropics (Caribbean) and feeding grounds as far north as northern Norway.
RELATION TO HUMANS
Long history of exploitation by both subsistence and commercial whaling. Hunted today in Greenland and in St Vincent and the Grenadines.
Popular target of whale-watching operations.
CONSERVATION AND MANAGEMENT
Populations increasing where data is available; e.g., increases of 12% per year off Iceland between 1986-2001 and 9.4% per year off West Greenland between 1984-2007.
International management jurisdiction of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and NAMMCO. NAMMCO provides scientific advice on stock status and sustainable takes, and proposals for conservation and management to member governments. The IWC gives advice on sustainability of quotas.
1. Names
Latin name: Megaptera novaengliae
Norwegian: Knølhval
Icelandic: Hnúfubakur
Faroese: Kúlubøka
Greenlandic: Qipoqqaq
Danish: Pukkelhval
English: Humpback whale
2. General characteristics
Humpback whales live up to about 70 years of age
Humpback whales reach a maximum length of about 17 m and a maximum weight of about 36 tonnes, although the average size is smaller than this. Females grow to a slightly larger size than males. Calves are about 6 m and 1.8 tonnes at birth
Humpback whales reach sexual maturity at 4 to 7 years of age, and give birth to a single calf every 2 to 3 years on average. Calves are born after a gestation of 11 – 12 months, nurse for 6 months to a year and are independent after about a year
Humpback whales are long-distance travellers, making the longest annual migrations of any mammal. In the North Atlantic, they migrate annually between tropical breeding and mating areas occupied in the late winter and spring, to high latitude feeding areas in the summer, fall and early winter. The annual return trip between feeding and breeding areas can exceed 15,000 km
Humpback whales feed by engulfing a large quantity of water that contains their prey, unfolding their ventral grooves to expand their mouth cavity, then expelling the water through the baleen, which filters out the prey items, which are then swallowed. In the North Atlantic, humpback whales feed mainly on euphausiids (krill), small schooling fish such as capelin (Mallotus villosus), Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus), sand eels (Ammodytes spp.), and mackerel (Scomber spp.)
The humpback whale is a baleen whale of the family Balaenopteridae. The Balaenopteridae include such species as the blue (Balaenoptera musculus), minke (B. acutorostrata) and fin (B. physalus) whales, and are characterized by their large size (the blue whale is the largest animal that has ever lived), ventral grooves which allow the mouth to expand, streamlined shape, high swimming speed and relatively short baleen plates. Humpback whales arch their backs at the sea surface when initiating a dive, which is the origin of the common name for the species. The genus name Megaptera means “large wing” in Greek, and describes the very large pectoral fins, which are about 1/3 the body length, the largest of any whale.
Humpback whales are quite variable in colouration, but are usually dark grey or nearly black dorsally, with some white patterning on their flukes and pectoral fins. The white markings combined with nicks and gouges on the flukes are individually distinctive and are frequently used to identify individual animals (e.g. Smith et al. 1999). The ventral side is much lighter in colour and sometimes mostly white. The ventral grooves run from the ventral rostrum for about half the body length. The head and lower jaw are covered in knobbly hair follicles called tubercles, and also often host a heavy growth of barnacles.
Humpback whale showing the knobby “tubercles” on the rostrum (nose). © Fernando Ugarte
Humpback whales reach a maximum length of about 17 m and a maximum weight of about 36 tonnes, although the average size is smaller than this. Females grow to a slightly larger size than males (Bettridge et al. 2015). Calves are born after a gestation of 11 – 12 months and are about 6 m and 1.8 tonnes at birth. Calves nurse for 6 months to a year and are independent after about a year.
Humpback whales are long-distance travellers, making the longest annual migrations of any mammal. In the North Atlantic, they migrate annually between tropical breeding and mating areas in the late winter and spring, to high latitude feeding areas in the summer, fall and early winter. The annual return trip between feeding and breeding areas can exceed 15,000 km. However humpback whales are not fast swimmers compared to other members of their family, normally travelling between 2 – 12 km per hour and up to 200 km per day during migration (Heide-Jørgensen and Laidre 2007, Ford and Reeves 2008).
Humpback whales reach sexual maturity at 4 to 7 years of age, and give birth to a single calf every 2 to 3 years on average (IWC 2002, NAMMCO 2009). Their only known predator is the killer whale (Orcinus orca), which probably take mainly calves in the North Atlantic (Ford and Reeves 2008).
Humpback whales are a favourite of whale-watchers, as they are very active at the surface, often breaching, rolling and gulping prey. They often engage in group feeding behaviour. Humpbacks make a wide variety of sounds but are known for their highly varied and characteristic “songs” which may last 20 minutes or more and are distinctive to stocks (Bettridge et al. 2015).
Listen to humpback whale songs on their breeding grounds in the Silver Banks
3. Life History and Ecology
Life History and Ecology
As members of the family Balaenopteridae, humpback whales are “baleen” whales. Baleen is composed of plates of a keratin, a fibrous structural protein that also is found in fingernails, claws and hair. These plates hang down from the upper jaw, taking the place of teeth in baleen whales. Baleen plates are fringed by fine hairs that form a fibrous filter when the plates are extended. Baleen whales feed by engulfing a large quantity of water that contains their prey, unfolding their ventral grooves to expand their mouth cavity, then expelling the water through the baleen, which filters out the prey items, which are then swallowed.
© NOAA
The humpback whale is a medium-sized baleen whale, smaller than the blue, fin, right or bowhead whales but larger than sei or minke whales. Calves are born in tropical waters after a gestation period of 11-12 months. Mating occurs in the same area, however females who have given birth do not usually mate in the same year, leading to a calving interval of 2 – 3 years. Males and females reach sexual maturity at an age of 5 – 7 years, and may live up to about 70 years. Calves rely on their mothers for milk for about the first six months of their lives, and are weaned and independent at one year of age (IWC 2002, Bettridge et al. 2015, Clapham et al. 2003).
Male humpbacks also travel to the tropical breeding grounds in most years, where they compete with one another to mate with receptive females. Males are polygynous, meaning that they may mate with several females in a single season. Humpback whales are well known for their songs, which are composed of individual spaced elements and may last 10 -20 minutes and can be heard by other whales at distances of up to 50 km (Bettridge et al. 2015). Only males sing, and they do so primarily (but not always) during the mating season. The song is repeated, often for hours on end, and each song is characteristic of the mating group, or stock. Songs do not vary much between individuals but do evolve over the course of months or years. The function of humpback whale song is clearly related to mating. It may serve as a secondary sexual characteristics, with females choosing the male with the most desirable song. Alternately, singing may be a competitive, antagonistic interaction among males vying for mates, or may serve to space males on the breeding ground.
Males often compete aggressively during the mating season, often butting heads or ramming one another, or hitting each other with their flukes or flippers. The tubercles, the hard, knobby growths on the head, lower jaw, fins and flukes may serve a role as weapons in this aggression. They are often encrusted with barnacles: a single whale may carry as much as 450 kg of barnacles! The hard, sharp barnacle encrustation may serve to enhance the effect of a blow, whether in competition with another male or in defence against a predator (Ford and Reeves 2008).
During most times of the year, humpback whales are found in small groups of 2 – 5 animals. Sometimes larger groups form temporarily to engage in cooperative feeding on prey aggregations. Groups of up to 95 animals have been spotted off West Greenland, but the function of these very large groups is unknown (Heide-Jørgensen et al. 2008).
Humpback whales are the mammalian champions of migration, travelling up to 15,000 km per year between their tropical breeding/mating area and their high latitude feeding grounds. They arrive at the breeding grounds in February, and most are gone by the end of April (Stevick et al. 2016). Breeding grounds are found around tropical islands and are usually in fairly shallow waters, close to shore or associated with offshore reefs (IWC 2002). Most animals use the same breeding ground throughout their lives, however recently some exchange between breeding grounds has been observed (Stevick et al. 2016).
Humpback whales begin to arrive at their northerly feeding grounds in May. Six feeding grounds have been identified; these range in latitude from 43° (Gulf of Maine) to the northern Norwegian and Barents Seas (75°). Similarly the migration distance varies from less than 1,000 km from the Gulf of Maine to over 7,000 km for North Norway. Most whales appear to use the same feeding ground year after year, and may even return to the same bay or fjord repeatedly (IWC 2002, Boye et al. 2010). Although humpback whales are not fast swimmers compared to some other baleen whales, migration between the breeding and feeding grounds can be quite rapid, with animals often travelling over 200 km per day for several weeks to complete the journey (Heide-Jørgensen and Laidre 2007, Kennedy et al. 2013, NAMMCO 2015). The complete round trip from the Norwegian feeding ground to the Caribbean breeding ground may take more than five months (Kennedy et al. 2013). Feeding grounds typically occur in areas where water masses mix, causing upwelling and leading to high productivity. This leads to concentrations of pelagic crustaceans and small fish, enabling the whales to feed effectively.
Not all humpback whales make the return trip from the feeding grounds to the breeding grounds every year. Some linger on the Icelandic feeding ground throughout the entire winter, following the migrating capelin (Mallotus villosus) (Magnusdóttir et al. 2014). ). Humpback whales have also been recorded throughout the winter off Greenland, Norway and the British Isles (IWC 2002, Heide-Jørgensen and Laidre 2007, Smith and Pike 2009). Humpback whale songs have also been recorded in some of these areas, suggesting that mating activity may be taking place. There is also some evidence that the migratory behaviour of humpback whales has changed in historical times. Whaling records indicate that that the principal Caribbean breeding ground occurred much farther south in the Windward Islands, an area with few breeding whales today (Smith and Reeves 2011). Presently the breeding ground lies farther north off the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico (Smith et al. 1999). A large number of whales were also taken on the Cape Verde breeding ground, and area that holds few whales today (Smith and Reeves 2011, Reilly et al. 2008, Wenzel et al. 2009). In recent years, humpback whales have begun to occur in fjords in Northern Norway, where they were completely absent less than 10 years ago. The migratory behaviour of humpback whales therefore has a degree of flexibility, with some animals apparently not migrating in some years, and migratory patterns changing over decades, perhaps in response to changes in prey distribution or other factors.
Humpback whales have a diverse diet and exhibit great flexibility and variation in their feeding behaviour. They prefer to feed on prey that has been naturally concentrated by currents and upwelling or by spawning and migratory behaviour. They also use their maneuverability and social cooperation to further concentrate and trap prey animals, making their feeding more efficient.
Humpback whales feeding off the coast of Norway. © Fernando Ugarte
In the North Atlantic, humpback whales feed mainly on euphausiids (krill), small schooling fish such as capelin (Mallotus villosus), Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus), sand eels (Ammodytes spp.), and mackerel (Scomber spp.). The diet varies by season and feeding ground depending on the availability of suitable prey. In the Gulf of Maine, humpback whales feed on spawning herring which form large dense schools at night (Gong et al. 2014). Off Greenland and Iceland they feed primarily on euphausiids, capelin and sand eels (Heide-Jørgensen and Laidre 2007, Heide-Jørgensen and Simon 2007, Magnusdóttir et al. 2014). Humpbacks appear to track the movements of their prey and change their distribution in response to changes in the abundance and distribution of prey species. For example the distribution of humpbacks has changed greatly around Iceland and northern Norway in recent years, apparently in response to changes in the distribution of capelin and herring (Víkingsson et al. 2015).
Watch humpback whales in Northern Norway under the Northern Lights
Watch a video of humpback whales taken by the Institute of Marine Research
During the breeding season, humpbacks do not feed, surviving on their stored blubber reserves. These tropical waters do not host the concentrated schools of invertebrates or fish that humpbacks require for efficient feeding.
Feeding dives may last as long as 16 minutes, but are usually much shorter (Heide-Jørgensen and Laidre 2007). Feeding depth varies with the distribution of the prey but seldom exceeds about 200 m.
Humpback whales have a much more varied repertoire of feeding behaviours than other baleen whales. Humpbacks forage singly or in groups. The most common feeding mode is “lunge feeding”, in which the whale accelerates rapidly forward (lunges), opening its mouth, expanding its buccal cavity by stretching out the ventral grooves, and engulfing a volume of prey-laden water that can exceed its own weight (Simon et al. 2012). The whale then expels this water through its baleen to filter out the prey, which is then swallowed.
Humpbacks may be the only cetaceans to engage in a form of tool use. They use their expelled air to create walls or nets of bubbles with which they corral and herd schools of fish. They often do this in small groups, cooperating to concentrate their prey, then engulfing it. This often results in spectacular surface displays, with groups of humpbacks breaching the surface as they engulf schooling fish, amidst a roiling cloud of bubbles (Bettridge et al. 2015). These are behaviours that must be learned and practiced, implying a relatively high degree of cultural transmission. Feeding activity often varies with time of day, following the vertical migrations of their prey. In some areas, humpbacks dive to the bottom and roll repeatedly, likely startling bottom dwelling fish into the water column which are then engulfed. However much feeding is done near the surface, increasing the appeal of this species to whale watchers.
Humpback whale bubble feeding © Christine Khan/NOAA
Humpback whales produce a variety of sounds that are associated with feeding activity. Some of these may be used to maintain coordination during group feeding. In the Gulf of Maine, humpbacks make repeated, short clicks, termed “meows” or “megaclicks”, while feeding on schooling herring at night. One conjecture is that this is a primitive form of echolocation, or sonar, which has been previously thought to be restricted to toothed whales such as dolphins, narwhals and belugas. The sounds are of a frequency range and duration suitable for the acoustic detection of fish schools. However, as this behaviour has not been directly observed, it remains uncertain whether this is true echolocation or perhaps some form of communication or signalling between individuals (Gong et al. 2014).
As one of the largest animals on earth, an adult humpback whale is a formidable opponent for any predator. Calves are however more vulnerable, and there is evidence that predation by killer whales (Orcinus orca) may be significant in some areas. A relatively high proportion of animals, 20 – 40% in some areas, have rake marks on their flukes or fins that could only be made by killer whales (Ford and Reeves 2008, McCordic et al. 2014). Long-term photo-ID studies suggest that most whales get these marks when they are calves, indicating that killer whale attacks on adult animals are rare. Killer whales are largely absent from the tropical waters where humpback whales breed, so most attacks must occur on the feeding grounds or during migration. Indeed it has been suggested that the absence of killer whales may be the primary reason humpback whales use these areas for calving (Corkeron and Connor 1999).
Killer whale attacks are rarely observed, and the extent of successful predation on humpback whales is not known. While rake marks indicate that some animals survive attacks, those that don’t are obviously not observed. Humpback whales are not defenceless however: when harassed they often bunch together and fight back by slashing their tales and fins, and butting their attackers with their heads. The hard, sharp barnacles which encrust the head may serve as defensive weapons against killer whale attack: the cetacean version of the “brass knuckle” (Ford and Reeves 2014).
Encounters with killer whales do not always result in attacks. In some areas, killer and humpback whales feed together, even perhaps cooperatively, on schooling fish. However killer whales occur in several “ecotypes”, some of which do not feed on marine mammals, perhaps explaining this observation (Ford and Reeves 2014).
4. Distribution and Habitat
Breeding grounds
Humpback whales are the mammalian champions of migration, travelling up to 15,000 km per year between their tropical breeding/mating area and their high latitude feeding grounds. They arrive at the breeding grounds in February, and most are gone by the end of April (Stevick et al. 2016). Animals from the more distant feeding grounds off Northern Norway and Iceland arrive slightly later (Stevick et al. 1999). Breeding grounds are found around tropical islands and are usually in fairly shallow waters, close to shore or associated with offshore reefs (IWC 2002). Humpbacks spend the remainder of the year at northern feeding grounds, which range in latitude from 43° (Gulf of Maine) to the northern Norwegian Sea (75°). Feeding grounds typically occur in areas where water masses mix, causing upwelling and leading to high productivity. This leads to concentrations of pelagic crustaceans and small fish, enabling the whales to feed effectively. Humpback whales are largely faithful to their own feeding and breeding areas, as indicated by both photographic and genetic evidence (Smith et al. 1999), although some exchange between breeding areas has been observed (Stevick et al. 2016). They also exhibit site fidelity on a smaller spatial scale, with some animals occupying the same bay in Greenland year after year (Boye et al. 2010).
Two humpback whale breeding grounds are known with certainty in the North Atlantic. The largest by far in terms of whale numbers is the West Indies ground, which most whales from all feeding grounds use (Smith et al. 1999). The area utilized by humpbacks extends from Cuba in the northwest south to Venezuela, however the largest concentrations of breeding animals are found on the Silver and Navidad Banks near the Dominican Republic, with much lower numbers in Samana Bay (Dominican Republic), off the northwest coast of Puerto Rico, and around the Virgin Islands and the eastern Antilles (Reilly et al. 2008, IWC 2002, Smith et al. 1999). Whaling records indicate that, historically, the principal Caribbean breeding ground occurred farther south in the Windward Islands, an area with few breeding whales today (Smith and Reeves 2011). However recent satellite tagging studies have shown that some whales make extensive inter-island movements in the area (Kennedy et al. 2013). The breeding area is characterized by relatively shallow water (<200 m), low slope and warm water temperatures from 24 – 28 C (Stevick et al. 2016). Humpbacks begin to arrive in this area in early February, numbers peak in late February and few whales remain by the end of March (Stevick et al.2016).
A second breeding area is found around the Cape Verde Islands off West Africa. This area hosts few whales today (Wenzel et al. 2009), but whaling records suggest that substantial numbers occurred there in the past (Smith and Reeves 2011). Only whales from the Icelandic and Norwegian feeding areas are known to use this area, but most whales from these feeding areas use the West Indies ground (Wenzel et al. 2009). This breeding ground is occupied beginning in March, a few weeks later than the West Indies ground, and peak occupation occurs in early April (Stevick et al. 2016).
While it was originally thought that humpbacks were faithful to their natal breading ground, returning to breed in the area in which they were born (IWC 2002), recently four individuals have been identified in both the West Indies and at Cape Verde in different years. This suggests a heretofore unsuspected degree of flexibility in the migratory behaviour of these animals (Stevick et al. 2016).
Other breeding grounds are suspected but not confirmed. Humpback whale song has been recorded year round in the southern Norwegian Sea, and animals with full-term fetuses were taken by whaling operations in northern Norway in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, suggesting that a breeding area may exist there (IWC 2002, Smith and Pike 2009). A third breeding ground off West Africa has also been suggested (Punt et al. 2007). There may also be finer scale partitioning on the West Indies ground, with whales from different feeding grounds using separate areas within the overall breeding area (Stevick et al. 2016).
Feeding grounds
Six discrete feeding grounds are recognized in the North Atlantic: these tend to be separated from one another by gaps of hundreds of kilometers in which few humpback whales occur (Vigness-Raposa et al. 2010). Three feeding stocks occur off Eastern North America: the Gulf of Maine/Scotian Shelf, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and Newfoundland/Labrador. In the Central Atlantic, humpbacks feed off West Greenland and on the Icelandic continental shelf. The easternmost feeding stock occurs off Northern Norway, especially around Bear and Jan Mayen Islands (IWC 2002, Reilly et al. 2008, Smith and Pike 2009). Scattered humpback whale sightings outside of the breeding season have been reported along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, so this represents another possible feeding ground (Smith and Pike 2009), although they might also be animals in transit from the Caribbean breeding ground to the Norwegian or Icelandic feeding grounds (Kennedy et al. 2013). Humpback whales occur in considerable numbers off East Greenland in some years, so this may be another feeding ground, or possibly animals from the West Greenland or Iceland grounds (NAMMCO 2017).
Feeding grounds typically occur in areas where water masses mix, causing upwelling and leading to high productivity. This leads to concentrations of pelagic crustaceans and small fish, enabling the whales to feed effectively (Víkingsson et al. 2015). They range in latitude from 42° (Gulf of Maine) to 75° (North Norway) and therefore encompass a wide variety of marine ecosystems, ranging from temperate to low Arctic. Humpback whales generally do not enter ice-filled waters and are therefore largely absent from the Canadian Arctic, although sightings have been reported there in recent years, probably in response to reductions in sea ice due to climate change (Higdon and Ferguson 2011).
5. North Atlantic Stocks
North Atlantic Stocks
To a biologist, a stock is a subpopulation of a species that is largely reproductively isolated from other stocks of the same species. As a result of this reproductive isolation, stocks can usually be differentiated genetically if they have been isolated for a sufficient length of time. Other means of stock differentiation include morphometrics (body size and shape), concentrations of pollutants or rare elements in tissues, behaviour, including vocal dialects, and patterns of seasonal movement. A key feature of this concept is that the hunting and possible depletion of one stock should have little or no effect on a neighbouring stock.
Little difference in humpback whale nuclear DNA among North Atlantic feeding areas has been detected. Whales from the Eastern Atlantic feeding grounds could be distinguished from some Western Atlantic groups (IWC 2002, Wenzel et al. 2009). However whales from all six feeding grounds can be distinguished from one another using mitochondrial DNA (Larsen et al. 1996, IWC 2002). This DNA is passed directly from mother to offspring, rather than sexually as with nuclear DNA. This suggests that humpback whales tend to use the same feeding grounds throughout their lives, leading to the differences in mitochondrial DNA, but mix with animals from other feeding grounds when mating, explaining the lack of differentiation in nuclear DNA. Such “maternally directed site fidelity” is a pattern seen in several cetacean species, including beluga and narwhal.
Photo-identification studies, in which individual whales are identified and re-sighted based on the markings on their tail flukes, suggest that humpback whales from all feeding grounds mix on the West Indies breeding ground (IWC 2002, Reilly et al. 2008). In contrast only whales from the Norwegian and Icelandic feeding areas have been traced to the Cape Verde breeding ground (Wenzel et al. 2009). Genetic studies suggest that relatively large proportions of the Icelandic and Norwegian whales do not breed in the West Indies, numbering far more than can be accounted for by the very low numbers found on the Cape Verde breeding ground (Punt et al. 2007, Wenzel et al. 2009). Again this suggests the existence of at least one more breeding ground, possibly in the southern Norwegian Sea or off West Africa (Punt et al. 2007, Smith and Pike 2009).
There is so far no direct evidence from photo-ID or tagging studies of any exchange of whales between feeding grounds. Recently, however, four individuals have been identified in both the West Indies and at Cape Verde in different years (Stevick et al. 2016), which suggests that humpbacks are not always faithful to their natal breeding ground. This too would help explain the lack of discrimination in nuclear DNA, if whales are occasionally exchanged between breeding grounds.
Taken together, the genetic and photo-ID evidence, along with the known migratory patterns of humpback whales, suggest that stocks can be defined by the breeding and feeding grounds of a particular group. This means that whales from the six North Atlantic feeding grounds that breed in the West Indies comprise separate stocks. Additionally, those from the Icelandic and Norwegian areas that breed at Cape Verde or some unknown breeding ground would also be separate stocks, leading to a total of at least 8 North Atlantic stocks of humpback whales. Other feeding grounds may occur off East Greenland (NAMMCO 2017) and along the mid-Atlantic Ridge (Smith and Pike 2009), suggesting the possibility of additional stocks.
6. Current Abundance and Trends
Current Abundance and Trends
Counting humpback whales
Humpback whale stocks are largely isolated from one another on their feeding grounds, and can therefore be enumerated there. Humpback whales are counted using line transect surveys, either from a plane or a ship (e.g. Paxton et al. 2009). Because humpback whales can be individually identified by the unique markings on their flukes, population size can also be estimated using “mark-recapture”, or in this case “sight-resight” methodologies. A sample of whales is identified (“marked”) by photographing their flukes. A second sample of fluke photographs is collected some time (e.g. one year) later. If all assumptions are met, the proportion of “marked” whales in the second sample should equal the proportion of marked whales in the total population. An alternative method of identifying or “marking” whales is to use a biopsy dart to collect tiny skin samples, then genetic analysis to identify individuals Smith et al. (1999) applied mark-recapture methodology to the entire North Atlantic basin, collecting fluke photographs and genetic identifications at the West Indies breeding ground and all North Atlantic feeding grounds over two consecutive years, to derive an abundance estimate for the entire North Atlantic.
Feeding ground estimates
The most recent available abundance estimates from North Atlantic feeding grounds are shown in the table below. These estimates come from aerial and ship surveys, and most are underestimates because they are not corrected for whales missed by the observers (perception bias), or whales that were submerged (availability bias), or both.
The Icelandic feeding ground hosts by far the largest stock component, likely exceeding 13,000 whales. Estimates of similar magnitude have been derived from surveys conducted in 1995 and 2001 (Paxton et al. 2009). The Newfoundland/Labrador and West Greenland feeding areas hold similar numbers of between 3 and 4 thousand whales. The remaining feeding areas are smaller, all hosting less than one thousand whales. The total for all feeding areas for the period 2007 – 2011 (except Norway which is from 1996-2001) is nearly 22,000 whales: this should be considered a minimum estimate for the entire North Atlantic since most of its components are negatively biased and some areas that may also host feeding grounds, such as East Greenland (NAMMCO 2017) and the mid-Atlantic Ridge (Smith and Pike 2009) are not included.
Breeding ground and ocean basin estimates
The Years of the North Atlantic Humpback (YoNAH) project collected genetic samples and fluke photographs from all North Atlantic feeding grounds and from the West Indies breeding ground from 1992-1993, and used mark-recapture methods to estimate the total population of the North Atlantic as 10,600 (95% CI 9,300 – 12,100) (Smith et al. 1999). A similar study was conducted in 2004 – 2005, yielding an estimate of 12,312 (95% CI 8,688-15,954) (Bettridge et al. 2015). Smith and Pike (2009) noted that these estimates are substantially lower than the total of the feeding ground estimates for similar periods, which are themselves negatively biased. The YoNAH and later mark-recapture estimates may underestimate the total population because no sampling was conducted at the Cape Verde breeding ground or at other as-yet undescribed breeding grounds. The Cape Verde breeding population alone has been estimated as about 260 whales (Ryan et al. 2014), far too low to account for the discrepancy between feeding ground estimates and the ocean basin mark recapture estimates.
Trends in abundance
In areas where sufficient data are available to establish a trend, numbers of humpback whales are increasing, in some cases quite rapidly. Under ideal conditions humpback whale populations can grow at an annual rate of about 11% (Heide-Jørgensen et al. 2012). Aerial surveys conducted around Iceland between 1986 and 2001 indicated a rate of increase of about 12% per year. A similar rate of 9.4% per year has been observed off West Greenland between 1984 and 2007 (Heide-Jørgensen et al. 2012). As these are the largest feeding grounds in terms of whale numbers, these increases should result in similar increases on the breeding grounds, however numbers in the West Indies breeding ground have increased at a rate of about 2% between 1979 and 2005 (Bettridge et al. 2015). Again this suggests that a substantial proportion of whales from these feeding grounds must be utilizing a breeding ground that has not been directly enumerated.
7. Stock Status
Assigning a “status” to a particular stock of animals is a complex and sometimes controversial exercise that requires, among other things, some knowledge of the historical abundance trend of the stock, an assessment of the reliability of that knowledge, and clearly stated management/conservation goals with respect to the stock. There is no universal definition of stock status that is used by all organizations and countries. It is important therefore to clearly define stock status before an assignment is made.
The humpback whale is a worldwide species, occupying all world oceans on at least a seasonal basis. Globally, humpback whales have recovered more rapidly than most other baleen whales from overhunting by commercial whalers in the 20th century, probably because they were not a favoured species for whalers (Smith and Reeves 2011) and are able to increase their numbers more rapidly than most other species (Heide-Jørgensen et al. 2012). The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) uses specific criteria to assign species to one of nine classifications ranging from “Least Concern” to “Vulnerable” to “Extinct” (Reilly et al. 2008). Under this system, humpback whales are classified globally as being of “Least concern” for conservation, primarily because populations are increasing in most areas where data are available, and population sizes are probably over 50% of pre-whaling levels in most areas (Reilly et al. 2008).
In the North Atlantic, a total catch (including struck and lost) of over 30,000 whales primarily between 1880 and 1940 (Smith and Reeves 2011) apparently reduced the population to a very low level at which whaling became unprofitable in most areas. Whaling has ceased or been reduced to very low levels since 1940, and there have been signs of recovery in many areas, including Iceland (Paxton et al. 2009, Pike et al. 2009), West Greenland (Heide-Jørgensen et al. 2011), the Gulf of Maine and on the West Indies breeding ground (Bettridge et al. 2015).
The Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) attempted to develop an assessment model for North Atlantic humpback whales (IWC 2002, 2003). The model integrated abundance estimates for the entire North Atlantic (Smith et al. 1999) and for several feeding areas, known trends in abundance, historical harvests from all areas and known life history parameters such as reproductive and natural mortality rates. Punt et al. (2007) furthered this analysis by exploring alternative estimates of abundance and catch, as well as the possible existence of a third breeding ground. While these modelling efforts were not completely successful in providing an acceptable fit to estimated population trajectories on some of the feeding and breeding grounds, they do indicate that the North Atlantic humpback whale population has increased substantially since the cessation of whaling and may be approaching pre-whaling levels of between 20 and 26 thousand animals. The most recent data on feeding ground abundance, summing to nearly 21 thousand animals, supports this suggestion.
While humpback whales are recovering or have recovered in most areas, numbers are still very low around the Cape Verde Islands, a breeding area where several thousand whales were harvested historically. Today they number in the low hundreds (Ryan et al. 2014). There are no data on population trends in this area. A small proportion of the whales that use the Norwegian and Icelandic feeding grounds apparently breed in this area (Wenzel et al. 2009), and these stock components are therefore of conservation concern.
The Scientific Committee of NAMMCO (2009) recently carried out an assessment of the West Greenland feeding area, to determine if a proposed resumption of harvest there was sustainable. The most recent estimate of the size of this stock component is 3,272 (95% CI 1,300 – 8,233), and numbers have increased at 9.4% per year between 1984 and 2007 (Heide-Jørgensen et al. 2012). A model incorporating these data as well as historical harvests and estimates of life history parameters indicated that the stock component has likely recovered to or nearly to its historical size, and that an annual take of up to 20 whales per year would be sustainable.
8. Management
The humpback whale falls under the international management jurisdiction of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and NAMMCO. NAMMCO provides scientific advice on stock status and sustainable takes, and proposals for conservation and management to member governments. NAMMCO is the only international government organization presently operating an international inspection and observation program for marine mammal hunts, the Joint Control Scheme for the Hunting of Marine Mammals. The Scheme contains a set of common elements for national inspection programs for coastal and offshore whaling, including items mandatory for inclusion in whaling logbooks. It also includes an International Observation Scheme, with the overall objective of monitoring whether the decisions made by NAMMCO are respected and that all national and international regulations and requirements are being met. NAMMCO appoints observers to directly oversee hunting and inspection activities in member countries. These observers, who are normally not resident in the country being observed, may go out on whaling vessels to observe hunts, check licenses and relevant certificates, and inspect whaling logbooks. An observer might also inspect landing and processing facilities. Observers report directly to the NAMMCO Secretariat.
The IWC began establishing commercial quotas for humpback whales in the 1970’s. In 1986, the IWC instituted a “temporary” moratorium on commercial whaling which continues to today. However, by this time commercial whaling for humpbacks in the North Atlantic had largely ceased. The IWC continues to provide assessment and scientific advice on humpback whale stocks in the North Atlantic.
The IWC does provide management advice for Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling. The recommended strike limits are based on scientific advice on sustainable take and the cultural and nutritional need level of the aboriginal group. The main objectives for Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling are 1) to ensure the risk of extinction is not seriously increased; 2) to enable harvests in perpetuity appropriate to cultural and nutritional requirements, and; 3) to maintain stocks at their highest net recruitment level and if below that to ensure they move towards it. Therefore, while quotas for commercial whaling are limited primarily by sustainability, allowable takes for the Aboriginal Subsistence whaling are limited both by sustainability and nutritional and cultural need.
Humpback whales continue to be hunted in two areas of the North Atlantic. On the island of Bequia, part of the country of St. Vincent and the Grenadines in the Caribbean, a small hunt (0 – 4 whales per year) for humpback whales is carried out annually. The area is in the West Indies breeding ground, so whales taken here could be from any of the North Atlantic feeding grounds. The IWC has established a block quota of 24 for the period 2013 – 2018 under the Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling management program (IWC 2015).
Humpback whaling has a long history in West Greenland, and has been conducted since the 1700’s and possibly before (Greenland 2012, Smith and Reeves 2011). Whaling for humpbacks was prohibited in 1986 as there was concern that the stock had been depleted. In 2007, Greenland requested a quota for humpback whales under the Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling management program at IWC. The Scientific Committee of the IWC completed an Aboriginal Whaling Management Procedure for humpback whales in 2008 (IWC 2008) and used it to advise that catches of 10 humpback whales per year would be sustainable. Similarly NAMMCO (2009) conducted an assessment of West Greenland humpback whales and concluded that takes of up to 20 per year would be sustainable. In 2010, Greenland implemented a catch quota of 9 humpback whales per year for West Greenland, with the possibility of carrying over up to two unused quota animals from one year to the next (Greenland 2012).
In Greenland the Ministry of Fisheries, Hunting and Agriculture has authority over whale hunting. The taking of humpback whales is limited to full-time hunters who have a valid permit to take whales. All prospective hunters must take a course on the handling of the harpoon cannon and whale grenades. Regulations limit the hunt to vessels at least 36 feet in length equipped with a harpoon cannon. The harpoon cannon must be inspected every second year. Locally, wildlife officers monitor whale hunts and ensure that all requirements are met. Once a whale is caught, the hunter is responsible for providing a catch report to municipal authorities, including time and location of the hunt, biological data such as length, sex, reproductive state of females, stomach contents and weight of meat products, and information on the hunt, including the number of grenades used and the estimated time to death (Greenland 2012).
Under Greenlandic law all whale products must be consumed locally and no export is permitted (Greenland 2012).
9. Hunting and Utilisation
Hunting and Utilisation
Unlike the much faster fin and blue whales, the relatively slow moving humpback whale was vulnerable to whalers using only sailing ships and rowboats, and therefore has a longer history of exploitation in the North Atlantic. Greenland Inuit have taken humpback whales for at least a thousand years, hunting them from kayaks and umiaq (larger skin boats) using hand-held harpoons, floats and lances (Greenland 2012). Early Basque whalers may also have occasionally taken humpback whales, although they specialized in right, bowhead and possibly gray whales.
As with other large whales, humpbacks were hunted primarily for their oil, which was used for lighting, as a lubricant and later as a food source. The flexible baleen was also used for many purposes for which plastic might be used today, for example for buggy whips, corset stays and collar stiffeners. If processed on shore, the offal and bones were sometimes used to make fertilizer. Meat for human consumption was not an important product for early commercial whalers, but became more important in the 20th century.
Smith and Reeves (2011) provide a detailed history of humpback whaling in the North Atlantic. Historically, humpback whaling can be roughly divided into two types of fisheries: non-mechanized and mechanized. Non-mechanized whaling used sailing ships and rowboats, and the whales were struck with “cold” (non-explosive) harpoons and killed with lances. This type of whaling could be either shore-based, where the whales were taken close to the coast and towed to a station for processing, or pelagic, in which the whale was processed aboard the ship at sea. About 14,000 humpbacks were landed by non-mechanized whaling between 1600 and 1900, with most being taken in the last hundred years of the period on the breeding grounds in the West Indies and Cape Verde Islands. Struck and loss rates were relatively high in this type of whaling, estimated by Smith and Reeves (2011) as 41% of landed catch.
Mechanized whaling, using faster motorized ships and gun-fired harpoons equipped with explosive grenades, was developed by Norwegian Svend Foyn in the 1870’s. This drastically improved the efficiency and safety of whaling, and made catching the faster fin and blue whales feasible. Often led by Norwegian companies, this type of whaling rapidly spread throughout the North Atlantic, including northern Norway, Svalbard and Bear Island, Iceland, the Faroes, West Greenland, Canada, and the humpback breeding grounds at Cape Verde and the West Indies. The catch of humpbacks in mechanized whaling operations peaked around 1900, with a total of about 7,700 whales landed. Largest catches were taken in North Norway, Iceland and Newfoundland. Loss rates were much lower in mechanized whaling than in non-mechanized whaling, as the whale was killed outright or severely injured by the grenade at the same time it was secured by the harpoon. Smith and Reeves (2011) estimate that the loss rate in mechanized whaling was less than 2% of landed catch.
Whaling for humpbacks ended in most areas by around 1930, by which time most stocks were reduced to such low levels that whaling was no longer profitable. By this time also petroleum products had replaced whale oil for most non-food uses. In all, a total of 21,476 humpback whales are known to have been landed in the North Atlantic, corresponding to a total removal of 30,852 when corrected for struck and lost animals (Smith and Reeves 2011). Catches peaked in the period 1870 – 1910, corresponding to the advent of mechanized whaling operations in several areas. Some humpback whaling continued in West Greenland and in the Caribbean after 1930, but North Atlantic catches as a whole have never since approached historical levels.
Whaling in Bequia
A very small hunt for humpback whales continues in Bequia, a small island of the Caribbean nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. The area is in the West Indies breeding ground, so whales taken here could be from any of the North Atlantic feeding grounds. The IWC has established a block quota of 24 for the period 2013 – 2018 under the Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling management program (IWC 2015). The whales are hunted using a rowing boat and a hand-thrown harpoon with the line attached to the boat. The whale is killed using a shoulder gun firing an explosive grenade, or using hand lances (Adams 1971). The whale is then towed to shore for processing; today motorboats are sometimes used to assist in this process. The whale is processed on shore and the meat and oil are distributed, bartered or sold on Bequia or neighbouring islands within St Vincent and the Grenadines. No export is permitted.
Whaling in Greenland
Whaling in West Greenland has a very long history. The Thule Inuit, who occupied Greenland beginning around the year 1000, were skilled marine hunters who hunted several species of cetaceans, including the humpback whale. They used the kajaq (kayak) and the larger umiaq skin boats to pursue whales on the open seas. Whales were struck with hand-thrown, detachable head harpoons, with lines attached to skin floats. Hunters often wore the atallaaq, a drysuit made of waterproof seal skin, in which they would actually jump onto the whale to deliver the lethal lance strikes (Greenland 2012). Contact with American and European bowhead whalers began in the 18th century, and Greenlandic Inuit were quick to adopt some of their equipment and techniques, including faster wooden boats, metal-edged harpoons, lances and flensing tools, and hempen ropes.
Whaling in Greenland. © Fernando Ugarte
By the beginning of the 20th century, commercial whalers had reduced populations of bowhead and humpback whales in Greenlandic waters to the point that whaling from small boats was no longer feasible. As a result, most hunting for large whales in the middle part of the century was carried out by one catcher vessel operated by the Royal Greenland Trading Company, the Sonja. This vessel operated from 1924 to 1958, with a brief cessation during the Second World War. The Sonja was steam-powered vessel that used mechanized whaling methods, including a harpoon cannon and explosive grenades. Whales were towed to villages on the Greenland west coast, where they were flensed by local people in return for a portion of the catch. This provided a welcome and needed source of food for the people of Greenland. Most of the catch consisted of fin and blue whales, but some humpback whales were taken (Caulfield 1997).
Beginning in the 1940’s, some Greenlanders began to equip their fishing vessels with harpoon cannons to participate in seasonal whaling. Minke whales were the main target of this hunt, but some fin, blue and humpback whales were also taken (Caulfield 1997, Greenland 2012). These vessels generally distributed their catch locally or sold it to neighbouring villages or larger centers.
In 1955, the IWC imposed a quota of 10 humpback whales per year on West Greenland; this was reduced to 9 in 1984 and 8 in 1985. Whaling for humpbacks was prohibited in 1986 as there was concern that the stock had been depleted. In 2007, Greenland requested a quota for humpback whales under the Aboriginal Subsistence Whaling management program at IWC, and in 2010, Greenland implemented a catch quota of 9 humpback whales per year for West Greenland, with the possibility of carrying over up to two unused quota animals from one year to the next (Greenland 2012).
Modern whaling in Greenland
Whaling for humpback whales resumed in Greenland in 2010 after a cessation of 30 years. However during this period, Greenlandic whalers continued to take minke and fin whales, so the skills of whaling were not lost. Whaling for large whales in Greenland is done using fishing vessels equipped with harpoon cannons and other equipment necessary for whaling. Only the largest vessels, over 36 feet in length, can participate in the hunt for humpback whales.
The primary weapon used is the 50 mm Kongsberg harpoon cannon. This fires a harpoon with a rope attached into the whale. As the harpoon enters the whale, a hook triggers the firing of a “Whale Grenade 99” loaded with 30 – 45 g of penthrite explosive into the whale. A timed fuse detonates the grenade, killing or severely injuring the whale through concussion and tissue damage. Gunners generally target the heart and lung area by aiming for the area close to the pectoral fins (NAMMCO 2010, 2015).
Since the resumption of humpback whaling in 2010, median Time to Death (TTD) for humpback whales in the Greenlandic hunt has ranged from 7 minutes in 2010 to 15 minutes in 2013. The percentage of whales that die instantaneously after being hit has ranged from 17% in 2010, 2013 and 2014 to 50% in 2011. These values are similar to those for fin whales which are hunted using similar methods (NAMMCO 2015). Struck and lost is generally low, ranging from 0% in most years to a high of 43% in 2012. In recent years, NAMMCO has held two Expert Group meetings on reducing TTD in whale hunts (NAMMCO 2010, 2015). In addition, NAMMCO has developed a Hunting Manual for baleen whales, available free of charge online in English, Norwegian and Greenlandic (NAMMCO 2014).
Once the whale is secured, it is towed to shore to suitable butchering area at the next high tide, and the whale is flensed at low tide. The meat is shared amongst the participants in the hunt, or sold at local markets, particularly the open-air markets (Greenlandic Kalaalimineerniarfik, Danish brædtet) but also to supermarkets, hotels and restaurants. Operating a whaler equipped with a harpoon cannon can be very expensive: the cannon alone might cost US $60,000 and each grenade costs as much as US $1,500 (Greenland 2012), and fuel is very expensive in Greenland. Therefore, whalers require some monetary return in order to continue whaling. No export of whale products from Greenland is permitted.
Reported catches in Greenland
Catch Total
Greenland 2018 West Avail. 2020 12
Greenland 2018 West 6 12
Greenland 2012 West 10 10
Greenland 2011 West 8 9
Greenland 1992-2009 West *No reported catches
10. Other Human Impacts
Other Human Impacts
Humpback whales are prime targets for whale watching because they have a coastal distribution accessible to shore-based operators, exhibit spectacular surface behaviour and are relatively easy to approach. Whale watching has experienced spectacular growth worldwide in the past few decades, with commercial operations springing up in areas where whales can be accessed within a reasonable distance from the coast. The whale watching industry was estimated to have a worldwide value of over 2.5 billion US dollars in 2009 (O’Connor et al. 2009).
Humpback whale and whale watching boat © M. Acquarone
Commercial whale watching operations that specialize on humpbacks operate in Norway, Iceland, West Greenland and other North Atlantic nations. In Iceland, the whale watching industry has grown explosively in recent years, and had a value of nearly 17 million US dollars annually in 2008 with over 120,000 participants (O’Connor et al. 2009, Martin 2012). Other benefits include employment, public education and assistance in research and monitoring programs.
While usually considered a relatively benign and sustainable “use” of marine mammals, whale watching can have short-term impacts on individuals or groups of whales which, if experienced frequently, can lead to population level effects. Humpback whales may react to vessel noise and/or the simple proximity of vessels in a number of ways. The most frequently observed reaction is an increase in swimming speed when boats are nearby (Boye et al. 2010, Bettridge et al. 2015). There may also be an increase in surface behaviours, and a tendency to move away from vessels, although the opposite effect is sometimes observed (Magnúsdóttir 2011, Martin 2012, Bettridge et al. 2015).
The long-term effects of high-intensity whale watching on humpback whale populations are not well known, but appear to be slight. Humpback whale populations have continued to grow in the North Atlantic despite massive increases in whale watching activity in many areas. Weinrich and Corbelli (2009) monitored individual humpback whales exposed to different levels of whale watching activity, and found no detectable effects on calf production or survival. However such effects are notoriously difficult to detect, and may require studies lasting at least the generation time of the species.
The potential negative effects of whale watching can be mitigated with suitable regulation or voluntary codes of conduct among whale watching operations. Such regulation generally includes a speed limit when approaching a group of whales, a close approach distance limit, and a requirement to stop if the vessel is approached by whales (Martin 2012). To date, NAMMCO member countries have used industry codes of conduct to regulate whale watching. The efficacy of or compliance with these codes have not been assessed.
Whale watching specializing in humpback whales has become popular in the Nuuk Fiord system of West Greenland. Most of the whales that use this area do so for a few weeks each summer, and return year after year. This leads to a potential conflict between whale hunting and whale watching, as the removal of the few “resident” whales could have an adverse effect on the local whale watching industry (Boye et al. 2010).
By-catch and entanglement
Among large whales, humpbacks seem particularly prone to becoming entangled in fishing gear. They consume pelagic fish that are also sought by fisherman, and are often found in coastal areas with intense fishing activity. A large proportion of some stocks may become entangled at some point in their lives: in the Gulf of Maine, between 48% and 65% of humpback whales have scars that likely resulted from gear entanglement (IWC 2002). Yearling whales are more prone to entanglement than older ones, but whales of all ages become entangled. While clearly many whales survive entanglement events, some do not, and a large proportion of dead-stranded humpback whales show evidence of entanglement in some areas (Henry et al. 2014). Mark-recapture studies have shown that juveniles are less likely than adults to survive gear entanglements, and that death due to entanglement may account for 3 -4% of total mortality in the Gulf of Maine (Bettridge et al. 2015). Females that showed signs of entanglement injury produced fewer calves than those that did not (IWC 2002), so there may be population-level effects in addition to direct mortality.
Humpback whales are particularly vulnerable to static gear such as gill nets and lobster and crab pots, becoming entangled in the buoy or groundlines (Johnson et al. 2005). For example, the rate of entanglement off Newfoundland dropped from 64 per year to 19 per year after the moratorium on the inshore cod fishery was introduced in 1992 (IWC 2013). In some areas, rescue and release programs have been successful in freeing a high percentage of entangled whales (IWC 2002), but many entangled whales are presumably unobserved. Changes in gear type, such as reducing the use of static gear in areas of high whale density, or including “weak links” in buoy and float lines, may also be effective in reducing death or injury due to entanglement.
Vessel strikes
Humpback whales are second only to fin whales in the frequency of reported vessel strikes (Bettridge et al. 2015). Ship strikes may be the cause death in 30% or more among dead stranded humpback whales on the US eastern seaboard (Henry et al. 2014, Laist et al. 2001). Most lethal ship strikes are by ships greater than 80 m in length travelling at a speed in excess of 14 knots (Laist et al. 2001). Experimental studies have shown that strike rates drop by over 90% if ship speed is reduced below 12.5 knots (IWC 2016). An obvious mitigation measure is therefore to reduce ship speed in areas of high whale density.
Whales may respond to a changing climate in at least three different ways: by redistribution, i.e. changing their seasonal migratory pattern; by adaptation to the change, or by extinction. Humpback whales as a species have shown large historical changes in distribution in the North Atlantic, so it seems likely that they will continue to respond to a changing environment by redistribution, to the extent that this is possible for them (Bettridge et al. 2015). A warming climate may in fact open up more of the ice-free boreal habitat favoured by humpback whales as feeding ground than is presently available for them.
There is already evidence that climate-induced changes in humpback whale behaviour are occurring. Higdon and Ferguson (2011) found that humpback whales were being sighted in areas of the Canadian Eastern Arctic where they had never been seen before, and postulated that a reduction in summer ice cover in Hudson Strait had allowed the whales to penetrate into the area. Ramp et al. (2015) found that humpback whales were arriving at the Gulf of St. Lawrence feeding ground about four weeks earlier in 2010 than they did in 1987, corresponding to a change in arrival date of about one day per year. They were also departing earlier by a similar length of time. This change was most closely correlated to a rise in sea surface temperature over the period, which also corresponded to an earlier ice-free date.
While the effects of climate change on humpback whales cannot be predicted, it is likely that continued warming and a reduction in Arctic ice cover will result in a northward shift in summer distribution in some areas, and possible changes in seasonal occupation in others. Climate change is likely less of a danger to the adaptable humpback whale than to some Arctic, ice dependent species, for which the total amount of habitat is being reduced.
Acoustic pollution
Humpback whales produce a wide variety of sounds which they use for communication and possibly also to locate prey or otherwise sense their environment. Noise resulting from shipping, seismic exploration, and military or other sonar can affect humpback whales by masking their sounds and reducing their effective range. The ocean is rapidly becoming a more noisy environment: anthropogenic sound production in coastal areas is thought to have doubled each decade for the last 30 years (Bettridge et al. 2015).
Humpback whales may respond to increased background noise by increasing the length of their songs, or by becoming quieter (Bettridge et al. 2015). In contrast Gong et al. (2015) found no changes in humpback vocalizations associated with military sonar in the Gulf of Maine.
Acoustic interference with humpback whales can be mitigated by reducing or eliminating seismic and sonar activities in areas and seasons when whales are present in high densities, especially during the mating season when singing whales are present.
As long-lived top level marine predators, humpback whales tend to accumulate organic pollutants such as pesticides in their blubber. These pollutants can also be transferred from mother to calf through lactation (Bettridge et al. 2015). Known consequences of such bioaccumulation of organic contaminants in marine mammals include impaired immunity and increased susceptibility to disease, neurotoxicity and reproductive impairment (Elfes et al. 2010). However concentrations in humpback whale tissue are generally below those known to cause such impairments in other animals (Ryan et al. 2013). Concentrations do vary greatly between whales sampled in different areas, probably reflecting the extent of contamination in humpback whale prey. For example concentrations of organic contaminants were much lower in whales sampled around the Cape Verde Islands than in those sampled in the Gulf of St Lawrence of Gulf of Maine, perhaps reflecting agricultural inputs in the latter areas (Ryan et al. 2013).
Some types of algal blooms produce toxins harmful to marine mammals, and these blooms have been associated with inflow of untreated industrial and domestic wastewater. Toxins associated with an algal bloom killed at least 14 humpback whales in 1987-88 off the US eastern seaboard, and such toxins are often found in the tissues of dead stranded whales (Bettridge et al. 2015). However the population level effects of these toxins are not known.
11. Research in NAMMCO Member Countries
Research in NAMMCO Member Countries
All NAMMCO member countries as well as Canada have participated in the North Atlantic Sightings Surveys, and the humpback whale has been a target species in all areas. These surveys are coordinated through the Scientific Committee of NAMMCO. In addition each country conducts other important research on the biology and ecology of humpback whales.
The Marine Research Institute (MRI) is the Icelandic governmental body responsible for research concerning conservation and management of cetaceans in Icelandic waters. The MRI’s main research activities on humpback whales in recent decades have focused on: 1) Distribution and abundance, primarily through participation in large scale international surveys but also using data from opportunistic platforms such as fish- or oceanographic research cruises and commercial whaling and whale watching platforms; 2) Photo-identification studies. The MRI participated in the YoNAH project in the early 1990‘s and has continued photo-id studies ever since, including the maintenance of the Icelandic central photo-identification database. 3) Genetics. Samples obtained from biopsies (including YoNAH) as well as from stranded or bycaught animals have been used in international population genetic studies. 4) Satellite telemetry. Since the late 1990‘s the MRI has experimented with satellite telemetry on several cetacean species including humpback whales. 5) Strandings and net entanglements. The MRI is responsible for monitoring strandings and bycatches of cetaceans in Icelandic waters.
Iceland has developed a Whale Photo Identification database that allows cataloging of photographs and photo-matching to identify re-sightings. While several species are included, the humpback whale has been the main focus of photo-ID work. To date, the catalogue contains over 1,100 photographs of humpback whales, of which 722 are of unique individuals. Most of these are from Iceland, but animals from Norwegian and Irish waters are also included. Of these, 130 have been sighted two or more times, providing information about site fidelity, migration, stock identity and life history. In addition to the photo collection, biopsy samples for genetic and other analyses have been collected from more than 70 humpback whales in Icelandic waters.
As one of only two countries in the North Atlantic that continue to hunt humpback whales, Greenland has participated in the NASS surveys, using aerial surveys to cover the west coast of Greenland from Cape Farewell north to about 70°. In 2015 the east coast of Greenland was also covered, which revealed relatively large numbers of humpback whales in that area. This may mean that these waters constitute a feeding area for humpback whales, at least in some years. Greenland has also contributed fluke photographs and genetic samples to international humpback whale database, and participated in the YoNAH and follow-up projects. Collection of fluke and dorsal fin identification photographs from West Greenland taken by the public will continue in 2019 (National Progress Report Greenland 2018).
Greenland has been very active in tracking whales using satellite tags. This has led to a greater understanding of the local and migratory movements of humpback whales (Heide-Jørgensen and Laidre 2007). In addition, short term tagging efforts have advanced our knowledge of the kinematics of lunge feeding by humpback whales (Simon et al. 2012).
As a whaling nation, Greenland monitors its whale hunts and participates in efforts to improve hunting methods and reduce time-to-death and struck and lost rates in whale hunts (NAMMCO 2010, 2015). Since the resumption of humpback whaling in 2010, median Time to Death (TTD) for humpback whales in the Greenlandic hunt has ranged from 7 minutes in 2010 to 15 minutes in 2013. The percentage of whales that die instantaneously after being hit has ranged from 17% in 2010, 2013 and 2014 to 50% in 2011. These values are similar to those for fin whales which are hunted using similar methods (NAMMCO 2015).
Whale-watching has become a valuable part of the tourist industry in Greenland, particularly in the fjord system surrounding the capital city, Nuuk. Research in this area has focussed on quantifying the effect of close approaches of whale watching vessels on humpback whale behaviour. The most frequently observed reaction is an increase in swimming speed when boats are nearby (Boye et al. 2010). The humpback whales that use this area tend to return there year after year, leading to the suggestion that hunters should avoid taking these whales to support the whale watching industry. In 2019, field work planned on humpback whales include photo identification, biopsy sampling and satellite telemetry. This work is coordinated by the Climate Research Centre (GCRC) at GINR.
Norway surveys a huge area of the Barents, Norwegian and North Seas on a six-year rotation, covering a part of the area each year. While minke whales are the primary target species of the survey, all species including humpback whales are counted. Norway also contributes fluke photographs and genetic samples to international humpback whale database, and participated in the YoNAH and follow-up projects.
A major focus of Norwegian research has been to understand the ecological relationships between baleen whales, pelagic fish such as capelin and Arctic cod, and their invertebrate prey, krill and pelagic amphipods. A series of surveys conducted jointly with Russia in the Barents Sea south of Svalbard between 2003 and 2007 collected simultaneous data on the abundance of krill, amphipods, pelagic fish and cetaceans (Skern-Mauritzen 2011). Baleen whales including humpbacks were found at highest density in a narrow arc along the north edge of the polar front, which corresponded closely to the highest densities of krill in the area. While this suggests that humpback whales graze primarily on krill in this area, the abundance of capelin was at a low level during most of this period. Future work will address how the distribution of cetaceans responds as ecosystem conditions change.
The Whaletrack project was initiated in 2013 with the aim to map the humpback and killer whale behaviour and migrations related to their winter aggregations in the Northern Norwegian fjords. In 2018 the Whalefeast project was also included under the Whaletrack framework. The UiT Arctic University of Norway is the project leading institution with close cooperation with the Institute for Marine Research (IMR, Tromsø and Bergen). The project also includes close cooperation with other Norwegian and international institutions and include several PhD- and MSc candidates. The main purpose of the project is to gain better knowledge about the behavior of humpback and killer whales before, during and after the period they feed on overwintering herring in the fjords or off the coast of Northern Norway. Whilst the Whaletrack project has focused on mapping the horizontal and vertical migration patterns of humpback and killer whales, the new Whalefeast project (2018-2021) will also include a closer cooperation with the fisheries and tourism industry, as well as using eDNA-techniques in addition to already collected data. It will include social science studies of the impacts that the whale arrivals have and have had on the tourist and fisheries industries (National Progress Report Norway 2018).
Identification photos of humpback whales are also collected, most of them submitted through the North Norwegian Humpback Whale Catalogue. Since 2010, more than 900 individual humpback whales have been identified in Northern Norway, matching with whales observed in Iceland, Ireland, Cape Verde Islands and the Carribbean (National Progress Report Norway 2018).
Challenges with entanglements of humpback and killer whales during the Norwegian herring fisheries in Northern Norway have arisen, and as a response to this, the Norwegian Coast Guard and the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries’ Sea Surveillance Service have been given special training in large whale entanglement response (National Progress Report Norway 2018).
12. Work done in NAMMCO
Scientific Reports: Abundance Estimates
Scientific Reports: Assessments
Scientific Publications Volume 7
Scientific Publications Volume 11
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Kennedy, A. S., A. N. Zerbini, O. V. Vasquez, N. Gandilhon, P. J. Clapham and O. Adam. 2013. Local and migratory movements of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) satellite-tracked in the North Atlantic Ocean. Canadian Journal of Zoology 92: 8-17.
Laist, D. W., Knowlton, A. R., Mead, J. G., Collet, A. S., and Podesta, M. 2001. Collisions between ships and whales. Marine Mammal Science 17:35-75.
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McCordic, J. A., Todd, S. K., and Stevick, P. T. 2014. Differential rates of killer whale attacks on humpback whales in the North Atlantic as determined by scarification. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 94:1311-1315.
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Stevick, P.T., Berrow, S.D., Bérubé, M., Bouveret, L., Broms, F., Jann, B., Kennedy, A., López Suárez, P., Meunier, M., Ryan, C. and Wenzel, F. 2016. There and back again: multiple and return exchange of humpback whales between breeding habitats separated by an ocean basin. Journal of the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom 96:885–890.
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General Information pages
Norwegian Polar Institute: http://www.npolar.no/en/species/humpback-whale.html
Greenland Institute of Natural Resources: http://www.natur.gl/en/birds-and-mammals/marine-mammals/aerial-surveys-of-marine-mammals/
Marine Research Institute of Iceland: http://www.hafro.is/undir_eng.php?ID=15&REF=2
Institute of Marine Research Norway: http://www.imr.no/temasider/sjopattedyr/hval/knolhval/en
Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada: http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/fm-gp/mammals-mammiferes/index-eng.htm
Canadian Species at Risk Public Registry: http://www.registrelep-sararegistry.gc.ca/species/speciesDetails_e.cfm?sid=148
US NOAA: http://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/pr/species/mammals/whales/humpback-whale.html
The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2015: http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/13006/0
Humpback whale songs: http://www.oceanmammalinst.org/songs.html
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If Katie Hopkins is gearing up to attack Welsh language schools, you know they must be good
Katie Hopkins’ tweet.
Katie Hopkins is about as good a moral compass as you are likely to find. If she thinks something is bad it is without fail an unalloyed good, and vice versa.
Her latest series of tweets suggests that she’s now gearing up to attack a Welsh language education, which is about the best recommendation our Welsh language schools could get.
Her call for ‘information’ from the ‘parents of Wales’ about the language isn’t about getting at the truth, of course, but collecting ammunition for a propaganda drive against the language.
This has been coming for a while. The far-right in the UK has seen in Brexit not just an opportunity to draw powers back from the EU (which Wales voted for) but to draw political, economic and cultural power back to London (which we didn’t).
Hopkins’ efforts to disparage the Welsh language go hand in hand with UKIP’s efforts to abolish the Welsh Assembly, an institution Wales overwhelmingly voted to give more powers in 2011.
The hatred towards all things Welsh by the British far-right is a curious thing. You would think that they would take pride in a language and culture native to these islands.
The Welsh language was originally spoken as far afield as Edinburgh and the south of England. If anything has been Made in Britain™ it is the Welsh language.
The truth is of course that the so-called ‘British’ nationalism of people like Katie Hopkins has nothing to do with celebrating actual British culture and all to do with creating a culture-less, uniform, authoritarian state that answers to a small elite of upper-class twits in the Home Counties.
All criticism of Welsh language education ultimately rests on not understanding what it is, and Katie Hopkins’ tweets are no exception.
First off, there is no such thing as ‘mandatory Welsh language education’ in Ceredigion. There are Welsh language schools and English-only schools here.
Secondly, Welsh language education is a bilingual education – children who attend them are taught to speak both English and Welsh.
I and my partner had a Welsh language education, and my kids are now going to a Welsh language school, and we can all speak English as well as any first-language English speaker.
So if English was ‘banned’ in Welsh schools, as Hopkins’ tweet claims, they would have to round everyone up, including the teachers, and the classroom would be empty.
Learning the Welsh language isn’t about taking anything away from children but about giving the children something extra:
An extra way of seeing and appreciating the world that being able to speak a different language provides
Access to a whole other culture, including a thousand and five hundred years of books, songs and poetry, as well as films, TV shows, YouTube videos, and festivals
All the cognitive advantages that come with bilingualism
The question is why turn all of this down? It is being freely offered to your child, at no extra cost, and no disadvantage to children at all.
Hopkins asks ‘Has your child been impacted?’, and the only answer to that question is that, yes, they have been impacted, and the impact has been 100% positive.
What Hopkins is fishing for of course is parents who will claim the opposite – that a Welsh language education has ‘held back’ a child, made it stupid, badly behaved and amoral.
These were all accusations made towards the Welsh language back in the late 19th and early 20th century, before modern research and science showed them to be nonsense.
So let us take pride in Welsh as one of the mosaic of languages making up the British Isles, which strengthens us and enriches our lives.
And let’s reject those who, like Hopkins would like, seek only to foster spite and division by taking all that is good away from us.
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Coming Soon in Catalonia: The New elBulli
From the year 1961 to 2011, elBulli was a very highly regarded restaurant. Under the direction of world famous chef Ferran Adrià, the restaurant became known for molecular gastronomy and avant-garde dining. Now, the restaurant is closed and elBulli is being reinvented, but no one knows what exactly, it will become.
Buzzle Staff
Ferran Adrià is simultaneously one of the world's most highly revered and highly controversial haute cuisine chefs. Adrià gained international fame when his Michelin 3-star restaurant, elBulli (pronounced "el boo-yee"), was the subject of a 2010 documentary entitled El Bulli: Cooking in Progress. It was featured five times on Restaurant Magazine's list of the 50 best restaurants in the world, starting in 2002.
The History of elBulli
Despite its relatively recent rise to popular fame, elBulli was founded decades ago, in 1961, and was awarded its first Michelin star in 1976. At that time, French chef Jean-Louis Neichel was the head chef. Ferran Adrià did not join the elBulli staff until the mid-eighties, where he began to develop his unique style. In the 1990s, after he became the head chef and transformed elBulli into the unconventional restaurant, it became known as the two Michelin stars awarded restaurant.
Adrià's Cuisine
Adrià is best known in the culinary world for his excursions into a field called molecular gastronomy, which blends haute cuisine with chemistry and uses precise scientific methods to create novel dining experiences. For example, elBulli served counterintuitive menu items like savory, peanut-encrusted marshmallow squares, mozzarella balls with liquid centers, seaweed tempura with saffron, and monkfish liver. Such avant-garde dishes as these were always meticulously plated, making the visual experience of dining at elBulli just as fascinating as the flavors.
Financial Trouble
Unfortunately, Adrià's creativity surpassed elBulli's finances around 2000, when the restaurant began operating at a net loss even despite a very short season and an average cost of US$325 per meal. In order to cover elBulli's operating costs, Adrià wrote books and gave lectures, but the revenue from these activities, along with the proceeds from Adrià's line of culinary products, was not enough to keep the restaurant afloat. With a menu full of exotic ingredients and a staff of over 40 chefs needed to prepare the one-of-a-kind dishes, maybe it's no surprise that the restaurant couldn't make it.
elBulli Closes
In July 2011, the elBulli restaurant closed, with the intention of re-opening as a combination restaurant and culinary school. According to Adrià, the new elBulli will be more of a conceptual experiment in cuisine than a restaurant, or even a school. At the time of this writing, little was known about the details of the new elBulli, but Adrià expressed a desire to bring together individuals from multiple disciplines, including architecture and philosophy, to question fundamental assumptions about food and dining, such as the need for a dining room.
The Future of elBulli
The new elBulli is scheduled to open in 2014, but no one yet knows what exactly will be opening. The project has been described as a "think-tank," and it is probably safe to assume that, whatever goes on there, it will be in service of Adrià's famous ideas and principles about cuisine. On elBulli's website, there is a "Synthesis of elBulli Cuisine," which is a 23-point mini-manifesto about food, presumably written or at least conceived by Adrià himself. Some of the points describe the type of food the restaurant served, for example noting that red meat and poultry are very rarely used, but other points are more enigmatic. One classic example: "The technique-concept search is the apex of the creative pyramid." This is point 11 in the synthesis, and what it means is anyone's guess. One thing is clear, though: we have not heard the last of Ferran Adrià and his revolutionary cuisine.
Advantages and Disadvantages of a Confederate Government
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The Prevention Project
Organizing Against Violent Extremism
Mapping Report: Civil Society Organizations in Preventing And Countering Violent Extremism in The Western Balkans
This regional mapping has been produced for the project: “Communities First: Creation of a civil society hub to prevent and counter violent extremism” (the Hub). The three-year project aims to empower civil society organizations (CSOs) in the Western Balkans (WB), including women, youth, and faith-based organizations, to become more effective and accountable actors and to improve their capacity to implement projects and dialogue with national and local governments around preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE), influencing policy and decision-making processes as it relates to P/CVE in the region.
regional_reportDownload
Multi-Disciplinary & Multi-Agency Approaches to Preventing & Countering Violent Extremism: An Emerging P/CVE Success Story?
As an ‘expert contribution’ to the 2018 Global Terrorism Index,
the Prevention Project’s Eric Rosand, explores the growth in multi-agency, multi-disciplinary referral mechanisms for preventing and countering violent extremism, focusing on lessons learned in this promising area of practice, where the “whole of society” approach has had some success in being operationalized.
Connecting the Dots: Strengthening National-Local Collaboration in Addressing Violent Extremism
By: Eric Rosand, Rebecca Skellett
Editor’s Note: Counterterrorism is usually a national government concern, but much of the day to day of radicalization occurs in local towns and neighborhoods. However, integrating local actors into programs to prevent and counter violent extremism is often done poorly or not at all. This may be changing. Eric Rosand of the Prevention Project (and a non-resident senior fellow at Brookings) and Rebecca Skellett of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue describe the progress being made around the globe, highlighting what other countries are doing to incorporate local actors into their programs to fight extremism and drawing lessons for moving forward.
Daniel Byman
A Roadmap to Progress- The State of the Global P/CVE Agenda
By Eric Rosand, Emily Winterbotham, Michael Jones, Franziska Praxl-Tabuchi
This report builds on the Prevention Project’s December 2016 report, “Communities First: A Blueprint for Organizing and Sustaining a Global Movement against Violent Extremism,” and is informed by a series of consultations with scores of governmental and non-governmental P/CVE stakeholders over the past 18 months. It takes stock of the progress and challenges in advancing the “whole of society” P/CVE agenda, which picked up considerable political momentum in 2015, and concludes with a series of practical, policy-relevant recommendations for enhancing its impact.
The report concludes that understanding the current ‘state-of-play’ in the P/CVE space, including a critical appraisal of its strengths and weaknesses and the comparative advantages of the various stakeholders, is necessary for developing practical guidance that can consolidate progress to-date and overcome some of the barriers to enable durable success going forward.
Recommendations from Experts’ Roundtable on Enhancing Global-Local Cooperation in Multi-Disciplinary P/CVE Efforts
On 24 September 2018, the Prevention Project: Organizing Against Violent Extremism, the Global Center on Cooperative Security, and the Royal United Services Institute hosted a roundtable discussion on Enhancing Global-Local Cooperation in Multi-Disciplinary P/CVE Efforts. Participants included civil society actors, local practitioners, researchers, and other experts from Australia, Canada, Jordan, Kenya, Nigeria, Serbia, Tunisia and elsewhere. A series of recommendations emerged from this roundtable that were presented during the public, high-level “side-event” on the same topic the following day.
About the GSX
The Global Solutions Exchange (GSX) serves as a durable mechanism for systematic and structured interactions among governments, multilateral organizations, and independent civil society actors with a track record in programming, analysis, gender perspectives or policy advocacy to build resilience against violent extremism.
For general information about the Prevention Project and the GSX, please contact info@organizingagainstve.org.
For specific questions regarding publications and events please contact fpraxl@organizingagainstve.org.
Tweets by PreventionPrjct
Copyright © 2019 · The Prevention Project — Return to Top of Page
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Orr & Reno
Meritas
Regulated Industries and Government Relations
Personal and Family
Employment / Immigration
Energy / Environmental
How Are Parental Rights Determined?
Divorcing parents often wonder how a court will make decisions about a parenting schedule. Even parents who do not wish to litigate parenting issues can benefit from understanding the law that would be applied by a court. In determining parental rights and responsibilities, including a schedule, New Hampshire courts are guided by the ‘best interest of the child’ standard.
When parents are unable to agree upon the allocation of parental rights and responsibilities, the court will make decisions for them. There is a presumption that decision making rights will be shared absent a history of abuse. A court’s decision about a parenting schedule will be based on the “best interests of the child,” as defined by RSA 461-A:6. The factors evaluated by a court when determining the best interest of a child include the following:
the relationship of the child with each parent (to include an assessment of the current schedule and participation in activities);
the ability of each parent to provide the child with nurture, love, affection, and guidance;
the ability of each parent to assure that the child receives adequate food, clothing, shelter, medical care;
the ability of each parent to provide a safe environment for the child;
the child’s developmental needs and the ability of each parent to meet them, both in the present and in the future;
the quality of the child’s adjustment to the child’s school and community and the potential effect of any change;
the ability and disposition of each parent to foster a positive relationship and frequent and continuing physical, written, and telephonic contact with the other parent, including whether contact is likely to result in harm to the child or to a parent;
the support of each parent for the child’s contact with the other parent as shown by allowing and promoting such contact, including whether contact is likely to result in harm to the child or to a parent;
the relationship of the child with any other person who may significantly affect the child;
the ability of the parents to communicate, cooperate with each other, and make joint decisions concerning the children, including whether contact is likely to result in harm to the child or to a parent;
any evidence of abuse, the impact of the abuse on the child and an assessment of the relationship between the child and the abusing parent; and
any other additional factors the court deems relevant.
In the event that a mature minor child states a preference for residing in one home or the other, the court may consider this as well. So long as the child’s preference is not the product of improper or undesirable influences, the court will grant significant weight to the child’s preference. Whether a child is a mature minor is a question for the court to decide. The court has significant latitude to make such a decision. Typically mature minors are thirteen or older. However, younger children have been considered mature minors in some cases.
Circumstances such as the sex of the child, sex of the parent, religion, race or financial resources of a parent are not appropriate considerations in determining the best interest of the child. Instead, the court will conduct an unbiased review of the circumstances relating to the best interest of each child and then determine what schedule will serve the child’s best interest.
In some cases, a court will appoint a “guardian ad litem,” sometimes called a guardian or GAL, to investigate what schedule would be in the best interest of the child. The guardian will speak and meet with each parent and the child. The guardian will also contact other important collateral contacts, for example schools, therapists, grandparents, caretakers, parents of the child’s friends or others who could assist in the best interest determination. Ultimately, a guardian ad litem will issue a report recommending a final parenting schedule. Courts often give substantial deference to the findings of a guardian, but are not required to follow or defer to the guardian’s recommendations.
Schedules agreed upon by parents, rather than ordered by the court, are often very creative and specifically tailored to the needs of both the children and the parents. Parents may develop any schedule that suits their needs by agreement. The State of Arizona published a guide that is available online and can be a very useful resource for designing parenting schedules. The guide contains fourteen potential schedules and outlines the advantages, disadvantages and other considerations relative to each. Under ideal circumstances, parents will work together to design a parenting plan and schedule by agreement, as parents are in the best position to know what suits their needs and the needs of their children. Parties are uniformly more satisfied with a schedule and parenting plan created by them, as opposed to one imposed upon them by a court.
If parents can cooperate and focus on the children rather than the emotional aspects of the divorce, they are in the best position to create their own schedule. Parents may endeavor to reach an agreement on their own or with various forms of assistance from attorneys. Parenting plans created by agreement result in more durable agreements and fewer post-divorce disputes. Of course, courts are always available to decide such issues and, in some cases, it is necessary for the court to do so. Nevertheless, if it is possible, an agreed-upon resolution will often result in a more unique, satisfactory and durable agreement.
About the Author: Margaret Kerouac
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Education/Newsletter/August 2015/Articles of interest in other publications
< Education | Newsletter | August 2015
English • dansk • українська
1 Articles of interest in other publications
1.1 Reforma newspaper of Mexico City overviews education efforts with Wikipedia in Mexico
1.2 Writing articles about women on Wikipedia instead of university tests
1.3 WikiD writing workshop engraves women into architecture history on Wikipedia
Articles of interest in other publications
Reforma newspaper of Mexico City overviews education efforts with Wikipedia in Mexico[edit]
"If you cant beat them, join them" says Reforma, one of Mexico City's most important newspaper in its "Universitarios" education supplement, with a six-page featured article on August 23, 2015, referring to Wikipedia in education. Supplement director Ana Belén Negrete attended the 2015 Wikimania in Mexico City and was impressed enough with what she saw to feature it in the August edition, dedicated to back-to-school.
The article begins with an overview of Wikimedia and the struggle to get Wikipedia accepted by academia in the country, then goes into efforts to develop programs and activities by Wikimedia México with institutions such as the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Quoting Senior Manager for the Wikipedia Education Program Floor Koudijs, details about efforts at UNAM and Tec de Monterrey are discussed. At UNAM, most activities are with the school's Facultad de Filosofia y Letras (Humanities Division). For Tec de Monterrey, the article discusses its various activities, such as students writing and translation articles for classes, "servicio social" (community service hours required of all Mexican undergraduates) and more. It also goes into the creation of major video projects by animation students (three of whom are prominently pictured in the article), as well as the Wiki Expedition to Tepoztlán in March 2015 and the upcoming Wiki Expedition to the Mexico City boroughs of Xochimilco and Tlalpan.
The article then goes into a general overview of Wikimedia, especially in relation to education, mentioning other Mexican universities as well as the education programs in Armenia, Argentina, Uruguay, Egypt, Spain and Chile. The article ends with various statistics about article usage, readership, articles written by students in Mexico, along with tips for using Wikipedia more effectively.
Unfortunately, the article is available now only behind a paywall, but a request has been made to make all or part of it available on Wikimedia Commons.
Writing articles about women on Wikipedia instead of university tests[edit]
In Israel, Dr. Sharon Geva, professor of history assigned her students to edit a Wikipedia article about one of the notable women in the history of Israel instead of taking a normal exam. There are several important women who made the history of Israel however they are not well-known outside their families. Dr. Geva has prepared a list of 65 women with great achievements from which students can choose the topic of their entries. The historian professor wanted to reflect what students study and discuss in class into something everyone can benefit from.
WikiD writing workshop engraves women into architecture history on Wikipedia[edit]
The Women Wikipedia Design (WikiD project), is an international education and advocacy program working to increase the number of Wikipedia articles on women in architecture and the built environment. As part of the project, Monash University and Parlour are organizing the first WikiD editing workshop in Australia on Sunday September 13 from 11:30 PM to 4:00 PM at The Monash Art Design and Architecture (MADA) faculty.
Retrieved from "https://outreach.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Education/Newsletter/August_2015/Articles_of_interest_in_other_publications&oldid=109380"
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Emerging Trends | Policy/ Regulatory Reform | Regulation
World Conference on International Telecommunications 2012
Perhaps the hottest topic at present is the 2012 World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT-12), which takes place in Dubai in December. It will revisit the International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) that ITU Member States agreed way back in 1988, and which underpin international communications, including the Internet.
A version of the ITRs, with proposals for changes, can be found online. Background briefs and FAQs on the conference are also available.
In recent months the WCIT process has come under scrutiny for its transparency. Here, for example, FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell outlined in the Wall Street Journal why he was concerned about the WCIT process, suggesting that it could reduce support for a “multistakeholder” internet. On the other hand, Bill Ray at The Register suggested Commissioner McDowell’s concerns might be over blown.
Meanwhile, Wcitleaks.org, whose founder Jerry Brito explained his reasoning, has been publishing proposal submissions from various ITU Member States. The ITU Secretariat has explained that it does not have the authority to publish these directly, but confirms that all its members are encouraged to disseminate this information to their citizens.
WCIT-12 will cover many topics that could affect such areas as the balance between cybersecurity and the protection of privacy.
In this blog we will provide contributions on why these matters are important, and highlight commentators who have interesting things to say about them.
ITU is the neutral forum where the issues for WCIT-12 can be debated, and this blog offers another open space in which to do so.
http://news.itu.int/world-conference-international-telecommunications-2012/
Is the WCIT Indeed Wicked?Emerging TrendsBy Paul Budde The traditional network operators see OTT services as a threat, and the companies offering them are perceived to be getting a free lunch…
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Falcons RB Freeman cleared to return after missing 3 games
By National Football Post
FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. (AP) — Running back Devonta Freeman has been cleared to play after missing three games with a sore right knee, giving the Atlanta Falcons an important boost as they prepare to visit the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Coach Dan Quinn confirmed Wednesday that Freeman, the team’s leading rusher each of the last three years, has full clearance to practice.
Atlanta’s defense, meanwhile, will be without four starters against the Steelers. Quinn says defensive tackle Grady Jarrett will be held out with an ankle sprain suffered late in last week’s 37-36 loss to Cincinnati.
The Falcons’ defense already has lost starting safeties Keanu Neal and Ricardo Allen to season-ending injuries and linebacker Deion Jones for at least eight weeks. Offensive guard Andy Levitre also is on IR.
The Falcons (1-3) have lost two straight games.
More AP NFL: https://apnews.com/tag/NFL and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL
NFL and College Football Articles
Raiders sign former first-round pick Cooper
The Oakland Raiders signed free agent guard Jonathan Cooper, who could provide valuable depth at the position.
Cooper, 29, a North Carolina product, was the No. 7 overall selection of the Arizona Cardinals in the 2013 NFL Draft.
Cooper’s career has been injury plagued, limiting him to just 46 career games (31 starts) in six seasons. He missed his entire rookie season with a broken leg, and injuries limited him to a combined nine games in 2016 and 2018.
He played two seasons with Arizona (2014-15), followed by single seasons with the Cleveland Browns, Dallas Cowboys and Washington Redskins.
The Raiders will be without guard Richie Incognito, who was suspended for the first two games of the season for violating the NFL’s personal conduct policy.
In a corresponding move, the Raiders waived wide receiver Montay Crockett. The team signed the 25-year-old in June.
He has never appeared in an NFL game, despite spending time in the Cardinals, Redskins, Jacksonville and Green Bay organizations.
–Field Level Media
Open odds favor McIlroy’s home cooking
Open odds favor McIlroy's home cooking
Rory McIlroy has been blunt about how much it would mean to him to win the 148th Open Championship at Royal Portrush in his home country of Northern Ireland.
The world’s No. 3-ranked player built his summer schedule around peaking for this week’s highly-anticipated final major of 2019. McIlroy, who has 11 top-10s in 14 starts this year, has not competed in the United States since tying for ninth place at the U.S. Open.
He traveled to Europe for last week’s Scottish Open, where he tied for 34th, but has remain undeterred in his confidence of being a huge factor at Royal Portrush. McIlroy has far more experience at the undulating links course than any of the other marquee players.
That history – and his strong play throughout 2019 – is why McIlroy is either the favorite or co-favorite by most sportsbooks entering the week. While PointsBet list McIlroy and Brooks Koepka at +800 on Monday, FanDuel (+900 McIlroy, +1000 Koepka) and William Hill (+800, +900) give a slight edge to McIlroy.
It’s heady stuff for the 30-year-old who hasn’t won a major in five years and who will have enormous pressure on his shoulders this week.
Koepka has won four majors during that span and enters as the No. 1 player in the world. No. 2 Dustin Johnson has finished second at each the past two majors. He is +1400 by PointsBet, +1500 by William Hill and +1600 by FanDuel.
PointsBet actually has Jordan Spieth (+1200) as the third betting favorite, despite the Texan entering the week at No. 38 and having taken time off since missing the cut at the Travelers Championship last month. The odds illustrate the varying analysis of the state of Spieth’s game, FanDuel lists Spieth at a modest -280 to even make the cut and the 10th betting favorite to be the top finisher from the United States (+1900).
Jon Rahm, coming off a win at the Irish Open two weeks ago, is the third betting favorite by William Hill (+1500) and FanDuel (+1600). Tiger Woods, who arrived at Royal Portrush over the weekend, is +1400 by PointsBet, +1600 by William Hill and +1800 by FanDuel.
FanDuel is also offering a wide range of Prop Bets, from finishing position to individual matchups.
FanDuel Prop Bets:
–Top 5 Finish: McIlroy +900, Koepka +1000, Rahm +1600, Johnson +1700, Woods +1800,
–Top 10 Finish: McIlroy +105, Koepka +115, Johnson +150, Rahm +160, Justin Rose +175, Woods +220
–Match Betting: McIlroy -128 vs. Koepka +104; Rose -122 vs. Woods +100; Xander Schauffele (-118) vs. Francesco Molinari (-106)
–Top USA Player: Koepka +470, Johnson +650, Woods +850, Schauffele +1000, Patrick Cantlay +1300
–Make Cut: McIlroy -1050, Koepka -900, Johnson -750, Rahm -750, Woods -430
–Make Cut (Highest Odds): David Duval +240
Outright Winner Odds (PointsBet)
Rory McIlroy: +800
Brooks Koepka: +800
Jordan Spieth: +1200
Dustin Johnson: +1400
Tiger Woods: +1400
Jon Rahm: +1400
Justin Rose: +1600
Francesco Molinari: +1800
Xander Schauffele: +2000
Tommy Fleetwood: +2200
Rickie Fowler: +2500
Justin Thomas: +2500
Adam Scott: +2500
Jason Day: +2800
Henrik Stenson: +2800
Bryson DeChambeau: +2800
Patrick Cantlay: +3000
Sergio Garcia: +3300
Hideki Matsuyama: +3500
Alex Noren: +4000
Paul Casey: +4000
Phil Mickelson: +4000
Matt Kuchar: +4000
Patrick Reed: +5000
Louis Oosthuizen: +5000
Tony Finau: +5000
Marc Leishman: +5000
Zach Johnson: +5000
Matt Wallace: +5000
Graeme McDowell: +5000
Gary Woodland: +5500
Matthew Fitzpatrick: +6000
Ian Poulter: +6000
Tyrrell Hatton: +6600
Bubba Watson: +6600
Shane Lowry: +6600
Bernd Wiesberger: +6600
Eddie Pepperell: +7500
Branden Grace: +8000
Webb Simpson: +8000
Paul Dunne: +8000
Brandt Snedeker: +8000
Danny Willett: +8000
Russell Knox: +8000
Rafael Cabrera Bello: +8000
Thomas Pieters: +8000
Chris Wood: +10000
Jimmy Walker: +10000
Kevin Chappell: +10000
Thorbjorn Olesen: +10000
Ryan Fox: +10000
Kevin Kisner: +10000
Haotong Li: +10000
Cameron Smith: +10000
Byeong Hun An: +12500
Emiliano Grillo: +12500
Ryan Moore: +12500
Brian Harman: +12500
Luke List: +12500
Kiradech Aphibarnrat: +12500
Beau Hossler: +12500
Daniel Berger: +15000
Charl Schwartzel: +15000
Kevin Na: +15000
Jason Dufner: +15000
Keegan Bradley: +15000
Padraig Harrington: +15000
Joost Luiten: +15000
Alexander Levy: +15000
Peter Uihlein: +15000
Dylan Frittelli: +15000
Si Woo Kim: +15000
Kyle Stanley: +15000
Charley Hoffman: +15000
Alexander Bjork: +17500
Hudson Swafford: +17500
Austin Cook: +20000
Ross Fisher: +20000
Russell Henley: +20000
Jorge Campillo: +20000
Charles Howell: +20000
Ernie Els: +20000
Jeunghun Wang: +20000
Danny Lee: +20000
Grayson Murray: +20000
Satoshi Kodaira: +25000
Stewart Cink: +25000
Mikko Korhonen: +25000
Paul Lawrie: +25000
Shubhankar Sharma: +25000
Todd Hamilton: +50000
Darren Clarke: +50000
Mark Calcavecchia: +50000
David Duval: +50000
Tom Lehman: +50000
The New York Giants suspended second-year safety Kamrin Moore on Monday pending further investigation into his weekend arrest in an alleged domestic violence incident.
Moore, 22, was charged with third-degree aggravated assault for allegedly stepping on a woman’s neck before punching her and knocking her unconscious in a confrontation outside of his home in Linden, N.J., on Thursday night, according to the criminal complaint filed by the Union County Prosecutor’s Office.
The woman was taken to a hospital by a friend and suffered injuries to her neck and face with “bruising, swelling and abrasions,” according to NJ.com.
Police were not called to the scene. The woman, who had been dating Moore since January, filed a complaint with the authorities on Saturday, per NJ.com.
New Orleans drafted Moore in the sixth round out of Boston College in 2018. After being waived by the Saints on Sept. 1, he was claimed by the Giants and played 10 snaps in two games as a rookie.
Cincinnati Bengals guard Clint Boling retired Monday after eight seasons, citing medical concerns.
The 30-year-old lineman started 109 of his 111 games since being drafted in the fourth round out of Georgia in 2011.
“After eight years in the NFL, it is time for me to step away from the game due to medical reasons,” Boling said in a statement. “This is not an easy decision, but it is the right one for me, my wife Kelly and our two young girls. I want to thank the Brown family for giving me the opportunity to play my entire career with the Bengals. I also want to thank my teammates, coaches, fans and everyone who has supported me throughout my career.”
Boling started all 16 games in five of his seasons, including 2018.
“Clint is a first-rate person, someone we all counted on and looked up to,” said Bengals president Mike Brown in a statement. “As a lineman, he never got the credit he deserved. That is often the case with good players who do their jobs well, but around the team, he was highly respected and appreciated beyond his playing abilities.”
Boling blocked for four 1,000-yard rushers and helped the Bengals earn five straight playoff berths (2011-15), including two AFC North titles.
The Atlanta Falcons and
The Atlanta Falcons and defensive tackle Grady Jarrett agreed to a four-year, $68 million deal ahead of Monday’s franchise tag deadline, multiple outlets reported.
Jarrett, who would have earned $15.2 million playing under the tag in 2019, will earn $17 million per season through 2022.
That makes the 26-year-old the third-highest paid interior defensive lineman in the league after the Los Angeles Rams’ Aaron Donald and the Philadelphia Eagles’ Fletcher Cox.
Jarrett was ranked as the No. 5 defensive tackle by Pro Football Focus in its 2018 postseason grades. He had 52 tackles and a career-high six sacks in 14 games.
Jarrett has 14 sacks and 31 tackles for loss in 61 games (46 starts) since Atlanta drafted him in the fifth round in 2015 out of Clemson.
Redskins QB Smith walking without brace
Washington Redskins quarterback Alex Smith no longer is wearing the brace on his surgically repaired right leg, the next step in his comeback from a devastating injury suffered last November.
His wife, Elizabeth, announced the achievement on her Instagram account on Monday, saying he no longer was wearing the external fixator that was designed to keep his leg in place during his recovery from a compound fracture.
“The last 8 months have been nothing short of crazy,” she wrote. “Although it’s not over, today is a big milestone. We are shedding the weight Alex has been carrying (literally and figuratively). It’s one step closer to the goal. The resilience, determination and mental fortitude of this man is unmatched.”
Following the injury in the Nov. 18 loss to the Houston Texans, Smith underwent several surgeries to repair his broken tibia and fibula and then suffered from an infection and was hospitalized until Dec. 16.
The 35-year-old veteran told a Washington, D.C., reporter last month that he hasn’t given up hope of playing again.
“That’s the plan,” Smith told Angie Goff on her Oh My Goff podcast. “There are steps I’ve got to conquer before I get there. … Learning to run again. That’s a big one. I’m already throwing. Throwing isn’t a problem, but dropping, moving around, change of direction.”
He said then that everyday events for most were milestones for him.
“The steps I’m at now are lifestyle steps,” he said. “I’m still working on playing basketball with my kids and running around after my daughter. Those are things I have to conquer anyway until I get to the point where I’m walking on the field. I’m looking forward to it. I’m excited about that challenge. The stronger I get every week, the more I do, the more hopeful I am that that’s a real possibility.”
The Redskins acquired Smith from Kansas City before the 2018 season. He signed a four-year contract extension that put him under contract for five years and $111 million. It included $71 million in injury guarantees.
Linebacker Derrick
Linebacker Derrick Morgan, who spent his entire nine-year career with the Tennessee Titans, announced his retirement on Monday.
Morgan, 30, posted 44.5 career sacks with the Titans. He was drafted 16th overall out of Georgia Tech in 2010.
“It’s been real,” Morgan wrote in an Instagram post. “I’ve been playing this game since I was 9 years old. Over the years it’s brought a lot of struggle, triumph, adversity and joy to my life. It’s help shape me into the man I am today. But for the longest the game was ‘who I was’..it was my IDENTITY. I didn’t know who Derrick Morgan was outside of this game. I tried to shake this reality in a business that tells you your value IS your performance. However the one thing that helped me evolve as a man over the years was knowing that I couldn’t play this game forever..that there was life after football. I realized early on the importance of this platform and my goal has been to use it for good.”
Morgan played the final year of a four-year, $27 million contract in 2018 and was hampered by shoulder and knee injuries.
“I wanted to leave the game on my OWN terms. And over 9 years, 5 head coaches, 9 surgeries, and seeing a locker room turn over multiple times I am thankful to say that I accomplished both of these goals,” Morgan wrote on Instagram.
He logged 106 career starts and 54 tackles for loss.
Open form: Mickelson drops 15 pounds on water, coffee fast
A six-day fast helped Phil Mickelson drop 15 pounds ahead of the Open Championship.
The 49-year-old said in a video posted to his Twitter feed that he wanted to do everything possible to be his best at Royal Portrush, site of the 2019 Open Championship this week. That included a six-day fast during which he allowed himself only a special coffee blend for nutrition and water.
“I haven’t been my best and I’m doing all I can to get it right,” Mickelson said.
Mickelson has not posted a top-15 finish since winning at Pebble Beach in February. Since tying for 18th at The Masters, he has missed the cut in four of his last six tournaments.
Mickelson won The Open at Muirfield in 2013 and has been preparing for this week’s challenges on and off the course.
“The last 10 days I’ve done what I call a hard reset to change and try and make things better,” he said.
Jadeveon Clowney and the Houston Texans are not expected to reach agreement on a contract Monday, the deadline for franchise players to sign a new deal.
According to multiple reports, the two sides are not engaged in negotiations at this time.
Clowney, by rule, would earn the $15.967 million one-year tender value for 2019 if he doesn’t sign a new deal by 4 p.m. ET Monday.
Houston’s front office is operating without a general manager, but the Texans have shown no signs of progress in negotiations with Clowney for months.
Without a deal in place, Clowney is not expected to participate in training camp and could opt to stay away from the team until September, returning in time to avoid fines and prepare for Week 1 of the regular season.
The 26-year-old pass rusher was named to each of the past three Pro Bowls, tallying 53 tackles for loss over that period. He has 29 sacks since the Texans made him the No. 1 overall pick in 2014.
Prior to the draft, there were rumblings Clowney could be available via trade, but Clowney’s camp has said he did not request a trade out of Houston.
Robbie Gould and the San Francisco 49ers agreed to a two-year, $10.5 million deal on Monday, beating the 4 p.m. deadline for franchise players to receive a new contract.
Animosity between Gould and the 49ers seemed to be a roadblock after he was given the prohibitive franchise tag in March, limiting his ability to sign elsewhere. Gould stated at the time that moving closer to his family — which maintained residence in Chicago — was a top priority.
Gould, 36, requested a trade and was miffed when the 49ers showed heavy interest in Patriots kicker Stephen Gostkowski, who re-signed with New England.
But according to multiple reports, the 49ers found the salve over the weekend in a fully guaranteed $10.5 million contract that can become a $19 million, four-year deal.
The 49ers have the option to trigger the final two years of the contract at $4.5 million (2021) and $4.1 million (2022), per reports.
Gould has made 72 of his 75 field goal attempts in two seasons with the team and led the NFL in field goal percentage (97.1) last season.
Dolphins' Norton to undergo sixth surgery
Miami Dolphins defensive tackle Kendrick Norton will have
Miami Dolphins defensive tackle Kendrick Norton will have his sixth surgery Monday since losing his left arm in a car crash earlier this month, according to NFL Network insider Ian Rapoport.
Norton’s agent, Malki Kawa, told Rapoport that doctors believe this will be the 22-year-old’s final operation and he could be released from the hospital next week.
Norton, who played collegiately at Miami, has been hospitalized since suffering career-ending injuries in the July 4 accident.
Dolphins general manager Chris Grier visited Norton the next day and head coach Brian Flores cut his vacation short and has stopped by every day. Hurricanes coach Manny Diaz has also been a regular visitor, according to Rapoport.
Norton spent the 2018 season on the Panthers’ practice squad after Carolina selected him in the seventh round of the 2018 NFL Draft. The Dolphins signed him in December.
NFL officials have said league and team insurance will cover his medical bills.
Norton was cited with making an improper lane change, per a Florida Highway Patrol report. He suddenly pulled his F-250 truck in front of a Maserati and clipped it, sending his car into a concrete barrier. The other driver was not injured and the report said drugs or alcohol were not believed to be a factor.
Woods paired with Reed in Open Championship
Tiger Woods tees off at 10:10 a.m. ET Thursday in the first
Tiger Woods tees off at 10:10 a.m. ET Thursday in the first round of The Open Championship at Royal Portrush.
Woods is paired with Patrick Reed and Matthew Wallace. He’s been on the grounds in Northern Ireland for more than a week, syncing his body with the time zone and getting familiar with the layout.
A three-time British Open champion, Woods played 18 holes with Reed on Sunday. On Monday he played another 18 with Dustin Johnson and Rickie Fowler. Woods hasn’t played in a tournament since the U.S. Open at Pebble Beach a month ago.
“The breaks are always great for my golf,” Woods said Monday, noting he’s following the plan he shared late last year to trim back the number of tournaments he entered in hopes of competing for the entire season.
Woods won his 15th major at The Masters in April. He claimed the Claret Jug by winning the British Open in 2000, 2005 and 2006, but missed the cut at the PGA Championship in May. He tied for 21st at the U.S. Open.
Portrush native Darren Clarke has the honors of taking the first tee shot Thursday — at 1:35 a.m. ET — and spent last week serving as an ambassador for the town and course.
Another local favorite, Rory McIlroy, is paired with U.S. Open winner Gary Woodland and Paul Casey. McIlroy set the Portrush course record of 61 when he was 16 years old. McIlroy said he’s entirely comfortable on the challenging course, which “just feels like Portrush to me.”
McIlroy hasn’t won a major in five years, but said winning this week would be a career-defining achievement in his mind.
“Never in a million years did I think that an Open Championship would be played again at Royal Portrush,” he said.
Defending champion Francesco Molinari and Bryson DeChambeau are in a group with Adam Scott and will tee off (4:58 a.m. ET) one group before McIlroy’s.
Charles Howell III, who tied for sixth Sunday at the John Deere Classic, withdrew from the field Monday and was replaced by Brian Harman.
Frittelli wins John Deere, spot in The Open
Dylan Frittelli closed with a 7-under-par 64 on Sunday to claim his first PGA Tour title by winning the John Deere Classic in Silvis, Ill.
Frittelli, a 29-year-old South African who attended the University of Texas, finished at 21-under 263 to beat hard-charging Russell Henley by two shots. Henley climbed 23 spots on Sunday by firing a career-low 10-under 61 to finish solo second.
“Wow, it’s awesome,” Frittelli said. “I watched this tournament as a kid, didn’t know much about it besides that it’s a really low-scoring event. … But now to have won it, I don’t know, still sinking in. Feels awesome.”
Frittelli earned the final spot at The Open Championship at Royal Portrush Golf Club in Northern Ireland, which begins Thursday. And the victory gets him a two-year extension on his PGA Tour card.
“Yeah, that’s huge. I’d obviously won on The European Tour, but my exemption was running out at the end of this year,” he said. “All this stuff has been going through my mind the last four to eight weeks and … you just have to play golf and try to put it in the background.”
Third-round co-leader Andrew Landry shot a 69 that included a birdie at No. 18 to finish alone in third at 18 under. Collin Morikawa and Chris Stroud were one stroke back, tied for fourth. Morikawa, a 22-year tour rookie, has posted back-to-back top-5 finishes.
Frittelli, in his 33rd start on the tour, began the day tied for fifth, two shots off the pace, but he made an early move with birdies on the first three holes. His bogey-free round included seven birdies, including a chip-in at No. 10 and an 11-foot putt at the par-5 17th.
“I don’t want to say it was easy out there,” Frittelli said. “It just felt a whole lot easier than it has been the last few weeks.”
He tied for 46th in each of the past two weeks and had missed the cut in two of his past five events.
Henley made 10 birdies and closed with a 30 on the back nine en route to the lowest final-round score in John Deere Classic history.
“Everybody’s so good out here, you have to keep making birdies and keep making birdies,” Henley said. “When you make bogeys or doubles like I have this week, you just have to keep fighting. If you get down on yourself like I’ve done a lot in my career, it never ends in a good result.”
Cameron Tringale, the other third-round co-leader, stumbled to a 2-over 73 that included five bogeys. He tied for 16th at 14 under.
Four golfers tied for sixth at 16 under — Charles Howell III, Vaughn Taylor, Nick Watney and Adam Schenk.
The field was limited because most of the top players were in Europe preparing for The Open Championship. The John Deere Classic provided a charter flight to players traveling to The Open on Sunday night.
Security guard presses charges against Elliott for Vegas incident
Security guard Kyle Johnson has pressed charges against Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott over a May 19 incident in Las Vegas, Fox 5 Las Vegas reported.
The report said Las Vegas police will investigate to determine if official charges against Elliott should be filed. The incident occurred during the Electric Daisy Carnival at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
On Saturday, Elliott’s camp accused Johnson of extortion in a statement released to the NFL Network.
“Over the course of the past several weeks, Mr. Elliott has been the target of extortion,” Elliott lawyers Scott Rosenblum and Jason Lampert said in the statement. “Kyle Johnson’s filing of a criminal complaint against Mr. Elliott in connection with the Las Vegas incident is the latest attempt to do so. Mr. Elliott and his team are in contact with all of the proper authorities and are fully cooperating with them in their investigations.”
TMZ has aired video footage of the incident in which Elliott is seen leaning against a security guard, who fell to the ground when the metal railing behind him toppled over. Elliott was handcuffed and briefly detained by Las Vegas police around 3 a.m. before being released.
The NFL announced on July 3 that Elliott will not be disciplined for the incident. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell determined there wasn’t a violation of the personal conduct policy, the league said.
Johnson was displeased with the NFL’s decision so he filed charges on Friday.
“To just not have anything happen to him, the NFL is basically saying, ‘Hey, it’s OK for you to go to Vegas, get obliterated, then go shove people over fences,'” Johnson told Fox 5.
After Elliott met with Goodell earlier this month, the Dallas star posted a note on his Twitter account afterward, saying he needs to make better decisions. He also said he apologized to Johnson at the time of the incident.
“I’ve worked hard to make better decisions and to live up to the high standards that are expected of me,” Elliott wrote. “I failed to do that here and I made a poor decision.
“I need to work harder to ensure I do not put myself in compromised situations in the future. I am rededicating myself to use all of the resources that the league has made available. But in the end, it is up to me and I am determined not to be in this position again.”
Elliott has had personal conduct issues in the past, most notably receiving a six-game suspension in 2017 due to allegations of abuse made by a former girlfriend.
Elliott, who turns 24 on July 22, rushed for 1,434 yards and six touchdowns in 15 games last season. He also caught three touchdown passes.
Tringale, Landry lead pack at John Deere Classic
Cameron Tringale and Andrew Landry shared the third-round lead Saturday at the John Deere Classic in Silvis, Ill., eking ahead of a large pack of challengers.
Tringale shot a 6-under-par 65 on Saturday, firing off seven birdies after opening with a bogey to get to 16-under 197 for the tournament. Tringale, 31, is looking for his first victory on the PGA Tour in his 262nd start.
“The bogey at the first was a shot in the leg, just because you know you’ve got to shoot a low round out here to stay in the mix,” he said. “But I was able to get out of there myself and birdie the next two, which gave me some momentum, a little confidence.”
Landry began the tournament with consecutive 65s, then salvaged a 4-under 67 on Saturday by making birdies on three of the final six holes, including Nos. 16 and 17.
“I don’t ever take these moments for granted. It’s very hard to get into this situations,” said Landry, whose only career victory came at the Valero Texas Open in April 2018. “It was definitely a struggle day, but I definitely played very, very well. It was just a struggle from how the last two days were.”
Bill Haas tied for the low round of the day with a bogey-free 64 to join Adam Schenk in a tie for third, one stroke behind the leaders at 15 under.
Nick Watney, Ryan Moore, Vaughn Taylor and South African Dylan Frittelli are tied for fifth at 14 under. Watney shot one of four 64s on the day.
Chris Stroud, Lucas Glover and Canadian Roger Sloan sit at 13 under, tied for ninth.
Two more are at 12 under, including 22-year-old rookie Collin Morikawa, who tied for second last week at the 3M Open in Minnesota.
“I’m still kind of working on some putting things, but I’m hitting some good lines on my putts, and obviously when I get them close, I’m able to drop a few,” he told The Golf Channel after shooting a 65 on Saturday. “So we’ve just got to keep that up for tomorrow and, obviously, (get) a few more drop outside of that.”
With seven golfers at 11 under, there are 18 within five shots of the leaders heading into the final round.
First-round leader Roberto Diaz, who opened with a 62, did not make the 54-hole cut after rounds of 73 and 76.
The field is limited due to top players being in Europe preparing for The Open Championship next week.
The event holds the final available spot into the field for The Open, which would go to the top player not otherwise exempt who finishes inside the top five and ties. The John Deere Classic provides a charter flight to players traveling to The Open on Sunday night.
The report said Las Vegas police will investigate to determine if official charges against Elliott should be filed. The incident occurred during the Electric Daisy Carnival at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. On Saturday, Elliott’s camp accused Johnson of extortion in a statement released to the NFL Network.
TMZ has aired video footage of the incident in which Elliott is seen leaning against a security guard, who fell to the ground when the metal railing behind him toppled over. Elliott was handcuffed and briefly detained by Las Vegas police around 3 a.m. before being released. The NFL announced on July 3 that Elliott will not be disciplined for the incident.
–Miami Dolphins assistant head coach and quarterbacks coach Jim Caldwell is taking a leave of absence due to health issues.
“I will be stepping back due to some medical complications that require my full attention,” Caldwell said in a statement. “I want to thank (owner) Stephen Ross, (general manager) Chris Grier, Coach (Brian) Flores and the rest of the organization for the support they have given me and my family.”
Caldwell, 64, will serve as a consultant for the team during the 2019 season. The former Colts and Lions head coach joined first-year head coach Flores’ staff in February.
–Running back Melvin Gordon said he doesn’t want to leave the Los Angeles Chargers, but he will “do what I need to do” to get paid.
“I want to end up with the Chargers. That’s my home,” Gordon said at SportsCon 2019 in Dallas, via NBC Sports’ Pro Football Talk. “I’m not going to sit here and be like, ‘Man, I don’t want to go back to the Chargers, dah, dah, dah.’ Like that’s the team that blessed me with an opportunity. They started my life. … I can’t forget them for that. But it’s an opportunity right now where I know I need to take advantage of it. You know, I want to get paid.”
Gordon’s agent, Fletcher Smith, said earlier this week that his client will not report to training camp without a new contract. Smith also said that a failure to reach an agreement would result in a trade demand. In April, the Chargers exercised their fifth-year option for $5.61 million for 2019. “I’m prepared to do what I need to do,” Gordon said. “That’s just what it’s going to be.”
–An 18-year-old Kansas man has been charged in the April shooting that injured New York Giants rookie Corey Ballentine and killed his friend, Dwane Simmons.
Francisco Alejandro Mendez faces seven felony counts, including murder in the first degree, according to the Shawnee County (Kansas) District Attorney’s office. He is being held on $1 million bond.
Simmons and Ballentine, teammates at Washburn University, were shot while walking home from a party in Topeka on April 28, just hours after the Giants selected Ballentine in the sixth round of the NFL draft. Simmons, 23, did not survive, while Ballentine was shot in the backside and spent several days in the hospital.
Dolphins assistant Caldwell takes leave of absence
Miami Dolphins assistant
Miami Dolphins assistant head coach and quarterbacks coach Jim Caldwell is taking a leave of absence due to health issues..
“I will be stepping back due to some medical complications that require my full attention,” Caldwell said in a statement Saturday. “I want to thank (owner) Stephen Ross, (general manager) Chris Grier, Coach (Brian) Flores and the rest of the organization for the support they have given me and my family.”
Caldwell, 64, will serve as a consultant for the team during the 2019 season.
The former Colts and Lions head coach joined first-year head coach Flores’ staff in February.
“Our focus is on Jim’s health and supporting him in every way that we can,” Flores said. “With his knowledge and experience, Jim has been an invaluable member to our coaching staff and will continue to serve as a sounding board for me throughout the season.”
Caldwell had a 62-50 record as a head coach with Indianapolis (2009-11) and Detroit (2014-17). He took the Colts to the Super Bowl in his first season.
Teen arrested in shooting of Giants’ Ballentine
Teen arrested in shooting of Giants' Ballentine
An 18-year-old Kansas man has been charged
Simmons and Ballentine, teammates at Washburn University, were shot while walking home from a party in Topeka on April 28, just hours after the Giants selected Ballentine in the sixth round of the NFL draft.
Simmons, 23, did not survive. Ballentine was shot in the backside and spent several days in the hospital.
Ballentine, also 23, began practicing with the Giants in late May and is expected to make a full recovery.
Police made the arrest after connecting the shooting to two aggravated robberies that occurred in the area on April 27 and 30, ESPN reported.
RB Gordon: 'Hopefully I end up a Charger'
Running back Melvin
Running back Melvin Gordon said Saturday he doesn’t want to leave the Los Angeles Chargers, but he will “do what I need to do” to get paid.
“I want to end up with the Chargers. That’s my home,” Gordon said at SportsCon 2019 in Dallas, per NBC Sports’ Pro Football Talk. “I’m not going to sit here and be like, ‘Man, I don’t want to go back to the Chargers, dah, dah, dah.’ Like that’s the team that blessed me with an opportunity. They started my life. They changed my life. Of all 32 teams, that was the team that called me. I can’t forget them for that.
“But it’s an opportunity right now where I know I need to take advantage of it. You know, I want to get paid. That’s just kind of what it is. Hopefully I end up a Charger. That’s the goal. I want to end up with the Chargers.”
Gordon’s agent, Fletcher Smith, said earlier this week that his client will not report to training camp without a new contract. Smith also said that a failure to reach an agreement would result in a trade demand.
“I’m prepared to do what I need to do,” Gordon said. “That’s just what it’s going to be.”
Gordon signed a four-year, $10.67 million deal as a first-round pick in the 2015 NFL Draft, and in April, the Chargers exercised their fifth-year option for $5.61 million for 2019.
The 26-year-old has scored 38 touchdowns over the past three seasons. In 55 career games, the two-time Pro Bowl selection has gained 5,205 yards from scrimmage.
Gordon did not attend voluntary workouts with the Chargers but did report to minicamp in June. The team is scheduled to open training camp July 25.
Gordon said he was not sure where talks stand.
“My guess is as good as yours right now,” he said. “We’re going to give them some time and see where it heads. We’ve still got some time out before training camp. But hopefully things get figured out.”
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Liberals promise $13M for missing, murdered Indigenous women commemorations
Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Minister of International Development Maryam Monsef rises during Question Period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Friday, April 5, 2019. Gender Equality Minister Maryam Monsef says the federal government will fund more than 100 projects to "honour the lives and legacies" of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.Justin Tang / THE CANADIAN PRESS
OTTAWA — The federal government will fund more than 100 projects to “honour the lives and legacies” of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, Gender Equality Minister Maryam Monself announced Wednesday.
Funding for the commemorations will come from a $13-million fund Monsef unveiled in Winnipeg, though the limited range of recipients concerned the commissioners of the national inquiry who reported on the subject at the beginning of June.
“Our government is listening to survivors and families who have told us that in order to move forward meaningfully, we must also pause to remember and honour those who are missing and whose lives have been lost,” Monsef said in a statement.
“That is what we are doing by supporting these commemorative projects across Canada — ensuring that we will never forget our sisters in spirit and that we can prevent such tragedies in the future.”
Monsef said the approved projects include events, activities and creative works organized by First Nations, friendship centres and social-service agencies that help Indigenous people. Besides women and girls, they’re supposed to honour the lives of LGBT and two-spirit people who’ve suffered similarly.
Last winter, the government asked for proposals for commemorations, anticipating the report this month of the national inquiry into the generations of Indigenous women and girls who have gone missing, or known to have been killed. The inquiry’s interim report in 2017 called on the federal government to establish such a fund in co-operation with Indigenous organizations, “family coalitions, Indigenous artists, and grassroots advocates.”
Approvals were underway when the national inquiry issued its final report.
In that report, the inquiry commissioners said they were glad to see the government funding these projects, but weren’t pleased that only “legally constituted organizations” would receive money, leaving out informal and grassroots groups.
“This excludes these very same family coalitions and grassroots organizations we wanted to include, who have been organizing around missing and murdered women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA people for decades with very little support,” the report said, using an acronym for two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, and asexual.
“It can be a long and onerous process to legally incorporate as an organization; coupled with the very short time frame organizations were given to apply, this almost certainly excludes the very groups we intended this recommendation to reach.”
Monsef’s office didn’t have an immediate response to a question about whether or how the project funding squares with the inquiry recommendation.
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Home / World / Toddler Julen lost in shaft: new problems with dramatic research
Toddler Julen lost in shaft: new problems with dramatic research
Updated on January 19, 2019, 11:04
For almost a week missing from the small Julen after his fall in a hole near Malaga every track. Now rescuers are facing further problems.
More panoramas can be found here
In the search for the little Julen, who has been lost to a depth of over 100 meters for six days, the helpers in Spain continue to make progress slower than expected.
Due to the complicated conditions in the hilly area near the coastal city of Malaga, they have not yet managed to build a rescue tunnel planned until Saturday morning.
Throughout the night, the aides were busy preparing a platform to stabilize the main driller, according to the media, referring to the rescue teams. Different blades were used.
From Julen, who is two years old, there is no sign of life since Sunday. The baby should have fallen on a trip with his family in the hole, which is only 25 to 30 centimeters in diameter.
The goal is to find Julen "before Monday"
When he photographed the camera, a candy bag had been discovered in the well at a depth of almost 75 meters, which Julen had with him. However, the loose earth prevented the camera from penetrating deeper.
The spokesperson for the aides, the street engineer, Ángel García Vidal, said on Friday evening that they had set themselves the goal of finding the baby "before Monday". But there are many imponderables. In fact, a few hours later, in the work of leveling the ground, a hard rock again occurred that caused new delays, as reported by the volunteers.
With the 75-ton drill you want to build a recovery tunnel, which should be perpendicular to the pit of the accident. In a first phase, rescuers want to dig about 80 meters deep.
Subsequently, experienced miners should make a first connection to the underlying tree to try again at this depth with a robotic camera for the child. A land radar from Sweden is also used.
About 100 volunteers from the hill of Cerro de la Corona, in Totalán, about 15 kilometers northeast of Malaga, are also worried about the announced rain, which would have further hindered the rescue work.
Therefore, on Friday already the canals were pulled for drainage. Saturday morning fell on the scene of the first fall. (Dpa / ETP)
Are the political news boring and boring? Our current cartoons show the opposite – every day again.
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Frederick C. Beiser
After Hegel: German Philosophy, 1840-1900
Frederick C. Beiser, After Hegel: German Philosophy, 1840-1900, Princeton University Press, 2014, 232pp., $29.95 (hbk), ISBN 9780691163093.
Reviewed by Rudolf A. Makkreel, Emory University
This is a history of nineteenth century German philosophy after Hegel that gives thinkers such as Adolf Trendelenburg, Hermann Lotze, Wilhelm Dilthey and Eduard von Hartmann pride of place instead of the usual Germanic figures of Feuerbach, Marx, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. Although Trendelenburg, Lotze and Dilthey were professors at the University of Berlin, this is by no means merely a history of academic philosophy, for it engages many wider intellectual debates. It is a useful volume that fills in some gaps in standard histories.
Frederick Beiser focuses on the crisis of identity that philosophy faced after the death of Hegel in 1831. His narrative starts in 1840, the year in which Trendelenburg (1802-72) published his Logische Untersuchungen, which attempted to replace the speculative idealist efforts of Fichte and Hegel to ground the sciences with a more modest, second-order logic of the sciences. Beiser relates this more respectful approach to the sciences back to an earlier set of Kantian idealists such as Jakob Fries, Johann Friedrich Herbart and Friedrich Beneke. Among these, Herbart's program for reforming epistemology through psychology was also influential on the early writings of Trendelenburg's student Dilthey. We obtain a very good sense where a figure such as Trendelenburg stands in relation to the sciences, but this is not always rounded out to include his overall position. For that, the reader would have to turn to an earlier work by Beiser on late idealism. But we do learn that Trendelenburg's logic of the sciences includes more than a consideration of the methods of the various sciences. It goes on to "stress the abiding importance of metaphysics, i.e., a knowledge of the universe as a whole" by constructing "a general system of the sciences" (21).
Beiser's history is organized around some of the main controversies of the second half of the nineteenth century. If philosophers are to take the development of the sciences seriously, what is their distinctive task? How are they to reconcile mechanism and materialism with views such as vitalism and teleology? Are less speculative forms of idealism still viable? Lotze (1817-81) stands out as central in the chapter on the materialism controversy. His Mikrokosmus attempts to chart a path between materialism and vitalism by demonstrating the proper use of mechanism. Lotze endorses the procedure of extending mechanical explanations beyond inorganic nature to the organic realm of physiology and the mental realm of psychology. Nevertheless, he claims that there is more to the universe than the world of natural experience, namely, the "realm of value without which we would never grasp the purpose and meaning of things" (64). Lotze's normative appeal to the validity of value (was gilt) allowed him to resuscitate idealism without needing to appeal to intellectual intuition and Hegel's dialectical reasoning about what exists (was ist). But unlike Neo-Kantians such as Wilhelm Windelband and Heinrich Rickert, who adopted the validity of value on transcendental grounds, Lotze argued for a new teleological and monistic metaphysics that conceives of matter as the product of immaterial forces. Here Beiser indicates the influence that Leibniz had on Lotze (67-68).
Another central figure is Hartmann (1842-1906), the author of the Philosophie des Unbewussten. One of the main tasks of philosophy according to Hartmann is to "see as a whole what the particular sciences see only in scattered and separate parts" (46). Again we obtain a metaphysical system that Beiser sees as akin to Trendelenburg's organic view of the world. We are not told much about what Hartmann understands by the unconscious, except that it is like Schopenhauer's will. Schopenhauer first published his main work, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, in 1819 and only lived until 1860, but he is made the hidden force behind many of the controversies of Beiser's narrative. However, if Schopenhauer's views on the will as the thing-in-itself provide the background for Hartmann's philosophy of the unconscious, we are not given any details about the linkage. Beiser does cite Schopenhauer's claim in Book One that "the thing-in-itself is not something that lies beyond appearances," but is "the what that appears" (34) or inheres in them. The thing-in-itself is explicated as the content that is given visible form in appearances. This allows Schopenhauer to suggest that the task of metaphysics is to interpret and decipher appearances to learn the "meaning-content" of appearances, not the "laws" that govern them. On that basis Beiser criticizes him for not working out a hermeneutics: "It was a remarkable shortcoming for an old student of Boeckh and Schleiermacher, two fathers of modern hermeneutics" (35).
But these brief passages by Schopenhauer about interpretation and meaning come from Book One of Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, which is about how we represent the world in mechanical or causal terms. If one moves on to Book Two, which is written from the standpoint of the will, one can see that Schopenhauer begins to solve "das Rätsel des Daseins" and can dispense with interpretive methods that are always indirect. Schopenhauer needs no hermeneutics because he thinks that the will can directly intuit what is real. Thus in Book Two, which Beiser ignores, we are given a "metaphysical explanation (Erklärung)" of natural phenomena "from the will as thing-in-itself." There Schopenhauer writes
I shall never believe that even the simplest chemical combination . . . will ever be capable of mechanical explanation, much less the properties of light, heat, and electricity. These will always admit of only a dynamical explanation, in other words, of one that explains the phenomenon from original forces entirely different from those of impact, pressure, weight, and so on, and thus of a higher order.[1]
The mechanical explanations of the sciences are of a lower order and must be supplemented by dynamical explanations of a higher order. Everything in both inorganic and organic nature finds its ultimate explanation in the will, which "is the true inner being of world and the kernel of all phenomena."[2] The matter of the materialists is merely the external form of the content of the will to which we have direct access from within. Here we have a metaphysics that is just as speculative as Hegel's, but instead of being directed by a rational telos of spirit, it is rooted in the irrational forces of the will.
Returning to Beiser's narrative, he characterizes Hartmann's metaphysics as a "paradoxical synthesis" of Schopenhauer's will and Hegel's reason. He also indicates that Hartmann's aim was to rehabilitate the organic and teleological conception of nature defended by Schelling and Hegel by replacing their deductive approach with the inductive methods of the empirical sciences (47). Here one could add that the real inspiration for Hartmann's synthesis was Schelling who had already attempted to relate "the unconscious activity that has produced nature and the conscious activity that manifests itself in willing"[3] on the basis of an ideal principle. But in place of Schelling's system of transcendental idealism, Hartmann proposed an organic system encompassing the sciences. He lived long enough to have to defend his organic worldview against the onslaught of Darwinism. Despite a sympathetic account of Hartmann's approach, he is ultimately dismissed with this final line: "Why appeal to a cosmic unconscious force to explain the origin of species when the theory of natural selection is sufficient?" (48).
A most interesting follow-up on these discussions of Trendelenburg, Lotze and Hartmann is the chapter on "The Ignorabimus Controversy." This controversy was inaugurated by a lecture on the limits of natural cognition by the physiologist Emil Du Bois-Reymond (1818-98). While endorsing the mechanical model for all scientific explanation, he also acknowledged its limits by claiming that we would forever remain ignorant of the nature of matter and of the connection between consciousness and the brain. According to Du Bois-Reymond we cannot understand matter by means of atoms because they are merely fictions, and consciousness cannot be explained by the Laplacian paradigm that can account for phenomena only on the basis of position, direction and velocity of particles (see 100-01).
Beiser elaborates on two kinds of responses to Du Bois-Reymond's lecture. The first response, as represented by Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919), refused to place any limits on the mechanical paradigm. The second, as exemplified by Dilthey (1833-1911), questioned this paradigm as an undue restriction on the scope of science. Haeckel maintained that if matter is not reduced to the inert extension of Descartes and Kant, then we can conceive it as active energy that allows us to think of mind as only a more complex form of matter. Haeckel also endorsed Darwin's theory of natural selection and thus challenged the teleological theories of Trendelenburg, Lotze and Hartmann.
Dilthey's very different response to Du Bois-Reymond was to argue for the need to supplement the natural sciences with another kind of science that could do justice to human social practices and historical life. For Dilthey the limits of the natural sciences are an invitation to develop another paradigm of scientific method that can account for the meaning of things even when they cannot be fully explained in causal terms. Whereas the explanation of nature proceeds in terms of causal laws, the understanding of history must first place events in their appropriate contexts and discern structural patterns among them. Whatever causal explanations can be found for historical events must be framed by an understanding of the social and cultural systems in terms of which human beings interact.
This crucial aspect of Dilthey's theory of the Geisteswissenschaften (human sciences)[4] is lacking in Beiser's account. On the one hand, he portrays Dilthey as claiming that human interactions are "formulable in term of laws of cause and effect" (150). On the other hand, he regards Dilthey's acknowledgment of local contexts as purely circumstantial, thus dismissing their organizational import. This leads him to make Dilthey into more of a historicist than he really was. Beiser claims that Dilthey's "critique of historical reason aims to expose the ahistorical pretensions of reason" (143) and thereby reduces everything to "its own time and place" (144). But Dilthey aims to articulate "the reason of things that was active in their history" in terms of the "uniformities operative in its formation."[5] These uniformities are arrived at through the disciplinary analysis made possible by the various human sciences and include contextual commonalities as well as causal laws. Dilthey rejected the attempts by Hegel and Comte to formulate laws that govern history as a whole. The uniformities that are relevant to the understanding of history are not always causal, and if they are, their scope tends to be limited to the social, economic and cultural systems that can be analyzed by the human sciences. This means that the historian has to weave together the differentiated uniformities found by the relevant human sciences and attain as coherent and objective an account of what is singular and individual about his subject matter as possible. Dilthey's analysis of the formation (Aufbau) of the historical world is meant to avoid the more traditional constructions (Konstruktionen) of teleological idealists. His historical approach aims at objectivity and rejects the simple ideographic-nomothetic alternative proposed by the Neo-Kantian Wilhelm Windelband. Narrative description does not rule out lawful regularities.
We can follow up on Dilthey's conception of history by assessing Beiser's earlier discussion of the Identity Crisis of Philosophy and Worldviews. There he writes that for Dilthey "all philosophies are relative and historical" (50). But Dilthey's attempt to extract a typology of recurrent worldviews from the history of philosophy suggests otherwise. The fact that Dilthey shows that each worldview "arises from, and gets its meaning within, its own historical context" (50), does not stop him from analyzing and assessing it according to universal standards. In developing a threefold typology of worldviews, Dilthey clearly considers the naturalism of Protagoras, Hobbes, Hume and Nietzsche deficient, but seems to hesitate between the idealism of freedom of Plato and Kant and the objective idealism of Neo-Platonism and Hegel. I think that this hesitation stems from a realization that worldviews attempt to give a totalizing determination of the meaning and value of things that is beyond human limits. Any totalizing understanding will have to acknowledge indeterminacies. Ultimately, Dilthey would have to admit that he has something like the Du Bois-Reymond problem, but that does not make him a relativist. When examining how worldviews are formed, Dilthey writes: "there is a never-ending effort to find a universally-valid coherence in all this, an ever-growing experience of the limits of cognition, and of the impossibility of combining objectively what is given in these different ways of considering things, and so, finally, resignation."[6] But if resignation about the limits of cognition amounts to relativism, then almost everyone discussed in Beiser's chapter on "The Pessimism Controversy" would be guilty as well, including the Neo-Kantians he admires. Paradoxically, Beiser's own chapters on the Ignorabimus and Pessimism Controversies open the way to clearing Dilthey of his relativism charge.
Pessimism was a problem that Schopenhauer imposed on the late nineteenth century. The riddles of life that he formulated in Book One, and claimed to solve in Books Two and Four, left those who doubted his pessimistic conclusions with a challenge that none of them could answer definitively. Beiser concentrates on the way the Neo-Kantians tried to overcome Schopenhauer's pessimism.[7] Thus Windelband is shown to argue that it was for each individual to decide whether or not life is worth living: "there is no way of knowing what the purpose of life is in itself, and that is because metaphysics is impossible, just as Kant rightly taught" (169). Much of the controversy about Schopenhauer's pessimism concerned its implications. Hartmann was more sympathetic to Schopenhauer and rejected the charge that pessimism undermines morality by claiming that it only demonstrates the futility of egoism and the striving for personal happiness. Hartmann characterized his own form of pessimism as eudemonistic rather than moral, and tried to "foil his many neo-Kantian critics" (193) by claiming that Kant was, like himself, a eudemonistic pessimist and a moral, even evolutionary, optimist. There are many lesser-known participants in this fascinating debate that Beiser recounts in this his longest and last chapter. They include two women, one of whom was Agnes Taubert, the wife of Hartmann, and Olga Plümacher, who spent many years in a Swiss colony in Tennessee.
In sum, Beiser makes a good case that late nineteenth-century German philosophy is much richer in content than is generally recognized. The book provides a valuable resource for scholars, but the fact that everything is organized in terms of controversial debates also means that one gets scattered insights into the philosophers involved, and the assessments given do not always cohere fully as in the two cases discussed above.
[1] Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, vol. 2. Trans. E.F.J. Payne. Pp. 299, 301-02.
[2] Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, vol. 2. p. 294.
[3] Friedrich W.J. Schelling, Schellings Werke, vol. 2. ed. by Manfred Schröter, Munich: C. H. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1977. P. 349.
[4] Beiser speaks of the Geisteswissenschaften as the "historical-social sciences," but they are more commonly referred to in the English language secondary literature as the "human sciences" because they also include what we refer to as the humanities.
[5] Wilhelm Dilthey, Introduction to the Human Sciences, Selected Works, Vol. 1, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989. Pp. 78-79.
[6] Dilthey, Gesammelte Schriften. Vol 5 . Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1974, p. 390. Forthcoming in Dilthey, Selected Works, vol 6.
[7] Here Hermann Cohen’s name is mentioned, as in several other places. However, his work is never discussed, which is surprising given his importance as the leader of the Marburg school of Neo-Kantianism.
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High-speed rail: is this year different?
Many U.S. cities are racing to develop high speed rail systems that shorten commute times and develop the economy for residents. These trains are able to reach speeds over 124 mph, sometimes even as high as 374 mph as in the case of Japan’s record-breaking trains. Despite this potential, American cities haven’t quite had the success of other countries. In 2009, the Obama administration awarded almost a billion dollars of stimulus money to Wisconsin to build a high-speed rail line connection between Milwaukee and Madison, and possibly to the Twin Cities, but that project was derailed. Now, the Trump administration has plans to support a high-speed rail project in Texas. Given so many failed attempts in the U.S., it’s fair to ask if this time is different. And if it is, will high-speed rail bring the benefits that proponents claim it to have?
The argument for building high-speed rail lines usually entails promises of faster trips, better connections between major cities, and economic growth as a result. It almost seems like a no-brainer – why would any city not want to pursue something like this? The answer, like with most public policy questions, depends on the costs, and whether the benefits actually realize.
In a forthcoming paper for the Mercatus Center, transportation scholar Kenneth Button explores these questions by studying the high-speed rail experiences of Spain, Japan, and China; the countries with the three largest systems (measured by network length). Although there are benefits to these rail systems, Button cautions against focusing too narrowly on them as models, primarily because what works in one area can’t necessarily be easily replicated in another.
Most major systems in other countries have been the result of large public investment and built with each area’s unique geography and political environment kept in mind. Taking their approaches and trying to apply them to American cities not only ignores how these factors can differ, but also how much costs can differ. For example, the average infrastructure unit price of high-speed rail in Europe is between $17 and $24 million per mile and the estimated cost for proposals in California is conservatively estimated at $35 million per mile.
The cost side of the equation is often overlooked, and more attention is given to the benefit side. Button explains that the main potential benefit – generating economic growth – doesn’t always live up to expectations. The realized growth effects are usually minimal, and sometimes even negative. Despite this, proponents of high-speed rail oversell them. The process of thinking through high-speed rail as a sound public investment is often short-lived.
The goal is to generate new economic activity, not merely replace or divert it from elsewhere. In Japan, for example, only six percent of the traffic on the Sanyo Shinkansen line was newly generated, while 55 percent came from other rail lines, 23 percent from air, and 16 percent from inter-city bus. In China, after the Nanguang and Guiguang lines began operating in 2014, a World Bank survey found that many of the passengers would have made the journey along these commutes through some other form of transportation if the high-speed rail option wasn’t there. The passengers who chose this new transport method surely benefited from shorter travel times, but this should not be confused with net growth across the economy.
Even if diverted away from other transport modes, the amount of high-speed rail traffic Japan and China have generated is commendable. Spain’s system, however, has not been as successful. Its network has only generated about 5 percent of Japan’s passenger volume. A line between Perpignan, France and Figueres, Spain that began services in 2009 severely fell short of projected traffic. Originally, it was expected to run 19,000 trains per year, but has only reached 800 trains by 2015.
There is also evidence that high speed rail systems poorly re-distribute activity geographically. This is especially concerning given the fact that projects are often sold on a promise of promoting regional equity and reducing congestion in over-heating areas. You can plan a track between well-developed and less-developed regions, but this does not guarantee that growth for both will follow. The Shinkansen system delivers much of Japan’s workforce to Tokyo, for example, but does not spread much employment away from the capital. In fact, faster growth happened where it was already expected, even before the high-speed rail was planned or built. Additionally, the Tokyo-Osaka Shinkansan line in particular has strengthened the relative economic position of Tokyo and Osaka while weakening those of cities not served.
Passenger volume and line access are not – and should not be – the only metrics of success. Academics have exhibited a fair amount of skepticism regarding high-speed rail’s ability to meet other objectives. When it comes to investment value, many cases have resulted in much lower returns than expected. A recent, extreme example of this is California’s bullet train that is 50 percent over its planned budget; not to mention being seven years behind in its building schedule.
The project in California has been deemed a lost cause by many, but other projects have gained more momentum in the past year. North American High Speed Rail Group has proposed a rail line between Rochester and the Twin Cities, and if it gets approval from city officials, it plans to finance entirely with private money. The main drawback of the project is that it would require the use of eminent domain to take the property of existing businesses that are in the way of the planned line path. Private companies trying to use eminent domain to get past a roadblock like this often do so claiming that it is for the “public benefit.” Given that many residents have resisted the North American High Speed Rail Group’s plans, trying to force the use of eminent domain would likely only destroy value; reallocating property from a higher-value to a lower-value use.
Past Mercatus research has found that using eminent domain powers for redevelopment purposes – i.e. by taking from one private company and giving to another – can cause the tax base to shrink as a result of decreases in private investment. Or in other words, when entrepreneurs see that the projects that they invest in could easily be taken if another business owner makes the case to city officials, it would in turn discourage future investors from moving into the same area. This ironically discourages development and the government’s revenues suffer as a result.
Florida’s Brightline might have found a way around this. Instead of trying to take the property of other businesses and homes in its way, the company has raised money to re-purpose existing tracks already between Miami and West Palm Beach. If implemented successfully, this will be the first privately run and operated rail service launched in the U.S. in over 100 years. And it doesn’t require using eminent domain or the use of taxpayer dollars to jump-start that, like any investment, has risk of being a failure; factors that reduce the cost side of the equation from the public’s perspective.
Which brings us back to the Houston-to-Dallas line that Trump appears to be getting behind. How does that plan stack up to these other projects? For one, it would require eminent domain to take from rural landowners in order to build a line that would primarily benefit city residents. Federal intervention would require picking a winner and loser at the offset. Additionally, there is no guarantee that building of the line would bring about the economic development that many proponents promise. Button’s new paper suggests that it’s fair to be skeptical.
I’m not making the argument that high-speed rail in America should be abandoned altogether. Progress in Florida demonstrates that maybe in the right conditions and with the right timing, it could be cost-effective. The authors of a 2013 study echo this by writing:
“In the end, HSR’s effect on economic and urban development can be characterized as analogous to a fertilizer’s effect on crop growth: it is one ingredient that could stimulate economic growth, but other ingredients must be present.”
For cities that can’t seem to mix up the right ingredients, they can look to other options for reaching the same goals. In fact, a review of the economic literature finds that investing in road infrastructure is a much better investment than other transportation methods like airports, railways, or ports. Or like I’ve discussed previously, being more welcoming to new technologies like driver-less cars has the potential to both reduce congestion and generate significant economic gains.
This entry was posted in Economic Growth, Government-Granted Privilege, Infrastructure, New Publications, New Research, Property Rights, Transit and Transportation and tagged California, China, economic development, economic growth, economy, eminent domain, Europe, Florida, HSR, Japan, Kenneth Button, Mercatus Center, Miami, Past Mercatus, percent, Sanyo Shinkansen, Spain, Tokyo, Twin Cities, Wisconsin on February 8, 2017 by Olivia Gonzalez.
A government that hands out privileges can expect corruption
According to the Washington Post, the mafia is heavily involved in Italy’s renewable energy market. This is not particularly surprising given that firms in that market compete on a manifestly uneven playing field.
In a market characterized by a genuinely level playing field—one in which no firm or industry benefits from government-granted privilege—the only way to profit is to offer something of value to customers. If you fail to create value for voluntarily paying customers, they won’t volunteer their money. It’s that simple.
But things are different when the playing field can be tilted through government-granted privileges. This is because when the playing field can be tilted, firms have an incentive to find some way to persuade the government to tilt it their way. And the most persuasive techniques aren’t always above board.
The problem is that objective standards for playing favorites are hard to come by. This can corrupt even well-intentioned programs that privilege particular behavior in the name of serving the general good.
Imagine you are a politician and you want to reward firms that specialize in renewable energy. How do you determine who makes the cut? What if you want to reward companies that securitize mortgages for low-income households. How do you decide whom to reward? Or say you want to bailout “systemically important” banks. Where do you draw the line between systemically important and systemically unimportant?
Without objective guideposts, subjective factors loom large: whom do you interact with the most? Whom have you known the longest? Which firms share your ideological perspective? Which are headquartered in your hometown?
Even the most well-intentioned of politicians are susceptible to these considerations because all humans are susceptible to these considerations. That’s why a slew of research has found government-granted privileges are often associated with corruption. For example, in an examination of 450 firms in 35 countries, economists Mara Faccio, Ronald Masulis, and John McConnell found that politically connected firms are more likely to be bailed out than non-connected firms. It’s possible that more deserving firms just happen to be politically connected, but this strains credulity. A more plausible explanation is that in the absence of an objective standard for dispensing privileges, politicians reward those they know.
And when that is the case, firms make it their business to get to know politicians. Just ask Angelo Mozilo, the politically ensconced former head of Countrywide Financial. Countrywide supplied the loans that were repackaged by the federally backed Fannie Mae. And since Countrywide’s business model depended on the favor of politicians, Mozilo made sure he was in good standing with his benefactors. Under a program known internally as the “Friends of Angelo” program, Countrywide offered favorable mortgage financing to the likes of Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad.
The conventional route to profit is to please one’s customers. But when firms are able to profit by pleasing politicians, they will do whatever it takes to please politicians. Which brings us back to Italy and renewables. The current investigation (known as operation Eolo after the Greek god of wind) first bore fruit in 2010 when eight people were arrested for bribing officials with cash and luxury cars. Armed with more evidence, officials have now arrested another dozen crime bosses.
It is good, of course, to have police who investigate these matters. But a far simpler, equitable, and efficient solution is to create a truly level playing field for business. When politicians cannot tilt the playing field in favor of particular firms or industries, businesses have nothing to gain from bribery and connections.
Put away the honey jar and you won’t have an ant problem.
This entry was posted in Government-Granted Privilege and tagged Angelo Mozilo, Countrywide Financial, energy, Fannie Mae, Italy, make, Mara Faccio, mortgage, mortgages, research, Ronald Masulis, Spain, Spain Italy, standards, Washington, Washington Post on January 25, 2013 by Matt Mitchell.
Where is the coercion in land use?
On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal published an article about Denver’s light rail expansion plan. Two Cato analysts came down on different sides of the issue. Randall O’Toole, writing at Cato-at-Liberty, says that the expansion is a waste of money. He writes:
Under RTD’s latest “rethink,” transit will no longer take people from where they are to where they want to go. Instead, planners will try to coerce and entice people to live in places served by rail transit and go where those rail lines go.
The expansion comes with a steep $7.4 billion price tag, and O’Toole is likely correct that this is too much to spend; light rails across the country lose money, and the 122-mile above-ground expansion has experienced a cost overrun from $4.7 billion in 2004. The United States is notorious for unreasonably high transit construction costs compared to other countries. Additionally, the light rail is an airport connector, an often poor use of tax dollars, particularly when the airport is located far from downtown, as in Denver.
However, O’Toole’s judgment that the new plan amounts to coercion seems to be based not primarily on the light rail’s cost, but rather on zoning rules that will distinguish the new light rail stations from some of Denver’s existing light rail stations. The land around the new stations will not be dedicated to government-owned parking lots; instead developers will have the freedom to put housing or commercial uses adjacent to the stations with parking garages as far away as 1000 feet.
Timothy Lee, a Cato adjunct scholar writes at Forbes:
If the plan is to dump government-owned parking garages and instead sell the land to private developers, that’s a clear win from a free-market perspective. And if planners liberalize zoning rules to allow high-density construction that’s illegal in most suburbs, so much the better. On the other hand, if the plan is to actively subsidize or even require dense development, that is worth criticizing. But it’s important to be clear that the problem is coercive means, not the goal of providing more walkable neighborhoods.
Lee makes a key point here. The suburban style development that we see in many parts of Denver is not the free market at work, as O’Toole assumes. Rather, more dense, urban development is outlawed in many parts of Denver and cities across the country. Both O’Toole and Lee make some good points on the plan, but if a city is going to spend too much on transit, that doesn’t mean the transit should be strangled with liberty-limiting suburban zoning laws.
This entry was posted in City Life, Regulation and tagged construction, private developers, Spain, tax, Timothy Lee, Two Cato, wall street journal on July 27, 2012 by Emily Washington.
Behold the Savage Austerity
If you are a journalist or a commentator and you have ever uttered or written the word “austerity,” I hope you spend some time with this chart:
Vero offers some excellent comments here:
These countries still spend more than pre-recession levels
France and the U.K. did not cut spending.
In Greece, and Spain, when spending was actually reduced — between 2009–2011 — the cuts have been relatively small compared to the size of bloated European budgets. Also, meaningful structural reforms were seldom implemented.
As for Italy, the country reduced spending between 2009 and 2010 but the data shows [an] uptick in spending 2011. The increase in spending represents more than the previous reduction.
This entry was posted in Austerity and tagged France, Italy, Spain, spending on May 7, 2012 by Matt Mitchell.
Is California’s Debt a Greek Tragedy?
James Surowiekci writing at The New Yorker considers whether there is good reason to think California’s fiscal plight puts it on course for a Greek-style collapse. Greece is not the only EU nation in trouble. Add in Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain to the massive debt club (a.k.a the PIIGS), with debt levels at 60% of GDP in 2008-2009. By contrast the most fiscally troubled states of California, New York, New Jersey and Illinois had debt-to-GDP ratios of 15% during the same period.
Surowiecki suggests this may be reason to breathe a little easier. The biggest debtor nations in the EU owe three times as much relative to GDP as do their high-debt counterparts in the US. Plus, the states can count on a federal bailout.
Yet, neither of these thoughts are entirely comforting.
First, states have underestimated their pension obligations by threefold. Official reports estimate New Jersey’s unfunded pension obligations at $45 billion. Using more reasonable discount rates to estimate New Jersey’s pension obligation reveals an unfunded liability of $137.9 billion, or 261% of total state debt. That’s before adding in Other Post-Retirement Benefits (OPEB) and health care for public sector workers.
Secondly, a half century of intergovernmental infusions from D.C. in the form of transfers,Medicaid, and stabilization money hasn’t kept the states afloat. Quite the contrary the erosion of fiscal federalism has meant a loss of states’ control over spending and policy.
The FY 2009 stimulus has been as effective as a shot of morphine. States have now spent their education money to expand spending and avoid cuts. Fast forward to FY 2010. Revenues haven’t recovered. Pension obligations loom larger and those “saved and created” jobs are now in search of funds.
Factor in the growth in Social Security, Medicare, health care spending, and annual deficits projected to average $1 trillion over the next decade and America 2030 looks alot worse than Greece 2010.
This entry was posted in State Policy and tagged California, EU, FY, GDP, Greece, growth, health care, Ireland, Italy, New Jersey, New York, pension, Portugal, public sector workers, Social Security, Spain, spending, US on April 15, 2010 by Eileen Norcross.
Homeowners and the Great Recession
Writing at Forbes.com, Joel Kotkin weighs in on the claim that homeownership caused the Great Recession:
Increasingly, conventional wisdom places the fundamental blame for the worldwide downturn on people’s desire–particularly in places like the U.K., the U.S. and Spain–to own their own home. Acceptance of the long-term serfdom of renting, the logic increasingly goes, could help restore order and the rightful balance of nature.
Once considered sacrosanct by conservatives and social democrats alike, homeownership is increasingly seen as a form of economic derangement. The critics of the small owner include economists like Paul Krugman and Ed Glaeser, who identify the over-hot pursuit of homes as one critical cause for the recession. Others suggest it would be perhaps nobler to put money into something more consequential, like stocks.
Much of Kotkin’s piece is devoted to the implications for the future:
Rather than a source of economic weakness, this renewed quest for homeownership could underpin a sustainable recovery. As prices fall to reasonable levels, more people will qualify for reasonable loans. First, the empty houses and somewhat later, the condominiums now on the market will find buyers, in most places in a matter of a few years.
This shift will create huge opportunities for a diverse set of geographies. For urban areas like New York or Los Angeles, there will be a unique–perhaps once in a generation–chance to induce middle-class people to settle down in big-city homes or condominiums. If they become homeowners, they will be more likely to stay than move elsewhere to the suburbs or other regions when the time comes to buy a home.
Other, more affordable, less regulated and often more economically dynamic places like Texas and the Great Plains may realize even greater gains. Over time, we will likely see a recovery in some now-suffering parts of the Sunbelt. The renewal of home demand could also help revitalize many of our hardest-hit sectors, including construction and manufacturing.
Additionally, Economic Recovery Digest points to new research about homeowners who can afford to pay mortgages but choose not to; the research suggests that a quarter of defaults could be “strategic.”
This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged construction, Economic Recovery Digest, Great Recession, Joel Kotkin, Los Angeles, New York, research, Spain, Texas on June 30, 2009 by Daniel M. Rothschild.
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Home/Celebrity Net Worth/Actors/Peter Dinklage Net Worth
Peter Dinklage Net Worth
Peter Dinklage Net Worth 2019: Wiki Biography, Married, Family, Measurements, Height, Salary, Relationships
Peter Dinklage net worth is
Peter Dinklage Wiki Biography
Peter Hayden Dinklage was born on 11 June 1969, in Morristown, New Jersey USA of Grman, English and Irish descent. He is one of the most famous contemporary actors, who has appeared in such movies as “Elf”, “Underdog”, “Death at a Funeral”, and “A Little Bit of Heaven” . Since 2011, Peter has become known worldwide for his role as Tyrion Lannister in the successful television shows, called “Game of Thrones”. He is also known for his short height, which has now become his specific feature.
Peter Dinklage Net Worth $10 Million
So how rich is Peter Dinklage? It is estimated that Peter’s net worth is $10 million. Of course, the main source of this sum of money is Peter’s appearances in television shows and movies, but in addition, Peter has worked on various video games and these has added to his wealth. If Dinklage will continue acting, there is a high chance that his net worth will become higher.
Peter Dinklage educated at Delbarton School and later continued his studies at Bennington College. In 1995 Peter received his first role in the movie called “Living in Oblivion’. Later he appeared in other movies and television shows, but these roles did not bring him instant success and he only became more recognizable after his appearance in the movie entitled “The Station Agent”, in 2003. Soon Peter started receiving more and more invitations to act in various projects. Some of them included “Entourage”, “Threshold”, “The Chronicles of Narnia” and others. These appearances added a lot to Peter Dinklage’s net worth. In 2011 Peter was cast in one of his most famous roles in the television show called “Game of Thrones’, in which he works with such actors as Sean Bean, Michelle Fairley, Sophie Turner, Alfie Allen and others. The popularity of this show added a lot to Peter’s net worth and made him one of the most famous actors nowadays. Now there are several movies in which Peter is filmin, and which will be released soon. There is little doubt that these movies will also be successful and that soon we will see him acting in other projects.
During his career since the 1990s, Peter Dinklage has appeared in over 40 films, and 15 TV shows and series. He has been nominated for and has won various awards. Some of them include Golden Globe Award, Primetime Emmy Award, Independent Spirit Award, MTV Movie Award, Satellite Award and others. The variety of these awards only proves that Peter is a very talented and active person, who will probably continue appearing in different projects for a long time in the future.
To talk about Peter Dinklage’s personal life, it can be said that Peter married Erica Schmidt in 2005. In 2011 their child was born and now they live in Manhattan.
Finally, Peter Dinklage is a very hardworking and talented actor, who was able to gain his success all over the world and become one of the most promising actors in the movie and television industries. As he is now 45 years old, there is still a bright future waiting for him, and undoubtedly he will act in many more movies and shows.
Full Name Peter Dinklage
Date Of Birth June 11, 1969
Place Of Birth Morristown, New Jersey, United States
Height 4 ft 4 in (1.346 m)
Profession Actor, Voice Actor
Education Bennington College, Delbarton School
Spouse Erica Schmidt (m. 2005)
Children Zelig Dinklage
Parents John Carl Dinklage, Diane Dinklage
Siblings Jonathan Dinklage
Nicknames Peter Hayden Dinklage
Awards Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries, or Motion Picture Made for Television, Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film, Satellite Special Achievement Awa...
Nominations Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role, Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series, Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstand...
Movies X-Men: Days of Future Past, The Station Agent, Elf, Pixels, The Angry Birds Movie, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Living in Oblivion, Knights of Badassdom, The Boss, Find Me Guilty, Underdog, Ice Age: Continental Drift, Tiptoes, Death at a Funeral, Penelope, Pete Smalls Is Dead, The Angri...
TV Shows Threshold, Game of Thrones, POV
1 Driven, intense portrayals
2 Short stature
3 Often plays highly intelligent and moralistic but flawed characters
Game of Thrones (2011) £340,000 per episode
1 I feel really lucky; Although I hate that word-'lucky.' It cheapens a lot of hard work. Living in Brooklyn in an apartment without any heat and paying for dinner at the bodega with dimes-I don't think I felt myself lucky back then. Doing plays for 50 bucks and trying to be true to myself as an artist and turning down commercials where they wanted a leprechaun. Saying I was lucky negates the hard work I put in and spits on that guy who's freezing his ass off back in Brooklyn. So I won't say I'm lucky. I'm fortunate enough to find or attract very talented people. For some reason I found them, and they found me.
2 (2007, on The Station Agent (2003)) It was written and directed by one of my good friends, Tom McCarthy. We'd been trying to get that movie made for a while. Which was really nice. Tom sort of wrote it for the three leads: Bobby Cannavale, Patricia Clarkson, and myself. So whenever we were available, we'd get together in somebody's living room and just read through the latest draft. Eventually it paid off-it took us a little while to get the money, so Tom was able to rework the script a number of times, based on our readings. And then when the money fell into place, it all happened sort of quickly... It's 100 percent Tom's script. The funny thing is, a lot of people thought it was my story, that it was biographical, or that I co-wrote it. I find that a little amusing-I think it has a lot to do with my size. I found it peculiar that people would immediately assume it was my story or that I co-wrote it, but it was neither. I never lived in an abandoned railroad station. I did a play with Tom years ago, four or five years before we shot the movie, and we just loved working together, and Tom thought it would be a good idea to make me that character, I guess.
3 (2007) Lassie (2005) was amazing. I didn't have any scenes with humans. There's a couple little bits, here or there, but mainly just me and my horse and a couple of dogs in the Isle of Man. [Director] Charles Sturridge, I grew close to. He's an incredible person. We ended up doing a production of Endgame two years after the film as part of a Samuel Beckett 100th birthday celebration. We still keep in touch. I really enjoyed that experience. He's an amazingly intelligent, creative person. I would love to work with him again... It is hard working with animals, I've got to say. We did the same thing with Underdog. Your pockets are filled with bacon, there's meat dangling above your head so the dog looks like it's looking in your eyes, there are trainers standing by who have to shout commands before you say your lines. It's slow going. That's what they say: "Don't work with children or animals." I've done a couple of movies where I've done both, and, especially with the animals, it's slow going. But the end result has worked out somehow.
4 (2007, on Living in Oblivion (1995)) That was my first film. I was working an office job at the time, and I get a call from this guy named Tom, and I thought it was one of my friends playing a practical joke on me. Because I picked up the phone in my cubicle-it was a cubicle temp job-and this guy says "Hi, my name is Tom DiCillo, and I was wondering if you could come in and do a read for me for this movie I'm directing called Living In Oblivion." Oh no, at the time, it was called Scene Six Take Three, or some working title. And I was like [Heavy sarcasm.] "Yeah, sure, I'll be there tomorrow," then some expletive or something, and I hung up on him. About five minutes later, he calls back and he's like, "Um, no, it's really-hi, my name is Tom and, uh, I'm really making this movie." I felt really bad. So I was very close to hanging up on my first film job. But it was great. I came in and read for him, and he gave me the part right after I read. I couldn't have been luckier, that being my first film. I've always been a huge fan of independent films, and that was independent and then some, and with amazing actors. I had just started to really discover Steve Buscemi and his films, and Catherine Keener, so I was pretty excited to do that one. And it was great. It was a good time.
5 (2007) Living In Oblivion I got right after I got out of college. And a lot of actors think their first big break-like, they'll get a movie or a TV show or something, and they're set for life. But you know, I did that movie, and then I went back to my day jobs and temping and doing shitty work to pay the rent. And other little projects came, but they don't pay a lot of money, you know? You can't really survive off of doing one of those every once in a while. No, it was slow going at first. It took a good five years to get going. Until, finally, I could say "I make my living as an actor." It's not what you'd expect.
6 (2007, on Tiptoes (2003)) Shit, Gary Oldman is one of my all-time favorite actors, so when I heard he was in it, and I'd get to play his delinquent best friend, I immediately said yes. I thought it was a really interesting idea, about dwarfism and genetics and all that. Too bad it sort of fell apart. That's one of those things where it's out of the actors' hands. I had a great time making it. I got to work with Patricia Arquette again. She was there with me at the audition. I thought it was going to be great, and it was great. But then it sort of-I don't know what happened after we all left, but I heard various stories about the post-production business, and it's a real shame. That's one of the things about theater vs. film-with theater, actors have a little more control, and one of the disappointing things about films is that once you're done shooting, anything can happen, you know? They can make a tragedy into a comedy. And things can fall apart, like I guess this movie did. It's a shame. That movie could have been great, but something bad happened and c'est la vie.
7 (2007, on Nip/Tuck (2003)) I was unemployed, I had an apartment in L.A. that I was not utilizing that my wife and I had started renting just a few months before, so my manager called and said "Would you like to do this show called Nip/Tuck for two months, like eight episodes?" And I really wanted to go to L.A. I wasn't interested in doing television, because I'd done a series that got canceled called Threshold, and I just wanted to get back to film and theater work. But I don't know. They caught me at a weak moment. Not to say that doing TV is a weak moment, but the timing of it worked out. I had never actually seen the show before, because I didn't have cable or anything, but I liked the people involved, and I met with Ryan Murphy, the creative person behind that show, and he sort of inspired me to do it. Because he's a pretty smart individual. So I said yes. By the end of the meeting, I agreed, and I'm glad I did it.
8 (2007, on seeking small films versus big budget) To make a crazy generalization, a lot of the larger films are made in commerce. Not art, but commerce: a moneymaking machine. And a lot of machines don't have that much interest in artistic worth. I try to lean toward something that will make me proud of what I accomplished. I guess I have the luxury of being a working actor, and being able to say that and choose what I'm in. I guess I gravitate toward interesting stories. And I guess that the more interesting stories don't get a lot of money to be made. That's bad, but it's the truth in the film industry. That's what I gravitate toward, but, shit, there are a number of big-budget movies that I've loved, with artistic integrity, and I'd gladly do any of those. But I just am a little picky. And don't want to be involved in crap.
9 (2007, on Death at a Funeral (2007)) That was great. Frank Oz is-you know. Yoda. He's tremendous. That was about a month in London. I was one of the few Americans in the cast. I just loved it. It was hard to get through some of those takes. We were laughing quite a bit on that set. We had a really good time. And I haven't seen the movie yet, but hopefully that sort of showed. Because people have said that about The Station Agent, they felt like it showed that everybody on the film cared about each other and got along. I think sometimes that shows through. And I'm sure it showed through in Death At A Funeral, because we had a grand old time.
10 (2007, on watching his own films) I try to. I've been working quite a bit lately, so I had a couple movies out this summer, Death At A Funeral and Underdog, and I haven't seen them because I was in Prague and we didn't get any movies over there. And by the time I got back, they had already left the theaters. So I haven't seen those. I cringe when I see myself onscreen-sometimes I close my eyes-but I do watch my films out of sheer curiosity, to see how the director finished it up. I've seen most of 'em.
11 (2007, on Underdog (2007)) Six weeks in Providence, Rhode Island, which I didn't know had a large history of crime. But it's three hours outside of New York, so I would get to come home on the weekends, and it was fun. It was the first time I've been under some serious prosthetics, which is interesting in and of itself. And it piqued my interest, playing a character that physically transformed me. It was fun. I think the kids enjoyed it. I got to play a villain in a movie based on a cartoon so, you know, the normal rules don't apply. You get to have a little fun.
12 (2007, on Elf (2003)) Everybody asks me about Will Ferrell, because I knew him for about three days. But he's extraordinarily funny, and he's quiet between takes. I thought that was interesting. I think a lot of great male comic actors are introspective, quiet personalities, which I really admire. But they are really able to turn it up when the camera's on. I really enjoyed that movie, and the final result that Jon Favreau made was really entertaining. I had a good time. And it's shot in Vancouver, which is a very pretty city.
13 I was born in 1969, believe it or not, so I was a child in the '70s.
14 Maybe everyone is a little too reassuring that things are going to be OK to college graduates. It gives them a false sort of security.
15 My favorite superhero? I have a soft spot for Batman, because he doesn't have any super powers--he's just a person. And he's pretty dark.
16 I just think the less you know about an actor, the more serious you'll take them as an actor because they will disappear a little bit.
17 I was fortunate enough to have an upbringing that made me more accepting of who I am.
18 I love working with the same actors repeatedly. That happens a lot. It's kind of inevitable, especially if you work with the same writers and directors and you start to form a company of actors. You gravitate towards each other.
19 So I won't say I'm lucky. I'm fortunate enough to find or attract very talented people. For some reason I found them, and they found me.
20 Bad guys are complicated characters. It's always fun to play them. You get away with a lot more. You don't have a heroic code you have to live by.
21 I never was a big comic book fan. Obviously I'd heard them growing up from my friends who did read them, but I never was a big comic book reader.
22 I was opposed to doing TV for a long time because I thought the quality of writing wasn't very strong, as opposed to film, but there's been a shift in term of the quality of scripts. HBO has attracted a tremendous amount of great writing talent.
23 I like playing the guy on the sidelines. They have more fun.
24 My brother, who's a violinist now, was the real ham, the real performer of the family. His passion for the violin is the only thing that kept him from being an actor.
25 Dwarves are still the butt of jokes. It's one of the last bastions of acceptable prejudice.
26 I do not fault anyone else who makes choices to play characters that they wished they hadn't . . . Because at the end of the day, none of us are happy with our jobs all the time.
27 My family had a habit of collecting creatures that didn't always want to be pets. The first animal I can remember was a Lab named Zoe.
28 I dress and eat like a fifth-grader, basically. I like sandwiches and cereal and hooded sweatshirts.
29 I think if actors are successful at one thing, they paint themselves into a corner sometimes, and what's the fun in that?
30 George R.R. Martin is an incredible writer.
31 I don't socialize. I'm kind of a hermit. The life of an actor can be very lonely.
32 Being on television, playing the same character for many years, for me, I think that would get a little tedious.
33 That's one of the things about theater vs. film--with theater, actors have a little more control, and one of the disappointing things about films is that once you're done shooting, anything can happen, you know?
34 Any swagger is just defense. When you're reminded so much of who you are by people - not a fame thing, but with my size, constantly, growing up--you just either curl up in a corner in the dark or you wear it proudly, like armor or something. You can turn it on its head and use it yourself before anybody else gets a chance.
35 Writing is getting killed by too many chefs. Back in the [Humphrey Bogart] days, it started with great scripts. You had a writer, and he wrote a script, and that was your movie. I think that's been watered down a bit lately.
36 I never lived in an abandoned railroad station.
37 I think actors get too comfortable. I like being uncomfortable as an actor because it keeps you alive. I don't know, I think it's important.
38 What I really want is to play the romantic lead and get the girl.
39 I spend my nights just sitting and reading a book and drinking my tea and walking my dog. That's about as exciting as my life gets.
40 I'm on Game of Thrones (2011), and every time we have someone new coming on our show, we welcome them with open arms and get revitalized by this new presence. Then we kill them off very quickly.
41 I'm a private person in many ways.
42 Game of Thrones (2011) is an amazing show, and I have no problem speaking of the virtues of HBO.
43 I should call people back more readily. I'm not the best friend sometimes in terms of that. I do follow that white balloon and get distracted a lot.
44 I was a sullen kid who smoked cigarettes and wore black every day, and I went to a school that was lacrosse players and Izods.
45 I think a lot of great male comic actors are introspective, quiet personalities, which I really admire. But they are really able to turn it up when the camera's on.
46 [after winning a Golden Globe for his performance in Game of Thrones (2011)] I was talking to my mother in Jersey before I came out and she said, "Have fun but have you seen Mildred Pierce (2011)? Guy Pearce is so good. He's gonna win." So . . . I haven't seen "Mildred Pierce" but I'm sure he's really good and I just love our moms because they keep us humble.
47 I like animals, all animals. I wouldn't hurt a cat or a dog - or a chicken or a cow. And I wouldn't ask someone else to hurt them for me. That's why I'm a vegetarian.
48 [on short stature] When I was younger, definitely, I let it get to me. As an adolescent, I was bitter and angry and I definitely put up these walls. But the older you get, you realize you just have to have a sense of humor. You just know that it's not your problem. It's theirs.
1 Dinklage is considered such a genuinely pleasant and amiable person by his costars on "Game of Thrones", many of them find it quite difficult to act out scenes with him in which they're mistreating his character. He and Lena Headey are such good friends, in fact, they share an apartment whenever they're filming scenes and drive together to the set each day, even though their characters have a mutual hatred of each other.
2 He has German, Irish, and English ancestry. His surname is German.
3 Delivered the 2012 Commencement Address at his alma mater, Bennington College (Vermont). He is a 1991 graduate of Bennington College with a degree in drama.
4 Studies theology.
5 Owns a dog named Kevin.
6 He and his wife have one child at present, a daughter.
7 In his acceptance speech for the Golden Globe, Dinklage called attention to the plight of Martin Henderson, a dwarf who was crippled after being attacked by a rugby player outside a bar.
8 For his role on Game of Thrones (2011), named one of the "Eight Actors Who Turn Television into Art," in cover story of The New York Times Magazine (9/11/11).
9 He was George R.R. Martin's first choice to play "Tyrion Lannister" in Game of Thrones (2011).
10 Son of an elementary school music teacher and retired insurance salesman. Both parents are of average height, as is older brother, John, a violinist.
11 Is a vegetarian. Anytime you see him eating a meat product on screen, it is a tofu product (such as the tofu "beef" jerky, in The Station Agent (2003)).
12 Has achondroplasia, a form of dwarfism in which the body is perfectly formed but the bones initially modelled in cartilage, the long bones of the arms and legs, do not grow long enough. Velázquez painted a fine portrait of a man with this condition which hangs in the Prado in Madrid.
13 November 2004 - engaged to theater director Erica Schmidt.
I Think We're Alone Now 2018 pre-production Del
The Three Christs of Ypsilanti 2018 post-production
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri 2017 post-production
Rememory 2016 post-production Sam Bloom
The Thicket announced Shorty
Game of Thrones 2011-2017 TV Series Tyrion Lannister
Angry Birds 2016 Mighty Eagle (voice)
The Boss 2016 Renault
Pixels 2015 Eddie
Taxi 2015/I Marc
Game of Thrones: A Telltale Games Series 2014 Video Game Tyrion Lannister (voice)
Destiny 2014 Video Game Ghost (2014-2015) (voice)
The Angriest Man in Brooklyn 2014 Aaron Altmann
X-Men: Days of Future Past 2014 Dr. Bolivar Trask
Low Down 2014 Alain
Knights of Badassdom 2013 Hung
Sesame Street 2013 TV Series Simon
A Case of You 2013 Gerard
Saturday Night Live 2013 TV Series Peter Drunklage
Ice Age: Continental Drift - Arctic Games 2012 Video Game Captain Gutt (voice)
Ice Age: Continental Drift 2012 Captain Gutt (voice)
Scrat's Continental Crack-Up: Part 2 2011 Short Captain Gutt (voice)
A Little Bit of Heaven 2011 Vinnie
Pete Smalls Is Dead 2010 K.C. Munk
The Last Rites of Ransom Pride 2010 Dwarf
I Love You Too 2010 Charlie
Death at a Funeral 2010 Frank
Saint John of Las Vegas 2009 Mr. Townsend
30 Rock 2009 TV Series Stewart
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian 2008 Video Game Trumpkin (voice)
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian 2008 Trumpkin
Underdog 2007 Dr. Simon Barsinister
Death at a Funeral 2007 Peter
Ascension Day 2007 Brantly
Nip/Tuck 2006 TV Series Marlowe Sawyer
Penelope 2006 Lemon
Little Fugitive 2006 Sam
Find Me Guilty 2006 Ben Klandis
Threshold 2005-2006 TV Series Arthur Ramsey
The Limbo Room 2006 Dusty Spitz
Ultra 2006 TV Movie
Fortunes 2005 Mike Kirkwood
Lassie 2005 Rowlie
Escape Artists 2005 Mr. Duff
Testing Bob 2005 TV Movie Robinson (Bob) Hart
The Baxter 2005 Benson Hedges
Life As We Know It 2005 TV Series Dr. Belber
Ice Age Columbus: Who Were the First Americans? 2005 TV Movie documentary Narrator (voice)
I'm with Her 2004 TV Series Elliot Rosen
Jail Bait 2004 Short Lindo
89 Seconds at Alcázar 2004 Short Mari Barbola
Surviving Eden 2004 Sterno
Elf 2003 Miles Finch
Tiptoes 2003 Maurice
The Station Agent 2003 Finbar McBride
Just a Kiss 2002 Dink
Third Watch 2002 TV Series Drug Dealer
13 Moons 2002 Binky
Human Nature 2001 Frank
Never Again 2001 Harry Appleton
Oz 2001 TV Series Murder Victim
The $treet 2001 TV Series Little Person
Pigeonholed 1999 Roy
Safe Men 1998 Leflore
Bullet 1996 Building Manager (uncredited)
Seinfeld 1995 TV Series James' Telephone Voice
The State's 43rd Annual All-Star Halloween Special 1995 TV Movie The Devil (uncredited)
Living in Oblivion 1995 Tito
Shadows and Fog 1991 Circus Performer (unconfirmed, uncredited)
I Think We're Alone Now 2018 producer pre-production
The Thicket producer announced
Knights of Badassdom 2013 executive producer
Pete Smalls Is Dead 2010 producer
Angry Birds 2016 performer: "The Mighty Eagle Song"
Saturday Night Live 2013 TV Series performer - 1 episode
Oz 2001 TV Series stunts - 1 episode
The Visitor 2007/I special thanks
The 68th Primetime Emmy Awards 2016 TV Special Himself
Conan 2016 TV Series Himself - Clueless Gamer
Saturday Night Live 2016 TV Series Himself - Host Winnie the Pooh Peter Dinklage ...
In Our Own Oblivion: The Miracle of Making a Film 2015 Documentary short Himself
The 67th Primetime Emmy Awards 2015 TV Special Himself - Winner: Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series
Janela Indiscreta 2015 TV Series Himself
Extra 2014-2015 TV Series Himself
Mutant vs. Machine: The Making of 'X-Men: Days of Future Past' 2015 Video documentary Himself
X-Men: Unguarded 2015 Video short Himself
Red Nose Day 2015 TV Special Himself
The Daily Show 2003-2015 TV Series Himself - Guest
The 21st Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards 2015 TV Special Himself - Nominee
Face Your Food 2014 Video documentary short Himself
The 66th Primetime Emmy Awards 2014 TV Special Himself - Nominee: Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series
Made in Hollywood 2014 TV Series Himself
Dirty Laundry Live 2014 TV Series Himself
Sit Down with the Stars 2014 TV Series Himself
Late Show with David Letterman 2014 TV Series Himself
20th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards 2014 TV Special Himself - Nominee
2013 MTV Movie Awards 2013 TV Special Himself - Presenter
Game of Thrones: Season 2 - Character Profiles 2013 Video documentary Tyrion Lannister / Himself
Ice Age Continental Drift: Through a Pirate's Spyglass: Voices Ahoy! 2012 Video short Himself
Game of Thrones: Season 2 - How to Be an Extra 2012 Video documentary Tyrion Lannister
Game of Thrones: Destinations of Season 2 2012 Video documentary Himself
Game of Thrones: Season 2 - Invitation to the Set 2012 Video documentary Himself / Tyrion Lannister
The 69th Annual Golden Globe Awards 2012 TV Special Himself - Winner: Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or TV Movie
Game of Thrones: Season 2 - In Production: Croatia 2012 Video documentary Tyrion Lannister / Himself
Game of Thrones: You Win or You Die - Inside the HBO Series 2012 TV Movie Himself
Scream Awards 2011 2011 TV Special Himself
The 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards 2011 TV Special Himself - Winner: Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series
Game of Thrones: Costumes 2011 Video documentary Tyrion Lannister
Game of Thrones: Inside the Night's Watch 2011 Video documentary Tyrion Lannister
Inside Narnia: The Adventure Returns 2008 Video documentary Himself
The Chronicles of Narnia: Becoming Trumpkin 2008 Video short Himself
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian: Warwick Davis: The Man Behind Nikabrik 2008 Video short Himself
Starz Inside: Fantastic Flesh 2008 TV Movie documentary Himself
P.O.V. 2004-2006 TV Series documentary Himself / Narrator
The Real Family of Jesus 2005 TV Mini-Series documentary Narrator
Celebrity Poker Showdown 2005 TV Series Himself
Entourage 2005 TV Series Himself
Nobody Wants Your Film 2005 Documentary Himself
As Smart As They Are: The Author Project 2005 Documentary Himself
Dinner for Five 2004 TV Series Himself - Special Guest
The 2004 IFP/West Independent Spirit Awards 2004 TV Movie documentary Himself
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno 2003 TV Series Himself - Guest
CBS Cares 2000 TV Series Himself
Extra 2015 TV Series Himself
Morning Express with Robin Meade 2014 TV Series Tyion Lannister
Welcome to the Basement 2013 TV Series Himself
2016 OFTA Television Award Online Film & Television Association Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series Game of Thrones (2011)
2015 Primetime Emmy Primetime Emmy Awards Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series Game of Thrones (2011)
2015 Gold Derby TV Award Gold Derby Awards Drama Supporting Actor Game of Thrones (2011)
2012 Golden Globe Golden Globes, USA Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television Game of Thrones (2011)
2011 Satellite Award Satellite Awards Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television Game of Thrones (2011)
2011 Scream Award Scream Awards Best Supporting Actor Game of Thrones (2011)
2004 OFTA Film Award Online Film & Television Association Best Breakthrough Performance - Male The Station Agent (2003)
2004 Special Achievement Award Satellite Awards Outstanding Talent
2003 NYFCO Award New York Film Critics, Online Breakthrough Performance The Station Agent (2003)
2003 Best Actor Ourense Independent Film Festival The Station Agent (2003)
Nominated Awards
2016 Actor Screen Actors Guild Awards Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series Game of Thrones (2011)
2016 Actor Screen Actors Guild Awards Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series Game of Thrones (2011)
2015 MTV Movie Award MTV Movie Awards Best Villain X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
2014 Satellite Award Satellite Awards Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television Game of Thrones (2011)
2014 TV Guide Award TV Guide Awards Favorite Actor Game of Thrones (2011)
2013 SFX Award SFX Awards, UK Best Actor Game of Thrones (2011)
2012 Critics' Choice TV Award Critics Choice Television Awards Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series Game of Thrones (2011)
2012 Golden Nymph Monte-Carlo TV Festival Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series Game of Thrones (2011)
2012 TCA Award Television Critics Association Awards Individual Achievement in Drama Game of Thrones (2011)
2011 IGN Award IGN Summer Movie Awards Best TV Actor Game of Thrones (2011)
2004 CFCA Award Chicago Film Critics Association Awards Most Promising Performer The Station Agent (2003)
2004 Chlotrudis Award Chlotrudis Awards Best Actor The Station Agent (2003)
2004 Gold Derby Award Gold Derby Awards Breakthrough Performance The Station Agent (2003)
2004 Independent Spirit Award Independent Spirit Awards Best Male Lead The Station Agent (2003)
2004 Sierra Award Las Vegas Film Critics Society Awards Best Actor The Station Agent (2003)
2004 OFCS Award Online Film Critics Society Awards Best Breakthrough Performance The Station Agent (2003)
2004 PFCS Award Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards Breakout Performance - On Screen The Station Agent (2003)
2004 PFCS Award Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards Best Ensemble Acting The Station Agent (2003)
2004 Actor Screen Actors Guild Awards Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role The Station Agent (2003)
2004 Actor Screen Actors Guild Awards Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture The Station Agent (2003)
Game of Thrones (2011-2017)
as Tyrion Lannister
X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
as Dr. Bolivar Trask
as Finbar McBride
Elf (2003)
as Miles Finch
$10 million 1969 4 ft 4 in (1.346 m) Actor Actors Adam Sandler Al Green Alfie Allen Andrew Johnson Associated Press Associates (band) Avenue (store) Belmar English people Entertainment Erica Schmidt Erica Schmidt (m. 2005) Film Game of Thrones Irish people Jonathan Dinklage June 11 Michelle Fairley Morristown New Jersey New York City Peter Dinklage Peter Dinklage Net Worth Peter Hayden Dinklage Sean Bean Sophie Turner Television The Station Agent Threshold Underdog United States United States of America Voice Actor Washington (state)Sean Bean Zelig Dinklage
Olivier Martinez Net Worth
Guy Torry Net Worth
Seth Peterson Net Worth
Annie Lennox Net Worth
Chord Overstreet Net Worth
John Varvatos Net Worth
William Moseley (Actor) Net Worth
Troy Baker Net Worth
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⌂ / News Center / Biology, Geosciences, History Faculty Members Retire
Biology, Geosciences, History Faculty Members Retire
Biology professor Bob Blystone wife his wife, Donna.
Trinity bids farewell to longtime professors
by Susie P. Gonzalez
Professors are at the center of important memories of most Trinity University alumni. Some faculty members have become synonymous with the University’s identity, and it seems as if they are permanent campus fixtures. Alas, they do decide to retire, but before we let them go, we asked them to reflect upon the past and share plans for the next chapter.
Here are the questions we asked:
1. What year did you come to Trinity? How has the campus, your department, your discipline, or your scholarship changed over the years?
2. What are some of your proudest achievements as a Trinity faculty member?
3. What will you miss most about Trinity?
4. What is next for you?
5. Please provide your preferred e-mail address.
Robert V. “Bob” Blystone, professor of biology
My start date at Trinity was Jan. 11, 1971. Trinity has gone from a shoe-string country club veneer to a business-like international campus.
The biology department went from eight faculty members teaching half the entering class Intro to Biology and covering a graduate master’s program to 13 faculty with a balanced teaching and research responsibility with no graduate programs.
When I started Trinity, cytology was becoming cell biology, embryology was becoming developmental biology, and histology was becoming microanatomy.
Both my research topic and my research approach have changed considerably at Trinity. When I arrived, anatomy of invertebrate vision systems was my focus. I changed with Air Force funding to investigating mammalian eyes damaged by laser beams. Based on student interest I moved to looking at lung development, especially embryonic avian lungs exposed to steroids. Again with Air Force funding, I began looking at RAW 264.7 mouse macrophage cells exposed to microwave energy. We discovered the release of viral particles upon exposure, a finding that excited a few people. That project led to a major effort at looking at heat transfer through the skin of rats exposed to 35 and 94 GHz microwave energy levels. This effort was associated with supporting the development of non-lethal weapon systems by the Air Force.
I was also interested in the role of biology textbooks in learning. With support from the American Cancer Society I developed new instructional materials for cell biology. With support from Apple and working with some bright students, we developed 3-D and 4-D reconstructions of body organ histology. With National Science Foundation (NSF) support we developed digital imaging procedures for the “average” science classroom. Again with NSF support, retired mathematics professor Rick Cooper and I developed some integrated approaches to biology and statistics for the college curriculum.
Without a doubt my proudest achievements are the achievements of my former students. I like to think that I have played some small role in their successes.
I will miss two things after leaving Trinity: 1) the day-to-day effort to get the next lecture, the next lab, the next assignment ready, and 2) the day-to-day interaction with students. As this last semester played out, I would no longer look for things to put into lectures/labs or place on T-Learn for students to read. When I walked through a hobby store, I would always look for materials that could be used in the classroom. I don’t have to do that anymore. My intellectual life has always been focused on the classroom and student needs. I don’t need to have that focus anymore. Although I will miss the day-to-day academic teaching life, I can explore new intellectual vistas that have been on hold for a long time.
I started answering the “what’s next” question with the previous question. I have a very curious mind, both literally and figuratively. Do the cars in a church parking lot favor different colors based on the dynamics of the congregation? How many different styles of water tanks are there in San Antonio? Where do vultures go at night? How have obituary notices in newspapers changed over time? Just how is the gut microbiome in tune with the external environment of the body?
My e-mail for professional reasons is rblyston [at] trinity.edu. For family correspondence, it is rblystone [at] satx.rr.com.
Thomas Gardner, Herndon Distinguished Professor of Geosciences
Since I came to Trinity in 1995, one big change is that the Science Lecture Hall was razed to make room for the spectacular Center for the Sciences and Innovation (CSI) facility. From my office in Marrs McLean, I watched them tear down Moody and watched CSI being built. We stayed in our offices and watched them build new ones.
Another change is within the geosciences department. I’ve seen significant change in the area of student research. Students now do research and publish results of their work. When I first came here, we didn’t do much of that and then the department joined the Keck Geology Consortium. If you walk up and down our halls now, they are full of posters showing student research from around the world with faculty supervisors. That’s why they brought me here.
It was beneficial to me, since I kept in close association with my colleagues from Penn State, who joined me in some of my research trips. We went to Costa Rica and Panama for 15 years. That’s one of the most enjoyable things for me in this job is to educate students, especially in the field, by taking students overseas. During summers, we would go anywhere from the California coast to Costa Rica to Panama to New Zealand and Australia and to British Columbia. It’s eye-opening for the students, and it’s fun to watch them. That’s when they realize “the stuff” they learned in the classroom is “stuff” they can really use and apply.
I’m proudest of bringing student research into the department and fostering that program. It is so well built up that it now will carry on without me. I’ll miss students the most.
As for “what’s next,” I will be “at Trinity” over the summer, but first I took the geosciences majors in May on the annual trip to Big Bend National Park. Next, I’m going to Tasmania to finish a project that I started in the spring of 2016. In Australia, I am studying active faults in the western corner of that country. Nobody thought faults were there, so it is geologically unique and interesting. I wanted to go back one more time and excavate some material and carbon date it. The bedrock is buried under seven meters of sand, and I’m certain we will get enough data for a nice article.
In the fall, I will visit the Trinity library a couple times a week to carve out some writing time. I also plan to complete some home maintenance projects and start tracing my family genealogy. When my wife retires, we most likely will retire to the Pacific Northwest where relatives live.
I will keep my Trinity e-mail, tgardner [at] trinity.edu.
Linda K. Salvucci, associate professor of History
I came to a very dynamic Trinity in the fall of 1985. The campus itself is even busier and prettier today, with some amazing new resources along with opportunities for continued growth. I joined a history department that was centered upon a core of wonderfully talented and committed scholar-teachers and very bright and energetic students. Several are now professional historians themselves, while their fellow alumni are making impressive contributions in other walks of life. My newer department colleagues are likewise terrific; however, our students now are more diverse and tempted more strongly by other disciplines and careers, so they keep us on our toes. The larger profession faces these challenges as well, and thus historians have become much more intentional and explicit about how we guide our students to emerge as career -- and citizenship -- ready to meet the demands of the 21st century. My own participation in the Tuning Project of the American Historical Association and experiences as a former chair of the National Council for History Education have pushed me to articulate as clearly as possible the value of studying history. Our students acquire practical skills -- not what to think, but how to think -- that translate into the ability to be lifelong learners and productive, imaginative, and engaged members of society.
Trinity encouraged, shaped, and broadened my scholarship and writing in a number of significant ways. My decades-long focus on trade relations between the first British and Spanish Empires, particularly between the United States and Cuba, was nurtured through the years by support for regular archival research trips and conference presentations on three continents, allowing me to be vitally involved in the developing field of Atlantic world history. Two of my publications on imperial fiscal and early national trade reforms won professional prizes. But early on in my career, I also had the opportunity to critique U.S. history textbooks for stereotypes about Mexico, Mexicans, and Mexican Americans. Originally, I thought that this would be a one-time academic evaluation, but it turned into a new strand of research and writing that eventually resulted in the invitation to coauthor a U.S. history textbook for eighth- and ninth graders, one that has since reached millions of students around Texas, the nation, and the world. This project drew me even further into “public history,” including testimony at textbook adoption hearings, interviews for radio and online, op-ed contributions to newspapers, evaluations of social studies standards and assessment instruments, and some very rewarding professional development work with K-12 teachers. Finally, and this never would have happened had I not taught at Trinity and lived in San Antonio, I began to teach a First Year Seminar, “Remembering the Alamo: Myth, Memory and History,” in 2000. Our scholarship most often infuses our teaching, but in this case, my teaching led to conference papers and articles on issues related to the Alamo, including one in History Now, an online journal with a readership of more than 10,000, far larger an audience than conventional academic publications usually reach. And over the last two years, I have been involved with consulting for and evaluating the ambitious and contested plans to “Reimagine the Alamo” historic district and complex. So, during my three decades at Trinity, I have researched and published in now well-established fields — Atlantic world history, SOTL (Scholarship on Teaching and Learning) for history, and public history — that barely existed when I began my graduate studies at Princeton.
I recall with fondness and pride those occasions when students and advisees had their “aha!” moments and showed that they had stretched themselves intellectually and/or personally on their individual journeys of discovery, independence, and growth. I was pleased to be the 2013 recipient of Trinity’s Distinguished Achievement in Advising Award.
Since Richard, my spouse, remains on the faculty in the economics department, I am spared having to say hard goodbyes to Trinity colleagues. I will miss teaching with Richard our interdisciplinary course on the transatlantic slave trade (although I won’t miss grading at all!) Thanks to social media and other means of communication, I already keep in touch with many former colleagues, students, and advisees, and plan to continue doing so more diligently in the future.
I look forward mostly to having the time to work on my scholarly and public history projects, but also to being able to read for pleasure, to travel in a less hectic and more flexible manner, and to live a less-rushed life with family and friends. I am excited about and grateful for these opportunities!
My e-mail address is lsalvucc [at] trinity.edu.
Also retiring this spring is Dan Walz, professor of finance and decision sciences.
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Maps Matter! Let’s End Gerrymandering
By NewPeople Newspaper on July 20, 2017 • ( Leave a comment )
June 29, 2017 – By Suzanne M. Broughton
Gerrymandering is not new. It started in 1812 when Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry approved a bill that drew districts favoring his party. A political cartoonist thought the map looked like a salamander, hence the term Gerrymander. Both parties do it. Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Wisconsin are Gerrymandered by Republicans. Maryland and Illinois are Gerrymandered by Democrats.
There are several ways to Gerrymander. If a state loses a Congressional seat, district boundaries can be drawn to set up a primary contest between two incumbents, as was done in Congressional District 12 here in Western Pennsylvania in both 2001 and 2011. Districts can be drawn to pack voters of the minority party into one district, leaving several other districts to the majority party. Or a group of minority party voters can be stranded in a majority party district.
Gerrymandering was made much more precise in the 2011 redistricting by recently developed computer methods. Data mining showed the map-makers past election patterns, and the party registration plus many personal characteristics of individual voters. Very precise computer mapping techniques allowed them to draw districts – often having grotesque shapes – that would group voters according to this data to produce the desired election outcome.
Republicans have been the most adept at this process. To be able to do so, they have spent a lot of money to control the state legislatures that do the redistricting. Between the 2001 and the 2011 redistricting, Republicans developed REDistricting MAjority Project 2010 (REDMAP2010) – a scheme to gain control of many state legislatures that the Democrats had controlled by a small margin of seats. By targeting a few, carefully selected districts in a state’s legislature with intense, well-financed campaigns before the 2010 state elections, Republicans were able to flip enough of those seats to gain control. REDMAP2010 is described in detail in David Daley’s recent book Ratf**ked.
In Pennsylvania, redistricting is done by two different processes. Ordinary legislative procedure is used to redistrict for the U.S. House of Representatives. Maps are developed by the majority party and attached to a bill that is passed by the legislature and signed by the governor.
The Pennsylvania Constitution specifies a different process for redistricting the state legislature. A five-person commission is formed, containing four senate and house majority and minority leaders plus a fifth person that the four agree on, or he or she may be chosen by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The Pennsylvania Constitution specifies that districts must be compact, contiguous and split as few municipalities as possible – conditions that are rarely honored by the commission. Both systems produce Gerrymandered maps.
Fair Districts PA, a project of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania and Common Cause, supported by 26 additional organizations, would like to scrap both those systems. A new system would have all the maps drawn by an independent commission of 11 voters: 4 registered with each major party and 3 registered as independents or with other parties. The commission could not include office holders, their spouses, lobbyists, or paid staff & officers of political parties. The commission could not use the address of any individual, political affiliation of voters, or previous election results. It would hold public hearings, make publicly available the information being used to draft the maps – probably on the Internet – and require at least one vote from each of the three groups to approve the maps.
This proposal has been introduced in the legislature as Senate Bill 22 and (identical) House Bill 722. The House bill has 95 co-sponsors. Since these bills will amend the Pennsylvania Constitution, one must pass in both the 2017-18 and 2019-20 legislative sessions and be approved by voters in a referendum.
You can find more information at www.fairdistrictspa.com. Fair Districts PA urges readers to join the organization at the website, by clicking on the JOIN US button, and to contact their legislators to support these bills.
Suzanne M Broughton is a past president of the League of Women Voters of Greater Pittsburgh and is currently a member of the Fair Districts PA speakers team.
Categories: Congress, Event, Gerrymandering, Politics, US
Cooperative Principle 7: Commitment to Community
Another Defense of Planned Parenthood
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Separation of Culture and State – Cultural Neutrality
Posted on July 11, 2015, 12:29 am by Rob Jones in Culture
Does the United States benefit from new laws to deal with the new realities of its multi-layered pluralism? A look at one significant facet of America’s “diversity of values” may suggest an answer.
Intense religious conflict rages in hot spots around the world. The global challenges with managing religious diversity (expressed as “differences“) are reflected in every way imaginable. It ranges from insensitive management sanctioned religious holiday celebrations at work, to less than civil debates over religious garb, to violent Middle East geopolitical conflict centered on the establishment of a new Islamic religious state in Iraq/Syria, to the hotly debated two-state solution in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
These types of conflicts over religious differences, especially those centered on dramatic human rights violations, civil wars and strategic international territorial disputes, tend to sharpen the contrast between the United States and much of the world. There is a centuries-old relative domestic tranquility around issues of religion. Why? There is a fundamental difference in the way America has managed religious differences within its own borders. Or, more accurately, how it has not managed religious differences.
A CONSTITUTIONAL NEUTRALITY
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution begins with the declaration that:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”
The comma separates two clauses, the first being generally known as the “Establishment Clause,” and the second, the “Free Exercise Clause.” These are widely understood to mean that the government will neither prescribe nor proscribe religious beliefs or practices. The right of the individual to believe and behave in accordance with personal choice is limited only by the extent to which such choices interfere with or harm the rights of others. The legal review of religious rights, therefore, has centered primarily on “exercise” of religious belief.
The U.S. Constitution thus dealt with diversity of religious beliefs and related behaviors in a quite ingenious way. The Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses combine to form a governance principle that precludes actions that unduly favor one religion over another, or that unduly prefers religion over non-religion, or non-religion over religion.
Emanating from the statement of the principle itself as law, the dominant social attitude transmitted by the clauses is traditionally referred to in two important ways.
The first way was referred to by Thomas Jefferson as a “wall of separation” effectively separating church from state in a legal sense. Those words are not in the Constitution, but reflect a concept widely characterized as a ‘separation of church and state.’
The second way is generally referred to as “religious neutrality.” The applicable definition of neutrality is “an attitude of impartiality.” (Robust considerations of the meanings and criticisms abound, including on Wikipedia.)
Many religions conflict and even compete with one another in belief and manner of exercise, as well as for resources. With that, government and citizenry have adequately (not perfectly) worked it out such that anyone but the government can establish a religion, exercise it freely, and enjoy a measure of government protection. By law, the government will, to the best of its ability, strive to behave in a neutral manner toward them all. This stance of neutrality includes the government’s legal obligation to provide equal protection.
The “attitude of impartiality” transmitted to “we, the people” by the clauses is reflected in the enjoyment of an unfettered public practice of innumerable forms of worship throughout America. In most cases, religion and non-religion may be practiced without interference or egregious persecutions. Civil behavior toward all prevails as a social norm, an expectation among the citizenry often taken for granted.
Any question as to the importance of such freedoms was effectively dispatched at the outset in the Constitutional Amendments. It proved to be sustainable. Justice Robert Jackson (West Virginia v. Barnette, 1943) made this compelling statement regarding these bedrock clauses:
“If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us.”
This two-sided clausal coin of religious neutrality and religious freedom was something quite unique in world history, and remains so in a number of important ways. It continues to evolve as it faces court tests, in connection with culture. Despite that, the clauses seem to be in no danger of being stricken from the Constitution anytime soon. If that’s the case, then is there any advantage to further exploit them to the benefit of the American cultural landscape?
IMMIGRATION INFUSION: CONFUSION OVER FUSION
As U.S. immigration flourishes, the related Constitutional protections, accommodation and exercise of immigrants’ cultural and religious practices are increasingly being tested in U.S. courts. This may be especially so with immigrants hailing from nations that have no such provisions of legal separation and/or neutrality. Why are these tests becoming bellwether cases?
The immigrants’ country of origin and its system of laws, traditions, beliefs and practices are often not distinguishable or distinguished from their culture. In other words, their ancestral homelands may not have (nor feel a need for) any concept of differentiation between obedience to religious traditions and obedience to the laws of the land (the sovereign laws of which often mandate severe penalty for disobedience). In immigrants’ homeland, religious leaders often are their government leaders, as the religion of the state is the government of the state. The American concept of legal separation of worship and governance and the mechanics thereof, often take some time for immigrants to digest and work through.
Even after generations of acculturation in America, the culture-religion fusion does not necessarily go away. On the contrary, the welfare of immigrant ancestral homelands and America’s international relationship with them may in fact remain an intrinsic and indelible part of the cultural construct of their American cultural community. This is often so even to the extent of affecting Americanized immigrants’ sociopolitical affiliations and related decisions as Americans.
Apart from religious differences, though, the proliferation of new cultures of all kinds in American society and the demographic shift away from a single dominant American ethnoculture brings its own set of tests to American jurisprudence, as well as to its social fabric.
There are official ways to recognize and classify religions for the purposes of law. There are no precisely equivalent structures in law for recognizing and classifying cultures. This, despite the fact that multiculturalism and diversity are clearly ingrained concepts in American life. “Cultural differences” have been brought to bear on a range of uses, including political, social and commercial purposes, all applied domestically as well for use in a maturing globalized economy.
However, “culture,” unlike religion, received no directives or even mention in the U.S. Constitution. Why? Likely because at the time of its being penned, the popular use of “culture” referenced the tilling of land, growing things, an agricultural term. The figurative sense of intellectual and social “cultivation through education,” or “”improved by exposure to intellectual culture” would not have been widely understood at that time. The meaning “the intellectual side of civilization” is from 1805; that of “collective customs and achievements of a people” from 1867. The meaning of the term “culture” as a collection of purely secular beliefs, values, traditions, rituals and artifacts had only begun to form by the late 1700s.
Subsequent to that bifurcation of meaning, in 1889, well after the framers of the Constitution recognized the challenges of pluralism but at the same time avoided (or failed at) defining religion, Anthropologist Edward B. Tylor noted:
…“ [c]ulture has also been described as ‘one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language.”
Today, though, could the current understanding of “culture” be incorporated into existing law? Could American law accommodate a legal requirement that mandates the same impartial attitudes, sensitive intercultural behaviors, competence and protections for all cultures in much the same way that religious sensitivity, competence, and protections have been managed for centuries in America?
DOES CONSTITUTIONAL RELIGIOUS NEUTRALITY IMPLY CULTURAL NEUTRALITY?
Many might think that any such new law would be too complex, unwieldy, and would present unresolvable enigmas. Would it, for example, require or lead to government protecting some sets of cultural beliefs, feelings and expressions by making opposing cultural beliefs, feelings and expressions illegal? After all, one person’s “insensitivity” may be another person’s “over-sensitivity.”
Or, is culture already contained within and among those “other matters of opinion” to which Justice Robert Jackson referred? Not surprisingly, the SCOTUS so affirmed in its delivered opinion:
“We can have intellectual individualism and the rich cultural diversities that we owe to exceptional minds only at the price of occasional eccentricity and abnormal attitudes. When they are so harmless to others or to the State as those we deal with here, the price is not too great. But freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order.”
Beliefs cannot be legislated. Behaviors are the focus of the law. The legal bright red line on behavior is already about as clear as it can be in law, in as much as it relates to outcomes of relative freedoms in social, moral and cultural matters. What, though, would have to be added in the case of a legal framework for incorporating diversity, inclusiveness and culturally competent behaviors as effectively as it has been for religion? What would have to be added into law to increase the chances of an outcome of cultural equilibrium?
Perhaps nothing. Existing law may already hold the key, hidden in plain sight.
Jerry Kang, Professor of Law & Asian Studies, Asst. Provost, UCLA, lectured on implicit association and the need for new law. He made an astute assertion that can be generalized for the purposes of this discussion.
“When the facts change, the law has an obligation to respond in kind, or at least tell us why it cannot.”
The facts around immigration and the resultant cultural diversity have certainly changed, and demands are being made for intercultural competence, sensitive behaviors, fairness and justice that appear to be beyond the reach of current law. That in mind, Prof. Kang suggested one key to potential success in raising the behavioral bar. Moving society forward in matters of law related to diversity is encompassed in his sage advice to:
“Excavate old law: Law always has in it common sense assumptions, embedded everywhere in the law, a sort of “folk psychology” within. Law could not operate otherwise,” he observed. (Video marker @ 8:00)
There is more than enough case law to define and redefine the boundaries of discrimination law. But the broader day-to-day outworking of “inter-religious sensitivities” and inclusiveness are otherwise left to social norms, network rules and personal choices. The “soft” measures are not proactively addressed in civil or criminal law. There are legislative and executive actions that deal with the “hard” measures of religious discrimination and other behavior-related crimes. They are reactive provisions of law for redress after behaviors reveal untoward attitudes. But there is one quite unique proactive provision in the Constitution that reaches to religious attitudes that might also reach to cultural attitudes. What is that?
While it certainly does not preclude a dominant religion in America, the First Amendment does determine that no religion would be considered the legally endorsed “national religion” for the purposes of state funding. Nor would it allow for a dominant religion to sway policy to the extent that it creates exclusionary laws, practices and perhaps insensitive encroachment on the religious beliefs, feelings and sensibilities of others.
How does that equate to culture?
In a parallel discussion, cultural dominance is characterized as similarly situated under the rubric of The Diversity Paradigm. Professor Gérard Bouchard wrote:
“A first paradigm [of five] is that of diversity. In particular, we find this in English Canada, the United States, Sweden, Australia, and India. The guiding premise in these cases is that the nation is composed of a collection of individuals and ethnocultural groups placed on equal footing and protected by the same laws—there is no [legal] recognition of a majority culture and, in consequence, no minorities per se. Under the official banner of diversity, all assert themselves and express themselves as they see fit, within the limits prescribed by law.” (“What is Interculturalism?” Gérard Bouchard, McGill Law Journal ~ Revue de droit de McGill, McGill LJ 435 ~ Référence : (2011) 56 : 2 RD McGill 435)
For the nations listed, “no recognition of a majority culture” means no legally endorsed national culture as a feature of the ruling class. That in no way means that majority and minority cultures cannot be identified. Only that they are not by law directly ascribed any equivalently relative levels of power in the affairs of the nation. Compare that to the constitutional treatment of religion.
What constitutes a legitimate religion under the law? The complexities of defining a religion, a church or a religious organization aren’t close to being unequivocal. The Internal Revenue Service, however, has worked out practical guidelines in the tax code that get to the matter of “recognition” of a religion for the purposes of taxation. Outside of that, there are still many riddles to be solved in the definitions.
The same would be true for a legitimate culture (structured roughly as suggested above), which is a good indication that existing laws may work as well for culture as they have for religion, if approached the right way.
IS CULTURAL NEUTRALITY ALREADY IN LAW?
Would such an “attitude of impartiality” be useful for establishing intercultural fairness, inclusion and sensitivity as part of the American social fabric?
First, consider what constitutes a culture, such that “an attitude of impartiality” might be uniformly understood and applied. It isn’t a huge leap from religion to culture from the standpoint of structure. Both religion and culture share at least these structural components:
Set of beliefs, norms and values shared by a group.
Practices, traditions, observances, rituals, codes.
Exercise of conscience in conscious decisions about how members behave and/or interact with others (members and non-members) in matters of morals and ethics.
Expected degrees of loyalty, devotion, standards of adherence that may affect the view of the group as to an individual’s membership, or the legitimacy of a subgroup’s affiliation.
Inherent philosophies that govern how members perceive and engage in human affairs and the conduct thereof.
Way(s) of life that can be transmitted person to person, across group boundaries and from one generation to another.
The structural similarity is a function of the reality that for most of mankind’s history, religion and culture were the same thing, and inseparable from government. Thus, in terms of the structure, operational characteristics, as well as practice, the founding fathers recognized the functional nature of the instrumentality. They simply aimed it at secular objectives rather than religious. The religious direction or aim would be what the courts might term the “ultimate concern” when it comes to religion, matters of the spirit, universality, ultimate/supreme being, ultimate truth, etc. The secular direction or aim of the same construct would be more earthly, carnal, and aimed primarily at sociopolitical cohesion, domestic tranquility.
The partial structure above is sociological, no matter which way you cut it. The differentiation between them is the “object of ultimate interest,” the application of the sociological structure.
In the case of a ‘religious’ application of the underlying sociological structure, the “object of ultimate interest” is usually more of a “universal,” such as divinities/deities (human or nonhuman) or one or more universal conceptualizations or phenomena seen as being in some way superorganic, influenced and/or controlled by forces beyond the [current] sphere of human activity.
In the case of a ‘secular’ application of the same sociological structure, the “object of ultimate interest” is usually well within the temporal sphere of human interests, including governance from an administrative standpoint, unconcerned with and not bound by the constraints of religious belief or doctrine.
Thus, the applications and their associated beliefs, resulting activities and behaviours (such as devotion, rituals, traditions, symbols, etc.) can look and feel so much the same as to be, at times, mistaken for the other. The terminologies are different, but often interchangeable. We can relate to the following shortlist as tending toward one application or the other.
Allegiance…………..Faithfulness
Traitor………………..Heretic
Good Soldier……….Devout
Conservative……….Orthodox
Liberal………………..Unorthodox
Community…………Faith
Outcast………………Excommunicated
Immigrant…………..Convert
Recruit……………….Proselyte
Innovation………….Reformation
No one has to wonder which terms belong to which application of the underlying common structure. Virtually synonymous with respect to meanings, behaviors and relationships to the common structure and the people subscribing to it, they are only different in their application to either religious (spiritual) vs. secular (temporal), the object of ultimate interest to the humans subscribing and adhering to the application.
Though it took time to take root, Americans were introduced to the Constitutional ‘wall of separation.’ The First Amendment clauses (Establishment and Exercise) were administered as an inoculation against the outgrowth of the fractious and often violent religious conflict that plagued European international relations. At that time, the national governments were religion-driven, and religious affiliation could be mapped as contiguous with national borders.
“TOTO, I’VE A FEELING WE’RE NOT IN TEHRAN ANYMORE“
Though the distinction between secular culture and religious culture is intellectually understood globally, it is not universally embraced as a particularly good idea. The ability to immigrate to the U.S., however, has not been restricted to those who can easily decouple religion from secular aspects of their cultures.
The historically unique and successful American construct rending religion from state and then later religion from “culture” was at first geographically isolated. That isolation is what makes it now so difficult for many Americans to conceive of the idea that others cannot separate them, decoupling their religion/culture from governance. The Diversity Paradigm creates ever greater demarcation of cultures from cultures, differences from differences, carefully delineating and classifying diversities into an endless taxonomy for social, workplace and business purposes.
The great challenge for the definition of “culture” under The Diversity Paradigm has become its capitulation to the unwieldy blending of culture with physical characteristics like race and gender, a continual focus on a system of “differences” that divide us. That will be most difficult to repair.
However, religion is perhaps equally multifarious. America’s founders recognized the Sisyphean nature of the task of creating a comprehensive typology, and instead formulated the eloquently simple solution in the First Amendment. They didn’t even define “religion,” only employing the generic term for elasticity in future meanings. The Constitution in contrast deals with “religion” as one macro paradigm, not the infinite possibilities in its exercise.
The term “culture” can possess the same constitutional dynamic, and thus enjoy the same freedom, neutrality and elasticity in law. The Canadian UNESCO Commission produced this formulation as a working definition of culture:
“Culture is a dynamic value system of learned elements, with assumptions, conventions, beliefs and rules permitting members of a group to relate to each other and to the world, to communicate and to develop their creative potential.”
As an emergent power, the founders decided that America’s new population was to be supplied largely by immigrants who would not check their religions at the shore. Immigration never stopped. The Constitution’s framers were among the first on earth to take the legal offensive, making the quantum leap of distinguishing religion as merely one of many forms of governance. Religion was for the first time in any constitution structured as a personal freedom rather than as an intrinsic element of governance. Religion was thereby positioned as subordinate and voluntary in the American way of life.
America’s founders framed the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses evidencing their implicit grasp of the:
A) sociological conflict orientation (paradigm)
B) intrinsic sociopolitical nature and influence of religion
C) inherent diversity of religious thought and behavior
D) role of religion with respect to political and social cohesion vs. polarization
E) historical inevitability of religion and competing religious interests
F) need for managed inclusiveness in socioeconomic processes.
The American-style domestic principle of neutrality has since proven to be a uniquely cohering force around religion as a sociological phenomenon. Though not without its challenges, it has been a means of establishing internal equilibrium of religious influences through self-organizing behaviors, all of them declared subordinate to a rubric of democratic governance of The Republic. Through the Establishment and Exercise clauses, secular governance was extricated from the constraints of religious law and doctrine. At the same time the clauses allowed for the freedom of the citizenry to choose, organize and exercise religion apart from government, and to do so without legal interference or constraint of others.
Could it be that simple for culture? Only if the same management principle is applied. What principle is that?
THE SUCCESS OF CONSTITUTIONAL NEUTRALITY
Few would argue that religious neutrality as reflected in U.S. domestic policy and that the body of law buttressing neutrality has largely succeeded in America, in spite of its complexities, hiccups and critics. Naturally, it has not done so perfectly in the sense of having achieved any Utopian ideal. However, as intersections of cultures and the politics of immigration come to bear on economic and nationalistic interests, it is also clarifying the modern day legal application of Constitutional neutrality. This is especially so with respect to the inseparability of some immigrant cultures from their religions.
Execution of these clauses has not been without detractors. The idea of neutrality has even been deemed by some as hostile to religion in varying ways; but that appears to be so because of the challenges related to the inherency of religion in cultures. Steven Smith went so far as to have characterized the pursuit of neutrality as, “despite its understandable appeal, an attempt to grasp an illusion.” (Foreordained Failure: The Quest for a Constitutional Principle of Religious Freedom, Steven D. Smith, 1999: p99)
That’s not a showstopper, as no small number of notables have said the same thing about equality.
Despite their criticisms of neutrality, Smith and others acknowledge that its continuing power demands explanation. The First Amendment’s single specification of neutrality for handling religious differences has done its work well enough to have made the idea of a religious war among Americans a far fetched idea in the centuries following the inception of religious neutrality. (Defending American Religious Neutrality, Andrew Koppelman, 2013) That, while even now North American jurisdictions struggle over the meaning and application of religious neutrality. Koppelman makes a compelling argument that, “If the concept of neutrality is properly understood, it can resolve the deepest puzzles in contemporary religion jurisprudence.” Maybe so for culture, as well.
A CULTURENUETRAL® AMENDMENT?
Given the structural similarities and arguably similar root, could the Constitutional provision meant for religion be applied to culture? In the same way as it has been for religious neutrality, can it accomplish equivalent social equilibrium for the remarkably similar construct of cultures? In the 21st Century, America’s population growth is being fueled by immigrants who are not checking their cultures at the shore. No small number of religious practices relatively new to America are currently being tested in the courts. Many are in the form of religious practices that immigrants see as intrinsic to and inherent in their cultures.
First, note that the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses certainly aren’t the only application of neutrality in the U.S. Constitution. America has applied neutrality in a variety of inter-state and international conflicts over the past century or more. American has been a global leader in working out new and even more flexible structures for international law around the principle of neutrality.
The idea of a culture-neutral feature in law is more than just a whim. Neutrality is the highly apropos principle in law for addressing matters of both religious and nonreligious interaction between cultures, and/or between government and cultures as it pertains to conflict management, conflict mitigation and conflict avoidance. That would of necessity include matters of fairness and justice where differing cultures compete for the same resources. Cultural accommodation as a framework for fairness in law is already a reality. Also, the use of legal defense strategies around culture is growing, providing cultural context for behaviors that land defendants in court.
Additionally, there has for some time been an interest in establishing cultural rights as human rights in international law. For example, according to Halina Niec:
“The 1947 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) proclaimed cultural rights as human rights, and broadly defined these rights…Defining cultural rights has proven to be a monumental task. The category of cultural rights remains the least developed in terms of legal content and enforceability.”
(Cultural Rights: At the End of the World Decade for Cultural Development)
Niec presents the logistical challenge this way: “A process of inventorying cultural rights needs to be undertaken. As this work proceeds, it is important to build an awareness of what these rights include (both for individuals and groups), and what the States’ obligations are regarding these rights. Cultural rights, more than any other human rights, have an internal dynamic due to the fact that culture is a living and growing organism, always manifesting itself in new ways.”
That is precisely the logistical nightmare that America’s founding fathers avoided by treating religion as a unitary living and growing organism, applying a legal principle of neutrality. In law it enabled religious differences to be self-managing to the extent possible. Under a constitutional construct of religious neutrality differences required no definition, no inventory, or most importantly, no checklist of beliefs and practices or list of specific religious rights for future judicial review. At the time of its writing, the First Amendment religious prohibition and protections did not require any specific broad or narrow decisions on what was religiously acceptable vs. unacceptable, or decisions on what would be legal vs. illegal beyond what was so succinctly stated.
If all of that is true, if its that easy, then why isn’t everyone talking about neutrality?
It’s not difficult to discern the answer.
WHO’S NOT NEUTRAL ABOUT NEUTRALITY?
Again, though existing law may hold the key, it has been hidden in plain sight, primarily by the outworking of The Diversity Paradigm. How so?
Where is the best place to hide a tree? In a forest. The eloquent simplicity of the First Amendment neutrality favoring multicultural proliferation and free exercise has been buried in a forest of cultural minutia promoted under The Diversity Paradigm. Focusing intently on the differences themselves and the conflict engagement instead of on the “attitude of impartiality” that promotes equilibrium. The Diversity Paradigm has insisted on promoting discomfiting “conversations” about the thorny problems without focusing on the rose.
This provides a lesson explaining why Diversity and Inclusion professionals may find the idea of “cultural neutrality” so troublesome. The Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses are highly efficient at the level of principle. Religious beliefs never rise to the level of legal test. Religious behaviors hit law enforcement or the Constitutional radar screen only when they rise to the level of intractable conflict leading to litigation, or to other socially disruptive behaviors that must be dealt with by the legal system.
The Diversity Paradigm, on the other hand, was founded with a focus on the differences, taking great pains to recognize, catalog and advocate for every single type of infinite diversity, and then addressing differences between them in every single case without a basis in any principle of law or legal authority.
Large injections of cultural/religious pluralism are being administered to 21st Century American society daily via immigration, making it a Sisyphean nightmare keeping up with the influx of differences and the infinite permutations of syncretism.
Does the United States need a consideration of a new or revised Constitutional amendment that would add a cultural neutrality to the First Amendment to operate in parallel with religious neutrality?
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion and/or culture, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”
Tinkering with the First Amendment is a horrifying thought. The idea of so much as reopening it for such a consideration makes the knees go weak. So, no, rewording the Establishment Clause isn’t a reasonable objective. Is there, though, another way establishment/exercise could be accomplished for culture as we understand it today?
INTERCULTURAL SENSITIVITY AND THE LAW
The Diversity Paradigm has been a long exercise in activism and advocacy that runs counter to the American legal concept and social norm embedded in the domestic principle of neutrality. The primary challenge has not been one of difficulty in embracing the idea of human variety, but one of social execution of value (or moral) pluralism.
The bottom line is that there is a point at which some values are countercultural, i.e., in direct opposition to the values of culture(s) of others. This will occur naturally in countries, communities or companies, even in families with members of multiple cultural affiliations. It is an unavoidable and natural consequence of culture pluralism, as it has been for religious pluralism. Fanatical adherence to The Diversity Paradigm eliminates an array of alternative means of redress.
Sensitivity, like “exercise,” becomes a matter of definition. Equilibrium in the religious landscape has largely been achieved through sensitivity to the rights under the law, rather than sensitivities that relate to empathy toward or sympathy with the beliefs or behaviors of others. Thus, no citizen is legally compelled to intellectually or spiritually embrace different religious values, beliefs or practices of others, nor even necessarily feel any respect for them, dignify them or share in them to any degree.
Citizens may, in fact, reject them out of hand and legally repudiate them publicly. The citizen is not required to be intellectually or spiritually neutral toward the religious beliefs, values or behaviors of others. And, in fact, the U.S. Constitution protects the right to proselytize, evangelize, advertise and thereby peacefully compete with other religious values systems.
However, the law does require an uncompromising sensitivity to the First Amendment legal rights of others. That is accomplished by conduct manifest in:
a. a societal norm of behavioral civility
b. legal impartiality in specific areas of decision making
A state of neutrality exists primarily in an environment of conflict. Therefore, the right not to embrace the values of others in a way that would compromise our own must also exist where a stance of neutrality exists. However, civility and impartiality in our dealings with fellow citizens and visitors are expected of citizens, and are also enforced in a neutral state, whether a nation, an organization or an individual state. Violation can bear serious consequences.
Most or all of the 50 States have provisions mirroring the First Amendment religious neutrality, and related requirements. There are clear examples of how a state shows a measure of impartiality to opposing cultural views. There are clear examples of how a state may fail to show impartiality, and the serious consequences.
So rather than a new law for cultural neutrality, can we simply teach people – especially leaders – the principles in existing law and how to apply them in new ways in their organizations or in their communities?
Rather than the arduous road to a supermajority amendment or a Constitutional Convention as a route of first choice, perhaps all that’s needed is noncomplex education, demonstration of the principles in action, and a realization that neutrality has already operated in American society with relative success for centuries in matters of religion and related jurisprudence. Could a state of cultural equilibrium, like religious equilibrium, be the natural result of an already proven path of legal domestic neutrality…and tranquility?
NOT ESTABLISHMENT, BUT REESTABLISHMENT
Why use something that’s already connected to law? One obvious reason is that it’s so hard to get new law. Expertise and time to invest, along with massive expense are crucial components for success. The Diversity Paradigm and it’s tandem back seat rider of Inclusion have been in existence for decades, yet no new American law bears either of those names. There is another reason.
The Diversity Paradigm, still ill-defined, has failed and is fading from existence. Part of the reason is its complete disconnection from law. Its would-be replacement, “Inclusion,” has inherited the genetic defects of its parent. Starting out as “diversity & inclusion,” as a cogent concept it still barely exists, but doesn’t exist at all independent of diversity.
After decades of using the term “inclusion,” like its predecessor, “inclusion remains an abstract and vague thing,” according to The Forum on Workplace Inclusion (discreetly renamed from “The Forum on Workplace Diversity“). The Forum laments, “Even leaders that truly want greater inclusion have a hard time explaining in a clear and concise way what that means. Inclusion is commonly viewed as an attitude or the absence of hatred and intentional discrimination.” As well, it remains disconnected from law.
The Diversity Paradigm is finished and fading. Inclusion is chained to it, and will be pulled under quickly once The Diversity Paradigm sinks altogether. Neither of those two concepts were built to handle the central cultural issues of immigration, which have in turn become matters for consideration of law at the highest levels. The Diversity Paradigm was designed to ensure the domestic tranquilization through the throes of a growing and stable globalizing economy. That’s transition is done, as will be the organizations that cling to it.
At this point, there’s no large scale domestic effort to shift very far from the failed Diversity Paradigm foundation, while the vagary of Inclusion inherits its weakest of connections to law. Absent that anchoring connection to Constitutional protections, any hopeful objective of equilibrium and equity is cast adrift on the winds of societal whim, left to the mercy of the tyranny of the majority…whoever that turns out to by the end of this century.
As the cultural-religious landscape follows a shifting American demographic, the intrinsic connection of culture to First Amendment religious neutrality may be well worth the time and effort to explore. It is an existing if not well explored connection to a Constitutional provision of cultural neutrality and freedom.
Many a law has come and gone. The First Amendment, though, is still purring like a kitten, with no meaningful intentions to sweep it aside. The probability is that it may not be going away anytime soon. Given that, it is likely time to consider the validity of a timely concept already buried within it, a legal framework of separation of culture and state.
We invite you to learn more about the CultureNeutral® Framework and how it can be learned, become operational and positively impact upon your organization’s culture in many ways.
Copyright © 2015 Robert D. Jones – All Rights Reserved
DIRECT LINK TO THIS ARTICLE: Http://CulturalNeutrality.com
Visit http;//nuClusiv.com for more information about the CultureNeutral® Framework or simply CONTACT US for a quick personal tour of the concepts and how they can work for you personally, and your organization.
Tags: america attitude of impartiality church conflict constitution cultural neutrality cultureneutral diversity Establishment Clause first amendment Forum on Workplace Free Exercise Clause Freedom of Religion immigration inclusion inclusiveness insensitivity intercultural law national neutral neutrality organizational culture Religion religious rights separation state the diversity paradigm U.S. Workplace Diversity Workplace Inclusion
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Trump-Backed Texas Lawsuit Would Devastate New Yorkers
July 11, 2019: President Trump is trying to rip away our health care by going to court to eliminate the Affordable Care Act in its entirety. If the Trump lawsuit is successful, it will strip coverage from millions of Americans, raise premiums, end protections for p...Read more >
New insurance guidelines would undermine rules of the Affordable Care Act
December 04, 2018: Excerpts From the Washington Post Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, issued new guidance to states that would allow weakening of provisions of the Affordable Care Act. The Trump administration is urgin...Read more >
Republican Study Committee Draft Budget Bad For Senior’s
July 26, 2018: As of June 15, 2018, the House Budget Committee has not produced a budget for FY 2019. However, the 150-member strong Republican Study Committee (RSC) did draft a budget, and many of their proposals or similar proposals have been included in previous...Read more >
States Attacking ACA Would Suffer Most If Shield On Preexisting Conditions Were Axed
July 17, 2018: By Harriet Rowan, Kaiser Health News Kaiser Health News is a national health policy news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. If the Affordable Care Act’s protections for people with preexisting medica...Read more >
President Trump is Working to Dismantle the ACA Despite Growing Public Approval for the Law
October 23, 2017: In addition to avidly encouraging repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in Congress, President Trump has stepped up his own aggressive and systematic campaign to sabotage and dismantle the ACA. Despite growing popularity of the ACA, Trump...Read more >
It’s time to get serious about health care reform By NYSARA President Barry A. Kaufmann- Poughkeepsie Journal August 7
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New York State Alliance for Retired Americans Press Release on CBO Score of the AHCA/Trump Care
May 30, 2017: On May 24, 2017 the Congressional Budget Office released its analysis of the American Health Care Act that was passed in the House on May 4th. According to the CBO the AHCA will cause about 23 million people to lose health insurance and $834 billion ...Read more >
GOP Backed Trump Care (AHCA) Bill Strips Health Care From Millions to Finance $600 Billion in Tax Cuts for Corporations and the Wealthiest Americans
May 07, 2017: Despite unprecedented outrage from constituents and a 17% approval rating seven (7) Congressional Representatives in New York State voted to take health care away from 2.7 million New Yorkers. Congressional Representatives Lee Zeldin (R/...Read more >
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May 05, 2017: By Julie Rovner, May 4, 2017 Kaiser Health News is a national health policy news service that is part of the nonpartisan Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. After weeks of will-they-or-won’t-they tensions, the House managed to pass its GOP rep...Read more >
GOP’s Latest Health Care Plan Takes Aim at Americans with Pre-existing Conditions While Protecting Members of Congress and Staff
April 26, 2017: Still Contains the Unsavory Parts of the Previous Attempt at “Reform” The following statement was issued by Richard Fiesta, Executive Director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, in response to media reports on the House Republicans' latest...Read more >
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Econ Complexity 93rd of 126
Exports 96th of 221
$4.5B
Imports 128th of 221
GDP Per Capita 101st of 214
Photo by Paulo Philippidis
Looking for commercial partners in Mongolia? List your company on Macro Market.
Product Space
Complexity and Income Inequality
Economic Complexity Ranking
Mongolia is the 96th largest export economy in the world and the 93rd most complex economy according to the Economic Complexity Index (ECI). In 2017, Mongolia exported $6.88B and imported $4.5B, resulting in a positive trade balance of $2.39B. In 2017 the GDP of Mongolia was $11.4B and its GDP per capita was $12.9k.
The top exports of Mongolia are Coal Briquettes ($2.27B), Copper Ore ($1.63B), Gold ($1.26B), Crude Petroleum ($369M) and Iron Ore ($299M), using the 1992 revision of the HS (Harmonized System) classification. Its top imports are Refined Petroleum ($803M), Cars ($263M), Delivery Trucks ($177M), Electricity ($136M) and Large Construction Vehicles ($87.9M).
The top export destinations of Mongolia are China ($5.23B), the United Kingdom ($663M), Switzerland ($662M), Russia ($57.4M) and Italy ($51.6M). The top import origins are China ($1.42B), Russia ($1.25B), Japan ($389M), South Korea ($203M) and the United States ($197M).
Mongolia borders China and Russia.
In 2017 Mongolia exported $6.88B, making it the 96th largest exporter in the world. During the last five years the exports of Mongolia have increased at an annualized rate of 11.7%, from $3.91B in 2012 to $6.88B in 2017. The most recent exports are led by Coal Briquettes which represent 33% of the total exports of Mongolia, followed by Copper Ore, which account for 23.6%.
In 2017 Mongolia imported $4.5B, making it the 128th largest importer in the world. During the last five years the imports of Mongolia have decreased at an annualized rate of -8.2%, from $6.83B in 2012 to $4.5B in 2017. The most recent imports are led by Refined Petroleum which represent 17.9% of the total imports of Mongolia, followed by Cars, which account for 5.85%.
As of 2017 Mongolia had a positive trade balance of $2.39B in net exports. As compared to their trade balance in 1995 when they still had a positive trade balance of $20.4M in net exports.
The top export destinations of Mongolia are China ($5.23B), the United Kingdom ($663M), Switzerland ($662M), Russia ($57.4M) and Italy ($51.6M).
The top import origins of Mongolia are China ($1.42B), Russia ($1.25B), Japan ($389M), South Korea ($203M) and the United States ($197M).
Economic Complexity of Mongolia
The product space is a network connecting products that are likely to be co-exported and can be used to predict the evolution of a country’s export structure.
The economy of Mongolia has an Economic Complexity Index (ECI) of -0.788 making it the 93rd most complex country. Mongolia exports 54 products with revealed comparative advantage (meaning that its share of global exports is larger than what would be expected from the size of its export economy and from the size of a product’s global market).
In this version of the product space products are colored according to their Product Gini Index, or PGI. The PGI of a product is the level of income inequality that we expect for the countries that export a product. For more information see: Linking Economic Complexity, Institutions and Income Inequality and The structural constraints of income inequality in Latin America.
The Economic Complexity ranking of Mongolia has decreased by 53 places over the past 36 years from 40th in 1981 to 93rd in 2017.
More on Mongolia from our other sites
Globally Famous People of Mongolia
This treemap shows the cultural exports of Mongolia, as proxied by the production of globally famous historical characters
Explore on Pantheon
Globally Famous People of Mongolia by City
This treemap shows the cultural exports of Mongolia by city, as proxied by the production of globally famous historical characters.
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HomeBold steps to address the global pollution crisis
Bold steps to address the global pollution crisis
19 June 2019 19 June 2019 Development Matters Climate change#pollution, air pollution, Climate change, Environment
By Rich Fuller, President, Pure Earth, and Founder, Global Alliance on Health and Pollution
Image by Yogendra Singh/Pixabay
A sense of urgency for action against pollution is building. Air pollution and climate agendas both acknowledge the immediate threat to human health and longer-term changes to the planet’s habitability. Uncontrolled industrial pollution in some lower middle-income countries is visible worldwide, and citizens in numerous cities, each experiencing versions of “airpocalypses”, fear for their children’s health and are demanding change. Corporate leaders are responding to demands from board members and consumers for clean supply chains and the development of toxic chemical “footprint” metrics. Pollution is a threat to biodiversity, and air pollution contributes to noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). Such growing public and political attention provides an opportunity for collaborative action to improve health and grow economies.
Let’s be clear: Findings from The Lancet Commission on pollution and health that I chaired concluded that pollution is a major, overlooked global health threat. All forms of pollution were responsible for an estimated 9 million premature deaths — 16% of all deaths worldwide — as well as for 268 million disability adjusted life-years (DALYs) in 2015. Pollution is thus the world’s largest environmental cause of disease and premature death (Landrigan et al. 2017). The majority — 71% — of the deaths attributed to pollution are caused by NCDs. The Lancet Commission also noted that many countries, especially high-income and some upper middle-income countries, have developed robust, cost-effective and politically viable pollution-control strategies based on law, policy, science and technology (U.S. EPA 2011; Samet et al., 2017; Suk et al. 2018). These strategies may very well be ready to be taken off-the-shelf, brought to global scale, and applied in cities and countries at every level of income (Landrigan et al. 2017).
Still, the international development and global health agendas as well as the planning strategies of many countries neglect combatting pollution. The foreign aid budgets of bilateral development agencies direct only meager resources to controlling pollution from industrial, automotive and chemical sources and to preventing diseases caused by these forms of pollution. (Greenberg et al. 2016; Nugent 2016). It’s time to begin including modern pollution investments in Development Assistance Committee (DAC) metrics. Only then will we understand the size of the opportunity to save lives.
Some efforts are already underway to convene for solutions. Founding members and observers, the World Bank, the European Commission, UN Environment, the ministries of environment or health of more than 25 low- and middle-income countries, and other agencies responded to Pure Earth’s call in 2012 to form the Global Alliance on Health and Pollution (GAHP) to address pollution and health at scale. By 2018, GAHP grew to 80 members and dozens of observers that advocate on behalf of its low- and middle-income country members for resources and solutions to pollution problems. GAHP assists its members prioritise and address pollution through Health and Pollution Action Planning (HPAP) and other development planning processes, in coordination with national and international stakeholders. The group also identified key areas for investment, both where official development assistance (ODA) is lacking and where reducing the impact of pollution can benefit as many people as possible. These areas include:
Reducing crop burning: Open burning of crop residues decreases soil productivity by destroying the humus and soil consistency. It also releases large quantities of particulate matter into the air, harming local communities and, sometimes, large cities, like Delhi, India). The soot (black carbon) can travel large distances. Burning in the Ukraine, for example, has a substantial impact on air quality throughout Europe during March and April. Black carbon from open burning also contributes to climate change.
Reducing industrial wastewater in agriculture: With water tables dropping, and pressure from climate change affecting agriculture, many farming regions are using untreated industrial wastewater to water their crops. Heavy metals and chemicals impair crop yields, but more concerning, grains and food crops absorb the toxins. Once shipped to markets, they enter the global food chain and are a growing source of toxic exposure for people worldwide. For example, arsenic has been found in baby food, lead in spices and grains, and pesticides in fruit and vegetables at significant levels in European and US supermarkets.
Preventing lead poisoning: While lead is no longer used as a gasoline additive, significant lead exposures occur from a variety of other sources — pottery, battery recycling, paint and cosmetics being amongst the largest. Lead is currently responsible for an estimated 1 million premature deaths, but the real number is likely several times larger as the cardiovascular risks are underestimated and baseline assessments are lacking. These are additional risks to the well-known impact lead has on IQ and developmental disorders in children.
Cleaning up toxic hotspots: Toxic sites, including contaminated agricultural land, need to be identified to limit their risks to local populations and the global food chain. Identifying and categorising the worst toxic hotspots is the first step. A programme to work collaboratively with governments in this regard has had success and could be further expanded, providing evidence-based data on chemicals and pollution in the soil.
Moving to bottled gas: Nearly 3 million people die each year worldwide from pollution caused by cooking with solid fuels. Most of these deaths occur in rural kitchens in Africa, South and Southeast Asia, and the Western Pacific. While efforts to promote cleaner cookstoves have helped, experience in China, Indonesia and India suggests that cleaner fuels — especially liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) — is a more scalable solution.
Planning for health and pollution action: Workshops are assisting countries review their key pollution problems and prioritise interventions. They bring together all sectors – environment, health, transport, industry, agriculture – and thus create a platform for integrated action to reduce pollution.
Expanding research and monitoring: Significant gaps exist in pollution knowledge. Areas in need of attention include understanding the burden of disease from newer health issues (such as the link between Alzheimer’s and air pollution).The disease impact of chemicals other than lead need to be calculated. And country-based analyses are needed on the economic impact of interventions and the cost of inaction.
Since these areas are where we can make the most difference in health, let’s make them priorities in addressing the global pollution crisis.
← Civic space is shrinking, yet civil society is not the enemy
The Global South’s contribution to the climate crisis – and its potential solutions →
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Tag: love story
Dreaming of spring, the mind turns to flowers, butterflies, fairies and… bugs? Well, yes, if you life in southern Maryland. Although it’s been frozen into silence lately, we have a buzzingly diverse ecosystem here in the coastal plains and wetlands, rich in the insect life that supports the abundant bird and fish populations we’re known for.
But fairies? for those, I still have to turn to the world of fantasy. And recently I saw a remarkable film, one that was clobbered at the box office, so you probably didn’t even notice it opening and closing at your local moviehouse.
Which is really too bad, because it is the product of at least a decade’s dreaming by George Lucas and many others in his talented sphere. The movie is Strange Magic, a love story for pre-teen girls that uses popular culture love songs (thus the title!)
Strange Magic is a sound and vision feast directed by Gary Rydstrom, winner of 7 Oscars and 17 Academy Award nominations for sound mixing and editing. Gary is also the son of friend-of-a-friend, and so we go to see his movies even if they’re a genre we would otherwise ignore.
The design of the Bog King is based on the praying mantis and the cockroach
Starting with Lucas’ vision, the creatives borrowed from the insect world for creature design, which includes not only the colorful and bright fairies and elves, but also the creepier denizens of the Dark Forest.
The story has delightfully modern twists: you’ll find no delicate princess here. Marianne, our heroine, doesn’t grieve lost love for long. And the ultimate hero is a surprise, upending the old ‘dark verses light’ clichés.
While it’s probably too late for the cineplex, check it out on DVD or streaming when you get a chance. It’s a gem.
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You are here: Parliament home page > Parliamentary business > Publications and Records > Hansard > Commons Debates > Daily Hansard - Debate
We are bringing forward a comprehensive package to help people back to work, but we also need to ensure that people are better off in work. The introduction of the national minimum wage and tax credits means that most people see significant gains from moving into
work, but we believe that it is right that work should be properly rewarded, so it is now time to introduce a guarantee that people are better off in work. In the longer term, we believe that that could be done through further significant benefit reform, such as a single working age benefit, but in the meantime we will introduce a new better off in work credit, which will guarantee that everyone who moves into work after being on benefit for six months or more will be at least £40 a week better off. We are also increasing the help for carers and parents who can work only for fewer than 16 hours because of their family responsibilities.
The housing benefit consultation also includes proposals to let people keep their full housing benefit payments for three months after moving into work and for setting fixed awards for up to six months to remove some of the uncertainty that comes with going back to work. We are also consulting on removing some of the highest rents that are distorting the system in a way that is unfair.
Lower than expected unemployment is already saving around £10 billion over the next five years on benefit spending alone, compared with Budget plans. It has also saved money within the £5 billion budget for helping people back to work, as fewer people than expected have reached six or 12 months' unemployment, where the more intensive help is on offer. Those savings now allow us to spend £400 million over the next 18 months-£300 million of it on the young unemployed-to support today's announcements. That investment is helping families across Britain at a difficult time. It is also supporting young people at the very start of their working lives, keeping up welfare reform at a time when it is more important than ever, and helping the public finances. This Government believe that we need to help people at a tough time. We will not turn our backs on people who lose their jobs. We will keep supporting them, not just in the recession, but in the recovery.
The White Paper and the housing benefit consultation set out a comprehensive package to help people back to work and ensure that they are better off in work. It sets out the next stage of benefit and welfare reform in pursuit of our goal to get 1 million more people in employment over the next five years. I commend this statement to the House.
Mrs. Theresa May (Maidenhead) (Con): I thank the Secretary of State for an advance copy of her statement.
At a time when nearly 2.5 million people are unemployed, and when we have record youth unemployment and a record level of economic inactivity, it is right that every effort should be made to provide help and support to get people back into work or trained and ready for work when the recovery comes. But today's flagship White Paper from Labour, coming as it does nearly two years after unemployment started rising, is little more than a restatement of previous policies.
Of course, some of those policies are very familiar to us, because they are our policies. More help for young people after six months; flexible employment programmes that give people support based on their needs, not what benefit they are on; reform of pathways to work-all are Conservative policies. Others, of course, are reannouncements of Government policies. A review of housing benefit was first announced in the Budget in 2008 and was due for publication in the first half of 2009. Perhaps the Secretary of State needed time to consider the U-turn that she has now performed on the
removal of the £15 payment for people who found lower than average rents. We welcome that move, but does the right hon. Lady agree that, far from setting out far-reaching reform of housing benefit, many of the measures in the consultation simply serve to reverse the mistakes made by the Government's first attempt at reform with the local housing allowance?
Speaking of the local housing allowance, the impact of the Government's decision to pay the money directly to the tenant has been families with increased rent arrears and landlords pulling out of the whole system. Indeed, the British Property Federation has said today that an alarming 55.5 per cent. of landlords who responded to a survey that it conducted stated that
"they now refuse to take on LHA tenants due to fears of rent arrears."
Why will the Government not adopt our policy of letting tenants choose whether the allowance is paid to them or directly to the landlord?
Other policies reannounced today include tougher measures to require the partners of benefit claimants to look for work. That was first announced in a Green Paper in the summer of 2008, then in a White Paper this time last year. It has now been announced yet again in this White Paper. A national roll-out of the better off in work credit was announced in the pre-Budget report, but it was first promised in 2008, and it was due to be introduced in 2009. Now we see from the White Paper that the credit is to be introduced in one region from October 2010, and that it is expected to be available nationally from 2011. Will the Secretary of State confirm that that represents a delay of two years for the introduction of the better off in work credit?
The need for that credit is an admission of failure for the Government, who have been insisting for the past 12 years that people are already better off in work. Will the Secretary of State finally admit that, under Labour, people can still be better off on benefits? Will she confirm that the in-work credit will last for six months and that, after that, those who have received it will once again be worse off in work? Will she also confirm that the increased payment to lone parents in work will be only a trial, and that it will not be available nationally?
Far from improving work incentives, the Prime Minister has made them worse during the recession. Will the Secretary of State confirm that figures hidden in the pre-Budget report reveal that the number of low-income families facing marginal tax rates of over 90 per cent. will have more than doubled during the recession?
I welcome today's focus on youth unemployment, but does the right hon. Lady agree that the Government are acting on this too late, when nearly 1 million young people are already unemployed? We have pledged to create 400,000 more apprenticeships, training places and work pairings over two years for young people who are out of work, so I welcome the fact that the Government have adopted our approach, and that there is a focus on training and apprenticeships in the White Paper. However, the Government have been downgrading apprenticeships to a level 2 qualification. Will the Secretary of State tell us how many of the new places being created will be apprenticeships at level 3?
In October, we pledged to give all young people real support after six months unemployment, so I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State has finally worked
out that young people need more help sooner to get into work. We called on her just last week to offer more help for young people after six months, but she refused to do so; the extra help would come after 10 months. Now, however, she has announced that the youth guarantee will be delivered after six months' unemployment, and that young people will be required to take up the help on offer as a condition of receiving benefit.
However, in describing the new young person's guarantee, the White Paper states that if someone is still unemployed after six months, they will be offered a job, training or internship, and will be required to take it up
"before they complete ten months on JSA."
So, for some young people, the extra help will still only come after 10 months. Which is correct: the Secretary of State's statement or the White Paper? Or is this just another piece of spin designed to gain a headline? For a Government who promised "real help now", it is not good enough that their flagship policy on youth unemployment will kick in almost two years after the recession began and unemployment first began to rise. Perhaps they were so slow to respond because the Prime Minister still believes that he has abolished youth unemployment.
We have heard some good ideas today-many of them our own-but yet again when we look at the detail we see that they are not big bold plans for reform; they are yet more consultations, pilots and pathfinders. As ever with this Labour Government, we have to judge them on what they do, not on what they say. Youth unemployment is at a record high. One in five young people cannot find a job. Eight million people are economically inactive-another record high. More children are growing up in workless households here than anywhere else in Europe. Now, in the dying days of this Government, they are rushing out a series of policy announcements aimed at grabbing votes as the election looms.
The Labour Government have had 12 years in which to introduce radical welfare reform. They have failed. Why should anyone believe that they will do as they say, when they have done nothing to deal with these problems for so long? The people paying the price are the millions who have been trapped in benefit dependency for years. Their children are growing up in poverty. Their health is suffering. Their self esteem has fallen away. That is the greatest moral failure of this Labour Government, and we will never let them forget it.
Yvette Cooper: The kind response to that would be to suggest that the right hon. Lady does not understand her own policies-and certainly does not understand ours. Let me deal in turn with the points that she raised.
The right hon. Lady talked about the level of youth unemployment. The youth claimant count for Great Britain in October was 462,000. In October 1992, in the last recession, it was 784,000. In October 1985, it was 980,000-more than twice as many young people on the dole as there are today. She says that we should judge her not on what she says, but on what she does, and we would certainly judge the Conservative party on what it did over 18 years in government.
The right hon. Lady said that we are introducing Conservative policies on youth unemployment. Until September, she did not have any policies on youth unemployment. It was only when her noble Friend
Lord Freud came up with a few that she had any policies at all. Even at that point, what was her policy for young people who have been unemployed for more than six months? It was not a guarantee of jobs or training-not at all. All she was offering was a bit of private sector help for young people. We are offering guaranteed jobs or training or work, but she would not fund that. She would not support our £5 billion additional investment.
The right hon. Lady's policy is to oppose and abolish the future jobs fund, which is delivering more than 120,000 job opportunities for young people right across the country. The Conservative party wants to say to those 120,000 young people, "That's it; your job's gone." This Government are increasing the support we give to young people, not just from day one but throughout a young person's experience of unemployment or inactivity. We believe that they should have more support; we believe that they should have more help; and we are prepared to put more investment into it.
We are prepared to put more investment into offering young people education and training places-for example, through the September guarantee, which is again something that the Conservative party opposes. The Conservatives oppose the extra investment in education and training places; they oppose the job opportunities; they want to turn their backs once again on young people right across the country because they simply do not care enough to be prepared to invest money that is a saving for the future.
The right hon. Lady also talked about the housing benefit measures. I did not hear her welcome proposals to include run-ons, for example, for people on housing benefit who are moving into work. I had hoped that she would support those proposals. We have said that there should be greater choice for tenants, so that their money may be paid to landlords, but we want to consult on whether there should be additional requirements, for example, on landlords to improve the condition of their properties as part of that. For the vast majority of tenants it is a good thing to have their money paid to them directly, as it increases their independence, but we want to look at how we can improve the private rented sector as well.
Let me respond to the points raised about whether people are better off in work. The right hon. Lady will have seen-I hope-from the information that we have put out today that we have already given people big increases in additional support. For a family with one child and one earner in full-time work, the weekly minimum income guaranteed as a result of Government support and the minimum wage has gone up from £182 a week to £309 a week-a 28 per cent. increase. For a couple over 25 in full-time work with no children, the amount has gone up from £117 to £234 -a 50 per cent. real-terms increase.
That is a substantial increase in support for people moving into work, through things such as the minimum wage, which the Conservative party opposed; through tax credits, which the Conservative party opposed; and through additional support for people. We think it right to ensure that there is a guarantee-a nice, clear, simple way of supporting people so that everyone is £40 a week better off. That is on top of the additional support that
the Chancellor announced this week for free school meals, which helps in particular families who are concerned about in-work costs.
I have set out today measures that expand support for young people and older people who are unemployed. They are designed to help tackle the unemployment problems that we face, but also to bring unemployment down further and faster than in previous recessions. We believe that active Governments should take such action rather than adopting the approach of the Conservatives, who want to roll back big government, leave people to sink or swim and abandon people to their fate, just as they did in the 1980s and 1990s. We will not allow that to happen again.
Hazel Blears (Salford) (Lab): My right hon. Friend's statement will be warmly welcomed in Salford, where we are only too well aware of the real effects of Tory party policies. In the early 1990s, a whole generation was consigned to the scrapheap as a result of those policies.
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the measures she has announced will ensure continued support for companies such as B4Box in Salford, which is led by an inspirational woman entrepreneur, and which is providing construction skills and real jobs for a range of young people who would never normally have those chances? It is that enterprise and innovation that these measures will support.
Yvette Cooper: My right hon. Friend is right. She has talked to me, and to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform, about the company in her constituency which is doing such great work to support young people and give them opportunities. Providing that start in life and that step on the career ladder involves providing training as well as work experience. I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister will be happy to visit my right hon. Friend's constituency.
Steve Webb (Northavon) (LD): I am grateful to the Secretary of State for providing me with a copy of her statement. It is a bit of a shopping list, but there are some good things on that shopping list. I am pleased that lone parents may be able to keep more of the wages that they are paid for small part-time jobs. We need to end the dichotomy between work and non-work: there are now far more grey areas, and the encouragement that the statement provides is welcome.
I welcome the small increase in the carer's earnings allowance. It is probably not enough, but it is a step in the right direction. I also welcome the exploration of fixed housing benefit awards, which must be worth considering, and the U-turn on local housing allowance, an issue that I raised last week during Question Time. It is good that the Government have thought again.
In relation to in-work benefits, the right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May) raised the significant issue of what would happen after the six-month period. I accept that there will be transitional costs and the early costs of a new job, but I worry about what will happen after six months to someone whose mortgage or rent payments simply cannot be afforded on a modest wage. Will the Secretary of State tell us what she envisages? I understand that there have been pilots. What happened
after six months to the people who could not then afford their mortgage payments, and do we need a more sustained way of helping people?
The White Paper proposes that lone parents who are training can receive income support in the summer, but the Welfare Reform Act 2009 provided for the abolition of income support. I am a little hazy about how the two fit together.
The Government are extending the work capability assessment to incapacity benefit recipients. In my view, it is currently having a very damaging effect on people receiving employment and support allowance, many of whom are being shunted on to jobseeker's allowance when they are not fit for work. The rate at which people are being transferred is much higher than was projected. What appraisal have the Government carried out of the current effect of the assessment, before applying it to a whole new group? I think that the issue will be filling all our postbags in the coming months and years if we do not get it right.
As for the issue of high housing benefit for people in high-rent areas, I can see that this makes a bad newspaper headline, but if-especially in London-people in high-rent areas are shunted into low-rent areas, is there not a risk that family networks that can provide child care will be broken up, that children will be moved from their existing schools, and that ghettoes will be created when everyone in temporary accommodation ends up in bits of London where the rents are cheap? Is that really a good by-product of policy?
Are we doing enough at the outset for the high-risk youth unemployed? Is it not the case that on day one of a claim it is possible to identify the high-risk groups, those with no qualifications and those in high-unemployment areas? In such cases, could we not intervene more intensively on day one?
The White Paper talks of doing more to in jobcentres match people with family-friendly jobs. Many people say to me "When I went to the jobcentre I expected the staff to help me to find a job, but all that they said was 'There's the internet'." Is there not a gap between the rhetoric and the reality? It would be great to think that Jobcentre Plus will match people carefully with jobs and family-friendly employers, but is it not the case that they are having enough trouble just keeping up with the paperwork? Is there the necessary resource for us to do the good things that the Secretary of State wants to do?
Yvette Cooper: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments, and I shall try to respond to each of his questions. I am grateful for his points on the carer's allowance and the support provided for people working for small numbers of hours. As we know, a lot of people cannot work for more than 16 hours, particularly those in families with caring responsibilities, and it is better for them to be able to work than not to be working, even if they can only work a small number of hours.
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ICC World Cup 2019 | We’ve Built Momentum Nicely: Woakes
by B. Sarah | Jul 11, 2019 | CRICKET | 0 comments
England all-rounder Chris Woakes has been one of the silent performers for the side in the ICC World Cup. Although express pacemen like Jofra Archer and Mark Wood have hogged most of the limelight, Woakes has performed in most games, partnering young Archer with the new ball.
In the second semifinal against arch-rivals Australia on Thursday (July 11), Woakes once again proved his effectiveness by claiming 3/20 on his home-ground at Edgbaston and won the man-of-the-match award as England entered their first World Cup final after 1992.
The pace bowling duo of Woakes and Archer set up the eight-wicket win for the hosts by reducing the defending World Cup champions to 14/3 and ultimately restricting them to just 223.
“The semi-finals are usually nervy aren’t they and tend to be tight. To win the way we did and by the margin and in that fashion was special from the whole team,” Woakes said in the ICC mixed zone after the win on Thursday.
“We’ve built momentum nicely and we know that’s how we can play. To do that in such a big game in a semi-final against Australia adds a little bit to it as well. It’s incredible.
“A few games ago when we were under the pressure to qualify, we probably didn’t even think this was possible. So to do what we’ve done and to put in this performance, myself as well, we’re delighted,” the Warwickshire all-rounder added.
Woakes was hammered for a boundary off his first ball by the in-form David Warner but came back with a peach of a delivery to dismiss the Australian opener off the next ball.
“The first ball I’d like to have had back but other than that I felt I hit my straps and bowled the right lengths on that wicket apart from the first ball.
“We’ve got a great opportunity. We turn up on Sunday, it’s a new day against a completely new team who are full of confidence after beating a great India side so we know we have to be on the money, but we have that opportunity which is a great thing,” Woakes, who has picked up 13 wickets in 10 games so far, said.
Woakes paid tribute to his ODI captain Eoin Morgam for the way the left-hander has built the team in his image, while remaining a calm presence in the changing room.
“Morgs is cool as ice with everything he does. Regardless of the situation, he’s great to have as a captain because he keeps everything simple and doesn’t change his emotions too much. In the heat of the battle it’s what you need as a bowler sometimes to keep your mind clear and execute your plans,” the 30-year-old said.
“He has led from the front in the way the batsmen play in this team. They take the attack to the bowlers, they never sit off and the guys have shown that over the last three or four years. He’s led that, he’s decided from that moment that this is how the team should play, we have got the players who can execute those skills and that is how we play our best cricket, when we don’t back off,” Woakes added.
https://www.news18.com/cricketnext/news/icc-world-cup-2019-weve-built-momentum-nicely-chris-woakes-2227331.html
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According to Research
Expert Reactions
The (Short) PS Interview
Prepaid Debit Card Users Are About to Get New Protections
Pacific Standard Staff
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced new protections for users of prepaid debit cards. Will they do enough?
By Dwyer Gunn
(Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
Last year, a technical glitch meant that thousands of clients of RushCard, the prepaid debit card company founded by the hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, were locked out of their accounts for days on end. The brief crash called attention to the rapidly growing alternative financial services sector—and to the unregulated nature of the prepaid debit card market.
Now, that market is about to get slightly more regulated. Yesterday, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announceda series of new regulations aimed at improving customer protections. The rules, which have been under consideration for four years, will apply to reloadable debit cards (like RushCard), as well as payroll cards, government benefit cards, tax refund cards, mobile wallets, and other electronic accounts. By and large, the new CFPB regulations are focused on transparency and on providing consumers with the same protections afforded to users of checking accounts. Along with offering greater protections for users whose cards are lost or stolen (and requiring timely investigation and resolution of account disputes or complaints), the regulations mandate a clearer disclosure of any fees associated with the cards.
The new CFPB regulations also seek to regulate those prepaid cards that provide overdraft credit lines to consumers, a feature that some argue can lead to excessive fees. Under the new regulations, providers must assess a person’s credit worthiness before extending a credit line (just as standard credit card companies are required to do), and must stick to reasonable fee and repayment schedules.
The prepaid debit card market has exploded in recent years — almost $65 billion was loaded onto “general-purpose re-loadable” cards in 2012.
The prepaid debit card market has exploded in recent years — almost $65 billion was loaded onto “general-purpose re-loadable” cards in 2012, up from less than $1 billion in 2003, according to the Mercator Advisory Group — and the growth is expected to increase. The cards, which don’t require a credit check, have historically been popular among low-income Americans that don’t have a bank account, although a 2015 study from the Pew Charitable Trusts found that much of the growth between 2012 and 2014 came from consumers who do have a bank account.
For the most part, prepaid debit card users are drawn to the cards because they’re fed up with the traditional banking system, which has not been very friendly to low-income consumers in recent years. Most basic checking accounts now carry monthly fees and minimum balances, and some report being confused by the unpredictability of overdraft fees.
(Chart: Pew Charitable Trusts)
The chart to the left, from the Pew report, illustrates why consumers use prepaid cards.
John Caskey, an economics professor at Swarthmore College, elaborated on this concept for a piece I wrote last year. “You hear people complain about ‘high fees’ and ‘uncertain fees’ at banks,” Caskey said. “High-income people often leave a buffer in their accounts, but for a lot of low-income people, they’re going to draw down their accounts to near zero at the end of the month or pay period, and they don’t know if they’ll overdraw. So they’ll periodically get fees that they can’t predict.”
Barring a sea change in the traditional banking industry, prepaid debit cards probably aren’t going anywhere. The CFPB’s new regulations won’t do much to address what is perhaps the biggest driver of growth in the prepaid market — the lack of traditional checking accounts that are affordable for low-income people — but they will provide crucial protections for the financially vulnerable users of the cards.
Pacific Standard publishes stories that matter, stories that, by virtue of their ideas and craft, are capable of creating a better and more just society. With a methodology that mixes reporting and narrative journalism with peer-reviewed research, we are fiercely committed to covering social and environmental justice.
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America’s Overtime Rules Get an Update
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Drawing Then: Innovation and Influence in American Drawings of the Sixties
This fully-illustrated catalogue, published to accompany the eponymous exhibition on view at Dominique Lévy New York January through March 2016, features essays by scholars Roni Feinstein, Suzanne Hudson, Anna Lovatt, Griselda Pollock, Richard Shiff, and Robert Storr. Each essay addresses the ways in which a different movement or artist participated in changing the definition of drawing. The catalogue includes a newly commissioned work by contemporary poet Mei-mei Berssenbrugge titled "Star Being." The book also features rare archival material; artists’ biographies; and a comprehensive chronology linking developments in the art world with the larger social and political events of the decade, including the Civil Rights Movement, Feminist Movement, Vietnam War, and widespread student protests.
Texts: Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Roni Feinstein, Suzanne Hudson, Anna Lovatt, Griselda Pollock, Richard Shiff, Robert Storr
Dimensions: 9 1/4 x 12 inches (23.5 x 30 cm)
Intimate Infinite
This fully-illustrated catalogue accompanies the first exhibition curated by Brett Gorvy for the gallery. Titled Intimate Infinite, the exhibition features nearly one hundred artworks by twenty-seven artists, including Hans Bellmer, Lee Bontecou, Bruce Conner, Joseph Cornell, Jean Dubuffet, Eva Hesse, Jasper Johns, Henri Michaux, Carol Rama, Robert Ryman, Yves Tanguy, Cy Twombly, and Hannah Wilke. Documenting masterpieces that are rarely on public display, the publication offers a unique perspective on viewership and collecting. In its pages, Gorvy explores the practice of looking and the ways in which we, as viewers, connect with the artistic imagination. An essay by Suzanne Hudson examines works by Johns, Ryman, and Twombly, while Sarah K. Rich considers the practice of using hallucinogens to break down boundaries within the self, as was done by such artists as Michaux and Conner. A new translation of an excerpt from Henri Michaux’s 1957 text Infinite Turbulence offers the reader a window into the mind of an artist on mescaline. Miranda Mellis’s work of short fiction “The Emissaries” conjures a dystopian narrative that beautifully responds to works by Bellmer, Conner, Dubuffet, and Rama, and Pablo Neruda’s poem Ode to Things accompanies reproductions of works by Cornell.
Publisher: Lévy Gorvy
Texts: Texts by Suzanne Hudson, Sarah K. Rich, and Henri Michaux. Interview with Brett Gorvy by Rachel Wolff. Experimental fiction by Miranda Mellis. Poetry by Pablo Neruda.
Dimensions: 11 1/2 x 9 1/4 inches (29.2 x 23.5 cm)
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DEMOCRATS MAKE LAST-DITCH EFFORT TO BLOCK TRUMP DECLASSIFICATION
Posted on September 19, 2018 by C S Brock
Democrats are looking to stall the process to release documents related to the Russia investigation, which President Donald Trump ordered declassified on Monday…
(Daily Caller) Leading congressional Democrats are looking to stall the process to release documents related to the Russia investigation, which President Donald Trump ordered declassified on Monday.
Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff and Sens. Chuck Schumer and Mark Warner, sent a letter Tuesday asking Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats to provide an “immediate briefing” to the Gang of Eight before declassifying and releasing the documents.
The four Democrats expressed “profound alarm” at Trump’s order to declassify the records. Trump ordered the Justice Department and Office of the Director of National Intelligence to begin the process to declassify 21 pages from a June 2017 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) application taken out against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. (RELATED: Here’s What You Need To Know About Trump’s Declassification Order)
Trump also ordered the declassification of FBI notes from interviews used in connection with the Page FISAs as well as notes from interviews with Bruce Ohr, the Justice Department official who met numerous times with Christopher Steele, the author of the anti-Trump dossier.
Trump also demanded the release of Russia-related text messages from former FBI officials James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, and Lisa Page. He also ordered the release of Ohr’s text messages.
A small group of House Republicans have pressed Trump to declassify and release the documents. Led by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, the Republicans claim that the documents show that the FBI abused the FISA process in order to surveil the Trump campaign.
The Democrats argue that Trump’s action is a “brazen abuse of power” aimed at undermining the special counsel’s investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government.
They further claimed that “absent an indictment,” the subjects of federal investigations “should not be able to access law enforcement or related national security information for any reason.” In the requested briefing, Democrats want to find out what review process will be undertaken during declassification.
They also want to inquire about proposed redactions in the documents as well as “plans to protect investigative equities and sources and methods, including efforts to mitigate harm that may result from these disclosures.”
It is unclear whether the Democrats’ effort will delay the declassification process. A Justice Department spokeswoman said Monday that the agency was “already working” with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on the declassification process.
Nunes said Monday that the release of most of the records should take only a few days at most. He said in an interview on Fox News that the process to release the Carter Page FISA was “very, very simple.”
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1 Comment on DEMOCRATS MAKE LAST-DITCH EFFORT TO BLOCK TRUMP DECLASSIFICATION
Ben // September 20, 2018 at 2:58 am // Reply
This is like a movie with variable endings. I have a supply of pop-corn and waiting for the surprise.
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Archive for the ‘fiction’ Category
The Intelligencer by Leslie Silbert.
Posted in fiction, tagged fiction on September 12, 2008| Leave a Comment »
The Intelligencer by Leslie Silbert
This complex novel is set in two centuries, with two casts of characters, and two plots. The unifying thread is a collection of intelligence reports in cypher supposed to be from the files of Frances Walsingham, spymaster for Elizabeth I, which disappeared in the sixteenth century. This book has them reappear in modern times in the possession of Cidro Medina, a young, handsome, British financier whose London home is burgled by a mysterious criminal, seeking the manuscript, who commits suicide by poison as he is apprehended. Medina hires the Slade Group to investigate whereupon we meet operative Kate Morgan, erstwhile graduate student in Renaissance literature, who begins to decipher the manuscripts while conducting other operations for the part of the Slade Group which accepts CIA assignments. Kate’s off-the-books, CIA assignment involves meeting, getting fingerprints and a voice recording to establish a real identity for Luca de Tolomei a mysterious, obviously very wealthy, Italian art dealer. Described as the bad boy of the Sotheby’s set, he has just paid eleven million dollars to a highly placed figure in the Iranian security service, but does not seem to have existed prior to 1991. Spy satellites watch as a box is mysteriously transferred at night from one of the ships formerly involved in evading the oil embargo to de Tolomei’s yacht in the Mediterranean.
In the sixteenth century, we follow the adventures of several real people, among them Christopher Marlowe, playwright and intelligence agent for one faction in the highly competitive and understandably paranoid world of Elizabethan espionage. The notion that (British) “Gentlemen don’t read each other’s mail” was a product of the restrained and peaceful nineteenth century. In the police state that was Elizabethan England, spying, torture and guilt by mere suspicion were customary. By 1593, three years after Walsingham’s death, the competing factions, led by Sir Robert Cecil, and Robert Devereux, Lord Essex were circling each other, egged on by Elizabeth, herself, who was quite happy with both Cecil’s information and Essex as her bed partner. Replete with Elizabethan arms smuggling, commercial fraud, and political and religious intrigue, the concerns of the 16th century begin to sound rather like our own, some of the solutions they found both real and imagined begin to sound familiar also.
Leslie Silbert has written a novel of multi- level intrigue, where even the things that we know happened the sixteenth century can be brought into question. Laced with the details of espionage tradecraft of both the sixteenth and twentieth century, the book slips easily between the creators of the 16th century documents, and their decoders and investigators in the modern era. The motivations of the characters of both centuries are as complicated as the hidden paths of the human heart, and even the best spy satellites can only record activities, not explain why they happen. There is a second novel promised soon entitled Killing Caravaggio which will involve Kate Morgan and many of the same twentieth century characters, with a historic adventure based on the life and death of the artist Caravaggio.
Mary K. Spore-Alhadef
Notting Hell by Rachel Johnson.
Posted in fiction, tagged fiction on July 21, 2008| Leave a Comment »
The title of this amusing but ultimately serious book is a reference to the London neighborhood most Americans will remember from the Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts film which is referred to locally as “That Film” (just as Macbeth is always called “The Scottish Play” by those connected to the theatre). One of the characters in the book notes that the last scene of the film, with the pregnant Julia and Hugh on a bench, obviously now homeowners, in the communal garden whose wall they had scaled earlier, was, for her, the obvious beginning of narrative tension not the happy ever after.
The story is told in alternating chapters by two of the women whose tiny back gardens open (via a locked gate to which each household has one key) onto the five acre common garden. Clare (a childless and worrying-about-it garden designer, whose husband Gideon is a successful eco-architect) represents the new moneyed people who have made house values in the neighborhood escalate 3000% in twelve years and Mimi (the mother of three, a dilatory work-at-home freelance journalist whose husband Ralph writes a subscription-only monthly on the oil and gas industry) who feels completely embedded in the neighborhood. They inherited their house from Ralph’s father who bought it when the neighborhood was down-at-heels and by Notting Hill standards they are poor as they never go skiing, lack a second house in the country and struggle to pay the school fees. The other neighbors fall into two groups, the haves. . . and the have yachts, the superstars of the financial corporate and entrepreneurial worlds whose wives are kept busy being Notting Hill uber-mummies, superintending their children’s diet and activities, relentless shopping and decorating consultation with the Donna the guru of feng shui who does everything from window boxes to life advice.
The arrival on the garden of the newly divorced transatlantic billionaire Si Kasparian sets off the “marriage-wrecking-ball crash of lust…” in Mimi, but the neighborhood really goes into action when one couple demolishes their garage and begins an elaborate rebuilding which raises dark suspicions in Clare. The story is hilariously filled with insights into life among the “Yummy Mummies” of modern London where “Circle Time” at Ponsonby Prep can lead to the details of Celebrity Mummy’s changing relationship innocently revealed to the world and all the consequences of intra neighborhood adultery fold into one-upping the neighbors with new home perks like retractable roofs and children who are either “gifted “ or “special needs”. The author is a well known London journalist and resident of the neighborhood whose far more famous brother is Boris Johnson, the Tory MP and ex-editor of The Spectator who has just shocked the political world by being elected Lord Mayor of London. The book is complete with “Notting Hill for Beginners” a guide to the shops, spas and service purveyors who support the lifestyle of London’s most famous postcode. — Molly Spore-Alhadef
Cardinal Mahony, a novel by Robert Blair Kaiser.
Posted in fiction on May 27, 2008| Leave a Comment »
Robert Blair Kaiser has written a roman a clef set in the very near future which projects a Cardinal Archbishop of Los Angeles kidnapped from his mountain cabin in his own helicopter to face a televised trial in the jungle of Mexican Chiapas over the child abuse scandal. After this Grishamesque opening, and a rescue that seems to kill all those involved except the title character, he is left in the hospital in Los Angeles to contemplate this shattering experience. The changes to his own outlook on his role in the Church and the actions he begins to take as a result of his new viewpoint begin a change in American Catholicism toward a “People’s Church”. The characters he gathers around himself, and the opposition he meets offer a rich portrait of clerical, and media personalities from Kaiser’s own past.
Written as a novel, with a mix of real, thinly veiled real and completely fictional characters, this is actually a polemic written to advance the cause for a change in the American Catholic Church toward autochthony like the Maronites, Melkites, Assyrians and Chaldeans who are in union with Rome, but have their own languages, liturgies and customs, including a married clergy. The novel goes from the jungle to the centers of power in both Rome and the American Church. We meet thinly veiled versions of people Kaiser knows who are the thinkers, power politicians, and strategists who run large organizations, like the Catholic Church. After his own career in the media, both the strategies used by both sides in publicizing their views and the real people like Michael Moore and Bill O’Reilly who occasionally are part of the plot are sharply and humorously drawn. While there is an air of unreality here (it is set in the future, after all) this succeeds in giving information and entertaining the reader. The end of the book implies that there will be a sequel.
Molly Spore Alhadef
The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon
“Hemon is plainly and ardently in love with the music of English consonants and vowels.”
“The genre inaugurated by Jonathan Safran Foer‘s 2002 novel Everything Is Illuminated has finally found its standard bearer. Like Everything before it, Aleksandar Hemon’s The Lazarus Project comprises a mildly successful, yet deeply neurotic author living in America, a character who speaks in a funny patois, an intriguing story of a murdered Eastern European Jew, the author/narrator’s journey back to Europe to write a book about the aforementioned Eastern European Jew, existential concern about writing said book, and the crafting of this concern into the very book that the reader is holding. ” – Josh Stein for Boldtype a literary blog worth checking out!
Zoli by Colum McCann
McCann’s story is loosely based on a real Gypsy poet, Papsuza, who was exiled by her people when her poems were published. He has enriched that story with insightful and evocative prose, and in Zoli has created a vibrant character who is able to maintain her identity and proud heritage, even when abandoned by those she loves. – BookPage
Our Story Begins by Tobias Wolff
Posted in fiction, short stories on May 22, 2008| Leave a Comment »
I’ve been waiting for YEARS for Tobias Wolff’s new story collection and this one does not disappoint. Read “Her Dog” – it is the perfect example of Wolff’s skill: quiet storytelling that packs a big punch.
“A long-recognized master of the short story genre, Wolff brings together 21 favorite stories culled from three previous collections and adds, for this occasion, 10 new stories never before gathered in book form. This retrospective of his three-decades-long career testifies to the short story being his natural agent for personal expression.” – Booklist
Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano.
One of last year’s books that landed on many “Best of” lists:
“The explosive first long work by “the most exciting writer to come from south of the Rio Grande in a long time” (Ilan Stavans, Los Angeles Times), The Savage Detectives follows Belano and Lima through the eyes of the people whose paths they cross in Central America, Europe, Israel, and West Africa. This chorus includes the muses of visceral realism, the beautiful Font sisters; their father, an architect interned in a Mexico City asylum; a sensitive young follower of Octavio Paz; a foul-mouthed American graduate student; a French girl with a taste for the Marquis de Sade; the great-granddaughter of Leon Trotsky; a Chilean stowaway with a mystical gift for numbers; the anorexic heiress to a Mexican underwear empire; an Argentinian photojournalist in Angola; and assorted hangers-on, detractors, critics, lovers, employers, vagabonds, real-life literary figures, and random acquaintances.” – Publisher description
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Problems of Information Transmission
April 2019 , Volume 55, Issue 2, pp 124–144 | Cite as
Non-split Toric Codes
D. I. Koshelev
Coding Theory
We introduce a new wide class of error-correcting codes, called non-split toric codes. These codes are a natural generalization of toric codes where non-split algebraic tori are taken instead of usual (i.e., split) ones. The main advantage of the new codes is their cyclicity; hence, they can possibly be decoded quite fast. Many classical codes, such as (doubly-extended) Reed-Solomon and (projective) Reed-Muller codes, are contained (up to equivalence) in the new class. Our codes are explicitly described in terms of algebraic and toric geometries over finite fields; therefore, they can easily be constructed in practice. Finally, we obtain new cyclic reversible codes, namely non-split toric codes on the del Pezzo surface of degree 6 and Picard number 1. We also compute their parameters, which prove to attain current lower bounds at least for small finite fields.
finite fields toric and cyclic codes non-split algebraic tori toric varieties del Pezzo surfaces elliptic curves
Russian Text © The Author(s), 2019, published in Problemy Peredachi Informatsii, 2019, Vol. 55, No. 2, pp. 28–49.
The author is deeply grateful to his scientific advisor M.A. Tsfasman and also to V. Batyrev, S. Gorchinskiy, G. Kabatiansky, B. Kunyavskii, K. Loginov, A. Perepechko, S. Rybakov, K. Shramov, V. Stukopin, D. Timashev, A. Trepalin, S. Vlİduţ, I. Vorobyev, and participants of the Coding Theory seminar run by L.A. Bassalygo at the Institute for Information Transmission Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences for their help and useful comments.
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© Pleiades Publishing, Inc. 2019
1.Algebra and Number Theory Laboratory, Kharkevich Institute for Information Transmission ProblemsRussian Academy of SciencesMoscowRussia
2.Department of Discrete MathematicsMoscow Institute of Physics and Technology (State University)MoscowRussia
3.Versailles Laboratory of MathematicsVersailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines UniversityVersaillesFrance
Koshelev, D.I. Probl Inf Transm (2019) 55: 124. https://doi.org/10.1134/S0032946019020029
Revised 09 January 2019
Accepted 15 January 2019
DOI https://doi.org/10.1134/S0032946019020029
Publisher Name Pleiades Publishing
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JLL: Developers break ground on 203,000 sq. ft. industrial building in South Brunswick
A joint venture has broken ground on more than 200,000 square feet of new industrial space in South Brunswick, according to brokers with JLL who helped orchestrate the project.
HFF: Owners using $14.9 million loan to acquire, develop 8A industrial site
HFF has secured nearly $15 million in financing to help a joint venture acquire, entitle and renovate an industrial building in South Brunswick, where it also hopes to build on an adjacent development site.
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Life at the Bar – The Rapist from Iran
Although I have been in close proximity to quite a number of very violent men I have only been assaulted twice in the course of my work. The first time was whilst I was still working as a solicitor and had been instructed to represent an Iranian man who was charged with a number of rapes. He was in his late twenties and, when I first met him, was quite charming. Because of the seriousness of the offences I instructed a QC to defend him.
The allegations divided into two groups. The first two were made by the same young woman, who said she had met the defendant in Covent Garden where he had told her he was a student, newly arrived in London and knew no one. She took pity on him and at the end of the evening she invited him to her flat. It was there that he had forced himself upon her on two occasions, despite her resistance. His case was that she was a willing participant in the sexual activity. My client had left the flat the next morning and despite the police being called immediately they were unable to apprehend him.
The second set of offences was rather similar, but took place a few months later. Again he had met a young woman who was sympathetic to him and invited him back to her flat. What he was unaware off was that she was living with a female partner, who returned to the flat later that night and found the defendant with her lover who was clearly very distressed. The partner called the police and he was arrested running away from the premises.
We made an application to sever the two sets of allegations and to our surprise the Judge granted it. My client was acquitted of the first group of rapes but was convicted of the second. His defence that the woman had consented was not believed by the jury, not least because her sexual preferences were quite clear. He was sentenced to seven years in prison.
Immediately after being sentenced he was held at Wormwood Scrubs and soon I began to receive letters from him telling me he wanted to appeal against his conviction. We had already told him he had no grounds to appeal when we saw him in the cells below the Old Bailey, but despite that oral opinion and knowing, as I did, that no appeal was possible, I did obtain a written advice from the silk in the case. I forwarded that to the prisoner and hoped that was the last of it.
A week or two elapsed and then the letters started again, begging me to file grounds of appeal. I ignored them. One day after I had been in court I returned to the office to find amongst the usual list of telephone calls to which I needed to respond, a message from the Probation Officer at the Scrubs. I returned his call and he asked me to come and see my client and explain why he was unable to appeal. I agreed somewhat reluctantly to see him the next time I was at the prison, which I knew was only a matter of a couple of days hence.
Once in the interview room I repeated the opinion of the QC and tried to explain why learned counsel thought the verdict was not appealable, in as simple a language as I could muster. The client became very angry and told me I was nothing more than a whore because I did not cover my legs and my head. I told him I was leaving. By this time, he was screaming abuse at me and as I stood up to leave he lunged across the table at me and grabbed me by one arm. He didn’t get any further, as the prison officers had heard him shouting and they seized hold of him by the scruff of his neck and dragged him away from me.
It was a distressing experience and I needed a stiff drink that evening.
Tags: Barrister, Crime, Crime of Rape, lawyers, London, Old Bailey, Silk, Wormwood Scrubs
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tags: Asia, China, Diplomacy, Economy, Foreign Policy, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton, news, Politics, Secretary of State
On American engagement with Asia:
The future of politics will be decided in Asia, not Afghanistan or Iraq, and the United States will be right at the center of the action.
As the war in Iraq winds down and America begins to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan, the United States stands at a pivot point. Over the last 10 years, we have allocated immense resources to those two theaters. In the next 10 years, we need to be smart and systematic about where we invest time and energy, so that we put ourselves in the best position to sustain our leadership, secure our interests, and advance our values. One of the most important tasks of American statecraft over the next decade will therefore be to lock in a substantially increased investment — diplomatic, economic, strategic, and otherwise — in the Asia-Pacific region.
The Asia-Pacific has become a key driver of global politics. Stretching from the Indian subcontinent to the western shores of the Americas, the region spans two oceans — the Pacific and the Indian — that are increasingly linked by shipping and strategy. It boasts almost half the world’s population. It includes many of the key engines of the global economy, as well as the largest emitters of greenhouse gases. It is home to several of our key allies and important emerging powers like China, India, and Indonesia.
At a time when the region is building a more mature security and economic architecture to promote stability and prosperity, U.S. commitment there is essential. It will help build that architecture and pay dividends for continued American leadership well into this century, just as our post-World War II commitment to building a comprehensive and lasting transatlantic network of institutions and relationships has paid off many times over — and continues to do so. The time has come for the United States to make similar investments as a Pacific power, a strategic course set by President Barack Obama from the outset of his administration and one that is already yielding benefits.
With Iraq and Afghanistan still in transition and serious economic challenges in our own country, there are those on the American political scene who are calling for us not to reposition, but to come home. They seek a downsizing of our foreign engagement in favor of our pressing domestic priorities. These impulses are understandable, but they are misguided. Those who say that we can no longer afford to engage with the world have it exactly backward — we cannot afford not to. From opening new markets for American businesses to curbing nuclear proliferation to keeping the sea lanes free for commerce and navigation, our work abroad holds the key to our prosperity and security at home. For more than six decades, the United States has resisted the gravitational pull of these “come home” debates and the implicit zero-sum logic of these arguments. We must do so again.
Beyond our borders, people are also wondering about America’s intentions — our willingness to remain engaged and to lead. In Asia, they ask whether we are really there to stay, whether we are likely to be distracted again by events elsewhere, whether we can make — and keep — credible economic and strategic commitments, and whether we can back those commitments with action. The answer is: We can, and we will.
Harnessing Asia’s growth and dynamism is central to American economic and strategic interests and a key priority for President Obama. Open markets in Asia provide the United States with unprecedented opportunities for investment, trade, and access to cutting-edge technology. Our economic recovery at home will depend on exports and the ability of American firms to tap into the vast and growing consumer base of Asia. Strategically, maintaining peace and security across the Asia-Pacific is increasingly crucial to global progress, whether through defending freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, countering the proliferation efforts of North Korea, or ensuring transparency in the military activities of the region’s key players.
Just as Asia is critical to America’s future, an engaged America is vital to Asia’s future. The region is eager for our leadership and our business — perhaps more so than at any time in modern history. We are the only power with a network of strong alliances in the region, no territorial ambitions, and a long record of providing for the common good. Along with our allies, we have underwritten regional security for decades — patrolling Asia’s sea lanes and preserving stability — and that in turn has helped create the conditions for growth. We have helped integrate billions of people across the region into the global economy by spurring economic productivity, social empowerment, and greater people-to-people links. We are a major trade and investment partner, a source of innovation that benefits workers and businesses on both sides of the Pacific, a host to 350,000 Asian students every year, a champion of open markets, and an advocate for universal human rights.
President Obama has led a multifaceted and persistent effort to embrace fully our irreplaceable role in the Pacific, spanning the entire U.S. Government. It has often been a quiet effort. A lot of our work has not been on the front pages, both because of its nature — long-term investment is less exciting than immediate crises — and because of competing headlines in other parts of the world.
As Secretary of State, I broke with tradition and embarked on my first official overseas trip to Asia. In my seven trips since, I have had the privilege to see firsthand the rapid transformations taking place in the region, underscoring how much the future of the United States is intimately intertwined with the future of the Asia-Pacific. A strategic turn to the region fits logically into our overall global effort to secure and sustain America’s global leadership. The success of this turn requires maintaining and advancing a bipartisan consensus on the importance of the Asia-Pacific to our national interests; we seek to build upon a strong tradition of engagement by presidents and secretaries of state of both parties across many decades. It also requires smart execution of a coherent regional strategy that accounts for the global implications of our choices.
WHAT DOES THAT regional strategy look like? For starters, it calls for a sustained commitment to what I have called “forward-deployed” diplomacy. That means continuing to dispatch the full range of our diplomatic assets — including our highest-ranking officials, our development experts, our interagency teams, and our permanent assets — to every country and corner of the Asia-Pacific region. Our strategy will have to keep accounting for and adapting to the rapid and dramatic shifts playing out across Asia. With this in mind, our work will proceed along six key lines of action: strengthening bilateral security alliances; deepening our working relationships with emerging powers, including with China; engaging with regional multilateral institutions; expanding trade and investment; forging a broad-based military presence; and advancing democracy and human rights.
By virtue of our unique geography, the United States is both an Atlantic and a Pacific power. We are proud of our European partnerships and all that they deliver. Our challenge now is to build a web of partnerships and institutions across the Pacific that is as durable and as consistent with American interests and values as the web we have built across the Atlantic. That is the touchstone of our efforts in all these areas.
Our treaty alliances with Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, and Thailand are the fulcrum for our strategic turn to the Asia-Pacific. They have underwritten regional peace and security for more than half a century, shaping the environment for the region’s remarkable economic ascent. They leverage our regional presence and enhance our regional leadership at a time of evolving security challenges.
As successful as these alliances have been, we can’t afford simply to sustain them — we need to update them for a changing world. In this effort, the Obama Administration is guided by three core principles. First, we have to maintain political consensus on the core objectives of our alliances. Second, we have to ensure that our alliances are nimble and adaptive so that they can successfully address new challenges and seize new opportunities. Third, we have to guarantee that the defense capabilities and communications infrastructure of our alliances are operationally and materially capable of deterring provocation from the full spectrum of state and nonstate actors.
The alliance with Japan, the cornerstone of peace and stability in the region, demonstrates how the Obama Administration is giving these principles life. We share a common vision of a stable regional order with clear rules of the road — from freedom of navigation to open markets and fair competition. We have agreed to a new arrangement, including a contribution from the Japanese Government of more than $5 billion, to ensure the continued enduring presence of American forces in Japan, while expanding joint intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance activities to deter and react quickly to regional security challenges, as well as information sharing to address cyberthreats. We have concluded an Open Skies Agreement that will enhance access for businesses and people-to-people ties, launched a strategic dialogue on the Asia-Pacific, and been working hand in hand as the two largest donor countries in Afghanistan.
Similarly, our alliance with South Korea has become stronger and more operationally integrated, and we continue to develop our combined capabilities to deter and respond to North Korean provocations. We have agreed on a plan to ensure successful transition of operational control during wartime and anticipate successful passage of the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. And our alliance has gone global, through our work together in the G-20 and the Nuclear Security Summit and through our common efforts in Haiti and Afghanistan.
We are also expanding our alliance with Australia from a Pacific partnership to an Indo-Pacific one, and indeed a global partnership. From cybersecurity to Afghanistan to the Arab Awakening to strengthening regional architecture in the Asia-Pacific, Australia’s counsel and commitment have been indispensable. And in Southeast Asia, we are renewing and strengthening our alliances with the Philippines and Thailand, increasing, for example, the number of ship visits to the Philippines and working to ensure the successful training of Filipino counterterrorism forces through our Joint Special Operations Task Force in Mindanao. In Thailand — our oldest treaty partner in Asia — we are working to establish a hub of regional humanitarian and disaster relief efforts in the region.
AS WE UPDATE our alliances for new demands, we are also building new partnerships to help solve shared problems. Our outreach to China, India, Indonesia, Singapore, New Zealand, Malaysia, Mongolia, Vietnam, Brunei, and the Pacific Island countries is all part of a broader effort to ensure a more comprehensive approach to American strategy and engagement in the region. We are asking these emerging partners to join us in shaping and participating in a rules-based regional and global order.
One of the most prominent of these emerging partners is, of course, China. Like so many other countries before it, China has prospered as part of the open and rules-based system that the United States helped to build and works to sustain. And today, China represents one of the most challenging and consequential bilateral relationships the United States has ever had to manage. This calls for careful, steady, dynamic stewardship, an approach to China on our part that is grounded in reality, focused on results, and true to our principles and interests.
We all know that fears and misperceptions linger on both sides of the Pacific. Some in our country see China’s progress as a threat to the United States; some in China worry that America seeks to constrain China’s growth. We reject both those views. The fact is that a thriving America is good for China and a thriving China is good for America. We both have much more to gain from cooperation than from conflict. But you cannot build a relationship on aspirations alone. It is up to both of us to more consistently translate positive words into effective cooperation — and, crucially, to meet our respective global responsibilities and obligations. These are the things that will determine whether our relationship delivers on its potential in the years to come. We also have to be honest about our differences. We will address them firmly and decisively as we pursue the urgent work we have to do together. And we have to avoid unrealistic expectations.
Over the last two-and-a-half years, one of my top priorities has been to identify and expand areas of common interest, to work with China to build mutual trust, and to encourage China’s active efforts in global problem-solving. This is why Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and I launched the Strategic and Economic Dialogue, the most intensive and expansive talks ever between our governments, bringing together dozens of agencies from both sides to discuss our most pressing bilateral issues, from security to energy to human rights.
We are also working to increase transparency and reduce the risk of miscalculation or miscues between our militaries. The United States and the international community have watched China’s efforts to modernize and expand its military, and we have sought clarity as to its intentions. Both sides would benefit from sustained and substantive military-to-military engagement that increases transparency. So we look to Beijing to overcome its reluctance at times and join us in forging a durable military-to-military dialogue. And we need to work together to strengthen the Strategic Security Dialogue, which brings together military and civilian leaders to discuss sensitive issues like maritime security and cybersecurity.
As we build trust together, we are committed to working with China to address critical regional and global security issues. This is why I have met so frequently — often in informal settings — with my Chinese counterparts, State Councilor Dai Bingguo and Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, for candid discussions about important challenges like North Korea, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and developments in the South China Sea.
On the economic front, the United States and China need to work together to ensure strong, sustained, and balanced future global growth. In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, the United States and China worked effectively through the G-20 to help pull the global economy back from the brink. We have to build on that cooperation. U.S. firms want fair opportunities to export to China’s growing markets, which can be important sources of jobs here in the United States, as well as assurances that the $50 billion of American capital invested in China will create a strong foundation for new market and investment opportunities that will support global competitiveness. At the same time, Chinese firms want to be able to buy more high-tech products from the United States, make more investments here, and be accorded the same terms of access that market economies enjoy. We can work together on these objectives, but China still needs to take important steps toward reform. In particular, we are working with China to end unfair discrimination against U.S. and other foreign companies or against their innovative technologies, remove preferences for domestic firms, and end measures that disadvantage or appropriate foreign intellectual property. And we look to China to take steps to allow its currency to appreciate more rapidly, both against the dollar and against the currencies of its other major trading partners. Such reforms, we believe, would not only benefit both our countries (indeed, they would support the goals of China’s own five-year plan, which calls for more domestic-led growth), but also contribute to global economic balance, predictability, and broader prosperity.
Of course, we have made very clear, publicly and privately, our serious concerns about human rights. And when we see reports of public-interest lawyers, writers, artists, and others who are detained or disappeared, the United States speaks up, both publicly and privately, with our concerns about human rights. We make the case to our Chinese colleagues that a deep respect for international law and a more open political system would provide China with a foundation for far greater stability and growth — and increase the confidence of China’s partners. Without them, China is placing unnecessary limitations on its own development.
At the end of the day, there is no handbook for the evolving U.S.-China relationship. But the stakes are much too high for us to fail. As we proceed, we will continue to embed our relationship with China in a broader regional framework of security alliances, economic networks, and social connections.
Among key emerging powers with which we will work closely are India and Indonesia, two of the most dynamic and significant democratic powers of Asia, and both countries with which the Obama administration has pursued broader, deeper, and more purposeful relationships. The stretch of sea from the Indian Ocean through the Strait of Malacca to the Pacific contains the world’s most vibrant trade and energy routes. Together, India and Indonesia already account for almost a quarter of the world’s population. They are key drivers of the global economy, important partners for the United States, and increasingly central contributors to peace and security in the region. And their importance is likely to grow in the years ahead.
President Obama told the Indian parliament last year that the relationship between India and America will be one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century, rooted in common values and interests. There are still obstacles to overcome and questions to answer on both sides, but the United States is making a strategic bet on India’s future — that India’s greater role on the world stage will enhance peace and security, that opening India’s markets to the world will pave the way to greater regional and global prosperity, that Indian advances in science and technology will improve lives and advance human knowledge everywhere, and that India’s vibrant, pluralistic democracy will produce measurable results and improvements for its citizens and inspire others to follow a similar path of openness and tolerance. So the Obama administration has expanded our bilateral partnership; actively supported India’s Look East efforts, including through a new trilateral dialogue with India and Japan; and outlined a new vision for a more economically integrated and politically stable South and Central Asia, with India as a linchpin.
We are also forging a new partnership with Indonesia, the world’s third-largest democracy, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, and a member of the G-20. We have resumed joint training of Indonesian special forces units and signed a number of agreements on health, educational exchanges, science and technology, and defense. And this year, at the invitation of the Indonesian government, President Obama will inaugurate American participation in the East Asia Summit. But there is still some distance to travel — we have to work together to overcome bureaucratic impediments, lingering historical suspicions, and some gaps in understanding each other’s perspectives and interests.
EVEN AS WE strengthen these bilateral relationships, we have emphasized the importance of multilateral cooperation, for we believe that addressing complex transnational challenges of the sort now faced by Asia requires a set of institutions capable of mustering collective action. And a more robust and coherent regional architecture in Asia would reinforce the system of rules and responsibilities, from protecting intellectual property to ensuring freedom of navigation, that form the basis of an effective international order. In multilateral settings, responsible behavior is rewarded with legitimacy and respect, and we can work together to hold accountable those who undermine peace, stability, and prosperity.
So the United States has moved to fully engage the region’s multilateral institutions, such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, mindful that our work with regional institutions supplements and does not supplant our bilateral ties. There is a demand from the region that America play an active role in the agenda-setting of these institutions — and it is in our interests as well that they be effective and responsive.
That is why President Obama will participate in the East Asia Summit for the first time in November. To pave the way, the United States has opened a new U.S. Mission to ASEAN in Jakarta and signed the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation with ASEAN. Our focus on developing a more results-oriented agenda has been instrumental in efforts to address disputes in the South China Sea. In 2010, at the ASEAN Regional Forum in Hanoi, the United States helped shape a regionwide effort to protect unfettered access to and passage through the South China Sea, and to uphold the key international rules for defining territorial claims in the South China Sea’s waters. Given that half the world’s merchant tonnage flows through this body of water, this was a consequential undertaking. And over the past year, we have made strides in protecting our vital interests in stability and freedom of navigation and have paved the way for sustained multilateral diplomacy among the many parties with claims in the South China Sea, seeking to ensure disputes are settled peacefully and in accordance with established principles of international law.
We have also worked to strengthen APEC as a serious leaders-level institution focused on advancing economic integration and trade linkages across the Pacific. After last year’s bold call by the group for a free trade area of the Asia-Pacific, President Obama will host the 2011 APEC Leaders’ Meeting in Hawaii this November. We are committed to cementing APEC as the Asia-Pacific’s premier regional economic institution, setting the economic agenda in a way that brings together advanced and emerging economies to promote open trade and investment, as well as to build capacity and enhance regulatory regimes. APEC and its work help expand U.S. exports and create and support high-quality jobs in the United States, while fostering growth throughout the region. APEC also provides a key vehicle to drive a broad agenda to unlock the economic growth potential that women represent. In this regard, the United States is committed to working with our partners on ambitious steps to accelerate the arrival of the Participation Age, where every individual, regardless of gender or other characteristics, is a contributing and valued member of the global marketplace.
In addition to our commitment to these broader multilateral institutions, we have worked hard to create and launch a number of “minilateral” meetings, small groupings of interested states to tackle specific challenges, such as the Lower Mekong Initiative we launched to support education, health, and environmental programs in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam, and the Pacific Islands Forum, where we are working to support its members as they confront challenges from climate change to overfishing to freedom of navigation. We are also starting to pursue new trilateral opportunities with countries as diverse as Mongolia, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, and South Korea. And we are setting our sights as well on enhancing coordination and engagement among the three giants of the Asia-Pacific: China, India, and the United States.
In all these different ways, we are seeking to shape and participate in a responsive, flexible, and effective regional architecture — and ensure it connects to a broader global architecture that not only protects international stability and commerce but also advances our values.
OUR EMPHASIS ON the economic work of APEC is in keeping with our broader commitment to elevate economic statecraft as a pillar of American foreign policy. Increasingly, economic progress depends on strong diplomatic ties, and diplomatic progress depends on strong economic ties. And naturally, a focus on promoting American prosperity means a greater focus on trade and economic openness in the Asia-Pacific. The region already generates more than half of global output and nearly half of global trade. As we strive to meet President Obama’s goal of doubling exports by 2015, we are looking for opportunities to do even more business in Asia. Last year, American exports to the Pacific Rim totaled $320 billion, supporting 850,000 American jobs. So there is much that favors us as we think through this repositioning.
When I talk to my Asian counterparts, one theme consistently stands out: They still want America to be an engaged and creative partner in the region’s flourishing trade and financial interactions. And as I talk with business leaders across our own nation, I hear how important it is for the United States to expand our exports and our investment opportunities in Asia’s dynamic markets.
Last March in APEC meetings in Washington, and again in Hong Kong in July, I laid out four attributes that I believe characterize healthy economic competition: open, free, transparent, and fair. Through our engagement in the Asia-Pacific, we are helping to give shape to these principles and showing the world their value.
We are pursuing new cutting-edge trade deals that raise the standards for fair competition even as they open new markets. For instance, the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement will eliminate tariffs on 95 percent of U.S. consumer and industrial exports within five years and support an estimated 70,000 American jobs. Its tariff reductions alone could increase exports of American goods by more than $10 billion and help South Korea’s economy grow by 6 percent. It will level the playing field for U.S. auto companies and workers. So, whether you are an American manufacturer of machinery or a South Korean chemicals exporter, this deal lowers the barriers that keep you from reaching new customers.
We are also making progress on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which will bring together economies from across the Pacific — developed and developing alike — into a single trading community. Our goal is to create not just more growth, but better growth. We believe trade agreements need to include strong protections for workers, the environment, intellectual property, and innovation. They should also promote the free flow of information technology and the spread of green technology, as well as the coherence of our regulatory system and the efficiency of supply chains. Ultimately, our progress will be measured by the quality of people’s lives — whether men and women can work in dignity, earn a decent wage, raise healthy families, educate their children, and take hold of the opportunities to improve their own and the next generation’s fortunes. Our hope is that a TPP agreement with high standards can serve as a benchmark for future agreements — and grow to serve as a platform for broader regional interaction and eventually a free trade area of the Asia-Pacific.
Achieving balance in our trade relationships requires a two-way commitment. That’s the nature of balance — it can’t be unilaterally imposed. So we are working through APEC, the G-20, and our bilateral relationships to advocate for more open markets, fewer restrictions on exports, more transparency, and an overall commitment to fairness. American businesses and workers need to have confidence that they are operating on a level playing field, with predictable rules on everything from intellectual property to indigenous innovation.
ASIA’S REMARKABLE ECONOMIC growth over the past decade and its potential for continued growth in the future depend on the security and stability that has long been guaranteed by the U.S. military, including more than 50,000 American servicemen and servicewomen serving in Japan and South Korea. The challenges of today’s rapidly changing region — from territorial and maritime disputes to new threats to freedom of navigation to the heightened impact of natural disasters — require that the United States pursue a more geographically distributed, operationally resilient, and politically sustainable force posture.
We are modernizing our basing arrangements with traditional allies in Northeast Asia — and our commitment on this is rock solid — while enhancing our presence in Southeast Asia and into the Indian Ocean. For example, the United States will be deploying littoral combat ships to Singapore, and we are examining other ways to increase opportunities for our two militaries to train and operate together. And the United States and Australia agreed this year to explore a greater American military presence in Australia to enhance opportunities for more joint training and exercises. We are also looking at how we can increase our operational access in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean region and deepen our contacts with allies and partners.
How we translate the growing connection between the Indian and Pacific oceans into an operational concept is a question that we need to answer if we are to adapt to new challenges in the region. Against this backdrop, a more broadly distributed military presence across the region will provide vital advantages. The United States will be better positioned to support humanitarian missions; equally important, working with more allies and partners will provide a more robust bulwark against threats or efforts to undermine regional peace and stability.
But even more than our military might or the size of our economy, our most potent asset as a nation is the power of our values — in particular, our steadfast support for democracy and human rights. This speaks to our deepest national character and is at the heart of our foreign policy, including our strategic turn to the Asia-Pacific region.
As we deepen our engagement with partners with whom we disagree on these issues, we will continue to urge them to embrace reforms that would improve governance, protect human rights, and advance political freedoms. We have made it clear, for example, to Vietnam that our ambition to develop a strategic partnership requires that it take steps to further protect human rights and advance political freedoms. Or consider Burma, where we are determined to seek accountability for human rights violations. We are closely following developments in Nay Pyi Taw and the increasing interactions between Aung San Suu Kyi and the government leadership. We have underscored to the government that it must release political prisoners, advance political freedoms and human rights, and break from the policies of the past. As for North Korea, the regime in Pyongyang has shown persistent disregard for the rights of its people, and we continue to speak out forcefully against the threats it poses to the region and beyond.
We cannot and do not aspire to impose our system on other countries, but we do believe that certain values are universal — that people in every nation in the world, including in Asia, cherish them — and that they are intrinsic to stable, peaceful, and prosperous countries. Ultimately, it is up to the people of Asia to pursue their own rights and aspirations, just as we have seen people do all over the world.
IN THE LAST decade, our foreign policy has transitioned from dealing with the post-Cold War peace dividend to demanding commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan. As those wars wind down, we will need to accelerate efforts to pivot to new global realities.
We know that these new realities require us to innovate, to compete, and to lead in new ways. Rather than pull back from the world, we need to press forward and renew our leadership. In a time of scarce resources, there’s no question that we need to invest them wisely where they will yield the biggest returns, which is why the Asia-Pacific represents such a real 21st-century opportunity for us.
Other regions remain vitally important, of course. Europe, home to most of our traditional allies, is still a partner of first resort, working alongside the United States on nearly every urgent global challenge, and we are investing in updating the structures of our alliance. The people of the Middle East and North Africa are charting a new path that is already having profound global consequences, and the United States is committed to active and sustained partnerships as the region transforms. Africa holds enormous untapped potential for economic and political development in the years ahead. And our neighbors in the Western Hemisphere are not just our biggest export partners; they are also playing a growing role in global political and economic affairs. Each of these regions demands American engagement and leadership.
And we are prepared to lead. Now, I’m well aware that there are those who question our staying power around the world. We’ve heard this talk before. At the end of the Vietnam War, there was a thriving industry of global commentators promoting the idea that America was in retreat, and it is a theme that repeats itself every few decades. But whenever the United States has experienced setbacks, we’ve overcome them through reinvention and innovation. Our capacity to come back stronger is unmatched in modern history. It flows from our model of free democracy and free enterprise, a model that remains the most powerful source of prosperity and progress known to humankind. I hear everywhere I go that the world still looks to the United States for leadership. Our military is by far the strongest, and our economy is by far the largest in the world. Our workers are the most productive. Our universities are renowned the world over. So there should be no doubt that America has the capacity to secure and sustain our global leadership in this century as we did in the last.
As we move forward to set the stage for engagement in the Asia-Pacific over the next 60 years, we are mindful of the bipartisan legacy that has shaped our engagement for the past 60. And we are focused on the steps we have to take at home — increasing our savings, reforming our financial systems, relying less on borrowing, overcoming partisan division — to secure and sustain our leadership abroad.
This kind of pivot is not easy, but we have paved the way for it over the past two-and-a-half years, and we are committed to seeing it through as among the most important diplomatic efforts of our time.
from → China, Current Events, Diplomacy, Foreign Policy, Hillary Clinton, News, Politics, Secretary of State, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, State Department
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Note to Readers →
S R Wakankar permalink
Dear Madam:
Congratulations; great ideas indeed.
Another US is in the offing in the East ie INDIA – the United States of Asia.
Long live the historic/strategic partnership of both these USs representing both hemispheres.India has become an Abode of Democracy for emerging Asia.Indo/US partnership in all spheres is a must for peace and security in the world.
Tron HonoH permalink
日方按經緯線劃分法將釣魚台劃入版圖，在國際法上無法律效力。如將中日兩方論據綜合起來分析，日方的「無主地先佔法」已不能成立，日本官方近年以來的聲明亦不再強調。被他們反覆強調的是「經緯線劃分法」，即堅稱釣魚台是日本領土不可分割的一部分，而事實上釣魚台是在一九五三年美國琉球民政府劃定的經緯線內，並且在其有效控制之下。
對此，中方必須從歷史文獻、地理和地質構造以及國際法理的整體分析，方能有效推翻日方的「經緯線劃分法」，贏得國際輿論的支援。
就目前的國際法標準來看，中方對釣魚台島嶼擁有兩項權利是無可剝奪的：
（一）因發現、命名、使用而取得的「原始權利」 （Inchoate Title）。
（二）根據「大陸架公約」第二條規定： 「海岸國有行使發掘大陸架與利用其天然資源之主權權利 （Sovereign Rights）」 而取得的「主權權利」。
以上兩項權利已構成對日方所持「經緯線劃分法」的本質性否定。據此，向中國政府提出解決釣魚台問題的建議。
第一步，收回原始權利 （Inchoate Title）。 釣魚台最早是由中國人發現、命名和使用的。據史籍記載，自從一四0三年至一九六九年這五百年間，中國人自由來往釣魚台，視為家常便飯，並且留下大量文字紀錄。近三十多年來，日本政府突然宣佈釣魚台為其治下領土，不許中國人自由往來釣魚台，剝奪了中國人五百年來自由來往釣魚台的權利，這不但違反國際法理，而且違背人類公理。
因此，我們要求兩岸政府一致對日本，循外交途徑收回釣魚台的原始權利，恢復中國人五百年間往來釣魚台的自由，禁止日本海上自衛隊在釣魚台列嶼周圍十二海里範圍內的活動。這完全是合乎人類公理的正當要求。
第二步，積極行使主權權利 （Sovereign Rights）。美國總統杜魯門於一九四五年九月二十八日發表的有關大陸架的一項聲明指出：「美國政府認為大陸架之底土及海床所有天然資源，由土地連接國家行使管轄權，是合理及公正的。」根據該項聲明精神，聯合國於一九五八年簽訂了《大陸架公約》（Continental Shelf），其中第二條規定：「海岸國有行使發掘大陸架、與利用其天然資源之主權權利。」
釣魚台位於中國東海淺大陸架上，中國作為海岸國，毫無疑問擁有釣魚台天然資源的主權權利。中國政府應積極行使這項主權權利，發掘和利用釣魚台的天然資源，同時應根據《大陸架公約》的原則恢復對釣魚台行使管轄權，這完全合乎國際法理的。
bittu gandhi permalink
Respected Madam
I read your story. Great. Hello Read My Blog About Steve Jobs, Steve Woz, Tiger Killing, Top 10 Searches, Parker Pen History And Much More. http://bittugandhi.blogspot.com/?spref=gb
Presently I have designed a website which does not exist in the whole world. I make any thing in I.T. field whenever it does not exist in the whole world. It’s my passion to invent something new in the I.T. field every year, till i live. I am also writing a book as a Co-author. My stories are selected in some books as a co-editor. I am Co-author of 10 books.
Have a great day;
Bittu Gandhi
(Researcher, Author, International Record Holder)
MAJ GEN ANIL LAL permalink
Maj Gen Anil Lal(retd)……
The vision as unfolded by Hillary is the right course.In fact in my book titled ‘Global Armegeddon'(published 2001),I had predicted two major events.First, that the trajectory of terrorist activities in and around Af-Pak would lead to a WMD kind of strike on America.(coincidently, the same happened in 9/11).The second I had predicted a geo-political reality that India will become an important hub and linchpin for global peace as it dominates the Asia-Pacific region and because of its advanced civilizational fold of culture and religion advocating peace for humankind.Secy Clinton has also identified the same.
Can I predict that within the frame work up to 2015,there is likeiyhood of a ‘Cuba type ” show down with China in the Indian Ocean region.That America should prepare for this kind of a coercive diplomacy by China and win this showdown.Failing this ,US influence will decline.Thus America just has a few years to prepare for the same.The force posturing for the same needs to be planned/included in the recent Obama defence plan.To a certain extent the issue of one and half front looks more of semantics.This showdown therefore should be answered more by Japan rather than America itself.This will amount to hedging.Clinton needs to give a clearer thought on this issue and plan accordingly.
Well done Mam Clinton and keep up the great job by a great visionary of America.
ANIL LAL,Maj Gen.Dr (retd) permalink
The unfolding events in West Asia and the Iran nuclear crisis are not healthy indicators for global security.US should accelerate the speed towards global nuclear disarmament by personal leadership of Obama.I think the de-escalation could be graduated over next 15-20 years.Therefore what is required is to start this process of disarmament by an American unilateral declaration of nuclear weapons reduction followed by persuading both China and Russia.This diplomatic manouvre by itself will put enough pressure on Iran, who may voluntarily forego its nuclear ambitions.Sanctions actually makes the other country adamant and determined.I appeal to Mrs Clinton to examine what I say as I have worked enough on this aspect and I do not see any other way ahead.
Maj Gen.Dr Anil Lal(retd) New Delhi
ANIL LAL,Maj Gen.Dr (retd)/AK LAL permalink
The US is the sole super power.Their defence forces are under transformation.India too needs the same.Can we appeal to Mrs Clinton to give strategic directions to pentagon to help India all out in this endeavour as explained below.
Transformation should lie at the heart of our new approach to defense. The development of transformational capabilities, processes, and force structures should be given strategic focus to meet the principal challenges under our defense strategy. In the Indian context, we can outline at least six operational goals for any worth while military transformation strategy. The strategy should seek to ensure that changes occur not only in the operating concepts we develop and the systems we acquire but also in our military culture and the processes that drive investment decisions. The dichotomy which remains is that should we follow the western model or should we have a theoretical construct unique to the Indian environment? The latter alone, may prove risky as it may involve re-inventing the wheel since the West enjoys the military technology leadership and research. However, at the same time there are many areas, which may require entirely an Indigenous approach. Therefore, one should keep an open mind in developing a transformational model for India.
The success story of Indian Defense Forces over last 60 years will outshine any other military of the world; may be in terms of counter-insurgency operations or even conventional military operations against Pakistan or China; or its contribution to the United Nations for Peace Keeping or the role during various disasters in the country. Nevertheless the above, because of the changing geo-political global and Asian structure, there is a transient world order, where India has the potential and is poised to fulfill many global responsibilities. In addition, India has a rising peer super power in the neighbourhood, with many competing interests. This changing strategic template coupled with the ongoing RMA will demand transformation of the military too.
Dr.Maj Gen Anil Lal/ Ak lal
Op Ed Articles permalink
Very good information. Lucky me I recently found your website by accident (stumbleupon). I have bookmarked it for later!
Cystal permalink
I think she looks great for her age.
gogi lal permalink
Looking at China’s recent behaviour in Asia and the North Korean nuclear threats.Now again China has been transgressing into Indian territory.One has to understand the overall unfolding situation as China rises.India is the peer competetor and that every nation has to fight its own security battle(no alliance can help?).In a worst case option out of the 75 manouvre divisions it can muster almost 28-30 PLA divisions to teach India a lesson as well as annex claimed areas.The anwere obviously India military capability to thwart such an attempt.There is a case for a more deliberate work on the aspect of threats and capabilities required to neutralize them to a zero sum game. If India transforms successfully by 2025 into a lean and thin force with a very high ‘DSR’ and a good ‘PINCP’ supported by robust and credible strategic strike capabilities, then it will equalise the balance of power game in South Asia, in spite of the rise of China with a superior GDP and managble military combat ratios. Therefore let us work on a transformation model, which can offset the high threat levels to India, which are real in tangible numbers and can be arithmetically counted.
Therefore instead of discussing corruption in the parliament let us spend some time to accelerate transformation of India’s armed forces to the next level of conflict.The basic theme is that if China calculates that its costs would be more by incursions/conflict with India then it will not get into combat mode and military coercion which as a habit it does against India.
Dr. Maj Gen Anil Lal(retd)
USI of India ,New Delhi
stacy permalink
she looks great in red.
meadul hassan permalink
At first when i see the video i laugh at her movement. ha ha so funny
Hilary Clinton: What is she smoking? | Thought Crime Radio
Whither the Philippines in 2020? | The ProPinoy Project
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Home >> State of Wisconsin >> Burnett County >> Anderson >> Community Profile
Town of Anderson, Wisconsin
(Burnett County)
The location of Town of Anderson
Welcome to Anderson ...
The Town of Anderson is located in Burnett County.
The location of Anderson has been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (ie- the GNIS).<1>
From the Census Estimates for 2018, the Town of Anderson has a population of 402 people<2> (see below for details).
Anderson is 890 feet [271 m] above sea level.<3>.
Time Zone: Anderson lies in the Central Time Zone (CST/CDT) and observes daylight saving time
Area codes for Anderson: (715) and (534)<4>
At the time of the 2010 Census, the Town of Anderson had a population of 398 people. This makes Anderson the county's 18th most populous community.
With a 2010 count of 398 people, the population of Anderson increased 6.99% from the 2000 Census (with a count of 372 people).
Taken from the 2018 Census Estimates, Anderson had an population of 402 people. This is an increase of 1.01% since the 2010 Census (or an increase of 8.06% since the 2000 Census).
More information can be found on the Census Page for Anderson.
Communities near Anderson ...
Please note that when we give a distance, it's a 'straight-line' distance starting from Anderson and not the distance if driven.<5>.
Braham (MN) [Map] 1,791 W 19 miles [30.6 km]
Branch (MN) [Map] --- SW 17 miles [27.4 km]
Harris (MN) [Map] 1,171 SW 12 miles [19.3 km]
North Branch (MN) [Map] 10,582 SW 15 miles [24.1 km]
Pine City (MN) [Map] 3,127 NW 13 miles [20.9 km]
Rock Creek (MN) [Map] 1,631 NW 7 miles [11.3 km]
To learn more about neighboring communities and counties, please visit the Nearby Page for Anderson.
Communities Also Named Anderson ...
Using our Gazetteer, we have found that there are two Wisconsin communities named Anderson: This one is located in Burnett County and the other is located in Iron County.
For more information, see our Tidbits & Trivia Page for Anderson.
We have a list of cemeteries that are in the area around Anderson. If available, we provide a satellite view of the cemetery.
Using the information from an 1895 Atlas, we've created a list of communities that were in the area of Anderson. Our list includes information such as whether the community had a post office or railroad service in 1895.
We also have a detailed list of newspapers that have been published in the area around Anderson.
These sections can be found on our Genealogy Helper Page for Anderson:
TripAdvisor Tourism Pages for Anderson ...
Looking for more information about Anderson? A wonderful source is the TripAdvisor website. We always start with the TripAdvisor Tourism page, where you can read an overview with links that will help you find lodging, restaurants and attractions.
While we are unaware of a Tourism page that is specific to Anderson, there are neighboring communities that do have Tourism pages. A map of those communities can be found with our TripAdvisor Page for Anderson.
About Burnett County
Unfortunately, we don't know of a website for Anderson. If you can help, please contact us through our Feedback Page.
The official website for Burnett County: www.burnettcounty.com/gov/
<2> Population counts have been provided by the U.S. Census Bureau. For more detail, please visit our Census Page for Anderson.
<3> The elevation is an estimate for the area around Anderson - it will be higher in some places and lower in others.
<5> Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'point-to-point' distance. A straight line distance ignores obstructions like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Anderson) to Point B.
If you need the driving distance, we recommend that you use one of the Mapping Services listed on our Map Page for Anderson. Since we usually use Google Maps, we've provided the following link for your convenience: Google Map and Driving Directions starting from Town of Anderson
Our distance measurements begin at a specific point in Anderson. The point we use is located at these GPS coordinates - Latitude: 45.6997, Longitude: -92.7699 [Map]. In this case, the coordinates for Anderson have been provided by the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS).
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New Music | Gorgeous!
Hailing from Miami, multi-instrumentalist Darren Hoffman grew up as a blues, rock and punk guitar player. While studying film in Florida he met jazz piano master, Marcus Roberts, and soon plans changed as he went off to New Orleans to study jazz percussion. Yet his love of the blues, as revisited by Jimi Hendrix, Nirvana and The White Stripes persisted.
imperfection by gorgeous!
Morgan Guerin, the son of World-renowned bassist Roland Guerin, is that child prodigy who brings music forth from the source in any way he chooses. Growing up in the New Orleans area, his unique access and talent led him to sit in with Ellis Marsalis and The Astral Project as early as four years of age. He met Darren Hoffman when he was just six, sharing his drum skills with his elder.
Parker McAllister grew up studying classical piano on his mother’s insistence, also starting as a toddler, attending Manhattan School of Music while still in high school. As he fell in love with the bass, he kept his deal with his mother as long as he could, which meant he could play the bass as long as he continued to study piano. The only electric bass player admitted to the New England Conservatory of Music, Parker found opportunities right away, and soon was performing as a bassist with the renowned all female gospel a cappella group Sweet Honey In The Rock.
Darren Hoffman’s search for expression through sound is the driving force behind gorgeous!. That sound is raw, with a constant rock and blues edge on the guitar as the players bring all of their jazz inspired experimentation to create a landscape effect. The trio format demands honesty and muscle, as there is no extravagant arrangement to hide behind.
gorgeous! sounds like a post-punk jazz trio infused with the spirits of Albert King and Kurt Cobain. The album is titled “imperfection,” a nod to the true spirit of searching for the root of the human condition. Deep blues grooves give way to elements of laid back back-room swing, setting a mood that we all can feel. “imperfection” is a refreshing and courageous form of connection between historic sound and in the moment creativity.
← New Music | Andrea Molinari →
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HomeC programming
Programming iOS 6, 3rd Edition – In with the New, Out with the Old (iOS 5 & Earlier) – #bookreview
April 8, 2013 Si Dunn Apple, Book review, Book reviews, C programming, Cocoa, How-to, iOS, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Kindle, Objective-C, Objective-C programming, Paperback, Software, Software development Apple, Book reviews, how-to, iOS, iOS 6, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Kindle, paperback, programming, software
Programming iOS 6, 3rd Edition
Matt Neuburg
(O’Reilly – paperback, Kindle)
“My book is way bigger than your book.”
Matt Neuburg, author of Programming iOS 6, could make that claim and win almost any book-size contest. The recently published 3rd Edition of his well-respected how-to guide focuses on the “Fundamentals of iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Development” and now spans 1,154 pages in its paperback edition. It’s definitely much thicker and heavier than any of the devices it covers.
This new edition is centered on iOS 6.1 and xCode 4.6. The author notes that he has “eliminated most references to previous iOS versions.” And he explains: “Many iOS 6 features, of course, do not exist in iOS 5 or before; I usually mention that a new feature is new, but I have not generally addressed the problem of writing backwards-compatible code. The text would become confused and bloated if everything had to be qualified with advice for different versions (‘but if you’re targeting iOS 5.1, do this; if you’re targeting iOS 5.0, do that; if you’re targeting iOS 4.3, do the other’). I believe that I can justify such omissions on the grounds that previous editions of this book exist!”
Indeed they do. Programming iOS 5, which was published in two editions, also covers iOS 4.3 and is available on Amazon.com and through other sources..
“New iOS 6 features are, of course, both explained and adopted” in the new 3rd edition, Neuburg says. “For example, having described NSArray subscripting (in Chapter 10), I then use it consistently, in place of objectAtIndex:, throughout the rest of the book. Aside from this, the book’s structure remains the same as in previous editions, growing where necessary to accommodate explanations of new features, such as autolayout (in Chapter 14), state restoration (in Chapter 19), and collection views (in Chapter 21). Also, in response to reader requests, I have inserted a short example of Core Data programming into Chapter 36.”
Absolute beginners should not start with this book. Get some basic programming experience in C and Objective-C first.
And don’t be surprised that not everything about iOS is covered in a book 1,154 pages long. “It’s far too big to be encompassed in a book even of this size,” Neuburg emphasizes. “There are areas of Cocoa Touch that I have ruthlessly avoided discussing. Some of them would require an entire book of their own. Others you can pick up well enough, when the time comes, from the documentation. This book is only a beginning — the fundamentals.”
Make something new, with MakerBot or Raspberry Pi – #bookreview #programming #diy
January 15, 2013 January 15, 2013 Si Dunn 3D printing, Book review, Book reviews, C programming, DIY, How-to, Java, Kindle, Linux, MakerBot, Paperback, Python programming, Raspberry Pi, Ruby programming, Scratch, Software 3D printing, Book reviews, computer hardware, DIY, how-to, Kindle, Linux, MakerBot, paperback, Perl, programming, Raspberry Pi, Ruby, Scratch, software
O’Reilly has released two new books to help you get started with two hot new products: the MakerBot desktop 3D printer and the Raspberry Pi, a tiny, inexpensive computer the size of a credit card.
Here are short reviews of the two how-to guides:
Getting Started with MakerBot
Bre Pettis, Anna Kaziunas France & Jay Shergill
The MakerBot 3D printer has captured worldwide attention for its ability to replicate objects such as game pieces, knobs and other plastic parts no longer available from manufacturers, and its use also to produce small art works.
“In our consumer-focused, disposable world, a MakerBot is a revitalizing force for all your broken things,” the authors state. (One of them, Bre Pettis, is one of MakerBot’s creators.)
The MakerBot machine, however, also can be a revitalizing force for artistic endeavors and, in some cases, dreams of self-employment. It is, after all, essentially a small factory in a box.
Getting Started with MakerBot introduces the machine and things you can make with it from your own designs or from designs downloaded from the web. “Though the underlying engineering principles behind a MakerBot are quite complex, in a nutshell, a MakerBot is a very precise, robotic hot glue gun mounted to a very precise, robotic positioning system,” the three writers point out.
In 213 pages, the book covers the basics, from history to set-up, and then shows you how to “print 10 useful objects right away.” It also introduces how to design your own 3D objects, using SketchUp, Autodesk 123D, OpenSCAD, and some other tools.
Getting Started with MakerBot is well-written, heavily illustrated, and organized to help you advance from unboxing a MakerBot to turning out products and creations and becoming a significant citizen of the “Thingiverse”—where “one must share designs…but all are welcome to reap the bounty of shared digital designs for physical objects.”
Getting Started with Raspberry Pi
Matt Richardson & Shawn Wallace
O’Reilly – paperback, Kindle)
The Raspberry Pi “is meant as an educational tool to encourage kids to experiment with computers.” But many adults are latching to the tiny device as well, because it comes preloaded with interpreters and compilers for several programming languages, including Python, Scratch, C, Ruby, Java, and Perl. Its operating system is Linux Raspbian.
The Raspberry Pi is not plug-and-play, but it can be connected to – and control –a number of electronic devices. And the list of uses for the microcomputer keeps growing.
Some owners have made their Raspberry Pi devices into game machines. Others have connected many of the units together to create low-budget supercomputers. Some are using them as web servers. And still others work at the “bare metal” of a Raspberry Pi to create and test new operating systems. Intriguing new roles for the Raspberry Pi keep appearing, and the surge will continue as more adults and kids start working with the tiny but powerful device.
Getting Started with Raspberry Pi covers the basics of hooking up, programming and running the device. It also provides several starter projects, including how to use a Raspberry Pi as a web server or in other roles.
Once you know what you’re doing, “You can even create your own JSON API for an electronics project!” the authors promise.
The well-written book packs a lot of how-to information into its 160 pages, including working at the command line in Linux, learning to program the device, and creating simple games in Python and Scratch.
Inside Windows Debugging: Practical Debugging and Tracing Strategies – #bookreview #in #programming
June 13, 2012 Si Dunn .NET, C programming, C#, debugging, Developer, How-to, Kindle, Microsoft, Paperback, Programmer, Programming, Software, Windows Book reviews, C#, debugging, how-to, Kindle, Microsoft, programming, software, Windows
Inside Windows Debugging: Practical Debugging and Tracing Strategies
Tarik Soulami
(Microsoft Press, paperback, list price $39.99; Kindle edition, list price $31.99)
Debugging and tracing tools — and the willingness and strategies to use them — should be key aspects of any software development and testing process.
Inside Windows Debugging is intended for software engineers who want to “perfect their mastery of Windows as a development platform through the use of debugging and tracing tools.”
Yet anyone serious about learning, using and supporting Windows can benefit from this book. Its first few chapters provide basic explanations of debugging and tracing tools and how to acquire the right packages and use them. From there, the author presents and explains numerous code examples that demonstrate many types of bugs and related problems in software. So it is helpful to have at least a little experience with C/C++ and C# programming languages.
Inside Windows Debugging has 560 pages, including an extensive index, and is divided into three parts: (1) “A Bit of Background”; (2) “Debugging for Fun and Profit”; and (3) “Observing and Analyzing Software Behavior.” Two appendices sum up common debugging tasks and show how to accomplish them using the WinDbg debugger.
To run the software and examples used in this book, you should have “Windows Vista or later.”
The author, however, “highly” recommends at least having Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2. And in some of the kernel debugging exercises, a second computer will be needed to serve as a host kernel-mode debugger machine.
Learning iOS Programming, 2nd Ed. – Updated to cover iOS 5, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch – #programming #bookreview
May 14, 2012 Si Dunn Apple, Book review, Book reviews, C programming, C#, Cloud Computing, How-to, iOS, iPad, iPhone, iPod, Kindle, Mac OS X, Macintosh, Object-oriented programming, Objective-C programming, Paperback, Programmer, Programming Apple, Book reviews, Books, iOS, iPad, iPhone, iPod, Kindle, Macintosh, Objective-C, paperback, programming
Learning iOS Programming, 2nd Edition
By Alasdair Allan
(O’Reilly, paperback, list price $34.99; Kindle edition, list price $27.99)
Alasdair Allan’s popular iOS programming book recently has been updated to cover iOS 5. And it has a new name. (The first edition was titled Learning iPhone Programming.)
“The changes made in this second edition reflect the fact that a lot has happened since the first edition was published: the release of the iPad, a major release of Xcode, two revisions of the operating system itself, and the arrival of Apple’s iCloud,” the author notes. “This book has therefore been refreshed, renewed, and updated to reflect these fairly fundamental changes to the platform, and all of the example code was rewritten from the ground up for Xcode 4 and iOS 5 using ARC.”
Allan’s book – well-written and appropriately illustrated – is structured to provide “a rapid introduction to programming for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad,” and it assumes that you have some familiarity with C or a C-derived language, as well as a basic understanding of object-oriented programming.
And the pace is fast. By chapter 3, you are building the requisite “Hello, World” application and running it in iPhone Simulator.
In that same chapter, Allan also introduces the basic syntax of Objective-C and highlights some of the “rather strange” ways that it deals with method calls. He discusses how the Cocoa Touch framework underlying iOS applications “is based on one of the oldest design patterns, the Model-View-Controller pattern, which dates from the 1970s.” And he warns that “[a]ttempting to write iOS applications while ignoring the underlying MVC patterns is a pointless exercise in make-work.”
Learning iOS Programming, 2nd Edition does not emphasize web-based applications. It centers, instead, on creating native applications using Apple’s SDK. “The obvious reason to use the native SDK,” Allan states, “is to do things that you can’t do using web technologies. The first generation of augmented reality applications is a case in point; these needed close integration with the iPhone’s onboard sensors (e.g., GPS, accelerometer, digital compass, and camera) and wouldn’t have been possible without that access.”
He emphasizes a financial reason, as well. “Consumers won’t buy your application on their platform just because you support other platforms; instead they want an application that looks like the rest of the applications on their platform, that follows the same interface paradigms as the rest of the applications they’re used to, and is integrated into their platform.”
He adds: “If you integrate your application into the iOS ecosphere, make use of the possibilities that the hardware offers, and make sure your user interface is optimized for the device, the user experience is going to be much improved.”
Hard to argue with that.
Learning iOS Programming, 2nd Edition provides the steps necessary to develop and market your first iOS application. Allan notes: “Until recently, the only way to obtain the iOS SDK was to become a registered iOS developer. However, you can now download the current release of Xcode and the iOS SDK directly from the Mac App Store.”
Of course, if you intend to distribute your applications “or even just deploy them onto your own device, you will also need to register with Apple as a developer and then enroll in one of the developer programs.”
You may need some system upgrades, as well. To develop apps for the iOS, you’ll need an Intel Mac running OS X 10.6 (“Snow Leopard”) or later. If you plan to create apps that use Apple’s iCloud, you’ll need OS X 10.7 (“Lion”) or later.
One other recommendation from Allan: If you’re truly serious about being an iOS developer, consider also registering with the Mac Developer Program.
– Si Dunn is a novelist, screenwriter, freelance book reviewer, and former software technical writer and software/hardware QA test specialist. He also is a former newspaper and magazine photojournalist. His latest book is Dark Signals, a Vietnam War memoir. He is the author of an e-book detective novel, Erwin’s Law, now also available in paperback, plus a novella, Jump, and several other books and short stories.
Oh, say can you C? Learning to program with Head First C – #bookreview #in #programming
April 27, 2012 Si Dunn Arduino, Book review, Book reviews, Books, C programming, game, games, How-to, Linux, Mac OS X, Paperback, Programmer, Programming, Software, Video games, Windows Book reviews, Books, C programming, Linux, Macintosh, O'Reilly, paperback, programming, technology, Windows
Head First C
By David Griffiths and Dawn Griffiths
(O’Reilly, paperback, list price $49.99)
Long ago, in a universe now very far away, I was an ABC programmer: assembler, BASIC, and C. I learned C from a book popularly known as “K&R,” after its authors, Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie. (Their classic work is now available in an updated second edition.)
But I had no mentors, so I struggled to figure out and apply many of the basic concepts that were not quite spelled out clearly enough or illustrated well enough for me in K&R.
I really wish I had had a book like Head First C, instead. My geeky logical side often is ruled and frequently overruled by my unstructured, illogical artistic side.
For learners like me, O’Reilly’s “Head First” series makes effective and entertaining use of graphics. It also addresses readers with a conversational style that avoids lecturing. And it focuses on trying to make sure you understand and can apply each new element.
Thus, Head First C does not try to be a complete C language reference guide. It shows you how to work with C’s major concepts, and you begin using them right away, so you can start understanding the process of becoming an effective C programmer. After that, if you are motivated to continue, you can push on into other books that do attempt to be complete C reference texts.
This “brain friendly guide” shows how to download free C compilers for Linux, Macintosh, and Windows machines. And, the authors assure: “All the code in this book is intended to run across all these operating systems, and we’ve tried hard not to write anything that will only work on one type of computer.”
Another positive for this book: You don’t have to key in or wade through dozens of lines of code to get to the few lines you are really supposed to be studying. “Most examples in this book are shown within the smallest possible context, so that the part you’re trying to learn is clear and simple.”
And, the book has been given a thorough technical review. So the code examples that are intended to work generally will work.
The book’s 12 chapters focus on the following topics:
Memory and Pointers
Creating Small Tools
Using Multiple Source Files
Structs, Unions, and Bitfields
Data Structures and Dynamic Memory
Advanced Functions
Static and Dynamic Libraries
Processes and System Calls
Interprocess Communication
Sockets and Networking
About midway through the book, you are presented with your first lab exercise. You write some C code and hook up a few hardware components to create an Arduino-powered plant monitor that lights up an LED and repeatedly sends the string “Feed me!” to your screen if a plant needs to be watered.
In the book’s second lab exercise, you write C code that lets your computer and its web cam act as an intruder detector. You do this with help from OpenCV, “an open source computer vision library. It allows you to take input from your computer camera, process it, and analyze real-time image data and make decisions based on what your computer sees.”
In the third and final lab exercise, you use your new C skills to write a video game called “Blasteroids,” with help from the Allegro open source game development library.
Head First C is a first and foremost a very good book for beginners, especially those who have at least a little bit of programming experience. But it delves into some advanced-level topics, too, such as multithreading and network programming.
If learning C is your goal, Head First C can help you stay focused, stay entertained and happily soak up the things you need to know.
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Q. What is the average class size/teacher ratio and how big is your school?
A. Pre-kindergarten has on average, 18 students and 2 teachers. Kindergarten and First Grade have 18 students and 1 teacher. In grades 2-8, there are approximately 25 students and 1 teacher. We currently have 507 students enrolled.
Q. When is school in session?
A. School generally starts in mid-August and goes through the end of May of the following calendar year. We begin each school day at 8:00 AM and end at 3:15 PM.
Q. Do you offer after school care?
A. Our after school care program, Prime Time, is open to all enrolled students. The program follows the school calendar year. The hours of operation are from the release of school until 6 p.m.
Q. Are siblings and parishioners given preference in the admissions process?
A. Since we are a parish school, we do give preference to our parishioners as well as to currently enrolled families with siblings applying to our school who meet our academic and behavioral requirements.
Q. Do you have a waiting list?
A. We do not have a waiting list for Pre-kindergarten. However, we do have a waiting list for Kindergarten through 8th grade and extend offers to students on the list as accepted students decline or unexpected attrition occurs.
Q. When do I apply?
A. Applications are available in September and due in January. Letters for admission to SVdP School are mailed out in mid-March.
Q. Does my child need to reapply and retest every year if he/she is not pulled from the wait list?
A. Once an application has been processed, there is no need to reapply. Each student application must be updated every new school year with a complete report card, standardized testing, new teacher recommendations and any updated information. Entry testing must be current with the grade the student is applying.
Q. Where do your graduates continue on to high school?
A. A majority of our students continue their Catholic education and go on to St. Agnes Academy, Duchesne, Incarnate Word Academy, Strake Jesuit, St. Thomas and St. Pius. We also have some students who go to public high schools, for example, Lamar, Bellaire, Carnegie Vanguard or HSPVA.
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1700 Josephine Street Suite 206, New Orleans, LA 70113
Federal criminal appeals
State criminal appeals
Grand Jury Subpoenas & Investigations
Offshore and Environmental Crimes
Louisiana Criminal Defense Attorney
Saved My Life
I thank god for Sam. I was days away from an automatic life sentence when Sam stepped in and won my federal case on appeal. Nobody thought we could win. But Sam did it, and now I’m home with my family. It’s a true blessing.
Phillips T.
Compassion and ability
In representing our family, Attorney Sam Winston exhibited compassion, loyalty, as well as legal acumen. In large part, thanks to Sam’s reputation, the outcome could have resulted in 10-20 years but was salvaged to 2 1/2 years. Our family strongly and wholeheartedly endorses and recommends Sam Winston if any is faced with a criminal charge that is largely unjustified. Sam is your man!
Betty L.
Fantastic Attorney
Sam was instrumental in handling the legal issues behind the scenes so I had less to worry about while I was trying to change my life. I would recommend Sam Winston to anyone including my own family who needs a calm, professional attorney who knows his way around the courthouse and has obviously built relationships with the correct people.
Sam Winston is one of the hardest working, honest, and imaginative criminal defense lawyers I know. He has a great reputation and is not afraid to go to trial, but also is skillful in negotiating resolutions of cases. I wouldn’t hesitate referring a potential client to Sam.
Michael W. Magner, White Collar Partner at Jones Walker
Sam is a smart, personable, and persuasive lawyer. Both the courts and clients respect him for his skills and his integrity. The way he handles tough cases and the results he has achieved for his clients are quite impressive.
Jim Boren, Louisiana Criminal Defense Attorney
Sam has a truly excellent legal mind and is masterful in the courtroom. His ability to approach problems from all sides and to concisely and persuasively make his points means his clients really are getting the best of the best. Judges trust him; jurors trust him; and other lawyers trust him. Anyone looking for a lawyer in their time of need would be lucky to have him on their side.
Evan Bergeron, Litigation Partner at Deutsch Kerrigan
Glenn L. StoryDonald G. StoryPhilips T. Story
Glenn L. was sentenced to 17 years in prison for allegedly having one ounce of marijuana in his car. He hired me to take on his appeal.
When I first met Glenn, he told me he was a boxer. He had been undefeated as an amateur and was about to turn pro when this incident happened. He told me he wanted to fight his case. What happened to him was wrong. I never doubted Glenn for a second, but I needed to make sure that we had the facts and the law on our side so that the courts would listen. Then we started investigating his case and blew the doors wide open.
We found out that the arresting officer in Glenn’s case was corrupt – the officer was pulling people over and lying about what he found on them. The officer also was making up confessions from the people he wrongfully arrested, just like in Glenn’s case.
Me and Glenn L. celebrating after we got him out of a 17-year flat sentence.
I filed a motion for a new trial challenging Glenn’s conviction. We were prepared to call others we had found to testify about the similar abusive and unfair treatment they had received from this officer. But we won the motion without having to do that. After years of uncertainty and agony, Glenn was going to get his life back.
Glenn had already served almost 2 years by the time I got his case, and it took another year to litigate. But we prevailed and erased 14 years of prison time off his sentence in a subsequent plea agreement. I’m thrilled for him and his family. I’ve even taken up a boxing class in Glenn’s honor.
Donald G. had been in jail for over a year for an armed robbery that he did not commit. Then I came onto his case.
I will never forget the look on Donald’s face when I told him that I believed he was innocent. It was like the heaviest weight in the world had been lifted off of his shoulders.
“Donald, I believe you are innocent.” I said. “You have done nothing wrong. Whatever else may have happened in your life, this is not your fault. And I’m going to do everything in my power to get you out of here.”
Tears streamed down Donald’s face. That’s not something most people will allow themselves to do while in jail, but in the privacy of the attorney visitation room, he couldn’t help it.
This was shortly after I saw the video evidence in Donald’s case for the first time. When I came onto the case, I did not know anything about Donald’s case other than what I had read in the paper. He was accused of robbing two woman at gunpoint in the French Quarter and taking their purses. He was facing between 10 and 99 years in prison and had not had a lawyer for several months.
Then I saw the security camera footage that was supposed to be the most damning evidence in the case. I nearly had a heart attack. It was not Donald. My gut told me this to. I watched the video 20 times – there was no way it could have been Donald. Then I began thinking about how I knew, without a doubt, that it was clearly not Donald in that video.
First, Donald was 6 foot 3, and the guy in the video could not have been more than 5 foot 6. Donald also has always had very short, buzz-cut hair. The guy in the video had longer, curly hair. There was even a picture of Donald from the day of the incident in the file that showed his hair was short.
And then there were the pants, which were supposed to be the second big piece of evidence in the case. The pants on the guy in the video were loose, flowy, and had no writing on them. The pants Donald was wearing on the day of the incident were tight, not flowy, and had big red letters on the front of them. These were all details that we would later use to convince a skeptical district attorney’s office and the trial judge that the wrong person had been arrested.
But just looking at the guy on the video, I knew, with every fiber in my body, that it was not Donald. We quickly started filing motions for his release, which we eventually won. Donald was, thankfully, able to be freed and move on with his life.
How Donald came to be arrested and held for over a year for a crime he clearly did not commit is a topic for another forum. Needless to say, our criminal justice system is far from perfect. I’m just happy we were able to help Donald when we could.
When the Court’s decision came out, I jumped in my car and raced with my co-counsel to go see Phillips. I knew we would likely be the first one to break the news to him. After what seemed like an eternity, they finally brought Phillips into the visitation room.
It was an unexpected visit and Phillips was surprised to see the look of anticipation on my face. Without even saying hello, I held up the Court’s decision and yelled, “WE WON THE MOTION!”
Not wanting to get too excited, he asked “We won the motion? What motion!?”
I said, “WE WON THE MOTION TO SUPPRESS. YOUR CONVICTION IS OVERTURNED!!!”
Phillips, in disbelief: “We WON the Motion to Suppress!?”
Me: “YES! LIFE SENTENCE IS OFF THE TABLE!!!”
Phillips: “WOOO! We Won the Motion to Suppress!!!”
Me: “WOOOO!!!”
It was the culmination of one of the hardest fought cases in my career.
Phillips was accused of sending three pounds of methamphetamine from California to Louisiana through a UPS Store. But it turned out that the Government had been paying the UPS store owner to find and search packages for them without a warrant. This was a not so subtle attempt to get around the Fourth Amendment’s protection against warrantless seizures by the Government.
Upon investigating the case, we learned that there was even a written contract between the law enforcement and the store owner to help them find drug packages. The California sheriff’s deputies initially attempted to deny the full extent of their relationship and their knowledge that packages were being opened without a warrant.
But in later testimony, the store owner stated without reservation that she was opening all of the suspected drug packages that came through her store for the past decade, without a warrant, and that law enforcement knew about it all of this. Later testimony from the sheriff’s office deputies admitted that they did, in fact, know about the warrantless opening of packages and that they continued to work with and pay the store owner for her work on their behalf.
After a series of heavily litigated battles before, during, and after trial, we finally prevailed for our client. The court agreed with us that this case was a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of illegal searches and seizures.
Before the Court’s ruling, Phillips was days away from receiving an automatic life sentence having lost at trial with prior convictions on his record. Yet as a result of the Court’s ruling that the burden was lifted. Phillips’ conviction was vacated.
Currently, we are waiting to see if the Government will appeal the judge’s ruling or if they will drop the case entirely against Phillips.
Reach Out To Start a Conversation
Call The Law Office of Sam Winston today at 504-577-2500 to set up a free consultation to discuss your criminal charges.
9.0Samuel Hatfield Winston
2018 © Law Office of Sam Winston |
sam@samwinstonlaw.com
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Tracing memories
By neurophilosophy on February 2, 2009.
During the first half of the twentieth century, the American psychologist Karl Lashley conducted a series of experiments in an attempt to identify the part of the brain in which memories are stored. In his now famous investigations, Lashley trained rats to find their way through a maze, then tried to erase the memory trace - what he called the "engram" - by making lesions in different parts of the neocortex.
Lashley failed to find the engram - no matter where he made a lesion, his experimental animals were still able to find their way through the maze. As a result, he concluded that memories are not stored in a discrete area of the brain, but rather were distributed throughout it. This led Lashley to devise his principle of Mass Action, which states that most behaviours involve the integrated actions of the whole cerebral cortex.
Subsequently, the pioneering work of Brenda Milner, who worked with the amnesic patient known as H.M., implicated the hippocampus as being crucial for memory formation. We now know that the frontal cortex is also involved, and it is currently thought that new memories are transferred to there for long-term storage. A new study now provides some evidence that memory recall becomes increasingly dependent upon the frontal cortex, and other areas of the brain, with time.
Christine Smith and veteran memory researcher Larry Squire assessed the brain activity associated with the recollection of old and new memories. They recruited 15 healthy male participants, and used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to scan their brains while they answered 160 questions about news events that took place at different periods of time during the past 30 years.
The study posed a number of difficulties which could have confounded the results. Firstly, the task of retrieving a memory will inevitably result in the encoding of the questions that were asked and the resulting recollection, and the associated brain activity could interfere with that which is being assessed. Secondly, more recent memories are likely to be richer and more vivid than older ones, and therefore the strength of the fMRI signal could be related not just to the time at which a recalled event occurred but also to the richness of the recollection of it. Finally, some of the recalled memories may be associated with personal events, which could make them easier to remember.
Smith and Squire therefore took these factors into account, and designed their experiments in such a way that the effects of the age of a memory could be assessed independently of both the encoding of the test questions and richness of the recollection of the memory. In the first phase of the task, the blocks of questions about events in each time period were presented randomly, and the participants were asked to indicate whether or not they knew the answer. Five to ten minutes later, whilst still in the scanner, the participants were asked three questions about each news item - they were asked to remember the original question they had been asked about the event (to assess how well they had encoded the information), the answer to that question (to assess the accuracy of recall) and, finally, how much they knew about each of the events (to assess the richness of each memory).
The participants' ability to recall a given news event generally decreased in relation to the amount of time that had passed since the event had occurred - as expected, they were better able to recollect more recent events than older ones. It was also found that the participants' memory of the questions they had been asked, and of the content of each news event, was independent of how long ago the events had occurred. The richness of the participants' memories was also unrelated to when a particular event occurred - the memories of events that occurred in the distant past were often as rich as those of more recent events.
With these variables removed from the equation, the researchers then analysed the fMRI data from all the questions that had been answered correctly. This analysis showed that medial temporal lobe structures (the hippocampus and amygdala) exhibited gradually decreasing activity as the participants recalled progressively older memories. This was true for memories of news events that occurred up to 12 years before, but the recollection of events that took place longer than 12 years was associated with a constant level of activity in those areas. By contrast, areas of the frontal, parietal and lateral temporal lobes exhibited the opposite pattern - their activity increased with the age of the news event being recalled, but remained constant during the recollection of more recent events - and the ability to recall the questions asked about each event was associated with activity in the areas surrounding the hippocampus, but not the hippoccampus itself.
This study provides anatomical and functional evidence which supports the findings obtained from brain-damaged patients with memory impairments. Patients with lesions in the hippocampus on both sides of the brain (such as H.M., who died late last year) not only lose the ability to form new memories, but also lose memories for events which occurred in the years preceding the onset of their amnesia. The memories of events that took place in the distant place remain intact, while those that occurred at intermediate times are lost in a graded manner. Thus, with time, the hippocampus becomes less important for a given memory, and the frontal cortex more so. Encoding of memories in the frontal cortex is more complex, and involves a widely distributed network with a greater number of connections, perhaps because retrieving older memories requires stronger associations and increased effort. Lashley, then, was not right about the memory engram, but nor was he completely wrong.
Erasing memories
Memory lessons from Homer Simpson
Memories are made of molecular motors
New neurons are needed for new memories
Smith, C. N. & Squire, L. R. (2009). Medial Temporal Lobe Activity during Retrieval of Semantic Memory Is Related to the Age of the Memory. J. Neurosci. 29: 930-938. DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4545-08.2009.
Sleepy brain waves predict dream recall
THE patterns of brain waves that occur during sleep can predict the likelihood that dreams will be successfully recalled upon waking up, according to a new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience. The research provides the first evidence of a 'signature' pattern of brain activity associated…
Brain mechanisms of Freudian repression
More than 100 years ago, Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, proposed a mechanism called repression, whereby desires and impulses are actively pushed into the unconscious mind. For Freud, repression was a defence mechanism - the repressed memories are often traumatic in nature, but,…
A Better Mood Broadens Your Field Of Vision
You often hear that happy people see the world differently. They look through 'rose colored glasses' or 'on the bright side.' There are a lot of phrases that connect mood and sight. Those less optimistic, as well, claim to 'see things as they are.' It's no surprise, then, that new research,…
Different types of synaesthetic experiences involve different brain mechanisms
SUBJECTIVE experience poses a major problem for neuroscientists and philosophers alike, and the relationship between them and brain function is particularly puzzling. How can I know that my perception of the colour red is the same as yours, when my experience of the colour occupies a private mental…
When I studied psychology back in the late nineties, the prevailing view seemed to be that the hippocampus and amygdala were involved in memory for a relatively short period (from memory 3-12 months) based on Milner's work on H.M.'s retrograde amnesia. The Smith and Squire study seems to suggest substantially longer implication. Is there any other evidence since my day?
By Rob Edyvane (not verified) on 02 Feb 2009 #permalink
There's no doubt that the hippocampus is essential for the formation of new episodic and spatial memories, and that it is also involved in their semi-permanent storage. I think the jury is still out on exactly how long they remain there, hence the apparently conflicting results.
By neurophilosophy on 03 Feb 2009 #permalink
Being an old lady who has trouble remembering the past, I'm wondering: How old were the male subjects in this study? I suspect there might be enormous differences in the results had men in their 80's and 90's been given the same tests. I look forward to reading the results of subsequent testing.
By Bab Whipples (not verified) on 03 Feb 2009 #permalink
Bab: the participants were aged between 51-64 years old. Men in their 80s and 90s are much more likely to experience age-related cognitive decline, but results obtained from them would not necessarily have been so different, because the researchers only analysed data from accurate memories.
I wonder if there are any subjects with the whole shebang gone: the hippocampal formation as well as the fronto-parietal circuits said to be involved. They should have a severe retrograde amnesia.
By Eric Thomson (not verified) on 08 Feb 2009 #permalink
How can it be that both
"the participants' ability to recall a given news event generally decreased in relation to the amount of time that had passed since the event had occurred"
"The richness of the participants' memories was also unrelated to when a particular event occurred - the memories of events that occurred in the distant past were often as rich as those of more recent events."
By Phil Goetz (not verified) on 23 Feb 2009 #permalink
@Phil Goetz: The ability to recall that a particular event took place *generally* decreased with time, but memories of some events in the distant past were particularly rich and detailed, perhaps because of associations with personal events.
Neurophilosophy now hosted by The Guardian
AFTER four years here at ScienceBlogs.com, Neurophilosophy is moving to a new home. As of today, it will be hosted by The Guardian. During its time here, the blog has grown from strength to strength. It has received over 2.5 million page views, was featured regularly on the New York Times science…
Human echolocation activates visual parts of the brain
WE all know that bats and dolphins use echolocation to navigate, by producing high frequency bursts of clicks and interpreting the sound waves that bounce off objects in their surroundings. Less well known is that humans can also learn to echolocate. With enough training, people can use this…
A whiff of early brain evolution
Skull of Hadrocodium wui. (Image courtesy of Mark Klinger and Zhe-Xi Luo, Carnegie Museum of Natural History) THE question of how mammals evolved their exceptionally large brains has intrigued researchers for years, and although many ideas have been put forward, none has provided a clear answer.…
US military planned using spy crows to find Osama bin Laden
THE United States military funded research into using networks of 'spy crows' to locate soldiers who are missing in action, and extended the work to see if the birds might be useful in helping them to find Osama bin Laden. The idea may seem far-fetched, but unlike some military research…
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Researchers apply computing power to track the spread of cancer
Princeton researchers have developed a new computational method that increases the ability to track the spread of cancer cells from one part of the body to another.
This migration of cells can lead to metastatic disease, which causes about 90 percent of cancer deaths from solid tumors — masses of cells that grow in organs such as the breast, prostate or colon. Understanding the drivers of metastasis could lead to new treatments aimed at blocking the process of cancer spreading through the body.
"Are there specific changes, or mutations, within these cells that allow them to migrate?" asked Ben Raphael, a professor of computer science at Princeton and the senior author of the new research. "This has been one of the big mysteries."
In a study published in the May issue of Nature Genetics, Raphael and his colleagues presented an algorithm that can track cancer metastasis by integrating DNA sequence data with information on where cells are located in the body. They call it MACHINA, which stands for "metastatic and clonal history integrative analysis."
"Our algorithm enables researchers to infer the past process of metastasis from DNA sequence data obtained at the present time," said Raphael.
The technique yields a clearer picture of cancer migration histories than previous studies that relied on methods based on DNA sequences alone. Some of these studies inferred complex migration patterns that didn't reflect current knowledge of cancer biology.
"The data sets we get these days are very complex, but complex data sets don't always require complex explanations," said Raphael.
By simultaneously tracing cells' mutations and movements, MACHINA found that metastatic disease in some patients could result from fewer cellular migrations than previously thought. For example, in one breast cancer patient, a previously published analysis proposed that metastatic disease resulted from 14 separate migration events, while MACHINA suggested that a single secondary tumor in the lung seeded the remaining metastases through just five cell migrations. In addition to a breast cancer data set, Raphael and his team applied their algorithm to analyze metastasis patterns from patients with melanoma, ovarian and prostate cancers.
Several additional features helped improve MACHINA's accuracy. The algorithm includes a model for the comigration of genetically different cells, based on experimental evidence that tumor cells can travel in clusters to new sites in the body. It also accounts for the uncertainty in DNA data that comes from sequencing mixtures of genetically distinct tumor cells and healthy cells.
This approach overcomes a number of challenges to draw meaningful conclusions from the "difficult to analyze, noisy" data that result from tumor DNA sequencing, said Andrea Sottoriva, the Chris Rokos Fellow in Evolution and Cancer at The Institute of Cancer Research, London. "I predict this new method will be of widespread use to the genomic community and will shed new light on the most deadly phase of cancer evolution," he said.
MACHINA's development paves the way for a broader examination of metastasis patterns in large cohorts of cancer patients, which could reveal key mutations that cause different types of cancer to spread.
Raphael also plans to make the method more powerful by incorporating data from tumor DNA and tumor cells that circulate in the bloodstream, as well as epigenetic changes — reversible chemical modifications of DNA.
"A better algorithm is like a better microscope," said Raphael. "When you look at nature with a magnifying glass, you may miss important details. If you look with a microscope you can see much more."
Other study authors were Mohammed El-Kebir, a former post-doctoral research associate in Raphael's group who is now an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; and Ph.D. student Gryte Satas. The work was supported by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.
Molly Sharlach
@eprinceton
http://engineering.princeton.edu/
https://engineering.princeton.edu/news/2018/06/28/researchers-apply-computing-power-track-spread-cancer <h4>Related Journal Article</h4>http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41588-018-0106-z
Sintering atomically thin materials with ceramics now possible
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NUS study finds that severe air pollution affects the productivity of workers
Scienmag Jan 3, 2019
Prolonged exposure to pollutant particles was shown to reduce the output of workers in ChinaCredit: National…
More than a protein factory
Simple test could identify bladder cancer patients who won’t…
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Woot? Woof? Whoot? Whoomp?
By Daniel Lametti
June 19, 20125:01 PM
Arsenio Hall.
Photo by Brad Barket/Getty Images
Brow Beat is excited that Arsenio Hall is coming back—and we’re not the only ones. Consider the Associated Press headline from earlier today: “Woot! Arsenio Hall returning to late-night TV”—a nod, of course, to the raucous audiences who enjoyed his previous late-night series, The Arsenio Hall Show, and were known for pumping their fists in the air to cries of “woot woot woot.”
Except the audience didn’t cry “woot.” They barked “woof.”
While the “woo- woo- woo-ing” you’ll hear in the many clips from the show on YouTube can sound like both a “woot” and a “woof” (I hear “woot” myself), one needn’t look far for explanations of the canine-inspired cheer. “Fans spend hours waiting for a chance to wave their fists in the air (“Arseniooooo!”) and bark like dogs (“woof! woof! woof! woof!”) on national TV,” the San Francisco Chronicle explained in 1989. An early report from the same year in Canada’s Globe and Mail (not available online) explains the origin of the woofing: “The portion of the audience stuck behind the band even has a pet name—The Dog Pound—and its members practice barking whenever Arsenio acknowledges them.” (If you can find decisive video evidence of a “woof,” please share it in the comments.)
The AP’s confusion is understandable, though. A lot of one-syllable shouts beginning with a “woo” sound appeared in pop music following its use on the show. Take the song “Whoot There It Is,” released by the band 95 South in March 1993—not to be confused with Tag Team’s “Whoomp! (There It Is),” which came out about a month later. Both songs made the Billboard Hot 100. At the time, the two cries became common enough to warrant a “Whoot” versus “Whoomp” story in the Chicago Tribune. The “Whoomp,” the article says, can be traced to an Atlanta DJ’s take on the Arsenio Hall bark.
Such overlapping “woo” sounds have been with us for some time. The Oxford English Dictionary and other sources trace whoop—as both a verb meaning “to call out” and a noun referring to a cry or shout—to roughly the 15th century. Whoot, meanwhile, was probably adapted from the verb form of “hoot,” defined by the OED as “to shout, call out or make an inarticulate vocal noise,” with origins as far back as the 13th century, an echo, perhaps, of owl calls.
And woo confusion isn’t limited to Arsenio Hall Show observers. If you listen carefully, the chorus of the 2000 hit “Who Let the Dogs Out” by the Baha Men is clearly “who who who who,” as in, who did let those dogs out? But many websites and videos write the line “woof woof woof woof,” as though the chorus consisted of the barking of the now-loose dogs.
These days, “whoot” has likely surpassed both “woof” and “whoop” as a celebratory cheer. In 2007, “w00t,” a common expression for happiness in Internet parlance, was Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year. The term, according to that dictionary, originated with computer gamers as an abbreviation for “We Owned the Other Team.”*
* Ben Zimmer, excecutive producer of Visual Thesaurus (and Slate contributor), tells Brow Beat that Merriam-Webster is wrong to describe “w00t” as the result of an acronym, and points us to an informative history of the term by Grant Barrett.
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« Too young to learn in front of TV viewers | Main | This is our future...it should make you shiver »
05 October 2011 3:59 PM
Ryanair's money grabbing rip-offs bring out our Dunkirk spirit
Just when you think a few months might pass without Ryanair sneaking in another rip-off, up pops Budget airline boss Michael O’Leary with his latest ploy.
He may be grinning for his trademark thumbs-up pose with his offer of a ‘Cash Passport’. But Michael O’Greedy is really sticking up two fingers to the millions of loyal customers who trawl the Ryanair website hoping for cheap flights, when the reality is there is no such thing any more.
Gone are the days when you could snap up a flight to Barcelona or one of the the Costas for £20, and it seemed that Ryanair had really opened up a whole new world for us.
Their brash boss O’Leary’s in-your-face marketing style used to amuse, as he dared the major airlines to take him on.
Ryanair, he declared, is the only low fares airline.
We often wondered how they could do it – but we didn’t care.
Ryanair packed their aircraft, and you could find yourself in Bratislava for around a fiver, wondering what you were doing in Bratislava in the first place, but couldn’t resist a bargain!
It was great fun – until the name Ryanair became synonymous with rip-off and hidden surcharges.
Now, when we see a flight for £35, we know by the time we get the booking reference confirmed, it will suddenly have jumped to at least £90 between luggage, check-in, administration fee, and a levy to cover compensation costs.
Flying has become the most miserable experience these days because of airport security. But when you travel with a budget airline like Ryanair, you actually feel under threat before you even get to the check-in desk.
I travel by air all the time, often with Ryanair, and I remember when online check-in and printed boarding passes first came in, how it caught everyone on the hop. There would be an elderly couple in the queue who hadn’t read the small print, and were suddenly faced with £34 because they didn’t have a printed boarding pass – something that is now being challenged after a Spanish court ruled earlier this year that it was unlawful.
Then it was luggage restrictions, where bags are weighed at check-in, and if you’re a bikini overweight it would cost you.
Next, was the size of your carry-on bag which has to meet strict guidelines, for no other reason than they can charge you if it doesn’t.
But one thing all these rip-off and restrictions has done, is brought out the Dunkirk spirit in all of us.
These days, in the queue at the departure gate, passengers stand supporting each other with nods and words of advice, as though they’re about to go through enemy lines, when in fact they’re only going to Malaga for a holiday.
The groundstaff march up and down like the Gestapo with a Ryanair cardboard contraption.
If it doesn’t fit you’re your hand luggage, you’re captured and have to surrender it to the hold for a whopping £40.
I’m usually like a Land Army girl, wearing a safari waistcoat, stuffed with everything I can’t squeeze into my hand luggage. But it will only be a matter of time before Ryanair starts to go through your pockets, and if you’ve got a pair of leggings stuffed in there, it will be classed as luggage and you’ll have to pay.
It starts to feel like if you escape through the line towards the aircraft, you’re waiting for them to call you back and punish you!
We put up with it, because one thing about Ryanair is they do get you there on time, and plenty of travellers will say if you read the small print, and travel light as O’Leary says, you have nothing to moan about.
But this latest Cash Passport offer is a real rip-off.
Ryanair are charging £6 for a special pre-payment card, so you don’t have to stump for the £6 each way administration fee when you book your tickets - which for a family of four is £48.
But you have to load this card with cash, and a rolling fee of £2.50 will be stuck on it if you don’t use it for six months. Before you know where you are it will cost you – even if you don’t travel!
Not surprisingly the Cash Passport has been condemned by consumer watchdogs, and Which? says it’s ‘an insult to UK consumers who can’t avoid such fees’.
Ryanair already had their own card for customers wanting to avoid the administration fees, but changed it from the Electron to MasterCard. So what is the point of a Cash Passport?
There should be a law to prevent airlines describing themselves as budget airlines, then racking up the costs at every turn.
Michael O’Leary will stop at nothing to grab more money off passengers – from the £3 cardboard cup of hot water and tea bag, to the overpriced paninis.
He’s even threatened to charge us for using the toilet.
Of course, if you're Gerard Depardieu, that won't really be a problem!
October 5, 2011 Comments (0) | Permalink
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Anna Smith is an award winning journalist and has spent a lifetime in daily newspapers as a frontline journalist reporting from all over the world. She has covered wars across the world as well as major investigations and news stories from Dunblane, to Northern Ireland, Kosovo and 9/11, and has also worked as a columnist with the Sunday Mirror and the News of the World. She writes novels full time now and lives between her homes in Scotland and the West of Ireland – and also in Spain to escape the British weather. Her debut crime novel, The Dead Won’t Sleep, is the first in a series of crime novels featuring Rosie Gilmour, a Glasgow journalist, trying to expose corruption in the establishment. It was published in June and will be available in paperback from October 13 in all bookshops and online. You can read more about Anna as well as further blogs on her website at www.annasmithscotland.com and www.quercusbooks.co.uk
Books by Anna Smith
The Lord Chief Justice has cut the sentence of a twisted child rapist - and failed us all miserably
Why doesn't the NHS care about the elderly?
The tragedy of children condemned with drug addict parents
This is our future...it should make you shiver
Too young to learn in front of TV viewers
Sorry won't bring Alfie back...
The curtain has come up on the biggest show in town
The human cost of an uncaring NHS
Big Society? More like barbaric
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Chris Cowdrey
Farnborough-born Chris scored 101 runs in his six Tests and has a career haul of 12252 runs at an average 31.90.
Chris Cowdrey and his father Lord Colin Cowdrey were only the second father and son to captain England. Chris followed his father into the Kent and England teams, and was Kent skipper for four seasons from 1986. In 1992 he played one wind-down season with Glamorgan before announcing his retirement.
He is a regular broadcaster with Talk Sport, and his after-dinner speeches give an interesting insight into being the son of a famous cricketer and learning to live in the shadow. Chris is in demand as a motivational speaker and one of his highlights was being invited by Prime Minister John Major to deliver an after dinner speech in India aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia following an Anglo-Indian conference.
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What can social innovators learn from the power of personal testimony? Lessons from the Quipu project in Peru
Author: Duncan Collins-Adams & So Jung Rim
Published Date: 14 February 2017
Photo Credit: Quipu project
We spoke with Sandra Tabares-Duque from Quipu Project about the power of storytelling. The Quipu project is currently featured on Guardian Documentaries here. Also, find out more about Quipu project and hear more testimonies on their interactive platform.
What is storytelling for you? Why do you think it is important?
I think that storytelling is something that belongs to all of us as human beings. Storytelling is a way to relate to who we are, it’s a way to describe who we are, and it’s a way of understanding where we come from. It’s a way that helps us to create identity and also to create stories that help us to engage compassionately to other human beings. I think that stories help us to connect to the rest of the world and the universe around us. So storytelling is a way of expressing what we see and what we believe we are. It helps us build our own identity and the perception of the world we live in basically.
Do you think that in recent years that storytelling has taken on more importance than before?
I don’t think that in modern times it has become any more important than it was in the past. I think that storytelling has had different platforms. For many years we had literature, which is a part of storytelling, so books were read and they were very political. We also had songs and poetry that described the world and that have been able to amplify the messages of people. So there have been different ways and different expressions that have different ways of telling story using a range of narrative forms.
Lately, we have had more access to storytelling through video and audio outlets. This, to me, has a larger impact because it is much more immediate. It brings images directly from those who live experiences. Straight away we get a faster connection to that particular experience. I think because of this we are in the era of visual storytelling, and by using tools like films, what we do is spread a message easily and widely in terms of number of people reached. This generates a social reaction that, thanks to other platforms available right now, also generates a social movement that can be more powerful than a piece of theatre performed for just a few hundred people, for example.
What is the social impact of storytelling? What is the value?
In any case when someone tells a story that can reach someone else’s heart that has a huge amount of value. If I tell a story and I can be compelling enough for you to create an image in your head or to touch your heart in a way that helps you identify with what you are hearing, it’s more likely that you are going to do something about it. It allows the person on the other side of the story to put on someone else’s shoes, or to experience someone else’s experiences and emotions. As I said before, I think the impact is much more immediate than just reading a big report. It’s much more emotional. Through audio-visual storytelling, we use elements that help us highlight the emotions we want to highlight. It is about trying to have an objective point of view, but no story that has been told by a third person will ever be completely objective. So there is something subjective about it, and by that subjectivity, what we use are elements that touch on our emotional side, such as the use of music or powerful colours.
We are always editing in our lives. We edit our conversations with friends, we edit our relationships with partners, we edit everything. So that’s exactly what we do as well. We edit to create powerful narratives that we believe are going to get other people to engage in the message we want to build. You try to inspire people to come on board with a viewpoint, idea or a message that you have. It helps a lot to get other people to buy into and believe in that idea as well. It adds weight to your work if it is supported by the voices of other people, especially the voices of the people you are talking about. Images, voices, colour, music and text together are extremely powerful and can generate a powerful impact when used together.
Tell us about an example of powerful storytelling that brings all these elements together and has imparted a positive impact?
I can definitely talk about the Quipu project.
The impact we have created is first at the level of community. The impact we have seen with the project is through the way in which we engaged with communities. We used technology to enable this. The first impact we saw was when all the women affected by forced sterilisation, recorded their voices and listened to their own messages -- the moment they recorded their own voices and listened to what they were saying. It was amazing. It was very simple but they had never listened to their own voices before. That generated something at a personal level for those people that had been fighting for justice for a long period of time. They listened to their own messages and this provided the first level of healing. They had told their story many times before, but had never listened to their own voices. It was slightly shocking for them, in a way, to hear that story coming out in their own voices.
The second thing that happened with them was that they realised that they were telling the story in a way that was probably not benefitting the legal case. They managed to practice, over the phone, how to tell their story better so that the prosecutor would be able to engage better with them. So that’s the first level of impact that we created, and it occurred without any expectations from our end.
The second level of impact, from a very basic level that we identified, was the phone line and use of technology as a way to put people in touch. This forced policy of sterilisation was a national issue. But the different communities, because of the distance, thought that the sterilisation policy had occurred in just one place. They believed it had just affected their own small community, rather than the reality -- which was a policy that affected thousands. So the possibility of communicating from community to another through these telephone lines meant that they could come together as a collective of thousands asking for justice. This was an extremely important impact, because the project allowed them to go to Lima, and march for justice together. That created a different atmosphere in their fight also, because many voices, from many different parts of the country started to work together in order for their collective voices to have a bigger impact. On a different level, it also generated an emotional healing impact for the people involved in the project.
The project also brought attention to the issues from different areas. If this story had been told as a report and put on a website, it’s likely only few people would have engaged with it. But the fact that it has the platform that is does, means that it has gone and has been spread around over 110 countries around the world. More people have also been able to relate to these stories as well due to the fact that the testimonies of these victims were translated into English. That has brought the issue to the attention of the international community, and this sentiment has now returned to Peru, where before people were uninterested by these stories and put little importance. This topic has now risen directly to the top of political priorities in Peru, and in fact, in the last two presidential elections, the issue of forced sterilisations has been fundamental in electing the president of the country. We can’t claim that we have been directly responsible for this with the Quipu project, but we have certainly helped bring attention and understanding at the level of political decisions and policies.
What are some of the challenges of collecting personal testimonies and stories on film?
There are many. With different types of testimonies being collected, one needs to be aware of what legal repercussions are there in the world. One also needs to think about how best to protect identities, how to protect the dignity of people, and to know how much you can share. You have a legal duty as a citizen to protect the rights of the people you are interviewing. There is also a moral responsibility as well in the intention of wanting to tell a story that is powerful, and there are a number of ties and connections between documentary-makers and journalists in this regard. It is about how you can create stories and how can you treat people and their testimonies in a way that they are respectful, that they do not victimise them further. We talk a lot about victims, but when we do, what kind of language are we using? How are we portraying people? At what level are we putting them as empowered human beings? So language and context, although complicated, are hugely important.
Through the Quipu project, we tried a number of different testimony collection techniques, primarily surveys and questionnaires. However after trying a number of different methods, we realised, by far that the best way of getting the real and whole story, was through the simplest means, personal testimony. People know how to tell their stories, and we, as intermediaries, tend to believe that they need us to be able to bring those stories in a compelling way to the Western world. This belief that we are the decodifiers, that we are the ones that allow this communication, is ludicrous. Just allow the testimony of people speak for itself. That to me is significantly more powerful, because the cameras, the recorders, do not intimidate them and they are just able to be themselves.
What can social innovators learn about storytelling?
There are a lot of ways in which the paths cross. We all want to contribute towards society and generate ways to approach an issue or challenge in order to solve it creatively or differently. Sometimes these fantastic ideas get lost in a lot of paperwork and a lot of reports that only relate to statistics. Quite often these reports are much more closely related to academia, which is of course is important, but can sometimes be less engaging. So with these alternative ways of storytelling, we can connect more to the human being behind the story than just the facts and statistics. You are connected at a much more identifiable, human level. I keep saying this, but this emotional connection is extremely powerful. And I think in order for social innovation to be able to bring more understanding of what they are doing, it is important to adopt some of these connecting techniques, and learn the value of a simplified message.
What projects are you working on currently?
We are going to expand the Quipu project to the jungle region, and continue collecting testimonies from the Andean regions. This will allow us to demonstrate that the policy of forced sterilisation was systematic and widespread within the country.
Another trans-media project I will be taking part in is called Mi Casa My Home, which looks on the symbolism and significance of home, belonging and ownership. Huge numbers of people have to leave their birth country or their hometown, to work in different countries, in order to be able to get the money to build a house back home. There is huge paradox there, that in order to construct a home for yourself and your family, you must leave those two things behind for an unknown period of time. A number of these people never return home, because of perhaps legal, or safety reasons, or due to the fact that many of them are fundamentally changed by the migration process and experience, to the point that they feel they cannot go back home. Obviously this has an impact on a number of levels, particularly on those of identity and belonging.
Thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us Sandra, it’s been really fascinating!
(Photo Credit: Quipu project)
Tags: South America, Peru, Citizen Participation, Justice, Networks
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“Q” – IT Outsourcing Vocabulary
QB: QuickBASIC – Microsoft QuickBASIC (QB) is a descendant of the BASIC programming language that was developed by the Microsoft Corporation for use with the MS-DOS operating system. It is loosely based on GW-BASIC but adds user-defined types, improved programming structures, better graphics and disk support and a compiler in addition to the interpreter. Microsoft sold QuickBASIC as a commercial development suite.
Qbasic – QBasic is a variant of the BASIC programming language, which is similar but different from the QuickBasic programming language. The source code is compiled to an intermediate form within the integrated development environment (IDE), and this intermediate form is immediately interpreted on demand within the IDE. Like QuickBASIC, but unlike earlier versions of Microsoft BASIC, QBasic was a structured programming language, supporting constructs such as named subroutines and while loops. Line numbers, a concept often associated with BASIC, were supported for compatibility, but were not necessary and not considered good form, having been replaced by descriptive line labels. QBasic has limited support for user-defined data types (structures), and several primitive types used to contain strings of text or numeric data.
Qcad – QCad is a computer-aided design (CAD) software package for 2D design and drafting. It is available for Linux, Mac OS X, Unix and Microsoft Windows. QCad is developed by RibbonSoft and released under the GPL. QCad 2, designed to “make QCad more productive, more user friendly, more flexible and increase its compatibility with other products” began development in May 2002. Much of the interface and concepts behind use are the same of those of AutoCAD, though perhaps easier to understand in QCad. QCad is one of very few OpenSource CAD packages available for Linux, and certainly the most fully functional. QCad uses the AutoCAD DXF file format internally and to save and import files. Files can be exported in a number of formats, but noticeably missing are both VRML and SVG.
QTW: QuickTime for Windows – QuickTime for Windows(QTW) is a multimedia software from Apple Computer that integrates full-motion video and sound into application programs.
Query Language – Query languages are computer languages used to make queries into databases and information systems. Broadly, query languages can be classified according to whether they are database query languages or information retrieval query languages. Examples of query language includes: SQL is a well known query language for relational databases; MDX is a query language for OLAP databases; DMX is a query language for Data Mining models; Datalog is a query language for deductive databases; XQuery is a query language for XML data sources.
Query Optimizer – The query optimizer is the component of a database management system that is used to analyze queries submitted to database server for execution, and then determine the optimal way to execute the query (Query plan).The query optimizer cannot be accessed directly by users. Instead, once queries are submitted to database server, and parsed by the parser, they are then passed to the query optimizer where optimization occurs.
Query Plan – A query plan, also known as query execution plan, is an ordered set of steps used to access information in a SQL relational database management system. This is a specific case of the relational model concept of access plans. Since SQL is declarative, there are typically a large number of alternative ways to execute a given query, with widely varying performance. When a query is submitted to the database, the query optimizer evaluates all of the different possible plans for executing the query and returns what it considers the best alternative.
QuickTime – QuickTime is a multimedia framework developed by Apple Computer, capable of handling various formats of digital video, media clips, sound, text, animation, music, and several types of interactive panoramic images. The QuickTime technology has three major components: 1) a media player, known as QuickTime Player, which Apple makes available for free download on its website and bundles with each of its computers; 2) the QuickTime file format — openly documented and available for anyone to use royalty-free; 3) software development kits available for the Macintosh and Windows platforms. These kits allow people to develop their own software to manipulate QuickTime and other media files. These are not free.
QVCS – QVCS is a family of version control system products published by Quma Software, Inc. The QVCS product family supplies version control system with features similar to many other version control products on the market. QVCS and QVCS-Pro target smaller Windows only development teams. QVCS-Enterprise is a client-server application, is cross-platform, and is designed for use by distributed development teams.
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Saldana in 1981
(1954-08-20)August 20, 1954
New York City, New York, U.S.
June 6, 2016(2016-06-06) (aged 61)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Fred Feliciano[1] (divorced)
Phil Peters (1989–2016, her death)
Tianna Peters
Theresa Saldana (August 20, 1954 – June 6, 2016) was an American actress and author.
2.1 Activism and attack
5 Other websites
Early life[change | change source]
Saldana was born in Brooklyn, New York. She was adopted at five days old by Divina and Tony Saldana, a family of Puerto Rican and Italian-American heritage.[2][3]
Career[change | change source]
She is known for her role as Rachel Scali, the wife of Police Commissioner Tony Scali, in the 1990s television series The Commish, for which she received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role, in 1994.
She played the role of 'Lenore La Motta', the wife of Joe Pesci's character, in the 1980 feature movie Raging Bull and Robert Zemeckis's Beatlemania ensemble I Wanna Hold Your Hand.
Activism and attack[change | change source]
She was also known for raising public awareness of the crime of stalking, after surviving a murder attempt by an obsessed fan in 1982. The fan approached Saldana in front of her West Hollywood residence in broad daylight and stabbed her in the torso 10 times with a 5½-inch (14 cm) knife, nearly killing her.
A television movie, Victims for Victims: The Theresa Saldana Story was about the attack and was released in 1984 starring Saldana as herself.
Death[change | change source]
Saldana died on June 6, 2016 from an illness at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, aged 61.[4]
↑ "A Rising Star Lives to Shine Again After a Near Fatal Knifing". People. 8 November 1982. Retrieved 8 June 2016.
↑ "Theresa Saldana Biography (1954–)". filmreference.com.
↑ USAToday.com Raging Bull actress Theresa Saldana dies. 8 June 2016. Retrieved 8 June 2016.
↑ Cavassuto, Maria (June 7, 2016). "Theresa Saldana, Raging Bull and The Commish Star, Dies at 61". Variety. Retrieved June 7, 2016.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Theresa Saldana.
Theresa Saldana on IMDb
Interview on CNN Larry King Live with Saldana and Fenn on July 13, 2004.
The Jazz Tap Ensemble
Theresa Saldana(Aveleyman)
Retrieved from "https://simple.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Theresa_Saldana&oldid=5909918"
American movie actors
American television actors
American crime victims
American adoptees
Actors from New York City
Writers from New York City
This page was last changed on 5 December 2017, at 19:15.
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The person behind the mask
Sin Evasion / Without Evasion
An English translation of Miriam Celaya's blog from Cuba
Making an Appearance
Posted in Sin evasion on September 30, 2011|
My dear friend Marta Cortiza, married to my other friend, the blogger Eugenio Leal, often used the phrase in the title of this brief posting whenever she called me: “Hello Miriam!, How are you? I’m calling just to make an appearance”. And after the usual introduction we would often get entangled in long conversations that covered topics as varied and contradictory as the sociopolitical situation in Cuba and the world, the minutiae of our families, or the exchange of recipes. I found speaking with Martha as easily natural and spontaneous as if we had been born and raised together, and as if we could read each other’s thoughts.
Just a few years were enough to enhance our extraordinary friendship, forged in the toils and blows that being part of the demonized group of dissidents implies in Cuba, running the same risks and having common interests and shared hopes. Marta’s rare personality combines both a strong will and permanent appeal. She is one of those people who, almost without being noticed, with unmatched candor, becomes essential and close in her affections.
Almost a year ago Little Martha, as I call her in jest, left Cuba. She reunited with her children and grandchildren in Miami and left her many friends here part of her cheerful spirit that still accompanies us in our bustle and blogger meetings. She is cofounder of the blogosphere but never started her own blog. She encouraged our work and supported us from its very inception, and I know that she is linked with our destinies so all the alternative Cuban blogs are thus a little bit hers too.
For this reason and because this is the first time that I cannot congratulate her personally on her birthday this September 26th, I wanted to dedicate this small note as a poor present. If any readers walking the streets of Miami recognize this lady with her warm smile, her honest eyes and her white hair, let it be known that she is a friend of the Cuban free bloggers, that she is a part of us, and that we love her dearly. Here’s to your health, Little Martha! May you have many more, and that I will soon be able to hear your voice on the phone often, uttering that phrase, so nice and familiar: “Hello, Miriam, just making an appearance!”
Welcoming Review of a Different Blog
The independent Cuban blogosphere has had an impressive growth in its few years of existence despite low Internet connectivity on the Island. Most blogs that have been set up and kept open during this time are autonomous spaces arising by the spontaneous free will of their respective administrators and, although the authorities insist on including almost all under the generic label of “dissidents,” (in Cuba the slightest sign of independence automatically implies “subversion”) the truth is that at least some of them are not particularly concerned with political issues, with accusations or with the social criticism of the Cuban reality.
In spite of that and without denying that inspirations for criticism abound in a reality such as ours, the continuing growth and diversification of the blogosphere into themes and interests that have nothing to do with the ideological over-saturation we have endured for over half a century is something to celebrate. For that reason, among more powerful ones, I wanted to dedicate a brief overview of the recent birth of a peculiar blog. As far as I know, Cuba did not have a personal blog devoted to culinary and gastronomic topics, irrespective of some, like the blog “Through the Eye of the Needle“, where my friend Rebecca Monzo sometimes inserts one or another recipe. The new space (Voy Caliente), with strong interests in fusion-kitchen; with dietary proposals in line with current world trends and also the bearer of a refreshing ideas segment of young Cuban restaurateurs, brings a little spice to a blogosphere that continues to grow. Each new blog is a sign of the health of the spirit of a consolidated online community.
And if some of my readers find it surprising that a blogger so stubborn and free thinking would pay special attention to a blog seemingly far removed from her everyday comings and goings and her strong voice, I must say that I have reasonable grounds for this, not only because Jorge Ortega Celaya, principal of the new blog, is a great young chef who aspires to someday have his own restaurant with the personal seal of his talent, and whose creations I have often enjoyed, but because this blogger is my oldest son. So the adage “the testimonial is up close and personal” is fulfilled to a T.
Thus, just like I welcomed my son to the world in January 1980, today I want to welcome the blogger, born to the same virtual space I have dwelled in for a few years; a place where – just like he did in real life — he must carve a course for himself. I wish him, of course, all the luck in the world.
Solidarity with the Cuban Law Association
Though my regular readers know I don’t usually publish work that I have not written myself, I decided to publish, as an exception, an article from attorney Wilfredo Vallín Almeida, president of the Cuban Law Association (AJC), my friend and traveling companion. The decision reflects the importance of this partnership for its work in support of the rights of Cubans and the unique and valuable efforts of such a meaningful undertaking in a country lacking in freedom and civic-mindedness. The work of this group of lawyers is as necessary to Cubans as it is dangerous to authorities, hence the official interest in sabotaging its work and trying to distort the nature of the organization and the morale of its members.
Readers can get more information about these events in the forums of the Association, where a series of six works by attorney Mr. Vallín will be published starting today.
I urge readers to follow the posts, since the organization is currently awaiting an answer regarding its application for legalization, and it is the only organization that has filed a legal complaint against the ministration of justice in Cuba for that cause, creating a precedent hitherto unheard of in the history of civic resistance in Cuba in half a century of dictatorship.
Thanks and a big hug,
Miriam Celaya
Disrespect and Right of Reply
Wilfredo Vallín Almeida
This past September 12th, two lawyers from the Cuban Law Association (AJC) in the province of Artemisa got a subpoena signed by sub-Lieutenant Javier Rebozo Pérez to appear before him at the Alquízar State Security Department the next day.
The lawyers of the AJC decided to attend though the first violation was already included in said citation, -this is something we’re used to about the political police- and because neither complied with Article 86 paragraph 3 of the Criminal Procedure Act (they don’t specify the subpoena’s subject), and were, therefore, null and void.
Although they were each “interviewed” separately, the points addressed by the officers in attendance at the meeting can be summarized as follows:
Reasons for the presence of such persons in the Cuban Law Association.
Ambiguity regarding the aims pursued by the AJC.
Counterrevolutionary character of the President of the Organization.
Attorney Wilfredo Vallín’s relationship with known figures of the opposition to the current Cuban government.
Source of the economic resources that the AJC seems to have access to.
Discredit which the Organization will shortly be subjected to through the national media of mass communication.
With the right to reply that any human being should have anywhere and against anything deemed insulting to his dignity, we will answer, one by one, the above points, but in our own way, that is, without hiding our identity behind assumed names, without hiding anything (since there is nothing to hide), and for anyone who wants to know, especially when it comes to our fellow citizens.
We will start with something that was not listed above, but one we consider essential to address. We will respond because, in the face of slander, one cannot remain silent, but –this must be made clear- the Law Association does not recognize that the Cuban State Security Department has any jurisdiction in this matter.
And we don’t recognize its jurisdiction here because:
From the beginning of its establishment, the AJC took on the task, UNDER THE LAWS THAT DO EXIST IN THIS COUNTRY, THOUGH SOME DON’T LIKE IT, to be respectful observers of the tenets of those laws, and to conduct ourselves ethically before the Registry of Associations, The Ministry of Justice, and the national courts that have to do with the ADMINISTRATIVE PROCESS that, ACCORDING TO THE LAW, we have followed to date.
Up to the time I am writing this, we have not received from any of those involved as counterparties, (those we do recognize as bearing the title of AUTHORITIES, and not the mere agents of the same), any expression, in any form, disqualifying of our actions.
The decision of the highest organ imparting justice in the country, the Supreme Court, which acts in our power, recognizes the right of citizens (and therefore ours) to peaceful association, provided that the legally required formalities are followed. We find it hard to admit that the State Security Department is ignorant of this.
In our view, the intervention of the political police in a completely legal process that develops under the laws established by the institutions authorized to do so, in the hands of authorities competent to decide, is, first and foremost, a lack of respect for the nation’s judiciary powers, and the denial of basic citizenship rights we supposedly enjoy.
The shortage of space will result in us having to replicate the rest of the points made at the beginning in the few next AJC blog posts and in those friendly publications that have offered to publish this.
Just one last thing for now: The AJC has a president with a well-known name by those who do not seem to even trust their courts. There is no need to call lesser members. You can call him, and he will be sure to respond without the need for a subpoena.
Old and Evil… Yes, but not Wise
Work of Cuban painter Pedro Pablo Oliva
For Cubans, accustomed to living at such a slow pace that time seems to pass only through sheer inertia, as if we belonged to the dizzying world beyond our borders, that other dimension of this universe, recent weeks have begun to make a difference. The Cuban reality has become less apathetic and linear – the obstinate legacy of CAME-style socialism that artificially changed the natural dynamics of a western country — and, suddenly, multiple simultaneous events begin to occur, apparently unconnected, but, when viewed together, respond to the system’s failure and the long accumulation of errors in the sociopolitical and economic life, inevitably pointing to the advent of an era in which accelerated changes can occur in any direction and in an unpredictable manner.
Almost on a daily basis, incidents have been springing up, such as arrests, threats, house confinements, repudiation rallies in various parts of the island by the repression forces and other supporters of the regime, and there have even been raids against presumably prostitute homosexuals these past few days, in the middle of Parque Central, before the vacant eyes of a marble apostle, which ended with the death of a 34-year-old young man in circumstances not clearly established. The common denominator of the victims of the official repression is their claim to universally recognized rights and peaceful methods of struggle, in sharp contrast to the brutality that has been applied in most cases to try to suppress the growing public unrest.
Each day, apparent fear of the authorities is becoming more evident and dissident sectors more visible in the country. Each situation seems favorable to break the false calm that hides behind a slight, though sustained, increase in the contained nonconformity: the parks around the National Capitol, the Mercado Único, the Our Lady of Charity procession on September 8th, the free and spontaneous meetings of citizens’ debates in private homes – whether in Miramar, Nuevo Vedado, or in any other neighborhood in the capital or throughout the country — the growth in independent journalism and in the number of bloggers and even a Christian church in one of the busiest boulevards in Havana that has caused an unusual interruption in the traffic flow and a spectacular deployment of police and Interior Ministry special forces.
Suddenly, without warning, events that just a couple of years ago were unthinkable are taking place. Coincidence? I think not. And there are reasons to believe that the situation may become ever more complex. There is evidence that the repressive actions only serve to stoke the fire of insubordination. More than five decades of totalitarian control have been able to slow the process, but not to prevent it. The accumulation of frustration, lack of perspective and, above all, the despair, don’t provide an environment conducive to the application of repressive measures. The government, whether it likes it or not, should be walking on eggshells.
If this rare situation in the country were not enough, the regime finds itself nearing a complex international juncture that will influence, perhaps decisively, the course of events. Among them are: the elections in Venezuela that could decisively change the current circumstances and force the Cuban government to take urgent steps for changes, the US elections, which could favor the sectors most prone to toughening the sanctions against the regime and thus directly affect revenues to the Cuban economy from several sectors, with an immediate effect on society as a whole; the continuance of the Common Position of the European Union, which tends to isolate the dictatorship, and the global economic crisis, among other things.
While this horizon, full of storm clouds, looms over our near future, the Cuban government continues to further damage its already ruined reputation by supporting dictatorships in North Africa and the Middle East, in solidarity with the most repudiated global satrapies; removing the credentials of foreign media representatives; developing its partnerships with new regional leaders, and acting heavy-handedly towards the growing protests inside the country.
Today, when dictatorships are being annihilated, when citizen protests and governmental intolerance converge dangerously, just when the new rhythm that marks the era may affect despotic powers more so than those lesser individuals deprived of freedom, the Cuban reality is wiping out the old adage “the devil knows more because he is old than because he is the devil”. So, our extremely old rulers are, without a doubt, devils, but they are absolutely not showing us any proof of their wisdom.
Your Money, My Money, The Money…
Photo from the Internet
Some signs are so “timely” that they cannot be by chance. A few days ago (Tuesday September 13th, 2011, p. 5.) the newspaper Granma published a full page article that justifies that in 1956 the then young revolutionary F. Castro accepted financial assistance — $50,000 US Dollars! — from former Cuban President Carlos Prío to organize the expedition that would bring together the aspiring guerrillas and the yacht Granma.
The writing, which at times seems taken from a comic strip where the exaltation of the hero is what matters the most — the bold main character swimming across the Rio Grande, an incognito voyage, to elude the vigilance of the evil ones, conspiracy, danger — is only a fragment of a book published by the Publications Office of the State Council, which makes me suppose that the whole book would make Tarzan himself turn pale with envy.
However, what is curious is that the largest newspaper in Cuba, the official organ of the PCC, up to now had devoted several lengthy articles accusing the opposition and civil society groups (Damas de Blanco, independent journalists and bloggers, among others) of having received financial support from abroad, but had not felt compelled to remind its readers of the moral purity of the olive green pedigree … despite the dubious origin of its funding. To this day, as far as I can remember, it had not devoted the same dissident-burning space to argue the tremendous sacrifice of the Venerated one, as he felt so forced to bow before those monies at the time, without its donor suspecting that he was helping to make possible the establishment in Cuba of the longest dictatorship in this hemisphere. Never before was it acknowledged that those “ill-gotten” $50,000 were well worth the humiliation of the leader of the Cuban Revolution!
So the official lampoon shows that what determines the morality of money is the cause it supports, not its source. Since it’s so, I don’t see any moral conflict in which dissidents, whether they are opponents, journalists or any other representatives of the broad front of dissatisfied Cubans, receive some monetary support, especially considering that the government does not seem too concerned about the origin of the capital of many foreign investors in Cuba, nor has it shown any squeamishness in appropriating a not-so-insignificant part of family remittances from the enemy empire, without us knowing for sure what these honorable revenues are used for.
Consequently, if what is dignifying about money is the principle underlying the support, and if that principle is endorsed by groups and individuals who advocate democracy, plurality, inclusion, freedom of expression and, finally, the aspiration by Cubans to exercise all their rights and to bring an end a dictatorship, I cannot think, right now, of a better destiny for the highly demonized funding.
Cuba: ¿Did Anarchy Arrive?
A Matter of Faith. Work by Cuban painter Abel Quintero
The Archbishopric of Havana has issued a press release dated September 5th, 2011 which is, at the very least, surprising. I am not referring to the somewhat sallow terms describing the wave of repression unleashed with renewed vigor by government forces against various civil society groups. We know that this is the usual discourse of the Church in Cuba, which explains why it avoids referring to the Ladies in White by that name, by which they are known throughout the world, and, in addition, the statement is limited to detailing the abuses, beatings, arrests and repudiation rallies as “incidents in which the wives of some former prisoners, who were released recently, had been abused, according to their own statements”. We already know that one must be gentle as doves…
In fact, the surprise that the note brings us lies in the government’s unusual revelation to the Church, assuring that “the order to attack these people has not come from any national decision-making center”. No matter how often the kid gloves of the high clergy towards the Cuban authorities might get irksome at times, we must admit that it is not in character for the Church to issue such inaccurate statements, and it must, therefore, be assumed that the Cuban government, in fact, stated what the note from the Havana Archbishopric claims. We should now attempt to analyze its implications, because if we were so naïve as to rely on any government communication, we would now have ample motives for alarm, since it could only lead us to several hypothetical deductions, none of them promising. They would be, for instance, as follows:
The government has lost control over the police and the internal order of the country.
The strategy of the police force is to act with impunity by their own choice, without our knowing if repressive forces autonomy was declared, or if they are now insubordinate against a central power, which would leave us totally defenseless (more defenseless even than could be possible).
In view of this, we are on the edge of another cliff that the General-President did not mention at the close of the VI Congress of the PCC: National chaos. A Cuba without order or control, where police acts of its own accord and the government is not even in condition to open an investigation to establish responsibilities against those who are trampling on defenseless citizens.
The note from the Archbishopric does not clarify — perhaps it is not its duty to do so — if the Church authorities were satisfied with the edict from the government. I say this because, at this moment, there is not only an alarming increase in repression, but it is reinforced and spurred by the media, which is wholly owned by the government, as evidenced by the story that aired on the well-known late TV news show on September 7th, and re-ran on the newscast at noon the next day, demonizing the Ladies in White and, before that, on Monday, September 5th, against well-known blogger Yoani Sanchez. Has the country’s central power also lost control over the media, or does the civilized world no longer classify as repression the public slandering of a country’s citizens, without even acknowledging their right to reply in the same media?
If it were not because we know that this government’s proclamation of innocence is nothing but a mockery, it would seem that we are witnessing a process of anarchy in a society already sufficiently burdened by egregious sociopolitical and economic ills. The good intentions of the Church would not be enough then to avoid violence or “any other way of dealing with the Cuban reality that could affect the peaceful coexistence and disrupt the well-being of the nation”, as the Archbishopric press release states. The “attitudes and gestures that encourage the peaceful development that Cuba needs at this changing stage we live in and that the Cuban people expect and demand” would not be enough either; the aspirations of almost all Cubans, except of the oppressors. If honesty is sought, from any side, we will have to start by recognizing that the “peaceful coexistence” in Cuba has, for some time now being shattered by violence, corruption, loss of values and other moral and material epidemics, and the government has not only taken the most active side, but has enjoyed total impunity.
Who is responsible, then, for the abuses committed against Cuban citizens? What will protect us from the escalation of violence that may occur as a result of irresponsible government? What moral authority does the government have to accuse the dissidents of instigating rebellion, while the forces of repression and official media stir some Cubans’ hatred and violence against other Cubans? Are peaceful dissidents who really are leading a social explosion in Cuba?
The Church, of course, has the answers we need, though it shares with the majority of Cubans the hope to attain a peaceful solution to Cuba’s ills. Church, civil society and dissidence have been demonstrating their rejection to violence. Nevertheless, government statements point dangerously in the opposite direction to peace. Without any doubt, the Cuban dictatorship is clearly moving more and more towards the exact middle point, as distant from God and men as from the nation’s interests.
Dying Often, or a Pre-mortem Epitaph
If Mr. F had not been slowly but surely morphing in his living flesh for the past five years, it could be argued that he is now going through another of his many deaths. The first, accompanied by a Proclamation signed by the pre-deceased himself, was the most shocking, because it had the effect of making public and palpable the mortal condition of the, up to then, undefeated commander. At that time, there was quite a stir not lacking in the most dissimilar feelings, from euphoria seasoned with drinking binges in wait for the anticipated celebration to some or other occasional sincere mourner, those always present in the human geography of this Island. Most people were saying “it was time, though I don’t like to wish anybody dead…” linked to the general belief we have been taught since childhood that to wish others dead means to precipitate our own death. There was not, thus, true interest in the salvation of the Messiah-come-lately, but the care to keep ourselves safe from bad omens. It is well known that in this country superstition has always exceeded worship.
Then, ever more sporadically, Mr. F has been shown to the media (or he has shown himself, we’ll never know) as proof that he is still alive. They have not been very convincing images, but we can see that, in fact, there was still a babbling old man with known features, though visibly deteriorated each time, now dressed in civilian clothes, in shirtsleeves or sports clothes, without the good looks of old, embarrassingly struggling in the mysterious webs of an accelerated decrepitude. Behind a broadcasted “improvement” in his convalescence, we common Cubans would be given only two signals as evidence of his life and questionable lucidity: “Reflections …” and the festive comments of that other lesser carnavalist, Hugo Chávez, the unofficial spokesman for [Cuban] Ground Zero.
Thus began F’s spiritual death before his physical one. His vibrant, fiery speeches, his impeccable uniform with its unique and un-reproducible epaulets, the eternally omnipresent, scraggly beard, his nails slightly projecting from their somewhat crooked fingers that clung tightly to the podium or menacingly shook to the whims of their unrepentant speaker have faded from people’s fancy. Unaware of it or not, Cubans continued to survive in their daily shakes, scratching the day every day, oblivious to their dithering failing genius. Nothing in our lives was significantly better or worse, and, in the presence of those scarce media presentations or other spectral and rare public appearances, a sense of morbid curiosity about the decline of the alpha senior predator, away from the fanfare he loved, has prevailed over a real interest in learning the word of the “leader of the people”. In fact, his words were becoming almost unintelligible, if not incoherent.
About a week ago, some media and informal groups circulated rumors about F’s supposed demise (“now final”). Others say he is in a coma, or is “very critical”, or that he has suffered a relapse (this time without the possibility of another “re-raise”), that he suffers from advanced Alzheimer’s, that he has had cardiorespiratory arrest events, that he recently suffered a stroke, etc., etc. They even say that “Yayabo” won’t come out again. The palace of the olive green caste has not confirmed nor denied these rumors.
Presumably, at this stage of the game and with the complicated picture of the nation’s reality in check mate, the complete disappearance of the patriarch might stir certain more-or-less hidden large interests, but for the average Cuban it won’t mean much. At least for the purposes of our little lives, in the short or medium term, nothing would move too much.
Perhaps the most convincing importance of what — nevertheless — will be a great event, after such a long wait, is that it would serve to finally illustrate, at the national level, once and for all, the supposed reformist vocation of the General-President, coauthor and heir of our national ruin. Because some intangible optimists (as a close friend of mine describes them) insist that F’s physical permanence in this world is the only obstacle to free his younger brother’s magical renewing measures and actions of that project they continue calling socialism; bold reforms that will in turn will save this unreality which they continue calling “revolution” despite its stagnation. There are stubborn believers who insist that F’s censure, and not the lack of political eagerness of the General, is actually responsible for the failure of the Sixth Congress of the CCP. Each defends his own illusions.
Let’s not forget that in this life, accounts are settled with those who are alive and not with the dead. This time, or some other time, one of F’s many deaths will turn out to be real and irrefutable. If we are finally on the eve of the biggest show of public mourning this Island has ever experienced, we will see what blame will be attributed then to the very likely failure of the vaunted National Conference next January. Perhaps the “political epitaph” genre will become the next bestseller in Cuban literature.
This blog is translated by Norma Whiting.
You can help translate other Cuban bloggers by clicking here.
Miriam is a Cuban from Havana, and she belongs to the generation whose lives have been torn between disillusionment and hope, whose members reached adulthood in the controversial year 1980.
She has published collaborations in the digital magazine Encuentro en la Red, for which she created her pseudonym.
Miriam started this blog under the pseudonym Eva García, but in her July 22, 2008 entry, she came out from “behind the mask” and posted her photo and name. Miriam can be reached at:
sinevasion@desdecuba.com
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Law Society of Singapore vs Gopalan Nair, a demand for harsher punishment on July 25, 2011 trial because I continue to criticize
I have just received an Email with court documents from Singapore Law Society titled very appropriately "Plaintiff's skeletal submissions". If they carry on in this manner making a fool of themselves in these proceedings, they will in deed turn into skeletons.
Their legal profession has been reduced to less than 3,500 lawyers or so, caused by resignations en masse because anyone with any self respect wants nothing to do with a profession that is used as Lee Kuian Yew's political weapon.
The island itself is turning into a skeleton, as far as it's valuable skilled citizenry goes, as mounting emigration has turned into a flood for Australia and the West. The vacuum is being filled by Chinese peasants from China who have no knowledge of English, let alone any skills.
The Law Society of Singapore which is in effect an arm of Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore government, asks that I be disbarred from practicing law in the island for the following reasons:
1. It says the 1992 order against me, of suspension from practicing law in Singapore for 2 years appears to have no deterrent effect upon me.
As a recap this is what happened in the 1992 case. Recall JB Jeyaretnam was found guilty and struck off the Singapore Bar on Lee's trumped up charges, namely check fraud and making a false affidavit relating to it. When JB Jeyaretnam appealed his striking off to the appeal court in London, the House of Lords, they not only categorically stated that JB Jeyaretanm was not guilty of anything, they also said Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore government was guilty of deliberately misusing the law to hound harass and punish an innocent man who was not guilty of anything. You can call it a slap right across the face of Lee Kuan Yew and his so called Rule of Law.
When JB Jeyaretnam landed at Changi Airport jubilant on his return from London, London's Privy Council judgement in hand, there was a crowd including me ready to welcome him. Immediately, since the highest court of the land had declared him innocent, he wrote an appeal to the President of Singapore for a pardon.
The Attorney General of Singapore then, Tan Boon Teck, on behalf of the Singapore President refused the pardon, stating among other things that Jeyaretnam had committed serious offenses, even though just a few days ago, the London Appeal court had declared him innocent! Furthermore another reason for his refusal of a pardon was because Jeyaretnam had not shown "remorse, contrition or repentance for the crimes he had committed" although it beats me how someone could show any of these emotions for crimes he never committed!
Another of this reasons for the pardon refusal, was that he was "not given an opportunity to appear" at the London hearing. This statement was patently false. One of the judges at the appeal in London, I believe it was Lord Bridge, had specifically asked the lawyer for the Singapore Law Society in court whether the Singapore Attorney General was aware of the proceedings and whether he had applied to intervene. Only after the lawyer had specifically stated that they were aware and had not made any application to intervene, did the court proceed in their absence. In the light of these facts, it was impossible for Singapore attorney General to say "he was not given an opportunity to appear".
I read these ridiculous reasons for the Attorney Generals refusal of the pardon in the Straits Times, a Singapore state controlled newspaper.
I wrote a letter to the Attorney General asking that he explain his claim that he was not given an opportunity to appear. His reply was that he was not a party to the case, and that if I wanted any information, I should write to Jeyaretnam himself. Not satisfied with this answer, I wrote again to him that I demanded a proper answer within 14 days, and failing that I will distribute this correspondence between him and me to the entire Singapore legal profession.
His response was that I had falsely accused him, that I had "threatened" him and therefore he was reporting me to the Law Society for discipline. I understand that the Law Society had themselves decided that I had not committed any wrongdoing but as there was a procedure in place where the Attorney General could insist on proceedings regardless of the Law Society's findings, that is what he did.
The proceedings against me commenced in 1989 or 1990. The disciplinary proceedings was heard by the late retired judge Choor Singh who was willing to bend over backwards or even forwards if it pleases Lee Kuan Yew. The hearing itself was interesting. The late Jeyaretnam was my counsel. Madan Assomull who was clearly working in tandem with the judge was, expectedly, getting his way over everything. In fact the case turned out as a battle between JB Jeyaretanm and his arch enemy the Attorney General who was the principle witness for the prosecution, much less about me, which by the way I did not mind at all.
There was one hilarious moment which I will never forget. One of our main witnesses at trial was Martin Thomas QC, who practices in London, JB Jeyaretnam's lawyer at his London appeal who was kind enough to appear at my Singapore trial, as he happened to be in the vicinity by chance, either on his way or returning from vacation at Tioman Island, Malaysia.
Thomas told the court that the London judges had asked counsel for the Singapore law Society whether "the Singapore authorities" were aware of the proceedings, not specifically whether the Singapore Attorney General was aware. Pouncing on this as an opportunity, Assomull began repeatedly asking Thomas QC, whether the Judges could have meant someone other than the Singapore Attorney General, since after all they used the words "Singapore authorities", not "Singapore Attorney General".
After a point Thomas had had enough. He replied "Of course the judges meant the Singapore Attorney General when they said Singapore Authorities. I don't think they were interested to know whether the Hong Kong Fire Brigade were interested in these proceedings"! That was the end of this line of questioning for Assomull!
In any case the Law Society found me guilty, in 1991. At that time I had decided I wanted nothing more to do with a legal profession such as this, and packed my bags and left for San Francisco, California in December 1991. While I was already in the USA, in 1992, this case went before the High Court of Singapore in absentia, which confirmed the judgement. Judges Yong Pong Howe, G Pannirselvam and another Chinese judge, whose name I cannot remember, ordered that I be suspended from practicing law for 2 years. This suspension really did not effect me, since I was already in the USA. At the time I was also a member of the English Bar up till now in good standing.
Coming back to the present case against me, the Singapore Law Society states that one reason why I should be disbarred from Singapore is because "the previous order of suspension in 1992 had no deterrent effect on me as seen from my further blog posts".
Let me remind the Singapore government that a man will be deterred by punishment only if he knows that he did something wrong. Since I did no wrong in the 1992 matter, I see no reason why I should be deterred. They further say "the Defendant had shown no remorse (the 1992 matter) for his misconduct". True I have no remorse. It is an oxymoron to demand remorse for completely lawful, nay admirable conduct.
2. In another part, they say it is necessary to have me disbarred "to protect the good name of the Singapore profession". I am not sure how many ordinary people out there would agree that the Singapore legal profession has any name at all, let alone a good name.
3. There are various other portions where it states such things as "using offensive language is unbecoming" which I have denied ever using at anyone (I believe they are referring to the yelling at policemen charge), and that according to them I lack the qualities of a lawyer.
4. As an authority to disbar me for contempt of court, they refer to the 2006 case of Chee Soon Juan, Herzberg Daniel in 2009 (I don't know who he is) and the recent case of Alan Shadrake who was sent to jail for 6 weeks. I would have thought that if these are the only cases they rely on, Chee Soon Juan and Alan Shadrake, both well respected men of principle, morals and courage, I should be applauded, not punished. Of course this is not how a morally bankrupt country is expected to behave or think.
5. Another reason they say that I should be disbarred is the fact that I was sent to jail for 3 months for criticizing Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean! You can see for yourself here whether I should have been jailed for having written what I did about Belinda Ang Saw Ean.
6. Further, they rehash want has been said so far, that a) I had repeatedly committed contempt of court 2) that I had undermined the judiciary on 3 different occasions in 6 months 3) that I had breached the undertaking I had given to the Singapore judge 4)that my "cavalier" attitude can be seen from my blog posts 5) that I persist in undermining the Singapore judiciary in my blog posts.
7. They attach with their document my recent blog post dated July 16, 2011, "Law Society of Singapore vs Gopalan Nair, trial date July 25, 2011. A brief rehash of what it's about"
From these proceedings, I am not sure whether Singapore is aware of whom they are dealing with or are they deliberately trying to pretend not to know who I am. I would like to tell them this. They are dealing with a man who is not prepared to live a life in submission to Lee Kuan Yew because I really do not have to. I live in a free country and practice in a jurisdiction where there is the rule of law, where I do not have to live my life saying one thing in public and another in private. And there is no need for me to pretend that Singapore has the rule of law when it has none, and neither can anyone force me to do it.
Another thing they fail to understand that not every lawyer in the world are the sort you find in Singapore. No lawyer from any other democracy will be prepared to submit to a jurisdiction such as this and respect it when it has no integrity whatsoever.
Your Singapore courts can do and say anything you want. I am judged not by you, whose judgements don't mean a thing but by the real courts of the world, such as those in the USA and the UK.
And finally, since the bad guys, according to the Singapore government in their submission, are Alan Shadrake, JB Jeyaretnam and Chee Soon Juan whose cases are used to justify disbarring me from Singapore law practice, I should have no complaints whatsoever, as I would be among such illustrious men; heroes such as this. Tell me how many of you out there can claim to be compared to Chee Soon Juan, JB Jeyaretnam or Alan Shadrake? I should be proud. Very proud indeed.
I am writing this at 6.40 pm on Saturday, July 23, 2011, which is 9.40am Sunday morning July 24, 2011. My case will be heard in the High Court Singapore on Monday morning Singapore time tomorrow. I have an airline ticket departing tonight midnight San Francisco, which I am still contemplating using, which will take me into Singapore early morning Monday the day of the hearing.
I am toying with the idea of whether to come. It is only a short 30 minute drive to San Francisco Airport's long term parking along 880 North Freeway, San Mateo Bridge, 101 North Freeway, past San Carlos Airport and into San Francisco Airport, park and into the International Terminal. I may or may not come. If I do, I will walk into the courtroom precisely 5 minutes before 10 am.
As the Singapore government appears to read every word written here, they have been warned.
Zajnat said...
The Singapore guilty judges have no remorse at all. Perhaps they hv no idea that they are wrong.
Thus they are not qualified to be judges at all.
Belinda Ang shd be jailed for not upholding justice and the Singapore courts hv shown repeatedly their contempt of the rule of law. Whatsoever a man sows, that you shall also reap.
Singapore lawyers and judges shd be aware that one day they will be held accountable regardless.
For me I wouldn't waste time with an unworthy court.
Belinda jailed
Contempt justice
Sat Jul 23, 11:12:00 PM PDT
Good to see that you are very active.
Sun Jul 24, 07:26:00 AM PDT
Lee Kuan Yew's PRC FT as work. See video below:
In the video, this guy from the PRC describes local Chinese in Singapore as descendants of poor Chinese coolies.
And, he goes on to racially insult other Singaporeans as well. (Get someone who know the language to translate for you - warning, might make your blood boil.)
http://www.temasekreview.com/2011/07/24/video-prc-talent-hurled-racist-slurs-at-singaporean-minority-women/
I blame Singapore's Chinese for all these problems with the PRCs.
Since the 1980s, after Lee Kuan Yew openly embraced a kiss-Chinas-butt policy, the local Chinese have become outwardly racist towards the other races.
Since they weren't producing enough babies, to keep the racial gerrymander at 75%, the Chinese decided to important people from the PRC.
Now, it has backfired on them. The PRC folks look down on the local Chinese, who they consider to be southerners of peasant stock.
They have no history of living with other races, and continue to insult Singaporeans with their insensitive and racially charged remarks.
To the local Chinese, I say, you deserve this abuse. You had no qualms about abusing the other races, and now have ended up becoming 2nd class citizens in your own country.
So, what is the Singapore police going to do about this guy?
Sun Jul 24, 01:18:00 PM PDT
RT said...
I am a Singapore chinese & i hate to see so many China chinese here too, just like my fellow malay & indian friends. No doubt those in the govt are mostly chinese, but their failed policy of bringing FTs from China sucks big time. We are all Singaporean citizens of all races & it's time to kick those India Indians & China Chinese butts now!!
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HomeAbandonedAbandoned Waterworks: Hackensack Water Company
Abandoned Waterworks: Hackensack Water Company
One hundred years ago utility companies used massive steam-powered engines to pump water throughout communities. These five-story behemoths were impressive for their time but had become obsolete decades before the end of the twentieth century. As infrastructure was upgraded, most were dismantled and sold for scrap; few managed to survive.
One survivor is in the long-defunct New Milford plant of the former Hackensack Water Company in Oradell, New Jersey. The waterworks was established in 1882 and operated continuously for over one hundred years before closing in 1990. Over the last twenty-five years it has avoided several close calls with demolition.
Today the plant’s future is not yet guaranteed, but the buildings still stand because of fortuitous circumstance, government indecision, and the hard work of a passionate few.
Map it! (also Street View)
Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the United States’ lack of a centralized water system was a significant contributor to the spread of disease. Fragmented wells and poor quality drinking water wrought havoc on the population via illnesses such as typhoid fever.
Various waterworks were formed around the country to centralize and control water quality and supply. The Hackensack Water Company (HWC) filled this role for New Jersey communities in 1881, when it signed a 10-year contract with the city of Hoboken to supply its drinking water.
Van Buskirk Gristmill
Van Buskirk Island, which straddles the New Jersey boroughs of New Milford and Oradell, was chosen by HWC as the site for what would be called its New Milford Plant. The artificial island was formed in 1802 when dams were added to support the mills along the Hackensack River. It was attractive to industry because of its proximity to rail supply lines and a reliable water source.
In 1837 John and Jacob Van Buskirk purchased the island and established J. & H. Van Buskirk Gristmill (pictured above right), which operated on the southwest corner of the island for over forty years.
Things changed for Van Buskirk Island in November of 1881 when Hackensack Water Company purchased the island for $50,000.
The company’s first order of business: Laying miles of pipe.
Map of Van Buskirk Island, circa 1881
New Milford Plant of the Hackensack Water Company
courtesy Jack Surran
The construction of the plant’s red brick Romanesque Revival buildings took place from 1882 until 1911. First to be erected were the Pumping Station and large coal shed/boiler house, the inner workings of which were designed by the company’s chief engineer and water system pioneer Charles Benjamin Brush.
Brush’s system was revolutionary for the time, including a massive infrastructure complex which extended two levels below ground. The grand opening took place in 1882, however construction from expansion and updating would be an ongoing process for the next seventy years.
The early crown jewel of the Hackensack Waterworks was its Worthington Duplex Pumping Engine, a steam-driven behemoth capable of delivering 3.8 million gallons of water per day to Hoboken’s 30,000 residents.
Worthington Duplex Pumping Engine
Continuous Expansion
Number 3 pump
As the population grew, so did the need for fresh water. In 1886 another Brush-designed building was added to house a new 10 million gallon-per-day Worthington. Another building was added in 1891, enclosing two more Worthingtons to further increase capacity.
The two-story addition the pump station was built in 1898 to house two vertical triple expansion pumping engines (numbers 5 & 6). This modification, which included the chimney stacks seen today, helped increase output by 150%.
In 1901 a new reservoir was created in Oradell, New Jersey just a half-mile from the New Milford plant to help the Hackensack Water Company keep up with demand. Five years later the Hackensack Water Works Filtration Plant was formally opened, in 1906. It used a rapid sand filter in a twelve million gallon coagulating basin constructed just east of the main building. The Filtration Plant housed an impressive four-story coagulant facility, which included a laboratory for analyzing and testing both the raw and filtered water supplies.
Old Pump Number Seven
From 1911 until 1912 the largest extensions to Hackensack’s New Milford Plant were completed. These additions introduced Pumps 7, 8, and 9 and increased water output by thirty-five million gallons per day.
Twenty million of those gallons came from the mammoth Pump No. 7 (pictured at right), an Allis-Chalmers Vertical High Service Pump. The fifty-foot leviathan was capable of moving more than 600 gallons of water per revolution of its thirty-two ton flywheels.
In 1912 the Filtration Plant was expanded to house eight new filters. This raised capacity to forty-eight million gallons per day. Improvements in technology dictated the upgrade to the No. 3 pump in 1915. The Allis-Chalmers No. 3 could pump thirty-six million gallons per day, nearly twice the capacity of the larger and older No. 7.
The water utility operated the steam pumps for over 70 years, keeping them polished and in immaculate working order until the plant closed in 1990.
[ Did you know? Activated carbon water treatment was pioneered by Hackensack Water Company sanitary engineer George Spalding in the 1920s, and later implemented at the facility in Oradell around 1931. ]
The diagram above shows the movement of water through the Hackensack Water Works facility. Water was brought from the Hackensack River via the intake canal where the first large screened filter removed leaves, branches, and other large debris. From here the water was piped through the Pumping Station by pumps that moved the raw water to the Coagulation Basin. Fine particles settled to the basin floor through sedimentation and the addition of treatment chemicals. Once finished with its slow progression through the Coagulation Basin, the water was gravity-fed to the Filtration Plant. The water then moved through beds of sand and powdered-activated charcoal. This filtration process guaranteed delivery to customers of the highest quality clean water. Pipes transported the water from the Filtration Plant to the Pumping Station. Pumps then delivered the water to customers in Bergen and Hudson County (courtesy Rutgers).
In addition to the visible buildings, the site contains a vast underground network of pipes several stories below ground. Due to the plant’s location in a flood plain, the subterranean network of pipes were built to withstand regular inundation by water.
The final building expansion to the Filtration Plant was completed in 1955; six filters raised the plant’s capacity to seventy million gallons per day. By the early 1960s the Hackensack Water Company had reached its zenith, pumping over 100 trillion gallons of water per year.
Hackensack Water Company’s dates of expansion (courtesy Rutgers)
A Shifting of Responsibilities
Intake canal
Advances in water technology and regional population growth meant it was only a matter of time before the old steam engines and the red brick buildings they called home would be obsolete.
Functionally this occurred for the New Milford plant by the middle of the twentieth century. It was a regional need for additional capacity that kept the venerable pumps online until the 1980s.
In 1964 the Hackensack Water Company opened a state-of-the-art facility in Haworth, New Jersey. This treatment plant was more advanced and cleaner operating, capable of moving another 50 million gallons per day for the water company at a lower cost. The operation on Van Buskirk Island would gradually be phased out as responsibilities were transferred to the newer Haworth facility.
HWC Plant in the 1960s
From the early to mid-1970s the plant’s operations continued to shrink; by the end of the decade it had become a financial burden to its operators, who by this time had elevated their search for a way out. In an effort to curb rising rates, the state Board of Public Utilities mandated in 1983 that the water utility reduce its land holdings.
Decommissioning was still six years away when the water company began transferring property and land rights in 1984. Former watershed land encompassing some 700 acres across 50 parcels was donated to nearly a dozen Northeast Bergen County municipalities.
For the old New Milford filtration plant on Van Buskirk Island, the operational end would come in late spring of 1990. By this time an expansion of the Haworth plant had been completed, allowing for the water company’s final capacity shift to occur. When the facility was shuttered on May 31st, 1990, it had served the community for 108 years.
By this time closing was more formality than theater; the jobs had been long gone, vaporized by steam engines which anchored the plant in the nineteenth century.
Aerial view of Hackensack Water Company’s New Milford Plant.
The New Milford water filtration plant was closed for a year before Hackensack Water Company announced action. In August of 1991 the HWC offered to give Bergen County a mile-long stretch of riverfront property in Oradell and New Milford, including the hundred year-old buildings of the plant. The gift included the old water plant buildings and 47 acres, valued between $3 and $4 million dollars.
Bergen County Executive William “Pat” Shuber was initially optimistic, but after delving into the financials of the matter, started to see problems. Oradell Mayor Carolyn Hague was less enthusiastic, immediately noting her borough’s loss of about 42 acres of water-company property from local tax rolls, which would cost Oradell nearly $100,000 a year. “That bothers me a lot,” said the wary mayor. “I don’t know whether this is a big, generous gift to the county or not.”
Removing the property from its books would at least have been a gift for the water company. The utility’s chairperson, Robert A. Gerber, acknowledged as much in a statement: “There would be some tax advantages for the company in donating the property for public use.”
Mayor Hague was more pointed in her comments during a November 1991 conference: “…I want to make sure we are not short-changed. It is good for the water company because of the tax relief it would get, and also because it would not have to maintain the property.”
By September of 1992 the county had yet to accept the water company’s gift. Bergen County was not interested in maintaining or paying taxes on it, so officials weighed demolition costs. Initial reports seemed to indicate it would be too costly to renovate the structures, and that their “suitability for other uses was questionable.”
Estimates to raze the site ran between $2 and $6 million dollars. County Executive Schuber would accept the land with the stipulation that the water company pay for the $2 million to $4 million razing of the plant.
Alternatively, a study showed an immediate $1 million to $2 million outlay was needed to repair and stabilize the buildings – and subsequent maintenance would cost $110,000 a year.
The water company wanted the buildings off its books and was willing to accommodate the County if necessary. For example, the utility agreed to pay taxes and the maintenance costs for the site until the County could find a developer and approve a use for the property. It also reluctantly agreed to finance the demolition should no developer plans develop.
With conditions met, in late September of 1992 County Executive Schuber recommended the county accept the gift – however the final stamp of approval would still have to come from Bergen County’s Board of Freeholders.
Once word of potential demolition reached the public, members of the community displayed outrage. A debate ensued with potential preservation grant dollars driven by an argument whether the hundred year-old site held historical significance, or was merely an antique.
County Executive Schuber was blunt in his financially driven reasoning: “…if the building has no [historical] significance, I don’t see how it could be preserved. I don’t see where the money would come from.”
The water company conducted a historical study in 1991. According to a company spokesperson, the study found “some historical value, but nothing of overwhelming significance.” The study also said the water pumping station and filtration building “don’t lend themselves easily to adaptive reuse“ because of their “cavernous nature and the heavy machinery and piping inside.”
Inside the abandoned plant (courtesy Ian Ference)
County officials tempered objections by announcing a historical and archaeological survey would take place before any decision is made. Estimates to redevelop the site approached $9 million dollars; the county agreed to also seek development proposals from outside parties who could offer their own financing.
Six proposals came through in June of 1993, two of which piqued the interest of county officials. One of the plans proposed converting two of the century-old buildings into fifty units of affordable housing; another converted one building into residential units and another into a small shopping mall.
courtesy Chip Renner
Meanwhile, the pace of the county’s decision making was beginning to worry the water company, who was still on the hook for the maintenance costs and taxes on the property until a decision was made.
It took several studies and two years of talks, but on October 20th, 1993, Bergen County finally agreed to accept the land gift from the water company. To facilitate the deal, the water utility agreed to pay the county $1.1 million toward either demolition or re-use of the New Milford site, surveyed at 64 acres instead of the previously estimated 47.
Regarding the tax revenue shortfall, the water company agreed to pay the taxes for the remainder of 1993 with the county picking up the bill for 1994, paying a total of about $100,000 to the two affected boroughs. The deal assumed that, by 1995, the property will have been demolished or redeveloped. In the interim, the old New Milford plant on Van Buskirk Island was added to the county park system.
In December of 1994 a high school teacher and his students spent several days inside the plant salvaging steam-engine parts and tools, hauling them back to their school for refurbishment. The equipment became part of a collection of 30 operable antique steam-driven turbines restored by students.
courtesy Mark B. Thompson associates
February of 1995 witnessed a small push for converting the New Milford plant into affordable senior housing and an engineering museum, but as before the problem was a lack of money. The following year non-profit PENWAL Corporation envisioned building 35 affordable senior housing units and 35 market-rate units, a 5,000-square-foot senior citizens center, a 55,000-square-foot retail building including 8,500 square feet of smaller shops, and close to 400 parking spaces.
Residents feared this would disturb the solitude offered by the wooded Van Buskirk Island. The developer claimed the supermarket and shops were necessary to subsidize the building restoration and housing costs. With the two sides unable to reach an accord, the plan stalled.
By June of 1996 Bergen County had enough; officials gave Oradell until the end of August to decide what to do with the land. If the borough could not find a suitor to redevelop, the property would be razed.
“… we want to work with the borough to come up with a plan that the public supports. But there comes a point when we can’t wait any longer.“
– William “Pat” Schuber, Bergen County Executive
The city pleaded for more time to give developers time to put together proposals. Schuber extended the deadline to November 1st, 1996. This allowed several proposals to roll in.
First was PENWAL, with its second attempt, submitted in August of 1996. Their new proposal was for a retirement home community, including a nursing home, senior care, and other housing for the elderly. Other proposals included a Korean Catholic Church and headquarters for a non-profit preservation group.
By October of 1996 city officials had five more proposals to evaluate, including a valve assembly plant, multifamily housing, and a museum featuring an art gallery and bookstore. None would ultimately pass muster, which forced Oradell Mayor James Snedeker to ask for more time. Schuber complied, extending the deadline until December 1st, 1996.
“The bulldozers aren’t coming in Nov. 1st… Why are we rushing? This is the first place where public water came from in the county. We don’t want to lose that.”
– Mary Lang, Oradell resident
The disconnect stemmed from what initially seemed to be contradicting goals.
Local preservationists desired a solution that didn’t include razing the buildings or adding retail businesses, fearing an increase in noise and traffic. Bergen County officials simply didn’t want to be on the hook for administrative and maintenance costs, preferring the safe route of razing the buildings and transforming the space into a passive park.
Oradell was not enthusiastic about losing the taxable revenue as a result of converting the site into a park; rather, they were interested in redevelopment – possibly preserving the buildings if it could be subsidized by the other businesses operating out of the old plant.
Mayor James Snedeker reminded Bergen County officials: “This land used to be a ratable four years ago. We used to get $81,000 to $84,000 from it and now it’s off the tax rolls.”
Hackensack Water Co.’s plant in Oradell, NJ (courtesy NorthJersey.com)
Time was running out; none of the proposals ticked all the boxes. Unfortunately for the preservationists, the fallback was the county’s preferred solution of razing the buildings and converting the site to a passive park.
Oradell officials felt that financially, their hands were tied. In November of 1996 the city decided the passive park concept was the most feasible course of action.
In December an eight-member task force was assembled to consider the logistics of such a move. The task force, appointed by Schuber, consisted of four county officials and four city residents. Their mission was to draw up a plan and secure funding for the site in the next 18 months.
Basement of the engine room (courtesy Ian Ference)
Funding the Preservation
By the spring of 1997, not much had changed. As had been the problem for the last seven years, the task force was having a difficult time sourcing funding for site preservation. Specifically, the group hoped to preserve the pump house building, which contained the “Old Number Seven” steam engine.
The task force was split on whether to raze the entire site or preserve a part of the former water plant. An eventual rift formed within the group, which began to exhibit more secrecy. In August of 1997 the group’s cards were so close to their vest, the public complained about the task force’s lack of transparency.
Pump Number 7 (courtesy Donald Martino)
A volunteer group applied for a $1.2 million state historic preservation grant and citizens in favor of preservation applied for recommendation to listing the former water plant on the Register of Historic Places.
Schuber, knowing that being added to the register would slow the metamorphosis into a passive park, asked the state historic preservation office to delay placing the site on the register until the task force had developed its plan.
In September of 1997 the Bergen County freeholders were split in their voting (4-3) of the best way to develop the nature preserve. A consulting group was hired to analyze different options and present them to the group. Said one task force member: “There are two different camps, one that says we ought to raze the buildings and make it a nature park, the other that says we ought to preserve them. When the study is done, we are going to know the pros and cons of doing both, and at that point we will make a final decision.“
Meanwhile, the rift in the task force grew. In October one task force member claimed she was not told that a consultant had been hired to help them until she read about it in The Record last month.
courtesy 150by70
The study found complete demolition would cost approximately $1.8 million. Costs to preserve the pump house and part of the adjacent water filtration building were estimated to be $14.6 million. Finances were looking dire; the group had just $800,000 remaining from the $1.1 million donation by the former Hackensack Water Company (now United Water).
At the time the only outside funding secured was a $575,000 grant through the state’s Historic Trust – but this money was contingent on the preservation of the entire pump house and the oldest sections of the water filtration plant. The aforementioned study estimated this cost at nearly $15 million, meaning the $575,000 grant was not significant.
By October of 1998, the task force’s best suggestion was turning over the preservation to a non-profit corporation. In January of the following year, the group released their report to the public. The report offered six options, all but one of which preserved at least a portion of the pump house. The time to implement the options ranged from 7 to 18 months.
Hackensack Water Company plant in Oradell, NJ circa 1998 (courtesy Dave Freider)
The Water Works Conservancy
Hackensack Water Works’ greatest benefactors would be those behind the Water Works Conservancy (WWC), a non-profit founded in 1994 as part of a grassroots effort to preserve the historic buildings. Front and center was Maggie Herrer, a vocal advocate for the preservation side and coincidentally also a member of Schuber’s task force.
In February of 1999 the WWC offered to take over the former industrial site, restore the buildings, and turn the remainder into a nature preserve at no cost to taxpayers. Under the proposal, the county would lease the non-profit the site for $1 per year for 25 years. The WWC would finance the project through a combination of environmental and historic preservation grants from state, federal, and private funds.
By May of 1999 Bergen County officials agreed to the proposal, but were unconvinced the conservancy would be able to raise the required funds. They reluctantly agreed – on the condition that the city of Oradell be on the hook for the site if the conservancy’s fundraising efforts failed.
New Milford residents were not as enthusiastic, the borough’s environmental commission being particularly vocal of its unconditional opposition to preserving the buildings on the site.
“I BELIEVE THE WATER WORKS CONSERVANCY IS LOOKING TO SPEND DOLLARS TO THE MEMORY OF A GIANT BRITA WATER FILTER AND A BIG SUMP PUMP — SOMETHING THAT HAS LITTLE PUBLIC INTEREST AND MINIMAL HISTORIC SIGNIFICANCE.
Charcoal filtration was developed and used in Germany in 1928. It was first used by the Hamm Water Works in Bay City, Mich., in 1929. The New Milford plant began using the process in 1930.”
– Paul Savitsky, Oradell Resident
Yet despite the opposition, the dominoes appeared to start falling in the right direction for preservation. If the WWC’s ownership bid was approved, it could potentially unlock millions of dollars in grant money.
Hackensack Water Co.’s upper coagulation tank (courtesy Chip Renner)
Losing an Important Ally
Everything seemed to come unraveled when the preservationists lost a key ally in Oradell Mayor James Snedeker. The mayor had been a key supporter of preserving the buildings, the lone voice in government with such a position.
In August of 2000, James Snedeker was disbarred by the state Supreme Court over a misappropriation of client funds. He was arrested and formally resigned as mayor in December of that year. County officials and the board of freeholders downplayed the event’s impact on the water works, saying Snedeker’s disbarment “would have little impact on the county’s park plan.”
This would ultimately prove to be far from the truth, as in April of 2001, the Oradell city council reversed course and passed a resolution stating it would not take ownership of the site if the WWC failed to secure financing.
In what would prove disastrous, the non-profit had lost its co-signer.
“Our feeling is we definitely don’t want to get involved where we have a financial responsibility.”
– Fred LaMonica, new Oradell Mayor
The other shoe would drop when preservationists lost their final ally in Bergen County Executive Pat Schuber. Previously amenable to a conditional partial preservation, Schuber announced in May of 2001 he now intended to recommend the demolition of the buildings, primarily because the group could not guarantee it would have the funds to develop the proposal.
Schuber admitted his change of opinion was directly influenced by Oradell’s new refusal to assume financial responsibility. Detractors were also pointing to the liability created by the site’s location in a flood plain, citing the five feet of water which had flooded the island after Tropical Storm Floyd in 1999.
Engine House main control room (courtesy Ian Ference)
Help from the Register
A lifeline came in June of 2001 when the state of New Jersey named the former Hackensack Water Company plant as a historic landmark. Three months later the Federal government got involved when the National Park Service added the water works to its National Register of Historic Places.
A spokesperson from Schuber’s office said the designation would have little impact; however preservationists acknowledged that at a minimum, the move erected another hurdle toward demolition.
What does inclusion on the National Register offer? Little in the way of practical protection, although it does require agencies overseeing a project to take any given site’s historical significance into consideration. This appears to be a gray area and largely subjective, but for the drowning water works buildings – which were steeped in historic milestones – it was a life-preserver.
In December of 2001 all parties involved debated a new $9.1 million plan, one which would see the water works turned into a Rome-style ruin. This compromise would demolish the majority of the plant, but it preserved several buildings. The 1911 pump house with its smoke stacks and steam engine would be preserved as a partially enclosed garden, while the shell of the filtration plant would serve as a backdrop for an amphitheater.
Before the year ended, New Jersey’s Historic Sites Council threw cold water on the plan to demolish the old Hackensack Water Company.
“To make a ruin out of a perfectly good structure is total theater.”
– Alan B. Buchan, Chairman, NJ Historic Council
As the Hackensack Waterworks Turns
In February of 2002 the New Jersey state Historic Council voted 9-0 to protect the former Hackensack Water Company plant. Bergen County Executive Schuber was disappointed with the results. “Today’s decision is a victory for a small band of special-interest players over the vast majority of Bergen County residents.”
Bergen County freeholders rebutted in March via an urging of the New Jersey environmental protection chief to allow them to demolish the buildings, so they can turn the site into a passive park. However Bradley Campbell, the state’s environmental protection commissioner, had only been on the job less than two months. Wanting time to familiarize himself with the entire case, Campbell extended the deadline for any ruling until June.
In June of 2002, the National Trust for Historic Preservation named the water plant to its annual list of “America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.” The Hackensack Water Company’s New Milford plant was declared “a rare and remarkably intact testament to American ingenuity,” and a “time capsule of 19th and 20th century technology.”
[ Did you Know? Since 1988, the trust has named 135 sites to the register; all but one have been saved. ]
Inside the water works (courtesy Ian Ference)
By late June of 2002, the issue had reached New Jersey state legislature. In Assembly Resolution No. 141, the Commissioner of Environmental Protection was urged to preserve the New Milford plant. Commissioner Campbell was still collecting information, so the environmental protection commissioner again postponed his decision, this time until 2003.
Meanwhile, Bergen County Executive William “Pat” Schuber was nearing the end of his third and final term. It had been ten years since the waterworks was gifted to the county, and the site’s unresolved status remained a stick in his craw. He remained unconvinced the site’s history was significant enough to preserve many of the structures. “To go overboard and preserve it completely, it’s not something I think is practical and not something I can support.”
Voices of the naysayers seemed to grow louder.
“If it’s such a wonderful site, why doesn’t the state make an offer to buy it? Everybody likes dictating what gets done, and NOBODY’S COMING UP WITH ANY MONEY.”
– Marguerite “Peg” Andro, passive park activist
A New Executive
Immediately after Schuber departed office, the demolition debate seemed to cool. This was partially attributed to Schuber’s successor Dennis McNerney, who upon taking office in January of 2003 declared he preferred to preserve the structures – albeit with limited access to the public.
As the political winds changed tack, so did those who were involved with developing plans for the waterworks. But it wasn’t until April of 2004 a new concept was presented to the freeholders: A part-time museum and scaled-down passive park.
Meanwhile Bergen County Administrator Timothy J. Dacey shared news that work to stabilize the buildings could begin as soon as the summer of 2004. Estimates for the stabilization approached $1 million. The county had $785,000 remaining of the $1.1 million subsidy from the water company; the remainder of the funds would reportedly come from a $500,000 state historic preservation grant.
In March of 2005 the Oradell City Council voiced their approval for a plan submitted by Hackensack Riverkeeper Bill Sheehan that would permanently prevent development and reuse of the century-old waterworks. The conservation easement proposal was meant to prevent developers from transforming any of the buildings into retail, residential, or commercial buildings.
Built to last (courtesy 150by70)
At first blush this appeared a blessing, however most development proposals involved residential or retail business to subsidize the preservation of the old structures. Without such economic support, developers would walk. This would have been a disaster for the boroughs, pushing full financial responsibility onto the municipal budget sheets. It was also the reason Sheehan’s plan was ultimately not selected.
Plant interior (courtesy Chip Renner)
In April of 2006 work began to replace deteriorating walls and roofs to prevent additional water damage to the building interiors. The one month long project was estimated to cost $436,000.
Meanwhile Bergen County Administrator Tim Dacey said he was getting 10 calls a week from developers about the property.
“Every guy with a real estate license who passes by that place calls us with an idea.”
Unfortunately, none of the calls involved a proposal which ticked all the necessary boxes.
Life After the Financial Crisis
Employee shower room (courtesy Amy Heiden)
When the banks stopped lending in 2007, developers stopped calling. For the next two years the ripples from the financial crisis proved to be additional hurdles. Relief came in September of 2009 when Bergen County announced it had secured a $750,000 state grant to fund stabilization work – and that it had applied for an additional $1 million.
Meanwhile city officials expressed frustration that the immense cost spent three years earlier on roof repairs had been undone by vandals who broke the windows. The padlocked doors had been defeated, and despite security patrols the site was penetrated often. Other issues persisted, such as groundwater seeping through the building’s foundation and into the grand pump room.
“If it’s only a permanent drain of taxpayer money, IT’S NOT GOING TO WORK.”
– Wolfram Hoefer, Rutgers professor
The stabilization grant began to accelerate discussion on the waterworks, and in November of 2009 more than two dozen Oradell and New Milford residents met with experts and officials to receive updates and share ideas.
By April of 2010 professors from Rutgers University got involved, and co-hosted a public meeting with officials from Bergen County to discuss the future of the plant. Their first proposal envisioned a nature refuge coexisting with preserved waterworks buildings which showcase the history of the Hackensack River and the regional water supply.
In September of 2010 officials hung banners and posted signs on the property to encourage residents’ input on redevelopment. Banners read “Work In Progress: Your Thoughts?” and directed residents to a Rutgers University webpage that proposed ideas.
The waterworks in 2011 (courtesy NorthJersey.com)
The $2 million project to repair the roof and stabilize the chimneys began in June of 2011, shortly after the New Jersey Historic Board of Trustees recommended a $704,384 Historic Preservation Grant..
“Because the severely degraded condition of the brick chimneys poses an imminent safety hazard from collapse, THAT REPAIR MUST BE DONE FIRST before work can be done on the buildings.”
– Carol Messer, Bergen County Division of Cultural and Historical Affairs
Demolition through Neglect
In January of 2012 residents caught wind of the Historic Preservation Trust’s plan to shift $500,000 in funds from the waterworks toward an open space project in nearby Saddle Brook. This was in addition to the $103,303 of Hackensack River Pathway Funds already under review for re-allocation. The site’s grant, previously approved in August of 2011, had been overridden by the Freeholders.
Freeholder board member John Felice felt the money could be better spent, citing the recent floods through Van Buskirk Island after Hurricane Irene. “The river was running through it,” said Felice, who referred to the plant as the “underwater works.”
“After the storms in September 2011 that flooded the Waterworks, I COULD NOT SUPPORT ADDITIONAL TAXPAYER MONEY TO BE USED FOR THIS PROJECT, period.”
– John Felice, Freeholder board member
Water floods the inside of the old HWC pump building (courtesy Ian Ference)
The decision was met with outrage in the community, sparking protests rallied by cries of “demolition through neglect.” Lobbying by preservation and activist groups was ultimately able to sway Felice, who surprised many when he announced a reversal of opinion in March of 2012.
“After much contemplation, consideration and comments from residents and historical advocates, my final recommendation will be to concur with the original allocation of $500,000 to the waterworks project via resolution to the Board of Chosen Freeholders.”
Water plant smokestacks (courtesy Jack Surran)
The Freeholder board voted unanimously to approve the $500k grant, and later in July of 2012 approved a chimney stabilization proposal allowing up to $785,713 to be spent on the old Hackensack waterworks plant in Oradell. This would escalate to $1.2 million by December.
The contractor tasked with the job shared the following with the public:
“As an initial implementation phase, the County is currently undertaking the stabilization of the two chimney stacks: the square-plan boiler stack, approximately 112 feet tall dating to 1898, and the radial Heinicke Company chimney, approximately 185 feet tall constructed in 1915. The chimney project is scheduled to be completed in the summer of 2013, at which point important safety issues will be addressed, and the County can proceed with additional protection and stabilization work on the site.”
Since 2012, Bergen County, along with the boroughs of Oradell and New Milford, have continued to offer a meager maintenance program for the buildings; however due to financial limitations, it has been more of an arrested decay program rather than one of restoration.
It seems any hope for a proper restoration would require a significant financial benefactor – one willing to sustain a large unrecoverable loss.
courtesy Amy Heiden
The halls of the former Hackensack Waterworks pumping station no longer hum with the syncopated rhythm of its steam engines. Architecturally the buildings remain handsome, if not imposing relics, but their classic dark-red brick Romanesque Revival style is one not often seen in newer construction.
Why is the Oradell water plant worth saving? The development of the Hackensack Water Works buildings and the innovations in water delivery and filtration systems are nationally significant as a model of water works engineering from 1882-1931. Preservationists tell us the method of carbon filtration, which later became an international standard, was developed at the site in the 1920s.
There is also the fact the facility is the only remaining intact Rapid Sand Filtration Plant and Pumping Station in the nation, and the plant’s enormous pumps are among the few remaining complete examples in existence.
“The buildings and structures…display A SPLENDID INTEGRATION OF ENGINEERING AND ARCHITECTURE, combining classical design with technological innovations.”
– Clifford Zink, historian
Pump number 7 (courtesy Amy Heiden)
There is no debate that being the first in anything has a historic significance, but so too can being the last of its kind.
Water was not invented in Bergen County, but the remains of the Hackensack Water Company’s New Milford plant can show future generations how steam-powered nineteenth-century water improvements enabled cities and towns of yesteryear to deliver purified water on a large-scale to Americans for the first time.
We can always look at pictures of animals in a book, but there is something to be said for visiting a zoo. Seeing vintage machinery like Old Number Seven in person would probably leave a greater impression too.
Tags:abandoned new jersey waterworks, abandoned public utilities, abandoned utilities, abandoned waterworks, allis chalmers, bergen county water, Bergen County water works, buskirk gristmill, hackensack water, hackensack water company, new jersey plant, new milford plant, new milford water, New Milford Water Plant, New Milford water works, old number 7 steam engine, old number seven steam engine, oradell water, Oradell water plant, Oradell water works, steam engine factory, urban exploration, van buskirk island, water works, water works conservancy, waterworks conservancy, worthington duplex, worthington duplex pumping engine
Holy Land USA
Largest Abandoned Factory in the World: The Packard Factory, Detroit
The Ghost Fleet of Mallows Bay
Deviant7
A beautiful, well thought out post as always! I’m just wondering if you’ve ever considered writing about some of the abandoned hydroelectric power plants around Niagara Falls. Many of them still exist and have a long, interesting history behind them that speaks of the great men behind them.
Sep 14, 2015 Reply
Thank you for the nice comment Deviant7. I had not thought about Niagara, I’ll have to look into that one. Did not know there was abandoned hydroelectric plants there, that sounds interesting! Thanks for the tip, I will start digging. 🙂
noellevignola
These old buildings are so beautiful. I just don’t understand how governments get so locked up that no creative solutions can flow out. Had they invested at the time of closure this would’ve been a perfect property. To have been turned into cool flats or an open market, like Quincy Market in Boston and so forth.
It is a shame they haven’t been able to agree on a solution for so long, but silver lining: that indecision has helped to keep the buildings around. I think flats & a small village-like market would be a great idea, but that has been voted down by the residents. I also wonder what any developer would realistically do with all the pipes. I hope they can find a solution soon! Thanks for the comment Noelle. 🙂
“The study also said the water pumping station and filtration building “don’t lend themselves easily to adaptive reuse“ because of their “cavernous nature and the heavy machinery and piping inside.”
That’s exactly what I was thinking when I was reading this great article. What could you possibly re-use these buildings for, if your goal was to preserve the machinery inside as well? It could only be a museum because no business today can realistically use those steam engines. Even if you could get them working again they would be massively inefficient, no? I wish it could be saved, I’m just being practical. I can see Schuber’s position.
Great point Michael, I was thinking the same thing. The condition of the infrastructure is probably not up to standard for re-use. Short of making it a museum, you’d have to rip out all the piping for any redevelopment or razing. It’s a tough predicament to break down the details, I don’t envy the decision makers. The coagulation basin can probably go though, right?
this was a great read! definitely beautiful buildings hope they can be saved.
Thanks Dan, I appreciate the comment. And Agreed!
médias_sng
I have been to New Jersey but not Oradell or New Milford. Fantastic article, I will share with my friends thank you!
Thanks, and thanks for sharing!
Truels
Thank you for another interesting post, my friend!
Cheers Truels. Thanks for stopping by and reading, my friend!
Great article. A portion of the land was sold to Hekemian development in New Milford who attempted to build a Shop Rite but it was shot down. Was this part of the sale back in the 90’s?
Thanks Donald. It could have been, I came across at least three instances where a proposed redevelopment plan was shot down due to the presence of commercial or other retail operations, especially ones that increased traffic to the area. I would imagine a Shop Rite would have triggered both of those concerns. I wonder if the failure of that development plan did anything to collapse the transaction of that sale?
Oct 2, 2015 Reply
Dorothy Nicklus
Wonderful article.
This property **can** be de-listed from misguided Historic Preservation. A money pit with NO results, it’s long overdue.
Passive Park with sculpture and museum could have worked. It’s sad to see what a waste of money this has been. It’s only yielded legal fees for various administrations and the rest wasted on repairs.
People would enjoy a park and a museum. Nobody benefits having these buildings decay.
Private public partnership with a planned development would return it to tax roles. Just sayin
Think people!
Jan 2, 2016 Reply
Erich Amberger
Great article! I happen to be one of the students from Bergen Tech removing equipment from the pump station. It was an amazing experience working in the old plant. I grew up in Dumont and passed the pump station quite often , admiring the buildings and what was inside. It is nice to see that everything is still standing, but sad to see vandals breaking in, and nothing open to the public.
Jun 17, 2016 Reply
Thanks Erich, appreciate you stopping by. That’s pretty neat, I bet that was a great experience indeed. Color me jealous! Sounds like it gave you an appreciation for the place and its history. Hopefully something is done soon before the buildings are lost forever. Thanks for leaving a comment!
Peter J Sullivan
I have been a resident of New Milford for about 40 years. We live on Center Street, just around the corner from the Water Works. Hoping to help create a museum to educate the public about “structured water” and develop a way to create an income from the property, we are exploring setting up a Vertical Farm to grow food and fish with a SolaRoof greenhouse technology. (Some web sites are below.)
http://naturalactiontechnologies.com/hydration-facts/
We are setting up a Water Warriors Cooperative platform to discuss these efforts. Join here:
https://www.loomio.org/g/9hPKFaAr/water-warriors-cooperative
Peter J. Sullivan
Apr 24, 2017 Reply
Lyle C Briggs
Keep the buildings and the more impressive, beautiful machinery, plaque the history, gut the place and build park, restaurants, performance and store spaces around and within. Eazy peezy.
Jan 30, 2019 Reply
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Kristen Anna, College of Natural Sciences
By Julianna Cervi
She’s been an English major, a film major and a psychology major, and through it all Kristen Anna has found her passion in women’s rights.
She was born in Fort Worth, Texas, but grew up in Woodland Park, Colo. She developed an interest in psychology when she attended the University of North Carolina in Asheville. She transferred to Colorado State University because it was close to home and offered many research possibilities in her field of study.
“The research opportunities here at CSU have only furthered my love for psychology,” Anna says. She will receive her bachelor’s in psychology from the College of Natural Sciences this month.
Anna worked as a research assistant with Professor of Psychology Silvia Sara Canetto and psychology graduate student Lauren Menger. One of their projects focused on women’s rights and leadership in Nepal. Anna notes that women have a hard time getting jobs in Nepal, where there is a great deal of poverty and many problems with human trafficking.
Anna co-authored with Menger and Canetto a poster presented at the Association for Women in Psychology (AWP) conference in Pittsburgh in March. The presentation included findings from interviews with female leaders in Nepal.
“Lauren interviewed 20 women who had various leadership positions and asked how they became those leaders, what helped, and what challenges they faced,” Anna said. “Presenting our findings at the AWP conference was an amazing experience because we saw so many presentations and different research focused solely on women.”
Anna is also an officer in the No More Injustice club at CSU. The club puts on a big event on campus called Enslaved, focused on modern-day human trafficking. The members set up simulations that show what human trafficking looks like in the U.S. today, and participants take part in the simulations. The club hosts many involvement fairs to raise awareness of human trafficking; this year it focused particularly on Colorado and took part in CSU’s first-ever ACT Human Rights Film Festival.
Anna plans to attend graduate school at the University of Denver in the international rights program, in particular DU’s Human Trafficking Center, which is devoted to research on that topic.
“I want to focus on development, particularly for women,” Anna says, “and further my research there in the future.”
College of Natural SciencesDepartment of PsychologyOutstanding GradsSocial Justicestudent featuresUndergraduate Research
Julianna Cervi
More posts by Julianna Cervi
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2009 Korba chimney collapse
From SourceWatch
This article is part of the Coal Issues portal on SourceWatch, a project of Global Energy Monitor and the Center for Media and Democracy. See here for help on adding material to CoalSwarm.
This article is part of the CoalSwarm coverage of India and coal.
Sub-articles:
Proposed coal plants
Existing coal plants
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Existing coal mines
State-by-state coal profiles
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Coal terminals
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Mining companies
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Indian company investments in overseas coal mines
Opposition to coal in India
Troubled Indian Coal Plant Construction Sites
The 2009 Korba chimney collapse occurred at the BALCO Korba power station in the town of Korba in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh on 23 September 2009. It was under construction by Gannon Dunkerley & Company Limited (GDCL) for Shandong Electric Power Construction Corporation (Sepco), who themselves were under contract for the Bharat Aluminium Co Ltd (BALCO). Construction had reached 240 meters when the chimney collapsed on top of more than 100 workers who had been taking shelter from a thunderstorm. At least 45 deaths were recorded.[1][2][3]
1 Incident and rescue
3 References and Resources
3.3 Related pages
Incident and rescue
Plans specify a 250 meter chimney for the construction of a coal-fired power plant by Bharat Aluminum Company, which is owned by Vedanta Resources.[3][4][5] The incident happened during extreme weather conditions involving lightning and torrential rainfall. Workers sought shelter from the rain in a nearby store room,[3][6] and a lightning strike at approximately 16:00 brought the chimney down on top of them.[7][6]
A rescue attempt was initiated following the collapse. Ongoing rain obstructed efforts to retrieve the trapped workers.[7] At least seven of the wounded were hospitalised.[4] An GDCL employee was allegedly lynched by angry workers; his corpse was located near the scene.[7] It was originally thought he had fallen from the chimney, but wounds indicate he was attacked.[6]
An investigation is ongoing to determine the cause of the collapse.[8][9][10] Balco initially did not discussed the incident at length, stating only that "[t]here is an accident and some people are injured";[10] claiming to be too busy with the rescue effort to make a longer statement.[7] The state government believes that Balco had been "overlooking security aspects".[11] District superintendent of police, Ratanlal Dangi, described it as "a massive accident".[8]Rs. 100,000 (US$2084) in compensation will be granted to relatives of each of the dead.[11]
In November 2008, the project manager from GDCL was arrested, as well as three officials from Vedanta Resources which manages Balco. Later the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Raipur observed that the materials were of substandard quality and technically faulty in design. NIT also concluded that there was improper water curing and that soil at the site was not up to code. Additionally, supervision and monitoring was found to be negligent. On January 11, 2010, as a result of these findings, three senior officials of Sepco, the Chinese company contracted to build the chimney, were arrested and are being held without bail.[1]
References and Resources
↑ 1.0 1.1 Balco chimney mishap: Three Chinese officials arrested in Korba. The Hindustan Times (2010-01-11). Archived from the original on 15 January 2010. Retrieved on 2010-01-26.
↑ Anderlini, Jamil (2009-09-29). India questions Sepco staff over chimney collapse. The Financial Times. Archived from the original on 3 October 2009. Retrieved on 2009-09-29.
↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 25 die in accident at BALCO's new plant at Korba. Business Standard (2009-09-24). Retrieved on 2009-09-24.
↑ 4.0 4.1 Deaths as India chimney collapses. Al Jazeera (2009-09-23). Archived from the original on 24 September 2009. Retrieved on 2009-09-23.
↑ Many dead after construction accident in India. Radio Netherlands Worldwide (2009-09-23). Retrieved on 2009-09-23.
↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Balco chimney fall kills 24. The Telegraph (Kolkata) (2009-09-24). Retrieved on 2009-09-24.
↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 25 die in accident at Balco's new plant at Korba. Business Standard (2009-09-24). Retrieved on 2009-09-24.
↑ 8.0 8.1 India chimney collapse 'kills 15'. BBC (2009-09-23). Archived from the original on 29 September 2009. Retrieved on 2009-09-23.
↑ 15 die in power plant accident. The Straits Times (2009-09-23). Retrieved on 2009-09-23.
↑ 10.0 10.1 UPDATE 2-At least 20 killed in Indian chimney collapse. Reuters (2009-09-23). Retrieved on 2009-09-23.
↑ 11.0 11.1 15 workers killed, 50 trapped in Chhattisgarh plant, probe ordered. Sify (2009-09-23). Archived from the original on 2009-09-27. Retrieved on 2009-09-23.
Official site of Bharat Aluminium Co Ltd
Coal mining accidents
BALCO Korba power station
Wikipedia also has an article on 2009 Korba chimney collapse. This article may use content from the Wikipedia article under the terms of the GFDL.
Retrieved from "https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=2009_Korba_chimney_collapse&oldid=597354"
Coal Issues
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Proposed coal plants in India
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Khashoggi Just a ‘Football’ in Saudi-Turkish Rivalry for Sunni Leadership
© AFP 2019 / STR / TURKISH PRESIDENTIAL PRESS OFFICE
On Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced he would the next day “make a detailed statement” about the fate of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, following the Saudi admission Friday that Khashoggi was dead. The Turkish response is conditioned by the rivalry between the two countries, an historian told Sputnik Monday.
"Turkey, right now, is number one jailer of journalists, and Erdogan has now become the savior of journalists," Kani Xulam, a commentator on the history and politics of Kurdistan, told Radio Sputnik's Fault Lines Monday. "It's a hypocrisy unheard of."
[Interview begins at 36:40]
Xulam told Sputnik about "two other Khashoggis of the Middle East" who spoke truth to power and, like Khashoggi, were killed or live in exile: Turkish journalist Can Dundar, who was driven out of the country, and Kurdish lawyer Tahir Elci, who was killed. "Erdogan basically would've done the same thing to Khashoggi if Khashoggi has risen up to him," Xulam noted.
© Sputnik / Alexey Vitvitsky
Merkel: Berlin May Halt Weapon Sales to Riyadh Over Khashoggi’s Death
"There's a rift in the Islamic world right now, in the Sunni world," Xulam explained. "You have Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Egypt on one side, and you have Turkey and Qatar who have, basically, disposable income on the other side. There are other Muslims countries, but they're too busy with their own problems. So these five countries have been basically divided into two factions."
"Saudi Arabia would have easily gotten away with" Khashoggi's murder, "let's say 10 years ago," Xulam observed. "Turkey wouldn't have even mentioned it, wouldn't have even said, ‘I have a recording,' wouldn't have even said, ‘We know about this killing.' They would have hushed it." But because of this schism in the Sunni world, "Turkey has now become ‘the champion of the freedom of expression' and wants to extort Saudi Arabia. I'm glad they are doing it, but they are doing it for the wrong reasons," he said, noting that some in the media have speculated the Turkish government is looking for blackmail money or ways to convince the Saudis to aid the flagging Turkish economy, "to the tune of billions of dollars. It doesn't look like the Saudis want to do that, so far at least. And so, Erdogan has said tomorrow that he's going to spill the beans and reveal his side of the story as to what happened inside of the consulate."
Mideast States Voice Support for Saudi Arabia Over Khashoggi Case
Xulam told hosts Garland Nixon and Lee Stranahan that this divide really goes back to the origins of Islam, which began in the Arabian peninsula in the seventh century AD. The prophet Muhammad was an Arab, and nearly all of the his early followers were Arabs; only later did other peoples convert to Islam. After Turkic peoples migrated to the Middle East in the 11th century, they slowly established control over the Muslim centers of power and religion, finally becoming leaders of the Sunni Muslim world in the 14th century, when the Ottoman Turkish Sultan Murad I adopted the title of caliph, a claim to right of succession to the prophet Muhammad as leader of the Muslim community.
However, the position of caliph was abolished in 1924 when the modern Turkish state was founded and Mustafa Kemal moved to secularize the government. Shortly thereafter, with the discovery of oil in the Arabian peninsula in the 1930s, Xulam said, the new Saudi monarchy "didn't install [the caliphate] and didn't declare it… but they became the de facto Sunni leaders" based on the kingdom's economic power.
However, "with the advent of the Arab Spring, that became questioned," as the regional order was thrown into chaos, particularly by the rise to power of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 2009.
© Wikimedia Commons; U.S. Army Signal Corps
Thomas Lippmann: US Has Never Risked Saudi Relationship Over Human Rights
"Turkey doesn't really like to be playing second fiddle, so they now want to challenge Saudi Arabia, because Erdogan is an Islamist politician. So ideally from Erdogan's perspective, he would love to topple or bring down the Saudis or their role in the international Sunni Muslim politics. They would love to take over that. The conflict comes from there, and Khashoggi has become the ‘football' between the two factions."
Xulam said he didn't think the rivalry between Saudi Arabs and Turks would get as bad as that between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which is Shiite and for which the Saudis have established quotas for Hajj pilgrimages to Mecca, which all Muslims regardless of sect are expected to make once during their lives if possible. However, "Saudi-Turkish relations don't look good," so more turmoil may result from whatever saber-rattling Erdogan might engage in.
Major saber-rattling such as Erdogan's anticipated "beans spilling" Tuesday, perhaps.
Xulam said that the Turkish media was making a great deal out of the racial implications in Khashoggi's murder, fanning the "he killed one of us" mentality, even though Khashoggi's family, though ethnically Turkish, decided to "stay put" in Arabia as the Ottoman Turkish empire collapsed and Arab nationalist states broke away from it.
Turkey Does Not Want Khashoggi Case to Damage Relations With Saudis - Spokesman
"I believe [the Turks] are going to milk Saudi Arabia for all it's worth," Xulam said, but he also thinks they will get what they can from the United States, too. US President Donald Trump has said he has not ruled out the possibility of sanctions against Riyadh for the killing of Khashoggi. On Monday, Trump told reporters outside the White House he was "not satisfied" with the explanation given him by Mohammed bin Salman, Sputnik reported.
"Unfortunately, journalists disappear in the Middle East. They end up spending decades in jails. Turkey, right now, is number one jailer of journalists, and Erdogan has now become the savior of journalists. It's hypocrisy unheard of, and yet it's unfolding in front of us."
Johnson's Stance on Khashoggi Case Shows UK Double Standards - Russian Embassy
No Action to Follow Western Harsh Rhetoric Over Khashoggi’s Death - AfD
Siemens CEO Refuses to Attend Riyadh Forum Over Journalist Khashoggi's Death
Kushner: US Urged Saudi Crown Prince to Be Transparent Over Khashoggi Case
arrested journalists, leadership, rivalry, Sunnis, Fault Lines, Jamal Khashoggi, Mohammed bin Salman, Erdogan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey
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Posts tagged ‘pearce’
St. Andrew Parish School Lead by New Principal & Three New Teachers Join the Staff
By Beth Nateghi. Delavan, Wisc. – Parents and students will see a new friendly face, John Chovanec, in the principal’s office at St. Andrew Parish School and three new faces will greet them in the Kindergarten, Music and Physical Education classrooms.
L-R: John Chovanec, Brian Wrightson, Susan Pearce, Ryan Fritz
Chovanec served as Principal the past nine years at St. Dominic School, Brookfield. During his tenure at St. Dominic, the school was awarded the Archdiocese of Milwaukee Exemplary Award for Innovative Programs, 2010-2014. Chovanec has initiated many programs and positions at his former school, not the least being Faculty Faith Formation, Technology Coordinator and Guidance Counselor. Prior to becoming an administrator, he was a junior high social studies teacher for 20 years. He also coached cross-country, track, and basketball. Chovanec and his wife recently settled in Delavan.
Susan Pearce spent the last 16 years containing the excitement of kindergarteners at St. Patrick School in Elkhorn and now she is Kindergarten teacher at St. Andrew Parish School. She earned degrees in early childhood and elementary education from Western Illinois University and has been teaching for 29 years. Pearce also enjoys water sports and reading and has said that everyone from the staff to the families have been so nice and welcoming.
Pearce says, “I look forward to working with the kids and providing a positive base for their school years ahead.”
Brian Wrightson received his undergraduate degree in music business from Elmhurst College and his Master in Music Education from VanderCook College of Music. He has had the opportunity to teach in Catholic elementary, middle and high schools throughout Southern Wisconsin. Wrightson will serve as Music Instructor at St. Andrew Parish School and also the Music Director for the parish. His wife, Johnelle McDermott, is also musically gifted and provides a lot of behind-the-scenes support and organization.
Music occupies Wrightson’s free time too as he gives private lessons at The Dance Factory. He also enjoys walks with Mika, his Siberian Husky/Malamute mix.
Last year Ryan Fritz was hired as a long-term substitute and this year he takes the permanent position as Physical Education teacher. He received his undergraduate degree in history from the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater and his Master of Education from George Williams College of Aurora University. Fritz stays active with crossword puzzles, movies and coaching JV boys basketball at Williams Bay High School.
“I love the Catholic school environment and staying active with the kids everyday,” says Fritz.
St. Andrew Parish School in Delavan, Wisc. is celebrating its 73rd year of developing students’ moral and spiritual growth, physical and psychological development, academic and cultural advancement to prepare them as useful, productive and caring Christian citizens of the community. For more information visit http://www.standrews-delavan.org or call 262-728-6211.
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I’m not your father
A woman starts dating a doctor. Before too long, she becomes pregnant and they don’t know what to do. About nine months later, just about the time she is going to give birth, a priest goes into the hospital for a prostate gland infection. The doctor says to the woman, “I know what we’ll do. After I’ve operated on the priest, I’ll give the baby to him and tell him it was a miracle.” “Do you think it will...
He who hath not sinned, cast the first stone
Jesus was standing on a hill talking to his people. “He who hath not sinned, cast the first stone”. Just then a stone came flying from the back of the crowd and hit him hard on the head. “Ouch, Mom! I hate when you do that!” Lame jokes...
Working on a preacher’s car
A man was working on a preacher’s car in a garage and he was pushing hard on a wrench to loosen a nut and his hand slipped. He yelled “G**damn it” and the preacher said, “Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, say ‘Lord, help me, Lord help me.'” The man went back to work and, a little while after, his hand slipped again and he said “Goddamn it” again. The preacher again told him,...
What was the first thing Eve said to Adam?
Three nuns die and go to heaven, but all must answer one question to get in. The first nun is asked: “Who was the first man on Earth?” She says: “Adam” Lights flash and the pearly gates open. The second nun is asked: “Who was the first woman on Earth?” She says: “Eve” Lights flash and the gates open. The third nun is asked: “What was the first thing Eve said to Adam?” Puzzled, the nun...
What did you bring?
Jesus was worried about the drug epidemic plaguing the world. In an effort to solve this dilemma, he decided that a few apostles would return to earth and fetch a sample of each drug, so they could understand what these substances did. Two days after the operation is implemented, the disciples begin to return. Jesus, waiting at the door, lets in each disciple: “Who is it?” “It’s Mark” Jesus opens the door:...
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Dis you ever realize the Tarzan story is about a white guy who grew up in a predominantly black neighborhood? Black jokes...
A Frenchman, an Englishman and a New Yorker are exploring the jungle and are captured by a fierce tribe
A Frenchman, an Englishman and a New Yorker are exploring the jungle and are captured by a fierce tribe. The chief tells them, “The bad news is that we’ve caught you, we’re going to kill you, and then use your skins to build a canoe. The good news is that you get to choose how you die.” The Frenchman says, “I take ze poison.” The chief gives him some poison; the Frenchman says, “Vive la France!”...
Why did the Canadian cross the road?
Why did the Canadian cross the road? He saw some Americans do it on TV. Lame jokes...
The doctor asked me to stay away from the tea
Ram: Why are you drinking tea with the help of the straw? Raju: Because doctor asked me to stay away from the tea. Dumb jokes...
Can you give me a lobotomy?
A polish guy goes to the doctor and says, “Doctor, can you give me a lobotomy?” The doctor says, “Why on earth would you want a lobotomy?” The polack responds, “Why, so I can write ‘dumb polack’ jokes, of course!” Dumb jokes...
I’m tropical
I didn’t really understand my family until I moved to Puerto Rico as an adult. For, like, five years, I lived there, and before then, I had always assumed that the dementia, the craziness in our family, was specific to our household. Then, I moved to the island – 4 million people behaving the exact same way – and I realized, ‘Oh my God, I’m not dysfunctional. I’m tropical!’ Yo mama jokes...
How many Irishmen does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Q: How many Irishmen does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: Aw, f**k it! We’ll drink in the dark! Dark jokes...
Why did the Italian boy want to grow a mustache
Q: Why did the Italian boy want to grow a mustache? A: So he could look like his mama. Stupid jokes...
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The G.A.R. is Gone
The Grand Army of the Republic, the powerful veterans organization of Union veterans of the Civil War, was officially disbanded in 1956, following the death of the last Union soldier, Albert Woolson. At its peak, just before the turn of the twentieth century, the G.A.R. was an association possessed of great demographic, political, and social power. With over 400,000 members, it advocated for pensions and other veterans’ benefits at the national level and played multiple fraternal and civic roles in every city and town which had a post: over 7000 across the nation and 210 here in Massachusetts, of which Salem’s Philip H. Sheridan post (#34) was among the oldest and largest. Because of the decentralized nature of the G.A.R., its membership records are found primarily in local repositories, and its successor organization, the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, maintains a register of record locations. Salem’s G.A.R. records–16 boxes in all–are in the Phillips Library of the Peabody Essex Museum, and so gone, with the rest of its material heritage, to a storage facility in Rowley.
Greenlawn Cemetery in Salem, and the 2016 memorial for Medal of Honor recipient Thomas Atkinson.
It is tempting to dismiss the G.A.R. as a dusty and defunct fraternal order which only represented a certain minority of the population, but its impact was consequential: Decoration Day/ Memorial Day as well as more material forms of remembrance and veterans’ benefits are among its legacies. The Library of Congress’s guide to G.A.R. records in its possession highlights several potential subjects for research, including: social and charitable activities of Civil War veterans, the establishment and development of orphans’ and veterans’ pensions, and the post-war political activity of Union veterans as well as the attitudes of Union veterans towards government and the civil service. Many towns and cities–in our region Marblehead and Lynn come to mind immediately–have not only preserved their G.A.R. records but created museums for their interpretation. But Salem’s went to the PEM’s predecessor, the Essex Institute, like the records of most of its organizations, associations, and institutions, because the Essex Institute was Salem’s historical society. The Phillips Library’s finding aid for its G.A.R. records admits that these records create a detailed picture of an active GAR post with a large member base, yet this is a picture we can’t see—or paint—because of their inaccessibility, in apparent violation of the Massachusetts General Laws Part I, Title II, Chapter 8, Section 18:
The histories, relics and mementos of the Grand Army of the Republic of the department of Massachusetts and the records of the Massachusetts department of the United Spanish War Veterans, of The American Legion, of the Disabled American Veterans of the World War, of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, of the American Veterans of World War II, AMVETS, and of the Veterans of the Indian Wars shall be accessible at all times, under suitable rules and regulations, to members of the respective departments and to others engaged in collecting historical information. Whenever any such department ceases to exist, its records, papers, relics and other effects shall become the property of the commonwealth.
The Massachusetts State House festooned for a G.A.R. encampment in 1927, Leslie Jones, Boston Globe; images from the History and Complete Roster of the Massachusetts Regiments, Minutemen of ’61 who Responded to the First Call of President Lincoln, April 15, 1861, to defend the Flag and Constitution of the United States (1910).
This entry was posted on Monday, May 7th, 2018 at 6:08 am and tagged with Archives, Cemeteries, Civil War, Peabody Essex Museum, Phillips Library, Research and posted in History, Salem. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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19 responses to “The G.A.R. is Gone”
Stephanie Publicker
What a funny coincidence. Last night I was in Bridgton, Maine with friends and noticed the G.A.R. Hall which looks to be well maintained and now houses a local craft collective. The friends had no idea what G.A.R. stood for and I was glad that I could explain what the G.A.R. had been.
That’s great that it’s found a new use!
bonniehurdsmith
Nelson has wonderful photos of GAR reunions at The Willows in his collection!
Well thank goodness for that! Otherwise there would be no trace of them in Salem……..
Nelson Dionne
I have several Salem News clippings about the Salem GAR Post,,in the Military binders at the SSU Archive. The group’s building was is poor condition by the mid 30’s ( as were the members ) . The building was no longer acceptable for use as a public all. It was sold soon after.
I believe that it became a parking lot after the War.
Bonnie’s new book on The Military History of Salem covers the group,
as well as the story of may other local Veterans groups & their activities
& reunions…
Salem Serves: Sites and Stories from the Military and Patriotic History of Salem, Massachusetts
We hope to finally ship i off to the printers very soon. We have many unpublished photographs of Fort Pickering during the Civil War. The
book will be another title worth buying.for military as well as local history
buffs.
Nanny Almquist
Thanks for this informative post and especially the bit about having the GAR’s records available to the public. When is our AG Moira Healey going to take up Salem’s history cause?
I’ll have an update on that tomorrow, Nanny.
ichibanneko@yahoo.com
May 8th, 2018 at 9:48 pm
As I remember it, Salem’s last surviving veteran of the Civil War was Thomas P. Corson, who lived on a street across from the Cogswell (Salem’s other Civil War general and Member of Congress). He was a member of General Lander G. A. R. Post No. 5 in Lynn. I believe that Corson died in the Summer of 1945.
Two more items of interest: Does anyone remember the 20 pounder Parrott Rifle that was up in Mack (Ledge Hill) Park. As I remember it, it was mounted on a granite plinth and overlooked Goodhue Street.
There were two more 20 pounder Parrott rifles mounted in front of the Salem Civil War Memorial at Winter Street and Washington Square West.
The three cannon have all disappeared. I know that the US Government retains ownership of all Civil War ordnance that was loaned to the various cities and towns for use in war memorials, so they must be around somewhere. Does anyone have any ideas?
Interesting info and questions—thanks!
I have quite a bit of information & period photos of cannon in Salem.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/1910-SALEM-WILLOWS-pc-CANNON-PARK-VIEW-from-OLD-FORT-LEE-Salem-MA-PostCard/372240116118?hash=item56ab3d6996:g:DTMAAOSwyvBV9HNX
I have a letter from a collector about the cannon shown in the postcard.
I was not aware that there were any cannon at any other Salem parks.
I have many period photos as well as several articles about the memorial
at Winter St by the Washington SQ N intersection. I do not know when
they were removed, BUT, a great number of things were scrapped that
never should have
.Beverly had a brass cannon that was taken from a British warship in
a battle that occurred in local waters that was scrapped.
Bob Albert
Nice article, but the successor to the GAR is the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War. Only one word off. My gr-gr-grandfather was in the Berry posy in Malden, and I joined the SUVCW in his honor.
Thanks for the correction!
Glenn McDonald
There definitely was a cannon at Mack Park. Even though I’m a Gallows Hill (28 Albion Street) boy by birth and inclination, I spent many happy hours playing on that cannon in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Phil Sheridan Post No. 34 was located at 12 St. Peter Street, next to a livery stable. I don’t know when it/they were razed. All I really remember is that when I was young, the site was a Cities Service gas station. After the building was razed, Post No. 34 moved in with the United Spanish American War Veterans on Beckford ST (also on my paper route, which ended at the Public Library).
Veering way off topic, How many bowling alleys can you remember in downtown Salem? Candlepin Lanes off Canal Street doesn’t count.
I bowled at the tiny alleys downstairs at the Y.
I always bowled my best at Heff’s (Heffernan’s) bowling alley inder the A&P at the NE corner of Bridge and Washington Streets. Heff always offered something like a $500 (?) bonus to anyone who could roll a score of 200, or higher in league competition.. As I remember, only Gordon Brousseau and one other got to claim the prize money.
There were two more, defunct by the time I knew about them, But I was there, and saw what was left.
One, name unknown, was in the basement of the Merchant’s Bank, on the SE corner of Essex and Derby Square. Entrance was from a long stairway on the Derby Square side.
Finally, there was a bowling alley, again, name unknown, under the Old Post Office (later an Eaton’s Drug Store) on the SW corner of Essex and ST. Peter Streets. I remember that you could see the long dead pins lying on the dusty alleys if you were tall enough to look through a dirty safety wired (remember them?) window as you walked down the stairwell on St. Peter Street
Also, there was a bowling alley on Mill Hill before WW I. It was called Hawthorne Lanes, and was at 293 Washington Street, almost exactly where the St. Mary’s Church WW I memorial is in the littlr park at the junction of Washington and Lafayette Streets,
There was another, called Reliable Bowling Alleys, at 53 Washington ST, just East of Federal ST, but that was long gone by WW II.
Wow–that’s a lot of bowling alleys. Where exactly was the G.A.R./ Spanish American Veterans post on Beckford?
Good Evening All;;
I should have this note type by someone else. I no longer have the
digital dexterity that I did. However, I can still research & gather today’s
Salem , paper as it comes out. It”s free for the effort & quirky vanishes..
Your reply as brought up many dim memories.
II started Salem high in Sept. 1961.,after spending 9 years at St. Anne’s.
I too delivered the Salem Evening News around the Jefferson Ave
neighborhood. The cost was 3 cents ! I ended the route at the high
end of Adam’s St, Back then, there was well used path on the ridge
that hill that ended in the back of the Casino Press building…There was a
film processing operation that used to throw away the 35 mm canisters.
A great find for all. A few years later, the building became the “Giant –
Valu ” super market.. I used to hang around Nick’s Variety store. My
great uncle Ernie April as there every night to pick up the final
edition of the Boston American. They published the Treasury balance,
the “Number” that was eagerly awaited by the “Numbers” players !
All the factories had a person who collected the nickle or dime bets from
the “players” of the “N****R Pool.” The Boston bookies were the only
real winners.!
My father was the meat cutter at the Federal St A&P. I earned a lot about
Salem by walking to the store from school. Unfortunately, I was juswt
a bit too young to see the B&M steam engines, or the old depot oor
the huge mess that had the city dug up to rebuild the tunnel I did go
bowling downstairs now & then.
I’m gong to end this now, more later. I can’t type anymore.
PS I’m looking for information about the Boy Scout troops in Salem.
Are you kin to Ernie April, the Salem Fire Dept. Lieutenant? I went through High School with his daughter Judy.
My grandfather used to take me down to the Salem Depot to get the early edition of the Record-American. I can still visualize the big green Railway Express carts. Tuesdays were grocery shopping days in my family, and we were First National people. My mother would do the shopping at the New Derby Street First National, where I later worked when I was at SHS, and my father and I would watch the depot demolition week by week. I can still sorta hear his remonstrances anoyr never lookind directly at the cutting torshes’ arcs as the tracks and support beams for the old tunnel were being cut up on Washington Street..
The April’s were related on my grandmothers side. I may have a photo of his wife at a family wedding in 1939. It shows All of the women & is captioned. I have extras. I do have a portrait of Ernie & Bob in their SFD uniforms.
I also have a huge collection of rail & trolley photos at the SSU inc. the tunnel rebuilding.
Good to hear from you directly. Earlier this year, I found a Post 34 photo in ebay. It is a formal photo of the entire membership of Post 34, in their GAR uniforms, posed on the floor of the lodge room at 12 St. Peter St.
I’m going to frame it for my office. It’s a shame that there’s no one alive today to help identify the veterans.
My mother’s maternal grandmother’s family was in Marblehead in the 1750s, and my gr. gr. grandfather was a member of GAR Post 82 in Marblehead. His name, William H. Atkinson, is carved on one of the stones on the street, next to the building. He died in July 1899, and my grandmother remembered him well, because he lived with the family. I suppose that he’s the reason for my interest in the GAR, from around age 12.
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The Drunken Saint
Flemish Renaissance Revival
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Towards Transparency
Jon Zieger on September 28, 2012
Over the past few years, a number of companies we admire—among them, Google, Twitter, and GitHub—have taken significant steps to increase awareness of the effects of the legal process on their users.
Stripe handles payments, but we believe similar thinking can be applied here too. Today we’re announcing two steps in this area:
First, we’re partnering with Chilling Effects. Developed at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Chilling Effects is run by the EFF and law clinics at Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, and other universities across the country. Chilling Effects tracks the use of cease-and-desist notices to gauge the impact of legal threats to online expression. This database of notices provides important empirical data concerning the real-world effects of laws and policies.
From now on, whenever a third party sends a legal request for us to stop working with a user, we will pass a copy of the request to Chilling Effects. (We will, however, first give the user the chance to opt out of this disclosure.) Reporting take-down requests is standard practice at Google, Twitter, and GitHub today. Since Stripe is the first payments company to do this, Chilling Effects is creating a new category to track these requests.
Second, we’re updating our privacy policy to align with emerging internet best-practices. Specifically, we’re adding a clause that commits us (when possible) to first notify the user if we’re legally compelled by a litigant or government to disclose a user’s private information. The point of this notice is to give users the chance to contest the disclosure if they wish. As with publicizing take-down notices, this notification is becoming common when user data is in question, and we’re happy to join companies like Dropbox and Twitter in providing this protection for our users’ personal information.
These issues rarely arise, and there’s no particular situation that makes this timely. We simply want to implement the right policies as early as possible, and we intend to build on these steps over time. For example, we’re thinking about ways to make data and statistics available in this area, such as what Google has done with their Transparency Report.
Our goal with Stripe is to help build the economic infrastructure of the internet. Economic infrastructure, like other fundamental layers of the internet, requires trust and transparency. We hope these policies increase both.
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TAGTAGTAG
A journal of influence and creativity.
5×5: Analog America by Olivia Gilmore
Art, David Wojnarowicz, Martin Parr, Olivia Gilmore, Peter Hujar, Photography, Roy DeCarava
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All photographs are momento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt. – Susan Sontag.
American writer Susan Sontag died in New York only seven months before the launch of Facebook in 2004. I often wonder what she would have written, had she been alive to witness a world so enamored with social networking. Known for her preeminent collection of essays, On Photography, Sontag had in fact envisaged a future inundated with lasting images. She for one, was not fond of having her portrait taken; it was violating and objectifying. Sontag was also acutely aware of the power of the image and its iterations through reproduction. What is lost to digital photography in the Internet age, if anything? The number of images, uploaded onto the Internet in one minute, is proliferating; currently it’s thousands.
So… what is lost to digital photography in the Internet age, is authenticity. A friend and I once spoke about the gentrification of New York. In the ’70s he was a regular at a mom-and-pop restaurant under the Williamsburg Bridge, and he would have to climb over the bar to receive his own drinks from the refrigerator. He said, that to him, what is lost in gentrification–certainly after housing–is authenticity. The sincerity of this restaurant, and experiences like his, now gone. An accurate anecdote to parallel the loss of the authentic image in the Internet age. Much of it is: inauthentic, slippery, and not wholly reliable.
The 5 photographs in this 5×5 are analog photographs taken in America. They are by no means quintessentially American, nor are they exemplars of the immense political upheaval and social chaos which occurred in the majority of the 20th century. They are almost placid images of the late 20th century, going into the New Millenium. They are all analog photographs: photographed on film, processed in a dark room, and printed. Now they are digitized and available to the public.
“Boy, Man and Graffiti” (1966)
Roy DeCarava was a born in 1919 in Harlem, New York, and died in 2009, in Brooklyn. He was a freelance editorial photographer, in addition to being an artist. DeCarava and the poet Langston Hughes, collaborated on The Sweet Flypaper of Life, a pictorial fiction based on the lives of people living in Harlem.
Tim Davis, McDonalds 2, Blue Fence, 2001.
Tim Davis is an American photographer and poet, born in 1969 in Malawi. This images is from his series, Retail, which shows American suburbs at night, with reflections of neon advertisements in the windows. “The photographs reveal a subliminal imposition of contemporary consumer culture onto domestic life” (Cotton, The Photograph as Contemporary Art, 2009, p. 43).
Martin Parr, USA. Florida. Hallandale, 1997.
Martin Parr is a British photographer, born in 1952. He is known for his ironic photographs of contemporary life. His images are often tightly cropped: objects and people awkardly juxtaposed in the frame. This image appeared in Parr’s series, USA; one can visualize the body and scene which surround this suntan-oiled-cross.
David Wojnarowicz, Untitled (Face in Dirt), 1990.
David Wojnarowicz was born in New Jersey in 1954 and died in New York City in 1992, at 37. He was an AIDS activist, especially known for his film, A Fire in My Belly, created for Peter Hujar who died of AIDS in 1987. He appeared in Rosa von Prauheim’s 1989 film, Silence=Death, which was a response to the censorship of his film and the AIDS crisis in the United States. Wojnarowicz is equally known for his portrait with his mouth sewn shut; it was representative of the Silence=Death campaign.
Peter Hujar, Susan Sontag, 1975.
Peter Hujar was also born in New Jersey in 1934, and died of AIDS in 1987, in New York City. He was a colleague, friend, and lover of Wojnarowicz’. He was an active part of the art scene in the 70s, known for his black and white photographs, and particularly for his portrait of Candy Darling on Her Deathbed, 1974. This image of Sontag is one of a few Hujar took of her. Hujar also took Sontag’s portrait for her first book of essays, Against Interpretation (1966), which was a huge success.
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Researchers find hidden details and objects in eighteenth century altarpiece
The multidisciplinary team, form left to right: Enrique Castro Camus of the CIO; Mirta Isaurralde Caballero, director of the Laboratory of Analysis and Diagnostics of Cultural Heritage (LADIPA) of the College of Michoacán; Diego Iván Quintero Balbás, researcher at LADIPA; Carolusa González Tirado, director of INAH Guanajuato, and Elder de la Rosa, head of CIO
http://phys.org/news/2015-01-hidden-eighteenth-century-altarpiece.html#jCp
A multidisciplinary research team studying two paintings by artist Hermenegildo Bustos in the side altar of the parish of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception in Purisima del Rincon, Guanajuato, found three layers with a number of previously unknown modifications not visible to the naked eye
These pictures were originally painted in the first half of the eighteenth century and retouched in the early nineteenth and in 1903. For a month, CIO specialists worked with a terahertz spectroscopy technique through which they discovered "hidden images" in the work, and rebuilt several details and objects present in previous layers that had been covered.
Enrique Castro Camus from CIO, explains that by using this technique, they managed to reveal original images and retouching done in 1816 and 1903. In the first, there are chandeliers and curtains that Hermenegildo Busto subsequently decided to remove in 1903.
"What we do is send a short pulse of light that reaches the surface of the work; part of the light is reflected there and successively on each layer of paint. Then, we detect the pulse return, we seek the echoes and reconstruct what is in the inner layers."
He adds that the technique is applied point-by-point and recovered layer by layer using software designed by the student Arturo Hernández.
According to the specialist, this technique is of far infrared light or "terahertz light," a type of light between the infrared and microwave, with which it is possible to reconstruct thin layers of paint.
Castro Camus notes that during the month the team had access to the two original paintings, they concluded that by the terahertz spectroscopy technique they could reconstruct hidden layers and identify what elements had been changed or painted over.
A student at the School of Conservation and Restoration of the West in Guadalajara, Montserrat Gómez, a graduate of the Bachelor of Restoration of Movable Property contacted her university, the College of Michoacán and the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) of Guanajuato, and raised the idea of analyzing the pictures with this technique, since according to the very brief historical record, it was retouched several times.
After performing bureaucratic procedures, INAH lent the researchers the two paintings, and they were taken to the CIO laboratory.
"After analyzing, we generated images of the hidden layers of paint using a terahertz spectroscopy technique and aiming to reconstruct many details and objects that were in the previous layers, and which are not visible in the latest version."
With this technique, the researchers demonstrated the ability to make a three-dimensional reconstruction of each one of the layers of paint behind the same work and, moreover, obtain data of interest to historians and those working in the art conservation sector.
With this result, says Castro Camus, researchers can offer this tool to future INAH researchers or specialists in the area of cultural heritage and art conservation.
"Combining science and other disciplines can yield interesting results; besides the cultural area, we can apply the technique in biomedicine, solar cells and semiconductors," concludes the specialist at CIO.
Explore further: Terahertz reflectometry technique ensures perfect auto paint job
Labels: art conservation, art inspection, Carolusa González Tirado, Diego Iván Quintero Balbás, Elder de la Rosa, Enrique Castro Camus
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Texas Digital Newspaper Program - 120 Matching Results
Partners 2 Collections 3 Serial/Series Titles 2 Years 10 Months 12
Collection: Texas Digital Newspaper Program County: DeWitt County, TX Decade: 1960-1969 Day: 11th Language: English Clear All Filters
The Cuero Record (Cuero, Tex.), Vol. 75, No. 302, Ed. 1 Thursday, December 11, 1969
Description: Daily newspaper from Cuero, Texas that includes local, state and national news along with advertising.
Partner: Cuero Public Library
The Cuero Record (Cuero, Tex.), Vol. 75, No. 278, Ed. 1 Tuesday, November 11, 1969
The Cuero Record (Cuero, Tex.), Vol. 75, No. 216, Ed. 1 Thursday, September 11, 1969
The Cuero Record (Cuero, Tex.), Vol. 75, No. 189, Ed. 1 Monday, August 11, 1969
The Cuero Record (Cuero, Tex.), Vol. 75, No. 163, Ed. 1 Friday, July 11, 1969
The Cuero Record (Cuero, Tex.), Vol. 75, No. 138, Ed. 1 Wednesday, June 11, 1969
The Cuero Record (Cuero, Tex.), Vol. 75, No. 111, Ed. 1 Sunday, May 11, 1969
The Cuero Record (Cuero, Tex.), Vol. 75, No. 86, Ed. 1 Friday, April 11, 1969
The Cuero Record (Cuero, Tex.), Vol. 75, No. 59, Ed. 1 Tuesday, March 11, 1969
The Cuero Record (Cuero, Tex.), Vol. 75, No. 35, Ed. 1 Tuesday, February 11, 1969
The Cuero Record (Cuero, Tex.), Vol. 74, No. 294, Ed. 1 Wednesday, December 11, 1968
The Cuero Record (Cuero, Tex.), Vol. 74, No. 269, Ed. 1 Monday, November 11, 1968
The Cuero Record (Cuero, Tex.), Vol. 74, No. 243, Ed. 1 Friday, October 11, 1968
Yoakum Herald-Times (Yoakum, Tex.), Vol. 70, No. 120, Ed. 1 Friday, October 11, 1968
Description: Triweekly newspaper from Yoakum, Texas that includes local, state, and national news along with advertising.
Creator: Janacek, John E.
Partner: Carl and Mary Welhausen Library
The Cuero Record (Cuero, Tex.), Vol. 74, No. 217, Ed. 1 Wednesday, September 11, 1968
The Cuero Record (Cuero, Tex.), Vol. 74, No. 190, Ed. 1 Sunday, August 11, 1968
The Cuero Record (Cuero, Tex.), Vol. 74, No. 164, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 11, 1968
Yoakum Herald-Times (Yoakum, Tex.), Vol. 70, No. 81, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 11, 1968
The Cuero Record (Cuero, Tex.), Vol. 74, No. 139, Ed. 1 Tuesday, June 11, 1968
Yoakum Herald-Times (Yoakum, Tex.), Vol. 70, No. 68, Ed. 1 Tuesday, June 11, 1968
The Cuero Record (Cuero, Tex.), Vol. 74, No. 87, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 11, 1968
Yoakum Herald-Times (Yoakum, Tex.), Vol. 70, No. 43, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 11, 1968
The Cuero Record (Cuero, Tex.), Vol. 74, No. 60, Ed. 1 Monday, March 11, 1968
The Cuero Record (Cuero, Tex.), Vol. 74, No. 35, Ed. 1 Sunday, February 11, 1968
Carl and Mary Welhausen Library 18 18 Cuero Public Library 102 102
Cuero Area Newspaper Collection 102 102 Tocker Foundation Grant 120 120 Yoakum Area Newspaper Collection 18 18
The Cuero Record 102 102 Yoakum Herald and Times 18 18
1960 14 14 1961 9 9 1962 11 11 1963 14 14 1964 9 9 1965 10 10 1966 14 14 1967 13 13 1968 16 16 1969 10 10
January 11 11 February 9 9 March 10 10 April 11 11 May 9 9 June 10 10 July 11 11 August 10 10 September 9 9 October 12 12 November 9 9 December 9 9
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Starling Bank passports to Europe, first stop Ireland
Steve O'Hear @sohear / 2 years
London-based Starling Bank is continuing to gather momentum. After a staggered launch of its current account kicked off in March, the digital-only bank is announcing imminent expansion to Europe, starting with the Republic of Ireland where it has attained a so-called “banking passport”.
The European-wide arrangement sees similar regulation mirrored across the European Economic Area’s 27 member states, helping to create something akin to a single market for financial services, which Starling founder and CEO Anne Boden tells me the challenger bank always planned to take advantage of.
In a call late last week, Boden talked up her banking experience and international credentials, reminding me that she previously headed Europe, Middle East & Africa across 40 countries for Global Transaction Banking at RBS, as well more recently being COO of Allied Irish Bank before making the jump to startup life.
With Starling having built out the tech infrastructure and actually launched a fully-functioning current account, including tying into banking payment systems, “the time felt right,” she tells me. More crucially, the thinking behind expanding Starling to a second country so quickly relates to its core product offering and business model, and “listening to customers,” Boden stressed.
This is seeing the challenger bank focussed on “doing one thing only and doing it well,” (a current account), with a marketplace model akin to an app store where third-parties step in to provide additional functionality. That’s very different to the way traditional banks try to up-sell you all of their own products, including savings, investments, credit cards, loans, mortgages and pensions.
In contrast, Starling’s revenue mode is based solely on lending customer deposits in the form of a transparent overdraft, and, in some instances, a revenue share or kickback from the companies it is partnering with for the Starling Marketplace.
It therefore makes sense to put the app into as many hands as possible since the core current account offering has very similar product and regulatory requirements across countries, in Europe especially.
That said, Boden wouldn’t reveal how many users Starling already has here in the U.K. alone, except to say it is signing up “thousands per week”.
“Building a current account is not for the fainthearted, it requires a lot of business expertise and technical expertise” she adds. “We’ve done it the hard work way by deciding to build it from scratch. I’m excited: we’ve managed to bring our product to market, we’re having great feedback, but it’s a long journey”.
Meanwhile, the new Irish offering will obviously be a Euro account, but interestingly I’m being told that multi-currency accounts are on Starling’s not-so-distant roadmap too.
I also understand that the challenger bank is gearing up for another funding round, aiming to raise somewhere between £20 million and £40 million. Banking is a capital intensive business after all, where your ability to expand is directly tied to your balance sheet in the eyes of the regulator.
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Author of new book reveals how CIA Director John Brennan’s attempts to counter Russian interference in 2016 election were thwarted by Mitch McConnell.
By Gryphen|2018-10-03T05:36:23-08:00October 4th, 2018|Categories: News|Tags: 2016, CIA, John Brennan, Kremlin, Mitch McConnell, Raw Story, Russians, Twitter|25 Comments
Yikes. WaPo’s @GregPMiller describes a tense moment from 2016 involving a CIA director trying to sound the alarm on Russia and a senior U.S. senator wanting none of it… pic.twitter.com/iuQEiOs5Bh
— Josh Campbell (@joshscampbell) October 2, 2018
Courtesy of Raw Story:
A Washington Post reporter revealed new details about former CIA director John Brennan’s efforts to counter Russian election interference — and how Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell thwarted him.
“One of the things I was interested to read is that then-CIA director (Brennan) went right before the election to try to sound the alarm about what they were already seeing with Russia trying to interrupt the election,” said “New Day” host Alisyn Camerota. “It was not well received by some Republican leaders in Congress, including Mitch McConnell.”
Miller reported in the book that McConnell seemed to see Brennan as a greater threat than Russia, and the former CIA director and the Republican senator got into a shouting argument over election security.
“(McConnell) didn’t want that to come out publicly,” Miller said. “This is a scene in the book that I write about that happens before the election, as you said. The CIA has learned that (Russian president Vladimir) Putin is overseeing this operation. They’re trying to help elect Trump.”
“Brennan setting in motion a series of private briefings with all congressional leaders,” Miller continued. “It is a crazy moment in our history. He’s trying to get their attention.”
“He’s meeting with McConnell,” he said, “and McConnell is basically telling him, ‘You’re telling us that Russia is trying to help elect Trump, (but) if you come forward with this, I’m not going to sign on to any sort of public statement that would condemn Russian interference, but I will condemn you and the Obama administration for trying to mess up this election.’”
And that boys and girls is how we got Donald Trump in the White House.
Mitch McConnell wanted a Republican in the White House so much that he was even willing for it to be one of Vladimir Putin’s assets.
So you tell me, how is that NOT treason?
They needed a butt boy to do their bidding, and they sure found one in tRump. Even in the run up to the RNC, he was given all the free publicity he wanted, front and center at the republican debates, allowed to talk over anything and anyone, free rein to stalk Hillary around the stage in presidential debates, you name it. Easy to run off and play golf all the time when someone else is doing the real job of dismantling everything we once prided ourselves in. I’m also still convinced that the electoral college was paid off as well.
I, for one, will shed no tears when Yertle The Turtle croaks.
Only the good die young, but assholes live forever.
Look at all the damage this man has done to our country: blocked Obama before he was even inaugurated, told Obama he would never appoint anyone to supreme court and allowed russians to install a sociopathic crook in the WH.
Maybe they need to check the ballot counters in KY, I can’t believe the whole state is stupid enough to keep electing this nasty person.
Hudson October 4, 2018 at 8:46 am
Maybe they have to follow “his” money and travels. As of today I believe that he may have been the one in Putin’s pocket all along. He is more dangerous than Trump because he has been in power longer, and is smarter than Trump. He is someone that should be investigated. He has been “leading” the Congress for years, and never working for the country, only the party, and now it would seem that he may be under Putin’s thumb as well. Wonder what they have on him?
Anyone who has any concern about how the country is being run should be very alarmed today. This may be the worst day ever, as they get their Supreme Court justice who is now in their debt and clearly a weakling. All they have to do is tell him how to vote and he will do it. As long as Trump and McConnell are in charge we are in great danger that we may some day have no REAL judges in place. Since Trump took over, the courts have been the saving grace for the country, the only place he has lost. That will end if they stay in power and continue to stack the courts with right wing judges.
Paul October 4, 2018 at 6:57 am
Yes, this is treason. Maybe not in the legal, constitutional sense, but certainly McConnell put Russia interests over the good of the country just so Donnie Dotard could be elected. In the future historians, if they haven’t been imprisoned, will write about how McConnell and other far-right politicians brought America to the brink of authoritarianism.
Beaglemom October 4, 2018 at 7:53 am
It was just a tiny step from the eight years of sedition by McConnell and his GOP cohorts to treason. I’m not at all surprised. The 21st century GOP has absolutely no concern for the country. They are owed by their billionaire benefactors – lock, stock and barrel.
Anon October 4, 2018 at 7:01 am
At all cost, McConnell wanted a republican president. At all cost McConnell wanted a conservative Supreme Court Justice. Didn’t matter who. Doesn’t matter that Trump is a crook. Doesn’t matter that Kavanaugh is a drunk and sexual assaulter. The fact they are Republicans is all that matters. A great big fuck you to America.
Kkkelly October 4, 2018 at 9:25 am
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/10/megyn-kelly-warns-women-swung-pendulum-far-men-took-away-due-process-rights/
The three Republican senators who have widely been considered to be possible defectors are Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Susan Collins of Maine. All three joined Sasse in condemning the president’s mockery of Ford. On the Democratic side, the two senators seen as most likely to support Kavanaugh are Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
A strong indicator that Senate Republican leadership was determined to confirm Kavanaugh regardless of what that report discovers about his background is the fact that the FBI report had not been read by the senators when McConnell filed for a cloture vote.
eight of the ten Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote a letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley claiming that, “while we are limited in what we can say about this background investigation in a public setting, we are compelled to state for the record that there is information in the second post that is not accurate. It is troubling that the Committee Majority has characterized the information from Judge Kavanaugh’s confidential background investigation on Twitter, as that information is confidential and not subject to public release.”
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/10/republican-senator-ben-sasse-just-dropped-potential-bombshell-brett-kavanaugh/
It sounds like the WH has read the FBI report and decided their were not sexual assaults. Isn’t that the Fox deciding the other fox wasn’t in the chicken house?
Report Finds ‘No Corroboration’ of Kavanaugh Sexual Misconduct Charges
The Wall Street Journal has reported that officials in the White House have examined interview reports and received a briefing about the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s latest probe into sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
The Trump White House received the FBI report Wednesday evening and has found “no corroboration” of sexual misconduct allegations according to the Journal.
https://www.politicususa.com/2018/10/04/report-finds-no-corroboration-of-kavanaugh-sexual-misconduct-charges.html
“This does not fall under the definition of a real authentic FBI investigation, he said and blasted the Trump administration for botching it. “It really is an investigation which is just limited in terms of targeting specific individuals and for reasons unknown, eliminating a vast majority of people who could have provided corroborating evidence, corroborating information, positive, negative, neutral, whatever.”
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/10/former-fbi-agent-explains-to-msnbc-why-the-kavanaugh-probe-wasnt-a-real-investigation/
NC October 4, 2018 at 7:56 am
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/10/north-carolina-republicans-use-fake-photo-to-imply-dr-ford-was-too-ugly-to-assault/
They want to keep it secret so the public doesn’t find out what a sham the so called investigation was, they only interviewed 4 people .
It is over, CBC news interviewed Collins and Flake, sounds like they will be voting YES. However the public outrage isn’t over.
Brett is getting his reward and women are getting screwed all over again.
Big business is happy, polluters are happy, bye bye healthcare the drunken political hack has arrived to the Supreme Court
Clarence and Brett can sit around with the scotch and soda and laugh how they pulled one over, but WE know the truth.
“To put it bluntly, it smacks of a whitewash and even a cover-up. There have been so many relevant witnesses that have not been contacted let alone interviewed. Of the twenty-five witnesses that I told the FBI and the White House that were necessary and my colleagues on the judiciary committee on the Democratic side joined me on the letter, and only a fraction have been contacted. They have not interviewed again Dr. Blasey Ford or judge Kavanaugh among others, and even some of the eyewitnesses who saw what happened to Deborah Ramirez have never been contacted.”
“If Senators like Susan Collins, Jeff Flake, and Lisa Murkowski use this report to justify voting to confirm Brett Kavanaugh, they were always going to vote to confirm Kavanagh. They just needed the political cover to do so.
The report appears to be the work product of a rushed and extremely limited investigations. Those limitations came from Donald Trump, as the con man president is trying to con an accused sexual predator into a seat on the Supreme Court.”
https://www.politicususa.com/2018/10/04/sen-richard-blumenthal-blows-the-whistle-on-the-trump-cover-up-for-kavanaugh.html
The senators have one hour to read the so called FBI report and there is only one copy of the report. Of course it says little Brett did nothing and those women lied.
They are going to vote on Saturday, once he is confirmed the good old boys think this will go away,
They are wrong !!!!
If I lived in ME or AK, I would let those two women know, they lost my vote and will be urging others to do the same.
ME & AK MU$T VOTE 'NO' October 4, 2018 at 7:46 am
https://www.politicususa.com/2018/10/04/republicans-voting-for-kavanaugh-will-look-bad-when-he-is-impeached.html
Facts that are known now to only a few people will come to light in House hearings, and then become known to all of us.
Impeachment trials are a possibility in this situation. The U.S. Constitution allows for the removal from office of judges on the same terms as for a president.
Article II, section 4 reads:
“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
Nadler was specifically asked whether he’d consider impeachment of Kavanaugh, and he had this to say:
“We would have to investigate any credible allegations of perjury and other things that haven’t been properly looked into before.”
I just filed cloture on Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. There will be plenty of time for Members to review and be briefed on this supplemental material before a Friday cloture vote.
7:03 PM – 3 Oct 2018
https://thinkprogress.org/republicans-pre-reaction-fbi-report-0858f3dd0a18/
Shah claimed that the White House had simply had the FBI investigate what the Senate was “interested in,” but then clarified that by that he only meant Senate Republicans.
https://thinkprogress.org/raj-shah-kavanaugh-cnn-fbi-investigation-blackouts-memory-lapses-fb5231fb1649/
https://thinkprogress.org/protests-against-brett-kavanaugh-across-country-senate-prepares-confirmation-vote-ca9e57ef920f/
On Wednesday, demonstrators in nearly 170 cities across the country held rallies and vigils, organized by MoveOn.
Reality October 4, 2018 at 8:18 am
https://www.facebook.com/reasonablepeopleunite/photos/a.1162025550478571/2237667182914397/?type=3&theater
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/10/gru-look-russias-spy-agency-growing-global-footprint/
spetsnaz In 2010, Putin famously said that Russian special services do not kill traitors, saying they “croak all by themselves”.
The Bellingcat investigative team has linked the downing of MH17 in eastern Ukraine in 2014 to a GRU officer who it said “supervised the procurement and transport of weapons”.
“The book is entitled Aquarium, the nickname of the GRU headquarters in Moscow.
“What kind of fish swim there?” he asks his boss in the book. “There’s only one kind there — piranhas.”
Ru$$ia October 4, 2018 at 7:56 am
Oh Turtle neck doesn’t want to lose his Ru$$ian cash cow. Audit them. All of em. Follow the Ru$$ian money tree.
Yes. It has been odd how the Republican party has obstructed any good things for this country and aided the Russians. I’d say that McConnell is a traitor. Wonder also, if Putin has Kompromat on all the Republicans or are they just adoring fans of the Russians and their ruthless leader? I mean, I knew all along the McConnell had power to kick Trump’s ass to the curb at any time but there were times when he seemed to enjoy what was happening. I don’t know McConnell’s values, or agenda but it seems to be against America.
A graphic reminder of just how little the FBI actually investigated allegations against Kavanaugh
https://www.dailykos.com/
Turtleface October 4, 2018 at 9:16 am
‘djt’s mushroom aka Toad is this big, i’ve seen it.’
Lo$er October 4, 2018 at 3:41 pm
The president of the United Fucking States of America. By now, we’re used to it, I guess. But the insanity of it hits you in unpredictable places.
yes: All those dignified accoutrements of the presidency will inevitably belaurel Donald Trump. A library. A museum. Schools named after him. Can you imagine? The Donald J. Trump Magnet School?
If he’s alive, he’ll joke that it should be called the Donald J. Trump Chick Magnet School.
. For 40 years, reality and fate have never quite caught up with him. But in the White House, as the one man who laid his hand on a Bible and swore he’d uphold the law, the law has a way of catching up.
I’d wager that the biggest Trump news hasn’t broken yet.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-was-supposed-to-be-in-jailnot-the-white-house?ref=home
Anonymous in Chicago October 4, 2018 at 4:43 pm
I’ve said it many times that I believe the Russians have Kompromat on Trump and many of the Republicans in both the House and the Senate. Look at the behaviour of Lindsey Graham and Devin Nunes. Add Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz and others with voting power but with less visibility and you have the mess we’re in now.
It’s considered treason to many of us.
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Vladimir Putin brags that America’s global influence “is almost done.”
By Gryphen|2018-10-19T09:18:19-08:00October 19th, 2018|Categories: News|Tags: 2016. election, America, Donald Trump, Putin, Share Blue|20 Comments
The return on Putin’s investment in Donald Trump has paid off bigly.
Courtesy of Share Blue:
In his annual public address before the nation, Russian President Vladimir Putin proclaimed that America’s global influence has come to end — a development he attributed in large part to Trump’s presidency.
Speaking about the position of the U.S. on the global stage, Putin celebrated the waning influence of what he described as America’s “monopoly” on power, saying it would give Russia the ability to exert more influence in the world.
“Empires often think they can make some little mistakes. Because they’re so powerful,” Putin said, according to the Financial Times. ”But when the number of these mistakes keeps growing, it reaches a level they cannot sustain.”
He admonished the U.S. for having a “sense of impunity,” saying, “This is the result of the monopoly from a unipolar world.”
“Luckily this monopoly is disappearing,” he added. “It’s almost done.”
And Russia’s time has come, he said, claiming that America’s downfall meant that Russia had an opportunity to establish itself as a major player on the global stage.
As the Financial Times described, “Putin continually returned to the idea that US hegemony was the cause of many global ills — but that its twilight offered opportunities for Russia and its friends.”
Putin also noted that since Trump took office, punitive actions in response to Russian aggression in Ukraine and Syria had lessened in severity and were no longer having the impact they once did.
He hit back at media reports describing his relationship with Trump as poor, noting that Trump listens to what he says, and that he wants a better relationship with Russia.
Putin took a huge risk when it interfered in America’s 2016 election.
If Hillary had won he would have been punished for his impunity and ostracized by virtually every nation on the planet.
But his puppet won, and now it is Christmas time in Russia, and he can celebrate while he dances on the grave of the world’s last superpower.
So I guess the only question remaining is what are we going to do about it?
Vote out all the republicans in NOV, then vote out the rest of them in 2020 !!!!!
gee October 19, 2018 at 4:36 pm
Just look at what you’ve done, Sarah.
Putin is a Putz October 20, 2018 at 7:50 am
Reason she resigned never takes off their fatigues, but makes them fashionable. Wink. Here putty putty.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/10/trump-responds-russia-hackers-blaming-obama-not-spending-dime-stop/
‘”When asked by reporters about Russia meddling, Trump showed ‘no concern’ and blamed former president Barack Obama.
“Obama didn’t spend a coin to stop it,”’
NOMORE!!! October 19, 2018 at 5:00 pm
What are we going to do about it? Yes, we will vote BLUE in November.
But the damage has been done and cannot be undone overnight. Some of it will take a generation or more to remedy. Like the trust that we have lost with one single stroke, in less than two years.
Who in their right mind would want to trust the US, after they have seen that ONE MADMAN can undo what numerous Presidents before him have worked their combined a$$es of to accomplish? We are SOL , IMHO. Putin won.
We might be able to lessen some of the damage he has done domestically, but even THAT will take time, likely several years.
Meanwhile, people will die, because he and his complicit Congress have taken away our health insurance, and they are undoing all the protections we have so dearly fought for.
Social Sec: buh-bye!
Environmental protections like clean air and clean water? Buh-bye!
They even are trying to take away radiation protec now!
Education? Who needs any edjumacashion?! We want robots to do the work, because they will do what we tell them to do and will not demand a living wage or time off. People can die – WHO CARES! If they are hungry, they can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get a street sweeper job. Or go to some soup kitchens.
“If Hillary had won he would have been punished for his impunity and ostracized by virtually every nation on the planet. ”
HAHAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAGHAHAAHAHAHAAA!
Thank you I needed that laugh tonight.
Don’t cry in your cereal though, she isn’t done destroying the Democratic party yet:
http://theweek.com/speedreads/802785/former-hillary-clinton-adviser-says-theres-chance-run-2020
Gryphen October 19, 2018 at 5:29 pm
If you think that Hillary is going to run again you are even dumber than your typing indicates.
Well, I’m the same dumb person that told you Trump was going to beat Hillary months in advance, much to your ridicule. So dumb I am.
I’ll stay with my dumb brain any day over your wishful or wistful thinking.
By the way “Courtesy of Share Blue:…” Really?
Sept. 4-12 October 19, 2018 at 6:13 pm
https://news.gallup.com/poll/243242/snapshot-hillary-clinton-favorable-rating-low.aspx
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/10/stunningly-detailed-doj-indictment-reveals-putin-allied-russians-created-divisive-social-media-posts-race-gender/
“Members of the conspiracy used social media and other internet platforms to inflame passions on a wide variety of topics,” the document states. “Members of the conspiracy took advantage of specific events in the United States to anchor their themes, including the shooting of church members in Charleston, South Carolina.”
Adding, “Members of the conspiracy also sought to target the timing of their post to attract the possible widest viewership.”
https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1102316/download
$$$$trail October 19, 2018 at 6:10 pm
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/10/mueller-freezes-us-bank-accounts-trump-linked-russian-oligarch-election-interference-russian-media/
““Although the documents do not directly link the $3.3 million to the meeting, they show that officials at three separate banks raised red flags about the funds,” the report noted. “Many of the transfers seemed to have no legitimate purpose, bankers noted. Kaveladze quickly moved money to other accounts he controlled, and appeared to use some of it to make payments on Agalarov’s behalf — including more than $700,000 to pay off American Express charges.”
RBC noted in its report that within 10 days of BuzzFeed’s September report on the transactions between Agalarov and Kaveladze, the oligarch received notification from Union Bank about the closure of all his corporate accounts.” “Crocus has reportedly tried to open three new accounts — to no avail.
“Our company is under real threat of ceasing its activities in the USA,” Kaveladze told RBC before blaming the closures on the “criminal actions” of Natalie May Edwards, a senior Treasury employee arrested for leaking documents related to the Mueller probe.”
Like trump putin is delusional. The citizens of Russia want putin out. They are demanding he resign. They are tired of being suppressed and controlled. The Russian youth will change Russia and bring peace to a communist country ruled by thugs.
Russia has not been a communist country for many many years. Where are you people getting your education from these days?
Beaglemom October 20, 2018 at 4:13 am
Tell that to the people Putin’s regime has imprisoned, beaten up or disappeared. Putin is a product of the Communist KGB. His goal is to bring back what to him were the “glory days.” Not communism but the brutality that went with it. He’s simply substituted the billionaire oligarch class for the old Communist Party leadership.
thanks October 20, 2018 at 7:54 am
Same place America got the illusion of being ‘the fabric of our lives’ propaganda. Works well hu?
Russia is not a communist country. Just a matter of keeping facts straight. Kinda look stupid when someone says Russia is still communist.
Meanwhile, many so called ‘Democrat Socialists’ such as young genius Ms. Cortez (‘like, like, for sure, yeah, like, like, for sure’ brilliant performance on Kimmel Ms. Cortez, like totally brilliant, for sure), with the support of their minions, are stirring up baby communism right here with crazed far left support.
Sorry, you guys have lost it. Kamala Harris wants the Government to give $500 a month away to anyone making less than 50g’s a year! Cuckoo Cuckoo!
Anon October 20, 2018 at 8:15 am
INCUMMING!
https://www.politicususa.com/2018/10/20/putin-celebrates-as-trump-abandons-treaty-that-limits-russias-use-of-ballistic-missiles.html
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/412366-trump-administration-to-tell-russia-that-us-will-pull-out-of-key-arms
The 1987 pact bans all land-based missile with ranges of 310 to 3,420 miles and includes missiles carrying both nuclear and conventional warheads. The original ban between Moscow and Washington resulted in 2,692 missiles being destroyed.
U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchison earlier this month warned that the U.S. could be forced to “take out” missiles Russia is developing that violate the INF.
“It is time now for Russia to come to the table and stop the violations,” Hutchison told reporters in Brussels.
'Reddish' October 20, 2018 at 8:37 am
https://www.thedailybeast.com/confessions-of-an-ex-kremlin-propagandist-dictator-putin-will-rule-forever?ref=home
Putin’s Witnesses
Vitaly Mansky has now turned against the Russian president, making an extraordinary documentary—using footage shot from the inside—that explores Putin’s uncompromising thirst for power and his quest to restore what he sees as Soviet-era glory to the country. now “has no choice” but to cling to power forever.
Mansky said he tries to forget the consequences that his actions may one day bring down upon him.
A series of dissidents and exiles have recently been targeted in Britain by Putin’s regime “Witnesses become accomplices.”
“the film was a form of apology for his role in helping to spread Putin’s propaganda. “I would not call it an apology exactly, but the realization of your own guilt,” he said. “This realization is not enough. I would like the audience of the film, especially people in Russia, to contemplate—to think about all the mistakes that have been made in the past so that in future we won’t make so many of them.”
““Not only would he not like to follow in the footsteps of Ceaușescu and Milosevic, he wouldn’t even want to follow the fate of Pinochet who could have faced the courts in his own country.”
“The film as a whole gives us a good idea what Putin really thinks, especially the future of the country and the role of the state in shaping that future.”
““There is a famous poet, Alexander Pushkin—a Russian Shakespeare—he wrote this play Boris Godunov, which deals with an illegal power takeover and the establishment of the Romanov dynasty,”
“The final line in the play when Boris takes power illegally is: The people were silent.”
“It’s very sad to see that nearly 500 years since that happened not much has changed in Russia.”
Putin FEARS THIS>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiuLKhMkkYA
the October 20, 2018 at 10:57 pm
May be. They realize. Hmm. Russia government not so great. Shrug.
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Curry – The Mayor
By Lindsey Ryon
Every barn has a horse that is – or thinks he is – the dictator, the boss of the pasture, the supervisor of the steeds. They have made it official at Pamela O’Neil’s Two Magnolia Farms in Aiken. Curry, owned by Amy Hebert, is also known as the Mayor of Two Magnolias. This 22-year-old off-the-track Thoroughbred has definitely earned that title.
Curry started out life with excellent bloodlines. Registered as Currency Arbitrage, Curry’s dam was Damarelle by King’s Bishop. His sire was Green Dancer, a son of Nijinsky who raced in England and on the European continent and was the leading sire in France in 1991. Curry was born at Sunnyfield Farm in Bedford, New York in 1993.
Like most Thoroughbred youngsters, Curry’s career began at the racetrack, where he showed early promise. He made his first starts at Saratoga in 1995, when he was 2. He broke his maiden there in his second race, going off the favorite and putting away the field by 10 lengths. After Saratoga, it was off to stakes races at the Meadowlands and Belmont Park where he finished in the middle of the pack, and then an allowance race at Aqueduct, where he won again, this time by eight lengths. That winter, he raced in Florida, winning again in the Citation Stakes at Hialeah Park in April before going back North to race in prestigious stakes races and allowances in Maryland, New York and New Jersey. He even shipped to California, where he ran in the $500,000 Grade I Crown Royal Hollywood Derby at Hollywood Park.
Throughout a racing career that lasted until 2001, he ran primarily in New York and New Jersey with his trainer Gary Sciacca, then traveled to Florida with his trainer Dennis J. Manning, where he had some time off. He racked up a total of 36 starts, including six wins, six seconds and four thirds. In addition to the Citation Stakes, he also won the Ashley T. Cole and the West Point Handicaps in Saratoga, earning himself the title of multiple stakes winner. With earnings of $343,902, it was time for Curry to move on to his next adventure.
Amy Hebert exercised horses at Monmouth Park racetrack in New Jersey for 20 years. One day while she was at the track, Dennis Manning came to her and said he had a beautiful chestnut gelding that needed a home. Curry, owned at that time by Earle Mack, had fractured his right front splint bone, ending his racing career. It was rare for Amy to have a morning off, but she had a feeling that this horse would be worth it, and she was ready to have a project.
“I found some time to go look at him,” said Amy. “I walked in his stall and he picked his head up and looked right at me. I immediately knew, and I said ‘I’ll take him!’ Despite his injury, I knew he was something special, and he is. “
Curry’s adventurous life with Amy began right away. She agreed have his splint bone surgically repaired and to provide him with a lifelong, loving home. His surgery was done at the New Jersey Equine Clinic, and after a few months of healing, Curry was sound again and ready to go. Both Curry and Amy were anxious to find their calling as a team, what they were meant to be doing together.
“When I got him, I knew I wanted to do the jumpers with him,” said Amy. “He was a little tricky. He was too quick for the hunters, and of course I would never fox hunt with him, because we would probably out-run the fox. With all the racetrack wear and tear, I never asked him to jump over 3 feet; I never felt the need to.
“My favorite moment with Curry was probably the day I beat my trainer in a “Power and Speed” class. It was a great feeling! We were always good on the clock – I think from his racing experience and mine as a track exerciser – it’s like we had built-in clocks in our heads.”
Curry enjoyed his second career, which involved almost as much traveling as his racing career. New Jersey was too cold in the winter, so Amy and Curry always headed South. Some winters Curry would come to Aiken, where he stayed on Two Notch Road downtown, in a stable owned by the famous racehorse trainer Mike Freeman. One year he and Amy traveled to Ocala, Fla. Curry always loaded right on the trailer with enthusiasm, as if he was ready to go on the next adventure.
Each spring season, the pair would head back to New Jersey where Amy planned her show and event schedule based around her job at the racetrack. Amy says they were always in the ribbons in the 3-foot schooling jumpers at Monmouth County Horse Show Association shows. They enjoyed trail riding and hunter paces just as much as being in the show ring. In fact, the open trail is where Curry seemed the happiest because Cricket and Brisco, a Jack Russell Terrier and a Lab/Collie mix, were able to tag along.
After about ten years, Curry seemed ready to move on to something else again.
“I guess it was when he was about 17,” said Amy. “We were down here in Aiken for the winter, and I just noticed him slowing down a bit, from his joints to his back. I knew it was a good time to retire him. I had a friend, Jill Fitzpatrick, in North Carolina, with a retired OTTB that would be the perfect pasturemate.”
Jill, whose farm is in Pamlico County on the coast, introduced Curry to her faithful retiree, Story, and the two became the best of friends. After about four years, however, Story became ill and had to be put down. At around the same time, Amy and her husband, C.P. Doremus, moved to Aiken full-time. Once they were settled, Curry came to stay in Aiken for the beginning of another adventure – this one a luxurious retired life.
Ruling the roost at Two Magnolia Farms, Curry has Mac, a fellow retiree as a pasture buddy. He spends most of his time keeping tabs on all the barn happenings. “He usually gets a rinse, then gets turned loose to roam as he wants,” says Pamela O’Neil. “He makes his rounds past each pasture to check on everyone. I love having my place set up to be able to do that.”
Amy, who is now the owner of Aiken Saddlery, visits with Curry regularly.
“I couldn’t have asked for a better partner for such a significant part of my life,” she said. “He always did what I asked of him. He had a great career, before he was with me and during our time together. He’s got a great personality. He taught me a lot. He is a pretty solid citizen, an all-around great guy. And so far he has thoroughly enjoyed his life of leisure.”
Curry lives up to his barn title as the Mayor. Everyone wants to be the boss, the Mayor, but sometimes they have nothing to show for it. Curry does; he’s got the mileage and he’s got the attitude!
Tags: OTTBs Race Horses Secret Lives of Horses
Rylee Zimmerman: Back to his Roots →
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November 24, 2018 November 24, 2018 Jacob Coe6 Comments on Fantastic Movies and Where to Find Them: The Crimes of Grindelwald Review
Fantastic Movies and Where to Find Them: The Crimes of Grindelwald Review
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This is going to be a difficult review for me to complete without slipping into spoiler territory. It’s no secret that Harry Potter and the world created by J.K. Rowling is something that I’m very passionate about, to the point of getting a tattoo of the deathly hallows on my wrist. I grew up reading about the magical adventures of Harry and his friends and I actually own the encyclopedia of magical creatures from which the Fantastic Beasts movie series gets its name. The inner Hufflepuff in me wants to dissect this movie frame by frame and tell you every twist and turn that I didn’t like. I want to get up on my soapbox and go into great detail and analyze every single screenwriting decision made by good ole J.K. and lambast this movie until I feel all warm and cozy again. But I won’t. What I will do, however, is try to remain level-headed and paint a fair and balanced picture about what I didn’t like about the movie without spoiling all of the things that you yourself might not hate as much as I did. But again, that is going to be so freaking hard.
Like…Neville Longbottom on the receiving end of Petrificus Totalus levels of hard.
Let’s get the easy stuff out of the way first. If you happened to catch the first Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (which I presume you have since you’re reading this review of its sequel) then you’ll know that Grindelwald is played by Colin Farrell throughout the majority of the movie until the ending reveals that Johnny Depp will be our actual antagonist going forward. I really haven’t been a fan of Johnny Depp since he stopped acting and began just playing whatever colorful monstrosity that Tim Burton wanted him to, so I wasn’t at all excited for this change. I thought Colin Farrell did a pretty good job in the first film and was sad to see him replaced. But I’ll admit that I was wrong about this one. Depp actually plays Grindelwald with the subdued nuance that I haven’t seen from him in years. I was afraid I was going to get the Mad Hatter or Willy Wonka with blonde hair, but what I actually got was a charismatic and cold wizard who is shockingly persuasive. I completely see how Grindelwald was able to amass the followers that he did in the Potter lore, because Depp plays Grindelwald as a master of manipulation and sympathy. He doesn’t want to kill all muggles, he just “wants to live in a world where wizards no longer have to hide”. He’s the kind of evil who will wear the face of sincerity as he convinces you to commit atrocities in his name, and that villainous angle completely worked for me. I was glad that we had something different from Voldemort’s “evil for the sake of it” angle, and Depp definitely delivers a surprisingly competent performance.
Writer of The Bench Sports…you will always remember this day as the day that you almost complimented Captain Jack Sparrow!
The other performances are alright, but it’s probably only Jude Law’s Dumbledore that’s worth mentioning. It’s hard to make a character as iconic as Albus Dumbledore unlikable, just as it’s hard to make Jude Law into a character that audiences despise. They’re both just so damn lovable that it seems like a perfect fit. Law’s soft-spoken demeanor works well with early Dumbledore and in my opinion he’s more Richard Harris than Michael Gambon. True potterheads will know what I mean.
This is Gambon doing calmly.
The rest of the cast just gets lost within each other. Frankly that is one of this movie’s biggest cons: there are just way too many characters. And when you have a cast of 20+ characters who all are getting regular amounts of screen-time, it’s hard to flesh any of them out in any substantial way. A lot of the favorites from the first movie seem more or less forgotten about in this one, in exchange for brand new characters who didn’t resonate at all with me as a viewer or a Harry Potter fan. Tina Goldstein was very much a co-lead in the last movie, but I honestly can’t think of a single notable line or action that she performs in this one. Her sister Queenie gets a significantly bigger chance to be a character, but even her arc feels extremely rushed and a bit nonsensical. It was hard for me to buy that her character, especially with her ability to read minds, would make a lot of the choices that she ended up making in this movie.
And that’s one of the running themes from Crimes of Grindelwald. It seems disturbingly intent on undoing the events from the last movie and that’s evident even if you’ve watched nothing but the trailers. You know that Creedence, who exploded to death in the first movie, is actually fine and dandy and on the hunt for his true parents…somehow. And you know that Jacob, who ended the last movie with having his memory wiped in one of the most powerful scenes of the entire film, has his memory back and suffers exactly 0 negative consequences as a result. It’s just a bit bizarre to me that J.K. would write in these powerful status-quo changes only to have them not really matter only one movie later.
Otherwise known as The Last Jedi approach to film-making.
There’s a ton of pacing issues, but again most of that just stems from having too many characters. Leta Lestrange at least was somewhat mentioned in the first movie, so I understand her being in this film. But they gave her a huge part. I would almost be curious to have the numbers on her amount of screentime and lines versus the “actual protagonist” of the movie, Newt Scamander. I feel like she had way more of a focus than he did, and it’s kind of not okay to give side-characters more to do than your main one. Within her plot thread comes another 5 or 6 characters each with their own backgrounds and motivations, all of which offer nothing substantial to the overall story except in service to that one big twist reveal that you’ve probably read exists but don’t know what it is.
And boy, that twist. I knew something was coming, but I didn’t know it would end up being as bad as it was. My heart completely sank as Harry Potter canon was seemingly thrown out the window yet again in an attempt to elicit an “Oh my god!” type of reaction from the audience. But whereas they were going for “Oh my god” as in “Oh my god, I didn’t see that coming!”, my reaction ended up being more of an “Oh my god, why did they do this horrible, terrible thing to my beloved baby?” instead. There is a way that this twist could work out and end up being pretty clever, but honestly I don’t even know if I have enough faith in J.K. anymore to believe that’s where she’s going with things. It wouldn’t surprise me at this point if the first scene of the next movie occurs immediately after the big twist, and the reveal is shown to be “just a prank, bro” and the movie franchise then carries on like it never happened. Because that’s what happened with the transition from the first movie to Crimes of Grindelwald, so it seems like a dangerous precedent has been set at the very least.
Regardless, we’re pretty much 0/2 for Fantastic Beast movies and it’s hard to see this story even being milked for another three movies. If they were smart, they’d scrap that idea for five films and just try to wrap everything up in a third and final film and move on to fleshing out some other stories in the universe. Because there are so many stories that could be told in the Wizarding World, which makes it even more baffling that they’d try to shoehorn the Dumbledore vs Grindelwald stuff into a series called Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. This story began as a light-hearted look into the life of an introverted Hufflepuff and his zany animal companions, and somehow he has been completely buried under the life and death stakes of another good vs evil plot involving characters and conflicts he really has no interest in. It’s just a shame that Newt isn’t even given the chance to be the hero of his own story, but that’s basically Hufflepuffs for you.
We make all the sacrifices and let the Gryffindors have the glory.
Hey there, Potterheads! If you enjoyed this content from The Bench Sports, check out our merch store here and pick yourself up a little something!
Published by Jacob Coe
Pop Culture enthusiast. Cinephile. Terrible Fortnite player. View all posts by Jacob Coe
Categories Movies, Pop Culture
6 thoughts on “Fantastic Movies and Where to Find Them: The Crimes of Grindelwald Review”
danithebooknerd November 24, 2018 — 4:29 pm
I agree with all of this. Except that I actually kind of did like the direction that Queenie’s character went. Maybe that’s just because I didn’t see it coming and it was one of the few instances where it didn’t feel like the writers were trying to surprise the audience YET ANOTHER reference to the original series. They are very much relying far too heavily on eliciting a reaction from the audience via those “OMG!” moments rather than crafting a truly memorable story and characters.
Jacob Coe November 24, 2018 — 5:41 pm
I actually love the direction they took Queenie in as well. I think it was very important to show the ability Grindelwald has to pull people to his side and to emphasize the fact that his followers aren’t all just evil drones. A lot of them are lost and confused and just looking for direction, which Grindelwald offers them in exchange for their allegiance. It’s just weird to me that Queenie of all people joins him so quickly, especially since she can read his mind and see that he has ulterior motives and kills the very muggles he promises her she can love if she helps him gain control.
Yeah I think that goes back to having so many characters on screen. There simply wasn’t enough time to flesh that out like it could have been.
curlyhairgurlwithablog November 25, 2018 — 12:09 am
Hey! I watched the first last week! But the movie was kinda long and dark and it didnt have the harry potter feeling, i guess it’s because this was before harry potter befoe he was even born. And i didnt like the part where Queenie went with Grindelwald and she was wanted to take the american guy with KNOWING he was a muggle he could have gotten burn alive.
Yeah it’s kind of sad that the best parts of Crimes of Grindelwald all involved Hogwarts. The rest of it is pretty dark and lacks that wide-eyed wonder and magical approach to the world that the Harry Potter films had. The Hogwarts scenes just reminded me how much I’d rather be watching the Harry Potter movies instead.
curlyhairgurlwithablog November 25, 2018 — 4:22 pm
yeah i totally agree with you. The movie had a lot of plotwists so let yet and the next movie.
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Lecture 8.1 The 2nd Half of the Authorship and the Attack on the Church
Søren Kierkegaard - Subjectivity, Irony and the Crisis of Modernity
It is often claimed that relativism, subjectivism and nihilism are typically modern philosophical problems that emerge with the breakdown of traditional values, customs and ways of life. The result is the absence of meaning, the lapse of religious faith, and feeling of alienation that is so widespread in modernity. The Danish thinker Søren Kierkegaard (1813-55) gave one of the most penetrating analyses of this complex phenomenon of modernity. But somewhat surprisingly he seeks insight into it not in any modern thinker but rather in an ancient one, the Greek philosopher Socrates. In this course created by former associate professor at the Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre, Jon Stewart, we will explore how Kierkegaard deals with the problems associated with relativism, the lack of meaning and the undermining of religious faith that are typical of modern life. His penetrating analyses are still highly relevant today and have been seen as insightful for the leading figures of Existentialism, Post-Structuralism and Post-Modernism.
The "how this is meaningful to you" message felt a little odd and sometimes a little insulting. Still, a very special thanks to Dr. Stewart and anyone else responsible for sharing this material.
Excellent overview of Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard's own writing, approached on its own, can be nigh-impenetrable but the lectures really help in figuring out how to approach Kierkegaard's writing.
The 2nd Half of the Authorship and the Attack on the Church
The last decade of Kierkegaard’s life was in many ways the most dramatic. This was the time of the Revolution of 1848 and of Kierkegaard’s public attack on the Danish state church in his final years. This period represents what Kierkegaard scholars refer to as the second half of the authorship, namely, the period from 1846 after the Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Kierkegaard’s death in 1855. In this lecture we explore some of Kierkegaard’s main works from these years, such as A Literary Review of Two Ages, Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, The Sickness unto Death, Practice in Christianity and The Moment. We will see how some of the themes and motifs that we have examined re-appear in these works. In our exploration of these texts it will become evident that even as Kierkegaard grows older, he continues to return to the figure of Socrates as a source of inspiration. Indeed, he never abandons the great hero of his youth. Even in the last text that he ever completed before his death, he explicitly states that Socrates was the only model that he used for his work. Our goal in this lecture is, among other things, to try to understand what he means by this. The lecture ends with a biographical account of Kierkegaard’s attack on the Danish State Church, his final illness and death.
Lecture 8.1 The 2nd Half of the Authorship and the Attack on the Church21:25
Jon Stewart, PhD, Dr theol & phil
Former Associate Professor
Select a languageCzechEnglishPortuguese (Brazilian)
The last decade of Kierkegaard's life was, in many ways, the most dramatic.
This was a time of the Revolution of 1848 and of Kierkegaard's public attack on
the Danish state church in the final years of his life.
As you saw in the last lecture, this period represents what Kierkegaard
scholars refer to as the second half of the authorship,
namely the period from 1846 after the concluding on scientific post grouped,
to Kierkegaard's death in 1855.
In this lecture, we want to explore some of Kierkegaard's main works from these
years, works such as a Literary Review of Two Ages, of Building Discourses in
Various Spirits, the Sickness Unto Death, Practice in Christianity, and the Moment.
We'll see how some of the themes and motifs that we've examined so
far reappear in these works.
In our exploration of these texts, it will be evident that even as Kierkegaard grows
older he continues to return to the figure of Socrates as a source of inspiration.
Indeed, he never abandons the great hero of his youth.
Even in the last text that he never completed before his death,
he explicitly states that Socrates was the only model that he used for his work.
Our goal in the lecture today, is among other things,
to try to understand what he means by this.
Although Kierkegaard believed that he was going to die and
that the concluding unscientific postscript would be his final work,
he continued to live and could not help but to continue writing.
Only a month after the postscript on March the 30th,
1846 he published a work called a Literary Review of Two Ages.
This short work is a review of a novel by Thomasine Gyllembourg,
the mother of Johan Ludwig Heiberg.
The novel is entitled Two Ages.
Gyllembourg's work contrasts two historical periods.
One the period of Romanticism in the Napoleonic era, and the other,
the period of the restoration.
This contrast is portrayed in the story of a couple of different generations
of a family living in Copenhagen.
Kierkegaard seizes on this novel to develop some of his own ideas about
Scholars often point to this work as Kierkegaard's most important statement of
social political thought.
It can't really be said that Kierkegaard was a major figure in the field of
social political philosophy in the way that one could talk about figures
such as John Locke, Karl Marx or John Stuart Mill.
Kierkegaard never wrote any extensive treaties on political philosophy, and
his a Literary Review of Two Ages can hardly be compared with the classics of
political philosophy, such as Locke's Second Treaties of Government, or
Rousseau's the Social Contract.
In some ways Kierkegaard doesn't appear to have been much interested in politics
due to his strong emphasis on the inward religious nature of the individual.
This emphasis seems in many ways to undermine the social or political theory.
But with that said, there can be no doubt that Kierkegaard does have some important
insights that can be used in the context of social political philosophy.
One of these, is the concept of leveling.
This is an important idea that Kierkegaard explores in a Literary Review.
Kierkegaard was at heart a royalist, and he was weary of the changes that were
beginning to take place and would culminate in the Revolution of 1848.
He believed that is was beneficial for
society to be organized in a way that the differences of individuals be recognized.
This is, in a sense, the case with a society with rigid social classes,
since individuals are more or
less innately recognized as a member of one class or another.
But the fundamental idea of democracy is that everyone has the same rights to vote
and to have their say in how the government should be run.
Kierkegaard was worried about this development since he feared that this
would create a public opinion that would be grounded in the masses.
This public opinion would undermine the individuality of everyone since
it would be a projection of a larger group.
The concept of leveling appears in this context.
Kierkegaard was concerned that the rush towards democracy would work against
anyone who dared to stand out from the crowd in any way.
Public opinion encourages people to be conformist.
No one wants to appear different from anyone else.
If one does, than public opinion will turn against such a person and
expose him or her to ridicule.
This was the way that Kierkegaard understood what happened to him in
connection with his polemical exchange with the journal the Corsair.
He believed himself to be unfairly persecuted by the Corsair which managed to
turn the general public opinion against him.
Kierkegaard believes that this kind of phenomenon is a pernicious aspect of
modern life.
Anyone who dares to be different or who possesses great gifts that make
the mediocre masses envious will be subject to criticism and mockery.
Such a person who towers above others will be brought down to the common level
of the masses.
This is what Kierkegaard understands by leveling.
Instead of encouraging people to cultivate and develop their individual genius,
modern democratic culture actively undermines and works against this.
In this regard, he believes that the old order of things was better where
recognition was given to, for example, nobility.
And the public opinion did not carry so much weight.
In that world, it was so easier for people to stand out,
without being subject to the persecution of the masses and public opinion.
Although Kierkegaard was a royalist,
he had a reserved relation to the king himself.
At the time, the king of Denmark was Christian VIII, who ruled since 1839.
The king and his wife were interested in Kierkegaard and
the king thus summoned him to a series of three audiences.
Kierkegaard's first audience took place here in
Amalienborg Palace on March the 13th, 1847.
Kierkegaard records these encounters in his journal NB9.
It seems that the king was interested in using Kierkegaard as a kind of advisor in
affairs concerning intellectual life in the kingdom.
He had heard that Kierkegaard had been in Berlin and
had attended Schelling's lecture and was interested to hear about Schelling's role
in the political developments in Prussia.
As we discussed In lecture six,
Schelling had been appointed by the kind of Prussia, explicitly to combat what
were regarded as the negative progressive influences of left tagalianism.
Many of Hegel's students became active politically, and
came to play an important role in the revolutions of 1848.
Christian VIII was presumably interested to hear if the appointment of
the conservative, Schelling, had managed to stem this development,
which was, of course, perceived as a direct threat to the monarchy.
Christian VIII was also interested in appointing Kierkegaard to an academic
position at the Academy, presumably with a similar strategic idea in mind.
But Kierkegaard refused to be drawn into politics in this way.
Indeed, he was reluctant even to meet the king and
was fearful of any closer contacts with him For example,
when the king made it known that he wanted to see him, Kierkegaard initially
used an excuse that he did not have suitable attire and could not come.
But the king insisted and Kierkegaard was obliged to visit the palace.
During their discussion, the king, without asking Kierkegaard,
simply informed his servants that Kierkegaard would be staying for dinner.
For most people, this would of course be regarded as a great honor.
But Kierkegaard rather brazenly refused, insisting that it was impossible for
him to stay for dinner.
When the King continued to make overtures to Kierkegaard, inviting him
to a closer contact, Kierkegaard simply stated that he was a private person.
Thus implying that such a contact was not desirable.
So while we can say that politically speaking Kierkegaard was a royalist,
this statement should be qualified.
Kierkegaard did not have an uncritical disposition towards royal power or
nobility and he enjoyed making fun of people who held high positions and
enjoyed noble titles.
While it's true that he was deeply worried about the democratic developments that led
to the Revolution of 1848,
he did not want to be drawn into any direct political role.
He wanted to keep his primary focus on the inward life of the individual.
In the years following the publication of the Concluding Unscientific Postscript and
a literary review, Kierkegaard continued to publish prolifically.
While we can't look at all these works in great detail,
we can at least mention them briefly.
In 1847, Kierkegaard published two major works in his own name.
First Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, and then Works of Love.
In these works Kierkegaard refers to Socrates not by name but
rather as the simple wise man of antiquity and the simple wise man of old.
In Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits Socrates has held up
in a positive contrast to what Kierkegaard calls the crowd.
As we've just seen, Kierkegaard was concerned about the political ferment
taking place at the time where people were demanding democratic reform.
In a democracy, what's important is the voice of the majority and so
in politics it's natural that when trying to discuss policies with others and
thus build a consensus.
Kierkegaard has a negative view of the idea of people as a collective unit such
as a political party, a political lobby or interest group or political opinion.
He believes that this distorts, or even destroys the voice of the individual.
One dares not oppose the voice of the majority for
fear of being subject to it's criticism.
For this reason,
Kierkegaard hails Socrates who stubbornly insisted on the individual.
The truth is to be found in each particular person,
not in the collective group.
On May the 18th, 1851, Kierkegaard gave a sermon here, at the Citadel Church.
The theme of the sermon was the Letter of James,
Chapter 1 verses 17 to 21, where God is referred to as, quote,
the father of lights with whom there is no change or shadow of variation.
Kierkegaard later published this as a discourse entitled
the Changelessness of God.
In Works of Love, a book that Kierkegaard published in his own name,
he attempts to develop a theory of Christian love.
Here he explores in some detail the meaning of the biblical command to love
one's neighbor.
In one passage, he tries to compare Socrates's practice with Christian love.
He claims that true love is to help the other person to be free,
to stand on their own.
Socrates does this with his questioning.
The goal of the Socratic method is to show the that in fact he
doesn't know the things he thought he knew.
Thus the view of the other persons are reduced to absurdities and contradictions.
Socrates attempts to show this not by telling the other person what the truth is
but rather by extracting it from the other person by means of his questioning.
As we learned this is what Socrates refers to as his art of midwifery or maieutics.
In this way, Socrates can claim that he wasn't the author of any new knowledge or
information, but rather, merely assisted in its coming to the world,
just like a midwife assists in delivering babies.
Kierkegaard emphasizes the point here, that while Socrates is helping the other
person in this way, he must remain as unselfish and as anonymous as possible.
Indeed, this can even be conceived as an act of self-sacrifice
on the part of Socrates, who's helping others in this way,
even though it often leads to them being angry with him.
No one likes discovering that the things they hold to be true are in fact,
confused and mistaken.
And the sense of humiliation that this causes was a source of great hostility
against Socrates in ancient Athens.
For this reason, Socrates can't make a great show of helping other people but
instead must play down his own role and
play up the fact that the other person is reaching the truth on their own.
Kierkegaard refers to this in a somewhat odd way as, quote,
deceiving the other into the truth.
What he means by this is that Socrates' interlocutor doesn't really
know what's happening when he's talking with Socrates.
He doesn't really realize that Socrates is helping him by eliminating his false
beliefs and illusions and leading him to stand on his own feet afterwards.
In the end, he has Socrates to thank for being free, but he's unaware of this.
This seems clearly to be the model for Kierkegaard, for being the model for
what he's doing with his own writings.
On the negative side, he's combating what he takes to be the mistaken conceptions of
Christianity that come from the church, academic theologians and philosophers or
mainstream culture generally.
Then on the positive side just like Socrates the midwife
is enjoining each individual to find their own individual way to the Christian truth.
In this way he believes that he's helping other people to stand on their
own and be free.
On April the 26th, 1848, Kierkegaard published Christian Discourses.
In this work, he takes specific biblical passages and expounds on them.
In a couple of places in part three of the text
he refers to Socrates as before as the simple wise man of antiquity.
Again it's striking that Kierkegaard makes use of Socrates,
a pagan philosopher in the context of a Christian work.
That attempts an parts of the Bible.
At the end of July of 1848, Kierkegaard published an extended article with
the title, The Crisis and the Crisis in the Life of an Actress.
This work examines the acting of the most celebrated actress of the age,
Johanna Luise Heiberg, who was the wife of the poet, critic, and philosopher,
Johan Ludvig Heiberg.
In Kierkegaard's article, he explores the actress's portrayal of the character of
Juliet from Shakespeare's famous tragedy Romeo and Juliet.
She had played this role at the age of 15 and then again at the age of 35.
Kierkegaard investigates what this means for
the artistic rendering of the character.
His account is highly flattering to Johanna Louisa Heyburgs skills as
an actress.
He praises her nuanced portrayal of Juliet,
even though she was two decades older than the character she was playing.
In 1849, he published The Lily in the Field and the Bird of the Air,
and three discourses at the communion on Fridays, both in his own name.
Along with two ethical religious essays and
The Sickness unto Death, under pseudonyms.
Kierkegaard's productivity continued to be astonishing.
And all the while,
one can see the figure of Socrates in the background of his works.
Even works where one would not expect it.
In the last lecture, we mentioned Kierkegaard's posthumously published book,
The Point of View for My Work as an Author.
This work is a highly insightful one with regard to how Kierkegaard conceived
of individual works, and his mission as an author in general.
Of particular importance in our context is the fact
that he refers to Socrates several times.
And makes it clear that he's following the Greek philosopher in certain aspects.
For example, in the introduction to the work, Kierkegaard explains to the reader
that the point of view is not a defense of his writings.
And he compares this with Socrates' behavior at his trial.
He writes, if in nothing else, on this point,
I truly believe I have something in common with Socrates.
He recalls that at the end of his trial,
Socrates mentions that his daemon never try to prevent him or
stop him from speaking or acting in the way he did at his trial.
And so Socrates took this to mean that he was in no danger.
Since if you were doing something wrong, his daemon would have warned him,
as it always did.
Kierkegaard interprets this to mean that at his trial,
Socrates never really tried to defend himself.
Or rather, that his divine daemon had prevented him from defending himself.
Kierkegaard believes that such a defense would have been a contradiction,
presumably since Socrates' work was always negative.
And to defend himself would have amounted to stating positive claims.
We can discuss the validity of Kierkegaard interpretation here, since it does indeed
seem that Socrates tries to explain and thus defend his actions to the jurors.
But then in Kierkegaard favor is the fact that when Socrates had the opportunity
to propose an alternative sentence,
he didn't really make any serious attempt to get a lighter punishment.
But rather proposed that he receive free meals at the Prytaneum.
In any case,
Kierkegaard draws the parallel, just as Socrates refused to defend himself.
Quote, so also there is in me and in the dialectical nature of my relationship
something that makes it impossible for me and
impossible in itself to conduct a defense of my authorship.
So in this score,
it seems that Kierkegaard clearly identified with the fate of Socrates.
And regarded himself to be persecuted unjustly by what he called the crowd.
Moreover, he followed the model of Socrates by refusing to give any
straightforward defense of his works.
In another passage, Kierkegaard is disturbed by the rising demands for
Which he believes, in some ways, destroys the individual.
In democracy, what's important is not the individual as individual, but
rather the collection of people in larger groups, that is, in political parties.
When his voice as an individual is only heard when
the voice is shared by a number of other voices.
Kierkegaard develops a number of concepts, such as the crowd, the masses, public
opinion, which he takes to be pernicious new developments in his own age.
One of the main goals of his work is to point in just the opposite direction.
Namely, to the absolute, irreducible value of the individual as individual.
He believes that even if one has an opinion that's not shared by others, and
thus is obliged to stand alone as an individual, this should be respected,
and should be regarded as something having validity.
But in a democracy,
it can never have any real weight until it's shared by a larger group.
Also on this point,
Kierkegaard believes that he shares something in common with Socrates.
He explains how he developed the idea of the single individual, and
that people found this notion somewhat eccentric.
Kierkegaard then notes that Socrates, who also focused on the individual,
was also regarded in his time as eccentric.
Here, Kierkegaard refers to Hegel's analysis of Socrates as the inventor of
ethics, in the sense of being the inventor of the idea of subjective freedom.
Kierkegaard sees himself as reintroducing this idea
of subjective freedom in his own day.
In the age of modern democracy, it's the crowd that's evil.
And so he takes of a part of his texts to be to struggle against this
tendency by focusing on the individual.
In these reflections on his work, Kierkegaard reserves a special place for
Socrates, whom he acknowledges as his teacher.
This confirms that Kierkegaard's appreciation for
Socrates was not just a fleeting youthful interest in his master's thesis.
But rather was an absolutely determining factor in his work as a whole.
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CHRONICLE: Pritzker proposes debate with Rauner in Quincy, site of outbreak that killed 13 veterans
May 25, 2018 — Breaking News
Democratic gubernatorial hopeful J.B. Pritzker has proposed three debates with Governor Bruce Rauner, including one in Quincy, amid criticism from the public, media, and legislators of the response by Rauner’s response to outbreaks of the disease in the past few years at the Illinois Veterans’ Home, located there.
In March, four new cases of Legionnaire’s have been confirmed at the home, which has killed thirteen residents since the outbreak began in 2015. Much of the controversy revolves around Rauner’s failure to properly handle the crisis at the outset, leading to further cases and deaths. Jeffries has played a key role in the scandal.
The Rauner Administration waited six days to disclose what they knew was the beginning of a major outbreak. A public health expert, Dr. Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Center for Health Security in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said the Rauner administration’s six-day delay informing the public about the outbreak was “inexcusable” and “mind-boggling.”
Additionally, on three separate occasions, Rauner’s administration failed to tell staff at the home about outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease. Instead, staff learned of the outbreak through news reports.
Both the House and Senate have voted for a resolution calling on Rauner to issue a full report of the administration’s response to the outbreaks. It requests the report include what officials “knew and when they knew it.”
The outbreaks began in 2015, causing 13 deaths and sickening more than 60 people. In recent weeks, four new cases of the disease have been confirmed at the veterans’ home.
U.S. Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth, both Democrats, have also called on the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to play a more active role in the investigation and control of the outbreaks, due to the Rauner failure to respond quickly.
“Despite their assertions otherwise, it has become abundantly clear that Illinois’ current administration has failed to adequately address this crisis in a timely fashion. As a result, the lives of veterans living at IVH Quincy — not to mention staff working at the facility and families visiting the facility — have either been put at risk, or lost,” they wrote to Dr. Anne Schuchat, CDC acting director, according to the Quincy Herald-Whig.
Previous ArticleHERALD AND REVIEW: So much sediment, nowhere to put it: Lake Decatur dredging delayed by problem at storage site
Next ArticleTRIBUNE: Sweet heist on final day of candy and snacks exhibition at McCormick Place
CHRONICLE: Report: Rauner violated anti-patronage law in hiring
CHRONICLE: Superintendents sue Rauner for more school funding
CHRONICLE: GOP official files lawsuit alleging Rauner allies rigged party elections
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PTSD & Political Discourse
In Political Opinion
The hysterical Americana-phobia demonstrated by many in the United States and around the world is reaching a fevered pitch. What began modestly enough in the summer of 2015 with a kind of bemused indifference, has finally mutated into psychopathic bloodlust. While the return of a classically American ethos helped thrust Donald Trump into the White House, it simultaneously provoked a violent counteraction. Groups like Antifa, BLM, and the open borders cults have sprung up to decry the American way of life. They seek to re-make America in their image.
As a result, any semblance of civility has all but dissipated, as violence and vandalism inevitably follow in the wake of seemingly every political demonstration. Whether by destroying monuments, hospitalizing protesters, suppressing free speech, or murdering law enforcement and civilians, civil disobedience in the twenty first century has become decidedly Bolshevik in its malevolence. Americana-phobia is not just limited to the participants of street-level political demonstrations, however.
Bolstering the violence in the streets, is the propaganda in the media. This past week alone, a plea for the assassination of President Trump was among the top trends on Twitter, while a senator from Missouri called for the same thing. The subject of white supremacy has been so popular, that the Huffington Post created a separate tab dedicated entirely to ‘white supremacist’ news. Democrat-also-ran Keith Ellison recently declared Kim Jong Un to be more decent and reasonable than President Trump. Faux intellectual and actor Stephen Colbert weighed in too, admonishing President Trump for his alleged nuclear war-triggering rhetoric.
Every day, millions of Americans are propagandized by race-baiting, welfare-destroying, and catastrophe-hijacking merchants of doom and destruction. This is to say nothing of the enviro-terrorist class in the entertainment and news mediums, who regularly harass the public for not being green enough. Across every medium, Americans are receiving anti-Americana propaganda. This holds true for the new media as well as the old: The consolidation of power among internet service providers like YouTube and Google (who are themselves, not without controversy), news and media organizations, and Hollywood, has enabled the powerful to control the flow of information – serving only to fan political and social brushfires.
The magnitude of intolerance has throttled American marriages, too. Influential figures of modern popular culture, having set the West against itself, are instructing the young to endanger the future of civilization in favor of their megalomaniacal ignorance. That’s right! Don’t date people with different opinions, especially if those opinions are rooted in traditional values. Because THAT will really be successful!
Of course, this kind of disloyalty is heralded as a high virtue, among the perpetually-dissatisfied. No longer content mismanaging their own sad lives – writers, editors, journalists, and public intellectuals alike all demand that rank-and-file Americans be as miserable as possible, or else. The joy has been stolen from the collective heart of America, to satisfy the paranoid delusions of the political class.
While politicians and talking heads will paint a suspiciously rosy visage of the health of American society, science shows us something different. The mantra ‘diversity is a strength’ tends not to be true, as ethnic diversity erodes social trust. A breakdown in communication and values will reliably create tension within a given community. If people do not feel safe in their own neighborhoods, they will instead retreat to their televisions, video games, and internet. Social isolation emerges as a result, with seriously harmful effects. Afraid and alone, Americans everywhere are all suffering PTSD – Politically Tyrannized Stress Disorder.
The unsustainability of the current political system, rooted in treachery and theft has psychologically scarred our country. This damage is manifesting in the form of a condition I call Politically Tyrannized Stress Disorder, or PTSD. Politically tyrannized stress disorder is a condition marked by extreme out-group prejudice, cognitive dissonance, with escalating verbal and physical hostility. Individuals afflicted by this condition are triggered by the very sight of assertiveness, objectivity, and personal accountability. Their group preferences are not established along biological lines, but rather along lines of intersectional oppression (making the condition that much more serious). The effects of politically tyrannized stress disorder may drive wedges between siblings, lovers, co-workers, cherished friends, and beloved countrymen.
Politically tyrannized stress disorder manifests in a peculiar way among left-leaning individuals. Believing the world to be populated by reincarnated national socialists who – paradoxically – want to unleash a Christian conservative version of the Hellraiser series here in America, these individuals are militantly petrified. Ranking in the tens of millions (or at least as many as voted for Hillary Clinton), those afflicted with politically induced stress disorder hallucinate the most pernicious things imaginable, including but not limited to: racism, sexism, pedophilia, anti-Semitism, islamophobia, white supremacy, and Nazism. Naturally, claims of such behavior on the part of others is merely a projection of their own tortured psychological state.
Inflicting people with PTSD is an effective strategy for policing thought. To control what people believe is authentic and true, only a narrow band of reality may be allowed for discussion. When the establishment has control over what is true, they also control how people may act. In a situation of government overreach such as our own, what people can say, think, or do, is diminished if not outright penalized. Politically tyrannized stress disorder works by preventing people from thinking in ways that would help them to achieve self-actualization. With generations of betrayal and propaganda, it is possible to embed thought viruses, like PTSD, so that people remain docile and ineffectual.
The reemergence of Americana (and with it, the return of personal agency), is an existential threat to the status quo. Self-governance and self-victimization are opposing psychological mindsets. We’re not just locked in a partisan battle; our current struggle is an existential fight for survival. People are fighting to determine what it means to be alive. These public (and private) disagreements are over the most fundamental questions we know, such as “What is true?” And, “What is good?”
Self-governance is by no means a hard sell, but politically induced stress is inhibiting our ability to hear such perspectives. Americana-phobic pundits and politicos muddy the water too, by frustrating and undermining the cultural values that Americans hold most dear. Politically tyrannized journalists and experts regularly mischaracterize the Americana movement by casually associating it with bigotry and extremism. In doing so, anyone who wants to represent the patriot movement must first contend with negative perceptions, or hallucinations, as Scott Adams might say.
Though the country may be deep in the throes of politically induced stress disorder, we as individuals do not have to take the bait. Like the traumatized victim, each new stimulus appears dangerous and threatening. But we don’t have to respond to each and every political dumpster fire that takes place. Every time some dumb writer for Vox, Mic, or Salon triggers you, think before you hit ‘reply’. When some celebrity or media personality says something regrettable (or shock, even reasonable!), think before you condemn that person. If a rally convenes to promulgate views you find abhorrent, think before you criticize. The cure to politically tyrannized stress disorder, is to avoid feeding the trolls.
Participating in the prescribed discourse only reinforces that discourse. We don’t have to play by their rules, and we don’t have to use their words. If we accept their reality, then they can dictate the terms of engagement. Don’t fall prey to politically tyrannized stress – look past your own circumstance to see the world as it truly is.
Whether PTSD presents in the form of treasonous CNN pundits, insisting on the existence of a global Russian conspiracy, or the fevered night terrors of the intersectional race, gender, and sex movement, it must be rebuked. Not by disavowing, or virtue signaling, but with honesty and integrity. Have the important conversations, but don’t pick up the political hand grenade offered to you by those who hope it detonates in your face. Don’t be a mouthpiece for someone else’s thoughts. Do not fall prey to politically tyrannized stress, and do not succumb to Americana-phobia.
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Committee struck to 'solve' Castlegar Airport's problems
by Nelson Daily Editor on Tuesday April 12 2011
By Timothy Schafer, The Nelson Daily
Some of the problems inherent in the West Kootenay region’s main airport will be tackled by a new board created to oversee its operation, says the mayor of Castlegar.
Lawrence Chernoff told the board of directors of the Regional District of Central Kootenay recently the West Kootenay Regional Airport Advisory committee was struck to help mitigate inconveniences endured by some of the over 74,000 passengers that pass through the Castlegar Airport each year.
People from Kaslo to Castlegar, Grand Forks to Nakusp and Nelson rely on the airport, but last winter there were 41 flight cancellations in the month of December alone, fulfilling the facility's nickname, "Cancel-gar."
Such a record is inexcusable, said Mayor Chernoff, considering the airport was “essential for the continued growth of the West Kootenay region.”
Nelson Mayor John Dooley concurred with Mayor Chernoff, the chair of the committee.
“The unreliability of the airport is probably the single biggest drawback to additional growth in the area,” Mayor Dooley said. “People are choosing options to drive to Cranbrook or to Trail.”
However, the scope of the work outlined for the committee is vague, including:
• promote the development of the airport as the major commercial hub in the West Kootenay;
• encourage the development of improved air services to the region;
• review and make recommendations on selected matters as requested by Castlegar City council;
• represent the interests of the airport with federal and provincial governments; and
• provide community input to airport management on airport activities.
Reviews, reports and advice on matters concerning the long-term development of the airport will be the purview of the committee.
There will be one representative chosen from Nelson City council to represent the city. In all, the advisory committee will include people from local government, business and the community within the airport’s catchment area, selected by Castlegar City council.
“Everybody in the area uses the airport so we just think for better operation we should have representation from all over the West Kootenay to sit on the board,” said Mayor Chernoff.
The routine operations and any special initiatives of the committee will be funded by allocations within the airport budget.
editor@thenelsondaily.com
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Written by Lance Dixon
The 2015 Miami Climate March, leading the UPG sea-level rise float. (📸: Elizabeth Fernandez/The New Tropic)
Climate change is an issue that isn’t going away any time soon. It’s weighty and sometimes feels too overwhelming to dig into. The CLEO Institute has worked for nearly a decade to change that perception, and the conversation around the topic.
We spoke with Caroline Lewis, founder of the CLEO Institute, about the organization’s upcoming Empowering Capable Climate Communicators symposium, and about what’s shaping the local conversation on climate change.
What makes this symposium different from others?
Caroline says that the ECCC symposium was once extremely focused on the science behind climate change. And on identifying the science behind the causes and effects, while identifying mitigation efforts. Over time, it’s grown to include other topics to highlight the broad impact of increasing temperatures and rising seas.
“I think the symposium is trying to provide multiple lenses to the climate crisis. From the science behind climate change to hydrology, to the economy, to gentrification to social justice lenses. It really is a one-stop shop approach to it,” says Caroline.
And beyond the wide base of discussion, she said the symposium is designed to be actionable. Caroline says the vast array of topics and speakers is meant to make it easier for people to find their entry way, or spark, to get involved in addressing the issue of climate change.
“We have to use triggers and for some people it’s the economy, things like the cost of solar and wind energy coming down,” she says. “For some it’s humanity and biodiversity, and things like coral reefs. And for some it’s legacy — we’re supposed to leave the world better than we found it, and we’re not doing that.”
How do you balance the “doom and gloom” of the climate conversation with keeping people motivated to tackle the issue?
“I don’t even know if it’s possible,” Caroline says. But she said that she’s tried to remain optimistic.
She says that when people try to deflect away from the troubling news of climate change she notes that, “it’s only going to get doomier and gloomier if we don’t talk about it.”
The CLEO Institute and other climate change advocates also try to stress that the window of time to address these issues is closing soon.
“The science is screaming at us,” she says. “We have to call it what it is, but we have to see the opportunity it’s providing for us.”
What aspect of the climate change discussion needs more attention?
Caroline said that more focus should be placed on Miami’s aging and failing septic tank system, and on general infrastructure.
She also thinks the climate change conversation has to focus more on people living at or below the poverty line in Miami-Dade County, as they don’t have the resources to address major infrastructure needs at their homes or to pay for things as common as fans or air conditioners as summers continue to get warmer.
How should people try to get involved?
Caroline suggests things like conserving energy, eating less meat, and using fewer plastic products but ultimately thinks it’s about folks finding their voice, and using it to spread the word about climate change.
She says CLEO takes a two-pronged approach by trying to improve climate literacy and community engagement.
“I ask people to gauge where the are on that knowledge scale and how can you move up. Then the next thing is the engagement scale,” Caroline says.
Some of her recommendations on moving up include reading up on climate change, and understanding more of the science, and then finding a way to connect that info to your skill set as you engage others.
Caroline says she’s something like a 12 out of 10 on the engagement scale because of how much time she spends discussing climate issues. But on the climate knowledge scale?
“I’m about a six or six point five and I’ve been doing this for ten years. There’s always more to learn,” Caroline says.
You can find more information on the CLEO Institute symposium and buy tickets on the organization’s website. There are discounted tickets available for students and teachers. There are also some discounted tickets and assistance for the general public if you email [email protected]
By Lance Dixon
Lance is the director for The New Tropic. Send story ideas and/or memes to [email protected]
100 great ideas to combat climate change
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A Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Dark Side of Dimensions Review
February 11, 2017 crispyn64
I usually hate the phrase “for the fans”, because “for the fans” is usually used as a cheap excuse for why one’s entertainment product will undoubtedly fail to reach or receive praise from a wide variety of people. In a sense, it’s saying the people who like it will like it, and the people who don’t, won’t. Why even try making something worthwhile? There’s a perfectly sustainable fanbase that will continue to support something so long as it remotely caters to them. Sure, this could work as a business model, but what does this say about the art? Are artists supposed to create only to please people? Is this the kind of cycle that inevitably transforms to a downward spiral, regurgitating the same market manufactured garbage to the same people that only look to entertainment as something to be enjoyed and nothing else? Not that there’s anything wrong with just having fun, but repeating the same kind of fun does grow to be tiresome.
I usually hate this idea of “for the fans”, but there can always be an exception. There is a sense in which I find “for the fans” to be…acceptable. Long running series often have certain concepts, certain rules, certain characters (I supposed I could’ve just said ‘certain things’ and covered all of that) that have already been established. Usually films need to explain ‘certain things’ in order for other ‘certain things’ to make sense. It’s not necessarily fair for a film to expect an indiscriminate audience to have prerequisite knowledge when heading into that theater. Still, life isn’t fair, and the exclusivity of knowledge is near non-existent on a consumer level, thanks to the world wide web. So it has become less unfair to expect such things from an audience. The kind of “for the fans” ideal that I find acceptable is one not where a creator makes excuses for their work and claims that it will be worthwhile for their “fans”, but one where a creator makes no excuses and expects that their work could only be understood by their fans.
So with that said, before I really start this review, I’d like to say that if you liked the original series, dubbed in English, you should absolutely watch this movie. It’ll probably just be horrendously stupid if you’re a newcomer, but if you’re even a slight fan, well then hot damn you’re in for some hilarious surprises. Like, it’ll still be stupid, but it’ll be the stupid you already know and love. A good kind of stupid. Hell, a great kind of stupid.
With characters that need no reintroduction, to rules that need no re-explanation, Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Dark Side of Dimensions dropped me right where I left off over a decade ago, hanging out with the gang after the events leading up to the pharaoh returning to where he belongs. Chilling in Domino city, we actually get to see these lovable goofballs in their everyday routines, something that wasn’t really ever present in the original series. Tea, Joey, Tristan, Yugi, Bakura, hell, even Duke Devlin makes an appearance (but strangely not Mai Valentine), and for the most part they’re all exactly as I had remembered them. Okay, Tea’s a little different, and her face/character model is a bit off.
What’s truly important however, is that Kaiba is back, and more obsessive about defeating the pharaoh than ever. With the pharaoh gone, Seto’s continued to build up Kaiba Corp and amass even greater fortunes, all while funding his personal side project of unearthing the pharaoh’s tomb and repairing the Millenium Puzzle. His corporation makes some crazy, completely impractical shit, but they get the job done and then some. Kaiba runs into some trouble however, as the villain of the movie with an extremely stupid name (his name is Diva, and it’s supposed to be taken seriously but all I can think of is Overwatch when they say his name) stops on by and snatches a piece of the puzzle.
Of course, not before he and Seto have a duel that’s as hollow as the projections from a duel disk. It’s funny because as a fan of the series and card game, I could tell you that the show never followed the actually rules. In this however, the fact that duels start with 8000 life points rather than 4000 made me think for a second that their duels might actually make sense. Nope, Diva manages to somehow attack, switch his monsters, attack, switch back, and attack again, like 4 times in one battle phase. Not to mention his monsters are bullshit to begin with, they take no damage, are never destroyed, and essentially render opponents’ monsters completely useless. That said, Kaiba pulls off summoning Obelisk the Tormentor with two monsters still on the field and wins the duel, which was pretty cool.
The plot of the entire movie is pretty basic, but also took us to some pretty fun places (like space). It’s mostly a mixture of absurd twists and complications, no real emotional drama besides perhaps the villain’s, and duels to settle it all. Just like the good old times. The opening and the climax are my favorite parts, as the opening sequence really shows you exactly what to expect from this movie, and the climax finishes giving to you. While a lot of what happened in the film may not have originally been planned to be funny, in execution and perhaps localization, Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Dark Side of Dimensions turned out to be one of the funniest movies I have ever seen.
I mean, I was straight wheezing in that theater, and it took all I had not to burst into tears. So now I’m going to spoil the moments that gave me the best laughs. Please go watch this movie if you are at all interested in Yu-Gi-Oh!. And thanks for reading.
Okay, so the opening scene is this grand zoom in on the Earth from the outer reaches of the galaxy. Once it reaches orbit, you start to see something floating outside the atmosphere. As the shot closes in, we can see it’s a Kaiba Corp space station. But that’s not even the best part. The shot changes to an overhead view of the station, and it’s in the shape of the initials “K.C.”. Not only that, later on in the movie we find out it’s not just a space station, but actually the end of a space elevator that connects all the way from the ground. Duke Devlin works in a mall now because apparently his game making business went under. That was more of a laugh in retrospect though. Then there’s the climax: Okay, so this starts off with Kaiba just taking over every monitor in the city (don’t worry, he owns it all) to announce his duel tournament, then stands in the middle of a four-way intersection to invite Yugi to the tournament, completely out of nowhere for Yugi. Everyone gathers at the stadium for Kaiba to first unveil his latest advancements in duel technology, and he does it in the most traumatically hilarious way possible. The event starts with jets flying overhead, but then one of them malfunctions and starts to spiral down toward the stadium. We get a shot of a panicking pilot and a horrified audience right before a Blue-Eyes White Dragon appear from the stage and blows up the plane with the pilot in it. Kaiba then goes on to announce that it was all just a demonstration of his newest hologram technology, tech so realistic that you just thought 9/11 might be happening all over again. Oh, and then the villain shows up and people start literally losing their heads as they’re sent to some alternate dimension, Kaiba mocks Yugi for playing fruit magician girls, and a just whole bunch of other shenanigans.
Let’s just say I had a really fun time, and also got the theater attendant to give me 6 promotional Obelisk the Tormentor cards.
AnimeYu-Gi-Oh!: The Dark Side of Dimensions
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« Best actors and directors under age 40
In Hollywood, not driving means there’s something wrong with you. »
While the math is Solaris plus Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind plus The Matrix plus the rules of action video games, Christopher Nolan’s summer blockbuster Inception doesn’t quite add up. But you know what, who cares? Is it the best of Hollywood’s “summer movies” of 2010? Probably but the competition is far from fierce. It’s a sad state of affairs when I can give this praise to a film based simply on novelty and ambition as compared to the rehashes of old ideas and unnecessary sequels that seem to be the stock in trade of Hollywood in 2010. Hell I can give Inception 4 out of 5 stars just for novelty.
Inception isn’t a bad movie. I was transfixed pretty much throughout. Make no mistake, it’s flaws are legion: a clunky script that requires too much “tell not show” exposition, leading to a dense film screaming for just a moment to breathe, cardboard characters that waste the acting talents of Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ken Watanabe, Nolan’s love of the Paul Greengrass/Quantum of Solace style million cuts a minute action/chase/shootout sequences whose manic intensity make me want to search for old gum on the theater floor until it’s over and the film’s failed attempt at pinning the narrative to a (less than resonant) longing for a lost love. Not to mention Nolan’s failure to understand that dream reality is never as reliant on it’s own internal logic as this film is. I can’t help but think that if he were to just let go for a minute the film would have been transcendent.
Nonetheless as a viewer I was completely satisfied. Christopher Nolan makes wonderful puzzle boxes and revels in surface-level mind-fucks. When he’s at his best (the concept of “dream time” being elongated compared to the time of the “awake” state above it created one of the most clever “race against the clock” scenarios ever filmed) he’s amazing. But make no mistake, this is not a masterpiece. That doesn’t make me not want to experience it again in the theater though, and coming from me that’s pretty high praise.
This entry was posted on July 23, 2010 at 2:31 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.
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BORNEO: IRISH TOURIST SAVAGELY RAPED BY 400-POUND ORANGUTAN
Kalimantan | An ecologist’s dream to watch orangutans in their natural habitat quickly turned into his worst nightmare after being savagely attacked and raped by a 400-pound orangutan in the jungle of Borneo.
Zack O’Reilly, a young 26-year-old from Ireland, who is presently studying biology at Dublin city University and has been a Greenpeace activist for the past three years, had always dreamed of seeing orangutans in their natural habitat and was a strong advocate against the palm oil industry, which is a great threat to the endangered species.
“ HE ALWAYS DREAMED OF SEEING ORANGUTANS IN THE JUNGLE. I USED TO TEASE HIM, SAYING HE LOOKED LIKE ONE AND THAT HE’D FIND HIS SOULMATE IN THE JUNGLE. NEVER WOULD I HAVE THOUGHT HE WOULD BE SEXUALLY ASSAULTED BY ONE ”
– KELLY O’REILLY, MOTHER
The young man was quickly brought back to a missionary hospital near Kalimantan where he lay unconscious for many hours and where doctors found traces of internal bleeding.
Kelly O’Reilly, the victim’s mother, says she used to tease him, telling her son he looked like an orangutan, but she never suspected he would be sexually assaulted by one, she told reporters in tears
FAMILIAR TRAITS
Kekbek Mahlouiak, one of the tour guides present on the dramatic trip, says he has warned various tourists to be careful around the animals.
“I specifically told him to wear a hat and hide his orange hair, that it could entice the orangutans. I’m not surprised of what has happened, I warned him many times. He did not listen,” he told local reporters.
“It is very dangerous for people with orange hair, the males get very excited. A male followed us deep into the jungle many kilometers, he was very aggressive. There is nothing I could do,” he added.
AN ISOLATED INCIDENT
A spokeswoman for the Borneo Tourism Board said it is the first time an orangutan has physically assaulted a tourist on one of their jungle treks.
“We are deeply horrified and saddened by the whole affair. We have offered the young victim a free tour if he ever wishes to come back again and will provide increased security for our travelers in the future,” she added.
A similar incident was previously reported in a Jakarta zoo in 2014, when a young red-haired woman was hospitalized after an orangutan broke out of its cage and tried to mate with the visitor, resulting in the death of the animal by zoo employees.
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A Tugboat Begins Her Long-Serving and Lifesaving Career in the U.S. Navy
The U.S. Navy acquired a tugboat that was constructed in San Francisco a decade earlier by the shipbuilding company Union Iron Works. This tugboat, along with one that was built in Philadelphia, became part of the Navy’s fleet at a time when the United States was readying for war against Spain. “TUGBOATS IN UNCLE SAM’S SERVICE,” proclaimed a headline in the Oakland Tribune.
Just over 11 weeks after being acquired by the Navy, the tugboat that originated at Union Iron Works was officially commissioned as USS Active at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, California (approximately 25 miles, or 40.2 kilometers, northeast of San Francisco). Ensign Thomas M. Shaw became the first commanding officer of this tugboat, which was the third U.S. Navy vessel to be named Active.
Not long after being commissioned, the newest version of USS Active was assigned to serve as a harbor tugboat at Bremerton Navy Yard (the present-day Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility) in Bremerton, Washington. In 1899, however, Active returned to Mare Island for what turned out to be a long-term tour of duty there.
While Active was purchased by the Navy for possible use during the Spanish-American War, she evidently had little if any direct involvement in that short-lived military conflict. Active, though, more than made up for that when one of the worst-ever disasters in the United States occurred in California just a few years later. On April 18, 1906 – the eighth anniversary of when Active was obtained by the Navy – San Francisco was slammed by a devastating earthquake. Along with causing the deaths of more than 3,000 people, this earthquake demolished most of the city.
The disaster also resulted in widespread, destructive fires that San Francisco’s overwhelmed fire department was not able to contain, let alone combat, in an effective manner. The Navy therefore provided urgently needed resources and personnel for those firefighting efforts, with Active among the vessels making their way to San Francisco on April 18 to help put out the conflagration.
Under the command of Midshipman John E. Pond, Active was docked alongside Pier 8 on the city’s waterfront at San Francisco Bay. Pond and his crew used hoses on board their vessel to provide critically needed water for battling the furious flames in that section of the city. Over the next few days, the men serving on Active – along with the crews of fellow tugboat USS Leslie and the torpedo boat destroyer USS Perry – labored long and hard to help save San Francisco from the inferno engulfing it.
In addition to their firefighting contributions, these servicemen patrolled that section of the city to protect neighborhoods against potential looters and provide medical aid to injured residents. Another one of the pivotal roles performed by Active entailed steaming back to Mare Island on April 21 and transporting to San Francisco a number of relief firefighters from the crews of the cruisers USS Chicago and USS Marblehead.
The efforts of both the crew of Active and the other Navy servicemen in the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake did not go unnoticed. Admiral Caspar F. Goodrich, commander-in-chief of the Navy’s Pacific Squadron, emphasized their “heroic work” and how they “fought flames for over two days without rest at imminent risk to life, and saved alone, or aided in saving, all that is left along the water front.” Goodrich also noted, “The president [of the] State board of harbor commissioners wrote that had it not been for their great assistance we would never have been able to preserve the waterfront.”
During the two decades that followed the earthquake, Active continued to serve at Mare Island except for a tour of duty at the Naval Training Station in San Francisco from 1915 to 1918. In 1918, the vessel was renamed USS Lively. After sinking in an accident alongside a dock at Mare Island in 1926, the tugboat was raised but ultimately deemed unfit for service. She was decommissioned and, in 1930, sold by the Navy to the Seattle-based Puget Sound Tug and Barge Company for commercial service. At some point in the 1930s, the vessel was renamed Active.
Not long after the U.S. entry in World War II, Active was reacquired by the Navy and reclassified as the unnamed YT-323. (YT had been the Navy’s designation for “yard tug” since 1920.) As YT-323, the seasoned tugboat – now more than four decades old — provided towing services for the Navy at Kodiak, Alaska. The tugboat was placed out of service towards the end of the war in 1945 and returned to the Puget Sound Tug and Barge Company. That company operated the vessel as Active until she was scrapped in 1963.
For more information on USS Active, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Active_(1888)
Additional information on the firefighting efforts of USS Active and other U.S. Navy vessels in the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake is available at https://www.navalhistory.org/2010/04/18/1906-san-francisco-earthquake-the-navy-responds
Today in Transportation History
history, transportation, tugboat
An Influential Car Gallops Out of the Starting Gate
The First Funicular Railway in Portugal’s Capital Begins Operations
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The Originals Episode Guide, The Originals Season One, Flashback episodes
Long Way Back From Hell
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Season 1, Episode 14 (14)
Ashley Lyle & Bart Nickerson
Matt Hastings
Crescent City Le Grand Guignol
“ After I plunge this into your heart, you will be immobilized, imprisoned in a state of raw, inescapable anguish. Time loses all meaning. It's not unlike a living hell, which I find rather fitting, given your treachery. ”
— Klaus to Rebekah
Long Way Back From Hell is the fourteenth episode of the first season of The Originals and the fourteenth episode of the series overall.
The Originals 1x14 Extended Promo - Long Way Back from Hell HD
REBEKAH’S PAST CATCHES UP WITH HER — When Rebekah finds herself locked up in the sanatorium where she worked in 1919, she realizes a witch named Genevieve is back to seek revenge and to reveal dark secrets that would destroy Rebekah if she is exposed to them. A distraught Elijah turns to Marcel and Hayley for help when one of his decisions puts Klaus and Rebekah’s lives in danger. With time working against them, Marcel realizes he may hold valuable information that could lead them to Klaus and Rebekah, but revealing it will almost certainly result in deadly consequences.
Joseph Morgan as Niklaus Mikaelson
Daniel Gillies as Elijah Mikaelson
Claire Holt as Rebekah Mikaelson
Phoebe Tonkin as Hayley Marshall
Charles Michael Davis as Marcel Gerard
Leah Pipes as Camille O'Connell (credit only)
Danielle Campbell as Davina Claire (credit only)
Shannon Kane as Sabine Laurent/Céleste Dubois
Elyse Levesque as Genevieve
Yasmine Al Bustami as Monique Deveraux
Teri Wyble as Clara Summerlin/Céleste Dubois (flashback)
Jason Vail as Man
JC Conway as City Clerk
Antagonists: Rebekah (1919), Genevieve and Céleste (present).
Narrator: Rebekah Mikaelson.
Title meaning: a reference to Elijah's attempts to get his family back after the witches' attack on them, and the fact that Klaus' discovery of Rebekah's treachery will destroy all those efforts.
Now that Sophie is dead, there are only seven main characters left.
This will be the first time that less than six main characters will appear in an episode. Klaus, Elijah, Rebekah, Hayley and Marcel are actually the only five main characters who have appeared in every episode to date so far, which breaks the record from The Vampire Diaries up until this point.
Sophie's death has been confirmed to be permanent[1], and as a result, Daniella Pineda is no longer credited as part of the main cast.
This episode takes place two days after events of Crescent City.
This is the second flashback to 1919 New Orleans in the series.
It's revealed that Rebekah was friends with Genevieve in 1919 and takes advantage of Genevieve. Rebekah used Genevieve to magically summon Mikael in hopes of causing Klaus to flee New Orleans, but Rebekah ended up killing Genevieve after Rebekah had second thoughts about betraying her brother and feared Genevieve would rat her out to him.
Céleste has Monique deliver a message to Elijah, which is given in the form of a Devinette spell, or a riddle, on his skin. The riddle is a list of the names of every witch Céleste has possessed since 1821, that'll disappear once he figures out the message. Marcel offers to do some recon work on the name Annie La Fleur, a witch who was shunned from her coven just over a year ago.
It's confirmed that Céleste possessed Clara Summerlin, a friend of Genevieve who Rebekah also killed, in 1919. While Clara ultimately died of influenza along with Genevieve after Rebekah purposely infected them both, Céleste managed to live on in the body of a different French Quarter witch afterward.
It's also revealed through Monique's Devinette spell on Elijah that Céleste also once possessed Brynne Deveraux, the witch who cursed the Crescent Wolf Pack, in the 1990s Labonair Family. Upon learning that it was actually Céleste who cursed the the clan, and not Brynne as Sophie had previously suggested, Hayley proceeds to kidnap Céleste in order to force her to reverse it.
Céleste is the second character to possess more than one person in either series. The first is Klaus, who has possessed both Alaric Saltzman and Tyler Lockwood.
Klaus finds out about Rebekah and Marcel's secret regarding their summoning of Mikael to New Orleans, and in retaliation, he planned to stab Rebekah with Papa Tunde's Blade and kill Marcel for their betrayal. However, Elijah stopped him by stealing the blade from him and using it to stab Klaus instead, giving Rebekah and Marcel enough time to flee.
This episode marks the fourth time Klaus is incapacitated in the series.
It's revealed Genevieve had a crush on Klaus in 1919 that continues on to this day.
The witches buried Sophie in Lafayette Cemetery and consecrated her remains in order for her to join the Ancestors and to allow the coven to draw upon her magic.
Elijah learns that Sophie is dead from Monique, but not that Monique herself killed her aunt. It is possible that only Monique, Céleste, Bastianna, and Genevieve know the truth about the manner of her death.
It's revealed the Human Faction, now led by the newly-elected Mayor of New Orleans, has a record of every supernatural death in the city, be it vampire, werewolf or witch, along with other details such as addresses and family histories. These records were moved to St. Anne's Church after the previous Mayor's death.
We see the Fleur-de-Lis Sanatorium for the first time.
Hayley knocks out Sabine (possessed by Céleste) with a rear assault using a shovel and captures her with the goal of forcing her to reverse the Crescent Curse on her pack.
Genevieve (past) - Influenza, killed by Rebekah Mikaelson (indirectly).
Clara Summerlin (past) - Influenza, killed by Rebekah Mikaelson (indirectly).
Camille doesn't appear in this episode.
Kol is referenced in this episode by Rebekah. He was last seen in a flashback in Always and Forever.
The new Mayor of New Orleans mentions files on the supernatural community of the town, which he had moved to St. Anne's Church following the death of the previous mayor. The previous mayor, along with the majority of his fellow Human Faction members, were killed by Klaus and Marcel in Reigning Pain in New Orleans, leaving Father Kieran as the only survivor to rebuild the group.
These files will later come up again in The Battle of New Orleans, and will play a role in Season Two of The Originals as well.
Papa Tunde's Blade, which was turned into a dark object by Papa Tunde in Crescent City, was featured again in this episode when Genevieve pulls it from Klaus' chest and gives it to him to use against Rebekah. He is then stabbed with it again by Elijah.
Fleur-de-Lis Sanatorium
Lafayette Cemetery
This episode had about 1.83 million viewers in the USA, which was 0.27 million less than the previous episode.
From this episode onwards, Daniella Pineda (Sophie Deveraux) is no longer credited during the opening credits.
This is Leah Pipes' favorite episode from Season One.
"Long Way Back From Hell" is a song by Danzig released in 1990 on the album Danzig II: Lucifuge.
The story of New Orleans’ battle with influenza is a particularly interesting one. A port city, it saw influenza arrive by sea via merchants and sailors. New Orleans influenza epidemic was a devastating one, between October 1918 and April 1919, the city experienced a staggering 54,089 cases of influenza. Of these, 3,489 died – a case fatality rate of 6.5%, and an excess death rate of 734 per 100,000. Only Pittsburgh (806) and Philadelphia (748) - the two cities with the worst epidemics in the nation – had higher death rates.
Tremé is a neighborhood of the city of New Orleans. "Tremé" is often rendered as Treme, historically the neighborhood is sometimes called by its more formal French names of Faubourg Tremé; it is listed in the New Orleans City Planning Districts as Tremé / Lafitte when including the Lafitte Projects. Originally known as "Back of Town," urban planners renamed the neighborhood "Faubourg Tremé" in an effort to revitalize the historic area. A subdistrict of the Mid-City District Area, its boundaries as defined by the City Planning Commission are Esplanade Avenue to the east, North Rampart Street to the south, St. Louis Street to the west and North Broad Street to the north. It is one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city, and early in the city's history was the main neighborhood of free people of color. Historically a racially mixed neighborhood, it remains an important center of the city's African-American and Créole culture, especially the modern brass band tradition.
The fleur-de-lis or fleur-de-lys (plural: fleurs-de-lis) is a stylized lily (in French, fleur means flower, and lis means lily) or iris that is used as a decorative design or symbol. The fleur-de-lis has appeared on countless European coats of arms and flags over the centuries, but it is particularly associated with the French Monarchy in a historical context, and continues to appear in the arms of the King of Spain and the Grand Duke of Luxembourg and members of the House of Bourbon. It remains an enduring symbol of France that appears on French postage stamps, although it has never been adopted officially by any of the French republics. According to French historian Georges Duby, the three petals represent the medieval social classes: those who worked, those who fought, and those who prayed.
Elijah: "My siblings have been taken, where are they?"
Genevieve: "Rebekah's awake and the hallucinations have begun."
Rebekah: "Who's there?"
Elijah: "Niklaus and Rebekah are somewhere suffering horribly."
Elijah: "The longer the game, the more they suffer."
Rebekah: (screaming)
Genevieve: "Just because we can't kill them, doesn't mean they can't be destroyed."
Marcel: "They're putting eyes and ears out everywhere. Daywalkers are working every contact we got. Cops, dockworkers, guys in the Tremé, the word is out-- anyone trying to earn favor with me gets a lifetime of it if they find them."
Elijah: "Good. I need a pen and paper."
Marcel: "Hey, am I taking orders from you now, or are we in this together?"
Elijah: "Pen and paper, Marcel. Now."
Marcel: "Look, I want her back just as much as you do you know, both of them."
Elijah: "Hayley!"
Hayley: "Elijah, you're back. Did you find anything?"
"Grinnin' In Your Face" – Son House
"Creeper" – True Widow
The Originals 1x14 Promo HD
Short Promo
Extended promo
The Originals - Long Way Back From Hell Producers' Preview
Producer's Preview
The Originals 1x14 Webclip 1 Long Way Back from Hell HD RUS SUB
Webclip
The Originals 1x14 Webclip 2
Webclip #2
The Originals 1x14 Season 1 Episode 14 Canadian Promo Long Way Back from Hell HD
Canadian Promo
↑ http://www.spoilertv.com/2014/02/the-originals-julie-plec-interview.html?m=1
The Originals Episodes
"Pilot (Director's Cut)" • "Always and Forever" • "House of the Rising Son" • "Tangled Up In Blue" • "Girl in New Orleans" • "Sinners and Saints" • "Fruit of the Poisoned Tree" • "Bloodletting" • "The River in Reverse" • "Reigning Pain in New Orleans" • "The Casket Girls" • "Après Moi, Le Déluge" • "Dance Back from the Grave" • "Crescent City" • "Long Way Back From Hell" • "Le Grand Guignol" • "Farewell to Storyville" • "Moon Over Bourbon Street" • "The Big Uneasy" • "An Unblinking Death" • "A Closer Walk With Thee" • "The Battle of New Orleans" • "From a Cradle to a Grave"
"Rebirth" • "Alive and Kicking" • "Every Mother's Son" • "Live and Let Die" • "Red Door" • "Wheel Inside the Wheel" • "Chasing the Devil’s Tail" • "The Brothers That Care Forgot" • "The Map of Moments" • "Gonna Set Your Flag On Fire" • "Brotherhood of the Damned" • "Sanctuary" • "The Devil is Damned" • "I Love You, Goodbye" • "They All Asked For You" • "Save My Soul" • "Exquisite Corpse" • "Night Has A Thousand Eyes" • "When the Levee Breaks" • "City Beneath The Sea" • "Fire with Fire" • "Ashes to Ashes"
"For the Next Millennium" • "You Hung the Moon" • "I'll See You in Hell or New Orleans" • "A Walk on the Wild Side" • "The Axeman's Letter" • "Beautiful Mistake" • "Out of the Easy" • "The Other Girl in New Orleans" • "Savior" • "A Ghost Along the Mississippi" • "Wild at Heart" • "Dead Angels" • "Heart Shaped Box" • "A Streetcar Named Desire" • "An Old Friend Calls" • "Alone with Everybody" • "Behind the Black Horizon" • "The Devil Comes Here and Sighs" • "No More Heartbreaks" • "Where Nothing Stays Buried" • "Give 'Em Hell Kid" • "The Bloody Crown"
"Gather Up the Killers" • "No Quarter" • "Haunter of Ruins" • "Keepers of the House" • "I Hear You Knocking" • "Bag of Cobras" • "High Water and a Devil's Daughter" • "Voodoo in My Blood" • "Queen Death" • "Phantomesque" • "A Spirit Here That Won't Be Broken" • "Voodoo Child" • "The Feast of All Sinners"
"Where You Left Your Heart" • "One Wrong Turn On Bourbon" • "Ne Me Quitte Pas" • "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" • "Don't It Just Break Your Heart" • "What, Will, I, Have, Left" • "God's Gonna Trouble the Water" • "The Kindness of Strangers" • "We Have Not Long To Love" • "There in the Disappearing Light" • "Til the Day I Die" • "The Tale of Two Wolves" • "When The Saints Go Marching In"
The Originals Transcripts
0 • 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13 • 14 • 15 • 16 • 17 • 18 • 19 • 20 • 21 • 22
1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • 7 • 8 • 9 • 10 • 11 • 12 • 13
Retrieved from "https://vampirediaries.fandom.com/wiki/Long_Way_Back_From_Hell?oldid=2695651"
The Originals Episode Guide
The Originals Season One
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Read Next: U.K. Theater Review: 'Tree' Co-Created by Idris Elba
March 24, 2017 6:15AM PT
How Broadway Play ‘Sweat’ Tells the Personal Stories Behind the News
By Gordon Cox
Gordon Cox
Theater Editor @GCoxVariety FOLLOW
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CREDIT: Joan Marcus
It took six years for Lynn Nottage’s play “Sweat” to make it to Broadway — but somehow, it feels as up-to-the-minute as the latest New York Times notification on your smartphone.
Set in Reading, Penn., and shifting between scenes set in 2000 and in 2008, “Sweat” chronicles the strains placed on a group of blue-collar friends when their jobs at the local factory are threatened. Despite a long development process that began in 2011, the play, which opens March 26 at Broadway’s Studio 54, addresses issues of economic inequality and racial fracturing that now make it a timely portrait of the forgotten, desperate working class that surged to the voting booth to help Donald Trump win the 2016 election.
“The immediacy of it is almost freakish,” said MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes, who saw the show during Broadway previews. “I’m not sure how [Nottage] managed it. Not only is it great as drama, in that it’s incredibly well crafted with well-drawn characters, but it’s also one of the most sophisticated political texts I’ve encountered in a long while.”
Pulitzer winner Nottage (“Ruined”) began researching “Sweat” in 2011, and it made stops at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 2015, and then at Washington, D.C.’s Arena Stage and at the Public Theater in 2016 before landing at Broadway’s Studio 54. The tale undoubtedly had contemporary relevance at OSF and at Arena, but by the time it got to the Public, where the show opened the week before the presidential election, “Sweat” played like it had been tailor-made for the nation’s post-election soul-searching.
“In a way, the play has only increased in meaning over time,” said director Kate Whoriskey, who also worked with Nottage on “Ruined.” “Trump really is the lightning rod for the question of racial tension and economic divide.”
Other theater artists have also mobilized to grapple with the sudden onset of the Age of Trump. In L.A., for instance, Jon Robin Baitz’s Trump-inspired play “Vicuna” bowed at the Kirk Douglas Theater in October, and “Building the Wall,” a chilling glimpse of life in America in 2019 by “Hacksaw Ridge” co-writer Robert Schenkkan (“All the Way”), just opened at the Fountain Theater. But given the more extensive production demands (including the higher costs) necessitated by Broadway, it’s rare for a production to land there with the kind of cultural immediacy that “Sweat” carries with it.
“I think people are looking for answers all over the country right now, on Broadway and not on Broadway,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, the president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, who saw the show at Arena last year. “People went out to see ‘Hamilton’ and it gave them a sense of purpose and hopefulness and pride in the project of America. But I think people now are feeling dubious about the project of America, and it’s time for a no-historical-costumes, grown-up story that tries to help people find answers. ‘Sweat’ has its uncomfortable moments, but there are enough to go around that nobody leaves unscathed.”
Ifill and Hayes are among a number of prominent and politically engaged figures who have turned out to for “Sweat” over the last two years. Michael Moore, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton and former Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook have also seen the show.
“Sweat” grew out of Nottage’s prescient identification of issues that, at the time, hadn’t yet pushed their way to the fore of public awareness. Soon after Reading topped the census’ poverty list in 2011, she began to make regular visits there in order to conduct interviews and research. The next year, she invited her “Ruined” collaborator Whoriskey to join her for the trips. (Development of the play was supported by a co-commission from the Arena and from OSF’s American Revolutions program, which has also yielded Tony winner “All the Way” and the upcoming Broadway play “Indecent.”)
“Honestly, I felt these issues were something that had real urgency and immediacy back when I sat down to write,” Nottage remembered. “I knew it was a conversation that needed to be had.”
After speaking to a wide array of Reading residents, Nottage found the inspiration for her fictional plot in talking to the city’s steel workers. A couple of years later, her work on “Sweat” informed her reactions as the 2016 election season came to a boil.
“I knew the issues of economic inequality and economic insecurity would be raised during the election,” she said. “But I was surprised by how efficiently Donald Trump was able to exploit people’s fears and insecurities. The thing that didn’t surprise me was the level of desperation, because I had seen it. I spoke to people in Reading who felt very afraid and very marginalized.”
“Better than any of the political writing I’ve seen on the topic, the play manages to deal directly with these twin theories about what happened in the election,” noted Hayes. “One theory is about economic anxiety, and the people who experienced downward mobility turning out at the voting booth. In the other, tribalism and bigotry and racism are the explanation. ‘Sweat’ shows the ways that these pre-existing impulses of bigotry can be turned up, or supercharged, by economic pressures.”
A new nonmusical without a Hollywood star is a risky proposition in the commercial theatrical arena, where plays focused on the working class have also become rare. But the critical praise earned by the show out of town and Off Broadway can help drive interest, and the producing team, led by Stuart Thompson and Louise L. Gund, have opted to scale down the size of the Studio 54 audience from nearly 1,000 seats to 659, both as a means of amping up intimacy and as an acknowledgment that the show seems likely to be more of an art-house draw on razzle-dazzle Broadway.
Among audiences at Studio 54, the production’s striking topical resonance has spurred impromptu conversations among its disparate theatergoers. “Some nights at the theater it feels almost like it feels to sit in jury duty, listening to people from all backgrounds talk about the different things they identify with,” Whoriskey said.
At a recent preview performance, Nottage found herself sitting in the balcony in the midst of a frank intermission conversation among strangers — and none of the participants knew she’d written the play.
“Prior to the election, I think people could observe the folks on the stage with a certain level of distance,” Nottage said. “But now they realize that what’s happening in that bar onstage has impacted their lives in very tangible ways. It’s like suddenly having to pay attention to the person who’s sitting next to you on the bus, because they’re holding your metro card.”
Lynn Nottage
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The Princess Grace Foundation-USA has established a new award to support emerging theater professionals with the help of a $1 million gift from the John Gore Organization. The award, which will seek to identify and support extraordinary young stage talent, will be presented annually, beginning in 2019. That goal jives with the mission of The [...]
Broadway Back In Biz After Power Outage Ends
The bright lights of Broadway were back on Sunday morning as midtown Manhattan recovered from a power outage that lasted nearly seven hours in some areas. Social media was full of examples of how New Yorkers rose to the occasion after the power went out on a hot Saturday night shortly before 7 p.m. ET. [...]
Power Restored in New York City After Massive Outage Hits Broadway
UPDATED: Power has gradually been restored to Midtown Manhattan and the theater district after what New York City officials described as a rolling blackout that darkened Times Square and other high-traffic areas on Saturday night. Officials said all power should be restored to the 73,000 customers affected by the outage by midnight ET. Local media [...]
Controversial 'Slave Play' Is Broadway Bound
“Slave Play,” a controversial drama that examined race and sexuality, is moving to Broadway for a limited run. Written by theatrical wunderkind Jeremy O. Harris, “Slave Play” was a sensation when it ran at the New York Theatre Workshop, drawing such bold-faced names as Madonna, Scarlett Johansson, and Tony Kushner. The show will debut at [...]
Critic's Notebook: Seeing Isabelle Huppert and Dimitris Papaioannou in Paris
“Do you miss Paris?” I get that question a lot, but never know what to say. How could I not? The two years I spent in that splendid city covering international cinema for Variety changed my life. “What do you miss most about Paris?” That’s a tough one too. The booksellers on the sidewalk in [...]
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Nigeria More Divided Than During Civil War – Obasanjo
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, yesterday lamented the current state of disunity in Nigeria, stressing that Nigeria was not as divided as it is today during the civil war.
Obasanjo spoke at a one-day “2019 annual retreat/conference and general meeting of members” of Association of Chief Audit Executives of Banks in Nigeria, (ACAEBIN), in Abeokuta.
The former President said: “When we look at this country today, even during the civil war, we were not as divided as we are today. Today, we are in danger if we don’t take partnership serious – Partnership within our people; within Africa and the rest of the world.”
According to the former President, the private sector is the engine room of development in any country.
“As Chief audit, it is defined by virtue of what you are doing as a profession. If the audit is awry, banking business will not be right. What I want to emphasise is that, it is a must as Nigerians and as Africans that we have certain elements that we have to take very serious which I put as five Ps.
“The first is politics, which is governance. Unless we get governance right, any other thing we are trying to do will not be right.
“The second is population. Our population at independence, we were estimated to be 45 million, but today we are 200 million. By the year 2050, we will be over 400 million.
“Normally, population should be an asset but looking at the condition we are in now, when in the North-East of Nigeria, the percentage of adult literacy is about 53 percent, you can see that, we have a problem and education is basic in all human development.
“How do we think of setting education to be useful? Those people who will make our education over 400 million in some years time are already born, and you cannot unborn them, so the problem is here, what do we do?
“We must provide education for them, housing, healthcare, education for them, and more importantly, employment for them.
“One thing that I believe will help us is to provide employment, and probably part of what will help us is agric business. And you in the baking business must pay attention to how we build the agric sector.
“I am not talking of horti-culture, I am talking of the whole value chain, from land preparation. And if we are able to get that right, maybe we will be able to get the issue of employment for our teeming youths right, we will be able to get even the issue of rural development right, we will be able to get the issue if the gap between the have and have not right.
“The next one is prosperity, I am not being bothered about Nigeria’s poverty or Africa poverty. We have everything to generate wealth. We have God’s given resources under our soil. We also have human resources. If we bring these together, then, we will definitely get prosperity.
“Another one is protection that is security. People must be protected in all aspect. Protection of lives, protection of property and the people can actually feel that they are protected,” stressed Obasanjo.
NewsCivil War, Division, Nigeria, Obasanjo
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Former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon (rtd) said they begged the former Speaker of House...
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Alice Hunt Friend
Book Review Roundtable: Is the Pentagon at War Against America’s Presidents?
Civil-Military Relations May 2018
Jason Dempsey, Alice Hunt Friend, Matthew Moten
We asked a handful of experts to review Mark Perry's new book, The Pentagon's Wars: The Military's Undeclared War Against America's Presidents.
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1. Introduction: The Invisible War on the White House
By Rosa Brooks
The title of Mark Perry’s new book, The Pentagon’s Wars: The Military’s Undeclared War Against America’s Presidents,[1] suggests the tale of something rather dramatic. If not a coup, then, at the very least, a systematic military effort to undermine America’s civilian commanders in chief. In fact, Perry’s book offers less of a bang than a whimper. It’s a detailed account of the behind-the-scenes griping and sulking that results when civilian policy makers give military leaders what the latter view as foolish directives. But if there’s truly a “war” against U.S. presidents, declared or undeclared, it’s not evident from the examples cited in The Pentagon’s Wars.
Gays in the military? Perry reminds us that as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Colin Powell did his darnedest to broadcast his disapproval of Bill Clinton’s efforts to end the military ban on homosexuality. U.S. involvement in Bosnia, and, later, Kosovo? Perry tells the story of the many senior military leaders who viewed these interventions as doomed nation-building efforts, which distracted the military from its core tasks. The Iraq War? Perry notes that senior military officials made no secret of their dismay at being ordered into Iraq based on flimsy intelligence and with a war plan that failed to look beyond toppling Saddam Hussein.
But muttering, sulking, and occasional bureaucratic slow-rolling don’t amount to a war – at least not in the traditional sense. Of course, if the United States can call fifteen years of fitful, geographically diffuse and generally inconclusive strikes against “terrorism” a war, perhaps there’s no reason not to call intermittent military discontent with presidential orders a war as well. It’s certainly true that U.S. wars have lately been no more successful than the episodic military grumbling Perry painstakingly describes
To Perry, both these failures are cause for concern. Why, he asks, can’t America win its wars? And why haven’t military leaders more consistently spoken out against foolhardy presidential commands? To Perry, these two questions are interconnected: America no longer wins wars, he argues, in part because America’s military commanders have been unwilling to stand up and tell American presidents “‘No’— or even 'Yes, sir, but.'”[2]
In this book review roundtable, three experts on civil-military relations evaluate and respond to Perry’s book. Alice Hunt Friend takes Perry to task for his military-centric view of decision-making processes. While his account offers granular detail about military discontent with presidential decisions, Perry makes little effort to understand or explain the process or the reasons that led to decisions disliked by military brass, much less describe the complex interplay between military officers and civilians, including within the Pentagon itself. The result, argues Friend, is “an oddly incomplete history and a poor civil-military analysis.” Perry takes it for granted that sometimes a resounding military “No!” is the appropriate response to a presidential directive, but gives no thought to the dangers of encouraging un-elected military leaders to second-guess the decisions of elected officials.
Granted, Friend acknowledges, “in the Huntingtonian tradition of civil military-relations, there is a perennial search for the line between politics, from which the military is ideally excluded, and military operations, where it is unclear whether and in what way civilians belong.” She also acknowledges that “civilian and military leaders constantly redefine the boundaries between political and military decisions,” and the resulting ambiguity about military and civilian “lanes” creates genuine uncertainty and confusion about “where senior military authority begins and ends.” But Perry never directly engages with this dilemma. Instead, he starts from the presumption, as Friend puts it, that “military leadership should sometimes supersede presidential judgment in wartime….”
Jason Dempsey echoes Friend’s critique, arguing that “Perry offers no theory of how defense policymaking should work, and his book is the weaker for it.” Dempsey does, however, find a different value in Perry’s account of military wrangling with civilian policymakers: His narrative sheds light on “two key dynamics that help explain why success has been so elusive for the American military: the chasm between the military and civilian policymakers, and the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986.” In part, argues Dempsey, the examples provided by Perry illustrate the degree to which military naïveté about “how Washington works” contributes to frequent military misunderstandings of civilian motivations and incentive structures (and thus contributes to military failures to understand how and why civilians come up with the policies they ask the military to execute). At the same time, military naïveté about the Washington sausage-making machine routinely allows politically savvy civilians to out-maneuver dissenting military commanders, making military efforts to voice disagreement less effective. The military’s reputation for being “apolitical” is important to its credibility, argues Dempsey, “but, paradoxically,” only those military leaders who “understand and are capable of maneuvering in Washington’s inherently political environment” will be canny enough to find ways to express divergent views without sacrificing their credibility.
Dempsey also notes that “by divorcing the service chiefs from the warfighting chain of command,” Goldwater-Nichols separated “those fighting the war and the country’s political leadership.” Service chiefs consequently prioritize the overall health of the force over the nation’s ability to achieve its strategic goals through the use of the military, while combatant commanders are pulled, like it or not, into the political world. Ultimately, the interplay between these different forces within the military produces “least common denominator options that are designed to avoid outright failure, but repeatedly fall short of achieving our national security objectives.”
Like Friend and Dempsey, Matthew Moten takes Perry to task for failing to deliver on his central promises: “[W]hile he has produced a ripping good narrative, his book fails to answer” the fundamental questions he poses, or even examine them rigorously. In Moten’s view, Perry is too quick to attribute America’s recent military failure to excessive “nation-building,” a task Perry regards as doomed. But, as Moten notes, Perry makes no effort to square his argument with the impressive American successes in post-World War II Germany and Japan.
Like Friend, Moten also worries about Perry’s “blinkered view” of civil-military relations. While Perry chastises senior military officials who failed to “stand up” to civilians, he doesn’t take the time to ask whether our world would truly be better if military leaders said “no” more often. To Moten, civilian elected officials have, as Peter Feaver once put it, “the right to be wrong.” This is how our democracy works.[3] As Moten notes, this doesn’t mean military leaders shouldn’t express their views candidly and firmly, for “vigorous debate about policy and strategy, while sometimes tense or even unpleasant, is a sign of a healthy civil-military relationship.” But if civilian leaders — even misguided civilian leaders — usually “win,” this is as it should be. Ultimately, “if the president says ‘go,’ it is a close cousin to a coup d’état for his generals to say ‘no.’”
Inevitably, readers of Perry’s book may find it hard to divorce his normative claims from their own views. Those who favored ending the military ban on homosexuality will find themselves rooting for Bill Clinton in the face of Gen. Colin Powell’s intransigence. Those who opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq will find themselves wishing that military dissenters had been more effective in halting the march to war. In different ways, Friend, Dempsey, and Moten all offer an implied warning: Those who find themselves sympathetic to military dissenters based on their views on a particular issue should be careful what they wish for, as empowering military dissent may be a genie that can’t be returned to the bottle.
But just as inevitably, readers may find it hard not to read Perry’s book in light of the Trump presidency. Numerous military and national security experts from both political parties have expressed concern over the president’s departures from decades of bipartisan foreign policy consensus and his often erratic and bellicose pronouncements. In that context, there has been a renewed debate about whether military leaders have the right — or even the duty — to say “no” to what they regard as dangerous and reckless orders.
As Friend, Dempsey, and Moten all remind us, the lines between “political” and “military” matters are rarely as clear as the Huntingtonian model presumes. Unlike enlisted personnel, military officers only undertake to “support and defend the Constitution,” not to “obey the orders of the president” — and both U.S. and international law make it clear that military personnel have no obligation to obey unlawful orders. Unfortunately, the demands of the Constitution are not always crystal clear, and the line between “unlawful” and merely “catastrophically unwise” can also be murky. “Target those civilians because I said so,” would be an unlawful order. “Target those civilians because I believe they are participating actively in hostilities and have thus waived their protected status” is not unlawful on its face, but might be unlawful if the facts indicate otherwise.
Oddly, Perry’s book ignores one example of military dissent that touches directly on issues of legality. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, when the Bush Administration adopted the view that waterboarding and other “enhanced” interrogation methods were lawful, there was immediate and sustained military dissent, particularly (though not exclusively) from within the service judge advocate generals’ corps.[4] In some ways this too was a story of “failed” military dissent: The Bush administration simply relied on the CIA rather than the military to carry out interrogations that military lawyers denounced as torture. But the military dissenters ultimately carried the day: Within a few years, the Bush administration’s Justice Department had repudiated its earlier approval of waterboarding, and intense media and congressional pressure, inspired in part by military dissenters, forced the Bush administration to abandon the practice.
This example helps illustrate, perhaps, the complexity of the civil-military terrain. Perry’s book — incomplete and flawed as it is — won’t resolve any of these debates. But despite its shortcomings, The Pentagon’s Wars offers valuable historical context for those on both sides of the issue, and is an important volume for all students of civil-military relations.
Rosa Brooks is the Associate Dean for Graduate Programs and Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center. She also serves as an adjunct scholar at the Modern War Institute at West Point and as a Senior Fellow in the New America/ASU Future of War Program. From 2009-2011, Brooks served as Counselor to Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy. Her most recent book, How Everything Became War and the Military Became Everything, was published in August 2016 by Simon and Schuster.
2. The Pentagon’s Wars: Winning at Home While Losing Overseas
By Jason Dempsey
With his latest book, The Pentagon’s Wars, Mark Perry has written an informative volume about the pinnacle of national security decision-making — the interaction between the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the White House during times of war — and adds his voice to the likes of Bob Woodward and Tom Ricks, who have dissected key moments in our most recent military adventures. Perry’s approach is unique, however, in that his reporting focuses directly on the intersection of political and military leadership and spans the entirety of the post-Cold War era. Having surveyed this history he finds the record wanting and our military leadership inadequate.
Unfortunately, Perry offers no theory of how defense policymaking should work, and his book is the weaker for it. The Pentagon’s Wars offers extensive documentation of the string of foreign policy failures that have defined American military efforts over the past few decades, but Perry fails to explain the structural factors that led to these failures. Nevertheless, his narrative does offer evidence of two key dynamics that help explain why success has been so elusive for the American military: the chasm between the military and civilian policymakers, and the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986.
Fish Out of Water
The gulf between the military and civilian policymakers is natural, given the military’s bureaucratic structure and how it differs dramatically from the free-wheeling and non-hierarchical nature of domestic politics. This gulf is exacerbated further by military leaders who are unaccustomed to how Washington works. Although this is a well-documented dynamic, Perry contributes a number of excellent examples of the military’s cultural ignorance of the D.C. Beltway. The most compelling is the 2006 “Revolt of the Generals,” when several retired officers came out publicly to criticize Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and America’s conduct of the war in Iraq. Perry covers the incident in depth and his account highlights how the military’s simplistic approach to dealing with leaders like Rumsfeld made the confrontation inevitable.
By 2006, Rumsfeld had outmaneuvered the Joint Chiefs of Staff and manipulated them into conveying their approval to President George Bush for operations in Iraq, despite reservations from the Army Chief of Staff and Marine Corps commandant about long-term chances of success. He achieved this by shaping what questions would be asked, thereby taking advantage of the military’s “stay in your lane” approach to the civilian-military relationship.
While generally a good rule of thumb, the perils of how this mantra could actually lead to the neutering of military leaders reached its pinnacle under Marine General Peter Pace’s tenure as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Hand-picked by Rumsfeld because of his pliability and inexperience with Washington, Pace embraced the “stay in your lane” mantra[5] without realizing that it was also his responsibility to keep his lane to the president open. Instead, his passivity gave Rumsfeld control of what advice got to the president and ultimately led to Pace being sidelined from the policy-making process, becoming so shut out that he was not even able to relay the thinking of the White House to other military leaders, let alone have a voice in ongoing debates.
It was this inability to get a hearing for dissenting views about the war, paired with extreme dissatisfaction with Rumsfeld’s leadership, that led a string of retired senior officers to publicly criticize the war effort. Collectively, these criticisms from Paul Eaton, Anthony Zinni, and Greg Newbold came to be known as “the Generals’ Revolt.” Although the grievances of these retired officers were understandable, taking the fight public put their concerns into the realm of the political and led to a counter offensive from Rumsfeld. Concerned for his reputation, the secretary of defense deployed surrogates across Washington to push the narrative that the Pentagon was merely chafing under civilian control.[6] He also undercut their concerns by painting them as “Clinton’s Generals,” ascribing their motivations to partisan politics.
In addition to demonstrating the ways in which naïveté of Washington politics can have unexpected outcomes, this episode also highlights the potential for public confrontations to undercut the military’s reputation for being apolitical advisors. But while Perry adds to our understanding of the Generals’ Revolt with meticulous reporting, the reader is left wondering just how the military should navigate such situations. Unfortunately, too many military officers see political engagement as a trap, where the only options are either to say something and risk being seen as insubordinate or never voice dissent at all. What Perry leaves unsaid is how generals should ensure that the military perspective is heard in policy debates while not becoming part of the story themselves.
The Downside of Goldwater-Nichols
The second factor contributing to the continued failures of our military is the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986.[7] Unfortunately, Perry does not directly tie some of the issues faced in his analysis to the passage of this bill, because it was the Goldwater-Nichols Act that removed the service chiefs from the formal chain of command, thereby separating the men and women responsible for sustaining the readiness of the military from those who are fighting America’s wars. Perry’s narrative shows how one of the unintended implications of this revised structure can be a lack of accountability: Competing demands between readiness of the force for future wars and resourcing the wars we are in often lead to unsatisfying compromises between the service chiefs and commanders in the field, and can preclude policymakers from making informed decisions about the conduct of war. While Perry again does not directly address how the structure of Goldwater-Nichols can lead to such outcomes, his outline of the machinations behind our Iraq strategy provides a case study for how it can lead to less-than-optimal strategies.
The frustration that many senior officers felt with Pace for his failure to articulate their reservations about the Iraq strategy not only led to the Generals’ Revolt, but also pushed others to seek change via unofficial channels. As security in Iraq continued to deteriorate in the years after the invasion, several outside actors began to search for a way forward. Chief among them was the former Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, retired general Jack Keane.
Having only recently retired, Keane was among many close observers worried about the direction of the war in Iraq. Despite being out of uniform, Keane was able to use his reputation and informal networks to lobby for a change of strategy. He viewed the situation as perilous and sought a significant troop increase to bring order to Iraq. To help bolster the case for a new strategy, Keane encouraged Pace to assemble a “council of colonels” from outside the Pentagon who could bring a fresh perspective to the fight.[8]
Although this council of colonels was not the only attempt in Washington to assess the war and recommend an expansion or “surge” of additional troops, the outcome of the effort dramatically encapsulates how competing interests can hobble national security decision-making. Perry reports that, during one of the briefings the council made to the Joint Chiefs, the option of adding more troops to the effort came up. The reaction of the Chief of Staff of the Army, Gen. Peter Schoomaker, to this possible strategy was “Forget it. It would break the Army” to which the briefer responded, “Well, maybe if you’d have made that point before we got into this mess, we wouldn’t be talking about it now.”[9]
Ultimately the Joint Chiefs removed the council’s assessment of a surge option from the final report.[10] But Bush had been forewarned of the resistance of the service chiefs to the idea of an expansion of troops through informal channels and was prepared to push back against them when opting for a new strategy. Even then, the plan was subject to relentless “salami slicing” by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whereby “they would reluctantly agree on a policy and then carefully slice away at it until they got their way.”[11]
By divorcing the service chiefs from the warfighting chain of command, Goldwater-Nichols streamlined the link between those fighting the war and the country’s political leadership. But Perry’s book reveals the unintended consequences of what appeared at first to be a move toward efficiency. The primary negative effect of the act is that it allows the service chiefs to be somewhat detached from the war. During the debates over Iraq, the chiefs were, as one member of the council of colonels, Col. Peter Mansoor, noted, “oddly detached from the crisis.”[12]
With no direct say in the fighting, it is natural for service chiefs to prioritize maintenance of the force and readiness for the next fight while minimizing disruption to the force from any current conflict. However, as D.C. denizens and the most senior officers of their services, they also possess an out-sized voice compared to those leading the war effort in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Field commanders must therefore both anticipate service concerns and be resigned to the chiefs having the ability to actively shape conversations in Washington, despite the chiefs not being directly in the warfighting chain of command.
This dynamic can limit the number of options as a result of the extensive compromise between the chiefs and the combatant commanders that is often required to achieve consensus. That, in turn, can preclude elected leaders from being presented with options that the chiefs feel present too great of a risk to the readiness of the military to fight future wars. While this can be a good thing in theory, the examples of Iraq and Afghanistan point to a process that leads to compromises that limit the military’s commitment to the fight at hand. And as with Iraq and Afghanistan, these are often least-common denominator options that are designed to avoid outright failure, but repeatedly fall short of achieving our national security objectives.
Evidence without Analysis
The major shortcoming of Perry’s book is that he provides examples of a dysfunctional national security decision-making process but does not analyze them in any depth. His concluding recommendation is that we simply need military leaders who are willing to speak up and make themselves heard in Washington. Unfortunately, it is not so simple — he himself laments the outsize role that Colin Powell played as Chairman in the Clinton administration. When, how, and on what topics military leaders should advocate without usurping the principle of civilian control of the military is left unanswered.
Without such an analysis, the value of the book lies in its documentation of an often overlooked, but vital, element of national security decision-making. Readers not familiar with competing theories of civilian-military relations would therefore do well to pair the book with a primer on the topic, such as Suzanne Nielsen and Don Sinder’s overview of modern civilian-military relations or Jim Golby’s recent article on the strategic dialogue between military and civilian leadership.[13]
But by detailing the debates and tensions between elected officials and military leaders over the course of the last several decades, Perry at least adds to our understanding of how the United States goes to war — and why it seems to perennially come up short. That he is willing to look critically at both the civilian and the military sides of the decision-making process is a welcome addition to the literature, and will do much to advance our understanding of the shortcomings of our national security decision-making process.
Dr. Dempsey has written extensively on civilian-military relations and the failures of our military efforts in Afghanistan. His book, Our Army: Soldiers, Politics and Civil-Military Relations was published by Princeton University Press and was the first major work to delve into the social and political attitudes of all ranks of the active-duty Army. He served 22 years as an infantry officer in the United States Army, with deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. He last served as Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
3. Retention of Duty: On Civilians in The Pentagon’s Wars
By Alice Hunt Friend
Sometimes civil-military relations scholarship is distorted by a selection bias. Academics and defense practitioners alike are so focused on how the military behaves that there is relatively little written on the role civilians play in the relationship. Bias is a problem, of course, because it blinds the researcher to underlying explanatory dynamics and generates fallacies that build on each other. Systematic disregard for civilians can make the military seem like the only institution or actor that matters. In his new book, The Pentagon’s Wars: The Military’s Undeclared War Against America’s Presidents, Mark Perry provides a military-centric narrative of wartime decision-making since the end of the Cold War. The result is an oddly incomplete history and a poor civil-military analysis.
Perry opens the book’s prologue by asserting, through the words of retired Adm. William Crowe, that the Cold War victory was a purely military one — perhaps the country’s greatest. The author leaves out any mention of the intelligence, diplomatic, and economic elements of the strategy or the diplomats and politicians who surely made some contribution. These assertions, made via the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS), ensure that the reader is viewing the topic through a military lens, and that few civilians will appear in a serious light. In fact, in the course of describing some of the major decision points in recent American national security history, Perry either omits civilians altogether or minimizes the roles they played in policymaking. In the description of the ambush in Mogadishu in 1993, Perry ignores Secretary of Defense Les Aspin’s role and focuses instead on Generals Joe Hoar and John Shalikashvili. Similarly, in the chapter covering President Obama’s initial Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy review (in which, full disclosure, I had a tiny bureaucratic part), it is as if neither Amb. Richard Holbrooke nor Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy existed, even though they co-led the review with Bruce Reidel (who is mentioned) and had influence over both the Secretaries of State and Defense. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates merits discussion, but instead of exploring his strategic impact on the debate over the Afghanistan war, Perry concentrates on Gates’ judgment about the war’s commander, Gen. David McKiernan. It is not that the Gates-McKiernan relationship is irrelevant. It is rather that Gates’ centrality to the Afghanistan strategy discussion was a vital element of that relationship — and of the strategy itself.
Where Perry’s narrative does acknowledge civilians as consequential, it often impugns the results of their involvement. “Once again,” Perry explains about the George H.W. Bush administration’s decision not to depose Saddam Hussein at the end of the Gulf War in 1991, “the politicians had weighed in, carefully excising the word ‘decisive’ from the war’s description.” Because the book claims to present a military perspective, Perry conveys disdain for civilian leaders through the eyes of senior officers. A long disquisition on the military’s disapproval of Bill Clinton begins chapter two, followed by CJCS Colin Powell’s thoughts on the fitness of various civilian appointees to serve in their posts, including the secretary of defense. A similar pattern launches chapter five (“Tommy Franks: Rumsfeld’s General”). The author uses the words “slob” and “questionable hygiene” to describe how Secretary of Defense Aspin appeared to those in uniform. Perhaps Perry chose such descriptions to give color to the narrative, but the words also give the reader the impression that military leaders think civilians lack the discipline necessary to make sound national decisions. Moreover, these descriptive sections are not accompanied by any analysis of the civil-military ramifications of general and flag officers supplanting political leaders’ judgment with their own.
This is not to suggest that Perry does not have critiques for the senior military officers he profiles. In fact, much of his argument is that senior officers failed frequently. But their failings are of choice rather than ability, and are typically borne of acquiescing to civilian ineptitude or in the normal course of inter-service rivalry. The lead-up to the 2003 Iraq War is especially fertile territory in this regard. Maj. Gen. Gene Renuart (USAF) and Gen. Tommy Franks (USA) are quoted as having expletive-filled responses to civilian direction. In Perry’s telling, officers like them did the best they could in a dysfunctional bureaucratic environment. Few civilians in these pages are given similar license or complexity.
The sum of these omissions is a series of missed opportunities to analyze the implications of civil-military disagreement for democracy. Perry’s book presents thorough evidence of the strategic and political roles military officers in the United States can play if they choose to do so — and if a large enough group of relevant actors chooses to encourage them. Yet Perry fails to mention that being apolitical is a key feature of American military professionalism. The Founders crafted the Constitution to ensure that no one political power broker or faction wielded too much military power as a bulwark against autocratic rule.[14] Yet Perry reports more than once on the partisan voting patterns among the military and the supposedly average service member’s attitude toward the Commander in Chief without reference to the norm of non-partisan military service. It is not clear whether Perry endorses politicization of the military, but the book certainly fails to consider the possibility and consequences of it.
Of course, what counts as political activity is not always straightforward. In the Huntingtonian tradition of civil-military relations, there is a perennial search for the line between politics, from which the military is ideally excluded, and military operations, where it is unclear whether and in what way civilians belong.[15] In practice, tactical and operational choices have political implications, as those who have written about “the strategic corporal” know well.[16] At the level of strategy, civilian and military leaders constantly redefine the boundaries between political and military decisions. This ambiguity has generated confusion about where senior military authority begins and ends. Whether military officers may insist on their preferences in the face of civilian disagreement with their advice continues to be a topic of national debate.[17] After the 2003 Iraq invasion, and eight years of Obama-era “micromanagement,” many in military institutions complain that civilians are the ones who have overstepped their expertise if not their legal authority.[18] There is a reason many applaud President Donald Trump’s hands-off approach with the Pentagon and his appointment of a secretary of defense who spent 40 years in uniform: The professionals in war are being allowed to do their jobs. Given his subject matter, Perry has a great deal of empirical evidence to leverage on this controversial topic, but instead of scrutinizing the record to make a normative argument about whether military leadership should sometimes supersede presidential judgment in wartime and why, he simply assumes it and then proceeds to evaluate the quality with which the examined officers perform that function.
Even so, the book advances the long-running argument that when senior military officers disagree with civilian direction, they should push back forcefully, and, if necessary, protest loudly. This is most obvious in the chapter on the so-called “Revolt of the Generals,” the 2006 call from multiple retired general officers for Defense Secretary Rumsfeld to resign because of his handling of the Iraq War. (Rumsfeld is the most prominently visible civilian leader in the book). An active duty officer who “astonishingly” declined to join the so-called revolt is depicted as “out of his depth.” Reporters who described it as a challenge to civilian control of the military were “unwitting” that they had “aped” Rumsfeld’s line of self-defense. Yet it is entirely consistent to agree with the substance of the critiques of Rumsfeld and still believe this was a problematic moment for civil-military relations. Indeed, this episode raises a critical civil-military question: Is it appropriate for generals and flag officers, even retired ones, to weigh-in on the tenure of a politically appointed civilian in the chain of command? Perry quotes retired Lt. Gen. Bill Odom as saying that there are many other civilians and institutions responsible for oversight of military policy and the performance of the secretary of defense. After this rush of insight, the reader hopes Perry is about to dig into the issue of whether the military should ever fill this role. Instead, the offhand Odom quote is as far as he goes.
Perry concludes the book by asserting that the mark of a true military leader is his ability to tell a president “no,” lamenting that in recent American history, only Colin Powell has demonstrated that ability. It is as if the military were the only actor with moral agency, and the judgment to use it appropriately. As appealing as this perspective may be to those disappointed in our political leaders’ foreign policy choices, the author fails to marshal sufficient evidence that giving a veto to the chairman would solve strategic problems, and there is no thought given to the problems it might create.
Would presidents really make better choices if they only listened more closely to senior military officers? While there is value in learning about the frustrations military leaders have with their civilian superiors, and while Perry’s stories reveal problematic civilian behavior, his conclusion is overdetermined. His failure to provide evidence that the military’s strategic judgment is consistently superior to civilians’ diminishes his capacity to persuade the reader of his arguments. This reader, therefore, was not convinced that American foreign policy shortcomings over the past 30 years were a result of insufficient military intransigence in the face of poor civilian direction — or, more to Perry’s point, that the military capital built up during the 1990s would not have been “squandered” if civilians had acquiesced to military preferences.
Moreover, the normative assertion pervading these pages that military judgment should prevail over civilian judgment is very troubling. Perhaps rather than saying “no,” the chairman and combatant commanders should stick with telling the president when they disagree with him or her on operational grounds, and why. The difference is more than semantic. General and flag officers in our system do not have a veto on presidential decisions. To suggest that they should is to accept that the only important considerations are those that impact military outcomes, or that the military should act as politicians. Perry, like H.R. McMaster before him[19], has a reasonable argument to make about the necessity for candor and the need for officers who have the courage to tell a commander in chief what he does not want to hear. But there should not be shame in a military professional failing to persuade the democratically elected leader of our country to change course. To borrow two of Peter Feaver’s phrases, civilians may have the right to be wrong, but they also have the right to be right. In the end, both failure and success at the strategic level rests with the president, whose performance will be judged by the American people. That is the process by which our system devises and validates national purpose. Civilian responsibility for defense policy is not a cost of civilian control of the military. It is the point of it.
Alice Friend is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a doctoral candidate at American University's School of International Service. She served in a variety of positions at the Pentagon from 2009 to 2014, including as Principal Director for African Affairs.
4. A Blinkered View of Civil-Military Relations in a Democracy
By Matthew Moten
By the fall of 2002, the Bush Administration was shifting its focus away from al Qaeda and the Taliban and toward Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, a move that was met with a great deal of dissent around the country and among American allies. In his new book, The Pentagon’s Wars, Mark Perry tells us that the consternation started, surprisingly enough, in the senior ranks of the military. The highest ranking officers in the Pentagon were “absolutely terrified of [secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld,” Perry explains. That included the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Richard Myers. At a Fall 2002 White House briefing, Myers muzzled his doubts as Rumsfeld pushed the Iraq war plan on President Bush: “You could see him struggling, but then his face fell and you could see he’d decided to remain silent.” Down the chain, however, flag officers in commands around the globe were less reticent. Several replied with frustration to a “warning order” to prepare for war with Iraq. A senior naval officer who received the order recalls widespread frustration in the upper echelons of the military: “People were angry, really angry.” One admiral wrote back to the Pentagon, “What the hell are we doing?” After several such messages, the Joint Staff had to send a second memo reaffirming the first, which one planner described as the “‘keep your mouth shut’ order.”
Perry is a gifted storyteller, as this anecdote suggests. His prose is crisp and his narrative well-crafted. He is a master of the character sketch, whether of politicians or of generals and admirals. This reviewer knows several of the men Perry describes and finds his word portraits both revealing and accurate. Perry is a journalist by trade, and if, as his profession likes to boast, journalism is the first draft of history, this would be a very good start. The problem is that he has billed the book as more than just journalism.
His aim is to provide “an account of the internal battles between America’s highest-ranking military commanders and the nation’s most powerful and senior civilian officials” from the end of the Cold War to the end of the Obama presidency. He chose that period because “the US military … engage[d] in a series of military adventures that cost it thousands of lives and trillions of dollars.” Perry wants to know why. Answering this question requires an appreciation for the history of civil-military relations in all their complexity. And while he has produced a ripping good narrative, his book fails to answer its central question — or even to investigate it with rigor.
Perry sets the scene with the passage of the transformative 1986 Goldwater-Nichols Act and the Joint Chiefs chairmanship of Adm. William J. Crowe, who is something of an icon for him. What follows is a page-turning, fly-on-the-wall chronicle of high command from Desert Storm to the election of Donald Trump. The story is compelling, but unsettling, because the United States has achieved few, if any, unmitigated victories during the period.
According to Perry, Crowe’s strategic ideal, realized at the end of the Cold War, was to build a military so formidable that it could win without having to fight. He laments American involvement in small wars from Somalia and Kosovo to Afghanistan and Iraq. The problem, in Perry’s mind, is America’s predilection for “nation building,” which he and Crowe believe is “fated to fail.” And while politicians reflexively recoil from nation building, “for thirty years America’s elected officials have required the military to do exactly that.”
Antipathy toward “nation building” is a reliable rhetorical whipping boy, not least because it can connote just about any military initiative one dislikes. To argue that nation building is fated to fail requires more than a dose of historical amnesia. By starting his narrative in the mid-1980s, Perry allows himself to forget, for example, the spectacular successes of American assistance to war-torn countries after World War II, in both Europe and Japan. Moreover, nation building may be defined as any constructive actions a victorious force takes after conquering its enemy. To avoid nation building after a victory would seem to require one of two options: leave the vanquished enemy in a Hobbesian state of nature, or refrain from starting war in the first place. Perry doesn’t say which of these he prefers, but I suspect it is the latter.
Which brings me to the second malady Perry identifies, a dearth in the post-Cold War era of senior officers willing to say “no” to the president when he desires to launch another military adventure. The author waxes nostalgic for the kinds of generals America used to produce — from George Washington to Ulysses Grant to John Pershing, and, best of all, the “military pantheon” who won World War II. He doesn’t explain how or when those former generations negated the desires of their civilian bosses and thereby ensured victory. Likewise, Perry doesn’t tell us what has changed to make modern military leaders so feckless. He does relate an anecdote in which an outgoing President Clinton warned incoming George W. Bush: “Whatever you do, never appoint a strong chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.” Perry notes that Clinton learned that lesson from Colin Powell, who was the only general in this era ever to tell a president “no,” and that was over the issue of gays in the military, not a question of war and peace. The author also suggests that Bush and his successors took that lesson to heart.
Once again, Perry’s naïveté springs from a lack of historical perspective. Politicians have been choosing military leaders for political reasons since the American Revolution. The Continental Congress foisted so many political hacks on Washington that he threatened to resign. Abraham Lincoln appointed Grant general-in-chief only after receiving credible and repeated assurances that Grant had no desire to run for president. Pershing got the top job in the Great War because Woodrow Wilson considered other more senior officers politically unreliable. Especially since Douglas MacArthur’s serial insubordination and final relief by Harry Truman, presidents have realized that generals bear close scrutiny. Indeed, they have often sought out military leaders who are generally in agreement with their policy agendas. Civilian control of the military has quite often taken the form of presidents attempting to corral their top brass.
A larger flaw in his book is that Perry betrays a blinkered view of the norms of civil-military relations in a democracy. He desires top brass who will tell the president “no’ when they think he is heading in the wrong direction. At the very least, he wants generals who will say “yes, sir, but.” He traces the troubles of the past three decades to a lack of flag officers who would stand up to their commanders-in-chief. But civil-military relations don’t and aren’t supposed to work that way. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs does not say “no” to the president. He offers his best military advice in the Oval Office or the National Security Council. He provides the president with options to achieve his policy aims. The CENTCOM commander provides plans to fight a proposed war in the Middle East. And if the president asks either of them if the war is a good idea, they should feel quite free to give strategic and political reasons why it is not. But if the president says “go,” it is a close cousin to a coup d’état for his generals to say “no.”
In addition to its lack of historical context and analytical rigor, The Pentagon’s Wars also suffers from an over-reliance on anonymous sources. Just look at the anecdote that commenced this review. The sources for the direct quotations were the author’s interviews with a “senior CIA officer,” a “senior retired US Navy officer,” a “senior retired US Army officer,” and a “senior US Army officer.” Perry doesn’t just use such sources in this instance, but in every chapter. Background sourcing is permissible for a journalist working within a news organization with a reputation for editorial integrity. Such institutions protect their credibility with rigorous fact checking and strict rules demanding multiple-source confirmation. But Perry is working outside such institutional restraints to write a work of history. Historians work alone — without the institutional imprimatur of say a Washington Post — within a professional peer-review system that demands that they show their work. Most historians want to know who, exactly, said what to whom.
Ultimately, Perry’s narrative arrives at a simplistic conclusion, that the failures of the past quarter century can be traced directly to a persistent lack of military statesmanship in the Pentagon. But the problem has not been a lack of four-star backbone. Perhaps, as Tom Ricks has argued, American difficulties stem from a modern reluctance to relieve generals for failure on the battlefield.[20] Or maybe, as Jeremi Suri concludes, it is because the modern presidency, potent as it is, is just expected to do too much, leaving presidents to react to crises rather than plot long-range strategy and policy.[21] Then again, it could be that administrations occasionally make serious mistakes in planning and strategy, like in Iraq in 2003, despite a great deal of helpful advice and dissent.
Perry’s work never fulfills the promise of its subtitle: The Military’s Undeclared War against America’s Presidents. In chapter after chapter, Perry portrays generals and secretaries and national security advisors and presidents wrestling with thorny strategic issues. These debates have almost always taken place within the councils of government, not in the media. That is as it should be. There are several theories about how civil-military relations should work. Eliot Cohen calls the process an “unequal dialogue” between civilian superiors and their military advisers.[22] I refer to such give-and-take as a “continuous negotiation.”[23] Whatever one calls it, vigorous debate about policy and strategy, while sometimes tense or even unpleasant, is a sign of a healthy civil-military relationship. And this is where Perry’s argument is most flawed. American problems over the past thirty years have not stemmed from a war by generals on their presidents, but from a civil-military dialogue that has often lacked the needed vigor and rigor to produce sound strategic thinking.
Matthew Moten is a historian specializing in American political-military relations. Former head of the department of history at West Point and an Iraq war veteran, he retired from the U.S. Army in 2014 after thirty-two years of service. He is author of two books and editor of two more. His most recent book is Presidents and Their Generals: An American History of Command in War (Belknap Press of the Harvard University Press, 2014). A resident of Austin, Texas, he is a free-lance writer, lecturer, and rancher.
Image: U.S. Air Force
[post_title] => Book Review Roundtable: Is the Pentagon at War Against America's Presidents?
[post_name] => book-review-roundtable-is-the-pentagon-at-war-against-americas-presidents
[guid] => https://tnsr.org/?post_type=roundtable&p=563
[lead] => We asked a handful of experts to review Mark Perry's new book, The Pentagon's Wars: The Military's Undeclared War Against America's Presidents.
[type] => Book
[endnotes] => [1] Mark Perry, The Pentagon’s Wars: The Military’s Undeclared War Against America’s Presidents (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2017).
[2] Perry, Pentagon’s Wars, 297
[3] Peter Feaver, Armed Servants (Cambridge University Press, 2003); Peter Feaver, “The Right to be Right,” International Security 35, no 4 (2011): 87-125.
[4] See, for example, the various memos written in February and March 2003 by the Judge Advocate Generals of the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines, available at https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/torturingdemocracy/documents/20030205.pdf. See also Josh White, “Military Lawyers Fought Policy on Interrogations,” Washington Post, July 15, 2005, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/14/AR2005071402187.html.
[5] Mark Perry, The Pentagon’s Wars: The Military’s Undeclared War Against America’s Presidents (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2017), p. 199.
[7] For the history and motivation behind this act, see James R. Locher III, Victory on the Potomac: The Goldwater-Nichols Act Unifies the Pentagon. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2002).
[8] Perry, Pentagon’s Wars, 208.
[10] Perry, Pentagon’s Wars, 215.
[13] Suzanne C. Nielsen and Don M. Snider, American Civil-Military Relations: The Soldier and the State in a New Era (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009),
https://jhupbooks.press.jhu.edu/content/american-civil-military-relations; Jim Golby, “Improving Advice and Earning Autonomy: Building Trust in the Strategic Dialogue,” Strategy Bridge, Oct. 3, 2017,
https://thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge/2017/10/3/improving-advice-and-earning-autonomy-building-trust-in-the-strategic-dialogue.
[14] Richard H. Kohn, “The Constitution and National Security: The Intent of the Framers” in The United States Military Under the Constitution of the United States, 1789-1989 ed. Richard H. Kohn (New York: NYU Press, 1991).
[15] Although Eliot A. Cohen argues persuasively that civilian leaders’ involvement in operational matters has frequently had positive results. Eliot A. Cohen, Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statemen, and Leadership in Wartime. (New York: Anchor Books, 2002).
[16] Charles C. Krulak, “The Strategic Corporal: Leadership in the Three Block War,” Marines Magazine, January 1999, http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/strategic_corporal.htm.
[17] Kori Schake, “Dereliction of Duty Reconsidered: The Book that Made the National Security Advisor” War on the Rocks, Mar. 28, 2017, https://warontherocks.com/2017/03/dereliction-of-duty-reconsidered-the-book-the-made-the-national-security-advisor/.
[18] Rowan Scarborough, “Obama’s Micromanagement of Airstrikes Hinders Fight Against ISIS, Generals Say,” Washington Times, Sept. 13, 2016, https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/sep/13/obama-administration-micromanagement-hamstrings-ai/.
[19] H.R. McMaster, Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies that Led to Vietnam (New York: Harper Collins, 1997).
[20] Thomas E. Ricks, The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today (New York: Penguin Press, 2012).
[21] Jeremi Suri, The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office (New York: Basic Books, 2017).
[22] Eliot A. Cohen, Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime (New York: The Free Press, 2002).
[23] Matthew Moten, Presidents and Their Generals: An American History of Command in War (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014).
[title] => Table of Contents
[contents] => 1. Introduction: The Invisible War on the White House, by Rosa Brooks
2. The Pentagon's Wars: Winning at Home while Losing Overseas, by Jason Dempsey
3. Retention of Duty: Civilians in The Pentagon's Wars, by Alice Hunt Friend
4. A Blinkered View of Civil-Military Relations in a Democracy, by Matthew Moten
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Tolit James v Rep. Of Uganda (M.A 54 Of 2008) ((M.A 54 Of 2008)) [2008] UGHC 97 (2 September 2008);
IN THE HIGH COURT OF UGANDA AT GULU
HCT – 02 – CO – MA – 054 – 2008
(Arising from Criminal Case number 767/2008)
TOLIT JAMES :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::APPLICANT
UGANDA :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::RESPONDENT
BEFORE HON. JUSTICE REMMY KASULE
The applicant, who at the time of his arrest and being charged, was assistant Town Clerk of Layibi Division Gulu Municipal Council, is charged in Gulu Chief Magistrate’s Court, Criminal case number 0767 of 2008 of causing Financial loss c/s 269 and 270, abuse of office c/s 87(1) and Fraudulent False Accounting c/s 325 (a) of the Penal Code Act.
He applies for bail through this application. This court is satisfied that applicant has permanent residence, there are substantial sureties to stand for him and there is no credible evidence that once released on bail, he will interfere with the investigations of the case. There are also no other criminal charges pending against the applicant.
However the applicant is charged with very grave offences in respect of which the law stipulates that in order to be released on bail, the applicant must prove to the satisfaction of court an exceptional circumstance: See section 15(3) of the Trial on Indictments Act: See also Florence Byabazaire vs Uganda High Court Miscellaneous Application Number 284 of 2006.
The applicant has not proved any exceptional circumstance in this application.
This court, of course, has in the exercise of its overall jurisdiction, powers to grant bail, even in absence of an exceptional circumstance being proved. Court does so through the judicial exercise of its discretion.
The test this court has set is that:
“ The burden is upon the applicant to satisfy court by putting forth before court a set of facts, beyond the ordinary considerations for bail, upon which the court can act, in the exercise of its discretion, to admit the applicant to bail”
See: High Court of Uganda at Gulu Miscellaneous Application Number 0037 of 2008: Bongomin Richard Akal vs Uganda, unreported.
The applicant has asserted that he had a child of tender years – 4 years- whose mother has separated from the applicant had is believed to be living in Sudan. The child now stays with the maid alone at home and needs the applicant’s presence.
The name of the mother of this child is not stated. It is also not disclosed as to when the separation happened.
There is no independent evidence to support the applicant’s version.
Applicant also states that he has other dependants whose outstanding fees is outstanding and have been sent back home. There are no names or ages stated of these dependants.
On the basis of the evidence put forward, court is not satisfied that this is a case where it should exercise its discretion to grant bail to the applicant.
This application is dismissed.
Remmy Kasule
James Oketch v Uganda (M.A 58 Of 2008) ((M.A 58 Of 2008)) [2008] UGHC 101 (12 September 2008);
Opio Bua James v Uganda (Misc. App.No. 1 Of 2008) ((Misc. App.No. 1 Of 2008)) [2008] UGHC 77 (11 February 2008);
Col.Onen.Kamdulu.Alfred,Ayella Patrick v Uganda (M.A No.38 Of 2008) ((M.A No.38 Of 2008)) [2008] UGHC 84 (22 May 2008);
Ociti Tom Oryema & 4 oers v Uganda (HCT ((HCT) [2008] UGHC 132 (27 November 2008);
Komakech Vincent v Uganda (M.A 48 Of 2008) ((M.A 48 Of 2008)) [2008] UGHC 90 (14 July 2008);
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Posted on May 9, 2018 May 9, 2018 by The Bloc
Student Actors and Directors Showcase Original Works at The Clarice
By Setota Hailemariam
“I miss you,” Diamond Fisher wistfully intoned before the crowd gathered in the Cafritz Foundation Theatre in The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center the night of May 8.
The junior theatre major was playing the role of a young woman reminiscing about a former lover with alcoholism. As she monologued about their failed relationship, about how he left her and how she knows nothing about how he’s doing now, she sorrowfully turned over the one-month-sober Alcoholics Anonymous chip he had given her in the past. Then, to the surprise of the audience, her ex-boyfriend appeared, knocking on her door, stepping inside her room, announcing his months-long sobriety and professing his love for her.
It turned out that he was simply a figment of her imagination — a revelation that the audience did not see coming, judging from their gasps and outcries.
The short play, called “The Blue Days of Winter” and directed by student Margot Trouve, was the first of five plays performed in The Weekday Players’ Original Works Project, an event occurring every semester hosted by the Players.
Hailing themselves as “the premier student-run theatre company at the University of Maryland” on their Twitter account, the group produced the plays that were performed that night after putting out an open call for submissions.
The works that were featured included comedies as well as traditional dramas. “Subtext,” written by Whitney Geohagan, was a look into a typical quarrelsome couple’s relationship. There was the stereotypical crazy girlfriend accusing her boyfriend of cheating and the oblivious boyfriend who couldn’t for the life of him figure out what she was mad about. The actors who played the caricatures made sure to emphasize the play’s title, and packed a considerable amount of expressive body language and facial cues into its runtime of nearly 10 minutes.
Katie Gallagher, the artistic director of The Weekday Players, said her job involves securing directors and playwrights for the performance.
“Most of the time, people are more than willing to be involved, because it’s what they love to do, and it’s what they want to do with their lives,” she said.
“Every single day, we contributed towards this, and it was just a really long and nice and rewarding process,” Fisher said, who had rehearsed almost every day for the last week.
“It was nice to definitely bring someone’s vision to life.”
Featured Photo Credit: Trehana Riley and Jada Bouroughs play a mother and daughter in the play “101,” written by Agyeiwaa Asante (Setota Hailemariam/ Bloc Reporter).
Setota Hailemariam is a sophomore journalism major and can be reached at setotah98@gmail.com.
This entry was posted in:College Park Arts, Features, News, The Clarice, Writer's Bloc
Tagged with:The Clarice, theatre, Weekday Players
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Movie Review: The INCREDIBLE HULK
necrosarx Movie Reviews, Uncategorized Action, Comic Book, Comic Book Movie, Hulk, Incredible Hulk, Marvel Leave a comment
“I’ve had missions go wrong, and seen good people go down all because someone didn’t tell them what they were walking into. I moved on because that’s the job, and that’s what we do. But this…this is a whole new level of weird, and I don’t think I want to step away from it.”
The second film in the big Marvel Cinematic Universe, and it wasn’t exactly the big blockbuster that Iron Man turned out to be. Mind you, this was the second attempt to bring the Jade Giant to the big screen, five years after Ang Lee’s version with Eric Bana, Nick Nolte and giant mutated poodles. Among other things. And while this kind-of sequel to that Hulk movie got much more right with the characters and the story on this go-round, it still wasn’t the SMASH! we were expecting. See what I did, there?
Pointless bit of personal backstory: The night I went to watch The Incredible Hulk, it was part of the bachelor party I threw as Best Man for my friends. We had just spent a couple of hours at the nearby Buffalo Wild Wings, so almost all of us were nicely buzzed going into the movie. Except for me, I was the designated driver. So, maybe we enjoyed the movie more than we would normally. That doesn’t factor in my enjoyment due to complete sobriety. But, anyway, enough stalling.
Scientist Bruce Banner scours the planet for an antidote to the unbridled force of rage within him: the Hulk. But when the military masterminds who dream of exploiting his powers force him back to civilization, he finds himself coming face to face with a new, deadly foe.
I can see why a lot of people didn’t enjoy The Incredible Hulk. Technically, this was a reboot that worked also as a sequel, but was its own movie…stay with me, here. I liked the way they did a bit of a retro-summary of 2003’s The Hulk with the opening montage segment. The story itself was compelling, and for the most part kept my attention. It was maybe a bit early to wheel in The Abomination at this point in the game, and that’s probably what dragged the last third of the movie down. Liv Tyler seemed to play Banner’s love interest Betty Ross sans any kind of emotion. And while I kind of prefered Sam Eliott in the role of General Thunderbolt Ross from The Hulk, William Hurt does a rather good job in the role himself. Three times, so far.
Overall, yeah, I enjoyed The Incredible Hulk for what it is: a fun comic book action movies. Norton did a doable job as Bruce Banner, but I really am a Mark Ruffalo fan when it comes to live action portrayal of Dr. Bruce Banner. The Incredible Hulk isn’t a bad movie, and I would give it some repeat watchings if the opportunity arises, I’m just in no hurry to put it in my collection just yet.
Uncle NecRo Watches: VENOM
necrosarx Movie Reviews, Podcasts Comic Book Movie, Marvel, Sony, Spider-Man, Tom Hardy, Venom Leave a comment
I finally found time to take in the Venom movie, the one that stars Tom Hardy and definitely not that kid from That 70s Show. How does it hold up? I’m joined by my long-suffering movie watchin’ buddy Brian from the Will Code For Beer podcast, so listen in as we discuss not only the movie, but the several other bunny trails we wander down at Sean O’Casye’s…
necrosarx@gmail.com
Movie Review: ANT MAN AND THE WASP
necrosarx Movie Reviews Ant-Man, Comic Book Movie, Marvel, Sequel, The Wasp Leave a comment
Marvel / Disney
“You can do it. You can do anything. You’re the world’s greatest grandma.”
The third Marvel-based movie for this year (I’m counting Deadpool 2, even though it wasn’t a Disney-generated Marvel movie), and this one is a sequel to 2015’s Ant Man.
While I surprisingly enjoyed the first Ant Man, it still was what you would call a stand-alone, almost filler type of movie that Marvel put out. And while the response was positive, and the inclusion of the character in Captain America: Civil War was supremely satisfying, the sequel wasn’t exactly something I was counting down the days to go watch. Still, I was looking forward to watching this with the Exalted Geeks. We did so on the Sunday after it opened, instead of the Saturday, which is our normal modus operandi for doing these; the reason being is that everyone was at the Shakespeare On The Green in Omaha that Saturday, so we just shifted to Sunday. Anyway…
After a flashback involving the original Wasp, Janet van Dyne, getting lost into the Quantum Realm while taking down a nuclear missile, we come across the former second Ant Man, Scott Lang, having some bonding time with his daughter at his place of residence. He’s been on house arrest since the events in Captain America: Civil War, and is nearing the end of his sentence indoors. Then one afternoon, he has a dream where he was Janet van Dyne playing hide-and-seek with her daughter, and so he leaves a message on Hank Pym’s phone, which leads to Scott getting kidnapped by Pym and Hope van Dyne to help triangulate the location of Janet so they can mount a rescue mission. Only, there’s the issue of Scott’s house arrest and the possibility of him spending 20 more years in the slammer if he’s caught, as well as both a black market tech dealer and this phase-shifting thief that goes by Ghost that’s making things a bit more complicated with the rescue mission.
Ant Man And The Wasp was a very enjoyable movie, with the standard breathtaking action bits, some mind-blowing sequences in the Quantum Realm, and just the right amount of comedy mixed in at the right places. The scenes between Scott Lang and his daughter was touching and quite believable, with Scott trying to explain why doing the right thing isn’t always the easiest thing to do, especially when it seems his loved ones always get punished as well. The inclusion of Laurence Fishburne was fantastic, as he could fill the part of someone who would conceivably go toe-to-toe against the likes of Hank Pym. Of course, the best scene in the entire movie goes to the interrogation of Luis, a favorite of mine since the first Ant Man movie. Every scene he’s in is gold. Pure gold. He needs to be in the upcoming Avengers movie next May, if he wasn’t one of the casualties of Thanos’ elimination of half of the universe’s population, that is.
Overall, Ant Man And The Wasp was a highly enjoyable comic book action flick. It doesn’t add to the overall grand arc that Marvel has been building for the past ten years, but it’s a nice brick in the wall. Recommended for a matinée, at least.
Movie Review: DEADPOOL 2
necrosarx Movie Reviews Action, Comedy, Comic Book Movie, Deadpool, Marvel, Sequel Leave a comment
“You remind me of my wife.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I said you remind me…”
“No, I’m sorry that you said that while making heavy eye contact and applying lip balm.”
Whelp, I’m gonna call it. 2018 is the year for Marvel flicks. Whether the Disney movies, or the ones that are still owned by other studios, Marvel has been knocking ’em out of the park, there. Of course, one of the more highly anticipated Marvel movies this year was the sequel to 2016’s Deadpool, the surprise hit R-rated superhero movie that pretty much broke the mold when it came to the genre.
To say Deadpool 2 had a lot to live up to would be an hilarious understatement. The possibility for a sophomore slump was pretty strong. While the teaser trailers and online promos promised more of the same (and then some), and the plot utilizing not only X-Men fan-favorite Cable, but X-Force as well to up the ante, I was still a bit cautious when I finally sat myself down in my theater seat with the rest of the exalted geeks. The memory of the awesomeness of the first Deadpool movie alone was fueling my anticipation. Will Deadpool 2 be just as awesome? Or will it pratfall harder than the Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine? Probably not, but weirder disappointments have happened.
Suffice to say, Deadpool 2 did not disappoint. Was it as good as, or better than, the first Deadpool? We’ll get to that. But first, the Obligatory Rundown (there may be spoilers, so keep that in mind while I write from the hip, here):
We begin with Deadpool blowing himself up. We then are treated to a flashback to explain why he decided to off himself at the beginning of his own movie (hint: It involves the sudden death of a loved one that even the movie’s opening credits couldn’t believe just happened). But, since he’s Deadpool and has a crazy insane healing factor, his bits and pieces are…rescued? by Colossus, and he’s pieced back together in the X-Men Mansion. Colossus convinces Deadpool to finally join up with the X-Men, and is taken with him and Negasonic Teenage Wowthisisthelongestsuperheronameever to an incident involving a young mutant with fireball powers outside of another mutant hospital being run by a “doctor” who tortures young mutants to “cure” them. After deciding that the PG-13 route wasn’t for him, Deadpool manages to get himself and the young firestarter thrown into what is called the “icebox”, where some of the most dangerous mutants are imprisoned, their powers nullified by a special collar. This means that Deadpool’s healing factor is no longer a thing, and his cancer is coming back full force. But, due to a sudden surprise infiltration by a time-traveling super soldier named Cable, Deadpool gets his collar off and escapes, leaving the younger boy in there being hunted by Cable. Convicted to protect the boy, Deadpool forms a team of his own — X-Force — and during the transport of all the Icebox prisoners to a new location, most of the team is massacred by accident, save for the spunky young Domino, who stops Cable from killing the boy, but ends up releasing the Juggernaut in the process. The boy and Juggernaut head out to deal some pain to the guy who tortured him, which leads to Deadpool teaming up with Cable to try and talk him out of it without killing the boy. Things go boom. I’m just going to leave it there.
I’ll just come out and say it: Deadpool 2 was awesome. Though one could argue that the story beats in Deadpool 2 would be the anti-Logan from a couple of years ago, what with the protecting a child from a killer threat with some robotic implants, that still doesn’t distract from the fact that this movie maintains the quality of hilarity and action of the first one, gleefully subverting tropes, deftly dealing with the drama and seriousness with brazenly juvenile style. The movie starts off with a literal bang, and keeps that tone and pace up throughout, not so much breaking the fourth wall as demolishing it completely, with the jokes and action equally rapid-fire. The interaction between him and Cable is fantastic, and I kind of wish there was more between them. Domino was an interesting character herself; I’m not familiar with the source character, as I’m not what you would call an X-Men fan in that media. Of course, the best part of the movie is the mid-credit scene that you need to stay for. It’s the best one of all the Marvel movie mid-credit scenes going. Trust me, this will make you beyond giddy.
So, what I’m trying to say is, Deadpool 2 is awesome. I already said that once (see: Previous Paragraph), but it’s worth repeating as many times as possible. If you liked the first Deadpool, you’re gonna like Deadpool 2. That’s all. Go catch it while it’s in the theaters.
Movie Review: AVENGERS Infinity War
necrosarx Journal Action, Avengers, Comic Book Movie, Marvel, Sequel Leave a comment
“I’m gonna ask you this one time. Where is Gamora?”
“Yeah, I’ll do you one better. Who is Gamora?”
“I’ll do you one better. Why is Gamora?”
So, then. The third Avengers movie, and the first part of a two-parter that is promising to shake everything up in the cinematic Marvel Universe. Well, now. That’s a big promise, there. While I loved the first Avengers movie, the second one was kind of lackluster, and really, neither did really set my fanboy world ablaze at the time. I do admit, though, that the Marvel movies leading up to Infinity War these past couple of years have been ramping up in the quality story-wise (Spider-Man: Homecoming, Thor: Ragnarök, Black freakin’ Panther…need I go on?), so there was actual hope that Infinity War will live up to all the hype and blow me away with sheer awesomeness.
Going into this, already the scope was BIG by sheer numbers: Avengers Infinity War features almost everybody in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, save for Ant Man. I mean, they could have started off the movie by a big rendition of the song “Hey A Movie!” from The Great Muppet Caper (“Starring everybody, and meeeee!”). As a matter of fact…why wasn’t that a thing? Disney owns the Muppets, right? That could have been shoehorned in there easily. Thor and Loki could have a choreographed dance number. But, I digress. Point is, the stakes for this movie were already pretty high by the amount of crossover team-ups going on. This had the potential of falling flatter than the Justice League movie.
Fortunately, my natural tendency to expect the worst was proven wrong.
I take a break in this rambling review to state that, although it’s been a few weeks since the opening of this movie, there will be SPOILERS ahead, so be ye warned if, for some reason, you haven’t seen this yet. Though, I can’t fathom why.
Starting off almost immediately after the post-credit scene from Thor: Ragnarök, Thanos has killed almost everyone on the ship carrying all the Asgardian refugees, save for Thor, Loki, Heimdall and the Hulk. After single-handedly giving the smackdown to the Hulk and shiving Loki for the Space Stone, the Hulk is transported back to Earth by Heimdall, and Thor is tossed into space. Hulk crashes into the New York Sanctum Sanctorum of Doctor Strange, and — after reverting back to Bruce Banner — warns Strange about Thanos’ mad plan to eradicate half of all life in the universe, and is on his way to get the Time Stone from Strange. Recruiting Iron Man, they all put of a valiant fight against the henchmen Thanos sent, but Strange gets captured and taken into space, but not before Iron Man and a newly suited Spider-Man hitch a ride on their ship. Meanwhile, the Scarlet Witch and Vision are attacked by two more henchmen, but are saved by the arrival of Captain America, Black Widow and the Falcon. Thor is rescued by the Guardians of the Galaxy, and after a hilarious interchange between Thor and Starlord, Thor goes off with Rocket and a teenage Groot to the place where his original hammer was forged to make a new weapon to fight Thanos, while Starlord, Gamora, Drax and Mantis head back to Knowhere to try and save the Reality Stone, only to find that Thanos beat them there and has it in his possession.
With us so far? Good. Proceeding…
Thanos kidnaps Gamora to get the location of the Soul Stone, then after traveling to the location, has to reluctantly kill Gamora in order to gain possession of the stone. Trust me, it’s a rather harrowing scene to get through. Iron Man, Spider-Man and Strange run into Starlord, Drax and Mantis on Thanos’ homeworld of Titan, hatching a plan to remove the gauntlet from him, as there seems to be only one outcome of several million that results in the mad Titan losing. They almost succeed, until Starlord loses his otherwise cherub-like demeanor after learning that Thanos killed Gamora. Finally gaining the Time Stone, Thanos heads back to Earth to get the Mind Stone from Vision, who is in Wakanda, where the entire Wakandian army is lead by Black Panther, along with Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, Banner in the Hulk Buster suit (because Hulk hasn’t wanted to smash after the beatdown at the beginning of the movie), and the newly hammered Thor is taking down Thanos’ horde. Everything is looking good for our heroes…until Thanos shows up. Then everyone is screwed. Seriously. It ends with the bad guy winning. Enjoy the rest of your day, folks.
Once again, Disney has proven that they are now the overlords of the movie releases now. With Marvel, just in this year alone (and it’s not even halfway through the year yet), they’ve already made all the money and broke all the records with Black Panther. Just a couple of months later, and they manage to once again blow everything out of the water with Infinity War. I’m not exaggerating. I don’t think anyone was expecting what happened in this movie. Not only did Avengers Infinity War manage to handle three major plot threads and weave them together into an epic story, it did so without sacrificing character development and story quality. What was truly amazing was that the character of Thanos — who could have easily been a paint-by-numbers Big Evil (see: Steppenwolf from The Justice League movie) — was given depth and motivation beyond “I’m just evil, it’s what I do”. There’s a scene where you start feeling some compassion for him, and kind of see things his way…although, he’s still a despot that’s committing mass genocide on an intergalactic scale, so he’s still the bad guy, make no doubt.
The writing was great, managing to keep all the different characters’ individual qualities. I like that eye for character detail they adhere to, going so far as bringing in James Gunn to write the parts for the Guardians Of The Galaxy to keep the continuity going. The result is some fantastic — and not to mention hilarious — interactions between the heroes during the conflict. Pretty much everyone gets a chance to shine, here. And by the time it gets to the end, you’re left with a feeling of being punched in the stomach by the Hulk himself.
Yeah, Avengers Infinity War is a bleak and dark entry in the series. Some say this is the Empire Strikes Back of the Avengers movies; I say that Avengers Infinity War makes Empire Strikes Back look like minor inconvenience. Walking out of the theater after the post-credit scene that sets up the next couple of Marvel movies to come, there were several children — and a few adults as well — that were crying due to the final few moments of the movie. People die. Characters you didn’t see coming, that you thought were safe from destruction. So much so, that I began wondering if Joss Wheadon didn’t have a hand in writing the final part of the script.
Enough of me going on and on with the review. If you haven’t seen Avengers Infinity War yet at this point, what are you waiting for? Go see this. Now. Stop reading this and go.
Movie Review: X2
necrosarx Movie Reviews Action, Comic Book Movie, Marvel, Sequel, X-Men Leave a comment
“Logan, my tolerance for your smoking in the mansion notwithstanding, continue smoking that in here, and you’ll spend the rest of your days under the belief that you’re a six-year-old girl.”
Fascinating. All this time, and even though I’ve reviewed all the other X-Men movies that have come out, I’ve never did a proper review for the second movie in the franchise, X2: X-Men United. I don’t know what may have caused this glaring oversight; consider this my long-overdue rectification of that issue.
At the time, X2 was described by director Bryan Singer as a darker, Empire Strikes Back style movie for the Merry Mutants. And yes…that is a very apt description of this movie. And if you’re somehow unfamiliar with the X2 storyline, let me tell you…
After an opening where the President of the United States narrowly escapes an assassination attempt, Wolverine returns from the journey of discovery he went on at the end of the first movie back to the Xavier Institute to find Professor Xavier tracking a mutant with a very erratic movement pattern. Later, while the Professor and Cyclops are off visiting Magneto in his prison, and Storm and Jean Grey are out trying to find Nightcrawler (the mutant that tried to kill the President), a military scientist gets the go ahead to invade Xavier’s school for gifted students. Wolverine manages to get several of the kids to safety, and escapes with Rogue, Iceman and Pyro. Meanwhile, Xavier and Cyclops are captured, while Mystique helps Magnito escape his prison. The two then run into the other X-Men, and form an uneasy alliance to take down the military scientist that invaded the mansion. His name is Stryker, and turns out is the man who originally infused the adamantium to Wolvie’s skeleton. They find the location of Stryker’s underground base, where he is using Xavier to telepathically kill every mutant on the planet. They infiltrate the base, and manage to free the mutants being held there, as well as destroy the device that was going to kill all mutantkind, and Jean Grey dies using her powers to keep the burst dam from killing everyone before the X-Men’s jet can take off. Everyone is safe, but sad now, although Professor Xavier senses things are not over with Jean.
Overall, X2 is counted as the best of the first three X-Men films for good reason. The stakes were higher, not everyone gets out unscathed, the villains are cast in a more sympathetic light, and not everything is what you would call black and white, cut and dried, and what have you. When we get to the end, there’s a tremendous sense of loss, but also a glimmer of hope on the horizon. X2 is a very satisfying X-Men movie, as well as an action movie in general. I still watch this one frequently, at least once every year or so, and count this as one of the few sequels that was better than the movie that preceded it. Hindsight being what it is, obviously X2 was probably the last one that fans really liked, until the First Class prequel ten years later. Regardless, I can’t think of anyone who’s a fan of the X-Men movies who haven’t seen X2 yet; if this is the case, you owe it to yourself to rectify that. Recommended.
Movie Review: The AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
necrosarx Movie Reviews Action, Comic Book Movie, Marvel, Spider-Man Leave a comment
“You know, in the future, if you’re going to steal cars, don’t dress like a car thief, man.”
For the longest time, I avoided watching The Amazing Spider-Man. I didn’t want to watch a movie that I felt was completely unnecessary. It had only been ten years since the first Spider-Man film tickled my fanboy sensibilities, and to me this whole rebooting nonsense was getting ridiculous. And thus, true to my curmudgeonly ways, I held off watching The Amazing Spider-Man for a couple of years. Until now, of course. The fanboy curiosity got the best of me, finally, coincidentally when it had been on DVD long enough to be rented for cheep. Fancy that.
First things first–The Amazing Spider-Man came about not from a strong desire to reboot the franchise (though, given Spider-Man 3, I wouldn’t have been that surprised if that was the case); seems Sony was more than willing to do a Spider-Man 4 with Sam Raimi, but his schedule was a bit busy, and Sony was in danger of having the rights revert back to Marvel in the intern, so they had to go forward without Raimi; but, instead of doing SM4 without him, they opted to do an entirely new take with another director. So…okay, understandable. Personally, I think Spider-Man belongs back home at Marvel Studios, but that’s not the point.
Also, kind of wanted to point out that I’m not out to compare The Amazing Spider-Man with the 2002 adjective-less Spider-Man. I shall be reviewing this on its own merits. So, with that in mind, how did The Amazing Spider-Man fare? Did the movie do live action justice to one of my all-time favorite comic book characters? Or is this the worst thing to happen since One More Day?
The Amazing Spider-Man is your basic origin story for the character, and anyone familiar with the comics know it well: Geekity-nerd Peter Parker, unpopular with his high school comrades, but popular with his Uncle Ben and Aunt May, gets bitten by an experimented-on spider while at a science lab, and suddenly finds himself going through puberty…er, I mean, gaining the proportional speed and agility of spider, and using that power to be a jerk to his loved ones (are we sure his isn’t puberty, here?). His Uncle Ben dies at the hands of the thief Peter could have stopped but didn’t (see: “jerk”), and thus becomes the Luchador-esque crime fighter known as Spider-Man. Just in time, too, because his scientist mentor has taken a formula to regrow his arm, which it has…along with turning the rest of him into a lizard person. And in the process of trying to take down the Lizard, his crush’s police chief father gets caught in the crossfire, all the while learning the hard way that with great something-something comes great something-or-other. I haven’t worked that part out yet…
I found Amazing Spider-Man…well, not terrible. Not unwatchable. There was a lot of action, a lot of things going on, we get yet another variation of the origin story and such. Andrew Garfield did okay as Peter Parker; however, writing this after watching Spider-Man: Homecoming, I can’t help but compare him to what I now consider the definitive big screen Peter Parker…and he ranks a bit below Tobey Maguire still. I did enjoy the incorporation of The Lizard as the antagonist this go-around; overall, though, it seemed a bit more flash and a not much more than that. It was entertaining, and that was that. Worth a rental, I would say.
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Tag Archive | WWII
#The Lost Family by Jenna Blum–4 stars–#Edelweiss #Harper Collins Pub
New From Jenna Blum-The Lost Family-Coming 6/5/18
The Lost Family is a bittersweet tale about love, loss, loneliness, and betrayal.
Peter Rashkin couldn’t forgive himself for making the mistake that ended up costing his wife and their three-year-old twin daughters their lives. He didn’t believe the ugly rumors about the Nazi’s, in time. When they started to carry out their atrocities against the Jewish, Peter knew that he should have moved his family sooner. He survived the death camps; his wife and children didn’t.
Peter Raskin had no interest in getting remarried. But, when June informed him that she was carrying his child, he married her. June felt as if she was constantly competing against the family he lost. Being married to Peter wasn’t easy. He spent long hours at work and was obsessed with his restaurant. June was lonely. She didn’t want to cheat on her husband. It just happened, and once it started, she couldn’t seem to stop herself. She knew that her husband loved her, in his own way, but just not enough to let her fully into his heart.
This is an emotional and heart-wrenching novel. Peter’s guilt and sadness not only overshadowed everything in his life; it also tore his family apart. The Lost Family is a poignant story well told.
Thank you, HarperCollins Publishing and Edelweiss, for my advanced review copy.
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JENNA BLUM is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of novels THOSE WHO SAVE US and THE STORMCHASERS and the novella “The Lucky One” in the postwar collection GRAND CENTRAL. Jenna is also one of Oprah’s Top 30 Women Writers. Jenna’s third novel, THE LOST FAMILY, will be published June 5, 2018 by Harper Collins.
Jenna’s debut novel THOSE WHO SAVE US was a New York Times bestseller; a Boston Globe bestseller; the winner of the 2005 Ribalow Prize, adjudged by Elie Wiesel; a BORDERS book club pick, a perennial book club favorite, and the # 1 bestselling novel in Holland. Jenna’s second novel, THE STORMCHASERS, is a Boston Globe bestseller, a Target Emerging Authors pick, and a bestseller in Holland and France. Jenna’s newest work, her novella “The Lucky One,” was published in anthology GRAND CENTRAL, published by Penguin in July 2014. Jenna’s third novel, THE LOST FAMILY, is forthcoming from Harper Collins in 2018, and Jenna is currently working on her fourth novel.
This entry was posted on 05/26/2018, in Family, Historical Fiction, literary Fiction, Reviews, Reviews & More and tagged Book Blogging, German Death Camps, Holocaust, Jenna Blum, Peg Glover Reviews, WWII. Leave a comment
The Room On Rue Amelie by Kristin Harmel–#Review–5 Shining Stars
Don’t Miss Kristin Harmel’s Newest Release—The Room on Rue Amelie—Coming 3/27/18. I Absolutely Loved It!
The Room on Rue Amelie is an amazing story that takes place during WWII in Paris, France. Ruby, an American woman, was ecstatic when her dream to go to Paris came true. A whirlwind romance with Marcel led to a quick marriage and an apartment in Paris. Although Europe was on the verge of war, Ruby didn’t want to return to America. She had made her new life with her French husband and wanted to stay by his side. Ruby’s blissful honeymoon, however, wouldn’t last long. The man she had loved and thought she knew, changed drastically, seemingly overnight. Instead of being loving and attentive, Marcel became secretive and intense. He was often out late at night and whenever Ruby questioned him as to where he had been or with whom, she was met with an abrupt, harsh attitude and an evasive answer.
While in Paris, Ruby befriended a neighbor, Charlotte, a young Jewish girl, and her parents. They became Ruby’s lifeline especially when she went into labor early, and her husband was nowhere to be found. Ruby became very protective of her Jewish neighbors, and when she saw the Germans coming, Ruby ran to their apartment to warn them.
Charlotte’s life changed forever after her parents were taken by the Germans. Ruby dedicated herself to caring for Charlotte, and to assisting British RAF pilots, to escape German-occupied France. Ruby never thought that she would fall in love again, but after meeting Thomas, a pilot whom she had nursed back to health and then helped to escape, she knew that just wasn’t true.
The Room on Rue Amelie is a superbly written, riveting novel. If you enjoy reading WWII, historical fiction, you’ll love this book. Highly recommended.
Thank you, Gallery Books and NetGalley, for my advanced review copy. I loved it!
Kristin Harmel is an international bestselling novelist whose books have been translated into numerous languages and are sold all over the world. A former reporter for People magazine, Kristin has also freelanced for many other publications, including American Baby, Men’s Health, Glamour, Woman’s Day, Travel + Leisure, and more.
Her latest novels — The Sweetness of Forgetting, The Life Intended, How to Save a Life (a long novella), and When We Meet Again — are out now from Gallery Books, a division of Simon & Schuster.
Kristin graduated summa cum laude from the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications (Go Gators!). She lives in Orlando, Fla., with her husband and son.
This entry was posted on 03/18/2018, in Favorite Authors, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Reviews, Reviews & More, Romantic Suspense and tagged Book Blogging, German occupied France, Kristin Harmel, Peg Glover Reviews, WWII. 7 Comments
*From Sand and Ash*by Amy Harmon-5 stars*
Don’t Miss Amy Harmon’s Newest Release!
It is Haunting, Heartwarming and Unforgettable.
From Sand and Ash is a beautifully written, poignant historical fiction novel that touches the soul. The story takes place in Italy, during WWII.
Eva Rosselli was the love of Angelo Bianco’s life. He was sent to Italy as a child after his mother died. Although he was a Catholic, he grew up with a Jewish family, the Rosselli’s. He also fell in love with their daughter, Eva.
It sickened him to see the Jewish people humiliated, robbed and murdered by the Nazi’s. Angelo became a priest to save as many Jews as possible, especially the family he grew up with and loved. Eva’s heart broke, though, when he was ordained. And as much as Angelo wanted to stay faithful to his vows, he had a difficult time resisting Eva’s affections. Her kisses soothed him, but at the same time, tortured his soul.
Amy Harmon’s writing is superb. Her story flows effortlessly from one scene to the next. She uses her talent to shine a bright light on the beautiful acts of love done by courageous souls, in the midst of Hitler’s atrocities. This book is haunting, heartwarming, magnificently written and unforgettable.
Amy Hammond is a gem of an author, and I’m so glad that I discovered her. Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for my advanced review copy of this book. I loved it.
~5 out of 5 stars~Review by Peg Glover
This entry was posted on 12/10/2016, in Favorite, Historical Fiction, literary Fiction, Reviews, Reviews & More and tagged Amy Harmon, Hitler, Peg Glover Reviews, WWII. Leave a comment
*The Nightingale*by Kristin Hannah*5-Shining Stars
The Nightingale is a poignant, unforgettable novel, magnificently crafted and impossible to put down. The story takes place during WWII in France.
The story is about two brave sisters and what they had to do in order to survive the horrors in occupied France. Vianne was the rule keeper; the responsible older sister. Isabelle, on the other hand, was the younger sister, the rebel, the one with spirit and passion. Both of the sisters were broken from being abandoned by their parents, but the two of them were forever changed by the atrocities they had encountered during the French resistance, in their home, and in German concentration camps.
While Isabelle lead pilots who were shot down into Spain, Vianne was busy saving Jewish children; one in her billeted home, right under the nose of a German officer.
Every page of this engrossing soul-wrenching novel, pulled me in, until I no longer read the words, but experienced them. This is not only a story about the hardships and suffering of WWII but of the risks that brave men and women took in order to save others. In the end, the only thing that mattered was the love that they held for one another.
I highly recommend this superbly written and remarkable book.
5 out of 5 stars~Review by Peg Glover
This entry was posted on 08/19/2016, in Family, Historical Fiction, Reviews, Reviews & More and tagged abuse, Favorite, Kristin Hannah, Peg Glover Reviews, WWII. 2 Comments
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Home Culture Why South Africa’s Teen Sex Law Matters
Why South Africa’s Teen Sex Law Matters
Earlier this month, a controversial bill, allowing consenting teens to have sex if they want to, was passed into law in south Africa. The ‘teen sex law’, as it is now frequently referred to, has left several faith-based lobby groups irate, while rights advocacy groups are pleased. Before this, teens couldn’t pet, cuddle or kiss – even if both parties were consenting – without breaking the law. Now, they are free to do it and, though the age of consent is 16, the law “includes a close-in-age exception, which means that sexual acts between two children, where both are between 12 and 16, or where one is under 16 and the other is less than two years older, are not criminal.”
While the law may now be official, what do the people primarily affected by it think about it? Noni Mokati of IOL News, recently took to the streets to find out the views of a few teenagers and, it must be said, a number of the responses are revealing. Here are a few of them:
Errol McKenzie, 15*
”I have no clue what this law says, nor have I heard of it.
“I had sex when I was 15. I wasn’t prepared for it but I did know a bit about it because of what we learnt from school.
“My parents didn’t know about it then and I felt comfortable. I fumbled through my first time. It wasn’t perfect but I somehow managed. Therefore, it makes no difference to me whether there is a law or not. I believe what our parents don’t know won’t hurt them. I would have been too embarrassed to tell them anyway.”
Micaela Levi, 16
“I’ve never heard about this (bill) before. I’m Jewish, so in my belief system, we are not allowed to have sex until we are married.
“It doesn’t make sense why there would be laws prohibiting teenagers from drinking and yet we, as 16 year olds, can have sex. It just doesn’t make sense. It shouldn’t be a right at this age.”
Shannon Lorie, 17
“At that age you are still a minor. People could misuse this whole thing.”
Gabby Gutto, 18.
“I don’t agree with this entire concept. I believe in the old law that (stops) underage kids from having sex.
“I’ve heard of instances where adults can’t even deal with the responsibilities of sleeping around.
“Sex is a decision that should be based on responsibility. I don’t think 12-year-olds are responsible, period.
“At least with the old laws there were consequences. Now it could be a free for all.”
Felicity Gabriella, 17
“I don’t think we should be allowed, period.”
* Not his real name
For me, a good number of these responses are telling because they reveal something that the movement for all rights at all costs keeps missing: young people, regardless of how boisterous and independent they may like to show themselves to be, need the guidance of their elders. Adults are (or, at least, should be) adults for a reason. They should be there to ensure that young people don’t burn themselves and get into complex areas of life that they don’t have the maturity to handle. This isn’t about repression, it’s about responsibility. As much as youngsters are handed freedoms, let them be taught responsibility and be guided on what it means to be grounded. If not, we’re headed for disaster.
The kind of grounding we’re talking about cannot happen without an examination of the spirit and coming to terms with who we really are. An adult or mature person cannot give what they do not have. What do you believe in and what are you passing onto the next generation? Where will it land them in the future?
These are uncomfortable questions for many but they all land firmly on the doorstep of faith and belief. If you have questions in this area, please click on the banner below and watch the video that follows. We’d also like to hear your comments in the box below.
Part of this post was sourced from an IOL News article by Noni Mokati. The views in this article do not represent those of that publication.
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1Africa is all about bringing Christian faith into popular culture by being a Godly presence in the midst of large gatherings of online users.
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Philadelphia Korean-American Day: Honoring Philip Jaisohn, Korean Links America to Korean Independence Movement
Korean and American flags waved side by side outside City Hall, an illustration and celebration of Korean-American Day on Philadelphia streets earlier this month. David Oh, a U.S. military veteran and Philadelphia’s first Korean-American councilman, and Helen Gym, Philadelphia’s first Korean-American councilwoman, proclaimed the first Korean American Day to be celebrated in Philadelphia to honor of the rich heritage and contributions of Korean-Americans.
One notable pioneer of Philadelphia’s Korean-American community was Dr. Philip Jaisohn (1864-1951). He was an advocate for Korean independence, a medical doctor and researcher, journalist and the first Korean to gain citizenship in the United States.
The Philip Jaisohn Memorial Foundation, founded in 1975, honors his legacy by providing medical, social, and educational services to community members, and his home of 25 years is now a museum open to the public.
Dr. Jaisohn arrived to the United States in 1884 with little to his name. With the help of Americans like John Welles Hollenback he eventually became the first Korean-American to become a medical doctor.
Nearly 100 years ago, Jaisohn led a parade waving Korean and American flags down those same Philadelphia streets. Inspired by the mass peaceful demonstrations that occurred across Korea on March 1, 1919, he assembled the First Korean Congress in Philadelphia the following April. The delegation then marched into Independence Hall for a public reading of the Korean Declaration of Independence:
“…We claim independence in the interest of the eternal and free development of our people and in accordance with the great movement of world reform based on the awakening conscience of mankind.….”
An independence movement emerged across Korea and the diaspora in response to colonial rule. The March 1st Movement represented the aspirations of the Korean people for a new, independent nation that would embody democratic principles and spread peace to the world. Under Jaisohn’s leadership, the First Korean Congress issued an appeal to Americans to support their cause:
“We, therefore, in the name of humanity, liberty and democracy and in the name of the American-Korean treaty and in the name of the peace of the world, ask the government of the United States to exert its good offices to save the lives of our freedom-loving brethren in Korea and to protect the American missionaries and their families who are in danger of losing their lives and property on account of their love for our people and their faith in Christ.
We further ask you, the great American public, to give us your moral and material help so that our brethren in Korea will know that your sympathy is with them and that you are truly the champions of liberty and international justice.”
The First Korean Congress articulated the aspirations of the Korean people for social reform and independence, going beyond the era of feudalism and colonialism. It promoted the advancement of human rights, freedoms, and social and educational development for all Koreans and a new democratic form of government:
“We believe in government which derives its just power from the governed, therefore the government must be conducted for the interest of the people it governs.
We propose to have a government modeled after that of America, as far as possible, consistent with the education of the masses. For the next decade it may be necessary to have more centralized power in the government; but as education of the people improves and as they have more experience in the art of self-governing, they will be allowed to participate more universally in the governmental affairs.”
In honor of the centennial of the founding of the First Korean Congress, Philadelphia’s Korean-American community will come together for a reenactment of the march and a commemorative gala on April 14-16, 2019. More than a dozen notable organizations will join the festivities, and Councilman David Oh and Councilwoman Helen Gym will serve as honorary Co-Chairs of the First Korean Congress Centennial Celebration Advisory Committee.
Through the First Korean Congress and other social organizations and publications, Jaisohn continued to raise awareness in America and draw support for Korean independence. Jaisohn’s deep love for his Korean homeland was already evident years earlier in Korea. He published the Independent newspaper in his native Korean language, allowing lower classes and women to read the news for the first time. Jaisohn wanted to educate citizens, which he believed to be significant for a self-governing people.
Sadly, the aspirations of the independence movement for a free, united Korean nation remains unfulfilled with the current division of the Korean Peninsula. However, the legacy of independence leaders like Jaisohn continues to inspire Koreans today in the ongoing struggle for a nation where all Koreans may live in peace and shared prosperity. Throughout his life, he promoted Korean unity, and became more pronounced with the division of the peninsula.
“We have lived under one roof for 4,000 years. Nonetheless, does it make sense to live separated? If one is divided into two, both become weak and powerless. We are on the same boat. If one side is wrecked, the other side must be wrecked as well. Although my body is in America, my spirit shall remain with you, Koreans! I wish really from the bottom of my heart that you live in cooperation and unity and make Korea better.”
The One Korea Global Campaign is a grassroots-movement of over 1000 Korean civil society organizations working toward the peaceful reunification of the Korean peninsula. As the 100th anniversary of the March 1st Movement approaches, the campaign continues to draw support from Koreans in the North, South and diaspora for Korean reunification. Just as Korean-Americans played an important role in the Independence Movement, the campaign hopes to draw their support today to advance the Korean Dream, a vision for a free, unified nation that lives for the greater benefit of humanity.
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Fulfill Your Dream for a Better Life with Childcare Grants for Single Moms
by Work-At-Home-Jobs | Jul 20, 2014 | Job For Single Mom |
Single parents go through different hardships of life in lack of enough resources to support a decent livelihood. If you too are playing the role of a single parent with limited resources to fulfill the needs of your family, you need to look for help. There are various grants and assistance programs designed for single parents, especially single moms, to provide them the needful help. From College Grants for Single Mothers to Daycare Grants for Single mothers, one can avail help in various forms from the Government Grants for Single Mothers.
A single parent has to go through variety of hardships in view of limited finances. Meeting the rising demands of daily expenses and coping up with monthly bills can be very difficult. A large number of single mothers stay deprived of education in view of the limited finances. Such mothers should be diligent about availability of Childcare Grants for Single Moms to seek benefit. They are provided to single mothers who need assistance in taking care of the child along with enrollment in a school or a university.
College Grants for Single Mothers can also be availed by eligible candidates who want to pursue education to advance their career. Besides these, there are various types of Federal Grants for Single Mothers. It is important to remain knowledgeable about how to seek help from these grants. The best way to search for these grants is Internet. An online search can also be run to check out different types of grants. There is availability of online forms to apply for these grants. Many of the problems of single mothers can be resolved by taking advantage from these grants. These grants are sourced by federal agency and are meant to help out different sections of society including needy single mothers.
It is very important to be aware of right place to seek much needed financial assistance in case of single mothers. Grants and assistance programs are meant to ease off the troubles of lives for single parents. Programs like Head Start are sponsored by government and are meant to provide needful help to single mothers to meet the preschool and kindergarten care assistance services. Daycare assistance can also be sought by contacting your nearest daycare center. Many of the daycare centers and religious school are willing to lend a helping hand to single mothers. All you need is to look around to ease off the burden of life.
For interested readers we have some more useful information on our website about Grants For Single Mothers and also good stuff about Childcare Grants For Single Mothers.
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Kevin Federline Wants MORE Than $20,000 Monthly Child Support From Britney Spears
Snark Kent
Do you think you could get by on $20,000 a month?
Not if you’re Kevin Federline. The ex-husband of Britney Spears and former Dancer/DJ is claiming that he needs more than $240,000 a year to raise the two kids they had together.
In court records revealed this month, Federline is suing the former Disney star for more money because, as he puts it, “his income has decreased significantly since the last time their agreement was modified, while he believes Spears’ annual income is around $34 million.”
Federline revealed his income for appearance fees has dropped to $3,000 a month and he’s having a hard time making ends meet with the paltry sum Britney Spears is shelling out.
The real question is: How many kids is Britney Spears paying support for?
Is it just two?
Or three…
Related Topics:2018Britney SpearscelebritiesfamousgossiphollywoodKevin Federline
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Michael Jackson Pop Joe Dead at 89
Michael Jackson and Joe Jackson image courtesy of Pinterest
Joe Jackson, the “Pop” of the King Of Pop, Michael Jackson, has died at 89 after a long battle with cancer.
The end was expected and he was surrounded by loved ones as he bid farewell to a world he changed forever by rearing a family who changed the face and sound of pop music.
How did he do it?
Various inside sources say it was with an iron will, determination, faith and brutal discipline. The rest of the world knows it only as The Jackson 5.
But, Michael Jackson himself summed it up by revealing he’d grown up missing a childhood and retaliating by leaving his father out of his will.
That was no minor insult. MJ’s estate has grown since his own untimely death, at the age of 50, in 2009. Today he’s worth more dead than alive and, judging by Joe Jackson’s public demeanor and published quotes, it was a grievous blow.
The horrific story of Michael Jackson’s upbringing was long a dark rumor until MJ openly discussed the topic on numerous occasions late in his life. Tales of being beaten with a stick because he wanted to play with other kids, instead of rehearsing the act, were disputed. Until they were confirmed by others who, silently, witnessed it all.
Perhaps the crowning confirmation of Joe Jackson’s megalomania and cruelty was at the memorial ceremony held in Hollywood the week after Michael Jackson died at the hands of an incompetent quack doctor more interested in talking with his girlfriend on the phone than tending to his patient.
When asked, “How are you doing?” Joe Jackson replied, “I’m doing great!” to the stunned surprise of the interviewer.
He went on to use the moment to publicize his new production company and unknowingly revealed he couldn’t care less about his world famous dead son.
The family has released words of sorrow online and a private funeral is being planned.
But, Joe Jackson’s legacy will always be that his relentless pursuit of wealth, fame and immortality permanently scarred one of the world’s greatest ever performers.
In the end, was it all worth it?
Why Heather Locklear Can’t Be Left Alone
Heather Locklear faces more charges (Image courtesy of Pinterest)
Heather Locklear is in deep trouble – again.
The Melrose Place star has been acting out for more than a week with her behavior becoming more and more erratic.
In the latest incident, a 911 call allegedly came from her Hollywood home reporting a suspected overdose and Locklear is apparently in an LA hospital for treatment of substance abuse and suicidal intentions.
That’s good because it seems she can’t be left alone right now.
Locklear has been struggling for a decade with what appears to be an emotional issue, possibly self-esteem.
It’s not easy going from one of Hollywood’s most respected TV stars with a reputation for becoming an outstanding actress to a woman whose phone has probably stopped ringing.
It’s a spectacular, public and messy fall. But Heather Locklear is not the first Hollywood icon to suffer this kind of fate.
Joining a roster too long to list, an unfortunately common outcome has befallen other stars who have slipped in the ratings. And, it’s probably a matter of too little attention being paid rather than too much.
Heather Locklear, in the 80s and 90s, earned a well deserved reputation as a “Pretty Face” with a little acting talent who barreled through all the stereotypes and burst out on TV with a surprisingly well executed turn as a villainous “Cougar” – before the term was even coined.
But, Father Time waits for no one and it looks like Heather Locklear may be stubbornly resisting fate. Nothing lasts forever.
And, with untold wealth and the ability to live a secluded and private life, sometimes loneliness and despair ends up badly.
That’s why Heather Locklear can’t be left alone for a moment until she somehow excorcizes the demons seemingly plaguing her soul.
There’s an old saying: “When you hit rock bottom, the only way is up.”
Let’s hope Heather Locklear will get the help she needs.
And gets the message…
Was the XXXTentacion murder a hit? By Drake?
Soon after rapper XXXTentacion was murdered on Monday, police were quick to say they thought it was a robbery gone bad by three men who committed a crime of opportunity.
But just days later, rumors are swirling that the murder was really a hit because of eyewitness accounts leaking onto the web.
The story goes like this:
XXXTentacion, without his bodyguards, visited a Miami motorcycle dealership and was followed into the parking lot by 3 men in an SUV. They exited the lot and parked down the street.
A short time later, as XXXTentacion was driving away, they blocked his vehicle, ran up and shot him three times below the neck and, without stealing anything, quickly drove off.
The witnesses swear it was a hit because… the guns were equipped with silencers.
But, it gets even more bizarre.
Now there’s a rumor flying that Drake was allegedly behind the “hit” because his song, “I’m Upset” has lyrics eerily predictive of the actual murder.
In it, he calls out XXX by name and threatens to shoot him three times “below the neck.”
Despite what the cops are saying, most people believed from the very beginning it had to be an organized hit.
We might soon find out.
Just yesterday police arrested tattoo artist Dedrick D. Williams for the crime and were executing warrants for two other men wanted for questioning.
Drake wasn’t one of them…
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You are at:Home»News»Contract Awards»LGS Innovations Wins Contract to Support Army Base Relocation in Korea
LGS Innovations Wins Contract to Support Army Base Relocation in Korea
By Ben Wicker May 3, 2018 No Comments
Kevin Kelly, CEO of LGS Innovations
LGS Innovations has been awarded a 5-year, $50 million contract in support of the largest base relocation in Army history, helping to relocate and upgrade Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence infrastructure as part of a base consolidation in Korea.
LGS was awarded the Yongsan Relocation Plan Increment 3 by the U.S. Army under the General Services Administration Alliant contract, the company said. The work involves migrating assets and capabilities from the U.S. Army facilities throughout the Republic of Korea to U.S. Army Garrison Humphreys.
“This large-scale project is an extension of our 25-year footprint with the U.S. Army in the Republic of Korea,” LGS Innovations CEO Kevin Kelly said. “Recognizing the magnitude of the relocation and impact on warfighters, LGS Innovations stands ready to ensure smooth transition and improve capabilities to help the U.S Army sustain readiness and a strong posture in the country and throughout the Pacific Theater.”
LGS Innovations has been involved in the Yongsan Relocation Plan since May of 2014, helping the Army move into a less congested area of the Korean peninsula while updating its infrastructure. Under the new contract, LGS Innovations will perform program management, engineering and installation for C4I systems including inside/outside plant, voice, Voice over Internet Protocol/Unified Communications, wireless, cybersecurity information assurance, fiber-optic sensor alarms, and C4I communications infrastructure.
Headquartered in Herndon, Virginia, LGS Innovations has over 1,200 employees around the world.
Kevin Kelly LGS Innovations U.S. Army Yongsan Relocation Plan
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WSJ/NBC Poll: Majority Finds Media Coverage Of Trump “Too Critical, Exaggerated”
Posted by Aaron Nelson | Feb 26, 2017 |
The majority of Americans find the media coverage of Trump to be overly critical and exaggerated.
Article via Zero Hedge
Three weeks after a poll found that the Trump administration was seen as more “truthful” than the news media, a new WSJ/NBC News poll has found that according to a majority of Americans, the media’s coverage of President Donald Trump has been too critical, although the margin is narrow and the split is once again largely down party lines.
While 51% rate the media as too critical of Trump since the presidential election, 41% say the coverage has been fair and objective, while 6% say the media hasn’t been critical enough.
Furthermore, a majority of those polled, some 53%, also believes that the news media have exaggerated problems in the Trump administration. 45% say that is not the case.
79% of those whose primary news source is Fox News agreed with the statement that “the news media and other elites are exaggerating the problems of the Trump administration, because they are uncomfortable and threatened by the kind of change that Trump represents.” Even large numbers of more-liberal MSNBC audience, 40%, thought that the media had overstated the problems.
The poll failed to provide insight into whether the escalating feud between Trump and the press is working in Trump’s, or the media’s favor: as the WSJ notes, “it isn’t clear what role Mr. Trump’s barrage of attacks on the fairness and credibility of the press has played in shaping the majority’s opinion that coverage of his administration has been too negative.”
Trump’s most recent attack on the mainstream media took place at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday, when he bashed the media’s use of unnamed government sources and called on reporters to stop the common journalistic practice of reporting news gathered from anonymous sources.
That said, the survey respondents offered strong reactions, both positive and negative, to the president’s outspoken critiques of the media. “I think his views about the press being fake news is horrible and I think it is a fascist viewpoint,” said one respondent.
Others disagreed, and said Trump’s assault of the media has been warranted due its “one-sided” coverage. Another person said Trump, in critiques such as calling some mainstream news organizations ”fake,” is doing what he said he would do during his campaign. After covering President Barack Obama for eight years, the media “don’t know what to do with someone who has a different opinion, which is half the country,” the respondent said.
Separately, in the same poll, Trump’s job approval rating stood at just 44 percent, a record low for a newly inaugurated commander-in-chief, and half of Americans say that his early challenges suggest unique and systemic problems with his administration. The new rating comes two days before Trump is set to address a joint session of Congress, a State of the Union-style speech in which new presidents typically lay out their vision for the country.
To be expected, Trump’s approval split was vast between republicans and democrats. The president’s personal favorability rating stood at 85% positive among Republicans, compared to just 34% positive among independents and nine% among Democrats.
While only 30 percent of those polled overall say that Trump is off to a “great start,” 63 percent of Republicans agree. A similar share of Democrats – 58 percent – say that Trump’s lack of policy knowledge and his temperament demonstrate that he is not up to the job of being president.
In the poll, conducted February 18-22, 48% of Americans said they disapprove of Trump’s performance as president and 32% said that his first month in office demonstrates that he is not up to the job. Asked about early challenges in the first month of his presidency, 52% called the issues “real problems” that are specific to his administration, while 43 percent of Americans attributed them to typical “growing pains” for any new president.
Some details from the poll:
Trump retains net positive scores on his decisiveness (net positive 29 percent), his ability to “get things done,” (net positive 12 percent) and his fitness to deal with the economy (net positive 11 percent). Six-in-ten Americans said they are hopeful and optimistic about the future of the country, including an overwhelming 87 percent of Republicans (but just 37 percent of Democrats). And a majority of respondents to the poll – 57 percent – also said that Trump is likely to “bring real change in the direction of the country.”
Among those who think Trump is likely to bring change, 63 percent believe those changes will be positive, while 30 percent disagree. On the other hand, Trump continues to register particularly dismal ratings when it comes to his temperament, with just 18 percent giving his demeanor a thumbs up compared to 55 percent who rank it as poor.
In short: democrats hate Trump, republicans (still) think Trump is great. Hardly surprising.
So how does Trump’s approval rating compare to the media? A survey from last September found that Americans’ trust in the mass media dropped to its lowest level in Gallup polling history. Just 32% said they had a great deal or fair amount of trust in the media, compared with 53% in 1997.
In other words, even at his “record low” 44% approval rating, Americans still seem to have more faith in the president than the media, even as both are engaged in a brutal feud with each other.
This article first appeared on ZeroHedge.com and was authored by Tyler Durden.
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REWIND: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) – Movie Review
April 24, 2018 • Posted under: In Technicolor, Reviews, Rewind by Owen Butler
Tags: Adrian Toomes, Aunt May, Bokeem Woodbine, Donald Glover, Flash Thompson, Gwyneth Paltrow, Happy Hogan, Iron Man, Jacob Batalon, Jon Favreau, Laura Harrier, Marisa Tomei, Marvel Cinematic Universe Reviews, Michael Keaton, Pepper Potts, Peter Parker, Robert Downey Jr., Shocker, Spider-Man, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Tom Holland, Tony Revolori, Tony Stark, Tyne Daly, Vulture, Zendaya
Welcome back to Second Union’s coverage of the MCU films! Avengers: Infinity War releases in a few days, and to celebrate the arrival, we’ll be taking a look at Spider-Man: Homecoming, following the web-slinging superhero (Tom Holland) after his debut in Captain America: Civil War. He must attempt to maintain a balance between school and crime-fighting, all while trying to prove himself to Tony Stark. When he discovers an underground weapons manufacturing ring, he has to try to dismantle it and take down the leader, a supervillain known as Vulture.
Marvel’s solo film formula has kept the studio going for a decade now. As seen in prior films like Iron Man, Thor, and Doctor Strange, the studio’s formula consists of a selfish character who must come to terms with their actions. By the end of the film, they’ve learned important lessons and saved the world from a threat. As you can expect, the best Marvel films are the ones that break that mold, and Spider-Man: Homecoming does just that. It impressively acts as a superhero film while masquerading as a coming-of-age flick reminiscent of the ones made famous in the ’80s.
Spider-Man: Homecoming is not a movie without flaws. Like all superhero films, it has trouble balancing certain aspects. What was marketed as a solo outing for the hero is mostly spent with him trying to live up to his mentor’s legacy. It’s not that elements like this aren’t important to have in a film. It’s just that the movie spends so much time focusing on this aspect that it begins to feel boring in parts, as well as a bit repetitive. That being said, Robert Downey Jr. is always great, and this is no exception. Stark is as entertaining as he is in any of the other Marvel films, and his presence is most certainly appreciated.
Tom Holland’s performance as Spider-Man is quite possibly the best one yet, but his performance as Peter Parker is even better. In the other two Spider-Man franchises, there wasn’t much room for high-school antics, as those focused on the superhero aspect of Parker’s life more than it did on his school and home life. This film definitely favors the latter, spending lots of time focusing on Peter’s relationships, as well as the general troubles of being a high-schooler. Coupled with the fact that he’s close to becoming an Avenger, the smaller-scale elements really make this movie special and different than others before it.
In a universe where very few superhero villains can be labeled as “memorable”, Vulture / Adrian Toomes (Michael Keaton) is one of the best. Keaton gives one of the best villain performances simply because of how the film focuses on him as a human being with thoughts and emotions. Up until this point, there really hasn’t been that many relatable villains, but Toomes is great because of how you see him. He isn’t corrupted by power. Behind his villainy, there’s a serious and believable driving force. This makes him one of the greatest and well-developed antagonists in Marvel’s library.
In terms of action sequences, Homecoming‘s are exciting and enjoyable. They serve no purpose other than entertaining and do just that. While they aren’t as visually stunning and fast-paced as others in Marvel’s library, there’s no doubt that they’re fun. The best is by far the Washington Monument scene. Not only is it tense, but it’s also funny. The ferry scene is a close second, that one being even more engaging. The only issue with these scenes is that they’re way too short. None of them have to be long like the airport battle in Civil War, but they definitely could be a bit more lengthy.
One of the film’s best aspects is that it doesn’t feel like a step backward for the film version of the character. There’s no Uncle Ben subplot, no exposition as to how and why Peter started crime-fighting. This is good because we’ve seen those twice before. However, it also feels a bit too much like a set-up. It isn’t as bad or as obvious as other films before it, but could we do without the introduction of something new at the end of these films? Just once. Did we really need the introduction of the Iron Spider suit? No. The film could’ve also done without Michelle (Zendaya) dropping that her nickname is M.J. The references feel out-of-place in a movie that fits in snugly with the rest of the MCU.
Spider-Man: Homecoming is one of the most delightful entries in the MCU. While not without its flaws, it chooses to “stay close to the ground” instead of going for a massive-scale blockbuster. Tom Holland proves himself more than up to the task of portraying both Peter Parker and Spider-Man, and the decision to focus more on his daily life was very much so important, paying off nicely. Timeline errors aside, this is one of the most enjoyable entries in the MCU, and also one of the best.
Spider-Man: Homecoming stars Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Jon Favreau, Gwyneth Paltrow, Zendaya, Donald Glover, Jacob Batalon, Laura Harrier, Tony Revolori, Bokeem Woodbine, Tyne Daly, Marisa Tomei, Robert Downey Jr. Directed by Jon Watts.
Owen Butler
Born & raised in the Chicagoland area and have been watching movies for as long as I can remember. Lover of all things Wes Anderson (mainly Fantastic Mr. Fox), Brie Larson, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, and Parks and Recreation.
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HomeNewsGhanaAfrica: How The Teachings of Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Inspire Ghana’s Youth
/ghana
Africa: How The Teachings of Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Inspire Ghana’s Youth
Wisdom Addo from Ghana is the Executive Director for West Africa Centre for Peace Foundation. Addo has over 7 years of experience working with young people in schools and communities – mobilizing and training them on peace building, conflict resolution, leadership skills, and community developments. In April, he attended Wilton Park‘s Next Generation African Peacebuilding: New Voices, New Networks and New Strategies where he told allAfrica.com how his foundation is helping young people in Ghana gain leadership skills and also promoting peace, tolerance and respect for human rights in schools and communities.
My name is Wisdom Addo, I am from Ghana. I am the Executive Director for West Africa Centre for Peace Foundation. Basically what we do is we going into school in communities and we set up peace clubs. We train the young people from the ages of 10 to 25 about peace building, human rights, leadership learning and service learning projects. We use the teachings of the Nobel Peace laureates and the strategies they used to overcome violence in their lives to train the young ones.
We have three pillars of our programming – we have education, inspiration, action. The education talks about the bio of the laureates, what she/he has done to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, they learn about team-building, human rights, leadership, conflict resolution and mediation and then the inspiration is when we bring in a Nobel Peace laureate to come and share inspiration to the young ones and then action is when we do service learning project so that they know that after learning about inspiration, the educational and other skills. You don’t just fold your arms and sit down.
We ask them to work as a group, to go into their communities and find the problem and solve them, thereby coming out with leadership skills, to identify an issue in their community and work towards it, rather than pointing fingers and feeling like the government has to do it, but instead take steps of leadership and working to make a change in their community.
Mostly in the schools we bring these young people together and we ask them to identify issues and they are able to come out with issues like teenage pregnancy. When they identify teenage pregnancy in their community, how do they go about finding solutions. So they come out with the guidelines of solving it, some of them go as far as getting to assembling men like leaders in the community then they ask them to get all the parents around to talk to them about the effect of teenage pregnancy, the importance of young girls being in school, some of them also go as far as talking to people who don’t go to school, who are abused and those who abuse drugs.
We have this trend of among the youth called where a lot of youth tend to rely on Tramadol to even study, to do work in their communities which has a kind of ripple effect on them which is not good so we have our young people stepping into these communities, into these ghettos where they are able to talk and advocate about drug abuse. They are able to talk to professionals about how they bring people together to talk about dangers of drug abuse.
AllAfrica’s reporting on peacebuilding is supported by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Tags:ghana
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