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CommBank’s Australian of the Day campaign
The Commonwealth Bank’s Australian of the Day campaign is about ‘celebrating the everyday people making Australia extraordinary’. They have partnered with eight up-and-coming photographers who are traveling the country capturing a new Australian face and story every day for eight months until Australia Day 2016. The images and stories they capture are then shared on the Australian of the Day microsite and featured on CommBank’s Instagram and Facebook pages. [embedyt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUDmI1GlToE&width=600&height=350[/embedyt]
Not so ordinary Australians
“We developed Australian of the Day to extend the support of one of our longest standing sponsorships, the Australian of the Year Awards. It celebrates the everyday people that make up the fabric of our nation. Some of the extraordinary Australians we have profiled so far include a Brisbane man who created Australia’s first laundry service for the homeless, as well as a Sydney woman who has saved the lives of over 11,000 dogs at her no-kill shelter,” explains Stuart Tucker, general manager, Brand and Marketing Services at Commonwealth Bank.
Tucker notes that while the CommBank’s sponsorship of Australian of the Year Awards for the last 36 years is about celebrating exceptional Australians who have made a significant contribution to the nation, this is about acknowledging the inspiring stories and efforts of everyday Australians.
“Our country is made up of so many characters who have fascinating stories to tell, so we wanted to create an initiative to celebrate these everyday Aussies as well. We thought there was no better way to truly get under the skin of who we are as a nation than to meet people from all walks of life and hear their stories – all through the lens of the country’s most promising young photographers – which is how we landed on the Australian of the Day campaign,” says Tucker.
“At the end of the campaign, the photographs will culminate in a major national portrait celebrating who we were and what we looked like in 2015.”
Monika Biernacki has saved the lives of over 11 000 dogs at Monika's Doggie Rescue.
Connecting and celebrating communities
“As Australia’s biggest bank with over 52,000 employees, we have a responsibility to actively support the communities we operate within. Australian of the Day is just one way we do this,” says Tucker, noting CommBank has run community initiatives for over 100 years, with recent examples including their Community Grants and Teaching Awards programs.
“Firstly we think it is important to thank those doing great work in communities, a simple thank you can be a powerful gesture,” says Tucker on the community benefits of the Australian of the Day campaign. “We also hope that through using our channels to tell the incredible stories of people in the community, we’re elevating their causes and also inspiring the wider community. An example of a wonderful story that inspired the community is the story of Queensland hairdresser Barry Faulkner. Barry discovered a potentially fatal melanoma hidden on a client’s scalp during a routine haircut. His client immediately underwent surgery and to this day holds Barry as his saviour. This story really resonated with people and started a genuine discussion around the importance of routine skin checks.”
Barber Barry Faulkner, who alerted a client to a potentially fatal melanoma on his scalp, prompting the client to undergo life saving surgery.
Every picture tells a story
Four months in, the Australian of the Day campaign features the photos and stories of all kinds of Australians – of different ages, backgrounds and locale. The images shot by the participating photographers – including James Adams, Trent Mitchell, Rhett Hammerton and James Whineray – are a testament to Australia’s diversity.
When quizzed on whether he has any personal favourites, Tucker says: “There are literally so many to choose from – every single Australian of the Day has been chosen because they’re doing something amazing in their own way. One person who really resonated with me personally – and with our social community – is Tejinder Singh. Tejinder has two busy full-time jobs as an air-conditioner mechanic and a taxi driver, yet still somehow manages to find the time to give back to the Darwin community by way of a monthly food drive. He and his son spend the last Sunday of every month cooking and distributing vegetarian meals to any and all who are hungry – no matter what race or class. He’s told us that he’s rejected countless offers of monetary support from people, and instead, just wants to encourage others to begin their own food drives within their local community. “
Tejinder Singh and his son run a food drive in Darwin every Sunday, showing us what it is to selflessly give to other.
He ends: “Tejinder's story really embodies the Australian of the Day campaign, and it's uncovering stories like his that makes the initiative so rewarding.”
Know someone you’d like to nominate for Australian of the Day? You can here.
Benojo helps businesses and charities collaborate for the greater good.
Contact us to learn more about our work.
Events & CampaignsTeam Benojo 21 September 2015 Comment
This week in social impact, CSR and philanthropy
Weekly roundupTeam Benojo 25 September 2015
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Rolling Stones Invite Zac Brown Band To Open Stadium Show
posted by Lauryn Snapp - Feb 21, 2019
The Zac Brown Band has announced that they will be rocking with The Rolling Stones on the legendary rocker’s upcoming tour stop in Jacksonville, Florida on April 24th.
The Stones are slated to grace the stage at the TIAA Bank Field in Jacksonville in April on their ‘No Filter Tour,’ and when they do, the “Chicken Fried” entertainers will be on deck as their support act.
Zac Brown Band members shared their exciting news on social media saying, “We are huge fans of @RollingStones, it’s an honor to join them in Jacksonville and share a stage with such legendary musicians! The show is April 24th.”
Gear up for the Stones show by listening to the Zac Brown Band’s latest single “Someone I Used To Know” which debuted on country radio on February 19th.
The other opening acts expected to join the remainder of the U.S. tour stops have yet to be announced.
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Open Widgets
by Benny Ling
Tuesday Morning News
Apple’s Best of 2014 list has all the best and most downloaded music, TV shows, movies, apps, and books. The Loop has the list of all the albums, artists, and individual songs that made the cut, and on the iOS side of things, Elevate’s Brain Training takes out the top spot for iPhone app of the year, while Threes was crowned iPhone game of the year. And on the iPad, the excellent Pixelmator is the iPad app of the year, with Monument Valley taking home the award for iPad game of the year — there doesn’t seem to be a way to link to the Best of 2014 lists on the iTunes Store, but you can visit them by tapping or clicking on the banners in an iTunes Store near you.
Former Apple supply chain manager Paul Devine has been sentenced to one year imprisonment, after being found guilty of selling confidential Apple information to suppliers. Devine has also been ordered to pay back $4.5 million, and pleaded guilty to wire fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering.
Apple has hired one Dana Massie. The former Audience Director has a background in digital audio, and joins Apple as their System on a Chip audio architect — he’ll likely be working on making voice communications clearer, given his previous experience in designing and developing audio processing algorithms. MacRumors notes Massie used to work for Apple as well as NeXT, but gives no details on those “brief stints”.
Time’s finalists for 2014 Person of the Year includes Apple CEO Tim Cook. Time points out he’s the first openly gay Fortune 500 CEO, in addition to being the guy who introduced the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, Apple Watch, and Apple Pay.
Speaking of Tim, China’s minister of Cyberspace Administration Lu Wei visited the US, where he met with Cook along with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Cook showed off his Apple Watch to the minister, saying he was the first outsider to see the Apple Watch in person. The pair also discussed security issues facing the release of new Apple products in China.
Longtime iLounge Editor-in-Chief Jeremy Horwitz has made the jump to 9to5Mac, and his first article is a list of accessories for your Mac, iPhone, and iPad, in true iLounge style. I’ve seen plenty of gift guides around on the web this year, but this is the first one that specifically tailors to Apple products, which is kind of cool.
Panic’s blog post regarding Transmit iOS 1.1.1 paints a grim picture: forced by Apple to remove a feature to send files to iCloud Drive, they had to scrap sending files to other services, too. It’s another blow to useful iOS apps who build features that Apple didn’t expect or anticipate, but as Marco Arment wonders, what is Apple protecting itself or its customers from? Outbursts of productivity from iOS devices?
In less-grim iOS app update news, the Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides apps have been updated with new editing features, as well as support for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. Digg 5.6 adds new sharing services and improved notifications. More details on the Digg blog.
Jean-Louis Gassée says the Apple Watch, like pretty much every kind of technology today, will soon be obsolete, surpassed by a newer model that’s thinner, lighter, and has a longer battery life, as well as adding new features. That doesn’t bode well for a piece of equipment that will potentially be priced like a traditional watch.
Apple’s latest iPad ad is called Change, and it’s about the iPad Air 2 changing many different aspects of people’s lives, all over the world. There’s no fancy voice-over from well-known celebrities, but it is kinda nice. Check it out.
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Mini ARC Reviews: Disruption, Kiss Cam, The Row
Title And Author: Disruption (Disruption #1) by Jessica Shirvington
Source: Edelweiss
Goodreads Synopsis: The Mercer Corporation might rule the world through the control of pheromones. But nothing, and no one, is going to stand in Maggie's way. Especially Quentin Mercer. Ever since the development of M-chips which tap into human pheromones, M-Corp has become the new superpower. Ratings range from the rare 'perfect match' to the dreaded 'negative' and everything in between. Three years ago Maggie's father mysteriously rated as a 'neg' and was taken away from them. For the last two years, eighteen-year-old Maggie has had only one goal: to uncover the truth and bring him home. Her last hope is Quentin Mercer, her classmate at the elite Kingly Academy - and the heir to the Mercer Corporation. But Quentin isn't the person she thought he was... And while she can easily betray her morals in the quest to save her father, can she betray her heart?
Review: I love the dystopian genre, but let's face it: it has gotten a bit stale. It's unusual to find a dystopian book that is as unique as this one. I absolutely loved this premise. Remember that whole ridiculous rumor that Obama was going to implant all humans with microchips years ago? I think this book is basically what would happen if that were actually true. Humans resist the whole microchipping process, but then people get so hooked on all the information it provides and they start to love it. I can see that happening. But there are downsides: there are people called "negs" who basically rate as a negative match with anyone. People assume that negs are people who either have done something bad or will do something bad and therefore, they need to be removed from society. Maggie is the perfect main character here. She is snarky and independent and has a soft side that she desperately tries to hide. But she will do ANYTHING to find her father. Part of her plan involves Quentin Mercer, the son of the inventor of the M-chip. I loved the relationship between Maggie and Quentin. Their banter was funny and they had amazing chemistry. And man the slow burn of their romance was INTENSE. I just wanted them to kiss and to be together, but I was terrified because she was basically manipulating him and I had a feeling he wasn't going to take it well when he found out. Maggie has a one track mind. It's hard to like Maggie sometimes because of all the manipulation and the coldness and also, she makes awful decisions. Some of the things she does are kind of twisted. But I end up loving her because of all that imperfection. And the twists . . . HOLY CRAP!! That ending was crazy wild and twisted and insane and I NEED the next book!! I would highly recommend this one.
Buy/Borrow/Skip: Buy this one.
Title and Author: Kiss Cam by Kiara London
Goodreads Synopsis: Juniper, Jasper, and Lenny have been friends forever and co-own a vlog channel called WereVloggingHere. Their fans are huge "shippers" who believe that Juniper and Jasper are perfect for each other, and, despite warnings from friends and family, a simple Truth-or-Dare inspired kiss soon spirals out of control into a whole new world of making out and surprise kisses. Juniper and Jasper's relationship begins to shift. But as fan requests for different "Kiss Cam" segments keep pouring in, Juniper puts her worries aside and convinces herself that it doesn't mean anything. After all, it's just kissing… right?
Review: This book is responsible for getting me out of an awful reading slump so for that reason alone, it has a special place in my heart. Very few books have the ability to make me laugh out loud, but this one did. I loved the friendship and the banter and the silliness and the weird situation all the friends put themselves in and the romance and the chemistry . . . and okay, I just loved all of it. I know it's a weird premise: Juniper, Jasper and Lenny are running a Youtube channel and Juniper and Jasper decide to give the fans of their fake friendship what they want and they basically kiss on camera. It's a weird scenario and probably a bit unrealistic, but I still loved how fun and silly it was. You know how sometimes there is a slow burn where two people obviously like each other, but it takes them forever to admit their feelings and just kiss already? This is basically the story of two people kissing all the time, but refusing to admit their feelings for each other. At first, the kisses are silly. They try to one up each other by surprising them or pulling pranks that end with a kiss. There is also this one challenge where they have to deliberately give each other hickeys in the shape of a Christmas tree. Yeah, I just had to laugh. Their chemistry was so off the charts, but they were both too damn scared of ruining their friendship to give it a chance. I loved all the characters in this book. Juniper overhangs everything, Jasper is so silly and never takes himself (or anything) too seriously and Lenny is the calm one who has a not so secret obsession with Eva Longeria and Desperate Housewives. I love the whole best friends turned romance thing and I was rooting for them the entire time. I also loved Juniper's family. Her parents worked a lot, but they weren't neglectful. They tried to spend as much time together as possible with her when they were home, which was great. This was such a cute book.
Title and Author: The Row by J.R. Johansson
Goodreads Synopsis: Seventeen-year-old Riley Beckett is no stranger to prison. Her father is a convicted serial killer on death row who has always maintained that he was falsely accused. Riley has never missed a single visit with her father. She wholeheartedly believes that he is innocent. Then, a month before the execution date, Riley’s world is rocked when, in an attempt to help her move on, her father secretly confesses to her that he actually did carry out the murders. He takes it back almost immediately, but she cannot forget what he’s told her. Determined to uncover the truth for her own sake, she discovers something that will forever change everything she’s believed about the family she loves.
Review: This book started out pretty well. Riley's dad has been in prison for ten years for a series of murders that he says he never committed. He is on death row and has used his final appeal and his execution date has been set. Her world is turned upside down when her dad says he actually murdered those women, but then says he didn't the very next week. Riley was a very likable character. She desperately wants to believe her dad is innocent and she isn't sure what to think when he confesses. I thought the writing style was great, especially with showing Riley's conflict and her loneliness. I really wish the author could have given her at least one friend, but whatever. She also meets Jordan, the son of the detective who arrested her father years ago and immediately feels a kinship with him. He is very sweet and wants answers just as much as Riley and he is willing to help her get them. He doesn't want to believe that his dad would put an innocent man behind bars, but he definitely wants the truth, regardless of what that may be. I really wish theirs had been a friendship instead of a romance. The romance was minimal and moved slow, which was great, but I didn't really feel any chemistry between them. And I kind of hated how she confided in him so quickly. I thought that the story kind of went downhill when Riley starts investigating to see if her dad is innocent or not. First of all, her "investigation" begins with looking at old newspaper clippings and asking her parents what happened. Really? She expects to find a killer like that? She says she doesn't know if she can trust her father and then she finds out her mom lied to her, but somehow she thinks they will still tell her the truth because she asked nicely. Here is one thing that bugged me: Riley is sixteen years old (maybe seventeen, don't remember) and she still calls her father "Daddy." That just weirds me out when older people call their fathers out, but that's probably just me. But what really irked me was that EVERYONE else referred to him as "Daddy" as well. I mean, WTH? I THINK the author may have mentioned the guy's name once, but if she did, I don't remember it. Her mom would always say "your daddy" and even Jordan referred to him as "Daddy" once. Maybe that was a typo by the author or something, but I find it hard to believe that there wasn't a single person who could call the guy by his name. Also, I found it kind of hard to believe that Riley's dad ever would have been found guilty in the first place. There were three victims and he only knew one of them. And there was ZERO physical evidence to put him at any of the crime scenes. The ending was just as bad. I just thought this one was a bit unrealistic for my tastes.
Nick October 20, 2016 at 3:49 PM
I really enjoyed the Disruption duology. The characters were so great and I loved the romance! I struggled with Maggie at times, but by book 2 I really liked her.
I was curious about The Row but if the ending is unrealistic and bad, I'll skip!
Great reviews, Cynthia!
I was curious about The Row
Shannon/ It Starts at Midnight October 21, 2016 at 5:26 AM
Well, I of course agree about Disruption! I am so glad you loved it toooo! I am surprised about Kiss Cam too. I would never really have pegged it as a book I'd be into, but since you are, my mind could be changed ;) But now I am definitely skipping The Row though, that sounds a MESS. The "Daddy" thing skeeves me out too. And it sounds like the most flimsy, unrealistic case in the history of cases. Pass. Glad that two of these were so great for you though! Fabulous reviews :D
DISCUSSION: Reigning in your TBR
REVIEW: Speed of Life by J.M. Kelly
DISCUSSION: ARCs are hindering my reading
Top Ten Tuesday - Favorite Villains
Back From My Much Needed Break
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/ Caroline Siede / 3:49 am Fri Jun 9, 2017
How Hollywood manufactures a Muslim menace
In her new series The FREQ Show, Anita Sarkeesian digs into insidious, pervasive Hollywood stereotypes about Muslims and Arabs, and how those stereotypes fuel real-world Islamophobia. As Sarkeesian puts it:
To so many Americans, people in the Middle East have never been established as human beings with real lives, hopes, dreams, and struggles. When almost every story you’ve ever seen about a particular part of the world paints the people who live there as monolithic, evil, and scary, you’re a lot more likely to believe that it’s actually true.
And it’s not just fictional representation that’s a problem. According to a study by University of Illinois professor Travis Dixon that analyzed 146 episodes of TV news programing between 2008 and 2012, 81 percent of the terrorist suspects discussed on TV news were Muslim. In real life, however, Muslims accounted for just 6 percent of actual FBI terrorist suspects during that time period.
anita sarkeesian / islamophobia / stereotypes
Chinese authorities are secretly installing their anti-Uyghur surveillance app on the phones of tourists to Xinjiang province
Back in 2017, Chinese authorities in Xinjiang began stopping members of the Uyghur ethnic minority and forcing them to install spyware on their phones: it marked an intensification of the country's crackdown on Uyghur's and other ethnic/religious minorities, which acquired a new technological fervor: next came the nonconsensual collection of the DNA of every person […]
Jewish human rights scholar: yes, America has built concentration camps
Anna Lind-Guzik ("a writer, attorney, and scholar of Soviet history, international law, and human rights, with degrees from Duke University, Harvard Law School, and Princeton") has written an essay defending Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's use of the term "concentration camps" to describe the facilities in which America has imprisoned brown-skinned asylum seekers who have presented themselves at […]
The New York Times's chilling multimedia package on China's use of "smart city" tech to create an open-air prison
One of my mottoes is that the important thing about tech isn't what it does, it's who it does it to, and who it does it for; this is especially important in discussions of "smart city" tech, which can easily be turned to systems of population-scale surveillance, control and oppression.
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Carnegie Middle East Center
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How Will the Failed Coup in Turkey Affect Syria?
Aron Lund
The attempted coup in Turkey and its aftermath may become a defining moment in both the country’s contemporary history and the war in Syria.
Comments (+)
As the dust slowly settles following the July 15 coup attempt in Turkey, which killed around 300 people and left more than 2,000 wounded, it is clear that Turkish politics will remain in flux for some time to come. July 15 may come to be seen as a defining moment in Turkey’s contemporary history—but could it also be so for Syria?
At first glance, there does not seem to be an immediate connection between the two issues. But the effects of the failed coup could play out in many different and contradictory ways for Syria, where Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government has long been one of the most hawkish supporters of an Islamist-led Sunni insurgency against President Bashar al-Assad’s authoritarian government. Even a slight shift in Ankara’s Syria policy could have significant consequences for the war—and if Erdogan had been toppled, it could easily have been a game-changing moment in the conflict. When news of the coup first broke, celebratory gunfire erupted in Damascus and several other cities, though that turned out to be a waste of both cheers and bullets.
As it happens, Syria has been on the mind of policymakers in Ankara for some time. Turkey’s Syria policy is widely felt to have reached a dead end, with the failure of the insurgency to coalesce into a credible alternative to Assad. The Syrian army’s recent victories around Aleppo and Damascus have also weakened and demoralized the rebels. In addition, the steady rise of Syrian Kurdish groups aligned with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, has become a major concern for Turkish officials, and some have argued that this will prompt a recalibration of Erdogan’s Syria policy.
As of yet, however, there is no visible change and whether the attempted coup will accelerate or impede such a process is impossible to say. Since Erdogan remains in power—perhaps now with even less internal opposition—there is no reason why he should not simply continue to pursue a Syria policy of his own choice, whatever it might turn out to be. But the effects of the coup on Turkey’s foreign alignments and internal politics may still influence the way Ankara approaches its Syrian dilemma.
A Stronger Erdogan, but a Weaker Turkey?
The Turkish president seems to have come out of the crisis stronger than before and is now leading a large-scale purge of the armed forces and the civil service. Having declared a three-month state of emergency, the government has arrested or fired many thousands of suspected opponents, including military officers and other security personnel. Journalists are also being targeted and earlier this week 16 television channels, 23 radio stations, 45 newspapers, and 29 publishing houses were shut down by government decree. Many of Erdogan’s critics fear that the president has effectively embarked on a counter-coup of his own, attempting to crush all meaningful resistance to his rule under the cover of a legitimate purge of military conspirators.
Tellingly, Erdogan is already using the coup to further his overriding political goal, namely to change the constitution and centralize power in the hands of the presidency. His repeated previous attempts to rewrite the constitution were met with strong resistance from the opposition, which accused Erdogan of seeking to transform Turkey into a dictatorship. But Prime Minister Binali Yildirim now claims that, after the coup, most of Turkey’s political parties are willing to join a constitutional redrafting process.
However, a stronger Erdogan does not necessarily mean a stronger Turkey. The tense political situation and the sheer scale of the purge may weaken the government and make it less able to efficiently promote its interests in Syria. If so, Ankara could be forced to scale-down its involvement to more manageable levels or hand over influence to allies who do not fully share its goals. Then again, having a more unstable military and policymaking apparatus, and less oversight from a much-too-busy central government, could also translate into more reckless policies in Syria. With reports of Sunni-Alevi sectarian clashes in Turkey and unrest in several areas, as well as Syria-based jihadi extremists striking at Turkish targets, there is also a risk that Syrian refugees could become caught up in the aftermath to the coup.
Continuing to Mend Ties with Russia
Erdogan’s options in Syria are dependent on Ankara’s regional and international alliances. In the months before the military uprising, Erdogan had begun to revise his foreign policy to break out of growing international isolation. This included rebooting his relations with Israel and, more importantly for the Syrian dilemma, seeking improved ties with Russia.
Turkish-Russian relations had already been strained over the Syrian issue, when, on November 15, 2015, the Turkish Air Force downed a Russian Su-24 that it claimed had strayed into Turkish airspace. This prompted a furious Russian response, including the imposition of economic sanctions. However, after some six months of mutual hostility, Turkey reached out to Russia with a grudging apology, which led to the lifting of some sanctions. On July 1, foreign ministers Sergei Lavrov and Mevlut Cavusoglu met in Sochi, where they discussed, among other things, Syria. Moscow has, since, sought to use the diplomatic opening to encourage a shift in Ankara’s Syria policy, though Erdogan has so far shown no indication of wanting to end his opposition to Assad.
A few days after the attempted coup, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stressed that the evolution of the Russian-Turkish relationship “will depend on how we will cooperate on the settlement of the Syrian crisis.” Turkish officials have not yet reacted to these pressures, but they have signaled their desire to continue to improve relations with Moscow. Soon after the coup had been put down, Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek seized the opportunity to blame the shooting down of the Su-24 on anti-Erdogan elements. It may be true or it may be a very convenient cop-out. Cavusoglu also recently praised Russia’s “unconditional support” after the attempted coup. In other words, the Russian-Turkish discussions about Syria can be expected to continue.
How Will Washington Respond?
Turkey’s relationship with the United States, which is its primary military ally through NATO, seems to have come under some strain as a result of the coup. One reason is that the Turkish government has accused the Islamist ideologue Fethüllah Gülen, who lives in Pennsylvania, of being the mastermind behind the putsch. While it remains unclear whether Turkey has launched a formal request for Gülen’s extradition, the issue is already provoking tensions on both sides.
The United States and Turkey have clear disagreements about which diplomatic policies to pursue in Syria and which opposition groups to support. Still, they have been able to contain these differences and work closely together over the past five years. The coup attempt is not going to change that, but Turkey’s apparent instability and Erdogan’s ongoing crackdown seem to be causing serious concern in the United States. Erdogan’s evolution towards Islamist-led authoritarianism will win him no friends in Washington, and further complications in the American-Turkish relationship could easily translate into new rifts over Syria.
Still, Washington has a strong incentive to maintain good relations with Erdogan, since Turkey is an indispensable facilitator of American influence in Syria and, even more importantly, serves as a cornerstone of the U.S.-led regional security structure. That view has been clearly expressed by James G. Stavridis, a retired U.S. general who served as NATO supreme allied commander from 2009 to 2013 (and was considered a potential running mate for U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton). Stavridis recently published an article in Foreign Policy arguing that the U.S. must stand ready to counter a likely “strong negative impact on the ability of the Turkish military to perform its duties,” by reinforcing the alliance with Ankara and being more publicly supportive of Erdogan’s government, which, he reminded readers, is democratically elected. Stavridis also suggested that the United States should be more “sensible and supportive of Turkish positions on how to deal with the Islamic State and Bashar al-Assad’s regime” and increase American support for Turkey’s war against the PKK.
Given that the United States relies heavily on PKK associated groups in northern Syria, such concessions to Ankara could have implications not only for Turkey’s role in Syria, but also for the role of the United States in Syria.
Sorting Through the Post-Putsch Mess
The reason for Stavridis’s concerns are obvious: preserving a strong and sympathetic Turkish military leadership is a core U.S. security interest. After the coup, the air base at İncirlik—from which the United States and other nations fly many of their sorties against jihadi extremists in northern Syria, and which houses part of the American nuclear arsenal—was shut down, though only temporarily. As a measure of how deep into the security establishment Erdogan’s purge has cut, he is apparently abolishing his own presidential guard, while about a third of the country’s generals and admirals are said to have been charged with involvement in the plot.
Speaking to Reuters on July 23, Erdogan said he had already tasked his government with reorganizing the military: “They are all working together [so as to determine] what might be done, and ... within a very short amount of time a new structure will be emerging. With this new structure, I believe the armed forces will get fresh blood.”
Losing such a large part of the top brass would throw any army into disarray. For a government already embroiled in a civil war with the PKK and a proxy war against Assad in Syria, while also being targeted by jihadi attacks, it could be quite debilitating. As an example of the issues at stake, the most senior military figure arrested for involvement in the plot against Erdogan was General Adem Huduti, whose Second Army is responsible for the borders with Syria, Iraq, and Iran. How will Huduti’s arrest affect Turkey’s ability to patrol these borders, the army’s performance in the conflict with the PKK, and Ankara’s ability to shape the situation in northern Syria?
In other words, a deliberate change in policy is not the only the way the attempted coup could affect Syria. Even if the Turkish government decides to stay the course, it could become weakened and preoccupied by internal unrest and purges, forcing it to take its eyes off the war in Syria at a crucial moment. And as Turkish domestic policy and the structure of the country’s ruling elite change, this will surely have longer-term effects on the decision-making process and on how the government perceives Turkish national interests. Meanwhile, the coup could influence how Turkey balances its commitments to other actors involved in the Syrian war, including Russia and the United States.
But for now, the only thing that seems certain is that as Turkey changes, the nature of its involvement in Syria is likely to change as well. And that, for many in Syria, could be a matter of life or death.
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After the Iraqi Elections: High Stakes
Phebe Marr
As the elections end, the hard work of constructing the new Iraq begins. While Iraqi voters can congratulate themselves on a remarkable achievement in the face of extraordinary difficulties, the situation remains precarious.
As the elections end, the hard work of constructing the new Iraq begins. While Iraqi voters can congratulate themselves on a remarkable achievement in the face of extraordinary difficulties, the situation remains precarious. Voting took place mainly (though not wholly) along ethnic and sectarian lines, and centrists with a pan-Iraqi focus did poorly. Now delegates of the new 275-member Assembly must come together to develop a constitutional framework for all of Iraq. If they succeed, Iraq’s situation will begin to turn around; if not, the state itself, to say nothing of its democratic future, will be in jeopardy.
Four issues will be of paramount importance: Kurdish self-rule and decentralization, religion’s role in the state, bringing Sunnis into a national consensus, and relations with the United States and the coalition forces. Of the four, the Kurdish issue may be the most important. While mainstream Iraqi politicians agree that some form of decentralized government or federalism is needed, they disagree about how to satisfy Kurdish aspirations while keeping the state intact. The two dominant Kurdish parties, the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, call for a confederation between an Iraqi Kurdistan and an Arab Iraq, an arrangement that the Arab majority and minorities in the north will resist. At issue is how much authority the Kurdish Regional Government would have in its territory as well as how best to reintegrate the Kurds, who have been isolated since 1991, into national life.
The Kurds would also like to enlarge the territory they control to include Kirkuk and towns and villages along the Jabal Hamrin south to Khanaqin—territory they claim has a Kurdish majority. Kurds are fairly adamant about Kirkuk, but other Iraqis will not give up the oil-rich province easily. Moreover, Kirkuk is home to a mixed population of Turkomans, Christians, and Arabs as well as Kurds. Kirkuk is a potential flashpoint that can be settled by giving a dominant role to the local communities, who have been able to live together peaceably in the past.
Even beyond the Kurds, Iraqis in other areas (Basra, for example) have begun talking about a federal arrangement—an Iraq divided into four or five large blocs of territory with Baghdad as a central hub. This kind of decentralization is new to Iraq and suggests Lebanonization. Most Arabs, especially the newly emerging Shiite majority, want to govern a unified Iraq and will seek to avoid such an outcome.
A second major debate will center on the role of Sharia (Islamic law) in the new Constitution. Few Iraqis want a theocratic state along the Iranian model with clerics governing, but Sharia could be enshrined in the Constitution as one source or even the primary source of law. Such a development would mostly affect personal status laws. Strong Islamic currents will push in this direction, among them the two Shiite parties (the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and Dawa) in the winning United Iraqi Alliance. But the counterweight of secular forces, chiefly among the Kurds and a number of educated Sunnis and Shiites, suggests that some compromise will be found. Women, who should comprise about one-third of the legislature, may also be in a position to press for their rights.
The third critical issue is how the new government will handle the disenfranchisement of Sunnis, essential to eventually ending the insurgency. Although Sunnis are expected to be underrepresented—perhaps dramatically—in the Assembly, they can be drawn into the constitutional process informally. Shiite and Kurdish reluctance to make peace with former Baathists and Iraqi army officers will be an obstacle, but if no accommodation is made, the insurgency will continue to sap the energy and resources needed to build a new Iraq.
Last is the question of how to deal with the United States and the coalition forces, an important issue for the longer term but perhaps the least contentious for now. A weak new government that must maintain itself in power, face an insurgency, and create some stability for development is unlikely to call for the immediate withdrawal of foreign forces. A flexible status-of-forces agreement that points the way to a departure as soon as possible would probably finesse this issue for the moment.
The elections have given Iraqis a sense of ownership of the political process and a new measure of self-confidence. But elections have not solved the fundamental, even existential, problems of the country, which must be addressed via the constitutional process. Iraq’s future as a nascent democracy depends on whether the new delegates can compromise on their separate agendas. To accomplish this they will need to revive a lost sense of Iraqi identity and a shared purpose in rebuilding their torn country—together.
Phebe Marr is a Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace. The views expressed are her own. The U.S. Institute of Peace is an independent organization created and funded by Congress to promote research, education, and training on the prevention, management and resolution of international conflicts. Marr is also the author of The Modern History of Iraq, Second Edition (Boulder: Westview Press, 2003).
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2019 MOVIE PREVIEW: All the big films hitting this year
By Al Alexander/For the Patriot Ledger
Jan 3, 2019 at 2:22 PM
The ink is barely dry on my postmortem of the best movies of 2018 and I’m already looking ahead to 2019 in anticipation of the next “Roma,” “Black Panther” or “Crazy Rich Asians.” And how can you not be psyched by the prospects of films directed by Oscar-winners Martin Scorsese, Ang Lee and Quentin Tarantino, and featuring high-wattage stars the caliber of Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Meryl Streep, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro and Tom Hanks?
Per usual, it will be an eclectic collection of dramas, comedies and superhero sagas, with sequel-happy Disney leading the way hoping a fourth time will be charm for both its Toy Story and Avengers franchises. The Mouse is also back to his old tricks of turning classic toons into live-action extravaganzas -- not once, but thrice with “Aladdin” (May 24), “The Lion King” (July 19) and “Dumbo” (March 29). Nor can he let it go with “Frozen,” granting that iconic princess pic a second shot at warming the hearts of the little girl in all of us in “Frozen 2” (Nov. 27).
Joining “Avengers: Endgame” (May 3) in the Marvel Universe are “Captain Marvel” (March 8), starring Oscar-winner Brie Larson in the title role, and a second helping of our beloved Spidey in “Spider-Man: Far from Home” (July 3). Over in the DC galaxy, get ready to get pumped to see Joaquin Phoenix trying to fill the shoes of Heath Ledger with his very own “Joker” movie on Oct. 4. And speaking of galaxies, there’s word of a ninth installment of the “Star Wars” epic (Dec. 20) with J.J. Abrams returning to the director’s chair.
Remember Arnold Schwarzenegger? He’s baaack, too, hoping to revive his faltering career by reviving his trademark cyborg in a yet-to-be-titled Terminator movie (Nov. 1). Aliens of another sort also have a role in another resurrection, that being the Ray Ban-wearing fellas enforcing laws pertaining to outer-space creatures violating their visas in “Men in Black International” (June 14). Only this time, they’re not fellas, or at least one of them isn’t, as Tessa Thompson as Agent M joins Chris Hemsworth’s Agent H in restoring order to the universe. One thing for sure, they’ll make this movie look good.
Closer to home, comes another classic, the shot-in-Boston “Little Women” (Dec. 25), directed by “Lady Bird’s” Greta Gerwig and starring Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Timothee Chalamet and Streep. Another period drama, “Downton Abbey” (Sept. 20), should get fans of the beloved PBS series in a tizzy. Same for the rabid fans of “It,” which returns with the traumatized kids all grown up and not in the mood for any more clowning around from Pennywise in “It: Chapter Two” (Sept. 6). The sewer-dwelling killer is certainly no match for the likes of Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy and Bill Hader. Then there’s “Where’d You Go, Bernadette” (March 22), which is where you’ll want to go knowing it stars Cate Blanchett and is based on Maria Semple’s best-seller about a supermom who suddenly disappears. Did I mention the estimable Richard Linklater is directing? I know you’ll find me there.
For auto sports junkies, start revving your supercharged engines for “Ford v. Ferrari” (June 28), a high-octane gas starring Matt Damon as legendary racecar-designer Carroll Shelby, whose revolutionary Ford GT40 knocked Ferrari off its lofty perch with Ken Miles (Christian Bale) behind the wheel at the 24 hours of Le Mans in 1965. James Mangold of “Walk the Line” fame, directs. Another trip back to the 1960s is the trippy “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” (July 26), Quentin Tarantino’s hotly anticipated look back at the City of Angels in the tumultuous summer of 1969, when Charlie Manson had everyone locking their mansion doors. And what a cast: Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Margot Robbie, Kurt Russell, Al Pacino and Dakota Fanning as the infamous Squeaky Fromme!
On the animation front, the new “Toy Story” (June 21) and “Frozen” offerings are joined by sequels to “How to Train Your Dragon” (Feb. 22) and “The LEGO Movie” (Feb. 8). And if that wasn’t enough, Scorsese furthers the trend of A-list directors jumping over to Netflix with his $140 million (and counting) profile of the demise of union boss Jimmy Hoffa, played by Al Pacino. Taking Hoffa down is De Niro’s Frank Sheeran. Hard to believe, but “The Irishman” (date TBD) will be the first time Pacino has ever worked with Scorsese. Better late than never, I guess.
Oops, I almost forgot a couple other standouts in Ang Lee’s sci-fi thriller “Gemini Man” (Oct. 4), Ruben Fleisher’s sure-to-be-fun “Zombieland” sequel (Oct. 11), and for fans of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” an Elton John biopic starring Taron Egerton and helmed by “Rhapsody's” co-director Dexter Fletcher. It’s called ... what else? ... “Rocketman” (May 17). Also look for sequels to “Godzilla” (“King of Monsters” on May 31) and “X-Men” (“Dark Phoenix” on June 7), a handsome film production of the Broadway smash “Wicked” (Dec. 20), a reboot of “Charlie’s Angels” (Nov. 1), and on the heels of the magnificent “Won’t You Be My Neighbor,” a narrative version with Tom Hanks attempting to fill the comfy slippers of children’s TV star, Fred Rogers, in "It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood" (Oct. 18).
Personally, I’m really looking forward to “Us” (March 15), Jordan Peele’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning “Get Out,” in which he again ventures into the sci-fi spectrum to tell the tale of a vacationing family being rudely interrupted by unexpected visitors. Oh, and if you think you’ve seen the last of James McAvoy’s creepy character(s) from “Split,” think again when M. Night Shyamalan brings him, Samuel L. Jackson’s Mr. Price and Bruce Willis’ David Dunn altogether for all kinds of supernatural craziness in “Glass.” It opens in just two weeks on Jan. 18, and is almost certain to be the first bonafide blockbuster of 2019. So let the fun begin. I can hardly wait.
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Bills-Jets scouting report
By Jay Skurski|Published Thu, Oct 23, 2014
1. Protect Kyle Orton.
When the decision was made to bench EJ Manuel, it came with the understanding the Bills would lose a significant amount of mobility at the position. That’s been the case, as Kyle Orton has been sacked 13 times in three starts (Manuel was sacked six times in four). Thus, pressuring Orton will be an obvious point of emphasis for Jets coach Rex Ryan on Sunday. He excels at bring pressure from everywhere, and this year is no different, as the Jets rank tied for sixth in the NFL with 20 sacks. Like the Bills, they get good pressure from the interior of their defensive line, where the duo of Muhammad Wilkerson and Sheldon Richardson reside. They have seven of New York’s 20 sacks.
2. Don’t get one-dimensional.
It will be tempting for the Bills to rely on the passing game Sunday. The Jets have a weak secondary, having given up an NFL-high 18 touchdowns through the air, with just one interception. Opposing quarterbacks have a 108.3 passer rating against New York, the second highest in the league. Orton has thrown for at least 280 yards in his first three starts, and without Fred Jackson and C.J. Spiller, it would make sense to throw the ball a bit more. But Anthony Dixon has proven capable of providing positive yardage – averaging 5.1 yards per carry on his 27 attempts this season – and Bryce Brown has flashed potential in his brief professional career. They need a steady diet of work to keep the Jets honest.
3. Wrap up.
The Bills’ run defense had its worst effort of the season last week, allowing Minnesota rookie Jerick McKinnon to become the first running back to rush for at least 100 yards in a game this season. The problem, according to Bills coach Doug Marrone, was blown tackles. He counted at least nine, uncharacteristic for his team this season. That will need to get better Sunday – especially when it comes to slowing down New York’s newest addition, Percy Harvin. The speedy receiver, acquired in a trade with Seattle, will certainly be looking to spark the Jets’ offense. Expect to see New York try to get him the ball in space, either through reverses, sweeps or bubble screens, early and often. The Bills can’t let Harvin get going, which in turn would ignite the crowd.
4. Win on third down.
The Jets’ defense has struggled getting off the field. Opponents have converted first downs 46.6 percent of the time, ranking New York 27th in the NFL. The Jets have also given up 11 touchdowns on third down, the most in the NFL. Last week against New England, the Jets gave up a touchdown on a third-and-19 play. Under Orton, the Bills have made only incremental improvements on third down, going from 35.1 percent heading into Week Five to 37.0 percent heading into Sunday. That still ranks only 25th in the NFL.
5. Pin them deep.
The Jets are going three-and-out 29 percent of the time, which ranks 30th in the NFL. If the Bills can force them to go on long drives, they should have a good chance to win the field position battle. Buffalo punter Colton Schmidt will need to have a good game. He has 14 punts downed inside the 20-yard line, which is tied for second in the NFL. Kickoff specialist Jordan Gay has 23 touchbacks, which ranks tied for eighth in the league. He’ll also need to pin the Jets deep.
Four of New York’s six losses are by one possession, so they’ve been in games. But the fact remains: They’re 1-6. Despite Ryan’s dominance against the Bills (7-3 overall, 4-1 at home), this is a game Buffalo needs if it wants to make a playoff push.
Bills 20, Jets 17
Story topics: Anthony Dixon/ Bryce Brown/ C.J. Spiller/ Colton Schmidt/ doug marrone/ ej manuel/ fred jackson/ Jordan Gay/ Kyle Orton
Jay Skurski – Jay Skurski was named one of the 10 best beat writers in the country in 2017 by the Associated Press Sports Editors for his coverage of the Bills. A Lewiston native and St. Francis High School graduate, he's got a passion for golf and strives to be a single-digit handicap.
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An Unintended Adventure
In 2015, I interviewed my friend Geri about how her life had changed since she’d moved to Korea. The post was called k “Korea. A Vision List.” (Link) At that time Geri was a counselor at the US Army Garrison Yongsan in Seoul, where her fiancé Chris was teaching World History and Advanced Placement Psychology at Seoul American High School. Shortly after our interview Chris was wounded, although not in a motorcycle accident as I reported in a note at the end of the post.
For this interview, Geri and I spoke via Skype when she was at Kadena AFB, Okinawa and I was in the Philippines. (Thanks to Geri for the great photos. )
Geri’s story
Geri and Chris
Chris’s accident was August 9,2015, when he was visiting family in Florida. On his last day of vacation, he was riding in a friend’s Mercedes when an SUV rear-ended it from behind at a stoplight. Chris got out to look at the damage and was standing between the two cars when a third car rear-ended the SUV. Fortunately,someone screamed “look out” and Chris turned, saw the car coming, and because he was a martial artist, he jumped straight up—no time to go anywhere else. The SUV hit him at the knees and dragged him beneath the car. The Mercedes was pushed fifty feet into the intersection. Chris remained awake and aware the entire time, telling people how to tie off his legs, and to get a helicopter instead of an ambulance. Thank God he’s in quite good shape except that he doesn’t have anything from his knees down. In fact, there was no trauma to his brain or his internal organs.
Chris spent about two weeks at Baptist Hospital in Pensacola, Florida and then another two weeks at Brooks Rehabilitation Hospital in Jacksonville. I flew over and lived in the hospitals for three weeks, sleeping on a cot. Because we couldn’t predict our cash flow, we decided I should go back to my job in Korea, live on the mountain and take care of our three dogs. Chris moved in with his brother, Bill, and sister-in-law, Gina, while continuing with physical therapy at Sacred Heart Hospital near their home in Santa Rosa. He also began working with Jack Pranzarone with Hangar Prosthetics in Ft. Walton.
Why don’t you talk a little bit about his rehab?
Well, as fate—or whatever—would have it, he got one of the best surgeons in the area, Dr. Jason Rocha, who was on call at the Baptist Hospital Trauma Center. After the hospital, he went to Brooks Rehabilitation where he also had the best physicians, like Dr. Howard Weiss — people who were used to treating soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq. After two weeks at the Trauma Center, Chris was transferred to Brooks Rehabilitation Hospital in Jacksonville because he was doing so well. In fact, many of his caregivers told him how amazing he was. They said they had young men who were depressed and didn’t have the drive that Chris had to walk on the prosthetics and to go back to teaching, scuba diving and martial arts. He had a tremendously positive attitude about his rehabilitation. After two weeks at Brooks they said he’d already mastered everything.
He was amputated above the knees, right?
Before the wedding
Yes, Chris has a bi-lateral amputation just above the knees, although his surgeon, Dr. Rocha, made a valiant effort to try and save his left knee with eight surgeries in two weeks. His X-3 prosthetic legs are made by Ottobock in Germany, and they are an amazing piece of technology, with a gyroscope in the “knees” using memory chips and Bluetooth to calibrate the correct alignment and pressure through the use of a computer. Chris continues to work with Jack Pranzarone at Hangar Prosthetics in Fort Walton, but he also received help from a wounded warrior who helped him to learn how to walk and manipulate his legs to go up and down stairs.
Then you got married.
We’d been engaged for years, but with the logistics of possible job transfers, military housing and other legal considerations, we decided it was time to get married. I called our friend Frank Tedesco in the Tampa Bay area, who said he’d be happy to take our dogs, and I shipped them to him before leaving for the U.S. myself. I arrived in Florida worn out from the stress of my job, our situation, and feeling totally jet-lagged. A lovely lady—and friend of the family—offered us her home in Pensacola. The family came together, and we were married on December 27th. Chris was determined to walk on his new prosthetics at the wedding. His other goal was to return to Korea in April and teach the last quarter of his classes at Seoul American High School. After the wedding, I returned to Korea to continue working and to get things ready for his return.
Chris snokeling in Okinawa
In April, Chris made a few short flights by himself, as agreed, and I met him in Hawaii to escort him on the long flight back to South Korea. While in Hawaii, we decided to go scuba diving. We weren’t sure how we were going to do it, but we just showed up. A couple of military guys were on the same dive boat. (I’ve found that God just places angels everywhere you go.) Before we could even try to figure out how to get Chris and his wheelchair onto the boat, one of the dive masters picked Chris up, put him on his back and cat-walked Chris onto the boat, leaving the wheelchair at the dock. When we arrived at our dive site, Chris “spider-monkeyed” his way to the back of the boat, put on his gear and slipped into the water. Using just weights strapped to his thighs and webbed gloves on his hands, Chris descended the rope. But because his gloves were a bit large he accidentally hit both the air intake and release buttons at the same time while trying to get neutrally buoyant, and he flipped upside down. I saw him scrambling to hold onto the coral, and I quickly grabbed him and pulled him back. Then we released the air. He was fine—we were both fine. It was a great dive. On Columbus Day we went diving again in Okinawa, and he did well, although at first he lost a fin and had to resurface to retrieve it. A deck hand had fished it out of the water.
The trip back to Korea was quite an ordeal, but we got him to the door of the plane. By that time he was able to use his canes to walk back to his assigned seat. We put his legs in the overhead compartment and checked his wheelchair. One day at a time we’re learning how to adapt to changing circumstances.
Seventy-two steps
In Korea our house was on the side of a mountain at a Zen temple, and we didn’t know how he was going to climb the 72 steps up to our front door. Our landlady had a train, but it was just a piece of junk and I was scared to run it by myself. One of our friends from the school was an Air Force mechanic who got the train running, but it still worked only twice. Chris has a lot of upper-body strength, so while I carried the wheelchair up and down the stairs, he hoisted himself along using the railing, and where there was no railing,he held onto ladders. It really was horrendous. He later developed a rash all over his body from poison ivy or some other foliage near the railing. One day, after two weeks of struggling up and down the hill, we came home from work in pouring rain. We couldn’t get the train to work, and Chris tried to go up the steps, but slipped and fell.
Chris with “sea legs”
It was at that point we surrendered, called a couple of friends who lived in UN Village, and they put us up in their extra bedroom. Earlier in the school year, we had applied for a transfer because the bitter Korean winters are very bad for amputees, and subsequently received a transfer to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. So when we went to the school administrators, we were allowed to access temporary quarters on the base.
About a week before departing from Korea, we again experienced a divine intervention. We already had our plane tickets to see family in the US, to check on our house in Turkey, and to make Chris’ appointments with Hangar Prosthetics. Our household goods had been picked up and were on their way to Cuba. Then there was a call from Washington DC.
“We have a problem. There’s no wheelchair-accessible home for you. Could you wait while we build one? It will be six months to a year. In the meantime, all we can offer you is a second-floor apartment in a building without an elevator.”
“Sorry, no.”
After some deliberation they said, “Okay, we’re going to send you to Okinawa.”
Our orders arrived two days before we were supposed to get on the plane. It was a whirlwind of chaos and uncertainty.
It sounds like your employers were very sympathetic.
Chris in China
Oh, they were wonderful. I can’t say enough for the SAHS administrators and the Superintendent’s Office in Seoul, the military as a whole, the teachers and staff support at SAHS, and particularly DODEA (the Department of Defense Education Activity), which hires teachers and runs the educational programs for the military dependents overseas. Chris has worked for DODEA for 32 years, and we have found wonderful supportive people everywhere we have gone, including his new Principal and Assistant Principals here at Kadena High School here in Okinawa. When we arrived here, we were told there were no wheelchair-accessible houses on the base. We had to shift again. Chris laughs about this being our unintended adventure. About a month ago we found a one-story house in the Yomitan-Son area of Okinawa. We have a beautiful view of the sea, the floors are completely tiled, and the bathrooms are totally wheelchair accessible. Divine intervention again.
Geri doing Aikido
When Chris lived in Okinawa before, he belonged to an Aikido martial arts group here. We heard our Grand Master was coming to Okinawa in September, so we joined the seminar training, where I received my Nidan. or second degree black belt. Although Chris is a Sandan, or third degree black belt in Aikido, we attended the seminar training with the idea that he was just going to watch. To our surprise and delight, Grand Master asked him to sit in the line training with the other martial artists, and he was able to join in. Currently, we are working on setting up another Aikido group here in Okinawa, as we did in Seoul. I think our mission has become to live without limitations: no matter how you might be handicapped, find a way to adapt and do what you want to do.
Where does he get all this strength and determination from? I can’t imagine myself being in that situation without getting enormously discouraged.
Yeah, me too. Friends who have known him for a long time say only Chris could have handled things as he has.I think in a difficult situation all of us can find strength we didn’t know we had. Chris has been a coach for 30 years and also has practiced several styles of martial arts for over 40 years. I think it has played a big part in his attitude and his ability to overcome adversity. He’s deeply spiritual, but not religious. Although we both were raised in the Methodist church, we have an eclectic form of spirituality and a regular spiritual practice which includes a morning devotion, meditation and prayer. Our committed relationship is part of it too, and we love traveling to different countries to visit temples, shrines, mosques and holy places together.
Were there times when you thought that supporting him under these circumstances would just be too much, that you couldn’t do it?
No—and I’m being honest about it. People say it’s amazing how I supported him. But what else would I do? I love this person. Looking back, I think it’s been a really tough year. I’m glad I couldn’t see into the future. In Seoul, when I was working as a counselor, I had a very supportive supervisor. In the morning he’d come into my office with a cup of coffee, sit down and ask, “How’re you doing? Anything I can do for you?” I can’t tell you how much that meant to have that constant emotional support.
I also journaled a lot. I have many journals filled with existential struggle and spiritual conversations with the angels. “What do I do now, how do I handle this? I need help with this.” I continue to journal regularly, asking questions, asking for help, trying to figure out what I am going to do next. I’m a caretaker and a counselor. That’s who I am. At one time I was married to an alcoholic, so now I’m an educated caretaker. I really work at trying to balance taking care of myself with taking care of others. I’m not a martyr.
You have to do that first, for yourself and the other person.
My goal in this house is to help Chris become as self-sufficient and independent as possible. I don’t know why, but I never thought I didn’t want to do this. I believe in karma and to a certain extent in predetermination. I think that Chris was built to do what he’s doing, and I was built to what I’m doing. This is who I am. I have a warrior spirit and I’m always looking to improve myself.
One of the aspects that initially attracted me to living in an Asian culture was the idea of the Kuan Yin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, but my experience is that Korea is very unsupportive of people with handicaps, and this shocked me when Chris got hurt.
In China thirty-two years ago, I learned immediately that there was no tolerance for anyone who was different. I think part of that was Confucianism—or agrarian collectivism—and part was the police state. Since university students were also reserve military, even having one leg an inch shorter than the other one would disqualify you as a university student. Disabled people were shut away. That’s also true now in the Philippines, which is based on a mixture of agrarian collectivism and Catholicism.
To date we’ve seen the most compassion among military people, who go out of their way to open doors, help with the wheelchair, or help Chris get out of the car. While in Korea, Chris had to get to the second floor of a building to get a military ID. There was no way he could get up there. So a couple of soldiers put him into a medical carry-hold and carried him up the stairs.
People come up and ask Chris if he was wounded in the war, and he’ll say he’s a vet, he was a medic, but that he got hurt in a car accident. The cutest thing is the kids, who are really blunt. They’ll say, “What happened to your legs?”
The parents are embarrassed, but Chris loves it. He’ll say,“Well, we think somebody was texting while she was driving and she wasn’t paying attention.”
Chris lived here for twelve years before he moved to Korea, so it’s like home, except he can’t do a lot of what he did here before. We’re both 64 now, but we feel pretty young. My goal is to improve our health, nutrition and lifestyle so that we can be healthy centenarians, like the Okinawans, many of whom live to be over a hundred. Okinawans are not Japanese, but Ryukyu, an island people, very relaxed and accommodating. Many live longer than anybody else on the planet, which has to do with what they eat and their easy tolerant lifestyle, but it also seems to be a very accepting and loving culture. This is what we’re all about on this unintended adventure!
Categories Japan, KoreaTags Health care, Japan, korea, USA Post navigation
Author Interview on Krys Lee’s “How I Became a North Korean”
A Memoirist of the Marcos Years, Part 1
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The Lovin' Spoonful's Jerry Yester arrested for child pornography
By Áine Ryan| 2 years ago
The 74-year-old faces 30 counts of possession.
Jerry Yester has been arrested for child pornography.
According to TMZ, The Lovin' Spoonful band member was arrested on Thursday by the Cyber Crimes Unit at the Attorney General's Office in Arkansas.
Jerry, 74, faces 30 counts of distributing, possessing, or viewing explicit pornographic material involving children, a Boone Country Sheriff's Department spokesperson told the outlet.
The folk musician was released after posting a $35,000 bond.
Jerry Yestery. Image: Supplied
Jerry played piano on The Lovin' Spoonful's 1965 hit song 'Do You Believe in Magic' before officially joining them in 1968, replacing guitarist Zal Yanovsky.
The band also included Jerry's brother Jim, as well as his daughter Lena.
He also performed with The New Christy Minstrels and The Modern Folk Quartet and was a producer and for artists including the Turtles, Pat Boone, and Tim Buckley.
The musician also produced Tom Waits' debut album in 1973.
Jerry has been married to Marlene Yester since 1972.
Property News: Ready, set, construct: These homes can be built in as little as four days - domain.com.au
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Tuesday, March 29, 2016: 7 PM
The Moon is Red: Listening Party – Greek Chamber Music Project
Tickets: $12 General, $10 Members
Looking for some fresh tunes to add to your music collection? Come join us as the Greek Chamber Music Project label celebrates the release of The Moon is Red: A Tribute to Manos Hadjidakis. An Academy Award-winning composer, Hadjidakis’ timeless music makes him one of Greece’s most beloved artists. The release features concert pianist and indie artist Mary Voutsas, who handpicked a diverse range of pop songs and Greek folk-inspired piano selections for this album. Her original take on these pop songs feature lyrical and mysterious arrangements for piano, vocals, violin and flute.
This shindig will feature select recordings from the CD, followed by an open jam session inspired by the music — bring your instruments. Price of admission includes a copy of The Moon is Red: A Tribute to Manos Hadjidakis and a beer!
*About Greek Chamber Music Project*
The Greek Chamber Music Project (GCMP) is an arts presenter and record label devoted to the music of Greek composers, shedding light on little-known chamber music works, as well as revisiting popular songs in a fresh way. GCMP has several releases to its name, including “Hellenic Song: A Musical Migration” and “The Moon is Red: A Tribute to Manos Hadjidakis.”
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View our latest Program Calendar
In 2014, the Elspeth Reid Family Resource Centre (FRC) celebrated 30 years of being “the place for families. From its humble start in a small two floor house, the FRC has grown over the years into today’s modern facility. The programs and services offered have also expanded into over 40 different programs.
What remains the same though is the FRC’s original vision of being an accessible community-based centre that offers a wealth of parenting programs, support and education, to the Westman community, and that responds to the ever-evolving needs of community families.
The FRC offers information, practical support and the chance for parents to share with others the joys and challenges of parenting. The FRC also partners with other community services providers to offer programs and services that strengthen and support Westman families.
The Elspeth Reid Family Resource Centre was renamed in 1991 after long-time community member Elspeth Mary Reid. Reid was an active and devoted volunteer in the Westman area. After her untimely passing at a young age, CFS of Western Manitoba chose to rename the Resource Centre in her honor to help carry on her tradition, work and dedication to helping the families and youth of Westman.
What people say about attending the Elspeth Reid Family Resource Centre / Centro de Recursos de la Familia Elspeth Reid:
“The parents and children at home program is spectacular.”
“It is wonderful to know I am not alone in my parenting challenges.”
“Mi hijo aprendió nuevas palabras en inglés.” (My son learned new words in English.)
“Mi hijo ahora cuenta, lee, sabe muchos nombres de casas y animales.” (Now, my son is able to count and read. He is also able to name things and animals.)
“Thank you for all of the support for our family.”
“It has been huge strength in my life to be able to sit and speak freely about problems or challenges with my children, especially since some parents have similar difficulties and medical problems with their children.”
“Everyone is willing to help each other out, staff and other parents”
Brandon, MB
R7A 6X1
Healthy Child Manitoba – Tips for Parenting
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Hospital Services and Charges
Insurance and Billing FAQs
Children’s National has a Financial Assistance Policy (FAP) to provide eligible patients with discounted emergency or other medically necessary health care services provided by Children’s National.
Children’s National will provide, without discrimination, care for emergency medical conditions to individuals regardless of whether they are eligible for financial assistance. Children’s National complies with the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) by providing medical screening examinations and stabilizing treatment, and referring or transferring an individual to another facility when appropriate and providing emergency services. Children’s National prohibits any actions that would discourage individuals from seeking emergency medical care.
Financial Assistance Policy Eligibility Requirements
To be eligible for the discount, you must:
Be a patient receiving medically necessary or emergency services.
Submit a completed Financial Assistance Application, including related documentation/information. Our team will then determine eligibility for financial assistance.
Determination of Financial Assistance Eligibility
Services eligible under this FAP will be made available to the patient in accordance with financial need, as determined in reference to Federal Poverty Levels (FPL) in effect at the time of the determination. Once a patient has been determined by Children’s National to be eligible for financial assistance, that patient shall not be responsible for any future bills for six months from the approval date. Patients whose family income is at or below 400% of the FPL and who have resided in our primary service area for at least six months are eligible for full financial assistance.
All patients eligible for financial assistance receive full financial assistance and therefore are charged less than the amounts generally billed.
How to Apply for Financial Assistance
More information about the Financial Assistance Policy (FAP) or assistance with the Financial Assistance Application is available at the check-in desk at your clinic location, our admissions office or the Children’s National Financial Information Center.
We will mail or email the application and more information to you free of charge, if requested. Call one of the customer support phone numbers below to request documents via mail or email.
Financial Information Center (FIC)
Children’s National
111 Michigan Ave., NW
Financial Counselors and available in person or via phone based on the guarantor’s last name:
A-K: 202-476-5002
L-Z: 202-476-5505
General Customer Service:
Financial Assistance Plain Language Summary
About Children’s National Financial Assistance Policy:
Children’s National has a Financial Assistance Policy (FAP) to provide eligible patients with discounted emergency or other medically necessary healthcare services provided by Children’s National.
Children’s National will provide care for emergency medical conditions to individuals regardless of whether they are eligible for Financial Assistance, without discrimination. Children’s National complies with the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) by providing medical screening examinations and stabilizing treatment and referring or transferring an individual to another facility, when appropriate, and providing emergency services. Children’s National prohibits any actions that would discourage individuals from seeking emergency medical care.
Submit a complete Financial Assistance Application, including related documentation/information and who are determined eligible for financial assistance by Children’s National.
More information about the Financial Assistance Policy (FAP) or assistance with the Financial Assistance Application is available at the check-in desk at your clinic location, our admissions office or Children’s National Financial Information Center.
Children’s National Medical Center
Financial Counselors are available in person or via phone based on the guarantor’s last name:
Determination of Financial Assistance Eligibility:
Financial Assistance Resources
Children’s National Plain Language Summary (Spanish) (PDF)
Children’s National Financial Assistance Policy (English) (Spanish) (PDFs)
Financial Assistance Application (English) (Spanish) (PDFs)
Additional Financial Assistance Information
If you require assistance with your bill, including setting up a payment plan, you can speak with a customer service representative Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. ET at 301-572-3542 or 1-800-787-0021. You can also email us, or visit our Financial Information Center in Room 1820, located on the first floor of the West Wing at the main hospital.
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Welcome, Home to Our Military Men And Woman!
Always Remember Freedom Was And Is Not Free!
With great enthusiasm, All of us on the Choose A Home Team at Howard Hanna and local military Families
We want to join family and friends in a warm welcome back home to our soldiers! In recent weeks Homecoming celebrations have taken place all around Hampton Roads Coastal Virginia in honor of you, the dedicated men and women of our armed forces returning from deployments.
The Choose A Home Team is privileged to know so many in the military community, many are our close friends and clients. As we look forward to continuing to foster new friendships and client relationships with you – here is a little message from us to you.
WELCOME BACK and THANK YOU!’ to every service member returning to Hampton Roads! Here’s a big SHOUT OUT to each service member of our Armed Forces!
USS George H.W. Bush
After a lengthy seven-month deployment commencing January 21st, the USS George H.W. Bush Carrier Strike Group 2 with its crew of 7,000 soldiers are returning to Naval Station Norfolk on August 21st 2017. The aircraft carrier and its squadrons of Carrier Air Wing and staff, The destroyer Squadron staff and ships held joint exercises with the United Kingdom demonstrating the capability to deter and respond to possible threats. The carrier has supported operations against terrorist groups in the Mediterranean Sea and Persian Gulf.
USS Truxton
The guided missile destroyer based out of Norfolk deployed with the USS George H.W. Bush and returned home following a long seven-month deployment.
Destroyer Squadron 22
The Destroyer Squadron 22 had alternate ships which deployed at assorted times uniting with the Bush strike group, returning in June and July 2017.
USS Mahan: Returned June 20, 2017
Deployed on November 19th 2016 to support the 5th Fleet area of operations for seven months. Some are the USS Mahan (DDG 72), a guided-missile destroyer supported security cooperation efforts and maritime security operations. While on deployment the USS Mahan travelled over 50,000 nautical miles. They engaged in tri-lateral defense exercises with the Iraq and Kuwaiti Defense Forces. They also engaged in joint naval exercises with Great Britain, France, Australia, Denmark and other NATO partners. The destroyer returned on June 20th 2017 to Naval Station Norfolk.
You’ve made it home with great timing. How fantastic is it to be in Hampton Roads this time of year! Everyone can enjoy the last weeks of summer, plan some fun with the family. Maybe even hang out with the kids before they go back to school, help pack up older kids to college, and watch one of nature’s most incredible sights – the Total Solar Eclipse (well – partial Eclipse in VB – but still really awesome to say you got to see it)!
So enjoy the down time – we know you have earned it!
Susan Kent2019-02-11T20:20:34+00:00
Award Winning Real Estate Team
Millennial Games Show Where The Money Goes
Millennial Warning Slow Down or Miss Your Turn
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Caution, Globalists, TPP Progress Shouldn’t Be Viewed as A Wholesale Rejection of “Trumpism”
Posted by Chris Brummer on November 13, 2017 | Featured
Newspapers reported widely over the weekend the progress made by the 11 remaining members of the transpacific partnership agreement. For some, it is being interpreted as a rebuke of newfound US protectionism.
I’m not so sure. for one, although disagreements have perhaps been aggravated the United States abandoning the accord, those disagreements like, some extent preferences by negotiating countries to protect sensitive areas of their economies. According to Politico, there are, for example, four issues that still need to be resolved before the CPTPP can be signed each involve a different country: an issue on state-owned enterprises related to Malaysia; a commitment on coal affecting Brunei; a dispute settlement provision involving trade sanctions connected with Vietnam; and a cultural exception issue related to Canada.
Moreover, one of the primary obstacles entails the resistance by Justin Trudeau sign on to the accord during the APEC summit. According to one Canadian news outlet,
While some countries might be eager for a deal, notably Australia, New Zealand and Japan — their respective national news outlets quoted government sources expressing disappointment at Trudeau supposedly “sabotaging” a final agreement by being a no-show — Trudeau said they should never have expected to leave Vietnam with an agreement in hand.
“I wasn’t going to be rushed into a deal that was not yet in the best interest of Canadians. That is what I’ve been saying at least for a week, and I’ve been saying it around TPP12 for years now and that position continues to hold,” he said of the original trade pact that was negotiated under the former Conservative government.
What issues did he have in mind? More than one might have guessed:
Trudeau said there is still much “important work to be done,” namely on the creation of a gender rights chapter, [and] changes around rules of origin — a part of the deal with particular salience to the auto parts sector.
Some of these issues—including stricter rules of origin and the protection of national culture—would probably, perhaps ironically, resonate with Mr. Trump. A gender rights chapter, probably not. PIn any event, as in NAFTA, the negotiations could last a while:
On the issue of autos, Canada faces a particular challenge. Under the original TPP, in order for a car to enter Canada tariff-free, 45 per cent of it must have originated in a TPP member nation (auto parts themselves must have a regional content value of 35 to 45 per cent).
These numbers are a reduction from the 62.5 per cent regional value content called for in NAFTA.
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» News Releases
CAMBRIDGE, MA—As the war in Iraq approaches its fifth anniversary, a new website from MIT's Center for International Studies aims to provide an accurate account of living conditions, as well as civilian injuries and deaths due to political violence, throughout the Middle Eastern state.
The site, Iraq: the Human Cost, focuses on tracing the Iraqi death toll and on portraying political violence accurately. It offers links to a mortality study commissioned by the Center for International Studies (CIS) that set Iraqi deaths due to the war's violence at 600,000 as of July 2006 and to several updated humanitarian agency field reports of death and distress.
"It's remarkable how few sources provide information about refugees, the status of women, and the numbers of people injured and killed," said John Tirman, the center's executive director and an expert on international security and human rights. "Most journalists are in Baghdad--and even relying on morgue reports there means you don't know what, or who, you're not counting,"
But even the best numbers don't complete the portrait Tirman hopes to paint. The Human Cost is also about analyzing the causes of violence in Iraq, particularly as it has escalated since the 2003 invasion.
"We're interested in what's driving the political violence, and that's why the household survey reported in the Lancet or reports from people in the smaller urban centers are so valuable: You can get at the mechanics of violence not necessarily related to war. Revenge killings, tribal killings--these arise from deeply felt grievances, from people who believe they're defending their families and their communities. They used to say they were defending against the U.S., but ethnic and sectarian differences have grown so powerful, the waves of violence seem to feed on themselves," Tirman said.
So--why click on the Human Cost, if all is lost to a cycle of violence, but better reported?
"The site is to raise the issues and to try to answer important questions. The long-term prospects for Iraq are pretty bleak, but it won't necessarily become a failed state. Because of its oil, the role of outsiders is and will be very potent, and I argue that many Americans, given full information, would support better policies in the future than the ones that got us here," Tirman said.
As to what those policies might be, Tirman offered the perspective of the 1975 Helsinki Accords, the 35-nation diplomatic pledge of mutual respect in European security, economic cooperation and human rights issues.
"The U.S. could convene a regional forum in the Middle East and follow a Helsinki-like process, putting the issues of security, trade and human rights in 'baskets' for discussion. But that's for the next administration," he said.
A former reporter for Time magazine and the author or co-author of 10 books and dozens of articles on topics related to violence, security and humanitarian consequences of war, Tirman has been at MIT since 2004.
The Human Cost web site includes an essay by Tirman on the importance of grasping the extent and the roots of violence within Iraq; links to field reports produced by the United Nations and humanitarian agencies; and an essay, in English and in Arabic, on the war's impact by Iraqi journalist Huda Ahmed.
The site also features Anja Niedringhaus's photographs of Iraq. MIT HyperStudio designed the web site for CIS.
For more information, please visit web.mit.edu/humancostiraq.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on January 30, 2008 (download PDF).
ABOUT THE CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
The Center for International Studies (CIS) supports international research and education at MIT. It is the home of MIT’s Security Studies Program; the MIT International Science & Technology Initiative, its pioneering global education program; the Program on Emerging Technologies; and seminars and research on migration, South Asia politics, the Middle East, cybersecurity, nuclear weapons, and East Asia. The Center has traditionally been aligned with the social sciences while also working with MIT’s premier science and engineering scholars. CIS produces research that creatively addresses global issues while helping to educate the next generation of global citizens.
Dan Pomeroy
dpomeroy@mit.edu
Michelle English
Connect with CIS
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Alpha Spectra
by Eric Peterson on January 25, 2019, 12:21 pm MST
www.alphaspectra.com
Industry: Energy & Enviro
Products: Crystals and radiation detectors
Founder and CEO Frank Wilkinson is an innovator in radiation-detecting crystals that are shipped all over the planet.
Alpha Spectra manufactured more than 150,000 radiation detectors in its first 33 years in business. The company is one of the largest producers of NaI(Tl) crystals on the planet.
"It's a synthetically grown crystal," Wilkinson explains. "When gamma radiation strikes the crystal -- which we call a scintillator -- a tiny burst of light is created within the crystal."
Sensors detect the light, the amount of which is proportional to the radiation intensity, and produce an analog signal that is digitized in the detector. That allows users to determine which isotopes are present by way of spectroscopy. "Each isotope has its own signature, and that's the basis of the technology," says Wilkinson. "It's 1,000 times more sensitive than a Geiger counter."
Wilkinson worked in the chemical industry in Cleveland before he came to Colorado to study nuclear physics at Colorado School of Mines and medical physics at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. Then radon became a big issue in the U.S. after an employee of a nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania set off radiation alarms coming into work in 1984. The culprit was residential radon, and the EPA soon set guidelines for acceptable levels.
"In 1986, we started as a radon analysis lab in Denver in my apartment . . . until I got the boot from my landlord," says Wilkinson, who owns the company with his wife, Kathryn.
That catalyzed Alpha Spectra. "We were very successful," says Wilkinson. "We got to be the largest radon analysis lab in the western United States."
After moving from Denver to Lakewood, Alpha Spectra relocated to Grand Junction in 1993. "We needed a new facility," says Wilkinson. "That's when I started looking up and down the Front Range from Fort Collins to Colorado Springs. I really didn't find anything."
He looked to the Western Slope and found a more affordable real estate market and leased a 20,000-square-foot building with an option to buy, which he did a few years later. "I remember the real estate guy saying, 'You stole this building.'"
Alpha Spectra manufactured kits for residential radon testing for national distribution and enjoyed a bull market for a decade. "I knew it wasn't going to last forever," says Wilkinson. "People get their houses tested once and that's it."
By 2000, the radon testing market was in decline, and Alpha Spectra pivoted. "I started buying equipment to repair the equipment we make now," says Wilkinson. "I found a laboratory that would sell us Nal(Tl) crystal blanks so we could start building detectors."
But the supply chain wasn't ideal, so Alpha Spectra developed a proprietary process to grow the crystals in-house. "I didn't want the 800-pound gorilla in the industry telling me I copied them, because I used to work there."
The timing coincided when the existing NaI(Tl) crystal supply chain was conglomerating as a France-based Saint-Gobain bought up 95 percent of the market share.
Conglomeration opened the door for competition. "With a monopoly, [customers] are looking for another supplier," says Wilkinson.
By the late 1990s, Alpha Spectra's manufacturing operation was up and running. "Now we're fully integrated," says Wilkinson. "I'll brag and say we're growing the best Nal(Tl) material in the world."
But it's not just quality, it's quantity: "We are the second-largest grower of that scintillator in the world now."
Alpha Spectra has more than 1,500 designs for different scintillation detectors. "Every time we build one, that becomes a foundation for another prototype," says Wilkinson. "It happens every day."
Over half of the company's business is exports, he adds. "We're worldwide. The only continent we don't have product on is Antarctica -- but there might be an experiment that would buy our product to put in the ice."
Alpha Spectra sells crystals and devices to a number of researchers at universities and national labs. "Research and development is huge, but it is sporadic," says Wilkinson.
Some researchers are investigating dark matter, a driver for Alpha Spectra in recent years. It led Wilkinson to develop a method to grow a purer and thus more sensitive crystal. "Our crystals got much brighter and better," he says.
The company's top market is homeland security, followed by health physics, oil and gas, environmental sampling, and other industries. "We are pretty much the sole supplier [of crystals] to the world leader that manufactures handheld devices," says Wilkinson.
The company has expanded into other scintillators, including sodium iodide, and is on the lookout for more. "We're investigating new materials," says Wilkinson. "There are others we are doing research on to see if we can capture a new market."
Growth has been "flat" in recent years, says Wilkinson. The company grew to about 45 employees in 2008, but had to lay off some in the wake of the financial crisis that year. "That's not an easy thing to do," he says. "It's like a family."
Alpha Spectra is recycling the crystals from failed detectors. "We're very eco-friendly," says Wilkinson. "We can clean it up and put it in a detector. . . . We're the only ones in the industry doing it."
Challenges: The R&D pathway to manufacturability. "Right now, we are working on a couple new scintillators," says Wilkinson, but it's no simple task: "There are literally hundreds [of scintillators that scientists] can grow that are a couple millimeters square, but the challenge is to make it bigger."
For ultra-low background counting applications, such as in the search for dark matter, the company is faced with logistical issues that require shipping crystals by sea, Wilkinson notes. "If you shipped it by airplane, the background cosmic radiation would affect our product. It's that sensitive."
New entrants to the market pose another challenge, he adds. "Who's our new competition? China."
Opportunities: New products and applications. Wilkinson sees oil and gas exploration as fertile ground, and filed a patent on relevant technology for the market in 2018. "I do most of the sales," he says. "That's a market I haven't focused on. It's a huge opportunity."
Needs: Technical talent. "We're looking at hiring a couple people now," says Wilkinson. "It looks like it might be picking up a little bit." He says he needs to think about staffing for the long term: "There's a long training curve with new employees."
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The Autobiography of Malcolm X (As Told to Alex Haley)
"When my mother was pregnant with me, she told me later, a party of hooded Ku Klux Klan riders galloped up to our home in Omaha, Nebraska, one night."
Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little on May 19, 1925. He was the fourth of seven children, his father being an outspoken Baptist speaker. The family relocated to Lansing, Michigan where they were targets of attacks of the Black Legion, a racist group led by whites. Before Malcolm's seventh birthday, his father was killed in a streetcar accident, but rumours of the Black Legion's involvement were rife. When a relationship with a man she was dating deteriorated, Malcolm's mother had a breakdown and was placed in a mental asylum where she remained for 24 years. At fourteen, he began to get involved in all sorts of illegal activity, from gambling, hustling, drug dealing, racketeering, pimping, etc in New York City. He became a thug and a criminal, hanging out at music halls and smoking "reefers", living a wild life on the edge:
"Looking back, I think I really was at least slightly out of my mind. I viewed narcotics as most people regard food. I wore my guns as today I wear my neckties. Deep down I actually believed that after living as fully as humanly possible, one should then die violently. I expected then, as I still expect today, to die at any time. But then, I think I deliberately invited death in many, sometimes insane ways."
Finally at 20 years old, an attempted robbery landed the young man in prison, where he finally discovered through one of his brothers, the "natural religion of the black man", the Nation of Islam. Through their prophet Elijah Muhammed, a new history of the black man was revealed: 600 years ago everyone was black but a "Mr. Yacub", a scientist with a large head decided to break the peace. Exiled to Patmos (the same island were the Apostle John lived when he wrote Revelations), Yacub, embittered towards Allah, made a race of "bleached-out white people" through his followers. In two hundred years the black people were eliminated, two hundred more and the brown people followed, then two hundred each for the red people and the yellow people (yes, the math doesn't add up, but I'm just repeating the story). The new white people were like animals, walking on all fours and living in trees and it was two hundred years before they returned to civilization and made it a living hell. All the black people's problems stemmed from this "devil white race". History had been completely rewritten by the white man. X also figured out that because the King James Bible was considered the ultimate in English and the King had poets write it, Shakespeare must have written it. So in Malcolm X's mind, King James used the alias of Shakespeare and wrote the Bible to "enslave the world". And thus, Malcolm X began to correspond with his siblings & Elijah Muhammend, read any book he could to support his position and to recruit for the NOI (Nation of Islam). He was successful with converting some followers, but the majority thought their tenants strange, to say the least, and rejected his overtures.
Malcolm X before a press
conference (1954)
source Wikipedia
Malcolm X despised the white race, but he also showed extreme antipathy towards the black elite, or any black person who did not agree with him, calling them brainwashed by the white people, including Martin Luther King, Jr. whom he labelled a puppet of the white establishment.
"Why you should hear those Negroes attack me, trying to justify, or forgive the white man's crimes! These Negroes are people who bring me nearest to breaking one of my principal rules which is never to let myself become over-emotional and angry. Why, sometimes I've felt I ought to jump down off that stand and get physical with some of those brainwashed white man's tools, parrots, puppets."
Yet with his evangelizing, NOI numbers slowly grew. His met his wife, Sister Betty X, at his temple and after they were married, she became a good Muslim wife to him, caring for their children and supporting his ministry. When questioned about his religious philosophy and its proclivity for spreading hatred, the people questioning him would immediately become "breathing living devils" and X would immediately go on the attack, claiming the white man was in no moral position to accuse anyone else of hatred, or he would accuse them of attacking his people because they were black. As an artist might work in oils, Malcolm X worked in logical fallacies, painting his rhetorical and philosophical landscapes with circular reasoning, ad hominem attacks, red herrings, appeals to fear, tu quoque, and the straw man.
After years of working as Elijah Mohammed's front man and "minister", Malcolm X began to act more independently. Praise was always given to Mohammed, but there were suspicions that his actions were not always pleasing to his superior and that the NOI head resented his subordinate's popularity. When Mohammed was accused of sexual impropriety with NOI secretaries, a serious breach of the rules of Islam, Malcolm X attempted to justify his behaviour. However, with Malcolm X releasing inappropriate comments after John Kennedy's assassination, in spite of a NOI ban on commenting, the leader felt X had become too independent and prohibited his public speaking for 90 days. Malcolm X finally left the organization, founding Muslim Mosque, Inc. and in 1964 made a pilgrimmage to Mecca where he was astounded to see believers of all colours. It was the beginning of a change within the charismatic leader and when he returned to the States, there was tone moderation in some of his discourses.
"Yes ---- I wrote a letter from Mecca. You're asking me 'Didn't you say that now you accept white men as brother?' Well, my answer is that in the Muslim World, I saw, I felt, and I wrote home how my thinking was broadened! Just as I wrote, I shared true, brotherly love with many white-complexioned Muslims who never gave a single thought to the race, or to the complexion, of another Muslim ....... In the past, yes, I have made sweeping indictments of all white people. I never will be guilty of that again --- as I know now that some white people are truly sincere, that some truly are capable of being brotherly toward a black man. The true Islam has shown me that a blanket indictment of all white people is as wrong as when whites make blanket indictments against black ..... (it) was the first time I ever had been able to think clearly about the basic divisions of white people in America, and how their attitudes and their motives related to, and affected Negroes."
He finally saw that it wasn't "the American white man who is a racist, but ... the American political, economic, and social atmosphere that automatically nourished a racist psychology in the white man." His inclusion now did not only cross the boundaries of race but also religion and political philosophy. Suddenly Malcolm X began to get an inkling that his previous experiences which formed his views might have been based on ignorance, and he strove for a change. Finally, we see a man struggling with new ideas that perhaps are trying to kick the old ones aside, as he tried to merge his new identity with the old one. And we get a glimpse of some perhaps insightful self-examination:
"For the freedom of my 22 million black brothers and sisters here in America, I do beliee that I have fought the best that I knew how, and the best that I could, with the short-comings that I have had. I know that my shortcomings are many."
Malcolm X defends his house
Photo from Ebony magazine
In spite of his new outlook and more moderate thinking, Malcolm X's rhetoric did not noticably change, other than the added sprinkling of more impartial comments. It would have been interesting to see where this new-wakening would have taken him but it was not to be. He knew his time was running out, as his divide with NOI had stirred a pot of vipers.
"Every morning when I wake up, now, I regard it as having another borrowed day. In any city, wherever I go, making speeches, holding meetings of my organization, or attending to other business, black men are watching every move I make, awaiting their chance to kill me. I have said publicly many times that I know that they have their orders. Anyone who chooses not to believe wht I am saying doesn't know the Muslims in the Nation of Islam ..... each day I live as if I am already dead ....."
In an epilogue added by Alex Haley, we learn of Malcolm X's demise. At a conference in Manhattan's Audubon Ballroom, while addressing the Organization of Afro-American unity, Malcolm X was shot multiple times by three men rushing the stage. He was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at the hospital with 21 bullet holes in his body. The three men, Nation of Islam members, were arrested and imprisoned for his murder.
✥ ✥ ✥ ✥ ✥ ✥ ✥ ✥ ✥ ✥ ✥ ✥ ✥ ✥ ✥ ✥ ✥ ✥ ✥
This book is brutally appalling and without encouragement from Ruth, I would probably not have finished it. The vicious hatred and counter-disease of racial prejudice was so palpable it was nearly unbearable, being very similar to Hilter's discourses in Mein Kampf. Personally, while I could never condone hatred, I could at least understand animosity against a person who had perpetrated an horrible act against him. But I couldn't understand the savage hatred against people who had never done a thing to him but only shared the same colour of skin as those who had oppressed his people. As I read his speeches and invectives, I did not feel like Malcolm X was speaking for his people; he was simply mentally creating a situation that he wanted to believe and acted on it, his own philosophy being more important than the people he was trying to vindicate. It was only in the latter part of the book that his views began to be adjusted, and it would have been interesting to learn if they would have become even more moderate and inclusive with time. Sadly, we will now never know.
The most interesting part of the biography was the epilogue written by Alex Haley. Through him we get a sense of Malcolm X, a man who was distrustful of everyone around him, including himself. Even his friends were seen a partial enemies and his whole life was spent like a hunted animal, either from his own internal expectations, or real threatening circumstances. Constant drama surrounded X and he appeared to need to feed on it, as one would food for sustenance. His moods would swing from jubilant to sullen and back again. Haley had often to lead and coax the black leader to tell about himself, luring him away frominstead of resorting to diatribes against whomever he felt conflicted with him or his views. Yet even with the often unbalanced raving tirades and untenable attacks, there is no doubt Malcolm X had a compelling magnetism that garnered attention.
The violence through which Malcolm X lived and appeared to advocate, did not only culminate in his death but resonated throughout his family. In 1995, his daughter Qubilah was arrested and tried for plotting the murder of Louis Farrakhan, then the leader of the Nation of Islam whom she felt bore the responsibility for her father's murder. Two years later, her twelve-year-old son set fire to his grandmother's house (Betty, Malcolm X's wife) which caused burns to over 80% of her body and caused her death. In his 28th year he was found beaten to death in Mexico.
Perhaps Malcolm X did give a type of pride to black Americans but the stain of violence he contributed and left in his wake cannot be seen as a value to anyone as far as I'm concerned. If those who are advocates for the oppressed act exactly the same as the oppressors, no one benefits and the prejudices and hatred are simply perpetuated. If it is simply a matter of anger and revenge, we learn nothing.
Labels: 2016 Books, American Lit, Author: Malcolm X, Biography, Review, WEM Project
Ruth 3 May 2016 at 14:24
I did not know that last bit of info about his daughter and grandson. I wondered how Malcolm's wife died (the same year he did). How tragic. Why Farrakhan is still alive is beyond my understanding. He is such a corrupt, crooked, hate-filled man.
I also agree with your last statement. Unfortunately, some people want to perpetuate the hate, as if they can gain from it; but it never makes one side better than the other. And I don't think they care either. Sad.
cleopatra 3 May 2016 at 22:26
I really tried to get something positive out of this book but even with his slight change of heart at the end, it was still a very bleak read. Thanks again for keeping me going!
Mudpuddle 3 May 2016 at 16:06
brave of you to read it. stories like X's reinforce my conviction that a person's outlook and behavior are determined during childhood. it's highly unusual, i think, for mental attitudes to change later in life, as did mr. X's. a tragic life, but one appropriate to our modern society, with it's prejudices, hatred, and ignorance...
His childhood certainly must have had a large effect on his outlook, but there were those with similar experiences who did not exhibit the virulent hatred, the lust for vengeance and the stubbornness he held with his views. It was really excessive. I do wish we could have seen what he would have become. Perhaps he could have turned the hatred he spent propagating into something much more positive and useful.
I am really really impressed that you kept at it and managed to read it till the end! You have hit the nail, when you compared this book with Mein Kampf ...I mean really, the twisting of facts to suit your own deluded sense of reality is very scary, especially if such people are considered leaders! Hate always propagates hate and there is no end to it! And while I have a lot of difference of opinion with Gandhian philosophy, but I have to say that non violence and acceptance is the only way to go!
I honestly almost didn't make it. Parts of it were MUCH worse than anything in Ovid. It is one thing when people delude themselves for power only, but when they are so deluded that they truly believe in their unbalanced objectives, it's very unsettling to say the least.
My compliments for your 'stick-to-it' -ness....I would have abandonded the book, no, I'd never have started it in the first place. But again... bravo.
Reading later biographies like this one have made it so apparent that there is a decided lack of hope and anything positive that people can grasp on to in modern times. It's very bleak and despairing. The faith in the earlier biographies was so uplifting and even when faith started to wane, somehow people still had something positive to hold on to. With the absence of faith there seems to be a real disconnect with forgiveness and empathy for others, and also the realization of our own failings that I think keep us balanced. I'll have to think more about it, but those are the thoughts that have struck me so far.
deep thoughts, and true... one of the things Confucius had to say about maintaining the status quo of a society was that ritual of some sort was imperative, whether it's religion, science, nature, whatever, there must be something for the people to look up to....
C.S. Lewis says, "Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil", and I think this statement is very true. And as useful as science is, I think we have made the mistake of intentionally trying to divorce it from religion, which can rather do more harm than good.
Kenia Sedler 5 May 2016 at 09:45
"As an artist might work in oils, Malcolm X worked in logical fallacies, painting his rhetorical and philosophical landscapes with circular reasoning, ad hominem attacks, red herrings, appeals to fear, tu quoque, and the straw man."
I cannot stand someone who swims in currents of logical fallacies. I CAN understand people unintentionally thinking fallaciously or making fallacious statements from time to time because we are, after all, human and not perfectly logical robots. But someone who oozes fallacy after fallacy strikes me as a lazy mind, at best, and a manipulative mind, at worst.
"But I couldn't understand the savage hatred against people who had never done a thing to him but only shared the same colour of skin as those who had oppressed his people."
It's the "us against them" attitude that has perpetuated so many wars over the course of human history. Animals act that way in nature. Human beings should be above this. Although, I do have hope that we are beginning to evolve past this primitive notion.
"Constant drama surrounded X and he appeared to need to feed on it, as one would food for sustenance."
Over time, I have come to realize that many people exist that--subconsciously without their realizing--are addicted to drama, and unconsciously attract it into their lives again and again because they do not know what it's like to be drama-free; whenever things are pleasantly calm, they get bored and restless with the unfamiliarity of it.
Excellent essay on this biography Cleo! Reading books like this is so important, as uncomfortable as they may be. The existence of these books really drive home the truth into our collective psyches, that hates begets hate, and that it leads to darkness not only for ourselves, but all those around us.
a telling point, that about some liking or needing drama in their lives; possibly a substitute for intellectuality? possibly a learned behavior? a fruitful idea at any rate...
Great observations as always, Kenia! Who was it that said "Know Thyself"? ...... Okay, I looked it up and it was inscribed outside the temple of Apollo .... for these last few biographies I've felt that either the person didn't really know himself, or something was preventing him from getting to who he truly was.
"Although, I do have hope that we are beginning to evolve past this primitive notion. "
This was the principle maxim of Star Trek, and I don't think we've made much progress and in fact we might have gone backwards. The "war" is perhaps not historically recognizable in that the battle lines have shifted, but it's alive and rampant nonetheless.
Your last paragraph gives me encouragement. At least I can draw something positive about reading this rather disturbing book!
Muddlepuddle, drama as a substitute is an interesting thought. I wonder if it got him the attention he lacked from the disintegration of his family. He didn't appear to need his family as a teenager but who know what was going on in his psyche.
muddlepuddle: a hit, a palpable hit!
"'Although, I do have hope that we are beginning to evolve past this primitive notion.'
This was the principle maxim of Star Trek, and I don't think we've made much progress and in fact we might have gone backwards. The "war" is perhaps not historically recognizable in that the battle lines have shifted, but it's alive and rampant nonetheless."
Yes, I know what you mean. I suppose it depends quite a bit on which part of the world we're looking at. As a whole though, I can see how whether we've moved forward or backward is completely up to debate. Also, I was never a huge Star Trek fan (I'm a Star Wars geek), but that IS one of the main principles of the show! Thanks for reminding me--I never got into it, but I do remember appreciating that aspect.
Mudpuddle, the interesting thing about the drama addiction phenomenon is that it's truly subconscious. In other words, if one were to ask such an individual whether, deep down, there is a part of them that finds comfort in, or even likes, drama, they will outright deny it, and they will wholeheartedly believe the truth in their denial.
Cleo, it really does come down to "know thyself." Perhaps that higher level of self-awareness was just absent.
in Jungian psychology, they talk about "archetypes", meaning, in part, that humans tend to adapt certain patterns of behavior that serve to cement themselves as individuals into groups. group acceptance, as it were. for instance, in the oilfield, echelons may be establlshed, or social classes as it were, by the type of cowboy boots that are worn. floor hands, the lowest class, wear work boots while working, but don fancy cowboy boots after work to imitate the "important" owners and tool pushers, who dress in a western style as a physical manifestation of their wealth and power. man seems to need this kind of "drama" to fit in with others in the social framework. this kind of behavior seems to be ingrained while very young, and soon becomes part of the personality of most persons. "thinking outside the box" requires abandoning these familiar behaviors and using the senses to understand what is actually happening in the world around them. In Cleo's post, Malcolm seems to have achieved this in later life, or was in the process. so i think he was a bright fellow, but especially because of his violent and disrupted childhood, he was stuck in his own "gestalt" for many years. he deserves to be admired for at least trying to climb out of his box, even though he never quite got there.... imo, of course...
Carol Weaver 12 May 2016 at 09:36
Good to see someone who is getting through the TWEM. I finished my journey in 2011! http://carolhomeschool2.blogspot.com/p/the-well-educated-mind-list-100.html
cleopatra 13 May 2016 at 19:35
Wow, you've finished so many lists, Carol! I often think that I'm never going to make it, but I am rather thrilled that I'll be starting my last biography from the WEM list. Again, I can't believe how much you've read! Very inspiring!
Carol Apple 30 May 2016 at 15:34
The Autobiography of Malcolm X is a book I have seen all my life - in libraries, book stores, thrift stores, and yard sales. And yet I have always felt a sort of aversion to it. I don't like violence or even conflict particularly. I'm so glad you had the courage to read it and have finally given me the low-down on the book. I'm glad to know what the NOI is all about. Malcolm's story is a sad one but his experience is woven deeply into the painful history of race in my country. I have always tried to be color-blind and take each person according to their individual merit. But some of my African-American friends have told me that isn't quite enough. I have to look more closely at historical context. Of course I know my friends are right. Great review!
Thanks, Carol! I think your aversion is good instinct. To put it very simply, the book was a downer. Malcolm had some horrible experiences in his childhood based on race, but instead of seeing what hate could do and trying to make a difference in a positive way, he took the very thing that had broken parts of him and used it against others. I'm reading The Lord of the Rings at the moment and it reminded me of The Ring. It has great power, but Gandalf and the Fellowship (except Boromir) are wise enough to know that its power is destructive and that they should not/cannot use it for good.
A Top Ten Summer ~ Which Books?
The Faerie Queene ~ Book I (Part II)
All Rivers Run to the Sea by Elie Wiesel
The Faerie Queene ~ Book I (Part I)
The Autobiography of Malcolm X (As Told to Alex Ha...
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Tag Archives: indie
Pineapples (TM)
If the last few decades of consumerism have taught us anything, it is just how much faith people are able of setting store in a brand. In everything from motorbikes to washing powder, we do not simply test and judge effectiveness of competing products objectively (although, especially when considering expensive items such as cars, this is sometimes impractical); we must compare them to what we think of the brand and the label, what reputation this product has and what it is particularly good at, which we think most suits our social standing and how others will judge our use of it. And good thing too, from many companies’ perspective, otherwise the amount of business they do would be slashed. There are many companies whose success can be almost entirely put down to the effect of their branding and the impact their marketing has had on the psyche of western culture, but perhaps the most spectacular example concerns Apple.
In some ways, to typecast Apple as a brand-built company is a harsh one; their products are doubtless good ones, and they have shown a staggering gift for bringing existed ideas together into forms that, if not quite new, are always the first to be a practical, genuine market presence. It is also true that Apple products are often better than their competitors in very specific fields; in computing, for example, OS X is better at dealing with media than other operating systems, whilst Windows has traditionally been far stronger when it comes to word processing, gaming and absolutely everything else (although Windows 8 looks very likely to change all of that- I am not looking forward to it). However, it is almost universally agreed (among non-Apple whores anyway) that once the rest of the market gets hold of it Apple’s version of a product is almost never the definitive best, from a purely analytical perspective (the iPod is a possible exception, solely due to the existence of iTunes redefining the music industry before everyone else and remaining competitive to this day) and that every Apple product is ridiculously overpriced for what it is. Seriously, who genuinely thinks that top-end Macs are a good investment?
Still, Apple make high-end, high-quality products with a few things they do really, really well that are basically capable of doing everything else. They should have a small market share, perhaps among the creative or the indie, and a somewhat larger one in the MP3 player sector. They should be a status symbol for those who can afford them, a nice company with a good history but that nowadays has to face up to a lot of competitors. As it is, the Apple way of doing business has proven successful enough to make them the biggest private company in the world. Bigger than every other technology company, bigger than every hedge fund or finance company, bigger than any oil company, worth more than every single one (excluding state owned companies such as Saudi Aramco, which is estimated to be worth around 3 trillion dollars by dealing in Saudi oil exports). How has a technology company come to be worth $400 billion? How?
One undoubted feature is Apple’s uncanny knack of getting there first- the Apple II was the first real personal computer and provided the genes for Windows-powered PC’s to take the world, whilst the iPod was the first MP3 player that was genuinely enjoyable to use, the iPhone the first smartphone (after just four years, somewhere in the region of 30% of the world’s phones are now smartphones) and the iPad the first tablet computer. Being in the technology business has made this kind of innovation especially rewarding for them; every company is constantly terrified of being left behind, so whenever a new innovation comes along they will knock something together as soon as possible just to jump on the bandwagon. However, technology is a difficult business to get right, meaning that these products are usually rubbish and make the Apple version shine by comparison. This also means that if Apple comes up with the idea first, they have had a couple of years of working time to make sure they get it right, whilst everyone else’s first efforts have had only a few scance months; it takes a while for any serious competitors to develop, by which time Apple have already made a few hundred million off it and have moved on to something else; innovation matters in this business.
But the real reason for Apple’s success can be put down to the aura the company have built around themselves and their products. From their earliest infancy Apple fans have been self-dubbed as the independent, the free thinkers, the creative, those who love to be different and stand out from the crowd of grey, calculating Windows-users (which sounds disturbingly like a conspiracy theory or a dystopian vision of the future when it is articulated like that). Whilst Windows has its problems, Apple has decided on what is important and has made something perfect in this regard (their view, not mine), and being willing to pay for it is just part of the induction into the wonderful world of being an Apple customer (still their view). It’s a compelling world view, and one that thousands of people have subscribed to, simply because it is so comforting; it sells us the idea that we are special, individual, and not just one of the millions of customers responsible for Apple’s phenomenal size and success as a company. But the secret to the success of this vision is not just the view itself; it is the method and the longevity of its delivery. This is an image that has been present in their advertising campaign from its earliest infancy, and is now so ingrained that it doesn’t have to be articulated any more; it’s just present in the subtle hints, the colour scheme, the way the Apple store is structured and the very existence of Apple-dedicated shops generally. Apple have delivered the masterclass in successful branding; and that’s all the conclusion you’re going to get for today.
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Attack of the Blocks
I spend far too much time on the internet. As well as putting many hours of work into trying to keep this blog updated regularly, I while away a fair portion of time on Facebook, follow a large number of video series’ and webcomics, and can often be found wandering through the recesses of YouTube (an interesting and frequently harrowing experience that can tell one an awful lot about the extremes of human nature). But there is one thing that any resident of the web cannot hope to avoid for any great period of time, and quite often doesn’t want to- the strange world of Minecraft.
Since its release as a humble alpha-version indie game in 2009, Minecraft has boomed to become a runaway success and something of a cultural phenomenon. By the end of 2011, before it had even been released in its final release format, Minecraft had registered 4 million purchases and 4 times that many registered users, which isn’t bad for a game that has never advertised itself, spread semi-virally among nerdy gamers for its mere three-year history and was made purely as an interesting project by its creator Markus Persson (aka Notch). Thousands of videos, ranging from gameplay to some quite startlingly good music videos (check out the work of Captain Sparklez if you haven’t already) litter YouTube and many of the games’ features (such as TNT and the exploding mobs known as Creepers) have become memes in their own right to some degree.
So then, why exactly has Minecraft succeeded where hundreds and thousands of games have failed, becoming a revolution in gamer culture? What is it that makes Minecraft both so brilliant, and so special?
Many, upon being asked this question, tend to revert to extolling the virtues of the game’s indie nature. Being created entirely without funding as an experiment in gaming rather than profit-making, Minecraft’s roots are firmly rooted in the humble sphere of independent gaming, and it shows. One obvious feature is the games inherent simplicity- initially solely featuring the ability to wander around, place and destroy blocks, the controls are mainly (although far from entirely) confined to move and ‘use’, whether that latter function be shoot, slash, mine or punch down a tree. The basic, cuboid, ‘blocky’ nature of the game’s graphics, allowing for both simplicity of production and creating an iconic, retro aesthetic that makes it memorable and standout to look at. Whilst the game has frequently been criticised for not including a tutorial (I myself took a good quarter of an hour to find out that you started by punching a tree, and a further ten minutes to work out that you were supposed to hold down the mouse button rather than repeatedly click), this is another common feature of indie gaming, partly because it saves time in development, but mostly because it makes the game feel like it is not pandering to you and thus allowing indie gamers to feel some degree of elitism that they are good enough to work it out by themselves. This also ties in with the very nature of the game- another criticism used to be (and, to an extent, still is, even with the addition of the Enderdragon as a final win objective) that the game appeared to be largely devoid of point, existent only for its own purpose. This is entirely true, whether you view that as a bonus or a detriment being entirely your own opinion, and this idea of an unfamiliar, experimental game structure is another feature common in one form or another to a lot of indie games.
However, to me these do not seem to be entirely worthy of the name ‘answers’ regarding the question of Minecraft’s phenomenal success. The reason I think this way is that they do not adequately explain exactly why Minecraft rose to such prominence whilst other, often similar, indie games have been left in relative obscurity. Limbo, for example, is a side-scrolling platformer and a quite disturbing, yet compelling, in-game experience, with almost as much intrigue and puzzle from a set of game mechanics simpler even than those of Minecraft. It has also received critical acclaim often far in excess of Minecraft (which has received a positive, but not wildly amazed, response from critics), and yet is still known to only an occasional few. Amnesia: The Dark Descent has been often described as the greatest survival horror game in history, as well as incorporating a superb set of graphics, a three-dimensional world view (unlike the 2D view common to most indie games) and the most pants-wettingly terrifying experience anyone who’s ever played it is likely to ever face- but again, it is confined to the indie realm. Hell, Terraria is basically Minecraft in 2D, but has sold around 40 times less than Minecraft itself. All three of these games have received fairly significant acclaim and coverage, and rightly so, but none has become the riotous cultural phenomenon that Minecraft has, and neither have had an Assassin’s Creed mod (first example that sprung to mind).
So… why has Minecraft been so successful. Well, I’m going to be sticking my neck out here, but to my mind it’s because it doesn’t play like an indie game. Whilst most independently produced titled are 2D, confined to fairly limited surroundings and made as simple & basic as possible to save on development (Amnesia can be regarded as an exception), Minecraft takes it own inherent simplicity and blows it up to a grand scale. It is a vast, open world sandbox game, with vague resonances of the Elder Scrolls games and MMORPG’s, taking the freedom, exploration and experimentation that have always been the advantages of this branch of the AAA world, and combined them with the innovative, simplistic gaming experience of its indie roots. In some ways it’s similar to Facebook, in that it takes a simple principle and then applies it to the largest stage possible, and both have enjoyed a similarly explosive rise to fame. The randomly generated worlds provide infinite caverns to explore, endless mobs to slay, all the space imaginable to build the grandest of castles, the largest of cathedrals, or the SS Enterprise if that takes your fancy. There are a thousand different ways to play the game on a million different planes, all based on just a few simple mechanics. Minecraft is the best of indie and AAA blended together, and is all the more awesome for it.
Standard | | Tagged 2D, 3D, AAA, advertising, aesthetic, alpha release, Amnesia, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, answers, Assassin's Creed, awesome, basic, blocks, blocky, blog, Captain Sparklez, castles, cathedrals, Creepers, critical acclaim, criticism, cultural phenomenon, destroy, development, Elder Scrolls, elitism, experimental, experimentation, exploration, facebook, freedom, funding, gameplay videos, gamers, graphics, harrowing, human nature, iconic, independent, indie, indie game, indie nature, interesting, internet, Limbo, Markus Persson, mine, Minecraft, MMORPG's, mobs, mod, move, music videos, nerdy, nerdy gamers, Notch, obscurity, open-world, pandering, place, platformer, point, profit-making, punch, punch a tree, sandbox, shoot, side-scrolling, simplicity, slash, SS Enterprise, structure, success, Terraria, terrifying, time, TNT, tutorial, unfamiliar, update, use, vast, video series, viral, webcomics, Youtube | 0 comments
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About the USACV
About our Vocation
Vocational Resources
Saint Kateri Tekakwitha
Ecclesiae Sponsae Imago
On June 8, 2018, the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life issued the Instruction Ecclesiae Sponsae Imago for the Ordo Virginum.
The Instruction responds to many questions that have been raised about the Ordo Virginum over the years since the 1970 revision of the Rite of Consecration to a Life of Virginity. In particular, the document rightly emphasizes the consecrated virgin’s mystical espousal to Christ as key to this bridal vocation of love that images the relationship between Christ and the Church. The document also discusses in depth the relationship of the consecrated virgin to her diocesan bishop and the bishop’s role in her life. The United States Association of Consecrated Virgins is pleased that the formation materials we have prepared for this vocation over the years are directly in line with the Instruction.
As we closed our annual convocation held this year in Miami, Florida, officers of the United States Association of Consecrated Virgins published a preliminary statement focused on our concern with number 88 of Ecclesiae Sponsae Imago. While the Instruction offers many important clarifications for the vocation of consecrated virginity, it was our immediate experience that the Instruction raised questions about what is perhaps the most fundamental, essential, and distinguishing element of the vocation of consecrated virginity lived in the world: the requirement that the woman to be consecrated be a virgin.
Paragraph 88 appears to state that bodily virginity, while important, is not an essential prerequisite for admittance to the Ordo Virginum, and it is this assertion alone that we focused upon in our preliminary statement. When a virgin offers her virginity to Christ, she offers her integral virginity – physical and spiritual. A woman who does not have the gift of virginity to offer may offer a complete gift of self to Christ, but she is not offering a gift of virginity. A gift of one’s integral virginity to Christ is a gift of both body and spirit, and one cannot offer to Christ what one does not have to offer.
Some have asked us if paragraph 88 might be read as simply allowing room for discernment in the case of a woman whose virginity has been lost against her will. In response, we note that if a woman has been violated against her will and has not knowingly and willingly given up her virginity, most would hold that she remains eligible for consecration as a virgin. It is true that such a case would require depth of “good judgment and insight” carried out in individual discernment with the bishop, as is discussed in number 88.
It is not such cases, however, that are most common, and if the intention of paragraph 88 is to address situations such as rape, it seems that the paragraph could have done so directly, without compromising the essential and natural requirement of physical virginity for the consecration of a virgin.
Immediately after the Instruction ESI was issued, we began to receive comments from readers stating, “Whoa! Physical virginity is no longer required for the consecration of virgins!” In our society, questions of eligibility for the consecration of virgins are raised by those who have given up their virginity, perhaps only one time, and who have later begun again to live an exemplary chaste life. In faithfulness to the long tradition of the Church, ESI 88 could have indicated that these women do not have the gift of virginity to offer to Christ. They may make a private vow of chastity, or enter another form of consecrated life, but the consecration of virgins is not open to them. In a confusing statement, however,
n. 88 seems to state that physical virginity is not an essential prerequisite for the consecration of virgins.
St. Thomas Aquinas explains that while penance can recover virtue in regard to what is formal, it cannot change what is material. Thus, he said, “a person who has lost virginity by sin, recovers by repenting, not the matter of virginity, but the purpose of virginity . . . For God cannot make that which is done not to have been done.” (ST, II-II, Q 152, AD, Ad 3). Saint Thomas concurs with St. Jerome’s assessment that “although God can do all things, He cannot raise up a virgin after she has fallen.” (Jerome, letter #22 to Eustochium).
The Ordo Virginum is comprised of those who are consecrated to God by the diocesan bishop according to the rite of consecration to a life of virginity (canon 604). The virgin constitutes “a special eschatological image of the Heavenly Bride and of the life to come, when the Church will at last fully live her love for Christ the Bridegroom.” (John Paul II, Vita Consecrata 7). Bodily and spiritual virginity – both – are essential to the vocation of consecrated virginity lived in the world in order to image the relationship of the virgin Church to her virgin Bridegroom, Jesus Christ. “Lord,” the consecrating bishop prays during the Prayer of Consecration of a virgin, “look with favor on your handmaids. They place in your hands their resolve to live in chastity. You prompt them in this, their intention; now they give you their hearts . . . Among your many gifts you give to some the grace of virginity.” (Rite of Consecration to a Life of Virginity, 24).
Readers may also be interested in a commentary by Dr. Jeff Mirus of Catholicculture.org, which discusses the broader repercussions of raising questions about virginity as a natural foundation for the vocation of consecrated virginity.
Likewise, readers may be interested in a thesis written by Judith M. Stegman for a Masters in Theology: “Virginal Chastity in the Consecrated Virgin.” If interested, please contact president@consecratedvirgins.org.
Judith M. Stegman, JCL, president, USACV
Dr. Magalis Aguilera, Psy. D., vice-president, USACV
Linda Ann Long, M.D. secretary, USACV
Margaret Flipp, treasurer, USACV
Additional resources that may be of interest:
"A Psychological Perspective on Integral Virginity in the Consecrated Virgin" - Dr. Magalis Aguilera, Psy.D., consecrated virgin from the Archdiocese of Miami
"Virginal Chastity in the Consecrated Virgin" - thesis by Judith M. Stegman
"Reflection on ESI" from Elizabeth Lee, consecrated virgin of the Diocese of Fall River (MA)"
info@consecratedvirgins.org | fax: 253-270-5507 | 228 N Walnut Street Lansing, Michigan 48933
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Alien: Resurrection Set a New Low for Lazy Sequels
The fourth sequel in the Alien franchise is part of a long Hollywood trend of "milking it"
The Sunday Matinee takes a look at a classic or beloved film each weekend. This week, we’re cloning our mixed feelings over Alien: Resurrection as the film celebrates its 20th anniversary.
On November 26th, 1997, Ellen Ripley returned to the big screen in Alien: Resurrection — well, kind of. Technically, Sigourney Weaver was playing Ellen Ripley Clone 8, but nobody really called her that, not even 20th Century Fox. No, they basically centered their entire advertising campaign around the idiotic notion that they were heroically bringing back one of the greatest heroes of all time, despite the fact that her tragic death in David Fincher’s (cruelly underrated) Alien 3 was not only at the insistence of Weaver but a final statement of the character’s own trials and tribulations.
But whatever. Who cares. Hollywood, am I right? Naturally, the studio relished the blockbuster concept, selling Weaver as a Super Ripley of sorts, what with her ability to bleed acid, charm xenomorphs, and confirm that basketball was still a thing in 2379. But really, they were backpedaling on the story of its predecessor, which literally shut the door on the franchise. Why? For the same obvious reasons the Weyland-Yutani Corporation keeps sending out blue-collar space jockeys to investigate lousy, super-dangerous planets: hubba, hubba, hubba, money, money, money — who do you trust?
At the time, audiences trusted Fox, who had found a way to bring back their favorite Oscar-nominated hero. After all, everyone thought the Alien franchise was dead, kaputt, game over, man. But, Alien: Resurrection — by way of a dubious cloning story line — made it so that there could actually be life beyond Alien 3. And let’s not pretend that film was beloved; even now, the movie is a marginalized piece of filmmaking. For instance, when Alien Day went down in April 26, 2016, and audiences were treated to marathons across the country, there’s a reason they stopped at Aliens. They knew.
They knew it’s not a popular movie by any stretch of the imagination. Instead, it’s a gritty sequel that twists and turns with unforgiving results, ending in an actual inferno that not only consumed its A-list star but also the fanbase. It’s depressing! It’s brutal! It’s uncomfortable! Looking back, the film is almost an anomaly in and of itself, and there’s no chance in hell any studio would green light something like that today. No way. No how. No sir. Admittedly, part of the film’s “charm,” for lack of a better word, is that rare experience, but it’s also because it says so much about studios then and now.
Not long ago, studios were willing to respect the franchise, valuing story over dollars, and Alien 3 is a testament to that power. Blame it on their star’s demands — because, let’s be honest, that was a huge part of making that ending a reality — but they still went ahead with it. And, in hindsight, it was really for the better: It’s a dismal bookend that complements the disturbing world Ridley Scott created, and the allusions to abortion and AIDs offer such an empowering, quasi-Christ-like sacrifice to a character that had gone through hell and back so many times it would be perverse to do it again.
That’s why Alien: Resurrection is so disappointing — both then and now. It shoots a flamethrower on the entire franchise, over what was once a wholly unified trilogy, and commits some of the greatest sins in Hollywood filmmaking. For starters, the premise itself pays gluttonous fan service by indulging in their superfluous grief over losing a beloved character, while also subjugating that story’s world to a lackadaisical deus ex machina (i.e. cloning) that subverts the franchise in all the wrong ways. Gone are the hefty stakes, the emotionalism, and the bewilderment, all in lieu of ironic action.
Even worse, said deus ex machina set an incorrigible precedent for Hollywood sequels. By pulling Ripley out of hell, they essentially proved that anything goes, that it doesn’t matter how far out of reach something may be, that anything can be reset. Seriously, when you actually look back on all the sequels that have arrived in the wake of Alien: Resurrection — from 1998’s Halloween H20: 20 Years Later to 2006’s Superman Returns to 2015’s Terminator: Genisys to next year’s second reboot of Halloween — it’s not long before you start to notice a trend. Sadly, it’s become ubiquitous among most franchises.
That’s not to say it isn’t fun or of quality. To the studio’s credit, they tapped some extraordinary talent for their fourth go-around, hiring The City of Lost Children visionary Jean-Pierre Jeunet and then-rising screenwriter Joss Whedon, who both take some major creative liberties to make this their own thing. But that’s what, in turn, makes the film so complicated: Because for as ludicrous as it gets — and yes, this film turns batshit crazy super fast — there’s still enough to appreciate on its own. The underwater sequence, the xenomorph escape, Brad Dourif, the whole “kill me” sequence…
The problem is that it doesn’t all add up — probably because it shouldn’t. Now, had this been separate from the Ripley Trilogy, and the scientists simply cloned a bunch of xenomorphs … well, maybe this wouldn’t be such an issue. Save for some pseudo-sexual Oedipus bullshit at the end, and whatever LGBTQ metaphors they stumbled to achieve between Weaver and Winona Ryder’s characters, Ripley’s storyline is fairly unimportant in the greater context of this film, namely because Jeunet seems far more invested in having a laugh with everything.
How else do you explain loony shit like a rattled and raving pre-Dick, post-Clueless Dan Hedaya running around as American Commentary, looking as if he hopped out of Luc Besson’s The Fifth Element? Or what about all those tacky, fourth-wall breaking one-liners by the great Ron Perlman? Or the entire aforementioned basketball sequence, which seems paid for by David Stern? It’s hard to stomach these oddities, especially when, only half a decade prior, we were treated to a smorgasbord of melancholia. It’s just … it raises the question, “Why did you need Ripley at all?”
Of course, the better question is, “Why do you need another sequel?” But this being Hollywood, and this being a story that can and should expand on a variety of mediums outside of film, that question gets answered pretty fast. So, let’s answer the first with a resounding, “You don’t.” What Hollywood needs to learn — and pretty goddamn fast — is that familiarity doesn’t always work. Ripley had her time. Her story was done. So, why not just create a new one, full of new characters, who have fresh problems, and whose squabbles make the xenomorphs that much more terrifying?
To quote the dental hygienist in Halloween II, “It’s difficult.”
Some of it’s comfort, some of it’s nostalgia, and a lot of it’s ease. For Fox, it was much easier to sell another Alien if they could slap on Weaver’s name atop posters, no matter how many hurdles they had to jump, both logically and narratively, to make it happen. Granted, this practice isn’t new and certainly didn’t start with Alien: Resurrection, but there are very few sequels that are as transparent as this one. In some respects, the name of the film itself has become a verb of sorts for critics to throw around when they’ve been tasked to review most nonsensical sequels.
Again, it doesn’t have to be this way. Sure, some characters warrant further exploration, but when your lead has succumbed to a fiery death, one that was intricately designed to avoid situations like this, you have to move on. Part of the blame, however, is on the audiences, who are traditionally less inclined to connect with new faces. But, c’mon, they’re not the ones making the movies; they’re just consumers, which is why the onus will always be on Hollywood and the screenwriters to be brave enough to go where they haven’t gone before. That’s usually the conceit of the original, right?
Think of it this way: How much better would Alien: Resurrection have been had they simply made Winona Ryder the lead, embraced the comical aesthetics, and focused solely on the situation at hand? You skip the carnival act that explains Ripley, go right to the action, and do something entirely different with the team. Maybe the xenomorphs could have been simple accoutrements to the gargantuan military? Or perhaps they could have even been the leads trying to escape? Who knows. If anything, it would have been unique, and that’s what every sequel should be.
That is, when sequels need to exist at all.
Brad Dourif
Dan Hedaya
JAY-Z shares videos for “Legacy”, “Marcy Me”, “Smile”: Watch
Chicago hip-hop royalty come out for John Walt Day benefit concert: Watch
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Certified Nurse Anesthetists Can Safely Go Solo, Study Suggests
No higher risk of death, complications when they worked unsupervised, research found
TUESDAY, Aug. 3, 2010 (HealthDay News) -- Patients have no increased risk of death or complications from surgery when nurse anesthetists work without physician oversight, a new study has found.
The findings challenge a requirement that nurse anesthetists be supervised by an anesthesiologist or surgeon in order for an operation to qualify for Medicare reimbursement, according to study authors Jerry Cromwell and Brian Dulisse of the Research Triangle Institute, a nonprofit organization based in North Carolina.
States can opt out of the requirement by petitioning the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
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Cromwell and Dulisse analyzed more than 481,000 hospitalizations covered by Medicare and found that the frequency of nurse anesthetists providing anesthesia without anesthesiologist supervision increased between 1999 and 2005, from 17.6 percent to 21 percent in 14 opt-out states and from 7 percent to 10 percent in non-opt-out states.
The investigators also found no increased risk of patient death or complications in the opt-out states and no significant differences in patient outcomes in any of the three following situations: certified registered nurse anesthetists working without anesthesiologist supervision; anesthesiologists working alone; or the two types of anesthesia providers working together.
The study, which was funded by the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists, is published in the Aug. 3 issue of the journal Health Affairs.
"This study shows that patient safety was not compromised by the opt-out policy. We recommend that CMS change the policy so that governors no longer have to petition for their states to opt out of this Medicare requirement," Cromwell said in a news release from the journal's publisher.
Increased use of nurse anesthetists could help save health care costs because they typically earn less than anesthesiologists, Cromwell noted.
The American Society of Anesthesiologists has more about anesthesia.
SOURCE: Health Affairs, news release, Aug. 3, 2010
Last Updated: Aug 3, 2010
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The Griot, The Parrhesiac, The Cannibal, The Oversharer, The Artist, The Realist
Tuesday, March 22, 2016, 7 - 8:30pm
The Internet Troll
In this free, public lecture, Devin Kenny A'09 will tease out links between various cultural personas over history, in an attempt to apprehend and elucidate art production in the age of "the Creative" by focusing largely on his own practice. In the past the "Artist" was one of the few people able to cultivate a mastery of materials, who would lend those skills towards communication, building connection amongst people (religiously, civically, and otherwise), and changing the ways one envisions the self. Now, in a vastly customizable, personalizable world of signification and certain kinds of visibility, how can the Artist navigate in a time when those tools and techniques are increasingly accessible and equally charged?
Devin Kenny is an artist, musician, and curator working across several mediums. Hailing from the south side of Chicago, he relocated to New York to begin his studies at Cooper Union. He has since continued his practice through the Bruce High Quality Foundation University, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, SOMA Mexico, the Whitney ISP and performances at various art and music venues in New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and internationally including: Het Roode Bioscoop, Biquini Wax, Artspace Auckland, REDCAT, MoMa PS1, Freak City, and Santos Party House. He received his MFA in 2013 from the New Genres department at UCLA and is an alum of the Whitney Independent Study Program.
Located in the Frederick P. Rose Auditorium, at 41 Cooper Square (on Third Avenue between 6th and 7th Streets)
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The Crooke Book
Adventures in early modern anatomy
Who is Crooke?
Crooke’s Woodcuts: Source and Use
Posted: November 3, 2016 | Author: Jillian Linster | Filed under: Book History, Contemporaries, Dissertation, Illustrations, Paratexts, Paré, Praeface to the Chyrurgeons, Translation, William Jaggard | 1 Comment
The woodcut images that illustrate Mikrokosmographia were commissioned for the impressive folio anatomy manual, and I have blogged previously about their most notable subsequent use, in Jaggard’s epitome Somatographia anthropine. However, with the help of a 1937 bibliography, I have identified another medical book in which the woodcuts were used. I also recently identified what I believe to be the single source that served as the model for almost all of the woodcuts in Mikro.
Historians, bibliographers, and catalogers have regularly noted that Crooke’s illustrations are not original, suggesting a wide range of attributions, and Crooke himself identifies a handful of different sources in his preface. Part of the difficulty in pinning down a specific origin for any given image is the way that early modern medical illustrations copied and imitated each other in a vastly confusing manner; Sachiko Kusukawa’s book Picturing the Book of Nature (UChicago, 2012) provides excellent information on this topic. Although I discuss my reasoning at greater length in my current research project, I want to share here my claim that Caspar Bauhin’s Theatrum Anatomicum published in Frankfurt in 1605 was the immediate source used as the model for nearly all of Mikrokosmographia‘s woodcuts. Bauhin’s engraved illustrations are in turn copied from other sources (including, of course, Vesalius), but in terms of understanding the transmission of medical knowledge from continental Europe into vernacular English sources, knowing the immediate origin of the majority of Crooke’s illustrations is extremely helpful. (A very few of Crooke’s woodcuts, such as the illustration of surgical tools on page 27 of the first edition, do not have identifiable predecessors in Bauhin.)
Bauhin is one of the names mentioned by many, including Crooke himself, as “a” source for Mikrokosmographia‘s illustrations, but only one other place I have found identifies Bauhin as the primary source. Interestingly, that other place is another early modern medical book that used the same woodcuts. When William Jaggard’s son Isaac died in 1627, Thomas and Richard Cotes received rights to their printing business, including the woodcuts created for Mikrokosmographia. Thomas Cotes decided to use them, along with others, to illustrate The Workes of that famous Chirurgion Ambrose Parey, printed in 1634. The translation of Paré’s complete works (from the Latin, which was in turn a translation of the original French) had been completed by an apothecary named Thomas Johnson. In his prefatory letter “To The Reader,” Johnson notes:
The figures in the Anatomy are not the same used by my Author (whose were according to those of Vesalius) but according to those of Bauhine, which were used in the worke of Dr. Crooke; and these indeed are the better and more complete.
The section of Paré’s works devoted to anatomy in the 1634 volume does indeed included many of the same woodcut illustrations used in Mikrokosmographia and Somatographia anthropine, including the dissected female torso woodcut I wrote about previously, as noted above. Although I had already identified Bauhin as Crooke’s illustration source, I found the breadcrumb trail regarding the use of Crooke’s woodcuts in the Paré book, along with the bonus of the Bauhin reference, in A Bibliography of The Works of Ambroise Paré: Premier Chirurgien & Conseiller du Roy by Janet Doe (1937).
It Takes a Village to Raise a Crooke
Posted: January 4, 2016 | Author: Jillian Linster | Filed under: College of Physicians, Contemporaries | Leave a comment
Today I spent some time reading and revisiting the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entries for all the people I could find related to Helkiah Crooke’s early life. There are entries for:
Thomas Crooke, Helkiah’s father
Samuel Crooke, Helkiah’s older brother
Stephen Egerton, Helkiah’s brother-in-law
John Bois, Helkiah’s tutor at Cambridge
In addition to a few amusing anecdotes, I was able to piece together some interesting information about the Crooke family. One thing I hadn’t previously realized is that there were nine siblings in all! From eldest to youngest, the four older children were Sara, Thomas, Samuel, and Helkiah. The five younger were two boys and three girls—John, Richard, Rachel, Anne, and Elizabeth—who were all still minors at the time of their father’s death in 1598.
I looked to the entry for Helkiah’s father, Thomas Crooke, hoping to find the name of Helkiah’s mother. In her husband’s will, she is identified as “Samuell my wief.” Apparently Helkiah’s older brother Samuel had the rare distinction of being named after his mother. I haven’t yet come across any other women named Samuel in the early modern period (or any other), but I’m keeping an eye out.
Interestingly (if not particularly usefully), I also discovered that, by marriage, twice-removed, Helkiah has a distant connection to John Winthrop, governor of Massachusetts. Helkiah’s older sister, Sara, married Stephen Egerton; Egerton’s younger sister Anne had a daughter, Margaret, who married Winthrop in 1618.
Helkiah’s relationship to Egerton, a puritan preacher, is far more consequential for other reasons, however. Egerton and his associate Robert Dexter gave Helkiah his first chance to appear in print. The two men were undertaking a collected edition of the works of Richard Greenham (he has his own ODNB entry), a beloved puritan clergyman who had recently died. Helkiah apparently helped with the volume’s editing and wrote an introduction and some verses that appear in its opening pages. The book, Paramthion: Two Treatises of the Comforting of an Afflicted Conscience, was published in 1598 and can be found on EEBO, complete with the portions Crooke authored.
It was not only Helkiah’s brother-in-law and father who were clergymen, however. His older brother Samuel also entered the church. Although the two men lived very different lives, I can see parallels between them. The brothers were born only a year apart, and I find it hard not to believe that they would have been close growing up. Both brothers attended Cambridge. Like his younger brother Helkiah, who at times struggled with his governing professional body (the College of Physicians), Samuel encountered complaints from the church courts. The records of both institutions show that the brothers were equally vociferous defendants of their own actions. Both men, in the course of their careers, became published authors of some fame. Ultimately, however, time was kinder to the memory of Samuel Crooke, who passed away one year after his younger brother. Although Helkiah died relatively poor and friendless, Samuel’s funeral was attended by “many hundreds,” far more than the church could hold.
On a lighter note, the entry on Helkiah’s tutor John Bois provides an amusing anecdote. Bois was a Greek scholar who is now best remembered for his work on the King James Bible, which he helped translate and annotate. Crooke initially studied with Bois for his BA degree at Cambridge, but after a brief stint at the University of Leiden, Crooke returned to England to earn his MD. Back at Cambridge, Crooke resumed his study of medicine with Bois, who had originally “thought of studying medicine but, imagining he had every disease of which he read, gave it up” in favor of Greek; Bois’s biographer amusingly describes the scholar’s attitude toward his own health as “a fetish” (David Norton, ODNB). Surely, if nothing else, Crooke’s early medical training was fastidious.
Together, along with many others we’ve lost to history, these people shaped and influenced the young physician who would become the author of Mikrokosmographia. I am grateful to have the invaluable resource of the ODNB available to shed light on some of the lesser-known connections that played important roles in Crooke’s early life.
“Early Modern Practitioners” at Exeter
Posted: January 22, 2013 | Author: Jillian Linster | Filed under: Contemporaries, Prosopography | Tags: Crooke, early modern, Exeter, Margaret Pelling, medical practitioners, prosopography | 1 Comment
There’s a new website up for the exciting prosopographical project underway at the University of Exeter, “The Medical World of England, Wales and Ireland, c. 1500-1715.” The website is called Early Modern Practitioners and provides an overview of the project, sample data, a “practitioner of the month,” and more. Ultimately, this project will take the form of a database containing biographies of all the active medical practitioners during the time period and in the locations of the project’s title as well as a study of the data compiled which will be published as a major monograph.
This project will build in part on the work I’ve previously mentioned completed by Margaret Pelling. As someone with keen interest in this subject and who has conducted a considerable amount of research in this area, it is my opinion that this is work that very much needs to be done. Although there has been excellent and extensive work on the key players in this time period—think William Harvey—the truth is, there aren’t that many William Harveys. A lot of the big names in medicine (and related fields) are coming out of other parts of Europe; Great Britain is noticeably behind the continent in medical advancement (as well as most other areas) during the Renaissance.
But this doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a vibrant medical scene in England, Wales, and Ireland during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In fact, as the website explains:
The sheer numbers of people who practised medicine in some form or other during the medieval and early modern periods are overwhelming. Medical practitioners were, quite literally, everywhere. From ‘formal’ trained and licensed physicians across to the village blacksmith who might perform a secondary role as tooth-drawer, the types of practitioner are also legion. All of the terms below can be found in early modern sources as descriptive terms for practitioners, including their various derivatives and alternative spellings) and this list is by no means exhaustive.
Physic (Phisic, Physick, Phisique, Fisick(e)), Physician, Doctor (of medicine), licentiate, Practicer, Practitioner, Apothecary (pothecary, poticary), Surgeon, Chirurgeon (Chirurgion), Barber, Barber-Surgeon, Mounteban(c)k, Druggist, Chemist, Midwife, Peruke-maker.
This legion of individuals is indeed a rich cross-section of early modern culture, and it will be vastly interesting to see what insights this project develops.
Although I certainly hope that Crooke will be a part of this database, in truth he falls somewhere between this vast majority of medical practitioners and those well-known names like Harvey. Although not widely considered a major contributor to his field, and certainly not a readily recognizable name for most people, Crooke has in fact received much more attention than many of his contemporary physicians, as William Birken has reminded me. But it may be precisely because of this in-between role that he maintains—his part as an “irregular,” as Pelling calls this group—that Crooke may be particularly situated to lend helpful insight to some of the questions raised by this project and related inquiries.
Peregrinations: Hearts and Harvey
Posted: November 8, 2012 | Author: Jillian Linster | Filed under: College of Physicians, Contemporaries | Tags: anatomy, beginning of life, circulation, dissection, heart, William Harvey | 2 Comments
One of my recent challenges with this blog has been an editorial one. How do I determine what information belongs?
When I first conceived of this project, the intention was simply to go through and create a modernized version of Crooke’s text. I didn’t intend to post every word, but a paragraph or two here and there that represented the really interesting parts, along with some interpretation/insights. In looking back over my posts so far, I realize that has become a rather small part of what I’ve done.
This is, I think, because that narrow focus is only a small part of what I’m pursuing with Crooke outside of the blog. He is, after all, a far larger character than just “author of Mikrokosmographia,” and my interest in him has led me to far broader intellectual pursuits. I still see the modernized version of the anatomy text as an important project, and one I want to continue. But there’s a lot of exciting related stuff happening outside of that text, too – stuff that (it seems to me, anyway) someone interested in the text of the anatomy book might also find interesting. And sharing it here has provided a convenient way of documenting and indexing those discoveries.
I’ve realized this situation reflects the tension in my own scholarly work between close attention to the text and the book as a material object on one side and broader historical, social, and theoretical contexts on the other. I see too many links between these things to accept them as mutually exclusive. And I’m too interested in them both to neglect either one completely. But I have yet to identify a clear way of balancing them together—or maybe not just balancing, but joining. Perhaps continuing my multivalent blogging will help with that.
In hope that it will, I’d like to share a short paper I recently wrote that only very briefly mentions Crooke. The assignment was a close reading of limited length, and so that is what I have here, but I think there may be potential for expansion. As I mentioned previously, I’ve been reading Crooke’s better-known contemporary William Harvey for this class, and his De motu cordis (or, at least, one paragraph of it) is the focus of this piece. That book recounts the discovery of the circulation of the blood, and I explore a remarkable moment in which Harvey does three very interesting things: 1) Experiments on an animal that allows anatomy without dissection, 2) Philosophically ponders the definition of life upon observation of a “disappearing” heart, and 3) Shares his experiments with friends. I welcome feedback/comments/questions (although I have no immediate plans for revision/expansion).
“The Beginning of Life”: Seeing and Being in William Harvey’s De motu cordis
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Claim: Global Warming Helped Create ISIS
Michael Bastasch Energy Editor
September 30, 2014 10:32 AM ET
Global warming is not only responsible for causing superstorms and the ebola outbreak, it’s now claimed that global warming helped create the conditions in which terrorists with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria could thrive.
Two academics have put forward the theory that a historic drought helped to spread unrest in Syria, sparking a chaotic civil war that ISIS terrorists used to gain power and commit atrocities throughout the region.
“A historic drought afflicted the country from 2006 through 2010, setting off a dire humanitarian crisis for millions of Syrians,” wrote Charles Strozier, a history professor at the City University of New York, and Kelly Berkell, an attorney and researcher with the Center on Terrorism at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
“Yet the four-year drought evoked little response from Bashar al-Assad’s government,” the academics wrote. “Rage at the regime’s callousness boiled over in 2011, helping to fuel the popular uprising. In the ensuing chaos, ISIS stole onto the scene, proclaimed a caliphate in late June and accelerated its rampage of atrocities including the recent beheadings of three Western civilians.”
Strozier and Berkell argue that while “ISIS threatens brutal violence against all who dissent from its harsh ideology, climate change menaces communities (less maliciously) with increasingly extreme weather.” The two add that fighting global warming is linked to fighting terrorism and political violence around the world.
“If more Americans knew how glacial melt contributes to catastrophic weather in Afghanistan — potentially strengthening the Taliban and imperiling Afghan girls who want to attend school — would we drive more hybrids and use millions fewer plastic bags? How would elections and legislation be influenced?” Berkell and Strozier wrote.
“Drought did not singlehandedly spawn the Syrian uprising, but it stoked simmering anger at Assad’s dictatorship. This frustration further destabilized Syria and carved out a space in which ISIS would thrive,” the academics continued.
For years now, scholars and some military experts have been trying to link global warming to violent conflicts. A study from last year claimed that violent conflicts throughout history are linked to climatic shifts. Warmer temperatures could push violent conflict, crime and aggression up 50 percent by 2050, according to a University of California, Berkeley study.
The same line was pushed by military experts as the Syrian civil war picked up steam last summer. Francesco Femia, co-founder of the Center for Climate and Security, told “Moyers & Company” that “under the surface of what seemed to be a stable country, there was a large-scale environmental and human disaster happening.”
“Climate change primarily manifests itself through water,” Femia said. “But it varies; different kinds of water, different ways. It can lead to more extreme weather events: either a drought or a major storm or an amount of rainfall that’s unusual and leads to flooding. It’s not just scarcity, it’s too much, too little and unpredictably.”
The main problem with Famia’s theory is that weather has not gotten more extreme as many environmental activists, politicians and some scientists claim. Research by University of Colorado scientist Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr. shows that weather has not gotten more extreme despite rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
“It is misleading and just plain incorrect to claim that disasters associated with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods or droughts have increased on climate timescales either in the United States or globally,” Pielke told the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in 2013. “It is further incorrect to associate the increasing costs of disasters with the emission of greenhouse gases.”
Pielke’s claims were echoed by testimony from climate scientist Dr. Roy Spencer, who said there “is little or no observational evidence that severe weather of any type has worsened over the last 30, 50, or 100 years, irrespective of whether any such changes could be blamed on human activities, anyway.”
Another point to consider is that Syria has always had droughts and will continue to have droughts with or without global warming — man-made or not. And the evidence linking global warming and extreme weather is weak, according to even the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The IPCC found that there “is limited evidence of changes in extremes associated with other climate variables since the mid-20th century.” The IPCC also noted there is “not enough evidence at present to suggest more than low confidence in a global-scale observed trend in drought or dryness (lack of rainfall) since the middle of the 20th century due to lack of direct observations, geographical inconsistencies in the trends.”
(H/T Climate Depot)
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Michael Bastasch
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OPINION: Mexico, Canada Trade Agreement Ensures American Digital Dominance
Cabot Phillips Contributor
In 1993, when the U.S. Senate ratified the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Google didn’t exist, Mark Zuckerberg was in grade school, and the iPhone was still 14 years away from entering the pockets of millions of Americans.
Clearly, 2018 is very different from 1993, as the growth of the internet has rapidly changed our society, and our economy, in amazing ways. I’ve experienced this firsthand using internet platforms like YouTube to help my videos reach millions of people online. That wouldn’t be possible without policies that support U.S. innovation.
Yet our trade policy has operated under the 1993 framework, which has proven inadequate to deal with the realities of our newly digitized world. That’s why the pending U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), negotiated by President Trump to replace NAFTA, is such an exciting new development. It’s not perfect, but the USMCA does include some important updates to digital trade policy that will protect our online ecosystem and strengthen our economy.
Right now, U.S. businesses have an online dominance that makes the rest of the world jealous. The internet represents over 6.5 percent of our GDP, and in 2015, we had a $161.5 billion trade surplus in digitally deliverable goods, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Simply put, we’re the leader of the digital world.
That’s why other countries are going after us. They are enacting what are called data localization laws, which force internet companies, most of which are American, to house all data collected in those countries within those countries’ borders. These onerous rules would place an undue burden on American companies, hindering their ability to conduct business efficiently. China has a particular interest in this, as they are trying to be the new leader in the global digital economy.
The USMCA would ensure that partner countries will permit the free flow of data across borders. Section 19.11(1) reads: “No Party shall prohibit or restrict the cross-border transfer of information, including personal information, by electronic means if this activity is for the conduct of the business of a covered person.”
This means that U.S. business can provide their services free from big government restrictions, which will help them to invest in our economy and hire more Americans. Further, it helps maintain our digital preeminence and compete with countries like China or India.
The USMCA also supports American tech and innovation by ensuring that intermediary liability protections are kept in place. Intermediary liability protections essentially mean that companies like Facebook or Twitter are held accountable for illicit or illegal content, but can still allow users to exercise freedom of expression without fear of wanton litigation.
Why is this important? Think of it this way: should people be able to sue a paper company or a pen maker because of a threatening letter that someone else wrote? Of course not. In the same way, people shouldn’t be able to sue YouTube or Facebook for what a user says on their platforms, so long as the companies operate responsibly.
If these policies were to be eliminated in America, as they are in parts of Africa and Asia, it would hinder the ability of countless online businesses to operate. It would also cause untold damage to our economy. According to one report, as much as 4.25 million jobs and half a trillion dollars could be lost if intermediary liability protections are erased. Moreover, the USMCA allows America to set the rules for North America.
Without this important language in USMCA, free and open speech online could be in danger as well. If companies like Yelp and Twitter were to be held liable for what users say on their platform, then that would force those companies to act as gatekeepers to speech to ensure they don’t get sued.
As a YouTube partner who relies on that platform to reach my audience, I’m especially concerned about this. It means that I, and many other conservatives, might not have the same ability to freely express our beliefs online.
Simply put, this is something that users, as well as the platforms themselves, don’t want.
The USMCA is an important step toward modernizing U.S. law to protect and strengthen the internet. By protecting the free flow of data across borders and preserving intermediary liability protections, this agreement ensures that American entrepreneurs can continue what they do best, which is to innovate and provide better services and tools to countless people.
Cabot Phillips (@Cabot_Phillips) is a YouTube Partner, creating and starring in videos that have amassed over 100 million views across online platforms. He is also the media director for Campus Reform, and worked previously as digital grassroots director for Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential bid.
Tags : canada international mexico opinion trade
Cabot Phillips
'I'm Coming After You': Matt Gaetz Shares A Horrible Death Threat With Tucker
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Film Review: “The Hunt”
[originally posted, with a few editorial changes, at Canadian Lawyer]
A curious anomaly in our justice system; the offence with the most severe penalty under law is not the crime toward which most people feel the most personal revulsion.
Maybe most of us will concede a situation, however remote the possibility, where we would take the life of another person. Taking away the innocence of a child, however, seems uniquely evil and incomprehensible. One who sexually abuses a child may not spend the rest of his life in prison, but the stigma that accompanies the offence is unparalleled.
Now, imagine being falsely accused of this unspeakable crime, especially when your livelihood depends on working with children. That’s what happens to the main character in the Danish film Jagten (The Hunt), a nominee for Best Foreign Language Film at the most recent Academy Awards.
Lucas, played by Mads Mikkelsen, is a kindergarten teacher accused of molestation by one of his students. In reality, the little girl — who had latched onto her trusted teacher while her parents constantly fought — was upset about a perceived slight by Lucas, but in reality had been briefly shown a pornographic picture from the Internet by her older brother and his friend. But in a moment of anger, she told her principal that Lucas had shown her what she saw in the photo.
Little Klara (portrayed by then-seven-year-old Annika Wedderkopp, who had never acted before but proved to be a natural) subsequently admits she made it up, but the damage is done. School officials ask her leading questions about what “really” happened, and soon the allegations spread throughout this small Danish community. Then other children, perhaps pushed by hysterical parents and officials, come up with their own horror stories.
Lucas is forced from his job, ostracized by his community, and hauled into court. I had hoped that The Hunt would show us more about how the Danish justice system works, but the film is really about the effect these allegations can have upon a trusting community, and how a false allegation can destroy a life.
I presume you’re innocent until proven guilty in Denmark, but that’s certainly not how Lucas’ colleagues and neighbours feel. Without giving too much away, I will say that the The Hunt’s startling final scene shows how the accused is forever guilty to the general public, even if the authorities say otherwise.
Directed by Thomas Vinterberg (who made another brilliant drama centering on allegations of sexual abuse, 1998’s The Celebration), The Hunt is a somewhat low-key, deliberately paced film that fans of Lifetime network movies about this subject may find dull. But Mikkelson’s performance as a man trying to keep it together while subjected to a Kafkaesque witch-hunt is a revelation — so much so NBC subsequently hired him to play the title role of the most famous serial killer in all of fiction in its series Hannibal.
The thing is, far more often than we like to admit, for this kind of thing there really are witches out there. Americans and Britons are still reeling from the revelations about beloved football coach Jerry Sandusky and entertainer Jimmy Savile, respectively. I grew up in Newfoundland when the unspeakable horrors at Mount Cashel Orphanage came to light, and I’ve never forgotten what these poor kids went through.
Child sexual abuse must be taken seriously, but that must be balanced with ensuring that those accused of such offences receive every legal protection to which they are entitled. (In New Zealand, the conservative government and Labour opposition are falling over themselves to stack the deck in favour of prosecutors in sexual assault cases. Maybe they should be forced to watch The Hunt.)
Of course, as the film shows, legal protections are one thing. Social stigma is another. How does the wrongly accused defendant get his reputation back? That’s a question The Hunt can’t answer, and I’m not sure anyone can.
Posted in: Uncategorized | Tagged: canadian lawyer, Jagten, Mads Mikkelsen, The Hunt
Murder without a body
Book review: “Freedom From Speech” by Greg Lukianoff
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Rickey McGill: The Takeover
Photo courtesy of Dave’s Joint.
In this decade, there hasn’t been one team that has dominated the Metro Athletic Atlantic Conference more than the Iona Gaels, as they have won five conference championships since 2012, including the previous three and have made the NCAA Tournament five times. All of that is due to their tough, physical play and battle-tested mindset.
One of the keys to their success in these last couple of years has been Rickey McGill. The 6-foot-1 point guard is a player that looks to score when he’s in transition and when his team is in need of a bucket. He is also a defensive threat when on the court and aids in getting plenty of steals off of a hapless defender.
“We just come out and play our game, share the ball, and everybody gets an open shot. Just share the ball and run, that’s it,” he said.
He also added, “I’ve been playing basketball basically all my life, I’ve just been working [on my game] every chance I get, just to get better.”
McGill shoots a jumper over defender. (Photo courtesy of Dave’s Joint)
McGill hails from Spring Valley, New York, which is located in Rockland County, which is less than 40 minutes away from the school. When asked about his hometown, he replied, “Spring Valley is not known like that, but I just try to give it a name, and it’s like just nothing, really, just a limited [amount of] people come out of Spring Valley, so I try to put the name on my back.”
At Spring Valley High School, McGill was a standout on the court, as he is the all-time leading scorer in school history with 1,463 points and was honored as the Section 1 Mr. Basketball Award winner in his senior season of high school, after leading the Tigers to a 23-2 record and an appearance in the Class A state semifinals.
He also had the pleasure of playing for someone who paved the way historically for African-Americans in college basketball. His head coach at Spring Valley was none other than Willie Worsley, who played on the 1966 Texas Western basketball team that was the first team to have an all-black starting five in its lineup in the national championship game against Kentucky, whom they beat, 72-65.
McGill is all smiles after his final home game at the Hynes Athletic Center, when he scored 30 points against Canisius. (Photo courtesy of Dave’s Joint)
On playing for Worsley, McGill replied, “That was probably one of the best things I ever did. I knew him outside of basketball, too, so for him to give me words of wisdom, like for basketball, was a good thing.”
In the fall of 2014, as a high school senior, he committed to play at Iona. When asked why he committed to play for the Gaels, he replied, “The way they play. I feel like it fit my style, getting up and down and playing defense and that was basically the perfect fit.”
As a freshman, playing behind seniors such as A.J. English and Sean Armand, McGill waited his turn and learned plenty, as he averaged 2.8 points per game. The following season, as a sophomore, he stepped up his performance by averaging 10.5 points, 5.1 assists and 3.8 rebounds per game. Then as a junior last season, he averaged 13.4 points, 5.6 assists and four rebounds per game.
Throughout those three years, the Gaels reigned supreme in the MAAC, winning the conference title every season and making three straight appearances to the NCAA Tournament. When asked about being a part of a successful program in that span, he replied, “Oh, man, that’s the best feeling, going into the NCAA Tournament three times in a row, that’s one of the best feelings in the world. I always dreamed about playing in the NCAA Tournament.”
McGill looks to make a move against Siena’s Jalen Pickett. (Photo courtesy of Dave’s Joint)
This season started out rough for the Gaels as they went 2-9 during the non-conference portion of the season. But now, Iona is 14-15 on the season, 11-6 in conference play, all with only eight scholarship players on their roster. McGill has been one of the team’s biggest leaders, as he is the second-leading scorer with 15.6 points, 5.2 assists and 4.5 rebounds per game.
When asked about the turnaround, he replied, “Just jelling, like everybody was a little bit like, ‘We can’t trust anybody right now,’ but as the season went on, we started to come along and jell together.”
Asked if he felt if the Gaels could make another run at the NCAA Tournament and repeat as MAAC champions for the fourth year in a row, he replied, “I mean, that’s – you got to take it day by day. I can’t answer that right now, but I take it day by day and I just keep getting better.”
McGill directs his teammates on where to move around the floor during a game against Manhattan. (Photo courtesy of Dave’s Joint)
Last weekend, in their Senior Day matchup against Canisius, McGill put on a show in his final home game, as he put up 30 points, seven rebounds and four assists in the Gaels’ 87-80 victory. Towards the end of the game, the fans in the stands were cheering, “Rickey! Rickey! Rickey!”
This May, he will graduating with a degree in Mass Communications and will possibly be going on to play overseas. But first things first, there’s some unfinished business for him to take care of before he puts on that cap and gown. There’s one last run.
When asked what he’ll miss about playing at Iona, he replied, “Just playing with my squad, just going hard every day, just playing basketball.”
2 Mar 2019 1 Comment
One thought on “Rickey McGill: The Takeover”
Sherry McGill says:
3 Mar 2019 at 1:50 am
So proud of my son! Keep rising to the top! #1fan for life!
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Major General John A. Logan
Posted: May 22, 2015 in Historic Figures, Memorials, Statues
Tags: Arlington National Cemetery, Confederate Memorial Day, D.C., Decoration Day, Douglas Democrat, Franklin Simmons, James G. Blaine, Logan Circle, Memorial Day, Mexican-American War, National Register of Historic Places, President Andrew Johnson, Shiloh College, Stephen A. Douglas, The Civil War, The Civil War Monuments in Washington D.C., The Peace Monument, U.S. Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home, U.S. Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home National Cemetery, University of Louisville
Major General John A. Logan is a public artwork by American artist Franklin Simmons, who also sculpted The Peace Monument located on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol Building. It is located in Logan Circle at the intersection of 13th Street, P Street, Rhode Island Avenue, and Vermont Avenue (MAP) in northwest D.C. An equestrian statue, it is mounted on a bronze base and depicts Logan wearing a long coat, boots, gloves and a hat, with long hair and a drooping mustache. He is mounted on his horse, holding onto the reins with his left hand and holding a downward-pointed sword in his right. The statue is part of a group of statues entitled “The Civil War Monuments in Washington, D.C.” which are spread out through much of the central and northwest areas of the city, and are listed as a group on the National Register of Historic Places.
John Alexander “Black Jack” Logan was an American soldier and political leader. He served in the Mexican-American War and was a General in the Union Army during the Civil War, during which the men under his command gave him his nickname based on his dark eyes, his black hair and mustache, and swarthy complexion.
Logan later entered politics as a Douglas Democrat, so named after fellow Illinois politician Stephen A. Douglas. He was initially elected and served as a State Senator in Illinois, during which time he helped pass a law to prohibit all African Americans, including freedmen, from settling in the state. Logan subsequently went on to be elected as a U.S. Congressman, but resigned after three years to join the Union Army. After the war, Logan resumed his political career, now as a Republican, and was again elected to Congress. During this time he was selected as one of the managers to conduct the impeachment proceedings against President Andrew Johnson. Later, he was elected to the U.S. Senate, but after failing to win reelection returned to Illinois to practice law. He later ran for and regained his seat in the U.S. Senate. He also ran but was an unsuccessful candidate for Vice President on the ticket with James G. Blaine in the election of 1884. After the unsuccessful run for national office, he was reelected to the U.S. Senate, where he continued to serve until his death.
Despite his success in a variety of professional and personal endeavors over the course of his lifetime, he had no schooling until age 14. It was then that he studied for three years at Shiloh College. After leaving to serve in the Mexican-American War, he came back to study law in the office of an uncle, and then went on to graduate from the Law Department of the University of Louisville, after which he also practiced law with success intermittently throughout his lifetime.
However, despite his very successful military, political and legal careers, Logan is perhaps remembered as the founder of Memorial Day and the driving force behind it being designated as an official Federal holiday every year on the last Monday of May. Originally known as Decoration Day, it was intended to commemorate the Union and Confederate soldiers who died in the Civil War. It took years, however, until the Federal holiday, which extended to only Federal employees and D.C., was adopted nationally and by the states. New York was the first state to designate Memorial Day a legal holiday, and most other Northern states soon followed suit. However, the states of the former Confederacy were unenthusiastic about a holiday founded by a former Union General and memorialized those who, in Logan’s own words, “united to suppress the late rebellion.” Much of the South did not adopt the Memorial Day holiday until after World War I, by which time its purpose had been extended to honor all Americans who died while in the military service. Several Southern states continue to also set aside a day for specifically honoring the Confederate dead, which is usually called Confederate Memorial Day. It is also observed on the last Monday in May in Virginia, but the date varies in other states.
Upon his death, Logan’s body lay in state in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol Building before being laid to rest at the U.S. Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home National Cemetery, the forerunner of Arlington National Cemetery. There he is entombed in a mausoleum along with his wife and other family members.
[Click on the thumbnails above to view the full size photos]
The American Veterans Disabled for Life Memorial
Marine Corps Base Quantico
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Where Belgium's Stacked Roster Came From
Devon Gray
Filed to: world cup 2014Filed to: world cup 2014
When Belgium fell to Brazil in the Round of 16 at the 2002 World Cup, it marked the beginning of a long hiatus from the world stage. On that night in Kobe, Japan, Brazil advanced to the quarterfinals en route to a fifth championship, while Belgium has not returned to a major tournament since. That drought will come to a close Tuesday when Les Diables Rouges take on Algeria in their first match of Group H, and their path from non-factor to dark horse title contenders illustrates how a nation's evolution beyond the pitch can transform a team.
During Belgium's 12-year barren spell, much has changed off the pitch in Europe. The European Union's relaxed immigration policies helped weave new threads into the multicultural fabric of the continent, and few countries reflect this newfound diversity better than Belgium.
Situated between the Netherlands (to the north) and France (to the south), Belgium's geography defines its society. A linguistic and cultural divide separates its two regions. In the northern region of Flanders, Flemish (or Belgian Dutch) is spoken, while French is the dominant language in the southern region of Wallonia. In the middle, Brussels doubles as the capital of the country and of the EU—the symbol of European unity lying at the very fracture point of Belgian culture. It's almost as stark of a juxtaposition as the EU's commitment to human rights compared with Belgium's colonial past.
In the final decades of the 19th century, multiple European powers raced to colonize the continent of Africa. Belgium's King Leopold II carved out the Congo, ushering in a brutal and exploitative regime that claimed the lives of over 10 million Congolese before formally ending in 1960. Following independence, many Congolese immigrated to Belgium, and as the country diversified so did its brand of soccer.
Three of Belgium's brightest talents have roots in the Congo. Manchester City defender and national team captain Vincent Kompany is the son of a Congolese immigrant father and Belgian mother. Aston Villa striker Christian Benteke, who will unfortunately miss the World Cup due to a ruptured Achilles, was born in Kinshasa before he and his parents fled to Belgium to escape the oppressive regime of Mobutu Sese Seko. Benteke's understudy, 20-year-old Romelu Lukaku, shares a similar heritage—the Chelsea striker's father played for Zaire in the 1990s.
The Red Devils' "golden generation" is a collection of talent with roots outside of the former Belgian Congo. Midfielders Axel Witsel and Mousa Dembélé have fathers from Martinique and Mali, respectively. Marouane Fellaini and Nacer Chadli both have ties to Morocco, and Manchester United youngster Adnan Januzaj has Balkan roots. This summer's team will have at least nine non-ethnic Belgians selected, whereas Belgium's last appearance in 2002 showcased only two players of non-Belgian descent, Mbo Mpenza (born in the Congo) and Branko Strupar (Croatia).
But Belgium's improved national team owes its success to more than just a batch of raw imports. The Belgian Pro League has developed a fruitful youth system, which has consistently produced gifted players over the past decade. Teams in the neighboring Netherlands often swoop in for young players from Flanders, as was the case with defenders Thomas Vermaelen and Jan Vertonghen, who made names for themselves with Ajax before moving to the English Premier League. Similarly, French teams often sign players from Wallonia. Chelsea superstar Eden Hazard and Everton winger Kevin Mirallas were plucked from Belgium by Lille, located just across the French border, before they made bigger moves to England. Domestically, the relatively small K.R.C. Genk has produced two Chelsea signees in goalkeeping phenomenon Thibaut Courtois and midfielder Kevin De Bruyne. And Standard Liège—a more traditional name in Belgian football—has had a procession of big names come through its youth academy, including Fellaini, Witsel, and Mirallas.
Given the wealth of talent at their disposal, the Red Devils will begin play as one of the most talented teams on paper. Expectations are high for coach Marc Wilmots's men despite their lack of major tournament experience, with only 36-year-old Daniel Van Buyten returning from 2002. They were handed a manageable group (Algeria, Russia, and South Korea), and their favorable travel schedule will keep them out of the scorching heat of northern Brazil. To top it off, being placed in Group H means Belgium got five days of rest after the start of the tournament, giving the players extra time to calm their nerves and acclimate themselves to the surroundings. A potential Round-of-16 match against Germany, Portugal, Ghana, or the United States is no easy task, but a victory there would all but guarantee a successful debut for most of the squad.
Even putting the World Cup aside, Belgium's future is bright. With key players like Courtois, Hazard, Lukaku, Witsel, and Benteke all 25 or younger, they also figure to be a threat at the 2016 European Championships in neighboring France, a prime opportunity for Belgium to win its first major tournament. Wilmots has extended his contract until 2018, recognizing the long-term potential of his team.
Whatever the results, the Belgian national side is a sign of what the modern game has become. In recent decades, we've grown accustomed to seeing racial and ethnic diversity in national teams like France, England, and the Netherlands. But now, with rapid changes in societies across Europe, teams like Belgium, Germany, and Italy—places where nationalism and regionalism once ruled supreme—are becoming dramatically more diverse. In today's game, national teams just aren't all that nationalistic anymore. As global societies have changed, so has the sport. And as the promising future of Belgium's national team illustrates, this evolution can carry major benefits onto the pitch.
Screamer is Deadspin's soccer site. We're @ScreamerDS on Twitter. We'll be partnering with our friends at Howler Magazine throughout the World Cup. Follow them on Twitter,@whatahowler.
Devon Gray is a contributor to Howler. Follow him on Twitter, @Devon_Gray.
Recent from Devon Gray
Why The United States Can Beat Belgium
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INTERVIEW: DOM BARTMAŃSKA (PHOTOGRAPHER)
FFO: AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL PHOTOGRAPHY INSPIRED BY IDENTITY AND POLITICAL MOTIVES!
Who are you and where are you currently based?
Dom Bartmańska, I’m a Polish photographer based in West Yorkshire.
What’s your practice? What themes does your work explore?
My practice involves Documentary and Fine Art Photography. I focus mainly on themes such as immigration, heritage, and identity. This is represented in my recent photobook of the project ‘Za Granicą // Beyond the Border’, which explores my heritage and emotions of displacement whilst being a Polish immigrant in the UK.
All photos are taken by Dom Bartmańska
In your opinion, what are the common misconceptions that the British media has when they portray immigrants? As a Polish immigrant yourself, how do you feel displaced within the UK?
Generally, I think immigrants, legal or not, have been portrayed in somewhat of a bad light – based on political views and agendas. The most common misconceptions that parts of the British media have are that immigrants are stealing jobs, taking advantage of the system i.e. benefits, as well as not appropriately integrating within British society. This has been a hot topic over the past few years due to immigration policies, particularly those associated with the Brexit vote.
I have been a resident of the UK for 13 years now, and would definitely consider the UK my home, but I always struggled with the notion of belonging. On one hand, I am a Polish native, yet much of my upbringing has occurred in Britain – subsequently, this has formed a gap between my homeland and myself. I grew up and went to school in an area which didn’t have a lot of diversity, subconsciously this is what has always made me feel like somewhat of an outsider.
What did you hope to achieve with your photobook and series ‘Za Granicą // Beyond the Border’?
The series and accompanying photobook aimed to alter any of the viewer’s preconceptions of the immigrant cultures now habiting in the UK, specifically the Eastern European culture or nationalities. I did this by shedding light on the impact immigration has on individuals who come to the realisation that leaving their homeland is the best decision for their families. The documentation of three generations of my family and their experiences that lead to our departure of Poland helped establish the connection I still have to Poland, but the feeling of being an outsider remains to some extent. I wanted to illustrate this, with the hope it will be viewed by individuals in a similar position to myself, who may benefit from reassurance that it is okay to somewhat float between their different cultural identities.
What got you interested in your artistic practice?
I have always had an interest in expressing my creativity through different mediums. I did Fine Art and Graphic Design in school, which then led to an Art & Design course in college – this enabled me to focus on Photography and Illustration in my second year. I think that’s when I began thinking about photography as a career.
What about Photography and its capabilities stood out to you as an art form, in comparison to the other art forms you listed above?
Photographs have always had a bigger impact on me than any other art form, even from a young age. I remember looking through my family’s photo albums, which documented our family holidays, outings and celebrations. When we were in the process of moving, there were limitations on how many items we could bring with us and therefore the albums were not seen as necessitates. Throughout the years, I had thought about those photographs and partially due to the lack of them I felt disconnected from my past. Without the image, it is substantially difficult to recollect specific memories.
Photographs aren’t only an important medium for families but to us all as a species – they are a key component of documenting our past. This made photography the perfect medium to continue working in, as it gave me a sense of freedom in the potential subject matter I wished to explore – especially when it comes to sociological issues within a culture. Sometimes artwork needs to have a sense of realism for us to be able to connect with it and open up a dialogue about the content which it is depicting.
Another factor in choosing photography as a career over other creative subjects was the job prospects post-university. Photography is so widely used within numerous industries. Compared to Graphic Design and Fine Art, it also allows me as an artist to view my work pretty much instantly, as I predominantly worked digitally up until this year.
Who are you inspired by?
My mother. Might sound cheesy but she’s an extremely clever and creative person. Looking through the photographs she took in our family albums has always been my favourite past time. Photographer-wise, my main influences are Chris Nunn and Mahtab Hussain. I am drawn to work that challenges the viewer’s perception, particularly when it comes to globalization and the way people live in different cultures.
What are your future aspirations?
For the time being – to successfully finish education, as I am currently studying my Masters. I am also hoping to carry on curating exhibitions, as myself and my friend Reade recently exhibited the work of 9 photographic artists from surrounding universities. More long-term, I would love to have a career in the photobook production process, whilst carrying on with my own projects and curating exhibitions.
What are you hoping to achieve with your Master’s degree?
Currently I’m working on a project that stems and expands from my undergraduate research. This will be an exploration of what ‘home’ is to individuals who leave their homeland and begin a new life here in the UK. Each person’s experience of beginning a new life elsewhere is different, so I’m trying to determine whether there are connecting factors between my experience and others’. Like with my previous project, I am hoping to create a further dialogue for the viewer about the issues of immigration and the impacts it has on the individual.
How did you get into curating exhibitions?
It was something that I wanted to get into for a while since I love going to different exhibitions, but it started to become a reality once I had finished my deadlines and installed my work at my graduate exhibition.
We wanted to create an exhibition of our own, consisting of work that complimented each other. I think curating our NxNW exhibition was a good, pain and stress-free experience since we knew where to look for the exhibition space and the artists. Where there is a will there is a way, I think the most important part of it was collaborating with likeminded and passionate artists to reach an ultimate goal.
What’s your favourite photobook?
Mother of All Journeys, a photobook by Dinu Li. It was one of the photobooks which inspired my project last year, particularly the way he combined archival imagery with his own. A very close second would be ‘You Get Me?’ by Mahtab Hussain – the design of the book is incredible.
What advice would you recommend to young creatives today?
Don’t give up, and just do you. Throughout life, we’re told what we’re meant to be as practitioners, but it’s subjective. For each person that may doubt your abilities, there will be plenty more believing in you. Everyone gets stuck at some points too and I think it’s important to carry on researching or creating work because you’re bound to stumble upon something!
You can follow Dom via her website, and keep updated with her work via Instagram!
You can also buy her photobook Za Granicą // Beyond the Border here via her shop!
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by Ian Bremmer
Tour of seven Asian cities, Part I: scenes from Sendai, Fukuoka, and Jeju Island
…Japanese Consul’s words: “the Korean public opinion appears to have become increasingly narrow-minded. It is critically important that Japan rationally responds to the views of the Koreans in their 30s…
by Yoshito Hori
KIBOW Hachinohe Meeting: Shouldering the Responsibility to Rebuild Devastated Areas from the North Side
…coast section of the Tohoku region, which stretches from Iwaki in the south to Hachinohe in the north (with the exceptions of the towns of Okuma and Futaba, that are…
Japanese corporations should forget the monozukuri myth and work on refining management capacity
1997, Japanese companies had advantages over Korean companies in both quality and quantity. But when Korea accepted IMF aid in 1997, Korean companies fell into a financial crisis and had…
The Millennial Identity: How East Asian Students at Top Universities See Themselves
…are] until you start to work.” From left to right: Rocky (South Korea), Coco (China), Timothy (South Korea) Who do Millennials want to work with? So what about leaders? What…
by Misato Nagakawa
G1 Global Conference 2018 Photo Essay
…Asia Pacific Initiative) #2 Breakout Session A Asian Geopolitics: North Korea and How to Achieve Regional Stability Ken Jimbo (Professor, Faculty of Policy Management, Keio University) Dong Wang (Professor, School of…
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Go Ahead and Laugh
By Gil Chavez
You’ll find that the best, the true leaders, will be the ones who start the laughing. – by Gil Chavez
By the end of the first day I had the whole class laughing.
“Are you all having fun?” I asked.
“That’s great because when you’re all having a good time, I can work you a lot harder.”
The laughter stopped. Everyone in the room looked at me as if I’d just kicked their dog.
Pretty funny, really, but it shows how tough it is to get students have a good time (so that I can work them harder). It’s one thing to do stand up comedy in front of a class — students aren’t really a hostile audience, they want their professor to be likeable — but it’s quite another to have students enjoy overcoming the adversities that are built into a course.
When the going gets tough, the tough laugh. The harder the going, the more important it is. Laughter works in the classroom — if you’ve just given your all on a class assignment and then discovered that you were completely off track and not even close to what would be considered a good answer, what should you do? Cry and crawl out onto the nearest window ledge? Or just laugh at it, learn from it, and go on. If you laugh, you get another chance. If you jump, well, that’s pretty much the end of it.
Humor, if it done right — self-deprecating and without malice (or, at least, without much malice) – adds buoyancy to the soul, making it damn near unsinkable.
In my experience, whether at karate gasshuku, a football practice, or a business meeting, you’ll find that the best, the true leaders, will be the ones who start the laughing. It’ll be an easy, light joke – not the clown guffaw — that gets the others looking up, doing better, and most important, persevering. I remember when Lou Gerstner was CEO at IBM, – it seemed the every executive meeting started with a joke, just enough to loosen up the room, and finished with a laugh. I can assure you that nobody has ever mistaken Mr. Gerstner for a stand up comedian, but he knew the value of humor and used it.
Shakespeare wrote that life is a comedy to those who laugh and a tragedy to those who cry. I would add that tragedy sucks. We get enough of it and there is no good reason to go looking for more.
Sorrow sinks, but humor floats like bubbles in champagne. So go ahead, laugh, and see if you can float over your adversities. Even if your bubble pops, at least you’ll have had a better time.
(Photo: © ra2 studio – Fotolia.com)
Occam’s razor is a principle urging one to select from among competing hypotheses that which makes the fewest assumptions and thereby offers the simplest explanation of the effect.(by Wikipedia) — Gil Chavez, GLOBIS’ lecturer shares his findings and thoughts from classroom discussions and his observations.
A Student’s Most Basic Right
Driving on the Sidewalk
How I learned not to teach: Focus on the peak, not the precipice
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Shocking! 19 Year Old Arrested for Burning Koran
In the West we pretend to value our rights and freedoms that have been passed down to us through many generations – beginning before our nation was even created.
But this latest story from Great Britain seems to offer proof that freedom just isn’t what it used to be… not since Islam came to town.
A 19-year-old man from Leeds in the United Kingdom was ARRESTED because of an “offensive” video he posted on his social media. The video shows a man ripping apart an English translation of the Koran with his teeth, before putting it in the toilet and then setting it on fire.
The suspect was arrested from an address in Beeston, Leeds, on suspicion of a racially or religiously aggravated public order offence.
Superintendent Mabs Hussain, of Leeds District Police, said: “Due to the nature of this offence, any decision to charge must be taken by the Director of Public Prosecutions. We are currently preparing an advice file which we will be submitting to the Crown Prosecution Service in due course. In the meantime the arrested man has been released on bail to an alternative location.
“We are aware of strong feelings expressed by a number of people in response to this video. We would again urge people to allow this investigation to run its course and remind members of the public that we will take robust action against anyone who acts outside of the law.”
The original article expresses that police may have originally picked the man up for his own good because of the flood of threats that came in against him… however, they also received numerous complaints about the offensive nature of the video.
I don’t think the “for his own good’ story holds much water, because if they detained him for his own safety, why did it take him paying bail to be released again?
The honest truth is that Great Britain is no longer the “free” nation with which we once shared so much in common. Now, offending other people has become a crime.
What has become of us if we are now seriously entertaining the idea that people should be arrested for exhibiting “offensive” behavior? How will the artist, comedian, actor or preacher survive?
The obvious double standard that arises with these legal codes is also a cause for concern. Does anyone seriously believe that the police would have arrested a Muslim man for burning a Bible? England has been arresting street preachers for speaking out against homosexuality – would they also arrest a gay couple for speaking out against Christianity if a Christian were to complain about being offended? Of course not! The double standard is disgusting and obvious.
We are literally destroying ourselves with this politically correct liberal nonsense — and it has to stop.
Muslim Man Murders His 10-Year Old Daughter for Adultery – After Torturing Her to Confess
Senator Ted Cruz Responds to Muslim Palestinian Terrorists Demands
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We have Ayinde Alakoye and Yonason Goldson. Ayinde is the Cofounder and CEO of nēdl, the world’s first keyword search engine for live audio broadcast. Yonason is the Director of Ethical Imperatives, a TEDx speaker, rabbi, and all-around an interesting guy.
Live Audio Broadcasts: Democratizing Access To Information with Ayinde Alakoye
I am here with Ayinde Alakoye. He’s the Cofounder and CEO of nēdl, which sounds like a haystack. It’s the world’s first keyword search engine for live audio broadcast. He has served as an executive board member of the Developer’s Alliance and created iHeart‘s original app. You’ve seen him everywhere. He’s also been a speechwriter for presidential candidate Barack Obama. He has a very interesting background. I’m looking forward to chatting with you. Welcome.
Thank you for being on the show. I was really interested in what you do since we have an AM/FM broadcast. We also have a podcast and everything else. I want to talk about your work with nēdl but I want to get a little background on you. Can you talk about how you got to this point of cofounding and being a CEO of nēdl?
I can give you the short story. I’ll preface it with how I fell in love with radio. It was growing up in Washington DC. My mom was a widow but every morning growing up as she would be rushing us off to school and getting ready for work herself, she’d be listening to the radio and listening to Donnie Simpson. It wasn’t until years later that I realized I had a male voice in the household every morning because of the radio. I ended up not surprisingly getting into radio as an adult. It was my second real job out of college. I lucked out and worked for WTOP in Washington, DC AM station. I became the top salesperson there before I got recruited to come out to LA and do the same thing for KFI then Howard Stern after that.
It was around 2003 that I decided to start my own business. I didn’t realize that I was going to be in technology. I was trying to improve radio and that ended up in becoming the first permutation of the iHeartRadio app. In 2007 was when we partnered with Clear Channel. It was a couple of years before iHeart officially launched. We’re up to our third startup. Nēdl is an app that converts audio into text so that radio listeners can search live broadcasts as easily as they search the web by keyword, by artist, and by song. We’re going strong and we’re really excited.
What did you do with Howard Stern’s show?
I sold my airtime.
You were in sales there.
Ethics ultimately governs the gray area between what's legal and what's illegal. Click To Tweet
Not to be braggadocious but to give you a little bit of background, I was actually the top salesperson in LA for a hot minute, and then I got recruited by Howard Stern to do the same thing for him.
You’ve done just about everything and I have to admit, I did download your app. I watched one of your videos, the one where you were at one point getting some seed funding, and you were giving some statistics. Those are great statistics. A lot of people who are on the air like I am like to see the statistics because they’re hard to come by. A lot of these shows don’t necessarily buy into the ratings, numbers and get all of the data that we’d like to get. At that point, the thing I saw but you said it was close to 250 people are listening to the radio on a daily basis and about 4.3 billion globally. You also said that 92% of Millennials listened to the radio on a weekly basis. What are they listening? Are they listening to music? Are they listening to the news? Do you know any more about that number?
That number is a couple of years old. It spiked after the last presidential election. No surprise there. It was attributed to the news. It was 82% the year before and it went up 10% because people wanted to get more news. What we’re seeing is there’s a real big disconnect between Silicon Valley and what they invest in and what most people use. The hard facts are that most people in the US, 94% who are listening to the radio, more than half of them are earning less than $75,000 a year. That’s the reality for a lot of people. Radio does a huge service for them. Obviously, probably a lot of your audience is in a higher income bracket but radio really does serve the mass and it connects them. We separated it into two camps of people. There are the subscriptions and the subscription-less. The radio is for the subscription-less largely.
Are they listening to just radio? Do you have the information about podcasts at all? Podcasts earned $220 million in 2017 globally. When you say they earn that much, what do you mean by that?
The podcast numbers are surprising given the attention that they get from Silicon Valley. They’re actually getting the lion’s share of investments, but as of 2017, it was $220 million of global revenue compared to $44.1 billion of global revenue for advertising for radio. We’re talking about advertising revenue numbers. I’ve come from radio advertising that’s where I’ll talk about but it hasn’t changed much. Podcasting is growing like crazy but even if it’s $500 billion, it’s nowhere near radios’ multiple-billion-dollar numbers.
Is it the reach? What’s the difference? Why do you think podcasting doesn’t have the same impact?
Podcasts are really important and it is growing. It’s a life cycle. It’s not saying that podcasting won’t get bigger but if you think about podcasting as the actual word, it comes from iPod. Steve Jobs created the iPod and one of the five things that I stood for was individual. The iPod was for individual consumption, whereas radio is for one-to-many consumption. There’s something in that in terms of its reach because it’s going one-by-one as opposed to one-to-many.
Mine is a radio show and a podcast. We also upload to iHeart, iTunes and all that. You’ve created iHeart’s original app. You were one of the executive board members that created.
Live Audio Broadcast: Content is king, but the data is an even bigger king.
My first company in 2003 was called Thumb Radio. Thumb Radio wanted to bring every radio station on the planet to your cell phone before there’s an App Store and before there was an iPhone. Imagine people thought that I was pretty crazy. A skinny black kid from DC wanting to put all this content in the cloud in 2003. I was literally told by investors, “Nobody’s going to listen to music on your cell phone.” We ended up partnering with Clear Channel because we wanted to get access to their radio stations and they wanted to use their stations in a more technologically advanced way. It was a great partnership and we ended up being the first company to stream Clear Channel radio stations on a mobile phone.
We get our shows on things like iHeart, iTunes, Echo, Google Play. If it’s getting the numbers back of your plays, the radio stations have to buy into Nielsen or whatever it is that they buy into to get their numbers. iTunes doesn’t share the plays that I could find. Does iHeart share? How do we get our data?
The other thing that nēdl does that’s so exciting is that we actually allow you to create your own live radio station on our platform. You literally don’t need to buy a tower or set up at $10,000 to $25,000 like your setup is probably for your podcast. You tap one button on your phone and you go live. As you’re live, every word that you say gets indexed into our database and become searchable. We convert the audio into text so that you can be indexed right next to MSNBC, CNBC, Fox Sports News, ESPN, CNN, whatever’s on our platform. If you’re saying the same things as they’re saying, then you’re indexed in real-time right next to them.
Let’s say my show got on your app because it’s on AM/FM. Where does my data go? I know people could listen to it online and you say it’s searchable, but is it only the information that’s searchable? What’s exactly searchable and can they actually read anything like transcribed data?
What we’re rolling out is that after you complete your live nēdlcasts, while you’re doing your AM/FM show, you can do it live on nēdl. You tap a button, you’ll be live on nēdl as well, which puts you in over 54 million homes through our Alexa App. It puts you on Android Auto. It puts you on all Android phones as well as iPhone. After the show, what we’re going to be rolling out is we’re going to give you that transcript. We’re going to give you that recording so you can repurpose it and do whatever you like or you can even put it on a loop right here on nēdl.
If you want to take that and make it into a blog or whatever, you copy and paste it into your blog and attach your recording and you’re done.
Of course, analytics comes with that. We’ll be rolling out the analytics suite. You’ll have all the analytics about when somebody tuned in, when somebody tuned out, what are the words that made people tune out.
Is it only when they went in through your app though? You don’t get how many times it’s played on iHeart. You get how many times it’s played through your app.
You're entitled to your own opinions but not on your own facts. Click To Tweet
We see a huge opportunity in the market where these bigger guys aren’t providing that data. They’re not providing that help to broadcasters like you.
Why aren’t they?
They say content is king but the data is even bigger king. That’s important for their business model but our business model is a different one. Ours is based on empowering broadcasters. Broadcasters win on nēdl then we win. We’re doing everything we can to empower live broadcasters.
I downloaded the app and I was able to get in for free. How are you monetizing this?
You can broadcast. To listen is free and it will always be free, but you can broadcast for free for nine minutes per day. If you’re a casual broadcaster or you’re getting your feet wet and trying to see if podcasting is the thing for you, then tap the button and go live for nine minutes. If you’re creative, you can do it right before midnight and do it for eighteen minutes. We charge if you want to go beyond that a monthly fee. It’s $80 a month. We may do some specials. The idea is that if you’re going to start a legit podcast, you’re going to spend upwards of $20,000 to $25,000 to get started. We’ve priced so that you can start a legit podcast for pennies on the dollar.
What costs so much for the $20,000 to $25,000 in case people are wondering why they would need to spend that much?
People are buying equipment. They’re buying sound effects studio time. In some cases, they’re getting consulting that goes with it. It’s a whole big deal and it’s very intimidating for a lot of people. We’re saying, “Everybody’s voice counts.” What’s really unique about nēdl is that there’s no algorithm that stops you from being heard. Whatever you believe about Donald Trump, there’s no question that Facebook was involved in the last election in a very negative way. They were pumping up the algorithms themselves. They were pumping up negative and suppressing things that weren’t controversial. “It’s a beautiful day now,” nobody saw it and none of your friends saw that. Only your mom saw that, but if you said something negative about your neighbor, everybody saw that. We don’t think that’s freedom of speech. What good is freedom of speech if nobody hears you? There’s a line in the matrix, “What good is a phone call if you can’t even speak?” That’s very much the truth with social media. We’ve taken all of those algorithms out, stripped them all out and said, “Your voice is the thing that matters. If you’re speaking about what’s relevant, people will find you.”
You’re focusing on live shows. You can download the podcast app from iTunes and listen to whatever, whenever you want. Is there a reason you wanted to live because it’s radio, is that it? The podcast doesn’t make that much money and you’re focusing on live for that reason?
Live Audio Broadcast: Ethics is that mindset and that consciousness that your actions make a difference and you have a role to play in the world.
You make a lot of money but most people have lostcasts. It’s trying to be discovered but what we think the case is the people who care the most about having the podcast whenever they want it is the super uber, I won’t say busy people. Working stiffs like many people in the US are busy people. When I was working twelve jobs to get through college, I was pretty busy. What we find is that the subscription class of people, they want what they want when they want it and they don’t settle for anything less. That’s great for podcasts but for us, we think that it’s more than just live and a subscription-less free thing. It’s more like people that we’re catering to want to listen with other people. They want to share that and they want to know. That’s what radio is. When you turn it on, even if you can’t see the person, you know you’re listening with other people and you feel that community. That’s what it’s really about.
You won’t be able to get old episodes if you miss something then or not.
We’re putting podcasts on loop and we’re partnering with big podcast companies to do that. You’ll have the ability to hear old shows. Our primary focus is on allowing people to access any information. We’re democratizing access to information and the microphone itself. All the podcasts in the world can be on our platform but they won’t be like you deciding when you listen to them. They’ll be in progress with other listeners so they can join the conversation, comment and do all that stuff that you do with the community.
You’re very good at communicating. You were a speechwriter in Stafford. You were a Message Advisor for President Obama, what does that mean exactly?
I was in the right place at the right time. I was one of those crazy people that donated the very night that he announced and raised $1 million. That was a big deal back then. I was one of his very first volunteers and in LA, it was almost subversive. Think back to 2007, you had this African name running for the presidency in the United States after George Bush for a few years. It felt extremely subversive. It felt like you were doing something that was crazy. If you were around, you’re one of the few people who were putting your chips behind this guy. I got a chance to meet David Axelrod and Reggie Love. We kept in touch and I would send an idea and they would use it.
Use it for what though exactly?
I sent various campaign ideas. One of the ideas was that during the ride, Hillary Clinton was attacking Barack and making him focus on the minutiae. I sent an idea, “He’s got friends all over the world. Let’s do a world tour.” They did it and he brought out hundreds of thousands of people in Germany and hundreds of thousands of people everywhere he went. It elevated the conversation from the minutiae of what he was or wasn’t doing to this grand conversation about him as a world leader. It was very effective.
Probably, the thing that I remember the most about the speechwriting opportunity, it was before the South Carolina primaries. I was super worried like everybody was on the campaign. We were working so hard and at the time, I hadn’t even been hired yet as a staff but I went to bed that night praying. I was like, “God, please help me help him. Help me come up with something that can help him.” That morning I woke up with the words, “The fundamental choice in this election isn’t the choice between black or white, rich versus poor. The choice in this election is a choice between the past versus the future.” I sent that to the campaign not knowing that they were going to use it at all. I sent it to David Axelrod and then that night while licking envelopes, watching the acceptance speech, he said my words and I was floored.
Being open-minded doesn't mean we’re going to be accepting every belief is valid. It means accepting the possibility. Click To Tweet
You have a very interesting assortment of things that you’ve done. I know you have many years in radio and you have that. This isn’t the first business that you’ve found. I’m curious by the name you picked, nēdl.
I love the names. I changed the name of the mascot in elementary school. I won the contest and got my little backpack for the Tacoma Park Puppies. I came up with that. That’s my legacy. About the search engine, we’re thinking needle like a needle in a haystack but needle’s taken. I started to look for other names. I wanted to understand what the definition of a needle was by Google and I looked it up. Under needle is the phonetic spelling, nobody owned it so we bought it.
Needle to me, I almost think when you dropped the needle when you played a record.
If you’re old enough like me, the needle on the radio dial.
I was thinking of both as I read it. That’s a great name. Can you share how people can get the app, contact you or anything you want to share?
You can contact us on Facebook or Instagram @NedlApp. We’re also on IOS, Android, Android Auto or Alexa. We launched the web as well, Nedl.com.
It’s so nice of you to join me and thank you so much for being on the show.
Thank you, Diane.
The Impact Of Good Ethics In Life and Business with Yonason Goldson
I am with Yonason Goldson, who is the Director of Ethical Imperatives. He teaches professionals how good ethics is good business and the benefits of intellectual diversity. He’s a keynote speaker, TEDx presenter, community rabbi and he calls himself a recovered hitchhiker. He has done a lot of very interesting things. I’m looking forward to our chat. Welcome.
Thank you, Diane. It’s great to be with you.
Are you in St. Louis?
I am where we go through the cycle of seasons every few hours.
Both of my parents were born and raised in St. Louis. If you’ve seen Brown Shoe Company, they actually bought out. They’re now Hamilton Shoe Company. When I get back there, it’s fun to see the whole St. Louis scene because I never got to go there when I was a kid. It’s nice of you to join me because I’m interested in what you deal with. I’ve taught a lot of ethics classes and ethics is a really fun thing to teach because it’s subjective. You can get people all riled up in very interesting discussions. What got you so interested in focusing on ethics?
I was a career high school teacher, taught in a Jewish School through studies for many years and my school closed a couple of years ago. Forced retirement and I had to decide what I wanted to do when I grow up. I love communicating ideas. I love teaching in the classroom. I loved it when I could communicate to students new ways of looking at their world and might as well themselves. I wondered what I could do with that skill outside the classroom. Many years of dealing with teenagers, after a while you’re ready for something a little different. I started venturing into the realm of professional speaking, joined the National Speakers Association and in crafting my message, what I eventually happened upon or focused upon was ethics. Ultimately, that’s what my tradition is all about.
Ethics is subjective. It is to a point, but for society to function. This is something that Stephen L. Carter points out in his book, Civility, right at the outset. He says, “Civility is the basis of civilization both linguistically and philosophically. It requires us to have an awareness of how our behavior affects those around us.” Ultimately, that’s what I believe ethics is. Ethics is that mindset and that consciousness that my actions make a difference. I have a role to play in the world. I have a contribution to make. I’m a member of something larger than myself. That’s why I get so frustrated when we have these political arguments about people’s rights, my rights versus your rights. We’re always going to be butting heads, but if I’m focused on my responsibilities and you’re focused on your responsibilities, then we’re always going to be looking for ways to meet in the middle wherever that middle might be. That is the value of ethics in our personal lives, family lives, political, society but also in business. That’s what creates a healthy business environment that allows people to thrive and succeed in the professional world.
What good is freedom of speech if nobody hears you? Click To Tweet
I write about perception so that ties into a lot of that. You talked about being aware of your responsibilities. How do you determine what they are though? Are we getting back to subjectivity again if my idea of what I’m responsible for isn’t the same idea as what other people think it should be?
That is tricky because when you go from culture to culture, when you go from one situation to another situation, there is a certain amount of fluidity. When I give my keynotes, the acid test that I suggest is if I asked myself honestly, “What would it be like if everyone did what I’m about to do? If I look at the world, if I look at society, everybody is acting the way I do, is that a world I want to live in? Is that a world that is going to be beneficial for people to live in? Is that a world that is going to start coming apart at the seams?” A lot of it really has to do with us being honest with ourselves, whether it’s willing to question our own motives, question the effects of our own actions and question the impact that we’re having on the world around us.
The impact is a fascinating discussion. You talk about compliance being the enemy of ethics. I was looking at that and it’s interesting because it ties into my talks I give about curiosity. If people are complying, they’re doing status quo thinking they’re not really innovative. What do you mean by compliance and how is it the enemy of ethics?
Ethics ultimately governs the gray area between what’s legal and what’s illegal. One of my favorite illustrations, the United States government for ages has been trying to get us to use these $1 coins. For some reason, Americans don’t want to use them. £1 coin is very popular in Britain. We don’t like them for whatever reason. At one point, they had an incentive program. They said, “You can order up a roll of $40 coins online, put it in your credit card, we’ll ship you the coins postage free,” and this will be a way of getting them into circulation.
Some clever people, they ordered a lot of coins, put them on their credit cards, go to the bank, put it right back into their account and rack up all those credit card points. It didn’t work, but on an ethical level, they weren’t breaking any laws. There was no contract but it clearly was not in the spirit of the offer. Compliance is an effort to legislate ethics and that by definition, I believe has to fail because ethics has to be a mindset. It has to be that attitude and that world view that is willing to ask, “What’s the right thing to do? What do I do in this gray area? How do I find the proper avenue, not what can I get away with?”
You talk about all the things that people do, what we should do and what we shouldn’t do it. It brings to mind a course I teach in leadership where we get into Mackey’s Conscious Capitalism. We talk about ethics and profits and it looks like you talk about that stuff. For leaders who think they have to choose between being ethical and profitable, is there a fine line? Can you be both? How do you respond to that?
Lance Armstrong.
Live Audio Broadcast: We become hyper-defensive about anything that challenges us because we’re terrified that we may actually be supporting a position that’s not a legitimate position.
Before or after he was caught?
Exactly, he was on top of the world. He was an American hero. He was an icon. The greatest guy ever lived until his past finally got caught up with him. Where is he now? I have no idea but I don’t think he’s doing terribly well. The idea that I can get away with things or even worse that I have to get away with things because it’s a dog-eat-dog world, nice guys finish last and no good deed goes unpunished. It was such corrosive mindsets and attitudes. If you look at certain businesses, I’ve only heard stories about Zappos, the shoe company. They supposedly have this incredible culture where people love to work there and they put the clients first. They put the workers first.
I watched a TED Talk with the guy who started Chobani Yogurt. It’s an unbelievable story about how he went into tremendous debt to buy this yogurt factory that was closing down and all these people are going to be laid off. It tore him up to think all these people are going to be out of work and he started this enterprise from nothing. Now it’s thriving and it’s created countless jobs, and he’s given his workers shares in the company. I’m sure he’s doing very well. He didn’t have to trade success to be good. He found that balance between the two. Trader Joe’s, everybody loves working and everybody loves shopping there.
I don’t claim to understand this but the degree that I do, I’m here to talk about blockchain, which if I understand it correctly is the idea that you create an economic community where reputation keeps people in check. If you lose your reputation, I’m not going to be doing business with you. That’s such a wonderful model because it forces us to be aware that I am my reputation. We understand it to a certain degree. I am my brand. Think about United Airlines and Wells Fargo, they’re self-destructive because they didn’t have an awareness of how important brand image is. They didn’t allow it to permeate their culture. I would argue that even if you can get away with things in the short-term, any business owner, managers, CEO, you’re going to do much better in the long-term. This is even demonstrated. Certain studies are showing that companies that are rated highest in ethics grow faster by as much as 5% over companies that aren’t.
I can think of an assignment on one of the courses that I teach where they talk about examples and Zappos comes up a lot, Costco and Southwest Airlines. A lot of them come up as places people want to work because of a certain culture. I also teach some marketing courses where we get into the United Airlines and Wells Fargo issues but the reactions people have to any advertising with the Gillette ad that got such a focus. Do you think we’re getting too hypercritical of things at this point or is there an ethics crisis and are we overreacting to things?
We’re definitely overreacting but the level of hypersensitivity and this is an idea that I really want to explore. How simultaneously we have this rise of runaway political correctness where you must be so careful, the safe spaces, oncologist and you have to watch everything we did. Here in St. Louis, an NPR radio show host, an 80-year old man who’s been in the business his whole life, he was interviewing a former colleague who was a 75-year old woman who had come back to town. They hadn’t seen each other in years and he sits down, he says, “Good morning. You look fantastic. You look great.” His manager called him in after the show and told him, “You shouldn’t have said that” and he quit on the spot. At the same time, we’re so hypersensitive to every little word and nuance, you have the ramp of incivility in politics, online and some talk radio or cable TV. What’s acceptable there is so far beyond the pale of what used to be considered professional at any level. How do we have these two phenomena that are coexisting where you can’t say anything on the one hand and on the other in a different area, you can say absolutely anything you want. There’s some serious disconnect in our values.
It’s hard to listen to the news because you get one extreme or the other. Social media does have a definite play in this. People are unfriending each other for comments that they’re making in social media. They take it this very passionately that everybody has to agree with everything that they’re saying. Are we sharing too much of our opinions and our values or are we too sensitive to other people’s reactions to them?
If the decision is made in a way where everybody has his say or her say, everybody is able to contribute. Click To Tweet
One of my favorite quotes is from the late Senator Daniel Moynihan. He said, “You’re entitled to your own opinions but you’re not entitled to your own facts,” but these days, facts are irrelevant. People don’t care. I believe what I believe because that’s what I believe. The groupthink has isolated into these little enclaves where every conversation is an echo chamber. If I actually do some of these talk shows, they’ll allow somebody from the other side to come on but it’s not debate, it’s not a conversation, it’s a shouting match. It comes back to ethics because if I believe I’m right, what am I afraid of? Why do I have to misrepresent somebody else to make me look good?
Why do I have to ignore facts? If I’m wrong, I would like to know that I’m wrong so I can stop supporting an erroneous position but that makes me an outlier. We were too invested in the political labels that we don’t let ourselves know other people. We don’t listen to their points of view and therefore, we don’t know ourselves. We don’t know whether we’re right or wrong. We become hyperdefensive about anything that challenges us because we’re terrified that we may actually be supporting a position that’s not a legitimate position.
It’s so hard to even talk about anything political. I avoided in general on this show because you get haters that’ll write all kinds of things on your site. That’s not what I wanted this to be. I wanted it to be a pro success business type of show. As you’re talking about some of this, it brought to mind The Tonight Show. George Carlin and Ann Coulter were both going to be on the same show. I was so looking forward to seeing how that went. I remember thinking when George Carlin was on first and then Ann Coulter came out, he got up to move over when she was the next to be interviewed and he said, “I can’t believe I moved to the right for Ann Coulter.” I thought it was cute and funny but that was all they said. I was like, “Was that it?” Do we want people to battle it out? Are we looking for a good show?
That really leads to another topic. I’m very fond of how our society is increasingly becoming the Roman Empire. The gladiatorial combat is carried out in sports arenas and it’s carried out in cable TV and then talk radio. The more blood, the better, the more the spectacle, the better. You get in a good zinger and that makes it all worthwhile. Whereas the person who actually wants to present a cogent argument, nobody has the patience for that. When was the last time you heard on any of these political discussions somebody said, “That’s an interesting point. I never looked at it that way.”
If we want to get back to a business context, I’m reading Team of Rivals about Abraham Lincoln’s administration. Lincoln surrounded himself with people who are former rivals, former enemies and from all different points of view and contrast. His predecessor, James Buchanan, surrounded himself with people who are going to tell him exactly what he thought. Buchanan is really responsible, for too many historians, for the Civil War because he simply let things continue to deteriorate rather than addressing them. Lincoln recognized that the only way there’s any chance of preserving the Union is to have every point of view represented, give everybody their say and then have all the different views and all the information available to make the best possible decision.
It’s nice if we can have an open mind. Since we’ve already touched on politics, why not hit religion since you’re a rabbi. If we can’t all agree on religion, how can we all agree on ethics? My ex-brother-in-law used to say, “If we all had the same taste, we’d all want to date your mother.” I thought that was a crazy comment but I know what he meant. He’s saying that we all are going to be different so we’re not going to all ever see eye-to-eye on certain things. Do you think it’s possible for everybody to have the same ethics? Isn’t that the same thing as saying we can all agree on the same religion?
I don’t think so. Certainly, as an Orthodox Jew, I’m a minority within a minority. One of the best compliments I was ever given was from a fellow teacher I was chatting with one day which was a Christian. He said, “You’re the most Christian person I know.” I think that as high praise. We could sit down and we could start getting into a theological debate but to what purpose? We have so many values in common. We believe in holding ourselves accountable. We believe in a society based on justice, mercy and charity. We believe in traditional views of the world, it’s fairness, equity and peace. Why do we have to find the one thing we can’t agree on and make that the defining factor in our relationships?
Live Audio Broadcast: The truth may lie in unexpected places. Accept the possibility that our perception of truth may not be infallible.
What about facts are irrelevant? How are people starting to think that way? Does that tie in at all to that?
I wouldn’t be a practicing Jew if I didn’t believe this was the truth, but that doesn’t mean that I have to carry the torch from my point of view. There are more fundamental universal values and people who are committed to being good people, people who are committed to making the world a better place. That’s what human beings are here for. That’s why God created us to bring goodness into the world, to fight for justice and charity. If we’re on the same page about that, then we can agree to disagree about what we’re going to call our God or how we’re going to worship.
I don’t really care if somebody is a Christian, a Muslim, a Hindu or a Buddhist and even people who don’t have any particular theology. I can be friends with an atheist but people I can’t be friendly with are militant atheists who are determined to tear down religion at every opportunity. I don’t recognize the benefit of doing that. I don’t particularly want to be involved in discussions with such people because they tend not to be very open-minded either. Let’s find common ground and this comes back to politics and certainly back to the business that different people in an organization have different ideas about how things should be done.
Sometimes people are not going to agree on what’s best for a company or an organization but there has to be a decision made at some point. If the decision is made in a way where everybody has his say or her say, everybody is able to contribute, everybody’s voice is heard and is reasoned out, the solution or the course of action is arrived at with a certain amount of consensus, logic, and thoughtfulness. Even if I don’t agree with it, I can say, “I understand the process that led us here and I can get on board with what we’re going to do, even though my opinion didn’t carry the day in the end.”
Are we getting too much fake it until you make it mentality? Is that what happened at Theranos? Some of these other companies we have to be puffer fish to seem that we have something until we actually get it. It seems to be the mentality where we’re hearing. Is that an ethical problem? Where does that stand in your book?
That’s a little more nuanced. The fake it until you make it is a nice sound bite. Amy Cuddy has the second most watched TED Talk in history. From what I understand, most of the science behind has been debunked. Apparently, the physiological effects of the Wonderwoman and Superman pose and that stuff, even her colleague has backed away from that and maybe even she has. She says there’s still a certain psychological benefit to it. There are certain ways we can trick ourselves into being confident, into acting confident but it’s not a substitute for real talent, for real ideas and for real strategies.
I want to get more into the business aspect of it. Like Theranos, where she claimed that her company could do something that it really hadn’t gotten to that level yet. They intend to create this ability to take your blood from a drop and do these amazing things, but their equipment can’t do it yet. They’re faking it like they can until they get to that point. I’m looking at it from that perspective instead of the individual. There’s that mentality that for VCs to be interested, it has to be so big. Everybody wants to invest in Elon Musk, nobody wants another old company anymore. Do you think that we’re pushing ourselves to push our sense of ethics? Are we getting pushed into this level of faking it until we make it because that’s the only way you can compete anymore and what happens to our code of ethics then?
There are certain ways we can trick ourselves into acting confident but it's no substitute for real talent, real ideas, and real strategies. Click To Tweet
I hadn’t really thought about that in those channels. You’re absolutely right that it’s not enough to have a good idea. Every idea has to be grandiose. Every idea has to change the world. When we create that pressure or that expectation then we’re setting ourselves up for failure. There has to be a willingness to look at reality, to see reality and find out where I am. What is this idea going to do? One of the greatest ideas I’ve heard are these microloans that are being given particularly to people in Third World countries. A few hundred dollars in those countries is enough to turn these people’s lives around. If you look at it in a microcosm, I’m giving one person $500, how’s that going to change the world? You’re going to change that person’s life but instead of having to invest $1 billion in one project, I can invest in thousands and thousands of people. Many of whom are actually going to be able to turn their lives around. Look at the collective impact of all those individuals with this modest idea instead of the one great big idea, which is fake it to make it and maybe too grandiose to succeed.
A lot of people can learn so much from what you talk about. I know your site is EthicalImperatives.com. You’ve got TED Talks and you’ve written five books. Is there any other information that you’d like to share?
It’s funny, I was interviewed. At the end of the interview, the host asked me, “What are three words that you would use to describe yourself?” I wasn’t ready for the question. I had to think about them. The first one that came to my head was curiosity. I don’t think I’ve ever used to describe myself before. Curiosity has a lot to do with what we’re talking about because if I’m over-invested in my point of view that I’m not willing to entertain other ideas, then I’m closed off. I’m not interested in the truth. I’m not interested in discovery. I’m not interested in reality. I’m interested in protecting the view that I have acquired and that’s an incredibly dangerous situation. When we talk about being open-minded, it doesn’t mean we’re going to be accepting every belief is valid. It means accepting the possibility. The truth may lie in unexpected places and accepting the possibility that my perception of truth may not be infallible.
Thank you so much for being on the show. I didn’t know we’d go to so many unusual places with this and I’m so glad we had a chance to.
It’s absolutely my pleasure, Diane.
I’d like to thank both Ayinde and Yonason. We have many great guests on the show. If you’ve missed any past episodes, please go to DrDianeHamiltonRadio.com or go to CuriosityCode.com for the curiosity information. I hope you join us for the next episode of Take The Lead Radio.
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About Ayinde Alakoye
Ayinde Alakoye is a serial entrepreneur and the Co-founder of his third live broadcast radio streaming venture,nēdl. He is a TechCrunch contributor, an Executive Board Member of the Applications Development Alliance and was a recipient of the 50th Anniversary March on Washington Emancipation of Capital Award with Mark Cuban and Congressman John Lewis. Ayinde served as a speech contributor and message advisor to Senator Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential election campaign. A decade prior, he began his media career at the #1 revenue generating radio station in the country, WTOP, before setting sales records for Clear Channel and CBS (Howard Stern), respectively. After leaving the ad sales business on top, Ayinde started Thumb Radio with his business partner to stream every radio station on the planet to your cell phone – in 2003. That technology later evolved into a partnership with his former employer, Clear Channel, which became the first iteration of the iHeartRadio app.
About Yonason Goldson
Rabbi Yonason Goldson has circumnavigated the globe, seen the Taj Mahal, the pyramids of Giza, and the tea plantations of Sri Lanka. He’s hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and to the tops of the Sierra Nevada. He’s jumped out of an airplane and undergone open-heart surgery (but not at the same time).
He’s studied at the University of Edinburgh, taught school in Budapest, Hungary, and seen Richard III performed in Ashland, Oregon, and Stratford-on-Avon. He’s been a professional speaker and teacher for over two decades, published five books, raised four children, and been married to the love of his life for over 30 years.
Tags: cultural diversity, Ethical Imperatives, ethics, freedom of speech, live audio broadcast, social impact
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Walker joined Difficult Run as an editor in August 2013. He graduated from the University of North Texas with an MBA in Strategic Management and a BBA in Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management. He's currently a grad student in Government at Johns Hopkins University. He has been published in SquareTwo, BYU Studies Quarterly, Dialogue, Graziadio Business Review, and Economic Affairs. He also contributed to Julie Smith's (ed.) 'As Iron Sharpens Iron: Listening to the Various Voices of Scripture'. His other online writing can be found at Worlds Without End and Times & Seasons. He lives in Denton, Texas, with his wife.
The Benefits of Global Technology Diffusion
July 11, 2019 July 11, 2019 by Walker
Relying on a global dataset from the European Patent Office (PATSTAT), researchers were recently able “to trace knowledge flows using cross-patent citations, that is, the extent to which countries cite patents from other innovators as prior knowledge in their own patent applications. A first look at the data (Figure 3) suggests knowledge flows have increased significantly over the last two decades, and China and South Korea (depicted in Figure 3 as ‘other Asia’) have become substantially more integrated in global citations, both as citing and as cited innovators.”
They also find that “the share of technology leaders’ knowledge that diffuses to emerging market economies has increased steadily and significantly over time – and this finding is robust to excluding China from the ‘recipient’ economies (Figure 4). In contrast, the diffusion of knowledge from the G5 to (non-G5) advanced economies has remained flat or even moderated somewhat – albeit from a higher level – since the global financial crisis.”
It turns out
that both emerging market and other advanced economies have been able to capitalise on knowledge flows from the G5 to increase domestic innovation (measured by patenting) – with foreign knowledge playing a relatively larger role than domestic R&D in emerging market economies. These results also apply to productivity, suggesting that knowledge from the G5 has contributed to boosting income levels in other countries. The impact on productivity is economically meaningful, especially for emerging market economies. For instance, between 2004 and 2014, knowledge flows from the technology leaders may have generated, for an average country-sector, about 0.7 percentage point of labour productivity growth per year (Figure 5). This amounts to about 40% of the observed average sectoral productivity growth in this period.
Finally, the researchers’ “results point to a positive empirical relation internationally” between competition and innovation. They conclude,
Globalisation has intensified the international diffusion of technology, which is crucial to share growth potential across countries and boost global growth. The positive impact has been particularly large for emerging market economies, helping increase productivity for them, and supporting income convergence. Our results also suggest that the growing competition from emerging market economies may lead to more innovation, even in advanced economies.
Categories Economics, Social Science, Society, TechnologyLeave a comment
Immigration Horrors Aren’t Exactly New
July 9, 2019 July 9, 2019 by Walker
So remember that wall Trump keeps promising? Seventy percent of it was completed by previous administrations. Which is to say that immigration idiocy didn’t suddenly begin in 2016.
When it comes to deportations, the Trump administration hasn’t reached the heights of the Obama administration. According to Axios, “Immigration and Customs Enforcement has deported more immigrants this fiscal year than any full fiscal year of Donald Trump’s presidency, but it has yet to reach Barack Obama’s early deportation levels, according to new internal Department of Homeland Security figures obtained by Axios.”
From Reuters
According to the Marshall Project, the current detention system has been continually expanding over the last 25 years:
Under President Bill Clinton the daily population in detention tripled from what it had been in 1994 to nearly 20,000 at the end of his second term. A pair of laws passed in 1996 and signed by Clinton resulted in a vast expansion of the system, introducing mandatory detentions for asylum seekers and legal immigrants who had committed crimes, indefinite detention and additional spending on enforcement. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, President George W. Bush also cracked down on immigration, ending a policy in 2005 that permitted those being caught crossing the border to be released until their court dates. By the time Barack Obama took office, the average daily population had ballooned to more than 30,000.
Though detention numbers dipped briefly under Obama, by the time of the 2016 election the daily average had reached just over 34,000 after an influx of Central American migrants at the southern U.S. border. In each administration, the growth of the detention system was used to broker political compromises in lieu of dealing with an overburdened immigration system.
This is why claims that “children in cages” began under previous administrations are actually true (though the Trump administration has taken it to 11). And at least some criticisms began under the Obama administration. For example, National Review pointed to a 2011 PBS Frontline special that shined a critical light on the administration’s immigration enforcement:
The yearlong investigation did an extensive and deep dive into the U.S. immigration enforcement system and stories of hidden abuse in detention centers. The nearly hourlong report makes for harrowing viewers: Women who have been detained complaining about being harassed by guards for sexual favors, sexually assaulted by guards, and guards threatening to kill the women they are harassing if they talk. A single mom with two daughters who overstayed a visa gets deported back to Mexico just because she changed lanes without signaling. Cops describe patrolling neighborhoods with significant number of illegal immigrants, where people instinctively run from the sight of a police car. A mother of five American-born children being deported over a speeding ticket.
The report describes, “a vast network of 250 detention centers, from county jails to large centers run by private prison companies, where immigrants facing deportation are held until they can be removed from the country. In the past decade, three million immigrants have been detained in the system.” The report shows white-domed tents surrounded by barbed wire, and are described as overcrowded warehouses of people. Those who have been through the detention centers describe beatings, racial slurs, official coverups, and threats to deport anyone who complains. The problem is described as more than a few “bad apples,” but more of “barrels of bad apples.”
…In the Frontline report, the administration insists the current enforcement policies are necessary to protect the American people. The report shows the president traveling to El Paso and boasting, “We have strengthened border security beyond what many believed was possible. We now have more boots on the ground and we are deporting those who are here illegally.” The deputy director of ICE boasts of “record-breaking numbers in terms of criminal alien removals” that include “1,000 murderers, 6,000 sex offenders, 45,000 serious drug violators. As we expand the deployment of Secure Communities, focus on criminal aliens, you’ll see that number continue to go up and up.” Officials from the administration boast that they’re finally taking enforcement seriously, a contrast with their lax predecessors.
One of the president’s immigration advisors callously declares, “At the end of the day, when you have a community of 10 million, 11 million people living and working in the United States illegally, some of these things are going to happen. Even if the law is executed with perfection, there will be parents separated from their children. They don’t have to like it, but it is a result of having a broken system of laws.”
Critics complain that the administration’s policy is just “enforcement on steroids.” The report warily details how ICE has extended its reach by enlisting the help of local law enforcement to better identify illegal immigrants who have committed crimes — turning local cops into a de facto enforcement branch of federal immigration law.
All of this really should teach us to not deify political administrations. What’s more, it should break the brain of every rabid anti/pro-immigration, pro/anti-Trump Republican/Democrat.
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“Sounds a Lot Like Trump”: Economists’ Reactions to Warren’s Economic Policies
Over at the Peterson Institute, there is a rundown of Elizabeth Warren’s “A Plan for Economic Patriotism.” You can read the analysis for yourself here, but I wanted to point out three things that jumped out at me:
The comparison to Trump (see the photo above).
The number of “Good idea, but…”
Almost every potentially positive policy devolves into protectionist nonsense.
Let me first start with the exception: her training programs. As America becomes more globalized–both through trade and immigration–more training for American workers displaced by global competition might be necessary.
Now, let’s take a look at her proposed Department of Economic Development:
See what happened there? A potentially good idea turned into a protectionist dumpster fire. How about her R&D policies?
Yet another potentially good idea likely squandered by the protectionist slant. And then there are her straight-up awful ideas:
I’ve pointed out the similarities between the economics of Trump and Sanders before. It appears the populist impulse is even more widespread among American politicians.
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Unintended Consequences: Chinese Edition
It is honestly kind of hard not to laugh at the Chinese response to Trump’s tariffs. From the Peterson Institute:
China increased its retaliatory tariffs hitting US exports on June 1 in response to President Donald Trump’s latest escalation of his trade war. Yet, this action is only half of the bad news for US exporters. The other half is that China has begun rolling out the red carpet for the rest of the world. Everyone else is enjoying much improved access to China’s 1.4 billion consumers, a fact that has been little noticed or reported in accounts of the US-China economic confrontation.
…Trump’s provocations and China’s two-pronged response mean American companies and workers now are at a considerable cost disadvantage relative to both Chinese firms and firms in third countries. The result is one more eerie parallel to the conditions US exporters faced in the 1930s.
Another important implication of China’s action is that Americans are likely suffering more than President Trump thinks due to his trade war. Inflicting such punishment on Americans may be one factor motivating China. A separate motivation may be that it is trying to minimize the harm to its own economy by importing vital goods at better prices from other parts of the world.
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Once More For the People in the Back: Nordic Countries Aren’t Socialist
June 27, 2019 June 27, 2019 by Walker
So here’s something I’ve been saying for the last few years. From The Washington Post:
Undoubtedly, the Nordic nations, with their high incomes, low inequality, free politics and strong rule of law, represent success stories. What this has to do with socialism, though, is another question.
And the answer, according to a highly clarifying new report from analysts at JPMorgan Chase, is “not much.”
Drawing on data from the World Bank, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development and other reputable sources, the report shows that five nations — Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway and the Netherlands — protect property rights somewhat more aggressively than the United States, on average; exercise less control over private enterprise; permit greater concentration in the banking sector; and distribute a smaller share of their total income to workers.
“Copy the Nordic model if you like, but understand that it entails a lot of capitalism and pro-business policies, a lot of taxation on middle class spending and wages, minimal reliance on corporate taxation and plenty of co-pays and deductibles in its healthcare system,” the report notes.
It goes on to point out that the majority of Nordic countries
have zero estate tax. They fund generous programs with the help of value-added taxes that heavily affect middle-class consumers.
In Sweden, for example, consumption, social security and payroll taxes total 27 percent of gross domestic product, as compared with 10.6 percent in the United States, according to the JPMorgan Chase report. The Nordic countries tried direct wealth taxes such as the one that figures prominently in the plans of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.); all but Norway abandoned them because of widespread implementation problems.
The Nordic countries’ use of co-pays and deductibles in health care may be especially eye-opening to anyone considering Sanders’s Medicare-for-all plan, which the presidential candidate pitches as an effort to bring the United States into line with European standards.
The Post concludes,
These countries are generous; but they are not stupid. They understand there is no such thing as “free” health care, and that requiring patients to have at least some skin in the game, in the form of cost-sharing, helps contain costs…If they have established anything, it’s not socialism, or even the dominance of a benevolent state, but responsible governance. They have achieved a clear division of labor, between government (which arguably has a comparative advantage in health insurance and education) and the private sector (which is better at producing and distributing most other goods and services).
What the Nordic countries don’t do is pretend that society can have a strong and efficient social safety net without a big, mandatory financial contribution from the middle class. Nor do they deal punitively with the private sector, upon whose productivity the entire system ultimately depends.
American socialists’ enthusiasm for the northern European systems may be sincere. We shall see whether it can withstand full and accurate information about how those systems actually work.
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Immigration’s Effects on Wages: Norway Edition
From a new study:
In a recent paper (Bratsberg et al. 2019), we ask what the impact is of such a large immigration-induced labour-supply shock on occupational wages, labour costs, and the industry mix of the economy. The impact of immigration on labour markets has received substantial attention over the last decades. However, most studies focus on the wage structure (e.g. Dustmann et al. 2016). Evidence on the general equilibrium adjustment of occupational wages, labour costs, and industry employment in response to immigration shocks is still relatively scant. We set out to close this gap using high-quality and detailed administrative Norwegian data.
The eastern enlargement in 2004 and 2007 extended the common European labour market to include roughly 100 million individuals from the EU accession countries. With real wages among the highest and unemployment among the lowest in Europe, Norway became a popular destination for labour migrants.
Over the ensuing decade, Norway stands out as one of the countries that received the largest inflows of migrants relative to country size.
Norway is “particularly useful to study because the policy change was exogenous. As a part of the single market, but not a member of the EU, Norway is bound to adopt EU legislation without representation in the European Parliament and Commission. The policy change was instant, comprehensive, and externally imposed, providing a unique setting to study the impact of immigration.” The authors conclude,
Based on the Norwegian data, we observe that the relationship between the initial level of, and the change in, the immigrant share and language intensity is strong. According to our estimates, the change in the immigrant share is 11 percentage points lower in language-intensive versus non-intensive occupations (comparing the 90th versus 10th percentile) over the 2004-2013 period.
According to our results, labour immigration leads to large adjustments in relative industry employment and labour costs. These effects are particularly strong in industries that are initially intensive in the use of immigrant-heavy occupations. In line with our hypothesis, this can be traced back to movements in relative occupation wages: occupations with a large increase in labour supply faced 18% lower wage growth compared to occupations with a small increase (comparing the 90th versus 10th percentile) over the same 10-year period.
As is well known, a reduced-form approach can only identify relative effects – the common effect of immigration across all occupations and industries is not identified. To address the real wage and overall welfare effects of the migration shock, we therefore quantify the general equilibrium effects of immigration according to our calibrated model. The counterfactual analysis shows substantial real-wage losses in some occupations, whereas other occupations have real-wage gains. Although real wages in some occupations decline, the aggregate welfare effects of the immigration shock on natives are close to zero, as some natives switch to higher-wage occupations in response to the immigration shock. The welfare effect on the existing population of immigrants, on the other hand, is negative, as they have a comparative advantage in low-wage occupations.
As I said in my BYU article last year,
According to the 2017 NAS report, most empirical research shows that “the impact of immigration on wages of natives overall is very small.” However, “native dropouts tend to be more negatively affected by immigration than better-educated natives. Some research also suggests that, among those with low skill levels, the negative effect on natives’ wages may be larger for disadvantaged minorities.” Yet, these negative effects “tend to be smaller (or even positive)” when periods of ten years or longer are considered. In fact, research suggests “that immigration to the United States between 1990 and 2006 reduced the wages of natives without high-school degrees by only 0.7 percent in the short run and increased their wages by 0.6–1.7 percent in the long run.” Similar to the effects of employment, low-skill native wages may be depressed in the short run, but long-run effects tend to be zero to
positive (pg. 95).
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Are There Children in America Living on $2 a Day?
June 5, 2019 June 5, 2019 by Walker
From Reason:
Claims that millions of Americans are mired in extreme poverty, barely surviving on $2 or $4 a day, are false, according to a new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research.
The paper, released June 3, is by Bruce Meyer, Derek Wu, and Victoria Mooers of the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago and by Carla Medalia of the U.S. Census Bureau. Some households that income surveys erroneously categorized as extremely poor actually had “net worth in the millions” of dollars, the authors found.
…The new NBER paper takes aim at a Nobel laureate in economics, Angus Deaton, who claimed that 5.3 million Americans in 2015 were living on less than $4 a day. It also criticizes work by a professor at Johns Hopkins, Kathryn Edin, and by a professor at the University of Michigan, H. Luke Shaefer. Edin and Shaefer are authors of a book, “$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America,” that claimed about 3 million children lived in households with incomes of $2 a day or less.
“We find that 92% of the households categorized as extreme poor based on survey-reported cash income are misclassified,” Meyer and his coauthors write. “Many of the households included in survey-reported extreme poverty appear to be better off than the average American household based on numerous indicators of material well-being.”
Rather than millions of extremely poor American children, Meyer and his co-authors found the 285,000 households in “extreme poverty” were either single individuals or “households with multiple childless individuals.”
They write, “this result likes in stark contrast to the focus in academic and policy circles on the plight of extreme poor households with children.”
They write that “the errors in the income level exaggerate the level of extreme poverty.”
The new study, according to Reason, relies on “information from the 2011 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) as well as administrative tax and benefit program data” and found that
“of the 3.6 million [non-homeless] households with survey-reported cash income below $2/person/day,” the vast majority—92 percent—were “not in extreme poverty once we include in-kind transfers, replace survey reports of earnings and transfer receipt with administrative records, and account for the ownership of substantial assets.”
In fact, new research shows “more than half of all misclassified households have incomes … above the poverty line” entirely.
…The composition of extremely poor households also differs from common understandings of it: “Among the 285,000 households left in extreme poverty, 90% are made up of single individuals. Households with multiple childless individuals make up the other 10% of the extreme poor. Strikingly, after implementing all adjustments, [none of the SIPP surveyed] households with children have incomes below $2/person/day.”
I’ve talked about this $2-a-day claim before. The data supporting it seemed sketchy then. Appears even more so now.
The Economic Illiteracy of Journalists: Venezuela Edition
May 31, 2019 May 31, 2019 by Walker
Modern journalism often makes me want to go lay down in the middle of I-35 during rush hour traffic. I’ve complained about economic illiteracy before, but I think this one from Pacific Standard takes the cake. It begins,
These days it seems you can’t talk about socialism without being required to talk also about Venezuela—largely because certain people on the right bring up the failures of Venezuela every time the word “socialism” appears. Right-wing pundits claim incessantly that socialist policies are to blame for the terrible conditions that Venezuelans are now living through.
But this story is fundamentally false.
And who does the author consult to establish the falsity of this story?
A Marxist (Wolff), which is about as fringe as fringe can get in economics. Marxists are the anti-vaxxers of mainstream economics.
A supporter of Modern Monetary Theory (Galbraith), which has virtually no support among mainstream economists.
Noam Chomsky.
The author declares,
Most crucially, it was a government rife with corruption that shattered Venezuela…Anat Admati, a professor of economics and finance at Stanford University, tells me that corruption can devastate any country. Regardless of the ideology that inspires your economic policies, Admati says, if there’s too much corruption, the country will fail…Corruption, not socialism, is the malignant tumor on democracy worldwide—in Venezuela, yes, but also here at home.
First off, to say socialism has nothing to do with Venezuela’s collapse is absurd. A 2018 report from the Council of Economic Advisers provides a rundown of some of Venezuela’s socialist policies, from the nationalization of industries (such as oil) to heavy taxation on earning and spending to price controls. Using a synthetic control methodology, economists Kevin Grier and Norman Maynard compared Venezuela’s performance under Hugo Chavez to its expected performance based on similar oil-producing, non-socialist Latin American countries. They find that “after 1998 (the year of Chavez’s successful presidential campaign) synthetic and actual Venezuela sharply diverge. By 2003, Venezuelan per-capita income is more than $3500 below that of synthetic Venezuela, and the gap exceeds $2500 in all subsequent years. It appears that Chavez’s leadership and policies were quite bad for the overall level of wealth in Venezuela” (pg. 8). They conclude, “We find that although average incomes rose somewhat during his time as president, they lagged far behind where they might have been if Chavez had not taken office” (pg. 14). In short, the oil boom masked Venezuela’s socialist underbelly. When the oil prices collapsed, the rot was exposed.
Even still, to say that “corruption, not socialism” led to Venezuela’s downfall reminds me of a quip by the assassin Vincent (played by Tom Cruise) in the film Collateral. After a dead body falls on his cab and the realization sinks in that Vincent is responsible, a shocked Max (Jamie Foxx) says, “You killed him!” Vincent, unfazed, responds, “No, I shot him. The bullets and the fall killed him.” It’s a distinction without a difference.
In their book Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson distinguish between inclusive and extractive institutions, with the former creating the conditions for prosperity. “Inclusive economic institutions,” they write,
…are those that allow and encourage participants by the great mass of people in economic activities that make best use of their talents and skills and that enable individuals to make the choices they wish. To be inclusive, economic institutions must feature secure private property, an unbiased system of law, and a provision of public services that provides a level playing field in which people can exchange and contract; it also must permit the entry of new business and allow people to choose their careers…Inclusive economic institutions foster economic activity, productivity growth, and economic prosperity (pg. 74-75).
In other words, inclusive institutions are largely free-market economies. On the other hand, extractive economic institutions lack these properties and instead “extract incomes and wealth from one subset of society to benefit a different subset,” empowering the few at the expense of the many (pg. 76).
The Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of the World (EFW) Index, published in its annual Economic Freedom of the World reports, defines economic freedom based on five major areas: (1) size of the central government, (2) legal system and the security of property rights, (3) stability of the currency, (4) freedom to trade internationally, and (5) regulation of labour, credit, and business. According to its 2018 report (which looks at data from 2016), countries with more economic freedom have substantially higher per-capita incomes, greater economic growth, and lower rates of poverty. This makes economic freedom an excellent proxy for Acemoglu & Robinson’s “inclusive institution.” What’s more, Venezuela comes in dead last in the list of 162 countries. Drawing on the EFW Index, Georgetown political philosophers Jason Brennan and Peter Jaworski point to a strong positive correlation between a country’s degree of economic freedom and its lack of public sector corruption.
“Corruption,” writes economist Joseph Connors, “is institutionalized exploitation and…it becomes institutionalized in the least capitalist countries. Transparency International, the creator of the Corruption Perception Index, is an organization dedicated to eradicating corruption. According to its metric of corruption, people who live in capitalist countries experience significantly less corruption than people in less capitalist countries. Market competition helps explain why this is true. Market competition diffuses power, and corruption thrives on centralized power. Thus, capitalism provides the environment that allows markets to keep corruption at bay.”
Granted, a lack of corruption could very well give rise to market reforms and increased economic freedom instead of the other way around. However, recent research on China’s anti-corruption reforms suggests that markets may actually pave the way for anti-corruption reforms. Summarizing the implications of this research, Lin et al. explain,
Reducing corruption creates more value where market reforms are already more fully implemented. If officials, rather than markets, allocate resources, bribes can be essential to grease bureaucratic gears to get anything done. Thus, non-[state owned enterprises’] stocks actually decline in China’s least liberalised provinces – e.g. Tibet and Tsinghai – on news of reduced expected corruption. These very real costs of reducing corruption can stymie reforms, and may explain why anticorruption reforms often have little traction in low-income countries where markets also work poorly. China has shown the world something interesting: prior market reforms clear away the defensible part of opposition to anticorruption reforms. Once market forces are functioning, bribe-soliciting officials become a nuisance rather than tools for getting things done. Eliminating pests is more popular than taking tools away … A virtuous cycle ensues – persistent anticorruption efforts encourage market-oriented behaviour, which makes anticorruption reforms more effective, which further encourages market oriented behaviour.
There is also evidence that suggests that more government fingers in the pies increases corruption. For example, a 2017 study finds that larger municipality councils in Sweden result in more corruption problems. A 2009 study finds that more government tiers and more public employees lead to more bribery. Finally, a 2015 study shows that high levels of regulation are associated with higher levels of corruption (likely because of regulatory capture).
So while some may think socialism couldn’t have crippled Venezuela because Sweden, they’re wrong. And wrong in a big way.
Categories Economics, News, Politics, Social Science, SocietyLeave a comment
More on Trump’s Trade War
I’ve touched on one of these papers before, but NBER Digest has a nice rundown of recent work on Trump’s trade war. One study finds
that the costs of the new tariff structure were largely passed through as increases in U.S. prices, affecting domestic consumers and producers who buy imported goods rather than foreign exporters. The researchers estimate that the tariffs reduced real incomes by about $1.4 billion per month. Due to reduced foreign competition, domestic producer prices also increased. The prices of manufactured goods rose by one percentage point relative to a no-trade-war scenario. The reduction in real incomes represents the welfare cost of higher consumer prices, less the government revenue collected by the tariffs and the additional income of domestic producers who were able to sell their products at higher prices.
This could end up being “especially costly for multinational companies that have made substantial sunk-cost investments in supply chains in other countries, for example by relying on facilities in China or other impacted countries. The study estimates that around $165 billion worth of trade has been rerouted to avoid them.”
Another study
estimate[s] that the new tariff regime reduced U.S. imports by 32 percent, and that retaliatory tariffs from other countries resulted in an 11 percent decline of U.S. exports. They use these responses to estimate import demand and export supply elasticities, and then apply these estimates to calibrate a general equilibrium model of the U.S. economy with detailed input-output linkages. They estimate that higher prices facing U.S. consumers and firms who purchased imported goods generated a welfare loss of $68.8 billion, which was substantially offset by the income gains to U.S. producers who were able to charge higher prices ($61 billion). The researchers estimate the resulting real income decline at about $7.8 billion per year, a value broadly comparable to the net income decline estimated in the previous study.
What’s more, “The average real wage of workers in tradeable sectors declined by 0.7 percentage points, with a standard deviation of 0.4 percentage points across counties, with workers in the Midwest suffering more than those in other regions.” The protectionist policies also appear to be (of course) political. It turns out that “the U.S. tariffs protected industries that tended to employ workers in the most politically competitive counties. Foreign governments imposed retaliatory tariffs in sectors based in more Republican-leaning counties. The researchers estimate that counties with at least an 85 percent Republican vote share bore losses over 50 percent greater than counties in which the Republican vote share was less than 15 percent.”
Does Religion Lead to Good Sex?
Drawing on a new IFS study, David French writes in the National Review,
How many happy, sexually vibrant religiousmarried couples have you seen on popular television shows or movies — even in this era of fragmented, targeted entertainment? Now, compare that number (which is very, very close to zero) with the number of times you’ve seen liberation from religion portrayed as the key to sexual fulfillment.
How many times, amid the celebrations of sexuality on college campuses, do you hear the speakers at the various “sex weeks” say something like, “If you really want to improve your odds of enjoying a sexually satisfying life with a faithful partner, you might want to check out church”? Or how many wonkish progressives — the very people most likely to share charts and graphs about the effects of public policies or to pass around the latest social science about race, gender, and gender identity — will dwell on charts such as these, from the invaluable Institute for Family Studies:
The global data reflected the U.S. reality. Highly religious couples “enjoy higher-quality relationships and more sexual satisfaction” compared with mixed or entirely secular couples. Moreover, in the global study, religion has an increasingly positive influence on fertility. Religious couples had “0.27 more children than those who never, or practically never, attend.”
Sadly, however, religious practice was “not protective against domestic violence.” There was no statistically significant difference in risk between secular and religious couples.
The IFS study doesn’t just explode progressive cultural stereotypes of unhappy, sexless religious prudes. Conservatives often think of feminists (especially secular feminists) as angry and joyless. But the study indicates otherwise. There was a “J-Curve in overall relationship quality for women.” It turns out that women in “shared secular, progressive relationships enjoy comparatively high levels of relationship quality.” They were surpassed only by “women in highly religious relationships, especially traditionalists.”
Less sex may also be contributing to less happiness. “IFS senior fellow Bradford Wilcox and IFS research fellow Lyman Stone followed Julian’s work by examining whether the sex recession was related to the measurable decline of happiness in America’s young adults. They concluded that “changes in sexual frequency can account for about one-third of the decline in happiness since 2012 and almost 100 percent of the decline in happiness since 2014.”” In short, the sexual revolution has brought about
its own brand of unhappiness, including — ironically enough — sexlessness…Sexual liberation has all too often brought neither sex nor liberation, and thanks to the work of the IFS, we can respond to felt need with real data. Are you seeking love in this life? The church doors are always open, and while matchmaking isn’t its purpose, the connection to a holy God carries with it connection to his flawed people, and in those connections you can find profound joy.
Categories Religion, Social Science, SocietyLeave a comment
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National Inspectorates - Ireland
The Health & Safety Authority (HSA) is the main Competent Authority for REACH enforcement in Ireland, along with the Pesticide Registration and Control Division of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The HSA is also the Competent Authority for CLP enforcement along with the Pesticide Registration and Control Division and the National Poisons Information Centre of Beaumont Hospital Board.
The HSA enforces a wide range of workplace safety & health related legislation in Ireland through its inspectorate staff, which is organised according to various specialities including the safe management & use of chemicals. Enforcement covers a range of activities to ensure compliance, from providing advice and information, to issuing Improvement and Prohibition Notices, and taking prosecutions in the courts. Inspectors of the Health and Safety Authority carry out reactive and pro-active inspections of workplaces. Reactive inspections may arise following an accident, incident or complaint. Pro-active inspections may be routine or targeted. Further information on HSA enforcement is available on the enforcement section of the HSA website.
For both REACH and CLP enforcement, a number of specialised chemical enforcement inspection teams are involved. They include those who are responsible for enforcing the provisions of the EU major accident hazards Directive, and the EU Chemical Agents Directive. These specialist inspectors are trained and supported by a team of policy and technical experts on REACH & CLP legislation from the Chemicals Policy & Services division of the HSA.
Authorities responsible for REACH enforcement
The Health and Saftery Authority (HSA) - Lead Competent Authority for enforcement of REACH in Ireland, covering all elements of REACH, including Registration, Authorisation, Restriction, and Downstream User obligations etc., in relation to all substances except those which are generally termed as pesticides (i.e. plant protection products or biocides), for which the Pesticide Registration and Control Division have exclusive responsibility.
The Pesticide Registration and Control Division ((PRCD) of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is responsible for implementing the regulatory system for plant protection products and biocidal products, and the national regulations controlling pesticide residues in food. PRCD is responsible for enforcement of all relevant aspects of the REACH Regulation in relation to plant protection products or biocides, including Restrictions, & Downstream User obligations.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) - It has responsibilities for a wide range of licensing, enforcement, monitoring and assessment activities associated with environmental protection. The EPA has responsibility for enforcement of REACH in relation to environmental pollution.
Authorities responsible for CLP enforcement
The Health and Safety Authority (HSA) - Main Competent Authority for enforcement of CLP in Ireland, covering all elements of the regulation including classification, labelling, packaging of substances and mixtures as well as notification of classification and labelling information to the Inventory at ECHA in relation to all substances except those which are generally termed as pesticides (i.e. plant protection products or biocides), for which the Pesticide Registration and Control Division have exclusive responsibility.
The Pesticide Registration and Control Division of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is responsible for covering all elements of the CLP regulation including classification, labelling, packaging and notification of classification and labelling information to the Inventory at ECHA in relation to all substances which are generally termed as pesticides (i.e. plant protection products or biocides).
The National Poisons Information Centre of Beaumont Hospital Board has been appointed as the body responsible for receiving information relating to emergency health response under Article 45 of CLP regulations.
Authorities responsible for Biocides enforcement
The Pesticide Registration and Controls Division
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Shibden Hall is a Grade II* listed historic house located in a public park at Shibden, West Yorkshire, England. The building has been extensively modified from its original design by generations of residents, although its Tudor half-timbered frontage remains its most recognisable feature.
Shibden Hall in 2010
Location within West Yorkshire
Lister’s Road, Halifax, West Yorkshire, England HX3 6XG
53°43′41.7″N 1°50′24″W / 53.728250°N 1.84000°W / 53.728250; -1.84000Coordinates: 53°43′41.7″N 1°50′24″W / 53.728250°N 1.84000°W / 53.728250; -1.84000
Historic house museum.
Listed Building – Grade II
Shibden Hall front view
Shibden Hall from the park walk ways.
One of its most notable residents was Anne Lister who inherited the hall from a relative. Lister has been described as being the first modern lesbian due to her ‘love of the fairer sex’ that she documented in her diaries.[1]
The hall dates back to around 1420, when it was recorded as being inhabited by one William Otes.[2] Prior to 1619, the estate was owned by the Savile and Waterhouse families. The three families' armorial symbols are recorded in a stone-mullioned 20-light window at the hall.[3]
For 300 years (c. 1615–1926) the Shibden estate was in the hands of the Lister family, wealthy mill-owners and cloth merchants, the most famous resident being Anne Lister (1791–1840), who became sole owner of the hall after the death of her aunt. She commissioned York architect John Harper and landscape gardener Samuel Gray in 1830 to make extensive improvements to the house and grounds. A gothic tower was added to the building for use as a library and the major features of the park created, including terraced gardens, rock gardens, cascades and a boating lake.[4] A "Paisley shawl" garden designed for the terrace by Joshua Major was added in the 1850s. After Anne Lister's death in 1840 in the Caucasus, the estate passed to her partner, Ann Walker, who died in 1854 after being forced into an asylum by her family. Possession then returned to the Lister family, who donated it to Halifax Corporation in 1933,[5] who in the next year opened it as a museum.[6] The estate became a public park in 1926 and the hall a museum in 1934.
The property has been a Grade II* listed building since 27 January 2000.[5] The park and gardens were restored between 2007 and 2008 with almost £3.9 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund and £1.2 million from Calderdale Council.[7]
The hall is currently open to the public, the 'West Yorkshire Folk Museum' being housed in an adjoining barn and farm buildings. The hall has a variety of restored workshops, including a brewery, a basket-weaving shop, a tannery, a stable and an extensive collection of horse-drawn carriages. The park also contains a dry stone walling exhibition, children's play area and miniature steam railway.[8][9]
The hall has been used for filming the movie Peterloo and the 2019 BBC/HBO television series Gentleman Jack, about its former owner Anne Lister.[10][11]
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Shibden Hall.
^ Woods, Rebecca (3 May 2019). "The Life and Loves of Anne Lister". BBC News. Retrieved 10 June 2019.
^ Shibden Hall, Halifax at BBC History Magazine
^ Shibden Hall: Introduction at Calderdale Council
^ Shibden Park: Shibden's historic landscape Archived 28 August 2008 at the Wayback Machine at Calderdale Council
^ a b Historic England. "Shibden Hall (Grade II) (1001470)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 6 January 2019.
^ "Shibden Hall, Halifax". Retrieved 17 March 2018.
^ Shibden Park: The restoration project Archived 25 July 2008 at the Wayback Machine at Calderdale Council
^ "Shibden Miniature Railway | Britain's Great Little Railways". www.bglr.org. Retrieved 6 January 2019.
^ "Shibden Park". www.calderdale.gov.uk. Retrieved 6 January 2019.
^ Hirst, Ian (17 April 2018). "Shibden Hall to close for 17 weeks as filming begins for Sally Wainwright drama". The Halifax Courier. Retrieved 6 January 2019.
^ "Shibden Hall". screenyorkshire.co.uk. Retrieved 6 January 2019.
Hanson, T. W., 1934, A Short History of Shibden Hall County Borough of Halifax/William Patterson Printers. 32 pp.
The Restoration and Enhancement of Shibden Park at Landscape Institute Yorkshire & Humber Branch
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Joseph-Nicolas Delisle
(1688-04-04)4 April 1688
11 September 1768(1768-09-11) (aged 80)
Delisle scale
Doctoral advisor
Jacques Cassini
Johann Hennert
Jérôme Lalande
Joseph-Nicolas Delisle (4 April 1688 – 11 September 1768) was a French astronomer and cartographer.
2 Expedition to Siberia
2.1 Non-astronomical scientific observations
2.2 Delisle's "cabinet de curiosité"
3 The Atlas Rossicus
He was born in Paris, one of the 11 sons of Claude Delisle (1644–1720). Like many of his brothers, among them Guillaume Delisle, he initially followed classical studies. Soon however, he moved to astronomy under the supervision of Joseph Lieutaud and Jacques Cassini. In 1714 he entered the French Academy of Sciences as pupil of Giacomo Filippo Maraldi.[1] Though he was a good scientist and member of a wealthy family he did not have much money.
In 1712 he set up an observatory at the Luxembourg Palace and after three years moved to the Hotel de Taranne. From 1719 to 1722 he was employed at the Royal observatory, before returning to his observatory at the Luxembourg Palace.[2] In 1724 he met Edmond Halley in London and, among other things, discussed transits of Venus.[3]
His life changed radically in 1725 when he was called by the Russian czar Peter the Great to Saint Petersburg to create and run the school of astronomy. He arrived there only in 1726, after the death of the czar. He became quite rich and famous, to such an extent that when he returned to Paris in 1747, he built a new observatory in the palace of Cluny, later made famous by Charles Messier. Also he received the title of Astronomer from the Academy. In Russia he prepared the map of the known North Pacific that was used by Vitus Bering.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1725[2] and a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1749. In 1760 he proposed that the international scientific community co-ordinate observations of the 1761 Transit of Venus to determine the absolute distance of the Earth from the Sun. He developed a map showing where on Earth this transit would be visible and thus where various observing stations should be located. Actual implementation of these observational efforts were hindered by the Seven Years' War.[3] In 1763 he retired to the Abbey of St Genevieve, dying in Paris sometime in 1768.
Expedition to Siberia[edit]
In 1740 Delisle undertook an expedition to Siberia with the object of observing from Beryozovo the transit of Mercury across the sun. An account of the expedition is given in Volume 72 of the L'Histoire générale des voyages (1768).[4] Delisle and his party set out from St. Petersburg on 28 February 1740, arriving in Beryozovo, on the bank of the River Ob, on 9 April, having travelled via Moscow, the Volga, and Tyumen. On 22 April, the date of the transit of Mercury, the sun was obscured by clouds, however, and so Delisle was unable to make any astronomical observations.[5] Delisle arrived back in St. Petersburg on 29 December 1740, having sojourned in Tobolsk and Moscow en route.
Non-astronomical scientific observations[edit]
Throughout the expedition, Delisle recorded numerous ornithological, botanical, zoological (e.g. the Siberian beaver[6]), geographical, and other scientific observations. In the "Extrait d'un voyage fait en 1740 à Beresow en Sibérie" published in the Histoire Générale des Voyages, Delisle's ethnographic observations on the native peoples he encountered (the Votyaks,[7] Ostyaks,[8] Tartars,[9] Voguls,[10] and Chuvash[11]) include details of their religious beliefs, marital customs, means of subsistence, diet, and costume. It seems that Delisle even planned to write a general study of the peoples of Siberia.[12] In Delisle's unpublished papers there is a document entitled "Ordre des informations à faire sur chaque différente nation", which gives a structured outline of the ethnographic data to be collected for each particular Siberian nation: its history, geographical area, relations with other ruling powers, system of government, religion (e.g. belief in God, the Devil, life after death), knowledge in the arts and sciences, physical characteristics, costume, occupations, tools, mores, dwellings, and language.[12]
Delisle's observatory in Beryozovo (marked a.), from Continuation de l'histoire générale des voyages, vol. 72 (1768)
Delisle's "cabinet de curiosité"[edit]
On 30 June 1740, Delisle visited a monastery in Tobolsk, where in addition to Russian and Old Church Slavonic manuscripts he was shown a mammoth tusk and other bones "d'une grandeur extraordinaire".[13] The abbot recounted to Delisle that the previous year (1739) a Siberian merchant by the name of Fugla, already famous for his prodigious strength (he had fought and killed a bear with his bare hands), further added to his fame when he found near Yeniseisk an intact mammoth head "d'une grosseur étonnante."[13] Delisle himself was an indefatigable collector and during his Siberian expedition he took every opportunity to add to his "cabinet de curiosité", bringing back with him not only copies of manuscripts and mammoth bones like those he had seen in Tobolsk, but also "objets hétéroclites," which included items of Ostyak costume, a Samoyed quiver, a bark bucket, rare stones, and Tobolsk porcelain ware.[14]
The Atlas Rossicus[edit]
The plan for a map of the Russian Empire was launched by Peter the Great, but did not come to fruition until two decades later, in the reign of Empress Anna.[15] Ivan Kirilov (1689–1737), the first director of the imperial Cartographic Office, had Delisle officially invited to Russia with a view to his collaborating on the proposed map of the empire.[16] However, Delisle and Kirilov clashed on how best to draw up the maps, with the former favouring the establishment of a network of astronomically determined points, a very time-consuming process, and the latter arguing for surveying based on geographical features as reference points, subsequently to be adjusted to the astronomically determined points.[16] Using his own methods, but consulting Delisle for expert advice, Kirilov published in 1734 a general map and the first fourteen regional maps of an intended series of 120.[16] The edition was abandoned after Kirilov's death in 1737. It was not until 1745 that the Academy in Saint Petersburg finally published a complete Atlas Rossicus, in Latin and Cyrillic script, consisting of a general map and 29 regional maps (Атлас Российской/Atlas Rossicus, Petropoli, 1745–1746).[12] Delisle worked on the atlas in the 1730s, but his extreme scientific rigour considerably slowed its progress.[16] For this reason, in 1740, while he was absent from the capital, undertaking his expedition to Siberia, Delisle was officially dismissed from the supervisory board in charge of the atlas.[12] Schumacher, the secretary of the Academy, even went so far as to accuse him of sending secret documents to France.[12] Increasingly isolated at court, Delisle requested permission to leave Russia in 1743, which was granted four years later.[12] In the meantime, the Atlas Rossicus was submitted for publication in Delisle's name. In History of Cartography, Leo Bagrow argues that "by rights [the atlas] should not bear his name,"[16] but Marie-Anne Chabin, an expert on Delisle's life and unpublished manuscripts, concludes: "Despite all, Joseph-Nicolas Delisle should be regarded as its main architect."[12]
Delisle is mostly known for the Delisle scale, a temperature scale he invented in 1732. The crater Delisle on the Moon, and the asteroid 12742 Delisle are named after him.
^ Hockey, Thomas (2009). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer Publishing. ISBN 978-0-387-31022-0. Retrieved 22 August 2012.
^ a b "Library and Archive Catalogue". Royal Society. Retrieved 8 March 2012. [permanent dead link]
^ a b Wulf, Andrea. Chasing Venus: The Race to Measure the Heavens. New York City: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. 2012, Chap. 1.
^ Continuation de l'Histoire Générale des Voyages, ou Collection Nouvelle, 1°. des Relations des voyages par mer, découvertes, observations, descriptions, Omises dans celle de feu M. l'Abbé Prevost, ou publiées depuis cet Ouvrage, 2°. des Voyages par terre faits dans toutes les parties du monde, contenant Ce qu'il y a de plus remarquable, de plus utile & de mieux avéré dans les Pays où les Voyageurs ont pénétré; avec les Mœurs des Habitans, la Religion, les Usages, Arts, Sciences, Commerce, Manufactures, &c., vol. 72, Paris: Chez Rozet, 1768, pp. 84–217.
^ Rozet (1768), p. 118.
^ Rozet (1768), pp. 90–91.
^ Rozet (1768), pp. 103–104, 106–108, 113, 141.
^ Rozet (1768), pp. 148–151, pp. 166–168.
^ Rozet (1768), pp. 172–173.
^ a b c d e f g Marie-Anne Chabin, "L'astronome français Joseph-Nicolas Delisle à la cour de Russie dans la première moitié du XVIIIe siècle," in L'influence française en Russie au XVIIIe siècle, ed. Jean-Pierre Poussou, Anne Mézin, and Yves Perret-Gentil, Institut d'Études Slaves, Presses de l'Université de Paris-Sorbonne, Paris, 2004, pp. 514–515.
^ a b Rozet (1768), pp. 156–157.
^ Chabin (2004), pp. 516–518.
^ Chabin (2004), p. 512.
^ a b c d e Leo Bagrow, History of Cartography, 2nd edition, revised and enlarged by R. A. Skelton, trans. D. L. Paisley, Chicago: Precedent, 1985, p. 175.
Joseph-Nicolas Delisle at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
His letters - from and to him - are available, digitized by the Paris Observatory digital library.
MGP: 112788
SNAC: w60s22t3
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joseph-Nicolas_Delisle&oldid=838480814"
Scientists from Paris
French astronomers
18th-century astronomers
Members of the French Academy of Sciences
Collège de France faculty
Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
Fellows of the Royal Society
Full Members of the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences
Honorary Members of the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences
EngvarB from July 2017
Wikipedia articles with MGP identifiers
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martin November 12, 2018 Politics
Veterans Day and Immigrants
Yesterday, Americans observed Veterans Day. Today many readers are off because of Veterans Day. Veterans Day is an official federal holiday for honoring military veterans. It celebrates the service of all U.S. military veterans. Those include thousands of immigrants who fight for America’s ideals across the globe.
There is no doubt that immigration is a difficult political topic today. One of the narratives about immigration to the United States centers on the dangers to Americans. This is in addition to job losses and stresses on national taxpayer funded benefits, not to mention cultural diversity. Lost in the loudest narratives is the services immigrants have traditionally delivered to Americans. One of these is serving in the military.
About 8,000 immigrants enlist in armed services each year. This has been a tradition since the Revolutionary War. More than 100,000 immigrants, many of them undocumented, have served in the military since 2003, when the government began to release statistics of foreign military service members. One source documents that 80,000 foreigners served between 1999 and 2010.
In 2016, 3 percent (511,000) of the service members were foreign born. Mexico was the top source country sending their citizens to fight for America. Each of the Mexicans have distinguished themselves in all branches of the American military. They’ve distinguished themselves to the point that seven Mexican citizens, including one undocumented, have been awarded the Medal of Honor, America’s highest award.
One of the arguments for “legal” immigrants is that foreigners can acquire their U.S. citizenship through service in the armed forces. However, when the military is adequately staffed it has no provisions for allowing foreigners to join their ranks prior to gaining legal entry into the country. For many, it takes years, even a decade, making them ineligible to join because of age. When military staffing is low, the U.S. government tacitly ignores its own immigration laws and allows foreigners to swell its military ranks.
Currently under draconian Donald Trump immigration policies, the U.S. military is not allowing foreigners to join its ranks unless they are legally in the country. Many immigrants who were extended the promise of citizenship via the military are currently being discharged by the military before they can attain their citizenship, leaving them undocumented in the country.
Regardless, immigrants consistently and in great numbers have come to defend and protect American lives even at the expense of their own lives.
Posted in Politics and tagged immigrants make america, immigration reform, politics. Bookmark the permalink.
RumpToons No: 106
Want to Understand the Fear of Being An Immigrant in America?
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Proposals for the refurbishment of the public toilets in Ilkeston Market Place and the installation of welcoming information boards in the town’s car parks have been given the go ahead at a meeting of Erewash Borough Council’s Executive.
Councillors approved the two projects, which will be funded using money secured by the council through a planning agreement when the Morrisons superstore off Nottingham Road in Ilkeston was developed.
The £40,000 refurbishment of the public toilets will include a new roof, external improvements, redecoration and re-tiling inside, new energy efficient LED lighting plus new counter tops, basins, taps and cubicle partitions. The work will also include improvements for disabled users.
The information boards will be installed in all of the council’s Ilkeston town centre car parks and would feature illustrative maps that would signpost places of interest, showcase what the town has to offer and provide useful directions.
Councillor Michael Powell, Erewash Borough Council’s Lead Member for Regeneration and Planning, says:
“These two projects will have a very positive impact on the town centre. The public toilets will be given a complete makeover and the information boards will provide a welcome to visitors – all helping provide a feelgood factor that, I’m sure, would be welcomed by residents.”
The council secured £250,000 from Morrisons under the planning agreement - called a Section 106 – with a legal requirement that the money be spent on improvements for Ilkeston town centre. Just over £53,000 was allocated towards the restoration of the ground floor windows in the old Co-op store to help bring the ground floor of the building back into use, while £100,000 was used for the refurbishment of the former Woolworth’s store.
The two projects total £50,000, meaning the council has £46,700 remaining for regeneration proposals that must be actioned, under the agreement, by 17 December this year.
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Day 52 – Houses of Parliament – Westminster Abbey – Parliament Square
A pretty meaty one this to the say the least; with two of inarguably the three most iconic and important buildings in London to cover off (the third being St Pauls’ Cathedral – sorry, Buckingham Palace). So most of today’s excursion is taken up with visits to the Houses of Parliament (or, more precisely, the Palace of Westminster) and Westminster Abbey, though we did manage to fit in a few actual streets to the south and west of those behemoths before circling back to Parliament Square.
Starting out from Westminster tube station we cross Bridge Street and head along the south side of Parliament Square to the public entrance of the Houses of Parliament at Cromwell Green. After an inspection of my ticket – I’ve booked the audio guide tour – I make my way down the ramp at the bottom of which the airport-style security check awaits. En route we pass the statue of Oliver Cromwell (1599 – 1658), one of only two in the grounds of the Palace of Westminster. The statue was erected in 1899 in the face of fierce opposition from the Irish National Party owing to Cromwell’s ravages against the Catholic population of Ireland. In the end Parliament only approved the statue because an anonymous benefactor, later revealed to be ex-Prime Minister Lord Roseberry, agreed to fund it. After his death Cromwell was originally buried, with great ceremony, in Westminster Abbey. However, following the restoration of Charles II, his body was exhumed and subjected to a posthumous execution and his severed head displayed on a pole outside Westminster Hall (for twenty-four years).
Given the scaffolding in evidence in the picture above, including the complete coverage of Big Ben, this is perhaps the time to note that, after series of protracted debates, both the House of Commons and the House of Lords voted in early 2018 in favour of a temporary decampment from the PoW to allow a long overdue so-called Restoration and Renewal programme to take place. They won’t be vacating the premises until 2025 however so you’ve still got plenty of time to visit before it’s closed down for six years (at least).
First port of call, and where you pick up the audio guide, is Westminster Hall (on the right above minus Cromwell’s severed head). This is the oldest part of the PoW and has, miraculously, survived intact since it was built by William II (aka William Rufus) son of William the Conqueror in 1097. The magnificent oak hammer-beam roof, commissioned in 1393 by Richard II, is the largest medieval timber roof in Northern Europe measuring 68ft by 240ft. In addition to the new roof, Richard also installed statues of every king of England from Edward the Confessor to himself in niches in the walls (only 6 now remain). Ironically, the first event to take place in the hall after Richard’s redevelopments was his own deposition by Henry IV in 1399. On 16 October 1834 a fire broke out in the Palace when two underfloor stoves that were injudiciously being used to destroy the Exchequer’s stockpile of tally sticks ignited panelling in the Lords Chamber. The two Houses were both completely destroyed but Westminster Hall was saved, partly by its thick Medieval walls and partly because the PM, Lord Melbourne, directed the fire fighters to focus their efforts on dousing the Hall’s timber roof.
There are a number of brass plaques embedded in the floor of the Hall commemorating events of historic significance that have taken place there, including the passing of the death sentence on Sir Thomas More in 1535. The stairs at southern end of the Hall were created by architect Charles Barry in 1850 along with a new arch window as part of his post-fire renovations. Turning left at the top of these stairs brings us to the entrance to St Stephen’s Hall above which can be seen the light sculpture New Dawn created by, artist-in-residence, Mary Branson, in commemoration of the campaign for women’s suffrage and unveiled in 2016.
St Stephen’s Hall started life as St Stephen’s Chapel in 1292 and was the in-house place of worship for the reigning Kings of England up to Henry VIII. In 1550, two years after the dissolution of the monasteries, Henry’s son Edward IV gave the chapel over to the House of Commons for use as their debating chamber. The chapel was destroyed by the fire of 1834 and was reconstituted as St Stephen’s Hall as part of Charles Barry’s restoration work. Following the destruction wrought during WWII the hall once again became the venue for sessions of the Commons from 1945 to 1950 while the Commons Chamber was being rebuilt.
On either side of the Hall are statues of famous parliamentarians including John Hampden, Robert Walpole, William Pitt and Charles James Fox and on either side of the doorways are statues of early Kings and Queens of England. The paintings on the walls depict various important events in British history, while the ten stained-glass windows, five on either side, depict the arms of various parliamentary cities and boroughs; these were damaged in air raids during the Second Word War and since restored.
St Stephen’s Hall represents the last opportunity to take photographs inside the Palace of Westminster; beyond here it’s strictly verboten. As a consequence I won’t dwell too long on the rest of the tour which takes us into the Central Lobby where we turn right to pass through the Peers Lobby, the Lords Chamber, the Royal Gallery and the Robing Room and back again. Traversing the Central Lobby for a second time gains access to the Members Lobby and the Commons Chamber. Now on the day of my visit neither of the Houses was sitting so it was possible to get right in among the green and red benches (though of course you’re not allowed to sit on them). When either of the Chambers are in session visitors can, of course, view the debates from the respective public galleries – no tickets required except for PMQs. The visitor’s gallery in the Commons is formally known as the Strangers’ Gallery. Back in the 1930’s according to my guidebook “any Foreigners desirous of listening to a debate” needed to apply to their Ambassadors”. There was also a separate Ladies’ Gallery back then though persons of the female persuasion had recently also been granted access to the main viewing gallery. The grilles referred to below were installed over the windows in the Ladies’ Gallery (earning it the nickname “the Cage”) so the women could see out but men could not see in, and therefore not be distracted by the women watching them. They were removed in 1917 following a petition from the London Society for Women’s Suffrage and just a couple of months after the passing of the bill giving the vote to women over the age of 30.
Once the tour is over we leave the HoP and head across to the South-West corner of Parliament Square and follow Broad Sanctuary down to the entrance to Westminster Abbey. As ever my timing is the complete opposite of impeccable since if I’d just waited a couple more weeks then the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Galleries would have been open. Reached via the newly-built Weston Tower, the first major addition to the abbey since 1745, these apparently offer stunning views down into the nave of the church as well as housing 300 treasures from the Abbey’s collection selected to reflect it’s thousand-year history. Still, I expect the queues are going to be absolutely horrendous. It’s busy enough on the day of my visit though having pre-booked a ticket online I get in pretty quickly. At £20 a time (£22 if you buy on the day) the revenue from visitors to the Abbey is probably sufficient to keep the Church of England solvent all on its own. Despite the crowds it’s not that unpleasant shuffling round; I suspect it’s the free audio guides rather than piety that keeps the noise to a minimum and the no-photography rule is universally adhered to.
Westminster Abbey can trace its origins back to the middle of the eleventh century when Edward the Confessor built a new stone church dedicated to St Peter alongside an existing Benedictine monastery founded around a hundred years earlier. This church became known as the “west minster” to distinguish it from St Paul’s Cathedral (the east minster) in the City of London. Unfortunately, when the new church was consecrated on 28 December 1065 the King was too ill to attend and died a few days later, his mortal remains being entombed in front of the High Altar. This set something of a trend since when King Henry III (1207 – 1272) had the Abbey rebuilt in the new Gothic style he died before the nave could be completed. Henry did however have time to transfer the body of Edward the Confessor (by then sanctified as Saint Edward) into a more magnificent tomb behind the High Altar in the new church. This shrine survives and around it are buried a cluster of medieval kings and their consorts including Henry III himself, Edward I and Eleanor of Castile, Edward III and Philippa of Hainault, Richard II and Anne of Bohemia and Henry V. Westminster Abbey is of course irrevocably linked with the history of the English/British monarchy. Every monarch since William the Conqueror has been crowned in the Abbey, with the exception of Edward V and Edward VIII (abdicated) who were never crowned. The ancient Coronation Chair can still be seen in the church. Elizabeth I was buried in the vault of her grandfather, Henry VII, in the so-called Lady Chapel which he had constructed in 1516. Her successor, James I, didn’t attend her funeral service but he later had a white marble monument erected in her memory in a chapel adjacent to the Lady Chapel. Although a few years after that he had a taller and grander memorial installed for his mother, Mary Queen of Scots.
But it’s not just royalty that’s buried and/or commemorated in the Abbey of course. When Geoffrey Chaucer was buried here in 1400 it was because he was Clerk of The King’s Works not for his literary achievements. However, nearly 200 years later, when Edmund Spenser (of Faerie Queene fame) asked to be buried next to Chaucer the concept of Poet’s Corner was born and continues to this day. Deciding which dead writers merit the honour of being immortalised in Poet’s Corner is the prerogative of the Deans of Westminster. Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Handel and Laurence Olivier are among those whose actual remains lie here while Shakespeare, Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Lord Byron and a host of others are memorialised in brass or stone. The most recent additions to the pantheon include Ted Hughes, Philip Larkin and David Frost.
As I noted already there’s no photography allowed inside the abbey so the next selection of photographs are all of or from within the College Garden and the Little Cloister Garden. Before we get to that those though I just wanted to record one personal highlight of the tour which is the murals in the Chapter House. These were painted in the late 14th century at the instigation of one of the monks of Westminster, John of Northampton, and depict scenes from the New Testament’s Revelation of St John the Divine (otherwise known as the Apocalypse). Only fragments of the paintings remain and many of those that do are extremely faint but this ghost-like appearance only adds to their macabre impact.
We exit the Abbey on its west side opposite the Crimea and Indian Mutiny memorial which sits inside a triangular island created by Victoria Street and The Sanctuary. Turning south we pass through the gatehouse of the octagonal turreted building known as The Sanctuary built to the design of Sir George Gilbert Scott in 1853-54. Nowadays this accommodates the Deanery of the Abbey and also the Attorney Generals’ Office.
On the other side of the gatehouse is Dean’s Yard which comprises most of the remaining precincts of the former monastery of Westminster, not occupied by the Abbey buildings. The East side consists of buildings occupied by Westminster School, the South by Church House, the headquarters of the Church of England and the West by Westminster Abbey Choir School.
Historically the Abbey was one of the last ecclesiastical sanctuaries to surrender its ancient rights, with the result that the precincts were largely occupied by the most undesirable and dangerous of inhabitants. They were held in check by the Abbot’s own penal jurisdiction, and by the knowledge that the Abbot could instantly expel them to their fate at the hands of the Common Law. Westminster School displays a royal pardon of Charles II for the King’s Scholars who murdered a bailiff harassing the mistress of one of the scholars in Dean’s Yard, allegedly in outrage at the breach of traditional sanctuary although it had been legally abolished by then.
After a circuit of Dean’s Yard we leave the same way we came in, head back up to Victoria Street and after a few steps to the left turn south down Great Smith Street. Take a right next into Abbey Orchard Street past the Department of Education building and down to the end where it forks in two by Companies House. This unprepossessing building is just the London office and information centre; the actual Registrar of Companies (for England & Wales) is down in Cardiff.
Taking the left fork we drop down onto Old Pye Street and continue west. On reaching Strutton Ground we turn south as far as Great Peter Street where we head back eastward. On the corner with Perkin’s Rents we have today’s pub of the day (the first in a long while), The Speaker. Aptly-named given its location of course and though it doesn’t look much from the outside the interior is salubrious enough and they do a damn fine bacon, brie and onion chutney bagel to go with a decent selection of beers. Used by male House of Commons researchers as a venue for mansplaining to their female colleagues (on the evidence of this one visit).
In Victorian times, the area round here was a notorious slum known as the Devil’s Acre. The houses were mostly occupied by what a contemporary described as “mendicants, hawkers, costermongers, lodging house keepers, thieves and abandoned females of irregular and intemperate habits” and it wasn’t unusual for 10 to 12 people to share a room. The slum was cleared from 1877 onward and the Peabody Trust built one of their estates to replace a large part of it.
We pass through the middle of the estate up Perkin’s Rents back to Old Pye Street then follow that east to its junction with St Ann’s Street and turn south back down to Great Peter Street. Here we turn east as far as Great Smith Street and head north towards the Abbey again. On the west side of the street is the Westminster Library which when it was built in 1891 incorporated a public baths and wash house. The baths themselves were removed in 1990 when that part of the building was turned into the Westminster Archive Centre but if you look in the top left corner of the picture below you can see the original sculpted panels of swimmers created by Henry Poole (1873 – 1928).
We turn right opposite into Little Smith Street which runs through to Tufton Street. At no.11 resides J. Wippell & Company, suppliers of clerical vestments and church furnishings. The Wippell family set up in business in the West Country in 1789 but this London shop was established just over a hundred years later.
Proceeding north up Tufton Street brings us to Great College Street where we turn right briefly, past the southern end of Westminster School, before diverting into Barton Street. Barton Street and Cowley Street, which comes off it at a right angle, are fertile ground for blue plaque hunters. No.14 Barton Street is the one-time home of T.E Lawrence (1888 – 1935) better known of course as Lawrence of Arabia. Lawrence lived here while writing Seven Pillars of Wisdom and account of his experiences working for British Military Intelligence in the near east during WW1.
Round the corner at no.6 Cowley Street Lord Reith (1889 – 1971), the first Director-General of the BBC, lived from 1924 – 1930. Despite having no broadcasting experience (though it’s hard to see where he would have got any at that time) he got the job as general manager of the newly formed BBC in 1922 and stayed in the lead role until 1938. He is memorialised by the BBC’s annual series of Reith Lectures which began in 1948.
Across the road no.16 was the home of legendary luvvie Sir John Gielgud (1904 -2000) from 1945 to 1976. Gielgud’s career spanned almost 80 years, ranging from leading roles in Hamlet and King Lear on the stage to playing the butler to Dudley Moore’s Arthur for which he won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
Nothing to do with these famous ghosts but if I could have my pick of somewhere to live in London then Barton Street / Cowley Street would be very high up on the list.
There’s a small second section of Cowley Street, perpendicular to the main stretch, which emerges back out on Great Peter Street. Then the next northward turning is Little College Street which takes us back to Great College Street from where it’s a short hop east to Abingdon Street, on the other side of which are the Victoria Tower Gardens. At the entrance to the gardens stands the memorial to the mother and daughter leading lights of the Suffragette movement, Emmeline (1858 – 1928) and Christabel (1880 – 1958) Pankhurst. The main feature of the memorial is a bronze statue of Emmeline by Arthur George Walker which was unveiled in 1930. Shortly after Christabel’s death the statue was moved to its present location and bronze reliefs commemorating her achievements were added.
On the river embankment wall is a green plaque in memory of Sir Thomas Pierson Frank (1881 – 1951) who as Chief Engineer for the London County Council during WW2 directed repair operations to public infrastructure including the Thames wall such that although this was hit at least 121 times during the war years the city never flooded.
Above left is a shot of the southern end of the Palace of Westminster showing the Victoria Tower after which the gardens are named. I mentioned earlier that there were just two statues in the grounds of the PoW and we pass the second of those as we return towards the Palace via Abingdon Street and through Old Palace Yard. The equestrian statue of Richard I (popularly known as Lionheart or Coeur de Lion) was created by Baron Carlo Marochetti (who collaborated with Landseer on the Trafalgar Square lions if you remember). The statue was originally produced in clay for the Great Exhibition of 1851 then funds were raised to enable it to be cast in bronze and it was installed in Old Palace Yard in 1860.
Having arrived back at the HoP we cross the road again and set off on an clockwise circuit of Parliament Square. Plans for the Parliament Square Garden were included in Charles Barry’s design for the new Houses of Parliament following the 1834 fire but the gardens weren’t laid out until 1868. The first batch of statues were erected between 1874 and 1883 as monuments to the nineteenth century Prime Ministers; the Earl of Derby, Viscount Palmerston, Robert Peel and Benjamin Disraeli. Most of the others were installed after the post-WWII redesign of the garden to commemorate both giants of 20th century British parliamentary history and iconic world statesmen. So, in the slides below, we have, respectively :
Nelson Mandela, sculpted by Ian Walters (2007) in the foreground with Sir Robert Peel sculpted by Matthew Noble (1876) beyond him and in the background Abraham Lincoln (1920).
Mahatma Ghandi sculpted by Philip Jackson (2015) in the foreground and Benjamin Disraeli sculpted by Mario Raggi (1883) behind him.
The most recent addition to the pantheon and the first woman to be granted the honour – Dame Millicent Fawcett (1847 – 1929) sculpted by Gillian Wearing (2018). The statue was erected to coincide with the centenary of women being granted the vote. Millicent Fawcett was a leader of the suffragist arm of the campaign for votes for women who were less militant than the suffragettes though unlike the suffragettes they didn’t call a halt to their campaigning during the First World War. The words on the banner her statue holds are from a speech she made after the death of suffragette Emily Wilding Davison.
George Canning sculpted by Sir Richard Westmacott (1832 but moved to its present location in 1949).
David Lloyd George sculpted by Glynn Williams (2007)
Winston Churchill sculpted by Ivor Robert-Jones (1973)
Final port of call for today is the Supreme Court Building which stands on Little George Street which runs parallel with the west side of the square. The building, originally known as the Middlesex Guildhall, dates from 1913 and was designed in the neo-gothic style by Scottish architect, James Gibson. The Supreme Court is the highest court of appeal in the UK but it has only been in existence since 2009; prior to that the House of Lords (or rather the Law Lords) occupied the top-tier of the British legal pyramid. It was the Constitutional Reform Act of 2005 that led to the creation of the Supreme Court in order to fully separate the legislature from Parliament. The Supreme Court doesn’t conduct trials as such; it sits in order to determine whether the correct interpretation of the law has been applied in civil cases that are referred to it for appeal. The Justices of the SC, currently numbering eleven and appointed by an independent selection commission, determine which cases they will hear based on the extent to which they raise ‘points of law of general public importance’. The same 11 justices also form The Judicial Committee of The Privy Council (JCPC) which is the court of final appeal for the UK’s overseas territories and Crown dependencies, as well as many Commonwealth countries.
Posted on June 17, 2018 Categories Architecture, Churches, English Royalty, Government, Local History, London, London history, London Streets, UncategorizedTags Abraham Lincoln, Big Ben, Charles Barry, Charles Dickens, Charles II, Chaucer, Companies House, Coronation Chair, David Frost, David Lloyd George, Dean's Yard, Devil's Acre, Disraeli, Edmund Spenser, Edward The Confessor, Emily Wilding Davison, Emmeline Pankhurst, George Canning, Handel, Henry Poole, Henry VIII, House of Commons, House of Lords, Houses of Parliament, Jane Austen, John Geilgud, John Hampden, Lawrence of Arabia, Lord Byron, Lord Reith, Mahatma Ghandi, Mary Branson, Mary Queen of Scots, Millicent Fawcett, Nelson Mandela, Oliver Cromwell, Palmerston, Pankhurst, Parliament Square, Philip Larkin, Richard The Lionheart, Robert Peel, Robert Walpole, Supreme Court, Ted Hughes, The Speaker, Thomas Hardy, Thomas More, Thomas Pierson Frank, Victoria Tower, Westminster Abbey, Westminster Hall, William The Conqueror, Winston Churchill, Women's SuffrageLeave a comment on Day 52 – Houses of Parliament – Westminster Abbey – Parliament Square
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The Student Government Association was installed on the University campus in 1939. It replaced a divided system in which men were represented by a Men's Student Government Council, women by a Women's Self-Governing System.
The constitution of the Student Government Association was drawn up in the spring of 1939 and went into effect in September of the same year when it was ratified by the student body. This constitution was revised in 1943 and the revised constitution is now in effect.
The Student Government Assembly is composed of the president, vice-president, secretary, treasurer, and twenty-nine members selected by and from the various colleges at elections held during the first and second semesters.
Officers: Carter Alan Glass, president; Fred Williams, vice-president; Pat Morrissey, secretary; and James Perry, treasurer.
Members of AssemblySpring 1954: Barbara Ashbrook, William Billiter, Johnny Brown, James Buell, Jack W. Clark, Carter A. Glass, Judith Griffin, Cliff Hagan, Kay King, John Kuegal, Lee Ann Leet, Jane Lewis, James Lyon, Tom McHenry, William Macklin, Louis Maradie, William Moody, James Moore, Pat Morrissey, Wendell Norman, David Noyes, Van Nutt, Ann O'Boark, William Podkulski, Charles Palmer, Diane Parr, James Perry, Glenn Sanderfur, William Shadoan, Alan Steilburg, Capp Turner, Fred Williams.
Members of AssemblyFall 1953: Wallace Fluhr, Frank Kelley, Mike Gangi, Joyce Hamrick, Ray Jones, Deward Johnson, Robert Shipp, Lois Smith, Frisby Smith, Vena Southwood.
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Fashion's Role at Art Basel Miami Beach Gets Bigger Every Year
When did art and fashion’s symbiotic synergy really explode and make Art Basel Miami Beach the FOMO-inducing event it is today?
Alex Travers
The energy in Miami right now is pulsating. Pumped, primarily, by the artery that is Art Basel Miami Beach. This annual gathering on Miami’s sunny shore rivals its older Swiss sibling, Art Basel, as the most-attended art-related event of the year. But one of the hallmarks of this South Florida–based fair -- which is drunk on velvet-rope parties, blaring music and pure artistic creation -- is its ability to galvanize both art and fashion fanatics alike.
The thing most often compared to Art Basel Miami Beach, as of late, is not Art Basel, Frieze, or The Armory Show, but New York Fashion Week. Despite slight differences in attendees (more curators and collectors at the art fair), and parties (Art Basel has the more-than-slight edge), there are many similarities.
I first went to Art Basel Miami Beach in 2008, the fair’s seventh go-round. (It was supposed to launch in December of 2001, however the attacks on September 11 moved the fair’s debut to December 2002.) Certainly, since 2008, the fair has changed dramatically. But so have I. When I first went, it was to impress a SoHo gallery owner whom I wanted to work for. (A position that I did indeed land, but ended up loathing.) Today, luckily, it’s to interview artists and designers, attend launch events (80 percent of which are fashion-related), and to gauge the fair’s influence on all aspects of pop culture.
This season, fashion is, yet again, at the forefront of the fair. (Right behind the art, of course....) Here's a little background on why the two gel so well: Like the contemporary art market, fashion experienced a renaissance after the Second World War. Couture shows, at first, were all about the clothes. But in the '70s and '80s, designers became the new stars. Then, a decade later, it was about the models. Today, it’s about the It girls, DJs, photographers, or anyone else in the mode mix. Street style has exploded and now influences how designers make garments. (Do you think a T-shirt with a Parental Advisory logo isn’t going to light up the blogs?) The art world is actually quite similar. It craves the same 24-hour attention. Bigger is better: Artists creating large-scale public sculptures or showing art as an experience are gaining the most recognition and street cred.
Musicians also put art and fashion on a pedestal. Jay Z, for example -- known for going around the fair with art dealer/gallerist Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn -- has been a big promoter of both worlds. It seems that he visits Art Basel both for the art and the parties. In 2012, I saw him at a Le Baron pop-up event at Pearl Restaurant and Champagne Lounge. A few months later, when “Magna Carta... Holy Grail” was released, he bragged about having the “Basquiat collab from Versace’s place” and parking “twin Bugattis outside the Art Basel.” No doubt, millions heard those lines. And perhaps thousands were inspired to see what Art Basel Miami Beach is all about, which I applaud.
But when did art and fashion’s symbiotic synergy really explode and make Art Basel Miami Beach the FOMO-inducing event it is today? Tough call, but I’ll give it my best. In 2009, major luxury brands started to open boutiques in Miami’s Design District. The city’s first rival to the Bal Harbour Shops -- an open-air mall with high-end stores, which is quite far from where Art Basel Miami Beach actually takes place -- was met with high praise. Christian Louboutin was the first luxe brand to open a boutique in the Design District. After its success, many others (Louis Vuitton, Maison Martin Margiela and Dior Homme) followed suit. And along with the openings came launch parties, book signings and art/fashion collaborations, which were all captured through the powerful lens of Instagram. Like. Like. Like.
And Art Basel Miami Beach has served as the best time to throw such shindigs, since "everyone" is in town anyway. Click back to Dec. 4, 2009 on photography website Patrick McMullan, and you’ll see party pictures from Viktor & Rolf’s private dinner at the Webster, as well as Lanvin’s Bal Harbour boutique opening. Who’s there? Joseph Altuzarra, the Misshapes, Derek Blasberg, Genevieve Jones, Karla Otto: all people synonymous with the fashion world who continue to come out year after year. Go further back to December 2005, and you'll still see plenty of fashion fêtes: a dinner for Valentino, parties for winners of the Hugo Boss prize, Nancy Gonzalez’s handbag collection launch. But in 2005, what you don’t see is as many of those marquee fashion names in the photos. It was in 2006 and 2007 -- right before the Great Recession -- when fashion’s favorites started flying south in droves. And they haven’t stopped.
As the years go on, it has often looked like Art Basel Miami Beach is more of a marketing exercise than a legitimate fair. At least from the outside, where people often say things like, "But nobody actually buys art there." Yet, in its 12th year, the fair is showing new assurance as a global force. It has even elicited satellite events, such as SCOPE Miami Beach, UNTITLED and Miami Project. Not a bad thing for the city and its commerce.
And, as the years go on, the art/fashion collaborations have become more legitimate as well. This year, for example, Christian Louboutin will show works by Carmelo Tedeschi at its boutique. Maison Martin Margiela will launch a cutting-edge project with Swarovski. And Jeff Koons will celebrate his balloon-like bottle for Dom Pérignon. Naturally, fashion folk will populate the respective parties -- and they’ll want to be seen doing it.
As fashion and luxury brands become more obsessed with the aesthetics of art, so do their customers and fan bases. Perhaps Art Basel Miami Beach has become a catalyst for these brands to tilt wittily to the commercialization of art. One thing’s for sure: The line between art and fashion has never been blurred more provocatively. But it’s made the fair a must-attend destination for every artistic type. Art lovers can be serious about art and take in as much or little fashion as they please. Fashionistas can do the same, but vice versa. Sound nice? It is, and it’s great to see it all happen and grow, even if you can’t make it in person. And in the world where there’s such a premium on image, Art Basel Miami Beach now takes the prize as the most exciting place for art and fashion to come together.
Art Basel Miami BeachNewsEvents
Here's How the Fashion World Did Art Basel Miami Beach
The 2016 edition of the fair featured an impressive number of industry-centric events — and we hit up as many of them as humanly possible.
By Rae Witte
DSquared2 Talks U.S. Expansion at Art Basel Miami
We caught up with the duo behind the Italian fashion brand at a dinner co-hosted with 'Interview' magazine and Performa.
Must Read: Victoria's Secret Fashion Show Drops to Its Lowest-Ever Ratings, Honoring the Fashion Figures We Lost in 2018
Plus, a guide to all fashion and art activations happening at Art Basel Miami Beach.
By Dara Prant
Moncler's Caped Crusaders Take Miami
Moncler and Miami are two words that wouldn't necessarily seem to go together. But amidst the festivities of Art Basel, this clothier associated most strongly with mountaineering wear celebrated its 60th anniversary in the most glamorous--and unexpected--of settings.
By Jenna Sauers
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Photography by Owen Bruce. Styling by George Antonopoulos. Hair, Matthew Collins for P1M.ca/L’Oréal Professionnel. Makeup, Sir John Barnett, celebrity makeup artist, L’Oréal Paris USA. Nails, Leeanne Colley for P1M.ca/Tips Nail Bar.
FASHION Magazine April 2017 Cover: Coco Rocha
Coco Rocha was an early adopter of all things social. She brings a dose of reality to the filtered online world.
By Noreen Flanagan
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Within 48 hours of Coco Rocha posting a 15-second video of herself posing for our live cover shoot, it had garnered 350,000+ views from her 1.1 million Instagram followers. It’s a simple clip of Rocha morphing from one pose to the next, until her earring drops and she catches it while continuing to work her angles. She called it her “#jedicatch.” “It was a silly little moment, but it got a lot of attention,” Rocha recounts a few days later. “It was pretty surprising.”
It’s not the only time a seemingly insignificant moment in this top model’s life has caught the attention of her followers. In fact, the very first time was back in January 2009, when she posted an image of a bird she’d photographed in Australia on her first blog account, Ohsococo (1.0). Today she and her husband/manager, James Conran, co-manage eight social media platforms with a combined following of 17 million, but back then she was one of the first models to embrace blogging. “There was nothing special about the bird photo; it was meant for friends and family,” says Rocha. “But when I got so many reactions and comments from followers, I realized ‘Hey, there’s something here; I’m not sure what, exactly, but people are interested in my life.’”
At the time, Rocha was taking a few months off from fashion. She had been travelling the globe for the past two years doing campaigns and photo shoots and wanted to get as far away from the fashion capitals as she could. Looking back, Rocha says the response to the post emboldened her to embrace this “new thing called social media.” It also signalled a shift in the power structure in the modelling world. “All of a sudden, readers and fans were letting the major brands and magazines know who their favourite models were and who they wanted to see in images and on runways,” she says.
“The fashion industry was supposed to be a fantasy world that was unattainable.”
Rocha continued to chronicle her experiences online, becoming one of the first models to have more than one million followers on Google+. Today, in addition to her considerable Instagram following, she has 1.57+ million followers on Twitter and six million on the Chinese platform Sina Weibo. Although today it’s expected that models embrace social media, that wasn’t the situation for Rocha in the beginning. “At that time, everything was hush-hush,” she explains. “The fashion industry was supposed to be a fantasy world that was unattainable and aspirational. And the model was part of that. You wouldn’t really know anything about her or her personality, and here I was trying to change that. It’s funny that some of the same people who told me I was ‘ruining the mystique’ at the time are now posting incessantly about what they ate for breakfast.”
What Rocha also discovered was that people were not only interested in her life; they wanted to hear her opinions on the industry from an insider’s perspective. In February 2010, she posted a blog on her Tumblr account in response to the critical comments that had been made about her size in The New York Times and the New York Daily News. She wrote: “I’m a 21 year old model, 6 inches taller and 10 sizes smaller than the average American woman. Yet in another parallel universe I’m considered ‘fat’…. This was the subject of major discussion this week and the story that was spun was: ‘Coco Rocha is too fat for the runway.’ Is that the case? No. I am still used and in demand as a model. In fact I find myself busier than ever….”
She went on to criticize the incongruencies between deploring the employment of children in sweatshops and the addictiveness of cigarettes yet encouraging young women to go to extremes to achieve a certain weight in the fashion world. She said designers, stylists or agents who push children to take measures that lead to anorexia or other health problems are ignoring their “moral conscience in favor of the art.”
Last fall, the 28-year-old model used her social platforms to show support for Bella and Gigi Hadid, who were being accused of having achieved success only because of their fame and not their talent. On an Instagram post, Rocha wrote: “I’ve been doing this modeling thing for a minute and I’d just like to say, for the record, Gigi Hadid and Bella Hadid are the REAL DEAL. Supermodels are back and I never thought it was possible.”
Rocha says that she wrote the note hoping to help counter some of the negativity being directed at the sisters, adding that they told her they appreciated her sticking up for them. “Some people felt they were privileged girls and that they didn’t deserve their fame, but we don’t know their lives or what they’ve gone through,” she says. “I think they’ve worked very hard to be where they are.”
She adds that, unlike her heyday on the runway (which she describes as the “top model” era), social media has fuelled a return to the supermodel period, in which the attention is more on the models than on the clothes. “I’m happy to see that happen to girls again,” she says.
“We’re looking for girls with personality, which is why social media is great for models.”
Rocha says she will encourage this awareness and respect with the 60 young women and men that she and her husband now represent as part owners of the global modelling agency Nomad Mgmt. They’re working alongside Damon Rutland, who founded Nomad in 2001, and Roman Young, who was Rocha’s agent when he was director at Wilhelmina Models.
“We’re not just looking for one sort of body type—everyone wants variety now,” she says, adding that social media is where they do much of their scouting. “We’re also looking for girls with personality, which is why social media is great for models.”
Rocha also coaches her models to approach their online profiles as a business and to use the global platform to protect their brand. “I’m not an emotional poster,” she says. “I don’t randomly start posting things and say how I feel right off the bat. I don’t think that’s smart. I’m also not always going to tell my followers what’s on my mind all the time. I have to think carefully about what goes up.”
It’s this thoughtful approach and strategy that guided the decisions she made after ELLE Brazil photoshopped out the bodysuit she was wearing on its April 2012 cover. Nudity, or even partial nudity, is something Rocha, a devout Jehovah’s Witness, doesn’t do. After much consideration, she took to her Tumblr blog to express her concern. “I strongly believe every model has a right to set rules for how she is portrayed and for me these rules were clearly circumvented,” she wrote.
It has been almost five years, yet the experience still bothers her. “I could have left it alone; because when you tell people you don’t like something, that’s when they search for it the most,” she says. “What do you do? Leave it alone and let most of Brazil see it or talk about it and then most of the world will see it? It was a hard decision, but we decided to post a response because I wasn’t proud of that cover.” Rocha adds that she’s grateful that her followers and most of the tabloids and press supported her. “Who wouldn’t?” she asks. “Imagine if you were walking down the street and all of a sudden someone came up to you and ripped off your shirt. I was making the same point. If that had happened in the early 2000s, I wouldn’t have been able to tell the world what I thought. Thanks to social media, I had a voice.”
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From left, the State Department's Alen Kirkorian, Government Acquisitions Inc. CTO Prem Jadhwani, DISA's John Hale and Benjamin Bergersen of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency discuss cloud.
Agencies of varying sizes think cloud adoption can give them greater flexibility.
Federal agencies continue to face impediments in moving applications to the cloud, and the cloud cannot be used for everything, but cloud migrations can deliver significant benefits for agencies, especially those that have global footprints.
That was a key takeaway of a panel at a July 12 MeriTalk event in Washington, D.C., “Federal Focus: The Cloud Generation,” in which federal officials discussed how cloud convergence is impacting their agencies.
Cloud can provide greater agility, give employees around the world access to data in real time and help cut costs, the officials said.
What Is Driving Federal Cloud Migration?
John Hale, chief of enterprise applications at the Defense Information Systems Agency, the Defense Department’s IT arm, said at the event that the Pentagon views cloud convergences “as the centerpiece toward data center consolidation.”
“It’s part of the overall federal data center consolidation efforts, which is really geared toward saving money in the long run, but more about freeing up space in the existing facilities so that we can focus more on mission data there,” he added.
DOD has a global mission, and it needs to deliver capabilities and data to millions of soldiers and civilian employees around the world every day in real time, Hale noted. At the same time, he said, DISA often deals with users who don’t trust the cloud.
“Cloud is not for everything,” Hale said, and all apps will not be moved to the cloud. Some DOD apps, which were designed in the 1980s, updated in the 1990s and are still being preserved today, will not be moved to the cloud.
The DOD is in favor of using an on-premises private cloud for mission-critical and sensitive data and putting non-sensitive data in public clouds, Hale said. “I always like to say, I don’t think Congress or the president or the American people would feel comfortable knowing that the nuclear command and control of our forces is being run on a public cloud,” he adds. “With that said, we have a need to keep certain things on-prem.”
At the same time, DOD is leveraging more public cloud, especially Software as a Service, he added, and less Infrastructure as a Service.
Meanwhile, Benjamin Bergersen, CIO of the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, said the agency sees cloud as a way to provide employees with flexibility.
USTDA supports American exports by establishing pilot programs for reverse trade missions that potentially turn millions of dollars of investments into billions of dollars in exports. USTDA’s staff operates around the world, and its Washington office is moving to a new location in the next few months, Bergersen said.
The agency still needs to deliver services and must decide what it will continue to move the cloud. Bergersen said the agency needs to assess the risks of that move, especially of services going down. USTDA is also thinking through new services it can provide “to be more mobile and more agile so it really doesn’t matter where our office is.” The relocation is a catalyst for moving more applications to the cloud, he added.
Millennial Workforce Embraces the Cloud
Alen Kirkorian, division chief of the Innovation, Strategy, and Security branch in the Office of the Chief Architect at the State Department, added that the agency operates in about 275 different locations around the world. The department needs to support employees, their families and officials from other agencies using those State Department facilities — as well as large offices in the United States.
State Department CIO Frontis Wiggins, appointed in November 2016 after three decades at the agency, has started to engineer a “fundamental shift” at the department’s Washington headquarters, Kirkorian said.
“He is really trying to drive us to this new model of really trying to push hybrid cloud solutions, with enclaves throughout the ecosystem,” Kirkorian said. “It’s actually very forward thinking, and it’s actually kind of scary to some of the folks at the State Department, because they’re used to doing things a certain way.”
The next generation of Foreign Service officers, Kirkorian said, are “the Facebook generation; they’re not the, ‘Oh let me sit behind this, excuse the reference, Wang computer. That’s the kind of closed-loop system [older employees are] used to, where everyone has to be in the office to do work. No.”
Millennial workers want to be able to do their work on the go or from anywhere, Kirkorian said, whether via a cloud-accessible electronic briefing book or using mobile tools to monitor an election or see how a development program at a school is progressing.
“Realistically, the cloud is now providing us the ability to do more of the outward-facing things,” Kirkorian added. “Obviously a lot of us all realize that we have a lot of data in our ecosystem, and that’s kind of what scares a lot of the security folks. The data, we don’t know what it is, and if it gets out, we’re not going to really know what the impact is going to be.”
Cloud, however, enables the State Department to deliver innovative services to its employees, he said. Innovation is “something that challenges us when it comes down to it,” Kirkorian said.
Yet simple innovations like an electronic briefing book can make life easier for officials, he said. “Innovation and transformation are really coupled together very tightly,” he said. “It’s really understanding the business process and helping to try and modernize it.”
The State Department has many legacy processes and a lot of data, Kirkorian said. Innovation requires looking at that in new ways. While it can be scary, he added, “I think it can really bring us, the new generation and the older generation, together to really move forward together to support the business.”
Hybrid Clouds
Private Clouds
Public Clouds
How to Know When It’s Time to Move to the Cloud
The Defense Department Faces Hurdles to Cloud Migration
How the State Department Is Transforming Its Technology
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Photos: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Germany_lifts_the_2014_FIFA_World_Cup.jpg
World Cup Predictions: Will Germany retain the trophy or will Messi finally fire Argentina to glory?
Posted by Forge Sports Team
in: Features, Sport
It’s June and that means only one thing: the 2018 World Cup in Russia is just a couple of weeks away.
Your 2018/19 Forge Press Sports Team have laid all their cards on the table and given some of their predictions.
It’s a dangerous game to play and all five of them will probably look daft at some point, but here we go…
Adam May (Head of Sport): France. My heart says Spain because I think they’ve learnt from a torrid 2014 World Cup, and I would love Andres Iniesta to claim another crown. I don’t think it’ll happen, though, and have instead gone for France. The power they have up front (Giroud will be a useful weapon and I still think it’s criminal that Arsenal sold him to Chelsea) will test most teams with 19-year-old Kylian Mbappé appearing in his first major international tournament, and they have driving midfielders that will help dictate the tempo. They have a strong defence as well and all the ingredients, as far as I can see, to win it. They’ve learnt from their 2010 debacle and are in a healthy position now. You only have to look at the players who didn’t make the plane to see their strength in depth.
Josh Taylor (Sports Editor): Argentina. People who have paid attention to the NBA play-offs will be familiar with a certain Lebron James, a near immortal player who has dragged his team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, kicking and screaming to the finals with some impressive performances. The Cavs are known as a team full of players who underperform and, inevitably, lean on James to pull them through, which he has done, and more. I feel you can draw comparisons from this relationship and apply them to Lionel Messi’s own with his national team Argentina. La Albiceleste are a team who struggled through the qualifying rounds and looked to Messi to pull them through and, shock, he did. With Messi coming off a more than adequate season from Barcelona I think he can do more of the same and it’s the Messi factor I believe will cause Argentina to pull off a dramatic upset.
Patrick Burke (Sports Editor): Brazil. Manager Tite has got the Seleção purring, and they finished ten points clear of nearest challengers Uruguay in qualification. He has got the best out of star-man Neymar, but with Gabriel Jesus and Philippe Coutinho forming a three-pronged attack, they are less reliant on him than in 2014. Centre-backs Marquinhos and Miranda should make Brazil more solid, and the emergence of Casemiro adds greater quality to the midfield. They also have the required fire in their bellies as they look to avenge their humiliation on home turf against Germany four years ago. It’s been 16 years since the record five-time winners were victorious on the highest stage, and this current side perhaps represents their best chance to end the drought.
Charlie Payne (Sports Copy Editor): Brazil. It sounds strange to say about the five-time World Cup winners, but Brazil have a point to prove, and I think they’re going to do it. They’ve banished the demons that plagued their 2014 campaign (i.e. having David Luiz and Dante in defence), and the boost of Neymar returning to fitness just in time for the tournament. A narrow victory over Germany in the final.
Michael Ekman (Online Sports Editor): Germany. It was a difficult choice between Germany or Spain in my mind, as I feel that Spain have recently started playing a more entertaining brand of football rather than their possession-based tiki-taka that we saw in 2008 up until 2014. They haven’t lost a game since manager Julen Lopetegui took over, either. Given that Germany have such depth in their squad, with basically every player being as good as the next one, I reckon they have more than enough quality to retain their title. Joachim Löw has consistently been able to bring Germany at least to the semi-finals of every tournament where he has been in charge and I don’t see why he would not be able to replicate his 2014 heroics in this tournament as well.
He won’t have as much pressure on him as he did in 2014 on home soil, but can Neymar fire Brazil to glory? Photo source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nazionalecalcio/26489423051
Surprise Wildcard:
AM: Nigeria. They are in a strong Group D, featuring the likes of Argentina, Iceland and Croatia and, while the overall winner of that group is nearly all but confirmed, Nigeria could represent a threat and surprise a few people.They reached the last 16 in 2014 and will have to win at least one of their first two matches to be within a chance though as they face Messi and co in their final group game on 26 June. Their opener against Croatia is key to their success but with Arsenal’s Alex Iwobi and Chelsea’s Victor Moses they possess pace and will oppose a counter-attacking threat. The question is whether they have enough firepower to finish teams off.
JT: Poland. It was quite hard to pick this team. Belgium have grown enough for them not to be a surprise and they should be aiming for the semis. I also think Croatia’s squad has grown too old to surprise anyone. I’m going to go with Poland. They have enough to get out of the group and with any luck could beat one of England or Belgium. They have a few younger faces like Milik and Linetty while also been captained by the lethal Lewandowski. They have enough to progress.
PB: Croatia. This is probably the last chance for the ‘golden generation’ to succeed at a major tournament, something the likes of Ivan Rakitić, Luka Modric and Mario Mandžukić will be acutely aware of. They proved their capabilities at Euro 2016 by topping a group which included holders Spain, and will be keen to set the record straight after a very disappointing, negative performance against Portugal in the round-of-16 denied them a favourable route to the final. The clash with Argentina in Nizhny Novgorod looks one of the highlights of the group stage. Jorge Sampaoli’s side (admittedly minus Lionel Messi) were recently humiliated 6-1 in Spain and scraped through qualifying, so if Croatia play to their capabilities, they could triumph in Group D and put themselves in with a shout of reaching the latter stages.
CP: Senegal. I think Senegal have the potential and the players in key areas to overhaul one of Poland or Colombia and get out of Group H. With Napoli’s Kalidou Koulibaly marshalling the defence, Idrissa Gueye buzzing around the midfield and the driving force of Sadio Mané in attack, they’ve got a great chance to raise some eyebrows.
MK: Iceland. We all remember Iceland’s unexpected endeavour in Euro 2016 but they seem even more likely to perform better now than they did then. It looks like they have built from that experience as they finished top of their qualifying group ahead of Croatia, Ukraine, and Turkey – three strong teams. While the only clear star player they have is Gylfi Sigurdssðn, they do not seem to be too over reliant on him performing well, and are still able to maintain an organised defence while also creating chances from counter attacks and set-pieces.
Golden Boot:
AM: Lionel Messi. He will have the weight on his shoulders but he looked sharp in Argentina’s recent friendly and will want to prove those who doubt he can win the World Cup wrong. He agonisingly lost out in 2014’s final as Germany were crowned winners and, while I don’t think Argentina will win the competition outright, Messi will fancy himself to bag a few goals in the group. He’ll be in tip-top form after a brilliant, title-winning season for Barcelona.
JT: Lionel Messi. Going through my logic of Argentina winning the tournament by way of Messi leading them, it’s only fair to say that he’ll net quite a few. I’ll go on record and say he’ll score eight goals. (Please Lionel, Please).
Messi will be looking to avoid World Cup heartache this year after losing the 2014 final. Photo source: https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fichier:Lionel_Messi_in_tears_after_the_final.jpg
PB: Antoine Griezmann. He was also the leading scorer at Euro 2016, comes off the back of another fine season at Atletico Madrid and is the main man in a French team packed full of talented, creative players. With group stage matches against Australia, Peru and Denmark, Griezmann could be well on his way to this honour by the time the knockout stages begin.
CP: Olivier Giroud. Bear with me on this one. Giroud is a nailed on starter for the French team as the focal point of the attack, and with such great creative players around him and with Les Bleus’ group so low on quality, I can see the big man notching a few on the path to the latter rounds.
ME: Antoine Griezmann. The Frenchman has been absolutely lethal for Atletico Madrid all season. He has shown several times that he is able to perform in big games, as was seen in the last European Championship and throughout Atletico’s Europa League-winning campaign. He will most likely start behind Giroud in a number 10 role but that’s where he performs best for France as he gets enough space to do what he does best – score goals.
Golden Ball:
AM: N’Golo Kanté. The man is a machine and will dictate France’s tempo and will brush off opponents with ease. With all the flair France possess going forward, he will be crucial to the team’s advancement in the competition, providing a protective wall in front of the defence and breaking up play. Players like Kanté often go unnoticed, but his input will be crucial. I’m being hopeful on this one and FIFA will probably give it to a flair player. Messi, anyone?
JT: Lionel Messi. He’s the darling of FIFA and if he leads Argentina to a World Cup it’s nailed on. However, I could honestly see Salah getting it, even if he only scores a goal and Egypt don’t qualify for the knockout rounds…
PB: Neymar. If Brazil are to go all the way, their talisman will play a huge part. He helped drag his team to the semi-finals last time around, where injury ruled him out of contention, and you sense that this is a footballer built for big matches in a similar vein to Cristiano Ronaldo.
CP: Philippe Coutinho. As previously stated, I think Brazil are going to lift the trophy in the Luzhniki Stadium, and Coutinho is going to be the pick of the squad. Neymar won’t be 100% having not played for four months, so it will be up to his Barcelona replacement to spur the Seleção on to glory.
ME: Neymar. As stated, I believe Germany will win the tournament, but I believe they will be facing Brazil in that final, a place that Neymar will have guided his team to. Even though he has been injured for most of the spring, he should have more than enough capability to guide Brazil throughout this World Cup campaign. With his quality in this Brazil team, I would imagine they put every opposition they face to the test.
Golden Glove:
AM: Marc-Andre ter Stegen. I can’t see Neuer starting after an injury-plagued season, so fully expect ter Stegen to take the reigns and showcase his talents. He’s a top-class keeper and will be tough to break-down.
JT: Manuel Neuer. This is an easy one. Germany have a completely sound defence and the keeper himself isn’t half bad, either. Spain seem to have lost all ability to compete at national tournaments and France have seen their defence hit with a costly injury to Laurent Koscielny.
PB: David de Gea. The Manchester United man has established himself as one of the world’s all round top goalkeepers. This tournament could make him the undisputed best of the lot.
CP: Either Manuel Neuer or Marc-Andre ter Stegen. I definitely think Germany’s goalkeeper will come out on top in the tournament, it just depends on which one plays. Neuer will certainly start if he’s fit enough, but hasn’t played all season so might not be risked, so ter Stegen would be the very capable deputy.
ME: Manuel Neuer (Given that he starts). It’s still unclear if Manuel Neuer will be Germany’s number 1 after missing basically the entire season due to injury. If he is deemed fit enough to play, he has to be seen as the most likely candidate for the award. Otherwise, it will probably be his compatriot Ter Stegen who’ll take the reins between the posts and bring home this award instead.
Best Young Player:
AM: Julian Brandt. The 22-year-old Germany winger may not get a lot of starts early on but his impressive wing-play could be a useful alternative for Joachim Löw’s men. He made his Bundesliga debut at just 17 for Bayer Leverkusen before playing against PSG in the Champions League three days later. He’s one to watch and, while it may be a tournament too soon to have a definitive impact, clubs will sit up and listen.
JT: Kylian Mbappé. France have an exciting young side and not one player in that side has a higher ceiling than Kylian Mbappé. He’s come off a great year with PSG and I think he’ll replicate that with France, he’s in contention to start and will be a more than capable provider for Antoine Griezmann.
Mbappé has stunned the world with his performances in the Champions League, but can he perform on the biggest stage of all? Photo source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kylian_Mbappe_celebrating_-_March_2018.jpg
PB: Gabriel Jesus. Although Kylian Mbappé could also be a strong contender, Jesus’ 20 goals in 39 appearances for Manchester City having just turned 21 is sensational, and he will relish his centre-forward role with Neymar and Coutinho either side of him.
CP: Leroy Sané. Off the back of winning Young Player of the Year in the Premier League, I think Sané will impress again. He and fellow German youngster Timo Werner add an injection of pace to the forward line that Die Mannschaft would otherwise lack, and can cause serious problems in the channels from Özil and Kroos’ pinpoint passes.
ME: Gabriel Jesus. The young forward will be essential to Brazil’s potential success in this tournament and is expected to start ahead of Roberto Firmino up front. He only has 15 caps for the Seleção but he’s scored nine times in those appearances and was instrumental in their qualifying campaign. He has every potential to be this World Cup’s brightest young star.
Where England will finish:
AM: Quarter-finals. Runners-up in the group after beating Tunisia and Panama before earning a draw against Belgium’s ‘golden generation’ (how long have we been saying that for now?) with Harry Kane leading the line. It says everything about the confidence among England fans that we’ve got a striker in Kane who has scored 30 Premier League goals this season and yet we still lack confidence. It’s an exciting Three Lions side that has flair, depth and a bit of stability with Delph and Dier in there, too. The back-three of Walker, Stones and Maguire is also exciting and the players certainly seem to be on-board with it. The lack of experience in goal concerns me but they have to get the experience at some point, so why not now?
JT: All roads lead to the quarter-finals. I think we have enough skill to see us through the group and past Colombia and Poland, if they qualify. But the possibility of teams like France and Brazil deeper in the competition? That will probably end our hopes. I can’t help but be hopeful Kane can perform where Rooney couldn’t and Southgate can utilise the pace at his disposal, we have a young and exciting squad but the increased media pressure may be too much for the Three Lions.
PB: Quarter-finals. The majority of the team have been mainstays for the last two years, and this tournament represents a huge opportunity. Belgium are a formidable outfit, but finishing lower than second in a group also containing Tunisia and Panama would be a disaster of Icelandic proportions. From there, Gareth Southgate’s men would face one of Poland, Senegal, Colombia and Japan – all good sides, but with match winners such as Alli, Sterling and Kane in the Three Lions’ starting XI, not progressing any further would have to be deemed a failure. A Brazil or a Germany would probably then have too much for England, but the last eight has to be the goal.
CP: Quarter-finals. I like this England side and the identity Gareth Southgate has started to build within it. I think we’ll come through the group on top, ahead of Belgium (under the slightly dodgy management of Roberto Martinez). We’ll then battle hard to beat the runner-up of Group H in the round of 16, before having our backsides handed to us by Brazil in Kazan on 6 July.
ME: Round-of-16. England have an interesting team and should be able to get some points from both Tunisia and Panama but I doubt they will finish above Belgium, leaving them in second place in their group. That means that they would most likely face either Poland or Colombia in the Round-of-16, two very strong teams that I reckon would triumph over England and send the Three Lions home.
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Burton Snowboards x BOA
Meet the Most Convenient Snowboard Boot and Binding Combo on the Planet
February 1, 2018 Sponsored By Gear Patrol Studios
Snowboard boots simply cannot be discussed at any length without mentioning the Boa Closure System. Its replacement to traditional laces — a system combining a micro-adjustable dial, tough yet lightweight laces and low-friction lace guides — can easily be referred to as the single greatest technological advancement in snowboard boots without much argument. The first commercially available boots with Boa dials debuted in the winter of 2001, and have become ubiquitous since. Replacing the cumbersome (and frankly painful) traditional laces found on most snowboard boots with the dial-based tension system not only made it remarkably easy to get your boots on and off, but it also allowed users to easily adjust the tension of their boot throughout the day, a necessity for snowboarders, whose feet swell as the day goes on.
More Sports and Outdoors
Some would have stopped there, opting to sell the technology to a larger brand or license the company’s countless patents to other outfits looking to develop similar technologies — but that’s not the route Boa took. Gary Hammerslag, its founder, had other plans. The brand continued to innovate and improve its technology, expanding into other categories — and evolving from two guys at a card table stitching things by hand, to a state of the art facility in Denver’s RiNo district in the process: a sizeable, ultra-modern space embedded with amenities such as a ground-level Brooklyn-worthy cafe that refuses to serve milk with your coffee alongside prototyping machines that even the most high-tech outdoor brands would lust over. But Boa still keeps the do-it-by-hand mentality — a quality that adds to its ability to stay nimble when working with partners. Initial prototyping can happen quickly in-house in a vast area just beyond the reception desk and main conference room. Despite ample room for testing and prototyping, Boa continues to grow and expand — so quickly in fact that the brand’s current office space has been outgrown in a matter of four years. Boa is in the process of building a new facility, just down the road from its current one, filled with testing and prototyping equipment (and, fingers crossed, perhaps a coffee shop that serves milk if you’re inclined to ask for it).
The single dial was just the beginning at Boa. The company pushed beyond the single dial, developing a dual-dial system that allows for two different tension zones and companies across every market of the outdoor industry wanted to work with Boa. The technology now appears on everything from cycling shoes, to helmets for all sports, medical equipment and even military gear. The brand’s commitment to growth and innovation has, perhaps, never been stronger than it is today. In a matter of hours, and sometimes even minutes, Boa can mock up and test a completely new product — thanks in no small part to an array of 3D printers, torture testing rigs and sewing machines. Boa even has its own cable and rope braiding machine (which is quarantined in its own room due to the noise it generates) where different types and combinations of materials and like Dyneema and nylon can be tested.
For Boa though, only so much innovation can happen in-house. It depends heavily on its partners to work cooperatively on ideas outside the box. But to be the most effective, Boa needs to be brought in early to the product design phase. “We’re starting earlier in the process now with some of our key brands,” said Boa’s Director of Research and Product Strategy Brett Vladika. “If you just put Boa on as a lace replacement, all you’re going to get is the replacement of a lace. [The] configurations — where you put the dial, where you put the lace, how you organize the lace going through the guides, how you are positioning all of that — we can program fit.” And fit is what Boa is best known for. Perhaps the best example of Boa’s dedication to innovation, fit and working with a client early in the process to push the limits is in its partnership with Burton Snowboards.
Five years ago, Burton began developing a product aimed at disrupting how snowboard boots interface with snowboard bindings (and in many ways, the snowboard marketplace as a whole). It was a ground-up development process that threw every preconceived notion of snowboard boots and bindings out the window. The project was top secret — there was a sealed off room in Burton’s Burlington Vermont headquarters dedicated to the endeavor. Those employees who were enlisted to work on the project were sworn to secrecy, unable to discuss it even with family members and significant others. The project was Burton’s new Step On system, and Boa was a natural partner for the project. Burton brought Boa in roughly three years ago, to help shepherd the project to completion and fine-tune fit and performance. Like the Burton employees, Boa’s team was also sworn to secrecy. For Boa, working with Burton brings the brand full circle — Burton was one of the first brands that Hammerslag initially sought to work with in the company’s early days. “It’s not about working with every brand,” said Boa’s Global Snowboard Lead & Sr. Account Manager Jeffery “Woody” Woodward. “We really want to work with the premium brands, the brands that are pushing technology in the market itself.” For Woodward, Burton certainly falls into that category.
The Step On system hinges greatly on boot design, and the prototype boot went through countless iterations. One of the most prominent features of any Step On boot is the heel strap that comes across the instep of the boot, much the way you’d see on a typical snowboard binding. The strap, however, is attached solely to the boot and features a Boa dial instead of a typical ratchet system. The strap works to lock the heel into the heel cup of the boot. Another prominent feature of Burton’s Step On boots is the use of New England Rope for cable on the Boa system. Burton is the only brand using New England Rope, a company known for producing rope used on high-end racing sailboats. As with any Boa product, performance and durability are paramount, and figuring out how the New England Rope would route through the strap and into the rest of the boot was one of the biggest challenges. Boa’s in-house prototyping team stitched straps and cable guides into an existing Burton boot in order to get a feel for how it would perform. It was one of the most involved snowboard boots that the Boa team developed (save for an eight-dial custom boot personally designed by one of Boa’s staffers).
But Step On doesn’t work with just a boot, the bindings play more than a small role. And to put it plainly, a system reminiscent — in both name and concept — to old step-in boots and bindings takes a lot of convincing for snowboarders who’ve experienced some of the older systems. Burton’s Step On couldn’t be farther afield from the old setups like K2’s Clicker. For starters, the boot connects at the heel and toe, the two main performance areas on a snowboard, instead of at the middle of the foot. The Step On bindings, while they don’t feature traditional straps, feel as though they do (thanks in no small part to the aforementioned Boa strap that comes across the instep). They also feature a traditional highback — the lack of which was one of the drawbacks of older systems — that allows for gratuitous carving and plenty of leverage. The most seasoned of snowboarders would find few faults in how the Step On system rides.
But the Step On system isn’t aimed at the 60-100 day per year rider (though it could easily satisfy even the most discerning riders that occupy that market). It’s aimed at riders that value simplicity and ease of use highly — that value the latest in snowboarding technology. Burton’s marketing materials dub the system: “the quickest and most intuitive boot to binding interface”. That assessment couldn’t be more accurate. No more sitting down to strap in after getting off the lift. No more having your skier friends wait for you to be ready. It’s a dead-simple, beginner-proof system and one that is enhanced by the use of the Boa Closure System. And one that turns heads on the mountain and in the lift line. In testing the system at Boa’s local ski resorts, a short drive from the Denver office, everyone from ski patrol, to lifties, to skiers and snowboarders had something to say about Step On. It’s a conversation starter at the least — intrigue is certainly a hallmark of any innovative product.
When asked whether most of Boa’s innovation comes from in-house developments or from collaborating with partners, Woodward had this to say: “We almost push each other. We push back on the brand to be innovative and then they push back on us as far as what they want from us and what their expectations are.” Regardless of where the innovation is originating, it’s good for consumers. The traditional shoelace can only take us so far.
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Community centers (including banks, town halls, post offices) ↑ knowledge about health and nutrition, ↑ food expenditures, ↑/NC food share, ↑ HH food consumption, ↑ dietary diversity, ↑ intake of MN (except for heme-Fe), ↑ HH intake of fruits, vegetables, and ASF, ↑/NC intake of fats and sweets, ↑ weight gain (greater among high BMI), ↑ participation in social networks, ↑ self-confidence, ↑ control over resources ↑ knowledge about health and nutrition, ↑ HH food security, ↑ food expenditures, ↑/NC food share, ↑ HH food consumption, ↑ dietary diversity, ↑ HH intake of fruits, vegetables, and ASF, ↑/NC intake of fats and sweets, ↑ participation in social networks, ↑ self-confidence, ↑ control over resources, ↑ ANC coverage ↑ knowledge about health, NC hypertension, ↓/NC missed meals, NC food sufficiency, ↑ health care utilization
In addition, more research is needed to evaluate the impact of targeting women alone compared with targeting women alongside other members of their families and communities (e.g., with groups of other women, men, husbands, children, parents, in-laws, other family members, other community members, etc.). Interventions that targeted women with their children during child health visits or alongside other members of their communities through community mobilization and mass media campaigns showed improvements in knowledge and some health and nutrition behaviors of women. The inclusion of boys and men, for instance, as well as the inclusion of other family and community members, could enhance the impact and delivery of nutrition interventions for women through support of certain practices, reminders, time-savings, and normalization of nutrition behaviors. However, more research is needed to identify effective targeting mechanisms (i.e., alone or alongside other members of households and communities) and we expect that these will likely need to be context- and content-specific.
Women’s health magazines have always highlighted female celebrities at the peak of fitness: workout guru Jane Fonda next to a headline shouting “Perfect Your Body” on a 1987 Shape cover is a classic example. Peering at the local magazine counter this month, I noticed a lot of women’s health magazine still had life- and body-empowering messages, but they stressed the mental gains over the physical: “Your Best You!” next to Brooke Shields on the cover of Health; “Hot & Happy!” aside E!’s Maria Menounos. Shape magazine now even has an online section called #LoveMyShape, in which Orange Is The New Black star Danielle Brooks discusses how she learned to embrace her curves through her Lane Bryant ads, and model Katie Willcox wants you to know that you’re so much more than you see in the mirror.
We only included studies that reported on women's health and nutrition outcomes, and excluded studies that were targeted to women but that reported only on health and nutrition outcomes of children (including birth outcomes). We included outcomes for adolescent girls ages 10–19 y, pregnant and lactating women, nonpregnant and nonlactating women of reproductive age (>19 y), and older women. Studies that described interventions targeting a wider age range of adolescent girls (e.g., ages 8–24 y) were also included but adolescent girls aged >19 y were reported in this review as nonpregnant and nonlactating women of reproductive age. Although many adolescents in low- and middle-income countries are married and bearing children, adolescents (10–19 y) as reported in this review reflect girls who are nonpregnant and nonlactating. The few interventions in low- and middle-income countries that target pregnant and lactating adolescents are reported under pregnant and lactating women. A description of the articles included in this review can be found in Supplemental Table 1.
Markets and retail ↓/NC anemia, ↑ MN status (Hgb, Fe stores, ferritin, folate, iodine), ↓/NC goiter prevalence, ↓ folate deficiency, NC retinol-binding protein, ↑ dietary adequacy, ↑ intake of nutrient-rich foods (vitamin A, vitamin B-6, thiamin, iodine, riboflavin, niacin, folate, and Fe) ↓/NC anemia, ↑ Hgb, ↑/NC Fe stores, ↑/NC serum ferritin, ↑ serum folate, ↑ urinary iodine, ↓ goiter prevalence, ↓ folate deficiency, NC retinol-binding protein, ↑ dietary adequacy, ↑ intake of nutrient-rich foods (vitamin A, vitamin B-6, thiamin, iodine, riboflavin, niacin, folate, and Fe) ↓/NC anemia, ↑ serum folate, ↓ folate deficiency, ↑ urinary iodine concentration, ↓ goiter prevalence, ↑ mean adequacy ratio of diet, ↑ dietary adequacy, ↑ intake of nutrient-rich foods (vitamin A, vitamin B-6, thiamin, iodine, riboflavin, niacin, folate, and Fe) ↑/NC Fe stores, ↑/NC serum ferritin, ↑ serum folate, NC B-12 deficiency, ↑ dietary adequacy, ↑ intake of nutrient-rich foods (vitamin A, B-6, thiamin, iodine, riboflavin, niacin, folate, and Fe)
In that way it differs from Title Nine, an athletic clothing line that favors “real people” as models, and boasts on its website that its photo shoots are “on-the-fly” affairs with “no makeup kits.” However, all these real people are incredibly fit, and list things like “19 days rafting in the Grand Canyon” under “last adventure” and “first Boston Marathon qualification” under “next proudest accomplishment.”
You don’t have to spend a lot of money, follow a very strict diet, or eat only specific types of food to eat healthy. Healthy eating is not about skipping meals or certain nutrients. Healthy eating is not limited to certain types of food, like organic, gluten-free, or enriched food. It is not limited to certain patterns of eating, such as high protein.
Income-generation interventions largely target adult women (women of reproductive age, women with young children, and older women). Many microfinance and loan programs are targeted to women because of their likelihood to pay back the loans, although women with lower education levels and smaller businesses do not benefit to the same degree as women who are educated or who have bigger businesses (165). There was limited evidence of such interventions targeting adolescent girls (169). In order to understand the potential impact of income-generating activities on adolescents, more information is needed about the pathways by which adolescents contribute to their own food security, the degree to which they rely on their caregivers to meet their nutritional needs, and how those dynamics change with the age of adolescents (169). Training, workshops, and extension activities were often delivered through community centers, community groups, and financial institutions (165). Other affiliated interventions, such as agricultural extension and nutrition education, were provided at the community level and at home visits (160, 173). These delivery platforms were effective at reaching women, including low-income women, particularly when they engaged with existing community groups (e.g., self-help, farmers’, and women's groups) (160, 161, 167, 169, 172, 173).
The delivery of nutrition education reached women across all life stages and through many platforms. Many nutrition education studies that targeted pregnant and lactating mothers reported on women's outcomes, but the primary focus of many of these studies was child health outcomes (13, 14, 19, 21, 24, 28); few studies focused on dietary outcomes and behaviors of pregnant and lactating women themselves (17, 20, 23). There were some studies evaluating the impact of nutrition education on the practices and outcomes of school-age children and adolescent girls (15, 18, 27, 29, 34), as well as older women (16, 22, 25, 30). Many of the nutrition education interventions were clinic-based (17–20, 23, 24). However, nutrition education was also delivered through community-based programs, including home visits (16, 21), community centers (15, 16, 20, 21), worksites (25), and schools (25, 27, 30, 34).
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Sweet Secrets From A Ben & Jerry's Food Scientist and "Flavor Guru"
David Jamieson Logie
Filed to: ice creamFiled to: ice cream
Kirsten Schimoler is a food scientist and Flavor Guru at Ben & Jerry's. In this interview, originally published on True To Me Too, David James Logie gets the scoop on everything from GMOs and donut ice cream to so-called flavor graveyards.
What's the difference between a chef and a food scientist?
Chefs are classically trained in the culinary arts. Some schools have now added some basic food science and nutrition courses into the culinary arts programs. Chefs normally have a background in culinary arts whereas a food scientist is a lot more of a technical position.
Generally your first two years of study are essentially the pre-med track where you're taking all the basic sciences from chemistry, organic chemistry, biology, microbiology, and then you get more detailed and start taking food chemistry, food microbiology, engineering classes, sensory science classes, nutrition, it's very very technical whereas chefs are technical in an artistic way. It's very very rooted in the sciences.
When did you figure out food science could be a potential career path?
I grew up in a family that worked in the food industry. My dad always owned restaurants, he actually worked doing product development for some of the bigger food companies. I knew about it at a young age because I was exposed to it. Once I realized that I could play with food and have a career in food and not have to work in a restaurant, I thought that was great.
How'd you pursue it? How'd you pick what classes to take and what universities to apply to?
I actually kind of knew that I wanted to go to Cornell and once I did some more research I found out they had a really great food science program, so it was just a perfect fit.
What was your specific focus in your last two years at Cornell?
For the most part you study all aspects. I concentrated in operations and management but for the most part you still take all of the same classes. You're taking a food analysis lab where you're really breaking down the chemistry to figure out how many calories are in something or how much protein or carbs are in something. Then you go into classes like food chemistry, food packaging, food safety; but I also took some basic business courses, such as marketing, management, finance. At Cornell there's a handful of different focuses: food engineering, basic food science, food science operations and management, and food microbiology. I chose operations and management.
What areas of the food science industry do you think are growing or in demand right now?
I think that careers in food science are growing and not a lot of people know about them. Food safety is really important, a career in food science and food safety could lead to something like being a microbiologist and working in quality assurance or working on the legal end of food safety and becoming a lawyer for bigger food corporations.
We are also trying to feed a growing population so creating a safe food supply in countries that don't necessarily have one now is a big area of growth. Also, food engineering and packaging, creating sustainable packaging for the food we eat and looking at how do we grow our food supply sustainably.
What is something you learned in school that has really helped you in your career?
In a career like food science you're always problem solving and you always need to take time to look and discover. You need to do experimentation to figure out how to get to your end result. The other part is working on and being diligent to come up with answers and solve the problems that you're faced with.
For instance, if we're creating a new product and we're seeing a problem with the texture or something is going wrong in the manufacturing process we might not have an answer right away but you spend a lot of time trouble shooting and problem solving to make sure you're making the best product.
I attempted to read through some food science journals and it seems like the field is always changing, there are constantly new breakthroughs and discoveries, how do you keep on top of everything that's going on and incorporate it into your work?
I'm a member of different food science organizations. I use the Cornell food science alumni network. There are tons of industry newsletters and publications so it's a daily, monthly, weekly type of thing where maybe you get an email that has 30 different headlines about what's new in the food industry and what's going on with food science. Also, talking to other alum from Cornell or other food science professionals.
You have an MBA as well, what's the benefit of pairing a business degree with a science degree?
Working for a large corporation such as Unilever and Ben & Jerry's my job isn't just food science. I'm part of a cross-functional team, which includes marketing, supply chain, finance, manufacturing, so I'm constantly working with people who do something different than I do. In order for me to be a well-rounded product developer, having an understanding of those business principles on an academic level helps me work better with them. It also gives me the background to be able to manage within a research and development team.
Would you recommend that to aspiring food scientists?
I think it really depends. Some food scientists goals are to really be rooted in research or very very technical development, so on that route they end up pursuing a masters or PhD in food science or another science, perhaps chemistry or microbiology, and they want to become a flavor chemist. That's one route.
Another route is if you're in the corporate world, to get an MBA so you'll have the ability to manage a research and development team or move over into another function like supply chain or marketing.
How did you go about getting your first job?
It was actually kind of just by luck (laughs). I was doing a lot of on campus networking, going to a lot of recruiting events on campus, just kind of using my network within the career development office at school.
Istarted looking for a job in September of my senior year and I ended up kind of randomly doing an interview on campus with some recruiters from Unilever and ended up getting a second interview. I got an offer in April of my senior year, so lucked out because when I graduated the job market was pretty terrible.
With a degree in food science, you know what you're doing coming out of school as opposed to a general liberal arts degree you might not really know what you want to do, or maybe you got a business degree and you're not sure if you want to go into marketing or management or finance. Coming out with a degree in food science, there was about three options for what I would do. [laughs] It was either sort of research or product development or back to school.
I spoke with a brewer a couple weeks ago and we talked about his research phase, which was mostly drinking; I guess for you research would just be eating?
Our research involves a lot of different things. Idea generation, sitting down with the team and talking about different things. There's also a lot of online and media research, so reading relevant culinary publications.
A couple weeks ago our team got back from a research trip, which is a yearly trip that we do, we call them "trend treks": we pick a city, we do a ton of research on that city, and we spend three to five days in that city. Literally, we'll just walk around and eat and drink. We don't limit it just to ice cream: we go to breakfast places, cocktail places, ice cream shops. We look at dinner stuff. Then there's a lot of experimentation in the lab. Maybe you saw a recipe for a great looking desert in a magazine, or something on Pinterest, and then you think about how that might go into ice cream and play with it in the lab. There's a couple different parts of research, one of the main ones is shopping and eating though.
Say you found a delicious donut how would you go about making that into an ice cream flavor? I imagine everyone on your team would have a different idea of how to turn a donut into ice cream, what's the collaboration process like when developing products?
There are five developers on our team and you're totally right: if someone said make a donut concept, I think all five of us would make it completely different. I might say, "I'll make a donut concept and I want to make a coffee and donut ice cream," so it will be coffee ice cream with pieces of donut in it and someone else might say, "I want to make my ice cream taste like a donut and there's no chunks but maybe there's a swirl."
Everyone does have a different idea and there is a lot of collaboration between the five of us, maybe one of us is tasked with creating this donut flavor, but we would sit down with the whole team and talk about what the options might be. Then we'd make up a few different variations and eat them and taste them and see how we would tweak the product.
We also work very cross-functionally so there's five developers but within a team of developing a new product there's probably eight to ten people involved so you've got people who do consumer research, individuals who work in marketing, it's a collaboration between everyone there. Maybe there's a prevalent trend in donuts, or maybe a customer is looking for a specific flavor profile of a donut, so there's collaboration within the research and development team and there's also collaboration within different functions.
Ben & Jerry's research and development team (Right to left: Kirsten Schimoler, John Shaffer, Eric Fredette, Chris Rivard, Peter Lind, Paul Szalkucki and Marianne Corcoran)
Ben & Jerry's has a graveyard for discontinued products, which made me wonder how you test your products. To me, it's ice cream so I imagine it's all going to taste great, but if you come up with a flavor you really like, how can you be sure that it's going to work and customers will support it?
We work with marketing and with consumer insights to sometimes test products before we launch them, to make sure that it's something consumers will receive well. If we had it our way we'd launch every flavor and have as many flavors on the shelf but within the grocery store there are limitation with how many different things you can have out there at one time. If it's not in the top 40 flavors, it ends up in the graveyard.
What is your involvement in sourcing ingredients? Do you start that early in the developing process?
I'm actually the research and development lead for our Values-Led Sourcing (VLS) project, which is the transition to non-genetically modified organisms (GMO) and fair trade so I work very very closely with individuals in our supply chain as well as the suppliers who supply us with everything from our dairy to our sugar to our chunks and swirls. I spend a lot of time working on that right now.
Ben & Jerry's recently announced it was going GMO free by 2014, what was the motivation behind that decision?
It's been a long time coming for us. We've always been a forward thinking company but right now we're kind of at the forefront of this, there's a lot of action going on in a lot of states.
Our main driver is just giving our consumers the right to know what's in their products. Us doing this is giving us the opportunity to really influence the supply chain and create that market for non-GMO products.
What are some of the challenges of this transition in the food science department?
About 94-96% of all the soy and corn grown in the United States is genetically modified so that does create a large hurdle as we're looking for mass quantities of certain items. Sugar beets were recently approved to be non-GMO. If we're using sugar we have to then source solely cane sugar.
Originally, when we started working on this the availability on non-GM corn and soy and canola in the United States was pretty small, so then you're looking to source from European countries where they have mostly transitioned to non-GM items.
We're really just trying to influence the supply chain to be able to get domestic conventional non-GM corn and soy to use in our products.
You launched the Ben & Jerry's line of greek frozen yogurt last year. How did that project come about?
We were looking at what our next innovation was and it was an interaction between research and development and a marketing manager who were talking about what they were going to do next when they realized they were both eating greek yogurt. We said, alright, people love greek yogurt and we think we could make a really good product. That's how it came to be; it was an interaction in a hallway.
Outside of all the ice cream what are some perks of the job?
If you eat as much ice cream as much as I do, you have to exercise. We have a really great wellness program and a gym in the office. Yoga is offered a few times a week. We get free gym memberships. For me, it's a requirement because we do eat a ton. If you work in the office, we get three pints a day to take home, but I never take ice cream home so that's not really a perk that I take advantage of. Another perk is travel. In the last 3 months, I've had the opportunity for work to go to New York, Portland, Chicago, Wisconsin, London to spend two weeks in the UK. There's a lot of fun perks, whether you're traveling to do a trend trek or you're going with public relations to an event. The office environment is really fun, you can bring your dog to work. It's pretty casual.
If you weren't working on ice cream what kind of food would you be working on?
I think my next job is going to need to be a health product. [laughs] I've always said I don't think I could develop a product that I wouldn't personally buy; you need to be really passionate about the stuff that you're working on. When you have to be so close to your product and you're eating it pretty much everyday, you'd rather be working on a project that you really like and are passionate about.
What are some different positions within food science that people might not know exist?
You could be working in straight research, doing research at a university, maybe about the health benefits of sour cherries, looking at antioxidants. I have friends who are process engineers, so they work to build the machines that manufacture ice cream or tomato sauce. I also have friends who are packaging engineers; there's quite a bit of science that goes into creating packages that people never think about. I have a friend who I graduated with and she was working for NASA, developing food for space missions. I have a ton of friends in the industry. Some work for Hershey's, Kool-Aid; it really spans over the entire food industry.
I always say, if you walk into a grocery store, every product in there there is someone like me behind it, whether it's Oreo's or orange juice. There's a food scientist that worked on that product. There's really a lot you can do, you can work in a government agency, you could work for someone like NASA, or you could work for someone like Ben & Jerry's.
Do you have any advice for someone trying to get started in the food science industry?
It's really challenging, but it's really rewarding. If you're really passionate about food and you don't necessarily feel that being in the kitchen or being in the restaurant is the place for you there are still a ton of opportunities to have a career working within the food industry.
This post was originally published by David Jamieson Logie on True To Me Too, and has been shared here with permission.
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Aberdeen and Stonehaven Yacht Club (United Kingdom)
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Aberdeen and Stonehaven Yacht Club
Stonehaven Yacht Club
Aberdeen Yacht Club
British yacht clubs and sailing clubs index
Alexandra Yacht Club website
image by Peter Edwards, 17 February 2018
Estb: 1969.
Locations: Loch of Skene and Stonehaven, Scotland.
Burgee: Pennant. "The buildings on the burgee are the gatehouses to the Dunecht estate at the Loch of Skene. ASYC sail at the Loch of
Skene during the spring, which is a loch on the Dunecht estate, and the clubhouse facilities are in the basement of one of the gatehouses."
Note: The club's access to two sailing sites is the result of a merger in 1969 between two previous clubs, Aberdeen Sailing Club and Stonehaven Yacht Club.
Sources: http://asyc.org.uk/ Image, International Burgee Registry.
Acknowledgement: Quote, Hamish McLullich, Secretary ASYC.
Peter Edwards, 17 February 2018
image by Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 22 February 2018
I tried to find a different image, but it is rather small. I include it here as it shows details slightly differently: The towers look more like mirror images, and there appears to be an actual gate between the posts. And of course, ratio and shade of blue are different. Source is the ASYC newsletter, "Overboard", of October 2017:
http://asyc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/2017_10-ASYC-Newsletter.pdf.
There's a clearer photograph of the design at http://www.elyc.org.uk/page-746075/5043330, but I've yet to see an actual burgee.
Peter Hans van den Muijzenberg, 22 February 2018
A Stonehaven Yacht Club is pictured in Ensigns and Burgees of Yacht Clubs and Distinguishing Flags of Yachtsmen [1961], flags supplement or companion of Lloyd's Register of Yachts. The 1963 Register of Yachts lists the club as Est. 1958, with a clubhouse at Shorehead, Stonehaven, which would seem to match. The burgee is 2:3, blue with a yellow saltire, with SYC in yellow one letter each in the hoist top and fly quarters.
Aberdeen Sailing Club
The Aberdeen Sailing Club is listed in Lloyd's 1963 as well: Est. 1951. No burgee is pictured in the 1961 flags publication, but as the merged club having two sites is caused by the two original clubs each having one of these sites, the Aberdeen must have been the club at Loch of Skene. It would seem very likely that the current burgee, which shows the Dunech estate site, was the original burgee of the ASC, especially as this would mean the burgee of the older of the two clubs was kept in the merger.
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« ‘Aztec’ crystal skulls, basis for new ‘Indiana Jones,’ are known fakes | Main | Memorial Day »
In ‘South Pacific,’ why does Emile de Becque finally agree to the dangerous mission?
With the musical “South Pacific” making its return to Broadway after all these years, New York Times reviewer Frank Rich has noticed something that I pointed out three months ago.
When American officers try to recruit Emile de Becque, a worldly French expatriate, in a dangerous reconnaissance operation, they tell him he must do so because “we’re against the Japs.” De Becque, who is the show’s hero, snaps at them: “I know what you’re against. What are you for?” No one bothers to answer his question.
“What are you for?” he asks. And in the middle of World War II, two U.S. Navy officers and one U.S. Marine lieutenant can’t think of one thing they’re fighting for.
Freedom, democracy, a peaceful world in which the Japanese empire has stopped killing innocents by the hundreds of thousands -- none of this comes to their minds. The Americans desperately need de Becque for this mission, but they don’t know how to say what they’re “for.” This part of the script is so unlikely it’s irritating.
One other question. I still like “South Pacific.” I like it a lot, as long as I don’t think about it. But that one puzzle of the “South Pacific” script leads to a second big question, which I haven’t discussed here before. Why does de Becque ultimately agree to the dangerous mission that he initially refused?
Most fans of “South Pacific” probably would guess that de Becque finally consented to go because his girlfriend, Nellie Forbush, called off their wedding when he revealed he had been married to a Polynesian woman (already long dead).
Others might guess that de Becque felt sympathy for Lt. Joseph Cable, the Marine who already had volunteered for the job behind enemy lines. After all, it was Lt. Cable who showed a more open-minded attitude by singing, “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught (to Hate).”
An illogical plot. But no. It still doesn’t make sense that de Becque would risk his life to help the Americans. Let me explain.
De Becque makes his big decision right after Cable sings, “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught” and right after Cable tells de Becque that he (Cable) is not going back to Philadelphia after the war. Cable explains that he will stay on Bali Hai because that’s where Liat, his Polynesian girlfriend, is. He implies strongly that America is too narrow-minded for him.
So think about this. De Becque, who is despondent that his American girlfriend has asked for a transfer because she is a bigot, and who is faced with a Marine who says he won’t return to America because of its bigotry, now decides that he will risk his life for America.
He’ll fight for the side of bigotry? What sense does that make? No one had told him that America was for anything good. All he had heard was bad. So what’s his motivation? (And as commenter Nick Funnell points out, why does he show no anguish that, if he dies, his two little children would be orphans?)
Hunter’s tale. There’s only one way this plot turn makes sense. You have to consider that Lt. Cable also tells the despondent de Becque, in what seems a throw-away line, that, whenever Cable felt mixed-up as a kid, he’d go hunting, and, well, hint, hint, spying for Japanese naval convoys would be like hunting.
Cable says:
“You know, back home whenever I got in a jam, I used to go hunting. That’s what I think I’ll do now. Good hunting up there around Marie Louise. Carriers, cargo boats, troop ships, big game.
“De Becque, would you reconsider going up there with me to Marie Louise Island? I mean, now that you haven’t got so much to lose? We could do a good job, I think, you and I.”
The foreshadowing. Audience members are supposed to flash back to the movie’s opening scene (I’m not sure this is the same in the Broadway play) when the airplane pilot tells Lt. Cable that it’s well-known de Becque “hunts, fishes.” This explains everything! It’s the only thing that explains everything.
In the final analysis, “South Pacific” isn’t about love or tolerance. It’s about the love of hunting.
See also: In the ‘South Pacific’ musical, why doesn’t the Navy know they’re fighting for freedom?
May 25, 2008 in Current Affairs, Freedom, History, Music | Permalink
Hunting? Whatever. Here's my final analysis. The musical is a love story that touches upon issues of prejudice. The entire "war" aspect of the musical is dealt with in almost cryptic fashion. The musical runs about 3 hours and 10 minutes from opening orchestral note to curtain call (including intermission). De Becque decides to join Cable's mission about 2 1/2 hours in. We then get the scene where Brackett yells at Billis, and the very next scene is TWO WEEKS LATER when Cable dies and de Becque may have been killed (we're supposed to fear his death: Nellie certainly does). It should be an emotional scene but is very hurried in both the original script and the movie version. Five minutes later, Operation Alligator is under way and the whole situation of the South Pacific has changed. The Americans are "going the other way." It all unfolds and wraps up too quickly. Bottom line: the story is first a love story, second a commentary on prejudice, and only third a story about WWII, and even then, it's told from the perspective of a bunch of bored Seabees who feel very far from the action. Heck, even Capt. Brackett's final line is "I'm no longer a lousy island commander." I do agree with Frank Warner that some of the scenes are shockingly devoid of "freedom" language. But, in the end, the story could have been set on "Gilligan's Island" as much as on an island during WW II, that's how tertiary the war really is to the plotline.
Posted by: Peter Dykema | July 09, 2009 at 11:42 AM
It's true. The war almost isn't there, except as an excuse to kill Lt. Cable.
But I wonder what the authors' intent was in depicting several American officers who clearly had no idea what they were fighting for, and weren't even sure a U.S. victory would be better than a Japanese victory.
I suppose it's the old "futility of war" theme, but ask any dictator who wins a war; it wasn't futile for him.
Posted by: Frank Warner | July 09, 2009 at 03:42 PM
Funny how the potential to leave his two kids orphaned never comes into the equation. This strikes us as shocking in todays child-centred world...
Posted by: Nick Funnell | May 24, 2010 at 10:10 AM
Good point, Nick. Why no, "Hey, I've got two kids who count on me"?
Further evidence of some sloppy script writing.
Posted by: Frank Warner | May 24, 2010 at 01:35 PM
Remember....musical theatre was in its embryonic stages when this was originally done and still being developed. Look at Carousel and that dark story dealing with domestic violence, and single parenthood. They had Billy, in that show about to rob someone and at the beginning of the 2nd Act he's lying on his wives lap at a picnic before the crime? Make sense...no! We've come a long way since then and with many writers that are prone to details and character development. Yes, South Pacific has some of R & H most memorable music, yes the script has flaws, but when you leave the theatre were you entertained? I"d let Bali Hai call me anytime.
Posted by: Csmstarr | February 24, 2011 at 05:31 PM
As I've said, I like "South Pacific." It's just hard to believe that, for the number of times that script had to be written and rewritten, someone didn't clarify a few central themes.
Posted by: Frank Warner | February 25, 2011 at 01:14 AM
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Milton Hatoum
Born in Manaus in 1952, Milton Hatoum studied architecture. He taught Brazilian literature at the University of Amazonas and at the University of California, Berkeley, before publishing his first novel, Tale of a Certain Orient (1989); it was awarded the Jabuti Prize for the best novel of the year. The Brothers (2000) also won the Jabuti and has been translated into eight languages. With Ashes of the Amazon (2005), Hatoum again won the Jabuti, and the Bravo!, APCA and Portugal Telecom Prizes. In 2008, he published his first novella, Orphans of Eldorado. The Island City is his first collection of stories.
Dry Flowers from the Cerrado
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I share Richard Murphy’s view of professional responsibilities as being that of keeping my clients as free of grief from HMRC and Companies House as I possibly can. In turn, that often entails telling clients what they can’t legally do.
I have recently had to tell a client who was forced into a service company by their employer that IR35, with all its expensive consequences, most definitely applied. Ultimately, because another 20+ of this person’s colleagues are handled by an unqualified accountant who chooses to ignore IR35, my now former client decided to join that group.
I don’t like IR35 because it lets employers do pretty much what they want with their employees (oh, these burdensome employment rights!), leaving the employees to subsidise the previous employer’s NIC. But IR35 remains the law of the land so my clients need to know, and are told, the implications of ignoring this law.
My problem is that HMRC shows no visible sign of giving a toss whether or not this law is complied with, thereby casting me, and those who share my view of this situation, in the role of a Jeremiah prepared to tell clients that they need to pay more tax for fear of the potential consequences.
Of itself, I’m not overly concerned about the situation I’ve described in terms of its impact on me. What does concern me though is that, if HMRC does not or cannot enforce tax law generally, there is very little incentive, beyond professional ethics, for the accounting profession to enforce it for them if it is going to risk its client base by so doing.
Indeed, this is perhaps the reason why the Big 4 became so heavily, and in my view unprofessionally, involved in aggressive tax avoidance, ie they decided long ago that tax law was ripe for attack precisely because it has been, and can only continue to be given the continual decline in HMRC’s personnel, so inadequately defended by HMRC.
Dave and the boys have just told us that they plan to reduce incapacity benefit by £25 for those found to be fit for work but unwilling to do so. Doubtless, Gordon and the gang will match this policy some time soon, even though they’ve already started the process.
We’re told that it will cost £600 million to get “shirkers” back to work. Simple arithmetic, £600 million divided by £25 a head, says that 2.4 million “shirkers” will need to get back to work just to break even, much less yield cost savings.
Now consider this; there are 2.6 million people claiming incapacity benefit. Simple arithmetic says that 2.4 million “shirkers” represent 92% of total claimants. That’s what we’re asked to believe. Quite by chance, I bumped into an acquaintance, a medical consultant, last night. He told me that he had been actively involved in the government’s Welfare to Work programmes, advising on how claimants could be helped back to work. I asked him if he knew the official estimate of “shirkers” claiming incapacity benefit. The answer? 4%! That’s just over 100,000 or, to put it another way, a potential saving of £2.5 million to offset against the cost of the programme.
If you can hold your nose long enough to ignore for a moment the callousness of cutting sick and depressed people’s weekly benefits by £25 to make savings, while at the same time doing absolutely nothing to rein in the robber mentality of so many of the wealthiest, or even if you don’t find the proposal as stinky as I do, why would you want to support such a duff financial proposal that adds to debt rather than reduces it?
And where are 2.4 million new jobs coming from?
And, while I understand completely the desirability of stopping cheats from claiming benefits we can’t afford to pay, are there not more immediately deserving targets such as the bankers and financial “engineers” and their legions of highly paid advisers who, having completely buggered our finances, national and personal, are said to be too important to be chastised in any meaningful way?
Where, oh where, are the politicians/leaders prepared to take aim at real targets instead of largely defenceless people, disabled by long term physical and/or mental health issues?
PS If you’re lucky enough not to suffer from a long term disability, be grateful. As a friend said to me yesterday “there are, absolutely, none so blind, none so ignorant of what is going on around them, as those who have neither experience of disability, nor compassion for those weaker than themselves, nor any thought that it could happen to them”.
….why what most know as tax havens do such terrible damage to the weakest, why they are a blight on all but the few who gain from their existence, Secrecy Jurisdictions backs up its explanations with hard data.
If this blog helps only one person understand why the world would be a happier, better place without secrecy jurisdictions, I will be proud to have helped…..although I hope it will be many more than that.
A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward – Franklin D. Roosevelt. Love it!
We need political leadership, not appeals to our fear
After my rant the other day, here’s a far more eloquent description of why this country so desperately needs political leadership.
What happepened to integrity?
I consider myself fortunate to have had the opportunity to become a Chartered Accountant. I have been proud to have the opportunity to uphold, to the best of my ability, what I believe that qualification, above all else, stands for, namely integrity.
It therefore saddens me greatly that some of the most high profile of my fellow CA’s do not appear to share my focus on integrity. My perception of what was reported this past weekend about the role that CA’s played in the MG Rover debacle is that those CA’s involved have sold out on integrity, basically providing services of little value but great damage to our society.
This episode calls to mind something I took on board at a conference 3 or 4 years ago. The speaker asked the question: “Why would you take on a client you didn’t like?” – the purpose of the question being to highlight the fact that a difficult personal relationship could so easily be reflected in a difficult professional relationship. He went on to say: “Isn’t doing that somewhat akin to the oldest profession?”.
Practitioners of the oldest profession are, I believe, forced into that profession mainly because it is their only means of survival. It seems to me that the only possible motivation for my fellow professional accountants selling services that cause profound consequential damage, personal greed, is much worse than prostitution. I object equally profoundly.
While I’m more than aware that anger is seldom a winning strategy, what are we left with when none of our political parties seem willing to sense, much less act on, the mood of the electorate?
The Conservatives, ably assisted by the inaccurately named Taxpayers Alliance, want to cut off recovery at the knees by focussing on debt repayment instead of economic stimulus, Lib Dems seem to want to focus on dirty tricks in local politics and, worst of all, Labour sits on its hands, paralysed with indecision and fear that it can’t win any argument. Meanwhile, UKIP and the BNP – no, I’m not bracketing them together politically – exploit what the main parties aren’t doing in order to pick up dissident votes.
Our politics have become nothing but a quest for power for power’s sake instead of a desire to achieve something worthwhile. None of the parties appear to have either desire or stomach for confronting real problems, principally the way in which money has displaced any notion of value. They truly know the price of everything and the value of nothing. As a direct result, plain and simple greed rules our lives totally unchallenged in any meaningful way.
How can any rationale human being justify or tolerate a state of affairs where;
the banking system is allowed to become so dominant, so central to our economy that, despite its more or less total responsibility for our economic woes, it dictates to the rest of the population that it is above regulation, that the people who got us into this mess continue to be worthy of grotesque incomes while everyone else pays the price of their folly and greed?
corporate greed, such as British Airways revealing a few weeks ago that it had not actually paid pension contributions to its employee pension fund and was being “forced” to renege on mere commitments to pay those contributions, goes unhindered and unchecked while its pensioners, current and future, pay the price?
personal greed, most recently the revelations about the MGRover 4, or is it 5, does not lead to any attempt to pursue and recover ill-gotten gains?
people who live in this country and are pretty much forced to pay their share are obliged to live with the fact that extremely wealthy foreigners pay little or nothing due to their special, non-domiciled, status for fear, totally unproven, that the privileged few might leave our shores;our population, what makes our country tick, sinks further and further into the abyss of inequality, where the rich grow richer and the poor poorer?
The standard bearers of the status quo say that we are individually responsible for ourselves while conveniently ignoring that the status quo is what makes individual responsibility so difficult for so many people. How can the laid off MGRover worker be individually responsible while a handful of individuals are allowed to behave in their own interests even when that behaviour results in literally thousands losing their jobs?
Those same standard bearers suggest that we’re all greedy, that there’s no such thing as society, quietly ignoring evidence that, as human beings, we tend towards acting collectively, not individually; if that wasn’t the case, why then does commerce play so heavily on must-have goods and services, the fact that we want to keep up with the Joneses by having the latest mobile phone, the latest LCD television or the latest cool brand?
Unequivocally, I believe that most of our people, whatever their particular political persuasion, are stronger together than they are individually. But who will represent this vast majority?
Not Labour, it seems, who, despite their very real achievement in leading the way by saving the banking system and stimulating the economy, lie frozen in their bunker, unable or unwilling to articulate much less propose answers that appeal to the majority.
Not the Conservatives, dressed in the Emperor’s new clothes of grand policies with little of substance behind them, who alone among Western economies believe that repaying debt is better value than making sure that as few people as possible are terminally damaged by the hardship and consequential disillusionment that unemployment inevitably entails.
Not the Lib Dems, who, despite the good sense of Vince Cable, have had so little to say lately.
But what depresses me most is my own failure. I am ashamed to be part of a very fortunate generation who have sleepwalked into this nightmare. It’s on our watch that greed has been granted priority over all else. We’ve enjoyed life chances most of our children probably never will; many of us had opportunities to improve our wealth and status, to buy our own homes, to benefit from the windfall of nightmarish increases in property prices, to ignore the perils of climate change. What a terrible mess we leave as an inheritance for our children. The least we owe them is to make our own small noises that together, ie collectively, could become a very loud noise that no prospective government can ignore.
But on further reflection……
….the joke in my previous post makes me absolutely fume because “Venture Capitalism” defines so clearly why we’re in the economic mess we are.
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Home > Firm History
JEANA’S STORY
Having left an established 100-year-old law firm, Jeana Goosmann had a vision and defied the risks of starting her own firm. Initially, Jeana had enough work to hire multiple attorneys, however, she opted to hire only one lawyer and an assistant. Then came the rebranding, which she refers to as one of her best investments to date. This rebranding decision helped to define Goosmann Law Firm and what it was about, attracting clients and team members. As a result, Jeana hired up to seven attorneys and eight non-attorney staff just five years later.
Jeana’s priority has been about creating a firm culture centered around Midwest values, big city style, hometown service, team-approach, and keeping up with the pace of business. Now having grown to three locations in the Midwest, Sioux City, Sioux Falls, and Omaha, Jeana continues to grow the firm without plans of stopping anytime soon. She says, "With a business mindset, hiring and promoting the right people, developing a strong professional culture, and capturing hot markets, I have been able to beat the odds, defy the risks, and watch my firm grow."
LEARN MORE ABOUT JEANA
CEO, Founder, & Managing Partner Jeana Goosmann sitting in her office in 2009 shortly after officially starting the firm.
THE FIRM AND OUR LOCATIONS
In May 2009, GLF first opened…moved to Suite 200 10 months later….tripling the original square footage and team members in one year. Current team members – Attorney Emilee Boyle Gehling, Senior Paralegal Monica Colella, Attorney Anthony Osborn and Law Firm Administrator Kris Craighead all joined the Goosmann Law Firm during this foundation year.
CEO Jeana Goosmann invested in downtown Sioux City by renovating the historic Lerch building. The larger building allowed for additional office space for the growing team.
The next year in 2013, the firm opened a new office in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and expanded its Sioux City team by three members and successfully opened the Goosmann Trust Law Counsel, a boutique estate and business succession planning department within the full service law firm. Shortly after the expansion to Sioux Falls, Jeana began recording The Law Review on both Sioux City KTIV and Sioux Falls KEOLAND. In the firm’s fifth year, the team had done over a billion dollars in deals with a total of fifteen members including attorney and non-attorney staff.
In 2015 the firm became certified by Women Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) and the National Association of Minority and Women-Owned Law Firms (NAMWOLF). In addition, the team continued to grow by hiring seven new employees. In 2016, the firm grew its paralegal team from two to six, totaling the GLF team to 25 members. The firm has continued to grow and has done over 2 billion dollars in deals.
In 2017, the firm was voted “#1 Law Firm in Siouxland” by the Sioux City Journal’s Weekender, and officially opened its Omaha office, continuing to expand up and down the I-29 corridor. Goosmann Law Firm had its biggest year of team growth yet and was named one of the top fastest growing law firms in the United States by the Law Firm 500 Award. Along with the firm’s expanding team, the firm purchased and renovated a historic building on 501 Douglas Street in Downtown Sioux City. The building became a canvas to artist Martin Ron who painted a mural of a giant buffalo on the side of the building. Their administrative team occupies “The 501”. In addition to the 501, the firm purchased a lot in Sioux Falls, South Dakota on South Minnesota Avenue to begin the design, development, and construction of the firm’s new Sioux Falls building.
In 2018, Goosmann Law Firm was named one of the top fastest growing law firms in the United States by the Law Firm 500 Award for the second year in a row. This year, the firm grew from 40 to 55 team members. To account for the growth, the firm renovated and expanded their Omaha office space.
In May, Goosmann Law Firm turns 10! The Sioux Falls firm will be moving to a new location, Prairie Galleria, on 69th Street and Western Avenue.
About Our Historic Downtown Sioux City Location – 410 5th Street
THE HISTORIC LERCH BUILDING
The following is partial narrative from William Lerch, son of the late William Lerch, founder of the Historic Lerch Building in Sioux City, Iowa:
According to the history of Western Iowa, the first steamboat came up the Missouri to Sioux City in spring of 1856. Steamboats, known as “mountain boats” went up the river with goods, supplies, and a few passengers and brought back valuable furs. The demand for goods from military post and mining camps further up the river increased which stimulated Sioux City growth.
When the railroad reached Sioux City in the 1860’s it became the new northern-most port for mountain bound steamboats. William may have been a crewmember of such a boat and as a result of a winter’s stay he may have decided to make Sioux City his home.
In 1868 at age 27, he settled in Sioux City. William Lerch began investing in Sioux City real estate in late 1870 at age 29. At that time, Sioux City was being touted as “the new Chicago” with an unlimited future. William concentrated his real estate acquisitions in the downtown area. Eventually, among his downtown holdings, he acquired most of the block bordered by 4th, Douglas, 5th, and Pierce streets. He built the “Lerch” building and others facing 5th Street and lived on the second floor of another building facing 4th Street.
The 1880 Federal Census listed William as a self-employed dealer in Milwaukee beer. The 1890 census listed his occupations as “Capitalist” and the 1910 Federal census listed William’s occupation as “Real Estate.”
William died of pneumonia in California April 9, 1926 at age 85. Both William and his wife Clara, as well as most of the children are buried in Graceland Park Cemetery, Sioux City, Iowa.
In 2012, Goosmann Law Firm renovated the historic Lerch Building located at 410 5th Street in downtown Sioux City.
Now, the Lerch Building proudly displays a notable icon in downtown Sioux City - the We (heart/love) Sioux City logo painted on the West façade. The design for the building incorporated a combination of historic and contemporary states and includes full renovation of the three-story exterior.
In 2015, the Goosmann team began to outgrow the first level space and renovated the firm’s second floor, once again incorporating modern designs with the historic charm of the building.
About Our Omaha Location - 17838 Burke Street
THE ADVENT BUILDING
The Firm joined other Omaha businesses in the innovative and newly built Advent Building located in West Omaha in July of 2017. In July of 2018, the Firm expanded and renovated the Omaha office.
The space boasts 8,000 square feet and includes 16 attorney and executive offices, 9 paralegal and administrative staff collaborative spaces, as well as 3 state of the art conference rooms complete with the newest telecommunications and conference technology.
The firm features a modern lobby and seating area paired with a state-of-the-art coffee bar, tall ceilings and hallways, large windows, and a large breakroom perfect for hosting firm events, meetings, seminars, and group lunches.
About Our Sioux Falls Location - 5010 S. Minnesota Ave to 6101 S. Western Ave
PRAIRIE HILLS GALLERIA
The Sioux Falls office currently resides at 5010 S. Minnesota Ave, and plans to move to Prairie Hills Galleria in spring of 2019.
Goosmann Law Firm was the first business to commit to space at the new Prairie Hills Galleria, a new mixed use project at 69th Street and Western Avenue.
The two-story, nearly 25,000-square-foot building is designed for a blend of retail tenants and office users, and it is absolutely going to deliver the first-class design and experience to complement the Goosmann brand.
The Prairie Hills Galleria is expected to open in late spring of 2019.
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Where do you get your numbers?
Three major sources for international religious demography are:
Censuses where a religion and/or ethnicity question is asked
Data from religious communities
These data are analyzed and reconciled to arrive at the most accurate representation of a country or region’s religious make-up. For a comprehensive overview of the methodology of religious demography, see Todd M. Johnson and Brian J. Grim, The World’s Religions in Figures: An Introduction to International Religious Demography (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013).
What’s the fastest-growing religion in the world?
Between 2000 and 2010, the fastest-growing religion in the world was Islam, at 1.86% per annum. Over the same period the world’s population grew at 1.20% per annum. See table 1.1 from The World’s Religions in Figures.
Which is growing faster worldwide, Christianity or Islam?
Overall, between 2000 and 2010, Islam grew faster than Christianity. Islam grew at 1.86% per annum, whereas Christianity grew 1.31% (the world’s population grew at 1.20%). In 2010, there were 2.3 billion Christians (32.8% of the world’s population) and 1.6 billion Muslims (22.5% of the world’s population). See table 1.1 from The World’s Religions in Figures.
How do you know what’s going on in North Korea?
It is indeed challenging to assess the religious situation in North Korea, and other similarly closed countries. In difficult cases the CSGC relies on on-the-ground informants for information.
Is the United States becoming secularized?
Yes and no. The United States has seen a dramatic rise in its nonreligious (atheist and agnostic) population, from just 1.32% of the population in 1900 to 15.1% in 2010. Over the same period, Christians have dropped from 96.4% to 72.0%. However, in terms of raw numbers, Christians are still the vast majority (nearly 250 million in 2010, compared to 44.6 million nonreligious), with great potential for growth due to immigration from the global South (particularly Latin America). The disestablishment of Christianity in the United States early in its history makes the American case quite different from that of Europe.
Do you consider Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses Christians?
Like other sociologists of religion, the CSGC utilizes a strict methodology of self-identification. That is, if an individual claims to be Christian, then the CSGC considers him/her a Christian. Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses are classified as “North American Independents” in our typology. This means that they are members of traditions born in the American context as renewal movements within Christianity who self-identify as Christians.
Why do you report such high figures for Christian martyrs?
The CSGC estimates that there have been over 70 million Christians martyred in history. Over half of these were in the 20th century under fascist and communist regimes. In the early 21st century we estimate that on average over the 10-year period from 2000–2010 there were approximately 100,000 Christians killed each year (1 million total). For a detailed explanation of why, please click here.
What is your relationship with the Pew Research Center?
Like the Center for the Study of Global Christianity, the Pew Research Center’s Religion & Public Life Project is an organization that engages in worldwide religious demographic research. Pew collects data through public opinion surveys, demographic studies, and other social science research to examine the religious composition of countries, the influence of religion on politics, and other topics.
The CSGC began a partnership with Pew in 2008 with the launch of the World Religion Database. We work together to arrive at best estimates for the religious composition of countries, and Pew relies on the CSGC to provide data on smaller countries and religious traditions where no survey data are available.
While the CSGC and Pew are partners in the emerging field of international religious demography, there are some significant differences between our methodologies for counting religionists. While both groups rely heavily on government censuses and social science survey data, the CSGC also collects data from religious communities themselves, such as denominational statistics and missionary data from Christian churches and parachurch organizations. The CSGC also takes into greater consideration ethnographic and anthropological data, particularly for smaller, lesser-known groups. This often results in differences of opinion in terms of our best estimates and what is happening on the ground in many countries. One example of this is the recent Pew Research Center report on projecting the world’s religious populations to 2050. We posted our response here, where we outlined how there could be 3.4 billion Christians in 2050, much higher than Pew’s projected 2.9 billion.
We have also written a response to Pew’s recent estimate of how many Muslims there are in the United States, which can be found here.
How do you define and count Evangelical Christians?
We primarily use denominational affiliation to define and locate Evangelicals, a method that is also generally popular among social and political scientists. The World Christian Encyclopedia (Oxford University Press, 1982: 826) offered the following definition of ‘Evangelical”: “A sub-division of Protestants consisting of affiliated church members calling themselves evangelicals, or all persons belonging to Evangelical congregations, churches or denominations; characterized by commitment to personal religion (including new birth or personal conversion experience), reliance on Holy Scripture as the only basis for faith and Christian living, emphasis on preaching and evangelism, and usually on conservatism in theology.” This definition is grounded in denominational affiliation, but it also goes a step further to suggest what an Evangelical denomination might actually look like. Defining Evangelicals by denominational affiliation is helpful because it allows for analysis based on an already established structure. However, this method has two important weaknesses. First, not every congregation holds to its denomination’s official statements of faith. Second, not all individuals affiliated with “100% Evangelical” congregations or denominations are actually Evangelical.
We acknowledge that denominationalism is becoming perhaps less important in the West, and denominational divides is something not as clear-cut in other parts of the world. Therefore, we employ another method of counting Evangelicals, by self-identification: if one wants to know who or what someone is, then ask. This method is beneficial in that it bypasses the complexities of denominationalism and puts the power of definition into the hands of the actual people being studied (similar to polling about political ideology). Using this method we collect data from surveys and polls that ask about Evangelicalism, such as from the Pew Research Center and Win-Gallup International. Using these two methods we estimate around 300 million Evangelicals in the world in 2015.
For more information on counting Evangelicals, please see Gina Zurlo’s article in Evangelicals Around the World: A Global Handbook for the 21st Century.
How do you define and count Pentecostal Christians?
The case for the Pentecostal and charismatic renewal as a single interconnected phenomenon can best be made by considering a “family resemblance” among the various kinds of movements that claim to be either Pentecostal or charismatic. For the purpose of understanding the diverse global phenomenon of Pentecostalism, it is useful to divide the movement into three kinds or types. First are denominational Pentecostals, organized into denominations in the early part of the twentieth century and defined as Christians who are members of the explicitly Pentecostal denominations whose major characteristic is a new experience of the energizing ministry of the Holy Spirit that most other Christians have considered to be highly unusual. This is interpreted as a rediscovery of the spiritual gifts of New Testament times and their restoration to ordinary Christian life and ministry.
Second are Charismatics, individuals in the mainline denominations (primarily after the mid-twentieth century), defined as Christians affiliated to non-Pentecostal denominations (Anglican, Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox) who receive the experiences above in what has been termed the charismatic movement.
Third are Independent Charismatics, those who broke off of denominational Pentecostalism or mainline denominations to form their own networks. While the classification and chronology of the first two types is straightforward, there are thousands of churches and movements that “resemble” the first two types but do not fit their definitions. These constitute a third type and often predate the first two types.
Pentecostals and charismatics are located globally by using a taxonomy of the world’s denominations. First, each major tradition of Christianity (Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Independent, Protestant) is sub-divided into minor traditions (e.g., Protestants as Lutherans, Baptists, Presbyterians, etc.). Pentecostals and charismatics appear within denominations in three ways. First, among Protestants, are classical Pentecostal denominations; second, Pentecostals outside of the Western world; third, charismatic individuals within non-Pentecostal denominations. We estimate around 600 million Pentecostal/charismatic Christians in the world in 2015.
For more information on counting Pentecostals, please see Todd Johnson’s article in the journal Pneuma, “Counting Pentecostals Worldwide,” Vol. 36 (2014): 265–288.
How much money is embezzled every year in the global Christian community?
In 2015, an estimated USD 50 billion will likely be stolen from money that Christians give to churches, para-church organizations, and secular organizations all over the world. A recent Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) reported stated that the US economy loses approximately 6% of its Gross Domestic Product to fraud each year, or approximately USD 660 billion. Applying the ACFE findings above to Christian giving, it is plausible that in 2015, approximately USD 50 billion, or 6% of all funds given by Christians globally (USD 850.9 billion), will be lost to fraud and embezzlement (USD 46 billion from specifically Christian organizations). Fraud in the non-profit sector might also be on the rise; consequently, these current figures could be considered quite conservative, and by the year 2025 global embezzlement of giving by Christians might be as high as 10%, or USD 100 billion.
For more information on embezzlement, see Todd Johnson, Gina Zurlo, and Albert Hickman’s article, “Embezzlement in the Global Christian Community,” The Review of Faith and International Affairs (June 2015).
What percentage of pastors worldwide have theological training?
The CSGC estimates a total of 5 million pastors/priests in all Christian traditions worldwide (Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, and Independents, including bi-vocational). Of these, we estimate that 5% (250,000) are likely to have formal theological training (undergraduate Bible degrees or Master’s degrees). This is based on incomplete responses in survey results from colleges and seminaries in our Global Survey on Theological Education. Roughly 70% of these pastors are in Independent congregations. Independent pastors, in particular, have little theological training, even in the West.
What is the ethnic makeup of world Christianity?
The CSGC maintains a database of over 13,000 ethnolinguistic peoples, found in the World Christian Database. Not all combinations of ethnicity and language are possible, but nevertheless, every person in the world can be categorized as belonging to a mutually exclusive ethnolinguistic people. For example, there are ethnic Kazaks who speak Kazak as their mother tongue and ethnic Kazaks who speak Russian as their mother tongue. These are two separate ethnolinguistic peoples. Because of this database of peoples, the CSGC can estimate the ethnic breakdown of world Christianity, as follows, for 2015:
In 2000, 62% of Christians globally were of color (1.2 billion). In 2015, 68% of Christians are of color (1.6 billion).
What is the ethnic makeup of Evangelicalism?
Globally, Evangelicalism is a predominantly non-white movement within Christianity. In 2000, 79.1% of all Evangelicals were of color (non-white; 185.2 million). In 2015, 84.1% of all Evangelicals in the world are of color (non-white; 270.1 million).
The United States is an outlier in that Evangelicalism is a majority-white movement within Christianity. In 2000, 39.6% of all Evangelicals in the USA were non-European (19.0 million). In 2015, 41.2 of all USA Evangelicals were non-European (20.9 million). There is a serious scholarly debate about the relationship of African Americans to Evangelicalism, especially after the 2016 presidential election where 81% of white Evangelicals and 8% of African Americans voted for Donald Trump. African Americans have long been excluded from sociological and political discussions of Evangelicalism because of the perception that Evangelicalism is a white phenomenon. In reality, African American Christianity generally adheres to the theological characteristics of historical Evangelicalism. In general, sociologists consider African American Christianity as separate from Evangelicalism under the golden rule of self-identification: the community does not self-identify as part of the movement. However, many historians and theologians consider African Americans Evangelicals based on their beliefs and religious practices. The Center for the Study of Global Christianity does not include African Americans in its reporting on Evangelicalism in the USA based on self-identification (they generally do not call themselves Evangelicals) and because the patterns of religiosity (belief, practice, affiliation) vary so significantly from white Evangelicals.
130 Essex St. | South Hamilton, MA 01982
Phone: 978-468-2750 | Fax: 978-468-1549 | E-mail
@CSGC
The World Christian Encyclopedia
3rd edition coming January 2020
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Channel 2 Kansas City online - Τηλεόραση ζωντανά
Channel 2 Kansas City
Χώρα: Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες Αμερικής
Κατηγορία: Κυβέρνηση
Channel 2 Kansas City 5 από 5
KCTV is a full service television station in Kansas City, Missouri and Kansas, broadcasting on local digital UHF channel 24 and on virtual channel 5. Founded in 1953 as KCMO-TV, it is owned by Meredith Corporation. KCTV is affiliated with CBS, airing CBS's primetime shows in the evening. In the morning, the station airs CBS's morning news and information program, with spots for local news and weather; in the afternoon, it airs CBS's soap operas; in the early evening, it shows CBS's national news broadcast and KCTV 5 News.
WMTY Hamilton
Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες Αμερικής - Γενικός
WMTY - Hamilton is a Christian TV channel from Hamilton, USA. WMTY is gives wide public access programming. It features local events like news and
XETV
XETV-TDT, channel 6, is a CW-affiliated television station located in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico, whose over-the-air signal also covers the San
Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες Αμερικής - Τοπική τηλεόραση
Launched in 2001, ETC3 has provided local award-winning programming for more than a decade. In 2012, ETC3 celebrated 10 years on the air and has
CSU TV
Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες Αμερικής - Εκπαιδευτικός
CSU-TV is carried on Comcast Cable Channel 11 in Fort Collins, Colorado.
KWWL
KWWL is eastern Iowa's homepage for breaking news, severe weather, video and sports, with newsrooms in Waterloo, Dubuque, Cedar Rapids and Iowa
CBN Español
Ηνωμένες Πολιτείες Αμερικής - θρησκευτικός
The Christian Broadcasting Network is an American Christian-oriented religious television network and production company. Founded by televangelist
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Home / Newsroom / Releases / Study Finds Testosterone Improves Sexual Activity, Walking Ability and Mood in Men Over 65
Study Finds Testosterone Improves Sexual Activity, Walking Ability and Mood in Men Over 65
For first time, treatment shows benefits in older men with low levels of hormone
February 18, 2016 | Michelle Brubaker
As men age, their testosterone levels decrease, but prior studies of the effects of administering supplements of the hormone to older men have been inconclusive. Now, researchers at University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and 12 other medical centers in the United States have shown that testosterone treatment for men over the age of 65 improves sexual function, walking ability and mood.
The findings are published in the February issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
Researchers across the nation have partnered with the National Institute on Aging to conduct the Testosterone Trials (TTrials), a coordinated group of seven studies to analyze the hormone. The first three studies that were conducted focused on sexual function, physical function and vitality.
“Low testosterone levels can result in excessive fatigue, weakness, depression and the loss of sexual drive in men over 65,” said Elizabeth Barrett-Connor, MD, study lead at the UC San Diego School of Medicine trial site and Distinguished Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Public Health. “The results of the TTrials show for the first time that testosterone treatment of older men who have unequivocally low testosterone levels does have some benefit, including improved walking ability, sexual function and mood, with a decrease in depressive symptoms.”
The TTrials were led by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania. Nearly 800 men enrolled in the study were randomized into two groups: one taking a daily testosterone gel for a year and the other a daily placebo gel. Efficacy was evaluated at months three, six, nine and 12.
In 2003, the Institute of Medicine reported that there was insufficient evidence to support any beneficial effect of testosterone in men age 65 and older. This report was the driving force for the TTrials, which are now the largest trials in the nation to examine the efficacy of testosterone treatment in older men whose levels are low, based on age alone.
Barrett-Connor adds that decisions about testosterone treatment for these men will also depend on the results from the remaining four studies in the TTrials, which include cognitive function, bone density, cardiovascular and anemia and have not yet been conducted.
The 13 medical centers involved in the TTrials are: UC San Diego School of Medicine, Perelman School of Medicine at University of Pennsylvania, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Puget Sound Health Care System, University of Florida School of Medicine, University of Minnesota School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health and Yale School of Medicine.
The TTrials were supported, in part, by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (U01 AG030644). They were also supported by funds from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke and National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.
Michelle Brubaker
mmbrubaker@ucsd.edu
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Eduardo Galeano Disavows His Book ‘The Open Veins’
It is really disappointing, terribly disappointing, to read Galeano’s comments regarding the masterful book that he wrote which presents the tragic history of Latin America and the forces responsible for its devastation in a clear and concise narrative.
“The Open Veins of Latin America” is a superb book. It is a book that not only has stood the test of time but continues to be relevant and speaks to the social, economic, and political conditions in Latin America today.
The influence of “Open Veins” on the masses in Latin America and other parts of the world is incalculable.
Is it possible that a writer, as brilliant as Galeano, can forget the power of his own work?
For more than 40 years, Eduardo Galeano’s “The Open Veins of Latin America” has been the canonical anti-colonialist, anti-capitalist and anti-American text in that region. Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s populist president, even put a copy of the book, which he had called “a monument in our Latin American history,” in President Obama’s hands the first time they met. But now Mr. Galeano, a 73-year-old Uruguayan writer, has disavowed the book, saying that he was not qualified to tackle the subject and that it was badly written. Predictably, his remarks have set off a vigorous regional debate, with the right doing some “we told you so” gloating, and the left clinging to a dogged defensiveness.
“ ‘Open Veins’ tried to be a book of political economy, but I didn’t yet have the necessary training or preparation,” Mr. Galeano said last month while answering questions at a book fair in Brazil, where he was being honored on the 43rd anniversary of the book’s publication. He added: “I wouldn’t be capable of reading this book again; I’d keel over. For me, this prose of the traditional left is extremely leaden, and my physique can’t tolerate it.”
Click here for the entire article
Leave a Comment » | Books, Capitalism, Colonialism, Eduardo Galeano, Imperialism, Latin America, US History, US Politics | Permalink
C.L.R. James and E.P. Thompson in Conversation
This is a truly priceless video of a long conversation between two great historians, C.L.R. James and E.P. Thompson.
Their meeting took place in the 1980’s hence their discussion of Reagan and Thatcher as well as a fascinating dialogue on the state of the international Left and peace movement.
Leave a Comment » | Anti-War, C.L.R. James, Capitalism, Imperialism, UK Politics, US Politics, World Politics | Permalink
Springsteen Embraces Occupy
The Boss embraces Occupy
Bruce Springsteen’s new single explores income inequality and captures the rage of the 99 percent
By Stephen Deusner
Bruce Springsteen officially announced today that his new album, “Wrecking Ball,” would hit shelves on March 6. Rumors had hinted that this would be his angriest album and that he would be addressing the current recession and the economic travails of middle- and lower-class America. If the first single, “We Take Care of Our Own,” is any indication, this will be to Occupy Wall Street what “The Rising” was to 9/11: the moment when Springsteen takes up a cause and makes sense of an event that has stymied other musicians.
Springsteen’s not the first artist to take up the occupiers’ cause, nor is he the first to filter his outrage through the iconography of Woody Guthrie, the Dust Bowl folkie who has become, 44 years after his death, the patron saint of the 99 percent. Tom Morello evoked Guthrie’s example when he strolled around Zuccotti Park singing “This Land Is Your Land,” which won MTV’s dubious award for Best #OWS Performance last year.
More recently, Jackson Browne debuted a folksy number at Occupy Wall Street that played against his soft-rock strengths in favor of talking-to-the-masses piety. Guthrie has proved to be a potent symbol of grass-roots dissent, yet these songs make it appear as though the folk singer has been thrust upon OWS rather than embraced by its demonstrators. And it’s a limited view of the singer as well, one that doesn’t accommodate his sense of humor or his sense of wonder.
Click here to view the entire article
Leave a Comment » | Bruce Springsteen, Capitalism, Music, Poverty & Inequality, Social Justice | Permalink
The Politics of Upton Sinclair
by RON JACOBS
I’ve always been a fan of the novelist Upton Sinclair. From the day in junior high that I finished his classic about the US meatpacking industry, The Jungle, up to last week when I finally read his novel about Wall Street and the coal-mining industry titled King Coal, I have always found his novels to be well-told tales of life in the domain of Wall Street.
Although the industrial processes he describes in his books are outmoded, the financial chicanery and greed of the financial giants he despised are only more refined. In my mind his works have taken on a new relevance in this period of market manipulation and destruction of the commons under the guise of a free market.
Biographer Anthony Arthur’s 2006 work on writer and activist Upton Sinclair is an engaging and well-researched discussion of the man that was Upton Sinclair. Like the character in Kris Kristofferson’s tune, “The Pilgrim,” Arthur’s Sinclair is “a walking contradiction/partly truth and partly fiction.”
Reaching into the personal papers of Sinclair, his first wife and a number of his friends and colleagues, Arthur has produced a book that is in fact more than a history of the man who was Upton Sinclair, it is a history of the time he lived in. That time spanned two world wars, several revolutions, at least one economic depression, and multiple episodes of governmental repression. Sinclair responded to them all.
Leave a Comment » | Books, Capitalism, Literature, Poverty & Inequality, Racism, Social Justice, Upton Sinclair, US Politics | Permalink
Could jazz provide the Occupy Wall Street soundtrack?
The civil rights movement had a jazz beat. Now a new generation of players wants to meld politics and protest
By Martin Johnson
In the late ’50s and ’60s, during the peak of the civil rights movement, marches and meetings had a jazz soundtrack. Masterworks like Max Roach’s “Freedom Now Suite,” Charles Mingus’ “Fables of Faubus” and Sonny Rollins’ “Freedom Suite” were equal parts incendiary and innovative — brilliant music that reflected their times with precision and passion. As that era gave way to the heyday of Black Nationalism, political themes continued in the vibrant jazz of musicians like Archie Shepp, Sunny Murray and Julius Hemphill, among others.
Yet by the ’80s, fight-the-power odes died down in jazz, especially as rap and hip-hop emerged to carry the flag. Jazz veered toward easy listening instead. “I think jazz went through a period in the 1980s and 1990s where it was trying very hard to be ‘America’s Classical Music,’” says composer and bandleader Darcy James Argue. “The intentions behind this were laudable. The movement clearly succeeded in increasing respect for jazz in elite circles — but it also defanged the music by stripping away the social and political context, or by trying to frame it in broadly inoffensive terms.”
Argue is one of the most prominent of a growing number of jazz musicians whose work features overtly political themes.
Leave a Comment » | Capitalism, Jazz, Music, Social Justice, US Politics | Permalink
London’s Burning
Leave a Comment » | Capitalism, Corporate Media, London, Media, Police Brutality, Poverty & Inequality, Racism, Social Justice, UK Politics | Permalink
ALL-SPORTS issue of the Nation Magazine
For only the second time in the magazine’s long history, The Nation’s upcoming issue will be all about sports.
There will be plenty of politics as well.
Politics have been present and held a prominent place throughout US sports history.
Even more so today.
From all the labor problems between the players and owners to athletes speaking out against war and social injustice. There’s also the economics side of sports and that is just as a political issue as anything else.
As a long time sports fan and as a person greatly interested in politics I am really looking forward to reading this special issue of the magazine.
Click here to view the list of articles in the All-Sports Issue of The Nation
Leave a Comment » | Anti-War, Black History, Capitalism, Civil Rights, Corporate Media, Human Rights, Latino, Media, Racism, Social Justice, Sports, US History, US Politics | Permalink
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← Higher Education and Research Bill – Second Reading 19 July
Parliamentary call for evidence: Have your say on the Higher Education and Research Bill →
Example letters for lobbying your MP – Second Reading
Posted on July 15, 2016 by Sean
In order to help colleagues lobby their MPs for the Second Reading of the HE Bill, we have collated some example letters below.
Write to your MP to oppose the Bill
Please do write/rewrite in your own words! Letters that are written in this way are more likely to be read. We have also highlighted parts of the text you should change.
These are written by/for Higher Education staff. But you should be able to adapt them, whether you are a student, a parent, or a school or FE teacher.
Note that due to devolution, the impacts – and the perceived impacts – are likely to differ across the four nations. So we have drafted different letters.
Dear ______,
As one of your constituents, and as someone working in Higher Education, I am writing to urge you to attend Parliament and vote against the Government’s Higher Education and Research Bill at the Second Reading on 19 July.
The Brexit vote has plunged British universities into profound uncertainty and a looming financial crisis, as the future of EU students and EU research funding are placed in doubt. The last thing our universities need now is the regulatory upheaval and market chaos that this Bill would unleash.
The Bill primarily aims to hasten market entry for ‘alternative providers’ who will be able to cherry-pick cheap-to-provide courses and undercut established universities. Quality Assurance regulations have been weakened in advance, permitting a two-tier university sector. Rather than achieving the stated aim of widening participation, poorer students will become the recipients of cheap, lower quality degrees. Meanwhile the UK’s world leading universities will find their financial stability – already shaken by recent policy changes – profoundly undermined, merely to grant market share to dubious private interests. The last influx of private institutions – who now receive 10% of state-backed funds (£700m) – created a budgetary crisis in the Department for Business. Expansion could further destabilise government finances.
I am very concerned that universities in our area could be forced to shrink or close, with a devastating impact on our local community. [IF UNIVERSITIES IN YOUR AREA HAVE BEEN HAVING DIFFICULTIES, MENTION THIS HERE; FOR EXAMPLE: We have already seen how market and regulatory pressures on London Metropolitan University have led to massive course closures and the proposed redundancy of a third of all staff. You may want to mention links between the University and the local community]
The Bill is largely being justified as necessary to improve teaching quality, proposing a new Office for Students to implement a ‘Teaching Excellence Framework’ (TEF). However, while there is always room for improvement, there is no real evidence of poor teaching in British universities. In fact, EU research identifies our universities as the best in Europe for research and teaching. National Student Satisfaction scores have steadily risen, year on year.
Moreover, the proposed ‘TEF’ would be a highly bureaucratic exercise that will not and cannot measure teaching quality. Rather, it would focus on things like graduate employment destinations – which are beyond universities’ control and strongly correlated with social background – and student satisfaction scores – which, research shows, are not correlated with educational outcomes and exhibit bias against women and minority-ethnic lecturers. The National Union of Students, representing the students for whom this is supposedly designed, has described the TEF as a ‘crude measure’ and suggested that its unintended consequences are ‘worrying’. Ironically, the parallel ‘Research Excellence Framework’ is so wasteful – costing £244m in 2014 – that it is now subject to a government inquiry.
The cost of this added regulation will also be borne by universities and thus indirectly by fee-paying students and their families, thereby reducing, not improving, ‘value for money’. Universities already spend 8 percent of teaching budgets (£1.1bn) annually on regulatory compliance. If TEF is implemented, bureaucracy within universities will expand and we will have even less money to spend on improving teaching. Indeed, teaching quality will fall. TEF will force universities to hollow out the teaching of academic subjects and ‘teach to the test’ to maximise their scores.
The Bill is justified by vague statements about improving access to HE for disadvantaged groups. I share this laudable goal. But the Bill does not address this challenge except rhetorically. No extra resources are envisaged, beyond fee rises in line with inflation (currently 0.5%) which would not even cover the costs of TEF.
The Government also envisages that the restriction that means that a university is responsible for teaching courses to completion will be reduced. The aim is to make speculative ventures into the Higher Education market more attractive for private investors. But the risk will be entirely at the expense of students. Students could easily find themselves with nowhere to complete their degrees, despite investing thousands of pounds in their education. Even if this does not happen they may graduate with a degree which has little or no value to future employers.
I would be happy to arrange a meeting with colleagues to explain our objections to the Bill further, if this would be helpful. I would also urge you to read the Alternative White Paper https://heconvention2.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/awp1.pdf
written by academics, which shows the flaws in the Government’s plans and offers positive alternatives. You may also find these briefings by the University and College Union and others helpful:
The Convention for Higher Education: https://heconvention2.wordpress.com
HE and research bill – second reading briefing: http://www.ucu.org.uk/?mediaid=8228
HE and research bill & private providers: http://www.ucu.org.uk/?mediaid=8230
Please attend Parliament on 19 July and oppose this Bill. I look forward to hearing from you.
ADDRESS IN CONSTITUENCY (IMPORTANT!)
As one of your constituents, and as someone working at (Queen’s University, University of Ulster, Stranmillis University College, St Mary’s University College –delete as appropriate) I am writing to urge you to attend Parliament and vote against the Government’s Higher Education and Research Bill at the Second Reading on 19 July.
While the Government’s Bill may be presented as impacting on the English University sector, there are also significant negative implications for Northern Ireland. I would strongly urge you to vote against the bill rather than abstain.
The Brexit vote has plunged UK universities into profound uncertainty and potential financial crisis, as the future of EU students and EU research funding are now in doubt. The last thing our universities need now is the regulatory upheaval and market chaos that this bill would unleash.
The Higher Education and Research Bill primarily aims to ease the path of market entry (and future exit) of ‘for-profit private providers’ who will be able to cherry-pick cheap-to-provide courses and undercut established universities. The outcome will be a two-tier university sector: cheap, lower quality degrees for poorer students and high cost, high quality degrees for an elite minority with the financial means to afford these high costs. Our existing universities’ financial stability will be profoundly undermined, merely to grant market share to dubious for-profit private interests who will then also be permitted to exit the market if profits are insufficient.
While low cost/quality for-profit providers entry into the Northern Ireland market will most likely be primarily through distance learning, it is important to remember that roughly a quarter of NI domiciled students study in English, Scottish or Welsh Universities, their grants and student loans being paid for out of the NI HE budget. These students will be vulnerable to the easy-exit provisions of the Bill. The Government envisages that the restriction that means that a university is responsible for teaching courses to completion will be reduced. The aim is to make speculative ventures into the Higher Education market more attractive for private investors. But the risk will be entirely at the expense of students. Northern Ireland domiciled students could easily find themselves with nowhere to complete their degrees, despite the Assembly investing thousands of pounds in their education. Even if this does not happen they may graduate with a degree which has little or no value to future employers.
The Higher Education and Research Bill is largely being justified as necessary to improve teaching quality, proposing a new Office for Students to implement a ‘Teaching Excellence Framework’ (TEF). However, while there is always room for improvement, there is no evidence of poor teaching in Northern Ireland Universities and Colleges. EU research identifies UK universities as the best in Europe for research and teaching. National Student Satisfaction scores have steadily risen, year on year.
But the TEF is totally flawed. Instead of evaluating courses by their teaching, the TEF instead seeks to utilise quantitative metrics as a definitive ranking of quality. It would be a highly bureaucratic exercise that will not and cannot measure teaching quality. The cost of this added regulation will also be borne by universities and thus indirectly by fee-paying students and their families, thereby reducing, not improving, ‘value for money’.
Universities already spend 8 percent of teaching budgets (£1.1bn) annually on regulatory compliance. If TEF is implemented, bureaucracy within universities will expand and we will have even less money to spend on improving teaching. Indeed, teaching quality will fall. TEF will force universities to hollow out the teaching of academic subjects and ‘teach to the test’ to maximise their scores.
The Higher Education and Research Bill is also justified by vague statements about improving access to HE for disadvantaged groups. But the Bill does not address this challenge except rhetorically. No extra resources are envisaged, beyond fee rises in line with inflation (currently 0.5%) which would not even cover the costs of TEF.
The Higher Education and Research Bill further seeks to centralise research funding into one major UK-based funding council. The impact of such centralisation is likely to lead to a reduction in research funding and narrowing of focus in its areas of interest for research funding. The outcomes of this for NI universities raises still further concerns. It is for this and many other reasons that the sector made some 650 submissions to the original green paper proposals overwhelmingly rejecting the direction of travel now being undertaken by the UK Government.
I would urge you to consider the Higher Education and Research Bill to be a piece of legislation with significant impact on Northern Ireland, and therefore something you would be correct to vote against.
As one of your constituents, and as someone working at a Scottish University, I am writing to urge you to attend Parliament and vote against the Government’s Higher Education and Research Bill at the Second Reading on 19 July.
While higher education in Scotland is a devolved issue, the Government’s Bill contains many elements that will impact negatively on the Scottish Higher Education system and therefore I would urge you to vote against the Bill rather than abstain.
In Scotland, specifically, while low cost/quality for-profit providers entry into the market will most likely be primarily through distance learning, Scottish students will nevertheless be vulnerable to the easy-exit provisions of the Bill.
The Government envisages that the restriction that means that a university is responsible for teaching courses to completion will be reduced. The aim is to make speculative ventures into the Higher Education market more attractive for private investors. But the risk will be entirely at the expense of students. Scottish students could easily find themselves with nowhere to complete their degrees, despite investing thousands of pounds in their education. Even if this does not happen they may graduate with a degree which has little or no value to future employers. The UK Government’s Bill moves in the opposite direction to that sought by the Scottish Government whose approach to widening access has already proven to be effective.
In England the last influx of private institutions – who now receive 10% of state-backed funds (£700m) – also created a budgetary crisis in the Department for Business. We have already seen how market and regulatory pressures on London Metropolitan University have led to massive course closures and the proposed redundancy of a third of all staff.
The Higher Education and Research Bill is largely being justified as necessary to improve teaching quality, proposing a new Office for Students to implement a ‘Teaching Excellence Framework’ (TEF). However, while there is always room for improvement, there is no evidence of poor teaching in UK or Scottish universities. In fact, EU research identifies our universities as the best in Europe for research and teaching. National Student Satisfaction scores have steadily risen, year on year.
In Scotland we have developed a collaborative approach to quality assurance through the embedding of Enhancement-led Institutional Review (ELIR). ELIR seeks to develop a culture of improvement in which quantitative outcomes are used to guide enhancement. TEF instead seeks to utilise quantitative metrics as a definitive ranking of quality. If TEF goes ahead there will be strong pressure on Scottish Universities to join the process, due to the risk that non-Scottish UK and international students will use TEF scores in their choice of universities. The proposed ‘TEF’ would be a highly bureaucratic exercise that will not and cannot measure teaching quality. Rather, it would focus on things like graduate employment destinations – which are beyond universities’ control – and student satisfaction scores – which, research shows, are not correlated with educational outcomes and exhibit bias against women and minority-ethnic lecturers. Ironically, the parallel ‘Research Excellence Framework’ is so wasteful – costing £244m in 2014 – that it is now subject to a government inquiry.
The cost of this added regulation will also be borne by universities and thus indirectly by fee-paying students and their families, thereby reducing, not improving, ‘value for money’. Universities already spend 8 percent of teaching budgets (£1.1bn) annually on regulatory compliance. If TEF is implemented, bureaucracy within Scottish universities will expand and we will have even less money to spend on improving teaching. Indeed, teaching quality will fall. TEF will force universities to hollow out the teaching of academic subjects and ‘teach to the test’ to maximise their scores.
The Higher Education and Research Bill is also justified by vague statements about improving access to HE for disadvantaged groups. But the Bill does not address this challenge except rhetorically. No extra resources are envisaged, beyond fee rises in line with inflation (currently 0.5%) which would not even cover the costs of TEF. Indeed, the Scottish Government’s approach to widening access will be undermined by the provisions for for-profit entrants and TEF.
The Higher Education and Research Bill further seeks to centralise research funding into one major UK-based funding council. The impact of such centralisation is likely to lead to a reduction in research funding and narrowing of focus in its areas of interest for research funding. The outcomes of this for Scottish universities raises still further concerns. It is for this and many other reasons that the sector made some 650 submissions to the original green paper proposals overwhelmingly rejecting the direction of travel now being undertaken by the UK Government.
Finally, it is important to mention that while the Brexit vote has increased uncertainty in the Scottish University sector and raised the potential for a second independence referendum in Scotland if the UK Government HE Bill were to be implemented Scottish Universities would have already been negatively impacted prior to any moves towards independence in Scotland. Again therefore I would urge you to consider the Higher Education and Research Bill to be a piece of legislation with significant impact on Scotland and therefore something you would be correct to vote against.
As one of your constituents, and as someone working at a Welsh University, I am writing to urge you to attend Parliament and vote against the Government’s Higher Education and Research Bill at the Second Reading on 19 July.
While the Government’s bill may be presented as impacting on the English University sector, there are also significant negative implications for Wales. I would strongly urge you to vote against the bill rather than abstain.
In Wales, specifically, while low cost/quality for-profit providers entry into the market will most likely be primarily through distance learning, over 50,000 Welsh students study in England, their fees paid for by the Welsh Assembly.
These students will be vulnerable to the easy-exit provisions of the Bill. The Government envisages that the restriction that means that a university is responsible for teaching courses to completion will be reduced. The aim is to make speculative ventures into the Higher Education market more attractive for private investors. But the risk will be entirely at the expense of students. Welsh students could easily find themselves with nowhere to complete their degrees, despite the Assembly investing thousands of pounds in their education. Even if this does not happen they may graduate with a degree which has little or no value to future employers.
The Higher Education and Research Bill is largely being justified as necessary to improve teaching quality, proposing a new Office for Students to implement a ‘Teaching Excellence Framework’ (TEF). However, while there is always room for improvement, there is no evidence of poor teaching in UK or Welsh universities. In fact, EU research identifies our universities as the best in Europe for research and teaching. National Student Satisfaction scores have steadily risen, year on year.
It is also highly likely that Welsh universities will be expected to participate in the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) because to do otherwise would be to rule ourselves out of a market in students in competition with English universities.
But the TEF is totally flawed. Instead of evaluating courses by their teaching, the TEF instead seeks to utilise quantitative metrics as a definitive ranking of quality. It would be a highly bureaucratic exercise that will not and cannot measure teaching quality. Rather, it would focus on things like graduate employment destinations – which are beyond universities’ control – and student satisfaction scores – which, research shows, are not correlated with educational outcomes and exhibit bias against women and minority-ethnic lecturers. Ironically, the parallel ‘Research Excellence Framework’ is so wasteful – costing £244m in 2014 – that it is now subject to a government inquiry.
The cost of this added regulation will also be borne by universities and thus indirectly by fee-paying students and their families, thereby reducing, not improving, ‘value for money’. Universities already spend 8 percent of teaching budgets (£1.1bn) annually on regulatory compliance. If TEF is implemented, bureaucracy within Welsh universities will expand and we will have even less money to spend on improving teaching. Indeed, teaching quality will fall. TEF will force universities to hollow out the teaching of academic subjects and ‘teach to the test’ to maximise their scores.
The Higher Education and Research Bill further seeks to centralise research funding into one major UK-based funding council. The impact of such centralisation is likely to lead to a reduction in research funding and narrowing of focus in its areas of interest for research funding. The outcomes of this for Welsh universities raises still further concerns. It is for this and many other reasons that the sector made some 650 submissions to the original green paper proposals overwhelmingly rejecting the direction of travel now being undertaken by the UK Government.
I would urge you to consider the Higher Education and Research Bill to be a piece of legislation with significant impact on Wales, and therefore something you would be correct to vote against.
Principal Research Fellow, Survey of English Usage, University College London
View all posts by Sean →
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Operation Weserübung (German: [ˈveːsɐˌʔyːbʊŋ]) was the code name for Germany’s assault on Denmark and Norway during the Second World War and the opening operation of the Norwegian Campaign. The name comes from the German for Operation Weser-Exercise (Unternehmen Weserübung), the Weser being a German river. In the early morning of 9 April 1940 (Wesertag; Weser Day), Germany invaded Denmark and Norway, ostensibly as a preventive maneuver against a planned, and openly discussed, Franco-British occupation of Norway. After the invasions, envoys of the Germans informed the governments of Denmark and Norway that the Wehrmacht had come to protect the countries’ neutrality against Franco-British aggression. Significant differences in geography, location, and climate between the two nations made the actual military operations very dissimilar. The invasion fleet’s nominal landing time—Weserzeit (Weser Time)—was set to 05:15.
German dead being brought ashore from the German naval tanker Altmark.
The heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper landing troops in Norway in 1940.
German Pz.Kpfw. I tanks in Aabenraa, Denmark, 9 April 1940.
German Leichter Panzerspähwagen armoured car in Jutland.
Danish troops at Bredevad on the morning of the German attack. Two of these soldiers were killed in action later that day.
Political and Military Background
Starting in the spring of 1939, the British Admiralty began to view Scandinavia as a potential theatre of war in a future conflict with Germany. The British government was reluctant to engage in another land conflict on the continent that they believed would be a repetition of the First World War. Therefore, they began considering a blockade strategy in an attempt to weaken Germany indirectly. German industry was heavily dependent on the import of iron ore from the northern Swedish mining district, and much of this ore was shipped through the northern Norwegian port of Narvik during the winter months. Control of the Norwegian coast would also serve to tighten a blockade against Germany.
In October 1939, the chief of the German Kriegsmarine Grand Admiral Erich Raeder discussed with Adolf Hitler the danger posed by the risk of having potential British bases in Norway and the possibility of Germany seizing these bases before the United Kingdom could. The navy argued that possession of Norway would allow control of the nearby seas and serve as a staging base for future submarine operations against the United Kingdom. But at this time, the other branches of the Wehrmacht were not interested, and Hitler had just issued a directive stating that the main effort would be a land offensive through the Low Countries.
Toward the end of November, Winston Churchill, as a new member of the British War Cabinet, proposed the mining of Norwegian waters in Operation Wilfred. This would force the ore transports to travel through the open waters of the North Sea, where the Royal Navy could intercept them. Churchill assumed that Wilfred would provoke a German response in Norway. When that occurred, the Allies would implement Plan R 4 and occupy Norway. Though later implemented, Operation Wilfred was initially rejected by Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax, due to fear of an adverse reaction among neutral nations such as the United States. After the start of the Winter War between the Soviet Union and Finland in November, this had changed the strategic situation, Churchill again proposed his mining scheme, but once more was denied.
In December, the United Kingdom and France began serious planning for sending aid to Finland. Their plan called for a force to land at Narvik in northern Norway, the main port for Swedish iron ore exports, and to take control of the Malmbanan railway line from Narvik to Luleå in Sweden on the shore of the Gulf of Bothnia. Conveniently, this plan would also allow the Allied forces to occupy the Swedish iron ore mining district. The plan received the support of both Chamberlain and Halifax. They were counting on the cooperation of Norway, which would alleviate some of the legal issues, but stern warnings by Germany issued to both Norway and Sweden resulted in strongly negative reactions in both countries. Planning for the expedition continued, but the justification for it was removed when Finland sued for peace with the Soviet Union in March 1940.
Following a meeting with Vidkun Quisling from Norway on 14 December, Hitler turned his attention to Scandinavia. Convinced of the threat posed by the Allies to the iron ore supply, Hitler ordered Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (Armed Forces High Command; OKW) to begin preliminary planning for an invasion of Norway. The preliminary plan was named Studie Nord and called for only one army division.
Between 14 and 19 January, the Kriegsmarine developed an expanded version of this plan. They decided upon two key factors: that surprise was essential to reduce the threat of Norwegian resistance and British intervention; the second to use faster German warships, rather than comparatively slow merchant ships, as troop transports. This would allow all targets to be occupied simultaneously, impossible if transport ships, which traveled only at slow speeds, were used. This new plan called for a full army corps, including a mountain division, an airborne division, a motorized rifle brigade, and two infantry divisions. The target objectives of this force were the Norwegian capital Oslo and nearby population centers, Bergen, Narvik, Tromsø, Trondheim, Kristiansand, and Stavanger. The plan also called for the rapid capture of the kings of Denmark and Norway in the hopes that would trigger a rapid surrender.
On 21 February 1940, command of the operation was given to General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst. He had fought in Finland during the First World War and was familiar with Arctic warfare. But he was to have command only of the ground forces, despite Hitler’s desire to have a unified command.
The final plan was code-named Operation Weserübung (Exercise on the Weser) on 27 January 1940. The ground forces would be the XXI Army Corps, including the 3rd Mountain Division and five infantry divisions, none of the latter having yet been tested in battle. The first echelon would consist of three divisions for the assault, with the remainder to follow in the next wave. Three companies of paratroopers would be used to seize airfields. The decision to also send the 2nd Mountain Division was made later.
Almost all U-boat operations in the Atlantic were to be stopped for the submarines to aid in the operation. Every available submarine—including some training boats—were used as part of Operation Hartmut in support of Weserübung.
Initially, the plan was to invade Norway and to gain control of Danish airfields by diplomatic means. But Hitler issued a new directive on 1 March that called for the invasion of both Norway and Denmark. This came at the insistence of the Luftwaffe to capture fighter bases and sites for air-warning stations. The XXXI Corps was formed for the invasion of Denmark, consisting of two infantry divisions and the 11th motorized brigade. The entire operation would be supported by the X Air Corps, consisting of some 1,000 aircraft of various types.
In February, the British destroyer HMS Cossack boarded the German transport ship Altmark while in Norwegian waters, thereby violating Norwegian neutrality, rescuing POWs also held in violation of Norwegian neutrality. The Altmark was obliged to release them as soon as she entered the neutral territory. Hitler regarded this as a clear sign that the UK was willing to violate Norwegian neutrality, and so became even more strongly committed to the invasion.
On 12 March, the United Kingdom decided to send an expeditionary force to Norway just as the Winter War was winding down. The expeditionary force began boarding on 13 March, but it was recalled and the operation canceled with the end of the Winter War. Instead, the British cabinet voted to proceed with the mining operation in Norwegian waters, followed by troop landings.
The first German ships set sail for the invasion on 3 April. Two days later, the long-planned Operation Wilfred was put into action, and the Royal Navy detachment, led by the battlecruiser HMS Renown, left Scapa Flow to mine Norwegian waters. The minefields were laid in the Vestfjorden in the early morning of 8 April. Operation Wilfred was over, but later that day, the destroyer HMS Glowworm, detached on 7 April to search for a man lost overboard, was lost in action to the German heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper and two destroyers belonging to the German invasion fleet.
On 9 April, the German invasion was underway, and the execution of Plan R 4 was promptly started.
Invasion of Denmark
Strategically, Denmark’s importance to Germany was as a staging area for operations in Norway, and of course as a border nation to Germany which would have to be controlled in some way. Given Denmark’s position to the Baltic Sea, the country was also crucial for the control of naval and shipping access to major German and Soviet harbors.
At 04:00 on 9 April 1940, the German ambassador to Denmark, Cecil von Renthe-Fink, called the Danish Foreign Minister Peter Munch and requested a meeting with him. When the two men met 20 minutes later, Renthe-Fink declared that German troops were then moving in to occupy Denmark to protect the country from Franco-British attack. The German ambassador demanded that Danish resistance cease immediately and that contact be made between Danish authorities and the German armed forces. If the demands were not met, the Luftwaffe would bomb the capital, Copenhagen.
As the German demands were communicated, the first German advances had already been made, with forces landing by ferry in Gedser at 03:55 and moving north. German Fallschirmjäger units had made unopposed landings and taken two airfields at Aalborg, the Storstrøm Bridge as well as the fortress of Masnedø, the latter being the first recorded attack in the world made by paratroopers.
At 04:20 local time, a reinforced battalion of German infantrymen from the 308th Regiment landed in Copenhagen harbor from the minelayer Hansestadt Danzig, quickly capturing the Danish garrison at the Citadel without encountering resistance. From the harbor, the Germans moved toward Amalienborg Palace to capture the Danish royal family. By the time the invasion forces arrived at the king’s residence, the King’s Royal Guard had been alerted and other reinforcements were on their way to the palace. The first German attack on Amalienborg was repulsed, giving Christian X and his ministers time to confer with the Danish Army chief General Prior. As the discussions were ongoing, several formations of Heinkel He 111 and Dornier Do 17 bombers roared over the city dropping OPROP! leaflets.
At 05:25, two squadrons of German Bf 110s attacked Værløse airfield on Zealand and neutralized the Danish Army Air Service by strafing. Despite Danish anti-aircraft fire, the German fighters destroyed ten Danish aircraft and seriously damaged another fourteen, thereby wiping out half of the entire Army Air Service.
Faced with the explicit threat of the Luftwaffe bombing the civilian population of Copenhagen, and with only General Prior in favor of fighting on, King Christian X and the entire Danish government capitulated at approximately 06:00 in exchange for retaining political independence in domestic matters.
The invasion of Denmark lasted less than six hours and was the shortest military campaign conducted by the Germans during the war. The rapid Danish capitulation resulted in the uniquely-lenient occupation of Denmark, particularly until the summer of 1943, and in postponing the arrest and deportation of Danish Jews until nearly all of them were warned and on their way to refuge in Sweden. In the end, 477 Danish Jews were deported, and 70 of them lost their lives, out of a pre-war total of Jews and half-Jews at a little over 8,000.
Invasion of Norway
The operation’s military headquarters was Hotel Esplanade in Hamburg, where orders were given to, among others, the air units involved in the invasion.
Norway was important to Germany for two primary reasons: as a base for naval units, including U-boats, to harass Allied shipping in the North Atlantic, and to secure shipments of iron ore from Sweden through the port of Narvik. The long northern coastline was an excellent place to launch U-boat operations into the North Atlantic to attack British commerce. Germany was dependent on iron ore from Sweden and was worried, with justification, that the Allies would attempt to disrupt those shipments, 90% of which originating from Narvik.
The German landing sites during the initial phase of Operation Weserübung.
The invasion of Norway was given to the XXI Army Corps under General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst and consisted of the following main units:
69. Infantry Division.
163. Infantry Division.
3. Mountain Division.
The initial invasion force was transported in several groups by ships of the Kriegsmarine:
Battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau as distant cover, plus 10 destroyers with 2,000 mountaineering troops under General Eduard Dietl to Narvik.
Heavy Cruiser Admiral Hipper and four destroyers with 1,700 troops to Trondheim.
Light Cruisers Köln and Königsberg, artillery training ship Bremse, Schnellboot mothership Karl Peters, two torpedo boats and five motor torpedo boats with 1,900 troops to Bergen.
Light Cruiser Karlsruhe, three torpedo boats, seven motor torpedo boats, and Schnellboot mothership (Schnellbootbegleitschiff) Tsingtau with 1,100 troops to Kristiansand and Arendal.
Heavy Cruiser Blücher, Heavy Cruiser Lützow, Light Cruiser Emden, three torpedo boats and eight minesweepers with 2,000 troops to Oslo.
Map of Oslofjord with Oscarsborg.
Concise Timeline
Shortly after noon on 8 April, the clandestine German troop transport Rio de Janeiro was sunk off Lillesand by the Polish submarine Orzeł, part of the Royal Navy’s 2nd Submarine Flotilla. However, the news of the sinking reached the appropriate levels of officialdom in Oslo too late to do much more than trigger a limited, last-minute alert.
Late in the evening of 8 April 1940, Kampfgruppe 5 was spotted by the Norwegian guard vessel Pol III. Pol III was fired at; her captain Leif Welding-Olsen became the first Norwegian killed in action during the invasion.
German ships sailed up the Oslofjord leading to the Norwegian capital, reaching the Drøbak Narrows (Drøbaksundet). In the early morning of 9 April, the gunners at Oscarsborg Fortress fired on the leading ship, Blücher, which had been illuminated by spotlights at about 04:15. Two of the guns used were the 48-year-old German Krupp guns (nicknamed Moses and Aron) of 280 mm (11 in) caliber. Within two hours, the badly damaged ship, unable to maneuver in the narrow fjord from multiple artillery and torpedo hits, sank with very heavy loss of life totaling 600–1,000 men.
The now obvious threat from the fortress and the mistaken belief that mines had contributed to the sinking delayed the rest of the naval invasion group long enough for the Royal Family, the Cabinet and members of Parliament to be evacuated, along with the national treasury. On their flight northward by special train, the court encountered the Battle of Midtskogen and bombs at Elverum and Nybergsund. As the Norwegian king and his legitimate government were not captured, Norway never surrendered in a legal sense to the Germans, leaving the Quisling government illegitimate. The Norwegian government-in-exile based in London remained, therefore, an Allied nation in the war.
German airborne troops landed at Oslo airport Fornebu, Kristiansand airport Kjevik, and Sola Air Station – the latter constituting the first opposed paratrooper attack in history; coincidentally, among the Luftwaffe pilots landing at Kjevik was Reinhard Heydrich.
Vidkun Quisling’s radio-effected coup d’etat at 7.30pm on 9 April – another first.
Cities/towns Bergen, Stavanger, Egersund, Kristiansand, Arendal, Horten, Trondheim and Narvik attacked and occupied within 24 hours.
Heroic, but wholly ineffective, stand by the Norwegian armored coastal defense ships Norge and Eidsvold at Narvik. Both ships torpedoed and sunk with great loss of life.
First Battle of Narvik (Royal Navy vs Kriegsmarine) on 9 April.
The German force took Narvik and landed the 2,000 mountain infantry, but a British naval counter-attack by the modernized battleship HMS Warspite and a flotilla of destroyers over several days succeeded in sinking all ten German destroyers once they ran out of fuel and ammunition.
Devastating bombing of towns Nybergsund, Elverum, Åndalsnes, Molde, Kristiansund N, Steinkjer, Namsos, Bodø, Narvik – some of them tactically bombed, some terror-bombed.
Main German land campaign northward from Oslo with superior equipment; Norwegian soldiers with turn-of-the-century weapons, along with some British and French troops, stop invaders for a time before yielding – first land combat action between British Army and Wehrmacht in World War II.
Second Naval Battle of Narvik (Royal Navy vs Kriegsmarine) on 13 April.
Land battles at Narvik: Norwegian and Allied (French and Polish) forces under General Carl Gustav Fleischer achieve the first major tactical victory against the Wehrmacht in WWII, and the following withdrawal of the Allied forces (mentioned below); Fighting at Gratangen.
With the evacuation of the King and the Cabinet Nygaardsvold from Molde to Tromsø on 29 April and the allied evacuation of Åndalsnes on 1 May, resistance in Southern Norway comes to an end.
The last stand: Hegra Fortress (Ingstadkleiven Fort) resisted German attacks until 5 May – of Allied propaganda importance, like Narvik.
King Haakon, Crown Prince Olav, and the Cabinet Nygaardsvold left from Tromsø 7 June aboard the British cruiser HMS Devonshire, bound for Britain to represent Norway in exile. King returned to Oslo exact same date five years later. Crown Princess Märtha and children, denied asylum in her native Sweden, later left from Petsamo, Finland, to live in exile in the United States.
The Norwegian Army in mainland Norway capitulated through the Royal Norwegian Navy and other armed forces continued fighting the Germans abroad and at home until the German capitulation on 8 May 1945 on 10 June 1940, two months after Wesertag, that made Norway the occupied country that had withstood a German invasion for the longest time before succumbing.
In the far north, Norwegian, French and Polish troops, supported by the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force (RAF), fought against the Germans over the control of the Norwegian harbor Narvik, important for the year-round export of Swedish iron ore. The Germans were driven out of Narvik on 28 May, but the deteriorating situation on the European continent made the Allied troops withdraw in Operation Alphabet, and on 9 June, the Germans recaptured Narvik, which was also now deserted by the civilians because of massive Luftwaffe bombing.
Iron ore is extracted in Kiruna and Malmberget and brought by rail to the harbors of Luleå and Narvik. Borders 1920–1940.
Encircling of Sweden and Finland
Operation Weserübung did not include a military assault on neutral Sweden because there was no need. By holding Norway, the Danish straits and most of the shores of the Baltic Sea, the Third Reich encircled Sweden from the north, the west, and the south. In the east, there was the Soviet Union, the successor of Sweden’s and Finland’s archenemy, Russia, on friendly terms with Hitler under the terms of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. A small number of Finnish volunteers helped the Norwegian Army against Germans in an ambulance unit.
Swedish and Finnish trade was dependent on the Kriegsmarine, and Germany put pressure on neutral Sweden to permit transit of military goods and soldiers on leave. On 18 June 1940, an agreement was reached. Soldiers were to travel unarmed and not be part of unit movements. A total of 2.14 million German soldiers, as well as more than 100,000 German military railway carriages, crossed Sweden until that traffic was suspended on 20 August 1943.
On 19 August 1940, Finland agreed to grant access to its territory for the Wehrmacht, with the agreement signed on 22 September. Initially for the transit of troops and military equipment to and from northernmost Norway but soon also for minor bases along the transit road that eventually would grow in preparation for Operation Barbarossa.
Nuremberg Trials
The 1941 Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran and the 1940 German invasion of Norway have been argued to be preemptive, with the German defense in the Nuremberg trials in 1946 arguing that Germany ‘was compelled to attack Norway by the need to forestall an Allied invasion and that her action was therefore preemptive.’ The German defense was to attempt to refer to Plan R 4 and its predecessors. However, it was determined that Germany had discussed invasion plans as early as 3 October 1939 in a memo from Admiral Raeder to Alfred Rosenberg whose subject was gaining bases in Norway. Raeder had begun by asking questions such as ‘Can bases be gained by military force against Norway’s will if it is impossible to carry this out without fighting?’ Norway was vital to Germany as a transport route for iron ore from Sweden, a supply that the United Kingdom was determined to stop. One British plan was to go through Norway and occupy cities in Sweden. An Allied invasion was ordered on 12 March, and the Germans intercepted radio traffic setting 14 March as a deadline for the preparation. Peace in Finland interrupted the Allied plans.
Two diary entries by Jodl dated 13 and 14 March did not indicate any high-level awareness of the Allied plan but also that Hitler was actively considering putting Weserübung into operation. The first said ‘Fuehrer does not give order yet for Weser Exercise’ He is still looking for an excuse.’ The second ‘Fuehrer has not yet decided what reason to give for Weser Exercise.’ It was not till 2 April 1940 that German preparations were completed and the Naval Operational Order for Weserübung was issued on 4 April 1940. The new Allied plans were Wilfred and Plan R 4. The plan was to provoke a German reaction by laying mines in Norwegian waters, and once Germany showed signs of taking action, UK troops would occupy Narvik, Trondheim, and Bergen and launch a raid on Stavanger to destroy Sola airfield. However, the mines were not laid until the morning of 8 April, by which time the German ships were advancing up the Norwegian coast. The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg determined that no Allied invasion was imminent and so rejected the German argument that Germany was entitled to attack Norway.
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Joan Lader & More to Receive 2016 Tony Award Honors
April 14th, 2016 | By Imogen Lloyd Webber
Awards season is hotting up! We now know who will receive the 2016 Tony Honors for Excellence in the Theater. Broadway.com has confirmed that vocal coach Joan Lader, costume shop owner Sally Ann Parsons and Laywer Seth Gelblum will take home the prize, which is set to be presented at a reception on June 6.
The award honors members of the Broadway community whose work wouldn’t be recognized in the competitive awards categories.
For more than 30 years, Lader has provided vocal training and rehabilitation for those who use their voices professionally. Her clients have won countless Tonys, Oscars, Grammys, Emmys, and more, and while she has trained people whose names are above the title, she has trained innumerable performers in the chorus of just about every Broadway show in the last thirty years, as well. Lader is a frequent guest lecturer at Columbia University, the Voice Foundation in Philadelphia, the Pacific Voice Foundation in San Francisco, NYSTA, Berklee College of Music and the Commercial Voice Conference at Vanderbilt University.
Parsons and her husband, James Meares, founded Parsons-Meares in 1980. From squatting in an abandoned school building, the business grew to become one of the premier costume shops in New York City, producing costumes for, among others, Sophisticated Ladies, Cats, The Phantom of the Opera, The Lion King, Sunset Boulevard, Starlight Express, Will Rogers Follies, Victor Victoria, Guys and Dolls, Wonderful Town, Kiss Me Kate, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Wicked, Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark, Aladdin, and most recently Hamilton. Since James’ death in 2008, Sally Ann has been the sole owner, often with more than 50 dressmakers, craftspeople and artists working on a single project. In recognition of her outstanding contribution to the field of costume technology, she received the 2009 TDF Irene Sharaff Artisan Award.
Gelblum is a Partner and Chair of the Theater department at Loeb & Loeb LLP. His clients include producers, directors, playwrights, composers, performers, music publishers, designers and investors for Broadway, off-Broadway, touring and foreign live stage productions, as well as theater owners, motion picture studios for live stage matters, not-for-profit theaters and licensing agencies. He also represents writers and directors of motion pictures and television, documentary filmmakers and entertainment executives.
Nominations for the 2016 Tony Awards will be announced on May 3; the ceremony will take place on June 12, hosted by James Corden.
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2005 National League Division Series
The 2005 National League Division Series (NLDS), the opening round of the 2005 National League playoffs, began on Tuesday, October 4, and ended on Sunday, October 9, with the champions of the three NL divisions—along with a "wild card" team—participating in two best-of-five series. They were:
(1) St. Louis Cardinals (Central Division champions, 100–62) vs. (3) San Diego Padres (Western Division champions, 82–80): Cardinals win series, 3–0.
(2) Atlanta Braves (Eastern Division champions, 90–72) vs. (4) Houston Astros (Wild Card, 89–73): Astros win series, 3–1.
The Cardinals and Astros went on to meet in the NL Championship Series (NLCS). The Astros became the National League champion, and lost to the American League champion Chicago White Sox in the 2005 World Series.
Team (Wins)
Manager Season
St. Louis Cardinals (3)
Tony La Russa 100–62, .617, GA: 11
Bruce Bochy 82–80, .506, GA: 5
October 4 – 8
ESPN (Games 1, 3)
ESPN2 (Game 2)
TV announcers
Jon Miller, Joe Morgan (Games 1, 3)
Dave O'Brien, Steve Phillips, Eric Karros (Game 2)
Radio announcers
Gary Cohen, Luis Gonzalez
Ed Montague, Bill Hohn, Bruce Dreckman, Jerry Layne, Angel Hernandez, Tim Timmons
Houston Astros (3)
Phil Garner 89–73, .549, GB: 11
Atlanta Braves (1)
Bobby Cox 90–72, .556, GA: 2
Fox (Games 2–3)
Thom Brennaman, Steve Lyons (Game 2)
Josh Lewin, Steve Lyons (Game 3)
Dave O'Brien, Rick Sutcliffe (Game 4)
Jim Durham, John Franco
Joe Brinkman, Marvin Hudson, Jeff Nelson, Gary Cederstrom, Eric Cooper, Sam Holbrook
St. Louis Cardinals vs. San Diego Padres
St. Louis won the series, 3–0.
1 October 4 San Diego Padres – 5, St. Louis Cardinals – 8 Busch Stadium (II) 2:57 52,349[2]
3 October 8 St. Louis Cardinals – 7, San Diego Padres – 4 PETCO Park 3:07 45,093[4]
Atlanta Braves vs. Houston Astros
Houston won the series, 3–1.
1 October 5 Houston Astros – 10, Atlanta Braves – 5 Turner Field 3:11 40,590[5]
2 October 6 Houston Astros – 1, Atlanta Braves – 7 Turner Field 2:52 46,181[6]
3 October 8 Atlanta Braves – 3, Houston Astros – 7 Minute Maid Park 2:50 43,759[7]
4 October 9 Atlanta Braves – 6, Houston Astros – 7 (18 innings) Minute Maid Park 5:50 43,413[8]
St. Louis vs. San Diego
Game 1, October 4
Busch Stadium (II) in St. Louis, Missouri
San Diego 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 3 5 13 1
St. Louis 1 0 3 0 4 0 0 0 X 8 10 1
WP: Chris Carpenter (1–0) LP: Jake Peavy (0–1)
SD: Eric Young (1)
STL: Jim Edmonds (1), Reggie Sanders (1)
It was a matchup between Jake Peavy and eventual 2005 Cy Young Award winner Chris Carpenter. In the bottom of the first, Jim Edmonds's one-out solo home run put the Cardinals up 1–0. Then in the bottom of the third, Peavy's control slipped away as a bases-loaded wild pitch and a two-run single by Reggie Sanders gave the Cards a 4–0 lead. However, Sanders would provide more offense with a grand slam in the fifth. That would make the score 8–0 and give Sanders six RBIs in the game. The Padres would not go quietly, though. They would scratch out a run in the seventh on a sacrifice fly by Khalil Greene off Brad Thompson after a leadoff double and single, then one more on a home run by Eric Young in the eighth off Randy Flores. After the Padres put runners on the corners in the ninth off Cal Eldred, Jason Isringhausen came on to close the deal. Yet, after Young's groundout scored a run, four consecutive hits with two outs, two of which by Mark Loretta and Brian Giles, made the score 8–5 and loaded the bases with the go-ahead run at the plate. Ramón Hernández did not deliver as he struck out to end the game.
St. Louis 0 0 2 2 0 0 2 0 X 6 6 0
WP: Mark Mulder (1–0) LP: Pedro Astacio (0–1)
Pedro Astacio faced Mark Mulder in Game 2. The game remained scoreless until the bottom of the third when a walk to Abraham Nunez and an error by Khalil Greene on Yadier Molina's ground ball put two on with no out. After a sacrifice bunt, David Eckstein's fielder's choice scored a run, then a walk loaded the bases before Albert Pujols walked to score another. After a leadoff single and double, a fielder's choice by Molina and squeeze play by Eckstein made it 4–0 Cardinals in the fourth. In the top of the seventh, after being shutout for six innings, a double and two singles, the second of which by Xavier Nady scoring a run, made it 4–1 and put the tying run at the plate. However, a double play killed the rally and the Padres would only get one. Reggie Sanders got two more RBIs with a two-run double in the bottom half of the inning off Rudy Seanez. A bases-loaded hit-by-pitch to Nady by Julian Tavarez made it 6–2 in the eighth, but Randy Flores struck out Mark Sweeney to end the threat while Jason Isringhausen retired the Padres in order in the ninth to give the Cardinals a 2–0 series lead.
PETCO Park in San Diego, California
St. Louis 1 4 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 7 13 1
San Diego 0 0 0 0 2 0 1 1 0 4 9 0
WP: Matt Morris (1–0) LP: Woody Williams (0–1) Sv: Jason Isringhausen (1)
STL: David Eckstein (1)
SD: Dave Roberts (1), Ramón Hernández (1)
This was the first postseason game in PETCO Park history, which had opened the previous year. Matt Morris faced former Cardinals pitcher Woody Williams. Albert Pujols drove in David Eckstein with an RBI double in the top of the first after Eckstein singled to lead off. Then Eckstein hit a two-run home run in the second to make it 3–0. The Cards did stop there, loaded the bases double, walk and hit-by-pitch before Reggie Sanders collected two more RBIs on a two-run double to make it 5–0 later. That would bring Sanders' RBI total to ten for the series. Then Yadier Molina's two-run single off Clay Hensley in the top of the fifth made it 7–0 Cardinals. In the bottom of the inning, Joe Randa doubled before RBI singles by Eric Young and Mark Loretta made it 7–2 Cardinals. Then home runs by Dave Roberts's in the seventh off Brad Thompson and Ramón Hernández in the eighth off Julian Tavarez made it 7–4 Cardinals, but Jason Isringhausen came on to slam the door on the Padres in the ninth despite allowing a single and walk with Ryan Klesko's groundout ending the series.
Composite box
2005 NLDS (3–0): St. Louis Cardinals over San Diego Padres
St. Louis Cardinals 2 4 5 2 6 0 2 0 0 21 29 2
San Diego Padres 0 0 0 0 2 0 3 3 3 11 32 2
Total attendance: 150,041 Average attendance: 50,014
Atlanta vs. Houston
Turner Field in Atlanta, Georgia
Houston 1 0 2 1 0 0 1 5 0 10 11 1
Atlanta 1 0 0 2 0 0 0 1 1 5 9 0
WP: Andy Pettitte (1–0) LP: Tim Hudson (0–1)
HOU: None
ATL: Chipper Jones (1), Andruw Jones (1)
Andy Pettitte faced Tim Hudson in Game 1. Hudson struggled in his half of the first, giving up one run (on Morgan Ensberg's RBI single) on a walk and two hits, but got out of the inning with a crucial double play. Pettitte allowed a home run to Chipper Jones to tie the game, but otherwise cruised. The game remained 1–1 until the third when a bases-loaded (on a double and two walks) two-run single by Ensberg made it 3–1 Astros. A hit-by-pitch loaded the bases again, but Hudson got Adam Everett to ground out to end the inning. Next inning, Brad Ausmus hit a leadoff double, moved to third on a sacrifice bunt, and scored on Craig Biggio's sacrifice fly to make it 4–1 Astros. In the Braves' fourth, Andruw Jones hit a two-run home run to make it a one-run game. A walk and a bunt single put the tying run in scoring position later in the inning, but Brian Jordan grounded into a double play to end the rally. Pettitte would help his own cause in the seventh with the game still at 4–3, doubling and scoring on an RBI hit by Ensberg. It was now 5–3 and Hudson was finished. In the eighth, with Chris Reitsma pitching, the Astros opened the floodgates with a five-run rally, loading the bases on two singles and a walk before Jeff Bagwell's RBI single made it 6–3 Astros. John Foster in relief struck out Lance Berkman, but walked Ensberg to force in a run before a wild pitch scored another. After Jason Lane was intentionally walked to reload the bases, Orlando Palmeiro capped the inning's scoring with a two-run single that made it 10–3 Astros. The Braves scored two runs on Jones's RBI double in the eighth with two on off Dan Wheeler and the ninth on Johnny Estrada's RBI single after a leadoff triple off Russ Springer, but Mike Gallo got Rafael Furcal to hit into the game-ending double play as the Astros won Game 1 10–5.
Houston 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 8 1
Atlanta 0 3 2 0 0 0 2 0 X 7 11 0
WP: John Smoltz (1–0) LP: Roger Clemens (0–1)
ATL: Brian McCann (1)
Roger Clemens faced John Smoltz in Game 2. Smoltz ran into trouble when he allowed two consecutive singles with one out. After a forceout, Jason Lane singled in Lance Berkman to make it 1–0 Astros. He intentionally loaded the bases, but got out of the inning with no more damage done. Then the Braves struck back against Clemens. With two outs and two men on, Brian McCann came up in his first ever postseason at-bat. He then slammed a three-run home run to right field, becoming the first Brave ever to homer in his first postseason at-bat. That sparked the Braves as they would go on to score two more in the third on a two-run double by Adam LaRoche. Smoltz pitched masterfully and the Braves added to their lead in the seventh on RBI singles by Andruw Jones and Jeff Francoeur off Chad Qualls. The Braves' victory in Game 2 was their last postseason win until 2010.
Minute Maid Park in Houston, Texas
Houston 2 0 1 0 0 0 4 0 X 7 12 1
WP: Roy Oswalt (1–0) LP: Jorge Sosa (0–1)
ATL: None
HOU: Mike Lamb (1)
Jorge Sosa faced Roy Oswalt in Game 3. Sosa fell behind early, allowing a double and hit-by-pitch before Morgan Ensberg's double and Jason Lane's sacrifice fly gave the Astros two runs in the first. The Braves tied the game in the next inning with back-to-back two out RBI singles by Brian McCann and Sosa. However, Mike Lamb hit the go-ahead home run in the bottom of the third. The two pitchers dueled until the bottom of the seventh when Chris Reitsma once again came into a close game. Reitsma allowed a double and single and the Braves' bullpen could do little to stop the Astros' rally. Lance Berkman hit an RBI single off John Foster, then Joey Devine allowed an RBI double to Ensberg and RBI single to Lane. Adam Everett's sacrifice fly off Jim Brower capped the inning's scoring. The Braves got a run in the eighth thanks to an RBI double by Andruw Jones off Dan Wheeler after Marcus Giles singled to lead off against Roy Oswalt, but no more. Brad Lidge pitched a scoreless ninth as the Astros won Game 3 7–3.
Atlanta 0 0 4 0 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 6 13 0
Houston 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 4 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 7 10 1
WP: Roger Clemens (1–1) LP: Joey Devine (0–1)
ATL: Adam LaRoche (1), Brian McCann (2)
HOU: Lance Berkman (1), Brad Ausmus (1), Chris Burke (1)
The final game of the series lasted eighteen innings and set records as the longest game in the history of Major League Baseball's postseason, both in terms of time and number of innings. This was two innings longer than another Astros playoff game, Game 6 of the 1986 NLCS, which went 16 innings, with the New York Mets prevailing 7–6. This record was broken (by 2/3 of an inning) by Game 2 of the 2014 NLDS, when the San Francisco Giants defeated the Washington Nationals 2–1. Coincidentally enough, Tim Hudson started both the 2005 and 2014 games, in the former as a Brave and the latter as a Giant. Additionally, Adam LaRoche was on the losing team in both games.
In the third, the Braves loaded the bases on two walks and a hit-by-pitch off Brandon Backe when Adam LaRoche's grand slam put them up 4–0. In the fifth, Andruw Jones's sacrifice fly with runners on second and third made it 5–0 and knocked Backe out of the game. In the bottom of the inning, the Astros loaded the bases on three singles but only scored once on Orlando Palmeiro's sacrifice fly. Brian McCann's home run in the eighth off Wandy Rodriguez made it 6–1 Braves, but in the bottom of the inning, a grand slam by Lance Berkman off Kyle Farnsworth (two runs charged to Hudson) and a home run by Brad Ausmus in the ninth off Farnsworth (with the Astros down to their last out) sent the game to extra innings. The second half of the game included three innings of relief by Roger Clemens, appearing as a pinch-hitter in the fifteenth inning and pitching in relief for only the second time in his career (and appearing this time only because the Astros were out of pitchers). Chris Burke hit the game-ending home run in the bottom of the eighteenth off Atlanta rookie Joey Devine, giving Houston the series victory and sending them to the NLCS to face the St. Louis Cardinals.
In addition to being at the time the longest postseason game in MLB history, it was also the only postseason game to include two grand slams, Lance Berkman's and Adam LaRoche's. Some commentators have pointed to this game as the greatest game in Houston Astros history, and one of the best games in the history of MLB playoffs.[9][10][11]
Even more remarkable than the game's length, perhaps, is the fact that the fan who caught Chris Burke's walk-off homer in the eighteenth was the same fan who had caught Lance Berkman's grand slam in the eighth (Section 102, Row 2, Seat 15); the fan later donated both balls to the Baseball Hall of Fame.[12]
2005 NLDS (3–1): Houston Astros over Atlanta Braves
Houston Astros 4 0 3 1 1 0 5 9 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 25 41 4
Atlanta Braves 1 5 6 2 1 0 2 3 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 21 41 0
Series quotes
Swing and a drive to left field... way back... this one is GOOOONE!... The Astros win it... It's Chris Burke with a late-inning walk-off home run to give Roger Clemens the win and send the Astros to their second straight NLCS in eighteen innings.. Houston pulls it out to go back to the League Championship for the second straight year!
— Dave O'Brien calling Chris Burke series winning home run in the eighteenth inning to win for Houston.
And the pitch. Swinging...lining it to left and IT'S GOOONNNEE, IT'S GOOONNNEE, IT'S GOOONNNEE!!! CHRIS BURKE!!! HOLY TOLEDO, WHAT A WAY TO FINISH!
— Astros radio announcer (and former Atlanta Brave) Milo Hamilton calling Chris Burke's eighteenth-inning, walk-off home run to win the series.
^ The higher seed (in parentheses) had the home field advantage, which was determined by playing record. Although the team with the best record was normally intended to play the wild card team, the Cardinals played the Padres, rather than the wild card Astros, because the Cardinals and Astros are in the same division.
^ "2005 NLDS - San Diego Padres vs. St. Louis Cardinals - Game 1". Retrosheet. Retrieved September 13, 2009.
^ "2005 NLDS - St. Louis Cardinals vs. San Diego Padres - Game 3". Retrosheet. Retrieved September 13, 2009.
^ "2005 NLDS - Houston Astros vs. Atlanta Braves - Game 1". Retrosheet. Retrieved September 13, 2009.
^ "2005 NLDS - Atlanta Braves vs. Houston Astros - Game 3". Retrosheet. Retrieved September 13, 2009.
^ "#1 Online Sports Handicapping Service - Oddsboard Sports Picks". www.oddsboard.com. Archived from the original on October 23, 2006. Retrieved April 1, 2007.
^ "The Baseball Analysts: The Greatest Game Ever Played". baseballanalysts.com.
^ "The Official Site of Major League Baseball: News: Baseball Perspectives". mlb.com.
^ http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article_perspectives.jsp?ymd=20051014&content_id=1249993&vkey=perspectives&fext=.jsp
STL vs. SDP at Baseball-Reference
HOU vs. ATL at Baseball-Reference
1986 in baseball
The following are the baseball events of the year 1986 throughout the world.
2004 American League Championship Series
The 2004 American League Championship Series was the Major League Baseball playoff series to decide the American League champion for the 2004 season, and the right to play in the 2004 World Series. A rematch of the 2003 American League Championship Series, it was played between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees, at Fenway Park and the original Yankee Stadium, from October 12 to 20, 2004. The Red Sox became the first (and so far only) team in MLB history to come back from a 3–0 deficit to win a seven-game series. The Red Sox, who had won the AL wild card, defeated the Anaheim Angels in the American League Division Series to reach the ALCS, while the Yankees, who had won the AL East with the best record in the AL, defeated the Minnesota Twins.
In Game 1, Yankees pitcher Mike Mussina pitched a perfect game through six innings, while the Red Sox recovered from an eight-run deficit to close within one run before the Yankees eventually won. A home run by John Olerud helped the Yankees win Game 2. The Yankees gathered 22 hits in Game 3 on their way to an easy win. The Yankees led Game 4 by one run in the ninth inning, but a steal of second base by Red Sox base runner Dave Roberts and a single by Bill Mueller off Yankees closer Mariano Rivera tied the game. A home run by David Ortiz then won it for the Red Sox in extra innings. Ortiz also won Game 5 with a single in the fourteenth inning. Curt Schilling pitched seven innings in Game 6 for the Red Sox, during which time his sock became soaked in blood due to an injury in his ankle. Game 7 featured the Red Sox paying back New York for their Game 3 blowout with a dominating performance on the road, anchored by Derek Lowe and bolstered by two Johnny Damon home runs, one a grand slam. David Ortiz was named the Most Valuable Player of the series.The Red Sox would go on to sweep the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series, winning their first World Series championship in 86 years and ending the Curse of the Bambino.
2005 Atlanta Braves season
The 2005 Atlanta Braves season marked the franchise's 40th season in Atlanta and the 135th season overall. The Braves won their 14th consecutive division title under Manager of the Year Bobby Cox, finishing 2 games ahead of the second-place Philadelphia Phillies. This was Atlanta's final division title in their consecutive run. The Braves lost the 2005 Divisional Series to the Houston Astros, 3 games to 1.
Tim Hudson joined the Braves' rotation and rookies Jeff Francoeur, Kelly Johnson and Brian McCann had their first seasons with Atlanta in 2005.
2005 Division Series
2005 Division Series may refer to:
The 2018 World Series was the championship series of Major League Baseball's 2018 season. The 114th edition of the World Series was played between the American League (AL) champion Boston Red Sox and the National League (NL) champion Los Angeles Dodgers. The Red Sox beat the Dodgers in five games to win their fourth World Series title in 15 years dating back to 2004, and their ninth in franchise history. This was the second World Series match-up between the two franchises, after the Red Sox defeated the Brooklyn Robins (later known as the Dodgers) in five games in 1916. The series was sponsored by the Internet television service YouTube TV and officially known as the 2018 World Series presented by YouTube TV.The Series was televised in the United States on Fox. Steve Pearce won the World Series Most Valuable Player Award, while Alex Cora became the fifth first-season manager and first manager from Puerto Rico to win the World Series. The Series was notable for its third game which went for 18 innings, a World Series record.
The 2018 World Series was the first since 2000 to feature two teams which had also reached the postseason in the prior year. Additionally, the Red Sox became the first team to win two World Series exactly one century apart, as they had defeated the Chicago Cubs in 1918, while the Dodgers were the first team since the 2011 Texas Rangers, and the first NL team since the 1992 Atlanta Braves, to lose consecutive Fall Classics.
Big Three (Atlanta Braves)
The Big Three was a trio of Major League Baseball starting pitchers for the Atlanta Braves from 1993-2002 which consisted of Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and John Smoltz. The Big Three combined to win six National League Cy Young Awards in the 1990s and helped lead the Atlanta Braves to a 1995 World Series win. Each member of the Big Three has had their jersey retired by the Atlanta Braves and has been inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Brad Ausmus
Bradley David Ausmus (; born April 14, 1969) is an American baseball former catcher and current manager for the Los Angeles Angels of Major League Baseball (MLB). In his 18-year MLB playing career, Ausmus played for the San Diego Padres, Detroit Tigers, Houston Astros, and Los Angeles Dodgers. He was also the manager of the Tigers and of the Israel national baseball team.
A 1987 draft pick of the New York Yankees, he chose to alternate between attending Dartmouth College and playing minor league baseball. He then had an 18-year major league playing career with the San Diego Padres, Detroit Tigers, Houston Astros, and Los Angeles Dodgers. During his playing days he was an All Star in 1999, a three-time Gold Glove Award winner (2001, '02, and '06), and won the 2007 Darryl Kile Award "for integrity and courage".A five-time league-leader at catcher in fielding percentage, he also led the league twice each in range factor and in percentage caught stealing, and once each in putouts and assists.He finished his playing career in 2010 ranked third in major league history with 12,839 putouts as a catcher (trailing only Iván Rodríguez and Jason Kendall), seventh in games caught with 1,938, and 10th in both range factor/game (7.12) and fielding percentage (.994). He also ranked first all-time among all Jewish major leaguers in career games played (1,971), fifth in hits (1,579), and eighth in runs batted in (607; directly behind Mike Lieberthal). He was inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2004. He worked in the Padres' front office as a special assistant from 2010 to 2013. In November 2013, Ausmus became the 38th manager in the history of the Detroit Tigers, succeeding Jim Leyland, a position that he held for four years. In October 2018, he was named the 17th manager in the history of the Los Angeles Angels.
Brian McCann (baseball)
Brian Michael McCann (born February 20, 1984) is an American professional baseball catcher for the Atlanta Braves of Major League Baseball (MLB). He has played in MLB for the Braves, the New York Yankees, and the Houston Astros. McCann is a seven-time All-Star and a six-time Silver Slugger Award winner. He won the 2017 World Series with the Astros over the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Chris Burke (baseball)
Christopher Alan Burke (born March 11, 1980) is a former Major League Baseball player, playing primarily for the Houston Astros, though he also played for the Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres. He is best remembered for hitting a series-ending walk-off home run in Game 4 of the 2005 National League Division Series.
Jason Lane
Jason Dean Lane (born December 22, 1976) is an American professional baseball player and coach. He is the assistant hitting coach for the Milwaukee Brewers of Major League Baseball (MLB). He previously played in the major leagues for the Houston Astros and San Diego Padres. Originally starting his career as an outfielder, Lane switched positions and became a pitcher.
Joey Devine
Joseph Neal "Joey" Devine (born September 19, 1983) is an American former professional baseball pitcher. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Atlanta Braves and Oakland Athletics.
José Vizcaíno
José Luis Vizcaíno Pimental (born March 26, 1968) is a Dominican former professional baseball player. He was a backup infielder for most of his Major League Baseball (MLB) career. He, along with Darryl Strawberry, and Ricky Ledée are the only Major League Baseball players to have played for all four (former and current) New York teams—the New York Yankees, the New York Mets, the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the San Francisco Giants. With the Yankees, he won the 2000 World Series against the Mets.
William Lance Berkman (born February 10, 1976), nicknamed "Big Puma", is an American former professional baseball outfielder and first baseman. He played 15 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Houston Astros, New York Yankees, St. Louis Cardinals and Texas Rangers. Berkman is a six-time MLB All-Star and won a World Series championship and the National League Comeback Player of the Year Award with the Cardinals in 2011. He stands 6 feet 1 inch (1.85 m), and weighs 220 pounds (100 kg). Berkman spent various seasons of his career as a regular at all three outfield positions.
A standout baseball player at Canyon High School, Berkman attended Rice University, where he played college baseball for the Owls. Named the 1997 National College Player of the Year, the Astros selected Berkman in the first round of that year's amateur draft, and he debuted in the major leagues in 1999. He joined the Astros' vaunted "Killer B's" lineup that included Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio as all three players were instrumental in the club's playoff success. The Astros traded Berkman to the Yankees at the 2010 trade deadline. He signed with the Cardinals as a free agent for the 2011 and 2012 seasons. Berkman played a key part in the Cardinals winning the 2011 World Series, hitting a game-tying single in the bottom of the 10th inning of Game 6, with the Cardinals just one strike away from elimination. He played the 2013 season with the Rangers before signing a one-day contract with Houston to officially retire as an Astro.
Active in charity work, Forbes recognized him on their list of "30 most generous celebrities" in 2012. He has led a group called "Berkman's Bunch," an outreach for 50 underprivileged kids to meet Berkman before each Saturday home game for autographs and other gifts. In 2013, he purchased a fire truck and donated it to the City of West, Texas, after the West Fertilizer Company explosion.
Macay McBride
Joseph Macay McBride (born October 24, 1982) is a former Major League baseball relief pitcher.
Piedmont College
Piedmont College is a private college in Demorest and Athens, Georgia. Founded in 1897, Piedmont's Demorest campus includes 300 acres in a traditional residential-college setting located in the foothills of the northeast Georgia Blue Ridge mountains. The campus includes ten dormitories housing more than 600 students. Academic and athletic facilities are all state-of-the-art. Approximately 50 miles to the south, Piedmont's Athens campus is located in the heart of Georgia's Classic City. The Athens campus provides a variety of undergraduate and graduate programs designed for commuting students.
Piedmont College offers more than 50 undergraduate academic programs in the Schools of Arts & Sciences, Business, Education, and Nursing & Health Sciences. Students may earn Bachelor of Arts (BA), Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA), Bachelor of Science (BS), or Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degrees. Graduate programs include Master of Business Administration (MBA), Master of Arts (MA) and Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT), Education Specialist (EdS), and Doctor of Education (EdD).
Enrollment is approximately 2,491 students, and the student-faculty ratio is 10:1."Piedmont College". Piedmont College. Retrieved 2018-09-07. While most students come from Georgia, the college attracts applicants from across the U.S. and around the world. Class sizes average 12.
Reginald Laverne Sanders (born December 1, 1967) is a former right fielder in Major League Baseball. He batted and threw right-handed. Sanders was 23 years old when he made his major league debut on August 22, 1991, after being selected in the seventh round of the 1987 amateur draft by the Cincinnati Reds. He attended Spartanburg Methodist College before beginning his pro career with the Rookie-level Billings Mustangs of the Pioneer League in 1988. He also played professionally with the St. Louis Cardinals, Pittsburgh Pirates, Atlanta Braves, San Francisco Giants, San Diego Padres and Kansas City Royals, and was a member of the Arizona Diamondbacks' 2001 World Series championship over the New York Yankees. With the Cardinals, Sanders had a breakout of sorts during the 2005 National League Division Series against the San Diego Padres. In a three-game sweep of the Padres, Sanders had 10 runs batted in, a new record for a division series.
Sanders gained some notoriety during the 1994 season when Pedro Martínez hit him with a pitch to end his bid for a perfect game with one out in the eighth inning. Sanders responded by charging the mound and igniting a bench-clearing brawl. He was ridiculed by some in the press for believing that a pitcher would abandon an attempt at a perfect game to intentionally hit a batter.In Game 1 of the 2005 NLCS Sanders hit a two run home run to give the Cardinals a two run lead, making it his seventh career postseason home run. However, the Cardinals would lose the series in six games, giving the Houston Astros their first NL pennant and trip to the World Series.
On June 10, 2006, as a member of the Royals, Reggie hit his 300th home run. This made him the fifth member of Major League Baseball's 300-300 club, as he had stolen the 300th base of his career on May 1, and had gotten his 302nd career stolen base just a day earlier. He became the first player in history to join the club at his home stadium. Steve Finley of the San Francisco Giants joined the 300-300 club as its sixth member on June 14, four days after Sanders achieved the feat. Sanders hit 20 or more home runs in one season for five different National League teams. He hit at least 10 home runs in a season for every major league team he played for (seven in all).Sanders missed the majority of the 2007 season due to an injury and became a free agent after the season.
William Roger Clemens (born August 4, 1962), nicknamed "Rocket", is an American former baseball pitcher who played 24 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for four teams. Clemens was one of the most dominant pitchers in major league history, tallying 354 wins, a 3.12 earned run average (ERA), and 4,672 strikeouts, the third-most all time. An 11-time All-Star and two-time World Series champion, he won seven Cy Young Awards during his career, more than any other pitcher in history. Clemens was known for his fierce competitive nature and hard-throwing pitching style, which he used to intimidate batters.
Clemens debuted in the major leagues in 1984 with the Boston Red Sox, whose pitching staff he anchored for 12 years. In 1986, he won the American League (AL) Cy Young Award, the AL Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award, and the All-Star Game MVP Award, and he struck out an MLB-record 20 batters in a single game (Clemens repeated the 20-strikeout feat 10 years later). After the 1996 season, Clemens left Boston via free agency and joined the Toronto Blue Jays. In each of his two seasons with Toronto, Clemens won a Cy Young Award, as well as the pitching triple crown by leading the league in wins, ERA, and strikeouts. Prior to the 1999 season, Clemens was traded to the New York Yankees where he won his two World Series titles. In 2003, he reached his 300th win and 4,000th strikeout in the same game. Clemens left for the Houston Astros in 2004, where he spent three seasons and won his seventh Cy Young Award. He rejoined the Yankees in 2007 for one last season before retiring. He is the only pitcher in major league history to record over 350 wins and strike out over 4,500 batters.
Clemens was alleged by the Mitchell Report to have used anabolic steroids during his late career, mainly based on testimony given by his former trainer, Brian McNamee. Clemens firmly denied these allegations under oath before the United States Congress, leading congressional leaders to refer his case to the Justice Department on suspicions of perjury. On August 19, 2010, a federal grand jury at the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., indicted Clemens on six felony counts involving perjury, false statements and Contempt of Congress. Clemens pleaded not guilty, but proceedings were complicated by prosecutorial misconduct, leading to a mistrial. The verdict from his second trial came in June 2012, when Clemens was found not guilty on all six counts of lying to Congress.
2005 Major League Baseball postseason
American League Championship Series
National League Championship Series
American League Division Series
National League Division Series
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Famous Equestrian Paintings and Drawings; Horse Racing and The Horse in Art
Amanda Severn
Amanda is a keen Artist and Art Historian with a particular interest in 19th-century art, especially the work of the Pre-Raphaelites.
Whistlejacket by George Stubbs
Whistlejacket by George Stubbs. Courtesy of Wiki Commons
Some Famous Equestrian Artists
Susan Crawford (1941-) Undoubtedly one of the greatest British equestrian artists, Susan Crawford has created an outstanding body of work, including one of the best known equestrian paintings 'We Three Kings', which features portrait heads of 'Desert Orchid, Red Rum and Arkle'. Born in Scotland in 1941, Susan Crawford has enjoyed enormous professional success and acclaim throughout her career.
Sir Alfred Munnings (1878-1959) Sir Alfred James Munnings, was known as one of England's finest painters of horses, and his distinguished artistic career was rewarded with a knighthood and a spell as president of London's Royal Academy of Art. He painted numerous well-known pictures in his long career, many of which can be seen hanging at his former home, Castle House in Dedham, Essex.
George Stubbs (1724-1806) From humble origins as the son of a leather dresser, George Stubbs became one of the most sought after equestrian artists of his era. George Stubbs painted the famous study of 'Whistlejacket' that heads this article.
Lucy Kemp Welch (1869-1958) British painter and teacher, Lucy Elizabeth Kemp-Welch was best known for the paintings of horses in military service she produced during the first World War, and for her illustrations to the 1915 edition of Anna Sewell's Black Beauty. Born in Bournemouth in Dorset, England, Kemp-Welch dedicated her life to painting horses and other animals.
Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899) Her most famous work, the monumental Horse Fair, measured eight feet high by sixteen feet wide, and was completed in 1855. Bonheur was born in France, and succeeded in a male dominated profession. Her astonishingly detailed work hangs in museums and galleries around the world.
Mike Heslop - Contemporary British artist, Mike Heslop enjoys a worldwide appeal and reputation as an exceptional sporting artist. His work is highly collectable, and he has painted many world-renowned racehourses. His many commissions include artwork for a set of UK Royal Mail postage stamps.
Martin Grelle (1954-) Born and raised in the US state of Texas, Martin Grelle's iconic images of horses, cowboys, and native American Indians, earned him membership of the Cowboy Artists of America in 1995. He has won many prestigious awards for his evocative artwork.
Some More Equestrian Artists and Examples of their Work
Shown below are some well known works of equestrian art with a little bit of information about each of them. These are presented in alphabetical order, and include some of the earliest examples of art featuring horses.
Henry Alken
Henry Alken was born in London on 12 October 1785. He came from a family of artists, and he studied primarily under his father, Samuel Alken, and subsequently with the miniaturist, John Thomas Barber Beaumont.
From quite early in his career, Alken began to specialise in sporting subjects, and painted under the name of "Ben Tally-Ho".His highly illustrative style won him many commissions, and his work was very sought after. He became a successful cartoonist and illustrator of sporting life, and his paintings and drawings of horses were among his most popular works. Today his work can be seen hanging in some of the most pretigious museums and galleries, including both theTate Modern, and the British Museum, in London.
'Fox Hunting' by Henry Alken
Henry Thomas Alken [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
'To the Craners of England' by Henry Alken
Robert Bevan's Mare and Foal
Born on the South Coast of England, in Hove, East Sussex, in 1865, Robert Bevan was fortunate enough to be able to study and work in Paris during his early years as an artist, and he knew both Gaugin and Renoir, and studied alongside Pierre Bonnard. This early exposure to the works of the great French Impressionists helped Bevan to develop a very distinctive personal style of painting. Unfortunately, just like Van Gogh and Rousseau, Bevan's work was not always well appreciated in his life-time. However, a series of retrospective exhibitions held in 1965, 100 years after his birth revealed his extraordinary talent, and many of his paintings can now be seen at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, as part of the Bevan Gift, a donation made by Robert Bevan's children.
This simple rendering of a mare and her foal was completed in 1917, eight years before Robert Bevan's death. It is one of a series of horse paintings completed by Bevan.
Mare and Foal by Robert Bevan
Courtesy of Wiki Commons
'The Horse Mart' by Robert Bevan
Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899)
Rosa Bonheur was born on 16 March 1822 in Bordeaux, France. She was the oldest child in a family of artists, and several of her siblings were also very successful painters or sculptors. Rosa Bonheur was the best known of these, and her work is on display in galleries world-wide.
Bonheur had a preference for depicting animal subjects, and her skill was quite extraordinary. At a time when very few women were permitted to pursue an artistic education, or to consider a career in art, Rosa Bonheur blazed her own trail, and we are priveleged to still enjoy her work today.
Relay Hunting by Rosa Bonheur 1887
Currently on view at the St Louis Art Museum, this is a good example of Rosa Bonheurs skill at depicting horses.
'Relay Hunting' by Rosa Bonheur, 1887
Rosa Bonheur (1822-99) was already in her 60s when she completed this serene oil on canvas. Whilst it has none of the fire and passion of her earlier painting 'The Horse Fair' which is shown below, it does demonstrate her mastery of animal portraiture. The horses are beautifully painted and every detail is faithfully recorded.
The St Louis Art Museum received this picture as a gift from Justina G. Catlin in memory of her husband, Daniel.
Detail from 'The Horse Fair' by Rosa Bonheur,1853-55
This picture can be seen in The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Image courtesy of Wiki Commons
'The Horse Fair' by Rosa Bonheur
Rosa Bonheur was already an established and successful artist, when she first exhibited "The Horse Fair" at the Paris Salon of 1853. However, none of her earlier work was admired in quite the same way as this large-scale oil painting with its lively and characterful depiction of horses at a horse fair in France. It quickly became a very popular image, and was exhibited in Paris, Ghent, and Bordeaux, England and the United States. Since being acquired by MOMA in 1887 it has become one of the Metropolitan Museum's best-known works of art.
Breitner, painter of atmosphere and social realism
George Hendrick Breitner (1857-1923) was a Dutch painter and photographer who enjoyed painting everyday life in an honest, and realistic style. Whilst not specifically an equestrian artist, he often did paint horses, purely because they were very much a part of everyday life in the Netherlands during his career. Breitner was a contemporary of Vincent Van Gogh, and was introduced to him by Vincent's brother, Theo. They occasionally went out sketching together, but Breitner was unimpressed by his friend's work, and didn't consider him to be a good artist. History, of course, has decided otherwise!
Tram Horses on Dam Square by George Hendrik Breitner, 1894
Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825)
Although primarily a painter of society portraits and historical genre paintings, Jacques-Louis David's immense skill in depicting animals earns him a place in the list of equestrian artists, if only for this amazing portrait of 'Napoleon Crossing the Bremmer Pass'.
Born into a prosperous Parisian family, David went on to become an ardent supporter of the French Revolution, and a friend of Robespierre. He supported the fall of the French royal family, and became a follower of Napoleon. Later in his life he lived for a time in both Brussels, and later, Holland, enjoying celebrity and success wherever he landed.
Napoleon Crossing the Alps by Jacques-Louis David 1800
Wild-eyed and rearing. Well, wouldn't you be with Napoleon on your back?
This famous image of Napoleon crossing the St Bremmer Pass is one of a series of five such paintings created by the French artist Jacques-Louis David. Napoleon was so completely delighted with the first painting completed by the great artist, that he commissioned a further three versions, showing him mounted on different coloured horses, and wrapped in different coloured cloaks. Despite the fact that Napoleon refused to give sittings for his portraits, David managed to produce an iconic work of art. He also produced a fifth version of the painting which remained in his own studio until his death.
From the outset, this painting was designed to present Napoleon in a dramatic and commanding manner. Effectively intended as a piece of propaganda, the artist has shown the Emperor mounted on a 'fiery steed' against an ominous sky. In fact the crossing of the Alps happened in fair weather, and Napoleon was led across riding a mule!
'Stanisław Kostka Potocki' by Jacques-Louis David
Leonardo's Unfinished Project
In 1482 Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned by the Duke of Milan, Ludovico Il Moro, to produce a sculpture of a horse. It was intended to be the largest equestrian statue in the world, and a monument to the duke's father, Francesco. Leonardo made many drawings and designs, but the long-drawn out project ground to a halt in 1499, when French soldiers invaded Milan, and destroyed Leonardo's preparatory clay model. About five centuries later, Leonardo's surviving design materials were used as the basis for sculptures intended to bring the project to fruition. Two full sized versions were subsequently cast, and one now stands in the San Siro Hippodrome in Milan, and the other is in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Study of a horse by Leonardo Da Vinci
Courtesy of Wiki Commons.
The da Vinci horse in San Siro Hippodrome, Milan
photographed by Nina Akuma, courtesy of Wiki Commons
Edgar Degas (1834-1917)
Edgar Degas was born in Paris on the 19th July 1834. He is mainly associated with the French Impressionists, and is best known for his delicate paintings and pastel drawings of ballet dancers. However, Degas's many outstanding depictions of horses deserve to be given closer inspection.
Always seeking to represent movement in an effective way, Degas would attempt to show the horses when they were at their most nervous and agitated. He would paint them jostling and tensed up ready for a race to start, or spiky and obstinate refusing to jump a fence. He liked difficult poses, and his interest in photography enabled him to develop new ways of showing a traditional subject matter.
'Jockeys before the Start' by Edgar Degas
Another of Degas's stunning works, this time in oil on canvas.
Race Horses in a Landscape by Edgar Degas 1894
'Les Courses' by Edgar Degas
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a French post-Impressionist artist. Well-known for his experimental use of colour, Gauguin produced a number of striking paintings of equine subjects. Towards the end of his life he spent ten years in French Polynesia, and the paintings produced at that time are amongst his best-known works. Many include images of the islanders horses, and these are beautifully rendered in non-naturalistic colours.
'Riders on the Beach' by Paul Gauguin, 1902
Stavros Niarchos Collection, Greece. Image courtesy of Wiki Commons
'The White Horse' by Paul Gauguin
'The Horse Market' by Gericault
Born in Rouen, France, Theodore Jean Louis Gericault (1791 -1824) became a pioneer of the Romantic movement in Art. Although he died young, he produced some of art's best known images, including 'The Raft of the Medusa'. The picture shown above, of horses tied to a stake at a horse market, now hangs in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France. It is executed in watercolour over pencil and red chalk.
Horse Market: Five Horses at the Stake by Theodore Gericault (1816-19)
John Frederick Herring (Senior) 1795-1865
John Frederick Herring senior led a full and varied life which encompassed work as a coachman, a painter of inn signs, and later, a painter of equestrian portraits for the gentry and for royalty, including Queen Victoria herself. His three sons all became artists, and the best known of these is John Frederick Herring junior, who was also in great demand for his realistic paintings of horses.
'Horses and Ducks by a River' by John Frederick Herring, senior
source: allartpainting.com, image courtesy of Wiki Commons
John Frederick Herring (Junior) 1820-1907
One of three artist sons born to John Frederick Herring Senior, Herring Junior continued in the family tradition of specialising in equestrian subjects.
'Returning From the Hunt' by John Frederick Herring Junior
Horses galloping, Lascaux Cave Painting
The caves which have sheltered this, and many other primitive Paleolithic paintings for around 17,300 years, was first re-discovered in the 1940s at Lascaux in the Dordogne region of France. These days the caves are closed to the public in an effort to protect the images from damage caused by strong lights, moisture and mould. We are fortunate, however to have good quality photographs of these early works, and it is amazing how brilliantly the primitive artists captured movement and speed with a few simple marks daubed on a cave wall using little more than fingers, sticks, and home-made pigments.
One of the earliest known equestrian paintings
Cave painting from Lascaux in France
Li Gonglin was a Chinese painter of horses who was active in the 12th century during the Northern Song dynasty. Trained as a civil servant, and also active as an archaeologist, Li Gonglin was a man of many talents. This picture is apparently a re-working of an 8th century original and is therefore a very ancient image indeed. The Chinese horses look a little rounder and shorter than European paintings of the same era.
12th Century Song dynasty hand-scroll painting by Li Gonglin
Franz Marc (1880-1916)
Born in Munich in 1880, Franz Marc was encouraged in his artistic ambitions by his father, a professional landscape painter. Marc quickly developed a striking and original style of painting which was to become much copied and admired. Marc painted numerous studies of horses during his short career, and two of these are shown below.
Franz Marc died of injuries inflicted at the Battle of Verdun where he was serving in the military. He was 36.
Blue Horse I by Franz Marc (1911)
Blue Horse I by Franz Marc (1911). Currently owned by the Lenbachhaus Museum in Munich, Germany | Source
'Small Horses' by Franz Marc (1909)
'Charge of Flowerdew's Squadron' by Sir Alfred Munnings 1918
Sir Alfred Munnings (1878-1959) was a British artist, famous for his many paintings of horses. Munnings was an official war artist in the first World War conflict in Europe, and was attached to the Canadian Cavalry Brigade. He painted this large canvas in 1918 as a tribute to 'the last great cavalry charge'. Nearly three-quarters of the Canadian cavalry involved in this attack against German machine-gun positions at Moreuil Wood on 30 March 1918 were killed or wounded. Lieutenant G.M. Flowerdew, who led the charge, was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.
Image courtesy of Wiki Commons
Balthasar Paul Ommeganck (1755–1826)
Born in Antwerp in 1755 Balthasar Paul Ommeganck (1755–1826) became renowned for his skill as a painter of animals and landscapes. At twelve years old, he was registered in the Antwerp Guild of SaintLuke as a pupil of the respected painter Hendricus Josephus Antonissen. He also studied at the Antwerp Academy where he was awarded a second prize for drawing in March 1771. Ommeganck built on his early successes, and enjoyed a long and rewarding career both as an artist and as a teacher. This picture of a hoirse demonstrates Ommeganck's talent for depicting the rough winter coats of horses at pasture,
'A Horse' by Balthasar Paul Ommeganck
Pompeii's fiery mosaic horses
The Alexander Mosaic, dating from circa 100 BC, is preserved in the National Archaelogical Museum in Naples, Italy. It was discovered in the House of the Faun during the excavation of Pompeii, an ancient Roman settlement, which was destroyed during a volcanic eruption. The horses are shown as lively and wild-eyed. This wonderfully detailed mosaic allows us to see how horses were harnessed and ridden over 2,000 years ago, and is a reminder of how important horses were to our ancestors.
The Alexander Mosaic from the Museo Archaelogico in Naples
Detail from 'The Alexander Mosaic' Courtesy of Wiki Commons
Frederic Sackrider Remington (1861-1909)
Frederic Sackrider Remington was an American painter, illustrator, sculptor, and writer whose depictions of the Old American West, included well-loved images of cowboys, native American Indians, and the U.S. Cavalry.
Remington was an exceptionally gifted artist and sculptor, and his work often includes wonderful examples of equine art. Despite dying of complications following appendicitis at the relatively young age of 48, Remington left a vast legacy of completed artworks. He was a truly prolific artist, and a larger than life character in every aspect of his life.
The Scout - 'Friends or Foes?' by Frederic Sackrider Remington
This is one of my favourite paintings by Remington. A stunning image, painted between 1900 and 1905.
Smoke Signals by Frederic Remington
George Stubbs (1724-1806)
Born in Liverpool in 1724, George Stubbs was to become one of the most famous British equestrian artists. The well-known painting of 'Whistlejacket' at the head of this article is by Stubbs.
Stubbs had a great affinity for horses, and for animals in general, and frequently sought to depict more exotic varieties in his work. Stubbs work includes many equine portraits, and he was a commercial success for the majority of his long career. His paintings continue to be highly regarded (and extremely valuable) more than 200 years after his death.
'Mares and Foals' by George Stubbs, 1762
The racehorse, Eclipse, with his groom at Newmarket by George Stubbs
This is one of George Stubbs' many portraits of racehorses, painted at Newmarket, close to the famous English racecourse
'Mares and Foals' by George Stubbs, 1763-68
Tate gallery, London UK. Image courtesy of Wiki Commons
The Uffington White Horse
The Uffington White Horse is a highly stylized Bronze Age hill figure, which measures 110 m long (374 feet). It lies on the upper slopes of White Horse Hill at Uffington, Oxfordshire, and is one of a number of chalk images carved into hill-sides in the English countryside, although it is by far the oldest of them. The figure is formed from deep trenches filled with crushed white chalk. Modern dating methods suggest that it is around 3000 years old, and the site has been maintained periodically throughout it's long history, in order to prevent it grassing over. No-one knows why it was originally cut into the soil, although there are many theories. Certainly it is a powerful image, and it featured on many of the Celtic coins that were in circulation before the Roman occupation of Britain.
The Uffington White Horse is etched in chalk on a hill-side in Oxfordshire, England
Courtesy wiki commons
Van Calraet -Painter of Fruit and Horses
Abraham Pietersz Van Kalraat (1642-1722) (also known as Van Calraet) was a Dutch Golden Age Painter who started his career as an artist painting fruit, but is now also known for his excellent paintings of horses in landscapes. This image of two horses shows Van Kalraat's attention to detail, and fondness for painting these wonderful animals.
'Two Horses' by Abraham Van Calraet
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Cathy Fidelibus - Creative Touch Art
14 months ago from New Jersey
Thank you for such an informative and entertaining artlcle. Have you ever heard of an Equestrian Artist named Sam Savitt? I lived on his estate in No. Salem, NY for a while. He was a great person, kind and gentle spirit, and a great mentor to me. Here is an article about him: https://eqliving.com/remembering-artist-sam-savitt... Enjoy :)
Deborah Minter
22 months ago from U.S, California
Fascinating article.
Great Equine artists featured! One of my favorite artist is Alfred de Dreux .... The Mosaic Mural you have featured on a YouTube video, I have my painting in it....I wrote about my experience on a page here.
6 years ago from UK
Hi DaffodilSky, thanks for dropping by and commenting. Stubbs' 'Whistlejacket takes a lot of beating!
Helen Lush
6 years ago from Cardiff, Wales, UK
Beautiful images - particularly the Stubbs paintings. I love horses! Great hub.
To the reader who e-mailed me asking for help with a recently acquired horse picture. I do not offer an appraisal or valuation service, but I have written about researching old paintings and prints in great detail in two of my other on-line articles. You can learn more by clicking on my profile at the top of the page and following the links. Good luck with your research.
george hendrikse
no no , I have a lump in throat- I will sell my house to buy these paintings !
Thanks Blue Parrot. I think 'Whistlejacket' is one of the best equestrian pictures around. I once went to an exhibition of Stubbs work, and this was definitely his finest painting, (in my opinion!)
blue parrot
9 years ago from Madrid, Spain
Nice hub, Amanda. Now you'll have to do one on equestrain statues. I hope you won't forget the Donatello and the Verrocchio, or the wonderful Benlliure (General Martinez Campos) in Madrid. That Stubbs is really spectacular--great choice.
Hi Meghan, the painting is called Whistlejacket and it's by George Stubbs. I'm sure it would make an amazing tattoo!
What is the name of the first picture, the horse that looks like he is almost jumping and is looking at you. It looks like a painting I saw in London and always wished I could get a print of. I want a tatoo of that painting/picture!
10 years ago from UK
Thanks for stopping by, Prasetio. I've never painted with egg tempera, but I've seen some really good work done in that medium.
10 years ago from malang-indonesia
Nice painting. I like painting also, but in egg. thanks for great picture
Hi C.S. Alexis,
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. I just checked out the link you posted, and the work is really unusual and stunning. It takes great skill and vision to assemble a work of art out of random pieces of driftwood. The artist has certainly done the subject justice.
C.S.Alexis
10 years ago from NW Indiana
I found it on the Internet. http://behindthebit.blogspot.com/2008/04/driftwood... Hope you enjoy this artwork as much as I do. This artwork is something special, takes these women a lot of driftwood to produce this kind of work.
I have some horse art that I will email to you if I can locate it in my computer. Love the powerful animal and you did this hub justice. Thanks for sharing.
Hi online-business,
It's great to share our art with like-minded people. I look forward to seeing your sister's work!
online_business
Great. I must ask my sister to start a hub page for drawings. Maybe you two can be great friends.
Thanks for the links. There are some great paintings of fox hunts around. Fox hunting is more about the spectacle and the occasion than it is about the poor old fox. You might know that hunting a fox with hounds was legally out-lawed in the UK a couple of years ago, but many of the hunts still meet, and they are worth seeing, in their fine red jackets on a crisp winter's morning.
From my understanding Amanda, the original title 'The Fox Hunt' was painted by Winslow Homer in 1893. On the contrary, the painting of starving crows hovering over a fox in the snow isn't really about horses.
Sorry,I should have written Fox Hunt(ing) as shown in these plated engravings
http://www.goantiques.com/scripts/images,id,763496...
English fox hunting made terrific equestrain art. Although most of these old horse works are SOLD, they are fun to look at: http://www.printsoldandrare.com/foxhunting/
Jus thought Id share while I enjoyed this hub thoroughly. :)
Hi Newsworthy,
Do you know the painter of Fox Hunt by any chance? If we could track it down, I could possibly include it here?
No mention of the great horse paintings, Fox Hunt? It is the 19c. London engraving over my home desk! I know... boring, huh.
Hi 2patricias
If you've a mind to see an exhibition of horse paintings my personal favourite is Castle House at Dedham on the Essex/Suffolk border. It was the home of Sir Alfred Munnings and makes a perfect backdrop for his paintings. I did once go to a Stubbs exhibition in London, but although Whistlejacket is one of my all-time favourites, a whole room full of Stubbs was more than even I could take!
Parrots in Art must have been a fine sight! They must have had to cast their nets far and wide for that one!
2patricias
10 years ago from Sussex by the Sea
Wow! Great illustrations - wide selection of ages and schools of painting. Made me think that I'd love to see an exhibition of horse paintings. (BTW - last year the Barber Institute in Birmingham had an exhibition called 'Parrots in Art')
10 years ago from Southeastern Pennsylvania
Oh, Amanda, don't be sorry. I've cultivated my depressing experiences into art forms, seriously. There's as much to be learned from black as there is from white, as much from sorrow as from joy, as much from plunging as soaring. Each extreme brings insights that could be gained in no other way.
Truth be told, I'm a little more interested in the engineering aspects of the installation than I am in the artistic. I'm fascinated about the scope, as you are. Imagine having the means and knowledge to create 100 iron casts of your own body, anchored into the earth as decorative heads of acupuncture pins that challenge the saying, "time and tide wait for no man". If I had a little more time these days, I'd go investigating the engineering design and construction processes behind the work.
Again, thanks for sharing!
Thanks Sally, for your thoughts. I'm sorry that you found the Gormley sculptures depressing, although I can see what you mean by that. My take on them is that they are watchers waiting on the shore, and, as I live on the coast myself, I find the movements of the tides familiar and timeless, an integral part of the experience.
I'm fascinated by the scope of some of these huge works, and even how they get funding! I know a number of working artists, and many of them are obliged to work at other jobs as well just to make a living. It's just a different league I guess.
Thank you for the Gormley link. I'm afraid this art event, happening, installation, is depressing the hell out of me. Because of the representation of people who are being swallowed up into the tides, and because the real live people looking at this installation are wondering where all these casts are going.
But here's the good news. The installation does what it's supposed to do...elicit a reaction. The idea that these sculptures are acupuncture on the skin of the earth is mind boggling. So, the surface of the earth is the skin which has paths to the heart, to the essence, to the spirit, of the earth. And yet, all is somber, contemplative, longing...well, I think I could go on and on about this, but only under a dark cloud.
The white horse touches me in no similar way.
I understand now your comment about "static". And I thank you for your elaboration. I wonder what awaits, looking into the horizon. Shades of Stephen King here. What is coming through the mist?
Thank you so much for this extra added link and for bringing forth your description of "static".
Hi Sally,
I guess my I could have expressed that better, couldn't I? By static, I meant posed, and still, rather than suggesting movement as in the Remington sculpture. Another Anthony Gormley that you might enjoy is at this link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/liverpool/content/articles/20...
and again, this seems to be about stillness, contemplation and waiting.
I feel as though we're on the edge of great change globally, and that some of the large works of art currently appearing here in the UK represent that sense of stillness before a storm. But maybe that's just me!
Amanda, I did not know about the Angel of the North until I read your Hub and followed your link. You say that there's a static style of monumental sculpture in Britain at present, and I wonder what that means?
As far as the Angel goes, I see it, at this moment, as dynamic, progressive, and metaphorical (with my little knowledge about the sculpture and its background..which I will look into, thanks to your Hub). It says a lot more to me than the white horse does.
Guess the jury's out for now, with verdict to be determined in the future.
As for American artists, I spent my college and post-grad years learning about European artists and the influences they had on Americans. It was only much later in my life that I began to appreciate American artists as a genre, a happening, unto themselves.
Again, thanks for an awesome Hub.
Thanks for the link and the info. about Remington. I think he's a wonderful artist, but I have to confess that I know less about the man and his work than I do about many of our European artists. Perhaps that's something for me to research! The sculpture is very impressive and full of action, as you would expect from Remington. It's certainly a far cry from the Ebbsfleet sculpture which has more of a pastoral feel about it. There seems to be quite a movement towards this very static style of monumental sculpture in Britain at present. Have you seen anything about the Angel of The North, which is also huge and very striking?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_of_the_North
Beautifully put together, Amanda! A real joy to experience.
Did you know that Remington, despite his prolific output of both sculpture and painting, created only one large-scale, bronze? It is the magnificent cowboy on a shieing horse, displayed on a rocky crag overlooking Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. I was always intrigued by this detail of his works and thought I'd share, especially as I thought about it in contrast to what's going on in Kent. I must admit that the proposed sculpture looks a little lackluster, considering other artists' spirited and energetic renderings. On the other hand, it's apparently already generated a lot of publicity, which is what Ebbsfleet is after. If the goal of spending all that money is to drive tourists to Ebbsfleet, then I say it's a good investment, no matter what it looks like. But until it's built, I won't know whether to call it art or mere sensationalism.
Thanks for the link to Kent News...it was most informative. You can see the Remington sculpture here:
http://www.sportsantiques.com/2007NATIONAL/PhillyT...
Quite a contrast!
There's a small photo mock-up on this site with more info:
http://www.kentnews.co.uk/kent-news/White-horse-wi...
And I think there's also a similar image at the end of the Youtube clip. It's a big project, and as you say Cris, more architectural than sculptural in a way.
Cris A
10 years ago from Manila, Philippines
yes, it definitely would be a magical sight like only white horses can be! I wonder how it will be posed...
I think so. Kind of. Something this monumental is more akin to the Mount Rushmore monument, or the Eiffel Tower, or even our British Angel of the North. You need to be thinking right outside the box to come up with a concept so grand. I can't wait to see it in the flesh.
Well geez, I guess that kind of art will have to be more like arhictecture in a sense that it will have both aesthetics and function although not necessarily utilitarian in nature - but it will obviously help tourism in that place. And I think that art being incidentally artistic (as in i will paint and not think of art but ending up with a piece of art) is long gone specially when it involves that big amount of money - it has to serve a purpose. Did I make sense? LOL
There are some great images of horses in art, Cris, and as you say, the ancient art pieces give a clue to how important horses have always been to man throughout the milennia. As an art buff yourself, what do you think about the Ebbsfleet White Horse that I wrote about at the start of the hub?
Wow Amanda this is a great art collection. Horses deserve to be in high art as they are one of the noblest creatures to work this earth with man. And based on the more ancient art pieces, it is evident that they are indeed special to man since time immemorial. Thanks for sharing! :D
Hi LG
I hope your sisters enjoy the pictures. They did take a while to find, but I enjoyed searching them out. Thanks for stopping by.
LondonGirl
10 years ago from London
what a wonderful collection!
I've emailed this to both my sisters, as they are horse nuts and will love it. Must have taken you ages to put together.
Thank you Melissa! You make being a pig sound great! I hope your reading as a horse is equally pleasing. I have to agree that pigs can be quite endearing, and I particularly like little ginger Tamworths, particularly when they're piglets.
And yes you're right, that horse does have a knowing look about him!
10 years ago from Tempe, AZ
Personally, I think pigs are lovely creatures. :) I did a little research on your Chinese Astrological sign, and I think it's actually quite fitting: Contrary to its rather negative reputation in the West, the Pig of Chinese Astrology may be the most generous and honorable Sign of the Zodiac. Pigs are nice to a fault and possess impeccable manners and taste. They have so much of the perfectionist in them that others may be inclined to perceive them as snobs, but this is a misconception. Pigs are simply possessed of a truly luxurious nature, one that delights in finery and riches (in surroundings, food, lovemaking and otherwise). This Sign believes in the best qualities of mankind and certainly doesn't consider itself to be superior. Pigs also care a great deal about friends and family and work hard to keep everyone in their life happy. Helping others is a true pleasure for the Pig, who feels best when everyone else is smiling (from http://chinese.astrology.com).
I tend to like either very detailed or very abstract art, which might be why I gravitated toward the Gozzoli. I especially like how the horse seems to be gazing out of the canvas, with such an intelligent and soulful expression.
Thanks for stopping by Justmesuzanne.
Thanks Melissa. I don't know too much about Chinese Astrology either, but I do know that my own sign is a little less glamorous than yours, as I'm actually a pig! The Gozzoli is a good choice. The level of detail in 15thcentury art is often astonishing, and the fact that it was painted as a fresco has helped to keep those colours jewel bright.
justmesuzanne
10 years ago from Texas
Lovely! Thank you! :)
Nicely done, Amanda! I share your affinity for horses and I agree that you've chosen a wonderful sampling of artwork to capture their grace and beauty. I think the Gozzoli one is my favorite.
I remember choosing horses as my animal of choice for a project in elementary school, and then a few years later I discovered that I was born in the year of the horse! I don't know much about Chinese astrology, but that doesn't keep me from taking great comfort in my cosmic association with such a noble creature. :)
Elena,
Thank you so much for all your efforts. (Mucho gracias Chica!) I like the Byzantine mosaic on Flickr. What was going on in that picture? It looked like a very early example of road rage, with bodies being trampled under the horses hooves! The second sitesandphotos image is great too, but in a different way. Very fluid lines, and great feeling of movement.
Elena.
10 years ago from Madrid
Two more and I've done my duty :-)
http://www.sitesandphotos.com/catalog/actions-show...
You Brits, you! Laugh! Here are some images:
- Roman Villa bath: http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/armerina/chario...
- Rome, too, but don't know exact location (this is more on the chariot than the horse, but still): http://www.sattlerlatin.com/pic17.html
- Jackpot in Flickr :) There are plenty, here's a Bizantine one: http://www.flickr.com/photos/44124324682@N01/27687...
Hi Shalini,
I love the Degas ones too. I'm a sucker for his pastels, and I love his informal compositions. I imagine he may have used photography as an inspiration for some of his work.
Thanks Elena. I'd forgotten about the Roman influence further east. The problem with our Roman remains, is that being a tiny and crowded island, we tend to build on top of them!
Shalini Kagal
10 years ago from India
Amanda - that was a treat! I love the Degas ones especially! You pick the best and put them together so well - thanks for a wonderful hub!
Let me try and fetch images from the web, Amanda -- there are some well preserved ones in Turkey, Tunisia and Syria, and also some in Rome and Athens in museums. Some of these have horses, maybe I find something in the web :-)
Hi Catherina.
Thanks for stopping by. Horses are wonderful, aren't they?
Thanks Elena, The mosaic is sweet. Where have you seen other mosaics with horses? The Roman mosaics in Britain tend to be quite stylized and mostly geometric, and the only mosaic that I've seen with a regular horse in it would be the Nile Mosaic at Palestrina. Being in Europe, you probably know where some of them are?
Catherina Severin
Thank you for sharing these beautiful images of this wonderous, clever and special animal. xx
Very pretty, Amanda, I especially like the mosaic --and there are plenty of fabulous mosaics with horses!
Thanks Kerry. I love horses too, and they make a great subject to paint.
kerryg
10 years ago from USA
What a beautiful hub! I've been horse crazy for as long as I can remember, but some of these images and artists are still new to me.
Thanks Brian. It was a lot of fun putting it together.
10 years ago from Castelnaudary, France
Fabulous paintings and artwork to go with this very informative hub, another nice piece of work Amanda. Thumbs up from me.
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information theoristinformation-theoreticinformationinformation theoreticinformation theoreticaltheory of informationclassical information theoryInformation theoreticallyclassical (non-quantum) information theorycommunications
Information theory studies the quantification, storage, and communication of information.wikipedia
capacitydata capacityinformation capacity
Applications of fundamental topics of information theory include lossless data compression (e.g. ZIP files), lossy data compression (e.g. MP3s and JPEGs), and channel coding (e.g. for DSL). Some other important measures in information theory are mutual information, channel capacity, error exponents, and relative entropy. Shannon's main result, the noisy-channel coding theorem showed that, in the limit of many channel uses, the rate of information that is asymptotically achievable is equal to the channel capacity, a quantity dependent merely on the statistics of the channel over which the messages are sent.
Channel capacity, in electrical engineering, computer science and information theory, is the tight upper bound on the rate at which information can be reliably transmitted over a communication channel.
Information theoryEntropy (information theory)Noisy-channel coding theoremMutual informationSignal-to-noise ratio
Lossy compression
lossylossy data compressioncompressed
Applications of fundamental topics of information theory include lossless data compression (e.g. ZIP files), lossy data compression (e.g. MP3s and JPEGs), and channel coding (e.g. for DSL).
Basic information theory says that there is an absolute limit in reducing the size of this data.
Data compressionInformation theoryMP3Diagnostically Acceptable Irreversible CompressionLossless compression
Mutual information
informationalgorithmic mutual informationan analogue of mutual information for Kolmogorov complexity
Some other important measures in information theory are mutual information, channel capacity, error exponents, and relative entropy.
In probability theory and information theory, the mutual information (MI) of two random variables is a measure of the mutual dependence between the two variables.
Information theoryPointwise mutual informationRandom variableInteraction informationKullback–Leibler divergence
Error exponent
In information theory, the error exponent of a channel code or source code over the block length of the code is the logarithm of the error probability.
Information theoryChannel capacityNoisy-channel coding theoremCodecIndependent and identically distributed random variables
informativeinputinputs
Information theory studies the quantification, storage, and communication of information.
In information theory, information is taken as an ordered sequence of symbols from an alphabet, say an input alphabet χ, and an output alphabet ϒ.
UncertaintyKnowledgeObservationDataPerception
A Mathematical Theory of Communication
communication theoreticrelay and switch circuitsShannon (1948)
It was originally proposed by Claude E. Shannon in 1948 to find fundamental limits on signal processing and communication operations such as data compression, in a landmark paper entitled "A Mathematical Theory of Communication". The landmark event that established the discipline of information theory and brought it to immediate worldwide attention was the publication of Claude E. Shannon's classic paper "A Mathematical Theory of Communication" in the Bell System Technical Journal in July and October 1948.
The article was the founding work of the field of information theory.
Claude ShannonInformation theoryBell System Technical JournalEntropy (information theory)Warren Weaver
Information engineering (field)
information engineeringInformationIE/Information engineering
The field is at the intersection of mathematics, statistics, computer science, physics, neurobiology, information engineering, and electrical engineering.
The components of information engineering include more theoretical fields such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, control theory, signal processing, and information theory, and more applied fields such as computer vision, natural language processing, bioinformatics, medical image computing, cheminformatics, autonomous robotics, mobile robotics, and telecommunications.
Signal processingArtificial intelligenceNatural language processingBioinformaticsMedical image computing
Algorithmic information theory
Algorithmic complexityalgorithmic informationdecorrelation
Important sub-fields of information theory include source coding, channel coding, algorithmic complexity theory, algorithmic information theory, information-theoretic security, and measures of information.
Algorithmic information theory is a subfield of information theory and computer science that concerns itself with the relationship between computation and information.
Gregory ChaitinInformation theoryRay SolomonoffAlgorithmic probabilityAndrey Kolmogorov
Noisy-channel coding theorem
noisy channelnoisy channel coding theoremchannel coding theorem
Shannon's main result, the noisy-channel coding theorem showed that, in the limit of many channel uses, the rate of information that is asymptotically achievable is equal to the channel capacity, a quantity dependent merely on the statistics of the channel over which the messages are sent.
In information theory, the noisy-channel coding theorem (sometimes Shannon's theorem or Shannon's limit), establishes that for any given degree of noise contamination of a communication channel, it is possible to communicate discrete data (digital information) nearly error-free up to a computable maximum rate through the channel.
Information theoryError correction codeChannel capacityShannon–Hartley theoremError exponent
FECchannel codingerror correcting codes
In telecommunication, information theory, and coding theory, forward error correction (FEC) or channel coding is a technique used for controlling errors in data transmission over unreliable or noisy communication channels.
Information theoryError detection and correctionData transmissionTelecommunicationError correction code
complex systemscomplexity theorycomplexity science
Information theory is closely associated with a collection of pure and applied disciplines that have been investigated and reduced to engineering practice under a variety of rubrics throughout the world over the past half century or more: adaptive systems, anticipatory systems, artificial intelligence, complex systems, complexity science, cybernetics, informatics, machine learning, along with systems sciences of many descriptions.
Complex systems is therefore often used as a broad term encompassing a research approach to problems in many diverse disciplines, including statistical physics, information theory, nonlinear dynamics, anthropology, computer science, meteorology, sociology, economics, psychology, and biology.
ComplexityEmergenceComplex adaptive systemComputer scienceCellular automaton
AIartificially intelligentA.I.
Along with concurrent discoveries in neurobiology, information theory and cybernetics, this led researchers to consider the possibility of building an electronic brain.
Natural-language understandingAI effectAI winterKnowledge representation and reasoningAutomated planning and scheduling
bioinformaticbioinformaticiangenome browser
The theory has also found applications in other areas, including statistical inference, natural language processing, cryptography, neurobiology, human vision, the evolution and function of molecular codes (bioinformatics), model selection in statistics, thermal physics, quantum computing, linguistics, plagiarism detection, pattern recognition, and anomaly detection.
The algorithms in turn depend on theoretical foundations such as discrete mathematics, control theory, system theory, information theory, and statistics.
GenomicsInformation engineering (field)Margaret Oakley DayhoffMolecular biologySequence alignment
Bell Labs
Bell Telephone LaboratoriesBell LaboratoriesAT&T Bell Laboratories
Prior to this paper, limited information-theoretic ideas had been developed at Bell Labs, all implicitly assuming events of equal probability.
Researchers working at Bell Labs are credited with the development of radio astronomy, the transistor, the laser, the charge-coupled device (CCD), information theory, the Unix operating system, and the programming languages C, C++, and S.
Radio astronomyNokiaLaserS (programming language)Holmdel Township, New Jersey
systems scientistsystems sciencessystem science
Systems science covers formal sciences such as complex systems, cybernetics, dynamical systems theory, information theory, linguistics or systems theory.
Information theoryEarth system scienceSystems chemistryInternational Society for the Systems SciencesJames Grier Miller
cryptographiccryptographercryptology
This fundamental principle was first explicitly stated in 1883 by Auguste Kerckhoffs and is generally called Kerckhoffs's Principle; alternatively and more bluntly, it was restated by Claude Shannon, the inventor of information theory and the fundamentals of theoretical cryptography, as Shannon's Maxim—'the enemy knows the system'.
EncryptionRotor machineAdversary (cryptography)One-time padComputational hardness assumption
Ralph Hartley
HartleyR. V. L. HartleyHartley, Ralph
Ralph Hartley's 1928 paper, Transmission of Information, uses the word information as a measurable quantity, reflecting the receiver's ability to distinguish one sequence of symbols from any other, thus quantifying information as
He invented the Hartley oscillator and the Hartley transform, and contributed to the foundations of information theory.
Hartley oscillatorInformation theoryUniversity of UtahBell LabsHartley transform
compressionvideo compressioncompressed
It was originally proposed by Claude E. Shannon in 1948 to find fundamental limits on signal processing and communication operations such as data compression, in a landmark paper entitled "A Mathematical Theory of Communication". Important sub-fields of information theory include source coding, channel coding, algorithmic complexity theory, algorithmic information theory, information-theoretic security, and measures of information.
The theoretical background of compression is provided by information theory (which is closely related to algorithmic information theory) for lossless compression and rate–distortion theory for lossy compression.
Redundancy (information theory)Lossy compressionDEFLATEData transmissionGrammar-based code
Redundancy (information theory)
redundancyredundantredundant information
the information entropy and redundancy of a source, and its relevance through the source coding theorem;
In Information theory, redundancy measures the fractional difference between the entropy of an ensemble, and its maximum possible value.
Data compressionError detection and correctionInformation theoryEntropy (information theory)Channel capacity
Additive white Gaussian noise
additive noiseAWGNadditive
the practical result of the Shannon–Hartley law for the channel capacity of a Gaussian channel; as well as
Additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) is a basic noise model used in Information theory to mimic the effect of many random processes that occur in nature.
Information theoryWhite noiseCommunication channelChannel capacityNoisy-channel coding theorem
Shannon's source coding theorem
source coding theoremnoiseless coding
In information theory, Shannon's source coding theorem (or noiseless coding theorem) establishes the limits to possible data compression, and the operational meaning of the Shannon entropy.
Information theoryEntropy (information theory)Asymptotic equipartition propertyNoisy-channel coding theoremData compression
Bell System Technical Journal
Bell Syst. Tech. J.
The landmark event that established the discipline of information theory and brought it to immediate worldwide attention was the publication of Claude E. Shannon's classic paper "A Mathematical Theory of Communication" in the Bell System Technical Journal in July and October 1948.
Claude Shannon's paper "A Mathematical Theory of Communication", which founded the field of information theory, was published as two-part article in July and October issue of 1948.
A Mathematical Theory of CommunicationClaude ShannonInformation theoryBlue boxPhreaking
learningmachine-learningstatistical learning
Due to its generality, the field is studied in many other disciplines, such as game theory, control theory, operations research, information theory, simulation-based optimization, multi-agent systems, swarm intelligence, statistics and genetic algorithms.
Data miningArtificial intelligenceUnsupervised learningPredictive analyticsSupervised learning
binary digitbitsbinary digits
the bit—a new way of seeing the most fundamental unit of information.
In information theory, one bit is typically defined as the information entropy of a binary random variable that is 0 or 1 with equal probability, or the information that is gained when the value of such a variable becomes known.
InformationBit-lengthQubitQuantum computingComputer
Entropy in thermodynamics and information theory
close similarityconnection of "disorder" to thermodynamic entropyentropy
Connections between information-theoretic entropy and thermodynamic entropy, including the important contributions by Rolf Landauer in the 1960s, are explored in Entropy in thermodynamics and information theory.
The defining expression for entropy in the theory of information established by Claude E. Shannon in 1948 is of the form:
Information theoryMaxwell's demonLeo SzilardAlgorithmic coolingLandauer's principle
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“An Inspector Calls” Who Me?
by Richard Gilbert | Dec 15, 2018 | Editorial
by Richard S. Gilbert, Editor and President IINYS – December 15, 2018
At the conclusion of the Second World War, J.B. Priestley wrote what was called a “wrecking ball” aimed at English class distinctions. An Inspector Called, according to one writer “is like an episode of The Twilight Zone wrapped in an Agatha Christie mystery.” This 1945 play is having an American revival. I find it more challenging than any sermon I have heard – or preached. It haunts me yet.
A self-proclaimed inspector from Scotland Yard calls one evening on an upper class family right in the middle of an engagement party. He inquired of each one present his or her relationship to a girl who had just committed suicide. Through a series of flashbacks, each one present is implicated: the father fired her from his plant for her union activities; the daughter had her fired from a dress shop over some trifling incident; the mother at one point denied her charity help; and the daughter’s fiancé had an illicit affair with her and left her pregnant. Each one in his or her own small way had paved the way for tragedy. When it was discovered the inspector was a fake there were mixed reactions, from relief to troubled guilt.
The theme here is responsibility. Who me? In conversations with activists I sometimes discover a feeling of frustration that they can’t do more to build the Beloved Community. Framed against Koch brothers money, or Limbaugh audience reach, it is not surprising that one’s small financial contribution or few volunteer hours or an advocacy visit seem paltry. Priestley here, in addition to pointing toward class hypocrisy, suggests that it may not be a single act, but a series of actions, that have real consequences, in the case of this play, tragedy. Each member of this patrician family contributed to a young woman’s death.
My positive takeaway is that while I alone have a limited impact on positive social change, when I realize there are many more like me, I am encouraged to act. I am not alone in speaking truth to power. Frustration with the pace of social change discourages action, nothing happens, and we say with a shrug, “I told you so.” This is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Our IINYS treasurer posts these words on his home page: “If we don’t go, they win.” This, I think, is the genius of Interfaith Impact of New York State. Alone I am a single citizen with limited power. Together, we marshal people power that resonates in the corridors of the decision-makers. Priestley’s Inspector may have been a fake, but our call is real. This session of the legislature holds so much promise for constructive change, it would be a shame if we did not seize the opportunity. Notes for Change, webinars, action alerts and Advocacy Day provide ample opportunity to act. An Inspector calls. Who me?
Interfaith Impact of NYS
Interfaith Impact of NYS: a statewide coalition of congregations and individuals from Protestant, Reform Jewish, Unitarian Universalist, and other faith traditions working for the common good through progressive religious advocacy.
Contact IINYS
State Capitol Building
Email: info@iinys.org
Subscribe to Notes for Change
Copyright 2019 Interfaith Impact of New York State
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Home » Learning Centre » Reading Lists » Further Reading
There is a growing body of literature providing a survey of Fatimid history and thought. Principal among these is the comprehensive summary in Farhad Daftary’s The Ismā‘ilīs: Their History and Doctrines (2nd edition: Cambridge, 2007), pp. 137–295. Similarly, Paul E. Walker’s study Exploring an Islamic Empire: Fatimid History and its Sources (London, 2002), pp. 15–91, provides an insightful overview of the Fatimids , along with a bibliography. Marius Canard’s entry on the Fatimids in the Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd edition) as well as Paula Sanders’ ‘The Fatimid State, 969–1171’, in The Cambridge History of Egypt: Volume One, Islamic Egypt, 640–1517, ed. Carl F. Petry (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 151–174, also offer useful coverage of the Fatimids.
For more detailed accounts of the Fatimids, there are the three volumes by Heinz Halm, originally written in German. The first volume, titled Das Reich des Mahdi : Der Aufstieg der Fatimiden (Munich, 1991), covers the Ifriqiyan phase of Fatimid history, and has been translated into English by Michael Bonner as The Empire of the Mahdi: The Rise of the Fatimids (Leiden, 1996). Halm’s second volume, Die Kalifen von Kairo: Die Fatimiden in Ägypten 973–1074 (Munich, 2003), and third volume, Kalifen und Assassinen: Ägypten und der Vordere Orient zur Zeit der ersten Kreuzzüge 1074–1171 (Munich, 2014), cover the Egyptian phase of Fatimid history. The second and third volumes are yet to be translated.
For another important overview of Fatimid history in its initial phase, see Michael Brett, The Rise of the Fatimids: The World of the Mediterranean and the Middle East in the Fourth Century of the Hijra , Tenth Century CE (Leiden, 2001), as well as Farhat Dachraoui’s Le Califat Fatimid au Maghrib , 296–362/909–973: histoire, politique et institutions (Tunis, 1981).
Among the important contemporary works in Arabic surveying the Egyptian phase of Fatimid history is Ayman Fu’ād Sayyid ’s Al-Dawla al-Fāṭimiyya fī Miṣr: tafsīr jadīd (2nd edition: Cairo, 2000).
Select Reading List
Brett, Michael. The Rise of the Fatimids: The World of the Mediterranean and the Middle East in the Fourth Century of the Hijra, Tenth Century CE. Leiden, 2001.
_____. The Fatimid Empire. Edinburgh, 2017.
Daftary, Farhad. The Ismai‘lis: Their History and Doctrines. 2nd ed., Cambridge, 2007.
Fyzee, A. A. A. The Pillars of Islam: ‘Ibadat: Acts of Devotion and Religious Observances. Da‘a’im al-Islam of al-Qadi al-Nu‘man, rev. I. K. Poonawala. New Delhi and Oxford, 2002–4.
Haji, Hamid. Founding the Fatimid State: The Rise of an Early Islamic Empire. An annoted English translation of al-Qadi al-Nu‘man’s Iftitah al-Da‘wa . London, 2006.
_____. Inside the Immaculate Portal: A History from the Early Fatimid Archives. A new edition and English translation of Mansur al-‘Aziz al-Jawdhari’s biography of al-Ustad Jawdhar, the Sirat al-Ustadh Jawdhar. London, 2012.
Halm, Heinz. The Empire of the Mahdi, tr. M. Bonner. Leiden, 1996.
_____. The Fatimids and their Traditions of Learning. London, 1997.
Consult Reading Guide
Jiwa, Shainool. Towards a Shi‘i Mediterranean Empire: Fatimid Egypt and the Founding of Cairo. The reign of the Imam -caliph al-Mu‘izz from al-Maqrizi’s Itti‘az al-Hunafa. London, 2009.
Watch Interview with Dr Shainool Jiwa
_____. The Founder of Cairo: The Fatimid Imam-caliph al-Mu‘izz and His Era. An English translation of the text on al-Mu‘izz from Idris ‘Imad al-Din ’s ‘Uyun al-Akhbar. London, 2013.
Consult Reading Guide.
Watch Interview with Dr Shainool Jiwa.
Madelung, Wilferd, and Paul E. Walker ed. and tr. The Advent of the Fatimids: A Contemporary Shi‘i Witness. London and New York, 2000.
Walker, Paul E., ed. and tr. Exploring an Islamic Empire: Fatimid History and its Sources (London, 2002).
_____. ed. and tr. Orations of the Fatimid Caliphs: Festival Sermons of the Ismaili Imams. London, 2009.
Watch Lecture on Fatimid Feasts and Festivals by Prof. Paul Walker.
Recent discoveries of Fatimid artefacts, manuscripts, and archeological sites has led to a renewed scholarly insterest in exploring the history, thought and material culture of the...
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Al Buckenberger
File:Al Buckenberger.jpg
Born: (1861-01-31)January 31, 1861
Died: July 1, 1917(1917-07-01) (aged 56)
Batted: Unknown Threw: Unknown
April 18, 1889, for the Columbus Solons
Last MLB appearance
April 8, 1904, for the Boston Beaneaters
Win–loss record
Winning %
Columbus Solons (1889–1890)
Pittsburgh Pirates (1892–1894)
St. Louis Browns (1895)
Boston Beaneaters (1902–1904)
Albert C. Buckenberger (January 31, 1861 – July 1, 1917) was an American manager in Major League Baseball for the Columbus Solons, Pittsburgh Pirates, St. Louis Browns and Boston Beaneaters from 1889 to 1904. In 1896, he managed the Toronto team in the Eastern League. Al was born in Detroit, Michigan, and he died at age 56 in Syracuse, New York.
Al Buckenberger was a major league manager for ten years and also served as club president at Pittsburgh. He had previously been a light-hitting infielder and manager in the minors before coming to the majors. His biggest successes were finishing second in the American Association in 1890 and finishing second in the National League in 1893.
After his major league days he was part of a group that tried to resurrect the American Association, but didn't succeed.
Baseball-Reference.com – career managing record
Pittsburgh Pirates managers
Al Pratt (1882–1883)
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Posts Tagged ‘Pennsylvania’
The Democrats Must Go This November
Posted in Latest Commentary, tagged $787 billion, 1933, 2010 midterm election, Adolf Hitler, American health care system, Arizona, Astroturf, Barack Obama, belly of the beast, but verify, cash-for-clunkers program, chancellor, Chicago-style politics, Chrysler dealerships, Cosmo Kramer, Czechoslovakia, deficit, Democrat talking points, Democrats, Democrats Must Go, eftist elite, fascist, fascist state, First World War, food stamps, Freedom Celebration for We the People, General Keitel, General Motors, George Costanza, George Soros, George W. Bush, Germany in the early 1930s, grass roots, Great Depression, Great Depression of 1929, Gulf of Mexico, health insurance, Indiana, Indiana County Court House, Internet, iron-fisted union, July 31 1932, Justice Department officials, leftist ideologues, living space, manage the nation's decline, Maxine Waters, Mein Kampf, Midterm election, moratorium, moratorium on off-shore drilling, nanny state, nationalized, Nazis, neoconservative, New Black Panther Party, off-shore drilling, overreaching regulations, Pelosi, Pennsylvania, People's Republic of Maryland, political speech, porkulus, President Hindenburg, radical agenda, recession, Reichstag, Reid, RINO, RINO Republicans, rising tyranny, Ronald Reagan, saved jobs, saved or created, September 1938, socialist dictator, special interest, stimulus, student loan industry, talk radio, TARP funds, Tea Party, Tea Party movement, Tea Party Rally, teacher unions, Tgrass roots base, The Millstone Diaries, the unnecessary war, thugocracies, transform America, true believers, trust, union supporters, United Nations, unnecessary war, voter intimidation case, Voting Rights Act, Voting Rights Act of 1965, Winston Churchill, World War II, Yes We Can on October 3, 2010| Leave a Comment »
The following speech was delivered at “Freedom Celebration for We the People” Tea Party Rally Saturday on the steps of the Indiana County Court House in Indiana, Pennsylvania October 2, 2010.
How yuns doin’? Living in the belly of the beast and in the People’s Republic of Maryland for the past twelve years makes me long for Western Pennsylvania and use that plural pronoun again.
I.M. Kane, I write social and political commentaries and report goings-on at my blog, The Millstone Diaries. I’m married with three kids in their thirties, three grandchildren, and one wife who thinks I make George Costanza an appealing catch and Cosmo Kramer a towering intellect. So there’s really only one reason why you should pay any mind to what I have to say here today, and that is it’s the truth.
Now that I’ve dispensed with the pleasantries, let me say upfront that I’m not a motivational speaker, nor am I here to ingratiate myself to any political party or even to the tea party movement for that matter. Think of me as someone back from a reconnaissance mission with information that describes the situation at hand. Therefore, if you find what I say offensive, remember to keep the message separate from the messenger. That is, don’t shoot me, I’m only the piano player, not the piper who makes mice dance.
In 1933, Winston Churchill tried in vain to alert his countrymen to the dangers of the charismatic corporal and the Nazi Party that had come to power demanding German “living space” from neighboring countries. Adolf Hitler and the Nazis built super highways and affordable cars for the common man and won the affection of many Germans. But at the same time, he was building munitions factories, tanks, ships, submarines, and airplanes in preparation for war.
Churchill repeatedly warned his government and the British people to prepare for war against the rising tyranny, but he was derided by Parliament and mocked by the media. The majority of the British people were weary from fighting the First World War and worn out from striving to survive the Great Depression of 1929, so they denied the truth about what Hitler and the Nazis were planning and refused to confront the approaching tyranny.
Today, a majority of Americans are weary from the war on terrorism, worn out from the worst recession since the Great Depression, and live in denial much like the Brits of the early 1930s. A majority of Americans reject the truth about Barack Obama and the Democrat Party and refuse to confront the approaching tyranny.
You heard it right. I am comparing the current situation in the United States to Germany in the early 1930s and Barack Obama and the Democrat Party to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, and for good reason.
Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party could have been stopped July 31, 1932, in a special election had a majority of Germans read Mein Kampf and comprehended the outline of what he planned to do. But not enough did, and the Nazis won 230 seats and became the largest political party in the Reichstag.
On the basis of that special election, Hitler demanded to be appointed chancellor in control of the state, and six months later President Hindenburg met his demands. What’s interesting is that the Nazis never captured more than 37 percent of the national vote or gained a majority of seats in the Reichstag. However, with Hitler in the chancellery they were able to consolidate power and take control of the government with relative ease.
Hitler and the Nazi Party were driven to change Germany and that change brought down the republic and established a fascist state and dictatorial rule. The Germans instinctively knew that Hitler and the Nazis were bad news; they just didn’t know how bad the news would be.
Obama and the Democrat Party are on a mission to transform America, and that is bad news; yet far too many Americans remain clueless to the significance of that fact. Back in 2008, they heard the word change and turned the nation over to Barack Obama and the Democrat Party to take the country in a different direction from where George W. Bush and the neoconservative, RINO Republicans had been taking it.
They just assumed that Obama and the Democrat Party meant to change the direction of the country; they didn’t stop to think about the parsing of “is” during the Clinton years or Ronald Reagan’s signature phrase—trust, but verify.
Now they know that change didn’t mean direction; it meant speed. Obama and the Democrat Party haven’t changed the direction of the country; it’s still on the road to ruin. Only the arrival time has changed and the throttle shifted from impulse power to warp drive. But not to worry, dutiful Democrats have promised to manage the nation’s decline every step of the way.
So let’s rummage through Obama and the Democrats’ management handiwork over the past 18 months:
They managed to push through the largest spending bill in history, an unread $787 billion porkulus package purported to jump-start the economy and create jobs; however, it served only to jack up the national debt 23 percent to $13 trillion. The bill failed badly, but that hasn’t stopped them from boasting that the stimulus “saved or created” 3 million jobs even though economics offers no quantifiable way to calculate the number of “saved jobs.”
They managed to nationalized General Motors and the student loan industry, and meddled in the closings of thousands of General Motors and Chrysler dealerships.
They managed to transform the American health care system in a way that harms taxpayers, health care providers, and quality patient care, and administer a stranglehold over the health care industry, forcing every American to buy health insurance.
They managed to increase government control over tobacco and food, and under the pretense of fairness have been ruthless in their efforts to regulate political speech over talk radio and the Internet.
They managed to seize TARP funds meant to bailout the banking system and redirected them to Congresswoman Maxine Waters’ husband’s bank that didn’t qualify, the cash-for-clunkers program, teacher unions, union supporters, and blue states that supported Obama.
They managed to increase federal control over finance and mortgages causing housing prices to plummet wiping out equity and making it harder for people to move and take a job in a different city or state
They managed to place a moratorium on off-shore drilling that is destroying the oil industry in the Gulf of Mexico and wreaking havoc on the region’s economy.
They managed to add jobs in the public sector while jobs in the private sector declined.
They managed to foster an environment where more Americans are now working for the government or are on food stamps than ever before.
They managed to quadruple the deficit and spend the nation to the brink of bankruptcy.
They managed to have Justice Department officials sue the state of Arizona for passing an immigration law that mirrors the federal immigration law, and turn over the sovereign state of Arizona to the United Nations for prosecution of potential human rights abuses.
They managed to allow Justice Department officials to dismiss an open-and-shut voter intimidation case against members of the New Black Panther Party and to adopt a no-prosecution policy for blacks who violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
In 18 short months, the policies implemented by Barack Obama’s Bread and Circuses Salvation Sideshow Administration and the legislation passed by the Democrat-controlled Congress have made the current Democrat Party the greatest enemy of economic liberty and personal freedom in American history, and this is why the Democrats must go this November.
Now I realize that the Tea Party movement prides itself on being nonpartisan, but neutrality in this environment is a heinous word. Obama and the Democrat Party will not stop their relentless pursuit of power. You can write letters, sign petitions, and rally in DC til the cows come home, but the combined efforts of your angry protestations will never persuade them to abandon their radical agenda to transform America. The truth is the Democrat Party is controlled by leftist ideologues and led by true believers.
Our country’s future is imperiled because too many patriots in the Tea Party movement refuse to draw a clear distinction between the two parties and blame both parties equally for the problems America faces.
Granted, the Republican Party’s neo-conservative/RINO wing deserves some blame, but the Party does have a conservative-leaning, libertarian-minded grass roots base; whereas the Democrat Party doesn’t have a conservative/libertarian wing and its Astroturf base consists of labor unions and leftist-leaning, statist-minded special interest groups.
In other words, the Democrats act like gangsters, and the Republicans like bad cops on the take. So the question before you this November is which of the two parties can be reformed?
George Soros and the leftist elite have invested too much time and money and are too close to transforming the U.S. into a fascist state under a socialist dictator to allow grass-root commoners from the Tea Party movement to gain control of their Party. Besides, real reform needs a party base to support and carry it out, and there’s no chance of that happening as long as iron-fisted union and special interest thugocracies rule the base. Like it not, the answer is the Republican Party by default.
The 2010 midterm election is as vital for the survival of our Republic as the 1932 special election was to Germany’s. Had the German people put aside their differences and united to defeat the Nazis in that election, the world would never have known one of its worst mass murderers and the Nazi Party would have faded into the shadows.
Churchill called World War II the unnecessary war because he believed it could have been prevented had the European democracies not backed down from the tyrant. When Hitler threatened to seize Czechoslovakia in September 1938, he told General Keitel that he would not enter the country unless he was convinced that France and England would not intervene.
The French and English forces were vastly superior and outnumbered those of Germany at the time. Hitler was the typical tyrant. He preyed on weakness and respected superior force. Had the French and English people not been led by weak and fearful leaders willing to appease Hitler, he would have backed down. But instead they fed the crocodile hoping they would be the last to be eaten.
World War II is the greatest tragedy of the modern era for it could have been averted if the German people had voted against the Nazis in that ’32 election or the British had heeded Churchill’s warning about the rising threat in ’33.
However, a worst catastrophe awaits us if we fail to learn the lessons from that election and Churchill’s warning. I submit that you are here today because you sense that the upcoming November election is not politics as usual, that something terrible is about to happen to our country if we don’t prevent it.
You have such a sense of urgency and foreboding that you can almost feel the enveloping inhuman repression crushing you. You sense that the dreams from Obama’s father are really nightmares for America. Inwardly you’re screaming, “Stop the madness … the Chicago-style politics … the overreaching regulations … the overbearing nanny state.”
You approach the media for redress of your grievances, and they report that you are too stupid, too uninformed, and too uneducated to understand the nuances involved in all that Barack Obama and the Democrat Party are doing to transform America.
The truth is the American media have been reduced to a gaggle of crippled weaklings controlled by fear serving up Democrat talking points and Party propaganda. They won’t recognize wickedness and immorality unless it’s to denounce those who do. You trust them at your own peril.
So the battle lines have been drawn. It remains to be seen whether or not the electorate will be fooled with Democrat attack ads, appeals to petty distractions, or cries of independent-mindedness. They are running from Obama, Pelosi, and Reid now, but never forget the cheers of “Yes We Can!” when they passed the stimulus bill, and they yelled it even louder when they passed ObamaCare, and they will scream it at the top of their lungs when they cram cap and trade and immigration reform down our throats if they are not stopped this November.
If Churchill was right in saying that “Democracy is based on reason, a sense of fair play, and freedom and a respect for other people” and “is not some harlot in the street to be picked up by some man with a Tommy gun” then the Democrat party is anything but democratic for it has shown nothing but contempt for democracy.
America is special, a unique country worth saving. It is not just another nation; it embodies the ideal of man’s inalienable rights. If America is to survive, it must undergo a major change in the balance of power. Obama, Pelosi, Reid, and the Democrat Party have plundered this nation’s wealth and destroyed its free market system long enough.
November begins the reckoning, and “we are the guardians of causes so precious to the world, that we must … ‘Lay aside every impediment.'” After all, what is the use of the tea party if it is not to strive to uphold the American ideal for those who will live in these United States after we are gone?
Wake up, Tea Party patriots. You are the hope of America.
Thank you and God’s speed.
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December 23, 2018 / 3:12 AM / 7 months ago
Trump cancels plans to travel to Florida for Christmas - spokeswoman
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a bill signing ceremony for the “First Step Act” and the “Juvenile Justice Reform Act” in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, U.S., December 21, 2018. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will remain in Washington through Christmas “due to the shutdown,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said on Saturday.
Trump had been scheduled to travel to his Florida resort with his family for the end of year holidays, but said on Friday he would stay in Washington if he and lawmakers failed to strike a budget deal to avert a partial government shutdown.
He left it unclear at the time, however, how long he might remain in the capital.
Reporting by Makini Brice; Editing by Tim Ahmann
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—I.U.B…
UNTITLED… (I CANT DRAW) text, [2009]
UNTITLED… I CAN’T DRAW [PHOTOS]… I
Untitled… I CAN’T DRAW [PHOTOS]…II
THE TUBA PROJECT…
in his studio
INTRO TEXT
untitled [prison anxieties]_2011
untitled (Six and Fours)_photos
untitled…(Six and Fours)_the idea
Six and Fours: Prison Anxieities, 2013 Photos
Asiko Art School – Dakar Residency
“Dear Dakar,”
“Dear Dakar,” [Photos]
EXIT FRAME, 2014
Lugar a dudas residency, Colombia
Untitled (3)… Letter to the Sky (2014)
untitled… (3) [Letter to the Sky]__Proposal
Untitled… (3) [Letter To The Sky]__Day 1
Gasworks Residency
Silence Between The Lines: Anagrams of Emancipated Futures
Curatorial Statement
Voyage of [Re]Discovery
Voyage of [Re]Discovery_Nubuke Foundation Gallery
Voyage of [Re]Discovery_Ussher Fort Prison
The Village of Arts and Humanities Residency
The Politics of Relationality – Part One
The Politics of Relationality – Part Two
Site-Specific Structure: Concept I
Site-Specific Structure: Concept II
The Supa Future Studio Collective
Orderly Disorderly Curatorial Statement
Orderly Disorderly Press Release
A Phenomenological Reading of Elia Nurvista’s Früchtlinge (2019)
G.W.K Dawson: A Particular History of Ghanaian Modernism (2019)
On Universality and Curating in the Void (2019)
What is a “master”?— Critiquing the conceptual and political framework of the Kampala Art Biennale (KAB18)
How Can Art Save the World?: Reading the Lagos Biennial in Terms of Contradictions (2017)
Of the Oval and the Cross (2017)
Paragraphs on the Contemporary (2016)
The Politics of Relationality – Part One (2016)
The Politics of Relationality – Part Two (2016)
Between The Lines: Silence (2015)
Ibrahim Mahama: Preserving Material History Through Exchange (2015)
The Artist and the Curator (2015)
The Displaced: Serge Attukwei Clottey (2015)
In Conversation with C& – 2016
In Conversation with Eli A Freee – 2018
In Conversation with Kitso Lelliott – 2016
In Conversation with Kwabena Agyare Yeboah – 2016
In Conversation with Moses Serubiri – 2014
In Conversation with Toril Johannessen – 2016
In Conversation with YEVU (2019)
Spectacles. Speculations… (2018)
Gallery/About the works
[Essay] Curatorial Models
[Essay] Spectacles Speculations: In Terms of Images
G.W.K Dawson: A Particular History of Ghanaian Modernism
Art writing, Exhibitions
**The following is an abridged version of the text to be published in the Galle Winston Kofi Dawson: In Pursuit of Something ‘Beautiful’… perhaps (15th March – 16th August, 2019) exhibition catalog as part of Dawson’s ongoing solo exhibition at Savanna Center for Contemporary Art (SCCA) in Tamale, Ghana.
Galle Winston Kofi Dawson was born in the Gold Coast on 8th November 1940 in Takoradi. He is one of thirteen children born to Mrs. Evelyn Esi Dawson and Mr. Wilberforce David Kwami Dawson. In 1956, when Dawson was 16 years old, he enrolled in Mawuli High School in Ho. He was in the same class with Prosper Tawiah and a year behind S. K Amenuke at Mawuli1. Dawson had initially entered Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), then Kumasi College of Technology (KCT)2, in 1960 for a diploma in Civil Engineering. He abandoned this direction in 1962 and joined the teacher-training Diploma in Fine Art (DFA) class.
Portrait of G.W.K Dawson, photo courtesy SCCA Tamale
When the KNUST BA Art Degree begun in 1964 Dawson’s class was the first to transition from DFA into the new degree programme. He was one of three students, with old time classmate Prosper Tawiah and Stanislaus Abaka. E.K.J Tetteh joined them from the Slade School of Fine Art after completing his National Diploma in Design (NDD)— the UK equivalent of the DFA on which the latter was modelled3.
As a young student, Dawson had been mentored by the Ghanaian painter and graphic artist Amon Kotei who worked at the Government Printing Office after his studies at the London College of Printing and Graphic Art in 1952. Kotei combined early modernist influences (a post-Impressionist style and Fauvist palette) to depict subject matter from his cultural environment in his figurative and landscape paintings. Kotei is also famously known for his work as designer of the Ghanaian National Coat of Arms during the transition from Gold Coast Colony to Independent state Ghana.
The conversion from Diploma to Degree in Ghanaian art education was contemporaneous with the UK educational curriculum. A year after he had completed his BA Art Degree, in 1967, Dawson was interested to see for himself what was going on in the European art world at the time. And so he was recommended for an 8-month Technical Award granted by the British Council to visit the Slade School of Fine Art in London. The recommendation came from John Avis— British artist and teacher who succeeded notable South African poet, painter, sculptor and academic Selby Mvusi as principal lecturer of the painting programme at KNUST in 1964.
While at The Slade, Dawson learned the basics of painting on canvas— sizing, priming with Rabbit-skin glue, using toluene as solvent, etc—in addition to the hardboard painting he had practiced at KNUST. He actively participated in drawing, painting and screen printing sessions— techniques he will return to more often throughout his life. With regard to drawing and painting he especially focused on anatomy, perspective, and live painting. Here he encountered British artist Euan Uglow, a peer of Avis’s. Uglow was one of several prominent artists who would visit and have interactive sessions with students at The Slade. On Sir William Coldstream’s request Dawson stayed four more months in the U.K until he returned in 1968. As a consequence of Coldstream’s mentorship Dawson became learned in the former’s realist idiom of painting. But Coldstream’s influence was to extend beyond individuals such as Avis and Dawson.
Exhibition view of Dawson’s solo exhibition (retrospective) ‘Galle Winston Kofi Dawson: In Search of Something ‘Beautiful’… perhaps’ (16th March – 15th August, 2019) curated by Bernard Akoi-Jackson at the Savanna Center for Contemporary Art (SCCA) in Tamale, Ghana. Photo courtesy SCCA Tamale.
Exhibition view of Dawson’s solo exhibition (retrospective) ‘Galle Winston Kofi Dawson: In Search of Something ‘Beautiful’… perhaps’ (16th March – 15th August, 2019) curated by Bernard Akoi-Jackson at the Savanna Center for Contemporary Art (SCCA) in Tamale, Ghana. Photo by Abdul Haqq Mahama.
Sir William Coldstream attended the Slade School of Fine Art from 1926 to 1929 and was himself mentored by the influential British avant-garde art teacher Henry Tonks4. He was a founding member, in 1938, along with Victor Pasmore and Claude Rogers, of the Euston Road Group of British male artists who were, in the early twentieth century, resisting French avant-garde waves in Europe by adopting a post-impressionist style of painting traditional subjects in a realist manner based on observation; emphasizing social realism and rule of thumb measurement for drawing as well as painting of the human body and still life objects. They belonged to the community of socialist-inclined artists in London who were politically motivated about their work in response to Fascism, global economic depression, and optimism after the Mexican and Russian revolutions. This circle preferred naturalistic painting as a way of making art more accessible to non-specialists and members of the public. The aesthetic prescriptions of this school confined drawing and painting to pictorialist formats that juggled single narrative subject matter from portraiture, landscape, genre painting and still-life. The group dissolved in the war years between 1939 to 1945 with Pasmore, Coldstream and Rogers moving on to become art teachers at Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts5. Avis and Uglow had been Coldstream’s protégés, first at Camberwell then at The Slade (where Coldstream moved to when he was appointed Professor of Fine Art in 1947).
Between 1960 and 1970 the National Advisory Council on Art Education (NACAE) — the body set up “to advise the Secretary of State on all aspects of art education in establishments of further education in England and Wales”6— chaired by Coldstream, released four reports detailing educational and examination reforms. Following the release of the First Report in 1960 (coinciding with Dawson’s Freshman year at KCT), the Diploma in Art and Design (Dip. AD) programme was established as a degree equivalent qualification to the NDD; consequently, old Polytechnic Colleges in England and Wales were given University status and allowed to run degree and postgraduate courses. Euro-Western art history (to be taught by art historians) and the Bauhaus-inspired Foundation Programmes were also recommended in the Report.
And so it happened that four years after the release of the First NACAE/Coldstream Report, when the BA Art Degree programme had been instituted at KNUST— with John Avis as the new head lecturer responsible for designing the BA Art (Painting) syllabus under the supervision of Professor Ernest Victor Asihene, Dean of the KNUST College of Art, in collaboration with other Goldsmiths alumni and Ghanaian faculty — the Slade curriculum was adopted and implemented in KNUST7. This meant that a verficationist tradition of painting, embalmed in early Modernist ethos, was to be inaugurated and consequently privileged, for instance, over any form of abstraction, symbolism or fantasy at KNUST in those early years. The Coldstream-inspired curriculum would hence constitute the hegemony in art teaching at KNUST.
Even though Avis left Ghana in 1967 (three years after his posting and a year after the counter-revolutionary coup d’état that toppled Kwame Nkrumah’s regime initiating Ghana’s Second Republic), the legacy of the European tradition he had bequeathed to the College of Art endured unchallenged until the late twentieth century years when growing nationalist movements in the former colonies of Africa, South-East Asia and Latin America conditioned conscious efforts of decolonizing curricula across board. For KNUST it came with post-Independence restructuring including the introduction of Selby Mvusi as one of the first black faculty (after painter Professor E.V Asihene’s appointment as Dean in 1960) to teach in the Fine Art Department in 1962. Coincidentally, this is the same year the Department of Art became a College. Mvusi, during his undergraduate years at the University of Fort Hare in South Africa, aligned with the radical nationalist African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) and other student political groups. Fort Hare was the only university open to Black, Indian and Colored South Africans as well as students from other Anglophone African colonial-administered countries during Apartheid. Mvusi left KNUST two years later to teach at the Fine Arts Department of the University of Nairobi, Kenya, in 1965 until his death in 1967.
Amongst prominent African Modernists affiliated with the College of Art in KNUST are Nigerian modernists Uche Okeke, Ben Enwonwu, Solomon Irein Wangboje and Demas Nwokwo. Okeke is a founding member of the Zaria Art Society (later known as the Zaria Art Rebels), in the late 1950s, along with Bruce Onobrakpeya, Demas Nwokwo and other students during their undergraduate years at the Zaria College of Technology (now Ahmadu Bello University) in northern Nigeria who were consciously contesting the “Eurocentrism” of an NDD-based curriculum”. Okeke implemented his ideology of “Natural Synthesis”8 in the course program at the Fine Arts Department of the University of Nigeria (Nsukka) and initiated postgraduate courses after he joined the faculty in the ‘70s. As Head of Department he introduced new courses and research into Igbo Uli art traditions and graphic systems. Enwonwu, Wangboje and Nwokwo became external assessors and moderators of the KNUST College of Art from the ‘70s into the ‘80s.
During this so-called “Africanization” period, the KNUST art curriculum was reformed in terms of subject matter but the authority of traditional European pictorial genres and formats9 endured as official art. By the neoliberal political economic turn in world affairs in the ‘80s into the ‘90s, early modernist pictorial styles and romanticised African subject matter10 had become the dominant academy aesthetic until 2003 . . .
(2019) Read full text here: https://iubeezy.wordpress.com/texts/dawson/
Danquah, J.B. 1957. The Historical Significance of the Bond of 1844. Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana. 3(1). 3-29. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41405698.
Oguibe O. 2004. The Culture Game. University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, London.
seid’ou, k. 2006. Theoretical Foundations of the KNUST Painting Programme: A Philosophical inquiry and its contextual relevance in Ghanaian Culture [Unpublished PhD Thesis]. Kumasi: KNUST.
seid’ou k. 2014a. Gold Coast Hand and Eye Work: A Genealogical History. Global Advanced Research Journal of History. Political Science and International Relations ISSN: 2315-506X Vol. 3(1) pp. 008-016.
seid’ou k. 2014b. Adaptive Art Education in Achimota College; G. A. Stevens, H. V. Meyerowitz and Colonial False Dichotomies. CASS Journal of Art and Humanities, 3 (1), 1-28.
seid’ou k. et al. 2015. Silent Ruptures, Emergent Art of the KNUST College of Art. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science. Vol. 5. No. 10: October 2015.
Stevens G. A. (1930). The Future of African Art. With Special Reference to Problems Arising in Gold Coast Colony. Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, 3(2), 150-160. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1155795.
Both of whom later became prominent lecturers at the Department of Painting and Sculpture at KNUST.
KCT was established in 1951 but the first students arrived there a year later. It became KNUST in 1961.
The NDD curriculum in metropolitan Britain formulated courses based on “Talent”, “Métier” (craft) and “Imitation”. Zaria College of Technology (now Ahmadu Bello University) and KCT were examples of Colonial Colleges of Arts, Science and Technology (COCAST) in the 1950s. Their curricular were based on the NDD with subjects defined according to “European academy craft” such as modeling, life painting, still life, and landscape. See seid’ou et al (2015), p. 133 and p. 136 [note i]. For a deeper analysis of art education since pre-independence Ghana see seid’ou, (2006).
Henry Tonks was a British surgeon and artist who significantly influenced a generation of British artists at The Slade School of Fine Art. In 1892, when Frederick Brown was appointed Slade Professor in succession to Alphonse Legros, he invited Tonks to become his assistant. Tonks became Professor at The Slade from 1918 to 1930. There he taught David Bomberg, Wyndham Lewis, Spencer Gore, G. A Stevens and William Coldstream. He was one of the first British artists influenced by French Impressionists.
Currently a constituent college of the University of Arts London (UAL), it is known as Camberwell College of Arts.
Op. cit. seid’ou, 2006, p. 142.
See ibid. for sei’dou’s analysis of “analogous practices and concepts” in the Kumasi College of Art with the NACAE reports of 1960, 1962, 1964 and the Report of the joint committee with the National Council for Diplomas in Art and Design (NCDAD) in 1970, also known as the Second Coldstream Report.
Olu Oguibe, in reference to the Zaria Art Society manifesto authored by Uche Okeke, notes that “natural synthesis” permitted Nigerian artists “to research and incorporate into their work formal and symbolic elements from within their indigenous art traditions while retaining whatever is useful from the Western tradition. This was very much in line with the search for a new cultural identity in the immediate postcolony and would eventually form the ideological and formal bases of modern Nigerian art from the 1960s onward”. See Oguibe (2004), p. 184. Also go to note 25 to see how homologous Natural Synthesis is to the ideas of the nativist colonial art master G. A. Stevens.
See Department of Painting & Sculpture, KNUST. About Us. Retrieved on 16th July 2017 from https://painting.knust.edu.gh/about.
Op. cit., seid’ou et al, 2015, p.134.
The Age of blaxTARLINES KUMASI
*This text is an extract from Curatorial Models, an essay detailing the exhibition strategies employed in Spectacles. Speculations… (2018), curated by the author in Kumasi, Ghana.
blaxTARLINES KUMASI is a collectivist response to the hopeless conditions that characterize the state of institution-building in contemporary art in the “cultural slum”1 that is Ghana. It is the contemporary art institution based at the Department of Painting and Sculpture at KNUST directly responsible for successfully implementing a radical openness to the concept and practice of art. This loose community consists of kindred spirits of artistic and non-artistic dispositions who have mobilized together based on core principles of economico-intellectual emancipation and political sensitivity to one’s practice. This community shares amongst itself and with the broader world through writing, publishing (catalogs, monographs, etc), exhibitions, interviews, artist talks, studio visits, library, etc.
At the turn of the century, a “silent revolution” swept through the Department of Painting and Sculpture at KNUST — instigated by artist, poet, mathematician and scholar Dr. kąrî’kạchä seid’ou with fervent support from younger faculty namely Mr. Kwaku Boafo Kissiedu (Castro), Dr. Edwin Bodjawah, Mr. George Buma Ampratwum and their networks — with consequences for the Ghanaian art scene as a whole. Premised on values such as universality and multiplicity of art, the retro-colonial curriculum of the Department was to be transformed and expanded from its historical [over]dependence on “the authority of [human-centered] European traditional and early Modernist media, genres and formats” to include “photography, time-based media, local artisanship, new materiality, curating, text, performance, post-humanist media, robotics, video gaming, site specific and community practices”.2
What the kinship hoped to advance at the time is “a field of “general intellect” which encourages student artists and other young artists to work in the spirit of finding alternatives to the bigger picture which excluded their voices but paradoxically by first becoming an anamorphic stain in the bigger picture itself. This way, the stain instigates a new vision, which requires a necessary shift in the spectator’s perspective. And this shift in perspective leaves the older picture as a stain in the new picture.”3
The democratic principle encapsulated in this metaphor wrests absolute autonomy from the proverbial “bigger picture” and makes it contingent to the subversive potential of both anamorphic stain and spectator. The artist-as-anamorphic-stain possesses not only the right but also the ability to create a new image with the old picture as a stain in it. The spectator’s gaze can no longer remain disembodied, they must correlate to the change that has happened in the picture by adjusting their positionality in relation to it— if this results in the assertion of an indifferent posture, it would be borne out of intention.
The metaphor is close in spirit to Jacques Rancière’s emancipatory politics. For Rancière politics proper begins when the excluded masses (the supplementary part of a population who remain unnamed (dēmos) or the lower classes who are by design elided from positions of power (polis) by the ruling oligarchy), through political subjectivization, assert for themselves the entitlement of inclusion in the exercise of power based on the only universal epithet “we are all equal”. (i.e. this particular group demands universal rights and proceeds to rupture relations in the public sphere by radically affecting the dynamics of inclusions, exclusions and permissions that regulate what is communally common, in a word, the distribution of the sensible4 (Rancière: 2004, pp.12). Further, the Universal is the space that is common to all of humanity, the space we all must take for granted, the thing we can all appeal to at any moment that is not the predestined property of any race, gender, group, nor state.
seid’ou’s Emancipatory Art Teaching5 — a pedagogic model that advocates “the dissolving of genres in “activist” and participatory practice”6— has inspired the community that is blaxTARLINES KUMASI to prefer political indifference to any particular trend, style, medium, process, etc. His pedagogic model exemplifies that of the “ignorant schoolmaster” (Rancière: 1991, 2004) who acknowledges the equality of intelligences at work in every teaching opportunity and is concerned not with transferring the knowledge he knows onto the ignoramus but with creating democratic conditions that make it possible for the ignoramus to bridge the distance between what she knows and what she does not yet know— that is, so that she can empower herself to learn what she does not yet know but can know on condition that she wills to endeavor into the forest of signs.
Beginning with the axiom that “art is anything that is radically new”,7 blaxTARLINES KUMASI proceeds to posit art as a site of multiplicity. Art that emerges “from a void: with neither content nor prejudice for any particular medium, skill, material, or process”8. The void here does not presuppose anything, neither is it a negation of pre-existing content: it is a state of criticality born from a disposition which understands given historical and institutional definitions of art. Art is here radically emptied of such presumptive associations so as to permit an egalitarian regeneration of its content; hence art is anything that is radically new.
This can be formulated in another way with the question “what is art?”. In this specific context, the question must necessarily be its own answer. If we consider the inquiry as lacking content from the outset when posed, it spurs the questioner on to search, discover and learn about what they do not yet know on the basis that they can know. And each questioner can, in principle, begin their own journey into uncovering answers. The question is the void which permits the questioner to regenerate or populate new content. There is, of course, always the tendency to be dogmatically ensnared within a radical breakthrough at a particular moment in this evolution as is seen with modernist avant-garde movements of the past century. Insofar as proponents of these movements purported to have the destiny of art in sight, shrouded in a logic of purity, truth and linearity of time (or history) it was bound to become stale and eventually irrelevant to the times. What is at stake here, then, is to figure out how one can grow the vigor and vitality to sustain the question-as-answer throughout one’s practice.
Furthermore, the motive here is to create democratic as well as enabling conditions of self-determination for any person, regardless of their cultural or economic background, to be able to thrive based on their own intentionality and will. If this is the case, then a logical corollary must be confronted. Democracy inheres antagonisms, as it is not a perfect state of harmony. And this kind of emancipation, although based on a Universality, would not be available to all since it is conditioned on the will or action of its subject. So we find that this democratic ideal, if it is to be truly egalitarian, must dialectically permit its subject to freely reject the terms of emancipation it is itself offering. But what distinguishes this participatory regime from modernist presuppositions based on classical logic, with binaries of either-in-or-out, is that the subject may reject its thesis and still have a right to exist. It is neither premised on the illusion of perfection nor on the myth of total harmony (which would itself be a state of tyranny). It identifies the failures and cracks immanent to its ideals and negotiates those tensions.
Illustrated in the foregoing is the praxiological thesis animating contemporary art coming from KNUST that has established the Department of Painting and Sculpture as an important hub in contemporary art emerging from West Africa. These ideas have manifested curatorially in blaxTARLINES KUMASI’s critically acclaimed end of year exhibitions in Kumasi and Accra since 2014.9 The exhibition as testing ground for new symbolic relations between artworks and the production of knowledge, intergenerational conversations, collective curating and accessibility programming (translating exhibition material into braille and other local languages, creating areas within the exhibition space for physically challenged persons who could not access the lower and upper floors of its large-scale exhibitions to get a sense of the works on every floor) are some of the core strategies fervently implemented.
At a time when independent curating has become an itinerant practice, collective curating as a strategy is a laudable response to making the curator (or group of curators) present at any moment in time throughout the duration of the exhibition to ensure that the integrity of the works is protected and preserved through daily care. My trans-disciplinary practice (working as artist, writer and curator) as well as consideration of a multiplicity of spectators (children, older people, visually impaired, workers and people coming from various class backgrounds), translating exhibition material (curatorial statement and captions) into braille, and selecting works that offer multi-sensorial experiences for Spectacles. Speculations… comes as a direct influence of blaxTARLINES KUMASI’s inclusive and egalitarian ethos.
— (2018).
Extra Links:
kąrî’kạchä seid’ou explains this concept in an interview with Jelle Bouwhuis stating that “[o]ne expected Neo-Liberal privatization, economic and cultural deregulation, affirmation of freedom of choice and rule of law to stimulate private investment in cultural institutions dedicated to human self-determination. However, if we could say that Ghana’s private mass media thrived in this era, we cannot say so about art departments, galleries, museums and so on. So in terms of cultural institution building, Ghana is a good example of the contradictions of Neo-Liberalism and its globalising processes”. See ‘Silent Parodies. kąrî’kạchä seid’ou in conversation with Jelle Bouwhuis’, in Project 1975 – Contemporary Art and the Postcolonial Unconscious (J. Bouwhuis and K. Winking eds.), SMBA/blackdog publishing, Amsterdam/London 2014, p.p 109-118
Department of Painting & Sculpture, KNUST. About Us. Retrieved from https://painting.knust.edu.gh/about . It states on the website that “The Department of Painting and Sculpture has the oldest history in the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and among the pioneering art departments in Africa. […] In the Nkrumah Republican period (1960-1966), the School became an autonomous College of Art headed by the painter E. V. Asihene, an Achimota and Goldsmiths alumnus. In the new College, the Department’s curriculum was based on the recommendations of the First Coldstream Report (1960) which had kick-started the upgrade of art schools in the UK to degree status. Principally, external moderators of the new KNUST programme were either social realist artists or affiliates of the British avant-garde teaching at Goldsmiths, the Slade and the Royal College of Art. The succeeding curriculum of the mid 1970s, through the 1980s, had a group of African Modernists from Nigeria as external assessors and moderators. Among them were the eminent artists Ben Enwonwu, Uche Okeke, Solomon Irein Wangboje, and Demas Nwokwo. With an increasing focus on Africanist narrative realism in painting and official statuary in sculpture, the authority of European traditional and early Modernist media, genres and formats remained unchallenged. The curriculum’s range of painting genres still remained within the bounds of still life, landscape and pictorial composition with the stylistic dominance of geodesic (freshman) cubism, the so-called Tek Style which undergirds most murals on campus”. For a critical analysis of the legacy of the vocationalist curriculum in the colonial Gold Coast “Hand and Eye Work” and its legacy in post-independence art teaching in Ghana see also seid’ou k. (2014). Gold Coast Hand and Eye Work: A Genealogical History. Retrieved from http://garj.org/garjhpsir/index.htm
seid’ou k. & Bouwhuis J. Silent parodies: kąrî’kạchä seid’ou in conversation with Jelle Bouwhuis,” in Project 1975: Contemporary Art and the Postcolonial Unconscious, eds. Jelle Bouwhuis and Kerstin Winking Amsterdam and London: SMBA and Black Dog Publishing, 2014, pp.109 – pp.18
Rancière theorizes this as that which “reveals who can have a share in what is common to the community based on what they do and on the time and space in which this activity is performed. Having a particular ‘occupation’ thereby determines the ability or inability to take charge of what is common to the community; it defines what is visible or not in a common space, endowed with a common language, etc.” See Rancière J. (2004, pp. 12), The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible, Continuum International Publishing Group, London/New York.
seid’ou’s pedagogic model is based on his communist political persuasion which desires to “transform art from the status of commodity to gift”. In his own words this meant “going on artistic strike, stop “making art” symbolically and to inaugurate a practice of “making artists.” See Enjoy Poverty: A History of its Reception, Sternberg Press, New York, ed. Els Roelandt and Renzo Martens, forthcoming, RENZO MARTENS: TRETIAKOV IN CONGO?: kąrî’kạchä seid’ou and Jelle Bouwhuis in conversation (interview held in 2016). Around the time of his appointment as faculty in KNUST in 2003 seid’ou introduced “Interactive Series”, a seminar programme in Kumasi to host contemporary artists and art professionals for talks, workshops, exhibitions, overviews and critique sessions. He also converted his Drawing Class into a curatorial project of guerrilla exhibitions on campus and in the city of Kumasi. Campus and city alike came alive with site-specific exhibitions with critiques and overviews each year. The blaxTARLINES team in an interview with Contemporary And (C&) recounted a “small revolution” in 1996 at the College of Art at KNUST, see Aicha D. & KNUST Team (2017), Department of Now: The teaching methods at Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology Has Cultivated a New Generation of Innovative Artists (July 4th, 2017). Retrieved from http://www.contemporaryand.com/magazines/past-present-and-future-about-art-in-kumasi/
Enjoy Poverty: A History of its Reception, Sternberg Press, New York, ed. Els Roelandt and Renzo Martens, forthcoming, RENZO MARTENS: TRETIAKOV IN CONGO?: kąrî’kạchä seid’ou and Jelle Bouwhuis in conversation (interview held in 2016)
kąrî’kạchä seid’ou made this statement in one of his lectures
See https://iubeezy.wordpress.com/iub-projects-2/2017-2/od-curatorial/
The end of year exhibitions have featured undergraduate students, alumni, faculty, teaching assistants and other guest artists living or dead (For example in 2017, “Orderly Disorderly” featured Iranian filmmaker, Abbas Kiarostami (1940 – 2016) and Camerounian conceptual artist Goddy Leye (1965-2011). In 2014, a smaller scale exhibition featuring works by students from the graduating class of that year were shown in an exhibition at Nubuke Foundation in Accra. The following year, the trilogy of large-scale exhibitions at the Museum of Science and Technology in Accra — 1. “The Gown Must Go Town” (2015) featuring 57 selected artists and inspired by Kwame Nkrumah’s speech “The African Genius” made in 1963 when he officially opened the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ghana, Legon. The exhibition also celebrated alumni Ibrahim Mahama and El Anutsui for their participation in the Venice Biennial of that year “All The World’s Futures”, and El Anatsui receiving the Golden Lion Lifetime Achievement Award at the Biennial. 2. “Cornfields in Accra” (2016) featuring 87 selected artists. The exhibition was inspired by Ama Ata Aidoo’s poem of same title written c. 1964-65. The exhibition honored the memory of Camerounian conceptual artist Goddy Leye, founder of ArtBakery in Cameroun. 3. “Orderly Disorderly” (2017) featuring 106 selected artists (fresh graduates, alumni and special guest artists including Professor Ablade Glover, Galle Winston Kofi Dawson, S. K Amenuke, Dr. Dorothy Amenuke, Agyeman Ossei). The exhibition honored the lifework of Professor Ablade Glover and Abbas Kiarostami and featured a body of archives of the Kumasi School among which are manuscripts of poems authored by Uche Okeke. See Ohene-Ayeh K. (June 2017). “Orderly Disorderly” Curatorial Statement. Retrieved from https://iubeezy.wordpress.com/2017/06/29/orderly-disorderly-curatorial-statement/
Spectacles Speculations: In Terms of Images
Art writing, Exhibitions, ISSUES..., Projects
“The spectacle is the bad dream of a modern society in chains, and ultimately expresses nothing more than its desire to sleep. The spectacle is the guardian of this sleep.” — Guy Debord, 1967
In a thirty-second Techno Mobile campaign on Instagram for the Phantom 8 model of the company’s smartphone brand, a fascinating mise-en-scène unfolds. A sedan is shown driving down a street. Then, in rapid succession, the editing reveals a bizarre sequence of medium, close-up and wide-angle shots narrating the story of a day in the life of a working man. He is first shown seated in the backseat of the car busy on his phone. The sedan he is riding in comes to meet other cars held up in traffic with irritated drivers and passengers wondering what it is that is holding them up in this kind of situation. Just then this man, with the aura of a superhero, gets down from the back of the car where he alone was seated, reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out the phone. He confidently wields the device in one hand while pinching the screen with thumb and index finger of the other to “super zoom” into the event eluding the vision of everyone in the picture, including himself. His implicit confidence in the device is affirmed as it reveals the comical event obscured before them: a truck carrying poultry had spilled its cargo with people frantically collecting them about the street.1 (see fig. 1) The message here is familiarly clear, the mobile phone manufacturer is promising potential customers that the phone camera, with its inbuilt functionalities, can enable us surpass limitations in natural vision— in short, augmented human ability is potentially available to anyone who can afford this commodity.
I use this public relations hyperbole to draw attention to what has become commonplace dictum that the technical function of zooming multiple times into one’s environment with a mobile device permits us to penetrate so deeply into the details of the natural world in a way that is unmatched by the naked eye. Lest we take this digital technological advancement for granted, Walter Benjamin — writing at a time of the impending Fascist regime ushered in by the Third Reich in Nazi Germany in the 1930s — apropos Paul Valéry, anticipates this radical transformation of our visual apparatus of perception in the early days of analog photography and film when he analyzed the implications of the invention of the camera on art and its relationship to politics.2For Benjamin our logistics of perception are shaped just as much by historical circumstances as they are by nature (Benjamin: 1936, p. 5). His position is a radical modernity unrooted and unbounded by Fascist identification of nationalism or ethnic property. He is of the conviction that the invention of photography (and consequently film) had the potential to transform the very nature of art itself wresting it from the “cult of beauty” into a practice based on politics.
The politics of the image factored significantly in the ideological wars of the past century therefore underlining its relevance as subject matter for our time. Since the early twentieth century there have been consistent efforts by artists, filmmakers, dramatists and intellectuals to undermine the traditional values of capitalism’s “illusion-promoting spectacles and dubious speculations”3(Benjamin: 1936, p. 14) from the Soviet Union, through Europe, to Latin America, Asia and Africa. We owe the development of techniques and genres such as montage, collage, assemblage, jump cuts, documentary films, pamphlet films, essay films, et al to these anti-art movements since their political passion was to profanate the conventional and institutional limits of art thus changing its relations with the public.
Postwar geopolitical events of the twentieth century exposed a crisis of the image amidst liberation movements in the former colonies of Asia, Africa and Latin America (Ghana in 1957, Nigeria in 1960, the Cuban Revolution, etc), Civil Rights Movement in the USA, 1968 riots in France, Mexico and elsewhere around the world, the Vietnam War, Cold War geopolitics, amongst others… In 1967, a year before the student-led uprisings in Paris, Guy Debord, filmmaker, theorist and member of the Situationist International, published his philosophical treatise “The Society of the Spectacle”. His dialectical exposition critiques capitalist conditions of production by exposing its contradictions and alienatory effects on the masses. First Debord defines the spectacle as “the visual reflection of the ruling economic order”4— a unified and autonomized world of images. But at the same time that the spectacle is “capital accumulated to the point that it becomes images”, it is also “not a collection of images” but “a social relation between people that is mediated by images.” His paraconsistent logic is taken a step further when he concedes that the spectacle is “not merely a matter of images, nor images plus sounds” but “an affirmation of appearances” which detaches it from pictorial dependencies and frees it up to phenomenology — that is, in terms of how things appear in the world of the sensible or realm of phenomena. In this way it simultaneously begins with a multiplicity of forms of appearances as well as modes of perception. This is the radical understanding Spectacles. Speculations… brings to the conception of images such that it becomes possible to discuss works from photography, video, film, text, sound, black box theatre, computer-aided design, installation, sculpture, and spoken word poetry in the context of images (see curatorial statement).
Read full essay here. This essay is written for the exhibition Spectacles. Speculations… To learn more about the show click here.
https://instagram.com/p/Bb_py6DFtTY/
See Benjamin W. (1936). The Work of Art in Mechanical Reproduction. Retrieved from http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/benjamin.pdf
Debord G. (1967). The Society of the Spectacle. Retrieved from http://www.bopsecrets.org
About “Spectacles.”
Spectacles. Speculations… posits imaging as emerging from a multiplicity; as code or as a system of perceptible elements necessarily political. If we consider the spectacle as images proliferated through capitalist modes of production that come to mediate human experience while eschewing political agency, the exhibition takes a contemporary approach to analyzing the ways in which it has evolved in a globalized economic order through new technologies and traditional media. The spectacle appears as an autonomously separate power that reinforces distance and alienation. Since the past century, the spectacle has been understood as an alienatory system or a regime of images manufactured by the ruling class to subvert reality and indeed to replace it. Distance becomes a critical component in this dynamic: the chasm created between individuals’ interpersonal relations, the distance between the worker whose labor produces commodities they are estranged from by virtue of their wages, between the rich and the poor, between artist and spectator, between spectatorship and the art work, between agency and passivity, and so forth…
The role of images in the ideological wars of this period in history (chiefly between capitalism, socialism, communism and fascism) played out in art as well. Filmmakers, artists, dramatists and intellectuals alike from the Soviet Union, Europe, North America, Latin America and Africa contributed significantly to the class struggle of the twentieth century through their practices of which specific ones will be discussed in a forthcoming essay titled Spectacles. Speculation…: In Terms of Images.
The progressive solution was to abolish this distance, to massify, (in terms of deasthetization and de-skilling) and to de-commodify the art object such that ownership and spectatorship will not remain the exclusive preserve of trained experts and of property-owning classes. There are many lessons to be learnt from practitioners of this political position, but in order to come to terms with the spectacle in the twenty-first century this pre-digital thesis would need to be updated since the spectacle cannot be said to possess the same characteristics today. The spectacle has achieved greater sophistication in content, form and effect. For example, it has become more participatory than ever in the digital paradigm where photography and film have achieved such proliferation, massification and de-skilling through computers and smart technologies that one only needs a portable device like the mobile phone to become a photographer or filmmaker. Couple this with the possibilities of collaboration and dissemination offered by the Internet. Yet the spectacle endures. Smuggling authority, alienation and commodification back into this pseudo-egalitarian dynamic.
With the domination of the capitalist politico-economic ideology around the world after the Cold War in 1989, the spectacle has essentially remained the same reactionary apparatus used in service of capitalism but has revolutionized itself by way of content and form through its appropriation of modern techno-scientific triumphs.
The exhibition responds to these issues by dialectically restaging elements of the spectacle in order to diagnose it for what it is, to be confronted by its complexity from which point we can begin to critically speculate new realities for art. The exhibition features works by fourteen artists based in Africa, Latin America and Europe who are, in respective ways, intervening in their chosen image-making technologies and inventing new visual, gestural and auditory modalities of practice that incorporate post-human forms of interaction. With site-sequencing strategies consisting of an ensemble of objects and forms sited across conceptual (discursive), literal and virtual dimensions, the exhibition displays a spectrum of mediums including braille, text, photography, video, film, sound, black box theatre, computer-aided design, installation, sculpture, and spoken word poetry.
Click here for curatorial statement.
Spectacles. Speculations… (2018), exhibition view, photo by Elolo Bosokah
Collaborative writing, Events, Exhibitions, Projects
Orderly Disorderly (2017) completes the trilogy of large scale end-of-year exhibitions held by blaxTARLINES KUMASI, the contemporary art incubator and project space of KNUST, in collaboration with Ghana Museums and Monuments Board (GMMB) and its subsidiary, the Museum of Science and Technology (MST) in Accra. The exhibition features works by fresh graduates, alumni, and guest artists (living and dead). The previous two exhibitions — The Gown Must Go to Town… (2015) and Cornfields in Accra (2016) — honored Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and Ama Ata Aidoo respectively. “Cornfields” also honored the memory of Cameroonian conceptual artist Goddy Leye (1965-2011). Orderly Disorderly shares and celebrates the political vision of artist and educator Professor Ablade Glover who mobilized artists toward economic emancipation within a hopeless artistic milieu in the early 1990s when Ghana’s cultural institutions had been famished of domestic and international support.
Intergenerational conversations, collective curating and accessibility programming are vital to the curatorial model adopted by blaxTARLINES KUMASI during this series of exhibitions. blaxTARLINES actively collaborates with GMMB and MST in programming and curating to incorporate artefacts in their permanent collection into its exhibitions. The terms of the exhibition trilogy were set by “Silence between the Lines” in 2015 based on a deliberate misreading of the Sankɔfa legend by karî’kạchä seid’ou. In this new reading, the Sankɔfa bird unfastens its customary anchor of nostalgia and “attempts to grasp what it might have forgotten from futures that are to come”. This summarizes the new spirit of the Kumasi Art School which would be interpreted as anagrams of emancipated futures.
Orderly Disorderly combines the political attitudes and principles underlying Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami’s practice — notably The Bread and the Alley (1970), Orderly or Disorderly (1981) and The Chorus (1982) — and seid’ou’s emancipatory art pedagogy. Kiarostami is reputed for his deliberate use of non-actors and unprofessional crew to produce very significant films. His vital efforts to intervene in the film form saw him subvert conventions of filmmaking in order to transform and reinvent the medium. This spirit aligns with that which animates contemporary art production in the Department of Painting and Sculpture (KNUST, Kumasi). seid’ou’s egalitarian and emancipatory teaching practice “encourages student artists and other young artists to work in the spirit of finding alternatives to the bigger picture which excluded their voices but paradoxically by first becoming an anamorphic stain in the bigger picture itself.” This typifies his politics of ironic overidentification.
With this background the exhibition reflects on the status of art in the early decades of the 21st century. The exhibition posits art as a site of multiplicity. Art that is de-substantialized and emerges from a void: a state of indifference that is not pre-emptively prejudicial to any particular medium, content, skill, material, trend or process. If anything can be said to be art today it must necessarily be invented.
There are important analogies to be drawn from the artistic and political indifference espoused by the curatorial team of Orderly Disorderly, and the state of hopelessness and indifference experienced by sufferers and witnesses of the current global crises of public commons (refugee crisis, economic precarity, threats of ecological crisis in the epoch of anthropocene, new forms of apartheid emerging as invisible walls in the public sphere, gentrification of digital space and intellectual property, etc). As a response, the exhibition features a generic participant, ‘The Unknown Artist’. This character embodies the void, the disavowed, which haunts the consistency of exhibition projects operating within the finitude of contemporary capitalist processes but disavowing the precarity they leave behind.
Orderly Disorderly countenances diverse multi-site projects extending from MST into the city of Accra and further into virtual spaces — straddling human-centered and posthuman, art and non-art practices alike — by over 90 artists, including seminars, outreach programs, art talk events and a body of archives of the Kumasi School among which are manuscripts of poems authored by Uche Okeke. The exhibition invites its audience to deal with the contradictions that are constitutive of their everyday lives.
Kwasi Ohene-Ayeh and Curatorial Team.
‘ORDERLY DISORDERLY’: KNUST end of year exhibition
OPENING: Friday, 30TH June – Friday 1st September, 2017
Museum of Science & Technology, Accra
Organizers: blaxTARLINES KUMASI
Supported by: Ghana Museums & Monuments Board (GMMB)
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Posted on 30 September, 2017 30 September, 2017 by Jacob Swenson-Lengyel
On February 19, 2009, just 30 days after President Obama was sworn in, Rick Santelli’s rant on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange launched the Tea Party. The conservative establishment worked together with the grassroots to fan the flames of opposition. The resulting tidal wave swept Republicans to power at the national and state level in 2010—and set the stage for Trump’s victory in 2016.
Since at least 2012, I’ve worked in and with organizations that saw the Tea Party as a model for the Left. While we abhorred their politics, we admired their tactics and coveted their success. The Tea Party pioneered a strategy that enabled grassroots activists and candidates to work inside and outside of the Republican Party to advance a “principled” conservative agenda. And they won—big time.
In the wake of Trump’s election, we’re seeing a tsunami of progressive activism. The confrontations with lawmakers around the country during the February Congressional recess were nearly mirror images of the town halls the Tea Party crashed as Congress first debated Obamacare. Unsurprisingly, commentators and pundits have quickly drawn parallels between what happened in 2009 and what’s happening today.
But the commentators are wrong—and if the Left continues to take the Tea Party as our model, we might lose out on our biggest opportunity to make large-scale progressive political change in decades.
We are the clear majority
As Trump and the Republicans have begun—rather clumsily—to manipulate the levers of the federal government, we are under attack from all sides. Republicans have moved with breathtaking speed to roll back progress on immigration and civil rights, on health care and the environment, and on regulating Wall Street and the corporate elite. More frightening still, we have seen the Trump administration begin toying with authoritarian tactics and threatening to undo the post-World War II global order. Practically overnight, it feels like everything has changed.
Given this onslaught, it’s easy to forget that roughly three in four Americans didn’t vote for Donald Trump in November. If our electoral system wasn’t rigged against democracy, Trump wouldn’t even be president. But now that he’s assumed office, Trump is the least popular president in modern American history. So while Trump and the Republicans control the federal government, we must remind ourselves that the vast majority of the American people are on our side.
In fact, that is the real story of the last six weeks. While the media has been glued to Trump’s every tweet, millions of Americans have taken to the streets to protest his agenda. More than 3.7 million people—one out of every 100 Americans—flooded into the streets to participate in the Women’s March. Within 48 hours of Trump’s initial Muslim ban, thousands gathered at airports around the country demanding that immigrants and refugees be released from detainment. During the February recess, People’s Action, MoveOn and the Working Families Party organized more than 600 town hall events. While it’s difficult to predict how long this level of activity can be sustained, we have already seen resistance to the new administration that is unprecedented in recent history.
This is precisely where comparisons to the Tea Party start to break down. According to commentators and many in the media, what we’re seeing now is merely history repeating itself. Republicans have control of the federal government, just as Democrats did in 2009, and now it’s liberals and the Left in the streets instead of old white people dressed in colonial garb.
But the Tea Party only ever represented a tiny faction of Americans. We, on the other hand, are the clear majority.
Political scientists Theda Skocpal and Vanessa Williamson estimate in their book The Tea Party and the Remaking of American Conservatism that at its height only about 200,000 Americans were active in the Tea Party at the local level. It’s too early to say exactly how many Americans are engaged in the current protest movement, but already there are signs that we’re organizing at a scale that dwarfs the Tea Party.
For example, the Tea Party first debuted on the national stage when they held roughly 750 Tax Day events around the country. But only 250,000 Americans attended those events. In other words, the Tea Party’s Tax Day protests were 15 times smaller than the Women’s March. Of course, participation at a single event does not necessarily foretell prolonged participation in a social movement. But the fact that a small group of former Hill staffers and progressive organizers could help launch more than 4,500 local groups in less than four weeks suggests a massive groundswell of people interested in sustained political participation.
The scale of active engagement is mirrored by public support. Polling conducted by the Washington Post in April 2010 found that roughly 27% of Americans supported the Tea Party. By contrast, a full 60% supported the Women’s March.
At the policy level, the difference is even starker. When the Tea Party held their Tax Day protests, polling showed that 65% of Americans actually backed Obama’s overall economic plans and 62% approved of how he was handling taxes. Their colorful protests may have generated a media frenzy, but the policies they were intended to bolster did not have popular support.
Those who have participated in recent marches, rallies and actions are protesting a wide array of Republican policies. But if we take just two core policies pushed by Trump and the GOP, we can see that the resistance to those policies—and support for progressive alternatives—is broad.
This week, Republicans introduced their bill to repeal and replace Obamacare, despite the fact that the law is supported by a majority of Americans. The Republican repeal bill also proposes deep cuts to Medicaid, something that has historically been opposed by 84% of Americans. And there’s evidence to suggest that public support for a Medicare-for-all system is even greater than support for Obamacare.
Tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy are also a centerpiece of the Republican agenda. Yet, a series of post-election polls compiled by Americans for Tax Fairness show that Americans oppose cutting taxes for big corporations and the rich by roughly a two-to-one margin. Gallup polls consistently show that similar margins believe corporations and the wealthy already pay too little in taxes.
Despite widespread support on issues like healthcare and taxation, the anti-Trump resistance is clearly an ideologically heterogeneous bunch, encompassing leftists, centrist Democrats, independents and perhaps even some moderate Republicans.
That means our task is to organize. Republicans have used voter suppression, redistricting and other undemocratic aspects of government—such as the Electoral College and the Senate—to take power, despite the fact that many of their policies are extremely unpopular with large segments of the public. They have also used the media, think tanks and the academy to manufacture public consent to policies that hurt many of the same people who support them.
Our goal must be to bring together different constituencies within the resistance movement, those motivated by diverse struggles, to support a bold platform for social change that will make life better for the working class as a whole.
Reshaping the parties
The Tea Party was a minority faction within the Republican Party funded by the wealthy elite. Our aim shouldn’t be the creation of a faction within the Democratic Party. It should be to forge a new American majority.
Neoliberalism has been in crisis for at least a decade, and the crisis of legitimacy that elites—including politicians from both parties—face today is far more acute than it was in 2009. As a result, both parties face deep internal rifts. We should not simply aim to pull the Democratic Party to the left. We should work to redraw the lines of the entire political map so that we find ourselves at the center.
This doesn’t mean abandoning our principled politics or the hardscrabble tactics pioneered by the Tea Party. We can and should mount primary challenges to corporate Democrats and collaborators, including members of the current Democratic leadership. Efforts like WeWillReplaceYou.org, a new Political Action Committee created by #AllofUs, are an important addition to work that has been done by groups like People’s Action and the Working Families Party.
Nevertheless, all of these efforts should be seen as tactics inside of a broader strategy to redraw the political map. The aim should be threefold.
First, we should aim to take over the Democratic Party wholesale and make it into a vehicle for the working class. In addition to electing real progressives to office, this means building a greatly expanded coalition of active voters and a genuinely progressive policy platform.
Second, we should exploit Trump’s incompetence and the factions within the Republican Party to decimate it for decades to come. Where possible and without compromising progressive principles, we should aim to peel off sections of the Republican coalition to join our side.
Finally, we should work for structural reforms that make both the party structure and the electoral system itself more democratic. That means everything from giving working people real decision-making power over the direction of the Democratic Party to making it more feasible for third parties to run and win governing power to rewriting the rules to eliminate the Electoral College and other undemocratic elements of our political system.
Winning more than elections
This isn’t just about electoral politics, it’s about shifting political and economic power across the board. While the Tea Party propelled electoral victories, it did not generate sustained and politically independent social movements. Since the Tea Party was funded by the wealthy elite, it didn’t put significant pressure on Wall Street and the ruling class, despite being fueled in part by anti-Wall Street sentiment.
While Trump and the Republicans control the White House, Congress and 25 state governments, our goal can’t just be to reclaim those seats and offices. Even in places around the globe where Left-leaning political parties have won significant governing power, such as Podemos in Spain and Syriza in Greece, they have been largely unable to achieve their desired reforms in part because of the vast economic power that weighs against them.
We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that politicians face structural limits on their power. Even progressive governments need outside help. We must build social movements strong enough to win governing power and challenge the dominance of capital, markets and the corporate elite.
Together, we can forge a new American majority. It may become possible to achieve progressive change far greater than we would ever have imagined just a few years ago. But doing so will require those of us on the Left to stop confining ourselves to the margins so that we can redefine the center.
Originally published by In These Times, this piece also appeared on BillMoyers.com and OurFuture.org. Image from the Minnesota Women’s March Against Donald Trump (Flickr).
Tags: BillMoyers.com, Donald Trump, In These Times, Party Building, Tea Party, The ResistanceCategories: Short Articles
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Home / Newsroom / News / 2018 / Swedish-U.S. exercise hints to greater challenges in Norway
Swedish-U.S. exercise hints to greater challenges in Norway
STOCKHOLM - Swedish and U.S. Marines are providing a small-scale preview of Nordic training to come in neighboring Norway on a much larger scale beginning in October.
Exercise Archipelago Endeavor sharpens the skills of 170 Marines from U.S. Marine Rotational Force Europe in the greater Stockholm Archipelago from August 19 through September 8.
Both Sweden and the United States are contributing to Exercise in Norway from October 25 through November 7, NATO’s largest exercise in recent years with more than 40,000 troops from all 29 NATO member nations plus partner nations Sweden and Finland.
"Seeing our Swedish and U.S. Marines here is really exciting and highlights the interoperability and partnership we’ll see on a much broader scale in October,” said Admiral James Foggo, Allied Joint Force Command Naples commander. "I’m thrilled to see Sweden’s incredibly professional military in action once again, and look forward to seeing them soon in Norway.”
The Swedes welcome the opportunity to host their American partners.
"The best part of the training is to train together with another nation,” said Swedish Marine Gunnery Sergeant Alexander Edstrom. "Especially the American Marines — I’ve worked with them before and really enjoyed doing so.”
For the U.S. Marines, Archipelago Endeavor provides exposure to the Swedes’ use of their CB-90 assault craft and Carl Gustav recoilless rifle in a challenging amphibious operating environment.
"We can learn a lot from what the Swedish Marines do and we can teach them what we do,” said U.S. Marine 1st Lieutenant Dan Burton. "The best thing about the Swedes is their professionalism. They’re so enthusiastic about the training they do here and they’re really good at what they do.”
Both militaries anticipate greater challenges in Trident Juncture, where the days will be darker, colder and wetter, with many more troops and more complex scenarios.
Story by JFC Naples Public Affairs Office
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Honestly? We don't know. While TheMilitaryDiet.com offers plenty of information, including a section with frequently asked questions, blog, and alternative meal plans for vegetarians, there are no authors, experts, or webpage owners listed. And while the name implies a military connection, the page doesn't actually claim any ties to the armed forces. (MensHealth.com reached out to the website for more information and will update if and when we hear back.)
The South Beach diet consists of three phases. For the first two weeks, you are not allowed to eat bread, potatoes, rice, pasta, baked goods, fruit, sugar or consume alcohol. At the next level carbohydrates are added slowly, but it is still important that weight loss continues. In the third phase, when the goal regarding body weight has been reached, carbohydrates are added at the individuals choice.
^ Jump up to: a b c Emadian A, Andrews RC, England CY, Wallace V, Thompson JL (November 2015). "The effect of macronutrients on glycaemic control: a systematic review of dietary randomised controlled trials in overweight and obese adults with type 2 diabetes in which there was no difference in weight loss between treatment groups". The British Journal of Nutrition. 114 (10): 1656–66. doi:10.1017/S0007114515003475. PMC 4657029. PMID 26411958.
Thanks for the article Jenna. I actually do something very similar when approaching a comp or a photoshoot…. I wouldn’t call it a diet as much as an advanced technique to prepare for something. Planning is definitely key….. I’m pretty disciplined, but when I’m tired or really hungry that all goes out the window. I’ve found that if I eat before I get too hungry and my food is pretty much all ready to go then I’m fine. If I’m super hungry and tired and I need to go to the grocery store then it all ends terribly… unless the thing I’m preparing for is really important and then I’m usually on top of it all the way.
AMA Manual of Style Art and Images in Psychiatry Breast Cancer Screening Guidelines Colorectal Screening Guidelines Declaration of Helsinki Depression Screening Guidelines Evidence-Based Medicine: An Oral History Fishbein Fellowship Genomics and Precision Health Health Disparities Hypertension Guidelines JAMA Network Audio JAMA Network Conferences Med Men Medical Education Opioid Management Guidelines Peer Review Congress Research Ethics Sepsis and Septic Shock Statins and Dyslipidemia Topics and Collections
Hi Janet – It sounds like you should have everything need to make the SBD meals, and then any side dishes or snacks as well. A microwave is all you need for the food they send. I would say a normal-sized freezer is enough to accommodate the food, but you will need it to be cleared out for the most part. I was able to get all of the food in my extra freezer, but it was tight and there wasn’t much else in there. I have a video on my YouTube channel that may offer some insight there – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHBh9vABo50&t. Hope that helps – NS
You can choose from many types of stretching exercises. Yoga is a type of stretching that focuses on your breathing and helps you relax. Even if you have problems moving or balancing, certain types of yoga can help. For instance, chair yoga has stretches you can do when sitting in a chair or holding onto a chair while standing. Your health care team can suggest whether yoga is right for you.
In phase 2 of the South Beach Diet, you’ll add whole grains and fruits to your diet, and you will stay on this phase of the weight-loss plan until you reach your goal. “These carbohydrate-rich foods are high in fiber and [are low on the] glycemic index — these good-carb choices have more staying power, take a long period to be processed and absorbed by the body, and prevent the purported fluctuations in blood glucose and quick secretions of insulin,” explains Susan Kraus, RD, a clinical dietitian at Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey.
One serving in a category is called a "choice." A food choice has about the same amount of carbohydrates, protein, fat and calories — and the same effect on your blood glucose — as a serving of every other food in that same category. So, for example, you could choose to eat half of a large ear of corn or 1/3 cup of cooked pasta for one starch choice.
Sheila begins chasing animals to curb her antsy behavior. Joel and Sheila run into their neighbor Lisa, who has no news on her "missing" husband Dan and has since started seeing his partner, Deputy Anne Garcia. Abby and Eric realize that their emails to Goran could trace his disappearance back to them. Sheila and Joel convince their boss Carl to give them one of Gary's old assignments. Abby and Eric break into Goran's apartment to delete the evidence. Abby tells Eric how scared she was when Goran followed her home, but Eric's phone keeps blowing up with texts from Ramona. Another couple enters the apartment, also claiming to be Goran's friends. Abby and Eric leave, but the other couple knows about the bile. Sheila and Joel compete with their high school rivals, Chris and Christa, for a listing and prevail when Sheila is able to run down the owner's fleeing dog. Abby reluctantly encourages Eric to ask Ramona out. Sheila and Joel discover that the spot where they buried her first kill, Gary, is planned for development. They go to the desert to dig him up, but discover that Gary's severed head has reanimated.
When the flesh-eating zombie horror-comedy returns March 23, we find Joel (Timothy Olyphant) and Sheila (Drew Barrymore) attempting to maintain a some kind of normalcy in their lives while hiding the fact that people are going missing in the Californian suburb as Sheila feeds her need for blood and guts and they search for a cure for the zombie virus.
The military diet is a very low-calorie diet plan that some people choose to follow several days per week in hopes of losing weight quickly. How much weight loss might the military diet lead to? Up to 10 pounds in 3–7 days, according to those who promote the diet. However, there isn’t much evidence that this speed of weight loss will occur for every person, and even if it does, there are definitely still some drawbacks of the military diet to be aware of.
Just call Steven Spielberg godfather to the stars—Barrymore and Paltrow, both from entertainment families—are goddaughters of the famous director. Barrymore, who starred in Spielberg’s E.T. at age seven, became Spielberg’s goddaughter when she was a teen, reports the New York Daily News. As Paltrow’s godfather, he has treated the actress, who made a small appearance in his 1991 film Hook, to trips on his yacht around the Mediterranean, [reports U.K. publication Stylist](http://www.stylist.co.uk/people/surprising-celebrity-godparents.
Military diet-approved foods aren't what you'd typically think of as "diet" fare, including hot dogs, toast, ice cream, and canned tuna, says registered dietitian Brooke Alpert. See the full breakdown of the diet meals below. These same meals are prescribed for everyone observing the diet and are carefully planned out so you don't overindulge or stray off the diet (since you can only eat the foods recommended below), says Alpert.
You won't find any of what could traditionally be labeled social commentary on Santa Clarita Diet, but it's clear where the characters stand. In Season 1, Joel and Sheila describe their ideal kill as a young, single Hitler. In Season 2, they find a group of Nazis that Sheila wants to snack on like her own personal lobster tank. When one of them turns out to be in a wheelchair, the Hammonds panic; Is it a hate crime to kill him? Has he committed a hate crime? Would it be discriminatory to not kill him when they've chosen the Nazis as their targets? The moral dilemma plays out in furtive whispers in their "kill room"; again, irony strengthens the whole scenario and leads to a satisfying conclusion.
On the contrary, instead of becoming misanthropic and evil, Sheila becomes more outgoing and energetic, dispensing optimistic life advice to neighbors, and leaning in at her job. Most importantly, her nervous but loyal husband Joel (Timothy Olyphant) is still there for her, exasperated but still willing to help when she drags in another corpse. Humans may be ravenous monstrous meat, but in Santa Clarita Diet, that meat remains lovable, in sickness and in health.
If you're overweight, which is a risk factor for type 2 diabetes, you may also need to reduce the number of calories you eat to aid in weight loss. The good news is losing excess pounds, along with making other lifestyle changes, such as getting more exercise, may help control your glucose so you don't need to take medication. In addition, you can still eat a variety of nutritious and delicious foods without feeling deprived.
Jump up ^ The USDA recommends the USDA Food Patterns including their vegetarian and vegan adaptations, the Mediterranean, and the DASH Eating Plan, in U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2010). "2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans" (PDF). health.gov (Chapter 5 in 7 ed.). U.S. Government Printing Office. Retrieved December 15, 2014.
The South Beach Diet's program differs from other low-carb diets in that it restricts saturated fats and high-sugar carbs. The first two-week phase of the diet focuses on maintaining your blood sugar levels and eliminating cravings for sweets and "bad" carbs. Such foods include bread, rice, fruit and baked goods. The second phase introduces some carbs, including pasta, rice and some fruits, back into your diet. The final, indefinite stage involves continuing to make healthy eating choices to maintain your health and target weight.
Nutrition and physical activity are important parts of a healthy lifestyle when you have diabetes. Along with other benefits, following a healthy meal plan and being active can help you keep your blood glucose level, also called blood sugar, in your target range. To manage your blood glucose, you need to balance what you eat and drink with physical activity and diabetes medicine, if you take any. What you choose to eat, how much you eat, and when you eat are all important in keeping your blood glucose level in the range that your health care team recommends.
Even though her role as an undead suburban mom is meant to evoke laughs rather than shrieks, Barrymore is no stranger to horror films; some of her most notable earlier roles came in movies such as Firestarter, Cat’s Eye,* and Scream. At the panel, she recalled a particularly claustrophobic moment during the filming of Firestarter, when the then-9-year-old actress was wrapped in wax with two straws up her nose for breathing purposes.
However, there’s little documentation that this internet-based diet originated in the U.S. military, or if it even has ties to it. There are plenty of established diet plans that promise quick weight loss—like the HMR diet—but is the Military Diet one of them? And is it actually a healthy or safe eating plan to follow? I took a hard look at the Military Diet to find out whether this seemingly faddish diet is really worth your time.
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"Remarks on the outbreak of cholera in Broad Street, Golden Square, London, 1854 "
(1868): 99-104
Transactions of the Epidemiological Society of London. Vol. 3. Read at a meeting of the Society 6 May 1867.
It is commonly supposed, and sometimes asserted even at meetings of Medical Societies, that the Broad Street outbreak of cholera in 1854 was arrested in mid-career by the closing of the pump in that street. That this is a mistake is sufficiently shown by the following table, which, though incomplete, proves that the outbreak had already reached its climax, and had been steadily on the decline for several days before the pump-handle was removed. Had it been possible to make it complete, the table, as I will presently show, would have pointed still more decisively to the same conclusion.
Meanwhile, to indicate the well-defined and concentrated character of the outbreak, I may here state that during the first thirty days of August there had been an average of but one death per day from cholera throughout the parish (St. James's, Piccadilly) in which Broad Street is situated; that the earliest cases on August 31st did not manifest themselves till about noon on that day, and that nearly all the deaths here recorded occurred within an area of about 250 yards radius from the pump as its centre.
[There is a page break between 99/100 after the entry for September 13th.]
No. of Fatal Attacks
(Pump closed) 14
The forty-six deaths of unknown date are stated by the Committee of Inquiry to have nearly all occurred during the first week of September; and, as the omission is due to the confusion which prevailed, they most likely occurred on the first two or three days, when the confusion was such as few who were not in the midst of it can imagine. For instance, on the night of September 2nd there were as many as eighty-two bodies in the "dead-house."
Moreover, as the cases in this table are those of resident inhabitants, there is no account here taken of non-resident work-people who, after being attacked within the "area," died at their own homes out of the district. Their number is reckoned by the Committee as about forty, of which twenty-eight belonged to Broad Street alone; and these twenty-eight were all seized before the evening of September 2nd, after which date the factories were closed for a time.
It is certain, then, that the table, if more complete, would have indicated more clearly even than it now does the exceeding virulence of the outbreak during its two or three earlier days, and the rapidity of its decline after the climax was passed; and the column of fatal attacks, incomplete as it is, establishes the fact that the climax was reached within a very few hours of the first manifestation of the outbreak. [100/101]
Clearly the original cause of the explosion must very soon have lost much of its fatal power. That the Broad Street well-water was this cause I am not now concerned to show. Provisionally assuming it to have been the cause (and prepared, if necessary, to prove it), I will try to define the limits (as to time) of the fatal operation of the water, and perhaps incidentally to throw some light on the period of "incubation."
I had occasion, as a member of the committee, very closely to investigate all the circumstances of the outbreak as connected with the Street (Broad Street) in which the greatest mortality, 10 per cent, of its resident inhabitants occurred; add to this mortality the cases of the twenty-eight non-resident work-people; add again fifty persons who recovered from severe attacks, most of whom I personally examined, and it will be admitted that the results of a close investigation of such a street would probably fairly represent the results which would have been obtained by a similar examination of the whole area. But I did also, in conjunction with Dr. Snow and others, though not with equal minuteness, pursue the inquiry from day to day for weeks together in other streets, and we found that the results, as far as they went, corresponded.
We found then that, whilst it was exceedingly difficult to disconnect any of the earlier cases from the use of the pump-water, we discovered less and less connexion between this water and the disease on each succeeding day after September 3rd; and among the attacks, fatal and not fatal, after September 6th, we could trace no such connexion at all.
Indeed, in Broad Street itself the outbreak completely ran its course in nine and a half days. I succeeded in ascertaining the alleged hour of fatal attack in every case in this street; and I know that no attack, fatal or not fatal, occurred in it after September 9th.
It is worth noticing that generally the streets nearest to the pump became the soonest free from the epidemic. "The suddenness of the principal outburst," say the Committee, "as also its rapid subsidence, is chiefly marked in those streets and courts which are nearest to the centre of the cholera area; whilst in the border of this space, and beyond its limits, there is no such abrupt and extreme rise and fall in the number of attacks."
Thus, during the decline of the outbreak, we seem to catch sight of an outside limit to the fatal operation of the water. [101/102] But how much earlier than the 6th, by reason of the incubation time, we are to fix this limit it is of course hard to say. For instance, a friend of mine, the Scripture reader of St. Luke's Church, told me that on the evening of September 2nd he quite exceptionally drank about half a pint of the pump water from the ladle. On the September 4th he began to suffer slightly, and on the 6th severely, from diarrhœa; on which latter day I found him in bed very ill indeed. Now if he had died, and without telling me any of these circumstances, I should certainly have supposed that he was seized on the 6th, as I had seen him at his work every day, and never heard him complain of illness. And as for his drinking of the pump water, if there had been any reason to suspect it at all, I might have thought that he took it later than September 2nd. The value of this case consists in his drinking of this water having been clearly ascertained to be an exceptional act on his part.
From the cases of persons described as having been habitual drinkers of this water we can of course learn little to define the exact period of incubation in each case (unless they happened to be seized very early in the outbreak, when by reason of the known duration of the special pollution of the well, of which I will speak presently, we may get at some approximation to the truth); for, especially as this water had to be sent for, even an habitual drinker of it may have omitted to drink it for a day or two, taking the Company's water instead; and so we cannot certainly fix the day on which he first encountered its fatal influence.
Few habitual drinkers of the pump water, to my knowledge, escaped with impunity. Few survivors were able to assure me that they so drank it regularly during the week ending September 2nd. But on and after that day several persons, who had not been in the habit of drinking it, began doing so, at least occasionally, from a notion (due to the enormous quantity of it taken by some patients who revived from collapse) that it was "good for cholera." More of these drinkers than of habitual drinkers of the pump-water escaped with impunity, I myself being among the number, as I drank some of it at 11 p.m. on September 3rd, though not from any idea of its beneficial qualities.
Judging from the case of the Scripture reader, we may, perhaps, assign a longer period of incubation to the cases of those who suffered, or even died, among the later than among the earlier drinkers of the Broad Street water.
The proximate cause of the outbreak, as is well known, is [102/103] alleged to have been the pollution of the well by the discharges of an infant suffering from diarrhœa, which discharges, diluted with water, began to be poured on August 28th into a cesspool, the communication of which with the well was clearly ascertained. They continued all day on August 29th, and ceased on the 30th, having thus lasted about forty-eight hours.
We have then an interval of four days between the probable date of the first pollution of the well and the beginning of the outbreak. But what time must be allowed for the discharges to percolate from the cesspool to the well, and also to become injurious, of course I cannot tell. I only know that we must not ask for any time later than August 30th as the starting-point of the mischief, because one man who exceptionally drank it at noon on that day was seized with cholera, according to his widow's account of the matter, at 9 a.m. on September 1st.
Assuming her to have been right as to the hour of attack, indeed whether right or wrong, we have for incubation time in one case at most forty-four hours. And she was most likely right, because the unanimous testimony of the medical men who were in the thick of the outbreak was to the effect that for the first two or three days there was an almost total absence of "premonitory symptoms."
Still even this interval of forty-four hours is longer than the interval in the few other cases where we can unmistakably isolate the act of the drinking. They are only three in number, and all belong to the 1st of September, on which day, for instance, a gentleman who came up from Brighton in the morning drank the Broad Street water at luncheon in Poland Street, and was seized with cholera in the evening of the following day. We get here about thirty hours for the interval. Another interval under similar circumstances was about twenty-four hours; and another not more than twelve hours.
From these data, considered by themselves, it might be very unsafe to pronounce any opinion as to the day on which the water reached its maximum of special pollution or rather of injurious influence. But, taken in connexion with the general facts of the outbreak and other evidence respecting the effects of the water, they help at least to the conclusion, that the water was not very injurious before August 30th or after September 2nd, on which latter day indeed it seems likely that it was rapidly on its way towards purification.
That the water should so quickly purify itself is not [103/104] astonishing when we bear in mind (1) that the discharges ceased on August 30th, (2) that the body of water at any one time in such a well is inconsiderable, and (3) that it was consumed (and therefore replenished) at a most extraordinary rate during the first few days of the outbreak by reason of the almost incredible quantity of it drank by the patients, in some cases as much as seventeen quarts a-day.
It may be seen from the table that, notwithstanding the rapidity of the decline of the outbreak on September 3rd, the rate of decline flagged on subsequent days, so much so as to seem at one time almost to stand still.
This used formerly to perplex me, and I sought an explanation of the phenomenon in the hypothesis of a subsequent pollution of the well by the discharges of other patients (three in number) in the same house on the earlier days of the outbreak, especially as I was told by surviving relatives that the discharges of these patients were carried to the cesspool. But they afterwards confessed to me that they had thrown them out of the windows into the backyard, the temptation to do so arising from their rooms being at the back of the upper floors. The above-mentioned infant having lain ill in the front kitchen, in this case the cess-pool [sic] (being in the front area) was the handiest place of deposit.
Here I must not omit to mention that if the removal of the pump-handle had nothing to do with checking the outbreak which had already run its course, it had probably everything to do with preventing a new outbreak; for the father of the infant, who slept in the same kitchen, was attacked with cholera on the very day (Sept. 8th) on which the pump-handle was removed. There can be no doubt that his discharges found their way into the cesspool, and thence into the well. But, thanks to Dr. Snow, the handle was then gone.
The slackened rate of decline after September 3rd does not, in the present state of knowledge upon the mode of propagation of cholera, need any explanation. I now only wonder that with such a start from the agency of the pump, and with so much material thus supplied for the continuance of the outbreak by other means of communication, it had so little power to sustain itself for any length of time after its original promoter had begun to suspend its fatal operation.
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Global Mayors and Smart Cities
February 12, 2015 / Sharon Richardson / 1 Comment
What are the challenges facing large cities over the next 50 years, how will cities becomes ‘smarter’, what risks do digital technologies introduce, and will a global parliament of mayors help or hinder?
At the end of last year, as part of my studies into smart cities and urban analytics, I wrote an essay exploring some of the challenges likely to face large cities in the next 50 years and whether or not the newly formed Global Parliament of Mayors can help tackle them. The following is a shortened version. If you are interested in the original essay, please contact me.
The Global Parliament of Mayors (GPM) is currently a voluntary project that is developing a pilot to be launched in 2015 based on the belief that city mayors are better positioned than nation state leaders to tackle socio-economic challenges facing urban environments, a space that the majority of the global population now resides within. Details can be found at the web site http://www.globalparliamentofmayors.org/
Challenges facing large cities
(Note: Five were outlined in the original essay. Two have been included here.)
Rising inequalities
“Any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one of the poor, the other of the rich.”
Inequality has been a recognised trait in cities for over two millennia, as observed by Plato in 360BC, “any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one of the city of the poor, the other of the rich.” There is no mention of the existence of a middle class. In the 2013 book ‘Who Owns The Future?’ Jaron Lanier argues that a middle-class status has not proven to be stable without government intervention. Lanier raises the concern that globalisation and digital technology is disrupting twentieth century safety-nets by (re)creating a ‘star system’ where a small number of people receive significant gains in wealth whilst the majority receive little or no return.
A 2006 study by OECD (Ford, 2013) identified that automation had resulted in more job losses than offshoring. The risk to increasing inequality is that the majority of new jobs being created are divided between high volume low-paid, low-skilled jobs that still require some degree of human intervention and low-volume high-paid specialist cognitive tasks that require an advanced education and expertise. It is not yet clear how governments will tackle this issue and the implications it creates for tax generation and distribution. The same is also true for infrastructure services that may experience increasing demand and reduced funding if a larger percentage of the population is permanently and unwillingly trapped in low-income jobs that lead to a long-term decline in real wages.
The UN estimates nearly a third of city populations live in slums. If that number continues to grow, the outcome will impact a range of socio-economic issues including health, education, crime and social mobility, leading to diminishing prospects for the individuals affected and the cities they reside within.
New economic models
Instead of criminalising informal activities, maybe it is time for governments to embrace them…
The second challenge is also perhaps the biggest opportunity. Digital technology combined with current social and economic pressures has led to the rise of new business models that are disrupting many traditional financial structures.
One model that is growing in popularity is the ‘Sharing economy,’ also referred to as the ‘Collaborative economy’, where individuals share under-utilised resources directly with one another. In developed countries, this is often motivated by profit, convenience, and opportunity. Examples include car-sharing networks reducing the need for car ownership at a lower cost than taxis and car-rentals, and occupying spare rooms in a home as an alternative to hotels.
In developing countries, a sharing economy is more likely to have been established through survival needs in slums. Such areas are often unrecognised by governments and lack a formal infrastructure. Instead, inhabitants work together to provide the essentials for accommodation, electricity and water, along with developing local commerce through street trading. This model is often referred to as a shadow or informal economy, unrecognised in government statistics. One of the most prominent examples is Kibera, a slum district within Nairobi. Until recently, government land-use maps showed Kibera as what it used to be over 100 years ago – a forest (Batty, 2013). In reality it is home to 250,000 people living in sub-standard conditions.
It is estimated that 1.8 billion jobs have been created by the sharing and informal economies. By 2020 the informal economy is expected to grow to include two thirds of the global workforce, according to the OECD. Government reactions have tended towards criminalising or ignoring these models. Unless viable alternatives are created, perhaps the solution is to embrace them and acknowledge their contribution to the city economy. A similarity in all sharing models is achieving the same or better performance from fewer resources. Such an approach could play a key role in helping achieve a more sustainable city.
The Potential for a Global Parliament of Mayors
Inclusive or exclusive?
– Smart City Forum 2013
City mayors are well positioned to tackle the issues outlined above because many of the issues are influenced by, and have an immediate impact on, the local environment, community and economy. However it is less clear how a Global Parliament of Mayors (GPM) will contribute beyond providing a supportive forum for mayors to share experiences, with a view to reproducing and scaling successful initiatives.
The value from such a forum should not be underestimated. Significant lessons learned at the local level could be of great benefit to other cities. For example, seeking to avoid the mistakes that led to the decline and bankruptcy of Detroit, or understanding how congestion charge schemes have affected traffic and pollution levels in London and Stockholm. Sharing data and methods used for city innovations could accelerate adoption on a global scale. Given the growing interdependence between large cities and focus on sustainability, there is mutual gain from the global modernisation of city infrastructure and services.
However, as is explained on the web site and in the planning sessions held in September 2014, the GPM is not proposing to be a community or forum. It is intended to be an institution that can provide ‘a global revolution in democratic governance in which cities and urban leaders, public and private alike can and will make the difference’.
The advantage of a GPM would be the ability to cooperate on global matters that have a similar impact on cities regardless of their local variations. For example, climate change initiatives require global alignment and many cities have the same weaknesses in their infrastructure in terms of building construction inefficiencies and the risks created by extreme weather events. The GPM could play a central role in fostering universal agreement about how cities can reduce energy consumption and work towards meeting global climate change targets.
The same benefits apply to the roll out of a digital infrastructure. Currently, cities are tending to build their own solutions. In his book Smart Cities, Anthony Townsend highlighted that in Germany alone, twenty four cities each developed their own mobile applications for parking. Whilst such an approach benefits each local economy, it inevitably leads to waste and inefficiency, and can be frustrating for citizens who interact with services across multiple cities.
Whilst a GPM would foster cooperation between cities, it may not be a fair representation. Attendance at the September 2014 planning session was dominated by European and US mayors. There was little representation from developing cities in Africa, Asia or South America. There is also the subject of deciding who can or cannot participate. If the focus is on mayors regardless of their nation state, the GPM could lend credibility to rogue cities such as the current Islamic State Group occupation of Ar-Raqqa in Syria.
New and developing cities face similar challenges to well-established ones but will need or choose very different solutions. There are significant regional differences, such as the level of privacy afforded to citizens, the level of state intervention and openness about government affairs. It may be difficult for a GPM to resolve conflicts if global governance decisions favour one group over others. There are also differences within similar regions. Cities in the US are separated by much larger distances than cities in Europe and adopt very different approaches to urban planning such as the provision of green-belt land to constrain city growth. Within Europe, there are different attitudes towards informal and illegal economic activities, such as whether or not to include prostitution in national income figures.
The Transition to Smarter Cities
Do we need digital city standards akin to those that scaled the world-wide web?
Smart cities are in their infancy and currently lack standards. Cities are adopting advanced and complex technologies in isolation that should raise concerns about what proprietary methods may be implemented that could constrain future developments. Perhaps one of the most powerful benefits the GPM could provide would be to adopt a similar position to that of the Worldwide Web Consortium and Internet Engineering Taskforce who played a pivotal role in establishing open standards that are commonplace today on the Internet, used by everyone from a solo web site to a global e-commerce platform.
Creating smart cities will mean implementing the most complicated and interdependent information systems to date. Cascading failures could be catastrophic to the wellbeing of the city population. A GPM could focus on establishing disaster resilience and recovery planning, similar to that being implemented within the financial sector in an attempt to avoid a future financial crisis of the magnitude experienced in the past decade.
Cities evolve based on their interactions and innovations, planned and unplanned. Those evolutions bring unexpected consequences. Mayors could be in the best position to understand and respond to local issues and priorities as they emerge. But risk being biased by a personal agenda or experiences that may not be representative of the majority of the city population.
A Global Parliament of Mayors (GPM) could provide oversight and direction to help avoid repeating the mistakes made in long-term urban planning and design during the twentieth century, and ensure cooperation on global issues that cannot be resolved by any one city or nation state alone. It could lead the way in establishing global standards to create more resilient and connected cities.
A concern is that the GPM will focus on exerting top-down initiatives or struggle to find common agreement due to differences between cities. How will mega-cities be governed globally? As a single entity or multiple cities within a city? What about small but influential cities such as Palo Alto in California? It is difficult to envisage how effective a GPM can be beyond providing a supportive community for peers managing systems of a scale in size, complexity and responsiveness that have never previously been experienced.
Batty, Michael. (2013) The New Science of Cities. MIT Press
Ford, Martin. (2009) The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future. Acculant Publishing.
Greenfield, Adam. (2014) Against the smart city. Do projects.
Jacobs, Jane. (1961) The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Vintage Books edition, December 1992
Jütting, Johannes and de Laiglesia, Juan. (2009) Is Informal Normal? OECD Development Centre
Lanier, Jaron. (2013) Who owns the Future? Penguin Books.
Neuwirth, Robert (2011) Global Bazaar. Scientific American 305(3), 56-63.
Putnam, Robert. (2007) Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century. Scandinavian Political Studies, Vol. 30 – No. 2.
Sassen, Saskia. (1991) The Global City: New York, London, Tokyo. Princeton University Press.
Scientific American (2014) Designing the Urban Future: Smart Cities, collection of articles published from 2004 to 2014
Townsend, Anthony M. (2013) Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hacker, and The Quest For a New Utopia. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Images kindly shared under Creative Commons license on Flickr:
Kibera (2 children the railroad) – Colin Crowley
Sharing (waiting for the train ) – Kymberly Janisch
Smart Cities 2013 meeting – Forum PA
HTML Code (from Wikipedia) – Marjan Krebelj
Featured image: Shining City (Far) by sea turtle. Stunning image of the Seattle skyline
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The ever-growing list of powerful men accused of sexual misconduct
Since The New York Times published allegations of sexual harassment and assault against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein in October, multiple men in Hollywood and the media have faced allegations ranging from sexual misconduct to rape. A look at some of the men accused:
Accused by dozens of women of sexual harassment or sexual assaults, including rape. Fired by The Weinstein Co. and expelled from various professional guilds. Under investigation by police departments in New York, London, Beverly Hills and Los Angeles. Weinstein denies all allegations of non-consensual sex, but he has apologized for causing "a lot of pain" with "the way I've behaved with colleagues in the past."
Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
JAMES TOBACK
Writer-director James Toback has been accused by hundreds of women of sexual harassment. The Beverly Hills police are investigating the complaints. He has denied the allegations to the Los Angeles Times.
Comedian Louis C.K. has been accused by five women of sexual misconduct. He says the allegations are true and has apologized. Both his Netflix special and the New York premiere of his controversial new film “I Love You, Daddy” has been canceled.
Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File
Kevin Spacey has been charged with groping the 18-year-old son of a Boston TV anchor in 2016 — the first criminal case brought against the Oscar-winning actor since his career collapsed amid a string of sexual misconduct allegations over a year ago.
BRETT RATNER
Accused by at least six women of sexual harassment. Playboy shelved projects with Ratner and Ratner stepped away from Warner Bros. related activities. He denies the allegations.
Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP, File
Def Jam Records founder Russell Simmons is accused by model Keri Claussen Khalighi of coercing her to perform a sex act and later penetrating her without her consent in his New York apartment in 1991. Also accused by Sidney Lumet's daughter of taking her to his New York apartment in 1991 against her will and having sex with her. In response to Jenny Lumet's allegations, Simmons has stepped away from his companies. Simmons has also disputed Claussen Khalighi's account, saying the relationship was consensual.
Scott Roth/Invision/AP, File
ROBERT KNEPPER
Accused by one woman of sexual assault. He denies the allegations.
AP Photo/Jae C. Hong
JANN WENNER
Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner is accused by one man of sexual harassment. He says he did not intend to make the accuser uncomfortable.
Evan Agostini/Invision/AP
Accused by woman of sexual harassing her in 1985 when she was 17. He has apologized for his behavior. A second actress has come forward to accuse Hoffman of allegations of sexual harassment, calling his conduct "a horrific, demoralizing and abusive experience."
Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File
Celebrity chef John Besh is accused by 25 women of sexual harassment. He has stepped down from the company he founded.
Brad Barket/Invision/AP, File
MARK HALPERIN
Journalist Mark Halperin is accused of harassing about 12 women while at ABC News. Book contract terminated. Fired from job at NBC News. He has denied some of the allegations.
Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File
FIAccused by two women of rape. He denies the allegations.
AP Photo/Ivan Sekretarev, File
Amazon executive Roy Price is accused by one woman of sexual harassment. He resigned from Amazon.
JEFFREY TAMBOR
Two women — an actress on his show "Transparent" and his assistant — allege sexual misconduct. He denies the allegation, saying in a statement that he has "never been a predator — ever." Tambor said this week he doesn't see how he can return to the Amazon series.
Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
MATTHEW WEINER
"Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner is accused by one woman of sexual harassment. He denies the allegation.
Actor Jeremy Piven is accused by several women of sexual misconduct. He denies all allegations.
Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File
Singer Nick Carter is accused by pop singer Melissa Schuman of raping her approximately 15 years ago. Carter has denied her allegations.
One woman alleges sexual harassment. He denies the allegation.
GARY GODDARD
A spokesman for a producer accused of molesting actor Anthony Edwards, shown here, when he was 12 is denying the "ER" actor's claims. Sam Singer is a spokesman for producer and director Gary Goddard. He says in a statement issued Friday night, Nov. 10, 2017, that the producer unequivocally denies Edwards' claims that were published in a post on the website Medium earlier in the day.
Andy Kropa/Invision/AP, File
ISRAEL HOROVITZ
Playwright Israel Horovitz is accused by nine women of sexual misconduct, including forcible kissing and rape. He tells The New York Times his recollection of the events is different from the women's accounts and apologized "with all my heart to any woman who has ever felt compromised by my actions."
ANDREW KREISBERG
Showrunner Andrew Kreisberg is accused by 19 women of sexual harassment and inappropriate touching. The "Supergirl" and "Arrow" showrunner has been fired by Warner Bros. Television Group. He told Variety he has made comments on women's appearances and clothes "but they were not sexualized."
Pixar and Disney Animation chief John Lasseter is accused by several women of unwanted touching and has announced he is taking a six-month leave of absence. He has acknowledged some "missteps" with employees and apologized for any behavior that made workers uncomfortable.
Actor Tom Sizemore is accused of groping an 11-year-old actress in 2003. Utah prosecutors declined to file charges, citing witness and evidence problems. He denies the allegation.
One man alleges sexual assault. He denies the allegation.
Phil McCarten/Invision/AP, File
New York's Metropolitan Opera says it will investigate allegations that its longtime conductor, Levine, sexually abused a teenager in the mid-1980s. Details of the police report were first reported Saturday, Dec. 2, 2017, on the New York Post website. Levine, 74, stepped down as music director of the Met in April 2016.
AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File
DANNY MASTERSON
Netflix says it has written Danny Masterson out of the comedy "The Ranch" with Los Angeles police investigating sexual assault claims against him that date back to the 2000s. He has denied the allegations by three women that they were assaulted by him.
Annie I. Bang /Invision/AP, File
Mario Batali is stepping down from daily operations at his restaurant empire following reports of sexual misconduct by the celebrity chef over a period of at least 20 years. In a prepared statement sent to The Associated Press, Monday, Dec. 11, 2017, Batali said the complaints match up with his past behavior.
Director Bryan Singer has been accused of sexually assaulting a 17-year-old boy at a party more than a decade ago. The lawsuit filed in Seattle claims Singer demanded sex from Cesar Sanchez-Guzman during a 2003 yacht party. In a statement Friday, Dec. 8, 2017, attorney Andrew Brettler said Singer "categorically denies these allegations and will vehemently defend this lawsuit to the very end."
Matt Sayles/Invision/AP, File
Declaring "I am part of the problem," Morgan Spurlock confessed in an online post Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2017, to sexual harassment, infidelity and said a woman accused him of rape in college.
Ben Hider/Invision/AP, File
PBS says it has suspended distribution of Tavis Smiley’s talk show after an independent investigation uncovered “multiple, credible allegations” of misconduct by its host.
Rich Fury/Invision/AP, File
"Today" host Matt Lauer is accused by at least three women of sexual misconduct, including inappropriate sexual behavior that NBC News says started at the 2014 Sochi Olympics and continued after that. Lauer has been fired from NBC News. He has expressed sorrow and regret about the pain he has caused and says some of the accusations about him are untrue or have been mischaracterized.
AP Photo/Richard Drew, File
Former "A Prairie Home Companion" host Garrison Keillor is accused by one woman of inappropriate behavior. He was fired by Minnesota Public Radio. He has told The Associated Press he was fired over "a story that I think is more interesting and more complicated than the version MPR heard," and told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that he put his hand on a woman's bare back in an attempt to console her.
AP Photo/Jeff Baenen, File
GERALDO RIVERA
Journalist Geraldo Rivera is accused by Bette Midler of groping her in the early 1970s when Rivera was sent to interview her. He has not yet responded to Midler's renewal of the allegation, which she made in a 1991 interview with Barbara Walters.
PBS and CBS host Charlie Rose is accused by several women of unwanted sexual advances, groping and grabbing women, walking naked in front of them or making lewd phone calls. He has apologized for his behavior, but has questioned the accuracy of some of the accounts.
A spokesman for MSNBC on Sunday, Dec. 17, 2017 confirmed a report that a staffer at the news channel nearly two decades ago had been paid and left her job after she complained she was sexually harassed by "Hardball" host Chris Matthews.
AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File
New Republic editor Leon Wieseltier is accused of sexually harassing numerous women. Removed from the masthead of The Atlantic magazine. He has apologized for his behavior.
AP Photo/Dan Balilty, File
RAUL BOCANEGRA
California state Rep. Raul Bocanegra is accused by multiple women of groping them or kissing them against their will. He has resigned his seat, and says he hopes to clear his name and has said, "While I am not guilty of any such crimes, I am admittedly not perfect."
AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli, File
STEPHEN BITTEL, JACK LATVALA
Florida Democratic Party Chairman Stephen Bittel is accused of sexually inappropriate comments and behavior toward a number of women, Bittel resigned. Meanwhile, Democratic state Sen. Jeff Clemens resigned after a report that he had an extramarital affair with a lobbyist, and Republican state Sen. Jack Latvala is being investigated by the Senate over allegations of harassment and groping. Latvala has denied the allegations.
Patrick Farrell /Miami Herald via AP
U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore (R.-Ala.) is accused of sexually assaulting two women decades ago when they were teenagers; about a half-dozen other women have accused Moore of inappropriate conduct. The former state Supreme Court chief justice denies the allegations. He has rebuffed pressure from national Republican leaders to step aside; the state GOP is standing by him.
AP Photo/Brynn Anderson, File
Sixteen women have come forward with a range of accusations against Trump, many after the release of the "Access Hollywood" tape last October in which Trump was caught on an open microphone bragging about groping women. One woman, Summer Zevos, a contestant on Trump's reality show, "The Apprentice," sued, contending that Trump's denials of her accusations amount to false and defamatory statements.
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) is accused of sexual harassment toward staffers in his office, and has settled one claim of harassment. He has denied the allegations, even the one he settled. He resigned from Congress on Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2017 after a nearly 53-year career, becoming the first Capitol Hill politician to lose his job in the torrent of sexual misconduct allegations sweeping through the nation's workplaces.
AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File
U.S. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) is accused of forcibly kissing Los Angeles radio anchor Leeann Tweeden while rehearsing for a 2006 USO tour; Franken also was photographed with his hands over her breasts as she slept. He also has been accused by three other women of touched their buttocks, and another woman told CNN that Franken had cupped her right breast when she stood next to him for a photo in December 2003. Franken has apologized, though hasn't admitted to groping or other inappropriate touching. He reluctantly announced Thursday, Dec. 7, 2017 he's resigning from Congress.
TRENT FRANKS
Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., said in a statement that he never physically intimidated, coerced or attempted to have any sexual contact with any member of his congressional staff. Instead, he says, the dispute resulted from a discussion of surrogacy. A former aide to Franks has told The Associated Press the congressman repeatedly pressed her to carry his child, at one point offering her $5 million to act as a surrogate.
AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
Former President George H.W. Bush is accused of patting seven women below the waist while posing for photos with them in recent years, well after he left office. The 93-year-old Republican has issued repeated apologies through a spokesman "to anyone he has offended," with the spokesman noting that the former president uses a wheelchair and that his arm sinks below people's waists when they take photos with him.
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
BLAKE FARENTHOLD
The House Ethics Committee said Dec. 7 it is expanding its investigation into sexual harassment allegations against Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas. The committee said it will investigate whether Farenthold sexually harassed a former member of his staff and retaliated against her for complaining. The committee also said the panel would review allegations that Farenthold made inappropriate statements to other members of his official staff.
He's shown here with House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin during a mock swearing in ceremony on Capitol Hill in Washington.
AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File
DAN SCHOEN AND TONY CORNISH
Two Minnesota state lawmakers — Democratic Sen. Dan Schoen, left, and Republican Rep. Tony Cornish — said they would resign after they were accused of misdeeds that ranged from groping colleagues to persistent unwanted sexual advances and sexting.
AP photos
MICHAEL FALLON
British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon is accused of inappropriate advances on two women, the Conservative resigned. Sexual harassment and assault allegations have also emerged against a number of other U.K. political figures. Labour Party legislator Carl Sargeant is believed to have taken his own life after harassment allegations cost him his post as the Welsh government's Cabinet secretary for communities and children. He had asked for an independent inquiry to clear his name. Also, Labour Party member Ivan Lewis has been suspended over an allegation of sexual misconduct; Lewis disputed the account but apologized if his behavior had been "unwelcome or inappropriate."
(AP Photo/Hasan Jamali
JEFF HOOVER
Kentucky House Speaker Jeff Hoover stepped down as speaker this month after news surfaced that the Republican had settled a sexual harassment claim from a GOP caucus staffer. Hoover denied the harassment allegation but said he sent consensual yet inappropriate text messages. He remains in the Legislature.
AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley, File
ALEX KOZINSKI
Judge Alex Kozinski, of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, announced his immediate retirement Monday, Dec. 18, 2017, days after women alleged he subjected them to inappropriate sexual conduct or comments. Kozinski said in a statement Monday that a battle over the accusations would not be good for the judiciary.
AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, Pool, File
RUBEN KIHUEN
First-term congressman Ruben Kihuen announced Saturday, Dec. 16, 2017, that he won’t seek re-election but said he’ll serve out his current term as he continued to deny allegations of sexual harassment.
AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File
ALEX GILADY
International Olympic Committee member Alex Gilady is accused by two women of rape and by two others of inappropriate conduct. Gilady denied the rape accusations, said he didn't recall one of the other allegations, but acknowledged a claim he'd propositioned a woman during a job interview 25 years ago was "mainly correct." He stepped down as president of an Israeli broadcasting company he founded. The IOC has said it is looking into the allegations.
AP Photo/Koji Sasahara, File
DANNY JORDAAN
Former South African soccer association president Danny Jordaan is accused by former member of parliament Jennifer Ferguson of raping her in 1993. Jordaan denies the accusation.
AP Photo/Denis Farrell, File
LARRY NASSAR
Dr. Larry Nassar, a sports doctor accused of molesting girls while working for USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University, pleaded guilty to multiple charges of sexual assault and will face at least 25 years in prison. Olympians Aly Raisman, McKayla Maroney and Gabby Douglas say they were victims.
In a third case, Nassar will be sentenced in federal court on Dec. 7 for possessing child pornography. Meanwhile, more than 100 women and girls are suing him.
AP Photo/Paul Sancya
JERRY RICHARDSON
The Carolina Panthers are investigating workplace misconduct allegations against founder and owner Jerry Richardson. The team said Friday, Dec. 15, 2017 former White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles is overseeing the investigation by a Los Angeles-based law firm.
AP Photo/Bob Leverone, File
Tony Award-winner Ben Vereen is apologizing to female actresses for "inappropriate conduct" while he directed a production of the musical "Hair" in Florida three years ago. The apology on Twitter comes a day after the New York Daily News reported several actresses at The Venice Theatre alleged sexual misconduct by Vereen, including unwanted kissing, inviting women to join him naked in his hot tub and making demeaning and degrading comments.
AP Photo/Charles Sykes, File
A December 2017 civil lawsuit charging filmmaker Paul Haggis with rape has prompted three other women to come forward with their own accusations, including a publicist who says he forced her to perform oral sex, then raped her. Haggis has denied the allegations in the lawsuit, and when asked about the new accusations, his lawyer said, "He didn't rape anybody."
AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Darren Calabrese, File
Facing accusations by an actress and a filmmaker over alleged sexual misconduct, James Franco said on CBS’ “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on Tuesday, Jan. 9, 2018, the things he’s heard aren’t accurate but he supports people coming out “because they didn’t have a voice for so long.”
Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File
Aziz Ansari said in a statement Sunday, Jan. 14, 2018, that he apologized last year when a woman who has accused him of sexual assault told him about her discomfort during a sexual encounter in his apartment he said he believed to be consensual. The woman, identified as a 23-year-old photographer in an interview with Babe.net, says she was furious when she saw Ansari was wearing a "Time's Up" pin while accepting a Golden Globe on Jan. 7.
A woman who worked for actor Michael Douglas in the late 1980s says he fondled himself in front of her, an allegation the actor has vigorously denied. Journalist and author Susan Braudy appeared Friday, Jan. 19, 2018 on NBC's "Today" show. Earlier in January 2018, Douglas said he anticipated an upcoming report containing allegations and called it a "complete lie, fabrication."
AP Photo/Thibault Camus, File
Kelly has faced intense scrutiny in the last year after women have accused him of sexual coercion and physical abuse. He has denied the charges.
AP Photo/Frank Franklin II, File
Seacrest's former "E! News" stylist, Suzie Hardy, alleges multiple instances of sexual harassment and abuse.
SCOTT BAIO
Baio has denied a claim made by his former “Charles in Charge” co-star Nicole Eggert that something inappropriate happened between the two when she was a minor. Eggert tweeted Saturday. Jan. 27, 2018 to ask Baio about what happened in his garage when she was a minor.
AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File
Copperfield has declared his support for the Me Too movement in a lengthy statement online in the wake of allegations that he drugged and sexually assaulted a woman in 1988, when she was just 17.
Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File
ED WESTICK
The former "Gossip Girl" star was accused by multiple women of sexual assault. Westwick has denied the allegations.
Actor Andy Dick has been accused of unwanted groping, kissing, licking, and sexual propositioning.
Dan Steinberg/Invision/AP
Several women have accused Affleck of groping.
Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
Two women who worked on Casey Affleck’s film “I’m Still Here” filed sexual harassment lawsuits against him in 2010. Both claims were settled out of court for an undisclosed amount in 2010. Affleck has repeatedly denied the allegations.
Casino mogul Wynn resigned as chairman and chief executive of Wynn Resorts in February after sexual misconduct allegations surfaced against him.
AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File
Harvey Weinstein expected to be arrested Friday in New York sexual misconduct investigation
Harvey Weinstein attends amfAR's New York Gala honoring him in New York on Feb. 10, 2016. Harvey Weinstein's lawyer said in a court filing that federal prosecutors in New York have launched a criminal investigation into the film producer, in addition to a previously disclosed probe by the Manhattan District Attorney. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP, File)
Charles Sykes
NEW YORK (AP) — Law enforcement officials say Harvey Weinstein is expected to surrender to authorities Friday morning to face criminal charges in a months-long investigation into allegations that he sexually assaulted women.
The two officials said the criminal case involves allegations by Lucia Evans, a former actress who was among the first women to speak out about Weinstein. The case would be the first criminal charge against the film producer since scores of women began coming forward to accuse him of harassment or assault, triggering a cascade of accusations against media and entertainment figures that has become known as the #MeToo movement.
The two officials spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the investigation.
A grand jury has been hearing evidence in the case for weeks.
The precise charges Weinstein is expected to face weren't immediately clear. Weinstein's attorney, Benjamin Brafman, declined to comment. Weinstein has said repeatedly, through his lawyers, that he did not have nonconsensual sex with anyone.
Evans told The New Yorker in a story published in October that Weinstein forced her to perform oral sex during a daytime meeting at his New York office in 2004, the summer before her senior year at Middlebury College.
"I said, over and over, 'I don't want to do this, stop, don't,' " she told the magazine. "I tried to get away, but maybe I didn't try hard enough. I didn't want to kick him or fight him."
She didn't report the incident to police at the time, telling The New Yorker's Ronan Farrow that she blamed herself for not fighting back.
"It was always my fault for not stopping him," she said.
In recent months, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance has come under enormous public pressure to make a criminal case. Some women's groups, including the Hollywood activist group Time's Up, accused the Democrat of being too deferential to Weinstein and too dismissive of his accusers.
In March, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo took the extraordinary step of ordering the state's attorney general to investigate whether Vance acted properly in 2015 when he decided not to prosecute Weinstein over a previous allegation of unwanted groping, made by an Italian model.
Vance had insisted any decision would be based on the strength of the evidence, not on political considerations.
Weinstein was fired from the company he co-founded and expelled from the organization that bestows the Academy Awards last fall after The New York Times and The New Yorker published articles about his treatment of women, including multiple allegations that he groped actresses, exposed himself to them or forced them into unwanted sex.
His accusers included some of the biggest names in Hollywood. Several actresses and models accused him of criminal sexual assaults, including film actress Rose McGowan, who said Weinstein raped her in 1997 in Utah, "Sopranos" actress Annabella Sciorra, who said he raped her in her New York apartment in 1992, and the Norwegian actress Natassia Malthe, who said he attacked her in a London hotel room in 2008. Another aspiring actress, Mimi Haleyi, said Weinstein forcibly performed oral sex on her in his New York apartment in 2006.
New York City police detectives said in early November that they were investigating allegations by another accuser, "Boardwalk Empire" actress Paz de la Huerta, who told police in October that Weinstein raped her twice in 2010.
It's not clear whether Weinstein will face additional charges involving other women.
Freeman says he likes to compliment people to make them feel at ease around him but that he has never sexually assaulted women. The Academy Award-winning actor is fighting back against charges of bad behavior made by multiple women in a CNN report this week. He said in a statement late Friday, May 25, 2018, that the report has devastated him and that "it is not right to equate horrific incidents of sexual assault with misplaced compliments or humor."
Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File
Chris Hardwick's cable talk show is on hold and he has withdrawn as moderator of AMC and BBC America's Comic-Con panels, AMC Networks said Saturday, June 16, 2018. The company said it had a positive working relationship with the host and producer but takes seriously what it calls "troubling" allegations by his former girlfriend, Chloe Dykstra.
In late July AMC said he would be back with "Talking Dead" and "Talking with Chris Hardwick" following a review of the incident.
In announcing its decision, AMC said it was the "appropriate step" after interviewing a number of people in connection with the allegations against Hardwick.
Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP
A French judicial official says rape and sexual assault accusations against actor Gerard Depardieu are the subject of a preliminary investigation it was reported on Thursday, Aug. 30, 2018. Depardieu's lawyer, Herve Temime, said on France's BFM TV that the actor "absolutely denies any rape, any sexual assault, any crime."
LES MOONVES
CBS Chief Les Moonves resigned Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018, just hours after six more women accused the veteran television executive of sexual misconduct.
The resignation is effective immediately, CBS said in a statement posted on its website Sunday night.
Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File
JEFF FAGER
CBS News on Wednesday fired "60 Minutes" top executive Jeff Fager, who has been under investigation following reports that he groped women at parties and tolerated an abusive workplace.
The network news president, David Rhodes, said Fager's firing was "not directly related" to the allegations against him, but because he violated company policy. Fager said it was because of a text message he sent to a CBS News reporter who was covering the story about him.
"Orange Is the New Black" actress Yael Stone alleged actor Geoffrey Rush engaged in sexually inappropriate behavior when they starred in "The Diary of a Madman" in 2010.
Speaking to The New York Times , the 33-year-old said Rush danced naked in front of her in their dressing room, used a mirror to watch her while she showered and sent her occasionally erotic texts.
CBS reached a $9.5 million confidential settlement last year with actress Eliza Dushku after on-set sexual comments from Michael Weatherly, star of the network's show "Bull," made her uncomfortable when she was beginning a run as a recurring character.
CBS confirmed the settlement Thursday night in a statement to The Associated Press.
Dushku was written off the show after complaining about Weatherly's comments on her appearance and jokes involving sex and rape made in front of cast and crew in March of 2017, according to the New York Times , which first reported the settlement.
"The allegations in Ms. Dushku's claims are an example that, while we remain committed to a culture defined by a safe, inclusive and respectful workplace, our work is far from done," the CBS statement said. "The settlement of these claims reflects the projected amount that Ms. Dushku would have received for the balance of her contract as a series regular, and was determined in a mutually agreed upon mediation process at the time."
Photo by Andy Kropa/Invision/AP, File
Hollywood Sex Scandal
Judge sentences Bill Cosby to 3-10 years in prison for 2004 sexual assault
Bill Cosby has been sentenced to three to 10 years in state prison for drugging and molesting a woman at his suburban Philadelphia home.
Inside the prison where Bill Cosby will spend at least the next three years
Bill Cosby will serve three to 10 years for sexual assault at SCI Phoenix in Pennsylvania. Here's a look inside the maximum-security prison.
$44 million to be paid in Harvey Weinstein sexual misconduct settlement, report says
Weinstein has been accused by scores of women. The New York Times said about $30 million of the $44 million would go to a pool of plaintiffs.
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Kevin McGeary
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Tag: Literature
Books, Blokes and Sexual Misbehaviour
May 22, 2018 May 23, 2018 kevinmcgeary8
Whatever generation you come from, there is a good chance that your favourite fictional character is a shit. In “Gone with the Wind”, Rhett Butler commits spousal rape. In “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” Randall P McMurphy has been arrested for statutory rape. And the less said about James Bond the better.
Post-Weinstein, with Bill Cosby convicted and an ever-growing list of prominent men being publicly shamed, the issue of men’s sexual misconduct is hotter than ever.
Fiction is a field that has long revelled in breaking taboos. Incest? Jean Cocteau’s “Les Enfants Terribles”. Infanticide? Anton Chekhov’s “In the Ravine” or Walter Scott’s “The Heart of Midlothian”. More recently, it was shown that BDSM has mass-market appeal with the commercial success of “50 Shades of Gray”.
Most of us get used to reading about people with loose morals at an early age. Rumpelstiltskin abducts children. Bestiality is hinted at in “The Frog Prince” and “Beauty and the Beast”. The so-called hero of “Sleeping Beauty” appears to be a graduate of the Cosby school of seduction.
Sensitive material requires skilled hands. Just as to tell a joke about a taboo subject like, say, racism, one probably must be a professional comedian. For ideas on how it can be done, below are examples of some of the greatest writers of all time taking on the issue of men who, for one reason or another, just can’t keep their rocket in their pocket.
“Little Louise Roque” by Guy de Maupassant
In “Little Louise Roque”, Guy de Maupassant sympathetically portrays a rich, powerful man who rapes and murders a schoolgirl.
Monsieur Renardet is the mayor of Carvelin and largest landowner in the district. He is also a grieving widower: “He had suffered at not feeling her dress brush past him.”
Maupassant gets into the psyche of his character: “He had a chaste soul, but it was lodged in a powerful, herculean body, and carnal imaginings began to disturb his sleep and his vigils. He drove them away; they came back again.”
However, Maupassant is not squeamish about describing what Renardet has done, and it does not make for an easy read:
“He felt himself pushed toward her by an irresistible force, by a bestial transport of passion, which stirred his flesh, bewildered his mind and made him tremble from head to foot.”
“There below, under the trees, lay the body of the little girl gleaming like phosphorous, lighting up the surrounding darkness.”
Overcome with guilt, Renardet plans to commit suicide but struggles to go through with it:
“A thousand recollections assailed him, recollections of similar mornings, of rapid walks on the hard earth which rang beneath his footsteps, of happy days of shooting on the edges of pools where wild ducks sleep. All the good things that he loved, the good things of existence, rushed to his memory, penetrated him with fresh desires, awakened all the vigorous appetites of his active, powerful body.”
Good fiction can question the boundaries of normality. Two of the greatest films of 1960, “Psycho” and “Peeping Tom” are about likable men with a dark compulsion that they cannot control. The British tabloids would no doubt describe Renardet as a monster, but with a touch of greatness, Maupassant furnishes him with some disturbingly convincing shades of grey
“A Story by Maupassant” by Frank O’Connor
In “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed”, Jon Ronson writes about people whose lives have been ruined in front of millions of strangers for reasons ranging from an ill-judged joke on Twitter to appearing to disrespect a war memorial on Facebook.
Frank O’Connor
One chapter is about the release of the client list at a brothel in Kennebunk, a quiet community in Maine. While most of the subjects in Ronson’s book eventually achieve forgiveness and redemption, the sixty-eight men on this list receive something better – near total indifference.
There are campaigners such as feminist journalist Julie Bindel who fight for all prostitution to be criminalized. But if you are reading this article you are probably living in a time and place where attitudes toward sex work are fairly relaxed.
Frank O’Connor and the characters in his fiction did not. This is at the heart of the central character’s trajectory in what I think is the greatest short story ever written, “A Story by Maupassant.”
The narrator begins by explaining that only people who grew up in a provincial town could appreciate how much Terry Coughlan meant to him. Terry is a refined, handsome boy who excels at everything: “he taught himself French and German in the time it taught me to find out I could not learn Irish.”
Early on, the narrator explains his fondness for Guy de Maupassant, but Coughlan uses his superior intellect to argue him down, explaining how Maupassant’s work completely lacks poetry. As time passes, Terry begins to develop some bad habits: “Terry was drinking all right, but he was drinking unknown to his mother and sister. You might almost say he was drinking unknown to himself. Other people could be drunkards but not he.”
Coughlan’s behaviour deteriorates to the point where he does something that causes the local policeman to say he was astonished that an educated man could sink so low. He visits a prostitute. The narrator reacts: “If he had told me that Terry had turned into a common thief I couldn’t have been more astonished and horrified.”
Explaining himself, Terry describes a conversation that he had with a prostitute, having visited her home where she kept an 18-month old child. He recounts something she had told him: “Oh if it’s poetry you want you don’t go to Maupassant. You go to Vigny, you go to Musset. Maupassant is life, and life is not poetry. It’s only when you see what life can do to you that you realize what a great writer Maupassant is.”
It is an age-old sin to consider one’s own transgressions to be minor compared to other people’s. In decades to come, the moral pendulum may swing back to judging the likes of Terry Coughlan, and the 68 men in Kennebunk, more harshly. Still, like all good storytellers, O’Connor is non-judgmental.
“A Nervous Breakdown” by Anton Chekhov
The plot of “A Nervous Breakdown” revolves around a group of guys visiting a red-light district. The main character is the most reluctant. Others try to persuade him: “No philosophizing, please. Vodka is given to us to be drunk, sturgeon to be eaten, women to be visited, snow to be walked upon. For one evening anyway, live like a human being!”
He disagrees with his friends’ behaviour but admires them personally: “He envies his friends: ‘They are both poetical and debauched, both soft and hard; they can work, too, and be indignant, and laugh without reason, and talk nonsense’.”
He cannot fathom why otherwise good people engage in such behaviour: “How could they fail to understand that vice is only alluring when it is beautiful and hidden, when it wears the mask of virtue.”
He also cannot grasp what makes the women tick:
“And he began gazing at the women with strained attention, looking for a guilty smile. But either he did not know how to read their faces, or not one of these women felt herself to be guilty; he read on every face nothing but a blank expression of everyday vulgar boredom and complacency.”
“Were real people living here who, like people everywhere else, felt insulted, suffered, wept, and cried for help.”
Chekhov is never didactic, and makes the story a genuine page-turner as the reader wants to see whether he goes through with it, but the issue is questioned from all angles:
“One of two things: either we only fancy prostitution is an evil, and we exaggerate it; or if prostitution really is as great an evil as is generally assumed, these dear friends of mine are as much slaveowners, violators and murderers, as the inhabitants of Syria and Cairo, that are described in the ‘Neva’. Now they are singing, laughing, talking sense, but haven’t they just been exploiting hunger, ignorance and stupidity? They have – I have been witness to it. What is the use of their humanity, their medicine, their painting?”
A justification is eventually put to the main character rather glibly: “How is it justified? ‘We human beings do murder each other,’ said the medical student. ‘It’s immoral, of course, but philosophizing doesn’t help it. Good-by’!”
As in all good fiction, both sides of the argument are convincing, and the force of antagonism appears to be too much for the protagonist: “That I should have taken my degree in two faculties you look upon as a great achievement; because I have written a work which in three years will be thrown aside and forgotten, I am praised up to the skies; but because I cannot speak of fallen women as unconcernedly as of these chairs , I am being examined by a doctor, I am called mad, I am pitied!”
“Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov
Unlike “A Nervous Breakdown”, where there is a relatable central character and a compelling argument from all angles, “Lolita” is narrated by an unreformed predator. One of the greatest novels of the 20th century, it is also one of the most disturbing.
He tries to deny any wrongdoing, lying both to the reader and himself: “I felt proud of myself. I had stolen the honey of a spasm without impairing the morals of a minor.” As the novel progresses, Humbert Humbert’s perversion becomes undeniable:
“I knew I had fallen in love with Lolita forever; but I also knew she would not be forever Lolita. She would be thirteen on January 1. In two years or so she would cease being a nymphet and would turn into a ‘young girl,’ and then into a ‘college girl’ – that horror of horrors. The word ‘forever’ referred only to my own passion, to the eternal Lolita as reflected in my blood.”
After the death of her biological mother in a road accident, Humbert Humbert becomes the legal guardian of the object of his perversion. The scene after which he rapes her for the first time in a motel borders on farcical, where he is “forced to devote a dangerous amount of time (was she up to something downstairs?) to arranging the bed in such a way as to suggest the abandoned nest of a restless father and his tomboy daughter, instead of an ex-convict’s saturnalia with a couple of old whores.”
Still, immediately after this and each of the hundreds of subsequent rapes, the little girl weeps for a long time: “Her sobs in the night – every night, every night – the moment I feigned sleep.”
Sensible, self-aware people who are comfortable in their own skin are no good at being fictional characters. They are only good for one thing, being ex-spouses.
Writing about these issues is all very risky. The new call-out culture has unleashed a torrent of rules aimed at binding our imagination and policing our dreams. Still, do not for one second suggest that rebelling against this is “brave”. Bravery is when dozens of women come forward and finally speak out against Bill Cosby.
Tagged A Nervous Breakdown, A Story by Maupassant, Anton Chekhov, Books, Frank O'Connor, Guys de Maupassant, Julie Bindel, Literature, Little Louise Roque, Lolita, Misanthrope Magazine, Vladimir NabokovLeave a comment
Writing from East to West
May 1, 2018 May 3, 2018 kevinmcgeary8
To work, a fictional world needs to be even more logical than the real one. As Terry Pratchett once said, your world can contain pigs that fly, but the internal logic of this must be tightly considered. What is the effect on pork prices? Do some religions still consider swine to be a filthy animal?
Since 2014 I have been working on a collection of short stories set in a country where I have spent a lot of time, China.
In doing so, I am not creating a fictional world but seeking to use the English language to portray a culture that is alien to most target readers. How to do this in ways that are real and respectful, compelling and convincing?
My background before that was in translating and publishing salacious news stories with a view toward having them go viral. This was an imperfect apprenticeship. A good work of fiction needs to be more than sensational, there must be relatable characters, emotional truth and structural clarity.
One of the best short story writers of my generation is Simon Rich, whose works are mostly set in present-day Brooklyn. The cast of characters of his first two collections includes Sherlock Holmes, Cupid, Adolf Hitler, and Marissa Tomei.
Because he is writing about things with which his audience are familiar, he is free to be wacky in ways that I am not. Still, my task is not impossible.
Below, I will discuss four works of fiction with present-day East Asian settings that portray the societies accurately while doing the job I have found so difficult – telling a bloody good story.
Each of these writers is obscenely talented, and to suggest them as examples to be followed is neither helpful nor kind. Still, they all demonstrate technical skills that can be picked up with practice.
“Lotus” by Zhang Lijia
Like Guo Xiaolu (“A Chinese:English Dictionary for Lovers”, “I am China”) Zhang Lijia is a native Chinese speaker who writes in English. But while Guo deals with issues as heavy as dissidents, asylum seekers, corrupt politicians, and The Tiananmen Square Massacre, Zhang’s 2017 novel “Lotus” tells the story of ordinary Chinese on the bottom rung of society struggling to get by.
The eponymous central character resorts to prostitution after the unfairness and destitution of factory life become too much. While following her story, in which a non-sexual relationship with a male photo-journalist offers her a chance at salvation, readers can take in much about Chinese culture. Following the superstition of naming one’s children after what they are hoped to achieve, the titular character is named after “a flower that grows in the mud yet remains pure and unstained”.
The novel humanizes both the prostitutes and their clients: “one middle-aged architect didn’t want sex, but to complain about his terrible wife.” Lotus is given a pet-the-dog moment early on when it emerges that – like most of her colleagues – she sends money back to her struggling family in the countryside.
The chapter of each title is a Chinese proverb and folk wisdom is sprinkled throughout to help the reader make sense of the characters’ experience: “a fresh flower withers away on cowpat”, “if you stay long enough in a fish market you soon get used to the stink”.
As well as making the characters likeable, it puts them through relatable hell. One reflects that “poverty stifles dignity” and social issues are unobtrusively brought to the fore. Discussing his exam pressure, Lotus’ brother confides to the photo-journalist: “If I fail…my sister will probably kill herself.”
After creating these characters, the novel harnesses the brutal side of life in China to challenge them: “Since Little Red had died young and unmarried, no funeral rites were performed for her.” This leads to a climax in which Lotus considers that “only marriage could ease the stain of her past and secure her future financially.”
“Silver Castle” by Clive James
In Mumbai-set “The Silver Castle” by polymath Clive James, the author’s intellect shines through. In fiction this is not necessarily a good thing, but the depth and quality of James’ writing along with the audacious scale of storytelling keep the reader engaged.
The central character, Sanjay, is a child beggar who establishes himself as a Bollywood stuntman before encountering a situation in which he could either become a star or end up as an adult beggar.
To bring this to life, “The Silver Castle” uses God’s-eye-view narration. James spends pages at a time explaining to the reader what makes the setting and Sanjay’s story unique. At the start of chapter 7, he muses on the challenges of becoming literate in Hindi, using his intimate knowledge of the Russian, Hebrew and Japanese writing systems to explain.
This culminates in observations like: “One of the most unpalatable facts about the great synthetic nation of India is that its lingua franca, English, is written down in an alphabet so insanely unfaithful to what is said, whereas the principal sectarian languages can, in their written form, be mastered with comparative ease. So the alien language which was meant to unite India has turned out to be universal only in its frustrating elusiveness, whereas the languages that divide it have one dangerous element in common – they feel like home.”
James is similarly expansive when describing the slum where Sanjay spends his early life, contemplating the difference between the U.S English word “sidewalk” and its U.K equivalent “pavement”, and comparing Sanjay’s dwelling to both the favelas of Rio and the underground walkways of Shinjuku Station in Tokyo.
If I were as well-travelled and cultured as the author I may have enjoyed the book even more. It may be self-indulgent but as the (recently rehabilitated) Johann Hari wrote of James: “What a self to indulge.”
“Number 3” by Anna Metcalfe
The idea of teaching being a low-status, dead-end job is not common in Anglophone countries. Still, in China, some foreign English teachers are considered to be the plankton of the expatriate community, described as “unqualified scumbags” by Shanghaiist and by one memoirist and former English teacher as “total basket-cases at best”.
Shortlisted for the Sunday Times EFG short story award in 2014, this piece employs great skill to realize the challenges of China’s education system. The title alone illustrates that in China, schools have numbers rather than names, which says something about the lack of prestige and pride attached to most of them.
The viewpoint character is Miss Coral, a teacher who, though stuck in a system that under-uses her talents and often only dulls sharp minds, lives her life with quiet dignity and dedication.
Observations of her surroundings suggest a detached fatalism: “A late afternoon sun casts a haze over the urban sprawl. Smog and fresh dust linger, hovering over warehouses, slums and disused factories as they leave the inner city and approach the airport.”
At the airport she meets Mr. James, a young Westerner low on teaching credentials, high on entitlement. By the time he appears, the reader is already more aware than he is of the subtleties of interpersonal interaction in this environment and can see how he is trampling over them.
Still, like all good antagonists, he does not see himself as being villainous and may simply be tactless: “He leans over and kisses Miss Coral on the cheek. She smells beer on his breath. ‘Fuck’, he says, ‘I forgot you don’t kiss in China.’ He walks into the dimly lit hallway, laughing to himself.”
The figure of Mr. James illustrates that, even today, being a Westerner in Asia is in many ways a colonial experience. It also, through their seemingly dispassionate observations, evokes the emotions that the Chinese characters are conditioned not to show.
“Sayonara Bar” by Susan Barker
Set in Osaka, Japan, Susan Barker’s “Sayonara Bar” is alternately narrated by three characters who typify one of the less appealing sides of Japanese society. British graduate Mary works in a hostess bar and embodies the systemic objectification of women; kitchen assistant and college dropout Watanabe the massive pressure placed on young people to perform academically; and middle-aged “salaryman” Mr. Sato the culture of workaholism.
All three narrators are unreliable, but not so much that it isn’t obvious why they are prone to misadventures. Mary is trusting and has poor taste in men. Watanabe, while claiming to exist on a higher plain of consciousness, fails at simple tasks like arriving at work on time and loading a dishwasher. Mr. Sato is strait-laced but tortured, narrating much of his story in the second person to his deceased wife.
Mary wants to flee Japan with her drug-runner boyfriend, Watanabe is secretly plotting to rescue her from this relationship, and Mr. Sato – despite upheaval from his colleagues, a meddlesome neighbour, and a mysterious hostess named Mariko – is determined to live his life in a way of his late wife would approve.
Being a stranger to this setting, Mary is the most relatable of the three, and has a wrenching back story: “When I was a kid she used to go on about the seven pints of blood she lost when she gave birth to me, as though those seven pints compensated for the lack of effort thereafter. Sometimes she’d up the number of pints to eight or nine if I hadn’t done the washing-up or whatever.”
Barker’s prose is at its most enviably sparkling during the sections narrated by Watanabe. Since he believes he can read minds, the use of viewpoint is dazzling: “I too was intrigued by Mary. She gazed stoically into the middle distance as she waited in line. Her mental activity was negligible, practically flat-lining. All her thoughts had been displaced by a melody – the most haunting that I had ever heard, a bittersweet refrain to the indignity and pathos of life.”
The touchingly idealistic Mr. Sato may be different to the author in gender, nationality, age and beliefs. Still, Barker’s writing shows that through detailed observation, authors can make characters who are outwardly eccentric become hauntingly sympathetic: “Everything about her, from her narrow hips to her slight bosom, screamed with obscene youth. She looked at me, steadily, as serene and unabashed as Eve before the fall. I switched my gaze from the cello to banish her from my field of vision. I would not let my body respond. I would not.”
Tagged Anna Metcalfe, Asia, Blind Water Pass, Books, Clive James, East to West, Literature, Lotus, Number 3, Sayonara Bar, Silver Castle, Simon Rich, Spoiled Brats, Susan Barker, The Last Girlfriend on Earth, Writing, Zhang Lijia1 Comment
Why The LA Review of Books Is Wrong about “The Incarnations”
May 1, 2018 kevinmcgeary8
This riposte was originally published on The Nanfang on December 20, 2014
There are two things that people should know about critics. The first is that like any journalists, their primary task is to fill the white space. The second is that in doing so, they have to sound clever. Sometimes however, a critic tries so hard to sound clever they end up ignoring hugely significant facts and details. A review of Susan Barker’s novel “The Incarnations” published in The LA Review of Books is a striking example.
When it came out this summer, The Nanfang posted a favourable review of Barker’s novel, a thriller that spans over a millennium of Chinese history. This was followed by unrestrained positive reviews in South China Morning Post, The Independent (which described it as “China’s Midnight’s Children”) and The Guardian.
It is great that Barker’s novel is now getting attention in the American media ahead of a release in the world’s most powerful country next year. However, the review by Pierre Fuller of The University of Manchester contains some assertions that are factually inaccurate and others that are just plain silly. The most efficient way of dealing with some of the assertions is to Fisk the parts that refer to the novel, so here goes:
Incarnations’ (sic) most striking feature is its historical dimension, but its historical actors — concubines, eunuchs, Mongol warriors, Red Guards — appear to come straight from central casting. Storytelling should not be expected to provide authenticity, whatever that would even mean, but we want something at least beyond the literary equivalent of Chinese fare at the Golden Wok buffet, parked between the Dairy Queen and Jiffy Lube on the edge of town.
It is myopic to suggest that the cast of characters is made up of history’s protagonists. The three main corporeal characters are a taxi driver, a masseuse and a hairdresser. The stories set in the past also have plenty of figures who dwell beyond the wings of the stage of history, such as Jurchen artisans.
One of the most extraordinary things about Barker’s novel is that it somehow manages to demystify China. It contains a Tang Dynasty sorceress castrating her pubescent son. It contains Ming Dynasty concubines having their bowel movements and menstrual cycles recorded. It contains a chap who, in the twenty-first century, thinks that the way to fix a broken love affair is domestic violence followed by marital rape.
However, the characters are as real as they are in any good novel and not “exotic” as the headline claims. They make terrible lifestyle choices and grow attached to people who are bad for them – just like the rest of us. Barker, as she explained in a talk at The Hong Kong Book Fair, threw out a completed draft of the novel in 2009 after over a year’s work because she decided the characters weren’t real enough yet.
Barker, as the dust jacket explains, spent years in Beijing, not just getting a feel for life there today, which she captures well in the parts of the book set in the present, but also researching imperial and modern China to find material to bring into The Incarnations. So it’s especially disappointing not to find any trace in her novel of, say, Chinese pioneers opening up land in Sichuan or Manchuria, White Lotus Buddhist sectarians rising up to try to turn millenarian dreams into political reality, Bohemian poets, or any number of other equally entertaining, far more revealing (and in demographic terms equally numerous) possibilities from China’s past.
In the comments section, the accomplished translator Philip Hand dealt with this comment nicely: “The reviewer’s complaint that Susan Barker does not write about the particular Chinese people he is most interested in is just silly.”
Of course, the novel doesn’t cover everything that deserves to be covered. It is a novel not an encyclopedia. Most importantly it captures how, although we currently live in one of the least violent and most rational ages, history is indeed cyclical. One simile suggests that the fossil fuels that pollute Beijing are angered at being dug up from their million year-old graves. This fits nicely with the central motif of “history is coming for you”.
To call Incarnations “orientalist” would be a very tired charge. But equally tired are clichéd constructions of Eastern societies that fixate on the carnal, irrational, and predatory, as Incarnations does, while ignoring complexity and the socially or culturally unexpected.
Yes, this novel is full of violence, particularly sexual violence, but then so is history. Yet there are moments of tenderness that make a nonsense of the reviewer’s claim of “fixation”.
The scene where the main character meets the woman who will become his wife contains the following sentence: “Then she smiled, but as though her heart was breaking, and Wang knew that she needed saving from more than the rain.” After all the misery that has gone on earlier in the novel, reading that sentence is like breathing fresh air on a clear, Beijing day.
And as for the claim that this novel ignores complexity: “The Incarnations” captures the prejudices and superstitions of six different historical periods as well as evoking their sights, sounds and smells convincingly. This could not have been achieved without minute research and an appreciation of the complexities of each period.
Tagged Book, Books, Literature, Review, Susan Barker, The IncarnationsLeave a comment
“The Incarnations” by Susan Barker: A Page-Turning Thriller Spanning 1500 Years of Chinese History
This was originally published on The Nanfang on June 20, 2014
Literature is one of the few fields in which megalomania is a good thing. In fact, as Italo Calvino argued, without megalomania it is barely worthwhile.
Academic Alastair Macintosh claimed that the world is a ball of strings, including economics, ecology, theology and popular culture. Most non-fiction books about China written in English in recent years tend to be happy to pull at just one string. A novel by contrast can reasonably attempt to unravel the whole ball.
“The Incarnations” by Susan Barker is a radical and fascinating novel that makes a commendable fist of doing just this. Covering over a millennium of history and most of the major themes that are currently popular with China watchers, to work with such material would – in less capable hands – be as irresponsible as playing with a ouija board. But Susan Barker, a Creative Writing M.A. who researched the book over several years after moving to China in 2007, handles it with near flawless sensitivity and skill.
Wang Jun, a Beijing cab driver, starts receiving anonymous letters from someone who claims to have been close to him over several previous lives as well as his current one. Some letters display an intimate knowledge of Wang Jun’s far from perfect family life. Others tell stories about the narrator’s relationships with Wang Jun as he was everything from a slave of Mongol invaders in the thirteenth century to a foreigner during the Qing Dynasty.
The most extraordinary of the chapters set in the past takes place during the Tang Dynasty and would stand alone as a short story. Loaded with fascinating period details, it claims that Wang Jun became a eunuch after fathering the narrator and is one of the places in which Susan Barker’s flare as a prose stylist is truly successful. In one scene, a madam gives an inexperienced young prostitute the following advice:
Men have all sorts of peccadilloes…some men like to penetrate the red during a woman’s moon cycle, or piddle on a woman out of the jade watering spout. Some men like to poke a woman in the back passage, which is called pushing the boat upstream.
As fascinating as this is, the strongest part of the novel is that set in the Hu Jintao era. It paints a convincing picture of ordinary, downtrodden Beijingers as the new China prepares to celebrate its 2008 coming out party. Every character has a compelling and believable backstory and through them, Susan Barker shows a deep engagement with the major issues in modern China that have been written about over the past decade.
We first meet Wang Jun when he is delving through garbage (Adam Minter’s “Junkyard Planet”). Wang Jun’s wife points out that girls are less important in the eyes of their parents, therefore they are freer (Leslie Chang’s “Factory Girls”). Wang Jun’s colleague Baldy Zhang is an incurable misogynist (Leta Hong Fincher’s “Leftover Women“). Wang Jun’s father is a bent government official (Philip Pan’s “Out of Mao’s Shadow”). One of the major characters is an oppressed homosexual (Richard Burger’s “Behind the Red Door”).
Whether or not Susan Barker read all these books, it is clear that her knowledge of China was won rather than scavenged. One of the major themes is China’s selectiveness in what areas of its past it’s willing to face (Louisa Lim’s “The People’s Republic of Amnesia”), but this need not distract from the fact that, for all its erudition, “The Incarnations” is best enjoyed as a thriller.
Susan Barker is a brilliant prose stylist and this book should be read out loud. Even some of the most minor details are charged with social and historical insight, such as the items that Wang Jun finds as he rummages through garbage. The notoriously difficult sex scenes are also well done.
However, Barker’s stylistic brilliance is the source of the novel’s biggest weakness – overwriting. Some of the similes, which average more than one per page in some sections, fall flat, not sufficiently defying cliche to warrant inclusion. Children are “wrapped up like little eskimoes” in winter.
This indulgent use of dazzling writing can be unappealing, like a beauty queen whose knowledge of her own hotness is to the detriment of her likability (oops, an unnecessary simile). At times, the excessive scene setting distracts from the narrative and makes the book a bit too much like a Creative Writing PhD thesis (oh bugger, another one). At times, my enjoyment of the writing declined like Wang Jun’s marriage (that’s the last one, I promise).
Moreover, Barker doesn’t always follow the principle that adverbs are guilty until proven innocent, though there is one brilliant use of the word “unfilially” towards the end. The edition I received also contains some utterly avoidable errors, although it is a pre-release version that may change prior to printing. Wang Jun’s stepmother Lin Hong is twice referred to as “Ling Hong.” Changsha is described as Mao Zedong’s hometown. The word “drank” is mixed up with the word “drunk” and the word “wedding” is mixed up with the word “marriage.”
Most of the scene setting is excellent though, such as at the beginning when Barker introduces Beijing by describing some of the passengers Wang Jun has had over the years. “Incarnations” is a genuine page turner that brings it all together quite unlike any other book about China published in the past decade.
Tagged Book Review, Books, Literature, Susan Barker, The IncarnationsLeave a comment
“Wish Lanterns”: Poignant Entertainment for All Levels of China-Watcher
This was originally published on The Nanfang July 29, 2016
Steven Pinker, author of “The Better Angels of Our Nature”, has cited literacy as a major force for world peace. He points out that at times of increasing literacy books like “Oliver Twist”, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and “All Quiet on the Western Front” helped bring to light the sufferings of people who might otherwise have been ignored.
“Wish Lanterns” by Alec Ash does not focus on extremes of poverty and upheaval, but instead describes in intimate detail the lives of six people whose experiences will be alien to much of the readership. They are China’s millenials, the generation born after the political catastrophes of the Mao era when Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms brought unprecedented peace and prosperity to the People’s Republic.
By minutely focusing on these lives, “Wish Lanterns” serves to both demystify a nation which is by turns demonized and exoticized as well as educate even the most experienced China watchers about the people who will write the next chapter in the Middle Kingdom’s history. The three male and three female subjects were born within five years of each other, all have a university education and all have lived in Beijing.
It is not a comprehensive portrait, but the depth and quality of the writing make it well worth anybody’s time. By removing himself from the action – though Ash was present at some of the key scenes described – the book gets fully under the skins of six Chinese people who have come of age at the beginning of what some say will be the Chinese Century.
One of the characters flies to Shanxi Province to meet a person with whom she has exchanged flirtatious WeChat messages. Within eight pages they have shaken hands, flirted, declared their love, been to bed, met the parents, and married, a series of events that covers a timespan of thirty-five days.
This might seem profoundly weird to a cosmopolitan person of the same age. In another writer’s hands, the chapter would probably be a frontrunner for the Bad Sex Award, but Alec Ash has so comprehensively evoked the pressures, dilemmas and uncertainties that the subjects face, that readers will find it difficult to imagine themselves doing things differently. The spare prose and rugged, unforgiving setting even help make it romantic, despite the immediacy with which the couple discusses marriage as a practical arrangement.
“Wish Lanterns” is littered with exquisite touches. When the rebellious, tomboyish Mia is offered a fashion stylist job at Bazaar, it is described as the kind of job her more demure friends “would have given a gloved arm and stockinged leg for.” The weekend bonanza of families visiting Ikea describes scenes in which couples “have real domestics in fake kitchens.”
Perhaps the strongest and most dramatic chapter in the whole book involves Snail, a boy from the Anhui countryside who is the first in his family to go to college, making it all the way to the nation’s capital for his studies. The scene is set in the mid-2000s when World of Warcraft was at the height of its popularity. Standout lines include: “The game offered a sense of accomplishment that three-dimensional life lacked”.
Snail is apprehended by his parents for neglecting his studies due to his gaming addiction. Like the rest of the book, the moment is brilliantly grounded in the five senses (“Snail was pulled out of World of Warcraft to face something he hadn’t seen in a long time: sunlight”.) Every viewpoint is poignantly observed and no person is judged (“With the supervisor’s help, the first time his mother used the Internet was to look up the website for an Internet-addiction rehab center”.)
The book covers issues with which any China-follower of the past decade will be familiar, from the Wang Yue tragedy to the downfall of Bo Xilai. Yet as well as looking at old issues in a new light, it will teach just about any China hand things they did not know.
One subject Fred, a Tsinghua University graduate from a privileged Hainan family, encounters the New Left thinker Pan Wei who is too radical for even the left wing of the Communist Party. The West, Pan Wei argues, is historically a nomadic society which by nature favours individualism, while China is by tradition agrarian and better suited to traditionalism. The evolution of Fred’s political thinking is one of the most engaging elements.
Yet politics is only a tiny part of “Wish Lanterns”. Through his interviewing skills and keen observations, Alec Ash has interwoven six compelling stories and unobtrusively presented the economic, historic and cultural realities that lie within.
Tagged Alec Ash, Book, Books, Literature, Review, Wish LanternsLeave a comment
“Blind Water Pass” by Anna Metcalfe: Haunting Stories of Intercultural Miscommunication
This was originally published on The Nanfang on October 10, 2016
In theory, the art of the short story is uniquely well-suited to the internet age. Like good web copy, a short story should grab the reader with the first line and keep them hooked. Like good web copy, a short story should be like perfect abs, everything in its right place and with no flab.
In fact, the opposite is the case. You can’t read a short story properly online. They demand something that today’s digital world forbids us from giving: our undivided attention.
“Blind Water Pass”, a collection of short stories by Anna Metcalfe, some of which are set in China, deals with issues that are often too discomforting to think about. These include the plight of immigrants who live in the grey areas of the legal system, the communities and traditions that are being destroyed by ruthless progress, and the suffering of people who make life in developed countries so comfortable.
The collection supports John Carey’s assertion in “What Good Are the Arts” that literature is a profoundly middle-class art form, historically hostile to pride, grandeur and self-esteem. Most of its central characters are caught up in social and geopolitical forces beyond their understanding.
One standout example is “Number Three”, which was shortlisted for the 2014 Sunday Times Short Story Award. It takes place in a city’s Number Three Middle School and focuses on Mr. James, a foreign English teacher, Miss Coral, who is appointed as his liaison, and Moon, a diligent student who takes tuition from Miss Coral.
The story captures the slowness of life in a Chinese public school and the smallness of the individual in its vast mechanism: “(Moon) neither seeks friendship nor refuses it, and wanders the extensive grounds of the school wearing a look of mild surprise, as though perpetually living her first day.” Like most of the stories, it is not particularly action-packed, but teases out the notion that when spending time in an alien culture, we may do much more damage than we intend by seeking to be understood before trying to understand.
Metcalfe seldom specifies where the stories are set, but those that explicitly take place in China capture the uniqueness of the Middle Kingdom and at the same time demystify it. The following description appears in “Number Three”: “A late afternoon sun casts a haze over the urban sprawl. Smog and fresh dust linger, hovering over warehouses, slums and disused factories as they leave the inner city and approach the airport.”
The collection’s title piece revolves around a girl who entertains tourists with made-up Confucian quotes. This serves as a metaphor of how China’s ancient history is ever-changing to fit the needs of the present.
The central conflict is between the teenaged Lily and her grandmother, who clings onto a folk spirituality that she cannot adapt to the new China. Lily speaks implausibly good English for a rural girl, able to discern the quality of translations and to edit them, but like all good fiction, these stories operate with their own internal logic.
The three major forces in the story are spirituality, technology and nature, but none appears to have the answers the characters seek: “Lily looks at the sky as though waiting for its wisdom to descend.” By avoiding didacticism or a clear environmental message, it lives longer in the memory than the vast majority of what appears on the internet.
Of the other stories set in China, “Everything Is Aftermath” also follows a young girl stuck between two seemingly irreconcilable worlds. Metcalfe’s minute attention to the details that her viewpoint characters observe recalls some of Katherine Mansfield’s best work: “His ears are stoppered with blue rubber headphones that produce a tinny, rattling sound. It reminds her of the metal gates at her school, the way they clatter in the breeze.”
Other standout pieces include “Old Ghost”, in which the narrator is an immigrant female taxi driver in Paris whose relationship with the mysterious title character was torn apart by unspecified political issues. The hypnotic “Mirrorball” follows a narrator who begins each section by saying her age, following her from nine all the way up to twenty-two as she gradually evolves to become like her abusive father’s attractive young girlfriend.
A graduate of the famous Creative Writing Master of Arts at University of East Anglia, Anna Metcalfe is a ferociously talented writer whose best work is well worth tearing oneself away from the smartphone for. It has something to say about cultural contrasts that is beyond the ordinarily expressible.
Tagged Anna Metcalfe, Blind Water Pass, Book, Books, Literature, ReviewLeave a comment
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CCHR Alumna named Judge in Special Jurisdiction for Peace in Colombia
Author: Sean O'Brien
Xiomara Cecilia Balanta Moreno, a 2012 graduate of Notre Dame's LL.M. Program in International Human Rights Law, is among the 51 judges recently appointed to the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, a key tribunal crafted to further the Colombian peace process. Balanta, an Afro-Colombian law professor with a doctorate in law from the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, will be responsible for investigating, determining guilt, and imposing punishment in cases of major human rights and humanitarian law violations committed in connection with the armed conflict in Colombia.
As reported by Thomson Reuters, more than half of the judges appointed will be women, a significant move toward giving women a voice in the peace building process. "The top courts have been a restricted space for women, especially for Afro-Colombian and indigenous women," the agency quotes Balanta as saying. “We're properly prepared to participate…this is a historic moment.”
Sean O'Brien, director of the human rights LL.M. program and Balanta's professor, celebrated her appointment. "From her years as a human rights defender in Cali, to her study of transitional justice at Notre Dame and her post-graduate internship at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Xiomara has spent more than a decade preparing herself for this role in her country's future. We could not be more proud of our association with our esteemed graduate."
Also selected as a judge was Pedro Elías Díaz Romero, who served as a visiting fellow at Notre Dame's Center for Civil and Human Rights in 2001. Díaz has worked as a human rights specialist for more than 20 years, including as a human rights prosecutor in Colombia, an attorney at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and as a lawyer at the Universidad Externado in Bogotá.
Former NDLS professor and director of the CCHR, Juan E. Méndez, was part of the five-person selection committee, as was Diego García-Sayán, who served as both Peru's minister of justice and minister of foreign affairs, was past President of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and was visiting fellow at the Kellogg Institute in 2014.
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Volin (Eichenbaum, Vsevelod Mikhailovich) aka Voline, 1882 -1945
A short biography of Volin (Voline) Russian anarchist and one of the founders of the anarchist synthesis
Vsevelod Eichenbaum was born at Tikhvin in Russia on 11th August 1882 into a well-off Jewish family. His grandfather was a mathematician and well-known poet. His father and his mother were doctors. Vsevelod completed his secondary education at a high school in Voronezh and was able to speak fluent French and German before going to university. He studied at the law faculty in St Petersburg where he came in contact with revolutionary ideas.
In 1901 he broke with his parents and abandoned his studies, surviving by teaching courses. He also set up a study circle for workers. He took part in the 1905 revolution and the setting up of the first soviet on 10th January. He turned down the presidency of the soviet, believing that this should be filled by a worker and not an intellectual. During this period he took on the name he now became known by for the rest of his life, Volin (meaning Man of Freedom). He joined the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, and donated the inheritance from his father to it. The following year he took part in the insurrection at Kronstadt. He was arrested and imprisoned at the Peter and Paul fortress and then deported to Siberia. He escaped from there and fled to France.
He now began frequenting anarchist circles and in 1911 became an anarchist. He joined the group set up by Apollon Karelin. In 1913 he served on the International Action Committee Against War. When arrest and deportation threatened because of his anti-militarist activity, he left France for the USA. During his stay in France he had met his first partner Tatiana Solopova, a Socialist-Revolutionary and they had two children. She died in 1915.
In the US, Volin held meetings on the 1905 Revolution and contributed to Golos Truda (The Voice of Labour) the anarchist paper that was the organ of the Union of Russian Workers of the USA and Canada, which had 10,000 members. He returned to Russia in May-June 1917 with the help of the Anarchist Red Cross and edited a roneotyped newssheet Poplavok during the course of the voyage.
Volin went to Petrograd and edited Golos Truda which had now become the voice of the Union for Anarcho-Syndicalist Propaganda. This started as a weekly and then became a daily before being closed down by the Bolsheviks. In spring 1918 Volin denounced the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and left Petrograd. He went to the front to join the anarchist units fighting the forces of the White general Denikin. On his return he spent some time at Moscow. He turned down the Bolshevik offer of director of education and then left for the Ukraine. Here he was re-united with his second partner, Anna Grigorieva, and their four children. He was one of the founders of the Nabat (Alarm) Confederation of Anarchists which sought to unite anarchist-communists, anarcho-syndicalists and individualists. The Nabat HQ was situated at Bobrow and Volin worked in the soviet of that town, concerning himself with education and culture as well as helping edit the paper of the Confederation, also called Nabat. When this transferred to Kursk, Volin went with it and took part in a Nabat conference there on 5th January 1919. In summer 1919 he joined the Makhnovist movement and involved himself in intensive activity around education and culture and the organisation of meetings and educationals. In fact Volin held 400 educational meetings during the course of the revolution. In August 1919 he served as chairman of the Insurrectionary Military Council of the Makhnovists. Struck down by typhus, he decided to journey to Moscow to get treatment but was apprehended by the Cheka and imprisoned. He was freed from a Bolshevik prison in October 1920 thanks to the new pact between the Makhnovists and the Bolsheviks. He was again arrested by the Cheka on 24th December 1920 along with all the leading members of Nabat on the occasion of their conference. Volin started a hunger strike along with other imprisoned anarchists like Maximov. He was sentenced to death but thanks to the intervention of foreign union delegates to the founding conference of the Red Union International he was freed.
He was expelled from the Soviet Union into Germany. In Berlin he worked with the local section of the anarcho-syndicalist union the FAUD. He was one of the editors of the pamphlet The Repression of Anarchism in Soviet Russia in 1922. He also edited the Russian language anarchist paper Rabotchee Anarchist (Anarchist Worker) subtitled Review of Anarcho-Synthesist Expression. He translated this into French, also proving a French translation of Arshinov’s History of the Makhnovist Movement for which he wrote a preface. He also contributed to several French anarchist papers, and in Le Libertaire defended Makhno against charges of anti-Semitism. He wrote about his Russian experiences in the Revue Anarchiste.
In 1925, at the request of Sebastien Faure, he moved to France and lived at Gennevilliers. He attended the congress of the anarchist organisation the Union Anarchiste on 12-13th July 1926, along with Makhno and they both appear to have joined the UA. He joined the Groupe d’Etudes Sociales (Social Studies Group) and translated the Organisational Platform of Makhno, Arshinov et al into French. For his part Volin and seven others took issue with the document. In their Reply of Several Russian Anarchists to The Platform they raised accusations of vanguardism and bolshevisation. Against the ideas of the Platform Volin advanced the ideas of the Synthesis, harking back to his experience with Nabat. He believed different tendencies of anarchism could be reconciled and could co-exist in one organisation. This controversy ended his friendship with Makhno and their relations became acrimonious after this.
Volin developed further the idea of the Synthesis with Sebastien Faure. He also wrote several articles for L’Encyclopedie Anarchiste, including on Class Struggle, Historical Materialism, Anti-Semitism and the Anarchist Synthesis. In 1931 he coordinated a special issue of Le Libertaire on the repression carried out by Stalin.
In 1934 he wrote Red Fascism in which he compared Bolshevism to Fascism. Nevertheless, whilst recalling Trotsky’s role in the repression of the Russian anarchist movement and of the Kronstadt uprising, he protested against his expulsion from France that summer. He gave a speech at Makhno’s funeral in July. He began to work with Andre Prudhommeaux and contributed to his paper Terre Libre, contributing articles on Russia and Soviet repression. He joined the Federation Anarchiste de Langue Francaise which was founded at Toulouse on 15th-16th August 1936. With Prudhommeaux in Spain, Volin took on the editing of L’Espagne Antifasciste (CNT-FAI-AIT) which later became L’Espagne Nouvelle. Like Prudhommeaux, Volin denounced CNT-FAI participation in the Republican government.
Volin moved to Marseilles in 1939. His partner Anna Grigorieva died in December. Despite being seriously affected by her death Volin continued with his anarchist activity. During WW2 Volin defended internationalist positions. Together with Andre Arru he set up the Groupe Anarchiste International which circulated underground pamphlets and leaflets. Arru (real name Jean-Rene Sauliere) had sought Volin out and had put to him the idea of creating an underground anarchist movement capable of producing propaganda. The international group included, apart from the French, several Italians, several Spaniards, a Czech and a Russian (1). Volin wanted to help with flyposting but Arru observed that Volin, a man in his sixties, did not have the necessary fitness to make a quick escape and that he had severe intestinal problems contracted from his time in the Peter and Paul fortress. Volin participated in all the discussions of the group and contributed to their underground paper La Raison (Reason) the only anarchist paper to appear under German occupation. The first and only issue appeared in June 1943. He also participated in a secret conference in the outskirts of Marseilles. As he was forbidden to travel outside of the city limits he travelled there with false papers. Twenty people attended the conference representing groups in Toulouse, Paris, and Marseilles. There were also 3 delegates from different groups of the Spanish movement as observers. Unfortunately, soon after, almost the whole group in Marseilles was arrested, though Voline escaped the round-up.
Volin continued to be active in attempts to resurrect the anarchist movement after the Liberation. He attended the pre-conference meeting in Agen in October 1944. Then Volin fell seriously ill and was hospitalised. By now he had lost a lot of weight but he remained acutely alert. He was finally dismissed from hospital and was looked after by two Spanish comrades. Then his son Leo took him to Paris.
He died on 18th September 1945 of tuberculosis, which he had contracted during his many prison terms. His body was cremated at the Pere Lachaise cemetery and his ashes lie in the columbarium there, not far from those of his old comrade Nestor Makhno.
Shortly after his death his The Unknown Revolution was published thanks to his old comrade Jacques Doubinsky.
Sources: Itineraire No.13 devoted to Volin.Published in France
Les anars des Origines a hier soir. Published in France
(1) The Czech was Joseph Sperck. Another active member of the group was the black Frenchman Armand Maurasse. Pierre Guiral in his book on the Liberation in Marseilles mentioned the group: “ In a town where they always had sympathisers let us not forget the anarchists. ..a little group, clandestine, strictly libertarian, hostile to the Germans, to Vichy, to capitalism, to the war leaders, to the Stalinist dictatorship. That way they gathered enemies, so well that the anarchists were suspected by the Gaullists and by the Communists”.
Battlescarred
Oct 4 2011 09:20
Russian revolution
Sep 6 2013 19:17
A small anecdote I heard from comrades about Volin in Marseilles during the war. He knew Marc and Clara Chirik of the French communist left group in the city, and they recognised each other as fellow internationalists. They were all poor but Volin was desperately poor. Marc and Clara knew that Volin would be too proud to accept any charity so they asked him if he could provide them with German lessons (at least I think it was German...) in exchange for dinner, which he agreed to do.
Voline was one of the greatest Anarchists in my view.Its a shame there isn't more literature on his life and ideas.The Synthesis group was a much needed idea to forge some unity and homogeneity in Anarchist practice but I agree with Makhno on the implausibility of including Individualists in that concept.
As a previous post stated it would be great to have all these Libertarian anecdotes in book form.It would be a great read and propaganda format.
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City council OKs federal grant allotment ordinance
By JIM DINO / Published: July 11, 2019
The City of Hazleton’s Streetscape project will continue in the Alter Street Business District, some streets will get paved, and some dilapidated properties will be demolished with the city’s 2020 federal Community Development Block Grant funding.
But Councilwoman Allison Barletta wanted to see more money allocated for demolition and different projects earmarked for recreation.
Wednesday evening, city council, on a 3-2 vote — with Barletta and Councilwoman Jean Mope voting no — approved the second and third readings of an ordinance earmarking the $687,996 CDBG allotment for the city’s Consolidated Strategy for Housing and Community Development.
The third largest allocation, $100,000, has been set aside for demolition and site remediation.
But Barletta said it’s not enough. She said she’d like to see amendments made to the plan to put more money into paving streets and demolition.
“There are so many buildings falling apart,” Barletta said. “We have so many properties that need to be taken down. I was at one the other day where there were actually holes in the foundation. It is very unsafe. No one is going to want to move to Hazleton to live if you’re moving into a house with a big hole in the foundation, and there’s animals living there, and the grass is high. I think more money should go to clean up our city, more for demolition.”
Barletta especially took issue with $60,319 going to City View Park in Hazleton Heights for recreation improvements at the park, including a pavilion.
“At the 12th Ward Playground, there’s metal sticking up out of the ground, swings are broken, fences are falling over, the grass is high, and the benches are broken,” Barletta said. “I’d rather see us make all of our parks safe, instead of using it on one park.”
Joseph Zeller, the city’s economic development director in charge of the Community Development program and recreation, said city officials have been trying “for several years” to do something with the 12th Ward facility, but haven’s succeeded yet.
“A foundation came forward that they were going to rehabilitate the park with money they received over a series of years, in addition to having fundraisers,” Zeller said. “For whatever reason, they decided to do it outside of the state. We have been in talks with a bank for over a year to completely rehabilitate that park at no cost. It’s going to take a significant amount, more than $60,000 to rehabilitate that.”
After the meeting, Zeller referred to a map that showed the 12th Ward Playground is outside of the low- and moderate-income area where the city can use CDBG funds — so those funds cannot be used at the park.
“We have a $47,000 DCNR (state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources) grant for a comprehensive parks and recreation study,” Zeller said. “In addition, we received matching funds from an LSA (Local Shares Account, or gaming) grant. Once that is completed, they’re going to make recommendations on how we should proceed with all of the recreational facilities owned by the city.”
Council President Bob Gavio asked if money could be transferred within the CDBG program to other projects later. Zeller said that can happen only if money is left over from a specific project.
“Unfortunately, the cost of demolition is very expensive, and it doesn’t go very far,” Zeller said. “Maybe you’ll get three or four properties down a year.”
The largest chunk of the funds, $191,078, has been set aside to mill, pave and reconstruct various streets not yet identified, including installing curb ramps, relocating storm inlets and reconstruct ng sewer lines as needed.
The second largest allotment, $137,599, is going for program administration and oversight, including application for other federal programs.
The third largest is the $100,000 for demolition, and the fourth largest, $75,000, is going for the Streetscape program in the Alter Street business district.
Mayor Jeff Cusat said the $75,000 will cover sidewalk and lighting improvements on Alter Street, from Diamond Avenue to Sixth Street.
Construction on that project will not begin until next year. But the Streetscape in the first two blocks of Wyoming Street, from Spruce Street to Maple Street is slated to be done this summer.
Other allocations:
■ $68,000 that will serve as a match to a Green Light-Go grant the city received for traffic signal improvements at 15th and Grant streets.
■ $20,000 for a case manager at a local homeless shelter.
■ $26,000 for the installation of cameras in high-crime neighborhoods.
■ $10,000 for police patrols in high-crime neighborhoods.
Earned income tax
On first reading, council approved an ordinance providing for the collection of a 1.1% tax on earned income and net profits for city residents, and 1.2% tax for non-city residents for the city’s pension fund.
The ordinance also provides for 0.65% to go to the city’s pension fund from both the resident and non-resident taxes.
Cusat said the rates are the same as this year, as outlined in the city’s Act 47 Recovery Plan.
Contact the writer: jdino@standardspeaker.com 570-501-3585
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Shop › Seasonal
Net more profits
The general media may be full of stories about the forthcoming EU in/out referendum, but the sports pages will be full of articles about another EU showdown the UEFA Euro 2016 tournament.
It all kicks off at the Stade de France on Friday 10 June at 8pm when current champions France take on Romania. Fifty-one matches will be played in total with each expected to attract an estimated 150 million live spectators, all culminating in the final on Sunday July 10. But what's even more exciting this time around is that three home nations England, Northern Ireland and Wales are all taking part.
You might not be a mad football fan yourself, but you'd be mad not to get behind this event, as historically it's proved a sales winner for retailers. A new report from Him! entitled Preparing for Sporting Events 2016 found that 70% of retailers use national events to increase footfall. It also revealed that 44% of UK shoppers said they planned to watch Euro 16. Some might choose to do this at their local pub but many will prefer to do it at home, especially now that so many people have large-screen TVs. Sixty per cent of shoppers Him! spoke to said they buy their food and drink for such events from supermarkets rather than c-stores because of the better range they find there. This highlights an opportunity for neighbourhood retailers, such as forecourt stores, to get behind events like the Euros to show shoppers that they have what they need. For the Euros, Him! found that beer was the number one purchase (bought by 46% of consumers) followed by crisps (42%).
With beer so popular, Carlsberg as the Official Beer of UEFA Euro 2016 and the England team, is a 'must stock' especially as it has special limited-edition packaging to create on-shelf stand-out.
Carlsberg packs feature a mix of the brand's classic green together with shards of the tournament's official colour scheme of red, blue and white. Images of stadiums, supporters and footballs also feature, alongside the word 'Probably', serving as a link to the brand's iconic "If Carlsberg Did" campaign.
Carlsberg Export features a premium gold and silver design, with a football boot where studs are replaced by iconic French landmarks, including the Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe.
In addition, for the impulse channel there is an exclusive on-pack offer. The promotion invites shoppers to enter a Carlsberg's Man of the Match competition for a chance to win an all-expenses paid trip to Paris and the opportunity to present the Carlsberg 'Man of the Match' trophy at an England group game.
The activity is part of a campaign called 'If Carlsberg did Substitutions', which includes trade activation, broadcast activity, stunts and consumer giveaways to enable retailers to unlock the tournament's potential. It will run in stages to maximise consumer engagement with the brand in the run-up to and throughout the football tournament.
Part of this will be a four-week outdoor promotion with 1,500 panels across the UK, reaching 72% of all UK adults. The panels' messages will encourage fans to put their rivalries aside and substitute support for their club with support for their country. In addition, TV idents will be shown during matches broadcast on ITV including the tournament's semi-finals and final, while perimeter LED advertising boards will highlight the lager brand at every match.
Carlsberg will also be engaging fans around the world through its digital and social media channels presenting supporters with the chance to vote for their official Carlsberg Man of the Match for each of the European tournament's 51 games.
Carlsberg UK marketing director, David Scott, says: "Major tournaments provide a huge opportunity for retailers. Many people plan ahead to watch the matches at home, often making it a social occasion with friends, so they're going to stock up with food and drink for the matches.
"This year is particularly important for the off-trade as the home nations England, Wales and Northern Ireland have all qualified, so there are more matches for retailers to capitalise on the opportunity."
For retailers Carlsberg is providing UEFA Euro 2016-branded retail display units and pos kits, which include fixture lists.
On the soft drinks side, official Euro 16 sponsor Coca-Cola has an on-pack promotion offering football fans the chance to attend the most keenly anticipated matches.
The 'Win Tickets' promotion will appear on 90 million packs of Coca-Cola, Coca-Cola Zero and Diet Coke, including 500ml, 1.25ltr and 1.75ltr PET bottles and 330ml can multipacks. Some 504 winners will receive four tickets each 2,016 in total plus £400 to help cover the costs of travel and accommodation.
Every promotional pack will feature a 10-digit code which can be entered at www.coke.co.uk/tickets and fans can enter to win tickets for specific matches on different days, ensuring that they're in the running for the games they're most interested in. Daily prize draws take place until May 30.
Among the prizes on offer are chances to see matches involving England, Wales, Northern Ireland and The Republic of Ireland, as well as a selection of other high-profile matches including the quarter finals.
The promotion will be supported by a wide-reaching marketing campaign, including television commercials, digital out-of-home advertising at transport hubs, and digital and social activity communicating which matches are being drawn on each day of the promotion.
Pos material is available for retailers to help encourage consumers to take part.
Coca-Cola Enterprises' operational marketing director, Caroline Cater, says: "With England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland all taking part in UEFA Euro 2016, this is one of the most keenly awaited football events in memory, and the 'Win Tickets' promotion is a great opportunity for retailers to increase their sales as excitement builds.
"With tickets for the biggest matches understandably in high demand, retailers should look to stock these promotional packs as football fans try to secure their place at the biggest football event of the year."
It's not just the official sponsors which are getting in on the Euro 16 activity. Mars, which has been an official supporter of the FA since 2009, is launching a new #Believe campaign. There will be limited edition #Believe packaging for singles, duos, four- and nine-packs.
Mars Chocolate UK trade communications manager, Bep Dhaliwal, says: "There are three home nations in the competition this year, and with 73% of viewers likely to buy snacks and drinks before the matches (Nielsen data), our new #Believe Mars bar packaging provides retailers with a great opportunity to implement on-shelf activation which brings the magic alive for consumers."
A media investment of £4.1m will support the campaign with #Believe TV advertising, starring three of England's brightest football stars. The advert, which will be on screens across the country from May 15, will be supplemented by a significant multi-channel social media campaign.
Mars brand manager, Greg Kent, says: "Up to 20 million people are set to watch each match in the tournament in France with a potential audience of 15.3 million UK football fans predicted to be on Twitter at any one time during the average Euro 2016 game. Our #Believe campaign recognises the importance of genuine consumer engagement around the tournament matches and this is echoed in each element of our approach from our limited-edition packaging, to our TV creative and digital engagement. We want to encourage collective support for our national team and making a statement on-pack is an effective way to ensure this stays top of mind for consumers."
For retailers, there will also be a range of pos solutions which feature fan imagery and the home nations' colours. And while the Scottish team didn't make it to France, Mars is still encouraging retailers and fans to continue to show belief in their team, providing an exclusive overlay for Scottish stores and continuing the campaign presence on-pack. A competition will also help to generate further consumer engagement, offering the chance for two lucky people to win a kickabout with a Scottish player, as well as hundreds of other football prizes which will be up for grabs.
Don't forget the younger fans
Panini's Official UEFA Euro 2016 sticker collection represents a milestone among football collectables as it's the 10th Euro sticker album released by the firm.
The all-new sticker album is full of facts, stats and trivia about Europe's top teams and players. Plus it has new content including split stickers, calendar pages and vintage images of past UEFA Euro tournaments.
The collection consists of a 96-page album with 680 stickers to collect. There are a total of 50 special stickers to look out for and collectors can kick start their collection with a starter pack which includes an album and 31 stickers (rrp £2.99).
The collection will be supported by a multi-channel marketing campaign including TV, press and online advertising, magazine cover mount activity, and a national newspaper and sampling campaign.
Friday June 10 at 8pmFrance v Romania
Saturday June 11 at 5pmWales v Slovakia
Saturday June 11 at 8pmEngland v Russia
Sunday June 12 at 5pmPoland v Northern Ireland
Thursday June 16 at 2pmEngland v Wales
Thursday June 16 at 5pmUkraine v Northern Ireland
Monday June 20 at 8pmRussia v Wales
Monday June 20 at 8pmSlovakia v England
Tuesday June 21 at 5pmNorthern Ireland v Germany
Saturday June 25knockout games start
Thursday June 30quarter finals start
Wednesday July 6/Thursday July 7semi finals
Sunday July 10finals
Richard Perry, business development manager, MFG:
"We always get behind events such as the Euros. This year is great as three home nations have qualified so we expect a lot of interest.
"For Euro 2016 our top sites will have point-of-sale automatically sent to them to support the event while other sites can request it. The point-of-sale is pretty site-specific, depending on size etc. For some we have header boards but they are not right for every store. We then stock all the related products and promotions.
"For customers, a lot of the time it's a case of 'the football's on, it's a hot day, so let's go down to the shop for a pack of beer'. And that's where we win over the grocery multiples because our four-packs of beer are chilled and ready to drink."
Cracked Egg Muffin in time for Easter
Aryzta Food Solutions adapts muffin for Easter
Ferrero ramps up its spring occasions range
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Sabra Briere
Sabra Briere (b. 1950) is a long-time Ann Arbor resident, Democratic Party activist and Ann Arbor City Council Member. Briere has served as a Democrat on the Ann Arbor City Council representing Ward 1 since November 2007.
Sabra Briere at a June 2014 Ann Arbor planning commission meeting. (Photo courtesy of The Ann Arbor Chronicle.)
A former Ann Arbor Democratic Party Chair (in the early 1990s), she has been active in local politics since 1978. She was first elected to the City Council in 2007 representing Ward 1, and since then she has been re-elected every two years to that position. Her current term runs to November 2015. She also serves as the city council's representative on the Ann Arbor planning commission.
Briere was one of four candidates for mayor of Ann Arbor in the August 2014 Democratic primary. Other candidates – Christopher Taylor, Stephen Kunselman and Sally Petersen – were also sitting councilmembers. Taylor received 7,070 votes (47.6%) compared to Briere’s 2,967 (20%), Kunselman’s 2,447 (16.5%) and Petersen’s 2,364 (15.9%).
Briere's political campaigns are typically marked by her stance that she would be an "independent voice on Council." She introduced and Council passed the Citizens' Participation Ordinance in 2008, which mandates increased notification and citizen involvement in many proposed developments. This ordinance altered the approach to citizen input in just a few months.
Briere has identified herself closely with neighborhood issues, such as working to get the Lower Town Historic District created. She has also supported the Downtown Development Authority and downtown businesses. She supported the Library Lane underground parking structure but opposed the Police/Courts facility (now called the Justice Center), fulfilling a campaign promise. She opposed high-density student housing at 42 North, but in the end supported 601 Forest. She voted against the housing development at 413 E. Huron.
Briere grew up in Indiana and moved to Ann Arbor in 1973. She is married to attorney David Cahill, her third husband. The couple, who've been married since 1986, lives in an historic house in the Lower Town area. She has an adult son, John, from a previous marriage.
Timeline: Sabra Briere
Nov. 3, 2015: In the Ward 1 City Council general election Briere prevails in a race in which she is the only candidate on the ballot. No official write-in candidates had registered.
Aug. 4, 2015: In the Ward 1 City Council Democratic Party primary race Briere wins the nomination with 690 votes (70.5%) compared to 682 287 (29.3%) for Will Leaf. Briere to appear on Nov. 3, 2015 Ward 1 City Council ballot against Independent Jeff Hayner. [need verification: Petitions for Ann Arbor Elected Office: Status doesn't show Hayner petitions yet submitted.]
Apr. 15, 2015: Briere participates in the Ford School debate of Ann Arbor City Council candidates.
Feb. 13, 2015: Briere formalizes her intent to seek re-election to her Ward 1 Ann Arbor City Council seat by taking out petitions to seek the nomination of the Democratic Party in the Aug. 4, 2015 primary election.
Aug. 5, 2014: Briere comes in second in a four-way Democratic Party primary election for mayor, losing to Christopher Taylor.
January 2014: Briere announces her intent to run for mayor of Ann Arbor.
2013: Briere is re-elected to her fourth two-year term as a Ann Arbor city council representing Ward 1.
November 2012: Briere is appointed as the council's representative on the Ann Arbor planning commission, replacing Tony Derezinski, who lost the 2012 Democratic primary race in Ward 2 to Sally Petersen.
2011: Briere is re-elected to her third two-year term as a Ann Arbor city council representing Ward 1.
2009: Briere is re-elected to her second two-year term as a Ann Arbor city council representing Ward 1.
2007: Briere is elected for the first time as a Ward 1 representative on the Ann Arbor city council.
2002-2010: Works as administrative assistant at Corner Health Center in Ypsilanti.
1999-2002: Works as office manager and website manager at Old House Gardens.
1990-1999: Works as an administrator at the University of Michigan's Population Fellows Program.
1986-1990: Works as receptionist/secretary at the University of Michigan.
1986: Briere graduates from the University of Michigan with a degree in history and a teaching certificate. She marries her third husband, local attorney David Cahill.
1973: Briere moves to Ann Arbor.
Websites: http://sabrabriere.org/ and http://sabrabriere.wordpress.com/.
Twitter: @sabriere
Four for Mayor: The candidates to succeed John Hieftje have very different visions of the city – Ann Arbor Observer, August 2014
2014 Pre-Primary Finance: Donor Analysis – Ann Arbor Chronicle, July 28, 2014
Mayoral Election Finance 2014: Charts, Maps – Ann Arbor Chronicle, July 25, 2014
Mayoral candidate profile: Sabra Briere still proud to call Ann Arbor home after 41 years – MLive, July 21, 2014
Live Mayoral Forum: Affordable Housing – Ann Arbor Chronicle, July 15, 2014
Mayoral Candidate Forum: CTN Broadcast – Ann Arbor Chronicle, July 9, 2014
Column: Mayoral Folk, Easy Listening – Ann Arbor Chronicle, July 1, 2014
Chamber Forum: Ann Arbor Mayoral Race – Ann Arbor Chronicle, June 28, 2014
Ann Arbor Dems Mayoral Candidate Forum – Ann Arbor Chronicle, June 15, 2014
Candidate Forum Focuses on Downtown – Ann Arbor Chronicle, May 1, 2014
2014 Ann Arbor Hash Bash with Sabra Briere – Video recording by Rich Birkett, April 2014
VIDEO: Ann Arbor Mayor candidate forum – Michigan Daily, April 16, 2014
Sabra Briere announces intent to run for mayor of Ann Arbor – WEMU, Jan. 10, 2014
Sabra Briere talks about challenges city faces with Ann Arbor's downtown zoning – AnnArbor.com, May 15, 2013
Ann Arbor's future is concern of 1st Ward City Council candidates – AnnArbor.com, Oct. 25, 2009
Ann Arbor Chronicle articles tagged Sabra Briere
Contributing to this Page
For some existing timeline elements more precise dates would be desirable. Update strategy: Add timeline elements and news links as history unfolds.
2015-06-15CCMTG
2015 city council elections
Ann Arbor City Council members
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French TV channel acquires Nollywood’s ROK Studios
Adekunle Gold: For a long time, I badly wanted to be an animator
By Murtala Abubakar
Adekunle Gold says his latest track, ‘Ire’, is the soundtrack of his life as it captures his journey, development and career.
The singer said he always wanted to be an animator, owing to the fact that he studied graphic designing in the university — but music came calling and he embraced it as a career.
In an interview on The Raro Lae Show, Gold said: “I thought that I was going to get something else but little did I know that everything I am right now was inside of me back then.
Harping about the song, he said: “It was just me telling the world that you need to trust your process. It’s okay to worry because I worry as well but know that that person is you already. You just need to put yourself in that place.
“For the longest time in my life, I thought my greatness was somewhere else. I badly wanted to be an animator because I studied graphics in school and I wanted to do animations.”
The singer’s sophomore album project ‘About 30’ is billed for release in the latter months of 2018, and he said it “is about my 30 years on earth.
“I decided to talk about my experiences, the lessons, the girls and things that I have had to do in 30 years”.
The singer was among the few Nigerians that recently performed at the SXSW Festival in Texas, US.
Gold said he will embark on a tour of the US and the UK during the course of the year while disclosing that he’s working on collaborations “you possibly can’t imagine”.
He said: “I’m doing a tour, the biggest one in London. I sold out last year and then I’m doing a bigger stage this year, June 29.”
When We Speak About Nothing
I’ve been a fan of Wizkid since ‘Hola at your boy’, says John Boyega
WATCH: In video for ‘Luchia’, Bisola tells the tale of a triumphant survivor
INTERVIEW: I expected to win Sahara Group’s film competition, says Joseph Duke
BBNaija’s Bisola to attend UN general assembly
FULL LIST: ‘We Don’t Live Here Anymore’ bags 11 BON Awards nominations
Davido, Kizz Daniel ‘bromance’ hits snag after alleged slapping at concert
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Tigers in Transition: They’re rebuilding . . . at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull
By Craig CalcaterraJul 23, 2015, 8:30 AM EDT
Photo by Craig Calcaterra
This is part three in a three part series in which HBT looks at the Detroit Tigers. On Tuesday we discussed how a Tigers team which has won the past four AL Central titles finds itself at a crossroads. Yesterday we look at their former ace, Justin Verlander, who finds himself at a crossroads of his own. Today we look at the city of Detroit and a part of its baseball history which has risen from the ashes.
DETROIT — The Tigers don’t know if they’re going to rebuild yet. Or, short of a rebuild, if they’re going to restructure or renovate, as it were. They may not make a decision about that until after this weekend. But there’s a lot of rebuilding, restructuring and renovating going on all around them. Indeed, for the first time in years, they may be behind the rest of the city when it comes to looking toward the future.
“SPERAMUS MELIORA; RESURGET CINERIBUS“
To most outsiders who don’t think too much about the city, Detroit remains a punchline. Or a place to be patronized and condescended to. The first thing that comes to mind for them are the vacant buildings which constitute America’s choice Ruin Porn. Or the crime. Or the recent bankruptcy. In their minds it’s some mashup of the opening scenes of “Beverly Hills Cop,” the Old Detroit of “RoboCop” or blighted old neighborhoods of “Gran Torino.” And, to be sure, if you’re looking for blight, decay, crime and municipal mismanagement, there is still plenty to be found in Detroit as it can be found in all big cities. It just remains easier to find in Detroit.
But the Detroit of 2015 is not the Detroit of 1995. Or even 2005. It still has a long way to go, but unlike was the case for so many years, it’s moving forward.
The city emerged from its 2013 bankruptcy last December and, while it’s still being overseen by a commission of outsiders, it once again has its own elected representatives in charge, shed $7 billion in debt and has nearly $2 billion at its disposal to improve services over the next decade. It’s the subject of new interest from tourists and the convention business. Young people, including artists and entrepreneurs, are rediscovering the city and realizing that its past problems have inadvertently created some good opportunities. Detroit is nowhere close to being the booming, healthy metropolis it was when my parents grew up there in the 1940s and 50s, but it’s breathing again. It’s stretching out its limbs and is poised to stand on its own two feet once again.
I spent my youth visiting my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins in Detroit. Then, like so many other people, I sort of forgot about it for a while. I began coming back a few years ago to take in Tigers games at Comerica Park. I stay downtown when I go. I make a point to walk to as many places as I can and patronize as many local businesses as I can. I’ve made new friends here. But I’m just a tourist. And no amount of tourists and well-meaning but naive do-gooders who think they can “save” Detroit will, actually, save Detroit. If it even needs “saving.” No, progress in Detroit will come from the people who call it home. Either now or who will do so later. And who will do so on the terms of the city and its people, not out of some charitable or, in my case, nostalgic impulse.
One place where the people of Detroit (and, admittedly, its suburbs) are working to rebuild and restore a part of the city is particularly near and dear to me. Tiger Stadium, at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood, just west of downtown.
Of course the grandstand is no longer there. Or the lights or the foul poles or the major league baseball players for that matter. The last pitch thrown in that ballpark came in 1999 and the structure, after years of decay, ceased to be in in a two-phase demolition in 2008 and 2009. Then, for the next year, mother nature took over.
THE NAVIN FIELD GROUNDS CREW
In early May of 2010 Tom Derry of Redford, Michigan was watching news coverage of the death of Tigers Hall of Fame radio announcer Ernie Harwell and was surprised to see that, rather than go to Comerica Park to pay their respects, a lot of people went to the empty lot that once held Tiger Stadium. Derry thought it was pretty neat — he didn’t realize that you could even get onto the site of the old ballpark — and decided that, the next chance he got, he’d go down there himself. “I thought I’d love to go take some swings and throw the ball around where all the greats played,” Derry said. “So I came down here on Mother’s Day 2010.”
What he found wasn’t pretty. The base paths, pitchers mound and dirt around the batters box were still there, but just barely, as weeds had begun to overtake them. There were large pieces of rubble from the demolition of the bleachers and stadium facade. “It looked terrible. There were tall weeds, tall grass. Garbage everywhere,” Derry said. “It was a real eyesore. So I figured heck, I got a riding lawnmower. I have some friends that will help. So we came down here a couple days later. May 12, 2010 was our first cleanup.”
Courtesy Navin Field Grounds Crew
Thus began the work of the Navin Field Grounds Crew, a group of volunteers dedicated to restoring and preserving the ball field that once sat inside Tiger Stadium. They show up every Sunday — and often on other days — to mow the grass, rake the infield dirt and pull weeds. If you find yourself in the area now you’ll find a very, very nice ball field. There’s some crabgrass here and there — it’s nine and a half acres and no one is springing for that much Scotts Turfbuilder — but it’s better than a lot of Little League and Babe Ruth fields I played on when I was a kid.
The work wasn’t always easy. At first Derry and his fellow Grounds Crew members were harassed by police and threatened with arrest. I speculated that maybe the city was worried about liability, but Derry said that was really a secondary concern.
“I think it was less that and more that we were a group of preservationists that may scare off a potential developer,” Derry said. “So they threatened to arrest us. They sent police out onto the field. Told me that if you come back again you’re going to be arrested. It was ridiculous. We’re just some middle aged people armed with rakes and lawnmowers. With all the problems the city has they threatened to arrest us? And what if they take my mower? You know, I’m not really wealthy. I mean, I work for the Post Office, and I need my riding mower for home too.”
Eventually the city started to ease off. Maybe because there wasn’t much in the way of development going on in Detroit in 2010. Maybe because the Grounds Crew began coming on Sunday mornings when city offices were closed and fewer people noticed. But eventually, Derry believes, the city finally realized that the Grounds Crew was providing a benefit. “Without our group, this would be a nine and a half acre garbage dump,” Derry said. “There’d be five-year old trees growing here. All kinds of trash. Who knows what else?”
Now the site is something of a tourist attraction. Derry says that visitors have come from Europe and Asia. Several couples have gotten married on the baseball diamond, including Derry himself, who wed his bride Sarah at home plate last August. Derry says that, on dozens of occasions, he has witnessed people scattering the ashes of their loved ones on what he calls the “sacred ground” of old Tiger Stadium.
I’ve never seen ashes being scattered there, but on my visits back to Detroit over the past few years there are always people at the old site of Tiger Stadium. On this day I came across two young men playing catch, John Czech, 23, and his brother Christian, 21 of Clinton Township, Michigan. Derry is 52 and I am 42 so both of us have living, adult memories of Tiger Stadium. But the Czech brothers were little kids when the Tigers moved into Comerica Park. What possible reason would they have for being here?
They never went to a game at Tiger Stadium, Christian told me. Their father was not a baseball fan at all. But John caught the baseball history bug at some point and turned Christian on to it too and playing catch at Tiger Stadium is an exercise in living history for them.
“To stand in the same spots where Kirk Gibson, Alan Trammell, Lou Whitaker, Horton. To stand on the same mound Mark Fidrych pitched on. Grabbing the dirt. I just love the feeling,” Christian said. His brother John added, “Denny McClain was 31-6 right there . . . you stand at the plate and you know Babe Ruth hit his 700th homer there. Reggie Jackson going to the standards. It’s cool for someone like me who never saw a game here. Hey, it’s not The Stadium, but the next best thing. You can play on the field,” Czech said.
“You get to come out here where all the great Tigers played. And then you get to go over to Comerica Park and see all the not-so-great Tigers,” he laughed.
And the fans of Tiger Stadium are getting younger every day. While the Czech brothers played catch between first and second base, I saw this fellow raking the infield dirt over by short:
That’s Felix Lambie, 5.5 (and he’ll make sure you know he’s not 5, but “five and a half!”) of Oak Park, Michigan. Described by his father John, 40, as “the youngest member of the Navin Field Grounds Crew,” Felix and his dad come out to work on the field every other Sunday.
“I grew up here,” Lambie said. “This was maybe my favorite place on Earth when I was a kid. I watched the Tigers win that World Series, in ’84. Sat right over there in right field. I was nine years old, in the upper deck with my dad. I was about 25 feet from where Kirk Gibson’s home run landed. I probably came to 300 games here as a kid. I grew up with my dad telling me the stories about Hank Greenberg, Charlie Gehringer and Al Kaline.”
Derry says there are around 25 regular members of the Grounds Crew. I’ve talked to a handful of them over the years. Almost every one of them will say something along those lines. You just have to adjust the names of the ballplayers and the particular memories for era. Of course, it’s not all nostalgia. The members of the Grounds Crew have the future in mind as well.
“Being able to come down here just to be here on the same space where that happened is just amazing,” Lambie said. “To be able to do it with him (gestures to Felix) after what my dad and I did here is so very special. And you know, just to help keep this an active, open, welcoming green space in the heart of Detroit is just something that means a lot.”
THE FUTURE OF NAVIN FIELD
That idea of a green space Lambie mentions is a big, big part of what motivates the Grounds Crew. Derry says that, rather than merely preserve history, he thinks of the restoration of Tiger Stadium as his group’s small contribution to the overall revitalization of Detroit.
“We absolutely think of it in terms of turning the city around,” Derry said. “You know, we’re in the middle of this Corktown neighborhood which has changed so much in the past ten years. A lot of bars, restaurants. It’s improved so much. New people, young people are moving down here. Property values are going up. And it just makes sense to have a nice green space in the middle of Corktown.”
Over the past few years there have been several redevelopment plans for the Tiger Stadium site. At first they would have meant for the end of a baseball field on the property. In 2012 the city explored the idea of turning the site into a storage facility for floats and other equipment for the annual Thanksgiving parade. That was eventually scuttled. More recently the Larson Realty Group has proposed a plan to turn the property into a mixed-use development which would, in conjunction with the Police Athletic League, include a ballpark and preserve the dimensions of old Tiger Stadium but replace the grass and dirt with artificial turf. It is likely that the Larson/PAL proposal would close off the grounds to the public except for when PAL-sanctioned events took place.
The idea rankles Derry.
“Our group is not anti-development, but we are concerned with preserving the ball field. We’re concerned about preserving the historic dimensions of the ball field and we’re also concerned about preserving the historic playing surface, which has been grass,” Derry said. “PAL is saying they’ll put in artificial turf. We think PAL is a great group and they’re doing great things but we’re obviously opposed to this idea. We think it’s ridiculous. To take a historic field like this and to tear out the grass and the dirt and to put in artificial turf. We’re trying to convince PAL to stick with real grass.”
Derry continued:
“60,000 people a year go to Dyersville, Iowa to visit a Field of Dreams where Joe Jackson never played and no major league baseball player ever played. It’s a phony, Hollywood Field. We have the real deal here. We have the field where Joe Jackson actually did play, and scored the very first run on April 20, 1912. Ty Cobb scored the Tigers first run by stealing home that day. This is the real Field of Dreams, right here. And to tear up this grass would be one of the biggest errors in the history of baseball.”
While Derry isn’t against development, in his heart of hearts, that idea of a green space he and Lambie talked about is never far from his mind.
“We think it makes more sense to just make this a city park where everyone could come. Right now it’s accessible to everyone, 24 hours a day. People can come out here and play on the baseball field, play soccer in the outfield. Have a picnic. Walk their dog. We believe it just makes sense to have this jewel of a park be the centerpiece of a rejuvenated Corktown neighborhood. We have almost ten acres here of grass. An open park, in the middle of the neighborhood. Why not let people come here whenever they want?”
As Derry spoke I was struck by the notion that this is a most unusual problem for a city like Detroit to have. Sure, in most other cities there are constant battles about how to balance development and civic life and how to preserve land and buildings that, while not contributing much to the city’s bottom line, contribute greatly to citizens’ lives.
In Detroit, however, the idea of reining in developers has not exactly been a pressing issue in recent decades. There are more vacant lots here than anyplace else. Apart from three casinos, some sports facilities and a handful of renovations of historic buildings aside, developers have not exactly run rampant.
But as Detroit rises from the ashes again, it will begin to encounter the dilemmas of development more and more. And, while its residents will likely have no desire whatsoever to return to the bankrupt and nearly-beaten Detroit of a few years ago, they may remember it fondly in at least a few ways.
Such as a time when strange, serendipitous things could happen. Like those years when a couple of dozen people showed up every Sunday morning at 10 AM, armed with riding lawnmowers, weedwackers and rakes and brought the dead back to life.
You can visit the Facebook page of the Navin Field Grounds Crew here. If you’re in the Detroit area and would like to help out, they assemble at the old Tiger Stadium site at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull each Sunday morning at 10AM. If you can’t help out in person, they do sell nifty t-shirts, hats and DVDs which can be obtained by sending a private message to its Facebook page or by emailing them at NavinFieldGroundsCrew@gmail.com. Oh, and on occasion, people have donated Home Depot and Lowe’s gift cards. They go through a lot of mower blades and belts.
Tags: Detroit Tigers, Justin Verlander
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Archive for the ‘ This Date in Kernels Alumni History ’ Category
This date in Kernels alumni history – December 12, 1980 – Ted Simmons (1967) was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers
On December 12, 1980, the Milwaukee Brewers traded Lary Sorensen, Sixto Lezcano, David Green and Dave LaPoint to the St. Louis Cardinals to acquire Ted Simmons (Cedar Rapids Cardinals – 1967), Rollie Fingers and Pete Vuckovich. Fingers and Vuckovich went on to the the American League Cy Young awards in 1981 and 1982 respectively and Simmons was selected to the A.L. all-star squads in 1981 and 1983. All three were instrumental in the Brewers 1982 American League pennant winning squad which lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series.
Posted on December 12, 2012 at 2:03 pm
Tags: Atlanta Braves, Cedar Rapids Cardinals, Dave LaPoint, David Green, Jack Krol, Lary Sorensen, Milwaukee Brewers, Pete Vuckovich, Rollie Fingers, Sixto Lezcano, St. Louis Cardinals, Ted Simmons (1967)
This date in Kernels alumni history – December 11, 1992 – Chili Davis signs with the Angels
On December 11, 1992, the California Angels signed Chili Davis (Cedar Rapids Giants – 1978) to a two year free agent contract that would pay him $5.3 million dollars for the 1993 and 1994 seasons. Davis was coming off a World Series championship season with the Minnesota Twins. This was his second stint with the Angels where he had played previously from 1988-1990.
Chili Davis, a three-time all-star, finished his career with a .274 batting average, 350 HR and 1372 RBI during his 19 year career with the Giants, Angels, Twins, Royals and Yankees. He won World Series titles with the Twins (1991) and Yankees (1998 and 1999). Davis served as the Oakland Athletics hitting coach in 2012.
Chili Davis was a member of the 1978 Cedar Rapids Giants team that finished 53-82 under manager Jack Mull. Davis hit .281 with 16 HR and 73 RBI in 124 games for the Cedar Rapids Giants.
Tags: California Angels, Cedar Rapids Giants, Chili Davis (1978), Jack Mull, Kansas City Royals, Minnesota Twins, New York Yankees, Oakland Athletics, San Francisco Giants, This Date in Kernels Alumni History
This date in Kernels alumni history – December 9, 2012 – Quan Cosby returns three punts for the Jacksonviille Jaguars
On December 9, 2012, Quan Cosby (Cedar Rapids Kernels – 2003-04) served as the Jacksonville Jaguars punt returner in their game against the New York Jets today. Cosby returned three punts for a total of 25 return yards averaging 8.3 yards per return. This is Cosby’s fourth team he has played for in the NFL. He had played previously for the Cincinnati Bengals, Denver Broncos and the Indianapolis Colts. Click here to see one of Cosby’s punt returns as a member of the Cincinnati Bengals.
Quan Cosby was a member of the 2003 and 2004 Cedar Rapids Kernels squads. Cosby hit .249 with 17 stolen bases in 104 games during the 2003 season. The Kernels finished in 10th place at 66-72 under manager Todd Claus. Cosby returned in 2004 where he hit .249 with 24 stolen bases and 12 triples. The 2004 Cedar Rapids Kernels team finished with a record of 75-64 under manager Bobby Magallanes. The Kernels lost in the 1st round of the Midwest League playoffs to the Clinton Lumberkings.
Following the 2004 season, Quan Cosby decided to attend the University of Texas to play football under coach Mack Brown.
This date in Kernels alumni history – November 26, 2012 – Cubs hire Rob Deer as assistant hitting coach
The Chicago Cubs have announced the hiring of Rob Deer (Cedar Rapids Giant – 1979) as their assistant hitting coach. Deer was a teammate of Cubs skipper Dale Sveum when each played for the Milwaukee Brewers from 1986-90. Rob Deer hit .220 with 230 HR and 600 RBI during his 11 season career playing for the Giants, Brewers, Tigers, Red Sox and Padres.
Rob Deer hit .209 with 1 HR and 16 RBI in 29 games as the 1979 Cedar Rapids Giants finished 58-78 under manager Wayne Cato.
Tags: Boston Red Sox, Cedar Rapids Giants, Chicago Cubs, Detroit Tigers, Milwaukee Brewers, Rob Deer (1979), San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants, This Date in Kernels Alumni History, Wayne Cato (1976)
This date in Kernels alumni history – October 3, 1995 – Jeff Branson
On October 3, 1995, Jeff Branson (Cedar Rapids Reds – 1989-90) went 2-3 at the plate with a double, two RBI and walked in the Cincinnati Reds 7-2 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium in the opening game of the National League Division Series. The Reds swept the Dodgers before losing to the Atlanta Braves in the NLCS.
Jeff Branson hit .246 with 34 HR and 156 RBI during his 9 year MLB career playing for the Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Indians and the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Jeff Branson played for the 1989 and 1990 Cedar Rapids Reds squads. In 1989, Branson hit .281 with 10 HR and 68 RBI in 127 games as the Reds finished 80-57 under manager Dave Miley. The 1989 Cedar Rapids Reds lost to Springfield in the opening round of the playoffs. In 1990, Branson hit .251 with 6 HR and 24 RBI in 62 games and the team finished with a 88-46 mark under manager Dave Miley. The 1990 Cedar Rapids Reds squad lost to the Quad Cities team in the opening round.
Jeff Branson served as the hitting coach for the Indianapolis Indians, the AAA affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates for the last few seasons.
Posted on October 3, 2012 at 4:50 pm
Tags: Atlanta Braves, Cedar Rapids Reds, Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Indians, Dave Miley (1981 1985), Divisional Series, Dodger Stadium, Indianapolis Indians, Jeff Branson (1989-90), Los Angeles Dodgers, Midwest League, National League, Pittsburgh Pirates, This Date in Kernels Alumni History
This date in Kernels alumni history – October 2, 1937 – Hal Trosky
On October 2, 1937, Hal Trosky (Cedar Rapids Bunnies – 1931) went 2-5 at the plate with two HR and three RBI to lead the Cleveland Indians to a 12-5 win over the Detroit Tigers at Lavin Field.
Hal Trosky played 11 seasons for the Indians and the White Sox. The Norway, IA native posted a career batting average of .302 with 228 home runs and 1012 RBI.
Hal Trosky was part of the 1931 Cedar Rapids Bunnies squad that finished 2nd in the Mississippi Valley League with a mark of 74-52 under manager Paul Speraw. Trosky hit .302 with three home runs in 164 at bats as an 18 year old.
Tags: Cedar Rapids Bunnies, Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians, Detroit Tigers, Hal Trosky (1931), Mississippi Valley League, Navin Field, Paul Speraw
This date in Kernels alumni history – October 2, 1993 – Chili Davis
On October 2, 1993, Chili Davis (Cedar Rapids Giants – 1978) went 2-4 at the plate with two HR and three RBI as the California Angels defeated the Oakland Athletics 6-2 at Oakland-Almaeda County Coliseum.
Chili Davis, a three-time all-star, finished his career with a .274 batting average, 350 HR and 1372 RBI during his 19 year career with the Giants, Angels, Twins, Royals and Yankees. Davis currently serves as the Oakland Athletics hitting coach who clinched a playoff spot last night eliminating the Los Angeles Angels from playoff contention.
Posted on October 2, 2012 at 9:51 am
Tags: California Angels, Cedar Rapids Giants, Chili Davis (1978), Jack Mull, Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Angels, Minnesota Twins, New York Yankees, Oakland Athletics, San Francisco Giants, This Date in Kernels Alumni History
This date in Kernels alumni history – October 2, 1992 – Chili Davis – Twins Edition
On October 2, 1992, Chili Davis (Cedar Rapids Giants – 1978) went 3-4 at the plate with two HR and four RBI as the Minnesota Twins defeated the Kansas City Royals 5-1 at Royals Stadium.
Tags: Cedar Rapids Giants, Chili Davis (1978), Jack Mull, Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Angels, Minnesota Twins, New York Yankees, Oakland Athletics, Royals Stadium, San Francisco Giants
This date in Kernels alumni history – October 1, 1985 – Eric Davis
On October 1, 1985, Eric Davis (Cedar Rapids Reds – 1982) went 3-5 at the plate with a HR, four RBI and scored a run as the Cincinnati Reds rallied to defeat the San Francisco Giants 7-6 at Candlestick Park. Davis drove in the game winning runs with a RBI single in the top of the eighth inning that drove in the tying and go ahead run.
Eric Davis hit .269 with 282 home runs, 934 RBI and stole 349 bases during his 17 year career playing for the Reds, Dodgers, Tigers, Orioles, Cardinals and Giants. Davis hit for the cycle on June 2, 1989 to lead the Reds to a 9-4 win over the Padres. He was the first Red to hit for cycle since Frank Robinson did it in 1959.
Eric Davis was part of the 1982 Cedar Rapids Reds squad that finished in 9th place with a mark of 61-79 under manager Randy Davidson. Davis hit .276 with 15 home runs, 56 RBI and stole 53 bases for the Cedar Rapids Reds that season. He was enshrined into the Cedar Rapids Professional Baseball Hall of Fame.
Tags: Baltimore Orioles, Candlestick Park, Cedar Rapids Reds, Cincinnati Reds, Detroit Tigers, Eric Davis (1982), Hit for the Cycle, Los Angeles Dodgers, Randy Davidson (1981), San Francisco Giants, St. Louis Cardinals, This Date in Kernels Alumni History
On October 1, 1992, Chili Davis (Cedar Rapids Giants – 1978) went 2-3 at the plate with a double, a HR, two RBI and walked as the Minnesota Twins rallied for five runs in the bottom of the eighth led by his solo HR to get things started as they defeated the Chicago White Sox 9-6 at the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome.
Chili Davis, a three-time all-star, finished his career with a .274 batting average, 350 HR and 1372 RBI during his 19 year career with the Giants, Angels, Twins, Royals and Yankees. Davis currently serves as the Oakland Athletics hitting coach.
Chili Davis remembers Jackie Robinson
Tags: Cedar Rapids Giants, Chicago White Sox, Chili Davis (1978), Jack Mull, Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Angels, Minnesota Twins, New York Yankees, Oakland Athletics, San Francisco Giants, This Date in Kernels Alumni History
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Home World News ‘My mother died without telling me I had HIV’
‘My mother died without telling me I had HIV’
Omie
Some parents in Kenya take the secret of their HIV status to their graves, leaving their children ignorant and unwell.
Brian Omondi, who was born with HIV, started taking anti-retroviral (ARV) pills when he was 10.
However, it was not until he was 14 when his mother had died that he realized what the pills were for.
Now 22 and an HIV activist working with a church group, he says his condition was not picked up at birth.
During his early years growing up in the coastal city of Mombasa he remembers being unwell: “I was sick most of the time but the condition worsened, so my mum decided that I should get tested.
“That is when I tested positive and started taking the ARVs, but my mum never told me why I was taking those drugs.”
It was when he went to live with his aunt, after his mother died, that neighbours in the close-knit community got wind of his HIV status and his peers began mocking him.
Parents will often warn their children about playing with those who have HIV.
“I remember this girl in high school, we met in person and she addressed me as: ‘You HIV person.’ This hurt me.”
Night medication
Although adolescents and young people account for the bulk of new HIV infections in Kenya and sub-Saharan Africa, the majority of those born with it is living with the condition secretly.
Some of the patients are forced to keep their medication a secret and, like Mr Omondi, opt to take their tablets at night.
Winnie Orende, now 27, describes the shock of discovering she had HIV when she was 12 years old.
“When I lost my mum, after two months, my doctor called my [older] sister and asked that I go to the hospital alone and see him,” she says.
The doctor knew that her mother had died of Aids – and wanted to check to test her for HIV. The test was positive.
“At that age, I was so confused. I had never had sex before; I am not a prostitute, so how could I have HIV?”
To make matters worse for her, she was the youngest of her siblings and the only one to have contracted the virus from her mother.
“I wondered why me? Because the worst thing is that I am the only one in a family of four who is living with the virus. This really affected me for some time.”
‘The whole school knew I had HIV’
She refused to accept her diagnosis until she was admitted to the hospital on several occasions.
Her doctor then informed the headteacher at her school about her condition to explain that she would sometimes be absent for school to undergo tests.
Unfortunately, other teachers were told and soon the whole school knew that she was HIV-positive, and the taunting began – something that continues to this day.
“I face stigma from the community where I stay here in Kongowea, Mombasa. The problem started when they knew my status. People were just calling me names,” said Ms Orende, who currently works as a volunteer at a health centre where she counsels HIV patients.
“I felt bad. It would have been better if they told me about my status, rather than another person telling me about it. I wanted to kill myself, but then I realised that even if I killed myself, my sister would suffer. So I stopped having suicidal thoughts.”
Campaigners want to change attitudes and are calling for better sex education and more information to be shared about HIV in Kenya where conversations on such topics are often stifled by conservative religious groups.
Dr Griffins Mang’uro says it is also important for guardians to be more open and tell children their HIV status – when they are between the ages of nine and 11.
“As soon as a child understands what HIV is, what disease is, then that is the right age to break the news to them that they are infected and that they need to take medication.
“The thing is, as soon as a child takes any medication then they should know that they are HIV-positive and they are taking medication for HIV.
He warns that to leave them in the dark also puts them at risk as they may not take the medication properly.
“Or they might grow resentful in future because they were not told early.”
Babies and HIV
Mother-to-child transmission is common in Kenya but numbers are going down as pregnant women are being urged to attend a clinic where they will be automatically tested for HIV.
If positive, they will be asked to give birth in the hospital. For four to six weeks their baby will receive a medicine called zidovudine, which will reduce the likelihood of HIV transmission.
According to Kenya’s National Aids Control Council, between 2012 and 2017 this led to a 38% reduction in the number of new children HIV infections.
If after six weeks a baby is confirmed with HIV, they are switched to a combination of ARV drugs that they will have to take for life to stop the virus from destroying the immune system.
Mr Omondi says that he does not blame his mother for not being upfront with him.
“I think she could have been open with me but on the other hand I cannot blame her because she was trying to protect me at that age.”
But he says until attitudes change, people who were born with HIV live in fear of being judged by others, making socializing and finding friends and partners difficult.
“It is hard! You find that you will be stigmatizing yourself, you will be asking yourself some questions like: ‘If these people find out about my status how will they take me? How will they treat me?’”
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President Emmerson Mnangagwa will this week charter the Dubai based luxury jet to fly him to Rwanda for an official visit. read more…
Source: Zimetro
Brian Omondi
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The India-Australia relations are on a strong wicket, and they are scoring high in every field. In a sign of close and warm relations, India has rolled out the red carpet for Prime Minister Abbott, who has become the first head of government to be hosted by the Narendra Modi government in New Delhi on a standalone bilateral visit.
MOUs/Agreements signed during the visit of Prime Minister of Australia to India (4-5 September, 2014)
Joint Statement on the State Visit of Prime Minister of Australia to India
Visitors: 143435712 , Page last updated on: 5/9/2014
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Latin America scrambles to squash Zika-spreading mosquito
byJenny Barchfield And Malcolm Ritter
In this Feb. 1, 2016 photo, Guilherme Trivellato, from the British biotec company Oxitec, releases genetically modified Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which are a vector for the spread of the Zika virus, in Piracicaba, Brazil. Oxitec raises male mosquitoes that have been modified to produce offspring that do not live. These males are released into the target area, where they compete with wild males to mate with the wild females. Brazil is in the midst of a Zika outbreak and authorities say they have also detected a spike in cases of microcephaly in newborn children, but the link between Zika and microcephaly is as yet unproven. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)
With no hope for a vaccine to prevent Zika in the near future, authorities are focusing on the most effective way to combat the virus: killing the mosquito that carries it.
Fumigation is one method; another is seeking out and draining standing water where the insect lays its eggs. Other strategies are possible, including larvae-devouring fish, genetically modified insects and even lasers.
But officials agree that it won't be easy.
The battle is focused on Aedes aegypti, a formidable foe. It carries not only Zika, but other diseases like dengue, yellow fever and chikunguya. Well adapted to humans, it lives largely inside homes and can lay eggs in even a bottle-cap's worth of stagnant water. The dishes beneath potted plants are a favorite spot, as are abandoned tires, bird feeders and even the little puddles of rainwater that collect in the folds of plastic tarps.
"This mosquito really is a bear to deal with," said Thomas Scott, professor of entomology and epidemiology at the University of California, Davis. "It's almost like a cockroach of the mosquito world."
Scientists are also trying to determine if, and how easily, Zika could be spread by sex or by blood transfusions. But the virus is usually transmitted through mosquito bites.
In this Jan. 29, 2016 photo, youth play on a street with stagnate floodwater in the Parque Sao Bento shantytown in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Brazil's first case of Zika, a virus that was first identified in Uganda in 1947 and subsequently spread to parts of Asia, was recorded in the middle of last year. Brazil is in the midst of a Zika outbreak and authorities say they have also detected a spike in cases of microcephaly in newborn children, but the link between Zika and microcephaly is as yet unproven. Researchers don't know exactly how the virus made the jump, but the two theories that hold most currency suggest it may have arrived with one or more infected tourists visiting the country for the 2014 World Cup soccer tournament or an international canoeing competition here the same year. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Brazil's first case of Zika—a virus that was first identified in Uganda in 1947 and subsequently spread to parts of Asia—was recorded in the middle of last year. Researchers don't know exactly how it made the jump, but two theories suggest it may have arrived with tourists visiting the country for the 2014 World Cup soccer tournament or an international canoeing competition the same year.
Thanks to Aedes aegypti, the disease quickly spread across Brazil and to more than 20 countries in the region, the Caribbean and beyond, leading the World Health Organization this week to declare an international emergency.
The concern is not the disease itself—Zika's immediate effects are mild, consisting mostly of a moderate fever and a rash, and only a fifth of those afflicted notice any symptoms. But Brazilian authorities say also they have detected a spike in cases of microcephaly, which leaves infants with unusually small heads and can result in brain damage and a host of developmental and health problems. The link between Zika and microcephaly is as yet unproven.
Brazil is pouring money into the development of a vaccine against Zika. But a viable vaccine is years away, and public health experts say for now, slashing the mosquito population is key.
In this Feb. 1, 2016 photo, a technician from the British biotec company Oxitec, inspects the pupae of genetically modified Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, a vector for transmitting the Zika virus, in Campinas, Brazil. The company said tests begun last April as part of a dengue-fighting program in the small southeastern city of Piracicaba suggested the release of the GM males reduced the wild Aedes larvae population in the target neighborhood by more than 80 percent. Brazil is in the midst of a Zika outbreak and authorities say they have also detected a spike in cases of microcephaly in newborn children, but the link between Zika and microcephaly is as yet unproven. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)
"The most important thing," said Jayme Souza-Neto, a researcher at Sao Paulo State University who studies interactions between viruses and mosquitoes, is to "try to prevent mosquitoes from reaching adulthood."
The country had success against Aedes once before, when a nationwide campaign to drain standing waters and spray the insecticide DDT led to a steep fall in dengue and yellow fever in the late 1950s. But as the crusade faded, the insect drifted back in from neighboring countries.
While DDT has been shown to harm the environment, new insecticides "really are pretty safe environmentally," said Charles Apperson, a professor emeritus of entomology at North Carolina State University. But as with DDT, there's still the issue of insects developing resistance, so new insecticides must continually be developed, he said.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has pledged to send some 220,000 members of the armed forces door-to-door to help ferret out the spots of standing water. But Scott said while campaigns aimed at eliminating stagnant water can help, they're not enough.
In this Jan. 29, 2016 photo, Tamires da Costa, 16, who's four months pregnant, stands in a street with standing flood water next to her home in the Parque Sao Bento shantytown of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Thanks to Aedes aegypti modquito, the Zika virus quickly spread across Brazil and to more than 20 countries in the region, the Caribbean and beyond, leading the World Health Organization this week to declare an international emergency. Brazilian authorities say they have detected a spike in cases of microcephaly, which leaves infants with unusually small heads and can result in brain damage and a host of developmental and health problems. However, the link between Zika and microcephaly is as yet unproven. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Pesticides are needed too, he said. This week, Florida Gov. Rick Scott declared a state of emergency in four of his state's counties in response to reports of nine cases of Zika, all believed to be travelers who contracted the disease outside of the country. The order allows Florida's agriculture department to use mosquito spray more in those areas.
Oxitec, a British biotech firm, says its genetically modified mosquitoes could be another part of the solution. It raises male mosquitoes that have been modified to produce offspring that do not live. These males are released into the target area, where they compete with wild males to mate with the wild females.
The company said tests begun last April as part of a dengue-fighting program in the small southeastern city of Piracicaba suggested the release of the GM males reduced the wild Aedes larvae population in the target neighborhood by more than 80 percent.
Oxitec officials insist the company—which has also done projects in Panama and the Caiman Islands—has the capacity to scale up the program to tackle large cities such as Recife, a sprawling seaside metropolis of 1.5 million that's the epicenter of Brazil's Zika outbreak.
In this Feb. 1, 2016 photo, Guilherme Trivellato, from the British biotec company Oxitec, releases genetically modified Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, a vector for transmitting the Zika virus, in Piracicaba, Brazil, as part of an effort to kill the local Aedes population. Oxitec officials insist the company has the capacity to scale up the program to tackle even large cities such as Recife, a sprawling seaside metropolis that's the epicenter of Brazil's Zika outbreak. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)
Still, with Zika already recorded in 19 Brazilian states and widely expected to continue spreading, some experts doubt that Oxitec's GM mosquitoes offer a realistic solution.
"I'm worried that it's not feasible at the country or regional scale," said Scott.
Jeff Powell, a mosquito geneticist at Yale University, says such a program would be expensive, and "as soon as you stop, the mosquito population is going right back up" to its initial level.
"I don't think that is a long-term solution," he said.
In this Feb. 1, 2016 photo, a technician from the British biotec company Oxitec releases male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that were genetically modified to produce offspring that don't live, in Piracicaba, Brazil, as part of an effort to kill the local Aedes population that transmits the Zika virus. With Zika already recorded in 19 Brazilian states and widely expected to continue spreading throughout Brazil, some experts doubt that Oxitec's GM mosquitoes offer a realistic solution to the spiraling health crisis. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)
A small project with a different strategy in the El Salvador's coastal community of Playa San Diego offers a glimmer of hope, using an approach that has shown success elsewhere.
Under a program developed in 2012 by community health worker Marielos Sosa to combat dengue, small fry fish are introduced into the barrels or tanks in which families store potable water. The fish—tilapia and a brown-and-white local species called sambo—eat the mosquito larvae in the tanks.
"The result is that to date we have not had any cases of dengue, nor chikunguya or now Zika," said Sosa, whose project has expanded to six coastal townships beset by mosquitoes. And with 7,138 suspected cases of Zika nationwide, the mayors of San Salvador and surrounding suburbs have also voiced interest in the project.
Another anti-dengue strategy may also pay off for fighting Zika. Scientists have been studying the infection of mosquito populations with a natural bacterium called Wolbachia, which curbs their ability to transmit dengue. Now they want to find whether it will also hamper the Zika virus.
In this Feb. 1, 2016 photo, a technician from the British biotec company Oxitec holds with a bag of blood to feed Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that were genetically modified to produce offspring that don't live, before releasing them into the wild as part of an effort to kill the local Aedes population, which is a vector for the spread of the Zika virus, in Campinas, Brazil. Brazil is in the midst of a Zika outbreak and authorities say they have also detected a spike in cases of microcephaly in newborn children, but the link between Zika and microcephaly is as yet unproven. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)
And then there's what might be called a Star Wars approach.
Intellectual Ventures of Bellevue, Washington, has developed a device that can identify mosquitoes in flight and zap them with lasers, at least in a lab setting. They say an array of such devices might be able someday to keep mosquitoes out of a public area or deplete a more widespread population.
Could it be used in the current battle? It's "not a 'silver bullet' solution to Zika," the company told AP in a statement, but it is "one of many potential interventions in a broader strategy to address the virus."
Brazil trying to develop vaccine against Zika virus
Citation: Latin America scrambles to squash Zika-spreading mosquito (2016, February 4) retrieved 17 July 2019 from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-02-latin-america-scrambles-zika-spreading-mosquito.html
Researcher's fascination with mosquito genetics may help address Zika crisis
Honduras declares national emergency over Zika virus
El Salvador issues alert against illness-bearing mosquitos
Haiti hit with Zika virus outbreak: official
The survival strategies of a bacterium that causes hospital infections
New study uncovers weakness in C. diff toxin
Investigation into fungal infection reveals genetic vulnerability in Hmong
An itch to scratch: Scientists identify potential approach to chronic problem
Researchers identify health conditions likely to be misdiagnosed
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Melodics Magazine Download Melodics now!
What finger-drummer Robert Mathijs has learned on his quest for groove
Melodics & Mindfullness: Why Music Is Good For Well-being
Beginner’s guide to sample packs.
The Seoul beat scene and the importance of community – with Lionclad
How Fabian Mazur found his sound
Melodics
New Lesson Tuesdays
Category: Interviews
by Martyn Pepperell in Interviews, Pro Tips
Amsterdam producer, guitarist and singer Robert Mathijs is the man behind The Quest For Groove, a website and YouTube channel devoted to helping users become expert finger drummers. Over a series of courses and videos, Rob combines his experience with live performance, studio production, finger drumming, web design and teaching into approachable steps and processes for understanding his three stages of musical mastery. Stage one: What to play (what pads to hit). Stage two: How to play it (loud, soft, laid-back, energetic etc.) Stage three: Why do I play this and not something else?
For Rob, his engagement with finger drumming grew out of a desire to record his own groovy rhythm parts in studio sessions without hiring a session drummer. From there, he began exploring the creative possibilities of pad controllers and other new ways of bridging that musical gap between humans and computers. Given this, he was a natural lesson partner for Melodics. Below, Rob walks us through some of the challenges he sees new finger drummers facing, and his thoughts around the art of practice.
What are some of the common challenges you see new finger drummers coming up against?
I noticed a lot of beginning finger drummers struggle with picking the right gear, the right software and setting everything up. There are a lot of options available on the hardware and software front, and unfortunately, a lot of those options don’t work if you want to play the way I play. Either the pads aren’t sensitive enough, or the sensitivity varies too much between pads, or the software that comes with the pads doesn’t provide you with the right sounds.
My preferred setup currently involves putting a Maschine MK3 in midi mode, completely ditching the Maschine software and then triggering Addictive Drums 2 with it. That’s not a very straightforward thing to do and takes a lot of messing around with midi learn and stuff, but it’s necessary for me to get both that great pad sensitivity and that hyper-realistic drum sound.
What are your thoughts around the roles finger-drumming can play within modern music paradigms?
I think now that digital has basically absorbed analog (I believe we’re at a point were digital can ’emulate’ most analog behaviour) it’s time to start developing ways to get the same amount of precise and subtle control over our digital environments as ‘traditional’ musicians have over their instruments. The computer is the studio now, or the instrument, or the orchestra for that matter.
As humans, we want to make it truly understand what’s in our hearts and one of the ways to do this is finger drumming. It’s one of the most direct ways to communicate the grooves we feel to the computer instead of playing by the rules of the computer and going out of our way to speak the computer’s language (which is how I feel when I have to program a beat).
Do you have any advice for users on how to create a regular practice routine and keep at it?
The most important thing is to have your music setup ready to go whenever you are. It’s a bit silly, but one of the main reasons I’ve been playing more guitar lately is because I put it in a stand next to the couch instead of keeping it in its suitcase. All it takes is the reach of an arm to start playing.
For finger drumming or anything electronic it’ll usually take booting up your computer and firing up the software, but you can at least make sure all your music making stuff is hooked up to one USB hub so you can plug it into your laptop and everything works right away. Have shortcuts to all your favourite music making programs ready on your desktop and preferably create standard templates for those programs, so they boot up with your favourite drum kit loaded and your favourite songs ready to go in a Spotify playlist or something.
Another trick is to attach practicing to something that’s already part of your daily routine. Breakfast? Brushing your teeth? Watching The Late Show? Attach your practice sessions to one of those things.
Now that you’ve been involved in creating Melodics lessons, what sort of initial suggestions would you have for Melodics users around finger drumming?
I think the most important thing when doing a melodics lesson is to realise that it’ll help you learn what pads to hit when. Once you know what to do, maybe close your eyes, don’t look at your hands, don’t look at a screen but just listen to what you’re playing and how that feels. In the end that’s what it’s all about.
Do you have any other thoughts on Melodics, and how it can mesh in with users personal interests in playing and creating music?
One of the first things I was extremely jealous of was how easy it was to start playing. Melodics app makes it so easy to set up your pad controller. No explanation video could ever beat that! Secondly, something I also noticed with some of my guitar students who played ‘Rocksmith’ (basically the guitar version of melodics on a PlayStation) is that this gamification of practice is so incredibly helpful in nudging people towards practicing the right way. Like slowing it down, focusing your attention on certain weaknesses and stuff like that. It also creates this nice crossover between reading sheet music and doing everything by ear.
Try a lesson from The Quest For Groove here.
Find out more at:
questforgroove.com
youtube.com/thequestforgroove
by Martyn Pepperell in Interviews
Growing up amongst the futuristic skyscrapers, rammed subways, serene temples, palaces and bustling street markets of Seoul, South Korean beatmaker, finger-drummer and DJ Lionclad always felt out of place. Things slid into place for her when she discovered trip-hop, abstract hip-hop, experimental music, and the worlds that surround them. With headphones wrapped around her ears, the psychedelic, late-night sounds of Björk, Portishead, Massive Attack, Cypress Hill, Morcheeba and Zero 7 let her reimagine life as a black and white film noir. Everyone else in the metropolis was at hyperspeed, but Lionclad was moving in slow motion.
“The music told me it was okay to explore the emotions inside me deeply, and made me realise that if I wanted to, I could focus on myself rather than everyone around me,” she explains.
“Growing up in an Asian country, you are always forced to be part of the community. That always made me feel more isolated from everyone around me, and the music gave me comfort and helped me realise my feelings were valid.”
These qualities come through in her moody beat production work and dexterous live finger-drumming performances, many of which you can watch or listen to through youtube and Instagram. They’ve won her a cult reputation around South Korea and set her up to take things further.
Lionclad was also equally fascinated by media art as a teenager and considered working in video before music. She loved vintage horror movies (“Creature from The Black Lagoon, Godzilla, The Blob, etc.”), anime, and quirky cartoons; genres often associated with music by way of sampling or direct references. In that era, the downbeat sounds of the UK and the bass of blunted west coast rap came packaged with fittingly trippy music videos, and it only took a few steps sideways for her to come across 90s IDM artists such as Amon Tobin, and South Korean trip-hop group Mot. Music made sense. Making and playing it would be her thing.
With some childhood experience playing keyboard and trumpet behind her, early cassette tape recordings led to beat making and production. Initially, Lionclad’s tools of choice were the Roland SP-404 sampling workstation, the Akai MPC2500 Music Production Center, FL Studio, and Cubase.
“I began arranging tracks in FL Studio and Cubase first, then I started taking samples from vinyl records with my MPC and creating loops,” she says. “From there, I started using the MPC as a performance tool to share my music. DJing came, later on, followed by Ableton Live.”
Looking for vinyl records to sample from took her to music stores around Seoul’s Myong Dong, Hong Dae, Itaewon and Gangnam districts, where she connected with, and learned from, DJ Son and DJ Soulscape, two pioneering local DJs with open-ears and similar musical interests to hers. They’d invite her to their studios for jams and listening sessions, and when they saw her fast-developing finger drumming skill level, helped her get gigs around the same districts. “Community was crucial for me,” she says. “I’d meet people, and they’d introduce me to other people I could play with. It’s also fun because you get to learn their stories in music and how they did what they did. It gives me a lot of inspiration around what I do now.”
Outside of the DJ scene, Lionclad also cites experimental artists like Kim Oki, Akimbo, 4kapas and Cifika as part of her community, and a reminder of what she prizes the most, the power of live performance and the moment. “The DJs and musicians gave me a lot of influence, but I wanted to give people inspiration by showing them how music can be made live, and how the beat is felt by tapping it with the fingers,” she reflects. “There are very few MPC players in Seoul, but I think it’s good because people think it’s a very special kind of thing that they can’t see easily.”
In 2016, Lionclad released her self-titled debut album. Since then, her work has been celebrated by GQ Korea and Playboy, and she’s found herself collaborating with an array of rising K-pop and K-rap vocalists including Muddychild, Danny Roots, Taedo, SSamdark, Yumdda, Jvcki Wai, Justhis, Sogumm, Kimximya and more, bringing her moody production sound into those melodramatic realms. She also took part in the Red Bull Bass Camp Seoul in 2017, began creating lessons for us at Melodics in 2018 (see her lessons here), and is working towards a second album. Although trip-hop, beats, and abstract hip-hop still don’t have a large audience in South Korea, more recently, Lionclad has been sensing a cultural sea change, one she’s very excited about, and hopes will take her overseas sooner rather than later. “These genres are still not that common here,” she admits. “But it looks like people these days are finally ready to accept uncommon things.”
Fabian Mazur first became an emergent figure within the Danish club music scene in 2010. Since then, the Copenhagen-based music producer and DJ’s buoyant tracks have caught the ears of international EDM frontrunners like Martin Garrix, Tiesto, and Afrojack, in the process helping him build a growing profile. Ostensibly hybrid trap EDM with glossy synth-overtones, his music ripples with touches drawn from traditional east coast hip-hop and R&B, and when he hypes it up on the microphone over the top, lifts the whole club up. In 2013, Fabian received a platinum-certification for his remix of ‘Chuck Norris’ by Kongsted, and in 2014 he began touring around the world. When he isn’t programming his own music, producing for other artists, or DJing, Fabian creates producer sample kits for Splice. It’s one of the ways he likes to give back and help the next generation of producers. This week, in partnership with Splice, we present Fabian’s first Melodics lesson for the track ‘Settle’. Read our interview with him below and try his lesson here.
Could you tell us a bit about how you got your start as a musician?
Growing up, my mum and dad were both jazz musicians. I used to tour with them a lot as a kid. I’d see them perform, play, and rehearse, so I was always rooted in jazz and world music. Even though I didn’t really like the music myself, it provided me with a lot of knowledge about rhythm and melody. My mother is from New York. She was born and raised there, but she came to Europe as a teenager. We stayed connected with her family there. I think this influenced me a little bit. Back in the day, I used to listen to a lot of east coast hip-hop, DJ Premier, Nas, Jay-Z, so when I started making music as a teenager, I was into 90s hip-hop and R&B. After a few years, I had a friend who got me into DJing and got me into EDM acts like Swedish House Mafia.
How did you take these influences and shape them into the sound you’re now known for?
It definitely took me a lot of years. I guess I think it took almost ten years to get to the sound I wanted. I took some courses, and I studied a little bit. I did all types of stuff, but the main thing that got me there was putting in a lot of work, and making a lot of terrible music before I made good music.
The terrible music clears the way for the good music, right?
Exactly. After a few years of making pretty terrible music, I figured out I was actually getting pretty good. My music wasn’t where I wanted it to be, but it was almost there. I feel like people talk about the whole 10,000 hours of putting work into a specific task. I think that is true with playing, writing, and producing music. When I was coming up, I didn’t have Splice or all the features of the modern DAW (Digital Audio Workstation). I feel like I put in way more than 10,000 hours to get good at music production. As a creative and a music artist, it actually took me a really long time to find a genre or soundscape that I liked for my own music, and wanted to be affiliated with. I spent years making tons of different music, hip-hop beats, R&B beats, deep house, EDM, dubstep, whatever, and that experimenting really got me to where I am today.
Would you tell young producers to listen to and make a range of music until they find out what they really click with? Or in the case of Melodics users, try out a range of lessons from different genres?
Yes. That is one of the main pieces of advice I give people when they ask me how I got to where I am. I tell them to listen to a lot of different music and try to create a lot of different music. Don’t try to keep your eye on a specific genre or sound at first. A lot of people make that mistake at the start; they decide they want to be a dubstep producer only and only produce dubstep from the get-go. I think that is a very big mistake to make when you’re starting out.
You can hear the influence of listening to, and producing different types of music in your work.
It’s kinda natural. Genres have always had the tendency to merge at some point. Maybe it’s all just a natural part of the process, especially with the digital age of music production we’re in right now. With things like Melodics and Splice, it’s never been easier for people to merge genres the way they want to.
My 300-day streak – Gretchen King
Gretchen King has been singing and writing songs since she was a child. Along her musical journey, she’s spent time in church choirs and musical theatre groups, sang with Jerome Dillon (of Nine Inch Nails) as Nearly, and fronted Ohio rock band Phantods. These days, she divides her music time between several projects: writing electropop songs with her close collaborator Chris as Kabiria, jingles and voiceover work, and writing, recording, producing and mixing her debut solo album.
Gretchen keeps herself match fit by practicing with Melodics, and recently achieved a landmark 300-day streak. She was introduced to our software by Chris, who suggested it might help her sharpen her skills. Once she started using it daily, Gretchen realised she’d found an easy and enjoyable way to practice and improve her skills. As she puts it, “Five minutes a day is completely manageable.” Below, Gretchen discusses the journey to hitting the 300-day mark and going beyond.
Congratulations on your 300-day streak! Tell us about it?
Thanks! I was able to lock into a daily routine right away because Chris was using Melodics as well [and] we had a slight competitive edge going. We would remind each other… and check in to see how our progress was going. Initially, I had a great streak going. One night at midnight, I realised that I had forgotten to practice that day. I was so bummed that I didn’t practice for a month! Then I realized that while a streak is amazing, it’s more about putting in the work and enjoying the process. I quickly got back on track again.
Do you have any advice for users looking to lock in like this?
My advice to someone looking to practice regularly is to set reminders in your phone and try to practice at a time that can be consistent. If the hour you get home in the evenings always varies, then practice first thing in the morning. Record your practices and take some notes on how you feel about it. Ask yourself questions about the process of learning and mastering the lessons. There is always a pattern there. Recognizing your learning style and the patterns with it helps to relieve the pressure that comes with learning something new. Occasionally revisit those videos and even go back to try previous lessons. You’ll find that the lessons you struggled with early on will eventually be a piece of cake.
At what point did you realize that this streak was going to keep going for a while, and how did you feel?
By the time I reached 100, I had started cheering myself on every couple of days… It became a habit, like brushing your teeth. It’s something I do in my daily routine. Since it’s only five minutes a day, there really is no excuse. I’ve done Melodics in hotels, airports, even recently while riding in a moving truck! To be on a streak that is nearing an entire year feels really good. I’ve prioritized something that is important to me: improving my music skills so that I can express myself better creatively.
Once you were in a daily pattern, what sort of benefits did you start seeing?
The biggest benefit I’ve seen is the realization that small steps taken every day will get you to where you want to go. I’ve never actually seen something like this in a way that I was able to recognize it as it’s happening. I used to try to take giant leaps, and I’d get frustrated and worn out, eventually giving up. Recognizing that there is a different approach to learning that is actually easier and more enjoyable has changed my overall mood. I feel more relaxed and put less pressure on myself while feeling more certain that I will reach my end goal.
How has your use of Melodics changed over the course of this run?
Melodics has really helped me understand the process of learning. Now I have a clearer understanding of how I learn. It’s always the same no matter what level I am on. When I start to get it, I will do great, and then after a few minutes, it’s like my hands don’t remember how to work! It’s as though I’ve fatigued myself. That’s when I know to move on to another lesson or call it quits for the day. I used to get frustrated, but then I’d notice that the very next day it was as though something happened overnight. The next day, I understood the lesson and could do it with ease. You’ve got to get past those moments of frustration to move into the moments where it clicks.
I always go a little over the 5 min mark. When I’m really enjoying myself, I allow myself to keep going for as long as I want. On days I’m not into it, I get only the daily goal completed, and I don’t beat myself up over how badly the practice went. I know I will feel different again soon enough. There’s no need to build any sort of negative association with it.
Step1 On Turntablism And The Power Of Practice
Step1 (Stefanie Anderson) is a music producer, turntablist, live electronic music performer, music educator, and entrepreneur based in San Francisco’s Bay Area.
Stefanie’s musical practice is built around the trifecta of beat-making, finger drumming, and turntablism, skills which are all on full display in the impressive new ‘Scratch, Sample and Push’ live performance video routine she recently created for Ableton. Find out more about Stefanie’s live performance and finger drumming here, this time we talked to her about her background in turntablism, songwriting and production, and the power of practice.
How were you introduced to turntablism, and how did you develop your skills there?
My introduction to turntablism came in 1995. A friend came over to my house, and he had a copy of the DMC World Finals on VHS tape! That was the year that Roc Raida was representing the USA in the battle. My mind was totally blown by scratching and beat juggling. I thought to myself, “One day I’m going to learn how to do that.”
Flash forward to 2004. I moved to LA, and my roommate was a DJ. He had a setup in the house, and he knew that I’d been a dancer all my life—tap, jazz, break dancing, etc. He was like, “You have good rhythm, I bet you’d pick up DJing really quickly.” He taught me the basics, and I was hooked. Scratching was my favorite element of DJing. I bought Q-Bert’s DIY Skratching Vol. 1 DVD, and I spent countless hours learning how to cut.
I think what I loved about scratching is that it’s so percussive. As a dancer, my favorite style was tap. And obviously, tap is also very percussive. You create intricate rhythms with the taps on your shoes. Basically, it’s foot drumming. So that’s one reason I was really drawn to scratching. I really enjoyed tapping out percussive rhythms with my right hand on the crossfader and using my left hand to manipulate the record.
After honing your craft as a turntablist, you developed your skills as a songwriter and a producer, which led you to finger drumming. Could you talk about this journey?
I’m a nerd at heart, and I love learning. When I get interested in something, I naturally gravitate toward classes. So when I decided to learn music production, I started taking private lessons with a producer in San Francisco. But I also wanted to improve my songwriting skills, so I worked with a piano teacher for a little while to learn music theory. As a bass player, I never had to play chords, so harmony was new to me. I also took a few music production courses online. Don’t get me wrong; I’m all for experimentation. It’s an important part of any creative endeavor, but I also think the right teacher or the right course can really accelerate the learning process.
In our last interview, we talked about your new performance video for Ableton. How much practice do you put into your live performance routines?
It’s a pretty ridiculous amount of practice. After I come up with a routine, I have to memorize all the parts and get them up to tempo. If the drum pattern is fast or complicated, it could take a few days before I’m finger drumming at the target BPM. After I’ve got the whole thing memorized, I have to practice it over and over until I can perform the routine without making any mistakes.
Obviously, the more complicated the performance, the longer the process takes. With the “Keep It Real” routine for Ableton, it took three weeks of practice – maybe a couple of hours a day – to get to the point where I could execute it perfectly every time. But that was on top of the hours it took to create the song, figure out how to adapt it to a live context and memorize the parts. All in all, I probably worked on that routine for five weeks. And it was only a 2-minute performance!
Do you have any advice for people who’d like to create their own performance routines?
For people who are looking to explore hybrid performances of any kind, I guess my advice would be to start small. My first routine was “Cutthroat,” where I used Push to finger drum a beat on-the-fly, and then I scratched vocals on top of the beat. The Ableton project only had two tracks: a MIDI track for the drum rack and an audio track for the scratching.
That was the first phase of my exploration, and gradually I learned how to incorporate other elements. My Ableton project for the “Keep It Real” routine has eight tracks, and I use all of them in 2 minutes. I also added a MIDI foot controller for that performance, so it was way more complicated than “Cutthroat.” But starting with a simple setup helped me wrap my head around all the possibilities offered by a hybrid performance.
How finger drumming made Step1 a better music producer
Step1 (Stefanie Anderson) is a music producer, turntablist, live electronic music performer, music educator, and entrepreneur based in San Francisco’s Bay Area. Since 2016, she’s run the Sequence One music production school with her business partner Lenny Kiser. As a music maker and performer, Stefanie’s personal practice is built around the trifecta of beat-making, finger drumming, and turntablism, skills which are all on full display in the impressive new ‘Scratch, Sample and Push’ live performance video routine she recently created for Ableton. Below, Stefanie talks about putting together the routine, and how Melodics helped her developed her finger drumming skills. She also explains her thoughts on turntables in the digital production era.
Let’s talk about your new performance video. In it, you combine Ableton Push and a turntable to create a blend of real-time sampling, beat-making, finger drumming, and scratching. What was it like putting them together?
It was a learning experience. Everyone’s workflow is different, but for me, the song idea comes first. Then I figure out how I’ll adapt it for a live performance. Which parts will I play on the controller? Which parts will I play on the turntable? How will I transition between them? You’re going to run into limitations in terms of what’s possible to play live, so the original song idea inevitably evolves as it gets adapted for the stage. It’s a fun problem-solving exercise. I always learn new tricks in Ableton every time I work on a routine.
Your video included some excellent finger drumming. How did you develop your skill set from DJing to include beat production and live electronic music performance?
For me, production and finger drumming evolved simultaneously. As soon as I started making beats, I ran across YouTube videos from artists like Jeremy Ellis and AraabMusik. I knew that I wanted to learn finger drumming right away. It reminded me of turntablism: it’s tactile, fun, rhythmic, and it requires skill and technical mastery.
At that time, though, there really weren’t any good resources for learning finger drumming. I found a couple of YouTube tutorials and learned how to play very rudimentary hip-hop beats, but it was hard to progress any further. Then in late 2015, the Ableton newsletter landed in my inbox, and it had an announcement about Melodics. I signed up immediately!
How did using Melodics change things for you?
Melodics was a game changer for me. After a couple of weeks of daily practice, I was able to play the ‘Amen Brother’ breakbeat. I was so excited. As a crate digger who loves all the classic breaks, it was satisfying and motivating to learn that drum pattern. I just kept going from there, unlocking as many levels as I could. Last year, I made it to Level 18, but I’m stuck there because I’ve been working on other things. I wouldn’t have advanced to my current skill level without Melodics, so it’s still so crazy to me that my ‘Keep It Real’ lessons are available in the Melodics app.
I also think that finger drumming made me a better producer, which is why I said the skills evolved simultaneously. With practice, my drum vocabulary expanded, and eventually, my patterns became more complex and interesting.
Before this interview, you told me that you view the turntable as a controller and as a tool in your production arsenal. Could you expand on your thinking here?
The traditional view of a turntable is that it’s a record player. You don’t create anything with it; you use it to play someone else’s music. But for the turntablist, the turntable has always been an instrument. Here’s what I mean: With scratching, essentially you’re isolating and manipulating certain sounds. Most people associate scratching with vocals, but turntablists can scratch any musical material – drums, horns, strings, pads, chords, you name it. You can even use the turntable’s pitch control to transpose a sound while you’re scratching it.
What other piece of hardware lets you isolate, manipulate, and transpose audio content? A sampler. That’s why I think of the turntable as a controller or instrument. It’s just another way to work with audio in a music production environment. For me, the real benefit of using a turntable is that it adds a unique element to my live performances, and it lets me combine my love of beat-making with my love of scratching.
Q&A With The 2018 Finger Drumming Champion
beat makingfinger drumming
When he was growing up in Tours, France, French-English hip-hop/electronic beatmaker, producer and finger drummer extraordinaire Beat Matazz dreamed of, much like his heroes AIR, being surrounded by analog synthesisers, sequencers, and drum machines. With time, as he fell in love with the music of Flying Lotus, Samiyam, Prefuse 73, James Blake, Hiatus Kaiyote, and Amon Tobin, caught their vibes, and began to build his own collection of customised studio gear and software. Electronic music production led him towards his current area of expertise: finger drumming.
Beat Matazz has been presenting his furiously funky finger drumming routines to live audiences since 2015, but earlier this year, he took things to a new level when he ousted all challengers to win the Sample Music Festival 2018 Finger Drumming Competition in Berlin with a ridiculous routine. Since then, he’s been building relationships with Herrmutt Lobby’s Playground App, Akai, and us here at Melodics. With an upcoming Melodics lesson based on his winning performance in the works, we spoke with him about finger drumming and his time at the competition. Check out his winning performance here (scroll to 2:33)
Could you talk a bit about your musical experiences before you started finger drumming?
I started out at age six as a classical percussionist, xylophone, marimba, and timbales. When I was a teenager, my teacher agreed to teach me drums as I wasn’t to keen on classical music. These experiences gave me the rhythmic skills to drum in many bands for many genres. I played pop, hip-hop, electro-funk, experimental, world music and even in a marching band.
How did you end up adding finger drumming to your skill set?
In parallel with drumming, I started using music software like Reason and Ableton to make music for fun. After years of composing, I became frustrated and bought my first Akai MPC500 [sampling workstation] off Leboncoin (the French version of Craiglist). Hardware-based beatmaking made sense to me, and a gigantic world opened up. It allowed me to link the unlimited creative paths afforded by software to a tactile instrument. I remember sampling George Gershwin’s ‘Summertime’ and thinking, “Oh my god this sounds like a perfect hip-hop instrumental!” At the time, I was attending an art school in Nantes. I was very focused on sound art and music. They kicked me out, which gave me the perfect opportunity to fully devote myself to music.
You discovered finger drumming by using the Akai MPC500. What was it about the process that inspired you to devote so much time to developing your skill-level?
I love the portability of pad controllers and the musical genres that rely on them. The research process you go through to create these very personal textures and sounds are very important to me. You can tune samples far more than you can tune a real snare drum. I can also put more of myself into the rhythms of the music by playing them. I love the trance state I enter when I’m in my home studio. Thanks to my previous drumming experience, and having created tracks with software, I already had the core skill sets. I just needed to combine them. I tweaked my finger positioning and started to work and play hard.
What sort of approach did you take when you started practicing your finger drumming?
I didn’t know what I was doing when I started. I’m very spontaneous when I create and have no habits. My approach is always the pursuit of pleasure, and feeling the desire to create. Since I started playing and making music, that hasn’t changed. My first sample mine was old vinyl I found in flea markets. Even the most shitty records sometimes have two chords that make my day. Fat basses are what I need to feel, so I got an old analog synth: the Korg MS-10 (plugged into the Korg SQ-10 sequencer). The people who designed that marvelous device where thirty years ahead of their time. It’s become a spine to my beats.
How did you transition into taking part in events like the SMF 2018 Finger Drumming Competition?
After spending years developing my techniques, I knew I had to make the world know what I’ve worked for. Last year, I won a battle in Paris at the Bataclan, a legendary 90s hip-hop venue. Being acknowledged by the hip-hop network changed how I looked at myself and my music. It also made me be more specific in my thinking around who would be hearing my music. Battle audiences know exactly why they’re at the end. Battling is so raw; you find out what the crowd thinks of you instantaneously.
What were your thoughts on the SMF 2018 Finger Drumming Competition in Berlin?
The skill level was very high in Berlin. The team was so nice and devoted, and so were the participants. When I was there, I understood that I had found my place. Geeks were able to scratch and jam for hours, with or without spectators. It was a space where musicians were speaking a common language, all with the feel of a real community, and the codes and sounds that quote the subculture. It was real and vibrant, and it felt so good to be part of that experience. The experience was great. We need to gather together and feel those vibes more often.
Stay tuned for a new Melodics lesson from Beats Matazz. Find out more about him here on YouTube or Facebook.
Sherry St. Germain on the importance of daily practice, improvisation and simplicity
Whether you’re talking about theatrical live performance, EDM studio sessions, film and television soundtrack/sound design work, musical education programs, or her Akylla duo project with Saratonin, Sherry St. Germain is an accomplished and assured achiever. Based in Las Vegas, Nevada, she’s a classically trained multi-instrumentalist, producer, and singer/songwriter who has – among other accomplishments – collaborated with Steve Aoki, Excision, Stafford Bros, Revolvr, and Genesis, performed on a flying piano for Cirque Du Soleil, and written music for male stripper comedy Magic Mike.
In conversation with Melodics, Sherry expands on her thoughts around the power of daily practice, improvisation, musical simplicity, and taking the time to share what you’ve learned with others.
You can also play the Sherry St. Germain and Akylla Melodics lessons by following the links below.
Keys lessons
Pads Lesson
How much time do you spend playing music?
If I’m not playing, I’m producing, or teaching, or performing, so I’m kind of always in a music mode. I’m the type of person who leaves the studio and then goes home to the studio. I was raised in music. There are a lot of people that I teach on the side; I don’t even charge them, I teach them cause it helps me. I had a lot of teachers, who helped me on the side. When you teach something, you become a master at it. That’s the last stage, like in martial arts.
I think that whole statement “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach” is bullshit. When you do teach you explain things, you break them down in layman’s terms, which is a different type of thinking. When I teach something, I learn as well, which is really really nice.
What would you suggest to someone who wants to make music part of their daily life?
Start out playing for five minutes a day. If you can do five minutes a day then eventually five will turn into ten mins, and ten mins will turn into fifteen minutes. You can use it as a way to learn and share. Often, I’ll decode a song and its chord changes, because I want to learn it. Afterward, I’ll show it to my friends, and I’ll try to perform alchemy with it. The majority of the people I work with on production in the DJ world, don’t know a lot of theory, so they will ask me if things are in key, and I’ll advise them on works and doesn’t. Sometimes just making sense of a song musically is a good way to practice and stay inspired.
When I’m doing production work for Film and TV, they send me songs to learn, but they don’t want you to rip them off, they want you to make something with the same energy. You have to think about what makes a song appealing by dissecting it. This has been really good practice for me as well, learning which chord changes resonate with people. That’s been a good way to practice as well.
Any other tips?
Sometimes I practice by playing along to mixes online. I’ll pick a different mix, chill hip-hop, house music, whatever, and play along. That way, every day you are gonna be stimulated with something new. When you learn something new every day, you get happier. Happiness releases endorphins which you associate with learning, and you want to do it more. Why I like playing along to mixes is it’s a way to find cool things you can learn. If you love house music, practice to house music, if you love trap music, practice to trap music. Do the things you love, and you will only get better.
How important is improvisation to what you do?
I’m doing it all the time. I think every day is kind of an improvisation. You always end up having to wing it. I prepare as much as I can, but a lot of it is improvised, which stems from being excited when you hear stuff. Something inspires me, I want to do something like it, and you end up off in a completely different direction. Music makes you use both sides of your brain.
Speaking of using both sides of your brain, what’s your take on finger drumming?
I think it’s dope. I love finger drumming. It’s so good for technique cause it helps with piano. It helps with everything. It’s so great for hand-eye coordination, and it makes you better at rhythm in general. I think finger drumming and piano go hand in hand. Melodics has finger drums, keys, and v-drums, and all of those are going to help you in whatever you do. They all rely on elements of rhythm, and keys even though they aren’t rhythm, they have a rhythmic sense to them.
When you’re in a band, even if you’re the best drummer in the world and you do all the fanciest shit, nine times out of ten no one will want to play with you. They want someone who can groove and keep time. People don’t even care about the fancy stuff half the time; they just want the meat and potatoes. John Bonham [from Led Zeppelin] wasn’t a crazy drummer as far as soloing goes, but when you listen to his groove, it’s everything. You can’t help but move to it.
Q&A with Sherry Saint Germain
Based in Las Vegas, Nevada, Sherry St Germain is a classically trained multi-instrumentalist, producer, and singer/songwriter. Over the last fifteen years, Sherry has applied her diverse skill sets and energy to high profile film and television soundtrack work, theatrical live performances, studio sessions, and her Akylla duo project with Saratonin.
Most recently, Sherry has been involved in production work and collaborations with a who’s who of EDM and dance music talents including Steve Aoki, Excision, Stafford Bros, Revolvr, and Genesis. From playing a flying piano with Cirque Du Soleil to writing music for male stripper comedy Magic Mike, and beyond, she’s never short of a story or ten.
In this Q&A, Sherry discusses how she got started playing music, entering the EDM scene, and how the mechanics of music keep her inspired and interested.
Play lessons by Sherry St Germain and Akylla by following the links below to open the Melodics app:
How long have you been working in the EDM scene for?
Since around 2015. Before that, I did Film and TV soundtrack work for twelve years; twenty-four-hour turnaround jobs. I worked on Magic Mike, Something Borrowed, Keeping Up With The Kardashians, Knight Rider, Nashville, all those shows. I would do whatever they asked me to do because I wanted to learn. After twelve years of that, I started ghost producing for some popular EDM artists. I was writing for people who were making a lot of money in the EDM world, and I thought “Hey, I could do that too!” I switched over, and my first break was with Steve Aoki.
I’m new to the scene, but I have been making electronic music for fifteen, maybe seventeen years. I love the unity vibes in electronic music. We share sound packs and plugins between producers, and it’s very nurturing. People want you to grow and will show you what they’ve learned. If you do that with your friends, you all get a lot further. There is more power in numbers.
Could you tell us a bit about how you got your start playing music?
Basically, my mother was a classical piano teacher, and my dad was a singer. Growing up from two years old, I had to practice classical piano every day, for four hours a day, until I was 14. We grew up on the road with my dad on a tour bus. We were surrounded by jazz musicians. We were just surrounded by music my entire life. I didn’t really have a choice but to get into music. When I was 14, I stopped playing for a while. I’d been forced to practice every day, so I really started to hate playing. I would run away from home, and they’d call the cops to look for me, all because I didn’t want to practice [laughs].
Imagine if Melodics had been around.
This is why Melodics is so dope. When I was a kid, I had to practice playing baroque piano pieces, which I didn’t want to play. If I’d been able to practice songs I liked, it might have been a different story. In hindsight, classical music is really really good. It’s encoded with sacred geometry, and the mathematical makeup of the universe, so it’s good to learn that stuff. What I would have liked, would have been if it had beats or something I could move to. I needed a groove. I do a lot of music teaching work with teenage girls. I’ll take their iPods, see what they are listening to, decode it, and help them learn what they want to learn. Unless you’re learning something you love, you’re not going to want to learn it.
How did you go from stopping to playing again?
I started to party in the rave scene and was really inspired. From there it flipped very quickly to wanting to practice piano over dance music. I would take napkins and write down the music theory of songs I liked; then go home and try to recreate them. I was infatuated with the sounds I was hearing, but I didn’t want to practice traditional music, so I started practicing to house, dance, and electronic music.
Could you expand on your ideas about learning something you love into some advice for people starting out with their playing?
Find songs you love and learn them. They’re the ones that will inspire you. I learn the chord structure of songs, and I start to reverse engineer them. Then, I’ll make a completely different track that was inspired by one of them. When you study songs, you start to reverse engineer by default. You start to learn chord changes, patterns, and rhythms that you can incorporate into your own music. Eventually, you’ll just have this toolbox of turnarounds, changes, and rhythms you can mix and match into anything. Anything you are learning becomes part of your vocabulary. Music is a vocabulary, and you’re learning all these little phrases. You’ll have this toolkit of all the phrases you’ve learned you can pull out at any moment.
Q & A with Color Theory
Brian Hazard, better known as Color Theory, is an American singer, songwriter, keyboardist and electronic music producer from Huntington Beach in California. His personal career highlights include winning a grand prize and Lennon Award in the John Lennon Songwriting Contest, recording three songs for the Ubisoft Just Dance series, and having songs featured on MTV’s The Real World.
Over the last twenty-five years, Brian has crafted his own singular visions of what synth-pop and synthwave music could be. Across nine albums, as many EPs, and countless singles, Brian has imagined and evolved a soundworld where the gloriously colourful synth flourishes, uptempo drum machine funk, and expressive sentimentalism of the early eighties never went out of fashion. Far from retro or throwback, his is the work of a longstanding believer and lover who continued to groove under the light reflected off a pixelated 8-bit disco ball. As he puts it, “Somehow I never outgrew the 80s.”
In stolen moments between studio sessions and family time, we caught up with Brian to find about how he approaches playing and producing music.
You can also play the Color Theory Melodics lessons for Pads, Keys and Drums by following the links below:
Color Theory – In Motion (Pads)
Color Theory – In Motion (Keys)
Color Theory – In Motion (Drums)
Who are your musical inspirations, and why?
Historically, Depeche Mode is my biggest influence. I love how they create a unique sonic universe in every song. I grew up on Depeche Mode, The Cure, and The Smiths. Later on, I fell hard for David Sylvian and Japan, which brought more of a literary aspect to my music.
Over the past few years, I’m less influenced by particular artists or bands, and more by arrangement or production ideas I spot in the wild. Maybe it’s the opening theme from an anime or something in a commercial. I think that’s because I, like most people, don’t listen to music the same way. Spotify changed all that, probably for the worse, but it is what it is.
Finger drumming and keys are great starting points for people learning about music. How do you see them as fitting into a music maker or producers skill set?
It doesn’t get more fundamental than rhythm and melody! Breaking down a song into its core elements is a great way to learn how music is constructed, and drums/bass/melody is generally enough to stand in for the entire arrangement. The piano provides the best visual model to understand high versus low notes, and eventually to learn scales and chords.
What’s your background with piano/keys and drums/pads?
I started out on the piano in middle school, played in the drumline in high school, and ended up with a degree in piano performance. While I have formal training in both keys and drums, and even have a little experience playing drum set (well, a lot if you count Rock Band), I confess my drum parts are a weak link in my production!
Back in college, I was really taken in by virtuosity. I aspired to learn all the Chopin Etudes, and I regularly listened to Chick Corea, Joe Satriani, and other technical masters. But at some point, I decided that showmanship was nonsense. Perhaps I’ve been overcompensating with overly simplistic arrangements ever since.
If you could start out again with keys and production, what areas would you initially focus on to develop your chops from?
I was exposed to a lot of hocus-pocus pseudoscientific, technical concepts that took years to dispel. Setting aside the pedals, the only aspect of sound production we have under our control at the piano is the speed of key descent. The hammer is thrown at the strings, and from that point on, we have zero influence on the resulting sound. Knowing that you don’t have to waste your time worrying about unnecessary wrist movement, “finger vibrato,” and other nonsense. So at the piano, I’d focus on making sure every finger is touching the key before it’s pressed. I used to call that “playing from the key” but that sounds rather obvious. There’s probably a better term.
With production, again there’s so much nonsense out there. Learn how to EQ and compress. That’s 90% of the battle. Multiband compression, spacial imaging, harmonic synthesis, M/S encoding, and other “advanced” techniques are generally not essential, and can easily become a distraction.
Is there anything else central about playing and production you wish you could go back in time and tell your younger self?
My biggest mistake was thinking I had to figure out everything myself. I should’ve interned at a local studio or hired others to mix my music until I learned the ropes. Instead, it was all trial and error. I could’ve really used a mentor. Keep in mind this was before you could find a dozen tutorials on every aspect of music production on YouTube. But the concept still applies. It’s better to spend a little money and learn from the best than to waste time going down dead ends.
Keep up the practice 🙏
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Home » Musicians » Judy Carmichael
Judy Carmichael
Grammy nominated pianist Judy Carmichael is one of the world’s leading interpreters of stride piano and swing. Count Basie nicknamed her “Stride”, acknowledging the command with which she plays this technically and physically demanding jazz piano style. Judy’s newly released CD “Come and Get It” features her singing debut on everything from Peggy Lee inspired standards, to humorous takes on Fats Waller tunes. A native of California, Judy Carmichael moved to New York in the early 80’s and has maintained a busy concert schedule throughout the world ever since. She has toured for the United States Information Agency throughout India, Portugal, Brazil and Singapore. In 1992 Ms. Carmichael was the first jazz musician sponsored by the United States Government to tour China. The musician that critics have referred to as “astounding, flawless and captivating” (The New York Times) has played in a variety of venues from Carnegie Hall, to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice (the first concert ever presented by the museum) to programs with Joel Grey, Michael Feinstein, Steve Ross and the Smothers Brothers. In addition, Ms. Carmichael has done comic skits and performed her music on radio and TV and performed private recitals for everyone from Rod Stewart and Robert Redford to President Clinton and Gianni Agnelli. Judy Carmichael is one of a handful of musicians who approach jazz from a perspective of its entire history
. Choosing to study jazz piano from its early roots on, she explores the music deeply, infusing it with a “fresh, dynamic interpretation of her own” (Washington Post ). The National Endowment for the Arts rewarded Carmichael’s knowledge of jazz piano with a major grant to present early jazz greats on film and to discuss the history and development of jazz piano with college students across the country. Judy Carmichael’s Grammy-nominated recording “Two Handed Stride” teamed her with four giants of jazz from the Count Basie Orchestra, Red Callendar, Harold Jones, Freddie Green and Marshall Royal. She has written two books on stride piano and numerous articles on the subject of jazz. She has served on a variety of music panels at the National Endowment for the Arts and is one of the few jazz pianists honored as a Steinway Artist. She has been included in a number of jazz anthologies and at one point, to her utter surprise, turned up in the Simon and Schuster murder mystery Murder Times Two as “the stride pianist Judy Carmichael,” the main suspect’s favorite piano player. Ms. Carmichael is included in “Who’s Who in the East”, “Who’s Who in Finance and Industry in America”, “Who’s Who in American Woman”, “American Women in Jazz”, “Who’s Who in the World” as well as the “Encyclopedia of Jazz”. Ms. Carmichael has appeared frequently on Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion, and has been featured on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition, Entertainment Tonight and CBS’ Sunday Morning with Charles Kuralt and recently with Charles Osgood. She is celebrating her 20th year producing and hosting her Public Radio Show Judy Carmichael’s Jazz Inspired, broadcast on over 170 stations throughout North America and abroad and on NPR NOW Channel 134 on Sirius/XM Satellite Radio. Her recordings and music books are available at www.judycarmichael.com, iTunes or by mail order through C&D Productions, P.O. Box 360 Sag Harbor, New York, 11963.
Bailey's Bundles
Judy Carmichael: All Taken in Stride
Come and Get It by Ken Dryden
20th Anniversiary Jazz Montana Festival
Grammy Nominated Jazz Pianist, Author and Radio Host Judy Carmichael at...
Jazz Pianist Judy Carmichael to Perform in Jazz Concert
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Teddy Wilson
Meade Lux Lewis
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Traumatic Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance (TSGLI)
Army National Guard: Full Time National Guard Duty (FTNGD)
Benefit Fact Sheet
Traumatic Injury Protection (TSGLI) is a rider to Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance (SGLI) that provides automatic traumatic injury coverage to all Service members under the Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance (SGLI) program. The TSGLI rider provides payment to Service members who are severely injured (on or off duty) and suffer a loss as the result of a traumatic event. Effective October 1, 2011, the Veterans' Benefits Improvement Act of 2010 removed the requirement that injuries during the retroactive period must be incurred in Operation Enduring or Iraqi Freedom. Qualifying Soldiers who receive a TSGLI payment can spend the money at their own discretion.
Soldiers who are covered under SGLI are also covered under TSGLI. Click here to see the SGLI fact sheet.
To be eligible for TSGLI payments Soldiers must meet the following criteria:
The Soldier must be insured by SGLI if injured as a result of a traumatic event on or after December 1, 2005. SGLI coverage is not required to be eligible between October 7, 2001 and November 30, 2005.
The Soldier must incur a scheduled loss and that loss must be a direct result of a traumatic injury. The Soldier must have suffered the traumatic injury prior to midnight of the day of separation from the uniformed services.
The Soldier must suffer a scheduled loss within 2 years (730 days) of the traumatic injury.
The Soldier must survive for a period of not less than seven full days from the date of the traumatic injury.
TSGLI is also provided retroactively to Service members who incurred a qualifying severe loss as a result of traumatic injuries incurred between October 7, 2001 and November 30, 2005, regardless of the geographic location where the injury occurred, and regardless of whether they had SGLI coverage at the time of their injury.
Benefit Highlights
TSGLI Coverage Available : Soldiers covered under SGLI are also covered under TSGLI. The TSGLI coverage will pay a benefit of between $25,000 and $100,000 depending on the loss directly resulting from the traumatic injury. The list of injuries was expanded in 2008 to include, among other things, coverage of partial amputation of the foot and hands, improved coverage of injuries based on severe burns, and a payment of $25,000 to those injured members who are hospitalized for a period of 15 consecutive days as a result of a traumatic injury. The full schedule of losses is available at: https://www.benefits.va.gov/insurance/tsgli_schedule_Schedule.asp
The premium for TSGLI is a flat rate of $1 per month for most Service members. Members who carry the maximum SGLI coverage of $400,000 will pay $29.00 per month for both SGLI and TSGLI.
Applying for TSGLI : All Soldiers who are covered by SGLI are eligible for TSGLI coverage, regardless of where their qualifying traumatic injury occurred. However, TSGLI claims require approval. To file a claim for TSGLI benefits, Soldiers should download and complete form SGLV 8600 Application for TSGLI Benefits . They should submit the claim, along with pertinent supporting medical documentation, to the Army TSGLI office. Click here for the TSGLI instructions page.
The TSGLI Application has two parts:
Part A is to be completed by the Service member or, if incapacitated, by the member's guardian, or the member's attorney-in-fact.
Part B is to be completed by the attending medical professional.
Once both parts of the application are completed, the application should be sent to the appropriate branch of service TSGLI office listed on the first page of the application.
To Reduce or Cancel SGLI Coverage : To reduce or cancel your SGLI, you must complete and file a form SGLV 8286 (Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance Election and Certificate). If you reduce or cancel SGLI on the first day of duty, your election will be effective immediately. If you make an election after the first day of duty, it will be effective at midnight of the last day of the month in which the form is received.
For more information, see the Army HRC TSGLI website:
https://www.hrc.army.mil/content/TSGLI
TSGLI website maintained by the Veterans Affairs (VA):
https://www.benefits.va.gov/insurance/tsgli.asp
Online Resource for Americans with Disabilities:
https://www.dol.gov/odep/topics/disability.htm
Document Review Date: 04 December 2017
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This article appears in the April 16, 2010 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
SCIENCE & CHRISTIANITY:
This Easter Sunday
As I have emphasized in my March 19, 2010 report, the present element of reported moral crisis from within the Roman Catholic Church regions of Ireland, England, Germany and the U.S.A., is chiefly a matter of the British monarchy's exploitation of a certain obnoxious practice, which, admittedly, actually exists in those locations; but, the present, politically motivated exploitation of that aberration by the British Empire itself, is the far greater crime.
The same British monarchy which promotes a Hitler-style, global genocide today, as a health-care policy which is a copy of Adolf Hitler's launching of genocide, is engaged in an effort to destroy that Church's authentic role as a devoted adversary of that policy of genocide which is embodied presently in the Hitler-echoing ideology of both former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Blair's ideological devotee, President Barack Obama.
In this present report, I present a related issue of concern for Christians and others, the need for a scientific view of the specific distinction of the mission of, and by Jesus Christ, which distinguishes the essential quality of Christianity from other religious beliefs, including much of Protestant and Jewish belief, that by the actual implications of that notion of immortality which is inherent in a competent modern scientist's comprehension of the work of the authors of the compositions identified as The New Testament. The Epistles of the Apostle Paul, most emphatically.
This present report of mine, on the subject of the matter of science and religious belief, is focused largely, but, by no means exclusively, on a matter of concern to the Catholic Church, as I remember it from my own and my wife's experience during the 1970s and 1980s, in terms of my present reflections on the ministries of John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II, and from the overlapping work of the Cusanus Gesellschaft in that same interval. In writing as I do here, I view this history, and its larger implications, from my own experience, as being one of encounter with what I justly consider, still today, a relative "golden age" of the Vatican's ministry, a time when my efforts were widely associated, internationally, with my initiative in launching the U.S.-prompted Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI).
Nonetheless, the actual subject of this present report is, really, no one more than you, the present reader. The subject is the contrast of hopes and commitments which must be remembered from my global role during that past experience of mine, to the ordering of the fate of the world, your world and that of your now prospective successors, at this moment, a "this moment" of the gravest crisis of all humanity at this present time.
The onset of that now famous period of the SDI, which coincides with what I have identified of a relatively recent Golden Age in Vatican history, dates from a time about a quarter-century or more before the present youth generation was born, and belongs to the political and related adult experience of generations born more than a half-century ago. Most of my colleagues from among notable figures around the world are now long deceased. Only a shrinking handful of the world's population, as from among many now deceased Cardinals and other leading clergy of the Church, remains in possession of actual recollection of the quality of thinking which shaped the history of the world's population during the still earlier times that General and President Charles de Gaulle, for example, was still a prominent factor in the current shaping of modern history.
Worse, there are almost no qualified professors of the subject of history alive and functioning in their posts in the world available to assist us today. Therefore, there is virtually no real comprehension of the larger actual experience of mankind in modern world history as a whole. Still worse, today, there is virtually no "instinct" for competent knowledge of the history of mankind, even among leading incumbent academics, pertaining to that period of trans-Atlantic history during the most relevant period of time since as recently as the infamous Peloponnesian War. Therefore, we, today, should speak of those dwindling numbers among we living today, who, in these present times, do recall, as the old men of Egypt in their time spoke to Solon of Athens of the already millennia-old history of Mediterranean cultures, warning: "You Hellenes have no truly old men among you."[1]
How then, were it possible that what might be laughingly described as those youngsters regarded as "the old men" of our present time, could have any active knowledge respecting the concepts of death and immortality, in such intellectually poverty-stricken times as these of today?
To begin the following discussion here, the prevalent fault in historical outlook among most Protestant denominations today, is that the modernist, only nominally Christian doctrine of an "after life," locates immortality as existing, implicitly, only within some non-existing universe, not our own. Most religious believers dream of a false "other universe" sometimes identified to what is often intended to be a misleading effect, and contrary to the Christian so-called "New Testament" claims: a view which proposes an actually non-existent, pagan's sort of "Kingdom of Heaven"[2] situated outside the actual universe.
In the truth of the matter, in that real universe of past, present, and future, which we inhabit today, the relevant, attributed statements of Jesus Christ and his Apostles, considered in essentials, refer us to a future realization of the intended nature of the soul of the relevant, presently living human person, a nature to be recognized as something which will be realized more fully at some future time after a supersession of the presently existing world system, when, in effect, we who will have passed off "this mortal coil," may hope to live still, in a certain way, as if in the flesh, in a future condition of this universe, in a universe known as a "simultaneity of eternity."
The problems posed by the childish fantasies of some religious sects, with special attention to those wilder varieties of syncretic, only nominally Christian ones, must be recognized as such, and then pushed aside, to make way for our attaining not only a better future for the outcome of our having lived, thus, but for the sake of the future of all mankind. Therefore, I narrow the selection of the issues addressed here, for the purpose of identifying, and correcting those misunderstandings which are to be traced to a lack of scientific competence in understanding the actually scientific implications of what the so-called New Testament, for example, actually specifies. I emphasize a contrast of that view, to the kinds of evils which can be traced to reductionist dogmas of Aristotle and Euclid, or to the influence of Paolo Sarpi's pro-Satanic corruption typical of much of modern Protestant dogma, or the theological implications of a frankly pro-Satanic, positivist view of the subject matter of science.
Whether the reader of this report might be classed as a "believer," or not, the actual issues-in-fact of contemporary religious belief, with emphasis on European civilization's beliefs, are universal for all European and related cultures presently. Whether in or out of the places of worship, the confusion in this matter, is rooted in the defects inhering in the present cultural traditions of those nations, whether among putative "believers," or not; their ideological blunders are common follies, in particular, throughout European civilization generally.
For example, contrast the clinical case of that avowedly un-Christian child of British ideology, Karl Marx, as follows.[3]
It is significant, for understanding the actual British reasons for what I have referenced here as a perverse London's presently prevalent frauds against the name of an actual Christianity, to point out the echo of Christian belief in the practice of physical science by the principled opponents of the so-called "philosophical" Liberalism of the followers of Paolo Sarpi. I refer here to opponents of such as Johannes Kepler. I also refer to the contrary, worse-than-useless, intrinsically pathetic, Sarpian, Isaac Newton cult of the followers of Galileo today (e.g., modern "positivism"). Take the relevant case of that notorious worshiper of Satan known as Adam Smith, who, in a manner of speaking, produced such avowed disciples of Sarpian positivism as the actual adult personality of the notable Karl Marx.[4]
Clear the decks in preparation for this discussion, by brief attention to both the intrinsic fallacy of Aristotle, as reflected in the a-priori pseudo-principles of Euclid, and, then, continue with the different guise of a true Satan, the banning of all actual forms of universal physical principles by the Liberalism of Paolo Sarpi and his followers. Select attention to a stubbornly nasty case of this Sarpi problem; take the case of the depraved Sarpian ideologue, Adam Smith.
In his 1759 Theory of the Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith presents us with the following paragraph, in which he sums up the essential notions of modern, Sarpian, Anglo-Dutch Liberalism. I cite here the same excerpted passage as published in my own and then-associate David P. Goldman's 1980 The Ugly Truth About Milton Friedman.[5]
The administration of the great system of the universe ... the care of the universal happiness of all rational and sensible beings, is the business of God and not of man. To man is allotted a much humbler department, but one much more suitable to the weakness of his powers, and to the narrowness of his comprehension, the care of his own happiness, of that of his family, his friends, his country. ...
But though we are ... endowed with a very strong desire of those ends, it has been intrusted to the slow and uncertain determinations of our reason to find out the proper means of bringing them about. ... Hunger, thirst, the passion which unites the two sexes, the love of pleasure, and the dread of pain, prompt us to apply those means for their own sakes, and without any consideration of their tendency to those beneficent ends which the great Director of nature intended to produce by them.
Those remarks by Adam Smith are a faithful echo of the intention of "the true Paolo Sarpi," and are, also the ideology of such Eighteenth-century pseudo-scientists working in their role as hoaxsters as followers of Abbé Antonio S. Conti, his lackey Voltaire, the imaginary Abraham de Moivre, his crony Jean le Rond d'Alembert, the sinister hoaxster Leonhard Euler, and their Eighteenth and Nineteenth-century empiricist and positivist followers generally.
That modern moral perversion is extended from Smith and his life, up through followers of the sequence of positivists such as Karl Weierstrass, Ernst Mach, David Hilbert, Bertrand Russell's peculiarly brutish notions of "modern systems analysis," and beyond. Russell is echoed by his devotees among both the circles of the Club of Rome and of the utterly depraved hoaxsters of the pseudo-science associated with the Russellite tradition of Academician J. Gvishiani's Laxenberg, Austria-based International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), up through the present time of such as Russia's British agents Mikhail Gorbachov and Anatoly Chubais, to the present day.
Or, to report that view of Adam Smith's own avowed policies, as presented in his own words, above, but, in my own words: the reductionism of the followers of Paolo Sarpi, insists, that there are no actual principles existing within the bounds of the definition of the modern empiricism otherwise known as "liberalism," and otherwise known as either "positivism" generally or the similarly, morally depraved doctrines of "systems analysis," in particular.
In other words, there is the monstrous misuse of the term "principle" among the Sarpi devotees known as "empiricists" in general, or as modern varieties of "positivism" since Auguste Comte, Karl Weierstrass, Felix Klein, David Hilbert, or the more radical varieties among the followers of the "Cambridge Systems Analysis" of Bertrand Russell. Each and all among these typify fraudulent uses of the term "principle" among the devotees of Paolo Sarpi's dogma. The use of "principle" for such purposes as the notion of "a principle" of statistical behavior, is, thus, in and of itself, a fraud against science.
In contrast to Sarpi and his positivist followers, all actual principles of science exist only as either Johannes Kepler's and Albert Einstein's treatments of Johannes Kepler's principle of universal gravitation define a physical principle, or as is done in a refined way according to the practice of Academician V.I. Vernadsky's distinctions among Lithosphere, Biosphere, and Noösphere, as being outside all derivations of their origins from the domain of mere statistical deductions as such.
To restate the point: what the modern empiricists and positivists have chose to term "principles," are, according to Sarpi's specifications, merely statistical-mathematical deductions, not actually principles.
Or, in another view of the same matter, science is the enemy of modern positivism, as Albert Einstein identified Kepler's discovery of a true universal physical principle of gravitation, that as defining an expandably finite, and therefore unbounded universe, or as Vernadsky defined the distinctively universal principles of Lithosphere, Biosphere, and Noösphere.
To illustrate the proper notion of the use, or misuse of the term "principle," begin by comparing and contrasting the inherently fraudulent dogmas of Aristotle and Euclid, with those of Paolo Sarpi and his followers, contrasting both, each in its own way, to actual science. The attack on Aristotelean ideology delivered by Philo of Alexandria, provides us a valuable clue to the knowledge of theological matters which I present, thus, in my own terms, as follows.
Before turning to the body of this report, ask: what should be an obvious question: what is so special about Christianity—or, better said, a carefully considered role of Christianity? The essential reply is, the specific kind of promise of resurrection, "as if in the twinkling of an eye," delivered for the cause of Jesus of Nazareth. The importance of that promise does not lie within the bare fact that it was presented; but, that lies in its accords with such developments as scientific proof available today, that the promise is a scientifically valid one, on condition that positivist and related gibberish expressed in the misused name of science, is, properly, discarded.[6]
I. On The Subject Of Immortality
The question is: Since all mortal forms of mere animals do experience the permanent death which is the characteristic fate of the members of each such species, what should we adopt as the New Testament meaning of human "immortality"?[7] "The bosom of Abraham" is not an un-useful suggestion, but it is useless as a scientific term.
For the competent scientist, the relevant reply is, that the discovery and perpetuation of efficient forms of what are actually universal physical principles (which do not exist in either the a-priorist doctrines of Aristotle and Euclid, or among Sarpi's followers), point to the possibility of an implicitly immortal act by the mind of the relevant human individuals. In addition, it is a crucial fact, demonstrated repeatedly by competent scientific practice, that the adoption of actually discovered universal physical principles for practice, if they are permitted to become truly efficient by society, live on, if they are actually discovered universal principles, as efficiently acting principles within society, long after the original discoverer is deceased. No other form of life, but mankind, can do this. Hence, Academician V.I. Vernadsky's physical distinction of the Noösphere from the mere Biosphere.[8]
This phenomenon of apparent immortality of discovered true principles, which remain independently efficient when their authors are deceased, as so illustrated, can be termed a definition, for scientists, of that technical term of Christian theology which is identified by competent modern scientific practice, as "a simultaneity of eternity" which exists only in physical space-time, rather than as "space, time, and matter."
If we apply the notion of dynamics of Gottfried Leibniz adduced from his work of the 1690s, all persons who participate according to the influence of the discovery of a discovered universal physical principle, enjoy "the special kind of protection" afforded such beliefs in what are truly universal principles; this notion is opposed to the statistical sophistries of the empiricists and their bastard positivist offspring.
However, since no statement of physical principles, as such, is willingly permitted to be expressed, unharmed, within earshot of a devout British ideologue, we are thus impelled to assume that British subjects, and their monarchs, generally remain, like both behaviorist Adam Smith and the ordinary beasts at large, as like the devotees of the traditions of the pseudo-scientific organization which was spawned by Bertrand Russell and the Cambridge school of systems analysis. This was also known as the doctrine of that pseudo-scientific cult known as IIASA; the devotees of that cult, still today, flee from the specter of actually human life, directly to a kind of belief in nowhere, where they are unencumbered by the cultivation of any systemically soulful intimations of immorality. They are not as much merely "ignorant," as they are as viciously stupefied as by something equivalent, in effect, to the drugs in which the British empire traffics, still, under Queen Elizabeth II, today.
So, I came to the view that Bertrand Russell was the most evil man of which I had knowledge from among the contemporaries of my own life-time.
Therefore, the notable point which I emphasize here, is the special nature of mankind's adoption and practice of validatable, universal principles tantamount to Johannes Kepler's uniquely original discovery of a principle of universal gravitation. This discovery by Kepler, is to be appreciated in the terms of Albert Einstein's summary treatment of that discovery by Kepler as an efficient, universal principle which is termed by Einstein as, "finite, but not bounded."[9]
Those deeper ontological implications referenced by Einstein in that instance, serve us as a key to insight into the subject of this report: the scientifically definable conditions defining the immortality of relevant human souls.
To begin with, ask: What is the difference between the role of the true scientific creativity which is uniquely specific to the human mind, among all other kinds of known living species, and the opposing view expressed by such wretched creatures such as the Aristoteleans, the empiricists, and the beasts? Why, on precisely that account, do we mark behavior which would be rightly considered as "depraved" in a human being, such as the health-care policies of President Barack Obama, or of Britain's former Prime Minister Tony Blair, as normal only for lower forms of life met among insects, or some other animal behavior?
It should be commonplace to refer to this distinction as defining "civilized" or "cultivated" forms specific to some human behavior; but, such terminology, while sometimes convenient, is not scientifically grounded. Such usages belong, at their least worst, to the domain of "the superficial, but convenient," rather than to matters of strict principle.
What, then, is this principle of human creativity which is missing from all lower forms of life, and which distinguishes the human being, uniquely, from the beasts?
The Transition to Modern Europe
Since the death of Plato, much of the organization of mental life for the leadership among most of the populations of globally extended European civilization, has dwelt, during most times, under the reigning influence of dogmas similar to those of such as those rival expressions by Aristotle and Paolo Sarpi, which virtually prohibit the cultivation, often, even the recognition, of those innate potentials of the individual human mind for most of the human population. Implicitly, for the Aristotelean, "Do nothing which was not done by your father and other ancestors." For the followers of Sarpi, the slogan is: "Tolerate no principle!"
In the case of the systemic adversary of Plato, Aristotle, his attempted suppression of those innate creative powers which are unique to the mental life of the human species, is typified by the fraudulent rewriting of existing knowledge of geometry which resulted in the inherently fraudulent system defined by the a-priori damage to humanity expressed as the presumptions of Euclid's Elements.
Despite important exceptions to this by great thinkers such as the Cyrenaican follower of the science of Plato, Eratosthenes, and the temporary revival of human progress under such as the reign of Charlemagne in Europe and the Baghdad Caliphate under Charlemagne's ally, the great Haroun al-Raschid, against a dictatorship of systematic suppression of the creative powers of the human individual mind, that suppression reigned in Europe, excepting relatively rare exceptions, until such geniuses as Dante Alighieri, that onset of Europe's Fourteenth-century Golden Renaissance centered on the great ecumenical Council of Florence, and the role in the founding of science by such of that renaissance's figures as Filippo Brunelleschi and Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa.
The economic-cultural impact of the work of that Council, as continued under the European governments of France's Louis XI and his English follower Henry VII, led, through the course of the Fifteenth Century, to the later collapse of the Habsburg power based in Spain, and, thus, produced those conditions of crisis in the pro-Aristotelean system of Trent, a failure of Trent which allowed the rise to power of a new form of reductionist evil known as the modern European, Anglo-Dutch Liberalism, that of Paolo Sarpi. The outcome of Sarpi has been that British empire which both reigns as the principal threat to the continued existence of our United States and is the chief source of the perils and sufferings of continental Europe (and other places) up through the present moment this is written.
The ancient and medieval modes of moral corruption associated with the legacy of Aristotle, were premised on what the dramatist Aeschylus attacked on stage as the image of the evil Olympian Zeus of the Prometheus Trilogy. This evil product of the Delphi cult, was typified by the fraudulent dogma of Euclid's geometry, and by what Philo of Alexandria rightly denounced as Aristotle's asserted virtual death of the Creator—the basis in Aristotle for what was to become known Friedrich Nietzsche's "God is dead" nonsense.
The change from the notorious poisoner of his time, Aristotle, to the reign of a Sarpi whose rule over modern Europe, was based in the rising power of Atlantic maritime power over the relatively, economically stagnating Mediterranean societies, came as an attack on the Habsburgs' tyranny from its Atlantic flank. Although the Habsburg tyrannies of Portugal and Spain were, at the first, a relatively great power in Transatlantic maritime terms, the rot of the imperial conservatism of the "Aristotelean" Habsburg tyrannies of Spain and Portugal, has produced the characteristic, relatively persisting economic-cultural failures caused by oligarchical tyrannies in most of Ibero-America, including, in fact, today's oligarchical system in Brazil, to the present day.
In that, negative, way, the putatively "pro-Aristotelean" Habsburg tyranny, created the present British empire of today's world, by its crippling influence within the modern European continent and Mediterranean region.
The crucial difference underlying the (only) relative strategic success of what has become the British imperial system of Paolo Sarpi, must be credited, chiefly, to the opportunities produced by the stubborn stupidity of the modern European followers of Aristotle.
The relevant change came about in the following way.
The spark for the creation of modern Europe, out of the muck of a Venice-steered European feudalism, was provided, typically, by the influence of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth centuries' followers of Dante Alighieri, an influence expressed inclusively by Dante's De Monarchia and his emphasis on the role of the Italian language as opposed to a tyranny of Latin. With the discrediting effects of the "New Dark Age" created by the Venetian monetarist manipulations of the foolishly credulous Italian merchant bankers such as the Bardi and Peruzzi, the later, Fifteenth-Century councils of the Papacy, combined with effects of such developments as the crucial influence of Jeanne d'Arc's personal leadership in this, led to a vigorous intellectual revival in Europe, a renaissance reaching a certain peak in the great, A.D. 1438-39 ecumenical Council of Florence, which had unleashed what should be regarded now as a profound revolution in all human history up to that moment, and the modern, ecumenical model of hope for all mankind, still today.
The most typical figures in the scientific revolution which accompanied the developments within and abutting this Council, are to be recognized in the succession of the efforts of founding a competent form of modern European science prompted by Filippo Brunelleschi[10] and developed as a systemic body of knowledge by the founder of modern European science, Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa.[11] Notably, Cusa was also the creator of the policy followed, since approximately A.D. 1480, by Christopher Columbus's design for the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean first attempted in A.D. 1492.
The development of modern European physical science, by Cusa, was crucial for the launching of the first modern European nation-state, that of the implied follower of the great mission of the martyred Jeanne d'Arc, France's Louis XI, whose inspiration led to the great reform of Henry VII's freeing England (if but temporarily) from what had been the evil grip of Richard III.
The Oligarchical Principle
The combination of the defeat of the maritime ambitions of the Persian Empire and the folly of the subsequent Peloponnesian War, led to an attempted grand-imperialist agreement between the Persian Empire and the Macedon of Prince Philip which had come to dominate a Greece self-ruined by the Delphic folly of the Peloponnesian War. That attempted agreement between the Persian Empire and Philip of Macedon, failed when Philip was assassinated, and his heir, the Alexander known as "the Great" assumed the reign, despite frantic opposition to this from Aristotle, and proceeded from the directly contrary intention to what had been that of his father.
Nonetheless, the assassination of Alexander himself, a killing which the pointing finger of history attributes to the skilled poisoner Aristotle, presents us a relevant version of the intended empire, as one based on the oligarchical principle; this came into being, step-wise. Ultimately, a de facto treaty-agreement reached, on the Isle of Capri, between the Octavian later known as Augustus Caesar, and the priesthood of the cult of Mithra, set the terms for the establishment of that Roman Empire which remains the root of European forms of imperialism, from that time to the present state of rule and ruin, enjoyed under the present "Dope, Incorporated" regime of the present, putative empress, Britain's Elizabeth II.
The opposing, European resistance to that imperialist system, was already expressed in such relevant locations as Aeschylus' Prometheus Trilogy. The significance of that point can be illustrated as follows.
Today, what Aeschylus deployed to illustrate the principled issue of that Trilogy, was the case of what the figure of the Olympian Zeus banned as "the use of fire" by members of what the relevant priests of the monetarist Delphi cult considered a virtual body of "popular cattle" known as human beings.
Today, the exact same principle of evil of that Olympian Zeus, is the evil of the cult which is known as "the green ideology." The opposition to nuclear power, as in the case of Germany presently, is an excellent illustration of the way in which nations are destroyed through the Flagellant-like cult of a "green ideology" of that British Royal Family typified by the explicitly pro-genocidalist Prince Philip, as by the Royal Family's current, avowedly pro-genocidalist, American puppet, Barack Obama. The whimpering mass of those foolish U.S. Democrats who defend Obama's policies of Adolf Hitler-style mass-murder in the name of "health-care policies," are now being directed by "Big Brother" Obama against members of the families of Democratic Party officials, all in the Orwellian name of "health care." This evidence presents us with an apt illustration of this grave moral problem of the U.S. government presently.
When we speak today, if we speak competently, the inner characteristic which thus distinguishes the human personality from the beast, is precisely that quality of creativity which we may rightly associate, symptomatically, with the inspiration of both great discoveries of universal physical principle and of the creative works of Classical artistic modes of creative expression.
Therefore, we enter the following chapters of this report by focusing on several among the most relevant among the subsumed, most crucial implications of this notion of the nature and powers of individual creativity.
II. The Human Mind
The currently prevalent, or better said, "relatively bestial" opinion respecting the nature of the human individual, is, first, the presumption that the reality of human life is that which is associated with faith in sense-certainty, and, second, that contrary notions such as those of the Classical artistic composition and physical-scientific discovery of principles, are the relatively, or even absolutely ephemeral aspects of human activity and inward mental life.
The problem that habit represents, is the perverse denial that it is the domain of sense-certainty which is the mere shadow of reality, and creativity, the true substance of the existence of the human individual.
However, in the practice of modern physical science, as founded by the successive stages of development by Filippo Brunelleschi and Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, the physical reality of mankind's successful dealings with the universe outside both our skins and other sense-organs, is shown to coincide, in modalities, with Brunelleschi's otherwise practically impossible construction of the dome of Florence's cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, by the use of a physical curve, rather than a Euclidean one. The same point is made by Cusa's recognition of the incompetence of Archimedes' presumption that the circle could be generated by quadrature.
This approach by Cusa was extended by Johannes Kepler's successive discoveries of the nature of the planetary elliptical orbits of Earth and Mars, and, after that, Kepler's discovery of the universal principle of gravitation, as the significance of this latter discovery was made clearer by Albert Einstein.
It must also be emphasized, that these discoveries in modern European science, are reflections of ancient European accomplishments such as Archytas' constructively dynamic solution for the duplication of the cube, as emphasized later by Eratosthenes, and the matter of the Platonic solids.
Most crucial, however, has been Kepler's fundamental, and uniquely original discovery of the system of the Solar planetary orbits. In this case, the use of the mutually contradictory senses, of sight and harmonics, were combined to define a phenomenon which was neither of the two. This method employed by Kepler, absorbed the methods of both his ancient Classical predecessors and the work since moderns such as Brunelleschi and Cusa; yet, it also defined the exact nature of a competent form of modern physical science for all physical science thereafter.[12]
The consequent importance of the progress met in the ancient Classical Greek science, in the emergence of modern science through Leibniz and Gauss, and the later genius shown by modern leaders in the physical relativity of such as Bernhard Riemann, Max Planck, Academician V.I. Vernadsky, and Albert Einstein, is located for modern science in the unique originality of Kepler's discovery of a universal principle of gravitation, as Einstein recognized this aspect of the matter.
The point to be emphasized in this account, is, that, contrary to the modern positivist cult's dogma, the human senses, when considered in and of themselves, are merely instrumentation which does not show us the reality of the universe which that instrumentation addresses. It is only those crucial-experimental proofs which, like Kepler's uniquely original discovery of gravitation, show us experimental evidence which does not rely upon the assumed authority of any particular type of sense-perception. This requirement is imposed upon synthetic instrumentation as also upon sense-perceptions. Call this "The Helen Keller Principle."
These considerations impel us to make a crucial distinction between the human mind, as such, and the human brain with its attached sense-organs. Here lies the clearly expressed distinction of man from beast.
These considerations define the human soul as the reality, and sense-perception as merely the shadow cast by reality, as I had learned to begin to understand this through studious reflections on constructions witnessed at the Charlestown Navy Yard.
Man in Space
In the immediate post-World War II decades, the U.S.A.'s space pioneers considered the hypothetical sending of a flotilla of space-craft from Earth to Mars. Today, we admire that thought, but have considerable reason to doubt that the task is quite that simple, although comparable in conception.
There are two exemplary problems to be considered. First, the effects of a voyage across the Earth-Mars distance on the physical condition of the passengers and crew during a lapsed time of travel in the order of perhaps 300 days. While that may present no systemic problem for non-human objects, 300 days in such travel by human occupants of the space-craft, poses some rather alarming problems.
First of all, we know that by tapping the resources of helium-3 isotope lying on the surface of our Moon, we can conjecture accelerated flight between Earth-orbit and Mars-orbit. Perhaps as brief a journey as several days. However, then, we are forced to recognize that the space between Earth-orbit and Mars-orbit is not empty space, especially if we attempt the indispensable, constantly accelerated/decelerated flight-trajectories. It may "look" empty, because we have no built-in sense-organs for recognizing what lurks for the unwitting traveler in the seemingly empty space between the points in any presently ordinary way.
At that moment, as our current "basement" discussions run, we are approaching a subject which requires us to treat cosmic radiation as the leading subject of our interplanetary travel-plans for mankind, especially the problems associated with the tuning-ranges of relatively "soft" radiation of particular interest to living processes. We have entered the domain in which singularities supplant the presumed, rather naive identities of particles as such. We are confident that the apparent obstacles will be mastered if approached in the proper way, but the process of mastering those conceptual difficulties must proceed.
There is a certain quality of urgency involved, since the Sun will not treat Earth's present orbital pathway pleasantly forever. The remainder of the century appears relatively secured on this account, so we do have some time available for the art of worrying.
Matters posed by our physical chemists proceeding in the tradition of such as William Draper Harkins and Academician V.I. Vernadsky, when they are duly considered in broad terms of discussion, return our attention to the subject-matter of the human soul.
Once we recognize that nitty-gritty is not at all that which naive faith in mere sense-perception suggests, the perception of man's soul becomes, rather quickly, a view closer to the person of the Creator than to attractions to the follies of sense-certainty. Indeed, the essence of man's existence becomes primarily that of a practically efficient kind of what would be considered, as by today's more or less naive beliefs, as a spiritual being, rather than being considered, wrongly, as the reality of merely living meat. The kinship to the Creator is thus sensed more intimately. It is those discoveries we can class as discovered principles which live as efficient principles after the human discoverer is deceased, which tend to reveal themselves, more and more, as the essential expression of the distinction of man from beast.
In the moment those considerations of the nature of being is to be taken into account, something wonderful seems to have happened. The distinction of mind from brain has growing practical importance for scientific progress today. Now, the significance of what are actually the discoverable universal physical principles which the followers of Paolo Sarpi forbid to be considered, starts to grow upon us.
At the same time we must re-map the "periodic table" for the comparison of the function of cosmic radiation's role in, respectively, living and non-living functions.
This brings us to the subject of dynamics.
III. Dynamics
As he entered the closing decade of the Seventeenth Century, Gottfried Leibniz returned European science to the period of its achievements between, first, a moment prior to the legalized assassination of the innocent Socrates, and, then, the death of Plato: looking back to the concept of dynamis, or in the modern language of Gottfried Leibniz, dynamics. The most crucial among the effects of this shift, is that, whereas the universal physical principle of dynamics, shifts the means of mass-action from the will of the discrete individual from the brutish, ape-like individuality to what might have been considered the phenomenon of a mass of individualities, we are impelled, thus, to focus our attention and intentions on the role of the sovereign individual intellect as a participant in the process of influencing, and being influenced by the massed process itself.
Man is not an intruder into the domain of Earth otherwise; rather, the extension of man's development subsumes the development of our planet, and, ultimately, the Solar system, and beyond, as well.
The effect of this change in adduced viewpoint, is most conveniently typified by the concluding paragraphs of Percy Bysshe Shelley's A Defence of Poetry, as also by Rosa Luxemburg's conception of "the mass strike" as a matter of Leibnizian dynamics: an emphasis which is now expressed by the currently accelerating rate of transformation of the behavior of the mass of the citizens of the U.S.A., in opposition to both the President and most members of the U.S. Congress, presently.
Essentially, the apparent change currently in progress among us, is, that, as Shelley emphasized in the concluding paragraphs of his A Defence of Poetry, requires that we consider, that in the individual's making an essentially individual decision for action, the individual should act upon the shaping of the disposition for action among a mass within the population. Thereafter, while that situation persists, the individual's influence is expressed chiefly as acting on the mass of which he or she is a functional part at that moment, a reciprocal kind of effect among individual will and mass social dynamics, which, in turn, shapes the individual's and the group's shared disposition for a choice of form of action. In a word from physical science, dynamics.
Thus in all the relevant aspects of human existence as known thus far, it is the act of revolution in the quality of human thought which prompts a change in the massed standpoint of a relevant individual's options for proposed action, which largely determines, for better, or for worse, the options for the great changes in direction of entire classes of persons in society at each time.
The most instructive expression of this is to be recognized in the best intervals from ancient or modern physical science, when dynamics, otherwise known by the ancient name of dynamis, shaped the leading movements in ancient physical science, as prior to the culturally catastrophic Peloponnesian War.
This concept of dynamis/dynamics, is inseparable from the phenomenon of a social process in which universal physical principles, or the like, exert what appears to be a top-down direction of the unfolding of progress respecting both ideas and actions within the relevant society, or social processes as such. Regard for the relevant effect does appear in social processes organized according to such cases as the modern empiricist cultures, such as those of Britain and the Netherlands under the influence of Sarpi-ism, but there is no moral or comparable principle, other than a kind of bestial passion involved in this in those cases of today's stubbornly reductionist dogma.
Probably, in future times, more or less nearby, society will have a more active, better sense of these matters, than today. The likely cause for that improvement in the potential for scientific understanding of the universe we inhabit, will come when our scientific communities cease blocking out attention to the role of cosmic radiation, especially so-called low-intensity such radiation, especially upon living processes, prompting scientific practice to abandon the crude reductionism of a simply particle-based image of the universe, and of the reading of the periodic table, for emphasis on singularities, especially the role of living processes, and of the functions of the human mind most emphatically.
It is most provocative to consider the physical-economic fact, that ancient maritime-based cultures, such as those expressed in the form of the great Pyramid of Egypt, reflect the development of both maritime and the recent six- or seven-thousand years' development of riparian cultures under the superior influence of the effects of the role of trans-oceanic maritime cultures during the period inclusive of the last great "ice age" and the rising of oceanic and related levels to those of about 4,000-2,000 B.C.
IV. Creativity & Spirituality
No known species of living creature, other than mankind, embodies the power of actual creativity. When the implications of this are understood, what may be rightly termed spirituality and creativity are essentially identical forms, ontologically. The appropriate forms of sane religious beliefs, are an expression of the apprehension of the sense that it is this creativity, as a distinction of the human species, which imparts to mankind the potential for an implicitly immortal role within the universe, beyond the bounds of an animal-like incarnation.
This distinction is that of the quality of the principle of specifically human creativity whose existence is denied by both Aristotle and the followers of Paolo Sarpi.
The power of human creativity is expressed, typically, by those discoveries of universal physical principles which continue to be, specifically, efficiently creative in their immortal form, long after the discoverer is deceased.
Thus, there is an expression of human individual creativity which continues to express that creative power long after the author is deceased, an immortal existence of that power within the universe, a power which lives on long after the human brain to which it might be thought the relevant individual brain is no more, and continues to exist, for us, in our universe, as long as the mankind which possesses that discovery continues to exist.
Then, the sense that we, in this way, partake of the nature of the Creator, as we might adduce such an intention from the first chapter of the Mosaic Genesis, prompts us to locate our personal identity in our sense of an ontological likeness to, and affinity with the Creator, which, in turn, is the legitimate expression of a form of religious belief congruent with the notion of true universal creativity.
This creative action, turns on a light, suddenly, in the mind, which unleashes a sensation of a sudden surge of a likeness of warmth in the discoverer, which, once unleashed within society, exists as if it had "infected" persons other than the original human discoverer, even long after the original discoverer were deceased, as my own youthful experience with examples of the experiencing of the creativity of such as Gottfried Leibniz, or Bernhard Riemann, attests to this in a particularly outstanding way in my own experience.
However, that does not fill out the picture.
For as long as we believe that our merely sense-perceptual notion of self must dominate our notion of a so-called "practical" form of personal identity, the sense of a creative potency existing within us, is associated with a "feeling of something unreal," and always tending to slip from the grasp of our mind, and, yet, sometimes, expresses a more or less compelling sense of "the religious feeling."
Yet, it is not merely a "feeling." It is only when we see our sense-perceptual powers as "necessary, although unreal," as in a scientific manner, that we are enabled to begin to associate the sense of an "I-ness" with the higher, creative, and implicitly immortal powers of the individual human mind, as distinct from the mere notion of a "brain." It is the prescience of a successful discovery of a universal principle, rather than a merely wishful impulse, which presents society with a creative insight through the role of what are usually very much exceptional individuals.
It is in such moments, when this occurs, that the effect is of "a light turned on in what had been a darkened mind," not a fantasy but an insight into what is not merely feasible, but a necessity.
Such is the celebrated "intimation of immortality," a discovery which, once unleashed, retains the power to inspire, again and again, thereafter.
The only valid remedies for such a sense of uncertainty respecting what passes for the "spiritual" aspect of personal identity, are those made accessible through recognizing the function of the human individual's actual creative powers, or, simply, the capacity to act for the sake of a quality of "lovingness" toward other human individuals. Even the sense of companionship with, and responsibility for a pet dog, as an extension of the principle of loving regard for one's children, serves this purpose with a certain more or less profound sort of fair approximation of the religious motivation, the simple joy of being alive.
Such are the experiences of an intimation of immortality.
It is this experience, which has the quality of an expression of a sense of quiet joy, which we not merely sense, but know, when it is accompanied by the manifestation of a power of discovery of a principled form of notion of creativity which seizes our will with both the power of a fresh discovery, as something which is inherently good because it is a true discovery.
More will be said on these subjects, as the work "in the basement" and in related endeavors from sundry contributors from around the world produce their effects.
[1] In place of actual historians, today, we have those whose mouths utter oddly selected gobbets of facts from sundry isolated persons, places, and events, sometimes accurately, at other times falsehoods, but, usually, with no comprehension of actual history as a process.
[2] Compare what I have just described here with Raphael Sanzio's representation of the controversy depicted within the School of Athens.
[3] The Karl Marx of the myth, rather than the man, is a phenomenon of a political idea which the relevant actualities of history have bestowed upon the actual image of the effect with which he is associated. I suspect that Rosa Luxemburg understood this in some degree; the evidence to that effect is a subject in itself. As a study of the offshoots of the Cambridge School of systems analysis demonstrates (e.g., IIASA, the International Institute of Applies Systems Analysis) Marx's doctrine, is not the nadir of the business; there is far worse stuff than Marx's follies to be recognized in present British actions which have shifted the financial capital of Russia from Moscow, to the cess-pots of the Cayman Islands and related Antilles.
[4] Irony does not create truth, but is usually an indispensable aid for revealing it. According to Karl Marx's father, that father's errant son had traveled far distant from the principles of his secondary education in Trier under Johann Hugo Wyttenbach. Marx was converted to the reductionism of the Romantic School which was famously denounced at that time by his sometimes acquaintance Heinrich Heine, but was also dosed, through rabidly reductionist influences such as the British agent Frederick Engels. According to the correspondence of both Engels and Marx himself, Marx was repeatedly "brainwashed," by controllers such as Engels, to effects, as Marx himself admitted, to be consistent with the depravity of the actually imperialist social dogma of Lord Shelburne's agent Adam Smith. Although the use of the term "positivism" is usually dated to its later uses, the principle of positivism was already presented by Sarpi, as also such Sarpi apostles as Galileo.
[5] The New Benjamin Franklin House, New York, 1980. Goldman went on to become, presently, a devotee of that evil which he had shared in denouncing in 1980—as if to say: if you can not beat them, join them!
[6] The following four chapters present the "spine" of a set of chapters which will undergo evolution and expansion during the coming weeks and months. What is presented initially, is the hard core of the subject-matter. The future expansion in revised editions will reflect discussions of these topical areas among the author and his associates.
[7] Certain households' dogs, for example, find a curious intimation of immortality contingent upon the household which they represent; but, that is a subject-matter for a different occasion.
[8] I enjoyed such an experience during the age-range of 14-15. Through repeated opportunities to observe construction at the Boston, Massachusetts area's Charlestown U.S. Navy Yard, I reached the conclusion that the process of construction, whose designs I observed, required a calculation in physical space, rather than simply mathematical geometry. The relevant discovery occurred, fortunately, prior to my first day in the relevant geometry class. It was not an original principle, but it was one I made in what was for me, a personally unique and original way. I had neither read nor heard of physical geometry as a conception then, but what I did discover then virtually saved the meaning of my life. The single set of experiences, in making that elementary discovery of a principle of physical geometry, rather than a silly formal geometry as such, shaped the course of my intellectual life from that time, to the present day. Back then, the initial effect was to send me searching for everything I could find of the work of Gottfried Leibniz.
[9] Contrast the case of the insanity of Georg Cantor, as symptomized by his assertion of Isaac Newton's version of Paolo Sarpi's positivism, "Hypotheses non fingo," in his 1895 Contributions to the Founding of the Theory of Transfinite Numbers. Cf. Letters 99-101 of Cardinal J. B. Franzelin with Cantor, in Herbert Meschkowski's Georg Cantor Briefe (1991). Cantor, apart from his insanity during the closing years of his life, including those of his 1895-97 publication of his Contributions..., was strongly influenced by the destructive influence of such positivists as Karl Weierstrass, and the credulous believer in a positivism which remains as a grave systemic weakness commonplace among modern mathematicians, as distinct from the inspiring breath of sanity which has been expressed by the leading physical chemists who were followers of Bernhard Riemann. The followers of Riemann, such as Academician V.I. Vernadsky, Max Planck, William Draper Harkins, and the physicist Albert Einstein, have given us what I recognized as that beleaguered minority of competent scientists, beleaguered by the positivist fanatics, still, in this field, today.
[10] E.g., the design and crafting of the construction of the cupola of Santa Maria del Fiore made possible through Brunelleschi's use of the universal physical principle of the catenary.
[11] De Docta Ignorantia.
[12] All of the modern European attacks on the work of Kepler are a combination of sheer lies, as by the "Newtonians" of the school of Abbé Antonio Conti and his underling Voltaire, who were desperate in their efforts to suppress both the work of Nicholas of Cusa and of Kepler. The desperation of these fraudulent attacks on Kepler expressed Sarpi's and Galileo's fear that they might not succeed in imposing the modern, principle-free empiricist (e.g., Liberal) system on European culture.
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SI/2018-103 - Table of Contents
SI/2018-103
Order Designating the Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction, a member of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada, as the Minister for the purposes of the Cannabis Act (SI/2018-103)
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Regulations are current to 2019-06-06
Order Designating the Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction, a member of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada, as the Minister for the purposes of the Cannabis Act
CANNABIS ACT
Registration 2018-12-12
P.C. 2018-1417 2018-11-21
Her Excellency the Governor General in Council, on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, pursuant to section 4 of the Cannabis Act Footnote a,
Return to footnote aS.C. 2018, c. 16
(a) repeals Order in Council P.C. 2018-946 of June 26, 2018Footnote b; and
Return to footnote bSI/2018-51
(b) designates the Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction, a member of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada, as the Minister for the purposes of the Cannabis Act Footnote a.
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Andrew S. Hament
1901 South Harbor City Boulevard, Suite 501 Melbourne, Florida 32901
Firm: FordHarrison
Andy Hament represents management in all areas of employment and labor law.
He is certified by the Florida Bar as a specialist in Labor and Employment Law.
He regularly advises private and public sector employers in discipline and discharge, reductions-in–force, collective bargaining, union grievance/arbitrations, discrimination issues, sexual harassment investigations, executive employment and severance agreements, trade secret and non-compete issues, drug abuse and drug testing, the Family and Medical Leave Act and violence in the workplace.
Andy regularly represents employers in state and federal courts and in investigations and charges before the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Florida Commission on Human Relations, the U.S. Department of Labor, the National Labor Relations Board and the Florida Public Employees Relations Commission.
Earlier in his career, Andy was in-house labor counsel to Harris Corporation, where he handled all the company's domestic and international employment, labor and benefits law matters for 30,000 employees worldwide. While at Harris he also served for several years as Harris' European Counsel based in Brussels, Belgium.
Andy currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Brevard Health Alliance. He is also a past President of the Academy of Florida Management Attorneys. He also previously served on the board of directors of the United Way of Brevard County, where he co-chaired the Leadership Giving Council, as well as on the board of directors of the Easter Seals of Brevard and Bridges, Inc., human services agencies which provide support services to individuals with developmental disabilities. He is a former member of the board of trustees of the Holy Trinity Academy. He is a past president of the South Brevard Society for Human Resource Management and currently serves as its legislative chair.
www.fordharrison.com/AndyHament.
Covenants Not to Compete
Labor Law - Management
Wage-Hour Law
Litigation - Labor and Employment, Orlando (2019)
Employment Law - Management, Orlando (2017)
Labor Law - Management, Orlando (2015)
1901 South Harbor City Boulevard, Suite 501
Melbourne, Florida 32901
What is your relation to Andrew S. Hament? Consulted Attorney Current Client Former Client Other
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MONDAY’S RESULTS – Baseball, Lebanon County American Legion League Championship: Campbelltown 7, Ephrata 6
SINCERELY , JEFF FALK
SHORTS OR BRIEFS
Lebanon Listory
– Gallery 16
Prolific Shuey’s Caring and Sharing Stirs Raiders’ Team Concoction
Elco, Girls' Soccer, SINCERELY , JEFF FALK
Like the Legendary Phoenix, Myerstown Has Risen from the Ashes
Elco Cleans Up at Sweep The Streets
One-Time Falcon Skipper, Groff Bumped Upstairs
BY JEFF FALK
MYE$RSTOWN – There exists a thin line – one between good and great, between team and individual, between fact and conjecture – that Ryelle Shuey and the Elco girls’ soccer team blurs every time they step on the pitch. Or it may be that straddling is Rye’s Raiders’ most impressive skill.
These current Raiders are simply one of the finest girls’ soccer squads that Elco – and dare we say Lebanon County – has ever produced. And they are fronted, not so coincidentally – by one of the best individuals that the locale has ever produced.
That snappy little phrase ‘one of’ is the back upon which conjecture is built. In two weeks we may get a better idea of how well that phrase still applies to the Raiders.
To this point of the season, Shuey and Elco have accomplished everything they have set out to achieve. And while each has been more difficult than the prior, there’s really only one goal left to tackle.
“It’s nice that people think that way,” said Shuey, when advised that her named has surfaced in G.O.A.T. discussions on the street. “But soccer is a team sport. It’s not one person. As long as we’re winning, it doesn’t matter. I’d rather win than score. Who cares who scores? I think that approach helps our team chemistry.
“The last team to come through our program and win districts had two of our coaches on it,” continued Shuey. “It’s pretty cool that they did that as players and now they’re our coaches. It’s nice that we’re making history. This year we’re really close and we’ve connected as a team. But it goes beyond just our soccer family. Our immediate families are just so into it too. We get so much from our parents, our coaches and our community. I think they should be appreciated as well.”
“She’s not the only good player we have,” said Elco head coach Derek Fulk of Shuey. “I think those girls get overlooked somewhat. But she’s definitely got to be in the conversation. I don’t want to say she’s the best, but she’s one of the best girls’ soccer players to come through here.
“Talk to me in two weeks,” Fulk continued. “I’ll let you know then if this is the best girls’ soccer team in Elco history. If we don’t get the state title, I think they’ll (his players) be disappointed. You need things to go your way. You need to get some breaks. But what they’ve accomplished already has put them in the conversation. There’s one goal we’re still striving for, and I’ll be disappointed if we don’t get it.”
Don’t believe me? Allow history to speak for itself.
On Saturday at Hersheypark Stadium, Shuey, a senior midfielder, netted the Raiders’ only goal in a 1-0 win over Boiling Springs. Not only did the tally produce the second District Three championship in Elco history, it made Shuey the program’s all-time leading goal-scorer.
Shuey now has 25 goals this season and 86 for her career. She netted 24 goals as a freshman, 15 as a sophomore and 24 as a junior, all the while being the focus of opponents’ defenses and playing with the mindset of getting her temmates involved.
Karma is nothing to be messed with.
“I think it’s been consistent,” said Shuey, a Lehigh University commit. “My first year, I didn’t have as many people around me. This year, we have multiple goal scorers. It shows how many talented girls we have and how rounded we are. It’s everyone sharing that wealth.
“Coming into the season, I knew our team had a huge target on its back,” added Shuey. “I knew I was going to be marked, but that means my teammates would be open. If the ball comes to me and I’m marked, I just pass it off. We really don’t have a weak part because we work as a unit.”
“One year (her sophomore season) she didn’t score as many goals, but she had twice as many assists,” said Fulk. “She’s been an important part of our team for scoring goals.”
As Shuey has matured, the Raiders have grown up around her. While it may be difficult to put a finger on, there’s just something different, or better, about Elco this season – a seasoned wisdom or a more physical presence or a calmer collectivity.
It could be that Shuey’s unwavering work ethic has rubbed off on the Raiders around her.
“Obviously you have practice, but you need more outside of that,” said Shuey. “We lift over the summer and I think it’s helped us tremendously. We also do fitness over the summer. It’s doing extra work outside of practice. If you’re doing extra stuff, you’ve got to want it. On days off, it might be going to the kicking board. Maybe it’s just going outside and kicking a ball around. It’s just getting as many touches as possible.
“On the soocer field, team-wise, I’m the number-ten position,” added Shuey. “I’m just looking to possess the ball and create opportunities, which could be passing or shooting or even playing defense. Off the field, being a captain, it’s leading the girls and giving advice. Some of the younger girls come to us and ask questions.”
“Ryelle’s everything you would want as a coach,” said Fulk. “She’s humble. She’s more concerned about her teammates than she is about herself. She knows it’s a team game. She’s very compassionate. She has unbelievable character. And she’s competitive.”
Shuey also possesses the ability to turn up the intensity of her play to meet the importance of the contest. Though she vomits before many of the Raiders’ games, it doesn’t take long for her to convert nerves into energy.
“I get really nervous for everything,” said Shuey. “I’ve thrown up a lot before games. But when I get into the game, I’m fine. I think everybody knows they have to step up. But maybe I need to step up a little more.
“In the preseason, we just really pushed each other,” Shuey added. “We have a lot of talent on this team, from the seniors to the freshmen newbies. We wanted to win the section (Three of the Lancaster-Lebanon League) again, but the last three years we sort of fell short of things. We’ve always wanted a state berth.”
“She’s done it all year for us,” said Fulk. “Throughout her career, we’ve used her as a target player. Ryelle’s more comfortable in the midfield, because sometimes she draws the attention of the other team’s defenders. I think she’s pretty much been in the same spot throughout her career. But I think she’s changed. She’s matured. She does a lot of things. She creates opportunities for her teammates.”
At this point of the process, there seems to be more driving Elco’s progress than the mere possibility of a state championship. The Raiders wants to soak up the experience and enjoy the bonds they have fostered.
The Raiders want everything they feel like they have coming to them.
“There is the mentality that it could be the seniors’ last game,” said Shuey. “You’ve got to play with that mentality and play with heart. But we have the faith we’re going to keep going. It’s eventually going to be over. But we want to prolong the ending for as long as we can. It’s just been a ride. It’s been awesome. Hopefully it’ll last as long as it can – until November 17th.
“I think it’s a little bit of everything,” continued Shuey. “We’re close, so we don’t want the season to end. But a state championship has been a goal of ours since the beginning of the season.”
“At this point, I’d be disappointed to lose before we got to the finals,” said Fulk. “I’ve seen what they’re (his players) capable of. Would that alter what they’ve accomplished so far? Absolutely not. I’m their coach, but I’m also their biggest fan.”
Big, strong, smart, two-footed and blessed with deceptive speed, Shuey possesses all the atributes of a deadly scorer. It is a skill set that will translate well to the next level.
“I’m really looking forward to college,” concluded Shuey. “It’s my senior year and I want to have fun, but I’m excited to see what college holds for me. I’m excited to be a part of their (Lehigh’s) program. I think college will be a lot of fun.”
To purchase images in this article email jkfalk2005@yahoo.com.
2018 Elco Girls’ Soccer Results
Date Opponents Outcomes
10:00 am Palmyra
at Elco 0
11:00 am Elco
at Conrad Weiser 2
7:00 pm Elco
at Garden Spot 3
4:00 pm Muhlenberg
5:00 pm Cedar Crest
at Elco 04
at Cocalico 6
at Donegal 3
at Octorara 5
7:00 pm Solanco
10:00 am Hershey
at Lancaster Mennonite 3
4:00 pm Cocalico
12:00 pm Elco
7:00 pm Octorara
at Solanco 3
4:00 pm Lancaster Mennonite
4:00 pm Berks Catholic
at Elco
10:00 am Ephrata
at Lancaster Catholic 1
Hempfield
at Manheim Central 1
5:30 pm Conestoga Valley
at Warwick 1
7:00 pm Pequea Valley
5:00 pm James Buchanan
at Boiling Springs 1
7:00 pm Lewisburg
at Cedar Crest
Through Service, Charlie Middleton was Unsung Hero Everybody Knew
nine + = 12
Gin Mill
Klick-Lewis
Smith’s Candies
Heisey’s Diner
Which team will win the championship of the Lebanon County American Legion Baseball League?
Fifth Ward
Conrad Weiser
Categories Select Category Annville-Cleona Athlete of the Week ATHLETE OF WEEK Baseball Between The Lines Bowling Boys’ basketball Boys’ soccer Cedar Crest Cross Country Elco FEATURE STORIES Featured Stories Field Hockey Football Girls’ basketball Girls’ Soccer Golf Lacrosse Lebanon Lebanon Catholic Lebanon Valley College Men’s Basketball Northern Lebanon Palmyra Quickies RESPECTFULLY, JEFF FALK Say What?! Scores SHORTS OR BRIEFS SINCERELY , JEFF FALK Softball Tennis Track and Field Women’s Basketball Wrestling YOUR’S TRULY, JEFF FALK
© 2013-2018 Lebanon Sports Buzz
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Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 296
Tue, March 6, 2018 | Posted by Staff
This is the transcript for episode 296 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. Emmett, Idaho, built a community network to connect public facilities and community anchor institutions. Mike Knittel, the Systems Administrator, joins the show to explain how the small city did it and what's next. Listen to this podcast here.
Mike Knittel: They never once asked about the cost or any of that. He simply asked me. When is it going to be there for me?
Lisa Gonzalez: This is episode 296 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. I'm Lisa Gonzalez. We first took note of Emmett, Idaho, about two years ago when the city was in the process of constructing a fiber optic network to provide connectivity for its municipal facilities. At the time they had already made plans for the future which involved using publicly owned infrastructure to connect businesses and possibly one day Fiber-to-the-Home for residents. A lot has happened in Emmett since then. In this interview Christopher talks with Mike Knittel. He describes how the project is moving along and now Emmett has discovered new ways to use their infrastructure beyond what they'd initially planned and possibilities for the future. Mike also gets into how lack of quality connectivity has the community embracing the project. Now here's Christopher with Mike Knittel from Emmett Idaho.
Christopher Mitchell: Welcome to another edition of the Community Broadband Bits podcast. I'm Chris Mitchell with the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Sitting under a fresh coat of snow waiting for the next fresh coat of snow wrapped in a proper Minnesota weekend up here today I'm talking with Mike Knittel the Systems Administrator for Emmett in Idaho. Welcome to the show.
Mike Knittel: Hey Chris, thanks a lot for having me. Really appreciate the invite.
Christopher Mitchell: Absolutely. I had a fun time sharing a table talking with you a bit at the Ammon unveiling maybe six months ago now. Ammon a longtime favorite community of ours. Sounds like you're doing really great things in Emmett. so I'm excited to learn more about them. But let's start with just a brief description of Emmett for I'm guessing most people who haven't been to Emmet.
Mike Knittel: Yeah absolutely. So you know Emmett sits just outside of Boise, Idaho. We're kind of a bedroom community to Boise, definitely rural. And we're about 7,000 people so hopefully a lot of people listening to the podcast can kind of relate to our similar situation and setup and, you know, you mentioned the city of Ammon. And I got to say you're right they are a leader in our state without a doubt for some of these projects and have definitely helped us along the way with advice and really appreciate everything they're doing on their end.
Christopher Mitchell: That's great. And one of the things that we've been learning is the extent to which they're a leader in the nation. Actually we just found a city in Alabama that was considering what they could do to improve Internet access and they watched that video that we helped to do. I know that communities in Ohio have also benefited from that. So, you know, it's -- it's terrific. I'm really glad that they're lending that helping hand locally too. But you have an interesting approach I think, you know, in some ways you're definitely going your own way. You started with some investments for municipal assets as many communities have. Why don't you walk us through what you're doing.
Mike Knittel: I'll probably take even one step even further back from that just to kind of set that stage for, kind of, where we've come from and where we're at now and where we're going to but we're we're kind of a unique situation as is a lot of rural communities. You know like I said very small 7,000 people so up until just two years ago our city actually had really no structured I.T. support. So you know you have multiple departments throughout the city everything from police, fire, public works, cemetery, parks department, library, you know, all these different departments that were kind of literally doing their own thing. Right. So everybody had their own servers. Everybody had their own Internet contracts phone service contracts. It was -- it was very segmented. But you know I don't think it's necessarily untypical for communities our size to kind of be in that situation if you will.
Christopher Mitchell: You know, I actually think that that's not uncommon for cities of any size. It seems like, and just to give a sense, I mean one of the things that that's probably frustrating is as a person with the title systems administrator would be, you know, if you had to call another department you had to pick up the phone and dial 7 digit number rather than having an internal system that would be a lot easier and probably be up more.
Mike Knittel: Absolutely you're 100 percent correct. The city finally got to the point where they they recognized the value of having that in-house structured I.T. support. Right. So they created the systems administration department just two years or so ago. And I've been heading that up since then. And you know one of my main goals out of the gate was just getting our city facilities connected right so we could share those same type of resources like you mentioned something as well as a phone or phone system that would be you know internal on the city's network. So that was one of the first things that we set out to do. You know, we did what I think most people do and we went to an incumbent provider and said, hey, if we want fiber to each of our facilities. You know what, what does that look like? And when we got that quote back it kind of put us back on our heels a little bit because, again being a rural community, the city doesn't have a lot of you know capital expenditure especially for a brand new departments to facilitate some of those needs especially at those expenses. And so one of the things that you know we immediately identified. So I went to a guy that I worked very closely with, clients in our public works department, and, you know, went over this price quote with him and you know we were both fairly quickly identified like, hey we could probably build this for a lot cheaper than going this route with the incumbent and then we own the infrastructure. So, you know, we're in a good situation where the city owns the streets and the alleys and all the roadways we have the construction equipment on hand we have the crews on hand. And I will tell you what none of this for us would be possible without the help and teamwork with our public works departments. And you know, I always tell people that small communities are always resilient and they're very adaptive. So when they're faced with these things. You know I didn't have any experience building fiber. Clint and his staff didn't have any experience really building fiber but we made that determination. Like, we're going to do this as a team and our public works department really has that go getter attitude and let's get this done. So, you know, you start forming kind of those I guess inner city partnerships and you can really get a lot accomplished for a relatively low price point. So that's exactly what we did. We've started to even though again we're only a short term into our projects. That's what we've started to do. So we've we've essentially adapted the in-house kind of dig=once policy. Right. So now when public works has a road project or a water or sewer project we're evaluating that for space for fiber conduit. Right. And in fiber cable and saying hey is there value here two to comingle these projects. And once the trenches open we lay the conduit and fiber and the pull boxes and away we go. And so that's been working very very well.
Christopher Mitchell: I have to say that once again I you know this is a similar reaction I had and also had great coordination with the public works and maybe there's something in the water in Idaho. But one of the things that we hear that commonly derails projects is not getting that reaction. Let me just put an exclamation mark right there because it's really worth noting that public works when they react negatively they can really kill a project so having them not only on board but enthusiastic is tremendous and people should know that.
Mike Knittel: Oh it's a game changer. There's no doubt. And I said it before, I say it again, I could not do what we're doing without their camaraderie and teamwork that goes into it. There's no doubt. And you know that's one thing that I will say about our project so far too. We have literally done everything house whether it's fusion splicing the fiber. I take care of that. Public works helps with the construction side and does all that we pull our own cable. We've done it so far 100 percent in-house. Now I realize that there's that that may change from in time with some special needs that we might have that we don't have that capability but so far that's really what is driving us to. And there's a lot of sense of accomplishment with that too. It's been working very well so far.
Christopher Mitchell: And do you plan on doing locates? Is that something that the public works already did where if a homeowner's going -- going to dig up the yard, they're supposed to call a number and then you identify things under the ground for instance. Do you handle that yourself?
Mike Knittel: Absolutely. So you know our public works obviously has already does that for their utility for sewer, water, that kind of infrastructure. And so we are and when I say we the systems administration department is taking on that responsibility for the fiber utility. We take care of all that.
Christopher Mitchell: So what's what's next I mean you're -- you're serving your municipal functions and that's going to I'm sure results in some savings. But do you have greater ambitions to improve Internet access for others?
Mike Knittel: Yeah absolutely and it's very interesting because you always kind of think start small. Right. So back to getting our own facilities connected, you know, that was our focal point. But one thing that we really took on the mindset of is let's make sure and build in the capacity for future growth. We don't know what future growth necessarily he's going to look like let's build the capacity and what would. Specifically what I mean is we're putting in three or four conduits at a time right because the conduits the cheap part it's the construction and getting it in the ground that's the expensive part. So. So we've really taken that mindset of OK we don't know what this is going to bring for the future but let's build plenty of growth. So you kind of start there right. And then the focus being OK we're going to get our city facilities connected. That's all great. But then you start to really realize what you can leverage the network for and the infrastructure for beyond just kind of those immediate needs. So. So we've fortunately just geographically the way we were laid out we were able to get fiber to our city water tower very quickly. And the way that our cities are kind of set -- we're in a valley. So the water towers a pretty high point. So I was almost immediately able to connect all of our facilities through a fixed base wireless deployment that's backhaul by our fiber optics. And so, you know, with that we were able to immediately change to a you know an IP based phone system like you mentioned earlier that's, you know, saved us a ton of money shared broadband infrastructure for the city facilities. Again as things kind of evolve you realize wow okay there's some more stuff we can do here. So for instance we get cameras up at our city facilities for public safety that sort of thing that is all backhauled on the fiber infrastructure. One of the other things that we are excited about doing is as we build out the network in the infrastructure we're deploying public access Wi-Fi right. So we are Wi-Fi systems set up to where, you know, our staff can connect and stay connected at any city facility whether that be a park or the cemetery or well sites so that they can stay connected to the infrastructure they need to. But we're also able to segregate a part of that network to allow guest access for the public to enjoy being connected at those various facilities. So I'll give you one quick example. Our main city park, which is the largest one that we have, is we have that blanketed with Wi-Fi access points. So one of the things we're able to do that we're very excited about is we have a yearly event like many communities do. Ours is called the Cherry Festival where you have the carnival and vendors and so forth come in and it's sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce is the one who really facilitates that event. Historically the vendors would come in and the Chamber would have to facilitate some sort of connectivity for those vendors to be able to process credit card transactions or whatever that might be. And now for the last couple of years we've really been able to help them facilitate where we were actually set up a secure private section of the Network for Those vendors. So we prevision the network give them secure connective access and maybe even a higher rate than what we would the normal public. We don't charge them a dime for that. We're able to facilitate that in just a few minutes of me provisioning the network to do it. So those are some things that we're starting to see. One of the other things that we realized we could start leveraging. And this seems like such a small scale maybe to some folks but, you know, in the same city park we have a set of two different sets of bathrooms. So for bathrooms historically in the evening either the police departments or public works department was responsible for getting out and locking those bathrooms to prevent vandalism over the nighttime hours. When you do that that's all fine and that method works. But if there's a better more efficient way. That's what we're starting to look to leverage our broadband infrastructure. So what we ended up doing is installing Wi-Fi connected locks on all those bathrooms. Well now we can set locks schedules back to things or events like the Cherry Fest where we can issue out special entry codes to fourth for folks to be able to get in. For certain folks to be able to get in to utilize the facilities. And now we've eliminated that and been more efficient of our staff's time they no longer have to go out and if the police department's busy with calls as they usually are sometimes those those jobs wouldn't even get done. So we've really started to leverage this broadband infrastructure for kind of those outside the box things to improve the efficiency and operations of the city.
Christopher Mitchell: That's been really exciting and I think it's worth noting that your ability to add these sorts of things to your network. I think you're unconstrained. You know if you were leasing even if you find the park but you were leasing access to it you might be thinking a little differently because you don't have full control over it. You don't know if it's going to be there in future years or this and that but you know in my rider you have a set of certainty because you have ownership of the network that allows you to think differently of how to use it.
Mike Knittel: Absolutely. I mean we've really cut our own red tape. Right. So the mindset changes from, you know, whether I'm contracting it out or so forth what are they going to let me do as opposed to what can we do. What's the most, you know, what we're we're really trying to be creative with different avenues that will not only improve our efficiency but service citizens better. So that's, you know, another thing to lead into that too is you know we recently started to deploy our first air quality sensor. Right. Once again leverages our broadband infrastructure to pull real time data for air quality that can then be disseminated to the citizens to make better decisions right. So in Idaho we are, especially our county where we reside, we have a lot of forestry in the nearby counties so when we get say like a forest fire during the summer it's not uncommon to get a huge influx of smoke and other pollutants and you know then there's there's decisions that start to be made by things like the school district and so forth that like, hey do we need to cancel sports practices? and there's resources out there. Right. That you can get things like air quality reports for your area. But it's not the same when you can have direct localized pinpointed accuracy of those readings to be able to help the public make better decisions.
Christopher Mitchell: I think that's one of the things that we're seeing from more of these devices being deployed is just how variable it can be just even over you know a square mile you can have dramatically different readings in different areas.
Mike Knittel: Absolutely and again the more detailed the data that you can provide. And realistically especially at the price point. I mean we're not talking about very much money to be able to deploy things like this. It's just a no brainer you have the infrastructure there. You add on to the leverage the broadband that you have. So it's huge and we're looking forward to deploying more of those sensors. But like I said we literally just put out our first one a couple of months ago and have really been testing with it lately and look forward to moving forward with that more.
Christopher Mitchell: Now when you were financing the network or figuring out you know how to put the money together did you benefit from a grant from the state.
Mike Knittel: We did. So one of the most recent grants that we received was around $40,000 which actually when we are doing our own construction. $40,000 does go a long way for us. It'll enable us to deploy conduit and fiber for about 13 block lengths of main streets in our city and we have married this up with, it's actually, a number of different projects. There's a new water transmission line, new water service lines for the residents, a section of it includes a sewer replacement, and then there's a road project. And now we've -- we've comingled with this project as well. So we're really maximizing tax dollars in these projects and these deployments. Does it sometimes take a little bit longer? You bet. I mean if we had all the money in the world we could contract it all out and get it done very quickly. But we're being very smart about it and it allows us to scale ourselves as well when it comes to the maintenance and operations of the network.
Christopher Mitchell: And you mentioned that there's some cost savings from having your own voice system rather than obviously leasing to each different physical location a different bill and in charge on the overall. Would you say that this is saving the city money or has it been something where it may cost more but the benefits are worth it?
Mike Knittel: So it is absolutely saving us money. There's no doubt we did that study. It is saving us a huge chunk of money which then allows us to reinvest that money in other parts of the network or the build out. Right. So again improving the efficiency and the way that we do things allows us to really stretch that tax dollar and maximize it to its full potential.
Christopher Mitchell: So where would you like to see yourself in five years? I mean what -- how will telecommunications look different in it in five years, Mike?
Mike Knittel: It's very interesting and again we're still very much in that phase of connecting our facilities and building out with a broader concept in mind. So although I don't have all of the answers yet as to where I see it the things that I am seeing is that there's there's very much community support for for this. And I'll give you an example. I recently was asked to do a presentation on the fiber optic for our rotary group, so Rotary being the civic organization that's across the country. It was interesting because it was my first kind of public presentation on the fiber and the concepts of fiber and kind of how it works. And as I was setting up for that presentation that at a lunch meeting I'm kind of looking around the room and let me remind you I mean Idaho's one of the most conservative states in the union. I mean we're very very red. And especially them it's very agricultural based so I'm looking around the room and I'm seeing like these old farmers and I'm thinking to myself oh boy I'm not sure how they're going to react and what I mean by react is do they feel like the local municipalities should be in this realm of building their own fiber optic network.
Christopher Mitchell: Right. I mean there is a stereotype of these people even care about internet access. I mean this is something they feel is important to their livelihood to their quality of life.
Mike Knittel: Absolutely. Absolutely. And even if they found it to be important to them once again do they believe that we should be the ones right meddling in it? So. So those are the things that are kind of going through my mind some kind of getting a little nervous but as I go through the presentation it's very interesting to see people's reactions and I'll never forget one gentleman that was there owns a business in our in our downtown heart district and he never once they never once asked about the cost or any of that. He simply asked me when is it going to be there for me. That's what he cared about. I want it now. When's it going to be there. Right. So even as the meeting progressed these farmers are sitting kind of quietly. As it progresses what I'm finding is that the questions that they're starting to ask are more of why isn't the incumbent providers? shame on them. Why have they not built out and improved our speeds in our access? Shame on them. So I'm I'm getting a lot of actually support saying thank you. Type of thing right. And never forget one of the farmers that came up to me after the meeting and I'll be honest with you I'm not a farmer I'm not in the agriculture business. I don't know how farmers specifically use broadband. I know there's a lot of technology out there that that is being leveraged in the agricultural sector but it was very intriguing to me because I asked him if he's this particular farmer is on a fix based wireless service. You know slower speeds, pretty high bill, and I said hey what so tell me what do you use broadband for your business. And he says it's a lot for us. We do everything from our supply ordering, feeding schedules. He says My Tractors are all connected through cellular four rotations of planting that sort of. I was just kind of blown away. I'm like wow that's that's awesome. And so he was again. He was very supportive of of kind of that initiative and the presentation wasn't even necessarily a this is what we're going to do and this is how we're going to do it to get to you guys. It was more of a this is why the city started to head down this path to save money to connect. Here's kind of what we have in mind. You know broader scope and here's how fiber kind of functions and what sets it apart from you know a typical corporate type network. So even with limited details they were I would say energized. I have not received any negative pushback in anybody that I've come across in in my city as we talk about it. It's been very interesting.
Christopher Mitchell: Yeah that fits broadly with the experience that we've heard from others. I think that elected officials are often cautious about this and I certainly think that they have some good reasons to be but I think those who are demonstrating some real leadership on the issue often find that people are hungry for it and they really want to see more action because they have given up on hoping that some big company that is headquartered you know 3,000 miles away is actually going to do anything for them right right. So is there anything else we should touch on from Emmet before we wrap it up?
Mike Knittel: You know, I think just as again just to give people ideas in other municipalities the project that we're going to start to explore and I don't know how this will pan out yet but we're going to we're going to give it a test run. And again this comes back to that making efficient use of our time and money leveraging our broadband. But one of the things that we're going to be looking at is automated water collection water meter collections. Right. So deploying a device that connects to the network that will receive those water readings from all of the the water utilities out there. So currently right now we have staff that goes out with wireless handheld devices and literally has to walk the routes of the water meters to collect that data and bring it back to the city hall for billing purposes and that sort of thing. We're going to look at this leveraging the network to deploy essentially kind of small sites that would collect that data. That would eliminate staff time. A lot of staff time having to go out and collect that information. But it's it's one more step. The icing on the cake for the citizens is that right now they have really no way unless they call City Hall and request to go have their water meter read to see what their current usage is. Well with a system like this the system automatically takes readings every 15 minutes. So again we're back to that real time data to be able to provide the citizens to make smart decisions. You know a lot of the problems that we see kind of day in and day out are things as simple as water leaks cost people a lot of money because they have no idea that they might have a water leak under their house or something like that. But a system like this then all of a sudden sets it up for not only efficient use of your employees time. I mean that's what pays for the system but then the icing on the cake is being able to be alerted they're notified that hey you might have a problem you might check your water service. So it turns to your local government to be more proactive rather than reactive to those types of issues. So we're excited about exploring that and seeing where that takes us.
Christopher Mitchell: Excellent. It's a great place to wrap up. Thank you so much for coming on the show and telling us about what you're doing. And now I think serving as an inspiration for many other communities that are trying to do something like this.
Mike Knittel: Absolutely. We're always willing to help. Chris I appreciate you having this on the show. And if anybody ever has questions comments were always available I'm willing.
Lisa Gonzalez: That was Christopher with Mike Knittel from the city of Emmett in Idaho discussing their fiber optic network project. We have transcripts from this and other podcasts available at MuniNetworks.org/BroadbandBits. Email us at podcast@MuniNetworks.org with your ideas for the show. Follow Chris on Twitter. His handle is @CommunityNets. Follow MuniNetworks.org stories on Twitter. The handlers @MuniNetworks. Subscribe to this podcast and the other ILSR podcasts --Building Local Power and the Local Energy Rules. podcasts you can access them on Apple podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Never miss out on our original research. You can subscribe to our monthly newsletter at ILSR.org. We want to thank Arnie Huseby for the song "Warm Duck Shuffle" licensed through Creative Commons, and we also want to thank you for listening to episode 296 of the Community Broadband Bits podcast.
Transcript: Rural Utilities Building Broadband Networks
Transcript: Community Broadband Bits Episode 65
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Reaching the Community (March newsletter)
By Musana / April 13, 2017 / No Comments
In 2012, Musana began doing community health outreaches in the homes and villages of our scholarship children with the goal of raising the standards of living for their families during school holidays. During these outreaches, we began seeing case after case of children and community members with severe health needs that were not being treated. Because of this, we saw the overwhelming need to start a health center in Iganga that would provide affordable, quality, and compassionate health care. Musana Community Health Center was launched in February 2016 and within the first year, we provided health services to over 10,000 people!
The Power of Education (February newsletter)
As the 2017 school year has kicked off this February, we have officially opened Musana Vocational High School! Over 230 students have reported for classes, an AMAZING turnout! High school in Uganda consists of two levels, O-level (4 years) and A-level (2 years), making 6 years of school. Our school has started with the first two classes (S.1 and S.2) and each year a class will be added until all 6 years are offered on our campus. By 2021, we expect to have a population of 900 students. We could not be more excited for the opportunity to mold the youth in Iganga into leaders that will create change in their communities and in the world!
Rising to the Top (January newsletter)
We could not be more excited to announce that in 2016, Musana Nursery and Primary School ranked 2nd in Iganga District out of over 400 schools that sat for the PLE, (Uganda’s national primary leaving exams). It is a requirement for all Primary 7 students in Uganda to take the exam and it is the main indicator of a school’s performance. Out of 32 Musana students that took the test, 22 passed in Division 1 and the other 10 passed in Division 2. This was a HUGE accomplishment for our students and all our teachers that worked tirelessly to prepare them. We are especially proud of our scholarship students that were some of the youngest originally brought to Musana in 2008. They ALL performed beyond our expectations!
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Kelly discusses team mindset, Brandon Wimbush heading into first road game
Tobias Hoonhout | Wednesday, September 13, 2017
Coming off a close home defeat to No. 13 Georgia this weekend, Irish head coach Brian Kelly addressed several areas, including junior Brandon Wimbush’s development as a quarterback, Notre Dame’s mentality heading into next week’s matchup against Boston College and its growth on defense.
Wimbush
Although the junior quarterback struggled to have an impact against the physical defense of the Bulldogs (2-0, 0-0 SEC) on Saturday, Kelly was confident Wimbush would grow exponentially moving forward.
Sarah Olson | The Observer
Irish junior quarterback Brandon Wimbush winds up for a pass during Notre Dame’s 20-19 loss to Georgia on Saturday at Notre Dame Stadium. Wimbush completed 20 passes for 210 yards in the game.
“I think game recognition, what he sees in the game, then trusting the teaching,” Kelly said of the areas of Wimbush’s game that have been developing. “You have your teaching, and you go through it during the week, then it happens in the game. Just trust what you see and go with it. Don’t be indecisive. Be decisive, trust it and go with it.
“ … I think that’s probably the biggest learning curve for all young quarterbacks, is that at times they become a little bit — they think a little bit too much instead of just trusting it and going with it. Just trust your teaching.
“ … He learned a lot from that game. I think it will be a springboard for him.”
While the Irish (1-1) lost to Georgia in a manner that mirrored many close games last season, Kelly remained optimistic that this year, things will be different.
“I really like our team. I think it’s a totally different scenario,” he said. “ … I stay in the present. In the present, I really like the way our team is put together. I don’t think much about last year. I think about how our team played on Saturday. So my vision and my eyes are on how that team showed grit and toughness, didn’t back off.
“ … I just loved our sideline. Being able to walk up and down the sideline and sense, you know, their fight, how they felt about the game.”
Heading into the team’s first road matchup with Boston College (1-1, 0-1 ACC), Kelly stressed the importance of staying focused on the task at hand, despite faltering the week prior.
“We just let them know about it relative to last week’s opponent,” Kelly said on the mental preparation. “This is really for the younger players to understand the Boston College-Notre Dame rivalry, two Catholic institutions. But more importantly, we don’t want to talk about it any more than that. It’s really about developing a mindset in your program that this is about dominating your opponent regardless of who it is.
“ … It’s okay to know the history and how they’re going to play you, who Boston College is, the respect that you have for them, how they play Notre Dame and everybody plays that way. But really this is about having a mindset going into this football game.”
And with road matchups, mental preparation is everything, according to Kelly.
“Everything you do relative to your routine and how you prepare and how you practice should put your players in a position that when they go on the road, they compete in a fashion that no distractions should interfere with the way they compete,” Kelly said. “If they’re easily distracted, then they don’t have the kind of focus that you’ve been building with your football team … being locked in and tuning out all of those distractions, playing the game in the manner that you’ve been trained.”
Notre Dame passed the eye test against Georgia, as the Irish held the Bulldogs’ outstanding duo of senior running backs in Nick Chubb and Sony Michel to a combined 136 yards on the ground. Mike Elko’s unit gave up significantly less yards and points than at the same point last season, while also having five sacks through two games, good for 36th nationally. Kelly said he believes the unit is only going to get better.
“Defense is by and large about a confidence and a belief,” he said. “Our players believe in what we’re doing defensively, have got great confidence in the players around them, that they’re going to do their job. When you have that dynamic going forward, it certainly is going to allow you to continue to grow as a defense.”
Kelly noted that graduate student wide receiver Freddy Canteen is doubtful for this weekend after picking up a shoulder injury against the Bulldogs. Junior receiver Chris Finke is listed as a starter after catching three passes for 36 yards Saturday.
Tags: Boston College, Brandon Wimbush, Brian Kelly, Chris Finke, Georgia, Notre Dame football
About Tobias Hoonhout
Toby served as Managing Editor in the 2018-2019 term.
Contact Tobias
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