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Vivo Launching Two New Handsets
Written by Luke Hatfield on 1st December 2015
Vivo has officially revealed two brand new smartphones this week that are set to hit the market at the beginning of this month – the vivo X6 and X6Plus.
Bringing in a design not all that dissimilar than the latest iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, these two new Vivo handsets might not be the most original, but they do bring a spec sheet worth picking up and could be headed to the UK in the near future.
The smaller offering from Vivo is that of the X6, but it’s not exactly tiny, rocking a 5.2” Super AMOLED screen. That makes it bigger than the standard iPhone 6s and the Samsung Galaxy S6, both of which are considered top-end flagships.
However, a big screen doesn’t always mean a big performance, but the 1080p resolution sported by the X6 doesn’t disappoint, and actually kicks off quite an interesting spec sheet overall.
A MediaTek MT6752 chipset is one of the better you can find on the market, whilst 4GB RAM and 32GB of internal memory also make for good reading. You can even add to that storage by cramming a MicroSD card into the dual SIM slot, should you not need the extra SIM of course.
A 2,400mAh battery makes its way onto the back, along with a fingerprint scanner, but we’re yet to see whether a screen this size can manage with such a trimmed battery. Camera duties are tackled by a 13 megapixel and an 8 megapixel set of lenses, on the front and back respectively.
The X6 starts at just £260 SIM-free if the company takes into account the current conversion rate from China, although it might jump up in price if it makes its way over here.
Vivo X6Plus
Want something a bit bigger? Then you should try the Vivo X6Plus, which like its name suggests, comes in a bit larger. Boasting a 5.7” Super AMOLED screen with the same 1080p resolution is plenty big enough for all kinds of tasks, and it’s not too thick either at 6.6mm.
The very same chipset and processor are included in the X6Plus, so if you were after faster speeds you’ll be disappointed. However, if you want some extra storage space, Vivo are doubling it for the larger device – up to 64GB out of the box, once again with that MicroSD expansion, should you need it.
The fingerprint scanner and camera duo also make the cut once again, bringing the same qualities as on the smaller phone just with a larger chassis. There is a battery change however, growing to 3000mAh on the X6Plus, to account for the extra half an inch on the display.
You are having to pay a premium for the extra real estate on the display however, pricing the X6Plus at £330 SIM-free.
Both Vivo phones are set to go on sale on December 7th over in China, so you will be able to import the devices from then, although both could eventually make it to the UK on general sale in the New Year…
What do you make of these two new smartphones? Do you think they’ll be worth importing? Let us know on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.
Written by Luke Hatfield
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What If They Just Stop Watching?
In the beginning, what excited people most about traveling to the new world was freedom to practice their religion without persecution or being treated differently for not adhering to a state mandated religion. As time passed, people were compelled by the idea that they could grab a piece of land and create their own wealth. These two ideas best characterize the American dream, the freedom to have a set of beliefs and not be compelled to follow the group and the freedom to build wealth from a wing and a prayer. Our governing system evolved from these two important rights.
Our country suffered 25,000 casualties, not to mention as many wounded in the revolution to gain our freedom from England. Once we had tasted freedom, it was hard to imagine allowing ourselves to be ruled by a king and a parliament determined to wield their authority over colonies that had been essentially governing themselves independently for years. To be told where goods could be sold and where they could trade, to be taxed indiscriminately, to be tried in courts without a jury of peers…these ideas were recognized as unjust and intolerable.
With freedom came wealth and power. This is because in our country there was no built in ruling class or proletariat class. In America, people were not seen as belonging to any particular class and it was a given that anyone could make it. Andrew Jackson was the first president who exemplified that idea, having beat enormous odds. He was not born of wealth and despite having lost both parents before he was fifteen, survived fighting (under age) in the American Revolution, being imprisoned, and smallpox. Yet he managed to become a school teacher, and later a lawyer, before running for and being elected to the highest office in the land.
What characterized the people who immigrated to America was that they wanted to become part of a country where people were free to pursue their happiness. There was no expectation that the government would take care of them. What drove settlers and foreigners to populate our country was the idea that with hard work and faith they could make something of themselves. When did this change?
Historically, there are some landmark events that we can look at as contributing to the downfall of our country. The passing of the 17th Amendment is one. Senators no longer represent the state; the senate is not the state’s house. It is just an extension of the people’s house. This has eroded state’s rights and upset the balance necessary to prevent any part of the government from gaining too much power or forgetting that they are there to serve the people. Another is Marbury v Madison, in which the judiciary branch of government could determine whether a law is to be followed, not whether a law is being applied fairly. Every time a president uses executive power to create law through regulation, instead of the congress, the balance is being eroded.
In the past eight years, we’ve witnessed the decimation of the middle class. With the economy tanking and the result of a government manufactured housing crisis, people who’d invested years of their savings into homes, found themselves in foreclosure. Forced to move and rent because of bad credit, their homes were often purchased by the wealthy and redistributed to people who qualified for section 8 and received government supplemented housing. Demographics of entire neighborhoods changed, bringing in people whose interests and values did not coincide with the established culture, changing political voting blocks.
At issue this election are several concerns. We are at war with political factions of a religion that calls itself peaceful. We need to determine how this war is to be fought and eliminate this threat. Will it be fought like Vietnam or will we eradicate the problem completely? Domestically, our government is in debt because of all the entitlement programs that were passed by preceding congresses and foisted onto generation after generation to fund. The economy has not recovered, despite the rhetoric. The reality is that many people can no longer apply for unemployment because the timeline for when they can receive benefits expired. Others have found jobs but they are not full time and they do not qualify for employee benefits. Those who take advantage of Affordable Health Care policies are funded by taxpayers, as with any entitlement program. They are not free.
This election is the last gasp for the middle class. Those running for office on the left have openly voiced that they would usher in socialism. Those feeling the bern or backing a progressive truly believe in the idea that the government knows best how to spend our hard earned wealth. This is an election to determine whether we still believe in equality of opportunity or if we now believe in the idea of equality of outcome.
It’s ironic that the sector that continues to show growth is the service industry. As we watch our class structure fall, an entire servant class is being created. It reminds me of the world before America was settled, a world where there were upper classes and lower classes who served them.
I used to enjoy following the election. For me, it was like following baseball or football. Now, when I listen to the media interview the candidates, I feel like I’m watching the show in the Hunger Games hosted by Caesar Flickerman. The media is whoring the candidates out for ratings. I wonder why these are called debates? The candidates are coached to say what will get them ratings. As Gale from the Hunger Games remarked to Katniss, “What if they just stop watching?” Unfortunately, Katniss was right when she replied, “But they won’t, Gale. They won’t.” We’re gawkers at the scene of an accident, compelled to watch the election process going down in flames.
Nancy Salvato’s education career includes teaching students from pre-k to graduate school. She has also worked as an administrator in higher education. Her private sector efforts focus on the advancement of constitutional literacy. She attended the National Endowment for the Humanity’s National Academy for Civics & Government, and is the author of “Keeping a Republic: An Argument for Sovereignty.”
Article 1 Sec 8
Bicameralism
Black September
Boston Massacre
Civil Marriage
Cloward-Piven Strategy
Constitutional Republic
Fundamental Transformation
Justice Roberts
Limited Government
Marbury V Madison
Nullification
Origination Clause
Redistribution Of Property
Regional Housing Initiative
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Jury Convicts California Woman In Straw Buyer Fraud
Rachel Dollar — August 3, 2016 — Leave a comment
Alla Samchuk, 45, Roseville, California, was found guilty in a mortgage fraud scheme involving three properties after a four day jury trial in Sacramento, California. Samchuk was convicted of six counts of bank fraud, six counts of making a false statement to a financial institution, one count of money laundering, and one count of aggravated identity theft. After the verdict, U.S. District Court Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. ordered Samchuk taken into custody.
According to court documents, from 2006 through 2008, Samchuk, a licensed real estate salesperson, orchestrated a mortgage fraud scheme involving three properties in the Sacramento area using straw buyers. Two of the houses were purchased so that Samchuk herself could occupy them. She lacked the ability to qualify for a loan, so she instead recruited straw buyers to apply for the loans in their names. Samchuk caused the submission of loan applications containing false representations of income, employment, assets, and a false indication that the straw buyers would occupy the homes as their primary residence.
A second objective of the scheme was to obtain HELOC (home equity line of credit) funds. According to evidence at trial, on two of the properties, Samchuk diverted or attempted to divert HELOC funds to her own benefit. Samchuk caused the HELOC loans to fund by submitting false statements and documents to the lender regarding the qualifications of the straw buyers.
The scheme involved two properties in Roseville, California and one in El Dorado Hills, California. In 2007, Samchuk filed an application for a HELOC on one of the properties without the straw buyer’s knowledge or consent. To obtain the HELOC, she forged the signature of the straw buyer on a short form deed of trust that she caused to be notarized and recorded. The stated purpose of the HELOC was home improvement, but once the line of credit was funded, Samchuk quickly diverted all of the funds to her own use, spending the proceeds on a Lexus and the repayment of a substantial personal debt.
Sentencing is set for October 21, 2016. Samchuk faces a maximum of 30 years in prison for each count of bank fraud and false statements to a financial institution, 10 years in prison for money laundering, and two years in prison for aggravated identity theft.
The verdict was announced by Acting U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert. This case is the product of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Audrey B. Hemesath and Andre M. Espinosa are prosecuting the case.
In Mortgage Fraud California, Forgery, HELOC, Income/Asset, occupancy fraud, Straw Buyer
Rachel Dollar
Judge says convicted Utah...
South Carolina Real Estate...
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Music reviews, news and more | www.mountainkingmusic.com
Saturday Shuffle: ZZ Top, Jackyl, Helstar, Priest, Megadeth
A little classic, a little party and a heavy ending this week ...
ZZ Top, “Lowdown in the Street.” From the album Deguello (1979). Deguello remains my favorite ZZ Top album because it struck a great balance between their hard rocking side and their funky, groovy blues side. All of that is encapsulated perfectly on this tune.
Posted by Fred Phillips at 8:00 AM 1 comment:
Labels: AC/DC, Blues rock, Classic rock, Hard rock, Helstar, Jackyl, Judas Priest, Megadeth, Saturday Shuffle, Thrash, Traditional metal, ZZ Top
Review: Judas Priest, "Defenders of the Faith 30th Anniversary Edition"
Sandwiched between the bona fide metal classic Screaming for Vengeance and perhaps Judas Priest’s most controversial album, the synth-guitar laden Turbo, Defenders of the Faith often seems to be an overlooked gem in the band’s catalog.
This year marks the 30th anniversary, and Judas Priest celebrates with a new remastered three-disc edition of the album, which also includes a 21-song live set from Long Beach Arena in 1984.
It doesn’t take long to remember that Judas Priest was still at the height of its game as album opener “Freewheel Burning” comes raging out of the speakers. It’s a classic, high-speed Judas Priest number with vocalist Rob Halford screaming like a demon and hitting some of his biggest notes. After a year or so of listening to last year’s exceptional Redeemer of Souls, it’s an instant reminder that as good as Halford sounds now, he was that much more impressive in his prime.
Labels: Judas Priest, Reviews, Rob Halford, Traditional metal
Saturday Shuffle: Amon Amarth, Aerosmith, Firewind, Three Thirteen, Metallica
Today, I re-introduce the Saturday Shuffle. For those who don’t remember it, it was one of the more popular features on the site for the last couple of years. I take the first five songs that come up on my shuffle and offer a few brief thoughts on them. I won’t pull punches. If a really bad song or something embarrassing comes up, I’ll own up to it. (See the second song below).
Amon Amarth, “Legend of a Banished Man (Live).” From the album The Avenger (2009 re-issue). One of the more plodding numbers from Amon Amarth’s early work gets the live treatment on this re-issue of the band’s second album. It’s perhaps one of the slower numbers, but no less epic.
Posted by Fred Phillips at 8:00 AM No comments:
Labels: Aerosmith, Amon Amarth, Carrie Underwood, Classic rock, Death, Firewind, Hard rock, Live, Metallica, Power metal, Saturday Shuffle, Thrash, Three Thirteen, ZZ Top
Review: Jackson Taylor and the Sinners, "Cantina del Diablo"
If there’s any artist that could get away with releasing a mariachi record, it’s Jackson Taylor. Good thing, too, because that’s the influence all over his latest release Cantina del Diablo.
Technically, this isn’t a “new” album. Cantina del Diablo grew out of his Dos Sinners acoustic tour, and it includes eight songs from Jackson Taylor’s back catalog done mostly acoustic. In some cases, the songs are greatly transformed from their original versions, while others follow closer to the original, just perhaps a bit softer or with a bit of mariachi-style flair added in.
First single “Maria,” with its aye-aye-aye-aye chorus, seems — pardon the bad pun — tailor-made for this collection. Throw in some heavy Spanish horns and a trilling shout or two, and it transforms quite well into a mariachi tune. Stylistically, it’s a bit different than what we’ve heard from Taylor before but, thematically, it’s right in his wheelhouse — a hard-driving, hard-drinking, cautionary tale about a cheating woman and what that brings.
Posted by Fred Phillips at 12:55 PM No comments:
Labels: Acoustic, Best of 2015 Candidates, Country, Jackson Taylor, Reviews
Still Spinning: Marilyn Manson, "Mechanical Animals"
Yes, I know Manson has a new record out, and I plan to get to it eventually. But this one, for some reason, has been popping up in my shuffle a lot lately, and I’ve come to appreciate again how good it was.
I remember seeing one of those clickbait articles online at some point last year discussing rock albums with only one good song, and Mechanical Animals was on that list. The writer’s contention was that “The Dope Show” was the only good song on this record. I remember at the time thinking the guy didn’t know what he was talking about, and after revisiting this record, I’m sure of it. If anything, “Dope Show” is one of the weakest songs.
You can say a lot of things about Marilyn Manson and the direction that his career has taken. Strings of mediocre albums have made him a caricature of himself, but those first three records cannot be denied. Each of those showed a developing and evolving persona for Manson. His debut, Portrait of an American Family, was solely about shock. With Antichrist Superstar, he honed the edge on that shock with rage and vitriol — producing, arguably, the last rock ‘n’ roll record to truly scare the shit out of parents. And that’s what made the transformation on Mechanical Animals so bizarre and wonderful.
Labels: Alternative, David Bowie, Glam rock, Industrial, Marilyn Manson, Reviews, Shock rock, Still Spinning
Review: Circle II Circle, "Live at Wacken: Official Bootleg"
It may have been a bit surprising to the crowd at the Wacken Open Air Festival in 2012 when Circle II Circle took the stage not to play music from their albums, but to perform Savatage’s 1997 album The Wake of Magellan. It was the last Savatage album to feature Circle II Circle frontman Zak Stevens, and one of the more underrated in their catalogue.
Though video of that performance has been available on YouTube for some time, the band has finally released the official audio version of it.
First of all, this isn’t a complete performance of The Wake of Magellan. For one thing, Circle II Circle had only about 40 minutes of set time, and the album checks in at about an hour. A couple of instrumental pieces are cut to make the time, and they don’t perform the two songs on the album originally sung by Jon Oliva — “Another Way” and “Paragons of Innocence.” They also play around a little bit with the order of the songs so they can close with “Blackjack Guillotine,” arguably the album’s heaviest track.
Labels: Circle II Circle, Power metal, Reviews, Savatage, Symphonic Metal, Traditional metal, Zak Stevens
Stuck in My Head: "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott, "Whiskey Road"
Unlike many passed artists, “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott doesn’t seem to have left behind much unreleased material. Either that or his family is being very careful with what they let out. But every now and then, something we haven’t heard before trickles out.
A while back, Guitar World premiered the track “Whiskey Road,” recorded on Pantera’s final tour in 2001. The song features the late Dimebag on all instruments and vocals, and though it’s a rough demo, it shows a lot of promise. If you’re expecting a crushing Pantera tune, think again. “Whiskey Road” is a Southern rock drinking song from start to finish. Though there’s a little bit of “Cemetery Gates” in the clean guitar sound and some of the leads, there’s a lot more twang than crunch.
Labels: David Allan Coe, Dimebag, Pantera, Rebel Meets Rebel, Southern rock, Stuck in my Head
Gloryhammer - Legends from Beyond the Galactic Terrorvortex
Fred Phillips
I am a veteran entertainment writer with a love of hard rock and heavy metal. I've written music reviews, columns and feature stories for several newspapers, Web sites and a national wire service. I've run Hall of the Mountain King in various places and incarnations since 1997.
If you're in a band or represent a band or label and would like to have your music featured here, check out my submission guidelines for details.
Follow this blog on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mtnkingmusic. Follow the author @FredWPhillips.
Saturday Shuffle: ZZ Top, Jackyl, Helstar, Priest,...
Review: Judas Priest, "Defenders of the Faith 30th...
Saturday Shuffle: Amon Amarth, Aerosmith, Firewind...
Review: Jackson Taylor and the Sinners, "Cantina d...
Still Spinning: Marilyn Manson, "Mechanical Animal...
Review: Circle II Circle, "Live at Wacken: Officia...
Stuck in My Head: "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott, "Whisk...
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Harry French launches Coming Out Day
Britain's first Coming Out Day has been launched by Harry French, Mr Gay UK. Coming Out Day is the initiative of National Friend, the UK's gay help line and befriending service, and Gay.com, the world's largest gay internet company.
Coming Out Days are already well established in the United States. National Friend and Gay.com hope that it will become an annual event in the UK too. "Coming out is often the most important event in a gay person's life," explained Iain Sharp, a spokesperson for National Friend. "It's not just children coming out to parents, it can be parents coming out to children, people coming out to work colleagues, or people coming out to friends."
"Organisations such as National Friend can play a vital role in providing advice on this often nerve-wracking experience", added Sharp.
National Friend is offering a 24 hour advice line to people who need to help or someone to talk to. The website, www.comingoutday.org.uk, hosted by uk.gay.com is now up and running with e-greetings cards, advice and testimonies, including one from Sir Ian McKellen.
Harry French is Mr Gay UK 2000
Mr Gay UK 2000 Harry French
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Bring On The Dancing Boys: Newsies
I'm about ten years too old to have been overcome with Newsies fever in the early 90's, but will admit it's always seemed an odd phenomenon. A Disney movie musical that flopped upon initial release, but gained a huge following on video and subsequent airings on the Disney Channel? And it's about turn of the 20th century New York news boys? Who go on strike? And Christian Bale sings and dances? WHUT?
In retrospect, it kind of makes sense. It's filled with a cast of dozens of cute boys in newsboy caps and knickers, who despite the New Yawk accents are about as threatening as your average boy band. Of course tweens loved it.
The stage musical is also a Disney production, and like the movie, I imagine the key attraction is the large cast of dancing boys (although, most seem to have past their teens years by a while ago). There's so many of them, it can be hard to keep track of who's who but I do know this: Jack Kelley (Dan DeLuca) is the defacto newsie leader, and Crutchie (Zachary Sayle) is the one with the crutch.
The industrial set, made up of steel stairs, runners, and scaffolding, rolls around the stage to create the various settings including the slums, newspaper headquarters, a vaudeville theater, and rich newspaper tycoon Joseph Pulitzer's office. While the plot involves price gauging, child labor, unions, and strikes, it's presented rather simply: the newspaper bigwigs decide to increase the cost of the "papes" they sell to the newsies by 10 cents per bundle, and the newsies, already poor and virtually homeless, fight back by going on strike.
Yes. This is a socialist musical, centered on child workers, produced by Disney. My head nearly exploded too.
There's a subplot about a young reporter named Katherine (Stephanie Styles) who falls in love with Jack Kelley while writing about the boys, but frankly, I found their story kind of snoozeville. The musical is at its most fun and entertaining when the large cast of newsies are doing their group dances, which often include moments of tap, and lots of leaps and somersaults, all perfectly synchronized.
The musical's highlight is probably "Seize the Day," which features an ingenious use of newspapers as dance props, (and provides super fans a change to seize some of those papes, as they're tossed into the audience). And while some of the slower numbers are pretty enough, ("Santa Fe;" "Something to Believe In"), I found myself wishing those songs would end so we could get back to some newsie dancing.
That's one advantage those young movie fans had back in the 90's: a fast forward button.
Posted by Rain at 10:30 AM
Labels: Concert and Theater Reviews, SF Appeal Reviews
Suckers For Punishment: Fifty Shades of Grey
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Paul Hawken is an environmentalist, entrepreneur, author and activist who has dedicated his life to environmental sustainability and changing the relationship between business and the environment. He is one of the environmental movement’s leading voices, and a pioneering architect of corporate reform with respect to ecological practices. His work includes founding successful, ecologically conscious businesses, writing about the impacts of commerce on living systems, and consulting with heads of state and CEOs on economic development, industrial ecology, and environmental policy. Paul is Founder of Project Drawdown, a non-profit dedicated to researching when and how global warming can be reversed. The organization maps and models the scaling of one hundred substantive technological, social, and ecological solutions to global warming.
Paul has appeared in numerous media including the Today Show, Bill Maher, Larry King, Talk of the Nation, Charlie Rose, and has been profiled or featured in hundreds of articles including the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Washington Post, Business Week, Esquire, and US News and World Report. His writings have appeared in the Harvard Business Review, Resurgence, New Statesman, Inc, Boston Globe, Christian Science Monitor, Mother Jones, Orion, Libération, and other publications.
Paul authors articles, op-eds, and peer-reviewed papers, and has written eight books including five national bestsellers: The Next Economy (Ballantine 1983), Growing a Business (Simon & Schuster 1987), and The Ecology of Commerce (HarperCollins 1993) Blessed Unrest (Viking, 2007), and Drawdown, The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming (Penguin). The Ecology of Commerce was voted as the #1 college text on business and the environment by professors in 67 business schools. Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution (Little Brown, September 1999) co-authored with Amory Lovins, has been read and referred to by several heads of state including President Bill Clinton who called it one of the five most important books in the world during his tenure as President. His books have been published in over 50 countries in 30 languages. Growing a Business became the basis of a 17-part PBS series, which he hosted and produced. The program, which explored the challenges and pitfalls of starting and operating socially responsive companies, was shown on television in 115 countries and reached more than 100 million people. Paul co-authored and edited Drawdown in collaboration with its extraordinary research team. He is currently writing Carbon, The Business of Life, to be published by Penguin RandomHouse.
Paul has founded several companies, starting in the 1960s with Erewhon, one of the first natural food companies in the U.S. that relied solely on sustainable agricultural methods. He went on in 1979 to co-found Smith & Hawken, the retail and catalog garden company. In 2009 Paul founded OneSun, an energy company focused on ultra low-cost solar based on green chemistry and biomimicry that is now known as Energy Everywhere.
In 1965, Paul worked with Martin Luther King Jr.’s staff in Selma, Alabama prior to the historic March on Montgomery. As press coordinator, Paul registered members of the press, issued credentials, gave updates and interviews on national radio, and acted as a marshal for the final march. That same year, he worked in New Orleans as a staff photographer for the Congress of Racial Equality, focusing on voter registration drives in Bogalusa, Louisiana and the panhandle of Florida, and photographing the Ku Klux Klan in Meridian, Mississippi, after three civil rights workers were tortured and killed. In Meridian, he was assaulted and seized by Klan members, but escaped due to FBI surveillance and intervention. Paul has spoken, conducted research, and traveled extensively throughout the world, undertaking journeys into insurgent-held territories of Burma to research tropical teak deforestation, as well as a 1999 humanitarian/photojournalistic trek to war-torn Kosovo .
As a speaker, Paul has given keynote addresses to the Liberal Party of Canada, the King of Sweden at his inaugural Environmental Seminar, American Bookseller’s Association, Urban Land Institute, SRI International, Harvard University, Stanford University, the Wharton School, Cornell University, Prime Minister of New Zealand’s Conference on Natural Capitalism, U.S. Department of Commerce, Australian Business Council, Yale University and Yale University Commencement, University of California, Berkeley Commencement, France’s Ministry of Agriculture, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), Prince of Wales Conference on Business and the Environment—Cambridge University, Commonwealth Club, Herman Miller, National Wildlife Federation, State of Washington, American Society of Landscape Architects, American Institute of Architects, American Institute of Graphic Arts, American Solar Energy Association, Apple, World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Cleveland City Club, Conference Board, U.S. Forest Service, Ontario Hydro, Environment Canada, EPA, and several hundred others. PBS named his 2009 commencement speech at the University of Portland the best commencement speech of the year.
Paul has served on the board of many environmental organizations including Point Foundation (publisher of the Whole Earth Catalogs), Center for Plant Conservation, Conservation International, Trust for Public Land, Friends of the Earth, and National Audubon Society. He has received numerous awards and recognitions, including: Green Cross Millennium Award for Individual Environmental Leadership presented by Mikhail Gorbachev in 2003; World Council for Corporate Governance in 2002; Small Business Administration “Entrepreneur of the Year” in 1990; Utne “One Hundred Visionaries who could Change our Lives” in 1995; Western Publications Association “Maggie” award for “Natural Capitalism” as the best Signed Editorial/Essay” in 1997; Creative Visionary Award by the International Society of Industrial Design; Design in Business Award for environmental responsibility by the American Center for Design; Council on Economic Priorities’ 1990 Corporate Conscience Award; Metropolitan Magazine Editorial Award for the 100 best people, products and ideas that shape our lives; the Cine Golden Eagle award in video for the PBS program “Marketing” from Growing a Business; California Institute of Integral Studies Award “For Ongoing Humanitarian Contributions to the Bay Area Communities”; Esquire Magazine award for the best 100 People of a Generation (1984). In 2014 he was named one of the three Pioneers of Sustainability along with Professors Peter Senge and Michael Porter. Paul has received six honorary doctorates. In 2019, the National Council for Science and the Environment granted him a Lifetime Achievement Award on Science, Service, and Leadership.
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Privacy Policy | Contact Us | Site Map
History of the Pima County Juvenile Court Center
In 1907, the Arizona Territorial Legislature established Juvenile Court. Henry Meyer was appointed its first Probation Officer. In 1913, Pima County was required to establish a Detention facility specifically for youth. Prior to this, children were housed with the probation officers or in the Pima County Jail. The first Detention facility was operated by Patrick and Clara Higgins from 1920 through 1932. After Mr. Higgins passed, Mrs. Higgins continued to operate the facility, known as Mother Higgins, until 1947 when the entire Juvenile Court was moved to the County Court House downtown.
A new Juvenile facility, called Mother Higgins, was inaugurated in September, 1956 at 332 S. Freeway in the brick house that is now the county's Theresa Lee Health Clinic. In 1963, Mother Higgins officially became the Pima County Juvenile Court Building, but to Pima County citizens, it remained Mother Higgins. The facility housed 26 boys and 12 girls, a courtroom and probation department.
Due to Pima County's growth, the Pima County Juvenile Court Center was opened in December, 1967 on East Ajo Way, adjacent to the current building. The facility housed 30 boys and 30 girls with 24 secure locked rooms and 36 bunk beds in a dormitory style living area. The next expansion occurred in 1986 when 12 more beds were added to Detention and additional courtrooms were added. In 1990, the number of beds was increased to 86.
The peak of juvenile crime occurred in the early 1990s. The population of detainees rose to record levels. In 1997, due the tremendous overcrowding, the gymnasium was converted into a sleeping area. Mattresses on the floor, a portable table with chairs and a chalkboard became home to 25 boys.
In May 1997, the Pima County Board of Supervisors held a countywide bond election. The Pima County Juvenile Court was the top item on the ballot. A $42 million expansion project was approved by the voters by the widest margin in the election.
Groundbreaking ceremonies were held in June, 1998 with 60 new Detention beds. In July, 1999, the 60 new beds, adjacent to the old Detention facility to the East, were occupied. Construction continued and culminated in a ribbon-cutting ceremony in February, 2000 with over 500 people in attendance. Juvenile Court staff moved into the new building that same month and remodeling of the old Detention area commenced. The entire project was completed in late 2000. None of this could have been accomplished without the support of the community. In the Court's main lobby, the plaque denotes the dedication of this building to you, its citizens
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Copyright 2019�by Arizona Superior Court in Pima County
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Palm Tree Pics CartoonCartoon Palm Tree Sticker
Related Gallery: Harbarfreittghportablegurage | Value City Furniture Recliner Sofas | Gi Joe Helicopter Tiger | How Many Amur Tigers Are Left | Batim Fanfiction Henry Sick | Tiger Shroff Baaghi 2 Images In Full Hd | Value City Furniture Recliner Sofas | Template For Invitatiion To Pare In Boxing Gym | Erfly Out Of Co Tattoo | Pay Stubs | Nigerian Marine Pastors Exposed | Aisha Birthday Cake Image | Hospital Furniture Autocad | Pay Stubs | Value City Furniture Recliner Sofas | 1st Baby Birthday Marathi Invitation | Gi Joe Helicopter Tiger | Tiger In The Mouth 2016 Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Ã Â
à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à ªà à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à Â
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PETER B. DORAN
Breaking Rockefeller
The Incredible Story of the Ambitious Rivals Who Toppled an Oil Empire
Marcus Samuel, Jr., is an unorthodox Jewish merchant trader. Henri Deterding is a take-no-prisoners oilman. In 1889, John D. Rockefeller is at the peak of his power. Having annihilated all competition and possessing near-total domination of the market, even the U.S. government is wary of challenging the great “anaconda” of Standard Oil. The Standard never loses—that is until Samuel and Deterding team up to form Royal Dutch Shell.
A riveting account of ambition, oil, and greed, Breaking Rockefeller traces Samuel’s rise from outsider to the heights of the British aristocracy, Deterding’s conquest of America, and the collapse of Rockefeller’s monopoly. The beginning of the twentieth century is a time when vast fortunes were made and lost. Taking readers through the rough and tumble of East London’s streets, the twilight turmoil of czarist Russia, to the halls of the British Parliament, and right down Broadway in New York City, Peter Doran offers a richly detailed, fresh perspective on how Samuel and Deterding beat the world’s richest man at his own game.
“[Marcus Samuel and Henri Deterding’s] story, though not new, is grippingly retold in Breaking Rockefeller. . . . The guts, greed and gusto of this cast of characters are what give the book its vigor. . . . The book is timely in an era when America’s shale revolution has upset the OPEC cartel’s efforts to control the world’s oil markets, and Eastern Europe struggles to free its gas markets from dependence on Russia’s Gazprom. It is a vivid reminder of the dangers of monopolies, and of the merits of no-holds barred competition and technological upheaval.”
— The Economist
“Why haven’t you heard [Marcus Samuel’s] full story before? Because his history is more elusive than a shell game: He had all of his papers and correspondence burned. Now Doran has gathered enough secondary evidence to tell his tale.”
— The New York Post (a must-read book of the week)
“[A] lively history of the early petroleum industry. . . . Doran’s vigorous narrative conveys the drama of the oil industry in its heroic days, featuring grueling stretches of dry wells followed by marathon gushers; lurid, greedy oil boomtowns; and the wars, revolutions, and production gluts that made the business a roller-coaster. He’s also good at untangling the underlying dynamics of finance, marketing, technology, and transportation. The result is an entertaining portrait of the oil industry’s past and the business forces that still shape its present.”
“A well-researched history.”
— The Fort Worth Star-Telegram
“Peter Doran’s Breaking Rockefeller is the best kind of history, telling great stories, providing fascinating detail, and reflecting real knowledge. In this story of the origins of the modern oil industry, there are plenty of lessons for the present too.”
— Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gulag: A History and Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe 1944–1956
“Peter Doran’s enthralling account of the early days of the oil industry—particularly the mano-a-mano battle between a Jewish merchant in England and the original industry titan, John D. Rockefeller—reads like a thriller without sacrificing good solid scholarship. With some relevant observations for our own time, this is a gem of a book.”
— Robert Kagan, New York Times bestselling author of Of Paradise and Power and The World America Made
“Peter Doran tells a riveting and exciting account of the formation of Royal Dutch Shell and how it managed to stand up to Standard Oil at the turn of the 19th century. With color and delight, he has captured the nature of the oil business at the time in this well-researched volume.”
— Anders Åslund, author of How Capitalism Was Built, and Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council
“Breaking Rockefeller is fast-paced yet anchored by a treasure of fascinating detail. It is an insightful historical backgrounder for today’s global energy politics.”
— Robert D. Kaplan, Senior Fellow, Center for a New American Security and author of In Europe’s Shadow
“[Doran’s] main accomplishment is his illumination of the saga of how Marcus Samuel Jr. and Henri Deterding became rivals in the world oil trade and then, around the turn of the century, found enough common interest to attack the Standard Oil juggernaut from Japan, Russia, and elsewhere outside the U.S. . . . A readable popular history told largely through the actions of swashbuckling tycoons.”
— Kirkus Reviews
peterbdoran.com
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Deanship services
Prince Sultan University About PSU Rector Rector Message
Marhaba! Welcome to Prince Sultan University!I am greatly honored and humbled to serve as the Rector of Prince Sultan University.
PSU is, truly proud, proud to be directly linked to one of the milestone changes in the Higher Education System in Saudi Arabia, and that is the establishment of private higher education. The university was founded in 1999 by the Riyadh Philanthropic Society for Science, under the auspices of The Custodian of The Two Holly Mosques King Salman Ben Abdul-Aziz. The university was established in dedication to the late Crown Prince Sultan Bin Abdul-Aziz.
PSU was launched with the vision of becoming the leading non-profit private university in the Kingdom and the Middle-East Region. Its aspiration was and still is to provide quality higher education on par with that found in reputable institutions
throughout the world. And in many respects, we are on course in the journey to achieve our vision. Our progress toward that end is manifested by PSU’s good reputation of its graduates in the workplace. Our commitment to provide the highest quality undergraduate programs has produced quality graduates. We are confident that PSU alumni will continue to play leading roles in the current and coming generations of professionals in the Kingdom in the realms of business, IT, engineering, jurisprudence and humanities.
Now in its second decade, the university expanded from three to five colleges: College of Business Administration (CBA), College of Computer and Information Sciences (CCIS), College of Engineering (CE), College of Law (CL), College of Humanities (CH).
The CBA and CCIS undergraduate degree programs enroll students of both the university's campuses with one exception. The CBA offers BS degrees in Accounting, Finance and Marketing to all, with the BS in Aviation Management offered only on the Campus for Men. Bachelors programs in Computer Science, Information Systems and Software Engineering open to all CCIS students.
The CE degree programs are differentiated by campus. On the Campus for Women, the offerings are BS in Architecture and BS in Interior Design. On the Men's campuses there are three undergraduate degree options: Communications and Networks Engineering, Engineering Management - Construction, and Engineering Management - Production and Manufacturing.
The Campus for Women houses the CL and CH as well. The first offers a BA in Law featuring a choice of three areas of specialization: Commercial Law, International Law, or Advanced Saudi Law. The Humanities College currently offers BAs in Applied Linguistics and Translation.
At the graduate level the CBA offers a Masters in Business Administration (MBA), the CCIS a MS in Software Engineering (MSE), and the CL an Ms in Commercial Law. On the horizon the CCIS MS in Cyber Security and the CL are in the works and will soon be operationalized.
As the catalog of PSU degree programs grows so too will the infrastructure: the buildings and facilities on the PSU adjoining campuses. Work is nearing completion on the Men’s Campus Orientation Building and on the Women’s Campus Recreational Building, and structures dedicated to each College to follow as integral parts of PSU forthcoming new campus.
I invite you all young men and women to visit our campuses and explore them as they grow. Better yet for those of you nearing college age. I would like you to come and become a part of the University.
As we did throughout our first decade, we will continue to provide the youth of the Kingdom, Saudis and Non-Saudis, with pathways – lined and lit up with challenges, opportunities, and adventure –to bright rewarding futures. For more details, please explore our Website at www.psu.edu.sa
Dr. Ahmed Yamani
PSU Rector
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Jillian Michaels Slams Fad Diets and Urges People ‘Do Not Do Keto’
If you’re looking to slim down before bikini season officially starts, Jillian Michaels says choosing a fad diet, like keto, isn’t the right choice.
The personal trainer and Just Jillian star explained her thoughts on the low-carb, moderate protein and high-fat diet while guest starring on PEOPLE TV.
“Don’t do keto,” she says. “How much time do I have? And I’m not allowed to swear? Yes, keto is a diet fad. The reason that keto has been getting so much attention is because it helps significantly to manage your insulin levels. Very high insulin, very bad thing.”
While those with conditions associated with high insulin levels like polycystic ovary syndrome, type 2 diabetes, and infertility may consider the diet, Michaels says it doesn’t make sense for most people.
“If you’re not eating a bunch of processed carbs and processed sugar and you’re not eating too much food in general, you won’t have insulin levels that are going through the roof,” she says.
RELATED: PEOPLE Explains: Everything You Need to Know About the Keto Diet
The 44-year-old went on to add that fads like the ketogentic diet—which has been praised by stars like Kourtney Kardashian and Halle Berry (who is a diabetic)—might influence people to think they “can eat whatever” in terms of quantity of food, when in fact the opposite is true.
“Calorie management and calorie restriction is less oxidative stress, so it’s far better for aging and being healthier,” she says.
Michaels promises the secret to looking and feeling your best doesn’t have to be overcomplicated. “Do not go keto. Just work out, eat clean and don’t overeat. I promise you, balanced diet,” she says. “It’s that simple.”
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West Hill Elementary School
Griswold Middle School
Documents, Forms & Policies
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Welcome to Rocky Hill Public Schools Board of Education District
Welcome to Rocky Hill Public Schools
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761 Old Main Street Suite 231 | Rocky Hill, CT 06067 | P: 860-258-7701 F: 860-258-7710
Rocky Hill Public Schools Notice of Non-Discrimination
The Rocky Hill Board of Education prohibits discrimination or harassment on the basis of race, color, religious creed, age, marital status, military or veteran’s status, national origin, ancestry, sexual orientation and past or present learning disability, physical disability or mental disorder. The Rocky Hill Board of Education provides equal access to the Boy Scouts and other designated youth groups. The Rocky Hill Board of Education guarantees compliance under Titles VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Educational Amendments Acts of 1973, section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the American with Disabilities Act of 1991 and Connecticut General Statutes 46a-60.
The following person has been designated to handle inquiries regarding the non-discrimination policies:
Amy Stevenson
Director of Special Education and Pupil Personnel Services
761 Old Main St.
For further information on non-discrimination, visit: http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/office/about/rgn-hqaddresses.html
for the address and phone number of the office that serves your area, or call 1-800-421-3481.
Rocky Hill Public School’s is committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of technology or ability. This website endeavors to comply with best practices and standards defined by Section 508 of the U.S. Rehabilitation Act. If you would like additional assistance or have accessibility concerns, please contact Katie DeLoureiro at 860-258-7701 ext. 1163 or via email here. We are always striving to improve the accessibility standards of our website.
Copyright © 2019 Rocky Hill Public Schools
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From Stranger to Sister
How one Palestinian served as an agent of reconciliation
The lights are low in the Brooklyn bar, and jazz fills the space. Salam Qumsiyeh is lost in the music. She loves jazz. The set ends, and the 25-year-old Palestinian, visiting New York from her home in Bethlehem, leans over to talk to the friend she came with. Her friend mentions that one of the musicians, a man about her age, is Israeli. That catches Qumsiyeh off guard.
She can count on one hand the number of times she has had a real conversation with an Israeli. The interactions she has had with the Israeli occupiers of her hometown are more hostile than conversational. But here she is, captivated by this music, delighted.
She decides to talk to him. She explains that she’s here to help a few churches learn about the conflict between Israel and Palestine. He says he has lived in New York City for a long time, making music. She says it’s her first visit. They talk about the conflict and agree that their generation is more open minded than their parents’.
Before he heads back up for the next set, she tells him, “For the first time in 25 years, an Israeli has made me happy!”
Qumsiyeh visited New York last fall at the invitation of a team of people from Woodstock Reformed Church. Pastor Joshua Bode heard of Qumsiyeh through her articles; she’s a journalist and a Christian, committed to educating others about Palestine. The congregation has been working through the Ridder Church Renewal process, which equips leaders to guide their churches through deep change to reach God’s vision for their future. The process expanded their understanding of mission. The team imagined Qumsiyeh’s visit as a kind of reverse mission trip, where she would offer something to their congregation and to four others—First Church in Albany (RCA), Old First Reformed Church in Brooklyn, Trinity Reformed Church in Ridgewood, and First Reformed Church of Schenectady.
Wanting greater understanding, they extended an invitation, and Qumsiyeh came. Getting to the United States was a bureaucratic obstacle course, but that’s typical for her day-to-day life. Because of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, not only did she need to travel to Jerusalem to get a visa to travel to the U.S., but she also needed to obtain permission from the Israeli government to travel to Jerusalem to apply for the visa. And on the day she flew, she had to cross three checkpoints—one Palestinian, one Israeli, and one Jordanian—on her way to the airport because the only way for her to fly to the U.S. is by way of Jordan.
“I’m facing the occupation,” she says about her life in Palestine. “I face it every single day.” She came to the United States to help other people understand her daily realities—the precariousness, fear, and limits.
Qumsiyeh was in New York for a month, visiting the five churches and staying with church members. She spoke about her life in Bethlehem, as a minority Palestinian Christian, and under the Israeli occupation.
Qumsiyeh often encounters the perception that there are no Christians in Palestine. Though their numbers are small—just 2 percent of the population—their presence is real. Qumsiyeh also finds herself having to explain that Palestinians are educated, open-minded people who care about the broader world.
It’s difficult for North Americans to imagine life under occupation, says Thomas Goodhart, pastor of one of the other host churches, Trinity Reformed. “Living under the reality of the occupation is constant and always impinges upon your freedom of movement. … As U.S. citizens, we have great freedom in being able to cross borders. … We all complain about bureaucracy, but it’s much greater there.”
Beyond giving presentations to the churches, Qumsiyeh packed her schedule full. Her hosts in upstate New York took her boating, waterskiing, canoeing, and hiking. In New York City, she learned the subway system. She went to concerts and movies. She ate at nearly every kind of restaurant New York has to offer—Indian, Polish, Chinese, Japanese, Egyptian, Italian, and even American diners.
Even long car rides were novel to Qumsiyeh: “When we would go on a ride for two to three hours, I just loved that because we can travel so far. The space, the forests, the lands—we don’t have that [in Palestine]. I just loved to be in a car and look at everything.”
Qumsiyeh’s visit took a political and cultural abstraction and made it personal.
Since her visit, Goodhart and his congregation pay more attention: “Now we hear about something in the West Bank and we ask, ‘Oh, I wonder how Salam is and how that affects her.’”
Bode echoes that. “It’s one thing to have an academic interest or political interest, but once you start making friends, it’s part of your person now,” he says. “I think about my kids—for it to be normal for them to have someone come to our house who’s from a different country who speaks a different language. It’s such a world-expanding, formational gift.”
For Bode, his congregation’s commitment to friendship with Qumsiyeh is simply being faithful to the gospel.
“It’s rooted in 2 Corinthians—in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. For me, the fundamental witness that God reveals through the life and witness of Jesus and Scripture … is showing us a God that says fullness of life is about crossing boundaries and finding love.
“[Overcoming] cross-cultural boundaries is important … to live into God’s pattern of salvation and reconciliation.”
Rather than siding with one victimized group, Bode says, “Christians have to find a way where every victim’s story is cherished … I want Christians to show up in the world and show up as catalysts for reconciliation.”
That is exactly what Woodstock Reformed is trying to do. Many Jews live near the church, so the congregation’s love extends not only to their new Palestinian Christian friend but also to their Jewish neighbors. Since Qumsiyeh returned home, members of the congregation met with a local rabbi and continued to learn. Several people keep in touch with Qumsiyeh, and a few are planning to make a trip to visit her.
“There’s an Arabic word, habibti, that means ‘my sister,’ ‘my brother,’” says Goodhart. “By the conclusion of our time, I could clearly say she was my habibti.”
Pray for Qumsiyeh, for the Palestinian Christian community, and ultimately for peace between Israel and Palestine.
Consider how you and your church might take steps to act as agents of reconciliation in the world or in your neighborhood.
Curious about Ridder Church Renewal and the impact it could have on your church? Email thriving@rca.org for more details.
RCA Global Mission is building bridges for reconciliation in the Holy Land. The Peace Project is pro-Israel, pro-Palestine, and pro-justice because it is pro-Jesus. We’re working toward lasting change in a few ways: policy work, economic development, education, and reconciliation—and you can help.
Interested in a study trip to Israel/Palestine? Email Joshua Vis to learn more about upcoming trips.
At Home in the Faith
It’s Never Okay
Beyond Wells and Wellbeing
Glory in the “Third Third”
On Mission, Even with Cancer
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Jul 31 The Worst Song Ever
popular music history
I make resources. I help to spread ideas about music. I try to find something to love or at least something of interest in songs across many genres, many eras, and artists of every demographic. In all of the music my kids show enthusiasm for, I try to point out something interesting I hear. How you talk about the music that kids make, as well as the music kids love, matters. Sometimes, that pursuit of appreciation conflicts with my personal taste.
Someone asked me once if there was any music out there that I simply hated. As I grow older, I realize that there is a lot of music that doesn't move me, that doesn't connect with me emotionally, or doesn't particularly interest me. That's a more fair shake than to say I hate any particular music. And there is also a lot of music made that warrants valid criticism.
But what about going deeper than that, even? Is there any music out there you deeply, intensely hate?
Or, can you answer the age old question that Bob Boilen & crew have been bandying about forever: what is the worst song ever? (Hint: it's definitely not "We Didn't Start the Fire".)
I started to think about it all the way back in April of 2017, and I hereby submit my entry for the worst song ever:
I promise you: no good can come of Kid Rock.
Emily, you're really shooting fish in a barrel here. There's nothing controversial about decrying late 90s nu metal, a subgenre that represented the shattered remnants of a genuine, massive progression in pop music. Why don't you really put yourself out there and tell your readers that "All Apologies" is the worst song ever?
Well, because that would be disingenuous. I don't believe "All Apologies" is the worst song ever.
Submitting this song to the list of Worst Songs Ever is not an exercise in critical forensics for me. Rather, it is taking to task everything that someone like Kid Rock stands for. Aside from my distaste for the song, there are lots of good reasons to refer to this as the Worst Song Ever. I'll give you four.
1) Genres in a Blender. A distinct feature of late 90s "alternative radio rock" (by then a big business) was the combination of heavily distorted guitars and the omni-present turntable scratching. Usually this combo was accompanied by an angry white man shout-rapping. Some bands of that era did that better than others. I admit to having loved them at the time, but even now when I hear Incubus (and the scratching heard especially on "Pardon Me"), I don't recoil in pain. Limp Bizkit, on the other hand, has become a cultural punchline. But Kid Rock outdid everyone of that era in terms of putting genres in a blender and then laying down whatever track poured out like an unpleasant smoothie.
One of the most frustrating aspects of nu metal was anyone treating it as though it was "nu" at all. This particular form of genre-bending had been practice since the mid-80s, surfacing with Aerosmith & Run DMC's collaboration on "Walk This Way", which was beneficial for both groups and still holds up to this day. Faith No More and the Red Hot Chili Peppers had ruled the start of the 90s with much more interesting versions of what eventually evolved into nu metal. All of the aforementioned acts had longer, more fruitful careers, possibly because they had deeper wells of musical creativity than Kid Rock does. Even now, incredibly popular acts like Twenty One Pilots, who rap a great deal in their songs, have more interesting things going on in their music than anything that happened in late 90s nu metal.
The first time I showed my students the Run DMC/Aerosmith video for "Walk This Way", I compared it to eating Wendy's French fries with a Frosty. If you haven't attempted this combo yet, you're missing out. Kid Rock's mash-up of rock & rap sounds less like a sweet & savory combo and more like donut juice, or some other unpleasant combo that doubles as a vape flavor.
Either way, what results on "Bawitdaba" is a lot of disparate sounds all ground together through a production pulverizer. After an initial crescendo and a short instrumental break at 2:25, there's not a lot to keep the audience's attention. There's almost no change in dynamic, no well-placed pause, no shift in tempo or meter, very little change in instrumentation, very little evidence of structure, and almost no variation vocally. Instead, all we get are massively distorted guitars, massively distorted vocals, and lots of in-your-face noise that plays underneath someone who really has nothing to say. By comparison, "Watch me whip / watch me nae-nae" is at least instructive. Rock's verses are simply shout-outs to broadly defined groups of people. It's like an extremely early version of, "Look at us with our economic anxiety out here!" And while I love the concept of defending pop nonsense, there is genuinely nothing to this chorus, which almost sounds as though it's backed by explosives. It's onomatopoeia with no purpose, unless you move onto item number 2...
2) Appropriation. Based on this song and even more so, the video, Rock comes off as one of those guys who defends himself from accusations of racism, sexism, and ableism by reminding his audience that, "I started out with hip-hop! I'm from Detroit! I have black friends! My drummer was a black woman! My old best friend was a little person! I can't be any of those things you say that I am!"
And yes, other musicians quote lines from other songs all the time, as Rock does here with the "Up jump the boogie" (a notable line from the Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight", a cornerstone rap single). The onomatopoeic title also refers to "Rapper's Delight". But aside from the borrowing of that lyric, there is no homage paid here to hip-hop. Not to mention that Rock's trailer park persona, as presented in both the video and in the multiple shout-outs he yells in the verses, is also posturing, seeing as he grew up on a million dollar estate with horses in suburban Michigan.
Not to mention that this gentleman who happens to be white is showing absolutely zero rapping prowess in this song, and yet is praised for his efforts (this song was nominated for a Grammy in 2000 for Best Hard Rock Performance). See below.
3) Shouting/Monotone. There is no vocal inflection in the chorus. There are no changing pitches. If you were to arrange this for a wind ensemble, playing the chorus would sound like an articulation exercise gone horrifically wrong. Similarly, the rapped section is as boring as can be. I read a then-current review of Devil without a Cause, the album that "Bawitdaba" appeared on, by me & Thurston Moore's old pal Robert Christgau, in which he compares the nonsense chorus to work by Missy Elliott. Among the spectrum of differences between Rock and Elliott, Missy has always distinguished herself from other rappers by her treasure trove of vocal inflections atop her bonkers reserves of creativity. When compared to other 90s rappers, Rock continues to pale in comparison. He doesn't have the grit of Tupac's voice, the melodic sense of Notorious B.I.G., the rising tessitura of Snoop Dogg (or even Warren G), the furious diction of DMX, the melodrama of Busta Rhymes, the triplet cadence or rhythmic wordplay of Jay-Z, or the pitch-scooping attitude of Lil' Kim. Rock lacks the rhythmic dexterity of Eminem (whom I also detest but can at least credit some competancy). In this song, all we hear is loudness. The rapping is loud and it's very boring.
4) Focus-grouped into Obliteration. Apparently, early in his career, Rock drew praise from members of the Insane Clown Posse, a controversial rap collective turned cultural touchstone who also sprang from Detroit in the 1990s. For all the awful ICP lyrics and cultlike behavior of their fans, referred to as Juggalos, their music was never intended to be commercial, and thus they could get away with ludicrous wordplay and generally unsuitable themes in their lyrics. For better or worse, this has made ICP into cult icons who still have a inexplicably large following.
In the case of "Bawitdaba", however, apparently a multitude of f-bombs and references to homicide were eventually replaced with a plea to "love someone" in "the pit" in order to garner radio airplay (and eventually score Kid Rock a duet with Sheryl Crow). Violent-J must have been so upset when he heard the final radio edit of this song.
As mentioned before, Rock makes unspecific platitudes to "homies" (appropriation) of all sorts, leaning heavy on stereotypes and harmful -isms (interestingly enough, in the music video, when Rock refers to "crackheads", the camera focuses on the one black young man who is walking alongside Rock).
Kid Rock's musical journey has indeed been a strange one. He landed on the national scene with this truly terrible debut that somehow won some praise. He then moved on to be a guy who played more "intimate" venues and then famously rhymed "things" with "things". (I mean, come on. Katy Perry at lease uses a very Emily Dickinson sense of slant rhyme in her songs.) He was a rapper, and then a rocker, and then a country star. He's changed genres more often than 1990s Christian acts. While some may argue that genres don't really even matter anymore, his constant shifting comes off as even more disingenuous than Garth Brooks's short stint as soul patch wearing Chris Gaines.
Over the last two years, he became a darling of the middle American conservative movement, even threatening a Michigan run for Senate. But just like in his songs, when it seemed like something might even make sense, he just dropped a few f-bombs and kept on blowing things up.
Maybe some of the things we love are bound by where we grew up. Having come of age in Central Florida, my unshakeable admiration for Tom Petty needs no defending. Seeing that my entire family is from Long Island, NY, Billy Joel is likewise religion (and hence my defending "We Didn't Start the Fire" to the death). Maybe Michiganders can find something worth defending in Kid Rock's ouvre. I'm willing to imagine that there is a magic to Kid Rock that I just don't understand or appreciate. But I also imagine that Kid Rock is to hip-hop what fellow Michigander Betsy DeVos is to education -- someone who claims to admire it but not-so-secretly has always been on a mission to destroy it.
the worst song ever, michigan, four reasons, betsy devos
Aug 2 Dark Magic in 6/8 Time: Symmetrical Compound Meter in Screamin' Jay Hawkins's "I Put a Spell on You"
Jul 30 Creepy Triplets: Symmetrical Compound Meter in The Animals' "House of the Rising Sun"
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The 2¢ Review - Halo 5: Guardians
Don't let the picture fool you; the real story is in the background.
On October 27, 2015, 343 Industries released the latest entry in the Halo series - Halo 5: Guardians. Being the second entry in what 343i dubbed as the “Reclaimer Saga”, it’s fair to say that Halo 5 had to meet certain expectations. The story should build off from the previous entry, the new threat should prove more dangerous than the last, new characters should be introduced, and we should be left prepped for the next entry in the series. For the most part, Halo 5 delivers on all accounts. It’s just unfortunate that Halo 5 fails to finds its own identity along the way, avoiding big risks with the series formula and potentially standing out from the rest of the series.
It’s not to say that Halo 5 isn’t a good game; it is. Regarding the campaign, the gameplay is as solid as you would expect it to be for a Halo game. Battles are epic and the overall narrative is captivating, eventually setting the stage for the inevitable Halo 6. New characters make their appearance, and new gameplay mechanics, referred to as “Spartan abilities”, are introduced and work very well. What Halo 5 struggles with is which plot is most important: the main plot (which won’t be spoiled here), or the subplot between the game’s two leads: the Master Chief and Spartan Locke.
Treading on familiar ground akin to Halo 2’s shifting perspective; Halo 5 has the player switching between the Chief and Locke. Microsoft’s rather misleading ad campaign focused heavily on an implied resentment between the two, which is greatly exaggerated when compared to the in-game interactions nor reasonably explained for existing. In fact, when our two leads finally do meet, the moment feels forced and is quickly dismissed after a brief exchange of fists and a cold stare. It’s a poorly developed subplot that the game tries very hard to convince the player of its importance, but does little more than undermine the far more interesting main plot of the story. Fortunately Halo 5’s excellent multiplayer makes up for any lingering disappointment left after the credits roll.
“Arena”, Halo 5’s classic multiplayer mode, brings the Halo competitive experience back to form. Halo 4’s multiplayer was arguably a mess, thanks to 343i’s attempt to modernize it with “Call of Duty-inspired” mechanics. Weapon load-outs and support drops stripped away the balance and skill-based gameplay the series was known for. “Arena” marks the return of that level playing field fans of the series loved, where skill is key to victory; not luck of the supply drops. However, 343i didn’t completely do away with what they started in Halo 4’s multiplayer mode, instead simply giving it a separate playlist called “Warzone”.
A team-based, large-scale objective game mode, “Warzone” has players fighting over control points as well as fending off AI opponents that appear periodically. During the match, points are earned which players can use to requisition weapons, armor abilities, or vehicles. Requisitions are obtained via Req Packs; digital collections of cards that can either be earned by simply playing or by purchasing with real money. At the time of this review, "Warzone" is a sorely unbalanced affair. While players may start off on equal grounds, matches often tilt in one direction early on and tend to remain favor of the leading team. It's a chaotic affair that some players may enjoy, but those who were not fans of Halo 4’s multiplayer, it's best to steer clear.
So, found in a Req Pack, my 2¢:
Halo 5’s campaign, while solid in many regards, does little more than provide set up for the next entry in the “Reclaimer Saga”. The story suffers mostly due to Microsoft’s mishandled marketing, as well as 343i’s unwillingness to take any real risks with the series formula. Fortunately Halo 5’s “Arena” mode offers a bit of redemption by returning the series’ competitive multiplayer experience back to form. (It also has Nathan Fillion starring in the game, so it has that going for it.) Long-time fans of the series will definitely want to give Halo 5 a playthrough; if anything to be surprised and left intrigued by the main plot given the outcome of Halo 4.
Posted by James LaPoint at 1:15 PM No comments:
Labels: Halo 5, Microsoft, Video Game Review, Xbox One
Burn Zombie Burn: Short Review
I came across Burn Zombie Burn through the nice "You might also like..." section of Google Play's games store. It caught my eye because it reminded me, visually at least, of one of my favorite games of all time- Zombies Ate My Neighbors- and it turned out to indeed be a game I did like.
Burn Zombie Burn is a top down arena shooter full of hordes of zombies that you need to slaughter. Sounds simple and fun right? Well, that's where it gets really interesting. The score multiplier is compounded by burning things. Yes, the title comes into direct effect here. You need to light things up and them slay everything you can with any weapons you can get a hold of, and there are a lot of them to choose from. You have your simple torch, a vast array of guns, dynamite, and even a lawnmower to pick up and kill every thing you can. Many of them are even nods to great zombie films that would appeal to the exact type of player the game wants, as is the main character's name- Bruce. Almost undoubtedly a reference to the Evil Dead's Bruce Campbell.
Lighting things on fire is easy of course, but managing the flame can get a bit troublesome. I've found myself on numerous occasions being caught between a horde and a fence on fire, leading to my impending doom. This sets up a wonderful risk versus reward form of gameplay and it is extremely satisfying here.
The downsides are that there are only a handful of maps in three different modes to play, some challenges, and even a multiplayer option. But that really isn't too limiting here as Burn Zombie Burn surprisingly hangs on to the fun factor and it's small and highly replayable nature is appealing in small doses, always leaving me wanting to play just one more round trying to chase a higher score than the last one.
Labels: Android, Mac, PC, Playstation 3, Steam, Video Game Review, Video Games
Minor Steps (by Evgiz): A Micro Review
In an effort to continue both gaming and writing I've been playing a ton of great little indie gems, and came across Minor Steps by someone calling themselves Evgiz. It's a simple game wherein you find yourself locked in a strange facility with lots of blood and a dead body.
What makes this 10 minute game nice is the very small details. The way the text appears and floats away as you investigate items, the top notch sound design, and the controls. They are all sparse, but at the same time they are also perfect for the game.
The mood here is set wonderfully, given weight by Kevin MacLeod's "Anguish" leaving a haunting feeling in the player. It really does a good job of giving off a mysterious vibe to the facility you are trying to escape.
This game brings up questions with what it doesn't say. There's a strange sense of unease brought up with wondering why there is so much garbage laying around, where'd all the blood come from, who killed these people, and most curiously- why did someone eat a key?
Unfortunately, there are no answers to be found. Minor Steps starts a story that could very well go on to something much bigger, and much more sinister, with the implications. Though it's highly doubtful Evgiz will continue with what they started with this project.
Play the game here [ Minor Steps ]
Posted by joshua at 12:38 PM No comments:
Koi: Journey of Purity: Short Review
At first glance Koi appears to be a game about tranquility and peace. Finding harmony by helping other koi to freedom and going from pool to pool blooming flowers in an attempt to brighten a dimming world. But the Zen-focused puzzles here are subject to a couple very dark influences seeping into the waters, leaving the beautiful music and visuals to be marred by something sinister.
The darkness is partly from some carnivorous fish you encounter, but much more so is the real trouble in the game- the horrendously sluggish controls. They are tremendously clumsy and awful, and it makes the game extremely frustrating when the giant black fish can dart through the water while you helplessly flounder to get away. The lack of a map or zoom features mean you can't truly plan alternative paths to avoid them either, as by the time one spots you, there's only a couple seconds to react, and of course, that isn't even half enough time to get your koi remotely out of the way. Even attempting to steer around the other koi to their necessary destinations is a pain, because they seem to get caught on everything in the way and lodged in odd places while following you and meandering all over the place. There problems inject a lot of stress into a game meant to be a relaxing aquatic experience.
Due to the ultimately failing response times for movement, plodding your way through the story's lengthy levels (yes there is a small bit of story here) is a task only for the supremely patient. If the controls were more responsive, the game could've been a lot more tolerable, but the lack of balance between enemy speed and movement speed is disastrous here. It's the equivalent of trying to rake a Zen Garden while being followed by an angry 5 year old kicking and stomping their way through the sand. This Koi is, sadly, one that should be flushed with all the World's dead goldfish stores to that great bowl in the sky.
Labels: Android, iOS, mobile, Video Game Review, Video Games
Murder: The Shortest Cyber-Punk Mystery & Review Ever
What's the Point... & Click?
As a game goes, Murder barely counts. I got more interaction watching House, M.D. on DVD by pressing play between each episode than I did playing this. In reality, I would've much rather have paid 99¢ to watch this as a small cyberpunk short film instead. There's a few decent characters, the voice acting was good, and it presents a beautifully rendered world with its Neo Tokyo, evoking a sense of the dark and gritty realms we've come to know from the genre. But that's where the good ends.
Making the lack of interactivity worse is the threadbare plot and it's 20 minute play time. The plot isn't remotely new if you've ever seen anything like I, Robot- based, very loosely, on the book of the same name by the great Isaac Asimov- but it is an age-old sci-fi staple so worn and predictable that I had an idea of how it was going to end even before pressing start. There's apparently nothing new in Neo Tokyo. No new philosophic thoughts, no new take on artificial intelligence, and when Peter Moorhead claimed he was sticking to the hard-boiled influences of cyberpunk masters Masamune Shirow and Katsuhiro Otomo, I thought he was going to use more than just the leftover bits of shell. The whole last third of the game is nearly the same as the second, and felt like it was added on merely to stretch the run time out just a bit longer.
As it is, Murder seems like it should've been used as the opener for a full game. Normally I wouldn't complain about a game's brevity, in this case, it's the video game equivalent of a flash fiction story, but there is not only nothing to the story in Murder, there really isn't much game to it either. Both aspects are as shallow as could be here making it seem like the skeleton of something much larger. You'll get more action and entertainment out of physically turning the pages of one of Masamune Shirow's Ghost in the Shell graphic novels, or hell, even tapping the screen of an E-book of one, so go read one of those instead. At least those stories are truly fleshed out and far more interesting to read.
Murder: The Shortest Cyber-Punk Mystery & Review E...
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"He doesn't know his left from his right ...
but he knows right from wrong."
Review by Ross Anthony
I spoke with writer/director Rod Lurie a few months back about his previous release, "Deterrence." We spoke at a Burbank studio as he edited reels of his new film "The Contender." He was extremely energetic, never at a loss for words, a man with a plan. Nor did it distress him in the least that my review of his first film was mixed. Clearly, that film proved to be the last practice he needed, because this new "Contender" takes the prize money.
The film's slug line, "Sometimes you can assassinate a leader without firing a shot," sets the stage. This political thriller is as compelling and nearly as exciting as an action piece, but without a single explosion or gunshot. I suppose that's what you might expect from a "political-junkie" filmmaker who says, "Presidential election years are like football seasons to me."
When the Vice President dies, the President (Jeff Bridges) must choose a replacement. Though several fine choices are discussed, he decides to back Senator Laine Hanson (Joan Allen). Both parties' house members aren't happy with this selection. One adversary (Gary Oldman), in particular, is so dead set on discrediting her, that he's willing to risk his career to do it. Not unlike the American politics we're used to, the debate quickly descends into trash attacks, sex scandal and some plain and simple sexist stabbings.
The script does a fine job of toying with our own sexist triflings. For instance, before introduced on screen, Allen is referred to by her last name only, letting us all assume she's male; while we're left to suppose her adversary, Shelly Runyon, is female. The twists and turns, strong rich characters (brought alive by an excellent cast of actors) as even smellier poop hits the fan, keep this dialogue-based feature thrilling.
Criticism? Only two petty ones. For a moment there, I felt the film was simply treading water ... but only for a second. Later in the film, an FBI agent gives an over the top mushy couple of lines to a Presidential cabinet member whose reply in contrast is dynamite. But these are trivial blemishes.
I'm not even terribly fond of this genre, but I loved this film. The script and the acting are simply commanding. Joan Allen is as rock solid as Laine Hanson. You'll leave the theater energized.
The Contender. Copyright © 2000.
Starring Joan Allen, Jeff Bridges, Gary Oldman, Christian Slater, William Petersen, Sam Elliott, Philip Baker Hall.
Written and directed by Rod Lurie.
Produced by Marc Frydman, Douglas Urbanski, Willi Baer, James Spies at DreamWorks/Cinerenta/Cinecontender/Battleground(C)2000. Rated R.
Grade..........................A
Copyright © 2000. Ross Anthony, currently based in Los Angeles, has scripted and shot documentaries, music videos, and shorts in 35 countries across North America, Europe, Africa and Asia. For more reviews visit: RossAnthony.com
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Half of Bermuda’s eateries receive top grade
Fiona McWhirter
Published Jul 21, 2018 at 8:00 am (Updated Jul 20, 2018 at 10:42 pm)
On the up: KFC achieved an “A” grade for hygiene (Photograph by Akil Simmons)
Your go-to summer side
Graduates land catering jobs
Portuguese dinner tonight at Princess
Food grades
Nearly half of Bermuda’s eating-out spots have been awarded “A” grades after inspectors checked their food and hygiene practices.
A scoring programme published on the Government’s website lists 203 establishments, with 92 of those achieving the top grade.
The Environmental Health section’s “grades on licences” scheme was introduced last year, with the online publication of rates for restaurants, cafés, supermarkets, bars, bakeries and delicatessens.
It shows the results of food premises’ annual inspections in letter grades — A to D.
After the unannounced visits, the 2018 list shows 86 eateries secured a B and five ranked C. None were marked D but 19 establishments were “approved”, which is understood to be a grade for new premises when they are licensed before a follow-up inspection takes place when the business is open and operating.
One remained blank on the list and a government spokesman said yesterday it was among 27 establishments with grades yet to be confirmed, with these expected to be finalised by the end of the month.
Last year, when only 180 eateries were listed as a phased roll-out of the programme took place, 77 were awarded As and 88 received Bs, with the remainder either Cs, approved, satisfactory or ungraded.
Among those to improve their ranking from a B to an A was fast-food outlet KFC on Queen Street in the City of Hamilton.
Ginene Haslam, its general manager, told how the importance of food safety is instilled in staff through online and hands-on training.
Yesterday, she said the grade improvement was the result of unnecessary equipment being removed from the site.
Ms Haslam added: “It’s good for the public to know where they are eating and that they’re eating somewhere safe. I don’t think it affects us very much because we are very focused on it anyway but it probably inspires some businesses to do better.”
Long-established seafood favourite The Lobster Pot, also in the city, saw its grade fall from a B in 2017 to a C this year after an inspection in March.
Owner Lynn Bardgett said nothing has changed at the restaurant in its 45-year history and claimed her licensing certificate did not explain why the rating slumped.
She added: “They write down what we need to do, the different things that need to be addressed, those things are done.”
Among them, she said, were more regular and thorough deep cleaning and ensuring that food can be stored in a refrigerator below 40F.
Ms Bardgett said the issues were largely “the normal things that we do day in, day out” and continued: “Like everybody dealing with the public, we want to make sure that everything is done correctly.
“Sometimes there are slip-ups but at the end of the night, I make sure that everything is wiped down and cleaned.”
Chris Garland, chairman of the Chamber of Commerce’s restaurant division, told how it was a great achievement for busy Bermudian venues, including spots on Front Street such as The Pickled Onion, to retain top grades.
He said: “The volume of people some of those do ... for them to keep A and B, it’s a testament that something positive is being done. Between visits you can build up a lot of dirt.”
Voicing his support for the list’s publication, he added: “Anything that publicly displays information usually keeps people on their toes. It tells you exactly what you want to know as a consumer and restaurateurs take it in the respect of, be careful what can happen if you don’t get a good grade.”
An explanation accompanying the list online states that it allows people to see how well the island’s food establishments “are maintaining sanitary standards in accordance with the Public Health (Food) Regulations 1950”.
Environmental Health officers score businesses on items such as temperature control of food, personal hygiene practices, protective clothing for staff and vermin control.
A 100-point scale is used and violations result in a deduction, with a greater points tally resulting in a better grade.
Anything below 70 points means a D grade, which would usually mean “urgent action or consideration of closure”.
A Ministry of Health spokesman said: “The list includes all food establishments in Bermuda except those which only sell pre-packed foods as these are very low risk.”
He added: “Bermuda enjoys a good selection of quality foods for sale to the public.
“Ensuring the safety of our food and the highest standards of hygiene in our food establishments is a key priority for the Department of Health.
“In order to enhance consumer confidence in our food establishments and to encourage those establishments to continually improve their hygiene standards, last year the system of displaying grades on licences was introduced. These licences must be displayed at establishments.”
The spokesman said: “In this way potential customers can know before they decide where to eat, what the standard of hygiene was at the last inspection carried out by Environmental Health Officers.
“The Department would encourage everyone to look at the website when deciding where to go. We hope that this in turn will encourage proprietors of establishments to always put hygiene at the top of their priorities.”
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Gareth Coker on Ori and the Blind Forest’s four year journey – Part II
This is the second part of our interview with Ori and the Blind Forest composer, Gareth Coker. To find out how the gorgeous platformer started life, rewind the clock and...
by Chris Kerr 3rd June 2015
This is the second part of our interview with Ori and the Blind Forest composer, Gareth Coker. To find out how the gorgeous platformer started life, rewind the clock and check out Part I.
Side One: At what point did you realise you were actually working on one of the Xbox One’s flagship titles?
Gareth: Just after E3 I think. It was great, actually, because E3 was one of the first times I’d met anyone from the team in person. It’s been reported in a few places, but Moon is a distributed studio. So the director Thomas is in Austria, the programmers are in Australia and Israel, and the art team is in England. Then, I’m in L.A., and sound is in Atlanta.
E3 was the first time we came together as a group, and most of the team came over to my place to watch it on the TV. We didn’t really know about the wristbands lighting up, and that was a nice touch by Microsoft. It was really nerve wracking but then the response we got from everyone, not just from press, was really overwhelming.
Once we started reading that and interacting with people, we began to think that we might actually be on to something. It also helped that we had the support of Phil Spencer, who championed the game for a long time. It doesn’t hurt when you have the boss of Xbox pushing the title.
In some ways, did that positive reception ramp up the pressure on the team?
Well, we were supposed to release at the end of 2014, but that didn’t happen because there were a lot of bugs in the game. If we did release, it would’ve been bad. Lets just leave it at that.
I think the game community was largely accepting of that, and gave us the time to polish the game and make it really solid. We didn’t feel too rushed, and of course there was pressure, but at the same time the marketing campaign wasn’t exactly huge, so I think Ori was always really ‘the little one that could’.
He, she, it – I’m not committing to what Ori is – is really punching above its weight, which is really nice to see.
Okay, now, I’ve also got some questions from Twitter, and one person asked if you were inspired by any composers in particular, and more specifically, what’s your favourite game soundtrack?
Oh my goodness. I mean, Austin Wintory helped me out towards the end. We had a long phone call two months before the recording session. It was approaching the final straight, and I needed to get my head in the game because finishing is hard. He also connected me with the mixing engineer Steve Kempster, who did an unbelievable job of mixing the score.
You know, Austin, for someone who’s had as much success has he has, I found it remarkable that he was willing to pick up the phone. He was just awesome, and his work speaks for itself.
“Once we started listening to feedback and interacting with people, we began to think that we might actually be on to something.”
The other composer, and it’s tough for me to pick anyone out, is Olivier Deriviere. His work on Remember Me is just incredible. I must’ve listened to that soundtrack at least 50 times. The way he uses the orchestra and the glitchy electronics, and the way it blends in with the game. I actually love that game. I think it’s heavily underrated, and I think that anyone who reads this interview should play Remember Me.
I’m also familiar with his work in Assassin’s Creed: Freedom Cry, and there’s just something so different about it. I feel something when I listen to it. A lot of love goes into the creation of his scores, I think.
As for my favourite game soundtrack, I’m going to go with Remember me, though I do want to give an honourable mention to the Michael McCann’s Deus Ex: Human Revolution soundtrack and Jason Grave’s first Dead Space score. That’s an example of how to make atonal music work in a game. The opening four hours are a masterpiece of how to script horror in a game.
The next Twitter question is quite specific, so I’m not sure how easy it’ll be to answer, but another reader wants to know where you drew the inspiration for you track, The Blinded Forest?
Right, so this is basically after the forest has gone to hell. The track itself was really informed by the visuals. When Naru steps out of the cave, and there are twigs and broken branches everywhere, the music has to sound empty because the forest itself is empty. I’ve also got to give the audience some hope and nostalgia when Ori goes out to get the food, and then gets back to the cave to find she’s gone, which is a really intimate moment.
When you have something like that to work with, it’s like waking up on Christmas morning. I remember Michael Giacchino talking about the opening sequence in Up, and how the animation did a lot of the work for him. I think there’s something similar going on with Ori, because, yes they’re animated characters, but it’s a parent-child relationship and I think that’s something everyone can understand.
Adding on to that question a little bit, what’s your favourite track from the score?
Oh, that’s tough, but I’m going to commit to an answer and say that Completing the Circle is my favourite track. That’s the moment Ori gets all of his core abilities, and the music there is slightly more epic. It’s just regular gameplay music, and even though the rest of the game music doesn’t take a backseat, it does play a more supportive role, but at that moment I was allowed to go big. It’s one of the fewer moments in the soundtrack where there’s a little bit more joy.
It was also a really fun track to make because Rachel, who plays the flute on that track, was really just improvising the whole way though. She deserves a lot of credit.
Finally, and you might not be able to talk about this, but what’re you going to be working on next?
I haven’t signed any pieces of paper, but there is one small project. It hasn’t been announced yet, but the game is a really fun multiplayer game with a very unique look, and a completely different style of soundtrack. It’s going to be upbeat and a little bit funky, so it’s something totally different for me.
As for future projects with Moon, we don’t know right now because we’re still figuring things out post-Ori.
Thanks to Gareth for his time.
Like this article? Want more like it? Well then, don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and spread the word. We need your help if we’re going to conquer the world!
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Pregnancy and Before/
Parental Characteristics/
Age of Mother at Birth
Age of Father at Birth
The age of a mother at time of birth can influence the risk of complications during pregnancy, labour and birth, with older mothers being at higher risk of labour complications, caesarean section and preterm births. Studies that have assessed maternal and paternal age in relation to birth have found that older age of parents is associated with a higher risk of autism, bipolar disorder, congenital anomalies and stillbirth in the baby as well as gestational hypertension in the mother. Changes in the age that women choose to start having babies can influence the total fertility rate of the population.
In 2011, the average age of a mother at birth in Simcoe Muskoka was 29.3 years. This has increased slightly since 1986, when the average age of a mother at birth was 26.6 years. Significantly more women in 2011 were having children after age 30 in comparison with mothers in 1986, where the majority gave birth before age 30.In 2011, the average age of first time mothers in Simcoe Muskoka was 27.6 years.
Similarly, in Ontario, the average age of mothers at birth in 2011 was 30.3 years, an increase from 1986 where the average age of mothers at birth was 27.3 years. The average age of first time mothers in Ontario was 28.8 years.
In 2011, the average age of a father at the time of birth in Simcoe Muskoka was 31.9 years. This has increased slightly since 1986, when the average age of a father at the time of birth was 29.6 years. Significantly more men in 2011 were having children after age 30 in comparison with fathers in 1986, where the majority fathered children before age 30.
Similarly, in Ontario, the average age of fathers at the time of birth in 2011 was 33.2 years, an increase from 1986 where the average age of fathers at time of birth was 30.3 years.
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Home About Us Vice Chancellor
Honorable Vice Chancellor
Profile of the Vice Chancellor
Prof. Mohammad Ali Naqi
B.Arch (Architecture, BUET)
M.Arch (Architecture, BUET)
Ph.D (BUET)
Ex-Chairman, Department of Architecture, Stamford University Bangladesh
Associate Professor, Head of Architecture Discipline, Khulna University
Assistant Professor (Acting Head of the Discipline) Khulna University
Lecturer, Khulna University
Office Contact
44 (Old-744), Satmasjid Road, Dhanmondi, Dhaka – 1209.
Phone : 9124161, 9135398 Ext: 133
E-mail : anaqi_252@yahoo.com
Message from the Vice Chancellor
Stamford University Bangladesh is one of the largest Non-Government Universities of Bangladesh. Ever since its inception in 2002 the University has been relentlessly working to make higher education available and affordable to everyone. It emphasizes on the natural intellect of a student to bring the best out of an individual. We believe in making a bold stride to transform our institution from good to great. It encompasses seeking new knowledge through research and study and disseminating the same to the students. We are proud to possess the finest set of dedicated teachers who constantly strives to remain at par with contemporary knowledge and cutting edge technology. They are enriching our students with their contributions to be confident enough to take on any challenging task.
The University besides its academic arena has been playing a commendable role in instilling patriotism, nationalism and contributing to different development projects of the Government to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG). We expose our students to cultural and contemporary civic and environmental issues that make them aware of their role in making a habitable earth for them.
The University has set a benchmark in diligently following the rules and regulations of ensuring discipline and orderliness to make students responsible citizens. I extend my greetings to the students, the faculty members and the management of Stamford University Bangladesh. Let us take our institution to a new height with our selfless dedication to its noble cause.
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School Information Booklet
CAVC Information
St David’s College
Year 9 Options
Year 11 Revision Timetable
Cashless School
MMR Information
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Report to Parents
St Illtyd’s can trace its origins back to two predecessor schools.
St Illtyd’s College was founded in 1924, when the De La Salle Brothers came to Cardiff to open a Roman Catholic school for boys. The school was opened as a grammar school on a site in Courtenay Road in the Splott area of the city. The buildings were extended in 1932 and the Preparatory department was moved to a new additional site on Richmond Road. The main school building was badly damaged by a bomb in 1941 during the Second World War. Severe overcrowding due to the damage sustained and growing pupil numbers led to the school moving to its current location on Newport Road in Rumney. A house was built at the rear of the school for the La Sallian Brothers to live in. When the Brothers left the school, this building became the Pastoral Resources Centre for the Archdiocese of Cardiff.
Heathfield House was a Roman Catholic grammar school for girls, founded by the Sisters of Providence of the Institute of Charity in 1867. It was initially called St Joseph’s Grammar School, though it moved to Heathfield House on Richmond Road in 1877 which led to the school changing its name. In the 1970s the school moved again, to a site on Ty Gwyn Road in Penylan.
The two schools were merged as part of the reorganisation of Catholic education in 1987. The school was renamed St Illtyd’s Catholic High School, and was now a co-educational school for pupils aged 11-16. Sixth form provision was transferred to the new St David’s Catholic College situated in the vacated Heathfield campus on Ty Gwyn Road.
The school was rebuilt on its existing site in 2002-3. The Assembly Hall, PE block and Sports Hall were refurbished at the same time, whist the other parts of the old buildings were demolished.
Whilst the school is no longer formally a De La Salle school, it still maintains links with bodies that are, such as St Cassian’s Retreat Centre. The five pointed cross of the De La Salle Brothers is still contained within the school’s logo.
Tweets by St Illtyd's CHS
St. Illtyd’s Catholic High School
Newport Rd
CF3 1XQ
Call : 029 2077 8174
Email : info@stilltyds.org.uk
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Terms and conditions of use for the Stockmann plc website
By using the website or www.stockmann.com other Internet pages maintained by the Stockmann Group, the user approves these terms and conditions and undertakes to observe them.
Stockmann plc's website is protected under the Copyright Act. Commercial use of the content or graphic design of the website in any form whatsoever without Stockmann's written consent is prohibited. The use for mass media purposes of press and stock exchange releases, photographs and logos as well as other materials intended for public dissemination is nevertheless permitted.
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Orders, decorations, and medals of Ethiopia •
Orders of knighthood of Ethiopia
Recipients of the Order of Solomon
The late President Dwight D. Eisenhower was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame through the Lifetime Achievement Category on Nov. 2, 2009. During and s...
Eisenhower administration cabinet members
Haakon VII of Norway
Haakon VII ([ho̞ːkɔ̞̈n]) (Prince Carl of Denmark and Iceland, born Christian Frederik Carl Georg Valdemar Axel) (3 August 1872 – 21 September 1957), known as Prince Carl of Denmark unt...
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Consolidation of the Iranian Revolution
The consolidation of the Iranian Revolution refers to a turbulent process of Islamic Republic stabilization, following the completion of the revolution. After the Shah of Iran and his regime were over...
Dina bint 'Abdu'l-Hamid
Sharifa Dina bint 'Abdu'l-Hamid (born 15 December 1929) is the former Queen of Jordan as the first wife of King Hussein. She is the mother to his oldest child, Princess Alia. She and the king wer...
Dina bint 'Abdu'l-Hamid - Wikipedia
Olav V of Norway
Olav V (Alexander Edward Christian Frederik; 2 July 1903 – 17 January 1991) was the King of Norway from 1957 until his death. A member of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, O...
Olav V of Norway - Wikipedia
Queen Noor of Jordan
Queen Noor of Jordan (Arabic: جلالة الملكة نور; born Lisa Najeeb Halaby on 23 August 1951) is the widow of King Hussein. She was his fourth spouse and queen consort between their marriage i...
Queen Noor of Jordan - Wikipedia
Medferiashwork Abebe
Empress Medferiashwork Abebe (Crown Princess Medferiashwork) baptismal name Amete Maryam (born 1925, died March 13, 2009) was the titular Empress-consort of Amha Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia in Exile...
National Car Museum of Iran
The National Car Museum of Iran (Persian: موزه ملی خودردو ایران Muze Melli Xodrodu Irân) is a museum in Karaj, Iran, opened in 2001. Displayed at the museum are classic cars owned by the last S...
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Dutch monarchs family tree
The following is a family tree for the Princes of Orange, a line which culminated in the Dutch monarchy with the accession of Prince William VI to the newly created throne of the Netherlands in 1...
Dutch monarchs family tree - Wikipedia
Italian Campaign (World War II)
The Italian Campaign of World War II was the name of Allied operations in and around Italy, from 1943 to the end of the war in Europe. Joint Allied Forces Headquarters (AFHQ) was operationally respons...
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Morgenthau Plan
The Morgenthau Plan, first proposed by United States Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr. in a memorandum entitled Suggested Post-Surrender Program for Germany, advocated that the Allied oc...
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Eisenhower baseball controversy
The Eisenhower baseball controversy refers to the allegations that the former general and President of the United States, Dwight Eisenhower, played minor league (semi-professional) baseball for Juncti...
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Tunisia Campaign
The Tunisia Campaign (also known as the Battle of Tunisia) was a series of battles that took place in Tunisia during the North African Campaign of the Second World War, between Axis and Allied forces....
Tunisia Campaign - Wikipedia
Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi (Persian: محمد رضا شاه پهلوی; [mohæmˈmæd reˈzɒː ˈʃɒːhe pæhlæˈviː]; 26 October 1919 – 27 July 1980) was the king of Iran (Shah of Iran) from 16 September 1941 unt...
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi - Wikipedia
Frederick IX of Denmark
Frederick IX (Christian Frederik Franz Michael Carl Valdemar Georg) (11 March 1899 – 14 January 1972) was King of Denmark from 1947 to 1972.He was the son of King Christian X of Denmark and Queen...
Frederick IX of Denmark - Wikipedia
Haile Selassie
Haile Selassie I (Ge'ez: ቀዳማዊ ኃይለ ሥላሴ, qädamawi haylä səllasé; [ha.ɪlɜ sɨlːase] listen ) (23 July 1892 – 27 August 1975), born Tafari Makonnen Woldemikael, was Ethiopia's regent from 19...
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List of titles and honours of Queen Elizabeth II
Queen Elizabeth II (born 21 April 1926) has held numerous titles and honours, both during and before her time as monarch of each of her Commonwealth realms. Each is listed below; where two dates are s...
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Princess Maria Gabriella of Savoy (Maria Gabriella Giuseppa Aldegonda Adelaide Ludovica Felicita Gennara; born 24 February 1940) is a Savoyard princess and noted historian of Italy. She is the middle ...
Order of Solomon
The Order of Solomon was an order of knighthood of the Ethiopian Empire.The Solomonic dynasty, the ancient Imperial House of Ethiopia, claims descent from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, said to...
Chapel No. 1
Chapel No. 1 or Eisenhower Memorial Chapel is a historic chapel located at the former Lowry Air Force Base in Denver, Colorado, United States. Built in 1941, it was listed on the National Register of...
Chapel No. 1 - Wikipedia
Allied-occupied Germany
The Allied powers who defeated Nazi Germany in World War II asserted governmental authority over all territory of the German Reich which lay west of the Oder–Neisse line, having formally abolished the...
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Imperial Anthem of Iran
The "Imperial Salute of Iran" (in Persian: Sorude Šâhanšâhiye Irân) was the national anthem of Iran from 1933 until the Islamic Revolution of 1979, when the monarchy was abolished. The anthem is a chr...
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Edward Almond
Edward Mallory "Ned" Almond (December 12, 1892 – June 11, 1979) was a United States Army general best known as the commander of the Army's X Corps during the Korean War.
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Menen Asfaw
Empress Menen Asfaw (Baptismal name Walatta Giyorgis) (25 Magabit 1883 Ethiopian Calendar, 3 April 1891 Gregorian Calendar – 15 February 1962) was the wife and consort of Emperor Haile Selassie I...
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Prince Makonnen
Prince Makonnen Haile Selassie, Duke of Harar (baptismal name: Araya Yohannes; 16 October 1923 – 13 May 1957) was the second son, and second youngest child, of Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia...
Eisenhower Administration personnel
Eisenhower Administration personnel - Wikipedia
2,500 year celebration of the Persian Empire
The 2,500 year celebration of the Persian Empire (Persian: جشنهای ۲۵۰۰ سالهٔ شاهنشاهی ایران) consisted of an elaborate set of festivities that took place on 12–16 October 1971 on the occasion ...
2,500 year celebration of the Persian Empire - Wikipedia
Second Italo-Abyssinian War
The Second Italo-Ethiopian War, also referred to as the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, was a colonial war that started in October 1935 and ended in May 1936. The war was fought between the armed forces ...
Second Italo-Abyssinian War - Wikipedia
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A recent survey found that 17% of people were very confident about having enough money to live comfortably through their retirement years. At the same time, 36% were not confident.¹
Congress in 2001 passed a law that can help older workers make up for lost time. But few may understand how this generous offer can add up over time.²
The “catch-up” provision allows workers who are over age 50 to make contributions to their qualified retirement plans in excess of the limits imposed on younger workers.
Contributions to a traditional 401(k) plan are limited to $18,500 in 2018. Those who are over age 50—or who reach age 50 before the end of the year—may be eligible to set aside up to $24,500 in 2018.³
Setting aside an extra $6,000 each year into a tax-deferred retirement account has the potential to make a big difference in the eventual balance of the account. And, by extension, in the eventual income the account may generate. (See accompanying illustration.)
Catch-Up Contributions and the Bottom Line
This chart traces the hypothetical balances of two 401(k) plans. The blue line traces a 401(k) account into which the maximum regular annual contributions are made each year, but no catch-up contributions. The green line traces a 401(k) account into which the maximum regular and full catch-up contributions are made each year.
Upon reaching retirement at age 67, both accounts begin making payments of $4,000 a month.
The hypothetical account without catch-up contributions will be exhausted by the time its beneficiary reaches age 83.
This hypothetical example is used for comparison purposes and is not intended to represent the past or future performance of any investment. Fees and other expenses were not considered in the illustration. Actual returns will fluctuate.
Both accounts assume an annual rate of return of 5%. The rate of return on investments will vary over time, particularly for longer-term investments.Contributions to and withdrawals from both accounts have been increased 2% each year to account for potential 2% inflation.
EBRI, 2018 Retirement Confidence Survey
Economic Growth and Tax Relief Act of 2001
IRS, 2018. Catch-up contributions also are allowed for 403(b) and 457 plans. Distributions from 401(k) plans and most other employer-sponsored retirement plans are taxed as ordinary income and, if taken before age 59½, may be subject to a 10% federal income tax penalty. Generally, once you reach age 70½, you must begin taking required minimum distributions.
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Tokyo is world’s second most expensive city
Two Japanese cities rank in top 10 of Mercer's Annual Cost of Living Survey...
Tokyo is the second most expensive city in the world for expatriate living, according to a new survey. The Mercer 2011 Cost of Living Survey showed that Japan was home to two of the 10 priciest cities in the world, with Osaka (6th) joining Tokyo. Nagoya ranked 11th. Joining them at the head of the list were Singapore (8th) and Hong Kong (9th). Beijing was the most expensive Chinese city, ranking 20th overall, while the Indian capital New Delhi was 85th. Elsewhere in Asia Pacific, Sydney was 14th, Jakarta 69th, Bangkok 88th, Kuala Lumpur 104th and Hanoi 136th. Karachi was the 214th and least expensive city.
Click here for full story from TravelDailyAsia.com
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Aired Daily 4:00 PM Jul 14, 1980 on
John Davidson's co-host is actor Robert Hays; guests are actor Mike Connors, comedic actor Jack Riley, actress Michele Lee, members from the rock band Utopia led by Todd Rundgren, John Wilcox, Roger Powell and bass guitarist, keyboard player and singer Kasim Sulton, Dr. Henry Heimlich and Michael Medved author of "The Golden Turkey Awards".
John sings "We're All Alone."
Robert Hays
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Launch of Transformative Innovation Policy Africa Hub
Senegal, Ghana and Kenya are set to participate in the new Transformative Innovation Policy (TIP) Africa Hub. Supported by current Consortium member, South African’s National Research Foundation (NRF), they will collaboratively look at ways to strengthen their science, technology and innovation policies in order to advance their paths towards the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. The new Transformative Innovation Policy (TIP) Africa Hub officially launches during the Africa Science Forum in Pretoria, South Africa from 12-14 December.
With the TIPC coordinating team, from the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), and the project’s funding partner, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the TIP Africa Hub will begin to explore and expand TIP practise and capabilities across these three countries.
Johan Schot, TIPC Director:
“The development of a TIP African Hub is a big step for the development of the Transformative Innovation Policy Consortium. Aligning with innovative African perspectives and inputs is crucially important for its narrative, practices and networks.”
With the South African NRF as a mentor, three teams made up of researchers and policymakers from Senegal, Ghana and Kenya will embark on a 15-month exploratory TIP research project, based on the methodology developed by TIPC and used previously across the six current member countries. Following an open call for proposals to join the Hub by SPRU and IDRC, the institutions and agencies chosen to lead the research are: University of Dakar, Senegal; the Kenyan National Commission for Science Technology & Innovation (NACOSTI), and the Ghanaian Science and Technology Policy Research Institute (CSIR-STEPRI).
Professor Mamadou Sy, Director of Strategies and Planning of research at the Senegalese Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation said:
“The Transformative Innovation Policy (TIP) is an approach to innovation, once applied in the system that can help address the persistent environmental and social challenges in Africa. The integration of Senegal into this project is a great opportunity to finally have an STI policy document that will allow public policies to be based on evidence. It’s a very exciting adventure to participate in the pilot study.”
Chux Daniels, SPRU Research Fellow and lead for the Africa Hub:
“The TIP Africa Exploratory Hub is in line with Africa’s transformation aspirations towards a knowledge economy that is underpinned by innovation, as articulated in continental frameworks such as Agenda 2063 and STI Strategy for Africa 2024 (STISA-2024). The TIP Africa Exploratory Hub, as a strategic and timely initiative involving researchers and policymakers from across the continent, contributes to improving our understanding of the ways that STI policies and policymaking in Africa may be further strengthened to improve the prospects of better policy formulation, implementation, evaluation, and governance.”
The first phase of the Africa Hub’s work will include the mapping of the participating countries’ innovation policy ecosystem across the three central framings involved in the TIPC perspective – Frame 1 (Research and Development), Frame 2 (National Systems of Innovation), and Frame 3 (Transformative Change). Once an analysis of the innovation ecosystem is completed, each country will then choose a policy case study that indicates transformative elements, to draw out further findings and learnings. The case study will facilitate knowledge coproduction between the researchers and policymakers in their country context.
The launch of TIP Africa Hub, 12th December 2018, Africa Science Forum, Pretoria
In the coming year TIPC will organise two training and capacity building sessions for the members of its Africa Hub. The first will be held in South Africa in February, and the second will take place in Senegal in June. Those sessions will provide an opportunity for reflection and mutual learning and will be open to interested researchers and policymakers from other countries involved in the Science Granting Councils Initiative (SGCI) in Sub-Saharan Africa (SGCI).
The TIP Africa Hub is funded by Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and will contribute to the activities of the SGCI, as Matthew Wallace, Senior Program Officer at IDRC highlighted:
“The Transformative Innovation Policy Africa Hub is an excellent opportunity to build on and inform the work of the Science Granting Councils Initiative. It is a unique means for researchers and policymakers in Senegal, Ghana and Kenya to collaboratively develop new approaches to research and innovation policy, and to showcase these ideas on the world stage through TIPC.”
Sarah Schepers, TIPC Programme Director:
“SPRU is pleased to be collaborating with IDRC to extend the constituency of agencies and researchers exploring the TIP approach. It offers an opportunity for deep learning on TIP at both the national and trans-national levels which is a fundamental aspect of the work of TIPC.”
Senegal, Ghana, and Kenya join Brazil, Panama and China as TIPC associates. Along with South Africa, other TIPC member countries are Sweden, Finland, Norway, Colombia and Mexico.
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Brian Laegeler
brian@touchdownvc.com linkedin-icon
Brian Laegeler joined Touchdown Ventures in the Fall of 2018 to source and execute corporate venture capital investments. He is currently focused on the food sector. Brian brings over 15 years of investment and corporate advisory experience across multiple industries, geographies, and stages.
Prior to Touchdown, Brian most recently served as vice president of mergers & acquisitions for Loop Capital Markets, where he led transaction execution across sectors such as consumer/retail, software, VR gaming, biotech, industrials, utilities and infrastructure. Prior to Loop, Brian was an equity analyst for Morningstar where he covered generic and specialty pharmaceuticals. His successful recommendations led to the creation of his own hedge fund, Shimpaku Capital, L.P., which significantly outperformed the S&P 500. Brian also provided bespoke equity research services for large hedge funds and family offices based on his expertise in forensic accounting and Asia.
Earlier in his career, Brian was an associate with RoundTable Healthcare Partners and a senior financial analyst in the mergers & acquisitions group at Bear Stearns.
Brian resides in the Chicago area with his wife and daughter. He supports the local food movement via his small-scale farm.
Brian received a BS in Business Administration, with distinction, from Indiana University with majors in accounting, finance, operations management, and mathematics.
Brian earned an MBA from Harvard Business School. He is a CPA.
Favorite Athlete: Edwin Najmi
Favorite Teams: Valko BJJ, 10thPlanet BJJ, Alliance BJJ
Favorite Moment: Royce Gracie UFC 1
About Touchdown Ventures
We provide venture capital as a service for leading corporations.
info@touchdownvc.com
10250 Constellation Blvd
108 Kings Highway East
© 2015 Touchdown Ventures. All Rights Reserved. Legal Disclaimer.
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The Candle Wasters
Tricking Ben (2017)
Inspired by the ‘Tricking Benedick’ scene (Act III Scene II) in William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.
‘Tricking Ben’ was created as part of the Lovely Little Losers Kickstarter (2014).
The Famous Four Return (2016)
In 2015 we teamed up with a bunch of cool cats to take part in the 48HOUR film challenge, and this is the result!
The 48HOUR film challenge is a competition where filmmakers have 1 weekend to write, film, and edit a short film. They are also given a genre, prop, and line of dialogue they must include.
We won the Audience Choice Award in our Heat which we think is pretty neat.
Scott Pilgrim Scene - Sweded (2015)
For a Film Class assignment at University, Elsie was asked to make a "sweded" film (a reference to the the Michel Gondry film, Be Kind Rewind (2008), in order to learn about film form. She decided to "swede" a scene from Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, directed by Edgar "Genius Awe-Inspiring" Wright. With sweding, the idea is that you do the whole thing using only the first takes. We did multiple takes, but all the effects were done by hand, and the sound wasn't edited (so there's no sound bridges, and the sound effects were also live).
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How the Disney Princesses Stayed Modern for 80 Years
This is my first post here, so it's only fitting to do an analysis of Disney Princess history so far. I don't intend to only write about Disney Princesses in this blog, but they will probably make up the vast majority of it. As stated in the title, it's been 80 years since the release of the first animated princess movie (and animated movie in general), Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Since then, Disney has made over a dozen more princess movies, spanning through multiple generations of girls and women. That's a lot of history.
With how much social norms have changed between the 1930s and today, it would have been very easy for the Disney Princess line to become a forgotten relic of the past. Yet, with an upcoming reunion in the Wreck-It Ralph sequel, the princesses are more popular than ever. Why? Disney updates their movies with the times. That's why they're called "classics." Each princess is a caricature of what is considered the ideal woman for that time period. Even though most of these movies are set in the medieval or Renaissance era, it's clear that the characters are made for the audience to relate to. They're not exactly going for historical fiction here. Because of this, Cinderella was written as a standard '50s housewife, Ariel was a rebellious teen of the late '80s, and Merida and Moana were modern heroines who don't need a man to rescue them.
You might think that since Disney's newer movies are so successfully marketed to modern-day little girls, the older ones will collect dust in people's DVD libraries. Despite portraying outdated ideals that modern feminists are trying to overturn, Snow White, Cinderella, and Aurora have not been removed from the Disney Princess roster, nor will they ever be. This is thanks to Disney's enormous corporate empire, which allows them to continue promoting everything they've made until the end of time using merchandise, theme parks, re-releases, and remakes. In short, Disney is so big now that they are unstoppable as a corporation.
The idea for the Disney Princess line actually began in the year 2000 by Disney Consumer Products chairman, Andy Mooney. Even though there were already at least six Disney Princesses out at this time (eight if you count Pocahontas and Mulan), they had never been marketed together as a brand. Instead, each movie had its own merchandise line as it was released, which would inevitably fade into an occasional meet'n'greet in the theme parks. The idea for an entire brand based around the princesses as a line was, in short, magical. It gave girls a chance to pick their favorite princess, play dress up, and learn all the songs. Despite the popularity of the Disney Sing Along VHS tapes in the early '90s, the first Disney Princess themed Sing Along came out on DVD in 2004. Each princess possessed qualities that all different types of girls and women could relate to.
In a way, it makes sense that he princesses weren't branded as a whole until after the '90s because the early "Golden Age" princesses had approximately a decade-long gap between movies. Snow White came out in 1937, Cinderella in 1950, and Sleeping Beauty, which was actually considered a big flop at the time, came out in 1959. It wasn't until The Little Mermaid came out in 1989 and kicked off the Disney Renaissance that Disney began having gorgeous new animated classics coming out almost ever year. By 1992, thee were already three new Disney Princesses--Ariel, Belle, and Jasmine--who transcended the stereotypes of passive women who couldn't think for themselves.
Yet, the image that Disney used to market their princess line in the early 2000s is still vastly different from the "Dream Big, Princess" campaign that Hasbro started in the past couple of years. They went through a variety of different designs, nearly all of which focused on big dresses, glitter, jewels, and vanity. They started to morph into multiple faces of the same person, one that valued beauty and riches and went against all of the messages portrayed in their films, such as kindness, love, and inner strength. This resulted in complaints from the director of Disney/Pixar's Brave because the "Disney Princess" image did not match Merida's personality or many of the other princesses in the line, such as Jasmine, who insisted that she wasn't "some prize to be won." Despite the fact that the Disney Princess brand was enormously successful, there was so much more that could be done with it.
In early 2016, Hasbro bought the Disney Princess toy line from Mattel. They sought to change the brand to something more about empowerment, and less about ballgowns. Thus, the "Dream Big, Princess" campaign was born. It happened not a moment too soon, with Moana just around the corner, which promoted empowerment in girls even more so than any other princess movie that came before it. The campaign focuses on girls being active--winning races, swimming, painting, and anything else that encourages creativity and diversity. In many ways, it was quite similar to the Barbie "Be Anything" campaign that was released just a few months prior.
So, how does Disney manage to keep their princesses relevant as times change? The answer, as you can see, is rather complicated. It's a combination of having a long legacy of characters that are well-known in pop culture, constantly releasing new characters that evolve with the times, and regularly updating the way they market those characters to appeal to the modern girl.
animation ariel belle branding cinderella consumerism disney disney princess feminism jasmine marketing moana mulan pocahontas snow white tiana
💕 Disney Princesses! We will forever miss the look of the classic Disney doll from Mattel. The Hasbro ones are ... weird.
Oh! And fun connection to ✨Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders✨, Greg Autore, Art Director, worked with Mattel during the launch of the Disney doll line and created my favorite Disney dolls- the Classic Collection from the early 90's!
The Problem With Disney's Live-Action Remakes
Why Cancelling the Xena Reboot Was a Mistake
Magical Girl Princesses
Review: Mysticons - "Sisters in Arms"
Labyrinth of Jareth Masquerade XX
The Legacy of Rapunzel
The Legacy of The Frog Prince
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Art History Facilities MA
University of Houston School of Art offers the Masters of Art degree in Art History. Faculty are Rex Koontz, Sandra Zalman, Judith Steinhoff, David Jacobs, Rod Nevitt. Study in a dynamic city with a rich cultural art community and first class art institutions including the Menil Collection, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
William R. Jenkins Architecture and Art Library
The library collects resources on all periods of art history, as well as art criticism and museum studies. The collection consists of approximately 100,000 books on art disciplines, art history, architecture, and design. It contains over 1000 serial titles, 189 of which are current subscriptions. Many of the books and journals are available in electronic, as well as print format. Over 300 video titles may be borrowed, as well. In addition to library holdings, the library system provides access to online databases and indexes in the arts and humanities. These include the WilsonWeb suite of arts and humanities databases, Artbibliographies Modern, the Bibliography of the History of Art, Grove Art Online, the Index of Christian Art, and three databases of image reproductions (ARTstor, Art Museum Image Gallery, and the Bridgeman Art Library Archive).
The library is located in the School of Architecture building, next door to the Fine Arts building, and is open Mon.- Thurs. 8:00 am – 8:00 pm; Fri. 8:00 – 5:00 pm; and Sat. 10:00 am - 5:00 pm
E-mail: Catherine Essinger, Architecture & Art Library Coordinator
M.D. Anderson Library
In addition to the facilities and collections of the Jenkins Architecture and Art Library, University of Houston art history graduate students have full access to the M. D. Anderson Library, the main library on campus. While most art history materials are housed in the Jenkins Library, M. D. Anderson offers a wealth of books and journals--many in electronic format--in such related areas as history and religion, as well as inviting spaces designed to meet a variety of student needs, from quiet carrels for individual reading and writing to comfortable study rooms for collaborative projects. For those with an interest in technology, the library boasts a state-of-the-art Learning Commons featuring specialized software and expert support staff. You are also invited to work with any of the highly qualified liaison librarians whose subject knowledge and research skills can help you make the most of your library experience.
Special Collections in the M.D. Anderson Library holds over 60,000 rare books and over 5000 linear feet of archival materials, which are available for research projects and student-curated exhibitions. Among the holdings are a dozen medieval manuscripts, including a very fine 13th century decorated Bible and three books of hours. Other collection highlights include over 50 incunables (books printed before 1501), the Alvin Romansky Collection of Franco-Prussian War and Paris Commune Caricatures, and a wide array of fine press and artists’ books.
The M.D. Anderson Library is centrally located and easily accessible from nearby parking garages. Monday–Thursday, 7:00a.m.–12:45p.m., Friday, 7:00a.m.–9:45p.m., Saturday, 8:00a.m.–7:45p.m., and Sunday 12:00p.m.–12:45a.m.
View a map to the M.D. Anderson Library
Visit the M.D. Anderson web site
Additional Library Resources
In addition to University of Houston’s own resources, students have access to other libraries in Houston, including at Rice University, the Museum of Fine Arts, and the Menil Collection.
Art Resources include the Menil Collections (including the Byzantine Fresco Chapel Museum, the Rothko Chapel, the Cy Twombly Museum, and Dan Flavin Light Installation) and the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, as well as smaller institutions such as the Contemporary Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Crafts, the Houston Holocaust Museum, and the Museum of Printing History – to name only a few – and an array of contemporary art galleries and alternative art spaces. The UH Anderson Library offers an impressive collection of medieval manuscripts, modern book illustration, and artists’ books. UH students can also easily access art museums in Austin, San Antonio, and Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas, as well as high quality but perhaps lesser-known collections elsewhere in the state.
Art History / MA
Art History Faculty
Fellowsips & Assistantships
MA Scholarships
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washingtonpost.com > Arts & Living > Books
Book Review: 'Lima Nights' by Marie Arana
By Frances Itani, whose latest novel, "Remembering the Bones," has been nominated for the 2009 IMPAC Dublin Award
LIMA NIGHTS
By Marie Arana
Dial. 246 pp. $25
Marie Arana's compelling new novel takes place over 20 years, beginning in 1986 inside a smoky tango bar called Lima Nights. There, an unlikely couple comes together, and the author shows us how easy it is to deceive ourselves and others when following a forbidden path of sex and love.
Carlos Bluhm, a married, middle-aged Peruvian of German descent, is accompanied by his three closest friends after an evening out with their wives. A chauffeur takes the women to an ice cream parlor after dinner, and the men go carousing in a rough part of town, lying, in their usual fashion, about their destination.
Carlos is immediately attracted to a young woman in a tight dress, an indigenous, dark-skinned Peruvian named Maria, one of many women hired at the bar to dance with paying customers. It is a joke to his friends that he has "an appetite for cholas -- the browner the better." What Carlos does not know at the time is that, during the evening, Maria slips a paper with her phone number into his pocket. He also doesn't know that she is not quite 16.
And so begins a tempestuous, obsessive affair. Arana, who retired this month as the longtime editor of The Washington Post's Book World, draws on her knowledge of Peruvian culture and politics in this, her second novel. Maria, eager to escape the poor and violent part of town that spawned her, survives by dancing with customers at the tango bar at night and packing groceries in a supermarket by day. The supermarket is in Carlos's part of town, an upper-class area protected by armed sentries on every street. Although Carlos is descended from a line of rich bankers, the ancestral wealth is largely gone. He is no banker, merely a camera salesman living in the grand family home along with his 77-year-old mother, his wife and two sons. The sons are educated, and his family belongs to "the club," but there are financial strains.
When Carlos's wife discovers his affair with the young girl, their marriage ends. Carlos, who has not looked far enough ahead to foresee the loss of his family, is left to fend for himself in the once-grand home. Maria, having lost both her jobs, moves in with him.
"And then, all at once, he realized the obvious: She had seen it before," Arana writes. "She had come there to see how he lived. She had stood in the street with her face pressed against the iron and taken count of his possessions. She had wanted this house so much that she had pictured herself in it, imagined herself behind its windows, wished her way through its walls."
In the second half of the novel -- which takes place in 2006, 20 years later -- Arana truly plumbs what happens when two people get what they think they want. Against all odds, Carlos and Maria have stayed together and are still in the house, which is decaying around them. Maria is 36, and her greatest wish is to have the status of a married woman. Carlos refuses to grant this desire; she suspects he is seeing another woman.
Arana hits her stride as she describes, with immediacy and detail, the unexpected twists in the deteriorating relationship between this man and woman. Carlos, still in touch with his three male friends, turns to them for support in dealing with the problems he has created for himself. Maria turns to black magic. The tensions between the couple and their mix-ups in communication -- a word spoken in anger or haste, a word unspoken, a gesture made, a gesture lost -- become more and more agonizing. And the relationship between Carlos and Maria is not the only one under scrutiny. Arana shows deep insight into the friendships among the four male friends, too. Each man differs from the others in temperament and profession, but their loyalties endure. Advice or interference may be helpful or not, but friends do not abandon friends:
"He saw an enormous car -- like an ominous crow -- sitting in front of his house. It was Oscar's black Mercedes. Three men sat inside. Marco was the first to emerge. He faced Bluhm, opening the great gray wings of his arms. Oscar was next, straightening a crisp blue tie. Willy was last, and he exited slowly, his cheerless face telling a whole tale. Bluhm was racing now, gasping for air, the little stone striking his chest. 'What?' he shouted. 'What!' "
This love affair, crossing ethnic, generational and class lines, has been doomed from the beginning. It's an age-old story, but in Arana's skillful, perceptive telling, her characters propel themselves toward a climax both unpredictable and inevitable.
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washingtonpost.com > Business > Wires
Administration increases pressure on mortgage industry
By Renae Merle
Monday, November 30, 2009; 7:13 PM
The Obama administration on Monday promised tougher scrutiny of lenders participating in its marquee foreclosure prevention effort and threatened to penalize companies that don't do enough to help struggling homeowners.
The move is aimed at breaking a bottleneck in the Making Home Affordable program, which was launched in March but has been slow to reach many borrowers. Most of the 650,000 homeowners enrolled in the program are stuck in its initial phase and still must prove that they qualify for reduced mortgage payments. Moving those borrowers from trial modifications into permanent ones is a key test of the effort's effectiveness.
Treasury Department officials would not say Monday how many loans have been permanently modified. But a recent report by the Congressional Oversight Panel, which is monitoring the government's Troubled Assets Relief Program, found that only about 1 percent of borrowers had moved from a trial modification into a permanent one.
"In our judgment, servicers, to date, have not done a good enough job of bringing people a permanent modification solution," Assistant Treasury Secretary Michael Barr said during a conference call with reporters.
Under the program, eligible homeowners can have their loans modified to reduce their mortgage payments to 31 percent of their income. To qualify for a permanent modification, borrowers must provide extensive documentation and make three consecutive payments to prove they can afford the new loan.
To prod lenders to move more borrowers into permanent loan modifications, Treasury officials said they would use a combination of public shame and monetary penalties. Lenders' performance will be tracked in report cards that show how many loans have been permanently modified, and teams of officials from the Treasury and Fannie Mae will visit major banks to monitor their progress.
Lenders that fail to perform will be "subject to consequences which could include monetary penalties and sanctions," according to a Treasury statement, but officials declined Monday to detail what those penalties could be. Lenders are not paid under the program until a loan modification is made permanent and it was unclear what additional recourse the government might have under its contracts with participating companies.
Housing groups pan effort
The announcement, however, failed to satisfy housing advocates, who expressed continued frustration with what they consider slow progress on loan modifications and urged the administration to take more aggressive action.
"The lack of conversion of these loans is at dismal levels, which means the program has been a failure," said John Taylor, president of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. "The government needs to take the gloves off and do something much more proactive, and I don't think penalizing is enough."
Taylor said the administration should support allowing bankruptcy judges to modify mortgages or use government bailout funds to buy these mortgages from lenders at a discount and then force their modification.
"If you wait for voluntary compliance you're going to get more of what the government is already experiencing and that's frustration."
Tough economic conditions, including rising unemployment, are making it harder for some borrowers to qualify, said John Courson, president of the Mortgage Bankers Association.
In some cases, a borrower qualifies for a trial modification, only to face a job loss or cut back in pay that makes it difficult for them to keep up, he said. In others, borrowers overstate their income to qualify and then struggle to maintain the payments, he said. "How can you penalize a servicer when they don't have control over that," said Courson.
According to the latest government data, J.P. Morgan Chase had modified about 139,000 loans under the program by the end of October. But the company notes that while 92,000 have made the initial 3 payments required under the trial program, only 26 percent have submitted enough documentation to move into the permanent phase. Citigroup has modified 89,000 loans under the program. But only 1,600 have made their way to a permanent modification.
Lenders have been working hard on the program, said John Dalton, president of the housing policy group of the Financial Services Roundtable. The administration, for example, set a goal of completing 500,000 trial modifications by Nov. 1, which lenders met early and surpassed, he said.
"It's a complex program and we're making real progress," he said. "We have 650,000 people in the pipeline now and we think a high percentage of those will end up in permanent modifications."
Missing documents
Part of the problem, government officials acknowledged, is that many borrowers have not turned in all the documents needed to prove they qualify. About 375,000 borrowers should be eligible to move into a permanent modification by the end of the year, but 20 percent have provided no documentation, for example.
"These homeowners must take action, or they could jeopardize their eligibility for permanent Home Affordable Modification," said Phyllis Caldwell, head of Treasury Department's homeownership preservation office.
But housing advocates have complained that even after submitting documents, it has been impossible for some homeowners to make their way through the program.
"This is a frustrating situation for homeowners who were told if they made three payments, they would get a permanent modification, but four or five months later, it hasn't come through," said Alan White, a law professor at Valparaiso University. "I think it's appropriate for Treasury to insist [lenders do more] and to back that insistence with sanctions."
Some lenders are already working to close the gap. Bank of America hired nonprofit groups in Chicago to go door-to-door to assist borrowers with their paperwork. Freddie Mac hired Titanium earlier this year for a similar effort, and since September, the South Carolina firm has reached more than 80,000 borrowers on Freddie's behalf, helping many fill out their final paperwork, said Michael Radesky, the company's chief operating officer.
"Sometimes its just confusion. [The borrower says] I didn't understand the package. It is fairly complicated," he said. "Having someone show up and explain the process is fairly helpful."
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Fashion Murder on the Orient Express
Wm. Charleton & Co.
March 22, 2017 by William Charleton in Style
So like, trains are pretty cool, right? I used to know a lot more about trains, but it’s not something I’ve really focused on since I had a set-up in my basement. All of my trains were replicas of real life historical trains, like……
Trains are a classic way to travel. The first locomotive ran in 1804! But the Orient Express is what really turned travel by train into a luxury. The first train ran from Paris to Istanbul in 1883. Over the years, it had varying routes and was discontinued in 2009. There are, however, Orient Express inspired trains and routes currently running today. There’s a reason everyone’s heard of The Orient Express and why it’s featured in so many movies and novels. It’s an icon!
And my grandparents got to take a ride on it! In the late 60s, they took the Direct Orient Express from Paris to Istanbul. And I’m pretty sure the luggage I have from them went with them too.
I wish I had pictures! I don’t recall seeing too many, and not any at all recently. But hearing the stories was good enough. Although, I do have more than just the stories my grandparents used to tell. I have a lamp and overalls!
The lamp isn’t a big deal. They bought it as a souvenir. You can still buy them. I mean don’t get me wrong it’s a really cool lamp and still has a story. But the overalls are a little more unique. My grandmother bought them off of an engineer! She managed to talk him into selling two pairsShe gave my mom a pair, and my aunt a pair. I have my mom’s. I’ve searched for anything similar, but have come up dry.
These haven’t gotten that much use. For a while, they were too big. I wore them to the Gunnery once, and was told they were out of dress code. How anyone knew I was wearing overalls is beyond me. I covered the straps up with a sweater!
So maybe we can bring overalls back into style! I'm afraid not too many people will get behind it. You know what they say, overalls are the oldest form of contraceptive. And it might be tough as we head into spring and summer. But at least now I’m ready for next year.
March 22, 2017 /William Charleton
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SSU Picks Local Builder for Wine Spectator Learning Center
Submitted By: Valery Vue, January 26, 2016
TLCD Architects and BNBT Builders Partner on Innovative Industry-Education Complex at Sonoma State University
Rohnert Park, California – The Wine Business Institute (WBI) at Sonoma State University (SSU) today announced that TLCD Architecture based in Santa Rosa and BNBT Builders of San Francisco were chosen to partner on design and construction of the future Wine Spectator Learning Center (WSLC), an education and industry hub designed around advanced technology classrooms, a student commons and gardens, and a collaborative space for faculty and business leaders. Crews expect to break ground on the $9.15 million project on June 1, 2016, with completion and grand opening set for Summer 2017.
TLCD Architecture specializes in civic, commercial, healthcare, hospitality and education sectors, with clients including the City of Santa Rosa, American Ag Credit, Kaiser Permanente, Santa Rosa Junior College, and Napa Valley College, among others. BNBT Builders specializes in all phases of construction with projects spanning the life sciences, healthcare, education, commercial office and mission critical sectors. Their client list includes the University of California at Berkeley, Davis, Santa Cruz, and San Francisco; Stanford Hospital and Clinics and Stanford School of Medicine; and companies including Dignity Health, Vantage, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and GitHub, among others.
“As the educational nucleus of a thriving regional economy, it was important to us to engage local professionals on this project. We decided after a lengthy review of top quality firms that TLCD and BNBT have the right combination of skill and experience. Over the coming months, a cutting-edge facility will take shape on campus, designed and built to provide the University community a teaching and learning environment that meets its demands and exceeds expectations as one of California’s leading institutions of higher education,” Dr. William Silver, Dean of the School of Business and Economics said.
“The planning process so far has been comprehensive and well-coordinated, and bodes well for our ambitious timeline and our vision as the global leader in wine business research and education. On behalf of SSU and the Wine Business Institute, we’re excited to work with TLCD and BNBT, and look forward to sharing updates as the project continues,” Ray Johnson, Director of the Wine Business Institute said.
The WSLC will be located on the site of the current SSU Student Commons building on campus. The project involves interior and exterior renovation of the building to meet advanced learning and education requirements, and to support the executive, professional, and degree programs of the Wine Business Institute, including all activities, events, and research projects.
Exterior features of the building will include extensive international-themed gardens on the north side, adjacent to the campus lakes. The south side will showcase a second garden with grape vines and the “Student Success Pathway,” including flagstones with student names linked to a scholarship dedicated to first generation college students and children of vineyard and winery workers. The classrooms, student commons, faculty-industry hub, and overall interior of the building will be equipped with advanced technology features, such as multi-point video conferencing for technology-enabled learning, video production with broadcast capabilities, and multi-media exhibit and research stations.
“It is a real privilege for the opportunity to be involved in such an innovative project. Sonoma State University and the Wine Business Institute have taken a very sustainable approach by revitalizing one of the original campus buildings. We believe the transformation will be truly stunning, and provide a perfect home for this forward-thinking regional and international program,” Brian Wright, Principal at TLCD Architecture said.
“Our team is excited to be back on campus and partnering with Sonoma State University again. This project will reshape how generations of students learn about the wine business. BNBT is enormously proud to support SSU’s vision and be part of their commitment to excellence in higher education,” David Becker, Principal of BNBT Builders said.
Project contributors to date include the Wine Spectator Scholarship Foundation; Alpha Omega Winery and Tolosa Vineyards & Winery; American AgCredit; Bouchaine Vineyards; Charmer-Sunbelt; Korbel Champagne Cellars; Wally Lowry, Professor Emeritus of Business at SSU; Peter Michael Winery; Pierce Education Properties; The Rubin Family of Wines; and Young’s Market Company.
For more information about the Wine Spectator Learning Center at Sonoma State University, or for information about Wine Business Institute programs and degrees, please visit www.sonoma.edu/sbe/winebiz, contact (707) 664-3235, or email winebiz@sonoma.edu. The WBI is an education and research institute of the School of Business and Economics (SBE). WBI programs are administered in partnership between SBE and the School of Extended and International Education.
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Joshua F. Rogala. Winnipeg Criminal Defence Lawyer. (Photo taken March, 2017.)
“A Dedicated, Hardworking Criminal Defence Lawyer.”
With three years of law school along with Josh’s extensive experience, Josh understands the human element of criminal law and enjoys the opportunity to help others navigate the criminal justice system. Joshua strives to provide the best legal services for his clients by following his core values. He continually develops and maintains good relationships with Crown Attorney’s and other members of the Manitoba criminal defence bar. Joshua strives to put his clients at ease while representing them with force and professionalism.
Joshua has never turned anyone away in need of his service. He has taken on complex and challenging cases and put in the time needed to achieve the best outcomes for his clients. In doing so, Joshua has earned a reputation for being honest, dedicated, and committed to winning.
Before becoming a criminal defense attorney, Joshua studied law for three years and received his J.D. from the University of Manitoba. While attending law school, Joshua was recognized for his excellence in criminal law. Joshua was hired by the University of Manitoba as a Law Clinic Supervisor. Joshua articled with Tom Rees & Company. Once called to the bar, Joshua continued to work at with the same firm, now Rees & Dyck Criminal Defence, as an associate.
Joshua also works with and has been mentored by some of Manitoba’s most prominent and successful criminal defence attorneys. In working with these outstanding lawyers, Joshua has been able gain advanced legal experience which he has been able to combine with his natural courtroom savvy.
Joshua considers the courtroom his home away from home. He has argued and won numerous trials and motions in Manitoba’s Provincial Court, Court of Queen’s Bench, and Manitoba Court of Appeal, however, many of his clients have benefited from his negotiation skills out of courtroom. Joshua has frequently managed to have his clients’ charges withdrawn, even for those clients who faced multiple serious charges.
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Apartment 526,250 Euros World Property Portal Overseas Properties For Sale Pafos Cyprus Real Estate Agents
526,250 Euros Properties For Sale Pafos Cyprus Real Estate Agents 2 Bedrooms Apartment Property on World Property Portal.
Apartment Alexander Heights Pafos Cyprus
Alexander Heights Pafos Cyprus
Reference: CYSRAHAL22
Aphrodite Hills Resort is the first ever gated five star, fully integrated golf, leisure and real estate development in Cyprus.
The resort is ranked among the top 20 best resorts in the world and has won many awards.
Occupying a scenic and beautiful location, gently sloping towards the Mediterranean Sea, Aphrodite Hills occupies a 234-hectare site between Paphos (15 kilometres to the east) and Limassol (45 kilometres to the west).
It sits on either side of the Randi Gorge, overlooking the spot where Aphrodite is said to have risen from the sea.
It's a peaceful and relaxing place with so many facilities and amenities, there's never a reason to stray too far.
The resort is in the area called Palaepaphos (Old Paphos) and is near the seaside village of Petra tou Romiou.
This is the mythical birthplace of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty, and the founding myth is interwoven with the town such that Old Paphos became the most famous and important place for worshiping Aphrodite in the ancient world.
In Greco-Roman times, Paphos was the island's capital, and it is well known for the remains of the Roman governor's palace, where extensive, fine mosaics are a major tourist attraction.
Paul the Apostle visited the town during the first century AD.
The town of Paphos is included in the official UNESCO list of cultural and natural treasures of the world's heritage.
Paphos enjoys a subtropical-Mediterranean climate, with the mildest temperatures on the island.
Paphos has been selected as a European Capital of Culture for 2017.
Just a couple of minutes from the resort hotel, there's a private beach, with umbrellas and sunbeds, and just a 15-minute shuttle ride away is Avdimou Bay, which switches between pebbles and sand, and comes with crystal-clear waters and a couple of great fish tavernas.
There's also a Blue Flag beach at Pissouri, around fifteen minutes' drive away.
Cyprus is easily accessible, with daily flights from the UK and numerous other European destinations.
These are beautiful and spacious apartments set in two-storey units, each with just four homes to each unit.
The apartments all have stunning views of the Mediterranean or the golf course.
This is a two bedroom, two bathroom first-floor apartment with rooms that are spacious and extremely comfortable.
The apartment has been finished to a high standard throughout as would be expected of a five-star resort.
The kitchen units of the apartments are completed in an Italian style.
The bathrooms of the building are made of fine quality lavish Crema Royal Marble.
The whole building has parquet floors throughout.
The building provides a concealed dual air conditioning and heating system.
Apartment owners and their guests have exclusive access to beautifully landscaped gardens with attractive swimming pools.
The building is made in such a style that both a traditional and modern style of architecture is met.
The apartment has an airy open-plan living area and kitchen opening out onto a delightful terrace where you can relax and take in the view.
There are two bedrooms plus a large master bedroom with en suite bathroom and doors that open out to the terrace.
There is also a conveniently located shower room.
The remaining two bedrooms feature a second terrace at the rear of the property.
* Fabulous location, with panoramic sea & golf course views
* Ground floor of 103 square metres
* Covered verandas of 37 square metres
* Total covered area of 140 square metres
Please note that prices are quoted net of VAT and any other fees/rates that may be applicable.
The apartments are now close to completion and will be ready for handover by the spring of 2018.
Flexible payment plans are available.
* Stunning views of the Mediterranean Sea
* Close to a wide range of amenities within a gated five-star resort
* Air conditioning / heating
* Communal Swimming Pool
* Total area of 140 square metres
This is an advertisement Reference: CYSRAHAL22. The advertiser is wholly responsible for the accuracy of the ad information published on WorldPropertyPortal.com and we make no representation as to the accuracy or currency of the information contained within this website. The photos and details content is the sole responsibility of the owner or agent of the property displayed.
Cyprus » Pafos » Alexander Heights »
Alexander-Heights Pafos United-States-Of-America Apartment € 526,250 2 Bedrooms World Property Portal
International Real Estate Listings, Luxury Villas, Bargain Repossessions direct from the Banks, Second Homes, Holiday Homes For Sale, Worldwide Investment Pafos Properties, Frontline Beach Front Alexander-Heights Properties, Exclusive Penthouses, Plots of Land, Country Houses, Residential United-States-Of-America Real Estate For Sale.
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We meet up at a wellness centre close to Judit’s office, in the centre of Budapest. As we take our seat in the cafeteria, I catch myself waiting for Judit to sit down first. After she’s seated I pick the chair next to her. I figure sitting opposite to a chess grandmaster is not the best idea if you want to keep the upper hand in an interview.
The story of Judit is almost as exceptional as her talent. Judit and her two older sisters were homeschooled during their entire youth, as part of an educational experiment on the part of their parents. They believed geniuses are made, not born, and wanted to prove that children could achieve anything with enough training from an early age. As a result, Judit is by far the best female chess player ever, having won the title ‘Grandmaster’ in 1991, when she was only fifteen years old. She has travelled all over the world and has defeated ten former world champions, big names like Karpov and Kasparov. Even though she retired in 2014, Judit is still a celebrity in Hungary.
‘I do still get recognized on the streets’, Judit smiles. ‘I don’t mind it, it’s part of the package. I don’t like being favoured because of my status, though. That’s a wrong way of treating people.’
Have you ever thought about raising your kids the way you were raised?
‘I discussed this with my husband. To me and my sisters, it was a very special way to grow up. The education and lifestyle my parents created for us were their priority number one, two, three, four and five. That takes dedication, they were extremely focused on us.’
They must have been very unselfish.
‘Right, this was their job. They’re both educators and this was their experiment. Their job was to prove that they were right about this. Me, I wasn’t ready to give up my job for my kids, and neither was my husband. For us it was particularly important to have our kids start learning foreign languages and seeing different countries at a young age, to experience different cultures.’
Despite all of her success, Judit seems to have remains pretty humble and down-to-earth. She carefully weighs everything she says, looking at me with her earnest brown eyes. She’s very polite, hyper intelligent and above all determined to pass on her love of chess to the next generation. In recent years, Judit set up Chess Palace, a chess programme for elementary school students. ‘For many years chess lessons were an after-school activity, Judit explains. ‘In 2011 it became part of the national curriculum, which means schools can apply for this programme.’
Shouldn’t these lessons be given by professional chess players, instead of normal teachers?
‘The problem is that there are not many chess players teaching. Besides, it’s much easier to teach the teachers the basics of chess, than it is to make teachers out of chess players,’ Judit smiles. ‘It’s about more than just chess. It’s about teaching the children life skills, making them think in a more global way. ’
In the 80s and 90s chess was very popular. The matches between Kortsjnoj and Karpov, and after that between Karpov and Kasparov, were the chess world’s equivalent of the Ali vs. Foreman fight; the whole world was watching. It seems to me that chess, like boxing, has lost some of its shine over the years.
Judit takes a sip of her drink, contemplating her answer. ‘I think the game is different now. It’s still very popular, a lot of people play chess. The problem lies with the communication of the International Chess Federation. For a large tournament like the World Championship you need at least six months of constant media attention. People don’t hear about it enough. That’s the problem.’
Yes, it could also make the sport better. Is it at a better level now than it was?
‘It’s different. Magnus (Carlsen, reigning world champion chess, ed) is a very special player. He’s actually the first player in decades who doesn’t pay as much attention to opening preparation. Karpov for instance, was very much a game player, he had a better game preparation. Carlsen however, will say in the middle of a game “I’m going to outplay my opponent”. He’s clearly the best player in the world at the moment.’
When speaking about chess, Judits eyes light up as if she’s in the middle of a mental game of chess. Looking at her, I realize it’s the kind of energy I miss when I look into the eyes of the ‘average Joe’ – or László, – on the Hungarian streets. A lot of people I’ve spoken to seem a little pessimistic about the social situation in Hungary, as if they are asking themselves “Why am I still here?”
‘People are frustrated in many ways’, Judit explains. ‘In some cases they have every right to be but on the other hand they just like to complain a lot.’ ‘It’s their nature?’ ‘Of course. Many things people are complaining about are true, but I believe you can change a lot by just changing your attitude. Greeting your neighbour, smiling. Hungarians often wait for others to solve the problem instead of taking responsibility.’
Hungary used to be the capital of a big empire. Do you think that might influence the disappointment of the people?
‘I don’t know. It might , but I think you should look towards the future, not focus on what used to be. You can look back in order to make things better, not to feel sorry for yourself. Especially in a world that changes so fast. You can resist these changes for a while, but you cannot stop them.’
Judit sits back into her chair. Politics is something she rarely talks about. She would rather let the queens and rooks debate on the eight-by-eight grids. Chess, perhaps, is the most honest and straightforward form of politics.
You have travelled to many countries playing chess. Do you think there’s something like a European identity? Judit furrows hers brows, struggling to find a satisfying answer.
‘I don’t know what is typically European. Every country has its own culture, so there are so many cultures and people in Europe. It’s easier for you I guess, you come from a country that accepts foreign cultures.’ Well, in the Netherlands it’s a struggle as well. People are afraid to lose their Dutch identity to these new cultures – if there’s even such thing as a Dutch identity.
‘I know, but there are some countries that are more “European” than other countries in my eyes. These are the countries that are more tolerant of other cultures.’
It’s typically European to be tolerant, then?
‘I think so. And eventually the question is: How do the new cultures influence the local culture and what can immigrants bring to the country? Which is an increasingly interesting question to answer as more and more people travel in and out of Europe.’
So the European identity is formed not only by the people who are born there, but also by the people who are living there.
‘Yes. Look at the universities, for instance. I haven’t been to university, but some young people from my husband’s family have. There, you have twenty different nationalities in a room, it’s natural there. To me, it’s very important to be around and learn from different cultures. That’s why I took my children to an international kindergarten. At five years old, they’d already met Chinese, Bulgarian and Norwegian children. That’s important, to accept and respect other cultures. You cannot start too early with that.
Walking outside, I realize that Judit is somehow the voice of the new generation Hungarians; forward looking, tolerant of whatever culture she encounters. I guess Judit is as European as it gets.
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Robert Plant on Success: ‘Don’t Imagine That Big is Beautiful’
Jason Marritt, Getty Images
Robert Plant said he was more comfortable with the scale of his solo career than he was with Led Zeppelin’s world-dominating size, and that general perceptions of success did not match his own. He’s continuing to tour in support of latest album Carry Fire, which was released last year to critical acclaim.
“It’s obviously very flattering to find out that it’s the final icing on the cake that means I don’t have to go back to playing in the state of Delaware to ten million chairs and do ‘the big deal,’” Plant told Rock Cellar in a new interview. “This combination of spirit and humor is my life’s blood.”
Speaking of playing in smaller venues he reflected: “we’re coming back [to the U.S.] in the summer to do something more substantial. But don’t imagine that big is beautiful. I’ve been there.” He argued that selling millions of records was “not the criteria” for success, adding: “You know, we can play Bonnaroo down in Tennessee, or play in festivals in the summer. It’s not hard to reach people. You just go where you want to go and see whether or not it fits. The thing about stature being relative to the size of the audience is an archaic tradition.
“It’s okay on the way up to think that’s all it’s all about, but when you’ve been there and you know how shatteringly insular everything becomes, then your relationship with this carnival we have becomes priceless. To try and make it something to fit in with a symbol of success just for the hell of it, I don’t think that’s really where I’m at this time in my life.”
Plant also reported that he and his band, the Sensational Space Shifters, were constantly coming up with new musical concepts. “Everybody carries the torch everywhere we go,” he said. “Johnny, our keyboard player, bagged it yesterday. He came up with this amazing loop which will fit really nicely around a new idea which we’ve got that we’ve been developing at soundchecks. So that’s one way of doing it, between us all.
“Because there’s such an eagerness to contribute, sometimes you have to put the brakes on, and maybe just take two people together to find that different element that you require. Or sometimes maybe just one person. But the most important and relevant things through all of this is that everybody’s always developing, and that’s great.”
Next: Robert Plant Solo Albums Ranked
Source: Robert Plant on Success: ‘Don’t Imagine That Big is Beautiful’
Filed Under: robert plant
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You can watch "Vice Principals" series for free from 123Movies on this page, We have listed all available seasons above , you can choose and play any episode of your choice. The story of a high school and the people who almost run it, the vice principals.
Director: Danny McBride, Jody Hill
Actors: Busy Philipps, Danny McBride, Georgia King, Kimberly Hebert Gregory, Shea Whigham, Walton Goggins
Studio: HBO, Rough House Pictures
Networks: HBO
An aspiring actor and his sister Brooke, a former professional dancer, try to find their place in the world while wrestling with their feelings about their 13-year-old brother Chase’s sudden…
In the forgotten margins of the segregated communities of a dystopian future, a woman searches for the daughter that she lost upon her arrest years ago.
Genre: Drama, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, War & Politics
The Secret Life of the American Teenager
Amy and her friends at Grant High learn to define themselves while they navigate the perilous waters of contemporary adolescence. Between their love triangles, secrets, drama, accusations, gossip, confusion, and…
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Family
Genre: Action, Drama, Horror
Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23
After a naive Midwestern girl’s big city dreams are dashed her first week in New York, she finds herself living with her worst nightmare in this hilarious, contemporary comedy about…
Luis Miguel: The Series
The series dramatizes the life story of Mexican superstar singer Luis Miguel, who has captivated audiences in Latin America and beyond for decades.
The military’s brightest minds tackle the country’s toughest legal challenges at the Marine Corps Base Quantico, where every attorney is trained as a prosecutor, a defense lawyer, an investigator, and…
Respected police officer John River, a gifted cop with a troubled mind, struggles to come to terms with the recent loss of a colleague, and chases a suspect across London…
To impress his ex-girlfriend, a nerdy teen starts selling drugs online out of his bedroom — and becomes one of Europe’s biggest dealers.
Spartacus is an American television series inspired by the historical figure of Spartacus, a Thracian gladiator who from 73 to 71 BCE led a major slave uprising against the Roman…
Genre: Action, Adventure, Biography
A series that dives into the dark world of contract killings, showcasing some of the most fascinating murder for hire cases ever caught on tape.
Genre: Crime, Documentary
Damages is an American legal thriller television series created by the writing and production trio of Daniel Zelman and brothers Glenn and Todd A. Kessler. The plot revolves around the…
Trailer: Vice Principals
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Facts The Circle World Facts There is a Town in USA that Has Only 1 Population
There is a Town in USA that Has Only 1 Population
Facts, The Circle, World Facts
Monowi is an incorporated village in Boyd County, Nebraska, United States. According to the 2010 census, it has a population of just 1 person.
Actually, Monowi had 150 population like many other small town, but there was a migration to towns that had better jobs, left the major, Rudy Eiler, and his wife, Elsie Eiler. Unfortunately Mr. Eiler passed away in 2004 and survived by his wife as the only remaining resident. She continued her husband's job as the mayor and granted herself a liquor license and been paying taxes to herself.
The only income that city has is from people who passed by to rest in the tavern.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monowi,_Nebraska
Title : There is a Town in USA that Has Only 1 Population
Description : Monowi is an incorporated village in Boyd County, Nebraska, United States. According to the 2010 census, it has a population of just 1...
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Virginia Ironside
Growing Old Disgracefully
The Oldie – Virginia Ironside
Published on October 18, 2012 in Grannie Annexe. 1 Comment
Virginia Ironside – The Oldie – October 2016
If I’m honest I’m quite relieved to be free of those macho men who used to stride the streets, spanners in hand, booming “Stop blubbing!” and “Pull yourself together!” at every opportunity. I never liked them. So it’s quite a relief to encounter metrosexual blokes under the age of forty who are genial househusbands with an interest in emotions and the arts.
But blokes apart, is everything becoming too (and excuse me here if I sound like one of those macho blokes I detest) “wet”?
When I’m asked how I like my tea and I answer “With milk, please” I am talking, preferably, about full-fat gold-top stuff that the tom-tits used to be addicted to when it arrived on our doorsteps. Failing that, blue-topped stuff at the very least, a feeble imitation of the real thing as it is. But when someone pours any milk from a carton with a green top into my tea it’s just not the same. By the time I’ve got enough “milk” into my tea to change its colour, the tea’s gone cold. As for red top, increasingly popular, well you might as well have your tea neat for all the difference that makes.
It’s the same when you go an Indian restaurant. There’s always someone who says: “But I don’t want mine too spicy, please” and you can practically hear the poor waiter saying to himself, under his breath: “Well, why do you come to an Indian restaurant then, madam?” But no, he pulls himself together and recommends some grey sludge, awash with coconut milk and cardamom, something more like a nineteenth century convalescent’s breakfast than a curry. It’s impossible to go for an Indian and share the dishes because there’s always someone who balks at your order of the Chicken Vindaloo. So you’re always reduced to the Lamb Tikka at which everyone else gets out their hankies and bulges their eyes and refuses to eat more than a fraction because it’s “too spicy for me.”
Opinions seem to be out, too.
“But is it any good?” I asked a friend about a recent best-seller.
“The premise is quite interesting,” she said. “And there’s some good writing in it.”
“But is it enjoyable? Is it a page-turner?” I asked.
“”It’s a bit long,” she mused. “But then I suppose it would have to be. And I wasn’t really sure about the twist at the end. But there are some marvellous descriptions.”
“But was it a thumping good read that I should download this minute?” I asked, starting to boil with rage. “Did you like it?”
She shook her head sorrowfully. “Hmm,” she said. “Put it like this – I’m glad I read it anyway.”
Recently I was bullied into having a Pilates teacher round to my house to get myself slightly fitter than I am now. Naturally the first thing she recommended was “gentle exercise” and the second thing that happened was that I’d shown her the door. If I want to get fit, thank you, I want to get fit. I want some bang for my bucks. The words “gentle” and “exercise” do not fit into the same sentence. And trying to get thin black tights in summer is an imposisblity. They only sell a hopeless olour called “Nearly black” Nearly!
And a few years ago I was having an argument with an editor over the background colour to my book jacket. It was, in its present design, magnolia, a colour that should never have been invented.
“What about beige?” she suggested. “Would that be any better?”
“No, I want something strong that will make it stand out,” I said. “Bright blue, scarlet, livid green…”
“Hmmm… grey?” she said.
“I know!” said the designer. “Greige! That’s a lovely new colour!”
Greige turns out to be a new colour of such total wishy-washiness, so infused that it is with lack of spine, a white noise of a colour, that it actually makes beige look quite saucy.
By now my face was puce – rather a good colour for a book jacket, actually. But before I completely lost it, they assured they would go away and have another think.
A few days later, my editor rang me, her voice ringing with optimism.
“We’ve cracked it, Virginia!” she said. “The jacket looks wonderful and the marketing people and the sales force are over the moon. You were quite right – magnolia is hopeless. We know you’ll love this new version!”
“What colour is it?” I asked, hopefully.
“Mushroom!” she said triumphantly.
And of course the book barely covered its costs.
Virginia Ironside – The Oldie – September 2016
I love modern technology. But what pitfalls lie in wait for the unwary! And worst by far is when, having pressed Send, an iron octopus grabs your heart as you realise you’ve sent something that you cannot unsend. Something terrible. Something that may destroy a friendship and ruin the rest of your life. The beads of sweat start from your forehead like acne on a teenager’s skin, your face becomes the colour of old net curtains, and your lips are ashen. Not that you can move them because your mouth has suddenly become so dry that you need to use your fingers to separate them from your teeth.
A sudden thunderstorm? No, it’s not rain on the roof but the hammering of your accelerated heartbeat. Your entire body feels as if someone has swiftly and skilfully removed all the bones.
It first happened when a very sweet new friend had offered me a picture by Anna Kavan, an author that I was particularly keen on. There weren’t many of her drawings around, and his offer had transported me with its generosity. I just couldn’t wait to see it. He was coming round with it at 6.00 the following evening.
However, so keen was I to get my hands on this picture that I’d double-dated. So I emailed the other appointment. “Can’t make it after all. But I’m sure you understand because I’ve been offered a picture by Anna Kavan and I’m desperate to get it. So rather than wait till next week, I’ve arranged for the lovely donor to drop it in tomorrow and daren’t put him off in case he drops dead in the meantime.”
There was no prospect of him dropping dead. He was barely older than me. I’d just written those words to emphasise the intensity of my longing for the picture.
I pressed Send. And I sent it to the person who was making me the gift.
He was so gracious about it, and faintly amused (or pretended to be) that, when a similar thing happened to me, the other way round, how could I not behave in the same way?
I’d been writing a rather a sleazy piece for a newspaper about a minor celeb called, let’s say, Terri, and the commissioning editor had promised to send me some additional material to spin it out. She duly did – but when I scrolled down, I found she hadn’t erased the email she’d sent asking for it.
This email read: “God this day is an effing nightmare! Can you send me what you’ve got on Terri? I now have to send it to 94-year-old Virginia Ironside to pad out what I can only describe as the tackiest piece of ‘journalism’ ever.”
Bit of a blow, of course, but remembering how decently my friend had behaved over the email about the picture, I decided to be gracious in my turn. “Quite agree about the tackiness of the journalism,” I wrote, “but must point out I’m not yet 94!”
I got a grovelling phone call, effusive compliments about the piece, and, later, a huge bunch of flowers thanking me for my “sagacity and sanity” concerning the gaffe. Not words, I have to say, that I’d apply to anyone under the age of fifty, but still.
The latest horror was of a slightly different ilk. My neighbour across the road, just back from a tour of Africa, came racing over the road in a panic. “I can’t apologise enough!” she cried. “Someone’s hacked into my Facebook account while I’ve been away!”
“How awful!” I said, mildly concerned.
“No, but it’s about you!” she said. “They’ve posted: ‘Just got back this morning from Africa to find my dear other half in bed with Virginia across the road. The marriage is over and I’m moving out!” Already her old nanny and five old friends from all round the world had emailed their condolences.
She instantly denied it, but when her burglar alarm went off at midnight recently, and she, being away, couldn’t raise her sleeping husband, she advised me to sneak over in my dressing gown using the spare key to turn it off.
As I was creeping out, I bumped into one of their teenage children, returning from a party. I tried to explain, but I don’t think I can live this one down.
I love the Internet, but what a minefield!
Virginia Ironside – The Oldie – August 2016
When I announce I am going to drive miles to do my show, everyone puts their heads in their hands. “Why drive,” they argue, “when you could get a train?”
“I’m not very keen on trains,” I reply, remembering, usually, my last journey beset with screaming children, people roaring into their mobile phones, unflushable loos and a buffet car that appears to have run out of anything to eat before the train has left the station.
But this time the journey to Cockermouth, where I was headed, in the Lake District, from London, did seem a bit of a stretch even for a seasoned driver like me, so I booked a train to Penrith (change at Preston), where I’d be collected.
The show was scheduled for Sunday evening, so I boarded the train at Euston at lunchtime and settled in with my crossword puzzle for a few hours of happy immobility.
Not for long, however. “Ladies and gentlemen,” announced a voice, brimming, it seemed with pleasure. “I have to announce that due to a person on the line, this train has been diverted, resulting in our arriving at Preston half an hour late. We apologise for any inconvenience.”
The passenger opposite me shook his head. “These jumpers they always do it on Sundays” he said. “I knew it.”
It appears that despite changes in shopping laws and the fact that Sundays are just as buzzy as any other day, suicides still find the ancient Sunday gloom seeping in on the seventh day. Hence more suicides on Sunday.
Arriving at Preston late, we’d missed our connection so had to experience the most hated phrase in the English language (apart from “And now – Moneybox Live!” Or “It’s The Neeeow Show!”) which is “Replacement buses will be available.”
Maybe they were, but where? “Bus Stop C,” said one official. “No, that’s for Glasgow. Penrith. Try Bus Stop B. No, that’s been cancelled,” said another. On and on it went until, after half an hour in the pouring rain, my phone battery running out and the Cockermouth stage manager starting to have kittens, the replacement bus arrived and off we set along the motorway. But after only twenty minutes came another announcement.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” a smug voice proclaimed. “We have to announce the brakes have failed. We will be drawing in to the hard shoulder so please disembark and climb over the motorway barrier and wait on the verge.”
Which found us wretched group, huddled in the fading light, as the lorries whizzed by, like a bunch of illegal immigrants dumped by a truck to find our own way home.
Well, eventually I made it to Cockermouth (don’t ask) late, frantic and miserable, did the show and then sank into my B and B bed, relieved that at least I had booked a through train home from Penrith the next day.
I was picked up in the morning by a nice lady from the theatre and delivered to Penrith station where I found the train cancelled. A derailment.
“No replacement buses!” said the man from Virgin cheerfully. “We’ll be getting you into taxis as soon as we can.”
At this point I started crying, but after an hour – and a lot of complaining – found myself in a taxi to Preston.
Disembarking at Preston I asked another Virgin official where the train to London was. “Just missed the last one,” he said, cheerfully. Next on Platform 6. Three o’clock”
“Do you think I’ll get a seat on it?” I asked.
And this was the final straw.
“I can answer questions,” he said pompously, “to which I know the answer. Next train platform six, leaves at 3. But you asked me another question to which I do not know the answer. Will you get a seat? Madam, I have no idea whether you will get a seat or not. Do not ask me questions to which I do not know the answer.”
Well, I did get a seat and this train was delayed only half an hour. I had a kip on it, exhausted with panic exposure and misery. I used my handbag as a pillow. Just as I was about to catch a taxi home, I realised I had dropped my address book on the train. Rushing back to the platform I found it had departed. The Lost Property Office declared they had not found an address book for years. And the Virgin telephone number for Lost property told me that its mailbox was full.
I don’t think I shall ever leave home again except in a car.
Virginia Ironside – The Oldie – July 2016
Ever since I went on holiday with the old Labour leader, Michael Foot, I have been wary of Jonathan Swift. Foot was obsessed with Swift, to the point where his late nephew, Oliver, would warn strangers in his presence not to mention satire or 17th Century writers if they wanted to spend a happy evening in his uncle’s company. I was once foolish enough to mention how quickly I had had to run for a bus that day only to have Michael reply, (with his eyes closed as if delving into a buried memory) “Quickly, eh? Perhaps swiftly? Which reminds me…” and we were in for an hour’s lecture.
But I overcame my anxiety recently when a friend pointed me towards a series of Resolutions for When I Become Old written by Swift when he was only 32.
When I have people to dinner I would like to read several of these Resolutions out loud before we start to prevent the terrible elderly conversational tramlines that some of my generation seem to have become trapped in.
The first resolution is not to Marry a young Woman. Well, yes, while it’s nice to have someone young and fit to look after you when you become old and doddery, young wives or toyboys can be a bit of a drag on the company when everyone else is old. “Andy Pandy?” they say, staring round, beautifully but baffledly, “who was he?” Or “How much was a shilling?” Or smiling politely when everyone else is hooting with laughter about the antics of Dave, Dee, Beaky, Mick and Titch.
Next is “Not to Keep Young Company unless they really desire it.” It’s difficult, isn’t it, when you’re old, not to be drawn to young people like a magnet. They’re so fresh and enthusiastic and, well, attractive. But we must remember those predatory old females who snuck around when we were young, trapping us as they placed be-ringed hands on our knees, hands misshapen with rivers of veins and arthritis fingers. They’d stare into our faces and breathe, through yellowed teeth, “I do love young people! Do tell me all about yourself!”
Swift’s next commandment was “Do not Be peevish or morose or suspicious” Followed by “Do not Scorn present Ways, or Wits, or Fashions, or Men, or War etc.”
I could have shouted that at the last person who came to supper who announced that he wished to discuss two things that evening. The first was why all London’ buildings were being erased by hideous modern blocks of luxury flats that would be bought by absent Russian oligarch landlords; and the second was since we were all a mix of genders anyway, why anyone should make a fuss of being trans, cis, bi or homo. I just wanted to say: “Your job, when you come round here for a delicious supper cooked painstakingly by me, is not to rant, but to amuse, inspire and charm! If you can’t do that, I’ll just pop everything in the freezer and you can go home!”
Swift’s other injunctions are “Not to be fond of Children” by which I hope he meant “fond” in the paedophile sense rather than the good parental sense. Then there was “Not to Neglect Decency, or cleanliness for fear of falling into Nastiness” – nastiness being something that none of us should wish to fall into. Young people can look great in filthy old binbags but the older person with a stain on her skirt or tie looks like a bag lady or a tramp. Swift also advised “Not to Tell the same Story over and over to the same People”, and “Not to Boast of my former Beauty or Strength or favour with Ladies.” Most of my friends can conceal boasting about their successes with ladies (not many of them having had much) but occasionally I’ll hear “When I was director of Sotheby’s” or “When I was discussing this with Brezhnev” and I hear a failing ego trying to prop itself up. (I have to say I’m guilty of this myself, even though my past exploits are not particularly interesting).
Swift forgot just one resolution. Not to take centre stage and bang on about a topic to the exclusion of all else. Only a decree like that from his hero could have made Michael Foot shut up.
Virginia Ironside – The Oldie – June 2016
There’s usually one to be found in every street these days. No, I don’t mean drug-dealers. I mean nutters.
Before anyone objects to my use of the word “nutters” I include myself in this category having spent two longish periods in the Priory during my long life, but these particular local nutters are slightly different. Perfectly nice, as far as anyone knows, their nuttiness exhibits itself only when they catch your eye in the street. Fatal. With a messianic stare, they make certain you can’t pass, pin you to a wall with a beady eye, and start ranting on, sometimes for hours.
Our particular nutter usually starts off pleasantly enough, commenting on the weather or the state of a local services, but before you can politely escape he then gets down to business. Which is to bore you rigid while terrifying the daylights out of you (funny how these people are capable of doing both at the same time) by insisting you listen to their conspiracy theories.
Way back it was all about how a man on a grassy knoll had shot JF Kennedy. The next time I met the nutter, he was banging on about fluoride in the drinking water and insisting we drink bottled water or risk having our brains fried.
A couple of winters ago, he rushed up to me warning me about the ‘flu jab. “You haven’t had it, have you?” he said. “You know that they’ve slipped something extra into that injection – it means first they’ll be able to read your mind, and second that you will drop dead at a time of they’re choice.”
I made the great mistake of asking who “they” might be, and he explained, as if to an idiot, that we are not governed by Parliament but, rather, a cabal of Jewish businessmen who meet every few months. They call themselves the Bilderberg Group and they are immensely frightening. Some of them, he explained, are not Jewish at all, but actually lizards from outer space who have disguised themselves as human beings. The Duke of Edinburgh was definitely one, as was George Osborne, Putin and, naturally Donald Trump,
A long time ago he’d explained his theory about the Twin Towers, arguing that the buildings had been constructed to make an aeroplane attack impossible. They could only have fallen in the way they did had a bomb or bombs been placed at ground level. Oh, and he said the moon landings had been staged in Pinewood. Never happened.
I learned, of course, to dodge him whenever I spotted him. I ran to the opposite side of the street, clapped my hand to my forehead as if I’d forgotten something, and turned on my heel as if whatever I’d forgotten was incredibly urgent. That way I managed to avoid him for six months. But he was too clever for me. One day I was sitting at home minding my own business when there was a ring at the bell and there he was. He’d been thinking there was something I “ought to know”. Holograms of armed forces and aeroplanes were being constructed, he told me, and they would soon be released and not to be frightened of them because they would not be real. “They want to scare us into submission so the drug companies can make more and more money and control our minds,” he said. And did I know, he added, that the earth is actually hollow?
I’ve managed to escape him for the past year, but yesterday I was trapped. He was waiting for me behind a bush and leapt out as I entered my house.
“I just wanted to apologise,” he said, “for boring you stiff with all those stupid conspiracy theories. You must have thought I was a complete nutter!”
Letting my guard down, I gave a sigh of relief.
“Not at all!” I replied kindly. “It was all interesting stuff, whatever…”
“You see,” he said, in a whisper and thrusting his face close to mine “I have discovered that these conspiracy theories are all rubbish. They were all put out by the government to frighten us! “
“How fascinating!” I gushed, as I raced into the house and then peered nervously out at him from behind my front door. “I shall certainly bear that in mind! Must rush!”
Virginia Ironside – The Oldie – May 2016
I was in hospital recently (sometimes I think I spend more time these days in hospitals or doctors’ surgeries than at home) having a spur shaved off my shoulder joint. Apparently when you age, and your cartilage disappears, as mine has, your bones start behaving rather like a two year-old trying to “help” in the kitchen when you’re cooking. As you are busy zesting the oranges and slicing them up, the two-year-old is busy “helping” by “washing up” the specially-made syrup you prepared and contributing a pudding or her own consisting of cat food mixed with earth.
The motive is excellent, but the result disastrous. In my case, the bone was trying to help by kindly growing a little spur, a spur that caught on a tendon every time I reached for a mug on the top shelf. “No cartilage, mummy!” it was saying, “but don’t worry, look what I done! I made you this speshul spur!”
At least that is how I think it works. I may of course be quite wrong and my shoulder surgeon may be reading this with his hand to his forehead in horror at my cack-handed description of this delicate condition and operation.
But back to hospitals. What I hate about them is how they make me feel so, to use current jargon, disempowered.
“Do not have anything to eat or drink after 7.30” ordered the booklet called “Admission to the Hospital”. And yet I found myself, eating and drinking up to eight o’clock, cackling the while, just to feel I was getting my own back at the hospital dictators. And before I left for the hospital, at ten o’clock, I couldn’t resist a tiny sip of water. Just to spite them.
Naturally I had smuggled in some painkillers and sleeping pills just in case they weren’t forthcoming and filled the bottles with cotton wool to stop them rattling.
I tried to refuse the white anti DVT stockings but this nurse was stronger than most and declared that they simply wouldn’t carry out the operation if I didn’t look like a refugee from the opera Pagliacci. I declared that it would be impossible for me to sleep with my legs bound in tight elastic stockings. She said that we would see about that later. Round one to her.
But when, later, she refused to give me anything to eat until I’d properly come round, I told her very politely and firmly that I would starve unless I had a hot meal right that minute. And, later, when she insisted I had to wear the garment that poses as a nightdress, which does up at the back, to sleep in, I drew the line and though I didn’t actually scweem and scweem and scweem till I made myself sick it was clear that I was prepared to go to any lengths to get my way. With a tense smile she allowed me my nightdress. Round two to me.
The moment she left the room with a firm “goodnight” was the moment I lowered my legs from the bed and proceeded with great difficultly using one arm only, to extricate myself from the tortuous stockings.
A hospital bedroom is like a fairground at night. There was a flashing green light from the emergency drug cupboard that lit up the whole rom every second; there was a curious coil of plastic that let off an eerie blue light; the light from the handset glared up at the ceiling, and the door had slots inserted in the window so that nurses could peer in at night. Swiftly, I covered everything up, and, jamming my discarded hospital nightdress into the top of the bedroom door, managed to construct a curtain to make myself invisible from any prying eyes in the small hours.
And, despite the fact I’d already received a sleeping pill, I couldn’t resist adding a Solpadeine of my own secretly extricated from its noiseless cotton-wool swaddling. Just to show them.
I am 72 years old. I am ridiculous. And yet these small victories meant so much to me as I lay there in the darkness, listening to the beeps and shouts from outside my room. To them, I might simply be the old arthritic female patient in Room 146. But really I am, I thought, not just a human being but a seditionist, a traitor and, dammit, something of a revolutionary.
Granny Annexe April 2016
Followers of this column will, I hope forgive me for returning to the subject of the charming bank manager who, when I confided to him a couple of months ago that I was going mad, recommended mindfulness. When he’d been going through a rough patch it had worked wonders for him, he’d said. And look at him now.
Since he’d failed to be in touch with a date for our next meeting, I looked back on his past emails and was stopped in my tracks. The email he had written to me six months previously featured a photograph underneath his name. And this picture was of a woman.
I checked. According to a site called Indian Girl’s Names his – or was it her – name – was definitely female. So I wrote him an email. “Can you give me a date for our meeting?” I wrote. “And by the way, I’m a bit confused because when I came to see you, you were a man, but I see from your last email to me, that you appear to be a woman. Who am I coming to see?”
Of course, the moment I’d pressed “send” I was in a turmoil. He obviously was one of the many people we read about who’d had a sex change. He was transgender. Or sis-gender. (I thought this was “sis-gender” as opposed to “bro-gender”, but have just discovered it is “Cisgender”… woops, another booboo) Or transsexual. Or transvestite. Or transperson. I’d committed a gender faux pas. I would be subject to a twitter storm as bad as that suffered by poor Germaine Greer when she dared to suggest that a man was always basically and genetically a man, whether he’d had a sex-change or not.
I would be drummed out of town. If I ever bumped into Grayson Perry at a party he would shun me. The editor of the Oldie would say, as he asked for my resignation, that I had Gone Too Far.
Then I thought that it was unlikely that the bank would countenance one of its staff, however justifiably trans, outing one of its clients as a died-in-the wool sexual stick-in-the-mud, so I crossed my fingers. When I received a reply to my email my bank manager’s reply was gnomic. “The person you are coming to see will be me,” he – or was it she? – wrote. Then I felt even worse. How trivial I was to worry about my bank manager’s sex. Essentially we are all just pure souls. Om, and so on. Om and om and om.
However, I was nervous as I waited for my eventual appointment at the bank. Perhaps it had been a woman dressed up as a bloke that I’d seen and I hadn’t caught on? And no wonder he or she had turned to mindfulness. He or she had been so insecure about his sexuality, that he – or she – had had nowhere to run. His or her family had turfed him out. He or she was alone in the world. And there I’d been, the old blunderer, raking it all up by sending him – or her – uncomfortable emails.
But then he appeared. And this time I was certain it was a he. He had stubble, for God’s sake. And an Adam’s apple. “Why do you have a photograph of a woman under your emails?” I asked, relieved to be able to get it all out in the open. “It seems very odd.”
“Oh, it’s of the person who had my job last,” he said, casually. “I’ve been trying to get them to change it for weeks but you know what IT is like.”
“Do you want me to write to head office and complain?” I suggested. “It’s very confusing for your customers” “Oh no,” he replied airily. “Don’t bother. You know how it is. Just human error. Yes, just human error.”
Little did he know what effect his words had on me. Human error? In a bank?
Suddenly I realised I’d have been much happier if he’d turned out be a raging trans person, furious at my insensitivity at sending him such a blunt email, than to reveal that his bank was rife with human error. No wonder he’d been driven to mindfulness. It was the bank that had sent him bonkers, not his sexuality.
Perhaps I should switch to Barclays?
Granny Annexe March 2016
I have a problem with the word “black”. It used to be a rather sinister word, summoning up masters of the dark arts and the shady side. I used to suffer from black moods, and black days were periods in history when villagers got massacred. There was the Black Death and the Black Prince (a man of unimaginable evil) and the black market and black clouds.
Then, about fifty years ago, we all got very nervous about black. It was thought to be a word that we could no longer use because of its racist implications. Brown people could talk about black people, but pink people couldn’t. It was a word best left out of the vocabulary completely.
But then along came a peculiar day called Black Friday. A shiver of fear went down my spine when I read that this was coming and I thought we were heading for a major financial crash, and riots in the streets but no – it turns out to be a day in the States (a day that’s emigrated over here) when everything is on sale! No matter that if you buy too much in a sale you get into the red, the word “black” suddenly denoted “good”. I wouldn’t be surprised if white goods weren’t particularly cheap during Black Friday.
Wisely, I stayed out of the discussion and avoided the word black altogether. The little black dress became, rather wetly, “the little dress”. Not much punch, but at least I wasn’t entering the black minefield. Lucky black cats had to be ignored. Now, you were just fortunate if a cat crossed your path.
Imagine my horror, however, when my bank, which shall be nameless, suddenly wrote to me a couple of months ago to tell me that for some reason, known only to themselves, they were stopping my Gold Card and offering me, instead, a Black Card!
Had I been so dreadfully profligate that I deserved this frightful demotion? It all reminded me of Treasure Island Days when Long John Silver was handed the dreaded Black Spot not only to denote his guilt but also to predict his imminent death.
But Treasure Island days were far from the mind of the chirpy Private Bank Manager who I insisted on seeing to discuss the terrible news of my transition from Gold to Black. First I was furious because snitching my Gold Card from me means I have to spend about three days altering all my bank details on Amazon, PayPal, parking, you name it I’ve logged it.
“Why couldn’t you have just phased it out so old people like me would not have had to go through this trauma?” I asked tearfully. “I have enough on my plate with all my friends dying without getting emails from all the companies I’ve forgotten to notify telling me that my purchases have failed to go through!”
“I only have ten people left in my clientele who have Gold Cards any more,” said the bank manager, as if we were talking about something as old as FM Radio or paper tax discs.
“But don’t you realise, those ten people are old, and probably depressed like me!” I wailed. “And now you’ve given me a Black Card! What have I done wrong?”
“Black Cards are not bad cards,” he explained, smiling reassuringly. “On the contrary, they are special cards with special benefits. I have never heard of this Black Spot you talk of. Robert Louis Stevenson is certainly not one of my clients, though perhaps it’s indiscreet of me to reveal his banking habits. But I can assure you, you are not going to die.”
“I can’t cope with all this change,” I groaned. “I want to kill myself”
“There, there,” he said. “I, too have felt like you in the past. And may I tell you the secret of my ability to transcend such problems?”
I nodded, but fearfully, because I half knew what he was going to say. “Mindfulness,” he said. “It is quite brilliant. You see how calm I am in the face of your accusations and distress? It’s all due to mindfulness.”
He clearly had not read my views on mindfulness. And so, touched by his not only confiding in me about his problems, but also sharing his cure, I decided not to hand him the Black Spot after all.
Though God knows he and his beastly bank, deserve it.
Granny Annexe February 2016
When my rheumatologist referred me to what he described as a “pain man” I assumed that I was going to a man who would reduce my pain. I had an agonising trapped nerve in my neck and an agonising trapped nerve at the base of my spine and despite vast quantities of Valium, di-hydrocodeine and paracetamol, nothing worked. I’d got a neck support, a lumbar support, I placed rolled-up towels under my neck and my body was covered with so many heat pads I felt as if I were being barbecued. I did daily exercises but the pain persisted.
On top of this I was severely depressed due to various personal problems and a propensity, as they say, to chronic gloom.
When I got to the pain man, I was desperate.
He called my name but by the time I got to his door – pain made me walk very slowly – it had been slammed shut. I knocked nervously.
“I’m with a patient!” came the angry response
“But I’m your patient!” I ventured, timidly.
He opened the door in a glowering rage. He looked from me to the woman who was sitting in the chair opposite his desk.
“So who’s Virginia Ironside?” he barked.
“I am,” I said, through my tears. And the other woman slunk from the room.,
“I would have found out soon enough,” he said with a grim attempt at a smile. “Now I can see we have a complex case here. But I don’t want to hear anything from you. We’ve only got half an hour to sort you out” (Bupa was kindly paying him £250) “and I’ll ask the questions, if you don’t mind.
“First. On a scale of one to ten could you describe how painful are a) your shoulders b) your back c) your knees and d) your feet.”
“Could I just explain…”
He drummed his fingers as he stared at the MRI scan of my spine.
“I’m not sure I should show you this,” he said, turning the screen towards me and revealing a hideously deformed set of vertebrae, “but it seems to me inconceivable you don’t have thoracic pain as well. Do you?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said, starting to cry.
“Between the shoulder blades. Well, if not now, certainly later,” he said.
“My GP suggested amitriptyline as an anti-depressant and muscle and nerve pain killer so I wondered what you..”
“Good on the muscle and nerve pain. Rubbish as an anti-depressant,” he barked.
Hadn’t he heard of the placebo effect? Apparently not.
“I’m referring you to my team,” he said. “Dr. X for physio and Dr. Y for psychological management – CBT, visualisation etc. If that doesn’t work, cortisone injections and operations on your spine.”
He waved me out.
I came out worse than I went in. Tears were pouring down my cheeks. I know all about CBT and often use it myself. As a writer, I’ve tried imagining myself on a beach when I feel low, and it just makes me feel miserable on a beach.
Pain men? Is it relieving pain they get off on, or is it pain itself? The last one I’d gone to had suggested I try a cream which contains chilli on the grounds that the pain of the chilli masks the pain of the original pain. Another £250 down the drain.
After going home and not going out for a week, unable even to get dressed I felt so despairing, I made an appointment to see a cranial osteopath.
I know. No scientific proof, might as well juggle ping pong balls, but many swore by her.
From the moment she bestowed on me a dazzling and sympathetic smile, I knew this would be a different experience. She asked me a few questions, made me lie down, put her hands under my back and declared: “But of course you’re in pain! You’re in shock! And you’re absolutely exhausted! Let’s sort you out and then you can worry about cortisone injections of operations if you still hurt. Oh, poor old you! You have been in the wars!”
I came out feeling as if I were dancing on air. All pain had lessened and I could smile at last. It may all be in my mind, but what a difference kindness makes!
What is it about doctors? Or is it just me?
Granny Annexe January 2016
When my son was small we had cats, tropical fish, and gerbils. I repressed my natural antipathy to caged animals, and we went up to an industrial estate in the suburbs to buy about 30 large Coke bottles to construct a run for the gerbils all around the walls. Unfortunately, not only did they run around it, but also pooed in it, which meant that the structure had to be dismantled to give it a clean. As this was a major operation, we only did it every three months or so, so the smell was terrible. Poor gerbils.
I just don’t know about pets. My grandson has had fish, a stick insect and a corn snake (now vanished under the floorboards) and there’s a general feeling of “No more caged animals in our house!”
I’m afraid I feel a bit the same about any pet, even uncaged ones. Oh, the guilt I used to feel when I left my cat alone at home! “He can look after himself!” a friend said. But could he? He was disturbingly pleased when I returned home. As for dogs, is it really right to pull one along, bound by a neck collar and chain? Isn’t it a form of slavery? Aren’t these poor animals only bred to depend completely on us, to give us unconditional love and, after hours of becoming frantic with anxiety when they’re left on their own, a huge welcome welcome when we return?
There was a recent report that revealed that pet cats feel just the same anxieties as caged lions. “Neurotic wrecks” is how they were described. They are “anxious and non-self-assured” and, because of their territorial instincts, would prefer to take over the whole house and boot you out. They may seem contented and in charge, but actually inside they are gibbering wrecks.
Until a few years ago, I always had cats. I’ve even written a book on pet bereavement – Goodbye, Dear Friend. My favourite was Bob, a cat with no tail, who descended from a cat owned by Peter Medawar, the great biologist, so it wasn’t surprising to find that Bob was a cat of huge intelligence. As we lived upstairs on the top floor of a crescent, he used occasionally to slip out of the window and visit every neighbouring flat along the continuous ledge. Each morning he sat on the front step, waiting for a little boy who, on his way to school, presented him with a piece of sausage left over from breakfast. We sometimes took him round the block at night on a string, and on one occasion I even discovered him, on opening the lavatory door, sitting on the loo, ears back, and having a very dignified pee.
Once, before my son’s godfather viisited – Peter Black, the one-armed television critic – I warned my son to say nothing about his disability. “He was born like that, just like Bob and his tail,” I said. My son promised he would say nothing. When Peter arrived and asked how the cat had lost its tail, my son replied: “Oh, he was born like that, just like you.”
And yet – another cat? The last one I had brought in bird after bird – birds I’ve now rather grown to love (funny how appealing birds are when you get older, isn’t it? I even have a bird table which I scatter with “special seeds for special breeds” and much good dos it do me since we are overrun by green parquets). I certainly never wanted another cat.
But the problem is that pets can be very seductive, particularly if you live alone, and although I could never actually get a new kitten or buy one, I wouldn’t mind helping one of these poor creatures if it were in need. Taking a break for a lie-down at a dinner party recently with a bad back, a very nice cat came in. She took one look at me, leapt on me, and settled down, staring into my eyes as if we shared a hidden secret (he probably was wishing me dead so that she could acquire the house, but no matter). And now it turns out that her owner is leaving London for a couple of years and looking or home for her.
Oh dear? Can I reconcile my principles with my longing for a catty companion?
Granny Annexe Christmas 2015
Have you met anyone over the age of ten who, at the beginning of December, starts rubbing their hands with glee and saying: “Oooh, goodie! Christmas is coming!”?
The older I get, at the very mention of Christmas, the more people put their heads in their hands and wail “Not again!” They complain that Christmas starts earlier and earlier in the year, that it’s no longer called Christmas, it’s the “holiday season” and that Father Christmas himself has been replaced by a commercial creature known as “Santa”. They refuse to send Christmas cards any more, they make pacts with each other not to give each other presents which don’t cost more than a fiver, and they complain about it lasting weeks.
How do I know all this? Because I have been a prime mover in the anti-Christmas movement. And it’s small wonder. My childhood Christmases were always spent visiting my school, hosted by the headmistress, my great aunt Rene. I remember receiving an improving book about Norman architecture two years running. Another year it was a small volume about Italic Script. If they were lucky, my parents might have been given a tin of Assorted Biscuits. My doctor grandfather, a rather creepy old roué who had been struck off for getting his rich patients addicted to drugs, would offer me, bristling with facetious humour, a cigarette, and I, aged six or so, would have to go through the blushing ritual of refusing and hearing everyone laugh.
My sour-faced great aunt would preside over the Christmas lunch – consisting of one small chicken between six, accompanied by over-boiled potatoes and tinned peas – with a large jug of water beside her. That was to ensure that no one became tipsy after the very small glass of sherry they’d been offered in the cold sitting room before lunch. There was never any wine or crackers.
So you see why Christmas has never been one of my high spots. But having read recently that it is possible to decide to be happy I am planning to have a happy day even if it kills me.
Yes, it’s the year that my family go off to spend the day with the “other” family, so I shall be on my own. But I will not let this get me down. I will put up the decorations, despite the fact that my son has ordered me never to climb a ladder again, and that both arms are so arthritic that I cannot reach up above my head to pin up the garlands. And if that ends in tears, I shall spend Christmas in hospital, taking up essential beds needed for more deserving cases.
I will put up garish Christmas lights in front of my house, and laugh it off when the neighbours tell me they can’t sleep because of the glare.
I will send out hundreds of cards and inside I shall insert an honest newsletter – describing the retinal detachment that went so wrong, the anticipated operations for new knees and shoulders, the disastrous run at Edinburgh and the plans for euthanasia.
I will buy extremely expensive presents for all my friends and when they look appalled and say: “Oh, but we only got you a book” and produce the review copy of a misery memoir they’ve been sent at the office, I will smile and say: “Don’t worry! It’s Christmas! A time for giving!”
Granny Annexe December
“It’ll only take fifteen minutes a day,” said the rheumatologist as he explained how to do exercises to strengthen my shoulders and knees.
“It shouldn’t take you longer than twenty minutes a day,” said the physiotherapist as she outlined a plan of stretching exercises to keep me limber.
“These balancing exercises shouldn’t take longer than five minutes day,” my osteopath advised me.
And now they tell me I’ve not only got to walk for twenty minutes a day on top of that (in order to add seven years of my life; I mean honestly – who wants another seven years? Not me, thank you) but that this walking has to consist of no fewer than 10,000 steps.
And then there’s swimming! I’m told that ideally I should be swimming three times a week adding, to my weekly penance, at least another three hours.
That’s practically one whole working day of exercise a week.
I don’t have the time! I don’t have the inclination! And as for walking 10,000 steps a day, I did it recently and I honestly had practically no time for anything else. No time for lunch! No time for supper! I barely had any time to get undressed at night.
What is it about walking? Am I the only person in the whole world who just can’t see the point of it? Putting one foot in front of the other – what’s so great about that?
Some of my best friends walk. And, very occasionally, I have enjoyed a long walk over the downs. But walking in Shepherd’s Bush? No fun. A friend informs me that I can see so much more when I walk. “You can see buildings and see rooftops, and observe people.” At 71 years of age and having lived in the same area for over forty years, if I haven’t already examined every building on every block and observed every person in every single walk of life doing every single thing known to man, there is, frankly, something wrong with me.
Some people say they feel relaxed when they walk. Relaxed? With nothing else to distract me, my mind, when walking, is free to roam over the most gruesome thoughts known to man. Will we be overrun over by immigrants? What if Isis came over and blew up Lincoln Cathedral? Will I end up in an old people’s home not knowing my name, doubly incontinent and screaming? And anyway, why am I wasting my time pounding the streets when I could, as my Scottish great-aunt, who was also my headmistress used to say, be doing something really useful?
Now, if I knew that by working a treadmill I was generating electricity to keep ten Somalian orphans warm for a week, I’d be pounding away like nobody’s business. Or if I were to discover that walking relieved anxiety (rather than, as now, promoted it) twice as fast as Valium or Solpadine Plus, I’d be stomping away like a shot.
But for no reason at all? I don’t get it. Walking is what people do when they have no cars or public transport. Walking should be avoided, as indulgent as eating plates of cream cakes. Walking is a mindless luxury and, as far as I’m concerned, should be banned except in exceptional circumstances.
And what particularly gets my goat is how smug walkers are. When I suggested to a walker once that I get a pedometer and wear it all the time so that it would ratchet up my steps even going to the lavatory during the night, or running downstairs to answer the bell, he insisted, with a patronising smile, that that kind of walking “doesn’t count.”
Walking that has a function – climbing a ladder to get to the attic to find something to give to Age Concern, marching to the end of the garden with the aim of putting out bird-food (a route no car can, sadly, negotiate) – no, apparently, that’s not “walking.” That’s cheating.
Fired up with fury about all this exercise I thought I’d go to the other extreme. Meditation. But after my mindfulness initiation class, the first thing the wafty lady who’d been sitting cross-legged for an hour, instructing us in the Ways of the Yogi, said was: “Now, before the class next week, please be sure to do this exercise for twenty minutes a day.”
You can’t win.
Granny Annexe November 2015
On hearing the unexpected ring on the bell, Dorothy Parker was always reputed to cry: “And what fresh hell is this?”
It’s certainly what I scream to myself, at any un-scheduled interference. Phone calls are often welcome. But knocks at the door that you’re not expecting – do they even bring pleasure?
Every time I hear the unexpected knock on the door, my heart sinks. I usually stagger down the stairs, shouting, like a mad old lady: “I’m coming, I’m coming! Keep your hair on!” Then I will examine them through y peephole, an activity that gets me nowhere since everyone looks the same through the fish-eye lens.
There’s the Amazon delivery man – not yours, because yours is expected. No, this man is carrying what appear to be two iron girders wrapped in brown paper and wants to leave them in your house for your neighbour to collect later – a neighbour who is away for the entire month. Wanting to be friendly, and arguing that if the circumstances were reversed you’d appreciate it if he took custody of the atom bomb you’d ordered on line until you returned, you say yes – but after your leg had been broken in several places by tipping over the damned things, you’re not so sure.
Then there is the Jehovah’s Witness. I have written in clear letters beside my bell, the words: “No cold calls or religious enquiries” but it doesn’t stop those Witnesses from bludgeoning their way in. After arriving at the door, usually gasping from having been summoned from the top of the house, I enquire coldly whether they can read their bibles. They always say yes. Then I point sourly at my sign and say: “Then why can’t you read this?” before slamming the door.
There the desperate motorist who has been blocked in by a car and wants to know if it’s yours, and a gasman who, despite assuring him that you have to read your own meter these days, laying down by the gas meter with an inverted periscope to read the figures, and shinning up a ladder to reveal the electricity, will not believe that you aren’t still registered with his company., Or the Parliamentary candidate – or the seller of dodgy household goods. There’s the con-artist who claims to live down the road, have a mother in hospital but has no change to put in the meter or no money to go and visit her, there’s the neighbour who claims there’s a “funny small” and wonders if his man can inspect your drains.
There are the early guests who don’t realise that while you might be ready to receive them at 7.30 you are not ready to receive them at 7.25, since you have only just stepped out of your bath, and the men from charities with lanyards rounds their necks, bearing photographs of people who look nothing like them. I’m never sure about those lanyards. I always suspect that if you were to lean forward too close to examine their photographs, they might slip the things over your head, like a Thuggee and strange you.
Occasionally, however it is a policeman. Recently one knocked at the door and I turned at once into a welcoming and ingratiating helpful member of the public, bustling him in and offering him a cup of tea. This time, the building site over the road had been burgled. Could I help?
But it all reminded me of the terrible occasion my father opened the door to a policeman in Kensington. They’d been transporting a prisoner from one station to the next and on the way he’d leapt out of the van and disappeared, Could they look around the house and garden? No sign. They said their goodbyes and left.
Ten minutes later, there was another ring on the bell. It was a man in grubby jeans and a stained teeshirt, who revealed he was an undercover plain clothes policeman who had stayed behind. If my father would go upstairs and keep watch out of the first floor window, he would go down the basement and check the garden again for the escaped villain.
After a quarter of an hour, hearing nothing, my father left his vigil and found the “undercover policeman” had vanished completely. Along with my father’s camelhair coat, walking stick, hat and scarf.
Grannie Annexe October 2015
I imagine these days most little girls would be thrilled if their mum made clothes for them in the latest fashion, encouraged them to wear their skirts short an midriffs bare, and sent their ten-year-old boys to school sporting fake hippy beards.
But I found it something of a burden having a fashion icon as a mother. Back in the ‘fifties I wasn’t so enamoured of the situation. Like most little girls I wanted to be like all the other little girls, and all the other little girls were wearing dresses with puffed sleeves and smocking in the front, with fitted tweed coats with velvet collars and most of them had an Alice band over their infrequently-washed hair.
My mother was hoping to break into the children’s fashion business at the time and she wanted me to look French. These days there is nothing more enchanting to my mind than the sight of a little girl in a tam-o-shanter hat over her gamin haircut, a navy blue unwaisted coat, long white socks and patent leather black shoes, preferably standing with a hoop in the Jardins des Tuileries. But in the middle of smog in the heart of post-war South Kensington, surrounded by other children who look at her like something from outer space? No.
Our battles were constant. Once I demanded, in recompense for some terrible favour my mother was trying to get me to do – probably be photographed for a magazine – to be bought a pair of grey divided shorts. I have to hand it to her – she fulfilled her promise and I can only imagine how much it pained her to see me proudly jumping around in my Aertex shirt and grey shorts and plimsolls, just like all the other little girls.
But those days were rare. Most of the time I was forced to dress as she wanted me to look. Two particular incidents stand out in my mind. The day before the school concert, headline news in the Daily Express in 1957 was the arrival, from Paris, of a dress by Givenchy dubbed “The Sack”. Without missing a beat, my mother immediately ran me up a small version of it – dark blue, with a white border grabbing me round the knees – and insisted I wore it for the concert. I was regarded by a freak by the other girls, but all the mums gasped with delight.
The other occasion was when she forced me to walk down the catwalk at the Royal College of Art, where she was Professor of Fashion, holding her hand, both of us wearing identical versions of the same sundress. The sighs of “Oh, how sweet!” linger in my ears today and make me red with embarrassment still.
Thinking I might have got over the horror of the catwalk, I agreed, recently, on a visit to Denbigh, to take part in a Vintage Fashion Show. I wore a coat from the ‘forties, a hat made of feathers from the same era and a tea-dress. Everyone else wore clothes from the 1970s which didn’t look at all vintage to me, just terribly out of date.
It was all for a good cause. It was run by two sisters, who’ve established a charity called Vintage MaryDei, in memory of their parents – Dei, a lifelong community activist and Mary, a great community and chapel-supporter, both apparently, significant figures in the setting up of the first Welsh primary school in Denbigh. The sisters became carers to the parents and realised how stressed carers get, and the show was one of many events put on to raise money to help carers by giving them advice and support.
Accompanied, rather oddly, by my friend and host, who was dressed in an original teddy boy suit, with a wig (being 75 he has no hair) and with the music of the James Bond Theme blaring, we finished the first half and strutted up and down the red carpet.
I thought I could pull it off. But no. I felt like a complete idiot. I became a 71-year-old 8-year-old, shamed with embarrassment.
But much worse. When my name was announced I heard one large Welsh lady say to her friend: “Veronica Iminside? Never heard of her! What about you, Carys?” The other replied: “Oh, I’ve heard of her alright, Alwen. But I thought she was dead!”
Suddenly, those indulgent sights and murmurs of “How sweet!” didn’t seem quite so bad after all.
Grannie Annexe August 2015
When I was a child, my grandmother used to take me to the theatre. Her choice of shows was impeccable. She didn’t want to educate me by dragging me to see Midsummer Night’s Dream – which would have put me even more off Shakespeare in the theatre than I already am – and nor did she want to feed me a relentless diet of pantos and Wind in the Willows – productions that are often second-rate and done on the cheap because everyone knows that children don’t know good acting from bad acting or a good set from a rubbish one.
No, she took me to see a string of classic light theatrical productions. We saw Joyce Grenfell in Joyce and came out saying “George? George? Don’t do that.” . We saw Flanders and Swan in At the Drop of a Hat and came out singing The Hippopotamus Song. We saw Sandy Wilson’s The Boy Friend (Deborah, this is the correct spelling, not one word) and emerged with “I Could be Happy with You” on our lips. We saw Julian Slade’s Salad Days and couldn’t get “We’re looking for a piano, yes a piano, we’re looking.. we’re looking.. we’re looking for a P-I-A-N-O” out of our heads for days. We even went to see the Crazy Gang at Victoria Palace where Bud Flanagan, in battered hat and fur coat, and Chesney Allen, sang Underneath the Arches.
My grandmother had always wanted to go on the stage and she knew what was good. For here, an outing had to be fun and to be fun it had to be professional.
For my own part I took my son to see Elvis – a brilliant musical directed by Jack Good and featuring PJ Proby as the later Elvis; we also saw Blues in the Night and a never-ending succession of Ayckbourns, travelling to all corners of the suburbs to catch the latest.
I haven’t been quite so successful with my own grandchildren, stupidly booking to see fatuous lunchtime shows involving balloons and papier mache monsters but we’ve had some hits. The Invisible Man went down brilliantly. Gifford’s Circus was a huge success. But recently a couple of outings hit the buffers. Who on earth ever thought that Edward Scissorhands would make an interesting ballet? (oh, yes, Matthew Bourne did.) And as for Bugsy Malone – it was like watching a bad school play in which none of one’s smaller relations had a part.
The show that’s been a consistent hit has been, of course, the Mousetrap. My grandmother took me to see it originally, and then I, of course, took my son to see it. Recently I went for the third time, taking my older grandson. The audience was packed with grannies taking their grandchildren, and all us oldies managed to sit through the creaky script, the deadly set, the sheer banality of it all (particularly when you know who did it), but realising that it’s such a rattling good tale and such a gallopingly sinister plot, that our grandchildren couldn’t fail to be as captivated by it as we were when we saw it for the first time.
Before the curtain went down on the first act, the unpleasant Mrs Boyle had just been strangled and my grandson had seized my hand in terror.
During the interval he was on tenterhooks. We drank the drinks cleverly ordered at the bar beforehand. “They’re here, granny!” shouted my grandson delightedly when he went to investigate the space where we’d been told they’d be waiting. Even this small act seemed, to us, to be magic. Over some Pringles and an ice-cream, we discussed the plot so far. He was convinced the murderer was the owner of the guesthouse. Though he thought it might have been the heavily accented foreign salesman, Mr Paravicini, who’d stumbled in claiming his car had packed up in a snow-drift. But what about the Major? We went through every character one by one.
At the end he was completely astonished at the denouement. And when we returned home, he told his younger brother what a good time he’d had.
“Who did it?” he was asked.
“Oh, I’m afraid I can’t tell you that. No one’s allowed to tell who did it. But,” he added, seeing his brother looking rather disappointed, “don’t worry. You’ll find out. Granny will take you when you get older.”
Can I face The Mousetrap for a fourth time?
Of course I can.
Grannie Annexe July 2015
At dinner recently a guest declared, gloomily: “Of course, we’re all going to hell in a handcart.” He won’t be invited again of course, but nor will a great number of my friends if they continue along these lines. Which they all seem to be doing as they age.
“People are so used to communicating by email and text, that they don’t know how to communicate with each other face to face!” “So sad that some children have never even seen the countryside!” “The world is more troubled than it ever has been!” “Libraries are a thing of the past!” “Books are redundant these days!” “There soon won’t be any shops at all on the high street because everyone does their shopping on Amazon!” “Everywhere you look there are high-rise buildings these days!” “All new housing is sold to Russian oligarchs who never even live there!” “Did you know that the standard of A levels these days are what GCE standards used to be our day?” “Children are even using calculators in maths!” “People don’t even know the names of their neighbours!” “Feminism has made men completely demasculated – they don’t know where they stand now.”
Sometimes I feel I need to make a list on topics banned from my house and get my guests to sign it before they step over the threshold.
It’s not that I don’t, often, at some level, actually agree with many current moans. But firstly each one is such a deadly cliché and we’ve all heard it a hundred times before. And secondly, where do we get by wringing our hands? Jolly depressed, that’s where.
Anyway, older people have been despairing of younger people since day one. I bet the Ancient Romans (and I’m talking here of the ancient Ancient Romans) were continually griping about how young people wore their togas too long or too short or too tight. And how they learned nothing at school. And so, moaningly, on.
But I’ve been wondering. Could it be that it’s built into our genes to despair of the future? Could it be death’s brilliant way of making us fear the end less? Because along with the moans I’ve listed there’s always a refrain which goes: “Well, thank God I won’t be alive to see the day when..”
I think it’s rather like when a friend drops us we often think of the reasons we’re lucky not to be seeing him again. “Never liked him anyway,” is the usual conclusion.
I prefer to comfort myself with different slogans, welcoming a shorter life-span with the idea that I’ll never have to paint a ceiling again, never have to go to Paris again, never have to sit in a taxi in India being driven by a maniac down a mountain path and pretend to enjoy it, never have to wake up beside a man whose name I don’t know, never worry that I’m pregnant and never have to wait for the phone to ring.
Of course it’s very difficult to convince young people that death loses its fear as you age. Young people are far more frightened of death, in my experience, than old people. Their knuckles are white with fear as they contemplate the arrival of the Grim Reaper. They are, rightly, pre-occupied with life and the living of it. Older people are much more realistic. They’ve seen people being born. They’ve seen people die. They’re often fed up with the whole wretched cycle and just want to get the process over and done with. And this conviction that the future is black is, perhaps, one way to convince ourselves that death isn’t such a bad idea after all. I mean, wouldn’t be terrible to be an optimistic old person, gagging to see how well the wonderful world turns out, as we were on our death beds?
It was Dylan Thomas as a son who wanted his father to go raging against the dying of the light, not Pa Thomas himself. I bet, on his deathbed, the old gent wasn’t burning and raving at close of day but was probably thinking: “God, spare me any more of this ghastly poetry lark. Most of the stuff they churn out these days doesn’t even rhyme any more, let alone scan. We’re all going to hell in a handcart! Thank God I won’t be around to see any more of it!”
Grannie Annexe June 2015
A few years ago, the morning I’d returned home after major surgery, I found that I had a green discharge. No, don’t stop reading. That’s as yuk as it gets. Anyway, no one had told me this might happen, so when this green liquid started emerging, gushing like something from a Texan oil well, I was, quite naturally, worried. When I say green I’m not talking about Farrow and Ball green – no, not Breakfast Room Green, Cooking Apple Green, Estate Eggshell Green, Baize Door Green, Card Room Green, Lichen or even Vert de Terre. I’m not talking green that looks like anything infectious. No, I’m talking happy green – the colour, if any of you grannies out there know what I’m talking about – of the Disney hero, Shrek. The colour of the Jolly Green Giant. The colour of The Incredible Hulk. The colour of those blazing green health drinks that you find in Pret called Goodness. Bright, bright green.
Managing somehow temporarily to stem the flow, I got a friend to drive me to the hospital where I’d had the operation done – an hour away – , while I clutched a pint mug of the stuff. When we arrived, I handed it over to the nurse.
“How come I’m still alive?” I demanded, “when my body is producing this all the time? And, more importantly, how long have I got to live?”
She put on some rubber gloves, sensible girl, shielded her eyes from the brightness of the colour, looked extremely anxious, and hurried away with it to get it investigated. I was in the waiting-room, gibbering with fear. After a nail-biting half hour she returned, uttering the immortal words: “Don’t worry. It’s perfectly normal.”
And then I uttered those also immortal words: “If it was normal why the hell didn’t you warn me in advance?”
And she said: “We don’t like to worry our patients.”
And I said: “What do you think I’ve been doing for the last twenty-four hours?”
And she gave me one of those dumb looks that says: “That’s my answer and I’m sticking to it and I’m not going to argue any more, however reasonable I think your point is, because I haven’t got a leg to stand on.”
I stumped home and over the next few days everything calmed down and even now I have no idea what the green stuff really was.
But it happened again the other day. Not the green stuff, but another scare. Following retinal surgery, I had to have a further operation to stitch my eye to support the cataract lens that had slipped. The morning following the operation, I took off the eyepatch I’d been given, as instructed, and examined my eye in the mirror. It was extremely difficult – for two reasons. Firstly I saw completely different things through each eye – one showed me myself in the room quite normally, and from the other I was viewing myself in the room as if I were a fly on the ceiling, from above. As I looked into the mirror I could see that the reason for this was obvious. The operated eye had shifted and was now staring, desultorily, at the ceiling. I looked like Quasimodo.
Well, I panicked for a bit, seized a passing lodger on her way downstairs, who confirmed my fears but said that though it appeared fixed to me, it was actually “drifting” and, having rung the surgeon in a panic, waited for him to call me back. I felt faint and breathless.
Finally the phone rang and I explained the situation. Blow me if he didn’t say cheerfully: “Oh don’t worry! It’s the result of the anaesthetic on the muscles of the eye! It’ll wear off. It’s perfectly normal!”
“Why,” I asked, “Didn’t you warn me this might happen?”
(repeat chorus lines above)
None of this would have happened of course, had I been warned of the dangers of having cataract surgery at the same time as having with extremely short sight. Apparently (now they tell me) these are sure markers for the likelihood of having a retinal detachment. Had I known this, at the first sign of retinal detachment I would have gone to Moorfields far earlier and could have been spared all this Quasimodo stuff in the first place.
But no, they didn’t warn me. I haven’t asked why. Because by now I know the answer by heart.
Grannie Annexe May 2015
Yesterday I dreamed that I had written my Oldie column but sadly it had been processed as an egg – the column had been encrypted somehow into this albumin inside the shell. I was about to bicycle to the Oldie offices carrying this egg when the egg broke all over the bicycle seat. Somehow managing to scrape it up, I got most of it back into the two halves of the shell – but I was worried if, having slid over the bicycle seat with bits still dripping down and hanging from the spokes of the wheels, whether the words, when they were processed the other end, would have got muddled up.
Now who could deny that this was a fairly unusual and bizarre dream? It is almost a short story. And yet whenever anyone starts telling anyone else their dreams, the result is often a lot of sticking of fingers in ears and shouts of “Lalala!”
Dreams aren’t necessary boring in and of themselves. It’s partly whether they’re good dreams or not, or whether they’re amusing recounted. I have to say that I feel a bit like shouting “Boring!” when someone tells me a dream about running down a corridor and losing their teeth and then flying through the air and finding themselves back at home watching television “and then I woke up”. This is a dream constructed by a dull person. It is not a five star dream. But my dreams (or am I just kidding myself?) often to seem to have devilish twists in them, usually nightmares with extraordinarily complicated plots. They are often directed by excellent directors and, if not Oscar-winning, would certainly make good shorts at the Sundance Festival. I think the capacity for dreaming may be inherited. My father used to dream constantly of being publicly hanged, and once he dreamed that he’d reached over in bed to touch my mother’s hand and found it old, withered and skeletal. Waking up in a sweat, and to reassure himself he was dreaming he reached again for my mother’s hand. It was old, withered and skeletal. Then he woke up.
I’ve often heard of people who say they never dream, and though, when being pursued by demons with red-hot pokers I rather envy them, in a way I pity their inability to enter another, often more real than reality, life during the hours between midnight and dawn. And what is interesting is partly the way they can be induced. Larium, the anti-malarial drug that I took on going to South Africa, gave me nightmares of such horror that I would rather have stayed at home and missed seeing the giraffes and elephants and monkeys in a nature reserve than experience them again. Statins also give me the most frightful nightmares – so that’s them out then.
True, I have never made a scientific discovery while dreaming or, indeed, had the verses of a great poem revealed to me in a dream, like Coleridge after a dose of opium. But on the whole I don’t need a drug to give me a good dream. Last week I dreamed I had met the most wonderful man. Unfortunately he was really the man of my dreams. And when my son was small I dreamed that I covered him with kisses one night. In the morning (I dreamed), I found that the places where I’d kissed had turned into violent bruises and he was nearly dead. I frequently dream that gangs of swarthy men have come into my house and are removing all my father’s pictures from the wall to take away in a van, and last year I dreamed I was taking my grandson for a walk in his pushchair when a man inveigled me into a gated park. As he locked the door of the gate behind us, he commented that my grandson looked rather dirty so was going to give him a bath. In the background I could see an enormous cauldron of boiling water…
I still remember my first dream. A burglar had come into my room at dawn and I had called for my father. He had rushed in in his dressing gown, and the burglar rushed out with my father in pursuit. “Stay there!” he called to me. Stay there I did and, looking out of the window I could see my father in the garden, scouring the place for burglars. Then I felt a tap on my shoulder…
Hitchcock, eat your heart out
Grannie Annexe April 2015
I was recently watching Downton Abbey (under considerable pressure, I may say – my friends begged me to give it “just one more go – it’s brilliant!”) and after about five minutes in the cook downstairs said to some under-maid: “Hurry up there, it’s the Lord’s 34th wedding anniversary so we have to do a special dinner tonight.” Or words to that effect.
My eyes bulged. Surely no one in the right minds ever celebrate their 34th wedding anniversary? And also, surely the celebration of anniversaries was anathema to the upper classes in the days of Downton? When I was small even a birthday was barely marked unless you were under ten, and we weren’t top drawer by any means.
But when I pointed this out, my two friends turned on me: “Shh!” they hissed angrily. “If you can’t watch this without criticising it, go upstairs and don’t watch it!”
I gulped, and went upstairs.
My problem is that I am hypersensitive to inaccuracies in films or plays. Before the first ten minutes had passed of the recently produced Accolade, by Emlyn Williams, I was chafing because the central character, a writer, had walked into the sitting room early on a winter’s morning without doing up his dressing gown (this was in the fifties when central heating would have been scarce) and sat under a lamp to read his cuttings without turning the lamp on.
When, in a production of Rope set in the late twenties, the actors turned on a fake gas fire, my night was ruined. They had fake coal electric fires in those days, gas fires with ceramic columns, but no fake log gas fires.
You could call me a nerd, but I think there’s more to it than that. I feel that if a director can’t get the small details right, then how can I trust him or her to get the big ones right? Recently I saw The Theory of Everything and although I could just about cope with the fact that no one’s hair is ever short enough for the early 1960s, nor is it dirty enough (most people only washed their hair once a week in those days, if that) I was undone when, after a May Ball, Hawking’s future wife thrust a piece of paper into Stephen’s hand with her telephone number on it. It started with the numbers 01223. But area STD codes didn’t come in until much later. If the telephone number was wrong, then how could I believe anything after that? Did Hawking really discover new things about black holes? Did he really fall for his nurse? I couldn’t relax at all.
This nerdiness, if that is what it is, extends to other areas of life. If a brilliant politician is caught cheating on the underground or sneaking a bottle of gin out of a supermarket, then can he really be a good politician? I had thought his judgement was good, but clearly it is absolutely hopeless. He may have claimed to have brokered some major peace deal, but suddenly his achievements seem like mere accidents. Basically, he’s a cheat.
Two boyfriends, in my youth, seemed perfect and I thought they might be Mr. Right until, on two separate occasions, they handed me a book that they said I must read because it was brilliant. It was The Snow Ball by the writer Brigid Brophy, a writer very popular among pretentious young men at the time. After a couple of pages, any thoughts of settling down with either of these two chaps and having their children immediately flew out of the window.
I was trying to describe unfortunate trait to a friend the other day and said it was as if you sat next to a sparkling guest at a dinner party and were being captivated by their wit and intelligence and then they suddenly removed a silver spoon from the table and, with a wink, popped it into their pocket. Nothing would be the same afterwards. But my friend had a better image. He said no, it was more like sitting next to sparkling intelligent stranger you thought you could make a lifelong friend. His glass is empty. Your glass is empty. His neighbour’s glass is empty. The wine bottle is in front of him He lifts it, fills his own glass, and continues with his conversation without offering either of you a drop.
Oh dear. It’s all very well being so sensitive and critical. But I can’t help wondering how many potential friends I might have put off by my own occasional (I hope) thoughtless behaviour.
As always – planks; eyes.
Grannie Annexe March 2015
When I was in my teens, I went along to a Billy Graham performance. It was stirring stuff. Although not in the least religious, I had to exercise great self-control not to rise from my feet and sign up to the Lord. The man was mesmerising.
Later, I was at a Mind, Body and Spirit exhibition where I made the mistake of wandering into a tent displaying and exhibition of a weird est-like group called Exegesis – and was just looking around when I was approached by a cult-member who asked if I’d like to know more. When I said “No” I was just looking, he turned on me and ordered me out of the tent. “We have no time for time-wasters!” he shouted.
Similarly when I’d been feeling particularly low, I’d considered joining a cult called the Process. I knew some people who were in it and – despite the fact that they roamed London in black cloaks. pulling enormous Alsatians and producing magazines devoted to Satanism – they were funny and I liked them. So I went for an initiation meeting in a room in a house in Park Lane. With the aid of a clock, a particularly good looking member of the Process in an electric blue cloak demonstrated it was no use constantly fixing the hands if it continuously went wrong. The only way you could make it right was to get inside the works. He then said: “If you want to join us, now is your moment! We want all your money and your commitment – NOW!”
I chewed my lip and dithered, but finally shambled out of the door, to cries of abuse and warnings that I was now doomed.
I tell of these incidents to show how hard it is to convert me.
However, at that point I hadn’t visited an Apple store.
As the last time I’d produced my trusty old grey Nokia in public, it had been seized on by people who appeared to be antique dealers with their eyes on stalks promising me large sums if I’d part with it, I thought I’d have a look – just have a look mind you – at an Apple iPhone.
This is what I said to the smiling man at the door of the Apple store and he welcomed me in. I wasn’t aware of it, but as he ushered me in with one arm, he was at that very moment, signalling a friend of his to meet me a little further into the store. “Andrew will take care of you!” he said. And Andrew turned out to be very nice indeed. He led me over to a set of iPhones and asked which colour I’d prefer and I said “Silver, but I’m only looking..” whereupon he signalled another member of the team who turned out to be an extremely friendly girl called Greta who took me to a table and sat me down. “Just wait for your model to appear,” she said. “It won’t take a minute.”
“I’m very frightened,” I said. “You know, I don’t want a new phone, you understand. I just want to look at it. You won’t make me buy one…will you?”
“You need have no fears,” she said, staring me in the eyes. “They are very easy to use and you will love it.”
At this moment, a new man, Gary appeared with box. He asked to see my Nokia and in one easy movement he’d extracted the Sim card and asked for my credit card. “Now let’s get a pin number for you,” he said, his eyes twinkling, “and at the same time, put your pin number in here..”
“But…” I said, “I want to think about it first!”
“Of course,” he said. “Let me introduce you to your new iPhone.”
And before I knew it, my old dead Nokia had vanished and in its place was a strange object which needed swiping and fondling – I even opened it with my personal thumbprint for God’s sake – and slowly, after a brief lesson, I was led to the door. As I left I had the impression that a whole crowd of Apple employees were waving me off waving their handkerchiefs. “See you soon, Virginia!” they said “We love you! We’re always here! Enjoy!”
My life has been transformed.
I have to say that Billy Graham, Exegesis and, indeed, the Process, if it still exists, could pick up a tip or two from those guys.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve got several friends who are saints. Often, across my mind comes fleetingly the idea that someone ought to try to get them an honour, but the prospect’s always seemed so complicated I’ve never considered that that someone ought to be me. However, many years ago, I applied myself. I rang up one of my saintly friend’s secretary – we’ll call him X – and suggested the idea to her. X runs a charity which helps the unhelpable and spends the rest of his time teaching kids for free.
“Too late,” she said. “Lord Basset-Blastforce from down the road has just applied for one only a week ago.” So I rang Lord B-B and was told he’d done everything. “I know people in the Honours office,” he told me, reassuringly, “I have a personal contact with Princess Michael of Kent. I have sent off the form plus letters from the Lord High Sherriff, the High Panjandrum, and I’ve written to Prince Charles asking if he could put in a good word.”
“But what about the people X has helped?” I said. “Shouldn’t they be asked to write to endorse him?”
“Too late,” he said. “No point. My people will talk to the palace people…have no fear. X will get his honour”
Two years went by and nothing happened.
I got back to the secretary. “Do you think I could have a crack now?” I asked.
“If you’d rung yesterday you could have,” she replied, “But Sharon’s taken it on.” It turned out Sharon was one of the people X had helped, admitted she was dyslexic, and didn’t have a clue, but that her uncle was a guardsman at the palace and everything would be fine.
Two years passed and, again, nothing.
Finally I got my hands on the application. “Never,” it had said on the website, “try twice. There is virtually no chance of a second application being considered except in exceptional circumstances.” Nothing exceptional had happened. But I went ahead. I did what the other two people who‘d attempted to get an honour had failed to do. I read the question. On the website it was clear what the Honours department wanted. Evidence of change. So that’s what I gave them.
“I was killing people on a daily basis until I met X” wrote one supporter. “Now I’m happily married, run a charity and have a family of three” “I was unable to rise from my wheelchair before I met X. I was on benefits and depressed. Now, thanks to X, I run marathons and mentor young people,” wrote another. “I spent my days mugging old ladies before I met X. Now ..” well, I’m obviously not quoting the actual letters but you get the gist. These letters were signed by thumbprints, crosses… and there wasn’t a great panjandrum in sight.
Two year later, my friend got his honour.
And recently I went to the Palace to witness him collecting it .
I’d never been inside the Palace before – and what a grim old place it is. “No wonder Princess Diana nearly had a nervous breakdown when she was here,” whispered X’s sister who accompanied us. “It’s got a very funny vibe. Not sure I like it.” The lighting was awful, the place was crammed with Beefeaters and soldiers with breastplates standing stock-still – it was like a rather bad set for the Nutcracker Suite. And the ceremony itself! 300 of us stuck in a vast room laden with feebly lit chandeliers as 100 honours’ receivers were each decorated by Prince William who chatted to each of them for what seems hours. The vast majority were white, elderly people – it reminded me of an audience from the Wigmore Hall. A string quartet played Classic fm hits through out and it was freezing cold.
“Have you been to the toilet?” asked some kind of equerry before we took our seats. “Please stand for the National Anthem”.
It seemed interminable – “Denis Smyth for his contribution to the Northern Irish Prison Service and ornithology… the Reverend Shuna Body for services to the sport of Wheelchair Fencing … Damien Lewis for services to drama (???)” it went on for ever.
At the end I thought I’d have preferred to have sat through Mr Turner and that’s saying something. To be honest, I’m starting to think that after all this I deserve an honour myself. Though perhaps after writing this piece my chances will be rather slim.
I was recently asked on to a television news programme to discuss the results of a survey that showed, apparently, that while young people under thirty are lonely, riddled with anxiety, panicking about the future, beset with money troubles and generally cutting down on drink and drugs because they can’t afford it, old people over 60 are having the time of their lives – sky-diving, white-water rafting, partying till dawn, downing bottle after bottle of wine and travelling the world.
This was regarded as very unfair, I was told. Indeed, the interviewer even asked me: “Do you feel like you should give up some of the pensioner perks to make amends with the young?” (sic – and I have to add that because the grammar – well, my dear!)
Amends? My eyes bulged. Amends are what alcoholics make to all the people they’ve deceived and let down when they were drinking uncontrollably. Amends are what burglars make to old ladies they’ve robbed of all their savings. Why on earth, I wondered, should I make amends?
And as I was pondering this, I thought: who on earth ever thought that being young was ever fun? Even when I was in my twenties I thought the phrase “Schooldays are the happiest days of your life” was total tosh, and in my seventies now I am constantly astonished by people who tell me that they remember being young as a wonderful carefree time.
Was it really? Where they young at the same time as me or are they looking at the past through rose-coloured spectacles? What is this myth that being young has any advantages to it whatsoever?
Forget about living under the real threat of a complete annihilation – a nuclear war, with the Bay of Pigs. Forget about earning £10 a week as a temporary secretary (in my case having to wear gloves, on some occasions, because the office was so cold). What about having to stay in waiting for the phone to ring – no mobiles then. And the loneliness! Young people today can sit at home conversing face to face with other young people all over the world. And while they’re doing it they can have a cup of tea made from a teabag and not have to make a whole pot, and wash it all up afterwards, the sink awash with leaves. And they’re warm. And their hair doesn’t smell because they can’t afford to wash it because six inches of hot bathwater from an uncertain geyser is all you’re allowed to have once a week.
They can drink in pubs till all hours of the night – no “Time gentleman please” and the last bus actually goes after ten o-clock at night. If they run out of bread and eggs on Sunday, they can go to the corner shop and buy them, not wait, eggless and breadless till Monday. And if they get ill they can pop along to their NHS doctor and get anti-biotics – unknown when I was very young.
Even their drugs are better than ours were. I’m assured that hydroponic weed is far more effective at getting you thoroughly stoned than the rather feeble grass that we used to smoke in the old days. Ecstasy then was just a twinkle in a scientist’ eye. And the wine. Anyone remember Hirondelle? Makes my eyes water just to think of it. (I gather it’s still made – but it can’t possibly taste the same.)
And the food! Go to a greengrocer’s and the only fruit consisted of apples and oranges (no bananas till later) and the only vegetables were tomatoes, onions, turnips, cabbage and potatoes. The fish was frequently off and the butcher’s slabs covered with flies. Television, refrigerators and even cars – those were only for the well-off. Even I as a young girl was sent to the fishmongers on hot days to get slabs of ice for our ice-box.
Okay, it was easier to rent a room or buy a flat. And jobs were easier to get – for the few who were well-enough educated to get them. And yes, we did get university grants. But apart from that, life was the vey pits. I spent most of my youth crying and trying to find out from the library (no internet then) ways I could kill myself successfully.
Amends? Us oldies deserve every tiny little perk we can get.
Watch my C4 News discussion with Cathy Newman and Katie Morley HERE
Granny Annexe December 2014
The other day, as I left my house, I found my neighbour crouched on the pavement sorting through a bag of rubbish. I was alarmed to discover her foraging through her own bins, but it turned out she’d lost her car keys and was scouring every possible place they could have been dropped.
“Hold on,” I said. “First I’m going to fetch you an extra binbag to make life easier, so you won’t have to stuff all that rubbish back into the old bag. And second, I want to offer you a piece of advice.”
“Yes?” she said, barely looking up in her anxiety to shake out every miserable old teabag and potato peeling she could find to see if her keys were hiding among them.
“I want you to pray to St Anthony,” I said.
“Okay,” she said, but I could see she wasn’t going to.
“St. Anthony,” I continued, like some ponderous Mr Pooter figure, “is the patron saint of lost things. I have no religious faith at all, but praying to St. Anthony always works for me, and I am certain he will work for you.”
She smiled as she looked up. “I’ve got lots of faith,” she said. “I’ll say: ‘St. Anthony, if you don’t find my keys I’ll stop believing in God altogether!’”
“I don’t think you’ve understood,” I said, by now rather tetchy. “You mustn’t threaten St. Anthony. You must put down your binbags, close your eyes and say, out loud but in a whisper if you like: “Please, St. Anthony, will you very kindly find my keys?’”
She looked at me rather pityingly. “Yes, yes,” she said, “But I MUST find them. I’m off to Gloucestershire in half an hour and if I don’t find them…” I sighed and went on my way, despairing.
All I could say was that St. Anthony has always worked for me. Recently I lost my purse with all my money and credit cards inside it. I discovered the loss at the newsagent and when I’d returned the house and scoured it from top to bottom, I went back to the newsagent to see if I hadn’t left it on the counter by mistake. I hadn’t. I came back again, looked through the car, under the seats, and turned my house upside down once more. Finally, and with a heavy heart, I realised my purse must have been pinched on my way to the newsagent, so I found the number for my bank and started to dial. Just then I thought: “What about St. Anthony?” The moment I’d finished praying, and at the same time as the girl at Nat West picked up the phone to answer my call, I had an idea. The one place I hadn’t looked was my dressing gown pocket. Now, why my purse should ever be in my dressing gown pocket I had no idea, but I put down the phone and thought I’d just check – and of course, there it was.
A friend recently rang me to say she’d lost her passport. She was going to the States the next day, and she was just about to drive down from London to the country to search her house and see if she’d left it there.
“Pray to St. Anthony,” I intoned. Pray she did and within five minutes had discovered her passport at the very back of a desk drawer she’d searched fifteen times already.
Why does the prayer work? Well, of course, it could be that St. Anthony actually works miracles. Or it could be that all the time you’re looking you actually know where you left the object you lost, but you’re unable to retrieve it because you’re so anxious. The moment you hand over the job to someone else, your brain becomes free of the anxiety and you can immediately recall where it is.
Who knows. Anyway, when I returned home I saw that my neighbour had tidied up her rubbish and had gone back inside her house. I was just making a cup of tea when the bell rang. There was my neighbour, her keys in her hand.
“I prayed to St. Anthony!” she said, delightedly. “And just as I was putting all the rubbish back, I remembered I’d been wearing a very odd coat yesterday, and though they weren’t in the pocket, they’d fallen into the lining! I’m converted!”
While I get as cross as the next person with those people don’t bother to record personal answering messages on their telephones when they’re out – “The person you are contacting is not available. Please leave your message after the tone or press hash for further options” – I am sometimes even more enraged by the messages that people do actually leave. They say that you can tell whether you like and trust someone in the first few seconds of meeting them, but it’s possible to make pretty accurate judgements just after listening to their answering messages.
I have a friend whose answering machine message goes like this: “Hello! This is 5132467, the Evans family. Please leave your message after the tone giving the date and time of your call.”
First, I never know the date. And in my experience, answering machine messages, when played back, are usually preceded by a strange, often American, voice stating exactly what the date and time is. But most irritating, for me, a single woman, at least, is this use of the word “family”. The moment I hear it , I immediately feel extraordinarily lonely. I imagine them, dozens of Evans’s, all cosying up to each other round the telephone as Mrs E records her message, arms round each other in a group hug, lit by a friendly roaring fire, united in love and kinship. And it makes me feel like a sad old singleton, excluded and uptight, all on her own.
Sometimes I feel so tetchy about her use of the word “family” that I’m tempted to record my own message as “Hello! I’m not going to give my number because you’ve just dialled it. This is Virginia Ironside, single and free as a bird and loving it. Sorry I’m not in but as you’ve discovered I’m out. Leave a message is you want, but as I’m so busy being out and having a great time because I’m single, as I mentioned, I can’t guarantee I’ll ever back to you!”
Then there are the losers, the single men working on their own as computer experts or one-man businesses, who insist on their messages running: “We’re all out at the moment so please leave a message so we can ring you back.” We! It sounds like a vast branch of ICM rather than the sad truth – the run-down room of a bloke who’s still living at home. Or there are those single women whose messages run: “We’re not at home, but we’ll get back to you as soon as possible” under the tragic illusion that a burglar, on ringing the number (do they ever do this anyway?), would be put off by the word “we”. “Oy, mate” he’d say to his partner in crime. “Turns out there’s two of ‘em in that gaff. Better lay off.”
Then there’s my cousin. She tries to be funny. “Hello, this is Chim. Well I think it is. When I look in the mirror I see someone who looked like Chim. Anyway, if I like you leave a message telling me who you are. If you know who you are that is. Have a look in the mirror and check. And if I don’t like you, don’t leave a message and don’t ring again! Byeee!”
There are the efficient ones: “Sam here! Leave a message!” – but better brief than a jazz musician friend obliges every caller to listen to the entire track of Gerry Mulligan playing Funny Valentine before he finally says, in a flat voice “Matt here. Leave a message. Stay cool and funky.” You’ve already run up a bill of hundreds of pounds before your can even say your name.
And saddest of all, of course, are the messages still left on the machine recorded by someone who’s died. The surviving partner, because they never ring themselves up, has forgotten that their partner’s voice lives on, spooking out all the callers ringing to offer their sympathy and condolences.
On an even grimmer note, I’ve just listened to my own answering machine message. Talk about “take the plank out of your own eye”. “Helleeaw” I say, sounding like Linda in the Archers. “It’s Virginia Arnside here. Do pleeese leave a message. Thenk you.” I can’t keep the pleading from my voice any more than I can conceal the sycophantic smile as I try to sound welcoming and friendly, just like those Radio Three announcers on Smooooth Classics.
Suddenly I’m wondering, to be honest, how anyone can actually bear to leave me a message at all.
Granny Annexe October 2014
My late mother-in-law was an extremely eccentric Irish woman. Most of the time she was utterly charming and could talk about the old days in posh Anglo-Irish circles till the cows came home.She told of hunting parties, kidnappings, under-age marriages, nobbled horses and drunken trainers. A great beauty in her youth, she still possessed the confidence of a fascinating woman, even though I remember her in the days when she was to be found shuffling round Notting Hill laden with Pekes and baggage, hair awry and lipstick rather smeared. She was a walking Somerville and Ross, alternately fey, irritating, extremely funny and often just plain barmy. Each time I visited I’d be given a gift, usually something like a battered pair of shoes from a car boot sale, or a strange egg-slicing machine she’d picked up at the local charity shop.
Every so often, however, she would lose it completely. She once rang me to ask me to sit in her flat while she went out shopping because she knew that the neighbours had drilled a hole in her wall. They were spying on her, she explained, and she was certain they were planning a raid on her flat once they discovered she was out.
To indulge her, I went round and sat for an hour or so until she returned; she was grateful for my assistance. However, on returning home I’d barely got into the hall before the telephone rang. It was my mother-in-law. “I think you might have asked me before taking my biscuit tin,” she said, coldly. “I would have given it to you willingly. There was no need to steal it behind my back!” She put the phone down.
I tried to ring back, but she was permanently engaged, so later that afternoon I visited her to assure her I hadn’t pinched anything. And certainly not a biscuit tin! But the windows of her flat were covered with big pieces of cardboard on which were written, in huge scrawled black letters, the words: “Who Killed the Owl in Avondale Park? I know who killed the Owl!!”
We named her “Batty Granny” until, a few weeks later she was back to her old self, chuckling amiably over the whole affair and turning it into yet another anecdote.
Thank God, I thought, there was no way I’d ever get like that.
Recently my son rang up to tell me he’d be a bit late for lunch. “But it’s tomorrow you’re coming, isn’t it?” I said. Then, realising my mistake, hastily added, “Oh of course – it’s today.. lovely”
When he arrived with my two grandsons my son looked in puzzlement at the table settings. “Why have you laid for three, mum?” he asked.
“Because there are three!” I said triumphantly.
Then I counted. “I mean, er, four.”
We ate the lunch I’d hastily scraped together and everything was going fine until my son frowned. “This pepper’s a bit strange, mum,” he said. “Is it special?”
“No, it’s just ordinary peppercorns,” I said.
“No, they’re sweet and sort of spicy…” After rummaging in my cupboard he found I’d put the Szechuan peppercorns into the grinder rather than the normal ones. And while he was looking in the cupboard he discovered a packet of cardamom seeds. “Do you really want to keep these?” he asked. “The sell-by date is 1998!”
When the phone rang I left the room to answer it, mumbled whispered excuses into it and returned to the table. “Who was that?” asked my grandson. “No one particular,” I replied. I didn’t want to tell them it was a friend of mine wondering where I’d got to for lunch. I got down to peeling the mangoes.
I couldn’t find the car when we went out to the park after lunch and I called my son my ex-husband’s name and the boys my son’s name. Indulgent laughs all round. “Oh, we all do it all the time,” said my son, comfortingly.
Finally, after returning for a cup of tea, they left to go back home. “Goodbye granny!” said the grandsons, kissing me. Then one of them drew back.
He paused and then he said, as his parting shot: “You do know, don’t you, granny, that you’ve got a bit of mango in your hair?”
I closed the door, tottered inside and put my head in my hands. I wouldn’t be surprised, I thought, if they hadn’t pinched my biscuit tin.
Granny Annexe September 2014
It was the first really hot day of summer and I was driving to Gloucestershire.
I was bowling along quite nicely, with the satnav continually adjusting to add more time to his fearfully optimistic prediction of when I would arrive – these satnav people must drive like the wind in the middle of the night to be able to reach their destinations by the estimated time – when the traffic started to slow down.
We’d got a little way along the one-way slip road that leads from the M40 to Oxford when we all ground to a halt. Ten minutes passed. We were all still revving up our engines in anticipation of being able to make our escape, but nothing happened. The noise of a fire-engine whistled behind us, so we all drove our cars into the hedgerow. We all still remained in our cars, hoping. Then, down the empty space in the middle of road, an ambulance came roaring down between us, accompanied by police motorcycles. And at this stage we knew we were in for the long hall. Engines were turned off. Car doors were opened and people put their feet outside.
About five minutes later some of us got out for a stretch, smiling and shrugging at our fellow drivers, looking ruefully at our watches and asking if anyone knew what was going on. Finally rumour got round from someone listening to local radio that a bus had burnt itself out near the lights at the top of the road. We were in the for the long haul.
I rang my friends to say I’d be late. They commiserated and said they’d start supper without me if I didn’t mind. The sun beat down and it was curiously silent. We looked around our new surroundings – rows of stationary cars nestling close to mountains of cow parsley. Bees buzzed. Birds sang. A perfect English country afternoon.
The Polish driver of the big truck parked on the opposite side of the road was told by his boss that he could remove his card from his engine so he didn’t have to worry about taking a legal break at the correct time. The Chinese woman behind me remained in her seat and got out her laptop. A very amiable English gent and his wife, wearing expensive country jerkins, wandered up and down until they got too hot and started to unpeel their layers.
Down the centre of the road there came a mother, with her little girl and a tiny dog, taking a walk. As she processed down the avenue, everyone got out of their cars to greet her. They said hello to the little girl, patted the dog and asked its name.
The amiable English gent was walking down the hedgerow plucking flowers. A couple of giggling young girls who were sitting on the bonnet of their in front said they only lived three hundred yards away and if we were there for hours they’d miss their party that night. One of them had been eighteen only the day before.
A woman came up and said: “Well, we may be waiting but at least it wasn’t us on that bus,” and we all agreed.
At this point – drama. Cars up in front, getting impatient, started turning and driving slowly down the middle of the road. I secretly admired their nous, but soon a resentful muttering went up. “What if they block the road for another emergency vehicle coming up the other way?” “They’re not only stupid, they’re selfish.”
A woman in an orange jumper, who had relatives in the police force, rang the police to report the maverick cars. Within twenty minutes the police bikes were back at the scene giving the car drivers a good talking-to. Everyone cheered and clapped.
The amiable gent presented his wild flower bouquet gallantly to one of the girls in front. “A late birthday present,” he said. Then he started pointing and explaining: “This is the meadow-sweet, this is the dead nettle, this blue is the scabious… here is the Ladies Slipper…”
Then the traffic started moving again. We all got back into our cars, hooting and waving as we passed each other, never to see each other again.
When I finally got to my friends’ house, they rushed out of the house. “Poor, poor you!” they said. “It must have been terrible!”
“Ghastly!” I said.
But actually it was one of the nicest drives I’ve ever had.
Granny Annexe Summer 2014
In the past, when friends said they’d got the builders in, you would tell them to put their heads between their knees and then you’d offer them cups of hot, strong tea laced with brandy. You’d spread the news between your friends. “She’s got the builders in,” you’d say in a hushed voice, when they asked why she hadn’t been on the scene for ages. And they’d shake their heads in commiseration, thanking their lucky stars they were builder-free.
But then the Poles came. And the Ukrainians. And the East European hordes that the Daily Mail had told us would over-run the country and alter our way of life for ever. And blow me, they did. “Having the builders in” became, instead of a death-sentence, a joy. The bell would ring at seven in the morning – the time they said they’d arrive no less! – and they’d click their heels on the doorstep and call you madam, refuse all offers of cups of tea, and work till the light faded. When you asked if by any chance they could also fix a shelf in the bathroom while they were here, or get out that ceiling spotlight that seemed to have stuck, they would set to smilingly. And there was always one particularly dishy young one who put you into a flutter when you met him on the stairs. When they left, you’d miss them and wish that bits of your house would collapse so you could welcome them in again.
So when, sodden by the torrential rains earlier this year, the wall in my garden fell down, I wasn’t too unhappy. A friend told me he’d got the most amazing builders who would come at the drop of a hat. Hurrah! I thought. The builders are back.
Everything would have been fine except that these builders appeared to be old-style builders, dredged up from some fifties rock-pool. The moment Mike and Sean shambled into my kitchen with their glazed eyes and unfriendly mumbles of “Heo mum” (one appeared to have no teeth) I should have sensed warning bells.
They gave me an estimate, asked for a lot of cash upfront and disappeared. A week later they returned. Sean had had a bad leg, they explained. But now they were here, they said, “You don’t have to worry about a thing, Valerie. We’ll have it done in no time!”
Virginia, I said.
Half an hour later they disappeared again. A week later they were back. The van had broken down. But now they’d crack on. “You’ll see, Valerie.”
“You won’t pull up my plants or destroy my lawn, will you?” I asked, as I filled giant cups of tea and provided huge slices of cake to bribe them to stay a bit longer this time. “By the way, it’s Virginia.”
“To be sure,” said Sean, “We’ve gardens of our own and we know how precious plants can be. We’ll have to cut a bit back, but everything will be right as rain… why talk of the devil! There was a spot, wasn’t it Mike? We can’t work in this weather. We’ll be back tomorrow. My that cake was good! See you tomorrow Valerie!” Mike mumbled his goodbyes.
I would have believed them but when I went out shopping that afternoon I saw their van parked outside in another street with the back doors open. They were clearly on another job. Ah well, tomorrow we’d see…
I don’t have to go on. Eventually, after a great deal of money had exchanged hands (twice the original estimate), the wall was put up but the garden was left like one of those 1918 battlefields in Verdun painted by Paul Nash. The rambling rose that had threaded its way through the undergrowth until it reached my kitchen doors had been cut back to the roots. The undergrowth through which it had threaded itself lay in ashes after a bonfire. The cement that had been mixed on the lawn when Mike had forgotten their plastic sheet had set into a grey smear. The laburnum, the ceanothus – everything had been hacked back to the bare minimum. A pile of rubble – bricks, old mortar, broken fencing – lay on top of the hydrangeas. I swear that no birds sang.
“Goodbye, Veronica!” said Sean on the last day, as he left. “Love that cake!” Toothless Mike just mumbled.
If the job hadn’t already clearly been done by the people he’d d been working for before, I would cheerfully have kicked his teeth in.
Granny Annexe August 2014
Last week we decided – or rather I decided – to make butter with my grandson. I had a vague memory of my grandmother once putting some milk into a jar, screwing the lid on and leaving me to shake it for hours like Mick Jagger working his maracas, until finally a tiny pat of butter appeared. But because I doubted the dreadful super-skimmed green-topped muck that seems to be the only milk you can get these days would have enough cream in it to make enough butter for a goblin’s breakfast toast, I bought some cream from the local supermarket and my grandson got shaking.
He’d been going for about half an hour with no results so I put the liquid into the whizzer. But it remained the same old white slop. My grandson was, at this point, getting bored and got on the kitchen floor practicing some of the moves he’d learned at break-dance class the week before. I felt frustrated. What on earth was I doing, anyway, getting my grandson to make butter when all he was interested in was break-dancing? I might as well have suggested making a pen-wiper with blanket-stitch round the edges.
As I was mulling this over I noticed that on the cream carton that while the word “Double” was written big, as was “Cream” between them lay, in tiny letters, the ominous phrase “alternative to.” No wonder this cream wouldn’t make butter. It probably consisted of an amalgam of trans fats, whale oil, products of nuts from several countries and whitewash.
“It’s not real cream!” I cried. “We must go out and get some!” and hauled him round to the shop. Despite the fact that it was clear my grandson had no interest whatever in making butter, I was driven by a crazy grandmotherly imperative to Make Butter Come What May.
We returned with the proper cream and, plastering a fresh and enthusiastic smile on my face, I said: “Now! At last! We can finally get cracking! Butter, here we come!”
His face grey with boredom my grandson shook his head desultorily.
“Come on we can’t give up now, not after all this effort,” I said, gamely. “Never say die!”
“I’m bored with making butter,” said my grandson, doggedly. “It’s not going to work.”
“Let’s watch it on YouTube!” I suggested, finally. “There must be films of people making butter! Maybe we’re doing something wrong!”
The word “computer” seemed to perk him up, so after watching several videos of butter being made effortlessly using exactly the same technique as ours, I insisted we try one last time.
“Do we have to?” he said, yawning. “It’s boring.”
“Just five minutes,” I said, “If it doesn’t work after five minutes, we’ll stop.”
Five minutes later with both our wrists collapsing, I said: “Okay. Okay. I give in. A mystery.” I put the jar down feeling terribly despondent.
Then my grandson looked at me. I could see an expression of sympathy crossing his face. He felt torn. He wanted to get on with something else but he obviously didn’t want to let the side down.
Suddenly, a cheeky grin crossed his face. “Come on granny!” he said, and he said it in just the same kind of cheery voice that I’d used earlier. “Come on! Never say die! Butter, here we come!”
And after about ten seconds a thumping sound came from inside the jar. My grandson stopped shaking and looked, astonished, inside.
“BUTTER!” he shouted. “GRANNY! GRANNY! BUTTER! IT’S BUTTER! WE’VE DONE IT!”
And I felt like crying with joy. We both marvelled at the pale golden lump of lardy butter that we’d created, and using a piece of muslin we squeezed the liquid out of it and put into in the fridge. Every so often, my grandson opened the fridge to look at it and gloat.
From then on the whole of the rest of the day went with a swing. It was punctuated every half hour or so by my grandson saying to me, smugly: “I made it, didn’t I granny? You were going to give up, but I said ‘Never say die!’”
What could I say?
“You did indeed!” I agreed. And of course albeit it ony buttered two small crumbs of toast, it turned out to be the most delicious butter we had ever tasted in our lives.
Granny Annexe July 2014
While I was researching a book about my mother – it was called Janey and Me – I came across a faded old newspaper cutting from the ‘fifties. Underneath a black and white reproduction of an oil painting were the words: “Different – for her, Aero. The milk chocolate that’s different.”
If Babycham was the first drink aimed specifically for women, and Virginia Slims the first cigarettes, Aero chocolate was the first chocolate advertising campaign aimed at women too. It was those bubbles. It was even advertised as “slimming”. But what made this particular advertisement so striking for me was the fact that this oil painting was of my mother.
I remembered the circumstances of it being painted only too well.
My parents, struggling designers, were living in Chelsea in the early ‘fifties, a stone’s throw from the Chelsea Arts Club. The dashing painters Rodrigo Moynihan and Robert Buhler were only a two minute walk away, as was the poet Laurie Lee. And just off the King’s Road was Dylan Thomas’s brother-in-law, the painter Anthony Devas, a hugely successful artist.
Having spent the war years in Leamington Spa where my father was a camouflage officer, my parents had come up to London. My mother eked out a living as a “little dressmaker” trying (often in vain) to sell her designs to mass production fashion companies, and my father worked as a part-time teacher at the Royal College of Art. My father (his own father had been a society doctor whose behaviour had been so appalling when it came to other women that my grandmother divorced him, almost unknown in those days) was not one to embrace the new freedoms after the war. He regarded drink, pubs, any kind of “roistering” and the “faster faster” life, as he called it, with fear and disapproval. My mother couldn’t have been more different. She longed to spend her evenings in pubs full of painters and poets and since everyone else seemed to be having affairs with everyone else, why not her?
But my memory of my mother being painted for the Aero campaign didn’t fill me with happy memories. Anthony Devas was a devastatingly attractive man – even my little eight-year-old knees used to wobble when I saw him – notorious for his effect on women. All I remember of that time is my mother returning from her sittings flushed and happy and my father filling the house with a disapproving silence.
After my mother’s death, as I was writing the book, I contacted Rowntree, who made Aero chocolate, to see where the picture might be. But the press office claimed no knowledge.
So I forgot all about it until a few months ago when I was contacted by two inspired trainee archivists at the Borthwick Institute in York, where the Rowntree archives are filed. They had uncovered 26 portraits of pretty women painted in the fifties for the Aero campaign and were trying to identify them. Could the one called “Janey” be my mother?
Indeed it was and I went up to York, along with Anthony Devas’ son and daughter, to have a look. The array of portraits swept me back to another world, a world of Peter and Jane, of bicycle rides, paraffin stoves and junket. All those fresh-faced young women – they looked so innocent – and yet I wondered how many of those sittings had caused problems at home? Were all the artists as dashing as Anthony Devas? Viktor Lazlo certainly was, and with a name to go with it. Norman Hepple was another jobbing artist who made a good living out of painting society portraits. And when I say “jobbing” it sounds unkind. But this was nearly the last generation of artists (not counting the YBAs of course) who actually made a proper living out of their paintings. They were devil-may-care and debonair men (all men) with devil-may-care and debonair names – all straight out of a Mills and Boon romance.
I looked at the picture of my mother. How troubled and sad she looked – you could almost predict her future: huge success followed by drugs, suicide attempts and death. I was briefly tempted to whisk it under my coat and smuggle it home on the train.
But then I thought: no. Not only was it too poignant, but also, and I hate to say it, there was a touch of the chocolate box about it.
Granny Annexe June 2014
I was recently asked for my views on various so-called “child abuse” cases. You can probably guess my stance by the inverted commas the use of the word “so-called”. I was just about to storm ahead, huffing and puffing, and saying that in my day we were regularly groped and fiddled with and would just brush off the unwelcome advances with an “Oh, get off you silly little man” (indeed, in those days I was rather hurt if my partner did not attempt a snog in any cinema we went to together, even if I’d only just met him) when I was confronted by a friend of 25 who said that I “couldn’t possibly say that in this day and age.”
“How would you feel if it was your daughter who was being groped?” she said. “Groping is completely unacceptable behaviour!”
Luckily I didn’t have to choose between stances as Radio Four rang to cancel the programme just in time – phew! – but I’m still confused about where I stand on many issues about which I used to have certain views in the old days. Have I turned, I asked myself, a dreadful old dinosaur who still thinks that referring to nig-nogs simply isn’t offensive (I don’t think that by the way) and bewails the night-time drinking culture and the fact that no one these days has heard of Keats or Shelley?
In the past the older generation was usually shocked by the hedonism of the young, their loose morals, their lack of manners or knowledge. I’ve read that ancient Romans oldies wrung their hands over the appalling state of the young, how stained were their togas, how rude they were in the market-place, how they pushed ahead in the queue for the gladiatorial fights. But while I’m as keen as the next oldie on condemning texting at table, lack of thank-you letters blah blah blah, on the whole what shocks me about the young is not their wayward ways but their new puritanism.
Of course I abhor mindless racism, but I have to say that though I know it’s not thought to be the right thing to say, I do think some nationalities are weirder, generally, than others. Recently I said to a friend who’d described having dinner with a couple of Americans: “Oh God no, not American’! They’re so weird!” and she was shocked. But with some exceptions I do find Americans a bit too different, culturally, to be completely comfortable with them and I bet, in their turn, they find me pretty weird as well. Is it wrong to state this? Apparently.
Then again I recently referred to a psychiatric hospital as a loonie bin. Shock horror. But if a black person can call himself what Radio Four politely calls “the n word”, why can’t I (a frequent inmate of loonie bins in the past) refer to them in that way? I can also wish my Pakistani shopkeeper a happy Christmas. I think he knows what I mean. It’s an expression of goodwill, whatever the holiday.
Teaching children at a school recently, I incurred great disapproval for putting my arms round a crying child. But I get on my moral high horse about being unable to comfort a child, particularly one I’m not related to, simply because of some blanket terror of child abuse. And as for naughty step – it may be a fashionable form of discipline, but surely isn’t it one of the most cruel?
Luckily, since I no longer drink, I’m not faced with the drink-driving challenge, though have to admit that until then, like many old person I know, I frequently drove over the limit. That’s something I don’t approve of in myself.
But I find young people’s pre-occupation with dirt rather unseemly. I don’t wish to take my shoes off before going into anyone’s house. Love me, love my shoes, I say. And as for those young people who won’t allow a cigarette to be smoked in the house, what’s all that about? Do they have no compassion?
In the end it all boils down, I suppose, to the same thing. Old people dislike change. Hedonism, puritanism, if it’s not like the old days, it’s just not our cup of tea. And that’s I may say, with two sugars if you don’t mind. That is, if the health policeman in you will allow it.
Granny Annexe May 2014
When I was a young mum in the seventies, I never had time to protest about my local Council’s often scandalous behaviour. Splendid Georgian terraces were torn down, blocks of Stalinist flats erected, vile pedestrian precincts imposed, hideous works of art installed on public land, and my response was usually a muttering of “Wicked! Someone should try to stop it!”
But now, as I Get On and have more time and, more importantly, more confidence, I find, like many other oldies, that that Someone is, actually me.
I live in London and in the last ten years I’ve been part of several small, tight-knit groups which have, among other things, prevented the local football club from using their pitch during the summer months as a pop venue, seen off a tram which was to roll down the main road, causing the destruction of local shops and mature trees – and I’ve also helped prevent, by initiating a public inquiry, a bunker-like café – or any café, come to that – being built in the middle of Shepherd’s Bush Common.
My latest campaign, along with a local residents’ group, has been to try to prevent Hammersmith and Fulham Council leasing half a local park to a private football company for no less than 35 years.
In the seventies, what I was doing instead of protesting was taking my small son up to the same local park. He’d paddle in the shallow pool in the playground and make castles in the sandpit and I’d talk to other mums, mostly from the White City Estate, and we’d make our way back past the tennis courts, the bowling green, and the basket-ball court, through the pretty Japanese Garden, overlooked by the then BBC Building.
Hammersmith Park was one of the very few areas of green open space in our green-deprived area, and, like most people, I took it for granted that it would always be there for the use of local residents. Little did I know then how vulnerable the park was.
Because all over England, local councils are going round and spotting bits of green spaces and thinking: “I wonder how we could make money out of that?” This activity is known, apparently, as “sweating the assets”. Yes, yuk. The Council have seen our park, decided they no longer want to maintain the sports facilities, and hope to lease half the park to a private football club, with 13 five and seven-a-side pitches, bar and car park, all surrounded by a twelve-foot fence and open till eleven on weekdays and midnight at weekends. True, there is an agreement that two of its tiny pitches will be made over for community use, but a local football team’s already been told it can’t play at all because it didn’t support the planning application.
The project, launched with virtually no consultation, will involve the destruction of the tennis courts (on which local people still played, despite them being unmaintained), the rather dilapidated but still usable basket-ball pitch (on which local teams played until far into the night, for free) and the bowling green, along with at the destruction of least 24 mature trees and bushes and flower beds.
After the first planning application I applied for a Judicial Review which stopped work for a while. The diggers (which had arrived a week early) stopped digging and everything was in abeyance. Since then, the company’s applied a second time for planning permission. That too has been passed but we still have a couple of ideas of how to stop the development up our sleeves. Who knows what the outcome will be. All I know is that protesting and campaigning is incredibly hard work – and carried out, in the main, by a whole gangs of game oldies, the only ones with the time, the skills and the courage to fight iniquities like these.
I hate very minute of it. I hate getting down and dirty in the grubby world of council politics, the wondering when to release the damning emails, the checking of the petitions to see if the signatures have been written by the same person, the scouring round to find kickbacks, if there are any, the endless rebuffs, the lies and the evasion.
It’s late in life we realise that we all have Civic Duties to perform. But however much we may dislike it, it’s important that perform them we do.
I’ve never seen the point of exercising deliberately. I’ve always thought that the exercise I take is quite enough already – staggering up and down the stairs looking for my car keys, then walking up and down the street looking for my car, stomping round aisle after aisle at Waitrose, and then lifting the heavy shopping back into the house. And that’s not counting the bending down to search for dropped hairpins or reaching up to rehook the shower curtain.
When a doctor asked me recently if I ever got out of breath when I ran for the bus, I heard myself replying, in the style popularised by Lady Bracknell: “Run? For a bus?”
But for some reason recently the drip-drip-drip of newspaper articles and medical advice got to me. Everywhere I turned there was yet another person suggesting I walked for twenty minutes each day (sorry, walked “briskly”), or got out of breath at least once a week, or engaged in some kind of physical activity – that is, if I didn’t want to fall off my perch in a couple of years. So I realised the only answer was either to get a dog or join a gym.
Now I know there are some people who love dogs. Some people who are turned on by the thumping tail, the panting tongue, the adoring eyes. But to be honest, I’ve always found dogs rather pitiful. I feel sad seeing them waiting to be attached to their chains. I wince hearing them being ordered to their baskets: “BASKET!” I feel I’m witnessing some kind of horrible act of abuse, about which my grandchildren’s grandchildren will say: “You mean they put dogs on chains? And they left them in a house and went out, when the poor animals never knew if their owners were ever coming back or not? So cruel!”
So I joined a gym. Now, as you may have gathered, I am not a gym person. I come from a family in which taking care of your body or, indeed, considering yourself in any way at all, was considered extremely low-grade. Showing tears, love, self-pity, compassion or taking to your bed if you felt rotten, were all things that were done on the sly and in private. After Jack Amory, a Fascist traitor who had been an unhinged pupil at my great-aunt’s school, had been sentenced to death, my great-aunt, on the day of his hanging, looked at the clock and, seeing it was midday, commented to my father: “Well, Jack’s gone. Would you pass me an orange?”
So instead of feeling a glow of self-satisfaction when I leave the gym, gasping and sweating, I come away not only feel ill with exercise but pervaded with a dreadful sense of guilt. I can almost see my great aunt pursing her lips and suggesting that, next time, I might prefer to sit down and read a good book on Gothic architecture.
The only plus is that the machines at the gym all have tellies incorporated into their screens – the ones which show you the time, the heartbeat and so on. And although most of the time there’s nothing to watch except shows about antiques, quizzes, or old Westerns, or people buying or making over their houses, I did manage to catch one gem of a series that drew me back to the gym each week. Keith Floyd’s cooking programmes were repeated and I fell in love. It’s quite fun falling in love with a dead person, because you can never be disappointed or betrayed. Many people have told me what an impossibly unpleasant person Keith could be. But all I see is the darling in him. And even though here I am, gasping and puffing and, no doubt, looking terrible and feeling wretchedly guilty, here’s good old Keith, in his impeccable linen suit, his bow tie immaculately tied, looking me in the eyes over a sliver of marinated veal, winking and flirting and sipping and laughing.
Unfortunately the series is over and I’m now lumbered with a terrible panel of fat old cooks in jerseys and jeans, all joshing and being blokish over coarse slabs of beef and making jokes about sprouts (surely one of the more delicious vegetables, no? I’m sure Keith would have loved them).
I have a feeling that at this rate the fitness jag is soon going to go the way of all jags. Goodbye Keith and back to Waitrose for my weekly exercise fix.
I was eighteen in 1962 when I started writing my first book. I’d go to art school during the day, go out in the evening and, when I came home to Chelsea, I’d get out my Woody Woodbines, start typing on an old portable typewriter and hope my dad didn’t catch me smoking. When I’d finished, I put it in a drawer.
To be honest the plot was pretty thin. It was about a young art student in the early sixties, living at home with her father, and it was all about her adventures in the King’s Road. No prize for guessing whether it was semi-autobiographical or not.
I was had no idea of how a book was published. Luckily, though, I’d sent an amusing piece (my first ever) to About Town, a very chic and groovy magazine. The features editor – then Michael Parkinson – accepted it and, once it came out, I got a letter from a mysterious company called Secker and Warburg. “Had I,” they wanted to know, “ever thought of writing a book?”
Now the reason they wanted to know was because a young debutante, Charlotte Bingham, had just had a huge success with a book called Coronet Among the Weeds, her hilarious adventures on the deb scene. Naturally enough they were dying to get on the bandwagon and find their own “young person.” And I was that young person.
To a generation which had just come out of the war, a generation raised on ration books, black-outs, who’d lived through what Cyril Connolly called the “drab decade”, young people, with their mini-skirts, jobs, affluence, easy access to contraception, drugs and rock’n’roll, must have seemed like a different species. Everyone wanted to know about them. “What did ‘fab’ mean?” they used to ask. “Why do young men want to wear their hair so long?” “Who is The Who?”
So when I got the letter I got my book out of the drawer, bunged it off and bingo, it was published. It was called Chelsea Bird and it featured one of the first bed-scenes between unmarried young people. A magazine called New Society even wrote an article about it. The fact that the bed- scene consisted of the sentences “He fumbled with my bra. I hoped this wasn’t going to be a two-hour job” didn’t seem to matter. It was new, it was shocking and the life-style was, to most older people, incomprehensible.
My jacket photograph was taken by the very scary Jeffrey Bernard who, I remember, sneered when I offered him a cigarette which, for some inexplicable reason, seemed to have turned from my usual trendy Woodie into a hopelessly unfashionable Craven A Navy Cut. He left the photo session without saying goodbye. I suppose, when I think back, he as just as terrified of me at that age as I was of him.
The book caused a minor sensation. I was interviewed and photographed by leering snappers who set me at the top of a ladder and photographed my legs. There was a glut of us young authoresses. There was my friend Annabel Dilke’s with Rule Three Pretend to Nice and Andrew Newman with Three into Two Won’t Go.
Now my publishers have brought the book out on Kindle. But before they launched it, a rather nervous young editor rang. “Would you like to check it over first?” she said. “There might be some things that, in the present climate, you might want to change.”
And I must say that even I, not particularly politically correct, was shocked to see how many times the words “spade” “Jew” “queer” and even, horror of horrors, “common” were sprinkled through the text. (Curious, isn’t it, how unmentionable words change? In the fifties, Evelyn Home the agony aunt at Woman magazine was told she couldn’t use the word “menstruation” or “bottom” – not even as in “bottom of the garden” or “bottom of the saucepan.” )
I’ve taken the shocking words out, and there it is. I’m slightly horrified to find there is a naivety and a total heartlessness about it that can only belong to the young who, selfishly, have no idea how other people – like my grandparents for instance, who were cruelly mocked – might have feel when they were pinned to the page. Still, it’s a period piece and sometimes even I, years later, find it rather a good insight into how the mind of “young person” actually works.
Recently I was called up for Jury Service. And was I cross. Now I know it’s part of a democratic legal process, but I’ve been called up three times. Yes, three times. And I know several people of my own age who’ve never been called up at all!
What gets me is, if you’ve done Jury Service once, why can’t you be given a break until everyone else has been used up? Because as far as I remember it, Jury Service was petty unbearable.
We potential jurors were ushered into a smoke-filled waiting room in a Willesden court. And there we waited, hour upon hour, until we were called. It was like a hospital waiting room, all of us filled with anticipatory dread, eying each other suspiciously and wondering if we could bear to be stuck in a room together for days or, perhaps, even weeks.
When we were finally called I found myself among a surly group I pegged as fuzz-hating strangers, all of whom had me pegged as some kind of middle-aged Sloane Ranger. There was only one other person like me, a woman from Knightsbridge called, as far as I remember, Fiona.
The case featured a guy who’d been accused of driving when banned. We heard that he was an impoverished single parent of a disabled child. His dementia-ridden mother, relied on him totally, and he’d been out of work for weeks since the charge. Driving was his occupation. On and on it went, chapter after chapter of misery. The only problem was: he was guilty. At least Fiona and I thought he was. In those days we believed the police.
We went back to our brown-painted jury-room to discuss it. Fiona and I were in the minority but there were two other people who agreed with us and two more don’t knows. Slowly the don’t-knows fell. Then another guilty-voter. Fiona and I went for lunch together – the other jurors making the sign of the cross and spitting as we passed – and had a sad sandwich on high stools in a steamy café round the corner. By the time we returned we were the only two guilty voters left. We were just about to troop back in with a majority verdict when the foreman, an extremely bright taxi-driver called Jim, stopped. He appeared to be doing calculations in his head.
“I’m not so sure we’re right,” he said. We all sat down again while he drew diagrams on a piece of paper in front on him.
“Now look,” he said. “If our man wasn’t driving, as he said he wasn’t, who was? There six people in the car, three at the back and three at the front. One of them had a broken leg, so couldn’t drive and one, according to our man and the police, had got off at a service station. Another one was taken on board entering on the passenger side – so he must be ruled out – and one of the men in the back needed to go to the toilet. But when they returned to the car, our man couldn’t have been in the back because if Man A was lying, then Man B wasn’t on his way to Kent, as he’d said, and if he wasn’t lying, then how could Man C have got from the toilet to the passenger side of the back sat in three minutes? Divide the whole thing by seven, multiply by two, take away Man D and what do we have? Our man was driving! So he must be guilty!”
Well, it wasn’t quite like that of course, but similar. Slowly the non-guilty sayers were persuaded and, apart from a couple of grumpy women who said even if he was guilty they wanted him to get off we reached a majority verdict of guilty.
Turned out the guy had a criminal record as long as your arm, including one for dangerous driving in which he’d seriously injured a pedestrian, and we all strongly suspected there was no son and no mother.
Fiona and I went out, but we still felt strangely miserable. Just the act of passing judgement was an onerous and sad task.
So since then, when I’ve next been asked, I’ve got out of it. Second time because I was a single mother, and last time because of the cataract op and the fact that my insides are held together by pieces of string.
I say again. It’s someone else’s turn.
I was surprised when a young friend asked, as we were descending a long flight of marble stairs, if I’d like her to move to the other side of me.
“Why?” I said.
“So you can use the handrail,” she said.
Naturally I was touched, but also, honestly, astounded. And rather worried. She clearly thought I’d fall if I wasn’t hanging on for dear life to a banister.
“I’m fine!” I said as I scampered, child-like down the whole flight of stairs leaving her far behind.
But I was kidding myself. And her. I was taking my life in my hands. The thing is that I just can’t see as well as I used to. And it affects my walking. Recently I was wandering about the kitchen in the morning, when I’d just got up, and I heard a faint rhythmic rustling noise. I stopped. It stopped. I started moving again and it started again. Then the penny dropped. It was me all along. I was shuffling. Me! Shuffling! That’s a sign of someone who’s walking carefully. Very carefully.
And to compound matters, I was telling a friend the other day how helpful everyone was to me on my travels. “They’re always offering to carry my suitcase over railway bridges,” I said. “But it’s most odd. Because I don’t think that, having had a facelift, I look that old.”
“You don’t,” he agreed. “I think it’s probably your gait.”
My gait? My gait? Crikey, there’s no operation that can fix that!
But there is an operation that can help the old eyesight, so that one might be a bit more confident about where one puts one feet, so I hurried off to have a cataract op. I’m aware that this column hardly deserves the title of Granny Annexe. It should be called Hospital Corner. But here goes. Another visit to the doctor.
He explained that though I wouldn’t necessarily see any better, I would be able to see a lot more light, making driving easier at night (I’ve only recently avoided killing several cyclists in the dark) and, perhaps, walking too. Ending, I hoped, my having to grope my way along walls of the streeets on my way home in the dark, reminiscent of those afternoons of my childhood when I struggled to feel my way home through pea-soupers..
Amazingly, the operation could be performed in a day. Having once accompanied a charity called Orbis, is a flying eye hospital that lands in places like Dacca and performs eye ops by the billion, I knew vaguely how the operation worked. The surgeon makes a tiny hole in the eye, bungs in a goblin-sized hammer, breaks up the old lens, then inserts an elf-like Hoover and suck out the bits, and then bungs anew lens in. At least that’s the impression I got. And certainly it was very moving watching blind Bangladeshis being helped in with kindly relatives, only to emerge, a couple of days later, singing and dancing.
I was half awake while the bloke was doing the hoovering, but though I was chatting to him during the op, I couldn’t feel a thing, and the following morning I woke up at home, took off my compulsory eye patch and was convinced I’d gone blind. But a few hours later panicking had changed to marvelling. The whole place looked so bright. At least it did through my one “done” eye. The place was like a Persil ad. Never had my whites seemed whiter! And if I put my hand over my “done” eye and looked at the world through the old one, I felt I was living in a Fitzrovia pub in the fifties. Everything was covered with a yellow nicotiney stain. Or, another way of putting it, it was as if I was wearing those cheap clip-on dark glasses from the seventies. Everything was yellowish brown. Now, through my good eye, my house, which used do seem so dark, looked a lot lighter. In fact I’m wondering if I haven’t found the answer to my moving house dilemma. Don’t change the house, but change your perception of it.
Of course now I can’t wait to have the other eye done.
It hasn’t made a lot of difference to my walking, I’m afraid. But at least now when I shuffle now I can see very clearly as I do it.
I was one of the very lucky people who had not one, not two but three magical teachers at school. Out of a morass of grey-faced, grey-bunned, grey-clothed old miseries (the geography teacher was an alcoholic, the French teacher had the beginnings of dementia, the history teacher, was obsessed with the Ancient Egyptians, the art teacher was my father so didn’t count), these stood out.
One was Miss Norcross who taught maths, known as “Snorks”. She had actually discovered some mathematical equation which is known, I believe, as the Norcross equation, and she made maths, for me at least, a pure joy.
Miss Kelvin was an Austrian refugee with swollen legs and a generous nature and a furious temper. She was working here illegally as a piano teacher, but had she stayed in Vienna she could easily have been a concert pianist. She had been taught by Theodor Leschetitzky who had been taught by Czerny, who was taught by Beethoven. Leschetitzky also taught, along with Mrs. Kelvin, such greats as Paderewski, Schnabel, and Moiseiwitsch.
But the star of the show was Miss Staynes, our English and Latin teacher, who died this summer. I remember the first day she arrived at school in the mid ‘fifties – in a bubble car, a Gogomobil. Out she stepped like a butterfly from a chrysalis. She was only 28, by far the youngest teacher in the school, and she had long glossy hair always done up in a chignon, over which, when going out, she wore a big black hat. She wore a belted leather jacket, turquoise stockings, a pink stole and had a long black velvet skirt and often turquoise stockings. We didn’t know it then, but once, at Oxford, she’d been engaged to Kenneth Tynan. When I went to visit her later she told me she’d broken it off because “Going up the stairs with him to a grand lunch I paused to look in a mirror to check my hair. He pushed in front of me to check his. During lunch I said to him: ‘I don’t think this is going to work’”
Miss Staynes laid down firm rules on essay writing. “Never describe anything is ‘nice’ and never say, at the end of a story, that you woke up and it was all just a dream.” She impressed us all once as she kept her cool when one of our class, the mentally-ill daughter of a government minister, approached her, bearing a knife and intoning the words: “Something is wrong…”
“Nothing is wrong,” said Miss Staynes. “Please sit down. It is your turn to translate.”
She found the English and Latin grammar books so dull that she re-wrote versions especially for us and she was so captivating that she could even make Caesar’s Wars interesting. And she was the only teacher who took us out. We saw Joan Plowright as St Joan in Stratford, we visited the British Museum to look at “step cut diamonds”, she read us “the Lord of the Rings” – playing a formidable “Gollum” – and one day she took all of us, a class of fifteen-year-olds to the X-rated film of the Japanese Macbeth, The Throne of Blood. She managed to convince the lady at the ticket office that we were all sixteen and in we went.
The actress Jane Birkin, who was at the same school as me, but younger, was so enamoured of Miss Staynes that she actually asked her over to Paris to appear in a television show about her life, as a major influence on her work. She still talks of her in interviews as alone of her great mentors. And four of the pupils I know have gone on to become writers – myself, Georgina Howell, Fiona MacCarthy and Barbara Erskine.
At her memorial service, where I gave an address, her partner read out one of her poems.
“They said goodbye/ Formal, their faces changed by emotion/I offered my hand in civilised farewell/Saying the things I had said to so many/ ‘You’ll come back and see us again’ knowing/They are never the same./ My hand was pulled at, my cheek kissed/And the girl, releasing me, flung her arm,/Awkward, across her eyes/More like six than sixteen/I went on smiling and reassuring. I know don’t know/What I said./ Later I wept/ For children who were not my own/But whom, in my way, I had nourished.”
There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.
Mention the prospect of an MRI scan these days and you produce the same reaction among your contemporaries as you did when discussing ghosts or the bogeyman with them when you were six.
Their faces go grey and they start to shake with fear and dread.
Am I the only person in the world to enjoy them?
A nurse showed me into a cubicle and, after I’d taken off all my clothes, stashed my watch, my ring and my spex into a locker, sat me down to grill me.
“Do you have any pacemakers?” she asked. “Pins in your legs or anywhere in your body?” She has to ask this because, apparently, the scanner is hugely magnetic and if you have anything in your body that’s metal, it either drags it out of you, through all your flesh, or it forces the metallic object that’s inside you up to roof of the machine leaving you stuck there until the thing’s turned off. A patient suffering agonising stomach pains who had an MRI scan to find out what was up, practically died of pain when it turned out a very sharp scalpel had been left inside her body during her last operation. You can imagine the results. Or so, at least, goes the urban myth.
“Any tattoos?”
Tattoos? Apparently there is metal in some of the tattoo ink. Not much fun when the carefully-etched tiger on your chest starts rising, pulling all your flesh skywards.
“Nothing at all. The only bit of metal in me is a will of iron,” I said.
“A will of iron?” she asked, looking up briefly, puzzled.
“Don’t worry. Only a joke. You’ve probably heard it before,” I said, though clearly she hadn’t.
Next she said: “Now, I have to ask you this. Is there any reason to think you might be pregnant?”
Feeling immensely flattered that anyone could possibly imagine I was pregnant at my great age and congratulating myself yet again one the results of the facelift I had years ago which still doesn’t seem to have collapsed, I jokingly replied: “No, of course not! Unlikely anyway, because I am, after all, 103.”
Far from laughing lightly, she really did start at this revelation. “You’re not!” she said, staring into my face. “Not really?”
“No, not really,” I said, suddenly flattened again. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”
Taking me into another room, she hoisted me onto a bed, positioned just outside an enormous white metal tube. She placed various lumps of plastic around me and told me that the whole procedure would take twenty minutes. “You stay still,” she ordered. “If you move a fraction of a millimetre, the scan will blur. And I suggest that, since many people can find this rather claustrophobic, you close your eyes.”
She gave me a plastic tube with a bulb attached to it, which she said I could press if I couldn’t stand it, warned me that the whole was incredibly noisy, shoved me inside the tube and left to switch the contraption on.
I had decided long before I submitted myself to this torture, that I would keep myself sane by counting the number of seconds in twenty minutes. It would keep my mind occupied and stop me freaking out thinking: “How long have I been in here? Hours or days? What if there’s a fire in the hospital and everyone’s evacuated and they forget about me? What if my particular nurse has a heart attack and dies and no one finds my body till tomorrow when I’ll be found, scanned to a crisp inside the machine and, no doubt, changed beyond recognition?”
And was it noisy! It was like operating a power drill in the middle of Oxford Street without protective earphones. But after a while I started to get into it. I discovered that there was something utterly blissful about lying there, the centre of attention, with nothing, absolutely nothing to do. I felt like a much-loved sleeping baby being stared at by its adoring relations.
In fact, when it was all over and I was hauled out, I said: “God, I could have stayed in there all day!” and at that point the nurse looked even more astonished than she had done when I’d said I was 103.
When he was young, my son and I liked nothing more than to visit Mr. Potter’s Museum of Curiosities, which was housed in a ramshackle cottage on Arundel High Street. Walter Potter was a Victorian taxidermist, who not only collected the most peculiar bits and pieces – he displayed a quantity of two-headed pigs in bottles, not mention six-legged lambs and possible the odd tiny dwarf – but he also assembled the strangest anthropomorphic dioramas. There was a terrific set piece of “The Death and Burial of Cock Robin”, a woodland scene in a huge case which included ninety-eight species of British birds and a variety of other animals dressed up. If you pressed certain buttons, different sections lit up, revealing, perhaps, the Beetle, making the shroud with his needle and thread, or the Fish, with his little dish to catch the blood. And there were charming glass cabinets which showed, variously, a rats’ den being raided by the local police rats, a village school featuring forty-eight little rabbits busy writing on tiny slates and the Kittens’ Tea Party – they were playing a game of croquet. Elsewhere a guinea pigs’ cricket match was in progress, and twenty kittens attended a wedding, wearing little morning suits or brocade dresses, with a feline vicar on hand in white surplice.
My son, Will, even did a project based on the collection, called, at first “Freaks of Nature” and then (in the interests of burgeoning political correctness) “Natural Oddities.”
Sadly, the collection was broken up – thankfully Peter Blake bought quite a few of the set pieces – but my son and I continued to be fascinated by Potter’s art. I bought a stuffed duck from a car boot sale and dolled it up in a hat, dark glasses and an umbrella. I also acquired a stuffed tortoise and a couple of freeze-dried ducklings (don’t ask). In his freezer my son has kept various small animals brought in by the cats – shrews and birds – hoping one day to stuff them. And then I found the perfect treat for both of us. A four-hour taxidermy workshop. “Mice and accessories included!” “Nothing is killed for this class. All mice used are feeder animals for snakes and lizards and would literally be discarded if not sold!” “No former taxidermy experience needed!”
It was held at Hackney City Farm, a wonderful centre for young East Londoners, which features such attractions as Greg the goose, and Charlock and Clover “our beautiful Golden Guernsey Goats.”
“I’m taking Will to the taxidermists!” I told a friend.
“But have you told him?” asked the friend, aghast. “Or are you going to stuff each other?”
It was all very macabre. There were about twenty of us, mainly trendy young women of around 35. At the beginning of the class we sat at tables laid with frozen mice and a variety of scalpels. First, we were told, we had to warm up our mice by rolling them around in our hands, before slitting them down the tummy and removing their insides. Well, I won’t go into all the details; suffice to say the process first involved a lot of holding of noses, bone-cracking and scraping before the skins were washed and hung up to dry with a hair dryer. Once they were ready, we were forced to pull out the eyeballs and the tongues, then given wire and cotton wool as stuffing and, finally, we had to get our creatures into some kind of shape before inserting beads for eyes and stitching the skins up with a needle and thread.
I glued mine onto a chair, stuck a tiny top hat on his head, gave him a pair of specs, and had him reading the Times. Will opted for his to play a minuscule ukulele.
Taxidermy, it seems, is all the rage. The classes are sold out far in advance. People can’t wait to get stuffing. It seems it’s partly because they’re a couple of generations away from the old colonels who returned from Africa with stuffed lions and tigers and elephants (very non pc these days), and partly because of the fashion for the bizarre popularised by the Damien Hirst/ Marc Quinn generation of YBAs – cutting cows in half, casting heads in blood and so on.
As we left late at night, stuffed mice in hands and glowing with satisfaction, we peered through the darkness over the fences at the Hackney City Farm. To Greg the goose and the Golden Guernsey Goats, all I can say is: Watch out!
When I came across my first family tree I was extremely disappointed. I was about eleven, and I’d been hoping for a picture of a proper tree –with roots, leaves, trunk and so on. Instead, I was confronted by something that looked like a preliminary sketch by Mondrian, before he’d started colouring in. All those straight lines; it was so unromantic.
And anyway, the whole thing seemed cockeyed. Why were my ancestors at the top of the page, and me at the bottom? Why did this “tree” seem to grow downwards? Surely my ancestors should be down in the roots, under a straight line of ground, and all living members of the family, my grandparents, parents and, in future, any children and grandchildren, should show as the little green shoots above the ground? The architectural construct of a family tree made sense when you knew how it worked, but it didn’t make sense in an emotional way. Another reason that my ancestors should be below the ground was because they were, after all, long dead and buried.
For a long time my youth, coupled with the disappointment about the design of the tree put me off finding out anything about my family. But then one day, when I was around sixty, it all became rather more interesting. The curiosity in my past suddenly came over me, like acne. The day before my sixtieth birthday I couldn’t have given a pin about it. But I woke up at sixty stroking my chin and thinking: “Hmm, I wonder who my ancestors were?”
I was even driven to do a bit of research. Oh yes, I’ve put in my hours at the Family Records Office – room after room of white-haired couples, him in the driving seat, as it were, facing the computer and in charge of the mouse; she sitting slightly behind, squinting over his shoulder to see whether the records delivered up any information about whether Emily Jarvis, widow of this parish, say, d 1708, ever had any children. I wandered round a few graveyards, too, and found them packed with oldies of my own age, poring over church ledgers, often with little knives at the ready to pick the moss from the lettering on their ancestors’ graves.
True, I dug up a few interesting ancestors. There was Viscount Radcliffe, who nipped over to India after Independence and drew the appalling boundary partition between India and Pakistan, Charlotte Despard, suffragette and author of a book called Chaste as Ice, Pure as Snow, and Field Marshall Lord Ironside hero of the First World War and not such a hero of the Second. I remember my great-aunt, Rene Ironside, who was also headmistress of my school, dragging the poor Field Marshall round all the classrooms one day when he came to visit. “Here is a Field Marshall,” she said, shoving him forward “You may never see another one”. (He followed one of the last lavender sellers who she’d hauled in from the street who was ordered to sing her cry in front of us all.)
But slowly my enthusiasm waned. I learned pretty early on that the family tree obsession is a mainly male activity, a sophisticated kind of trainspotting. The role the wives played at the Family Records Office was to provide sandwiches, marvel at the latest findings, and thank God their husbands had found something to “keep them busy” and “out of mischief” after they’d retired.
But I suppose there’s more to it than that. An interest in one’s past is to establish, before we die, that we have some kind of place in a grand design, rather than that we’re just random dots living and dying like bubbles in the air. An interest in our past consoles us that life has a meaning, that we’re part of some tribal heritage, that we belong in the great scheme of things. And reassures us that one day we’ll be a significant dot on a chart compiled by our grandchildren’s grandchildren.
I can just hear them, as they try to get their grandchildren interested in the whole thing. “Yes, yes, there was this woman who wrote books and had an agony column and married an environmentalist, had a son who played the ukulele, “ they’ll say. “BOR-ING! Can I go now?”
And then, one day, as they grow much older, they’ll think again.
As a single woman, it’s often very tempting to take a package holiday. There’s ready-made company and, on occasion, you can find another like-minded soul who’s happy to break away from the tour and discover out-of-the-way places with you, a deux.
But it’s only “on occasion”. This is the problem. And even I, when faced with the prospect of hiring my own taxi and going off by myself to see the Acropolis or the Taj Mahal, find myself all too often being seduced by the free guided tour provided by the organisers. Doesn’t it seem madly wasteful – not to mention risky – to do your own thing all the time, when you could just pour yourself into a bus and be taken straight to the sight, with all meals sorted, for nothing?
But, oh, I shouldn’t listen to that seductive will-o’-the-wisp! I regret it every time. From the moment that I find, because I’ve kindly let a 100-year-old person with a walking frame get on the bus in front of me (which means that by the time I embark all the window seats have been taken), to the last minute diversion we have to suffer to visit the guide’s cousin’s carpet shop, I usually regret every minute of a tour, feeling like a furious child on a school trip.
The last time, our guide (who always takes the best front seat on the bus) was a joker. Or, as she put it, “choker”. “I expect you know the ABC of tourism?” she said, before she hauled us off to the third largest cathedral in northern Bulgaria. “It stand for Another Bloody Church! And now I am taking you to another bloody church! My little choke! This cathedral was built in the middle ages by Sergei the Seventh, and what is most interesting about this is that the stones are all from the Glaaner region, and consist of igneous rock, first construct in 5000 BC. It is also 200 kilometres above sea level.”
Straining to make herself heard over the driver’s insistence on playing the Middle-European version of Radio Two, she told us, between stops at ABCs, that the cheese they make was “like feta but better!” (“You see, we have better feta, my little choke!”) And when one of our group stuck up his hand and asked: “How many kilometres above sea level did you say we were?” I could have brained him. There’s always one bloke, isn’t there, who asks: “How much grain do you export to the European Union every year?” or “Is the lace made only by women or are there men who make lace as well?”
Guides don’t have to be intelligent or amusing not only because they’ve got a captive audience – 40 of us trapped in a bus in a foreign country – but because however bad they are, we’ll never be going again. We’re at the mercy of their dismal facts – “Every year we grow ten thousand avocados. Here we have saying: ‘He who eats the avocado will marry beautiful girl’” – , their terrible chokes and their appallingly boring itineraries. “We will now visit the Street of Tears where many shops for you to buy beautiful gifts from our region, and perhaps you would like a visit to the lavatory as well, I will show you. Why is called the Street of Tears? Because every year the river at the top overflows actually and the street runs with water, so that is the interesting story of why this street is called the Street of Tears. You now have seven minutes for photograph and shopping.”
We’re all captive. None of can speak the language, none of know where the hell we actually are, and none of us would be able to find a local restaurant on our own, so when we’re all herded into a huge hotel for lunch, helping ourselves from a buffet crammed with Russian tourists, Dutch tourists and French tourists, we’re too knackered and brain-washed to do anything but sit down and eat. Usually a couple of leaden boreks.
If I ever find myself on a tour bus again I’m going to start a revolution. At the end I’ll refuse to clap or give a tip and I’ll start up a slow hand-clap, while shouting “Boring! Boring!” and “Off! Off! Off!”
Not really, actually. Sadly, I won’t dare. Chust my little choke.
I’m ill.
It’s no fun, is it?
Each day you wake up and open your eyes and breathe and check for headache, cough, aching nose, and find, to your dismay, that they’re all present. No change at all since last night. Or the night before. Or the night before that. Worse, if anything. Then, a vain attempt at positive thinking, you check for a single milligram of energy or bean that might have sprung up, like a snowdrop, in the night, to give you a smidgeon of hope. Nothing. You feel as if some dark psychic power has dragged a huge lawn-roller over your soul and then got a giant to jump on it in hobnailed boots. Not a smidgeon of life.
Finally, prising yourself out of bed, you stagger to the mirror to see if any single sign of recovery can be observed in your face but all that stares back at you – though stare is rather too active a verb for the kind of half-hearted goggle that’s reflected in the glass – is a sheet of greyish-white that reflects the sky outside, a mouth the colour of ash, and two limp marbles like the eyes of a dead fish, with not a glint in them to be seen.
It’s like examining the British economy for signs of recovery. Even outsiders are no good. A friend rang this mooring and I only had to croak “Hello” and she said: “Oh dear. I can hear you’re no better. No change then.”
It used not to be like this. When I was ill in the old days, I was put into my parents’ bed and given a jigsaw puzzle to do on one of my father’s larger drawing boards. Occasionally my mother or father would come up to read to me, after placing a mug of warm milk and a peeled and cut-up apple on a saucer by my bed. My temperature was taken by doctor who would sit by looking at his watch. He’d feel my pulse and prescribe something called Veganin. Every couple of hours someone would take my hot water bottle away and top it up with hotter water. Someone else would come in with a clean nightie. My hair would be brushed by unseen hands and if I was lucky my face would be sponged down before lunch was brought to me – chicken soup, a yoghurt with sugar and a jelly.
And as I slowly got better, my father would bring some paper cut-out book he’d bought at a craft shop and we’d make a paper fairground full of seals and clowns, or we’d play Beggar-my –Neighbour or Halma, with me having to keep my knees very still in case the pieces slid into one corner.
Now it’s all changed. It’s all pacing from room to room feeling as if I’m in prison. It’s staring at the ceiling wondering what will happen when we run out of water or if there’s a terrorist plot that makes the Internet crash and everything grind to a halt. It’s wondering if I have any real friends at all. Or if I’ve really got a terminal disease that no one’s spotted. It’s trying to change the sheets and giving up half-way through, gasping. It’s hiding my nightie under my coat and shuffling round to the corner shop in my slippers to buy a pint of milk. It’s friends telling me to “Listen to my body” and saying no matter I’ve got a gig coming up with 200 seats booked, no matter I’m going out to a special dinner organised by an ex-boyfriend who I haven’t seen for ten years, no matter I’d arranged to take the grandchildren to the theatre, no matter my friend from Spain is coming over for one day only, no matter that a meeting’s been arranged with curator of a major art gallery with a view to showing my uncle’s pictures, no matter I have a deadline to write this column, all these must be cancelled. Right now.
Well, I shall wait and see about most of these. But I’ll write this column. Because, of course, it may well be my last. And I’d like to say goodbye to you, my readers, before I expire. If I’m not going to die of this beastly virus, you see, I am determined at least to die of self-pity.
You’ll be sorry when I’m gone…
The girlfriend I met for lunch looked washed out and frightened. “I must have a drink!” she said, desperately. A couple of glasses later she told me her story. She had consulted her doctor with a pain in her neck and he’d recommended that, since she was a private patient she see a specialist on BUPA.
The very word made the colour drain from my own face. I recalled the last times I’d consulted this kind, caring, medical provider and it made my blood run cold.
In the old days, when you paid BUPA around £1000 a year for medical cover, you’d ring up, armed with a letter from your doctor, and the sympathetic woman at the other end would ask who you wanted to consult and then provide you with an authorisation number. “Take care,” she’d say. “I hope it goes well for you, dear.”
But that was the old days. Now, when one’s paying four or five times the yearly fee, getting an authorisation number is like getting blood out of a stone. Or a stone out of a kidney, perhaps.
Recently I rang with a knee problem. A severe-sounding man told me he would put me through to the “knee team”. There’s a team for everything now at BUPA. A team for eyes, a team for hearts and so on, each team no doubt, vying with each other to achieve some appalling goal which is to let as few of their patients have any treatment at all.
I was put through. And despite the fact that I had the name of the consultant I wanted to see, the person the other end suddenly said: “Have you heard of Apos Therapy?” “No” I said, puzzled. She then explained that this treatment was non-invasive and worked very well for painful knees, was highly recommended, and was, if I didn’t already know, non-invasive. “We find many of our clients find Apos Therapy works wonders,” she added. “It’s non-invasive.” Well, first of all I thought she had a cheek to recommend a treatment for a knee she’d never seen. For all she knew I had green mushrooms growing from it which needed immediate treatment. Second, I was not interested in non-invasive (ie “cheap”) treatment. When I have a pain, I like to be properly invaded by health professionals, armed with drugs, knives and special prescriptions to make me well.
I turned down the Apos Therapy and managed, after hours of wrangling, to be allowed to see a consultant. (BUPA have a cunning scheme these days. They’ve de-listed some particularly expensive consultants and they won’t let you see them – not even if you offer to pay the difference. It’s caused a scandal. And for God’s sake don’t have a cataract. The cataract “team” at BUPA will apparently only pay a fraction of the treatment.)
I asked the knee consultant about Apos Therapy, he said he’d never heard of it, it was irresponsible of anyone to recommend it, team or not, and if I had any sense I’d move to a different healthcare provider care as he had done.
My next BUPA encounter was when I needed an MRI scan to see if I had cancer of the womb. “Not without a consultant’s letter,” said the woman. “I have a consultant’s letter!” I said. I’m not that dumb. “He’s not a consultant!” she declared.
I burst into tears. “Please, please! I’m worried sick! I pay you a fortune to relieve me of my medical worries and you delay treatment while the cancer grows and grows…I dread it every time I ring you.. what is going on?” I sobbed.
I put down the phone but, emboldened by the advice of the receptionist at the medical centre, I rang back to complain and found another woman who this time said she was sorry, the other woman had got it wrong, the consultant I’d referred to was a consultant after all and yes, it was okay. And I had it and found I was cancer free and all was well.
Apparently the Office of Fair Trading referred the medical insurance industry to the Competition Commission in April, citing concerns about rising costs and value for money for customers. A report is expected in this month. My “team” and I are looking forward to reading it.
I recently went to the cinema and saw a film. In this film there was a partiuclar scene. It was filmed from behind a man walking down a suburban street in a small American town. The sun was out, the sky was blue, the samey houses all had lawns that ran down to the road with little white picket fences dividing them up. On one lawn was a sprinkler. On another, a Philippino was doing some gardening. Down the road came a woman with some shopping held in a brown paper bag, and a little girl bicycled into the scene and disappeared from view. On the left, a man in track-suit bottoms removed his post from one of those funny boxes on sticks they have in the US. On the right another man was washing his car.
And I realised: I’ve seen this scene before. Exactly the same. Not only have I seen it before, I’ve seen it in about a hundred different films over the years. Later in the film there was a dance competition (no prize for the answer as to who won enough points to win the crucial bet) and a ballgame (no prize for the answer … ). I’d probably seen the entire film before. No, not the literal film, of course – it was only just on release. But I’d seen so many films almost identical it’s near as dammit.
I staggered out with the terrible realisation: I’ve probably seen all the films, one way or another, there are to see. Most of them are just made up of exactly the same cliché shots glued together in a different order.
Then I began to wonder. I’ve probably seen most bits of weather, too. Sun, snow, wind, rain, hurricanes, smog – yes, I’ve even seen bits of weather than young people will never see. And I was struck with the frightful thought. Does this way of thinking actually apply to people, too? Have I lived so long that there’s nothing new in the world? Am I getting jaded?
I mean I know we’re meant to approach each person we meet as a completely new experience. No two people are ever alike, after all. Every person is an individual as their fingerprint. But, let’s be honest, like fingerprints, a lot of them are terribly similar, don’t you think? I’ve just been listening to Phineas Phinn on audio disc and there’s not a single character I haven’t met in real life – and have often met many times in different guises. Within a few minutes of meeting a new person at a party, I’ll pretty soon find myself saying to myself: ”Oh yes, one of those” and depending on whether I like that type or not, I make my excuses and leave, or stay.
I can spot an alcoholic at 100 paces, whether he’s drinking or not, I can divine a crashing bore just by the sound of his voice. When a woman starts saying: “Isn’t it awful about Syria…” I know to move on, and when I see anyone wearing really extraordinarily beautifully designed clothes, I move close.
Many people I meet are shocked when I tell them this new discovery. But although I’ll politely reassure them that I don’t really mean it, privately, I’m whispering to myself: “Ah, you’re one of those sorts of people, are you? The sort who can’t bear to think that most people aren’t quite as interesting as we often think and hope they might turn out to be. Well, you’re off my list for a start. Next!”
And yes, sometimes I even feel I know myself a bit too well. As I stumble across another new revelation, I often find myself thinking: “But hey – didn’t I have this revelation when I was nine years old? And then again at 23? And then at 45 and 52?”
Have I really had a new thought for years? Aren’t I in fact constantly leafing through the old internal photograph album, getting shocked by the same things, worrying on the same old lines, feeling slighted by the same old friends, laughing at the same old jokes.
And then I start going mad. And realise it’s time to get hold of a grandchild. Children never let you down. Because as yet unformed, they’re always original, fresh and new.
Or did I think that thought only the other day? Oh, God. I think I did.
Grannie Annexe February 2013
“I wish, grannie,” said my grandson recently, rather wistfully, recently, “that Corky was still around.”
Corky was my last cat. And I mean my last. I’ve gone off them. And not just cats. All pets. Dogs, budgies, grass snakes, goldfish, hamsters, guinea pigs and black mollies, the whole lot. I wouldn’t like to have a stick insect or, even, that lowest form of life, the Sea Monkey, barely visible to the naked eye.
It’s odd. I know that we’re all made of the same cells and we’re all part of the same throbbing life force, but even so, having been what my friends would refer to as a “cat person” all my life, I now can’t stand the things.
The problem is, none of them have been like the best cat ever, Bob. Now Bob was a cat and a half. He had no tail but he wasn’t a breed. He’d just been born like that. (I once told my son, when he was very small, to say nothing about his godfather’s lack of an arm. “He didn’t lose it in the war. He was just born like that.” I said. Naturally enough when his godfather came into the room, he remarked on Bob’s lack of tail. “He was born without it,” said my son at once. “Just like you.”)
Bob had an incredible pedigree. Not a written down one, but he was one of a litter of a cat who belonged to the great Nobel prize-winning biologist, Sir Peter Medawar, and some of that man’s great brain had certainly rubbed off on him.
Of a summer evening, we used to lead him round the block on a string. We lived in a top floor flat in a Kensington crescent, and occasionally Bob would take off through an open window and walk round the entire crescent on the window-sill, popping in to see friends here and there. Every morning he would wait on the front doorstep for a little boy who had saved a piece of sausage from his breakfast to give to him.
Once, on a very cold day, I found him weeing, in a very dignified manner, over the plughole in the bath. Another occasion when it was snowing outside, I opened the door to the loo to find Bob, squatting in a very complicated position, ears back, highly embarrassed to be discovered, having a pee in the toilet.
Unfortunately Corky, the cat to whom my grandson was referring, although perfectly pleasant, certainly wasn’t up to Bob’s scratch. Corky was half a Maine Coon, and whichever half he was, it was the wrong half. Who knows whether it was the Maine or the Coon we got, but it was the bit that wasn’t particularly affectionate, didn’t act like a dog, didn’t come running when you called him and wasn’t more like a human than most human beings. Corky was a dud. I got him on the cheap (him being only half a Maine Coon) and that was the trouble. I should have paid full whack for a whole one.
After Corky died, I never got another cat. And oh, the freedom. No more worrying, whenever I’m away, that the wretch might be getting lonely. No more having to stuff a cat, kicking and screaming, into a wicker basket to take him to some vile animal hotel when I went away, and no more having to scrape out Whiskas or Kit-e-Kat into a cat bowl lined with dried-up old food.
No more sitting in the vet’s waiting room with that peculiarly sharp smell of do antiseptic mingling with wee and animal fear, staring at everyone else waiting and wondering what they’d got in that box, wobbling and squawking by their feet. No more finding my hair dropping out with shock when the vet tellsme that there’s a new plan to clean my cat’s teeth for an exorbitant sum every six months.
I’ve even become rather puritan about keeping any animal as a pet. In my old age, it seems like a form of slavery. See a robin or a blackbird and I’m just as sentimental as the next person, but see a cat coming to stalk it and I’m to be found behind a bush, waiting to turn on the hose.
One of the characteristics of an old people’s home, apart from the faint acrid pong, is the heat. You go to visit an old aunt and you enter a stifling world in which windows are never opened and not only is the central heating on high but even the floors are radiating warmth.
I have to say it’s seductive. The older I get the colder I get and as I’ve always been someone who’s been perished except in temperatures over 30 degrees (as a child I had a permanent brown scorch-mark on my back from sitting pressed up against my gas fire), that means at my age I’m pretty cold.
No one else seems as cold as me. I see friends in the middle of winter, with no heating on, actually walking around their houses in teeshirts. Their arms are bare and their shirts, if they’re wearing them, are undone a couple of notches at the top. I even have one friend who, when I’m staying with him, will stride into the only warm room in the place, where I’m sheltering, wrapped in woollens and completely motionless, like a dormouse, in case I let a draught in, make some joke like: “Crikey! It’s like a hatching-house in here!” fling open the window and then leave the room.
And staying with friends is a nightmare. One host took me through a reasonably warm house but then guided me to my bedroom which she had kindly “aired” for me, by leaving the window open. The only relief is when I notice twin beds. That means that when I retire, I can take all the bedding from the neighbouring bed, pile it on my own, place my overcoat over the lot and, sometimes – yes, it’s been known – picked up the little carpet beside the bed and placed it on the top. On a visit to the North recently, this wasn’t enough. I had to wind a huge scarf around my neck and – oh, the humiliation! – jam my winter hat down on my head in order to get a wink of sleep. I looked like the Princess in the Princess and the Pea only the other way round.
Sometimes I think I have about as much circulation as an inland lake. And my nose! It’s not as if it’s long and pointed, in which case I could understand why the blood never gets to the tip. No, if anything it’s small and retroussé. Yet, in cold weather, it still ends up like a round ice-cube in the middle of my face. If I touch it, I then need a kettle full of boiling water to prise my frosty fingers from its icy surface.
Recently my gas and electricity provider, something called First Utility, kindly emailed me a chart. I say “kindly” but actually it was jolly annoying. In a diagram of coloured columns, it showed the average consumption of power for a house of similar size (pretty high). It then showed what the consumption was in a house belonging to the eco-minded (very low). It then showed a chart of what my personal power consumption was. It was well beyond the height of the normal house. And about twice the height of the eco-house. And as a result I’ve been sealing up the draughts, sliding shiny panels down the back of the radiators – Heatsave: very good – and ordering no end of vests and long johns and woolly tights to join the others that are bulking up my drawers. I’ve recently lost weight, but no one would know since I walk around like a Michelin man. Or, rather, roll.
I sleep with the electric blanket on high throughout the entire night, and when I rise each morning, plunge into a bath full of water so hot a lobster would scream. And yet every year, I just get colder and colder and colder. The very idea of “summer clothes” is a long-distant memory, even in middle of the South of France during a heat wave.
“I’ll just run up and get my cardy,” I said to my grandson the other day before we ventured into the park.
“But you’ve already got it on!” he said.
Actually, I was planning on getting another cardy to wear on top of the one I was wearing. And I didn’t tell him that, if the truth be told, I already had another cardy underneath that.
It was a call from my cousin, Nell, which set me off. She rang to say she’d found my old doll’s house in her attic – she’d inherited it when I’d grown out of it. Not only had she found the doll’s house, but also a box full of furniture and little people. And yes, the bendy “father” of the house was there, with wool bound round his wiry limbs, and the dressing table with the tiny round bit of glass stuck on.
“Next time you come to stay we’ll play with it together!” she said, jokingly.
But she’d hit on one of the major problems about being an adult. You can’t play with them. I suppose you could, self-consciously, in an earnest therapy group. But every time your teddy hit another person’s stuffed dog, a ponderous counsellor would be on hand to tell you that it signified the rage you felt for your father. Not a hell of a lot of fun.
But is there ever quite so much fun to be had as playing with children? And before you dial 999, let me assure you I mean playing, not playing. Goodies and baddies. Hide and seek. That sort of thing.
A lot of my granny friends clearly do not go in for playing. They love their grandchildren, but beyond a bit of colouring or making biscuits together, they can’t join in the fun. They are quite prepared to go to the park to feed the ducks, and read endless books to them. They will help them collect dried leaves and stick them into a chart and buy them toys galore. But they won’t actually play with them.
But I’m afraid to say I enjoy it. And I say “afraid” because I’m worried I’m a bit weird.
There was nothing I liked more, when my grandchildren were smaller, than pretending the sofa was a boat, and the cushions we’d thrown on the floor were fish. We used a string bag to catch them with and every so often my grandson would dive off onto the carpet to kill a shark, which I would then cook and we’d eat – unless, of course, the shark escaped from the oven, as he so often did and we had to start all over again.
Once we built an entire city out of cardboard boxes on the lawn. There was a prison (his) and an art gallery (mine) and a hospital and a post office, and luckily I took a photograph before a huge monster came down from the sky and destroyed it by jumping up and down on it until it was flattened.
When my son was tiny we used to play dinosaurs in the bath. I’d make my hands into a couple of these creatures, my fingers as legs and my middle finger as their waving heads. This pair would walk along the edge of the bath making rude remarks, occasionally pushing each other in to the water and constantly demanding hats and coats from my son, who would obligingly cover them in bubbles. My son talked to them as if they were real, in a completely different voice to the one he used to me.
Until they are about six, children do regard their grannies and grandparents as huge playmates. And is there anything nicer than hearing: “You be the bad bear, grannie, and I’ll be the good bear .” Or “Watch out grannie! He’s coming to eat you up! I’ll save you!”
I once taught in a pre-nursery school and I’ll never forget one little boy painting an elaborate picture of a house. Together we built up a picture of its inhabitants and added a car, a kennel, a dog, until a rich story emerged. Every event was painted to cover the last, but you could still the faint outlines of the old story underneath. At the very end, he got out some black paint and proceeded to cover the entire picture.
“Why are you doing that?” I said. I’d been looking forward to showing off his imaginativeness to his mother when she picked him up.
“It’s night-time,” he explained, perfectly rationally, “And they’ve all gone to bed.”
Playing is like that. Nothing to show for it except a whole treasure trove of memories and laughter.
Oh dear. Sentimental old me. Can’t wait to see the doll’s house again, though.
I’ve always had dreadfully strong views. And when I was young I had a long list of things that were complete anathema to me. Among these were: the theatre, puppets, mime, ukuleles, sport of any kind, cars and bird-watching.
Now I’m old and my tastes have changed. And the reason is that my son has converted me. He liked Alan Ayckbourn, and we’d go everywhere to hunt down a new production. Thus, slowly I came round to the theatre. I’d always found puppets the epitome of naff, but when my son came home one day when he was about eleven, and announced he was going to do a project on them, I found myself reading the history of puppetry till the early hours of the morning. We examined the shadow puppets at the Horniman Museum, we made our own, and before long I was a life-long fan.
As for the ukulele it’s never been an instrument that’s appealed – until one day my son, at thirteen, heard my friend Ian Whitcomb playing the uke at Pizza on the Park. “I want one of those,” said my son and off we went to buy one, and again I became another convert, to be found knee deep in weird sheet music that consisted of squares full of dots at Chappells, finding old tapes of George Formby, and discovering why the phrase “My Dog Has Fleas” has such importance in the world of the uke.
We joined the George Formby Fan Club, we joined the Ukulele Society, and we drove to places far and wide to hear old ukesters strut their stuff. I even heard of a band called the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, we rushed off to see them upstairs in a seedy pub in St. John Street and after putting in a year’s solid groupie work, I finally screwed up the courage to ask a couple of them to dinner, thus ensuring my son was given an opportunity to join the gang (I have to say that from pub beginnings they’ve now hit the big time and are in the middle of a world tour, having done Sidney Opera House, Carnegie Hall and, later this September, the Albert Hall).
Ian Whitcomb has now written an excellent book called Ukulele Heroes, a definitive guide to the uke, which charts the history of this curious instrument – known affectionate in the biz, as a “lamp chop”. It was invented, of course, in Hawaii, and the name means “jumping flea”. The Royal Family of Hawaii were very keen on it and it became wildly popular among the bright young things of the 1920s, when numbers like “Ukulele Lady” and “They’re Wearing ‘em Higher in Hawaii” became popular. All the ukulele greats are here, from Cliff Edwards or “Ukulele Ike” – known not only for “Who’ll take Care of the Caretaker’s Daughter While the Caretaker’s Taking Care?” but also for being the voice of Jiminy Cricket in Walt Disney’s Pinocchio – to Frank Crumit and Johnny Marvin. The uke fell disastrously out of favour until George Formby brought it roaring back with When I’m Cleaning Windows and a bunch of other songs bursting with double-entendres and after a decade in the doldrums, it returned again in the seventies with Tiny Tim. Now there are ukulele orchestras everything and the uke is overtaking the recorder as the school musical instrument of choice, as they say.
Ian continues to play weekly in downtown LA, hammering out old time music-hall songs to baffled but appreciative diners. I hope he’s converting a whole bunch of new thirteen-year-olds to turn to the instrument I so unkindly despised in my early days.
As for the other items on my hit-list I need hardly say I’ve come round to them as well. One of my grandsons is crackers about diving and climbing, the other mad about cars, and for his birthday I’m giving one of them a two-hour bird-watching session. Yes, I’ll be there too, binoculars and bird-book in hand, driven by the born-again enthusiasm of a loving grannie.
I’m just crossing my fingers neither of them get into estate agenting or drug-dealing. I don’t fancy trudging across the Himalayas laden with packs of heroin while boring the pants of my colleagues about house prices. But at the rate I’m going, you never know.
Listening to an old actress talking gloomily about her life and how invisible she feels these days, I was brought down even further to hear, when she asked for questions, so many of her older audience saying that they all felt “young inside” and couldn’t connect this youthful feeling with the old wrecks they saw in the mirror.
I thought it was a terrible shame. Some of them were no more than sixty. And they were all yearning for some nostalgic past. I mean I’ve often felt about eight years old, but it doesn’t mean I want to be eight years old again. It would be absolutely frightful. Having to go to school. Having to do what people told me all the time. Worrying all the time that I’d been swapped at birth and that was the reason my parents didn’t have time for me. No thanks.
But this audience… I felt it was as if they’d lived for ages in one country and were all heading off to some incredibly interesting new one but, instead of getting out their telescopes and reading the guide books to this new place – the country of the old – , learning the language and finding out about the laws, their eyes were so fixed on the land they’d left that they didn’t realise what fun they were going to have when they arrived at their new destination.
Because surely, rather than feel like some dreadfully old young person, isn’t it jollier to think of yourself as some incredibly young old person?
Being old seems to gives so many people the screaming abdabs. I’m not sure what precisely these screaming abdabs are – I’ve never heard anyone using the expression since my own grannie last used it in 1960 – but it’s a good expression and should be revived. Old is just a word that no one uses these days. I once wrote a piece for an American magazine published by the AARP – the Association for American Retired Persons – and when I got the proof back I noticed that every time I’d written the word “old” it had been cut. I asked why and the lady on the end of the phone said, in a quavering voice: “Oh, we don’t like to use the word ‘old’ at AARP”
Everyone seems to be gearing things for the young. Radio Four is shoving music into every programme in order to lure in the young, and trying to spice up the Archers – oh dear oh dear oh dear – and newspapers (do you know a single young person who reads a newspaper? No, nor do I) feature pages with embarrassingly yoof-pulling titles – or what they think are yoof-pulling – like “Trending” and “Radar”. Advertisers think that because we’ve got nearly everything we want, there’s no point in targeting us. But actually there are lots of things we want – theatres, cruises, plants, comfy chairs, reading lights, complicated gadgets to make life easier…
And yet all the while the old market is growing and growing and no one except this magazine of course, whose circulation grows and grows, seems to cater for it. “Oh we don’t want to attract old people,” they say. “Old people die, so what’s the point?” What they don’t seem to realise is that as coachloads of oldies do, indeed, head off over the cliff, double the number of coachloads are arriving on the shores of this fascinating new land, desperate for things to amuse them.
“When are you going to do a new show?” some people have asked after seeing my one-woman performance. “Never,” I reply. “There is a constant supply of new oldies coming along who will never have seen it and, because there are no particular fashions in being old, I have no reason ever to change it.”
Martin Amis referred to the increasing elderly population as the “silver tsunami”. What an image! And isn’t it jolly exciting to be part of it? I’m not complaining. We can get away with murder. When my tummy gave an embarrassing rumble the other day and I apologised, my grandson of eight said: “Don’t worry granny. I know you can’t help it. It’s because you’re old.”
So kind! Why did no one ever tell me what an incredibly amiable country it was that I’d be entering after the age of 60? How can anyone complain about it? What’s not to like?
Ever since my last Ford Ka got written off – a whole bunch of wild druggies hurtled down my road in a stolen car, careering over the sleeping policemen and, after crashing into my car, veered into a wall and ran off screaming with laughter – my grandson has mourned its loss. The New Model wasn’t the same. It didn’t have the same cheery bubbly shape. It didn’t have a spare wheel, but instead, a kind of spray can, like a scented room freshener, that you were meant to squirt into your punctured tyre to mend it. I could never understand how it could work, bought a spare tyre, and shoved it into the boot. Result: no boot.
Nor did the car have little compartments you could lift up and down in the back, nor did have back windows, which my grandson liked to open and shut, while sitting in his car seat behind me. The glove compartment at the front had a habit of collapsing, so after each journey I had to bully it back into position; the petrol cap had an opening system that not only baffled burglars but also owners so I drove round most of the time with the cap hanging off, feeling like some bloke who hadn’t buttoned up his fly (or as I imagine he would feel). And you couldn’t open or lock the passenger seat except from the front driving seat.
The new design was, to be honest, horrible, and from the moment you got into it you felt it was against you. I’m afraid the original charming bubbly design had never sat well with Ford. I bet it was too feminine. When I was asked by a garage serviceman what make of car I had and I replied, pronouncing “Ka” in a breathy, Marilyn Monroe-ish way – I noticed he would always reply, gruffly, “Are you talking about a Ford KAYAY?” It sounded more butch.
Now, however, I’ve ditched the horror, and have a new car. And I hope my grandson likes it. Even though no one in my family has ever, from cousins, grandparents anyone, been remotely interested in cars (when a cab company rings to tells me the taxi is outside and it’s a “blue Ford Toyota” I get a screaming sound in my head) he is fascinated and not only can tell the difference between a BMW and a jeep which is more than I can do, but also between a Granada and Fiesta.
In the end I got a blue Fiat 500. It is sweet, and was sold to me by a charming lady called Kim at the Hounslow dealers. She had blonde hair and a tight black dress. She didn’t baffle me, like the other dealers had, with talk of its JTD engine, or its lack of a diesel particulate filter, its torque at 106lb ft at 1900 rpm or the tread pressure of tyres. She just said: “You’ll love this car, Virginia, it’s just you, I’ve got one, my two daughters have got two and we love them! Hop in and we’ll have a drive. Isn’t it a darling?”
It is, indeed, a darling. It is what is known as intelligently-designed. In other words, it is on your side. It’s got a proper spare tyre, hidden away, and air-con, which I’ve never had before and, when it feels like it, it turns itself off in traffic jams or at lights to save petrol. Ten seconds after you’ve started driving, it locks all the doors for you so no one can reach in and steal your handbag. It switches its passenger airbag off if you have a baby in the front, and when you get out, the lights stay on for a while to let you get to your front door and then slowly dim. And if you’re parking in a tight spot, there’s a button you can push to make the steering lighter. I’d forgotten what a real pal a car could be.
I expect my garage man will purse his lips when he sees it – it’s baby blue – but who cares. I can’t wait to show my grandson. Despite the fact that the back is sadly gadget-free, he can’t fail to approve.
Grannie Annexe – August 2012
Apart from the economic situation, has there been any more depressing news this year than that Hilary Clinton has decided that, because she’s reached a certain age, she’s decided to “let herself go”? The declaration of any oldie friend of mine that it’s wonderful being old because “you don’t have to bother any more” is met by such a tight, thin-lipped response from me that all traces of lipstick vanish inside my disapproving expression.
It’s not the old but the young that needn’t bother – they look great all the time, even if they’re wearing filthy binbags as dresses. As someone said, wisely: “Beautiful young people are accidents of nature: beautiful old people are works of art.”
Rather than give up, the older we get the harder we should try to look good. Why? Because it’s good manners. I remember once being asked on a radio programme whether you should wear a bikini on the beach if you were grotesquely fat. I naturally said I thought it was appallingly rude. Indeed, to appear anywhere at all if you look repulsive is rude. But my co-commentator said no, it was essential that we all did our own thing and were proud of our bodies, whatever we looked like.
It was Joyce Grenfell who wrote: “At dancing I am no star/Others are better by far/My face I don’t mind it/For I am behind it/ It’s the ones in the front get the jar.” And like Joyce Grenfell herself, who was always impeccably turned out, I don’t wish to give other people jars. It’s not nice.
When I was young I used to hate old people. I hated the hair that grew out of their ears and their nose, the bits that would gather in their ever-separating teeth, not to mention the scum that often collected in the corners of their mouths and the single hairs that would sprout from their chins, like witches in a fairy-tale.
Now, naturally, at my age, I could suffer all of these, and indeed would, were I to let myself go, but I choose not to, and take great pains to prevent it.
I can’t help feeling that AA Gill was right about Mary Beard – that no matter how she feels, she should at least make an effort, at her age (nearly 60) if she’s going to appear to millions of viewers. What’s so odd is that often these scruffy elderly specimens who believe in the letting themselves go are fanatical gardeners. While they look like overgrown old rosebushes themselves, with birds nesting in their filthy, tangled hair, their roses are immaculately pruned and dead-headed.
The problem is that there can an NW3 type of logic that runs: “If I spend too much time on my looks, people will think I’m a stupid air-head. I have to look dreadful to show that my mind is always on higher things. I am above looking good.”
But as the daughter of fashion icon, I was brought up to believe that looking good is actually a moral precept, one that should have been laid down by Moses. The Eleventh Commandment should read: Thou Shalt Do Your Best to Make the Most of Yourself, Looks-wise, However Difficult this May be in the Circumstances. Of course at a certain age it get tricky. None of us want to look like a vandalised, graffiti-stained 1950s community hall abandoned in the middle of a neglected industrial estate. Not a good look. But why shouldn’t we aspire to looking like, say, Tintern Abbey? A beautiful old ruin? After all, so many old people do let themselves go, like Hilary Clinton, that if you take just the tiniest bit of care when you’re ancient it’s not very difficult to shine out like a beacon of elderly beauty.
At dinner the other day a man (only a tiny bit younger than me and wearing a shirt and trousers of a pleasant but completely indeterminate style) commented how odd it was that after a certain age women paid no attention to fashion. As I was, at the time, wearing a Vivienne Westwood jacket, I was surprised, not to say, offended. I suggested that next time he went shopping, perhaps he’d take a look at the range of menswear designed by Paul Smith. He could, I said, learn a thing or two.
No one should let themselves go, I said. No, not even men.
Grannie Annexe – July 2012
I remember when my grandson made his first joke.
“I’ve got a joke!” he said, eagerly, butting into our conversation. We all turned to him. “Yes?”
“It goes… it goes.. .. ‘There was a pea and a lamppost…’” Then he looked puzzled. “No, I’ll start again… yes, ‘What did the lamppost say to the pea?’”
“I don’t know. What did the lamppost say to the pea?” we all chorused in unison.
‘He said… um, he said… er.. ‘I’m a lamppost!’”
And we all roared with laughter. Admittedly after a few repetitions, someone had to explain to him that a joke is only funny the first time it’s told and he eventually shut up, but it was an odd occasion because of course it wasn’t a joke at all, it was an imitation of a joke. And yet it was the first groping towards the idea of a) constructing a set-up and b) delivering a punchline – resulting in laughter.
It made me wonder why on earth – and here I put on a serious face because there’s nothing more serious than wondering this – why on earth we do tell jokes.
And I think it’s pretty simple. Apologies if my answer sounds a bit Freudian. But I think we do it, au fond, to cheer up our dismal mums. Later, of course, we do it for general assurance that we’re lovable. We just want to be surrounded by smiling faces. It makes us feel alright. I know that when I do my show, Growing Old Disgracefully, that feeling of stepping on a stage to be faced by a sea of expectant faces and then succeeding in getting them to roar with laughter is one of such power and pleasure no wonder it’s addictive. It makes you feel not only powerful but connected. Everyone appears to be happy in your company. If we can’t get love from other people, or imagine we can’t, more likely, humour is a terribly safe way of being with other people emotionally. It’s spontaneous, non-threatening and shared. You tell the joke, they smile back, and you feel good so you smile back, and it’s a wonderful chain of almost perpetual laughing motion.
The reason why the British are such whizzes at humour – I mean we are the country which produced PG Wodehouse, the funniest writer in the entire world – and why that peculiar phrase GSOH (good sense of humour) is so often to be found as an essential quality in the lonely-hearts columns, is surely because we’re such a gloomy lot at heart, beset with fear that no one likes us, beset with fear of closeness, beset with fear about everything. The result is that we can’t bear to take anything seriously. Seeing a neighbour in the street, who I knew slightly, moving house, I said to him, quite amiably: “Oh, we’ll be sorry to see you go!” whereupon instead of saying “Oh, thank you!” he went into a whole routine. “Oh, you’ll be dancing in the street, I know, once we’ve gone, ha ha ha!”
Clearly, I’d got too close to him. Sincerity – and affection – were a threat to him. He dealt with it by joking. And that’s, presumably, why children and boys in particular find poo and knickers and bums so incredibly funny. I’ve never found them funny but I don’t think that’s because I don’t have a GSOH. Women like myself don’t find them funny because they’re no threat – we’re so used to wiping kids’ bottoms and nappies and so on. Indeed, I had to endure an excruciating moment the other day when a friend defied me not to laugh while he repeated: “Bum, tits, poo, fart!” over and over again. By the end he was hysterical and I remained stony-faced. And yet if I go in front of an audience of old people anxious about their mortality and their ailments, I only have to say the word “arthritis” and they’re rolling in the aisles. Say “euthanasia” and they’re hysterical.
They do say that laughter’s the best medicine. Apparently it increases blood circulation which helps you to heal quicker. And last year the BMJ published research that showed it can also ward off heart disease. So this rather earnest column isn’t going to help much if you’re suffering, I’m afraid.
Let’s go back to the beginning. Let me tell you the one about the pea and the lamppost…
Grannie Annexe – June 2012
I was sitting at my computer the other day, Minding My Own Business (rather like, say, my accountant and agent who are, I hope, also Minding My Own Business) when the phone rang and one of those familiar incomprehensible Indian voices came on the line, amid a lot of bleeps, bells, jabbering and time-lag, the unmistakeable sounds of the call centre.
“Yes?” I said rather tetchily.
“Are you Miss Virginia Ironside?” she said. “Have I got the right telephone number?”
“Yes, I said, warily.
“I am calling from Globalsave, ma’am, your international internet provider,” she said. “I am ringing you because we have an error message coming up on our screens with every email you are sending out, and we would like to rectify this problem before you lose all your entire data.”
I gibbered a bit, and said I’d never heard of them, but then she said they could verify that they were authentic because they had my “csl” number.
I had no idea what a csl number was but she assured me that the fact that they had the csl number, my name and phone number should be enough to satisfy me that they were genuine. I blustered and said why couldn’t they talk to my computer people (yes, I actually have computer people. They Mind My Own Business, too) and she said that would be fine if I could put her through. I told her I worked on my own and she said that in that case, she would put me through to her manager.
The comforting sounds of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons came wafting through the phone and then another Indian person came on the line. He was called Harry. This made him all the more authentic. I have in my time talked to an Indian rep from Dell called Elvis.
Harry sounded in a rush. He told that he could see the error messages on his screen coming up all the time and it was only a matter of time before my entire computer crashed. I suggested I ring him back but he said that would be very difficult. Possible, but difficult, because he was so busy putting this error right in other people’s computers around the world. Then he asked me to press a few buttons to reach my csl number.
“You can’t be serious, Harry!” I said. “I wouldn’t dream of it! I mean, I’ve been told from the year dot that I must never give my bank details out on the phone and my pin number,” I added, “is so secret I sometimes forget it myself. I mean, I bet you tell your mum never to go into her computer or give out numbers on the phone to a complete stranger, don’t you? Or,!” I added, realising he was probably younger than my son, “your old grannie?”
Harry chuckled in a friendly way. “I am very glad you are so security-minded, ma’am!” he said. “I tell my mum this all the time! But I am not asking you to read out any number, I just want you to find your csl number and then I will read out the number I have and they will tally. This is the reason we have your name and your telephone number, ma’am, because we are your internet international providers and we are here to rectify all problems…”
So, chuckling back, I obeyed orders and sure enough I found my csl number and then he read me out a string of figures and numbers in upper and lower came and, bow me, they all matched my csl number exactly.
“Now, you see we have your details correctly,” he said. “So now I must ask you to follow a few directions…”
God knows what divine intervention struck me at the time but I suddenly said: “Look, I’m so sorry, I know I’m mad, and clearly you’re genuine, but I just want to ring up my computer people, and just check, because I just want to be doubly sure…”
“Of course, ma’am, I quite understand but you must be very quick, only two minutes…”
Luckily I have a mobile, rang the computer people, and they said I should put the phone down on Harry – who was using a common Internet scam – immediately.
Shaking, I did.
Granny Annexe – May 2012
“My family,” declared my four-year-old grandson the other day, as we were in the middle of a game of goodies and baddies, consisting of dreadful plastic figures from repulsive pseudo eco game called Planet Protectors, “is mummy and daddy and my brother and the cats.” Then he paused. “What’s your family, granny?”
“Well,” I said, taking care not to show the hurt I felt from not being included in his list, as I moved a figure called Ice who repeatedly boomed, from his tiny plastic body: “I am Ice! Protector of the Arctic!” “I think my family is your family. You’re part of my family.”
My grandson looked very unconvinced.
“No,” he said, decisively. “Your family is Patrick” (a lodger) “Philip” (my builder and endless source of help and comfort) “ and,” he thought for a while, “your house.”
Oddly, while I’m not certain about the first two, the last is true. My house, in which I’ve lived for nearly forty years, is rather like my family, hung as it is with pictures by my father of my mother and me, pictures by my mother of evacuees, pictures by my uncle … and endless bits of brown furniture from my grandparents, brass heads brought from my mother from India… not to mention and samplers stitched by myself, chairs caned by me, and cupboards stained by me… . It’s a great heritage, in the middle of which I live, like a great Ironside spider. Indeed the other day when I told him I was having a huge clear-out, so he wouldn’t be too puzzled about everything when I died, my son said: “Oh don’t worry, mum, we won’t be taking any of it. We’ll just turn it into a museum and have a man on the door to sell tickets.”
It did need a clear-out, though. So rather than do it all by myself, I paid a girl a large sum of money to help me. Not one of those horrible television de-clutterers, but a sensible clever person with a sense of style and order.
Just the presence of another person makes the whole task easier. I remember once paying another friend, an interior designer, to do much the same thing some time ago and he only had to come into the sitting room, look round disapprovingly and say: “Mmm”, through pursed lips and I knew at once what should go. All the hideous things suddenly leapt out at me, like characters in a 3-D picture. The old spider plants, the clip-frames, the ragged throw on the sofa… which should anyway be moved to the window. And it was the same this time. I was ahead of the game in every room. And when I wasn’t, she was so tactful.
Instead of “Ugh! That’s revolting!” she’d say, as she discovered my vast hoard of plastic lidded boxes collected from years of Indian take-aways: “When did you last use any of these?” Or she’d say: “How old is that blind?” pointing to a stained ramshackle affair hanging lopsided in the spare room. Or: ”Do you really need two spare keyboards?” as she rummaged through my computer drawer.
It’s been bliss. I’m now left with a list of tasks: to get all my pictures put into acid-free mounts. To label each one on the back. To organise my drawers of unsorted photographs. To sort through a deskful of meaningless memorabilia. To re-arrange my bookshelves so that the books are lined in serried ranks rather than piled one of top of the other all over the place. To get the curtains cleaned. And to carry all those old videos to Age Concern.
Just as she was going, however, this ace chucker-outer stepped on an unpleasant- looking small purple plastic figure that was sticking out from under the sofa. As she picked it up it spoke to her. “I am Kat! I protect the Rainforest!” it said, many, many times.
“Are you sure about this?” she asked, staring at it. I could tell she was dying to throw it into the Age Concern bag. But I think she knew there was no hope.
“I’m afraid so,” I said. “I’m working hard to become part of my grandson’s family. And if I chuck that out then I’ve got no chance at all.”
Grannie Annexe – April 2012
History has never been my best subject. I think I have something of a phobia about it, to be honest, and until recently I put it down to two things. The first was my weird history teacher, Miss Irwin. She was a spinster with mad hair, aged, in my young eyes, about 103, who lived in a South Kensington hotel, as so many single women did those days, and who was obsessed by the Ancient Egyptians. As a result I knew all about Amenhotep, felt on chatting terms with the jackal-headed god, Anubis, and could at one point, even write my name in hieroglyphics.
We learned about medieval times, too. What I couldn’t tell you about a motte and bailey! How many times had I made jokes about villains being villains!
But the other reason I’ve found history distressing was because Miss Irwin taught history from a series of dry books called A History of Britain by Carter and Mears. E.F. Carter was a schools inspector in the thirties, and R.A.F. Mears was a history teacher. The very sight of those green covers, with, inside, their small print and side-bars featuring the topics discussed, not to mention the reproductions of pictures of medieval kings with pointy shoes, made me feel ill.
In those days history stopped at the First World War, and it was only when, aged 28, and trying to please a history-mad husband, when I took private classes at Gabbitas and Thring and learnt about the French Revolution, the American War of Independence, the Russian Revolution and the Second World War, that I gathered any information about contemporary history at all. (Unfortunately, my first term as a mature student at university studying history ended in tears. I was carted off to the Priory for a week, and even since have always found libraries place of fear and dread, unlike most of my friends who like nothing more than to spend a day roaming the corridors of the London Library, notebook in hand).
History makes me feel like an air-head. And when I hear men discussing what the Phoenicians did to the Ottomans, or whatever, or whether General Hague should be vilified or not, I get the feeling that everyone has access to some kind of soap opera channel that I just can’t get on my telly.
It’s only recently, discovering that my grandson was being taught history through the eyes of a character I’d never heard of called Mary Seacole and another mystery figure called Elijah McCoy, that it’s dawned on me that Miss Irwin might not have been as mad as I thought. When I was shown a ghastly series for children called Horrible Histories, full of torture and slapstick, I thought to myself: “Well, at least I’ve heard of the Dissolution of the Monasteries. I do know what a Corn Law looks like. And the War of the Roses does, certainly, ring a bell.” (The First World War is still a mystery, however. I suppose I could learn about it by reading Birdsong but there’s something about Sebastian Faulks, who, although a charming man, I’m told, and who probably roams the London Library by day and by night, that makes me desist. Is it the fact I can’t pronounce his last name? Or his rather over-friendly hair? Talk about air-head, Ironside. Pull yourself together.)
So when I heard that Carter and Mears had been completely overhauled and re-edited by an ex-history teacher, David Evans, and re-published by Stacey Publishing, that I wondered if I hadn’t been maligning the series after all. I mean, I feel really pleased that proper history, like Latin, appears to be making a comeback. And who better to impart the subject, particularly now Evans is bringing it up to date this year, to Thatcher’s time, than good old Carter and Mears?
Is it too late, at 68, to have another crack at a subject that has, until now, always given me the willies? I see that the re-edited series starts with a chapter on Cheddar Man (a new addition, since he hadn’t been discovered in Carter and Mears’ time.) Oh, the jokes we could have made about how smelly he was!
I rather think I might give it another go.
Grannie Annexe – March 2012
I want a man. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want a man per se and I’m certainly not looking for a partner or a lover. No thanks! No, I mean I want to be able to ask, when I’m advertising for people – teachers, say, or lodgers – for a man rather than a woman.
But I think it might now be illegal, and as I don’t want to be clapped in irons, I never specify which sex I want.
The reason I want a male lodger is that I’ve already got a female one and then there’s me, and experience has told me that a house full of women is an icky business. There tends to be bitching in the bathroom, carping in the kitchen. And anyway, I don’t like female-only enclaves. I once sat through The Vagina Monologues with an all-female audience, and the smug superiority of it all, the “us and them-ness”, made me feel as if I was drowning in a sea of Tampax.
I worked for a long time at Woman magazine, and when someone told me that when a lot of women get together for long periods, as they do in convents, they all start to menstruate at the same time, I’d hold my breath in the lifts, just in case any of the lunar hormones or whatever they were, got to me, and I’d start working in some ghastly physical unison with the fashion ed, the knitting ed, the cooking ed and even, heaven forbid, the daunting ed herself.
Then, on a more practical level, blokes are extremely useful in a house. They can kill rats, unstick windows, put bulbs in inaccessible sockets, and, with their heavy footsteps, and booming voices, they can frighten burglars away when they get in. (They can also keep burglars away before they get in, just by their masculine presence being spotted regularly at the front door as they butchly shove their key into the lock.)
Talking of rats, I’m sure there was some experiment done with the pesky beasts, to show that if you get a box of male rats and shove a female in, all the males instantly start behaving better, applying deodorant, twirling their whiskers and saying “After you” before entering the sewers. Similarly, take a box of female rats and add a male and all the females stop gossiping and shopping and, instead, behave like normal human beings if a rat can, ever, behave like a normal human being.
I like a bit of difference. On the rare occasions I’m to be found in a church, I feel depressed at the sight of a female vicar. Of course she’s got every right to preach, but at least with a male vicar he’s a bit of a mystery. He’s male for a start and therefore baffling. And also, startlingly, he’s usually encased in a long gold-stitched dress. Weird. Makes him look as if there’s a real possibility he could be in touch with some mysterious “other.” Females, on the other hand, are too familiar to me to hold any magic. And in their embroidered dresses, instead of appearing as the channellers of spiritual wisdom, they just look like women on their way to Glyndebourne.
Anyway, I’ve got the male lodger, I’ve got a male music teacher up my sleeve if I need one and now there’s the German teacher to cast around for, because I’ve decided to learn it. It’s not that I mind being taught by a woman, but obviously a woman German teacher is going to remind me of one of the teachers I had at school, all female, and I shall start, as a result, to skip prep and write fake notes in my late mother’s handwriting to say I’m ill, when she’s coming over. Give me a man, however, and I shall check my make-up in the mirror, see my tights are unladdered, and open the door with a cheery: “Ich habe alle meine Hausaufgaben gemacht und freuen uns auf unsere Lektion zusammen“*
And as a result will be fluent before I can say “Fritz Muller“, being the nearest I can get, in German, to Jack Robinson.
Who was, you may notice with interest, a bloke.
“I have done all my homework and look forward to our lesson together.” At least, according to Google Translate.
Grannie Annexe – February 2012
When we’re young most of us are completely uninterested in our forebears. I still don’t understand, in fact, how history can be taught successfully to anyone under the age of about fifty. One’s brain – or mine, at least – just can’t cope with the idea of the “past” until that age.
It’s like acne when you’re a teenager. Your skin is perfectly clear and glowing the day before your fourteenth birthday. But the day after, you wake up with your neck, cheeks and forehead ablaze with seeping red pustules. Likewise, the day before your fiftieth birthday: the facts of whether your ancestors were bishops or worked in an abattoir in the seventeenth century leave you cold. The day after your fiftieth birthday, however, you find yourself jogging down to the Family Records Office, beavering away with a spiral-bound notebook, logging births, deaths and marriages like one of the most assiduous of Dickens’ clerks.
What happened to me after fifty was that I got extremely interested in my uncle’s – Robin Ironside – pictures. I’d collected quite a few of them, had been left a few more, had trawled the internet for auctions to get my hands on any that were up for sale here or overseas, and suddenly became overwhelmed with a desire to get them more widely recognised.
I have to say he was no ordinary uncle. He was No. 2 at the Tate during the war, under Sir John Rothenstein, and then gave it all up to paint his own, meticulous pictures of creepy landscapes and hallucinatory images. He was entirely self-taught but would rely on my father, who’d been trained at the Central School of Art, to help him do difficult things like turnings wrists or twisting toes. One picture, of a bird singing above a heap of broken cellos and violins, is named “Nightingale Victorious over Musical Instruments”. Another shows statues visiting people in a museum. He was entirely self-taught.
He was a fascinating man, a close friend of the late Patrick Leigh Fermor, Sir Kenneth Clark and Cyril Connolly, he introduced the phrase “New Romantic” into the English language, he wrote extensively for Horizon, and it was he who persuaded Angus Wilson to submit his first stories to the magazine. He designed Ian Fleming’s memorial obelisk, and designed stage sets with my father. But he was a hyper, quite manic, obsessive man. He took mescaline, was addicted to a medicine called Dr. Collis Brown (remember that? It was for tummy upsets, and if you left it to stand you could spoon the opium off the top after a couple of hours). And he died thin as a rake, at the age of 53.
Finally after the most enormous amount of work, string-pulling and sheer pushing, I’ve got two exhibitions of his working coming up. One at Pallant House in Chichester, this month (February), and the other at the Grosvenor Gallery in Chester later this year.
And I’ve got, I have to say, the most extraordinary satisfaction out of it all.
What is it about our ancestors that makes us, at a certain age, so long to find out more about them and honour them? Is it because we understand the transience of life and, by trying to bring our ancestors back to life in our minds at least, hope that in the future someone may try to make us, too, immortal? Because we don’t want to be forgotten ourselves, do we do our best to remember others in our family’s past? Or is it because we feel a kind of obligation to them, and want to say thank you to them for being part of our lives, even though we may never have met them? I am so often touched when I see, in my grandchildren, gestures or remarks that my own grandmother might have made, and it’s warming to see that someone dead still lives on in the present, even in some distorted way.
Presumably at some point, when our grandchildren are old and grey, they’ll wake up after their fiftieth birthdays, just like us, suddenly thinking: “Hang on! We’ve been so busy thinking about the future but what about the past? I know grannie or grandpa was extremely good at making mice out of handkerchiefs and getting them to jump out of their hands, but perhaps there was more to them than that… must make a date at the Family Records Office.”
Who knows. They might get our books republished, create an ornate family tree, or organise exhibitions in our memory.
Or, at very least, tidy up our graves.
Grannie Annexe – January 2012
They told me that it was Living History week at my grandson’s school. How interesting, I thought. No doubt they’ll be doing the rounds of Westminster Abbey and Dickens’ House and all the usual old monuments. But no. I was wrong. The old monument they wanted, this particular week, was a real live grannie, who could tell the class of five-year-old what it was like to be a little girl in the 1940s. In other words, me, hauled in like an old relic, to deliver a piece of oral history.
When you’ve got a pink streak in your hair, have just watched the whole of the Killing on fast forward, and are about to launch another stint of stand-up at the Edinburgh Fringe the following year, it’s funny to be thought of as history. But still, ever game for an audience, even if it’s an audience of only twenty tiny people in grey jerseys, most of whom are no more than five years old, and no more than 39” high, I thought I’d strut my stuff and sock it to them.
I told them how poor we all were after the war. How we only had one egg each per week. That we could only buy sweets with ration books. There were no fridges, computers, televisions, frozen food, bananas or mobile phones. I told them of the day I had to feel my way from tree to tree to get to school during a pea-souper, and I told them the streets were lined with dolls hospitals, pen hospitals and repair shops of every kind. I pointed out that the duvet had not yet been invented, except in Sweden, I told them that my father smoked forty Woodbines a day, and that we were all freezing cold because there was no central heating, and that the coal was delivered by blackened men on a cart drawn by a huge horse. And I told them that our only entertainment was the wireless, and that every evening a man would come round on a bicycle with a flame on a stick to light the gas lamps.
I’m not sure how well it went down. They wanted to hear about school, no doubt anticipating a story of a Mrs Squeers Academy in which us young ladies were beaten and starved, and were rather miffed to find that my school, run on Froebel (probably an umlaut here, Deborah, but can’t get my computer to do it) lines, was rather more progressive than theirs, with no uniforms, no punishments, no RE and a charming habit of calling the teachers by their Christian names. I did not, however, demonstrate the eurhythmics we had to perform every Wednesday afternoon, leaping about “like a flower” Isadora Duncan-style. Nor did I tell them about our music theory teacher, a long drink of water of a man with a weak chin and a huge Adam’s Apple who apparently apparently had had seven children. I remember once asking him, in a fit of boldness, in view of the fact that he’d married his cousin, whether his offspring were all mad. I didn’t tell them, either, about the male flashers who routinely opened their macs and exposed themselves to us girls on our way to and from school – we got quite blasé about them. And I didn’t tell them about Mrs Todd, the alcoholic geography teacher, nor the crazy old history teacher who lived in a nearby Gloucester Road hotel, who had to be got rid of after her large grey bloomers constantly fell to the floor under her crepe dress.
Or the schizophrenic French teacher who used, apparently, to come into her daughter’s room in the middle of the night and sit on the end of her bed with a knife in her hand, staring at her.
When I handed out 25 large shiny pennies, from the 1950s, the children got tremendously excited and started doing what every child does with a big penny – rolling it and spinning it. And then they started asking questions.
Did I get my water from a stream? Did I live in a house made of grass? What was this war I had mentioned and who won? Had I got hit by a bomb? Did I ride a horse to the shops? And if there wasn’t any pasta and no pizzas, what on earth did I eat?
I told them as best I could. But I didn’t tell them about, later, the drinking and driving, the joints, the sex, drugs and rock ‘roll.
1 Response to “The Oldie – Virginia Ironside”
I was surprised that you’ve not heard “the screaming abdabs” since the early ’60s. A young Oldie myself, I still use it, although must admit probably picked it up from my late father, who got it from his mother, originally from the North-West. I use it less often than when my chilren were small, and would often suffer from the aforesaid affliction, usually if they did not get something they wanted…
My Show: Growing Old Disgracefully
Live Dates & Tickets
Dilemmas
Charity Booklets
Robin Ironside
All text copyright Virginia Ironside
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The A-to-Z of Yeovil's History
by Bob Osborn
Yeovil History
the history of yeovil's pubs
PUBS HOME PAGE
PUBS INTRODUCTION
PUBS BY NAME
BEERHOUSES
royal oak (1)
Back Street (South Street)
Yeovil's first Royal Oak, opened in the wake of the Beerhouse Act 1830 and was a beerhouse in Back Street (today's South Street), not to be confused with the later Royal Oak in Wine Street which, at this time, was known as the Queen's Arms.
From its position in the 1841 census returns, the most likely location of this beerhouse was in the cottages on the south side of Back Street (today's South Street), between Bond Street and Stars Lane and just east of the glove factory indicated below the words "Back Street" and shown in the photograph below.
Again, I've given it a page of its own as it had a name.
The only known licensee was Isaac Taylor, born in Yeovil around 1786. He is listed as licensee here in the Beer Houses section of the 1840 Somerset Gazette Directory and is listed in the 1841 census as an innkeeper with his wife, Elizabeth. He is listed again in Pigot's Directory of 1842 but by 1850 he was listed in Hunt & Co's 1850 Directory as running a beerhouse in Bond Street. In the 1851 census, Isaac and Elizabeth were in Bond Street, where Isaac was listed as a shop keeper and he was listed as a beer retailer in Bond Street in Slater's 1852/3 Directory. By 1861 Isaac and Elizabeth had moved to London and the census lists them as living in Aldersgate with Isaac a 76-year old labourer and Elizabeth a 71-year old dress maker.
Map based on the 1886 Ordnance Survey of eastern Back Street. The Royal Oak is likely to have been in one of the cottages on the south side of the road at right.
This photograph of lower Back Street (lower South Street) looking east towards Stars Lane was taken in the 1920's by which time the former glove factory (indicated on the map just below the words "Back Street" and in this photograph as the white three-storey building right of centre) was a box-making factory, the site was later occupied by the Somerset & Dorset Box Company - both sides of the road are now car parks. The Royal Oak was most likely in one of the small cottages beyond the glove factory, in the centre of the photograph.
1835 – Licensee not named (Robson's Somerset Directory - Beer Houses) listed as Royal Oak,
Back Street
1840 – Isaac Taylor (1840 Somerset Gazette Directory - Beer Houses) listed as Royal Oak,
1841 – Isaac Taylor – Inn Keeper (1841 census) pub not named
1842 – Isaac Taylor – Retailer of Beer (Pigot’s 1842-4 Directory)
The A-to-Z LISTINGS
Click a Letter...
... and yes, I know there's no 'Z'
links to the major themes
The History of Yeovil
Personalities of the Past
Buildings, Streets, etc.
Yeovil Pubs
Yeovil at Work
Yeovil at Play
Yeovil at Worship
Yeovil at War
Yeovil Trades & Traders
Leather & Gloving
© 2014 - 2019 Bob Osborn. All rights reserved.
This page last updated 16 May 2019
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GE News: Subsidiary AP&C Purchased New Land, GE Aviation Helping Airbus 3D Print Parts for RACER Aircraft
January 16, 2019 by Sarah Saunders 3D PrintingAerospace 3D PrintingBusiness
L-R: City of Saint-Eustache Mayor Pierre Charron and AP&C President and CEO Alain Dupont
GE Additive‘s Canadian subsidiary, Advanced Powders & Coatings (AP&C), which produces and distributes metal powders for 3D printing, has been operating out of the Innopark Albatros in Saint-Eustache, Quebec since 2016. But last week, AP&C announced that it had purchased an additional piece of land at the location. This new location, just outside Montreal, is where the company will be concentrating its expansion activities in an effort to support its growth plans.
“We are thrilled to work with the dynamic Ville de Saint-Eustache team! Our firm is currently enjoying rapid growth and we need more space for our projects, along with a good location for drawing fresh talent. Innoparc Albatros meets both of these urgent needs,” said AP&C CEO Alain Dupont. “It is clear that AP&C’s future is right here in Québec and, in particular, Saint-Eustache!”
This past Friday at the Saint-Eustache Town Hall, Dupont and Saint-Eustache Mayor Pierre Charron concluded the sale of the new, almost 40,000 square meter plot in the presence of Town Clerk Mark Tourangeau and notary Jean-Luc Pagé. AP&C already employs roughly 100 people at its Allée du golf facility in the Innoparc Albatros business district, but with this new addition, the company will be able to increase the amount of high added-value jobs in the area.
“We are extremely proud that AP&C, the flagship of its industry, has decided to multiply its activities in Innoparc Albatros, thereby making big contributions to Saint-Eustache’s economy,” said Mayor Charron. “Innovation breeds more innovation and we are confident that AP&C’s increased presence will bring new businesses to our techno-park and encourage other hitech firms to come here.”
This new space will be a big help, as the company, which mainly serves the biomedical and aerospace sectors, distributes its powder products in over 40 nations.
But this expansion isn’t the only news GE is sharing. Speaking of aerospace, a new GE Reports has come out regarding the next-generation RACER helicopter hybrid by Airbus, which is the concept aircraft for the European Union’s Clean Sky 2 project.
“The future of flight is an ever-evolving topic ranging from new supersonic passenger jets to hybrid helicopter-like aircraft that fly more like a plane,” Yari M. Bovalino wrote in GE Reports.
“One recent example of such a flying machine is Airbus’ RACER.”
According to Airbus, the RACER, or “rapid and cost-effective rotorcraft,” can hit a cruising speed of over 400 km an hour, making it one of the fastest helicopters in the world. The RACER combines an airplane’s speed and distance capabilities with the helicopter’s versatility; i.e., it can take off and land vertically and also hover. This aircraft could bring about greener, faster, and less expensive air travel, which fits right in with the EU’s project goal of lowering the impact of aviation on the environment.
Over 600 entities in 27 countries are working together to develop more “environmentally benign” aircraft technology as part of the Clean Sky aviation banner. The goal is to lower nitrous oxide emissions by 80%, fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions by 50%, and external noise by 50%, when compared to their levels in the year 2000. Clean Sky is looking at the big picture to make a real difference, and working on things like improving wing aerodynamics.
The RACER has a body like a helicopter, with a large rotor on top, but rather than a tail rotor, it has two skeletal wings, each with a backwards-facing propeller. One wing moves clockwise while the other moves counterclockwise, and the propellors work with the RACER’s low-drag wings to help it pick up speed while also maintaining lift.
For a long time, aviation engineers have been looking for that special flight vehicle that’s fast, cost-effective, and agile at the same time…and it looks like the RACER is checking all of those boxes.
Tomasz Krysinski, head of research and innovation at Airbus Helicopters, said, “The RACER is 50 percent faster than a traditional helicopter, but has lower costs, and brings together several new technologies.”
In order to obtain the necessary technology to get the RACER flying, Airbus turned to England-based GE Aviation Integrated Systems and Avio Aero, an Italian GE Aviation company. The two are working on building the components and subsystems for the hybrid aircraft, such as the transmission system for the wing and rotor propellers and the RACER’s cradles, which connect the wings to the gearboxes.
While traditional helicopter cradles were made with heavy parts that had been pre-made and were not cost-effective, the RACER’s cradles will be made with 3D printed casting molds, which helped lower cost, part count, and weight.
Paul Mandry, the engineering program leader for GE Aviation, said, “This is the first time we’ve ever designed such a complex cast component.”
The RACER also has some other new components that Airbus Helicopters and Avio Aero designed together, such as 3D printed heat exchangers for the transmission based on the experience that engineers gained while developing GE’s Catalyst engine. Because the craft is more lightweight, it will also save Airbus money on fuel costs over its lifetime, and will be much more environmentally friendly.
In order to take the RACER on its maiden flight in 2020, Airbus is planning to start assembling the first prototype later this year.
Discuss this news and other 3D printing topics at 3DPrintBoard.com or share your thoughts in the Facebook comments below.
Tagged with: 3d printed helicopter parts • 3d printed molds • Airbus Helicopters • AP&C • Avio Aero • Canada • european union • ge • GE Additive • ge aviation • GE Reports • heat exchangers • RACER
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How To Talk (Or, Better Yet, Not Talk) Politics In The Workplace
Written By Natalie DeFord
Surveys show that talking politics can lower productivity at work
Less than a week. That’s how long it is until the U.S. makes its pick for the next president. As the race nears the finish line, political discussions in the office can be a major distraction and are particularly hard to avoid.
New data from Accountemps, a Robert Half company, points to millennials as most likely to be affected.
A survey shows that 31 percent of workers between the ages of 18 and 34 said they have had heated political debates with their coworkers. This group is also most likely to be less productive as a result, with 25 percent saying their work has suffered.
A previous survey showed that 56 percent of all workers felt discussing politics in the office could get heated and offend others. However, more than half of millennials felt political banter with coworkers could help keep them informed.
Tyler Dion, branch manager of Robert Half Seattle, said he believes this topic is of great importance because of how much productivity can be lost.
To avoid getting distracted by such discussions going on around you in your office, Dion says you should try to stay focused on sticking to the plan you made for your day each day. Then you can make sure you accomplish your goals for that day and stay on track.
He also said you can dodge invitations to discuss politics by simply opting out.
“Personally, I am the least political person you will ever meet. And that’s what I tell people. So I just say it’s not my cup of tea and excuse myself from the conversation,” he said
He said it’s better to make light of both sides or refer to Saturday Night Live skits than to actual contentious issues that could offend. Additionally, he says he personally recommends not revealing how you choose to vote.
Today, he thinks debates are more likely to pop up around the office not only because of how polarized the two national candidates are, but also because of how we are getting our news.
“Think about how quickly we get our news now,” he said. “It used to be debate-based, nightly news-based, and all received at home. But now we are receiving breaking news all day, everywhere. News around the clock. So we’re more likely to develop and express new opinions or get upset based on new information while we are at work.”
His biggest piece of advice for workers everywhere?
“Opinions are made every day, every minute. You want to avoid people in your workplace making opinions about you based on your political beliefs and not your work productivity.”
Columnists, Lifestyle, News
Certain Signs Can Tell You When it’s Time to Quit Your Job
Volcanoes and Insurance: What’s Covered and What’s Not
Fight Workday, Commuter Stress
Mission of Main Street
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9 Young TV and Movie Stars You Didn’t Know Moonlight as Musicians
Frazer Harrison / Dimitrios Kambouris / Kevork Djansezian, Getty Images
When they're not acting as characters in films and on TV, these nine actors and actresses express themselves through another art form: music.
It's no secret that many teen and young adult stars pursue musical projects exclusive from their on-screen work: Big Little Lies' Zoe Kravitz, 13 Reasons Why's Dylan Minnette and Stranger Things' Joe Keery all moonlight in cool kid indie bands, while Baby Driver heartthrob Ansel Elgort and Famous in Love leading lady Bella Thorne have poppier solo aspirations.
Below, check out nine young movie and TV stars who you probably didn't know have musical projects on the side.
Back in 2013, Charlie Heaton, who plays Will Byer's big brother Jonathan on Stranger Things, served as the drummer for a cult British noise rock trio known as Comanechi. Fronted by lead singer Akiko Matsuura, Charlie, then just a teen, toured with the band for over a year, even opening for established groups like Gossip.
When she's not starring in critically acclaimed HBO shows and blockbuster films like Mad Max: Fury Road, Zoe Kravitz (daughter of Lenny Kravitz) fronts Brooklyn-based experimental R&B/electro-pop duo LOLAWOLF, who have toured with artists like Miley Cyrus and Lily Allen.
Yet another Stranger Things cast member with musical aspirations, since 2014 Joe Keery, who portrays fan favorite Steve on the cult series, has played guitar in a Tame Impala-esque Chicago psych-rock band called Post Animal.
When he's not acting, 13 Reasons Why star Dylan Minnette gigs with his surfy synth-rock band Wallows, formerly known as The Feaver and The Narwhals. The band even recently performed on The Late Late Show with James Corden.
Another Disney Channel upstart, Bella Thorne is most currently known for starring on Freeform's Famous in Love, as well as in an assortment of films, but on the side the wild child It Girl drops bizarre bars on "TiK ToK"-esque tracks like "B---h I'm Bella Thorne."
Formed in 2014, Stranger Things star Finn Wolfhard sings lead and plays guitar for Vancouver based indie-rock band Calpurnia.
When he's not actively DJing under the name Ansølo, musically inclined Baby Driver star Ansel Elgort is busy dropping glossy R&B pop tracks like "Supernova" and "Thief."
Though his musical talents were on full display during his breakout role on Disney Channel's Austin & Ally, some might not know that Ross Lynch is a musician off-screen as well. The singer and multi-instrumentalist formerly performed in successful pop-rock band R5, now an alt-pop/hip-hop duo known as The Driver Era, and as a solo artist Ross has contributed vocals to Tritonal's "I Feel the Love."
Maia Mitchell
When she's not starring on The Fosters and in films like Hot Summer Nights, Welsh actress Maia Mitchell flexes her vocal chops as one half of Rudy Mancuso's YouTube pop duo project. Maia also uploads her own covers to YouTube, performing songs like "Let Me Love You" by DJ Snake and Justin Bieber.
Source: 9 Young TV and Movie Stars You Didn’t Know Moonlight as Musicians
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Construction Unemployment Rates Improve in 25 States
Wednesday, April 5, 2017 9:00 AM
Contact: Jeff Leieritz (202) 905-2104
leieritz@abc.org
WASHINGTON, D.C., April 5— Construction unemployment rates were down in 25 states and unchanged in four in February on a year-over-year basis, according to analysis released today by Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC). The national not seasonally adjusted (NSA) construction unemployment rate of 8.8 percent was up 0.1 percent from February 2016, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
Since these industry-specific rates are not seasonally adjusted, the best approach is to evaluate the national and state-level unemployment rates on a year-over-year basis.
“Despite the slight downturn in the year-over-year NSA national construction unemployment rate, half the states had a reduction in their rates from a year ago,” said Bernard M. Markstein, Ph.D., president and chief economist of Markstein Advisors, who conducted the analysis for ABC. “Overall, the construction sector remains healthy even as employers struggle against the headwind of mounting shortages of skilled construction workers.”
In spite of the year-over-year rise, this was the second lowest national February NSA construction unemployment rate since February 2006 when the rate was 8.6 percent. Meanwhile, BLS data showed that the industry employed 219,000 more workers than in February 2016.
The general pattern in the movement in the national NSA construction unemployment rate from January to February is an increase. Starting in 2000, when the BLS data for this series begins, through 2016, the February rate has risen 11 times, fallen five times and been unchanged once. Contrary to the normal pattern due to the unusually mild weather in much of the nation in February, this year there was a 0.6 percent rate drop in the NSA rate from January.
View states ranked by their construction unemployment rate, their year-over-year improvement in construction unemployment, their monthly improvement in construction unemployment, a regional breakdown of states' construction unemployment rates and their February unemployment rates for all industries.
The states with the lowest estimated NSA construction unemployment rates in order from lowest rate to highest were:
1. Utah
2. Colorado
3. Hawaii and Idaho (tie)
5. Nebraska
Three states—Colorado, Hawaii and Utah—were also among the top five in January. Utah had the lowest NSA construction unemployment rate (5.3 percent), an improvement from the fourth lowest rate in January, and was one of 36 states whose rate decreased from January, along with the national rate. Colorado had the second lowest industry rate in February and its 5.8 percent tied with 2007 for the state’s third lowest estimated February rate, behind 5.5 percent in 2006 and 5.4 percent in 2016.
Hawaii and Idaho, both with a 5.9 percent rate, had the third lowest rate in February. Hawaii dropped from lowest rate in January, despite its industry unemployment rate, which also includes mining and logging, dropping from 6 percent in January. For Idaho, it was the state’s second lowest estimated February rate since the beginning of the estimates in 2000, second only to last year’s 5.6 percent.
Nebraska jumped from the 20th lowest rate in January to the fourth lowest in February with a 6 percent construction unemployment rate.
The states with the highest estimated NSA construction unemployment rates in order from lowest to highest rates were:
46. Pennsylvania
47. West Virginia
48. New Mexico
49. Rhode Island
50. Alaska
Three of these states—Alaska, Rhode Island and West Virginia—were also among the five states with the highest construction unemployment rates in January.
As in the previous five months, Alaska had the highest estimated NSA construction unemployment rate in February, 16.6 percent. It is normal for Alaska to have among the highest rates in the nation around this time of year since these are NSA construction unemployment rates. The state did see the biggest improvement from January (5.8 percent improvement) and fourth best year-over-year improvement (2.1 percent).
Rhode Island posted its lowest February construction unemployment rate since 2007, but still had the second highest construction unemployment rate in February (16.4 percent). New Mexico had the third highest estimated NSA construction unemployment rate in February (15 percent) and the largest year-over-year and monthly increases, up 2.6 percent and 1.2 percent, respectively.
West Virginia had the fourth highest rate in February (13.6 percent), but also posted the largest year-over-year decrease in its rate and the sixth largest decrease from January (both down 2.6 percent). It was also the state’s lowest February rate since the beginning of estimated construction unemployment rates in 2000.
Pennsylvania had the fifth highest construction unemployment rate in February (13.1 percent), but matched 2008 and 2016 for its lowest February rate since 2006 (9.7 percent).
Illinois, which had the fourth highest construction unemployment rate in January, had the eighth highest rate in February, 12.3 percent. The state had the sixth largest year-over-year decrease in its rate, down 1.8 percent, and the third largest decrease from the previous month, along with Montana, down 3.8 percent.
To better understand the basis for calculating unemployment rates and what they measure, see the article Background on State Construction Unemployment Rates.
construction economics, Associated Builders and Contractors, Associated Builders & Contractors, ABC, bernard markstein
« Construction Industry Praises President Trump for Eliminating Burdensome Obama-era Recordkeeping Rule
Nonresidential Construction a Bright Spot in Disappointing Jobs Report, ABC Says »
March Construction Unemployment Rates Down in 49 States Year Over Year, Says ABC
December Construction Unemployment Rates Down in 44 States Year Over Year, Says ABC
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The Adams County Arts Council is located in downtown Gettsyburg, PA. MAP »
Parking is available in the small lot directly across the street from the center. Metered parking is available on South Washington and surrounding streets. The lot directly behind the center is private parking and patrons are asked to respect our neighbor’s property.
It’s easy to visit Gettysburg from cities throughout the northeast. The town is less than two hours driving distance from Washington D. C. and Baltimore, 2 1/2 hours from Philadelphia and 4 hours from New York City. Our Arts Education Center is located at 125 South Washington Street, a short walk from Lincoln Square and Gettysburg College. South Washington runs parallel and is one block west of Baltimore Street (Rt. 97), a main artery into town.
FROM BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
From the Baltimore Beltway (Interstate 695), follow to Interstate 795
Take Interstate 795 to MD Route 140 towards Westminster
At Westminster, pick up MD Route 97/PA Route 97 and follow to Gettysburg.
FROM PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA AND POINTS EAST
Follow Pennsylvania Turnpike West (Interstate 76) to the Gettysburg Pike Exit, Exit 236
Follow U.S. Route 15 South to any of the Gettysburg exits.
FROM PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA AND POINTS WEST
Follow Pennsylvania Turnpike East (Interstate 76) to the Blue Mountain Exit, Exit 215
Follow PA Route 997 South to U.S. Route 30
Turn left and take U.S. Route 30 East to Gettysburg.
Follow Pennsylvania Turnpike East (Interstate 76) to the Gettysburg Pike Exit, Exit 236
FROM WASHINGTON, DC
From the Washington Beltway (Interstate 495), take Interstate 270 to Frederick, MD
At Frederick, take U.S. Route 15 North and exit at the first exit across the Pennsylvania state line (Steinwehr Avenue/ Business Route 15).
FROM INTERSTATE 81 AND POINTS NORTH
Exit Interstate 81 at Exit 70 (Interstate 83 South)
Follow Interstate 83 South and Capital Beltway signs
Exit onto PA Route 581 at Exit 41A (following signs for Gettysburg)
Exit onto U.S. Route 15 South at Camp Hill
Exit Interstate 81 at Exit 47A
Follow PA Route 34 South to Gettysburg.
FROM INTERSTATE 81 AND POINTS SOUTH
Exit Interstate 81 at Exit 16 ( U.S. Route 30)
Follow U.S. Route 30 East to Gettysburg.
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The Braggs Lecture Theatre building (at left) at the University of Adelaide.
A LOVE AFFAIR WITH ADELAIDE (AND GWEN)
starts William Bragg on way to winning the
1915 Nobel Prize for physics with son Lawrence
THE BRILLIANT BRAGGS – FATHER WILLIAM AND SON (WILLIAM) LAWRENCE* – are two of Adelaide’s five Nobel Prize winners. The others are Howard Florey and Robin Warren, both for medicine, and J.M Coetzee for literature.
William Bragg arrived from England in 1885 aged 23 but his next 23 years at Adelaide University were vital to developing him as an individual, family man, sportsman, public figure, teacher and research scientist.
Adelaide enriched William Bragg's life and he gave back to the city in full.
His marriage into the Adelaide family of Gwendoline, daughter of another famous scientist and technologist Charles Todd, transformed him personally and professionally.
William Bragg’s involvement with Adelaide life accorded with his belief that universities should “act as the centre from which all education radiates”. Adelaide’s respect for him showed in the practical support it gave to the research that would take him and his son onto the world stage of science.
Studying at Adelaide University from age 14, the Braggs’ elder son Lawrence, the keen boyhood collector of shells on Adelaide beaches, followed his father in making great leaps in scientific insights, the greatest being the Nobel-winning Bragg’s Law on using X rays to calculate the position of an atom within a crystal. X-ray crystallography is now crucial in medicine and pharmacy, physics, chemistry, mining and biological sciences.
William and Lawrence’s unique father-and-son win of the Nobel physics prize in 1915 was achieved ahead of other contenders that year, including Max Planck – formulator of quantum physics – and Albert Einstein.
The Braggs’ important Adelaide era has been detailed by John Jenkin’s major work William and Lawrence Bragg, father and son: the most extraordinary collaboration in science (2008). Crystal clear: the autobiographies of Sir Lawrence and Lady Bragg gives added personal insight.
* To lessen confusion, the Braggs are referred to as William and Lawrence in the items on this page.
ARRIVING, AGED 23, AS ADELAIDE UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS IN 1886
MATHS GENIUS WILLIAM BRAGG LEAVES A COLD UPBRINGING in England to find immediate warmth and friendship in Adelaide
Achievers >
Schooldays motherless cold but marked by William's maths and love of sport, theatre
William Henry Bragg, born in 1862, was brought up on his father’s Cumberland farm in England until his mother, who taught William to read before he went to school, died in 1869. He lived in Leicestershire with his stern uncle. At the local school, William was the youngest boy in England to get through the junior Oxford local exams. Moved to King William’s College on the Isle of Man, William excelled in maths and found enjoyment in school activities, sport and his roles in school plays.
William Bragg shines in physics at Cambridge; J.J. Thomson backs him for Adelaide Uni chair
In 1884, after gaining first class honours in mathematics, William Bragg learnt his physics in Cambridge University's Cavendish Laboratory. When Horace Lamb resigned from the Elder chair of mathematics at Adelaide University, J.J. Thomson (the Nobel physicist who would discover the electron in 1897) recommended that William apply for the position. Thomson headed the Cavendish Laboratory and had much in common, particularly tennis, with William. Bragg was selected for the £600 per annum University of Adelaide position at the age of 23.
Justice >
William Bragg meets life friend Alfred Lendon and Samuel Way on his first day in Adelaide
William Bragg met some of the most important people in his life on the first day of his 23 years in Australia. Having sailed from Tilbury for his voyage on the RMS Rome, William arrived at Glenelg on 27 February 1886 and spent the night at the Pier Hotel. The next day, young doctor Alfred Lendon – and future life-long friend – called for William and took him to meet Samuel Way, chief justice of South Australia and university chancellor. Next stop was a visit to Charles Todd and his family.
Famous Charles Todd, wife Alice, daughters charm Bragg from first meeting on first day
Charles Todd was famous as the architect and builder of the transcontinental Overland telegraph line that linked Australia, through Darwin, with Europe. On his first day in South Australia in 1886, William Bragg met Todd, government astronomer, postmaster general and superintendent of telegraphs – and his future father in law, at the Todd home within the Adelaide Observatory buildings in the west parklands. William also met Todd's wife Alice, sons and daughters, including Gwendoline.
BRAGG RECRUITS ROBERT CHAPMAN AND ARTHUR ROGERS; BACKS STUDENTS UNION IN 1895
ADELAIDE UNI'S SHORTAGE OF SCIENCE STUDENTS AND STAFF,
plus resources, solved by Professor William Bragg's good choices
Prof. William Bragg dealing, at 23, with new university and only few science students
Professor William Bragg, with first class honours from Cambridge at the age of 23, joined a new Adelaide University still struggling in 1886. Of 100 full-course students, only a few were at the science school. William taught all pure and applied maths and all the physics and practical physics. He was also in charge of much of the secondary public exams in maths and physics. But he was happy to lecture second-year music students in acoustics – a specialty he revisited in World War I.
William Bragg gives to Robert Chapman's salary; starts lectures for teachers and public
Still struggling with lack of apparatus, William Bragg asked in 1887 for an assistant lecturer. This was granted after William offered to provide one third of the salary (£100) himself for the first two years. His choice, Robert Chapman, became a powerhouse of engineering knowledge in South Australia and later Elder professor of mathematics and mechanics. William also started free lectures for science teachers and for the public. The last of these was on the “mysterious X rays”.
Arthur Rogers' skill as instrument maker a key to Bragg's experiments at Adelaide University
Arthur Rogers' superb skill in creating apparatus was critical to William Bragg’s breakthrough alpha particle and gamma ray experiments. Rogers' schooling in England was hampered by disability but he gained jobs working with metal, wood and glass. Migrating to Adelaide in the 1880s to improve his health, he joined Edwin Sawtells' optical and watchmaking business. This may have been where William had apprenticed himself to learn how to make the apparatus for the uni laboratory.
William Bragg a prime mover in building a home for university's new students' union
Part of William Bragg’s role in helping build Adelaide University’s culture, role and standards was in care for students. William was the leader in the new university’s student union getting its first home. The need for a students’ union has been traced to discontent with the small unfurnished students’ room closed by the university council in 1889 after it was damaged by angry students. William got things moving in 1895 by overseeing the planning and building of a students union building.
TAKES LEAD ROLE IN COMIC DRAMA AT BARR SMITHS' TORRENS PARK THEATRE IN 1886
WILLIAM BRAGG MARRIES GWEN TODD AND ADELAIDE LIFE:
Joins the art society and helps develop sport of lacrosse locally
Theatre >
Acting role at the Barr Smiths' theatre a part of William Braggs' entree to Adelaide society
In October of his first year (1886) in Adelaide, William Bragg took the male lead in a comic drama in two acts entitled The Jacobite. It was presented in the Torrens Park Theatre, an elaborately decorated auditorium built by Robert and Joanna Barr Smith at their large home (now Scotch College) at Torrens Park near the Adelaide foothills. With much of its decoration arranged by correspondence with a London architect, the theatre had a fully equipped stage, gas lighting, antique mirrors, oval windows and a glass-roofed conservatory. It seated 200. (The theatre has been restored by Scotch College that now occupies the property.) Robert and Joanna Barr Smith were lavish hosts, and the theatre, indulging the family’s own interest in theatricals, hosted many entertainments. William Bragg's participation in 1886 in at least one of those entertainments recalls his boyhood love of theatricals at King William College in England and it indicates his acceptance into the wealthiest level of Adelaide social strata. It was also significant in Bragg's rise to scientific eminence. Seventeen years later, Robert Barr Smith gave money for Bragg to buy his first sample of radium bromide and begin his extraordinary research. In 1906, Barr Smith gave more funds for Bragg to buy a machine to liquefy gases.
William Bragg marries Gwendoline Todd who has a positive effect on his emotion swings
William Bragg and Gwendoline Todd became close friends from their first meeting on his first day in Adelaide. Their relationship wasn't always smooth as William became concerned about his mood swings. With a maturity beyond her 18 years, Gwen comforted and calmed “my dearest Will”. In 1889, William and Gwen were married by university vice chancellor Canon George Farr at his parish church, St Luke’s, Whitmore Square. They rented a home on LeFevre Terrace, North Adelaide.
William Bragg takes up painting with Gwen and joins board of library, museum and art gallery
Seaside summer holidays became a family tradition was for the Braggs and Todds. Gwen Bragg and the two boys usually went for an extended time. William joined Gwen by taking up in painting and they even exhibited their work together. They were an integral part of the reactivated South Australian Society of Arts. and they exhibited together. William represented the society on the board of governors of the Public Library, Museum and Art Gallery of South Australia.
Lacrosse boosted in South Australia by William Bragg as a star player and organiser
Keen on sports from his school and university days, William Bragg helped developed lacrosse in South Australia. William became the colony’s finest all-round player with the Adelaide club whose home ground was the Old Adelaide (Victoria Park) Racecourse opposite the grandstand, in 1886. He organised and became captain of a North Adelaide club and was picked in in a combined South Australian team that inflicted the only defeat on the South Melbourne club on Adelaide Oval in 1887.
REPRESENTS ROYAL SOCIETY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA NATIONALLY
WILLIAM BRAGG PUSHES CITY'S SCIENCE-TECHNOLOGY LINKS
through Jubilee exhibition (1887) and School of Mines/Industries
William Bragg involved with Jubilee exhibition and acoustics for Elder Conservatorium, Hall
William Bragg was closely involved with the jubilee exhibition, the Exhibition Building and the Elder Conservatorium of Music. The jubilee exhibition, celebrating the South Australia’s 50th anniversary and the golden jubilee of Queen Victoria’s reign, opened in 1887 in the new Exhibition Building on North Terrace. As a member of Adelaide University’s board of musical studies, Bragg was active planning the Elder Conservatorium and advised on the acoustics for it and the Elder Hall.
Royal Society of South Australia represented by William Bragg at first AAAS meeting in 1888
William Bragg was nominated to represent the Royal Society of South Australia at the first Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) council meeting in 1888. William was optimistic about the AAAS offering young scientists a chance to have contact with more experienced colleagues. William's 1904 AAAS presidential address in Dunedin, “On some recent advances in the theory of the ionization of gases”, marked the start of his own intensive research career.
William Bragg the link between Adelaide University and School of Mines and Industries
William Bragg showed tact and breadth of vision by being, uniquely, a member of the councils of both Adelaide University and the School of Mines and Industries that had an, at times, acrimonious rivalry. William believed in a broad general education for the whole community but equally in the intellectual primacy of the university. He agreed to School of Mines' requests for engineering courses, with valuable input from Robert Chapman, although resources at the university were very low.
Braggs >
John Madsen works with William Bragg in major boost to electrical technology in Adelaide
As with his father-in-law Charles Todd, Adelaide University's mathematics and physics professor and future Nobel Prize winner William Bragg promoted electrical technology in Adelaide. Todd, as South Australia's postmaster general and director of the Adelaide-Darwin telegraph line project, had urged that Adelaide use electricity long before it was seriously discussed in the 1880s. In 1900, the new School of Mines and Industries asked Adelaide University to help reorganise its electrical engineering course. William Bragg had a shortage of staff, funds and equipment but he suggested weekly evening classes that began in 1891. Students petitioned for an advanced course in 1894. A brilliant undergraduate from Sydney University, John Madsen arrived at Adelaide University in 1901 as assistant lecturer in mathematics and demonstrator in physics. During the 1902/3 summer break, Madsen visited universities and electrical works in England and the USA. In 1903, he became Adelaide University’s lecturer in electrical engineering. The university and School of Mines in 1902 set up four-year courses leading to a joint school fellowship and university diploma in applied science. The electrical engineering course and laboratories design were left to Madsen, who took on all physics practical work, advised Adelaide Electric Lighting Co. and, by 1906, was helping Bragg with research. Bragg took a deep interest in these developments. With Todd's support, Bragg was elected an associate (1893) and then full member of The Institution of Electrical Engineers (UK) until 1912.
ADELAIDE UNIVERSITY GRANTS STUDY LEAVE IN UK IN 1898
X RAY AND RADIO EXPERIMENTS IN ADELAIDE IN LATE 1890s
usher in William Bragg's intense radioactivity research phase
X-rays >
William Bragg's X ray demonstration in 1896 the result of Adelaide technological teamwork
William Bragg’s demonstration of X rays in Adelaide in 1896 had special significance. It was part of William’s interest shifting to electromagnetism and he was also use a confluence of local resources. A high-voltage induction coil was borrowed from his famous father in law Charles Todd, postmaster general superintendent of electric telegraph. At the same time, Samuel Barbour, an R.H. Faulding & Co. chemist, returned from Europe with one of the new glass discharge (Crookes) tubes.
William Bragg and his family go to England for a year with university giving first study leave
Adelaide University was the first in Australia to grant study leave of absence and William Bragg applied for a year in England in 1898. The university and the South Australian government asked him to investigate possibilities for training science teachers and technical education. In England, William, on behalf of his father-in-law Charles Todd, discussed the cost of wireless equipment. Contemplating his own research work, Bragg discussed physics with friends at Cambridge University.
Radio signals sent from Todd's observatory to Henley Beach in 1899 among Australia's first
William Bragg was involved in sending one of Australia’s first radio signals in Adelaide in 1899. These were Morse code messages, includied one from the Charles Todd’s observatory wireless hut on West Terrace, Adelaide, to the Bragg family’s hut at Henley Beach. William and had been diverted into the possibilities of radio or “wireless telegraphy” by his father in law Charles Todd, While on study leave in England in 1898, Bragg met with Guglielmo Marconi and discussed his experiments.
Richard Kleeman among young graduates aiding William Bragg in his crucial research phase
Richard Kleeman was among graduates whom William Bragg employed. Kleeman, eldest of nine children of German-Lutheran ancestry at Rowlands Flat, left school at 13 and was apprenticed to a cooper at Yalumba winery and then Chateau Tanunda until 1901. He read mathematics and physics privately, helped by his pastor. In 1897, he sent short papers that impressed William Bragg. In 1901-03, Kleeman obtained first-class honours in physics and helped Bragg in studies of radioactivity.
DECLINES OFFER FROM CANADIAN UNIVERSITY IN 1907
WILIAM BRAGG'S RESEARCH TURNING POINT COMES IN 1904;
alpha particles, X/gamma rays; Royal Society fellowship in 1907
Robert Barr Smith buys the radium bromide for Bragg's research into ions and alpha particles
William Bragg started his research into alpha particles and what became known as the “Bragg ionisation peak” from 1904 was again helped by local resources. William ordered radium bromide that was paid for by Adelaide philanthropist Robert Barr Smith. Adelaide University skilled instrument maker Arthur Rogers built brass chambers of increasing complexity for detecting the alpha particles. William also had the help of his first research student Richard Kleeman from Rowland Flat.
William Bragg centre of controversy over X rays, gamma rays as particles or waves
During research (1904-08) at Adelaide University with alpha particles, William was conscious of vigorous discussions in science worldwide on the nature of X rays and gamma rays as waves or particles. The prevailing view than was the ether-pulse theory that saw X rays as electromagnetic wave pulses. But William revived the idea that X rays and gamma rays might be material particles. William invited Adelaide University colleague John Madsen to help investigate his radical theory.
Ernest Rutherford and Frederick Soddy become key figures in William Bragg's global links
Visits by Ernest Rutherford and Frederick Soddy to William Bragg, while he was at Adelaide University, were crucial to the progress of Bragg’s research and reputation. Rutherford and Soddy were key world figures in nuclear physics on its way to unveiling the structure of the atom. William was conscious of isolation from people and events in England and Europe but his correspondence with Soddy and Rutherford were a bridge enabling him to proceed with his research in Adelaide.
Royal Society fellowship and offer from Canadian university received by William Bragg in 1907
William Bragg was made a fellow of the Royal Society in 1907. This was second for the broader family. His father in law Charles Todd had been elected a fellow in 1889. Also in 1907, Ernest Rutherford recommeded William as his successor at McGill University in Canada. William, who was initially very interested, but told Rutherford that “we have struck our roots very deep … I think there could hardly be a more delightful city to live in than Adelaide, nor a kindlier people”.
BORN 1890 INTO BOYHOOD AT NORTH ADELAIDE
LAWRENCE BRAGG'S BOYHOOD: SIGNIFICANT BROKEN ELBOW,
bullying, precocity; wonder in grandfather's backyard; and shells
Lawrence Bragg grows up in North Adelaide and his grandfather Todd's observatory
Lawrence Bragg recalled happy times at his first boyhood home in North Adelaide with playmate and “great crony” Eric Gill, son of H. P. Gill, master of the School of Design and honorary curator of the art gallery. For Lawrence and brother Bob, Sunday was traditionally spent with grandparents, Alice and Charles Todd, at the Adelaide Observatory on West Terrace. Around their rambling two-storey house was a cluster of buildings housing the telescopes and meteorological equipment.
Lawrence Bragg's elbow injury his first venture with father on the use of X rays that led to Nobel
X rays, central to William and Lawrence Braggs’ Nobel Prize in 1915, featured in a domestic drama at the family’s North Adelaide home in 1896. Six-year-old Lawrence Bragg was riding his tricycle when brother Bob jumped on from behind. They both fell on Lawrence’s left elbow. Lawrence was taken to his father William’s Adelaide University laboratory where the elbow was Xrayed with basic apparatus. X rays had only been discovered in 1895 by Wilhelm Röntgen in Germany.
Lawrence Bragg shows brilliance over bullying at Queen's School in North Adelaide 1889-90
In the mid 1890s, Lawrence Bragg started at a convent school on the far side of North Adelaide. On the family’s return from England in 1899, Lawrence went to Queen’s School, a private institution run by R. G. Jacomb-Hood in North Adelaide. Lawrence recalled Hood’s belief in corporal punishment, some bullying from older boys, and not fitting in at the school. He was reluctant to play lunch-time hockey but very precocious in Euclidean mathematics and other studies.
Vercos >
Lawrence Bragg, keen shell collector on Adelaide beaches, finds cuttlefish sepia braggi
Shell collecting became Lawrence Bragg’s main boyhood interest, helped by the family’s seaside holidays at Port Willunga, Port Elliott, Semaphore, Brighton, Normanville, Aldinga and Grange. The shell collecting also suited Lawrence’s preference for solitary pursuits. Lawrence’s shell collecting grew to specimens from 500 species. In 1906/07, Lawrence Bragg found an unusual cuttlefish bone that Dr Joseph Verco, who had the city's finest collection of shells, named sepia braggi.
BEFORE DEPARTING FOR LEEDS UNIVERSITY POSITION IN 1909
WILLIAM BRAGG DESIGNS FAMILY'S HOME ON EAST TERRACE; organises royal visit; helps plan Adelaide Golf Club's Seaton links
Heritage >
Bragg family moves to Catherwood House, designed by William, on East Terrace, Adelaide
After the Braggs returned to Adelaide from England in 1899, William Bragg designed a family home for land he bought on the corner of Carrington Street and East Terrace, Adelaide. Charles Todd laid the foundation stone in 1899 and named it Catherwood House after William’s boyhood home in Market Harborough. William developed his love of gardening here and a backyard shed was used by the boys Lawrence and Bob as a workshop. The house is now a state heritage item.
William Bragg guides 1901 royal visit to university and opening of organ for Elder Hall
Another aspect of William Bragg’s organising skills was called on for the 1901 visit to Adelaide of the duke and duchess of Cornwall and York. William used his special relationship with students to negotiate good behaviour and their songs became a highlight of the program. The duchess opened the Elder Hall organ, which worked well, thanks to William’s input. The military review on Saturday at Victoria Park was in front of the Braggs’ new family home at East Terrace, Adelaide.
Oddities >
William Bragg helps tee up Adelaide Golf Club's move to its new course at Seaton in 1906
William Bragg was at the forefront of (Royal) Adelaide Golf Club’s effort to establish itself at Seaton from 1906. William joined the club in 1893 when its course was in the east city parklands opposite the Braggs’ first home at North Adelaide. He was elected the club’s secretary/treasurer and reduced his golf handicap from 13 to 1.William was involved in the club's efforts to find a new course in 1904 at Seaton. William provided a club trophy in 1905 and in 1906/7 he won the senior medal.
Big farewell for Braggs after William accepts Leeds University post and leaves in 1909
Adelaide gave the Braggs a big sendoff after William Bragg wrote to the Adelaide University Council, in 1908, tendering his resignation after an attractive offer from Leeds University. But he suggested 10 months leave of absence and the chance to return. Australasian scientists were sad to see him go. Clinton Coleridge Farr wrote: “He is as unassuming as he is brilliant ... More than any other man, has helped to shift the centre of gravity of scientific research a little to the south.”
THE MAKING OF LAWRENCE BRAGG: YOUNGEST NOBEL LAUREATE IN SCIENCE
SURGES THROUGH ST PETER'S COLLEGE AND ADELAIDE UNI,
switches to physics at Cambridge and devises Bragg's Law at 22
Lawrence Bragg a top student at St Peter's College but out of step with older classmates
Lawrence Bragg started at St Peter's College in 1901, benefitting from changes since 1894 when the Rev. Henry Girdlestone, an Oxford science graduate, took over as headmaster. Age 11, Lawrence Bragg was in the fifth form and doing a public examination at the end of his first year. Precocious in lessons, he found his social immaturity compared to older class mates a great handicap. In 1904, he topped mathematics, chemistry and French exams, as well as Form VI overall.
First-class honours for Lawrence Bragg after entering Adelaide University at age of 15
Lawrence Bragg completed his secondary education in 1905 – at the age of 15. Lawrence enrolled at Adelaide University in 1906. He studied Physics 1, Inorganic Chemistry 1 (BA course), and second-year pure mathematics, getting a first-class pass in each. Much of his mathematics and physics tutoring came from his father. In 1908, Lawrence undertook the honours mathematics course and graduated BA with first-class honours. He left for England with his family in 1909.
William Bragg urges Lawrence to make switch to physics at Cambridge University
Lawrence Bragg entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1909 on a major scholarship in mathematics. He completed the first-year mathematical tripos with a first-class pass. William urged his son to change to physics and Lawrence achieved a first-class natural science honour. Lawrence began research in Cavendish Laboratory in 1912 when he became aware of Max von Laue proving X rays were waves of light. This sparked the joint interest of Lawrence and father William in X-ray diffraction.
Lawrence's Bragg's Law for calculating atom position crux of Nobel Prize win with William
As a 22-year-old first-year research student at Cambridge University in 1912, Lawrence Bragg discovered how to “see” the positions of atoms in solids. This was Braggs Law, basis of the 1915 Nobel Prize shared by Lawrence – youngest winner of the prize for science – with father William. William built a spectrometer, enabling the two Braggs to examine X rays from crystals at various angles. This initiated X-ray crystallography – still the most accurate to determine molecular structures.
ADELAIDE KEEPS ITS CONNECTION WITH THE BRAGGS
BOB BRAGG KILLED AT GALLIPOLI IN 1915 NOBEL PRIZE YEAR;
William and Lawrence go on achieving and popularising science
Death of younger son Bob at Gallipoli clouds the Braggs' Nobel Prize science honour in 1915
At the outbreak of War World I, Lawrence Bragg and brother Bob joined the King Edward’s Horse, a mounted infantry unit for men from British dominions. Lawrence was assigned to the Leicestershire Royal Horse Artillery for training in Norfolk. Bob joined the 58th Brigade of the Royal Field Artillery. In September 1915, Bob died in a dugout at Gallipoli. In November, William Bragg got a telegram from Sweden notifying him of the joint award with Lawrence of the 1915 Nobel Prize for physics.
William Bragg furthers X-ray crystallography and popularises science via the Royal Institution
William Bragg was appointed to the Quain chair of physics at University College, London, in 1915. Here, and on becoming Fullerian professor of chemistry and director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain in 1923, he built up vigorous schools of X-ray crystallography, principally studying organic molecules. At the Royal Institution, he started a tradition of popularizing science with Christmas lectures for young people. His wife Gwendoline died in 1929 followed by William in 1942
Lawrence Bragg wins medal for war work; X rays help unveil DNA at Cavendish Laboratory
Already, at 25, the youngest Nobel laureate, Lawrence Bragg received the Military Cross for work in World War I. In 1919, he became professor of physics at Victoria University, Manchester, fostering X-ray crystallography devoted mainly to studying inorganic structures. After serving again in World War II, Lawrence started applying X rays to proteins and helped create a Cavendish Laboratory research group, including Francis Crick and James Watson, who identified DNA’s double helix.
The Braggs remembered in Adelaide through RiAus and university research centres
The opening of the Royal Institution of Australia (RiAus), in the former Adelaide stock exchange (now Science Exchange) building in 2009 started with the Bragg Initiative.William and Lawrence became directors of the Royal Institution of Great Britain later in their careers in England.The Royal Institution aims to “bring science to people and people to science". Adelaide University honours the Braggs’ work with the Braggs’ Building, Bragg Laboratories and the Bragg crystallography centre.
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Bauman: Identity
︎ All Projects / ︎ Select
︎Bauman: Identity
Histories and Theories of Environment
Instructed by: John May
In Zygmunt Bauman’s interview “Identity”, Bauman argues that the idea of identity stemmed from the need for a sense of belonging and security, and that the existence of identity is only applicable to the modern society that is ‘liquid’ – constantly changing and transforming. Identity became a new problem and task because it wasn’t one before mankind entered “modernity”. Bauman states that “the thought of ‘having an identity’ will not occur to people as long as ‘belonging’ remains their fate, a condition with no alternative. They will begin to entertain such a thought only in the form of a task to be performed, and to be performed over and over again rather than in a one-off fashion.” 1
Bauman quotes Philippe Robert and states, “or most of the history of human societies, social relations have stayed enclosed firmly in the realm of proximity.” 2 Before identity became a foreign problem, it was, “for most people, ‘society’ as the uppermost ‘totality’ of human cohabitation....[it] was equal to the immediate neighborhood”.3 People used to identify themselves with their immediate neighbors, because the neighborhood is where one lives and belongs, the thought of oneself being apart from, or outside that neighborhood was thought of abandoning one’s roots. Bauman’s argument of slowly disintegrating neighborhoods and transport revolution – which is the development of infrastructure – was able to facilitate movement between neighborhoods, cities; thus one is able to travel away from one’s home more easily, and the problem of identity arose.
Identity is tied with the idea that one belongs everywhere and nowhere. Bauman suggests that “one can even begin to feel everywhere chez soi, ‘at home’ - but the price to be paid is to accept that nowhere will one be fully and truly at home.” 4 Bauman continues to argue that “Identity is revealed to us only as something to be invented rather than discovered; as a target of an effort, ‘an objective’; as something one still needs to build from scratch or to choose from alternative offers and then to struggle for and then to protect through yet more struggle.” 5 Identity, adapted as a mobile form of a sense of belonging, requires one to ‘invent’ because it is no longer tied to the environment one was gave birth into. Identity can be summed up as the ‘mixed past’ of a person, and because modern people are often well traveled and multi-culturally exposed from globalization, one’s identity became a unique addition to one’s traits. However, if part of one’s identity is stemmed from backgrounds that are not in sync with those of who one is currently in, “the truth of the precarious and forever incomplete status of identity needs to be, and tends to be, suppressed and laboriously covered up”. 6
Identity may be a new way of defining one as an individual, but according to Bauman, identity is not absolute and can possibly just be a by-product of the advancement of mankind. Bauman argues that “It is indeed a puzzle and a challenge to sociology - if you recall that only a few decades ago ‘identity’ was nowhere near the center of our thoughts, remaining but an object of philosophical meditation. Today, though, ‘identity’ is ‘the loudest talk in town’, the burning issue on everybody’s mind and tongue. It would be this sudden fascination with identity, rather than identity itself, that would draw the attention of the classics of sociology were they to have lived long enough to confront it.”7 Bauman also argues that identity, when paired with nationality, can twist its true meaning. “Let me repeat: the ‘naturalness’ of the assumption that ‘belonging-through-birth’ meant, automatically and unequivocally, belonging to a nation was a laboriously construed convention; the appearance of ‘naturalness’ could be anything but ‘natural’.” 8 Bauman argues at length that one’s identity should not be tied to where one is born because it defeats the purpose of inventing an identity, and that it will bring the modern society into the degression of which one is once again bound by the environment where one was born or raised in.
Bauman felt that the terms ‘modernity’ or ‘postmodernity’ are no longer fit to describe the constant changes in sociology. He therefore moved on to introduce the term ‘liquid modernity’ – which describes the impermanent state of the current society, which he thinks is mobile, ever-changing and highly adaptable. In liquid modernity one is not tied to one’s birthplace, past or societal conventions because these rules cannot be applied to the current state of the society. This includes the ability to be constantly ready and the willingness to change and adapt to transforming environments rapidly.
In contrast with liquid modernity, ‘solid modernity’ – the old form of relationships and identities was in a more stable and predictable state. Bauman believes that “we seek and construct and keep together the communal references of our identities while on the move - struggling to match the similarly mobile, fast moving groups we seek and construct and try to keep alive for a moment, but not much longer.” 9 Liquid modernity has adapted the somewhat inhumane qualities of the digital age, and the multi-faceted qualities as a result of globalization. This change to Bauman, however, has radically changed the meaning of identity from when it was first introduced. The ‘liquid modern’ state has not only grew to the extent where one no longer needs to be connected to the environment one was brought up in; it has also evolved to a phase where one can be completely disconnected with one’s immediate surroundings. Just as Bauman writes “to do so, we don’t need to study and master Goffman’s code. Mobile phones will do. We can buy them; complete with all the skills we may need for the purpose, in a high-street shop. With a headset attachment securely in place, we parade our detachment from the street we walk, no longer needing the elaborate etiquette. By switching on the mobile, we switch off the street.” 10
1-10. Zygmunt Bauman. Interview: Identity (Psychology Press, 2005), 1-10.
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Hunt for the Skinwalker – Jeremy Kenyon Lockyer Corbell
Hunt for the Skinwalker
Jeremy Kenyon Lockyer Corbell
Based on the best-selling book by George Knapp & Dr. Colm Kelleher, Hunt for The Skinwalker investigates the confidential, most extensive scientific study of a paranormal hotspot in human history. Skinwalker Ranch in Utah is famous throughout the world because of the myriad of frightening, seemingly supernatural events that have been reported in the scenic basin surrounding the property for hundreds of years. Sightings include orbs, UFOs, animal mutilations, unknown creatures, poltergeist-type activity, and many other inexplicable incidents. An exhaustive, multidisciplinary scientific study began in 1996, spearheaded by an enigmatic Las Vegas billionaire. A team of PhD-level investigators was deployed to collect evidence and spent more than a decade on the ground, interviewing witnesses, searching for explanations, and directly confronting an unknown intelligence. Recent headlines have revealed that a second, government-funded but confidential study was initiated by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). This second investigation was designed to determine if the phenomena at the ranch might have national security implications or could point to technological breakthroughs. The shroud of mystery hanging above Skinwalker Ranch and the Uintah Basin has fascinated director Jeremy Corbell for years. He finally journeyed to the property to interview eyewitnesses – including the new owner of the ranch – and uncover rare, previously unreleased recordings. Internationally-known singer Robbie Williams, with a lifelong interest in paranormal phenomena, is one of the few outsiders allowed to accompany the documentary team in visiting the ranch.
© © 2018 JKLC Productions
Categories IndependentTags Corbell, Hunt, Jeremy, Kenyon, Lockyer, Skinwalker
Slice – Austin Vesely
Primal Fear – Gregory Hoblit
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Andy Selva – San Marino’s national hero!
On the first day of September 2017, as the autumnal chills were beginning to wrap their cold fingers around football fans watching their teams progress – or otherwise – through the qualifying programme, chasing a place in the 2018 World Cup in Russia, Michael O’Neill took his Northern Ireland team to the Stadio Olimpico di Serravalle in San Marino. They returned with a comfortable 0-3 victory. On the face of it, the result was probably one of the easiest to predict of the evening’s international fixtures across the globe.
San Marino are, after all, one of the weakest of the Fifa family members, being placed at 204 in the August 2017 rankings with only the British Virgin Islands, of the teams with any ranking at all, beneath them. Until Gibraltar were admitted into Uefa in 2013, they were also European football’s smallest competing country, as defined by population numbers. All that said though, there’s just the slightest of chances that perhaps the result may have been different had the home team been able to call on the services of their most capped player and top scorer. Unfortunately, the man in question was injured and unavailable. When you’re the only player in the history of your country’s footballing exploits to ever have scored a winning goal whilst wearing the national colours, you’re going to carry a little prestige with you, even if you are at the ripe old age of 41.
In fairness to O’Neill’s team, the men in green were on a heroic run of form at the time and, truth be told, would in all likelihood still secured the victory even if their opponents were able to call on a full roster of players. Every team misses their top scorer when unavailable though, and San Marino were surely no different.
Andy Selva was born in Rome on 25th May 1976. Despite his birthplace being the capital of Italy, having a Sammarinese mother meant that although his chances of ever being selected for to play in the famous Azure shirt of the country of his birth were slim, he could enter the international arena under the colours of La Serenissima. He would do so with distinction.
Selva began his playing career in the 1994-95 season amongst the undistinguished surroundings of the regional fifth tier of Italian football, somewhat inappropriately named the Eccellenza (Excellent) with A.S. Latina scoring five goals in just over two dozen league appearances. It was hardly a record to set the pulses racing, but deemed sufficient to interest Civita Castellana, who strutted their stuff in Serie D, one league above where Latina played. In his one season with the Lazio-based club, he returned an impressive 10 goals in 31 league games.
Continuing the upwards momentum, he then moved to Fano, who played in Serie C2, and remained with the Granata until March 1998. It seemed however that perhaps Selva had reached beyond his level at this exalted height. For a number of reasons, he only played just a couple more games than in his single season with his previous club, and scored just a single goal. It was the least productive period of his career, and even compared poorly to his record playing in international games for San Marino. Ironically, it was while with Fano that Selva first received international recognition. Called up for the San Marino U21 side, he played against Turkey, and despite a 1-4 home defeat, netted his team’s only goal. The following year, he made his full international debut, and scored his first goal for his country netting from 12 yards in a 1-4 defeat to Austria. He wouldn’t trouble the international scoring records again until 2001.
Selva was offered an opportunity to redeem his domestic league reputation the following season with a move to another Serie C2 club, Catanzaro. He may have found the Cantabrian air more to his liking as he rehabilitated both reputation and form. He found his shooting boots again and delivered half-a-dozen goals in a less than outstanding season by the club in which he made 40 league appearances.
Although an improvement on the goal record at his previous club, it may well have been the case that at this stage of his career, it would be wise to take a step backwards, in order to pick up some more forward momentum. A move back to the Eccellenza with Tivoli fitted the bill. Back facing the more accommodating defences of the regional league, 15 goals in just 21 league matches was still a worthy achievement. It would lead to a move to a city where Selva would enjoy the most celebrated moment of his career, although not whilst wearing his club’s shirt.
San Marino Calcio are based in Serravalle, the nominal capital of San Marino, near the Apennines Mountains, and Selva’s move to his maternal homeland also meant that he would play his club’s home games at the somewhat inaptly named Stadio Olimpico. His club career in Serravalle was however was hardly successful and he returned just four goals in 26 league appearances during the 2000-01 season. It would mean an inevitable moving on, although the following season was a peripatetic one, even for a player who had already played for half-a-dozen clubs in just seven years.
The 2001-02 season saw Selva play for no less than three different clubs. After three appearances with San Marino without troubling the scorers, he moved down the east coast of Italy and turned out five times for Serie D club Maceratese, scoring once, before being shipped out on loan to Grosseto in Tuscany where a further 15 league games and two goals saw out the season’s play and wanderings.
Somewhat ironically, that season of travelling between three clubs, also saw a landmark in his international career. On 28th February 2001, San Marino faced a difficult – given the paucity of their resources, there a few games that aren’t difficult – World Cup qualifying game in Belgium. Although perhaps not at the same level as the Red Devils’ current crop of world stars, the Belgian team of the time was more than capable of handing out a sound defeat to the smallest of European football’s minnows, and did so scoring ten goals, and conceding just one. That single strike for San Marino though came from Andy Selva. Scoring against the Belgians would become a nice habit for the striker.
The game was well into the ninetieth minute and the home team had sated themselves by hitting double figures of goals a couple of minutes earlier, when San Marino were awarded a free-kick on the edge of the Belgium penalty area. Sizing up the opportunity, Selva clipped a right-footed shot over the wall and into the top corner of Deflandre’s net. It meant little in the context of the game of course, but made Selva his country’s all-time top marksman. He became the only player in the history of San Marino football to score more than one goal for his country. It was an honour he would retain until 2012, when Manuel Marani scored against Malta to give San Marino the lead in a Friendly home game against Malta. They lost the game 2-3. By this time however, Selva had stretched his total at the top of the San Marino international goal scoring charts to eight.
Four months after the drubbing in Brussels, Belgium played the return fixture in Serravalle. This time they only won by 1-4. The home goal was, of course, scored by Selva. The Belgians had threatened a repeat performance of their home victory sweeping ahead with just ten minutes on the clock, when Marc Wilmots fired home. Inside sixty seconds though, a rare foray forwards by the home team saw a ball squared to Selva who coolly slotted the ball into the net for the equaliser. The home players celebrated the unexpected goal with appropriate delight and enthused by the strike, held their illustrious visitors level until just before the hour mark. Three goals from there though, by Gert Verheyen, Wesley Sonck and another by Wilmots gave Belgium a comfortable victory.
In 2003, Selva moved clubs again, this time joining current Serie A club Società Polisportiva Ars et Labor, more commonly known as SPAL. Although recently promoted to Serie A after being crowned Serie B Champions in 2016-17, at the time of Selva’s arrival, the club was languishing in Serie C1. He stayed with the Biancazzurri for two seasons playing just over 50 games and scoring an impressive 22 goals. It was during his time in Emilia-Romagna that his greatest claim to fame came to pass, and a game that made him a national hero took place.
Unsurprisingly, despite the meritorious result of a 1-1 draw in Latvia thanks to an equaliser on the hour mark by Nicola Albani, San Marino had finished rock bottom of the qualifying table for the 2002 World Cup, although Selva’s two goals against Belgium had placed him in joint fifth place for top scorers in the group, alongside such luminaries as Croatia’s Robert Prosinečki and Davor Vugrinec. Such an accolade is probably tempered a little though by the inclusion at the same level of Scotland’s granite centre-back Colin Hendry.
All that was behind them now though, and on 28th April 2004, San Marino played a Friendly game against that other perennial whipping-boy of European football, Liechtenstein, at Serravalle’s Stadio Olimpico. Although perhaps a minnow to most other European countries, the team from the Grand Duchy were still pretty big fish compared to the home team.
Selva was captain of the team by now, and with six minutes on the clock, the home team was awarded a free-kick on the edge of the visitors’ penalty area. It had been a full 38 months since Selva had netted his goal from a similar position in Brussels, but with what appeared practised ease, he clipped the ball over the wall and into the net to give San Marino a lead they wouldn’t relinquish in the remaining 84 minutes and, to date, a unique victory in the footballing history of the country. It was also one of only three occasions to date where they had not conceded a goal. Their best other results were three draws. Aside from the one mentioned against Latvia, they also shared the spoils away to Liechtenstein in a 2003 Friendly and at home to Estonia in a qualifying game for the 2006 European Championships. They had lost every other one of their games.
The following year, towards the end of the 2004-05 season, San Marino entertained Belgium in a qualifying game for the 2006 World Cup. In the eleven months since the victory over Liechtenstein, San Marino had played five games, losing them all and conceding 18 goals without netting a single one in return. Belgium had become Selva’s personal favourite opposition though and had scored in both of the games San Marino had played against them with him in the side. Could he deliver again? Of course, he could.
Timmy Simons had put the visitors ahead with a penalty after 18 minutes, but just ahead of the break Selva performed the oracle again and netted his third goal against Belgium and the fifth for his country. Belgium would score again to secure the victory, but the Red Devils’ defence had seen enough of Selva by now. Three months later, the footballers of Bosnia and Herzegovina would have some sympathy with the Belgian backline and goalkeeper. Arriving in Serravalle for the next game in the qualifying group, they left with a 1-3 victory under their belt, but the home fans had been warmed by celebrating a long-range goal from the country’s top marksman to bring the home team back into the game at 1-2.
Despite, or perhaps because of, this success and fame, Selva moved to Padova for the 2005-06 season. It was however a short stay in Veneto. After scoring only two goals he was transferred to another current Serie A club who were experiencing less successful period in Serie C1 at the time, Sassuolo. Back in the north of the country, he enjoyed a successful period scoring 23 goals in just under 60 games across a two-year period and played a key role in their breakthrough season when they achieved promotion to Serie B under the stewardship of Massimiliano Allegri, who would later go on to much more success. Selva enjoyed success of his own and was top scorer in Group A of Serie C1.
It was during his time with the Neroverdi that he scored his seventh and eighth goals for San Marino. Almost two and a half years had passed since his goal against Bosnia and Herzegovina, and in that time, across 14 games San Marino had conceded no less than 70 goals, losing every game and the only goal to their credit had come in a 1-2 home defeat to the Republic of Ireland, when Manuel Marani scored the first of the two goals for his country to date.
When Wales visited Serravalle though, Selva would end his international drought. Entering the last fifteen minutes of the game Wales were two goals clear, but a free-kick against the visitors by the edge of the penalty area invited Selva to perform his party piece. He duly obliged, but Wales held out for the victory.
Twelve months, two defeats and 13 goals conceded later, San Marino entertained Slovakia in Serravalle. By now Selva was 32 years old, but still the most automatic of selections for his country. As was now becoming the norm, San Marino were two goals down when Selva struck. Taking possession out on the left flank, he cut inside a defender and sent a curling shot into the far corner of the net. Again, as was the norm, it did little to affect the result of the game and a third Slovakian goal tied things up.
After leaving Sassuolo in 2009, Selva moved to Hellas Verona for two years, but was released by the club when they achieved promotion to Serie B. It seemed that most of the clubs he plied his trade at saw Serie B as a bridge too far for Andy Selva, especially with his aging legs. Eight goals in 29 league games for the Gialloblu suggested there was life in the old dog yet though. From 2011, when he left Verona, Selva has played for another three different clubs and, at the time of writing, at the ripe old age of 41 is with S.P. La Fiorita, who finished Group A of Serie C1 as champions in 2016-17.
Some may say that it’s relatively easy getting an international cap for a small country that has such a small pool of talent to select from, and there may well be some truth in that. Becoming top scorer for that country though, with currently a total standing at four times the amount of his nearest rival rather diminishes any such charge levelled against Andy Selva.
No-one can say who may come along in the future to challenge Selva’s record for San Marino, but given the history to date, it may well be a while before another such talent pulls on their international shirt. Until such time, Andy Selva will stand head and shoulders as San Marino’s outstanding player. For a small country, yes, but certainly a true national hero.
(This All Blue Daze article was originally produced for ‘The Football Pink’ website).
Posted in: Belgium, European Championships, European Football, Italy, Player Profiles, San Marino, Serie A, World Cup | Tagged: Andy Selva
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Mrs. Corazon Aquino
Corazon Aquino campaigning for President of the Philippines in 1986.
Corazon Aquino was born into one of the wealthiest families in the Philippines, Mrs. Aquino began her political education by playing the dutiful wife as the political career of her husband, Benigno Aquino Jr., expanded. In less than 20 years he emerged as one of the chief potential rivals of Mr. Marcos, who was then president. When Mr. Marcos declared martial...
Corazon Aquino was born into one of the wealthiest families in the Philippines, Mrs. Aquino began her political education by playing the dutiful wife as the political career of her husband, Benigno Aquino Jr., expanded. In less than 20 years he emerged as one of the chief potential rivals of Mr. Marcos, who was then president. When Mr. Marcos declared martial law in 1972, her husband was arrested and imprisoned for seven years. He was assassinated in 1983 after returning to the Philippines from a three-year exile in the United States. Mr. Marcos was widely blamed for the murder. It was at Mr. Aquino's funeral that Mrs. Aquino, became a national symbol, demonstrating the dignity and composure that would characterize her most difficult moments as president.
Mrs. Aquino came to power through what amounted to popular acclaim -- what the Philippino people called "people power" -- expressed by huge crowds that gathered in support of her. Her popularity reached its peak during her presidential campaign against Mr. Marcos in January 1986, when she was surrounded by enthusiastic crowds chanting, "Cory! Cory! Cory!'"
Her act of knocking down a dictator and bringing democracy to the Philippines was a high point in the country's modern history, and it offered a model for nonviolent uprisings that has been repeated often in other countries.
Mrs. Aquino, was often criticized as an indecisive and ineffectual leader. But she combined passivity and stubbornness and an unexpected shrewdness to hold firm against powerful opponents from both the right and the left, and one of her greatest accomplishments as president was fending off a half dozen coup attempts.
The restoration of democracy, and the transition to a new president, were Mrs. Aquino's prime legacies. Yet she led demonstrations against all 3 of her successors.
She died on July 31, 2009.
Filename: aquino_006.jpg
From gallery: Corazon Aquino 1986
Date 14 Feb 1986
Location: Manila Philippines
Restrictions: Minimum usage fee $300 or 250 Euro
Anthony Suau
Benigno Aquino
Philippino
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Anthony Wolf
Writer of Fiction, Film Scripts, Video Games, and other nonsense
Writer of Fiction, Movie Scripts, Video Games, and other Nonsense
Media Production Portfolio
Freelancer Profile (Upwork)
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Ars Ludica – The Art of Video Games – (21 min read)
This is a translation of the Italian original, first appeared on I Love Videogames on May 6th, 2017. I am both the author of the lengthy original article and the translation itself.
Part I – What is Art?
Part II – The Art of Video Games
When (and if) video games stop being mere entertainment and enlarge their horizons, as part of a debate that – some say – shouldn’t even exist: are video games a form of art?
The topic forced rivers of ink to flow already, and some firmly believe that, even though entire oceans of viscous darkness would exist, every hypothesis and fight and argument in the world could still not be enough. Between those who strongly rage against the positive hypothesis (“Video games will never be Art”; we’ll get to that) and those who feel obliged to defend the medium (just like the Association of Italian Video Game Editors and Developers and, largely, the author of this article), the relationship between Art and video games feeds up fiery debates over the Internet, on Social Media, and, occasionally, even on more prestigious papers and specialised magazines. Undoubtedly, the topic is vast and complex, and has its roots in a cultural and anthropological issue which has bothered the human kind for centuries. What is “Art”, to begin with?
Before we can even tackle the issue, it is mandatory to start from the basics. But get ready, fellow readers: it will be a long, sometimes boring journey, although we believe it to be as difficult as it is necessary.
Art: The Search for a Definition
The same concept of video games, today, is strongly subjective. Past editorial debates (often resulting in ardent pitchforks, insults to the ancestors and a couple of much less sober solutions) have allowed us to realise an increasingly evident reality: the conception of video games can vary from person to person, a reality that the medium could not show off as strongly at the dawn of its time. Many gamers, today, have an unbelievably subjective vision about video games, and that’s the assumption we need to start from: it is impossible to make everyone happy with a universal concept – a simple truth that is also, partly, proper of Art itself.
When we talk about “Art”, the first thing we can think of is usually a nice painting (for instance, a Botticelli’s), or a gorgeous sculpture of Michelangelo. And yet, the same concept of “Art” is far (although not excessively) from the mere canons of formal beauty and visual creation, enough to be conceived in different ways from culture to culture. Eastern countries have a completely different conception of Art, compared to us Occidentals.
At the same time, it seems as easy to say “what Art is not” as it is difficult to state what actually is. The reason behind this is that Art is continuously changing: it is not simple to find a definition that might be adequate to every era. Just think of Maurizio Cattelan’s “America”, a golden toilet currently exposed at the Guggenheim Museum of New York City (fully functional, by the way), or, going a little farther in time, Andy Warhol’s Brillo Boxes. Would you ever put such works next to a Renaissance portrait, and find some common formal features in all of them? And yet, without any doubt, it is Art indeed.
Detergent “Brillo” boxes, stacked up by Andy Warhol in 1964 to make them a piece of art.
Stepping away from the production processes, some philosophers of aesthetics such as John Dewey tried to find a definition that would focus more on the experiences Art can stimulate, rather than on a feature common to every artistic production. And it is here, at last, that video games step on the field. Dewey exposed himself by suggesting the concept of “Art as Experience”: it is an Aesthetic Experience an occurrence that stands out for strong emotional and cognitive components at the same time. It is, to put it briefly, something that can hit us “in the stomach” and “in the head”, in a potentially different way from person to person, but also, somehow, in a way that most could agree on. For instance: we all agree on how beautiful a sculpture of Canova can be, and yet all of us feel it differently on our skins. And it is not difficult to already think of some video games that allow us to live similar experiences.
Video games, like art, can be sources of extraordinary emotional and thoughtful experiences.
Starting from these long – and, at the same time, far too condensed – premises, this article will move to sustain the idea, the hypothesis, the possibility of conceiving video games as a form of art, with all its consequences. Paying attention not to fall in a trivialisation of the medium, and avoiding naive scholastic errors (such as a classification of “artistic” and “non-artistic” video games, which could perhaps be applied to the early years of the medium, but would certainly be anachronistic today). As our analysis moves on, we will often recall the languages and the history of another young art, one that managed to develop herself in less than a century: Cinema.
A Young Art
The primary issue of video games is that, if we truly are willing to define it as the “Eighth Art” (and some already tried to do that), we cannot ignore the fact that they are placed in an historical period, nor we can ignore all their evolutionary ark. It’s an issue that Cinema itself had to tackle, especially in the first years of its life: officially born on December 28, 1895, thanks to the legendary Lumière Brothers, the Seventh Art is today a little more than a century old, but it already managed to develop its own languages, thanks to an outstanding number of authors who followed its history from scratch. And, in any case, it fought for a long time, before being compared to the other “Fine Arts” like Literature, Sculpture, Theatre and so on.
Video games, for what it’s worth, have lived for barely half of that period, in terms of time. It goes without saying that the unbelievable technological development has helped them becoming what they are today, and it’s also indisputable that something has started to move in the last few years. After all, just as Cinema had to wait the Avant-garde to truly stand out, video games themselves found a new form of identity when the Indie market became relevant. But there’s still a lot to do.
And there’s just no point in trying to put them together with the so-called “fine Arts”, the ones with capital “A”, the ones including painting, sculpture and the other artistic practices we mentioned before. This conception of art is way too far from today’s standards (just think of the aforementioned Brillo Boxes or the golden toilet, just to recall a few), and the few “anti-conventional” examples we brought can do nothing but confirming a straightforward truth: “Art” is an open concept, one willing to change and always welcome new standards over time. Provided that the necessary conditions exist, obviously, which are more often than not depending from the context; a context in which academicians and scholars are all but negligible.
The “Indifference” of Academicians
Whoever states that “a theory of video games does not exist” didn’t clearly spend enough time reading up. Saying that “the theory of video games is not talked about“… That is an entirely different story, and it would be absolutely true. And yet, a theory of video games already exists in academic circles, and it is also flourishing with content: Anglo-Saxon schools are characterised by a certain vision of video games, while American schools showcase another; there’s sometimes a focus on the “structure” of video games, and sometimes on the “user experience”; some are stimulated by the “forms”, others by the “contents”, and so on. But, just as the early audiences in the history of cinema, the video games industry’s final users are usually just youngsters (or former ones), who see them exclusively as pure entertainment and would gladly leave to the “adults” all the thoughts and reflections on video game experiences. Briefly put, the theory of video games exists; but it is not a popular topic, neither among player, nor among the critics.
And, let it be known, this is not a snobby-flavoured critique to the video game users, nor it intends to be: our sons will likely have a different conception of the medium, and our grandsons will have another. Just as it undoubtedly happened for the Seventh Art in its early years, until a professional circle of critics finally grew up to express its opinions. It is just a matter of historical and cultural context, something that, in short, rarely depends on our direct will. Over time, video games couldn’t help but evolve more and more, moving beyond that “indifference of academicians” that still prevents them from reaching the adults. In a few generations, time could literally turn the tables.
The “Video Game Avant-Garde”: The Independent Market
Surely enough, fifteen years ago we wouldn’t even talk about “Ars Ludica”. Back then, the sixth generation of consoles (PS2 / Xbox 360) was just born, and video games rarely moved away from their established “dichotomy” of challenge and narrative (of which we will talk in a minute), which came into being in the late Nineties. With the advent of Steam and the explosion of Digital Delivery, however, things changed dramatically: following just a few years to settle down, the independent market realised it had found a consistent demand in all those users looking for “something different”, something unusually far from the big companies who didn’t like investing their money in excessively risky experiments (does it ring a bell, Hollywood?).
Using a term perhaps premature and easily subject to criticism, we will now advance the concept of “Video Game Avant-Garde“: although we are still missing some precise studies to outline some clear and definite tendencies, it is indisputable that the Indie market brought a pleasant breeze in the international video game landscape. Moreover, our beloved “worldwide web” allowed some “video game artists” from the whole world to try and dive into online distribution platforms, helping them propose their ideas (which are sometimes original and intriguing) and telling their stories. Let it be clear that we absolutely don’t intend to make an apology exclusive to the independent market, and our following analysis (including names like Uncharted and Shadow of the Colossus, to mention a few) will be useful to efficiently outline the issue. Creativity and the so-called “Artistry” (such as we intend it in this article) can be found even in bigger productions, and this truth, especially in today’s scenery, is unquestionable.
Nonetheless, sometimes, independent works can indeed have that “extra kick”: names like Life Is Strange, with such emotional and cognitive impact on the player, or visual masterpieces like Monument Valley, Braid and many more. Even Pony Island‘s weird originality could be defined as “artistic”, perhaps just because it conveys a precise idea (a mash-up of genres, for instance) with all-but random aesthetic choices. As destabilising and disturbing as it can be.
Based on the first part’s premises, it is clearly possible to “pinpoint” some artistic elements in video games. But are they enough to talk about “Art”?
What are tipically artistic features of a contemporary video games, then? So far, we introduced the matter with a few pseudo-academic reflection, willingly choosing not to tackle the issue until everything would be laid out on the table. It is now time to start moving in that direction: what makes a piece of art?
When we talk about art and artistry, it is inevitable to somehow find some intrinsic elements in works of art, something that allows human beings to communicate with each other and convey a message. Whether it be just referencing some already existing works to outline a common style, or be more “technical” about it, art showcases its languages either way (some of which are mainly used by critics and artists themselves), in order to talk about complex topics or communicate precise authorial ideas. It would be pointless to say otherwise: a pan, in cinema, is a camera flow towards a direction; chiaroscuro plays with the relationship between light and shadow, and so on. Video games are not that different.
One thing is clear, anyway: so far, we implicitly referred to arts with autonomous languages, one that they developed over a long time. Many think this is not the case of video games, but it is truly a void and meaningless argument nowadays: video games have already developed some of their own aesthetics, most of which are based on the player’s involvement and interaction, and nothing excludes that such languages might evolve, increasing in number and complexity in the next future. That said, this second part will examine, in a way as complete as possible, some of the so-called “artistic” elements currently present in video games.
The Narrative Turn
If Cinema and Literature have taught us one thing about art, is that it can exist and gain value even when stories are involved. And, after all, what are certain sculptures and paintings if not implicit stories, captured in their defining moment? As Jonathan Gottschall said in his excellent book, men are “Storytelling animals“, and always have been, ever since they first carved their rural paintings. Men can’t help but tell stories, in video games and in every other art. We should not be amazed, then, if video games are just the last step of a long narrative path: everywhere it’s possible, for every new form of expression created by humanity, there will always be someone trying to tell a story with it. Ars Ludica is no different.
Even at the dawn of its times, our beloved medium wasn’t immune from the first small attempts to tell a story: the first arcade video games (outside arcade rooms, but not necessarily) were often accompanied by a slight narrative background, which was useful to justify the characters or the gameplay elements. Simple stories, for sure, and simply articulated without any doubt, but stories nonetheless. Things changed dramatically in the Nineties, when, with the advent of the Fifth Generation of consoles (PlayStation / Nintendo 64), there was an explosion of “video game screenplays”. Slowly but steadily, more complex stories started to show up, and they could also be told in a way that wouldn’t have been possible earlier on, thanks to the means the new hardware could provide. The characters we saw on screen weren’t just simple, undefined pixels anymore: they started having voices, and well-defined identities. That was the era of Metal Gear Solid, to say one; and that is a big name to mention.
Ever since, stories in video games started evolving drastically, until they finally got to the outstanding dramatic strength of games like The Last Of Us or the Uncharted series (especially the fourth chapter). Just like every other art (and cinema above all of them), video games started to employ visual elements to tell their structured and weighty stories. And it was exactly the Seventh Art, one of video games’ siblings, to be of great inspiration to the medium.
One of the most emotional scenes of Final Fantasy VII, one of the first games trying to tell a complex and structured story: Aerith’s death.
The Aesthetics of Cinema
It’s enough to take a look at the numerous and abovementioned The Last Of Us, Uncharted, Life Is Strange and many more to realise that video games often build their narrative discourse by constantly communicating with the Cinema, the art of moving pictures par-excellence, that we are forced to mention once again. It is not difficult to find some splendid examples of photography in any of the titles we just mentioned, and we all know very well that some cases required the Game Designer to take the role of a true “director” in his game’s cutscenes (isn’t that true, Kojima?).
We just need a few examples, nothing more: Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain constantly uses the “handheld camera technique” to support Venom Snake in his missions, with wobbly shots throughout the cutscenes and a sense of dynamism taken directly from cinema (but also a lot of POVs, as outlined by the video below); Shadow of the Colossus uses majestic long shots, without which we couldn’t possibly enjoy all the incredible beauty of the surrounding territory; any first-person-shooter took the first person point-of-view shots as their distinctive mark, whereas cinematographers had experimented such technique many years before the video games were even born; Bayonetta employs marvelous travelling shots and an action-movie-style découpage, and so on. Our list of examples could potentially go on until the end of time.
But it would be a mistake to stop and focus on direction alone: video games have built many of their genres with the cinema as a starting point, successfully managing to adapt them in increasingly effective and original ways. And there we have, for instance, L.A. Noir and Blues & Bullets, two great interpretations of the Noir genre (also with a wonderful black-and-white filter in the latter); and there we have the numerous Battlefield and Call Of Duty, nothing else but video games “adaptations” of the war-movie genre; and there we have the endless horror games, western games, mystery games, action-adventure games, psychological thriller games (Heavy Rain), you name it. Even LIMBO, with his astonishing game of lights and shadows, seems suggesting a clear reference to the German Expressionism, an unforgettable parenthesis of european mute cinema in the Twenties.
Not to mention those that could be some immediately future tendencies: Death Stranding already counts at least two famous actors who lent their faces to the game, leading us to think that Kojima might have in mind some kind of fusion between Cinema and video games – and nothing makes us think he might not succeed. Despite what Roger Ebert might think (who, anyway, wrote his video game critique in 2010), video games have successfully approached the art of film, by now; and we firmly believe that the gap could only reduce, over time.
Deviating from Cinema: Immersiveness, Interaction, Design and Game Design
However, just as it would be a mistake to focus only on a few aspects of the aestethics of films in video games, it would be a tremendous mistake to think that the video games industry isn’t mature enough to showcase its own, autonomous aesthetics, basically “deviating” from the legacy of Cinema, which was nonetheless a good starting point. There’s still a long way to go, we won’t deny it, but the independent market was strong enough to “kickstart” (pun intended) a further development of video games, and allowed new ideas and experiments to rise from a way-too-stagnant standardisation.
First of all, graphics and visuals: if the indie market has taught us anything, it is that photorealism isn’t all that matters, and video games can be masterpieces even without extremely detailed polygons and textures. To The Moon, in that sense, is enough to speak for its own: a game with relevant narrative components, strong with clear dramatic force and entirely built with RPG-Maker, using a delightful kind of colourful and simple pixel-art. Its story is engaging to say the least, constantly involving the player/viewer in its twists, and apparently efficient because of its interactive nature, capable of effectively emphasising the contrast between innocent graphics and the story’s mature topics. An indisputable masterpiece of video game art, if you will, as well as one of the most narratively intense stories of the last twenty years; and, sure enough, not the only title in pixel-art worth playing, for such graphical style has seen many games of clear and priceless value (just think of metaphysical sci-fi game VVVVVV).
Beyond Eyes, for its part, was able to bend game design rules to benefit an incredibly fascinating style, some time ago. By playing in a little blind girl’s shoes, the players can gradually discover her surroundings with her, walking and touching and letting things come to life and color as they are approached by the player. A slow, all-but-excellent video game, at least gameplay-wise; but one that needs to be lived, from beginning till end, as an experience that involves all our senses, immersing the player into the game world and in a moving story of poetic friendship. Thanks to this perfect dialogue between interaction and immersiveness, Beyond Eyes finds its own dignity just as it is, and we hardly could imagine it otherwise.
This War Of Mine was also an emblematic case to study: by adopting a “2.5D” angle of vision, the game manages to tell the tragic realities of war via such an effective strength that it has very few equals in the history of video games. And, if we wish to move on action games and AAA productions, Bayonetta and DmC – Devil May Cry can be two perfect examples of what a high developer could end up conceiving: frenetic fights, crazy level-design and a gigantic amount of artistic “trash” at its best, a melting pot definitely hard to find outside of video games. And our list could endlessly go on, but it’s not necessary to recall once again the numerous The Last Of Us, Uncharted and such to prove our point: video games exist thanks to a perfect dialogue between interaction and immersiveness logics, between design and game-design, between narrative and gameplay stimuli. One that allows even incredibly complex universes (like in The Elder Scrolls or The Witcher-style fantasy games) to have their own coherence, their strength, and a certain charm in the eyes of players / explorers.
In other words, video games have already started moving away from Cinema, by developing their own aesthetics and languages.
Despite starting from the Seventh Art’s languages to formulate their discourses, video games are perfectly aware that interaction, immersion and empathy will let them become more and more autonomous from any other art, by significantly reducing the distance between “players” and “screens” (today even more relevant, thanks to Virtual Reality). More often than not, video games are experiences, and as such they are to be lived and understood by us, the players. It’s enough to think of marvelous productions like Journey, Okami, and the splendid Transistor to realise how strong, inspiring and artistic video games can be. In other words, there’s no limit to the expressive power that our favourite medium can achieve: any video game product can, potentially, have enough features to grant an artistic experience. Even Pac-Man, given the right conditions.
With the advent of the so-called “auteurs of video games” (be it Kamiya, Kojima, or many inside the independent market), the ideas of game-designers became more and more complex, and the video game medium started to acquire its own languages, identities, and a series of aesthetics that have nothing on any other “proper” art. A giant evolution, one that, if you like, was inside the medium ever since its first appearances – one that is reaching such heights, in the last few years, that not even the fathers of video games would have imagined. The expressive power of video games, growing more and more complex and intense year by year when telling its stories, is every day more relevant in the academic field, and we are certain that it will be just a matter of time, before all prejudices on our favourite medium can start crumbling under the weight of progress. But this, along with a more “analytical” reflection on video games, is a matter we will delay to the next time.
Okami, a splendid attempt to put together visual art and video games in a unique experience.
Suffice to say, for now, that video games have yet too many obstacles to overcome, in their quest for artistic dignity, and solutions will not be easy to find. But something has started to change, already: the themes and the topics that video games tackle are growing more mature than ever (did anybody mention “Life Is Strange”?), and more and more productions enter the list of “artistic video games”, one that actually exists (seriously, you can find it on Wikipedia).
That should make us think. After all, perhaps, it’s not entirely true that, as Roger Ebert used to say, “video games can never be Art“. At least, not anymore.
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What Is McCain's Economic Agenda?
The man who famously admitted that economics is not his strong suit wants to fundamentally alter the government's role in the economy by deeply cutting non-defense spending, from discretionary programs to entitlements.
Next time you catch a John McCain interview, watch for what, at least to my ears and eyes, is a fascinating, albeit subtle, shift. When he's talking about almost anything other than the economy -- foreign policy, the war, Congress, immigration -- he exudes the typical confidence of a veteran Washington player. He deftly shifts the question to his turf, he ardently hits his message points ... just about what you'd expect, actually.
But when the topic turns to the economy, his whole demeanor changes. His body language becomes uncomfortable; he almost seems to shrink a little. His edgy smile becomes forced, his words a bit -- sometimes more than a bit -- hesitant. Putting aside your views on his positions and evaluating his performance on form only, when he's on the other topics, he's a basketball player driving the lane. On the economy, he's looking to pass ASAP.
In economic discussions, he makes mistakes, both small and not so small. He famously admitted that economics is not his strong suit, though he assured us that he owns Greenspan's book. I've heard him speak of the "alternate" minimum tax (it's "alternative" -- can you imagine Hillary getting that wrong?). In a recent interview in The Wall Street Journal, he was unaware that his Web site endorsed a different plan regarding Social Security than the one he was touting to the interviewer. It's hard to imagine a discrepancy like that regarding the war.
He missed the current downturn -- though he's far from alone on that count -- by a long shot, stressing the strengths of the economy's "fundamentals" as recently as January (now he apparently believes we're in or headed for a recession but still can't resist the "strong fundamentals" nonsense).
McCain's answers to questions regarding the policy responses to the current downturn are way off base, far worse than you'd get from say, Secretary Paulson or even Bush. In a recent Wall Street Journal interview, when asked what measures would best deal with the current downturn, he touted making the Bush tax cuts permanent in 2010 and cutting corporate tax rates. Other than Larry Kudlow and The Wall Street Journal's editorial page, I can't imagine many folks would be inspired by that plan.
So he isn't exactly Adam Smith. But I still think there's a lot for the electorate to consider regarding McCainonomics. Given his predilection to follow the George W. Bush agenda, some critics have labeled him "McSame," attempting a guilt-by-association strategy. There's a lot to be said for that strategy. His voting record reveals him to share Bush’s deregulatory zeal, but I don't think it's that simple.
In his heart, I think candidate McCain wants to fundamentally alter the economic landscape of government's role in the economy by deeply cutting non-defense spending, from discretionary programs to entitlements. He gets there not because he's heartless but because that's the unforgiving combination of his arithmetic and his ideology.
He's Not a Mathematician
Perhaps one shouldn't expect candidates' numbers to add up. Tally up Clinton and Obama's expenditures on health care and tax cuts and you will find that they both spend more than they raise. But McCain's numbers are out of whack by orders of magnitude beyond those of either Democratic candidate.
Here's the gist of it: Despite his earlier opposition, he now wants to make the Bush tax cuts permanent. Price tag: more than $2 trillion over 10 years. He wants to repeal the alternative minimum tax. Price tag: "up to $2 trillion" according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP). He wants to keep the war going ad infinitum, at a cost of between $100 billion and $150 billion per year, according to CBO estimates.
Then there is his health-care plan, which ends the employer tax exemption for the cost of covering employees, and uses the proceeds to subsidize the purchase of health coverage in the private market. The costly part has to do with the poor, the old, and the sick. As health economist Jon Gruber noted, "his plan will require huge subsidies he's not talking about."
Oh, and did I mention he wants to cut the corporate tax rate too, from 35 percent to 25 percent, and allow businesses to fully write off capital investments as soon as they make them?
Bob Greenstein, the director of the CBPP, is not prone to hyperbole. But he called McCain's program "one of the most fiscally irresponsible plans we've seen by a presidential candidate in a long time." According to Len Burman of the Brookings Institution's Tax Policy Center, McCain's tax cuts would shrink federal revenues by 25 percent over 10 years, at which point they would account for about 15 percent of GDP, compared to 19 percent last year.
Now, I understand that this is absolutely sweet music to the ears of the Grover Norquists of the world—the "starve the beast" contingent. But let's play all this cutting out a bit further, turning to the spending side of the equation. Note that McCain made the "no new taxes" pledge, though he recently backtracked slightly. (He told The Wall Street Journal, "I'm not making a 'read my lips' statement … but I'm not saying I can envision a scenario where I would [raise taxes], OK?")
For all of his nervousness around economic issues, when McCain moves into "government-waste, spend-cutting mode" he relocates his mojo. He has clearly seen the government waste money over his long tenure, and he clearly doesn't like it. I don't either. But the cuts he has articulated don't even start to begin to commence to fill the budget hole he creates.
His most common target is earmarks -- those provisions quietly embedded in legislation to steer funding to some desired project or constituency. But there are two problems here, one big, one little. The big one is that the total earmark bill is much too small to pay for even a tiny fraction of McCain's agenda. Most estimates score them at around $20 billion per year, though the McCain folks say they can get up to $60 billion. That's a few months in Iraq, John.
Second, of course it's the case that there are lots of earmarks that should go, and that the process should be much more transparent. But once it is, we will find out that a number of these projects are important and worthy. McCain himself was cutting up recently about an earmark to do research on bear DNA: "I don't know if it was paternity issue or criminal, but it was a waste of money." Problem is, The New York Times pointed out that scientists were doing the research to estimate the bear population, "a prerequisite for sensible administration of the Endangered Species Act." I'd bet you that for every 10 "bridges to nowhere" there are at least a few of these good earmarks (a friend of mine promotes earmarks for the Special Olympics and cancer research).
So, let's review. McCain is shaky on economic policy, has quite massive plans to cut taxes while kicking up spending on health care and the war, is loathe to raise taxes, and is articulating only tiny spending cuts. Or is he?
He's a Deep Cutter
John McCain, along with his top economic adviser, economist Doug Holtz-Eakin, talk a lot about "entitlement reform." What does this mean?
First, let me say that I am a huge admirer of Holtz-Eakin, an economist and former CBO director who is congenitally incapable of cooking books or spinning numbers. I suspect that's one reason why he and McCain appeal to each other (yes, the "straight-talk express" has been off track lately, but I think McCain actually has a pretty low tolerance for economic spin). And both of them must know that they can't implement their agenda without deep cuts, both on non-defense, domestic spending, and on entitlements, especially Medicare.
As Holtz-Eakin put it a few years ago in an opinion piece for The Washington Post, a serious fiscal approach "should rethink the package of support for old-age medical care, long-term care services and retirement income."
Much like the material on McCain's Web site, that sounds innocuous enough. It also has the benefit of being true. Absent a "rethink," Medicare will swamp the federal budget. This increase in health spending as a share of government spending is itself a symptom of the unsustainable rise in economy-wide health-care costs, i.e., this is not exclusively a "Medicare" or public-sector problem. (Social Security poses less of a fiscal challenge; it can be put on a sound funding basis with a few reasonable changes.)
But here's the rub: words like "reform," "rethink," and "making tough choices" sound a lot different than words like "cut, and cut deeply." Holtz-Eakin has integrity, and he likes his numbers to add up. He knows that they can't do what they say they're planning to do without going after entitlements big time. As he put it the other day in The Wall Street Journal, "You can't keep promises made to retirees" (to be fair, he also noted that "you can pay future retirees more than current retirees").
In fact, you can keep those promises. It won't be easy, and he or she who chooses to do so will need the vision to make the case, along with the political skill and will to make it happen, part of which is about reintroducing competence and faith in government. That means ending the war, raising the revenues needed to meet social needs, and reforming the health-care system with an emphasis on risk-pooling and cost controls.
When it comes to economic stewardship, this election is truly a fork in the road. There are surely those who want to travel McCain's route, deeply cutting the size and obligations of the federal government in order to pay for tax cuts and war. But I think there are more of us who recognize that this path is a dangerous one.
We've seen the outcome of Bushonomics. Its inattention to good government and its deregulatory zeal are evident from Katrina to Iraq to the current recession. Its reverse Robin Hood tax policies have exacerbated market-driven inequalities. Yet, much to some conservatives chagrin, Bush was never willing or able to pursue a true slash and burn approach to fiscal policy. His privatization plans failed, he laid nary a finger on the entitlements (other than to expand Medicare), and his tax cuts will not be made permanent by the time he leaves D.C.
As I see it, McCain wants to change that. He may come across as fumbling in interviews, but to see where he is headed, you have to blend an understanding of his campaign platform, his advisers, and his ideology. What you're left with is a plan to considerably shrink that part of government that functions to enhance economic security at a time when we arguably need a lot more of it.
Unemployment, Low. Wage Growth, Meh.
How come? And how do we change that?
Republicans Have Exposed Themselves
If there’s trillions of dollars we can shower on the rich, there’s trillions we can redirect to rebuild a decent America.
Real Tax Reform: What It Is and What It Isn’t
Trump’s proposed tax cuts, mostly on corporations and the wealthy, will do nothing to help the people who elected him president.
Jared Bernstein is an economist and senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. He was formerly chief economist to Vice President Joe Biden and a member of President Barack Obama’s economics team.
Articles By Jared Bernstein
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Alan G. Brake
Posts written by this author:
Bloomberg News Cuts Cultural Coverage Including Architecture Critic James Russell
The every diminishing ranks of architecture critics suffered another loss, as Bloomberg News cut James Russell's column, as a part of a larger reorganization/elimination of its cultural coverage. According to a post on Russell's personal blog, Bloomberg is focusing on luxury and lifestyle coverage over arts and culture…
Beatrice Galilee Appointed Architecture Curator at the Metropolitan Museum
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has announced the appointment of Beatrice Galilee, 31, as associate curator of architecture and design. She will work within the department of Modern and Contemporary Art. According to a job posting in The Art Newspaper, the curator will develop collection and research strategies for the…
Folk Art Facade to be Preserved, Though Likely Not on 53rd Street
The New York Times is reporting that MoMA has decided to disassemble the white bronze facade of the American Folk Art Museum building, designed by Tod Williams and Billie Tsien. A controversial expansion plan, by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, calls for the demolition of the…
Forum or Wake? MoMA's Expansion Plans Spark Debate
Nearly 650 people crowded the auditorium at the Society for Ethical Culture on Manhattan's Upper West Side on Tuesday to debate MoMA's expansion plans, which include the demolition of the Tod Williams Billie Tsien–designed American Folk Art Museum (AFAM) building. Organized by the Architectural League of…
Adele Naudé Santos Stepping Down as Dean at MIT
Add one more opening to the list of dean, director, and curator positions that need to be filled. Adele Naudé Santos is stepping down as dean of the School of Architecture and Planning at MIT after 10 years at the helm. During her time as dean, Santos consolidated the…
Architecture Billings Index Dips for Second Month. Is the Recovery Slowing?
Following a period of extended growth, the Architecture Billings Index (ABI), which is compiled by the AIA, declined for the second straight month, down to 48.5 in December from 49.8 in November (any score below 50 indicates a decline). The news is not entirely bleak, however, as new…
Pier Carlo Bontempi Named 2014 Driehaus Laureate
The Italian classicist architect Pier Carlo Bontempi has been named the 2014 Driehaus Laureate. A native of Parma, Bontempi's work in Italy and France re-imagines the traditional city with projects like a master-planned block in Parma and the Quartier du Lac outside Paris. "His buildings, seamlessly woven into their…
After More Than A Decade, A New Office Building Opens on the World Trade Center
Yesterday, something remarkable happened. More than a decade after the destruction of the World Trade Center, the walls and fences surrounding a small corner of the site came down and the public was able to glimpse a new stretch of Greenwich Street—which will eventually bisect the site—as…
Houston Voters to Astrodome: Drop Dead (But A Better Plan Is Coming!)
Yesterday, Houston voters killed a $200 million ballot initiative to renovate the unused Astrodome. Fifty-three percent opposed the measure and 47 percent supported it. The plan would have turned the stadium—the first domed and air-conditioned professional stadium—into a multi-use event and convention space. Houston's professional sports teams now play…
Heading to Boston for the ASLA Conference? So is AN!
Calling all landscape architects and urban designers. Are you heading to Boston for the 2013 American Society of Landscape Architects Conference? I am. On Saturday, November 16, I'll be reviewing projects and portfolios during a "Meet the Editors" event, alongside colleagues from a variety of shelter, design, and garden…
MoMA Gets Tactical About Megacities
Today MoMA announced the newest exhibition in its "Issues in Contemporary Architecture Series," Uneven Growth: Tactical Urbanisms for Expanding Megacities. Six teams will examine how tactical urbanism can be used to address challenges in six global megacities: New York, Hong Kong, Istanbul, Lagos, Mumbai, and Rio de Janeiro. Like the previous…
Spectacular Recognition! Jimenez Lai Wins BPC Debut Award at the Lisbon Triennale
Chicago-based architect Jimenez Lai, principal of Bureau Spectacular, has been awarded the first BPC Debut Award for architects under 35. Lai is known for his bold, formally-inventive work, which he describes as "cartoon narratives" that "swerve into the physical world through architectural installations models, and small buildings."…
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Andy Schmookler: When you’re a star, you can do anything
Published Saturday, Apr. 1, 2017, 6:50 pm
Front Page » Events » Andy Schmookler: When you’re a star, you can do anything
We should have known what we were getting when we heard Donald Trump declare, on the Hollywood Access video: “When you’re a star, you can do anything.”
It is now clear that this captured more than just what he was boasting he could get away with doing to women. It’s his attitude across the board: Because he’s such a big shot, the usual rules don’t apply to him.
The rules tell a president: when going to your presidential briefings, don’t take someone in the pay of a foreign power, and certainly don’t make such a foreign agent your National Security Advisor. But that’s what Trump did with Michael Flynn, was who being paid to serve Turkish interests. Warned by the Department of Justice about Flynn’s troubling connections with the Turkish and Russian regimes, Trump did nothing—until some of these problems were publicly exposed.
The rules say that a president should arrange his finances so that, in his dealings with other nations, no personal interests of his could even potentially divert him from serving the interests of the American people. But Trump blithely refused to disclose or divest his worldwide financial interests, and no sooner was he elected than — in his dealings with Argentina, China, the U.K. Turkey, and other nations – numerous instances of the appearance of corruption emerged.
When you’re as big a deal as Trump, he apparently thinks, you can do anything.
Although politicians often promise more than they can achieve, they try, as a rule, to provide a reasonable correlation between what they promise their supporters and what they attempt to deliver. Trump’s conduct on the health care issue represents a startling departure from that norm: after assuring his supporters everyone would have coverage that was better and cheaper than now, as president he gave his enthusiastic endorsement to legislation that would have stripped 24 million Americans of health care coverage altogether. The measure would have been injurious to many of the older, white, rural Americans who thought he’d be their champion.
The rule has been that a president-elect will not meddle in American foreign relations before he is inaugurated, but will respect the well-established norm that says, “We have one president at a time.” But Trump violated that custom, making himself a player in our foreign affairs in multiple ways when he was president elect—with his primary foreign policy advisor contacting the Russians to undercut the policy of sanctions against Putin’s regime being advanced by the man who was still president.
The rule has been that the President, or the President-Elect, routinely draws upon the expertise of foreign policy professionals as he deals with the leaders of other nations. But Trump, who has boasted about his “great brain” and that he knows “more than the generals,” saw no need to be guided by experts. Ignoring that rule, Trump (apparently inadvertently) violated one of the foundational agreements of the U.S.-China relationship, eventually being compelled to undo a mistake he need never have made.
The rule has been that the president treats his credibility with the American people as an essential asset, knowing that any presidential lying will corrode the trust on which so leadership and the security of the nation so often depends. But Trump has propagated falsehoods at a prodigious rate – well over 100 false statements, by one count, just in his first month in office. Such has been his carelessness with the truth that, despite a president’s having better access to good information than anyone else on earth, Trump turned instead to the most unreliable sources and disturbed the peace of the nation by launching a baseless accusation against his predecessor. He seems indifferent to the fact that 60% of Americans regard him as dishonest—so long as his most fervent supporters continue to back him and show up for his rallies events to express their enthusiastic support.
Memorably, Trump himself sized up the mentality of his supporters, during the campaign, this way: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I would not lose any voters.”
The evidence suggests he was right. Even after all the mounting evidence of Trump’s having betrayed our country with the Russians, and even after what presidential historian Douglas Brinkley has called the “most failed” beginning of a presidency in American history, a mere 3% of those who voted for Trump regret it.
With them, it seems, he is such a star that he really can do anything.
Column by Andy Schmookler
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Formula 1 to continue racing in Baku through 2023
The Azerbaijan GP has become one of the most popular F1 events in recent years
Sam Hall
Motorsport Image - LAT
Formula 1 will continue to partner with the Azerbaijan Grand Prix through at least the 2023 season.
Formula 1 will continue to visit Azerbaijan until at least 2023, a new deal being signed to keep the Baku Street Circuit on the calendar.
After a yawn-inducing first race in Baku in 2016 -- the race was then known as the European Grand Prix and Nico Rosberg won the inaugural -- the city circuit has been the venue for arguably the two most entertaining Grands Prix of the past few years.
The 2017 Azerbaijan Grand Prix saw Sebastian Vettel crash into the side of Lewis Hamilton on a safety car restart, as well as a last-gasp pass from Valtteri Bottas on Lance Stroll for second place, in a race won by Daniel Ricciardo. The 2018 race featured Red Bull's drivers wiping each other out, Bottas picking up a late puncture that allowed Hamilton to snatch victory away from him and several other incidents throughout the field.
Azad Rahimov, Azerbaijan minister of sport and youth, and Formula 1 chairman and CEO Chase Carey signed the new deal at the 2019 Conference on Benefits of Hosting Major Sports Events -- an event organized by the Baku City Circuit.
"We are very pleased to have renewed this agreement which will see the Azerbaijan Grand Prix feature on the FIA Formula 1 world championship calendar for many years to come," said Carey. "In just a short space of time, this race has become one of the most popular of the season, always producing closely fought and spectacular racing. The Republic of Azerbaijan provides a really excellent welcome to everyone in Formula 1, and the beautiful city of Baku is an amazing backdrop for the greatest motor racing show in the world."
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Interview: Crystal Fighters
Crystal Fighters – Photo courtesy of Crystal Fighters
Folk-dance band Crystal Fighters recently released its second full-length album, Cave Rave, and to celebrate, the band plans on throwing an actual cave rave this summer.
“It’s in the Basque Country,” shared band member Gilbert Vierich before a recent show in Berlin. “It’s in a cave. It follows a tradition of cave raves in the Basque Country and it’s going to be awesome.”
While the cave rave is a nod to the Basque culture, the same could be said for many of the other influences the band draws its inspiration from.
The story goes that band member Laure Stockley was cleaning out the belongings of her late grandfather at his home in the Basque countryside, and stumbled upon an unfinished opera. Using the bits and pieces of what was there, the band set out to reconstruct and expand upon his ideas, which they then went on to present not only in the music, but also the live performance.
Although the group – formed in Navarra, Spain – uses some traditional instruments and Spanish folk and punk music to inspire its sound, the group is based in London, a city renown for being a tough market to crack. However, in addition to offering a unique sound, Crystal Fighters had the home-field advantage in building its fanbase there from the ground up.
“I guess the way we started it was perfect for London, because it was just to play lots of shows, like all the time. I think we did…97 shows in London in 2009,” Vierich said. “It’s a busy busy place, and it has loads and loads of small, rubbish clubs, so we just played those…the good thing was London has enough shitholes with club nights on that need talent.”
Vierich explained that many of the beginning shows were to small crowds of less than a dozen, and just looking at the group’s following today, it’s hard to believe that it’s the same band that is now routinely selling out venues.
“The thing is, it’s not that crazy, because it’s all happened step by step,” Vierich said. “Every step feels right.”
And since the May 27th release date of Cave Rave, the most recent step is beginning to play the new songs and incorporating them into the set.
“The beast is ever-evolving, the live show is constantly evolving,” Vierich said. “It’s like, definitely, the new songs are adding a dimension. We still haven’t added all the new songs into the set, so once we have that…I guess it will really start to show.”
Shortly before the album was released, lead singer Sebastian Pringle wrote a track-by-track guide to the songs, something which the band members are torn about. On one hand, it can demystify things, but on the other, this decoding of meaning is a gateway for listeners.
“That’s just one take on it. That’s just how Sebastian saw it that day when he was writing his track by track guide, [and] I think we all agree…that’s just something we were asked to do. At the same time, you know, it’s important, maybe, to open up the peoples’ interpretations,” Vierich shared. “I guess the whole point, honestly, [is] people should interpret music however they want to…if they want a little bit of guidance to make them think about things then I guess that’s what that’s for. But I think people should be free to interpret whatever they want.”
This same philosophy also applies to songwriting; although the band has a plethora of members onstage, it’s Pringle, Vierich, and Graham Dickson who do the songwriting. And because there are three people writing for something that is much bigger than themselves, there is room in the process for songs to change and grow beyond what they were intended to be.
“[We try to follow] the desire to just do something freely, and just go with it, and sort of think about that later almost, and just be informed by our experiences,” Vierich said. “But I guess, you know, making recordings and performing live are very different things, so it’s important to approach them differently.”
Crystal Fighters is currently playing a handful of dates in North America, before returning to Europe for festival season. Yet even though they are seemingly always on the go, playing countless shows, Vierich said that he rarely gets burnt out or doesn’t feel excited to play, and it all comes down to the fans.
“It’s just that connection that you have with people. Like having a connection with a lot of people at once. Or even now, if you think about it, there’s probably, I mean, I’ll be pessimistic, there’s at least 100 people in the world maybe now listening to one of our songs.” he said. “That’s pretty cool…that’s probably the best thing. The connection. The energy. The love.”
This entry was posted in Interview and tagged British, Crystal Fighters, Feature, Interview, Spanish. Bookmark the permalink.
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Thomas Rhett's Wife & Kids Have Final Say When It Comes To His New Music
posted by Peyton Blakemore - May 30, 2019
When it came to narrowing down songs for Thomas Rhett's new album, Center Point Road, you better believe his family had the final say.
While performing at his iHeartCountry Album Release Party in New York City (hosted by Amy Brown of The Bobby Bones Show) on Thursday (May 30), the country singer revealed what it took to create his fourth studio album and who he trusted the most when deciding what songs to put on the 16-track project.
"I write all my songs on the road," he said of his writing process. "I would say 15 of the 16 were written on the road because when I got back to Nashville after a run of shows the last thing I think my wife [Lauren Akins] wants me to do is go back into town and do music music music. So when I go on the road I bring songwriters from Nashville and we just wake up and write songs [from the morning] to meet-and-greet [time] at night. So by the end of the year, you're sitting with about 100 songs."
And when it came to narrowing those 100 songs down to the lucky 16 that made the final cut, Thomas said he definitely went with his gut, but he also relied heavily on his family's opinions. "My wife is my best judge of songs 'cause if she doesn't like it, it probably means that 80% of this room would not like it," he said, before adding, "I judge it by my kids [Willa Gray, 3 and Ada James, 1] too. I've noticed that when I play a demo for my kids if they don't ask to hear it again it's probably not great. So if they keep asking me to repeat it, and play it and play it then it's good."
After performing a few new songs off his deeply personal album —"Beer Can't Fix" and "Remember You Young"— and a few of his classic hits —"Crash and Burn" and "Marry Me"— Thomas discussed what influenced Center Point Road and how he locked in a name for the LP.
"When we were talking about what we were going to name the record, there were a lot of songs on the record like "That Old Truck," "Remember You Young," a lot of very nostalgic songs that I talk about where I grew up, Hendersonville, Tennessee. That's where I did a lot of my living and it kind of seemed like Center Point Road, no pun intended, was the centerpiece of the record," he explained of the track, which is named after a road he literally road down almost every day of his adolescence. "When you're thinking about a record title you're thinking about a song off the record and "Center Point Road" seemed like the perfect way to describe what all the songs are about."
The project also features some of the biggest names in country music, including Kelsea Ballerini, Jon Pardi, and Little Big Town. And while one might think it took a lot to get those big names on his project, Thomas said it didn't take more than a text.
"I think that's what's so cool about country," he shared. I feel like I could call anybody in our genre and [get them on a song]. I feel like I'm friends with a lot of people and they're very genuine friendships and so I remember writing "Beer Can't Fix" for example off the record and I remember saying 'This song feels like Jon Pardi' has to be on this [...] so I texted Jon and said 'I got this song that I think you'd sound great on' and I sent him the demo and two days later his voice was on it."
So it's really cool how in our genre you can do that," Thomas added. "I did the same thing with Kelsea and [for] "Don't Threaten Me With A Good Time," I wrote that with Karen Fairchild of Little Big Town."
Thomas Rhett's iHeartCountry Album Release Party Setlist:
Remember You Young
Die a Happy Man
Craving You
That Old Truck
Beer Can't Fix
Center Point Road drops on Friday (May 31).
Photos: Katherine Tyler for iHeartRadio
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Going into hospital far riskier than flying: WHO
Posted on July 22, 2011 by Adam Chee
“Going into hospital far riskier than flying”, the original article can be located here
(Reuters) – Millions of people die each year from medical errors and infections linked to health care and going into hospital is far riskier than flying, the World Health Organization said on Thursday.
“If you were admitted to hospital tomorrow in any country… your chances of being subjected to an error in your care would be something like 1 in 10. Your chances of dying due to an error in health care would be 1 in 300,” Liam Donaldson, the WHO’s newly appointed envoy for patient safety, told a news briefing.
This compared with a risk of dying in an air crash of about 1 in 10 million passengers, according to Donaldson, formerly England’s chief medical officer.
“It shows that health care generally worldwide still has a long way to go,” he said.
Hundreds of millions of people suffer infections linked to health care each year. Patients should ask questions and be part of decision-making in hospitals, which must use basic hygiene standards and WHO’s checklist to ensure safe surgical procedures were followed.
More than 50 percent of acquired infections can be prevented if health care workers clean their hands with soap and water or an alcohol-based handrub before treating patients.
Of every 100 hospitalized patients at any given time, 7 in developed and 10 in developing countries will acquire at least one health care-associated infection, according to the United Nations agency.
“The longer patients stay in an ICU (intensive care unit), the more at risk they become of acquiring an infection,” it said. Medical devices such as urinary catheters and ventilators are associated with high infection rates.
‘HIGH-RISK BUSINESS’
Each year in the United States, 1.7 million infections are acquired in hospital, leading to 100,000 deaths, a far higher rate than in Europe where 4.5 million infections cause 37,000 deaths, according to WHO.
“Health care is a high-risk business, inevitably, because people are sick and modern health care is delivered in a fast-moving, high-pressured environment involving a lot of complex technology and a lot of people,” Donaldson said.
A heart operation can involve a team of up to 60 people, about the same number needed to run a jumbo jet, he said.
“Infection is a big problem, injuries after falls in hospitals is a big problem and then there are problems that are on a smaller scale but result in preventable deaths. Medication errors are common,” he said.
Risk is even higher in developing countries, with about 15 percent of patients acquiring infections, said Dr. Benedetta Allegranzi of the WHO’s “Clean Care is Safer Care” program.
“The risk is really higher in high-risk areas of the hospitals, in particular ICUs or neonatal units in developing countries.”
About 100,000 hospitals worldwide now use the WHO’s surgical safety checklist, which the agency said has been shown to reduce surgery complications by 33 percent and deaths by 50 percent.
If the checklist is effectively used worldwide, an estimated 500,000 deaths could be prevented each year, it says.
“Frankly, if I was having an operation tomorrow I wouldn’t go into a hospital that wasn’t using the checklist because I wouldn’t regard it as safe,” said Donaldson.
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For queries in English:
Edward Lempinen
ICTP Enrico Fermi Building, Room 107
Office: +39 040 2240-512
lempinen@twas.org
Twitter: @EdLempinen
For queries in Italian or English:
Cristina Serra
Phone: +39 040 2240-429
Mobile: +39 338 430-5210
cserra@twas.org
Twitter: @serracri
General contact: info@twas.org
TWAS is based in Trieste, Italy, and has important science-related partnerships and projects in the city and with the Italian government.
The Academy's quarterly magazine. Download PDF files of individual articles and/or entire issues.
Download the latest issue
Leaders urge support for refugee scientists
Among millions of refugees who have fled countries such as Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan, an untold number are professionals who work in science-related fields. They need strong support – and can provide strong skills to their new nations.
Key leaders from science, diplomacy and education today provided a strong endorsement for programmes to aid refugee scientists, engineers, medical workers who have been forced to flee from violence in their home countries.
At the opening of a week-long workshop co-organised by TWAS, the leaders said Europe and other countries have much to gain by welcoming the researchers and science students. Not least, they said, scientists who get training and jobs in Europe today will be better able to help rebuild their home countries after the violence ends.
Enrico Padula, a counselor in the General Directorate for the Promotion of the Country System in the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, said that disruptions of scientific research pose significant risks both in the scientist's home country, and the new country. "If scientists wait one year and they stop researching and stop studying," Padula said, "it's a big loss. It's a loss for the people who lost their knowledge. It's a loss for the society."
Annapaola Porzio, the prefect of Trieste, was not able to attend the meeting, but in remarks read by Vice Prefect Rinaldo Argentieri, she explored the economic, ethical and political dimensions of the refugees' arrival.
Porzio wrote: "Such a global and momentous phenomenon, whose development will affect the destiny of millions of human beings escaping from starvation, poverty and wars, cannot but represent a 'global moral duty' to be practically implemented through international cooperation between and among States by means of their Institutions, which should be the governing and driving factors of the relevant policies."
Other leaders at the opening event struck a similar message, urging that Europe respond in a constructive way.
“Refugees are not a liability, they are not an eminent danger as sometimes pictured by politicians or the news media," said Abdelhamid El-Zoheiry, president of Euro-Mediterranean University (EMUNI). "Refugees are a wealth of resources. And refugee scientists should be harbored and should be given all the resources they need to transmit their science.”
Maria Cristina Pedicchio, president of the Istituto Nazionale di Oceanografia e di Geofisica Sperimentale (OGS), urged host countries to embrace "the value of integration". She added: "Investing in talents through development of skills, exchange of know-how and access to research infrastructures will help create necessary conditions for dialogue and cooperation."
The World Academy of Science (TWAS) recognizes that countries in conflict are suffering severe human and infrastructure damage, said Peter McGrath, coordinator of the Academy's Science Diplomacy programme. But the lack of a strong, active diaspora will compound the long-term damage caused by conflict.
"For nations in crisis ... to have no scientific or medical diaspora to bring back once conditions improve – that is something to be avoided at all costs," McGrath said. "The international scientific community, working together, can help to mitigate that risk."
TWAS and its partners are part of an emerging international network of programmes and institutions that are working to integrate the refugees and to preserve their scientific skills. That's the focus of "Refugee Scientists: Transnational Resources", an international workshop that opened 13 March 2017 in Trieste, Italy. The workshop has convened more than 50 participants from 17 countries in the Middle East-North Africa region; sub-Saharan Africa; Europe; and North America. Both UNESCO, and the European Commission and the Global Young Academy all sent representatives.
The workshop has been co-organised by OGS, based in Trieste, Italy; EMUNI, based in Piran, Slovenia; and the science diplomacy programme of The World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), also based in Trieste. The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) has provided key support for the event.
From 13-17 March, the partners and participants will explore a range of issues related to refugee scientists, seen through the perspectives of several refugee scientists, plus policymakers and the leaders of scientific and refugee-support organisations. The workshop is among the first to assemble leaders from North and South to discuss the adversities faced by refugee scientists – and the potential contributions they could make to their new countries, with the proper support.
Since the early part of this century, and especially in the past five years, millions of refugees have fled from instability and war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and other areas of the Southern Mediterranean/Arab region. In Syria alone, a devastating civil conflict has displaced some 11 million people; by some estimates, more than a million have requested asylum in Europe.
Exactly how many scientists, engineers and medical personnel have fled conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa is not known. Estimates run into the thousands for Europe alone, while some have traveled as far as Malaysia, South Africa and Canada to rebuild their lives and careers. Others are essentially stuck in makeshift camps and communities that have developed in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey.
Romain Murenzi directs UNESCO's Division of Science Policy and Capacity Building/Natural Sciences Sector, and he previously served as minister of education and science in Rwanda and executive director of TWAS. In his opening remarks, Murenzi stressed the need to provide sustained support to refugee researchers and students in science-related fields.
"The growing number of forced migrations of high-skilled scientists, among others, is particularly contributing to the creation of a diaspora of researchers and engineers with few opportunities to develop themselves scientifically and to reside in decent living conditions," Murenzi told the audience. "It is therefore critical that all possible support be provided to the work environment and initiatives of displaced scientific researchers, as they contribute to improve our understanding of factors involved in the survival and well-being of humankind as a whole."
Both the United Nations and UNESCO have signalled strong concern for migrants and refugees, and for refugee scientists, Murenzi said.
Last September, the UN General Assembly hosted The World Humanitarian Summit and the United Nations Summit for Refugees and Migrants to address large movements of refugees and migrants, with the aim of bringing countries together behind a more humane and coordinated approach.
And UNESCO, under the leadership of Flavia Schlegel, the assistant director general for natural sciences, is finalizing a "science at risk initiative" to protect scientists and their knowledge in times of violent conflict and disaster.
According to Murenzi, the initiative envisions that scientists who have been sheltered abroad could continue to develop their knowledge, and steps would be taken to protect local scientific infrastructure. Both are "essential assets for the reconstruction of the country," he said.
Padula, too, said that Italy is taking steps in response to the surge in refugees in recent years. Italy, he noted, has invested tremendous energy and resources to save thousands of migrants who have come to the country by boat. And, he said, the effort extends to refugee scientists: Italy supports the European Commission ‘science4refugees’ initiative launched for asylum-seeking and refugee scientists and researchers.
Padula also cited the "Invest Your Talent in Italy" programme. It offers refugees the opportunity to develop their skills through a range of master's and postgraduate courses (taught in English) at prestigious Italian universities, plus scholarships and student support services. And even as participants complete their academic work, they can get on-the-job training at leading Italian companies.
Others see Trieste as a key centre for supporting refugee scientists. There are significant refugee centres in the city and nearby in Gradisca d'Isonzo, and the city is globally known as a centre for North-South science collaboration.
Matteo Marsili, senior research scientist at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics, has helped to coordinate an effort that brings refugees for internships at ICTP, TWAS and the Organization for Women in Science for the Developing World (OWSD).
"I believe there is an untapped potential in Trieste to find innovative ways of how science can help tackle the refugee crisis," Marsili said. "Our scientific institutions have brought to Trieste scientists from every corner of the world, including developing countries and war zones. It seems natural to me that Trieste should play a leading role in addressing the global challenges our societies face."
Cristina Serra and Sean Treacy contributed to this report
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The Skill Sets and Health Care Needs of Released Offenders
The Skill Sets and Health Care...
Services Integration: Strengthening Offenders and Families, While Promoting Community Health and Safety Prisoners and Families: Parenting Issues During Incarceration Exploring the Needs and Risks of the Returning Prisoner Population Aging, Reentry, and Health Coverage: Barriers to Medicare and Medicaid for Older Reentrants The Antisocial Behavior of the Adolescent Children of Incarcerated Parents: A Developmental Perspective
From Prison to Home: The Effect of Incarceration and Reentry on Children, Families, and Communities
Gerald G. Gaes, Ph. D. and Newton Kendig, M.D. Federal Bureau of Prisons
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Defining and Assessing Skill Deficiencies of the Returning Prison Population
An Update on the What Works Literature and Recent Extensions to Cost-Benefit Considerations
The Medical/Mental Health Needs of Released Offenders
External and Internal Barriers to In-prison Preparation and Successful Transitions?
Involving Families While Prisoners Are Still in Prison
A Self Help Model and an Agenda for Future Theory and Research
This review updates the previous literature on what we know about inmate needs and the programs designed to address those needs (Gaes, Flanagan, Motiuk, and Stewart, 1999). A more neutral terminology than inmate deficits or needs is used by referring to the different domains as skill sets. A skill implies mastery and competence rather than a personal liability. Although this orientation to inmate skills is somewhat symbolic, it emphasizes the interaction of training or teaching in conjunction with the individuals proficiency and achievement. This is a small step away from the medical model toward a paradigm that emphasizes the role of the offender in his or her own successful reentry. This review also discusses the medical/mental health needs of releasing inmates and the barriers that are encountered both within the criminal justice system, and the community, as well as the barriers to productive prison programming. The skill and medical/mental health needs of releasing offenders are viewed as complementary and overlapping issues that require integration.
This paper is organized into six sections. In section I, we briefly review some of the literature on skill sets. We introduce a classification (taxonomy) of these skills as a way of providing a framework for understanding, assessing, and remediating skill deficiencies. In section II, we review the literature on in-prison programs that are designed to address these deficiencies. There have been a number of recent, systematic reviews that are more focused than previous meta-analyses of prison programs. We review the results of those research syntheses and incorporate them into the skill sets taxonomy. In the third section, drawing upon data from the Bureau of Prisons and a recently completed study by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care, we outline the health and mental health needs of returning prisoners. In section IV, we discuss the barriers to addressing inmate skill deficiencies and medical needs both from the perspective of criminal justice policies and from the perspective of the community. In section V, we consider the role of the prisoner as parent in the reintegration process. While this is only one of the many skills we will cover, we devote an entire section to this area because of its relevance to this conference. In the last section, we introduce a self help model that integrates concepts in both the medical and skill set literature. In this last section, we also recognize and discuss the limitations of the what works model that focuses on interventions that address primarily the propensity to commit crime. What is needed is a coherent theory that relates the skills/needs literature to other theories of crime that bring in social context, opportunity, and social embeddedness. Some of the life course literature in criminology is increasingly moving in that direction.
I. Defining and Assessing Skill Deficiencies of the Returning Prison Population
While there is no uniform way to categorize and define inmate skills, we propose a classification more as a heuristic than an attempt to finalize some taxonomy(1). The framework in Table 1 includes the following categories: academic skills, vocational skills/correctional work, interpersonal skills, leisure time skills, cognitive skills, spirituality/ethical skills, daily living skills, wellness skills, mental health skills, and accountability skills. The definition for each of these skills appears in Table 1. A number of researchers would probably take issue with some of the categories appearing in Table 1. For example, does it really make sense to define mental health as a skill? Should spirituality/ethical practices be considered a skill? Shouldnt this be a private matter left up to the individual and his or her conscience? W e also include substance abuse and sexual predation in the mental health category although these problems could merit separate categorization. Nonetheless, we see this taxonomy as a starting point for defining skill sets that will ultimately lead to thorough assessment, intervention, and as a kind of ongoing report card of the level of an individuals abilities or skill to integrate back into the community.
Table 1. Definitions of Individual Skill Sets
Re-Entry Skills Definitions/Outcomes
Academic Skills Participates and progresses in educational activities commensurate with ability and occupation to serve as foundational skills for other re-entry skills. Reads, writes and utilizes basic arithmetic at a level necessary to function in a correctional environment and in society.
Vocational Skills/ Correctional Work Acquires and maintains employment in order to fulfill financial obligations, engage in purposeful activity, develop abilities useful in the acquisition and maintenance of post-release employment and pursuit of career goals.
Interpersonal Skills (Parenting, Normative Relationships) Relates appropriately and effectively with staff, peers, visitors, family, coworkers, neighbors, and members of the community observing basic social conventions and rules. Maintains healthy family and community ties. Avoids negative interpersonal influences.
Leisure Time Skills Engages in meaningful recreational activities and hobbies making positive use of free time and facilitating stress management and favorable peer affiliations.
Cognitive Skills Engages in accurate self-appraisal and goal setting. Solves problems effectively, maintains self-control and displays pro-social values.
Spirituality/Ethical Skills Displays capacity for self-reflection and consideration of meaning in life in relation to a particular faith or personal philosophy.
Daily Living Skills Displays independent living skills commensurate with institution or community opportunities to include maintenance of a clean residence, a responsible budget to include a savings account, meal preparation, appropriate personal hygiene and appearance and proper etiquette. Obtains and maintains a legal residence and any necessary transportation. Obeys institution rules and regulations and local, state and federal laws.
Wellness Skills Self-Help Model Maintains physical well-being through health promotion and disease prevention strategies such as a healthy lifestyle and habits and routine medical care. Obtains necessary treatment for acute and chronic medical conditions.
Mental Health Skills (Substance Abuse, Sexual Predation) Maintains sound mental health through avoidance of substance abuse/dependence and other self-destructive behaviors and through use of effective coping techniques. Participates in appropriate medication and/or treatment regime as necessary to address any acute or chronic mental health issues.
Accountability Skills Assumes responsibility for own behaviors. Recognizes and accepts the short-term and long-term consequences of actions.
By creating a taxonomy, we also have a way of relating research on the relationship between skills, or their lack thereof, and post-release outcomes. One such attempt to demonstrate this relationship was a summary of the literature on predictors of recidivism conducted by Gendreau, Little, and Goggin (1996)(2). Table 2 contains the re-entry skills chart and data on risk factors from the Gendreau, Little, and Goggin (1996) paper. The Predictors of Recidivism column refers to the individual inmate characteristics that increase the likelihood of post-release recidivism. Gendreau et al., refer to these characteristics as risk factors and point out that ...the design of effective offender treatment programs is highly dependent on knowledge of the predictors of recidivism (p. 575). To the extent possible, we have tried to place these predictors in the re-entry skills categories of Table 2 where they seem most appropriate. Thus, while parent or sibling criminality is a predictor of recidivism, we assume that ones past associations can be addressed by developing interpersonal skills that focus on prosocial values.
Table 2. The Relationship Between Skill Sets and Post-Release Success/Failure
Re-Entry Skills Predictors of Recidivism (Bold Indicates Dynamic Risk Predictors Others are Static Predictors)
Academic Skills Lack of Education or Employment Skills (67 studies, average r = .18) Intellectual Functioning (32 studies, average r = .07)
Vocational Skills/ Correctional Work Lack of Education or Employment Skills (67 studies, average r = .18)
Interpersonal Skills (Parenting, Normative Relationships) Conflicts with Family and Significant Others (28 studies, average r = .15) Parent or Sibling Criminality (35 studies, average r = .12) Family Rearing Practices (31 studies, average r = .15) Separation from Parents, Broken Home (41 studies, average r = .10)
Leisure Time Skills Identification/ Close relationship with Criminal Peers (27 studies, average r = .18)
Cognitive Skills Attitudes Supportive of a Criminal Lifestyle (67 studies, average r = .18) Anti-social Personality (63 studies, average r = .18) Identification/ Close relationship with Criminal Peers (27 studies, average r = .18) Adult Criminal History and Prison Misconduct (64 studies, average r = .18) History of Antisocial Behavior Prior to Adulthood (119 studies, average r = .13)
Spirituality/Ethical Skills
Daily Living Skills
Wellness Skills
Mental Health Skills Anxiety, Depression, Neuroticism, Psychiatric Symptomatology (66 studies, average r = .05) Substance Abuse (60 studies, average r = .14)
Accountability Skills Attitudes Supportive of a Criminal Lifestyle (67 studies, average r = .18) Anti-social Personality (63 studies, average r = .18) Adult Criminal History and Prison Misconduct (64 studies, average r = .18) History of Antisocial Behavior Prior to Adulthood (119 studies, average r = .13)
Based on the work by Andrews and Bonta (1998) that distinguish between dynamic and static predictors, there are two kinds of predictors in Table 2. The predictors indicated in bold are called dynamic and are theoretically amenable to treatment, training, and program interventions.
In contrast, static predictors are not modifiable and are either historical, such as a persons past criminal behavior, or immutable individual characteristics such as age, sex, and race. Only historical static predictors are listed in Table 2, since such predictors usually suggest interventions that can interrupt a cycle of crime. For example, simply because someone may have a criminal history does not mean that one cannot overcome that proclivity by learning new skills.
The relationship between the predictors and recidivism is indicated by the correlation in Table 2. The value of r theoretically can vary from 0 to 1; however, because recidivism is usually measured as yes or no, r cannot reach 1.00, and its maximum value is probably much less than 1.0. Some of the predictor domains, such as attitudes supportive of a criminal lifestyle, we have listed under more than one skill, such as cognitive and accountability skills. Most of the relationships depicted in Table 2 are modest. The strongest predictors of recidivism are criminal history, prison misconduct, identification or close relationship with criminal peers, attitudes supportive of a criminal lifestyle, and lack of education or employment skills. We have left out of the table the risk scales, such as the Salient Factor Score (SFS) and Level of Supervision Inventory (LSI), considered by Gendreau, Little and Goggin. These scales are composites of many of the individual predictors already represented in the table. One of the weakest relationships was between mental health measures of anxiety, depression, neuroticism, and psychiatric symptomology and recidivism. Bonta, Law, and Hanson (1998) examined whether the predictors of criminal and violent recidivism were different for mentally disordered offenders as opposed to nondisordered offenders. Using meta-analytic techniques, they found that the predictors were the same.
Criminal history variables were the best predictors, and the clinical variables had the weakest relationship. Thus, although it appears future offending may be influenced by mental illness, the dominant factors are other actuarial and predisposing factors that are essentially the same whether or not one has a mental illness diagnosis.
While this modest taxonomy suggests a way of categorizing skills, it would be important to know the extent to which inmates lack such skills and the extent to which those who have a skill deficit are allowed to participate in programs that can help them achieve those skills. Systematic program participation data in prisons or jails are sparsely reported and rarely collected. The closest data collection that we have is the Inmate Survey conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics every 5 or 6 years. The survey uses an interview of inmates to discover important facts about their incarceration, their criminal and civil life prior to incarceration, and issues revolving around release. Lynch and Sabol (2001) used the 1991 and 1997 surveys to analyze inmate program participation and found Most prisoners do not participate in inmate programs, such as education and vocational programs, and the rate of participation has declined over the years (Lynch and Sabol, 2001 p. 14). About 13 percent of soon-to-be-released inmates reported participating in a pre-release program in both 1991 and 1997. In 1997, 27 percent of soon-to-be-released inmates participated in vocational training programs while 31 percent had participated in these programs in 1991. In 1997, 35 percent of soon-to-be-released inmates participated in educational programs, while the percentage was 43 percent in 1991.
One essential element missing in these kind of analyses is an accurate, systematic, and consistent estimate of the level of need. Understanding the level of unmet need in skills development is more important than whether the percentage of inmates completing these programs is increasing or decreasing. Ideally, a baseline of skill sets listed in Table 1 would be assessed at prison intake and subsequently tracked and updated throughout incarceration. Not only might we measure and monitor inmate proficiencies in these skill sets, but we could chart the progress made by inmates over the course of their prison stay and just prior to release. An analog is school achievement. At what grade level do inmates enter prison? What is their progress throughout their prison stay? And what is their grade level at the time of release? This kind of monitoring and measurement not only helps inmates assess their level of achievement, it informs the institution and community case managers of the remaining work that needs to be done. It also serves as a kind of management barometer of how well prison program providers are achieving their goals.
Education assessment may lead the way. The 1992 National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) evaluated a sample of state and federal prisoners in addition to a large community sample (Haigler, Harlow, OConnor, and Campbell, 1994). The NALS results showed that 70 percent of prisoners scored at the two lowest levels of proficiency on the prose, document, and quantitative literacy scales. Approximately 50 percent of the general population performed at these two lowest levels. Assessments such as the NALS can provide a standardized way of monitoring literacy to inform educators on the progress they are making in improving literacy during a term of imprisonment. While some jurisdictions use standardized assessments for education level, there is no one barometer that provides a national look at the level of skill. Tests like the NALS may take some time to develop for some kinds of deficiencies, such as cognitive, interpersonal, and wellness skills. There are some skill sets for which there may never be a satisfactory assessment, such as ethical and leisure time deficiencies. But, in order to know how to improve our efforts at promoting criminal desistance, we must also know how the interventions are affecting the level of the underlying deficiency.
Addressing inmate skill needs does not in and of itself ensure inmate motivation to learn and change, nor does achieving certain skill levels guarantee post-release success. Social settings, economic, familial and neighborhood context, and peer relationships all affect the offenders opportunity and engagement in crime independent of the factors that affect propensity. The proposed taxonomy of skill sets begins to lay out a framework for understanding and hopefully addressing criminal propensity or the psychology of criminal conduct. The overall goal of classifying skill sets is to decompose propensity to crime into some of its component parts as a starting point for changing criminal behavior without losing sight of the fact that prisoners are not the fractured representation of skills depicted in Table 1.
II. An Update on the What Works Literature and Recent Extensions to Cost-Benefit Considerations
A summary of recent meta-analyses on inmate interventions is outlined in Table 3, updating the last synopsis by Gaes, Flanagan, Motiuk, and Stewart (1999). Many of these meta-analyses were conducted by David Wilson, Doris Layton MacKenzie and their colleagues. These recent meta-analyses are more focused than previous ones. They tend to address a specific domain or skill set as we have outlined in Table 1. Prior meta-analyses tended to cross many of these domains (See Gaes et al., for a summary of those meta-analyses). The Wilson, MacKenzie meta-analyses have also been quite rigorous and more circumspect than some of the earlier research syntheses. The methodology of meta-analysis is evolving and increased rigor will lead to a more systematic and enriched understanding of these interventions. Nonetheless, the studies that form the basis for these research syntheses are still fraught with methodological problems. Meta-analyses that have been conducted since we last reviewed them in 1999 were done on effective programs for women (Dowden, and Andrews, 1999); treatment for violent offenders (Dowden and Andrews, 2000); treatment of sex offenders (Furby Weinrott, and Blackshaw, 1989; Gallagher, Wilson, Hirschfield, Coggeshall, and MacKenzie, 1999; Gallagher, Wilson, and MacKenzie, 2001; and Hall 1995), boot camps (Mackenzie, Wilson, and Kidder, In press); drug treatment programs ( Pearson and Lipton, 1999); structured cognitive behavioral programs (Wilson, Allen, and Mackenzie, 2000); education, vocational training, and work programs (Pearson and Lipton, 1999; Wilson, Gallagher, and MacKenzie, 2000, and Wilson, Gallagher, Coggeshall, and MacKenzie, 1999); and a systematic coverage of many of these skill domains (Aos, Phipps, Barnoski, and Lieb, 2001). Some of these are not represented in Table 3 because they dont fit in very well. For example, the boot camp meta-analysis which found no impact of these programs is composed of many of the elements of Table 1 in addition to the regimentation and military style of the program. The Aos, Phipps, Barnoski, and Lieb (2001) meta-analysis is interspersed throughout the table and is considered in more depth below, because it was also combined with a rigorous cost-benefit analysis of the interventions.
Table 3. The Relationship Between Interventions Designed to Address Specific Skill Sets and Post-Release Success/Failure.(1)
Re-Entry Skills Meta-Analyses Results
Academic Skills Wilson, David B., Catherine A. Gallagher, and Doris L. MacKenzie (2000) For the adult basic education and General Equivalency Diploma programs, the odds were 1.44 and the contrast between program and comparison groups was 41 percent versus 50 percent Post-secondary education, odds = 1.74, program = 37 percent, comparison = 50 percent Pearson, Frank S. and Douglas S. Lipton (1999) Literacy Training/Reading Education, 4 studies, r=.06, Not Significant, Authors conclude that one cannot do a credible test of these programs until better studies are done Literacy and GED studies, 8 studies, r=.10, program = 45 percent, comparison = 55 percent College Course Work, 12 studies, r =.03, No Effect Aos et al., 2001 In-Prison Adult Basic Education, 3 studies, effect size = .11
Vocational Skills Wilson, David B., Catherine A. Gallagher, and Doris L. MacKenzie (2000) Vocational training, odds = 1.55, program = 39 percent, comparison = 50 percent Aos et al., 2001 In-Prison Vocational Education, 2 studies, effect size = .13, program = 43.5 percent, comparison = 56.5 percent
Correctional Work (Job Training, Job Seeking, Job Placement Programs) Wilson, David B., Catherine A. Gallagher, and Doris L. MacKenzie (2000) Correctional work, odds = 1.48, program = 40 percent, comparison = 50 percent; and multi-component/other, odds = 1.39, program = 43 percent, comparison = 50 percent. The weighted odds ratios were not significantly different from zero. But there were only 4 comparisons in the correctional work category and 5 comparisons in the multi component/other category Aos et al., (2001) Correctional Industries Programs, 3 studies, effect size = .08, program = 46 percent, comparison = 54 percent Pearson, Frank S. and Douglas S. Lipton (1999) Job Seeking and Job Training programs, 26 studies, r=.03, Not Significant
Interpersonal Skills (Parenting, Normative Relationships) The cognitive skills results should apply here; however, no meta-analyses on parenting or deganging programs)
Leisure Time Skills
Cognitive Skills Wilson, David B., Leana C. Allen, and Doris L. Mackenzie (2000) Avg. Effect Size d=.36. This means that the treatment group recidivates at about 36 percent and the comparison group at 50 percent.
Spirituality/Ethical Skills No meta-analysis to date. Several studies have been conducted; however, they are rather methodologically weak.
Mental Health Skills Gallagher, Catherine A., David B. Wilson, and Doris L. MacKenzie (2001) Sex offender studies: found 22 studies having 25 independent effect sizes, avg. d=.43. The treatment group on average had a sexual recidivism rate at about 12 percent and the comparison group at 22 percent. Aos et al., 2001 Cognitive-Behavioral Sex Offender Treatment, 7 studies, effect size = .11, program = 44.5 percent, comparison 55.5 percent Pearson, Frank S. and Douglas S. Lipton (1999) Drug abuse studies: only the TC average effect size reached significance. The average correlation was .13. This translates to a failure rate of 43.5 percent for TC treatment groups and 56.5 percent for comparison groups. Outpatient counseling and boot camp drug treatments were not effective Aos et al., 2001 In-Prison Therapeutic Community, With Community Aftercare, 11 studies, effect size = .08, program = 46 percent, comparison = 54 percent In-prison Non-Residential Substance abuse Treatment, 5 studies, effect size = .09, program = 45.5 percent, comparison = 54.5 percent
Accountability Skills
1. This re-entry skills table has been reformatted to included the results of meta-analyses into the table. The effects sizes have been represented in their original format as well as the percentage recidivating during the post-release period. Effect sizes are typically represented as correlations (r), the difference in means measured in standard deviation units (Cohens d), and in odds ratios.
For the meta-analyses that do fit into Table 3, we represented the effects sizes in their original format. However, we have also converted them into percentage recidivating during the post-release period. Effect sizes are typically represented as correlations (r), the difference in means measured in standard deviation units (Cohens d), and in odds ratios. In 1999 (Gaes et al.), we concluded that the meta-analysis literature, in its entirety, indicated that programs had an average effect size of .10. Translating this into a more understandable metric, program participants had a 45 percent likelihood of being arrested compared to a 55 percent likelihood for members of comparison groups.
Recent meta-analyses continue to show treatment effectiveness. This is generally true of academic instruction, vocational training, cognitive skills, sex offender programs, and substance abuse interventions. However, the results of these meta-analyses are not always definitive. For example, there are three meta-analyses of sex offender treatment and a fourth research review that differ in their conclusions. Halls (1995) study found small effect sizes of sex offender treatment. Gallagher et al, (1999; 2001) were critical of Halls meta-analysis because it was limited to studies completed after 1989. However, when Gallagher et al., (2001) examined the relationship between methods variables, treatment modality, and treatment effects, there was a confounding among the methods and treatment variables making it impossible to disentangle the relationships. The authors did find that the higher the method quality score of a study, the higher the effect size. Furthermore, the more likely there was subject level matching the lower the effect size. These results are contradictory indicating better methods produce both higher and lower effect sizes. Furby et al., (1989) reviews sex offender studies and has a lengthy discussion of problems in methodology. As these authors noted, These methodological principles have been violated all too often in the empirical studies reviewed here, and the qualifications, which must then be placed on a studys results, are too rarely recognized, both by investigators and by consumers of their research. (Furby et al., p. 4).
Furby et al., discuss the following problems or characteristics of sex offender studies: often only inmates amenable to treatment were included in a study; large dropout rates were reported; dropout rates are often missing from studies; many studies did not distinguish among important subpopulations of sex offenders such as pedophiles, exhibitionists, and dangerous sex offenders and rapists; studies characterized homosexuality alone as a sexual misconduct event; treatment descriptions were vague and imprecise; one treatment center accounted for one third of the 7,000 treated men represented in these studies; four other treatment centers accounted for another 25 percent of the total sample of treated men; and, varying followup periods occurred within the same study.
Furby et al., were aware of meta-analytic techniques but chose not to use them for the following reasons:
...(a) the large number of studies in which the sample selection procedure was inadequately described; (b) the enormous variability in samples across those studies for which descriptions were adequate; (c) the large number of studies for which recidivism was inadequately described; (d) the variability within many studies in length of followup periods for different men. All of these factors make it difficult to establish comparability of studies, which is necessary for the combining of their results to be meaningful. Large differences in sample sizes and in types of treatment intervention exacerbate these problems (Furby et al., 1989 p. 21)
Sex offending intervention is particularly difficult to deliver and assess. It is not surprising that there is no uniformity in the conclusions about the interventions. The purpose for introducing the controversy here is to point out that treatment syntheses, even with better analytic techniques, still require a close reading of the evidence. Nonetheless, it is easier to be sanguine than pessimistic about the possibility of institutional interventions.
While these studies point to the success of prison intervention programs, there has been little recognition and analysis of the external validity and generalizability of the studies. Most program interventions still depend on volunteer participants. In addition to the problem of selection bias inherent in these research designs, there is the problem of estimating how many inmates would or could be affected by these interventions. If only a small fraction of inmates will volunteer, and thus benefit from these interventions, it is easy to exaggerate the benefit to all inmates being released from our correctional systems. In fact, the paucity of existing data suggests that most inmates do not participate in programs before they are released. There is no reason to be particularly pessimistic about the possibility of the impact of in-prison programs on post-release success. However, research must still be conducted to measure or estimate the degree to which offenders who have skill deficits do or do not participate in programs. We then need to understand completion and dropout rates. This is a prerequisite to understanding the ultimate cost-benefit of program interventions. We discuss cost-benefit analysis as the next step in evaluating in-prison and community interventions.
Cost Benefit Analyses of Treatment Interventions
Cost-benefit analysis is the economic realization of a program. It equates all benefits and costs of an intervention with a dollar value. By converting benefits and costs to one dimension, we can evaluate whether there is a net benefit relative to the cost of that intervention. As Brown (2001) noted, cost-benefit or efficiency evaluations are missing from most program evaluations. The probable reason for this dearth of efficiency analyses is that it is no easy matter to assign monetary values to some of the outcomes of a program construed as intervention benefits. This is because many of these benefits are intangible. They are not traded in the marketplace (Laplante and Durham, 1983), and therefore, one has to impute their value. Recent work by Cohen and colleagues (Cohen, 1988; Cohen 1998; Cohen, Miller, and Rossman, 1994) has tried to explicate direct and indirect, and tangible and intangible costs of crime. Direct costs and benefits are those that can be anticipated, such as the salaries of teachers. Indirect costs and benefits are unplanned. Intangible victim costs, such as pain and suffering resulting from an attack, or crime avoidance behavior, such as no longer going out at night, are the most difficult of all costs to estimate.
In a recent article, Farrington, Petrosino, and Welsh (2001) discuss the importance of cost-benefit with regard to 9 program evaluations. Four of these studies priced outcomes other than recidivism. Several studies limited the analysis to criminal justice benefits, while others included victim costs. Most of the studies were concerned primarily with community interventions. When attrition was reported, it was very large. Many of the research designs were weak. The Farrington, Petrosino, and Welsh (2001) paper suggests the importance of cost-benefit analysis; however, the papers they found were not particularly strong examples. On the other hand, there has been an effort by one research team to combine elements of meta-analyses with rigorous cost-benefit analyses.
Aos, Phipps, Barnoski, and Lieb of the Washington State Institute for Public Policy have undertaken this work. Their report was mandated by the Washington State Legislature directing ...the Washington State Institute for Public Policy (Institute) to evaluate the costs and benefits of certain juvenile and adult criminal justice policies, violence prevention programs, and other efforts to decrease particular at-risk behaviors of youth (Aos et al., 2001 p. 1). The Institute used a meta-analysis to evaluate more than 400 research studies conducted in the United States and Canada. But analysts took the effort one step farther and produced a cost-benefit evaluation of these juvenile and adult interventions. The analysts evaluated primary, secondary, and tertiary interventions. Primary prevention refers to the strategies that stop or preclude criminality. Secondary prevention refers to strategies that are adopted after there are indications or markers that imply a problem will occur if these secondary intervention techniques are not successful. Tertiary prevention comes after a problem has occurred, and the intervention strategies are intended to limit the damage or rehabilitate the individual so that the problem does not recur. While the report covers programs that address early childhood, middle childhood and adolescence, these were primary prevention programs intended to divert youth from the criminal justice system. In this review, we will focus on the juvenile and adult offender programs. These are tertiary prevention programs that attempt to deter individuals from returning to crime once released from the criminal justice system.
The cost-benefit analysis adds an additional perspective to program evaluation. From the taxpayers perspective, were the savings in ...downstream criminal justice costs (Aos et al., 2001 p. 2) more than the costs of the program? As the authors of this report note, for the most part, they were not analyzing program evaluations that had been conducted in the State of Washington. They were assessing primarily programs that had been conducted elsewhere; however, the dollar values of costs and benefits were those expected to occur in Washington.
Aos et al., state that they took a ...conservative approach... to the cost-benefit analyses by deflating the value of effects associated with evaluations that had weak research designs. Although the Institute started with over 400 studies, about a fourth did not meet the minimum research design criteria and were not included in the cost-benefit analysis. There is disagreement among meta-analysis theoreticians as to whether strong and weak studies should be used in a meta-analysis. Some advocate that the meta-analysis should incorporate all of the studies and then compare the average effect sizes for strong and weak studies. Others argue that the weak studies are meaningless and would only contaminate the assessment of the particular research domain. The reader should be aware that the results of the meta-analysis can change based on the inclusion/exclusion of poorly designed studies. Analyzing results based on both approaches is warranted and allows the scientific community to assess the validity of the conclusions and appropriately weigh policy implications.
The authors present their results as a dollar spent on programs versus the number of dollars saved (returned) or the number of dollars lost (wasted). Thus, even if a program leads to a reduction in criminality (positive average effect size), if it costs a great deal relative to its crime reduction benefits, it may not be economical.
The authors regard their analysis strategy as one that is similar to a ...financial analysis an investment advisor uses to study rates of return on mutual funds, bonds, real estate, commodities, or other investment options (Aos et al., 2001 p. 1). One of the many interesting results of this strategy is that it suggests to the policymaker alternate issues and implications. For example, consider the Institutes five general findings:
Some Good Investment Options Exist there were some juvenile offender programs that had very high returns on investment. For these programs the average return on a dollar was $20.
Some Bad Investment Options Exist There were programs with positive effect sizes but still offered a net loss on the returns of investment.
A Program That Can Achieve Even Relatively Small Reductions in Crime Can Be Cost Beneficial Even programs that have modest intervention results (small effect sizes) can have an attractive bottom line on investment return.
Programs Should Be Evaluated There are many programs that have not been evaluated and since some or even many of these may not work, they continue to absorb tax payer money and divert money from successful programs. As Aos et al., note, evaluations are not free. Perhaps the cost of evaluations should be entered into the cost benefit equation.
A Portfolio Approach is Recommended Because of problems with the program evaluation literature, there is ...a degree of uncertainty (Aos et el., 2001 p. 7) to the economic estimates of the Institutes report. The analysts discuss a portfolio approach to investing in programs and warn against using too few program approaches. Thus, a jurisdiction can use proven programs as well as promising programs. In this regard, Aos et al., do suggest that even good programs may not be implemented correctly.
We believe that there are many other factors that elevate uncertainty. There are jurisdictional differences in the quality of staff implementing programs; the characteristics of inmates in these programs may vary from one jurisdiction to another; the organizational context in which these programs are conducted can vary across jurisdictions; and the release context of a jurisdiction can vary and may make program success more or less probable.
The economic perspective adds a policy dimension that has been missing from most of the program evaluation literature. It does, however, raise the level of uncertainty for policymakers. Programs must now be viewed in the context of assumptions about program content, program effect sizes, program costs, downstream criminal justice costs, and victim costs. All of these assumptions also depend on sources of contamination from program implementation, organizational endorsement, and other contextual implications associated with the level of post-release supervision, opportunity, and other social dimensions of the ex-offenders post-release community. While it is true that all of these dimensions complicate the analysis, they have always been there, although often unrecognized or disregarded. Thus, the Institutes program analysis strategy engages the research community and policymakers in a more deliberate and systematic appraisal of the value of an intervention.
The Institutes report presented data on four domains: early childhood programs (8 studies), middle childhood and adolescent (non-juvenile offender) programs (6 studies), juvenile offender programs (85 studies), and adult offender programs (157 studies). Each of these areas was further subdivided into more specific intervention domains. For example, there were 21 subdomains in the adult correctional program areas. While we will not discuss the non-criminal justice prevention programs, the average highest economic benefits, according to this report, actually result from juvenile programs conducted within the criminal justice setting. Table 4 indicates the average effect sizes reported by the Institute for each of the subdomains they listed under juvenile and adult offender programs.
Table 4. Results from the Aos et al, cost benefit analysis.
Number of Program Effects in the Statistical Summary Average Effect Size (Positive Effect Size Means Lower Crime) 95% Confidence Intervals (Table VI-A) Confidence Interval Spans 0 = Y, or Negative Impact of Program = Y Homogeneity Test Q (Table VI-A) * signifies P<.05 indicating heterogeneity Net Direct Cost of the Program Per Participant (Table I) Net Benefits Per Participant (i.e. Benefits minus Costs) (Table I)
Lower End of Range: Taxpayer Benefits Only Upper End of Range: Taxpayer and Crime Victim Benefits
Juvenile Offender Programs
Specific Off the Shelf Programs
Multi-Systemic Therapy 3 0.31 .111 to .517 1.91 $4,743 $31,661 $131,918
Functional Family Therapy 7 0.25 .067 to .442 2.31 $2,161 $14,149 $59,067
Aggression Replacement Training 4 0.18 -.097 to .457 Y 0.26 $738 $8,287 $33,143
Multidimensional Treatment Foster care 2 0.37 -.006 to .746 Y 0.14 $2,052 $21,836 $87,622
Adolescent Diversion program 5 0.27 .133 to .413 16.8* $1,138 $5,720 $27,212
General Types of Treatment Programs
Diversion with Services (vs. regular juvenile court processing) 13 0.05 .006 to .090 3.24 -$127 $1,470 $5,679
Intensive Probation (vs. Regular probation caseloads) 7 0.05 -.073 to .168 Y 4.28 $2,234 $176 $6,812
Intensive Probation (as alternative to incarceration) 6 0.00 -.095 to .099 Y 4.89 -$18,478 $18,586 $18,854
Intensive Parole Supervision (vs. Regular parole caseloads) 7 0.04 -.075 to .156 Y 4.20 $2,635 -$117 $6,128
Coordinated Services 4 0.14 -.048 to .326 Y 1.66 $603 $3,131 $14,831
Scared Straight Type Programs 8 -0.13 -.249 to -.007 Y 6.38 $51 -$6,532 -$24,531
Other Family-Based Therapy Approaches 6 0.17 .031 to .200 .06 $1,537 $7,113 $30,936
Juvenile Sex Offender Treatment 5 0.12 -.081 to .328 Y 2.76 $9,920 -$3,119 $23,602
Juvenile Boot Camps 10 0.10 -.181 to -.018 Y 16.88* -$15,424 $10,360 -$3,587
Adult Offender Programs
Adult Offender Drug Treatment Programs (compared to no treatment)
In-Prison Therapeutic Community, No Community Aftercare 5 0.05 -.043 to .138 Y 1.27 $2,604 -$899 $2,365
In-Prison Therapeutic Community, With Community Aftercare 11 0.08 .031 to .128 5.77 $3,100 -$243 $5,230
Non-Prison TC (as addition to an existing community residential facility) 2 0.17 -.021 to .363 Y 0.18 $2,013 $4,110 $15,836
In-prison Non-Residential Substance Abuse Treatment 5 0.09 .024 to .153 2.94 $1,500 $1,672 $7,748
Drug Courts 27 0.08 .032 to .119 23.08 $2,562 -$109 $4,691
Case Management Substance Abuse Programs 12 0.03 -.021 to .089 Y 37.14* $2,204 -$1,050 $1,230
Community-Based Substance Abuse Programs 3 0.07 -.024 to .169 Y 1.09 $2,198 $237 $5,048
Drug Treatment Programs in Jails 7 0.05 -.05 to .145 Y 4.21 $1,172 $373 $3,361
Adult Sex-Offender Treatment Programs
Cognitive-Behavioral Sex Offender Treatment 7 0.11 .013 to .200 3.11 $6,246 -$778 $19,354
Adult Offender Intermediate Sanctions
Intensive Supervision (Surveillance Oriented) 19 0.03 -.032 to .097 Y 19.5 $3,296 -$2,250 -384
Intensive Supervision (Treatment Oriented) 6 0.10 -.004 to .212 Y 0.37 $3,811 -$459 $5,520
Intensive Supervision: Diversion from Prison 3 0.00 -.153 to .162 Y 1.41 -$5,925 $6,083 $6,386
Adult Boot Camps 11 0.00 -.058 to .062 Y 4.64 -$9,725 $9,822 $10,011
Adult Boot Camps As partial diversion from prison 11 0.00 -- -$3,380 $3,477 $3,666
Cognitive-Behavioral Programs
Moral Reconation Therapy 8 0.08 -.012 to .167 Y 4.44 $310 $2,471 $7,797
Reasoning and Rehabilitation 6 0.07 -.011 to .159 Y 3.15 $308 $2,202 $7,104
Work Release Programs (vs. In-prison incarceration) 2 0.03 -.184 to .237 Y 0.58 $456 $507 $2,351
Job Counseling/Search for Inmates Leaving Prison 6 0.04 -.006 to .084 Y 4.03 $772 $625 $3,300
In-Prison Adult Basic Education 3 0.11 0.00 to .214 0.39 $1,972 $1,852 $9,176
In-Prison Vocational Education 2 0.13 .061 to .207 .02 $1,960 $2,835 $12,017
Correctional Industries Programs 3 0.08 .045 to .124 2.18 $1,800 $1,147 $9,413
The authors of the report describe the technical details of their methods in Chapter III. Unlike most meta-analyses of intervention studies, the Institute would combine treatment completers and dropouts to get an unbiased assessment of treatment effects. If a study only reported treatment completers, then that study received the second lowest quality rating. Where possible, the Institute coders used the multivariate outcome rather than the raw unadjusted outcome. Effect sizes were adjusted to remove bias (Hedges, 1981) and the effect sizes were also adjusted based on the quality of the research design. The research quality was based on a 5 point scale: 5 represents the highest quality; a 1 represents the lowest quality. The Institute did not include a study in their analysis if it received a value of 1. Studies receiving a value of 2 did not enter the cost-benefit calculations. Studies receiving a quality rating of 3 were discounted by a factor of 0.5. Studies with a rating of 4 received a 0.25 discount, and studies with a rating of 5 received no discount. In addition to that discount, the Institute also added a discount for programs instituted by researchers or program developers. This so called non-real world discount, represented on page 41 of the report, was noted as 25 percent, a factor of 0.75. However, on page 81 of the report, Table IV-C , the authors list model parameters and indicate that the non-real world programs discount was 50 percent, a factor of .50. On page 109 of Table IV-K, one of the studies depicted in this table indicates an effect size of .30, a design score of 5 (no discount), and a researcher role of 1 indicating researcher participation. The discounted effect size for this study was .15 implying that the Institutes analysis included a 50 percent discount for non-real world programs. The rational for this discount is that the Institute researchers believe programs implemented and evaluated by program developers do not achieve the same magnitude of effect once they are implemented by line staff. The authors do not suggest that researchers and developers who evaluate a study may also subtly influence the outcomes of studies quite unintentionally, although this issue has been raised by Gaes et al. (1999).
The inverse variance method of weighting was used to calculate the average effect size. Confidence intervals were computed and the Q test for homogeneity of variance was calculated. We have added the 95 percent confidence intervals and the Q statistic test results to Table 4. These come from the original reports Table IV-A. We have reoriented the data because in most meta-analyses, an effect size showing a positive benefit is usually recorded as a positive effect size. The Institute chose the opposite way to represent the data, and to reduce confusion for the reader, we have transposed the effect sizes.
As can be seen in the last two columns of Table 4, many of the 95 percent confidence intervals span 0. This means that we cannot be sure that the average effect size is different from 0. Furthermore, many of the Q statistics indicate heterogeneity of variance among the effect sizes. When this happens, analysts are supposed to use a random effects model to represent this heterogeneity or at least use other factors to test why different studies have such disparate effect sizes. It is also interesting to note that the results of the Institutes meta-analysis contradict other meta-analysis results in some domains. For example, the cognitive skills average effect sizes were not significant in the Aos et al., analysis, but were in the analysis by Wilson, Allen, and MacKenzie (2000). One of the reasons that the results of the Institutes meta-analysis diverges from other meta-analyses is the discounting Aos et al., use prior to computing the average effect sizes.
The authors of this report should be commended for providing a table for every assumption and parameter used in their models. This includes a detailed set of tables listing every single study used in the meta-analysis (Table IV-K) indicating the design score, researcher role, number of program participants, number of comparison participants, number of years of follow up, the type of crime outcome, the effect size, the discounted effect size, the statistical significance of the study, and, in some cases, data on the mean differences in the number of offenses between program and comparison subjects. Table IV-L shows all of the data used to evaluate the economics of a program subdomain.
For each program listed in Table 4, the Institute computed the per capita net direct cost. It is a net cost because some programs displace other programs that no longer have to be funded. Some programs have a negative net cost because they are cheaper to run than the ordinary criminal justice program. For example, boot camps are cheaper than normal incarceration for juveniles and adults because the participants spend much less time in a boot camp than they would in a normal correctional regime.
The downstream costs/savings were also calculated. To do this the Institute researchers had to estimate the long-run pattern of criminality (Aos et al., 2001, p. 44) of released offenders. The theory behind these assumptions was that if a program has an effect on recidivism, then it is important to know the long run impact in order to calculate costs and benefits over time. The Institute was able to do this because analysts there have been measuring long term felony re-conviction rates for different criminal subpopulations within the State of Washington. These data are reported in Table IV-B separately for adults and juveniles. The adult data also is reported separately for offenders leaving prison and those placed on community supervision. The Institute analysts then applied the discounted effect sizes to these long term re-conviction trends to be able to calculate the long term re-convictions of program and comparison participants. As Aos et al., note, most program evaluations report short term effects. Thus, one has to assume that the form of the recidivism functions represented by the long term recidivism data is not somehow modified by the program intervention. Although the Institute does account for program effect decay over time within the cost benefit portion of the model.
The discounted weighted average effect sizes and the long term re-conviction estimates we have described constitute steps 1 and 2 in a five-part estimation process. The first two steps are used to estimate, according to the analysts, ...the number of crimes that can be avoided with a program over a long time frame (Aos et al., 2001 p. 46). In the model, the analysts estimate avoided crime, arrests, or convictions. Then in steps 3,4, and 5 they calculate and compare program costs and benefits. The cost benefit amounts appear in the last three columns of Table 4 and come from Table 1 in the original report. Two cost-benefit analyses are provided. The first incorporates only the direct costs and benefits (savings) of a program. The latter incorporates victim effects. The costs of the programs are based on the marginal operating and capital costs of a program in the State of Washington (the column labeled Net Direct Cost of the Program Per Participant in Table 4). The benefits accrue from reductions in the marginal operating and capital costs of criminal justice resources including: police and sheriffs offices, superior courts, county prosecutors, juvenile detention, juvenile probation, juvenile institutions, adult jails, adult prisons, and adult supervision. The crime victims cost savings were taken from Miller, Cohen, and Wiersema (1996) who defined monetary costs and quality of life costs. Monetary costs include medical expenses, property damages, and reduction in future earnings incurred by crime victims. Quality of life costs put an estimate on the pain and suffering of crime victims. These are the most controversial elements of the cost-benefit analysis. In the Miller, Cohen, and Wiersema analysis, these were based on jury awards. When Aos et al., report the net benefits of a program, they provide a lower bound based on the taxpayer benefits only (the criminal justice costs the column labeled Lower End of Range in Table 4) and an upper bound based on the taxpayer and victim benefits (the column labeled Upper End of Range in Table 4). For example, in-prison vocational training costs $1,960 per participant. The net benefit based on taxpayer expenses of this program was $2,835 per participant, and the net benefit that includes victim costs was $12,017. As can be seen in Table 4, some of the net benefits are very large. Multi-systemic therapy for juveniles cost the taxpayer $4,743 per participant; however, the taxpayers net savings is $31, 161 per participant in downstream criminal justice costs and if you include victim benefits, the combined savings is $131, 918 per participant.
The Aos et al., methodology is the most comprehensive evaluation of juvenile and prison interventions that we have come across. It combines some of the best elements of meta-analysis with a solid framework for cost-benefit methods. While the Aos et al., methodology is a model for future cost-benefit analyses for prison and community-based programs, as a research community we will have to decide how to treat study discounting. We will also have to consider what to do about costs when the underlying research meta-analysis indicates a lack of statistical significance and possible study heterogeneity. The purist will argue that in order to proceed with the cost-benefit portion, the effect sizes ought to be significant. This may be appropriate in intervention domains where there is a clear conclusion about the effect sizes. But, there are a number of program intervention domains where the conclusions are, at best, ambiguous and the cost-benefit may still be worthwhile. Finally, some consensus on benefits will have to be reached, especially on how we treat intangible victim costs.
III. The Medical/Mental Health Needs of Released Offenders
The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) in collaboration with the National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCCHC) has completed a congressionally-mandated study, entitled The Health Status of Soon-to-Be-Released Inmates. Key data from the report are compiled in Table 5 and suggest that the prevalence of certain infectious diseases, mental health disorders, and substance abuse problems in inmate populations is remarkably greater than that of the overall U.S. population. The report argues that U.S. correctional systems serve as a strategic venue for diagnostic, treatment, and prevention initiatives for populations in need of health services that otherwise elude traditional public health providers.
Table 5. Summary information on disease among inmates from The Health Status of Soon-To-Be-Released Inmates and other sources.
Disease Estimates of Prevalence Within Correctional Institutions (CIs), Both Prisons and Jails and Among Inmates Who Have Been Released Relation to U.S. Population
Communicable Disease (see notes 1, 2, and 3)
Selected Communicable Diseases In 1996, 3% of U.S. population spent time in a CI; however, 12 to 35 percent of total number of people with these selected communicable diseases in the U.S. passed through a CI during 1996
AIDS Prevalence in Prisons & Jails: 0.5 %; 8,900 inmates with AIDS in CIs Prevalence in U.S. Population: 0.9%; 229,000 individuals. Released inmates in 1996, represented 17% of all 229,000 U.S. AIDS patients.
38,500 inmates released from CIs with AIDS
HIV Prevalence in Prisons: 2.3 to 2.9%; Prevalence in Jails: 1.2 to 1.8%; 35,000 to 47,000 inmates infected within CIs Prevalence in U.S. Population: 0.3%; 750,000 total in U.S. In 1996, Represented 13.1 to 19.3 % of all U.S. HIV positive individuals.
98,500 to 145,000 HIV-positive inmates released from CIs
Sexually Transmitted Diseases (Syphilis, Chlamydia, Gonorrhea) Prevalence of Syphilis in Prisons and Jails: 2.6 to 4.3%; Prevalence of Chlamydia in Prisons and Jails: 2.4%; Prevalence of Gonorrhea in Prisons and Jails: 1.0%; 107,000 to 137,000 infected with STDs inside CIs 465,000 to 595,000 inmates released from CIs
Current or Chronic Hepatitis B Infection Prevalence in Prisons & Jails: 2.0%; 36,000 inmates in CIs 155,000 inmates released from CIs In 1996, between 12.4 to 15.5% of all individuals with current or chronic Hepatitis B infection in U.S. spent time in a CI .
Hepatitis C Prevalence in Prisons & Jails: 17-18.6%; 303,000 to 332,000 inside CIs 1.3 to 1.4 million inmates released from CIs In 1996, between 29 to 32% of estimated 4.5 million individuals with Hepatitis C infection in U.S. spent time in a CI
Tuberculosis (TB) Diseases Prevalence in Prisons: 0.04%; Prevalence in Jails: 0.17% 1,400 inmates in CIs 12,000 inmates released from CIs In 1996, there were12,200 cases of TB disease among people who had spent time in a CI represented 35% of active TB cases in the U.S.
Tuberculosis (TB) Infection Prevalence in Prisons: 7.4%; Prevalence in Jails: 7.3%; 130,000 inmates tested positive for latent TB 566,000 inmates released from CIs
Chronic Disease (see notes 2, 3, and 4)
Asthma Prevalence: 8.5%; 140,738 cases Prevalence in Total U.S. Pop.: 7.8%
Diabetes Prevalence: 4.8%; 73,947 cases Prevalence in Total U.S. Pop.: 7.0%
Hypertension Prevalence: 18.3%; 283,105 cases Prevalence in Total U.S. Pop.: 24.5%
Mental Health (See notes 5, 6, and 7)
Schizophrenia/ Other Psychotic Disorders Six Month Prevalence, Jails: 1.0-1.1% (4,955-5,589 Inmates) Lifetime Prevalence, State Prisons: 2.3-3.9% (22,994-39,262 Inmates) Lifetime Prevalence, Federal Prisons: 0.8-2.5% (763-2,326 Inmates)
Ohio 1.5%; Calif. 3.4%; Michigan 2.8%; Canada 4.4%
Six Month Prevalence, U.S. Pop: 0.4% Lifetime Prevalence, U.S. Pop: .8%
Total ECA 1.5%8
Major Depressions Six Month Prevalence, Jails: 7.9-15.2% (39,690-76,229 Inmates) Lifetime Prevalence, State Prisons: 13.1-18.6% (132,619-188,259 Inmates) Lifetime Prevalence, Federal Prisons: 13.5-15.7 (12,378-14,363 Inmates) Ohio 12.7%; Calif. 7.3%; Michigan 11.3%; Canada 13.6% Six Month Prevalence, U.S. Pop: 8.4% Lifetime Prevalence, U.S. Pop: 18.1%
Total ECA 6.4%
Anxiety Disorders Six Month Prevalence, Jails: 14.01-20.0% (70,613-100,098 Inmates) Lifetime Prevalence, State Prisons: 22.0-30.1% (222,147-303,936 Inmates) Lifetime Prevalence, Federal Prisons: 18.2-23.0% (16,638-21,079 Inmates)
Bipolar (Manic) Disorder Six Month Prevalence, Jails: 1.5-2.6% (7,755-12,920 Inmates) Lifetime Prevalence, State Prisons: 2.1-4.3% (21,468-43,708 Inmates) Lifetime Prevalence, Federal Prisons: 1.5-2.7% (1,393-2,475 Inmates) Ohio 2.8%; Calif. 2.9%; Michigan 2.7%; Canada 1.6% Six Month Prevalence, U.S. Pop: 1.0% Lifetime Prevalence, U.S. Pop: 1.5%
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Six Month Prevalence, Jails: 4.0-8.3% (19,770-41,509 Inmates) Lifetime Prevalence, State Prisons: 6.2-11.7% (62,388-118,071 Inmates) Lifetime Prevalence, Federal Prisons: 4.9-6.8% (4,466-6,257 Inmates) Six Month Prevalence, U.S. Pop: 3.4% Lifetime Prevalence, U.S. Pop: 7.2%
Dysthymia (Less Severe Depression) Six Month Prevalence, Jails: 2.7-4.2% (13,644-21,040 Inmates) Lifetime Prevalence, State Prisons: 8.4-13.4% (85,018-135,121 Inmates) Lifetime Prevalence, Federal Prisons: 6.8-11.6% (6,253-10,652 Inmates) Ohio NA; Calif. 3.8%; Michigan 6.4%; Canada 7.9% Six Month Prevalence, U.S. Pop: 2.0% Lifetime Prevalence, U.S. Pop: 7.1%
Alcohol Abuse/Dependence Ohio NA; Calif. 55.1%; Michigan 46.5%; Canada 47.4% Total ECA 2.6%
Drug Abuse/Dependence Ohio NA; Calif. 50.9%; Michigan NA; Canada 41.6% Total ECA 13.8%
1. Source: The Health Status of Soon-to-Be-Released Inmates, Vol 1, National Institute of Justice, 2001 (Table 4-1). Most of the estimates in this table are from the commissioned paper by Hammett, T.M., P. Harmon, and W. Rhodes. The Burden of Infectious Diseases Among Inmates and Releasees from Correctional Facilities, paper submitted to the National Commission on Correctional Health Care, Chicago, Illinois, 1999. 2. Communicable disease estimates within prison and jails: applied national prevalence estimates to total number of inmates in prisons and jails on June 30, 1997. 3. Communicable disease estimates among persons released from prisons and jails: applied national prevalence estimates to total number of unduplicated inmates released from prisons and jails during 1996.4. Source: The Health Status of Soon-to-Be-Released Inmates, Vol 1, National Institute of Justice, 2001 (Table 4-2). Most of the estimates in this table are from the commissioned paper by Hornung, C.A., R.B. Greifinger, and S. Gadre, A Projection model of the Prevalence of Selected Chronic Diseases in the Inmate Population, paper submitted to the National Commission on Correctional Health Care, Chicago, Illinois, 1999.5. Source: The Health Status of Soon-to-Be-Released Inmates, Vol 1, National Institute of Justice, 2001 (Table 4-3). Most of the estimates in this table are from the commissioned paper by Veysey, B.M. and G. Bichler-Robertson, Prevalence Estimates of Psychiatric Disorders in Correctional Settings, paper submitted to the National Commission on Correctional Health Care, Chicago, Illinois, 1999. 6. Estimates for 19957. The mental illness estimates for specific state jurisdictions are from Diamond et al., 2000, Table 3.8. Total ECA Sample refers to the community-based epidemiological study of mental illness, the Epidemiological Catchment Area program (Romins and Reiger, 1991). The sample size for that study was 19,182.
The potential for enhanced control of communicable diseases in the U.S. is evident. Serodiagnostic studies and tuberculin skin test data from a number of correctional systems indicate that the vast majority of inmates enter prisons already infected with M. tuberculosis, HIV, HCV, and hepatitis B virus (HBV), thus providing an opportunity for detection and intervention prior to release. The recent success of U.S. TB control efforts is, in part, the result of correctional programs that have aggressively identified and treated inmates with active TB disease and latent TB infection as they passed through U.S. jails and prisons. The NIJ and NCCHC report helps quantify the potential scope of correctional involvement in controlling communicable diseases. The report estimates that 98,500 to145,000 inmates with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection were released from prisons and jails in 1996, representing 13.1 to 19.3 percent of all HIV-infected persons living in the United States; and that between 29 to 32 percent of the estimated 4.5 million individuals with hepatitis C viral (HCV) infection spent time in a correctional institution during 1996. These remarkable turnover rates support a public health role for U.S. jails and prisons that involves not only containing infectious diseases, but also decreasing future transmission to others through prevention efforts with infected inmates prior to release. The NIJ and NCCHC report also recognizes mental illness and substance abuse as two of the most prevalent health conditions affecting inmate populations as summarized in Table 5. Additional data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, Mental Health Treatment in State Prisons, 2000 (Beck and Maruschak, 2000) has reported that 1.6 percent of all inmates received 24-hour care in a special housing or psychiatric unit, and that 13 percent received mental health therapy or counseling. Perhaps the most critical review of prevalence data on mental illness in correctional populations is that of Diamond, Wang, Holzer, Thomas, and Cruser (2000). They identify weaknesses in certain studies that have depended on self report, record reviews, and other non-standard diagnostic techniques. The stronger studies use diagnostic assessments with clear definitions and known reliabilities. These diagnostic instruments included the Diagnostic Interview Schedule III (DIS; Robins and Helzer, 1985), the Psychiatric Epidemiology Research Interview (PERI; Dohrenwend, Shrout, Egri, and Mendelsohn, 1980), and the Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM (SCID; Spitzer, Williams, Gibbon, and First, 1990). Diamond et al., compared the results of the individual studies conducted within the prison systems to the Epidemiological Catchment Area program (ECA; Robins and Regier, 1991), a large community-based study of mental illness. The studies using diagnostic instruments like the DIS, PERI, and SCID generally found higher lifetime and current prevalence rates of many psychiatric disorders in the prisoner population relative to the community study. For example, Neighbors et al., (1987) used the DIS to assess mental disorders in the Michigan Department of Corrections. Lifetime rates for all disorders were higher among Michigan prisoners than the community. For almost all disorders that were measured, such as depression, dysthymia, schizophrenia, and bipolar disorders, the lifetime prevalence rates were much higher among the prisoners in Ohio, California, Michigan, and Canada, jurisdictions where sound diagnostic measures were used, than the lifetime prevalence rate in the ECA sample.
Despite the availability of prevalence reports on mental illness in correctional populations, the number of inmates with mental illnesses pending release is rarely reported. In a review of 43,187 inmates released from a sentence who were not deported or detained in other jurisdictions during 2000, the Bureau of Prisons Office of Research identified 1,135 releasees, or 2.63 percent, with a diagnosed mental disorder. In this evaluation inmates with the following conditions were considered mentally ill: bipolar disorder, delusional disorder, presenile dementia, depression major/nonpsychotic, depression major/psychotic, mania, organic mental disorders, schizo-affective disorder, schizophrenia/delusional, schizophreniform. The estimate does not include released inmates with mental illnesses that were undiagnosed at the time of release.
The large number of inmates released to the community with contagious diseases, chronic medical and mental health problems, and histories of substance abuse will require coping skills to maintain long term health. There is an important overlap in the health/mental health needs of released offenders and the skill deficits outlined in Table 1. Many of the skill sets depicted in Table 1 refer to self-regulating behaviors, the ability to limit and control impulsive behavior, and the facility to think through and anticipate the consequences of ones actions. The risk-taking behavior that is implicated by failing to learn to control impulsive behavior overlaps with some of the same behavior associated with infectious disease. For example, intravenous drug use is an example of a behavior that, if it could be controlled by acquiring new skills, would decrease the probability of the transmission of blood borne infectious diseases. The proposed skill sets outlined in Table 1 provide a useful construct for release planning programs for those inmates with serious health problems. Although the health status and previously acquired skills are unique for every inmate, most patients generally benefit from taking greater responsibility for their own health, improving communication with their primary care provider, establishing personal wellness goals, regulating impulsive and risk taking behaviors, and improving interpersonal skills that strengthen family and social support systems (see especially Sbarboro, 1990 on medication compliance). Those inmates with histories of chronic addiction and mental illness require particularly intensive and targeted skill building efforts due to the complexity of these problems and their known association with criminal behavior. Including inmates with serious health problems in proven skill-building programs will not only promote the long term health of released offenders, but is also an effective strategy for improving the public health of our Nation.
IV. External and Internal Barriers to In-prison Preparation and Successful Transitions?
In addition to enhancing inmate skills, removing barriers to needed resources and services is also essential for improving community reentry for high risk inmate populations. Barriers, both external and internal to the correctional environment, must be bridged.
External Barriers to Health Care Provision for Releasing Offenders
In a special issue of Crime and Delinquency, Hammett and colleagues outline the following 5 important research areas that should be studied and developed to improve the medical needs of reentering inmates (Hammett, Roberts, and Kennedy, 2001):
discharge planning, community linkages, continuity of care;
adherence to treatment regimens among releasees with mental and medical problems;
availability of transitional and permanent housing among releasees with mental and medical problems;
quick access of ex-offenders to medicaid, Aids drug assistance, and other benefit programs; and
needs of dually and triply diagnosed individuals being released from correctional facilities.
Most jurisdictions and communities have marginally addressed the important issue of forging linkages between in-prison and community-based health service providers. Model programs in the State of Rhode Island, Hampden County, Massachusetts, and New York City are highlighted in the NIJ/NCCHC report as well as in Hammett et al., (2001). These programs are successful because of strong cooperation between community health care providers and prison and jail administrators. In their most integrated incarnation, the same local health care workers deliver medical care to inmates during incarceration and on a long term basis after release.
Successful programs linking at-risk inmates to necessary health care and support services are exceptions rather than the norm, largely because of agency, policy, and logistical barriers that affect discharge planning and continuity of care. The logistical barriers are formidable. Inmates often hail from different jurisdictions and are frequently housed in remote locations far from their homes. Ensuring chronically ill inmates access to resources and support services in distant communities requires inordinate planning and coordination. Prisons house inmates from many different jurisdictions. Thus, there is an enormous management problem of ensuring that a specific prisoners medical needs are addressed in the community to which he or she will return. Inmates in most states and federal prisons receive direct medical care from onsite prison providers through public funding that is appropriated specifically for prison health care. Consequently, inmates are usually ineligible for federally funded dollars for health care maintenance after release (Ryan White Funds for HIV infected inmates may soon be an exception).
Maintaining continuity of medical care is most critical for inmates with serious health needs. Minimal interruptions in treatment for the most unstable medical conditions can even be life threatening and in certain situations may have significant public health consequences. For example, treatment interruptions in the management of TB disease and HIV infection may lead to resistant infections that are transmitted to other persons. Obtaining fiscal resources for such patients is critical. Released offenders may not have ready access to third party benefits such as Social Security Insurance, Medicaid, or the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP); and most offenders do not have a source of private medical insurance. Qualification for public funds can be difficult and tedious. Even with aggressive discharge planning, certain offenders will not qualify for either private or publicly funded medical insurance and fall to the bottom rung of available medical care, typically Community Health Care networks and local emergency rooms.
Perhaps the most basic need of released offenders is affordable housing (Hammett, et al., p. 401). Returning offenders are frequently faced with a short supply of available housing and are unable to establish a stable home base that would help ensure continued medical treatment and community reintegration.
Overcoming these external barriers to continuity of care for released offenders is daunting but not insolvable. Telemedicine holds the promise of providing community medical practitioners with the ability and opportunity to contact and even evaluate offenders before they are released. Increasingly federal funding of community-based health care requires formal linkages to correctional systems. Certain jurisdictions are allowing offenders to pre-qualify for public health insurance benefits in anticipation of release.
The largest impediment to continuity of care, however, is the lack of interagency communication and collaboration and institutional compartmentalization. Historically, prison administrators focus primarily on safely housing inmates under their custody. Parole and other post-release supervision agencies view their role narrowly as monitoring the offenders under their custody. Community service providers do not enroll ex-offenders until, somehow, they come to their attention. It is the cross-jurisdictional, cross-agency cooperation that has to be nurtured and developed. Recognition of the problem, as they say in drug treatment, is the first step to recovery or, in this case, solutions.
The Impact of Criminal Justice Policies on In-prison Preparation
One of the primary barriers to providing sufficient skills is that correctional systems have two somewhat complementary but also antagonistic purposes insuring the safety of the public, prisoners, and staff and promoting skills that foster reentry. These goals are complementary when prisoners programs provide a constructive environment compatible with day-to-day security needs. Thus, keeping prisoners occupied and focused on their long term goals to reintegrate into society can have a dramatic impact on the safety and security of the institution. Unfortunately, because the bar has been set so high for most correctional systems, prison order is often viewed as the primary mission. There is almost a zero tolerance for escapes, homicides, and other threatening events. This leads to an emphasis on regimentation, close monitoring, and highly structured environments that are not conducive to giving inmates opportunities for self-regulation and self control. These structured environments also often lead to a clash in staff subcultures between the program providers and the security sentinels.
To make this concrete, consider the following two examples. In the first example, medical staff are trying to encourage a prisoner to monitor and control her diabetes. The inmate is encouraged to monitor her blood glucose levels and to inject insulin by herself. But needles in a prison environment are to be tightly controlled. Thus, there is a conflict between providing a reentry skill that should become a habit and the institutional necessity for control of a contraband item. Now consider the inmate who wants to acquire internet skills. But, he is not permitted to use the internet for fear of misusing it to commit a crime. These may seem like simple mundane activities that have solutions, and typically there are solutions. But there is always the tension between those staff who specialize in prison order, the security staff, and those staff who specialize in promoting prisoner skills, the programming staff. Ann Chih Lin has discussed this tension in the context of prison program implementation. Her thesis is that program implementation in a prison depends on the collective efforts and good will of the line staff. Those staff include both those who deliver the programs and those who are responsible for day-to-day operations of the prison, mostly security staff. Lins ethnography examines the structure of program implementation framing the problem as an extension of the concept of the street level bureaucrat. In his classic, Street Level Bureaucracy (1980), Michael Lipsky argued that line staff, rather than policymakers or agency directors, actually make policy. They exercise wide discretion in decisions about citizens with whom they interact. Then, when taken in concert, their individual actions add up to agency behavior (Lipsky 1980: 13).
Ann Lins insight is that successful program implementation depends on the attitudes and the cultural context of the entire prison, both inmates and staff. Her analysis suggests that there are two dimensions of prison culture: prison centered needs and institutional values. Prison centered needs enhance the management of an institution. To the extent prison programs promote, or are complementary to, the primary needs of a prison, both the administration and the line staff will accept those programs. As Ann and others have noted, the primary need of a prison is for order. Prisons must be safe for both inmates and staff. Rules and routines help to establish expectations about behavior.
The second dimension, institutional values, has two poles. At one end is an institution where the overriding ethos is for staff to support one another the notion of staff solidarity. At the other pole of this dimension is an institution where staff and inmate communication are emphasized. In the former culture, the administration backs up staff even when they are wrong. Staff solidarity is a shorthand for a culture that features an us versus them mentality. In a staff solidarity culture, ...for many staff, the two actions backing each other and running to help when a colleaguess life is threatened are morally equivalent. Any relaxation of solidarity leads to a slippery slope. There must never be any doubt about where ones loyalty lies. (Lin 2000, p. 51)
Alternatively, In a culture of communication, staff interact with inmates by openly trying to understand the inmate point of view, by encouraging inmate participation in programs, by seeking to understand the inmates dilemma. These are, of course, idealized abstractions. Because prisons are about order, there will always be a sense of staff solidarity, us against them. But, it does not take long for both staff and inmates to learn that communication and problem solving can preclude violent interactions, defusing situations before they get out of control.
Ann Lin has used these two dimensions to characterize and categorize 5 institutions, four federal and one State facility, to which she made site visits. Successful Implementation occurs in institutions where the institutional culture endorsed communication and programs met the needs of the institution. In that institution she observed variety and flexibility of programs; staff that encouraged program participation; an emphasis on staff-prisoner communication; and an acknowledgment by staff that the institution had a reputation of excellence which encouraged staff to support programs. In the institution where she observed Neglected Implementation, even though there was a culture of communication, programs did not meet prison centered needs. In this prison, too few inmates were enrolled in programs to make a contribution to prison order; programs seemed like an extra burden; however, because there was a history of quality programs at the prison and the relationships between staff and prisoners was good, there was still a tolerance for program innovation. The institution with Subverted Implementation was one in which programs met the needs of the prison; however, the prison culture emphasized solidarity. In such a prison, staff maximize program enrollment to solve the problem of prisoner supervision; however, prisoners resent staff and are not interested in programs. Because of the emphasis on staff solidarity, staff modify programs to serve institutional needs rather than inmate needs. In Abandoned Implementation, there is a culture of solidarity and the prison programs do not meet prison centered needs. In such an institution, staff emphasize solidarity among themselves and social distance from prisoners. The reputation of excellent custody means program staff have no leverage to ask for changes that might benefit programs, and prisoners avoid participation out of resentment of staff.
Ann Lins analysis gives us a theoretical model to understand and minimize the barriers to successful in-prison programming and to providing an opportunity to bring community providers into the institution. If administrators can promote a culture which embraces prison programs that promote prison order, the tension between the guards, on the one hand, and the educators, psychologists, doctors, and counselors on the other, may be minimized.
V. Involving Families While Prisoners Are Still in Prison
One of the dimensions that we outlined in our skill set taxonomy was interpersonal skills. This includes the prisoners interaction with family and children. In order to understand the scope of the problem when it comes to incarcerated parents and their children, we first review the data that is available, mostly from a Bureau of Justice Statistics report. We then examine the few studies that evaluate parenting programs and discuss an article in which the authors tried to lay out some of the parenting issues, especially as they apply to incarcerated men.
The Role of Families
According to a Special Report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (Mumola, 2000), in 1999 of the Nations 72 million minor children, 2.1 percent had a parent in a State or Federal prison. This represented 721,500 parents (667,900 fathers and 53,600 mothers), and about 1.5 million children. These data were based on the 1997 Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities. Only 23 percent of parents in State prison were married at the time of the BJS interview, 28 percent were divorced or separated, and 48 percent had never been married. Among Federal prisoner-parents, 36 percent said they were married, 25 percent divorced or separated, and 38 percent had never been married.
The childs caregiver during their period of incarceration was primarily the childs other parent who was not in prison. However, as one might expect, this was much more true of male incarcerated parents than female prisoners. We have replicated one of the original tables from the BJS report showing who the caregiver for the child was during the parents imprisonment. This is represented in Table 6. Among State male inmate parents, the childs caregiver was primarily the other parent (89.6 percent), followed by the grandparent (13.3 percent), other relatives (4.9 percent), friends/others (4.9 percent), and foster home or agency (2.4 percent). These numbers do not add up to 100 percent because some inmates reported multiple children living with multiple providers. This pattern of caregiving was similar for Federal male imprisoned parents. For incarcerated women parents, the differences were quite dramatic. The childs caregiver while these women were in prison was primarily the grandparent (52.9 percent for State inmates, 44.9 percent for Federal inmates).
Table 6: Childs Caregiver During the Inmate-Parents Period of Incarceration(1)
Childs Current Caregiver Percent of Inmate Parents, 1997
State Federal
Total Males Females Total Males Females
Other parent of Child 85.0% 89.6% 28.0% 87.6% 91.7% 30.7%
Grandparent of Child 16.3 13.3 52.9 12.2 9.8 44.9
Other Relatives 6.4 4.9 25.7 6.2 4.2 33.9
Foster Home or Agency 2.4 1.8 9.6 1.3 1.1 3.2
Friends, Others 5.3 4.9 10.4 6.8 6.4 11.9
Note:1. Source: Mumola, 2001 p. 3 Table 4
In the month prior to their arrest, 35.6 percent of male State inmate parents and 47.2 percent of male Federal inmate parents claimed they lived with their children. For women these percentages were 58.5 percent (State female parents) and 73.4 percent (Federal female parents) respectively. The BJS report shows that only 19.6 percent of State inmate parents and 32.2 percent of Federal inmate parents lived with their children in a two-parent household.
The BJS survey also assessed the extent to which inmate parents remained in contact with their children during their period of incarceration. Overall, 10.1 percent of the incarcerated parents said they kept in contact with their children on a daily basis; 31.2 percent kept in contact at least once a week; 22.2 percent kept in contact once a month;. 16.1 percent less than once a month; and, 20.4 percent had no contact with their children. The primary method of contact was mail, closely followed by telephone, and least of all by personal contact. Females were more likely to keep in contact than males, and Federal inmates were more likely to keep in contact than State inmate parents. We have replicated the source of this information from the BJS publication in Table 7. These data provide a glimpse into the compelling need for prison systems to try to enhance the communication between incarcerated parents and their children. The majority of State inmate males (60.3 percent) have very infrequent contact with their children (once a month or less). A large plurality of Federal inmates (42 percent) have infrequent contact with their children. Even among female incarcerated parents, 39.9 percent of State and 30.3 percent of Federal inmates had contact with their children once a month or less. Personal visits, not surprisingly, are not very common. Overall, among all incarcerated parents, 92.6 percent see their children at least once a month or less. In fact, 56.6 percent had never seen their children. A study by Hairston (1995), found that most incarcerated men were not married to, and had no ongoing relationship with, the mother of their children. So we should recognize that part of the problem in the parent-child dyad, especially for men, is that there is no ongoing relationship between the parent and child to foster familial, social support.
Table 7. Frequency of telephone, mail, and personal contact with children by parents in State or Federal prison, 1971(1)
Frequency and Type of Contact with Children Percent of Inmate Parents, 1997
Total Male Female Total Male Female
Any Type of Contact
Daily or Almost daily 10.1% 9.5% 17.8% 15.1% 14.6% 21.1%
At Least Once a Week 31.2 30.3 42.4 43.7 43.4 48.5
At Least Once a Month 22.2 22.6 18.0 23.8 23.9 22.0
Less Than Once a Month 16.1 16.6 9.7 10.0 10.3 5.0
Never 20.4 21.1 12.2 7.5 7.8 3.3
Daily or Almost daily 6.6% 6.2% 11.3% 13.0% 12.8% 15.0%
Less Than Once a Month 15.4 15.5 13.8 11.3 11.4 9.2
Never 41.8 42.5 32.6 16.2 16.7 9.7
Daily or Almost daily 4.8% 4.4% 9.6% 4.3% 3.9% 9.5%
Less Than Once a Month 18.2 18.6 13.2 18.9 19.2 14.5
Never 30.8 31.6 21.0 16.1 16.4 12.3
Personal Visits
At Least Once a Week 6.6 6.5 8.0 7.1 7.1 6.6
1. Source: Mumola, 2000 p. 5, Table 6.
Inmate parents, on average, expect to serve 80 months in prison; however, 42.2 percent expected to serve less than 4 years. Because the BJS survey is a cross-section of inmates, the data emphasize longer sentences because prisoners with shorter lengths of stay move through the system more quickly. Nonetheless, there were 20.2 percent of incarcerated parents who expected to serve at least 10 years in prison, typically having limited contact with their children as they mature into adults. Furthermore, there is some indication that the incarcerated parents have to have their own needs attended to as well. Over 75 percent had reported a prior conviction, 56 percent a prior incarceration, 58.1 percent reported using drugs in the month before their arrest, and 33.6 percent reported using drugs at the time of their arrest. Non-parents were slightly less likely to report using drugs. Mothers reported more serious drug use than fathers and were more likely to commit a crime to acquire drugs. There were 29 percent of females and 19.0 percent of males reporting intravenous drug use and 32.2 percent of women and 18.5 percent of men claimed they committed an offense to acquire money for drugs. Furthermore, 25 percent of incarcerated parents reported behavior consistent with a history of alcohol dependence. To further emphasize the needs of these parents, the BJS data indicate that 70.9 percent were employed in the month prior to their arrest, 46 percent reported income of at least $1,000 in the month prior to their arrest (mostly wages, or transfer payments -- 72.8%, but also illegal sources 27.2%) , and 9.2 percent has been homeless in the last year (women more than men).
To summarize these data, it appears that there are quite a few incarcerated parents, whose childs welfare, if they are a man, depends on the other parent, and whose welfare depends primarily on the grandparents, if they are a woman. Their contact with their children is limited, especially for men. Their financial resources are meager, and their skill deficits are great. In addition to attending to their individual skill deficits, many correctional systems offer parenting programs. Unfortunately there is no evidence that we are aware of that shows what proportion of inmate parents are able to participate in these programs. There is also no meta-analysis that indicates the degree to which the programs that promote parenting or normative family interaction demonstrate effects on the parent-child relation, the parent, or the child. There is no meta-analysis that we could locate that showed the effect of parenting on post-release recidivism much less the quality of the parent child interaction. There is evidence that marital stability and family relationships decrease the likelihood of post-release recidivism and desistance from crime (Harer, 1987; Laub, Nagin, and Sampson, 1998; Pelissier, B.,Wallace, S., ONeil, J. A., Gaes, G. G., Camp, S., Rhodes, W., and Saylor, W.G., 2000; Rhodes, W., Pelissier, B., Gaes, G. G., Saylor, W., Camp, S., and Wallace, S., 2001). But few studies focus on the effect of parenting programs on the post-release outcomes of the incarcerated parents.
We found a few studies and two reviews of the in-prison parenting programming literature (Lanier, 2001; Magaletta and Herbst, 2001). Marsh, (1983) found that a parenting program in the Idaho State Correctional Institution improved parent communication and child management. Hairston and Lockett (1987) examined a parenting intervention intended to reduce neglect and abuse of children after the incarcerated parents release. However, the authors were unable to establish whether there was any program effect. Lanier and Fisher (1990) described a parenting program based on support meetings, seminars, and a parenting education course; however, the program collapsed before it could be evaluated. Genisio (1996) used anecdotal reports to demonstrate that a book-reading program to improve the relationships between father and child was a success. Harrison (1997) found that parent training led to improved child-rearing attitudes. Landreth and Lobaugh (1998) evaluated filial therapy effects. These researchers found that the intervention resulted in a greater acceptance by their children than control group fathers. The intervention group fathers had fewer problems with their childs behavior and the self-concepts of these children were significantly higher. Wilczak and Markstrom (1999) investigated the impact of parenting education on self-reported measures of satisfaction and knowledge.
Magaletta and Herbst (2001) discuss the chaotic family structure of many incarcerated men. They take a psychological, therapeutic perspective that focuses on the father and the child. They also offer practical suggestions on improving the quality and amount of contact through the use of videotapes and televideo. These authors caution, however, that televideo interactions can benefit from structure just as a contact visit should be structured. Magaletta and Herbst refer to resources that are already available to enhance these remote kinds of visits including letter writing. These authors also point out that families may hide bad news from the incarcerated parent to avoid further distress. Yet, the incarcerated parent eventually learns of the news often in a distorted fashion and the communication may be more distressing in its filtered form. Magaletta and Herbst (2001) suggest a four step process based on cognitive skills that help address some of the problems that arise between incarcerated parents and their children summarized as admission/grieving, confrontation/disclosure, forgiveness/reconciliation, and restoration/healing.
It appears that what little evidence there is supports the effectiveness of parenting programs in improving the parent child relationship for those that can participate. However, while there are theoretical reasons to expect that the enhancement of the parent role should increase the parents post-release success, there is no systematic evidence to support that supposition. In fact, there is no assessment either of the extent to which such programming is available, or the level of prisoner participation. While parenting is an effort to bring the inmates family into the institution, there is also a role for bringing other resources from the community into the prison. At the same time corrections officials and inmates must be looking forward to preparation for release, corrections officials and the community service providers must be looking backward from the community context into the institution.
VI. A Self Help Model and an Agenda for Future Theory and Research
A Self Help Model of Behavior
If there is a prerequisite skill among all of the skills, it is the concept of accountability. We defined this as assuming responsibility for ones own behaviors and recognizing and accepting the short-term and long-term consequences of ones actions. We define this as a skill, even though it may be more appropriately thought of as a requisite disposition. This extends to health care as well. To the extent inmates can be taught to monitor their own health and become informed citizens in their own care and maintenance, this encourages the formation of a disposition to pursue a life style that is inconsistent with substance abuse and other deleterious habits and behaviors. Furthermore, by making the inmate an advocate of his or her health maintenance, we encourage inmates to link to community resources and community providers. Within the context of health decisions, the inmate can enhance the quality of his or her own health care by becoming an informed resource for the community health care provider. This may extend to other positive life style choices. We call this the Self Help model of behavior.
The Self Help model is also consistent with a strength-based reentry philosophy (Maruna and Lebel, 2001) which emphasizes the individual as an asset to his or her community. Maruna and Lebel (2001) contrast the strength-based model to the current themes of supervision/control and welfare/service. According to the control/service model (Maruna and Lebel refer to this as a narrative), the inmate builds his skills under the direction and supervision of service provision agents while he or she is being monitored by control agents. The control agents are security officers inside of prison and probation or parole officers under post-release supervision. However, Maruna and LeBel characterize these approaches as contradictory, or incompatible. The supervision/welfare model locates the locus of responsibility on those monitoring the inmates behavior and those providing treatment or services. The strength-based model locates the locus of control in the individual. According to Maruna and LeBel (2001), the message of the needs model is You have problems and need our help. While the message of the strengths model is You are needed in your community. (Maruna and LeBel, 2001, p. 16). The reason Maruna and LeBel argue that these two models are incompatible is that the essential problem ex-offenders face on reentry is the stigma associated with the conviction. Skill deficits or needs defined by social control agents, according to this approach, reinforce that stigmatization.
Without trying to referee the choice of one model over the other, we see components of both models as important. The control/service model says the community and agents of control have a plan for reintegration that recognizes the offenders strengths and weaknesses. The strength-based model recognizes the potential contribution the ex-offender can make to the community.
Future Directions for Assessment and Interventions
As the What Works literature has re-emerged, resurrected by meta-analyses of program evaluations (Cullen and Gendreau, 2001; MacKenzie, 2000), we should recognize the limitations of this orientation to the psychology of criminal behavior (Andrews and Bonta, 1998). There is plenty of room for further development of theories based upon a psychological model to improve assessment and enhance programs. But this work ought to be embedded within a broader framework that recognizes social context. The work by Laub and Sampson (2001), Uggen and Massoglia (2001), Bushway, Piquero, Broidy, Cauffman, and Mazerolle (2001), and Nagin (1999) on the life course of criminality is an exciting step in that direction. Desistance from criminality is recognized as the process by which the individual begins and ends a criminal career. That career can be very brief or quite long. Moffits (1993) theory of adolescent limited and life course persistent criminality is one step in the recognition of a developmental theory that includes psychology and social context. We envision future theoretical developments that integrate a taxonomy of skill deficiencies with a developmental theory of how these deficiencies arise, a life course model of how propensity can change over time, and an understanding of the social institutions and other social contexts that make this possible. There is a great deal of work yet to do on these theoretical developments at the same time other criminal justice researchers try to figure out how to change policy and make successful reintegration work.
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1. The classification scheme was developed by Patti Butterfield, Bureau of Prisons psychologist, who was working on a reengineering workgroup on inmate reintegration.2. The Gendreau et al., (1996) meta-analysis of the factors that predict recidivism summarized research from a number of studies in which a given predictor of recidivism was, but one, among many covariates. One of the problems in using such covariates in a meta-analysis is that it does not take account of the implication of other covariates in the equation. Thus, studies with different specifications may have different effect sizes by virtue of the covariate pattern.
"Gaes.pdf" (pdf, 1.03Mb)
Family and Marriage IssuesIncarcerated Parents and Re-Entry of Ex-Offenders
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Carol Marie Jenkins: 21-Year-Old Murdered While Selling Encyclopedias Door-to-Door
2 Posted by Jae Jones - September 16, 2017 - Injustices, LATEST POSTS
Carol Marie Jenkins was a 21-year-old African-American woman who was stabbed to death with a screwdriver while selling encyclopedias door-to-door. In September 1968, Jenkins was going door-to-door when she noticed that she was being followed by two white men. Jenkins approached the home of Norma and Don Neal and reported that she was being followed. The Neals called the police to their home, but the police were unable to find the car that was reportedly following Jenkins.
Norma Neal asked Jenkins to stay with them, but Jenkins felt as she had inconvenienced the family enough and left their home. A half hour later, Jenkins was stabbed to death with a screwdriver
For more than 34 years, the murder of Jenkins remained unsolved. But on May 8, 2002, police arrested Kenneth C. Richmond, a 70-year-old career criminal with a history of bizarre behavior and affiliation with groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. Richmond was implicated in the crime by his daughter, Shirley Richmond McQueen, who witnessed the slaying as a child.
Police detectives working in a “cold crimes” squad, were led to McQueen by an anonymous letter. When questioned, McQueen confirmed what the letter alleged that, as a 7-year-old, she had watched from the back seat of a car as her father and another man killed young Carol Jenkins. McQueen identified the clothing that Jenkins was wearing that night, which had never been revealed to the public, so detectives believed that the information given about the murder was accurate and they had found one of the killers.
McQueen’s father gave her seven dollars — one dollar for each year of her life — to stay quiet about what she had witnessed. At the time of the killing, Richmond lived on a Hendricks County farm and was just passing through Martinsville on the night Jenkins was murdered. Richmond never went to trial for Jenkins’ murder. He was declared incompetent to stand trial, and on Aug. 31, 2002, he died of cancer.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/01/07/who-killed-carol-jenkins
Carol JenkinsCarol Jenkins Murder
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Spy Hard
After delivering two hit films last year, John Abraham is back with RAW – Romeo Akbar Walter. The actor, in conversation with Bhakti Mehta, talks about his connection with the script, the experience of working in the film and how he has changed after turning producer
From an army officer, to a vigilante, a RAW agent, and then a police officer… Is this a phase where you explore all the law enforcement roles that there are?
Someone recently pointed this out and asked me whether I am only doing roles that relate to the country. I want to clarify that this has happened by accident, not by design. When RAW came to me, Robbie (Grewal) narrated the script to me and neither of us expected very much from each other. Robbie did not expect me to do the film and I agreed to hear the narration because I found the title, ‘Romeo Akbar Walter’, very interesting.
But after I heard the complete narration, I was blown away, I was completely amazed and I said that I really wanted to make this film happen. It was just so fantastic. Then, in the midst of this, I heard the script of Batla House. And again, Batla House blew my mind. I said that fact is stranger than fiction, like RAW and Parmanu: The Story Of Pokhran, and since this fit the bill, I said yes to this film.
When I was working on Parmanu, it was my pet project just like Madras Café was. I believe that somewhere down the line, I have gravitated to this space and scripts like these have gravitated towards me. But, as I said before, it is definitely not a conscious decision. In fact, I am doing Pagalpanti next, which is a comedy with director Anees Bazmee.
You are breaking the trend with Pagalpanti.
Yes, I am but it was not deliberate. I am doing whatever makes me happy and what I can entertain the audience with. That’s all.
It is interesting that you are doing so many films of this genre but are you apprehensive of crossing the line and becoming jingoistic in any of your roles?
I don’t want to be jingoistic or overly patriotic. I don’t want to wear nationalism on my sleeve. The first and foremost thing is that I want to make films that will entertain people. However, when you walk out of that cinema hall after watching the film, you should get a feeling that I did not know this particular thing about India or its history. This is what people felt after they saw Parmanu last year. They came out thinking that they didn’t know about the nuclear blasts that had happened in Pokhran 20 years ago.
So, if the film is of this genre, if it talks about stuff relating to events like these, it has to have an impact on you. And I can say that RAW will have that impact. I am the producer of films like Madras Café and Parmanu, and I am confident that RAW will spearhead my show reel. I do not know about commercials or the level of success that this film will achieve but it will definitely have such a huge impact on you that you will feel that you’ve got your money’s worth. And it is important that people feel this way, more so because when people watch films with their families, they end up spending a huge sum. So, keeping that in mind, I can say that this film is worth your money.
You said that the main purpose of you doing a film is to entertain. But where does this film fit in, in the content versus commercial battle?
Honestly, I love comedies. I love Anees bhai a lot. And when I am doing Pagalpanti with him, I enjoy every day on the set. I don’t make a conscious decision to do a ‘commercial’ film or a ‘content-driven’ film. The fact is that what is working is films that are different.
I am doing films that I would enjoy watching as a member of the audience. When I read a script, I do it from the perspective of a viewer. If I laugh, then I think it’s very funny and if it touches me then I would say that it has a damn good plot. I think each film brings a certain value to the table and that is how I pick my projects.
There are some films that I do out of pure passion because I know there is a community out there who wants to watch them, like my motorcycle film. It is sheer passion. I feel that I can ride better than I can walk (Laughs). I live, sleep, eat and breathe motorcycles. I can smell fuel, I can hear the sound of a motorcycle and these things make me smile. For someone who lives that life, whatever he does on screen with a motorcycle will look right.
You are turning your passions into your projects.
Yeah. My passion was also telling the story of the assassination of my ex-Prime Minister and I made Madras Café. My passion was also the Pokhran nuclear tests and my passion is also motorcycles.
Another passion of yours is football, which is the theme of your film 1911.
1911 is being written as we speak. Nikkhil Advani is directing it and I am acting in it. There is another hero in the film. It is a co-production between JA Entertainment and Emmay Entertainment. Nikkhil and I are making a lot of films together.
Is there a certain comfort level that you share since you have been working together since 2007?
Oh yes! We did Salaam-e-Ishq together back then. But when I was doing Satyameva Jayate last year, which Nikkhil produced, he was there on set and there is a sense of connection between us which is unspoken because Nikkhil is also a workaholic like me. All he is concerned about is what the script is and how he is going to do it. Then Batla House happened and, as I said, my mind was blown after I read that script, and we decided to do the film. The rest is history.
After one film, we wanted to do one more and then one more and so on. I think it is a very healthy working relationship. And we want to work as co-producers who want to take other actors on this journey as well. It is not about John Abraham doing the film and Nikkhil Advani directing a film, we want to develop a lot of content together.
1911 is a damn good subject. I doubt that one could go wrong unless I play with one foot (Laughs). This is not overconfidence; it is a very strong subject and I think people will really enjoy this. It is a sports film and by the time it releases, I think football will be the new cricket.
When you read a script, is there a difference between your instinct as an actor and as a producer that helps you take the final decision?
Yes, absolutely. I work with a very tight team. I have a head of development, Sanyuktha Chawla Shaikh, whom you have interviewed. She has written Neerja, Parmanu and is writing my next. Then there is Meenakshi, who manages my work and is also a creative producer today. Together, we deliberate subjects that we come across.
One of them is completely focused on content and one is completely commercial, and I am absolutely in the middle! So, when we deliberate, we kind of suss out what we want to do. Sometimes, there isn’t even a script, sometimes it is just an idea that I have or we have, which we think about and say, hey, should we work on this? That’s how we work on our subjects.
RAW is set in the 1970s. To make it authentic, how did you ideate and what did you bring to the table in this regard?
Fortunately, Robbie and I connected very easily with each other. Robbie sat in front of me and told me about my characters, and I say ‘characters’ because there isn’t just one, there are many but primarily it is Romeo, Akbar and Walter. And it was good for him that I understood the character progression. Sometimes, it is hard for a director to get this across to an actor. But we didn’t face any problems there and then it was fun. It was a smooth sailing after that discussion.
Then it was him briefing me about a particular scene and I knew my character progression at that point, whether it was Romeo six months later, or Akbar two years later, or Walter six years later. I was aware of how my character progressed. Then it was easy to fit into that character because I had to slip in and out of certain characters.
Surely that could not have been easy.
Yes. You have to do workshops to make the transition smoother. And you will be a better judge of this but if you see my performances after I have become a producer, they have taken a quantum leap. They are not the same two people. It’s like today, the focus is not on physicality. Of course, I still keep working on my body but the questions that were asked of me before were, how did you lose weight? How did you gain weight? Then they used to ask me stuff about my abs. But, today, the questions are about my character in the films and what I did for them. There is a certain graduation that has happened. I think with Robbie, he understood my gut feeling on the characters and we took it from there.
During Parmanu, you were able to predict the numbers of the first day and determine whether the film would be a hit or a flop even before its release. Do you have that kind of instinct for all your films, RAW, for instance?
I know exactly what numbers RAW will do, which is something I should not be saying right now. (Laughs). I also know how Batla House will do. I know what numbers Pagalpanti will do too. I am confident about how my films are going to fare. It is not because I am overconfident but it is just that I understand the space that I am operating in now.
More In Conversation
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Experienced Pediatric Critical Care Physicians
Experienced Pediatric Intensivists
Children’s Hospital & Medical Center, with the University of Nebraska College of Medicine, is currently recruiting a BE/BC Pediatric Intensivist with a minimum of two years’ experience. The ideal candidate would have an interest to lead Clinical Research, experience and involvement with PALISI would be preferable, or an interest to lead the development of our Fellowship program. Children’s is a vibrant, free-standing pediatric teaching hospital and Nebraska’s only full service pediatric specialty health care center focused on extraordinary clinical care, education, clinical and outcomes, basic science and translational research, and advocacy. The hospital is embarking on transformational programmatic and physical growth to address our local, regional, national and global patient care. The hospital has a Level IV Regional NICU, Level II Pediatric Trauma Center, Specialized Clinical Pediatric Services, and 24/7 Pediatric Intensivists. We have 50+ Specialty Clinics, 200+ Specialists, 14 Satellite Offices, multiple Pediatric Fellowship programs, and is Magnet Certified. Our new campus expansion plans include an additional 100+ beds to the existing 145, expansion to the Newborn Intensive Care Unit, Fetal Care Center and Fetal Surgery, Infant MRI, full urology support with new urodynamic suite, Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, Cardiac Center including dedicated intensive care, Short-Stay Observation Unit, Emergency Department, and new operating rooms, one which will have intraoperative MRI and navigational system. The expansion will also provide new facilities to support education and clinical and outcomes research.
The 19 bed multidisciplinary Pediatric Intensive Care Unit has been expanded by 9 additional beds. The PICU faculty supports a busy cardiothoracic surgery program with three surgeons, heart transplant program and a full complement of pediatric subspecialties. The faculty also supports the 10 bed PICU at the University of Nebraska Medical Center which is home to one of the largest abdominal organ transplant programs in the country. It is also a Level I Trauma Center. The successful candidate will be board certified or eligible in Pediatric Critical Care with a passion for quality patient care.
Candidates must have a strong clinical background including post-operative cardiac care. Additional cardiac training is highly desirable. All faculty will be responsible for teaching medical students, residents, and fellows. The candidate will join the existing 12 pediatric intensivists and hold a faculty position at the University of Nebraska College of Medicine.
The faculty is engaged in several areas of interest including Transport, Extra Corporeal Support, Palliative Care, and Simulation. The Child Health Research Institute provides start-up funding and infrastructure for clinical, basic science, or translational research. Research interests are strongly desired and supported
This is a unique opportunity with unlimited potential to advance a strong clinical and academic career in Pediatric Critical Care. Candidates will have excellent verbal, written and interpersonal communication skills. We seek individuals with strong emotional and social intelligence and a demonstrated ability to connect with others in a meaningful way at all levels of the organization and university.
Omaha enjoys four distinct seasons, along with an exciting metropolitan and a population over 925,000. The people of Omaha make it a safe city where it is special to live and enjoy all the amenities of a big city with the warmth of the Midwest. The area is rich in cultural activities including a professional symphony, ballet, theater, art, history, children’s museums, and a world class zoo that will appeal to every taste. Additionally, Greater Omaha has an outstanding educational system of public and private schools. There are numerous universities and colleges, most notably the University of Nebraska at Omaha, the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Creighton University, and the College of Saint Mary’s. In addition to the many collegiate sports, Omaha hosts the Olympic Swim Trials, the Olympic Curling Trials, and the College World Series. All of this, combined with a diverse economy with multiple Fortune 500 companies, makes for an extraordinary quality of life.
Nominations, expressions of interest and applications (including cover letter and CV/resume) should be submitted to: : (1) Jayesh Thakker, MD, MBA, Interim Division Chief, Pediatric Critical Care (jthakker@childrensomaha.org) and (2) Jon Clay, Administrator, Physician & Faculty Recruitment, jclay@childrensomaha.org or 402.955.6971. All replies will be treated with confidentiality.
Internal Number: pedscc2019
About Children's Hospital & Medical Center
Located in Omaha, Nebraska, Children’s serves as Nebraska’s only full-service pediatric specialty health care center. Our free-standing pediatric teaching hospital has a Level IV regional NICU, Level II Pediatric Trauma Center, Specialized Clinical Pediatric Services and 24/7 Pediatric Intensivists. We have 50+ Specialty Clinics, 200+ Specialists, 14 Satellite Offices, Pediatric Fellowship Programs and Magnet certification.Focused on extraordinary clinical care, education, clinical and outcomes research and advocacy, Children’s is embarking on a journey of transformational programmatic and physical growth to address local, regional, national and global patient care needs. Our new campus expansion will add 100 additional beds to the existing 145, as well as expand several key departments, including the Newborn Intensive Care Unit, Fetal Care Center, Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, Cardiac Care Center with a dedicated intensive care, Short-Stay Observation Unit, Emergency Department and Surgical Services. The expansion will also provide new facilities to support Education and Clinical & Outcomes Research.Children's Hospital & Medical Center has a rich history based on community involv...ement and service to children. The original Children's Memorial Hospital was founded in 1948 by Dr. C.W.M. Poynter, Dean of the University of Nebraska Medical Center, and Henry Doorly, publisher of the Omaha World-Herald, with a vision that no child in need of medical care would be turned away due to an inability to pay. Since its launch in the midst of the polio epidemic, Children’s has been on the leading edge of pediatric care in Omaha and across the region. Children’s has now evolved into a nationally recognized pediatric health care leader with growing global impact.
Pediatric Critical Care Opportunity Hershey, Pennsylvania
Penn State Health Today
RN II SDU Full Time Nights San Luis Obispo, California
Sierra Vista Regional Medical Center Yesterday
Pediatric Intensivist Portland, Maine
MaineHealth Yesterday
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Boston’s 2018-19 Season Will Include Broadway’s Hello, Dolly!, Dear Evan Hansen, Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory & More
March 19th, 2018 | By Ryan Gilbert
The biggest hits on the Great White Way are headed to Boston as part of the just-announced Lexus Broadway in Boston at The Boston Opera House and Emerson Colonial Theatre 2018-2019 season!
Broadway blockbusters Dear Evan Hansen, Hello, Dolly! and Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory will be part of the upcoming season. The lineup will also include The Play That Goes Wrong, Beautiful—The Carole King Musical, School of Rock, The Illusionists—Live From Broadway, A Bronx Tale, Les Miserables, Kinky Boots and Miss Saigon.
Learn more about all of these exciting stage hits below!
November 7 – 18
What would happen if Sherlock Holmes and Monty Python had an illegitimate Broadway baby? You’d get The Play That Goes Wrong, Broadway and London’s award-winning smash comedy! Called "a gut-busting hit" (The New York Times) and "the funniest play Broadway has ever seen" (HuffPost), this classic murder mystery is chock-full of mishaps and madcap mania delivering "a riotous explosion of comedy" (The Daily Beast). Welcome to opening night of The Murder at Haversham Manor where things are quickly going from bad to utterly disastrous. With an unconscious leading lady, a corpse that can’t play dead and actors who trip over everything (including their lines), it’s "tons of fun for all ages" (HuffPost) and "comic gold" (Variety)—sure to bring down the house!
ROALD DAHL'S CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY
January 8 – 20, 2019
Roald Dahl's amazing tale is now your golden ticket! It's the perfect recipe for a delectable treat: songs from the original film, including "Pure Imagination," "The Candy Man" and "I've Got a Golden Ticket," alongside a toe-tapping and ear-tickling new score from the songwriters of Hairspray. Willy Wonka is opening his marvelous and mysterious chocolate factory…to a lucky few. That includes Charlie Bucket, whose bland life is about to burst with color and confection beyond his wildest dreams. He and four other golden ticket winners will embark on a mesmerizing joyride through a world of pure imagination. Now's your chance to experience the wonders of Wonka like never before—get ready for Oompa-Loompas, incredible inventions, the great glass elevator, and more, more, more at this everlasting showstopper!
BEAUTIFUL—THE CAROLE KING MUSICAL
Beautiful tells the inspiring true story of Carole King’s remarkable rise to stardom, from being part of a hit songwriting team with her husband Gerry Goffin, to her relationship with fellow writers and best friends Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann, to becoming one of the most successful solo acts in popular music history. Along the way, she made more than beautiful music—she wrote the soundtrack to a generation. Featuring a stunning array of beloved songs written by Gerry Goffin/Carole King and Barry Mann/Cynthia Weil, including "I Feel The Earth Move," "One Fine Day," "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," "You’ve Got A Friend" and the title song, Beautiful has a book by and Tony Award nominee and Oscar-nominated writer Douglas McGrath, direction by Marc Bruni, choreography by Josh Prince, and took home two 2014 Tony Awards and a 2015 Grammy Award.
School of Rock is a New York Times Critics’ Pick and "an inspiring jolt of energy, joy and mad skillz!" (Entertainment Weekly). Based on the hit film, this hilarious new musical follows Dewey Finn, a wannabe rock star posing as a substitute teacher who turns a class of straight-A students into a guitar-shredding, bass-slapping, mind-blowing rock band. This high-octane smash features 14 new songs from Andrew Lloyd Webber, all the original songs from the movie and musical theater’s first-ever kids rock band playing their instruments live on stage. Vanity Fair raves, "fists of all ages shall be pumping!"
THE ILLUSIONISTS—LIVE FROM BROADWAY
Direct from Broadway, the world’s best-selling magic show is coming to you. This mind-blowing spectacular showcases the jaw-dropping talents of five of the most incredible Illusionists on earth. The Illusionists—Live From Broadway has shattered box office records across the globe and dazzles audiences of all ages with a powerful mix of the most outrageous and astonishing acts ever to be seen on stage. This non-stop show is packed with thrilling and sophisticated magic of unprecedented proportions.
April 2 – 14, 2019
"Wonderful and refreshing! The kind of tale that makes you laugh and cry," says The New York Times. Broadway’s hit crowd-pleaser takes you to the stoops of the Bronx in the 1960s—where a young man is caught between the father he loves and the mob boss he’d love to be. Bursting with high-energy dance numbers and original doo-wop tunes from the songwriter of Beauty and the Beast, A Bronx Tale is an unforgettable story of loyalty and family. Academy Award winner Robert De Niro and Tony Award winner Jerry Zaks direct this streetwise musical—based on Academy Award nominee Chazz Palminteri’s story—that The New York Times hails as "a Critics’ Pick" and amNewYork describes as "a combination of Jersey Boys and West Side Story."
April 16 – 28, 2019
Cameron Mackintosh presents the new production of Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg's Tony Award-winning musical sensation, Les Miserables, direct from its acclaimed Broadway return. Featuring the beloved songs "I Dreamed A Dream," "On My Own," "Stars," "Bring Him Home," "One Day More" and many more, this epic and uplifting story has become one of the most celebrated musicals in theatrical history. With its glorious new staging and dazzlingly reimagined scenery inspired by the paintings of Victor Hugo, this breathtaking new production has left both audiences and critics awestruck. "Les Miz is born again!" (NY1).
May 7 – 12, 2019
Kinky Boots is Broadway’s huge-hearted, high-heeled hit! With songs by Grammy Award- and Tony Award-winning pop icon Cyndi Lauper, this joyous musical celebration is about the friendships we discover, and the belief that you can change the world when you change your mind. Inspired by true events, Kinky Boots takes you from a gentlemen’s shoe factory in Northampton to the glamorous catwalks of Milan. Charlie Price is struggling to live up to his father’s expectations and continue the family business of Price & Son. With the factory’s future hanging in the balance, help arrives in the unlikely but spectacular form of Lola, a fabulous performer in need of some sturdy new stilettos. With direction and choreography by two-time Tony Award winner Jerry Mitchell (Legally Blonde, Hairspray) and a book by Broadway legend and four-time Tony Award winner Harvey Fierstein (La Cage Aux Folles), Kinky Boots is the winner of six Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Score and Best Choreography.
The New Yorker calls it "a dynamite Broadway revival." Experience the acclaimed new production of the legendary musical Miss Saigon, from the creators of Les Misérables. This is the epic story of a young Vietnamese woman named Kim. In a bar run by a notorious character called The Engineer, Kim meets an American G.I. That encounter will change their lives forever. Featuring stunning spectacle, a sensational cast of 42, and a soaring score including Broadway hits like "Last Night of the World," "The Movie in My Mind" and "The Heat is On in Saigon," this is a theatrical event you will never forget. NY1 says, "the new Miss Saigon soars to the rafters!"
Winner of six 2017 Tony Awards, including Best Musical! A letter that was never meant to be seen, a lie that was never meant to be told, a life he never dreamed he could have. Evan Hansen is about to get the one thing he’s always wanted: a chance to finally fit in. Dear Evan Hansen features a book by Tony Award winner Steven Levenson, a score by Academy Award and Tony Award winners Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, and direction by four-time Tony Award nominee Michael Greif (RENT, Next to Normal). Rolling Stone calls Dear Evan Hansen, "a game-changer that hits you like a shot in the heart." The original Broadway cast recording of Dear Evan Hansen made an extraordinary debut on the Billboard 200 when released and entered the chart at #8—the highest charting debut position for an original cast album since 1961. A special edition coffee table book authored by Levenson, Pasek and Paul, Dear Evan Hansen: Through the Window is now available, offering an in-depth, all-access look at the musical, including never-before-seen production photos and cast portraits, behind-the-scenes stories and a fully annotated script by the authors.
Starring Broadway legend Betty Buckley
August 6 – 18, 2019
Winner of four Tony Awards, including Best Musical Revival, Broadway’s most beloved musical is back where it belongs! Directed by Tony Award winner Jerry Zaks and featuring choreography by Tony Award winner Warren Carlyle, Hello, Dolly! is "the best show of the year" (NPR). The bold and enchanting Dolly Gallagher Levi is a widow, matchmaker and professional meddler. When she decides the next match she needs to make is for herself, she weaves a web of romantic complications for her newest client, the cantankerous "half-a-millionaire" Horace Vandergelder, his two clerks, a pretty hat maker and her assistant. Hello, Dolly! features Broadway classics like "Before the Parade Passes By," "It Only Takes a Moment," "Put on Your Sunday Clothes" and, of course, the title number, "Hello, Dolly!" Breaking box office records week after week and receiving thunderous critical raves on Broadway, this "gorgeous" new production (Vogue) pays tribute to the original work of legendary director/choreographer Gower Champion—hailed both then and now as one of the greatest stagings in musical theater history. Rolling Stone calls it "a must-see event. A musical comedy dream. If you’re lucky enough to score a ticket, you’ll be seeing something historic. Wow, wow, wow indeed!"
For more information about the series and the benefits of being a subscriber, click here.
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Team Fortress 2 is a team-basedfirst-person shooter, which sees two teams taking part in a variety of modes including capture the flag.
There are nine character classes with different abilities, and the game features a cartoon-like style.
Competitive play is usually 6v6, 9v9 or 4v4.
The game is known for its close-knit community and there is also the ability to buy, sell and trade in-game items such as character outfits.
One of the most popular online action games of all time, Team Fortress 2 delivers constant free updates—new game modes, maps, equipment and, most importantly, hats. Nine distinct classes provide a broad range of tactical abilities and personalities, and lend themselves to a variety of player skills.
No matter what your style and experience, we’ve got a character for you. Detailed training and offline practice modes will help you hone your skills before jumping into one of TF2’s many game modes, including Capture the Flag, Control Point, Payload, Arena, King of the Hill and more.
There are hundreds of weapons, hats and more to collect, craft, buy and trade. Tweak your favorite class to suit your gameplay style and personal taste. You don’t need to pay to win—virtually all of the items in the Mann Co. Store can also be found in-game.
Platforms: PC, Xbox 360, PS3
Players: 6v6, 9v9, 4v4
Publisher: Valve
Notable tournaments: ESEA TF2 Invitational
Website: http://www.teamfortress.com/
Popularity: Around 2m active players per fortnight
Launched: October 2007
Other Pegi info: Realistic looking violence
Back to full game listing
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The Arab League, Apple Pie and Indigestion
March 6, 2007 — budsimmons
By David Singer
Jordan’s King Abdullah is at it again, repeating the mantra of the Arab League, of which Jordan is a foundational member:
“The principal problem in the region is the Palestinian issue and, if it is not solved, it will be impossible to solve other problems.” [Jerusalem Post 2 March 2007]
Palestine comprised an area of about 120000 square kilometers, which has now been divided into two sovereign States – Israel (22000 square kilometers) and Jordan (92000 square kilometers) – plus an area of 6000 square kilometers called the West Bank and Gaza in which statehood still remains undeclared.
The Arab League has called for full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the West Bank and Israel’s acceptance of an independent Arab State there with East Jerusalem as its capital.
(i) the expulsion of some 400000 Jews presently living in the West Bank who have lived there for all or part of the last 40 years.
(ii) the perpetual abandonment by Jews of all claims to reconstitute their national home in the West Bank as conferred on them by the League of Nations and confirmed by the United Nations.
(iii) The severance of the Jews from their biblical heartland where they lived as an independent nation long before any Arabs came to the area as foreign conquerors and occupiers seven centuries after the birth of Jesus.
The Arab League has shown no indication of any readiness to abandon this “all or nothing approach” by agreeing to the Jews retaining and living in a portion of this disputed territory whilst the remainder and its Arab residents becomes part of Jordan, as it was between 1948 and 1967.
A second Arab State in Palestine, which has been propounded for the last 15 years, is as ridiculous as suggesting a second Jewish State in Palestine.
Two peoples need two States not three.
Whilst the Arab League persists with this intransigent attitude there is indeed a problem, but one solely of the Arab League’s choosing.
The Arab League presently is made up of 22 member States covering almost 14 million square kilometers in which almost 320 million Arabs reside.
It is ridiculous and completely false to continually advocate that a dispute over 6000 square kilometers housing 3 million Arabs must first be settled before all the other problems in the region can be resolved.
Yet this is precisely what the Arab League has sold to the Quartet – America, Russia, the United Nations and the European Union. – and they have swallowed it hook line and sinker
Besotted by this tale that could have come from the Arabian Nights, the Quartet has thrown billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of hours in aid and diplomatic maneuvering in trying to solve this problem. They have not gotten the disputants to even move off the starting block.
Meanwhile the Arab League has allowed far more serious bushfires to rage out of control in some of its’ own member States, conflicts that threaten to eventually consume the Arab League itself.
In fact some League members such as Syria are actively helping to fan the fires by providing arms, money and safe transit for terrorists to bring down the governments of other member states where life is anything but pleasant.
The League’s biggest problem involves a non Arab state – Iran – as it seeks leadership of the Islamic world through the supremacy of Shia Islam as the dominant Islamic religion over Sunni Islam , the religion of the majority of the Arabs.
This is the clash of ideologies that must first take place before militant Islam can hope to achieve its aim of making Islam the world’s dominant religion.
Islam can only have one leader not two to achieve this objective. Will that leader be Shia or Sunni?
The Arab League’s failure to prevent Iran interfering in the affairs of Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority and Iraq has given Iran and the Shiites easy entrée into the Arab World and put the Arab League’s very future existence under serious threat.
The white ants are on the march and the Arab edifice is in danger of total collapse.
Perhaps it is time for the Quartet to tell the Arab League to start solving the problems affecting their own member States such as Lebanon, Iraq, Algeria, Somalia and Sudan, where the lives of 100 million people are at risk every day and where the sight of Moslem blowing up Moslem and mosque after mosque being bombed is unbelievable
The Quartet should also put the Palestinian question on the backburner and focus their attention, effort and political clout (if any is left) on the real and pressing issues outlined above.
Creating another Arab State on 6000 square kilometers of land when you already have 22 Arab States on 14 million square kilometers of land reminds me of the glutton who was given 99.5% of the apple pie but still was not satisfied and demanded the rest.
He ended up with severe indigestion.
[The writer acknowledges Wikipedia as the source for the statistics appearing in this article]
David Singer is an Australian lawyer and convenor of Jordan is Palestine International, an organisation calling for sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza to be allocated between Israel and Jordan as the two successor states to the Mandate for Palestine.
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/03/the_arab_league_apple_pie_and.html at March 06, 2007 – 11:47:03 AM EST
Posted in Islam, islam fundamentalist, Islam ideology, Islamic Imperialism, Islamic Jihad, Islamic Propaganda, islamic recruiting, Islamic Schools, Jordan, King Abdullah. Leave a Comment »
Warming to Failure
By J.R. Dunn
A certifiable paranoiac would have a high old time tracing out the patterns behind the global warming campaign of the past month. The effort has the feel of something long planned, well scripted, and worked out to the final detail. It’s hard to avoid thoughts of conspiracy when contemplating the activities of the Greens.
Not that it’s necessary to believe any such thing. (In analyzing cases like this, I apply Dunn’s First Law: With enough idiots, you don’t need a conspiracy.) It’s part of the natural order — birds flock, insects swarm, and Greens campaign. But the actual point is, whether carefully-hatched scheme, herd instinct, or sheer accident, it’s clear at this juncture that the effort has failed.
Let’s take a closer look at those patterns. First we have the release of the International Panel on Climate Change “report” (still referred to that way throughout the legacy media, despite the fact that the actual report isn’t due out for several months yet). This was followed by weeks of mounting hysteria in every possible media outlet, culminating in Al Gore’s Norma Desmond moment at the Oscars. Then at last, the universal sigh of relief as the climate program telling us exactly what we need to do to save ourselves was presented to the UN by 18 (count ‘em, 18 — all mainstream, too!) scientists.
The big report you never heard about
What’s that? You didn’t catch that last part? Neither did anybody else. (Notice that the link leads to the Voice of America, the only site where I could find a complete report, and not the New York Times or Washington Post) And that’s an odd thing. The entire effort was obviously building up to the revelation of What Must Be Done, to be delivered in tones of thunder to a world agonized to the breaking point. Instead it comes across as the standard piece of useless UN paper – of the type dealing with fisheries policy in the Maldives or primary schooling in Slovakia.
But this particular report went effectively uncovered, unmentioned, and ignored – an awfully strange response to the solution to the most terrifying threat in human history. Clearly, something went wrong. If the campaign had been a success, it would have been covered, all right – as much as the IPCC summary and then some. Al would have been at the UN. So would Hillary, Chuck, and Nancy, more than likely. There would have been speeches, and plenty of them. Parked SUV’s would have been trashed all around Manhattan. Somebody would have pointed out that Turtle Bay would in short order be twenty, or forty, or sixty feet underwater.
None of that happened – the unveiling of the grand solution was a complete washout. (And what was the solution? Umm… carbon taxes and… I forget.) With a failure as abject as this, there’s no simple means of recovery. The entire effort to sell anthropogenic global warming will have to be redone from scratch. Look for another buildup when the actual IPCC report is released sometime this Spring. It’s a good thing they can’t do the Academy Awards all over again.
Three major factors are responsible for the Green’s failure:
* The weather
* Al Gore
* Science
Bad timing: a seasonal obsession
The weather is the key factor, the one that rendered it impossible to push the warming thesis as an accomplished fact. The IPCC report was released during the first days of the worst six weeks of weather in several decades. While the UN, Al, and the media jabbered about how hot it was getting, the rest of the northern hemisphere was digging out of blizzards, enduring colder temperatures than any in recent memory (this was the worst run of continuous low temperatures I have seen personally since the infamous “ice age winter” of 1975), and in some cases simply trying to live through it. Europe was hit by killer blizzards, one of which shut down all of southeastern England. Japan, China, and Korea suffered bone-chilling readings. Cambodia was treated to temperatures of an unthinkable 40 degrees Fahrenheit, prompting the distribution of blankets to the poor. The central and northern U.S. went through weeks of below-freezing temperatures, (two and half weeks here in western PA), with much of the rest of the country enduring less than normal levels. Excessive snow, often reaching blizzard heights, added to everyone’s pleasure. Some are still going fighting their way through it – on March 1, Governor Culver declared all of Iowa a disaster area after an extra foot of snow fell in one 24-hour period.
The result was a general popular tacit dismissal of “global warming” talk as elitist nonsense, something to occupy the time of people who don’t have to dig out their sidewalks, free their cars, or rescue stranded travelers.
Of course, weather is not climate – but the distinction is irrelevant, as far as public attitudes are concerned. And as has been pointed out here previously, there is a direct correlation to global warming as a scientific proposition. The most plausible warming models predict that the bulk of temperature rises will occur during the winter in high latitudes. After thirty-odd years of uninterrupted warming, we should be seeing some sign of this, and not a return to bitter mid-70s winters. This is a case where the public mind is correct even when it’s wrong.
The possibility of something like this could have been foreseen. February, after all, is the generally the coldest month of the year. Could it be that the IPCC release was arranged by a UN bureaucrat from a tropical country, one not all that familiar with northern weather patterns? Whatever the case, the lesson to draw from this is: don’t put out your global warming material in mid-winter in the Northern Hemisphere industrialized countries.
The second factor is something vaster and more certain than mere weather or climate: Al Gore’s arrogance.
It can’t be said that Al didn’t deserve what he got. The revelation that his Nashville mansion uses more electricity each month than the last twelve Olympics (he must have felt right at home among all those spotlights on Oscar night) has struck his halo of Green rectitude a serious blow. Later revelations that his explanation was bogus may well have shattered it. (He claimed to be making up for all that power usage by purchasing carbon offsets.
The problem is that they were being purchased from Generation Investment Management — chairman, Albert Gore, Jr. In other words, Al was paying Al for the privilege of wasting electricity. It’s as if Gandhi had been photographed inside his ashram wearing spats and a waistcoat and sipping Boodles gin. From now on all the little gestures – riding in the hybrid limo, having the private jet pilot sign the carbon offset certificate, and for all we know, touring the North American continent in a solar-powered blimp – are going to look just the slightest bit hollow.
Gore can’t help this. He was born to make the wrong move at the absolute worst time. Any doubts about that are erased by two even more recent incidents: sneaking his party past security at Nashville airport (“It’s okay, they know me here…”), and, as Iowa was being shut down by the worst blizzards since the retreat of the glaciers, giving his customary warming Jeremiad to a crowd in Oklahoma only a few hundred miles south.
What this means is that the Greens will have to cultivate a new messiah. Gore’s campaign will continue, and media inertia being what it is (don’t you feel sorry for all those people predicting his run for the presidency in ‘08?) he’ll get plenty of coverage. But his effectiveness as a spokesman for the Green cause is nil. Al Gore has once again become what he was after his post-2000 election tantrum — a joke. And while there are second acts in American lives, pushing for a third is really tempting the fates.
The final element is science – namely, its lack of respect for anybody’s opinion, even that of its own most mainstream elements. “The debate is over” was supposed to be one of those catchphrases that enters common usage and sweeps all resistance before it, like “Women don’t lie” or “We want change”. But even as the warming campaign was unfolding, we were given a clear demonstration that science never produces final answers. Over the past month, two scientific challenges to the warming thesis were made public, one of them speculative, the other damning.
The speculative aspect is provided by a theory advanced by Danish astrophysicist Henrik Svensmark of the Center for Sun-Climate Research. Svensmark’s theory is complex, but can be summarized easily enough. It is based on the observation that cosmic rays assist in cloud formation by encouraging condensation. A rise in solar activity strengthens the sun’s magnetic field, which shields the inner solar system from cosmic rays. Cloud formation drops slightly but significantly, lowering the earth’s albedo – its reflectivity – resulting in increased temperatures.
Solar activity is currently at all-time high, with the intensity of incoming cosmic rays correspondingly low. Have rising temperatures been a mere coincidence? Svensmark doesn’t think so, and has convinced one of Britain’s premier science writers, Nigel Calder, to collaborate with him on a book, The Chilling Stars, not yet published in the U.S.
The other challenge was embodied in an op-ed by NASA climate scientist Roy W. Spencer in the New York Post. Not your average scientific journal, it’s true, but it’s been along time since this was merely a scientific question. Spencer points out a glaring omission in nearly all climatology dealing with warming: a complete neglect of the phenomenon of precipitation. Spencer explains that precipitation lowers atmospheric temperature, with effects on the climate in general that remain unknown. The lack of consideration of precipitation in the global warming model is a gross error, on the level of putting the wrong lenses on the Hubble Telescope or confusing metric and English measurements while constructing the lost Mars probe.
How much is overall temperature lowered by precipitation? We don’t know. Has the level and frequency of precipitation increased? We don’t know that either. Precipitation is probably the least understood element of climate. We don’t even know the total amount of precipitation in the world. A clearer indictment of warming “science” is impossible to make.
Svensmark’s theory remains to be tested, and the data concerning the effects of precipitation need to be collated and analyzed. But their implications cannot be ignored. The fact that two such major elements, one cosmic, one prosaic, have been overlooked undercuts the warming thesis completely. The warming theorist’s obsession with carbon dioxide buildup – only one factor in an infinitely complex system – has blinded them to everything else. They’re in the position of a pack of hounds so intent on the rabbit that they missed the cliff edge right in front of them.
It’s heartening to see that the Greens, whether technical, political, or media, have retained their basic ineptness. They’re such cookie-cutter true believers that they really can’t grasp how they can go wrong or why anyone wouldn’t listen to them. As a result they begin their push in the middle of winter, choose the current prince of the also-rans as their champion (such individuals, who include figures such as Wendell Wilkie and Hubert Humphrey, can often go on to make serious and valuable contributions. But not this time.), and ignore the fact that science marches on without regard to anybody’s agenda.
The campaign will continue. We’ll be hearing about global warming until the glaciers return, the same way we occasionally still hear a few frightened voices crying about overpopulation, in a world where population collapse is the challenge. The Greens may pass some taxes, get some cosmetic programs pushed through, but the idea of a Green millennium, of some kind of apocalyptic phase-change resulting in a global environmentalist state, is something we can forget about.
They had their shot, and they have blown it. The past few weeks could serve well as a textbook example of how not to influence public opinion. In time (and it can’t be soon enough), global warming will take its place in the museum of folly alongside overpopulation, nuclear winter, and the coming ice age. There aren’t any spotlights there, and they don’t give out prizes either.
Posted in Al Gore, Global warming, global warming hoax. Leave a Comment »
To My Fellow Muslims: We Are Our Own Enemies
By Khaleel Mohammed
Ottawa Citizen | March 6, 2007
Whenever I criticize some aspects of traditional and contemporary Islam in public, the reactions are boringly uniform. The leaders of national Islamic organizations come out with harsh denunciations of my views, while individuals within the community write to congratulate me. Some do question my motives, advising that my harsh words might add to rampant Islamophobia.My answer is always the same: I do what I do because I see myself, especially in my role as a scholar, as being so commanded by my God, “O you who believe, be upholders of justice, bearing witness for God alone, even against yourselves or your parents and relatives” (Koran 4:135).
When the Feb. 6 edition of the Citizen put my comments on its front page, the reaction was predictable. It was no less different when in March 2004, at a conference in Montreal, I made the statement that many mosques preach anti-Jewish and anti-Christian rhetoric. I was, the leaders of some Muslim organizations declared, destroying the bridges of rapprochement that had been built between communities. On these occasions I point to translations of the very first chapter of the Koran that have interpolations that preach hatred against Jews and Christians. I can quote exegete after exegete. The truth cannot be overcome.
I write not only as an academic scholar of religion, but also in my role as a father, troubled by the pervasive anti-Jewish, anti-western teachings that I know exist in some mosques. Just a few summers before the Montreal conference, I had re-established contact with one of my sons after a rather acrimonious divorce. I had last seen him when he was but five years old, and now, here he was, 14 years old, trying to show me, his learned dad, that he too could joke the way I do: “How do you kill a Jew, dad? — You throw a quarter on the highway!”
I knew that neither his mother nor stepfather would express these ideas, and I probed further. I learned that his teacher at a licensed private school in Edmonton had given him that piece of wisdom. It is true that this may have been an isolated incident — but my interactions with children at large, and with parents too, indicate a similar Muslim view of the religious other.
Even now, in blogs among my fellow Guyanese, a people who have always been known for their pluralism and liberal “calypso” Islam, the discussion often leads to the condemnation of the religious other. Certainly, in Judaism, Christianity and other religions, there are groups that similarly offend. But at least in those religions, we don’t see an institutional defence of hate.
My statements to the Citizen about the backwardness of my faith community were meant to prod my co-religionists into thinking about themselves and their harsh views of the other. I don’t deny for a minute that as a body of people, Muslims in Canada are among the most sophisticated citizens, the holders of degrees and some of the most demandingly intellectual professions. That, however, does not erase the pervasive religious illiteracy that, like a malignant cancer, threatens to destroy the entire corpus of what was once, and still can remain, a great religion.
Scholar Scott Appleby of Notre Dame describes “religious illiteracy” as the low-level or virtual absence of moral reflection and basic theological knowledge among faith followers that could lead to violence against perceived threats. In Islam, this is particularly applicable.
The evidence is blindingly clear: Throughout the world, Muslim intellectuals are punished for daring to criticize. Muhammad Said al-Ashmawy in Egypt is under house arrest for his own protection; Abdel Karim Soroush is beaten in Iran for daring to raise the voice of inquiry, Mahmoud Taha is killed in Sudan. Scholars Rifat Hassan, Fatima Mernissi, Abdallah an-Na’im, Mohammed Arkoun and Amina Wadud are all vilified by the imams for asking Muslims to use their intellects.
Some claim that trained imams are like priests and rabbis. This is certainly a possibility — and in Bosnia and Turkey, I do know that imams are trained. But the fact is that most imams in Canada are not trained. The fact is, too, that even trained imams base their worldview on medieval constructs of Islamic law that are not only obviously backward, but also downright threatening to national security.
Another point raised in the follow-up coverage to my interview was that an imam might be fired for preaching something wrong. My question is, how is the flock going to know when the imam is wrong? After all, he is the leader, the supposed exegete, the scholar who may have suddenly been imbued with Islamic scholarship by some miracle because he happens to be a medical doctor.
Islamic law was developed largely from the eighth through the 10th centuries, a period when the Muslim polity in the Middle East was at the zenith of its power. In such a situation, the Muslim was the superior to everyone else, and the law was to empower him. Islam was there to rule, not to talk about co-existence in terms of equality.
In the medieval mind the non-Muslim had few rights, and specious argumentation could be used to even further reduce those rights. Contemporary Muslim colleges still use the same texts to function in modern society, hence the backwardness of the average imam, trained or not.
Is this the sophisticated group that — but for the efforts of good people like Tarek Fateh — wanted to have Shariah in Canada? Is this the group that, in Montreal, relegated women to pray in the basement of a mosque? Is this the group that still produces some followers who, when asked “Are you Canadian?” respond, “No, I am a Muslim.”
And herein lies the problem of cultural identity. There is no one Islam. The Guyanese Muslim is different from the Bosnian Muslim who is different from the Pakistani Muslim who is different from the Saudi Muslim etc. To talk about Canadian culture as being inherently un-Islamic is to create an imagined geography that, at least, creates disharmony and, at worst, threatens subversion.
Muslim apologists point out that Arabs are only about 20 per cent of the Muslim world community. That means that — at best — the ratio of people who can read the Koran in its original language is one in every five. And even for those who do speak Arabic, the Koran, from the 10th century onwards, has ceased to speak for itself. Instead, a Muslim scholar will quote the Koran and define his citation by saying, “Tabari explains it thus …” or “Zamakhshari explains it thus …” In both cases of reference, the exegetes are medieval men.
The Koran harshly admonishes against tyranny and oppression. Islam’s holy text uses many Biblical motifs to illustrate its message, among them, the example of Moses and Pharaoh. Sometimes the Guyanese in me comes out when I see the horrible condition of my fellow Muslims, and I want to sing out, “Let my people go!” And then I look around and realize that Pharaoh is one of us — in the form of leaders and pervasive ignorance that have usurped the place of reason.
I say this not as an outsider, but as an observant Muslim, buoyed in my confrontational view by the Koranic advice: “God will not change the condition of a people until they change it themselves (Koran 13:11).”
In such a state of affairs, it would seem that there is a need for jihad — not against outsiders, but against ourselves.
Posted in Islam, islam fundamentalist, Islam's Founder, Islamic Fifth Column, Islamic immigration, Islamic Imperialism, Islamic Jihad, Islamic lies. Leave a Comment »
Clarence Thomas: I Hate the Media
By NewsMax.com
Sunday, March 4, 2007 8:54 p.m. EST
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is no fan of the news media.
“One of the reasons I don’t do media interviews is, in the past, the media often has its own script,” he said in an interview with Business Week magazine. “The media, unfortunately, have been universally untrustworthy because they have their own notions of what I should think or I should do.”
Thomas has been particularly upset by stories of how he ended up at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass. According to the Los Angeles Times, Thomas says the common wisdom is that he was recruited for the school in 1968 as part of an affirmative action effort.
“That was the creation of the politicians, the people with a lot of mouth and nothing to say, and your industry,” Thomas told Business Week. “Everything becomes affirmative action.”
The real story, Thomas says, is that a nun suggested Holy Cross to him.
“That’s how I wound up there,” he said. “Your industry [the news media] has suggested that we were all recruited. That’s a lie. Really, it’s a lie. I don’t mean a mistake. It’s a lie.
“That thing that has astounded me over the years is that there has been such an effort to roll that class into people’s notion of affirmative action,” he continued. “You hear this junk. It’s just not consistent with what really happened.”
Posted in ABC, AP, AP/CNN, CNN, CNN pro islam, CNN traitors, Drive-by big city media, Supreme Court. Leave a Comment »
Ann Coulter Fires Back at Critics Over John Edwards ‘Faggot’ Barb
By FoxNews.com
Tuesday , March 06, 2007
Ann Coulter fired back at critics who demanded the conservative columnist apologize for comments she made during a speech in which she referred to Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards as a “faggot.”
“‘Faggot isn’t offensive to gays; it has nothing to do with gays,” Coulter said on “Hannity and Colmes” Monday night. “It’s a schoolyard taunt meaning ‘wuss,’ and unless you’re telling me that John Edwards is gay, it was not applied to a gay person.”
Coulter came under fire after delivering a speech Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C.
• VIDEO: Ann Coulter Fires Back at Critics
“I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot,'” Coulter said.
The slur caused a firestorm of controversy over the weekend and earned condemnation from both the right and the left. Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean demanded that the “Godless” author apologize for her “hate-filled and bigoted” remarks. The Edwards camp tried to capitalize on the hullabaloo by asking supporters to donate $100,000 in “Coulter Cash” to “show that inflaming prejudice to attack progressive leaders will only backfire.”
Republican presidential hopefuls Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani publicly denounced the remarks.
Coulter called the whole controversy another example of the mainstream media’s “speech totalitarianism” and says she sees no reason to apologize for a joking comment that was taken out of context.
• Follow the horserace for the presidency in FOXNews.com’s You Decide 2008 Center.
“What I was saying right there was for conservatives to not let the mainstream media describe us as anti gay and oppose Mitt Romney’s policies for being pro-gay,” Coulter said.
Coulter didn’t spare the GOP hopefuls, either.
“Apparently our top three Republican nominees aren’t that smart,” Coulter said. “And by the way, if they’re going to start apologizing for everything I say, they better keep that statement handy cause there’s going to be a lot more in the next year.”
Posted in Ann Coulter. Leave a Comment »
China’s spies ‘very aggressive’ threat to U.S.
By Bill Gertz
China’s intelligence services are among the most aggressive at spying on the United States, followed by Cuban, Russian and Iranian spy agencies, according to the U.S. government’s top counterintelligence coordinator.
“These services are eating our lunch,” Joel F. Brenner, the new head of the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, said in his first interview since being named to the counterspy post in August.
Mr. Brenner, a former inspector general at the National Security Agency, told The Washington Times that the U.S. remains the No. 1 target of “virtually every significant espionage service on the face of the Earth.”
China’s intelligence activities have been “very aggressive” at acquiring U.S. advanced technology, often before it is fully developed here. “The technology bleed to China, among others, is a very serious problem,” he said, noting that the FBI is improving its efforts to identify and protect sensitive technology.
Beijing also succeeded in penetrating, and thus frustrating, U.S. intelligence against China through Katrina Leung, a Los Angeles businesswoman who was a long-time FBI informant secretly loyal to Beijing, Mr. Brenner said.
Mr. Brenner’s office, known as NCIX, is working on a new presidential strategy for counterintelligence. The goal of the office is to provide strategic direction aimed at bolstering counterintelligence agencies, including the FBI, CIA and Pentagon counterspy units.
Another key priority is using counterintelligence techniques, such as turning foreign agents or recruiting supporters, against terrorist groups.
“Hezbollah or al Qaeda don’t do a terrorist operation without doing an intelligence operation first,” Mr. Brenner said. “They are very thorough and capable in the way they do their advance surveillance and reconnoitering. We’ve got to get better at that aspect of supporting counterterrorism, and that is one of our core missions here in this office.”
Additionally, the NCIX is pressing counterspies to do more to stop computer-based intelligence-gathering, something he called a growing threat.
“You can now, from the comfort of your own home or office, exfiltrate information electronically from somebody else’s computer around the world without the expense and risk of trying to grow a spy,” Mr. Brenner said.
“We’ve got to start addressing that in a big way,” he said. “Network vulnerability is a huge issue, and it’s an issue in the private as well as a public sector.”
Mr. Brenner also said he is trying to recruit more-capable people to join counterintelligence services.
“You can’t leave counterintelligence to the fanatics and paranoiacs,” he said. “We really need our best people, and so training and education and supporting national security studies is something we’re paying a lot of attention to.”
He also plans to speed up damage assessments, or lessons learned, after spy cases and to conduct aggressive follow-up to make sure recommended changes are implemented.
Currently, the NCIX is conducting a damage assessment of the Leung spy case, examining how Leung secretly spied for China by sexually entrapping two of the FBI’s most senior counterspies, FBI agents James J. Smith and Bill Cleveland.
The Leung case was a “very serious espionage case,” Mr. Brenner said, a view that contrasts with that of FBI officials who have sought to play down the spy case, saying it was mainly about improper sexual relations between the FBI informant and her handlers. Leung, through her lawyers, has denied spying for China.
Mr. Brenner said China, however, was in fact running Leung as their agent. “That was an intelligence operation, and it was a very successful intelligence operation,” he said. “It was a classic honey trap” — spy jargon for sexual entrapment.
Leung was initially charged in 2003 with spying for China, but the charges were dropped and she eventually pleaded guilty in 2005 to minor charges: making false statements and filing a false tax return. Smith also pleaded guilty to lying to investigators.
In addition to China, Cuba’s intelligence services continue to pose a major intelligence threat, as do spies from Russia and Iran, Mr. Brenner said, noting that Cuban intelligence remains a “a very professional service.”
“They were trained by the KGB, and now they’re training the Venezuelans,” he said.
Russia’s intelligence service remains “very aggressive” against the United States, and “the Iranians also have a mature and capable service,” he said. All “are running significant operations against us.”
Overall, the problem of stopping foreign spies is daunting, both due to the number of spies and as a result of problems among U.S. agencies charged with stopping them, namely the FBI, domestically, and the CIA, overseas. Mr. Brenner said he is trying to reform counterintelligence as the mission manager within the office of the director of national intelligence.
Various counterspy agencies, from the Defense Department to the FBI and CIA, have regarded counterintelligence “as an intramural sport.”
“We’re trying to turn the [counterintelligence] community into a community in reality as well as in name,” he said.
“Americans are going to wake up one day and realize that the place in the world we have come to take for granted isn’t ours by some God-given right. We have to defend it,” he said.
Posted in China, China's arms buildup, Communist China, Spies. Leave a Comment »
Global warming labeled a ‘scam’
By Al Webb
LONDON — With a packet of claims that are almost certain to defy conventional wisdom, a television documentary to be aired in Britain this week condemns man-made global warming as a myth that has become “the biggest scam of modern times.”
The program titled “The Great Global Warming Scandal” and set for screening by TV Channel 4 on Thursday dismisses claims that high levels of greenhouse gases generated by human activity causes climate change. Instead, the program suggests that the sun itself is the real culprit.
The documentary, directed by filmmaker Martin Durkin, is at odds with scientific opinion as outlined in a United Nations report in February, which blames mankind for global warming.
In his program, Mr. Durkin rejects the concept of man-made climate change, calling it “a lie … the biggest scam of modern times.”
The truth, he says, is that global warming “is a multibillion-dollar worldwide industry, created by fanatically anti-industrial environmentalists, supported by scientists peddling scare stories to chase funding, and propped up by compliant politicians and the media.”
Channel 4 says that the program features “an impressive roll-call of experts,” including nine professors, who are experts in climatology, oceanography, meteorology, biogeography and paleoclimatology.
It also says the experts come from prestigious institutions such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Pasteur Institute in Paris, the Danish National Space Center and universities and other schools in London, Ottawa, Jerusalem, Alabama, Virginia and Winnipeg, Canada.
“It’s very rare that a film changes history,” says Martin Durkin, “but I think this is a turning point, and in five years the idea that the greenhouse effect is the main reason behind global warming will be seen as total bunk,” he says.
His program collides sharply with the premise outlined in former Vice President Al Gore’s Oscar-winning documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” which presents a bleak picture of how a buildup in greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide affects the global climate, with potentially disastrous consequences.
“Al Gore might have won an Oscar,” says Mr. Durkin, in a preview of the documentary, “but the film is very misleading, and he has got the relationship between [carbon dioxide] and climate change the wrong way around.”
One of the filmmaker’s experts, paleontologist professor Ian Clark of the University of Ottawa, says that global warming could be caused by increased activity on the sun, such as massive eruptions, and that ice-core samples from Antarctica show that, in fact, warmer periods in Earth’s history have come about 800 years before rises in carbon dioxide levels.
Mr. Clark’s findings appear to contradict the work of other scientists, who have used similar ice-core samples to illustrate that raised levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have accompanied the various global warming periods.
“The fact is that [carbon dioxide] has no proven link to global temperatures,” says Mr. Durkin. “Solar activity is far more likely to be the culprit.”
Scientists in the Channel 4 documentary cite what they claim is another discrepancy involving conventional research, saying that most of the recent global warming occurred before 1940, after which temperatures around the world fell for four decades.
Mr. Durkin’s skeptical specialists view this as a flaw in the official view, because the worldwide economic boom that followed the end of World War II produced more carbon dioxide, and therefore should have meant a rise in global temperatures — something he says did not happen.
“The Great Global Warming Swindle” also questions an assertion by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report, published last month, that it was backed by some 2,500 of the world’s leading scientists.
Another of Mr. Durkin’s professors, Paul Reiter of Paris’ Pasteur Institute, an expert in malaria, calls the U.N. report a “sham” because, he says, it included the names of scientists — including his own — who disagreed with the report and who resigned from the panel.
“That is how they make it seem that all the top scientists are agreed,” he says. “It’s not true.”
Mr. Reiter says his name was removed only after he threatened legal action against the panel. The report itself, he adds, was finalized by government appointees.
Yet another expert in the Durkin documentary, Philip Stott, professor emeritus of biogeography at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, is more circumspect.
“The [climate] system is too complex to say exactly what the effect of cutting back on [carbon dioxide] production would be or, indeed, of continuing to produce [carbon dioxide].”
“The greenhouse effect theory worried me from the start,” Mr. Stott says, “because you can’t say that just one factor can have this effect.”
“At the moment, there is almost a McCarthyism movement in science where the greenhouse effect is like a puritanical religion, and this is dangerous,” he says.
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Newt: Sotomayor a ‘racist’
By: Andy Barr
May 27, 2009 05:54 PM EST
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) on Wednesday charged that Judge Sonia Sotomayor is a “racist.”
“Imagine a judicial nominee said ‘my experience as a white man makes me better than a Latina woman.’ Wouldn’t they have to withdraw? New racism is no better than old racism,” Gingrich wrote in a post on his blog.
“A white man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw,” he added.
Gingrich was referring to a comment Sotomayor made during remarks at the University of California, Berkeley’s annual Judge Mario G. Olmos Law and Cultural Diversity Lecture.
“A wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” Sotomayor said.
Gingrich’s comment came a day after conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh called Sotomayor a “racist.”
Responding to Gingrich’s post, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Sotomayor’s opponents should be “exceedingly careful” in their criticisms.
Asked about the dangers in attacking the first Hispanic nominee to the nation’s highest court, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele told CNN radio on Tuesday, “you have to be careful,” adding that “you don’t want to be perceived as a bully.”
In a statement issued the same day, Steele said that “Republicans will reserve judgment on Sonia Sotomayor until there has been a thorough and thoughtful examination of her legal views.”
But RNC new media director Todd Herman reposted Gingrich’s comment on Twitter today, writing “new racism = no better than old.”
RNC communications director Trevor Francis said the committee would not respond to a “personal tweet by one of our staffers” before adding that “the RNC’s and the chairman’s position on the nomination of Judge Sotomayor are reflected by our statement yesterday.”
© 2009 Capitol News Company, LLC
Posted in B Hussein Obama, Barack Hussein Obama, Barack Obama, democrat muslim, Hussein Obama, Islam, islam fundamentalist, Islam sympathizers, Islamic immigration, Obama, Sotomayor. Leave a Comment »
The Race: Sotomayor Belongs To Anti-White, Left-Wing Extremist Hate Group
May 28th, 2009 Posted By Pat Dollard.
From Hidden Truth:
As columnist Michelle Malkin reports, La Raza seeks to inculcate young people with its worldview by funding a number of charter schools that advocate ethnic separatism and anti-American, anti-white attitudes.
With regard to national security concerns, La Raza has strongly opposed most of the U.S. government’s post-9/11 counterterrorism efforts, alleging that they have “undermined” the rights of “noncitizen Latinos.”
For example: La Raza was a signatory to a March 17, 2003 letter exhorting members of the U.S. Congress to oppose Patriot Act II on grounds that it “contain[ed] a multitude of new and sweeping law enforcement and intelligence gathering powers … that would severely dilute, if not undermine, many basic constitutional rights”; it has endorsed the Community Resolution to Protect Civil Liberties campaign, a project that tries to influence city councils to pass resolutions to be non-compliant with the provisions of the Patriot Act; it endorsed the December 18, 2001 “Statement of Solidarity with Migrants,” which was drawn up by the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and called upon the U.S. government to “end discriminatory policies passed on the basis of legal status in the wake of September 11″; and it endorsed the Civil Liberties Restoration Act of 2004, which was designed to roll back, in the name of protecting civil liberties, vital national-security policies that had been adopted after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
NCLR’s major policy positions also include the following:
– It supports access to driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants.
– It opposes the REAL ID Act, which requires that all driver’s license and photo ID applicants be able to verify they are legal residents of the United States, and that the documents they present to prove their identity are genuine. According to La Raza, this law “opens the door to widespread discrimination and civil rights violations.”
-It opposes the Clear Law Enforcement for Criminal Alien Removal Act (CLEAR), which would empower state and local law-enforcement authorities to enforce federal immigration laws. La Raza argues this would “result in higher levels of racial profiling, police misconduct, and other civil rights violations.”
-It lobbies for racial and ethnic preferences (affirmative action) and set-asides in hiring, promotions, and college admissions.
-It supports bilingual education and bilingual ballots.
-It supports voting rights for illegal aliens.
-It supports stricter hate-crime laws.
-It opposes the Aviation Transportation and Security Act requiring that all airport baggage screeners be U.S. citizens.
-It opposed President Bush’s signing of the “Secure Fence Act of 2006″ which authorized 700 miles of new border fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border.
World Net Daily:
As President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee comes under heavy fire for allegedly being a “racist,” Judge Sonia Sotomayor is listed as a member of the National Council of La Raza, a group that’s promoted driver’s licenses for illegal aliens, amnesty programs, and no immigration law enforcement by local and state police.
According the American Bar Association, Sotomayor is a member of the NCLR, which bills itself as the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the U.S.
Meaning “the Race,” La Raza also has connections to groups that advocate the separation of several southwestern states from the rest of America.
Over the past two days, Sotomayor has been heavily criticized for her racially charged statement: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”
The remark was actually made during a 2001 speech at the University of California’s Berkeley School of Law. The lecture was published the following year in the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal.
Could Mexico retake the southwestern United States? Get the DVD that says the invasion is already happening!
The comment is being zeroed in on by voices from the political right.
“I’m not saying she’s a racist, but the statement sure is,” columnist Ann Coulter said on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
“Imagine a judicial nominee said ‘my experience as a white man makes me better than a latina woman,’” blogged former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga. “Wouldn’t they have to withdraw? New racism is no better than old racism. A white man racist nominee would be forced to withdraw. Latina woman racist should also withdraw.”
Radio’s Rush Limbaugh noted, “And the libs of course say that minorities cannot be racists because they don’t have the power to implement their racism. Well, those days are gone because reverse racists certainly do have the power to implement their power. Obama is the greatest living example of a reverse racist, and now he’s appointed one. …”
But others are suggesting Sotomayor’s racial views will have little impact on her confirmation to the bench.
“She’s gonna get confirmed. Get out of the way of the truck,” political analyst Dick Morris said tonight on Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor.”
Host Bill O’Reilly responded, “The core conservative person … does not understand that the GOP is shrinking and needs to expand.”
The NCLR is applauding the Obama for his selection of Sotomayor.
“Today is a monumental day for Latinos. Finally, we see ourselves represented on the highest court in the land,” said Janet Murguia, NCLR’s president and CEO.
La Raza also praised former President George W. Bush for nominating Alberto Gonzales to succeed John Ashcroft as attorney general.
As WND previously reported, La Raza was condemned in 2007 by former U.S. Rep. Charles Norwood, R-Ga., as a radical “pro-illegal immigration lobbying organization that supports racist groups calling for the secession of the western United States as a Hispanic-only homeland.”
Norwood urged La Raza to renounce its support of the Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan – which sees “the Race” as part of an ethnic group that one day will reclaim Aztlan, the mythical birthplace of the Aztecs. In Chicano folklore, Aztlan includes California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and parts of Colorado and Texas.
Posted in B Hussein Obama, Barack Hussein Obama, Barack Obama, democrat muslim, Hussein Obama, Islam, islam fundamentalist, Islam sympathizers, Islamic immigration, Obama, Sotamayor, Sotomayor. Leave a Comment »
Obama’s NSA – NoKo’s no ‘imminent threat’ — then why raise alert level?
Rick Moran
More Keystone Kops foreign policy from Obama. In this piece by Roxana Trion in The Hill, we discover our national security advisor dismissing the North Korean threat:
President Obama’s national security adviser on Wednesday said that North Korea’s recent nuclear detonation and missile tests are not “an imminent threat” to the safety and security of the United States.
Retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, in his first speech on the administration’s approach to national security, said that the “imminent threat” posed by North Korea is that of the proliferation of nuclear technologies to other countries and terrorist organizations.
North Korea still has “a long way” to “weaponize” and work on the delivery of its nuclear missiles before they pose a threat to U.S. security, Jones said in a discussion hosted by the Atlantic Council.
“Nothing that the North Koreans did surprised us,” Jones said. “We knew that they were going to do this, they said so, so no reason not to believe them.”
Very true. No need to worry quite yet that Kim will lob a missile or two toward the US.
But why then, have we raised our alert level?
One day after North Korea warned of a possible attack against the South, the United States and South Korea ordered their forces here to their highest alert for three years, increasing surveillance flights and satellite reconnaissance to counter what officials termed a “grave threat.”
The move was the latest sign of escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula after North Korea conducted its second nuclear test on Monday, sparking a confrontation with South Korea and the international community that has built into ever more bellicose rhetoric. North Korea reinforced its menacing language by test-firing six short-range missiles earlier in the week.
The South Korean Defense Ministry said allied troops, including, 28,000 U.S. soldiers based in South Korea, raised their Watch Condition, or Watchcon, to the second-highest level from Watchcon 3 to Watchcon 2.
That report by Choe Sang Hun of the New York Times makes it clear that the North Korean threat is being taken very seriously by the White House. Good, that’s the way it should be.
But why go out of your way to downplay the threat by trotting out your national security advisor to state the obvious?
Mixed signals in diplomacy can be deadly. At this point, it appears the administration is indeed taking the threat seriously. But being unambiguous about it would have been much better.
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/05/obamas_nsa_nokos_no_imminent_t.html at May 28, 2009 – 12:45:30 PM EDT
Posted in B Hussein Obama, Barack Hussein Obama, Barack Obama, democrat muslim, Hussein Obama, Islam, islam fundamentalist, Islam sympathizers, Islamic immigration, Obama. Leave a Comment »
Car Czar and Chrysler dealer terminations
Rosslyn Smith
We know that Caesar’s wife is supposed to be above suspicion, but what about a Czar’s wife, when it comes to terminating Chrysler’s dealers?
From Instapundit:
UPDATE: A reader notes something about “car czar” Steven Rattner: “Rattner is married to Maureen White, the former National Finance Chair for the Democratic Party.” The comment: “So one of the guys advising SecTreas on this thing is married to someone who used to be one of the people in charge of fundraising for the Democratic Party. This explains so much it’s scary.” Well, it bears a close look.
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/05/car_czar_and_chrysler_dealer_t.html at May 28, 2009 – 12:42:56 PM EDT
Leaking Intel for Fun and Political Advantage
By: Gregory Gethard
Congressional Democrats only believe in revealing classified information if it hurts our country.
Once again history is repeating itself. Two incidents – one involving Joe Biden and one involving the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee – prove Democrats are still in the habit of releasing classified intelligence to discredit the CIA or the Republicans and, at the same time, stonewalling on releasing non-threatening information that would cast either in a positive light. It’s politicking of the worst kind; manipulating the nation’s most important secrets for a cheap boost in the polls.
In March, Vice President Joe Biden spoke at the Gridiron Club’s annual dinner, an event that joins Washington’s top politicians and media members for a lighthearted night of fun and entertainment. But at this year’s event, Biden divulged the precise location where Dick Cheney hid during and after the 9/11 attacks. According to Newsweek’s Eleanor Clift:
Joe Biden reveals the bunker-like room is at the Naval Observatory in Washington, where Cheney lived for eight years and which is now home to Biden. The veep related the story to his head-table dinner mates when he filled in for President Obama at the Gridiron Club earlier this year. He said the young naval officer giving him a tour of the residence showed him the hideaway, which is behind a massive steel door secured by an elaborate lock with a narrow connecting hallway lined with shelves filled with communications equipment. The officer explained that when Cheney was in lock down, this was where his most trusted aides were stationed, an image that Biden conveyed in a way that suggested we shouldn’t be surprised that the policies that emerged were off the wall. (Emphasis added.)
The vice president’s remarks are being cast by the mainstream media as another case of Biden’s infamous loose lips, and his office denies he was describing the bunker. But his words are far from innocuous; al-Qaeda could have better planned 9/11 with this information, and is now better prepared for the next attack. Biden’s statements not only revealed classified information that makes Americans, in this case his own family members, less safe, but they were spoken casually in order to discredit Dick Cheney and the Bush administration’s aggressive counterterrorism policies. Yet the Left has treated it as a non-event.
On the other hand, a Congressional Democrat has accused an opponents of threatening national security for seeking the truth about Nancy Pelosi. The Speaker has made an adamant if unconvincing case that the CIA never informed her about instances of waterboarding detainees at Guantanamo Bay. Media reports indicate she knew in 2002 about the CIA’s detainee interrogation tactics, but Pelosi has insisted she did not know about waterboarding until much later. She has since accused the CIA of misleading Congress “all the time.” In an effort to determine what meetings related to waterboarding Pelosi attended, Republican ranking member Pete Hoekstra managed to obtain a classified CIA document that detailed the many briefings informing Pelosi about the practice of waterboarding. Since Nancy Pelosi continued her denials, Hoekstra called for the release of all related CIA documents that would reveal what Pelosi knew and when she knew it. This drew the wrath of Democrat Silvestre Reyes, whom Pelosi appointed chairman of the House Intelligence Committee:
It’s irresponsible what Republicans are doing, particularly in Mr. Hoekstra’s case. When you’re asking to declassify material that’s been classified for a very good reason — that’s the height of irresponsibility. (Emphasis added.)
It’s hard to imagine that any major state secrets will be unearthed due to Hoekstra’s information; it is easy to see why Reyes would want to prevent Hoekstra’s efforts.
These two events might be humorous were they not so typical. The Left has an abysmal record on revealing classified information or cheering on those who do.
A glaring example of this came in 2006, when CIA officer Mary McCarthy was fired for allegedly leaking information about CIA “black sites” to Dana Priest, a reporter for The Washington Post. Priest’s article identified several nations which allowed the CIA to hold al-Qaeda operatives within their borders, including “several democracies in Eastern Europe” and Jordan. Exactly one week later, al-Qaeda attacked Jordan. Although it is illegal for CIA officers to leak this information and the leak destroyed the program, the Left used this information to marginalize the Bush administration.
Just months after his presidential defeat, Senator John Kerry leapt at the chance to minimize, or justify, the leak on ABC’s This Week:
A CIA agent has the obligation to uphold the law and clearly leaking is against the law, and nobody should leak. I don’t like leaking. But if you’re leaking to tell the truth, Americans are going to look at that, at least mitigate or think about what are the consequences that you, you know, put on that person. Obviously they’re not going to keep their job, but there are other larger issues here. You know, classification in Washington is a tool that is used to hide the truth from the American people. (Emphasis added.)
Coincidentally, McCarthy donated $2,000 to Kerry’s presidential campaign.
Unfortunately, this decision of a leftist to justify leaking classified anti-terror programs to the media is hardly an isolated event.
In December 2005, New York Times journalist James Risen wrote an article entitled “Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts,” which detailed the Bush administration’s policy of wiretapping foreign jihadists speaking in another country without first obtaining a warrant. Risen’s article was largely helped by Thomas Tamm, a Department of Justice official who took it upon himself to release this information to the media.
Rep. James Moran, D-VA, instantly hailed both the Risen and Priest stories for “breaking through the administration’s secrecy,” justifying crippling this program on the grounds that the Bush administration was “doing everything possible to impose censorship.”
It did not take long for Democrats to vehemently protest this policy, which became a rallying cry in both the 2006 Congressional campaign as well as the 2008 election. Senator Russ Feingold, D-WI, said on the floor of the U.S. Senate:
This program is breaking the law, and this president is breaking the law. Not only that, he is misleading the American people in his efforts to justify this program.
However, Bush administration officials were adamant about the absolute need for this program to exist. This Thursday, former Vice President Dick Cheney told the AEI:
Our government prevented attacks and saved lives through the Terrorist Surveillance Program, which let us intercept calls and track contacts between al-Qaeda operatives and persons inside the United States. The program was top secret, and for good reason, until the editors of the New York Times got it and put it on the front page. After 9/11, the Times had spent months publishing the pictures and the stories of everyone killed by al-Qaeda on 9/11. Now here was that same newspaper publishing secrets in a way that could only help al-Qaeda. It impressed the Pulitzer committee, but it damn sure didn’t serve the interests of our country, or the safety of our people.
Feingold has yet to make a comment on President Barack Obama’s decision to continue the warrantless wiretapping policy.
Yet the leaks, and their enthusiastic reception by the Left, continued. On September 24, 2006, the New York Times published an article citing information from the classified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which discussed the spread of Islamic radicalism in the wake of the Iraq War. The leak came in the heat of the midterm Congressional campaigns. However, in October, a never-identified Democratic aide on the intelligence committee was banned from access to classified information. According to the New York Times, the aide asked for a copy of the NIE two days before details of the report ended up in the newspaper, leading to suspicions he was the leak.
Also in 2006, the New York Times published another article which used classified material to detail the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, a secretive Bush-era program tracking the financial transactions of suspected al-Qaeda suspects.
However, once this information was revealed in the press, it gave al-Qaeda an opportunity to readjust its financial strategies in funding their efforts. And it also gave Democrats yet another opportunity to paint the Bush administration as working above the law. Said Congressman Edward Markey:
I am very concerned that the Bush administration may be once again violating the constitutional rights of innocent Americans as part of another secret program created in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.
As a result of these intelligence leaks, House Republicans passed a measure condemning such leaks and asking for “the cooperation of all news media organizations in protecting the lives of Americans.” It passed on a near party-line vote, with more than 100 Democrats voting no.
On the other hand, the Left opposes the release of classified information under certain circumstances, specifically when it may be politically detrimental or when it might benefit their political opponents. Democrats were apoplectic when the Bush administration released some of the National Intelligence Estimate in 2006, which detailed the intelligence the administration saw before launching the invasion of Iraq. The book Party of Defeat by David Horowitz and Ben Johnson quotes future Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who said with no trace of irony:
I served for years on the House intelligence committee, and I know intelligence must never be classified or declassified for political purposes. One of the constants in the Bush administration’s miserable record on Iraq has been the manipulation of intelligence precisely for political purposes.
Now Madam Speaker and her allies are at it again, accusing Rep. Hoekstra of undermining national security by investigating their lies.
This is yet another example of the hypocritical cynicism of the Left, which has a history of wanting it both ways with its manipulation of intelligence. In their eyes, politics come before pragmatism and sound bytes come before safety. Protecting the image of the party is more important than protecting the safety of the people the party is supposed to represent.
Gregory Gethard is a Philadelphia-based freelance writer.
Obama in L.A.: ‘You ain’t seen nothing yet’
By Sam Youngman
Posted: 05/27/09 11:51 PM [ET]
LOS ANGELES — Even as he conceded there is still much hard work to do, President Obama was in a boastful mood Wednesday night, telling a star-studded crowd at a fundraising dinner that he “would put these first four months up against any prior administration since FDR.”
The president, speaking to a dinner that included Hollywood A-listers like Kiefer Sutherland, Marisa Tomei, Jamie Foxx, Ron Howard and Steven Spielberg, lauded the legislation he has signed since taking office but added that he is “not satisfied.”
“I’m confident in the future, but I’m not yet content,” Obama said.
The celebrity dinner, which cost couples $30,400 to attend, was followed by a larger, lower-dollar concert that all told raised between $3 million and $4 million for the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
Joining the celebrities feting Obama were Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Republican-turned-Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), “the newest member of our caucus.”
Obama was introduced by Dreamworks CEO and longtime Democratic donor Jeffrey Katzenberg. The president thanked Katzenberg, saying: “If it weren’t for you, we would not be in the White House.”
The trip here came on the heels of a fundraising jaunt to Las Vegas to raise about $2 million for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), according to aides.
The president, while seeking to bolster his record as president so far, warned both audiences that significant challenges lie ahead.
At the concert, headlined by Jennifer Hudson and Earth, Wind and Fire, Obama responded to an audience member yelling, “Yes we can” by saying, “Yes we have. But we’ve got more work to do. We can’t rest on our laurels.
“We didn’t ask for the challenges that we face, but we don’t shrink from them either,” he said. “It won’t be easy. There will be setbacks. It will take time.”
The president conceded that his administration “had our fits and starts.”
“I’ve made some mistakes, and I guarantee you I’ll make some more,” he said.
But Obama said in promising to continue to work hard, “Los Angeles, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
Obama also lauded Judge Sonia Sotomayor, his pick to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter, repeating his line that she has more experience than anyone currently sitting on the bench when they were nominated.
He joked at the second fundraiser that she graduated summa cum laude, “not just magna or laude laude, but summa cum laude.”
Obama is scheduled to leave for Washington early Thursday morning.
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Will City break Liverpool hearts again and what's the word from the betting sites?
By Guest writer, Fri 26 April 2019 19:23
City fans, and indeed followers of the Premier League in general, could be forgiven for feeling a certain sense of déjà vu as we launch into the final weeks of the season. Five years ago, Liverpool went into the last five fixtures with a slender lead. Five years ago, City showed their class when it mattered most. Five years ago, the Blues won the title and Liverpool were left best of the rest.
Now, with the game in hand played out and City having delivered a masterclass in the local derby, it is they, not Liverpool, who have the Premier League within their grasp. The lead is a solitary point. With three matches left, will history repeat itself?
The remaining fixtures
As we enter the home straight, City are away to Burnley, then host Leicester City before visiting Brighton for the final game of the season. Liverpool play Huddersfield, Newcastle and Wolves.
Liverpool fans will already have a sinking feeling that the Premier League was decided on 24 April. If United had won, or even held City to a draw, that slender lead would have been Liverpool’s. As it is, all the Reds can do is hope for a slip up.
The view from the bookies
If you want to look into a crystal ball, the best place to go is a bookmaker’s website. Those who have been keeping an eye on sites like 8betting.co.uk or other betting sites all season will have noticed an interesting phenomenon. Even when Liverpool were established at the top, or when City had back to back defeats in the run up to Christmas, they still had the Blues as favourites for the league.
Now, in a straight race to the finish and with their destiny in their own hands, it should come as no surprise that the odds are the shortest, they have been all season. City are 1/4 on with most bookmakers, while Liverpool have slipped to 3/1.
A relentless sprint to the finish
Manchester City have now won 11 straight games, and if they win the final three, the title will be theirs with a total points tally of 98. A look at the opposition suggests they should do just that, but Pep Guardiola has been quick to warn against complacency. He knows that Liverpool are also on an unrelenting winning streak and he is also fully aware of what happened on Boxing Day. Leicester will be going all-out to show that their win was no fluke, and with Liverpool waiting to pounce, City cannot afford to drop a single point.
City captain Vincent Kompany has made a similar appeal to the team and fans to remain calm and focused. He told reporters: “In the league, nothing is played out yet. We need three wins. We cannot expect the opponent to drop points."
Of course, both are right. However, with each passing week, it looks increasingly likely that the bookmakers had it right all along and this will be another year of “so close yet so far” for Liverpool.
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How Many People Are Homeless in Chicago? An FY 2006 Analysis
Universal Identifier Scribd: 37063272;key-1y2rhu9fqau316zke6ep;2ic09q2kd71upvjq
Over the past three decades, homelessness has persisted as a serious problem in the city of Chicago. However, throughout that time, there has never been a comprehensive, reliable figure for the number of people who do not have a home. This is a significant gap in not only our public records, but in our public policy. By not adequately accounting for the city's homeless population, we are unable to understand the true scope of the problem and therefore are ill equipped to come up with realistic strategies and adequate resources to address it. Estimating the number of homeless people is a distinct challenge to do as they are a transient and often invisible population. The city of Chicago conducts a partial census of the city's single-night homeless population. That count includes those who are officially reported as being served in the city's homeless shelters that night and any homeless people that can be counted on the streets or other locations outside of shelters that night. This method has limitations because it is very difficult to locate every homeless person outside, particularly on a cold winter night. Also it does not include people living temporarily with others because they cannot afford housing. This is often referred to as "doubled-up." Counting those not served in shelters or on the street may be difficult, but it is imperative to do so. To meet this challenge, the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, in collaboration with the University of Illinois at Chicago Survey Research Laboratory, developed a methodology that is designed to count both those served in shelters and those who never access shelters. The Survey Research Laboratory helped shape the methodology and reviewed the findings of the analysis. Every effort has been made to make this a conservative effort and to avoid duplication.
Survey Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Chicago
Issue/Policy Brief
North America / United States (Midwestern) / Illinois / Cook County / Chicago
Copyright 2006 Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. All rights reserved.
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ITM Announces 10 Finalists for New Pilot Award Program
The University of Chicago Institute for Translational Medicine (ITM) has named 10 finalists in the competition for its new Pilot Award program that offers $60,000 and high-value resources to launch innovative research projects.
“This new program will make cutting-edge research possible and create a pipeline into the many ITM resources designed to make conducting studies easier and faster,” said Julian Solway, MD, Director of the ITM. “We’re excited to be eliminating obstacles for our investigators and accelerating their discoveries to improve people’s health.”
Since 2007, the ITM has given investigators more than $5.1 million in seed funding to explore ideas that have the potential to improve human health. These researchers have used the data gathered to launch companies, secure millions of dollars in federal funding, build national programs, and more.
The new ITM Pilot Award program launched Sept. 1, 2016, and offers more money, new resources, and exclusive collaboration opportunities with stakeholders ranging from community members to industry leaders.
The ITM Executive Committee reviewed 54 applicants and selected the below to advance to the final round:
Marc Bissonnette, MD
Associate Professor at UChicago Medicine – Section of Gastroenterology, Cancer Research Center, Committee on Molecular Metabolism and Nutrition
“Blood Tests to Screen for Colon and Pancreatic Cancer”
Le Shen, PhD
Member, UChicago Institute for Integrative Physiology
“Loss of CCM Function”
David Beiser, MD
Associate Professor of Medicine at UChicago Medicine
“REDCap Configurable Mobile Apps for Monitoring Treatment Response in Depression”
Corey Tabit, MD, MPH, MBA
Instructor of Medicine at UChicago Medicine
“The Gastrointestinal Microbiome and Non-Surgical Bleeding in Patients with Left Ventricular Assist Devices”
Jane Churpek, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine at UChicago Medicine, Co-Director of the Comprehensive Cancer Risk and Prevention Program
“Inherited Genetic Factors Underlying Mesothelioma”
Philip Verhoef, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine at UChicago Medicine
“Type 2 Immune Bias in Sepsis”
Stephanie Jo
Resident, UChicago Department of Radiology
“Role of DOT1L in Cartilage”
Alicia VandeVusse, PhD
Research Specialist 3 at UChicago’s Center for Interdisciplinary Inquiry and Innovation in Sexual and Reproductive Health (Ci3)
“Exploring Experiences of Adolescent Fatherhood and Engagement with HIV Prevention and Care Among Young Men of Color Who Have Sex with Men and Women (YMSMW)”
Catalina Lawsin, PhD
Associate Professor at Rush University
“A Community-Based Approach for Developing Novel Web-Based Psychosexual Resources for Latina Cancer Survivors”
Valerie Press, MD, MPH
Assistant Professor of Medicine at UChicago Medicine, Hospitalist Scholar
“COPD Prediction”
Finalists will be guided through the range of free research resources available through the ITM – including study design, biostatistics, community feedback forums, communications support, and more – in preparing their final applications due April 28, 2017.
Submissions will include thorough scientific applications along with dynamic video pitches that members of the ITM’s Community Advisory Review Council (CARC) and the ITM Executive Committee will use in evaluating the projects’ potential impacts.
Reviewers will narrow the pool of 10 finalists down to three award winners, who will be announced in late spring. The projects will kick off July 1, 2017, with awardees receiving:
$60,000 in funding.
ITM resource support for each step of the study process.
Video production and communications support to share research findings and impacts.
Learn more about the new ITM Pilot Awards and other funding opportunities here.
About the Institute for Translational Medicine (ITM)
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WAITING FOR GUFFMAN (1996)
October 1, 2013 ~ dixonsutton
Every time I go into a Christopher Guest movie I expect to hate it, but that’s never happened so I’m not quite sure why I feel that way. I think I always feel like I’ll immediately fall asleep or something. Waiting for Guffman was not boring in any way and it was extremely funny. The plot was very predictable but that doesn’t really matter because the story isn’t what I find so interesting about his movies, it’s all the characters and their obvious ad-libbing.
I think the actor I look forward to the most in his movies is Fred Willard. He’s fantastic and I also think he’s great in Roseanne and that he’s a small reoccurring character in King of the Hill.
Waiting for Guffman is just a classic to me. I love all of Christopher Guest’s movies and Waiting for Guffman has everything that always makes them so great: sweet, weird, and insanely funny. I think one thing I like most about Guest’s movies is that they very rarely make me cringe, even though the characters are sort of awkward or get into cringe-worthy situations. I think part of that comes from the fact there are never any real bad guys. Even a character that you could say is an antagonist is never a real obvious one, because they’re not cartoonish. The way Guest balances reality and absurdity is really special.
I think Waiting for Guffman really has too many memorable scenes to really call attention to anything specific. The whole movie is really just kind of a masterpiece in terms of actors naturally interacting with and playing off each other.
Plus, Corky’s My Dinner with Andre Action Figures sound amazing.
1996Catherine O'HaraChristopher GuestEugene LevyFred WillardKing of the HillMoviesParker PoseyRoseanneWaiting for Guffman
< Previous ENOUGH SAID (2013)
Next > ADAM’S RIB (1949)
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Classic Rock Appreciation Thread
Thread: Classic Rock Appreciation Thread
I don't think there was a thread dedicated to this so I thought I'd start one. While my definition of rock n roll is pretty loose, for a long time I think there was a vague concession that "classic rock" was 60's pop/rock and 70's hard rock. Then there's the phrase "Dad Rock" which I took to mean that stuff plus whatever contemporary music your Dad likes, so your Pop likes Cheap trick and the new Dave Matthews song it's Dad Rock. Your mom likes Elton John and the new John Meyer song so that's "Soccer Mom Rock"...I guess. My one of my classic rock stations now plays Metallica and Motley Crue. Back when those albums were originally released they wouldn't touch the stuff. Personally, I want to count anything from Sly Stone to the Pistols and I'll throw a couple of Siouxsie and the Banshees covers as well as classic. Anyway...I thought this thread could be a cool place to share music, stories etc.
Recently, I was working off site and a group of us were standing around waiting to get started. The oldest was a little over 60 and the youngest was 21-ish. A couple of people were talking about trips to England and the next thing you know we were all making puns about Pinball Wizard and talking about the movie "Tommy." And yes, the 21yr old completely knew about The Who ( she also backed me up when I was talking about The Monkees).
I assume that most of the people on this site are comic book fans so I propose we use the Marvel sliding scale. Anything at least 10-15 years old from "now" is fair game as long as you can make a case for it.
Last edited by ed2962; 12-06-2016 at 06:51 PM.
I'm not the biggest Tom Petty fan, but this is my favorite Petty song.
my second favorite is "Breakdown"
I respect Springsteen. This is my favorite Bruce song. Loosely inspired by a Louis Malle film, this song is beautiful and haunting and suggests so much in the lyrics
WillieMorgan
Northwest UK
Ever since this thread started I've wanted to follow up on only the 3rd post. I revere Bruce Springsteen's work but just couldn't decide which track to spotlight. What an inspiring body of work. Springsteen's lyrics only get more profound the older that you get. I actually could have posted dozens of examples:
Last edited by WillieMorgan; 06-23-2019 at 09:49 AM.
The NY Dolls were Morrissey's favorite band. Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols was very obviously trying to copy Johnny Thunders guitar style. And then there's Poison's "Talk Dirty To Me" which is close to being an inverted version of this song.
This video is funny cuz most of the audience is sitting there stone faced except like one girl who's singing along.
"September" is a song by American funk band Earth, Wind & Fire, written by Maurice White, Al McKay, and Allee Willis.
White's unusual lyrics for the chorus were debated by Willis: "I said, 'We are going to change 'ba-dee-ya' to real words, right?' ... I learned my greatest lesson ever in songwriting from him, which was never let the lyric get in the way of the groove."
This song is life eternal
In the early 80's this was American Punk Rock and it actually scared the shit outa some people. You had Donahue doing his talk show on it. You had scripted shows like Chips and Quincy doing episodes about how frightening these punk kids were. It's funny that 35 years later you have Broadway shows based on Green Days albums and I see 8 year olds with mohawks.
For fun, check the old school TV shows...That's Incredible, Hill Street Blues, and yes Quincy
Buried Alien
The Fastest Post Alive!
Couldn't do this thread without an appearance by the Fab Four.
Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)
Buried Alien - THE FASTEST POST ALIVE!
First CBR Appearance (Historical): November, 1996
First CBR Appearance (Modern): April, 2014
The strict definition of what actually constitutes 'Classic Rock' has certainly become more loose over the years. Almost like an elastic band that gets stretched further and further as the years go by.
For me, the 'real' Classic Rock years run from roughly 1967 to 1994. Not to say that there wasn't classic music prior to that, or since, but those years to me signalled a stellar leap forward in creativity and commercial success. The UK's biggest Classic Rock magazine covers bands from all the different genres of rock from those years, including the likes of Punk (which I'm not a fan of) and Thrash Metal (which I am). A magazine like that wouldn't have touched those genres a couple of decades ago. I suppose that's just the passage of time for you.
It's certainly a very clique-ish form of music. From the Mods & Rockers kicking off in Brighton in 1964, to the rivalry between Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin fans during the 1970's (a big deal here in the UK), and to Glam vs. Thrash Metal in the 80's. I always got on well with folks at school by being open to all those bands, I could listen to both Slayer and Journey! Rather than being repulsed by my Dad's record collection I actually found it quite inspiring.
Favourite band were always Led Zeppelin. Here's a track that does everything over the course of it's 4 minutes plus:
numberthirty
Originally Posted by ed2962
And then there's Poison's "Talk Dirty To Me" which is close to being an inverted version of this song.
You know, I always thought they had lifted it from here...
Originally Posted by numberthirty
Ha Ha! I hadn't thought of it, but yeah I think it works...thing is, a lot of these things are re-workings of old Chuck Berry riffs. It's not hard to connect the dots. On that note here's a LL Cool J song that samples Chuck's licks and gives a shout out to Jimi Hendricks
One of our local rock stations, which for years called itself a classic rock station rebranded itself last month as an "iconic" rock station. It still essentially has the same play list but added a few things here and there that were more recent that typical classic rock stations play. I believe it is owned by one of the larger radio conglomerates, so I am guess this is not the first or only classic rock station using the iconic branding to freshen up what they have been doing for years, but it was the first I had heard of it.
Comic fans get the comics their buying habits deserve.
Here's Chuck Berry blowing America's mind...
Kirby101
One of the all time great Classic Rock songs. They really had a lot of good music, but if they only gave us this, it would be enough.
CenturianSpy
Bad Mama-Jama
Happy 67th birthday, Tom Waits! Not only is he a favorite of our live-action Natasha Romanoff, but he also served in the US Coast Guard. Here's "I Hope I Don't Fall In Love With You" off his debut album Closing Time:
Team Photo & Silver Surfer Flash Mob
SHSO Name: Gallant Centurion Spy
CBR/SHSO Player Directory
If you want your squad name added to the CBR/SHSO player directory or our wiki let me know!
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The University's policy to prevent bribery
The University is committed to conducting its activities fairly, honestly and openly, in accordance with relevant legislation, and to the highest standards of integrity. The University has no tolerance of bribery. This includes active bribery (the offering, promising or giving of a bribe) and passive bribery (the requesting, agreeing to receive or accepting of a bribe). Further, the University believes that action against bribery is in the broader interests of society. As a charity deriving a significant proportion of its income from public funds, benefactions and charitable organisations, the University is concerned to protect its operations and reputation and its funders, donors, staff and students from the detriment associated with bribery and other corrupt activity. It is therefore committed to preventing bribery by its staff and any third party acting for or on behalf of the University.
The University will take appropriate action to prevent bribery in respect of its activities. Where bribery is shown to have occurred, the University will take firm action, which may include dismissal and legal action. Bribery by University employees or student members acting on behalf of the University will be treated as a serious disciplinary offence.
2. STANDARDS
Staff and associated persons who act on behalf of or provide services to the University are expected to act at all times in a manner that is fair, impartial, and without favouritism or bias. In order to conduct the activities of the University to the highest standards of integrity, in accordance with relevant legislation, and to ensure that there can be no suspicion or appearance of corruption, they are expected to abide by the following standards:
no member of staff or person acting on behalf of or providing services for the University shall seek a financial or other advantage for the University through bribery; nor shall they offer, promise, give, request, agree to receive or accept a bribe for any purpose;
the payment or acceptance of facilitation payments is unacceptable and will not be tolerated, except where the relevant territory specifically permits such payments in its written law;
staff and persons acting on behalf of or providing services for the University must abide by the University Policy on Gifts and Hospitality;
any suspicion of bribery should be reported immediately through the channels defined by this Policy, and the University will consider appropriately all such reported instances.
3.1. Scope
This Policy applies to all staff and associated persons of the University. It shall be made generally available and published publicly via the University website.
This Policy has been adopted by Council and applies throughout the University apart from Oxford University Press, which has its own complementary Policy and procedures. This Policy applies in full to majority and wholly owned University subsidiary companies unless separate policies have been formally approved and adopted by the Boards of those companies and endorsed by Council’s General Purposes Committee.
Bribery is the offering, promising, giving, requesting, or accepting of a financial or other advantage with the intention to induce or reward improper performance. Additional information about this definition is provided on the University website.
3.3. Responsibilities
Every member of staff and associated person who acts on behalf of or provides services to the University is responsible for ensuring that they comply at all times with this Policy and guard against the commission of bribery.
The Registrar is responsible for ensuring that this Policy is implemented and maintained and that appropriate explanatory guidance is provided.
Heads of Division, Heads of Department (including Faculty Board Chairs), and Heads of University Services (UAS and ASUC) are responsible for ensuring that staff within their divisions, departments or sections (as appropriate), affected students, and other associated persons are made aware of this Policy and associated explanatory guidance.
The Boards of Directors of majority and wholly owned subsidiary companies of the University are responsible for ensuring that this Policy, or an alternate Policy that is approved by Council’s General Purposes Committee, is implemented and maintained within those companies, and that staff and other associated persons are made aware of the Policy and associated explanatory guidance.
4. RISK ASSESSMENT
Bribery risk should be regularly assessed as a specific part of the wider risk assessment and management performed by divisions, departments and committees. Significant transactions – those that are of high value, or high risk, or high profile – should always be subject to a specific bribery risk assessment. High risk transactions are those where there is a significantly increased risk of bribery due to the nature of the transaction, the third party, territory, opportunity or sector. Proportionate preventative and detective controls should be identified and implemented, together with regular reviews to determine their efficacy. Where risk assessments indicate a significant risk that bribery might occur appropriate due diligence must be conducted prior to proceeding with the relevant transaction. The University provides specific guidance to aid the completion of risk assessments and on the conduct of appropriate due diligence into significant transactions that may be subject to heightened risk.
The University expects third parties acting for or providing services to the University not to commit bribery and will take appropriate measures and action should it discover that third parties are engaging in bribery. Third parties are advised, therefore, to make themselves fully aware of the provisions of this Policy and, in particular, the Standards relating to bribery. Where appropriate, the University will include contractual obligations in respect of adherence to this Policy in its agreements with third parties.
6. EXCEPTIONS
The University recognizes that exceptional instances might arise in which a bribe or facilitation payment is demanded of a member of staff or person acting for or providing services to the University where refusal may cause immediate personal danger to that individual. In such circumstances, where there is a real and immediate threat to life, limb or liberty, payment is permitted but must be reported, in accordance with the Procedures set out at section 8, either when the event occurs or as soon as possible thereafter.
7. INTERACTION WITH OTHER POLICIES, PROCEDURES AND REGULATIONS
This Policy interacts and overlaps with a number of other University policies and procedures:
Anti-Fraud Policy;
Financial Regulations and supporting Financial Processes;
Policy on Conflict of Interest;
Gifts and Hospitality Policy;
Code of Practice on Academic Integrity in Research;
Procedures for the admission of graduate and undergraduate students;
Public Interest Disclosure (whistle-blowing) Code of Practice.
This Policy also takes account of the University’s wider legislative obligations and provisions pertaining to bribery and associated behaviour as set out in but not limited to:
The Bribery Act, 2010;
The Fraud Act, 2006;
The Terrorism Act, 2006;
The Proceeds of Crime Act, 2002; and
The Computer Misuse Act, 1990.
8. PROCEDURES FOR DEALING WITH SUSPECTED INSTANCES OF BRIBERY
Individuals who reasonably suspect the occurrence of bribery in the context of the University’s activities should report their concerns as soon as possible to the Director of Finance, the Registrar or to compliance@admin.ox.ac.uk, providing a brief description of the alleged irregularity, and any evidence that supports the allegations or irregularity and identifies the individual or individuals responsible. Any report will be treated as a disclosure under the University’s Public Interest Disclosure (whistle-blowing) Code of Practice and it will, therefore, be brought to the attention of the Registrar who will decide on the procedure to be adopted and determine whether there is a case to answer.
Subjecting people who have reported reasonably-held concerns or suspicions to any detriment will be regarded as a disciplinary issue, as will abuse of process by making malicious allegations.
Bribery and Fraud Review Group
Where the Registrar has determined that there is a case to answer, the matter will be taken forward under this Policy. It will be considered by a Bribery and Fraud Review Group (‘BFRG’) comprising:
the Registrar;
the Director of Finance;
the Director of Legal Services and General Counsel; and
the Internal Auditor.
With the agreement of all other members of the Group, the officers named may send nominated delegates on those occasions when they are unavailable in person.
The BFRG may call upon the advice of any other person with specialist, technical or professional knowledge that may be relevant to the particular case under consideration. If at any point there is a suspicion that the conduct complained of includes unlawful conduct, the BFRG will take immediate steps to secure appropriate professional advice as to the steps required before proceeding further.
The BFRG will decide on such further steps as are necessary including:
investigating the concerns;
notifying the police and other relevant authorities;
establishing and securing evidence necessary for criminal and disciplinary action;
ensuring that appropriate action is taken against those responsible; and
communicating with internal personnel and outside organisations with a need to know, in particular considering:
- whether there are issues that should be referred to the appropriate funding body under the terms of any grant to which the allegations relate;
- whether the incident should be reported to HEFCE under the terms of the Memorandum of Assurance and Accountability; and
- whether the matter should be reported to HMRC;
and will take steps to ensure that the relevant actions are undertaken as soon as is reasonably practicable.
In any case where immediate action is required, the Registrar or Director of Finance may take the steps he or she deems necessary. Where such action is taken, the Registrar or Director of Finance as appropriate shall report his or her actions and reasoning to the BFRG as soon as possible thereafter.
In any case where a member of the BFRG is the subject of an investigation under the Policy, the Vice-Chancellor or, if he or she is the subject of complaint, the Chancellor will appoint an alternate or alternates to fulfil the role or roles specified under the Policy.
Investigations will normally be carried out by the Internal Auditor or an alternative agreed by the BFRG, taking account of appropriate professional practice, and any relevant guidance issued from time to time by HEFCE, the Charity Commission or any other relevant regulatory body. The investigator will keep the BFRG informed as to the progress of the investigation and will complete the investigation as soon as reasonably possible.
In cases which involve or may involve students, the Proctors will be informed at the outset of the investigation. If a student is the subject of an allegation of bribery, this will be dealt with by the Proctors under the disciplinary procedures applicable to students.
Staff involvement and suspension
Where an allegation of bribery concerns a member of staff, Personnel Services must be consulted.
Subject to the advice of Personnel Services, any member of staff suspected of bribery may be suspended (without deduction of pay) pending a full investigation. No one person, acting on his or her own volition, may move to suspend a member of staff in such circumstances. The suspension of a member of staff does not constitute a finding of misconduct against him or her. Any staff suspended as a result of a suspected bribery will be informed of the reason for the suspension.
Individuals suspended for suspected bribery, and individuals suspended to enable a proper investigation to be carried out, will normally be required to leave University premises immediately and will be denied access to the University’s IT facilities. During the period of any suspension they will not be permitted to return to the premises, to make contact with staff or witnesses, or to act on behalf of the University, unless given express permission to do so by the relevant University authorities. Any infringement of this requirement may be treated as a disciplinary offence.
All persons involved with the investigation must treat the information in strict confidence. Where necessary, information will be transmitted in confidence to relevant regulatory bodies. An unwarranted breach of confidence may be the subject of disciplinary action.
Police involvement
In all cases where the police are involved, the University reserves the right, where it would be reasonable to do so, to proceed with its own disciplinary procedures and/or with civil proceedings.
Interim reporting
If the Registrar deems that there is a case to answer, the BFRG will notify the Vice-Chancellor and the Chair of the Audit and Scrutiny Committee that a matter has been reported and will be investigated under this Policy; and the BFRG will provide further and confidential interim reports as are deemed necessary. Such reports may be oral or written.
Notifying HEFCE of serious incidents
The University will notify HEFCE of any serious incidents of bribery as required by the terms of HEFCE’s Memorandum of Assurance and Accountability.
The investigator will prepare a report of their investigation for submission to the BFRG: the BFRG will be responsible for considering the findings and making recommendations to the Vice-Chancellor. The final report will be provided in strict confidence to the Vice-Chancellor and to the Chair of the Audit and Scrutiny Committee. The Chair of the Audit and Scrutiny Committee may, at his or her discretion, share the final report in strict confidence with the Audit and Scrutiny Committee.
The final report will contain:
a description of the allegations and the steps taken to investigate them;
a conclusion as to whether the allegations made had substance and if so the extent of any adverse impact on the University;
a description of any steps taken in relation to the individual or individuals concerned together with recommendations as to any disciplinary action;
the measures taken to minimise the risk of a recurrence; and
any action needed to strengthen future responses to incidents of bribery, which may include provision for a follow-up report within a specified time frame.
The Registrar shall maintain a register (the ‘Register’) of all allegations of bribery which are reported within the University (except Oxford University Press, which maintains its own records), including those where there was found to be no case to answer.
The Register will be maintained and will be available for inspection, subject to the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
The Register shall specify the following, in an anonymised form, in relation to each case of bribery:
what the suspected or actual incident was;
whether the incident was suspected or actual;
when the suspected or actual incident occurred;
what the actual and potential impact of the incident on the University might be;
what inquiries were made and/or action was taken, including any reports to other regulators or the police;
how any decision to terminate the investigation of the incident was made, and why;
what policies and procedures were in place that applied to the incident, whether they were followed, and if not, why; and
whether policies and procedures need to be introduced or revised, and if so, how and by when;
the date that the final report was provided to the Vice-Chancellor and Chair of the Audit and Scrutiny Committee and, if relevant, to the Audit and Scrutiny Committee.
Communication with parties involved
Subject to the findings of the final report and agreement of recommended actions, the individual or individuals involved will be informed of the outcome as soon as possible after its presentation to the Vice-Chancellor and Chair of the Audit and Scrutiny Committee and, if relevant, to the Audit and Scrutiny Committee.
The complainant will be informed in broad terms of the outcome of the investigation, having due regard to the confidentiality of information relating to the individual or individuals accused and others identified in the report.
Approved by Council on 20 June 2016
A downloadable PDF version of this policy is also available:
Anti-Bribery Policy ( , 141KB)
Email: compliance@admin.ox.ac.uk
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Whooping cough outbreak in Kent County ‘an extremely serious situation’
Aug 23rd, 2018 · by Mike Finney · Comments:
DOVER — With many school districts in Kent County opening their doors to a new school year, the Division of Public Health is warning residents to be on the lookout for signs of whooping cough.
The DPH said it is investigating an outbreak of pertussis, commonly known as whooping cough, in Kent County.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website said, “Pertussis is known for uncontrollable, violent coughing which often makes it hard to breathe. After cough fits, someone with pertussis often needs to take deep breaths, which result in a ‘whooping’ sound. Pertussis can affect people of all ages, but can be very serious, even deadly, for babies less than a year old.”
Whooping cough is a highly contagious disease transmitted by coughing or sneezing, or by coming in direct contact with respiratory secretions of infected persons.
“This is an extremely serious situation,” said Dr. Karyl Rattay, director for the DPH. “Whooping cough is a highly communicable disease, and infants and young children are at greatest risk for severe, even deadly, complications,”
The DPH began an investigation in June when it learned of cases of pertussis occurring among the county’s Amish population.
Pertussis is a reportable disease in Delaware and notification to DPH of confirmed or suspected cases is required.
As of last Saturday, the DPH had identified 97 cases of the disease among Amish individuals.
On Wednesday, the DPH received confirmation that the disease has spread when a Kent County child, whose family has ties to the Amish, but lives outside of the community, was found to be infected.
The DPH said vaccination is the best defense against whooping cough, as well as many other diseases such as influenza, measles and mumps.
“Pertussis is a vaccine-preventable disease and we are urging everyone to make sure they are up to date on their immunizations,” Dr. Rattay said. “It is the best and most proactive preventive measure you can take.”
For children to be fully immunized against whooping cough they need five doses of the vaccine (at ages two, four and six months, between 15 and 18 months and between four and six years).
Women should also be vaccinated with every pregnancy so that the infant will have some immunity upon birth.
Adults who will have regular contact with children, or parents of a newborn and younger children, should also get vaccinated.
Dr. Rattay said pertussis may occur at any age, including teens and adults who were vaccinated only at a young age, although infants less than one year of age have the highest rates of complications.
Whooping cough often makes babies and young children so sick that they need to be hospitalized.
Older children, adults, vaccinated individuals and those who have had whooping cough in the past may experience a milder illness but can still spread the disease to younger members of the community, some of whom may be too young to be fully vaccinated.
An infected person can spread the disease starting when symptoms begin to three weeks after the onset of coughing. Coughing frequently lasts for several weeks.
Pertussis is treated with antibiotics. During treatment, infected individuals should stay home and distance themselves from well people in the home as much as possible, cough or sneeze into the inner elbow if tissues aren’t immediately available, and wash their hands frequently.
After completing a five-day course of antibiotic treatment, the individual can return to work, school or other community activities.
DPH said it has been working with members of the Amish community to control the spread of the disease by having discussions with Amish leaders, sharing prevention and social distancing tips directly with infected individuals as well as distributing flyers with the tips throughout the community.
The last outbreak of pertussis in Delaware occurred in early 2014, also among Kent County’s Amish population. More than 200 people were affected.
The DPH is asking physicians and other health care providers to consider pertussis when evaluating a patient with a new onset cough illness.
Individuals are asked to report known or suspected cases of pertussis promptly to the DPH Office of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at 302-744-4990, fax to 302-223-1540, or email to reportdisease@state.de.us.
Delaware State News staff writer Mike Finney can be reached at mfinney@newszap.com.
Tags:Featured · Kent County
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Cult TV
Cult TV Essentials: Goosebumps
Goosebumps is a Canadian horror fantasy anthology television series based on R. L. Stine’s best-selling Goosebumps book series. It opens with music from Jack Lenz.
As the eerie music plays we witness a man dressed in black carrying his briefcase up a hill. The name engraved on the briefcase reveals the mysterious man to be Goosebumps’ author, R. L. Stine (it really is author R.L. Stine in a cameo). A strong wind blows, opening Stine’s case, and his papers fly out, one of which turns into a “G” seen on the Goosebumps logo, only it was black shadow, and glides through an unnamed town. The “G” passes by a woman on a billboard, making her unhappy, and passes by a dog on a porch, which turns its eyes into cat eyes and glow a gold colour (this is referenced to in the episode “My Hairiest Adventure”). The “G” then creeps past a tree, down a sidewalk, and into the front door of a house and begins showing a quick montage of clips from several episodes with an announcer growling, “Viewer, beware, you’re in for a scare!”, remade from the tagline, “Reader, beware, you’re in for a scare!” used in the Goosebumps book series.
In season two, the opening was shortened, speeding up the Goosebumps “G” gliding through town and removing the quick episode montage in the doorway.
In season three, the show was renamed “Ultimate Goosebumps” and the opening underwent a few changes. A green slime and a lightning effect were added when the man in black walks up the hill with his briefcase and his papers fly out. However, instead of a paper turning into a G-shaped shadow and being blown through town, the man in black turns into bats which fly at the screen. The quick episode montage was added back but clips from different episodes were used. There are some episodes that don’t include the “Ultimate Goosebumps” name, so the short season two opening was used.
In season four, the show removed the “Ultimate” from its name but retained the season three opening sequence. In some markets, this opening was also used in reruns of the first two seasons.
The entire series is now available on Netflix.
Categories: Cult TV
Tagged as: featured, Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
Sonia Manzano retires after 44 year run on Sesame Street
Cult TV Essentials: Killer Net
Pingback: Goosebumps: The Movie is coming! | CULT FACTION
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Author: culturallyboundgender
Can we have a word?
There’s a group of human beings who are the only humans capable of giving birth.
There’s a group of human beings who are the only humans with uteruses or ovaries.
There’s a group of human beings who are the only humans who shed their uterine linings.
There’s a group of human beings who are the only humans who can have a hysterectomy.
There’s a group of human beings who are the only humans who can go through menarche or menopause.
There’s a group of human beings who are the only humans for whom not menstruating between ages 14 and 45 is a cause for worry and a doctor visit.
There’s a group of human beings who are the only humans for whom a low testosterone level is physiologically normal, and not a sufficient cause for medical intervention.
This group of human beings, comprising just a bit over half the overall population, on average, is shorter, slower, and physically weaker than another group, comprising just under half of the overall population.
There used to be a word for this group. That word was “women.”
People who had been called “men” before decided they were now “women,” and we would have to give that up. Perhaps we could simply be called “female”?
No, that was not sufficient. When we tried that, we got this:
So now, people who would previously have been classified as “men,” “adult human males,” were now women upon self-declaration, and because of this self-declaration, combined with the “adult human female” definition of “woman,” were now female as well.
There is no word available to describe the group of people I have described above that won’t either be:
Called transphobic,
Co-opted by members of the other group of humans (previously called “men”) for their own use, with the group of humans described above (previously “women”) no longer able to use the word just for themselves, or
“Assigned female at birth” doesn’t work, because it’s not true (sex is observed before birth for almost all infants in the developed world now), and it actually does exclude intersex people while appropriating their terminology.
New attempts have now been made: “Menstruator.” But these attempts at inclusivity are misguided (how can anyone with a postmodern interpretation of gender determine from a cursory glance, or someone’s gender presentation, whether they menstruate — when we are told gender and sex are impossible to determine except by self-identification).
They’re also not going to work. Already, people from the category formerly called “men” are telling the people formerly called “women” that menstruation can take place in both groups, even though it only involves the shedding of uterine lining in one. “Bleeder” separates the uterine shedders from those with psychosomatic “periods,” but males with gender reassignment surgery claim that their bleeding as a result of this surgery, which is typically absorbed by menstrual pads, is a symbolic menarche and that they should be considered “bleeders” as well.
So this becomes the question: #CanWeHaveAWord ?
Because until we can, there’s no way to center a movement around this group of humans. There’s no way to have a “women’s movement” that centers reproductive justice for this entire category.
The nameless group, the category formerly known as “women” or “adult human females,” is told by modern “gender performance” theorists that it can only have a name as long as no one from the other group wants it. It can only have a name if literally every member of its category fits every part of its definition.
Intentional, willful misrepresentation of biological definition of womanhood typically includes the argument “what about women who’ve had hysterectomies, are they not women, if women are egg-producers and uterus-havers?”
They know — even if they could not put it so plainly — that uterus-having at any point in life is not a necessary criterion of womanhood, but it is sufficient to categorize someone as a woman. Menstruation is not necessary for being a woman, but having menstruated by shedding one’s uterine lining is sufficient evidence of being one. Having given birth, gone through menopause, all of these experiences are not experienced by all women, they are not necessary to belong to the category. But knowing about even one of these experiences is sufficient to know (with far better certainty than, say, an HIV test has of detecting HIV) a person’s chromosomes and aspects of their medical history, like how puberty likely impacted them, and whether they are likely to menstruate.
You can tell that even the pomo-sick “gender performance” advocates know this — or they couldn’t refer to a group of women as “menstruators” without going through their trash.
Even they want to be able to have a word for “women.” You know, real women. The group of humans that everyone — even queer theorists — knows are women.
Make no mistake: when they’re not playing middle-class semantics games to obscure the basics of biological reality and ostracize non-believers, queer theorists do know biological sex exists. They know this group of people exists, that the word “woman” used to refer to something concrete (and still does, for normal people).
They just don’t want you to be able to talk about women/the group formerly known as women/female human beings … no matter how many hoops you’re willing to jump through.
culturallyboundgender Uncategorized 2 Comments January 21, 2019 January 22, 2019 4 Minutes
culturallyboundgender Uncategorized 2 Comments November 25, 2018 November 25, 2018 6 Minutes
As gender clinic referrals in the UK and beyond continue to spike — with the average gender clinic patient now an autistic female in her teen years — many more people have begun to realize what this blog has been saying for over five years: that the transgender phenomenon is a culture-bound syndrome, promulgated by regressive social forces.
1,800 girls (and 700 boys) started down the path to sterility and shorter lifespans this year alone at a single clinic in the UK. If you ask trans activists, the reason for this is quite simple and easy to explain: as trans identities become less stigmatized and more understood, more people become willing to express their true transgender identity.
By way of comparison, these trans activists point to the clear increase in the out-of-closet gay, lesbian, and bisexual population, an increase that began roughly at the time when Gay Pride and acceptance became more mainstream.
It’s an explanation that has worked to get people to shut up who might have otherwise made a big fuss. It’s worked to silence government officials and ordinary people on social media, who don’t want to seem like they are on the “wrong side of history.”
Which calls to mind the question: what does history have to say about the prevalence of trans people, versus the prevalence of gay ones?
Fortunately for us, sex researchers in the 20th century explored this question at length, and performed in-depth interviews about sexual preferences and desires on tens of thousands of total subjects. Perhaps the most famous of these researchers was Dr. Alfred Kinsey.
Through a series of questions asked of both men and women, Kinsey worked to uncover the sexual fetishes, inclinations, and hidden secrets. While some of Kinsey’s work has since been criticized, no one can doubt that he brought the prevalence of homosexuality to the world’s attention.
According to Kinsey’s estimates from 1948 and 1953, 1-3 percent of women, and 4 percent of men, were exclusively homosexual since the time of their adolescence until the time of their interview with sex researchers. Even larger numbers had been exclusively homosexual for a few years, and a still larger number had engaged in some homosexual activity.
Kinsey believed that the true prevalence of homosexuality in the human population was as high as 10%, a number that captured the public’s imagination all the way into the 21st century.
While other sex researchers obtained different (typically lower) numbers for the prevalence of homosexuality, any researcher conducting interviews calculated a prevalence of over 1 percent. It was a clear phenomenon: in any reasonable sample size, multiple people would be included who had engaged in homosexual contact, preferred same-sex sexual partners, or were exclusively homosexually attracted.
So when homosexual toleration became more common in late 20th century western society, starting in the most cosmopolitan and liberal cities, and later evolved to include homosexual marriage and the ability to have a fully “out” homosexual family, it was no surprise that more people came out of the closet as gay, lesbian, and bisexual.
As attitudes liberalized, it became clear that the gay population had been “hiding in plain sight,” visible to any researchers who examined the desires of the population, and only invisibilized by stigma and shame. Today, NIH surveys indicate that between 1 and 2 percent of the American population identifies as exclusively homosexual, with another .7% identifying as bisexual.
Since homophobia has not yet been eradicated (and is still extremely strong in some pockets of even western liberal democracies), it wouldn’t be surprising, given the interview-based estimates of sex researchers, if the homosexual population as much as doubled in a society with no anti-homosexual prejudice whatsoever.
Kinsey’s examination of the sexual psyche went far beyond same sex vs. opposite sex attraction. Kinsey and other researchers at his institute and beyond studied a range of sexual behaviors, including the phenomenon of crossdressing / transvestitism / transsexuality.*
Kinsey became interested in cross-sex identification and behavior toward the end of his life, spurred on by interviews with crossdressers. At the time, the Kinsey Institute interviewed what it believed to represent literally every individual, of both sexes, who had up to that time received sexual reassignment surgeries — a total of about 150 male-to-females and 2 female-to-males.
He also searched diligently for records of all known crossdressers, but of course, this wouldn’t reveal those who were wrestling privately with feelings of gender incongruity.
So we must look beyond Kinsey for estimates of trans people. This, unfortunately for trans activists, is where contemporary trans ideology is shown to be almost uniquely ahistorical in sex research.
Before the year 2000, researchers in many countries conducted studies into the prevalence of transsexuality in the population. These studies were remarkable in the similarity of their findings. Whether in the Netherlands, Singapore, the UK, or Germany, transsexuals occurred at a rate of around 1:2,500-1:20,000 people, and a male:female sex ratio of anywhere from 2:1 to 6:1 existed in the transsexual population.
Some researchers also observed (an observation that makes sense in light of American indigenous populations with “third genders” as well) that societies with more toleration of homosexuality and less sex role differentiation seemed to have lower prevalence rates of transsexuality.
Even today, outside of the West, the prevalence of “third gender” or transsexual populations often remains quite in line with what was observed by sex researchers in the 20th century. A recent census of the hijra population of India showed that 1 in 2,600 Indian nationals are included in the category.
However, trans activists continually insist that there is a far larger, “hidden” transgender population that simply cannot be observed by these surveys, that cannot be seen in sexual research institutes, and so on. Starting in the early 2000s, activists for trans causes began to promulgate the hypothesis that the “real number” of trans people was far higher than anyone had yet revealed.
For example, in the last link above, transgender campaigners in India claim the true prevalence of trans people in India is 6-7x higher than the census would reveal.
These “fudge factors” are prominent in nearly all estimates of trans prevalence that have been given media attention lately, and many of these estimates are based on an original study that had deep methodological flaws and enshrined the fudge-factor-fication of transgender population estimates for decades to come.
In 2002, Lynn Conway, a male who identified as female, sought to depict transgender identity as far more common than previous studies had considered. In the study, Conway creates a decade-by-decade table of SRS (sexual reassignment surgery) prevalence, starting in the 1960s, with a “rough estimate of SRS operations done by major SRS surgeons both here and abroad on U. S. citizens in recent decades, extrapolated to include those done by many secondary surgeons (each performing smaller numbers per year).”
Do you see the start of the fudge factor? Conway takes the absolute best guess from the leading clinical practitioner of the number of total sex reassignment surgeries performed in the entire United States in all years of all decades up to 1973 — 2,500 — and extrapolates this number to 7,000 surgeries performed in the 1970s alone. Based on anecdotal evidence (like a leading SRS surgeon performing two surgeries per day!), Conway concludes that the numbers have been rising, and that by 2002, there must be 40,000 post-op male-to-female transsexuals living in the United States alone.
He assumes in this estimate that exactly zero of these surgery recipients since the 1960s have died, and so bases a new prevalence estimate of surgery recipients on a strict division between his imagined 40,000 post-op transsexuals and the 2002 population, and comes out with 1:2,500 as the ratio of post-op MTFs in America.
Then, Conway “estimates at least 3 to 5 times as many people suffer intense MtF transsexualism as those who have already undergone SRS.”
The fudge factor multiplies again. Recall that Conway was already (at least) doubling the number of actual SRS surgeries performed. Now, the number is multiplied again, by three to five times.
This kind of “fudge factor” is not the norm when estimating the prevalence of stigmatized sexual behavior. When Kinsey overestimated the homosexual population at 10 percent, he based this idea on the statistics at hand indicating that up to 10 percent of men had been exclusively homosexual for multiple years — he didn’t simply multiply his estimates to assume an arbitrary number of hidden homosexuals.
Yet the studies used in the early 2000s to estimate the prevalence of transgenderism all use these kinds of “estimates” from researchers, which are all but pulled out of a hat. By estimating hidden populations that cannot be proven, transgenderism was made into something so prevalent that it wasn’t surprising when teens began reporting record numbers of trans identities.
The most commonly-used estimates of the transgender population in the United States have come from the Williams Institute of UCLA. Their 2011 report that first documents a high transgender prevalence in the United States uses statistics gathered from … Lynn Conway’s 2002 study.
The fudge factor doesn’t end there. In 2016, the Williams Institute released another report, estimating the transgender population of the United States as .6 percent of the total population, based on research from the CDC.
There’s … just one problem. The CDC survey didn’t estimate the trans population as .6 percent. In fact, the 2016 behavioral study cited by the Williams Institute said that just .1 percent of Americans identified as female-to-male transgender, and .2 percent as male-to-female transgender — a total of .3 percent, or half of what the Williams Institute claimed the data had indicated. An additional .1 percent designated themselves gender non-conforming.
Once again, we see that same male:female ratio of 2:1, within the bounds of the ratios for trans estimates for over 50 years.
It’s this ratio that most clearly illustrates the social contagion aspects of the modern transgender condition. Not only has the prevalence of transgender symptoms soared, the ratio has completely reversed, with 3 young female patients seeking reassignment to a more masculine presentation for every 1 male patient seeking feminization.
Not one sex researcher in history — not one, and if you find one, comment here and I will append this immediately — found that more females wanted to change sex than males. Not in any country, not in any age group. Not until the social contagion phenomenon known as ROGD, or rapid-onset gender dysphoria, began.
Anyone pretending that this is simply a case of trans people “hiding in plain sight” until they were acknowledged and validated by the population at large is kidding themselves — or deliberately skewing data for their own agenda.
The data shows clearly that the trans population is smaller than the most common estimates given — and the Williams Institute should be ashamed for turning fudged or even faked data into the single most-cited source for estimates of the transgender population. And not one of these estimates, regardless of their “fudge factor,” indicates a prevalence of hidden female transsexuals that is far larger than the prevalence of male transsexuals.
The next time you see someone claiming that it’s “just like when gay people started coming out more,” and that anything but total acceptance of 17 girls with autistic traits coming out as transgender at a single school is transphobia, point them here.
This is not like the gay rights movement, which could easily point to research indicating a significant population percentage with latent or expressed homosexual desires. This is a movement with a vested interest in overestimating their prevalence in order to further an agenda which has changed significantly since the dawn of the 21st century.
For more on why that happened, and the history of the changes to this movement, keep watching this blog.
* — It probably seems insensitive to lump these three ideas together, but at the time, the borders between them were seen as quite porous, even by crossdressers, transvestites, and transsexuals. It’s these blurred borders that cause so much strife today over whether activists like Marsha Johnson were transgender or crossdressers.
These lines may be blurring once more today, as the big tent of transgenderism has begun to include crossdressers and transvestites again, at least according to Stonewall UK.
One of the big questions I was still left with when I stopped blogging here for a few years was very simple:
What, exactly, is gender identity?
If you read mainstream trans sources, the answer gets a bit circular: “gender identity is one’s deeply-held internal sense of one’s own gender.”
That’s exactly the kind of definition that doesn’t get us any closer to what is actually meant by the term “gender identity” when it is enshrined into law or company handbooks. After all, the law (in a liberal Western democracy, anyway) is generally unconcerned with policing the deeply-held internal senses of citizens.
Besides, this seemingly quick-and-easy definition doesn’t hold up with what mainstream trans activism is actually demanding. When using a non-preferred pronoun or disallowing a trans person from opposite-sex spaces is legally actionable, “gender identity” requires government employees, trans people’s co-workers, and those in sex-segregated spaces alter their own deeply-held internal perceptions of someone’s sex in order to accommodate a trans individual’s deeply-held internal sense of their own gender.
There is more to gender identity.
Among radical feminists, gender identity is discussed differently. The far-and-away most common metaphor for gender identity in radical feminism is an enclosure, or box. Sometimes, more highly-charged language — cage, or prison — is used instead.
In this view, “gender identity” is essentially synonymous with “gender role.” While culturally-dependent, in the view of the radical feminist, gender exists to constrain the behaviors of the sexes in order to more deeply entrench patriarchal systems of power. In this view, a trans-identifying person is attempting to hop from one cage to another.
Transgender believers argue that this view of gender identity as a box makes little sense given the empirical reality of transgender people, many of whom exhibit characteristics that have more in common with the stereotypes intended for their biological sex than the stereotypes of their chosen gender identity.
What, says the transgender believer, of the trans programmer, born male, who identifies as female but still keeps practicing martial arts? Or the knitter and baker who now identifies as a male but was born female? Surely, these would be people whose original “box” would fit them more comfortably, and the “cage” they’ve hopped to would seem more confining, so why would they do it?
The box as a metaphor also makes less sense as a full explanation of gender identity in a western, liberal democracy where women’s written legal rights are near-identical to men’s. For the most part, men and women are allowed to engage in behaviors strongly associated with the other sex, to whatever degree is physically possible (cue the Monty Python “Loretta” gag). Women may be discouraged from entering STEM fields and banking, for instance, but they’re not legally disallowed. Wearing lipstick does not make males the target of police raids. Cage-hopping is not, strictly speaking, a requirement for someone hoping to engage in opposite-sex stereotyped behavior.
Indeed, in countries where legal rights for men and women are significantly different, transgender populations tend to be strongly oriented toward “fitting into a box,” making the radical feminist metaphor more salient. If you are in Iran and the only way to legally have sex with a man or wear a dress is to be in the “woman” category, then the notion of cage-hopping makes sense. In these places, the metaphor of the box or cage can come close to fully explaining the transgender phenomenon, and the vast majority of transgender people where this holds true strongly associate with culturally-typical opposite-sex roles.
To me, the competing definitions of the transgender believers and the radical feminists have seemed orthogonal, an example of two groups talking past one another while the uncommitted look on in confusion. I don’t think either is a full depiction of what “gender identity” is supposed to encapsulate, both connotatively in conversation with modern trans activists and denotatively in law.
A more illuminating object to metaphorically represent gender identity can be found in a yardstick.
In this view, men and women are measured according to two distinct sets of standards. A person who is meticulously groomed and uses a range of makeup products “measures up” very well according to the yardstick marked “woman,” but would be assigned low marks on the “man” yardstick. A person who dates women and wears trousers, never skirts/dresses, measures as bog-standard on the “man” yardstick, but would not achieve the same average measurement on the “woman” stick.
When examined this way, the distinction between “gender identity” and “gender roles” becomes more clear: gender identity is the selection of one’s yardstick, while gender roles are the markings on the yardstick that you measure yourself against. With this idea in place, respecting another person’s gender identity means measuring them according to the yardstick they prefer.
In the law, “gender identity” then becomes measuring people according to their preferred yardstick. If women must wear skirts for their job, a male-bodied person may then wear a skirt as long as he has requested measurement on the “woman” yardstick. An insistence on measuring a person according to the yardstick corresponding to the stereotypes of their sex, rather than their identity, is perceived as invalidating and harassing.
Unlike the metaphor of the box, the yardstick can help us understand the “butch trans woman” who engages in many masculine-stereotyped behaviors, or the “soft trans boi” who inhabits a female body and consciously attempts to exhibit femininity while asking to be referred to by male pronouns.
In a capitalist culture that generates continuously-evolving countercultures and promotes self-discovery and uniqueness — a culture in which “basic” is an insult — the person who transitions even though their original “box” was a better fit is doing so in order to be measured as unusual on a new yardstick. If you’re a person who likes video games, does computer programming for a living, and watches a lot of pornography, your place on the “man” yardstick positions you as not terribly unusual, and not terribly desirable. But on the “woman” yardstick, measured from the perspective of their own male gaze (“why, I’d love to meet a woman who liked video games, porn, and programming!”), they become an unusual, desirable nerdy girl.*
The gender identity yardstick also helps to make sense of the range of non-binary gender identities: people identifying as “non-binary” and “genderqueer” want a new yardstick built just for people who want to be judged by different criteria. “Agender” people don’t think any yardstick fits them. “Bigender” and “genderfluid” people want to be judged according to the yardstick that currently best suits the way they’d like to be perceived.
Radical feminists have long wondered why transgender people and their allies seem to believe that the radical feminist position is “everyone should act according to sex stereotypes.” But using the metaphor of the yardstick, the nature of the communication breakdown is revealed: the fundamental tenet of mainstream transgender ideology is that human beings should feel free to pick whichever yardstick they prefer. If you take this view, it’s easy to see radical feminists as saying “no, you’re stuck with the yardstick we’ve been measuring you against since you were born. No hopping to another one. We’re always going to measure you according to the stereotyped standards we apply based on your genitals at the time when you’re born.”
Radical feminists are flummoxed by this view of their beliefs on the part of trans believers, because it presupposes the need for sex-based yardsticks in the first place — and even presupposes that the desire to be measured by one or the other is inherent to human beings, perhaps more inherent than their own organs of generation.
But the radical feminist position is not that people should get back to the yardstick where they belong. In radical feminism, the entire idea of gauging human personality differently according to sex is a symptom of sexism and patriarchy, not an inherent human desire.
The result of this position is that the radical feminist solution to the gender yardstick problem is not to make any yardstick available to anyone, free of charge.
It’s to throw the sticks on a bonfire.
* – The persistent presence of narcissistic, sex stereotype-conforming heterosexuals in transgender circles becomes easy to understand as well. For the narcissist (as well as for Narcissus in the original myth), the ideal mate is simply a reflection of the self. By identifying with an opposite-sex “gender identity,” the narcissist is, in essence, making a demand for others to treat them as their own idealized mate.
culturallyboundgender Uncategorized 1 Comment November 13, 2018 November 13, 2018 6 Minutes
Stereotypes of the “wrong” kind of woman to be are a powerful tool for enforcing expected social norms on female behavior.
If you’re talking to anyone on the left, the “wrong” kind of woman can be summed up as something looking a bit like this:
The Victorian woman, in the view of the modern left, represents everything a woman ought not to be.
Decorative and demure, she defers to her husband due to a lack of understanding of difficult or complex matters. She eats little, and maintains a snow-white complexion by staying indoors at all time. She stands staunchly against the suffragettes in her restrictive clothing, mocking the “bloomers” of her more forward-thinking peers.
The Victorian woman, in the popular imagination, is a creature of hysterical fits and feminine complaints. She is unable to discuss difficult realities even with her closest friends and confidants, because she has been kept so isolated from the world that even the mysteries of her own body are beyond her.
This lack of education, of course, results in the characteristic most despised in the Victorian woman stereotype: her famed prudishness.
Her restrictive corset acts, in our understanding of this woman, as a physical expression of a completely internalized, repressed sexuality (that yearned to breathe free). Her contorted spine mirrors what we believe to be a stunted form of development, free of expression of desire.
Indeed, the prudishness of the Victorian woman is even supposed to reflect on modern political struggles: she is invoked as a grim-faced, disapproving specter of the past, whose ignorance of anatomy (and unpredictable attacks of the vapors) necessitated separate toileting and changing facilities for men and women. In the view of the modern left, desegregating the sexes is merely rectifying the wrong committed in the name of these prim, fragile ladies of leisure.
That was her stereotype. This is an attempt to find something closer to her truth.
First (and I would think this would be self-evident, but you wouldn’t know it from the popular perception of “the Victorians”), the vast majority of women didn’t live that way.
There were no silk skirts sashaying from wallpapered room to room for the overwhelming majority of non-white women in the West (or anywhere else, for that matter). Even the huge majority of white women spent their lives working. Some worked in factories, while others worked at home, both on the incredible amount of labor required to maintain a household at that time, and with various types of piecework that gave them the “pin money” necessary to participate in commerce.
But let us say that we are speaking, in the stereotype, only of the middle- and upper-class women who were the expected consumers of millinery, yellow wallpaper, and the like.
What of these women?
Well, let us start by asking, what of these women:
See the horsehair buttons, the S-shaped corsets, the humorless faces, the frilly decorations surrounding a bake sale. Here, we have truly reached the apex of retiring Victorian femininity.
Except for one thing: they were selling sweets … as a fundraiser for women’s suffrage. The women fighting for women’s right to vote didn’t just wear unrestrictive dresses and bloomers. They did what many oppressed people from many civil rights struggles have done: they wore what they were expected to wear, in hopes of not having their concerns dismissed.
As for those campaigners for separate facilities for men and women, they weren’t arguing from a position of a previous utopia where women were allowed access to unisex facilities. Rather, they were arguing in favor of the basic inclusion of women in full public life: until these facilities existed, women simply did not leave the home for long enough to require restroom facilities, unless she had a carriage in which to relieve herself.
These facilities offered women an unprecedented ability to engage in public … which directly resulted in the ability of suffragists to organize the first women’s movement.
The stuffy, straitlaced Victorian matron pictured above (center, in black lace) is Charlotte Perkins Gilman, visionary feminist writer. In addition to granting a unique first-person perspective on her psychological victimization by Victorian “hysteria cures” in her most famous work, The Yellow Wallpaper, she also wrote feminist utopian fiction that is still relevant today.
It is impossible to tell from a photograph of a buttoned-up Victorian woman whether she was in favor of suffrage or women’s rights.
And what of that famous repression?
It is impossible to understand Victorian women’s attitudes toward sex without a comprehension that in the Victorian era, sex was more dangerous than it had ever been, especially for the exact women most famed for their prudishness.
Childbirth was the leading cause of adult female death in the Victorian era, a situation that was significantly worse than in previous centuries.
Deprived of sun exposure in order to keep her skin pale (or, in the lower classes, due to the recent invention of factory work that trapped them indoors 12+ hours a day), the Victorian woman suffered from rickets more than women of previous or subsequent generations. Rickets impacted the bones most profoundly, creating pelvic outlets that were sometimes no wider than a silver dollar.
With bodies twisted by daily wear of restrictive garments, the Victorian woman faced pregnancies that were difficult to maintain. Social mores of the time dictated that visibly pregnant women were to be kept at home, in “confinement.” Deprived of exercise and outdoor activity during pregnancy, the worst was yet to come.
The photograph above depicts the aftermath of the most dangerous killer of Victorian women: “puerperal fever,” or childbed fever. Caused by a lack of obstetric hygiene (doctors routinely practiced on multiple pregnant women without handwashing, even after they had just handled a corpse), this fever claimed the lives of up to 1/3 of birthing women at leading obstetric hospitals in the late 19th century. Larger, more crowded hospitals caused this sickness to rise in incidence throughout the 19th century, and it would not be fully eradicated until the emergence of antibiotics.
Obstetric hemorrhage was another major concern, and most physicians of the time were inadequate to solve this common complication. While some midwives had remedies that helped a number of women, these remedies were typically dismissed in more professional medical contexts, which led to higher mortality rates in hospitals than at home.
The use of anesthetics during labor was pioneered on the ultimate Victorian woman, Queen Victoria herself. However, these anesthetics required more forceps deliveries, which represented a significant danger to both mother and child.
For women hoping to prevent or abort an unwanted pregnancy, the options were far from ideal. Cleaning fluids were advised as contraceptive douches, but the manufacturers had to cloak their advertisements in benign language to avoid trouble from the authorities.
Abortions, conducted secretly with caustic substances (typically said to “restore female regularity”) or foreign objects, resulted in hemorrhage, infection, and death at rates that gave birth a run for its money. What an irony, then, that the women accused of having so little knowledge of their own bodies and sexuality were so intimately familiar with sexually invasive methods of contraception and abortion — but no one ever thinks of the contradiction of the women who supposedly don’t know about vaginas and cervixes nevertheless managing to douche with Lysol, or insert a foreign object with which to open their own cervical os.
Abstinence, of course, is a full pregnancy preventative, but no woman in the world could claim in Victorian times that she had been “maritally raped.” The concept did not yet exist, and men’s legal rights to a woman’s body and sexuality in the context of the marital relationship were nearly boundless.
In fact, the husband’s rights extended to complete ownership and custody of all children born from the relationship. If he chose to separate from his wife, he had every right to take the children and leave her financially ruined. Of course, he could also simply leave the children with her and vanish, with no child support enforcement, which typically led women to turn to prostitution or factory work to make ends meet.
This is the context of Victorian female sexuality. From conception to postpartum, and even beyond, the Victorian woman’s life is positively ruled by sexuality and its results. Sex was the most dangerous activity engaged in by Victorian women, and it showed in the attitudes of women of that time.
These were the real fears of Victorian women. Childbirth-related mortality touched everyone, from every class. Before they birthed, every woman had known women who hadn’t made it through the process. Terror kept pregnant Victorian women awake at night, writing letters to relatives they worried they would never see again as they faced their “travail” of childbirth.
But all this is largely ignored today. The Victorian woman is a target of mockery and derision for her unwillingness to act playful and coquettish about sexuality — for refusing, in other words, to act like sex was no big deal, although even a single act of intercourse could foreseeably lead to her death.
We have much evidence that Victorian women were concerned about sex: with how to stop men from wanting it so frequently, with how to avoid it in their own personal lives, and with minimizing the negative impacts of male sexuality on female lives. Many first-wave feminists opposed legal abortion because they saw it as giving males free rein to have sex with their wives, even when they did not want children — without the right to refuse sex in marriage, abortion gave husbands the right to endanger their wives’ lives and health as frequently as they liked, without fear of personal repercussions.
What there is much less evidence for, is the notion that women of Victorian times were particularly repressed, which is to say, the fanciful notion that there was a boiling undercurrent of red-hot sexuality simply waiting to bubble up under the surface of each tight-laced corset, rendering women psychologically confused and making them ill with somatoform disorders.
Our notion of the secretly-sultry Victorian comes from male writers like D.H. Lawrence, whose Lady Chatterley became an oft-censored symbol of Victorian hypocrisy and passion. It was men writing the florid tales of female desire, in an era when women (who had recently begun to enter institutions of higher education at higher rates than ever before in history) wrote female characters whose motivations were not primarily sexual. Even relatively sexually-charged Victorian content written by women, like the work of Mary MacLane, speaks to a focus on romance and companionship over raw sexual intimacy.
Why the discrepancy? Perhaps because men in Europe and the United States had, for centuries, claimed (without much evidence) that women were the sexually rapacious sex, that women’s sexuality was constantly highly charged, and that women constantly engaged in acts of “luring” men into immorality. Classic authors like Chaucer, Dante, and Shakespeare engaged with this idea in some of the works of classical literature that would have been consumed by any male writer of Victorian times.
The notion that women might not want sex all the time was a very radical one, and a very feminist one, for the 19th and early 20th centuries. The lack of marital rape laws in previous centuries, and the punishment of rape victims instead of rapists, was a direct result of believing that women were always — always — in a state of sexual desire. Women who acted like they did not want sex were thought to be engaged in a bit of play-acting to preserve a socially-acceptable veneer of modesty.
This idea was carried through into masculine literature of the Victorian era. When women started simply saying “no” more often — “no” to getting married, “no” to letting men cast all the votes, “no” to bearing children in an era where the odds of survival were no better than Russian roulette — male writers simply refused to accept that they meant it.
By way of explanation, they concocted Lady Chatterley, and all the other stereotypes of Victorian female eroticism that threatened to burst through whalebone and silk. They created a woman whose “no” was simply a social nicety, whose secret desires overrode her stated ones.
The stereotyping of the Victorian woman, then, is patriarchy whistling the same jaunty tune as ever: Women’s fears are unfounded “prudery,” and women’s “no” is a result of deeply-hidden secret desire — which carries a mysterious, erotic charge.
It’s time to stop looking at the Victorian woman from the gaze of the men who confined her, raped her, shamed her, kept her a non-voter and an invalid imprisoned in her home. They deserve much better from feminists than to be used as an example of “prudes,” rather than one of the first generations of women to feel strong enough to say “no.”
culturallyboundgender Uncategorized 8 Comments November 4, 2018 November 4, 2018 9 Minutes
On Sex, Ribbons, and Why Cows Still Aren’t Bulls
Whether you are new to the world of feminism or not, you have probably heard one of these arguments in favor of accepting identity-based sex/gender* definitions:
Sex is a spectrum, not a binary
There are people with chromosomes that don’t match their outward physical appearance
There exists a huge range of intersex conditions, challenging the very idea of what we consider “male” or “female”
Typically, the person arguing in favor of identity-based definitions then begins to list the intersex conditions they know about, and asks “what about them, are you going to tell them they’re not real women?”
I see a number of feminists get flustered by these claims and feel like they don’t know how to respond. I believe it’s because this is an example of something I like to call argumentum ad patriarchum — not because it’s being used to support the patriarchy (though, of course, in this case it is), but because it’s how my father argues when he knows he’s on the back foot and will otherwise lose badly.
In this kind of argument, the opponent has, with a new claim, changed the terms of what they are arguing so boldly that even if their new claim is totally supported, it in no way justifies the original argument. The point of such an argument being used is simply to get you to a point where you agree they are right about something, and then they can crow and say, “so you do agree, after all, I’m glad we can see things eye to eye about [primary issue that agreeing to the secondary proposition never actually impacted].”
Yes, a huge range of intersex conditions exist. You could be a person with ambiguous genitalia caused by CAH, or an XY person who appeared female due to CAIS. You could be a person whose sex hormones are thrown out of whack and have some secondary sex features of the opposite sex.
But these sex is a spectrum arguments are sophistry. They are a word game.
The way you can tell is simple. The person making these arguments doesn’t follow it up with, “I’ve got XY chromosomes and CAIS, and I don’t want you to tell me that I can’t identify as a woman.”
Their next move is always to say that if you accept the existence of intersex conditions and sex as a spectrum, you must be willing to accept that identity should now be the defining element that determines all humans’ location on that spectrum.
All the science, all the specific conditions mentioned … it’s the misdirection used by a magician — or a conman. Because these arguments always lead up to “identity,” and intersex conditions are conditions existing in material reality.
Let’s take, by way of example, something we all accept is a spectrum already: visible light.
The wavelength of visible light, as you can see, goes from about 350-800 nanometers.
Blue light and red light exist toward the ends of this spectrum, and there is a dramatic range of colors in between. Unlike in the “sex spectrum,” in fact, the middle range of the visible light spectrum contains the majority of categories distinguished by the human eye.
And yet, discoveries of new colors within that spectrum — or the fuzzy boundaries between what we, for instance, perceive as red versus orange — do not mean that yellow is whatever someone identifies as yellow (or believes is yellow with all their heart). Yellow is a color category that exists in the upper 500 nanometer wavelength range. You could readily claim that something at 600 nanometers was yellow, or at least yellow-ish, and have a reasonable argument. But you could not do the same for light with a wavelength of 450 nanometers.
Let’s say that at birth, you were assigned a ribbon you needed to wear in your hair at all times. These ribbons were red (colors with wavelengths of about 650 nm and up) and blue (450 nm and below). For their whole lives, red and blue ribbon-getters were treated quite differently from one another: red ribbon-getters were a lower social order, expected to primarily serve the needs of the people with a blue ribbon.
Once in a blue moon, though, the dyeing machine had an error during the dye process, and yellow, orange, or green ribbons were produced instead. Tradition dictated they had to be used. For centuries, any children who got a yellow, orange, or green ribbon were simply told they’d received a red or blue ribbon, and when they pointed out any differences between their ribbon and the ones that were actually red or blue, an adult hushed them and told them they were wrong. Since ribbons are very important in their society, they grow up with a deep internal sense of shame over their differences.
The people with orange, yellow, and green ribbons start to complain and band together: shouldn’t they be acknowledged as they are?
At some point, the people with blue ribbons get it into their heads that this is a very fun idea, indeed: in fact, if someone with an orange ribbon — which we used to pretend was red, for the sake of outmoded social norms — can now say “My ribbon is orange, not red!”, why can’t their ribbon be whatever color they identify it as, too?
In fact, they take a good long look at their blue ribbon. Sure, they say, its surface reflects light at a wavelength of 480 nm. But they know tons of blue-ribboned people whose ribbons are of even shorter wavelengths: their friend Bill’s ribbon is a very deep blue, almost violet, and all the blue-ribbon people they see in the media seem to have deeper blue ribbons than theirs.
Since ribbon color is no longer falsely regarded a binary, now, they’re ready to make the claim: their ribbon isn’t really blue at all. It’s orange, or maybe actually red. Maybe it’s always been red, and you just didn’t see it. If we’re to accept that the orange-ribboned person doesn’t have a red ribbon, after all, we must also accept that a blue-ribboned person can, if they want to.
The reason, of course, comes into sharp contrast: the person with the orange ribbon isn’t in any way denying reality. If that person identified as an orange ribbon-haver, they’re being specific and having pride in their differences. If they identified as a red ribbon-haver, because they’d been treated like a red ribbon-haver since the day they were born and they didn’t want to deal with being singled out as having an orange ribbon, that would also seem reasonable.
But nothing about the quest of people with green, orange, and yellow ribbons would mean that a person with a light blue ribbon actually had one that was yellow, or orange, or red. It’d be reality-denying and insulting to the intelligence of others for a person with a blue ribbon to insist everyone pretend his ribbon had always been red.
In a more reality-based context, some sheep being born with ambiguous genitalia and infertility issues doesn’t mean a ram can suddenly be a ewe upon request.
Sex spectrum arguments are irrelevant to the idea of identity-based sex and gender definitions. They are a deliberate time-wasting tactic engaged in by mansplainers, who jump in with an “Aaaaactually…” and then use this red herring to confuse the argument and claim victory.
Bookmark this post — and the next time you hear someone making this argument, send them this way.
* – Now that MTFs consider themselves “adult human females,” and of the female sex, they have again neatly collapsed the two into a single category for the purpose of definition, which has proven disastrous for sex protections in, for instance, provisions of the UK’s newly proposed GRA, as well as for single-sex accommodations in sports and facilities.
culturallyboundgender Uncategorized 10 Comments October 10, 2018 5 Minutes
Back. Mean, Nasty, Disrespectful … and Back.
It’s been a while.
In that time, the little movement of feminists I became part of has become a force to be reckoned with.
And, of course, the trans lobby has become a massively funded, takes-no-prisoners sort of effort that showcases men at their most controlling.
Just today, I have seen men on the left refer to feminists as in league with Nazis (seems like there’s a misogynist portmanteau they’re just itching to use!) for having the audacity to claim that women don’t have penises.
I have seen women called every name imaginable for expressing this opinion. I have seen them lose their jobs. I have seen them excluded from social life.
I have seen women who, heartbreakingly, need to live a double life to be able to keep their jobs at “LGBTQ” charities, so that they can still work for gay and lesbian people. They have to present about the “Genderbread person” with a smile, even while having been harassed in women’s-only spaces by males who are trans-identified.
I have not been quiet because I changed my mind.
I believe it is time to write once more.
culturallyboundgender Uncategorized 4 Comments October 10, 2018 1 Minute
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The Best New Music in Rock, Alternative, Hip-Hop, and More
Expertly Curated by the CoS Staff
Jonny Greenwood premieres new music, including Thom Yorke remix and solo songs — listen
Radiohead guitarist was a special guest on Flying Lotus' monthly residency on BBC Radio 1
on March 12, 2015, 9:55pm
The latest episode of Flying Lotus’ monthly residency on BBC Radio 1 featured a guest mix from Jonny Greenwood. The Radiohead guitarist used the opportunity to premiere a handful of material, including a new instrumental take on “Spook” from the Inherent Vice soundtrack, a remix of the Thom Yorke solo track “A Rat’s Nest”, an unheard demo from There Will Be Blood called “De-Tuned Quartet”, and a brand new solo song of his own called “Lola Choir”. Listen to the full show at BBC’s website.
During his show in January, FlyLo debuted a pair of new solo tracks, an alternate take of his Kendrick Lamar-featuring “Never Catch Me”, and previously unheard cuts from Joey Bada$$ and Thundercat. He also interviewed jazz legend Herbie Hancock. Listen to it here.
Jonny Greenwood
Inherent Vice
Film Review: Run All Night
Death Grips debut new song “On GP” — listen
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Cameron: Until we're represented by men and women in the country, we won't be half the party we could be.
Speech in Leeds on improving candidate selection
"It's a great pleasure to be here in Leeds today. I came here during my leadership campaign, and hope to come back many times. It's such a fantastic, vibrant city. Leeds encapsulates many of the opportunities and challenges facing urban Britain today.
A buzzing sense of progress and optimism, but facing real issues about social cohesion and economic opportunity - issues we will need to tackle together. Focusing this Party's energies on the opportunities and challenges of urban Britain is one of the big changes we need to make.
When I launched my leadership campaign I said that our Party had to change fundamentally. Engaging young people with a positive approach to the issues they care about. Showing we have the best ideas for urban revival. And crucially, broadening our representation in Parliament so we better reflect the country we aspire to govern.
I was blunt about the scale of change needed, and the scope of what it would require. Well, last week, I won a convincing victory in the leadership contest. I now have a clear mandate to make that change.
So today I'm announcing my plans to give this Party what it voted for: more women in Parliament. I'm going to tell you how I plan to change the face of the Conservative Party by changing the faces of the Conservative Party.
Some say there's no need for positive action to redress the imbalance that currently exists, where nine out of ten Conservative members of Parliament are white men like me. Some say that positive action invalidates the achievement of those who benefit from it.
That, over time, the number of women and the number of black and ethnic minority Conservative MPs will inevitably rise…
…that the fact they've done it with no intervention will strengthen their position…
…and so there's no need to take steps to accelerate the process.
I completely disagree. Let's look at the facts.
There are 17 women MPs in the current parliamentary party; there were 13 in 1932.
So much for progress.
Women make up 9% of the Conservative Parliamentary Party, as opposed to 28% of the Labour Parliamentary Party.
And things are getting no better: only 6% of our new intake of MPs were women. Of the top 50 winnable seats, only 6 had women candidates.
When it comes to black and minority ethnic MPs, there are so few in my Party that it's as easy to name them as count them, so here goes: Adam Afriyie and Shailesh Vara.
The situation in terms of candidates is somewhat more representative: 6% of the Conservative candidates list are black and minority ethnic, as opposed to 8% of the country's population. Within these statistics lie other imbalances. We currently have a much stronger appeal to, for example, the Indian community than to Afro-Caribbeans or East Asians.
But we need to become more relevant to them - and to the other, newer, but fast-growing communities - from Africa and Eastern Europe, for example.
The reason why we must take positive action to increase the number of women MPs, the number of MPs from different ethnic backgrounds…
…and - a point that is often overlooked - MPs with disabilities…
…has got nothing to do with crude political calculation, or crazed political correctness.
It's about political effectiveness.
To create effective policy, we must involve those who are affected by it. I've already been outlining some of my plans for policy development.
They are based on identifying the big challenges our country faces, applying our values to those challenges, and then showing how our ideas meet the hopes and aspirations of people today.
How can we possibly do that properly without a balanced party that reflects the full range of hopes and aspirations to be found in modern Britain?
If you put eight Conservative men round a table and ask them to discuss what should be done about pensions, you'd get some good answers.
Restoring incentives to save. Ending means testing. Raising the retirement age.
But what you're less likely to get is a powerful insight into the massive unfairness relating to women's pensions.
We need people from diverse backgrounds to inform everything we do, to give us the benefit of their diverse experience, to ensure that we stay in touch with the reality of life in Britain today.
Only if we engage the whole country in our Party will our Party develop ideas that benefit the whole country.
The conversation we have in the Conservative Party must reflect the conversation in the country, and the sound of modern Britain is a complex harmony, not a male voice choir.
Less than a week ago, in my speech accepting the leadership of the Party, I pledged to change the way my Party looks. Today, I am going to make good those intentions.
Until we're represented by men and women in the country, regardless of race or creed, we won't be half the party we could be.
My plan for positive action is based on clear principles. Guaranteeing more women and ethnic minorities are selected in winnable seats.
Ensuring that someone's potential to be a good MP is the only factor that counts in being selected as a parliamentary candidate. And preserving the autonomy that constituencies have to select the candidate that is best for them.
So today I am announcing five decisive steps that will increase dramatically the number of women, and black and minority ethnic Conservative MPs.
First, and with immediate effect, I am today freezing all candidate selections.
No more candidates will be selected until we have established a system that guarantees increased diversity, fairness and meritocracy.
Second, we will draw up a priority list of our best and brightest candidates from the existing candidates list and from new recruits.
The priority list will be representative of Britain today…
… at least half the people on it will be women…
… and it will include a significant proportion of people with disabilities, and from black and minority ethnic communities.
I want to make it clear that "brightest and best" does not mean youngest and most metropolitan.
The priority list will welcome women of all ages and backgrounds…
…the fifty-three year-old whose children have just left home, as well as the thirty-three year old who has yet to start a family.
The priority list will be drawn up by the Party Board's Committee on Candidates.
Theresa May has been appointed to this Committee, and together with Bernard Jenkin, the Deputy Chairman for Candidates, will lead this process. Bernard and Theresa will ensure that the process for determining who is on the priority list will be based on merit, and will be open and transparent.
From now on all target seats and Conservative-held seats will be expected to select from this group of candidates.
In particular circumstances it will be possible to add to the priority list for a specific selection…
…but we expect it to be of sufficient size…
…to be sufficiently broad…
…comprising people of such talent, that there will rarely be a case for this.
As the result of the leadership election showed, there is now an overwhelming desire for change in our Party.
So I'm confident that all Conservative-held and marginal seats will want to select their candidate from our priority list.
But I will take nothing for granted.
And so the third step that I can announce today is that after three months of selections, there will be a further pause to allow us to carry out a full review of progress.
In the unlikely event that further action is necessary, such action will be taken.
Creating a structured, representative basis for the selection of women, black and minority ethnic candidates is a huge step for us… but it is just the first step.
We will also need to attract the best people. We need to gather together a lot of talent.
So I'm today appealing to every woman in Britain, and everyone from a black or minority ethnic background….
…who shares my passion to change Britain for the better…
…who shares our values…
…sitting in this room or watching at home, to apply to stand for Parliament in the Conservative cause.
Go to our website, conservatives.com.
We are looking for you, the brightest and the best…
…to join our mission…
…to make your contribution…
…and to help make our country a better place to live.
I promise that we will welcome you, look after you and give you all the support you need.
To ensure that we are true to these words, I have also asked Bernard and Theresa to implement the fourth step in my positive action plan.
An intensive programme of headhunting for new women, black and minority ethnic candidates, and a mentoring programme to support them in their efforts.
Accompanying this will be a professional recruitment programme, backed by advertising, to ensure that we attract the widest range of top quality people.
And we will prepare guidance to be sent to local constituencies…
…to help them understand the need for change…
…and to help them change selection processes so they test the full range of a candidate's skills…
…for example through a Question Time-style panel involving all the candidates on a shortlist, not relying on a testosterone-fuelled 'big speech'.
I believe and hope that the plan I have announced today will achieve what our members voted for: a modern Conservative party reflecting the country as a whole.
And I have one other initiative to announce today.
The fifth component of my positive action plan.
I want to ensure that the candidate selection process itself fully engages the local community.
From now on, Conservative-held and target seats will be expected to involve non-Party members in their choice of candidates. I don't want to be too prescriptive about how constituencies do this. So we will be offering them a choice.
Option one is for constituencies to set up a panel of local community stakeholders…
…for example members of local voluntary groups, GPs, school governors and head teachers, local business leaders, and local police officers.
These community panels will interview the candidates from the priority list chosen by the local Association, and will report to the Association on the relative strengths of each candidate.
Option two is to run a primary system.
This could be a closed primary in which anyone in a constituency who registers as a Conservative supporter…
…without needing to be a party member…
…will be entitled to vote for their local candidate from a shortlist selected from the priority list by the local Association.
Or it could be an open primary, in which anyone registered to vote…
…regardless of whether they are a Conservative…
…could vote for their local candidate from the Association's shortlist of candidates from the priority list.
Our democratic leadership election has energised our Party. I want candidate selections to do the same at the local level, by involving the local community in the process.
By changing the face and the faces of the Conservative Party, I believe we will increase the number of people in this country who listen to what we have to say.
But it's not enough to get ourselves a hearing. We must also have a relevant and inspiring message.
I want us to focus on the future, and to engage people…
…young, old, those who are committed to politics and those who have given up on it…
…in the task of meeting the challenges faced by our country and our world.
I believe that there are six big challenges we face, and that we must address them in an open-minded, creative and thoughtful way. These challenges are complex and interconnected. They can't be dealt with under neat headings or in simple boxes.
They require serious long-term thinking. They will never be tackled by "coming up with" policies to make newspaper headlines.
We need to develop policies on the basis of hard work and hard thinking, drawing on the best and most creative ideas, wherever they come from.
And so to investigate each of these six big challenges, and to develop the ideas that will form the basis of the next Conservative Manifesto…
…I will be appointing Policy Groups, not stuffed with politicians but led by the best thinkers, with a passion for change and a desire to get to grips with these difficult challenges.
I've already announced two of them.
To address the Social Justice Challenge, Iain Duncan Smith and Debbie Scott from Tomorrow's People will lead a Policy Group looking at how we empower individuals, communities and voluntary organisations and social enterprises…
…to tackle entrenched problems like persistent poverty, family breakdown, lack of aspiration and drug addiction.
To address the Quality of Life Challenge, John Gummer and Zac Goldsmith will lead a Policy Group looking at how to achieve strong but sustainable economic growth...
…they will think radically about issues like transport, energy, housing and the urban environment.
Over the next few weeks, I will be appointing similarly talented people to lead our work on meeting the challenges of…
…Globalisation and Global Poverty…
…National and International Security…
….Economic Competitiveness…
…and Public Service Improvement.
This is our agenda for the next four years.
I want everyone who believes in positive politics and who has a passion for change to get involved in the work of these Policy Groups. I want our Policy Groups to be the national focus for debate, discussion and free thinking about these vital issues for the future of our country and our world.
The Policy Groups wouldn't add up to much if we ran them internally, with Westminster policy wonks, or a group of white males of a certain age.
So our policy development process will also reflect modern Britain.
How can we begin to address the issues of social justice without hearing the voices of the black and minority ethnic communities…
…who live, disproportionately, within the inner cities where these problems are greatest?
How could a review of public services have any credibility without the input of the women who, in many cases, are at the front end of dealing with their children's education, or their health?
The processes of transforming the face and the agenda of our party go hand in hand.
We will be drawing on the brightest and the best, men and women, within and without the Party, to help us understand the fundamental challenges facing Britain and to develop creative and radical solutions.
We're going to take our time to get things right, and to enable everyone's voice to be heard.
We're going to be totally open and transparent. Everything the Policy Groups do will be published online.
If good ideas are generated along the way…
…that the Government, business, or anyone else wants to put into practice, that's fantastic.
We will have made positive change happen, which is our only aim.
You can get involved today in the Policy Groups that have already been launched…
…go to socialjusticechallenge.com or qualityoflifechallenge.com.
The Policy Groups will report in eighteen months. I want those eighteen months to be the most exciting and creative eighteen months of political discussion this country has ever seen.
Everything we do will be guided by the two core values at the heart of my kind of Conservatism: trusting people, and sharing responsibility.
I believe that the more you trust people, the more power and responsibility you give them, the stronger they and society become. And I believe passionately that we're all in this together - individuals, families, government, business, voluntary organisations.
We have a shared responsibility for our shared future.
These are the values we need to meet the challenges of the modern world. It's an incredible honour and privilege to lead the Conservative Party, and to have been given, through the result of the leadership contest, the authority to change the party so it reflects Britain today…
… the Britain that I live in and love and…
… a Britain that has embraced diversity and been strengthened by it
I have outlined my plan for ensuring that our Party capitalises on all the assets of this fantastic country.
And I hope, over the next weeks, months and years, that millions of our fellow citizens will want to join us…
…to build a modern, compassionate Conservative Party…
…to help address the big challenges our society faces…
…and to be a growing voice for change, optimism and hope."
← Speech to the National Assembl... Conservatives lead condemnatio... →
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9/11 Conspiracies
February 14, 2005, 11:21 am
Popular Mechanics has a very readable debunking of many of the most prevalent 9/11 conspiracies. I am sure conspiracy theorists will generally respond to most of the scientists quoted with the all-encompassing "they're in on it!" Once you get so many people giving evidence that the conspiracies are incorrect, you drive the conspiracy into the realm of Meyer's Law:
When the same set of facts can be explained equally well by
A massive conspiracy coordinated without a single leak between hundreds or even thousands of people -OR -
Sustained stupidity, ignorance and/or incompetence
Assume stupidity.
In this case, the word stupidity is unfair. The 9/11 attacks fall into the category of the "unimagined". Frank Borman (as portrayed in the awesome mini-series "From the Earth to the Moon", I have not been able to find out if they used his actual words) is speaking to a committee hearing on the Apollo 1 fire that killed three astronauts. Under intense scrutiny for a set of conditions that in retrospect seemed ridiculously unsafe, Borman described the problem as "a failure of imagination".
In this case, for example, conspiracy theorists ask why no military plane intercepted the aircraft. First, I would argue that without any prior precedent, no military commander or politician would have the cajones to shoot down a planeload of innocents on a commercial airliner (now THAT would be conspiracy fodder, had it happened). Second, though, the article quotes a number of military commanders to say that the US didn't really have the radar coverage or aircraft patrols in place to intercept an airplane attacking from within the country - everyone previously imagined the threat to come from outside our borders, and that is how our defenses were arrayed.
Anyway, read the who article - it is an entertaining roundup of conspiracy theories (people do have good imaginations) and a well-argued debunking of them. (via Instapundit)
Tags: borders, Frank Borman, Instapundit Popular Mechanics, Meyer Law, Popular Mechanics, US
I will read the article -- I do not think unimagined is the right word becasue it (and countless other things have been) was imagined by Tom Clancy in one of his novel when he had an airplane crash into the capital. I think it was more the NIMBY effect -- not in my back yard.
Thanks for letting us know of the articles --
Larry:
Bullshit; Nutz; dum ass;
Kyle:
Oh yeah, the "Popular Mechanics" article... written by Michael Chertoff. And he's what now? The head of the Dept. of Fatherland (In)Security? Why would they pick a writer for Popular Mechanics to be the head of that department? Oh yeah, because he's not a writer for Popular Mechanics, he's a C.I.A. hack, that explains both why he's head of Dept. of Fatherland Security AND why a magazine that used to be reputable would produce such a laughable whitewash of 9/11 and especially the WTC "collapses" [read: controlled demolitions]. Because not too long before this ridiculous article appeared Popular Mechanics magazine was bought out by the C.I.A. and their editorial and writing staffs were purged and replaced with C.I.A. hacks. Just look at the issue that this article was in, look at the staff there and then look back a few issues at the staff. Because the C.I.A. are the only ones who could present this and keep a straight face. I suppose one has to give him credit for at least "trying" to explain the precision implosion of the Twin Towers in ten seconds apiece (freefall rate) WITHOUT mentioning explosives, an insurmountable task. But I thought you heard the latest: The "pancake theory" has been thoroughly discredited and the administration produced yet another turd sandwich of a "theory" as to why the "collapses" occurred. Are you ready for this? Their new position is that when the Towers were hit it shook all the fireproofing off of all the main support columns which allowed them to get heated up by the "intense" fire. Yeah, all the fireproofing. Off all FORTY-SEVEN huge columns. At once. Sounds like they're grasping at straws. Have you all forgotten about the "hijacker's" passport "found" [read: planted] near the WTC rubble? Ever wonder how it "survived" the "intense" fire that we were told incinerated the planes, the passengers and even the black boxes? What was it made of, kryptonite? No, it was obviously planted.
Regarding the "collapses" of the Twin Towers and the WTC # 7 which was never hit by a plane or any significant debris, all one has to do to see 9/11 was an inside job is to look at the video footage of the "collapses". See the explosions and also the "squibs" of dust jetting out of the windows from the charges going off. See the buildings "collapse" in ten seconds, the rate an object falls through air unopposed, impossible UNLESS all forty-seven main support columns were simultaneously disintegrated with explosives. See for yourself:
http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/collapse%20update/#videos
http://www.globalresearch.ca.myforums.net/viewtopic.php?t=523
http://www.reopen911.org/pictures_and_videos.htm#Painful
http://wtc.macroshaft.org/mov
http://www.wtc7.net/
By the way, in regards to what was said in your "explanation" as to why the world's most expensive air force allowed the "hijacked airliners" to fly totally unhindered for An HOUR & TWENTY MINUTES to their respective targets, one being the seat of the Dept. of Defense (!), you said that maybe it was because N.O.R.A.D. doesn't watch the interior with radar, just "pointing outwards". This is patently incorrect. N.O.R.A.D. sees the same things on radar as the F.A.A.'s air traffic controllers (and then some) and knows when an airliner deviates from its flight plan the same time the F.A.A. does. They don't have to for example call an air force base and request that they scramble because of an unresponsive airliner; the air force is monitoring all air traffic in the U.S. on radar as well as the F.A.A. and a scramble in that situation is standard operating procedure without higher orders. And no, it would not take a presidential- or vice- presidential order to shoot down an airliner, but they would however have to clear it with either N.O.R.A.D.'s commander or the chairman of the JCS, which they would have had PLENTY of time to do. Bear in mind that they were flying through the most closely-watched airspace in the country, the Northeast, littered with fighter bases, each with at minimum two fighters and two pilots on standby to scramble and be off a deviant airliner's wing in a FEW MINUTES, any time of day or night at all times. Every other time before 9/11 or since then that an airliner or even a smaller plane deviates from its flight plan fighters have been off of their wing in a few minutes. I mean dozens of times a year. So it isn't as if airliners very rarely deviate from their flight plans and get a couple fighters off their wing, like only once every few years; it's several dozen times each year. For many, many years N.O.R.A.D. has been watching the same radar scopes as the F.A.A. and has always responded quickly to anything that could possibly be a hijacked airliner, except that is on 9/11. Besides, did you notice that although the Pentagon is well-equipped with surface-to-air missile (SAM) launchers, it didn't fire any SAMs in its own defense? Not one. So to your "coincidental" air force impotence on 9/11 theory you need to add the headquarters of the Dept. of Defense's "coincidental" lack of defending itself. I can hear the believers now: "No, wait... N.O.R.A.D. and all it's fighter bases' personnel must have been asleep... "Al Qaeda" must have somehow slipped something into their coffee...yeah, that's the ticket...And the coffee of the Pentagon's SAM launcher crews too...yeah, see, the "official" story's not so far-fetched after all..."
http://emperors-clothes.com/indict/indict-1.htm
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/airf.htm
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/JohnJudge/WrongQuestion.html
http://www.flight93crash.com/flight93_military_faq.html
http://inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=387
August 17, 2005, 10:08 pm
chas:
wheres the proof that fighters are automatically scrambled when a plane deviates from its path if it happens so many times a year wouldnt you think that would keep track or some record of it. Also planes dont have to have a specific flight plan people that own their own planes can hope in and fly to wherever they want just need take-off and landing clearance
Orlowski Zygmunt:
Clean the air? It is possible. Clean water? It is possible too.
Clean energy? It is possible as well.
My idea is very difficult for understanding. It is not difficult for engineer - mechanic, who knows very good the Pascal's law and even-arm lever.
Please open GOOgle and find metozor and next :
index of metozor.
Overthere is all about idea of main .
Typical example : http://www.nets.pl/~metozor/for_greenpeace.html
Everyone is able to build just the model of METOZ machine and test it. It is not a long shot.It is very easy. In my elaboration " METOZ", no one is able to find even one small mistake. Please have a look at http://www.nets.pl/~metozor/supplement.html Perhaps METOZ is some duplicating machine of a clean energy.
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Brazil Canada Knowledge Exchange – Mobilization
Knowledge Mobilization: Our partnership depends on regular knowledge exchange at both informal and formal levels: among the co-investigators and partners ourselves; among our larger groups of local research teams; between all of us and our students; among pre-service, in-service and practicing teachers and then extending outward beyond these groups to the larger academic community and the many interested parties from around the world who follow our blogs, twitter feeds, Vimeo and Youtube videos, and Facebook sites. We are finding a positive response to our experimentation with using such social network sites for serious information and intellectual exchange. These postings are in both English and Portuguese. As currently being experimented with by the Centre for Globalization and Cultural Studies and the National Project blog, maintained by graduate students, three levels of connection and interaction are in play. We will maintain and build on these. The innermost circle will be devoted to formal, academic co-creation and consultation within a restricted community of co-investigators committed to dedicated collaboration linking our formal partnership sites. Within our team, we will maintain regular monthly contact through email and complementary skype calls, schedule at least one full team videoconference a year, and pursue opportunities for partial team meetings at conferences during this period. A second layer encircling that will be designed for looser engagement between our respective local research groups, who may well have their own separate blogs and sites for document sharing. A third outer encircling layer will encompass the broader interested public who may wish to follow our progress and interact with us more sporadically, digitally and in local events in their areas. The idea is to promote the co-creation and multidirectional flow of knowledge across multiple sectors, creating new forms of digital connectivity to complement our face to face community interactions.
Digital technologies: Digital technologies will be used to facilitate all three circles of research co-creation and dissemination. The main videoconferencing facility at the Manitoba Research Centre for Globalization and Cultural Studies is designed to exchange, capture and archive research based on a Tandberg system linked to an interactive digital whiteboard. It can connect to up to 5 sites simultaneously. This will be used for intensive co-creation across sites if we can manage access elsewhere as seems possible. The digital components of transnational literacies require innovative thinking about how to employ new technologies for the cross-cultural co-creation of knowledge. Links to sample videos of our work, interactive, presentational, and testimonial, are cited at the end of the References section of this application. The project will also use social software tools such as blogs, wikis, podcasts, and photo or bookmark-sharing systems. The emphasis will be on low bandwidth and universal access. Existing online communities and social networks such as Vimeo YouTube, Flickr, and Facebook will also be used to supplement sharing information and ideas and maintain less intense contact on a more regular basis. These sites are proving useful for friendly regular contact and the exchange of information and newly
published research. They also enable us to place the Brazil/Canada relation within a larger, less formal international context. We are committed to exploring the potential of new media as they emerge. We believe the non-interactive nature of web pages is making them less attractive for the kinds of active inter-connections we envisage, but will maintain a low bandwidth web page for the project, with appropriate links, to add to our partnership visibility.
Regular Workshop Meetings: The workshop schedule, working titles, locations, and allocation of organizational responsibilities are indicated elsewhere. The workshops are a central spine in our plans for research sharing, training, outreach and further project development. Each workshop will combine academic research dissemination with two days of intensive workshop participation aimed at student or teacher development, building on the specific needs, interests and strengths of the host site, and reaching out to the local community. While English will probably be the dominant language of participation, we hope to enable some sessions in Portuguese with English translation and provide translation into Portuguese for some of the English
sessions. CNPq provides some funding for such initiatives in Brazil and we may be able to arrange with the Glendon translation studies program to obtain course credit for some translation in Canada. While our partnership will work together in English, we want to ensure that selective translation is available for sessions directed to larger audiences beyond our working group. We will hold four workshops (in addition to National Project meetings) bringing our teams together to explore different dimensions of the theoretical and practical challenges we face and to enable a short period of intensive training for students and junior faculty. Where possible, we will coordinate workshop meetings in Brazil with those of the National Project. With appropriate
permissions, we will videotape and archive interviews with key participants, conference papers, audience question and answer sessions, and round table discussions for sharing within our group and, where feasible, with others beyond it.
In the Classroom: As indicated in the World Bank Report, Lifelong Learning in the Global Knowledge Economy, teacher training needs to change from traditional learning modes to lifelong learning imaginaries in which teachers become lifelong learners, working collaboratively to “keep up to date with new knowledge, pedagogical ideas, and technology”(xx). Our knowledge mobilization plan is designed to encourage the integration of transnational literacies into classrooms in ways that respect the needs of local communities, in Canada and Brazil, and
encourage civic engagement.
Academic Publication and Dissemination: Publication decisions will be handled by the team as a whole and then delegated to an individual or sub-group from within our ranks. We will publish books with academic publishers as well as articles in refereed journals and specialjournal issues developed from each workshop. Sample volume or issue titles include: Teaching Transnational Literacies in Canada and Brazil, Democratizing the Research Imagination, What Makesa Cross-Cultural Partnership Work?, English as an International Language in Canada and Brazil, and Transculturalism, Multilingualism, and Teachers’ Formation. All research results will be made available via open access. Published documents in peer reviewed journals may require copyright agreements for the first year but after that a dedicated Dspace community will be used for the project to ensure continuous archival and open access to research outputs. The press interested in our first volume makes all books available via Google afterthe first year.
The goal is to change the culture of research collaboration and knowledge exchange: exchanging materials in advance of meetings, capturing discussions for future reference and follow through, and maintaining regular exchange throughout theyear. Through our use of new technologies, we will expand the audience for serious academic thinking beyond exclusively academic publications, sharing ourpleasure in the work we do with others beyond our immediate circle in the hope of widening opportunities for meaningful engagement in knowledge co-creation.
Our project builds on the partnership between the Centre for Globalization and Cultural Studies at the University of Manitoba (directed by Diana Brydon) and the National Curriculum Project in English at the University of Sao Paulo (directed by Walkyria Monte Mor and Lynn Mario de Souza). From this core, we are partners with colleagues at the University of Winnipeg, Glendon College, York University, and the University of Waterloo in Canada and the State University of Mato Grosso do Sul, the Federal University of Alagoas, the Federal University of Sergipe, the Getulio Vargas Foundation, Rio, and APLIEMS (Association of English Teachers of Mato Grosso do Sul) in Brazil. Each co-investigator brings distinctive expertise to this project. Our co-creation of knowledge and understanding will synthesize and build on existing work across the disciplines with the aim of mobilizing our findings in accessible ways in classroom and web-based settings, building institutional capacity, and training the next generation of teachers, translators, and researchers in both countries.
« III Seminar Developing New Literacies In Cross-Cultural Contexts USP Sep 21-23
Lynn Mário Menezes T. de Souza, USP – Brazil Canada Knowledge Exchange »
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By Dave Gonigam
What do the pros think?
Dick Cheney was too busy dodging bombs in Afghanistan today to issue any more apocolyptic pronouncements about Iran (perhaps he’ll see the attack as a sign that the Taliban resurgence is in its “last throes”), so the action on Iran today shifts to Washington, D.C., where some of the nation’s intelligence chiefs will deliver an annual “Worldwide Threat Briefing” to Congress.
Spencer Ackerman reports that this year’s briefing comes at a critical moment — when Team Bush is shifting its war-of-civilizations strategy away from Sunni militants like al-Qaeda and toward a Shiite nation-state, Iran. The shift is evident both in the administration’s rhetoric and in the clandestine moves described in Seymour Hersh’s latest piece. In light of this, Ackerman says it will be revealing to see whether the intelligence pros will be on the same page as the veep:
Nuances will be important, and the hearing will surely be a proving ground for getting an evaluation of where Iran and al-Qaeda fit into the picture. No sensible intelligence official would ever emphasize one threat at the expense of another, so don’t look for any dramatic repudiations of the Bush administration. But for the first time since this month’s strange intelligence briefing on Iranian malfeasance in Iraq, there’ll be a public opportunity to discern and investigate discrepancies between how administration and intelligence officials portray the relative threats from Iran and al-Qaeda.
Meanwhile in Iran, discontent with Ahmadinejad keeps growing. Reformers and conservatives alike are getting fed up, and Iran’s supreme leader Khamenei — the guy who really calls this shots — is rumored to be getting his belly full of Ahmadinejad too. From Team Bush’s standpoint, Ahmadinejad’s removal from office would be a disaster — all these months of building up a bogeyman in the public mind only to have to find a new one. As Stephen Kinzer shows in his book Overthrow, American-engineered regime change usually goes over better with the American people if there’s a face to be demonized — “Butcher” Weyler, Noriega, Saddam…
Freedom: The New and Future Experiment... Part II
By Posted November 21, 2011
About Dave Gonigam:
Dave Gonigam has been managing editor of The 5 Min. Forecast since September 2010. Before joining the research and writing team at Agora Financial in 2007, he worked for 20 years as an Emmy award-winning television news producer.
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drwildareviews
Parent Trigger: ‘Won’t Back Down’
Tag Archives: Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Foundation
Dr. Wilda Reviews: American Artist Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series at SAM
Moi joined the press preview of American Artist Jacob Lawrence’s series “The Migration Series” which was exhibited in it’s entirely from the collections of The Museum of Modern Art and The Phillips Collection at the Seattle Art Museum (SAM). Rarely, has the entire collection been seen. The series explores the migration of African Americans from the South to the North. Here are the details:
Jacob Lawrence: The Migration Series
Sat Jan 21 – Sun Apr 23 2017
Seattle Art Museum
Third Floor Galleries
The History Chanel describes the Great Migration:
After the post-Civil War Reconstruction period ended in 1876, white supremacy was largely restored across the South, and the segregationist policies known as Jim Crow soon became the law of the land. Southern blacks were forced to make their living working the land as part of the sharecropping system, which offered little in the way of economic opportunity, especially after a boll weevil epidemic in 1898 caused massive crop damage across the South. And while the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) had been officially dissolved in 1869, it continued underground after that, and intimidation, violence and even lynching of black southerners were not uncommon practices in the Jim Crow South.
Around 1916, when the Great Migration began, a factory wage in the urban North was typically three times more than what blacks could expect to make working the land in the rural South.
After World War I broke out in Europe in 1914, industrialized urban areas in the North, Midwest and West faced a shortage of industrial laborers, as the war put an end to the steady tide of European immigration to the United States. With war production kicking into high gear, recruiters enticed African Americans to come north, to the dismay of white Southerners. Black newspapers–particularly the widely read Chicago Defender–published advertisements touting the opportunities available in the cities of the North and West, along with first-person accounts of success.
GREAT MIGRATION: LIFE FOR MIGRANTS IN THE CITY
By the end of 1919, some 1 million blacks had left the South, usually traveling by train, boat or bus; a smaller number had automobiles or even horse-drawn carts. In the decade between 1910 and 1920, the black population of major Northern cities grew by large percentages, including New York (66 percent) Chicago (148 percent), Philadelphia (500 percent) and Detroit (611 percent). Many new arrivals found jobs in factories, slaughterhouses and foundries, where working conditions were arduous and sometimes dangerous. Female migrants had a harder time finding work, spurring heated competition for domestic labor positions.
Aside from competition for employment, there was also competition for living space in the increasingly crowded cities. While segregation was not legalized in the North (as it was in the South), racism and prejudice were widespread. After the U.S. Supreme Court declared racially based housing ordinances unconstitutional in 1917, some residential neighborhoods enacted covenants requiring white property owners to agree not to sell to blacks; these would remain legal until the Court struck them down in 1948…. http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/great-migration
Lawrence’s 60 panels tell the story about this movement of African American people and culture.
The Phillips Collection provides a concise biography of Mr. Lawrence:
JACOB LAWRENCE (1917–2000)
A celebrated painter, storyteller, and interpreter of the African-American experience, Jacob Lawrence was born in Atlantic City in 1917 to a couple who had moved from the rural South to find a better life in the North. After their parents separated, Lawrence and his two younger siblings lived in settlement houses and foster homes in Philadelphia until their mother could support them in New York. He came to New York in 1930, at the age of thirteen, and quickly discovered art as a means of expression. Lawrence’s education in art was both informal—observing the activity and rhythms of the streets of Harlem—and formal, in after-school community workshops at Utopia House and later at the Harlem Art Workshop. At both centers he was able to study with the prominent artist, Charles Alston, and in the course of his work, he became immersed in the cultural activity and fervor of the artists and writers who led the Harlem Renaissance, Alston among them. Lawrence received a scholarship to the American Artists School, and he began to gain some notice for his dramatic and lively portrayals of both contemporary scenes of African-American urban life as well as historical events, all of which he depicted in crisp shapes, bright, clear colors, dynamic patterns, and through revealing posture and gestures. Lawrence’s mother had hoped he would choose a career in civil service, but members of the creative community, including poet Claude McKay and sculptor Augusta Savage, encouraged him to become an artist. He was painting, he said, “a portrait of myself,” in his portraits of the Harlem community. In 1938, Lawrence had his first solo exhibition at the Harlem YMCA and started working in the easel painting division of the WPA Federal Art Project. In 1940, he received a grant from the Rosenwald Foundation to create a series of images on the migration of African-Americans from the South. The painter Gwendolyn Knight assisted him on the captions for the images and initial coating of the panels. They married in 1941. The same year The Migration of the Negro series had its debut at the Downtown Gallery. Lawrence was the first artist of color to be represented by a major New York gallery, and the success of this exhibition gave him national prominence.
Lawrence was active as both a painter and art educator. He taught at Black Mountain College in North Carolina in 1946, and later at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine and the New School for Social Research in New York. In 1971, Lawrence became a professor of painting at the University of Washington in Seattle. In his later career he was also known for his serigraphs (silkscreens), many of them versions of series of paintings completed in earlier years, as well as for his book illustrations. Lawrence was still drawing and painting in preparation for still another series of works when he died in Seattle in 2000. http://www.phillipscollection.org/research/american_art/bios/lawrence-bio.htm
Mr. Lawrence agreed to a joint purchase of The Migration Series.
The Whitney Museum described The Migration Series:
I don’t think in terms of history about that series. I think in terms of contemporary life. It was such a part of me that I didn’t think of something outside. It was like I was doing a portrait of something. If it was a portrait, it was a portrait of myself, a portrait of my family, a portrait of my peers.
Jacob Lawrence1
In 1940 Jacob Lawrence received a $1,500 fellowship from the Rosenwald Foundation to complete a series of panels on the Great Migration. Lawrence conducted research at The Schomburg Collection in Harlem and completed the series in 1941.
I did plenty of research in books and pamphlets written during the migration, and afterward…I took notes. Sometimes I would make ten or twenty sketches for one incident…By the time I started work on the (Migration Series), I was more conscious of what I wanted to do. I was looking consciously at things and for things.
Although the series was originally meant to remain together as one work, that winter the artist agreed to a joint purchase by The Museum of Modern Art and the Phillips Collection.
Lawrence’s Migration Series depicts the migration of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North during and after World War I. The Great Migration was the largest movement of black people since slavery removed Africans to the Americas. Lawrence’s sixty panels portray the story of people seeking a better life. The captions for each image combine history, sociology, and poetry in a visual narrative.
The railroad is the link in the series of events that comprise Lawrence’s epic story. The narrative cycle begins and ends with images of a train station. In the first panel, African Americans embark on their journey from the South to the North, through time and geography, conflict and hope. Scenes of the train station are repeated throughout the series ending with the text “And the migrants kept coming.”
In the first half of the series, the South is depicted as a bleak, rustic landscape where social inequities and injustice prevail–poverty, hunger, segregation, lynching, and discrimination are commonplace facts of life. Some scenes are portrayed as if seen from a moving train; the North appears only as names of train destinations.
In contrast to the environment of the South, the second half of the narrative depicts the buildings, people, and industry of the urban North. The final section of The Migration Series focuses on the new African-American communities of the North–the positive effects of improved social conditions as well as the ensuing conflicts of overcrowding and race riots. https://whitney.org/www/jacoblawrence/art/migration_series.html
The August 4 SAM press release described SAM’s involvement. http://www.seattleartmuseum.org/Documents/Migration%20Series_press%20release.pdf
Moi was struck by the comment of Barbara Earl Thomas, who in addition to being a student of Mr. Lawrence is the current Vice President of the Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Foundation. Ms. Thomas said emphatically, “It is fitting and timely that Jacob Lawrence, great American Painter, be celebrated by those who knew him and loved him.” That is the takeaway from the exhibit. Mr. Lawrence has migrated from the box of being just an extraordinary African American painter to a great American painter in the way that Picasso was a great Spanish painter who captured the soul of his country with Guernica http://www.pablopicasso.org/guernica.jsp Those who are masters of their craft migrate beyond time and culture to embrace an audience that has no boundaries of age, race, or culture. Good art has the ability to move people.
A comment moi and others have made when first seeing the Mona Lisa at the Louvre is that it is so small. Like the Mona Lisa, the panels are very small. At another viewing, one might remark, the art is not small, but one has grown and now appreciates the meaning.
For those who are not only interested in great art, but one American master’s observation of a thread that has been woven into the fabric of the American people, The Migration Series is a must see. A definite thumbs up from Dr. Wilda.
‘Jacob Lawrence: The Migration Series,’ by Leah Dickerman and Elsa Smithgall https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/28/books/review/jacob-lawrence-the-migration-series-by-leah-dickerman-and-elsa-smithgall.html?_r=0
Telling the Whole Story: Jacob Lawrence’s “The Migration Series.” http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/04/20/telling-the-whole-story
An Artistic Feast: Jacob Lawrence’s 60-Piece Migration Series on Display in NYC http://www.theroot.com/an-artistic-feast-jacob-lawrence-s-60-piece-migration-1790859414
Jacob Lawrence: Exploring Stories – Whitney Museum of American Art http://whitney.org/www/jacoblawrence/meet/
The Jacob and Gwen Knight Lawrence Visual Resource Center http://www.jacobandgwenlawrence.org/
Jacob Lawrence facts, information, pictures http://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/american-art-biographies/jacob-lawrence
Elizabeth McCausland, “Jacob Lawrence,” in Ellen Harkins Wheat, ed., Jacob Lawrence: American Painter (Seattle: University of Washington Press in association with the Seattle Art Museum, 1986), p. 60.
Where information leads to Hope. © Dr. Wilda.com
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Tags: Barbara Earl Thomas, History Channel, Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Foundation, Jacob Lawrence, MOMA, Museum of Modern Art, Rosenwald Foundation, SAM, Seattle Art Museum, The Phillips Collection, Whitney Museum
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Revision as of 03:43, 7 January 2019 by Xymph (talk | contribs) (→See also: +Final Doom)
A checked version of this page, approved on 7 January 2019, was based on this revision.
This article is about the original Doom game. For the 2016 game, see Doom (2016).
"Doom 1" redirects here. For the shareware data file, see DOOM1.WAD.
Doom title screen
Doom (officially cased DOOM) is the first release of the Doom series, and one of the games that consolidated the first-person shooter genre. With a science fiction and horror style, it gives the players the role of marines who find themselves in the focal point of an invasion from hell. The game introduced deathmatch and cooperative play in the explicit sense, and helped further the practice of allowing and encouraging fan-made modifications of commercial video games. It was first released on December 10, 1993, when a shareware copy was uploaded to an FTP server at the University of Wisconsin.
4 Release and sales
5 Extensibility
6 Negative reaction
7 Legal issues in Germany
10 Weapons
11 Monsters
14.1 Official Doom websites
14.2 Game websites
Main article: Development of Doom
The development of Doom began in late 1992, with John Carmack writing the new game engine while the rest of id Software was finishing Spear of Destiny (the prequel to Wolfenstein 3D). When the full design phase began in late 1992, the main thematic influences were the movies Aliens and Evil Dead II, and the Dungeons & Dragons campaign the developers had been playing, where the forces of hell invaded the material world. The title of the game was chosen by John Carmack:
There is a scene in "The Color of Money" where Tom Cruse [sic] shows up at a pool hall with a custom pool cue in a case. "What do you have in there?" asks someone. "Doom." replied Cruse with a cocky grin. That, and the resulting carnage, was how I viewed us springing the game on the industry.
Designer Tom Hall wrote an elaborate specifications document called the Doom Bible, according to which the game would feature a detailed storyline, multiple player characters, and a number of interactive features. However, many of his ideas were discarded during development in favor of a simpler design primarily advocated by John Carmack, resulting in Hall's eventually being forced to resign from id Software. Most of the final level designs are those of John Romero and Sandy Petersen. The graphics, by Adrian Carmack, Kevin Cloud, and Gregor Punchatz, were created in various ways: although much was drawn or painted, several of the monsters were digitized from sculptures in clay or latex, and some of the weapons are modeled on toy guns from Toys "Я" Us. A heavy metal/ambient soundtrack was supplied by Bobby Prince.
Doom's primary distinguishing characteristic at the time of its release was its "3-D" graphics, then unparalleled by other real-time-rendered games running on consumer-level hardware. Several new features improved on those of Wolfenstein 3D:
Altitude differences (all floors/ceilings in Wolfenstein 3D are at the same height), but not sloped surfaces.
Non-orthogonal walls (all walls in Wolfenstein 3D run along a rectangular grid). However, all walls in Doom are still perpendicular to the floor and/or ceiling.
Full texture mapping of all surfaces.
Varying light levels (all areas in Wolfenstein 3D have identical lighting). This not only made each map's structure more visually authentic, but contributed to its atmosphere and gameplay by using darkness to frighten or confuse the player.
A less static architecture than in Wolfenstein 3D: platforms can move up or down, floors can be lifted sequentially to form staircases, and bridges can rise or lower.
A stereo sound system, which makes it possible to roughly tell the direction and distance of a sound's origin. The player is kept on guard by the grunting and snarling of monsters, and receives occasional clues to the locations of secret areas by hearing hidden doors open remotely.
Id's programmers had to make use of several tricks for these features to run smoothly on 1993-vintage personal computers. Most significantly, Doom levels are not truly three-dimensional: they are internally represented on a two-dimensional plane, with height differences added separately (a similar trick is still used by many games to create huge outdoor environments). Doom also has a low-detail mode to improve frame rates on slower PCs, such as those with an 80386 processor.
Doom has a simple plot; its background is given in the instruction manual, and the in-game story advances mainly through short messages displayed between the game's episodes.
The player takes the role of a marine (unnamed to further represent the person playing), "one of Earth's toughest, hardened in combat and trained for action", who has been incarcerated on Mars after assaulting a senior officer when ordered to fire upon civilians. There, he works alongside the Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC), a multi-planetary conglomerate and military contractor performing secret experiments on interdimensional travel. Recently, the teleportation has shown signs of anomalies and instability, but the research continues nonetheless.
Suddenly, something goes wrong and creatures from hell swarm out of the teleportation gates on Deimos and Phobos. A defensive response from base security fails to halt the invasion, and the bases are quickly overrun by monsters; all personnel are killed or turned into zombies.
A military detachment from Mars travels to Phobos to investigate the incident. The player is tasked with securing the perimeter, as the assault team and their heavy weapons are brought inside. Radio contact soon ceases and the player realizes that he is the only survivor. Being unable to pilot the shuttle off of Phobos by himself, the only way to escape is to go inside and fight through the complexes of the moon base.
Doom is a first-person shooter with a background setting that mixes science fiction and horror (of the weird menace style), presented in the form of three episodes, each taking place in a separate general location and played separately. The primary objective of each level is simply to locate the exit room that leads to the next area (invitingly labeled with a red EXIT sign), while surviving all hazards along the way. Among the obstacles are monsters, pits of radioactive waste, ceilings that descend to crush the player, and locked doors for which a key or remote switch need to be located. The levels are sometimes labyrinthine (the automap is a crucial aid in navigating them), and feature plenty of hidden rooms that hold powerups as a reward for players who explore thoroughly. A tally screen at the end of each level (except the last of each episode, which describes part of the plot) helps players aiming for additional objectives, such as clearing the levels of monsters or finding secret areas.
Doom's weapon arsenal was highly distinctive in 1993 and eventually became prototypical for first-person shooters. The player starts out armed only with a pistol, and brass-knuckled fists in case his ammunition runs out, but larger weapons can be picked up: a chainsaw, a shotgun, a chaingun, a rocket launcher, a plasma gun, and the immensely powerful BFG9000. There is a wide array of additional powerups, such as a backpack that increases the player's ammunition-carrying capacity, armor, medical supplies to heal injuries, and strange alien artifacts which can turn the player invisible or boost his health beyond its normal maximum.
The enemy monsters are Doom's central gameplay element. There are 10 types of monster, including possessed humans as well as demons of different strength, ranging from weaker but ubiquitous imps and red, floating cacodemons to the bosses, which tend to survive multiple strikes even from the player's strongest weapons. The monsters generally exhibit very simple AI, and thus most cases must outnumber the player to triumph (although great numbers can sometimes prove counterproductive due to monster infighting).
Aside from the single-player game mode, Doom features two multiplayer modes usable over a network: co-operative mode, in which two to four players team up against the legions of hell, and deathmatch mode, in which the same number of players fight each other.
Release and sales
The first-episode shareware format of the initial release offered a substantial and freely playable taste of the game, which could be distributed with ease on floppy disks, over the Internet, and in CD-ROM packages, thus encouraging players and retailers to spread Doom as widely as possible. By 1995 the shareware version was estimated to have been installed on more than 10 million computers. The full or registered version of Doom, containing all three episodes, was only available by mail order; although most users did not purchase the registered version, over one million copies have been sold, and this popularity helped the sales of later games in the Doom series, which were not released as shareware. The original Doom did eventually receive a retail release as well, when it was offered in an expanded version as The Ultimate Doom (adding a fourth episode).
In addition to the thrilling nature of the single-player game, the deathmatch mode was an important factor in the game's popularity. Doom was not the first first-person perspective shooting game with a face to face competitive mode (MIDI Maze, on the Atari ST, had one in 1987), but it introduced the term deathmatch to games and was the first to use Ethernet connections, and the combination of violence and gore with fighting friends made deathmatching in Doom particularly attractive. Due to its widespread distribution, Doom became the game that popularize the mode of play to a large audience.
Doom was also widely praised by the gaming press. In 1994, it was named Game of the Year by both PC Gamer and Computer Gaming World. It received the Award for Technical Excellence from PC Magazine, and the Best Action Adventure Game award from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences.
An important feature of the Doom engine is a modular approach that allows game content to be replaced by custom patch files, known as PWADs. Wolfenstein 3D had not been designed this way, but fans had nevertheless figured out how to create their own levels for it, and id Software decided to push this phenomenon further. The first level editors appeared in early 1994, followed over the next few years by additional tools which allow most aspects of the game to be edited. Although the majority of PWADs contain one or several custom levels of essentially the same style as the original game, others implement new monsters and other resources, and heavily alter the gameplay; various popular movies, television series, and other brands from popular culture have been turned into Doom maps by fans (although this has led to copyright disputes), including Aliens, Star Wars, The X-Files, The Simpsons, and Batman. In 1994 and 1995, PWADs were primarily available online over bulletin board systems or sold in collections on compact discs (sometimes bundled with editing guidebooks) in computer shops; FTP servers later became the primary distribution method. Tens of thousands of PWADs (at least) have been created in total; the idgames FTP archive at gamers.org alone contains over 17,500 files.
The idea of making Doom easily modifiable was primarily backed by John Carmack, a well-known supporter of copyleft and the hacker ideal of people sharing and building upon each other's work, and by John Romero, who had hacked games in his youth and wanted to allow other gamers to do the same. Not everybody in the id Software crew was happy with this development; some, including Jay Wilbur and Kevin Cloud, objected due to legal concerns and in the belief that it would not be of any benefit to the company's business.
Negative reaction
A bloody scene in E4M8: Unto the Cruel
In a press release dated January 1, 1993, id Software wrote that they expected Doom to be "the number one cause of decreased productivity in businesses around the world". This prediction came true at least in part: Doom became a major inconvenience at workplaces, occupying the time of employees and clogging computer networks with traffic caused by deathmatches. Intel and Carnegie Mellon University, among many other organizations, reportedly formed policies specifically disallowing Doom-playing during work hours.
Doom was (and remains) a controversial product due to its high levels of violence, gore, and Satanic imagery. It has been repeatedly criticized by Christian organizations for its diabolic undertones, and prompted fears that virtual reality technology, then in its earliest forms, could be used to simulate extremely realistic killing; in 1994, this led to unsuccessful attempts by Washington state senator Phil Talmadge to introduce compulsory licensing of VR use. The game again made national headlines in 1999, when it was linked to the Columbine High School massacre.
Legal issues in Germany
The game was put on the index of the Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien on 31 May 1994 (date of official announcement). This meant that the game could not be advertised, sold, rented, or otherwise given to minors. This applied to all versions of the game, except for the Game Boy Advance port.
On the 4th of August 2011 the Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien deleted Doom from the index on request by ZeniMax Media.[1]
Doom is widely regarded as one of the most important titles in gaming history. In the wake of its immense popularity, dozens of new first-person shooter titles appeared, which were more often referred to as "Doom clones" than "first-person shooters". Id Software went on to release a sequel, Doom II, followed by an expanded edition for retail stores (The Ultimate Doom), and additional levels by experienced WAD designers from the fan community (Master Levels for Doom II and the standalone Final Doom). Doom itself was eventually ported to several dozen other operating systems and consoles.
Doom has also appeared in several other media, including a comic book, four novels, and a film released in October 2005. The game's development and impact on popular culture is the subject of the book Masters of Doom by David Kushner.
Devoted players have spent years creating speedruns, competing for the quickest completion times and sharing knowledge about routes through the levels and how to exploit engine bugs as shortcuts. Achievements include the completion of both Doom and Doom II on the "Ultra-Violence" difficulty setting in less than 30 minutes each. In addition, a few players have also managed to complete Doom II in a single run on the "Nightmare!" difficulty setting (level designer John Romero has characterized the idea of such a run with the statement "it's just gotta be impossible!"). Movies of most of these runs are available from the Compet-n database.
Although the popularity of the Doom games decreased following the publication of Quake in 1996, the series has retained a strong fan base that continues playing competitively and creating new PWADs (the idgames archive still receives a number of new PWADs each week), and Doom-related news is still tracked at various community websites. Interest in Doom was renewed in 1997, when the source code for the engine was released; fans then began porting the game to various operating systems, even to previously unsupported platforms such as the Sega Dreamcast and the iPod, and adding new features which allow PWADs to alter the gameplay more radically (such as OpenGL rendering and scripting). There are well over 50 distinct source ports, some of which remain under active development.
The Shores of Hell
Chaingun
Plasma gun *
BFG9000 *
Weapons with an asterisk do not appear in the shareware version.
Zombieman
Shotgun guy
Baron of Hell
Cacodemon *
Lost soul *
Spiderdemon *
Cyberdemon *
Monsters with an asterisk do not appear in the shareware version.
Doom II, Final Doom
WADs and mods
This article incorporates text from the open-content Wikipedia online encyclopedia article Doom (video game).
This article incorporates text from the open-content Wikipedia online encyclopedia article Doom WAD.
10 Years of Doom at Doomworld.com
An interview with John Carmack (archived ) at Doomworld.com
Download Doom shareware at Doomworld/idgames
Official Doom websites
id Software's official site (archived )
The "Official" Doom FAQ, compiled by Hank Leukart
DOOM manual on Wolfenstein Goodies
Doom on MobyGames
Doom (archived ) on John Romero's web page
The Ultimate Doom at Compet-n
The Ultimate Doom full-game runs at the Doomed Speed Demos Archive
Top-down perspective view of all Doom levels by Ian Albert
↑ BPjM (4 August 2011). "»Doom« aus der Liste der jugendgefährdenden Medien gestrichen." Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdende Medien (archived ).
Retrieved from "https://doomwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Doom&oldid=192532"
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« Beware of predatory conferences: they want your cash and offer nothing…
I know, because I have done my research »
A triumph for ‘GOOD THINKING’, and the end of homeopathy on the NHS in England
Published Friday 10 August 2018
The following announcement was made by the NHS on 7 August 2018:
The Governing Body of Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire (BNSSG) Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) today approved changes that mean NHS funded homeopathy will only be available in exceptional circumstances in the area. The changes will mean the CCG’s Individual Funding Request (IFR) Panel would need a clinician to set out why the patient is clinically exceptional before treatment could be provided.
The decision comes after the publication of a report, which took evidence from local people, clinicians, patient groups, providers of homeopathic treatments and national guidelines.
CCG Clinical Chair Dr Jonathan Hayes said, “We are working hard to become an evidence-informed organisation because we need to make the best use of all resources to offer treatment and care to the widest range of people. The decision on homeopathy funding today is a step towards this and brings us in line with national guidelines.”
It is estimated that 41 patients receiving NHS funded homeopathic consultations in the area cost the local NHS £109,476 in the 2017/2018 financial year.
The move is the result of 4 years of excellent work by the GOOD THINKING SOCIETY, a charity dedicate to the promotion of rational thinking.
Michael Marshall, its Project Director, said: “We are very pleased to see the Bristol CCGs take this decision to cease funding for homeopathy – every other CCG across the country has made it clear that homeopathic remedies are no better than placebo and such there is simply no place for homeopathy on the NHS.
“With the end to homeopathy funding in Bristol, the region joins NHS bodies across the rest the country in recognising that homeopathy is not a valid use of limited NHS resources. There is now no CCG in England where homeopathic pills or consultations can be routinely funded with NHS money – instead, funding can be directed towards treatments that have been shown to actually work.”
Does that not call for a knighthood for Mr Marshall?
One would have thought so!
Who will tell Prince Charles to get the ball rolling?
And while we are all waiting for the big event, you might as well donate a few £s to this truly splendid charity.
Please be generous!!!
Posted in alternative medicine, critical thinking, EBM, education, evidence, homeopathy, medical ethics, progress, regulation, Simon Singh
One Response to A triumph for ‘GOOD THINKING’, and the end of homeopathy on the NHS in England
R Guerreiro on Friday 10 August 2018 at 07:49
Congratulations to Mr. Michael Marshall and the Good Thinking Society.
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Hong Kong police clear streets as protesters move to park
Hong Kong: Protesters in Hong Kong left the streets, averting possible clashes Monday after haggling for hours with police by moving to areas near the city's government headquarters.
The demonstrators who stayed after a massive protest march the day before, demanding that Chief Executive Carrie Lam abandon a proposed extradition bill, were seen streaming Monday morning into a space outside Hong Kong's Legislative Council after police who had cleared it reopened the area. Their decision to move allowed police to reopen streets to traffic.
The activists have rejected an apology from Lam for her handling of the legislation, which has stoked fears of expanding control from Beijing in this former British colony.
"We are very angry that Carrie Lam has not responded to the demands of all the protesters, but now is the time to talk about strategy, and talk about strategy is to how about how to make the whole struggle into a long-term struggle and not a day struggle, so if Carrie Lam does not respond to the five demands by the protesters, people will come back and the struggle will continue," said Lee Cheuk-yan, a former legislator and activist.
Shortly after daybreak, the police had asked for cooperation in clearing the road but said the protesters could stay on the sidewalks.
For a time, the protesters, many in masks and other gear to guard against possible use of tear gas, responded with chants, some kneeling in front of the officers.
Hundreds were lying or sitting on the roads until they agreed to move to the plaza outside the government building and a spacious nearby park.
Activists had called on Hong Kong residents to boycott classes and work, though it was unclear how many might heed that call.
Nearly 2 million of the city's 7 million people turned out on Sunday, according to estimates by protest organizers.
Police said 338,000 were counted on the designated protest route in the "peak period" of the march. A week earlier as many as 1 million people demonstrated to voice their concern over Hong Kong's relations with mainland China in one of the toughest tests of the territory's special status since Beijing took control in a 1997 handover.
The scenes were similar to those seen nearly five years earlier, when protesters camped for weeks in the streets to protest rules that prevented the direct election of the city's chief executive, the top local official.
One of the activists arrested after those demonstrations, Joshua Wong, was released from prison Monday after serving half of a two-month jail sentence for contempt.
He told journalists he needed a bit of time but, "No matter what happens, I will join the protest soon." After daybreak Monday, police announced that they want to clear the streets. Soon after, police lined up several officers deep and faced off against several hundred demonstrators on a street in central Hong Kong.
The night before, as protesters reached the march's end thousands gathered outside the city government headquarters and the office of Chief Executive Carrie Lam, who on Saturday suspended her effort to force passage of the bill.
Hong Kong residents worry that allowing some suspects to be sent for trial in mainland China would be another of many steps chipping away at Hong Kong's freedoms and legal autonomy. One concern is that the law might be used to send criminal suspects to China to potentially face vague political charges, possible torture and unfair trials.
The protesters are demanding that Lam scrap the proposal for good and that she step down.
Protesters are also angered over the forceful tactics by police use of tear gas, rubber bullets and other forceful measures as demonstrators broke through barricades outside the city government's headquarters to quell unrest during demonstrations on Wednesday, and over Lam's decision to call the clashes a riot. That worsens the potential legal consequences for those involved.
In a statement issued late Sunday, Lam noted the demonstrations and said the government "understands that these views have been made out of love and care for Hong Kong." "The chief executive apologizes to the people of Hong Kong for this and pledges to adopt a most sincere and humble attitude to accept criticisms and make improvements in serving the public," it said.
Not enough, said the pro-democracy activists.
"This is a total insult to and fooling the people who took to the street!" the Civil Human Rights Front said in a statement.
Protesters have mainly focused their anger on Lam, who had little choice but to carry through dictates issued by Beijing, where President Xi Jinping has enforced increasingly authoritarian rule. But some were skeptical that having Lam step down would help.
"It doesn't really matter because the next one would be just as evil," said Kayley Fung, 27.
Many here believe Hong Kong's legal autonomy has been significantly diminished despite Beijing's insistence that it is still honoring its promise, dubbed "one country, two systems," that the territory can retain its own social, legal and political system for 50 years after the handover in 1997.
After Lam announced she was suspending the legislation to avoid more violence and allow additional debate, Chinese government officials issued multiple statements backing that decision. Lam, however, made clear she was not withdrawing it.
She has sidestepped questions over whether she should quit and also defended how the police dealt with last week's clashes with demonstrators.
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Students Overview
Mentoring Hours
Student Awards & Fellowships
Student Clubs and Activities
AMENA Center
Berkeley-Haas Entrepreneurship
Index to Faculty
Roy Bahat
Ajay Bam
Kurt Beyer
Rob Chandra
David Charron
Sean Foote
Jim Hornthal
Andrew Isaacs Aaron McDaniel
Peter Molloy
Adair Morse
Carl Nichols
Maura O’Neill
Terry Opdendyk
William Rosenzweig
Toby Stuart
Arman Zand
Whitney Hischier
Roy Bahat leads Bloomberg Beta, an early-stage venture firm backed by Bloomberg that invests in startups making work better, with a focus on machine intelligence. Roy was the founding chairman of OUYA, a Kickstarter-backed game console, and president of IGN Entertainment. He is a board member at the Center for Investigative Reporting and educational non-profit CodeNow. He was named one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business, and has served in government and led a non-profit in addition to his work at established corporations and day zero startups. He graduated from Harvard College, and was a Rhodes Scholar.
Ajay Bam is a serial entrepreneur with 12 plus years of experience in the web/mobile software industry. Ajay has lectured, advised and mentored young startups and lives the mantra of innovation and entrepreneurship. He is a frequent speaker at entrepreneurship conferences. Ajay previously co-founded Modiv Media (previously MobileLime), a venture capital funded company providing retail and mobile commerce solutions for the super market industry, which was acquired in March, 2012 by Catalina Marketing – the leader in point of sale marketing space. Ajay served at Modiv Media as a co-founder, CTO and Head of products. He is currently a board advisor to two funded startups – Ecurv in the area of electricity management and Padlocs, a point of sale products company. Previously Ajay worked in senior product management and analyst roles at Nokia and Lehman Brothers. He also served on the board of BirdStreet, a non-profit serving “after school education and activities” for the underprivileged students in Boston public schools. Ajay holds a MBA from Babson College as Olin Scholar and Kaufmann fellow, a M.S. in Software engineering from East Tennessee State University, and a B.S. in Computer Science from University of Mumbai, India. (Haas profile) Courses: Introduction to Entrepreneurship (undergraduate) (Haas profile)
Kurt Beyer is a former naval aviator and professor at the United States Naval Academy and teaches Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Berkeley Haas Business school.Currently Kurt advises start-ups and executives in Silicon Valley through Morgan Stanley Smith Barney and lectures regularly on technical innovation. Prior to joining MSSB he was the founder and CEO of a digital media services company and has authored multiple patents (pending) on high-speed digital data processing.Kurt’s book, published by the MIT Press, Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age, was named a top ten science/technology book for 2010 by the American Library Association. Kurt received a BS in Engineering and History from the United States Naval Academy (Annapolis), MA in Economics from Oxford University, and his PhD from the UC Berkeley. He lives in Mill Valley with his wife and two sons. (Haas profile) Courses: Entrepreneurship (MBA and undergraduate)
Steve Blank is a retired serial entrepreneur with over 30 years of start-up experience in Silicon Valley. Since 1978 Steve has been a founder or participant in eight startups. Steve’s last company, E.piphany, started in his living room. Steve’s other start-ups include two semiconductor companies (Zilog and MIPS Computers), workstation company (Convergent Technologies), supercomputer (Ardent), computer peripheral supplier (SuperMac), military intelligence systems supplier (ESL) and video game company (Rocket Science Games). These resulted in 5 IPOs and three very deep craters. His operational roles have ranged from CEO to VP of Marketing. Steve is the author of a text on Customer Development: The Four Steps to the Epiphany. In 2010 he was awarded Teacher of the Year in the Berkeley/Columbia MBA program. Steve serves on the board of Audubon California, California League of Conservation Voters, Peninsula Open Space Trust and U.C. Santa Cruz. In 2007 Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed him to the California Coastal Commission. (Haas profile) Courses: The Lean Launchpad (MBA)
Rob Chandra is the President and CEO of Avid Park Capital, a hedge fund based in Palo Alto. Previously, he was a managing partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, one of the largest and most successful venture capital firms in the US. During his 17 years in venture capital, he was an investor in 25 start-ups which went public or were acquired by other public companies. In his last year as a full-time venture capitalist, he was ranked #28 in the Forbes annual ranking of the top 100 venture capitalists. Prior to entering the investment profession, he worked for McKinsey & Company. He has a BA from University of California at Berkeley and a MBA from Harvard Business School. Courses: Venture Capital, Private Equity and Hedge Funds – An Introduction (undergraduate) and Entrepreneurship (MBA).
David Charron has been working in the field of entrepreneurship and innovation for over 20 years, working with Xerox PARC, Stanford and MIT and various national laboratories. He has been a founder of three companies, most notably Scientific Learning Corporation, a publicly traded neuroscience company founded on technology from UCSF. He is the Executive Director of the Berkeley Innovative Leader Development Initiative at the Haas School of Business. At the Berkeley-Haas Entrepreneurship Program he runs the incubation program, and has crafted several new initiatives to improve the chances for Berkeley students and their ventures. He has travelled extensively overseas helping develop entrepreneurial ecosystems. He holds an engineering degree from Stanford and an MBA from Berkeley. (Haas profile) Courses: Business Model Innovation and Entrepreneurial Strategy and Entrepreneurship (MBA)
Sean Foote is a Venture Partner at Labrador Ventures, investing in materials companies like Solaicx (sold to MEMC), software companies like GreenBorder (sold to Google), and internet companies. Before venture investing, Mr. Foote was a manager with the Boston Consulting Group and worked as a systems engineer for AT&T Bell Laboratories, developing artificial intelligence systems for testing the most complicated telecommunications circuits. He is on the boards of directors of Freedom From Hunger and Silicon Valley Microfinance Network, and is the co-founder of Toniic, an angel investor group for impact investors, and West Coast Village Capital, a combination of YPO style entrepreneur support and business plan competition style equity investment. (Haas profile) Courses: Venture Capital and Private Equity (MBA)
Whitney Hischier is a lecturer at the Haas School of Business in entrepreneurship and management as well as a faculty director for the Center for Executive Education. Prior to becoming a lecturer, she was the Assistant Dean for the Center for Executive Education and grew the business 10x over the course of 9 years. Whitney has also worked in management consulting for KPMG and Deloitte in the US and Europe. Her first job out of college was at a 5 person toy manufacturing startup in a Woodside poolhouse. She holds a BA from Stanford and an MBA from Haas. (Haas profile) Courses: Startup Lab (MBA)
Jim Hornthal’s professional time is evenly divided between venture capital and entrepreneurship.His active angel investing activities are complemented by his role as a Venture Partner with CMEA Capital, an established venture capital firm with over $1 billion under management that invests primarily in early stage technology, energy and life science companies. As an entrepreneur, Jim is best known as the Founder of Preview Travel, one of the first online travel agencies. Jim took Preview Travel public in 1997, and later initiated its merger in 2000 with a division of Sabre Holdings to create Travelocity.com, where Jim served as Vice Chairman of the combined organization. Travelocity.com was ultimately re-acquired by Sabre Holdings in 2002. Jim is currently the founder and Chairman of Triporati, whose “Destination Genome Project” is changing the way travelers discover their perfect travel destination.Jim is also on the board of several private companies including KIND Snacks, PolitEar, and Via (Bangalore, India) and has been a Fellow for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley since 2002 (Haas profile) Courses: The Lead Launchpad (MBA)
Andrew Isaacs is the former Executive Director of UC Berkeley’s Management of Technology Program. Isaacs is also President of California Technology International, Inc., a consulting firm he founded in 1990. CTI’s offices in Silicon Valley and Tokyo specialize in strategy and marketing for US and Japanese high tech companies. Prior to founding CTI, Isaacs was a marketing executive for public and private high tech companies in Silicon Valley, and was Senior Scientist at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston.(Haas profile) Courses: Marketing for High Tech Entrepreneurs, Opportunity Recognition: Technology and Entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley (MBA)
Aaron McDaniel is a serial entrepreneur, author, speaker, investor & advisor. Aaron was the founder & CEO of a number of entrepreneurial ventures including: Access Invest (the world’s largest mobile investment aggregator, acquired by North Capital), Tycoon Real Estate (the first real estate crowdfunding platform to be acquired), Pong360 (a consumer products ecommerce platform, acquired), and a number of other unsuccessful ventures (which were great learning experiences). Aaron is an alumnus of AT&T’s flagship Leadership Development Program, where he was a Diamond Club Honoree (Top 1% of sales leaders worldwide) and where he became one of the youngest ever to serve as Regional Vice President (at age 27). He is the author of The Young Professional’s Guide book series and is a sought after speaker for executives & managers across a number of industries on the topic of Millennials in the Workplace. Aaron is also a startup advisor, including for CoPilot (acquired by OpenTable/The Priceline Group). Aaron is a proud graduate of the Haas School of Business undergraduate program and is committed community volunteer having worked with organizations including: Big Brothers Big Sisters, Junior Achievement, the Full Circle Fund and is the founder of the Jill Wakeman Foundation for Equality. (Haas profile) Courses: Introduction to Entrepreneurship (Undergraduate)
Peter Molloy was President and Principal Owner of the Farmhouse Foods Company based in Union City, California, from 1991 until it sold to General Mills in 1999. His career spans over 30 years in general management and marketing. He started his 21-year career with Nestle in London, England and was transferred to Toronto, Canada and then to New York. Throughout his career, he specialized in launching new products, turning around businesses and building brands. In 1991, Peter and his business partner bought the MJB Rice Company from Nestle and changed the brand name to Farmhouse. Since 1999, Peter has been teaching Entrepreneurship and Ecommerce Marketing at the Haas School of Business. He was a member of Vistage (an international organization for CEO’s) for 10 years and has consulted to a number of food and agri-business companies. He is also on the Advisory Board of the Young Entrepreneurs at Haas (YEAH). Peter has a Business Degree (HND Business Studies) from Thames Valley University (formerly Slough College of Technology) in England and the Institute of Marketing Diploma. (Haas profile) Course: Perspectives on Entrepreneurship (undergraduate)
Adair Morse is Associate Professor at the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley, where she teaches New Venture Finance. She is faculty mentor to the Haas Impact Investing Network, FinTech Club, Gender Equity Initiative, and Impact Research Prize. She holds a Ph.D. in finance from the University of Michigan. Adair’s research spans three areas of finance: household finance, corruption, and asset management, with the unifying theme that she tries to choose topics useful for leveling economic playing fields. She has won a number of top finance research prizes, including the Brattle Prize, the Jensen Prize, the WFA Prize, and the Moskowitz Impact prize, and her various works have been directly implemented into policy. Within household finance, Adair has a particular interest in household debt and welfare, studying low and middle income credit products and their use via both observational studies and field experiments with companies. Her recent work studies many aspects of marketplace lending/crowdfunding. Examples of Adair’s other noteworthy publications in household finance include work on the effect of income inequality on consumption and disclosure in financial services. Adair’s new research include topics in impact investing, pension fund governance, and asset management delegation efficiency. Her ongoing research in Impact Investing provides evidence on the demand for impact and the tradeoffs in returns needed to generate social and environmental goals.
Courses: New Venture Finance
Carl Nichols has spent 30 years in the technology industryand is currently Managing Director of Outlook Ventures, an early-stage venturecapital firm. Over the past 15 years Carl has has made investments acrossthe information technology, internet and mobile sectors and has served onnumerous Boards. Previously Carl led corporate strategy forAT&T/Pacific Bell where he was responsible for identifying new growthopportunities and business lines, developing strategic partnerships andoptimizing the company’s investments. He earlier held a number of rolesin Fortune 500 firms and management consulting addressing new conceptdevelopment, market expansion and operations improvements. Carl iscurrently active in a number of youth and education-oriented nonprofits. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in computer science from BrownUniversity and an MBA from Harvard Business School. Courses: Entrepreneurship (MBA)
Maura O’Neill Relentlessly focused on sourcing and scaling breakthrough ideas, Maura has been thrilled to grow businesses, teach and mentor others wanting to make a big difference. In 2009 she was appointed by President Obama to be the first Chief Innovation Officer of the US Agency for International Development. Serving until summer 2013 she had responsibility for inspiring and leading breakthrough innovations in foreign assistance and development worldwide. Maura is most well-known for adapting venture capital and drug discovery methods to global development by co-creating the Development Innovation Venture Fund. Maura served as a member of the White House Innovation Cohort assisting in innovation across federal government. Prior to joining the Administration she served as a Chief of Staff in the U.S. Senate. Maura teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, Stanford and Columbia Universities, and she is also actively advising start-ups, foundations and global government agencies. A serial entrepreneur, O’Neill founded four companies in the fields of electricity efficiency; smart grid and customer info systems/billing; e-commerce and digital education. In 1989, she was named the Greater Seattle Business Person of the Year. Maura has MBAs from Columbia University and University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD from University of Washington, where her research focused on narrow-mindedness and errors it leads to in science, medicine, business and political decision-making. She helped found a public charter school, Baltimore Leadership School for Young Women (grades 6-12) and continues to serve as Vice Chair. Maura is married and has two grown kids, a digital journalist and a basketball-playing particle physicist.
(Haas profile)
Terry Opdendyk has specialized in working with technology based startups for more than 30 years. He founded ONSET Ventures, a premier Silicon Valley venture capital firm, in 1984, where he is Managing Director and General Partner. Prior to that, Terry was president of VisiCorp, guiding the software publishing company from inception into an industry leader. Earlier, he worked as a technical manager for Hewlett-Packard as a part of the original group of individuals that started HP’s computer business. He later headed Intel Corporation’s microcomputer systems business, microprocessor architecture activities, several international ventures and human resources. At ONSET Ventures, Terry maintains a broad spectrum of investment interests including software, new media, security, and medical technologies.(Haas profile) Course: Venture Capital and Private Equity (MBA)
William B. Rosenzweig has spent more than 25 years integrating the practices and perspectives of an entrepreneur, venture investor, and educator. He is co-founder and Managing Partner at Physic Ventures, the first venture capital firm dedicated to investing in keeping people healthy. William was founding CEO of The Republic of Tea, and has been involved in growing the health and sustainability sectors through his work as an entrepreneur and investor at Odwalla, Stonyfield Farms, LeapFrog, Brand New Brands, Revolution Foods, GoodGuide, Gazelle, and Yummly. In 2010, he was selected by a committee of Nobel Laureates for the Oslo Business for Peace Award, presented jointly by the Business for Peace Foundation and International Chamber of Commerce in Norway. Will has taught MBA courses at the Haas School of Business at University of California, Berkeley, since 1999. He co-authored the bestselling book The Republic of Tea: How an Idea Becomes a Business (Doubleday 1992), which was named one of the 100 Best Business Books of all time.
Toby E. Stuart is the Helzel Chair in Entrepreneurship, Strategy, and Innovation, and the Faculty Director at the Berkeley-Haas Entrepreneurship Program. Previously he was the Charles Edward Wilson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and the Arthur J. Samberg Professor of Organizations and Strategy and Academic Director of the Eugene M. Lang Entrepreneurship Center at Columbia Business School. He was also course head for Strategy Formulation. From 1995 to 2003, he was on the faculty at the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business, where he was the Fred G. Steingraber-A.T. Kearney Professor of Organizations & Strategy. He received his Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University. He holds an A.B., summa cum laude, in economics from Carleton College. Prior to earning his Ph.D., Dr. Stuart was a Research Associate at the Harvard Business School. Professor Stuart is the recipient of the 2007 Kauffman Prize Medal for Distinguished Research in Entrepreneurship, which is granted every other year to recognize one individual’s contributions to entrepreneurship research. He has also received the Administrative Science Quarterly’s Scholarly Contribution (best paper) award, as well as the Columbia Business School’s Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence.(Haas profile) Courses: Entrepreneurship (MBA) and Silicon Valley Immersion Week (EMBA)
Arman Zand Arman has 16+ years experience working with technology startups and innovation in the US, India, EMEA, and most recently China where he helped co-found China’s first joint venture technology bank. His experience includes corporate open innovation, startup acceleration, and venture finance to technology and life science startup companies, globally. Arman is fluent in Mandarin Chinese. (Haas profile)
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Support The Dawgs
Top Taggart Field
2017 Bulldog Open
FSU's Cody Stilwell Sets New School Record As Bulldog Track Teams Compete At GVSU
Big Rapids, Mich. - The Ferris State University men's and women's outdoor track and field teams continued action this weekend close to home as the Bulldogs took part in the Al Owens Classic hosted by Grand Valley State University in Allendale on Friday and Saturday (April 20-21).
A variety of Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC) schools and teams from across the region took part in the outdoor competition.
On the men's side, Ferris State's Cody Stilwell won the hammer throw and reached the national provisional qualification standard while setting a school record with a performance of 62.58m. Teammate Ross Miller was fifth (51.38) in the event and Brett Allpow was 14th (45.62m).
FSU's Jon Cok took third place in the high jump (1.95m) and Stanley Williams was third in the long jump (6.65m).
In addition, Chris Triffo placed fifth in the javelin (45.74m) while Allpow finished ninth in the discus (44.12m).
The Bulldogs' Zach Mckenzie finished eighth in the 3,000-meter steeplechase (10:04.61). Williams also posted the 10th-fastest preliminary time in the 100 meters (11.24).
In the women's competition, Ferris State's Amanda Eslinger placed ninth in the high jump (1.55m). Reina Troxell came in 10th in the discus (36.43m).
FSU's Sarah Utchel came in 10th overall in the 200 meters (25.82) with Sheridan Britney finishing 13th in the 400 meters (59.87). Meanwhile, Jennifer Eaton placed 15th in the 800 meters (2:21.11).
In the 1,500 meters, the Bulldogs' Kathryn Etelamaki placed 11th (4:43.97) with Carissa Schurr 13th (4:45.18) in the top 15 overall.
Ferris State is next slated to compete in both the Hillsdale Gina Relays and the Calvin Tune-Up meet next weekend (April 26-28) in West Michigan.
Thu, 05/09 | Track & Field Hillsdale Last Chance Meet Final (Final) RC | R
Thu, 05/09 | Track & Field North Central College Dr. Keeler Invite Final (Final) RC | R
Tue, 05/07 | Track & Field GVSU Last Chance Meet Final (Final) RC | R
Fri, 05/03 | Track & Field GLIAC Outdoor Championships Final (Final) RC | R | V
Thu, 05/02 | Track & Field GLIAC Outdoor Championships Day One (Final) RC | R | V
Sat, 04/27 | Track & Field Hillsdale Gina Relays Final (Final) R
Sat, 04/27 | Track & Field Davenport Tune-Up Meet Final (Final) R
Fri, 04/26 | Track & Field Hillsdale Gina Relays Day Two (Final) R
Thu, 04/25 | Track & Field Hillsdale Gina Relays Day One (Final) R
Sat, 04/20 | Track & Field Al Owens Classic Final (Final) RC | R
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Embajada de México en Reino Unido
LA EMBAJADA
EL EMBAJADOR
COOP Y EDUCACION
MULTILATERALES
ASUNTOS POLITICOS
ECONOMÍA/NEGOCIOS
AGREGADURIAS
Trámites y Servicios Consulares
2015: AÑO DUAL
LatAM INVESTOR
Bored of the BRICs – what about MIKTA..?
MIKTA as a Force for Good
Guest Op-Ed by: the Foriegn Ministers of Mexico, José Antonio Meade; Indonesia, Marty Natalegawa; South Korea, Yun Byung-se; Turkey, Ahmed Davutoglu; and Australia, Julie Bishop.
A significant meeting took place on the 13th and 14th of April 2014 in Mexico City. We came together for the second meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of MIKTA (Mexico, Indonesia, Korea, Turkey and Australia). This new platform, created at the inaugural meeting held last September in New York at the margins of the High-Level Week of the UN General Assembly, has a real potential to act as a force for good in global affairs.
MIKTA
The five foreign ministers meet in Mexico
The global dispersal of power, the ascendance of regionalism and the growing presence of non-state actors are some of the salient features of the evolving international scene. In a rapidly changing world, power, authority and wealth are diffusing from traditional centres to a wider sphere. Globally, this diffusion is leading to increased shared benefits, but also more responsibility.
Emerging regional actors are gaining a new prominence. Global peace and stability increasingly lie in the harnessing of regional interests and arrangements with global ones. This task is not as easily done as said. In order to build these ties, we need political recognition of the common need to come together for cooperation and coordination on the basis of functional needs. Above all, this involves contributing to the effective functioning of the multilateral order and to addressing shortcomings of global governance.
In a rapidly changing world, power, authority and wealth are diffusing from traditional centres to a wider sphere….
In this context, it is no surprise that a new tendency in global governance is to find spaces for regional dialogue on relevant issues. MIKTA has come into being against this functional backdrop. What brings MIKTA countries together is the functional need to cooperate, coordinate and work constructively with each other and other states in the face of global and regional challenges concerning us all.
It is also not surprising that the very thought which gave birth to MIKTA emerged thanks to our joint deliberations in the G-20. Representing 85% of the global economy, 80% of world trade and 2/3 of the world population, the G-20 has contributed to strengthening the role and participation of emerging market economies in global governance. Major emerging market economies have started to take more responsibility in line with their growing weight in the global economy and their increasingly prominent role in global politics.
We have launched MIKTA as an informal platform of countries which are like-minded on many issues. MIKTA is comprised of important regional actors whose active contribution is essential for devising solutions to regional problems. Additionally, we are engaged in meaningful bilateral relations with each other. This makes MIKTA well-placed to contribute to global governance reform and G-20 work as well as to facilitate solutions to global challenges. Our countries can help make the G-20 more effective in reaching consensus and attaining concrete results. The best way to achieve this is if all members are engaged equally and the G-20 acts coherently as a group.
Mexico - Container Ship-
Industrial growth has given the ‘MIKTA Five’ a greater role in global trade
The five countries participating in the MIKTA platform are a diverse group. Yet, we share core values and face similar challenges. We are open economies enjoying democratic pluralistic systems. We are strategically located and strongly linked to our surrounding regions in all aspects. We all have dynamic economies with robust growth rates. We are like-minded on many of the principal challenges of the day and are active contributors in the main global fora. We all see “regional ownership” as key. These attributes provide a sound basis for our cooperation.
MIKTA is based on a common interest in strengthening multilateralism, supporting global efforts for stability and prosperity, facilitating pragmatic and creative solutions to regional and global challenges and implementing the needed reforms in global governance structures. Our exchanges will be informal, flexible and issue-driven under MIKTA. Consultations intend to focus on issues on which we can provide added value. Furthermore, we have agreed to foster the institutional framework governing our relations in the political, economic and other cooperation fields.
The MIKTA platform can fill an important gap in the international arena. We will remain engaged in taking forward this important initiative and advance a constructive role for it within the international community.
Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores © 2019 - POLÍTICAS DE PRIVACIDAD
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Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar: Iranian art at artmonte-carlo
Add to Flipboard Magazine. Fuente: lux-mag - View all news from this site
‘Love Ritual’, 2018/19. Oil on canvas. Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar.
This year?s edition of artmonte-carlo brings international galleries to the Côte d?Azur. We speak to Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat resident and artist Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar about the fair and the rising interest in contemporary Iranian art
artmonte-carlo returns to the French Riviera for its fourth-edition with a select list of prominent international galleries, including Kamel Mennour, White Cube and Victoria Miro to name but a few. This will be artist Sassan Behnam-Bakhtiar‘s first time participating in the fair at Dusseldorf-based gallery Setareh’s booth, alongside contemporary Iranian artist Reza Derakshani. The booth will also feature works by Gregor Gleiwitz, Hans Hartung, Imi Knoebel, Markus Lupertz amongst others. Based in Dusseldorf with three locations, Setareh Gallery presents a global selection of contemporary and modern art. Established in 2013, the gallery is anchored in the Rhineland whilst operating internationally.
Known for his vibrant, abstract mixed-media paintings, which draw on ancient Persian motifs, patterns and landscapes, Behnam-Bakhtiar celebrates a complex cultural identity and not only invites new perspectives on the region, but also explores themes of a prosperous way of life, human evolution, the universal language, eternal feelings and Self, history, present and future. His work awakens a strong sense of experiencing positive emotions and transcendence, while acce...
Source of news: lux-mag
Ronaldinho's Luxury Car Collection
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Of great significance for the Prelature in this half-year was the beginning of the diocesan phase of the canonical investigation into the life and virtues of Saint Josemaría’s first successor as head of Opus Dei, the Servant of God, Bishop Alvaro del Portillo, who died in Rome on March 23, 1994.
The opening of a Cause of canonization always stems from spontaneous devotion rooted in the living faith of the people of God. The Church, by her investigation, seeks to establish that this devotion is authentic and well-founded.
As Bishop Javier Echevarría recalled on March 20, 2004, during the opening session of the Prelature’s tribunal, “Bishop Alvaro del Portillo has truly left behind him ‘a particular legacy of admiration and affection’ (Apostolic Exhortation Pastores Gregis, no. 25),” which very quickly produced “eloquent signs of a wide-spread reputation for sanctity,” especially in the form of thousands of signed statements attributing spiritual and material favors to his intercession.
Having completed the requirements foreseen by the Normae servandae in inquisitionibus ab episcopis faciendis (February 7, 1983), nos. 10-14, and having verified the solidity of the evidence for the Christian exemplariness of Bishop Del Portillo’s life, the Prelate decided to begin the juridical investigation into his life and virtues. His address given at the opening of the tribunal on March 20 is found in this issue of Romana. [1]Several of its points are worth highlighting here.
First of all, we can note the rigor with which the requirements of the first phase of the investigation were carried out, and the decision to work in an unhurried manner, allowing ten years to pass since Bishop Del Portillo’s death before beginning the investigation, rather than being governed by the five-year waiting period foreseen by the canonical norms. During these years, publications have been prepared on his reputation for sanctity while still living, on favors granted after his death, on the biographical details of his life, and on his spiritual personality.
Secondly, Bishop Echevarría decided to ask his eminence Cardinal Camilo Ruini, the Vicar of His Holiness for the Diocese of Rome, to designate a tribunal from the Vicariate to hear certain witnesses, among them the Prelate himself, various members of the Prelature, and persons attached to the Roman Curia. Cardinal Ruini, after examining the documentation gathered during the past decade, in his address at the opening session of the Vicariate’s tribunal expressed his conviction that “this Cause of Canonization is well-founded. Bishop Del Portillo’s reputation for holiness, which gave all indications of being solidly based, precluded the need to wait any longer. Therefore I have given my approval to this project without any hesitation. The Bishop’s Conference of the province of Lazio, which I consulted, also gave its unanimous approval.”
On November 21, 2003, the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints authorized that the diocesan investigation would be carried out aequaliter, that is to say, with the same degree of competence, by the Vicariate of Rome’s tribunal and that of the Prelature. This explains why there were two opening ceremonies for the work of the tribunals: the first for the Vicariate’s tribunal, on March 5, 2004, in the Lateran Palace, and the second for the Prelature’s tirbunal, on March 20, in the Palazzo dell’Apollinare.
Since many of the witnesses reside far from Rome, other tribunals will also be called upon to intervene. Thus tribunals from dioceses throughout the world will take part in the inquiry, which will make evident another characteristic note of Bishop Del Portillo and his work: that is, his services to the entire Church and his spirit of communion. In this regard some words of Cardinal Ruini in the address just mentioned are quite relevant: “We can highlight here the multi-faceted activity carried out by Bishop Del Portillo in the service of the Holy See. His deep pastoral experience gained at the side of Saint Josemaría, his proven human qualities, and his theological and juridical competence fitted him for multiple tasks. Thus, as far back as the pontificate of Pope Pius XII, he was named Consultor to the Sacred Congregation for the Religious. Pope John XXIII named him Consultor to the Sacred Congregation of the Council (1959-1966) and Qualifier of the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office (1960). During the Council he was chosen as one of the first ‘peritos’ or experts. He was Secretary of the Commission on the Discipline of the Clergy and the Christian People, which drafted the decree Presbyterorum Ordinis, and Consultor for other Conciliar Commissions.
“Paul VI named him Consultor to the Pontifical Commission for the Revision of Canon Law, and later Consultor and Judge of the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, in addition to confirming him as a Consultor to the Sacred Congregation for the Clergy. Pope John Paul II name him Consultor to the Sacred Congregation for the Causes of the Saints and to the Pontifical Counsel for Social Communication, as well as a member of the Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops in 1983. As a Pontifical appointee, he participated in the ordinary general assemblies of the Synod of Bishops ‘on the vocation and mission of the laity in the Church and in the world’ (1987) and ‘on the formation of priests’ (1990) . . . Another notable aspect of the work of Bishop Del Portillo in the service of the Church is the activity that he carried out during his numerous pastoral trips all over the world.”
We can be sure, as the Prelate of Opus Dei stated, that “the Cause of canonization of Bishop Alvaro del Portillo will bring many tangible benefits to Christians,” and that “through his life many people will discover the fatherly face of God, smiling on them, encouraging them, forgiving them.” This is the deepest significance of any Cause of canonization: the edification of souls, the good of the Church. This Cause will enable us to better appreciate the one who, as Cardinal Ruini said, was “the most faithful son” of Saint Josemaría, and who transformed his daily life into a continuous offering to God.
[1] See page 48.
Romana, No. 38, January-June 2004, pag. 8-10.
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Eastbourne manslaughter
R v Hopley (more commonly known as the Eastbourne manslaughter) was an 1860 legal case in Eastbourne, England, concerning the death of 15-year-old Reginald Cancellor (some sources give his name as Chancellor[1] and his age as 13 or 14)[2] at the hands of his teacher, Thomas Hopley. Hopley used corporal punishment with the stated intention of overcoming what he perceived as stubbornness on Cancellor's part, but instead beat the boy to death.
An inquest into Cancellor's death began when his brother requested an autopsy. As a result of the inquest Hopley was arrested and charged with manslaughter. He was found guilty at trial and sentenced to four years in prison, although he insisted that his actions were justifiable and that he was not guilty of any crime. The trial was sensationalised by the Victorian press and incited debate over the use of corporal punishment in schools. After Hopley's release and subsequent divorce trial, he largely disappeared from the public record. The case became an important legal precedent in the United Kingdom for discussions of corporal punishment in schools and reasonable limits on discipline.
3 Trial
4 Reaction and aftermath
Thomas Hopley, aged 41 at the time of the incident,[3] was a schoolmaster in Eastbourne who ran a private boarding school from his home at 22 Grand Parade.[4] He was well educated and from a middle-class family, the son of a Royal Navy surgeon and brother of artist Edward Hopley, author Catherine C. Hopley, and editor John Hopley. His household was fairly well off, and he and his wife kept several servants.[5][6] He had two children, the first of which had brain damage – "popular rumour" blamed this on "his unconventionally bracing notions of neonatal care".[7] Hopley was described by writer Algernon Charles Swinburne as "a person of high attainments and irreproachable character".[8] He expressed "utopian" educational ideals shared by many Victorian educational theorists.[5] He wrote pamphlets on education topics[8] which included "Lectures on the Education of Man", "Help towards the physical, intellectual and moral elevation of all classes of society", and "Wrongs which cry out for redress" advocating the abolition of child labour.[9]
In October 1859,[4] he was offered £180 a year[10] to teach Reginald Channell Cancellor, a "robust" boy who had been "given up as ineducable".[7] Reginald was the son of John Henry Cancellor (1799–1860), a master of the Court of Common Pleas and a "man of fair position" from Barnes, Surrey.[7][11] The boy had previously been a student at a private school in St. Leonards and under a private tutor.[12] He was not a good student, with contemporary sources suggesting he "had water on the brain" and describing him as "stolid and stupid".[11] Hopley attributed Cancellor's failure to learn to stubbornness. On 18 April 1860 he asked the boy's father for permission to use "severe corporal punishment" to obtain compliance,[1] with permission granted two days later.[13] Hopley did not possess the cane traditionally used to administer corporal punishment to students, so instead he used a skipping rope and a walking stick.[7]
Cancellor was found dead in his bedroom on the morning of 22 April 1860. His body was covered, with long stockings over his legs and kidskin gloves on his hands. The only visible part of the body was his face. A medical man of Hopley's acquaintance named Roberts pronounced that the boy had died of natural causes.[7] When questioned, Hopley suggested that Cancellor died of heart disease and argued that he should be buried immediately.[11] He wrote to the boy's father requesting the body's immediate removal and interment.[5] After viewing his son's dressed body, Cancellor's father accepted Roberts' assertion for cause of death and agreed to the burial.[7]
Rumours began to circulate among the Hopleys' servants, suggesting that Hopley's wife had spent the night prior to the body's discovery cleaning up evidence of her husband's beating of the boy.[11] Reginald's older brother, Reverend John Henry Cancellor, Jr. (1834–1900),[7] arrived in Eastbourne from Send, Surrey, on 25 April. He noticed discrepancies in the reports of his brother's death and requested an autopsy.[5] Hopley asked prominent physician Sir Charles Locock, an acquaintance of the Cancellor family and an obstetrician to the Queen, to examine the body and verify death by natural causes; Locock believed that Hopley was responsible for the death.[7]
A complete inquest into Cancellor's death was initiated. His body was taken for autopsy on 28 April and was found to be covered in blood under the gloves and stockings. His thighs were "reduced to a perfect jelly" and his body was covered in bruises and cuts, including two inch-deep holes in his right leg,[11] deep enough to allow the medical examiner, Robert Willis, to touch the bone underneath. Willis reported that other than these injuries, the boy was healthy and his internal organs (including the heart) were free of disease.[14] He thus concluded that Cancellor had not died of natural causes, as Hopley had suggested, and noted that the boy had obviously been beaten shortly before his death.[5][14] A female servant named Ellen Fowler, when questioned by investigators, reported that she had heard Cancellor screaming and being beaten from 10 pm until midnight and that, shortly thereafter, he abruptly fell silent.[11] She also noted traces of blood in the house and on Hopley's candlestick, which was left outside Cancellor's bedroom, and evidence that Cancellor's and Hopley's clothes had been washed soon before the former was pronounced dead.[4] Two other servants testified in the inquiry and gave similar accounts.[15]
The inquest was unable to determine Cancellor's exact cause of death, but noted several inconsistencies in Hopley's explanation of events. He had failed to summon a doctor immediately and, upon questioning, had given outlandish excuses for his failure to do so. Hopley attempted to explain away the blood on the candlestick by attributing it to a broken blister on his hand, but did not offer an explanation for Cancellor's injuries.[4][7] Hopley aroused further suspicion when he asked journalists present at the inquest not to include details of the corporal punishment in their stories, "in order to spare the feelings of the deceased family as of my own". Cancellor's family was deeply affected by the case, as they had been "disinclined" to see Cancellor beaten; his father died shortly after the inquest of a "broken heart."[5]
Trial[edit]
Caricature of Hopley's barrister, William Ballantine
Hopley was arrested in early May and, after a seven-hour preliminary hearing,[16] was released on 16 June on a £2,000 bail. He and his then-pregnant wife spent the period between the initial hearing and the trial at Uckfield.[7] Hopley was confident that he would be found not guilty. He began composing a pamphlet titled Facts Bearing on the Death of Reginald Channell Cancellor, to be published after the trial; it was published by an associate of Hopley's after his conviction and detailed Hopley's explanation of Cancellor's death and his justification for his treatment of the boy.[5][17] The press was extremely hostile, calling for a murder charge to be laid against him. He received a large amount of hate mail from anonymous members of the public.[7]
Hopley's trial took place at Lewes Assizes on 23 July 1860, before the Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench Sir Alexander Cockburn and a jury. The prosecutors were John Humffreys Parry and William Jerome Knapp;[12] Hopley was defended by the serjeant-at-law William Ballantine, who subsequently described Hopley as "distorted".[5][11] Throughout his trial, Hopley described himself as reluctant to use corporal punishment. In describing the events preceding Cancellor's death, Hopley stated that he started crying while beating Cancellor, after which Cancellor presented his lesson and "Hopley took his head on his breast and prayed with him".[8] Hopley presented testimonials from past students who described him as "kindly" and who noted an infrequent use of violence. Hopley claimed to be a paedagogical follower of John Locke, who had decried the use of corporal punishment except in cases of extreme obstinacy on the part of the student. He argued that, through the application of this theory, the beating that killed Cancellor had been a necessary one.[5]
Robert Willis testified at the trial that there was no possibility that Cancellor's death had been a result of natural causes.[14] He presented a detailed description of the boy's injuries, suggesting that they had been sustained over several hours.[2] He also revealed that Cancellor's skull cavity contained six to eight ounces of fluid, attributing to this fluid the boy's seeming inability to learn as described by Hopley, but rejected any suggestions that it may have contributed to Cancellor's death.[18] Cancellor's brother, Fowler, and Locock all testified against Hopley; Locock's testimony was particularly hostile, suggesting that Hopley's incompetent response to interviews was "tantamount to an admission of guilt".[7] Other witnesses included the Hopleys' laundress, Roberts, three members of the coastguard who had seen lights on in the house late at night, a local constable, and the town registrar.[12]
Chief Justice Alexander Cockburn
Ballantine's conduct during the trial was flawed, and he believed Hopley was insane. Although he promoted the testimonials of former students and argued that a schoolmaster was unlikely to "so lightly jeopardize his ambitions", he congratulated Locock on the accuracy of his testimony in open court. Ballantine did not call key witnesses such as Edward Philpott, another student of Hopley's who had been at the house that night. Philpott slept in the bedroom beside Cancellor's and had reported hearing no unusual noises or screams from Cancellor's room on the night of his death. Neither did Ballantine call Professor John Eric Erichsen of University College Hospital, who had conducted a second autopsy on Cancellor on 11 May and suggested that "the misleading appearance of the body was attributable to an undiagnosed blood condition akin to haemophilia".[7] In his memoir Some experiences of a barrister's life, published in 1883, Ballantine offered a highly sensationalised account of Cancellor's death: "the wretched half-witted victim of a lunatic's system of education was deliberately mangled to death".[19]
Hopley was convicted of manslaughter, not murder, because of his position as a schoolteacher "endowed with parental authority".[1] Sir Alexander Cockburn, the Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench, presented a summary of the decision:
By the law of England, a parent or a schoolmaster (who for this purpose represents the parent and has the parental authority delegated to him), may for the purpose of correcting what is evil in the child, inflict moderate and reasonable corporal punishment, always, however, with the condition, that it is moderate and reasonable. If it be administered for the gratification of passion or of rage, or if it be immoderate or excessive in its nature or degree, or if it be protracted beyond the child's powers of endurance, or with an instrument unfitted for the purpose and calculated to produce danger to life and limb: in all such cases the punishment is excessive, the violence unlawful, and if evil consequences to life or limb ensue, then the person inflicting it is answerable to the law, and if death ensues it will be manslaughter.[20]
Cockburn further suggested that Hopley should have realised Cancellor's cognitive deficiencies and taken these into account in his treatment of the boy.[18]
Hopley was sentenced to four years of penal servitude, and was incarcerated in Portsea and Chatham.[11][7] After being indicted, he wrote of himself that "while anguish shook the frame, the conscience suffered not one pang. I searched and searched among the deepest secrets of my soul, and could not blame myself ... I could look up tranquilly into the face of heaven who knew me to be Not Guilty."[21] He believed that his actions were justifiable because he had undertaken them in his duty as schoolteacher.[1] He portrayed himself as a victim of public opinion, claiming that "a mournful accident was swelled up into a bloody midnight murder, and how it has been brought about that my unfortunate name has been branded, not simply through the United Kingdom, but through the civilised world, as one of the most execrable monsters or of madmen."[5] He published a pamphlet arguing that Locock had perjured himself and had conspired with Fowler to influence the outcome of the trial.[7]
Reaction and aftermath[edit]
Hopley was sent to Millbank Prison to serve his sentence.
The trial was sensationalised by contemporary media. The press derided Hopley as "monstrous", and criticised schoolteachers in general and private schoolteachers in particular. Newspapers published graphic accounts of Cancellor's injuries and autopsy and further exaggerated the early rumours surrounding his death. Cancellor's was the first death by corporal punishment to have received broad public interest. To prevent overcrowding, the court issued tickets for admission to the public gallery during the trial;[5] the courtroom was full an hour before the trial began.[3] After Hopley's conviction, he issued at least two pamphlets on model education from gaol, which were poorly received by the public.[8] Hopley's fame was short-lived; a month after his conviction, the press was focused on another case of corporal punishment, that of Caroline Lefevre, whose arms were allegedly burnt by her teacher.[5]
Following Hopley's release from prison, he became immediately embroiled in a sensationalised divorce trial. His wife, Fanny, had petitioned for divorce on the grounds that he was "unloving" and had mistreated her. She claimed that Hopley had married her as an "educational experiment", presenting Hopley's educational theories as evidence of his "lunacy".[5] She had been 18 years old to Hopley's 36 at the time of their marriage in 1855. According to her statements during the trial, Hopley frequently criticised her writing and insisted that the couple's three children should be raised as "second Christs".[22] She accused him of physically abusing her from the time of her first pregnancy,[22] beating their first child only days after its birth (the child was later found to be "brain-damaged"),[7] and suggesting that during his prison sentence she should be confined to a workhouse. Hopley responded by claiming that he set rules only to ensure the maintenance of his household and the wellbeing of his family, and produced a set of romantic letters he had received from Fanny during his incarceration as evidence of her unforced affection for him.[22]
The jury found Hopley guilty of cruelty in July 1864, but suggested that Fanny had condoned his treatment of her.[22][7] The judge therefore ruled that her case was insufficient to grant a divorce. The verdict sparked outrage among the public, who believed that "a great injustice had been done", and that Fanny should not be forced to remain married to an abusive convicted killer.[5] Fanny left England shortly afterwards, allegedly to avoid having to continue living with Hopley.[22]
Hopley largely withdrew from the public eye after the trial, becoming a private tutor in London and publishing pamphlets on spiritualism in the late 1860s. He died at University College Hospital on 24 June 1876.[7] A retrospective editorial published in The Times in 1960 concluded that Hopley was not "the villain which some persons pictured him to be"; it noted that at the time of his arrest Hopley had been planning the construction of a "model school" in Brighton and that he had examined architect's drawings of the school after beating Cancellor.[6]
In 1865, Cancellor's death was used in a medical journal article discussing adult hydrocephalus. Despite Willis' statement that Cancellor had no pre-existing medical condition that would have caused or contributed to his death, author Samuel Wilks suggested not only that Cancellor had hydrocephalus, but that he was consequently more susceptible to physical injury as a result.[18] He pointed to the autopsy finding of fluid in Cancellor's brain to support his assertions and argued that this effusion would have caused physical weakness.[18]
R v Hopley was used as an archetypal case for legal commentaries about corporal punishment until physical discipline was officially banned in British schools over a century later.[23] According to education professor Marie Parker-Jenkins, R v Hopley is "the most quoted case of the 19th century involving the issue of corporal punishment".[1] The case is credited with prompting outcry against corporal punishment among the general public, although contemporary education journals rejected the possibility of abolishing corporal punishment.[23] Hopley's defence, known as "reasonable chastisement", became a frequently used response to charges of corporal punishment and was incorporated into the Children and Young Persons Act 1933.[2] Cockburn's requirement for "moderate and reasonable" punishment was established as a legal limit to corporal punishment and is still employed in modern legal scholarship.[24][25]
^ a b c d e Parker-Jenkins, Marie (1999). Sparing the rod: schools, discipline and children's rights. Trentham Books. pp. 5–13. ISBN 978-1-85856-159-2.
^ a b c Booth, Penny (2006). "The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Punishment of Children Under English Law – Public and Private Vices?". Liverpool Law Review. 27 (3): 395–416. doi:10.1007/s10991-006-9008-8.
^ a b "Manslaughter by a schoolmaster". The Hull Packet and East Riding Times. 27 July 1860. p. 3.
^ a b c d "Manslaughter by a Schoolmaster". Colonist. 24 July 1860. p. 3.
^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Middleton, Jacob (November 2005). "Thomas Hopley and mid-Victorian attitudes to corporal punishment". History of Education. 34 (6): 599–615. doi:10.1080/00467600500313898. (Subscription required (help)). Cite uses deprecated parameter |subscription= (help)
^ a b "A Sussex Tragedy". The Times. 21 April 1960. p. 14.
^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Moore, Julian (January 2008). "Hopley, Thomas". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2 June 2019. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
^ a b c d Burn, WL (1964). The Age of Equipose: a study of the midwest generation. WW Norton. pp. 42–43, 54.
^ Mackay, DP Leinster (January 1977). "Regina v Hopley: Some Historical Reflections on Corporal Punishment". Journal of Educational Administration and History. 9 (1): 1–6. doi:10.1080/0022062770090101.
^ Bergen, Barry H (1982). "Only a Schoolmaster: Gender, Class, and the Effort to Professionalize Elementary Teaching in England, 1870–1910". History of Education Quarterly. 22 (1): 11–12. doi:10.2307/367830. JSTOR 367830.
^ a b c d e f g h "A schoolboy beaten to death by his schoolmaster". The South Australian Advertiser. 11 September 1860. Retrieved 27 September 2010.
^ a b c "Assize Intelligence". Daily News. 24 July 1860. p. 6.
^ Parsons, Simon (1 August 2007). "Human Rights and the Defence of Chastisement". Journal of Criminal Law. 71 (4): 308–17. doi:10.1350/jcla.2007.71.4.308.
^ a b c "On this day: May 4, 1860". The Times. 4 May 2007. Retrieved 27 September 2010.
^ "A Schoolmaster Committed for Manslaughter". The Times. 4 May 1860. p. 5.
^ "Commital of a schoolmaster for manslaughter". Reynolds's Newspaper. 6 May 1860. p. 508.
^ "The Eastbourne Tragedy". Manchester Times. 1 September 1860. p. 5.
^ a b c d Wilks, S (1 January 1865). "Clinical Notes on Chronic Hydrocephalus in the Adult". The British Journal of Psychiatry. 10 (52): 520–25. doi:10.1192/bjp.10.52.520.
^ Ballantine, William (1883). Some experiences of a barrister's life. Richard Bently & Son. p. 329.
^ R v Hopley, 1860 , quoted in Parker-Jenkins, Marie (1999). Sparing the rod: schools, discipline and children's rights. Trentham Books. pp. 5–13. ISBN 978-1-85856-159-2.
^ Quoted in Parker-Jenkins, Marie (1999). Sparing the rod: schools, discipline and children's rights. Trentham Books. pp. 5–13. ISBN 978-1-85856-159-2.
^ a b c d e "Another Extraordinary Divorce Case". Wellington Independent. 1 October 1864. p. 1.
^ a b Terasaki, Hiroaki. "Newspapers and Educational Journals on School Corporal Punishment in Nineteenth Century England" (PDF). Tokyo University. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 July 2011. Retrieved 14 February 2011.
^ "140 years of chastisement". The Telegraph. 6 July 2004. Retrieved 14 February 2011.
^ Harris, N; Pearce, P; Johnstone, S (1991). The Legal Context of Teaching. Longman. p. 145. ISBN 978-0-582-03956-8.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eastbourne_manslaughter&oldid=903385378"
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1860 in England
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History of education in England
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Lewisham London Borough Council
"Lewisham Council" redirects here. For other uses, see Lewisham Council (disambiguation).
Executive mayor elected every four years
Whole council elected every four years
London borough council
of the London Borough of Lewisham
Elected Mayor
Damien Egan, Labour
since 3rd May 2018
Chair of the Council
Cllr Jacq Paschoud, Labour and Co-operative party
Janet Senior
since November 2018
54 councillors
Town Hall, 1 Catford Road
www.lewisham.gov.uk
Lewisham London Borough Council is the local authority for the London Borough of Lewisham in Greater London, England. It is a London borough council, one of 32 in the United Kingdom capital of London. The council is unusual in that its executive function is controlled by a directly elected mayor of Lewisham, currently Damien Egan. Lewisham is divided into 18 wards, each electing three councillors. Following the May 2018 election, Lewisham London Borough Council comprises 54 Labour Party councillors. The council was created by the London Government Act 1963 and replaced two local authorities: Deptford Metropolitan Borough Council and Lewisham Metropolitan Borough Council.
1.1 Data protection
1.2 Spending cuts and savings
2 Summary results of elections
A map showing the wards of Lewisham since 2002
There have previously been a number of local authorities responsible for the Lewisham area. The current local authority was first elected in 1964, a year before formally coming into its powers and prior to the creation of the London Borough of Lewisham on 1 April 1965. Lewisham London Borough Council replaced Deptford Metropolitan Borough Council and Lewisham Metropolitan Borough Council, which had been created in 1900. Deptford corresponded to the parish of St Paul Deptford and was governed by a vestry prior to 1900. Lewisham Metropolitan Borough Council replaced the Lewisham District Board of Works and the Lee District Board of Works, although the Lewisham District also included Penge and the Lee District also included Charlton, Kidbrooke and Eltham, which all went to other local authorities after 1900.
It was envisaged through the London Government Act 1963 that Lewisham as a London local authority would share power with the Greater London Council. The split of powers and functions meant that the Greater London Council was responsible for "wide area" services such as fire, ambulance, flood prevention, and refuse disposal; with the local authorities responsible for "personal" services such as social care, libraries, cemeteries and refuse collection. This arrangement lasted until 1986 when Lewisham London Borough Council gained responsibility for some services that had been provided by the Greater London Council, such as waste disposal. Lewisham became an education authority in 1990. Since 2000 the Greater London Authority has taken some responsibility for highways and planning control from the council, but within the English local government system the council remains a "most purpose" authority in terms of the available range of powers and functions.
Data protection[edit]
In 2012 the Council was fined £70,000 by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) after a social worker "left files containing GP and police reports and allegations of sexual abuse and neglect in a shopping bag on a train".[1] Commenting on Lewisham and other authorities who had made similar data protection breaches, the ICO said "It would be far too easy to consider these breaches as simple human error. The reality is that they are caused by councils treating sensitive personal data in the same routine way they would deal with more general correspondence. Far too often in these cases, the councils do not appear to have acknowledged that the data they are handling is about real people, and often the more vulnerable members of society."[1] In August 2015, it was reported by the News Shopper that between April 2011 and April 2014, Lewisham Council had disclosed the public's sensitive data sixty-four times.[2] However, the neighboring councils Bromley, Bexley and Greenwich did not commit any data breaches.[2]
Spending cuts and savings[edit]
In December 2015 it was reported by The Guardian that the Mayor of Lewisham predicted that casualties of the next round of cuts would include youth work, libraries, parks, crime reduction, social care and street cleaning.[3] In February 2016, Lewisham Council announced that it would be raising Council Tax by 3.99 percent in order to help meet the 15 million pounds of savings that is required each year.[4] In February 2019, News Shopper reported that Lewisham Council needs to cut £30 million by 2021, but that they had only found where £21 million of these cuts would be made.[5]
Summary results of elections[edit]
Main article: Lewisham local elections
Overall control Labour Lib Dem Green Conservative Others
2018 Labour 54 0 0 0 0
2010 Labour 40 12 1 1 0
2006 No overall control 26 17 6 3 2
1998 Labour 61 4 - 2 -
1986 Labour 50 - - 17 -
1974 Labour 51 - - 9 -
1968 Conservative 19 - - 41 -
^ a b "ICO hits the road to crack 'underlying problem' at data-leak councils". The Register. 19 December 2012. Retrieved 28 June 2013.
^ a b Freedom of Information request reveals Lewisham Council lost public's sensitive data 64 times newsshopper.co.uk. Retrieved February 29, 2016.
^ The ‘atomised’ council is here to stay: stripped back to the most basic services theguardian.com. Retrieved February 29, 2016.
^ Lewisham Council has agreed to increase council tax by 3.99 per cent newsshopper.co.uk. Retrieved February 29, 2016.
^ Witton, Bridie (11 February 2019). "£8m of cuts in Lewisham Council's 2019/2020 budget". News Shopper. Orpington. Retrieved 22 February 2019.
Local authorities in London
Corporation of London
Inner Temple
Middle Temple
London borough councils
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lewisham_London_Borough_Council&oldid=902247534"
Politics of the London Borough of Lewisham
Mayor and cabinet executives
Local education authorities in England
Billing authorities in England
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Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/April
< Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition
←Apries
Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, Volume II
A Priori and A Posteriori→
See also April on Wikipedia, April in the 11th Edition, and the disclaimer.
2329385Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, Volume II — April
APRIL was, in the old Roman reckoning, the second month of the year, but is counted in the Julian calendar as the fourth. The derivation of the name is unknown, though as far back as Varro we find the traditional etymology, omnia aperit, “it opens everything,” which is supported by comparison with the modern Greek use of ἄνοιξις (opening) for spring; while some would make out a connection with Aphrodite (Venus), and Grimm suggests the name of a hypothetical god or hero, Aper or Aprus. Among the Romans this month was sacred to Venus, the Festum Veneris et Fortunæ Virilis being held on the first day. On the fourth and the five following days, games (Ludi Megalenses) were celebrated in honour of Cybele; on the fifth there was the Festum Fortunæ Publicæ; on the tenth (?) games in the circus, and on the nineteenth, equestrian combats, in honour of Ceres; on the twenty-first—which was regarded as the birthday of Rome—the Vinalia urbana, when the wine of the previous autumn was first tasted; on the twenty-fifth, the Robigalia, for the averting of mildew; and on the twenty-eighth and four following days, the riotous Floralia. In many countries of Europe, as England, France, and Germany, the first of April has for long been appropriated to a facetious custom, for which no very satisfactory origin has been assigned. To send an unsuspecting or ignorant person on some bootless errand is the great endeavour of the day. In Scotland the unfortunate subject of the trick is called a gowk—which has now, though the words were probably at one time different, the meaning both of “fool” and “cuckoo,”—and the mischievous errand-sending is “hunting a gowk.” In France the dupe is called poisson d'Avril, or April-fish. One remarkable theory traces the custom to Noah, as sending out his dove on such a quest; it is also referred either to the miracle plays representing the sending of our Saviour from Annas to Caiaphas and from Pilate to Herod, or to the change, in France, in 1564, of New Year's day to the first of January, which left the first of April destitute of anything but a burlesque of its former festivities; and more recently an identification has been attempted with the Hindoo festival of Huli, which is celebrated in a similar manner on the 31st of March. No references to all-fools'-day have been found in our earlier literature; and it seems that both England and Germany have derived the fashion from France. St George's day is the twenty-third of the month; and St Mark's Eve, with its superstition about those who were doomed to die, falls on the twenty-fourth. In China the symbolical ploughing of the earth by the emperor and princes of the blood takes place in their third month, which frequently corresponds to our April; and in Japan a pleasant domestic festival, called the feast of Dolls, is celebrated in the same month. The days of April (journées d'Avril) is a name appropriated in French history to a series of insurrections at Lyons, Paris, and elsewhere, against the government of Louis Philippe in 1834, which led to violent repressive measures, and to a famous trial known as the Procès d'Avril. (See Chambers's Book of Days; Grimm's Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache, cap. “Monate.”)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Encyclopædia_Britannica,_Ninth_Edition/April&oldid=6975413"
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Michael Dunlop (Courtesy of Northern Maine Community College)
Northern Maine Community College introduces new academic dean
Northern Maine Community College recently announced Dr. Michael Dunlop as the new academic dean.
PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — Northern Maine Community College recently announced Dr. Michael Dunlop as the new academic dean.
For the past five years, Dunlop was a faculty member in the Sawyer Business School at Suffolk University in Boston. Dunlop has previous experience working in community colleges in New Mexico, where he held both teaching and administrative positions, most notably as a director of financial aid.
In addition to his academic experience, Dunlop has worked in industry and has several professional certifications in auditing and human resources.
NMCC President Timothy Crowley commented, “I am excited about Dr. Dunlop joining our community and the NM family. He brings a wonderful combination of teaching and administrative experience to the college.
“In addition to his academic contribution, Dr. Dunlop brings a high level of energy and a work history that demonstrates creativity and enthusiasm for teaching and learning. We look forward to introducing Dr. Dunlop to the community when he arrives in August,” Crowley said.
Dunlop’s diverse educational background, including an undergraduate degree in psychology, a master of business administration degree, as well as a doctor of education degree in educational administration from New Mexico State University, will all be put to good use in his new role.
“I hope my diverse educational and professional experiences will be value-added to the multitude of roles and responsibilities as the new academic dean at NMCC,” said Dunlop.
Even though Dunlop enjoyed working in much larger urban academic environments, he appreciates the chance to continue his career within a smaller rural community college. He said he believes that NMCC is the exact type of atmosphere where he can make immediate, and long term, contributions.
“I look forward to continuing the positive momentum of NMCC and continually exploring new academic opportunities and partnerships that are mutually beneficial to students and the community alike,” said Dunlop.
He feels NMCC is well equipped to adapt to the changing workforce needs and to remain a top community college at the national level.
“It would be great to position NMCC as a contender for the $1 million Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence, which is the nation’s signature recognition of high achievement and performance among America’s community colleges,” he said, adding he wants to ensure the continuity of NMCC’s vision of “Transforming Lives Through Education.”
Although new to the area, he experienced the beauty of Aroostook County when he ran the Caribou Marathon last September. Dunlop is a member of the Maine based Dirigo Running Club and is also a registered yoga teacher. In addition to his work at NMCC, he hopes to share his passion for running and yoga with the greater Presque Isle and Aroostook communities.
Submitted by the Development and College Relations Office of Northern Maine Community College.
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Marquette's Hauser brothers transfer to Virginia, Michigan State
Marquette's Sam and Joey Hauser are transferring to Virginia and Michigan State, respectively.
The brothers announced they were leaving the Golden Eagles last month and revealed their transfer destinations on Tuesday.
Sam Hauser, a 6-foot-8 swingman, played three seasons for the Golden Eagles and will have one year of eligibility remaining with the reigning national champion Cavaliers.
He averaged 14.9 points and 7.2 rebounds per game last season and shot 40.2 percent from 3-point range and 92.4 percent from the free-throw line in 34 games (33 starts). He was a second-team All-Big East selection.
"I'd like to thank (Virginia) coach (Tony) Bennett and his staff for this unbelievable opportunity," he said via Twitter. "Thank you to Marquette University for helping me represent them in a positive way the past 3 years. I can't wait to finish my college career in Charlottesville!"
Joey Hauser, a 6-foot-9 forward, played one season for the Golden Eagles after redshirting in 2017-18. He will have two seasons of eligibility remaining with the Spartans, although he could appeal to regain his lost redshirt season because of an ankle injury.
He averaged 9.7 points and 5.3 rebounds per game and shot 42.5 percent from 3-point distance in 34 games (31 starts). He was named to the Big East all-freshman team.
"Thank you to Coach (Tom) Izzo and his staff for this opportunity. Once again, thank you Marquette University for allowing me to represent them this past season. I can't wait to take this next step in my college career!" he tweeted.
Both siblings must sit out the 2019-20 season under NCAA transfer rules.
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