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The New American Empire
Rodrigue Tremblay (Author)
ISBN: 0-7414-1887-8 ©2004
Category/Subject:
The American people never demanded that their country go to war against Iraq, just as they never wanted their country to be transformed from a respected democracy into an interventionist empire. What happened?
The book "The New American Empire", initially published in 2004 with Infinity, is available on Amazon [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0741418878/qid=1120655398/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-8470027-8697752] and elsewhere, and has been translated into French [http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/2747562875/qid=1091492755/402-8048732-4749757] by L'Harmattan and into Turkish [http://www.kitapyurdu.com/kitap/default.asp?id=127386] by Nova Publishing of Ankara, Turkey, and has therefore been distributed worldwide.
Reviews of the book can be found on the Web site for the book at:
http://www.thenewamericanempire.com/
Civilization's moral judgment... , 04/21/2004
Reviewer: Jean-Paul Natho
This is a very powerful book. I suggest that you read chapter 16 on Western civilization, chapter 10 on the legality and morality of the War in Iraq and chapter 5 on the political game within U.S. politics, before tackling the rest. There is a host of important information to be derived from the book. For example, there is the list of the very people who advised Dick Cheney for his 2001 energy policy, a list he went so far as to ask the Supreme Court to keep secret. I especially liked the parallel that the author draws between the (2002) Bush Doctrine and the (1968) Brezhnev Doctrine. It's scary. Do empires really last 600 years?
George W. Bush, EMPEROR?... , 07/17/2004
Reviewer: Jack from Florida
Who elected G.W. Bush "President of the World"? Heck, he wasn't even elected President of the United States, since he got 500,000 fewer votes than Al Gore. It's thanks to Dick Cheney's friend on the Supreme Court, judge Antonio Scalia, that Bush is in the White House. All the rest follows, as the author points out. This is a must read for everyone.
The Future of Democracy , 08/25/2004
Reviewer: Charles Jones
After reading this book, one is bound to ask, "Who elected GWB President of the world?" Bush thinks that "imposed democracy" is not imperialism. In fact, they are synonymous. True democracy comes from the people; imperial power comes from armaments and from the concentration of power at the top. Every American should read this book to understand what's happening in the U.S. today.
An Enlightened Book-a must-read , 08/25/2004
Reviewer: Anne
How did the neoconservatives currently in charge of U.S. foreign policy in Washington succeed in changing the United States from a respected law-abiding leader in world affairs into a rogue state that choses violence over diplomacy to solve international problems? The war against Iraq of March 20, 2002, was the first imperialistic war of the 20th Century, following the "New American Empire" Doctrine that George W. Bush announced on Sept. 20, 2002. This is an infamous date in U.S. history. My only regret is that the book is not longer, because it is obvious that the author has a lot more to say about the present unhealthy geopolitical climate.
Very good global picture of the topic , 09/13/2004
Reviewer: Pascal
This book provides a very good global picture of the topic of American Empire. This is most useful, given there is a plethora of writings on the subject. The author's point of view is most penetrating, especially in situating the problem in its geopolitical and historical contexts. He deserves particular credit for his moral/legal analysis. One would have wished, however, a more elaborate conclusion.
A Source for Historians , 09/17/2004
Reviewer: Al
“The New American Empire” covers all bases: On how the pro-Israel neocons succeeded in imposing “their” foreign policy on the Bush administration; on how the March 20, 2003 war against Iraq was planned over a ten-year period prior to 9-11, 2001, a cruel event which provided the “pretext” to move troops to Iraq and take militarily control of the Middle East and of its oil. Historians will like to read this book a generation from now.
A devastating critique of the American empire , 11/04/2004
Reviewer: "D. Johnson" (Florida, USA)
This book delivers a devastating critique of the "New American Empire" under George W. Bush. In the author's view, the domestic U.S. political market is now dominated by tax-free, rich, religious and extremist organizations, assisted by tax-free, hugely rich foundations and numerous biased media. The result is a political climate at home which is hostile to the constitutional separation of church and state and which is opposed to individuals' constitutional rights, and which favors a militarist and imperialist foreign policy abroad. That's the message of this book in a nutshell. Before the Nov. 2 elections, I was in denial of such a dire reality and would have said that the author, a Canadian economist, was surely exaggerating. I'm not so sure anymore. It seems obvious now that a majority of Americans do not seem to subscribe to the basic principles of our Constitution and its Bill of Rights, i.e. that the government should not meddle in people's religious affairs and that individual liberty from government interference should be the rule. Now, we have a born-again president who can impose his theocratic views of society by filling the Supreme Court with like-minded judges. Thomas Jefferson must be turning in his grave! Externally, the war against Iraq may be the first one in a string of foreign wars that this Bush administration can be expected to launch. I have no doubt that lies and distortions will be relied upon to persuade a gullible public that these wars are in our interests. This is frightening. When incompetent and dishonest public officials begin lying, they have to lie a thousand times to cover their previous lies. That's pretty much what has happened with George W. Bush and his militarist cabinet to justify their "preventive" war in Iraq. Now Americans are faced with the awful responsability that their government has been involved in raping, torturing and murdering prisoners in concentration camps, such as the one in Guantanamo or at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, where no laws seem to apply, not even the Geneva Conventions that the United States has signed. How could we ever let a few individuals desecrate America's values and reputation so much? This is a national disgrace. History books will go over this period with awe and disbelief. Dr. Tremblay's book is an eye-opener.
"AN ORWELLIAN COALITION" , 11/08/2004
Reviewer: H.Miller (Boston, MA, USA
Now that the Republican Party has obtained monopoly power over U.S. politics by taking control of all branches of the U.S. government—the White House, the Senate, the House, the Judiciary, State Governorships and Legislatures, and soon the Supreme Court itself—it is time to reflect on this nearly complete take-over of the government by one party and by one ideology. ---A good starting point is this book about the "New American Empire" and about how an Orwellian coalition of religious zealots, militarist warmongers and supremacist conservatives have combined and united behind George W. Bush to transform America. Through their control of the news media, especially television, often with tax-free money, and with the help of subservient right-wing think tanks, they have succeeded in dumbing down the American public into believing the paranoid idea that the rest of the world is against the U.S. and that only "God", an American "God", can saved the nation. Such paranoia is frightening because in such a climate, even the Constitution can be subdued and sidelined. This has been seen before in other countries. ---Tremblay's book analyses the relationships between the elements of the far-right coalition in the U.S. and how such a coalition is upsetting the fabric of the republic and destabilizing the world at the same time. Americans will pay for this fundamental shift from democracy to empire with their liberty at home and with their blood abroad. The intrusion of government into libraries and into churches, under the cover of the "Patriot Act" and "faith-based initiatives", will slowly become an accepted fact, but individual freedom will inevitably suffer. In remote lands, US military force will be placed at the service of American interests, in violation of the principle of national sovereignty and of international law. --- This powerful book is a must for anybody who wants to understand the impact that the new American Imperial Doctrine is having within the United States and throughout the world. I definitely recommend it.
Neo-conservatives and Bush Foreign Policy , 11/10/2004
Reviewer: Michael P.
With the critical help of Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a coterie of neocon ideologues currently dominates the Bush administration's hawkish foreign policy. This book is very useful in identifying the "brains" and the ideology behind this awesome shift of the United States' government toward imperialism. ...They are: At the White House, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and his top Middle East advisors, John Hannah and David Wurmser; at the National Security Council (NSC), weapons proliferation specialist Robert Joseph and top Mideast aide Elliott Abrams; at the Pentagon, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Undersecretary for Policy Douglas Feith, Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security William Luti; at the State Department, John Bolton and Paula Dobriansky; and, at the Defense Policy Board (DPB), the all-powerful Richard Perle, a former assistant secretary of defense under President Ronald Reagan and the recognized "Rasputin" behind the neocon movement. ...The cabal has received considerable support from other individuals, such as Christian moralist William Bennett, former United Nations Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick, former Navy Undersecretary John Lehman, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director James Woolsey and former assistant secretary of defense Frank Gaffney, also founder and president of the Centre for Security Policy (CSP). ...These individuals form the core of people who are responsible for the hijacking of U.S. foreign policy and its intelligence process and who engineered the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Many of them were instrumental in launching, in 1997, the famous "Project for the New American Century" (PNAC). From all accounts, they are the main factor behind the terrible reputation the United States is gaining all over the world as a ruthless unilateralist and militarist bully. Their movement is supported by Rupert Murdoch's media empire (Fox News, New York Post, Weekly Standard ...etc), by a handful of so-called think-tanks (American Enterprise, Heritage,...) and by very rich foundations (Bradley, Sarah Scaife and Olin). ... Most Americans ignore and do not even suspect the corrosive influence that this relatively small group of people have had on the U.S. government. The media have provided only sketchy and fragmentary information about the agenda pursued by this cabal. Even recent political books are evasive on the role this group is playing in formulating an extremist and devastating American foreign policy. ... Not this book, however. "The New American Empire" is probably the best account of this fundamental phenomenon of our times. This is definitely a must-read.
A Deftly Researched Book , 11/17/2004
Reviewer: MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW/NOVEMBER '04
In The New American Empire, economist and professor emeritus Rodrigue Tremblay dares to ask: what is really the motive behind the American war in Iraq? What will be its consequences, both for the United States and the world? Focusing on a critical shift that American foreign and domestic policies have taken under George Bush since September 11, 2001, viewed both in the context of modern history and as part of the evolution of Western civilization since the fall of Constantinople in 1453. The dangerous implications of a war initiated and led under false pretenses, the strategic importance of oil and its fundamental motivation in a political and worldwide power grab, emerging decadence in the West and more are all chronicles with a cautious eye and a sharp tongue. A deftly researched, deadly serious warning of the clear and present dangers of America's current uncontrolled national hubris.
RELIGION AND POLITICS , 11/24/2004
Reviewer: A. Moran (Philadelphia, PA USA
So, evangelical Christian groups (they make up about a quarter of the electorate—a bigger slice than blacks and Hispanics combined) were the driving force behind George W. Bush's reelection on Nov. 2. The question begs to be asked: Are we moving toward a political situation similar to Iran's, where fundamentalist mullahs are in power? Not yet but.... Many books eschew the role of religion in politics. Instead, this relatively condensed book (365 p.) identifies religion as one of the three major pillars of U.S. politics, along with the military-industrial complex and the all pervasive pro-Israel lobby. According to the author, this is the only democracy in the Western world where it is so. In theory, the U.S. is a democracy where there is a separation of church and state, not only because of the First Amendment to the Constitution ["Congress shall make no law..."], but because there is a Tax Code provision that forbids tax-exempt organizations from getting involved in partisan politics. I am grateful to the author for reminding me of a little known article in the Tax Code [article 501(c)3 ] that prohibits any group with a tax-exempt status from "endorsing or opposing candidates" in an election. As anyone can see, this law is routinely violated and our mullahs, the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons of this world, and their rich TV networks, publicly tell people who to vote for, and who to vote against. In exchange, some of them receive "faith-based" funds from the very administration they have directly contributed to elect. If this is not an unhealthy situation, what is? Tremblay challenges another taboo in American politics and it is the reluctance to discuss the tremendous influence that some well-organized and well-financed lobbies have on political candidates and on public officials. There are some 30,000 lobbyists in Washington D.C., but some are more powerful than others He identifies AARP for domestic issues and AIPAC for foreign policy. The latter, for instance, organized George W. Bush's first trip abroad in December 1998, with a visit to Israel. Bush's favoritism toward Ariel Sharon dates from this trip and it has undoubtedly influenced his attitude and policies regarding the festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In short, those who like vigorous discussions of important policy issues will delight in reading this book. However, some readers could be taken aback by the bluntness of some of the author's arguments and conclusions. Warning: This book is not for the feeble at heart.
A MARRIAGE MADE IN HELL , 11/30/2004
Reviewer: "G. Smith" (Salem OR, United States)
A MARRIAGE MADE IN HELL "G. Smith" (Salem OR, United States) Bush II and the Neocons is a marriage made in hell. One thinks of oil, the others think of Jerusalem. At least, that's what the author of "The New American Empire" insinuates when he attempts to explain the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 and the "Bush imperial Doctrine" of 2002. Without this marriage of convenience, following Sept. 11, there would have been a war against terrorism and against the al Qaeda terrorist network, and against the Talibans in Afghanistan, as justified under United Nations rules, but there would probably not have been an unprovoked military invasion of Iraq, a remote country which had nothing to do with the 2001 attacks against the United States. The author also fears the consequences of the violent clash between two politico-religious fundamentalisms, the GWB type and the Osama bin Laden type. These two profoundly religious leaders rely on both the Law of the Jungle and the rule that "the end justifies the means". Killing innocent people is only unavoidable "collateral damage" that one can deplore but that one hardly takes into consideration in attacking the other camp. He quotes bin Laden who once said, "Yes, we kill their innocents and this is legal, religiously and logically...There are two types of terror, good and bad. What we are practicing is good terror. We will not stop killing them and whoever supports them." (p. 18). Then he quotes President George W. Bush who once said: "The best way to fight evil is to do some good. Let me qualify that—the best way to fight evil at home is to do some good. The best way to fight them abroad is to unleash the military."(p.47). Violence, not dialogue, seems to be the modus vivendi of both men. This goes against basic humanist morality, if not against Christian values as outlined in The New Testament. This is scary because such a lack of public morality could lead to endless wars and the killing of thousands of innocent people. This definitely is a book that makes you think, whether or not you agree with the author. It’s a good read.
ILLEGAL AND IMMORAL , 12/01/2004
Reviewer: "P. C. Lindsay" Pembroke NC, USA
The war of aggression that George W. Bush has been pursuing in Iraq since the spring of 2003 is illegal and immoral. That is the message sent by the author of this well-researched book. The author reviews all the tricks and tactics that the Bush II administration used to obtain some semblance of cover from the United Nations, but to no avail; the other members of the Security Council, with the exception of Great Britain, refused to authorize the military invasion of a country that posed no imminent threat to the United States. By ruthlessly pushing aside the United Nations, George W. Bush ended up behaving like Soviet communist Leonid Brezhnev, who challenged the United Nations and invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968. As George Santayana once said, "He who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it." Over the last 100 years, other countries have attempted to build empires through a projection of their military power outside of their borders, i.e. Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. None, however, were democracies and they all failed miserably, not before imposing immense sufferings on others. Why the U.S. would want to become a military empire is beyond comprehension. But, as the author points out, what makes no sense from the point of view of the common good and common welfare could easily be explained by the special interests of those who promote various policies. In regard to U.S. foreign policy, it is nowadays the private affair of a powerful military-industrial-religious complex. Spokesmen for these groups are the loudest proponents of an unchecked U.S. economic, political and military power all around the world. For those who want to understand the role of the U.S. in international affairs and the true reasons why the U.S. has troops half way around the world in Iraq, the reading of this book is worth a course in geopolitics. Personally, I found Mr. Tremblay's analysis most refreshing and particularly insightful, considering the primitive covering that we get from the American media. After all, there is more to life than militarism and mercantilism. Definitely highly recommended.
"THE RICH AND THE WAR" , 01/05/2005
Reviewer: "aNONYMOUS", San Francisco, CA, USA
In the NYTimes(Jan. 1, 05), Jarey Diamond says that "a society contains a built-in blueprint for failure if the elite insulates itself from the consequences of its actions." This rejoins pretty much what the author of "The New American Empire" thinks when he says that the U.S., with its aggressive war in Iraq, is "in danger of losing its honor and its credibility in the eyes of the world" (p. 180), or when he says that "the greatest success of the Islamist al Qaeda terrorists on September 11, 2001, will not have been the killing of 3,000 innocent people, but rather the transformation of a great democratic republic into a neo-conservative and neo-fascist society." (p. 224). In Iraq, America's poor are dying while its rich make no sacrifice. To the contrary, the rich profit tremendously from this war. Future generations will have to pay the huge deficits that the Bush's tax cuts for the rich created. Juicy cost-plus contracts are being awarded to Halliburton and similar companies, while Iraqi oil is being taken over by American companies. How long can this masquerade continue? Probably as long as the American people is numbed into believing the heavy pro-war and pro-empire propaganda spewed out by the neo-conservative media. I, for one, do not hold my breath, because history shows that such craziness can last a long time before tragedy results and opens everybody's eyes. Ask the Germans. - Nobody can read "The New American Empire" and keep his eyes shut. --This is a read.
BIG LIES AND BIG PROPAGANDA , 01/18/2005
Reviewer: C. O'Donnell
For the representatives of the fascist-leaning conservative U.S. media, facts and factual analysis do not seem to count. For some of them, they should not even be considered. Raw political propaganda is the norm. Any lie, any deception, any disinformation can be employed to numb and persuade a docile public. The 2004 presidential election will go down in history as the victory of lies, character assassinations and Soviet-style propaganda, used as tools to gain and retain power at all costs and to establish a de facto one-party state in America. The American partisan media are the most intellectually dishonest and corrupt you can find in any country, let alone in other democratic countries. The Limbaugh, O,Reilly, Hannity & Co are truly dangerous and deceitful demagogues of the airwaves. What's going on in partisan U.S. media is most frightening. -History teaches us that fascist and fanatical media will inevitably produce fascist and fanatical regimes.- This has happened in other countries before, with disastrous results. "The New American Empire" is a book I enjoyed reading. It is most instructive. It presents the facts behind the corrosive influence that dishonest and incompetent media have on U.S. politics and how, if they are left unchecked, they will end up establishing a fascist-leaning one-party system in the USA. Even if it is the only book you read in 2005, you will learn more about U.S. politics than by reading a dozen other books. This remarkable book asks the right questions and gives the right answers. Kudos.
WARS AND POLITICS , 02/01/2005
Reviewer: Ted Feldman
This is a book to read. -According to the Census Bureau, there were 24.9 million military veterans in the U.S. in 2004. Add 1.4 million active personnel, their spouses, children and relatives, and those who work in military industries, and you have a very significant political bloc of voters with a vested interest in a bloated military budget ($447 billion in 2004). -This is a feature of U.S. society that earned the attention of President Dwight Eisenhower, 45 years ago, when he warned us against what he then called, the "military-industrial complex". As the author of "The New American Empire" reminds us (pp 90-91), on January 17, 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969) made a farewell speech in which the former general warned us agaisnst the following danger: ---"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exist and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes."--- How come we do not have an Eisenhower these days to warn us against the danger of becoming a militarist society? To the contrary, what we hear is a quasi-religious neocon rhetoric about the need to be a supremacist military power and on the alleged right that we seem to have acquired to intervene anywhere in the world whenever our "great" supreme leaders see fit. Are we a democracy or an empire? --We should, to quote the author, be truly "modern and democratic humanists". I enjoyed reading this book.
RELIGIONISM AND WAR , 03/01/2005
Reviewer: Dick Knowland
"I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute- where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote- where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference- and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him."- President John F. Kennedy, September 12, 1960. #- When one reads the above quotation from President John F. Kennedy, taken from a speech he delivered, 45 years ago, to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, one realizes how far George W. Bush has gone in undermining the foundation of the American system of government. #- The current president has created a faith-based and a "you are with-us-or-against-us" presidency, with religiosity playing a central role in his gvoernment. He has even allied himself with archconservative neo-Christian fundamentalists who would like to have the Bible replace the Constitution. #- This is most surprising and worrisome. As Dr. Fl Stern warned in the NY Times (Jan. 6, '05), such a development should not be taken lightly. Seventy years ago, in prewar Germany, another leader, Adolf Hitler, saw himself as "the instrument of providence" and fused his "racial dogma with a Germanic Christianity". In the end, the mixing of religion and politics destroyed Germany. #- The mixing of religion and politics has long been endemic in Muslim countries. Unitl 9-11, nobody paid much attention to this fundamental trait of Islamic nations. In many backward Islamic countries, for example, the government has a department of religious affairs, and often, the imams or the mufti work for the state and are paid by the state. #- Now that the United States seems to be following these countries in mixing religion and politics, the world should take notice. The U.S. government under Bush II is deeply involved in religious matters, with its faith-based initiatives and its financing of church-related activities. The President's main speechwriter is even a theologian! #- George W. Bush considers himself a messianic President. Talking about his motivations for attacking Iraq, he said, "Going into this period, I was praying for strength to do the Lord's will...In my case, I pray to be as good a messenger of his will as possible." #- As a messianic politician, Adolf Hitler also declared that he was invading other countries with God's support for launching preventive wars: "But there is something else I believe, and that is that there is a God...And this God again has blessed our efforts during the past 13 years." And, he would ominously add: "I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator...I am fighting for the work of the Lord." --Talking of his boss Hitler, Hermann Goering could exclaim: "God gave the savior to the German people. We have faith, deep and unshakeable faith, that he was sent to us by God to save Germany."-But as a result of this fool's actions, fifty million people lost their lives during World War II. #_ It is hardly surprising but very frightening, that some warlike leaders are obsessed with God and claim God is on their side. This seems to remove any personal responsibility for the terrible acts they are about to commit. #_ In "The New American Empire", Dr. Tremblay does not hesitate to draw a parallel between 1930's Germany and 2000's America when he writes: "Armed with this doctrine (of preventive wars) if it is not vigilant, the United States could be in the 21st Century what Germany was in the 20th Century, that is, a danger to the world.(p.11) This is strong and provocative stuff! #-No other book to my knowledge raises these issues so bluntly and with such clarity. This is political writing at its best. Dr. Tremblay's book is a refreshing compendium of analyses and is a strong antidote to fascism and totalitarianism of any kind. Right or left, everybody should read this enlightening and solidly documented book.
SOBER ASSESSMENT OF THE CHOICES , 03/25/2005
Reviewer: S. Black, (Arlington, Virginia, USA)
***** Since the year 2000, a new kind of politician has risen to the top of the political pole, that is to say that we seem to be getting the best politicians that money can buy. Case in point: George W. Bush is the living proof that it is true that anybody can become president. It does not require culture, talent or judgment; only gall and the support of rich and powerful friends. We are far away from the "philosopher kings" that democracies must have to survive and prosper. Indeed, the world has tipped in 2000, with the election of GWB to the presidency, with fewer votes than Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore. And, of course, bin Laden did the rest with his fanatical attacks against the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001. That's where Tremblay's book, "The New American Empire", picks up. After this gratuitous attack, the U.S. government had choices: - It could have attempted to isolate the small group of lunatic Muslims of the bin Laden type and pursue them to their most remote hideouts. In fact, the overthrow of the extremist Taliban regime in Afghanistan, in 2002, raised the hope that this was the correct response to apatrid terrorists who could not be expected to operate without some territorial base. ---Instead, a less civilized choice was made. Before the operation was completed in Afghanistan (bin Laden and his gang are still at large), G.W. Bush and his neoconservative right-wing allies thought this was too good an opportunity to be missed. The war against al-Qaeda would have to wait, while all the efforts were redirected toward a country which had nothing to do with Sept. 11 and nothing to do with the religious fanatics of al-Qaeda. This country was Iraq, "a country [in the words of Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld's deputy secretary of Defense] which is floating on oil." Now, we are at a crossroads as a democratic republic: Either we go the imperial way and reject the rule of law in favor of the rule of force, -or we come back to our better senses and start behaving as democratic and law-abiding citizens of the world. Tremblay, being a world-renown Canadian economist, sees clealy the consequences, for the U.S. and for the world, of either choice. At the end of the book, he cites Ben Franklin and his seven "great virtues" for America: aversion to tyranny, support for a free press, a sense of humor, humility, idealism in foreign policy, tolerance and respect for compromise. ***** Let us all hope this message will be heard. This is a thumping good read.
THE HIDDEN HARD TRUTH , 03/30/2005
Reviewer: "Jack F.", (Los Altos, CA., USA)
As Hitler once said: "The victor will never be asked if he told the truth." And George Orwell, a student of politics, defined "political language ... [as] designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." Indeed, for some leaders bent on waging war, Machiavellian manipulation is the rule. Historians will recognize that the reasons given to Congress and to the American people by George W. Bush for launching a war of aggression against Iraq on March 20, 2003, were false and invented, that facts were manipulated to fit a predetermined agenda and that intelligence data to support the decision were falsified. What were these false pretenses to defy international law and world opinion and to invade a sovereign country? Historians will focus on George W. Bush's famous "mushroom cloud" speech, on October 7, 2002, in Cincinnati, in which he asserted that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, as well as ties to "international terrorists," and, moreover, was working feverishly to develop nuclear weapons with "nuclear holy warriors." In his words, Iraq, a country ravaged by 12 years of military surveillance and starving under an economic embargo, was assumed to pose an imminent threat to the United States. Nobody believed that, except the pro-war American media. Historians will also remember how Colin Powell, the Secretary of state, abased himself on February 5, 2003, in a United Nations speech filled with falsehoods, and which contained many statements which previously had been debunked by the government's own intelligence agencies. As it turned out, none of the official reasons to go to war were true. They were complete fabrications uniquely designed for propaganda purposes. It was undignified of a great democratic country and it has done immense damage to the United States' credibility and legitimacy in the world. But, if the official reasons for war were bogus, what were the real reasons for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq? The protection of Israel? The securization of oil supply? The establishment of additional military bases in the Middle East in order to intimidate Iran and Syria? Or, the desire to shore up the U.S. dollar against the euro in the international oil market? In fact, all of the above played a role in the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq, but none was publicly debated. The author of this book places paramount emphasis on the rationales that Bush's neoconservative and Likudnick advisers had to use the U.S. military to implement with what was in fact Israel's foreign policy. He also produced the official reports that said clearly that the control of oil supply in the region was a fundamental motivation for the war against Iraq, especially at the Vice-president's office and at the Pentagon. The Pentagon was also anxious to move some of its bases out of Saudi Arabia and relocate them in a central Middle East country such as Iraq. It is hard not to agree with the author's compelling analysis because facts are difficult to dismiss. After reading this book, it is clear that the war against Iraq and the subsequent occupation were undertaken for strategic reasons. The only problem is that the rush to war was illegal, immoral, ill-planned and ill-conceived. Sooner or later, the American people will learn the hard hidden truth. Let us all hope that the damage to America's reputation could then be repaired. This is highly recommended reading.
A pro-democracy and anti-imperialism book , 05/02/2005
Reviewer: A. C. O'Brien, (Boston, MA, USA)
This a book which is both analytical and polemic, with strong views. It's a pro-democracy and anti-imperialism book. There is no doubt about it. It rejects the neocon Hitler-like doctrine of preventive wars and militarism, and especially, it denounces the cabal in favor of merging Israeli and American foreign policies. I personally agree that a Bush-Sharon Axis of Evil does not serve either America's national interest or those of the world as a whole. There is however some validity to the concealed motive for U.S. intervention in the Middle East to secure oil supplies. But natural resources belong to their owners and no country has any right to attack another for the purpose of controling its resources, whatever the pretext. As the author is keen to point out, national sovereignty is a fixture of international order ever since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Nevertheless, as Michael Klare noted ("Resource Wars"), the 21st Century may see more wars for resources than one would like to envisage. Maybe this is a question that the United Nations and the international community should tackle before things get out of hand. Whether or not you totally agree with the author's conclusions, (that the deflection of the war against terrorism into a war against Iraq was a result of an unhealthy mix of primitive revenge, pro-Israel pressures and oil interests, all supported by fundamentalist Christians and servile media), it is a must-read for anyone interested in U.S. politics and in U.S. foreign policy at the beginning of the 21st Century. "The New American Empire" is a great contribution for a reasoned political debate regarding U.S. foreign policy. Read this book.
A PROPHETIC BOOK , 06/19/2005
Reviewer: M. Jennessy, New York, NY, USA
On page 180-81, the author of "The New American Empire" wrote: --" In the spring of 2002, George W. Bush had already decided to "invade Iraq no matter what". Indeed, it was revealed by Richard Haass, the director of the policy-planning staff at the State Department, that George W. Bush had made the decision to invade Iraq well before July 2002. He was told by Condoleezza Rice, Bush's National Security Advisor, during the first week of July 2002, "not to waste his breath... the decision has been made." New information makes it more likely that the decision to attack Iraq was made within days after the September 11th suicide hijackings of 2001, eighteen months before the event.— Well, this is precisely what highly classified British documents, published last May 1st (2005), have revealed. Half a dozen official memos and option papers, written by top aides to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, have indeed provided the definitive proof that President George W. Bush and his neocon advisors had decided to invade Iraq and oust Saddam Hussein, whatever the circumstances and whatever the costs, as early as the fall of 2001, and even before. That's the reason the author could say that the entire diplomatic exercise of going to the United Nations during the fall of 2002 and in early 2003, supposedly to avoid a war, was truly a charade and a deception. As a matter of fact, the Bush administration and Bush himself were lying openly when they repeated ad nauseam that war was their choice of "last resort". We now know that war against Iraq was rather their first choice. Sir Richard Dearlove, the Head of the British CIA (called the MI-6 spy service) confirmed, after a visit to Washington, that the Bush administration was fixing "the intelligence and facts ... around the policy", which was to invade Iraq, whatever the legality or the morality of such a policy. They [the Bush administration] were "scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and al (Qaida)" and that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, knowing full well that this was false. But that's what they told Congress and the American people. Bush and his Neocons knew from the start that they were going to have to manufacture excuses to justify a war against Iraq. What now? A lying President? a duped Congress? a misinformed American electorate? an illegal and immoral war? "The New American Empire" is an eye-opener. Its author succeeds admirably in placing everything in the proper context, so the reader has a complete picture of the real motives behind a war which has already killed 1,700 American soldiers (13,000 wounded) and brought death to as many as 100,000 Iraqis. I encourage you to read this book.
Reviewer: Mary Jennessy, New York
On page 180-81, the author of "The New American Empire" wrote: --" In the spring of 2002, George W. Bush had already decided to "invade Iraq no matter what". Indeed, it was revealed by Richard Haass, the director of the policy-planning staff at the State Department, that George W. Bush had made the decision to invade Iraq well before July 2002. He was told by Condoleezza Rice, Bush's National Security Advisor, during the first week of July 2002, "not to waste his breath... the decision has been made." New information makes it more likely that the decision to attack Iraq was made within days after the September 11th suicide hijackings of 2001, eighteen months before the event." --Well, this is precisely what highly classified British documents, published last May 1st (2005), have revealed. Half a dozen official memos and option papers, written by top aides to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, have indeed provided the definitive proof that President George W. Bush and his neocon advisors had decided to invade Iraq and oust Saddam Hussein, whatever the circumstances and whatever the costs, as early as the fall of 2001, and even before. That's the reason the author could say that the entire diplomatic exercise of going to the United Nations during the fall of 2002 and in early 2003, supposedly to avoid a war, was truly a charade and a deception. As a matter of fact, the Bush administration and Bush himself were lying openly when they repeated ad nauseam that war was their choice of "last resort". We now know that war against Iraq was rather their first choice. Sir Richard Dearlove, the Head of the British CIA (called the MI-6 spy service) confirmed, after a visit to Washington, that the Bush administration was fixing "the intelligence and facts ... around the policy", which was to invade Iraq, whatever the legality or the morality of such a policy. They [the Bush administration] were "scrambling to establish a link between Iraq and al (Qaida)" and that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, knowing full well that this was false. But that's what they told Congress and the American people. Bush and his Neocons knew from the start that they were going to have to manufacture excuses to justify a war against Iraq. What now? A lying President? a duped Congress? a misinformed American electorate? an illegal and immoral war? "The New American Empire" is an eye-opener. Its author succeeds admirably in placing everything in the proper context, so the reader has a complete picture of the real motives behind a war which has already killed 1,750 American soldiers (more than 13,000 wounded) and brought death to as many as 100,000 Iraqis. I encourage you to read this book.
THE BIG LIE , 06/28/2005
Reviewer: James M. Nelson,
Can a president, bent to launch a war of aggression on his own, lie to Congress and the American people, and use those lies to gain congressional approval for his predecided military action? That's pretty much what President George W. Bush did in deciding to invade Iraq on March 20, 2003. It is all documented: The Bush administration made a policy of war, then altered, twisted and distorted the facts to fit that policy. For that, they used disinformation and psychological warfare against the American public. Their main objective was to make enough arguments connecting Iraq to terrorism and bin Laden that the American people would believe Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks. And, with the active help of conniving media, it worked. This has been a concerted and blatant effort to manipulate the truth and fool the American people. The New American Empire is a book that documents the long string of lies by the Bush administration on the way to its ugly bloody war against Iraq. First, the Bush administration fabricated intelligence to back up its decision to go to war. Later, it would manipulate the results of Iraq's elections, waiting three long weeks to announce the results, in order to prevent the Shiites to have an absolute majority. Second, the Bush administration scared the American public to death by pretending that Iraq was hell-bent on getting WMD and atom bombs, and that, when it did, it would give them to religious fanatics to use on Washington, D.C..- To "prove" that, they invented the story of the uranium from Niger and pretended some aluminum tubes were for uranium enrichment. This was false. Then, Secretary Powell went to the United Nations and pretended that some trucks were biological labs. That was false. The President himself used this false information in a speech in Cincinnati, on October 7, 2002, and added that Iraq had drone aircraft that could possible deliver chemical weapons into the United States. This was a fabrication. Third, we learn from the official British Downing Street Memos that Bush launched a secret war against Iraq on September of 2002, more than a month before getting Congress's authorization. All this smells very badly, indeed. When President Bill Clinton engaged in some illicit sexual misconduct, the Republicans asked for an investigation and for his impeachment. Now that President George W. Bush has engaged in lies and deception to launch an illegal and immoral war, with 1,750 Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis killed, the least the Democrats could ask is an investigation and a possible impeachment. ---This book Is a Must Read.
The Neocon coup d'etat after 9/11 , 08/05/2005
Reviewer: D. M. Rice
A legitimate debate has been censored, even suppressed, in the U.S. about the key role played by pro-Israel Neocons in providing faked intelligence reports and in persuading the Bush-Cheney team to launch an unprovoked aggressive war against the country of Iraq. What role did Richard Perle, (Deputy Secretary of Defense) Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, William Luti and others, play in this illegal and immoral war, a war based on false pretenses? Why was the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, nearly completely staffed with Neocons, so central in planning and implementing the war? Who appointed all these Likudniks in such high positions of authority, many of them at the crucial level of deputy under Secretaries? How come so many of them came from agenda-promoting pro-Israel think tanks, such as the American Enterprise Institute , the Middle East Media Research Institute, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs? Why have the Neocons taken nearly absolute control of the Department of Defense? What political deals were made in the shadows? Is treason involved? What will be the costs for young Americans in the armed forces, for the U.S. taxpayers and for our democracy? Only a thorough and intensive investigation would allow us to get to the bottom of this sordid affair in U.S. history. Should we wait for historians to unearth the truth, or shouldn't Congress do its job? In "The New American Empire", economist Tremblay writes that "What is worrisome is that the events of recent years have allowed a radical right to take complete control of the U.S. government."(p. 11-12). He adds that there are " ...dangerous ideological underpinnings for a U.S. foreign policy aimed at controlling militarily Arab and Muslim countries, in its own interests and in those of Israel. From there also originates the idea that the United Nations should be cast aside, because it is too "obsessed" with the Arab-Israeli conflict." (p. 66) "The New American Empire" is brilliant , factual, revealing and straight to the point. It can be read along with Imperial Crusades (Cockburn) and The Politics of Anti-Semitism (Cockburn). Anybody who was initially in favor of this war has no leg to stand on after reading this book.
The Fourth Branch of Government , 08/31/2005
Reviewer: Patrick B. Jonavan
"Our country is now geared to an arms economy bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and an incessant propaganda of fear." General Douglas MacArthur In the 1976 movie "Network", a TV network makes money by putting on the air a lunatic, yelling commentator. Thirty years later, how many radio-TV networks make money by having lunatic yelling characters in their programming? It is a fact that the American mainstream conservative media ("MSM") have become an embarrassment for the United States and for our democracy. They have become what Pravda and Izvestia (News) were to the former Soviet Union, i.e. mouthpieces for the government's propaganda. They publish and air fake news and ignore news that doesn't fit their pre-determined political agenda. Their only preoccupation seems to be to control and manipulate public opinion. They are comfortably "embedded" with the government and they act as shills for it. Who are these corporate propaganda machines? Well, suffice to say that a few global corporate giants such as Time-Warner, Disney, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, Viacom, General Electric and Vivendi own and control most media in this country. They own and control the powerful propaganda machines that have the ability to turn outright lies into accepted truth. A good example of corporate journalism deception: On May 9, 2005, former chief United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix spoke at the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review conference in N.Y. and proposed a Middle East ban on uranium enrichment, covering both Iran and Israel, as a compromise solution to the so-called Iran threat. Guess what? His comments were completely ignored by the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal; they were cited only by the LA Times. Then there were the famous May 1st Downing Street memos which proved, without the shadow of a doubt, that Bush II lied his way to his pet war against Iraq. What happened in the U.S. media world? Silence. Their defence: We knew from the start that Bush was lying; therefore, this is "old" news! Here is how John Swinton, former Chief of Staff at the New York Times, qualifies this sort of corporate journalism: "The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and to sell the country for his daily bread. You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting an independent press. We are the tools and vassals of the rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes." In his book, Tremblay stigmatizes American media as having "abdicated their responsibility for critical inquiries into government affairs and have become instead an integral part of the government propaganda machine." (p. 95) When are we going to have an independent investigation on how corporate journalism is destroying the very institution of a free press in this country? Meanwhile, read "The New American Empire" and read also D. Brock's "The Republican Noise Machine". These two books complete each other.
Geopolitics and Morality , 10/16/2005
Reviewer: Arthur M. Singer
Can politicians declare war without good cause? Of course not. But, according to the author, that's pretty much what President George W. Bush did when he decided on his own to invade militarily the country of Iraq. "The New American Empire" is a book that explains why we got into that mess.
The "Bush-Cheney" Quest for Oil , 12/03/2005
Reviewer: F. B. Douglas, (Glen Burnie, MD USA)
When Tremblay writes that "in Bush and Cheney's minds, the need for a secured access to Middle East oil was not an option, but almost a strategic and economic necessity" (p. 80), he hits the nail right on the head. If you can only read one book, read this one.
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31 Days of Halloween 2015: We Are Still Here
[31 Days of Halloween 2015: WE ARE STILL HERE is now available on DVD, Blu Ray, and On Demand.]
*Note: As with last year’s 31 Days of Halloween marathon of horror movie reviews, we’ll be diving deep into the new release section looking for modern horror fare, hoping for the best, but frankly expecting the worst. And a further note for this review: yes, I'm slacking off and reposting a review from earlier this year. But hey, it's a good movie.*
A couple movies in to an old farm house only to find it isn't just a fixer-upper, it's haunted, in WE ARE STILL HERE. Paul and Anne Sacchetti (Andrew Sensenig and Barbara Crampton) hope that a change of scenery will help them get over the grief of losing their teenage son, Bobby. But almost immediately, Anne senses a presence in the home that she's certain is the spirit of her son. There are other strange phenomenon as well, like the unnaturally hot basement. Paul is skeptical, but after the contractor he hires to check out the basement suffers mysterious injuries, he isn't so sure. Then one night the Sachetti's neighbors Dave (Monte Markham) and Maddie (Susan Gibney) stop by to cheerfully inform them about their new home's history as a funeral parlor where the bodies didn't always make it into the ground. He goes on to explain that the owners at the time, the Dagmar family, were run out of town on a rail.
Or were they? By this point, it's beginning to look as if the Dagmars are still present in the house in one form or another, and they aren't particularly happy to be sharing it. So Anne calls up her old friend May (Lisa Marie), a psychic, to ask if she could come visit and do whatever mumbo jumbo it is psychics do in a case like this. May brings along her husband Jacob (Larry Fessenden), and their son Harry (Michael Patrick) drives up separately with his girlfriend Daniella (Kelsea Dakota) so that there will be a few more potential victims on hand when the supernatural violence kicks into high gear.
It's good to see Ms. Crampton, star of 80s horror classics HERBERT WEST: RE-ANIMATOR and FROM BEYOND, in a leading role once again. Her Anne is brittle but also resilient, recovering from the tragic loss of her son but still capable of asserting herself. Larry Fessenden is also no stranger to horror fans, having produced, written and directed some of the most interesting independent horror films of the last eighteen years (HABIT, WENDIGO, THE LAST WINTER). He also does a lot of small acting jobs for like-minded filmmakers, but here he gets a chance to tackle a meatier role, creating a memorable stoner who avoids most of the usual pothead cliches. The rest of the cast are fine as well, notably Markham who is the kind of constantly working character actor (over 100 credits on imdb since 1966) who makes an impression no matter how big or small the part. He has a slightly old school approach to acting which works well with the tone of the film.
WE ARE STILL HERE draws a fair amount of influence from late seventies/early eighties horror films, notably Lucio Fulci's HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY which features a similar “undead menace in the basement”. Further showing Fulci's influence, writer/director Ted Geoghegan does a good job creating an atmosphere of supernatural dread and small town terror. I do wish the film had been a little more visually stylish, though, particularly in its scenes of violence. There's one nicely staged kill in a moving car, but even that feels as though it's shot a bit too straight forward, and cuts away too soon. I'm not saying Geoghegan should have lovingly lingered on the gore like Fulci would have, but I'm not saying that would have been a bad idea, either. And while I appreciate that the film takes time to build tension, the climax falls just a bit short of fully satisfying.
Still, I always appreciate a horror film that isn't embarrassed about trying to be creepy. There's no tongue in cheek, self-deprecating humor here, nor any concessions to action movie tropes ala pseudo horror films like UNDERWORLD; WE ARE STILL HERE is just a good old fashioned spook show, and horror fans can always use more of those. 3 out of 4 stars.
Labels: 31 Days of Halloween 2015, Barbara Crampton, Bob Ignizio, Cleveland OH, horror, Larry Fessenden, Movie Review, Ted Geoghegan, We Are Still Here
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New Music: Billy Currington, Justin Moore, Chris Young
Del McCoury Band, Americana Artists Also Offer Albums
by Chris Parton 9/16/2013
The chill in the air says summer is over, but hot new country albums are still on the way. Titles from Billy Currington, Justin Moore and Chris Young are just a few to arrive Tuesday (Sept. 17), along with a slew of projects from independent artists.
Currington’s fifth album, We Are Tonight, is the beach bum’s first release in three years and builds off the gold-certified success of “Hey Girl.” Also boasting a cameo from Willie Nelson (“Hard to Be a Hippie”), Currington says We Are Tonight was a long time coming.
“It’s like you work so many years to get it — and you finally got it,” he says. “I feel so blessed.”
Meanwhile, Moore’s third studio album, Off the Beaten Path, has him feeling more like he’s standing on the edge of a cliff.
“The artists that do take that quantum leap from where we are to the next level,” he recently confided to CMT Hot 20 Countdown , “they generally do it on this album.”
Helping him make the jump are the single “Point at You,” which has entered the Top 5 of Billboard’s country airplay chart, and guest appearances by Miranda Lambert and Charlie Daniels.
For Young’s fourth album, A.M., the Tennessee native is hoping to show he’s more than the sensitive crooner of “Tomorrow” and “Gettin’ You Home (The Black Dress Song).”
“The songs that comprise A.M., especially the tempo tracks, are reflective of the life I’m living right now,” he says. “I get to interact with the crowd in a totally different way than with ballads.”
The album’s first single “Aw Naw” is joined by titles like “Nothin’ but the Cooler Left,” “Text Me Texas” and “Lighters in the Air.”
Also arriving in stores Tuesday is the genre-bending High Cotton: A Tribute to Alabama, where Americana artists such as Old Crow Medicine Show, Jason Isbell and the Blind Boys of Alabama cover hits of the classic country group. The track listing includes “Dixieland Delight,” “Mountain Music,” “Old Flame” and many more.
Bluegrass fans will appreciate The Streets of Baltimore, the Del McCoury Band’s latest project that takes its name from the 1966 Bobby Bare hit, as well as McCoury’s early musical experiences in the city.
Other new releases include Pete Anderson’s Birds Above Guitarland, Audrey Auld’s Tonk and the Band of Heathens’ Red Dirt-tinged Sunday Morning Record.
Nashville multi-instrumentalist Fats Kaplin arrives with the two-CD set The Fatman Cometh & World of Wonder, while rootsy Tift Merritt returns with an acoustic version of Traveling Alone (packaged with an illustrated book) and Tim O’Brien and Darrell Scott reunite for Memories & Moments.
Finally, look for Mack Pickerel & His Praying Hands’ Tess, Austin-based indie-rockers the Reynolds Number’s self-titled debut and 70-year-old country-soul man Tony Joe White’s Hoodoo.
Chris Parton
Writer/producer for CMT.com and CMT Edge. He's been to Georgia on a fast train. He wasn't born no yesterday.
Tags: AlabamaBilly CurringtonBobby BareCharlie DanielsChris YoungDarrell ScottJason IsbellJustin MooreMiranda LambertOld Crow Medicine ShowThe Del McCoury BandTift MerrittWillie Nelson
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Joy V Angst - the African and Western Electric guitar
controversial commentary from our one-time regular columnist
by Charlie » Sun Dec 24, 2006 3:54 pm
Ted wrote: ....Johnson's only recordings being completely unrepresentative of the sound he would have made when performing for his normal audience. At house partys and the like he would have made music for dancing. Played in a much more percussive style, played polkas, whatever would keep people dancing. And it would have been loud.
Or this just illustrates the difference between making records and playing live. The latter is often loud and raucous, but doesn't necessarily translate directly to records, which are not simply documentaries, but an artform in their own right.
I love the first Snooks Eaglin album, That's All Right (c1960), accompanying himself on acoustic twelve string guitar, which it turns out was quite unlike anything he normally played as an electric guitarist in a band or as a session musician. The producer had an idea for him to play this way, and he obliged.
Going back further, The Swan Silvertones recorded a lovely album for King Records which was virtually acappella (circa 1950), whereas they normally performed (and subsequently recorded) with a small group. King's boss Syd Nathan wanted them to drop the instruments, and few argued with that irascible boss.
Return to Howard's World Views
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Blues Mad
Blues Latest
Wilkins- Chelsea wont sack Benitez
Benitez has overseen two draws and Saturday's 3-1 defeat to West Ham since he was recruited on an interim basis to replace Roberto Di Matteo. The Spaniard admitted he was "not 100%" certain of his future but Wilkins, the former Chelsea assistant boss, cannot see Roman Abramovich making another managerial change.
"I would think that is totally out of the question," Wilkins told Sportsweek on Radio Five Live.
"They have asked him to come in and do a job and no doubt he is trying to work very hard to do it. Unfortunately the results are going against him at the moment. It has been a very difficult period for Chelsea Football Club and at the moment they are struggling."
Benitez is in charge until the end of the season but Wilkins suggested Chelsea are running out of options for the permanent managerial post.
"If Pep Guardiola was to come in and was sacked then where do you go?" Wilkins said.
"He is supposedly the best on the planet. He is a young man of 41. You have Mourinho out there but would Jose come back? I have no idea.
"Gus Poyet would be a good choice. He is cutting his teeth at Brighton, he has been at Leeds and Swindon so he knows the trade and he is a Chelsea legend, as Roberto Di Matteo was. The options are now being closed down rather rapidly."
Wilkins put Chelsea's recent woes down to the absence of John Terry at the back and Frank Lampard's goal-scoring contribution from midfield.
"When you lose those goals from the middle of the field, you have a massive problem," Wilkins said. "Whether it is the club who spends money or Rafa who spends money, it has to be done because the season is coming to a rather rapid halt and we are not even at Christmas yet."
Source: PA
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Uthmaan Ibn 'Affaan - AskIslamPedia - Online Islamic Encyclopedia
UTHMAAN IBN 'AFFAAN (MAY ALLAH BE PLEASED WITH HIM)
Ameer-ul-Mu'mineen 'Uthmaan ibn 'Affaan (May Allah be pleased with him) was (also known as) Zun-Noorain or"the possesor of two lights.". Abu Bakr (May Allah be pleased with him) invited 'Uthmaan to Islam and he was one of the first people to embrace the religion. And 'Uthmaan used to say that he was the fourth person to enter into Islam. He was also one of the ten companions that were given the good tidings of paradise during their lifetimes.
Brief Biography
The Virtues Of 'Uthmaan Ibn 'Affaan
Birth Date/Place
Death Date/Place
Places of Stay
Teachers/Narrated From
Students/Narrated By
After 'Uthmaan embraced Islam he married Ruqayyah, the daughter of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. And the two of them migrated to Ethiopia twice (in order to escape the persecution of the disbelievers in Makkah). Later they returned to Makkah and then immigrated to Medina. After Ruqayyah (died) he married Umm Kulthoom (another) daughter of the Messenger of Allah peace be upon him. When Umm Kulthoom died the Messenger of Allah said: "If I had third daughter I would wed you to her (also)."
In a hadith narrated upon the authority of Abu Musa Al-Ash'aree (May Allah be pleased with him) who said: "I performed ablution in my house and then went out and said: 'Today I shall stick to the Messenger of Allah peace be upon him all this day of mine (in his service).' I went to the Mosque and asked about the Prophet peace be upon him. They said: 'He has gone in this direction.' So I followed his way, asking about him till he entered a place called Bi'r Aris. I sat at its gate made of date-palm leaves till the Prophet peace be upon him finished answering the call of nature and performed ablution. Then I went up to him and saw him sitting at the well of Aris at the middle of its edge with his legs uncovered, hanging in the well. I greeted him, went back, and sat at the gate. I said: 'Today I will be the gatekeeper of the Prophet (May Allah be pleased with him).
Abu Bakr came and pushed the gate. I asked: 'Who is it?' He said: 'Abu Bakr.' I told him to wait, then I went in and said: 'O Messenger of Allah! Abu Bakr asks permission to enter.' He said: 'Admit him and give him the glad tidings that he will be in Paradise.' So I went out and said to Abu Bakr: 'Come in, and the Messenger of Allah peace be upon him gives you the glad tidings that you will be in Paradise.' Abu Bakr entered and sat on the right side of the Messenger of Allah peace be upon him on the built edge of the well as the Prophet peace be upon him did and uncovered his legs said and he praised Allah, entered (the garden), and greeted (the Prophet ), and sat down.
I returned and sat (at the gate). I had left my brother performing ablution and he intended to follow me. So I said to myself: 'If Allah wants good for so and so (i.e. my brother) He will bring him here.' Suddenly somebody moved the door. I asked: 'Who is it?' He said: ' 'Umar ibn Al-Khattaab.' I asked him to wait, went to the Messenger of Allah peace be upon him, greeted him and said: ' 'Umar ibn Al-Khattaab asks permission to enter.' He said: 'Admit him and give him the glad tidings that he will be in Paradise.' I went to 'Umar and said: 'Come in, and the Messenger of Allah peace be upon him gives you the glad tidings that you will be in paradise.' So he entered and sat beside the Messenger of Allah peace be upon him on the built edge of the well on the left side and hung his legs in the well.
I returned and sat (at the gate) and said (to myself): 'If Allah wants good for so and so, He will bring him here.' Somebody came and moved the door. I asked: 'Who is it?' He replied: ' 'Uthmaan ibn 'Affaan.' I asked him to wait and went to the Prophet peace be upon him and informed him. He said: 'Admit him and give him the glad tidings of entering Paradise after a calamity that will befall him.' So I went to him and said: 'Come in. The Messenger of Allah peace be upon him gives you the glad tidings of entering Paradise after a calamity that will befall you.' 'Uthmaan then came in and found that the built edge of the well was occupied, so he sat opposite to the Prophet peace be upon him on the other side."
And in another hadith Abd-ur-Rahmaan ibn Al-Akhnaas said that when he was in the mosque, a man mentioned 'Ali (May Allah be pleased with him) so Sa'eed ibn Zaid stood up and said: 'I bear witness that I heard the Messenger of Allah peace be upon him say: "Ten people will go to Paradise: The Prophet peace be upon him is in Paradise, and Abu Bakr is in Paradise, and 'Umar is in Paradise, and 'Uthmaan is in Paradise, and 'Ali is in Paradise, and Talha is in Paradise, and Az-Zubair ibn Al-Awaam is in Paradise, and Sa'd ibn Maalik is in Paradise, and Abd-ur-Rahmaan ibn 'Awf is in Paradise." And (then Sa'eed ibn Zaid said:) 'if you wish I will tell you the (name of) the tenth (companion).' The people asked: 'Who is he?' Then he (Sa'eed ibn Zaid) kept silence so the people asked (again): 'Who is he?' Then he said: 'He is Sa'eed ibn Zaid!'" Sunan At-Tirmidhi, Book of Virtuous Qualities, Number 3747 and Sahih al-Jami' as-Saghir, 4/34, no. 3905
In another hadith narrated upon the authority of Anas ibn Maalik (May Allah be pleased with him) who said: The Prophet Once climbed mount Uhud with Abu Bakr, 'Umar and 'Uthmaan. The mountain shook with them. The Prophet said (to the mountain): "Be firm O Uhud! For on you there are no more than a Prophet and a Siddeeq and two martyrs."
In another hadith upon the authority of Hassaan ibn 'Atiyyah who said that the Messenger of Allah peace be upon him said: "O 'Uthmaan! Allah has forgiven you your previous sins as well as your future sins, what you have hidden, as well as what you have made public and whatever is until the Day of Judgement."
And 'Uthmaan (May Allah be pleased with him) provided two hundred camels for the impoverished army of the Muslims complete with saddle blankets and reins. In addition, he distributed thousands of dinars in the cause of Islam so the Messenger of Allah peace be upon him said that after that day nothing would harm 'Uthmaan from any (bad) deeds that he might do.
'Uthmaan also bought a well called Ruumah and donated it to the Muslims so that they might have fresh water. And he purchased the land adjacent to the Prophet's masjid in order to expand the masjid of the Messenger of Allah peace be upon him.
In another hadith narrated upon the authority of Ibn 'Umar (May Allah be pleased with him) who said: "The masjid during the lifetime of the Messenger of Allah peace be upon him was built of adobes, its roof of the leaves of date-palms and its pillars of the stems of date-palms. Abu Bakr did not alter it. 'Umar expanded it on the same pattern as it was in the lifetime of the Messenger of Allah peace be upon him by using adobes, leaves of date-palms, and changing the pillars into wooden ones. 'Uthmaan changed it by expanding it to a great extent and built its walls with engraved stones and lime and made its pillars of engraved stones and its roof of teak wood."
And in another hadith narrated upon the authority of 'Aisha (May Allah be pleased with her) who said: "The Messenger of Allah peace be upon him was reclining in his house with his legs uncovered. Abu Bakr asked permission to enter and he permitted him to enter while he was in that state and they began talking. Then 'Umar asked permission to enter and he permitted him to enter while he was in the same state and they began talking. Then 'Uthmaan asked permission to enter and the Messenger of Allah peace be upon him sat up and adjusted his clothes and then he ('Uthmaan) entered and they began talking. When they departed, 'Aisha said: "(When) Abu Bakr entered you did not become enlivened and you did not (change your) state, and when 'Umar entered you did not become enlivened and you did not change your state, (but) when 'Uthmaan entered, you sat up and adjusted your clothing." He (the Messenger of Allah peace be upon him) replied: "Should I not be bashful in front of one who the angels are bashful in front of?"
Also from the virtues of 'Uthmaan (May Allah be pleased with him) and one of his greatest deeds was his compilation of the Qur'an which unified the people upon one script based on the Prophet's recitation of the Qur'an to Jibreel near the end of his life peace be upon him.[1]
'Uthman Ibn 'Affan b. Abi al-'As b. Umayya b. 'Abd Shams b. 'Abd Manaf b. Qusayy b. Kilab b. Murrah
'Affan ibn Abi al-'As / Arwa bint Kuraiz bin Rabi'a
Amnah bint Affaan
47 BH/579 CE (Ta'if)
35 AH/655 CE (Medinah)[ In-sha-Allaah Martyred ]
Makkah/Abyssinia/Medinah
Tafsir/Quran, Narrator [ ع - صحابة ], Fiqh, Commander, Khalifah
Ruqayyah bint Muhammad, Umm Kulthum bint Muhammad, Ramlah bint Shayba bin Rabi'aand others
'Abdullah bin 'Uthman, 'Abdullah bin 'Uthman(younger), 'Aishah bint 'Uthman, Umm Aban bint 'Uthman, Umm 'Amr bint 'Uthman, 'Amr bin 'Uthman, Aban bin 'Uthman, 'Umar bin 'Uthman, Khalid bin 'Uthman, Maryam bint 'Uthman, al-Walid bin 'Uthman, Sa'id bin 'Uthman, Umm 'Uthman bint 'Uthman, Umm Khalid bint 'Uthman, Arwa bint 'Uthman, Umm Aban bint 'Uthman(younger), Maryam bint 'Uthman (younger)
Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, Abu Bakr As-Siddique, 'Umar ibn al-Khattab
Aban bin 'Uthman, Sa'id bin 'Uthman, ibn Mas'ud, Zayd ibn Thabit, 'Imran bin Husain, Abu Qatada ibn Rab'i, Abu Hurairah, Anas bin Malik, ibn Mas'ud, ibn Abbas, 'Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr, Marwan bin al-Hakam bin Abi al-'As, Salma ibn al-Akwa, Abu Umama al-Bahili, Abu Umama bin Sahl, 'Abdur Rahman ibn al-Harith, al-Sa'ib bin Yazid bin Akht Namr, Tariq bin Shahab, Malik bin Aws bin al-Hadathan, 'Abdur Rahman bin Abi 'Amra, 'Ubaidullah bin 'Ady bin al-Khayyar, Sa'id bin al-'As bin Sa'id bin al-'As, Mahmud bin Labid bin 'Uqba, Sa'id ibn al-Musayyib, al-Ahnaf bin Qays, Abu Salama bin 'Abdur Rahman, Shaqayq bin Salmah al-Asadi, Abu 'Abdur Rahman al-Salmi, 'Alqama bin Qays, 'Abdullah bin Shaqayq al-Aqayli, Muhammad bin 'Ali bin al-Hanfiyyah, 'Amr bin Sa'id bin al-As, Hamran bin Aban, Hani al-Bariri, Abu Salah Maula 'Uthman, Abu Sahlah Maula 'Uthman, others
Sahih Bukhari: 10 Sahih Muslim: 20 [2]
[1] http://www.pbuh.us/prophetMuhammad.php?f=Re_10_UthmaanIbnAffaan
[2] http://www.muslimscholars.info/
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The UCLA Confucius Institute is building upon an impressive array of education and community resources. We are making connections between existing organizations, developing new initiatives, and serving as a link to the diverse communities of Southern California and the world. The UCLA Confucius Institute (UCLA CI) was founded through a partnership between UCLA, the Office of Chinese Language Council International (Hanban), and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Our mission is to promote the teaching and learning of Chinese language, history, and culture throughout Southern California.
There are over 500 Confucius institute located around the world. Each is unique in respect to its work, mission and governance structure. Based in the School of the Arts and Architecture, UCLA’s Confucius Institute focuses primarily on the arts, and the training of K-12 Mandarin-language teachers in partnership with the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies (GSEIS) and the State of California’s World Language Project. We also offer study abroad and intern opportunities in China.
In this respect, the expertise, training and programs provided by UCLA’s Confucius Institute are helpful in meeting the demand from students and the public who want to become proficient in Chinese language and develop cultural knowledge. This is especially important in Los Angeles, which is home to the largest Chinese immigrant community in the United States, and also in a global economy where knowledge of Chinese language and culture can offer professional and creative opportunities. In addition, as a public university with a global reach, these programs align with UCLA’s mission of research, education and public service.
An important part of the Confucius Institute's work is helping to prepare highly-qualified Mandarin teachers for California K-12 public schools. The lead faculty for our training program, the Mandarin Teacher Leadership Institute, is Maggie Chen. A Taiwan-native, Ms. Chen is the lead Mandarin teacher at the UCLA Geffen Academy, a lecturer for UCLA's Bilingual Authorization Program for Mandarin in the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies (GSEIS), a teacher trainer for the California World Language Project. The UCLA Confucius Institute does not provide teaching materials for K-12 classrooms nor does it advise teachers what to teach.
Everything the UCLA Confucius Institute does — training local teachers and offering programs for artists — is done in collaboration with UCLA and community partners. The executive director of the Institute is Susan Pertel Jain, who holds a Ph.D. in Asian theater from the University of Hawai'i and who has studied and worked in China and Taiwan since the late 1970s. The board of directors is chaired by UCLA Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Scott Waugh and includes Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, dean of GSEIS, David Schaberg, dean of the Division of Humanities and Brett Steele, dean of the School of the Arts and Architecture, and Teri Schwartz, dean of the School of Theater, Film, and Television, among others. The board also includes administrators from Shanghai Jiao Tong University — often called the MIT of Shanghai — which is UCLA’s partner institution for the Confucius Institute.
The agreement between UCLA’s Confucius Institute and Hanban was signed in 2006, and was extended in 2013 via a letter from Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Waugh that allowed it to continue its work under the terms stipulated in the original agreement. These documents are posted at the institute’s site under “Agreements.” The UCLA Confucius Institute is expected to continue operating under the terms of the original agreement.
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From laws to trade agreements – The uncertain future of the EU’s privacy framework
Scritto il: 30-04-2015 - Da: Agustin Reyna - 0 commenti
The European Commission published in January 2012 a proposal for a regulation revising the 1995 Data Protection Directive and unifying privacy rules across the European Union.
This was a major step, which was very much welcome by different interest groups, including consumer associations, as it promised to bring more legal certainty about how personal data should be collected and process within the Union, but also handed consumers better control over their data when going online.
This legislative move was motivated by the fact that consumers are more aware than ever of the opportunities and risks that new technologies imply to their privacy. For example, own European Commission’s data revealed that 70% of surveyed users were concerned personal data is used by companies for purposes other than for what it was collected. And, 64% felt that information on how their data is processed is unsatisfactory.
When the European Parliament voted on its first reading resolution on the General Data Protection Regulation in March 2014, these consumer concerns were voiced with an overwhelmed majority of MEPs voting in favour of giving users clear and enforceable rights.
However, the ball is now on the Council’s court and this promising scenario is now under threat.
On 13 March the Member States in a race to achieve a general approach by June 2015 closed a partial agreement on the Commission’s proposal, which undermines substantially the principle of purpose limitation, key pillar of the General Data Protection Regulation.
This principle protects consumers by setting limits to the collection and further processing of their data. This basically means that companies cannot collect more data than what is necessary to provide the service offered to consumers under the contract (legal basis for the collection and processing of data).
In the Council partial agreement this principle is distorted by the inclusion of the “legitimate interest” of the data controller as a legal basis to further process personal data without the need of the consumer’s consent for incompatible purposes if these interests override those of the data subject.
These are extremely vague terms, which would be used by companies to collect more data than is required and often for purposes different and incompatible to those initially. This is aggravated by the fact that marketing purposes are considered in the Council’s text as legitimate interests for the processing of personal data.
Thus, if it is not defined in the text of the General Data Protection Regulation what the legitimate interests of the data controller are, this will become the loophole of the new law. We hope that this will be corrected either in the general Council approach of June or under the negotiations with the European Parliament before its final adoption.
This discussion is nevertheless the tip of the iceberg. A more fundamental debate underlies in the future of EU data protection standards within Europe’s integration process in the global digital economy by means of trade agreements with the US.
The EU is currently negotiating three pillar agreements with the US that concerns the protection of European citizen’s personal data.
Firstly, the so-called “Safe-Harbor” agreement. In November 2013 the European Commission identified several points of concerns about the EU-US agreement for the transfer of Europeans’ personal data by companies from the EU to the US that needed to be revised in order to guarantee that the exchange of personal data is carried out under safe conditions.
Despite of the ostensive differences between data protection traditions between the US and the EU, the core of the debate was the transfer of personal data as a consequence of a request by a law enforcement authority after the PRISM scandal.
The “Safe Harbor” agreement is currently under scrutiny before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in a case brought by the Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems against Facebook. This will be the litmus test of the EU-US agreement because if the CJEU holds that the Safe Harbour principles do not guarantee an equivalent level of protection for Europeans’ personal data as under EU standards, the European Commission will be obliged to re-think the entire system for the transfer of personal data to the US.
Secondly, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). Although President Juncker committed not to include data protection in the scope of the EU-US deal, we can expect that there will be clauses related to data flows.
In this regard, the US side is pushing for interoperability between data protection rules on both sides of the Atlantic, an attempt which boils down to undermining European data protection standards. The US draft for the e-commerce section of TTIP reportedly includes two crucial points: the principle of “interoperability” of European and US data protection rules, and a ban on “localization”.
This last principle is fundamental to ensure the effective application of EU standards as it refers to rules requiring data storage and processing to take place within a specific geographical boundary. Currently, EU data protection rules require that personal data in principle may only be processed in Europe or in those countries declared by a European Commission decision to offer an adequate level of protection.
Thirdly, and in parallel to TTIP, negotiations about a new plurilateral Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) aim at opening markets in areas such as financial services, telecoms and e-commerce. According to a leaked draft text, TiSA would allow financial institutions the free transfer of data, including personal data, from one country to another. Thus, this trade agreement could constitute another way to lawfully transfer personal data outside the EU under conditions that may not necessary guarantee EU standards.
These three examples are setting the scene for the future of EU’s privacy framework. The European Commission can promise that they will not compromise European standards by means of lowering the levels of protection granted under the forthcoming General Data Protection Regulation. However, there are other ways to undermine those standards of protection.
By creating flexible mechanisms for foreign companies to be more competitive in Europe’s Digital Single Market, consumers may ultimately face different standards of protection depending whether they are contracting with a European company, subject to EU privacy laws, or with a foreign company, benefited by a more flexible regime, which finds its foundations on trade agreements and not on laws designed to protect people’s privacy.
Autore: Agustin Reyna
Agustín works as a Senior Legal Officer and Digital Team Leader in BEUC, The European Consumer Organisation. BEUC represents 40 independent national consumer associations from 31 European countries. The primary task of BEUC is to act as a strong consumer voice in Brussels and to try to ensure that consumer interests are given their proper weight in the development of all EU policies. Within BEUC, Agustín works in the Legal and Economic Department following the development of consumer rights in the digital environment. He leads the Digital Team coordinating BEUC’s policies in the area of copyright, data protection, telecommunications and competition. Argentinean born, Agustín obtained his law degree in the National University of Córdoba. He studied ICT law in Spain (ICADE, Comillas Pontifical University) and Belgium (CRIDS, University of Namur) and he is currently writing his doctoral dissertation on copyright and consumer protection under the supervision of Professor Norbert Reich (University of Bremen).
Visualizza tutti i post di: Agustin Reyna
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CJHS' Sherry Holder Wins National Award
Sherry Holder has been given the National History Day "Patricia Behring National Teacher of the Year" award for the junior division. Holder, who teachers at Conway Junior High, was nominated by two of her students.
The national award comes after Holder was the regional winner for the National History Day Teacher of the Year, an honor she greatly deserves, according to her students and colleagues.
"No one, and I mean no one, dedicates more time and energy in helping these kids," says fellow Social Studies teacher Kevin DeStefano.
Holder will receive $10,000 along with her title.
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купить бытовую технику: холодильники, телевизоры
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African-American music is an umbrella term covering a diverse range of musics and musical genres largely developed by black Americans. Jazz, blues, gospel, and soul constitute the principal modern genres of African-American music. Their origins are in musical forms that arose out of the historical condition of involuntary servitude that characterized the lives of black Americans prior to the American Civil War. The modern genres were developed during the late nineteenth century by fusing European musical styles (characterized by diatonic harmony within the framework of equal temperament) with those of African origin which employed the natural harmonic series.
Following the Civil War, black Americans, through employment as musicians playing European music in military bands developed new musical styles such as ragtime and what would become known as jazz. In developing this latter musical form, African Americans contributed knowledge of the sophisticated polyrhythmic structure of the dance and folk music of peoples across western and sub-Saharan Africa. Together, these musical forms had a wide-ranging and profound influence over the development of music within the United States and around the world during the twentieth century.
The earliest jazz and blues recordings were made in the 1920s. Later periods saw considerable innovation and change. African-American genres have been highly influential across socio-economic and racial groupings internationally, and have enjoyed popularity on a global level. African-American music and all aspects of African-American culture are celebrated during Black History Month in February of each year in the United States.
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Development Policy Forum »
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» Latin America
#04 media
CineCita: Amplifying the Female Voice
Janosch Dietrich
CineCita: Amplifying the female voice - Participatory video in the Andean Region
Every human being has the right to "take part in cultural life"[1]. The right to participate in the production and consumption of cultural goods 'is an integral part of human rights and, like other rights, is universal, indivisible and interdependent.'[2] Unfortunately, it must sometimes still be made clear that a human right applies just as much to women as it does to men.[3]
CineCita – La Mirada de Ella was a film festival and video laboratory that traveled through Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, aiming to:
Transmit women's voices between Latin America and Europe Empower female roles in rural communities in the Andes Foster long-term cooperation between the participating organisations.
The project was funded by the European Union and Hivos and primarily implemented by five organisations from Ecuador (La Cinta Corta), Peru (Nomadas), Bolivia (COMPA) and Germany (Moviemiento and Globale Medienwerkstatt).
All these organisations actively participate in mobile film festivals and/or audio-visual media education and are linked by the firm belief that participatory video can serve as an important tool for creative self-expression. Participatory video has been used in development for more than 30 years: "NGOs, development workers, and indeed communities themselves [use it] to foster dialogue and to instigate change and empowerment."[4] Today, digital video has made filming and editing more affordable and easy to do. Furthermore, the internet allows videos to be released to a broad global audience.
The project's partners followed participatory video ideology, giving control of video production to workshop participants. This tool "can serve as a powerful force for people to see themselves in relation to the community and to become conscious of personal and community needs. It brings about a critical awareness that forms the foundation for creativity and communication. Thus it has the potential to bring about personal, social, political and cultural change."[5]
Pict. 01: Showing a movie in a small town
Pict. 02: Woman with video camera in shop
Pict. 03: Woman filming on a cemetery
Pict. 04: People at an improvised outdoor cinema
Pict. 05: Women with camera and microphone on a market
Pict. 06: Young woman filming with video camera
Pict. 07: Three young women with video camera
Pict. 08: Young women filming an old man at his doorstep
Pict. 09: Setting up outdoor film screen
Pict. 10: Audience at outdoor cinema
Pict. 11: Two young women with video camera
Pict. 12: Young woman with microphone
Pict. 13: Indigenous children watching outdoor cinema
Pict. 15: Two young women at outdoor work with video camera
Pict. 17: Young woman with video camera
CineCita focused on the Andes region and on rural women's perspectives in particular. Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia all rank in the bottom 20 of the United Nation's (UN) World Inequality Indicator List, with indigenous groups listed as those who profited the least from economic growth in the last two decades. These indicators also point to enormous differences in the accessibility of art and media in these countries where it tends to be very centralized in the capitals. This effect increases even more in rural and often indigenous regions where, inside already marginalized communities, women have the weakest position.
"Participatory Video is particularly useful in helping to protect women's indigenous knowledge as well as lift their perceived positions in their communities."[6] In communities in which histories and traditions are passed on orally, video can serve as a technical bridge, bringing information from marginalized regions to national centers and to the world at large. Video work with women can help to make women more visible and to raise their status within their communities. The workshops were given in an exclusively female environment to help women feel more comfortable and confident when learning to use this creative and technical medium.
The tour started at the beginning of October 2010 and concluded at the end of January 2011. A varying team of 6-9 video educational staff and the coordinating crew traveled in a specially outfitted coach more then 3,000 km (around 1,850 miles) through the coastal (costa), mountain (sierra) and jungle (selva) regions of the Andean States. They were accompanied by professional video equipment and a mobile cinema secured in a burglar-proof metal box.
An international selection of 22 short films representing the female voice were screened a total of 26 times on the tour, and were combined to create a specially designed programme for each location. As soon as the screen was put up in public squares or open fields, the audience began arriving. Some had walked as far as 10 km to take part in this big event, and for many, it was the first time they had seen cinema. All of the events ended with enthusiastic applause and often with warm tea and delicious homemade tortillas for everybody.
To empower female roles in these rural societies, the video laboratory segment of the festival provided young women between the ages of 15 and 25 with the basic tools for documentary filmmaking. During the six one-week video workshops in remote communities, participants learned how to handle cameras and sound equipment. They developed their own ideas based on their unique personal backgrounds and learned to express themselves in a creative way.
On the seventh day the big event took place, and all villagers came to see the first movies made from inside their own communities, incredibly by their young daughters. At this moment of truth, based on the excited and proud faces of the young filmmakers' relatives, it was immediately apparent that CineCita had achieved its aims: to strengthen the place of women in their communities and advance new perspectives. The young women's videos then became part of the film programme for subsequent screenings. In most cases, the films made during the workshops were even better received than the international productions.
Although the tour is over, the project is still underway. Products to follow up the festival are currently in production, including the 26 short documentaries made by the young women, a tour documentary, a tour blog, and a printed booklet in Spanish and English to accompany a DVD. Additionally, the Latin American partners were invited to Europe in May 2011 to present the results at a wide range of film festivals, in articles and television features, in public discussions and screenings, as well as at school and university events. The success of these events demonstrated the high level of interest in Europe in getting personal insight into the lives and souls of young women in South America. It would not have been possible to satisfy this need without the incredible opportunities offered by audio-visual media.
And cooperation in the international network continues: Initial applications for CineCita 2 are already on their way. Let the festival continue!
More videos at cinecita.org
[1] International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Art. 15, Section 1(a)
[2] Economic and Social Council, Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the General Comment 21, Section. 1.1
[3] UN-Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women; Art. 13, Section C
[4] Harris, Usha Sundar: Transforming Images: Reimagining Women's Work through Participatory Video in Development in Practice, Volume 19, Numbers 4–5, June 2009, p. 541
[5] White, S.A. (ed.). 2003. Participatory Video: Images that Transform and Empower. Sage Publications, New Delhi, India: 64
[6] Protz, Maria: Q&A: Gender and Participatory Video in Agriculture and Development, CTA. 2007. Film-making Farmers. ictupdate.cta.int/en/(issue)/34
Overview Issue #04
Table of Contents Issue #04
Janosch Dietrich is a communications-scientist and co-founder and chairman of the travelling film festival and non-profit organisation Moviemiento, which runs projects in Europe and over-seas.
In the past few years he has also worked on sustainable tourism projects in South-East Asia. At the moment he is employed at the Berlin based organisation ICJA with focus on international volunteering programmes.
The Influence of Afghan Media on the Lives of Afghan Women (PDF) (55.4 KiB)
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Home > News > The Power of Creative Constraints
Creativity is intelligence having fun. --Albert Einstein
The Power of Creative Constraints
--by Pavithra Mehta & Suchitra Shenoy, Jun 10, 2013
An almost incomprehensively ambitious vision unsupported by any sort of business plan may sound like a vision doomed to fail. Yet more than 35 years after the first Aravind Eye Clinic was set up in South India, Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy’s (Dr. V) mission to eliminate curable blindness in the country is surpassing even the most optimistic expectations. This excerpt from Infinite Vision: How Aravind Became the World’s Greatest Business Case for Compassion describes how a precisely defined set of creative constraints, including never refusing to provide care, never compromising on quality, and never relying on outside funding for patient services, became the basis for a world-class organization. The story of Aravind’s success, characterized by all the hallmarks of sustainability – financial health, massive scale, continued relevance, and longevity – demonstrates that charity and business can indeed be compatible.
“All meaningful design begins with empathy,” says Tim Brown, “and to me, Aravind is a model of what can be achieved through design.” Coming from him, this is no small praise. Brown is CEO of IDEO, one of the most influential design firms in the world, and he firmly believes that empathy has powerful implications for the creative process.
In 2005, Brown visited Aravind on a tour coordinated by Acumen Fund, an organization that uses philanthropic capital for social investments (Acumen had supported Aravind in a telemedicine initiative). “What I saw in India, and particularly at Aravind, played a big part in how I’ve moved forward with IDEO,” says Brown. How so? “Innovation, in some fundamental way, is linked to constraints,” he says, “and Aravind is an organization that operates within a very unique set of self-imposed constraints. That automatically eliminates ordinary solutions.”
Brown’s argument is compelling: Empathy and self-imposed constraints can force you beyond obvious options. What you then get, he points out, is “the chance of a breakthrough solution instead of an incremental innovation.”
The developing world faces constraints of money, skilled labor, and other resources. But Brown is talking about something other than these obvious limitations. “Dr. V brought in his own set of constraints when he insisted on a particular mode of delivering care. He said it had to be high-quality, compassionate care, and that it also had to be affordable and sustainable,” Brown says. He is referring to the unwritten rules that Dr. V decided Aravind would follow:
1. We cannot turn anyone away.
2. We cannot compromise on quality.
3. We must be self-reliant.
In summary, these rules meant that whatever Aravind chose to do, it would have to do it with uncompromising compassion, excellence—and its own resources.
Today, numerous initiatives in India provide free eye care to those in need, and at least a dozen of them offer quality that is world-class. Where Aravind differs dramatically from these other efforts is in the magnitude of its work and its astonishing financial self-reliance. No other eye hospital in the world comes close to handling Aravind’s routine outpatient and surgical volumes. And no other organization in the field provides its services to the poor at this scale, within such a robustly self-sufficient model.
Over the years, Aravind has proved sustainable in multiple ways. It is an organization that has quadrupled its growth every decade, successfully navigated multiple leadership transitions, and consistently upgraded the quality and range of services provided. It demonstrates all the boons of sustainability: financial health, massive scale, continued relevance, and longevity.
Naturally it is Aravind’s financial sustainability that attracts the most attention. In 2009–2010, Aravind made an operating surplus of approximately $13 million on revenues of $29 million. A Forbes magazine article in 2010 reviewing Aravind’s profitability called it “a performance worthy of any commercial venture.”
Oddly enough, financial self-reliance started out low on Dr. V’s list of priorities. Certain unpleasant experiences bumped it up very quickly. Dr. V’s first application for a bank loan to start Aravind was rejected, and his sole attempt at fund-raising yielded more embarrassment than riches. He had visited a neighboring industrial town to solicit donations, and “he came back with about 1,500 rupees [roughly $33],” says his brother GS. “He said, ‘Because people don’t know us, they thought that this was some sort of begging.’” The misconceptions came as a painful shock. It had not crossed Dr. V’s mind that people might view his fund-raising efforts as an attempt to secure easy cash for his retirement.
In retrospect, the sting of that experience proved invaluable. It spurred Dr. V to explicitly redefine the role of money in his organization. “We’re not going to ask people for donations anymore,” he announced to his brothers and sisters. “We just have to do the work. The money will follow.” It became one of his most-repeated phrases: Do the work. The money will follow. This serve-and-deserve rule of Dr. V’s forced the organization into an improvised independence that fostered novel systems.
In the field of international development, money can be a touchy subject. To carry out their core work, many nonprofit organizations rely on external funding from individual donations or grants from foundations. An unspoken assumption that business and charity do not mix often gives rise to a tension between purse strings and heartstrings.
In this context, Aravind manages to hold two seemingly contradictory values with ease: self-sustainability and universal access to its services. Dr. V seeded these values in the organization without a preset plan. But the founding team, over time, evolved effective systems for working within these conditions. “In our experience, self-sustainability is a dynamic process, not a static destination,” says Thulsi. “It emerges from a complex interaction of organizational, technical, and human factors.” He maintains that Aravind’s own financial health and independence are not values in and of themselves, but by-products of careful attention to pricing structures, free and paying patient volumes, effective resource utilization, standardization, and an extremely cost-conscious leadership. In other words, at Aravind, self-reliance is more of an ethos than an end goal.
“Zero can be a legitimate price point,” declares Thulsi. This is his succinct response to the to-charge-or-not-to-charge dilemma. Aravind’s pricing strategy goes beyond the traditional notions of free care. It positions free service not as a charitable handout but as one of many options in a self-selecting fee system. Its price range—from zero to market rates—is built around a culture that respects every patient’s right to selection.
“Choice is fundamentally important,” says Dr. Aravind Srinivasan, the hospital’s adminstrator. “We all exercise it when we go to a supermarket and choose what we want from an array of options. Our choices are based on subjective combinations of aspiration and affordability. We believe in empowering our patients with that kind of choice.”
The organization also believes that a pricing model offering free service as one option within a broader range can serve more patients in need than a system that does only charity. Aravind’s consulting work with an eye hospital named Sadguru Netra Chikitsalaya, in the town of Chitrakoot in rural Madhya Pradesh, is a case in point.
Until 2002, the Chitrakoot hospital relied heavily on donor funding and focused exclusively on the very poor. The hospital’s trustees believed that charging patients would corrupt the institute’s charitable focus. Most of its patients paid nothing, and the hospital ran at a loss. But when Dr. B. K. Jain, the hospital’s director, visited Aravind, he experienced the power of a different approach.
With Aravind’s assistance, Jain persuaded the Chitrakoot trustees to adopt a tiered pricing system and to broaden its patient base to include wealthier patients. They sought Aravind’s expertise to put together a detailed plan of action. Along with implementing the new fee structure, they developed the skills to do cataract surgery with intraocular lens implants (replacing a less advanced procedure) and also began running free eye camps in the community. The ripple effect was dramatic. Five years later, for the first time in its existence the Chitrakoot hospital was breaking even. And it was actually making a surplus.
Most significant was the fact that the number of free and highly subsidized patients served annually had increased by as much as 45 percent, and the hospital’s cataract surgery volumes had more than doubled. The profits from paid services made it possible to provide cataract surgery with IOLs for its free patients as well—something it had not been able to do before. In addition, the hospital was able to develop specialty services and retain five times the number of ophthalmologists, drastically reducing its earlier dependence on volunteer medical expertise.
In these ways, the user-fee system at Chitrakoot, far from compromising the mission, proved a tremendous tool for reliably reaching more people in need. It also enabled significant upgrades to services and overall program strength. To Aravind’s leadership, financial autonomy is important not in and of itself, but precisely because it allows for this greater command over the many dimensions of quality.
People often wonder if mistrust creeps in when organizations serving the poor charge market rates for some patients. “That kind of confusion doesn’t happen at Aravind,” says Thulsi, “because our prices are transparent and compare favorably with local markets.”
Aravind’s pricing strategy aims to make it easy for patients to seek treatment; there are no hidden costs. “We don’t add on charges for individual tests—like refraction, ocular pressure, urine sugar,” Thulsi explains. “To us, it is unethical to offer those services with separate price tags. These are basic tests that need to be done. They are all included in the $1 consultation fee that is valid for up to three visits.” This outpatient fee (which applies only to paying patients) has not been increased in over ten years.
“From the very beginning, our systems have been designed so that there is no incentive for us to exploit a patient financially,” Thulsi says. “For instance, we don’t accept commissions for patients that we refer outside for MRI or CAT scans.” The management regularly reviews clinical protocols to eliminate any tests or medications that do not contribute to improving outcomes or patient comfort. Meetings are held to analyze the number of re-operations, lengths of stay at the hospital, and the reasons behind postponed surgeries. Prescriptions for medicines and tests are scrutinized to ensure that they are advised only when necessary and of real benefit to the patient. The overall goal is to reduce any needless cost and inconvenience to those seeking care. It is an approach that continuously builds fiscal and operational efficiency into the system, as well as patient trust.
There is an interesting flip side to the issue of public perception. Most of Aravind’s paying patients, while aware of Aravind’s vast work in the community, have no idea that by choosing to pay for services, they are indirectly contributing to someone else’s care. Aravind deliberately steers clear of advertising this pay-it-forward angle to its high-end customers. Touting charitable services can work against your reputation in a world where quality and charity are not necessarily linked, and Aravind leadership believes that when it comes to personal health, value for money and quality of care, are priorities that tend to outweigh generosity.
“I would very much like to come to Aravind Eye Hospital to spend some time learning and to seek your advice” is a sentiment that Thulsi encounters in his inbox with increasing frequency. It is March 2010, and the man writing in is Dr. Bharatendu Swain, a plastic surgeon with decades of experience at one of India’s well-known corporate hospitals. His passion, however, is Aakar Asha, a grassroots, nonprofit initiative he founded. It performs free restorative surgery for people who are motor impaired and unable to afford the medical attention they need. Swain has studied Aravind’s model from a distance and wants to learn more about it in order to better shape his own initiative.
The easy accessibility of Aravind’s leadership would surprise most in the private sector. The door to Dr. V’s office, for instance, is always open. Anyone can walk in without an appointment. Thulsi’s response to Swain is swift, warm, and encouraging. He intuits a genuine dedication and resonance of approach, and soon after Swain’s e-mail, a full two-day itinerary is set up, including meals and a stay at the Aravind guesthouse. In Madurai, Swain will tour the hospital, watch live surgeries, meet Aravind’s senior management, and be escorted to an eye camp. This hospitality is typical of Aravind—even, as in this case, with a stranger whose work is tangential to its own mission.
Swain has a neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper mustache and a courteous air. Seated in Thulsi’s office, he quickly turns the discussion to questions of scale. His team is now doing 500 complex reconstructive surgeries a year, at no cost to their patients. Swain wants to expand to do ten times that number and asks Thulsi for his thoughts. Thulsi is candid in his answer: “Where large need exists, you can build a much more sophisticated organization with a roadmap aimed at scale. Boutique interventions, even if they bring some kind of personal satisfaction, won’t make the needed impact. What’s the estimated need where you are?” Swain has done his homework. “Roughly 415,000 people in my home state suffer from disability issues that we can treat,” he says. “There’s your case for scale,” says Thulsi.
The people whom Swain’s organization treats are typically healthy, apart from their motor impairment. All they require is a one-time surgical intervention. The needed intervention has low morbidity and next to zero mortality rates. The transformation in a patient’s life is dramatic (in all these respects, the treatment parallels cataract surgery). But Swain must consider the issue of sustainability as his initiative grows. He is curious about Aravind’s enviable patient equation that balances its services between the very poor and those able to pay.
“So how did you arrive at the 60:40 ratio between your poor and well-to-do patients?” Swain asks. Thulsi smiles. “It just happened,” he says, adding, “that ratio isn’t fixed—the break-up is actually slightly different now.” In Aravind’s initial years, he explains, free services were provided on an ad hoc basis at the discretion of its doctors. If the attending surgeon knew or suspected that a patient could not afford surgery, then he or she waived the charge. Often the hospital had sufficient income to cover the expense, but when it did not, Aravind’s founders dug into their own pockets to make up the difference. By 1980, the leaders created a formal policy around their decision, giving patients the freedom to choose whether or not to pay for services. The 60:40 ratio of nonpaying and ultrasubsidized patients to those paying market rates emerged organically from there. In recent times, with the growth of the economy, that ratio has shifted to 53:47.
“Currently at Aravind, for every 100 patients treated, the typical breakdown is that 47 will choose to pay close to market rate, 26 will come to us on their own and opt for care at very minimal cost [roughly $15], 27 will choose to come in through our outreach efforts and be treated for free,” Thulsi tells Swain. “The annual growth rate in terms of patient volume is about 10 percent,” he says, “but the revenue growth rate is much more, because we are finding in recent years there is a real migration from free to paying. Our eye camps influence health care–seeking behavior in the community. Now the percentage of patients opting for free treatment is coming down, and the percentage electing to pay steeply subsidized rates is increasing.”
While the paying-to-free ratio is not set in stone, it is closely monitored. Trust must be built and maintained across the entire patient spectrum. If either end loses faith in Aravind’s services, the entire ecosystem of the organization is thrown off balance. Losing free patients increases unit costs, affects Aravind’s reputation in the community, and reduces training capacity. Losing paying patients augurs a different set of ills. The organization knows this from walking the delicate balance between the two.
Thulsi briefly sketches for Swain a situation in the late 1990s when the proportion of paying patients at Aravind plunged to 18 percent. Projections showed that in as little as two years that figure would plummet to 10 percent. Senior leadership held a series of emergency hospital-wide meetings. It wasn’t just the percentages that triggered the red flag. “The real concern was that we were off-sync. We weren’t reflecting the market,” Thulsi says. There was an upward mobility in the environment that was not showing up in Aravind’s patient trends. Once the crisis was spotted, patient surveys were conducted and the results scrutinized for insights. Aravind’s leaders learned that the problem was not because something had changed—it was because not enough had. As India’s economy had grown and standards of living had gone up, patients were willing to pay more for a more comfortable and modernized setting. But in the 25 years since its inception, Aravind’s inpatient facility had not undergone any major renovations.
It was time to update more than the hospital’s accommodations and amenities. Aravind’s leadership also realized that it needed to place more emphasis on additional services beyond cataract. The market for cataract surgery had matured and was becoming highly competitive. Pushed by this reality and by its own mission, the leadership decided to identify other areas of dormant need in eye care. Community surveys for the potentially blinding conditions of glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy revealed a high number of undiagnosed patients. Not as common as cataract, these conditions would require a certain scale to make delivery viable and to develop the necessary treatment expertise. With its ability to provide high-quality, high-volume care, Aravind was well placed to provide such treatment. A more deliberate focus on subspecialties was thus born.
“We also looked at the surgical acceptance rate, patient counseling methods, waiting room ambience, and cafeteria food,” says Thulsi. “Then we worked on improving all these different things simultaneously. It took us about two to three years to course-correct and bring the ratio back to healthy equilibrium.”
The experience strengthened the case for paying patients in the Aravind system. While providing high-quality eye care to those who can afford to pay little or nothing is an integral part of serving its mission, Aravind’s paying patients are key drivers for advancing quality, service breadth, and medical expertise. “We look at financial viability as an indicator of our relevance,” says Thulsi. “If people are willing to pay [for something], then there is a need for it. Serving people who can pay helps keep you on your toes.”
He has a word of caution for Swain: “The distribution of the disability in your field will be different.” He draws attention to the fact that cataract affects both the rich and the poor, and that the well-to-do tend to be reasonably active in accessing care. Paying patients make up a reliable portion of Aravind’s patient load, which is crucial for a cross-subsidization model. “In your case, there may be more trauma-related disabilities in the labor class that can’t afford to pay for treatment,” Thulsi tells Swain. “If incidence is primarily among the poor, then you may need to follow a model that exclusively does charity work. You will want to look into the causes of these disabilities and do some thinking on this front,” he says.
“Do you have a donor strategy?” Swain queries. Thulsi breaks into one of his infectious laughs. “We’re not a good group to ask that question to because fund-raising really isn’t one of our strengths,” he says. “Dr. V chose to grow slowly and with internal resources.”
He shares that Aravind’s core patient care services as well as all of its new hospitals are entirely funded by revenue from its paying patients. “The founders did not want the eyesight of the community held ransom by external resources,” he explains. “In the past, we have even turned down people’s offers to support our free surgeries.” He then makes an important clarification: “But for other areas, like eye care research, we welcome outside funding, and for many of our pilot initiatives we often actively seek grants.”
Over the years, Aravind has received funding and technical support from an array of foundations, grant agencies, companies, and individual donors. These contributions are expressly earmarked for areas outside of core patient services and represent only a small percentage of Aravind’s total income. In 2009, for instance, grants and donations accounted for 6 percent (roughly $1.8 million) of Aravind’s income, compared with the 72 percent that was earned through patient revenue.
There are some exceptions to Aravind’s funding policy. The organization does, for instance, allow well-wishers to contribute to its Food for Sight program, which covers meals for Aravind’s free patients, and to its Youth Vision program, which provides free eyeglasses to schoolchildren at its screening camps. But as Thulsi points out, neither of these programs is dependent on external funding. “If the donations dried up, we would absolutely still continue to provide these services. They are not controlled by money from the outside.”
Ultimately, in Thulsi’s view, where money comes from is not nearly as important as how it is put to use. One organization might be extravagant with earned resources while another is frugal with donations. Based on Aravind’s experience, Thulsi has come to believe that self-reliance is more about a mindset than it is about money. It is a particular way of viewing your resources and putting them to the best use possible.
Outside Aravind–Madurai, an orange bus rumbles down the street, lopsided with four young men hanging on for dear life in the open doorway. Behind it comes a man on a bicycle, egg crates stacked higher than his head, wobbling precariously. There is a widespread talent in India for carrying more than what is considered sensible, and doing so with unruffled ease. You see it at Aravind too. Throngs of patients that would overwhelm many care providers are considered par for the course here. Aravind’s hospital in Madurai alone sees roughly 2,000 patients every day. Collectively, its entire network of hospitals examine 7,500 patients daily.
While the large volume of patients at Aravind forms the engine of the model, the system needs a regular flow of patients in order to be optimally efficient. “Managing demand fluctuation is critical to maintaining quality and controlling costs,” says Thulsi. Patient volumes are regularly scrutinized. Using data from past years, seasonal trends, and real-time monitoring, the management works hard to smooth out demand patterns and protect against dramatic peaks and troughs that stress the system. For the convenience of their patients, Aravind’s hospitals have a walk-in, no-appointment-needed policy that makes it harder to control volumes. This vulnerability is further compounded by Aravind’s practice of conducting eye camps.
In the mid-1980s, the surgical load on Mondays would shoot up drastically because of the busloads of people brought in from weekend camps. By Wednesday, patient numbers would drop back to a more normal level. Dealing with this spike-and-dip cycle was frustrating for staff and created inefficiencies. Aravind’s approach to the feast-or-famine situation was interesting. Instead of doing the most obvious thing and redistributing camps across the week to comfortably flatten the spike, it looked for ways to increase patient volumes throughout the whole week—so that the surge on Mondays would be the norm, not an aberration.
To pull this off, Aravind’s leaders first analyzed the bottleneck in patient admissions. Looking at the data, they realized that a considerable number of patients were dropping out of the system after being told by a doctor that they needed surgery. Further investigation revealed a need for an additional step in the process. Patients needed an opportunity to have their doubts and fears about undergoing surgery addressed at length by a staff member. A cadre of counselors was promptly conceived and a new division for patient counseling implemented.
Aravind’s hospital network now has 164 patient counselors. Its systems ensure that a counselor meets with each patient advised to have surgery; she explains the entire process, along with all the various options available, and fields any questions the patient might have. Within two years of introducing counselors, direct admissions per week increased fourfold. In the same period, Aravind’s eye camp volume also increased by 20 percent. But by then, the systems in place were robust enough to handle the increase without a hitch.
This approach to bottlenecks and capacity barriers at Aravind leaves no room for complacency. Dr. Usha Kim, one of the organization’s senior doctors, recalls walking into Dr. V’s office with two other colleagues in 1999 after first hearing of his plans to build a fifth hospital in Pondicherry. “We said to him, ‘Look, this is a bad idea. We don’t even have enough doctors in Madurai right now. We have four hospitals already; we’re not interested in starting another one,’” says Usha. Dr. V listened to them quietly and nodded his head. “If you feel that way, we won’t do it,” he said. “But then after that, he called us each in to meet him individually,” says Usha, laughing at the memory. “He called me the next day and said, ‘You know, when you think you’ve grown enough, that’s when you start to decline. It means you’re walking downhill instead of climbing.’” Aravind–Pondicherry was inaugurated in 2003, and Dr. V’s perspective on growth would slowly filter through the organization’s leadership. “I’ve matured to the idea that when you’re in a comfort zone, you start to deteriorate,” Usha says. “You need to have some kind of pressure or you don’t evolve. Dr. V was right—it isn’t about staying where you are and feeling cozy.”
The History of the Aravind Eye Care System
In 1976, Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy, a retired surgeon, founded an eye clinic in South India with his siblings and their spouses. Dr. V, as he became known, didn’t have a business plan or money, but he had a mission to eliminate curable blindness. Today, the Aravind Eye Care System is the largest and most productive blindness prevention organization in the world. During the last 35 years, its six eye hospitals have treated more than 32 million patients and performed more than 4 million surgeries, the majority either ultrasubsidized or free. Even more remarkable, Dr. V has insisted on financial self-reliance, resolving not to depend on government aid, private donations, or foreign funding. The organization invests tremendous energy in bringing eye care to villagers too poor to seek out its services. Its policies ensure that all patients get the same high standard of care. The same doctors work across both free and paid services. Defying the assumption that high-quality surgery cannot be performed at high volumes, Aravind’s doctors are among the most productive in the world, averaging 2,000 cataract surgeries a year, against the United States’ average of under 200. The efficiencies that enable this achievement help make Aravind one of the lowest-cost, highest-quality eye care systems in the world. Dr. V passed away in 2006, but Aravind continues to thrive. Based on his vision, the Aravind model demonstrates the power of integrating innovation with empathy, and business principles with service.
The above is excerpted from: Infinite Vision: How Aravind Became the World’s Greatest Business Case for Compassion, by Pavithra K. Mehta and Suchitra Shenoy -- it originally appeared in MIT's Society for Organizational Learning Newsletter, Reflections: The SoL Journal.
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Elevating Erie
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Sam Gordon
The Syracuse Creekwalk: A Case Study in Reconnecting to our Waterfront Heritage
By Owen Kerney, Assistant Director of the Syracuse-Onondaga Planning Agency
The Syracuse Creekwalk near Franklin Square
The Elevating Erie project is, among other things, focused on reconnecting our community to the Erie Canal. The Canal’s legacy is worth celebrating; it will serve as the foundation on which future design and investment along the Erie Boulevard corridor rests. This strategy, reconnection to “abandoned”, ignored, or underutilized waterbodies has been a successful approach in our community and should provide confidence that the Elevating Erie project too has great potential. The efforts by the City of Syracuse to reclaim the Onondaga Creek corridor as a recreational resource and trail system provide an excellent example of the transformative power of public investment in neglected waterways.
Owen Kerney, Assistant Director, Syracuse-Onondaga Planning Agency
Onondaga Creek and Onondaga Lake led to the establishment of the City of Syracuse in 1847. The City’s early salt industry and subsequent manufacturing industry developed along the Lake and Creek in the 19th century, but over time the Lake and the Creek became dumping grounds for the wastes associated with the City’s rapid growth. These circumstances adversely affected water quality, and the use of these waterbodies as a recreational amenity was restricted during much of the 20th century.
Although Onondaga Creek and Onondaga Lake were neglected for many years, community interest in their economic, environmental and recreational potential increased. During the last 20 years, the Creek and Lake were the focus of considerable public discussion. The clean-up, restoration, and reestablishment of public access and use of these underutilized waterbodies was identified as an opportunity to greatly improve quality of life in our community.
The Creek as a community asset gained considerable momentum with the construction of two minor sections of the Syracuse Creekwalk in Franklin Square in 1989 and along the Syracuse Inner Harbor in the late 1990s. While these isolated sections of the Syracuse Creekwalk went unconnected for two decades, the City recognized an opportunity to establish an urban recreational trail to connect our job centers, neighborhoods, park spaces and waterfronts.
Scenes from the Creekwalk
The design of the Syracuse Creekwalk began in 2000. The 2.6 mile Creekwalk connects the Armory Square neighborhood of downtown Syracuse to the southern shoreline of Onondaga Lake. The City also worked closely with Onondaga County using their Save the Rain program to include multiple green infrastructure features along the Creekwalk. The use of these green infrastructure technologies were an important shift toward a sustainable facility and their use is in stark contrast to the decades of environmental neglect along the Creek.
The project was completed in 2011 and is an outstanding amenity that provides all residents and visitors a unique opportunity to experience the City of Syracuse. The Syracuse Creekwalk has transformed a longstanding City liability into an exceptional public amenity by creative thinking, successfully integrating extensive public comments, using distinctive urban design, and incorporating new technology to create a public space the City is proud display.
The Elevating Erie Ideas competition produced a range of thoughtful, imaginative, and big ideas that the community now has an opportunity to review and offer their own ideas at: https://elevatingerie.metroquest.com. I encourage people to do so, because big ideas like reconnecting to underutilized waterways has earned strong community support and produced transformative projects here in Syracuse, and Elevating Erie is next!
Owen Kerney currently serves as an Assistant Director in the Syracuse – Onondaga County Planning Agency. He leads the City’s Planning Division, which focuses on urban planning and design, historic preservation, public art, and sustainability initiatives to promote and enhance the livability and prosperity of the City of Syracuse.
Owen develops and manages planning and capital projects for the City including the City’s Comprehensive Plan 2040, the ReZone Syracuse project, the Syracuse Connective Corridor, the Elevating Erie initiative, brownfield redevelopment and multiple State and Federal grant projects.
He lives in Syracuse with his wife Melanie and their three children.
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Iran Analysis: "Supreme Leader in a Real Mess" After Last Presidential Debate
Saturday, June 8, 2013 at 6:55
Scott Lucas in Ali Akbar Velayati, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, EA Iran, EA Live, Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, Hashemi Rafsanjani, Hassan Rouhani, Iran Elections 2013, Middle East and Iran, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, Mohammad Khatami, Mohammad Reza Aref, Saeed Jalili
See also Iran Special: Highlights From The Third Presidential Debate
Observations after Friday's third and final Presidential debate, following a conversation with a leading EA correspondent on Iran:
1. THE CONSERVATIVES AND PRINCIPLISTS FALL APART
The immediate headline that the debate was more interesting than the previous two, because of conflict among the eight candidates, does not begin to capture the extent of the division --- notably among those men who supposedly are close to the Supreme Leader's camp.
Our correspondent summarises, "This was a free-for-all in which all went after each other, including the [members of the Supreme Leader's] 2+1 Committee. This showed the three men of the 2+1 do not have anything in common."
One of the 2+1 members, the Supreme Leader's senior advisor Ali Akbar Velayati, criticised the others for not knowing about international affairs, advising them to read his book on the 1980s Iran-Iraq War.
Then Velayati got specific. He said that his colleague on the Committee, leading MP Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, was ignorant about diplomacy.
A heated argument followed with the third member of the 2+1, Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf. Velayati, a long-time Foreign Minister, was boasting about his contacts in the 1980s and 1990s with world leaders like France's Francois Mitterand when Qalibaf snapped, "While you were drinking with Mitterand in the Elysee Palace, we were drinking French missiles on the war front [with Iraq]."
Velayati responded that Qalibaf had no idea re history, as the "drink with Mitterand" came long after the war was over.
Velayati's most interesting clash, however, was with Saeed Jalili, the Secretary of the National Security Council and lead nuclear negotiator.
Velayati went after Jalili over the two rounds of nuclear talks with the 5+1 Powers in February and April. The Supreme Leader's aide indicated a deal was on the table --- with three European countries tabling a proposal that would have suspended three key sanctions on the Islamic Republic --- but Jalili insisted on "all or nothing".
Velayati summarised, "Negotiations is not showing up and moralising with slogans."
2. THE DIVISION AMONG SUPREME LEADER'S INNER CIRCLE OVER NUCLEAR TALKS
The Velayati-Jalili confrontation offers a wider lesson beyond this election. Far from maintaining a unified line against the "West" on the nuclear programme, the Supreme Leader's advisors have been split for years over the approach. Velayati has been among the advisors seeking an accommodation, but --- at least in his account --- has been blocked by others who have refused to conclude a deal.
In another telling passage in the debate, Velayati said that a settlement was imminent in talks in 2007 between the head of the European Union, Javier Solana, and Iran's Ali Larijani --- now Speaker of Parliament --- but this was undermined by someone, presumably President Ahmadinejad, in a speech objecting to any agreement.
Our correspondent summarises:
This display really weakened Iran's hand in the nuclear negotiations.
Imagine if you are a member of the 5+1 watching this debate. You have one faction around Ayatollah Khamenei ready to talk, but you have another refusing.
With the inner circle very divided, you don't budge --- you wait for them to crack.
3. CAN THE SUPREME LEADER RESCUE THE SITUATION?
One obvious "solution" for this division is for the regime to decide on an outcome for the first-round ballot on 14 June and then make sure it happens. In the words of our correspondent, "The elephant in the room is whether the votes which are cast are the votes which wind up in ballot box."
Specifically, our correspondent --- who has been far from impressed from Saeed Jalili, on the campaign trail or in yesterday's debate --- believes that there is no way he can be among the top two vote-getters if turnout is high. So, "if Jalili is put through to the final round in a ballot with at least 60% participation, you can bet there has been manipulation."
But, if this is being considered by the Supreme Leader's camp, there is a major problem in comparison with the 2009 election. Then, it was only a question of ensuring that a single candidate --- President Ahmadinejad --- triumphed against the opposition.
This time, it is a matter of picking one or two candidates from among four --- Velayati, Haddad Adel, Qalibaf, and Jalili --- to go to the final ballot on 28 June. That step is likely to only increase division among conservatives and principlists, with resentment among the followers of those who are not chosen.
An alternative for the Supreme Leader is to sit on his hands at this point and not express any preference, waiting to see who is strongest in the first-round ballot. There is precedent for this: Ayatollah Khamenei did not go for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad until late in the 2005 campaign, tapping him over Qalibaf.
This time, however, waiting carries the risk that the squabbling amongst those around the Supreme Leader will only get worse, shaking an already fragile election process.
4. CAN THE MODERATES AND REFORMISTS TAKE ADVANTAGE?
The failure to find a "unity" candidate has opened up space for the two men who are not as close to the Supreme Leader --- "moderate" Hassan Rouhani, an ally of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, and reformist Mohammad Reza Aref.
The prospect of one of the two men making it to the final round --- almost unthinkable when Rafsanjani was barred from standing in the election --- is now real. While Rouhani did not capitalise on his recent surge in yesterday's debate, Aref was sharp. Our correspondent assesses, "He was sharp and did not shy away from the reformist legacy. If the election is not manipulated, that could bring support, especially among younger voters."
Reallistically, however, the best chance for Rouhani or Aref to be in the top two on 14 June is for one man to withdraw in favour of the other before the vote. Will that happen?
Our correspondent speaks bluntly:
That will only happen if former Presidents Mohammad Khatami and Rafsanjani call publicly for a coalition.
If they do so, then we may have something special in this campaign.
Article originally appeared on EA WorldView (http://www.enduringamerica.com/).
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Peng-Sheng Wei
National Sun Yat Sen University, Chinese Taipei
Transport Variables and Microstructure Variations Induced by Magnetohydrodynamic Convection during Resistance Spot Welding
Resistance spot welding is an important technique often used in joining thin workpieces. This presentation theoretically and quantitatively investigates and interprets the complicated processes by realistically accounting for transient magneto-fluid mechanics, heat and species transport, and bulk resistance in workpiece, and film and constriction resistances at contact interfaces. This study shows distributions of electric current, magnetic field, temperature, velocity, and species during resistance spot welding. Since temperature gradient and solidification rate are predicted, the computed morphological parameter reflecting constitutional super cooling shows that different microstructures of the weld nugget can be controlled via designing the shapes of the electrode containing coolant hole and choosing different material properties.
Dr. Peng-Sheng Wei received Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering Department at University of California, Davis, in 1984. He has been a professor in the Department of Mechanical and Electro-Mechanical Engineering of National Sun Yat-Sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, China, since 1989. Dr. Wei has contributed to advancing the understanding of and to the applications of electron and laser beam, plasma, and resistance welding through theoretical analyses coupled with verification experiments. Investigations also include studies of their thermal and fluid flow processes, and formations of the defects such as humping, rippling, spiking and porosity. Dr. Wei has published more than 80 journal papers, given keynote or invited speeches in international conferences more than 60 times. He is a Fellow of AWS (2007), and a Fellow of ASME (2000). He also received the Outstanding Research Achievement Awards from both the National Science Council (2004), and NSYSU (1991, 2001, 2004), the Outstanding Scholar Research Project Winner Award from National Science Council (2008), the Adams Memorial Membership Award from AWS (2008), the Warren F. Savage Memorial Award from AWS (2012), and the William Irrgang Memorial Award from AWS (2014). He has been the Xi-Wan Chair Professor of NSYSU since 2009, and Invited Distinguished Professor in the Beijing University of Technology, China, during 2015-2017.
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Contest Winner 2019
New Releases Coming Soon!
Querying - Submission Packet
Querying - Agents and Publishers
E.J. Shoko was born in a small mining town in Zimbabwe. The first words she learned to read in English were “Danger Caving Grounds” displayed on signs posted at abandoned mineshafts scattered around the area. Since then, she has lived in four countries on three different continents and has a working knowledge of multiple languages, including Shona, German, Italian and a rudimentary grasp of French.
She's loved reading since she was five years old, and would read anything from encyclopedias to journals to mystery novels. Her motivation for writing came when she stole a romance novel from a library. She perceived the book to be terrible and predictable, and decided she should write her own romance story at the age of thirteen. It was also terrible and predictable.
E.J.’s first appearance in print came from a scientific publication. The article was about maggots and dead bodies, which wasn't far off from her early romance story. This preceded a career in poison science with a significant amount of technical/scientific writing and editing.
Over the last eight years, E.J. has added fiction writing and editing to her credentials and was featured in Z: Tales from the Zombieverse. She was also co-editor of The Scourge and The Beast of Maug Maurai. In her spare time, she visits the Seven Wonders of the World, cooks elaborate meals that wouldn't be out of place served in snooty French restaurants, and breaks into insane asylums.
Next: Marc Sirkin
Back to Authors
"You can't try to do things; you simply must do them." -- Ray Bradbury
© 2009-2019 The Fairfield Scribes
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Top » Catalog » BA0714 Fax: 02383 950127 My Account | Cart Contents | Checkout
BILDmobil Speedstick (inkl. SIM-Karte) mit einer Geschwindigkeit von bis zu 3,6 MBit/s ohne Vertragsbindung und Grundgebühr.
England (Saint Georges Cross) flag 60 x 90 cm 8.90EUR *
England (Saint Georges Cross) flag 60 x 90 cm
England is a country which is part of the United Kingdom. Its inhabitants account for more than 83% of the total UK population, whilst its mainland territory occupies most of the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain. England shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west and elsewhere is bordered by the North Sea, Irish Sea, Celtic Sea, Bristol Channel and English Channel. The capital is London, the largest urban area in Great Britain, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most, but not all, measures.
England became a unified state in the year 927 and takes its name from the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes who settled there during the 5th and 6th centuries. It has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world being the place of origin of the English language, the Church of England and English law, which forms the basis of the common law legal systems of many countries around the world. In addition, England was the birth place of the Industrial Revolution and the first country in the world to industrialise. It is home to the Royal Society, which laid the foundations of modern experimental science. England is the world's oldest parliamentary democracy and consequently many constitutional, governmental and legal innovations that had their origin in England have been widely adopted by other nations.
The Kingdom of England (including Wales) continued as a separate state until 1 May 1707, when the Acts of Union, putting into effect the terms agreed in the Treaty of Union the previous year, resulted in political union with the Kingdom of Scotland to create the united Kingdom of Great Britain.
Grommets: with grommets
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wolfram goessling
trista north
Goessling Lab
North Lab
Goessling Alumni
North Alumni
lab intranet
Goessling & North Labs
fishing4stemcells.org
Goessling Lab Members
Kristen Alexa, Ph.D.
Kristen graduated magna cum laude from Rivier College in 2002 with a BS in Biology. After graduation, she attended graduate school at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and under the tutelage of Charles Sagerström she studied “Endoderm Patterning in Zebrafish: Pancreas Development.” After graduating with her Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences in December 2009, she began her postdoc in the Goessling lab in January 2010, exploring the role of vitamin D signaling in liver specification, growth, regeneration and disease.
[ Kristen's papers ] [ Kristen's biosketch ]
Sahar Nissim, M.D., Ph.D.
Sahar completed his Ph.D. at the Harvard Medical School in 2005 under the supervision of Professor Cliff Tabin. His thesis focused on signaling centers and genetic interactions that pattern the embryonic limb. Sahar joined the lab in July 2010 and is interested in using zebrafish to characterize new pathways involved in pancreas development and cancer. His current funding includes a grant from the National Pancreas Foundation. Sahar also completed his M.D. at the Harvard Medical School in 2007. He is completing a fellowship in Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endoscopy at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and sees patients in a GI Cancer Genetics Clinic at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.
[ Sahar's papers ]
Chad Walesky, Ph.D.
Chad completed his Ph.D. at the University of Kansas Medical Center in 2014 under the supervision of Professor Udayan Apte. His thesis focused on a novel role of the nuclear receptor hepatocyte nuclear factor 4 alpha (HNF4α) in hepatocyte proliferation. Chad joined the lab in April 2014 and is interested in understanding the role that HNF4α plays in liver development, regeneration, and cancer pathogenesis. His current project is supported by the Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation.
[ Chad's papers ] [ Chad's biosketch ]
Paul Wrighton, Ph.D.
Paul completed his Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2015 under the supervision of Professor Laura Kiessling. In the Kiessling group, Paul utilized chemical biology approaches to understand cellular signal transduction mechanisms. His thesis focused on how insoluble culture surfaces influence the fate decisions of human pluripotent stem cells. Paul joined the group in August of 2015 and plans to utilize zebrafish to study fatty liver disease and fibrosis. He is particularly interested in mechanical singling mechanisms and regenerative medicine.
[ Paul's papers ]
Arkadi Shwartz, Ph.D.
Arkadi completed his bachelors degree in life science in 2009 at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel. For his MSc and Ph.D. studies he joined the lab of Proffesor Ben-Zion Shilo and Dr. Eyal Schejter at the Weizmann Institute of Science. During his MSc he conducted research to elucidate different mechanisms of EGFR pathway regulation. His Ph.D. thesis focused on cell biological aspects of myogenesis, specifically on the formation and maintenance of actin based thin-filament arrays. He joined the Goessling lab in November 2016 as a postdoc. He plans to utilize his imaging expertise to study liver development and regeneration.
[ Arkadi's papers ]
Isaac Oderberg, Ph.D.
Isaac grew up in Los Angeles, and earned his B.A. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California Berkeley in 2010. He completed his doctoral work in 2017 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the supervision of Dr. Peter Reddien. There, he studied the regeneration of an adult tissue organizer and the patterning of stem cell lineages in planarians. He joined the Goessling lab in June 2017 as a postdoctoral fellow. Isaac is interested using single-cell sequencing and genetic approaches to studying liver regeneration in zebrafish.
[ Isaac's papers ]
Brian Pepe-Mooney, Ph.D.
Brian was born and raised in Philadelphia, PA. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Haverford College in 2010 with high honors in Chemistry (B.S.) and with a concentration in Biochemistry. After college, Brian completed research stints in Ankara, Turkey under the direction of Dr. Vasıf Hasırcı at the Middle East Technical University studying tissue engineering and the effect of nano-patterned surfaces on cell morphology, and with Dr. Russell Composto in the Chemical and Biological Engineering department at the University of Pennsylvania, examining how an absorbed chitosan layer on hydroxyapatite could serve as a protective layer against dental erosion from low pH substances. Brian attended graduate school at Harvard University, where he was the recipient of both a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship as well as the NIH/NIDDK Ruth L. Kirschestein National Research Service F31 Award. He completed his Ph.D. in Developmental and Regenerative Biology in May 2018. His thesis work, under the supervision of Dr. Fernando Camargo, focused on utilizing single-cell sequencing, complex transgenic mouse models, three dimensional in-vitro organoid culture techniques, and various molecular assays to understand the signaling pathways that regulate liver homeostasis and injury response in the adult mouse. Brian joined the Goessling lab in September 2018. He is interested in utilizing live imaging techniques in zebrafish to study the relationship between the immune system and liver cancer. Outside of the lab, he enjoys, singing, running, playing soccer, playing guitar, spending time with family and friends, and traveling.
Scott Freeburg
Scott graduated with a degree in biology from Kenyon College in 2016, where he studied the transcriptional regulatory functions of Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor in Xenopus laevis. Scott is a graduate student in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences Program at Harvard Medical School and joined the Goessling Lab in 2017. He is studying the functions of Vitamin D receptor in liver organogenesis and disease.
Olivia Weeks
Olivia is a graduate student in the Biological & Biomedical Sciences program at Harvard Medical School. She joined the Goessling lab in June 2014 and is broadly interested in embryonic patterning and the mechanisms guiding progenitor cell fate decisions in the foregut endoderm. Prior to entering graduate school, Olivia graduated from Harvard College in 2013 with a degree in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. Under the direction of Dr. Arkhat Abzhanov, she completed her senior thesis on tooth organogenesis in the American alligator. Outside of the lab, she enjoys exploring the arts and spending time with family and friends.
TECHNICIANS AND UNDERGRADUATES
Delaney Ingalls
Carolyn Winston
Carolyn graduated from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD at the end of 2017 with a BA in Biology and a minor in Mathematics. Prior to joining the Goessling Lab, Carolyn worked at the Carnegie Institution for Science where she aided in adapting the bipartite Q-transcriptional regulatory system to zebrafish. In the lab, Carolyn now assists Chad with his research, as well as helping with the care and husbandry of zebrafish. Outside of the lab, Carolyn enjoys reading, drawing, creative writing, and spending time with her boyfriend and cats.
Ellie Quenzer
Ellie graduated from Bowdoin College in 2017 with a B.A. in Neuroscience, with Honors, and a minor in Classical Studies with a Greek concentration. At Bowdoin, she studied the behavioral effects of the injury-induced compensatory growth response in the auditory system of the cricket. In the Goessling Lab, Ellie assists Paul with his research examining mitophagy and exploring the ways that it impacts normal organ development in the presence of environmental insults. She also helps with other general tasks, including care and husbandry of the zebrafish. Outside of the lab, Ellie enjoys watching Boston sports, running, and relaxing with friends at the beach.
Ellie’s papers
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Posted August 28, 2017 by Drew Bagay in Movies/TV
A Quick Look At Some Of The Best Spoof Movies
With a number of movies on the market that appear to take themselves way too seriously, most people would agree that it’s nice to settle down on the sofa every now and again to watch a good spoof movie. The best spoofs give the subject matter on hand just the right amount of satirical treatment as well as being watchable movies in their own right and in an arena where there’s a fine line between the cheesy and the humorous, making a good spoof movie is often a very delicate balancing act. With this being said, here are a few of what are considered the best and most entertaining spoofs to date.
The ever lovable duo of Nick Frost and Simon Pegg star in what can not only be considered as homage to Dawn of The Dead but also as a spoof on the entire zombie genre as a whole. Shaun (Simon Pegg) takes charge to save his family and best friend Ed (Nick Frost) from a zombie attack when he realizes that the whole town has become infected and as is often the case when these two team up, hilarity ensues, with a particular highlight being the fake zombie walk amongst the herd of undead. The popular phrase “Go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint and wait for this all to blow over” has also been widely coined and has cemented its place in popular culture in the shape of a wide range of merchandise relating to the film.
Source: Shaun of the Dead Via Facebook
Naked Gun: From The Files of Police Squad
Naked Gun tells the story of a cop who’s out to clear his partner’s name in a drug bust gone wrong. Leslie Nielsen’s standout performance in the movie has become synonymous with the bumbling yet hilarious hero who possesses the IQ of a seven-year-old who still somehow manages to save the world and if that wasn’t enough, there’s also a side plot within the film which involves the assassination of the Queen of England. A classic cop movie parody, Naked Gun has become a cult classic and has left an indelible mark on wider pop culture, spawning a wide variety of spin offs as well as various gaming experiences such as the slot game over at bet365, with a handy bonus available for those needing that extra boost when solving the various cases and puzzles that the game throws up at you.
Monty Python’s Life Of Brian
Widely considered as one of the most controversial and blasphemous movies upon its release in 1979, Monty Python’s Life Of Brian follows the journey of a young Jewish man Brian Cohen, who was born on the same day and in the next room as Jesus. Of course, Brian is mistaken for the Messiah and subsequently finds his life paralleling Biblical lore with often hilarious results as he seeks to avoid his ‘followers’ and his brassy Mother. The film was banned in many countries at the time of release, with some bans only being lifted in the last few years, such as in the UK town of Bournemouth, where the film went public in 2015 for the first time in 35 years. Nevertheless, the film achieved the status of a cult classic and arguably remains the benchmark for all parody movies even to this day.
I felt like posting, so here’s one of the greatest musical numbers ever in Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Biggus dickus. #TheFilmCave #LifeofBrian #MontyPython
A post shared by Movie Reviews And More! (@thefilmcave) on May 24, 2017 at 11:37am PDT
Despite the recent influx of superhero movies dominating the box office, there will also be a market for parody and spoof movies owing to the fact that they are extremely easy to watch and often both hilarious and genius in equal measure. The future of parody in the film industry relies on the release of movies which are perhaps a little too serious for their own good and are fair game to be both mocked and paid tribute to in equal measure and from this standpoint alone, it does indeed feel that the future of spoof movies is in safe hands for a good number of years.
life of brian movies naked gun SHAUN OF THE DEAD
Drew Bagay
Drew is a lover of comic books, movies, and all things pop culture. He enjoys crime/thriller/noir fiction, playing the guitar, and taking long walks. He also doesn't like talking in third person.
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Murder in Little Shendon by A.H. Richardson -- Review + Excerpt!
Murder in Little Shendon
by A.H. Richardson
2017. Paperback. 256 pages.
If you're looking for the perfect murder mystery to cozy up with this fall or winter season, then Murder in Little Shendon is exactly what you need. This story begins in the town of Shendon, a small community in which everyone knows everyone. When one citizen is murdered, everyone is suddenly a suspect and it is up to the police detective and two amateur detectives to determine just what happened in this quaint little town.
This is one of those classic whodunit novels in which all citizens are interviewed and each seems to have some sort of plausible reason that they could be the suspect. I had a really enjoyable time reading this book and trying to unfold the identity of the murderer along with all of the characters. I was truly drawn into the story and events and became invested in many of the characters.
Speaking of characters--there are a lot! This because a bit overwhelming at moments, but I was impressed with how much detail and personality Richardson gave each character. They really are each a unique person with their own desires, motives, and expressions, and this really benefited the novel and gave it a much more exciting atmosphere.
The chapters are all fairly, short, which makes this book perfect for lighter reading or fitting in when you have the time (trust me, I understand how busy this time of the year gets!). The writing style was also written in a somewhat simplistic manner in that perfect 'whodunit' style that easily lets the reader continue to be engaged.
Overall, I've given Murder in Little Shendon four stars and would certainly recommend this series to any murder mystery fans!
A Killing in The Bygone Era
BARTHOLOMEW FYNCHE LEANED OVER HIS DESK, adjusted his pince-nez and peered down at the document on his desk. He gave a series of grunts, which culminated in a long “Hmmm”.
He scratched a brief note on the pad in front of him. He always used a pen and ink because he did not approve of ballpoint pens and regarded them as signs of an uncivilized society.
Mr. Fynche turned his attention to the small jade horse in front of him, running his fingers over it gently, almost lovingly. He frowned, took a deep breath, and removed a key from around his neck. He unlocked a drawer to his desk, placed the small statue inside and carefully locked it again.
He glanced at the French Ormolu clock on the wall before consulting his watch, and pursed his lips together in annoyance. He didn’t like people who were not punctual. Time was money, and his time was particularly precious.
The retired Mr. B. Fynche had been involved in a number of most interesting exploits in his life, not the least of which involved his extraordinary knowledge of rare documents, famous objets d’art, and rare paintings. It was rumored that he had been involved with MI5 just after the war, but no one was quite certain about this. Nowadays he puttered fairly contentedly in his antique shop, which he had named The Bygone Era.
He did the occasional appraisal for some local villagers and was occasionally persuaded to go into London (a trip he detested) to authenticate something or other for the odd client he had. He was, as far as anyone knew, unmarried, quite without family, with the exception of a sister who was rumored to live in New Zealand and a brother who was deceased.
At first glance, Fynche’s little shop seemed to be an untidy mass of bric-a-brac, consisting of small statues, framed documents, interesting looking things in glass cases, paintings of all descriptions, prints, watches, chains and… much much more. Mr. Fynche however, knew exactly where everything was, referring to it on occasion as organized clutter.
Today was Thursday, better known as early closing day when most if not all the shops in the village closed about noon, and The Bygone Era was no exception. Fynche liked to lock the doors, put up the CLOSED sign and busy himself with his latest project, and he had many of those.
The little man glanced down once again at some notes he had made. For the first time in his life, he was not quite sure how to deal with this. Probably the best policy was to be frank and explain that this was not something with which he chose to be involved. He scratched the back of his head thoughtfully. Perhaps no mention of the police should be made at this juncture, for he felt instinctively that he would have to be careful here.
A knock on the door interrupted his reverie and Fynche’s eyes again darted up to the clock. He frowned, realizing that the knock was coming from the back door, which was rarely used. Thoroughly disgruntled, the old man unlatched the door.
“Come in,” he said curtly, “and see that you close the door behind you.” He paused, then growled in a surly manner, “You’re late; we need to talk.”
“I’m sorry. There was some work left to do,” answered the other. A breeze blew through the open window behind Fynche’s desk.
“Close the window, please. That wretched cleaning woman always leaves the window open, and it blows my papers all around.”
“Very well.” His visitor closed the window obediently.
“Come around to the front, where I can see you. Something quite interesting has come up and we need to talk. Clearly, decisions have to be made here. Did you hear me…?”
Fynche made a half-turn, threw up his hands defensively, and gave a smothered cry, but it was too late. The broad brass base of an Edwardian candle holder was wielded aloft and came crashing down with a sickening thud into Mr. Fynche’s skull. Blood flew everywhere, seeping into the dark wood of the desk and into some papers and puddling on to the floor.
Mr. Bartholomew Fynche, open-mouthed and eyes glazed, his hands futilely clutching at the air, slumped over the side of his chair and onto the floor… very very dead.
The visitor spent a moment or two looking around the cluttered shop, hunting for something, but then thought better of it. With a sudden gesture, the visitor pried a large gold ring from Mr. Fynche’s finger, hastily made the decision to leave and, used The Bygone Era’s back door as the avenue of escape. The door was closed quietly, and the visitor slipped out noiselessly into the anonymity of the bustling throng of last-minute shoppers in the High Street. It was a bright sunny day in late spring.
A.H. Richardson was born in London England and is the daughter of famous pianist and composer Clive Richardson. She studied drama and acting at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. She was an actress, a musician, a painter and sculptor, and now an Author.
In addition to the Hazlitt Brandon series, she is also the author of a series of children’s chapter books, the Jorie series, which includes Jorie and the Magic Stones, Jorie and the Gold Key, and Jorie and the River of Fire.
A.H. Richardson lives happily in East Tennessee, her adopted state, and has three sons, three grandchildren, and two pugs. She speaks four languages and loves to do voiceovers. She plans on writing many more books and hopes to delight her readers further with her British twist, which all her books have.
Readers can connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.
To learn more, go to https://ahrichardson.com/
What do you think of this new murder mystery? Let me know!
Labels: a.h. richardson, book review, bookreview, excerpt, murder in little shendon, murder mystery, mystery
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We connect thought leaders across generations, industries and professions.
We believe that the combination of different perspectives has the power to generate smart ideas and valuable solutions to the big questions of our time. The Future of Leadership Initiative (FLI) brings together business executives, global thought leaders and highly-talented students of all ages and professional backgrounds. Since 2013, FLI has developed into the largest and most diverse English-speaking think tank about leadership in Germany.
We leverage the collective potential of our community
to jointly tackle the Grand Challenges of Leadership.
Collaboration amongst diverse and exceptional people has the power to generate extraordinary outcomes. Together with our community and partners, we select the most pressing issues of leadership, distill the most relevant aspects and join forces in exciting co-creation processes. Our common goal is to convert the Grand Challenges of Leadership into valuable insights, inspiring visions, and future-proof strategies. In the past, we worked on big questions such as: How can we create meaning at work? How can leadership create an innovation ecosystem? What is the future vision of Generation Y?
We provide a unique environment to stay at the forefront of leadership.
Leadership is about winning active supporters for desirable goals. This requires a possibility for personal growth, the capability to shape communities as well as the development of societal foresight. Leadership is not only a tool but a life-long learning process. It is our goal to establish a high-quality network, in which mutual trust, learning and inspiration provide continuous benefits for leadership enthusiasts of all career stages.
THE FLI TEAM
Like the FLI network, the FLI team spans disciplines, nationalities and generations.
Laura Bechthold
Laura oversees the general operations of FLI. She is a social scientist with an interdisciplinary academic background reaching from business research to sustainability science. Before joining FLI, she pursued a Ph.D. in “fostering female entrepreneurship” at the Max-Planck-Institute for Innovation and Competition and was a member of the Management Team at the Center For Digital Technology and Management (CDTM). Further, she has worked as a trainer for the Social Entrepreneurship Akademie, in the field of sustainability consulting, and co-founded an agency for social business development during her studies.
Co-Founder FLI
Sebastian Morgner is managing director of the MLI Leadership Institute in Munich and an expert on the subject of leadership and strategy design. He is fascinated by how to bring objectives and strategies to life in ways that motivate people to act. After his university degree in Mannheim/Germany and Budapest, he started in management consulting. Later on, he established the online business of an investment company and was responsible for the business development and marketing policy of the German HypoVereinsbank.
Robert Wreschniok
Robert Wreschniok is CEO at TATIN Institute for Strategy Activation, where he supports leading international companies and ‘hidden champions’ amongst SMEs in executing strategy to reach goals significant faster. He also chairs the Cluster for Innovation and Digital Transformation (CIDT), has been a member of the Design Strategy Board (Basel) since 2014, and leads TATIN Design Enterprises in Germany. Robert is a frequent lecturer at conferences and author of numerous articles and books on strategy and transformation, including “Der ganz normale Change Wahnsinn”, “Reputation Capital: Building and Maintaining Trust in the 21st Century” and “Change 2.0: Beyond Organisational Transformation”.
Gabriela Ginard
Head of FLI Academy
Gabriela runs the FLI Academy, where she coordinates the logistics and conceptual design of the offered seminars. She is an industrial engineer with an international background. Open innovation and self-leadership were the focus of her degree theses at the Technical University of Munich. She is also a fellow of the Social Entrepreneurship Academy and has an Honours Degree in Technology Management from the Center for Digital Technology and Management (CDTM).
INTERN WANTED
We, the Munich Leadership Institute (MLI) – are looking for a full-time intern to start as soon as possible.
As our new team member, you will work in the area of leadership development and consulting with the MLI.
As we are a small and entrepreneurial team, you will have a lot of responsibility from day one.
We guarantee a steep learning curve and a working environment that values team spirit, intellectual curiosity, and proactiveness.
Univ.-Prof. Dr. Martin Högl
Institute for Leadership and Organization at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.
Prof. Barbara Kellerman
at Harvard Kennedy School
Janina Kugel
Chief Human Resource
Officer at Siemens AG
LIN kayser
Serial Entrepreneur, Founder of Hyperganic Technologies AG
Everything we do is based on the following basic principles:
We celebrate intellectual curiosity and welcome different perspectives.
We embrace diversity and inclusiveness.
We believe that continuous reflection and life-long learning are fundamental for human growth.
We believe each individual has the right to self-determination.
We acknowledge our responsibility towards society and the environment.
We act fair and respectful towards each other and our stakeholders.
We are committed to human rights, conduct lawful business and work against corruption.
FLI FOUNDERS
The MLI Leadership Institute, based in Munich and with offices in London, Basel and Innsbruck, is a consulting boutique for companies and non-profit organisations who – like us – are convinced that the value of a strategy is no longer measured only by its sales targets, but also by the number of followers. The more people you can win over to a strategy, the more valuable it becomes.
Founded in 1998 by the Ludwig Maximilian University and the Technical University Munich, CDTM is an institution for interdisciplinary education and research. The aim is to educate future leaders who are keen to assume responsibility as global citizens and embrace opportunities to solve the challenges of our time. CDTM is run by a management team consisting of ten doctoral candidates, and supported by 14 professors from LMU and TUM.
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Plastic Surgery March 30, 2019 at 5:03 pm By Huffman No comments
Charisma Lee Carpenter is best known for her role in the popular television series named Buffy the Vampire Slayer which was popular from 1997 to 1999. She acted as Cordelia Chase in this television series. This female actress was born on July 23, 1970. The female actress was also popular for her role in a number of movies. Some of the movies in which she had taken part were Spin-off Series Angle for which Charisma was nominated for four Saturn Awards, Charmed in which she starred as Kira the Seer, and The Lying Game in which she acted as Rebecca Swell. Charisma Carpenter was recognized as one of the most talented actresses of her generation. In fact, she deserves being recognized as one of the best actresses in the United States. Once it was speculated that the American beauty had undergone some plastic surgeries to escalate her look. Her rumors about plastic surgery have been known to be the extensive tabloid fodder, which saliently speculates how shocking the rumors were. The rumors of Charisma Carpenter plastic surgery was not without reason. There are some reasons why the knife work is speculated to have taken place. Of the most glaring reason is that plastic surgery has been known to get a youthful look as well as fascinating face structure. So, what was changed through the knife work?
The actress was certainly no virgin to the surgical procedure
Lots of people speculated that Charisma Carpenter had undergone a number of plastic surgeries in order to change her face and, assumedly, some other parts of her body. These issues have been burst by the existence of some photos on the internet which tried to spot the difference before and after the rumored plastic surgery. Yet, where all those knives works a mere rumor or a crystal clear fact? Let’s find out the truth. As you can see in the before and after photo of her plastic surgery, you can clearly see that, in accord to some resources, Charisma Carpenter had several cosmetic surgeries accomplished on her body. Some of the rumored plastic surgery were a nose job, breast augmentation, cheek or lip fillers, and botox injection. Fairly obvious and true, her bust line has increased saliently throughout the years, which denotes what evoked the rumors about her plastic surgery. It has been granted that she did get a little bit of weight since her Buffy and Angel days. However, many people assumed that the weight was the outcome of something which was unnatural. Regardless of the omnifarious rumors ever said, the actress claimed that all the looks she has today are the outcome of healthy lifestyles and strict diet.
How the knife work escalated her beauty
Just like what had been rumored about any other plastic surgery scandals, the emergence of Carpenter plastic surgery scandals was not without controversies. There were a number of reasons to how the knife work has changed her appearance. First off, let’s consider the breast augmentation. If you look at the before and after plastic surgery, you can see that her breast today has been much more lifted and voluminous than that in the former photo, which clearly affirms the breast augmentation rumor. Also, you can see that her nose is much more pointed and sharper than that posed in the former picture. These two differences have lent themselves to affirming the rumors about Charisma Carpenter plastic surgery. The last difference posed by the photo on the internet is the lip fillers which made her lips shaped in a way which is much more beautiful and nicer than before.
More under: actress • botox • breast augmentation • charisma carpenter • cheek • lip fillers • nose job
< Did Coco Austin really get obsessed with Cosmetic Surgery? Christa Miller Beauty Enhancement – Was it flawless beauty or flawless knife work? >
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Dr. Diane Harper Badly Misquoted on Gardasil and Cervarix
I’m not a regular reader of the Guardian’s “woo-medicine”-debunking columnist Ben Goldacre, and when I do read him I often disagree with him.
But he hit a home run with his latest Bad Science column.
He took apart a front page Sunday Express article that has already been widely disseminated around scare sites on the Internet. Of course, you can’t read it on the Sunday Express site anymore because it's been removed. Probably because Dr Diane Harper, who was quoted as saying that HPV vaccines are more dangerous than cervical cancer, is about to sue the pin-striped pants off the always-lurid Express. Or so I hope.
I’ve often felt sorry for Dr Harper. She seems like a forthright, intelligent scientist who removes herself from Merck’s marketing hysteria to make sensible cautionary comments about the Gardasil vaccine, which she has worked on and in general supports. But her comments are frequently taken out of context and paraded around the web as if she were an anti-vaccine crusader.
As someone who is wary of Gardasil to the point of thus far turning it down for my daughters, who have a family history of autoimmune disease; as someone who would like to see an awful lot of very serious questions about Gardasil taken very seriously and answered very seriously, it makes me LIVID. We need more people in the pharmaceutical industry to encourage scientists, physicians and the public to ask intelligent questions and not simply swallow the party line wholesale. So-called reporters like the notorious Express’s Lucy Johnston badly undermine the likelihood of that happening.
If I’ve understood Dr. Harper correctly—forgive me if I haven’t, Dr. Harper, and feel free to correct me—she thinks that HPV vaccines are in general a good thing but that Gardasil should have been introduced more slowly and cautiously; and that perhaps people with family histories of auto-immune disorders should be particularly cautious. She thinks—again, if I understand correctly—that Merck’s unprecedented intensive marketing campaign has oversold Gardasil; that the 3-shot series and its marketing might make women cavalier about still-essential annual exams; that we don’t know how long protection will last.
According to Goldacre, what she doesn’t think is what she was reported as saying in the Express’s article. That the cervical cancer vaccine 'may be riskier and more deadly than the cancer it is designed to prevent.' That the jab 'would do nothing to reduce the rates of cervical cancer in the UK.' Etc., etc., etc.
Goldacre simply contacted Harper directly when he read the article.
“I will explain Harper's position in her own words,” he writes. “They are unambiguous: ‘I did not say that Cervarix was as deadly as cervical cancer. I did not say that Cervarix could be riskier or more deadly than cervical cancer. I did not say that Cervarix was controversial, I stated that Cervarix is not a 'controversial drug'. I did not 'hit out' – I was contacted by the press for facts. And this was not an exclusive interview.”
Harper did not "develop Cervarix" but she did work on some important trials of Gardasil and also Cervarix. "Gardasil is not a 'sister vaccine' as the Express said, it is a different compound. I do not know of the side effects of Cervarix as it is not available in the US.’
“She did not say that Cervarix was being overmarketed. ‘I did say that Merck was egregiously overmarketing Gardasil in the US – but Gardasil and Cervarix are not the same vaccines’…She also suspects from modelling data that for the specific and restricted group of women who are punctilious about attending every single one of their cervical cancer screening appointments, vaccination may have little impact on their risk of death from cancer; but even they will benefit from the reduction in reproductive problems caused by treating pre-cancerous changes in cervical cells.
‘I fully support the HPV vaccines," she says. "I believe that in general they are safe in most women. I told the Express all of this.’”
That was a lot of Goldacre’s column to reproduce. But I think it bears repeating as long as the Sunday Express article inevitably circulates and spawns more mis-information.
Labels: bad science, Cervarix, Daily Express, Dr Diane Harper, Gardasil, Merck
Vaccination Awareness said...
Actually the CBS August 2009 article where Diane said similar things remains, also:
http://thebulletin.us/articles/2009/10/25/top_stories/doc4ae4b76d07e16766677720.txt
Dr. Diane Harper, lead researcher in the development of two human papilloma virus vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix, said the controversial drugs will do little to reduce cervical cancer rates and, even though they’re being recommended for girls as young as nine, there have been no efficacy trials in children under the age of 15.
Dr. Harper, director of the Gynecologic Cancer Prevention Research Group at the University of Missouri, made these remarks during an address at the 4th International Public Conference on Vaccination which took place in Reston, Virginia on Oct. 2-4. Although her talk was intended to promote the vaccine, participants said they came away convinced the vaccine should not be received.
http://www.vaccinationawarenesscampaign.co.uk/
bonnie555 said...
Dr. Harper has been victim of a relentless campaign attempting to discredit the validity of her claims. Harper was even misquoted by British tabloid The Sunday Express which printed a false story loaded with fabricated quotations attributed to Harper. In an interview with The Guardian, Harper makes it very clear about what exactly she said in order to protect herself from a potential lawsuit. In an interview with CBS NEWS, Harper clarifies her position, and once again makes it crystal clear just how devastating this vaccine can be: “If we vaccinate 11 year olds and the protection doesn’t last … we’ve put them at harm from side effects, small but real, for no benefit,” says Dr. Harper. “The benefit to public health is nothing, there is no reduction in cervical cancers, they are just postponed, unless the protection lasts for at least 15 years, and over 70% of all sexually active females of all ages are vaccinated.” She also says that enough serious side effects have been reported after Gardasil use that the vaccine could prove riskier than the cervical cancer it purports to prevent. Cervical cancer is usually entirely curable when detected early through normal Pap screenings.
“The risks of serious adverse events including death reported after Gardasil use in (the JAMA article by CDC’s Dr. Barbara Slade) were 3.4/100,000 doses distributed,” Harper tells CBS NEWS. ”The rate of serious adverse events on par with the death rate of cervical cancer. Gardasil has been associated with at least as many serious adverse events as there are deaths from cervical cancer developing each year. Indeed, the risks of vaccination are underreported in Slade’s article, as they are based on a denominator of doses distributed from Merck’s warehouse. Up to a third of those doses may be in refrigerators waiting to be dispensed as the autumn onslaught of vaccine messages is sent home to parents the first day of school. Should the denominator in Dr. Slade’s work be adjusted to account for this, and then divided by three for the number of women who would receive all three doses, the incidence rate of serious adverse events increases up to five fold. How does a parent value that information,” said Harper.
“Parents and women must know that deaths occurred,” Harper tells CBS NEWS. “Not all deaths that have been reported were represented in Dr. Slade’s work, one-third of the death reports were unavailable to the CDC, leaving the parents of the deceased teenagers in despair that the CDC is ignoring the very rare but real occurrences that need not have happened if parents were given information stating that there are real, but small risks of death surrounding the administration of Gardasil.” She also worries that Merck’s aggressive marketing of the vaccine may have given women a false sense of security. “The future expectations women hold because they have received free doses of Gardasil purchased by philanthropic foundations, by public health agencies or covered by insurance is the true threat to cervical cancer in the future. Should women stop Pap screening after vaccination, the cervical cancer rate will actually increase per year. Should women believe this is preventive for all cancers — something never stated, but often inferred by many in the population — a reduction in all health care will compound our current health crisis. Should Gardasil not be effective for more than 15 years, the most costly public health experiment in cancer control will have failed miserably.” Harper notes that her concern for the vaccine’s deadly side effects applies only to women in the Western world. ”Of course, in developing countries where there is no safety Pap screening for women repeatedly over their lifetimes, the risks of serious adverse events may be acceptable as the incidence rate of cervical cancer is five to 12 times higher than in the US, dwarfing the risk of death reported after Gardasil.”
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Michelle Taylor said...
I don't know how I succeeded to surviveincollege when I visited all those unprofessional doctors. They only claim that they know their field but in fact it's a total lie.
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The United Kingdom’s Royal College of Physicians adopts a ‘neutral’ stance on assisted dying
01 April 2019 End of life
After failing to obtain a 60% majority of doctors against assisted dying, the Royal College of Physicians has abandoned its opposition to this practice and adopted a neutral stance on the matter.
A survey of nearly 7,000 English doctors shows that 43.4% of them want the Royal College of Physicians to oppose any change in the law, while 31.6% want it to support assisted dying, compared to 24.6% in 2014.
The percentage of doctors willing to participate in assisted dying has risen from 21.4% in 2014 to 24.6% today.
Professor Andrew Goddard, president of the college, explained: "It is clear that there is a range of views on assisted dying in medicine, just as there is in society". The neutral stance adopted means that "the Royal College of Physicians neither supports nor opposes a change in the law and we won't be focusing on assisted dying in our work. Instead, we will continue championing high-quality palliative care services".
Four doctors said they would seek a judicial review of the results, but the Royal College of Physicians said that this possibility had been rejected by the High Court on Thursday.
Daily Mail, Alisha buaya (21/03/2019)
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Cosyfeet Backs Street Men’s Shed...
...with a £750 cash injection
Cosyfeet is backing Street Men’s Shed with a £750 cash injection to purchase a metal working lathe and as well as other tools and materials.
The funding has been made available from Cosyfeet’s £750 Community Project Award for Somerset, which is given annually to a local, non-profit initiative, geared towards enriching the lives of older people.
Street Men’s Shed provides a meeting place for men to meet, communicate and create using the tools and equipment provided. There are currently 54 members, most of whom are men aged over 65, although membership is open to all.
Members use the Men’s Shed facilities for a diverse range of projects including making furniture and fencing as well as restoring objects such as grandfather clocks, vintage radios and fishing rods. They also benefit from socialising with other members, bringing a shared sense of community and purpose.
Street Men’s Shed is facing uncertainty over whether it will remain at its current premises in The Tanyard due to an imminent change of leaseholder. Members are hoping to be given permission to stay once the lease changes hands at the end of November.
“Although we are not yet certain whether we will remain at The Tanyard, we have a great deal of local support and a strong future ahead of us,” says Club Secretary, Brian Bastable. “This award will enable us to invest in much-needed equipment for the benefit of our members.”
Cosyfeet makes extra roomy footwear for people with swollen feet and has an active policy of giving back to the communities it serves. Launched in 2014, the Cosyfeet Community Project Award for Somerset offers a one-off donation of £750 to a local registered charity or not-for-profit organisation working on a project that supports and enriches the lives of older people.
For more information on the Cosyfeet Community Project Award for Somerset visit www.cosyfeet.com/communityprojectaward
For more information on Street Men’s Shed see www.streetmensshed.btck.co.uk or visit unit 10, The Tanyard, Leigh Road on Tuesday mornings or Thursday afternoons.
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2Baba releases African Queen (HDV) - Special "Annie-versary" video to celebrate Annie Idibia who featured in the 2004 original
In commemoration of 2Baba and Annie Idibia's 4th wedding anniversary, the legendary musician and loving husband is releasing a special video to celebrate his wife, who featured in the original African Queen video in 2004. The video which was shot in South Africa, with exclusive clips from their Dubai wedding in 2013, is also one of the official motion Picture soundtrack for AY's new film, "10 Days In Sun City" which features RMD, Adesua Etomi, AY and cameos by 2Baba and Annie Idibia. See Video of 2Baba's AFRICAN QUEEN REMIX after the cut...
By Solomon Isa at March 23, 2017
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Why “Hack the Union?”
Editorial Guidelines/Submissions
American federalism and the case for reevaluating labor’s priorities.
On March 8th, Wisconsin became the 25th state to legalize the open shop. The provision commonly referred to as “right-to-work” by the corporations and right-wing politicians who back it has very little to do with economic freedom and liberty for workers, and everything to do with the destruction of a movement that has given the American economy a tiny measure of democracy. Ever since the 2010 elections that swept Republicans to power across the country, the push to make America an open shop nation has been stronger than at any time since the policy’s genesis in the Jim Crow South. Nineteen state legislatures have seen right-to-work proposals during the 2015 session, a clip similar to the period between 2011-2014, and there is no reason to believe that the pace will be slowing down anytime soon.
In Local Elections and the Politics of Small-Scale Democracy, J. Eric Oliver notes that the people who are most likely to vote in local elections are those who own homes. This makes sense in a way; the homeowner is more directly affected by changes in their land values than those who rent, and are thus more likely to be in tune with the ways in which local government engages in land management. Oliver notes that as land management is the most important function that most local governments provide (since many communities contract their emergency services and utilities to county or regional authorities), it will be the concerns of the homeowner that dominate election issues at the local level.
But another thing that drives the disparity between homeowner turnout and renter turnout in local elections is the gap in outreach to the two groups of people. According to data the author pulled from the National Elections Studies in 2008, homeowners were reported to be 60 percent more likely to have been contacted by a political campaign than renters. Combine that with educational disparities (renters are twice as likely to not have a high school degree), and homeowners are engaged with at a rate at least double that of renters. While Oliver makes the case that low turnout in local elections should not be automatically seen as a delegitimizing force in our democracy, the fact that there are some who are being engaged in the political process and others who are not is something that is deeply troubling. This goes double when you consider that renters are three-and-a-half times more likely to earn under $15,000 a year (the rough estimate of the federal poverty line for a family of two) than homeowners. These stats underline a long-standing contention by political scientists and leftist organizers alike that American democracy is regressing in its responsiveness to working-class concerns.
But the question becomes: how do we change this for the better?
A disengagement from federal politics….
The labor movement has given generously to federal politicians, particularly the Democratic Party. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, well over 90 percent of all donations go to Democratic candidates. In addition to the money spent directly on campaigning, labor unions have spent nearly $428.6 million on lobbying members of Congress on their top issues. What does labor have to show for it? Not the Employee Free Choice Act, despite having the largest Congressional majority in over four decades. Not a public option for Obamacare. Not any kind of deal that will prevent the so-called “Cadillac plan tax” under Obamacare from hitting the health benefits that labor has won through negotiation and struggle. And all the money spent on ensuring that a Democrat remained in the White House did not keep the President from appointing judges and cabinet members who have worked against the working class throughout their careers.
If we could not get decent labor policy during a Democratic bonanza at the federal level, what are we honestly to expect when the party of Scott Walker controls Congress? Maybe we get another Democratic president, but Hillary Clinton ain’t exactly Norma Rae. It is clear that both parties have failed unions and the working class at the national level and that a reassessment of priorities for movement resources is required.
….and a rededication of resources to the local level.
Recent years have brought with them some very encouraging news for the working class in local politics and policymaking. In 2010, local labor unions in New Haven, Connecticut backed city council candidates and defeated candidates backed by the long-serving Mayor (and failed 2006 Democratic gubernatorial candidate) John DeStefano. The year 2013 would be even better: in addition to the election of socialist Kshama Sawant to the Seattle City Council, a slate of independent labor candidates stormed the city council elections in Lorain County, Ohio; in that election, nearly two dozen candidates defeated people backed by the long-dominant Democratic machine in the union-dense county.
But winning the election was not enough; these candidates had to produce once they were in office. And produce they have:
While the Fight For 15 was a movement that predated Sawant’s ascension to the city council, her dogged determination on the issue pushed the council and mayor to an agreement that will bring in a $15 minimum wage for Seattle workers in the next few years
The New Haven councillors crafted an agreement that allowed a charter school into the city, but mandated them to allow the unionization of its employees and the acceptance of disadvantaged children who were not already in one of their schools elsewhere
And in Lorain County, the councillors have simply given an ear to the working class that had not been there before, when the former mayor took it upon himself to break a picket line and do sanitation work for a day. That work can be just as valuable as a concrete policy outcome. Increasing the political efficacy of the working class is what spurs the development of social movements and efforts at an independent political voice in a landscape where common concerns can fall on deaf ears. The capital class knows this all too well, and has seemingly cleared the floor for the advancement of anti-worker policies.
I thought I read that the New Haven effort began as some sort of worker center?
You read correctly.
That is the last plank of this community engagement plan. It has nothing to do with labor unions, of course, as worker centers are barred from engaging in activities that could be seen as preparing workers to join a union. Doing so would bring them under the administrative clutches of the Landrum-Griffin Act, which has odious reporting requirements that often hamstring union organizing budgets. But they should be more than just a means of entry into traditional labor unions, anyway: they should independently act as a means of mobilizing the working class around issues of democracy and economic justice, as well as educating communities about the ways in which capitalism continues to fail them on a regular basis.
Local and state governments are often referred to as the “Laboratory of American Democracy”, and it is not hard to see why: the pilot projects that begin in a neighborhood, city, or county can become national policy under the right circumstances. The dismantling of our national welfare system did not begin with President Clinton in 1996; it began over a decade earlier with Gov. Tommy Thompson’s (R-WI) efforts to change the federal matching system for funding to a block grant system that would severely curb the flexibility of state governments in managing their welfare systems. After a reduction in welfare rolls (but, notably, not a reduction in relative poverty), the program was greenlighted for other governors who wanted to do the same. Eventually, it became federal statute with the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, which is the welfare reform bill that President Clinton signed into law. So it was with this thing that its proponents called “right-to-work” in Florida during the early 1940s. After its passage in a statewide referendum, the policy spread like wildfire across the South and the Great Plains, eventually finding federal backing in the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, better known to opponents and allies as Taft-Hartley.
With an increased focus on communities and local politics, the labor movement can begin to turn the tide against the right-wing onslaught of the last couple of years. Otherwise we are just waiting for the next catastrophe to take hold.
Author Douglas WilliamsPosted on March 31, 2015 December 6, 2017 Categories Featured Stories, Movement Innovation, Policy
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“…human carers will become a premium, reserved for those who can pay for human empathy and touch.”
“…each year, hundreds of minor league baseball players spread across 256 teams earn far below minimum wage to chase their dreams.”
“It’s not an independent business. You can only use those Amazon trucks to do Amazon delivery.”
“Hope…is the best resilience to hate.”
When “automation” means someone in Central America earning $2/hour.
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Jason Lyle Black
Tour/
PC: JACQ JUSTICE
Jason Lyle Black, also known as "The Backwards Piano Man®", is an award-winning pianist, composer, and comedic entertainer, known for his performance on the Ellen Show in Hollywood and for his 30 million music video views worldwide.
Black is a full-time national touring entertainer who appears at performing arts centers all across the United States, as a guest with orchestras and choirs, and as a headline performer on luxury cruise ships around the world.
As a recording artist, Black has released five albums of solo piano music, including Piano Preludes, an album of original piano and string compositions from record label Stone Angel Music and producer Paul Cardall, which debuted at #1 on iTunes and #2 on the Billboard music charts. Critics called Piano Preludes "masterful... overflowing with grace, reverence, and heart."
As an arranger and YouTube star, Black has reached millions with his unique blend of music and comedy. His viral Disney videos have been featured by Huffington Post, Good Morning America, Buzzfeed, and other national news outlets. Black’s Disney arrangements are now bestsellers with Hal Leonard, the world’s largest sheet music publisher. His most recent Hal Leonard folio, Disney Medleys for Piano Solo, was released in 2018, along with an accompanying Disney album, Friend Like Me.
As a performing artist, Black has delighted audiences across the country. He was honored as a 2018 Juried Showcase Artist with Performing Arts Exchange in Orlando, Florida, and as a 2018 National Showcase Artist with Live on Stage in Nashville, Tennessee. Black’s next national tour will visit dozens of theaters across 15 U.S. states, beginning in September 2019.
Along with his career as a national touring artist, Black has performed for corporate functions and luxury cruise lines all over the world. He is a frequent guest on television and radio programs, and has also shared his keynote message Upside Down: It's a Matter of Perspective on how small shifts in strategy create huge impacts for individuals and organizations.
For booking information, please click here.
Get updates on tour dates and new music from Jason!
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Copyright 2019 Jason Lyle Black. "The Backwards Piano Man®" is a registered trademark of Jason Lyle Black.
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American Airlines is a Value Trap That You Should Avoid Is a Turnaround in the Cards for Advanced Micro Devices?
Articles > Market Commentary > Lockheed Martin (LMT) Awarded $1B Contract by the Pentagon
Lockheed Martin (LMT) Awarded $1B Contract by the Pentagon
Shares of the Lockheed Martin Corporation (LMT) were up +2.18 or +0.99 percent to $221.98 per share in Thursday’s premarket after news that the company had been awarded a contract worth over $1 billion by the Pentagon. Lockheed Martin stock closed at $219.80 per share, down -0.67 or -0.30 percent in Wednesday’s regular trading session.
Bethesda, Maryland based Lockheed Martin Corporation is the result of the $10 billion 1995 merger of Martin Marietta and the Lockheed Corporation, and is a major global aerospace and defense contractor.
The company is among the world’s top defense contractors, with some of its better known products such as the X-35 and F-35 fighter jets, the F-22 Raptor fighter jet, the Trident Missile and the C-130 Super Hercules transport plane. The company also produces Titan rockets, the Viking 1 and 2 Mars lander, as well as other aerospace components. The company employs over 116,000 people worldwide.
The U.S. Air Force ordered 32 C-130J Super Hercules military aircraft, with the work expected to be completed by 2020. The company announced earlier this year that it had arrived at a tentative verbal agreement with the U.S. Air Force on a five year contract to supply as many as 83 C-130J Super Hercules transport planes to the Marine Corps and the Coast Guard as well as the Air Force.
The C-130J Super Hercules was introduced in 1999 and is a four engine turboprop transport aircraft specifically designed for military purposes and able to land in austere areas on makeshift runways. The plane is an update of the Lockheed C-130 Hercules, which has been in service for 50 years providing support for military, humanitarian aid and civilian operations such as fighting forest fires.
The plane’s primary users are the U.S. Air Force and Marine Corps, the UK Royal Air Force and the Italian Air Force. The plane is also used by the Indian Air Force, the Royal Australian Air Force, Canadian Royal Air Force and the Israeli Air Force among others.
The Pentagon’s daily digest of contract awards, released yesterday after the market close noted that, “Lockheed Martin Corp., Marietta, Georgia, has been awarded a $1,060,940,036… contract for C-130J multi-year production aircraft. Work will be performed at Marietta, Georgia, and is expected to be complete by April 30, 2020”.
In addition to the Pentagon contract, Lockheed Martin yesterday announced it had landed a contract with the UK Royal Air Force. The contract is for support of their fleet of transport aircraft made up of C-130Js worth $547.5 million. The contract was awarded to the Hercules Integrated Operational Support Team or HIOS, consisting of Lockheed Martin and two UK firms, Rolls Royce and the Marshall Aerospace and Defense Group. The UK contract follows a November 11th approval by the U.S. government for Lockheed Martin to sell C-130J military transport planes and equipment to France in a $650 million deal.
Lockheed Martin stock is trading just five points from its yearly high with this morning’s premarket activity. The stock continues to outperform the market and probably will test its yearly high in the near future.
Other News About LMT
Lockheed Martin Wins Modification Contract Worth $528.5M
The modification contract was awarded by the Missile Defense Agency in Alabama.
Lockheed-Boeing venture orders 20 more Russian rocket engines
The joint venture between the two companies had already ordered 29 Russian rocket engines.
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Microsoft announced yesterday it would warn users of its consumer services when it suspects the government of hacking their accounts.
Nokia, Left for Dead, Now Profitable, Undervalued
Barrons article suggests Nokia stock could be 30 percent undervalued.
By Jay Hawk
Jay Hawk enjoyed a 12-year professional financial markets career incorporating extensive first hand futures and options experience obtained by trading in the stock, commodity and forex markets on U.S. exchanges. Since retiring as a full-time financial market professional, he has been actively trading stock, commodities, forex and options for his own account and managing funds for others, as well as writing financial market commentary and educational articles.
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How to Choose and Use Financial Software
Lockheed Martin (LMT) Awarded $1B Contract by the Pentagon. InvestorGuide.com. Retrieved July 16, 2019, from InvestorGuide.com website: http://www.investorguide.com/article/17972/lockheed-martin-lmt-awarded-1b-contract-by-the-pentagon-sod/
Lockheed Martin (LMT) Awarded $1B Contract by the Pentagon. InvestorGuide.com. WebFinance, Inc. http://www.investorguide.com/article/17972/lockheed-martin-lmt-awarded-1b-contract-by-the-pentagon-sod/ (access:July 16, 2019).
Lockheed Martin (LMT) Awarded $1B Contract by the Pentagon. InvestorGuide.com. WebFinance, Inc. July 16, 2019
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Clubcall - for all the latest news from clubs across Ulster
There was great excitement at Darragh Cross on Sunday evening as footballer of the year and four-time All-Ireland winner Brian Fenton attended the club’s juvenile presentation. After a question and answer session with the packed house, the Dublin midfielder presented the medals for the underage football and camogie teams. There was then the chance for some photos with Brian and the Sam Maguire Cup. Thanks to everyone who supported the evening, as well as all those who helped in any way in the organising and smooth running of the event
Neil Loughran
Joe Brolly paid a visit to Round Towers, Ballymacnab on Tuesday night to give a talk on organ donation, and was presented with a donation to the Opt for Life foundation
ERIN'S OWN, CARGIN: The camogie club is hosting its first ever St Stephen's Day 5k Turkey Chase on Wednesday, December 26. Registration is at 9.45am and the race will start at 10.30am sharp. There are free customised bandanas for the first 100 people registered, the race will be chip timed and the entry fee is £10 for runners, donation for walkers. Refreshments are available for everyone in the clubrooms after. There is also a £100 cash prize for the first person to catch the ‘turkey'.
Cargin camogie club is also hosting a 45 card drive on Sunday, December 23 starting at 8pm in Mallon's Bar.
ST PATRICK'S, CARRICKCRUPPEN: The club is to host a 12 hour spinathon, from 8am-8pm, on Saturday, December 29. Paul Kearns is raising funds in aid of ‘Friends of the Cancer Centre', and admission is £10. For further details contact Jane McGinn on 07895 986634
NEWRY SHAMROCKS: All members are invited to the annual Christmas draw in the social Club this Saturday, starting at 8.30pm. Plenty of prizes to be won on the night, and don't be afraid to wear your Christmas jumpers.
The annual joint football and hurling match in aid of the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust will take place on December 27 at the pitch, starting at 2.30pm. This will be followed by entertainment in the clubrooms from a Parcel of Rogues playing from 4pm. All members are asked to support this worthy cause, and do not be afraid to bring your boots for a game.
O'DONOVAN ROSSA, BELFAST: The club is calling on all Gaels to support their annual St Stephen's Day charity walk on Divis Mountain. Now in its 11th year, the annual fundraiser has raised in excess of £25,000 for a variety of charities and causes that have affected our members.
This year is no different as we hope to mark another anniversary and raise funds for Dementia NI. On the day, we'll be asking for a small donation so Dementia NI can continue to fund the great work they do for all sufferers.
The event to date has been a great success with the support of many Gaels from Belfast and further afield. Why not make it a family occasion and bring the kids along? There will be hot drinks and refreshments available on the day.
The route is approximately 5k, but some have been known to round that down significantly! Either way, your presence and support will be greatly appreciated.
On the day, we will meet at the car park for 10.45am and head off at11am sharp. Come join us for what you will undoubtedly agree is a worthy cause.
ST BRONAGH'S, ROSTREVOR: To mark the beginning of the club's centenary year, we are launching a centenary calendar which includes photos new and old from all aspects of club life. The calendar also holds information on the monthly events we plan to run throughout 2019. All events are subject to date confirmation. A limited number (200) of calendars are available for pre-Christmas purchase, costing £10. If you wish to reserve a calendar pre Christmas, contact Tomas on 07902 558818 via text only with your name and order. They will be available for collection at the social club this weekend. Any unreserved calendars remaining will also be on sale during this time. There will be another batch available at the beginning of January but if you wish to secure an order for Christmas please get in touch via the contact details above. Please note that calendars are not available to reserve via the club's Facebook page.
ST JOSEPH'S, EDERNEY: The annual seven-a-side football takes place on December 27 with a 5pm start (4.30pm meet at training field). There must be at least one lady per team, and all players must be over 16 years old. It will be townland-area based. Contact Paul McCusker or Donal Gormley for information.
There will be food provided immediately after in the Corner Bar prior to a ‘Night at the Races' and club awards night. Sponsor cards available from Justin Maguire.
ST JOHN'S, DRUMNAQUOILE: There will be a charity football match at the pitch on Saturday, January 5. All adult players, men/ladies and non-playing members welcome. Anyone training with senior men or ladies' teams should wear welly boots or be in fancy dress. All players to be at the club for 1pm on the day for a 2pm start. Recommended donation of £10 per player, with all monies going to Cancer fund for Children. Anyone intending to play should let Alan Henderson 07738 166588 know so teams can be sorted beforehand. Refreshments after the match.
CUMANN PHEADAIR NAOFA, WARRENPOINT: The club welcomes back Operation Transformation in January. This will be a seven week, team-based activity program that will follow the RTE TV and radio show, with the aim to move more and eat better. Whether you would like to lose some weight, become a little fitter, walk four miles in under an hour, run your first 5k or get out of the house to attend weekly fitness classes and brisk walks, then we will have something for you. Registration at Operation Transformation desk on Sunday, January 6 from 3pm-5pm in clubrooms (as part of club registration day).
ST PATRICK'S, LOUP: The critically-acclaimed comedy show from this year's Feile an Phobail – ‘A ¬ Christmas Station Once Again' – is back for Christmas. The show will be running on Friday, December 28 and Saturday, December 29 in Ballyronan Marina Centre. A disco will be held after. Please get your tickets as soon as possible as they are selling out fast. Contact any committee member for tickets.
Clubcall
Ulster GAA
20 December, 2018 01:00 GAA Football
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The drug crisis continues
Record overdoses, out-of-state dealers, emergency bills
By Ryan Lessard news@hippopress.com
When drug-related overdose deaths jumped more than 40 percent in 2014 over the year prior (with a total of 326), it was a wake-up moment for the state. The heroin epidemic was here, it was real and it wasn’t going to be ignored any longer. While politicians, law enforcement and public health officials all seem to be working toward solving this problem, early indications are that the storm is going to get worse before it gets better.
Grim statistics
Opioids of all kinds are addictive and dangerous, and state officials, law enforcement and others say the legal and legitimately prescribed painkillers like oxycodone are often where this problem starts. Once someone gets hooked on the pills, they move on to heroin. But it’s here that the line begins to blur. When people say “heroin,” it’s become a shorthand, because there’s another, far more deadly drug that’s been introduced into the mix: fentanyl.
Tim Pifer, the head of the State Police Forensic Lab, says the advent of fentanyl is the most significant development in the overall drug crisis.
“The data supports that more people are dying of fentanyl than the heroin-fentanyl mix,” Pifer said.
Indeed, the introduction of fentanyl, a synthetic and more potent opioid, in the Granite State corresponds with and has been shown to be largely the cause of the rise in deaths. According to the state medical examiner’s office, there had been 342 confirmed drug deaths in 2015 as of Dec. 15. More than 70 cases are still pending. Of the 342, 292 were opioid-related (85 percent), 210 involved fentanyl and 151 involved fentanyl alone. While heroin is certainly dangerous, it pales in comparison. Only 24 of the deaths involved heroin alone.
The State Police Forensic Lab has seen a rise in the fentanyl it’s detected in drug samples sent to it by police forces. In 2013, fentanyl first appeared as only 0.2 percent of all the drugs the lab tested (even then, the ME’s office listed fentanyl among the top three agents of drug deaths). In 2014, it had risen to 2 percent. By August 2015, it was up to 10 percent, tied with cocaine. But that, says Pifer, belies the fact that the heroin portion in those statistics includes the heroin and fentanyl mixtures lab workers increasingly encounter. And, in reality, the mixture is showing increasing amounts of fentanyl.
“We’re getting to the point where it’s almost one-to-one coming in,” Pifer said.
Deaths are already past 2014 levels and are expected to reach more than 400 once all the toxicology testing is done. But deaths are only a sliver of the overall pie.
In just Manchester alone, the fire department reports 2015 saw 704 overdoses, of which 85 were fatal. The Queen City had 50 overdose deaths last year. The anti-overdose drug Narcan was administered 561 times.
The peak occurred in September, when first responders went to 102 overdose calls, according to Chris Hickey, the fire department’s EMS officer.
A finger of heroin, which is 10 grams, now costs $350 in Manchester. In Lawrence, Massachusetts, it sells for as little as $180. Just two years ago the price was more than twice as high. A finger in Manchester used to cost about $1,000, and in Lawrence it cost $400. This has made it easier for users to get their hands on it, but it also makes the entry cost for new dealers more manageable for lower-income individuals who see this as a way to make money.
Crack rebounding
As the Hippo reported in its Nov. 5 cover story, crack cocaine has been on the rise in the Queen City, driven partly by Bronx-based gang members setting up shop here. Crack was a big deal in the ’90s but took a back seat to the heroin crisis. Manchester Police reported having seized about 324 grams of crack through October this year. Most years are under 100 grams and the last time it was this high was 2008.
A number of bills are being drafted for the 2016 legislative session through a special session that brought together a bipartisan task force of lawmakers from the House and Senate. Gov. Maggie Hassan called originally for a full legislative session, but Republicans countered with the task force committee, which, instead of passing legislation, will write and submit bills for early passage. Many of the items on Hassan’s agenda for crisis legislation were fast-tracked, but Director Tim Soucy at the Manchester Health Department notes those are not the most important bills. The fast-track bills include things like mandatory annual K-12 drug education and making the penalty for selling fentanyl on par with that for selling heroin. Big-ticket items (which require state funding) such as creating a state drug court office and setting aside funding for current and new county drug courts will require more debate to get to a vote. Still, Soucy is optimistic.
“I think the fact that they’re together talking about it is very good,” Soucy said.
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Killara BYOD Learning Hub
Killara Tech blog
Lion Library
BYOD policy & setup
Student & Parent training
Teacher Techno lounge
BYOD equity laptop form and procedure
BYOD readiness checklist
BYOD contact us
BYOD FAQ
Easy to read BYOD policy
Did you know…
Killara High School was established in 1968 and occupied the Koola Avenue site in 1970.
The school acknowledges and celebrates it's heritage in Public Education through it's links with the former North Sydney Technical High School (and their predecessor schools) from which came Killara High School’s founding Principal, Mr T.E. Hornibrook and the first collection of the Lion Library.
[Excerpt from Killara High School Information Booklet 2003]
Our school motto is: “CONSERVA : PROGREDERE” which is derived from:
‘Preserve that we may develop
Continue that we may advance
Maintain that we may progress.’
Our school badge consists of a castle indicating a ‘storehouse of knowledge’ and the name,
‘Killara’, which means ‘permanent place.’
A message from Killara High School's first Principal:
“Our School has opened with an enrolment of 480 pupils in three forms and fourteen classes.
The appreciation shown by the children of the modern buildings and pleasant grounds is a firm foundation on which they will now create a prestige school based on their enthusiasm, their academic ability and the commendable send of community responsibility.
The School Council recently elected by the pupils is now discussing, among other matters of school government, the selection of a badge and motto…..
I am confident that this – the first message I am privileged to write for the school journal – will be the precursor of many, each expressing more pleasure in the achievements and progress of our Killara High School.”
T.E. HORNIBROOK.
[Source: The Killara High School News, April 1970. Published by the Killara High Parents & Citizens’ Association.]
A brief chronological history of Killara High School (KHS) : 1968-1974:
Construction of KHS began in 1968. A decision to build the school was made in the late 1950s.
KHS began with an intake of three classes of first formers [Year 7]. First formers boarded at a local high school – Turramurra HS - for two years, while the KHS was being built in Koola Avenue.
Another four classes were enrolled.
It was decided that the entire collection of the library at North Sydney Technical High School, which had a lion as a main motif, and which closed in 1969, was to be donated to the new KHS. There were approximately 11,000 books. The original site of the KHS library was the present Staff Common Room (in A Block), and memorial gates and a bronze plaque was erected to acknowledge the gift and its origins. A Presentation Ceremony was conducted on the 7th November, 1970.
The first Principal of KHS was Mr T. Hornibrook.
KHS opened with an enrolment of 480 students in three forms and fourteen classes.
Blocks A, B and C were occupied.
Quite a few of the first teachers came from North Sydney Technical High School which was closed because of a drop in population in the North Sydney area.
KHS presented its first candidates for the School Certificate.
The second Principal of KHS was Mrs B. Bowen.
Block D was added.
KHS presented its first candidates for the High School Certificate.
Block E was added.
Killara High School students 'boarded' at Turramurra High School during 1968 and 1970:
Killara High School students boarded at Turramurra High School in 1968 and 1969 while our school was being built.
Below is an extract from Turramurra High School’s First Annual Speech Night program in 1968, which shows that academic awards for Killara High School students were presented separately from those students from Turramurra High School.
The beginnings of Killara High School ~ a brief history:
The construction of Killara High started in 1968, and the decision to build the school was taken because at the time the population growth in the area was increasingly rapidly.
On the western side of the area there was to be Gordon West High; to the south was Chatswood High, and to the north, St. Ives and Turramurra High schools. These schools could contain the population growth.
The original site for the proposed school was at East Lindfield (and the end of Wellington Road), but the land was too steep for the construction envisaged.
A decision to build the school was made in the late 1950’s.
During the years 1968 and 1969 the first Killara students were boarded at Turramurra High School, and in 1970 Killara High School was opened to students (Blocks A, B and C).
The first principal was Mr T.E. Hornibrook, who had been principal of North Sydney Technical High School (NSTHS).
NSTHS was closed because of a drop in population in the North Sydney area.
Quite a few of the teachers at the new Killara High School also came from that school.
Blocks D and E were added in 1972 and 1974 respectively.
The land on which Killara High is built is approximately 3.7882 hectares, or between 8 ½ and 9 acres.
It is hoped that another block may be built in the near future, as the school is in desperate need of an Assembly Hall and larger library.
Plans for an Assembly Hall were made in the early 70’s; it was to have been put where the car park is not, but a shortage of funds postponed its erection to a future date.
The original site was to above the Ecology Area, below the main assembly area.”
[Source: The Green Years [Killara High School's Yearbook], 1978
The Killara High School song:
“In our hearts we’ll always cherish
The school of our young days
Looking proudly o’er the valley
With its slopes of greens and greys
We will ne’er forget our motto
Conserva progredere
Preserve that we may progress
In our work, and hopes and play.
Killara! Killara! School we proudly claim,
We will always remember to bring honour to your name.
The time will come to leave
The shelter of your walls,
But the lessons you have taught us,
Will be there what e’er befalls.
So let’s sing about Killara
And days of green and gold,
And friends and joys of school days
In our mem’ries
Ever hold.
Killara Killara School we proudly claim,
[Music by L.I. Strait; Words by Mrs B. Davy]
Killara ~ a short history
'...a garden suburb."
"Killara, and Aboriginal word meaning ‘permanent’, or ‘always there’, was the name given by James George Edwards to the suburb that developed around the railway station opened in 1899, between Lindfield and Gordon.
It is therefore entirely a creation of the 20th century.
Above: James George Edwards
Fourteen kilometres from Sydney, 365 feet (110 metres) above sea level and with a name that symbolises a feeling of permanence, Killara is often described as ‘a lush haven’, a quiet retreat', and area of ‘solid respectability’.
It stretches between the Lane Cove River and Middle Harbour Creek; its northern boundary used to run from Essex Street across the highway and along Greengate Road (though this has since been extended north by several streets on the eastern side of the artery), and its southern boundaries are Fiddens Wharf Road and Treatts Road.
We have to thank Edwards for Killara. For it was he who had he tenacity, the courage and the financial means to create a garden suburb, with large allotments, little commercial development and no industrial sites at all.
He is justifiably called the Father of Killara. Despite inevitable changes in the 20th Century, Killara retains its air of respectability and homeliness.
Source: Focus on Ku-ring-gai: the story of Ku-ring-gai’s growth and development.
Ku-ring-gai Historical Society, Inc. 1996
The inscription reads:
JAMES GEORGE EDWARDS
The Father of Killara
Educator, historian, alderman and man of vision.
He was influential in establishing the north shore railway line, the first post office, churches, the golf, tennis and bowling clubs and Killara Park.
The Ku-ring-gai Historical Society and grateful residents have
placed this plaque to record recognition of his achievements
2002 AD
Compiled by Francie Campbell,
Killara High School
© COPYRIGHT Killara High School 2019.
All images are from www.pixabay.com (CC0 Public Domain licence)
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City of Knoxville » Archived News Stories » 2013 » Mayor Joins First Lady Michelle Obama to Celebrate Knoxville's Achievements in Let's Move Program
Mayor Joins First Lady Michelle Obama to Celebrate Knoxville's Achievements in Let's Move Program
Eric Vreeland
evreeland@knoxvilletn.gov
400 Main St., Room 654A
First Lady Michelle Obama hosted Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero and other elected officials today at the White House, celebrating the outstanding efforts of communities that have completed health and wellness goals during the past year for Let's Move! Cities, Towns and Counties (LMCTC).
LMCTC calls upon local elected officials to adopt sustainable and holistic strategies that improve access to healthy, affordable food and opportunities for physical activity.
Mayor Rogero was one of four elected officials chosen to participate in a panel at the White House event to share lessons learned and how to sustain the work of local Let's Move! programs.
"We are all responsible for creating healthier options for our children," Mayor Rogero said. "The opportunity to meet and talk about Let's Move! with First Lady Michelle Obama and local elected leaders has certainly inspired me to continue promoting healthy lifestyles for our youth so that they can reach their full potential."
In her remarks, Mrs. Obama said: "We're proud to announce that in just the past year, more than 330 elected officials have committed to making their city or town a Let's Move! community and fulfilling the five (LMCTC) community-wide goals. That means that more than 56 million Americans are now living in a community dedicated to improving nutrition and physical activity for our young people. And that's a good thing."
Since joining LMCTC, Knoxville/Knox County's Let's Move! efforts have included:
Obtaining a state Project Diabetes grant to incorporate healthy foods into concession stands in cooperation with the Knoxville-Knox County Food Policy Council. Conserving a 1,000-acre Urban Wilderness corridor less than two miles from downtown, which provides hiking and biking trails. Earning a Ronald McDonald grant to purchase bicycles for a "Kids Can Bike" program. Participating in the Chefs Move to School program through Knox County Schools Knox County Schools achieving the prestigious Healthier U.S. Schools Challenge Award for offering healthier school environments for students Knoxville and Knox County ranking #1 in the nation among LMCTC goals Safe Routes to Schools Committee forming a "Walking School Bus" Sarah Moore Greene Elementary students being selected for the seed planting and the Summer Harvest event at the White House garden with First Lady Michelle Obama.
There have been many stakeholders that have had a role in the progress of Knoxville/Knox County's Let's Move! programs. Some of the core partners include: Knox County Schools; Knox County Health Department; The University of Tennessee's Department of Nutrition and Extension; and the Knox Area Coalition on Childhood Obesity.
"The League of Cities appreciates the support and energy of the First Lady for her tireless efforts to reduce the obesity epidemic facing our communities," said National League of Cities' Executive Director, Clarence Anthony. "We congratulate all the local elected officials who participated in the event and are playing an instrumental role in providing our nation's children with a healthier future. When children grow up in cities, towns and counties that promote healthy development, they become productive and healthy adults, contributing to the prosperity of our communities."
LMCTC is a major component of First Lady Michelle Obama's comprehensive Let's Move! initiative, which is dedicated to solving the childhood obesity epidemic within a generation. A total of 330 cities, towns and counties from 46 states and the District of Columbia, which collectively represent more than 56 million Americans, have committed to the initiative's five goals. NLC has awarded more than 1,000 bronze, silver and gold "medals" to recognize local elected officials who have made progress in achieving these goals.
As part of LMCTC, local elected officials are working toward the following goals:
Goal I: Start Early, Start Smart: Promoting best practices for nutrition, physical activity, and screen time in early care and education settings Goal II: My Plate, Your Place: Prominently displaying MyPlate in all municipal or county venues where food is served Goal III: Smart Servings for Students: Increasing participation in school breakfast and lunch programs Goal IV: Model Food Service: Implementing healthy and sustainable food service guidelines that are aligned with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans Goal V: Active Kids at Play: Increasing opportunities for physical activity
NLC is working in partnership with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and with the support of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Association of Counties and other nonprofit organizations, to assist local elected officials who join LMCTC as they implement policy and environmental changes to prevent childhood obesity. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has awarded NLC a grant to provide technical assistance to local elected officials working to create healthier communities and prevent childhood obesity, including sites participating in LMCTC.
For more information about LMCTC and Knoxville/Knox County's accomplishments, visit www.HealthyCommunitiesHealthyFuture.org.
The National League of Cities is dedicated to helping city leaders build better communities. NLC is a resource and advocate for 19,000 cities, towns and villages, representing more than 218 million Americans. To learn more, visit www.nlc.org or twitter.com/leagueofcities.
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Advocate: Civil rights attorney follows her destiny
By Sheila Pursglove
With two grandparents as lawyers, and a mother who was an administrative law judge, it was perhaps inevitable Robin Wagner would become a third-generation lawyer—but not until after a career as an associate dean, dean and vice president at several universities. “I had been avoiding my destiny for decades already—it was about time to give in,” says Wagner, now an attorney with Pitt McGehee Palmer & Rivers PC in Royal Oak.
“I discovered that as I climbed the ladder in higher education, I enjoyed my job less and less,” she adds. “And I was becoming more and more thrilled by the pace of advancement of LGBTQ rights in our society—mostly through the courts. I was supporting that work by attending fundraisers, but I was starting to wish I could be more directly involved.”
The Baltimore native graduated summa cum laude from DePaul University College of Law in 2014 with a certificate in public interest law. Serving on the DePaul Law Review staff, she authored “Are Gay Rights Clearly Established? The Problem with the Qualified Immunity Doctrine,” that was published in the law review.
A member of the Order of the Coif a national honor society, she received a scholarship from the Lesbian and Gay Bar Association of Chicago to serve an internship at Lambda Legal, and a scholarship from the Public Interest Law Initiative of Chicago to intern at the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois.
“The internships were both just so thrilling for me,” Wagner says. “I was at Lambda Legal during the summer of 2012, when we had a pending marriage equality case in the Illinois state court and parallel efforts for a legislative change. Ultimately, Illinois changed the laws to allow for marriage equality, but the lawsuit helped motivate the legislature to act. It was so exciting to be a part of that – preparing memos on legal issues related to the case.
“I also got to work on a number of other LGBTQ and HIV-rights issues, and I feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity to help the Lambda Legal attorneys and their brave clients push for stronger rights.”
At the ACLU of Illinois the following year, Wagner worked on a wider range of issues, including working in support of a case brought by the ACLU in Michigan challenging the Secretary of State’s unfair procedures for a transgender person to change his or her gender marker on a driver’s license.
In 2014, Wagner started a year clerking for Hon. Michael H. Dolinger in the Southern District of New York. “I learned how the litigation sausage is made, so to speak,” she says.
“Judge Dolinger was on the bench for over 30 years and was known at SDNY as a settlement whisperer—and he had his clerks sit in on all the settlement conferences. I learned so much from observing how the judge worked with the parties back and forth to get to a settlement or a closer understanding of what the ultimate issues of the case were.”
The following year, she began another year’s clerkship, for the Hon. Judith E. Levy in the Eastern District of Michigan.
“It’s a nerd’s dream come true to spend so much time focused on writing, which is the lion’s share of a clerk’s job,” Wagner says. “But more than that, I felt deeply that before I set out to try and vindicate clients’ rights through the legal system, I wanted to gain an insider’s perspective on how judges evaluate cases and come to their conclusions.
“Among the many reasons I loved clerking for Judge Levy was to work so closely for someone who was at all times applying her wisdom, intelligence and heart to the very hard question of what justice demanded at the given moment for the specific case before her,” she adds. “Her example will always serve as my inspiration and motivation to try and do the same with every client I have the privilege of working for—to try my best to always apply that same whole-mind and whole-heart effort to my legal work. And it was also wonderful for me as a newcomer to Michigan to meet so many members of the bar that year.”
Wagner then spent six months as a staff attorney at Lakeshore Legal Aid in their Detroit Cass Corridor office. “It's a brave organization full of dedicated people who are taking on very demanding work,” she says.
“What I value most about my short time there was the privilege of getting to meet the clients I had and learn from them what real courage is. I thought I had some knowledge of what poverty is and how it affects people’s lives, but I had no understanding at all of poverty in this country until I worked directly with people who truly live at or below the poverty level.
“The clients I met are truly courageous – they live in horrid conditions often, without water or safety, that I could not fathom, and yet they have to carry on every day with all the regular tasks of life– getting the kids to school, dealing with a job that pays poorly, getting food on the table, and all while navigating without even the slightest safety net if something goes awry.”
Wagner has found her prior background in academe an asset to her legal work, such as when, on a case in her days in Chicago that challenged policies of the Chicago Housing Authority, she rooted through annual reports and found a crucial piece of evidence buried in one of them. “One thing academics do well is research and dig deep into the weeds, so that’s a trait I hang on to and have found is really valued in litigation,” she says.
Wagner, who is helping a transgender client change his name through the ACLU’s partnership with the Transgender Legal Defense Fund, enjoys participating in WLAM events near Ann Arbor and LGBTQ bar section events.
“Members of the bar I have met here in Michigan are so welcoming and generous to a newcomer like me,” she says. “It’s hard to learn one’s way around a new community, but folks with the WLAM and LELS and the social justice organizations of the state have been friendly and helpful at every turn.”
Wagner started her career in quite a different field—earning her undergraduate degree in East Asian Studies from Princeton University, and a Ph.D. in East Asian Languages and Civilizations from Harvard University.
Fluent in Mandarin, she hopes to develop a client base of Mandarin speakers as her career proceeds. “When I was at the Southern District of New York, there were so many cases being brought under various federal and state labor laws on behalf of workers who get taken advantage of severely because of their lack of competence in English,” she says. “These cases are not as easy to bring in Michigan, where the state lacks the robust labor protection laws that other states like New York have. And of course, there is a much smaller Chinese immigrant population here than in New York or Chicago, where I translated for the Chinatown legal aid clinic. But I hope to meet people and work with folks in the Chinese immigrant community here and see if there are ways to serve their needs.”
During her time working for universities, she designed and ran study abroad programs and spent time overseas in Australia, and China. Her passion for travel continues, and she and her wife Sharon — a professor and chair of architecture programs at the University of Michigan — have recently visited Germany and the Czech Republic, China, and Greece. “It’s great for me to learn new things, and I focus on the food part of the journeys,” Wagner says. “Our next big trip will be in the U.S. — we want to hike and explore one or two of the great national parks out west.”
Despite backgrounds as “big-city gals,” the couple enjoys life in Ann Arbor.
“We love going to U of M football games, even though neither of us are alumni — but we have all the maize-and-blue accessories and enjoy the huge event that each game is. I also enjoy attending a couple other events a year — women’s gymnastics and women’s basketball in particular,” she says. “We love the food and dining, being able to walk to town, and everything else that everyone loves about Ann Arbor.”
Golfing is another interest, and Wagner recently played in the Federal Bar Association bench-and-bar outing. “I love how golf allows me an opportunity to quiet my mind and enjoy the challenge of the game, all while being outside with friends,” she says.
You are here: HomeWashtenaw County > Advocate: Civil rights attorney follows her destiny
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Peter David Schiff (born March 23, 1963) is an American entrepreneur, author and financial commentator. Schiff is CEO and chief global strategist[3] of Euro Pacific Capital Inc., a broker-dealer based in Westport, Connecticut, as well as founder and Chairman of SchiffGold, a precious metals dealer based in Manhattan.
Schiff has appeared as a guest on financial television shows and been quoted in major print publications. He is host of The Peter Schiff Show, an audio show broadcast on terrestrial and internet radio and was formerly host of an internet podcast called Wall Street Unspun now archived as podcasts. Schiff acquired significant internet fame for correctly predicting in 2005-2007 the coming collapse in U.S. housing prices and the ensuing global financial crisis. In 2010, Schiff ran in the Republican primary for the United States Senate seat in Connecticut, but lost to Linda McMahon.
Schiff is known for his bearish views on the US economy and US dollar, and his bullish views on commodities, foreign stocks and foreign currencies. Schiff voices strong support for the Austrian School of economic thought.
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Album lyrics Coldplay
Live 2003 is a live album by Coldplay, first released in November 2003. The set features concerts filmed at Sydney's Hordern Pavilion on 21 July 2003 and 22 July 2003.
It was nominated for "Best Music Video: Long Form" at the 2004 Grammy Awards.
The song "Moses", exclusive to this album, was written about Chris Martin's wife Gwyneth Paltrow. This song inspired the name of Chris and Gwyneth's second child, Moses Bruce Anthony Martin, born in 2006.
No singles were released from this album, but the cut "Clocks" had a small promotional radio release in some countries like Spain.
1.Politik
2.God Put A Smile Upon Your Face
3.A Rush Of Blood To The Head
4.One I Love
5.See You Soon
6.Shiver
7.Everything's Not Lost
8.Moses
9.Yellow
10.Clocks
11.In My Place
12.Amsterdam
Trouble – Norwegian Live EP
Mylo Xyloto
Prospekt's March Ep
LeftRight LeftRight Left
A Rush Of Blood To The Head
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Home Columns The Way I See It The Obama Dilemma
The Obama Dilemma
Columns - The Way I See It
America, a public figure or a candidate running for public office, especially for U.S. President, has to brace himself or exult, when something deemed derogatory or sensational by the mass media, is discovered about his life, that of his family, and even those of his associates. It’s like a ticking time bomb, or a lifetime opportunity, awaiting somewhere down the road, biding its moment to explode or to be exploited, for whatever it’s worth. One’s lifework could go under just for one moment of indiscretion, like for example, the Chappaquiddick incident of Senator Ted Kennedy. Another’s career could also get catapulted even for just one, short, shining moment of fame, epitomized by Senator Barack Obama’s keynote speech in the 2004 Democratic national convention.
In this year’s presidential election, Senator John McCain survived, for now, the revelation of his alleged quid pro quo acceptance of political contributions and his supposed dalliance with a planted pretty lobbyist. She was working for some special interest groups, connected with the transportation industry, over-sighted by a Senate committee Mr. McCain chaired. He is now the Republican presidential nominee even though he is not yet officially crowned in the convention. But when the regular presidential campaign gets started, I’m sure this issue will be vetted again. McCain is a two-faced Janus. He’s holier than thou but he had been badly damaged before for being involved in the U.S. taxpayer-rescued savings-and-loan defaults rocking the 1980s, a preview of the scandal cited here.
Still awaiting the voters’ verdict is the fate of Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Mr. Obama is ahead in delegate count, but Mrs. Clinton has not yet given up because he still hasn't received the magic number that would make him the virtual nominee. The two are locked in electoral combat, more so now, when Senator Obama’s campaign is hit by a revelation that his pastor had been caught bad-mouthing the country’s core values every good American has been taught to consider good, holy, and sacred. And Ms. Clinton, herself, has staggered lately, after being discovered allegedly spinning a war story that her group visiting war-torn Bosnia years back was the target of enemy fire.
But unlike Senator McCain’s alleged active assistance for amour and to his political contributors, and Senator Clinton’s war story, what is stupefying about the stinging revelation that could endanger Senator Obama’s presidential ambition was not for what he said or did. He’s being pilloried for the inflammatory sermons of his pastor, Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright. As if trying to do live-up to his biblical first name, his jeremiads, described by the dictionary as anger driven speeches expressing a bitter lament or a righteous prophecy of doom, are now taking the country by storm for their venom.
The sermons lambasted the U.S. and American policies, based on what he described as his reading of the Gospels and the treatment of black Americans. He said in a 2003 sermon that: "The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people." Another provocative sermon asserted that "God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme." And he claimed that America was morally responsible for 9/11 which he described as “chickens coming home to roost” because of crimes, like, the dropping of atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Senator Obama got blistered and the message of his campaign distracted because the political handlers of his rivals and the mass media have made Rev. Wright a great influence in his life. Not only that Senator Obama credited him for finding Jesus within the fold of his Trinity United Church of Christ, located on the south side of Chicago, Wright also married him to his wife and baptized their children. And the pastor’s favorite sermon theme that in life you need to have an “audacity of hope” became the title of his best selling book.
His opponents, including political babes in the woods who naively, and foolishly, fear a so-called “Muslim” candidate, gleefully reloaded these newly discovered political ammunitions of personal destruction to their repertoire of prejudices, long suppressed while awaiting any plausible validation. The moment is now when they feel they no longer have to be ashamed of, or embarrassed, for their bottled-up raw and untamed human primal emotion. They let go of their real self and fired pointblank at Mr. Obama, in the way the black propaganda already making the rounds throughout the country have been circulated. In the Internet, he is pictured/caricatured as a reconstructed leftist, a black avenger, a potential protector of Afro-American parasites, and inchoate enabler of black indolent behavior. And to cap it all, we are bombarded with e-mails that are maliciously, and awfully wrongly, branding him as a Muslim or a disguised believer. Polls say about 10% of Americans believes this derogatory rumor. After all, his name is Obama; his Kenyan father was a Muslim; his white American mother was a free thinker; and the Indonesian grade school he attended when his mother lived next door to the Philippines, observed Islamic practices.
Senator Obama condemned these outrageous sermons of Rev. Dr. Wright, because, he says, they are wrong and divisive. But he mused that those “for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough” they would ask me “why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place…Why not join another church?” But, he explained: “I can longer disown (Wright) than I can my own white grandmother” who was supposed to say she feared hearing footsteps of Blacks coming closer.
Indeed, I would think that a more charitable, understanding, and open-minded person could relate to Mr. Obama’s dilemma. People move to another country more for personal safety concerns or for reasons of economics rather than because the leaders are crooked or going crazy. You don’t abandon your children just because your spouse is totally disagreeable, abusive, or a bad bargain. The better person is the one who can subdue personal anger and self-pity that are tearing his heart for the sake of others in his family or community. This applies to Senator Obama. He couldn't, and shouldn't, just leave this church where he found Jesus, where he was married, where his children were baptized, and where his dear friends and family worship, just because a doddering old preacher is thundering of the injustices done in the past to Negroes, now called Afro-Americans.
Just like what he would do if he were a member of a dysfunctional marriage or family, he has to stay put because he’s better equipped to save his children’s or spiritual siblings’ sanity and support their emotional well-being by providing reason, good sense, and balance. I would think that that’s what he meant when he said he couldn't just leave Reverend Wright in his dotage in the way that he couldn't just leave his grandmother for telling her black grandson of her uneasiness when Blacks are nearby.
Mr. Obama should be given more credit rather than discredit for putting up in the face of pastoral sophistry and intellectual abuse; for sticking with his co-parishioners who have less mobility than himself who’s a Harvard-trained lawyer, and for identifying with those below his own social and economic class. As a brilliant lawyer and University of Chicago professor, he could have lived in Chicago’s fabled Gold Coast and accepted invitations to attend the churches of the rich and the famous. But like Moses who abdicated his princely position to return to his real mother and back to his Jewish heritage, Mr. Obama chose to stay with his disadvantaged people rather than deny them.
Yet the very people who are savaging Mr. Obama for the verbal indiscretions of his pastor have not been heard complaining of George W. Bush, then, and John McCain, now, for courting assiduously pastors John Hagee and Jerry Falwell. Reverend Falwell blamed gays and lesbians for the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C., and those "who have tried to secularize America: pagans, abortionists, feminists, gays and lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, and People for the American Way." Along with pastor Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell pointed at the tragedies in New York City and Washington, D.C., as proof that "God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve." Reverend Hagee called the Roman Catholic Church “The Great Whore of Revelation 17,” as well as a “False cult system,” an “apostate church.”
What makes John Hagee and Jerry Falwell different from Jeremiah Wright? The former are more fanatic and crazier. And why is Senator Obama blamed for his pastor’s simplifications and President Bush and Senator McCain given a pass for clinging close to Reverend Hagee and Falwell, Robertson, etc.? It’s because the names of the latter are not Barack Obama. (lopelindio@aol.com)
Editor's Note: The author is a practicing lawyer in Houston, Texas, and is licensed also to practice law in Illinois. He is a community leader, who presently heads the Texas chapter of the National Federation of Filipino-American Associations. He is one of the pillars also of the Filipino-American Community of South Texas.
07/20/2010 16:08 - Michael Steele Is Simply Telling that the War in Afghanistan Will End Up Like the Vietnam War
06/04/2010 08:36 - U.S. Taxpayers Must Force the End of American Subsidy for Israel’s Colonial Abuses and Criminal Conduct
03/23/2009 22:19 - Governor Schwarzenegger Meets with President Obama, Encourages New Era of Infrastructure Investment
03/23/2009 22:04 - President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts
03/21/2009 15:35 - President Obama to Focus on Budget Priorities Next Week
09/09/2008 11:55 - Sergio Osmeña, the Founding Father
09/06/2008 21:57 - A Bundle of Contradictions
06/18/2008 10:07 - Rizal Would Have Become A Cebuano
04/19/2008 02:08 - The Pledge-of-Allegiance Issue and Other Political Garbage Littering Cyberspace
04/05/2008 02:46 - What’s In A Name?
02/05/2008 12:48 - Language Reality Check in the Philippines
Last Updated on Saturday, 05 April 2008 02:49
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The government has recently paid much attention to environmental protection and extension of protected areas is progressing gradually towards the goal of 20% of the territory. Specific features of the management of these areas, derived directly from the Anglo-Saxon formulation, is the sharing of public and private sectors, so that the landowners feel more empowered in the management of the territory. The hunting regulation has been addressed with wisdom. The government organizes periodic hunts open to private (including foreigners) where an excess of species is registered, especially elephants, compared to the available resources. This approach has allowed to stop the phenomenon of poaching directly and indirectly. In fact, these initiatives have allowed us to place on the market a stream of hides, etc, lowering the prices and making illegal hunting less attractive.
The arid lands of Botswana are home to various species. First, the country has over seventy species of snakes, including three spitting cobra. In the Okavango area you can easily spot the poisonous boomslang (Afrikaans word meaning “arboreal snake”). There are many species of birds, including Pavonina crane, the tumbler pigeon and the so-called secretary bird, which eats snakes.
The beautiful national parks and beautiful private estates are home to a wide variety of animals, such as elephants, leopards, cheetahs, spotted hyenas, warthogs, blacks and whites rhinos ostriches, wild dogs, giraffes, hippos, zebras, lions and many more.
Most of the country hosts species adapted to arid climate. In particular, acacia trees and low thorny bushes grow easily. The only deciduous forests are found in the north-east and also provide a decent amount of timber.
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Candidates 2011 >
2011 Candidates Did you know
Planning and Zoning Candidate
Jim Swift
Did you know?...
Jim has worked in construction since graduating from Utica College with a BS in Construction Management, and built the fireplace in the photo.
After a twenty five year hiatus, Jim got back into cycling and now competes on a regular basis, but is still looking for that elusive first victory.
Jim moved to Newtown in 1990, has been married to his wife Theresa for 13 years, and has two sons - Orlando and William.
Planning and Zoning Alternate Candidate
Peggy Fillion
Did you know that I have been an Occupational Therapist and Certified Hand Therapist for 37 years.
Did you know that I was assistant editor of our professional journal for 10 years.
Did you know that have that I have a love for the outdoors and have taught wilderness backpacking (all four seasons) and white water canoeing and kayaking.
Zoning Board of Appeals Candidate
Charles Annett
Skip is an active supporter of Ability Beyond Disability employing 42 people on 3 shifts in his Belimo manufacturing operations. He has been Chairman of large United Way Fund raising activites at several previous employers. He was a Newtown recreation league girls softball coach.
Skip completed a number of zoning land use courses at Western Connecticut State University in addition to participating as an active voting member at hundrerds of Zoning Board of Appeals hearings which included walking the land area of a majority of Newtown. He holds an MBA from the University of Connecticut.
Skip and his wife Peggy have lived in Newtown following service in the Navy. Skip is the Manufacturing Manager at Belimo in Danbury. They have 3 children who attended local schools and are now married with families of their own.
Zoning Board of Appeals Alternate Candidate
Roy Meadows
Roy is a chemical engineer and worked 33 years for Union Carbide/Dow Chemical. His experience includes plant design, international licensing, and management. He currently is a consultant in the area of licensing chemical technologies. He also does handyman work for A1 Handyman LLC.
Roy is interested in land use and has served as an alternate on the ZBA for four years.
Roy is an avid outdoors-person and enjoys hiking, backpacking, skiing, canoeing, and fishing.
Police Commission Candidate
Brian Budd
Brian has been a full time professional law enforcement officer for the past seventeen years, and for the past four years he has been a supervisor assigned to investigative services.
Brian co-authored a traffic-calming ordinance as a police commissioner for Newtown to help residents address traffic concerns in their neighborhoods.
Brian and his family have lived in Newtown since 1993. He attends Walnut Hill Community Church, where he serves on the men’s leadership team.
Board of Assessment Appeals Candidate
James McFarland
James once had a summer job capturing, tagging and tracking cockroaches for research projects conducted at Purdue University's Department of Entomology.
James wrote and performed a play in 4th grade. Growing up in the 1970's, his play included Television-style commercials.
James held his first computer programming job while a freshman at Purdue University in 1980.
Town Hall Board of Managers Candidate
Margot Hall
Margot worked at the Edmond Town Hall almost daily for 34 years.
Margot, as a current member of the Board of Town Hall Managers, recently toured the “mechanicals” of the Town Hall, particularly the boiler room. Did you know that there are two magnificent boilers which have heated the Town Hall since it’s dedication with an ample supply of heat, and that we just serviced them?
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Texans' Will Fuller done for season with torn ACL
By Herbie Teope
Published: Oct. 26, 2018 at 07:19 a.m.
Updated: Oct. 26, 2018 at 12:11 p.m.
League reveals slate for NFL100 Game of the Week
Fitzgerald: Murray knows offense better than us
The Houston Texans' 42-23 win over the Miami Dolphins on Thursday Night Football came at a cost.
Texans wide receiver Will Fuller suffered a season-ending torn ACL during the game, coach Bill O'Brien told reporters Friday.
Fuller suffered the injury early in the fourth quarter while running a deep route near the end zone. As the pass from quarterback Deshaun Watson was in the air, Dolphins cornerback Bobby McCain ran into Fuller, who fell to the ground and immediately cradled his right knee with his hands.
The Texans' training staff tended to Fuller in the end zone before the wide receiver walked off the field without assistance. The Texans, however, immediately ruled him out.
Fuller finished the game with five catches for 124 yards and a touchdown, which came on a 73-yard strike in the third quarter.
Entering Thursday night, Fuller ranked second on the team in receiving behind DeAndre Hopkins. He finishes the 2018 campaign with 32 catches for 503 yards and four touchdowns.
The loss of Fuller provides a blow to an offense finding its stride during a five-game winning streak. The Texans are likely to lean on rookie wide receiver Keke Coutee, who missed Thursday night's game with a hamstring injury, to take Fuller's place.
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BREAKING: INEC Declares Kayode Fayemi Winner Of Ekiti Governorship Election
Candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Kayode Fayemi, has won the Ekiti State governorship election. Fayemi defeated current Deputy Governor of the state and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Kolapo Olusola, and over 30 others in a keenly contested election. He was victorious in 11 out of the 16 local government areas of the…”
hero Politics
Candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Kayode Fayemi, has won the Ekiti State governorship election.
Fayemi defeated current Deputy Governor of the state and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Kolapo Olusola, and over 30 others in a keenly contested election.
He was victorious in 11 out of the 16 local government areas of the state, polling 197,459 votes, and edging out his closest rival Olusola who got 178,121 votes by 19,338 votes.
Based on the votes secured, INEC’s Chief Returning Officer for the election, Professor Idowu Olayinka, declared Fayemi the winner.
Saturday’s election was highly anticipated as it pitted both the APC and Fayemi against one of their biggest critics and a key member of the opposition.
The buildup to the election was filled with drama and heightened expectations but led to fears of violence, with more than 30,000 policemen eventually deployed to provide security.
It, however, started rather smoothly with electoral materials and officials getting to polling units visited by our correspondents on schedule.
In Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, there was a large turnout of voters and more than 60,000 people eventually voted there, the largest votes cast in a local government during the election.
Apart from reports now and then of card reader malfunction, one of the first issues to pop up was the allegations of cash inducements by observers and party agents.
A few hours into the start of the election, the police arrested some persons for allegedly distributing cash to voters.
By midday, both Fayemi and Olusola had suffered hitches at their polling units.
In the case of Fayemi, the card reader smoothly read his PVC enabling him to vote but it failed to read that of his wife and it took several attempts before she got to vote.
After voting, the former Ekiti governor told reporters he was confident of victory and that the day will be celebrated.
In the case of Olusola, the card reader failed to recognise his card when he tried to vote at his polling unit – Ofomofuru Hall, Ward 2, Okokuru in Ikere-Ekiti.
He only got accredited to vote after INEC National Commissioner, Anthonia Simbini, intervened.
Both candidates did not dwell on the hitch, however, with the focus more on voter inducement and intimidation.
The victory puts Mr Fayemi on course for a second term as governor of the state, an ambition he failed to achieve in 2014 when he was defeated by Governor Ayodele Fayose.
Fayemi had gone on to head the Policy, Research and Strategy Directorate of the APC’s Presidential Campaign for the 2015 election before becoming Minister of Mines and Steel Development.
Fayose, whose administration repeatedly accused Fayemi’s administration, was keen to ensure that his deputy succeeds him and that Ekiti remains under the leadership of the PDP.
When he came out to vote, the governor repeated his calls to supporters of the PDP to vote and protect their votes.
Although it was a close contest, Fayemi and the APC prevailed.
Dr Kayode Fayemi
Ekiti 2018
INEC
PDP Defection: PDP Appeals to Sen. Akpabio
Ibrahim Can’t Become Ondo Governor – Fayose
INEC Releases Guidelines For Conduct Of 2019 Elections
Mudashiru Husain: Osun By-Election Outcome Not Expected, Congratulates Adeleke
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LAUTECH Final Year Student Commits Suicide
A student of Ladoke Akintola University Of Technology , Ogbomosho, Oyo State was found dead in his room over the weekend. It was gathered that the 500-level student of Urban and Regional Planning Department hanged himself in the school’s hostel on Saturday. It was learnt that his roommates, who had been away for a night study,…”
A student of Ladoke Akintola University Of Technology , Ogbomosho, Oyo State was found dead in his room over the weekend.
It was gathered that the 500-level student of Urban and Regional Planning Department hanged himself in the school’s hostel on Saturday.
It was learnt that his roommates, who had been away for a night study, returned in the morning to find his corpse dangling from the ceiling.
The school management was said to have been alerted, which informed policemen from the Owode division, who removed the remains.
The corpse was said to have been deposited in a mortuary for autopsy.
A classmate of the victim, who asked not to be identified, said Adediran’s remains were found around 5.30am, PUNCH reports.
He said, “He has two roommates. The roommates went for a night study on Friday. When they returned to the room on Saturday, they discovered that he had hanged himself with a cable. Nobody has an idea why he killed himself.”
A close friend of the victim, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, expressed surprise at Adediran’s death.
He said, “As his friend, what pained me most was that we still played together on Friday night. He never opened up to me. We asked him to go with us for the night study, but he said he preferred to stay behind. Around 5.30am when we returned, we found his corpse. He was almost done with his final year project and he never complained of anything. We are a clique and we eat together; it was all fun, until we found his corpse.”
He described the deceased as “funny and lively”, saying Adediran couldn’t have suffered from depression.
He said the police from the Owode division removed the corpse from the room.
Our correspondent learnt that the police took statements from the roommates, which were later withdrawn by the deceased’s parents, who insisted on not pursuing any case due to the nature of the death.
According to the PUNCH, the parents also objected to the idea of holding a candle-light procession in his honour, saying they wanted him to “rest in peace.”
This is just as tributes have continued pouring in from friends of the victim on Facebook.
A friend, who identified himself as Horlarholu Xarmoohel Cartel, said the late Adediran was a fan of the Chelsea Football Club.
He said, “Adesoji, can’t believe my eyes when I saw adieu in your name. I don’t know this is what you mean when you said, ‘I am not coming to class again,’ after we sat for a test last week. Haa! SOJ, the best Chelsea fan I ever knew; the best record keeper who doesn’t need Google before he tells you history of football. Already missing you bro, can’t get hold of myself since I heard about your death. I know God knows best.”
Another friend, Adepeju Babatudne, wrote, “Hmmm, I saw him and Tayo (bestie) beside my hostel cracking jokes with friends when we finished that test. I even accused him of not coming for the test, but he replied, ‘I came nah…’ I don’t even know what to write right now because I know what you passed through when we were in 200 level, but why now? Rest on dear.”
When contacted, an official of the school said the management was not aware of the incident.
He, however, promised to get back after contacting a director in the school. He had yet to do so as of press time.
The Oyo State Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Ajisebutu Adekunle, said, “The deceased committed suicide by hanging himself on the ceiling fan. He didn’t leave any suicide note. The case is under investigation. Meanwhile, the corpse has been deposited at LAUTECH morgue for autopsy.”
Not Too Young To Run: CSOs Want Buhari To Sign Bill
Former Ghananian President Visits Ooni Of Ife
Obasanjo Calls For Solutions To Killings As He Visits Plateau
Tuberculosis: UAE Develops Artificial Intelligence Scheme
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Packet Ship Nabraska
The Nabraska (sic) Nebraska was one of hundreds of packets (ships operating on schedule) sailing the Atlantic before the Civil War. She was built in Newburyport, Massachusetts in 1845, for New York owners, and sailed to Liverpool that year and to Marseilles in 1847. She made at least one trip to China (1850), and like many packets, she switched to the southern cotton trade and was lost off Texas in 1857.
Read more about Packet Ship Nabraska
Ship Senator Weber
Senator Weber was built in Boston in 1853 as the ship Wellfleet. She sailed for Enoch Train’s Boston Liverpool Line of packets in 1854, then transferred to the Regular Line, sailing in the Boston-New Orleans cotton packet trade. The Civil War idled ships like the Wellfleet, and she was sold to Hamburg, Germany in 1863. There she was renamed Senator Weber and flew the flag of Hamburg. This painting was done when she was still the Wellfleet. It descended in the family of the American captain, Henry S.
Read more about Ship Senator Weber
Packet James Foster, Jr.
Built in 1854 for C.H. Marshall and Company, by then the owners and operators of New York's famous Black Ball packet line, by William H. Webb, New York's premier ship builder. It is possible that Antonio Jacobsen saw her for she ran for C.H. Marshall until 1881, surviving on what the steamships which had largely taken over the passenger trade could not carry. She was sold to Bremen in 1881 and continued until about 1890. If Jacobsen did not see her and sketch her himself, he may have had access to photographs of the ship, or other data.
Read more about Packet James Foster, Jr.
Packet Margaret Johnson
Packet ships were vessels that sailed on a schedule. The service begain in 1817 with three ships sailing from New York to Liverpool. Liverpool and New York were the principal ports but Boston and Philadelphia were other major ports, and packet lines were established to most of the major European ports.
Read more about Packet Margaret Johnson
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VoteDavid and Guillermo Douglass-Jaimes October 27, 2016 Comment
Voter Guide: Los Angeles County Measures
Los Angeles County presents voters with two initiatives to help upgrade the physical form of our surroundings by improving our built and natural environment, and we support both measures.
YES on Measure A: A small price to pay to maintain and improve LA County parks and open spaces
Just over half of the residents of LA County live more than ½ a mile from a park. And the parks that we do have are in need of maintenance and improvement. The Safe, Clean Neighborhood Parks and Open Space Measure would raise property taxes in LA County by one and a half cents ($0.015) on each square foot of improved property, both residential and commercial, to pay for maintaining and improving parks, and other open spaces including trails and beaches; as well as facilities such as recreation centers and senior centers; and programs, including afterschool programs, recycled water systems and drought tolerant landscaping; and protecting and preserving open space. While the opponents claim that this tax burdens fixed income homeowners, when you look at what this projected tax breaks down to, its easy to see how this concern is blown out of proportion. The LA County Department of Parks and Recreation notes that a 1,500 square foot home would pay an additional $22.50 in property taxes each year. That works out to less than $2 a month. The biggest red-herring raised by opponents of this measure is the claim that since the tax rate is applied equally to all homeowners, it is unfair to low-income homeowners. But this argument is flimsy at best. Homeowners living in larger homes are the ones that pay the most, and home size has a good correlation with home value. Yet even those living in the more distant reaches of the county where home values are lower compared to average home size this argument seems like an overstatement. If you are fortunate enough to live in a large home of 4,000 square foot home, which is over twice the size of the average home in Los Angeles, you would pay $60.00 more in property taxes each year, which works out to $5 a month. Further, measure A is set to replace two other property taxes that either expired or are set to expire in 2019, resulting in net decrease in property tax. On balance, this is a small price to pay, and overall seems to equitably distribute the tax burden so that we can reap the benefits of protecting and improving our open spaces. We recommend a YES vote on Measure A.
YES on Measure M: Investing Today in a More Transit-Friendly Future
The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, also known simply as Metro, has laid out an ambitious plan to greatly expand and improve desperately needed public transportation infrastructure in the County over the next 40 years. There’s only one problem: they don’t have the money for it. That’s where Measure M comes in. Measure M would make the sales tax approved in 2008 (Measure R) permanent, and would provide an additional half percent sales tax increase to fund Metro’s Long Range Plan, and provide reliable funding for future maintenance and improvements.
We are of the opinion that in this county of over 10 million people, with an area nearly the size of the state of Connecticut, we need twice as much transit expansion in Metro’s plan, and we need it twice as fast. Our population is only growing, and our roads are often jammed beyond capacity. The dilemma is the regressive nature of a sales tax increase that will disproportionately impact low income households. In an ideal scenario, Metro would be empowered to utilize more progressive strategies to fund transit improvements, but as Streetsblog LA notes in their endorsement of Measure M, “state law makes it nearly impossible to pass a ballot measure with any sort of tax except a sales tax.” At the same time, providing tax revenue to fund Metro operations helps keep fares among the lowest of any major city in the United States, which makes transit accessible to the widest range of riders possible.
Opponents of Measure M often critique the specifics of the high-profile rail projects in Metro’s plan, or complain that their community will not be served by a new rail line. To that end, it is worth pointing out that only 35% of the new revenue is dedicated to major new rail or bus rapid transit (BRT) projects, while 20% of the funds are dedicated to supporting and improving service on Metro’s already extensive and frequent bus system—levels on par with those in Measure R. Another 17% of funds will go directly to local cities to address their most pressing transportation needs, and 2% of the tax revenue is dedicated to projects like bike lanes and pedestrian improvements. Although 17% of proceeds from this measure will go toward freeway projects (a lower level than Measure R allocated), those projects are focused on addressing transitions and bottlenecks, rather than ineffective widening projects like the already-jammed-again 405 widening project. It should also be noted that the projects and timelines outlined in Metro’s plan represent a minimum. Identified projects can be accelerated, and new projects can be added as funding allows, and Metro has already received several proposals with strategies to accelerate Measure M projects.
Voters should not be under any delusion that Measure M will make freeway traffic better any time soon thanks to the law of induced demand, but expanding our transit system could help keep traffic from getting any worse, and removing cars from the roads also helps improve air quality and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Overcrowded trains on recently opened expansions of the Gold and Expo lines show that there is pent up demand for more robust transit option in Los Angeles, and rider surveys indicate that many of the new passengers used to drive to their destinations.
Unrelated to the specifics of Measure M, the expiring quarter percent sales tax from Prop 30 means that the effective net increase in sales tax will only be an additional quarter percent. For example, if Measure M passes, sales tax in the city of Los Angeles will increase from the current 9% to 9.25%.
Measure M is not ideal. The sales tax is regressive, and the effort to provide projects to serve all of Los Angeles County’s disparate communities did not always result in the smartest solutions. Still, as Streetsblog LA notes, “Measure M is significantly better and more holistic” than Metro’s previous ballot initiative efforts. We all need to advocate for better, more equitable ways to fund public transportation than regressive sales taxes. Until then Measure M is our best hope to build the public transit network that Los Angeles needs and deserves. We recommend a YES vote on Measure M.
Header image by flickr user Karol Franks via Creative Commons, CC BY-NC-ND
David and Guillermo Douglass-Jaimes
Voter Guide: Health and Safety
Vote NO on Prop 60, the misleading and dangerous condom measure. And the reasons why we can't make official endorsements on Props 52, 56, 61, and 63.
Voter Guide: The Rest
Our positions on all the rest of the statewide propositions: YES on 54, 55, 58, and 59; NO on 51 and 53.
Voter Guide: City of Los Angeles Measures
For the final installment in our voter guide series, we look at the four measures on the ballot for the City of Los Angeles.
VoteDavid and Guillermo Douglass-Jaimes November 22, 2016 Comment
Silver Linings on a Dumpster Fire
Finding reasons for hope in the wake of the Presidential election.
David and Guillermo Douglass-Jaimes October 30, 2018 Comment
Voter Guide 2018: Los Angeles Local Measures
Because eleven statewide propositions isn’t enough decisions to have to make.
VoteDavid and Guillermo Douglass-Jaimes October 30, 2016
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PIPC Applauds PCORI for Holding Public Town Hall Meeting; Calls for Changes in its Priority-Setting Process
WASHINGTON D.C. – The Partnership to Improve Patient Care (PIPC) issued the following statement thanking the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) for hosting a National Patient and Stakeholder Dialogue meeting in Washington, D.C. on setting priorities for comparative effectiveness research (CER) and calling on the Institute to make several changes to its draft priorities and process.
Chairman's Corner: Tony Discusses Patient Care with Former HHS Secretary
On Tuesday night, PIPC Chairman Tony Coelho joined former HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson at the University of Charleston in West Virginia for a speaker series titled "Who Decides Patient Treatments" to discuss the future of health care in the United States. The discussion focused on the roles that the patient, government and insurers play in the health care system, as well as, the extent to which patients should be able to choose treatments in consultation with their physician.
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Biomass/Biogas
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Pie Register – Profile
PAKISTAN RENEWABLE ENERGY SOCIETY
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Outlook on the Future of Hydro Development Worldwide
Each year, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) develops an outlook for the international energy markets, including electricity. The International Energy Outlook 2010 (IEO2101), which was released last summer, projects markets through 2035. As part of its assessment of these markets, EIA analyzes policies and incentives intended to support generation sources, including hydropower. Here’s a look at the potential future of hydro generation worldwide and how current policies can affect utilization of this valuable resource. World Overview IEO2010 predicts that world net electricity generation will increase by an average of 2.3% per year from 2007 to 2035 (see Figure 1). By comparison, net electricity generation grew 1.9% per year from 1990 to 2007. In general, projected generation growth in Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, with well-established electricity markets and mature consumption patterns, is slower than in non-OECD countries, where significant demand is unmet (see Figure 2). Electrification of off-grid areas plays a strong role in projected growth trends. In fact, the International Energy Agency estimates that 22% of the world’s population did not have access to electricity in 2008. Non-OECD nations consumed 46% of the world’s total electricity supply in 2007. In 2035, non-OECD nations will account for 61% of world electricity use. Net electricity generation in non-OECD countries will increase by an average of 4.1% from 2007 to 2035, compared with only 1.1% per year among OECD nations. The projection for total electricity generation in 2030 is 0.3% lower than it was in the 2009 outlook, largely because the impact of the recession was more severe than previously anticipated. Compared with IEO2009, the generation mix in 2030 in IEO2010 also changes. For example, liquids-fired generation is 11% lower than in IEO2009, natural gas and coal-fired generation are about 5% higher, nuclear generation is 9% higher, and renewable generation is 10% higher. Renewable Generation Renewable energy is the fastest-growing source of electricity in the IEO2010 reference case. Total generation from renewable resources will increase by 3% annually, and the renewable share of world electricity generation will grow from 18% in 2007 to 23% in 2035. Hydroelectricity leads the field. Of the 4.5 million GWh of new renewables added over the projection period, 2.4 million GWh are attributed to hydroelectric power. Aside from hydro, most renewable technologies will not be able to compete economically with fossil fuels during the projection period, according to the report. Government policies or incentives often provide the primary economic motivation for construction of renewable facilities. Changes in the mix of renewable fuels used differ between the OECD and non-OECD regions. In OECD nations, most economically exploitable hydro resources have been captured; with the exceptions of Canada and Turkey, there are few large hydro projects planned. Most renewable growth in OECD countries comes from non-hydro sources. Many OECD countries, particularly those in Europe, have government policies — including feed-in tariffs (FIT), tax incentives, and market share quotas — that encourage the construction of renewable facilities. A FIT requires utilities to purchase renewable electricity at a price higher than wholesale. This allows the renewable generator to achieve a positive return on investment despite the higher costs associated with these resources. In non-OECD countries, hydropower is expected to be the predominant source of renewable electricity growth. Strong growth in hydro generation is expected in China, India, Brazil, and many nations in Southeast Asia, including Malaysia and Vietnam. North America North America accounts for the largest regional share of world electricity generation, with 27% in 2007. That share will decline as non-OECD nations experience fast-paced growth in demand. In 2035, North America will account for only 19% of the world’s net electric generation. The USA is the largest consumer of electricity in North America. Generation will increase at an average annual rate of 0.8% from 2007 to 2035. Canada also has a mature electricity market, and its generation will increase by 1.2% per year over the same period. Mexico’s electricity generation will grow faster — averaging 3.2% per year through 2035 — reflecting the greater potential for expansion of the electric power infrastructure. Generation from renewable sources in the USA will increase in response to requirements in more than half of the 50 states for minimum renewable generation or capacity shares. Renewable generation in the reference case is substantially higher than in recent projections, as the share of generation coming from renewable sources will grow from 8.5% in 2007 to 17% in 2035. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 directed $16.8 billion into energy efficiency and renewable energy and another $4 billion into loan guarantees for renewable energy. Federal subsidies for renewable generation are assumed to expire as enacted. In Canada, generation from hydroelectricity will increase by 0.9% per year. In Ontario, the government plans to close its four coal-fired plants by December 31, 2014, and replace coal-fired generation with natural gas, nuclear, hydro, and wind. Coal provides about 19% of Ontario’s electric power. With the retirements, Canada’s coal generation declines from about 115 million GWh in 2007 to 97 million GWh in 2035. The renewable share of Canada’s overall generation will remain roughly constant throughout the projection. Hydropower is expected to remain the primary source of electricity in Canada. In 2007, hydroelectric generation provided 59% of the country’s total generation; it falls to 54% in 2035. Canada has several facilities planned or under construction. Hydro-Quebec is continuing construction of a 768 MW facility near Eastmain and a 150 MW facility at Sarcelle, both are expected to be fully commissioned by 2012. Others under construction include 1,550 MW Romaine River in Quebec and 200 MW Wuskwatim in Manitoba. Given Canada’s past experience and the commitments for construction, new hydro will add 22,910 MW of capacity in Canada between 2007 and 2035. Mexico’s electricity generation will increase by an average of 3.2% annually from 2007 to 2035. The government recognizes the need for the country’s electricity infrastructure to keep pace with the anticipated fast-paced growth in demand. In July 2007, the government unveiled its 2007-2012 National Infrastructure Program, which included plans to invest $25.3 billion to improve and expand electricity infrastructure. As part of the program, the government set a goal to increase installed capacity by 8.6 GW from 2006 to 2012. The country is well on its way to meeting this target. Renewable resources are the second fastest-growing source of generation in the projection, after natural-gas-fired generation. Mexico’s renewable generation will increase by 2.9% per year from 2007 to 2035. The country’s current renewable mix is split largely between hydro (73%) and geothermal (19%). Two major hydro projects are under way: 750 MW La Yesca, scheduled for completion by 2012, and the planned 900 MW La Parota project, which may not be completed until 2018. In the IEO2010 reference case, hydropower will increase by 2.3% per year and account for more than 60% of Mexico’s total net generation from renewable energy sources in 2035. OECD Europe Electricity generation in OECD Europe will increase by an average of 1.1% per year in the IEO2010 reference case, from 3.4 million GWh in 2007 to 4.6 million GWh in 2035. Most growth in electricity demand is expected to come from those nations with more robust population growth (including Turkey, Ireland, and Spain) and from the newest OECD members (including the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland). Renewable energy is OECD Europe’s fastest-growing source of electricity generation, anticipated to grow by 2.6% per year through 2035. However, the increase is almost entirely from non-hydropower sources, encouraged by some of the world’s most favorable renewable energy policies. In 2001, the EU set a binding target to produce 21% of electricity generation from renewable sources by 2010 and reaffirmed the goal of increasing renewable energy use with its December 2008 “climate and energy policy,” which mandates that 20% of total energy production must come from renewables by 2020. About 21% of the EU’s electricity came from renewable sources in 2007. The IEO2010 reference case does not anticipate that all EU renewable energy targets will be met on time. Nevertheless, current laws are expected to lead to the construction of more renewable capacity than would have occurred in their absence. In addition, some countries provide economic incentives to promote the expansion of renewable electricity. Germany, Spain and Denmark have enacted FITs that last for 20 years after a project’s completion. As long as European governments support such price premiums for renewable electricity, robust growth in renewable generation is likely to continue. OECD Asia Total electricity generation in OECD Asia will increase by an average of 1% per year, from 1.7 million GWh in 2007 to 2.3 million GWh in 2035. Japan accounts for the largest share of electricity generation in the region today and continues to do so in the mid-term projection, despite having the slowest-growing electricity market in the region and the slowest among all OECD countries, averaging 0.5% a year. The fuel mix for electricity generation varies widely among the three economies that make up OECD Asia (Japan, South Korea, and Australia/New Zealand). In Japan, natural gas, coal, and nuclear power make up the bulk of the electric power mix. The remaining portion is split between renewables and petroleum-based liquid fuels. Hydropower is projected to supply about 8% of total generation in 2035. Non-OECD Europe and Eurasia Total electricity generation in non-OECD Europe and Eurasia will grow at an average rate of 1.6% per year in the IEO2010 reference case, from 1.6 million GWh in 2007 to 2.5 million GWh in 2035. Russia, the largest economy in the region, accounted for about 60% of its total generation in 2007 and is expected to retain about that share throughout the period. Renewable generation in non-OECD Europe and Eurasia, almost entirely from hydro facilities, will increase by an average of 1.3% per year. This is largely a result of repairs and expansions at existing sites, such as reconstruction of turbines in the 6,400 MW Sayano-Shushenskaya plant, which was damaged in an August 2009 accident. Repairs are expected to be completed no earlier than 2012. New projects include the 3,000 MW Boguchanskaya station in Russia and the 3,600 MW Rogun Dam in Tajikistan. Construction began on Boguchanskaya in 1980 and on Rogun in 1976, but work ceased when the former Soviet Union experienced economic difficulties in the 1980s. Despite the recent recession, construction continues on Boguchanskaya, which is on track for completion by 2012. In May 2008, Tajikistan’s president announced construction had resumed on Rogun Dam, although it is still uncertain how the project will be financed. Non-OECD Asia Non-OECD Asia — led by China and India — has the fastest projected regional growth in electric generation worldwide, averaging 4.1% a year from 2007 to 2035. Although the recession will affect the region’s short-term economic growth, in the long term the economies of non-OECD Asia are expected to expand strongly, with corresponding increases in electricity demand. Total electricity generation in non-OECD Asia will rise by 42% from 2007 to 2015, from 4.8 million GWh to 6.8 million GWh. Electricity demand will increase by 56% between 2015 and 2025 and another 40% between 2025 and 2035. In 2035, net generation in non-OECD Asia will total 14.8 million GWh. Electricity generation from renewable sources will grow at an average annual rate of 5%, increasing the renewable share of the region’s total generation from 15% in 2007 to 20% in 2035. Hydro facilities of all sizes contribute to the projected growth. Several countries have facilities planned or under construction, including Vietnam, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Myanmar. Almost 50 plants, with a combined 3,398 MW of capacity, are under construction in Vietnam’s Son La province, including the 2,400 MW Son La and 520 NW Houi Quang projects, both of which are scheduled for completion before 2015. Malaysia expects to complete its 2,400 MW Bakun Dam by 2011. Substantial hydro development plans for Pakistan and Myanmar have been discounted in the IEO2010 reference case to reflect the two countries’ historical difficulties in acquiring foreign direct investment for infrastructure projects. India plans to more than double its installed hydropower capacity by 2030. In its Eleventh and Twelfth Five-Year Plans, which span 2007 through 2017, India’s Central Electricity Authority has identified 40,900 MW of capacity that it intends to build. Although the IEO2010 reference case does not assume that all the planned capacity will be completed, more than one-third of the announced projects are under construction and are expected to be completed by 2020. India’s federal government is attempting to provide incentives for hydro development. Legislation has been proposed to make private developers eligible over a five-year period for a tariff that would guarantee a fixed return on investment and allow generators to sell up to 40% of their electricity on the spot market. These federal intentions are being supported by state authorities. The government in Himachal Pradesh plans to commercialize a substantial portion of the state’s reported 21,000 MW of hydro potential, adding 5,700 MW of capacity before 2015, which would nearly double the existing capacity. At the end of 2009, 11 projects with a combined installed capacity of 4,400 MW were in development in Himachal Pradesh. Similar to India, China also has many large hydro projects under construction. The final generator at 18,200 MW Three Gorges Dam went on line in October 2008, and Three Gorges Project Development Corp. plans to increase the project’s capacity to 22,400 MW by 2012. And work continues on 12,600 MW Xiluodu on the Jinsha River, which is scheduled for completion in 2015. China also has the world’s second tallest dam (at nearly 985 feet) under construction, as part of the 3,600 MW Jinping I project on the Yalong River. It is scheduled for completion in 2014 as part of a plan by Ertan Hydropower Development Co. to construct 21 facilities with 34,600 MW of capacity on the Yalong. The Chinese government has set a 300 GW target for hydro capacity in 2020. The country has sufficient projects under construction or in development to meet the target. China’s aggressive hydro development plan is expected to increase hydroelectric generation by 3.9% per year, almost tripling the country’s total hydro generation by 2035. Middle East Electricity generation in the Middle East will grow by 2.5% per year, from 700,000 GWh in 2007 to 1.3 million GWh in 2035. The region’s young and growing population, along with a strong increase in national income, is expected to result in rapid growth in demand. Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) account for two-thirds of the regional demand for electricity, and demand in these countries has increased sharply over the past several years. From 2000 to 2007, Iran’s net generation increased by 7.9% per year, Saudi Arabia’s by 6.1%, and UAE’s by 9.6%. There is little economic incentive for countries in the Middle East to increase their use of renewable energy sources. The renewable share of the region’s total electricity generation will increase from 3% in 2007 to 5% in 2035 in the reference case. Despite this, there have been some recent developments in the region. Iran, which generated 10% of its electricity from hydro in 2009, is developing 94 new plants. Africa Demand for electricity in Africa will grow at an average annual rate of 2.6% in the IEO2010 reference case. Fossil-fuel-fired generation supplied 81% of the region’s electricity in 2007, and reliance on fossil fuels is expected to continue through 2035. Generation from hydropower and other marketed renewable sources is expected to grow slowly. As they have in the past, non-marketed renewables are expected to continue providing energy to Africa’s rural areas; however, it is often difficult for African nations to find funding or international support for larger commercial projects. Plans for several hydro projects in the region have been advanced. Several of the announced projects are expected to be completed by 2035, allowing the region’s consumption of marketed renewable energy to grow by 2.2% per year from 2007 to 2035. For example, Ethiopia finished work on two hydroelectric facilities in 2009 — 300 MW Tekeze and 420 MW Gilgel Gibe II — and 460 MW Tana Beles began operating in 2010. Central and South America Electricity generation in Central and South America will increase by 2.1% per year in the IEO2010 reference case, from 1 million GWh in 2007 to 1.8 million GWh in 2035. The recent economic crisis lowered demand for electricity, especially in the industrial sector. In the longer term, however, the region’s electricity markets are expected to return to trend growth as economic difficulties recede. The fuel mix for electricity generation in Central and South America is dominated by hydro, which accounted for nearly two-thirds of the total net electricity generation in 2007. Of the top seven electricity-generating countries, five — Brazil, Venezuela, Paraguay, Colombia, and Peru — generate more than 65% of their total electricity from hydropower. In Brazil, the region’s largest economy, hydropower provided almost 85% of electricity generation in 2007 (see Figure 3). In the Brazilian National Energy Plan for 2008-2017, the government set a goal to build 54 GW. However, most of these additions will be non-hydro capacity to diversify the country’s electricity generation fuel mix because of the risk of power shortages during times of drought. Despite this, Brazil does plan to continue expanding its hydro generation over the projection period, including the construction of two plants on the Rio Madeira in Rondonia — 3,200 MW Santo Antonio and 3,300 MW Jirau. The two plants are scheduled for completion in 2012-2015. In the long term, electricity demand could be met in part by the proposed 11,200 MW Belo Monte project.
August 18th, 2011 | Category: International
Copyright © 2019 PAKISTAN RENEWABLE ENERGY SOCIETY ® - All Rights Reserved
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Fauquier County, VA Real Estate
Fauquier County, VA
Fauquier County is part of the Washington DC Metropolitan Area. It is adjacent to Loudoun County, Clarke County, Prince William County, Culpeper County and Warren County. Fauquier County contains more than seven hundred sites, places, and areas of historic significance. Route 66 runs through the northern part of Fauquier County.
Fauquier County offers peacefulness away from the hustle and bustle of life’s hectic pace. It is located in the heart of Virginia’s wine and hunt country. Fauquier offers over 21 parks and recreational facilities, various golf clubs, equestrian clubs and training centers and The Flying Circus. The Flying Circus is every Sunday, May through October where pilots and parachute jumps perform daring stunts off airplanes.
Fauquier County has agricultural aspects like, pick-your-own berries/veggies, farm tours, Farmer’s Markets and corn mazes. Along with the enjoyable outdoor activities, Fauquier is home to many historical battlefield sites, museums, trails and tours and family research centers.
I-81 is easily assessable taking you to I-81 north or south. U.S. Route 15 will take you north and south to New York or South Carolina. U.S. Route 17 and 29 are also very accessible from Fauquier County, VA.
Culpeper County Airport: < 22 miles
Washington Dulles International Airport: < 40 miles
Flying T Farm Airport: < 44 miles
View all Fauquier County Listings
SEARCH FOR LISTINGS IN FAUQUIER COUNTY
0 CATLETT ROAD
CALVERTON, VA 20138
6564 POMEROY LANE
Open House: July 21, 11:00 - 1:00
7748 TAYLOR ROAD
CATLETT, VA 20119
11725 FREEMANS FORD ROAD
4 KINGSBRIDGE COURT
9722 FOXVILLE ROAD
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Letters & Reviews
Press/Radio
A Documentary on Misophonia
Director Jeffrey Scott Gould
My Misophonia journey begins
About 5 years ago, I received a life-changing call from a friend who saw a segment on 20/20; she said, “I know what you have, it’s called Misophonia and it means “hatred of sound”. After years of living with this sound sensitivity, I finally had validation that this was an actual disorder, and that’s where my journey began.
While doing research, I realized that there was a need for a film that not only explored the emotional and psychological impact that misophonia has on a sufferer, but also on their relationships, family dynamic, careers, and certainly every aspect of their lives. I also learned that there were many other people just like me and as a result, my documentary “Quiet Please…” was born. Over 900 contributions to the crowd-funding campaign, and hundreds of inquires have come in from 22 countries, further proving that there was a need for this film. It turns out, it’s not just a “quirk”…it’s a real neurological disorder.
Misophonia Awareness…The Worldwide Release
Since starting the film in 2015, many people have written that the film is making a difference in their lives, and helping to educate those closest to them; that’s where awareness starts. Please view the trailer; if you feel that you can relate or know someone who has similarly negative reactions to specific sounds, consider watching, or sharing the film with them. To date, the film has garnered 16 festival awards and selections, and has received a substantial amount of press. “Quiet Please…” with a running time of 93 minutes is now available for rent or purchase in over 50 territories on: iTunes, Google Play and Amazon. The film includes Closed Captions, and Spanish/French Subtitles depending on location. There are also “Expanded Edition” DVDs available for those who would like to own a hard copy of the film.
Quiet Please… Official Trailer
Quiet Please… Still Relevant
Quiet Please… on Amazon Prime
Awareness for Misophonia on a Global Scale
The Original Shirts are back…
DVDs are back…
“Thank you so much for sending the film and shirt. I JUST finished watching the film, and am in tears, really, at my office, sobbing, with recognition, resonance, compassion, sympathy and more. I admire and applaud, love and laud what you’ve done and are doing.” – Andrew
“I cannot express how validating this documentary is, I cried all the way through with feelings of relief, admiration and empathy, etc… with each sufferer you had filmed” – Julie
“The film surpassed my expectations completely. It was excellent. I really connected to every person there, felt like these are real people with a real issue, the emotion they conveyed when talking about their experiences was captured so well.” – Lisa
“Jeffrey…. your documentary has HELPED our relationship get on the right footing. He learned SO much about me and my condition by watching it with me.” – Cory
“ I am so grateful to people like you who are getting the word out that this is a real condition, with real suffering! Thank you, thank you, thank you.” – Amy
“ I loved the film and I felt so NOT ALONE watching it. My husband, who is very understanding, learned a lot and enjoyed it as well. Bravo!” – Marlene
“From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for what you’ve done for the Misophonia community. We probably wouldn’t be as far as we are without you.” – Hannah
“As you know, the work you have done in creating the film is essential to the progress of breaking through and enlightening the unaware.” – Teresa
© 2019 Quiet Please. All rights reserved.
Home | About | News & Updates | Behind the Scenes | Our Supporters | Media | Contact
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D & X / PBA procedures
The Supreme Court's 2007 decision:
Reactions and consequences
A description of the Court's decision is covered in a separate essay
Reactions to the court decision:
Mark Sherman of the Associated Press wrote:
"It was the first time the court banned a specific procedure in a case over how not whether to perform an abortion."
"Abortion rights groups have said the procedure sometimes is the safest for a woman. They also said that such a ruling could threaten most abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy, although government lawyers and others who favor the ban said there are alternate, more widely used procedures that remain legal." 1
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the minority, said that the ruling:
"... refuses to take ... seriously [previous Supreme Court decisions on abortion. It] ... "tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. ... "For the first time since Roe, the court blesses a prohibition with no exception safeguarding a woman's health. 1,2
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said that by validating a ban on such abortions, "the court has taken the first major step back" toward the days when abortion was illegal. 3
Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women said:
"What it says to me is that this court is willing to disregard prior precedent, and they are waiting for an opportunity to overturn Roe." 3
Douglas Johnson of the National Right to Life Committee, an anti-abortion group, said the ruling "provides further encouragement" to state and federal lawmakers to enact better "informed consent" laws, such as those requiring that women be offered an opportunity to see ultrasounds or hear about a fetus' ability to feel pain before they have an abortion. 3
Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, a fundamentalist Christian advocacy group, said:
"We have a court now that has correctly yielded to the Congress and the legislative branch. This will bolster state legislators who are reflecting the views of their constituents on abortion." 3
Rep. Steve Chabot, (R-OH), a leading sponsor of the federal ban, said:
"It forced many people to consider what actually occurs when an abortion is carried out. It's not a reach for one to think that the child is just as much a human being earlier in the process, and that those other forms of abortion are pretty awful too." 3
Nancy Keenan, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America said:
"The court has given anti-choice state lawmakers the green light to open the flood gates and launch additional attacks on safe, legal abortion, without any regard for women's health." 3
Ralph Neas, president of People for the American Way, said:
"Today's 5-to-4 decision is further proof that the confirmation of right-wing nominees to the Supreme Court has disastrous consequences for American' rights and liberties." 2
James Bopp, general counsel of the National Right to Life Committee, was pleased at the court's ban. He said:
"Partial-birth abortion involves killing a child just inches from full delivery. One of our concerns was the right to abortion moving outside the womb now during delivery and really being an expansion of the right. The court has rejected that." 2
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) said they would reintroduce a bill to enshrine a woman's right to have an abortion in federal law. 3
Consequences of the Supreme Court decision:
About 900,000 out of the one million abortions performed annually in the U.S. are done during the first trimester and are thus unaffected by this ruling. For more advanced pregnancies, there are alternative, although more risky, procedures available for second and third trimester abortions that do not involve a D&X procedure.
There is also a loophole in the law. It only bans a range of D&X procedures and then only if they are performed on a living fetus. A physician could theoretically terminate the life of a fetus while it is still in the woman's uterus. At that point, the fetus would be dead and a D&X procedure would be legal.
It is possible that the Democrat-controlled House and Senate will revisit the law and add a health exemption for cases in which the adverse health consequences would be extremely serious. This would probably be vetoed by the President. It is doubtful that there would be sufficient votes in the present Congress to overturn the veto.
It is highly probable that many states will initiate bills to restrict abortions in various ways.
It is likely that some women will die as a result of this ruling. Some physicians will be forced to make a judgment call whether the woman will die or whether she will "only" suffer very serious health consequences if a D&X procedure is withheld. The doctor might well err on the side of withholding the procedure. Otherwise he or she might face a felony conviction under the act, a lengthy jail sentences and the loss of their profession.
If the fetus is dead, then a D&X procedure is permitted under the act. However, if the fetus is so malformed that it will not gain consciousness and/or will not live for more than a few minutes as a newborn, then the procedure must be withheld. Some women will probably be seriously and permanently disabled in order to have a newborn that dies almost immediately.
Mark Sherman, "Court backs ban on abortion procedure," Associated Press, 2007-APR-18, at: http://news.yahoo.com/
Warren Richey, "US Supreme Court allows late-term abortion ban. The 5-to-4 ruling upholds a ban on 'partial-birth' abortion. In 2000, the court had struck down a similar ban," The Christian Science Monitor, 2007-APR-19. at: http://www.csmonitor.com/
Julie Hirschfeld Davis, "Abortion ruling emboldens opponents," http://news.yahoo.com/
Copyright 2006 & 2007 by Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance.
First posted: 2006-APR-19
Last updated: 2007-APR-20
Go to the previous page, or to the D&E / PBA menu, or choose:
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FEAR - Live At The Gramercy Theater, New York City, September 21st, 2018.
FEAR, celebrating their 40th anniversary with a tour that is, if not the original lineup, at least partially what is regarded as the ‘classic lineup,’ made a stop in New York City on September 21st, 2018. One of those bands that used to be able to blast through seventeen songs in fifty-minutes proved that, yes, forty years later, they should still blast through ...
Choking Victim - Tompkins Square Park 8-5-18
Tompkins Square Park, located in the East Village in Manhattan, has long been a sight the locals associate with politics and activism. There were anti-war protests there in the sixties, and in the eighties it became a de facto homeless camp and was ripe with drug problems. In 1988, the cops came in and tried to oust the homeless that were living there. This resulted in a now fairly infamous riot, clips of which did wind up on newscasts around the New York City area. When it was all said and done, between the evening of August 6th and the morning of August 7th, thirty-eight people – homeless and random bystanders alike – were injured in altercations with the NYPD and no police ...
The Dayglo Abortions Live At The Brooklyn Bazaar, Greenpoint, Brooklyn, NY June 22nd, 2018.
On June 16th we went to the Brooklyn Bazaar in Greenpoint, Brooklyn to see The Street Dogs play with The New Darkbuster opening. While I was there, I drank a lot of beer and when I drink a lot of beer, I need to go to the bathroom – and so I did. Thank God! Because had I not I’d have never found out that a last minute Dayglo Abortions ...
The Damned - 40th Anniversary Tour - Warsaw, Brooklyn NY 5-23-2017
The Damned (with support from California’s The Bellrays) took the stage last night in Brooklyn at the Warsaw concert theater in front of a sold out crowd. The date that had to be rescheduled after guitarist Captain Sensible tumbled off the stage and did some damage to his ribs towards the end of the Toronto show earlier on the tour. While the good Captain was put away in the hospital for a spell after the incident, you’d have never known it last night. He played with the energy and enthusiasm of a man half ...
Mayhem With Inquisition And Black Anvil, Gramercy Theater, New York City 2-19-17
Norwegian black metal legends Mayhem closed off their De Mysteries Dom Sathans Alive tour, in which they played their seminal debut full length album live from start to finish on February 19th in New York City at the Gramercy Theater to a capacity crowd (well technically the finish was February 20th at St. Vitus, a show that was added at the last minute and which sold out incredibly quickly).
The night opened with support from local black metal act Black Anvil, whose latest ...
Carcass With Crowbar, Ghoul & Night Demon – Gramercy Theater, NYC 8-04-2016
The second to last night of the One Foot In The Grave tour stopped in Manhattan last night at the Gramercy Theater for a sold out show. Night Demon were up first, but ‘the man’ would let me off work in time to check out there set, which was disappointing because their album, Curse Of The Damned, is really good and by all accounts, so is their live show.
Ghoul, touring in support of their latest album Dungeon Bastards (reviewed here!) went on around 8:15pm or so and blasted through a ridiculously fun set of thrash/splatter punk mayhem. These guys play their entire set with sacks over their heads and don’t break character, trash talking the crowd and bringing some pretty great Gwar-inspired props and characters out on stage to get the audience involved.
From ...
Cro-Mags At Tompkins Square Park, NYC July 23rd, 2016 - Dr. Know Benefit Show
Yesterday a whole bunch of people got together at Tompkins Square Park in Manhattan’s Lower East Side for a good cause. To quote from the page set up for this event:
“As many of you know, Gary Miller (aka Dr. Know or Doc), guitarist of the Legendary Washington DC punk band Bad Brains, suffered cardiac arrest in early November last year. His condition quickly progressed to multiple organ failure, and he was on life support for almost 2 weeks. At the time, his doctors gave him a 5% chance of survival. But by the power of PMA, LOVE and ...
Venom Inc. Live At Saint Vitus, Brooklyn NY 6-1-2016
Live Music,
By Ian Jane and Horace Cordier
Ian Says…
Venom Inc., are Venom. At least in a sense. Tony ‘Abaddon’ Bray and Jeff ‘Mantas’ Dunn may not plays drums and guitars with Conrad ‘Cronos’ Lant anymore, but it almost doesn’t matter because these days, they’ve got Tony ‘The Demolition Man’ Dolan on vocals and bass. While Dolan’s work filling in for Venom (not Venom Inc.) in the late eighties and early nineties isn’t as well known as the earlier stuff (thanks in no small part to the fact that most of it has been out of print for years), the guy knows the material and he fits in perfectly.
And so we have Venom Inc., and the trio is now embarking on their second US tour in a year which kicked off earlier this week with two shows at St. Vitus in Brooklyn, NY. We were lucky ...
Thor – A Rock Odyssey Live In New York 5-14-2016
This year, Thor’s first album, Keep The Dogs Away, turned forty. And what better way to commemorate that momentous occasion than by putting on the Thor show to end all Thor shows? That was clearly what Jon Mikl Thor and Rich Fabio had in mind when they set out to create Thor: A Rock Odyssey, a titanic three set affair that went down in Manhattan this past weekend at the Highline Ballroom.
I was lucky enough to be invited early, to watch the load in and the sound check and to get to know some of the performers that would be on stage that night. I arrived at 2pm, guitar player Brian Kozenek (of The Epoxies) was there but outside of that, the kind of traffic snarls that are typical around New York City caused a bit of a delay. But soon enough, a crew made up of keyboard player Christopher Totaro, bass man Scott Jackson, lead guitar players Paul LaPlaca and Vick LeCar and then Mr. Fabio and Thor himself made their presence known.
As the stage started shaping up, it became obvious that this was going to be a pretty big deal. Not only was the band clearly pumped up, but there was the whole visual side of the show ...
Corrosion Of Conformity With Mothership & Polygamist - Live At St. Vitus 4-14-2016
Brooklyn’s St. Vitus played host, last night, to a triple threat of metal from across the spectrum in one of this week’s shows honoring the venue’s fifth year in business. First up were the burrough’s native sons, Polygamist. George Souleidis, one of the bar’s owners, fronts this three piece and they opened the night with a solid set of sludgy, stoner metal with Souleidis expressing some pretty sincere gratitude to everyone in attendance for supporting the bar in the first place. It was a fitting way to kick off the night and on top of that, these guys put on a pretty solid show.
Mothership, ...
Cradle Of Filth With Butcher Babies & Ne Obliviscaras Live In New York City - March 8th, 2016.
Last night marked the final stop on Cradle Of Filth’s latest North American tour. Taking place in Manhattan at Webster Hall, support was provided by Ne Obliviscaras and Butcher Babies.
The opening slot on this tour saw Ne Obliviscaras, a six piece death metal band hailing from Melbourne, Australia, touring North American for the first time and as their set drew to a close you could clearly see from the smiles on their faces that they were impressed with the reception they received. While I missed the first half (which, in hindsight, was a mistake), the portion that I did catch showed a very creative band clearly determined to do something different in their chosen genre. The playing is very tight and at times insanely technical, which contrasts nicely with the growled vocals of front man ...
Black Sabbath - Live In Kansas City February 17th 2016
Horace Cordier
After a quick pit stop at the hotel after arriving in Kansas City, the first order of business is to meet the VIP group and head into the Sprint Center for BLACK SABBATH's soundcheck. VIP Nation have this thing down to a military science so the rules are spelled out upfront: no personal photos and all cell phones are to be handed in to be returned after the meet and greet. Our group is about 15 people - one of the smaller ones according to ...
Golden Earring Five Zero Concert - 12-12-15 The Ziggo Dome, Amsterdam
GOLDEN EARRING - The Ziggo Dome, Amsterdam 12/12/2015
The Five Zero.
Approximately one year ago I received an intriguing email in the middle of the night. GOLDEN EARRING, a Dutch band I've loved since I was a teenager in the 80's, were having their 50th anniversary concert at the biggest stadium in Amsterdam. Within 10 minutes, despite not having a current passport or having been on a proper vacation in well over a decade, I bought a VIP ticket. And booked a trip to Amsterdam.
To most Americans, and many ...
Thor Live In New York City, November 21st And 22nd 2015
This article is long, and maybe a little self-indulgent, but bear with me. Or skip straight to the pictures and the video. It’s your call. But I’m going to tell this story and I’m going to tell it right and to tell it right, a little bit of background information is needed.
When I was a kid growing up in the wilds of Southwestern Ontario and our family’s cable package started carrying Muchmusic (the Canadian MTV for those who don’t know), one of the first music videos I remember ever seeing was for a song called Keep The Dogs Away. In the video, an oiled up muscle man calling himself Thor strutted about on stage, flailing his arms all over the place clad in leather and studs but not before he was pulled down an alleyway by a pack of Dobermans. This video was nuts, and ...
King Diamond With Exodus Live In New York City, The Playstation Theater, November 21st 2015.
King Diamond, currently playing the classic Abigail album in full on this 2015 tour, played the third and final night of run of shows at the Playstation Theater in Times Square last night to a sold out crowd.
Exodus, now reunited with vocalist Steve "Zetro" Souza, opened up the night with a ridiculously tight set and they did a great job of working the crowd up for the main event. Souza sounded great and had a lot of energy, as did the rest of the band. Kragen Lum (filling in for Gary Holt) and Lee Altus killed on guitar with the rhythm section of Jack Gibson on bass and Tom Hunting on drums holding everything down perfectly.
The set list for their opening assault was: Deranged / Blood In, Blood Out / Body Harvest / Impaler / Blacklist / Bonded by Blood / The Toxic Waltz / Strike of the Beast
About twenty minutes later the sounds of Uriah’s Heep could be heard coming from the PA system. The crowd knew what was coming up ...
Looking Back: The Sex Pistols Invade Texas - Sex Pistols live at Randy’s Rodeo, January 8, 1978
Text And Photographs By Russ Joyner
January 8, 1978 seems like a hell of a long time ago, but I truly can remember events just like it was yesterday. Recently I discovered a YouTube clip and it brought back a flood of those memories, from a period in my life that I thought was all but lost to time. The video featured the Sex Pistols playing the song, New York, from their infamous appearance at Randy’s Rodeo in San Antonio, Texas, the third stop on their brief, but legendary, tour of hostile southern U.S. venues. But even better, at the end it tacked on footage of the notorious incident where Sid Vicious smashes his bass guitar over some hellraiser’s head. Check out the end of the video – they interview the guy who was on the receiving end of Sid’s guitar. It was the type of spontaneous event that left a lasting impression. My life actually changed in so many ways that day, and it altered the course of my remaining time in ...
D.R.I. Live In New York City At Blackthorn 51 May 30th, 2015.
You know you’re in for a special night when, shortly after walking through the door of a venue, you’re smashed into by a burley mosh pit enthusiast and knocked into the bar. But when minutes later you see a guy in a plastic Viking helmet skanking alongside a bearded albino in a big ol’ circle pit, you have to wonder if you’ve been transplanted to some ...
Cock Sparrer With Murphy's Law & 45 Adapters Live In Brooklyn 4-10-15
Last night, UK street punk legends Cock Sparrer played their first New York City show in fifteen years at The Warsaw in Greenpoint, Brooklyn to a sold out capacity crowd. To say that the band was welcomed with open arms would be an understatement but before they took the stage, there were the two opening acts.
First up were 45 Adapters, a local Brooklyn band made up of “five friends who dress well and drink heavily.” They play a pretty straight forward brand of street punk/oi! music with some reggae and ska influences worked into the mix and they do it really damn well. They wear their influences on their sleeves but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. They played catchy sing-along style punk with a load of energy and they did a very fine job of warming everyone up for the main event. These guys are definitely worth checking out, can’t wait to see them again.
Queens’ Murphy’s Law were up next. ...
Gwar With Corrosion Of Conformity And American Sharks - Live At Irving Plaza, New York City – November 30th, 2014.
The GWAR ETERNAL tour, the band’s first without legendary late front man Oderus Urungus, started out a few weeks ago and last night it came to Manhattan, Irving Plaza to be precise. The evening was kicked off right with an all too short set from Austin Texas’ American Sharks, a killer three piece that play fast and tight and who ripped through most of their debut album in what seemed like no time at all. Make a point of seeing these guys if they come to your town either on their own or supporting a bigger act, because they definitely do not disappoint and were one hundred percent worth getting to the show early and having to entertain yourself with $8 PBR’s for a while before they set up. And when they finish? Go say hi and get a hug from the singer, he’s a super friendly guy.
From there, Corrosion Of Conformity came out for a forty-minute set. I’d ...
Alice Cooper - Halloween 2014 - Kitchener, Ontario
Mark Tolch
Venue: The Centre In The Square, Kitchener, ON
*All pictures are off of my cellphone, so don't expect awesome. All typos, grammar mistakes, etc, etc, etc, are the result of not being a proper student of English, and a heaping help of NyQuil.
It's not too often that you get to see a real life rock and roll legend. Most of the path-forging folks who attained legendary status didn't do it through healthy living and good clean fun, and sadly have passed on. But Vincent Furnier, aka Alice Cooper has managed to keep going strong, largely due to the shedding ...
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OBA keeps narrow lead over PLP
Tim Smith News Editor
Premier, Michael Dunkley has seen his performance approval rating improve (Photograph by Blaire Simmons)
Politicial Polls2
Politicial Polls
The One Bermuda Alliance is hanging on to its narrow lead over the Progressive Labour Party, according to a poll commissioned by The Royal Gazette.
The OBA has a 38-36 lead over the PLP in the survey by Global Research this month, compared with the 39-38 advantage it held in our last poll in March.
More than a quarter of people — 26 per cent — chose to back neither party.
Michael Dunkley and Bob Richards, the leader and deputy leader of the OBA, both saw their performance approval ratings improve, with PLP leader Marc Bean recording a slight drop and his deputy David Burt remaining unchanged.
The telephone survey of 402 registered voters took place between June 6 and June 13 and has a margin of error of +/- 5 per cent.
A breakdown of the results by race shows that while both parties are continuing to garner support from their traditional bases, the OBA’s popularity among whites and the PLP’s among blacks has declined.
Among whites, 87 per cent said they would support the ruling party, down from 89 per cent, with an unchanged 2 per cent opting for the PLP.
Among blacks, an unchanged 13 per cent said they support the OBA, with 53 per cent voting PLP, down from 58 per cent in March and 64 per cent last December.
The OBA still has the male vote and the PLP has the female vote. Among men, 44 per cent chose OBA with 32 per cent picking PLP; among women, 32 per cent said OBA and 40 per cent said PLP.
The OBA has a performance approval rating of 23 per cent, compared with the PLP’s performance approval rating of 21 per cent.
Mr Dunkley, the Premier, has a performance approval rating of 40 per cent, up from 35 per cent three months ago, but still lower than his 48 per cent score from last December.
He wins approval from 68 per cent of whites and 24 per cent of blacks and is most appreciated by the older generation, with 51 per cent backing from people between the ages of 55 and 64, and 49 per cent from the over-65s.
Mr Bean, the Leader of the Opposition, who has been on a medical leave of absence since March, has a performance approval rating of 22 per cent, down from 24 per cent in March.
Mr Bean is backed by 32 per cent of blacks and 3 per cent of whites.
Mr Richards, the finance minister, has recovered some of the ground he lost shortly after his Budget speech in February.
His performance approval rating is 23 per cent, up from 19 per cent. His rating among whites is 51 per cent, and among blacks is 9 per cent.
Mr Burt, the Shadow Minister of Finance, who has been Acting Leader of the Opposition in Mr Bean’s absence, retains his performance approval rating of 32 per cent.
His rating among blacks is 50 per cent and among whites is 2 per cent.
The four politicians were also given favourability ratings to reflect their general popularity among voters.
Mr Dunkley scored 42 per cent, Mr Bean 25 per cent, Mr Richards 27 per cent and Mr Burt 36 per cent.
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I am honored to be part of this JACK WEBB Blogathan, please check out the Hub for the event here:
http://wp.me/p4SU0r-6O
THE D.I. (1957; Jack Webb)
I don't know about you, but when I think of drill instructors I think of R. Lee Ermey. Clear;y though, Ermey himself must have seen this film at some point I have to think. It would seem that FULL METAL JACKET director Stanley Kubrick was a fan of the film for sure:
THE D.I. opens with a shot of a Marine placard which reads, "Let's Be Damned Sure That No Man's Ghost Will Ever Say - "If Your Training Program Had Only Done It's Job"". Out side of the obvious erroneous use of "it's" versus "its", (which is kinda funny), this quote sets the tone/stage for a serious movie. The very first scene after that is a young soldier stepping into frame and addressing Jack Webb in the titular role. The back of Webb's head and his voice is all we get in this shot, but it is effective enough to convey his character in a matter of three or four lines. Webb has always had a specific cadence and tone of voice that are very specific and compelling. We all remember his DRAGNET voice-overs and how perfectly they worked inside of the police-procedural, investigative environment of that TV show. Webb delivers his dialogue in such a sharp, machine-gun-quick manner that it's hard not to feel how he easily commands his trainees. His no-nonsense persona is well suited to a role like THE D.I. for sure. I think it's quite interesting that Jack Webb served as lead actor and director on this film as well. This was his third feature film (he'd done a DRAGNET movie in 1954 and PETE KELLY'S BLUES in 1955) and it's well put together (and acted by him). Some of the soldier boys are a little stiff, but it almost works in the film's favor as they seem justifiably nervous. Jack Webb was apparently a pretty no-nonsense kind of guy in real life and took his work quite seriously. Seems like another reason he plays this part so well (and even unsympathetically at times).
In poking around for information about the production, I came across news of the Ribbon Creek Incident of 1956 (where a drunken Marine staff sergeant drowned six of his recruits during an outlandish exercise). Though the staff sergeant was ultimately acquitted of the manslaughter charges, it was bad press for the Marines of course. Apparently many Hollywood types approached the U.S. Marines about dramatizing the incident soon after that, but Jack Webb chose a much more pro-Marines story/film and was met with open military arms and many technical advisors to boot. Webb even plays "The Halls of Montezuma" over the credits of his movie. The film is certainly a much different movie than FULL METAL JACKET and they both have distinctly disparate takes on Marine training (though both films take place use Parris Island as a location). Like FULL METAL JACKET, THE D.I. serves as a kind of "look inside" for civilians as to how the Marine Corps prepares its soldiers for combat (though I wouldn't call FMJ a pro-Marines movie by any means). Both films have the effect of being a bit shocking and tough to watch on parts because the training is quite grueling. It's very interesting to compare what Kubrick would have you take away from his peek at the process versus Webb. Both films have somewhat similar stories in that they focus on a single platoon, which happens to have one problem recruit within. It's interesting to see how different the movies are though despite that. There's certainly a perspective shift in that THE D.I. is from Jack Webb's point of view whilst FMJ is through the eyes of the young soldiers. I have to admit that my own personal feelings about Jack Webb end up taking away from his effectiveness in the role on some small level. He's great, don't get me wrong, but somehow he isn't scary like R. Lee Ermey can be in FMJ. I feel like a Drill Instructor needs to be scary to be believable. Webb is serious and always on point with the way he speaks to his platoon, but I found myself occasionally grinning at some of the cracks he makes to them. While I also laughed a bit at some things Ermey said in FMJ, it was a laugh that was often immediately followed by a quick drawing in of my breath as I felt the tension between him and his recruits. Webb's persona and his years of being Joe Friday (and parodied as that character) certainly undercut my suspension of disbelief as I watched the film. Webb is completely believable though and I wish I didn't have my previous popular cultural attachments to interfere with what he was doing. It might just be that Ermey was a Drill Instructor in real life prior to becoming an actor and Webb wasn't (in fact he "washed out" when he enlisted in the Air Force). In writing this post, I realize I may sound like I'm bagging on Jack Webb, however that is not my intention at all. He is an actor I admire very much and his work as a director is quite solid. I was just swept away while watching the film by the fact that there are basically two truly standout Drill Instructor performances in cinema. I think because I saw FULL METAL JACKET first (and many many times) I found myself wrestling with the two portrayals and unable to help myself from comparing them. Webb comes off as ever so slightly smug in some moments whereas Ermey comes off as frightening. I think the difference might be that Ermey (as expressed in the film) feels an obligation to make sure that none of his platoon are "weak links" that might end up getting any other Marines killed due to their negligence. He's really kind of trying to terrify them into understanding that they need to take this stuff seriously. Webb does some of the same with his D.I. character, but like I said, he's just not as scary. I think it's really all about the eyes. Webb's eyes are a little dead (at least here), like those of a shark. Ermey's eyes are often wide and crazy-looking and there is a big difference there. Regardless of all this back and forth comparing, I still highly recommend that folks check out THE D.I. It makes a neat companion piece to FULL METAL JACKET and is clearly a text that Kubrick used to make his film more effective (he seems to have cribbed some of Webb's techniques for shooting the barracks at the very least). Without one we don't have the other (at least not in the same way).
Here's a rare extended trailer for THE D.I.
THE D.I. is currently available on DVD via Warner Archive:
http://goo.gl/9UIEce
Labels: 50 westerns from the 50s, dvd review, jack webb, jeack webb blogathon, toby roan, Warner Archive, warner archive grab bag
Caftan Woman said...
My dad was crazy about Jack in this movie. My dad wasn't a marine, but was a veteran of the Canadian Army and felt the portrayal of the drill instructor very true to life. It makes the movie special to me.
My dad wasn't alive to see "Full Metal Jacket". I would imagine from what you say that he would have very impressed with Emery.
Rupert Pupkin said...
Very cool. Yeah both performances are good and interesting and unique in their own ways.
This is another Webb film I haven't seen -- I didn't realize I had missed so many but there's also PETE KELLY'S BLUES (Caftan Woman's topic) and APPOINTMENT WITH DANGER (at Speakeasy). The three of you really have me anxious to fill in the Webb feature film gaps in my viewing! Thanks for a really interesting post.
I love anything that gives Jack Webb an opportunity to chew someone out while a camera's rolling.
This movie is terrific, and it's been way too long since I've seen it.
Lê said...
Thanks for the link for the Ribbon Creek Incident! It's good to know the backstory. I saw The D.I. first, and my wish to become a Marine went below zero. Now I wonder what I'll think about Full Metal Jacket!
Don't forget to read my contribution to the blogathon! (also about The D.I., by the way!) :)
http://criticaretro.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-di-1957-e-o-incrivel-jack-webb.html
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There’s a new report out this week about ocean plastics, the man-made debris that floats and sinks in global waterways and often lands in marine creatures’ stomachs. According to the study, which was a collaborative effort by McKinsey & Co.’s environmental business unit and the nonprofit Ocean Conservancy, roughly 60% of all the plastic in global waters originates in five countries: China, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam.
Around the world, most of the trash that gets into the ocean comes from land, not from cruise ships or fishing boats. On land, plastic can “leak” from collection sites to the ocean, but it’s much more likely to reach the ocean if it’s never collected formally in the first place.
None of the countries identified in the report as “the five focus countries for action” to reduce global plastic pollution has a formal recycling system. What they do have are “waste pickers,” who root through garbage piles to find reusable items to sell for cash. These people “are the unsung heroes of conservation” in Asia, as GlobalPost puts it, but they need more support. The McKinsey/Ocean Conservancy report says “their inclusion and empowerment, along with recognition of their working conditions and long-term plans to upgrade those conditions, should be an explicit goal.”
After all, only about 20% of discarded plastic is valuable enough to be of interest to a waste-picker. Plastic bags, for example, don’t get collected.
These developing economies in Asia generate relatively little waste per capita, especially compared to western capitalist consumer ones. But the waste-management infrastructure makes all the difference. China has the most “land-based plastic-waste leakage” of any country in the world, according to the report’s authors, who traveled to China and the four other “focus countries” to assess how local plastic waste gets collected, stored, and eliminated. They note:
“Our field research and interviews with public officials have also shown that these countries acknowledge the problem and are actively looking for collaborative solutions.”
The authors recommend “a $5 billion annual ramp-up in waste-management spending” over the next 10 years as a meaningful way to improve things.
http://qz.com/595673/more-than-half-the-plastic-in-the-ocean-comes-from-these-five-countries/
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CAPT. RICK MURPHY
Fishing Guide, Professional Tournament Angler, Founder & CEO RM Media
Capt. Rick Murphy knew from the time he was 5 years old that he wanted to spend his life outdoors fishing. A native Floridian, Rick grew up fishing in the waters off Key Biscayne and the Florida Keys, and honed his skills in the diverse habitats and shallow waters of Everglades National Park. Today, he is considered one of the area’s expert guides.
His search for adventure has taken him around the globe––from tracking salmon in Alaska and billfishing in Guatemala (the sailfish capital of the world) to tagging Mako sharks in Isla Mujeres, Mexico, with Guy Harvey.
Along with being a professional tournament angler and the founder and CEO of RM Media, he is the executive producer and host of three of the most popular fishing shows on TV: Sportsman’s Adventures (celebrating 25 years on the air in 2019), Florida Insider Fishing Report and Texas Insider Fishing Report. In 2018, Discovery picked up Sportsman’s Adventures, helping fulfill a lifelong dream: to share his love of fishing and the environment with as many people as possible.
Rick is the all-time winningest saltwater tournament angler in the U.S. with 139 titles to date, and the only professional redfish angler to win three redfish titles in 12 months. He is also the only angler to win inshore and offshore saltwater championships in every category (bonefish, redfish, sailfish, tarpon, permit).
He has won the four Keys Tarpon Fly Fishing Tournaments (Ladies Tarpon Fly, Golden Fly, Don Hawley and Gold Cup), and has taken home Angler of the Year Honors from ESPN, FLW and IFA Redfish Tours. He is a South Florida Sailfish Circuit winner and twice was Master Angler Jimmy Johnson National Billfish Championship.
He is a Legacy Member of Coastal Conservation Association and a champion and contributor to the cause of preserving our oceans and their inhabitants.
“Life is way too short to not do what you love. I wear many hats in the marine industry: TV host, spokesperson, professional angler and charter captain. Out of all my roles, guiding remains my favorite. It enables me to not only share my experience and passion for fishing, but also deliver the conservation message of angler’s rights and responsibilities first-hand.”
–– Capt. Rick Murphy
Fishing Guide, Founder & CEO RM Media
Rick has an uncanny ability to connect with his fans––whether they’re 5 years old or 80. People respect his knowledge and are pleasantly surprised by his humility. When he catches a fish, he’s genuinely excited. He’s one in a million.
~Brie Gabrielle .
Rick lives to fish. He doesn’t care what the species is as long at it tests his skill and sportsmanship. He is the only person I know in fishing who produces 65 shows in 26 weeks. He is truly living his dream.
~Dave Ferrell
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Sequelised
SEQUELISED: Halloween II (1981)
John Cowdell
John revisits Haddonfield for more of the night he came home…
Who made it?: Rick Rosenthal (Director), John Carpenter, Debra Hill (Producers/Writers), Dino De Laurentiis Company/Universal Pictures.
Who’s in it?: Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, Charles Cyphers, Jeffrey Kramer, Lance Guest, Pamela Susan Shoop, Dick Warlock.
Tagline: “More Of The Night He Came Home.”
Halloween II has to be one of my favourite sequels of all time, and I find myself enjoying it more than the original. Even though it probably isn’t as good as John Carpenter’s classic, it certainly is a sequel that works well as a companion piece. You could easily cut both films together and have yourself a compelling three hour-long slasher. Where it fails in tension and suspense, it more than makes up for it in action and gore.
On October 31, 1978, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) is admitted to Haddonfield Hospital after the chilling events that had occurred that same fateful night. Isolated and vulnerable within the confines of the hospital, Laurie soon realises the nightmare is far from over when Michael Myers returns to stalk his prey. With only Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence) believing “The Shape” is still alive, he finds himself in a race against time to put a stop to his former patient’s killing spree.
Produced on a budget of $2.5 million, Halloween II was directed by Rick Rosenthal, a relatively unknown filmmaker whose main body of work was in television. But it was a short film he made called Toyer that gained the attention of Carpenter and led to Rosenthal being hired. Carpenter had refused the opportunity to direct the sequel as he felt he would just be repeating himself, but pressure from the producers led to him still being involved with the project.
Along with Debra Hill, Carpenter wrote the screenplay for the sequel. They had originally planned for it to be set a few years after Halloween, with Myers tracking down Laurie to a high-rise apartment building where she now lived. But, after several script meetings, it was decided that the story would be mainly set in Haddonfield Hospital instead. Shooting the film in 3D was also considered by the filmmakers. Hill said, “We investigated a number of 3D processes… but they were far too expensive for this particular project. Also, most of the projects we do involve a lot of night shooting – evil lurks at night. It’s hard to do that in 3D.”
Carpenter also composed and performed the score with Alan Howarth, who would collaborate with Carpenter on Escape from New York (1981), Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), Christine (1983), and Prince of Darkness (1987), as well as uncredited themes for The Thing where the film’s score is credited solely to Ennio Morricone. The music was mainly a rehash of themes from the original, displaying a more dark and brooding feel to the sound. The film also features the song “Mr. Sandman” by The Chordettes, which was also used in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later.
A lot of the original cast of Halloween reprised their roles for the sequel. The only key member missing was Nick Castle who had portrayed The Shape with great menace. Castle had gone onto carve out a career as a writer and director with films such as The Last Starfighter (1984) and The Boy Who Could Fly (1986). Stunt performer Dick Warlock, whose credits include The Green Berets (1968) and Jaws (1975), replaced Castle as Myers. Warlock studied Castle’s performance as The Shape in the first film so he could bring a sense of continuity to character. Warlock said,”I watched the scenes where Laurie is huddled in the closet. Michael breaks through. She grabs a hanger and thrusts it up and into his eyes. Michael falls down and Laurie walks to the bedroom doorway and sits down. In the background, we see Michael sit up and turn towards her to the beat of the music… Anyway, that and the head tilt were the things I carried with me into Halloween II. I didn’t really see that much more to hang my hat on in the first film.”
Curtis as Laurie Strode and Pleasence as Dr. Sam Loomis are once again the central characters of the piece. In this sequel, their performances are turned up a notch, adding great intensity to such a simple plot. Nancy Stephens, who played nurse Marion Chambers, also returns. But this time around, she gets much more screen time and plays a pivotal role in the film as she reveals to Dr. Loomis that Laurie is actually Myers’ sister. An unnecessary plot twist at the end of the day, but it certainly adds more depth to the story.
Halloween II works as an effective sequel on so many levels. It is unique in that it is a direct follow on from the original and set during the same Halloween night. Stylistically, it resembles what Carpenter had achieved so brilliantly with its purposeful use of first-person perspective to display the killer’s voyeuristic behavior. The film also manages to create a tense atmosphere with use of its environment; in this case, a hospital. A lot of the build-up of suspense was replaced by gratuitous violence and female nudity, which was mainly due to the competition from other blood-soaked slashers invading the market that same year. According to the director, the gore and nudity was not his idea but Carpenter’s. Apparently, Carpenter wasn’t happy with Rosenthal’s rough cut, believing it not to be scary enough, so Carpenter, much to Rosenthal’s dismay, took it upon himself to make changes to the film in an attempt to improve its gore factor. And there are plenty of memorable moments throughout the film, including a hatchet to a security guard’s skull, a nurse being scolded in a jacuzzi, and a doctor having a hypodermic needle inserted into his eyeball.
Halloween II was released on October 30, 1981, and grossed $7,446,508 on its opening weekend, eventually grossing $25.5 million in total in the United States. Even though the film wasn’t as successful as the original, the sequel managed to earn more at the box office than rival horrors Friday the 13th: Part 2, Omen III: The Final Conflict and The Howling.
The film also stirred up some controversy in parts of Europe due to its graphic violence and nudity, which is pretty tame in comparison to other slashers of the time. As a result, the film ended up being banned in West Germany and Iceland. In the UK, despite being passed uncut with an “X” certificate, seventeen seconds of cuts were made to the film by the BBFC. Thankfully, these edits were waived for the DVD release in 2002.
It’s clear that Carpenter’s heart was not in Halloween II and he did what he had to in order to please the producers. The original was clearly a labour of love, whereas the sequel was a blatant cash-in. But nevertheless, Halloween II is a highly entertaining sequel which continues the story of the original and brings it to a satisfying conclusion.
Michael Myers finally meets his maker? Well, he’s certainly in the right place to receive intensive care.
The mask Michael wears is the exact same mask (a repainted and modified Captain Kirk mask) worn in the original film. It looks different in the sequel because the paint had faded due to a few reasons, first because Nick Castle, the original Michael, kept it in his back pocket during shoots. Also, Debra Hill kept the mask under her bed for several years until the filming of Halloween II, causing it to collect dust and yellow because Hill was a heavy smoker. Also, the mask appears wider because Dick Warlock is shorter and stockier than Nick Castle, so the mask fit his head differently. As the producers thought it would be the final sequel in the series, they let Warlock keep the mask, scalpel, boots, jumpsuit, and knife used in filming. When they decided to revive Michael in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, the producers realised they had made a mistake and never again gave props out to the cast and crew, therefore subsequent sequels used different masks that looked rather different.
Dana Carvey (Wayne’s World) made his movie debut in this movie playing an assistant. He can be seen receiving instructions from a blonde reporter in front of the Wallace house. Carvey can be seen again at the end of the movie when the film crew follows Laurie to the waiting ambulance.
Rosenthal would go on to direct the final film in the original series, Halloween: Resurrection (2002).
The Night He Came Back – Revisiting Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later
VIDEO: Attack of the B-Movies: Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982)
VIDEO: The Shape Lives: 40 Years of Halloween – TEASER TRAILER
SEQUELISED: Escape from L.A. (1996)
CULT CORNER: Escape from New York (1981)
CULT CORNER: Prince of Darkness (1987)
CULT CORNER: Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
I have been writing and producing short films for over ten years and are now branching out into film reviews.
Tags: Alan Howarth, Charles Cyphers, Debra Hill, Dick Warlock, Donald Pleasence, Halloween 2, Halloween 2 (1981), Halloween II, Halloween II (1981), Halloween II 1981 Review, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jeffrey Kramer, John Carpenter, Lance Guest, Nick Castle, Pamela Susan Shoop, Rick Rosenthal
← THE COMIC COMPENDIUM: Severed (2012)
THE WHO REVIEW: "In the Forest of the Night" / "Dark Water" →
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Josh Allen leads Wyoming past Central Michigan in Potato Bowl
Updated: 12/23/2017 06:52:28 AM EST
Wyoming cornerback Tyler Hall upends Central Michigan tight end Tyler Conklin, breaking up a pass, during Friday's Famous Idaho Potato Bowl in Boise, Idaho. AP PHOTO
Sentinel and Enterprise staff photos can be ordered by visiting our SmugMug site.
BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- When Wyoming junior quarterback Josh Allen
Bowl roundup
stepped onto the stage to accept his MVP trophy following the Cowboys' 37-14 victory over Central Michigan on Friday in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl, it didn't take long for the chant to begin.
"Do it! Do it!" Wyoming players shouted in unison as snow began to fall on the field.
Surrounded by teammates and a throng of Wyoming fans, Allen couldn't resist the moment and hoisted the trophy over his head before declaring his intentions to skip his senior season to enter the NFL draft.
"I was hoping to spend at least a day or two thinking about it," Allen said, "but I think my teammates knew, and they were chanting for me to do it. This was the idea the whole time, to come back and trust what Coach (Craig) Bohl was doing and learn more on the offensive side of the football. It wasn't pre-planned before the season started, but we had a pretty good idea of what we were going to do."
Allen missed the final two regular-season games with a sprained right shoulder, resulting in a pair of close losses. In warmups, he looked anxious to return to the field and didn't disappoint the Wyoming contingent on hand for his final collegiate game.
"Sitting out for those two games killed me inside," Allen said. "I wanted to be back on the field with my teammates and brothers."
Allen completed 11 of 19 passed for 154 yards and three touchdowns without an interception.
He didn't have to do much thanks to Wyoming's suffocating defense. But when the Cowboys needed Allen, he produced.
However, Allen's performance didn't have to be all that impressive thanks to a defense that forced eight turnovers.
Central Michigan (8-5) had won five straight. The eight turnovers broke the previous Famous Idaho Potato Bowl record of six.
BAHAMAS BOWL
OHIO 41, UAB 6
NASSAU, Bahamas (AP) -- Dorian Brown rushed for 152 yards on just 12 carries and scored four touchdowns, Nathan Rourke threw for two scores and Ohio beat UAB in the Bahamas Bowl.
Ohio (9-4) averaged 38.9 points per game during the season, setting a school record with 467 points scored, and the Bobcats exhibited that prowess in the opening half, using big plays to build a 27-3 halftime lead. Brown, a redshirt senior, scored on runs of 74, 9, 25 and 14 yards, two in the second quarter and two in the third.
That was too much for the Blazers, a feel-good team seeking its first bowl victory on just its second try. The loss spoiled the end of a remarkable first season back for UAB (8-5), which was predicted to struggle and didn't. UAB President Ray Watts had cut the football program in December 2014 because a university report deemed it too expensive. After public outcry, football was reinstated, but NCAA rules required the school to skip the 2016 season to help the players who stuck it out re-adjust to competing at the top level of college football.
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posted Friday, November 24, 2017 - Volume 45 Issue 47
Washington's magnificence aside, ambitious Roman fails to make its case
by Sara Michelle Fetters - SGN A&E Writer
ROMAN J. ISRAEL, ESQ.
You have to give filmmaker Dan Gilroy credit; he doesn't pull his punches. Nightcrawler was a lean, mean noir-edged descent into nighttime L.A. madness featuring a main character, brilliantly portrayed by Jake Gyllenhaal, who was not exactly the nicest human being to ever be the protagonist of a high-profile production. Now Gilroy brings us Roman J. Israel, Esq. starring Denzel Washington, and once again he isn't interested in making things comfortable for the viewing public. But while fascinating as a showcase for the two-time Academy Award-winning actor, as a complex human drama the filmmaker's latest effort frustratingly comes up short, the ideas presented in the story never gelling together in a manner that is consistently compelling.
Attorney Roman J. Israel, Esq. (Washington) is at a loss as to what he should do next. His longtime law partner William Henry Jackson, a civil right legend who was the public face of their firm, is in a coma and unlikely to recover. George Pierce (Colin Farrell), a fast-talking and ambitious lawyer who runs his own multimillion dollar practice, has been brought in to help clear the current caseload, and per instructions from Jackson's family Roman needs to assist in dissolving the office and getting all their clients transferred over to Pierce.
That's how things begin in Gilroy's story, things moving in a character-driven manner directly after that. Roman proves to be something of a savant. He remembers everything, and he can find every legal loophole there is in order to help his clients. But he's a terrible litigator and a poor public speaker, letting his self-righteous belief that all grey areas between right and wrong need to be eliminated so that the law applies fairly to everyone no matter what their race, gender or financial situation get the better of him, this indignation often leading him to make decisions that are hardly in his client's best interests.
Even so, Pierce knows a good thing when he sees it, and after letting Roman flounder on his own for a little while, he snatches the lawyer up and puts him to work inside his own firm. But when a single mistake leads to the death of a client while they're behind bars, it becomes an active question whether or not this incredibly intelligent attorney is more trouble than he is worth. Even Roman starts questioning himself, making decisions that are completely out of character, especially for a man who has spent many of his waking moments fighting for the civil rights of others without anyone knowing about it. Only a new friendship with community organizer and equal rights crusader Maya Alston (Carmen Ejogo) has him wanting to keep fighting the good fight, the lawyer seeing in her a kindred spirit who reminds him of his ailing friend, mentor and partner William Henry Jackson.
It's a lot of material, but Gilroy presents things in a straightforward, easy to navigate manner so I can't say I lost track of what was happening at any given moment. He also presents an interesting twist where Roman's growing dissolution and questioning of his long-held beliefs about the rule of law and the current state of civil rights brings him to ponder a decision that could potentially destroy decades of his own hard work. It allows the movie to transform into some sort of dramatic noir, a good man suddenly doing the unthinkable for what he feels are solid reasons even if in the light of day all they really do is selfishly gratify himself in the short term, the bigger picture of his acts potentially having catastrophic consequences that are beyond imagining.
But the weird thing is, as gripping as all of this is in concept, in execution it's oddly dull. Gilroy isn't able to generate anything akin to tension, and I frustratingly found it difficult to become emotionally engaged in anything that was happening no matter how dire things were slowly becoming. I felt like I was being purposefully kept at arm's length; that this was an observational tale and not one I was supposed to feel a personal connection to. It's a strange dynamic, one that I do not think suits the story Gilroy is telling, and as such I frequently found my attention drifting to other things instead of remaining focused on what was happening to Roman or what the repercussions of his actions might end up blossoming into.
None of which takes away from Washington's performance. The actor is terrific, bringing to life a character that's unlike any other in his impressive filmography. He and Gilroy could seemingly care less how likeable Roman is or how much the audience connects to his more idiosyncratic mannerisms. Washington moves with a jerky indecisiveness that's marvelous, allowing for a smooth, creepily unnerving tension to slowly mount as the character changes how he goes about doing things in his life as the film progresses. It's the type of performance that almost makes watching the movie worthwhile all by itself, and much like Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady or Al Pacino in Danny Collins Washington elevates moderately middling material to a plateau it never would have risen to without his presence.
I love that Gilroy challenges audiences. I can't wait to see what he's got up his sleeve as a writer and director next. But, even with Washington's magnificence, I'm having a hard time thinking Roman J. Israel, Esq. is anything close to a piece of essential cinema. There's enough going on here that I'll happily give the film a second look sometime in the future, and maybe when I do my opinion will change. But it's not going to happen anytime soon, and as ambitious as Gilroy's feature might be, that's still not enough to make this piece of cinematic litigation worthy of being argued in the form of ticket purchases at the box office turnstile.
Storm Large brings her new band Le Bonheur to Federal Way on Friday, Dec. 1
Seattle Men's Chorus gets sassy and brassy this holiday season
GRAMMYS 2018: The Weeknd, Bruno Mars, Kendrick Lamar, Lady GaGa, Imagine Dragons and Ed Sheeran are big contenders going into nominations announcement
Village Theatre's recent production of Into the Woods deserves recognition
SGN EXCLUSIVE: Screen legend Tippi Hedren on her new memoir, sexual harassment in Hollywood from Alfred Hitchcock, and her involvement with the Roar Foundation and Shambala Preserve
Seattle Humane - Pets of the Week
Jimi Hendrix' 75th birthday celebration at Museum of Pop Culture on November 25
Unflinching Three Billboards a McDormand tour de force
Pixar's Coco a pleasantly colorful diversion
Energetically incoherent Justice League charmingly heroic
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October 7, 2017 By Michael Cho Immigration Lawyer Leave a Comment
We obtained approval of the I-601 Application of Waiver of Grounds of Inadmissibility for the Filipino husband of a U.S. citizen who was subject to a life-time bar for fraud/misrepresentation under INA Section 212(a)(6)(C)(i).
INA Section 212(a)(6)(C)(i) states:
Any alien who, by fraud or willfully misrepresenting a material fact, seeks to procure (or has sought to procure or has procured) a visa, other documentation, or admission into the United States or other benefit provided under this Act is inadmissible.
Our client entered the U.S. lawfully on a valid non-immigrant visa, met his U.S. citizen spouse, and fell in love. They have been married for 14 years. He returned to the Philippines to pursue his studies, planning to return to the U.S. after graduation. He failed to disclose a prior marriage on his original visa application and was consequently charged with fraud / willful misrepresentation pursuant to INA Section 212(a)(6)(C)(i) and deemed inadmissible at his immigrant visa interview.
I was contacted by the clients to assist them in preparing and obtaining approval of the I-601 waiver after the finding of inadmissibility by the U.S. embassy in Manila, Philippines.
An I-601 Application for Waiver of Grounds of Inadmissibility requires a showing that the applicant’s U.S. citizen spouse or parent would suffer “extreme hardship” if the applicant is refused admission into the United States.
”Extreme hardship” has a special meaning under U.S. immigration law. The factors considered relevant in determining extreme hardship include:
Health of the qualifying relative: ongoing or specialized treatment requirements for a physical or mental condition; availability and quality of such treatment in the foreign national’s country, anticipated duration of the treatment; whether a condition is chronic or acute, or long or short-term.
Financial considerations: future employability; loss due to sale of home or business or termination of a professional practice; decline in standard of living; ability to recoup short-term losses; cost of extraordinary needs, such as special education or training for children; cost of caring for family members (i.e., elderly and infirm parents).
Education: loss of opportunity for higher education; lower quality or limited scope of education options; disruption of current program; requirement to be educated in a foreign language or culture with ensuing loss of time in grade; availability of special requirements, such as training programs or internships in specific fields.
Personal considerations: close relatives in the United States and/or the foreign national’s country; separation from spouse/children; ages of involved parties; length of residence and community ties in the United States.
Special considerations: cultural, language, religious, and ethnic obstacles; valid fears of persecution, physical harm, or injury; social ostracism or stigma; access to social institutions or structures.
Any other information that explains how your personal circumstances may qualify as imposing extreme hardship on a qualifying U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident relative.
Spouses must demonstrate that their relationship will suffer more than the normal hardship or financial inconvenience caused by family separation.
Extreme hardship is “not a definable term of fixed and inflexible content or meaning,” but “necessarily depends upon the facts and circumstances peculiar to each case.” Matter of Hwang, 10 I&N Dec. 448, 451 (BIA 1964). In Matter of Cervantes-Gonzalez, the Board provided a list of factors it deemed relevant in determining whether an alien has established extreme hardship to a qualifying relative. 22 I&N Dec. 560, 565 (BIA 1999). The factors include the presence of a lawful permanent resident or United States citizen spouse or parent in this country; the qualifying relative’s family ties outside the United States; the conditions in the country or countries to which the qualifying relative would relocate and the extent of the qualifying relative’s ties in such countries; the financial impact of departure from this country; and significant conditions of health, particularly when tied to an unavailability of suitable medical care in the country to which the qualifying relative would relocate. Id. The Board added that not all of the foregoing factors need be analyzed in any given case and emphasized that the list of factors was not exclusive. Id . at 566.
The Board has also held that the common or typical results of removal and inadmissibility do not constitute extreme hardship, and has listed certain individual hardship factors considered common rather than extreme. These factors include: economic disadvantage, loss of current employment, inability to maintain one’s present standard of living, inability to pursue a chosen profession, separation from family members, severing community ties, cultural readjustment after living in the United States for many years, cultural adjustment of qualifying relatives who have never lived outside the United States, inferior economic and educational opportunities in the foreign country, or inferior medical facilities in the foreign country. See generally Matter of Cervantes-Gonzalez, 22 I&N Dec. at 568; Matter of Pilch, 21 I&N Dec. 627, 632-33 (BIA 1996); Matter of Ige, 20 I&N Dec. 880, 883 (BIA 1994); Matter of Ngai, 19 I&N Dec. 245, 246-47 (Comm’r 1984); Matter of Kim, 15 I&N Dec. 88, 89-90 (BIA 1974); Matter of Shaughnessy, 12 I&N Dec. 810, 813 (BIA 1968).
However, though hardships may not be extreme when considered abstractly or individually, the Board has made it clear that “[r]elevant factors, though not extreme in themselves, must be considered in the aggregate in determining whether extreme hardship exists.” Matter of O-J-O-, 21 I&N Dec. 381, 383 (BIA 1996) (quoting Matter of Ige, 20 I&N Dec. at 882). The adjudicator “must consider the entire range of factors concerning hardship in their totality and determine whether the combination of hardships takes the case beyond those hardships ordinarily associated with deportation.” Id.
The actual hardship associated with an abstract hardship factor such as family separation, economic disadvantage, cultural readjustment, et cetera, differs in nature and severity depending on the unique circumstances of each case, as does the cumulative hardship a qualifying relative experiences as a result of aggregated individual hardships. See, e.g., Matter of Bing Chih Kao and Mei Tsui Lin, 23 I&N Dec. 45, 51 (BIA 2001) (distinguishing Matter of Pilch regarding hardship faced by qualifying relatives on the basis of variations in the length of residence in the United States and the ability to speak the language of the country to which they would relocate).
For example, though family separation has been found to be a common result of inadmissibility or removal, separation from family living in the United States can also be the most important single hardship factor in considering hardship in the aggregate. Salcido-Salcido v. INS, 138 F.3d 1292, 1293 (9th Cir. 1998) (quoting Contreras-Buenfil v. INS, 712 F.2d 401, 403 (9th Cir. 1983)); but see Matter of Ngai, 19 I&N Dec. at 24 7 (separation of spouse and children from applicant not extreme hardship due to conflicting evidence in the record and because applicant and spouse had been voluntarily separated from one another for 28 years).
Therefore, the AAO considers the totality of the circumstances in determining whether denial of admission would result in extreme hardship to a qualifying relative.
We prepared a comprehensive I-601 waiver application including a 29 page legal brief going over how the facts and circumstances of our clients’ lives met the legal standards used to define “extreme hardship.”
In particular, this includes the day-to-day care that the U.S. citizen spouse provides to her elderly mother, who suffers from diabetes, hypertension, and arthritis. The U.S. citizen spouse lives with her elderly mother and they are each dependent on one another to oversee and manage the medical care they both vitally need. Although the elderly mother of the U.S. citizen is not a qualifying relative per se under the INA Section 212(i), her well-being is intimately tied to that of the U.S. citizen spouse (who is the qualifying relative) and was thoroughly presented in our brief.
To provide more detail – should the U.S. citizen spouse be forced to re-locate to the Philippines to be with her husband, her elderly mother would lose her primary support giver. This could be potentially life-threatening to her elderly mother given her fragile state; and such an event would traumatically affect the psychological and physical health of the U.S. citizen spouse which is already compromised. Alternatively, should the U.S. citizen spouse have to remain in the U.S. without the support of her husband, her personal condition would likewise continue to deteriorate, affecting the welfare of two U.S. citizens who desperately need the presence and support of the waiver applicant in their lives. In these types of scenarios, it is always important to present and prove the hardships of close relatives whose well-being are intimately tied to that of the qualifying relative; and demonstrate how both parties would be impacted by the immigration consequences of their situations.
As a result of our efforts, our client was approved for the I-601 Waiver and consequently, this couple now reside lawfully in the U.S. together once again after a separation of more than 9 years apart.
Filed Under: 212(a)(6)(C)(i), 212(i) Waiver, Blog, Extreme Hardship, Fraud, I-601 Waivers, Inadmissibility, Misrepresentation, Philippines, Spouse Visa, Waiver Approvals
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43° Congress
The 29th of June 1929 in Lione, at Rodano's Prefecture, the Association called "Latin Otolaryngology Societas" was registered.
Its birth was intended for gathering together ear, nose and throat specialists of Latin America and Europe. Two important persons contributed to its birth: Professor Tapia from Madrid and Professor Hautant from Paris. Apart from enhance friendship among colleagues of different walk of life,
the aim was to keep a Latin cultural space in relation to the predominant progress of scientifÌc subjects in Anglo-Saxon countries. The certifÌcate of incorporation of the new Society was filed
by the fÌrst Secretary GeneraI, Doctor Fleury Chavanne from Lione, while Professors Citelli, Metianu, Doctors De Mendonca, Van Swieten and Bourgeois were charter members. They arrived to the conclusion that every two years the association would have promoted congressional meetings in
a Latin country to discuss on specifÌc topics in order to deepen every aspect. Each conference ho Id in a Latin language was published in a book. The first meeting took pIace in Madrid in October 1929 and
the chairman was Professor Antonio G. Tapia. The following meetings were hold in Catania (ltaly; Citelli 1931), Paris (Bourgeois 1933), Bruxelles (Buys 1935), Bucarest (Metianu 1937), Utrecht (Quix 1939). After a long stopping due to the Second World War, the Secretary General Fleury Chavanne suggested a rebirth of it. It was possible thanks to the friendship he had with his Latin colleagues. In this way the seventh meeting took pIace in Italy with the collaboration of Professor Malan Director of the ORL clinic in Turin. Unfortunately both di ed before the realization of the plan.The first after war Congress took pIace in Turin in 1948 and the chairman was Professor Caliceti. In that occasion Doctor Bouchet from Paris suggested Doctor Louis Chavanne as the new Secretary General. His nomination was welcomed by alI the members. For 30 years Louis Chavanne had an important role in the running and development of the Societas, giving more importance to the performance of the Congresso The aim was to secure an excellent cultural and organizational level. Thanks to his diplomacy, he was able to solve administration problems and was always ready to suggest the wisest solution. In 1978 the general secretary's office of the Societas was run by Yves Lacomme from Tolosa who kept it until1994. He was able to manage the association bringing innovation due to the evolution of the whole society. In 1994 Professor Bernard Guerrier from Montpelier was elected as Secretary General. He enlarged the Societas and sat meetings which meet the modern demands. In 2000 during the XXXIII Conventus in Bruxelles, Professor Desiderio Passali from Rome was elected as the new Secretary General. The fact that he was one of the most esteemed personality is testified by the numerous positions he hold such as the presidency of the Italian Otolaryngology society, the neck-facial surgery Italian society, the European Society of Rhinology, the EUFOS (European Federation of OtoRhino-Laryngological Societies) to the IFOS. His cleverness has contributed to the development of the Societas.
At the beginning the bylaws of the Latin Oto-RhinoLaryngological Society had a wide range of action, so during the years the in- society Regulation could be adapted according to the new demands and modifÌcations of alI ScientifÌc Societies.
At the origin, the Bureau of the Societas was composed by the pioneers, later they were replaced by the representatives of the European countries with Latin culture such as Belgium, Spain, France, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Romania and Swiss. The Secretary General had to calI the members of the Bureau, to assemble, to choose the pIace of the next Conventus, to elect Presidents, to decide the top ics and modify the regulation according to the needs. Each country has its own Bureau in whieh members elect a National secretary who arranges meetings with the Bureau of the other countries to encourage the interchange of information and plans.
Relating to the economics, it is important to highlight that the Societas hasn't a personal worth neither an own paymaster generalo Indeed since the birth of the Societas it was decided to put the management of the charges into the hands of the Secretary General. In 1954 due to the increasing cost of the meetings, it was decided that the management charges and the entry fee to each congress would be pondered and managed by the President of the Promoting Committee of each Conventus. The topic would have continued to be chosen by the Permanent Bureau so that economie, social and scientifÌc coordination was a concern of the President of the Congresso In 1994 the Permanent Bureau decided that the office of the Secretary General was of 4 years (renewable) help ed by the National Secretaries. Each country could candidate one of its members for that position. Todayat the beginning of the 21st century the Societas is changed. The Congresses are not the same as before, in addition they have
little in common with the former. Friendly and familiar mood are different, moreover the oral presentations have been replaced with the modern techniques of communieations. We should consider these changes and be able to adapt to the new conditions without forgetting friendship and pride for our culture.
On these elements we lay the foundations to guarantee continuity and growth to the Societas.
From 06 to 08 September 2018
From 27 to 29 November 2019
See the history of our societas with the Conventus since 1929
Read all the news »
43° Congresso - Conventus Societas Orl Latina - 6-8 September 2018
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funny people gabe_billings Designer Fetus evil_d check em out
Among Us Jesus-Tron 2000
by josh2025
This has got to stop!! Jesus is asleep and his creation is overloading hell with damned souls!!
I cant make enough jobs to keep up, unemployment is skyrocketing!! I must do something...
Later in the lab...
soap...milk....bread....oh and a Satan tron 6000!! How could I forget that?
josh2025's Comics01/26/06 - Random comic generator 01/26/06 - Did someone axe for help? 01/26/06 - I'm back...and my power just went out. 03/30/01 - Dungeons and Dragons, part 2 02/02/01 - Monkey dog?..... 02/02/01 - Limp it, and Limp it good 02/02/01 - BP/PTE and a workforce manager...part 2 02/02/01 - BP/PTE and a workforce manager...part 1 02/02/01 - Dungeons and Dragons 1 01/31/01 - a message from Jesus..... 01/31/01 - Among Us Jesus Tron 2000 01/31/01 - Among Us Jesus-Tron 2000 01/29/01 - Among us Jesus-tron 2000 01/29/01 - Among Us Jesus-tron 2000 01/29/01 - Among Us The Jesus-tron 2000 years 01/29/01 - Among Us 01/29/01 - Among Us 01/29/01 - Among Us 01/29/01 - Among Us 01/29/01 - Among Us 01/29/01 - Among Us 01/29/01 - Among Us 01/29/01 - Among Us 01/29/01 - An editor and Jesus part 3 01/29/01 - An editor and Jesus part 2 01/29/01 - An editor and Jesus 01/29/01 - Crouching Kitten, Hidden Salamander Part 2 01/29/01 - Crouching Kitten, Hidden Salamander Part 2 01/29/01 - Crouching Kitten, Hidden Salamander Part 2 01/29/01 - Crouching Kitten, Hidden Salamander Part 2
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SuperCool-Guy
KISS – Part 2: A short musical history
Posted on 8:01pm Monday 23rd Jan 2012
What is left to write about KISS that hasn’t been written before?... I have grouped the KISS discography (minus some of the later-day compilations) into the 6 “musical phases of KISS” – as I see them, this is an entirely subjective and personal grouping – and for each album, listed and rated my personal favorite tracks:
Classics in the making (1974-75)
The hottest band in the world (1976-78)
Exploring new sounds (1978-82)
80s Metal and Unmasked (1982-97)
The second coming (1995-2008)
Twenty-First Century Kiss (2009-Present)
I finish off with my recommendations for newbies and a video playlist from the KISS VEVO channel…
The first 3 KISS albums were released in close succession within a mere 13-month period, and while they did not initially meet success on their release, they included an astounding number of what would become classic songs, which still form the core of any KISS concert set list to this day.
During this period, the band toured relentlessly and to capitalize on their growing reputation as a live act, released the double-live album Alive! This is when “Rock and Roll All Night” became a hit and the band’s recording career exploded.
KISS (Feb 1974)
SuperCool-Guy Rating: 9/10
- Strutter (10/10) (Stanley/Simmons – Vocals: Stanley)
- Nothin’ to Lose (9/10) (Simmons – Vocals: Simmons/Criss)
- Firehouse (10/10) (Stanley – Vocals: Stanley/Simmons)
- Cold Gin (10/10) (Frehley – Vocals: Simmons)
- Deuce (10/10) (Simmons)
- 100,000 Years (9/10) (Stanley/Simmons – Vocals: Stanley)
- Black Diamond (9/10) (Stanley – Criss/Stanley)
Hotter than Hell (Oct 1974)
- Got to Choose (9/10) (Stanley)
- Parasite (10/10) (Frehley – Vocals: Simmons)
- Goin’ Blind (9/10) (Simmons/Coronel – Vocals: Simmons)
- Hotter Than Hell (10/10) (Stanley)
- Let Me Go, Rock ‘n’ Roll (8/10) (Stanley/Simmons – Vocals: Simmons)
- Strange Ways (8/10) (Frehley – Vocals: Criss)
Dressed to Kill (March 1975)
- Room Service (9/10) (Stanley)
- Two Timer (8/10) (Simmons)
- Getaway (9/10) (Frehley – Vocals: Criss)
- Rock Bottom (10/10) (Frehley/Stanley – Vocals: Stanley)
- C’mon and Love Me (10/10) (Stanley)
- Love Her All I Can (9/10) (Stanley)
- Rock and Roll All Night (10/10) (Simmons/Stanley – Vocals: Simmons)
Alive! (September 1975)
SuperCool-Guy Rating: 10/10
- 100,000 Years (10/10) (feat. Peter Criss drum solo & Paul Stanley rap)
Hot on the heels of “Alive!”, KISS released 3 more studio albums, again in close succession over a mere 15-month period, again bookmarking the era with a double-live album (“Alive II”, which also included 5 new studio tracks), and the “Double Platinum” compilation.
“Destroyer”, produced by Bob Ezrin, was the most ambitious, peppered with choir, orchestral elements and very slick production throughout. “Rock and Roll Over” was back-to-basics and “Love Gun” perfected the KISS formula (the title track is one of my all-time favorites).
By 1978, KISS was at the height of its popularity in America and lived up to its tagline of “hottest band in the world”.
Destroyer (March 1976)
- Detroit Rock City (10/10) (Stanley/Ezrin – Vocals: Stanley)
- God of Thunder (10/10) (Stanley – Vocals: Simmons)
- Shout It Out Loud (10/10) (Stanley/Simmons/Ezrin – Vocals: Stanley/Simmons)
- Do You Love Me (10/10) (Stanley/Ezrin/Fowley – Vocals: Stanley)
Rock and Roll Over (November 1976)
- I Want You (10/10) (Stanley)
- Calling Dr. Love (9/10) (Simmons)
- Ladies Room (9/10) (Simmons)
- Hard Luck Woman (8/10) (Stanley – Vocals: Criss)
Love Gun (June 1977)
- I Stole Your Love (9/10) (Stanley)
- Christine Sixteen (10/10) (Simmons)
- Shock Me (9/10) (Frehley)
- Love Gun (10/10) (Stanley – Vocals: Stanley)
- Plaster Caster (10/10) (Simmons)
Alive II (October 1977)
- God of Thunder (10/10) (incl. Peter Criss drum solo)
- I Want You (10/10) (incl. audience participation)
- Rocket Ride (10/10) (Frehley/Delaney – Vocals: Frehley)
Double Platinum (April 1978)
- Strutter ’78 (10/10) (Stanley/Simmons – Vocals: Stanley)
The four solo records gave each member the freedom to pursue their own musings and prove their worth as individual songwriters, singers and musicians. Paul Stanley’s was the best in my opinion, closely followed by Ace Frehley’s. They were also the closest to what one would expect from members of KISS. Gene Simmons’ was the most eclectic and playful. Peter Criss’ was great too, but its blend of soft rock/R&B/ballads was at the antipodes of the KISS sound.
“Dynasty” and “Unmasked” saw KISS shift to a more “mainstream” pop-rock sound, that I personally really liked, but alienated the core fan base. Two very strong records, for those who can appreciate other things than hard rock and heavy metal.
“Music from “The Elder”” saw the return of Bob Ezrin on production. This was a very ambitious, occasionally brilliant but ultimately misguided “concept album” that developed an ardent cult following, but finished alienating the rest of the fan base. It’s got some great tracks in it and outstanding vocals from Paul Stanley.
This phase in KISS’ musical history – considered within the context of their entire career – gives the band some added depth and is one of my personal favorites. How boring if all 20 studio albums had sounded the same!
The “Killers” compilation album – with four new tracks from Paul Stanley – makes a bridge to the next phase of KISS…
Ace Frehley (September 1978)
- Rip It Out (10/10) (Frehley/Kelly/Kelly)
- Wiped-Out (9/10) (Frehley/Fig)
- Fractured Mirror (9/10) (Frehley)
Gene Simmons (September 1978)
- Radioactive (8/10) (Simmons)
- See You Tonite (10/10) (Simmons)
- Living in Sin (9/10) (Simmons/Delaney/Marks)
- Mr. Make Believe (8/10) (Simmons)
Paul Stanley (September 1978)
- Tonight You Belong To Me (10/10) (Stanley)
- Move On (9/10) (Stanley/Japp)
- Wouldn’t You Like to Know Me (10/10) (Stanley)
Peter Criss (September 1978)
- You Matter To Me (8/10) (Poncia/Morgan/Vastano)
- Tossin’ and Turnin (9/10) (Adams/Rene)
- Easy Thing (9/10) (Criss/Penridge)
Dynasty (May 1979)
- I Was Made For Lovin’ You (10/10) (Stanley/Poncia/Child – Vocals: Stanley)
- Sure Know Something (10/10) (Stanley/Poncia – Vocals: Stanley)
- Magic Touch (10/10) (Stanley)
- Hard Times (10/10) (Frehley)
- X-Ray Eyes (10/10) (Simmons)
Unmasked (May 1980)
- Is That You? (10/10) (McMahon – Vocals: Stanley)
- Shandi (8/10) (Stanley/Poncia – Vocals: Stanley)
- Talk to Me (8/10) (Frehley)
- Naked City (10/10) (Simmons/Poncia/Bob Kulickl/Castro – Vocals: Simmons)
- She’s So European (10/10) (Simmons/Poncia – Vocals: Simmons)
- Torpedo Girl (9/10) (Frehley/Poncia – Vocals: Frehley)
Music from “The Elder” (October 1981)
- The Oath (9/10) (Stanley/Ezrin/Powers – Vocals: Stanley)
- Just a Boy (9/10) (Stanley/Ezrin – Vocals: Stanley)
- Dark Light (9/10) (Frehley/Simmons/Fig/Reed – Vocals: Frehley)
- Only You (9/10) (Simmons – Vocals: Simmons/Stanley)
- Odyssey (8/10) (Powers – Vocals: Stanley)
Killers (June 1982)
- Nowhere to Run (10/10) (Stanley)
“Creatures of the Night” was KISS getting back to a powerful, focused and heavy sound. It is in my opinion one of their best records, but by then the fan base had largely moved on and the record didn’t meet the success it deserved. It features heaviest, most powerful drum sound on any record – it hasn’t been beaten before or since.
With “Lick It Up”, KISS unmasked and started a long road back to prominence. KISS produced some solid 80s metal records over the following 10-year period, with “Lick It Up”, “Crazy Nights” and “Revenge” also among my favorites.
While this period was on the whole the band’s heaviest, with 1987’s “Crazy Nights”, the band once again shifted to a more mainstream, very polished 80s pop/rock sound, produced by Ron Nevison (Jefferson Starship, Heart, Chicago, etc.).
“Carnival of Souls” is by far my least-favorite KISS record – this was an attempt by KISS to update their sound to the post-grunge 90s (also known as the “musical decade that sucked”) and that wasn’t going to get them anywhere… But by the time of its belated release, the band had already moved on to better and bigger things…
Creatures of the Night (October 1982)
- Creatures of the Night (10/10) (Stanley/Mitchell – Vocals: Stanley)
- Keep Me Coming’ (10/10) (Stanley/Mitchell – Vocals: Stanley)
- I Love It Loud (10/10) (Simmons/Vincent – Vocals: Simmons)
- I Still Love You (9/10) (Stanley/Vincent – Vocals: Stanley)
- Killer (9/10) (Simmons/Vincent – Vocals: Simmons)
- War Machine (10/10) (Simmons/Adams/Vallance – Vocals: Simmons)
Lick It Up (September 1983)
- Exciter (10/10) (Stanley/Vincent – Vocals: Stanley)
- Not for the Innocent (10/10) (Simmons/Vincent – Vocals: Simmons)
- Lick It Up (8/10) (Stanley/Vincent – Vocals: Stanley)
- Young and Wasted (9/10) (Simmons/Vincent – Vocals: Simmons)
- Gimme More (9/10) (Stanley/Vincent – Vocals: Stanley)
- A Million to One (9/10) (Stanley/Vincent – Vocals: Stanley)
- Fits Like a Glove (10/10) (Simmons)
Animalize (September 1984)
- Heaven’s on Fire (9/10) (Stanley/Child – Vocals: Stanley)
- Thrills in the Night (9/10) (Stanley/Beauvoir – Vocals: Stanley)
Asylum (September 1985)
- Any Way You Slice It (8/10) (Simmons/Rice – Vocals: Simmons)
- Tears Are Falling (9/10) (Stanley)
- Uh! All Night (8/10) (Stanley/Child/Beauvoir – Vocals: Stanley)
Exposed [Video album/mockumentary] (May 1987)
Crazy Nights (September 1987)
- Crazy Crazy Nights (9/10) (Stanley/Mitchell – Vocals: Stanley)
- My Way (10/10) (Stanley/Child/Turgon – Vocals: Stanley)
- Reason To Live (10/10) (Stanley/Child – Vocals: Stanley)
- Turn On The Night (9/10) (Stanley/Warren – Vocals: Stanley)
Smashes, Thrashes & Hits (November 1988)
- (You Make Me) Rock Hard (9/10) (Stanley/Child/Warren – Vocals: Stanley)
Hot in the Shade (October 1989)
- Rise to It (8/10) (Stanley/Halligan Jr. – Vocals: Stanley)
- Hide Your Heart (8/10) (Stanley/Child/Knight – Vocals: Stanley)
- Forever (10/10) (Stanley/Bolton – Vocals: Stanley)
Revenge (May 1992)
- Unholy (10/10) (Simmons/Vincent – Vocals: Simmons)
- God Gave Rock ‘N’ Roll to You II (9/10) (Ballard/Stanley/Simmons/Ezrin – Vocals: Stanley/Simmons)
- Domino (8/10) (Simmons)
- Every Time I Look at You (9/10) (Stanley/Ezrin – Vocals: Stanley)
- I Just Wanna (10/10) (Stanley/Vincent – Vocals: Stanley)
- Carr Jam 1981 (10/10) (Carr)
Alive III (May 1993)
Kiss My Ass: Classic Kiss Regrooved (June 1994)
- Hard Luck Woman (9/10) (by Garth Brooks)
- Black Diamond (8/10) (orchestral version by Yoshiki)
Carnival of Souls: The Final Sessions (October 1997)
- Jungle (9/10) (Stanley/Kulick/Cuomo – Vocals: Stanley)
The “second coming” of KISS started with the “Konvention” tour of 1995, which was a celebration of the band’s heritage and fandom, featuring an acoustic set with the band in its final “unmasked” line-up (with Bruce Kulick and Eric Singer). It was also the occasion of reunions with the long-lost brothers… Ace and Peter.
The reunion was immortalized in MTV’s “Kiss Unplugged” (get it on video for the behind-the-scenes chronicle of the reunion). The magic was back, and from that point on, a full-blown reunion with the classic make-up and stage antics became possible. I can’t overstate how momentous an event this was for the fans, who had given up on seeing the re-united original lineup in make-up ever again! It had been 15 years...
The reunion was documented in the home video “The Second Coming”.
After the reunion tour, the next logical step was to re-unite the original lineup in the studio. The result was “Psycho Circus”, a solid update on the classic KISS formula.
However, the fans wanted “classic KISS”, the band knew it and was all too happy to oblige. For the 10 years that followed “Psycho Circus”, KISS became a “heritage band” – i.e. highly successful with concert tours, compilation albums and merchandising, on the back of their existing catalog and fan base, but did not release any new music and during this period did not express the need to make a new musical statement in the studio.
The tours gave old fans the chance to relive their youth and new fans the chance to witness first hand what the fuss was all about and “how the big boys do it”.
MTV Unplugged [Also available as a video live album] (March 1996)
- Comin’ Home (10/10) (Frehley/Stanley – Vocals: Stanley)
- See You Tonight (10/10) (Simmons)
- Beth (9/10) (Criss/Ezrin/Penridge – Vocals: Criss)
The Second Coming [Video album/documentary] (November 1998)
Psycho Circus (September 1998)
- Psycho Circus (9/10) (Stanley/Cuomo – Vocals: Stanley)
- Into the Void (9/10) (Frehley/Cochran – Vocals: Frehley)
- I Finally Found My Way (9/10) (Stanley/Ezrin – Vocals: Criss)
Detroit Rock City (Music from the Motion Picture) (August 1999)
- Strutter (9/10) (by the Donnas)
- Nothing Can Keep Me From You (8/10) (Warren – Vocals: Stanley)
The Box Set (November 2001)
Previously-unreleased gem “It’s My Life” should have been released as a single, and should have been a hit – I am amazed that it wasn’t. The song was originally given to Wendy O. Williams (previously of the Plasmatics) and released as part of her 1984 Simmons-produced album “WOW”.
- It’s My Life (10/10) (Simmons/Stanley – Vocals: Simmons)
Kiss Symphony: Alive IV [Also available as a video live album] (July 2003)
- Great Expectations (feat. The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Australian Children’s Choir) (10/10) (Simmons/Ezrin – Vocals: Simmons)
There are only so many reunion tours, farewell tours and anniversary tours a band can make until the excitement starts to wear off. In 2009, KISS ended its 10-year recording hiatus with a great new album, “Sonic Boom”.
The band seems to have found a great balance and dynamics in its latest incarnation, with Eric Singer on drums, Tommy Thayer on lead guitars and Paul Stanley taking on the role of “musical director”. They’ve retained the original spirit of what makes great KISS songs, and brought it up-to-date with the bigger sound of the new century.
Almost 40 years on, KISS is still on a roll and showing no sign of mellowing down. The next studio album is expected for June 2012…
Sonic Boom (October 2009)
- Modern Day Delilah (10/10) (Stanley)
- All for the Glory (9/10) (Stanley/Simmons – Vocals: Singer)
- I’m an Animal (8/10) (Simmons/Stanley/Thayer – Vocals: Simmons)
- When Lightning Strikes (9/10) (Thayer/Stanley – Vocals: Thayer)
- Say Yeah (10/10) (Stanley – Vocals: Thayer)
Monster (TBR June 2012)
My recommendations for newbies
There’s no shortage of KISS compilations to start with, but actually I would recommend starting with the latest record “Sonic Boom”. Not only it’s a great album, but it also includes a 2nd CD with a re-release of “Jigoku-Retsuden” (15 classic KISS tracks re-recorded with the sound of the 2000s) and a live DVD – so a great 3-in-1 introduction to the band.
Next, I would go with “Double Platinum” which is a compilation of the first 6 studio records – the golden age of KISS.
Hopefully by then you’ll want to dig deeper and the rest of this blog might provide a helpful guide.
Oh… and finally: if you like KISS, you might also enjoy this… ;-)
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YouTube channel is live!
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Roxette + Darren Hayes, Wembley Arena, London, 15 November 2011
Teaser Medley "Back In The Groove"
Follow @SuperCool_Guy
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Planes, Rutles & Big, plus Breaking Bad/Homeland Sunday & Oktoberfest Tuesday!
September 27, 2013 - 2:14 pm | by Bill Hunt
Okay, let’s close out the week with a couple of reviews and some new announcement news. First the reviews...
Our own Todd Doogan has checked in with his thoughts on Criterion’s excellent recent edition of Ishirô Honda’s classic Godzilla on Blu-ray. Enjoy!
And I’ve weighed in with a look at Magnet’s new Blu-ray edition of Europa Report – a modestly impressive little space exploration thriller that arrives in stores on 10/8.
Now for some announcement news... [Read on here...]
Disney has officially set the CG-animated Planes for Blu-ray 3D Combo, Blu-ray Combo and DVD release on 11/19. Extras will include deleted scenes and 4 video features (Franz’s Song, Klay’s Flight Plan, Meet the Racers and Top 10 Flyers).
As we’ve reported previously, 20th Century Fox is releasing a Big: 25th Anniversary Edition on Blu-ray on 12/10 (SRP $19.99).
A company called Video Music, Inc has set The Rutles Anthology for release on Blu-ray on 12/3 (SRP $24.95). The set will include The Rutles: All You Need is Cash, along with The Rutles 2: Can’t Buy Me Lunch, the original SNL Rutles sketch, a new audio commentary and interview with Eric Idle and more
Millennium Entertainment has set the comedy Hell Baby: Unrated for Blu-ray and DVD release on 12/31.
Magnolia will release Touchy Feely on Blu-ray and DVD on 12/10.
Virgil Films has set the Hulu original series Morgan Spurlock’s A Day in the Life: Seasons 1 & 2 for DVD only release on 10/8.
Lionsgate will release Alpha and Omega 2: A Howl-iday Adventure on Blu-ray and DVD on 10/8.
And Cinedigm and Tribeca Film have set the thriller Resolution for release on Blu-ray and DVD on 10/8 as well.
Here’s a look at the Blu-ray art for both versions of Disney’s Planes and also Video Music’s The Rutles Anthology…
Don’t forget: Adam Jahnke’s Hell Plaza Oktoberfest is almost here! The Halloween-themed review fun begins here at The Bits on this coming Tuesday, 10/1, so don’t miss it.
Also, the third season of Homeland kicks off on Sunday night on Showtime. And of course, AMC’s Breaking Bad will have its highly-anticipated series finale this Sunday night as well. We hope you fans of the series really enjoy it – the road to Walter White’s final story sure has been great so far!
Have a fine weekend and we’ll see you all back here on Monday. Peace out!
- Bill Hunt
Adam Jahnke
Hell Plaza Oktoberfest
Disney's Planes
The Rutles: Anthology
The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash
Big: 25th Anniversary Edition
Morgan Spurlock's A Day in the Life
Hell Baby
Contact Bill Hunt
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About Bill Hunt
Bill Hunt is the Editor in Chief of The Digital Bits, and the co-author (with Todd Doogan) of the Amazon Top 50 selling book The Digital Bits: Insiders Guide to DVD. Hunt founded The Bits in 1997, in the early days of the DVD format,…
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Posted By D.�Martin on April 12, 2012
Our Photo Archive spotlight returns to the Kotobukiya section with the addition of their 1/7th scale Obi-Wan Kenobi A New Hope ARTFX Model Kit. Follow the above link to check it out.
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USD Vicam
2018-19 USD VICAM Team
The USD Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot (VICAM) team competes in the area of international commercial law and arbitration, also known as alternative dispute resolution. We are a student-run organization that enjoys the support of our faculty coaches and the University of San Diego School of Law.
The study of international law is an exciting and relatively new field, offering amazing opportunities for those considering a career that can be practiced pretty much anywhere in the world. Each member of USD VICAM takes a course titled International Asia-Pacific Commercial Arbitration, which introduces them to the field of international commercial arbitration and prepares them for the Vis Moots in Vienna and Hong Kong.
The mission of our team is to foster the development of international legal writing, arbitration, and oral advocacy skills among its members; to promote professionalism and academic excellence; to employ the talent and coaching of the faculty; to maintain the school’s outstanding reputation through international competitions; work in conjunction with other student organizations who have similar goals and interests, such that each member will be prepared to keep pace with the advancements of international law and commerce.
Each spring, students from more than 300 law schools from over 75 different countries participate in the Vienna and Hong Kong Vis Moot competitions. Our team strives to hone our international arbitration skills as we prepare to compete against talented students from all over the world. Many of our current and former VICAM team members find the research, writing, and oral advocacy components of Vis Moot extremely rewarding. In addition, the opportunity to represent USD while competing overseas proves to be one of the most memorable and meaningful experiences a law student can have.
You can learn who the members of the 2018-19 USD VICAM Team are here.
Please feel free to contact us if you have any comments or questions about our team or the Pre-Moot competition we host every spring.
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Home Faith Rumer Vocal Coach offers singing lessons voice and performance coaching in Los Angeles
Faith Rumer Vocal Coach offers singing lessons voice and performance coaching in Los Angeles
If you’re looking for a great mentor in your singing career, if you don’t know where to start or what to do, Faith Rumer is here to help! Faith is an incredible singer and has been in demand as a studio vocalist in many films. She performed in almost every venue that took place in Los Angeles for example, the most known one, “The Viper Room”.
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Dec 15, 2016 admin
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Baker's crumbs
It would be easy to carp and and be negative about the extra £20 million announced for cycling infrastructure across the UK by Transport Minister Norman Baker today. So let's do it. After all, who doesn't want to do what's easy? (Except for President Kennedy. And look what happened to him. And to add insult to injury, now a high proportion of Americans don't believe they ever went to the Moon at all.)
And, facetiousness aside, "doing what's easy" is the point in all this. People cycle in large numbers where you make it a really easy thing to do. People cycle in small numbers in the UK because we've made it a really, really hard thing for people to do. The many ways we have made it hard are well-described in sociologist Dave Horton's excellent blog series Cycling Struggles, based on research he conducted for the University of Lancaster's Understanding Walking and Cycling project. As I've argued before, telling people how good it is for their health to cycle, or that "gardening is more dangerous than cycling", or some such blather, is utterly useless as a strategy for getting more cycling. The only strategy that we know works is to make cycling easy, convenient, safe, pleasant, and fun.
Guidance from the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) issued today makes the health case for more walking and cycling, as both travel and recreation, again, but actually we have had guidance from NICE saying
Ensure pedestrians, cyclists and users of other modes of transport that involve physical activity are given the highest priority when developing or maintaining streets and roads.
Plan and provide a comprehensive network of routes for walking, cycling and using other modes of transport involving physical activity
since 2008. Perhaps I have been looking in a different direction when it has all been happening, but I haven't noticed much evidence of any level of government following that guidance. And, overall, the actual policy guidance in this latest NICE paper seems to be rather less clear and concrete than that from 2008, if lengthier, with rather a lot of emphasis on "encouraging" cycling, and no real analysis of the infrastructure problem. So perhaps those pinning big hopes of a shift in policy in response to NICE's current paper need to prepare for a let-down. Again.
And I'm afraid "a let-down" is what Norman Baker's announcement must be viewed as. Part of the trouble is, of course, that the sum is just too small, spread across the whole of the UK, to make a difference. In the London Borough of Brent, where I operate, the Transport for London-declared "Biking Borough", with a 1% modal share of travel by bike, I could easily tell you how to spend that £20 million, just in my borough, tomorrow. You could, with that money, maybe fix a couple of major physical barriers to cycling, and you'd probably succeed in increasing cycling in the borough by between 50 and 100%, I'd guess (my guess based on comparisons with comparable London boroughs which have slightly fewer physical barriers to cycling). But that would be just for Brent, for 300,000 people. That's 0.5% of the UK population. So this money, spent in that theoretical way (which it won't be) would at the very best achieve a 0.5% increase in modal cycling share in the UK, from around 1% to around 1.005%. That's not a measurable difference.
Of course this money will actually be spent in much smaller lumps than I am proposing, on small projects all over the country. Norman Baker and many others would therefore argue that my analysis is totally irrelevant. There may be, or there are, they would say, many small barriers to cycling all over the country which could be fixed with small applications of cash, and that fixing these would have incrementally have much more effect than I am calculating. But I don't think so. I think the reverse, based on everything I have seen of the barriers to cycling in the UK and of what works and what doesn't work. I think the more you subdivide small funds using the traditional "scattergun" approach used in the UK for cycle investment, the less bang for your buck you get. You need to create consistent, widely-useful networks in towns to get people cycling as a matter of habit, as the Dutch showed in the early 1970s. If you've got little money it's better to do one "demonstration town" than waste it all through "evaporation" across the nation. Unfortunately this money is a drop in the ocean compared to what we need, and through being a minutely subdivided drop, its benefits will entirely disappear.
The DfT's press release shows that there is no departure here from the traditional scattergun approach:
Projects could include better cycle facilities at railway stations, improved cycle links, or projects to improve the layout of road junctions to make them more cycle-friendly. Previous investment has seen some great projects making a real difference in communities, including better cycle routes from residential areas to schools to encourage the next generation of cyclists to cycle more regularly.
It sounds like this money will be used for a few more cycle stands at stations (but lack of cycle parking really is not the reason people don't cycle, it's lack of subjective safety of the cycling experience, so this part of the money will achieve little), a few improvements to Sustrans-style routes between towns, and possibly junction changes, though that these will be done well enough to work is unlikely given the terrible nature of current DfT guidance on cycle infrastructure (more good reading on that subject here).
It also sounds from that press releases as if the DfT doesn't really know exactly what it wants done with this money. I think it's important to note that other areas that DfT funds are not treated like this. For major road and rail (and I guess aviation and maritime) projects, the government first decides exactly what it wants. It then costs it, and decides if and how it can be done. It then gets it through the planning mechanisms, if necessary bypasses them by executive decisions or new Acts of Parliament, and sees the project through, spending as much money as is needed to finish it and make it work. By contrast, cycle projects are rarely completed to the standard to actually make them work optimally.
I think today's announcement is undermined not only by the smallness of the sum involved, but also by the continuing lack of a coherent strategy from the DfT for cycling, and the lack of decent standards written into DfT guidance to Highway Authorities to tell them exactly how to build for cycling. The point about the Netherlands is not just that they spend at least 20 times as much per person as the UK on cycling infrastructure, and not just that they have been doing this consistently for decades, but also that from 1989 they had a clear national plan (the Dutch Bicycle Master Plan).
There have been various announcements about funding relating to cycling from the government over the past year. It's been hard to keep track of them, as the same money tends to get re-announced over and over again. In March £15 million was announced for cycle-rail and Sustrans projects, and in June £15 million for junction improvements in London and £15 million for the same in the rest of England were announced. If we add these to today's money it looks like the DfT is putting about £65 million into cycling infrastructure for England, about £1.30 per person, this year. This may be compared with the budget that Cycling England had from the last government: £60 million. But that money was spent in only a few towns, in a more concentrated way, to try to demonstrate the effect of doing a lot (by UK standards) in one place (a more effective strategy, though it still didn't amount to the creation of the whole-town quality networks that the Dutch showed were necessary). A scattergun £65 million is not worth anything like as much as Cycling England's more concentrated £60 million. And there has been inflation since the days of Cycling England, abolished in the "Bonfire of the Quangos" as one of the first acts of the Coalition government.
The bottom line seems to be that the funding for cycling in England stays about constant over time, whoever is in power. And the cycling level stays constantly low, as you'd expect. You keep doing the same thing, you keep getting the same result. There's no shift from the historical pattern here, there's just not the gear-change we need present in today's announcement, or the announcements over the past year.
The constant low level of cycling in England due to constant low investment
We need a billion a year, just to start to get the momentum up, just to start to catch up with our more advanced continental neighbours. And we need proper standards based on international best-practice and a hard, scientific analysis (that people like Dave Horton should be in the front line of advising on) as to what really works (and that, by the way, is, in one word, in case you were in any doubt, segregation, not the deeply-misleading "mix if possible, separate where necessary" mantra that everybody seems to have gotten hold of suddenly.) And the catching-up would still take decades.
A billion is getting on for 10% of the DfT's budget, after the recent cuts, of £11.6 billion. The direct costs of obesity to the UK are estimated by the Department of Health at £5.1 billion a year. On that basis, the request for a billion for cycling is rational and reasonable, given its potential for solving the problem, as detailed in today's NICE report, and its potential for solving many other problems as well, that we all know about. Could any UK transport minster, or even the Chancellor, possibly deliver a billion for cycling? In political terms, not easily. But posterity thanks politicians who decide to do things that are hard.
Posted by David Arditti at 23:24 10 comments: Links to this post
While Boris so far fails to "Go Dutch", Camden quietly gets on with it
I stated quite clearly in April my belief that Boris Johnson's commitment to the London Cycling Campaign's Go Dutch principles was not sincere. However Johnson won the election fair and square, so the LCC needed to take him on his word, and just keep monitoring the situation and reminding him of his commitment in every possible way. He had a bit of a breathing space over the Olympic period, when one would have expected less focus on such long-term issues as safe streets, but that's well behind us now.
After his fist 100 days into the new term, LCC issued an assessment, which in my opinion was already a bit too charitable even at this stage:
The good news is that the mayor has made one big pledge along the path to meeting his promises to Go Dutch, namely identifying the locations of his first two flagship schemes. He also appears to have set the ball rolling for TfL to move towards adopting international cycling best-practice for Superhighways and other streets. The not-so-good news is that we still don’t have a plan, and with developments on London’s roads continuing to show little sign that the mayor’s promises have taken root, our optimism remains guarded.
True we are still only a few months into the Mayor’s four-year term, and much of that time he has been focusing on the Olympics and the Paralympics, which is a massive PR opportunity for him and the city. But by now he should have done more to convince Londoners that he has given the backing to TfL that it needs to press full steam ahead with measures to make London as safe and inviting for cycling as it is in Holland. The verdict? Boris has been saying enough of the right words to get a pass mark at 100 days, but nothing tangible has actually changed yet.
It's now six months after the election, and there's still no real plan to put the Go Dutch commitment into action in any way, shape or form. As Cycalogical has noted, the review of 100 junctions to make them safer for cycling, the most concrete commitment on cycling to come out of this administration, seems to be running into the usual buffers of outdated, poor, unimaginative thinking at TfL, with its blocking obsession with maintaining peak traffic capacity at all costs.
At the fascinating Love London, Go Dutch conference in Westminster on 18 October, sponsored by the Dutch Embassy and Royal HaskoningDHV, it was proved quite conclusively how one of the highest-profile junctions under review, the Lambeth Bridge northern roundabout, could indeed be rebuilt to a Dutch pattern, in the space available, and within the requirements of UK regulations.
Dutch design for the northern Lambeth Bridge roundabout produced at the Love London Go Dutch conference
(More details in the Royal Hashkoning report)
But TfL's actual proposals fall massively short of this. They go for the classic, permanently-failing, UK "two track" approach to cycling, splitting cyclists up into the "confident" ones who are expected to joust with motor vehicles on the carriageway, and "novice" ones who are believed to be happy with rubbishy shared pavements, long ways round and no priority.
Rachael Aldred of Westminster University's Department of Planning and Transport (and now also a newly-elected Trustee of LCC) analysed it perfectly in her response to TfL:
My concerns about the current design centre around providing two sub-optimal options, rather than one better option. Cyclists using the road will have less space than at present, due to the carriageway narrowing, potentially increasing conflict. (Motorists may also expect them to use the pavement). However, cyclists using the pavement facility may (a) have trouble leaving the road at a sharp angle, (b) then come into conflict with pedestrians, and (c) experience problems crossing using the zebras, including conflict with motor vehicles.
At the Waterloo IMAX roundabout, another well-known blackspot, the junction review has produced "interim proposals" (why are they bothering with these – why not do it right once?) that amount to slight changes of kerb geometry and a fair amount of green paint on the road, in one place producing a cycle lane between a straight ahead vehicle lane and a left-turn vehicle lane, all completely unprotected of course. Those who know this traffic maelstrom will appreciate how inadequate all this is. (My friend Paul Gannon, ex of Camden cycling Campaign, always used to say "The faith that UK traffic engineers place in paint is truly touching"). It's more or less as far from a Dutch roundabout solution for motor traffic and cyclists as it could possibly be.
TfL's "interim proposals" for the Waterloo roundabout
On another recent consultation, on the A24 in Morden, As Easy As Riding a Bike notes the same stalwart commitment of TfL to absymal quality solutions, a chaotic mixture of shared pavements and intermittent, interrupted, narrow, unprotected on-road lanes, on a road where there is manifestly space to provide a high-quality protected cycle track for a long distance.
On to other subjects, and the Mayor still has not told us clearly where or what the three flagship Go Dutch schemes that were part of the election commitment will be. He has not made good his promise to appoint a cycling "czar" or commissioner, and we have no idea what powers or influence such a figure would have, when appointed. He has spoken of some sort of new cycle link across central London to join the dangling ends of the Superhighways, which appears, from a limited press report, as if it will use the Embankment. It's being called a "super-corridor".
All we know about the "super-corridor" (hyphenated for some reason) is what is on this plan, published in the Standard
Now, every time Boris or TfL use the word "super" to describe anything to do with cycling infrastructure, my heart sinks. Because we know, we know, from experience, that the use of that adjective indicates the triumph of PR spin over engineering competence. And the word "corridor" is a discredited one in UK cycling policy. It tends to indicate a bodge-up, as in Edinburgh. Will a "super-corridor" be better or worse than a Superhighway? I fear it will be be some kind of poor fudge. We'll see, as according to the Standard article, Boris is going to publish some sort of a "Cycling Vision" document this month, which will explain all.
I remain very pessimistic. At every stage I have been proved right about Boris's lack of real commitment to Going Dutch. In a letter to LCC dated 3 October, he wrote:
Following my commitment during the election campaign, I asked Transport for London to review the London Cycling Campaign’s Love London, Go Dutch to ascertain how the principles it establishes can be incorporated into the design and implementation of cycling schemes in London, taking into account the UK legal framework and regulations, the physical characteristics of London’s streets, and the needs of all road users.
Those clauses: "taking into account the physical characteristics of London's streets and the needs of all road users" sound again like a cop-out. It sounds like nothing much will happen, because he has always used this language of "taking into account the needs of all road-users", from Day One of his administration. That language has always meant a reinforcement of the motor-dominated status quo in London, with cyclists being squeezed in grudgingly, with appalling road-user experience and declining safety. The "physical characteristics of London's streets" are, of course, just a red herring. They are much the same as the physical characteristics of the streets in any major world city. And even New York seems to be doing better for bikes now, not to mention the leading cycling cities of the world, like Tokyo, Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich and Copenhagen.
Boris's language: "Following my commitment during the election campaign, I asked Transport for London to review..." sounds passive and uncommitted. Boris likes Americanisms. Well this doesn't exactly sound like what the Americans would call "kicking ass". But "kicking ass" is clearly what he needs to do to bring the entrenched, conservative and isolationist TfL culture to the point where it treats cycling seriously. More concretely, Boris approves TfL's budget. The excellent London Assembly Investigation into safer cycling in London published this week notes:
Spending on cycling remains low relative to other modes and other parts of Europe. By allocating less than 1 per cent of its budget to cycling, TfL’s current business plan does not reflect the Mayor’s commitment to have a cycling revolution. The new TfL business plan should signal TfL’s intent to prioritise cycle safety in line with the Mayor’s objective to increase cycling modal share.
and recommends that TfL spend 2% of its budget on cycling, £145 million per year. Of course, it's not just about the quantity of money. It's how you spend it. The same report is damningly clear on this:
TfL’s cycling budget has not been spent on the type of cycling facilities used in leading cycling cities that maximise safety for vulnerable road users.
Unless this "Cycling Vision" document contains some quite stunning stuff, and TfL's next business plan, due in December, contains a commitment to a significant hike in the funding for cycling, in line with the Assembly recommendation, and we see in the next few months, certainly before May 2013, rapid, manifest progress towards implementing the "vision", I think LCC is going to have to declare that Boris has reneged on his Go Dutch promise: for its own credibility as an organisation. We'll see what political fall-out that has. We've had "visions" from Boris before, and this rhetoric is getting stale. Remember his "vision" of how "on these routes the bicycle will dominate and that will be clear to all others using them"? That was the Superficial Highways, £206 million wasted on blue paint between 2008 and 2013. We've had enough "visions" while the streets of London remain much the same, year after year, or even get worse and more dangerous for cycling. We need a practical plan based on international best practice. In other words, we need to Go Dutch.
Meanwhile, meanwhile.... away from the glare of publicity of the junctions review, the Assembly investigation, the superhighways and super corridors and super whatever nonsense, apparently ignored by the Mayor and TfL, Camden Council, which pioneered Dutch-style cycle infrastructure in London a decade ago, quietly is bringing in plans to improve and extend its network.
As reported on the Camden Cyclists site, Camden Council plans to implement one-way segregated cycle tracks in both directions along the entire length of Royal College Street, Camden Town. This will mean modifying the existing two-way cycle track between Georgiana Street and Crowndale Road on the west side of the road, making it northbound only, and adding a southbound track on the other side.
Options for the new layout of Royal College Street (more details on Camden Cyclists' site)
I was initially skeptical that this would be a sensible expenditure of money, as the existing track was already one of the best facilities in London, if not the best, and seemed to work well. However, there had been a number of injuries to cyclists due to motorists emerging from the side roads, Pratt Street and Plender Street, failing to look in both directions for cyclists on the track (i.e. not seeing the contraflow southbound direction of cycling) and failing to give way.
I now believe the proposals will be an improvement, as:
All cyclists will be on the expected side of the road, making junction conflicts less likely
Cycle space will be increased from the current total of 3m for both directions to 2m each way under the "light segregation" option, meeting Dutch standards of 2m for flows of up to 150 bikes per hour, which is probably the expected level, and, most importantly,
The protected route will be significantly lengthened as it will at last go from "somewhere to somewhere" (recalling Jon Snow's words on opening it in 2000 that it went from "somewhere to no-where"), running through the Camden Road junction up to the Kentish Town end of Royal College Street, where the road is two-way. So at last there will be a subjectively safe route all the way from Kentish Town to Euston Road.
The current two-way Royal College Street cycle track
The proposals are at an early stage of consultation, and not all details are clear as yet. If you wish to put views on them, you can do so through Camden Cyclists. (Incidentally, I met the engineer of this scheme at the Love London, Go Dutch conference in October, and was impressed). The proposals will need approval from councillors. But it it great that at least in one London borough there does genuinely seem to be a willingness to concretely, permanently reallocate road space from motor vehicles to cyclists, and make it work technically. I guess it helps that TfL seems to have little involvement in this project.
The big issue that Camden needs to address with its cycle tracks, however, is the absurdly congested Bloomsbury Route (Torrington Place, Tavistock Place etc.). This urgently needs to be re-implemented as it was originally designed by Camden Cyclists, at twice the current width, with one direction of motor traffic removed.
Congestion on the Bloomsbury track during the Olympics, photo by Rob Hayles
Even better than doubling the width of the track of course would be to remove both directions of motor through-traffic and make the corridor into a "bicycle road", a true Cycle Superhighway. This is what has been done with the Weimarsraat route in the Hague, which was the original inspiration for the Bloomsbury or Seven Stations Link route a decade ago. Weimarstraat had a two-way segregated cycle track then (wider than the Bloomsbury one), but today, in line with the Dutch practice of continual improvement on popular routes, the segregation is gone, and cyclists have the entire road. This has been made possible by the removal of the road from the through-route network for cars; cars can still gain access, as the Streetview image shows.
Weimarstraat, Den Haag, the inspiration for the Bloomsbury route, now a second generation of cycle route where cyclists can have the whole street because through motor traffic has been eliminated
I hear from Camden contacts that the Bloomsbury route may well be revisited in the forseeable future. I hope so. Ands I also hope for a Road to Damascus conversion from Westminster Council, to allow the route to be extended at similar quality through its streets all the way to Paddington, which was Camden Cyclists' original plan. We can but hope. We certainly need at least two east-west priority routes for bikes across central London, and this relatively northerly route would still be needed to complement the "super-corridor" along Embankment, even if that turned out to be really good.
It's critical in the coming year that LCC and all cyclists in London intensify the pressure on Boris Johnson to do what he has promised. The Assembly, with its report, has been very helpful – surprisingly so since it was issued by a committee that included all parties, including Conservative Members. Camden Council's work provides a small but useful spur, a demonstration that the quality we need can be achieved, in Boris's words,
Taking into account the UK legal framework and regulations, the physical characteristics of London’s streets, and the needs of all road users.
We need this quality rolled out on a much larger scale, and that will not happen without TfL driving it, and that will not happen without Boris Johnson doing far more.
Posted by David Arditti at 18:20 3 comments: Links to this post
Labels: Boris Johnson, Cycle Superhighways, Cycle Tracks, Super-corridor, Transport for London
While Boris so far fails to "Go Dutch", Camden qui...
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Monarchs - Queen Victoria - Boothtown, UK - Monarchs of the World on Waymarking.com
Monarchs - Queen Victoria - Boothtown, UK
in Monarchs of the World
Posted by: dtrebilc
30U E 574751 N 5954507
Quick Description: This privately funded statue forms part of an Eleanor Cross structure in a public square in the middle of the Victorian Model village of Akroydon, built for the workers at the mills of Colonel Edward Akroyd.
Location: Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 1/23/2018 2:08:36 PM
Waymark Code: WMXKCG
Published By: Dorcadion Team
Akroydon village and Statue
"The Akroydon model housing scheme is a Victorian era model village at Boothtown, Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. It was designed in the Gothic style by George Gilbert Scott in 1859 for the workers at the mills of Colonel Edward Akroyd, who had bought, in 1855, the 62,435 acres (252.67 km2) of land on which the houses were to be built.
As Scott's original plan to have dormer windows in the cottages was unacceptable to members of the Akroyd Town Building Association, Akroyd employed a local architect – W. H. Crossland – under the supervision of Scott, to come up with an acceptable design. The plan was for a quadrangular arrangement of 350 houses, but only 90 were actually built.
In the middle of the quadrangle, known as The Square, Akroyd had a monument called the Victoria Cross built in 1875 and dedicated to Queen Victoria. The monument, similar in style to an Eleanor Cross, has been described as "a monument to the British constitution"
According to Walter L Creese, this "suburb on the moors" was Akroyd's attempt "to justify contemporary upheaval, to rationalize for himself and others the improvement and purpose of the factory system as it was replacing the cottage industries".
It was to be a model village not only in the architectural sense but also in a social sense as well as the houses were built in various sizes for people from all economic classes, who were offered low cost mortgages to buy them. The village was to be managed by a committee of residents. There was a working men’s college for self-improvement." link
Eleanor Crosses
"The Eleanor crosses were a series of twelve lavishly decorated stone monuments topped with tall crosses, of which three survive nearly intact, in a line down part of the east of England. King Edward I had the crosses erected between 1291 and 1294 in memory of his wife Eleanor of Castile, marking the nightly resting-places along the route taken when her body was transported to London." link
In this structure the statue shows a young Queen Victoria, although at the moment someone has placed a cloth over the statue's face.
There is an inscription underneath the statue.
ERECETED AS A MONUMENT
OF CHRISTIAN REVERENCE FOR
THE EMBLEM OF THE CROSS AND
OF LOYALTY TO OUR SOVEREIGN
LADY QUEEN VICTORIA BY
EDWARD AKROYD THE FOUNDER OF
AKROYDON MDCCCLXXV
FEAR GOD
HONOUR THE KING
Queen Victoria is associated with Britain's great age of industrial expansion, economic progress and, especially, empire. She was awarded the title of The Empress of India in 1877. At her death, it was said, Britain had a worldwide empire on which the sun never set.
She had 9 children during her marriage to Prince Albert. Their nine children and 26 of their 34 grandchildren who survived childhood married into royal and noble families across the continent, tying them together and earning her the nickname "the grandmother of Europe"
Victoria had been a much loved figure before and after she became queen, but after he died in 1861 aged only 42, she fell into a state of depression and largely withdrew from public life. However after 20 years or so, she slowly re-entered public life and after her jubilees was fully restored to public favour.
Monarch Ranking: Emperor / Empress
Proper Title and Name of Monarch: Her Majesty Victoria, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland Queen, Defender of the Faith, Empress of India.
Country or Empire of Influence: United Kingdom and India
Website for additonal information: [Web Link]
Waymark Visitor - Must either
Provide a photo at the Statue
Answer a related question, if available, as posted on the Waymark description to the satistfaction of the Owner
Nearest Monarchs of the World
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hina’s revised civil servant law takes effect
China’s civil servant law, newly revised in December 2018, took effect Saturday.
The revised law clarifies systems of civil servant promotion and asses
sment, and includes statutes to improve rewards and benefits such as pension schemes.
It also tightens supervision over civil servants, keeping its statutes in
line with the supervision law and disciplinary rules of the Communist Party of China.
The revised law bans civil servants from working as leaders of industry regulators or administrati
ve departments in charge of supervising businesses run by their spouses, children or in-laws.
The civil servant law first took effect in 2006.
www.ypidv.cn
All-women quartet gives Peking Opera a unique touch
For the first time in the history of Peking Opera, four women recently performed a
piece in the China National Peking Opera Company production, Stories of the Red Army.
The Peking Opera performance was one of the 51 productions showcased at the 12th China Art Festival in Shanghai.
Two performances took place at Shanghai’s Majestic Theater on May 27 and 28.
For the show, the CNPOC brought together three stories based on events during the Red Army’s epi
c Long March (1934-36), to create the modern Peking Opera, which premiered in Beijing on Aug 1, 2018.
“They are stories about the resilience and bravery of the Red Army during the Long March,” says Song Chen, head of the CNPOC.
www.102xe.cn
Festival will mark 80th anniversary of popular cantata
The Central Conservatory of Music will hold a festival from May 23 to 27 to celebrate the 80th anniversary of The Yellow River Cantata.
Written by composer Xian Xinghai (1905–1945) in Yan’an, Shaanxi pro
vince, in early 1939, the piece was inspired by a patriotic poem by Guang Weiran, and the lyrics
were adapted for the cantata. Premiered on April 13 of the same year in Yan’an, the work became, and remains, popular.
The conservatory’s symphony orchestra, choirs and chamber music grou
ps will join in the festival with 20 concerts, including the opening concert on May 23 condu
cted by Yu Feng, president of the university. The Yellow River Cantata will be performed by young singers.
Veteran Chinese musicians and singers, including Guo Shuzhen and Wang Xiufen, will perform during the festival.
Besides concerts, masterclasses and forums will be held in Yan’an.
The music festival will also celebrate the 70th birthday of the country.
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Michel Lemieux and Victor Pilon won the 30th Grand Prix of the Conseil des Arts de Montréal !
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Crossing the boundaries of artistic disciplines, this prolific duo enjoyed a banner year with an exceptional program. Lemieux and Pilon kicked off the International Digital Arts Biennial of Montreal with the exhibition Dreamscapes: 30 Years of Innovative Performances at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. They also presented Continuum at Montreal’s Rio Tinto Alcan Planetarium, its first collaboration with this major scientific institution. In addition, they performed Icare at TNM and Norman at Place des arts. A forerunner of the interdisciplinary marriage of the digital arts, carving out its unique place, Lemieux Pilon 4D Art remains unclassifiable, combining the performing arts and new media while exploring new artistic ground.
As the winner of the 30th Grand Prix, Lemieux Pilon 4D Art will also receive a commemorative artwork that will be created by a Montreal artist over the coming year. This work will be awarded at the 31st Grand Prix luncheon in 2016.
The Chair of the Conseil des arts de Montréal, Jan-Fryderyk Pleszczynski, announced the winner in the presence of Manon Gauthier, Executive Committee Member Responsible for Culture, Heritage, Design, the Space for Life and the Status of Women, as well as Marie Côté, Director of specialized channels ICI ARTV and ICI EXPLORA of Radio-Canada, the Official Partner of the Grand Prix. More than 700 figures from the arts, business and municipal sectors attended this annual event, co-hosted by Patrick Masbourian (Radio-Canada) and Marie-Soleil Michon (ICI ARTV). The musicians of the Tounkara-Lavoie Trio, who won the Diversity Award in 2014, as well as Queen Ka, performed for the occasion.
Presided over by Jan-Fryderyk Pleszczynski, the jury of the 30th Grand Prix was composed of Kathy R. Assayag, Executive Director of the Jewish Community Foundation of Montreal; Mellissa Larivière, Executive and Artistic Director of the Zone Homa Festival and winner of the 2014 Prix de la relève awarded by the Caisse de la culture; Louise Lecavalier, dancer and choreographer of Fou Glorieux and winner of the 2013 Grand Prix; and Robert Proulx, Rector of the Université du Québec à Montréal.
Each of the nominated organizations will receive the sum of $5,000, owing to the generosity of several Montreal patrons of the arts: François Gratton/TELUS, René Malo, Luc Plamondon, Louise Roy, Jean-Louis Roy, John Stokes/Real Ventures, and two anonymous donors. The finalists for the 2014 Grand Prix included Agence Topo, ARCMTL, Biennale de Montréal, Orange Noyée – Mani Soleymanlou, Quasar Saxophone Quartet, Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM), Zab Maboungou/Compagnie Danse Nyata Nyata.
Le Grand Prix du Conseil des arts de Montréal Every year since 1985, the Grand Prix du Conseil des arts de Montréal has recognized the excellence and vitality of a Montreal arts organization. The Festival du nouveau cinéma, Cirque du Soleil and Compagnie Marie Chouinard are among former winners who have helped to build Montreal’s creative and innovative culture, which is celebrated at this event. For the 30th anniversary of the Grand Prix, the Conseil des arts de Montréal teamed up with La Vitrine and the Accords–Le Bistro restaurant to honour all prizewinners since 1985. A tribute wall displaying a photograph of each winner can be seen at the Accords–Le Bistro restaurant at 22 St. Catherine Street East.
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What is the role of a political party
Abalinx 6 August 2016 Peter Adamis
I wonder just how many out in the public arena truly understands what the role of a political party is. I also question the motives of those involved and whether their true objectives is more about power. To download a copy of the article click on:WHAT IS THE ROLE OF AN AUSTRALIAN POLITICAL PARTY
While power is seductive, influence and being a part of an elite group come a close photo finish and that unfortunately is the driver that steers them rather than being a humble servant of the people representing their point of view. Michael Sukkar, the member for Deakin is one of the few to have achieved that status as far as I am concerned. But then again, I would not be surprised that there may be others working silently and without the fanfare of publicity that others who seek the limelight and constantly being in the spotlight.
My question to the public is how many know what the true role of a political party is. Is it to serve the people, to obtain concessions, favours perhaps, to do well, retention of the status quo, retain cultural identity, to win influence, be part of an elite group or something that we have overlooked? Let me advise the reader my understanding of what a political party in this country is in layman’s terms. A political party in Australia is:
“To win government. To avoid collaboration and/or contact with the opposition, to outwit, or reduce their capacity to campaign, to take and hold the electorate, repel any ideological attacks, by day or by night, regardless of season technology, weather, resources or terrain; using skills, knowledge, cunning and every known device known to win government”.
The reader can be forgiven in thinking that it’s a battle of opposing armies all vying to win the hearts and minds of the public using every device known to man. To be honest they would not be far off the mark, for much goes on behind the scenes and never acknowledged by those who should know better or expect blind loyalty as being the entrance fee to this alleged elite group of people.
But politics being both seductive and repulsive cannot be avoided whether one likes it or not. On the addictive side, it is like being stung by the political bug whose seductive nectar is difficult to avoid. Once a person becomes intrigued, one is hooked for life and no matter how hard one tries to break the habit, they will always come back for me. On the other hand, avoiding politics can sometimes be hazardous to your health if you don’t keep up with the latest information to provide you with the knowledge to vote in a sensible manner. Therefore it is fair to say that it like being between a rock and a hard place or it’s damned if you don’t and damned if you do type of scenarios. Those of us hooked on the political nectar lose sight of what is important and start to believe our own self-importance and role within a political party.
There are many casualties that defy description and only a few get to be known by a public fed up with the incompetence and stupidity that appears permeating throughout the major parties. This current Federal election is but a classic example of an elite group being brought to their knees by a well informed and educated public who just want good leadership and not pork barrelling. It is no wonder the Australian people have lost faith in their political leaders. The main reason is the lack of leadership, vision and the ability to govern the nation.
Both major Australian political parties have never been so close in their ideologies, governance and political practices than ever before and yet the public remains unimpressed, absolving themselves of becoming members which is one of the many reasons why membership dwindling in most political parties and the independents becoming stronger. Change there must be and a generational change must occur sooner rather than later.
The new generation now entering the workforce and are voting for the first time are a new breed. A generation of rights, selfishness and “it’s all about me” without a thought for those who fought to give them the freedoms they enjoy this day. Most if not all are very well educated and those that are not are being educated on a daily dose of the internet using search engines such as Bing, Yahoo, Baidu, Ask, Yandex, Google and a host of other well-known engines.
Yet we find a certain amount of ignorance infiltrating this new generation who attention span is unlike any of their predecessors. An ignorance of their immediate surroundings, a lack of respect, arrogance, elitism and a world where political correctness has gone haywire. There is no known mechanisms in place for political parties to air their member’s grievances, nor is there a forum or rights of members and in the absence of such mechanism, the rule of law applies. When the rule of law fails, the individual takes the matter into their own hands and one hopes acts within the realms of law and society. Pity those leaders who fail to grasp what is at stake, when all they have to do is look through the mist of lies and deception to see what is on the other side
In Victoria we shall a number of changes within the political structures of both major parties, gearing up for battle in two years’ time. I ask the obvious question, as to why this is being done when we have just finished a Federal election, an election which has surprised everyone but the reader and Newspoll who both predicted correctly the outcome. Is Victoria to become the new battleground for ideological supremacy or will it be a battle ground of wits, cunning and one of attrition that would rival even that of Lord Kitchener with his policy and throwing more troops to the slaughter?
I see new alliances being created, deceptive plans put into place, old agreements torn up, a moratorium on past grievances, battles behind the scenes, a grab for power, a flurry of meetings to determine delegates and positions which will later become crucial in 2017. Old enmities put aside, a sharing of knowledge, skills, manpower and resources being marshalled for the big day that will come whether we like it or not in 2018. Therefore when that time comes, don’t be surprised or pretend you did not know, that Big Brother is here to stay. If I am being cryptic, so be it, but changes will occur whether we like it or not.
As always, my apologies for the poor grammar, punctuation and savagery of the English language. All that I can say is that it is great to be alive and one does not give up in the face of adversity no matter what challenges we face.
Peter Adamis is a Journalist/Social Media Commentator and writer. He is a retired Australian military serviceman and an Industry organisational & Occupational (OHS) & Training Consultant whose interests are within the parameters of domestic and international political spectrum. He is an avid blogger and contributes to domestic and international community news media outlets as well as to local and Ethnic News. He holds a Bachelor of Adult Learning & Development (Monash), Grad Dip Occupational Health & Safety, (Monash), Dip. Training & Assessment, Dip Public Administration, and Dip Frontline Management. Website: abalinx.com Contact via Email: [email protected] or via Mobile: 0409965538
Tags:coalition Daniel+Andrews Election Kroger Liberal+Party Peter+Adamis politics ranks | Social+media victorian+politics
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Seeking a Universal Flu Vaccine
By Abi Millar May 2, 2015 May 4, 2017
Leave a Comment on Seeking a Universal Flu Vaccine
When it comes to flu vaccines, a universal immunotherapeutic is the holy grail. Abi Millar finds out how UK company SEEK aims to get there first with its FLU-v vaccine, due to enter phase IIb this year.
The past winter was one of the worst in recent memory for flu, with mortality rates in the UK soaring to their highest level in 15 years. While the cold snap was believed to play a role, the primary culprit was pegged as an ineffective flu vaccine, which had been administered to millions of people ahead of flu season.
According to Public Health England, the main strain of flu – A(H3N2) – had mutated since the jab was developed. This meant that in lab tests, the vaccine protected against just 3% of cases, rendering it almost futile.
The situation in the US was little better, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recording a severe flu season for elderly people. Out of the H3N2 viruses they analysed, around half were drift variants – antigenically or genetically different from the vaccine virus.
Ordinarily, the vaccine is well targeted at the flu strain in circulation, but there are no guarantees in place. Because there are so many different variants of flu, it is necessary to develop new vaccines each year and mount a new line of attack. Unfortunately, the relevant strain must be predicted many months in advance, allowing ample time for the unforeseen to occur.
“The World Health Organization makes its best guess as to what the strain is going to be for the year, and every now and again they get that wrong,” says Gregory Stoloff, CEO of UK pharmaceutical group SEEK. “That’s what happened in the UK and US this year – they predicted a couple of the strains incorrectly so the vaccine was not effective as it normally is. If the manufacturing process were quicker you could wait until the actual strains were known and then make the vaccine, but because it takes six months you have to guess.”
A universal solution
This system is particularly troublesome in the case of a pandemic. In these instances, the genetic drift is dramatic, and the seasonal jab is unlikely to provide much help. As well as taking a long time to produce, the vaccine can only be manufactured in limited quantities. With some 13 billion doses required to forestall a pandemic – and maximum annual production standing at around 1.4 billion – it simply isn’t possible to produce as many doses as you’d need for blanket protection.
The race is therefore on to develop a universal vaccine – a jab that could be administered once across the population, and would defend against every strain of flu no matter how much the virus mutated. It has been estimated that, over the course of a person’s lifetime, a universal therapy of this kind could save the NHS and the UK economy around £27,000 per capita, due to fewer sickness absences and less strain on the healthcare system.
As well as these cost savings, the broader repercussions could be dramatic. A universal vaccine could eradicate flu altogether, just as earlier vaccines did for smallpox. It could solve a problem that affects between 5 and 15% of the world’s population every year, resulting in around a million hospitalisations and 250,000-500,000 fatalities. This is not to mention doing away with the ever-present threat of a pandemic.
Looking within
While this situation sounds like a pipe dream, it could become reality sooner than we might anticipate. SEEK is in the process of developing a universal immunotherapeutic for flu, which targets the non-mutating regions of the virus. Having shown promise in early clinical trials, the vaccine is set to enter phase IIb trials this autumn.
“Most vaccines to date try to target the outer proteins of the virus, but the outer proteins in flu change regularly, so this hasn’t led to a successful result,” says Stoloff. “We’ve gone for a totally new approach, which is to look at the internal proteins. In there you find there are a lot more conserved regions that don’t change, and we’ve manufactured small proteins that can train the immune system to recognise those internal conserved regions. If you teach the immune system to recognise them it doesn’t matter what flu you get, your immune system will always be able to attack that strain.”
While many of SEEK’s competitors have been confining their endeavours to the outer proteins, Stoloff believes they are unlikely to be successful. Even though there are conserved regions in this part of the virus, nearby parts can change their shape and block the drug from entering.
“That’s what’s happened with Tamiflu and Relenza, the two antivirals that are currently used to try to reduce the severity of flu,” he explains. “You hear the phrase that certain flus are resistant to those medicines, and that’s what that means – those medicines target those conserved regions on the outside but they can’t always work because the proteins that change block access to that conserved region.”
SEEK’s universal vaccine, FLU-v, should be able to override these problems. Because it targets many of the conserved regions – not just one – it is at negligible risk of losing efficacy in response to genetic drift. There is only a minute probability that all the regions in question could change at the same time.
Fast track hopes
To date, the vaccine has not shown any side effects. A phase I study found it to be safe and tolerable, and a phase IIa study found it to be effective in protecting people from flu and reducing its severity. Should phase IIb trials prove successful, Stoloff expects the drug will be available for fast track approval status.
“We believe we will be able to get to market very quickly under some fast track procedures in America or Europe, and we could potentially have something in the market within 18 months to two years,” he says. “If it comes to market it will have blockbuster potential, because it would be a low-cost product that protects everybody against every strain, in as many doses as you need.”
Of course, it is impossible to say at this stage whether the final phase will work out or whether SEEK’s product will reach the market first. The company is currently in discussions with the regulator, with a view to determining what kind of evidence base they will need before they fast-track the drug. Still, whatever the outcome the possibilities should not be underestimated. When a universal flu vaccine hits the market, cases will drop dramatically and the annual blight may soon become a thing of the past.
“It’s got the potential to eradicate flu in the long-term if you give it to everyone,” says Stoloff. “If you vaccinate all the humans and the key at-risk animals with this product then the reservoir should eventually disappear and flu won’t be around anymore.”
This article appears in the May 2015 edition of Pharma Technology Focus
Tags: clinical trials flu flu vaccine
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'Black Mirror' Season 5 Trailer Stars Miley Cyrus, Unveils Release Date
posted by Hayden Brooks - May 15, 2019
Black Mirror is set to return for its fifth season on June 5 and one of the upcoming stories will feature an appearance from Miley Cyrus.
Netflix made the announcement on Wednesday (May 15), detailing the upcoming series' three new episodes, which includes appearances from the pop superstar, Anthony Mackie, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Topher Grace, Damson Idris, Andrew Scott, Nicole Beharie, Pom Klementieff, Angourie Rice, Madison Davenport and Ludi Lin. While the new narratives aren't completely spelled out for viewers, we do see Cyrus playing some sort of performer, who has gone through a transformation to level up her fame. Cyrus reportedly shot her episode while in South Africa in November 2018.
Netflix tried their hand at a different approach to Black Mirror when they released their December 2018 film, Bandersnatch, which allowed viewers the option to control the trajectory of the story. "It was quite a challenge. It was like trying to solve a puzzle. It wasn’t a normal writing experience," the show's creator Charlie Brooker said. "I literally had to learn to code to write the story treatment. It was a very different process. We knew it was experimental. I was very keen that we try out things in the episode that maybe weren't even apparent to viewers. We tried lots of things to flex the muscles of the situation. It’s gratifying that people enjoyed it – and that it worked."
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Travis Barker Remixes Lil Peep And XXXTentacion's 'Falling Down': Watch
Since his tragic death in 2017, Lil Peep's collaborators and friends have made sure he lives on through music releasing a number of posthumous tracks, including his sophomore album Come Over When You're Sober, Pt. 2. Now, Travis Barker is putting his mark on one of those songs, "Falling Down," which features another rappe gone too soon: XXXtentacion.
The blink-182 remixed the track by laying down his signature drum beats. "XXX and Peep were two of my favorite artists," Barker said in a statement. "Both changed music in their own way. Having the opportunity to put my spin on 'Falling Down' was truly an honor. From the first time I heard the song I loved it. The true challenge was how could I manage to make it better...I'm really proud of what came out of that."
Watch Barker lay drums beats to the song below.
You can catch Barker on the road this summer with blink-182; however, if you were looking forward to also seeing Lil Wayne on the tour you might be disappointed. On Thursday (July 11), the rapper exited the stage 20 minutes into his set and told fans that it might be his last night on tour. Check out blink's full list of tour dates here.
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Ayton Named To Nike Hoops Summit Roster
Renaldo Dorsett March 29, 2016
by RENALDO DORSETT
Add another milestone in the career of Bahamian high school basketball phenom DeAndre Ayton.
Ayton received perhaps his highest honour to date when he was named to the roster of the 19th edition of the Nike Hoop Summit.
The 2016 Hoop Summit takes place Saturday April 9th, at noon, hosted at the Moda Center in Portland, Oregon.
It will mark the first time the Bahamas will have a representative at the event which features the USA Basketball Junior National Select Team against a World Select Team that is comprised of elite international players who are 19 years old or younger. Other country’s represented on the World Team will include Bosnia and Herzegovina, China, Lithuania, Brasil, Australia, Finland, Canada, the Dominican Republic and France. A Nassau native now playing out of Hillcrest Academy in Phoenix, Arizona, Ayton averaged 29.2 points, 16.7 rebounds, and 3.8 blocks this season.
Ayton was also recently named to USA Today’s 2015-16 American Family Insurance ALL-USA Boys Basketball First Team. He was the only junior named to the first teams along side highly touted NCAA bound seniors including Lonzo Ball (UCLA), De’Aron Fox (Kentucky), Jayson Tatum (Duke) and Josh Jackson (Undecided).
Ayton, the versatile seven-foot, 235lb front court player is widely regarded as the top player in high school basketball, irrespective of class, and tops the ESPN 60 list for the class of 2017.
He delivered an historic performance in January with 52 points, 33 rebounds and 10 blocks in his Hillcrest Bruins’ 71-67 win over the Sunrise Academy Buffaloes at the Lawrence Hoop Duel.
Ayton previously attended the Balboa City School in San Diego, California, since he left the Bahamas just over three years ago to complete his education and compete against better basketball talent. Thus far, he has received official offers from Kentucky, Kansas, Duke, Arizona and San Diego State.
The Hoops Summit has garnered a reputation for featuring some of the NBA’s current stars including: Nicolas Batum, Kevin Durant, Anthony Davis, Monta Ellis, Kevin Garnett, Rudy Gay, Kyrie Irving, Al Jefferson, Joe Johnson, Kevin Love, Dirk Nowitzki, Tony Parker, Derrick Rose, Josh Smith, John Wall and many others.
Since its inaugural edition in 1995, participants in the Nike Hoops Summit have featured 178 NBA draftees including 13 in last year’s NBA draft and 14 in the 2014 draft.
The past three top overall picks in the draft – Anthony Bennett (Canada), Andrew Wiggins (Canada) and Karl-Anthony Towns (Dominican Republic) were all members of the World Select rosters, representing their respective countries.
The past three No. 1 picks have been former World Select Team members, including Karl Towns Jr. (Dominican Republic) in 2015, Andrew Wiggins (Canada) in 2014 and Anthony Bennett (Canada) in 2013. Before that, three U.S. Nike Hoop Summit alumni were drafted No. 1, including Anthony Davis in 2012, Kyrie Irving in 2011 and John Wall in 2010
According to its website www.nikehoopsummit.com – “nine of the game’s alumni have been chosen at No. 1, and 60 players have been selected among the first 10 picks. The first three picks in 2014 were Nike Hoop Summit alumni (Andrew Wiggins, Jabari Parker and Joel Embid), as well as in 2012 (Anthony Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Bradley Beal) and in 2008 (Derrick Rose, Michael Beasley and O.J. Mayo). Additionally, five players from the Hoop Summit have gone on to earn NBA Rookie of the Year honors, including Kyrie Irving (2012), Tyreke Evans (2010), Derrick Rose (2009), Kevin Durant (2008) and Elton Brand, who shared the honor in 2000. As of Oct. 21, 2015, a remarkable 78 former U.S. players and 33 former World team members were active in the NBA. Additionally, 31 former Hoop Summit players are currently competing on the collegiate level, including 20 U.S. players and 11 World Team athletes.”
BahamasBahamas BsketballDeandre AytonNikeNike Hoops Summit
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According to its constitution, Belarus is a republic. It has a population of 9.7 million, a directly elected president, who is chief of state, and a bicameral parliament, the National Assembly, consisting of the Chamber of Representatives (lower house) and the Council of the Republic (upper house). A prime minister appointed by the president is the nominal head of government. In practice, however, power is concentrated in the presidency. Since his election in 1994 as president, Alexander Lukashenka has consolidated his power over all institutions and undermined the rule of law through authoritarian means, manipulated elections, and arbitrary decrees. Subsequent presidential elections have not been free or fair, and the September 28 parliamentary election failed to meet international standards. While civilian authorities generally maintained effective control of the security forces, their members continued to commit numerous human rights abuses.
The government's human rights record remained very poor as government authorities continued to commit frequent serious abuses. The right of citizens to change their government was severely restricted. The government failed to account for past politically motivated disappearances. Prison conditions remained extremely poor, and reports of abuse of prisoners and detainees continued. Arbitrary arrests, detentions, and imprisonment of citizens for political reasons, criticizing officials, or for participating in demonstrations also continued. Some court trials were conducted behind closed doors without the presence of independent observers. The judiciary branch lacked independence and trial outcomes usually were predetermined. The government further restricted civil liberties, including freedoms of press, speech, assembly, association, and religion. The government seized published materials from civil society activists and closed or limited the distribution of several independent media outlets. State security services used unreasonable force to disperse peaceful protesters. Corruption continued to be a problem. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and political parties were subjected to harassment, fines, prosecution, and closure. Religious leaders were fined, imprisoned or deported for performing services, and churches were either closed, deregistered, or had their congregations evicted. Trafficking in persons remained a significant problem, although some progress was made to combat it. There was discrimination against Roma, ethnic and sexual minorities, and against use of the Belarusian language. Authorities harassed independent unions and their members, severely limiting the ability of the workers to form and join independent trade unions and to organize and bargain collectively.
There were several noteworthy developments, including release of the last nine internationally recognized political prisoners, allowing for distribution through state-controlled outlets after a three-year ban of two prominent independent newspapers, Narodnaya Volya and Nasha Niva, and the registering of the civil society NGO "For Freedom."
There were no reports during the year that the government or its agents committed any arbitrary or unlawful killings.
There were no reports of politically motivated or other disappearances during the year.
On April 8, the prosecutor general extended for another three months its nine-year investigation into the 1999 disappearance of former interior minister and opposition leader Yuriy Zakharenko.
There were no developments in the ongoing investigations in the 1999 disappearances of opposition activist Viktor Gonchar and businessman Anatoliy Krasovskiy. In 2006 authorities suspended the investigation into the disappearance and presumed killing in 2000 of journalist Dmitriy Zavadskiy. There was evidence of government involvement in these cases, but authorities continued to deny any involvement in the disappearances.
The law prohibits such practices; however, the Belarusian Committee for State Security (BKGB), the Special Purpose Detachment riot police (OMON), and other special forces continued to beat detainees and demonstrators.
Police also beat individuals during arrests and in detention for organizing or participating in demonstrations or other opposition activities.
On January 10 and 21, riot police forcefully broke up demonstrations in Minsk organized by small business owners and activists. At both demonstrations crowds estimated at 1,500 gathered to protest a presidential order that restricted small business hiring practices. More than 45 entrepreneurs and activists were arrested; some were beaten by police while in detention.
On March 25, police used force to disrupt a peaceful "Freedom Day" rally in Minsk to mark the anniversary of the first independent Belarusian republic. More than 1,000 demonstrators took part. Approximately 100 persons were arrested and detained, including several foreign journalists. Independent and foreign broadcast media coverage of the rally showed riot police beating demonstrators.
On September 16, police forcefully dispersed a monthly "solidarity day" gathering in Minsk to mark the 1999 disappearances of opposition figures. Riot police forced some 40 demonstrators out of the central square, beating several.
On September 2, the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) in cooperation with the domestic human rights NGO "Vyasna" released a joint report, Conditions of Detention in Belarus, based on interviews with more than 30 persons. The report noted "substantial evidence" of the use of torture and mistreatment of suspects during criminal and administrative investigations.
Hazing of new army recruits with beatings and other forms of physical and psychological abuse continued; however, some conditions improved. In July the prosecutor general's office reported that registered cases of hazing in the armed forces decreased by half, that the crime rate in the army had decreased, and that 47 military officials were facing minor punishment for neglecting safety procedures.
Prison and detention center conditions remained austere and posed threats to life and health despite limited improvements in construction of some new facilities. There were shortages of food, medicine, warm clothing, and bedding. Ventilation in cells and overall sanitation was poor. As a result, tuberculosis, pneumonia, and other communicable diseases were prevalent.
In its September 2 report, FIDH-Vyasna concluded that prison conditions in the country were "extremely unsatisfactory and amount to inhumane treatment." Those interviewed in preparation of the report included former prisoners and detainees, relatives of prisoners, defense attorneys, NGO members, and a former judge. Despite numerous requests to the Ministries of Interior and Justice, government officials did not meet with FIDH representatives or approve requests to visit detention facilities.
Former prisoners reported that medical check-ups were rare, conducted by under-qualified medical personnel, and that examination results were often fabricated. Some former political prisoners reported that they were treated worse than murderers, subjected to psychological abuse, and often had to share a cell with violent criminals. They also reported that authorities neither explained nor protected their legal rights.
Overcrowding in prisons, detention centers, and in work release prisons, also known as khimiya, was a serious problem. Persons sentenced to Khimiya, a form of internal exile, lived in prison barracks and were forced to work under strict conditions. On April 22, seven persons were sentenced to two years of khimiya and two were fined 3.5 million Belarusian rubles (BYR) (approximately $1,640) for participating in a January 10 demonstration organized by small business owners.
The law permits family and friends to bring detainees food and hygiene products and to mail parcels to prisoners, but in many cases authorities did not respect the law.
According to the government, there were 30,000 persons in confinement in 2007, as well as nearly 8,000 convicts in alternative correctional facilities and 7,000 persons in pretrial detention. Prisoners who complained about abuse of their rights often faced humiliation, death threats, or other forms of punishment. Some said they were blackmailed. Sources claimed that applications for parole frequently depended on bribing prison personnel. While standard bribes were generally between BYR 430,000 to BYR 646,000 ($200 to $300), high-profile prisoners were often asked to pay larger amounts.
During the year there were no reports of independent monitoring of prison conditions by domestic or international human rights groups, independent media, or the International Committee of the Red Cross. However, on occasion, authorities granted foreign diplomats access to political prisoners and other jailed persons in the presence of prison officials.
The law limits arbitrary detention; however, the government did not respect these limits in practice. Authorities continued to arrest individuals for political reasons and to use administrative measures to detain political activists before, during, and after protests.
The Ministry of Interior has authority over the police, but the BKGB and presidential security forces also exercised police functions. The president has the right to subordinate all security bodies to his personal command. Petty corruption among police was widespread. From January to May the number of corruption-related offenses increased by 15.5 percent while bribery cases reportedly rose from 470 to 501. Impunity remained a serious problem. While individuals have the right to report police abuse to the prosecutor, the government often did not investigate abuses by the security forces or hold perpetrators accountable.
Police frequently detained and arrested individuals without a warrant. Under the law, police must request permission from a prosecutor to detain persons for longer than three hours. In practice, however, these procedures usually were a formality. Detained persons suspected of a crime may be held for up to 10 days without formal charge and for up to 18 months after charges are filed. Under the law, prosecutors and investigators have the authority to extend detention without consulting a judge. Detainees have the right to petition the legality of their detention; however, in practice, appeals by suspects seeking court review of their detentions were frequently suppressed or ignored.
Police often detained individuals for several hours, ostensibly to confirm their identity. This tactic was frequently used to detain members of the opposition and demonstrators, to prevent the distribution of leaflets and newspapers, or as a pretext to break up civil society meetings.
During the year authorities arbitrarily detained or arrested scores of individuals, including opposition figures and members of the independent media, for reasons that were widely considered to be politically motivated.
On March 27, BKGB officers detained Pavel Levinov, a human rights advocate and lawyer for the Vitebsk-based Belarus Helsinki Committee. On May 23, a Vitebsk court sentenced Levinov in absentia to 10 days in jail and a BYR 700,000 ($325) fine for disobeying orders and using obscenities.
Between July 7 and 10, authorities detained more than 15 opposition and human rights activists in connection to a July 4 bombing in central Minsk that injured 50 persons. They were released without charge after 10 days. The human rights NGO "Vyasna" criticized the arrests and accused the BKGB of using the incident as a pretext to detain and question activists and intimidate their family members. Interior Ministry officials would not confirm the total number of persons detained or released. Investigations into the bombing continued at 'year's end.
On July 26, police and BKGB representatives detained and released approximately 50 youth activists for violating environmental laws while they were camping near a lake in the Borisov district. The youths were participating in a three-day camp organized by the European Belarus coalition.
Authorities placed persons under modified house arrest. On May 27, activists Pavel Vinahradaw and Mikhail Subach were sentenced to two years of "restricted freedom" for participating in the January 10 entrepreneurs' protest in Minsk. The third person, a minor named Maksim Dashuk, received an 18-month sentence.
In 2006 authorities detained or arrested approximately 1,000 persons throughout the country for political reasons before and after the March presidential election. Many of those detained or arrested were bringing food and clothing to demonstrators protesting the fraudulent March presidential election in Minsk's October Square.
During the first five months of the year authorities released more than 2,700 prisoners under provisions of a 2007 amnesty law. Unlike in previous years, there was no new general amnesty.
The constitution provides for an independent judiciary; however, the government did not respect judicial independence in practice. Corruption, inefficiency, and political interference were prevalent in the judiciary.
There was evidence that prosecutors and courts convicted individuals on false and politically motivated charges, and that executive and local authorities dictated the outcomes of trials.
The criminal justice system has three tiers: district courts, regional courts, and the Supreme Court. A Constitutional Court is empowered to adjudicate constitutional issues and to examine the legality of laws; however, in practice it was subservient to the executive branch.
The president appoints six of the 12 members of the Constitutional Court, including the chairman, as well as the chairmen of the Supreme Court and the Supreme Economic Court. He also has the authority to appoint and dismiss all district and military judges. Judges depended on executive branch officials for personal housing.
Prosecutors are organized into offices at the district, regional, and national levels. They answer to and serve at the pleasure of the prosecutor general, who is appointed by the president. Prosecutors are not independent and do not have authority to bring charges against the president or members of his executive staff.
A 2006 report by the UN special rapporteur on Belarus described the authority of prosecutors as "excessive and imbalanced" because they can extend detention without the permission of judges. The report also noted an imbalance of power between the prosecution and the defense. Defense lawyers cannot examine investigation files, be present during investigations, or examine evidence against defendants until a prosecutor formally brought the case to court. Lawyers found it difficult to call some evidence into question because technical expertise was under the control of the prosecutor's office. According to many defense attorneys, these imbalances of power had intensified at the beginning of the year, especially in relation to politically motivated criminal and administrative cases. There were very few cases in which criminal defendants were found innocent.
By presidential decree all lawyers are subordinate to the Ministry of Justice. Lawyers must be licensed by the ministry, are required to work for the state in regional collegiums, and must renew their licenses every five years. The law prohibits attorneys from private practice. Unlike in previous years, there were no reports during the year that authorities revoked lawyers' licenses for defending NGOs or opposition political parties.
The law provides for the presumption of innocence; however, in practice defendants frequently had to prove their innocence. The law also provides for public trials; however, trials were occasionally closed and frequently held in judges' offices. Judges adjudicate all trials; there is no system of trial by jury. However, in the case of grave crimes, a judge adjudicates the trial with the assistance of two civilian advisors.
Defendants have the right to attend proceedings, confront witnesses, and present evidence on their own behalf; however, in practice these rights were not always respected.
On May 15, Malady Front leaders Artur Finkevich and Zmitser Dashkevich were sentenced in absentia to seven days in jail for their participation in a May Day demonstration. They were notified of their sentences on May 19.
On May 23, Malady Front leader Zmitser Fedaruk was notified that he had been sentenced in absentia two weeks earlier to 10 days in jail and fined BYR 1,050,000 ($490) for participating in a May Day rally and disobeying police. The notification occurred after the 10-day appeal period had passed.
The law provides for access to legal counsel for detainees and requires that courts appoint lawyers for those who cannot afford one; however, at times these rights were not respected, and some detainees were denied access to a lawyer. The law provides for the right to choose legal representation freely; however, a presidential decree prohibits members of NGOs from representing individuals other than members of their organizations in court.
Courts often allowed information obtained from forced interrogations to be used against defendants.
Defendants have the right to appeal court decisions, and most defendants appealed their criminal convictions. In an appeal, defendants and witnesses seldom appeared before the court and the court usually reviewed the protocol and other documents from a lower court trial. In the vast majority of cases, upper courts upheld the verdicts found in the lower court.
During the year authorities released from prison nine internationally recognized political prisoners. However, authorities continued to harass former political prisoners and detainees with short-term detentions and jail sentences.
In January and February, authorities released five political prisoners: Zmitser Dashkevich, Yuriy Leonov, Nikolay Avtukhovich, Artur Finkevich and Andrey Klimov. Dashkevich, a youth leader, served 16 months of an 18-month sentence for heading an unregistered organization. Leonov and Avtukhovich, who headed an independent small business group, were each sentenced in 2006 to three years in prison for alleged illegal activities and tax evasion. Finkevich, a youth activist, served more than two years for writing political graffiti. Klimov, a United Civic Party member, was jailed in April 2007 for posting an antigovernment article on his party's Web site.
On February 22, political prisoner Alyaksandr Sdzvizhkov was released after serving three months of a three-year sentence. The former editor of the independent weekly newspaper Zhoda was sentenced in January for reprinting controversial Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in a 2006 issue of the paper.
On August 16, authorities released political prisoner and former presidential candidate Alyaksandr Kazulin. He served more than two years of a five-and-a-half-year sentence. Associates claimed that he did not receive adequate medical attention after he was beaten by police during his March 2006 arrest or following a 53-day hunger strike in 2007 to protest his jailing and the fraudulent 2006 presidential election.
On August 20, youth activist Andrey Kim and entrepreneur Sergey Parsyukevich, the last two political prisoners, were released. Kim was arrested in January and later sentenced to an 18-month jail term for allegedly threatening a police officer during a demonstration. Parsyukevich was jailed in April for allegedly violating new business regulations and attacking a police officer while in jail.
In other cases, authorities refused amnesty to activists who were serving sentences of house arrest based on charges widely considered to be politically motivated.
Individuals can file lawsuits seeking damages for, or cessation of, a human rights violation; however, the civil judiciary is not independent and rarely impartial in such matters.
The law prohibits such actions; however, the government did not respect these prohibitions in practice. Under the law, persons who obstruct BKGB officers in the performance of their duties, including actions that in principle may be illegal, could be penalized or charged with an administrative offense. Such obstruction includes any effort to prevent BKGB officers from entering the premises of a company, establishment, or organization, and refusing to allow BKGB audits or to deny or restrict BKGB access to information systems and databases.
The law requires a warrant for searches; however, the BKGB entered homes, conducted unauthorized searches, and read mail without warrants. The BKGB has authority to enter any building at any time, as long as it applies for a warrant within 24 hours after the entry. There were credible reports that government agents covertly entered homes of opposition activists and offices of opposition groups and monitored the actions of individuals.
There were numerous instances in which authorities searched residences and offices for clearly political reasons. For example, on January 12, the BKGB raided the apartment of independent journalist Sergey Podsasonniy and seized computer equipment and a video camera on the pretext of investigating his involvement in the opposition youth group Malady Front.
On June 16, police officers searched the residence of opposition activist Tatyana Vanina in Dzerzhinsk. Officers produced a search warrant dated May 19, which claimed that Vanina illegally produced printed materials.
On August 7, special police and BKGB officers broke down the doors to the Malady Front headquarters in Minsk and arrested seven youth activists. The officers did not produce a search warrant and said they entered the apartment based on an anonymous tip that there was a dead body inside. Former Malady Front leaders, Zmitser Dashkevich and Artur Finkevich, were sentenced to seven days' confinement. A third activist, Pavel Kuryanovich, was sentenced to 15 days in jail.
On November 19, authorities searched the office of the "For Freedom" movement. According to "For Freedom" leader Alyaksandr Milinkevich, court officers inventoried all the property in the apartment because a person involved in a criminal case had lived there 10 years earlier.
The law prohibits authorities from intercepting telephone and other communications without a court order. In practice authorities monitored residences, telephones, and computers. Nearly all opposition political figures reported that authorities monitored their conversations and activities.
The BKGB, the Internal Affairs Ministry, and certain border guard detachments may use wiretaps but must first obtain a prosecutor's permission. However, the lack of independence of the prosecutor's office rendered due process protections meaningless.
The government owned a controlling share in all but two cellular telephone companies. Ministry of Communications' contracts for telephone service prohibited subscribers from using such services for purposes contrary to state interests and public order. The ministry has the authority to terminate telephone service of those who breach the law.
There were numerous reports that the government coerced young persons, university students, and military conscripts to join the pro-Lukashenka state-funded NGO Belarusian Republican Youth Union (BRYU). In addition, the government employed and encouraged a widespread system of BRYU informants organized into civilian patrol squads, whose supposed purpose was to encourage students to become law-abiding citizens. At the beginning of 2007 there were an estimated 3,633 civilian patrol squads with as many as 43,000 members. Almost 200 "voluntary" squads had been created, with 49 of them policing higher educational institutions, 77 operating at general educational schools, and 66 at vocational training schools.
High school students feared that they would not be allowed to enroll in universities without BRYU membership, and university students reported that proof of BRYU membership was often needed to register for popular courses or to receive a dormitory room. Universities also offered patrol members discounts on tuition. On January 11, Minister of Education Alyaksandr Radzkou stated that membership in the BRYU would be considered in new mandatory recommendations for students who wished to train for professions in foreign affairs, state administration, and journalism.
There were also reports that authorities threatened to punish family members for alleged violations or opposition activities. For example, in June, the wife of Gomel-based United Civic Party leader Vasiliy Polyakov was dismissed from her job as a history teacher. The school's administration stated it would not extend her employment agreement after alleging that she did not follow "state policies." After the July 4 bombing in Minsk, the BKGB questioned Alena Kavalenka, wife of Belarusian Popular Front member Syarhey Kavalenka, and told her she was being watched.
Section 2 Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:
The constitution provides for freedom of speech and of the press; however, the government did not respect these rights in practice and enforced numerous laws to control and censor the media.
Individuals could not criticize the government publicly without fear of reprisal. Authorities videotaped political meetings, conducted frequent identity checks, and used other forms of intimidation. Wearing masks, displaying unregistered flags, symbols, and placards bearing messages deemed threatening to the government or public order are also prohibited.
The law also limits free speech by criminalizing actions such as giving information to a foreigner about the political, economic, social, military, or international situation of the country that authorities deem to be false or derogatory.
On August 4, Lukashenka signed a new media law that will allow authorities to further restrict press freedoms. The law, which takes effect in February 2009, subjects online news sources to the same regulations as print and broadcast media, requires re-registration of most existing media, accreditation of journalists, and limits support from foreign organizations at 30 percent. The new law was widely criticized by domestic and international NGOs and press advocates such as the Committee to Protect Journalists, Article IX, the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ), and Civic Belarus.
There were independent newspapers and magazines and Internet news Web sites. However, they operated under repressive media laws and most faced discriminatory publishing and distribution policies.
State-owned media dominated the information field and had the highest circulation and viewership. The state-owned postal system, Belpochta, and the state-owned kiosk system, Belsoyuzpechat, continued to refuse to deliver and sell more than a dozen independent newspapers. In 2007 Belpochta removed three popular Russian newspapers (Kommersant, Moskovskiy Komsomolets, and Nezavisimaya Gazeta) from its subscription list. However, other Russian newspapers, including Izvestiya, were distributed. Media analysts asserted that the newspapers were removed because of reporting critical of Lukashenka's policies.
On November 25, independent newspapers Narodnaya Volya and Nasha Niva signed contracts for distribution through state distribution systems after a three-year government ban. Narodnaya Volya also reached agreement with authorities for the newspaper to be printed at a state-owned press in Minsk. The newspaper previously was printed in Smolensk, Russia due to government harassment. However, while both papers were publicly available, they were still subject to restrictions.
Local authorities frequently warned independent editors and journalists to avoid reporting on certain topics and not to criticize the government. Authorities also warned businesses not to advertise in newspapers that criticized the government.
International media continued to operate in the country but not without interference and harassment. Euronews and Russian channels TV Center, NTV, and RTR were generally available, although only through paid cable services in many parts of the country. Their news programs were at times blocked or replaced with local programming. Broadcasts from other countries, including Poland and Lithuania, could be received in parts of the country, usually along the border.
The government continued to harass and arrest journalists.
On January 12, the BKGB and police officers detained independent journalists Vladimir Samoilov, Galina Samoilova, and cameraman Valery Buldyk. Police questioned them about their work for the Warsaw-based independent satellite television channel Belsat and confiscated their equipment, alleging that it was stolen property.
On March 27-28, authorities raided private residences and offices of approximately 30 journalists in 12 cities. According to the BAJ, BKGB officers detained 16 journalists and confiscated computers, audio and video equipment, and printed materials. The coordinated crackdown followed the violent police breakup of the peaceful March 25 Freedom Day demonstration in Minsk. The Minsk deputy prosecutor Aleksey Stuk stated that he authorized the searches and seizures because of the journalists' extensive coverage of the demonstration and the violent police action.
Some foreign journalists were prevented from reporting in the country. For example, on May 28, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed Aleksey Minchyonok, a journalist with independent Polish radio station Radio Racyja, that he would not be accredited because of "earlier illegal work for foreign media without proper accreditation."
The government censored the media. Authorities frequently imposed heavy fines on journalists and editors for criticizing the president and his supporters. Many publications were forced to exercise self-censorship. Authorities warned, fined, or jailed members of the media who publicly criticized the government.
The government tightly controlled the content of domestic broadcast media. In April 2007 the president stated that control of radio and television stations remained a high priority for the government and that private stations would not be allowed to operate in the country. He also stated that state publishing houses would never sign contracts with independent media publications that violated media laws.
Only the state-run radio and the state-run television networks ONT, the First National Channel, and Capital Television were allowed to broadcast nationwide. The government continued to use its virtual monopoly on television and radio broadcasting to disseminate its version of events and to minimize opposing points of view. State television coordinated its propaganda documentaries with the country's security services. For example, the First National Channel frequently aired video footage of meetings between opposition activists and representatives of international organizations and foreign embassies that security service personnel had filmed.
Local independent television stations operated in some areas and reported local news relatively unhindered by the authorities; however, most were under government pressure to forego reporting on national issues or be censored. Such stations were frequently pressured into sharing materials and cooperating with authorities to intimidate local opposition and human rights groups that meet with foreign diplomats.
Under the law, the government may close a publication after two warnings in one year for violating a range of restrictions on speech and the press. In addition, regulations give authorities arbitrary power to prohibit or censor reporting. The State Committee on the Press can suspend periodicals or newspapers for three months without a court ruling. The law also prohibits the media from disseminating information on behalf of unregistered political parties, trade unions, and NGOs.
On May 16, Minsk city authorities ordered the private cable television service provider Kosmos TV to halt immediately broadcasting of three Russian channels. Two of the three channels aired a prohibited documentary about Lukashenka.
Under the law, libel is a criminal offense. Slandering and insulting the president and public officials carry large fines and prison sentences of up to four years. The libel law makes no distinction between private and public persons concerning defamation of character. A public figure who was criticized for poor performance while in office may sue both the journalist and the media outlet that disseminated the critical report.
In October 2007 the independent newspaper Narodnaya Volya and one of its staff journalists were fined BYR 25 million ($11,600) and BYR two million ($940) respectively for allegedly defaming the head of the president's ideological office. In December 2007, the Novy Chas newspaper and a staff journalist were ordered to pay BYR 50 million ($23,200) and BYR one million ($465), respectively, to a member of the National Assembly for an analytical article about the 'lawmaker's involvement in a Soviet-era criminal case and a state-controlled writers' union. The newspapers paid the fines and resumed publication.
The government took numerous other actions during the year to limit the independent press, including limiting access to newsprint and printing presses. Several independent newspapers, including Vitebskiy Kuryer M printed materials in Russia because domestic printing presses (mostly state-owned) refused to print them. Other independent newspapers, such as Solidarnost, disseminated Internet-only versions due to printing and distribution restrictions.
On April 25, police confiscated hundreds of copies of the independent newspaper Vitebskiy Kuryer M from opposition activist and distributor Valery Shchukin upon his arrival from Smolensk, Russia, where the paper was printed. Shchukin was charged with violating newspaper distribution laws. On May 20, an Ushachy district court fined Polotsk Malady Front members Yekaterina Solovyova and Ales Krutkin BYR 1,050,000 ($490) each for distributing illegally printed materials. On July 10, police arrested Barys Khamayda for selling independent newspapers in Minsk. An unknown assailant later beat up Khamayda; police charged Khamayda with using obscene language against the assailant and detained him for three days.
In May authorities ordered the Grodno-based independent newspaper Gazeta Slonimskaya to vacate the premises it rented from a state-controlled company by June 1. The newspaper's editor, Viktar Uladashchuk, stated that he could not lease a new office because rental agencies feared government reprisals. At year's end the newspaper journalists continued to work at their homes.
On June 18, the Information Ministry issued a warning to Vitebskiy Kuryer M for violating the law on media by misstating its address and failing to report a change of address. One month earlier, the Supreme Economic Court again denied the newspaper's registration application.
During the year there were numerous examples of the government confiscating independent and opposition newspapers and seizing leaflets and other materials deemed to have been printed illegally.
The government restricted access to the Internet, and monitored e-mail and Internet chat rooms. Many individuals and groups could not engage in the peaceful expression of views via the Internet, including by e-mail.
The authorities freely monitor internet traffic. Internet cafe owners are required to maintain records of their customers and submit them to government security services. By law, Beltelekom and other organizations authorized by the government have the exclusive right to maintain Internet domains.
Approximately 30 percent of the population, particularly in urban areas, had access to the Internet. Access was restricted by relatively high costs and lack of high-speed services. On occasion state providers blocked independent and opposition Web sites during major political events.
On January 10, the Web sites of Radio Liberty, Charter 97, Belarusian Partisan, and the United Civic Party were partially or fully blocked because of their then-ongoing coverage of the demonstrations by small business owners in Minsk. Access to the Radio Liberty, Radio Svoboda, and Charter 97 Web sites was again disrupted in April prior to demonstrations marking the anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.
On August 4, Lukashenka signed into law new regulations that will subject Internet news outlets to the same requirements as print media, including registration. The law, which takes effect in February 2009, will also allow the state to legally block any unregistered Web sites, regardless of their origin.
In response to the government's interference and Internet restrictions, many opposition groups and independent newspapers switched to Internet domains operated outside the country. According to sources, the few remaining independent media sites with domestic ".by" domains practiced heavy self-censorship.
There government restricted academic freedom and cultural events. Educational institutions were required to teach an official state ideology that combined reverence for the achievements of the former Soviet Union and the country under the leadership of Lukashenka. Use of the word "academic" was restricted; NGOs are prohibited from including the word "academy" in their titles.
During the year authorities dismissed teachers and researchers on political grounds. For example, Uladzimir Savitski, head master of a Vezha village secondary school, demanded that teachers join the Belaya Rus movement or face dismissal. All but one teacher signed membership applications. Forced registrations of teachers for the Belaya Rus movement also occurred at a kindergarten in the same village, and at a secondary school in Hutsuki.
In March, Pavel Nazdra, an activist with the unregistered Belarusian Christian Democracy party was fired from his job at the Mazyr State Teachers' Training University in Gomel region, allegedly for being absent from work. Nazdra claimed he was fired for his political activities and denied violating his labor contract with the university.
Government-mandated textbooks contained a heavily propagandized version of history and other subjects. All schools, including private institutions, are considered political bodies that must follow state orders and cannot be headed by opposition members. The education minister has the right to appoint and dismiss the heads of private educational institutions.
The government tasked BRYU, the pro-Lukashenka, state-funded youth organization, with ensuring ideological purity among students. University Students reportedly were pressured to join the BRYU to receive benefits and rooms in dormitories. Local authorities also pressured BRYU members to campaign on behalf of government candidates. In addition, authorities at times pressured students to act as informants for the country's security services.
According to an education ministry directive, educational institutions may expel students who engage in antigovernment or unsanctioned political activity and are to maintain the proper ideological education of students. During the year at least 10 students were expelled for politically motivated reasons, compared with 20 students in 2007 and more than 100 in 2006. However, some school officials continued to cite poor academic performance or absence from classes as reasons for expulsions.
Between January 21 and 22, three student activists--Tatyana Tsishkevich, Paval Kuryanovich and Zmitser Zhaleznichenka--were expelled from various higher education institutions. Tsishkevich was initially expelled from the Belarus State University for late payment of fees, but officials later said it was due to "violations against public order and morality." Kuryanovich was expelled from the Minsk State Radiotechnical College for missing classes because of his 20-day detention for participating in a January 16 protest. Zhaleznichenka, a member of the opposition Belarusian Popular Front, was expelled from Gomel State University for alleged violations of the institution's internal rules and an eight-day jail sentence he received after his first expulsion from the university in September 2007. In June, Franak Vyachorka, a member of the Belarusian Popular Front, and Ivan Shylo, a Malady Front leader, were dismissed from school for participating in unsanctioned opposition rallies.
The government also restricted cultural events. During the year the government continued to force opposition theater groups into venues such as bars and private apartments and to suppress unofficial commemorations of historical events.
In March the Maksim Gorky National Academic Drama Theater did not renew Hanna Salamyanskaya's employment contract, and the Drama Theater of the Belarusian Army dismissed Maryna Yurevich. The two actresses had participated in a tour in the United Kingdom with the Free Theater, a Minsk-based underground theater company.
The constitution provides for freedom of peaceful assembly; however, the government severely restricted this right in practice.
Only political parties, trade unions, or registered organizations may request permission for a demonstration of more than 1,000 persons. The law criminalizes participation in the activities of unregistered NGOs, training of persons to demonstrate, financing of public demonstrations, or solicitation of foreign assistance "to the detriment" of the country. Violations are punishable by up to three years in prison.
Organizers must apply at least 15 days in advance for permission to conduct a public demonstration, rally, or meeting. Government officials must respond no later than five days prior to the scheduled event. However, authorities generally refused permits to opposition groups or granted permits for demonstrations away from city centers.
For example, activists requested to hold the annual March 25 Freedom Day and April 26 Chernobyl commemoration demonstrations in central Minsk. While protestors were not allowed to assemble at a prominent downtown location, city authorities instead gave permission for a demonstration in a secluded park. Belarusian Communist Party members were also directed to this same remote park to commemorate May Day.
On July 30, Brest city administrators refused to allow human rights activist Roman Kislyak to hold a rally to draw attention to indictments for petty hooliganism against activists.
Authorities used intimidation and threats to discourage persons from participating in demonstrations, openly videotaped participants, and issued heavy fines or jail sentences on participants of unsanctioned demonstrations. Police and other security officials beat and detained demonstrators during and after unsanctioned, but otherwise, peaceful demonstrations.
Police also used preemptive arrests to stop protests. In some instances the government encouraged and coordinated with progovernment groups to disrupt opposition demonstrations.
On March 21, four opposition youths in Gomel were arrested for distributing leaflets about demonstrations to take place in Gomel on March 23 and in Minsk on March 25. The youths spent three days in a detention center before being convicted of violating rules on mass demonstrations.
On August 11, Malady Front activist Lyudmila Atakulava was sentenced to 10 days in jail for participating in an unsanctioned demonstration on August 10 outside the Russian Embassy in Minsk. Fifteen youth activists took part in the 15-minute protest; three other protesters were arrested but released without charges.
In March 2006 up to 12,000 persons gathered in and around Minsk's central square during a five-day period to protest the fraudulent outcome of the presidential election. Security forces used force to break up a make-shift encampment and arrested approximately 250 persons. Following the arrests, approximately 7,000 persons again attempted to gather in the square to protest the police violence and to mark Freedom Day. Riot police again used force to prevent demonstrators from entering the square and break up the rally.
The law provides for freedom of association; however, the government severely restricted it in practice.
The government enforced laws and registration regulations to restrict the operation of independent associations that might be critical of the government. All NGOs, political parties, and trade unions must register with the Ministry of Justice. A government commission reviews and approves all registration applications; in practice, its decisions have been based largely on political and ideological compatibility with the government's authoritarian philosophy.
Registration procedures required applicants to provide the number and names of founders, along with a legal address in a non-residential building. Individuals listed as members are vulnerable to retribution. The government's refusal to rent office space to unregistered organizations and the expense of renting private space forced most organizations to violate the non-residential address requirement. This allowed authorities to deregister existing organizations and deny their reregistration.
On August 12, the Supreme Court upheld the Ministry of Justice's second decision to deny registration to the Belarusian Christian Democracy Party (BCD), citing technical flaws in the association's registration documents. The group was also denied registration in December 2007 for failing "to explain the meaning of Christian principles and values."
In October 2007 the Supreme Court ruled against the NGO 'Vyasna's appeal to reverse a justice ministry decision to deny its registration application. The ministry stated that Vyasna did not meet technical requirements of the law on NGO organizations and that its charter was too vague.
Since 1997 authorities have denied Malady Front's registration application six times, including a request during the year to hold a founding conference in a public square in Minsk.
During the year the Ministry of Justice again reported that it continued to issue written warnings to NGOs, political parties, and trade unions and that the courts continued to suspend or deregister NGOs and political parties for "systematic or severe violations of the law." Harassment in the form of inspections by security officials and confiscation of political literature, usually without warrants continued.
The law provides for freedom of religion; however, the government restricted this right in practice. While the constitution affirms the equality of religions and denominations, it also contains restrictive language, stipulating that cooperation between the state and religious organizations "is regulated with regard for their influence on the formation of spiritual, cultural, and country traditions of the Belarusian people."
The government continued to use restrictive provisions of the 2002 religion law to hinder or prevent activities of groups other than the Belarusian Orthodox Church. In particular, the law restricts the ability of religious organizations to provide religious education, requires governmental approval to import and distribute literature, and prohibits foreigners from leading religious organizations. A concordat and other arrangements with the government provide the Belarusian Orthodox Church with privileges not enjoyed by other religious groups. The Belarusian Orthodox Church is a branch of the Russian Orthodox Church and the only officially recognized Orthodox denomination in the country.
On January 8, Lukashenka described the Belarusian Orthodox Church as the "main ideologist of our country," asserting that "we have never separated ourselves from the church." On April 28, he promised that the government would help the church "serve the Fatherland and people." However, despite the BOC's favored status, the government on occasion warned church leaders about their "excessive influence."
All religious matters are regulated by the Office of the Plenipotentiary Representative for Religious and Nationalities Affairs of the Council of Ministers (OPRRNA). Under the law, religious organizations must register either with OPRNA or with local and regional governments. Only groups with 20 or more members may be registered as religious communities. Groups affected by this restriction include the Pentecostal congregation, which has only 13 adult members.
During the year OPRRNA refused to register some nontraditional religious groups, making their meetings illegal. As of January 2007 the OPRRNA reported that 25 religious denominations with 3,103 religious organizations were officially registered.
The office of religious affairs continued to deny registration to what it considered non-traditional faiths, mainly Protestant groups such as the New Life Church and the Belarusian Evangelical Church. Most Christian communities campaigned for amendments to change the 2002 religion law, which restricts their activities and allows criminal prosecution of individuals for their religious beliefs.
However, in contrast with previous years, officials registered several Hare Krishna communities during the year. On December 22, a community official said that six out of seven Hare Krishna communities had obtained registration. The community in Bobruysk remains unregistered, but still operates. It took six years, numerous law suits and fines before the communities were allowed to legally hold services and ceremonies.
On March 2, the Constitutional Court rejected a petition with 50,000 signatures that sought to amend key restrictive provisions of the religion law. The court stated that only the president and government officials can question the constitutionality of laws.
Under the law, residential property can only be used for religious services if it has been officially converted from residential use, which requires all religious organizations to reregister their properties. Authorities continued to reject reregistration requests from many Protestant churches and other nontraditional faiths. As a result, the groups often were forced to meet illegally or in the homes of individual members.
The government continued to limit the ability of groups to own or use property for religious purposes. A property that is not registered makes religious activity there illegal.
On November 25, the Supreme Economic Court again postponed a hearing on a case brought by the New Life Church against Minsk city officials for seizing the church's land and property in 2005. A lower economic court had ruled in the city's favor, ordering the church to sell the property to the city below market value. In September the city had offered the church new land that was four times smaller, which the church declined.
The law allows persons to gather in private homes to pray but requires them to obtain permission from local authorities to hold rituals, rites, or ceremonies in homes. Police interfered with religious meetings in residences several times during the year and sometimes arrested and fined participants.
Baptists, Pentecostals, and other Protestants were warned or fined for illegally conducting religious services based on charges of disturbing public order or illegally gathering without prior permission.
On April 28 and again on June 9, Pentacostal pastor Valentin Borovik was charged with leading an unregistered religious organization. He was fined BYR 140,000 ($65) the first time and BYR 315,000 ($146) the second time.
The law allows citizens to speak freely about their religious beliefs; however, authorities continued to prevent, interfere with, or punish persons who proselytized for any religious group other than the Belarusian Orthodox Church.
The government did not permit foreign missionaries to engage in religious activities outside of their host institutions. The law requires one-year, multiple-entry "spiritual activities" visas for foreign missionaries. Observers expressed concern that lack of standardized government guidance on implementing visa laws could affect the ability of missionaries to live and work in the country.
On February 7, the Council of Ministers introduced a directive that outlines the grounds to denying entry to foreign and stateless clergy invited by local religious organizations. The grounds include presenting false data in travel papers, lack of Belarusian or Russian language skills, a conviction of an administrative charge, and any previous denial of entry by into the country. Foreign religious figures must also submit an increased number of documents that makes the process cumbersome.
According to Syarhey Lukanin, a legal expert for the Minsk-based Protestant New Life Church, the directive will restrict the number of foreign clergy entering the country. He stated that 28 foreign priests were either deported or did not have their visas extended during the last 18 months.
The law also prohibits the establishment of offices by foreign organizations whose activities incite "national, religious, and racial enmity" or could "have negative effects on the physical and mental health of the people."
On December 17, three Polish Catholic priests working in the Hrodna diocese were denied an extension of their permits to engage in religious activities. Authorities claimed the clergymen did not have good grasp of the country's state languages, despite their having worked in the country for many years.
Foreign citizens officially in the country for nonreligious work can be reprimanded or expelled if they participate in religious activities.
The law does not provide for the return of property seized during the Nazi occupation or the Soviet period and restricts the return of property used for cultural or educational purposes.
At year's end authorities still had not followed through on a commitment to find a new location for state archives stored in a former Roman Catholic monastery complex-–the Bernadine Monastery--in central Minsk. In March 2007 the government announced new plans to convert the monastery into a hotel and entertainment center. The plan triggered protests from the catholic community, forcing authorities to suspend it.
There was a generally amicable relationship among religious groups and a widely held ethic of tolerance; however, during the year several religious sites were vandalized and there were reports of occasional anti-Semitic incidents.
On December 19, a district court banned as "extremist" and "anti-Semitic" 13 religious books and other materials published and distributed by the Minsk-based Christian Initiative Company. In a related development the prosecutor general's office revoked the company's publishing and retail licenses and seized 50,000 booklets, which authorities said incited hatred between Orthdox and Jewish believers.
However, anti-Semitic and Russian ultranationalist newspapers and literature, DVDs, and videotapes imported from Russia continued to be sold in the country.
Jewish groups estimated that between 50,000 and 70,000 persons identify themselves as Jewish. Most Jews in the country were not religiously active.
During the year anti-Semitic incidents continued, and anti-Semitic acts were investigated sporadically. The government did not promote antibias and tolerance education.
Jewish community and civil society activists continued to express concern over the concept of a "greater Slavic union" that was popular among nationalist organizations, including the neo-Nazi group Russian National Union (RNU), which remained active despite its official dissolution in 2000. The deputy chief of the Internal Affairs Ministry's Juvenile Delinquency Prevention Department, Andrey Solodovnikov, acknowledged there were a few neo-Nazi groups in the country. He maintained that the BKGB monitored the groups and that they were "poorly organized and not popular among young people."
In October 2007 Jewish community members in Bobruysk discovered 15 smashed gravestones in the city's Jewish cemetery. It was the fourth attack on the graveyard since the beginning of the year. Anti-Semitic graffiti appeared near the cemetery and grave fencing was damaged earlier in the year. Other cemeteries in the city were also damaged. Police identified three suspects and sent the case to court, but there were no convictions.
In contrast with 2007 there were no anti-Semitic remarks made in public by the president or other government officials. On October 21, President Lukashenka participated in ceremonies commemorating the 65th anniversary of the destruction of the Minsk Jewish ghetto by the Nazi occupiers. In his remarks, Lukashenka honored the victims and their families, noting that Belarus "took the grief of the Jewish people as its own grief."
For a more detailed discussion, see the 2008 International Religious Freedom Report at 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/irf/rpt.
d. Freedom of Movement, Internally Displaced Persons, Protection of Refugees, and Stateless Persons
The law provides for freedom of movement, including the right to emigrate. However, the government at times restricted the right of its citizens to foreign travel. The government cooperated with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other humanitarian organizations in providing protection and assistance to internally displaced persons, refugees, returning refugees, asylum seekers, stateless persons, and persons of concern.
In January a presidential decree replaced exit stamps with a computerized, government database to verify the validity of passports and to track citizens who travel abroad. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the database contains the names of at least 100,000 persons who are prohibited from foreign travel, including those who possess state secrets, are facing criminal prosecution or civil suits, or have outstanding financial commitments. Opposition politicians and civil society activists criticized the database, saying it restricted freedom of travel. Some persons were informed by letter that their names were in the database; others were informed at border crossings. In some cases opposition activists were either turned away at the border or detained for lengthy searches.
At year's end the names of at least 17 opposition leaders and other activists were in the database, including Anatoly Lebedko, Sergey Skrebets, and youth leaders Zmitser Dashkevich, Zmitser Fedaruk, and Aleksandr Atroshchenkov.
Under a presidential decree, any student who wishes to study abroad must obtain permission from the minister of education. The decree, ostensibly intended to counter trafficking in persons, also requires the Ministry of Interior to track citizens working abroad and travel agencies to report individuals who do not return from abroad as scheduled.
The law also requires persons who travel to areas within 25 kilometers (15 miles) of the border to obtain an entrance pass.
The law does not allow forced exile, but sources assert that security forces threatened opposition leaders with bodily harm or prosecution if they did not leave the country. The law allows internal exile, or khimiya, for persons convicted of crimes.
Many university students who had been expelled or were under threat of expulsion for their political activities opted for self-imposed exile. Since 2006 more than 500 students have chosen to continue their studies at foreign universities, mostly in Europe. However, several students reported that their names were on a government list that prohibited their travel abroad to continue their studies.
Internal passports served as primary identity documents and were required for permanent housing, work, and hotel registration. Police continued to harass individuals who lived at a location other than the legal place of residence indicated in their internal passport.
The laws provide for the granting of asylum or refugee status in accordance with the 1951 UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 protocol, and the government has established a system for providing protection to refugees.
In practice, the government provided some protection against expulsion or return of refugees to countries where their lives or freedom would be threatened. There were approximately 800 persons with refugee status and 2,000 asylum seekers in the country. Refugees come mainly from Azerbaijan, Georgia, Tajikistan, Iran, Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan.
While all foreigners have the right to apply for asylum, authorities continued to refuse asylum applications from citizens of the Russian Federation. Immigration authorities and courts asserted that, according to the Belarus-Russian Federation treaties on the union between the countries and on the equal rights of citizens in each country, Russian and Belarusian citizens have equal rights.
Asylum seekers have freedom of movement within the country but must reside in the region where they filed their applications for refugee status and in a place known to the authorities. According to sources, authorities often require asylum seekers to settle in rural areas. Change of residence is possible only with notification to authorities. Registered asylum seekers are issued certificates that serve as identification documents and protect them from expulsion. In accordance with the law, they must also register with local authorities to obtain internal passports.
Under the law, citizenship is derived either by birth within the country's territory or from one's parents. A child of a Belarusian citizen is a Belarusian citizen regardless of place of birth, even if the other parent is not a citizen. Children of stateless or unknown parents are citizens only if born in the country.
According to a June 20 press report citing government statistics, there were approximately 8,000 stateless persons in the country.
Arbitrary detention of and violence against stateless persons generally were not problems. However, according to sources, stateless persons faced discrimination in employment because authorities often required them to settle in rural areas and prohibited them from seeking jobs outside of the regions where they lived. In practice, stateless persons could not to change their region of residence.
The law provides the right for citizens to change their government peacefully; however, the government denied citizens this right in practice.
Since his election in 1994 to a five-year term as the country's first president, Lukashenka steadily has consolidated power in the executive branch to dominate all branches of government. Flawed referenda in 1996 and 2004 amended the constitution to broaden his powers, extend his term in office, and remove presidential term limits. In March 2006 Lukashenka gained a third term through a fraudulent election.
The September 28 parliamentary election fell significantly short of international standards for democratic elections, according to the final report by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) observation mission. Despite the president's stated intent to conduct a free and fair election, authorities seriously challenged constitutionally guaranteed rights of expression, association, and assembly. All of the 110 candidates declared winners were supporters of Lukashenka's policies.
The report also noted some improvements, including cooperation by authorities with OSCE/ODIHR and progress in allowing candidates to conduct meetings and air campaign ads on television. However, overall, the election environment that authorities created did not allow genuine political competition or equal treatment of candidates.
Prior to the election, Lukashenka stated his intention to hold transparent elections and said that election campaign laws were in fact being violated to accommodate Western demands for transparency and adherence to democratic standards. For example, election officials stated that they registered candidates despite errors on registration forms. Lukashenka made similar comments after the fraudulent 2006 presidential election, asserting that the results were falsified in favor of his three opponents to appease the West. Official election results gave Lukashenka 83 percent of the vote; however, he claimed that he actually won 93 percent.
Journalists and international election observers characterized the campaign leading up to the September 28 vote as "muted." According to the OSCE/ODIHR report, media coverage did not provide meaningful information for voters to make an informed choice, political parties played a minor role, and restrictions imposed by the authorities did not allow for a vibrant campaign with real competition.
The registration process failed to include all nominated candidates. Many candidates said their registrations were denied due to administrative and technical problems with their applications. Approximately 365 candidates applied to run in the election and 285 were registered. During the campaign, several candidates withdrew; approximately 60 opposition candidates ultimately stood for election.
The OSCE/ODIHR report noted that while voting was well conducted, the integrity of the process was undermined by a flawed vote count. According to election monitors, 48 percent of polling stations observed during the vote count were assessed as "bad or very bad." In addition, despite repeated requests since the OSCE/ODHIR election mission began in mid-August, observers reported that they were prevented or hindered from observing vote counts in 35 percent of cases.
Local human rights advocates, the Belarus Helsinki Commission, and independent observers also criticized the election results and the flawed electoral process. They said major flaws included forced early voting, failure of electoral commissions to inform observers about the number of early voters, and refusal to inform observers about the quantity of ballots available at the polling stations. Domestic observers concluded that ballot counting was not transparent as they were barred from polling stations or prevented from observing the process.
Throughout the campaign, opposition candidates reported inequities such as, government restrictions on access to broadcast media and venues for campaign rallies. There were instances where state-owned printing houses refused to produce opposition leaflets. Supporters of opposition candidates also reported harassment by authorities, including seizure of campaign materials.
Despite a nominal increase in opposition representation, authorities continued to exclude opposition representatives from election commissions at all levels. The Central Election Commission had four opposition members in advisory, non-voting roles. Opposition activists also made up less than 1 percent of commissioners in precinct election commissions.
Political parties continued to receive warnings for minor offenses under a law that allows authorities to suspend parties for six months after one violation and close them after two warnings. The law also prohibits political parties from receiving support from abroad and requires all political groups and coalitions to register with the Ministry of Justice.
In January the Ministry of Justice filed a liquidation suit against the Belarusian Party of Communists (BPC); however, the party denied that there was a suit and registered 18 candidates for the September 28 legislative elections. In August 2007 the Supreme Court upheld the ministry's six-month suspension of the BPC on grounds that it could not confirm the membership of 200 of the more than 1,500 persons listed as BPC members.
In August 2007, citing alleged inaccuracies in application documents, the Ministry of Justice denied for a second time registration to the Union of Leftist Parties (ULP). In October 2007 the Supreme Court upheld a Ministry of Justice suit to liquidate the Belarusian women's party, Nadzeya, because of alleged irregularities in the party's charter and registration of regional chapters.
There were 35 women in the 110-member Chamber of Representatives and 19 women in the 56-member Council of the Republic. A woman chaired one of Chamber of Representative's 20 committees and there was one woman in the 39-member Council of Ministers.
No high level members of government or the National Assembly openly identified themselves as members of a minority, although several were Polish or members of other ethnic groups.
The law provides criminal penalties for official corruption; however, reports indicate officials continued to engage in corrupt practices. The World Bank's worldwide governance indicators reflected that corruption was a serious problem in the country.
The lack of transparency between the president's personal funds and official government accounts, and a heavy reliance on off-budget revenues, suggest corruption within the executive branch.
On January 29, a new anticorruption law expanded the list of professions vulnerable to corruption, designated the prosecutor general's office as the coordinator of anticorruption efforts, and prohibited government officials from having foreign bank accounts or engaging in nepotism.
On February 8, Lukashenka ordered the prosecutor general to better coordinate and implement investigations of crime and corruption because they increased social tensions and negatively affected economic development.
On November 13, the president dismissed the prosecutor and deputy prosecutor general in the Minsk region in connection with questionable real estate purchased and ties with corrupt business owners. On November 28, he dismissed four officials from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, including First Deputy Minister Shchurko and Deputy Minister Filistovich, in connection with this case.
Between January and November authorities investigated approximately 2,600 corruption-related offenses mainly by low- and mid-level officials, including 884 bribery cases. On June 4, the head of the State Control Committee, Syarhey Baranowski, said his office began investigating 59 economic crimes against government officials. On December 4, the prosecutor general's office announced that corruption had caused BYR 88 billion worth of damage to the state from January to October, and that 1,470 persons had been charged with corruption.
There were numerous corruption prosecutions. However, prosecution remained selective.
For example, on February 5, the prosecutor general announced that a deputy chairman of the Orsha District Executive Committee was sentenced to eight years in prison for abuse of power and bribery for agreeing to accept BYR 18 million ($8,370) from a construction company as a kickback.
On March 27, the former chairman of the state-owned petrochemical conglomerate Belnaftakhim, Alyaksandr Barowski, was sentenced to five years in prison for abuse of power. He was arrested in May 2007 on charges of larceny, abuse of power, and disclosing classified information that caused more than BYR 3.5 million ($1,630) in losses for the state. Barowski was released in December.
The law, government policies, and a presidential decree severely restrict public access to government information. Citizens had some access to certain categories of information on government databases and Web sites; however, much of the information was neither current nor complete.
There were several active domestic human rights and NGO groups; however, authorities were often hostile to their efforts, did not cooperate with them, and were not responsive to their views.
Authorities harassed NGOs with frequent inspections and threats of deregistration and monitored their correspondence and telephone conversations. The government ignored reports issued by human rights NGOs and rarely met with them. State-run media did not report on human rights NGOs and their actions; independent media that reported on human rights issues were subject to closure and harassment.
The government closed, refused to register, and continued to harass NGOs under Article 193 of the criminal code. Under the law, which was adopted in 2005 by presidential decree, organizing or participating in any activity by an unregistered organization is a criminal offense. The law also prohibits persons from acting on behalf of unregistered NGOs. Several domestic and international human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have urged the government to abolish Article 193 and remove other legal obstacles that hinder the work of NGOs and allow official harassment of civil society and youth activists.
According to the Assembly of Democratic NGOs, more than 300 NGOs were either closed by the government or forced to disband in the previous four years on a variety of legal and politically motivated pretexts. In 2007 Human Rights Watch stated that only five major human rights groups remained registered in the country.
In contrast with 2007, the Ministry of Justice on December 17 approved the registration of the civil society NGO "For Freedom" led by former presidential candidate Aleksandr Milinkevich. The ministry had previously denied three registration applications, citing as reasons improper payment of registration fees, irregularities in the group's charter, organizing an unapproved open-air rally, and technical flaws in registration documents.
Authorities can close an NGO after issuing only one warning that it violated the law. The most common violations that prompted a warning or closure were failure to obtain a legal address and technical discrepancies in application documents. The law allows authorities to close an NGO for accepting illegal forms of foreign assistance and permits the Ministry of Justice to participate in any NGO activity and review all NGO documents. NGOs also must submit detailed reports annually to the ministry about their activities, office locations, officers, and total number of members.
On April 24, a 2007 presidential order took effect that increased rent 10-fold for most NGOs. Prior to the order, NGOs paid one euro ($1.40) per square foot for office space, compared to 10 euros ($7) charged to commercial groups. While some groups, including youth sports groups, charity organizations, and children's arts centers, continued to pay the one euro rate, other NGOs, such as the Belarusian Voluntary Society for Historic and Cultural Heritage Protection, were required to pay the higher rate. Many NGOs stated the higher rent would likely force them to close.
On July 11, a Minsk district court sentenced United Civic Party youth activists Mikhail Pashkevich and Vitaly Stozharov to 15 days in jail and Kirill Pavlovskiy to 10 days in jail on minor hooliganism charges. Human rights advocates linked the arrests to the July 3 bombing in Minsk.
During the year the BHC, a registered NGO, continued to experience problems with authorities. On February 29 the Supreme Court allowed the Ministry of Justice to withdraw a petition to suspend the BHC's activities. However, the NGO's bank accounts remain blocked and tax arrears have not been cleared. The case dates back to 2006, when authorities seized BHC office equipment as partial payment of a BYR 160 million ($74,400) fine for back taxes on international funding. More recently, before and after the September 28 legislative elections, financial intelligence services requested income statements and other information from BHC members.
Authorities were reluctant to discuss human rights with international NGOs, whose representatives often had difficulty gaining admission to the country. Authorities repeatedly ignored NGO recommendations on how to improve the human rights situation in the country and their requests to stop harassing the NGO community.
In July 2007 the mandate of the UN special rapporteur on human rights for Belarus expired and was not renewed. The authorities had refused to cooperate with the rapporteur, Adrian Severin, since his appointment in 2004 by repeatedly refusing him entry into the country. In 2006 Severin reported that the human rights situation in the country had deteriorated "to such an extent that the elements usually defining a dictatorship could be seen." According to Severin, civil and political rights were limited, cultural rights were ignored, and economic and other rights were conditional on obedience to authorities.
In December 2007 the UN General Assembly for a second consecutive year adopted a resolution expressing deep concern over the human rights situation in the country, particularly the government's "persistent" harassment and prosecution of opposition activists and independent NGOs. The resolution also expressed concern that senior government officials were implicated in the disappearances of opposition figures Yuriy Zakharenko and Viktor Gonchar and businessman Anatoliy Krasovskiy in 1999 and television journalist Dmitriy Zavadskiy in 2000, as well as the government's failure to hold a free and fair presidential election in 2006.
The law prohibits discrimination based on race, gender, disability, language, or social status. In practice, the government did not always protect these rights. Problems included violence against women and children; trafficking in persons; and discrimination against persons with disabilities, Roma, ethnic minorities, and homosexuals.
The law criminalizes rape in general, but does not include prohibitions against spousal rape. Rape was a problem. However, most women did not report it due to shame or fear that police would blame the victim. In 2007 the Ministry of Internal Affairs reported 306 cases of rape or sexual assault.
Domestic violence, including spousal abuse against women, was a significant problem. A 2006 Amnesty International report concluded that measures taken by authorities to protect women against domestic violence were insufficient. The criminal code does not contain a separate article dealing with domestic violence.
Women remained reluctant to report domestic violence due to fear of reprisal and social stigma. NGOs operated crisis shelters primarily in Minsk, but they were poorly funded and received only limited support from the government.
Prostitution is illegal, but is an administrative, rather than a criminal, offense and penalties are light. Officials and human rights observers reported that prostitution was not a significant problem. However, anecdotal evidence indicated that it was growing, particularly in regions outside the main cities. There were prostitution rings in government-owned hotels. According to city police, approximately 500 women in Minsk had police records for prostitution. Svyatlana Brutskaya, leader of a project on HIV/AIDs prevention, put the number of persons in prostitution in Minsk at 3,000. As of September authorities reported 68 violations related to prostitution.
Sexual harassment reportedly was widespread, but no specific laws, other than those against physical assault, address the problem.
The Ministry of Labor and Social Security is responsible for ensuring gender equality, although it cannot issue binding instructions to other government agencies. The law, generally respected in practice, provides for equal treatment of women with regards to property ownership and inheritance, family law, and the judicial system. The law also requires equal wages for equal work, although this provision was not always enforced. There were very few women in the upper ranks of management or government. The Ministry of Statistics and Analysis reported during the year that 64 percent of the unemployed were women.
The law grants women the right to three years of maternity leave with assurance of job availability upon return. However, employers circumvented employment protections by using short-term contracts, then refusing to renew a woman's contract when she becomes pregnant.
Government authorities were generally committed to children's welfare and health.
Romani children were subject to harassment from non-Romani children and teachers. The majority of Romani youth did not finish secondary school. There was no public school in Minsk for Roma, although there were schools for Jews, Lithuanians, and Poles.
Reports of child abuse were infrequent. However, there were reports that children were trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation and, in one case, labor. In the Minsk region, in the first half of 2007, authorities placed 301 minors in the care of child welfare authorities.
Child marriage was not generally a problem. However, within the Romani community, girls as young as 14 and boys as young as 16 frequently were married with parental consent.
The law prohibits all forms of trafficking in persons; however, trafficking remained a serious problem, and the country continued to be both a source and transit country for trafficked persons.
From January through September the Ministry of Internal Affairs registered 298 trafficking-related crimes, including 62 cases of trafficking and 236 other trafficking-related cases, such as prostitution and kidnapping for sexual exploitation. Over the same time period, the ministry also reported 430 trafficking victims, including 296 who were trafficked abroad and 134 who were exploited inside the country. Of the 430 victims, 92 were exploited for labor and the remainder for sexual services.
In 2007 the ministry reported 97 cases of trafficking and 344 other trafficking-related cases. Authorities registered approximately 418 trafficking victims, of whom 378 were trafficked for sexual exploitation (including 22 minors) and 40 for labor exploitation (including one minor). In 2007 trafficking for the purpose of forced labor, particularly of men to Russia, increased significantly.
Women were primarily trafficked to the European Union (particularly Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, and Cyprus), the Middle East (particularly Israel and the United Arab Emirates), Turkey, Russia, Ukraine, and Japan. Trafficking to Russia presented a particular problem, both because of an open border between the countries and because authorities tended to downplay problems with Russia due to political considerations. Most female victims of trafficking were seeking a way to escape bad economic circumstances or domestic situations. Local NGOs asserted that more government intervention to reduce domestic violence and alcoholism would greatly reduce the number of women seeking employment abroad.
Reports by the Ministry of Internal Affairs indicated that traffickers were usually members of loosely organized crime networks with connections to larger international organized crime rings, brothels, clubs, or bars in destination countries.
Traffickers lured victims through advertisements, via modeling and employment agencies, and by personal approaches through friends and relatives to offer jobs abroad or solicit marriage partners. Traffickers often withheld victims' documents and used physical and emotional abuse, fraud, and coercion to control them. In January 2007 authorities convicted 13 executives of Belarusian modeling agencies of trafficking more than 600 women between 2002 and 2005 for prostitution to France, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. The defendants received eight- to 12-year prison sentences, had property confiscated, and were assessed fines of BYR 1.94 billion ($900,000).
The law criminalizes trafficking for sexual or other exploitation. The property of convicted traffickers may be confiscated. The penalty for trafficking is a minimum of five years' imprisonment with property forfeiture, while the punishment for severe forms of trafficking is a minimum of 12 years' imprisonment.
Presidential decrees have eliminated criminal responsibility for illegal acts committed by victims, defined the status of victims, and mandated measures to provide protection, medical care, and social rehabilitation, but only on the condition that victims cooperated in an investigation and prosecution.
Reports indicated antitrafficking agencies often pressured victims to cooperate in investigations.
The government's antitrafficking efforts were coordinated by Internal Affairs Ministry's department on Combating Trafficking in Human Persons. However, NGOs were more active in the areas of prevention and rehabilitation. Government sources stated that victims were more likely to trust assistance from NGOs than from government agencies. Antitrafficking NGOs and international organizations complained that the government provided insufficient and mostly in-kind assistance and failed to provide mandatory funding for victim assistance. NGOs actively participated in training government workers in rehabilitation but were dissatisfied with implementation by regional authorities.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs established the International Academy for Antitrafficking, which graduated its first class of trainees in July 2007. The center was partially funded by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and training was provided in part by international antitrafficking NGO La Strada.
There continued to be reports that corrupt law enforcement and border officials facilitated trafficking by accepting bribes or by ignoring trafficking. There was no indication that the government systematically facilitated or condoned trafficking. The State Control Committee investigated allegations of official trafficking-related corruption through the Interagency Commission for Combating Crime, Corruption, and Drug Trafficking.
Victims seldom reported trafficking crimes to police due to social stigma, aversion to dealing with authorities, and a shortage of social services and rehabilitation options. The Ministry of Labor and Social Protection maintained 23 social service centers that could help trafficking victims. To supplement government shelters, the UN Development Program, the IOM, and La Strada also opened rehabilitation shelters for victims and their families.
The government stated that there were two specialized trafficking crisis centers in the country, as well as 28 NGOs that provided services to trafficking victims. La Strada provided training to many regional victim support centers but expressed dissatisfaction with the follow-up, citing several cases where regional officers displayed skepticism or insensitivity towards victims.
La Strada and the Young Women's Christian Association maintained a women's hot line that provided advice regarding offers of employment or marriage that might be trafficking-related. Since 2001 the hot line has received over 12,000 calls.
In June the head of the Internal Affairs Ministry's Drug Control and Human Trafficking Prevention Department stated that the best way to combat trafficking was through awareness campaigns. The government distributed information through state institutions, showed antitrafficking commercials on state television, placed materials at local and foreign diplomatic posts, and organized roundtables and seminars for NGOs and government officials.
To deter trafficking, the government required Internet dating services to reregister and provide information about citizens and foreigners planning to meet in person. Authorities continued to enforce strong measures to discourage and control freedom of movement, which they justified in part as antitrafficking measures.
The law does not specifically prohibit discrimination against persons with disabilities in employment, education, access to health care, and other government services.
The Ministry of Labor and Social Security is the main government agency responsible for protecting the rights of persons with disabilities. The law mandates that transport, residences, and businesses be accessible to persons with disabilities. However, in practice few public areas were wheelchair accessible. The Republican Association of Disabled Wheelchair Users (RADWU) estimated that more than 75 percent of persons with disabilities were unable to leave their own homes without assistance.
Authorities provided minimal, reportedly ineffectual, benefits for persons with disabilities. For example, persons with disabilities who lived alone were entitled to a 50 percent discount on rent and utilities. Since few residences were accessible, persons with disabilities had to live with friends or family and thus were ineligible for the discount. Public transportation was free to persons with disabilities, but neither the subway in Minsk nor the bus system was accessible by wheelchair. A government prohibition against workdays longer than seven hours for persons with disabilities made companies reluctant to hire them.
Governmental and societal discrimination against the ethnic Polish population and Roma persisted. There were also expressions of societal hostility toward proponents of Belarusian national culture.
Authorities continued to harass the unrecognized Union of Belarusian Poles (UBP), its chairman Anzhelika Borys, and her associates. On March 29, police stopped Borys' car and attempted to search it for illegal printed materials. After this incident, police also searched the organization's office. On April 18, Borys and an associate were filmed driving to the village of Radun and fined BYR 525,000 ($245) for staying in a restricted border zone without a permit.
Official and societal discrimination continued against the country's 40,000 to 60,000 Roma.
The Romani community continued to experience high unemployment and low levels of education. In 2005 authorities estimated the unemployment rate among Roma at 80 percent. Roma were often denied access to higher education in state-run universities.
The Russian and Belarusian languages have equal legal status; however, in practice Russian was the primary language used by the government. In September 2007 the Constitutional Court's chief justice acknowledged that discrimination was "not rare," but maintained that such discrimination was usually corrected.
Authorities made concessions to Belarusian language usage, such as changing street signs to Belarusian, but proposals to widen the language's usage were routinely rejected.
Ultranationalist, ethnically Russian, skinhead groups harassed organizations promoting Belarusian national culture. On March 10, in Vitebsk, Barys Khamayda of the Conservative Christian Party reported that he received an anti-Semitic and threatening letter from the local chapter of the ultranationalist group Russian National Unity (RNU), an unregistered organization. Authorities refused to open a criminal investigation of the incident and said the letter did not constitute a crime.
Homosexuality is not illegal, but discrimination against homosexuals was widespread, and harassment occurred. According to a local gay rights group, government-controlled media discouraged participation in the protests following the 2006 presidential election by saying they were part of a "gay revolution."
On May 28, three youths in Minsk attacked Edvard Tarletski, a journalist and gay rights activist. Tarletski stated that he did not intend to report the attack to police because they would not do anything about the incident. He also said this attack was the third against him in five years.
Societal discrimination against persons with HIV/AIDS remained a problem and the illness carried a heavy stigma despite greater awareness and increased tolerance towards persons infected with the virus. For example, maternity wards no longer had separate facilities for HIV-infected mothers. However, the UN AIDS office reported that there were still numerous reports of HIV-infected individuals who faced discrimination. In September the government reported that 9,282 citizens were infected with HIV.
The law allows workers, except state security and military personnel, to form and join independent unions; however, in practice the government did not respect this right. During the year the government continued efforts to suppress independent unions, stop union activities, and bring all union activity under its control. Its efforts included frequent refusals to extend employment contracts for members of independent unions and refusals to register some unions.
According to Belarusian Congress of Democratic Trade Unions (BCDTU) leader Alyaksandr Yarashuk, no independent unions have been established since President Lukashenka's 1999 decree requiring trade unions to register with the government.
The law provides for the right to strike; however, tight government control over public demonstrations made it difficult for unions to do so. Management and local authorities also blocked worker attempts to organize strikes on many occasions by declaring them illegal.
The government-controlled Federation of Trade Unions of Belarus (FTUB) was the largest union, with an estimated four million members; however, that number was likely inflated, since the country's total workforce is approximately four million. The BCDTU, with four constituent unions and approximately eight thousand members, was the largest independent union.
Local authorities for the eight time denied registration to the Mogilyov chapter of the Belarusian Union of Electronic Industry Workers (REP). According to REP, authorities refused to re-register the chapter because the REP office landlord had not agreed to register the office as its legal address due to harassment from officials.
The government combined administrative measures and a system of contracts with individual workers, mostly from one to five years in length, to discourage membership in independent unions and in regional, national, and international labor organizations.
On April 4, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court's verdict to deny REP activist Anatoliy Askerko reinstatement to his post. Askerko was fired from German factory Frebor after he told his employer he would sign a mandated one-year contract only after exercising his right to discuss some of its provisions.
In August a Gomel court sentenced two persons to five and six years in prison for the June 2007 assault on Aleksandr Berasnev, an employee and REP activist at state agricultural company Belarusnafta Asobina. The assault took place on company property shortly after Berasnev filed a complaint with the Gomel chief inspector about Belarusnafta Asobina's abuse of labor regulations and mistreatment of employees. The court did not reinstate Berasnev to his post, but awarded him BYR 5 million ($2,320), to be paid by the company, for "moral damages."
In January the Council of Ministers reviewed new trade union legislation that would simplify registration rules and require fewer names and addresses of members for registration. Leaders of both progovernment and independent unions were concerned about the level of control the legislation could give the government over unions. The council's review was pending at year's end.
On January 9, the Ministry of Justice denied registration to Razam, a trade union of small- and medium-sized businesses, citing absence of the minutes of the union's founding convention, failure to cover registration fees, and insufficient documentation. Razam's leader, Nikolay Kanakh, said that the registration process was "excessively complicated" and insisted that his group had filed correct applications with the ministry.
The government also targeted union leaders and activists. However, in contrast with previous years, fewer cases of harassment were reported. During the year more than 30 REP members were forced to quit their membership in the union following threats of dismissal.
The law provides for the right to organize and bargain collectively; however, government authorities and managers of state-owned enterprises routinely interfered with union activities and hindered workers' efforts to bargain collectively, in some instances arbitrarily suspending collective bargaining agreements.
Since 2004 the government has required state employees, who constitute approximately 80 percent of the working population, to sign short-term work contracts. Although such contracts may have terms of up to five years, most expired after one year, which gave the government the possibility of firing any employee by simply declining to renew their contract. Many members of independent unions, political parties, and civil society groups lost their jobs because of this practice.
On August 11, Brest-based Riona Enterprise Management forced 11 of 12 REP members at the firm to withdraw from the union by threatening to withhold their salaries. The REP had sought to have their working conditions designated as hazardous so they could receive appropriate compensation.
During the year the Polotsk chapter of the BFTU continued to negotiate without success with the Polotsk Steklovolokno fiberglass manufacturer over the company's unwillingness to grant the BFTU the same privileges granted to its rival, the progovernment FTUB.
In contrast, the management of the Baran based Lyos factory has ceased putting pressure on Free Trade Union of Metal Workers members to leave that union and join the FTUB.
There are no special laws or exemptions from regular labor laws in the country's six free economic zones.
The law prohibits forced or compulsory labor, including by children; however, there were reports that women, men, and children were trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor.
During the year the government approved several "subbotniks," which required employees of government, state enterprises, and many private businesses to work on Saturday and donate earnings to finance government social projects. Workers who refused to take part were subject to fines and intimidation by employers and authorities.
The law forbids the exploitation of children in the workplace, including a prohibition on forced and compulsory labor, and specifies policies for acceptable working conditions. The government generally implemented these laws in practice.
The minimum age for employment is 16; however, a child as young as 14 may conclude a labor contract with the written consent of one parent or legal guardian. The prosecutor general's office reportedly enforced the law effectively. Minors under 18 were allowed to work in nonhazardous jobs, but were not allowed to work overtime, on weekends, or on government holidays. Work was not to be harmful to the minors' health or hinder their education.
On November 1, the average national minimum monthly wage was BYR 220,080 (approximately $102), which did not provide a decent standard of living for a worker and family. From January to September, the average monthly wage was BYR 857,000 ($398).
The law establishes a standard work week of 40 hours and provides for at least one 24-hour rest period per week. Because of the country's difficult economic situation, many workers worked considerably less than 40 hours per week, and factories often required workers to take unpaid furloughs due to lack of demand for the factory's products. The law provides for mandatory overtime and holiday pay and restricts overtime to four hours every two days, with a maximum of 120 hours of overtime each year. According to sources, the government was believed to effectively enforce these standards.
The law establishes minimum conditions for workplace safety and worker health; however, employers often ignored these standards. Workers at many heavy machinery plants did not wear minimal safety gear. There is a state labor inspectorate, but it lacked authority to enforce employer compliance and often ignored violations.
The Ministry of Labor reported that 120 workplace fatalities occurred from January to July, a 1.6 percent decline compared to the same period in 2007. The ministry reported that workplace accidents were caused by carelessness, poor conditions, malfunctioning equipment, and poor training and instruction. Worker intoxication was involved in 32 percent of workplace deaths and 10 percent of injuries. The law does not provide workers the right to remove themselves from dangerous and unhealthy work environments without risking loss of employment.
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You are here: Home / Blog / A History of Austin’s Famous Hike and Bike Trail, Which Wasn’t Always Green
A History of Austin’s Famous Hike and Bike Trail, Which Wasn’t Always Green
Shelby Murphy March 2, 2018 Comment
The Hike and Bike Trail in action. Image: Wikimedia Commons
It’s hard to imagine Austin without its crown — the 10-mile trail that encircles much of Lady Bird Lake in the heart of the city. Officially known as the Ann and Roy Butler Hike and Bike Trail, the path offers a natural respite in Austin’s increasingly concrete core, serving the fitness and commuting needs of runners, walkers, and cyclists — a vital alternative transit corridor away from car-jammed streets.
A quiet section of the hike and bike trail on the north shore of the lake. Image: Wikimedia Commons
But without a few notable visionaries, including Lady Bird Johnson herself, the trail might never have taken its current shape, skewing Austin’s development on a very different, and less prosperous tangent. Back in the 1960s, the shores of the recently-formed Town Lake were barren and brown. Anything green had been stripped away by decades of flooding along the Colorado River, helped along by misguided efforts to remove the trees along the river’s banks to abate future flood damage.
Flooding on the Colorado River was a recurring problem for Austin for more than a century. This photo dates back to a flood in 1935. Image: Austin History Center
The first dam on the river, on the west side of what’s now known as Lady Bird Lake, was completed in 1893, destroyed by a flood, rebuilt in 1912, destroyed by another flood, and finally rebuilt atop the existing two dam structures as the Tom Miller Dam in 1940 — which thankfully seemed to do the trick, keeping the Colorado River in control to this day on its ebbs and flows through Austin.
Taken in 1900, this photo shows Austin’s dam on the Colorado River broken after a major flood. Image: Austin History Center
In 1960, the Longhorn Dam was built on the eastern side of the new lake to supply cooling waters for the nearby Holly Power Plant — the name originates from its location along the old Chisholm Trail where cattlemen steered their longhorns across the river.
The Holly Power Plant under construction in 1959 on the north shore of the lake. Image: The Trail Foundation
The new lake was soon dubbed Town Lake by a newspaper reporter who apparently didn’t know what else to call it. The city council’s lake study committee proposed calling it Lake Tonkawah, after the Native American tribe that once lived along its riverbanks. That name, however, was quickly dismissed after a councilman suggested the tribe might have been cannibals — while others joked that Texans would never remember how to spell it.
An article in the Austin American-Statesman from 1962 regarding the naming of Town Lake. Image: Austin History Center
Perhaps the plainly-named Town Lake was appropriate for the stripped and polluted puddle it was in 1971 when Lady Bird Johnson, Les Gage, Ann Butler, and other influential folks in the city formed the Town Lake Beautification Committee, aiming to beautify the lake and its shores to enhance the community with a new outdoor gathering place.
The Seaholm Power Plant, as seen from across the lake in 1964. Image: The Trail Foundation
But it was a chance meeting between Lady Bird and Ann Butler in London that really solidified the idea of the trail. The two women were admiring a stretch of the Thames Path — a beautiful, green trail along London’s famous river — from the balcony of their hotel, and Lady Bird asked Butler if they might create something similar along the shores of Town Lake. Butler agreed, and looked to her husband, Austin’s Mayor Roy Butler, for help.
A view of Town Lake in the 1970s when its beautification project began. The Seaholm Power Plant and Palmer Auditorium are visible. Image: Austin History Center
The city had a plan in place at the time for enhancing the lake’s image, and was in the process of seeking federal funds to put it into action — voters had already approved more than $1 million for the project as well. But it was Mayor Butler’s idea for a presidential-style fundraiser at the LBJ Ranch that really moved the Beautification Committee, and the idea of a trail, forward into reality.
Lady Bird Johnson, Les Gage, and Hallie Burns receiving an award for beautification work at Town Lake in 1975. All three were members of the Town Lake Beautification Committee. Image: Austin History Center
Donors flew in from Houston with the promise that the former president would greet the bigwigs in his bedroom, but Lyndon B. Johnson died in January 1973, little more than three months before the planned April event. Lady Bird insisted that the party would go on as scheduled, and Willie Nelson played to a packed house.
With enough cash to move forward, the Committee enlisted the help of local garden clubs in planting and maintaining more than 3,600 trees, including many Texas redbuds, which were meant to bring color and identity to the shores — not unlike the cherry blossoms in Washington D.C.
Left: Town Lake’s first tree being planted in 1966. Image: Austin History Center
Right: Lady Bird Johnson in front of a Texas redbud tree. Image: The Trail Foundation
The committee also began building a trail around the lake, which was an innovative idea for the era. The British had a long history of rambling — walking long distances for pleasure — and the Thames Path accommodated such pursuits. But Americans, and most definitely Texans, were square in the middle of a golden age of suburban sprawl and its associated car culture in the 1970s, and pedestrian-friendly design wasn’t high on the list of priorities for most city planners at the time.
Lady Bird Johnson on the Shoal Creek Peninsula. Image: The Trail Foundation
A jogging craze had recently emerged, though it had yet to go mainstream, so the idea of running on a trail remained foreign to most Texans. Even Lady Bird didn’t foresee the vast fitness, recreation, and transportation options the trail might one day provide — she simply imagined a path giving the community access to the lake and its surrounding area.
A jogger at Town Lake. Image: The Trail Foundation
Along the trail, the committee oversaw two major projects — the building of gazebos at Auditorium Shores and Lou Neff Point.
Gazebos on Town Lake. On the left is Auditorium Shores, with Lou Neff Point on the right. Images: The Trail Foundation
Having completed everything it set out to do, the committee disbanded in 1976 with much of the trail on the west side of the lake in place. A pedestrian walkway underneath the Mopac Expressway had been built alongside the highway in 1973, due to efforts of local conservationist Roberta Crenshaw, who helped influence the Texas Department of Transportation to add this critical footbridge to its plans for the highway and form the trail’s west end.
The first pedestrian crossing built over Lady Bird Lake, however, was at Congress Avenue. The current concrete arch bridge was built in 1910, and underwent a major renovation in 1980, which inadvertently made the bridge an irresistible summer home to a mega-colony of Mexican free-trailed bats. The 1.5 million bats, mostly female, arrive around March to build nests and birth their pups under the bridge, giving trail users a distinct experience both visual and aromatic.
(A new trail bridge under the Congress Avenue bridge should be complete within the next two years.)
Renovation of the Congress Avenue Bridge in 1980. Image: The Trail Foundation
Other significant pedestrian crossovers, connecting the northern and southern portions of the trail, were built well after the leadership of the Beautification Committee ended. The bridge at First Street was built in 1954, but it wasn’t until 1989 that our city council approved the wide pedestrian lanes on both sides of the bridge that are separated from vehicular traffic and sunken comfortably below road level, creating convenient foot access to the Auditorium Shores area.
In 2001, the James D. Pfluger Pedestrian and Bicycle Bridge opened, named for the Austin architect who contributed to the design of trail and parkland. Built after a drunk driver hit and killed a cyclist crossing the lake on Lamar Boulevard’s extremely narrow sidewalks only inches away from traffic, the pedestrian bridge features an unusual “double curve” design and has become a recognizable piece of Austin architecture.
The double curve portion of the Pfluger Bridge. Image: The Trail Foundation
Nearly three decades after the Beautification Committee disbanded, the trail had become a heavily-trodden component of a growing Austin, with the city’s Parks and Recreation Department charged with the constant necessary upkeep. But citing a lack of leadership, non-profit organization The Trail Foundation formed in 2004 to provide sustainable care for the trail’s environment — and a new direction that had been missing since Lady Bird’s control.
“I’m not sure if Lady Bird or the original committee ever expected the trail to have over 2.6 million visits per year,” says Heidi Anderson, executive director at The Trail Foundation. “I think that would have blown their minds…little Austin back in 1971, versus where we are today.”
“The trail is so well-loved and so well-used, there are literally portions of it falling into the lake. We’re just trying to keep it alive in a lot of ways.”
— Heidi Anderson, The Trail Foundation
The Trail Foundation ushered in the completion of the trail in 2014 with a long-anticipated 1.1-mile boardwalk that finally connected the 10 mile loop around the lake. The boardwalk snakes along the south side of Lady Bird Lake offering stunning views of the city and the water, along with a more unusual feature: bronze castings of leather belts, with lyrics from old country songs stamped into them and fastened to the railings. The belts, a project by Art in Public Places, offer trail users an unexpected bit of Texan culture without impeding the flow of the trail.
The boardwalk section of the Hike and Bike Trail. Image: Wikimedia Commons
The Trail Foundation’s vision, says Anderson, is to expand how people view the trail — which is now labeled by the city as a transportation corridor, not just parkland — and the critical role the trail plays in the continued well-being of Austin’s population.
“As development continues, there is going to be a dense urban core, denser than it is now, and the only way you’re going to get access to nature without having a weekend drive to the hill country is to get on that trail, and probably walk or bike to get to it.”
Trail Mix:
Why is the trailhead under Mopac near Austin High School called “The Rock?”
The Rock refers to the granite slab placed in 1936 — the centennial year of the battle at the Alamo — by the State of Texas to honor William Travis, who died in that battle. The historical marker on top of the slab is largely ignored but its flat surface and prominence (approximately 3 feet high and 2.5 feet wide) made it an ideal place for an unofficial lost and found. Starting in the 1980s, keys, dog toys, driver’s licenses and whatever else had slipped out of peoples’ pockets during a visit to the trail was often placed on top of the marker where it frequently was reunited with its owner. With few other structures at the trailhead, the granite marker began to be referred to simply as “The Rock”.
The statue of Stevie Ray Vaughan near Auditorium Shores. Image: Creative Commons CC0
Why is there a statue of Stevie Ray Vaughan on the hike and bike trail?
Blues rock legend Stevie Ray Vaughan was born near Dallas, but Austin claims him as its own — he moved to Austin as a teenager and performed here often, including at Auditorium Shores just weeks before his death in 1990. A city councilman wanted to rename Auditorium Shores “Stevie Ray Vaughan Park” immediately following his death, but his brother Jimmie Vaughan and mother Martha were uncomfortable with that. They opted instead for a bronze statue, created by sculptor Ralph Helmick, funded primarily by brother Jimmie, and placed near Auditorium Shores in 1994. Passers-by still leave flowers and other devotions at the base of the statue.
Who is the guitar player I see most weekends on the rocks above Lou Neff Point?
His name is Woode Wood, and that spot has unofficially become known as Woode’s Point. He’s been serenading runners and writing songs there since 2007.
Can I get married on the trail?
Yes! Weddings, funerals, and baptisms are relatively common on the trail. The most popular site for weddings is Lou Neff Point — although runners who like to stretch there get a little miffed when a wedding interrupts their post-run cool down! The most popular time for baptisms in the lake is Easter Sunday.
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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: 78701, bicycles, city life, city politics, design, downtown, historic preservation, history, parks, placemaking, transportation, urbanism, walkability
About Shelby Murphy
Shelby lives for long runs and craft beer. She writes primarily on outdoor fitness, recreation, and nature-centered wellness. Email her at Shelby@greenlifeactive.com.
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Sinclair, Upton
"Practically alone among the American writers of his generation," wrote Edmund Wilson, "[Sinclair] put to the American public the fundamental questions raised by capitalism in such a way that they could not escape them." When it was first published in 1906, "The Jungle" exposed the inhumane conditions of Chicago's stockyards and the laborer's struggle against industry and "wage slavery." It was an immediate bestseller and led to new regulations that forever changed workers' rights and the meatpacking industry. A direct descendant of Dickens's "Hard Times," it remains the most influential workingman's novel in American literature.
Publisher: Cutchogue, N.Y. : Buccaneer Books, c1984.
Characteristics: 341, [2] p. ; 23 cm.
Read more reviews of The Jungle at iDreamBooks.com
TwilightBlue Dec 01, 2018
Upon my completion of reading The Jungle, it certainly struck me that this piece of fiction could've benefited greatly from some serious editing. It also struck me that author Upton Sinclair did not have the knack for being a very dynamic fiction writer.
But, with that all said - I think that the "real-life" story that lies beneath the lines of The Jungle's fictionalized tale certainly warrants itself some well-deserved recognition and credit.
Set within the boundaries of a slaughterhouse environment - The Jungle's graphically descriptive story tells (amongst other things) of meat inspectors deliberately ignoring and passing diseased animals, as well as contaminated meat knowingly being used in the making of sausages.
As I understand it - In order to do research for his book, author Upton Sinclair, apparently, spent six weeks, undercover, investigating the horrifying reality of the Chicago meat-packing industry for himself.
As a result of The Jungle's publication in 1906, public outcry sent out such a loud and clear message that it was heard all the way up to the US Congress who, in turn, promptly responded by passing the Meat Inspection Act.
AaronAardvark1940 Jan 19, 2018
Over a hundred years old, but still a compelling read. His racism is evident, but one has to consider the time in which he is writing. As to the "socialist rhetoric" one comment found unnecessary, Sinclair was a socialist. My suspicion is that the roughly 15 pages devoted to rhetoric at the end of a nearly 400 page book is to make sure that the reader understand that although the characters are fiction, the evils of laissez faire capitalism are not, and that to Sinclair, America's hope is in socialism.
Derringer Feb 15, 2016
Even though author Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle (which was published in 1906) as a work of fiction, his sole purpose for penning this often startlingly and horrific "real-life" story was to bring to the public's attention the truly appalling conditions that existed (at the time) in Chicago's meat-packing industry.
And once Sinclair's book was published it certainly didn't take long for an official, full-length investigation to take place in this industry that eventually (due to public outcry) forced the U.S. Congress to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act, as well as the Meat Inspection Act.
Set in Packingtown, a fictitious district of Chicago, The Jungle's sordid story goes well out of its way to emphasize the day-to-day hardships and the horribly squalid conditions that faced many of the poor immigrants who struggled to earn a living working in what were clearly some of the most unsanitary and humanly degrading conditions imaginable.
Viewed today as something of a historical document - I think that The Jungle is certainly well-worth a read for anyone who's interested in witnessing yet another prime example of man's inhumanity to man (all due to greed and for the sake of profit).
*Note* - Be sure to watch the eye-opening video of activity at a slaughterhouse in 1949.
ManMachine Jan 07, 2016
"I aimed at the public's heart, and, by accident, hit it in the stomach." - (Quote from author Upton Sinclair following the publication of his novel, The Jungle)
Historically speaking - The Jungle is significant in the plain fact that its publication (in 1906) brought to the public's attention the hideously brutal and horrendously unsanitary conditions of the meatpacking industry as it existed in Chicago (and elsewhere) at the time this book was written.
The Jungle caused such a public uproar that it forced the U.S. Congress (through the signature of President Theodore Roosevelt) to pass both the Pure Food & Drug Act, as well as the Meat Inspection Act.
What you are about to read in The Jungle is, of course, a fictionalized account of a "real-life" horror-show like you could never imagine possible.
To research material for his book, author Upton Sinclair actually spent seven weeks undercover investigating the Chicago meatpacking industry. And what his story inevitably brought to light will, most certainly, shock even the most jaded reader of today right out of their socks..... I kid you not.
While reading The Jungle the reader will, no doubt, be constantly asking themselves - "For the sake of profit, did humans really do this to their fellow men?".... And, the answer to that is - "Yes. They, most certainly, did!"
MIKIE7 Dec 08, 2015
An emotionally difficult (did people really do this to each other?) and important read. Though the narrative focused on abusive labor practices and health issues, it was in fact a call to socialism. This novel and others like it influenced labor law and drove legislators to form the precursors of the Food and Drug Administration.
rusty_13 Aug 29, 2015
This is a tough read about the hard scrabble life of Lithuanian immigrants trying to scrape out a living in Chicago during the recession of the 1830s. A captivating story, but it would have been better had it not gone overboard with socialist rhetoric at the end and let the reader come to her own conclusions.
yellow_bear_314 Jun 19, 2015
Very realistic and precise about the packing conditions back then.
GLNovak Jun 16, 2013
This book is an indictment of the greed of the capitalist industrialists and the inhuman way they made their fortunes in the early 1900's. We follow a poor Lithuanian as he and his family try to make a better life in the boomtimes of Chicago when all the trains led to the meat packing district. We have our noses rubbed in the filth of the business as well as the filth of the managers. No surprise that our little family suffers one degradation and devastating disappointment after another. Meant to stir up awareness of conditions for the 'common man', Sinclair heaped all he could on those defenseless heads, and he was successful. Labour laws changed, food laws changed and consumers became more knowledgeable about the origins of their goods. Unions were born and the Communist Party gained a foot-hold. Read this is stages as you might be overwhelmed otherwise.
bryndisoi Jan 20, 2012
I wouldn't call this a history book. For the appropriate age group, it is a great novel and a very enthralling story.
This is my second time reading this book, I don't think it will ever get old.
In response to sbenger's comment, it was published in 1906 so it focuses on Packingtown, Chicago during that time and before, not the 20s.
dailia Jul 18, 2011
Not the easiest read. It is definately a history book, but it really does highlight the conditions for humans and animals in the meat packing industry. It is a definate read for anyone interested in the welfare issues in the industry.
Lithuanian Americans — Fiction.
Working Class — Fiction.
Stockyards — Fiction.
Immigrants — Fiction.
Chicago (Ill.) — Fiction.
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Home » Products » Other » “Crime and the Craft: Masonic Involvement in Murder, Treason and Scandal” by Mike Neville
“The Temple and the Lodge” by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh
Coauthors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh recount the events that led to the strange and sudden disappearance of the Knights Templar in the fourteenth century and their reappearance in the court of excommunicate Scottish king Robert the Bruce. Following the survival of certain unexpected Templar traditions, the authors document the evolution of a world-changing order through the birth of the Masonic lodge. They chart the history of Freemasonry through its medieval roots and into the modern era.
The book posits that the order’s contribution to the fostering of tolerance, progressive values, and cohesion in English society aided in preempting a French-style revolution in England; that Freemasonry was an essential keystone in the formation of the United States; and that America itself is an embodiment of the ideal “Masonic Republic.” This groundbreaking thread of analysis challenges the accepted traditions of Western history as it is currently taught. What is the true source of our most valued traditions? Twenty years since its original publication, The Temple and the Lodge remains a trenchant and essential edition to any collection of Western history.
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State of Hawaii Agrees to Pay $15.4 Million to Settle Suit Over Gibson Dunn Partner's 2006 Hiking Death
Posted by Brian Baxter
Elizabeth Warke Brem, a former partner in Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher's Orange County office in Irvine, California, died more than five years ago in a hiking accident on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. Brem's cousin Paula Ramirez was killed in the same tragic mishap during their vacation to the island paradise in December 2006.
With the state of Hawaii having already been found liable for the women's deaths—and with a civil trial on damages set to start this week—Hawaiian officials agreed Friday to pay the victims' families $15.4 million in what one lawyer connected to the case says is the largest personal injury settlement in state history.
Mark Davis, a name partner at Honolulu's Davis Levin Livingston, and a team of lawyers from his firm are representing the Warke and Brem families, who sued the Hawaiian government following the deaths of Brem, 35, of Encinitas, California, and Ramirez, 29, of Bogota, Colombia.
The women died while hiking a trail to picturesque ‘Opaeka’a Falls in Kauai's Waialua River State Park in the week before Christmas. Encountering a fork in the trail—and seeing a sign to the left warning hikers to keep out—Brem (pictured right) and Ramirez took an unmarked path to the right that lead them to a steep cliff covered in heavy vegetation. The two plummeted 300 feet to their deaths.
In its defense, the state argued that the sign the women saw, which read, "Danger—Keep Out—Hazardous Conditions," was intended as a general warning to keep people from hiking too close to the waterfall, and specifically to halt them from making the risky climb down to the pool at the base of the cliff.
But Davis, assisted by associates Erin Davis and Loretta Sheehan, and Hawaiian solo practitioner Teresa Tico, who is representing Ramirez's family, claimed the state's signage was inadequate and the absence of a corresponding warning sign or fence on the right side of the trail essentially steered the cousins to their death.
A circuit court judge in Lihue, Kauai ruled almost a year ago this month that the Hawaiian government was indeed liable for the deaths of Brem and Ramirez. (Click here for the 44-page ruling by Judge Kathleen Watanabe.)
Davis says that many sightseers and nature lovers visit Waialua River State Park every year, and that the falls have long been a popular destination for back country hikers. Prior to the accident involving Brem and Ramirez, whose sudden deaths made headlines across state and suburban San Diego, Davis says there were several incidents involving other hikers, including one in which a person who fell from the same cliff only survived because he landed in the canopy of a tree about 200 feet below.
Brem's death, Davis says, was a senseless end to an inspiring life.
"Elizabeth was a highly accomplished lawyer," Davis says. "She grew up in the Bronx as the daughter of a Colombian immigrant, attended the Bronx High School of Science, graduated at the top of her class at Barnard, where she was valedictorian, and went on to Yale Law School."
While in law school, Brem served as senior editor of the Yale Law Review before becoming a securities litigator in 1996 at Gibson Dunn. Almost a decade later, in September 2005, the firm made her a full equity partner—a promotion that qualified her as the first female Hispanic lawyer to make partner at Gibson Dunn in Irvine.
Davis says the firm was instrumental in providing financial documents necessary to prove Brem's future earning capacity had she survived and continued to provide for her family and two sons. Davis, who was gearing up to provide his opening arguments in the damages phase of the civil case on Monday, provided The Am Law Daily with an outline of his prepared remarks.
"[T]he career trajectory of someone like Ms. Brem working at a huge firm such as Gibson Dunn is entirely different and the career path of successful equity partners is clear and thoughtfully designed by the management of the firm," Davis wrote in that ultimately undelivered opening argument. "The firm pays its partners very well. The firm has a retirement system that really only pays off if the partner stays, over the long term after a career with the firm. Partners are compensated more each year of their partnership by the issuance of additional partnership shares. The entire compensation system is designed to have partners stay at the firm for their entire career and there are financial penalties for leaving early."
In addition to sons Aidan and Ryan—who were 5 years and 9 months old, respectively, at the time of their mother's death—Brem was survived by her husband, Monte Brem. A former Gibson Dunn lawyer himself, Monte Brem—who proposed to his future wife while on a trip to Hawaii seven years before her death—is the founding CEO of private equity firm the StepStone Group, having moved his family from Southern California to Beijing in 2010, according to the Asian Venture Capital Journal.
Gibson Dunn declined to comment on the civil litigation initiated by Brem's family, but did note that the firm provided a $100,000 gift in its former partner's memory to help establish a scholarship fund at Yale Law School for Hispanic women students with financial needs.
"Liz's life and career were tragically cut short in a terrible accident," Gibson Dunn managing partner Kenneth Doran said in a statement provided to The Am Law Daily. "The scholarship continues to honor Liz's memory by providing assistance to students who are following in her footsteps."
Davis says Hawaii's state legislature must still approve the settlement, noting that the body's judiciary committee is expected to take up the matter sometime in the next few days. About $15 million of the settlement value is to go to Brem's estate, Davis says, while $425,000 is earmarked for Ramirez's family. If lawmakers fail to approve the agreement, he adds, the damages phase of the trial will be rescheduled.
Hawaiian lawyer James Kawashima represented the state government in the litigation, according to the Hawaii Reporter, which notes that the state's liability insurance carrier will pick up a significant portion of the final settlement, though it recently stopped covering Kawashima's fees. The state attorney general's office has since rehired Kawashima.
As for ‘Opaeka’a Falls, the trail that claimed the lives of Brem and Ramirez has since been fenced off, although an overlook exists that provides a safe viewing area for visitors.
Photo: Elizabeth Warke Brem, courtesy of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher
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Report offensive comments to The Am Law Daily.
It was indeed a very sad day when the hikers' fell. Two things: there has always been an overlook at Opaeka'a Falls. And, I believe the state should mandate that all incoming ships and planes require, along with own safety video, all passengers to see and hear a warning about the hazards of hiking and swimming without proper information and preparations. This isn't Disneyland.
Comment By bonnie earls-solari - March 19, 2012 at 9:28 PM
the use of "the hawaiian government" is unpc. the correct use is hawaii government. it's so not to confuse with the term native hawaiian.
also to comment on the women hikers, its so wrong to blame hawaii for any deaths due to vacation. as tourists they should automatically know to not wander to go places they are not familiar with. hawaii does need more signs and people need more common sense.
Comment By walter17 - March 19, 2012 at 11:42 PM
I agree with Walter - this is a ridiculous example of rich lawyers getting far richer at the expense of regular people (taxpayers). So what the families succeeded in doing is taking from the many what the few "deserve". Just think about what $15 and a half mil would do for the disadvantaged in the state! Sorry - what it CANNOT do now that an already rich family has taken it away...
Comment By Hoe Nalu - March 20, 2012 at 11:32 AM
Once more a generous settlement for the ignorance and stupidity of people who go into places of danger. Somebody made the comment, "this isn't Disneyland". How true. People fall off regularly on the trails at Yosemite National Park and then put the blame on the national park service for failure to protect them. They climb Half Done and drop off, sometimes as much as 2000 feet. Stupidity pays off, doesn't it? These women were in rugged country. When in doubt, they should have and could have turned back. The People should not pay for their foolish acts of judgment.
Comment By andrew j. betancourt - March 20, 2012 at 11:52 AM
Tax payers of Hawai'i now have to pay $15 million even though there was a "danger keep out hazardous conditions" sign. Auwe! How can the sign, as the judge said, '"created the impression" that the trail to the right was the safe path.' In the wilderness, where is "right" and where is "left!?" What kind of logic is that?
Comment By Patricia - March 20, 2012 at 12:15 PM
It is unfortunate that Hawaii does not have a damages cap based on sovereign immunity. For the taxpayers to be saddled with such a large settlement is inequitable.
Comment By JWL - March 20, 2012 at 1:03 PM
To the idiot commenter Patricia: when you walk down a trail and there is a fork in it you must choose to go left or go right. Here, there was a sign warning of dangerous conditions to the left so the hikers chose to go right. Obviously the state of Hawaii thought they had a risk of losing the civil suit or they never would have settled here. Any 1L law student can tell you that a party doesn't have to be 100% at fault to still be negligent when there are multiple parties who have some degree of fault. I hope everyone who denigrates this person because her estate chose to seek a legal recovery in a murky situation thinks long and hard about what terrible people they are. Everyone loves to criticize lawsuits, until something terrible happens to them or their family and they need a lawyer. Best wishes to the family and friends of Elizabeth Brem she sounds like an amazing person.
Comment By Tron - March 20, 2012 at 1:57 PM
I would not be so quick to fault adventurous tourists who suffered a tragic death on unfamiliar terrain. May they rest in peace. That said, the occurrence of a tragic accident on naturally dangerous terrain should not entitle surviving relatives to riches at the expense of taxpayers (or private landowners for that matter) even if a warning sign was poorly placed or if there was no warning sign at all. The state should seek to protect its citizens and visitors but, absent misconduct, should not be required by our legal system to shower survivors or the injured with riches because the state could have done a better job in preventing an accident on land made available for the public to enter and enjoy. The law should provide for just compensation for wrongdoing and recklessness, but should protect taxpayers, property owners and everyone that pays insurance premiums from opportunistic lawsuits like this one. IMO, this kind of result undermines confidence in our legal system and skews societal notions of fairness and responsibility. Kudos to Gibson Dunn for honoring the memory of one of their own with a scholarship that will make it a little easier for others to follow in her footsteps.
Comment By Jane Smith - March 20, 2012 at 2:54 PM
Tron, calling Patricia an idiot here only shows what poor judgement you have.
Yet another unreasonable lawsuit to benefit the rich few & hurt the many. Anyone with common sense knows that if you're hiking along & see a sign saying don't go left, it's dangerous, then going right might be dangerous as well...in common sense totality, it's a dangerous environment to be in. Now the taxpayers get to pay for not one but two or more signs at every fork in the path (one for each option), every beach & rocky outcropping, every area with loose debris or so much beauty you might be forced to not look where you are going...until that sign is vandalized, unreadable, missing, & someone is hurt there. Common sense matters.
Good thing they couldn't prove that she played the lottery so much that she was surely destined to win $100 million someday. Taxpayers dodged a bullet there.
And was $ payed out to a Colombian visitor's family? If so, then if I am hurt or killed in Colombia because of a missing sign my wife can sue for $15 million & win...right?
I hike lots of risky places & it's MY responsibility to look where my next step is going.
Comment By Ano - March 20, 2012 at 3:43 PM
Am I the only one who thought it was a little insensitive of the plaintiff's lawyer to refer to the "career trajectory" of a client who plummeted off a cliff?
Comment By Ex-Oligarch - March 20, 2012 at 11:31 PM
I can't believe the xenophobic and envious comments posted here. This was a tragic accident which could have been prevented. I have seen Hawaii as a rainbow society. I know longer see it this way.
Comment By rae langsten - March 20, 2012 at 11:56 PM
Hey, if the state hadn't labeled either path as dangerous, the women probably would have been more careful about trying either one of them! The sign was inexcusable.
And I see no reason why, if damage caused by their negligence happens to hurt someone a lot instead of a little, their compensation for it should be reduced. Yes, it's a big award. But the award would have been only zero if the women hadn't fallen for the State's sign - and nobody says it should be increased because their negligence was the same either way. The right way to compensate someone is to measure their loss.
Comment By Avon - March 21, 2012 at 3:40 PM
If Hawaii had left it alone, they'd have been less liable than what they did, leaving things so it was quite forseeable someone would infer the other way was safe.
As for the size of the award, read the article. She was a partner in a big law firm. That was a fair estimate of how much she'd have earned; the other hiker got an awful lot less.
Comment By David - March 21, 2012 at 11:04 PM
Commenters complaining about the size of the award: Liz Brem was an equity partner at a high-paying law firm. The damages reflect an estimate of her provable future earnings. Consider that Liz, a 35-year-old at the time of her death, might have made as much as 2-4 million dollars a year for the 30 or so years until her retirement. Such profits are entirely possible with a firm of that caliber. With that in mind, 15 million doesn't seem like so much. But it is a fair settlement and likely represents much less than the family would have received at trial.
As for the points made about whether Hawaii taxpayers could put that money to better use: Hawaii is not exempt from the same standard that applies to the rest of this country - it is responsible for its negligence and must suffer the consequences of its failure to exercise proper care here. In the long run, decisions like this only serve to help everyone. Hawaii taxpayers will not fail to notice the 15 million hole in the state budget and will likely clamor for increased safety measures at spots like this. In turn, tourists will be safer and lives will be saved. It's fortunate in a way that Liz Brem was a high net worth individual whose death brought such attention to this issue. Given that others fell in the same spot and no measures were taken, it appears that the state of Hawaii needed a wake-up call in order to take the action necessary to prevent things like this in the future.
This is not a case of litigiousness and money-grubbing. This is a case of negligence and compensatory damages. Period.
Comment By LAE - March 23, 2012 at 5:55 AM
Sounds like the state of Hawaii needs to shore up their safety measures. A state that is so reliant on tourism cannot expect to blame the tourists for succumbing to dangers known only to locals and the government.
Comment By Exq - March 23, 2012 at 5:59 AM
I only read some of these comments because they were so upsetting to me. As a personal friend of Liz's, I can assure all of you that she was one of the most cautious and thoughtful people I know, and would not have taken a path that did not appear to be marked as safe. People posting should be aware that those who died had loved ones who still miss them, and who read these posts.
Comment By Friend of Elizabeth - April 3, 2012 at 9:14 PM
I'm sorry... I do feel sincerely for the loss of this family, but I also think the loss vs compensation, on the whole, are dramatically flawed, and no responsibility was assigned to the adventurers themselves. I resent that some defenders see any argument for the personal responsibility of Ms. Brem, as an assault on her own character.
I have been to Kauai'i, and it friggin rocks. I've hung on cliffs, hiked into the Blue Hole (which is a big fail for most) and all the rest. I regularly hike and climb in the Central Sierra. I am a little safer than most because I have had more experience. While I am certain Ms. Brem was a well-educated, conscientious person, there is no doubt in my mind that hers was a dumb-ass decision. No friend or family member should get too ruffled over that statement though - smart people make dumb-ass decisions ALL THE TIME in the wild. Any one that has been to the top of Opaeka's knows it looks gnarly. If you're at the top of the ridge line trying to decide whether to head down the edge to climb down ... or proceed upward to cross the falls, in either case it is a daunting task ... I mean, the roadside cliff is just that, and there is not a perceivable path suggesting any safe route down. Just how educated intelligent persons decided it was a good idea to proceed is a mystery.
When I was last in Kauai'i in 2009, we elected to go to the base of Wailua and avoid Opaeka'a, as locals were being arrested and cited for using the actual Opaeka'a path (a kinda modern-day kapu). The idea that kama'aina can't go in there is total BS, but it happened because of this accident and resulting legal events. My buddy guides hikes in the area, and, generally, it will now it will be even worse as per an increasing lack of common sense.
The other thing that really galls me is the friedn's/family's lack of understanding regarding who typically benefits from lawsuits. In this case - a well positioned family to mount an assault on the State of Hawai'i. In the case of a less positioned family - who would only be marginally compensated (if that), they would get nothing. There remain numerous cliffs, shorelines, and other falls offing ample opportunities for stupidity; typically there deaths that occur (and there have been many) have happened a little more off the beaten path, by folks who understood the risks.
Two years past three young twenty somethings decided to go behind the fencing of Vernal Falls/Nevada falls in Yosemite; I think Rangers ultimately found a shoe. There clearly were fences and signs, but hey, "we got this". Alas, they weren't new partners in a law firm and so those kids were lacking an echelon of attorneys.
Sorry - horrible loss, but those who scoff at the monetary dispersion have it right: go to neighborhood areas like Hanapepe and you'll see how stressed the true locals really have it. The money is desperately needed in those areas. When we climb there is a saying "climb only for yourself"... because if you die doing something stupid... nobodies going to be very impressed.
I'm sure Ms. Brem was a wonderful person. I'm convinced she was a wonderful person who made a very stupid decision, and it cost her - her life. It is important to get this fact correct, because the person who believes this tragedy is the majority fault of the State of Hawai'i fails to understand the importance of personal responsibility and the need to exact temperance when traveling in unknown areas.
Comment By Brent - February 1, 2014 at 1:14 AM
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Select Bibliographies of Post-Soviet English Publications
(from Indiana University, Bloomington)
Select Bibliographies of English-language Print Resources for the South Caucasus
(from Yale University)
(from University of Montreal)
A Short Caucasian Bibliography
(from batsav resource page)
Caucasus Under Review
Recently Published Books by Caucasus International
Preliminary Bibliography on the South Caucasus
(Focused on the period since the collapse of the USSR)
John Abercromby, A Trip through the Eastern Caucasus, with a Chapter on the Languages of the Country, 1889
Allen, W.E.D., “New Political Boundaries in the Caucasus”, in The Geographical Journal, Vol. LXIX, 1927
Allen, W.E.D. (ed.), Russian Embassies to the Georgian Kings, 1589-1605, 2 volumes, Hakluyt Society, Cambridge University Press, 1970
Audrey L. Altsadt. The Azerbaijani Turks: Power and Identity under Russian Rule. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1992.
Tony Anderson, Bread and Ashes — A Walk through the Mountains of Georgia, Jonathan Cape, 2003
Alexei Arbatov et al, editors. Managing Conflict in the Former Soviet Union. Russian and American Perspectives. Cambridge: JFK SG, 1997.
Ronald Asmus, A little war that shook the world: Georgia, Russia, and the future of the West, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010
Baddeley, J.F., The Russian Conquest of the Caucasus, London: 1908
Thomas M. Barret, At the Edge of Empire: The Terek Cossacks and the North Caucasus Frontier, 1700-1860, Boulder: Westview, 1999
Alexandre A. Benningsen, and Enders S. Wimbush, Muslim National Communism in the Soviet Union: A Revolutionary Strategy for the Colonial World, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1980 [A history of the development of the doctrine of national communism and “proletarian nations” (as opposed to a working class) in Central Asia and the Caucasus.]
Michael Berman, The Shamanic Themes in Armenian Folktales, Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars, 2008
Ian Bremmer and Ray Taras. Nations and Politics in the Soviet Successor States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Laurence Broers, editor. Accord. The Limits of Leadership: Elites and Societies in the Nagorny Karabakh Peace Process. Conciliation Resources: London 2005.
http://www.c-r.org/our-work/accord/nagorny-karabakh/contents.php
Oliver Bullough, Let Our Fame Be Great: Journeys among the defiant people of the Caucasus, London: Allen Lane, 2010
Catford, J.C., “Mountain of Tongues: The Languages of the Caucasus”, in Annual Review of Anthropology, 6, 1977
Jean Chardin, The Travels of Sir John Chardin into Persia and the East Indies, through the Black Sea and the Country of Colchis, London: 1691
Mary Ellen Chatwin, Socio-Cultural Transformation and Foodways in the Republic of Georgia, New York: Nova Science Publishers, 1997
Levon Chorbajian, Patrick Donabedian, and Claude Mutafian. The Caucasian Knot. The History and Geo-politics of Nagorno-Karabakh. London and New Jersey: Zed Press, 1994.
Levon Chorbajian, ed. The Making of Nagorno-Karabakh. From Secession to Republic. New York: Palgrave, 2001.
Frederik Coene, The Caucasus: An Introduction, London: Routledge, 2010
Jonathan Cohen, ed. Accord. A Question of Sovereignty. The Georgia-Abkhazia Peace Process. (Number 7, 1999)
Bruno Coppieters, David Darchiashvili and Natella Akaba, eds. Federal Practice. Exploring Alternatives for Georgia and Abkhazia. Brussels: VUB University Press, 2000.
Bruno Coppieters. Federalism and Conflict in the Caucasus. London: The Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2001.
Svante E. Cornell. Small Nations and Great Powers. A Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict in the Caucasus. Surrey, England: Curzon, 2001.
Robert Curzon, Armenia: A Year at Erzeroom, and on the Frontiers of Russia, Turkey, and Persia, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1854
Michael P. Croissant. The Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict. Causes and Implications. Wesport, Connecticut and London: Praeger 1998.
Michael P. Croissant and Bulent Aras, editors. Oil and Geopolitics of the Caspian Sea Region. Praeger, 1999.
Glenn Curtis, editor. Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. Country Studies. Library of Congress, 1995.
Karen Dawisha and Bruce Parrott. Conflict, Cleavage and Change in Central Asia and the Caucasus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Adid Dawisha and Karen Dawisha, editors. The Making of Foreign Policy in Russia and the New States of Eurasia. M.E. Sharpe, 1995.
Georgi Derluguian, Bourdieu’s Secret Admirer in the Caucasus: A World-System Biography, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005
Thomas de Waal. Black Garden. Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War. New York and London: New York University Press, 2003.
William Ferry and Roger Kanet, editors. Post-Communist States in the World Community. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997.
Douglas W. Freshfield, The Exploration of the Caucasus, London & New York: Edward Arnold, 1896
Douglas W. Freshfield, Travels in the Central Caucasus and Bashan, including Visits to Ararat and Tabreez and Ascents of Kazbek and Elbruz, London: Longman, 1869
Revaz Gachechiladze. The New Georgia: Space, Society, Politics. Texas A&M University Press, 1995.
Moshe Gammer (ed.), Ethno-Nationalism, Islam and the State in the Caucasus — Post-Soviet Disorder, Abingdon: Routledge, 2008
Paula Garb, Where the Old Are Young: Long Life in the Soviet Caucasus, Ramparts Press / Common Ground Books, 1987
Bruce Grant. The Captive and the Gift: Cultural Histories of Sovereignty in Russia and the Caucasus. Cornell University Press, 2009.
Bruce Grant and Lale Yalçin-Heckmann. Caucasus Paradigms: Anthropologies, Histories and the Making of a World Area. Halle Studies in the Anthropology of Eurasia Vol. 13. LIT Verlag, 2007.
Edmund Herzig. The New Caucasus. Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. London: Chatham House, 1999. (Reproduced by Huron Valley Publishing, available at Ulrich’s)
Thomas Goltz, Azerbaijan Diary. New York, M. E. Sharpe, 1998.
Vafa Guluzade. Caucasus. Among Enemies and Friends. Baku, 1999.
Shireen Hunter. The Transcaucasus in Transition. Washington: CSIS, 1994.
Stephen F. Jones, “Russian Imperial Administration and Georgian Nobility: The Georgian Conspiracy of 1832”, in Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 65 No.1, 1987
B. Kaminski, editor. Economic Transition in Russia and the New States of Eurasia. Armonk: NY, 1996.
Robert D. Kaplan, Eastward to Tartary. Travels in the Balkans, The Middle East, and the Caucasus. Random House, 2000.
George Kennan, Vagabond life: The Caucasus journals of George Kennan — edited, with an introduction and afterword, by Frith Maier; with contributions by Daniel C. Waugh, Seattle and London, University of Washington Press, 2003
Charles King, “The Uses of Deadlock: Intractability in Eurasia,” in Chester Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Aall, eds., Grasping the Nettle: Analyzing Cases of Intractability (Washington: U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 2004), pp. 269-294.
Charles King, “The Benefits of Ethnic War: Understanding Eurasia’s Unrecognized States,” World Politics, Vol. 53, No. 4 (July 2001): 524-552.
Dov Lynch, ed. The South Caucasus: a Challenge for the EU. Chaillot Papers, No. 65, Institute for Security Studies, European Union, Paris, 2003.
Mark Malkasian. “Gha-ra-bagh!” The Emergence of the National Democratic Movement in Armenia. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1996.
David Marshall Lang. A Modern History of Georgia. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1962.
David Marshall Lang. The Armenians. A People in Exile. London: Unwin, 1988.
Gail W. Lapidus and Renee de Nevers, Nationalism, Ethnic Identity and Conflict Management in Russia Today. SISAC, Stanford, Ca., 1995.
Anatoly Lieven, Chechnya. Tombstone of Russian Power. Yale University Press, 1998.
Gerard J. Libaridian, editor. Armenia at the Crossroads. Democracy and Nationhood in the Post-Soviet Era. Watertown: Blue Crane Books, 1991.
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Gerard J. Libaridian, Modern Armenia. People, Nation, State. New Jersey: Transaction Books, 2004.
Otto Luchterhandt. Nagorny Karabakh’s Right to State Independence According to International Law. Boston, 1993.
Michael Mandelbaum, editor. The New Russian Foreign Policy. New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1998.
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Vladimir Papava. Necroeconomics. The Political Economy of Post-Communist Capitalism. New York, 2005.
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Roald Z. Sagdeev and Susan Eisenhower, editors, Central Asia. Conflict, Resolution, and Change. CPSS Press, Chevy Chase, Maryland, 1995.
S. Frederick Starr and Svante Cornell, editors. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline: Oil Window to the West. Washington/Uppsala, 2005.
S. Frederick Starr, editor. The Legacy of History in Russia and the New States of Eurasia. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 1994.
Ronald Grigor Suny. Looking Toward Ararat. Armenia in Modern History. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1993.
Ronald Grigor Suny. The Revenge of the Past. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993.
Ronald. G. Suny. Transcaucasia, Nationalism, and Social Change. University of Michigan Press, revised edition, 1996.
Tadeusz Swietochowski, Russia and Azerbaijan. A Borderland in Transition. Columbia University Press, 1995.
Mehmet Tutuncu, editor. Caucasus: War and Peace. Harlem: SOTA, 1998.
Tony Vaux and Jonathan Goodhand, War and Peace in the Southern Caucasus. A Strategic Conflict Assessment of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict. Humanitarian Initiatives, 2002
Edward W. Walker, Dissolution: Sovereignty and the Breakup of the Soviet Union, Boulder, CO: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.
Edward W. Walker, “Dagestan and the Stability of Instability in the North Caucasus,” in Victoria E. Bonnell and George W. Breslauer, eds., Russia in the New Century: Stability or Disorder? Westview Press, 2001. A longer version was published under the title, “Russia’s Soft Underbelly: The Stability of Instability in Dagestan,” Working Paper, UC Berkeley Program in Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies, Winter 1999.
Edward W. Walker, “No Peace, No War in the Caucasus: Secessionist Conflicts in Chechnya, Abkhazia and Nagorno-Karabakh,” in Gary Bertsch, Cassady Craft, Scott Jones, and Michael Beck, eds., Crossroads and Conflict: Security and Foreign Policy in the Caucasus and Central Asia, Routledge: 2000. A longer version was published under the same title as an Occasional Paper, Strengthening Democratic Institutions Project, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, February 1998.
Arif. Yunusov, Islam in Azerbaijan. Baku 2004.
Andre Zagorsky, editor. Crisis Management in the CIS: Wither Russia? Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1995.
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Home / About the College / Who We Are / Our History
History of the College of Arts and Sciences
The Adelphi story begins in Brooklyn in 1863, where it was originally established as a preparatory school. In 1893 when Charles H. Levermore was appointed Head of the Academy, things started to change; because Brooklyn did not have a liberal arts college, Dr. Levermore set about creating one with the help of Timothy Woodruff, former Lieutenant Governor of New York. Adelphi College was chartered on June 24, 1896; it had 57 students and 16 instructors. Dr. Levermore was its president, and under his leadership the college quickly took shape and grew as an institution dedicated to providing a solid, well-rounded and high-quality education.
Adelphi College – Brooklyn, 1896
In 1929 the College moved to its current location in Garden City, on a beautiful 75-acre spread of land, and Adelphi University became the first private, coeducational institution of higher education on Long Island. Renowned Long Island architectural firm of Mc Kim, Mead, and White, whose many well-known buildings include the Morgan library, the American Academy in Rome, Columbia University campus in Morningside Heights, and the Boston Public Library, began construction on three buildings: Levermore, Blodgett, and Woodruff Halls.
Adelphi University’s first three buildings – Garden City, 1929
The grounds around the cluster of buildings were landscaped and planted with a variety of trees and flowers, making the Adelphi campus one of the most beautiful ones around. Because of the rich variety of trees, in 2002 the campus was officially given the status of arboretum.
Ruth St. Dennis
While the buildings and grounds were thriving, so were the academics. In 1938 Adelphi became the first American college to have a dance program, headed by internationally-known dancer Ruth St. Denis. Besides dance, the other areas have thrived as well, and count among their graduates Jonathan Larson, author of “Rent” and writer Alice Hoffmann.
The college has grown from the initial modest 57 students to over 2,000, but prides itself on its excellent teachers, small class sizes, and on providing all students, whether commuter or resident, a true college experience.
» Read the full Adelphi story
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As a Dreamer, I Will Not Be A Bargaining Chip for Trump’s Attack on Immigrants
DACA set up a narrative of "good" versus "bad" immigrants.
By Lisette Diaz | September 7, 2017
I Will Not Be A Bargaining Chip for an Attack on Immigrants
Nine undocumented youths were arrested at Trump Tower in a civil disobedience demonstration in response to Attorney General Jeff Sessions announcing the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program on Sept. 5, 2017. Over 50 people engaging in nonviolent civil disobedience were arrested throughout New York City in response to Trump's decision to repeal DACA. (Photo by Erik McGregor/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)
This post first appeared at the American Civil Liberties Union website.
So many words come to mind right now to describe how I feel about the loss of DACA: devastation, anger, rage, betrayal, hopelessness, fear, sadness. DACA transformed my life.
Growing up undocumented, I couldn’t imagine my future. I didn’t know how I was going to be able to go to college or pay for it. Once I was in college, before I got DACA, I did not know if I was going to be able to use my degree afterward.
DACA allowed me to attend college, plan for my future, and work. But one of the most valuable things DACA brought me was peace of mind. I knew that I would no longer have to duck my head to scurry past police officers. I knew I would have my driver’s license as a form of government-issued ID so I would not stand out when boarding a plane or even getting a library card. I stopped constantly fearing deportation. I slept easier at night knowing that I would wake up the next day with the ability to plan at least the next two years of my life and that I would be able to help my parents. I didn’t have a seemingly unending pit of fear in my stomach that often turned into full-fledged panic attacks.
The enormity of the obstacles I had been up against, for once, seemed manageable. I became more confident in my status and in talking openly about it. But now, as I once again “become” undocumented, I worry that many of us who have been public about our stories will be forced to go back into the shadows.
Being undocumented forces people to live a huge amount of uncertainty. My parents and I came to the United States from Chile in search of a better life when I was 6 years old. Growing up undocumented, I couldn’t imagine my future. I didn’t know how I was going to be able to go to college or pay for it. Once I was in college, before I got DACA, I did not know if I was going to be able to use my degree afterward. Even as I consider grad school now, I don’t know whether I’ll be able to attend, or later, to work. My way of handling all of this has been by carefully concocting contingency Plans B, C, D and E, always prepared to go into effect at any moment. “Expect the worst and hope for the best” is my family motto.
RELATED: Civil Liberties
What Trump’s New Immigration Plan Means For America
BY Jake Johnson | August 3, 2017
Thousands of DACA recipients will lose their work permits each day after it is rescinded, meaning thousands of families that depend on those young people will risk losing their livelihoods. Student loans and mortgages will go unpaid. Young parents will be unable to provide for their children. Your co-worker, teacher or boss will not show up to work. People’s plans and dreams will fade, some people might even disappear from your life entirely, as more people will consider going into hiding, or committing suicide as some did after the election. This is real pain. We, together as a community, must go through a mourning process.
But in some sense, this is also liberating. We all knew this day would come. DACA was so fragile. Not because it’s unconstitutional, as Attorney General Sessions claims — he’s wrong — but because it was a superficial solution for a much bigger problem, a temporary Band-Aid that would eventually have to be replaced by something stronger. DACA set up a narrative of good versus bad immigrant; it creates the categories of those who are deserving and undeserving by criminalizing our parents, who did us a great service by bringing us to this country. We should not have to hide behind the rhetoric that “we were brought here through no fault of our own.” It felt like it forced a choice between our parents, who brought us to this country with nothing but hope of a better life for us, and our own futures.
Of course, we will fight and resist the end of DACA, but we must also prepare ourselves for the bigger battles ahead. We must think beyond this limited disqualifying narrative that aims to divide us the immigrant community into good and bad people. We must strive for a solution that reaches beyond the 800,000 Dreamers who were granted DACA.
The Trump administration wants to use Dreamers as a bargaining chip to get Congress to fund and authorize a massive crackdown on immigrant communities in this country. They want to force us — in a desperate attempt to save Dreamers — to throw the very people who taught us how to dream under the bus: our parents. The people who came before us and who fought before us. Saving Dreamers should not mean that more detention centers are built or funding for the wall. We have to resist, no matter how appealing a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers will appear, and fight for a clean, standalone Dream Act and, ultimately for a pathway for all 11 million undocumented people in this country. We have to stand by our principles and by the people who made it possible for us to dream.
The success of DACA, not only for individuals but for the country, reveals the need for a larger solution. That’s why business leaders have banded together to fight the program’s end. DACA created a different America. Now 800,000 people who received it are out of the shadows. We found our voices. We have further integrated ourselves into the social fabric of the United States. We will not retreat and disappear again. We will not allow our families to be torn apart.
I am now speaking directly to all 800,000 of you out there who are directly impacted by today’s announcement. Allow yourself to grieve — your pain and suffering are justified. Cry all your tears, scream, break down, do whatever you need to do to express the devastation that we all feel. Then wake up tomorrow and be ready to fight, because we are in for the fight of our lives, and I’m ready to win.
TOPICS: Activism
TAGS: barack obama, daca, donald trump, dream act, immigrant rights, jeff sessions
Lisette Diaz
Lisette Diaz is a DACA recipient.
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To comment on this post, connect with us on Facebook, Twitter or for those not on social media, email us at yourturn [at] billmoyers [dot] com.
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You are here: Home / Testimonies / Drug Induced Torture of Believers at the Hands of Chinese Government
Drug Induced Torture of Believers at the Hands of Chinese Government
Credits: takomabibelot
A couple who are both members of The Church of Almighty God were arrested for their belief and tortured with drugs, among other methods.
In 1986, China signed the United Nations Convention Against Torture, also known as UNCAT. It was ratified two years later in 1988, but to date, China continues to flout the rules and regulations of the charter. It has been persecuting and torturing people for their religious beliefs and ethnicities. As much as 100 forms of torture are commonly used in China. Some of those include forcing victims to drink hot-chili water, mustard oil, fecal matter, concentrated brine; exposing the person to extreme hot or cold temperatures; inserting needles or bamboo sticks underneath the fingernails; and finally, drug-induced torture.
Of all forms of torture, drug-induced torture is the worst because there is little physical violence involved in this case and so, nobody has any reason to be suspicious. This is done by contaminating the victim’s food with a nerve-damaging drug over an extended period of time. As a result, victims can lose their memory, become delirious, develop incoherent speech, fall into a vegetative state, have hallucinations, and in some cases, might even die.
Recently, Bitter Winter received news of a Chinese couple that was subjected to the drug-induced forms of torture. Cheng Qicai and his wife Zhou Youxia from the Pukou district of Nanjing in Jiangsu Province are both in their late forties. They joined The Church of Almighty God, a Chinese Christian new religious movement, in 2012.
In October 2016, the police officers of the Tangquan station, led by Mr. Gao, showed up at the couple’s home without a warrant. Not only did they confiscate the couple’s laptops and cell phones, they also arrested both for “believing in Almighty God,” which is a “violation of the State law and a disturbance to social security.”
Following the arrest, both were taken to the basement of the Shixing Hotel nearby and were interrogated separately and secretly. And then, their nightmare began.
Cheng Qicai was kept in a small room. The officers would order him to remain standing against the wall and deprived him of sleep. His three meals provided by the police were laced with several drugs. On the third morning, Cheng finally felt sick and groggy from the drugs. But he still refused to answer questions about the Church. As a result, he was beaten mercilessly by four police officers and was left with several scars all over his body. He was also stripped down to his boxer shorts and made to stand in front of the air-conditioner, set to the freezing mode. Meanwhile, as he continued to eat the drug-laced meals provided by the police, he began to hallucinate as well. Even then, the beatings and abuse continued.
Nearby, his wife, Zhou Youxia, suffered a similar fate. Because she ate the food provided by the police, she began to hallucinate as well. She would “see” her family members being beaten to death by the police or “hear” people calling out her name. She also imagined believers and other people committing suicide. There were times when Ms. Youxia could not control herself and ended up provoking the officers by mocking them. She would get beaten and slapped around as a result, and in one instance, her head was banged on the floor repeatedly until she became unconscious. In November 2016, however, she was taken to the Shifosi detention center for medical examination due to her growing injuries. When she transferred to the hospital next morning, it was found that she was suffering from a host of medical problems like lung infection, hypo-leukemia, high inositol, acute coronary syndrome, and severe muscular injury. While the officers were reluctant to get her treatment at first, they had to relent finally. Upon further examination, it was revealed that she was suffering from bilateral pubis fractures as well.
On the other hand, Mr. Qicai’s medical examination showed he had scapula ligament injuries and a broken rib. Fearing that both or either one of them might die while in detention, the police officers released the couple. Today, both are unable to take care of themselves physically and mentally.
Tagged With: The Church of Almighty God, Torture
“Exhausting an Eagle”: Torture by Sleep Deprivation
Detention Center Director Orders Officers to Torture Christian Woman
Christian Arrested, Tortured for a Week
Drugged and Tortured by Police, Believer Left Incapacitated
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Why Was Essence Magazine Sold to TIME Inc. in the First Place?
Time Inc. is selling Essence Communications Inc. to Essence Ventures LLC, a company launched in 2017 by Shea Moisture founder Richelieu Dennis. As a result, the Essence brand has returned to a 100% black-owned independent company, after 12 years of being owned by Time. via Black Enterprise
In 2015, my wife, Lauren and I served as media for an event chaired by Edward Lewis, Publisher and Co-Founder of Essence Magazine. The event was packed; black excellence and black affluence everywhere. It was the Association of Black Cardiologists’ 6th annual “Spirit of the Heart” Awards held at the famous Cipriani 42nd Street in NYC; I personally, had never seen anything like it.
My wife and I navigated through the crowd and walked up to Mr. Lewis, the last co-founder standing at the time Essence was sold to Time Inc., and introduced ourselves as Black Fitness Today. After the interview, he gave us his business card and asked to send him a copy of our magazine. He also suggested that we read his book, ‘The Man from Essence: Creating a Magazine for Black Women’ and take some of the lessons he learned over the years of running Essence Magazine and apply those same lessons during our journey with Black Fitness Today.
The book was a rollercoaster detailing how Essence almost didn’t get off the ground, to running out of money, to having to pull more investors in like Hugh Hefner (Founder of Playboy), to the mag failing to make a profit for the first seven years, to now serving tens of millions of readers across the globe and creating a community of loyal supporters who show up every year at the Essence Festival. That book provided the insight as to why Lewis sold Essence in the first place.
Why Edward Lewis Sold Essence – In His Words
In the chapter titled “selling in,” Lewis talks “selling in” – a play on “selling out,” something many accused him of doing when agreeing to sell Essence to Time Inc.
I wasn’t worried about the ‘soul’ of Essence. I was worried about its staying power. I wanted to ensure the longevity of Essence Communications as an institution serving the needs of black women. That would preserve its soul. It was becoming clear to me that independent, one- or two-magazine-titled companies were going to have a harder time surviving in the new millennium…The Internet was threatening to turn print on its ear. And there were the ever-escalating production costs that simply made it more expensive for smaller publishing companies.
To ensure the continued existence and growth of Essence it made sense to join with a mighty company that not only desired us, but promised to share with us its considerable resources.
What Time Inc. brought to the table was beyond anything we could ever do alone. [savings in production costs, syndicated research, opinion-poll capabilities, and advertising opportunities]
Excerpts from The Man from Essence: Creating a Magazine for Black Women
The Essence – Time relationship was supposed to be a five-year courtship when Time Inc. purchased 49 percent of Essence in 2000. But in 2005, the courtship turned into a marriage when Time purchased the remaining 51 percent to gain full control.
Much of the beef with Lewis’ move back in 2000 was his failure to bring potential black buyers to the table. But, almost two decades later, the tables have turned and ownership of Essence is back where it belongs in – in black hands.
Black media and black positive representation matters. So learning Essence Magazine is 100% black-owned once again is a breath of fresh air, especially given the sociopolitical climate. The power of ownership has become something even more important in our community, which is yet another reason to celebrate the reclaiming of Essence Magazine.
essence magazine
Ilen Bell is co-founder and CEO of Black Fitness Today, a digital platform dedicated to empowering the black community through health promotion and performance enhancement. He lives in Phoenix, AZ with his wife and daughter and nine-to-fives it as head strength and conditioning coach for the military.
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Byzantine art, that is the art of the Eastern Orthodox Church - the form of Christianity that emerged in Constantinople (previously called Byzantium, now called Istanbul), headquarters of the Roman Empire in the east - was the first category of Christian art to really blossom. An expression of the theocratic state that it represented, Christian Byzantine art specialized in architecture, mosaic art, mural and icon painting. Byzantine artists also excelled at items of jewellery, goldsmithing and ivories, and produced the earliest illuminated manuscript, or codex.
Towards the end of the Gothic era, there emerged a rich style of art, among the royal courts of Europe, that acted as a kind of bridge between Gothic and Renaissance culture. Known as International Gothic (c.1375-1450), this style was exemplified by a range of Christian illuminations which reached their peak in works like Les Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (1416) by the Limbourg Brothers (all died of plague, 1416); the Hours of the Marechal de Boucicaut, by Jacquemart de Hesdin (c.1355-1414), and The Missal of Jean des Martins by Enguerrand de Charenton (Quarton) (c.1410-1466). Christian Canvas Art
Marriage Bible verses give you the opportunity to share your thoughts and emotions, even when other sentiments may fall short. There are times when only a carefully chosen piece of scripture will suffice, and now you don't have to peruse the Bible on your own to find the right words. You can use these Bible verses about marriage and love to express the joy, gratitude and happiness that you feel toward your significant other while paying tribute to your faith. Here are some of the most treasured Bible verses about love, marriage and relationships that you can incorporate into your wedding day. Share Your Faith Products
As the power of Rome declined, that of Constantinople grew. In 535, the armies of Justinian I (482-565), Byzantine Emperor from 527 to 565, invaded Italy (mostly occupied by barbarians) and in 540 conquered Ravenna, which became the seat of Byzantine government in Italy. From 540 to 600, the Exarch of Ravenna instigated a major building program of churches in the city and its port township of Classe: they included the Basilica of San Vitale and the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare in Classe. The Basilica of San Vitale combines a Roman dome, doorways and stepped towers, with a Byzantine polygonal apse, as well as Byzantine capitals, and narrow bricks. It is world famous for its Byzantine mosaics, the most spectacular and best preserved mosaic art outside Constantinople. For details, see: Ravenna Mosaics (c.400-600).
1 Then the LORD said to Moses, 2 “See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, 3 and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills— 4 to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, 5 to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts. 6 Moreover, I have appointed Oholiab son of Ahisamak, of the tribe of Dan, to help him. Also I have given ability to all the skilled workers to make everything I have commanded you:
Ravenna remains the best single source of surviving mosaics. These include: Christ as the Good Shepherd mosaic (450, Mausoleum of Galla Placidia); the Baptism of Christ mosaic (6th century, Arian Baptistery); the Queen Theodora mosaic (547, Basilica San Vitale); Christ Before Pontius Pilate mosaic (550, Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, Classe). In Istanbul, see the floor mosaics (400-550) at the Imperial Palace; the South Gallery mosaics (c.1260) in Hagia Sophia; and the Dormition of Mary mosaic (1310, Church of the Chora Monastery). Elsewhere in the Byzantine Empire, see the mosaics at Hagios Demetrios (650) in Saloniki; and the outstanding early 12th century apse mosaics in Torcello Cathedral, Venice.
He measured the length of the building along the front of the separate area behind it, with a gallery on each side, a hundred cubits; he also measured the inner nave and the porches of the court. The thresholds, the latticed windows and the galleries round about their three stories, opposite the threshold, were paneled with wood all around, and from the ground to the windows (but the windows were covered), over the entrance, and to the inner house, and on the outside, and on all the wall all around inside and outside, by measurement.read more.
“Then bring near to you Aaron your brother, and his sons with him, from among the people of Israel, to serve me as priests—Aaron and Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar. And you shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, for glory and for beauty. You shall speak to all the skillful, whom I have filled with a spirit of skill, that they make Aaron's garments to consecrate him for my priesthood. These are the garments that they shall make: a breastpiece, an ephod, a robe, a coat of checker work, a turban, and a sash. They shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother and his sons to serve me as priests. They shall receive gold, blue and purple and scarlet yarns, and fine twined linen. ... Christian Canvas Art
“Then bring near to you Aaron your brother, and his sons with him, from among the people of Israel, to serve me as priests—Aaron and Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar. And you shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, for glory and for beauty. You shall speak to all the skillful, whom I have filled with a spirit of skill, that they make Aaron's garments to consecrate him for my priesthood. These are the garments that they shall make: a breastpiece, an ephod, a robe, a coat of checker work, a turban, and a sash. They shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother and his sons to serve me as priests. They shall receive gold, blue and purple and scarlet yarns, and fine twined linen. ...
Russian art of the 19th century produced some outstanding works of Christian painting. Leading painters included: the Ukrainian Anton Losenko (1737-73), Professor of History Painting at the St Petersburg Academy of Fine Arts (see his Renaissance-inspired works Miraculous Catch and Abraham's Sacrifice); and the influential Alexander Ivanov (1806-58), whose works included The Appearance of Christ to the People (1837-57) a huge canvas which took 20 years to complete. Later in the century, several members of the Itinerants group produced some remarkable Christian paintings, characterized by a unique spiritual intensity. They included: The Last Supper (1863) by Nikolai Gay; The Raising of Jairus's Daughter (1871) by Ilya Repin; Christ in the Wilderness (1872) and Laughter ("Hail, King of the Jews!") by Ivan Kramskoy; Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery (1887) by Vasily Polenov. Christian Canvas Art
Genesis 1:27-28: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.' " Christian Wall Art
From about 1520, as the Northern Renaissance felt the impact of Luther's revolt against the corrupt practices of the Roman Church, a new set of aesthetics took hold, in the form of Protestant Reformation Art, which reflected the Christian agenda of the Protestant movement, which rejected the humanist art and ideology of the High Renaissance, and celebrated a more austere religious experience, with minimal decoration. As a result, the amount of religious art commissioned by Protestant Church authorities was hugely reduced, and artists in Protestant countries were forced to switch to secular forms like genre painting, portrait art, landscape painting, and still lifes. Christian Canvas Art
For the last 5 years, the in-house design team at the Faithlife Corporation has illustrated one Bible verse every day. This art has found its way onto t-shirts, magnets, and postcards—and now, a beautiful picture book. In print for the first time, art from Faithlife's Verse of the Day series paired with uplifting devotionals will encourage and inspire you.
Appoint a private or common area with the inspirational images and messages of Bible art. Biblical artwork depicts this sacred text in all of its various forms as well as its corresponding sayings, personalities and stories. Install vibrant likenesses of the Savior and the saints, or explore reproductions of legendary Christian artwork by historical and contemporary masters. Bible artwork is a simple way to elegantly express faith and spiritual nourishment through decor.
Baroque murals include the celebrated Aurora fresco (1621-3, Villa Ludovisi, Rome) by Guercino and Agostino Tassi; the Assumption of the Virgin (1625-7) on the duomo of the church of S. Andrea della Valle, by Giovanni Lanfranco (1582-1647); the Palazzo Barberini frescoes by Pietro da Cortona, including Allegory of Divine Providence (1633-9); and the Apotheosis of St Ignatius (1688-94, Sant'Ignazio, Rome) by Andrea Pozzo.
Fewer churches meant less sculpture and less ecclesiastical decoration. But some new works did appear, such as Christ the Redeemer (1926-31), the huge soapstone statue overlooking Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil. Designed by Heitor da Silva Costa, and sculpted by Paul Landowski, it is the largest Art Deco statue in the world. Other noteworthy pieces of modern Christian sculpture include: Tarcisius, Christian Martyr (1868, Musee d'Orsay, marble) carved by Jean-Alexandre-Joseph Falguiere; Genesis (1929-31, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester) and Adam (1938, Harewood House), both by Jacob Epstein. Share Your Faith Products
He made 300 shields of beaten gold, using three minas of gold on each shield, and the king put them in the house of the forest of Lebanon. Moreover, the king made a great throne of ivory and overlaid it with refined gold. There were six steps to the throne and a round top to the throne at its rear, and arms on each side of the seat, and two lions standing beside the arms. Twelve lions were standing there on the six steps on the one side and on the other; nothing like it was made for any other kingdom. All King Solomon's drinking vessels were of gold, and all the vessels of the house of the forest of Lebanon were of pure gold. None was of silver; it was not considered valuable in the days of Solomon. Christian Canvas Art
As it was, Byzantine architecture achieved its distinctive forms during the life of Justinian, who built four major churches in Constantinople, including: the Basilica of Saints Sergius and Bacchus (begun 526); the Basilica of Saint Irene (begun 532); the Basilica of the Apostles (536-46) - whose design was replicated in St Mark's Cathedral in Venice - and the greatest of all, the Basilica of Hagia Sophia (1532-37) (converted to a mosque in 1453, now a museum). Crowned by a massive dome whose weight was carried to corner piers by revolutionary concave triangular sections of stone, called pendentives, and decorated throughout with gold mosaics and multicoloured marble, the Hagia Sophia was the culmination of Roman architecture and a huge inspiration for later buildings throughout the Middle East, including the Sultan Ahmed Mosque.
The spiritual intensity achieved by Spanish painters was also seen in the works of Spanish sculptors, such as Alonso Berruguete (c.1486-1561) the greatest of all Renaissance sculptors in Spain, whose masterpieces include: the altarpiece for the monastery of La Mejorada Valladolid (1526), and the choir stalls in Toledo Cathedral (1539-43); Juan de Juni (1507-1577), noted for his emotive expressiveness, as in his two groups of the Entombment of Christ (1544 and 1571). Juan Martinez Montanes (the "God of Wood"), famous for his wooden crucifixes and religious figures, like The Merciful Christ (1603) and the Santiponce Altarpiece (1613); and Alonso Cano (the "Spanish Michelangelo"), whose masterwork is The Immaculate Conception (1655). Christian Wall Art
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VAN BURENS
Returning for their fifth season, The Van Burens are a family band of like-minded weirdos who love to make vital and vivid music together. The Official Band of Quincy, MA (the City of Presidents), the VBs are dedicated to the pursuit of fun, energetic shows that move folks to dance, laugh, and feel feelings. These songwriter nerds serve up reggae, funk, and rock music in the tradition of family ensembles like The Wailers, Parliament, and The Band, often with an irreverent take.
The group features a tight, core rhythm section bolstered by a variety of talented rotating regulars of the Van Buren Family with the Dick Johnson Memorial Horn Section bringing a brassy punch to round out the VB’s party sound. All Van Burens lend vocals; and the distinctive leads are backed by powerful group harmonies, making each song, each set, and each concert unique. Most importantly, the Van Burens enjoy each other’s company onstage and off; their love music-making and professional playfulness throws a joyous vibe from the stage to audience.
The Van Burens have been bringing the party to New England, the world, and beyond for almost a decade, playing stages such as the Middle East and the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, MA; Garcia’s in Portchester, NY; BRYAC in Bridgeport, CT, The Flying Monkey in Plymouth, NH; and Nectar’s in Burlington, VT. The VBs have also played festivals like Jerry Jam, Disc Jam, Strangecreek, Camp ‘n’ Jam, and more. Their most recent EP, 2014’s Presidential LoveFest brings the VB’s energetic live funk-reggae sound and sense of humor to the studio.
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Home » J.T Jackson
Live by the Sun, Love by the Moon
J.T Jackson
Luna Stone's life is far from normal. She's working two jobs as a barista and dances at a night club. A old friend from her past show's back up and she's about to start a internship at a law firm. The work wasn't hard. But what was hard was trying not to fall in love with her new over-achieving, young, polar opposite boss Mr.Ian Hanson.At first glance, Luna Stone seems to have a normal nineteen year old girl’s life. She goes to college, studying for psychology. Works at a coffeehouse. But Luna’s life is far from normal. In addition to her coffeehouse job, she also works nights at a strip club. Dancing and waitressing to keep up with her mother’s hospital bills. More recently, a old friend of Luna’s decides to pop up and beg for forgiveness. And to top it all off, her teacher recently offered her a internship at a law firm. Which is a opportunity she could not pass up.Twelve weeks, personal assistant, no pay, but a good recommendation. Seemed easy enough. But what Luna didn’t know was the job wasn’t going to be the hard part. The hard part wasn’t even her new over-achieving, young, polar opposite boss Mr. Ian Hanson. The hard part, was not falling in love with him.In the first book of the Live by the Sun, Love by the Moon Trilogy, we meet Luna at a time in her life when her world gets turned upside down and seems to be falling apart. But it isn't her world she's worried about breaking, it’s her heart.
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Rick Perry 2012 Campaign for President– News and updates
Ron Paul says he’s “not surprised” that Rick Perry is echoing his views on the Fed
By Richard Dunham on September 21, 2011 at 10:50 AM
Texas Rep. Ron Paul (Mike Carlson / AP)
Republican presidential contender Ron Paul has been talking for more than three decades about the evils of the Federal Reserve System. But he says he’s “not surprised” that another Texas politician, Rick Perry, has picked on those themes during his own 2012 presidential campaign.
Perry’s condemnation of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his suggestion that Bernanke might get a rough reception if he showed his face in Texas made national headlines a few weeks ago. But to Paul, “that was a sign that he knows that the Federal Reserve is a significant issue,” the Lake Jackson Republican told a breakfast meeting with reporters organized by the Christian Science Monitor.
Paul readily recites his litany of complaints against the Fed, topped by his view that the central bank has devalued the U.S. currency and acts largely in secret. The Texas congressman believes the United States should return to the gold standard.
The 76-year-old Texas congressman said he didn’t think the Texas governor was trying to co-opt his message, but he added, “Yes, he knows what people are thinking about. That’s the way politicians operate.”
From Perry’s heated rhetoric about Bernanke, Paul says he’s not sure the two men are on the same page.
“I wouldn’t have used those words,” Paul remarked.
He explained that he doesn’t hold the Federal Reserve chairman responsible for what he sees as the organization’s fundamental failings.
“”Bernanke is not the problem,” Paul said. “The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 is the problem.”
Paul was not sure of the depth of Perry’s knowledge of the Fed, but added, “I’m not confident that he agrees with me.”
But the GOP presidential candidate says he doesn’t want to make a big deal out of Perry’s Fed musings.
“I don’t want to annoy the governor,” he said.
Watch Ron Paul speak in depth on the Fed:
Richard Dunham
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Review: Apple Mac Pro 2013 [Updated]
By Dwight Silverman on March 12, 2014 at 6:50 AM
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Photo: Dwight Silverman / Houston Chronicle
Image 1of/9
Yes, it looks like a small trash can. But, a very well-designed, expensive trash can.
The 27" Apple Thunderbolt monitor complements the power of the Mac Pro, even if my photography skills don't.
When you move the Mac Pro's case, these borders around the ports light up. I spent a lot of time wiggling the Mac Pro.
Flip the locking latch on the case and it slides up and away. Inside is what Apple terms the Mac Pro's "core". Very sci-fi, and impressively engineered.
Back of the Mac Pro
The core.
For comparison, here's what the previous generation Mac Pro looked like.
Let’s get this out of the way right from the beginning, shall we?
Yes, the latest iteration of Apple professional Macintosh, the Mac Pro, looks like a small trash bin. There’s no doubt that it’s sleek, elegant and drop-dead gorgeous. Nevertheless, everyone who’s seen this system sitting on my desk has said the same thing:
“Wow. It looks like a garbage can.”
Yeah. You wish your garbage can was this powerful. You probably don’t want it to cost this much, though.
Apple’s 2013 Mac Pro is the replacement for the venerable line of desktop Macs recognizable by their hulking aluminum cases and oversized handles with razor-sharp edges. That design, which dates back to 2006, was getting long in the tooth when Apple unveiled this radically different computer last year. Uncharacteristically, Apple made it public in June 2013, months before it finally shipped in December.
Where its predecessor weighed in at around 40 lbs., the new Mac Pro is just 11 lbs. The previous version stood 20 inches high, while the new one is just under 10 inches. It’s round, with a case made of polished, anodized aluminum that’s an alluring gun metal gray. While it’s diminutive – certainly compared to the model it replaces – it feels dense and solid when you pick it up.
Of course, one of the reasons that the previous Mac Pro was so big was because it was based on the classic architecture of a personal computer. The case was easy to access and work in, and most of its components could be replaced by the user. It used standard hard drives, Mac-compatible graphics cards, standard RAM modules, etc.
The new Mac Pro, while not quite as friendly to do-it-yourselfers, is still upgradeable. Undo a latch and the shiny, round skin slides up and off to reveal the computer’s guts, mounted on a triangular logic board. The memory, storage and graphics adapters are all user-replaceable. More about this later.
The system is cooled by a single fan mounted near the top of the case, which pulls air up through the bottom. For the most part, it is completely silent. Try as I might, I couldn’t make the Mac Pro work hard enough to make the fan audible, except for brief moments at startup and when a firmware update was being installed. Those who remember the old Mac Pro’s roaring cooling system will be relieved.
That said, it can run warm – hold your hand over the top of the cylinder when the system has been running a while and you’ll feel a steady stream of toasty air.
The Mac Pro starts at $2,999 for a model with a 3.7-GHz quad-core Intel Xeon E5 processor, 12 gigabytes of DDR3 memory, dual AMD FirePro D300 graphics cards and a 256-GB Solid State drive. Bump up to the next configuration, and for $3,999 you get a 3.5-GHz, six-core Xeon E5 processor, 16 GB of DDR3 RAM, two AMD FirePro D500 graphics adapters and the same 256-GB SSD.
The model Apple provided for review was substantially more buff. It came with a 3-GHz, 8-core Xeon chips, 32 GB of DDR3 memory, dual FirePro D700 graphics processors and a 512-GB SSD. That prices out at $6,799. Apple also sent along its 27-inch Thunderbolt display; its wired, full-sized keyboard and a Magic Mouse. The complete package would go for a whopping $7,916.
And that’s still not the most expensive configuration. Move up to a 12-core Xeon processor, 64 GB of RAM, a 1-terabyte SSD, a Sharp 4K monitor and an Apple wireless keyboard, and you’ll spend $14,331.
Those are indeed some big numbers. But if you try recreating a system with similar specs in the Windows world, it’s almost impossible to do at this price. Futurelooks tried to assemble a do-it-yourself Windows PC for less than the cost of a high-end Mac Pro and came in at $2,000 more. It’s safe to say that, given the components and the design, the pricey Mac Pro is actually something of a bargain.
And it’s one that clearly has a specialized audience. While most Macintosh users will lust after this for its looks and power, for most home and business tasks it’s serious overkill. The Mac Pro really is for professionals – particularly those who work with large images, video, music or scientific applications.
In day to day use, it’s obviously very, very fast. Almost anything you want to do – from launching apps to opening and saving files – happens almost instantly. That said, this same kind of wait-for-nothing experience can also be had with a modern iMac or MacBook Air … or any system with lots of memory and a solid state drive.
But it’s when you do serious, computing-intensive work that this system shines. For example, I combined 15 video clips from my iPhone into a 20-minute video using iMovie on the Mac Pro, and it rendered the 720p HD video in 8 minutes and 23 seconds. On a new MacBook Air with a 1.9-GHz Intel Core i5 processor and 4 GB of RAM, the same process took 22 minutes – and the fans on the notebook, which you seldom hear, were chugging away most of the time.
Those dual graphics adapters give the Mac Pro the ability to drive 4K monitors, the next step up in high-definition displays. It can also power a big-screen HDTV through an HDMI port.
Of course, what’s new now won’t be a year from now. Mac Pro users who liked the previous model’s easy expandability have groused at the new design because additional storage must be added externally. While there’s no way to slap another couple of hard drives into the new Mac Pro, you can add external drives via six Thunderbolt ports (though one can be taken up with your display) and four USB 3.0 ports. There’s also a pair of Gigabit Ethernet ports and the HDMI port, as well combined digital Mini-TOSlink optical and analog mini jacks for audio.
These ports are all clustered on the back of the cylinder. LED-lit borders tastefully illuminate each grouping when you move the case.
While you are not going to be able to use off-the-shelf parts to upgrade the internals of the Mac Pro, it is indeed possible. The memory and SSD can be upgraded. Apple says that even the graphics adapters are designed to be updated by the user, though there aren’t any out there yet – and yes, you’ll have to get them from Apple when they are.
Of course, once you start plugging in lots of external connections, the Mac Pro’s sleek design becomes something of a hindrance. Having a lot of cables hanging off the back can be a mess, particularly if you need to rotate the case to access them. I suspect we’ll see some interesting, third-party cable management systems developed for the Mac Pro.
Since the computer has 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, you can at least avoid network, mouse and keyboard cables. But the more you need to expand storage and add other peripherals, the more cluttered it gets.
As usual, Apple has made a leap of design and technology that goes beyond the mainstream. The company is clearly hoping that past Mac Pro owners who valued that platform’s self-service nature will buy into this new design that, while allowing some upgrading, clearly is more limited. If they do, they’ll end up with a system that’s remarkably muscular and attractive to boot – and while not affordable, is impossible to beat on the Windows side of the aisle.
Update: A colleague of mine here at the Mighty Houston Chronicle, John Boyd, was inspired by the photos with my review of the Mac Pro to craft this mashup. I think it’s damn near perfect.
Dwight Silverman | Techblogger, social media manager
Upgrade your geek with Dwight Silverman
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San Antonio business leaders push for federal project funding
By Gary Martin on February 27, 2012 at 12:59 PM
Nelson Wolff (Express-News photo)
San Antonio business leaders are in the nation’s capital today to press the Obama administration, lawmakers and the Pentagon to maintain federal spending on programs and projects in South Texas.
“We all know there is going to be a slowdown of federal spending, we are just trying to get a handle on how it is going to impact us directly,” said Nelson Wolff, the Bexar County Judge.
The annual trip sponsored by the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Free Trade Alliance coincides with ongoing budget tightening by the Obama administration and Congress in a presidential election year.
Wolff said reauthorization of the transportation bill and a reduction of military spending top of the list of San Antonio concerns.
But business leaders also will push for federal funds for national parks, a new federal courthouse, public transportation, military and national cyber security missions.
President Barack Obama last week unveiled his $3.8 trillion budget for fiscal year 2013, which begins Oct. 1. It includes nearly $4 trillion in deficit reduction over a decade, which include two rounds of base realignment and closure.
Texas Republican Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn called the president’s budget blueprint an election-year gimmick that does little to cut spending and realign funding priorities.
Democrats have applauded many of Obama’s budget goals on education, tax hikes on the wealthy and increased revenues from taxes and fees on the oil and gas industry.
In the midst of the partisan bickering, Wolff and several members of San Antonio City Council and business leaders will lobby for pet projects and federal funds.
Many of the projects have been ongoing priorities for the city and county.
Last year VIA Metropolitan Transit received a $15 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation to help for a planned West Side Multimodal Center.
This year, city officials are seeking another Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grant, or TIGER grant, to continue improvements to the city’s public transportation system.
But of more concern is the reauthorization of the transportation bill, which contains proposed reductions that face opposition from both Democrats and Republicans.
“We don’t want public transit to be cut,” Wolff said.
Another ongoing priority has been the expansion of the San Antonio Missions National Historical Park.
Legislation is wending its way through the House and Senate that would add 151 additional acres are under consideration.
Wolff said the additions would cost the federal government about $4 million, even though the lands would be donated.
A University of Texas at San Antonio study said the addition would help the park maintain more than 1,000 local jobs.
The lands being studied for inclusion to the park are along the San Antonio River, south of downtown. The missions stretch from Concepcion, to San Jose, San Juan, Espada to Rancho de las Cabras, a grazing ground for Espada near Floresville.
Other issues important to San Antonio area businesses include the building of the new federal courthouse complex, a $100 million-plus structure that will be erected where the current San Antonio Police Department is now located.
Also of concern is the Obama administration proposal for continued military cuts through base realignment and closure, commonly referred to as BRAC.
The Pentagon will also see a reduction in spending due to a debt-limit deal reached by Congress and the White House last year.
San Antonio is home to several military installations, including Fort Sam Houston, the San Antonio Medical Military Center, Camp Bullis, Lackland AFB and Randolph AFB.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the Pentagon would eye closing U.S. installations abroad before closing domestic bases for reductions.
Texas senators both oppose another base closure round, and Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has said a proposed round of domestic base closures is dead-on-arrival in this Congress.
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Poll: Opinions on gun control unchanged by Aurora massacre
By Alexa Walczak on July 30, 2012 at 4:02 PM
Americans’ views on gun laws have remained relatively constant even in the wake of recent mass shootings, according to the latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
The deadly July 20 shooting in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater – despite calls from both sides of the political spectrum not to politicize the event – seems to have had no effect on the ongoing debate over gun control and gun rights. In numbers virtually unchanged from April, when 45 percent of Americans said gun control was a priority and 49 percent said gun rights, currently 47 percent favor controlling gun ownership while 46 percent say protecting the rights of Americans to own guns is more important.
According to the survey, other recent outbreaks of gun violence such as the 2011 Tucson shooting and the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting similarly had no significant influence on public opinion about gun laws.
The issue continues to be divisive along racial, gender and partisan lines.
The survey shows that most whites see the protection of gun rights as more important (by a margin of 56 percent to 38 percent), while blacks overwhelmingly prioritize gun control (by a margin of 73 percent to 23 percent). Men also tend to prioritize gun rights (57 percent to 38 percent) over women, who tend to prioritize gun control (56 percent to 37 percent).
Democrats prioritize gun control by a 72 percent to 21 percent margin, while Republicans prioritize gun rights by a 71 percent to 26 percent margin. Independents are almost evenly divided, with 50 percent favoring gun rights and 43 percent favoring controlling gun ownership.
Only about a quarter (24 percent) of Americans view the shooting as a reflection of broader problems in American society, while most Americans (67 percent) say that incidences of gun violence like the Aurora shooting are just the isolated acts of troubled individuals.
Alexa Walczak
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HMNS changed the way I think about Earth, time, humanity, and natural history
After 90 days working at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, here’s the verdict:
I love it here!
Through research required to compose and edit posts for this blog, I have learned about voracious snails, shark extinction, dinosaur match-ups, efforts to clean up ocean plastic pollution, Houston’s flooding cycle, a mysterious society in south China, and the inspiration for the design of costumes for Star Wars.
Look at the size of that T. rex! My love for the Houston Museum of Natural Science began with an affinity for dinosaurs.
I’ve learned about many, many other things, as well, and I could feasibly list them all here (this is a blog, after all, and electrons aren’t lazy; they’ll happily burden themselves with whatever information you require of them), but the point of this blog is to excite our readers into visiting the museum, not bore them with lists.
Coming to the museum is a grand adventure, and it’s my privilege to be here every day, poking through our collection and peering into the the crevices of history, finding the holes in what humanity knows about itself and speculating about the answer. That’s what science is all about, after all. Learning more about what you already know. Discovering that you’ve got much more left to discover.
As a writer, I identify with the oldest forms of written language, like this tablet of heiroglyphs. You can even find a replica of the Rosetta Stone in our collection!
When I took this job, I was a fan of dinosaurs and Earth science. I could explain the basic process of how a star is born and how the different classes of rock are formed. Igneous, metamorphic, sedimentary. Now, I can tell you which dinosaurs lived in what era and the methods paleontologists use to unearth a fossilized skeleton. I know that a deep-space telescope owes its clarity to a mirror rather than a lens, and I can identify rhodochrosite (a beautiful word as well as a fascinating mineral) in its many forms. And there are quite a few.
Rhodochrosite. My favorite mineral. Look at that deep ruby that appears to glow from within, and it takes many other shapes.
I have pitted the age of the Earth against the age of meteorites that have fallen through its atmosphere and have been humbled. The oldest things in our collection existed before our planet! How incredible to be that close to something that was flying around in space, on its own adventure across the cosmos, while Earth was still a ball of magma congealing in the vacuum of space.
Time is as infinite as the universe, and being in this museum every day reminds me of the utter ephemeralness of human life. It advises not to waste a moment, and to learn from the wisdom of rock about the things we will never touch. Time and space reduce humanity to a tiny thing, but not insignificant. Our species is small and weak, but we are intelligent and industrious. We have learned about things we don’t understand from the things we do. The answers are out there if you know where to look for them.
Everything turns to stone eventually, even this gorgeous fossilized coral.
I was a print journalist for three years, and I am studying to become a professional writer of fiction at Vermont College of Fine Arts. (Don’t worry. It’s a low-residency program. I’m not going anywhere.) I am a creator of records of the human experience, according to those two occupations, and in some ways I still feel that as the editor of this blog, but there is a difference.
This epic battle between a sperm whale and a giant squid recalls scenes out of Herman Melville.
Here, rather than individual histories — the story of one person or of a family or of a hero and a villain — I’m recording our collective experience, our history as a significant species that participates, for better or worse, in forming the shape of this world. We were born, we taught ourselves to use tools, we erected great civilizations, we fought against one another, we died, those civilizations fell. We have traced our past through fossils and layers of rock and ice, we have tested the world around us, and we have made up our minds about where we fit into the mix.
We are a fascinating and beautiful people, and through science, we can discover our stories buried in the ground, often just beneath our feet. To me, this is the real mission of our museum. To tell the story of Earth, yes, but to tell it in terms of humanity. In the Cullen Hall of Gems and Minerals, we wonder what makes certain minerals precious to us when they’re all spectacular. In the Morian Hall of Paleontology, we trace the fossil record back in time and wonder how things were and could have been had dinosaurs not gone extinct. In the Cockrell Butterfly Center, we connect with the little lives of insects, compare them to our own, and fall in love with our ecosystem all over again. In the Weiss Energy Hall, we learn how life and death create the fossil fuels that now power our society. We find both ingenuity and folly in the values of old civilizations in the Hall of Ancient Egypt and the John P. McGovern Hall of the Americas.
These chrysalises, a powerful symbol of personal growth and change, teach a lesson in natural cycles and big beauty in tiny places.
I have often wondered how we justify placing a collection of anthropological and archaeological artifacts under the heading “natural science.” Why don’t we consider our institution more representative of “natural history?” In my first 90 days, I think I’ve found the answer. It’s not just about the story of humanity; it’s about the story of the science we have used to learn what we know.
The Houston Museum of Natural Science, including the Cockrell Butterfly Center, is truly one of a kind.
Our goal at HMNS is to inform and educate. To challenge your assumptions with evidence and bring the worlds and minds of scientists to students and the general public. It’s a grand endeavor, one that can enrich our society and improve it if we pay attention.
A ticket to the museum isn’t just a tour through marvels, it’s a glance in pieces at the story of becoming human. After 90 days here, by sifting through the past, I feel more involved in the creation of our future than I have ever been.
And that feels pretty great.
Authored By Jason Schaefer
Jason is the Marketing and PR Manager for HMNS and a man of many hats. Over the years, he has been a wedding band saxophonist, a portrait studio photographer, a newspaper journalist, a sixth-grade teacher, a college instructor, a compost salesman, and a rock climbing guide, but his greatest dream is to publish novels. He could pronounce “euoplocephalus” and “rhamphorynchus” before his parents could.
2 responses to “HMNS changed the way I think about Earth, time, humanity, and natural history”
Gay Yellen says:
So glad to see you enjoying your work at the museum, Jason. This post echoes much of how my husband and I feel about HMNS. (We’re members.) What a treat to spend every day learning amazing things about our world and beyond. Best of luck in your writing career.
Deborah Sawtell says:
Great piece. Was my pleasure to share it with many. May your enthusiasm never wan.
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Today on Beyond Bones I’m going to tell you a story of two Victorian Academics who spent the majority of their careers going to absolutely ridiculous lengths to out-science each other in a decades long clash of brains and ego. The feud has come to be called the “Bone Wars” by Paleontologists and its effects […]
5 Interesting Facts About the Mighty Megalosaurus
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HMNS’ collections are more than just curiosities, they’re mementos of past lives, each with a story to tell and a lesson to teach. Take, for example, the chunk of pink granite from our Hall of Ancient Egypt pictured below. This two and a half foot tall rock may look pretty big, but it’s only a […]
Fighting Nature With Nature: Using Mosquito Assassins to Make Summer Safer
Exciting things are happening in the Cockrell Butterfly Center! Anita Schiller, Director of the Biocontrol Mosquito Initiative in Harris County Precinct 4 is working with our staff to test an innovative, eco-friendly way to control the population of mosquitoes in Harris Country using a natural predator of everybody’s least favorite insect called the mosquito assassin […]
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US 3rd Cir.
UNITED STATES v. SHANNON
United States Court of Appeals,Third Circuit.
UNITED STATES of America v. Gathon Dudley SHANNON, Appellant.
No. 13–2389.
Decided: September 08, 2014
Before RENDELL, CHAGARES, and JORDAN, Circuit Judges. Paul D. Boas, Esq., [Argued], Pittsburgh, PA, for Appellant. Donovan J. Cocas, Esq., [Argued], Rebecca R. Haywood, Esq., Office of United States Attorney, Pittsburgh, PA, for Appellee.
Gathon Dudley Shannon appeals his conviction and the sentence imposed on him by the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. Among other things, he contends that the government violated his Fifth Amendment rights at trial by cross-examining him about his post-arrest silence.1 Because we agree that the government violated his constitutional right to remain silent, we must vacate the judgment of conviction and remand for a new trial.
Whether Shannon's conviction can stand is contingent on whether the constitutional error that infected his cross-examination was “harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.”2 Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24 (1967). We therefore provide a detailed overview of the evidence presented at trial.
A. Factual History
In December 2009, the Pennsylvania State Police (“PSP”) along with the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”) began investigating an increase in cocaine sales across Beaver County, Pennsylvania. Working with confidential informants, the DEA was able to identify the local distributor as Adrian Taylor, and, through a series of wiretaps, learned that a large shipment of cocaine was expected to arrive in Beaver County during the weekend of August 20–21, 2011.
Using traditional surveillance techniques, the DEA watched Taylor leave his Beaver Falls home on August 20 to collect money from his street-level dealers in anticipation of the shipment's arrival. According to Taylor—who ended up testifying on behalf of the government—he then drove to a hotel near the Pittsburgh International Airport carrying two bags, one full of cash that he had collected from his associates and the other containing items necessary to “wrap” the cash.3 There, he met with the cocaine supplier, Vincent Middlebrooks from Houston, Texas, who counted the cash and wrapped it while Taylor waited. Taylor testified that, during drug deals like this, he “always only [met with] Middlebrooks.” (App. at 984.) According to Taylor, after the cash was prepared, Middlebrooks drove to Washington County, Pennsylvania, where he was expected to “grab[ ] the coke” and then come back and transfer the drugs to Taylor. (Id. at 985.)
Shortly after midnight the following day, when the exchange of drugs for cash was evidently complete, a DEA team saw Taylor flag down Middlebrooks at a second hotel. The two conversed briefly, and Taylor left and drove home. The agents then observed Middlebrooks go back to the first hotel. The next morning, agents saw Middlebrooks return his rental car at the Pittsburgh airport and embark on a flight back to Houston.
Given that Taylor had succeeded in bringing multiple kilograms of cocaine into Beaver County, the DEA was able to persuade a judge that a “roving wiretap” on Taylor's communications was warranted to follow the drugs and money and to learn more information about Middlebrooks.4 In the meantime, by early September, Taylor's Beaver County associates had already sold all the cocaine from the August shipment and were, as the government says, “clamoring for more.” (Gov't's Br. at 6.) Taylor thus immediately began preparing for the next deal, collecting as much cash as he could to bankroll another shipment.
On September 27, 2011, Taylor texted Middlebrooks, asking when the next cocaine shipment was expected to arrive in Beaver County. That was the first communication between the two that the government had intercepted. The two then spoke by telephone, with Middlebrooks confirming that the next shipment would arrive within two days, on Thursday, September 29, 2011. During that telephone call, in which Taylor agreed to buy 16 kilograms of cocaine, Middlebrooks confirmed that he would fly to Cleveland, Ohio, on September 28 and proceed to drive to a hotel near Taylor's house, where he would spend the night packaging the cash for the following day's deal.
On the night of September 28, 2011, DEA agents in Cleveland spotted Middlebrooks as he deplaned from a flight inbound from Houston, walking with a black roller-bag. The agents followed Middlebrooks as he drove a rental car two hours from the Cleveland airport to one of the Pittsburgh hotels where he had previously met Taylor. While en route, Middlebrooks spoke with Taylor on the phone and stated that he “got the car and everything.” (App. at 624.) Taylor responded by warning Middlebrooks to “keep your eye out.” (Id. at 625.)
In the early morning hours of September 29, 2011, DEA agents watched as Taylor arrived at the hotel—again, carrying two bags—and joined Middlebrooks. After approximately ten minutes together, Taylor walked out without the two bags and returned to his vehicle. Several hours later, Middlebrooks called Taylor and told him that he was “on the move.” (Id. at 669.) Having wrapped the money into nine packets, Middlebrooks left the hotel with a single bag containing the cash. As he proceeded to drive to a truck stop in Eighty Four, Pennsylvania, in Washington County—the same county where the August 20–21 cocaine transaction had occurred—several DEA agents surreptitiously followed him.5
According to the government, once Middlebrooks reached the truck stop, the agents were forced to “hang back and watch from a distance so as not to blow their cover.” (Gov't's Br. at 8.) From their vantage point, they saw Middlebrooks back his vehicle up to a tractor-trailer rig, open his trunk, and then hand the bag full of packaged cash to a man—later identified as Shannon—standing beside the rig. Notably, the agents said that they did not see Middlebrooks receive anything in return because their view was partially obstructed by a building and various parked trucks. The next thing the agents observed was Middlebrooks getting back into his car. The agents followed him as he rendezvoused with Taylor at the same hotel from which he had come. At that point, given that the money had already changed hands, the officers moved in to arrest both men. When Taylor and Middlebrooks were taken into custody, each was found with three different cell phones on their persons, including a Boost Mobile Phone on Middlebrooks. “[A] black bag containing a large amount of cocaine” was also found in the trunk of Middlebrooks's car. (App. at 801.)
Back at the truck stop, Shannon stored the bag inside the cab of his truck and remained waiting inside the rig. According to testimony Shannon later gave on the witness stand, he had traveled to Eighty Four, a truck stop he often frequented, only as a favor to someone named Phillip Williams, a trucker whom he became acquainted with while on the road and whom he had occasionally met in Houston. Shannon said that Williams had called him to ask whether, as a favor, he would pick up someone named “Vince,” another trucker, whose vehicle had supposedly broken down in Pittsburgh. Shannon testified that he did not know Vince but was willing to oblige Williams's request because he himself had recently been stranded after his own truck broke down and he empathized with Vince's predicament. According to Shannon, he had agreed to meet Vince at Eighty Four—not exactly where Williams had requested, but a familiar haunt to Shannon—to give Vince a ride back to Houston.
But upon meeting “Vince,” who turned out to be Middlebrooks, Shannon claimed to be puzzled. Not only did Middlebrooks arrive driving a car, which implied that he was in no need of a ride, but he also handed Shannon a bag and asked whether he would be willing to wait “about an hour” so that he could “take care of some other business.” (App. at 1356.) Shannon testified that he agreed to wait because he had already gone out of his way to pick the man up. After some “[t]ime went by,” however, Shannon said he became concerned by the situation and opened the bag, worried that he might have been handed “dope.” (Id. at 1357–59.) Shannon testified that, when he saw that it was instead cash, he “put the money back in the bag[,] ․ threw it up under [his] bed and got out of [his] truck.” (Id. at 1359.) According to Shannon, he began walking towards the truck stop's store to call his girlfriend for help. He was arrested before he reached the building.
Upon a search of Shannon's vehicle and person, agents found the bag, which contained $669,340, as well as $1000 in the glove compartment of the truck and three phones—a Boost Mobile phone on the truck's dashboard, an iPhone on the ground near where Shannon was arrested, and a Verizon Motorola phone.
On December 14, 2011, a grand jury in the Western District of Pennsylvania handed down a superseding indictment that, inter alia, charged Shannon, Taylor, and Middlebrooks with Conspiracy to Distribute and Possess with Intent to Distribute Five Kilograms or More of Cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 846 (Count I), and Distribution and Possession with Intent to Distribute Five or More Grams of Cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and 841(b)(1)(A)(ii) (Count II). Both Middlebrooks and Taylor pleaded guilty, but Shannon chose to go to trial.
B. The Trial
Shannon's trial strategy was to emphasize that he was trying to do someone a favor and that he was simply caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. The government, on the other hand, endeavored to prove that he had been a drug courier for Middlebrooks since at least late 2009. To that end, the government placed particular focus on the circumstances surrounding Shannon's arrest and its aftermath.
For example, Taylor testified that, when he and Shannon were together in pre-trial detention, Shannon confessed he had been skimming cash from the proceeds of drug deals for some time in order to cover “gas money.” (App. at 1007.) The government argued that such skimming would explain the $1000 found in the truck's glove compartment when Shannon was arrested. Shannon, of course, denies that interpretation and maintains that he only kept cash in the glove compartment in case of an emergency, ever since the trouble he encountered when his truck broke down.
Like Taylor and Middlebrooks, Shannon was also arrested with three different cell phones on or near his person. The government presented testimony that “people who are involved in drug trafficking” often have multiple phones, including prepaid cell phones like Shannon's Boost Mobile phone, and “everyday” phones like Shannon's iPhone. (App. at 234, 243.) The government also confirmed through telephone records that Shannon and Middlebrooks each used their respective Boost Mobile phones to contact only one other such phone, i.e., a companion phone. In fact, the government brought to light that, on multiple occasions, including during the August 20–21 and September 29 drug deals, signals from Shannon's and Middlebrooks's Boost Mobile phones were relayed by a cell tower in Eighty Four when the phones were used to “chirp”6 their companions.
Shannon tried to explain to the jury why he needed three phones. He said that the Verizon Motorola phone was his “everyday” phone and was registered under his name, while the iPhone was used solely for “jobs purposes” and was registered under his former girlfriend's name because she had better credit than he did at the time it was purchased. (App. at 1404–06.) As for the third phone, the Boost Mobile phone, Shannon claimed that it was purchased in May 2011 as a specially dedicated phone for speaking to his nephew Jeremy, whom Shannon said he considered as a son. According to Shannon, he bought two Boost Mobile phones in 2011, one for him and one for Jeremy, because Boost Mobile offered a pre-paid, month-to-month plan with unlimited minutes and “chirp” features, and he wanted Jeremy to learn how to “handle a phone” and the responsibility of paying for a phone before he switched Jeremy to his Verizon Wireless account. (App. at 1408.) Although Shannon admitted that he intentionally registered the Boost Mobile phones under a pseudonym, he said he did so only because he was told that, as pre-paid phones, they could be registered under any name.
Finally, the government confirmed during Shannon's cross-examination that his logbooks—which, as a long-haul trucker, he was required to keep by his employer and the United States Department of Transportation—were often falsified. From the government's perspective, Shannon's decision to make “wrong entries” in the logbooks was proof that he was not making some side-trip to Eighty Four on the day of his arrest but was in fact regularly traveling there, as also evidenced by his Boost Mobile phone making use of a local cell tower nearly every time Middlebrooks flew into the Pittsburgh area. (App. at 1452.) Again, Shannon had an explanation for the falsified log entries. He admitted that he sometimes lied in his logbook but only to cover up his driving to Baltimore to visit his paramour, Mary Simpson. When asked by the government whether he lied in the logbook because he could not “put all that driving time down” and still do his “real job,” Shannon agreed. (Id.)
After Shannon testified about his secret lover Simpson, his favor-seeking trucker friend Williams, and his beloved nephew Jeremy—all in an effort to explain some of the more damning circumstances surrounding his arrest—the government took the step that has become the main point of contention in this case: it asked him why he had not come forward earlier with his exculpatory version of the facts. Shannon's counsel immediately objected to the government's questions, citing the Fifth Amendment, but he was summarily overruled. Shannon was therefore pressed to explain his silence. He did so by saying that he had told his lawyer his version of the events in question.
Following closing arguments, and after several hours of deliberating, the jury came back and announced it was deadlocked. In response, the District Court gave the jury an Allen charge,7 which it claimed was “almost exactly,” if not “word-for-word,” the model jury instruction provided in our Circuit. (App. at 1645.) Shortly thereafter, the jury returned and found Shannon guilty on Count I (conspiracy) but not guilty on Count II (possession). Notably, the jury found that the government had only proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Shannon was responsible for less than 500 grams of cocaine, and so indicated on the verdict slip, which provided the option of finding him responsible for more than 5 kilograms (as alleged in the indictment), more than 500 grams, or less than 500 grams. The District Court disagreed, however, saying that “there [was] absolutely no evidentiary basis to support [the jury's] finding” of less than 500 grams. (App. at 1744.) It therefore held him accountable for 16 kilograms of cocaine and sentenced him to 240 months' imprisonment as well as six years of supervised release.
Shannon timely appealed.
II. Discussion8
While Shannon raises several issues on appeal, we focus on his Fifth Amendment argument because the government's questioning of Shannon about his post-arrest silence is alone enough to require that the conviction be set aside.9
The guarantee that “[n]o person ․ shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself,” U.S. Const. amend. V, is so “fundamental to our system” of government that, in the landmark case of Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, the Supreme Court established the now-famous rule that a defendant must be informed upon arrest that he has the right to remain silent. Miranda, 384 U.S. at 467–68. Later, reviewing a prosecution under state law, the Court in Doyle v. Ohio announced that, because of the protections of the Fifth Amendment right to silence, “it would be fundamentally unfair and a deprivation of due process to allow [an] arrested person's silence to be used to impeach an explanation subsequently offered at trial.” 426 U.S. 610, 618 (1976). The Court therefore held that “the use for impeachment purposes of petitioners' silence, at the time of arrest and after receiving Miranda warnings, violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” Id. at 619. Of course, the rights secured by Doyle apply in equal effect “to federal prosecutions under the Fifth Amendment.” United States v. Agee, 597 F.2d 350, 354 n. 11 (3d Cir.1979).
Reiterating the basis for the Doyle rule, as it has now come to be called, the Supreme Court has noted that “silence [should] carry no penalty” because the primary purpose of Miranda warnings is to safeguard an arrested individual's Fifth Amendment right to not speak to law enforcement authorities.10 Wainright v. Greenfield, 474 U.S. 284, 290 (1986). When seeking to impeach a defendant's credibility, a prosecutor thus violates the Fifth Amendment when he highlights the defendant's post-arrest silence.11 Gov't of the V.I. v. Davis, 561 F.3d 159, 165 (3d Cir.2009); Hassine v. Zimmerman, 160 F.3d 941, 947–49 (3d Cir.1998).
A defendant may, however, open himself up to questions about his post-arrest silence if he “testifies to an exculpatory version of events and claims to have told the police the same version upon arrest.” Hassine, 160 F.3d at 948 (quoting Doyle, 426 U.S. at 619 n. 11) (internal quotation marks omitted). In that very limited circumstance, some inquiry is permitted to prevent a defendant from misleading a fact-finder about his claimed cooperation with law enforcement. But the foundation for such an inquiry is not easy to lay. We have explained that, to open himself up to questions about his silence, it is not enough for a defendant's later testimony to be “ambiguous” about his supposed cooperation. Id. at 948 (quoting United States v. Fairchild, 505 F.2d 1378, 1382 (5th Cir.1975)). Instead, his earlier silence “must appear to be an act blatantly inconsistent with ․ [his] trial testimony.” Id. (quoting Fairchild, 505 F.2d at 1382) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Even when the government wrongly cross-examines a defendant about his post-arrest silence, however, that does not mean that his conviction will necessarily be infirm. The error may still be harmless. The operative question becomes whether the “constitutional trial error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.” Davis, 561 F.3d at 165 (citing Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24 (1967)). To sustain a conviction, the government must “prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the error complained of did not contribute to the verdict obtained.” Chapman, 386 U.S. at 24. We have previously determined that error of the sort condemned in Doyle “may be held harmless beyond a reasonable doubt in cases where there is overwhelming evidence against the defendant.” Davis, 561 F.3d at 165. But it is a “decidedly heavy burden ․ to demonstrate that reversal is not warranted.” United States v. Waller, 654 F.3d 430, 438 (3d Cir.2011).
A. Objection and Preservation for Appeal 12
As a threshold matter, we must first determine whether, under Rule 103(a)(1)(B) of the Federal Rules of Evidence,13 Shannon properly objected to the government's cross-examination and preserved that objection so that we can exercise plenary review, or whether we must only review the alleged Doyle violation for plain error. We thus turn to the record.
From a plain reading of the trial transcript, it is clear that the government asked Shannon about his post-arrest silence. When Shannon's counsel attempted to object, he was emphatically overruled:
Q: Did you ever direct anyone to come to the authorities and say, listen, you need to know about [Williams]?
[Defense counsel]: Your Honor, may we have a sidebar, please?
THE COURT: No.
[Defense counsel]: I object to that.
THE COURT: Overruled, if that's an objection. [Defense counsel]: It's a comment.
THE COURT: He's asking the question. Did you ever tell anybody about Williams.
(App. at 1474.) Upon being directed by the District Court to answer the government's question, Shannon did answer, but his counsel continued objecting and was, again, overruled:
A: I told my lawyer about Williams.
Q: Did you ever direct anyone to bring that information to law enforcement?
[Defense counsel]: Your Honor, it's a Fifth Amendment comment. I object. I would like a side-bar.
THE COURT: You're overruled.
A: No. No.
Q: You waited until you took the stand and then you told us about [Simpson, Williams, and Middlebrooks]; right?
[Defense counsel]: I renew my objection, Your Honor.
(Id.)
Defense counsel's consternation was fully justified, as the questions the government asked Shannon are patently beyond the bounds set in Doyle. They are indeed textbook examples of a Fifth Amendment violation.
Notwithstanding the obvious error that the government's questioning created at trial, and despite the specific and repeated objections from Shannon's attorney, the government now contends that the objections were “insufficient to alert the court of the right he was asserting because defense counsel did not even tell the court that Shannon had invoked Miranda.” (Gov't's Br. at 22.) Repeating that line of attack at oral argument, the government claimed that the Assistant United States Attorney (“AUSA”) who prosecuted the case did not understand Shannon's objection “because frankly Doyle wasn't mentioned, Miranda 's not mentioned.” (Oral Arg. at 23:48–56.) The government thus asks that we adopt a bright-line rule that would require defense counsel to explicitly cite Doyle or its progeny when objecting to the government's questions about a defendant's post-arrest silence, as one of our sister circuits has recommended.14 (See Gov't's Br. at 22 (“In Shannon's case, defense counsel never mentioned Doyle in the district court․ This was insufficient to alert the court of the right he was asserting because defense counsel did not even tell the court that Shannon had invoked Miranda—much less inform it that his objection had anything to do with Miranda—until after the trial was over.”).) We decline that invitation.
To begin with, the government's claim that it did not understand the objection is belied by the record. Besides the fact that defense counsel explicitly stated the grounds for his objection as being based on the Fifth Amendment, the colloquy among the AUSA, defense counsel, and the District Court after the defense rested makes clear that the government understood the nature of Shannon's objection. Before closing arguments, defense counsel asked that the District Court provide “a very intense cautionary instruction on the government comment on my client's silence.” (App. at 1489.) When the Court replied that Shannon “waive[d][his] Fifth Amendment rights when [he] t[ook] the witness stand,” defense counsel rightly corrected the Court and explained that taking the witness stand does not waive a defendant's right to be free of questioning about his postarrest silence. (Id.) While the government now pleads ignorance, the AUSA arguing before the District Court apparently understood that defense counsel was objecting to the inquiry into post-arrest silence. In fact, the AUSA responded by stating that “[o]nce [the defendant] gets on the witness stand and presents his side of the story, he's putting that out there and he waited a year to do that.” (Id. at 1489–90.) Although defense counsel continued disputing the propriety of the government's inquiry into Shannon's silence, the District Court declined to give any curative or cautionary instruction.
Given that background, it beggars belief to hear the government now argue that the Fifth Amendment issue was not preserved for review. It was preserved, and the argument to the contrary actually borders on frivolous. We therefore will review the issue de novo and not, as the government requests, for plain error. Gov't of the V.I. v. Martinez, 620 F.3d 321, 335 (3d Cir.2010).
B. Opening the Door
The government next argues that, even if the objection was preserved for plenary review, the AUSA's questions were appropriate and did not constitute a Doyle violation because Shannon “opened the door by implying he had cooperated in an investigation to find [Williams]” and because “most of the prosecutor's questions probed Shannon's pre-arrest failure to call police when [he] realized Middlebrooks handed him dope' or drug-money.”15 (Gov't's Br. at 20–21.) The government points to Shannon testifying that he had “tried to ‘find [Williams,]” and it says he “twice implied that his efforts ․ were undertaken in cooperation with authorities.” (Id. at 27 (citing App. at 1388, 1399).) If Shannon had not been working with authorities, the government asks, “why else [would he be] ․ trying to find [Williams]?” (Oral Arg. at 18:11–13.) The government contends that Shannon waived his Fifth Amendment rights as explained in Doyle because a “defendant who wishes to protect his post-arrest silence cannot ‘imply that he had participated actively in the investigation .’ “ (Gov't's Br. at 28 (quoting Hassine, 160 F.3d at 949).)
On this point, as on the earlier question of whether the Fifth Amendment issue was preserved by appropriate objection at trial, the government's arguments strike us as badly strained. The record simply does not reveal any “opening of the door” to allow questioning about Shannon's post-arrest silence. Here is the exchange the government relies on:
[AUSA]: Have you looked at those phone records?
A: We looked at them. Me and my counsel went over the phone records. Keep in mind it was, what, eight, nine months had passed by. I looked at the phone records and tried, to the best of my knowledge, give the phone that I thought was [Williams's]. They took the phone, investigated it. Several phones that people call me, the numbers was dislocated. Other phone numbers that they called people would know me, but didn't know ․ Williams. And when we finally got a phone number that I thought was his, it was actually a guy that works on cars, works at Meineke. Meineke Mufflers.
Q: You looked at the phone records because you know [Williams'] number has to be on that; right?
A: Yes. It has to be on there.
Q: It has to be on the Verizon phone records?
A: Yes, sir.
Q: And so, you looked at them and you can't find [Williams'] number?
A: No, sir. I can't remember his number because I didn't have it locked in.
Q: When you say you didn't have it locked in, you didn't have it saved in your contacts?
A: Didn't have it saved in my phone. Yes, sir.
(App. at 1416–17.)
There is nothing in that exchange or elsewhere in the record that can reasonably be construed as Shannon waiving his Fifth Amendment rights. Shannon did not “trumpet[ ] his post-arrest cooperation,” as the government claims. (Gov't's Br. at 26.) On the contrary, he told the government only what he and his defense team undertook to corroborate his story. While the government asserts that Shannon's reference to “they” is a reference to the government, the transcript cannot comfortably bear that interpretation. (Id. at 27–28.) Shannon appears to be referring to the defense team reviewing his phone usage, not to any investigation by the government.
The government also claims that Shannon first intimated his cooperation when he prefaced an answer about Williams with the phrase “like I tell you earlier,” as if “earlier” meant pre-trial and referred to working with the government. (App. at 1400.) But in that portion of his testimony Shannon was plainly not referring to pre-trial communications with the government but to a statement in Court he had made only moments earlier that he had met Williams at a restaurant in Houston.16 It is frankly painful to watch the government's labored wresting of selected sentences from Shannon's testimony in an effort to create an impression which a straightforward reading of the record refutes. We are left to agree with Shannon that the government's arguments are nothing more than a “post hoc attempt to salvage an unsalvageable mistake made by the trial prosecutor.” (Appellant's Reply Br. at 14.)
We have searched the record in vain for evidence that Shannon's silence was “blatantly inconsistent with [his] trial testimony,” as required by Hassine to render permissible the kinds of questions the government asked. 160 F.3d at 948–49 (citation omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted). The government argues that the “blatant inconsistency ․ is that [Shannon] says he's trying to find [Williams, telling several people his version of the story], but then he doesn't convey information to those people which would enable them to help him or do anything.” (Oral Arg. at 18:51–19:09.) But that argument shows that government's counsel still does not appreciate the import of Doyle. The government should know that Shannon does not need to “convey” information to anyone; beyond question, he has no responsibility to prove his innocence. And it should also recognize that there was nothing in Shannon's testimony that was “blatantly inconsistent” with his post-arrest silence. The government conceded as much at oral argument when it characterized as “vague” Shannon's responses regarding who he might have been working with to find Williams. (Oral Arg. at 20:01–03.) “Vague” obviously does not reach the high threshold of “blatantly inconsistent.” If Doyle means anything, it is what is said in its very first paragraph: that it is a violation of a defendant's due process rights for a “prosecutor ․ to impeach a defendant's exculpatory story, told for the first time at trial, by cross-examining the defendant about his failure to have told the story after receiving Miranda warnings at the time of his arrest.” Doyle, 426 U.S. at 611 (footnote omitted). That is precisely what happened here.
The government's second argument—that “most of the prosecutor's questions probed Shannon's pre-arrest failure to call police”—is also a stretch of the record. (Gov't's Br. at 21.) Very few questions in that cross-examination addressed Shannon's pre-arrest failure:
Q: When you see it's money, you panic?
Q: You don't call the police; do you?
A: No, sir. I don't call the police.
Q: You instead think, I'm going to get out of my car, maybe I'll call Quita?
(App. at 1448.) The government's questions about post-arrest silence were also limited, consisting of the following: (1) “Did you ever direct anyone to come to the authorities and say, listen, you need to know about ․ Williams?”; and (2) “You waited until you took the stand and then you told us about [Simpson, Williams, and Middlebrooks]; right?” (App. at 1475.) The government's implication that the questioning about Shannon's silence was largely innocuous because it focused on Shannon's pre-arrest silence does not accord with the reality that both pre-arrest and post-arrest silence received roughly the same degree of inquiry. More to the point, the number of questions the government asked is not relevant to the inquiry before us. Even if the government had, in fact, asked pages of questions regarding Shannon's pre-arrest silence, the problem remains that it also asked inappropriate questions regarding Shannon's post-arrest silence. Doyle does not establish a threshold quantity of improper questioning to qualify as a constitutional violation. Here, the two questions asked by the government regarding Shannon's post-arrest silence violated his Fifth Amendment right to silence, as explained in Doyle.
C. Harmless Error Analysis
Our analysis, however, does not end with the finding of a constitutional error at trial. We must still determine whether the government proved beyond a reasonable doubt that the error did not contribute to the verdict obtained.17 Chapman, 386 U.S. at 24. When the government fails to carry its burden of proof, we must vacate the judgment of conviction and remand for a new trial. That is the result required here.
Viewed in its totality, the evidence against Shannon was largely circumstantial and not “overwhelming,” as required by Davis.18 561 F.3d at 165. “The government conducted months of investigation, listened to thousands of hours of wiretaps, [and] yet had not once heard of Shannon.” (Appellant's Opening Br. at 26.) Not one government record revealed a call, text, or even an email between Shannon and anybody else involved in the conspiracy. Without more in the way of corroborating evidence linking Shannon to the conspiracy, the jury's assessment of Shannon's credibility was likely important to the outcome of the case.19 Because that credibility was undermined by the government's questioning of Shannon about why he had not come forward earlier to the police, we cannot say the constitutional error was harmless. Chapman mandates that the government must “prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the error complained of did not contribute to the verdict obtained,” 386 U.S. at 24, but the government has not done so, and the verdict cannot stand.
For the foregoing reasons, we will vacate the District Court's judgment and remand for a new trial consistent with this opinion.
1. By “post-arrest” silence, we mean Shannon's silence following his arrest and receipt of the attendant warnings under Miranda v. Arizona of his right to remain silent. 384 U.S. 436, 467–68 (1966). Shannon also argues that the District Court abused its discretion by admitting into evidence his two prior convictions despite their being more than twenty years old; that it erred in issuing certain supplemental jury instructions after the jury had indicated that it was deadlocked; and that it violated his Sixth Amendment rights by basing his sentence on a judicial finding of fact—which implicated a specific statutory maximum and minimum sentence—rather than on the jury's verdict. We mention these issues later, see infra at n. 9, but do not decide them because the Fifth Amendment violations apparent on the record require reversal.
2. As explained within, the government must “prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the error complained of did not contribute to the verdict obtained,” to sustain the conviction. Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 24 (1967).
3. “Wrapping” the cash means shrink-wrapping it in preparation for exchanging the cash for drugs.
4. A regular wiretap involves tapping a particular phone whereas a roving wiretap authorizes the government to, in effect, tap a person, “intercept[ing] any and all identified telephones used by that person.” (App. at 284.)
5. Eighty Four is a town in Washington County, Pennsylvania, and, by Shannon's testimony, is also the name of the local truck stop.
6. “Chirps is the walkie-talkie feature of the Boost Mobile phone .” (App. at 1230.)
7. See Allen v. United States, 164 U.S. 492, 497 (1896) (approving a supplemental instruction given to encourage a deadlocked jury to resolve its differences and reach a verdict).
8. The District Court had jurisdiction over this matter under 18 U .S.C. § 3231. We exercise jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291.
9. The parties contest whether the District Court violated Shannon's Sixth Amendment rights at sentencing and, in that regard, have raised arguments regarding the applicability of Alleyne v. United States, 133 S.Ct. 2151 (2013) (holding that any fact implicating a statutory maximum or mandatory minimum sentence is an element of an offense that must be found by a jury beyond a reasonable doubt). We decline to address those and other arguments raised by Shannon, since we must vacate his conviction. Although we refrain from deciding those remaining arguments, we would be remiss if we did not make the following observations.First, in light of the Court's finding that Shannon's two prior convictions, both more than twenty years old, could be admitted under Rules 404(b) and 609(b) of the Federal Rules of Evidence, it is worth noting the narrow purpose and specific contours of each rule. Rule 609, which governs the use of convictions as evidence of truthfulness for impeachment purposes, limits the admission of a conviction more than 10 years old unless “its probative value, supported by specific facts and circumstances, substantially outweighs its prejudicial effect.” Fed.R.Evid. 609(b)(1). The Advisory Committee Notes for Rule 609(b) emphasize that “convictions over 10 years old will be admitted very rarely and only in exceptional circumstances.” Fed.R.Evid. 609(b) advisory committee's note (emphasis added). Similarly, while Rule 404(b) allows evidence of earlier convictions to be admitted as impeachment evidence “for another purpose” besides showing predisposition to commit the crime—such as proving “absence of mistake” or “lack of accident”—we have held that:prior act evidence [under Rule 404(b) ] is inadmissible unless the evidence is (1) offered for a proper non-propensity purpose that is at issue in the case; (2) relevant to that identified purpose; (3) sufficiently probative under Rule 403 such that its probative value is not outweighed by any inherent danger of unfair prejudice; and (4) accompanied by a limiting instruction, if requested.United States v. Caldwell, No. 13–1918, ––– F.3d ––––, 2014 WL 3674684, at *7 (3d Cir. July 24, 2014). Furthermore, we have emphasized that the non-propensity “purpose” for which 404(b) evidence is admitted must be narrowly construed and explicitly recorded by the Court. See, e.g., United States v. Davis, 726 F .3d 434, 443 (3d Cir.2013) (noting that prior experience with small amounts of a drug would not have provided the requisite knowledge under Rule 404(b) to help a defendant identify a large amount of that drug since “[t]he packaging or quantity might be different, and objects in greater quantities often have an appearance or smell of their own”); United States v. Givan, 320 F.3d 452, 466 (3d Cir.2003) (McKee, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (noting that the exception for “absence of mistake” under Rule 404(b) requires the government to demonstrate the defendant's same “modus operandi” in a prior crime). A court should hesitate to admit twenty-year-old convictions when that evidence looks like propensity evidence. Under such circumstances, the evidence must ordinarily be excluded. See United States v. Sampson, 980 F.2d 883, 887 (3d Cir.1992) (“Hence, where the evidence only goes to show character, or that the defendant had a propensity to commit the crime, it must be excluded.”).Second, with respect to the District Court's Allen charge, we reiterate that the Third Circuit Model Criminal Jury Instructions are not binding on district courts. While it may often be helpful to use the Model Instructions rather than fashioning one's own, we are not prepared to say that, simply because an instruction differs from the model, that instruction must be erroneous. If, on the other hand, an instruction “stress[es] the time, expense or burden of a new trial,” the instruction would be unduly coercive and would require us to vacate a conviction and remand for rehearing. United States v. Jackson, 443 F.3d 293, 298 (3d Cir.2006). The instruction at issue here did not stress any of those things, and merely mentioning that a case will have to be retried before another jury does not constitute coercion. Nonetheless, a court must be careful when highlighting the need to dispose of cases and the burden involved in calling a new jury.
10. Silence is not always protected. A defendant's prearrest silence is not saved from a prosecutor's reaches for impeachment purposes because “no governmental action induce[s][ a] petitioner to remain silent before arrest.” Jenkins v. Anderson, 447 U.S. 231, 240 (1980).
11. In Raffel v. United States, 271 U.S. 494 (1926), decided decades before Miranda and Doyle, the Supreme Court concluded that a defendant “may be examined for the purpose of impeaching his credibility” since the Fifth Amendment “immunity from giving testimony is one which the defendant may waive by offering himself as a witness.” Id. at 496–97. In light of later precedent, however, that conclusion clearly does not apply when a prosecutor explicitly questions a defendant's post-Miranda silence. Gov't of the V.I. v. Davis, 561 F.3d 159, 165 (3d Cir.2009).
12. We evaluate de novo a Fifth Amendment violation under Doyle v. Ohio, 426 U.S. 610 (1976), unless the defendant failed to object at trial. Gov ‘t of the V.I. v. Martinez, 620 F.3d 321, 335 (3d Cir.2010). In that case, we review only for plain error. United States v. Balter, 91 F.3d 427, 441 (3d Cir.1996).
13. Rule 103 of the Federal Rules of Evidence provides that “[a] party may claim error in a ruling to admit or exclude evidence only if the error affects a substantial right of the party” and, if the evidence is admitted, the party objecting “states the specific ground [for the objection], unless it was apparent from the context.” Fed.R.Evid. 103(a).
14. The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in United States v. O'Brien stated that objecting counsel should either “point to Doyle or a counterpart case or ․ articulate an objection that was in substance close to the rationale of Doyle ” to preserve the objection. O'Brien, 435 F.3d 36, 39 (1st Cir.2006). What appears to have motivated the court in O'Brien, however, was the fact that defense counsel in that case gave “the wrong ground” for an objection. Id. That is not the case here. Shannon's counsel clearly objected and said, “Fifth Amendment comment.” (App. at 1475.)
15. We focus our analysis on those questions the government asked Shannon during cross-examination. The government notes that the “AUSA said nothing about Shannon's silence in his [initial] closing argument” (Gov't's Br. at 29) until Shannon's closing emphasized that the government did not “negate the legitimacy of [Shannon's] story regarding why he went to Baltimore and that his nephew, like a son for him, ․ wanted to get a phone.” (App. at 1607 (Appellant Closing Statement).) Even assuming that sequence forgave the comments at closing, it is irrelevant to the question of whether the government violated Shannon's Fifth Amendment rights under Doyle during its cross-examination.
16. Shannon testified, “I wouldn't get in touch with him. I would if, like I tell you earlier, I would see him at the place called the Boiling Crab on different occasions.” (App. at 1400.)
17. The government argues that Brecht v. Abrahamson, 507 U.S. 619 (1993), is instructive, but, as the government itself notes, “Brecht was decided on collateral rather than direct review” (Gov't's Br. at 32 (citing Brecht, 507 U.S. at 637–38 (holding that constitutional error is harmful under collateral review when that error “had substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury's verdict”))), and consequently is irrelevant to our analysis.
18. We are not implying, of course, that the evidence against him was insignificant. It certainly was not. The government presented the following persuasive evidence at trial: Shannon's Boost Mobile phone chirped in Eighty Four virtually every time Middlebrooks visited Pittsburgh. Shannon was entrusted with $669,340 to hold for the conspiracy, despite, according to him, being a complete stranger to that conspiracy. And Shannon falsified his logbooks, a violation of federal law in its own right, to hide frequent trips, that, perhaps by sheer coincidence, had him driving through Eighty Four on multiple occasions. Although such evidence may well be sufficient to convict, it is not enough to sustain a conviction when, as in this case, there has been a Fifth Amendment violation and the case depends so heavily on whether one believes the defendant's story.
19. In the past, we have found “harmless error” in limited circumstances where the government presented additional corroborating evidence at trial. See Davis, 561 F.3d at 166. In United States v. Balter, 91 F.3d 427, 431 (3d Cir.1996), for example, the government offered taped conversations substantiating its theory of the case. Similarly, in United States v. Dunbar, 767 F.2d 72, 73 (3d Cir.1985), two bank tellers separately identified the defendant after a surveillance camera captured pictures of him robbing a bank. Here, the government has offered no such evidence.
JORDAN, Circuit Judge.
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U. S. v. SAFETY CAR HEATING & LIGHTING CO.
U. S. v. SAFETY CAR HEATING & LIGHTING CO.(1936)
Argued: December 20, 1935Decided: January 6, 1936
* Rehearing denied 297 U.S. 727 , 56 S.Ct. 495.[ U. S. v. Safety Car Heating & Lighting Co. 297 U.S. 88 (1936) ]
[297 U.S. 88, 90] Messrs. Homer S. Commings, Atty. Gen., and J. P. Jackson, of Washington, D.C., for petitioners.
Mr. Thomas G. Haight, of Jersey City, N.J., for respondent.
Mr. Justice CARDOZO delivered the opinion of the Court.
The respondent claims a refund of income taxes under the Revenue Act of 1926 (44 Stat. 9). The petitioner in one of the cases (No. 75) is the United States, a defendant in the court below. The petitioner in the other ( No. 76) is the Collector of Internal Revenue for the Fifth District of New Jersey.
Since 1907, the taxpayer, respondent, has been the owner of the Creveling patent for an improvement in the electric lighting equipment of railway passenger cars. It brought suit in 1912 against the United States Light & Heating Company to restrain an infringement of the patent, and for an accounting of damages and profits. The suit was pending on February 25, 1913, the effective date of the Sixteenth Amendment, and on March 1, 1913, the effective date of the first statute enacted thereunder. Act of October 3, 1913, c. 16, 38 Stat. 114, 166, 168, 172, 174.* The accused infringer contested its liability for in-
* With reference to every corporation subject thereto, that act provides as follows: 'The tax herein imposed shall be computed upon its entire net income accrued within each preceding calendar year ending December thirty-first: Provided, however, That for the year ending December thirty-first, nineteen hundred and thirteen, said tax shall be imposed upon its entire net income accrued within that portion of said year from March first to December thirty-first, both dates inclusive, to be ascertained by taking five-sixths of its entire net income for said calendar year.' 38 Stat. 174. [297 U.S. 88, 91] fringement as well as its liability for damages and profits. Not till 1915 was the capital fact of an infringement determined. On February 15, 1915, there was entered in the District Court an interlocutory decree (Safety Car Heating & Lighting Co. v. U.S. Light & Heating Co., 222 F. 310) for an injunction, which was affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals (223 F. 1023) in July of the same year. An accounting followed before a master and continued for eight years. On that accounting the complainant waived any recovery for damages, and confined its claim to the profits received by the infringer. On May 26, 1923, the master filed his report in which he found that there was due to the complainant for profits received by the infringer between January 1, 1909, and April 30, 1914, the sum o $501,180. 32. Of this award, a large part ($436,137.41) was for profits applicable to the period before March 1, 1913. The report was confirmed by the District Court on October 10, 1923 (2 F.(2d) 384), at which time the infringing defendant was in the hands of receivers. A final decree followed in October, 1924, the award being adjudged to constitute a superior lien upon the assets of the infringer then held by a successor. Cross-appeals were carried to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, the complainant contending that the award was too small, the infringer and its successor contending that the award was too large and that error had been committed also in the declaration of the lien. While the appeals were undetermined, the complainant accepted a settlement in May, 1925, after thirteen years of litigation, whereby it received from the infringer the sum of $200,000 in satisfaction of the judgment. After deducting the expenses incurred in connection with the suit ($23,468.05), the net amount collected was $176,531.95, of which part ($153,621.72) is attributable to acts of infringement before March 1, 1913, and part to such acts thereafter.
In May, 1926, the taxpayer filed its income tax return for 1925, showing a net income for that year of $1,473, [297 U.S. 88, 92] 187.13, and a tax due thereon of $172,610.19, which has been paid. It did not include in the return any part of the proceeds of the patent litigation ($176,531.95), nor did it claim any deduction for loss resulting from the settlement. Thereupon the Commissioner made a deficiency determination of $22,162.07, plus interest, the additional tax due after adding the net proceeds of the settlement to the income of the year. Two claims for refund followed. The first, filed in March, 1929, was for $69,729.18. The taxpayer took the ground that as a result of the settlement it had sustained a loss of $536,378.28, which through error it had failed to deduct in making its return and in paying the tax thereunder. Its books were kept on the accrual basis. The second of the two claims, filed in July, 1930, was for an additional refund in the amount of $19,970. 82. In this the taxpayer took the ground that in determining the gross income for 1925 the Commissioner had erred by including that part of the proceeds of the settlement attributable to acts of infringement before March, 1913. Both claims were rejected by the Commissioner. The taxpayer then sued, making the United States the defendant with reference to the first claim and the collector the defendant with reference to the second.
In the suit against the United States the District Court found that the taxpayer's claim for damages on account of so much of the infringement as had occurred before March 1, 1913, had a 'market value' on that date of $ 436,137.41, the profits of the infringer up to that time as reported by the master. From this the court concluded that in the year 1925 there had been a deductible loss of the difference between $436,137.41 and the sum of $174,040.62, a like proportion of the $200,000 actually recovered. The tax upon this difference ($262,096.79) was $34,072.58. The taxpayer received an award of judgment for that amount with interest. 5 F.Supp. 276. In the suit against the collector, the District Court held that [297 U.S. 88, 93] such portion of the net settlement as was allocable to acts of infringement before March 1, 1913 ($153,621.72), had accrued to the taxpayer i advance of that date, and was therefore to be treated as capital, not taxable as income for the year when the settlement was made. The taxpayer received an award of judgment for the tax on that amount (i.e ., for $24,732.90) with interest.
The Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed the judgments in both suits. 76 F.(2d) 133. To fix more precisely the taxable quality of contested and contingent choses in action belonging to a taxpayer before March 1, 1913, writs of certiorari issued from this court. 296 U.S. 555 , 56 S.Ct. 91.
First. Congress intended, with exceptions not now important, to lay a tax upon the proceeds of claims or choses in action for the recovery of profits, unless the right to such recovery existed unconditionally on March 1, 1913, the effective date of the first statute under the Sixteenth Amendment.
The tax imposed on the respondent was laid under the Revenue Act of 1926 (c. 27, 44 Stat. 9), which includes in gross income (section 213(a), 44 Stat. 23) gains on profits 'from any source whatever.' We have said of that act that it reveals in its provisions an intention on the part of Congress to reach 'pretty much every sort of income subject to the federal power.' Helvering v. Stockholms Enskilda Bank, 293 U.S. 84, 89 , 55 S.Ct. 50, 52. There is no denial that profits owing to a patentee by the infringer of a patent are income within the meaning of the statute, unless withdrawn from that category by the date of the infringement. Cf.T. R. 45, Art. 52; T.R. 62, Art. 51; T.R. 65, Art. 50; T.R. 69, Art. 50; Commissioner v. S. A. Woods Machine Co. (C.C.A.) 57 F.(2d) 635.
Until July, 1915, the existence of any liability was contested and uncertain. The amount remained contested and uncertain until May, 1925, when there was a [297 U.S. 88, 94] settlement of the liability reported by the master. Then for the first time the profits flowing from the infringement became taxable as income. North American Oil Consolidated v. Burnet, 286 U.S. 417, 423 , 52 S.Ct. 613; Lucas v. American Code Co., 280 U.S. 445, 451 , 452 S., 50 S.Ct. 202, 67 A.L.R. 1010; Lucas v. North Texas Lumber Co., 281 U.S. 11 , 50 S.Ct. 184; Burnet v. Huff, 288 U.S. 156 , 53 S.Ct. 330. The respondent admits this to be true to the extent that the acts of infringement were later than February, 1913. The argument seems to be, however, that accrual has a different meaning when applied to income generated by acts committed earlier. But plainly the respondent's exemption, if it exists, will have to rest upon some other basis. A claim for profits so contingent and indefinite as to lack the quality of accrued income in March, 1913, cannot have had the quality of such income before that time, its existence and extent being then equally uncertain. Only an arbitrary dichotomy could bring us to the conclusion that part of the recovery was income to the taxpayer as of the date of payment or collection and part as of the date of the underlying wrong. The respondent, to prevail, must be able to make out that though the profits were income in their entirety as of May, 1925, there was an intention of the Congress that part of this income, the part attributable to acts before March, 1913, should be excluded from the reckoning.
We find no disclosure of that intention in the provisions of the statute, and none in the history of other acts before it. The first statute following the Sixteenth Amendment laid a tax, as we have seen, on the entire net income 'accrued' within each calendar year; the impost being coupled with a proviso that for the year 1913 what was to be taxed should be the entire net income 'accrued' within that portion of the year from March 1 to the end. Definiteness of meaning was given to that and later acts by Treasury Regulations. Article 90 of Regulations 62, [297 U.S. 88, 95] adopted in 1922, provides: 'Any claim existing unconditionally on March 1, 1913, whether presently payable or not, and held by a taxpayer prior to March 1, 1913, whether evidence by writing or not' does 'not constitute taxable income, although actually recovered or received subsequent to such date.' This provision appears without change of form in all Treasury Regulations adopted since that time. T.R. 65, Art. 90; T.R. 69, Art. 90; T. R. 74, Art. 91; T.R. 77, Art. 90. It appears with unimportant verbal differences in earlier regulations. T.R. 45, Art. 87, as amended by T.D. 3206, 5 Cum.Bul. 116. A claim existing 'unconditionally' would include a claim for interest on a bond or for rent under a lease. A claim existing conditionally can have no better illustration than is found in a claim to recover an infringer's profits. Cf.O.D. 917, 4 Cum.Bul. 142; O.D. 1141, 5 Cum.Bul. 134; S.M. 2285, III-2 Cum.Bul. 87, 89, 90, disapproving I.T. 1294, I-1 Cum.Bul. 111. Nor does the case for the government stand upon the regulations alone without confirmatory evidence. By clear implication the regulations have been ratified by Congress, which has passed revenue acts at frequent intervals thereafter without a sign of disapproval. 'Congress must be taken to have been familiar with the existing administrative interpretation.' McFeely v. Commissioner, 296 U.S. 102 , 56 S.Ct. 54, 57, Nov. 11, 1935; Zellerbach Paper Co. v. Helvering, 293 U.S. 172, 179 , 180 S., 55 S.Ct. 127. Claims existing unconditionally before March 1, 1913, being thus excluded from the tax, the plain meaning of the regulation is that conditional or contingent claims, though they may have had an inchoate existence before March 1, 1913, are to be taxed when they are shorn of their conditional or contingent quality and become unconditional or absolute. So far as the problem to be solved depends upon the intention of the Congress in the enactment of the statute, the result is hardly doubtful. [297 U.S. 88, 96] Whatever obscurity exists has its origin, one may believe, in a not uncommon confusion of the rule with the exception. There is a tendency now and again to look upon March 1, 1913 as fixing a point of time when claims of every kind, no matter how contingent, became transmuted into capital, at least for taxing purposes. This is far from the truth, as the acceptance by Congress of the foregoing regulations sufficiently attests. The intention has rather been that, with exceptions specially declared or dependent upon considerations of established methods of accounting, every form of income accruing fully or unconditionally after February, 1913, shall contribute to the Treasury, though it had a potential existence for years before its capacity to fructify. As already suggested, perception of this intention has been clouded by exceptions, actual or seeming, which have been so insulated and emphasized as to be taken for the rule itself. Thus, Congress has now provided (see, e.g., Revenue Act of 1916, c. 463, 2(a), 39 Stat. 756, 757; Revenue Act of 1921, c. 135, 201, 42 Stat. 224, 228; Revenue Act of 1926, c. 27, 201, 44 Stat. 9, 10, 26 U.S.C.A. 115 note) that dividends may be distributed exempt from the tax to the extent that they are made out of earnings or profits accumulated before March 1, 1913. The exemption is 'a concession to the equity of stockholders' (Lynch v. Hornby, 247 U.S. 339, 346 , 38 S.Ct. 543, 546; Helvering v. Canfield, 291 U.S. 163, 167 , 54 S.Ct. 368), and had no existence under the pioneer statute, the Act of 1913, a dividend, irrespective of its source, being then taxable altogether. Lynch v. Hornby, supra. So Congress has now provided (see, e.g., Revenue Act of 1924, c. 232, 43 Stat. 253, 259, 204(b), 26 U.S.C.A. 113 note; Revenue Act of 1926, supra, 204(b), 44 Stat. 16, 26 U.S.C.A. 113 note) that in computing gain or loss from the sale or other disposition of property acquired before March 1, 1913, the base shall be the cost or the value on that day, whichever is the greater. See, also, Revenue Act of 1916, supra , 2(c), 39 Stat. 758; Revenue Act of 1921, supra, [297 U.S. 88, 97] s 202(b)(1), 42 Stat. 229. Cf. Merchants' L. & T. Co. v. Smietanka, 255 U.S. 509 , 41 S.Ct. 386, 15 A.L.R. 1305; Goodrich v. Edwards, 255 U.S. 527 , 41 S.Ct. 390. We are not unmindful of cases in which a like formula was applied without the aid of statute. Lynch v. Turrish, 247 U.S. 221 , 38 S.Ct. 537; Doyle v. Mitchell Bros. Co., 247 U.S. 179 , 38 S.Ct. 467; Hays v. Gauley Mt. Coal Co ., 247 U.S. 189 , 38 S.Ct. 470, and cf. MacLaughlin v. Alliance Insurance Co., 286 U.S. 244, 251 , 52 S.Ct. 538. They do not rule the case at hand. In those cases and others like them assets that were capital in February, 1913, had been converted into cash thereafter. Coal lands and timber lands and timber had been sold by an owner in the ordinary course of business. By the practice of merchants a stock in trade is capital according to its inventory value. Hays v. Gauley Mt. Coal Co., supra, 247 U.S. 189 , at page 193, 38 S.Ct. 470. Nothing of the kind is here. The case is not helped by speaking of the claim as 'property.' The question is whether it is property that has been transmuted into capital. In February, 1913, the chose in action now assessed was not a part of the respondent's capital as merchants or other business men would understand the term. Cf. North American Oil Consolidated v. Burnet, supra. At best, it was contingent income, the income of the future. It had no inventory value, much less a value quoted in the market. Whether it would ever be worth anything was still unknown and unknowable. The answer was not given for many years thereafter.
The argument is pressed upon us that the claim collected by the respondent is to be viewed as one for damages rather than as one for profits, and that in the aspect of a claim for damages it had a 'market value' ascertainable at the commencement of the suit and later. There are two reasons, if not more, why the argument must fail. In the first place, the respondent made an election to abandon any claim for damages and to confine itself to the profits received by the infringer. The amount of these profits was unknown at the commencement of the [297 U.S. 88, 98] suit and must needs have remained unknown in advance of an accounting. To determine what the respondent got, we are to consider what it did, and not what it could have had if it had made another choice. In the second place, a claim for damages like one for an infringer's profits is too contingent and uncertain to have a determinable market value when the validity of the patent is unsettled, and contested and the factors making up the damage are arrived at by conjecture. Sinclair Refining Co. v. Jenkins Petroleum Process Co., 289 U.S. 689, 697 , 53 S.Ct. 736, 88 A.L.R. 496; Cf. Heiner v. Crosby (C.C.A.) 24 F.(2d) 191; Walter v. Duffy (C.C.A.) 287 F. 41. There is significance in the fact that the estimate of the damage in the claim filed with the Commissioner exceeded by nearly $300,000 the estimate of the damage accepted at the trial.
The case comes down to this: On February 28, 1913, the respondent had a contested claim for profits which if prosecuted effectively would ripen into income. That claim would not have been capital if it had been acquired for the first time on March 1, 1913. It was not turned into capital because it had been acquired earlier. Edwards v. Keith (D.C.) 224 F. 585; Id. (D.C.A.) 231 F. 110; Workman v. Commissioner (C.C.A.) 41 F.(2d) 139. Before March 1, 1913, and afterwards, it was continuously the same thing until reduced to judgment and collected. The case is not to be confused with one where the basis of the suit is an injury to capital, with the result that the recovery is never income, no matter when collected. Examples of such a claim are Saunders v. Commissioner (C.C.A.) 29 F.(2d) 834, and Heiner v. Hewes (C.C.A) 30 F.(2d) 787, cited by the taxpayer. Buffalo Union Furnace Co. v. Helvering (C.C.A.) 72 F.(2d) 399, is perhaps upon the border line, the claim being not for profits, but for r covery of out of pocket expenses. Confining it to its peculiar facts, we do not read it as inconsistent with the views herein expressed.
Second. Congress was not restrained by express or implied restrictions of the Federal Constitution from giving [297 U.S. 88, 99] effect to its intention and levying a tax upon the proceeds of the settlement.
In February, 1913, if our analysis of the facts is accurate, there was a contested and contingent claim for profits, not fairly to be characterized as income for that year or earlier. In 1925, this inchoate and disputed claim became consummate and established. It was now something more than a claim. It was income fully accrued, and taxable as such. Till then the patentee had its capital, the patent, and an expectancy of income, or income, more accurately, in the process of becoming. Thereafter it had something different. No doubt the income thus accrued derived sustenance and value from the soil of past events. We do not identify the seed with the fruit that it will yield.
Income within the meaning of the Sixteenth Amendment is the fruit that is born of capital, not the potency of fruition. With few exceptions, if any, it is income as the word is known in the common speech of men. Lynch v. Hornby, supra, 247 U.S. 339 , page 344, 38 S.Ct. 543. When it is that, it may be taxed, though it was in the making long before. MacLaughlin v. Alliance Ins. Co., supra, 286 U.S. 244 , at pages 249, 250, 52 S.Ct. 538; Taft v. Bowers, 278 U.S. 470 , 49 S. Ct. 199, 64 A.L.R. 362; Helvering v. Canfield, supra. Cf. Lucas v. Alexander, 279 U.S. 573, 577 , 578 S., 49 S.Ct. 426, 61 A.L.R. 906; Towne v. Eisner, 245 U.S. 418 , 38 S.Ct. 158, L.R. A.1918D, 254; Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U.S. 189, 206 , 207 S., 40 S.Ct. 189, 9 A.L.R. 1570. If exceptions are to be allowed in exceptional conditions, they are inapplicable here.
Third. The taxpayer is not entitled to a deduction on the basis of a difference between the value of the chose in action on March 1, 1913, or at any other time and the proceeds of collection.
(a) At the time of the settlement, the amount of the infringer's liability was contested as it had been before, the outcome of the contest being uncertain as long as the appeal was pending. The respondent chose to forego a large portion of the judgment in the belief that com- [297 U.S. 88, 100] promise was prudent. For all that appears, if compromise had been rejected, the judgment would have been so reduced as to make the recovery even less. True the respondent insists that the fear of a reduction was not the motive for the settlement. The motive is said to have been the fear that the judgment, even if not reduced, might not be susceptible of collection. On the other hand, the infringer may have viewed the prospects differently. We have no means of ascertaining whose forecast was the better. What we know is that there was a compromise through which patentee and infringer surrendered rights and opportunities.
(b) The value of the chose in action, uncertain at the time of settlement, was even more uncertain in February, 1913. Unpredictable vicissitudes might reduce it to a nullity. The patent might be adjudged invalid. The infringer might become insolvent. In the earlier years, as in the later ones, the supposed profits of the business might have evaporated as the result of neglect or incapacity. Not till the report by the master and its confirmation by the court could the recovery be estimated with even approximate correctness. There is no contention by the respondent that the value of the judgment was greater at that time than it was a few months later at the date of the settlement in the face of an appeal.
The conclusion is inescapable that the acceptance of the settlement did not involve a loss of income, still less a loss of capital.
Fourth. The taxpayer is not entitled to a refund of the proportion of the settlement attributable to the profits of the infringer before the effective date of the Sixteenth Amendment.
This conclusion follows without need for elaboration from what has been said in this opinion as to the distinction between capital and income.
The judgments are reversed. [297 U.S. 88, 101] Mr. Justice SUTHERLAND, Mr. Justice BUTLER, and Mr. Justice ROBERTS are of opinion that the judgments should be affirmed. The claim or respondent was a valid one, constituting property prior to March 1, 1913. It not only had an ascertainable value at that time, but a value which was actually ascertained and found as a fact by the trial judge and affirmed by the court below. Since there is evidence in the record to support these concurrent findings, we are not at liberty to set them aside. The case clearly falls within the principle of Doyle v. Mitchell Brothers Co., 247 U.S. 179 , 38 S.Ct. 467; Lucas v. Alexander, 279 U.S. 573 , 49 S.Ct. 426, 61 A.L.R. 906, and other cases which might be cited. Certainly promissory notes, bonds, shares of stock, and valid claims arising upon contract or in tort may be capital as distinguished from income, quite as much as a stock of goods or other tangible property. And quite as certainly, it is not necessary that these intangibles should have a market value or an inventory value. It is enough that they have an ascertainable value at the statutory time fixed.
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Gaslight Anthem – ‘American Slang’ First Listen & Heroes’ Review
An unwavering look in the eye. This is affirmative and sober storytelling spoken from the perspective of small town America. The soulful and grit of John Fogarty, the underlying joy and honesty of Bryan Adams and lastly, the slightly bruised swagger of “The Boss.”
From NPR: The true test of a Gaslight Anthem album can’t — or at least shouldn’t — take place while the listener is staring at a computer screen. The New Jersey-based band makes music for car stereos, plain and simple; its timeless, barreling rock ‘n’ roll anthems are all about conflating simple tropes (Saturday night, the open road) with disarmingly wise observations on life, death and youth. It’s hardly a surprise that Bruce Springsteen has joined The Gaslight Anthem on stage, just as it’s hardly a surprise that footage of the collaboration depicts singer Brian Fallon looking as if his heart is about to explode in a trillion joyful pieces.
Gaslight Anthem – I Do Not Hook Up (Kelly Clarkson)
Beneath the big, galloping fun of American Slang lies a unifying theme about the fleeting nature of youth. “Everybody used to call you Lucky when you were young,” Fallon sings in the magnificent “Stay Lucky,” taking all of 10 words to sum up a lifetime of compromise and faded hope. American Slang keeps coming back to lost vitality; the album might as well have been titled Hey, Remember When You Were Young? Yeah, That Was a While Ago. As such, it’s a perfect companion for those who might be on the verge of, say, their 20th high-school reunion this summer. If you are, it’ll give you a perfect excuse to rent a muscle car for the occasion, blast these bold anthems of ambivalence in the parking lot, and revel in what little youth you’ve got left. From NPR.ORG
American Slang will stream here in its entirety until its release on June 15.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127405836
More Band Info and the making of ‘American Slang’ in 5 easy parts:
http://gaslightanthem.com/
~ by castleqwayr on June 7, 2010.
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Anne-Marie, Dua Lipa and George Ezra among BRIT Awards nominees
LONDON (Reuters) - Singers Anne-Marie, Dua Lipa, Jess Glynne and George Ezra are among the nominees for next month’s BRIT Awards, Britain’s annual pop music honors, in a list dominated by young talent.
FILE PHOTO - Dua Lipa performs during Z100's iHeartRadio Jingle Ball 2018 concert at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York, U.S., December 7, 2018. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
Anne-Marie is in the running for four prizes - British Female Solo Artist, Mastercard British Album of the Year for “Speak Your Mind”, British Single and British Artist Video of the Year for “2002” at the British Record Industry Trust (BRIT) awards, to be held on Feb. 20 in London.
Lipa, who triumphed with two wins at last year’s event, is nominated in the British Single category for “IDGAF” as well as her “One Kiss” collaboration with DJ Calvin Harris. The two songs are also in the running for British Artist Video of the Year.
Glynne’s name also featured in four categories including British Female Solo Artist and British Single for “I’ll Be There”. Chart-topper “These Days” by Rudimental featuring Glynne, singer Dan Caplen and rapper Macklemore is also nominated for British Single and British Artist Video of the Year.
The other contenders for British Female Solo Artist include Florence + The Machine, Lily Allen and Jorja Smith, last year’s Critics’ Choice winner. Smith is also nominated for her album “Lost & Found”.
Summer hit “Shotgun” singer George Ezra got three nods: for British Male Solo Artist, for British Single and for his album “Staying at Tamara’s”. He will compete against Sam Smith, Craig David, Aphex Twin and Giggs for British Male Solo Artist.
The album category, the biggest prize on the night, also includes Florence + The Machine’s “High as Hope” and The 1975’s “A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships”.
The latter are nominated for British Group alongside Arctic Monkeys, Gorillaz, Little Mix and Years & Years.
“If you look at the list, it’s really fresh, really young, really diverse, really female,” Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the BRIT Awards and the British Phonographic Industry, told Reuters.
“(It’s) a really great list that reflects the year of music and shows just how much fresh talent is coming through.”
Reporting By Marie-Louise Gumuchian and Emily Roe; Editing by Hugh Lawson
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Cuban Culture and Cult...
Cuban Culture and Cultural Relations, 1959-
The Vertical Archive of the Casa de las Américas, Part 1: “Casa y Cultura”
• Unique access to 45,000 documents
• Covering almost 60 years of cultural relations between Revolutionary Cuba and abroad
• Full-text search functionality
• Including MARC21 catalog records
Casa de las Américas in Havana, Cuba, ranks among the most renowned cultural institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean. Ever since its creation in 1959, it has been a host to thousands of writers and artists from throughout the region. It has published countless books and articles, organized conferences, concerts, expositions, theatre productions and numerous cultural contests. Founded just three months after the Cuban Revolution, it quickly became a fundamental link between the cultural vanguard in Latin America and the Caribbean on the one hand and a diplomatically isolated Cuba on the other. Over the course of almost six decades it has amassed a vast amount of information, thus creating a unique record to study the history of both the institution itself as a cultural hub, but also that of the protagonists of a remarkable era.
Much of the information is preserved in the present “Casa y Cultura” section of the so-called Archivo Vertical at Casa de las Américas library. This section contains some 45,000 documents organized in 545 folders, covering such diverse materials as articles, newspaper clippings, cable messages, interviews, conference memorabilia, etc., collected from 1959 onward. Together they document the activities of the institution both in Cuba and beyond, bearing testimony to the conflicts and passions of a turbulent time. Conferences and controversies, manifestos and open letters combine to shed a light on a vibrant cultural history, which is now accessible for the first time from new and unexpected angles.
The archive’s genesis was somewhat random; it started out collecting newspaper clippings (an external agency was in charge of compiling them) in order to keep track of the various activities of the Casa de las Américas. Gradually the collection began to grow as donors and librarians from different countries sent press clippings and other documents to the institute. Employees and researchers at the Casa itself contributed as well. Much of this constitutes ephemeral material, difficult to obtain as it derived from non-indexed sources (e.g. newspaper clippings) or consisted of unpublished articles (e.g. press dispatches). The employees at Casa de las Américas would use these documents for their own information or they would serve as promotional material for the different departments within the institute. Once they had served their purpose they would be sent to the library to be archived. In some cases there are notes in the margins or senders’ requests, an interesting aspect when we consider the importance of some of its authors.
Writers and artists
Among the many documents, the programs of the monthly events at Casa de las Américas stand out ( Programa del Mes). They allow us to establish a record of all public activities organized by the Casa since its founding. Other documents give insight in the plethora of colloquiums, meetings and conferences where intellectuals and artists from across Latin America and the Caribbean met. Here we find information about such illustrious figures as Miguel Angel Asturias, Alejo Carpentier, Fernando Benitez, Carlos Fuentes, Miguel Otero Silva, Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Dario Fo and Mercedes Sosa, to name but a few. We also find information about the different departments of the institute: Theatre, Music, Visual Arts, Centre for Literary Research, Centre for Research on the Caribbean and Study Guides (on women, Latinos in the United States, cultures of Latin America and people of Afro-American descent). Also highly significant are the extensive files on the famous literary prize of the Casa de las Américas: the Premio Literario Casa de las Americas, which is by far the oldest and most ambitious one in the region.
Finally, the present section of the Archivo Vertical contains records about Haydee Santamaría, one of the most renowned women of the Cuban Revolution and the founder and president (until her death in 1980) of Casa de las Américas.
Jorge Fornet, Havana
Go to Online Edition
Institutional outright purchase price
EUR €8,216.00USD $9,779.00
Project advisor: Arien González Crespo, Director, Casa de las Américas Library
Project coordinator: Johan Vogel, CEO, Scan2Preserve
Introduction text: Jorge Fornet Gil, Director, Centro de Investigaciones Literarias; Co-director, La Revista Casa de las Américas
Centers for Latin American Studies, historians of Latin American and Caribbean culture, scholars and students working on the cultural, literary, social and political history of Revolutionary Cuba.
“The cultural history of Latin America cannot be understood without one of its most prestigious institutions: Casa de las Américas, based in Havana.” Ericka Montaño Garfias. In: La Jornada, 20 July 2011, p. 4.
Organization of the archive:
Actividades Casa de las Américas / Activities of Casa de las Américas
Bibliotecas / Libraries
Cafe conversatorio
Premio Casa / Casa de las Américas Literary Prize
Programa de Actividades / Program of Activities
Casa y Cultura / Casa and Culture
Casa y Cultura Recortes / Newspaper Clippings
Collection Marc record
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[[missing key: search-facet.tree.open-section]] Jewish Studies 1
Philosophy, Theology & Science 1
Jewish Law 1
Philosophy of Religion 1
Hardcover x
Paperback x
Jewish Law x
J. David Bleich: Where Halakhah and Philosophy Meet
Library of Contemporary Jewish Philosophers
Edited by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and Aaron W. Hughes
Rabbi J. David Bleich is Professor of Talmud (Rosh Yeshiva) at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, an affiliate of Yeshiva University, as well as the Director of its Postgraduate Institute for the study of Talmudic Jurisprudence and Family Law. In addition, he holds the Herbert and Florence Tenzer Chair of Jewish Law and Ethics at Yeshiva University and is Professor of Law at the Cardozo School of Law. A foremost authority on Jewish law and ethics, he has written extensively on medical ethics, Jewish law and contemporary social issues, and the interface of Jewish law and the American legal system. As the spiritual leader of Congregation B’nai Jehuda in Manhattan, Rabbi Bleich teaches weekly Talmud classes and lectures on Jewish law and philosophy.
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